Category: inspiration

Avoiding shelter …

Posted on by thefensk

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

If we were having coffee today I’d tell you about the lost dog.  It belongs to my son’s family, slipped out a week ago when a gate was apparently left ajar.

Sadly, Bert is a bit long in the tooth, an older dog with a variety of mild illnesses.  Partially blind, not too worldly.  Poof.  Gone.

We’ve joined the search, but I’ve been here before and it is harder than trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.  We’ve all done all the usual things.  It is just amazing how completely they can disappear in such a short period of time. I half-expect them to show up on the island of odd socks or the valley of the missing coat-hangers.  They disappear that completely.

They live three towns west of us, and the shelter for that county/town is on the eastern side of town; it is actually closer to us than it is to them.  So, we’ve been going to the shelter.  There are no happy dogs or cats at the shelter.  Excited, yes. Running the gauntlet in the hall of the German Shepherds is evidence of that.  There was no Bert, either.

When we first arrived, there was a woman there with a quiet dog sitting patiently by her side.  I thought she was perhaps in the midst of adopting.  Quite the opposite.

As we returned we witnessed her handing over the leash and walking out the door.  The dog moved to follow her, was stopped by the leash, looked back and then forward at the closing door, a look of total confusion on her face. Then we could see a distinct look of realization and resignation flash over her face.  Welcome to the shelter, right?

We just lost a dog last July, by natural causes.  We have ten cats.  We are overrun.  But we were sorely tempted by this dog, Daisy.

We followed up on Daisy’s status.  She was almost immediately adopted.  We’re both happy for her, but we’re also just a little sad.  We got totally involved and invested in that few seconds.  But we’re both hopeful that she found her forever home.

Bert’s still missing.  We’re checking the shelter online now.  They update their webpage hourly, which we know for sure now.

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You can find out more about Thomas Fenske at http://thefensk.com … the Kindle version of his novel THE FEVER is on sale for $1.99 for the rest of February.

Murder-by-Siri?

Posted on by thefensk

If we were having coffee today I think I’d have to fess up about a recent case of attempted murder.  No, not by me, silly.  It was Siri.
You see, Siri tried to kill me a couple of months ago.

My daughter lives about three hours north of us, very near the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We had gone up for Thanksgiving with one of our grandsons and decided to try a different route south, mostly because the grandson lives west of us and I wanted to see if there was a more direct route, so I asked Siri.  She is generally quite attentive to such requests.
Indeed, Siri took us a different way, down a very unfamiliar path. But we were headed south so it seemed fine until we got to our second major turnoff. She spoke up

“Turn right.”

There were in fact what looked like two rights. We took the first.  Siri didn’t like that.  I have often thought any GPS with a voice should use an exasperated sigh when one misses a turn. Instead, she said,
“Turn around, when possible.”
GPS programmers take note:  this would be an ideal spot to program something like “No, No, No, the other right.”
There wasn’t any place to turn around. She repeated her request several times until we had gone more than half a mile.
At this point I guess I should mention a few pertinent facts:
I was in a rental.
I hadn’t purchased the extra insurance.
It was packed to the rafters.
I wasn’t inclined to do potential damage-inducing maneuvers.
I glanced at the map my phone and realized we were actually on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and a particularly narrow portion of it at that.  At this point, I expected one of the famous overlooks you see about every half mile along some stretches of the Parkway.  Nothing. Just narrow road framed by dense foliage.
Siri finally decided to recalculate a new route and soon instructed us to turn left.

We took a left on what we were assured was a state road, State Road 814.
I remember thinking at the time, “How could this one lane graded road be a state highway.”
Yes, indeed, I really could have turned around here and yes, I should have. It was only about five miles back to the turn-around.
But I had faith in Siri. I knew she was going to get us out of this, so we proceeded down “state road 814”.  It was reasonable to assume that we would soon intersect with that other road.  So I drove on and on.

The problem was, there was no place to turn around on this road.

And what a road it was … we went up and down and around, and up and down and around.  We traversed a couple of mountains with long stretches of steep drop-offs with no rail. This was ear-popping, white-knuckle driving.

It was the kind of road that has periodic gates somebody closes in bad weather but it was so narrow, I don’t know how anybody could turn around if the gates were closed. I don’t know how anybody would or even could try to drive up there in a snowstorm to close those gates. Talk about “worst jobs in the world.”
My darling bride kept saying what a fun drive it was.  She wasn’t driving.  Thankfully we encountered no vehicles going the other way.  I have no idea what we would have done if that had happened.  There was literally no room for two cars to pass … not in my rental car, anyway.
Finally, after about an hour or so, the road started to level out and we began to see signs of civilization again.  Eventually, we emerged onto some pavement.  Yes, I saw a street sign, it WAS still state road 814 but we also found out it was called Campbell Mountain Road. We eventually hit another real, honest-to-goodness, highway, with pavement and stores and gas stations.  It was salvation.
 Siri kept plugging away with myriad directions and eventually got us to … the same highway we would have taken if we had gone our “normal” route. I stuck to it like glue the rest of the way home.
Okay, I guess she didn’t intentionally try to kill me.
But then again, she’s smarter than all of us and has the entire internet at her disposal.  Consider this: I did some simple searches for this highway for this post and I found the following warning in some directions to a nearby campground (The phrase I boldfaced below particularly caught my attention):
“WARNING: Please use the directions we have provided below for safe and pleasant driving. If you choose to use another source for your directions, please be wary if they include Route 814; this winding, gravel mountain road is not for the faint of heart. DO NOT take 814 if you have a camper or RV.”
Sound advice.
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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.  Check out his books at http://thefensk.com
All pictures borrowed from Google Maps in the interest of public safety.
Yes, he’ll probably go try to find Campbell Mountain road again sometime.

Reflections: 15 Years On

Posted on by thefensk

columbia1Fifteen years ago today, I was driving south on US 29 in southern Virginia when I spied a bright light moving across the sky.  There were no blinking lights associated with, just a smooth steady motion, very bright, across the sky from West to East.

I knew what it likely was.  No, not a UFO.  I figured it was either the space station or the shuttle Columbia.  I also knew how to verify it, once I could get to a computer.  I had long been a space station watcher, and I knew a website where one could check for possible viewing opportunities.  It included other satellites, but nothing shows up quite like the space station or the shuttle.

I checked the website and found out it was indeed Columbia, well into its second week of a long mission.  It gave me a good feeling to know I had seen it pass because I had a special personal association with the shuttle Columbia.  In 1981 I had driven to Florida to watch the first launch.  It was the culmination of a lifetime fascination with space flight, dating all the way back to Alan Shepard’s first Mercury flight.

Anyway, I didn’t think too much more about it that week.  Until Saturday.  Our son called and said turn on the TV, there was something about the space shuttle.  I was with our daughter Audrey and as the news channel came on a deep pit opened in the bottom of my soul.  “Ooooooo,” I said.

Audrey must have noticed visible shock on my face and asked me what was wrong.

columbia2I pointed at the screen.  “See all those trails in the sky?”

“Yes.”

“That is supposed to be ONE.”

She realized what I was implying and asked, “Can anything be done?”

“No.  It’s over,” I said, “They’re gone.”

It was a horrible tragedy, but space flight had always been dangerous and always will be.  Is it worth it?  As I sit here typing on a device that can trace its widespread use, along with the networking and other technology that make this communication possible, I’d have to say … yes.

In a way,  I always thought the Columbia disaster was even more tragic than the Challenger explosion because these astronauts had a very successful mission up to that point, most of it doing hard science.  And a high percentage of their data had already been transmitted home.  They had completed their jobs and were fifteen minutes from landing.  So close, in fact, that people were at the Florida landing area anxiously waiting for their imminent return.  It just never happened.

On a personal level, with the people and families involved, it’s a tough call, but every single person who flies into space has to accept the risk; they know it is extremely dangerous.  Life is full of such risks.  If we were suddenly whisked away from the nineteenth century and plopped onto the freeway into a car driving seventy miles an hour along with hundreds of other cars … we’d probably drop dead in fear.  And at any moment, even those of us who are used to it should realize that it is extremely dangerous and in a split second, we could suffer the same sort of fate as those astronauts.

I think Alan Shepard explained the astronaut side of it best when he said, “It’s a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”

columbia3Anyway, as we approach the fifteen-year anniversary of the tragedy I’ll be thinking about the Columbia crew and their families.  Tragedies like this make us all stronger and help to make space flight even safer. The shuttle was the most complicated machine ever built.  That we lost three out of five was regrettable, but even more regrettable is the fact that we lost continuity … we should have continued building them, making them better and safer, maybe a new one every four years. At the very least we should have had a replacement vehicle ready long before we retired the fleet.

Now, we are on the cusp of a new era of exploration.  There will no doubt be other tragedies.  Advancement sometimes has a high price.

If you ever want to spot the station flying overhead, you can sign up to get text alerts of when one is coming up.  Sign up here:  https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/

I highly recommend it.  You can look up and think, “I belong to a civilization that can do stuff like that!”  When you think about it, in many ways it is as remarkable as building the pyramids.

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.  You can find out more about him and his works at http://thefensk.com

Note: his debut novel, THE FEVER, is available for a 25% discount for a limited time.  https://thefensk.com/fever.html

Weekend Coffee Dreams

Posted on by thefensk

Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.com

If we were having coffee today I’d tell you about the dreams.  Oh, not any dreams.  I guess we all have repetitive dreams, but last night I had more of a repetitive theme dream.

These revolve around finding some hidden section or room of the house.  Sometimes it is the current house, sometimes it is some past house, sometimes it is even (this will sound silly) some other dream house, a place that seems familiar from past dreams.

These are funny after I wake up, I mean, the notion that a room or in some cases a vast network of rooms, might exist.  I guess psychologists would read a lot into that.  Our house is cluttered, I guess deep down maybe I really wish I had extra rooms.  It wouldn’t have done much good in last night’s dream, the rooms were cluttered with broken furniture and leftover debris.

This dream even had another level.  Not another level to the dream, another level to the rooms.  During the dream, after marveling at the find, I later went back and looked a little closer and found a stairway and another set of rooms off to the side and below. I guess within the context of the dream it makes sense. The first one was supposedly outside an upstairs window.  When outside I had noticed something hanging near an upstairs window.  Later I remembered and sought to go out and take it down. The additional level provided access from below.  I didn’t get a chance to do more exploration before waking up.

I have had another series of dreams where there were vast furnished rooms branching off a hidden corner hallway, easily doubling, perhaps tripling the size of the house. Oddly, for some reason, it occurs to me in the dream to go into this area and I keep wondering to myself why I don’t use these rooms more.  I had a dream once that a house we had looked at when we were house hunting had a complete and fantastic basement section.  The house itself was somewhat lacking for our purposes but this basement section made it a no brainer that we should have bought that house.  In the dream, when I found this out, I got miffed at the real estate agent for failing to show us the extra rooms.

Anyway, this was so vivid, it was just on my mind when I woke up.  I need to go look around now, to make sure I haven’t missed anything in the twelve years since I moved into this house.

What sort of repetitive dreams do you have?

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.  For information on his writing check out his web page at http://thefensk.com

Weekendcoffee Adios

Posted on by thefensk

If we were having coffee today I’d sadly tell you that LadyBird, our dog, had passsd away. 

It’s actually been almost three weeks but it’s been a hard thing to share.  Thanks for the condolences. 

She was a big dog, about 100 pounds, so at over 15 years old it wasn’t unexpected. She had slowed down considerably the last few months and it was even worse in her last couple of weeks.  

We’ve started to get over the initial sudden shock of her passing. Now it is the little things. Like walking down the pet food aisle … we still have cats … and turning to the dog food and stopping mid-turn.  All the usually “going out” times are still a minor struggle, especially coming back from shopping or something when in the past taking her out would be the first thing on my mind when I got home (at her age she couldn’t wait too long between outings). 

I had some  “jingle bells” attached to her coller so I could hear her getting up, especially in the middle of the night. I keep expecting to hear them, but they aren’t there.  Feeding time is a totally different routine. I keep looking at the empty spot on the living room floor where she spent most of her time, expecting her to be there.  Even the cats avoided that spot for the longest time. 

These and dozens of other minor rememberences will linger, I know. The bigger ones will never go away. She was 100 pounds of pure love. 

I guess I’ll end with my favorite prayer which at first sounds like a joke but … well, it isn’t:   “Lord, help me to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.”

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Thomas Fenske is a writer, living in North Carolina.  More information on his novels and cookbook can be found at http://thefensk.com 

WeekendCoffeeShare-Update

Posted on by thefensk

img_6284If we were having coffee today I’d have to tell you I am very happy to see you.  Last week I talked about my upcoming eye surgery on my cataracts, so I thought I should give you a little update.

It is nothing short of amazing.  And that’s just one eye.  Of course, my right eye was my dominant eye, it always has been, but I’d been depending more and more on my left eye, although I knew it was rapidly deteriorating too.  The doctor suggested I have the right lens removed from my glasses but I actually think I function better without that … since my left eye, even corrected, is pretty bad.

I was just standing on the front porch.  There is a small store across the street from us.  I can close my left eye and see the small, lit “OPEN” sign clearly.  If I cover my right eye, I CAN’T EVEN SEE THE SIGN.   That’s uncorrected.  I can see that there is a store there, as I can with most other big things.  It is like looking through smoke and haze.  Understand, this eye is about 50% better than my right eye had become.

I had become pretty used to my deteriorated vision.  I was still driving up to two weeks ago, depending on the weather and the light conditions and how my eyes seemed to be functioning at the time — some days I could see better than on other days.  Since the surgery, my wife had been reluctant to let me drive again, but I told her, really, I can see so much better than I could even see two or three months ago.

The new situation is not without its adjustments and pitfalls.  I still have what they call “floaters” … including one I was calling a dragon’s claw, shifting back and forth just out of my central vision, a bit like a hair on an old projector lens at the movies.  It has diminished over the last several days, now more like a spider or fly, dancing around.  The doctor said it is not uncommon and should likely fade over the next couple of weeks.  The nature of my eyes precluded a complete adjustment … although the eye tested at 20/20 for distance, I still need enhancement to read.  Although this seems a minor adjustment, it is actually more than I anticipated.  I’ve worn progressive lenses for almost 20 years … basically trifocals without lines.  I used to joke they were like being young again.  Now, I don’t need glasses for distance but have to relearn what I used to do years ago before the progressives and keep reading glasses handy.  I haven’t had to do that in a while and it is different now with things like tablets and smart phones.  I’ll know more when I have the other eye complete.

But considering I struggled to even see the screen to type last week’s dispatch, I can see the screen clearly now with minimal strength reading glasses, although I think I’ll need to take it easy because even now I can detect eye strain as my left eye struggles to help. Not complaining, mind you, as I know this is temporary.

Eye two scheduled for early December.

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Thomas Fenske is a writer living in NC.  Find out about his novels The Fever, and A Curse That Bites Deep at http://thefensk.com
He really needs some sales to help pay for all these related medical expenses!

WeekendCoffeeShare…How are YOU?

Posted on by thefensk
Public domain image, royalty free stock photo from www.public-domain-image.comIf we were having coffee today, since I don’t have much to talk about I think I’d just listen.
Well, I do, but these little sessions all seem to be just about me so for once I would just shut the heck up and let you take the lead.
I’d want to hear about your woes and your joys and your concerns and your observations. I’d laugh at your jokes, and express sympathy for your sorrows.
No matter what craziness you seemed to have going on in your life, I’d nod and commiserate.  I’d do my best to bite my tongue and not tell you how much worse my situation(s) have been.
We would hug or shake hands and part and you might feel just a bit better about getting it all off your chest for a change.
I’d still be carrying my burdens, but they’ll keep for another week, don’t you think?
Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina.
His latest novel, A Curse That Bites Deep, will be published  October 1 … and the eBooks are currently available for a 25% pre-release disccount … Links and other information are available at  www.thefensk.com

If we were having coffee …

Posted on by thefensk

img_5454If we were having coffee, I’d be complaining about how hard it is to sell a debut novel.  I’d tell you how all my author friends say the first book is the hardest but to keep at it.  They always assure me that by the time I publish the third or fourth book I will be on my way.  But then again, they’re not really friends, are they?  They are the competition.    

Still … I’d tell you that I see their point.  I’d finish my coffee and carefully place the empty mug on the table, then stand up and announce, “That’s it, then .. my next novel will officially be my FOURTH novel!”

Sigh.

Thomas Fenske is the author of The Fever
http://www.thefensk.com

 

Transplants … Fascinating

Posted on by thefensk

Albert Jefferies (Al-J) and Ashley Larimore continue to recover from last week’s back-to-back heart transplants. Both of these brave young people have endured a lifetime of health problems and now have a chance to change that. They both still have a ways to go … it is major surgery and like any major surgery they have some serious recovery time. I continue to remember them both in my prayers and wish them the best.

This weekend I found myself contemplating why I was so fascinated with these two stories. It was pure happenstance that I even found out about Al-J, and Ashley came to my attention because she responded to Al-J’s story like a lot of people did … but in her case it was to tell him that he was not alone, she was in the same situation.

Anyway, I am surprised I hadn’t thought about this before, but I have several coincidences in my past that serve to link me to things involving transplants. I just didn’t consciously put them all together until this weekend.

Well, I actually had thought about the most recent coincidence. This was my on-line friendship with Susan Steinsapir. Hers was likely one of the first heart disease/transplant stories that was chronicled in depth on-line. The world-wide internet community rallied around her, there were even articles written about the power of the internet bringing people together for this one common purpose. A bunch of us knew her from postings on internet interest groups called newsgroups. She kept us informed of her status via emails, and eventually web pages popped up. Compared to today, it was quite primitive, but we keep up with her case in almost real-time. But her case also had a sad ending … it turned out she was simply too ill to survive the operation. That was twenty years ago this past January. You can read about her on this tribute page a mutual friend has kept since that time: http://www.mimimart.com/susan/obit.htm (given the age .. some links may no longer be valid).

But there were three other coincidences in my life I hadn’t considered in this context. For some reason these all popped into my mind this weekend.

Two of the most famous pioneers in the realm of heart surgery worked in my hometown, Houston, Texas: Doctors Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey. When the first heart transplant was announced in 1967, by Dr. Christiaan Barnard, I was fascinated by it. I read everything I could and local news stories concentrated on the two famous local surgeons.

The first coincidence … I went to grade school with Dr. Cooley’s daughter for a while. It’s true. Okay, I hardly knew her but we were in the same class! I didn’t realize that until after his first transplant, but I still remember her. Okay, it is pretty lame, but it IS a coincidence, right?

After Barnaard’s transplant, there were several transplants in the US, but Dr. Cooley completed what is regarded as the first successful heart transplant in May of 1968, when he operated on a gentleman by the name of Everett Thomas. Mr. Thomas lived for about seven months with that heart. Without the transplant he would have been dead in days. The reason I remember this was for one simple reason. Like I said, I was fascinated with the subject … so I had kept up with the news and read everything I could about his progress. Shortly after I read that Mr. Thomas had been released from the hospital and was living in Houston to be close to Dr. Cooley, I went to Catholic Mass one morning. I liked to get up and walk to the early service. This one Sunday morning, a family filed into a pew two rows ahead of me. It was Everett Thomas. I recognized him because of my fascination with the story and had seen his picture dozens of times. I respected their privacy and after Mass they quietly filed out of the church with their secret intact. I never saw them again at that service. In reality I was too shy to have ever even thought about approaching him, but I was amazed that here was this famous guy, with somebody else’s heart, sitting almost within arm’s reach. It had quite an impact on my fifteen year old brain.
Okay, third coincidence … years later I worked closely with a woman … we shared an office for seven or eight years. Years earlier she had been a secretary for Dr. DeBakey. I mean, she worked for him for years. She knew him. He called her by her first name. Sure, for me it was an association removed by a couple of degrees, but how strange is that … two associations with two famous heart surgeons?

Okay, so maybe I’m stretching the psychological boundaries of newsworthy fascinations, but who cares? I will continue to check on the progress of my newest heroes, Al-J and Ashley. Their recovery continues … small issues with blood pressure and pain, so everybody keep the prayers up. These kids deserve a long and happy life.
Keep up with Al-J here: http://www.teamalj.com
Ashley’s Heart Journey FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ashleysheartjourney/

Transplant Update

Posted on by thefensk

My pal Albert Jefferies, aka AlJ, is out of surgery and in recovery.   

Bear in mind that although heart transplants seem very routine and commonplace, it is major surgery. But AlJ is young and he has a great team working around the clock to give him excellent care.  And his mom, Tina … Let me tell you, if I ever have some trouble I want her fighting on my side.  The force is strong with this one. 

Just remember, AlJ and his family will continue to need your prayers and support. 

More info on #teamalj here:  http://www.teamalj.com

Keep Pounding!