ALL HALLOW'S EVE

Halloween...All Hallow's Eve...Samhain...the Feast of the Dead, the saints, the martyrs and the faithful.

Samhain Prayer. The night when the veil between the living world and the dead is at its weakest. 

This is the night when the gateway between 
our world and the spirit world is thinnest. 
Tonight is a night to call out those who came before.
Tonight I honor my ancestors.
Spirits of my fathers and mothers, I call to you,
and welcome you to join me for this night.
You watch over me always,
protecting and guiding me,
and tonight I thank you.
Your blood runs in my veins,
your spirit is in my heart,
your memories are in my soul.

(Some might wish to name their past ancestors here)

With the gift of remembrance.
I remember all of you.
You are dead but never forgotten,
and you live on within me,
and within those who are yet to come.

Blessed be...

And be careful Trick or Treating tonight.

24

Yesterday afternoon, while browsing E! Entertainment...er...I mean, while I was researching stuff  for my book online, I came across this...

'24' returning to Fox for 12 episodes, network announces.

Which is exciting. Yay. I was addicted to the series back when it was fun. (Jack Bauer, you're what they put in Red Bull's formula.)

 

And then not so much when it stopped being fun. Anyway, the point is that I got thinking...

What does my day look like?

I wondered and this is what I mapped, people. 

11:00 am to Noon: I was on the phone.

Noon to 1:00 pm: I lunched, while I was on the phone, (What the...?) and fed Truffles somewhere between my own bites. Aaand found time to play with him too. (I'm a good Mommy.)

1:00 to 2:00 pm: I worked on my manuscript. (Yeah...still writing...still living in a world of my own making. TYVM.)

2:00 to 3:00 pm: I worked on my manuscript...some more.

3:00 to 4:00 pm: I worked on my manuscript...even more. Picked up DD from school. Made myself a mug of masala chai. Drank it. 

4:00 to 5:00 pm: Worked on MS. Chatted with DD about life and school. (She's bored. But will suffer through it only because she must.) Took Truffles for his bi-annual Bordatella. Whew. I believe I was exhausted at that point. Or not...

5:00 to 6:00 pm: Drove to the dance studio and for the next hour danced the merengue, the salsa, the merengue and the salsa.

That was fun...and invigorating...and no, I don't dance alllll that well but I probably look decent enough as a red salsa-ing silhouette. 

6:00 to 7:00 pm: Dined on Thepla, Chunda, Batata nu shaak and fried cauliflower as I was starving after alllll the twirling. Then worked on the MS. (What can I say? I'm a writer.)

7:00 to 8:00 pm: DH came home. We chatted. He ate. I...yes, I know I sound like a broken record but...I worked on the MS. 

8:00 to 9:00 pm: To spice things up, I unsheathed a long, sharp scimitar and with a graceful X move slashed opponent to shreds. 

Wait! What? That's not me me who did that, it was one of my characters. ;)

9:00 to 10:00 pm: After allll that excitement, I was exhausted, natch, so I vegged in bed and watched Criminal Minds (for inspiration)...and internet stalked...people. (Did you know that Brangelina is the most, cutest, adorable-est PDA celebrity couple on Earth?)

10:00 to 11:00 pm: More of the same.

11:00 to Midnight: More. Of. The. Same. And then I fell asleep. 

Midnight to 7:00 am: Wow. Thank heavens, I don't need to monitor sleep. Sadly, I do not believe I dreamt last night.

7:00 to 8:00 am: Woke to the sound of Tweets and Email. Brushed. Breakfasted. Bid adieu to DH and DD; one was off to office, the other to school.

8:00 to 9:00 am: FaceTimed with BFF who lives in Singapore. Truffles FaceTimed too. It was cho chweet.

9:00 to 10:00 am: Googled, oogled, twitterpated about Jamie-Sam and his new promo pic. Yup, I'm still fangirling the Great JAMMF. 

So, kilts are hot again: Sam Heughan in 'Outlander'

(You'll have to click that to see some kilted scrumptiousness)

10:00 to 11:00 am: Seriously, I have no life. Working on the MS.

Not as insane as Bauer's but that's 24 hours of my life. 
Ta ta daaaah!

(source for all pics and gifs is the www.)

WHEN SCIENCE GROWS FROM FICTION.

I want to live long enough to see this. 

Don't you?

TO TECH OR NOT TO TECH.

We have always been taught to move forward, upward, better ourselves, our minds and our lives. So why, when we are doing all of that in this fabulous Age of Technology do some people diss it?

ad·vance·ment

 noun \əd-ˈvan(t)-smənt\

: the act of moving forward

: the act or result of making something better, more successful, etc.

: the act of being raised to a higher rank or position

Oft-heard rants:

~ I feel sorry for the children who don't get to be "outside" like we did.

~ I feel sorry for the people constantly stuck emailing, messaging, myopically viewing their world through their phones instead of enjoying the great wide outdoors.

~ Tcha tcha tcha! How QUALITY OF LIFE has deteriorated? Conversation through a gadget as opposed to face to face? TCHA!

Okay, here's my answer to all of the above:

Get with the program, Jurassic Park Advocates! 

Yes, its a different world. A brave new tech-heavy world. Yes, our ways of communication and interaction have changed but, good grief, so did the ways of our grandparents differ from the ways of their grandparents...and so on and so forth all the way back to the Cave Man. 

If you think that we are "wasting" time communicating via technology and not stopping to "smell" the roses that bloom in our gardens just like our ancestors did then think again. Our ancestors did not have time to smell any roses in any gardens, genetically modified, meticulously manicured or not. They worked bloody hard (unless they were toddlers or wastrels) from dawn to dusk in filth and tremendously trying circumstances to accomplish maybe 10% of the things we manage to cram into a day. True they did that roaming the great big "outdoors" but believe me, if given a choice, they'd want what we have and order in their dinner and cash their checks without leaving their couch-potato seats at all.

About this weird lament of communicating face-to-face...WTH? I'd think the point was communication, period. Who cares if its via gadgets, word of mouth or telepathy? If you are articulate and considerate and "communicative" you will get your point across regardless of its means of delivery. On the flip side, an ass is an ass is an ass be it on FaceTime or face to face. 

And I won't even bring up medical advancements. 

Advancement has always been Man's greatest ambition. From the time Man learned to walk upright he's taught himself to hunt, gather, farm, build, dream, and create. Man has leapt from darkness to fire, from walking to the wheel, from dwelling in caves to the Freedom Tower, from hieroglyphs to ebooks. 

We cannot stop advancement. All we can do is embrace it. Learn how to use it ethically, wield it morally and we will be fine. And have you ever stopped to consider that what we call advancement and technology today might quite possibly be obsolete tomorrow? 

Really people, stop and smell the iPhones our generation has managed to grow. Don't compare our "roses" to what was because we are past that and that time is gone for good. Look to the future in a positive way. 

To all those who still want to diss technology...Go on! Disconnect yourselves from this world, if you dare. Please. Stop working, banking, phoning, texting, bantering or bettering yourselves. Go live in a cave, look into the fire you've built with toil and sweat and meditate on it. Go fight off a bear, catch a fish and eat it raw. I don't know how you'll smell "roses" in all that, but apparently, you think you will. So, yeah, go do that and leave us Tech-runts to our HVAC's and solar illuminations and our kind of peace.