The Eclipse, Basketball and Pollen

The solar eclipse has come and gone and if not for a random trip to the bank I would have missed it. When I pulled into the parking lot there was Clarice, my banker, gazing upward with bright red sunglasses. She loaned them to me for a second, I looked up and there it was. I’m told that the next one is in 2044. I’ll probably be dead by then so this was it. I must say that I don’t quite get the fascination. The moon comes between the sun and the earth and momentarily and blocks our view. Let’s all lose our minds.

Then there’s college basketball. Now that Connecticut has won its second title in a row I can admit the fact that I haven’t watched a single game of the tournament. The Caitlin Clark story was pretty cool but I didn’t watch a single woman’s game either. Sure, I watched some highlights and read a few recaps of the more pivotal games, but to sit down for three hours and watch a basketball game? Nope. My sister Paula is a sportsaholic and watches practically everything and gets annoyed with me when I don’t. I used to be just like her, watched everything. I suppose I’ve become semi-obsessed with writing and thinking about writing. The only thing it hasn’t affected is my devotion to baseball. We’re only ten games into a 162 game season and I’m already pouring over box scores every morning! I’m a hopeless addict.

I suppose that mention needs to be made of the beginning of pollen season. Suddenly, the stuff is everywhere, a soft coating of yellow goo has descended on our world coating every single surface, including the inside of my lungs. I made the dreadful mistake yesterday afternoon of going out for a short run. By the time I returned I was a coughing, gasping mess, a 100% self-inflicted wound. What was I thinking? When I got back I decided to sit out on the deck. But first I had to crank up the leaf blower to clear the pollen. When I did a cloud of yellow swirled up from the deck’s surface like a sneezy fog—another idiotic idea. Instead, I went upstairs, took a shower and snorted in a couple poofs of Flonase. It will be like this for another month. Lucky us!

Lastly, as of this morning only 19 people have RSVP-ed for my book launch party. I don’t know what to make of this. Its awfully early, its a full four weeks away. Maybe a lot of people thought the rapture was gonna happen because of the eclipse and thought, why bother? I’m sure business will pick up as the day gets closer. If not I might have to put a FREE BEER sign out by the railroad tracks?

Big Announcement Post!

Several weeks ago I published a blog post announcing the creation of my Author Webpage. Here’s the link… https://dougdunnevant.com/.

Now comes another announcement. We have a date and venue for the Book Launch Party for A Life of Dreams. Pam has added an RSVP link to the Author Page. The party will be at 7:00 pm Monday night, May 6th at the Hanover Arts and Recreation Center in Ashland, Virginia.

If you’re anything like me, before maybe five weeks ago, you’re probably wondering “What the heck is a launch party?” My first introduction to this came from someone at my publisher who insisted that I needed to have one, and since I am nothing if not cooperative, here we are. Essentially a launch party is where authors invite anyone and everyone they know who can read to attend a party where a charming emcee interviews them about what their inspirations were for writing the book in question, what the creative process was like. Then the author reads a chapter from the book. Afterwards there is time for Q&A from the assembled throng. Then the author sits down at a table where everyone in the crowd rushes forward to buy an autograph copy from the future Pulitzer Prize winner. The trouble is, who in the world is going to come out on a random Monday night for a first time author’s book launch? What happens if you rent the space, get it all decked out for the night and then nobody shows up? Excellent question.

Like every thing else about this endeavor, absolutely nothing is guaranteed. It might be a wonderful and profitable experience or it might be an embarrassing bust. But its too late to back out now. I’m betting on myself and this book.

So, if you’re reading this it means that Pam has added the RSVP link on my website. If you would like to come we need you to click on that link and let us know. This will help us with the planning. It will mean the world to me to see you there.

Honestly, there is a part of me that still can’t quite believe this is happening. I was on Amazon.com the other day and saw this and thought…

…is this even real? There’s got to be some mistake! But now I’ve got boxes of books in my library and I’m as jacked up as a 12 year old after two bags of Skittles.

So, I would love to see you Monday night the 6th of May at 7:00. Go to my webpage. RSVP. Show up. Then say a prayer for me that I don’t pass out during the reading.

My 66th Birthday Recap

What did I do for my birthday?

6:00 am workout featuring my usual regime of push-ups, sit-ups, curls etc etc

7:00 am 8 mile stationary bike course in 30:00 flat

9:00 am breakfast at Cracker Barrel featuring country ham, fried eggs and sourdough toast

10:30 am exploratory visit to Trinity Renovations where we took the first tentative steps on a bathroom and kitchen remodel journey, the second step of which will be them coming over here today to measure, then us returning there on Saturday for a quote. Yikes!

2:00 pm Pam gifted me a 50 minute session at a place called Stretch Lab. Loved, loved, LOVED it.

3:00 pm did some writing

6:15 pm met the siblings at Firebirds for dinner. I had steak, au gratin potatoes, a BLT salad and a couple of beers. I also got this very cool gift…

…believe me, we could do worse.

9:00 pm started watching a new show called Alice & Jack on PBS.

10:30 pm got to sleep over with my beautiful and beguiling wife.

I win at life.

Breaking News

NEWS ROUNDUP:

- In a wide ranging interview on 60 Minutes former President Donald Trump has apologized to the nation for “being such a colossal dickhead” for almost all of his adult life. The current Republican front runner also said that he regretted the “temper tantrum I threw after losing in 2020” explaining that the rabble rousing speech he gave on January 6th was mostly the result of being “sleep deprived and the fact that I had gotten ahold of a bad quarter pounder and was very very ill.”

- The White House has reported that after President Biden ate two helpings of ice cream after Easter dinner he suddenly began speaking clearly and in complete sentences for the first time since Obama’s first term. Doctors have suggested a possible link between the ice cream and the incontinence medication he has been on which may have caused some sort of mental acuity boost due to a chemical reaction. It is too early to tell whether the condition is permanent but just in case, the White House mess has ordered 100 gallons of pistachio.

-Elon Musk has admitted that he isn’t a genius after all, only a “stoner dude who got lucky with a couple ideas years ago and now everybody thinks I’m Albert freaking Einstein.” When asked whether he worries that this admission might damage his reputation and the viability of Tesla going forward Musk replied, “I don’t know man. You got any coke?”

-This just in from the Fan Duel studios of Major League Baseball. The Draftkings Pregame show investigative reporters have discovered that Shohei Ohtani received several thousand dollars of free bets when he signed his endorsement deal with BetMGM. It is not known at this time what specific bets, if any, Ohtani placed or if he bet on baseball. More information is expected during the Caesars Palace Sportsbook postgame show.

APRIL FOOLS

Easter in America

Once again Easter Sunday finds us separated from our kids. Its ok. We will have a houseful later this afternoon for lunch. Our day will begin at the Altria Theatre at 9:30 for our church’s service. There will be 3,000 of us celebrating the resurrection of Christ. It will also be the only Sunday of the year where people actually dress up for church. Some ladies will even wear hats. Men will be wearing ties—that rarest icon of men’s apparel that only shows up at Easter, Christmas and funerals. After the service, we will speed back home and prepare the house for the 4:00 arrival of Pam’s extended family for a (very) late lunch. There will be deviled eggs, ham and all the other Easter food.

This year Easter unfolds against the backdrop of continued bloodshed in Ukraine and Gaza, continued divisions at home and abroad, and the embarrassing spectacle of a former President hawking $60 bibles on the internet. Now is an excellent time to ponder the resurrection and the renewal, restoration and hope that it represents.

Its also an excellent time to post this montage photograph that Pam put together last year when our kids weren’t with us for Easter.

Good Friday Funeral

I started this Good Friday opening the Cafe at my church. Later today I will be attending a funeral of a long time family friend. Its the first funeral of the year for me. For most of my life I never kept track of how many funerals I attended every year because they were so rare. Now they have become a more common occurrence. Its not sad. I never leave funerals depressed. Its part of life, this dying. When an 85 year old woman dies its a celebration of a life well lived, a remembrance of how many other lives were made better by her presence among us. The family will grieve, not for her but for themselves. But she has stepped into eternity and those she left behind will not grieve forever. This woman was a dear friend of my mother years ago. Mom loved her very much. She raised three children. They will all be there, honoring her in death as they each did when she was alive. How can this be a somber, depressing moment?

In just a few days I will celebrate my 66th birthday. Three score and six. I have lived one hell of a life. I was gifted an amazing set of parents who set me up for success by loving me and each other. I’ve been lucky enough to have a large, loud and supportive family. When it was time to marry, I won the lottery. I have for the most part enjoyed my work and it has been financially rewarding. But, let’s be honest, I’m far closer to the end than I am to the beginning. According to the actuarial tables I’ve got 18-19 years left. This doesn’t frighten me. It causes me no great angst. If I get some extra years, great. If 18-19 ends up being optimistic, that’s ok. A pun instantly comes to mind…I’ll just have to live with it. It seems to me that the more important question isn’t how much time I have left but rather what I will do with that time. I have big plans. Next week Pam and I will start some long-delayed home improvement projects. The first week of May my first novel gets published. Pam and I will celebrate 40 years together. The third week of June we will leave for Maine.

But first, I will attend a funeral of a great and good woman who was a blessing to many.

Today is the Day

For nearly 30 years our preferred route to Maine was interstate 95 north. For reasons of safety and sanity we abandoned this route in favor of the “western route” probably 8 or 9 years ago. Although using 81 up through western Pennsylvania is at least an hour and a half longer, it has fewer tolls, much nicer scenery and far fewer risks to life and limb. But in the old days it was always 95. One of the landmarks along the way was the Francis Scott Key bridge near Baltimore. This morning I woke up to learn this…

At 1:30 am this morning a cargo ship ran into one of the bridge’s support pillars sending at least 20 vehicles plunging into the freezing water of the 
Patapsco River. At this moment divers are trying to find survivors, but the ice cold waters are hindering their efforts. 

Whenever something like this happens it reinforces for me the fact that we live in a fragile world. Our existence on this hostile planet is fraught with danger, our safety an illusion. Imagine the guy driving over the Key bridge at the moment of impact, in a daze of thought about what faced him today only to suddenly find himself trapped inside a sinking vehicle. The fates sometimes seem capricious.

So, what’s the takeaway? For me its this…take nothing for granted. Take full advantage of the opportunities each day presents, because tomorrow isn’t promised. Today is the day.