How about a NEW Christmas story?
Join Odin and many of the characters from the Waterwight trilogy as they rediscover a message that stands the test of time!
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Leadville People
Show Notes with Links:
- I share a piece written by Marcia Martinek, Editor of Leadville’s local newspaper The Herald Democrat. The piece is called “Describing Leadville.” The paper is looking for reporters!
- I talk about my life in Leadville for 12 years, our home The Lead Ass Inn, teaching, and finally becoming a published author
- Community involvement, Leadville’s Boom Days Pack Burro Race, my piece Everybody Loves a Donkey Tale
- My writing group and author mentors Carol Bellhouse and Stephanie Spong, and photographer friend Elise Sunday
- The Historic Tabor Opera House and the (almost wicked . . . wicked good!) Calendar Girls of Leadville project!
- Overcoming ego (I haven’t yet) and physical challenges
- New challenges in a new home!
If you enjoy my podcast episodes, you might enjoy my books!
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
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Friend Requests and Scams!
Show Notes:
- My piece on friend requests, scams, and recommendations for culling “things”!
- My piece “Seven Days to Sanity” about deleting my FaceBook presence a while ago!
- Georgetown Heritage Center and the Georgetown Christmas Market Bighorn Book Nook
If you enjoy my podcast episodes, you might enjoy my books!
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
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Two Tiny Tales
Who knew I’d love to write horror and other tales with bizarre, creepy, surreal elements? Well, I did love watching shows like The Twilight Zone(which first aired the year of my birth!) and Dark Shadows back when I was a youngster, so perhaps it makes perfect sense!
In any case, if you’re into those sorts of tales, you might enjoy listening to my latest two microfiction tales. Fitting an entire story into fewer than 250 words is a challenge, believe me, but a truly fun challenge–at least from my perspective!
Here they are:
If you enjoy my podcast episodes, you might enjoy my books!
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
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A Confession!
Alligator Preserves Episode 72–“Lounge or Lunge“–includes a somewhat embarrassing confession, although I do wonder how many listeners out there might be able to relate!
Let me know! (and do check out my other episodes . . . #70 is a beautiful story of a home birth, #71 is a Veterans Day reflection from my West Point mentor, COL (Ret) Pat C. Hoy).
Routines, when performed with thoughtfulness, can rise to the level of ritual. In this episode, I share some special rituals and talk about how they’ve changed since our recent move.
Show Notes with Links:
- I read a piece I wrote in 2014
- Link to The Turnaround Tree (Episode 25)
- Update on move and new routines
- The passage of time
- NaNoWriMo and story inspiration
- Taunting llamas
- Tell me about your rituals!
- Greeting the day
If you enjoy my podcasts, you might enjoy my books!
“Please and thank you”~Ron Swanson
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
Award-winning author Helen Starbuck writes romantic suspense mysteries and has a third book coming out soon! Visit with us as she shares writing tips and her experience with research, planning, marketing, and more!
Show Notes with Links:
- Helen Starbuck is surprised by book awards! Tip: Check your spam folder and keep track of contests you enter!
- The Mad Hatter’s Son and No Pity in Death
- A “How Done It” story
- How autobiographical is MC Annie?
- How she chose a career in nursing
- What she learned from writing her first book
- Shout-out to her editor and to Jerry Fabyanic
- Lessons in publication
- 2nd book harder to write than 1st
- What about Diet Coke?
- Personal experience and required research
- The unreality of T.V. “injuries”
- Character relationship between Annie and Frost and the importance of secondary characters
- The Ian character and belief in backstories
- Planner of pantser? Shout-out to Annalisa Parent
- Colorado Independent Publishers Association and EVVY Awards
- Marketing strategies
- www.helenstarbuck.com
- Tattered Cover Bookstore and Big Horn Book Nook
- Scariest thing that ever happened
- Reviews on Amazon
- What’s next?
Book 3 in the Annie Collins Mystery Series:
“A thriller that offers a master class in suspense” —Kirkus Reviews
- Self defense and weapons classes
- Christmas Market in Georgetown, CO
If you enjoy my podcasts, you might enjoy my books!
“Please and thank you”~Ron Swanson
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
Author Miriam Green’s important book–The Lost Kitchen: Reflections and Recipes from an Alzheimer’s Caregiver–combines memoir, recipes, and poetry associated with the author’s changed role as a caregiver for a mother with Alzheimer’s Disease.
Show Notes with Links:
- Author Miriam Green introduces herself–coming from Be’er Sheva, capital of the Negev Desert–and gives us an update on her mother’s situation.
- Miriam reads “Brain Tangles,” a poem in her book The Lost Kitchen: Reflections and Recipes from an Alzheimer’s Caregiver
- How Miriam was able to incorporate memoir, recipes, poetry, and education on Jewish tradition into one book, and her mentors.
- Traditional family roles and how they change with an Alzheimer’s patient.
- “Walking on eggshells” around her mother, and the feeling of being “unbalanced” and confusion experienced by her mother, and evidence Naomi knows things aren’t quite right.
- The challenges of living in the moment, The Power of Now, and Miriam’s TEDx Talk: Finding Joy in Alzheimer’s at Shenkar College
- “When in doubt, sing!” Music and healing, and Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
- The impact of color (specifically red) on the brain and behavior. Boston University Arts and Science Study If you couldn’t see your mashed potatoes, you probably wouldn’t eat them by Jeremy Schwab
- Miriam suggests tips for reducing stress when visiting with an Alzheimer’s patient.
- Fear, both for her mother and for herself, and the changes she has made to reduce her own risk of developing the disease.
- “Working body, wandering mind. Was that better than keeping your mind and losing your body?”
- Miriam reads her poem “Alzheimer’s Lens” and talks about how the disease is like books on a bookshelf
- Miriam talks about finding a “lost” song.
- She talks about how her mother’s disease has changed her own world.
- She talks a little bit about recipes and her most frequently made one.
- Advise to other caregivers.
- She talks about how her father, Jack, is coping with his new world.
- What’s next for Miriam?
- Miriam’s website thelostkitchen.org
- Shout-outs and Black Opal Books
- Miriam’s father, Jack Cohen, also wrote about his experience in his book Life on Planet Alz: Songs in Captivity
- To find out more about this disease, visit Alzheimer’s Association
If you enjoy my podcasts, you might enjoy my books!
“Please and thank you”~Ron Swanson
- Laurel’s Amazon Author page
- https://leadvillelaurel.com/writing-tips/
- https://www.facebook.com/LeadvilleLaurel/
- https://twitter.com/LeadvilleLaurel
- Intro/outro voice by Nick McHargue,
Podcast music from Jamendo Royalty Free Music
If you enjoyed this episode and others, please subscribe to Alligator Preserves on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell your friends about it! I’d love it if you “liked” the episodes you listen to, and I’d love it even more if you’d post a quick comment!
Please support Alligator Preserves on Patreon. You will be rewarded!
Show Notes with Links:
- I narrate my piece “Don’t Forget the Dog”
- The challenges of moving to a new home
- Link to info on gastric torsion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_dilatation_volvulus
- My piece: Don’t Get a Dog
- Find more photos in my previous pieces about Ranger
- Finding the “poetry” in our loss
- Please share with people who might have large breed dogs!
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Don’t forget the dog!
Tears spring from my eyes when our realtor plants the FOR SALE sign in the front yard of our Leadville home, where we have lived for twelve years—longer than we’ve lived anywhere else. It surprises me; after all, I was ready to run away from here five years ago in search of warmer temps and more oxygen.
But I stayed, reacquainted myself with the brutal beauty of this mountain town, and Ranger entered our lives via my friend Stacy, who sent us a shelter photo of him that melted my heart.
Ranger knows something’s up. He whines whenever I carry another box out to the car. He clearly doesn’t like change, perhaps because there were too many changes in the first three years of his life before he was ours. Maybe he’s thinking that if things disappear from our home, he may be next.
“Don’t forget the dog!” My friend Carol says this to me when I take a break from packing to visit over tea. When Ranger looks at me, placing one paw on my lap, that’s exactly what his eyes are saying. Carol and I laugh. It’s easy to put words into our fur baby’s mouths.
“Don’t worry, I won’t forget you.” I rub his ears and he’s happy for the moment . . . until Carol leaves and I move the next box.
I take him to the new house and walk him around the property. He finds an acceptable place to leave his mark, and then we head down the road to check out our future morning walk routine. He walks slower lately, he’s only 8 ½ years old if we can believe the people at the shelter, and I worry about the disease that took our first German Shepherd, Guntar—Degenerative Myelopathy. Awful.
I also worry about the spiral staircase in the new house, but Carol finds a perfect child gate at a garage sale. He won’t have to do those stairs.
Ranger follows me wherever I go, reminding me of his presence when I’m distracted by what to put in which box and when I vacuum the carpets yet again before leaving the house for another trip south. The “don’t forget the dog” line becomes a comic refrain.
We bring him with us for our very first sleepover in the new house knowing Mike has an early morning meeting the next day. Ranger rides with me and doesn’t complain at all during the hour-long trip. Before offloading our vehicles, Mike takes him for another walk while I prep something for us to eat and set up Ranger’s new bed in our room. The child gate is up, but we don’t think he’ll even be tempted to climb the stairs.
He starts to whine almost as soon as we get in bed.
“Lie down,” I say, knowing he’s stressed by the newness of everything. I get up and sit by his bed, patting it encouragingly. Instead of lying down, however, he paces and appears to be trying to regurgitate something.
“Great,” says Mike. “What could he have gotten into?”
Ranger has behaved similarly several times over the past few years, and we’ve never been able to determine what he’s “gotten into.” A nasty old bone he’s hidden under the deck, maybe. And he always eventually settles down. This time, however, his distress escalates, and it’s very late at night.
I call our veterinarian, but there’s no emergency service. A kind friend provides the number for another ER vet, who calls back almost immediately. I explain Ranger’s symptoms and she tells me it sounds like gastric torsion. This would be worse than awful.
“But he’s done this before and been fine,” I tell her, and she explains that partial torsion can occur and resolve. The closest emergency surgery center is two hours away. If this doesn’t resolve, she tells me he likely wouldn’t make the trip anyway. She prepares me for what she believes is inevitable.
I tell Mike the news, and we both believe Ranger will bounce back as he always has.
“You get some sleep. I’ll stay with him.” It’s after midnight, and now I’m worried about Mike’s early morning travel. I close the bedroom door and bring a pillow out to lie by Ranger’s side.
He’s up and down and accepts my petting until he doesn’t. His panting increases, and although I don’t know if I should, I bring him water. He drinks a little bit and paces, and paces. He flops down by me, exhausted. I’m exhausted just listening to his panting.
At 1:15 a.m., he tries to stand, I try to help him, but our efforts are futile.
He falls against me, and I watch as he’s released from his agony.
***
Our first official act on our new property is to bury our beautiful dog. Our son Nick’s girlfriend, Kelly, helps me gather stones as Nick and Mike dig the grave in a circle of trees beyond our new garden. It rains lightly.
“He was a very good boy,” I say, and when it’s done, and I’ve cried again, I tell Mike I’m looking for the poetry in this unexpected change in our lives.
“That’d be some pretty fucked up poetry,” Mike says. Even in the worst of times, he can make me laugh.
But I feel it. There is a certain beauty and rhythm to endings aligning with new beginnings.
I remember telling Mike I wanted to do a silent retreat for my 60th birthday. Now I’m having trouble adapting to the sudden quietude. I’ve heard that silent retreats can be difficult.
***
It’s been one week since Ranger left us. He made sure we didn’t forget the dog.
We never will.
See also my first piece about Ranger: Don’t Get a Dog