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While We’re Waiting

While we’re waiting for the undeclared war on Iran to end, it turns out I’m allergic to peanuts and therefore to peanut butter. Bummer.

When I was a kid I ate lots of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches largely because I made my own lunch for school starting in First Grade and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches were something I could concoct on my own with relative ease.

I didn’t eat much peanut butter after elementary school, but when I did eat peanut butter I suffered no ill effects. However, when I entered my sixties (sixteen years ago) my aging digestive and immune systems started having trouble with dairy, eggs, sugar, and gluten, and now I must add peanut butter to the list.

When Marcia recently started eating peanut butter, I joined her in doing so and was glad to be reminded of another good source of protein. Delicious. For a week or so I ate lots of peanut butter every day. Then I started feeling exhausted and did not know why. And then I developed terrible blistery itchy rashes on my chest and forearms.

Lying on the sofa pondering my fate, I sensed the blistery rashes were an allergic reaction to something. I reviewed my diet and the only new thing I’d added recently was peanut butter. I looked up peanut butter allergy rashes online, and there we were. I then read about late-onset peanut butter allergy and learned another of the main symptoms was extreme physical exhaustion.

So I stopped eating peanut butter and within a day the rash began to abate. The exhaustion lingered for a week and then finally vanished. And here I had just modified my sesame butter cookie recipe to include four heaping tablespoons of peanut butter. Oh well.

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While we’re waiting for the midterms so we can oust the current regime, Marcia and I take walks on the headlands where the wild irises are currently blooming and floral beauty abounds.

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While we’re waiting for the designer I’m working with to finish designing the packaging for my new album/CD of songs and poems and piano solos, I thought I’d give you a peek at the cover of the soon-to-be-released collection of tunes.

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While we’re waiting to see just how bad things get because of the senseless war our senseless government decided to start against Iran, I keep taking pictures of people and dogs and plants and flowers. Here are some recent pictures you might enjoy.

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While we’re waiting for the dawning of a new age of love and tolerance and generosity, I play the piano and imagine the dawning of a new age of love and tolerance and generosity.

Fin

Ahora Entras Tu on YouTube and Spotify from Todd’s album Ahora Entras Tu

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Listen to Oasis Tales!

Exciting news. The audio book edition of Oasis Tales of the Conjuror and other stories delightfully narrated by yours truly is now available from Apple Books and Audible.

I published this collection in 2020, the novella Oasis Tales of the Conjuror being the only futuristic fiction I’ve ever published, and The Golden Light the only existential war story I’ve ever written. Also included in the collection is my most successful performance piece, the Depression-era fable Of Water and Melons, along with two delightful stories set in California circa 1976: When Is It Done? and Clumsy Booby.

For the audio book I performed piano improvisations to conclude each of the chapters composing Oasis Tales and to enhance the other stories in the collection. Several of these improvisations will appear on my upcoming music album Much Too Beautiful, soon to be released.

The e-book editions of Oasis Tales of the Conjuror and other stories are available for just 2.99 from Apple, Amazon, and Kobo, and the paperback is widely available, too.

If you or someone you know enjoys audio books, I think you’ll very much enjoy Oasis Tales of the Conjuror and other stories, my tenth audio book!

Blessings and Thanks

Todd

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Instead of War

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and have comfortable, spacious, high-speed trains connecting every city in America and we can all ride for free.

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and have excellent free healthcare, including dental, for every person in America from the moment we’re born until the moment we die.

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and have free education from preschool through graduate school for everyone in America, and have fabulous music and art programs in every school.

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and create enough energy with solar and wind power so we need never again be dependent on oil for our energy needs.

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and clean up all our waterways, restore our wetlands, preserve millions of acres of wilderness, and live in harmony with nature.

Instead of war, we can spend a fraction of our current military budget every year and do whatever we need to do to reverse global warming.

 Gaza from Todd’s album Hip Salon