Hello Dear Reader. We just hung up our two new wall calendars, one in the kitchen and one in my office. Next trip to town I’ll buy a tide chart for the year ahead to mark big minus tides occurring at good times to go walking on the beach, and then a little piece of the pattern of my future life will be on the puzzle board, so to speak.
We recently lived through a four-day power outage and are bracing for another possible outage in the next few days. We live in a part of the state where PG&E steadfastly refuses to bury their power lines in order to maximize short-term profits, and so heavy winds and/or heavy rain almost always brings outages. Such is reality in a capitalist society controlled by corporate monopolies whose operators do not give a hoot about people and only care about a profitable bottom line. Fortunately, we have a woodstove to keep us warm and cook on, and a noisy little generator to keep the refrigerator cold.
Speaking of corporate monopolies who don’t give a hoot about people, the beautiful illustrated paperback of my new book The Dog Who Wanted A Person was not available from Amazon for all of December, which is disappointing since more than half the books sold in America are bought from Amazon. Good news is the book is NOW available at Amazon and is also available from Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Alibris, and many other book sources, including actual bookstores, including (last I checked) Gallery Books in Mendocino that actually had one copy on hand at the store!
I’ve heard from several people who love the book AND from people loving the audio version starring yours truly (available from Audible.)
Here are a few recent responses I’ve gotten.
I read The Dog Who Wanted A Person today and I enjoyed it so much. It was funny and sweet, and I cried too. I felt that I was on that journey with them. In so few words you brought the land and the dogs’ personalities alive. I’ll be sending it to my son and daughter-in-law who will love it. Jenna
Each character in your book, I am transported—Sterling Holloway, all those enchanting Disney animations…your reading is brilliant, a one-man-show! Wen
Thank you for brightening my holidays with The Dog Who Wanted
A Person. I’m looking forward to listening to your narration. Jim
In other news, the terribly selfish greedy violent people who have taken over our national government continue to wreak havoc on the lives of millions of people in America and abroad, and every day we hear of new and dastardly plans they have to get rid of voting by mail and suppressing voters’ rights however they can so they’ll win the midterm elections. Remain vigilant. Help make every honest vote count.
We gave our annual donations, however small, to our favorite non-profits: Solar Cookers International, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the ACLU, and our local food bank. What wonderful organizations they all are.
And I’m writing a new something I like very much and hope to be coming out with a new album of music this year, weather permitting.
Wishing you another glorious trip around the sun!
todd
