Author Archives: jmdattilo
Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Jafrey
We promised when we did our original Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Time’s Edge post there would be sequels. Naturally, we just had to take a look at the world from the point of view of Jafrey, the irascible old man from the Time’s Edge series.
It’s okay to be yourself.
“Nice to meet you,” Jafrey said gruffly, his hands stuffed firmly in his pockets. “Shame the way they make us all get decked out for these events. Feel like a fool.”
(Jafrey, grumpy about being forced to dress up for a formal dinner. Time’s Edge.)
A sense of humor is a good thing.
“Alrick requested that we train him.”
Michael saw a spark of interest in Jafrey’s light blue eyes. “Did he? Interesting.” Jafrey eyed Michael again. “You his son?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Michael replied.
Jafrey gave a brief laugh. “Got a sense of humor. Good.”
(Time’s Edge.)
Mind your own business.
“If it’s that important, I don’t want to know. Knowledge like that can get a man killed.”
(Jafrey, deciding he doesn’t really want to know the secret involving Michael. Time’s Edge)
Be honest.
“Then either Barris or Jafrey is lying,” Michael noted.
Jafrey chuckled. “Good thing Barris didn’t hear you say that!”
“But it doesn’t bother you?” Michael asked with half a smile.
“Holy Kryton, no. I admire honesty.” (Time’s Edge)
Have some fun once in a while.
“Ah, he’s an old lizard. No fun at all,” Jafrey said as the door closed behind Ivar. “Now we can really have a good time.” He swung toward the musicians. “Play something we can dance to!”
(Jafrey, deciding to party once the very serious Ivar has left the room. Time’s Edge.)
Know your limits.
“I never go near that damn place!”
“Yes.” Ivar nodded. “I have noticed that you are the only member of the staff who has never ventured out to the site.”
“I’d rather be boiled in Karrilian lizard juice.”
(Jafrey, refusing to venture out to an abandoned site that holds bad memories for him. Time’s Edge.)
Don’t be envious of others.
“Alrick will kill you if you talk, and Michael will kill you if you don’t.” Jafrey shook his head. “Glad I’m not you.”
(Jafrey, grateful that he is not the boss. Time’s Edge.)
The Hero Rant
Why are movie heroes so stupid? This seems to be a trend in movies lately. Last night we sat through two hours of pre-previews, previews, and, finally, the movie. Every protagonist we saw on the screen was a candidate for the Darwin Awards.
It didn’t matter who the hero was. Men, women, teenagers, and children. Animated people and animals. Each one had the IQ of a flea. As brief as the trailers were, it was obvious that the lead characters go through their respective movies oblivious, dim-witted, and destined to fail time and time again (until of course, the miraculous ending where most of them will persevere through a strange and improbable twist of fate).
None of the trailers we watched left us with a desire to see any of the movies. The movie we sat through was equally disappointing. It doesn’t even matter which movie we say we saw. They are all the same. Dumb hero and his equally dumb (except for one token thinking character) friends/colleagues/crew/family all get involved in impossible/improbable situations. The hero never learns. He keeps making the same disastrous decisions. His thinking friend repeatedly tries to warn the hero that his decisions are not going to work out, but the hero won’t listen. Things finally reach a crisis point, and the thinking friend seems to abandon the hero. The hero goes off alone on a final destined-for-disaster trek only to be saved at the last minute by the sudden return of the thinking friend who has all the dumb friends/colleagues/crew/family with him (for entertainment, we presume, since none of them will be of any help except by accident). Fortunately the villains seem to be just as dumb as the heroes.
Where are the heroes who can turn on a dime and make a clever and daring escape? Where are the heroes who can out-plot an equally brilliant villain? We love heroes who are leaders, who make mistakes, have doubts, but grow and learn, and in the end triumph because of their strength, growth, and intelligence. We want heroes we can cheer for. Heroes we can like.
We don’t seem to be alone in this longing. A boy, who appeared to be about eight years old, sitting in the row in front of us, turned to his father at one point during the movie and asked, “Why is that guy being so stupid?”
Good question. Why, Hollywood? Is this really the best you can do?
Thunder Paws
We’re not sure how many cats we have.
We thought we only rescued two kittens from the animal shelter. Two sisters, Katie, the gray tiger, and Zoe, the black and white. They were only a few weeks old when they came to live with us, too small to move beyond the bedroom door. But once they were older and did venture into that big world known as the rest of the house, a very strange thing happened.
The number of cats in our house multiplied.
The chaos and mayhem that has ensued over the last year has convinced us that we have more than two cats. It would defy all the laws of physics for two small cats to cause such commotion. Our evidence for this belief? The shredded curtains, the damaged blinds, the smashed glassware. The disconnected, well-chewed phone cord. The removal and shredding of all pieces of paper in our waste baskets. The sight of cats racing at a speed so fast they are just a blur, making it impossible to determine how many of them have just flown by.
We speculate that these cats come up through the drains. They creep in the open windows. They slither under the doors. The cat food bowls are always empty, the litter boxes always full. We are paying for far more cat food than two cats could ever eat. And as for litter box duties… Talk about job security!
Katie and Zoe deny any knowledge of the other cats. They stare at us with wide, innocent eyes when we make inquiries, as if they do not know what we are talking about. Sometimes they yawn, clearly indicating the questions are not important. And sometimes they casually saunter away, intending, we are sure, to warn the other cats to lie low because the food providers/box cleaners are getting suspicious. Then we laugh at ourselves. There cannot possibly be more than two cats in our house. Right?
We carry this false security to bed with us. We lie still in the night, listening to the sounds of thundering paws racing around the house, sounding like a herd of stampeding buffalo. To get up and investigate is dangerous. In the dark, a little, furry assassin will crack-block your ankles and then disappear, leaving you bruised and swearing on the floor. So we merely listen to the galloping, mentally calculating how many cats it would take to make that thundering noise. Calculating how much cat food we will have to buy. Calculating how many times we will have to scoop the litter boxes. We eventually fall into an uneasy sleep, each hoping that the rampaging hordes will not trample us in the night.
Fiction in the Garden
We have a lot of fun with our gardens. They are a mix of styles: cottage, Zen. rock, and just plain whimsical. (Plain whimsical? There’s an oxymoron for you!) But they do have one element in common. Each garden contains at least one reference to a work of fiction.
Sometimes it is just the name of the garden. One of our gardens is called the Thoughtful Spot from A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh. It sits by a large pair of pines tree and has three boulders for sitting and contemplating nature, the world, or the plot of our most recent book. One of the entries to our backyard gardens is guarded by a large stone lion that we call Aslan. Next to him there is a sign that says “Narnia” with a directional arrow. A rock with a hole in the center has the name “Excalibur” scribbled across it. The roses that line the sidewalk out front are Robin Hood Roses (aka Mediterranean Musk Roses).
As you wander through our gardens, you will occasionally find a helpful signpost. Need to get to the Emerald City? No problem. A sign points the way. Want to visit Hogwarts? The sign tells you to follow the path through the shade garden. There are numerous signposts throughout our gardens, some boldly tacked to trees, others hidden so that they may only be glimpsed by the careful observer. If you look closely you will see directional signs for Camelot, Xanth, Neverland, Middle-earth, and several others. We are always adding to our collection.
The best part about our gardens? Nearly every one has a place where you can sit down and read. Benches, tree stumps, boulders; nooks, crannies, and hideaways. Just follow the sign to your favorite place, sit down, and open a book (or ebook, depending on your preference). You will be there.
The Future: If You Blink, You’ll Miss It
We were recently asked if it was difficult to write science fiction in a world where the future quickly and persistently becomes the present.
You betcha!
How lovely it must have been to be a sci-fi writer one hundred years ago. The inventions and devices you imagined and described were unlikely to show up not only in the near future but in your lifetime. Your futuristic world would remain just that, an imaginative journey into a far-off place.
Not so today. When we wrote the first draft of Time’s Edge twenty-five years ago, the future we imagined included wireless mobile computers, touch screens, voice-activated devices, quantum physics… Well, you get the picture. Flash forward twenty years. We haul out the manuscript, begin to polish it for publication, and notice a big problem. The future we described had pretty much become the present.
We rewrote the story and have since added two sequels, but we wonder how long it will be before the devices and ways of life we described become part of our present lives. And then we wonder what it will be like for the science fiction writers of tomorrow. Technology is evolving so quickly, the future will be happening as they are writing it!
FUTURE WRITER: Let’s see. Orion steps into his personal protection pod (PPP) which will shield him from the harmful rays of the sun that shine through the depleted ozone layer, filter the smog-laden air, protect him from the chemicals that saturate the ground…
NEWS FLASH: Get your very own Personal Protection Pod. Don’t put yourself at risk of our deadly environment again! PPP’s will shield the sun’s deadly rays, filter your air, protect you from toxic chemicals…
FUTURE WRITER: Sigh. I wish I lived in the 21st century. Life was so much simpler then. Let’s see. Maybe Orion could just wear a special suit. Wait a minute. An ultra-thin fabric, transparent yet tough, which provides all the protection he needs from the environment. It will be practically invisible, so no one will know he is wearing it… I’ll call it WonderFabric…
NEWS FLASH: WonderFabric, now available from fine eOutlets everywhere. Transparent yet tough, invisible to others…
FUTURE WRITER: I’m switching to historical fiction.
The Politics of Rocks
We have a rock wall surrounding our yard and the four neighbors who share this rock border have four very different attitudes to the question of who owns the rocks on the wall.
Neighbor #1: “These rocks belong to me.” We simply cannot convince him that the property lines runs down the middle of the wall (several surveyors have also been unable to convince him of this) and, as a result, we are having constant skirmishes. This is our most volatile and unstable border. All negotiations have failed, and he now conducts regular border patrols. No leaves or sticks are allowed to linger on his lawn, either, and if you cross the border you so at your own risk.
Neighbor #2:“Take my rocks, please.” This neighbor doesn’t like the rock wall. The stones are constantly falling into his yard and causing mayhem when he runs over them with the lawn mower. He wishes to export as many rocks as possible, and we have a very liberal trade agreement with him. He barters rocks in exchange for help in repairing his lawnmower. Both our properties thrive from this mutually beneficial arrangement.
Neighbor #3: “Who cares about rocks?” The rock wall is not part of his vision of his property. He doesn’t care if we shore up the wall or take it down. His laissez faire attitude requires neither a trade agreement nor border patrols. It is an open border; kids freely cross it and rocks can be added or subtracted with impunity by either side (with the understanding that the wall itself is never dismantled). Free exchange at its finest.
Neighbor #4: “Rocks? What rocks?” We have a fourth neighbor, whose house sits behinds Mr. Take My Rocks, Please. His property shares the smallest section of the rock wall. He never exhibits any curiosity when we work on the wall, and when we once asked him if we could take a beautiful piece of quartz from his side of the wall and offered to replace it with a stone of equal size, he gave us a quizzical look and uttered the now-famous reply, “Rocks? What rocks?” It never even occurred to him that he had any claim on the rock wall. A Neighbor without Borders.
And how do our neighbors view us? We are not entirely certain, but we believe it goes something like this:
Mr. These Rocks Belong to Me sees us as a hostile nation and has instituted sanctions.
Mr. Take My Rocks, Please views us as a harmless border country with a different culture that is not understood but tolerated since our odd fondness for rocks supports his domestic policy.
Mr. Who Cares About Rocks probably views us as a neutral state. We don’t go to war with him and do not interfere in the politics of his nation.
And Mr. Rocks? What Rocks? Perhaps he sees us as a young country, building our infrastructure and cementing our borders. Perhaps he views us a materialistic nation bent on acquiring more wealth (in the form of rocks). Or perhaps, if someone were to ask him about us, he would reply, “Neighbors? What neighbors?”
We’ve Been Editing Our New Book
Sung to the tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
We’ve been editing our new book
all the livelong day!
We’ve been editing our new book,
and the time has slipped away.
We can see the deadline looming
so we rise up early in the morn.
We can hear each other shouting
“Damn it, cut some more!”
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more and more, more, more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more!
Damn it, cut some more, more, more!
Someone has to check for grammar.
Someone has to check for form.
Someone has to check for style.
While rewriting it some more!
We’re singin’ “Gee, why did I write this?
Gee, this piece has to go-o-o-o-o.
Gee, why is editing so damn hard?
Wish we were strummin’ on the old banjo!”
The Kindness of Cats
Katie (the gray tiger) taking care of Zoe after her injury.
Last week Zoe, our ten-month old cat, dislocated her jaw. To prevent her from re-injuring herself while she is healing, we have been keeping her confined to the master bedroom. We assumed that we would have to keep Katie, Zoe’s sister, away from Zoe during this time. We thought Katie would be upset because Zoe smelled like a vet’s office. Katie was used to rough-housing with Zoe and might inadvertently hurt her. She would hate being locked in the bedroom, etc., etc. So when we brought Zoe home, we whisked her into the bedroom, closed the door, and wouldn’t let Katie in.
Katie wasn’t going to put up with that. Zoe had been missing for over eighteen hours. (Katie and Zoe were found by a construction crew in an abandoned restaurant when they were one week old. They were part of a litter of six and no mother cat was in sight. The kittens were taken to the local animal shelter and bottle-fed. We adopted Katie and Zoe when they were five weeks old. They have never been apart.) She sat outside the bedroom meowing non-stop. She scratched the door. Her meows became howls. We tried to calm her but she had only one goal: she wanted to see her sister. We finally relented and allowed Katie into the room and braced ourselves for the inevitable hissing and spitting once Katie got a whiff of Zoe’s Eau de Vet’s Office.
Zoe was high on pain medication. Her eyes were dilated and she was walking sideways. We had tried to get her to lie down, but she was too busy marveling at how groovy everything was to relax. We placed her on the bed and Katie jumped up to see just what was going on. She approached Zoe, who was rolling around on the blankets, and started sniffing. We were ready to grab Katie as soon as the fireworks started.
And then Katie lay down next to Zoe and began to wash her. Zoe, amazingly, calmed down. She snuggled close to her sister. Katie put both paws around Zoe, hugged her close, and continued to bathe her. Zoe fell asleep. Katie remained on the bed holding her sister and purring.
It has been one week since we brought Zoe home. Katie has spent nearly every hour of every day with Zoe. She seems to prefer being locked in the bedroom with her sister than having free run of the house without her. What a world it would be if humans had the kindness of cats.
When Greed Overshadows Compassion
We recently had a very unpleasant experience with one of our local veterinary hospitals. Our ten-month old cat, Zoe, crashed into the stairs face-first and dislocated her jaw. It was ten o’clock at night and our regular vet’s office was closed and did not provide emergency hours. They did, however, give us a list of 24-hour animal hospitals, all owned by the same corporation, VCA Animal Hospitals.
The hospital was close to our home and they told us to come right down. Once we arrived, Zoe was whisked away from us. Unlike all other veterinary offices we have been to, we were not allowed into the examining room with her. After about fifteen minutes, a doctor called us in to the room. Zoe was not there. The doctor explained that it appeared the jaw was dislocated and it might also be fractured. She wanted to know if we wanted an x-ray taken. Surprised, we said of course. She then asked if we would “be okay with” paying $260 for the x-ray. Again, we said of course. Zoe needed treatment. How could that possibly happen without an x-ray?
The doctor disappeared for about half an hour. When she came back she confirmed that Zoe’s jaw was dislocated but did not appear to be fractured. However, she said, nothing could be done until a radiologist read the x-ray and a surgeon looked at the cat. Neither would be in until the morning. When we asked why she could not put the cat’s jaw back in place, she said the radiologist “might” see something she missed in the x-ray and the surgeon was really the expert at cat jaws. We looked more closely at her name tag and she was, indeed, a doctor of veterinary medicine, one who, for some reason, could not fully read an x-ray or work on an injured animal.
We objected to the length of time Zoe would be forced to endure a dislocated jaw. The doctor assured us the cat would receive pain injections, that is, if we were “okay” with the cost. Zoe would need to stay overnight and the surgeon would see her first thing in the morning.
Since we had no other option (a thing the animal hospital staff knew full well) we agreed and trudged out to the front desk while the doctor worked up an “estimate” for services. When we saw the bill, we were stunned. The estimate stated: “This treatment plan may range from $993 to $1241”. There was an induction fee of $83.70. A general anesthesia fee of $174.50 for the first half-hour. An anesthesia monitoring fee of $64.35. A miscellaneous surgery fee of $352. A hospitalized feline fee of $73.55. A general hospitalization fee of $43.95. And $200.60 worth of injections. A deposit of 75% was required or no services would be rendered. The woman at the desk curtly explained that if we did not have the money, we could apply for their credit program, funded by a third-party financial institution that we happened to know was currently under investigation in our state for unethical business practices, fraud, and several other things. The office did not offer payment plans. The woman told us bluntly, no advanced payment, no treatment. We paid.
The next morning the surgeon called to confirm that the jaw was only dislocated, not fractured.(How about that? The doctor had read the x-ray correctly the night before. Amazing!) She wanted to know if we wanted the cat treated. (Unbelievable question, but true.) We said of course, refraining from adding the words “you moron”, and she told us she would work up an estimate and call us back. We had a feeling we knew what was coming.
Sure enough, the estimate was a range of $921 to $1151 in addition to what we already paid! We authorized the treatment and said we would have a check for them when we picked up the cat. Five minutes after we ended the call, another person from the animal hospital called and informed us that they would not treat the cat until we paid the estimate in full. We were beyond stunned by this point. We had given them a check for $691 the night before. It had already been over twelve hours since Zoe had been injured. Did they really intend to let her sit there with a dislocated jaw until we got them another check? They did and made that clear to us in no uncertain terms. We rushed down to the hospital and paid.
Zoe is home with us now and is healing. Her jaw was not fully dislocated and while they surgeon was examining the cat prior to the official procedure, Zoe’s jaw moved back into place. Although we were grateful it had been so easy, we were also incensed. The jaw could have been repositioned the night before, saving Zoe hours of trauma. Because the treatment took less time than anticipated and they did not use the anesthesia, the cost was less than estimated. The staff of the hospital seemed to feel they had done us a favor by coming in below the inflated estimate.
Cost to fix a cat’s dislocated jaw: $1308.64. Lack of compassion on the part of the employees and the corporation that runs the animal hospital: Beneath contempt.
J.M. Dattilo 