!!! ALERT !!!

 

At 3:08 am I was jolted awake by the screechiest loudest most gosh-darn scream from my cell phone.

AMBER ALERT!!! AMBER ALERT!!! AMBER ALERT!!!

As the blasting continued, I looked at the text. Something about a child abduction in a brown Buick. The only option to stop the shrieking phone was to “erase.” No saving for later. I tapped it ASAP.

And then I laid awake until morning, heart beating fast, wondering how many bay area residents could possibly spot a brown Buick from their beds. I was fuming.

This is not the first time this happened, and I always lament the uselessness of these alerts to all cell phones. When you have one in our state, you cannot opt out of these alerts on a basic (not smart) phone.

It has happened while driving, and nearly caused me to crash. There is no way I would stop on the highway to look at my phone. I don’t answer normal calls while driving, either.

It has happened at various times of the day, and I don’t see zooming cars from my kitchen, either.

It happened when I was getting an ultrasound by a surgeon (that’s another story) and she nearly dropped her handheld device.

And that screech: I didn’t know my phone is capable of such volume.

A well-intentioned setting that in fact is largely useless.

If you are not acquainted with the Amber alert system, see this.

I am all for radios broadcasting (without upping the volume manifold, as they do now) and especially for the electronic signs on highways.

But how can I possibly help from my bed?

As I lay awake, I realized I was not really angry at the alert. I was angry that people do horrible things that made others invent such a system. I was angry that countries invade other countries without provocation. I was angry that a few bad apples inflict so much harm on the peaceful and helpful majority.

I learned this morning the details of the abduction,  The face of an angelic toddler taken from home by what is reported to be a stranger with out-of-state license plates is haunting. 

I’m mad that such happens. Now that I’ve had coffee I’d like to go out and look for that brown Buick.

But as an aside, don’t shoot me, I’m also grumpy because I was awakened hours ago in a violent way and am lacking sleep. Some of the best intentions lead to grumpiness.  

P.S. 

Update: Thankfully it's been resolved. Waking up residents in five counties was not the reason the abductor was caught and the child rescued. I'd wake up every other night if it helped, but it hardly ever does for all the reasons I noted. I wonder how many car crashes and heart attacks these alerts have caused, and if anyone is counting.

HOW OLD IS YOUR OLDEST?

 

Make New Friends but Keep the Old

Those are Silver but These are GOLD

John Parry (1841-1903)

 

Old friends remember details we’ve forgotten, and we do the same for them.

New friends allow one to reinvent oneself.

Both have important places in life’s journey.

My oldest continuing friendship is more than half a century and counting. A few months back, when I posted a photo of little me, (in the context of having been a cat lover from way back) she reminded me that I used to concoct, compose, and communicate stories about my cat’s nightly adventures when the rest of our immediate world was in dreamland.  

Oh, then I remembered. Seems I’ve been a storyteller longer than even I had recalled. Back then, as soon as I told the tale— it became a real tail. A few years more, and I knew what was fact and what was fiction. But the visceral memory of what it’s like to be an imaginative person of four and five came gushing in.

Because old friends sometimes know you better than you know yourself.

Keep the old.

What JUNE-Oh, It’s June!

 

In my yearly cycles, June is the epitome of loveliness and also loneliness. The latter, because there is nothing specific assigned to it.

June is not exactly summer, though it is.

It’s not (yet) my yearly first-drafting hiatus, but it isn’t a vacation from writing.

It’s hot, but not. Not really.

What June is: wrap-up time.

In June, I revise winter’s manuscripts. I summarize last winter’s productivity. Then, I make plans for the re-boot in Fall.

In June, the yearly mega-weeding project is complete. I sit in the backyard and marvel at how much work May was.

Pat-on-the-back, Girl.

June is like a lovely balloon that floats, but doesn’t fly away.

Sorry, June. You can’t stay.

© Shelagh Duffett

TYPOS and PROOFREADING

 Working on becoming a better writer is one thing. Then, we have to work on becoming better proofreaders.

 

Not proofreading well is a pesky problem of mine. It’s one of those I don’t  see what I don’t see. Of course, much more so for my own writing and ever more if the proofreading comes minutes after writing.

 

Standard advice is to put writing aside and look at it later, as in days/months later. This is not practical for posts responding to online forums or for emails.

.

Relying on Microsoft WORD or GRAMMARLY (insert any other spell/grammar check of your choice) is foolish. They catch some things, miss many, and misdirect often.

 

Let’s face it; some people are excellent proofreaders. Some of them become editors because of this advantage. But many superb writers confess they aren’t blessed with the proofreading brain. 

{Yup. I *just* had to correct "proofreading" above,👆 because I had typed "prrofreading." 😬 }

 

An excellent beta reader gave me a helpful suggestion, which I have found to reduce my rate of typos. In addition, it catches echoes; those repeat words coming too close together in a paragraph. 

{I like this egregious example of echo: "She looked at him. "Look at it," she said. "When I last looked it didn't look half as bad as it looks now." 😰 }

 

It’s the text-to-voice feature, where a mechanical voice reads highlighted text back to you. It’s better than my reading aloud, (something I also do) because when reading my own words, I often read what I thought I wrote and not what’s on the screen/page.

 

Here is what this feature looks like in WORD. Other writing platforms have similar functions, though you’d have to find them yourself because I only use WORD. I red-penciled it on the upper left:

In addition to catching echoes, this device is literally an echo. It, too, isn’t perfect. You won’t catch homonyms with it. But if you haven’t tried it, you will be pleasantly surprised at how helpful this editing feature is.