Musings of Two Creative Minds

  Recently I had a rather loud and unexpected reminder from life, that I am physically not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm not saying that old age is catching up to me, although it does give me the occasional reminders that many of us experience (like your body sounding like a bowl of Rice Krispies when you get up in the morning). No, the incident I'm talking about was a very loud and frightening reminder to me that I am disabled. Now when I say it was frightening, I am mainly talking about everyone else around me. In my case it came more as a shock and a nasty surprise. You see, I was seated and began leaning over to grab something that was off to my side and slightly behind me when the wooden chair (well it was actually a wooden bench we have in the dining area) I was on tipped over. And yes, I went down with it. LUCKILY, I had enough presence of mind to stretch out my hands and arms at shoulder height to break most of my fall. I didn't even wind up slamming into ...

  Well... this is my first post from our new home (shown above) in Washington State. It's been quite the journey to get here, as well as settle in. It's a whole new experience for all of us, and yet kind of familiar at the same time. At least for Helen, her brother, and their mother. They've all lived under the same roof together before. I'm the newbie in this case, aside from growing up with my own family of course.  Luckily, we got a pretty good idea of how we'd all click based on the Verbo places we all stayed in on our previous visits to Washington, during our house hunting. Mind you, none of this would've ever been possible for just Helen and me. Between health issues for both of us, (and me having had to retire due to disability) affording much less managing an entire house would've been a Herculean task.  However, after my mom took ill and before she passed last October, Helen's mother brought up an idea Helen had suggested a couple of years ago, ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to my first blog post for 2025. I know it's been a while since I last posted anything on this blog, but as the title of this entry says... life and reality has REALLY been demanding so much of my time and energies.  And since it's been so long since my last post, let me quickly recap where I left off... I had located the crystal ball my wife gave me for my birthday many years ago and was contemplating looking into it to see if a wheelchair might be in my future due to my continuing leg and back issues. Well, here's the real-life answer as to that question... So yeah... this has come to pass. Mind you, I am getting used to it. Plus, I'm not in the chair all that often. I mostly use it on long outings and excursions with family and friends. (Sadly, for me these days a long outing lasts more than 15 minutes on my feet for the most part before the pain and numbing of my hips/legs/and feet become intolerable). Still, I really like being able to be...

 ... because you might just get it. So, after all my talk and posting about finding a crystal ball... well...um... Ah, the photo pretty much tells you what happened.  Now to be honest, I've had this crystal ball for years. Helen got it for me long before we got married, and we exchanged our vows 35 years ago. (Go us!) But I'd lost track of it some time ago, and I literally just ran across it in one of our boxes in storage. Upon spotting it, I just had to pull it out, cleaned and dusted it, and now it is currently sitting on my desk. "So? Did you look into it or not?" I hear some of you ask. Or maybe that's just the voices in my head, and believe me, as a voice-actor I've got a LOT of them. The answer is... I'm thinking about it. Why haven't I done it already? Well, I got kind of side-tracked wondering what would my characters do? See how I slipped the topic of writing into this entry?  Although to be honest, I have had one of my characters actually wei...

(this is my trying to be brave face) To continue with what I was saying in my last post, this whole experience has been quite an eye-opening journey. For instance, trying to almost constantly adjust to dealing with my current circumstances while doing what was once ordinary tasks for me. Now as I said in my last post, I am still generating loads of new story ideas. It's just being able to sit comfortably enough to be able to really flesh them out takes more out of me than it used to. And believe me, I'm getting so many thoughts and ideas, since this journey began.     Take a recent outing I had to go on namely grocery shopping. I went to a Safeway that I knew would have the electric shopping carts to make getting around easier (because I was really feeling tired and sore). Normally, I'd do a curbside pickup, but I wanted to actually go in myself and try one of those carts in order to see if it would give me a little more freedom to get around once in a while. I found the ...

I know I've been quiet again, but with good reason. I won't go into great detail but will give you all a quick overview. In the last few years, I've been having greater and greater difficulties with pain, mobility and balance in the lower half of my body. The main cause for all of this is still being investigated by my doctors, including neurologists. And although one explanation seems likely, I am not going to say anything until we finally get a concrete diagnosis. Naturally, I've been finding the prospect of not being able to get around on my own legs very unsettling and upsetting. Mostly because I only recently turned 60. I wasn't expecting to have problems like this until much later in my life. I certainly did not expect to start having problems beginning in my mid-50's, which is when this all began.  Anyway, as things have gotten progressively worse, I find myself dwelling on an old Styx song called "Crystal Ball", from the album of the same title...

Well, I finally had the Ablations done on my Sacroiliac joint. It's been 3 days since the procedure actually took place, and I still have a fair amount of pain to contend with. I'm not too worried at this point. since I was told that it could take up to 10 days to really feel any serious change thanks to the procedure. However, a small part of me is worried that my pain will not disappear by then, and that the discomfort which has been my constant companion for the last 2-3 years, will still be there. But, I'm going to give it time first, and then decide whether I should celebrate or cry when the 10 days are up. However, that's not what I really want to dwell on today. What I really want to talk about is what I went through leading up to and at the doctor's office where the procedure took place. Now, I want to tell you all right off the bat, that EVERY person there was amazing and sweet to me, which helped a lot.  You see, in the days leading up to the procedure I f...

 A whole year of planning, working, sweating, and it still wasn't enough.  For those who are wondering, I'm referring to my unabridged dramatic reading of Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol". My plan was to unveil the finished project as a picture book on YouTube. Besides spending hours recording voices, some sound effects, finding music in public domain, as well as dozens of images (also in the public domain) created over the last 150 years since the book's creation... and I still couldn't quite get it across the Finish Line. At least not in time for this Christmas.  All I have left to do is film an opening and closing to the project, but between work and other audio and writing projects, I just couldn't do it justice this year.  Now some of you might be asking yourselves, why? Why was this so important to you?  After all, there are so many versions available of the story available on YouTube, streaming services, Blue-Ray, DVD, etc.  Well the answer is, n...