2019 Goals, or HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So I just came off a 12-day break at the beginning of which I promised myself I was going to go to work on Doleful Creatures and finally finish making a silk purse out of that particular sow’s ear.

Given the alternative title to this post, you probably know how that went.

Words added: None. Which is probably a good thing.

Words read and edited: None. A terrible, no-good, very bad thing.

I kinda spent the entire break like Ole from those old Fibber McGee and Molly* episodes:

Fibber McGee: How are you going to spend the summer, Ole?
Ole: Well, in my backyard there is a hammock.
Fibber McGee: Yeah?
Ole: In the hammock, there is a newspaper. You lift up the newspaper, underneath is Ole. Flat on my back all summer joost donatin’ my time.
Fibber McGee: Well, it sounds like Ole’s gonna loaf all summer. Figures. He loafs all winter.

And yet I still need some 2019 writing goals.

So, I offer a few:

1) Ponder whether I get my version of Alphonse Daudet’s “Le Chevre de M. Seguin” into a fairy tales retold anthology. I should know something by the deadline of January 5. Or is it the 8th? Or should I anticipate waiting a month or more to hear back that I’m not going to be included?
2) Work more on Doleful Creatures. I’d like to make this a concrete goal. Probably something along the lines of organization and pruning. There’s a story there I really like, but there’s a lot of mess in the way as well.

That’s probably already more than I can manage. I admire those who make and meet goals on a consistent basis. I’ve been nursing Doleful Creatures along for years, with over the past two years little enough to show for it. But part of me wants to say at least I’m realistic about it. When I’m not crafting Newberry Award speeches, that is.

*If Matthew Brock will allow use of his copyrighted material, that is.

I Have Parts Left Over

So. I've learned today that if you take a bicycle hub apart to replace the axle, it's a good idea to remember where all the parts go so you can put the thing back together again. I really should have bought a new rim, rather than just the axle.

Oh well.

I'll figure it out eventually. Probably by taking apart another axle assembly (on a non-functioning bicycle) so I can figure out where all the parts go. With my luck, however, the one I take apart to learn how to put the other together will be different than the one I've taken apart so taking it apart won't be helpful at all. And then the second one will fall apart and I'll have to figure out how to put it together as well.

And once again, the Internet is no help. Oh, there are plenty of people out there willing to show you how to put one together, but it's never quite the same one that you've got in pieces on the concrete outside. There are forums, of course, but they're populated with know-nothings like me and the snot of the Internet, that being the people who might know how to fix the problem you've got but would rather lord over your ignorance than actually help you out.

It is kinda fun to get my fingers greasy, though.

Blanch

(Pictured here are Pete Conrad (left) Buzz Aldrin, Blanch Lovell, Barbara Lovell, Jefferey Lovell, Marilyn Lovell, Susan Lovell and Neil Armstrong (standing in the background). Photo by Bill Eppridge/LIFE Magazine (C) Time Warner.)

It seems, once again, I have been deceived.

Spent some time this week reading Lost Moon, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, the book on which Ron Howard based his film Apollo 13. One of my favorite aspects of the film -- and one with which I have teased one of my nephews mercilessly with -- has to do with Blanch Lovell, Jim Lovell's mother. You remember her -- she's the dotty old lady who said, famously, in the film "that if they could get a warshing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it," and uttered the immortal "They said he was" when she was told that Jim would not land on the moon due to the accident in space.

If I'm reading Lost Moon correctly, neither of these exchanges ever happened, as they are not mentioned in the book. Now, perhaps, they did indeed happen (as well as Blanch's question to Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong when they arrived to watch the television with her: "Are you boys in the space program too?") but I'm just not confident. Many other lines that William Broyles, Jr., used in his script -- notably Marilyn Lovell's diatribe against the news media -- "And if they don't like that, they can take it up with my husband. He'll be home on Friday" -- are in the book. So is Blanch Lovell's loquacity the truth, or does it represent Broyles' poetic license.

The book makes it clear that Marilyn Lovell never told Blanch that there was any trouble with Apollo 13 -- she didn't want to upset her mother-in-law, who had recently suffered a stroke. Blanch did indeed watch TV reports of the mission with Aldrin and Armstrong, but if such exchanges took place between them and her, or if the "warshing machine" quote had been uttered, I feel confident Lowell and Kluger would have included them in the book, as they are details that any journalist worth his salt, as I assume Kluger is, would include without hesitation. So I must come to the unfortunate conclusion that Blanch Lovell's dottiness is indeed license practiced by Broyles, Howard or someone else connected to the film. Given the other poetic and cinematic licenses taken in converting the book to a film, I have to come to this conclusion. Which is unfortunate. Because Blanch's lines are so memorable. They should have been said. But, alas, all the wishing in the world won't make it so.

This doesn't mean, of course, that I will stop saying "They said he was" in an old lady voice to my nephew Ben every time I can. Sorry, buddy.