serendipity

A very good word (noun or adjective) in the most recent family letter. It's good to move around a little when we can, then cuddle up back home.

This 6th installment of Aging America, my new volume of short stories, kind of wrote its own ending. I had presented the first and second parts to my writers' group over the past weeks, and while we knew the idea was intriguing, none had a confident suggestion where it might go. Josef likes a band called Cage the Elephant--we all do in Roztoky, having heard the albums multiple times! I allude to that band, Joan Baez, Herman's Hermits, but to fill out one of the protagonists, I made an original that fit both my poetry anthology and a theme in the story.

Stara Evropa has 15 stories (17 counting the reserves) to honor and attempt the way James Joyce's Dubliners threaded his together. I want Aging America to have its own set of inspirations, but it's nice to think that possibly 40% of it is now drafted.

Here's 'Truculence', a little play on the title of a previous story about the church cats; this one features an organic farm, perhaps like the one near Blanchardville:

http://lostmenagerie.blogspot.cz/2017/09/serendipity.html