Month: October 2020

The Animal Kingdom: 38

And we have another fine offering, just in time for the Halloween Blue Moon! I give you Installment #38 of my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

  1. Once the weather turns cold, this rush rushes off.
  2. A wing on the wing casts one big shadow!
  3. A rake is hardly rakish,
  4. And a wisp isn’t wispy.
  5. But does a bellowing bellow?
  6. I doubt the flink will flink this link!
Rush member in no rush, Alsace, France
  1. Rush of migrating birds
  2. Wing of dragons
  3. Rake of colts [1]
  4. Wisp of snipe [2]
  5. Bellowing of bullfinches [3]
  6. Flink of cows [4]
Flink, Sardinia, Italy
This herd may contain a rake… northern Thailand

NOTES: [1] Everything you ever wanted to know about horses but were afraid to ask….: “In horse racing, particularly for Thoroughbreds in the United Kingdom, a colt is defined as an uncastrated male from the age of 2 up to and including the age of 4.” Wild 1 to 2-year colts are driven from their herds by the herd stallion. Once driven out, they usually form a bachelor herd. “They stay with this band until they are mature enough to form their own herd of mares.” A foal is a horse of either sex less than 1 year old. A yearling is either sex, aged 1-2. A filly is a young female horse. A mare is an adult female horse. A stallion is an uncastrated adult male horse. A gelding is a castrated male. A rig or ridgling is an incompletely castrated male horse. Wikipedia.org [2] A snipe is a slender-billed bird from the sandpiper family. [3] The name bullfinch comes from its stocky shape and thick neck. [4] Flink refers to 12 cows or more. And, according to the Urban Dictionary, to flink is the act of forwarding a web link or address to someone electronically.

 © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.org,  www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

 

Hear Me Read Live, this Weekend with the Writers in Stuttgart

The Writers in Stuttgart are giving our first youtube (live streaming) online reading on Friday, October 23rd at 8pm (Friday at 2 pm EST). We normally give readings 3 – 4 times a year in theaters here in Stuttgart. During these strange days we’ve been holding our monthly meetings on Zoom and decided to take a chance on a virtual reading. The upside is that people can view it anywhere in the world. If you can’t make the 8pm time, our show can be viewed for 48 hours after it takes place. A description and the link are below if you and any one you know are interested:

On 23 October, 2020 the Writers in Stuttgart are celebrating the transatlantic relationship between the USA and Germany in honor of the 25th anniversary of the DAZ (the German/American Center) in Stuttgart. In their first live stream reading, the Writers in Stuttgart will explore American, German as well as a variety of other international perspectives on national, international and intercultural identities and the German-American relationship of past, present and future. Join the Writers in Stuttgart on 23 October, 2020 at 8:00pm (2pm ET Friday in U.S.) at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCml9nOF5jfVJRjw4mIqsgCg

Stay safe & healthy, and I hope to see you this weekend.

Best Wishes,

Jadi

PS: I’ll be reading The Green Under the Snow from my new short stories collection, in the second half of the program.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

Led Zeppelin and the Funeral

We went to the funeral at the end of the summer. The deceased was an avid climber and hiker, husband, father, and grandfather. He was my husband’s boss and I liked him from the instant he introduced himself to me. He’d immediately asked how I liked living in Germany. I really like his wife, too.

We met on occasional evenings to share slide shows of each other’s travels. I vividly recall a show from their trip to Ladakh and the mountains of northern India. The perspective in his photos were taken at an  impossibly steep angle looking down from the tops of the peaks they climbed. Another image that remains with me is his photograph of a surreal parade of a string of camels, transporting salt across an African plain.

He was retired and they still had lots of plans. But he was diagnosed with ALS, and died a little over half a year later.

***

Over a hundred people came to the funeral. We were all reeling from his swift passing after the news of the diagnosis at Christmas. Due to coronavirus precautions, the family sat in the chapel and the mourners stood outside; a loudspeaker enabled all of us to follow the service. The pastor spoke of his community engagement, his occasionally blunt and acerbic honesty (I had never experienced my friend as anything other than gentle, so this insight surprised me), and his love of the world.

Bible passages were read. Tears from Heaven from Eric Clapton played during the service, and a song from a German band. Eventually it was time to follow the family members through the chapel to the gravesite. Uwe and I waited as people filed in a socially-distanced manner into the chapel.

A final song began. “There’s a lady who’s sure, all that glitters is gold….” Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was playing. I arrived at the altar’s flowers and flickering candles. The song’s soaring music peaked as I passed the big portrait of our friend, bearded, wind-blown hair, – and a crazed genius grin on his face. I know I was both elated and teary-eyed.

if you don't know what this is...i don't know you. | Zeppelin art, Led zeppelin iv, Led zeppelin
Led Zeppelin (The Hermit) by Derek Velasquez

I had never, ever expected to hear Led Zeppelin at a funeral. That song was an absolutely glorious and fitting way to bid farewell and offer closure.

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2020. My German friends tell me that they’ve all been to funerals where Stairway to Heaven played. This was my first, and I’m still moved as I try to write about it.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

The Animal Kingdom: 37

Something unpronounceable, northern Thailand

I give you Installment #37, yet another offering to my blog thread describing what to call groups of animals … See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page. Definitions on this installment are tricky!

  1. This potential volery hates voleries!
  2. The wrack wrecked my kittens’ definitions.
  3. Does the grind get its name grinding against things?
  4. Yup, whoops whoop it up….
  5. A badelynge isn’t bathing.
  6. The lodge lodged in their lodge.
Me being careful not to dislodge lodging, back trails of Cranberry Lake, Adirondacks. This remote beaver-dammed pond appears in the title story to my book The Trail Back Out
  1. Volery of birds (in an aviary) [1]
  2. Wrack of kittens [2]
  3. Grind of whales (bottle-nosed whales only)
  4. Whoop of chimpanzee
  5. Badelynge of ducks (on the ground) [3]
  6. Lodge of beavers [4]
Avoiding the volery, Oregon coast

NOTES: [1] Volery is only used for the group of birds and the aviary that encloses them when they are encaged. [2] Wrack is also used for baby rabbits. [3] Click here to hear how to pronounce badelynge…. youtube.com. Also a play on words because ‘bad’ is the German word for bath. [4] Ah, the lodge! Animate object, inanimate object and verb, all in the same sentence. The last time I was able to pull off this stunt was with whales #22  and foxes #7. © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from en.wiktionary.org,  www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

The Trail Back Out is finished and available for purchase! In my new collection of short stories, two strangers meet in the woods. Children wear masks. A gambler hides in the cellar during a Category Five hurricane. A wife considers a hit-man’s offer. Princess Rain Clouds searches for happiness. An entire village flees, a life is saved, and a tourist in Venice is melting. Everyone keeps trying to make sense of strange events far in the past or about to occur. Let these characters be your guides. Join them on the trail back out – to a familiar world, now unexpectedly changed.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.