Take Up Thy Mug And Walk!

Yesterday I finished correcting the 470 proof pages of A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs. That book is now available in both print and e-book formats at www.bluefishbooks.info .

I also entered the book in the Google Books Program, but it will take about two weeks to show up there.

Working with the e-book formatting drives me nuts.

It involves an altogether new discipline and I feel I’ve been disciplined enough already in this life.

It’s that bottle in the smoke thing all over again. I don’t want to learn new computer stuff. I know more than I want to know already, but I’m forced to press on learning more and more to make my books manageable and marketable.

There’s a lot to be said for illiteracy.

In fact, last Saturday a man and his son, a boy of about ten, came into the restaurant where Ginny and I were enjoying smoked turkey BBQ. The little boy read the menu to his father because the man could not read.

I thought that both sad and touching.

Good for the kid.

Anyhow, I hope my books begin to sell better, because we face a financial reverse. About 15 years ago the finance department where Ginny works made a mistake. An audit last November finally notice the mistake.

They came up with a plan to correct their mistake.

All they have to do is reduce Ginny’s salary by 11.6 percent (8.6 percent beginning next month and an additional 3 percent later).

Problem solved.

Their callous letter outraged me.

It was their mistake. Nothing to do with us. But we have to pay for it.

I told Ginny to get in the car. I’d drive her to her office so she could pick up her house plants and coffee mug. I wanted her to walk out. To quit on the spot.

Her reasoning is that 88 percent of her income is better for us than zero percent.

Besides, she’s doing something vital toward feeding hungry children and does not want to abandon them.

She’s both Christian and fiscally responsible.

I’m the pissed out of shape hothead.

Adding to my boil is that this week a guy, a foreign national, came by four times to talk with me about how a local church is exploiting him and his family—if the situation is truly as he portrays it, it borders on slave labor.

I inquired about the legality of what they are doing and it appears legal—but it is as sleazy as Hell. God save us from churches skirting that line between legal and right.

Of course whenever I feel moral indignation, the Holy Spirit reminds me in a flash of the times when I have done the same thing—on a smaller scale, but the same thing—that I’m indignant about. In the present case, I’m remembering times when I exploited guys who worked for me.

When I think of bad guys, it’s easy to see that they is me—only younger.

Jesus said, judge not that ye be not judged.

But I’m not judging, I’m being discerning.

See, there I am again skirting between what is legal and what is righteous.

Good thing Jesus keeps His eye on me because I haven’t given Him much thought recently.

Anyhow, I hope my latest book/e-book sells well. I’m consulting Donald and Helen later this week about e-book contracts, additional formats, and such.

Oh, by the way, about the kid in the BBQ place. At the next table sat a man in a group of people, apparently hunters, judging from their camouflage gear and boots.

This one guy sported an interesting tee shirt.

On first glance I thought he was an environmentalist or something like that because the top line read: God Made A Place On This Earth For All His Creatures…

Below that were vivid wildlife photos of a jumping trout, a leaping deer, and a flying pheasant.

And the bottom line read: Right Beside The Potatoes And Gravy!