Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas Every One

Lots of snow, family, holiday, good food and drink

She Likes It Hot

(click to enlarge)

Mia, the queen of the house.
Always looking for the warm spots.

Smiles!

The Queen

Mia

R Jay

by T. Melanson

Poetry Submission News

On the poetry front concerning my submissions for publication, I received several responses in the last week or so. Expected rejections from three mags, ones with very low (less then 1%) acceptance stats (according to Duotrope) including one from Beloit Poetry Journal , my fifth fine rejection from them over the years. I will continue to try these tougher markets and maybe someday, I can write something they will like... smiles! I enjoy a good challenge!

One bit of great news, Krishan Coupland, editor of Neon Magazine responded back and accepted two of my poems for their Issue 17 dropping this fall. It's a print journal based in the UK and I am very honored to be part of it. Thanks Neon and Krishan!

I also sent my finished Chapbook manuscript titled "Mice Verses Man" out last week, entering an Open Chapbook Contest at a publisher. This was my first try to get it published. The submission deadline has now passed and I am not sure when they will announce the winner, several months probably. The winner gets a nice 4-digit cash prize but they also publish the top ten finalists. I am sure there will be plenty of competition (hundreds of entries) and it will be tough to make the finals. It was a lot of work to put it all together but it was a great learning experience for me and who knows, maybe I will get lucky? This is a small part of my goal in poetry for this year. My resolution on January 1st was to work hard on my poetry all year and by December 31st, have a full volume poetry manuscript ready to submit for publication.

Cheers for reading friends! I hope you are all having a great weekend!!

We are going to my Godmother's 70th birthday party today. It should be a blast and I am excited to see the whole extended family and all our close lifelong friends that we don't see too often since we moved to the "east side" of town.

Peace and love!

Mia - She's Back

Tonight is a good night! Our beloved house cat Mia, slid the back screen door open enough to escape on Sunday morning, three days ago. She's been missing since. Thank goodness, about two hours ago, a neighbor who saw one of the signs I had hung up around the neighborhood called me and said a cat matching her description has been hanging around their house for a couple days. It was Mia!!!! She's doing well, besides her collar being missing, nothing seems to be wrong with her.

What a F'ing relief!! The kids and I were all sick here with grief. We have had her for 13 years. Thanks to my friends who gave words of support and prayed for her safe return. We appreciated that!

Wooowhooo!!! Party time!

Mother Poem

A poem I wrote a few weeks ago that I'll share here today, Memorial Day in the States, for Mom.

It's been almost 28 years since cancer took her, but Mother, you are in my thoughts almost evey day still.


Discompose


In the middle of their season,
filled with nourishing fruit,
some half eaten, dissembled,
a natural disaster discovered.
Tender blossoms, hovered over,

protected each day, look up,
once her precious seeds;
their buds have eyes that rain
as cancer has stripped her
a bark-less log, withered.

The plummet of coverings,
gravity is a greedy force.
Beneath the tender layers
like a plague, disease takes
until the instant winds,

woodchopper fierce, remove balance,
and pull her down, horizontal earth.
The birds and the beetles
gather in a feast chorus
of chew, peel, and carry music,

a song of disappearance
yet that that has been
left behind, little leaves,
tiny twigs with her marrow,
if only in one's mind

can nurture some strength.
The young will grow up
eventually, rise high enough
to shade the soil from the sun;
the place her roots still lay.

Daughter Poem

Just A Girl


A daughter flower
bloomed at sunrise,
moody clouds
shade her petals.

Each month
that new leaf blossoms,
on the opposite side
of the branch,
just below the one
that came before.

The moist air rise
mists only so far
as a condensed layer
will allowance.

She is boned to bear
his understanding inside,
of the weight
it takes to spark steel.

Shes durable,
plenty sandpaper
to make the wood
sliver smooth.

Son Poem

The Other Side

Young son, labeled,
as if with glue,
held in place
to look at, observe.
They have stuck him
in an enclosed classroom,
where every day
is special,
emotional control
weighted on top
of all else.

Fifteen children,
each the same
but different,
each very special
in their own way.
Three teachers,
highly trained
in methods of restraint;
of how to depress
the unpeeled.
I was also different,
the only single father
there, my delicate balance,
learning the art
of holding on.

We converse often,
each of us has a side.
I would inform
of all the negatives
that happened at home.
They would state
all the positives
that occurred at school.
We all have thoughts
that cling inside,
that are kept hidden,
about what is beneath;
the part adhering
to what is shown,
the part none of us
are able to see.




... remembering those more difficult times during his elementary school days five or six years ago.

Weekend holiday away

Monday

Wow, I had the most amazing day at work yesterday, on a Monday to boot which made it even more surreal. I have been working tons of hours (70 plus per week the past few) on this new program we were sourced on a few weeks ago, juggling many things at once constantly, total pressure to get everything done very fast to launch this new project into production in five months (we usually get 1 to 1.5 years). I like the pressure, am used to it, but this has been unbelievably stressful so to have a day like this is a true blessing.

I cannot remember having this good of a day ever (at work at least). By the end of the day, I was looking over my shoulder waiting for a meteorite to fall on my head or something... lol, but the day ended on all good things and I made it home safe. I was extra careful driving home as I couldn't help but think, all this good happening, be mindful of the really bad thing around the corner to out to "get me" even things up.

It started out mid morning getting an email from a poetry mag editor telling me she had accepted two of my poems for publication in their Fall 2008 magazine. Smiles!

A few minutes later, I was emailed by a customer that the vehicle build scheduled for next week in Louisiana has been postponed. This is on one of my other programs, not the "get it done now" one and I was told by our management that I must attend this build. I would have been away from home for at least 3 days and kid#2's birthday is next Tuesday so I would have been out of town that day. He was upset about that so now all is good and I will be here for his big day. We are celebrating his party on the weekend anyway, but I of course want to make his actual birthday a special day for him too.

A while later, I went in the back lab and fabricated a set of test parts of a new tube connection that came in last week. It's the last test that I need to get done for another one of my programs that starts production in June so it was really good to accomplish that as it was stressing me out. I love getting things completed!

Then I got a note from a GM guy at the Lake Orion plant saying he could give us the 5final assmbly parts I needed to take to our big design review meeting that actually happened today at GM Tech Center. We needed these because I was forced to give away the one and only set I had to one of our suppliers to help them design the machines for us. So I was really stuck not having parts for the design review with the customer.

Finally, near the end of day three more good things happened on my ball buster program. I had only three components left with problems that haven't been released and kicked off yet. One was a supplier issue that I was attempting to work through without adding cost to the project and the other two were issues where the customer design in CAD didn't match the actual parts being made. Anyway, I have been working for the last 10 days or so trying to solve these issues and get these items launched and within about a half hour of each other, the magic answers came on all three and it worked out in the best way possible. I signed off all three prints and released them this morning, wooowhooo!! All 58 new components and nine final assemblies designed, drawn up, all the approvals gotten, and released for production in 20 days.

What a Monday it was!!! When I got home, I was so happy, I took the kids out to dinner at Chili's and of course treated myself to a couple Sam Adams lagers. Yum!

Smiles!

Kid1, Dad, & Kid2