Our take on the entire debate was summed up in one phrase by Joe Biden. “Will you shut up, man!” We’ve waited over 5 years to have Trump shut up. He is a bully, a cheat, a liar and gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe. To be fair, he may have hi good points — like liking his grand-kids — but as a politician and as a man, his sum is zero. Less than zero. Ask his victims.

Trump’s performance demonstrated his contempt for all of us. We are still waiting for him to sincerely acknowledge that on his watch over 200,000 Americans have died from COVID19, and instead of downplaying the pandemic, he exacerbated it with his inability to comprehend any sort of science and his arrogance in thinking he knows more than epidemiologists do. …

HomeWork or work from home. We’ve been home-based (and online) for over 20 years. We totally understand how that works. For years now, our company, Scribes Unlimited, LLC, has operated both online and out of wherever we hang our hats. Apartment or house, we have dedicated spaces to that mystical entity — the home office.

Now you’ve all caught up to us, and it took a pandemic to do it. When we started out, we were mocked and misunderstood. After all, we were ‘home,’ so of course, we had all the time in the world. Friends actually became offended if we didn’t want to come to their house to wait. You know for repair people, installers or cable guys, or babysit — for free — since “you work from home, you don’t have anything to do…” It didn’t matter if there was any internet or even dial-up connections (over 20 years ago, mostly dial-up). Or if there was a computer to use (days before our laptops) or if the water was even turned on. They wanted you to come and wait — hours at a stretch — and never thought to pay you for your time.

One of our favorite moments was when someone picked up Paula because they were going to “work on an article together.” They arrived at her near-empty house since her movers hadn’t come yet. Then suddenly, this someone realized she had to get to a meeting. “I’ll only be gone for an hour. Get started — the computer is set up,” she said over her shoulder and left. Only the computer was password-protected, and there was no chair at the table. So Paula patiently waited two hours and still no word from the associate. She called Paul, and he came to get her. Only then the movers arrived. The associate showed up after another three hours — and reimbursed us for paying them. …

Spirited but Offbeat, Melissa & Kasho makes a perfect holiday gift along with some other fun books for those cold, dark winter nights!

It’s less than a month to Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, and the vicissitudes of 2020. Snow is in the air, it’s getting dark earlier, and sometimes you need a break from all the holiday cheer! What’s better than cozying up to a good book with a cuppa, and escaping into a whole new world?

Spirited but Offbeat — MELISSA & KASHO BY CAMILLA CHANCE

We recently reconnected with Mary B Gennusa Patterson and thought that Proust Questionnaire would be an excellent way to see how this artist, poet, and now novelist was thriving. Mary was born in Sicily near the end of World War 2. She is the youngest of six sisters, and her parents — Franco and Anna Gennusa were the inspiration of her first novel. She has several sequels completed.

Ms. Patterson has been an artist for years and has a home filled with her paintings and collages. She became a poet and then turned her hand to writing prose. “I never studied, I never had ambition. I read a lot, and not find something to read, I decided I could do this, and I did. I decided to write about what I knew best and that was my family. When my oldest sister told me the story about the German plane strafing us, and my father was pushing us up a tree, I knew I had the beginning of a compelling book.” …

Original article appears at https://bahaiteachings.org/nightmares-turned-spiritual-dreams

We are now presenting Camilla Chance’s final offering to the Baha’i Teachings.org site based on incidents which will be revealed in her upcoming memoir Warrumyea: The Left-Handed Woman.

Originally published on https://bahaiteachings.org/losing-everything-but-my-faith-becoming-bahai

Camilla Chance has lived all over the world, and became a Baha’i in Switzerland at age 22. Her most recently published books, the multi-award winning best-seller Wisdom Man by Banjo Clarke as told to Camilla Chance: the compassionate life and beliefs of a remarkable Aboriginal Elder, and Melissa & Kasho, a work of fiction, can be read on Kindle or ordered through her websites www.camillachance.com and www.wisdommanbook.com. This article is adapted from Warrumyea: The Left-Handed Woman, her memoir soon to be published. Camilla holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Melbourne University, and has been a high school teacher, a lyric writer for a performing group, The Kuban Cossacks, and an editor for Faber & Faber, publishers, in London. …

Growing up in Northeast Ohio, especially near Cleveland, you became aware very early on that the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) housed one of the best Asian Art collections in the world. Whenever Paul went on junior high field trips to CMA, he made a beeline for the sculptures, the detailed masks, and of course the unique and beautifully-painted screens showing true Japanese life centuries ago. …

We work closely with Camilla Chance and wanted to introduce this amazing person to Noteworthy.

Camilla Chance has lived all over the world, and became a Baha’i in Switzerland at age 22. Her most recently published books, the multi-award winning best-seller Wisdom Man by Banjo Clarke as told to Camilla Chance: the compassionate life and beliefs of a remarkable Aboriginal Elder, and Melissa and Kasho, a work of fiction, can be read on Kindle or ordered through her websites www.camillachance.com and www.wisdommanbook.com. This article is adapted from Warrumyea: The Left-Handed Woman, her memoir soon to be published.