November 2007 Newsletter

Glenn appears to be feeding a family of quails visiting our backyard... Photo by Roni.

...Actually, he was just applying some soil to keep the stakes for our new piece of yard art in place. This was the piece we picked up near Atascadero during our October vacation. Photo by Glenn.

No, these are not yard art. This is an actual live family of mourning doves foraging for food on the patio Oct. 16. We wonder if it is the same bunch that was nesting on our pergola this summer. Photo by Roni.

While most plants are on the decline this time of year, such is not the case with the flowering sage growing in one of our patio barrels. Its purple flowers put on a colorful show through the end of November. Photo by Glenn.

Here's a closer look at those velvety sage flowers. The hummingbirds go nuts for these. Photo by Glenn.

We attended the Pumpkin Smash enduro race at Altamont Motorsports Park on Oct. 27. Audience participation helps make the event fun. Here the crowd prepares to help distribute a pile of pumpkins about the racing surface. Photo by Glenn.

Ben (in the blue shirt) gets into the action with dozens of other kids. How many other opportunities do kids find when they are actually encouraged to go out and destroy something and not get in trouble for it? Photo by Glenn.

Ben and his Uncle Sean take a look at some of Ben's recent snapshots on the view screen of his digital camera while waiting for the race to begin. Photo by Glenn.

Sean and Ben appear to be having a good time. (Thanks for the Photoshop work, Bro!). Photo by Glenn, composite by Sean.

Now it's Glenn's turn to get into the photo. Photo by Sean.

The moment we've waited for arrives when the field of nearly 50 cars takes the track that has been soaked in bubble soap and pumpkin guts. Try driving on that! Photo by Glenn.

Many of the cars entered in the event feature creative themes. This "queen bee" car featured a stinger on the trunk that emitted a pink mist until it was jarred loose during the race. Photo by Glenn.

Ooops. Let's face it, the wrecks are 95 percent of the cheap thrills the fans come for. OK, 98 percent. Photo by Glenn.

Night falls and the race is barely halfway done. Sean watches from the stands following the intermission. Photo by Glenn.

Finally we reach the 300th and final lap. Not many of the original starting lineup remains on the track at the finish. And the winner is... Photo by Glenn.

...This guy. That Camaro might look like a mess here, but it was relatively unscathed. You should have seen the cars that didn't win. Photo by Glenn.

Ben is either doing Halloween as a pirate this year or he's planning an audition for a hip-hop record contract. In fact, Rapmaster Gehlke was inspired by Johnny Depp's character in "Pirates of the Caribbean." We can sort of see the resemblance. Photo by Glenn.

Who needs a haunted house when you've got a cobweb-infested attic? It took 16 years, but at last we figured out how to reach that window to make use of it. Photo by Glenn.

We picked up this sign at one of the party stores to direct trick-or-treaters' eyeballs toward the window in our attic. Photo by Glenn.

And here it is all lit up on Halloween night. It is the first time we've ever used the upstairs window for decorative purposes. Actually, there's not much else it can be used for. Photo by Glenn.

We had no idea what we were going to find in our attic when we went up there. This is how our Halloween display came out with the artificial lighting and the cobwebs, which were all natural. Photo by Glenn.

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Written any good books lately?

November 25, 2007

You'll have to excuse us if this month's newsletter isn't up to its usual snuff. See, it's November, and around the Gehlke household that means it's time for that annual tradition known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. We're in our seventh year as WriMos — as the event's participants are effectionately dubbed — and are well on our way as of this writing to reaching our 50,000-word goals by the end of the month.

That is, most of us are well on our way. Ben is taking his first stab at the contest as a full-fledged WriMo this year, having participated in the Young Writers Program last year. Now that he is 13, he gets to try his hand at noveling with the big kids like Mom and Dad. But 50,000 words in 30 days can be daunting even to a seasoned published author, so it is understandable that Ben has found getting motivated for the task a bit difficult. He tore into his fantasy story the first couple days of November, notching his word count up to almost 2,300 before deciding he needed to devote more attention to building his website. The website is looking great; the novel is still stuck somewhere back around 2,300 words.

Roni has taken a different approach with this year's contest, focusing on creating a trilogy of short stories that will equal the 50,000-word goal when taken as a unit. Writing three interlinked short stories can be just as challenging as writing one large novel-length story, she has discovered, mainly because each story has to stand on its own while also working as part of the whole. Currently she is knocking on the door to 46,000 words.

Meanwhile, Glenn charged into his suspense novel by doing something radical and coming up with a semi plot a couple months in advance of the contest. It made starting the book easier, but didn't fully address what should happen to the characters after about midway. He passed the 50,000-word mark on Friday evening and is close to 53,000 now, but the story is still a few days from completion.

We refer to NaNoWriMo as a contest, but it really is more of a personal challenge. There are no prizes at the end of it all, no guarantee of a seven-figure publishing contract (or even a two-figure one), and certainly no appearances on Oprah. What you do receive is the pride of accomplishment that comes with seeing a project through to completion, knowing that you did something most people will never dare to do. But even that wears a bit thin after a few years, so each November becomes a gut check to determine if we still have the desire to become published authors (so far we do) and the inspiration to try and take our work to the next level. Roni wants 2008 to be the year she finally gets a completed manuscript in the hands of a book editor. Glenn wants 2008 to be the year he finally finishes one of the two books he has been revising during the past five years. Ben... well, he's got lots of years ahead of him to decide what he wants to do. We're just proud he has an interest in writing anything at an age when most kids barely know how to pick up a book, let alone write one.

Since 2001, NaNoWriMo has served as inspiration to span the giant chasm that leads from Halloween to the holidays. The month goes by so quickly that we sometimes miss the not-so-subtle onset of the Christmas shopping season, which begins in earnest around ... what? Late July? Actually, things pick up after Halloween, even though the retailers are already trying to cram Christmas down our throats before the pumpkins have been carved. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that every year there are fewer and fewer trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood.

This marked the first time that Ben didn't make the rounds in search of candy. He decided that it would be more fun to hang out at home and be the candy-giver. Not that he missed out on much, because we bought enough bags of chocolate bars and Sweet Tarts to supply a small army. The expectation was that we'd get a good-size crowd, based on the fact that we had in years past and the clocks were still on Daylight Saving Time. We got about a half-dozen kids in the first hour, then... nothing. We saw perhaps three or four more trick-or-treaters the rest of the evening. Anxious for action, Ben kept popping down to the curb to see if anyone was headed toward our cul de sac. It was a great way to check out the lighted decorations on our house, but that was about it. Eventually he got bored and struck up a game of ping pong in the garage with Dad.

Frankly, not having more participation on Halloween was depressing. Especially given that ours was one of the only houses on our block open to trick-or-treaters. Ben had wanted to do a full-blown haunted house. Fortunately we didn't invest that much time on something so few people would have enjoyed, but we did get a little more creative than usual.

For the first time this year, Glenn discovered how to reach the windows in the attic by using the rafters to get around. We decided that 20 years of accumulated cobwebs made them perfect for a Halloween treatment, so we ran out to our nearest Halloween party supply store and came home with a ghoulish skeleton that we draped at the window overlooking the driveway. Then we put a spotlight on it. With the cobwebs and the lighting, it made for a very creepy scene. Now that we know how to get up there we're ready to put Santa in the window as part of our Christmas decorations.

And speaking of Christmas, you know it's on its way when the craft shows start popping up and the advertising inserts begin taking over the Sunday paper. We took a bit of a break from our November noveling endeavors to check out the Contra Costa County Home & Garden Show in Concord on Nov. 3. Ben begged off because he was coming down with a cold that weekend, so Roni and Glenn went to check out the displays while he stayed home and worked on his Web page. The Concord Pavilion (aka the Sleep Train Pavilion) hosts a couple of home shows a year. The one in the spring seems to have a better selection of outdoor products, which is what we were after when we went to look this month. There were a few gardening-related things, but for the most part it was the usual collection of companies trying to sell you on storm windows and sun rooms and exterior painting. Yawn. We picked up a metal sun sculpture to add to our growing collection of yard art and lusted after the beautiful granite countertop kitchens that we would never be able to shoehorn into our humble abode.

The following weekend, Nov. 10, we left Ben to mind the store once more as we shopped for holiday ideas at the annual fall craft fair at the Contra Costa Fairgrounds in Antioch. The problem with going to such events together is that while we come away with a few ideas for one another, we seldom buy anything because where's the surprise when you already know what you're getting? We did glean a few ideas for this year's Christmas tree, however, which we have themed in lighthouses and barn stars to reflect our two most recent vacations.

The one holiday "gift" that we won't be waiting to squeeze under the tree (hopefully) is a new living room set, which we had been in search of for a few months. Our existing sofa, loveseat and chair are approaching the end of their useful lives. We finally found a set we liked at Lane Furniture and placed our order early this month, which means with luck it will be delivered sometime by the end of December or early January. The salesman told us to allow six to eight weeks, but we aren't holding our breath. We decided to go with a sofa and a pair of swivel recliners, recognizing the fact that we rarely ever use the loveseat for anything more than storing clean laundry on wash days and Ben's books and backpack when he's home from school. At least an extra recliner we might use on occasion. (If you have a use for a slightly worn but still serviceable black leather loveseat and can haul it away, let us know before the end of December!)

Last month we mentioned that Glenn's article on New England lighthouses had been published in the Contra Costa Times. It has since been picked up by McClatchy-Tribune News Service and has appeared in a few places, most of which can be found with a simple Google search. It has appeared at least online in the Miami Herald, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Republican-American of Waterbury, Conn., which curiously enough is only about a 90-minute drive from the point where our lighthouse trip began in Stonington.

Well, this newsletter has been drafted over the course of a few days, so as of today we have already completed Thanksgiving and done a bit of Christmas decorating inside the house. It has been an adventure so far, with the fully decorated tree tumbling to the ground this morning when Ben's cat Eevee jumped in its branches. We had a few casualties among our ornaments, but we were able to dust off the artificial tree and place it back in its stand on the display table without too much damage. It took a little bit to fluff the branches back into shape and readjust the light strings, but it should be fine for the rest of the holiday season — provided the cats cooperate!

We'll share more of our holiday experiences next month. Until then, have a peaceful and joyous holiday season.

Glenn, Roni and Ben