A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Hello, Dear Reader. It's Monday, March 2, 2020, and it's late morning here in my corner of Florida. Currently, the temperature outside is 73℉ (23℃) under partly sunny skies; per the forecast for the day, the high is expected to reach 76℉ (26℃), while the low for tonight will be 59℉ (15℃). Well, in three days I will be 57 years old. I have mixed feelings about this; on the one hand, I am glad to be alive and thrilled that Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss , the short film I wrote last year for my friend Juan Carlos Hernandez, turned out as well as it did. So far, in the three weeks since Juan posted it on YouTube, Ronnie has been watched 1,216 times (as of this writing). It has also gotten its first official review ; Blogger/reviewer Denise Longrie says Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss is an "amusing and enjoyable short." A still image from Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss.  She goes on to describe the dynamic of the family ...

My mom as she was on this date in 2009. Little did we know that she only had six years left to live and that of those, her last five would be her worst.  (Photo Credit: Alex Diaz-Granados) Tempus fugit. It's still a source of astonishment and bewilderment to me, even a decade later, how unpredictable and traumatizing life changes can be. Consider my mother's last 14 years on Earth. She entered the 21st Century (back in 2001) a bit slowed by the passage of time but still full of life and hope for the future, and died lost in a fog of dementia and impotence in the summer of 2015, leaving behind two adult children who distrust and dislike each other.    Between January of 2001 and July 19, 2015, my poor mom went through the following health crises: A diagnosis of gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE), which is often referred to as watermelon stomach. Per the Mayo Clinic's website,"the term comes from the internal appearance of the stomach lining in those...