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| Strolling out of Lake Jessup this week |
That's about 15 miles north of where I live.
Background to "Stranger Than Fiction":
This week's Mosaic Moments is one of those stories that proves "Truth is Stranger Than Fiction." The events recorded below were relayed to me in two phone calls from my son who lives "up north." Although I have changed names for anonymity, these events actually happened over the past two weeks.
FYI:
1. My son is Property Manager for c. 160 apartments in c. 40 buildings in 2 different towns. He employs a rather large number of handymen. We'll call the one in this story "Bill." Bill has been working for my son for many years.
2. Bill does NOT live in one of the apartments managed by my son.
3. The suburban police department involved will be called "S."
4. The bad guy we'll call "the Fraudster."
5. Bill has recently been diagnosed with cancer.
A CAUTIONARY TALE
Some time ago, Bill allowed a man he knew to share his apartment. But one day recently, the unthinkable happened. Bill's "guest" claimed the apartment as his own, going so far as to call the police and declare Bill the intruder. The police separated the two men but ended up leaving the Fraudster in the apartment with Bill out on the street until the matter could be settled in court. Not surprisingly, Bill ended up in the hospital for six days and missed his court date.
The result: Bill now has a restraining order against him and an arrest warrant. My son, going to bat for Bill, believes he has straightened out the problem of the missed court date, so Bill goes to visit a friend in the building where his apartment is, The two men go for a walk on a nearby nature trail as Bill recounts his tale of woe. At which point they are attacked by the Fraudster. Bill calls my son, who advises him to call the police, as whoever calls first is likely the one they'll believe.
Bill calls the S police, but the street patrol evidently hasn't gotten the message about the dropped arrest warrant. Instead of blaming the Fraudster for starting the fight, they arrest Bill, handcuffing him so tightly he loses mobility in his hands. (Interestingly, he insists they take him to the hospital to document his paralysis and they do just that.)
BUT meanwhile, it turns out that the higher echelons of the S police have been looking for Bill—not as an offender but as a WITNESS. So Bill ends up talking directly to the Chief of Police. (And this is where the story elevates to "if I put this in one of my books, no one would believe it.") It seems that during the time Bill and his supposed friend were living in the now-disputed apartment, the Fraudster—for the vast sum of $20—sold cocaine to another man in the building. Except the Fraudster didn't have any cocaine. What he sold was rat poison. The man died. Mr. Fraudster is unlikely to bother Bill again.
Bill is back in his apartment. He had his first chemo on Wednesday. And will shortly be moving into one of the apartments my son manages.We're all pulling for him to conquer the cancer challenge as well.
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Grace note: This is a side of life very few of us see, although my son spends a remarkable amount of time acting as a social worker. (To the extent when one of his tenants was having a heart attack, he called my son instead of 911!) Fortunately, my son has the temperament for it, but Bill's case was one of his worst challenges before it finally came right.
WARNING!
My son passes along this advice:
Be very careful about who you take into your home. The way the laws in many states are worded, you could find yourself out on the street until you can prove in court that you have a right to the roof over your head.
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The Blue Moon Rising Series
I made an interesting discovery when I uploaded The Crucible Kingdom to Smashwords and its affiliates this week. I had forgotten that Rebel Princess, the first book of the Blue Moon series, was originally published by Kindle Scout and featured on Kindle Unlimited. Consequently, none of the four books of the series were available anywhere else. I eventually took them off Kindle Unlimited but in the 90-day process of waiting for that to take effect, I evidently lost myself in whatever I was writing at the time and failed to make the Blue Moon books available to Smashwords, B&N's Nook, Kobo, Scribd, Apple & OverDrive. Aargh!
This week I began to remedy that problem. Rebel Princess (with a 20% free read) is now available on Smashwords and should be on the other venues shortly. The other three books are "coming soon." Below, cover and blurb for Book 1.
The Princess Royal of a pacifist planet, whose people have spent a thousand years developing their powers of the mind, stages a personal rebellion, joining the space academy of a planet that has spent a millennium developing its military might. This odd pairing goes well until her senior year when her new "friends" turn on her. Only the swift action of an honorable huntership captain saves her from rape and medical experimentation. As a very special prisoner of war, she spends four years in solitary confinement, where she dreams of her rescuer but has no idea she has inadvertently sparked a rebellion against the military planet's vast Empire.
When the princess-in-disguise is finally freed and tossed into the middle of the Rebellion, she discovers there is a stark contrast between her fantasy version of the man who rescued her and the flesh and blood starship captain leading the rebellion. She must cope with his followers who fear her psychic powers, a fey younger brother who speaks only through illusions, royal parents with a strict belief in non-violence, and a fiancé who happens to be a sorcerer. It would appear the hope of toppling the Empire is a dim light at the end of a long tunnel.
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Reminder: The Crucible Kingdom is a stand-alone spin-off of the Blue Moon Rising series, and includes the marked contrast between the dysfunctional young prince in Rebel Princess and what he has become more than a decade later.
For a link to The Crucible Kingdom on Smashwords, click here.
For a link to The Crucible Kingdom on Amazon, click here.
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For a link to Blair's website, click here.
For a link to Blair's updated Facebook Author Page click here.
Thanks for stopping by,
