1 — the nightly train horn calling out "ALL ABOARD!", even though it likely wakes up everyone else in town;
2 — my first large mug of coffee when I wake up in the middle of the night;
3 — Raven, who introduced to me the idea of three small things off gratitude
Thank you to the entire community for helping make the upgrade to the site a success. I'll admit, I wasn't happy about it — I am someone who resists change (my son could tell you stories!). But the one thing that continually amazes me with this community over the past five years is just how much of a "community" this is.
Regardless of how you feel about AI genned stories, those who use AI detectors to detect AI genned stories generally do not understand the tech they are using to ... detect tech?
I'm outside, sitting on my front porch, drinking the day's fourth cup of coffee, reading Robert McKee's Story, when a gal walks by with her dog, the orange and white Husky that isn't a Husky. It's a sunny late-spring day and the aroma of the juniper bushes I trimmed this morning fills the air, my hoodie keeping me warm from the cool afternoon breeze.
I watch her pass, seeing if she lets her large puppy poop on the yard (she isn't carrying doggie bags). She says hi, politely asks about Aika, my Husky -- "You don't walk your dog anymore?" I pause, then tell her Aika died last fall, just before the leaves began to turn into brilliant yellows and oranges and reds, explaining she was old, but that it was hard. She expresses condolences that only another puppy owner could, and walks on.
And now I sit, on my porch, drinking my coffee, McKee's open book in my lap, unread, a stain slowly spreading in the lower left corner of the page.
The afternoon gets late, my hoodie refusing to protect me from the chill. I get my fifth cup, move my porch chair back into the sun's light, watch the turkey vultures overhead searching for food for their chicks, and start reading.
Yes, very visual. "We know this place, this pain." Plot... new dog, less coffee, extra doggie bags on hand, dog-walking, puppy-sitting, moving some place warmer without the memories?
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, who introduced to me the idea of three small things off gratitude 
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