Commonsense Wisdom- Good Fortune

(Cavorting with Carol at Mardi Gras World)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Feeling good. I had a pleasant surprise yesterday. I received some scratch off lottery tickets for my birthday. One of them left me a hundred dollars richer.
CALLIOPE: What do you plan to do with the money?
JOE: I am inviting Carol and her brother and sister in law who gave me the tickets out to dinner.
CALLIOPE: Don 't you have something more practical you can do with the money such as invest it in your publishing efforts?
JOE: That would be a possibility. However I believe in sharing good fortune. I am trying to think of others besides myself.
CALLIOPE: Noble of you. Are you always that way?
JOE: This is a philosophy I try to share in all my writing. I don't think my words are worth much if I don't walk the walk as well.
CALLIOPE: I can't argue with you there. What's going on in your publishing world?
JOE: I'm working on contacts. I set up two lunch appointments for next week.
CALLIOPE: With whom?
JOE: One is with a local author. I would like to share ideas with him regarding local marketing which I have neglected so far. The other is with a former psychotherapist who now writes among other things. He contacted me and we seem to be kindred spirits.
CALLIOPE: Sounds like good progress.
JOE: I think so. I will be spending today with my brother who is visiting from Honolulu so I'm not sure how much work I'll get done today. Talk with you tomorrow.

Conversations with Calliope- Dialogue with My Muse

(Fuzzy the Clown at Oatka Festival Parade)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Fine. I'm glad not to have a doctor appointment as I have had each day this week.
CALLIOPE: Anything wrong?
JOE: No. Two visits were checkups with my primary and arthritis doctors. All is in good order in my body as far as I can tell. I even came away with one less prescription than I had before. The third appointment was to give blood for an arthritis study on markers for arthritis. I don't quite understand the technicalities but I guess I don't need to.
CALLIOPE: Glad to hear things are going well. What do you make of it?
JOE: I remember my friend Steve D'Annunzio saying that misfortune in your life can be taken as a sign that you need to change something. I was just wondering if there is a message from God in good fortune too.
CALLIOPE: What do you think it might be?
JOE: Maybe that I am on the right track with alerting people to consider how they live their lives and what the effect is on people.
CALLIOPE: That's the goal of your book, Navigating Life, isn't it?
JOE: It is.
CALLIOPE: So now what?
JOE: I had been thinking about what direction to take with my writing once this book is published.
CALLIOPE: And?
JOE: I think I should continue with this theme. I have started on a book of commonsense wisdom for teens and think I should get back into that project. Talk with you tomorrow.