Rodney Dodig

I always thought that after I retired time would slow down a bit. That certainly hasn’t been the case and the past few days have been a perfect example. Chapter 3 has sat untouched, staring at me from my computer screen causing feelings of guilt. The character speaking in this chapter, Ronin, bothers my dreams; he wants to tell his story. I want to tell his story. But, last minute preparations for the Holidays, attending dinners and breakfasts, cleaning the apartment and then packing for my mini-vacation; well, time just slipped away. Now I sit on the balcony of my hotel room and stare out at beautiful waves as they roll in to an empty beach. The days from my last entry till now, vanished, like the early morning mist on the ocean after the sun rises. This morning after I finish writing, post this entry and answer my e-mails I will start work on chapter 3 and Ronin again. I hope to finish it and start chapter 4. Sometime in the next couple of days I will need to look over my friend Deb’s suggestions for modifications of the book. I need to include them also before submitting the manuscript to agents the first week of January. So far I can tell that she’s caught a few errors that both Tim and I missed. I’m looking for inspiration to start a couple of new short stories also. A crescent moon and bright star in the sky last night might have given me a new idea. We’ll see.

Christmas Eve was exactly as I pictured it in my last entry. Steve’s Mom put a huge feast on the table and we all ate till it was coming out of our ears. The dinner was followed by hot chocolate and panetone. The hot chocolate was so good, made the old fashion way by heating milk and adding real cocoa. Afterwards I rushed up to the 6^th floor roof to watch the fireworks. It is an incredible display. Think July 4^th in the US but they are going off all around you for as far as the eye can see. It is truly incredible. I got back to the apartment about 2am but sleep was hard to come by. The fireworks went off in the neighborhood till 4am, large bangs startling me awake every time I was about to dose off. I don’t remember them doing this on New Year’s Eve last year.

After Christmas it was all about getting the apartment cleaned, my maid was sick, the laundry done and packed for the trip to Huanchaco. I’m sitting on the balcony of my hotel room overlooking the beach now as I write this entry. We arrived yesterday very early in the morning. Steve came with. He’s visiting a cousin in Trujillo to help him celebrate his birthday. We spent the day wandering around the small beach town in search of souvenirs and beachwear. Breakfast and lunch were enjoyable but only having S/.100 Sol notes to pay for things has turned into a hassle. It took an hour for the restaurant where we had breakfast to get change for me. Didn’t matter though, I refuse to be in a hurry while I’m here. Steve left after lunch and will be spending the rest of the trip staying with his aunt and cousin. The sun has been out the entire time I’ve been here and the temperature has been perfect. A faint sunburn has already appeared on my legs and I need to start remembering to apply the sunscreen before I go for my walks. My next entry will be back in Lima. Sorry there are no photos but I forgot to bring the cable to download them from my camera. Have a great week everyone and remember to celebrate the New Year safely.

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

Nothing could be further from the truth in Peru. The tradition here is mainly to exchange gifts Christmas Eve and then have a huge family dinner at midnight, all this while fireworks light up the sky over the entirety of Lima. I will be spending my Christmas Eve with Steve and his family. This will be the third one for me and if tradition holds, we will have Pavo (turkey) Estofoado, Res de Rojo, rice, potatoes, green beans, a salad and some type of dessert (probably Panetone, a Peruvian fruit cake) with a nice glass of red wine. The food is delicious; Steve’s Mom is an excellent cook. Her boyfriend, Jose Manuel, will fix the Res de Rojo. It’s a roast of sorts (beef) cooked long and slow in a red sauce. There will be six or seven of us at the dinner and in all probability enough food for twenty. Sometime between two and three AM, we will head back to the apartment and I will spend a night tossing and turning from eating so late. Ahhh, but that’s tradition and you can’t fight it.

I’ve managed to get a little writing done this week. I’m 2/3^rd the way through chapter 3 in my second book. I would be further along but the character telling the story in this chapter has been hiding from me and I’ve had a hard time getting him to reveal himself. It’s a dark chapter dealing with child slavery and boy soldiers. I want to try and inject a little social consciousness in this book without being too preachy. To research for the book, I’ve been reading articles on the web about the long term affects this can have on these children. It’s a very scary and heartbreaking story. I also received some more pages from Tim Moloney on my dialog for the first book. I will work on that this afternoon. So far, I’m on track to get the first book to some agents the first week of the New Year. I’ve also decided to try and write a short fantasy story for my grandniece and nephews. I’m also going to try and illustrate it. This will be a long term project and I’m only four pages into it so far.

The writers’ group didn’t meet this week. Between illness, new students and travel; we couldn’t get enough people together for a meeting. I was already in Miraflores to meet Tim for breakfast when I started getting the calls. Instead I spent the morning with Tim listening to his travails about teaching English in Peru. He’s having problems getting a job at an established school with regular hours and benefits. I got to see the new place he’s staying in and afterwards we wandered through the Surquillo street market looking at all the offerings. I managed to keep my wallet in my pocket and came home without a bunch of stuff I really don’t need. On Friday I have my regular meeting with Larry over coffee. As always our topics of conversation were wide ranging and interesting.

Last but not least, I will probably be moving in the next three months. Due to the plunge of the Dollar against the Sol (it was 3.16/$1 when I first came to Peru, it’s now 2.67/$1), she’s raising my rent $100 a month. That kind of price increase is not in my budget so I will be scouring the want ads for the next few months looking for a place to live. I’ve been lucky so far, let’s hope the streak continues.

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you all have a healthy and prosperous New Year.

After outlining the first twelve chapters in my second book, I have decided to set it to the side for a bit. I need to polish up book one and get it out to some agents the first week of the New Year. I’m still waiting for my friend Tim’s comments on my dialog in the rest of the book. I feel like I now have the gist of what he’s getting at in his first round of changes. I was being way too formal, polite so to speak. It’s just not the way people talk to each other in everyday life. I only have six chapters left to work on and a couple of places where Tim and a couple of other readers think I should give more insight to my two main characters, Lourdes and Rodriguez. I am both excited and nervous about this stage. I’ve braced myself for rejection. I know many famous writers went through a lot of rejection letters before someone finally accepted them. I also know that these days, some writers have had considerable success self publishing after they were rejected multiple times. I haven’t decided where that cut off point is for me yet.

This past week I got to see mysterious magical creatures parading in a mall, an unexpected rainbow in the sky over San Borja and have a plethora of beautifully feathered birds sing to me outside my window. The holiday season is in full swing here in Lima. The malls are decorated. Christmas Carols play over loud speakers. Kids drag their parents through multiple stores pointing to everything they want to find under the tree Christmas morning. One of my friends, Katrina, is having a gingerbread house baking party this Sunday. I hope she bakes some extra cookies and brings them to the writers’ group. The national ballet is putting on the Nutcracker and the museums will have free pass day for everyone. I put up my tree this past week. It is a small affair but enough to remind me of the holidays and put me in an even cheerier mood.

The writers’ group met on Thursday. Only Katrina, Kathy and I were in attendance. We went over a travel article that Kathy had drafted a couple of days before. It shows a lot of promise and with a few additions and small changes will be a great read. We also spent time socializing and plan to meet next Thursday even though it’s very close to Christmas Day. Hopefully Jack, our new member, and Victoria will be able to come to this one. I met Tim last Sunday for breakfast. Lourdes had to work on some papers for her University class. We had a nice chat and he seems to have a good goal set for the New Year. Larry and I met yesterday (Friday) for coffee. We talked about my plans for getting the book published and my ideas for the second book. Larry also told me about an idea he has for a book he wants to write, a spy story taking place in Peru during World War II. It sounds like it will be very interesting.

My dental work is progressing. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the chair getting my teeth drilled down to points to support the crowns. Yesterday I finally had the first fitting of the uppers. They look great but the bite was off so they have to go back to the lab. Monday I will have the second fitting and hopefully, they will be put in place permanently on Tuesday, then on to the lowers. It’s a long process but the smile will be worth it when it’s all over. Pictures to follow.

As I wait for my friend Tim to finish his edits on the dialog in my first book I feel the need to be productive again. So, I have started the second book in my planned three book series. The first two chapters have been completed. There are almost 2,000 words that begin a new adventure for my intrepid detective. He is starting out in the Amazon jungle. He’s been assigned to assist the anti-narcotics section of the Peruvian National Police in finding the labs that are supplying large quantities of cocaine to the street gangs of Lima. I know where and how I want the book to get there. The process of filling in all the details is left. There’ll be new characters to develop, old ones to kill off or make disappear, sad moments, happy moments, horrible moments and maybe a few laughs. I hope to provide the reader with enough action to keep them turning the pages, unable to put the book down. It will be a daunting goal to say the least.

Recently I’ve notice the fees for my banking transactions rising steadily. It’s not enough that they’re making billions of dollars in profit; they have to squeeze the poor and middle class with fees until they have nothing left. I ask you, where can you put your money, get a decent interest rate and have it be safe. I’ve come to the conclusion that burying it in a can in the yard is almost better than having a savings or checking account. The moment that brought me to this state of mind was noticing a mysterious $50 deduction from the amount of money being sent to Peru from my account in the US. Let me add that my bank in the US charges $40 to send the money, my bank in Peru charges $18 to receive it in addition to that $50 that evaporates between the US and Peru. That’s $108 a month to do an electronic transfer of funds. Excuse me! How in the hell can they justify that kind of charge. That’s $1,296.00 a year, $12,960.00 over 10 years, providing they don’t raise their rates again. What a scam, Bernie Madoff and his ilk have nothing on these guys.

On another note, today is the day my upper permanent crowns are put in. I’m looking forward to having a beautiful white smile again. When I went in to select the shade of white I wanted, I was all set to get them as white as I could. After looking at the selection, I changed my mind and went down two shades. The top one looked like a bright white plastic sheet in my mouth. Just a tad unnatural. For those people who have seen every episode of “Friends,” remember the one where Ross had his teeth whitened? Like that only brighter. I thought I was going to get them yesterday but that didn’t happen. As a result, I missed the writers’ group meeting. Apparently only Katrina and Victoria made it. Not a good for a critique. I think I will suggest we do Katrina’s work again this coming Thursday.

On Wednesday Kathy and I met a friend from our days in ICPNA (learning Spanish) for lunch at Café Z. It was nice seeing Kano again. He’s a nice young man, very ambitious and hard working. We chatted about things going on in our lives. Naturally I was all about my writing. Kano talked about the tour business he and his dad are trying to get going and Kathy talked about the trips she’s done and plans on doing.

That’s it for now; need to get to work on Chapter 3. Have a great weekend everyone. Get up, get active and try to exercise that thing between your ears also.

Have you ever had moments of discord within your own mind? This week other than the small amount of editing I did on the book, my mind seemed unable to put words together in a coherent thought process. Words and pieces of words floated around like so much flotsam tossed about by an ocean tide. I could almost feel them banging against the inside of my skull, repelled at the thought of joining together and forming a cogent sentence. I still feel somewhat discombobulated, unable to sit at this desk and work on the pieces that need working on. I’ve been calling myself lazy for the last couple of days, a cop out in a sense. I feel tired for no reason, wrung out. I’ve pushed myself away from the keyboard more than once, only to let my mind go blank, to think no other thought than why can’t I think? I’ve heard others say they go through phases like this, I can only hope it passes quickly. I want the energy to return, the obsession with entering words and dialog into my computer. I have stories to tell, characters who want a life, victims who need saving and heroes who want to save them. I need to dream and put those dreams on paper. I’m clogged, where’s the drano?

I got one long walk in this week, a jaunt up to the Pentagonito and back. It takes a little over an hour unless I’m taking photos, which I was. Other than the nice pictures I took,which are in this article, there was an interesting little incident. I stopped and took several pictures of the building as well as the entrance. I’ve done this many times in the past; it’s an interesting piece of architecture. It got its name from being the CIA’s headquarters in the old days, now it’s the Peruvian Army’s headquarters. On this particular walk a gentleman in a suit came over and asked me to erase all the photos I had taken. He actually stood and watched me do it. Not having the skills in Spanish, I couldn’t find out the reason why. I wondered if there were some important visitors there that day and it was supposed to be a secret of some type. Wonder who it could have been?

We had our regular writers’ group meeting on Thursday. It was my turn to submit a piece. Since I hadn’t written any type of short story in several months, I sent them an older piece, one of those I haven’t been able to finish. There were a few good suggestions but in the end, I doubt that I will ever finish that piece. It seems that there are some stories never meant to be finished. Then, on Friday I met with Larry for coffee again. We had our usual chat, nothing serious, just the state of politics in the US and Peru. Today I met Tim and Lourdes for breakfast. Tim is looking for a new apartment and is still trying to find a job teaching in a school. He’s tired of the private student routine, too much traveling. Lourdes, sweetheart that she is, is doing fine.

I also had my first visit with the dentist this week to fix my teeth. I will receive 26 crowns and four bridges when it’s all over. I’ve asked for one of those Hollywood smiles so get your sunglasses out. So far the process has been painless. I have the upper temporary in place now and will go for final color selection on Monday. The final crowns will be put in on Friday. It’ll be nice having a good smile again, not that the old teeth ever kept me from it.

I went to the movies with Steve and Antonio again last night. We saw “Tower Heist,” with an assortment of stars. I was all set to not like this movie. Imagine my surprise when I caught myself laughing out loud at several scenes in the movie. The audience loved it too, they laughed far more than I did. It always surprises me when Peruvians get American humor in the movies. I give it 4 Llamas. Go see it, some of the scenes are better on big screen.

That’s it for this entry. Hope all of you had a good week and weekend. I did despite that first paragraph. After all, I am living the good life now!