You know the song. "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..."

Several months ago, we decided that those gifts would make excellent writing prompts for our circle of crackerjack writers to play with. Turns out we were right, about the inspiration and about how crackerjack* our writers truly are.

So this is it! Our twelvetide of original stories, music, and poetry for your holiday merriment. We'll be posting a new audio treat every day from December 14th through the 25th. (If you're thinking the actual season 'the twelve days of Christmas' goes from Christmas to Epiphany, of course you're right. But we're leading up to Christmas with this little shindig, instead of leading away from it. That's how we roll at Life Lab Notes.)

Please enjoy all the brilliantly creative work that went into this project. So many talented people and so much heart. 

                                            "The 12 Days of Christmas - Regifted!" Team
Zheryk Badugu • Alina Phelan Ballou • Claire Barnhart • Alysha Brady • Tom Clark • Sherry Coben • Alexis de la Rosa • Crystal de la Rosa • Keith Ferguson • Liesel Hanson • Robyn Heller • Susan C Hunter • Joanna Ke • Farrah Kiyomura • Lynn Odell • Sarah Parga • Robyn Roth • Michael Santell • Denny Siegel • Andrew Stubblefield • Justin Vasquez • Phil Ward • Wes Weddell • Silvie Zamora

If you've listened to the 5/16/19 podcast, you already know what happened. (If not, what are you waiting for, the real Flash Fiction Day?)

I don't remember where I got the idea that May 16th was National Flash Fiction Day. Maybe I dreamt it. However it entered my brain, I definitely consciously entered it into my calendar, and dutifully reminded myself a few days ago, "I'd better get a very short story ready to post!"

May 16th is not National Flash Fiction Day. That'll be in June 15th in the U.K. and the 22nd in New Zealand. I don't know if we even have one in the U.S.

But May 16th is International Global Accessibility Awareness Day. For a compelling and vital look at this issue, have a look around www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org. This is from their website:

Whether you participate in a public or private event to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, on May 16, we encourage designers, developers, usability professionals, and everyone else to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack there of).

and:

On May 16, unplug your mouse (blind users do not use the mouse), launch your screen reader, and spend an hour using some of your favorite sites strictly using the keyboard alone (tab/shift tab, arrow keys, enter and spacebar) and not the mouse/trackpad. Why not turn off your screen and depend strictly on the information conveyed by the screen reader.

Whether or not you are a web developer, or a public building owner or manager, or a person who might inadvertently leave a scooter in the middle of a sidewalk, you are a person connected to all the other people.

Awareness is very good thing. It builds strong empathy bones!

Oh, yeah. And the flash fiction! It's 368 words. It was written before I realized our official Life Lab calendar was inaccurate, so it has nothing to do with accessibility. (I think.)

~~~
Shopping List

She took her time, and showed the pictures with care.

“Tomato. You - you want a tomato? The tomatoes are in produce. Right over there.” Pale blue eyes followed the young woman’s point, flickered a second, then fixed on the produce sign. Then back to the phone held carefully in her thin hand.

“Okay. I have to get back to -- okay. Bread. Two aisles down. That way. THAT WAY.” A shopper at the nearby specialty cheeses case darted a curious glance from over a chunk of emmentaler. Another walked briskly around them. The lady with the pale blue eyes moved her bent finger across the screen again, then raised the phone up to the young woman’s face. Another image. Another interruption.

“Ma’am. That’s toilet paper. It’s over by pharmacy.”

The older lady looked off toward the far end of the store, past ten or twelve aisles, each with a sentinel tower of sale items, and various scattered stands of candy, greeting cards, small toys, and off-brand ear buds and phone chargers. She looked back at the young woman with a sheepish smile.

“Okay, ma’am? Just walk that way and you’ll see it. Okay? Do you need a cart? Let’s get you a cart!” She swept past her, and returned pushing a cart with a stubborn wheel and a dangling child safety harness strap. “Here you go!”

The pale, blue eyes looked down at her phone. The screen was dark. She pushed and pressed with a quavering finger, swiped and pressed, and pressed again. She turned the screen toward the young woman’s face.

“Shampoo. Yup. Also right by the pharmacy. You can’t miss it.”

With a nod, the silver-haired lady turned measured steps toward the nearest aisle.

“Your cart. Lady! You need your cart! I have to stock the shelves. I can’t -- ugh!”

And so they went through the entire store, gathering a tomato, bread, toilet paper, shampoo, and, on impulse, an off-brand phone charger.

The young woman could not explain why she let herself be drawn into this task, which took just shy of 45 minutes and extended through her break. But at the end, she did not, in the least, mind having her picture taken.

It might be just for me, and maybe just for a day or two.

I'm a natural-born planner. I love analyzing systems. I eat up details and burp up joy. I'm so serious about organizing things, that you could say I have the heart of a border collie.

But today, I'm nearing the end (I hope) of my third sickness of 2019. I've had lots of downtime to think and to enjoy the fact that no one could have expected me to accomplish anything this week, what with the chills and fever and all. I actually had some time off from some cool project ideas I've been working on. That led me to wonder why I wanted time off from cool projects, and that led me to the realization that organizing and planning can be overdone. For me. I can get so overwhelmed by that part of a project, that I don't end up with the time or energy to do the rest of it.

I am by no means suggesting that anyone, myself included, should stop thinking things through. I say, go on and follow your heart, but your mind should go, too. Planning and organizing should be part of the whole project. It's one of the rooms of the house, not the sidewalk out front. It should bring up potential challenges and problems, and with that, potential solutions, and maybe even more ideas for the scope of the project. It's important.

Of course, the more stuff you bring up, the more stuff you have to put somewhere, in categories or zones or columns or lists. There needs to be some kind of order that will help you find it all later, so you can build on it and use it. That can be overwhelming! And it can help you forget the essence of the project, and the fun part of making a thing happen.

And that, my friends, can mean that the next time a cool project idea pops into your head (I mean, my head), you (I mean, I) might hold up a hand and say, "No thanks, Cool Project Idea. I can't handle anything overwhelming right now."

So to avoid that particular nonsense, I'm going to take the next couple of days to practice diving in to a project idea or two, without concerning myself too much with order. If notes, drawings, photos, scraps of thoughts, are strewn about, so be it. I'm just going to play with the cool project ideas. I'm going to pretend the research has been done and I already know the answers. If I want to design the costumes with no regard to cost, I will. If I want to stage the new and innovative curtain call before writing the show, I will point to my cat and say, "She's in charge of the timeline." Oh, I'll circle back around and create the order, but not before curiosity and playfulness have had their way. I can't let Potential Overwhelm Syndrome (just made it up) deprive me of Available Fun Condition (also made up).

Take care, take time off, and wash your hands often.

​

Many thanks to Phil Ward, as ever, for the music and engineering for this episode.

Here's the sticky note I'm talking about. (It was on a Queen Gertrude monologue from Hamlet.) Funny how these little things can suddenly mean a whole lot.

I hope the episode speaks to you. Many thanks for listening! 

I was one of those kids who really liked the Back to School season. The school supplies, the clean start to a new school year, the books, the weather change. Then came my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. 

Maybe that's why it was never a challenge for me to say, or hear, "Happy Holidays." It always seemed like a great way to scoop all those happy times together and just wish happiness. 

As I grew up and my world got bigger, I realized my Canadian friends had Thanksgiving on a different day. My British friends had "Mothering Sunday," and not on "Mother's Day." I met people who celebrated Christmas, but very differently from my family's traditions. I met Jewish friends who celebrated Hanukkah, or even both Hanukkah and Christmas. 

Today, we can easily see into the everyday lives of people all over the world. We can eat foods, see art, hear music, from all the cultures. There are apps (as well as old-fashioned books) that will help us learn just about any language we care to try out. Most importantly, most beautifully, we can encounter this profuse variety very close to us. We don't have to travel around the globe in person or via our devices. We live close to each other. Really close. And that is our strength and our challenge.

Life Lab Notes hopes you find joy, peace, and prosperity today. Whatever you're celebrating today. Also, tomorrow. And here's to a really excellent next Thursday. Happy Holidays. Happy all-your-days.

Episode 13, the final installment in a series that has given us an extraordinary glimpse into the personal lives of those who have crossed over. Today, we meet Robert, who has a poignant story of just how lonely one can be as a soul adrift. "Home," was written by Robert Stoccardo and Silvie Zamora, and performed by Robert Stoccardo.

[There are 1.67 sextillion H2O molecules in a drop of water. - Ed.]

Have you already heard the episode? If not, hear it first. We'll wait...

---

When we started writing and producing this audio fiction series, we knew that we wanted to show what we all have in common with each other. The humanness of us humans. We didn't realize that the very real story of our friend, Robert Stoccardo, and his time living on the streets, would connect so perfectly with the others in this series. The spirits in the other stories are also figuring out how to make things work, missing people and places, making mistakes, having doubts, trying to change, being invisible.

We are honoured that Robert agreed to answer questions about this time of his life, and to be so willing to share his story.

Robert Stoccardo is an actor and writer living in peace in Los Angeles. He was homeless for three years and two months.

Here are a few links, some of which will be local to the Los Angeles area, but at least they can give you an idea of what's out there, and you can search in your area along the same lines. There are many contributing factors that lead to homelessness. Different organizations focus on different aspects of this problem. Find one that resonates with you and make some good stuff happen.

https://www.midnightmission.org
http://homewardla.org
Homeward LA and The Midnight Mission are producing a 10-day citywide event where multiple productions of monologues based on stories from people who have experienced homelessness are performed all around the city. They are looking for volunteer producers to organize professional, student, and community productions, and even home readings.

https://www.charitynavigator.org
Charity Navigator has been around for sixteen years, and has rated over 9,000 charities. Look up a charity, for example, Homeless Families Foundation, and you'll see its rating and all kinds of awesome information, like what percentage of their money goes to admin expenses.

https://www.epath.org
PATH - Making It Home has more than 25 locations throughout California. They provide services in more than 140 cities, and  have more than 1,000 units of permanent supportive housing completed or in the pipeline. They follow the "Housing First" model that first connects people to permanent housing and then focuses on stabilization through voluntary supportive services. (This info is from their website.)

A little respect is all they ask. And to not be prey.

Today's episode, Hunted, was written by Joanna Ke and performed by Cesili Williams.

---If grace married silliness, their child would be Joanna Ke. Joanna is an award-winning filmmaker who thrives in the industry as an actor, writer, professional script reader, and producer. Being half Taiwanese, she champions diverse stories led by women behind and in front of the camera. Wielding her broadsword is a favorite - both on and off camera.

Cesili Williams received her MFA in acting from Calarts. Originally from the Chicago area, she graduated with her Bachelors Degree from Illinois State University. She played Celie in the hit LA musical The Color Purple at Celebration Theater, directed by Michael Matthews (2012). Cesili received an Ovation Nomination for Best Leading Actress in a musical, won a Scenie Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, and won an Ovation Award for Best Ensemble for The Color Purple.

Alright, alright, yes, it's my birthday. No need to make a fuss.
Now that that's out of the way...

We all hope, when the day finally arrives, to shuffle off this mortal coil surrounded by loved ones. For Ruth Wooster, this was not exactly the case. Today's episode, "Exit," was written by Rikki Schwartz and performed by Joel Scher.
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Rikki Schwartz has been acting and directing for Michigan theatre companies for over 30 years.  About 18 years ago, her love for the footlights led to a passion for playwriting…and a new “supporting role” was born.  Since then, she has written three full-length plays, as well as dozens of short plays and monologues.  Rikki’s work has been produced at over 25 theatres, megachurches, podcasts and festivals across the U.S. and Europe.

Los Angeles-based, Joel Scher been a member of the award-winning Theatre of NOTE since 2006. Some of his most memorable theatrical experiences at NOTE have been: He Asked for It (ensemble cast LA Weekly nom.), Holy Ghost, Eat The Runt, The Invisible Play, Supper (nom. Best Actor Comedy stage Raw), and recently Marion or the True Tale of Robin Hood. Earlier in 2018 he appeared in the hit show The Art Couple at Sacred Fools Theater.