A week ago Monday, Significant Other and I took a train (all the trains are new and sleek and sexy) out of Berlin to his hometown, which long ago was a prosperous thriving little town that succumbed to the bombing, the Russian Army, and the DDR. In February 1990 it was a most depressing place with its hideous department store with nothing to buy, and the hotel with awful gray linoleum and hairs stuck to the thin white bar of soap by the sink.
Youth and roots and all the people one knew exert a magnetic pull, which is why we were on that train on a cold but sunny morning. The first surprise was that the funny little building next to the railroad station where the royal lady always secreted herself away from common eyes was being restored and it will be a lovely addition to the station area. We walked through town toward the Old Family Property, whose buildings exist now only in paintings and photographs and especially memory. A trek up the hill through crumbling gateposts. The trees mostly bare, but some indolent autumn charm still present. S.O. kept exclaiming how the distances had shrunk, but of course he had trod them once on childish legs. We saw the unmarked grave of the dead Russian near what once was an asparagus patch. Not a brick is left of the old house, and squatters have taken over the property and built their little garden sheds. There is, however, a nice new boardwalk leading to the Biskmark Tower, a destination that hikers visit. On to the cemetery and the family graves, and a few harried moments trying to find them. They cemetery is peaceful and well cared for, but I noticed that many of the more recent inhabitants died in their fifties and sixties. Few in the last half of the twentieth century died old. The stress of the war and being on the wrong side of the country with a bad government that pitted citizen against citizen obviously had a life-shortening effect.
We trekked back down into the town and admired the new church spire. The brick church was bombed and burnt and lay in ruins for years until the country was reunited. There was a measuring error (measure twice, cut once?) on the new steeple, and it is much smaller than the old steeple. There is still plenty of work to do on the church, but it's getting there. S.O., the least religous of men, became very sentimental about the church. In the bare apse there was a charming Christmas exhibit of creches throughout the world. The 13th century altar was so simple it looked absolutely modern. Something about the churches resurrection felt life affirming.
Many buildings have been re-habbed and while the town may never return to its former state, but it looks vastly improved from 1989-1990. We had a tasty lunch in an old inn by the Havel River, with ducks in abundance, and walked back down the main street to admire the new department store with its washers, driers, and even dishwashers in the show windows.
We climbed back onto the sleek new train and travelled through a huge windmill farm en route back to Berlin. Have you ever been close to one of those big windmills? The blades slice the air: whip, whip whip, and the sound is like some immense prehistoric bird flapping his wings in a futile effort to fly. A little scary.
Go stand really close to a windmill and listen. Visit your childhood home. Get on a train. There's a big world out there with no relationship to your television set. Go.
Grapeshot
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
European Diary - 4
En route to Potsdam to visit Sans Souci, Frederick the Great's summer palace, we sat in the same railroad coach as a gang of teen age boys on their way to see a soccer match. They were horsing around and (gasp) drinking beer, which may or may not have been illegal to do on the train (probably not) and also not underage, as the age limit is apparently unknown in Europe. They weren't rowdy, just full of high (!) spirits and when the train pulled into the town where they got off, they started up a chant, "Ost, Ost Ost Berlin!" East Berlin and proud of it. These kids were probably not even born in 1989 when the wall came down, yet they had a pride of place and more than a little attitude about coming from the downscale part of town.
On other train, we listened as some nice looking young men (late teens probably) casually switched from German to Russian and back to German. Who were they?
Occasionally one heard conversations in English, German and French. It is not unusual, I think, for people just meeting to find the only language they have in common is a foreign one. What are the chances of that happening here?
In Paris we visited the Pompidou Center, and one of the best things was riding the escalator up through 6 stories of glass, and suddenly there is Sacre Coeur behind you, and the spire of Notre Dame in front of you, and the Eiffel Tower off to the side and the view is such that you just want to ride the escalator up and down all day. We saw the Dadaist exhibit and the Big Bang which is part of the Pompidou collection of Modern Art but grouped in interesting ways. The 6th floor restaurant, George, is very elegant and the food was all one hopes to eat in France. The cheese cake we had for dessert is the best I ever ate. Don't know what they did to it. My chicken curry came with mashed potatoes, not rice, a little weird, I thought, until I tasted the potatoes. I think they were mashed with a sea of heavy cream and a mountain of butter because they tasted heavenly. Significant Other ordered a plate of ziti with sauce, rather boring, I thought until I took a bite. It had the most miraculous taste in that just one forkful and you were in Italy! Amazing. How did that happen? I can't say. Here in Boston we have no shortage of good Italian restuarants, but the ziti at George transported me straight to sunny Italy and olive groves and little trattorias where the food is simple and simply spectacular.
Go to Paris. Eat at George. Be transported. Look at the art. Gasp at the view. Life is good.
In college, way back when, I started a Dada ist play. The characters were a cigarette, a street lamp and a prostitute, and it was set in downtown Houston. Weird, huh?
Tomorrow: visit to a small town in the former East Germany.
Aloha and au revoir!
Grapeshot
On other train, we listened as some nice looking young men (late teens probably) casually switched from German to Russian and back to German. Who were they?
Occasionally one heard conversations in English, German and French. It is not unusual, I think, for people just meeting to find the only language they have in common is a foreign one. What are the chances of that happening here?
In Paris we visited the Pompidou Center, and one of the best things was riding the escalator up through 6 stories of glass, and suddenly there is Sacre Coeur behind you, and the spire of Notre Dame in front of you, and the Eiffel Tower off to the side and the view is such that you just want to ride the escalator up and down all day. We saw the Dadaist exhibit and the Big Bang which is part of the Pompidou collection of Modern Art but grouped in interesting ways. The 6th floor restaurant, George, is very elegant and the food was all one hopes to eat in France. The cheese cake we had for dessert is the best I ever ate. Don't know what they did to it. My chicken curry came with mashed potatoes, not rice, a little weird, I thought, until I tasted the potatoes. I think they were mashed with a sea of heavy cream and a mountain of butter because they tasted heavenly. Significant Other ordered a plate of ziti with sauce, rather boring, I thought until I took a bite. It had the most miraculous taste in that just one forkful and you were in Italy! Amazing. How did that happen? I can't say. Here in Boston we have no shortage of good Italian restuarants, but the ziti at George transported me straight to sunny Italy and olive groves and little trattorias where the food is simple and simply spectacular.
Go to Paris. Eat at George. Be transported. Look at the art. Gasp at the view. Life is good.
In college, way back when, I started a Dada ist play. The characters were a cigarette, a street lamp and a prostitute, and it was set in downtown Houston. Weird, huh?
Tomorrow: visit to a small town in the former East Germany.
Aloha and au revoir!
Grapeshot
Monday, November 28, 2005
European Diary - 3
In Europe, laptops are everywhere, especially used by businessmen (didn't actually see any business women) on the sleek trains that cross the countryside at ungodly speeds. We travelled back to France the day of the big rail strike, but were blessedly unaffected. In first class the waiter brings coffee or wine and a bit of breakfast or lunch to one's seat. Small helpings of tasty food.
I noticed that there were rather a lot of gentleman aged 45-60 who had a much younger blond in tow. Always a blond. Young and skinny. Obviously a status symbol like the Mercedes or the Philippe Patek watch. The blonde business was prevalent both in France and Germany. So if blondes don't actually have more fun they get the sugar daddy. Interesting phrase, that. Sucre pere? Zucker vater? Sounds better in English.
The French are much more elegant than we are. I didn't see any fatties and the people, expecially the women on the street looked very soignee in black with perhaps just a pink or red scarf to soften the unrelievedly dark color scheme. People walk a lot and at a pretty good clip, too, and maybe that's how they remain slim. And they smoke. And they drink the strongest coffee which maybe revs up the metabolism to burn about 50 calories a minute.
On the flight to Paris, I listened to La Chanson Francaise, and heard a song I really really liked. So much I stayed awake for eons until the tape came round again and I could track which song it was. Finally found, noted, and ripped out of the inflight magazine. Carefully packed it away, so I could order when I got back. Arrrgh! Cannot be found on American Amazon. Only on the French or English Amazon. Consider the postage. I could probably have bought it at the Airport. Seize the day. And seize the CD on the spot.
The icky taupe shoes that started off in Europe, favored by old ladies with their ankles falling down around their feet are gone. This godawful shoe color migrated into the general German population and then leapt over the pond and arrived here. God, they were ugly. I told friends who bought them that they were announcing to the whole world that they were old and had forsaken style forever. Someone even told me that he finally got rid of those shoes I didn't like. And the only taupe shoes seen, except on one old man, were on sale outside at a hopelessly out of date East German dept. store. Even THEY were getting rid of them. Of course the French never wore them.
Never, ever, make a fashion statement in those yucky taupe shoes. You can wear them in the nursing home when your mind and your sense of style are gone and someone has to put them on your feet. Only then.
End of taupe shoe rant.
Alors,
Grapeshot
I noticed that there were rather a lot of gentleman aged 45-60 who had a much younger blond in tow. Always a blond. Young and skinny. Obviously a status symbol like the Mercedes or the Philippe Patek watch. The blonde business was prevalent both in France and Germany. So if blondes don't actually have more fun they get the sugar daddy. Interesting phrase, that. Sucre pere? Zucker vater? Sounds better in English.
The French are much more elegant than we are. I didn't see any fatties and the people, expecially the women on the street looked very soignee in black with perhaps just a pink or red scarf to soften the unrelievedly dark color scheme. People walk a lot and at a pretty good clip, too, and maybe that's how they remain slim. And they smoke. And they drink the strongest coffee which maybe revs up the metabolism to burn about 50 calories a minute.
On the flight to Paris, I listened to La Chanson Francaise, and heard a song I really really liked. So much I stayed awake for eons until the tape came round again and I could track which song it was. Finally found, noted, and ripped out of the inflight magazine. Carefully packed it away, so I could order when I got back. Arrrgh! Cannot be found on American Amazon. Only on the French or English Amazon. Consider the postage. I could probably have bought it at the Airport. Seize the day. And seize the CD on the spot.
The icky taupe shoes that started off in Europe, favored by old ladies with their ankles falling down around their feet are gone. This godawful shoe color migrated into the general German population and then leapt over the pond and arrived here. God, they were ugly. I told friends who bought them that they were announcing to the whole world that they were old and had forsaken style forever. Someone even told me that he finally got rid of those shoes I didn't like. And the only taupe shoes seen, except on one old man, were on sale outside at a hopelessly out of date East German dept. store. Even THEY were getting rid of them. Of course the French never wore them.
Never, ever, make a fashion statement in those yucky taupe shoes. You can wear them in the nursing home when your mind and your sense of style are gone and someone has to put them on your feet. Only then.
End of taupe shoe rant.
Alors,
Grapeshot
Saturday, November 26, 2005
European Diary - 2
"Catwalk" and "A-list" were some of the words in the German gossip magazine at the salon. Somehow the 13 Euro shampoo and blow dry turned into a 25 Euro expense with the additions of only a couple of styling products. Hmmm. Even an English-only person can read at least half of the ads in Germany and even France in spite of the French horror of losing the purity of the language. American celebrities are in all the French/German mags and papers and the Germans are very fond of Heidi Plum who is an international super-model. Grapeshot had to admit she wasn't exactly au courant on super-models.
In Berlin, we had lunch with Significant Other's neice, who trains flight attendants for an airline that flies mostly within Germany. She did the family proud with a pink shrug over a white shirt untucked comme il faut. Rolled-up jeans, brown boots and a pink coat and scarf. We were the best dressed trio in the Silver room of the KaDeWe, because her flawless attire more than compensated for any fashion flaws that S.O. and Grapeshot may have been guilty of.
The food halls of the KaDeWe, Berlin's premier dept. store rival Harrods in London. This is no small feat. Every delicacy that one might eat is there, in triplicate or more. It's totally over-whelming, to see maybe thousands of cheeses and every kind of ham in the universe, so we only bought tea and a Stollen, a Christmas bread with nuts and raisins.
One evening we trekked in the cold rain thru Alexanderplatz, the former East German show place. Found a convival student hangout in the Nikolai Viertel where the food was cheap and plentiful and the good beer flowed in generous glasses. The trees in the squares contained thousands of crows, roosting in the bare branches. It was unbelievable. I don't know if they were preparing to migrate, or just hanging out, but they were a strange black presence lurking in the Linden trees.
The Berlin subway system is easy to navigate, but the first day we couldn't figure out how to buy the tourist passes, so we bought day passes. Unfortunately, Grapeshot pushed the wrong button and bought a somewhat cheaper pass for two zones, the wrong two zones. The subway police came along checking for tickets, and yikes, worst nightmare, we were asked to leave the train. No amount of explaining convinced the overly-diligent young man that this had been an honest mistake and that Significant Other can actually bought a too expensive pass which sort of evened things out and we were fined 40 Euros on the spot. For a 10 cent mistake. Give me a break.
I had forgotten how the cobblestones do a number on one's feet and shoes, and was foot-weary by the end of each day. On Sunday morning (after following the cop's instructions on how to buy the tourist pass from the kiosk--buried three levels down) we hied ourselves to Friedrichstrasse to see what had changed since 1992. Lots! There is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, but the BIG THING was Starbucks. The line must have had 50 people. Dunkin' Donuts had interesting flavors such as plum butter filling, but no pumpkin as that is an ingredient only found in soup in these parts.
Vive la difference!
And more anon!
In Berlin, we had lunch with Significant Other's neice, who trains flight attendants for an airline that flies mostly within Germany. She did the family proud with a pink shrug over a white shirt untucked comme il faut. Rolled-up jeans, brown boots and a pink coat and scarf. We were the best dressed trio in the Silver room of the KaDeWe, because her flawless attire more than compensated for any fashion flaws that S.O. and Grapeshot may have been guilty of.
The food halls of the KaDeWe, Berlin's premier dept. store rival Harrods in London. This is no small feat. Every delicacy that one might eat is there, in triplicate or more. It's totally over-whelming, to see maybe thousands of cheeses and every kind of ham in the universe, so we only bought tea and a Stollen, a Christmas bread with nuts and raisins.
One evening we trekked in the cold rain thru Alexanderplatz, the former East German show place. Found a convival student hangout in the Nikolai Viertel where the food was cheap and plentiful and the good beer flowed in generous glasses. The trees in the squares contained thousands of crows, roosting in the bare branches. It was unbelievable. I don't know if they were preparing to migrate, or just hanging out, but they were a strange black presence lurking in the Linden trees.
The Berlin subway system is easy to navigate, but the first day we couldn't figure out how to buy the tourist passes, so we bought day passes. Unfortunately, Grapeshot pushed the wrong button and bought a somewhat cheaper pass for two zones, the wrong two zones. The subway police came along checking for tickets, and yikes, worst nightmare, we were asked to leave the train. No amount of explaining convinced the overly-diligent young man that this had been an honest mistake and that Significant Other can actually bought a too expensive pass which sort of evened things out and we were fined 40 Euros on the spot. For a 10 cent mistake. Give me a break.
I had forgotten how the cobblestones do a number on one's feet and shoes, and was foot-weary by the end of each day. On Sunday morning (after following the cop's instructions on how to buy the tourist pass from the kiosk--buried three levels down) we hied ourselves to Friedrichstrasse to see what had changed since 1992. Lots! There is a Dunkin Donuts on every corner, but the BIG THING was Starbucks. The line must have had 50 people. Dunkin' Donuts had interesting flavors such as plum butter filling, but no pumpkin as that is an ingredient only found in soup in these parts.
Vive la difference!
And more anon!
European Diary - 1
11/16/05 Bad Rothenfelde, Germany, a tiny spa in North Germany. The health part of the spa is thorn bushes coated with salt. One walks by the huge wooden edifice that contains the ancient salt-encrusted business and breathes the air. Inhale. Exhale. And so forth.
This part of the world has not yet had a frost and the roses still bloom, some trees have leaves, the bright red holly berries give a foretaste of Christmas, and the heather is rampant.
How did the train conductor know we spoke English? It couldn't be the jeans because everyone wears jeans in Germany. He couldn't see our shoes, usually a dead giveaway. True, I had an English brand coat on, but not so common as to be immediately recognizable. First big mystery.
The house of ill repute by the railroad tracks running into Dusseldorf is still there, still with a number by each window and (usually) with a woman in underwear or lingerie lingering in the window. This place has been there forever, and I wonder if these are the daughters of the original women I saw.
One of my least favorite words, "wellness" is uber alles. Yuck! Pizza, the generic kind, is also uber alles. I see hordes of Americanos wandering around twenty years ago and asking, "where's the pizza?" and lo, there is pizza, but of course it is not quite like ours because they can't bear to eat it in a two-fisted manner, but it has to be cut into pieces or eaten out of a paper container so one's hands don't actually touch the food. You will never get spare ribs and corn on the cob in Europe.
Pink is the big color. Damn! And I left a new pink sweater sitting in the drawer, thinking it will get dirty right away.
The bare poplars look like fish skeletons. They are the first thing I see when we come down out of the clouds that covered the Atlantic all the way from Logan. So absolutely right.
Now Grapeshot is off to the grocery to replentish the larder which is exceedingly bare, and suffering a bit of turkey, stuffing, cranberry, mashed potato and real-gravy-with-no-stupid-cornstarch- shortcuts deprivation. Much of Europe is still a meat and potatoes and sauce kind of place where the the calories are served up with pride and there aren't any of those funny little red hearts on the menu to direct one to the most tasteless fare.
More anon.
This part of the world has not yet had a frost and the roses still bloom, some trees have leaves, the bright red holly berries give a foretaste of Christmas, and the heather is rampant.
How did the train conductor know we spoke English? It couldn't be the jeans because everyone wears jeans in Germany. He couldn't see our shoes, usually a dead giveaway. True, I had an English brand coat on, but not so common as to be immediately recognizable. First big mystery.
The house of ill repute by the railroad tracks running into Dusseldorf is still there, still with a number by each window and (usually) with a woman in underwear or lingerie lingering in the window. This place has been there forever, and I wonder if these are the daughters of the original women I saw.
One of my least favorite words, "wellness" is uber alles. Yuck! Pizza, the generic kind, is also uber alles. I see hordes of Americanos wandering around twenty years ago and asking, "where's the pizza?" and lo, there is pizza, but of course it is not quite like ours because they can't bear to eat it in a two-fisted manner, but it has to be cut into pieces or eaten out of a paper container so one's hands don't actually touch the food. You will never get spare ribs and corn on the cob in Europe.
Pink is the big color. Damn! And I left a new pink sweater sitting in the drawer, thinking it will get dirty right away.
The bare poplars look like fish skeletons. They are the first thing I see when we come down out of the clouds that covered the Atlantic all the way from Logan. So absolutely right.
Now Grapeshot is off to the grocery to replentish the larder which is exceedingly bare, and suffering a bit of turkey, stuffing, cranberry, mashed potato and real-gravy-with-no-stupid-cornstarch- shortcuts deprivation. Much of Europe is still a meat and potatoes and sauce kind of place where the the calories are served up with pride and there aren't any of those funny little red hearts on the menu to direct one to the most tasteless fare.
More anon.
Monday, November 14, 2005
The Crow and the Sparrows
As Thanksgiving draws near, the New England trees shed leaves in great heaps and piles, and the bare branches reveal interesting tableaux. This morning, a crow flew into a tree and picked his spot. A moment later, about fifty sparrows landed all over the rest of the branches. The crow flexed his wings and cawed mightily. (I had to turn off the radio and open the car window to determine that this was happening). The sparrows perched in a noisy, cheeping mass, unconcerned with the crow. Is there a moral here? I think so.
Grapeshot
Grapeshot
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Writers on Writing
Grapeshot has not been idly sitting in front of the fire drinking rum toddies, although she would like to. This weekend was the big writer's conference and the only thing better than writing when you are on a roll is to talk about writing with other writers. Brain candy. Talk to agents who may exhibit a mild enthusiasm for one's ideas. Reconnect with old friends. Drink a few glasses of wine.
We were at a hotel with suave debonair hockey boys (a college team) and very young cheerleaders (maybe high school or even junior high). The hockey boys were dark, handsome young men sprawled on sofas in sport coats and ties looking bored out of their minds talking on cell phones or just zoning out oblivious to 200 middle aged writers in their midst. If onlyI had walked by with a wide angle camera to catch them posed just as they were, each one set apart from the rest, god what a picture that would have been.
Fortunately for all, the very young cheerleaders arrived after the hockey boys left. Different schools, different cultures, different times, different mores.
In the mail when I got home a nice (sometimes they actually are nice) letter from an agent rejecting World of Mirrors. Nobody is connecting with this book, which is the one I'm going to chop 15,000 words out of, take out of the series, make darker, sexier, with even more betrayal and violence and market it as a stand-alone thriller and proced with my computer crime series. We'll see; we'll see.
I had a character named Earl that was trailer park trash before the TV series. This business of seeing my ideas in the paper and on TV is freaking me out.
My short story is finished (almost) rather a long one for me at 5500 words in which I was channelling the voices of my father and his brothers long ago in North Georgia and this experience was a little weird but not unpleasant and just when I thought the story was finished. along came a final o-henryish twist that I like a lot. Just one more paragraph, actually.
Sometimes at a writing conference, the light bulb comes on in your head with a fantastic flash and a glare and even what seems (at least for the moment) like brilliance, when someone is talking about something else entirely, and that's just the way it is.
I am always awed by writers, some of the most intelligent people you will ever meet, not necessarily exhibiting their erudition but it's there along with the unusual backgrounds and throw in imagination and hard work (can't ignore that) all of which combines to create books that we want to read.
If you want to take a look at an edit of the prologue of the novel I can't sell, hie yourself over to Flogging the Quill. http://www.floggingthequill.com/ The editing is first-rate.
I'm taking a bit of vacation and won't be updating the blog until Thanksgiving weekend, at which time I will have tales, because as Goethe said, "who takes a trip can tell a tale," and that is still true.
Aloha, for sure.
Grapeshot
We were at a hotel with suave debonair hockey boys (a college team) and very young cheerleaders (maybe high school or even junior high). The hockey boys were dark, handsome young men sprawled on sofas in sport coats and ties looking bored out of their minds talking on cell phones or just zoning out oblivious to 200 middle aged writers in their midst. If onlyI had walked by with a wide angle camera to catch them posed just as they were, each one set apart from the rest, god what a picture that would have been.
Fortunately for all, the very young cheerleaders arrived after the hockey boys left. Different schools, different cultures, different times, different mores.
In the mail when I got home a nice (sometimes they actually are nice) letter from an agent rejecting World of Mirrors. Nobody is connecting with this book, which is the one I'm going to chop 15,000 words out of, take out of the series, make darker, sexier, with even more betrayal and violence and market it as a stand-alone thriller and proced with my computer crime series. We'll see; we'll see.
I had a character named Earl that was trailer park trash before the TV series. This business of seeing my ideas in the paper and on TV is freaking me out.
My short story is finished (almost) rather a long one for me at 5500 words in which I was channelling the voices of my father and his brothers long ago in North Georgia and this experience was a little weird but not unpleasant and just when I thought the story was finished. along came a final o-henryish twist that I like a lot. Just one more paragraph, actually.
Sometimes at a writing conference, the light bulb comes on in your head with a fantastic flash and a glare and even what seems (at least for the moment) like brilliance, when someone is talking about something else entirely, and that's just the way it is.
I am always awed by writers, some of the most intelligent people you will ever meet, not necessarily exhibiting their erudition but it's there along with the unusual backgrounds and throw in imagination and hard work (can't ignore that) all of which combines to create books that we want to read.
If you want to take a look at an edit of the prologue of the novel I can't sell, hie yourself over to Flogging the Quill. http://www.floggingthequill.com/ The editing is first-rate.
I'm taking a bit of vacation and won't be updating the blog until Thanksgiving weekend, at which time I will have tales, because as Goethe said, "who takes a trip can tell a tale," and that is still true.
Aloha, for sure.
Grapeshot
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Truth is always stranger that you know what
Stranger than fiction:
In my current WIP, tentatively titled Festival Madness, I have a character flying around in an ultra light trike with the wing painted like a monarch butterfly. These scenes take place at the Burning Man festival, and so the butterfly seemed just believable. This morning, still abed from a late (but sober) evening, Significant Other brings the NY Times to me and says something to the effect that part of my book has hit the news. This would have been about the last plot point I’d ever guess. And everything will stay in the book like it was. Damn! Thought I was being so original. On the front page is a photo and article about an ultra light trike painted like a monarch you know what.
Short story finally finished. I will submit it to the MWA anthology. Me and all the big guns of the mystery writing world. I like the story, in which I seem to be channeling my father’s voice much of the time. The most difficult part was where I had to figure out how to get animals to speak in a way that wouldn’t go off into magical realism. My secret, so far. Not sure if I'll leave it in. Maybe I will write a children’s story using the same theme. Ah, the things one can do.
The house we sold two and a half years ago is on the market for 250,000 more than our price. The people put in a new kitchen, opened up the downstairs and gussied things up. Now the couple is splitting and I feel so sorry for their two little kids. When I was small, and almost all marriages stayed intact, I remember that mention of the word “divorce” made me sick to my stomach. And my folks never came close to splitting. I also remember in Bible School (which always took place the week after regular school was out) it suddenly dawned on me about the crucifixion and what this actually was and also how we were all doing to die, and this evoked the same emotion as the word “divorce.” I think the female half of the couple who bought our place, an alpha female of the first order should have stayed in the work force. Not everyone belongs home with the kids.
Speaking of alpha females, we fed the cows and old mama still doesn’t like anyone to get the treats but her. She knows how to use those horns, even on the brown baby who is now also interested in the handouts. The little herd has new member, a young bull with good manners and a sweet face. He came to the fence with the others. Did they tell him? I am still learning cow culture. The whole wheat bread was a big hit. Scallion tops are the last to be eaten, but eaten they are. Highland Scottish cattle are cool.
Drama at the bus stop.
Every morning I drive by some kids waiting for the school bus, six in all. Three are junior high girls, all the same height. Two of them exclude the third, a pretty girl who is standing there by herself, sucking it up, so to speak. A young boy is also alone, ignored by two other boys. The two “exclusive” girls are always moving about, doing cheer leading stuff or some such activities. I want to yell out the car window, “in ten years you won’t even remember this!” but of course, I don’t.
My writing group has been back and forth over the big murder scene in Festival Madness. Question for the 3 people who read this blog. What would fresh blood feel like if you stepped in it on a sidewalk on a cool night? If you didn’t know it was blood, what would you think you had stepped in? This is a pop quiz.
Back to work. Boring…..
Oh yeah, two more rejections for Promiscuous Mode yesterday. I am starting to get a few sort of personal letters. Is this a good sign? The rejections are getting better? Suck it up a little less?
Phooey.
Grapeshot
In my current WIP, tentatively titled Festival Madness, I have a character flying around in an ultra light trike with the wing painted like a monarch butterfly. These scenes take place at the Burning Man festival, and so the butterfly seemed just believable. This morning, still abed from a late (but sober) evening, Significant Other brings the NY Times to me and says something to the effect that part of my book has hit the news. This would have been about the last plot point I’d ever guess. And everything will stay in the book like it was. Damn! Thought I was being so original. On the front page is a photo and article about an ultra light trike painted like a monarch you know what.
Short story finally finished. I will submit it to the MWA anthology. Me and all the big guns of the mystery writing world. I like the story, in which I seem to be channeling my father’s voice much of the time. The most difficult part was where I had to figure out how to get animals to speak in a way that wouldn’t go off into magical realism. My secret, so far. Not sure if I'll leave it in. Maybe I will write a children’s story using the same theme. Ah, the things one can do.
The house we sold two and a half years ago is on the market for 250,000 more than our price. The people put in a new kitchen, opened up the downstairs and gussied things up. Now the couple is splitting and I feel so sorry for their two little kids. When I was small, and almost all marriages stayed intact, I remember that mention of the word “divorce” made me sick to my stomach. And my folks never came close to splitting. I also remember in Bible School (which always took place the week after regular school was out) it suddenly dawned on me about the crucifixion and what this actually was and also how we were all doing to die, and this evoked the same emotion as the word “divorce.” I think the female half of the couple who bought our place, an alpha female of the first order should have stayed in the work force. Not everyone belongs home with the kids.
Speaking of alpha females, we fed the cows and old mama still doesn’t like anyone to get the treats but her. She knows how to use those horns, even on the brown baby who is now also interested in the handouts. The little herd has new member, a young bull with good manners and a sweet face. He came to the fence with the others. Did they tell him? I am still learning cow culture. The whole wheat bread was a big hit. Scallion tops are the last to be eaten, but eaten they are. Highland Scottish cattle are cool.
Drama at the bus stop.
Every morning I drive by some kids waiting for the school bus, six in all. Three are junior high girls, all the same height. Two of them exclude the third, a pretty girl who is standing there by herself, sucking it up, so to speak. A young boy is also alone, ignored by two other boys. The two “exclusive” girls are always moving about, doing cheer leading stuff or some such activities. I want to yell out the car window, “in ten years you won’t even remember this!” but of course, I don’t.
My writing group has been back and forth over the big murder scene in Festival Madness. Question for the 3 people who read this blog. What would fresh blood feel like if you stepped in it on a sidewalk on a cool night? If you didn’t know it was blood, what would you think you had stepped in? This is a pop quiz.
Back to work. Boring…..
Oh yeah, two more rejections for Promiscuous Mode yesterday. I am starting to get a few sort of personal letters. Is this a good sign? The rejections are getting better? Suck it up a little less?
Phooey.
Grapeshot
Thursday, November 03, 2005
A Wilma Survivor Reports In
Hi all,
Thank you for writing and phoning, etc. As some of you guessed, our area lost power during the storm, although my phone never quit (I have an old princess phone with a cord--these work when the walk-around phones don't). Therefore, I lost use of the PC, not to mention the lights, TV, refrigerator, A/C, pencil sharpener (you forget what's run by electricity till you don't have it), and so on.
On that Monday, the last I'd heard before the power went, was that Wilma was over Naples, and might go to the Keys or up to Jupiter. Phooey said I--Naples is directly across Alligator Alley from Plantation--that storm is coming my way.
And it did.
By 10 am where I could see out, it was impressively powerful. Our gorgeous trees were already denuded of leaves, and had begun to break. From my garage window I watched a huge 10" diameter branch crack off the tree over my front walk ( I could see itwas going the other way, into the road). But we weren't supposed to get the full force till noon. I began to be alarmed that what I saw would get worse, so I called my son in LA and asked him to go on the web and find out where the eye was.
Guess what--the edge of the eye was passing over my house!
That was good news, because soon after, it did begin to quiet down, and by 2 we could go outside, avoiding the few broken tree limbs that were still overhead. If you haven't seen my place, we had beautiful shady tree cover, some palms, but many old oaks. Now we still have palms, but the oaks look like war refugees. Very sad. I hope they will manage to prune and save many of them.
For old Fla. hands, this was the worst storm in Broward county in 50years, since the 1947-49 storms. Remember those, with all the flooding,Griffin and Stirling roads under water for weeks, and having to get all those shots?
Wilma carried very little water, and I'm way too far inland for ocean flooding. It went by fast, but was strong enough to take shingles and tiles off many roofs (but not ours). The Hammerstein house in Hollywood, home of the Historical Society, was undamaged, but one ofHam Hammerstein's 2 prize mango trees went down. I haven't been to Hollywood yet, so can't report further.
The storm was gone, sun came out, temperature was cool, and then the problems began. During the day, the food gradually spoiled. The hot water tank cooled off. And they told us not to drink water or get it on our faces. By 7 pm, total dark. No house or street lights, anywhere. How did people manage back in the days of candles, especially in dark countries like Norway? No baths, can't wash hair, can't drive much because no gas can be pumped, the streets are covered with debris and stop lights don't work.
No food.
I did have plenty of bottled water, and food for my cats, but for me cold canned food isn't enough after 5 days. When literally all my neighbors had left, some by plane, and I spent a very dark night alone, I'd had it. My vet was operative, and said they could board the cats, and I had a full tank of gas, so I packed up and left, too.
Finally at Fort Pierce I found lights and restaurants. Can't describe how delicious a cup of hot soup and another of coffee were. I'd decided to try Sebring as less likely to be crowded, and I knew it from the track(international car race, 12 hours of Sebring). I found a nice hotel on a lake where they apologized that they had only one room left, "on the lakeside." (This was bad?) Snapped it up, then discovered that the neighboring huge 1920s hotel currently being renovated was Harder Hall.This will be meaningful only to G, I think. We spent a week or 2 there when we were about 15 in a summer youth camp!
Such a relief to have lights! hot water! bath! food! And I wasn't the only Broward county refugee either, as it turned out, though I didn'tknow any of the others. Finally my Plantation neighbors called to say we had power again (they were staying with his parents who live in Weston and never lost power), so I came back last night.
Driving back I came around Lake Okeechobee and bumbled into Pahokee(hadn't planned to exactly), which was severely damaged. Streets still closed, no power, houses with no roofs, or just facades and floors, aluminum buildings just twisted rubble, a real mess, and a long line of people waiting to get into a big tent, probably FEMA.
So we were lucky here in Plantation. Now I have to go restock my grocery larder.
Thank you for writing and phoning, etc. As some of you guessed, our area lost power during the storm, although my phone never quit (I have an old princess phone with a cord--these work when the walk-around phones don't). Therefore, I lost use of the PC, not to mention the lights, TV, refrigerator, A/C, pencil sharpener (you forget what's run by electricity till you don't have it), and so on.
On that Monday, the last I'd heard before the power went, was that Wilma was over Naples, and might go to the Keys or up to Jupiter. Phooey said I--Naples is directly across Alligator Alley from Plantation--that storm is coming my way.
And it did.
By 10 am where I could see out, it was impressively powerful. Our gorgeous trees were already denuded of leaves, and had begun to break. From my garage window I watched a huge 10" diameter branch crack off the tree over my front walk ( I could see itwas going the other way, into the road). But we weren't supposed to get the full force till noon. I began to be alarmed that what I saw would get worse, so I called my son in LA and asked him to go on the web and find out where the eye was.
Guess what--the edge of the eye was passing over my house!
That was good news, because soon after, it did begin to quiet down, and by 2 we could go outside, avoiding the few broken tree limbs that were still overhead. If you haven't seen my place, we had beautiful shady tree cover, some palms, but many old oaks. Now we still have palms, but the oaks look like war refugees. Very sad. I hope they will manage to prune and save many of them.
For old Fla. hands, this was the worst storm in Broward county in 50years, since the 1947-49 storms. Remember those, with all the flooding,Griffin and Stirling roads under water for weeks, and having to get all those shots?
Wilma carried very little water, and I'm way too far inland for ocean flooding. It went by fast, but was strong enough to take shingles and tiles off many roofs (but not ours). The Hammerstein house in Hollywood, home of the Historical Society, was undamaged, but one ofHam Hammerstein's 2 prize mango trees went down. I haven't been to Hollywood yet, so can't report further.
The storm was gone, sun came out, temperature was cool, and then the problems began. During the day, the food gradually spoiled. The hot water tank cooled off. And they told us not to drink water or get it on our faces. By 7 pm, total dark. No house or street lights, anywhere. How did people manage back in the days of candles, especially in dark countries like Norway? No baths, can't wash hair, can't drive much because no gas can be pumped, the streets are covered with debris and stop lights don't work.
No food.
I did have plenty of bottled water, and food for my cats, but for me cold canned food isn't enough after 5 days. When literally all my neighbors had left, some by plane, and I spent a very dark night alone, I'd had it. My vet was operative, and said they could board the cats, and I had a full tank of gas, so I packed up and left, too.
Finally at Fort Pierce I found lights and restaurants. Can't describe how delicious a cup of hot soup and another of coffee were. I'd decided to try Sebring as less likely to be crowded, and I knew it from the track(international car race, 12 hours of Sebring). I found a nice hotel on a lake where they apologized that they had only one room left, "on the lakeside." (This was bad?) Snapped it up, then discovered that the neighboring huge 1920s hotel currently being renovated was Harder Hall.This will be meaningful only to G, I think. We spent a week or 2 there when we were about 15 in a summer youth camp!
Such a relief to have lights! hot water! bath! food! And I wasn't the only Broward county refugee either, as it turned out, though I didn'tknow any of the others. Finally my Plantation neighbors called to say we had power again (they were staying with his parents who live in Weston and never lost power), so I came back last night.
Driving back I came around Lake Okeechobee and bumbled into Pahokee(hadn't planned to exactly), which was severely damaged. Streets still closed, no power, houses with no roofs, or just facades and floors, aluminum buildings just twisted rubble, a real mess, and a long line of people waiting to get into a big tent, probably FEMA.
So we were lucky here in Plantation. Now I have to go restock my grocery larder.
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