Nora the Cat Tickles the Ivories

Kinda makes you wonder about reincarnation. I have a THING for gray cats. Nora is adorable as well as talented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ860P4iTaM

My cats eat, drink, watch birds, sleep, do catnip,bathe,meow and then start all over again. Nobody has ever indicated interest in a musical instrument, but we have noticed that sometimes they bathe in time to classical music. A former cat once washed herself throughout an entire symphony and never missed a beat.

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What's New? Bagel Bread and Lounge Socks

Sleep/Lounge socks. I guess they're new. Bought some at the Ocean State Job Lot. They would look a lot better on taut ankles, and thin tanned young legs. Mine look sort of shlumpish on winter-white average legs. Winter white is not always good.

Yesterday, I dropped dead in my tracks to the cheese department at Shaw's to gape at the latest weirdness: Bagel Bread. It was kind of square, and the slices (?) looked thick. Came in bunch of flavors, just like bagels, but no blueberry/cinnamon.

I am a purist, always bordering on horrified by the gimmickry the admen come up with. The only good bagels come from New York, the best from a shop off Northern Blvd. en route to Long Island. Second best are in Stockbridge, MA. Most of the bagels one encounters are pap, and taste accordingly. And now, bread bagels. Phooey.

People, do not panic due to yesterday's market tumble. What goes down, etc., We've had a couple of good years. So Suck it Up and bide your time.

Disgusted but not panicky,


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The Workbook is Done!

The Tax Workbook is done. Last night's crisis resolved itself. I just hate that it takes from 6 - 10 hours of sturm and drang to put this stuff together. We don't have anything that complicated, either.

Now I have to write or put together a speech on the fauna (critters) in the neck of the woods where we live. Amazing how many there are. Most of them cute. Hey, frogs are cute. They can be princes.

Some poor writer wrote to Ms. Snark and received 78 comments, most of them mean. Makes you want to head for the hills.

Move recommended movies: The Children of Men. Didn't win any Ocsars, but should have. A bleak view of the future. But how could it be otherwise?

Except for the Academy Awards (sometimes a snooze) we haven't been able to find anything to watch on television. Even the food channel had weird tropical fruit sculptures that didn't inspire. Usually end up back on public television. I don't know how there can be so many channels of crap. A "vast wasteland" indeed, a freaking desert.

Actually, deserts are beautiful, at least the Black Rock and the Sonoran. All the deserts I have familiarity with. Ho hum. Back to the critters and my speech. Hope not to drone on. Like here.

Onward,

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The Tax Man Cometh

Arrrrgh! We've been doing the accountant's tax workbook for the last two days. Quite frankly, I think I would rather run around our neighborhood naked and barefoot in the snow being flogged by sumerian shepherds. It's that bad. No, it's worse. We always a) misplace some important docs, b) discover last year's dummheit this year, c) have hysterics, d) cry and e) soldier on. God, it's awful and every year it seems to get worse. When I calculated the paltry amount I made as a writer, I really wanted to cry and tear my hair and rend my garments. Tastefully, of course.

Snow covers the ground. The plowers managed to break just about every marker on the property, including the nice one we bought at the Ocean State Job Lot. It was flexible, with a nice red reflector on it, and wouldn't kill you if you tripped over it, which was was happened with the BIG UGLY STAKE last year.

So I now have a synopsis that fits on two pages double spaced. I guess it describes my book. It leaves out so much that the novel (World of Mirrors) seems eviscerated, without the cool characters and subplots and all the neat stuff. But it has a beginning, a middle, an end, and two plot points plus the "big gloom." So there.

I made spaghetti and meatballs tonight, and after the tax debacle, we consoled ourselves with chocolate brownies. Tomorrow I have to write a speech. A view from the slough. Four seasons of fauna . Does that sound O.K. ? Think it will be something I can deliver to the third grade as well as a room full of adults, but who cares?

I thought a lot about my next short story and am feeling a little weird writing it from a cat's point of view, but it seems right. Maybe it will be a children's story. I don't know. After the tax workbook, I only know my social security number and that I am unsuited for financial stuff.

Onward,

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More about Meg Gardiner

Savoring the frenzy from afar.

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/publishing/proper_care_and_marketing_of_meg_gardiner_53701.asp

The bread tasted lip-smacking, esp. for a rank beginner's loaf. We'll see what happens next. Bean soup had an intereting complex flavor that intrigued enough to insist on seconds. Tonight I made my 200+ year old corn bread recipe to eat with it. No flour, no sugar. Stone ground corn meal. Not for wimps or New Englanders who insist theirs be on the sweet side of sugar.

Run, don't walk to see the German film, Lives of Others. Truly excellent. And historically true, as to the Stasi hounding the artists. Lots of nice touches. It will break your heart, too.

Onward, film-wise, to England and Clive Owen and Julianna Moore and Children of Men. I don't think we can make all the nominees before the awards. Most of them are "downers," too, except for Little Miss Sunshine. With a name like that, it would have to end well.

Still working on the synopsis of World of Mirrors, which by the way takes place just after the Lives of Others. I might hope to ride in on the coatails, but I don't, actually. The synopsis is not getting any easier. Very very hard to squash 500 pages into 2. Yikes!

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A Dream Come True

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/buzzpr/gardiner_enjoying_her_unexpected_harvest_53642.asp

Stephen King discovered a thriller writer and recommended her. What a lucky lady, to have found a champion. Her books are only published in England, not here. One can always hope.

This and that day:

Last night I dreamed about baking bread so today I got up and made some. Tried the super-simple recipe for food processor bread. Takes about 10 minutes until you have dough, and another 45-60 minutes of rising. Then you bake. I made rolls (small) and a loaf. Tasted pretty good for lunch.

I made a pot of black bean soup, which we'll eat the bread with tonight and a small salad and some brownies. Sounds so good I want to race up to the kitchen and start eating. Bad!

This synopsis business I'm working on now ain't easy. A lot of us are having problems, not just me. Can't even imagine what I'll end up with. A good synopsis? Maybe so.

We have the cutest little red squirrel that is raiding the bird feeder, so small he climbs right into it. Thisbe flattens herself on the floor and stares at him.

I fed the cows today. They were in the corral and all of them mooed and bleated when we pulled up. They ate tons of grapefruit rinds and some stale wheat thins. The babies are all shaggy now with winter coats. No one seems to have busted a leg on the treacherous ice.

If you haven't seen "Letters from Iwo Jima," do go. As a kid I remember yelling "Bombs away over Tokyo" as I jumped out of a swing. We all did. Long after the war. It was so strange to be feeling such sympathy for the Japanese soldiers. Life is strange.

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Blah, Blah, Blah

I have the writing blahs. Maybe because it's freaking February. Maybe because I'm writing a synopsis and no fiction. Feel like I would have trouble putting a decent sentence together, never mind a scene or a whole plot.

We're planning a May trip to Southern CA to research the 1928 California suspense book (so far nomless) and I am worried that I can't come up with a plot or the writing will be stale as last week's bagels. Worry worry worry.

I am re-reading Proust and realizing how good he is, how very very good and that no matter what I can never write 1/100 as well as Proust.

Feel like a drudge, a drone, a dromedary kind of beast of burden. Someone without a thread of scintillation. Boring. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Isn't this where we came in? Maybe it's winter.

The birds are pairing up. Today it was the house finches. Yesterday it was the wrens. Got to get them birdhouses up in the woods. So spring must be somewhere around the corner. Ice is melting. Maybe I need to get seriously drunk.
Or stop wallowing in self-pity.

Right now I'm making marble brownies, which didn't want to swirl, no way, no how.

Lhude sing cuckoo! Just took the brownies (cream cheese/dark chocolate swirl) out of the oven and they look, well, delicious.

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Travel is Broadening

Usually, travel is broadening because you eat so much that you are, well, broadened.

We saw several signs for Trucker Spas with Asian massage and stuff like that. When I tried Googling to find out what it was all about all I got was porn sites, so that is somewhat edifying. The Bible Belt is pretty schizoid with Jesus billboards cheek by jowl with billboards advertising sex shops and these weird spas. I don't think the dusty, sweaty driver gets a bubble bath, unless it's a bubble bath and . . . Who knew?

On the way home, we bypassed Myrtle Beach and headed toward Lumberton with 1800 cheap motel rooms, except there was a rescue squad / paramedic conference in town, and ALL the rooms were booked. So we made it to Fayetteville, almost before dark which was when the car started to sound really sick. I've already mentioned the nice ladies at the motel who were so helpful. We slept cheap and ate cheap most of the trip, having a breakfast of a banana and a smoothie and that actually works pretty well. Our cooler replete with lunch and treats.

Interesting discovery. We were not the only ones eating on the cheap. When we pulled into an Interstate gas and eat stop, the folks in the pickup on one side and the Jeep Cherokee on the other were having lunch from the picnic hamper, so to speak. We like having fruit and veggies as well as protein and carbs, and the price is right. My favorite lunch is cold fried chicken, which we didn't have, but the roast beef sandwich from Roche Bros. was large enough to make two lunches. How else could you eat grapes and carrot sticks on the road? We did buy coffee, but the Starbucks frappucino came from home, too. On the way home, we had barbecue and hush puppies and goodbye diet!

The marble cake, and the stuffed cabbage for S.O.'s birthday were fantastic. The next night we had yet more company, and I made Chuck Williams pot roast (Chuck of Williams and Sonoma.) The recipe was in their catalog and it is The World's Best Pot Roast Recipe. It was so good that five of us ate a four pound roast. I made a huge platter of roast veggies (carrots, onions, tiny potatoes, parsnips and tomatoes, a little celery, too). Yum! I'll google around and see if I can find it. The secret is two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and a few cloves and some fresh thyme. I used the thyme in the veggies, too.

So far our only concession to the Chinese New Year is some almond cookies from an ancient Betty Crocker cook book.

Onward,

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On the Mend

Annie is recovering nicely--good appetite, chases Thisbe, sharpens claws, jumps on tables and chairs. Went back to the vet this morning. We couldn't get her in the carrier and then we couldn't get her out. Healthy cat behavior. Vet said her heart and lungs sounds good, temperature normal, and her color is good. What? What does it mean that the cat's color is good? You look at the cats gums. Should be pink. Now you learned something.

A publisher really really liked Promiscuous Mode but he already has 3 Wisconsin books. Sometimes the only luck is bad, but I tell myself that if one likes it another will too. After all, two agents have also loved it. I'm in the middle of the online synopsis class and learning a lot. I was doing it all wrong, which may account for why neither of the books has sold. Duh!

Maybe 2007 will be the year, seven being a lucky number and me continuing to write and grow and figure stuff out. Mi madre said, "you always have to learn things the hard way." There's an easy way? Really? How about that!

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Sad Cat Blog

Yesterday our sweet, loving Annie had a seizure and had to be rushed to the vet. Her heart is enlarged and she has fluid in her lungs and around the heart. She is home now, on medication and rather lethargic, but rest is good.

Her housemate, Thisbe, was totally freaked out by the event and hid under the bed the rest of the day. Don't you wish you could do that sometimes?
In the evening Thisbe came downstaris and rubbed noses with Annie. She seemed to be looking for assurance that everything will be all right.

Annie has a good appetite and has been drinking plenty of water. She washed her paws and sharpened her claws and chased Thisbe back upstairs this morning, so we are hoping she is on the mend. We go back to the vet on Friday. Giving cats pills is no fun, but we managed this morning. We pumped insulin into Thisbe for a month, so what are a few pills?

I baked a German Marmorkuchen (marble cake) for Significant Other's birthday tomorrow. It's a BIG one. We are having stuffed cabbage (krautwickel) which is his favorite dinner. A really cheap date, yes, with ground beef and cabbage. All the good stuff isn't caviar and fois gras. The cake, by the way, looks magnificent. I'm thinking we may not be able to wait until tomorrow. But then, who will know?

Think good thoughts for Annie.

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Road Kill

On a trip south in the summer, I was appalled at the number of ground hogs that had been hit by cars. This trip, we saw a) a large dog b) a deer and c) a wolf-- all dead by the side of the road. I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted the wolf. Came home and looked it up on the web and it was indeed a grey wolf, a magnificent creature. Sad.

On St. Simon's Island, at Fort Frederika, a national monument, we spotted a smallish black and white cat observing us from the trunk of a huge fallen live oak tree. The ranger said the cat had been caught the previous week and taken to be neutered and receive his shots. No wonder the cat regarded us with suspicious eyes. She said, "he's not very friendly." Well, would you be?

We put seed in the feeders around the house where we were staying. While we were doing this, I had the feeling of being watched. The birds were on the feeders about 40 seconds after we finished. Then the squirrels came to the bottom of the feeders. At one point, I counted 10 squirrels. There were blue jays, cardinals, blackbirds, sparrows, chickadees and titmice, and one flicker.

The chickadee and the titmouse are polite, usually just taking one seed at a time. The others? Oink.

Our birds are enjoying the suet in this cold spell. It packs a lot of calories. Sometimes fat grams are good for you, if you have feathers and it's cold outside. Not my milieu, alas.

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Eating Our Way Across the Country

I always travel with a guide and a few restaurant recommendations. Always pays off. For example, in Richmond, we found a neat little Italian restaurant (with opera as background music) in a strip mall across from the motel. Bella Luna ristorante italiano.

In Charleston, we spent a long leisurely lunch hour in the garden room at 82 Queen in the historic district. The wine, the ambience and the food were all delightful. Significant Other had a fantastic shrimp dish served on grits with cheddar. Pecan Pie. The guidebook mentioned the whipped cream atop the desserts was "real." What are things coming too if one can't expect real whipped cream rather than (yuck, gag) topping? The ubiquity of "topping" makes me question the waitstaffs (hate that term) in excrutiating detail. Usually they return from the kitchen with the information that the topping came out of a bag. I don't order that item.

One night we grilled juicy porkchops with Williams Sonoma rib rub on them. Good good good. I only gained two pounds, which has to come off before mid-week. Off to the gym today.

In the south people are friendly. If you live in New England long enough, you kind of forget how nice it is to speak to others in a warm way. Makes life better. It's always startling when it first happens. We had a bit of car trouble, and the staff at the hotel bend over backward to find us a mechanic on a Saturday morning. Turned out to be nothing, but they were so accommodating. Everyone seems to have time to chat a bit and be helpful. It's so refreshing.

Back in the land of ice and soon to be snow. Good to escape winter, if only for a few days. Can spring be far behind? Probably.

The entire trip, I overdosed on seafood. The crab cakes were splendid. Big hunks of fresh crab and little filler. Shrimp fresh and tasteful. Always well prepared. Flounder! Yum! What can I saw about the flounder. The best was the blackened flounder sandwich at Gnat's Landing on St. Simons. Great for lunch. Again in the garden. Gnat's Landing has the world's best coleslaw. No mayo. Very fresh.

Friendly folks and fresh seafood and a little warmth and sunshine. Life is really good.

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The Kitchens of Bad Cooks

Good cooks' kitchens may be endlessly variable, but bad cooks' kitchens are all alike.

Old spices, and a poor selection there. No sesame oil.

Teflon. Way too much teflon. No cast iron. No oven proof skillets. Certainly no Le Creuset.

Lots of plastic, and an overabundance of things made out of foil.

Bad tools. No garlic press, no wire whips. A godawful collection of wimpy spatulas for teflon. Ick! No cuisinart. No juicer.

Poor cookbook selection running to opening cans of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Double ick! No recipes clipped from serious periodicals.

Lots of barware. Margarita glasses up the yingyang.

Go figure.

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The Best of Youth

The Best of Youth is a miniseries (2005) from Italian TV. It is fantastic. Instead of American Idolatrous and the endless stupid reality shows and the dumb series and all the other undiluted crap that is on, rent this as a movie and prepare to spend two evenings (3 hrs each) totally mesmerized by this series. It is good. And never mind the subtitles. You are a grown up now. It is O.K. to watch foreign movies. They rock.

Those Politically Incorrect Undershirts I Mentioned

This is the kind of shirt that I expected to see in Myrtle Beach, but it's probably a misconception. Doesn't look like anything one could play golf in.

The colloquial name for a shirt like this is a "wife-beater." I think it must come from Stanley Kowalski in Street Car Named Desire.
Not that he was a wife beater. Actually, he was a sister-in-law raper, but that doesn't have the same punchy (Ooops!) sound.

Unless something REALLY interesting happens at the dump, hairdressers, cheese shop or grocery store, I'll be back in touch on the 12th.

Remember: who takes a trip can tell a tale.


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The Best Laid Plans

Actually, I never believed that MICE made many plans. Planning doesn't seem like a mouse activity, which would be more confined to eating, mating, nest building and avoiding the mean hungry cat across the hall.

On the return trip from the Sea Islands, we were going to spend a night in Charleston, out on the town so to speak.
Except the night was Friday and every motel/hotel in town seems to be booked. Must be having a crab convention or something. Many of the lodging places want a two or three night stay on weekends. Many cost $200+.

Onward. we'll have a late lunch in Charleston, then walk around a bit. Drive to Myrtle Beach. I have to confess I always sneered at Myrtle Beach. It seemed like the kind of place where you would find men in too tight tee shirts, shorts and black socks with white sneakers. Even wife beater undershirts. Maybe it's the word "Myrtle."

By the way, Building 19 here in Boston got into hot water for advertising wife-beaters, which is what everyone calls them. Those sleeveless t-shirts with a low neck. Not worn by wall street types. I'm not describing it too well.

Back to Myrtle Beach: there must be 100+ hotels and none of them looked like what we wanted. High rises. I don't like high rises. Wanted more like a beach front bungalow or maybe a couple stories with ocean view. None to be had. We checked out Pawley's Island and a couple other locales and didn't see anything very appealing either. So we're going to wing it, and hope to make a serendipitous discovery. Plenty of good seafood places in Pawley's Island.

I'll let you know what happens. If you read the next post, I'll have a photo of a wife beater. The undershirt not the bad guy. Grapeshot runs a politically correct blog. Sort of.

See ya!

The dreaded synopsis

Today I'm starting a one month course on how to write a synopsis. Well, it's easy to write one, because I must have five or six for World of Mirrors and several for Promiscuous Mode. The problem is, they didn't do anything to aid in selling the books. Miss Snark said that my "hook" was full of blather, and I suspect that my synopses are, too.

I'm going to use Festival Madness, because that is a book which can be fixed, being in first draft mode. Or should I do Promiscuous Mode, or tackle World of Mirrors yet one more time? Decisions. Decisions. I'm actively trying to sell Mirrors and Mode, so by rights they should have wonderful synopses. Presumably if I learn to do one really well, I can do the others. So Mode or Mirrors? The thing about Mirrors is, it's currently in my head right now, since I did the chapter by chapter and have been reading it to my writing group.

It ain't easy to keep 300,000 words in your head, believe me. Not when there's other stuff there too. Guess I'll do Mirrors. What the hell?

Saturday we are leaving for southern climes, the Sea Islands of Georgia where I've never been. Hasn't been exactly balmy down there, but then hasn't been exactly balmy anywhere this week. A few high-fifties low-sixties days will be just fine. That's what we had in Florida last year. Sweat shirts and light jackets will be a wonderful novelty in early Feb. Plan to see some sights in Charleston and D.C. along the way. Maybe eat some good stuff, but not too much.

My web site project is bogged down between HTML, Word and N-Vu. Now I am wishing I had stuck with HTML which I can control, at least, but N-VU might be o.k. when I know what I'm doing. Learning new stuff is fun.

Repeat after me. Learning new stuff is fun.

Tomorrow's post will be the last until February 12th. Zowie!

Bon Voyage,

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