Holy Cow!

And oh my goodness! I've just found out that there is serious interest in making a pilot for a TV series about the adventures of Elizabeth Goodweather.

It would be wonderful, of course, for sales and would help insure that there would be more Elizabeth books. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works out!

I am, a little surprised at some of the ideas the producer has. He wants to appeal to a younger viewing crowd and so is thinking of casting Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock as Elizabeth and Phillip.





Evidently Pam is pretty excited about it and is working on her rural credibility (note blue jeans.)

Kid Rock says that he hopes to bring a younger, hipper sensibility to the role of Phillip (as well as more hair.)













On the other hand, the producer may opt to go with Fabio . . . in both roles.










Happy Day of All Fools!!!

ALL THE CLEANING LADIES

All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies

Now get your ass up
Up in the bed, you just woke up
The housekeeper’s coming today
Gonna give her a check for to clean up your dreck
So you can goof off and play
Now listen here, Jim, if you ask me
The place looks like a dog’s breakfast
You don’t pay her enough to pick up all your stuff
You best be getting busy

If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit
If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit
Don’t expect the cleaning lady to vacuum around it
If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit
Wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh
Wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh

If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit
If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit
Don’t expect the cleaning lady to vacuum around it
If you want it clean you’re gonna have to pick up your shit

All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
All the cleaning ladies
Now pick ya shit up
Wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh
Wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh

[Apologies to Sasha Farce]

Premio Dardos

Thanks to Bo Parker over at Cobbledstones who passed on this award for “recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web."

Oh my goodness. And here I just thought I was writing about chickens and old pictures and books and dogs and stuff -- and taking pictures kind of as if you were walking alongside me and I was saying, 'Oh! Look at that!"

But I'm glad Bo enjoys my blog and my pictures and I'll pass this along to five more bloggers I enjoy.



Laurey Bikes The adventures of Laurey, a popular Asheville chef and caterer, riding her bike cross-country in company with other intrepid women to raise money to aid in the fight against ovarian cancer. I don't know Laurey, though I've enjoyed her food on several occasions and read and enjoyed her culinary memoir Elsie's Biscuits, but I'm vicariously following her adventure.

My Carolina Kitchen -- despite the name, it's quite a lot about food in France -- yum.

Reader Wil -- lovely pictures from Amsterdam and beyond. And Reader Wil's personal story is fascinating.

Urban Amish -- more quilt talk from a quilter and fabric designer

Willow Manor -- an immensely popular and beautiful blog. Everyone would like to go have tea with Willow!



These bloggers are invited to copy the image to their own blogs and pass it on to others. Or not -- as they choose. They may be like me, running out of blogs they follow and running out of time to follow new ones.

Signing off from Bowling Green . . .

HERE BE WISDOM

From Houston Steve’s brother-in-law Roy comes this little gem:

Texas A&M University holds an annual contest for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. The 2007 contest featured the contemporary term Political Correctness.

The winner wrote:

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

I’m surprised I never saw this before, especially given that it involves the use of the word “turd.”

TWENTY-ONE

The Momma d’Elisson at age 18.

It was just such a spring day as today, with the forsythia coming into bloom, when I held her hand for the last time. Today, twenty-one years later, the sight of those yellow blossoms still stirs bittersweet memories - for both me and my brother - of the day our mother began her Forever Sleep.

A week from today, I’ll observe the formalities of her yahrzeit, the anniversary of her passing by the Jewish calendar. I’ll lead morning services, recite the Mourner’s Kaddish, and hold the Torah scroll and chant Eil Maley Rachamim, the solemn prayer for the dead. Afterward, I’ll buy breakfast - the traditional way of thanking the people whose presence permits me to fulfill my obligations.

But the forsythia is in bloom today, and those memories are stirring.

Mom’s last and greatest regret was that she would not see her granddaughters grow to womanhood. She would have been so proud of them Saturday night, poised, graceful, and animated as we enjoyed an evening with friends and family. And I’m sure she would have recognized just a little bit of herself in each one of them.

Sunrise and Morning Light

A hurried post of some pictures from yesterday -- I'm off to Bowling Green to participate in a colloquium at Western Kentucky U. This will be a new experience for me.

I have finished expunging Myrna Louise and her subplot from the Miss Birdie book and, fond though I was of Myrna Lou, dang it, my editor was completely right -- the book is much stronger now. I wrote in more Birdie-specific material and am doing my final re-read -- 174 pages to go before sending the book off to Herself on or before the first.

Herself, of course, may want more changes. But, at this moment, battered and bruised and creeping near the finish line of this particular lap, I'm happy with the book.

Myrna Louise isn't gone forever --I hope she'll be back in a short story or a book of her own.

Assuming my hotel in Bowling Green has WiFi, I'll let you all know how things are going.

Tell me what you want

I'll tell you what I want,
what I really, really want.



I want a purple streak in my hair
and to find my own special sense of flair.

I want a tiny tattoo in a hidden place
and I want to drape a canopy bed in lace.

I want to pack my bags and go live somewhere exotic
to watch sunsets and listen to waterfalls until I'm drunk and hypnotic.

I want to write and write and write until I find myself
and never end up boring and old on a dusty shelf.



Tell me what YOU want,
what you really, really want.

DUNE COMES TO TAMPA

In Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, the Bene Gesserit are an exclusive and secretive sisterhood, the members of which possess the ability to control their physiology so precisely that they can control conception, determine the sex of resulting embryos, retard aging, and detoxify the most deadly poisons... simply by the power of thought.

In real life, such people cannot possibly exist... or can they?

To catch their 8:00 a.m. flight to Atlanta Saturday morning, Eli (hizzownself) and Toni had to get up at what the Mistress refers to as the “Butt-Crack of Dawn.” They planned to awaken at 4:15 a.m., early enough to allow them to freshen up and jump in the car for the 90-minute drive to the airport in Tampa.

They got up at 4:18, all of three minutes late. Not bad, considering that they did not use an alarm clock.

Holy crap. In similar circumstances, I’ve managed to sleep through the insistent buzzing of a clock alarm, necessitating a high-velocity drive from the northern marches of Belgium to the Brussels airport. The idea of entrusting the wake-up duties to nothing more than my own internal Body-Clock fills me with dread and awe. I could never do it... but Eli and Toni could.

Maybe this Bene Gesserit thing is more than just wind in sails, eh?

The Mom Agenda

I need to share a must-have item.

A few years ago, I found a product that I immediately fell in love with

and have used ever since.

The Mom Agenda

They have organizational tools specifically designed for mothers.
Day planners,
note pads
clipboards,
bags,
chore pads.
and more.

I've been using them for years.
I love their colors and personalization.

It's seriously something I can't live without!

Now, where did I put mine?!!
hehe

Just kidding.

What About the Cats?

In my post for the 27th, I revealed that I had promised a reader never to kill a dog in my books. In the comments, Victoria in California was quick to ask that I extend the same courtesy to cats.

It's a kind of unspoken rule among writers of cozies that you mustn't kill a cat -- or a dog or a child or anything cute and fluffy or any likable person.

But I don't write cozies -- I write psychological suspense. Sometimes bad things happen to nice people. . . or their animals. I'm not just trying to set up an interesting puzzle to be solved with some snappy repartee and zany hi jinks along the way --all done with a minimum of emotional involvement. No, I'm trying to make my characters real to my readers -- real people in real (well, except for the occasional touch of paranormal) situations where there is always some risk.
I'm trying to engage my readers' emotions . . . to move them to laughter . . . and sometimes to tears.

By making dogs, especially Elizabeth's dogs, immune to danger, I've lost a potential plot twist. I don't want to tie my hands any tighter by making more promises (next, the squirrel lobby will be pleading for an amnesty. And I like squirrels too; heck, I even like possums.)

I'm also very fond of cats. Ask Eddie and Miss Susie Hutchins. Even so, I've resisted, so far, giving Elizabeth one (in spite of Tammy of Fairlight Farm's encouragement that I do so.) Cats tend to take over mysteries, if given a chance.

In one of my books, there is a reference to a cat (or maybe two, I don't remember) that was killed in the past by one of the characters. Not, notice, a cat that we ever got to know. But I needed that reference to show the nature of a particular character. Remember, adult psychotic types often began by abusing animals when they were children.

I still can't see myself writing scenes of animal abuse. Indirect reference, though -- that could happen. Very indirect.

And, as always, I wonder why I (along with many readers) am more squeamish about the death of fictional animals (fluffy animals, it goes without saying) than the death of fictional people.

Overachiever

Camera Critters is SO much fun! join us!

Farm Notes

Marigold, the Jersey heifer, is an aunt! Karen emailed from Yellow Branch to say that Silverbell, Marigold's half-sister (same mother, different AI sires) gave birth to Forsythia (seen above at about four hours old) back on Wednesday.

Another sign of Spring --unknown bugs appear --this one on my kitchen window sill. Time to think about putting the window screens back in. (Does anyone know what this creature is? I think he's rather elegant.)

Kate the donkey with her herd. Justin told me that the other day there were six wild turkeys in the field with the cows -- three toms strutting and showing off for three hens -- and Kate took exception to their carrying on and ran them off. ("Get out of here, you turkeys;" one imagines her braying, "this here's cow country!")

And yet another sign of warmer weather! The first snake is out relaxing by the fishpool! (I feel like someone in a Charles Addams cartoon saying that.)

Happy Saturday!

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

It is a rainy Friday here in May-Retta, Georgia.

How rainy is it? you ask. Well, as we used to say in Texas, it’s raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. Which means, of course, that it is Very Rainy.

But the rain, it does not bother me, because I am indoors. Even more, I am aglow with happy anticipation, for Elder Daughter will fly down from Washington tomorrow morning to join us for the weekend. It will be a treat to have her together with the Mistress of Sarcasm... the second time in a month, too! And even better: Eli (hizzownself) and Toni - the snowbirds - will be here from Florida, and The Other Elisson from New York. They’ll all be here to join us for the Grand Corporate Sendoff.

I guess if you work in the Great Corporate Salt Mine for over three decades, you get to have a nice steak upon which to sprinkle some of that salt, eh?

Meanwhile, what’s on the ol’ Choon-Box? What sort of Random Musical Spewage awaits us on this wet, wet Friday? Lessee:

1. Only A Northern Song - The Beatles
   
   
2. You’ve Got It In Your Soulness - Les McCann and Eddie Harris
   
   From the brilliant “Swiss Movement” album, recorded 40 years ago at the Montreux Jazz Festival... and still sparkling fresh.
   
   
3. The Hornburg - Howard Shore, The Two Towers
   
   
4. Heart of Oak - David Rintoul
   
   Perfectly appropriate: I’m rereading Master and Commander.
   
   
5. Ani Shelach - Neshama Carlebach
   
   
6. Act II - Tagore, Scene 1 - Philip Glass, Satyagraha
   
   
7. Elukka - Alamaailman Vasarat
   
   
8. Scene 6 - The Somnambulist - Philip Glass, Les Enfants Terribles
   
   
9. Wishful Sinful - The Doors
   
   
10. High Hopes - Skanatra
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

Hakuna en profile.

Hakuna sees the Ark set sail
Upon the Bloggy-Sea:
“Hey, who’s that topping off the list?
It’s Neighbor-Cat and me!”

Friday Ark #236 is afloat at the Modulator.

If you want more Kitty-Blogging, wait until Sunday evening sometime Monday Tuesday evening - then go to Three Tabby Cats in Vienna for a look at Carnival of the Cats #263. And pick up a slice of Sachertorte or Russische Punschtorte at Demel for me while you’re over there, willya?

Update: CotC #263 is up.

Feeling Frazzled

Today has not started out right.

We were out of milk.
So, the one morning I planned to make the boys eat cereal...
I ended up having to cook.
I didn't budget time for cooking.

It cut into the precious little time I had for blogging this morning.
Blogging is something I really enjoy,
but am woefully behind on doing.

So, sorry, no creativity or photos in this post today.

I'm going into work early, so I can get off work earlier...
so I can make my complex-seven-year-old's baseball game this evening.

We're out of sandwich meat. I didn't make it to the grocery store last night.
After work, I ended up at a jewelry party. Where I wanted to buy everything.
Have you seen the Silpada Jewelry?

I don't know what to wear to work.
My husband's grouchy.
My 12 yr old is grouchy.
The 7 yr old is still asleep.

Where are those darn baseball pants from last season?
I can't find the honey to make peanut butter & honey sandwiches.
They don't even really like peanut butter & honey, but that's all I have when we run out of meat.

It's casual Friday at work.
But I hate my only current pair of jeans.
So is it snooty to still dress up?
Shoot.

I feel wholly incompetent.
The dog is following me around like she needs something.

What, Annie?
What do you need?!

My dad just told me he worked out on an anti-gravity treadmill yesterday,
and it was awesome.

What's next, a freaking anti-air breathing machine?!
Sweet Pickles in peanut sauce.

Some days are just grouchy days.

What's your mood today?
Any fun weekend plans?


OH, GREAT, now my blow dryer broke.
Now I get to look frazzled too.

Where are my keys?!

A Happy Woman

Today I received a list of questions from a person doing an article/promotion piece on some of the authors presenting at the upcoming Blue Ridge Book and Author Showcase. A couple of the questions really set me thinking.

1. What is one interesting tidbit about you that few people know?

2. If you weren't a writer, and could be anything you wanted to be, what would it be?


3. If you could have lived in a different time period, what would it be? Why?


4. What is the one subject that you would never write about? Why?


5. What is the most imaginative scene you have ever written?

I've been given that first question before and the way I answered it previously was to tell how I once broke up a dogfight using an unorthodox technique learned from reading Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels. This time my answer was that in 1969 my husband and I spent three glorious months riding a motorcycle around Europe.



It was the second question that stopped me cold. I thought about it a bit and decided to go on and answer the rest then return to formulate an answer.



Question three, what other time period would I like to live in, is one I've thought about a lot. There are lots of times and places that I would love to visit but ONLY if I were at the top of the food chain, so to speak. Elizabethan England, for example, might not be so bad if you were wealthy -- unless, of course you were a Roman Catholic . . . or a woman . . .or a Jew.


And even if you were wealthy, the hygiene, the medicine (or lack of it),the callous disregard for animal and human suffering (for example, bear-baiting, hanging, drawing and quartering for execution). . . no, I think I'll stay put in our times, flawed though they may be.


Number four, the subject I would never write about is cruelty to animals or the death ( other than old age) of a dog. Okay, I have killed a cat and a squirrel or two in my books -- but always quickly and without suffering.

Number five I had to think about. I'm not sure about the most imaginative scene I've ever written -- in a way, that's more for a reader to say than me. But off the top of my head, and since I was eager to get back to question two, I chose the scene with Elizabeth in the Melungeon cabin toward the end of In a Dark Season.

And then I went back to the second question, trying on, in my mind, other enticing directions my life might take if I could be anything I wanted to be . . . and I realized that there is nothing I'd prefer to the life I already have -- with or without the writing.

So I answered that I'd like to be a very wealthy gardener. I don't want to live anywhere else but money for more plants and more help in the garden would be nice.

Even without it, I'm a happy woman.

But you probably knew that.

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN

Midnight in the Garden
Garden in the Valley
Valley of the Jolly (ho ho ho!) Green Giant!

Years ago - well before we knew we would eventually be moving back to Georgia - a writer named John Berendt came out with a book entitled Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The book was a novelized account of the activities of one Jim Williams, a Savannah art dealer and collector, and his involvement in the death of his employee (and lover), Danny Hansford. Williams, who claimed to have shot Hansford in self-defense, was tried four times for murder, finally securing an acquittal on the fourth attempt.

Williams lived in Mercer House, a mansion on Monterey Square that had been built by General Hugh W. Mercer, great-grandfather of famed somgwriter Johnny Mercer. After Williams’s death in 1990, the house was used as a private residence and was not open to the public; now known as the Mercer Williams House, it has since been converted into a museum.


The Mercer Williams House, Monterey Square, Savannah.

Berendt’s book - his first - became a bestseller, residing on the New York Times list for over four years. In 1997 it was made into a movie directed by Clint Eastwood and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and featuring Jude Law as the ill-fated Danny Hansford. The movie did not, alas, enjoy the success of the book... entertaining though it was for someone who was now living only 265 miles away from the Location of Interest.

But the book... ahhh, the book. It has a Southern Gothic flavor, and it tells the story of the Williams-Hansford affair by placing the book’s author in the midst of the action - a fictional liberty Berendt took. It also serves as a portrait of Williams, a thoroughgoingly fascinating individual, and as well is populated by a small army of local eccentrics and Interesting Characters - all real people, many of whom are still walking the planet... and at least one of whom we’ve broken bread with.

Savannahians at first were cool toward Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, taking the attitude of people who had had their dirty laundry aired in public without prior permission having been given. But, over time, their attitudes toward “The Book” seem to have softened. It may very well be the enormous shot in the arm that the local tourism industry received as the result of hordes of interested readers descending upon Savannah to see the very places (and sometimes, people) that they had read about. As they say, “money talks, nobody walks.”

We had had The Book sitting on our shelf for a good two or three years before I bothered to pick it up and read it; once I did, I was mentally kicking myself for having waited so long. I loved it! Strangely enough, it was shortly after that that we moved back to Georgia, setting in motion the string of events that would result in the Mistress of Sarcasm becoming a student, and subsequently a resident, of Savannah.

The book’s cover features the image of the Bird Girl, a piece of sculpture that for many years adorned a gravesite at Bonaventure Cemetery. That sculpture now resides at the Telfair Museum on loan, safe from potential plunderers and overenthusiastic tourists... but copies (of wildly varying quality) are available in shops throughout Savannah. It’s a strangely evocative piece, one that combines innocence and melancholy... and it’s one of the first things you will see whan you enter Chez Elisson.


The Bird Girl.

Over the years we’ve been frequent visitors to Savannah, we’ve developed a deep affection for the place. It’s chock full of interesting architecture and fine restaurants. It was the home of blogger extraordinaire Rob Smith, of blessèd memory. (I still get referrals from his site, almost three years after his death!) The Mistress has done everything there from working as a concierge, to being featured on a magazine cover, to acting in films, to being robbed at gunpoint (the place does have a few rough edges, still). And this is the perfect time of year to visit, if you’ve a mind to see the real beauty of the Low Country.

Smokin' with the Smarties

My 12-year-old is smart.
A smarty pants.

He's made honor roll, straight A's, this whole year so far.
In fact, I don't feel like he's really being challenged.
Two of his teachers have recommended him for GT testing.

So, I've been filling out forms for testing.
They ask ridiculous questions.

Does he recall and quickly master information?
Does he pursue topics or tasks that interest him?
Does he strive for perfection or is self-critical?
Does he offer unusual, unique, clever responses or products?
Is he sensitive and aware of others' feelings?
Does he display a keen or unique sense of humor?

and so on...

It makes my brain hurt.

I wanted to share with the GT program how entrapenurial is he.
How, he has been taking Smarties to school to sell to kids, selling them for fifty cents a pack.





Did you know that kids are into smoking smartees right now?
Well, they don't really SMOKE them.
They crush them up, then puff them like smoke.
It's weird.

Wikipedia had this to say:

Pop Culture

In 2009 youth began to "smoke smarties". "Smoking smarties" consists of grinding up smarties while still in the wrapper, opening both ends of the pack and then inhaling the dust, much like smoking a cigar. The dust is then tasted in the mouth and released. Or the candy dust can be blown out of the nostrils. Some doctors are concerned that "smoking smarties" could have negative health effects that include infection and allowing maggots to grow in the nasal passages by eating the sugar.

But, apparently they're in high demand.
So, my son recognized this, bought them at the grocery store for a cheap price and is now making money.

I guess you could say he's a dealer.
Yikes.
I don't think the GT program needs to hear about this...


My other ideas for this post title were:

Smartie Pants
My Smartie Pants can smoke your Smartie Pants
Smartie Smokin.
Smarties.

If I Were Going and Singing Wheels

There is a striking omission in my recent post listing 25 books that influenced my life and my writing. How could I have forgotten If I Were Going and Singing Wheels?

If I Were Going was my third grade 'reader' -- a wonderful horizon expander telling of life in Norway, Lapland, Brittany, Spain, North Africa . . . heady stuff for an eight-year old who could only remember traveling to Troy, Alabama.

I had never imagined that there was such variety in the world, in scenery and in people and their various ways of life. And this continues to fascinate me, even though my travel is mainly on the Internet.

The book's visit to England and its descriptions of English villages, thatched roofs, and country lanes is probably the catalyst for my life-long Anglophilia.

Along with the multiplication table, Singing Wheels was the focus of the fourth grade course of study. This textbook told of the pioneer experience in America, with stagecoaches and oxen and bee trees and spinning and all the daily minutiae of frontier life in the early 1800s.

The book is a real treasure trove of how things were made back then (I'm pretty sure I could follow the instructions for candle-making and end up with candles), of wild animals and their tracks, everyday items in common use, types of trees, Indian arrowheads . . . all illustrated in nice little line drawings.

I think I can trace my first interest in the back-to-the-land life style to this book. ( I certainly didn't grow up on a farm or have relatives with farms to spark my interest. My grandfathers had left their farming/dairying days far behind and my parents were happy that it should stay that way.)

And I can thank the chapter about the spelling bee for helping me always to remember that there's a rat in separate.

(I hadn't realized till just now, but a substantial portion of Singing Wheels was taken from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods -- books that I never read till I was an adult.)

I have no idea how long these books remained in the curriculum. Do any of you remember them?