Classical Guitar

Last night we ventured out with the husband's mother and his aunt for a meal of Chinese at CL Asia and then an hour of classical guitar music at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Daleville.

The food was terrific as always, although my mother-in-law and aunt did not enjoy it. This was my mother-in-law's second time ever to enter a Chinese restaurant and apparently it was Aunt Nancy's first. Both claimed not to like Chinese food, although I do not understand how you can dislike something you have never even tried. My mother-in-law ate sweet and sour shrimp, which she had the last time and found palatable (we had sampled several dishes dishes that first trip). Aunt Nancy would not try anything except fried rice. Ah well.

The guitarist was Rafael Scarfullery (you will hear his music on the website if you click the link), who is a classical guitarist, composer, and conductor. He currently teaches at Sweet Briar College and is music director at Aldersgate UMC in Charlottesville.

For our concert, he played a total of seven Christmas carols, including Away in A Manager, O Holy Night (one of my favorite Christmas songs), and Silent Night. The audience of less than 50 people sang along on the last song.

He also entertained us with pieces by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Antonio Lauro, neither of whom were familiar to me but were interesting to listen to and watch as performances. One of the pieces by Villa-Lobos, I believe it was Prelude No. 1 but am not positive, sounded a little disturbing to me but it was an excellent piece nevertheless.

I am amazed at the talented people who surround us and we are unaware of it. People everywhere go about their desperate lives, seeking whatever they think will bring them fulfillment (and likely never reaching it), and some of these folks have amazing talent that is never fully acknowledged or appreciated. We do ourselves a disservice as a society when we fail to nurture people, in whatever way, and we do that quite regularly, I fear.

These were some thoughts that crossed my mind as I listened to this man play his songs. I am not quite sure why; sometimes music brings things into my brain. Occasionally it brings tears to my eyes or makes my stomach tense up.

Thursday Thirteen

I am rather anxious for 2010 to be over as it has not been the best of years. The death of my father-in-law, job concerns and other issues have left me feeling as ragged as a beat up ol' doll tossed out in the trash by the evil stepsister on a Saturday night.

So I thought I'd see if I could find 13 things to do for the New Year that would bring about good luck. Here are some superstitions I thought I'd pass along.

1. Wearing something new on New Year's Day means you'll receive new clothing throughout the year.

2. Eating black eyed peas will bring about good luck and good fortune. Other foods that bring good luck are lentils, pork, and sauerkraut.

3. Kiss at midnight to ensure affections and good will from those you love.

4. Have a full pantry so that it will not be bare for the upcoming year.

5. Put plenty of money in your wallet so it will multiply throughout the year.

6. Pay off bills and debts before New Years Day so that they don't follow you into the new year and bring about more bills and debts.

7. The first person to enter the household should be male (preferably tall, dark and handsome) and should come bearing a small gift. Even if he is a resident, he should knock on the door to be let inside, and he should leave by a different door than the one through which he entered.

8. Absolutely nothing, not even garbage, should leave the house on New Year's Day.

9. Do not do laundry on New Year's Day.

10. At midnight, open all doors to let the old year go out unimpeded.

11. Make loud noises at midnight to scare away evil spirits.

12. Avoid breaking things on New Year's Day, otherwise you will be breaking things all year long.

13. Do not cry on New Year's Day or it will set the tone for the year.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 169th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Made to Sell (But Not to Use)

A number of items we've purchased in recent years have not exactly lived up to their hype.

So I'm going to complain.

Companies really don't care if the product they sell to you actually works, because they have your money. Their warranties are often worthless or so convoluted that most folks won't bother with them. Items are made to fall apart at day 92 when you have a 90-day warranty. Count on it.

Additionally, things are made in such a manner that they are not easily handled or easy to care for. And woe unto you if you are an older adult, or female (or both) because few things are made with you in mind.

Most things are made for males age 20-30. The rest of us be damned.

Some of the items that have frustrated me lately include:

Tools. These always irritate me because they are big, bulky, hard to start (women in general have poor upper body strength and trying to pull-start a mower is next to impossible) and generally not made with women's smaller hands and lesser strength in mind. Is it really so hard to make a decent weed eater that a woman can handle, one that actually cuts the grass and doesn't just whack at it? How about a good push cart that doesn't weigh a ton?

Clothing. My blouse fell apart the third time I washed it. Buttons fly off regularly because they are not sewn properly. Hems are crooked. Pockets are not sewn straight into pants. And these are expensive department store clothes, not the stuff off the rack at Walmart.

Humidifiers. I use three of them in the house and have problems with all three. The first one we paid hundreds for - it's a whole house steam humidifier. It worked just beyond its warranty and died a painful death. The company replaced it once, for free, but that one died a painful death as well. Obviously it's not a good product anymore (the very first one was, 23 years ago, but we could no longer obtain parts for it). I have a small steam humidifier that I use in the bedroom. The problem with it? It is cantankerous and will only run with distilled water (which gets expensive), and it is made so that it is difficult to fill. The tank on it is oddly shaped and it won't fit into the sink. The third humidifier is a cool evaporative humidifier and the tank on it leaks badly. It also is shaped weird and won't fit well into the sink, and it is hard to handle and heavy.

Eyeglasses. I am going back tomorrow for a fourth try at replacing a lens in less than a year. Enough said.

Why can't companies make products that last and that work without so much problem? Quality, not quantity, used to be the byword in business, but not anymore. Now companies want to take your money and run, and don't worry about customer service. Once it's out of their warehouse they don't care if you're satisfied or not.

Granted, locally there are a few places that deal with you like you're a human being. The eyeglass shop, for example, is going out of its way to try to fix the issue with my progressive lens, and I greatly appreciate their efforts (which is why I am not naming them). I like the service I receive from my local bank (not the national bank, though the local clerks are okay), my accountant, and the postmasters at the post offices I frequent. The people are the photocopy shop are nice even if I don't agree with them on a few issues.

But these large companies, the ones that are in Bambozzla, Alaska (it's next to Wasilla (not really)) don't care if you're happy with the product. That's why we have to endure assistance from India representatives who can hardly speak English and who suddenly have access to your credit card because you called.

I've had it. I don't spend a lot of money on stuff anyway because I'm not a stuff kind of girl, but in 2011 I plan to buy even less stuff than I normally would. Keep your ol' pieces of junk that won't work right anyhow.

When corporations remember what customer service means, I'll go kiss a frog.

Bucks 2010

A video I made of shots of white tail bucks we saw on the farm this year.

Books: Lake Wobegon Summer 1956

Lake Wobegon Summer 1956
By Garrison Keillor
Copyright 2001
Audio read by the author
6.5 hours
Abridged

For some reason the stories of Lake Wobegon escaped me, I guess because they appeared during a time when I wasn't listening to radio much. A Prairie Home Companion is not something I listen to and so Keillor was an unfamiliar author.

I enjoyed listening to these stories of a young man's arrival to manhood. Gary is a teenager who's never kissed a girl, unless you count Cousin Kate, and he thinks a lot about things like wangers and hooters and how he wants to be a writer but his teachers put red ink all over his papers.

The year is 1956 and times are a little simpler - an Underwood typewriter is the big thrill for Gary, not an iPad or something. There's no such thing as texting (that's a book you read) and so he must interact with folks, especially his friends and family. He and his sister do not get along and, being a sister, I listened to these interactions with interest and with the design of perhaps gaining insight into my relationship with my brother. I don't think it helped much but it was fun to hear.

During some of the time I listened to this book my mother-in-law was in the car and I think she was not keen on Keillor's stories, especially with regards to sexual innuendos, but I found them amusing and rather mild compared to some I have read.

Keillor read the stories with a dry almost monotone voice and it added a good bit to the story. I will definitely check out more of his work.

A Day in the Life

Yesterday was an errand day, one I spent alone. Here's the first half of my day.

I woke before the alarm went off at 6 a.m., having had yet another night of vivid and disturbing dreams. My robe beckoned, thanks to the chill from below-freezing temperatures, and I grabbed it from the chair as I stumbled into my office to turn on the computer and then shuffled into the kitchen to heat water for tea. I kissed my husband as he sat at the table reading the paper and then rubbed his back and smooched the top of his head. He would be off to work soon.

Back in my office, I sat down at the computer and checked email, wrote a Thursday Thirteen for this blog, rose and returned to the kitchen to fix my tea and kiss the husband goodbye, and then back to the computer to read some news. By 7:30 a.m. I was slipping on my sneakers for 50 minutes of walking on the treadmill while watching the first  episode of season two of Star Trek: Voyager, wherein Captain Janeway discovers what really happened to Amelia Earhart.

After showering and dressing (sweatshirt with snowmen on it), I fixed myself an egg, peeled a banana, and settled down to eat with the newspaper in front of me. Bad news everywhere, what with that poor child abducted and her mother killed and government stupidity running rampant everywhere you look. I was grateful for the comics.

Time slipped away and I had to leave for a visit with my hairdresser. As I drove into Roanoke I listened to a book on tape (Garrison Keillor). Absolutely nothing happened between my house and the hair stylist, but when I arrived at my hairdresser's I saw an older woman standing forlornly in the parking lot beside an older vehicle. I glanced at her as I headed inside and she announced to me that her car wouldn't start and that someone was looking for somebody to help her. I thought of the jumper cables in my car but did not mention them. I did, however, step inside to see how long it would be before it was my turn in the seat and had every intention of going back outside to offer assistance if I wouldn't keep anyone waiting. However, I learned inside that the man in the shop next door was already moving his car to assist the woman and so my jumper cables were not required.

I stood at the window waiting for my turn in the beauty chair and watched the man, who could not figure out how to raise the hood on his vehicle for quite some time. One of the hairdressers finally showed him how to do that and I wondered how he planned to jump start a car when he couldn't raise the hood of his own car. However, he did manage to transfer the energy and the older vehicle came to life, as evidenced by the the stuff oozing from the car's tailpipe.

Two older women, their white hair pleasantly coiffed, were leaving their respective chairs to pay their bills. One of the older ladies made a phone call so that someone could come after her; the other had on a sweatshirt with the word Botetourt on it, and I admired that because you do not see things with the county's name on it very often.

My beautician, whose name is Rhonda, beckoned me over and she collared me with a cloak. I removed my glasses and earrings and she hustled me to the shampoo chair, where she proceeded to wet down the hair I'd already washed and did not dry (but which had, by this time, dried on its own).

Once in the chair we chatted about my recent second honeymoon in Greensboro and she asked if I liked the new outlet mall in Mebane, NC, to which I replied that the stores were great but the parking was abysmal, forcing us to walk almost a mile to return to the stores after lunch.

Suddenly one of the hairdressers said, "She's getting in the wrong car" and she headed for the door as the first older lady began climbing into the passenger seat of the vehicle of a strange man. She realized her mistake and was out the door before the hairdresser could rescue her. The older lady came back in the shop, somewhat sheepish, and she said the man laughed and offered to take her home, but of course she declined.

All I could think of was how gray my hair is now and how I do not want to be an old lady getting in the wrong vehicle and possibly being kidnapped and left for dead on the side of the road when they found out I had no diamond earrings and didn't carry cash.

Rhonda finished her artwork and, after blowing me dry, turned me around to show me my shortened doo. My hair has no body in this low humidity that the cold front has brought with it and so my bangs hung rather limply about my face. But that was not Rhonda's fault so I tipped her, declined the offer of one of their business planners, and left.

Back in the car, I checked my watch and wondered if I had enough time to run two errands before my 1 p.m. appointment. Deciding that I did, I headed to Books-A-Million. In the store, I wandered the aisles looking for a book for a friend (who reads my blog so I won't go into detail here) but was unsuccessful in my search. I will have to check Amazon, I thought as I headed to the magazine rack. Then I wandered through the children's items as I still needed to buy something for my niece. As I looked at various books, puzzles, and activity sets, I realized I had no idea what the child does with herself or if she even needs.

I have become the crazy old aunt who send presents that are not right and quickly discarded, I thought, recalling the time my grandmother in California sent me a big set of hot curlers, a most unwelcome present for a girl who spent as little time as possible on her looks (though you wouldn't know that from today's events, would you). I decided then and there to call my sister-in-law for an update on the child's likes and dislikes in hopes of picking out a better present.

At the cash register, the clerk asked me if I had a club card and I replied in the negative. "I do have a credit card, and that is what counts," I said brightly. He snickered and I felt old. I picked up my packages and left, thinking all the while this was the second time I'd been in that store and been annoyed by the checkout person in as many months.

In the car, I called my sister-in-law and left her a message. Then I turned the car toward Walmart.

During the long drive to Bonsack, I half listened to the book on Lake Woebegone while fretting about going to spend money at a place I despise but can afford. I needed dry goods and toiletries, all of which were cheapest there. Husband needed Dr. Peppers in vast quantities (he sucks that stuff down like water) and I refused to pay $1.68 for it when I could get it for $1 at the store from hell. But every time I head toward Wally World I perceive a slow burning sensation in my chest.

In the box store, I wandered through the drugs and toiletries, picking up the things I needed. I always check the aisle with the Oil of Olay even though I don't use it anymore because the Oil of Olay website said the company would be bringing back the formula I used to use (but that was a year ago). In that aisle, a very old woman with multiple wrinkles was placing a bottle of Oil of Olay Regenerist in her cart. In my mind, I shook my head and told her to save her money, for her face was far too gone for any cream to save it. Of course I did not say that and then I wondered how I could be so mean  as to even think it, but there you go.

Next I meandered over to the Christmas decorations in search of tissue paper for my boxes that needed wrapping and I looked in awe at the multitude of ways one might decorate for the holidays, what with blue balls for tree trimming and gift tags and paper and bows and ribbons and garland, and all of it stamped Made in China.

From there I ventured into clothing where I briefly looked at scarves. Lately it has been brought to my attention that perhaps I would feel warmer if I kept something about my neck, but most of my scarves are long and burdensome and so I thought something shorter might work. However, everything I picked up was longer than I am tall and so I left the items on the hangers and headed for the grocery aisles.

I gathered up my Dr. Pepper and then went in search of gallon jugs of distilled water for the humidifier. To my dismay, the store was completely out of distilled water and I imagined a small army of folks wandering in and out of that aisle, desperate to find something to put in their humidifiers so that their noses did not bleed from the double whammy of low humidity and furnace heat. And I was glad that I had enough water to get me through the weekend, though it meant another trip to the store early the following week.

At the checkout, I maneuvered my cart into the shortest line. The woman in front of me had a small girl and a baby with her. The baby had nothing on his little feet but upon inspection I noticed a hat and a blanket beside the baby carry so that was okay as it was warm in the store. The woman was checking out a massive amount of items and the clerk was nearly finished when she asked if they would allow her to pay if she gave them her card number but not her credit card. She had forgotten the card but had the number memorized, she explained.

However, this would not work and I watched in dismay, knowing I would now need to move to another line although it never works when I change lines, I always end up being further behind than I would have been. But move I did, and I muttered something to myself about people having no common sense; how could you go to a store to spend hundreds of dollars and not have the money with you to pay for it, and then I began thinking of my mother and how she always told me I had no common sense, and how this always made me feel bad for she said it like it was a bad thing. I had plenty of book sense she said but no common sense and I remember trying to figure out how one acquired common sense but apparently it was something you were born with and I missed out when they were handing out that particular asset on my way down to earth to be born.

And so I stood there wondering if all of my problems in life could be boiled down to this one missing item, this lack of common sense, and then it was my turn at the check out and just then it was time for the clerks to switch out, and so I had to wait even longer, and I began to fear I would be late for my 1 p.m. appointment because I had been in the checkout lane for so long even though I had allowed 20 minutes simply for getting out of the store.

But I was not late, and my appointment was a massage, and gratefully I flung my naked self upon the table and for an hour willed my brain to stop its incessant chatter while the greatest massage person in the world worked on my back and neck and tried to make me feel better. All the while soothing music lulled me and the oils oozed and I tried a little controlled breathing to keep the thoughts at bay, particularly when I felt ideas about career and jobs and how to make money come creeping in like some kind of spider on steroids. I slapped those back and took a deep breath and focused on the feeling of my muscles loosening and all was right with the world.

Thursday Thirteen

Today's Thursday Thirteen will be a letter to Santa, aptly portrayed to the right by my brother during a recent Christmas event. Wasn't he a good Santa?

Letters to Santa often are very selfish and I daresay mine is no exception. Santa is a great commercial and consumer icon, the epitome of "me me me." Still, it's kind of fun to think about what you would like for a semi-god-like entity to hand over.

It is also rather hard to come up with 13 things.

Dear Santa:

(1) Please take a long look around the world and then ask yourself, how did this happen? How is that there are billions of people without food, shoes, good water, health care, and education? Then put your elves to work on these problems. Perhaps they can cobble ways to create fertile farm lands from arid deserts, or they could craft people-sized clothing instead of stuff for dolls. Maybe Herbie could expand his dentistry.

2. After you've addressed those larger issues, let's take a look at smaller things. In my area we've got a kidnapped girl with her mother murdered, 47 indictments for drug issues in my little county of 32,000 people, and a lot of fires because it is cold outside and people are using fire to stay warm. Not to mention the fact that someone is out killing cows from a farmers' field and throwing the carcases all over the place. I don't know how you fix that kind of thing.

3. Could you take something instead of giving, dear Santa? Could you take the meanness away? And in its place, could you please leave a little "nice"?

4. Lots of people need work, Santa, and I mean they need good jobs, not Walmart greeter positions. Maybe you could figure out how to put some of those folks to work curing all of those ills up in item number one.  That would be ingenious and very smart, wouldn't it, using folks out of work who can work to help other people while they get back on their feet.

5. Please help people who have very closed minds to realize that is not always about business and corporate profits. You know who they are. Please remind them that morality means doing the right thing because it is the right thing. Apparently they need a lot of reminding.

6. Locally, please help the leaders to make the appropriate decisions as they slash budgets and make immoral cuts to services.

And now on to the selfish stuff:

7. I would like an iPad just because they look really cool.

8. I also would like a new camera. I have been looking at these point-and-shoot Nikons with the 26x lens on them and they look pretty nifty.

9. Since I am asking for items I know I won't get this year, I will toss in a sunroom. I would use it for my exercise room and get the treadmill out of the kitchen and the exercise bike out of the living room.

10. A maid would be nice, too. I think I ask for this every year and she is still not forthcoming.

11. Weight loss is another item. Maybe you could bring me a membership to the gym or something. Or maybe you could create some kind of food vacuum that would take away all of the bad food as soon as I bring it in the house. Something besides my eating it, that is.

12. Please take good care of all of my friends and loved ones, dear Santa, and bring them whatever they need from your goodie bag.

13. And last, but not least, please see that my gentle readers are happy, loved, and patted on the head as they go throughout the holiday season. Fulfill their wish list, too.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 168th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

The Lost Shoe

Sitting along side Country Club Road, just off US 220, lies a yellow and black shoe.

It has been there for several months, and I only see it when I am in the passenger side of the car. As we drive by, I see it sitting forlornly in the dirt, unclaimed and unloved.

I always wonder how articles of clothing end up away from their mates and owners. Did this shoe fall off a moving truck? Is someone who now lives elsewhere missing it, wondering what became of their favorite sole?

Were two young people arguing in a back seat, and one, highly vexed, heaved a shoe at the other, sending the missile out the window and into the road, where it was hit by a car that sent it careening into the mud and grass of the roadside?

Perhaps someone was riding a bike and his foot slipped, and he was so aggravated that he pulled his shoe off then and there, and abandoned it in order to pedal home barefooted. But then what would have become of the mate?

Who bought this shoe? Did some mother lovingly choose this shoe for a wayward son, hoping that if she made this purchase her young lad would wise up and suddenly stop running around with the gang on the corner because she didn't want him to be another name in the county's latest drug user round up?

Or maybe a fiancee made this purchase as a gift for a beloved, the action taking weeks as the lover thought and pondered the most perfect of presents until finally happening upon a pair of yellow and black shoes. They spoke to the lover who thought, Eureka, I have found it! And the shoes were presented with much fanfare and many kisses. And then what if the lovers quarreled, and the shoes made their way to the trash, and en route to the landfill, one fell to the pavement, a final note on a doomed relationship?

The lost shoe is no more than trash, right? Another consumer item lost to the owner, its value diminished to practically nothing because it has no mate and it's been out in the rain and probably run over by cars and trucks. Worthless.

And yet, such stories there are in singular lost shoes. Such angst and anxiety, not to mention puzzlement and bewilderment. In a single shoe there lies a world of ideas.

Worthless? I think not.

And therein lies the lesson.

Books: The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol
By Dan Brown
Copyright 2009
639 pages

When a book over 600 pages seems like a very short read, you know something about the story must be working right.

Brown has hit upon a good formula for his books. This read much like The DaVinci Code and had many similar incidents, including a maniacal villain, a woman with home hero Robert Langdon could do some of the running and sleuthing, and of course a mystery that has puzzled and fascinated folks for centuries.

The book focuses on the Masons and mysteries surrounding Washington DC that involve this organization and the forefathers of the country. You can find information from National Geographic about Masonic symbols by following the link. As far as conspiracy theories go, this one is a whopper and you can find innumerable websites devoted to probing the cult link between Masons and power brokers.

Since this was a work of fiction, I have no idea what legends harbor any truth at all, so I will not speculate as to whether truth has been revealed as fiction. I have no idea.

Langdon is an interesting character in that he is very smart but seems a little deficit of commonsense. His initial distrust of the CIA Director seemed misbegotten and either I missed something or the author did not convey to me the reasons as to why Langdon feared the director was on the wrong side. It's a big part of the plot and a huge hole to worry over while reading.

Aside from that, the concepts of the book are very intriguing, but I suspect not welcome among staunch Christians (it's very New Age) and folks hoping for the End Times in 2012. The book advocates that change will be positive, not negative, and this is a mindset that I wish more folks would subscribe to. I enjoyed seeing the negatives turned around into positives.

The book also indicates that the stupidity of the masses is ongoing and continual, and that humanity really isn't ready for truth, understanding, and compassion.

If you want to read more before you obtain the book, Wikipedia has a good synopsis.

First December Snow

We had our first significant snow for December. It is not the first snow of the year, as we had those in January, February and March of last year. But it is the first snow of this season.

This little snow is more like a skiff and the roads are clear. These are the best kind of snows as they don't create chaos.

This is the view out the front door this morning. The wind had already blown the snow from the cedars and pines when I woke. Doesn't that mean more snow will follow, according to those old legends?

The wind is blowing in from the west so there was a little snow on the east side of this blue spruce.

Looks like a cold and blustery day!

Thursday Thirteen

Today it's all about the Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. We saw the movie on Sunday and here are a few of my thoughts on it. There are probably spoilers but if you're read the book you already know how it ends anyway.

1. The movie is incredibly dark, not just in content but also in the cinematography. Dark colors, night, little light. Everything is rather drab.

2. Emma Watson (Hermione) needs to put on a little weight. I thought she looked a little thin and a little tired. But she acts the part exceptionally well and I believed her character more so than the lead one (Mr. Potter).

3. The special effects in the movie are well done, but nothing really stands out in my mind.

4. The movie adheres to the book in plot line, more or less, but does not adhere to the book in details.

5. In general, the book is better than the movie in my humble opinion, and that is not always the case with me. Sometimes the movies are better but I don't think that is the case this time.

6. I am not a fan of horror movie camera work (you know, where the people are running and scrambling and the camera is following along and it looks like it's falling off a cliff or something and you can't half tell what is going on) and there is a good bit of that in this film.

7. Helena Bonham Carter does a fantastic job as Bella LeStrange. Totally believable and wicked cool. I think she was my favorite in this particular film.

8. Daniel Radcliff has grown into a young man but I had trouble believing that Harry Potter was only 18 as he comes across older than that in the film.

9. I'm not a big Ron Weasley fan but Rupert Grint was the right actor for the part. He does a fine job with the character.

10.  There wasn't enough of Snape in this film, but then there wasn't a lot of Snape in the book, either. Rather unfortunate, that.

11. Ralph Fiennes is an excellent Vlodemort and he plays the character with much finesse and sophistication, which is exactly how I pictured him as I read the book.

12. Evanna Lynch plays a perfect Luna, wide-eyed and a little on the other side of the world. Excellent casting.

13. There is a lot of symbolism in the movie, mostly pertaining to Nazi Germany, fascism and other eye-brow raising forms of government. The torturing of Hermione is particularly painful to see at one point.


There you go. I give the film 3.5 stars out of 5. It's not a bad film but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than other Harry Potter fans.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 167th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Christmas Music Makes Me Smile!

Saturday night, my husband and I took my mother-in-law to listen to the singing of The Botetourt County Chorus. They sang holiday songs.

My brother played Santa Claus, and my niece was in the children's choir. She's the one on the end, right, front row (with glasses).

My niece had big smiles during the event. Rudolph was a painted target deer (see where he has been shot?).

Brent Watts, the weatherman on Channel 7, emceed the event. He did a good job.

My niece again. Isn't she adorable? She just started wearing glasses.

Ol' Santa, aka my brother, had a couple solos. I was surprised as he had told me he was playing Santa but did not mention he would be singing.

He really belted out the songs! He was a good Santa.

My father sings in the choir. He had a solo singing "Blue Christmas" and he played his guitar.

When the children's choir sang, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," my sister-in-law came out on the stage in her jammies. She danced around with Santy.

And then they kissed!

A Blue Jay Day

This little video showcases blue jays in the backyard in November. I must say, birds and other small critters are very hard to catch on film!

More Than Six Books

Thought I'd play this little meme today. I swiped it from a Facebook friend.

INSTRUCTIONS: Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Copy this into your NOTES (or your blog). Bold those books you've read in their entirety (I put them in red instead), italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (all)

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (all)

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
.

Thursday Thirteen

I wish I could be more original, but here are 13 things for which I am thankful:

1. My husband. He's a balding old guy, but he's mine.

2. My home. The balding old guy built this house with his own two hands, and as of this year it is completely paid for. Hard to beat that.

3. My friends. I have some very good friends who listen to me whine and keep me sane and straight. They are, indeed, a blessing.

4. My family, even the ones I don't speak to, and all of those ancestors who came before me.


5. My computer. I would be hard pressed to find something else that I use as much as I do my desktop. Why, without it, there'd be no Blue Country Magic!

6. The ability to read. Literacy is a great gift; I cannot imagine a life without words.

7. The ability to write. This form of expression is more natural to me than speaking.

8. Having everything I need right here so I don't have to fly in airplanes. I'm not kidding - I wouldn't want to be groped by anybody for any reason whatsoever.

9. The Blue Ridge Mountains. I love them. They are beautiful, majestic, and spectacular.

10. Heat. I am very glad that we can afford to heat the house.

11. Air conditioning. While it is not the time of year for this, I am also very grateful for this. It makes my life much easier in the humidity and heat.

12. Chocolate. It's a sin, I know it is, to enjoy a food this much, but I can't help it, and this time of year I am crazy for chocolate covered cherries, Cella brand, in dark chocolate. But they are very hard to find in our area (which is probably fortunate).

13. Busy hands. Not being busy is over rated. I prefer to have plenty of things to do, doing work I enjoy, and I like deadlines.


There you go. A Thanksgiving Thirteen to celebrate the holiday. Eat lots of turkey, ya'll.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 166th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Books: One Thousand White Women

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
By Jim Fergus
Copyright 1998, 2006
Read by Laura Hicks
14 hours

As I listened to this story of Native Americans and white culture, my husband joined me about half-way through.

So convincing were the details of the journals he thought it a true story until I told him otherwise, and I had trouble remembering it was fiction at times.

May Dodd is an upper class and well-bred woman of Chicago who had the misfortune to fall in love with a lower class man. Her father, being a railroad baron, determined his daughter was insane because she dared step out of the norms for her station, and placed her in an asylum. He also took the couple's two children. Dodd never knew what became of her husband.

After months in the asylum, during which time she was tortured by being tied to the bed and molested at night by staff, she met with men from the US government who offered to send her to the west to be a bride to a Cheyenne Native American, so long as she could bear him a child.

Dodd agreed, and the book, laid out in journal format, is the tale of her travels to the west and of her short life with the Cheyenne.

In a prologue, the author informs us, via a fictional narrator, that President Grant had instituted a covert government program called Brides for Indians following the request of Little Wolf, a Cheyenne Sweet Medicine Man. According to Little Wolf, his people recognized offspring of women as belonging to the tribe of the mother. Thus, children of white women would be recognized as belonging to the white culture, and in this way the Cheyenne would be assimilated into the advancing white man's world. After an initial outcry of protest, government officials secretly approved the program and determined to send prostitutes, prisoners and those in insane asylums to the Indians in exchange for a horse per woman.

So it was that May Dodd went west. She was joined by about 50 other white women, and one former slave, in this first wave of women brides.

En route to the tribal encampment, Dodd fell in love with Captain John Bourke. But she had signed a contract saying she would go to the Cheyenne and she determined to honor it.

Life among the Cheyenne people was hard and difficult and many of their ways seemed savage. In the end, the question of who is truly the savage seems pretty obviously answered.

As a writer myself, I enjoyed the writing in this book. I liked the way the prologue introduced the journals and explained the government's position on the Brides for Indians program. The journals themselves were extremely well done and Jim Fergus captured the voice of his protagonist well. I read one review that exclaimed over his ability to capture the voice of women; I submit that his voice was simply that of a perceptive person who had the ability to bear children, for at times the voice did not seem so much female as simply human.

While I am no expert on the west or the destruction of the Native Americans, from what I do know this book seemed well-grounded in fact. The Native American ceremonies, their practices, and way of life rang true throughout, as did the Army's staunch adherence to orders and regulations. I also had no trouble believing that the federal government would undertake a covert program such as Brides for Indians (in fact, I looked it up to see if it might be based on fact but aside from this book could find no other reference to it). I had no problem believing that the US government would decide this would be a good way to rid itself of undesirables, regardless of race and gender.

I read this book for my book club and I found it mesmerizing. I recommend it not only for the story but also for writers who wish to examine a different way to put together a book. For writers, I recommend reading the book and not the audio: I rather wish I'd read it instead of listening to it and may revisit it in its true form.

BZBZ Tuesday

This picture was taken in October. I took many shots of these flowers against the brilliant sky but am just now getting around to sharing.

Monday! Monday!

Does II

This video features does I saw on the farm earlier this fall. No X-rated activities, either!

Two Days

With Thursday being our anniversary and all, the husband and I decided to take a little trip to Greensboro for a day of shopping.

A new outlet mall opened earlier this month, and since I had missed out on shopping when we did our dash to Myrtle Beach and back, I had planned to slip down to this larger city and see what I could find in the way of Christmas presents.

But when husband suggested an anniversary get-away, I suggested we head there.

This little second honey-moon really was a second honey-moon for us - we'd never been away from home on our anniversary before. This is because we married during hunting season and we simply don't go away during hunting season.

But husband had already shot a nice deer, plus I hadn't had a vacation of any kind, unless you count being awake for 14 hours of driving, which I don't, so I suppose this seemed like a good idea to him.

I was delighted.

We roomed at Springhill Mariott in Greensboro, arriving there about mid-day Thursday. The room was fine, thank goodness, and we were even able to check in early. We left our suitcases and went to Four Seasons mall (I'm giving you these links because I didn't take pictures), which is three floors of shops. The JC Penny there was the largest JCP I have ever been in, I think. Much larger than the one in Roanoke, anyway.

The husband's favorite shop was Cinnabon, where they make cinnamon rolls that he thinks are the best in the world. Of course we had to buy a box.

Then we headed off to Friendly Center, where there were even more shops.

Finally, we headed back toward the hotel for dinner. We went east instead of west and took a long tour of the city before calling the hotel and asking for directions. We were quite lost!

We had our anniversary dinner at O'Charley's, and then we went back to our room to, um, watch TV.

The next day we headed to Mebane, which was about 1/2 hour's drive down I 40. As we headed toward Exit 154, where the Tanger Outlet was, I spied the outlet sign. Then I saw the shops - acres of stores.

We bought Christmas presents for loved ones. We also picked up a few things for ourselves, including a new set of dishes and a set of knives for the kitchen. After 27 years, things do start to need replacing, after all, and I'm still using dishes and steak knives I received as wedding presents.

While we purchased many items, I did not really see bargains. The best thing about this place is selection. There were, of course, a few nice clearance items but on the whole don't expect to see what one might consider true "outlet" prices. To me, these are really just name-brand retail stores, not bargain-priced outlets.

To reach Mebane, we passed through Burlington, NC. Burlington used to be the place for the outlet mall shopping. James and I made a couple of trips down there 20 years ago, when we were younger and could stand driving for two hours, shopping all day, and then driving back home to fall into the bed. I also went down and back with my mother a couple of times. It certainly can be done and many people will do it for this new outlet mall, I am sure.

Anyway, we reminisced about those trips so long ago in our past. We even drove through the Burlington Outlets to see what was left. Not much. The buildings did not look like they were in disrepair, but many were empty. I don't think the list of stores on the website is current as I did not see some of those stores in the vicinity.

After we destroyed our feet and made our legs hurt from walking around Tanger Outlet, we returned to Greensboro. We had dinner at Golden Corral and then went back to Four Seasons mall, because obviously we had not shopped enough.

Our adventure ended bright and early this morning (Saturday), when, after a scrumptious breakfast at IHOP, we headed north back to beautiful Botetourt. In fact, we were back home by 10:30 a.m. and that included a stop at Kroger for groceries (because we didn't have enough bags in the car yet, apparently).

And that, as they say, was that.

Thursday Thirteen #165

So here it is. My wedding anniversary falls on Thursday Thirteen; how cool is that?

Today I have been married for 27 - yep, count 'em - 27 years. Frankly, it doesn't seem all that long though for some folks that is an entire lifetime. We've had a lot of ups and downs and good and bad, because that is a long time even if it doesn't seem like it.

I do not profess to be an authority on marriage and to be sure it's not something I've spent a lot of time analyzing. But since I need 13 of something, I'm going to see if I can come up with 13 things we've done to keep our marriage healthy (and still intact).

1. Say "I love you." This should be a given but many people fail to say it. One friend of mine says she never says it because, "I've said it once and don't need to say it again." However, human nature being what it is, fraught with doubts and anxieties, I think these three words are good things to say not only to your spouse but to anyone who plays a huge role in your life. I wonder how much better off the world might be if we said these words more often. We say, "I love you," to one another every day.

2. Hold hands. Yeah, after all this time, we still hold hands. We hold hands when we watch TV. We hold hands in the shopping mall. We hold hands while we're driving down the road. It creates a connection even if we do look like old fools.

3. Kiss. Another one that makes the kids go yuck, but necessary for affection and passion. At least a kiss goodbye and another hello. But maybe not when you have a cold.

4. Have sex on a regular basis. I know it's a chore sometimes, but it tells your spouse you care. It changes with age and it shouldn't be set in stone, but definitely it is something to make time for.

5. Be tolerant. Okay, so he doesn't pick up his socks, he spits chewing tobacco in the yard, and he belches at the table. And I worry all the time, spend too much money at the grocery store, and don't wipe the toothpaste out of the sink right away. Marriage is give and take and sometimes you have to live with habits and things that you never thought you would.

6. Pick your fights. It isn't worth fighting over the socks and I'll never win the chewing tobacco war, so I gave those up long ago. I do remind him to say, "excuse me" at the table. I'm not saying don't dig in your heels to get your way, but sometimes the harsh words simply aren't worth it. Which brings me to another one . . .

7. Don't call your spouse bad names. We do not call one another bad names, not even during our worst fights. Calling someone a name is childish and a low blow, to boot. So you will seldom hear us call one another something like stupid, idiot, bitch, bastard, etc., except perhaps when it's clear we're joking.

8. Use pet names. Do use terms of endearment. They help to create a personal language between you and your spouse.

9. Take care of each other. This comes from my husband and was his first answer when I asked him what we did to keep our marriage going. By this he means the whole kit-n-caboodle, from housework to earning money, as well as touching a fevered brow and asking how your day has been. From cleaning the car to fixing dinner, these activities are all ways to say, "I care."

10. Be courteous. Just because you live with someone, it doesn't give you leave to be nasty, mean, ornery or callous. Manners go a long way. We treat each other as friends, and I think that makes a lot of difference.

11. Use "I feel" language instead of making accusations. By this I mean, say, "I feel hurt when you forget to take out the trash," as opposed to "You never take out the trash." Also, ask your spouse to repeat things back to you when you don't think he or she is listening. Sometimes they are listening but you're not being clear, so they don't hear what you think you are saying because you never really said it.

12. Say "I'm sorry." This can be a hard one but, unless you're perfect, you are not always right. If you make a mistake, own up to it, and offer a heart-felt apology. And you need to say the words; mind reading is an overrated skill that most people do not posses. Flowers are nice, but the words are required.

13. Have a code word for when things get too weird, or tense, or whatever, and you just need a break. Set the rules before you need them: when someone says the code word, you have to stop arguing, pestering, or whatever. Our code word, which is our secret so I won't repeat it here, is a funny word that brings up associations that makes us both laugh. (You can also have a code for sex or anything else, if you want.)

There you have it. Thirteen things to help keep your marriage going. At least, it's worked for us for 27 years.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 165th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

November, Remember?

If Only . . .

When I was very young, perhaps ten years old, I had an image of myself as an "old person" (i.e., someone in their 40s) that went something like this:

I would wear eclectic hippy-type clothing, and/or jeans, with things being loose and feeling comfortable. My clothes closet would reflect every color of the rainbow.

My hair would be shoulder length or longer and most definitely not gray.

I would wear contacts, because I knew even then that my eyes were bad and there is no denying some things.

My nails would be, not long, but not little nubs on my fingers.

I would not be fat, or have moles. I would be the picture of health. I would sparkle.

My work would consist of being a writer and/or a college professor, and I would spend my days in the thrall of learning, my mind constantly opening up to the cosmos, taking in all things. I would live in a small house near the college, and I would have a dog. My students would love me, my fans would write to me, and occasionally I'd have a book signing.

I thought I might look something like the picture on the left there, except maybe without the head scarf thing and possibly, being the realist I am, not quite that slender and beautiful.

The reality has proven to be something quite different.

I kind of know how I turned out as I have, but sometimes I see myself in the mirror and think, what the hell? How did that happen?

These days I have a streak of gray running along the left side of my head and flecks of gray in the remainder. My hair is just barely shoulder length and, being very fine, it generally just lies there like a pile of short, limp hair-sized whole-grain noodles.

The clothes in my closet are generally conservative and mostly dark; they almost all made by Alfred Dunner. They're your grandmother's clothes, really. Matching tops, sweaters and pants, mostly in blue. Not a hippy item among them. No tie-die, no light, fluffy cottony clothing to catch the breeze. No, instead I have Spandex, because I am anything but light and fluffy.

I have little barnacle-like things on my back and stomach. Barnacles of old age, someone called them.

My bones ache with the rain, creak when I stand up, and my knees hurt when I climb stairs. My eyes are changing constantly and reading has become more chore than love, much to my consternation. God forbid I should need to thread a needle.

My writing career has me standing at a precipice looking at my job skills and thinking, what happened here? When did the world change?

Thank goodness I no longer chew my nails, but they are, alas, short and stubby.

I am pretty sure I do not sparkle.

This is because I am overweight, and my efforts to shed those pounds like a snake tosses off a skin turn out to be more like the efforts of a shaved grizzly to put on both hair and pounds for the upcoming winter. I grow larger and more filled out with every bite.

With a too-large body comes the health issues that one reads about and shrugs off when you're 30 and watching the pounds pile on. I paid for that 10 years later.

And of course, someone who is overweight can't wear hippy clothes and look breezy and free. That is why I have a wardrobe that reflects the reality of the situation, not the fantasy.

There are times I try to excuse this part of the equation, the obesity part, and I am sure there is some truth to these excuses. My weight gain began when I started taking infertility drugs and then drugs for endometriosis that sent me on a hormone roller coaster (that was in the late 1980s). The weight started coming on and never stopped, for my hormones never leveled out and have remained a problem, especially after a hysterectomy.

Still, I think that is an excuse. But try as I might, I can't get the diet thing to work for me. And it frustrates the bejeezus out of me. I hate to fail.

So I look like this:



This is the real me.

If I could only figure out how to become that me I imagined 40 years ago. Ah, if only . . .

Books: How to Survive A Garden Gnome Attack

How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack
by Chuck Sambuchino
104 pages
Copyright 2010
Published by Ten Speed Press


I always wondered why my garden gnome statue keeps ending up on its face or even a foot or two away from where I last placed it. Now I know.

The darned thing wants to get me!

This cute little book would make a great gift for gardeners, yard statue addicts or somebody who just needs a clean giggle. I thought it was amusing and while I did not break out in loud guffaws I did smile a time or two.

The book is broken into several sections, including how to assess your risk, how to protect yourself (a moat seems like a lot of trouble . . .), how to defend your home, and how to apply what you've learned from the book.

The text is accompanied by pictures of garden gnomes spying on you, attempting to dig under your house  . . . you get the idea. The photos are neat and, for me, the best part of the book.

This is a work which does not take itself very seriously. You might give it to your mother-in-law or an aunt or somebody like that if you're out of ideas, or use it for a stocking stuffer.

The hardcover book sells for $14.99; Amazon has it for $10.19.







*Note: the publisher contacted me and sent me a copy of this book. They did not ask me to review it on my blog in exchange for the book but I thought it was cute and would make a good gift, so here's a review of it.*

The Squirrel and the Bench

A while back my husband left his "shooting bench" in the backyard. (A shooting bench is what he uses to site in his rifles so that they hit their target.) For some reason, this fascinated one of the squirrels in the backyard.

Autumn Colors

The Autumn colors for 2010 have finally reached the farm. For some reason I always think they should be here much earlier; they seem to come later and later instead.

The colors have not been as vibrant as they sometimes are but they have been lovely all the same.

I love these mountains.

Thursday Thirteen

On Facebook my friend Becky, who writes Peevish Pen, had a list of influential authors "who will always stick with you" listed in a note. I thought it would make a great Thursday Thirteen! These are not necessarily in order of importance but I did find it interesting to see who came tumbling out for the list first, for they are listed in that order. Although I have read many of the classics, the names of those authors did not present themselves to me with any immediacy.

1. Carolyn Keene. Who? Why, the author of the Nancy Drew books! Mildred Benson wrote the first 23 of the first 25 books in the series, and then the name was taken over by ghost writers who cranked out mysteries that starred the motherless female detective and her friends George and Bess. At one time one my life's goals was to own every Nancy Drew book, but I only collected 25. The writing lessons I learned from these books included how to create empathy with a character and how to keep a plot moving forward.

2. Laura Ingalls Wilder. The author of the Little House series of books taught me how to use detail to "paint" a story and bring a time period to life. The history settings in these books allowed me to see that some things should be remembered.

3. L. M. Montgomery penned the Anne of Green Gables series. These adventures feature a young orphaned girl who is raised by a stern woman who grows to love her cheeky charge. I found the first book online in its entirety here!

4. Victoria Holt. I read my first Gothic romance when I was nine years old (far too young, but they were in the drawer in the babysitter's hallway desk - who could resist?). It was called The Secret Woman and it was full of intrigue, mystery, death, and a little sex. The book held me rapt for days and I have never forgotten the story line.

5. Annie Dillard. The author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a narrative nonfiction book that reads like poetry, was the subject of an independent study I undertook as an undergraduate at Hollins College. The book was an exercise in minutiae, detail and self-preservation and similar to something I could see myself writing - one day. I learned that there is value in every moment and that the finest and slightest detail can make a huge difference in perception. She also graduated from Hollins.

6. Walt Whitman. Studying Whitman's poems, most especially "Song of Myself," gave me shivers when I was in school. I love to read his work aloud and to this day find inspiration in his words. I have somewhere in a drawer a very longish poem that I wrote during the time I was studying this poet.

7. Sharon Olds. Her first collection of poems, Satan Says, made me gasp with recognition and understanding. Her later collections seemed almost (but not quite) a parallel of my life when I read them (The Gold Cell is another good collection). I heard her read at Roanoke College in the 1990s and you can hear her read one of her poems here. From this poet I learned that the stuff of life is infinitely important when written down with love, direction, and attention. If you're not familiar with her work, I highly recommend it.

8. Lee Smith. I have read many of her books, including Saving Grace, On Agate Hill, Family Linen, and Oral History. She is another Hollins College graduate but her fictional works are nothing like Dillard's introspective narrative. Smith tells stories of women who are searching for that undefined something. Sometimes they find it. Strong characters and good stories set in my locale taught me the value of writing what you know. I've seen Smith at Hollins several times over the last 20 years.

9. Janet Evanovich. The author of the mystery series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, taught me how humor can add to a story.

10. Phyllis Whitney. Another Gothic romance writer. I began reading her stories about the same time I began reading Victoria Holt. My first Whitney book was called Thunder Heights and like the Holt book it was one I found when I was looking where I shouldn't have been. I loved the idea of a female heroine who could outsmart the men and move on with her life, and I still love it. Additionally, Whitney's Guide to Fiction Writing is one of the best books on writing as craft that I have ever read and I keep it on my desk.

11. Jeanne Larsen and Amanda Cockrell. Okay, so these are two authors but they both were my professors at Hollins and left marks (in a good way). Jeanne, my undergraduate professor who mentored me in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is the author of the Silk Road series, which are mystical stories set in China, as well as many books of poetry. She taught me to believe in myself and to persevere, among other things. Amanda, my graduate professor who mentored me about seven years ago, is the author of several trilogies, including The Deer Dancer trilogy. She taught me to always look forward and to stay the course.  She also taught me that it is okay to write under a pseudonym and that you don't have to write the Great American Novel the first go-round. Both of these women have been among my greatest influences.

12. Dorothea Brande and Brenda Ueland. Obviously I cannot keep at 13 in this list. Brande's book, Becoming a Writer, struck at my heart as it hit all of the right notes with regards to the desire and need to write. Ueland's If You Want to Write did the same thing and offered encouragement to a fledgling writer at a critical time in my life.

13. J. K. Rowling. So I might have preferred a Henrietta Potter instead of a Harry, given my preference for female heroines in my reading, but no matter. The Harry Potter series taught me a great deal about epic story telling. In particular I have often found myself comparing the Potter books to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings because I see many similarities there. Both are good versus evil plots that also bring with them strong characters and much detail.

Looking back I find it interesting to note that aside from Whitman all of these authors are female. Whitman, as I recall, was rather feminine so perhaps this is no mistake. I also know there are many that I haven't listed - the Bronte' sisters, Mary Johnston, Tamara Pierce, Terry Goodkind, Barbara Michaels, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe, Harper Lee, Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, a plethora of Newberry Award winning book authors whom I read when I was young, and many, many others. I am influenced somewhat by every book I read, I think, because one cannot be a writer and not learn from the good (or bad) writing of others.

Who are your favorite authors?


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here.  I've been playing for a while and this is my 164th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Tubs of Memories

A while back, the editor of the local newspaper brought me nine very large tubs full of photographs. He was storing them in a shed.

They are very heavy, since each one has several thousand pictures in it. I cannot lift them and I guess they each weigh at least 30 pounds or more.

Many of the photos are not labeled. There are thousands of shots of sports teams, weddings, school events, government events, grand openings, and happenings.

The stuff of life rests crammed into these plastic containers. This is a 30-year (plus) history of a community.

As one of the recorders of this history, having been a feature writer for said local paper at various times since 1985, some of the pictures are familiar to me because I took them. Of course, I did not take the majority; others did, so the frequency with which I run across a photo that I recognize as mine is small.

I will one day announce a project for some of the photos. In the meantime, I am enjoying the memories.

Books: A Painted House

A Painted House
By John Grisham
Copyright 2001
Read by David Lansbury
Approx. 5 hours
Abridged

I am not a John Grisham fan, having never been inclined to read suspenseful books about lawyers. So I was surprised when I was perusing the audiobooks at the library and ran across this book. There are no lawyers, no courts, no juries. This is a book about growing up on  a farm.

Narrated by 7-year-old Luke Chandler, the story depicts farm life in Arkansas in 1952. The young Chandler lives on a sharecropper's cotton farm with his parents and grandparents; he also has a young uncle fighting the war in Korea.

When the cotton is ready, it takes six weeks to harvest the 80 acres. The whole family works in the fields along side hired Mexicans and hill people - folks from the Ozarks who come down specifically for the harvest.

During this time, Luke learns things he shouldn't and finds himself keeping secrets that no young boy should have to keep. The hill people his grandfather has hired are mean folk, and one of the Mexicans has a hankering for the hill people's daughter.

This is a very moving coming-of-age story, one that I would not hesitate to recommend. This was thoughtful and contemplative. I enjoyed the look back at simpler times and of course, being a farm wife, I had great empathy for the characters. It reminded me of Newberry Award winning books that I had read in my younger days, except of course this is not a book for children.

What a pleasant surprise.

Wild Turkeys

Here's a little video showing off some wild turkeys. I hope you enjoy it.