[Burglers note: I do have a house sitter.] It’s everything you always wanted to know about Register NOW for the 12th Annual New England Crime Bake TM November 8, 9, 10, 2013 at The Hilton Boston/Dedham Sign-up at www.crimebake.org   This year’s conference for mystery writers and readers tackles everything you were afraid to ask about researching, writing, publishing, and promoting books across the genre.     Our Guest of Honor, Meg Gardiner, is the Edgar-winning author of two thriller series, the stand-alone novel, Ransom River, and The Shadow Tracer, due out June 27th. Meg has been dubbed “The Next Suspense Superstar” by Stephen King.     Meg won an Edgar Award for China Lake, the debut novel in her series on Evan Delaney and her hottest guy on wheels, Jesse Blackburn, plus an Amazon Top Ten Thriller Award and a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for novels pairing forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett with pararescueman Gabe Quintana. PLUS:     Top New England authors engage in stimulating discussions on today’s hot topics, including creating and sustaining a career, high concept novels, mixing a little death into your recipe for a cozy series, detecting the past, and modern heroes and heroines.     Forensic experts strip bare the facts on police procedure and traumatic injury, and you can get specific answers to your questions from “Ask the Experts” guests willing to reveal the underlying details of law enforcement, the legal process, medical procedures, the writing craft, and social media.     Agents and editors show you how to avoid the erroneous zones in pitching and submitting your manuscript and what you need to do to wrap up a publishing deal.     Master class instructors touch on all areas of the writing process, from the anatomy of a bestseller to maintaining suspense through to the climax of your novel. Published authors in your genre can help you massage your manuscriptwith a private one-on-one critique.     The night heats up on Saturday with our Trouble in Paradise banquet and costume party! Try to expose the identities of your fellow guests. We’ll dispense prizes for the best! Then join us on the dance floor for some bump and grind to wind up the evening. We expect another SOLD OUT conference! Register now here ! Sponsored by the New England chapters of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America

It Was May 18, 2013

About 4 minutes ago, it was Saturday (May 18). Now it's not.

I fell asleep. I guess it was the 2 lawn carts of weeding that I did this morning. I am so sore and tired ... but I did get the pansies (thank you, Phyllis!) and basil planted.  Of course, that meant that I had to go in Town and buy more plants at the Amherst Garden Club's annual sale!

More later, including my vacation in Williamsburg, VA.  Now it's off to bed.

Yes, these are heirloom tomatoes from the Silver Spring, Maryland, Farmers' Market.  I cannot wait until we can see tomatoes such as these at our own Farmers' Market here in Amherst.  Phyllis was telling me last night that they will have three lettuces today, plus swiss chard.  Woo hoo!

It has dawned rainy and 63 F today.  That's o.k., but they predicted thunderstorms and my plane leaves about when they predicted the storms.  Oh well. I'm sure it will be fine. I can't wait to see Maria and company in Williamsburg, VA!

As you can see, I have figured how to upload pictures, so I will be able to put my travel pics here. Ciao!

July 11, 2012 Musings

O.k., the heck with humble! I just got 71 points in Words with Friends for the word “trivet.”  Woo hoo!  So why is it that I can get these great scores and still lose? Sheesh, some of my friends are playing two games at a time with me.  I can hear them in their air conditioned homes (while I sweat and stick to my chair in front of an anemic window fan), “We got a live one here! She’s going down in flames, flames, I tell ya!!”  Oh, well, it keeps me out of bars.

You might have guessed that it’s a tad warm here (83 F. in my kitchen).  So tonight I called Phyllis to see if she wanted to eat at the air conditioned diner.  She did.  We had a great time gossiping about everyone we know and since Phyllis knows everyone in town, it was a lot to talk about!  I had moussaka and she had Philly cheese steak. That’s what I love about diners – there’s something there for everyone.

So the diner’s décor got me to thinking of the 50’s and while I was on vacation, someone made what I thought must have been a 50’s hors d’ouevres.  On a cracker, she put a slice of pepperoni topped with cream cheese. On that, she put a blob of mint (I kid you not) pepper jelly. 

Which got me to thinking that we thought we were so fancy when we put a hunk of ham followed by a pineapple chunk on a toothpick.  Phyllis said she thought she was fancy when she squirted Cheez Whiz out of a can onto cracker; she also really liked the mini wiener pigs in a blanket.

Enough of that. So when the skunk lets his perfume fly at 1 in the morning in front of my house – and it’s deadly quiet – what is making him do that? If I can find out why, maybe I can stop it. The goal is to be able to leave my front door open without dousing my living room in eau du skunk.  Phyllis thought that maybe he was looking for a date.  If that’s the case, I’m glad I’m not a skunk. Come to think of it, I’m glad I’m not a skunk anyway.

Today, I was sitting at my desk working (I do that occasionally) and the nice volunteer who teaches ESL students asked for the room key. I got up – and walked into a metal hanging file folder that has been in the same place on the floor for years.  I had hit my shin. You know when the pain is so bad that you can’t move and you can’t speak? This was one of those times. I was finally able to give her the key (from the other desk in the other room) and when she left, I pulled up my pants leg to see blood from a gash and a rapidly swelling shin. So I got the cold can of seltzer out of my lunch and put it on top of a tissue. (I really didn’t want a blood spot on the front of my slacks.) The swelling went down considerably, but this little gash must be the shin equivalent of a paper cut because it hurts like a sumbitch.

When Sharon (my boss) got back from her meeting, I requested sympathy, which I got after I showed her my leg.  Chris came down from upstairs and I showed her my leg. (She offered alcohol to sterilize it, but I thought I had had enough pain.  Did I tell you I had started the day with a mega headache?)  So by the time Glen, the letter carrier, arrived Sharon and I were really laughing about the whole thing.  Sharon said, ‘She’s showing her leg to everybody.’ After I told Glen how it had happened, he said, “You want sympathy after you did something stupid?!”  That got me to really laughing! Only your friends will tell you when you’ve done something stupid.

It must have dawned on Glen how that sounded because he said, ‘Look at this scar,’ (he’s wearing the summer shorts uniform).  He went on to say that he had been playing golf, missed the shot, got mad and slammed his club down – into his leg.  Now THAT’S stupid!

Nothing much else is new here.  Except that a fox ate a miniature poodle.  Oh, did I mention that the owners had previously shooed the fox away? And then they must have put the dog out in the yard again.  Helllooo … predator here.  Some people are too stupid to own dogs.

Speaking of stupid, and we were.  A naked man has popped up in at least three places in Town. Nobody seems to know if all of the incidents were the same man.  Doesn’t anyone think to put a can of spray paint in their purse? Just whip it out and mark that sucker!  (I did but the cap fell off and I’m still drying out the inside of my purse. It’s now neon hot pink.)  If the sprayer were really creative, s/he could make a smiley face using the nipples as eyes and … oh, never mind.

So I’m ending my first week back to work after vacation. It seems like but a vague memory of doing nothing. Absolutely nothing!  But I feel very privileged to have had a vacation, so I can’t gripe too much.  Have I shown you my leg?

Bicycle Pants Man

2-4-11

 Boy, am I tired.  I worked all day, went out to eat with my "Potluck Ladies," then home, then to the homeless shelter (on the other side of Town from where I live).
>
> I brought all of the makings, except for the bread, for bread pudding.  Actually, it was to be rice pudding, but someone ate the frozen rice!!  It was left over so we had frozen it.  But in the food pantry at the Baptist Church (who host the shelter), they have many loaves of "artisan bread."  It's the good stuff, round loaves.  The homeless won't eat it ... so I broke it up, added stuff, including strawberry jam and !voila! bread pudding.  The workers loved it, the homeless ... didn't want to try it.  Odd, huh?
>
> Kyle was there helping out his father, Frank.  Frank is an employee, basically in charge when he's there.  Kyle graduated high school last summer and has been laid off from his Costco bakery job.  There's one particularly charming man who always addresses me by name (which is a bit disconcerting), and tries to inveigle more food.  According to Dorothy, he is a glutton.  (Apparently, some nights he eats so much, he vomits ...)  Anyway, Kyle said he doesn't like to be in the bathroom when this guy is in there.  "Why?" I asked.  "He's a sex offender," Kyle answered matter of factly.  Oh - kaaaaay ... I didn't dare ask which sex ...
>
> A nice young police officer stopped by to say hi.  I didn't want to be rude and look for his name badge, so I don't know his name.  He had been there before -- he has a great smile and a decent rapport with the homeless.  Most of them are regulars.
>
> Meanwhile, there was a new volunteer there.  He was weird, poking into everything in the food pantry.  It turns out, he's determined to provide a hot breakfast for the homeless guests.  Frank tried to tell him that they get up at 7 a.m. and have to be out by 7:30 a.m. (Joe had already told me last weekend that most don't eat breakfast because they had detoxed overnight and needed to get out and get a fix of alcohol or whatever ...) But the really weird thing is: This guy was wearing spandex bicycle pants.  It was gross.  I'm sure if I had wanted to look -- I would have been able to tell if he has been circumcised. (It took me two tries to spell "circumcised" correctly. When was the last time you used that word?)  I told Frank he had to tell him to wear clothing next time.  Frank said he didn't think he should have to tell anybody that.  I was grossed out.  He has a terrible body!  (Skinny.)  I was good though.  I didn't make any comments on the cold weather (the temp is going down and is currently 0.4 F.).
>
> Well, that's about it for now.  Except: Wow, is Shepherd's Pie great when (1) someone else makes it, and, (2) you haven't had it in a long time! (I only tasted it, I didn't take food out of anyone's mouth!)

Chopped May 4, 2013

Chopped                       May 4, 2013

Well, who knew?  Ramps are similar to leeks with an aroma of garlic and are only available in the spring.  See, I knew I was really being educated with my junk TV.  Of course, I was introduced to ramps through Chopped, one of my favorite shows.  [After writing this, I went into Whole Foods and the first thing I saw was ramps!  At $12.00 per pound!!]

In case you haven’t seen Chopped, contestants are given a picnic basket full of ingredients that they must use for three rounds: appetizer, entrée, and dessert.  After each round, one person is eliminated by the three judge panel of food experts.  In my opinion, it’s appropriate that the picnic baskets are black because they contain some of the weirdest combinations of ingredients known to man.  Often, I have no clue as to what the exotic vegetable is and sometimes they throw in a stunner such as lemon drop candy – for the entrée!

And the contestants are amazing and create wonderful dishes in only 30 minutes.  I couldn’t figure out what to do in 30 minutes!  I often end up staring at the contents of my fridge and come up blank.  It’s pretty hard to make “real food” out of sundried tomatoes in oil, green olives with lemon and garlic, butter, eggs, and minced garlic.  Yeah, I know: pasta putanesca.  (I always have some kind of pasta in the food closet.)  Did you know that name is actually “the whores’ pasta”?  Supposedly, when the working girls got home, they were ravenous and threw in anything they could find in the fridge.  Hence, the name.  Anyway, I made a  go of it and learned that thin spaghetti topped with shrimp, garlic, aforementioned sun dried tomatoes, and a little more olive oil is yummy.  (The shrimp was frozen and I left out the olives to use another time.)

I’m sitting here on a gloriously sunny day and should be outside, but I have been lounging around recovering from a two day work week.  Yes, you heard that correctly.  A week ago Friday, I had a cough at work.  By Sunday, I was sick and on Monday they sent me home. (Good thing, I got REALLY sick after that.)  It was just ‘an upper respiratory thing,’ but I’m sure hayfever didn’t help.  We now have so much pollen in the air that my car was covered in yellow from just one day out of the garage.

 

Anyway back to being sent home from work: nobody wanted my germs.  And I can fully understand that!  I don’t wish sickness on anyone.  But I think people can go too far.  By the third day, I was going stir crazy so I made a fruit tart and brought it in with me to work.  There were some who wouldn’t touch it – even though it had baked at 350 degrees!  Now that’s a bit much I think.

Lazy Woman’s Fruit Tart

1 Pillsbury refrigerator pie crust (they come two rolls to a pack)

8 inch pie plate

3 apples, peeled, chopped

1/2 cup or so of fresh blueberries

2 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons sugar

Butter – about two tablespoons, slivered

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Put the pie crust into the plate.  Add apples, blueberries; sprinkle flour, sugar and cinnamon over top.  Dot with butter slivers.  Fold extra crust over top, leaving vent hole.  Bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes and check it.  Crust should be brown. 

How easy is that? I think it would be even better with some vanilla ice cream while the crust is still warm …

There is a wonderful exhibit of portraits of WWII veterans in the atrium of the Jones Library now.  Chris Demarest is the painter and we had a lovely chat.  He will actually be painting two portraits of Amherst veterans in the atrium, next to his exhibit.  I was thrilled to learn that he has seen my quilt (The Free Spirit of Massachusetts) in the Women in Military History Museum at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery.  I was thrilled that “Bennie” (aka Bernarda) came to volunteer for the Office as she does every Friday.  She is 90 years young and a wonderful person.  She was a WAVE who had been stationed in Washington, DC.

But at one point, she was in Germany and she and her friends would go with her for a drink after work.  They thought they were being very sophisticated when they ordered, ‘A martini, dry.’  They were always mystified when they got three martinis.  (Hear the word “dry.”)

Anyway, I introduced Bennie to Chris and she observed that his portrait of the young Navy man, Jack Kennedy, made him look very scruffy in his uniform.  (Chris usually works from photos and in this one, Jack had a walking stick probably due to his war injury.)  Bennie said, “He was always beautifully appointed when we saw him,” noting that she and her husband had an apartment across the street from his campaign headquarters. 

How Are You Doing? Original Date: 10-14-07

[I have annotated this 'golden oldie' with boldface comments.  No, it's not true that I haven't written anything new -- I just like to revisit these things.]

10-14-07

How are you doing? I can't imagine ... but here's my (lately) chaotic life: Last night Mom and Deb and I went to the Show Us Your Bra auction.  Mom was the only bid (and she's stuck with it now) on my bra.  (It's "Barbie Goes Hunting.")  There were a lot of breast cancer survivors there and many "bratistes" had made their submissions to honor deceased mothers, sisters, friends.  At one point, Judith Fine (The Gazebo in Northampton) invited everyone to "Show us your bra!" and she whipped up her blouse -- as did several other women in the audience.  (I was too chicken.)

["Barbie Goes Hunting" is a handmade bra made of pink camouflage cotton fabric.]

On Friday, I had already taken the day off to go to a quilting class called "Sensuous Lines and Skinny Curves" by Carol Taylor. You can google her and find her if interested.  The first part of the lesson, I learned "couching" which turned out to be applying yarns, ribbons, whatever to the top of a quilt using zig zag stitches.  Not very hard, but tedious.  The second part -- the skinny curves-- looks easy but I am awful at it! I'm hoping to get better with practice.  Then she showed us a border with "floating" squares -- which I already knew how to do (thank you, Jesus!!).  [Ms Taylor pointed out how inept I was/am. Not a great experience.]

Thursday night, after work, Mom treated me to a live performance of "Shout! The Mod Musical" at CityStage in Springfield.  It was fantastic with the 5 women singing all of the 1960's hits.  (Well, many of them.)  I enjoyed it thoroughly. [I remember that that singing was fantastic!]

Wednesday, I took off from work and we drove to Williamstown to the Francine and Sterling Clark museum.  Wow!! It was fantastic to stand in a room with 4 Renoirs or 3 Sargents.  Again, I enjoyed that thoroughly.[I was also amazed at the brilliance of the colors of the restored 13th century panels.]

On Tuesday, I had to work 1 to 5:30 p.m. and was dealing with the vet and the dog.  He had $150 worth of tests to find out that he does NOT have Cushing Syndrome, which means the vet has no idea why he is intermittently incontinent.  [I still miss the dog.]

Last Sunday, Deb and Mom got sucked into going to church with me and staying for a "Newcomers' Class."  I told them they didn't have to go, but they did (pleasing me no end).  The day before, Sat., Emily was here too and we had a wonderful Sat. night dinner with Em, John (her bf), Mom, Deb, Elizabeth (my neighbor), me and Puffer.  It was a teriffic time! [I did end up joining that church and I'm very happy that I did.]

Oh yeah: on Wed., before hitting the road to the Clark, I noticed a bump on my gum. On Thursday, Jeanne and my boss said, "You had better go to the dentist!" Luckily, he saw me -- his office is almost across the street from the Jones -- sigh. I have an abcessed tooth and need a root canal and crown.  (Our Town dental plan is so crummy, that translates into BIG BUCKS.) [Currently, I need another crown -- and I'll have to pay $975.]

Shumway's Tree Service showed up two weeks earlier than he had said.  The huge, ugly, pine is gone from the front yard and you can actually see the house!  He trimmed the ornamental crab apple tree and removed twin maples from the back.  He was hauling away the huge trunk when I got home from work on Thursday.[Boy, was I glad that was gone.  Since then, we have had many high wind situations and that tree would have fallen on the house for sure.]