Barbara Samuel's Blog: A Writer Afoot, page 4

Tilting toward Spring

It is February which means I have survived the worst month in Colorado, which is always January.  The days are short, ending claustrophobically even before I’ve started dinner, and it is often bitterly cold. The worst is the boring weather–indifferent, icy sunshine pouring from a frozen blue sky, day after day after day.   I ache for snowstorms in January, or cloudy days, or something to break up that endless blah cold.  It isn’t that I hate winter.  I just hate boring January.

And then February arrives and the earth tilts ever so slightly toward summer, and the days progress minute by minute toward dinnertime, then catch it.   In February, it can snow a lot, soaking the ground in readiness for spring.  If we’re lucky, crocuses might start popping up.  The tree branches start to swell.

My gardener’s heart turns to catalogues, oh torturous exercise!  Look at those plump tomatoes, those tender flower sprouts, even the clogs and knee protectors.  I want to go turn the compost just to smell the earth.  I spy the seedling trays and tug them off the winter shelf, wondering when I might be able  READ MORE  on The Goddess Blogs>>>>>>

 

 

 

New Zealand by the Numbers

NUMBERS FROM NEW ZEALAND

Posted from Rotorua

Never have as much time to blog as I imagine I will. I have blogs in process, but haven’t had a chance to pull them together. Look for a post on the earthquake damage in Christchurch, on traveling in a place apparently sort of like your own, and the weird appeal of glow worms upcoming,

In the meantime, on my bad internet connection, a few numbers from NZ:

Cities/towns visited: 9

Ginger beers consumed: 17 (approximately)

Hours spent riding in cars/vans/buses: 22, in 6 stints

Times I could not pronounce a Maori town/bay/mountain name: at least 67

Bays passed: at least 14

Beaches visited: 7 so far

Numbers of “slices” consumed at roadside tea shops: I’m afraid I cannot divulge that information

Bad Internet connections: 8

Good internet connections: 1

Books read: 5, plus pieces of others (so far)

Wineries visited: 1, Saint Clair in Marlborough

Movies missed: 1, The Hobbit in Kaikoura (where evidently there is an intermission to change reels)

Boats/Ferries: 3

Museums: 3

Number of times dear son has sent Nana movies of her granddaughter: 2

Hotel rooms: 6

Times I messaged my sister to find out if cats/dog were okay: 17

Times I asked for pictures of said animals: 2

Helicopter rides: 1

Caves: 3

More to come, friends. My feet are getting tired and we’re sleeping about 10 hours a night, so you know it’s a good holiday!

South Island, New Zealand Trip Report, #1

January 10, 2013

Queenstown

 

(Having trouble adding images….will try to add more later today….)

It’s raining this morning, a very agreeable weather considering how many days in a row we’ve been moving, moving, moving. I was delighted at the moody weather when we drove in last night, heavy clouds in dark puffs around the startlingly high, steep mountains and the enormous, long lake.

There is a reason a tourist town becomes a tourist town.

And the rain gives me time to collect a few thoughts about the trip so far. Everyone else has gone swimming, so I am left in the silence of the apartm[image error]ent to gather the sea- and sun- and delight-drenched moments to see what we have here. It goes so fast when you’re in the middle of it, and I have rarely been anywhere I felt so very much at home, but of course, we are outdoors, doing outdoor things, and when we are not, we are drinking tea and or ginger beer or choosing a little cake from a glass case.

How to gather a thousand moments into something coherent for you? I don’t have time to condense it all, so just follow along as you will.

Three words: color, animals, the sea.

COLOR

I knew NZ was beautiful. I’d seen bits of it ten years ago, on a whirlwind trip to the North Island. The sea and trees and mountains are a winning combination.

But when we came South, I was not expecting it to be so mouth-gapingly beautiful, so lavishly painted with color. How many times have I stood still to grapple with ways to [image error]describe the layers and layers and layers of color here? Not all colors, but two of my favorites–blue and green. The bays, perhaps because they are relatively shallow, are startling shades of aquamarine, turquoise. The mountains are green close in, blue and bluer and bluest against the horizon of blue sky. The Abel Tasman park has to be one of the most gorgeous spots I’ve ever seen, with that stunning colored sea and the islands covered with heavy bush, and little caves coyly placed nearby gold sand beaches.

In Marlborough, were the Sauvignon Blanc grapes have become the countries largest fruit export (at 68% of the total), the rolling hills are planted endlessly with green vines, that familiar striped pattern undulating for miles and miles and miles, all of it quilted against soft brown hills that look as velvety as antlers.

And everything remarkably uncrowded, even at one of the busy times of year. We have encountered crowds, of course, at the main sites, but nothing like they would be in any busy tourist center in the US or Europe at the corresponding high season.

I thought Abel Tasman was as beautiful as it could get, but then we arrived in Kaikoura, where the mountains are taller, and then we drove further down to Dunedin’s little town on the sea, and now we’ve arrived in Queenstown, which is even more startling.

A lot of it looks like Scotland to me, the lochs and the hills, the sudden sweep of a turn that reveals a bay or an expanse of ocean.

ANIMALS AND THE SEA

It feels in a way that my education this time is all about the ocean. What lives there, how it looks, how it smells, how it feels. Just how very salty it is on my face by the end of a day of kayaking. Just how tangled my hair can be (and full! and wavy!) I grew up in Colorado, so there was no sea, but I remember clearly the first time I saw the ocean, the Pacific in Southern California. It was a windy day and the steel gray waves were high and choppy, and then it died down and we wandered on the beach picking up shells. I have no idea where we were exactly–somewhere near San Diego, I’m guessing. Ever after, I had the sense that the ocean would make me happy. I struggled to get back to California, and almost joined the Navy (but they would have made me cut my waist length hair). I landed there again a couple more times before my children were born, on a long wander down the coast at nineteen, and a couple of months living in San Diego a year or so later.

But then I settled in to go to college, and then raise my boys, and we traveled to the interior of the country more often than not. Sometimes, RWA conferences were held by the sea, and I could visit. A few times, I visited friends who had access, and they would take pity on my yearning and we’d go to peer in tide pools or walk along the sand so I could get my feet wet. My family and I took a ferry across the Irish Sea and I learned I can be terribly seasick. CR and I took a ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, British Columbia, which was astonishingly beautiful. When I started teaching at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference (which I will be doing again this summer–please come!), I had the most beach access of my life–that vast beach in the early morning, deserted except for me and my yoga mat, the boats bouncing gently under the June gloom.

The ocean itself, its vast, deep depths still were a mystery to me. I don’t really eat fish. I don’t know how they live and grow. I know it’s deep. I know things live in the water. I have no desire to swim in it. (Okay, maybe I’d swim by the Great Barrier Reef. That was very clear water. You can see what’s coming.)

This trip seems all about Things That Live In And Around The Ocean. Whales, seals, dolphins, sea birds, fish. The gigantic Royal Albatross, with it’s six foot wing span, wings that fold in threes, neatly, like origami, over its gigantic back. It can fly 1000 km in a day. It knows how to get back to the place it was born so that it can mate. Sometimes mated pairs arrive at the mating ground within hours of each other. Hours, after flying alone, thousands of miles, for months on end. How do they DO that?

How delicious is it that there are varieties of squid for every level of feeder along the currents where squids live? Seals it one variety, whales and penguins each another type.

I have learned to recognize three kids of sea gulls, all of them big and bossy and brash. I don’t like them since being mugged by one in Santa Barbara, but this time, I sat and watched a trio bathing at the edge of the water, fluttering wings and dipping heads, and it was peaceful and kindly, a ritual of conversation, coos and clicks. It isn’t their fault that they are the tourist scavenger birds from hell.

The whale was impressive, but nowhere close to as thrilling for me as the pod of little dolphins we saw, frolicking and dancing, or the baby seal pups diving and swirling in a small pool ringed with adults sunning themselves with one eye open.

This afternoon is more rain and a quiet dinner alone with CR. In between, my sister and law and I are going to indulge at the spa, which is a holiday sort of thing to do, as well.

More as I am able.

Oh, PS: KAYAKING ROCKS! How is it possible I never indulged this pursuit until three years ago??

Whirling through….

Greetings from Kaikoura! no time to blog, and have a ver slow connection, but I wanted to let you know you can see photos & short updates on Facebook.

Www.facebook.com/barbarasamueloneal.

All My Bags Are Packed

And we’re ready to go. The cats have been camping on my suitcase, and Jack is following me around everywhere. The long, long list of Get Ready for Christmas, Have Christmas, Go to New Zealand Two Days Later List is pretty much all checked off.   Despite the sad fact that my eldest was felled by food poisoning over the weekend, we had a great visit, and I especially loved Christmas breakfast, which involved orange-frosted cinnamon rolls, both vegan and Pillsbury, and bacon, both regular and tempeh.

This is Ian’s recipe for tempeh bacon, which is so good that I had to scold CR–who is a bacon fanatic— and make him stop eating it.  (You might also remember Ian’s One Ingredient Ice Cream.)

Easy Tempeh Bacon

1 pckg tempeh, sliced very, very thinly

1/4 to 1/2 cup Maple syrup , depending on how much maple flavor you want

Soy sauce to cover

Place the tempeh in a glass dish and pour the maple syrup over it. Add soy sauce to cover.  Cover and marinate in the fridge for one hour to overnight.

Heat canola oil or other high heat oil over medium heat and add the tempeh slices carefully, turning often. They burn quickly! It takes a little practice to get just the right caramelization on the slices, but it just takes tending.  Serve.

Next post will be from NZ….stay tuned.

THE SLEEPING NIGHT…free over the holiday at Amazon

If you have not yet had a chance to pick up my book The Sleeping Night, you can do so this weekend for free.  Tonight, it has soared to #13 on the free list.  Go ahead, give yourself a treat.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleeping-Night-ebook/dp/B00887Q196/ref=zg_bs_digital-text_f_13

The Age of Aquarius–a time of balance

Happily, the end of the world has not yet arrived, and we’re all here to begin the long awaited Age of Aquarius, which some say begins this year.  It is meant to be a time of spiritual growth for society, and to me, it  does feel like the dawn of a new age.  I’d like to think so.

I’m thinking about change and balance myself, and a few things have come together to insist that I begin to consider exactly what I want each day to contain, how I want to live, what changes I’d like to make.  In October and November, I was pulling my usual deadline marathon, finishing the new book, Flavor of a Blue Moon, which will be out in early 2014.  (Sorry, I know that will be a disappointment to some of you, but the truth is, it just took more time to research and write than some other books.  I think you’re going to fall in love with Lavender and Ginny and all the adventures they have.  In the meantime, I promise to have some novellas up this year, just for you.)

Back to the deadline marathon.  It was exhausting.  Way more exhausting than it ever has been.  By the time I emailed it to my editor and agent, I felt like a zombie, and looked like one, too: my eyes were bloodshot constantly, and my skin was the color of wax, to compliment the smeared-cinders look of the circles under my eyes.  The last week of the deadline, I realized that I had a sinus infection and dashed over to the local urgent care to get some antibiotics.

There I discovered that one reason I felt so crappy was that my  blood pressure, which I’d been trying to control with diet and exercise, had gone way too high, and my heart was murmering and all sorts of alarms went off and I was hustled to this doctor and that and had tests and Serious Conversations and–well, the bottom line is, I’m pretty much okay.  Have to drop another 30 pounds (even more would be better, but I’m sticking with that goal for the moment). They gave me some pills that dropped the BP–and I just want to say, wow.  I tend to resist western medicine for more holistic, nutrition-based methods, but I could not believe how much better I felt in two days.  They say blood pressure is a silent killer, but I could feel it over my forehead and this weird tingle all over my face and neck.  Now I know what that means.  Ah!

My trainer, the dear Tabor, and I worked out a more vigorous exercise plan, and I devoted myself to it.  In a month, I’ve added a bunch of muscle and dropped some pounds, and the BP is under control.

But I’m also on a writing haitus because I was so exhausted.  I love my work, and this process has worked very, very well for me for more than twenty years, but clearly, I can’t keep doing it this way.  I need to work more sanely, with very short marathons, if any.   I MUST take the time every week to exercise a lot–what seemed to work in December was three strength training sessions, five cardio (some treadmill and some Zumba) and a yoga class.  Oh, and dog walks most mornings, 40-50 minutes.  A lot, but I like it.

The other stark reality in my life is that I have to have my right knee replaced this spring.  Another western medicine solution, but you guys know I’m a devoted hiker, and when I went to Ithaca, I had a very bad hike.  I’ve tried exercise and diet and supplements and massage, but the bottom line is the knee is wrecked and impossible to fix any other way, and I just don’t see the point of limited activity and pain if there’s a way around it.  My other goal with Tabor and exercise is to strengthen everything else about the leg and knee supports so that the recovery is as strong and fast as possible.

Long story short: everything in my body needs balance and less weight.  To do good work, I need a healthy body. To get that healthier body, I have to drop some weight and change the deadline mania.

To that end, I’m dedicating the fresh new season to positive health.  Focusing on positive, healthy changes–lots of fresh healthy food, lots of vigorous exercise and fresh air, lots of good sleep and work in balanced, measured amounts.  I love work, work every day, and I have many more stories to write, plus a little granddaughter who will appreciate having Nana as healthy as possible.  I need to make a few more changes, but most of those will be in progress, and some will have to wait until I get back from New Zealand.  What things will have to be jettisoned? What things can remain? What needs to be simplified?

So, I’ll be blogging about this some.  I am not as frank as some writers find it possible to be–my friend Krissie has chronicled a challenging year at Reinventing Fabulous–so some of my stuff stays mine, but I will talk about positive changes and progress here as I go. My true goal is to create more balance and thus more joy in my life. Maybe that journey will be helpful to some of you.

Meanwhile, we leave for New Zealand in four days. There, I’ll rest and read and fill the well and get lots of fresh air.  Between then and now is Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and all the joys contained therein. My baby girl’s first Christmas is arrived and I intend to enjoy every single second of it.  My son is home, resting from his vigorous days at the Supreme Court.  I’m immersing in the pleasure of this time.  (Including the kitten who will miss me a lot, even if she won’t say so.)[image error]

Wednesday, I will finish the lists for the house sitters who will come and live with my critters and take care of the plants and the house. Wednesday, I’ll finish packing.  While in NZ, I’ll be mulling over my goals and dreams for the year, how to be balanced and sane, to better serve both my work and my body.  Stay tuned.

Do you feel the energy from the Age of Aquarius arriving in your life? What does that feel like to you? 

Upcoming New Zealand

I haven’t been on a long journey since the splendiferous trip to England and Spain in 2010, when I walked a part of the Camino de [image error]Santiago (which showed up emphatically in The Garden of Happy Endings).  In a couple of weeks, Christopher Robin and I are headed off to New Zealand for a month, to visit family and wander and recharge the batteries and celebrate a certain important birthday for CR.  I’ll be blogging and posting photos, of course, and I know some of you like these journeys a lot.

We leave Dec 27.  On the schedule are penguins and the earthquake-savaged Christchurch, Mitford Sound and Queenstown. I can’t wait to see those savagely beautiful mountains.  I hope we’ll be able to sea kayak (even if I’ll be nervous).  Everyone has insisted glow worms are really a treat.   I once visited the 90-mile beach in the far northlands and saw a wild horse laughing on a hill, and picked up a purple shell and held my breath over such long stretches of beach so unpopulated, so I want to take CR there.

The rest…who knows?  Bookshops and grocery stores.  Cookies and nephews.  That crazy accent and calla lilies and greenery.  Also, long long flights, which I admit I sort of love.  Time to read, to think, to be away from ordinary life.

Any tips? Anything you’ve seen I must not miss?  What are the best trips you’ve made? 

Craving

This morning, as we finished our in-bed cup of tea, which we take turns making and bringing back upstairs, I realized I had a wish for grapefruit juice.  When we were in DC to see my son, I had fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice every day at Founding Farmers and it stuck with me.  Why, I wondered, didn’t I make this treat for myself at home?

But I never got around to getting a juicer.  This morning, recovering from the extreme press to the end of the MIP, I’m trying to listen carefully to my poor body. It said, grapefruit juice. Please. Please please please please.  I said to CR, “Let’s go out to breakfast at the Egg and I.”  He agreed.

Unfortunately, the delivery truck was late and there was no grapefruit juice. We had a nice breakfast anyway, but I was still feeling that craving, that very specific, needthisnow feeling.  On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some grapefruits.  Also, bonus: fresh figs, which I desperately wanted a few weeks ago and there were none to be found.

Trouble was, they had no juicers at WF.  Not even the little plastic ones. We searched high and low, but they were not in stock.  I was prepared to just use the food processor, but now CR was on a quest, so we headed over to Target, which had only just opened, and viola! There were juicers of every variety, from the $4.99 basic with a nice glass jar, up to a $99 model which will do everything but buy the fruit & veggies for you.  (I actually do want a juicer of that sort, but I’m not into spending that much money on a whim).  I choose the basic model and we headed home.

Where I made my own freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.  Isn’t this a cute little juicer?

[image error]

 

 

Takes all of two minutes.

 

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At last…….!

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It was exactly, exactly, what my poor battered body wanted.  Don’t you want some, too?

And now I have a juicer, and a stash of grapefruits and shall make more juice whenever I like! La.

The Story of Neko, involving good luck, good Samaritans, and a good helping of cat charm

[image error]On Saturday night, Neko somehow escaped into the backyard when Jack when outside. We didn’t notice he was gone until Sunday morning, when he didn’t show up for breakfast (and believe me, breakfast is his favorite thing). I felt sick to my stomach when I realized he was gone. We went out to look for him, calling and calling, but nothing.

Not on Sunday, or Monday. Monday morning, I made a couple dozen posters with his picture and walked around taping them to the central mailboxes all over the neighborhood, along with taping them to the park signs (there are two parks–gotta love the suburbs). I tried to figure out line of sight for a cat–over fences, down sidewalks, and posted in those places.

CR went to the Humane Society. I signed up for a pet alert service.

I was not, this time, particularly worried about foxes. He’s a big cat, and fierce, and fast, and young. I WAS really, really, really fretting about the cold. It’s been below twenty most nights. He’s a very coddled cat.

I also worried that somebody would just like him so much they wouldn’t return him. He’s so adorable, and really pretty, and a total charmer.

Tuesday, nothing.

Wednesday, nothing. (Remember, if you will, that I am an emotional wreck because I’m finishing a book anyway…adding this to the mix gave me a shoulder so frozen I couldn’t move it yesterday)

But here’s the thing: I kept sending out prayers for safety and protection. I did what I did with my children when they were driving with friends: imagined giant angels with big powerful wings all round them.

This morning, I woke up determined to polish the last couple of chapters, check a few more facts, and get my book done, no matter what was happening with Neko.

Just as I sat down at the computer, my phone rang, and a woman said, “I just came back from my walk, and I think I know something about your cat Neko.” She said that there had been a boy walking around the neighborhood, going door to door on a particular street, trying to find who owned this pretty cat. He had the cat in a carrier. The woman said, “He was the sweetest boy.”

She said, “I’m a kitty person, too.”

She told me the street name, and I looked it up–and it is a straight arrow across fences, back yards, and the park. I was in my boots and coat in five minutes flat, armed with new posters. It was too late for the off to work crowd, so I pinned up posters and put them in every door on the street. I saw one guy and asked if he knew the kid–he said, “Oh, he was so great! He said he lived over there, across the street.”

So I dutifully went there and saw an older couple, leaving their home. I waved at them and they waved back, but I waved more urgently to get them to stop, and they did. I poured out my dilemma. “Did you see him, this boy?” Yes, they had. The old man said, he had big earrings in his ears, a teenager, real skinny. Hispanic, maybe.

Did they know where he lived? They weren’t sure. The woman told the boy to take the cat to the Humane Society. She said she’d managed to get her dog back that way.

I thanked them, and continued flyering every door. I thought I would come back at dinner time, and knock on each door. Somebody would know this kind teenage boy.

It was time to finish my book. I went home. I kept thinking that I would do this all by myself, and then surprise CR, who loves this cat like crazy, but I worried about the Humane Society angle, so I called him and left a message. “Give me a call.”

He called back in five minutes. I said, “I have news.” He said, “Is it the same news I have?”

And it was! The mother of the teen had called the Humane Society and they gave her CR’s number and she called. They chatted.

He head butts, CR said. Yes, said the mother. He had to stay in the garage because her cat is territorial, but he was safe and warm and fed.

I had to wait until 4 for them to be home. I finished the edits and mailed the manuscript and took Jack for a long walk, taking down all the posters I taped up around the neighborhood.

CR came by to pick me up. We drove around the corner to the house, and four kids answered the door. Skinny, yes, and all of them had earrings, and they were kind and sweet and earnest, and they so loved our Neko! They said he was the best cat ever and they liked how he licked their noses, and Neko climbed up on my shoulder and I kissed him and kissed him and tried not to cry. I gave them money, which they tried to give back, but then I asked when he showed up.

They said, “Saturday night! He was just meowing and meowing on our doorstep!”

So he got locked out, probably had some fun exploring the local backyards, got cold, realized he had no idea where he was, and went to a door and meowed, and someone let him in, and they fed him and coddled him and all is well.

He is SO tired tonight, sleeping and sleeping, peeing and eating and sleeping some more.

Tonight, I am so grateful for the good Samaritans all along this path. I’m grateful for angels who love animals, for the woman who called, for the boy who wandered up and down streets with a cat in a carrier, for his mother who called the Humane Society, for the Humane Society who has an organized way of keeping track of lost and found pets. I am grateful for the central mailboxes in my neighborhood, too, and the parks where a lot of people pass through.

Mainly, I am wildly, wildly grateful that my cat is safe. That I can kiss him. That tomorrow, I’ll have to keep him from eating everybody else’s canned food. That he’s sleeping on my bed.

It seems against all odds, and yet, here he is. Goodness and mercy do exist in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving Week, everybody!