Marian Allen's Blog, page 410

#Caturday – Claiming His Place

Our #4 Daughter gave my mom a cat bed for her birthday. The cat bed was for Mom’s cats, not Mom. And it was Mom’s birthday, not #4 Daughter’s. Wait. Our #4 Daughter gave my mom, for Mom’s birthday, a bed for Mom’s cats.

It must have been made for teacup cats, because it’s wee. Nevertheless, Ozzie adores it. He just barely fits on it when he curls up at his tightest, and then he often has a paw or a tail-tip hanging over.

Sweetie Pie (whose real name, I’ve discovered by process of trying everything I could think of, is Myrtle Mae) is madly jealous. She can, with determination, get her head into the downstairs part of it. She can stand up and put her head and front feet on the top.

Woe betide her, though, if Ozzie catches her anywhere near it. It is HIS throne, and he ain’t sharin’ it!

Selfish! But I already told you he’s a cat.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Two characters receive a shared present, but one hogs it.

MA

Monthly Update February 2013

It’s the first of the month, so I’ve posted a new Hot Flash for you. This one is science fiction. January’s was Steampunk, but I don’t think that marks a trend for the year.

This being February, I must again recommend Gilbert and Sullivan’s THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, particularly the version with Kevin Kline in tight pants as The Pirate King and Angela Lansbury as Little Ruth. Be sure to watch past Frederic’s mewling and whining to get to the good bit.

In case you can’t play the video, here are the lyrics:

Ruth: When you had left our pirate fold,
We tried to raise our spirits faint,
According to our customs old,
With quips and quibbles quaint.
But all in vain the quips we heard,
We layed and sobbed upon the rocks,
Until to somebody occurred
A startling paradox.
Frederic: A paradox?
Ruth: A paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
We’ve quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!

All: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
This paradox.

King: We knew your taste for curious quips,
For cranks and contradictions queer;
And with the laughter on our lips,
We wished you there to hear.
We said, “If we could tell it him,
How Frederic would the joke enjoy!”
And so we’ve risked both life and limb
To tell it to our boy.
Frederic: A paradox?
King: A paradox,
This most ingenious paradox!
We’ve quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!

All: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
This paradox.

King(chanting):
For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February,
twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and twenty.
Through some singular coincidence – I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy –
You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover,
That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays,
you’re only five,
and a little bit over!

Ruth & King: Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!

Frederic: Dear me! Let’s see! Yes, yes; With yours my figures do agree!

Ruth & King:
Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Frederic:
How quaint the ways of Paradox!
At common sense she gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Is twenty-one I’ve been alive.
Yet, reckoning by my natal day,
Yet, reckoning by my natal day,
I am a little boy of five!

Ruth & King:
He is a little boy of five!

All:
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
A paradox.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
A curious paradox,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
A most ingenious paradox.

You’re welcome.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a character who adores February.

MA

Knitting Newbie

Mom says I’m doing well for a newbie. So far, all I feel comfortable doing is a simple knit stitch, but you can make quite a variety of pretty things just using that stitch, just varying the yarns and the needle sizes.

Here is my first project (the long one) and one of my latest (the ruffly one).

The Dr. Who-ish scarf was made with Lion Brand’s Amazing ™ Wildflowers worsted weight yarn. Three skeins, minus the messes I unraveled because I was just learning. It’s really a bit longer than I’d like, but I think I cast on fewer stitches than the pattern asked for, because I didn’t really expect it to come out well, so I just kept knitting for practice. Oh, and I used #9 needles.

The ruffly one looks very difficult but is very easy. Not just easy easy, easy peasy! Also made with #9 needles, but I bought bamboo needles for these, because the loops want to slide off of metal needles, and the wooden ones hold it better.

I made one of these for my pal Jane (Hi, Jane!) and one each for daughters #1 through #4, inclusive. For #1 and #3, I used Premier Starbella; #1 had Wheat Fields because she likes yellow and #3 had Autumn (shown in my pictures) because her 20-yr-old son told me, “Mom mainly wears Earth tones.”

Jane and daughters #2 and #4 had Red Heart Boutique Sashay; Jane had Tutu, #2 daughter had Twist, and #4 daughter had Turquoise.

I’m still working on the goofy project: the one I bought ONE skein of yarn for when the project called for FOUR. Well see how that turns out. I have my little ideas on that subject….

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character takes up a new craft and swamps his or her friends and relations with the products.

MA

 

Google-Eye Eggs

You gotta eat, anyway, right? So you might as well have fun with it.

Our #2 Daughter keeps chickens, and her chickens are very happy chickens. They lay eggs like nobody’s business.

This being so, I sometimes hard-boil a half-dozen or so (eggs, not chickens) and make egg salad and other dishes calling for hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes I just like deviled eggs, but the other evening I got silly and made these.

GOOGLE-EYE EGGS

hard-boiled eggssalt and pepper to tasteblops of mayonnaisepaprikaolives

Peel the eggs and cut them in half. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, if desired. Blop a blop of mayonnaise on each half. Sprinkle with paprika (I like smoked paprika, my husband likes sweet paprika). Poke an olive into the middle of each mayonnaise blop. Serve two at a time, of course!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a story with a chicken in it.

MA

Kids! Against! Hunger!

Mom and I joined a buncha other people this past Saturday to pack dried meals specially formulated to build up malnourished children. The group that arranged the event was Kids Against Hunger.

We’ve been collecting money through our churches and in our families (next-door grandson donated about a truckload of quarters!). The money bought the supplies.

On Saturday, we all gathered in a big multi-purpose room — in the same location where I went to childbirth classes, as a matter of fact — just walking in there made me start breathing in through my mouth and out through my nose … or was it the other way around …?

ANYWAY, they gave us hairnets and sent us to our tables, gave us instructions, and off we went!

Mom and I didn’t get to work together, but that was okay. The organizers put on a nifty mix of lively music, from Rockin’ Robin to Call Me Maybe, and we measured and we weighed and we sealed and we packed. As soon as a box was filled, the packer rang a cowbell and everybody cheered!

The event lasted for an hour and a half, then everybody took turns lining up in front of the filled boxes to have their group pictures taken. Here’s the crew of reprobates from my church and our sister church.

And the number of meals we all packed in 90 minutes?

That was a record for the Louisville area! …Until next time.

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on the subject of Chili Soup.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: List twelve possible plots or plot points that could involve such an event.

MA

If You Can’t Stand the Heat ….

Carol Preflatish is my guest today, talking about her new book, A Kitchen Affair. Take it away, Carol!

~  *  ~

I want to thank Marian for hosting me today and allowing me to promote my new book. We’ve known each other for years and I value her friendship.

Today, I’m here to talk about my current release, “A Kitchen Affair,” a contemporary sweet romance novel that takes place in the fictional town of River Bend, Ohio near Cincinnati.

When culinary student Jenny Marshall struggles to pay her tuition, she decides to become a Personal Chef to make ends meet. The most eligible bachelor in town, Derek James, happens to also be a millionaire and he has a crisis. Two days before his Thanksgiving dinner party, his cook has to quit due to a family emergency. Desperate, he hires Jenny to cook for his party and there’s chemistry from the start. He likes her, she likes him, but a manager at his company has set her sights on Derek and does everything she can to sabotage the relationship. Everyone thinks Colleen is the perfect match for Derek; everyone that is, except Derek. He desperately wants Jenny in his life. However, Colleen has other plans to keep that from happening. What lengths will she go to in order to keep Derek and Jenny apart?

The idea for this book came from my love of cooking and writing romance. I have always thought I would love to be a personal chef and writing a book with the heroine doing that is probably as close as I’ll ever get. If you’re not familiar with personal chefs, they differ from a caterer in that they come to your home to cook on a meal-by-meal basis, rather than bringing the food to your location already prepared.

Obviously, food plays a prominent role in the story and you’ll find no less than thirteen different dishes served throughout the book. During many of my blog appearances in January and February, I’ll be including a recipe for something served in the book. You can find my schedule on my blog at http://CarolPre.blogspot.com

Today’s recipe is for Chocolate Liqueur Candy that is sold at the bakery where Jenny works.

Chocolate Liqueur Candy

1 cup unsalted butter1/2 cup cocoa2 pounds Confectioner’s sugar8 ounces almond paste1/4 cup flavored Liqueur (Irish Crème, Amaretto, Kahlua, etc.)1 cup finely ground nut meats

In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients, except the liqueur, and mix with your hands. Shape into round balls about an inch in size. With your thumb, make an indentation and using an eyedropper, fill with your favorite liqueur, and then enclose around the liqueur. Chill until ready to serve.

You can find out more about me on my web site at http://CarolPre.webs.com and if you’d like to read “A Kitchen Affair,” you can find at:

Sweet Cravings Publishing – http://bit.ly/Z5Q2i2

Amazon/Kindle – http://amzn.to/UM35iq

B&N/Nook – http://bit.ly/XmOIRV

 

~  *  ~

Thanks, Carol! And thanks for the bonus recipe. Mmmmmmm!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character bites into a chocolate and finds a surprise.

MA

#SampleSunday – Bird of the Moon

Here’s another sample from my forthcoming book from Hydra Publications.

Bargain With Fate, Book 2 of SAGE – excerpt
Bird of the Moon

Human or not, Nerissa took no one’s fancy that evening.

Before they had tried all the many houses of pleasure, Barand lost both temper and patience. “I won’t go back with nothing. They say there are doctors who’ll pay for fresh bodies….”

Nerissa had no fear of this old taunt and she was too tired to respond with the proper display of terror.

“You don’t believe me?” Barand shook her.

“Master, let’s go home.”

“Do you give orders now?” He slapped the girl, thrust her into a lightless alley, and threw her to the ground. Doubling both his hands into fists, he waited for her to get up.

A voice inside Nerissa spoke as if it had been gathering itself for years:

Not this time.

“Get up,” said Barand.

Instead, Nerissa groped, clutched the first thing she touched, and pitched it at the man.

The thing turned out to be a cobble and it hit him with a solid thunk.

He staggered back, shook his head, and sat down.

Nerissa scrambled up and ran into the alley’s blackness.

He was after her in a moment but his heavy boots were easy to hear and he had to stop now and then to strain for the sound of her bare feet.

She tried to choose her route but found herself taking the first turns and narrowest ways. She was away now, and the fear of being caught and hurt again outweighed her craft and caution.

Halfway down a passage between two warehouses, she knew she had lost her race. She knew where she was and she knew there was no way out. She ran to the wall at the end of the passage; she cast herself against it as if she would force her body through it. The brick was solid. No windows, no doors, its top at twice her height.

She huddled in the dark. Maybe Barand would miss this turn. If he only glanced in, he’d never see her.

She heard him stop. She heard the hiss of his boots on the gritty street as he turned. She heard him coming nearer.

To her horror, the passage lightened as the clouds thinned. In a handful of seconds, the moon would show her clearly.

Something passed her with a whir. From near the mouth of the passage came a trill of music more lovely than anything the girl had ever heard. A bird sat on a ledge of one of the warehouses, stretching its throat in song. There were no colors in that light, but the bird was pale, with long and drooping tail-feathers. Barand stared at it, too.

If only she could creep away while Barand was looking at it. Impossible.

But, in the moonlight, Nerissa saw the impossible could happen. There was a vertical crevice in the wall where none had been before.

Nerissa took to it like a rabbit to a warren. She had to step up into it and wriggle back…. And she was trapped. The crack went deep – deeper than most walls were thick – but it didn’t open on the other side.

She heard Barand shout as he saw her go to ground. She saw him, through the cleft, pound toward her.

The entrance exploded with song and feather, as the bird returned. Nerissa could see, in a light the bird seemed to contain rather than reflect, that its beak and feet were yellow and that its feathers shimmered like liquid fire. Red, blue, black, glinting with diamond sparks. Its eyes…its eyes were blue….

Barand’s grimy hand took the pretty creature by the throat. He snapped its neck with a movement of his thumb and tossed the corpse behind him.

Nerissa gasped, breathless with shock and fury. She braced herself and made claws of her hands, determined she’d leave her mark on that man if she paid for it with her life.

Barand put a foot up into the entrance of the crevice. Surprise and uncertainty brushed his face as he saw her braced to meet him.

Before either of them moved, there was a rush of brightness. Barand drew back, a spot of blood on one cheek. Another bird like the first perched at the edge of Nerissa’s sanctuary.

“Killed your mate, did I? Well, don’t be lonely.” As he reached for the bird, it flew at him, pecking and clawing. His hands met around it and it fell dead on the empty stones. He came back to the pocket in the brick, to find another bird there trilling a silver war song.

“Don’t let him –” Nerissa said. The bird was in Barand’s hands before she finished, “– hurt you.”

Barand’s eyes met hers as he twisted the shining head.

Nerissa heard the bird’s neck crackle as Barand broke it. She heard the little body hit the cobblestones but couldn’t see past the new bird, the living bird, now blocking the way.

Barand cursed and knocked it aside. It fluttered up, stooped, and struck his ear with taloned feet. It drove its beak at his eyes. The man screamed and tore the creature off. His blood flew, black in the silver light. He slung the bird at the nearer warehouse.

Nerissa heard it hit but didn’t hear it fall.

She worked her way forward until she could see all of the passage. There was Barand, mopping his ear and face with his sleeve, cursing in a whining drone. There were the stones of the street around him. She could see no shining feathers, no broken bodies. Yet he had killed four birds….

Barand stopped cursing. He had seen her standing unprotected. He lunged.

Feathers blinded him, steel hooks tore at him, the point of a living dagger dug into his face.

Shrieking, he grasped the bird, flung it to the stones, and crushed it beneath his foot. Still shrieking, he threw his arms up to cover his head from another attack.

When the singing started, Barand shut his mouth and lowered his arms. A shimmering bird sat in the entrance to the crack in the wall, its five long tail-feathers curled about its feet, its wings folded, music pouring from its opened beak. It was the only bird in the passage, alive or dead.

Barand stumbled backwards, swiping at the blood on his swelling face as if it contaminated him. At the mouth of the passage, he turned and ran.

The bird flitted after him.

Nerissa didn’t remember wriggling out of the crevice. One moment she was in it; the next, she stood by the wall, which was once again unbroken.

I must have run my head into it – knocked myself out – dreamed the rest. She felt her head for tenderness or lumps but found none.

At any rate, she was free.

~ * ~

MAN, I loved writing this book!

The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE is available for Kindle and at Smashwords (for multiple formats including Kindle). The print version is coming soon.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a scene with a bird in it.

MA

#Caturday – Besties

From the Department of Goggies R Owr Frinz:

Here is Mom’s marmalade cat, Ozzie, sharing a chairback with the stuffed dog I gave her when she was in Southern Indiana Rehab Hospital (known to the staff as SIR-H). Guess what she named the dog. Go on, guess.

Yeah, you know my Mom. The dog is Sir Aitch.

Ozz was in a weird mood tonight. He came and snoozed on my lap for a long time, and he NEVER does that. It was most pleasant. Maybe Sir Aitch is a good influence on him.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: An animal’s mood, attitude, or behavior is changed by the presence of an artificial animal.

MA

Hooked

Here are my latest crazes:

NCIS – the real one. Mom’s television boyfriend is Leroy Jethro Gibbs and mine is Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. We love EVERYBODY on the show, but those are our favorites.

We didn’t start watching the show until a few years after it premiered, and the Harrison County Public Library only has Season 1, so we joined Netflix to get subsequent seasons.

I’ve taken up knitting, you know, using the German or European method, which is much simpler and easier than the American or English method.

Is there EVER enough yarn? I have two projects going and another one in mind. Some fine day, Mom and I are making a run to New Albany to visit Grinny Possum. Their website is just a tease, so we have to go see it for ourselves.

In honor of Miss Mapp, I’ll have to get some Rose Madder worsted. If you haven’t read Mapp, get Miss Mapp by E. F. Benson free at Project Gutenberg.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character takes up a passion which conflicts with another passion.

MA

 

Storm Party

Yesterday was a very silly day. First, Mom mistook the time of her therapy and I came to pick her up an hour early. Then, I misread her schedule and thought she was scheduled on the wrong day, only to find out I was reading in the wrong month.

It went on like that: not a bad day, just a persistently silly one. I didn’t find my lost knitting needle, but I found one of the same size in Mom’s closet. ONE of the same size, not another pair. That’s just silly!

At any rate, I don’t want to write an entire post about a silly day, because it was silly, not funny. So I’ll post a picture of a storm party and hope today makes a little more sense than yesterday did.

What is a storm party? Reasonably enough, it’s a party one has during a storm. We started it when next-door grandson was little. #1 daughter and her husband don’t have a basement so, in a severe storm or under a hurricane warning, they come to our house. Mom does have a basement, but she usually comes to our house, too.  We have hurricane lamps and candles in case the power goes out, and I usually have water or juice and snacks.

The idea was to not scare the wee grandson, so we didn’t say they were taking shelter, we said they were coming to a storm party. Now we still call it that, and he brings a game or two and we talk and laugh and play and have a pretty good time.

After all, why not?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has to take shelter from a severe storm with relatives.

MA