Becky Clark's Blog, page 8

Your Fictional Thanksgiving Table

I think Thanksgiving must be the first thing that pops into most American heads when they think about November. It’s the holiday everyone can—and probably does—celebrate.

Some of us have to scrounge for extra serving bowls and dig out the dusty card table only used once a year. When I was growing up, that card table was the “kiddie table.” We ached for the day we could graduate to the “real” Thanksgiving table.

image from pexels.com

Some of us have quieter Thanksgivings with a more manageable, probably better-behaved crowd.

Some of us do all the cooking for the belt-loosening feast, and some of us have potlucks where everyone brings something, lightening the load for everyone. And some of us always assign Becky to bring the booze because she can’t ruin beer or wine by experimenting with kale or using half the sugar called for in a dessert recipe.

But no matter how the day is organized, the people you celebrate Thanksgiving with are your family. Some are blood relatives and some are chosen to be members of the family.

When you read fiction, you choose the people you want to spend time with. If you don’t like the characters, you don’t care about their adventure. Some characters I’ll stick with for one adventure, but then I never want to hear from them again. I’m talking to you, Hannibal Lecter. Some characters I love through many, many books but would never consider inviting to my home. coughDextercough.

And then there are those characters we love hanging around. The people we’d give Great Aunt Gertrude a hip-check for in order to sit next to them at the Thanksgiving table.

I’d invite Stephanie Plum’s Grandma Mazur for the hilarity and indiscretion.

Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Schulz is on my list so she can do the cooking.

Any of the kids from John Green’s novels because they are all witty, charming, and smart and can carry on a conversation with everyone.

If Walter Mosley would relinquish him for a bit, I’d also invite philosopher and ex-con Socrates Fortlow because I have so many questions for him. Also, I think I could fix him before the pie is served.

Which fictional characters would you like to invite to your Thanksgiving table? And why? And can I come?

I Have To Do What Now?

Tomorrow is launch day for Police Navidad, the fourth book in my Mystery Writer’s series.

It’s set around a Christmas play to be staged in conjunction with an elementary school and a senior center. As I was noodling over the story I realized I’d have to actually write the play as well. Some of the early action takes place at the “table read” where the primary cast members sit around and just read through the play.

As I wrote the play, I had to make sure there were funny bits or bits relating to clues and plot points within the read-through parts of the novel. It was hard to keep it all straight so I ended up with two scripts for the play—the real one, and the one where I included the bits and bobs from the novel manuscript.

I sent the script of the play to two different people, both friends of mine. One, because she’s written for children for years and I wanted her opinion about whether I hit the mark for a children’s play. And the other, because he runs an arts center in California and reads, writes, acts in, and produces many, many plays. I needed him to tell me what I wrote could technically pass as an actual play, since I’d never written one before.

To my great relief, they both gave me the thumbs up, even going so far as to tell me it could actually be staged and that producers were always on the lookout for original Christmas plays, especially for children.

As a bonus feature in the back of Police Navidad, I included a link to download the PDF script of the play entitled “Santa’s Middling List.”

As my early Christmas present to you, here’s the link for the play. I bet that gets me on the Nice List!

Daruma Dolls

I’m always surprised at the amount of research my cozy mysteries require. I mean, they’re not police procedurals or historicals or true crime or anything, but there’s always a ton of stuff to dig deeper into while I’m outlining, writing, and editing.

For instance, in FATAL SOLUTIONS (book #3 in the Crossword Puzzle Mysteries), a quick trip through my binder shows me all the bits of research materials I needed.

• conversations with a forensic anthropologist (always so fascinating)

• guides to Colorado wildflowers, even though I’m a native Coloradoan

• mind-numbingly boring explanations about quit claim deeds

• US Department of the Interior forms, certifications, and descriptions of National Historic Landmarks (not nearly as boring as they sound)

• photos of huge spice racks for Georgeanne’s pantry

• photos of US Army folding chairs from the 1940s

• photos of acoustic ceiling tiles

• photos of vintage WWI cast iron 3-inch-tall Army men toys

• photos of antique roll-top desks

• yet more research and treatment of OCD (I learn something new with each book)

• heart-breaking information about Camp Amache (AKA Granada Relocation Center), a WWII Japanese internment camp here in Colorado

But the most interesting research to me was learning about daruma dolls. These play a big role in FATAL SOLUTIONS. So big, in fact, I insisted there be one on the cover (along with Fang the goldfish who never gets enough respect)

I’d seen daruma dolls here and there, hither and yon, over the course of my life, but never knew what they were called, or that they even had a purpose.

Japanese daruma dolls never have arms or legs, just that rotund little body. They come in all sizes, but only that one shape, and almost always red.

Photos by Ryutaro Tsukata from Pexels

There are many legends as to the origins of daruma dolls, but the most prevalent is that Bodhidharma (the figurehead of Zen Buddhism in China, called “Daruma” in Japan), wanted to enter a temple but was denied access. So he did what any good monk would do … he stared at a wall inside a cave for nine years, starting a form of meditation still seen today in Zen Buddhism. In those nine long years, his limbs wasted away. Some accounts say he fell asleep at year seven then cut off his eyelids so that wouldn’t happen again.

I’m not sure about all that, but it certainly explains the lack of arms and legs and the wide white eyes of daruma dolls.

Today, daruma dolls are sometimes known as “wishing” dolls and are symbolic of achievement. When you receive a daruma doll, the eyes are just the plain white circles. When you articulate a specific goal you want to achieve, you paint in one of the eyes. Your daruma sits in a place where you’ll get a constant reminder of what you’re trying to do. When you reach your goal, you paint in the other eye, showing you’ve reached “full sight” of your achievement. Then your daruma doll rests in a place of honor to remind you of your capabilities.

I just love that.

So often we kinda-sorta set goals, but this is a lovely, tangible tribute to your achievements. Much like a newly-launched book sits on the shelf near the desk where you wrote it.

I hope you enjoy reading FATAL SOLUTIONS as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that we can both point to many more achievements in our futures!

What achievement would you use your daruma doll to help you with?

Let’s Judge Them By Their Covers

I probably don’t have to tell you that a lot goes into a book cover. There’s psychology, design aspects, color theory, font decisions, genre considerations, and much more. When it all works, you probably can’t say why. You just know it pleases you and makes you want to take a second look at the book.

But when it doesn’t work, it’s usually obvious why it misses the mark.

When you work with a traditional publisher, they have an art department that handles the covers. Usually the editor will ask the author for input about the cover with the understanding the final word is theirs, and theirs alone, and it states that very clearly in the contract. The editor is the middleman between the author and the art department. (Even in picture books, which I find interesting. The author and illustrator almost never correspond about the story.)

I didn’t have any real ideas for the covers of Puzzling Ink (on sale for 99c) and Punning With Scissors (also on sale for 99c), the first two books in my Crossword mysteries, just that the first one showed a crossword puzzle grid, and the second a scissors. (So avant garde, right? That’s why I’m not an artist.) When they showed me the draft of Punning, though, I said, “Uh oh” because Quinn was decked out in a bulky sweater, but the book is set in the heat of August. In fact, there’s actually a scene in the book where she and Virginia Woof, the dog in that one, almost get heat stroke! Luckily they changed it, and Gin even got a primo spot on the cover.

For the third Crossword mystery, Fatal Solutions (on pre-order, out November 9th) I did have some specific things I wanted on the cover. I wanted that daruma doll because it plays a big part in the story, and I thought it was time for Fang, Quinn’s goldfish and sounding board, got a little cover love. Imagine my surprise, though, when I saw the final version and Quinn’s hair changed color and style!

With my independent books, the Mystery Writer’s Mysteries, I have complete control over every aspect of the cover. I was lucky enough to find a designer, Steven Novak, who I think does excellent work. And he’s fast, which I really love.

He and I have settled on a “chair theme” for those. Fiction Can Be Murder has the cozy reading chair, Foul Play on Words is set in a hotel during a conference, and Metaphor for Murder has a pivotal scene around a fire pit. It doesn’t take us too long to finalize them. I send him pictures of real chairs that make sense for the story and maybe the other clues on the cover—the key, the Do Not Disturb sign, the necklace and manuscript—and he puts his spin on them.

He and I just finalized Police Navidad (on pre-order, out in December) which was equally fast and painless, but also made me laugh.

We went back and forth a couple of times—star needs to be glittery, boots need to pop more, chair needs to be green, Mystery #3 needs to be #4 … but it took me quite a long time to notice my name wasn’t on it! When I pointed it out, Steven—who is a man of few words—said, and I quote, “Oops.”

I thought you’d enjoy a little peek behind the covers, so I asked some pals if they had any interesting cover stories. (And mystery writers should always have cover stories—ha!)

• Leslie Karst—

The cover that Crooked Lane originally designed for the first of my Sally Solari mysteries, Dying for a Taste, had the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. A lovely idea, but one major problem: the Golden Gate Bridge is in San Francisco, 70 miles to the north of Santa Cruz, where the series is set.

I pointed out this discrepancy and asked them to please change the bridge to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk’s roller coaster, which actually CAN be seen from the wharf, where Sally’s family’s restaurant is located.

No dice, they responded: “No one will recognize the roller coaster, but everyone knows the bridge!”

It took a lot of arm-twisting, first by me (to no avail, even though I threatened to refuse to promote the book if they kept the bridge on the cover) and then by my agent, but they finally relented and had their artist depict our glorious Giant Dipper roller coaster, instead. Whew!

• Ellen Byron—

The initial cover design for my first book, Plantation Shudders was wildly off. Instead of a bucolic Louisiana setting, there was the side profile of a guy in a fedora in front of broken shutters like the book was a 1940s noir instead of a cozy. The publisher owned the misdirection. But after that I took to giving detailed cover suggestions to my publishers. And luckily, they want to hear them. Recently, I’ve even used clip art to make rudimentary images to illustrate what I’m thinking, like here, for the cover of Cajun Kiss of Death. The final product doesn’t look anything like my images, but you can see some of the suggestions incorporated.

•JC Eaton—

The original Booked 4 Murder had a multi-colored Chiweenie which was later changed to a brown one. The basic design did stay the same. We actually liked the first, but it was up to the publishers. Our editor deserves the kudos for getting us to add the dog to the series. Turns out Streetman is a big hit with readers!

•Kate Lansing—

I’m so thankful to have connected with the mega-talented artist who illustrates the covers for my Colorado Wine Mystery series, Samantha Dion Baker, and always appreciate seeing the original artwork versus the final cover. The cover art for Mulled to Death has changed the most, the brilliant Berkley design team tweaking the colors to make them more vivid and fitting with the Valentine’s Day theme of the story. I love seeing them side by side because it really helps show that it takes a village to bring a book into the world.

•Claire L Fishback—

Book cover #1: My own creation. I entered my book in the Kindle Scout program and needed a book cover so people could vote for it. I painted a spooky landscape picture to use as the background (back then, I didn’t know anything about stock photography, Photoshop, or anything about book covers). The first version of it had “by Claire L. Fishback” like I was some novice, the wrong color text (as you can see), not to mention the wrong size and style of font.

Book cover #2: I decided to go Indie, but I wanted to do it the right way and hired a professional book designer. I used the same background painting, but she worked with it to make it so much better. As you can see, she made the focus of the cover the font and title.

• Karen Docter—

When I decided to go Indie, I didn’t know a thing about covers, so, I didn’t even attempt to do my own. However, I was already published as a contemporary romance author and had a cover artist I really liked. So, when I branched out into romantic suspense, she did my cover. I thought it was good, but realized it didn’t fit the genre the same way my contemporaries did. I ended up participating in a romantic suspense box set, and the organizer had her own cover artist. I loved what she did so much, that I approached her to redo my Killing Secrets cover. My contemporary cover artist is a friend and I asked her if she minded. She said she didn’t because she knew the contemporary romance genre, but wasn’t as comfortable with romantic suspense. Needless to say, I was thrilled with the redo. It fits my book so much better.

I have another example with my first romantic comedy release, Satin Pleasures. At the time, there were still a lot of cartoony covers for romantic comedy so I had a local artist do my first cover. It did well enough, but when I decided to re-cover Killing Secrets, I had my friend (the whiz with contemporary covers) redo Satin Pleasures as well. When it went public, I got my first bestseller.

• Jennifer Chow—

Since I’d taken a trip to Catalina Island, which plays a role in Mimi Lee Cracks the Code (launching November 30, 2021), I sent my publisher my vacay photos for inspiration. I’m glad the artist used the iconic Casino building in the illustration. From the initial design to the final cover, only minor changes were made. Mimi’s face looks different, and her hair grew longer. Plus, the added clouds in the background appear more ominous. The finishing touches had to do with the font. We went through a few variations of color combos before finding hues that would make both the title and author name pop. 

Readers, how much time do you spend looking at a cover? What do you think of these redos? Do you judge a book solely by the cover when deciding to read or purchase? Did you already realize how much effort goes into cover design?

Cele-what now?

You know, it’s funny.

I don’t do a lot of celebrating about accomplishments.

The night of the Colorado Author League awards—where my EIGHT WEEKS TO A COMPLETE NOVEL : WRITE FASTER, WRITE BETTER, BE MORE ORGANIZED was nominated—I was engrossed in the YouTube presentation while my husband was in the other room watching a movie or something.

After the YouTube event was over, I went out to tell him I won. He said, “Wow! That’s great … congratulations!” then I made myself some dinner and we caught up on our Loki episodes.

Mind you, this was during the pandemic. In normal times, we would have been at the awards banquet, making it a bit more special.

But other accomplishments are still pretty low-key.

When I finish a book, I tell him, “I finished a book” and he says “Awesome,” and we go about our business.

I have a friend whose husband pops champagne and takes her out to a fancy restaurant every time she finishes a book (and she’s crazy prolific!), and another one whose husband bought her a freakin’ CAR!

I dunno. Maybe I should celebrate somewhere in between the two extremes.

What do you think I should do to celebrate releases and other book-complishments? How do you celebrate your successes?

Coloring In New Roads

I grew up in Colorado Springs, at the base of Pikes Peak and when I was a kid—and gas was cheap enough to guzzle—my dad would gather us up on a weekend afternoon and say, “Let’s go color in some new roads.”

We knew that meant we were going for a drive on some back roads we’d never explored before. And maybe, just maybe, there’d be an ice cream cone in our future.

When we’d get home, we’d clamor to be the one who got to use the thick black marker to color in the map of Colorado Dad had tacked to a wall. He would carefully unpin it, smooth it on the table, then trace with his finger the roads we’d taken. I wish I knew what happened to that map because I’m almost positive on one of those forays, we colored in some routes that are the same roads I drive on now, about 60 miles from where I grew up.

(When I told my parents where we were moving, they both said, “There’s nothing there but an intersection!” That was definitely true in the 1960s and 70s, and somewhat true when we moved here in 1990. The population was 5,450 when we bought our house and there were more horses than people here. Now it’s ten times the population, but I’m pretty sure we have more pizza places than people these days.)

But I’m sure I colored in some of that road as a kid.

When I was a kid we took the occasional road trip to visit family in Jackson Hole or Oklahoma, and once we even went all the way to California, but mostly we hung out in Colorado, on the plains and in the mountains.

When I had kids of my own, we traveled further afield, the five of us taking road trips all over the country. Every night, though, we’d open up the United States map and color in our new road.

I thought about these maps recently when a friend of mine said she took a wrong turn on her hike, but it was okay because she took some trails she hadn’t been on before.

And I’ve been thinking about them more metaphorically too.

In the last few weeks, I’ve colored in some roads on my personal map when I recently taught a hybrid class, to a group in person as well as a group on Zoom at the same time. Never done that before.

My husband and I went to watch a model yacht regatta. Never done that before either. We technically colored in some Colorado roadmap too.

As I’m working furiously on a Christmas cozy that I expect to have out in late November, I realize I’m coloring in some writing roads I’ve never been on before, even though this will be my fifteenth (!!) book. This story involves a community Christmas play, which I also had to write. Never done that before. When I asked a college pal who runs an arts center to take a look at it and check over my formatting, he told me he could see it getting produced all over the place. That would definitely color in some new road for me!

Of course, some roads let you glide over perfectly smooth asphalt with nary a pebble in your path, while others are bumpy and full of washboards, jarring your insides like you’re a pioneer steering a buckboard with a runaway horse.

But that’s what makes the trip interesting.

What have you done in your life to “color in some new roads” for yourself?

Inadvertently Funny Notes

My first grown-up job was as a liability claims adjuster for a big insurance company. I didn’t know the job existed until I got it, but it was the perfect Venn diagram of my skills and interests.

Because we adjusters went to court a lot, one of the things drilled into us was that in a trial, our notes will be enlarged to wall size and every line, word, letter, and stray mark will be scrutinized, so they better be correct because you will have to explain each of them to a jury of someone else’s peers.

Not a problem. I’ve been a scrupulous note-writer my entire life.

Take, for example, this letter to the Tooth Fairy. Spelling notwithstanding, it’s as factual as it is altruistic.

I’ve since left that insurance job and retained all my permanent teeth, but the lesson in note-taking remained with me. To this day, I need notes like an astronaut needs oxygen. Like a car needs tires. Like a mosquito needs the back of my arm.

Problem is, I don’t always know what they mean afterward.

I used to rely on Facebook to politely baby-sit part of my brain. Once upon a time, I’d be able to save a video or article on my wall that someone else had posted. I’d make a note to myself that I was “saving for later” because I rarely had time to read or watch it in its entirety, but I wanted a reminder to go back and do so. Unfortunately, when I’d go back, I’d see this …

At that point I was left to rely solely on my own wits.

Yeah, you’re way ahead of me.

I’d see things like this:

in red, no less!

I know that I need a reminder to pick up Nala’s poop from the grass before the guys come to mow the lawn every week. (I did rewrite this one to read “pick up poop for lawn guys.” I didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.)

I know that my husband had a meeting and I wasn’t punishing him by withholding some dubious but theoretically delicious meal from him.

I know that while ants might be a good present for an eight-year-old’s birthday, it was simply two separate thoughts written close together as a thrifty and space-saving technique. I’m sure Amy received something much more in line with her registry and status as an adult. A car perhaps, or maybe a spatula.

You might ask why I save all these notes. An excellent question. Probably in case I need to go to court.

There are also the helpful notes taken in the course of my writing career.

(Gah. Reading this sentence is like watching sausage being made. Took seven tries.
“I do word stuff.” *beats chest like ape*)

You know those were stellar writing days!

But then there are notes like this one I find all too often. I suspect I wrote it in my sleep, although there’s really no way of proving that.

“Doll’s yard. Emails. Joe’s house. Winner?”

Perhaps it’s a very clever Six Word Story in the manner of Ernest Hemingway.

But I doubt it.

What do you think I meant? Have you left yourself any cryptic notes? Were you able to decipher them? Can you imagine seeing notes to yourself projected upon a wall whilst you’re forced to ‘splain ‘em … under oath??

My Penultimate Bespoke Peruke

I have a fairly impressive vocabulary, but only when I write.

When I speak, I’m all … um … I talk goodly and use many bigly … what-do-you-call-em … words.

I attribute that to long hours of talking to absolutely nobody except the dog. And she doesn’t care what I say unless I utter those life-changing words “cookie” or “dinner.” That’s the only time I impress her with my vocabulary.

Large milkbones are large!

I solve a lot of crossword puzzles which helps grow a vocabulary, but I’m always amazed when I actually learn words that I’ve seen many times over the course of my life.

When my husband reads an unfamiliar word, he takes the time to look it up. You know, like a grown-up. I prefer the “guess it from context” method. Mind you, that usually works. That’s why kids are taught to search for context clues when they’re learning to read.

Crosswords have a kind of “crosswordese,” where words and clues are used over and over. One of them is the word WIG. But the clue is always “peruke.”

Now, WIG is a very simple word to fill in a crossword grid, so I never really had to think about the clue very hard. But “peruke” has always sounded like a verb to me, so it never made much sense.

Provoke, rebuke, puke.

Verbs.

Finally I couldn’t take it and looked it up and found it was another [albeit archaic] word for a wig. A noun. Who knew?

Another word I finally took the trouble to learn was “bespoke.” This too must be a verb because … well … “spoke.”

But no. A bespoke suit is not one that talked to you. Rather, it was one that was made for you. An adjective. The lazy runs deep in me and I never felt compelled to look it up because I never needed to. If the sentence had to do with someone dressed neatly in his bespoke suit, I could remove that word and still understand the sentence just fine. Knowing the word now, I suppose it’s possible I missed the nuance of the character wearing a one-of-a-kind suit, but I bet the author gave me other clues that he was rich, or persnickety, or whatever a person is who wears bespoke suits.

Another word I learned later in my life than I should probably admit was “penultimate.” I always just dropped that “pen” off the front and called it good. The last or best of something.

Imagine my surprise to find out that “penultimate” means the second to the last of something. Do we really need a word for that? I have never heard anyone utter the word “penultimate” out loud.

But now that I’ve learned it, I can utter it out loud like a pro.

“I hope that when I end my series about the man in the bespoke suit that people won’t wish the penultimate book had closed it out instead. If they do, I’ll just tug my peruke over my ears and slink away in cognito.”

Nala: Um … Becky … “incognito” is one word.

Me: No, it’s not. Cognito are the clothes someone might wear when they need to be stealthy. Like a ninja uniform. How would you know anyway? You can’t even read.

Nala: But I still know that incognito is one word.

Me: How can you even read this blog post?

Nala:

Me: Fine. You’re smarter than me. Happy now?

Nala: Ebullient.

Me: What now?

What the heck is that?

I blog over at Chicks on the Case and we recently had a Guest Chick, Diane Kelly, who mentioned being fascinated with fireflies and explaining how they became part of her Moonshine Mysteries.

But it turned into a much broader discussion about the bugs and critters we were all too familiar with, and the ones we’ve never seen.

Fireflies, for instance. As a kid, I thought they were fictional. I mean, c’mon … they totally sound made-up. I saw them once as an adult, but just a few, and kind of fleetingly. I’d love to be surrounded by them on an inky night with their lit-up butts soaring and swooping around me. Assuming that’s what they do. I guess it would be a lot less fun if they bopped and stung. But even so, I’m always up for a new experience!

Pexels photo by Abby Kihano

I wanted to find a photo of fireflies to illustrate this post so I typed it into the search bar at Pexels. This is the one that came up. Less “fireflies” and more “fire flies.” But it’s still what I picture when I think of fireflies.

I’m assuming the people who live with fireflies (or do you call them lightning bugs?) may not even notice them any longer and would perhaps mock my child-like wonder on that inky night.

Much the same way I mocked the people—scads of them—who had pulled off the highway out in rural Colorado somewhere, absolutely captivated by a prairie dog colony. We were on vacation and slowed down to a crawl to see what was so fascinating. Cars lined both sides of the two-lane road, people milled about with cameras poised. One of my kids finally figured it out and said, incredulously, “Have these people never seen a prairie dog?”

They’re as common around our town as golden retrievers wearing bandanas. So we floored it and beat them all to the Stuckey’s up the road.

Not as common was the day I freaked out when I looked outside and counted thirty-seven (37!!!) magpies in my backyard. I couldn’t even get them all in one photo. When I posted about it on Facebook, so many of my friends said, “What are those gorgeous birds?” And one proclaimed, “I thought magpies were a Disney creation!”

pixabay image by nschlegel pixabay image by MabelAmber

Again, they’re as common as robins—please don’t tell me you’ve never seen a robin—at my house. And they’re kind of jerks. They’ve been known to prey on smaller birds. They poke enormous holes in the weed block under my mulch trying to get at tasty bugs. (Why they can’t do the same thing in the lawn that needs constant aeration is a question for another day, I suppose.) They dominate the birdbath like bullies on the playground. They are big. So is their poop. There are a zillion stories about them dive-bombing unsuspecting bikers and joggers. They also make a lot of noise, a-screeching and a-squawking.

At our house I have ascertained that they begin their cacophony when a cat has been spotted. I know this because Nala hates cats with the white-hot intensity of ten thousand suns, and she feels it necessary to tell me when one is roaming the ‘hood. The magpies and Nala then carry on their loud, indignant conversation about the poor cat, just trying to live its best life. Maybe they’re not complete jerks; maybe they’re warning other birds about a potential predator.

I will say, however, that magpies are truly gorgeous things on their own. But thirty-seven of anything in my yard is simply creepy.

And I know because I’ve hosted birthday parties for kindergartners.

Meditation or Chore

My husband and I have had housecleaners longer than I can remember, although that’s a fairly low bar with my sieve-like memory. I do know we didn’t have them when the kids were little because I’m a compassionate person and wouldn’t subject anyone to that.

I think probably the change officially came when the kids mostly moved out and I didn’t have a live-in staff I could boss around any longer. My husband never really responded to my threats of grounding him if he didn’t dust the living room.

“Wait. Let me understand this. So I don’t have to dust AND I don’t have to go anywhere? You’re the best wife EVER!”

We were able to get by with just monthly cleanings until we got our remarkably hirsute roommate.

Then we had to ramp it up to every other week.

For those of you who haven’t heard me tell this story 4,367 times, Nala was my son’s dog when he was stationed in Guam. But when he got orders to Bahrain, he couldn’t take her. There were many phone calls that went an awful lot like this:

Jeff: So … only eight weeks until I ship out …

Me: What will you do with Nala?

Jeff: Oh, I don’t know. I’m working on some things….

Jeff: So … only seven weeks until I ship out …

Me: What will you do with Nala?

Jeff: Oh, I don’t know. I’m working on some things….

Jeff: So … only six weeks until I ship out …

Me: What will you do with Nala?

Jeff: Oh, I don’t know. I’m working on some things….

Jeff: So … only five weeks until I ship out …

Me: SEND ME THAT DOG IMMEDIATELY.

Jeff: Finally! That’s the thing I’ve been working on.

Our housecleaners have kept us from twisting our ankles due to the sheer depth of the hairscape on our floors.

At least until the pandemic. No housecleaning, so hubs and I had to figure out what needed to be done and how often, and then we divvied up the chores. Some stuff he likes, some stuff I like, and some neither of us likes so we alternate those. It’s been working out just fine.

I realized not too long ago that we perfectly illustrated the yin and yang of an almost-37-year marriage.

While we still had the cleaners coming, I heard him one Sunday vacuuming the wood floor in the den where the dog hair is most visible. The morning sunlight streams in, highlighting the patina of fur coating the parquet like glitter on a preschoolers Mother’s Day card. Personally, I don’t like to disturb the magnificence of this phenomenon. I close the blinds or simply return to my coffee in the other room, reminding him, “The housecleaners are coming on Wednesday.”

He said, “I know! The housecleaners aren’t coming until Wednesday!”

If this makes you think I don’t like to vacuum, you’d be wrong. It’s quite possibly my favorite chore. But only on the carpet.

It’s very meditative. Peaceful. Rhythmic. Deliberate. Immediate.

I love analyzing the floor plan of each room—taking into account the constantly evolving miscellany I have no intention of moving—to choose the best electrical outlet for optimum cleaning area to avoid traipsing over newly pristine carpet to replug.

I love calculating what percentage of my time is spent trying to get the vacuum to pick up a piece of thread rather than simply bending over and picking it up with my fingers. I will not be swayed, however. We bought a machine to handle this chore. I don’t drip hot water through my fingers to make coffee. I don’t bake brownies on my feverish brow. I don’t wash my dirty dishes in the shower while I bathe. And I don’t clean my carpet with my fingers. No matter what.

I love exercising my brain cells to figure out the pattern whereby I can back out of the room with perfectly napped carpet.

I love the thrill of the gamble to see how close I can get to the dangling cords of the mini-blinds without sucking them into the machine.

And when I’m done, I have the loveliness. At least until I need something across the room. But seriously …. do I really need it? Doubtful.

Using my Swiffer comes a close second. The difference is that I can’t see evidence of my accomplishment until the very end when, with horror in my eyes and a wrinkle on my nose, I see the filth on the cloth even though hubs vacuumed just moments before.

But then I cuddle the dog, watch the cascade of hair in the sunlight, and it all becomes insignificant again.

What chores do you hate? Which do you love? Do you find vacuuming relaxing?