Kate Collins's Blog, page 297

The Dog Days of Summer

by Deb Baker/Hannah Reed

We're in the grip of a major heat wave here in Wisconsin - temperatures in the 90s and tons of humidity. Afternoons are real scorchers. My curtains stay drawn, the oven is off limits, and the grass isn't green anymore. So what to do?
I could go swimming in the community pool.

Or head for the Lake Michigan beach in Milwaukee. Or find a cool spot and just relax.
Maybe I'll hole up in the basement where it's cool and watch Dog Day Afternoon again. I loved that movie and Al is one hot hunk!

How about you? What do you do on a free dog day afternoon?

Summer Fruit

Some of you may be waving "bye bye" to July and the record-setting heat waves that have scortched so many parts of the U.S., especially the East Coast. I've got 2 daughters in the Washington, DC area and 1 in New York City, and they have been roasting even with air conditioning this last month. And yet, they had no bragging rights when it came to their other sister, Serena, who lives in between Houston and Galveston, TX. NASA's Johnson Space Center is located right between----and temperatures have been blazing in Texas for longer than July with no relief in sight.




On that note. . .and after reading Lucy's post on Mango Lassi (which I discovered years ago thanks to my love of Indian cuisine, and the pleasure of having several Indian friends who told me about the yummy drink), I thought I'd share some of the homemade smoothies I've concocted. Very easy. I haven't done the Mango Lassi, frankly because if a ripe mango appears in my house, it doesn't last long enough to get near the blender. :) I consume it with utter delight. A ripe, sweet mango is divine.


But I have been making lots of lower calorie smoothies which also are low on the sugar side as well. They're a great way to cool off on a summer evening. I always start with Coconut milk, which I started drinking last year as an alternate to soy milk. I'd switched away from cow's milk a couple of years before. No allergies, mind you. I simply decided to reduce those calories. I discovered I LOVED the rich flavor of unsweetened coconut milk far more than moo juice and way more than soy milk. Plus, there's zero cholesterol, etc and even less calories! Read the label and check it out for yourself.


Anyway, I start with the coconut milk and sometimes add blueberries or fresh peaches or nectarines that are ripening on my windowsill. I always put my fruit on my windowsill in the sunshine, which helps that ripening process. Same for tomatoes. But, back to the smoothie: then I throw in whatever else strikes my fancy. Sometimes it's unsweetened Vienna coffee mix or unsweetened dark cocoa (this works best with bananas). Sometimes, I'll skip the fruit and throw in some cold full-strenth coffee with the unsweetened cocoa for a mocha treat.



Meanwhile, I'v e been gorging on fresh fruit all summer, starting with those dark sweet cherries that appear in May. We're still getting them, but not for much longer. I stocked up on several bags which are in my fridge. Fresh raspberries are just perfect now and Blackberries, too. I just LOVE fresh berries. Some days, that's mostly what I eat. These divine fruits won't be with us after a few months, and boy. . .will I miss them!


What about you? What's your favorite summer fruit/veggie?



























I

Mango Lassi

by Lucy Arlington
A few weeks ago I had a friend staying with me, and one evening for supper she cooked us chicken curry, which was delicious. To finish off the meal she made us Mango Lassi.

"What's that?" I asked when she told me that's what she'd be making.

"Oh, it's a thick drink made with mangos and yogurt."

"Like a smoothie?" My kids have smoothies made with berries and yogurt all the time. "How is it different, other than using mangos, I mean?"

"You'll see," she said, smiling. "You'll love it."

And I did, both seeing and loving it.

After she left, I Googled recipes for Mango Lassi, a sweet, rich Indian beverage. I found several versions, all with the same basic ingredients—mangos and yogurt—but they vary in the flavorings, using sugar, or cardamom, or honey, even cream. None of the recipes I found used the special ingredient in Paulette's recipe. Vanilla. That makes hers unique enough for me to share with you. On a hot summer's day, a Mango Lassi tastes better than a milkshake. And hey, there's a bonus—it's good for you!

Paulette's Mango Lassi (for 4)

2 average sized mangos

2 cups yogurt (we used thick Greek style)

2 cups ice

2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Peel and cut up mango.

2. Put it with all the other ingredients into a blender or food processor.

3. Blend until smooth.

4. Pour into glasses and enjoy.

I Love Baseball, But...

by Leann

I have been a baseball fan all my life. From the time I was a child, I listened to games on the radio with my dad. When games started being televised, we were always thrilled when "our" team, the Chicago White Sox were on that Saturday telecast. My first live sporting event? A White Sox game when we visited my grandmother in Chicago. My favorite player? Luis Aparicio. Okay, I'm giving away my age now, and you probably have no idea who that is, but that's how long I've been a fan. That's not the point of this blog, though.

We moved to Houston a long time ago and for the first time, I was able to truly enjoy a sport by regularly attending live games with my family. We had so much fun and I grew to love the Astros. If we weren't at the games, we listened or watched. We never missed one. For the last few years, the team has been losing. I kept watching, though. They are my team, after all.

The process of trading away all our good players began last season. My head understands the logic. We need to build for the future, get back to winning. But my heart doesn't understand at all. Our second baseman who retired three or four years ago--Craig Biggio--played his entire career in Houston. Twenty great years. That doesn't happen anymore and probably never will. It was the end of an era.

Last night, they traded my favorite player for "future" great players--as if it's possible to know they will be great. I understand it's a business. It is BIG business. For me, it drives home how the professional sports world is all about money, it is not about the fans. I am a sentimental fool, I know, but I feel the loss completely now that they've traded away our only All Star. I don't know the names of the people on "my" team anymore. I feel sad about that.

So come on college sports season!! Hurry up and get here. At least I can just enjoy the football and basketball seasons without that sense of attachment--and the fear that my sports family will leave without me getting to say goodbye. Any of you sports fans out there? If you're not, what "losses" are especially difficult as you age? For me, as I see the world change, I realize yup, here's one less thing I can enjoy. Gosh, sometimes I just hate it.

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Curling Up With A Good Book

by Lorna Barrett / Lorraine Bartlett / L.L. Bartlett

If you read my personal blog yesterday (and you can find it here), you know that I'm feeling a teensy bit burned out.  But work must go on.  So yesterday I tackled a scene in the new book.  Actually, I tackled two of the SAME scene.  I've been writing the book out of sequence and wrote this scene twice.  Oy!  The newer version was definitely the better of the two, but the original scene had juicy stuff in it that needed to go into the newer version.  The manuscript ended up losing words, though.  I tackled the next scene, adding another 307 words, to the manuscript and that was it for the day.

I needed a time out.

As it was raining and gloomy (and boy did we need that rain, so I'm not complaining), I decided I needed to take the rest of the day off.  What did I do?  I sat down in my favorite chair and hauled out my current read.  (The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews.  I am SUCH a sucker for DIY--and MKA does it very well indeed.)

I read for over an hour until I felt drowsy and then I took a nap.  In the middle of the day!  With the rain beating against the windows and soft "Guitar Moods" playing (on repeat) in the background.

Ahhhhhhh ... bliss.

Of course I feel guilty right now.  The deadline for that book is now a day nearer and I am only 307 words closer to the end . . . but I needed that downtime.  Hopefully when I jump back into the WIP I'll feel a bit fresher, ready with new and better ideas.

How about you?  Have you had to take a day off lately?

Guest Melissa Bourbon

Being a writer has taught me a lot about myself--namely that food is important to me. Sure, I could stand to lose 10 pounds (thanks to the warm chocolate chip cookies I tend to make a bit too often), but it's more than that. It's really about the kitchen being the heart of the home. It is in our house, it is in my Lola Cruz mystery series, and while it plays a bit of a lesser role in my new cozy Magical Dressmaking mystery series, it's definitely there.

Harlow Cassidy, my heroine/amateur sleuth in Pleating for Mercy (which comes out Tuesday!), is surrounded by magical charms. Her mother, Tessa, has a green thumb with a checks and balances system. Flowers and plants grow, but so do the weeds. But Coleta, Harlow's great-grandmother, happens to have a way with goats who are around to eat the surplus weeds. Nana also makes goat cheese (not a personal favorite of mine, but very fun to write about!). Through the goats, food will always be present in these books.

There's a bit of Southern cooking here and there, however, beyond the goat cheese. Fried chicken, sweet tea (another thing I don't love, but which is quite Southern), fried okra, chicken fried steak, and cornbread. Yum, yum, yum!

It's not like I plan to include food in my books; it just happens. With my Lola Cruz stories, the food is part of the Hispanic culture. It gives background, flavor, and helps create a complete sense of the setting. When I was dating, and then married my husband, I saw just how important food was in the culture. Everything was made and shared with such love. When I created Lola's world, the cooking was a natural extension of that world.

Same with the Southern fare in the Magical Dressmaking mysteries. We all respond to food, and regional food taps into our senses and emotions about a place.

It took writing books for me to realize just how I view food--as a cultural element which helps paint a complete picture of a character's world. I'll never love sweat tea or goat cheese, but I can definitely appreciate them. And I'm really having fun eating crab cakes, shrimp and grits, making fried okra, and generally experiencing the food I'm infusing my fictitious town of Bliss with.

What do you think food brings to the cozy table? Do you have a series you love in which food plays a subtle, yet important role?

---

You can pre-order Pleating for Mercy here:

Amazon
Amazon Kindle 
Books on Board
Barnes & Noble 
Nook 

And please visit me at my various online spots:
Website
The Naked Hero

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/misa.ramirez and http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMelissaBourbon.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/melissabourbon and http://twitter.com/misaramirez
Killer Characters (on the 22nd of each month): http://killercharacters.com
Entangled Publishing (publisher of my upcoming romantic suspenses and the 3rd Lola Cruz book, Bare Naked Lola): http://entangledpublishing.com

Send Me a Hero (And Make Sure He's Fortysomething)

By Ellery Adams
I saw the new Captain America movie over the weekend and thought it was okay. In general, I enjoy action movies and find them the perfect mental get-away from stress. But the latest big action films featuring young, beefcake superheroes were unimpressive.
In analyzing what fell short, I discovered that the leading men weren't my kind of hero. Yes, these guys are hot, but they're also as three-dimensional as a flapjack. They're good-looking comic book characters and we aretalking about an action movie, so what do I want?
Researching other action heroes made me realize that I might have a tad bit of age discrimination. I'd trade in huge pecsfor a lined face, swagger for a sharp wit, and thick, wavy hair for salt-and-pepper locks or a receding hairline.
In other words, Robert Downey Jr. is a much more appealing super hero than Chris Evans (he of the big pecs . See photo). Forget the Thor guy. If I'm going to be rescued from a castle tower, then I'll take Clive Owen as my knight in shining armor.
Apparently, hot fortysomethings are taking Hollywood by storm. Most of the 2012 action films featuring comic book heroes are older men. We've got Christian Bale as Batman, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, and more.
And for those who think older men shouldn't be action movie stars, I've got two words for you: Sean Connery.
So here's to the older heroes. They're a little smarter, a little more weathered, and far more interesting than a calendar boy.
Who's your favorite "older" leading man?[image error]

Cozy Thrills

Please welcome Cozy Chicks friend and talented author Camille Minichino (also writing as Margaret Grace and Ada Madison).

I'm planning to lock myself in a bookstore overnight and re-shelve all the books. After that, I'll penetrate the libraries.

It's the categories that annoy me.

Some of them make sense: art, self-help, travel, reference ... but what about the "Fiction and Literature" category? Are fiction and literature different? Is there some fiction that's not literature? Is it IL-literature, then? Is there some literature that's not fiction? We know there is, but aren't those volumes across the aisle in Nonfiction?

While we're at it, let's look at the other bookcases. There's a set, around the corner from "Fiction and Literature," labeled "Mystery."

Hmm. Is Mystery neither Fiction nor Literature? Confusing, isn't it.

We mystery writers like to think we create engaging characters, interesting and complex stories, rich settings, and aesthetically pleasing turns of phrases.

In other words, literature.

Within mystery, there are even more categories. The usefulness of labels such as "cozy" and "thriller" has been batted around for a few years now, and written up very well by The Cozy Chicks, so I won't rehash old arguments.

My 14th and newest book, "The Square Root of Murder" is labeled "cozy." If that tells you, correctly, that you won't be weeping at a tragic ending or blocking your preteen daughter's eyes when Professor Sophie Knowles entertains her boyfriend, I'm satisfied.

What I do want to report is that there were no arguments, no first- and second-class citizens at the ThrillerFest conference in New York earlier this month. It was my first ThrillerFest (I'll be back) and I'm pleased to note that no one suggested I go to the back of the room when the panels started.

I was considered a writer of books with thrills, like all the others in the bookroom. I sat next to Steve Martini at the signing table (an unforeseen advantage of my new pen name) and he was as welcoming as if I'd penned a book where the fate of the planet (or Los Angeles) was at stake.

Booksellers often claim that identifying books in more specific categories makes it easier for readers to locate what they want. Heaven forbid a reader might pick up a book and realize that it's slightly off the formula he or she is used to.

"Oh, no," she'd say. "I wanted a mystery and I got fiction!"

Bam! She'd throw down the book in an instant. So perhaps the categories are for the protection of book spines.

What do you think? Do you seek out a certain category of books or are you open to simply a good read?


Camille Minichino is a retired physicist turned writer, the author of The Periodic Table Mysteries. Her akas are Margaret Grace (The Miniature Mysteries) and Ada Madison (The Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries). The first chapter of The Square Root of Murder is on her website
 

Family Changes

For those of you who may have tried emailing me these past four weeks, I apologize if my replies were delayed. My plate has been more full than usual. . .and it's usually pretty darn full. Why? My 91 year old mother's health has been sliding more rapidly than before, forcing a lot of changes in her living situation.

I'm writing this post because I sense that a LOT of you have already dealt with the "aging parent" situation or will be in the not-too-distant future. My mom has been living comfortably in an independent living retirement facility for the past ten years. She has a lovely one-bedroom + den condo apartment on the ground level with a patio. The view looking toward Fort Collins toward the east and the foothills to the west is lovely. Over the past five years, I've had to arrange at-home caregivers to come in and assist her in order that she could continue to live in the location she loved. She'd previously sold her home in Charlottesville, VA, scaled down amount of furniture and has been quite comfortable. But after hip surgery in 2007, she began to have trouble remembering to take her meds. So, morning help was necessary.


However, as everyone ages (yes, us too, in the future), there are inevitable changes. Arthritic knees slow down walking so much that a walker was needed. No problem, indie living places allow walkers. My mom started using one after she broke her wrist in 2009. After that I also added an evening caregiver to help her get ready for bed and take evening meds, etc. We were holding steady (with small noticeable decline) until this spring when her physical situation deteriorated again. Pulled back muscles after a doctor visit led to my increasing the caregivers to three times a day to make sure there was enough help to get her to all meals in dining room plus take pai n meds for back muscles. Even ibuprofen has to be taken to work. :)


In late June, we saw a further decline. She could no longer get around with her walker, so the caregivers pushed her while she sat. That worked for a couple of weeks, but leg pain had started, so three weeks ago she had to switch to a wheelchair and also a special lifting belt so that the caregivers could lift her from bed to chair, etc. By that time we (caregivers are like family) had all our fingers and toes in the dike. I knew we were only holding off the inevitable time when she'd have to leave the indie facility and move into a facility that offered "full-service care" as I call it. And that time came weekend before last. The lovely & caring director of the caregivers agency called me on a Sunday morning and said that the evening before they had to send out a second caregiver in order to safely move my mom from wheelchair to bed. Both of us recognized the time had finally come.


Last week, I called and then visited the lovely facility, Columbine Care West, that was literally right across the parking lot from her three-story independent living retirement home, the Worthington. They are both part of the larger Columbine Health Services that manage those properties plus an assisted living facility. That definitely made the shift easier. Plus the directors and managers had told me previously how wonderful the staff was at the full service Columbine Care. They don't call it a nursing home but a "convalescent care" facility. They try to make their residents better. So, I went to talk to the director personally and look around. . .and I was pleasantly surprised to see how lovely the setting is with several sunny and shady outside patios and the rooms were nicely arranged, plus there was a ton of staff bustling about everywhere. And the residents were wheeling themselves around, too, I noticed. Good energy, all in all.


So. . .this past weekend, I transferred my mom over to her new single room (which has the same beautiful view of the foothills and Ft. Collins) and got her settled. Hung family photos on the walls, brought over plants in addition to clothes, plus other belongings. Today, I boug ht a wall mount for her TV so the maintenance guy could fix that, too. Everytime I go over, there's someone in her room---nurses, nurse aides, physical therapists, activity managers, you name it. Plus, there's someone to wheel her about to meals and activities whenever she wants it. And, I'm optimistic that the physical therapists may be able to strengthen her legs so she may actually be able to move about a little without the wheelchair. . .after a while.

All in all. . .this has been emotionally and physically draining----for my mom, for me, and for those wonderful extended family caregivers, Caring Solutions, in Fort Collins. Thank you, again.
Are any of you facing these "aging relatives" situations?

How to Gross Out a Woman

By Kate Collins

In writing a character sketch for a suspect in my next Flower Shop mystery, NIGHTSHADE ON ELM STREET, I needed a list of bad grooming habits for men. My own beloved Greek had one and I'll start off with it because I know it's fairly common. The rest I've seen on men while people watching. Please feel free to add your own.

1. 1. Clipping toenails while watching TV, with nothing under the feet to catch the debris. Is it THAT hard to spread a newspaper?

2. On the other hand, I'd rather see flying clippings than long, dirty toenails. Gross!

3. Bushy nose hairs. Enough said.

4. Teeth that need a really good cleaning, including a tongue scraping. Ew. Bad breath central.

5. Stinky body odor or overpowering deodorant or cologne.

6. Standing too close while conversing. See # 3 - 5 for why that's bad.

7. Nose picking/ear spelunking. No one wants to see what's inside your cavities, guys, much less watch you wipe it somewhere.

8. Greasy hair. No reason for it. Shampoo is cheap.

9. Unkempt beard or moustache. They scream, "I don't think much of myself. Why should you?"

10. Belly that hangs over the jeans, resulting in jeans that hang so low, it's impossible to bend over or crouch without displaying lots of butt cheek. It ain't a pretty sight, fellows, but it can be comical. (I actually snapped a photo with my cell phone of my plumber's rear view. It was that hilarious. )

Did I miss any? Got any personal pet peeves? In case any men are reading this, save your list for next week. We'll tackle the ladies then.

Have a great week filled with love and laughter.