Vicki Lane's Blog, page 519

Dumpster Reading

At the dumpsters (aka Recycling Center) last week I was putting my mixed paper into the big bin and right there on top were some books.

I couldn't resist.

First of all was my old friend Nancy Drew who, in this incarnation has teamed up with the Hardy Boys and they, along with her ever-faithful boy friend, Ned Nickerson (those two have been dating since the 1930's and I don't think Ned has gotten to second base yet,) and her girl pals Bess and George are having a beach party on Padre Island.


I grew up on a combination of the early Nancy Drew's along with the Fifties version and I was a little surprised by the romance novels elements that have crept into the 1989 version. Nancy, that minx, has unresolved feelings toward one of the Hardy boys and is a bit of a flirt with another guy. The cover should have been a giveaway. 
Then I picked up a little clutch of Christian apocalyptic books.  W. G. Heslop was predicting doom back in 1937 (if I'm reading those Roman numerals correctly.) Ron Parsley's books are more recent --1990 and 1992. But what I want to know is why these books were discarded rather than passed on to someone who might be receptive to their message.  Did the previous owner decide the books were useless? Or was he/she caught up in a kind of pre-Rapture Rapture and the books tossed in the recycle bin by skeptical family members who were left behind.

Inquiring minds want to know...

Early Autumn Colors

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A Living Language

"The living language is like a cow-path: it is the creation of the cows themselves who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay."

E.B White
I love White's image. As a writer, I find that I need to travel many paths in order to tell the story as it should be told. The main path -- that well-traveled one labeled Correct English Usage -- is the one I try to stick to for the narrative portions of my writing.

I may unintentionally stray now and then, as I slip into the comfortable Southern idiom of my upbringing, but generally I aim for the English teacher's ideal -- grammatical, with word usage and punctuation as close to standard as I can make them.
Occasionally I rebel. For example, my spell-checker, my dictionary, and my copy-editor all tell me that Realtor must always be capitalized. I disagree, feeling that it gives the word too much importance in a sentence (sorry, Sallie Kate) and continue to make it lower-case.
When I'm writing dialogue, those alternative paths of slang and dialect are crucial to making characters, with all their differences of age, education, and upbringing, come alive. I dearly enjoy exploring those side paths of language. Here again, I test my copy-editor's patience with my use of the North Carolina mountain talk as I've heard it.

The dialect is not one-size-fits-all -- some older characters may use atter and hit, their children will say after and it, and both generations will say you uns. Or perhaps y'uns -- it seems to differ from family to family. Elizabeth, from the South, though not the mountains, says you all (which my poor long-suffering copy editor wants to hyphenate or change to y'all.
I just change it back, being, as White says, under no obligation to stay.
This is a repost from 1/08.  

The Autunal Equinox

Sun rise at center Of the eastern horizon. . . Day and night balance . . . 
A fleeting momentOn the celestial scales . . .The great wheel creaks on.

The Questions Remain

After a last minute delay of the scheduled execution, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal for a stay of execution for Troy Davis. The questions remain... about this case and about the death penalty in general. 
 Interesting company the US is in.
"An estimated 139 countries have completely abolished the death penalty. China has by far the most number of executions annually with estimates running in the thousands, although the exact number is hard to pinpoint because of the country's self-reporting mechanisms, Amnesty International reports. Number two on that list is Iran, which executed more than 380 prisoners in 2009. The U.S. comes in fifth on that list, behind Iraq and Saudi Arabia."  

Justice?

 In all probability, Troy Davis will be executed tonight. Amnesty International and numerous others have called for clemency, citing the weakness of the case against him.  Nonetheless, Georgia's State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied the petition.
There have be far too many cases in the USA of innocence determined after execution. Will this be another?
A dark day for the land of the free --  'with liberty and justice for all.'

And the Days (and Tomatoes) Dwindle Down . . .

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The Chipmunk and the Turkeys

 The chipmunk has a problem.
Five big turkeys are monopolizing the ground beneath the bird feeder, gobbling up all that wonderful sunflower seed the smaller birds have dropped.

What's a chipmunk to do?
He makes several runs at the feeder, each time turning and running back.
He checks them out from the vantage point of a big rock... I dunno -- those guys are HUGE. No matter -- he's going to try a death or glory charge. Do the big birds see him? Almost . . . almost . . . Uh oh! He's been spotted and he is so outa there!

Traveling Tomatoes

 Thanks to writer friend Sheila Connolly,  I'm guest blogging today over at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Stop by, if you will, for a last tribute to summer and some good tomato recipes -- gazpacho and more!

Not sure exactly when the post will go up -- some time today. Do stop by and leave a comment -- and check out some of the terrific recipes these ladies post.

Garden Encounter

I met this handsome spider in my herb garden a few days ago as I was performing a yearly chore. The garlic chives that make ornamental V's in the box beds are hardy and attractive but, left to their own devices, they will self-sow like mad.
 So every year I make a point of cutting off the spent flowers and ripening seed heads before they drop those little black seeds everywhere.
There was one problem: Ms. Spider's web was attached at one end to a garlic chive flower. She crouched there, staring at me with all those eyes, and I couldn't bear to destroy her lovely web.
So we came to an accommodation: I carefully trimmed away all the flowers except the one her web was attached to.  (Click on the picture to biggify and see if you can find Ms. Spider.)
And she did a little repair where I'd blundered into her web before noticing her.