Nancy Martin's Blog, page 20

Cornelia's Aweigh

 

By Cornelia Read

So I just finished my first-ever voyage on a boat (not counting ferries or dinghies or floatingish thingies that are inflatable and/or require what the sailor types in my lineage always refer to as "a nice breeze" to locomote). Which was pretty damn cool, I have to tell you.

The trip was an enormo-prezzie to the fam from my mother, in honor of three of her grandkids having graduated from various and sundry schools this month. Mummie (hey, if you are a parent of the female persuasion and gift your offspring with splendiferous adventures of this magnitude, you deserve the classically haute-Mitfordian pronoun, right?) treated me, my sister, my sister's husband, my eldest girl, my niece, my nephew, and two school pals of niece and nephew to the proceedings, which was damn fine and gobsmackingly generous of her.

Mom does tons of awesome stuff for us all, and I don't know how she comes up with the buckage for it. I think she subsists on cardboard soup and government-cheese fumes in between these stunning bouts of maternal largesse or something. Really.

 

 

1. If you are a woman who has two sons in the Navy, DO NOT let them take you drinking in Pearl Harbor, because you might wake up with a two-foot-tall tattoo of angel wings from your shoulder blades to your waist, even though the last thing you remember is being led into a room with all these weird pictures on the walls and one of your kids saying, "you can do Mom in the other room, me and my brother will stay together." And then waking up with your nightgown stuck to your back, totally hospital-cornered into the guest bed so tightly you can't move.

 

On the bright side, this woman's sons did this to her because they think she IS a wonderful angel, and she already had a number of tattoos. And it's really pretty (she showed us by pulling down her tanktop straps on the Denali Lodge shuttle bus, and also I saw her getting her formal portrait photo done on the ship). But still.

And hey, could be worse:

Although I think this one might be suitable revenge on the guy who did the angel wings tattoo at one's children's behest, if one were to, say, kidnap him and take him to a rival tattoo parlor, after nuking him with one of those Marlin Perkins Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom tranquilizer darts.

2. Go to the fire drill on the first day. Because you'll want to know what to do if bad stuff happens. Which it so totally probably won't, but still. Sometimes it does. And I say this because this is the ship my Grandmother Smith christened in the '30s.

3. Bring stretchy pants. Because you will eat the entire side of a house at every meal. With ice cream on it. Probably flambé.

And then a couple of bowls of gravy and some chocolate mousse. And twice your pre-cruise weight in smoked salmon.

4. If you are bringing your own luggage to the departure dock, make sure that the guy you give your stuff to attaches THE TAGS FOR THE ACTUAL CRUISE LINE YOU ARE GOING ON to each of your bags (e.g., if you are going on a Princess Lines cruise, having the guy apply Holland America tags is a really, really bummer idea.

As you may have surmised, I speak here from personal experience.)

 

5. If you forget suggestion number four, be on a ship that has nice people working on it. Because you will need awesome, awesome people who will make it nice for you even though you are wearing the same clothes for three days (and totally feel like Immigration is going to send you back to fin-de-siecle wherever from Ellis Island--with "Scarlet Fever" chalked on the back of your itchy homespun-tweed shmatte where you can't even see it--well before the Holland America boat decides to take its sweet time lolling into Juneau.)

The people on our ship made Gavin McLeod and Lauren Tewes

look like rank amateurs. Even though they only played captain and cruise director on TV and stuff (okay, I do admit I kept expecting to find Isaac mixing frothy/frosty day-glo libations in a blender behind the Lido deck bar,

 

and to run into various bejeweled Gabors in the elevators. Or at least Paul Lynde or something.)

 

6. A lot of people end up crashing in Alaska from elsewhere. And their stories are pretty great.

But here is a caveat from a tourbus person about the whole "there are five single men to every single woman here on The Last Frontier" thing:

"Sure, the odds are good. But the goods are odd."

 

7. IMPORTANT SAFETY TIP: Do not let your fine-looking teenage daughter go party with the dudes who run the zipline for the rest of the day until the ship embarks after they send her whizzing along cables above the tree canopy for an hour and a half unless you want her to discover an entire galaxy of body-piercings neither of you had ever envisioned in your wildest nightmares. Even though she is rock-solid on assuring me that she is not interested in any of them, but she got great pictures of them. Isn't texting fun?

So even though I worry she might change her mind, which she totally won't, I did love hearing about the slightly exaggerated ruler (with witty disclaimer caption) the aforementioned Steve has reportedly had tattooed on his inner thigh--which had me doing spit-takes of mirth throughout dinner that night, every time I thought of it. Which almost makes up for the whole piercing-galaxy thing.

And, hey, she just got another text from Steve the 'Stache. Who is a mere eleven years older than she is.

Yea.

8. You totally fucking can't see so much as a single molecule of Russia from anywhere in the town of Wasilla. Even if you've got a westward-facing window seat on the upper level of the Princess train-to-Denali's dome car.

So there. Neener neener.

 

9. The legal smoking age in Alaska is nineteen, which becomes an important thing to know if you have recently decided on a whim to buy each of the three kids in your traveling party who just graduated from high school his or her very own sixteen-dollar Arturo Fuentes Hemingway Classic from the ship's cigar bar.

Like, especially if you have just told the bar-server chick who's kinda-sorta in charge of the place for the evening that your young companions are all eighteen. Whether or not they are actually, uh, seventeen. Allegedly.

Ahem.

Not least if the bar-server-chick-k/s-in-charge-of-the-place-for-the-evening only remembers that the smoking age in Alaska is nineteen after you've helped your young companions set fire to said trio of sixteen-dollar cigars.

Though it is rather fine to finish smoking your respective Hemingway Classics on the fantail of the Promenade deck at midnight when it's the longest day of the year, still totally light out, and you happen to be sailing through a really groovy-looking fjord in Alaska. Just saying.

 

Especially when you and your three young smoking companions can sing all of the verses of Lonely Island's "I'm on a Boat" from memory afterwards.

 

 k

 

Complete with lyric-appropriate arm motions.

 

[DISCLAIMER: My young traveling companions are all really nineteen. I have intimated that they were underage merely for humor purposes. They were slow learners and all held back for a year in grammar school. Cross my heart and pinkie swear. And I didn't let any of them sample my rocks glass of Scotch, either. Because, let's face it, a fine single malt is, like youth, wasted on the young.]

 

10. Pack your sleeping pills, your toothbrush, your deodorant, and a change of undies in your carry-on bag. Even if you didn't sleep at all the night before you flew to Vancouver because your writing group is on California time and you are Skyping in from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to hear what they thought of your second draft--which means 8 pm. for them is 11 p.m. for you.

Because all-nighters are no excuse for stupid. Or crappy packing.

 

11. The long-term parking lots for the Newark Airport are actually located in Western Pennsylvania. So you'll want to get up at 3:30 and not 4:00. Especially if Air Canada's ground crews are on strike. But I'm pro-labor so it was worth it to leave earlier.

And I also waited for my bags to come out onto the Vancouver conveyor belt thing with a smile on my face for two whole hours. So take that, O douchey ass-hat scab-licking corporate-lackey-shill Governor of Wisconsin.

And cheers to you, my striking Canadian compatriots: Si se puede, eh.

(Sorry about the Bruins kicking your asses, too....

 

Oh, wait... I'm not sorry at all about that.

And I'm a Sabres fan, eh?

Heh.)

 

12. Douglas Adams was absolutely correct when he posited that "no one has uttered the phrase 'as beautiful as an airport.'" Especially when it's in New Jersey and you've been awake for circa forty-eight hours.

(I will spare you an illustration.)

Although he might have reconsidered if he'd been admiring the interior design of the Vancouver Airport for two hours from a bench next to the baggage claim. It's pretty great.

(But, you know, still an airport. Not, like, a splendid afternoon in the Bois de Boulogne or the view across Florence from Fiesole at dawn or whatever.)

 

13. Denali (AKA Mount McKinley) is REALLY FUCKING BIG. And I say that having trekked to the base camp on Annapurna.

Trust me, the Himalayas are totally pussified by comparison.

Kind of like Vancouver's hockey team.

Heh.

 

14. I make a habit of dancing once a decade. I recommend doing this on a cruise ship. I just did. It was totally great. Especially when me and my niece's pal dragged my mother out onto the dancefloor for "We Are Family." 

And now I will not dance again until 2021. Phew.

 

 15. I found out my new $49 iPhone takes video. My old $200 iPhone did not, but it was four years old or something.

Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how I'm going to post them. So here's a nice lady on a ship waving goodbye, instead:

 

Tell me about a trip that you loved... And please forgive me if I don't check in very often the day this is posted--ten-hour flight back to the East Coast, and spotty internet...

 

The Ghost in the Garden

by Barbara O'Neal

Have you ever lived with a ghost?  I have.  In fact, I'm pretty sure she wanted me to save her house.

My eldest son was in kindergarten when I first saw this house.  It was a narrow, two story brick, with a bay window on the top floor, and deep porch.  It was well over a hundred years old, and looked it—the yard was bare dirt, baked by the southwestern sun to absolute sterility, the paint on the old wood was peeling.  There was a crack in the brick over one window.  It was empty. Abandoned.

But every day, as I passed by with my son's five-year-old hand in mine, the house caught my eye.  A pair of windows faced east, illuminating a staircase with a beautiful old banister, and spilling sunshine into the open front rooms.  The light was so inviting, so peaceful, that often I would pause on the way back home and peer in the windows to see what else I could see.  That inviting upstairs bedroom with the bay window.  The enormous front windows overlooking the street, arched and ancient, the glass thin and wavery.  One of them had a tiny bb hole in it.  The kitchen was horrific—a single bank of cupboards made of tin, covered with wood-grain contact paper.

It had been condemned for the wiring.

I could not bear it.  I dreamed of the house at night, feverishly imagining the yard filled with flowers, and lace curtains hanging in every window (a genetic Irish trait, I'm afraid).

A relative of my husband told me to "claim it," tell God that I wanted it, that it was mine and I would take good care of it.  What did I have to lose?  I tried it.  As Ian and I walked by the next month, I claimed it. 

Then, because it never hurts to be practical, I set about tracking down the owner. After a lot of dead ends, I finally found him, an old man in Arizona who just wanted to get rid of it.  He wanted a mere $20,000 for it—which might as well have been $10 million for our small, poor, young family.  He was so eager to sell it, however, that he carried the loan and let us have it for the sweat equity it would require to become livable. 

It was a long haul. For the whole first winter, we lived with an exposed brick wall in the living room and bare pine floors through the house.  I put up with the impractical, horrible kitchen for seven years.  

It was worth it. The terrible, tiny bathroom had a giant window and a claw-foot bathtub.  The bay window looked over treetops and the roofs of other houses.  The dining room had long windows (though no two windows in the house were the same size) where we ate supper every evening and my husband's Sunday breakfasts complete with homemade biscuits.  My boys grew up there. 

The first time I felt the ghost, my white cat Piwacket and I were out in the side yard trying to see if there were any old plants that might be planted there.  It was overgrown with weeds, and Pi leapt on flies and grasshoppers, then suddenly stopped and dashed over to an empty spot in the yard and started winding around somebody's ankles.   For a minute, I just gaped, but the feeling of approval and benevolence was so powerful that there was no reason to be afraid.

An old woman lived in the house across the alley, Electra McKinney (a name I have saved for the right book, and will use one day) and when I started watering the dry dead dirt of the yard to see what might grow, she leaned over the fence and said with approval. "She had a beautiful garden here once. I hope you can save some of it."

"She" had died in the house a couple of decades before. I never learned her name. The owner's mother, it turned out, who had lived there since 1932.  When I watered her yard, the long-dormant plants she had loved began to sprout—ancient roses and Naked Lady lilies and honeysuckle in the backyard, a rose of Sharon and mulberry bushes in the front.  It became a lush background for my nascent gardening skills.  I added more roses and perennials and herbs. I planted baby's breath and day lilies and a thick lawn beneath the trees in back.  Electra McKinney gave me things from her old garden, too, irises and lamb's ear and asparagus starts. 

The cats liked playing in the side garden with the ghost.  Sometimes a dog would dance with her in the back yard—perhaps she was throwing ghost sticks for them.  My husband was not as fond of her when she appeared at the side of the bed in the middle of the night.  (He actually made me move the bed to another part of the room and that did the trick.  When we divorced, I moved it back and she

seemed to approve. I slept like a baby between the two long windows.)  As the animals passed away, I buried them where she seemed to like to sit, and I liked imagining that they would be wandering through the yard, too--many friendly presences to keep a gardener company.

I lived in that house for almost twenty years, when my life took a turn and I fell in love with a man in my old home town of Colorado Springs.  I left the ghost and the house to someone else, who did not care as well for it. The yard has gone dry, again, and some unfeeling soul cut the Rose of Sharon down to the ground, though the peach tree still produces.  At night, in my dreams, I sometimes wander through the rooms, and stand at the window of the study where I wrote so many, many words, a window that overlooks the side garden with the ghosts of woman and cats.  We wonder, all of us, who will next save our house.  When a young mother will wander by, and catch sight of the light pouring through the windows, and see the flowers on the peach tree, and wonder if there is something else that could be coaxed to grow in that barren soil...

Have you ever known a ghost?  Do you haunt a place you once lived? 

(I will be checking in from airports today, as it's a travel day for me...but I will check in, promise!)

 

Sleeping with Strangers

Elaine Viets                                                

 "So, do you want to sleep with us?" Doris Ann asked.

"I have to know some things first," I said. "Do you smoke?"

"Not in the room," she said.

"You should know that I snore."

"So do we," Doris said.

That's how I wound up sharing a room with a passel of librarians at the American Library Association convention this weekend in New Orleans.

I've been lucky with my hotel roommates. Most are considerate, don't hog the closet space or make noise if they come in after late-night celebrations.

Hospital roommates are another story. I get stuck with deeply devout women. And that brings out the devil in me.

A while back, I was in the hospital after a stroke (I'm fully recovered, thank you). My roommate was an 80-year-old woman addicted to televangelists' sermons at full volume. I'll call her Edna, because that's not her name.

I thought the white-haired Bible-pounders were whitened sepulchers, but Edna watched their rants with rapture.

At dinner, she came down off Cloud 9 and asked me, "Which evangelist is your favorite?"

"Uh – the dead one," I said. I figured that was a safe answer. One of them was always being called home. Not soon enough, thought, after watching them for 12 hours.

"Yes," Edna said, sadly. "His death was a great loss."

Dinner was punishment for my sins. But worse was in store – Edna decided to evangelize me.

"Jesus gave you that stroke," she said, "and you won't recover until you accept that."

It wasn't right. I had a good husband, a good career, a condo on the water and a black Jaguar. Jesus didn't get any credit for those. He got the rap for the stroke. I kept silent out of respect for Edna's age.

Edna persisted. "Are you married?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Don and I have been married 37 years."

"Do you have children?" she asked.

"No," I said, cheerfully.

"It's not a real marriage unless you have children," Edna said.

"It's a little too late for kids now," I said.

"No, it's not," Edna said. "God gave Sarah a child at age 80."

Respect for Edna's age went out the window. "That's proof God is a man," I said. "No woman would give another woman a baby at age 80."

At least Edna was quiet for the rest of my stay.

Another adventure with a hospital roommate started out well. I shared a room with a large woman who was sleeping of the just when I was admitted early in the morning. While the doctors prepared me for a complete walletectomy, I fell asleep, too.

At 1:30 that afternoon, I was awakened by a woman shouting, "Father God, heal our Sister in Jesus' name. Heal her legs so she may walk again."

"Yes, sweet Jesus!" Sister shouted.

"Heal her heart," screamed the woman preacher. "Heal her stomach! Heal her kidneys!"

At each request for healing, my neighbor cried again in a loud voice, "Yes, sweet Jesus."

This time, I prayed, too.

I prayed that the preacher woman would not go to any organs lower then Sister's kidneys.

My prayers were answered.

                                                        ***

 Saturday, June 25, is  Mystery Day at the American Library Association conference  in New Orleans. At 10 AM I'm on the "Traditional Mysteries: Who Are the New Jane Marples?" panel with Rhys Bowen, TLC's Nancy Martin, Rosemary Harris and Jane Cleland as moderator.

At 3 PM "Laugh or I'll Kill You" is the topic for Rhys, Rosemary, Nancy M., Cathy Pickens with  moderator Amy Alessio.

From 1 PM to 2 PM I'll be signing copies of my books at the Penguin Group Booth 1422. 

 

 

                             

 

The Naming of Pets

Margaret Maron 

According to T.S. Eliot in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which formed the basis of the Broadway play Cats,

            "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

            It isn't just one of your holiday games . . ."

Actually, it does become a sort of game, doesn't it?  In Southern Discomfort, I have a running joke about Deborah's Aunt Zell trying out different names for her new puppy.  After experimenting with Roman emperors (Caesar and Pompey) and TV news anchors (Cronkite and Brinkley), she winds up taking Dwight's suggestion, Pork Chop, even though she doesn't know the story behind that suggestion.

As a Southerner, I have known several pets with double names: Cubbie Lee was a dog and Gilbert Ann was a squirrel that turned out to be female.  As an adult, I have lived with a dog named Mackindoo and cats named Skimbleshanks, Katisha, and Bitsy Mott.  Giacomino Schwarzekatze was a trilingual Siamese that we acquired at a NATO base in Italy from a German couple.

But before that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends of mine are giving their grandson a cute little golden Labradoodle puppy for his sixth birthday.  While he waits for the puppy to reach ten weeks, the child has been trying out different names.  The current favorite is Sunshine, "but I'll call her Sunny."

Which has led another friend to observe:  "This is the tough part about letting little kids name their pets—why millions of moms, myself included, have ended up with goldfish named Goldy. (Probably only exceeded by moms with pet bunnies or kittens named Fluffy.)" 

                                                                

"I was nine," she says, "when I got my first all-yours pet, a parakeet. I named it Kennedy. He hadn't been elected yet. I think it must be a good sign for candidates if kids are naming pets after them. At least, I never met a pet named Nixon."

At six, my first cat was white and came during winter, so of course I named her Snowflake.  Her son was a soft all-over gray and answered to Smokey.  (Not that he actually answered. No cat of ours ever deigned to respond to its name.)

Colors and markings trigger names for most children:  Blackie, Red, Blue, Patches, Spot, Stars. (But in all fairness, must add that I have since learned the child awaiting his puppy picked that name "because there's a song about you are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.") 

What about you?  Did you get to choose your pets' names when you were a kid?  Have you become more imaginative as an adult?

 

Summer Jobs and the Livin' Ain't Easy

By Sarah

There are a few things I'll remember even when I'm in the throes of senility: the theme song for Gilligan's Island, the name of the albino kid in my first grade class (Whitey. Natch.), ABX-25C - the license plate on my first car - and how to make a Whopper.

Like the odor of French fries that settled in the polyester fibers of my brown and orange uniform, the four pickle/ketchup/mayo/lettuce/tomato configuration is forever embedded in the wrinkles of my gray matter thanks to the job I talked my way into when I was seventeen, the summer before I entered Tufts and was desperately in need of cash.

I'd already been working at the KFC - then unabashedly known as Kentucky Fried Chicken - two blocks away on Easton Ave. in Bethlehem. There I learned to pull out hot trays of chicken pieces and add two thighs and two breasts (or two "chests," because my prudish manager couldn't bear to say
"breasts"), and two drumsticks. Coleslaw. Rolls. (Because there weren't enough carbs.)  Then I tucked them nicely and neatly into the red and white-striped box I'd folded between peak times.

It was at KFC where I learned, strangely, to make cheese steaks by first dumping a handful of white onions onto the flat grill. Then I'd peel off several pieces of Steak-Ums, push them around with a spatula and arrange the mush in a rectangle over which I would place no more than three slices of ochre American cheese in diamond formation. Roll on top. Flip. Wrap in foil.

When I wasn't cooking cheese steaks or filling buckets of mutilated poultry in the 109 degree kitchen, I was chatting with the disaffected "chicken guy" who dipped mounds of chicken parts in goo and coating in the back.  Sanitary it was not and his attitude wasn't helping.They were cutting back on hours at KFC and he was tired of closing. Word had it, Burger King was hiring - and the hours were good.

I pity the kids who have to spend their summers lying on beaches or frolicking around wooded summer camps. They never knew the adrenaline rush of three whispered words: Health. Department. Visit. Or how to steam and stuff an entire cheeseburger into your mouth without the manager noticing. What about soda abuse? There's a reason you pour your own, now, because the soda jerk was the last hold up that separated fast from regular food. I've been there and it ain't pretty. Suddenly, everyone's staring at you expectantly as you mark a D for Diet Coke and push in the appropriate plastic lid mark for caffeine free.

And don't even get me started on shakes - the vanilla, strawberry, chocolate mixes. The "seasonal" mint. Scew them.

"You're gonna have to work faster on the shakes," the manager said to me one evening after the 5 p.m. rush. (It was Bethlehem. People eat early.) She didn't trust me to work the cash register because, unlike her, I was off to college. Though she didn't know that since the only way she'd agreed to hire me was if I could work in the fall.

"Can you work in the fall?" she asked. 

"Yes," I lied.

"Because I don't like college kids."

 "Me neither."

At the end of August, of course, I had to go to college. My friends were returning from the Shore where they'd been scooping ice cream and lollying about their summer houses in Avalon or Stone Harbor. The chances that they'd come into BK and cause trouble were damn good. The uniform was incentive enough.

I needed an escape plan.

"Guess what?" I announced Aug. 15th to the manager. "The scholarship came through."

"It did?" Katie, a twenty-something ne'er-do-well and my best BK bud had set the whole thing up. "Oh, Sarah. That's wonderful." And she punctuated this with a big hug.

The manager, hands on hips, was suspicious. "Just came in, huh?"

"Yup. That means I can go!"

"Weee!" Katie screamed, loving this since she and the manager were in a constant war. Katie knew. The manager knew. I, of course, knew. But we acted like we didn't.

"You never did get the hang of shakes," she grunted.

On Aug. 20th - my last day - they threw me a little party. Everyone was proud I'd gotten the scholarship. They stuck a candle in a Whopper Jr. I pretended to cry.

This is what I learned from my summer job. How to make lethal food. How to survive sweat-shop conditions. How to make friends with co-workers with iffy criminal records. How to trick The Man.

But I never did learn how to master those shakes.

How about you? What did you take away from your crappy summer job?

 

Sarah

Love Thy (next-door) Neighbor

by Harley

When I was 4, we lived next door to the Tomlinson family in Valley City, North Dakota. The Tomlinsons had 2 little boys, Tommy and Ricky. Tommy was my first suitor. He'd come ring the doorbell and say, "let's play twicks on Wicky." I don't recall the actual tricks played on Ricky but for me, the words "let's play twicks on Wicky" are inextricably linked to that magical (unless you're Ricky) phenomenon, next door neighbors.

When I was 5, we moved to Nebraska, where our neighbors were the Falloons (rhymes with balloons), including the Virgils, senior & junior. Virge and Virgie. I liked the Falloons, but I loved their name. Virgie Falloon--doesn't that scream for its own sitcom? Or coming-of-age novel?

In NYC, I had 2 neighbors of note: One was Xavier, with whom I shared a freight elevator in my SoHo loft period. The elevator had no call button, so we had to go find it on foot, on whatever floor it was left, armed with one another's keys. On my floor, the elevator was in my bedroom, which gave Xavier a certain . . . intimate knowledge of me. But my favorite memory is of one hot summer night on the Lower East Side. I was on my apartment balcony weeping over some feckless boyfriend when two neighbors came out into the courtyard armed with guitars to serenade me with a killer rendition of "Lean on Me."

In L.A., my Laurel Canyon neighbor Tara asked me to housesit her cat, and became my best friend. On Lookout Mountain, the crazy Palestinian filmmaker next door filmed my C-section and became godfather to my daughter. In Topanga, my neighbor Denise cheered me on as I wrote my first book, and then, in an act of solidarity, published her own. Our other neighbors, a large and unrelated contingent of Dutch émigrés, gamely appeared on my 2006 Christmas card.

And now I live next door to the Karbassians. They own a printing shop, and printed up my latest business cards for free. They wouldn't let me pay for them. Because it's not neighborly. Instead, they let me bake them banana bread. I'm not convinced they like my banana bread as much as they claim to, but I bake it anyway.

Next-door neighbors are among life's lotteries. Like blood relatives, some are lunatics (relatics, as my sister Ann calls them) but they're your lunatics. They come with the house. Yes, I've had clunkers. The guys with the exotic birds who, at sunrise, would scream as though they were being bludgeoned to death (the birds, not the guys). The ones whose lawns are cluttered with yard signs for bad politicians. When the buyer of my old house called me last year later to ask, "How'd you deal with the nutjobs next door?" I replied, "I moved."

The best Worst Neighbor story I know comes from my in-laws in Santa Barbara. Next door to them, Mr. and Mrs. Crazy (not their real names) were having an argument. Mr. Crazy pulled out a gun and fired at the Missus, but missed. The bullet hit their beloved dog, killing him. The police came and hauled them all away. No one in that 'hood bothers asking anymore, "What will the neighbors think?"

But in my 'hood, on the nights my kids and dogs are at their dad's and my chaotic house goes quiet, I lock the doors, turn on the alarm system, and my thoughts turn to axe murderers coming for me in the dead of night. But then I look out my bedroom window and see a light burning next door, and I am comforted by thoughts of the kind Karbassians, up late, ever vigilant, armed with loaves of stale banana bread, ready to ride to my rescue.

Happy Monday, TLC neighbors . . .

Harley

 

Every Dad Has His Day

HANK :  Happy Father's Day! I do hope you all have your plaster handprints painted and ready to go. Or, perhaps, you have picked  out a tie or two.

I grew up with my step-father, a pretty brilliant corporate lawyer,and one year, when I was about 10, my mother gave him a Father's Day card that said: Happy Father's Day to a man outstanding in his field. And when he opened the card, inside was a picture of a farmer standing on a corn field.

Even at 10 or 12 or however old I was, I knew that was stupid, but my father burst out laughing. Laughed for about 15 minutes.

So, and here's the point..my mother took the card back, put it away, and gave him the same card every Father's Day for as long as any of us can remember. He ALWAYS laughed, and we were never quite sure if he truly had forgotten.

Anyway-that's just one reason I laughed so hard at Joanna Slan's Father's Day confession. Another reason is that she is truly funny..and such a talented writer, and SUCH a good pal. We celebrated my birthday together one memorable year..and that is an occasion I will never forget.

She has a new series coming soon which I cannot wait to read! But we'll let her tell her fabulous idea.

Happy Father's Day to all...and see below for the question of the day!

How to Tell If a Man is Dad Material—A Special Father's Day Post

  By Joanna Campbell Slan 

 

This Father's Day, I'll give my husband the same gift I've given him every year for a decade: A pair of nail clippers.

See, it's a running joke between us. One year he bought me a BMW convertible for Mother's Day, and for Father's Day I gave him…nail clippers. We both were thrilled. After all, it's the thought that counts. My darling David can never, ever find nail clippers when he needs them. So I buy him a pair once a year. It's just my way of saying, "I love you, honey. Oh, and you're a heck of father, pal. Heck of one."

I got lucky in the marital sweepstakes. Especially when it came to choosing a reproductive partner. See, when you meet a guy, you generally have no idea whether he's good fatherhood material. There aren't any handy-dandy aptitude tests for this skill set. I guess if your amour has kids already you can use that as a loose guide, but we've all seen men who were rotten fathers the first time around and who smartened up in later life. Let's hope we all can improve with age. Otherwise, drag out the coffins and let's jump in.

Now some women swear by pet ownership. Theory being, "If he's good to his dog, he's going to be great with kids." And there are certain similarities. Dogs—and kids—barf on you, pee on you, stand outside the bedroom door and howl while you make love, and generally have needs that can(at best) be called "inconvenient." So a guy who takes it like a man when Fido eats his best loafers can generally be considered a good candidate for procreation.

There's also the nieces and nephews test. If he's good with his nieces and nephews, if he doesn't get drunk and watch porn on TV while he's supposed to be babysitting, that's a good sign. If he knows SpongeBob Square Pants by sight, and if he pantomimes a notebook when he hears the words "Blue's Clues," he's probably a keeper. But this is by no means foolproof. I mean, PeeWee Herman can do all of the above, but I wouldn't have him for a mate if we were the last two members of our species. Huh-uh. No way.

I've known women who were charmed into maternity by men who like nature. Okay, that's a definite "probably" in my book. I'm Silly Putty in the hands of a man who stops his car to move a box turtle to safety. I mean, a man who'll do that shows a concern for the small and the weak that really floats my boat.  They don't come any smaller or weaker than newborn babies.

If all else fails, and you still aren't sure whether a man is a good candidate for fatherhood, try the word association test.  You say, "Arnold Schwarzenegger." If he says, "Maid service," double up on your contraceptive. You say, "Anthony Weiner." If he says, "Dude! Drop the unlimited texting on your phone plan," then he's obviously a solid "maybe."

Full disclosure: I didn't use any particular method when deciding whether to have a child by my husband, David Slan. I just fell in love with the guy. Truly, absolutely, madly. And you know what? Turns out I've got really, really good taste in fatherhood material.

Happy Father's Day, everyone—and especially to my David!

**

HANK: So cute. Adorable. And how about you,tarts? Memorable Father's Day gifts or events?

 

Besides being a lucky mother and wife, Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of the Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series. Her most recent release is Make, Take, Murder. In July 2012, Joanna starts a new series starring Jane Eyre as an amateur sleuth. Visit her at www.JoannaSlan.com

 

 

Mysteries of Sienna

April Smith is my homie--we're both L.A. residents--so I get to run into her in person, usually in the presence of bad banquet food. She is lovely, chic, well-dressed and eloquent, and although she is petite, you'd no more mess with her than you would with Ana Grey, her protagonist. April's North of Montana (one of my favorite titles ever) launched her onto the literary crime scene and she's never left. Also, we both love cleaning out closets, which is just the sort of fact that makes her the perfect guest on The Lipstick Chronicles. A warm welcome, please, and pass the hard rolls. ~Harley

 When I tell readers the new FBI Special Agent Ana Grey thriller, White Shotgun (Knopf, June, 2011), takes place in Siena, their eyes light up.   Nobody asks how an FBI agent based in Los Angeles would end up in Italy – they just want to go there, too!       A strong sense of place is pivotal to fiction, which is why I travel to every location that I write about.  Nothing is fresher than the first sensual impressions of a city, and the spontaneous discoveries that later become plot points -- but Siena was different.  Siena inhabited me.  It was as if the arcane words carved into church walls and the ancient rituals of the Palio were literary connections just waiting to happen, as I worked through the story.  Or maybe a collective unconsciousness does connect us all, and all it takes is some fine Brunello and fresh mozzarella to unlock the symbolism.

            I didn't just stumble into Siena; I went there a mission.  It began with a call from my son, Benjamin Brayfield, who was then on a college semester abroad program.

            "Mom," he said, "What if a crime happened during Palio?"

            "That would be a book," I said.

            His Italian roommates had been filling his head with tales of a crazy horse race called Il Palio, coming up in July.  How crazy?  Jockeys ride bareback and beat each other with whips made of calf phalluses.  Sixty thousands tourists jam into an ancient piazza, and every year horses are injured, riders thrown, and ancient rivalries erupt in violence.   As the setting for a thriller, Siena was a no-brainer.  Besides great atmosphere, there was the potential for a strong story about the current threat of international crime networks, like 'Ndragheta, which controls the distribution of cocaine in Europe.

            My first encounter with the mysteries of the Siena was a decapitated head.  St. Catherine, along with St. Francis of Assisi, is one of Italy's two patron saints.  She was born in Siena but died in Rome in 1380 -- and most of her body is buried there.  The Sienese wanted their beloved saint back, but settled for smuggling her head out in a bag.  When they were stopped by Roman guards, they prayed to St. Catherine, and a miracle occurred.  The bag was full of rose petals.  When it was opened in Siena, the head had manifested again.  Today it is preserved in a glass case in the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena -- a gruesome relic without a nose in a glass case.  I was spooked, and so is Ana Grey, when she discovers the hand of a saint preserved in her sister's home.

            If this were historical fiction, I could have spent months following in the bloody footsteps of the many conquerors of Siena -- from the Romans to the penultimate siege by Florence in 1230 when donkeys and dung were catapulted over the walls (see where I'm going with craziness?) – but luckily there was plenty of drama for a crime novelist in the blood rivalries between the seventeen contradas, or city-states, of Siena.  Their fierce territoriality reminded me of gangland Los Angeles, and put me in touch with the primitive forces of love and hate, which become a foil for Ana Grey's cool analytic thinking, when she is faced with the most primitive act of all -- the brutal kidnap of a family member. 

            One of the most intriguing mysteries is the Sator Square, a palindrome of Latin words that can be read in four directions:

 

 

                                                SATOR

                                                AREPO

                                                TENET

                                                OPERA

                                                ROTAS

 

            Carvings dating from 7 AD have been found all over Europe --  including the wall of the main cathedral in Siena.  Borrowing a little Da Vinci Code magic, I used the Sator Square to imply that almost mystical forces brought Ana and her long-lost sister, Cecilia, together.  "It means, God holds the plough, but you turn the furrows," Cecilia explains.  "There are two kinds of fate -- the actions of God and our own responsibility for our lives.  Two kinds of fate have brought us together."

            And brought me to Siena.

 

April Smith is the author of the bestselling FBI Special Agent Ana Grey novels, NORTH OF MONTANA and GOOD MORNING, KILLER ("Critic's Choice" -- PEOPLE Magazine) as well as BE THE ONE, a thriller about the only female baseball scout in the major leagues, all published by Alfred A. Knopf.  Her third Ana Grey novel, titled JUDAS HORSE, was released on Valentine's Day, 2008.  April is also a working TV writer/producer and has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and three Writers Guild Awards.  Her recent screen credits include an adaptation of two Stephen King short stories from his collection, NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES, for TNT, and an adaptation of Nora Roberts' MONTANA SKY, which aired on Lifetime earlier this year.  Please visit www.aprilsmith.net.

Ebony and Ivory

Ebony and Ivory

by Diane Chamberlain

Your Opinion, Please!

Most often, I hear from readers who simply want me to know that they love my books. Occasionally I get complaints about a cuss word used by a character, or a reader points out a typo that escaped not only me, but my editor and copy editor as well. But in the twenty some years that I've been published, this is a first. A woman--Caucasian--wrote to ask me why I identify certain characters by ethnicity.

I have to admit, her question took me by surprise. Why wouldn't I, I thought? This reader found the allusion to ethnicity offensive, with no bearing on the story. I explained that I want my readers to see my characters the way I do. She pointed out that if I identify one character by ethnicity, I should identify all my characters by ethnicity. This might be a valid point if it wasn't obvious that my central characters are generally Caucasian from the images on my covers.

I explained my reasoning and went on my merry way...until my next book--the recently released The Midwife's Confession--came out. The woman wrote to me again, this time with page numbers on which I identified characters as African American or black. The midwife's neighbors, for example, or a male nurse in a children's hospital.

Thinking my reader was a little bit off the wall, I mentioned her concern to my sister who surprised me by agreeing with her. I have to admit, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around the whole conundrum, so I'd love your opinions.

As I've thought about the reason why I might mention the ethnicity of a character, I realize how attached I am to doing so and here are my reasons:

As I mentioned above, I want my readers to see the characters the way I do.
At times, the racial divide has been absolutely critical to the story: the post World War II interracial romance in The Shadow Wife, for example, or the racially motivated murder arrest in The Bay at Midnight.
I just plain like ethnic diversity in my stories, the same way I like it in my world. It makes those stories richer to me, and I like seeing how my admittedly Caucasian characters interact with people unlike themselves.   

My reader proposed describing these characters by physical features instead of by ethnicity and that could be a valid suggestion. I have to admit that in the writing of this post, I'm starting to sway a bit in her direction. Perhaps labeling a character as belonging to a certain ethnic group is a lazy way of describing him or her? I'd love to hear your opinions.  What do you think?

Something Simple

Victoria Allman has been a yacht chef for 12 years, sailing in Europe, the Caribbean, Nepal, Vietnam, Africa and the South Pacific. "Sea Fare: A Chef's Journey Across the Ocean" is her first culinary memoir. "SEAsoned: A Chef's Journey with Her Captain" is a hilarious look at the yacht chef's first year working for her husband while they cruise from the Bahamas to Italy, France, Greece and Spain. Learn more at www.victoriaallman.com.

    
Something Simple

By Victoria Allman

I'm a planner. I love to organize and write lists. The problem is, in my life as a chef on a yacht, catering to someone else's whim, I rarely can predict what will happen at any given moment. Just the other day, my whole lunch plan was thrown overboard.

"It'll just be us today," the wife told me at breakfast. "We'll go out to anchor to swim, so let's have a light lunch."

"Sushi?" I suggested.

"Perfect." She relaxed against the cushion. "Something simple. I just want to nibble today."

I was a slow roller. It would take me awhile to create enough of the tiny little bundles for four people. I checked my watch as I retreated to the galley to rinse and soak sushi rice. It was ten o'clock. That left me enough time to make spicy tuna rolls, salmon sushi and unagi.

I pulled the tuna I had bought fresh from the market that morning out of the fridge and began slicing. I was fifteen minutes into the job when my radio crackled.

"Two guests just pulled up in a Ferrari," Jeff, our first mate, said.

Brooklyn, our chief stew, entered the galley ten minutes later. "Can you add two more to the list for lunch?"

"Certainly." I returned my attention to my fingers that were struggling not to rip the fragile nori sheets while creating tight rolls. In my mind, I added miso soup to my list of things to do to round out the menu.

The radio in the corner sounded again. "The couple from the boat next door just arrived."

Brooklyn looked at me.

I shrugged my shoulders. "What's two more?" I mentally added a platter of beef tataki to the menu.

Jeff's voice filled the air again. "The brother and his wife are coming down from the villa." There was a pause. "They'll be here in ten minutes."

I bit my lip and willed my fingers to curl around the rice at a quicker pace.

The captain was the next voice on the radio. "Deck crew ready to depart."

I felt the boat pull away from the dock. I let out a breath and relaxed a moment. There would be no more guests. I could handle sushi for ten. My knife slid through the soft salmon to make clean lines.

I was about to switch to butchering the eel when more news came over the radio. "There's a speed boat full of people pulling up alongside."

I was starting to hate the sound of Jeff's voice. The forward motion of the yacht slowed to allow the additional guest to board.

"There's quite the crowd gathering," Brooklyn opened two more bottles of wine. "Are you ready for this?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"That must be it." She laughed. "How many more could show up?"

Thirty minutes later we anchored. I stepped outside the galley door to breathe in the hot humid air. I could hear the radio in the distance crackling. I took a final breath and turned to head back inside; a fleeting glance at the world around me was all I had time for.

I reached for the door latch as Jeff sprinted past me.

"Coming through." He squeezed past me.

"What's going on?" I was alarmed at the haste. Was there an emergency?

"Helicopter is landing in five minutes," he shouted over his shoulder.

 
I squinted into the distance and saw the bird-like apparition appear. Judging by the distance, I had just enough time to start threading chicken on skewers for the Yakitori I would have to include to feed the growing mob.

I, too, sprinted for the galley, kicking myself for choosing to make the intricate, time-consuming sushi for lunch. I've been a chef on yachts for twelve years. I should have known better. A simple lunch for four is NEVER a simple lunch for four.

                                            

SPICY TUNA ROLL

Sushi Rice:

2 cups sushi rice

2 1/2 cups cold water

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

 1 ½ teaspoon sea salt 

Spicy Tuna Mixture:

 

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

¼ teaspoon wasabi

2 pounds fresh tuna, diced fine

6 sheets toasted nori

1/4 cup white sesame seeds

2 tablespoons black sesame seeds

Place the rice in a strainer. Rinse under cold water until water runs clear.

Drain well and let rest for 30 minutes.

 In a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan, bring rice and water to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low. Cover and cook until water is absorbed and rice is just tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Let stand covered 10 minutes. Transfer rice to large bowl.

Combine vinegar, sugar and salt in small saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Drizzle mixture over rice. Gently toss rice with vinegar mixture to coat. Keep tossing for 10 minutes to cool rice. Set aside.

Whisk together the mayonnaise and wasabi. Gently stir in tuna to evenly coat the fish.

  Wrap a sushi mat in plastic wrap to keep it clean. Place the mat on the counter with slats running crosswise. Arrange one sheet of nori, shiny side down, on mat, lining up a long edge of sheet with edge of mat nearest you. Using damp fingers, gently press 1/6 of rice onto nori in 1 layer, leaving a 2-inch border on side farthest from you. Press firmly so rice sticks to sheet. Sprinkle with both white and black sesame seeds.

Flip the nori and rice over so that the rice is now the bottom layer. Make a thin line of tuna along the bottom of the nori. Roll tightly, using the sushi mat to guide you. Press as tight as possible so the roll is firm.

Slice the roll with a wet knife into 6 pieces about 1 1/2 inches thick.

Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Makes 6 rolls.