Nancy Martin's Blog, page 21

Do you feel the power?

Do you feel the power?

By Nancy Pickard

 What do all of these people have in common?

Bill Bradbury, Cliff Robertson, Lawrence Bloch,  Coretta Scott King, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Rod Serling, Stephen Jay Gould. . .

Tic toc.  Tic toc.  Okay, your time's up.

They all went to Antioch College, which is now one of the farflung braches of Antioch University.  Sally Goldenbaum's husband, Don, went there, too, back in the day when it was just a damned hippy school.  Hi, Don!  I'm pretty sure Sally will show this to him, so I'm waving at them.  A couple of nights ago, we were all drinking wine and nibbling smoked salmon on cream cheese on crackers, on their back deck, and we were talking about Antioch because I'm going to be teaching at a writer's workshop there from July 9 through 15.

I'm pretty stoked about this gig.

For one thing, in my mind Antioch has always been associated with intellectuals and rebels, so that's cool to get to visit one of the hotbeds of the Sixties.  I love me some disestablishmentarianism.  For another, I'm told Yellow Springs, Ohio, is a charming town, and that I'll be staying in a sweet B&B.   I also love me some soft beds and adorable soaps.    And for another, I get to inflict my views on life and writing to about 100 people for SEVEN STRAIGHT DAYS!  I'll do the keynote the first night, and then teach a writing class every day.

That's power, baby. 

There was a time, not terribly long ago, when I would have declined the invitation because I felt intimidated at the terrifying idea of having to speak that many times to the same people.    It's not that I'm afraid of public speaking--I love it, actually--but I wouldn't have felt I had enough genuine, useful stuff to say.

But I have nearly 30 years of writing fiction behind me now, which pretty much qualifies me to pontificate ad nauseam to helpless victims seated in auditoriums.  ::Heh.  Rubs hands together.  Prepares MANY thoughts.::

Once, I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it, but now--for better or worse--I do.

The more we change, the more we do not remain the same.

I've talked here before about raising confidence--I've done it sometimes by doing things in the physical world that scared the peewaden out of me, like flying airplanes, skiing down mountains, and climbing rickety ladders to great heights.  But I was recently talking to a psychiatrist friend about this and she told me never to underestimate the power of work to do the same thing for us.  Work gives us a place to stand in the world, turns us into experts at something, makes us look worthy in other people's eyes.  And that builds confidence that bleeds out into the rest of our lives. Conversely, there's nothing like not being able to find work that bleeds confidence out of us.  And in that regard, may I just say to Washington D.C.:  Jobs.  Jobs.  Jobs.  Please. Please. Please.

My work has been the real secret for me.  I've been so lucky, first of all to have a job, but also to do work I feel "called" to do.  Prior to My Life in Fiction, during the early years when I did professional writing that didn't mean anything to me, I didn't feel confident at all.  I faked it, mostly, and that rarely ends well, does it?  I didn't begin to build up any real confidence until I began to do the work I was meant to do.

I'm always curious about where other people get their swagger, so what about you?

What's your confidence level at this point in your life? 

            *  "Confidence?  What's that?"

            *  "I feel calmly sure of myself in most situations."

            *   "I'm so confident I'm obnoxious!  If I were any more confident I'd be Attila the Hun!"   

What is it that gives you whatever confidence you have?  Were you born with it, did your parents nurture it into you, was it sports, your college, religion, a teacher or mentor, your job?  Does it just feel natural to you, or have you had to really work to build it up?

What's the secret of your self-confidence?

 

 

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

by Nancy Martin         

I finished my book last week, and after three days, the Deadline Madness tension was still preventing me from sleeping through the night.  My husband had the cure:

Tickets to the baseball game.

You'd think for me, a person who--I admit this with shame--really doesn't know much about baseball, tickets are a waste of money.  But my dear husband often gets access to the fabulous seats owned by his employer, and he's supposed to treat customers to a great night at the ball park. When the customers want to bring their wives, I'm supposed to come along, but I rarely do.  But this weekend, the customer was---our new son-in-law!  (Who works like a fiend in his up-and-coming business related to health care, so he'd going to be a gazillionaire.)  So on Saturday night we took my daughter and s-i-l and headed downtown to the new ballpark here in Pittsburgh, which is so charming I can't tell you. It's like an oldtime ball park, except with modern conveniences like extra bathrooms for women and a magnificient view of the river and the city.

First, we walked along the river before the game to people watch.  Near the ball park is a fountain with a sign that clearly says,  NO SWIMMING OR WADING, but it's full of toddlers in bathing suits.  Two mothers in bikinis dangled their feet in the fountain, too.  Since the city had just announced they were spraying by helicopter for West Nile virus, I thought maybe this was a bad idea, but I didn't offer that opinion aloud.

We got into the ball park and grabbed messy sandwiches.  Pulled pork with pierogies on top.  Im not kidding.  This is Pittsburgh. We're serious about pierogies.

After wiping our hands on a gazillion napkins which really didn't help with the sticky factor (which is not a plug for my new book, honest) we found our seats.  Eight rows back from the visitors' dugout. Let me tell you, there are no better seats to watch the game.  You can hear the players talking. Watch all the action. (There is a lot of re-arranging of--uh--cups, let me tell you.) Even I could follow what was happening in the game. And we helped the visiting Mets fans sing Happy Birthday to Jose Reyes, who was adorably gracious about it.

Thing is, though, even if you don't watch the game, there's something going on to entertain, and I'm not just talking about the funny videos playing on the Jumbotron. 

There's The Wave. (I didn't record this.  Somebody much higher up posted it on YouTube.)

 

And the Pierogi racing. 

  

I told you, we're seriuos about pierogies, didn't I?  Also not totally serious. 

There's also ice cream served in little baseball hats.  

The Pirate Parrot shoots hot dogs into the stands with a potato gun. 

A young woman fainted behind us.  We think she had been "over-served."  The paramedics came and gave her an IV!  Right there in the aisle!  Which didn't look very sanitary, I must say. She revived, and they wheeled her out in a wheelchair, and she was embarrassed. Her boyfriend acted like a hero, though. I think he was digging the role.

Also behind us was a group of attractive young ladies who had previously worked for various sports franchises in some form of--uh--customer service.  We think they were mostly t-shirt girls who helped the give away team merchandise, but we couldn't help overhearing them gossip (THEY WERE RIGHT BEHIND US, ALL RIGHT?) about players and stuff the franchise owners would probably prefer fans not hear about. But I have good material for a future book, letmetellyou.

After the game, we were treated to a concert by Huey Lewis and the News, which was pretty good considering how old those guys are.

And firework!  Here in The Burgh, we do fireworks big. I mean BIG.  It was a great show.  Zambellis, the fireworks family, does shows all over the world, but they're based near Pittsburgh, so they always do huuuuuuge shows for the locals.  I mean, the show at the mall in DC on the 4th of July is kinda puny compared to what they do for us here. And the t-shirt I want most in life is the one that says Pyro Crew. 

We beat the Mets, by the way. Which was also nice.  Although the Mets beat the Pirates the night before and the following afternoon, but we got to see the win.

The big excitement for me was that an unruly fan was chased around the stadium and finally arrested RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I mean, I could have patted him on the head. Except he was totally embarrassed about getting arrested, and I didn't want to make things worse. He was kinda cute, too.  (I'm not dead, okay??) The city cops came and did the honors.  They were very quiet about it, but how can you miss seeing handcuffs slapped on a guy smack in front of you?

When we lived in small towns and our girls were younger, we went to Little League games and swim meets and other summer sporting events where you rub elbows with your neighbors and maybe invite them back to your house for a picnic afterwards, and that's what summer is, right? My husband used to coach our girls in their softball league, and I watched the games with friends, sitting in folding chairs on the hillside. Big fun. But now and then we really enjoy big city life.  A glitzy stadium with the Mets visiting. If this is what empty nesting is like, I'm all for it.

Do you have baseball memories?

By the way: We came home, and I fell into bed and slept for ten hours. Now I'm working on a new book.

Margie's Story Time: Flag Day

Margie's Story Time: Flag Day

By Me, Margie

Today is June 14th, which is Flag Day.  Most people don't even know what that is.  Lucky for you, I am here with the real story.

Once upon a time, there were a bunch of former Brits who came to America for various reasons.  Some came to avoid the religious oppression of their amoral yet devout monarchy (and if you think that shit ever ended wake up and smell the sharbat).  Some came for a new life and the promise of free land (many of those poor bastards ended up fighting in one war or another or in some coal mine because when they saw 'Free Tickets to New York' - they thought it was New York City, NY and not New York, West Virginia or whatever but that is a story for another blog). Many, to quote the officer and gentleman who is John Winger 'were kicked out of every decent country in the world'.  

By the late 1700s, the people over here were freakin furious and not going to take it any more.  If you have not read my former stories on these important historical events, you totally should. Here they are and I will wait until you finish.  I mean, I don't have time to repeat myself.  Margie's 4th of July Story

So the Patriots (not the cheaters from New England - want something for that burn, Belachick?) Are going to war and they really can't afford spiffy uniforms, like the Brits (this is what we call dumb luck, because you could see those red tunics from miles away and the dirty brown shirts not so much) so they decide to design a really cool flag. Naturally, either because most men are color blind, or because most men are really all about their penises (Really, Anthony?  You want to see something that will really get a woman's attention?  Come to my neighborhood, dumbshit) they could not agree on a flag.  I mean, the color combinations were just a puke-fest.  Lots of black with snakes (you don't have to be Anna Freud to figure that one out) and red with big fat crossed swords (paging Dr. Closet) and purple with an early sketch of the Washington Monument.  Duh.

Lucky for them, a woman named Bettina Rossini (yeah, they changed her parent's names at the intake center at Plymouth Rock or wherever when her family came over in the early 1700s and she was 2nd generation but that totally would have been her name) stepped in to settle the chaos.  She took the colors red and white from the coolest flag ever and then added blue, for purity because a lot of these guys were Puritans, which is also a blog for another day because it is just me or are the most self-righteous always the ones who turn out to be into the kinkiest shit?  Seriously - if you can't be bothered to learn to do it right, just stick to Missionary and be done with it, you pervs.

Still, the men kept arguing and she got so sick of it that she didn't even complain when their finished design involved, like, fifteen thousand different cut pieces and stars with freaking ten separate sides, as if sewing at those angles is a piece of damn scone or whatever especially when it's dark half the time and some 'nad keeps stopping in to make weiner jokes.  

Why didn't Bettina complain? Because she was just the supervisor. Know who did the real work on Old Glory?  That's right.  Raffaella Mancinnetta, one of my few ancestors who came here really early. How do you think I know the real story?  But no way were they going to give credit to some non-whitebread girl with big brown eyes, Mediterranean skin and a rack that could stop traffic.  And let me tell you, stopping traffic in those days was a much bigger thing because they didn't even have antilock break systems or anything.  Unless you count big piles of horse crap, which I totally do not and that is so gross I could never have lived back then just saying.

So we are very proud of our flag, no matter who actually made it. But the birth of the flag got no real formal respect (remember the rule - you only get real history props if you are on money or have a national holiday named after you - I mean, songs are great but you never know when poser pop star is going to butcher the thing) until the late 1800s - over 100 years after the actual flag was made. Some school teachers decided to commemorate June 14th - the day in 1777 they passed the resolution adopting the Stars and Stripes - and Flag Day was born.

On a really serious note, we take our Flag very seriously.  Some people even wanted to amend the Constitution to make it illegal to burn it.  We shouldn't need that.  Just use some damn common sense and common courtesy, asshats.  

We are at war x 3 (or is it 4 - I can't keep track of Yemen and those other places we seem to be bombing) and flying that flag is one way we show respect for our warriors in harm's way.  It would also be good if we showed them respect by taking better frigging care of them when they come home with injuries, some of which cannot be seen, so maybe if people in DC could stop obsessing with some guy's junk and maybe get some priorities, that would be good.

Because that is the only way we are going to live happily ever after.

Find a way to support our Vets and their families, along with our Gold Star families. Thank you.

The end.  

 

 

Happy Birthday, Baby!

by Heather

When my birthday rolls around these years, I try to kind of slide by it. But my little great-nephew is turning the grand age of 4 on Tuesday. That's a big, big, big deal!

So, hmmm, I've written two lines and I have to check the words already--this computer is in the business center at the Nickelodeon hotel in Orlando and I think too many little fingers have worn off the letters. I'm hoping for the best.

It's been a strange trip. This little boy, and his baby brother, Noah, are the babies of the family right now. And we love them and do our best for them because their dad is the most amazing, been-through-the-most human beings I've ever met. His mom--my sister--got sick one Mother's Day. At the beginning of the year, everything had been fine. By September she was dead. My brother-in-law passed away 7 weeks later from a  heart attack. In a year, DJ, their only child, lost his entire family.

But now he has Franci and the two boys, and that makes them all very special. So, back to the point. We're going to take off to the Nickelodeon hotel because it's a great place to bring a four-year-old.

But we can't drive because--Arggh!--I don't have time to get glasses. I had Lasik, damnit!         But the truth is, I can't see signs at night. Dennis couldn't go, one of my daughters is ill, the other not licensed, and the friend not insured. I don't want to kill us all, so . . . Amtrak!

Amtrak turned out to be a blast. I'd taken the train to California from NOLA with my daughter Chynna a few years ago when she had an ear infection and couldn't fly, and that had been a blast, too. I didn't think we'd do so well for our six-hour trip but we ate, we played gin, we laughed, and we got to Orlando happy. Something to be said for that, if you've ever seen I-95 traffic down here.

However, it's 7:30pm when I get in the winding check in line. I'm there half an hour.  8 at night, and our room isn't ready. I'm not a confrontational person; I loathe arguments. Hard in a family with Irish/Italian tempers, so I avoid confrontation like the plague. But--

I'm calm at first. The two little ones meet up with us when we arrive. Auntie Heather should have the place ready for the little guys to come in and crash, but I don't get the call that the room is ready for an hour. By then, they're sleeping on the chairs in the "mall," the central area.

In the morning, still irritated, I call for the manager. I'm told I've already called the manager. I assure the young woman that I haven't called anyone yet. The manager is busy, I'm told, but he'll call me back.

We go off to breakfast with Spongebob. We go through the 30-minute line for those with reservations, and then we're told just a minute, they're wiping the table. It takes them another 30 minutes to wipe the table. But the manager has called me and apologized, and will pick up our character breakfast for me. That was all that I wanted--and acknowledgement that not getting into a room until 9PM was not an acceptable practice.

So, we go on and have fun at the pool. It's Cancun/Spring Break for 4-year olds, Chynna tells me, and I agree. Wall-to-wall people. But I laugh at the "sliming" and go down a trillion slides with Graham and help Noah up on the baby slides, and we have a great time. At night we head off to the Magic Kingdom.

Life is good when you're four, and I hope we can keep it that way for the little                                        ones for a while.

We all know that far too quickly, we have to grow up.

And now, I'm actually glad I'm  not driving home. Yeah, Amtrak! Thinking of a pleasant gin game--already, my daughters and friend Kelsey get a little crazy--and I arrive without cursing   I-95. I think I like this plan!

 

Can't Live With Them -- Or Without Them

 
By Elaine Viets

 

I live in Fort Lauderdale. Like most Floridians, I enjoy hearing visitors say, "It's so beautiful. I wish I could live here."

Life in this so-called paradise is a paradox: We want your money, tourists, but we'd like you to hand over your cash and leave quietly. We'd rather you didn't jam our favorite restaurants and major roads – that pleasure is for locals. And if you do fall in love with the place, love it and leave it. We're not putting out the welcome mat for more people.

In my Dead-End Job novels, Helen Hawthorne, her new husband Phil and their landlady Margery Flax live at the Coronado Tropic Apartments. They consider themselves natives, though only Margery is Florida born. The three debate the paradise paradox in this short excerpt from "Pumped for Murder," my tenth Dead-End Job Mystery. There really is a Fifteenth Street Fisheries. Both tourists and locals can feed the  giant tarpon in the marina by the restaurant.

                                                ***

Out by the pool, they were blasted by the noonday heat. Margery was skimming bougainvillea blossoms off the pool surface and flipping them on the lawn with swift, expert movements. Helen thought the pile of damp purple flowers was too pretty for yard trash.

"Good morning," Helen called.

"Good afternoon," Margery said. "Off to work?"

"Out to lunch," Phil said. "Want to go with us?"

"No thanks, I have a date with a rake."

"Sounds racy," Helen said.

"There's nothing romantic about yard work," Margery said, "though it is forever. Where are you going?"

"Thought we might try the Fifteenth Street Fisheries," Phil said.

"The last time I was there, the place was overrun with tourists," Helen said.

"You make it sound like it has roaches," Margery said. "They're not an infestation. If we're lucky, we get tourists. We live in a tourist destination. We all make our living off tourists, one way or another. We spend millions luring them down here. Then we don't want to be around them. I don't know why. People from the Midwest are more polite than Floridians."

"The New Yorkers aren't," Helen said.

"Some New Yorkers," Phil said. "I like the Big Apple variety." 

"I said Midwesterners," Margery said. "We can debate the other states later. Midwestern tourists are polite. They're less likely to cut you off in traffic. They're quieter than Floridians. They don't drink as much as we do or run around naked, except during spring break. So why do Floridians think there's something wrong with a restaurant when the tourists go there?"

"It's not the tourists," Helen said. "Restaurants cut back on the quality of the food and service if they get too many tourists. They figure the tourists won't be back again, so they can treat them badly. A restaurant that caters to locals has to keep higher standards, all year long."

"The Fifteenth Street Fisheries is under new management," Phil said. "We'll look at the boats in the marina, have a drink and dinner."

 

                                                ***

I agree with Margery, but sympathize with Helen. I like walking into a restaurant now that the tourist season is over and getting a table without waiting. But I want that restaurant to survive. Most of them make their money from Thanksgiving through May, South Florida's main tourist season.

No point feeling superior to tourists. I'm one, too.

I admires the upfront approach of panhandlers in tourist-rich Washington DC . They followed me down the street screaming, "Give me your money, bitch."

Until I discovered they were in Congress.      
 

 

How to be a Perfect Mother In Law

by Barbara O'Neal

My son was married on April 7.  This means that I am a new mother-in-law. I have to forget everything I knew about mothering, and adopt a new approach.  

This is not the simple transition I imagined it would be.  For one thing, the son who got married is my mama's boy, a child so devoted to me as a baby that I called him my joey.  He was two weeks late emerging from the womb, and then I carried him on my hip for the next ten months because he wouldn't allow anyone else to so much as change a sock.  He'd howl piteously even if it was his father. 

He's grown into a strapping man who towers over me and has tattoos all over his arms and shoulders
(including, natch, one for "Mom" (please note the quill)).   His bride is a serious, level-headed Air Force sergeant who looks at him with enough love in her eyes to make any mother happy.  He's an exuberant character, and worships the ground she walks on.  I liked her immediately and have only grown to love her more
over time.

All good. 

Here's the thing: because I love the two of them together so much, I find myself wanting to write a happily-ever-after manual for them.  Offer advice on everything from how to eat (together when you can) to how to talk to each other (kindly and with support) to activities (find a game you can play together). Most of it sounds like it's been distilled from women's magazines from the past thirty years.

And yet….I keep thinking about it.  I'm experienced! I've been married.  Divorced! My parents have been married for 50 years. My in-laws were married for 60.  I wrote romance novels! I know stuff. 

I find myself picking on my son more than my daughter-in-law.  I want to tell her to make him do housework, even if it isn't quite the way she would do it, because she'll want a helpmate.  I want to tell him cook for her more, or take her out. I nag him to go to movies she would like as often as what he would like.

But then I remember my mother in law, who was absolutely marvelous at this.  She always greeted me with pleasure. She didn't criticize the way I fed her son or the way I raised her grandchildren.  She supported me in all things, in all ways, and that in turn gave me confidence and allowed me to trust her.  It also made me feel like a million bucks in her company.  Smart, loving, wise.  (She died seven years ago and I still really, really, really miss her.)

In all of this, I've realized that I have had as much trouble letting go of my mama's boy as he had letting go of me.  He is, like me, creative and curious and inclined to crash through the wilderness than take a path already made.  He hasn't yet found his place in the work world and I get anxious about hat (even though he's the ripe old age of 26).  As I've monitored myself for offering unsolicited advice toward my daughter-in-law, I've noticed how much I nag my son. 

Rather than trusting him. Respecting his ability to make good choices and live a productive, loving life.  (And yet, look at his choice of brides! How smart was that?)

The wisdom in being a great mother-in-law is the same wisdom there is in being a great mother of adults—I can offer my faith in their intelligence and good sense and earnest desire to build a life of meaning and joy.   (And look at them! Some good potential for joy there, huh?)

So unless I am asked directly for advice on any subject, and by directly, I mean, "Mom, what do you think I/we should do?", not just telling me about a problem or challenge they face, I am not offering any. I can trust them to live their lives without me at the helm.  They're doing a great job, both my sons as adults and my newlyweds. 

Will this be easy? Not on your life.  But it's the only sane and loving way to be a mother of adults, and it's great practice for grandparenthood.  

 How have you navigated the transition to being a parent of an adult, being an in-law, being a grandparent?   What advice would you offer me? 

 

Dead Serious

 

By Elaine Viets

St. Louis cemeteries celebrate the drama of death with weeping willows, mournful monuments and mausoleums that have stained glass windows their occupants never see. My hometown is a semi-southern city. Death is personal and loss is commemorated with permanent reminders.

My grandmother fed my deadly fascination by taking me for walks in the old city cemeteries. These Disneylands for the dead have fountains and lakes with swans. I wandered through Victorian tombstones bearing porcelain photos of the dead and admired weeping angels.

I also pondered the big questions: Why am I here? When will I go? Why would anyone have an Odd Fellows tombstone? I was relieved there was no Order of Nerds. Otherwise, I might wind up planted under a stone shaped like a pocket protector.

Mom was angry at Grandma for taking me on a walk among the tombstones and confronted her. "That girl will turn out warped," she said.

"The dead don't hurt you – the living do," Grandma snapped back.

We continued our cemetery walks, enjoying the added spice of my mother's disapproval.

Both women were right – I did turn out warped, but I still take an occasional mournful graveyard walk.

When I moved to South Florida, the cemeteries I saw were shockingly drab.

I wrote about this in "Pumped for Murder." In my latest Dead-End Job mystery. Helen Hawthorne and her husband Phil have started their private eye agency. They were checking the death dates of Mark Behr, a possible murder victim.

"Peaceful Rest Cemetery was flat, hot and treeless – more like a doormat for hell than a place of remembrance," I wrote. "Helen didn't like South Florida graveyards, especially this one. Many of its cemeteries didn't even have tombstones, just flat plaques set flush with the ground so the grass could be easily trimmed. Eternal rest had to be convenient for the endless lawn mowing.

"Helen found Mark's grave shockingly spare: a flat metal plaque with his name and death dates next to a stingy bunch of artificial flowers.

" 'This is depressing,' Helen said as she surveyed the grim plot.

" 'It's supposed to be depressing,' Phil said. 'It's a cemetery.'

" 'Some cemeteries have real tombstones that say something like Beloved Husband or Resting with Our Savior,' she said. 'People put flowers, toys or balloons on the graves. Look at this. I've seen more personal markers for water mains. At least Mark could have a granite tombstone.'

" 'Helen, we live in a hurricane zone,' Phil said. 'Windstorms topple tombstones.'

" 'But this flat – ' Helen struggled for the right word – 'nothing is like Mark never lived.' "

Now this grave wrong has been righted – in true Florida style.

Leslie Nielsen, the comic star of "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun," lived in Fort Lauderdale. The Canadian-American actor died there in November at age 84. Maybe I should say "passed." Nielsen loved whoopee cushions and flatulence jokes.  

He couldn't resist one for his tombstone.

I understand the temptation for the last word. When I was a newspaper columnist, I joked that I wanted "Out of print" as my epitaph.

Now that I write mysteries, that line doesn't seem so funny.

Leslie is buried in Fort Lauderdale's Evergreen Cemetery, where the city's founders are laid to rest. He couldn't resist this final joke on his tombstone:

"Let 'er rip."

That's funny when it's tossed off. But not set in granite.

 

So What Did You Stick a Bow On?

Margaret Maron

Although June is the traditional month for weddings, July and August have edged it out these last two years, which means that many of us will be shopping over the summer for the perfect present to give the happy couple.

Please!  Do stop and think about the happy couple in question before you stray from their registry and go off on a tangent.  Yes, you think bobble-headed wine stoppers are screamingly funny, but would your niece and her groom really prefer a set of them over a piece of china in their chosen pattern?

I know, I know—you march to your own drum and you think wedding registries are too materialistic.  Nevertheless, unless you're absolutely sure they would be charmed to learn that you've donated a goat in their names to a deserving village  somewhere, please send the carving board the bride and groom have checked off on their Bed, Bath and Beyond wish list.

Some couples are modest in selecting where they register, others opt for Saks and treat the concept as if it's their last year to believe in Santa Claus. Several of us were amused when a bride in the family checked off a beautiful breakfast-in-bed tray.  "Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen," snickered the groom's sister.

Still, it's interesting to see the sweetly naïve expectations of marriage that such registries reveal: breakfast in bed followed by gourmet meals prepared in a celebrity chef's cookware and served by candlelight with linen napkins and crystal goblets of wine chilled in a silver cooler?  Never mind that they've been living together for a year and buy paper plates and napkins by the hundred-count.

I recently surveyed several of my friends to learn what they remember of the presents they received.

Fellow TLC-er Diane Chamberlain (http://DianeChamberlain.com/blog): "We were hippies in the early 70s and I loved the fondue pot, the cheese-making kit and a copy of Laurel's Kitchen (THE vegetarian cookbook of the day). The sterling silver bowl from my aunt went straight back to the store for a refund. Now that's the one thing I wish I still had."

Mary Kay Andrews'  Summer Rental launches this week, so check her website for an appearance near you.  She remembers without fondness the boxed bottle of expensive-looking brandy they received.  "I tucked it away for our first anniversary, but when I got it out to open, I discovered it was actually just a stinkin' CANDLE made to look like a bottle!"

Susan Dunlap (SusanDunlapMysteries.com):  "Sadly, we received a number of cookbooks, given by friends who either hoped I'd learn from my failures or just feared they'd be invited again."

Sarah Shaber, (www.SarahShaber.com), whose wonderful new book, Louise's War, will be published next month: "Steve and I got a glug-glug pitcher—green, shaped like a fish, and designed so that when you poured liquid out of it, it glug-glugged noisily. It sat in a kitchen cabinet for years because we felt guilty about throwing it away.  Thank goodness for charity yard sales!" 

Bren Bonner Witchger (http://TheVinylCall.blogspot.com/): "We were given an exceedingly ugly (and to me disturbing) statue of the Infant of Prague from an elderly relative.  The glazing job was bad and the poor thing was cross-eyed, plus it was decked out in such sparkly (and no doubt itchy) finery that I felt sorry for it.  We moved it from place to place in our first apartment and 'cross-eyed Jesus' became a running joke with my husband's sibs. ('Oh yeah?   Go tell it to Cross-eyed Jesus.')   We re-gifted it to the next one of them to get married and it got passed on to each newlywed couple from there.  I lost track of poor Cross-eyed Jesus and now wish I knew what became of him."

Speaking of re-gifting, if you decide to off-load an unwanted Christmas or anniversary gift onto the newlyweds, please check through all the tissue paper to make sure you haven't left the original signed card from your Aunt Wendy in the box.

Gift receipts are a thoughtful touch in case your blender is the third one they've received.  (I myself like to give utility ladders, a dolly, or file cabinets—things you won't see duplicated on the usual gift table.)

Except for a set of ugly brown-checked towels, the only gift I actively disliked was a cutesy wooden wall plaque with chickens and a spinning wheel, hand-carved in Taiwan.  Somehow it accidentally wound up in splinters before the first year was out.

But I still have and use two or three times a week, the copper-bottom double-boiler and the cast iron skillets.  "Not very fancy," admitted the classmate who gave me one of them, "but I couldn't cook without mine."  (Me, either.)

What about you?  What's the best/worst wedding present you ever gave or received?

 

Covering the Plague

By Sarah

A year out of college, I was working as a reporter at the Home News in New Brunswick, N.J., occasionally covering health issues along with the usual zoning board and township council meetings, when a strange phenomenon started making the headlines: gay men were getting sick. And many of them were in New Jersey.

This was important beyond the obvious reasons. New Jersey had a reputation back in the mid-1980s as a place where a respectable man with a wife, two kids and a dog in, say, Bridgewater, could take a short drive to a rest stop on the turnpike and meet a few men in the woods for unprotected sex and go back to his wife with her none the wiser. Or so the story went.

The implications of a "gay plague" that was sure to end in death spreading into suburban families, to innocent children!, was the whispered spark of an underground firestorm - and I got to cover it.

With the 30th anniversary of AIDS being commemorated this week, I thought it might be worthwhile to share what I learned, what it was like to be on the frontlines of what we all assumed to be the end of humanity.

Those were crazy days clouded by panic and ignorance. No one knew what caused this disease that left  purple Kaposi's Sarcoma and strange pneumonia. How could a virus "choose" a sexual preference? 

"We don't know why it's hitting gay men,"  Dr. Jack Rutledge from the state health department drawled in his Southern accent. "We think maybe there's an enzyme that makes them vulnerable to the disease."

Jack wasn't being homophobic. Twice a week he manned a clinic in Manhattan's West Village treating gay men whom other doctors refused to see. He was a gentleman, a concerned - and very talented - doctor. And when I left the Home News for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, I would get the call that Jack had died. Of AIDS. He'd been gay himself.

That was the crappy thing about this disease, how it acted like a body snatcher plucking talented people from the Earth and how it turned otherwise well-meaning parents, friends, neighbors and, yes, doctors, into scared jerks. A purple splotch on the arm. Thrush in the mouth. Diarrhea. All were enough to close doors, to isolate the dying and needy.

Of course, soon it went from GRID (Gay-Related Immune Disorder) to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome because not only gays but intravenous drug users, Haitians and their partners were coming down with it, too.

It was the "partners thing that scared us to death and after interviewing wives and girlfriends who'd found themselves with this deadly virus, I couldn't stand it. I got an anonymous number and had myself tested at the local hospital. It took one nerve-wracking week for the results to come back and in the meantime all my ingrained Puritan fears about sex=death went haywire.

"What do we tell our daughters?" my co-worker and close friend, Patty McCormick asked as we gossiped, per usual, at our desks. Patty had a daughter and Patty herself would later become godmother to my Anna. Our conclusion was that we'd have to become even more draconian about sex than our own mothers. (If such a feat were possible.) It would have to be no sex, no way.

Thirty years later, it's hard to perfectly describe the panic, the certainty that we were all doomed. Patty's daughter is now a fully grown woman and probably no more concerned about AIDS as is my daughter. I'm not saying this is right; I'm just saying this is the way it is. 

And while drugs and, now, bone marrow transfusions might spell the welcomed end to this dreaded disease (at least, in America), I cannot help but recall all those I wrote about in the 80s.

There was the divorcing couple I discovered during a routine records check in the courthouse. The mother had AIDS. The father did not. And when I met the mother, she looked as if she'd stepped out of a Volvo at a soccer game. How could this be? In a snap, all my prejudices about AIDS flipped. And when she died, months later, I realized that AIDS was not about gay men or IV drug users. It was about us.

Then there was the "lifer" in Trenton's State Penitentiary, a HUGE man I interviewed to show that what the state was claiming - that IV drugs and homosexual sex just did not happen behind prison walls - was false. A few days after I met him among watchful guards in the safety of a Plexiglas meeting room, he and three others tied sheets together and rappelled down the wall into the state capital. The next morning, he called me from his sister's house. He needed medication.

He was never caught.

Or, what about the gay couple in a traditional split level who were still on a high from seeing Starlight Express the weekend before? In describing his prior life at Plato's Retreat in New York, the dying man told me, "I used to bend over on a Friday and not look up until Sunday."

He made me tea and cried and gushed about how much he loved his partner who took care of his every whim. "I never would have found him," he told me, "if it weren't for this disease. And because of that, I am more than blessed."

He died that Tuesday.

The good news was that there were some amazing doctors and scientists who devoted their lives toward eradicating this disease. AIDS has taught us much about the human immune system, about the smallness of our world. It was an honor and a privilege to meet these dedicated soldiers on the frontline and to know that, in the end, what triumphs is not superstition or fundamentalism, spraying bleach on door knobs and creating leper colonies, but cool clear rational thinking.

Sarah

 

Art for Heart's Sake

 

 

 

By June, the official count of dead and missing remained above 24,000.

 Tens of thousands of people remained housed in temporary shelters or evacuated their homes due to the nuclear crisis.                                               

                                                 **The New York Times

                   

HANK:  Today, we offer you stories. Today, we offer you prizes. And in return, you can help 
change the world.

Lipstick Chronicles is honored to present, for the very first time, the announcement of the completion of a remarkable project--SHAKEN, a book of short stories to benefit the people of Japan.

TIM HALLINAN: Add together twenty mystery writers with plenty of talent and lots of goodwill, plus e-book technology. Sprinkle it with the haiku of Basho, in the best modern English translation, donated by the translator, and a cover designed—surprise—by a first-rate mystery author. The result is (I think) the first e-book ever created as a charity fund-raiser—SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN, coming out in the next ten days or so on Amazon.

 One hundred percent of the authors' royalties from the book will go to the 2011 Japan Relief Fund administered by the Japan America Society of Southern California.

HANK: It was all Edgar-nominee Tim's idea. He thought of it, he rounded up the authors, he wrangled us and encouraged us and organized the fund-raising element and  negotiated with Amazon and met with non-profits and worked non-stop-diligently to make it happen.

TIM: Watching coverage of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, I found myself wishing that writers, like actors and rock stars, could pool their craft to raise money when there's an aching need.

HANK: We can't sing, I can't at least, and we 're not movie stars, but we can do what we can do. We write, we read, we love books and stories.

TIM: And I instantly realized that we could do something, and quickly, because of the immediacy of e-books. I e-mailed about 30 writers, including Hank, to ask whether they'd be willing to contribute a story. The response was overwhelming.

HANK: What a heart-breakingly life-changingly wonderful idea. Editor-Boss Tim told us the stories could be whatever we wanted, but must have some connection--in any way we could imagine--with Japan.

TIM: In the end, we wound up with an amazing selection of writers: Hank, Brett Battles, Cara Black, Robert Gregory Brown, Vicki Doudera, Dianne Emley, Dal Furutani, Stefan Hammond, Rosemary Harris, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Wendy Hornsby, Ken Kuhlken, Debbi Mack, Adrian McKinty, I.J. Parker, Gary Phillips, Jeffrey Siger, Kelli Stanley, C.J. West, Jeri Westerson, and me.

HANK: The stories are are incredibly different from each other. Gary Phillips' tough dark macho detective story, Tim's matching of Hollywood with 1940's history, Naomi Hirahara's haunting story of deception and desire.   And it's more than just the stories--there's also a jewel of a haiku between each one.

TIM: Yes, it was Adrian McKinty's opening elegiac piece about the time he spent in Sendai, following in the footsteps of the 17th century poet Basho, that planted the idea of alternating haiku with the stories. The Internet being what it is, within three days of approaching online haiku communities asking about good, available translations, I got an e-mail from Jane Riechhold, whose 2008 Kodansha translation of all Bacho's Haiku is the current gold standard. She gave us permission to use as many as we needed.

 HANK: You heard what Tim said. One hundred per cent of the authors' royalties will go to the Japan Relief fund. And we're already thinking about future projects--"Because Reading Can Change the World."

 
                        TIM: In the Introduction to the book, I said this was art for heart's sake. I feel as though I've spent the past few weeks midstream in a river of generosity. It's been one of the greatest experiences of my life.

 HANK:( And even though there was a clamor for it, editor Tim wouldn't let his name go on the cover.)  Now, don't go clicking away to Amazon just yet. It'll be a week or so before you can buy this collection. But we can't wait to give you a taste of the amazing selection of stories. So what better way than a contest?

 TIM: See whether you can match the excerpts below with one of the listed stories. Five people who get them all right will win signed first editions from Hank and me.

HANK: And then, watch this space--and many others, by way of the other authors involved--to see how you can help. Now presenting, for the very first time--just a few of the stories of SHAKEN.

****************************************************

 1. One thing Eunice had learned very well during her internment was how to bargain. When you wanted something that was scarce – which was just about everything – you needed to come up with something useful to trade with, a compelling argument, and a quick finish. Too many deals got lost when people had time to think them over. So, here she stood, toe to toe with Mr. Antonelli, ready to bargain. She intended to get Papa's truck back – his truck, not just a truck. 

 ****************

 2. Someone killed the big arc light, and beyond it, Kiyoshi saw his friend Kenji, waiting. Kenji looked like his ears were ringing, like someone had hit him in the face with a tree. Kiyoshi waited while a wardrobe woman unbuttoned his robe from behind and slipped it off his shoulders, and then, with the arc light still a dark flare at the corner of his vision, he found his way to the edge of the platform and down the steps.

 "You're not working today?" Kiyoshi asked in Japanese.

"Sit down, Kiyoshi-san," Kenji said. "It will be best if you sit down."

 *****************

3. All of a sudden the shrill drilling of the telephone came between them. Her business-like voice answered.

"Moshi mosh, hello."

Her tone changed immediately. "Anata," she breathed.

 He could never get over how that Japanese pronoun anata, which meant 'you,' could mean so much. A simple pronoun. But the way a woman said it spoke volumes.

*********************

4. I risked an email to Teri: "We're problem-solvers. We should do something. But I can't think of anything that'll hurt her more than it'll hurt us."

 Teri's response popped up. "Anzuru yori umu ga yasushi."

I turned to her, assuming it was one of her dad's sayings, but not being able to read Japanese or whatever, that didn't help. Of course I couldn't say anything out loud, so I turned to her and made a face like, Huh?

She hit send. "It means: Fear is greater than the danger. An attempt is sometimes easier than expected."

 Did she think we should try something to, um, exterminate the Queen Bee? Like what?

************************ 

5. Strangers came and went for days. Gloria rested her elbows on her countertop, the one Ed had always said was too expensive, and watched, muttering to herself about how she'd have to get the windows washed again with all the dust and garden debris the workers were kicking up leaving a fine film on everything—her windows, her rhododendrons, which Kimiko had helped her choose at the nursery, even her eyeglasses. She envisioned late night hot-tub parties, scantily clad women traipsing around the area visible from her kitchen window! She would put her foot down. And the newcomer would probably make changes. Why did he buy the Tanakas' home if he was going to make changes?

*************************

6, The man still held her wrist. She recognized him. He was a rough-speaking, lowland man, with a kimono that was repaired with haphazard sewing. He had been accused of killing a man but no one could ever prove it and anyway Masaru-sama had paid off the judges. So it was said.

 She wanted to pull her hand away. His touch was clammy and disquieting, as was his leer, but she dared not shake him loose. Why was Masaru-sama allowing it?

*************************

7. A year or so before my birth, a stout Frenchwoman named Charlotte Pease was peeling potatoes at her kitchen sink at her farmhouse on the west cove of Hurricane Harbor. She glanced up and out the window as was her habit and saw a small boat with a slight, black-haired occupant.

The woman in the boat was crying.

***************************

 8. The streets teemed with refugees, one and all fleeing to the Park, except for those who stared in awe at the smoke enveloping the heart of San Francisco, watching building after building fall to Funston's dynamite crew.  A few of the city's elite opened still-standing mansions to the wrecked and wretched, Henry Crocker serving water from an unchipped china cup.

***************************

 9. There was an odd little moment just after the two had stepped outside the terminal. The woman let the bodyguard get ahead of her a few paces, then glanced back at the door as another woman, this one tall and blonde and Caucasian, came out of the building. It appeared to Orlando that they shared a look, but they were too far away to know for sure. A second later the blonde passed them and walked off to the right.

***************************

 
HANK and TIM: So who wrote those? Match them with these authors and  titles!

a. GIFT OF THE SEA  by Vicki Doudera

 b. THE ASSIGNMENT  by Brett Battles

 c. COOLIE  by Kelli Stanley

d. THE SILKEN CLAW by Tim Hallinan

e. BORROWED SCENERY by Rosemary Harris

f. FATHER KNOWS BEST  by Hank Phillippi Ryan

g.  NOODLE GIRL  by Jeri Westerson

h.  MOSQUITO INCENSE  by Cara Black

i.  THE EMPEROR'S TRUCK  by Wendy Hornsby