Nancy Martin's Blog, page 6
November 11, 2011
Holding On
Hank Phillippi Ryan: Margaret blogged about 'meeting cute' this week....and it reminded me so sweetly about how many new friends I've made in book world. What I remember about meeting Sharon Potts was not where it was--do you remember, Sharon? I think it was a convention--but her wonderful smile. Looking at the photo below of Sharon and her mother--now I see where she got that smile.
You'll also see Sharon got a lot more from her mom.
HOLDING ON
My mom always used to say she couldn't write. That putting words together on paper was a struggle for her. Then she would tell me another story about her childhood. Wonderful, vivid stories that still come into my head. About her doll with the porcelain face that she swung around the tiny kitchen in exuberance until its beautiful face smashed against the old gas stove and broke.
About her soft white cat Matilda who would climb up and down the fire escape stalking the neighbors' dinners through their open windows. About the exquisite taste of warm pumpernickel smeared with chicken fat that her mother would throw down to her from their third-floor kitchen window.
My mom passed away a year ago, on October 23, at the age of ninety-three. She was determinedly independent, living on her own until the end. She was my confidante and dearest friend and I still reach for the phone every night to call her and tell her about my day. Then I remember.
Her apartment, a condo just outside of Fort Lauderdale has become my retreat, a place of solace. The thought of dismantling it feels like a violation. And so, every week I drive an hour to check the mail, water the plants, and make sure the apartment is as tidy as she always had it. But each week, I notice another plant is brown and shriveled and I realize I can't go on like this indefinitely, any more than the plants can. It's been a year—perhaps it's time to put certain things to rest.
And so I've begun cleaning out the closets and drawers. Piled on shelves behind hanging dresses and coats and buried in drawers beneath blouses and sweaters, I find old manuscripts of mine that I'd given her to read—short stories, early drafts of my novels. She'd kept them all.
Then there are the shoeboxes filled with birthday cards, Mother's Day cards, letters from her grandkids, envelopes addressed to "Grandma Hecht" in clumsy childish print, scribbled letters, neat cursive writing.
DEAR GRAMMA, I LOVE YOU.
Dear Grandma Anna, I'm having a great time at camp. Today I went swimming…
Dear Grandma, Paris is soooo exciting!
Decades of words, expressions of love. She'd kept them all.
The bedroom walls are lined with bookcases, filled with books—novels, biographies, classics, even French and Spanish books from her college years. La Fontaine's fables in the original French. A tattered copy of The Ancient Mariner. She'd kept them all.
I'm overwhelmed by all these words, squirreled away by a woman who claimed it was such an effort to write her own. She loved words, and I realize that although she had trouble putting them down on paper, her gift was in telling them. Her stories swirl through my head as I pack up the photos of her childhood, her marriage, her own children and grandchildren.
How after losing her dad when she was six, her mother sold eggs from their Brooklyn apartment in order to survive with three young children. Sometimes my mom would answer the door wearing only an undershirt that she held together between her legs for modesty.
Or shortly after her dad died, how sometimes when singing My Country Tis of Thee, my mother's throat would tighten and her eyes water at the line "land where our fathers died," thinking it was about her own father.
And the joyous moments. How when she was around nine or ten, filled with good intentions, she decided to wash the sheets. She filled the tub with water, but the sodden sheets were so heavy that with the help of her younger sister Goldie, she dragged one into the kitchen. Then she began wrapping the sheet around her and told Goldie to do the same from its opposite end. The girls twirled toward each other, cocooned in the sheet, and met in a giant puddle in the middle of the kitchen. What a perfect opportunity to wash the floor!
The recollection of how my mother laughed as she told me that story makes me smile and my eyes sting.
I fill another suitcase, another carton. Bit by bit, the apartment is losing its personality.
Then the obvious hits me. I don't need to hold on to her apartment to have my mother. It's okay to give away the clothes and furniture and knickknacks that my brothers and I don't have use for. It's okay to sell her apartment and hand a stranger the key. These are, after all, merely things. Not the important stuff. My mother taught me what really matters. The stories. The memories. The words. She couldn't write them down, but I can. And I shall. Because my mother knew that the words go on forever. And I find comfort in that.
What about you? Have you had to cope with loss? How do you hold onto memories and those you've loved?
*************************************************
Sharon Potts writes novels about people—regular, ordinary people. Sometimes, when the dark side of her brain can't sleep, these "people" appear in novels of suspense like IN THEIR BLOOD (which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly) and SOMEONE'S WATCHING (called "shiver rich" by Publishers Weekly.) Other times, when Sharon feels like a good laugh, her "people" visit lighter, happier worlds like in her latest romantic comedy, SOUTH BEACH CINDERELLA.
But whether the genre is mystery or humor, Sharon's novels are always about feelings—happy, sad and everything in between. Because, after all, isn't that what life's all about?
The Magic Day: 11.11.11
Everyone is making a big fuss about the date today. In my family, we definitely are, because I have a niece who is eleven today. (Happy birthday, Jess!)
But beyond our special celebration, this arrangement of elevens has been very exciting to some people, so I went out on the Internet to see what I could dig up the reasons why. I will poke a little fun, but honestly, it seems a magical sort of number, and why not indulge a little magic? The world can always use some hope.
Kundalini Yoga says it is a day to shed the shackles of the past. According to one website, chanting the mantra "Ek Ong Kar Sat Gur Prasad, Sat Gur Prasad Ek Ong Kar" will create magic because it can shift the energies of the psyche so powerfully that new opportunities seem to materialize out of nowhere."
Numerologists cite 11 as a magical number, charged and creative. It is a number of beginnings, but 
not just any old beginning. This would be a birthday worthy of Harry Potter. Huge, world changing beginnings.
In general, even the most outrageous speculations of the most exuberant of the eccentrics on the Internet (and baby, that gets pretty eccentric) agree that this is a date to usher in not only changes in ourselves, but changes in the world. It's change on a global level, a powerful opportunity to forge a new reality for centuries to come.
The optimistic spirit of the day offers us a chance to usher in a more enlightened age, a more enlightened world, a more enlightened self.
So I wondered, what would that look like? If I were to dream the best, most enlightened world I could think of, what would I want to see? It's a big task, to create a better world. I had to think. I came up with a pretty weighty list, but I believe they are all possible because when I was a child people smoked in grocery stores and tossed litter out their car windows (while they smoked) and drove drunk. Some rivers were so polluted that they caught fire. Those things changed. These can, too.
My wish list would include these things:
---Self-determination for women across the earth. To study and find professions if they choose, to bear children or not, to marry spouses of their own choosing (I realize this does not always work out well. But at least if you choose someone who ends up being a jerk, it was YOU shackling yourself to him, not your parents or your great uncle.)
--End hunger. It's ridiculous, with all the technology and understanding we have to deliver food to the table, that anyone, anywhere in the world should starve to death. STARVE to DEATH! How is that even still possible?
--End war. All war. Enough already. Can't we find some other way to solve conflicts besides flinging human bodies at each other and ravaging landscapes and cities until one side gives in? Yeah, I know. But this is my wish list and this matters. It's a highly inefficient way to do things.
--Rationally discuss, across party lines, country lines, religious lines, etc, the problems that face us all. Let's have thoughtful, give-and-take discussions on the problems facing the globe and the nation and see if we can solve them without egos and grandstanding.
--Heal the planet by finding solutions to the global warming crisis, like better food production techniques in the rainforest, and fewer cattle sending methane gas into the air (yes, really).
--Change the food industry to insist upon humane conditions for animals raised for harvest. Don't misread that. I'm not saying, "Turn The World Vegetarian" (although it would be good for the planet). I'm saying, if we're going to eat critters, the least we can do is make sure they have good lives before we bring them to the table.
Big list, right?
One of the websites urged me to "Be the change you want to see in the world," which I also have as a bumper sticker on my car. So I came up with this list, too. These are things I can do right now, today, to take a step toward those goals.
Self determination for women: I don't know what to do to help more women be free. I honestly don't. There is the Afghan Women's Writing Project. I can support that, to start with. I'm open to other ideas.
War? Oh, jeez. I have no idea. It seems like I've been protesting one war or another since I was in 
the sixth grade trying to get my classmates to sign a petition to mail to the President. And here we are, in Afghanistan after ten years, and there is no clear agenda that I can see, but then I'm just a foolish mother and woman who hates to see more young men killed, and sometimes even worse, grievously, horrifically burned, crippled, etc.
But this is supposed to be about positive action. I'm a writer, so that's often my answer. I will keep writing about soldiers and their families and their lives and what they give to humanize the "conflicts."
Hunger: I will support agencies and organizations that help feed people. Care and Share. The local soup kitchen. Agencies that get food into drought-ravaged places. I will learn more about food and how it flows, although this has been a slippery slope for me as a foodie-sort of writer. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
Sane thoughtful discussions: I will LISTEN to my very conservative relatives when they talk about their fears and concerns and ideas for improving the world. I will NOT loose my temper when they make fun of my ideas on Thanksgiving, but remember that if I want solutions and sanity, I have to LISTEN as well as talk. I have to respect them if I want them to respect me.
Animal lives: I can chose to eat only food that comes to the table in humane ways, even if Anthony Bourdain makes that sound like a milksop's approach to the world. Maybe that helps feed more people. Maybe that, in turn, helps global warming.
Maybe it won't, but I can try.
All I can ever do is try. After all, I remember when everyone smoked everywhere. And children died of leukemia. And the highways were covered with empty McDonald's bags. And Nelson Mandela was in prison.
Change happens all the time, and we can make it so. What better day to begin than the magical 11.11.11?
What is something you'd like to change for the better? And what small act can you take to support that change? What small thing can you do to be optimistic today, and offer something GOOD to the global consciousness on a day of such hope?
November 10, 2011
You Say Potato, I Say Office
By Nancy Pickard
I'm writing this in my office.
Here. See my rented office. . .
No big deal, right? Small space, functional furniture, bland as tapioca, although to be fair, it's not fully decorated yet. Waiting for arm chairs, for one thing. But still, who could get excited about this plain little space?
ME!! This is major, man!
For the last four years, because circumstances don't permit me to work at home, I've motorvated from coffee shop to library to coffee shop to my friend Sally's porch to library to coffee shop to write. Every working day. Miles upon miles. Mucho gasolino.
I pretty much loved it for most of that time. I wrote a whole entire book while doing that, and some other things, too. "Writing while driving," you could call some of it, for which no cop will give a ticket, though they probably should, because who could be more dangerous on the road than a preoccupied writer? "I'm sorry, Officer, I didn't see the light change. I was too busy killing somebody."
Well, times and writers change, lads and lassies.
After departing yet another library on yet another day of Writing While Driving, my soul rebelled on me, right there in my little car. It stomped its wee soul feet and it said,"No! Not going to another coffee shop! Not going to another library! Sick of doing this! Pick a spot and STAY THERE!" When I asked where, it shouted, "YOU NEED AN OFFICE."
Now this is where it gets interesting. This where we get to the conflict in the story, because this is where certain decision makers among you will line up on my side, while others of you will recoil in horror. . .
Here's how I made my decision about it: On Tuesday, I realized I needed an office. On Wednesday, I talked to friends about it. On Thursday, I told my realtor son what I wanted and he called me back in an hour to say he wanted to show me something. I went with him to see it, realized it was exactly what I wanted and more, said yes, and looked no further. By Friday I was working in my new office. Bliss.
Now see, that scenario looks ideal to me. It's also how I bought two houses in the past: first I figured out my basic needs and wants, then I set a good realtor onto the track of them, then I recognized those needs were met by the first property I was shown--because I was clear and definite and the realtor listened to me and knew her stuff--and then I said yes.
Some of you are nodding in happy approval about now. (Pets you.)
"Yes," you're saying, "that's how to do it. Easy, peasy."
But others of you are saying, "Are you out of your mind? You can't make a major decision so fast! Are you serious that you really didn't even look at a single other office? Not one??!! How can you know you got the best deal if you didn't consider any others?"
Those of you who think that is a mind-bogglingly dumb way to make a decision would have shopped around, right? And even if you ended up going back to the very first thing you looked at, you'd still feel good for having gone to the effort to Be Sure. Plus, you might have enjoyed the whole process of looking at other possibilities. (Not me. I would have hated that by about the, oh, second office I saw.)
People who take their time deciding things call my kind of decider, "Impulsive." I really hate that, by the way. I was NOT impulsive. I was very careful when I drew up my list so that it was exactly what I wanted and needed, and so therefore I was able to recognize it when I saw it. It wouldn't have gotten any less perfect in a few days or weeks of looking at other places, even if some of them were, also, just fine.
My people call your people, "Ditherers." You drive us crazy. You probably hate it when people roll their eyes at you, just as you probably resent the label, "Indecisive." You need time to be sure of what you need, and you want to feel that you're making the best decision you can possibly make under whatever circumstances, yes? That sounds reasonable to me. For you. (We are not going shopping for wallpaper together, I can promise you that. Call me impulsive for making that snap decision.)
So here we are, lined up against two opposite walls, staring at each other like creatures in a zoo. How very exotic we appear to one another!
I'll confess that sometimes my quick decisions could Use More Work. One thinks of certain men in one's past, and then one moves on quickly to the next paragraph.
But I'll also say that a person could grow old and die waiting for Careful Deciders to choose between a cheeseburger and a salad at a restaurant. And then they sometimes wish they'd picked the thing that first appealed to them.
I think it would be a pretty safe bet to wager that we ALL make mistaken decisions some times. And sometimes our personal decision system gets it just right.
So what about you?
November 9, 2011
Meeting Cute
Margaret Maron
It's a favorite boy-meets-girl device in books and films. She accidentally spills her drink on a 
stranger or he trips on his own feet and knocks her down, too, or it's pouring rain and both try to commandeer the same taxi. It's called "meeting cute" and it always begins with an awkward or embarrassing situation.
But does it happen in real life?
I love hearing how people first met and I really don't care it was a case of mistaken identity or he sat behind you in geometry class or you were both eight years old and too short to ride the Zipper at the State Fair.
Last week, Nancy Pickard wrote about the road not taken. When people tell me how they first met the person who became so important in their lives—be it lover, best friend, or editor —there's usually a sense of wonder in the telling: "If I'd left the house five minutes later... If I'd taken the subway instead of the bus... If I hadn't been closed out of the cool professor's class..."
My husband's from Brooklyn, I'm from the tobacco fields of North Carolina. Our separate roads branched and forked so improbably that we somehow wound up in adjoining offices in the Pentagon and married six months later.
I delight in the gray-haired couple who found each other on the Staten Island ferry, and I'll listen to every detail when someone tells me how she met her best friend when their fishing lines got tangled on a pier at Atlantic Beach, or when he says, "I hadn't picked up a baseball since high school, but they needed an outfielder so..."
I met my favorite editor because I don't always mind my own business. I was checking out of the convention hotel, and I heard her tell the desk clerk that she had three hours to kill till her plane left for New York. Was there anything interesting within walking distance?
Only the ugliest shopping mall in Raleigh. It was her first trip to Raleigh and I 
couldn't bear to think of the impression she would take home with her, so I introduced myself and asked if she'd like a quick two-hour tour of the town? See our capitol building and our 1912 carousel?
We became friends for life that day and a few years later, she nagged me into writing a North Carolina book for her. If I'd minded my own business and walked out of the hotel that day, I might never have written the book that won an Edgar.
If—if—if!
Tell me your story. Even if it isn't "cute," I want to hear how you met that best friend or truest love.
November 8, 2011
A Blog Not About Mississippi
By Sarah
Okay, so I WAS going to blog about the bass ackward, stupider-than-hell, let's-all-turn-Taliban proposed constitional amendment being voted on in Mississippi today that would essentially make a 
fertilized egg a person. Which is kind of like calling a blueprint a house. (Can you live in a blueprint? I think not.) Or an acorn an oak tree. (Try climbing an acorn. I dare you!) Except, in this case, you could face criminal charges for using an IUD and, perhaps, treating a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.
And don't even get me started on the notion that 1 Grown Woman = 1 Fertilized Egg. Do. Not. Get. Me. Started!
NO! I am NOT going to blog on that and do you know why? Because a) I am tired of dealing with stupid people and b) stupid people do not read this blog and c) only stupid people would vote for this. So, since I am NOT with stupid, I am blogging about hair, specifically mine.
Gentle readers, I am in a crisis. Perhaps not one as bad as being poor, saddled with five kids and 24 hours newly pregnant in Mississippi circa 2013, but pretty damn awful. Last week, I went to see my stylist for a cut and foil, the old routine, and that's when hell broke out.
You see, I am fighting middle age with all the estrogen left in my withering body. I am running. I am dieting. (Sometimes.) I am investing in high quality department store makeup and guzzling dry Italian red wines not for the blissful sensation of Mediterranean warmth rippling through my veins. 
Oh, no. This is sacrifice, people. This is determined reservatrol consumption!
But one area where I am devoutly missing the mark is with my hair. Perhaps, this has always been so. Born bald with only scant wisps through the toddler years, I wore pixies all through elementary school. In junior high, my mother dipped my head over the sink and Ogilivied me ugly in tight permanent curls for which there will be no forgiveness. Later, I grew it long and then hot rollered it every morning. Still, with my oval face and brooding Eastern European eyes, the effect was not sexy as much as alarming. I would have done very well as a 15th century Madonna.
Speaking of pregnant teens, do you know that the oppression of women is directly proportional to a culture's lack of prosperity? While Norway, the third richest country in the world, offers abortion on demand up to 12 weeks (2/3 of which are done via medicine), Burundi, the poorest, does not. Nor does it allow abortion for rape or incest. But even Burundi allows an abortion if a woman's life is in jeopardy. Not so if this amendment passes and your fertilized egg settles into a fallopian tube in Mississippi. Tough luck, sister. Better move your ass to Burundi.
By the way, Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the country which raises the interesting question of why they're so worried about "persons" in the wombs when they can't even take care of those on the outside, huh?
Anyway, back to the hair. For the past decade, it has landed squarely at my jaw line. After 
burying my mother, I got it chopped by a woman who truly understood this was a spiritual experience. Suddenly, I KNEW I had to get my hair cut. And so I did. I have never seen that stylist before or since. She was an angel.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to grow it back. My stylist, who's been cutting my hair for six years or more, is determined to keep me looking like I just got back from walking the family golden retriever on the way to the PTA. Blond bob, right to the jawline. Does wonders for that double chin thing. And no matter how often I tell her I do not want her to cut it short, she does.
Finally, I put down my foot. A few months ago, another woman my age was happily paying her bill for another stylist when I pointed to her long hair and said, "See? THIS is the cut I want." Okay, my stylist said. Sure. A little miffed, I think, and embarrassed.
Which brings me to last week. "You're growing it out so you need layers at the top," she said, fingering the top of my hair. "Long layers." I agreed. I'd seen this done on other women and it looked good. Body without the drag. Sex on a stick.
Now, my stylist cannot talk while she cuts. If she does, she cuts too much. So, when we were ready, I said, "I'm going to shut up now," and she said, "Okay."
Then in walked a Favored Client. The Favored Client is @ my age, except thinner, richer and prettier. She had been to the same Halloween party as my stylist and off they went talking about who dressed as who and who stayed the latest and how WONDERFUL THE PARTY WAS that I hadn't been invited to but that apparently everyone else in the salon had. Clip, clip, clip. Clip, clip, clip.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping mum per our agreement and noticing that, at times, my stylist is not even looking at the top of my hair which is getting shorter and shorter and shorter.
Finally, I say, "I dunno. This doesn't look good."
"Oh, we just need to blow dry it."
Except, she can't. There's nothing there. My bangs, now a fringe, have no other directional choice than out front, like Cletus the Slack-jawed Yokel. The top of my hair is about 3 inches. The bottom goes inward, then gives up. I look like I am ready for the professional women's volleyball circuit or to report to work as a female lumberjack. Give me the flannel, some work boots, and I can fit in with the guys.
In other words, I look like this: 
Without the sideburns.
"If you don't like it," my stylist says knowing I DAMN WELL HATE IT, "come back and I'll cut the bottom."
NO. NO. NO! Was that not the whole idea?
I'll tell you what pisses me off. Not that we've come so far in women's rights only to see them eroded drip by drip in sinister ways like forcing women to watch exaggerated and nonfactual videos of abortions before they have one. No. What pisses me off is that my stylist turned her attention away from me to someone more popular and, therefore, I once again ended up like in high school: on the outskirts and ugly, asking God how come I can't be pretty.
That's what pisses me off.
So, no, I'm never going back to her again. That's it. I am going to move on even though, in Vermont, choices are limited. In the meantime, I am holing up in my house and writing until my hair is long enough for me to emerge a fully formed person. Not a mature fertilized egg. A real, live person. A woman, goddammit.
Ideally, with a much better cut.
Sarah
November 6, 2011
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
Ah, we made it. I think we made it. Usually, at the end of daylight savings time (or is it the beginning?) there's chaos at our house. Because I fall-back the clocks, and then Jonathan does, too. Which makes us twice as early. Or twice as late. Don't even ask me about it.
When I was anchoring the news in Atlanta, there was one November show where the weather guy said to me-- "Don't forget, Hank, this is the night the time changes."
I said--this is live TV, remember--"Well, the TIME doesn't really change. We just change the clocks. But the time is a continuum, and it stays the same no matter what. WE just change how we count it."
Long story, but I got in a bit of trouble. In fact, I was ordered to "practice my ad libbing"--but that's another blog for another day.
Television is all about TIME. Getting breaking news on in time. How much time there is until the next deadline. How much time they've allotted for your story. How much time there is until someone is going to tell you you're late. There is no late in TV.
I've been a TV reporter for more than 30 years. And as a result, if you want to know what time it is, don't ask me. I only know what time it is *for me.*
I see you looking baffled. But here's what I mean. I don't know what time it really is—because I'm fooling myself about it. And somehow, it works. How can we fool ourselves? I mean, we should know, right?
For instance. The alarm clock-radio on my nightstand is set nine minutes fast. So when it rings at 7:30, the time I usually have to get up, I creak open my eyes, try to focus on the green numerals, and my brain yells: GET UP! It's 7:30.
Then there's a pause, while the other half of my brain happily reminds me that it's really 7:21, and I delightedly hit the snooze.
Why? Why not just set the clock for the real time? Then set the alarm for, say 7:21, then hit the snooze for nine minutes and get up at the real 7:30?
Because then I don't get the precious nine "extra" minutes of sleep.
There's a clock in the bathroom where I do my hair and makeup—I set that one about 12 minutes fast. Here I'm fooling myself to get me to hurry up. I look at the clock, mid-mascara: it's 8 o'clock already! I panic. Hurry! Then I realize it's actually jus
t twelve minutes until 8 o'clock, and I have plenty of time, and I can relax a bit. I'm no longer behind—I'm ahead.
Does that make any sense? Do you do that?
I do it with the clock on my wall at the TV station where I work as a reporter—I set that fast, too, but it makes sense in the world of unmissable deadlines. I suppose. I can't be late, so if the clock is fast, it's less likely that'll happen.
My husband says: why don't you just set the clocks to the REAL TIME? And I see his point. Kind of. But faking myself out works for me.
I also fool myself with money. On payday, I enter the income into my not-so-perfect checkbook register—but I put the deposit amount as less than it really is. So I have a little pad.
My husband says—why don't you just write down the real amount? So you know how much money is actually there? Not some theoretical amount? Yeah, I see his point. But that doesn't work for me.
I also hide money from myself in my wallet. The other day, I unzipped a little pouch on the side and there was the secret 20 dollars I had tucked there for emergencies. But I had forgotten it was there! So much for the emergency idea. But see—I've done that several times. Lots of times. And I always forget it's there. 
Then I'm always delighted to find it.
Is reality so complicated and unmanageable that we have to fool ourselves into making it all work? My little self-trickery makes me happy, and it makes my life work very nicely.
Do you face reality? Or do you have your secret ways?
The Sweetest Mistake
Gooey butter cake supposedly started as a mistake, but no one knows which baker created this delicious deviation. At least three St. Louis bakeries lay claim to discovering gooey butter cake.
Paula Deen even tried poaching gooey butter cake, but St. Louisans know butter. Er, better. We've been eating it for generations.
Where did my hometown's treat come from?
The best guess is this delicious mistake happened during the Depression, when an ordinary yellow cake was overloaded with butter or sugar, or both. Either way, the baker overdid it and ended up with a gooey mess. In those days, people didn't waste good food. They also weren't obsessed with calories. The bungling baker doused it with drifts of powdered sugar and the confection sold. Boy, did it sell.
Soon St. Louisans were making their own versions of gooey butter cake, like this recipe: http://gooeybuttercakerecipe.com
Note the vast amounts of butter and sugar in that recipe. A true St. Louis gooey butter cake has at least a stick of butter and a box of confectioner's sugar. Some people bypass the baking and apply the delicious mixture directly to their thighs.
Today, there are endless artery-clogging versions of gooey butter cake, including cherry, pineapple, brownie and chocolate chip. Most St. Louis cooks have their own recipes. My Grandma made fabulous gooey butter cake. If food is love, her cake plates were heaped with it. I only wish she'd written down that recipe.
I heard the most delicious gossip when relatives sat down over coffee and gooey butter cake: Cousin Mildred had an eight-pound premature baby seven months after her big church wedding. Aunt Marie had a tumor the size of a grapefruit. And that no good Sandy greeted the mailman wearing her bathing suit -- in December.
For years, it was believed that only St. Louisans loved this caloric miscalculation. Gooey butter cakes didn't travel outside the city. Then Kirk and Debbie Stieferman turned a recipe from Debbie's grandma into a family business – Gooey Louie's and started shipping its wickedly sinful creations all over the country.
Martha Stewart Living drooled (genteelly) over those cakes. Gooey Louie was featured on Road Trips for Foodies.
Gooey Louie has about a dozen flavors, from key lime to "Hog Wyld." That's gooey butter cake with bacon. Can you hear those arteries clogging?
Speaking of clogging, when Highway 40-I-64, a major St. Louis traffic artery, was clogged by construction, Gooey Louie soothed frustrations sweetly with "Hwy 40: Driving Me Nuts." The road work is over, but the flavor survives.
If you insist on health food, there's blueberry gooey butter cake.
Why am I going on about gooey butter cake?
Because it has a starring role in my new Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mystery, "Death on a Platter."
Because I'm homesick for fall, a season we don't have here in Florida.
Because I'm coming to St. Louis this week, Nov. 10 to 13. That's Thursday through Sunday, and I'll be serving sweet treats at five St. Louis signings. Get the details here at www.elaineviets.com
Then tell me about your favorite cake: Is it homemade or store bought?
November 5, 2011
Never a Dull Moment
I don't call this post "Never a Dull Moment" because I expect there to be no dull moments while you're reading it, because who can promise that, but because it is the Read family motto. I think I may have posted the mold of my grandfather's crest ring here before, but hey, here it is again in case you missed it:
Just so you know I'm not kidding about the motto and everything.
I was thinking about it quite a bit this week, since--first of all--it was another kind of riotous week, in terms of basic Cornelia activities, and--second of all--because I just spent three days with a whole bunch of Reads.
This is because after moving in to my new apartment on Tuesday, which entailed getting up at six a.m., driving to Brooklyn, meeting the moving guys at the U-Haul storage place on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, making sure the truck got loaded, driving back in to Manhattan, meeting the moving dudes here, and overseeing or whatever while they hauled all my shit up the four flights of stairs to my new apartment
and then driving back down to 157th street to my pal Muffin's apartment where I'd been living for the last two weeks and packing up all my clothes and crap after the moving guys left (pause here to reflect that any person WITH an actual BRAIN would've done this the night BEFORE, so that the moving guys would've hauled the eight bags and one box of china up the four flights of stairs) and then hauled my eight bags and four flights of china up four flights of stairs by myself, and then buying some Chinese takeout for me and my kid--who was having a bit of a first-semester-of-college meltdown--I got up at six thirty a.m. the FOLLOWING morning and took the A train to 125th street and then the M60 bus out to LaGuardia and flew to West Palm Beach, because my very dear Uncle Bill Read died last Friday, and my sisters and I were going to his funeral.
Uncle Bill was the eldest of my father's nine siblings. He was 93 years old. Two days before he died, he was hunting alligators on his wife's family's ranch near Immokalee. On Monday, his new wheelchair was arriving. He was not a wheelchair kind of guy, to put it mildly. So, he died peacefully in his sleep Friday morning instead.
Here is a picture of him when he was a little kid:
It was done in pastels. There used to be seven of these, of the oldest seven kids, hanging downstairs in my grandparents' house in Purchase, New York. They're all rather beautiful. Something about pastels makes the eyes very soft and wonderful.
He was named after his father and grandfather, both William Augustus Reads before him. Here's a towel he had in Palm Beach:
I figure it has to be pretty old, since he hasn't been a Junior since Grandaddy died in 1976, and somehow it just looks totally Twenties to me anyway.
Uncle Bill is the guy I got to go shooting with this summer on a ranch in Wyoming, which was pretty fucking awesome. He took me to his gun club, and I totally sucked at trap shooting, but then I did better when we did target shooting with pistols and a crossbow the next day, so he didn't disown me or anything, and I felt slightly less ashamed.
This is a man who took shooting really, really seriously. And fishing. And being an honorable man. He was really nice, which is not often something one can say about people I'm related to, generally.
Also, he was kind of a hottie. Here's a picture of him a while back, so you can see what I mean:
Yeah, right?
Here's another one:
The Read brothers were damn good looking, and he was the best-looking of all of them, if you ask me. And quite possibly the nicest.
That second picture is of him in the Navy in World War II. In which he had some pretty amazing adventures. He was shot down in the Pacific and missing for almost two months, and ended up getting two purple hearts and a Navy Cross. I didn't know before his funeral service that the Navy Cross is only topped by one medal if you're in the sea services (Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard.) That would be the medal of honor.
Here's a picture of some of his decorations. I'm sorry it's sideways:
A Marine Corps general came to the funeral, and spoke, and presented the flag from his coffin to his daughter, my Cousin Edith. The Navy sent a sailor to play taps, and two to stand at either end of his coffin in the cemetery.
The Marine Corps sent some guys to shoot off a salute. Which was awesome.
And the Navy also sent a bunch of planes that flew over the cemetery in formation. One of them peeled off and flew straight up trailing a stream of white smoke, then turned back and away. This is called the "Lost Man" formation, to signify the death of someone the Navy liked a lot. They sure liked Uncle Bill, and rightly so.
I took video of it, but it's just about three in the morning and I got up at 5:30 in Palm Beach this moring, and I don't quite think I could post it to Youtube right now, and also it needs to be edited. I'll try to do it tomorrow.
Uncle Bill was shot down in the Pacific and stranded on an island with members of the crew of the plane for two months. With a compound fracture to his thigh from the second day on. Nonetheless, he managed to drive a samurai-sword wielding Japanese soldier into the ocean by throwing coconuts at his head. The guy presumably died. If you'd like to read more details, check out this article from the U.S. Naval Institute, "Two Coconuts and a Navy Cross." It's pretty amazing:
I asked him what it was like to be a machine gunner in a glass ball on a Navy plane in the Pacific during World War II when I was in Wyoming last summer.
He said, "Well, I've always liked hunting, and the ammunition was free, and there was no bag limit."
He got a lot of Japanese planes:
Here he is sitting in front of my grandparents' house, back in Purchase (probably before the war):
He's sitting in the second row on the left with all his siblings, his parents, and his first wife, after they all got home safe from the war:
My dad was the baby brother--he's sitting on the floor, in the white shirt.
Here's Uncle Bill holding Cousin Edith, his daughter:
And here is the service flag Grandmama Read had, during the war:
Her husband and six of their sons served. They all came home alive. That's a goddamn miracle, if you ask me.
Here is Uncle Bill at age 92, or thereabouts, with a dead alligator:
Here he is with a twelve-foot alligator he shot last winter:
Here is his obituary from the NY Times (paid section...):
WILLIAM A. READ Jr.
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READ--William Augustus, Jr. of Palm Beach, Florida and Cody, Wyoming was the eldest of nine children. He was born on Beacon Street in Boston, Massachusetts, May 16, 1918 to Admiral William A. Read and Edith Fabyan Read. Mr. Read grew up in Purchase, N.Y. and was educated in New England, attending St. Paul's School and the Hun School. He married Kathleen Cushman Spence and they had one daughter, Edith Fabyan Read (Wey). A divorce occurred subsequent to his missing-in-action status during WWII. After Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy, graduating from the Navy Aerial Gunnery Instructors School in Pensacola, Florida. He was Range Officer at the Navy Border Field Machine Gun Range in San Diego, California and became the Gunnery Officer for the Navy Patrol Squadron 101 in the South West Pacific on the Navy version of the B24 Liberator. He was shot down on his twenty fifth combat mission as Bow Turret Gunner for the Commanding Officer of the Squadron. He and some of the surviving crew were able to swim to an island in the Sulu Sea near Palawan Island within Japanese territory, where they lived on coconuts. He was wounded again in a second crash in which a Japanese plane was shot down and landed on some of the surviving members of the crew, killing two of them and further wounding the others. He was missing-in-action for two months. They were rescued by the submarine, Gunnell. His decorations include two Air Medals, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy Cross. Lieutenant William Read had flown 25 combat missions without flight pay. After the war, he became a partner with Phelps, Fenn and Company, a municipal bonds firm in New York City. In 1959, he married Isabel Uppercu Collier and they subsequently moved to Florida. They had been married just short of 50 years at her death in 2008. His skill in shooting has led to his qualification for the Navy Pistol and Rifle Expert. Mr. Read won the gold medal in the Olympics in the International Skeet Veterans Class. He is also in the Trap Shooting Hall of Fame, has won and successfully defended the Pennsylvania 50 Bird Challenge Cup, and defended it for a year. He has achieved his 100,000 target American Trap Shooting Association Pin. After his retirement, he became a licensed alligator trapper in South West Florida, near the family ranch in Immokalee, priding himself on filling his quota of 160 alligators annually with 160 shots. He was past president of the Palm Beach Skeet and Trap Club, a member of the Philadelphia Gun Club, and the Campfire Club of America; as well as the Cody Shooting Complex in Cody, Wyoming. He was also a member of the Bath and Tennis Club, the Everglades Club, and the Sailfish Club all in Palm Beach, Florida and the Brook Club in New York. He was the originator of Okeechobee Shooting Sports in Okeechobee, FL. Mr. Read is survived by his daughter Edith Read Wey, and two grandsons, Thomas Alexander (Lisa) Wey, Jr. and David Read (Claudia) Wey and three great-grandsons, Nicholas, Gianluca, and Gunnar Wey. He also leaves his three stepsons: Inglis Collier, Miles (Parker) Collier, Barron (Tami) Collier II, and his three step grandchildren Laura Collier, Barron Collier V, and Charlotte Collier, along with one sister, Jean Read Knox, and two brothers, Peter Read and Donald Read. He was predeceased by his beloved wife, Isabel Collier Read, and five brothers: Curtis, David, Alexander, Roderick, and Frederick. The Family will receive friends from 11:00a until Noon on Thursday, November 3, 2011 at Quattlebaum Funeral Home, 1201 South Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach, FL, 33401. Graveside Services with Military Honors will be held Immediateely following at Hillcrest Memorial Park, West Palm Beach, FL. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Naval Institute Foundation, 291 Wood Road, Annapolis, Maryland 21402-9987.Never a dull moment indeed.
I am among many, many people who will miss this man dearly.
Requiescat in pace, Uncle Bill.
November 4, 2011
An Open Letter to the Fat Girl I Saw at Hot Yoga in New York City
Joshilyn Jackson
Dear Fat Girl I Saw at Hot Yoga in New York City,
Perhaps I should call you OTHER fat girl at Hot Yoga, as I was there too, easing back into my Fat Down Dog, forward to Fat Plank, then melting and pushing up to Fat Cobra, etc etc, all the way through my big fat hot Vinyasa flow. (This should be a movie title---my Big Fat Hot Vinyasa Flow---I would SO go to see that.)
Is it wrong that I am half in love with you? For being fat and at Hot Yoga? For shaving your legs and getting a GOOD pedicure and putting your big ol' ass into the second largest pants that Lululemon, may her name be forever exalted, makes ? For unrolling your matt and claiming your space, a rounded duck standing defiantly on one squatty leg among flamingos.
Were you as happy to see me as I was to see you? I think you were. You kept PEEKING at me, under your armpit and between your thighs, when you should have had been looking at your Drishti, only to find I had abandoned MY Drishti and was misaligning my spine to peek at you.
We both tipped over out of tree because of it. But it was okay. We were a secret club of Fat Girls at Hot Yoga. We understood each other.
I miss you, now that I am back home in Georgia. I am ALWAYS the only fat girl at Hot Yoga. I am sure it is exactly the same for you----You might think there would be more of us fat girls here in Quasi-Rural Georgia than in New York City. Well, okay. There are, actually, but I am the only one in CLASS. We sometimes have one girl who THINKS she is another Fat Girl at Hot Yoga. She is not, God bless her. She is only mentally ill. At my Hot Yoga here, all the regulars are very beautiful and sleek, like otter puppies.
Yoga people. Honestly. They are long and loopy and bendable and glorious. I wish I was one, but I froth and churn and fail at cleanses.
They seem so at peace with their physicalness, living inside bodies that look like loops of strong ribbon. Meanwhile, I am at war. I am at war with my body.
Oh Fat Girl at Hot Yoga in New York, are you at war with yours, too? Has it let you down? Are you angry with it? I am. Righteously furious, actually.
This stupid body that has failed me in so many ways these last two years. It has been endlessly sick. It has required surgery and bed rest and vicious medication that got me well, but made me feel sicker.
I AM VERY ANGRY WITH IT for being sick, for getting fat, for not doing what I SAY.
But I am nice to it anyway, three times a week, at Hot Yoga.
Fat Girl, I saw you in New York, and I thought, GOOD FOR YOU. You are trying to find a way to be stronger, to live in yourself, to like your body enough to give it that seventy-five minutes of movement and acceptance. To just take care of the damn thing, even if you ARE mad at it. To treat it like an exasperating, ugly, ill-tempered little child---one you secretly adore.
At the start? Every time? I set my intention and it is this: For the next 75 minutes, don't look around, don't compare, don't list all the ways you are not good enough to be here, and don't hate yourself. Just Breathe. Just Breathe. Just Breathe. Just be in your body and remember how good a place is it to be, really.
For the first half of class, I remind myself that this body is not some shabby rental. It is home. No matter how mad I am, it is home.
By the second half, I always come to understand that it is more than home. It is more than where I live.
It is me.
I am it.
I remember my husband likes it. A lot. I remember it twice performed a function that was nothing short of miraculous, growing two exceptional babies entirely from scratch. My brain is a piece of it, and my brain is where the stories come from.
This is what I get from Hot Yoga, Fat Girl. I am not sure what you get. I hope the same thing. I wish ALL the Fat Girls would come to Hot Yoga and get this, get these minutes where we forget ---if only for a little while--- that our value as people doesn't go down when our pants sizes go up.
And also? Selfishly? I DO wish at least one more would come, so I would have someone to peek at under my armpit, to give that little tip of the chin, that little nod.
Fat Girl at Hot Yoga Solidarity, baby. We aren't perfect, but we are HERE, in our second-to-largest size Lululemon pants, ducks among flamingos, trying to take care of ourselves.
Namaste fricken DAY,
The Fat Girl You Saw at Hot Yoga in New York City
November 3, 2011
Naming Yourself
Elaine Viets
My grandfather called me Angel.
Spend five minutes with me, and you'll know that nickname doesn't fit. No one ever called me Angel after Grandpa passed away.
In fact, I've never had a nickname. One friend tried Lainie, but that didn't stick, either.
When Catholic children are confirmed – about age 11 – we get to choose another new name. Did I choose a then-cool name like Kathleen, Susan, Linda?
Nope, I picked Agnes, the patron saint of young girls who was martyred for refusing to marry the emperor's son. At age 11, I embraced my inner dork and became Elaine Frances Agnes Viets.
Eleven seems to be about the time girls try on new names. In my latest Josie Marcus mystery shopper novel, "Death on a Platter," 11-year-old Amelia is experimenting with her name. She tries first Mel, then M.
"Amelia is a baby name," she tells her mother, Josie. "Mel is more sophisticated."
Josie is hurt that her daughter had rejected her given name. Amelia's late father had been a dashing helicopter pilot. Josie had named her for Amelia Earhart, the woman explorer.
Josie's own mother, Jane, was amused. Here's the scene from "Death on a Platter."
"I love it when chickens come home to roost," Jane said. "You've forgotten how many times you changed your name when you were her age. Remember when you wanted to be called Josephine?"
"I did?" Josie asked.
"And you were quite the little empress. I even made you an empire-waist gown for Halloween."
Josie had vague memory of a long high-waisted yellow dress with puffed sleeves and a crown with plastic jewels.
"Your Highness left the throne when you couldn't learn French."
"I never was good at languages," Josie said.
The yellow empire dress was the good part of that memory. She hoped her mother wouldn't recall Josie draping herself languidly on the living room couch like the real Josephine. She'd asked her mother to serve her dinner. Jane had had a few choice words about that stunt.
"After Josephine, you tried on Jo for size," her mother said. "That was your Little Women phase."
[image error] "I liked Louise May Alcott," Josie said. "Jo was the smart sister. Amy was pretty, but a simp."
Jane continued relentlessly. "That phase lasted a couple of months. Next you were Joey. You said Josie was too girly."
Josie thought she heard a chicken clucking. She felt embarrassed for her 11-year-old self.
"Then it was Jay-Jay." Jane was really piling on the guilt.
Josie remembered practicing two versions of that name on a lined tablet. She'd written Jay-Jay and J. J. with blimp-like J's that she'd thought looked elegant.
"You told me that Josie was old and boring," Jane said. "Like those were two worst things anyone could be."
Please stop, Josie begged mentally. "What made me go back to Josie?"
"You read a history of the Wild West that said Josie Marcus was the woman Wyatt Earp loved," Jane said. "There was some doubt that Josie Marcus had even married the lawman. That's when you decided your name was romantic, even dangerous."
Josie felt a hot blush burn her cheeks. Trust me to pick a woman with an uncertain reputation, she thought.
"Amelia is acting like a normal girl her age, Josie." Jane's voice was crisp. "She's trying on identities the way we try on clothes. When she finds a name that fits her, she'll keep it, just like you did."
"Thanks, Mom. That's smart advice."
"I get smarter as you get older," Jane said.
Did your given name fit you? Did you try on other names for size until you found one that worked better?
