Books

This probably won't come as a surprise to anyone, I enjoy books. I really, truly enjoy books. I love the weight of them in my hands, the feel of the paper as the fibers catch against my finger printers, the smell of ink between the pages, the sound of a binding opening up to give away it's secrets. I love it all. What you might not know is that I also love cookbooks. I actually collect those. I have been known to pick up an odd one or two during my travels. Even as a high school student I was unexplainably drawn to them. During a family vacation to the Carolinas we took a day trip out to Fort Sumter. In the gift shop one of the area historical societies had put together a collection of Civil War era recipes. I had to have it. Never mind that I would never actually cook with coal ash, or fat back, but I still had to have it. I still have it to this day. And I have prepared a few of the recipes out there over the years, with a tweak here and there- as all cooks do.

Over the years my collection has grown to a modest size. There are a few celebrity chef books in there along with turn of last century volumes written in German. You could say it's varied. I have also begun collecting my own recipes, recipes that I have been adapting and cultivating over the years, and hope to one day put to my own cookbook. Until that time they are securely placed in a big black binder.

I love experimenting on, I mean trying out new dishes with my family. Often I'll head over to the local library and peruse the stacks for something that catches my eye. I have found some of the most incredible meals that way. I have also found a few stunners as well. I love simple, basic flavors that are layered or assembled in ways that make you take notice. Soul food, cooking from the heart, that sort of thing, resonates with me. So when I saw a cookbook with a cover a two tatted up guys sitting in a diner, going on about their love of family and good food, my heart skipped a beat. Another book! No. No, it was not. Their Po Boy was lobster with some sort of roe and a fricken quail egg. A raw quail egg mind you, dropped on top on that expensive car crash of a sandwich. The travesties just went on from there. If I remember correctly they were even dropping some gold leaf on something or the other... How is the home cook suppose to replicate any of that? And secondly, why would they want to? I was honestly mad when I set that book back on the shelf. I felt like I had been deceived and in a way cheated. Cheated because that book had so much more potential and for whatever reasons it was all just thrown away, and I had to bare witness to it.

I had to do a Nigella, Paula and Jamie detox just to get over the shock! But on a more serious note, looking back, my books are almost a part of the family. For every holiday and special occasion, the books get pulled out and poured over. When I met and married my husband he had a few of his grandmother's old cookbooks, hers have joined mine. My daughters know how to use a recipe and enjoy flipping though them with me and bookmarking their favorite pages too. They have become a part of our family's history without even trying. That is the power of books.

Sidewalks...

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Every morning on my way home from dropping my youngest, in fourth grade, off at school I pass the same couple walking their kindergartner to school- the same school. They will be late. Everyday. But they are singing songs, wandering over snowbanks in the neighbors' yards, laughing, and have a swell old time in the process, so it's okay?

Maybe it's a generational thing. I'm firmly planted in Gen X. Life was going to suck and we knew it. So we embraced it, we changed it. We didn't try to change the system we found lacking, we made our own. The Cold War, first personal computers, AIDS, Chernobyl, Space Shuttle Challenger, fall of the Berlin Wall; I remember them all. We voted in record numbers. Volunteered like never before. We were the first generation predicted not to surpass our parents in economic security or success (ended up being by -12%). But we planned for it, expected, and most of us are doing just fine.

Fast forward to Generation Y, Why?, or Gen. Me, or possibly Gen. Why Me? There are a few of these parents in my daughter's class as well. As it would turn out, I am one of the old moms. Go figure. With my oldest daughter, I was one of the youngest moms in the room. Six years later I'm on the other side of the fence now. Any hoo, I have seen some of these parents in action, or inaction, as the case may be. We were all gathered in the classroom for a small presentation on ducks (or some such thing), the kids were suppose to be getting out their homework, binders and assignment notebooks for the teacher to look at. My daughter reaches into her backpack and pulls out all the stuff she needs, opens up her workbooks and notebooks and sits for the teacher to come around and check. Mean while the little girl beside her is looking sick and her parents a bickering over who was suppose to have checked her homework and made sure she had put her backpack back together. Because mom is working now and she's too busy to do it. Dad's arguing the same. And their daughter is crying, if anyone cares. Apparently this happens a lot in their house. FYI: binder was in backpack, homework and assignment notebook, home on kitchen table.

I see this happening with alarming frequency. The parents that pat themselves on the back, because they fork out three times the price any sane person would pay for some sort of “hand knit” knobbly, ear flapped, pomponned festooned, Ecuadorian llama wool, monstrosity of a hat at the Fair Trade store in a trendy shopping district, are the same parents that pat themselves on the back for “letting their child be self-directed” and putting them in a Montessori Charter school with no idea what it means or involves and then gripes out loud about what the teachers are doing. There is “self-directed” and then there is letting your child run around like a wild animal and smiling with an insipid smile on your face because you just don't care enough to stop the craziness in the first place. Lets not fool ourselves.

These are the parents that need to insist that their kids get to school on time everyday. On time. Everyday. That we will walk on the sidewalks, we will respect out neighbors lawns and property and use the sidewalk. We can sing and laugh, skip and swing hands but we will do it on the sidewalk. And all before the bell rings. We need to follow directions.

Why does it matter? They're just having a little fun before school starts. Because it carries over into everything they do all day long. I use to go on a number of field trips with my daughters' classes. They're in a science charter school that does a number of field experiences over the year. With my older daughter's class it wasn't so bad, there were a couple kids that were always on the short list but that is to be expected, but with this younger class... It's like herding cats. They are off being “self-directed”, not following directions, not listening to the teacher, not listening to chaperons and generally being an embarrassment to the school. I'd come home and be so upset over the afternoon spent with the little darlings it would take me all evening to calm down. So I stopped going. I'm not the only one. They get very few parent volunteers anymore.

Parenting is hard. I get that. But it doesn't get any easier as they get older. The problems just more complex and the stakes get greater. I think the lessons on walking the straight narrow will be a lot easier to take in as a young adult if they have been getting them from a child on. Sidewalks, my friend, sidewalks.

The Voices In My Head

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In my “normal” life not many people know I'm a writer. They know me as the someone's mom, the carpool mom, the 4-H mom, the PTA mom, the lady that answers the phone and doesn't let them speak with the luthier (my husband) so they give the lady attitude, and usually that's fine. It's simple. But, every once and awhile the two hemispheres of my life converge.

Conversations will slow, and talk will turn to what we had been doing that day, or someone I know better than most will ask me a question in front of an acquaintance. Folks either react one of two ways: first, dismiss it as a phase or as a character flaw. They have preconceived ideas or notions about people that engage in such long term pursuits of artistic expression and merit (flibberty gibbitt, head in the clouds, and such). So I get an “Ahhh... good for you.” and a pointed change of subject. Yeah, duly noted. The second sort of “typical” response I get is more of a vicarious one. The “Oh! That is so cool! How did you ever come up with that idea? How long do you think the book will be?” and a continual onslaught of questions all the way down to “What kind of music do you listen to when you write?” Creativity can be very mysterious, I have found, and there for intimidating. So, I thought I would take the time to answer some of the more frequented questions. My answers, I understand, are different than some writers. We all have own paths to follow, our own truths to seek.

To answer the top of the Hit List questions...

My background: I have a fine arts background, I taught high school art- including photography and film making- along with all the other standard courses. I have a very visual approach to most things. I also have a Masters of Education degree in Instructional Technology. I am one of the few art majors that can hook up the Wii and get the Netflix working! I believe technology is the great equalizer. It rocks.

What music do I listen to when I write? I don't listen to music when I write. I have music playing most every other time, but not then. My girls have a wide and vast appetite when it comes to their music so I could be listening to Taylor Swift with one girl and then Blood on the Dance Floor with the other. When we are in the car it's usually top 40 radio, Tokio Hotel, or movie soundtracks, like Almost Alice. My husband has a penchant for really old or dead guys with either Red or Bone in their names. So when I'm with him there is a lot of blues, blue grass, classic rock, instrumental rock and the occasional swing. When left to my own devices I listen to what would be considered hard rock and pop rock. I like Rob Zombie, Velvet Revolver, Muse, The Civil Wars, Mumford & Sons. I'm all over the place depending on my mood. But when I write (even right now), no background music. As I had mentioned before I'm a visual person and when I'm writing I can “see” in my mind how a scene is playing out and I can hear the dialog between the characters, like in a play or a movie. I have found that if I have music playing, for me, I end up listening to the music and not the voices in the head. Sounds crazy, but true. The scene usually comes complete with it's own music anyway...

How did I come up with the story idea in the first place? The series that I'm currently writing is about a teenage girl that is, as it turns out, half fairy, and there are all sorts of shenanigans surrounding her. When I was first batting around ideas in my head and jotting down notes here and there about story lines and plot devices I realized I was missing the big “Whoa”. I needed a Voldemort and Dumbledore but I wanted it to be somewhat grounded in myth or folklore, female would even be better. That was when I had stumbled across a university website (at least I think it was) talking about the creationist theories and the whole Adam and Eve story. There they went on to explain how in Hebrew folklore Adam had in fact three wives. The first, was made the same way as Adam, equal in every way, and was called Lilith. The story goes that she and Adam fought horribly. Even thought they were equal Adam refused to see her as such, (a bunch of sexual references later, some concerning animals...) Lilith becomes so consumed by her rage and fury she expells herself from paradise and becomes the first demon, the mother of all demons. After awhile Adam decides he would like to try again with a new mate of the female persuasion. God then creates the Second Wife the same as he had created Adam and Lilith, from the inside out. Right before Adam's eyes he saw his new mate materialize, bone, muscle, veins, skin, and hair. He was so completely discussed by the scene that he refused to touch her. Plus, he argued that if she was created the same way as the first one, she was probably going to be just as difficult. So without even receiving a proper name first name, Second Wife is just cast a side. That then brings us to Eve. One rib to make them compatible and mud and dirt to make her mailable; We all know how well that all turned out... The part of that story that struck me was that after the Second Wife was cast off, there was never anymore mention of her. You hear blips and blurps about Lilith whenever powerful women have come into power in ancient times, but never anything about Second Wife... So I made up one for her. Beginning with her daughter. Voldemort = Lilith, Dumbledore = Second Wife, and they're both female. Double word score!

How long will the book be? Well... that's hard to say. I have a lot of story to tell. The first installment of the series that I am currently refining (already writing book two) is in the 700's. I envision this being a long running series. I love writing it. It's one of the few things in life that have been “easy” for me. Not necessarily fast, that has been the only frustrating part. Right now my writing is part time, my hope, my goal is be a full time in the near future.

If you have any of your own questions, hit me in the comments below :-)

Barbie Girl in a Gamer World

Living in a gamer household. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it was possible, never mind an eventuality. But this is what happens, I have come to find out, when you marry a closet gamer. Gamers beget more gamers, and so on and so forth, until I am the... last... one... standing. Standing on a black and gray hilltop of controllers, consoles, game cartridges, CDs, cables and cords.

I'm a Barbie girl living in a Gamer world and my youngest daughter brandishes a morning star. Yep, her character of choice is a dark elf with lethal hands and a custom (she made it herself) morning star. For those of you not in the know of medieval weaponry, it's a big pointy ball at the end of a stick that you whack things with. My youngest and husband had tried playing a different role playing game where she was a sorceress (role play games are notoriously skimpy on the female characters, this one only had the one, and Baby Girl will only play girl characters). But she wasn't using her spells, she kept wanting to run up to the creatures in the game to "do battle" and such. This was annoying to my husband, her father, because her character was the most powerful thus far in the game- if she would use the spells- but she wasn't comfortable using spells. So the two of them bickered like two... I don't know... Gamers, over how to "play" a character. Jesus H. Christ! Play the game! Don't play! Play a different game! I don't care! Just Shut Up, Shut Up, SHUT UP!

They could play Candyland and it be very much the same. It would turn into a face off on what exactly a two color card meant. If you draw a candy cane card does it mean you do or don't have to go back? Every blessed line item will be looked up in the "rules". I play by the simplified "Rule of Mom", of how long do you want this game to last, and what "variation" will meet that objective. So no, you do not need to go back to the Candy Cane Forest. Mom's happy, Girlie's happy (she didn't loose spaces) but Dad is still stewing on the "handbook".

It's not all bad. He has been an incredible resource for my writing. His encyclopedic knowledge of the Dungeon and Dragons books, aka The Monster Manual and companions, has been a true source of inspiration. He even bought me my own set of books, just so I look at them at my leisure- how sweet was that? He knows the way to this girl's heart is with paper, preferably bound.