Scarlet Letters

We spent the last four days relaxing with my dad and stepmom at their house at the Lake of the Ozarks. It was a wonderful respite, and delightful to see the folks, whom we get to see far too little now that they're retired. (Well, sort of retired. Karen's still doing therapy, they wrote a book together, Dad's thinking about picking up one class a semester...) For everyone who said "Tell your folks I said hi," your good wishes were duly passed on. Dad took us out on the boat, where the menfolk caught a lot of snarled fishing line, and there were many bites.... from mosquitoes. Not so much the fish. At one point Dad declared a spot was "fished out," and I replied, "Don't you actually have to catch a fish for that to happen?" Hee. We went on a tour of the Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City, which was fascinating! Photographs are pending, and possibly a short story or two. I may write up a separate post on that experience later thi...

ME: *sad sad face* JIM: What? ME: I thought you made coffee. JIM: I was going to. I meant to. I got distracted. ME: There is no coffee. I put the Splenda in the cup and everything. JIM: I'll make coffee. ME: As is your Biblical duty. JIM: No. Don't. ME: In the Book of Hebrews. JIM: Now I won't make coffee. ME: Aaaaah! You have to! JIM: I refuse in the light of awful humor. ME: God compels you! (He made coffee.) ----- BOY: *fiddles with iPad* So last week, [BTG]'s phone died. Like, forever died. ME: That sucks. BOY: Yeah. So she was trying to find a texting app to put on her Kindle so we could text. But she couldn't find one, because it's a really old Kindle. So we're having to talk by email. ME: Wow. Just like the olden days. BOY: Yeah. Like that old movie, You've Got Mail.  Where they talk by email. ME: That old movie. BOY: Yeah. ME: You know what we did when I was in high school? BOY: Smoke signals? ME: [response redacted for...

Note: Tonight your guest blogger is my husband, Jim Gillentine, on the anniversary of his mother's death.  ------- A year ago on this day, my mother died. It was by far the saddest day of my life. My mother's health had been declining over her last year of life and it had gotten to the point that she had gone into kidney failure. I remember the call I had gotten from my sister Theresa that she was sick and it wasn't looking good. They were trying dialysis to clean her body of the impurities that her kidneys couldn't take care of. But it was too late. Her body was so weak and frail that her heart stopped twice when they were doing the procedure on two separate occasions. So my mom made the hard choice, and decided to stop treatment and let nature take its course. I went down to see her, knowing that it would be the last time I would be able to talk to her. I had to take the bus ride from hell because the A/C had gone out on the bus, and then had to get a ride eve...

Man, it's been quiet around here. I might have fallen into a habit of talking to myself. Since Jim works the night shift (seemingly FOREVER) and Boy has been off paddling with the Scouts for two weeks, each night it's been me by my lonesome. On the one hand, I'm booking words with the new novel. On the other... well, talking to myself. Boy actually returned to civilization on last Wednesday, at least within texting range. Last Thursday was his last day of travel back to steamy Illinois. BOY: I'm gonna be in town around 1pm ME: We'll buy milk *moo* BOY: Can (BTG) be there when you pick me up? I have a present for her as well. ME: Yes. Ooh ooh do I get a present do I? BOY: Today is a gift. That is why it is called "the present." ME: Smartass. ------ For the purposes of this one, you need to know that Ted Mitchell is our insurance agent. We passed his office while driving in the car. Boy: Ted Mitchell. You so confused me about hi...

Do you know how much guts it takes to go back to school when you're 47 years old? Jim's intelligence struck me from the first, regardless of his education. When he graduated from high school, seventh of ten children, there was no money for college. He never even took the college entrance exams, because college was for those who had money. Instead, he served his country in the Air Force, and then worked on loading docks and in factories for decades - until he was laid off. And then we realized just how hard it is to find a job when you don't have a degree. The warehouses and the factories weren't hiring. He worked perma-temp jobs, where the warehouse farms out staffing to a temp company, which can lay them off at will. That's when he was kneeling on a concrete floor for hours on end, and brought home a pittance of a salary because of course the temp agency got its cut. Getting a job as a janitor at the university got him off the concrete floor. But there...

I'm a terrible wife. I try to think of a week's worth of photos to share of my beloved husband, and all I can think of are the ones he'd really rather I not share. Not like that. Pervs. Like the time he had oral surgery and had his mouth stuffed full of gauze with devices sticking out of his mouth. Hey, he actually let  me take the picture. It's his own fault. Or the historical artifacts like his high school yearbook photo, his Air Force portrait, his martial arts pic from the nineties.... wait, I already shared those. There was that time he shaved off his beard and looked so unlike himself that I called him Dale (his middle name) until the beard grew back. If he tried to kiss me beardless, it was just weird. So I insisted, "I don't kiss Dale, I only kiss Jimmy." As I've explained to him on multiple occasions, he was foolish enough to marry me. That meant a lifetime of torture. It's in the job description of "wife." If you don...

Supposedly it's Happy Marriage Week. And there's this "Love Your Spouse" thing circulating where you post nice pictures of your spouse for a week. This is not my strong suit. If each couple has one that is the romantic, he's elected. Fortunately he is also exceedingly patient, and I do try. So here goes: Day One. I can't for the life of me remember which convention or signing this was. One of many halls where we set up the folding tables and lined up the books. Someone was taking photos of the authors, and we posed together. It could be last year; it could be four years ago. It's not this year; he's still got the dashing goatee instead of the Riker beard he's currently sporting. My hair is a wreck, but so what else is new? Though technically Jim and I met many years ago, briefly introduced by a mutual friend, we re-met years later when Jim first went on the book tour and we kept ending up at the same events. Books made us into Us, ...

Today on the Food Network, Chef Elizabeth Donald. Shush. Let me have my delusions of adequacy. By request, the herbed pork roast recipe I experimented with on Sunday. I've tried to do pork roasts many times, and always ended up drying them out unless I used the crock pot and drowned them in liquid. Now, that works perfectly fine if you're aiming for pulled pork. That's easy: slice an onion into rings and put them in the crock. Put the roast on top of the rings, and insert a half-dozen whole cloves into the flesh (more or less to taste). Toss more sliced onions on top if you want. Pour in two or three cups of water. Set the crock pot to cook on low 8-12 hours - the longer the better. When it's done, pull it out (as best you can; it will fall apart if you did it right) and discard the water, onions and cloves. Shred the meat like crazy and dump it back in the crock pot with another onion, diced. Pour in a full bottle of your favorite barbecue sauce (I strongly recomme...

MAN: (from downstairs) Yes! Yes! Yes! ME: ... MAN: *ascends stairs* ME: What. MAN: Finally! *places his laptop in front of me* ME: *reads* They finally fixed your pension information ? MAN: We're finally married again! ME: Dang. *starts to remove rings* MAN: Stop that! You have to wear them now! ME: That's what you're so excited about? What you shouted about and came up here to interrupt me? Your pension beneficiary information? MAN: It only took four tries.* ME: Shoo. I'm working. MAN: We're married! ME: *snaps fingers* MAN: *descends stairs* Mean... ------ ME: It's time to play "Good News, Bad News!" BOY: Oh no what. ME: The good news is, the evil phone insurance from Verizon does  cover cracked screens. BOY: Thank God! ME: The bad news is that the deductible applies. BOY: What's a deductible? ME: It's the fee you pay to be able to use your insurance. Most plans have them, like cars or medical, etc. BOY: What's th...

Last night's editing session found the use of the word "suddenly" nine times in one scene. Just to be sure, I did a find/replace and found a handful of other uses, most of which were decidedly superfluous to the book. My writers' group is still teasing me about my suddenlys. This will become relevant... ME: What is with me and the -ly adverbs in this book? SELA: *looks* ME: 'Sam said confidently.' TICIA: 'Sam said with conviction.' ME: 'Sam said, confident.' Or to hell with it. 'Sam said.' SELA: 'Sam said. Confidence colored his words.' ME: *gags* Bleeeeeeech. TICIA: *stares in disbelief* SELA: I like it! ME: Don't make the soup come back up, please. TICIA: *gestures to Sela* Romance. *gestures to me* Not romance. ALL: *guffaw* SELA: I like my fluffy descriptive words. ME: 'Sam said.' TICIA: With conviction! SELA: Confidently! ME: But he said it suddenly. ALL: *loses it* ME: Oh ...

Okay, I know that's not a thing. And if Hallmark suddenly starts printing cards for "Proposalversary," you have my permission to blame me, because I totally made that up. But on this day four years ago, Jim tripped on something and fell down to one knee. I tried to help him up and got my finger caught on a ring. And we've been stuck with each other ever since. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you want to know all the gory details, we already wrote that up . In fact, we detailed the entire engagement, the wedding planning and all the attendant silliness on our joint blog, Dancing Toward the Castle . We went back to it on our first anniversary , though we haven't yet figured out what to do with that blog now that we're actually married. Maybe turn it into a book, maybe just let it rest. Save it for my memoirs or something. I'll just tell you this: Last week, when I was actually writing this blog entry, I had a rotten ...

For the purposes of this, you must understand a few things about Boy. He does not have a debit card, so when he orders things he gives me money and I order it for him. His father lives in Memphis, so gifts he purchases for his father are often managed this way. And he hates tomatoes with a living passion. At Subway... BOY: I'd like a ham and cheese on monterey cheddar. ME: Please. BOY: Please. SERVER: *makes sandwich* And what would you like on it? BOY: Extra onions, lettuce, pickles - ME: Ew. BOY: Hush. ME: Ruination of a good sandwich. BOY: And what are you ordering? ME: Subway Club. Nunya. BOY: And mayonnaise, please. SERVER: Anything else? ME: Extra tomatoes. SERVER: *looks at Boy* BOY: She's kidding, no tomatoes. SERVER: *is giggling* BOY: You're not funny. ME: I'm hilarious. Later, I texted him to let him know his Father's Day present for his father was ordered. ME: Ordered and on its way. One Chicago Cubs wall pennant. BOY: Mom no yo...

Jim and I were alone on Father's Day, so we drove up the Great River Road and had wine at the Pere Marquette Lodge. Jimmy got sleepy and I did some shooting. We love Pere Marquette; the views are so spectacular they can't really be captured with my photographic skill (yet) and it's a giant no-cell zone, which was poorly timed since the phone died in the middle of chatting with my dad. This was my second experiment with manual focus. I switched back and forth between manual and autofocus in the prom shoot, but that was different; I was using a tripod with humans who mostly stood still. This was handheld on a floating dock or by the side of the river on unstable rock. Turns out there's a few kinks in the system. One of them: It's really hard to adjust manual focus when the sun is shining directly in your eyes. I tried sunglasses, but then I could barely see at all. Here's a few of them. I will have to decide which go up on the shop ; I can't afford to put ...

I must have made some kind of enormous salary leap in my dream world, because my office was amazing. A lovely, sunlit room with a comfortable sitting area apart from my desk, a fireplace that was clearly for cooler days, and windows everywhere. There was a patio door that overlooked a lovely pool, clean and inviting. Beyond the pool patio lay a strip of beach clearly shared with the two mansions on either side, running all the way to the shining ocean. Someone had been busy. The sand castles out there were worthy of a TV special. I wanted to go snag my camera and get some pictures. It was a staggeringly beautiful day, with blue skies and an inviting beach not dissimilar to Jamaica. But first I had to interview security guard candidates, and I was trying to come up with intelligent questions and scenarios while I made them wait. It's not like it would matter; the first was such a total bozo I'd already decided not to hire him; he fell asleep while waiting and he'd brought hi...

I'm writing this on the day the world lost a good man. It won't post for a while yet, because his family doesn't know.* It seems somehow wrong that those of us who worked with him know before his family does. But sometimes that's the way it happens. Shortly after work tonight - Wednesday night - I was killing time in a Wal-mart checkout line by cruising Facebook. I saw a post from a local police department stating that they had found an unconscious man in jogging attire on the running trail of a local park. They were unable to save him, and he was carrying no ID. They asked for the public's help in identifying him. I hadn't seen anything on our website about it, so I called it in to the newsroom. I asked one of the guys on the copy desk if we already had someone working on the unidentified man in the park. He said no, and I told him about the police department's post. "Mainer's missing," he replied. And heaven help me, for a brief secon...

I was playing around on Bed Bath and Beyond's website, because sometimes I get to nesting and I can't help myself. Also, we still have a bit of wedding gift card left to spend. ME: We have been married for 574 days. So sayeth this website. JIM: Is that all? ME: ... It feels longer, is that what you're saying? JIM: No... You can't track perfection, that's what I'm saying. ME: Nice try, Sparky. You rolled a two on your saving throw. ------- BOY: Mom! I'm trying to watch Daredevil  and Netflix won't let me. ME: The bill is paid. Why not? BOY: It says it exceeds the maturity level. ME: We don't have a maturity restriction... (opens site) Oh. It does on your profile. "Teen and below." BOY: Fix it please? ME: Hmmm. The next level is "all content." That means you'd have access to everything on Netflix. Your poor innocent eyes. BOY: *sigh* I'm trying to watch superheroes! ME: Okay, I'll reset it, but you'd...

Today is our Relay for Life. Usually I drive folks crazy in the weeks leading up to Relay with exhortations and incentives to donate, but life intervened this year and I've only issued the one plea. This is probably why as of now, I've raised $10 toward my personal $300 goal, and my team is still nearly $1,000 short of its $3,000 goal. I am speaking at tonight's Survivor Dinner (no, I'm not a cancer survivor, I just run my mouth a lot.) Below is the speech I intend to give. Please read it, and if you are so moved, consider donating before 10 p.m. CST. It reflects the number of people in my life who have been touched by cancer - at times, it feels like it is all around me. And if you're reading this, I imagine it has touched you, too. Thank you for your time. Fighting the Beast I’m Elizabeth Donald, captain of the St. Andrew’s team . I’ve been walking Relays off and on for 18 years, most of them here in Edwardsville. And I feel a little funny being the on...

Boy is famous for making me pause shows all the time  so he can get a snack, run to the bathroom, split the atom, whatever. The joys of ADHD. Watching anything with the both of them is an exercise in patience. BUFFY: *begins* BOY: Pause. I need more food. ME: And we are thirty seconds past the previouslys. BOY: We took too long starting the episode. ME: Whatever. BOY: *goes for food* ME: Bring me a milk. BOY: No, because you didn't say please. ME: Pretty please, with sugar on top, child of my loins, bring me milk. BOY: Okay, I'll take that, but just this once. ME: Smartass. ME: *grabs single-serve bag of Doritos* ME: *nibbles* ME: *chokes* Aaah! I got the spicy nacho ones. BOY: *snickers* ME: Shut up! You have the regular. Trade? BOY: *snickers more, passes me the bag* You know, they're not that spicy. ME: Shush. I acknowledge my wussiness. ... ME: *bites Doritos* Blech. BOY: What? ME: They're stale. BOY: Yeah, they go stale sometimes. ME: They...

Today's blog post is brought to you by Georgia L. Jones, an amazing writer with Seventh Star Press, courtesy of Tomorrow Comes Media! Georgia is doing her blog tour this week sharing snippets from her terrific new releases, Legends of Darkness  and Witches . Guest Post from Kyan (Character in Legends of Darkness by Georgia L. Jones)   I allowed my mind to wonder back to a time that was so much like today.   My hatred for the humans around me was founded deep in my soul.   They deserve no more compassion than you would show a snake, slithering through the grass.   They all should die. It was June 10, 1692, a day that will haunt me for as long as my soul exists.   That was the day that they hanged me for being a witch.   If they only knew, I thought.   Now I am much stronger than any witch I have ever known, and I have known a few.   I owned a couple of bars, and didn’t want to act and dress according to their standards. I dra...