Spilling tears of regret

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer's Handbook
by Ann Mazer and Ellen Potter



This is a book I wish I'd read forty years ago.  I always wanted to write, and I always did write, but I never wrote often enough or adventurously enough.  With this kind of encouragement, my life might have turned out a whole lot different.

There wasn't any fan fiction on the internet in my younger days (there wasn't even any internet), and the idea of writing down stories to share with my friends would never have occurred to me.  And I had the idea that writing, any writing, had to be totally original.  I might make up stories in bed at night--The Continuing Adventures of the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Erika of Krumm--but they would never be written down or shared with the public.  It's a shame.

Enough about me--back to the book.  It's funny--lively--chock full of examples.  Most of the short chapters include an "I Dare You" bullet, challenging you to try the ideas out for yourself.  And best of all for any writing "how to" book, you're always encouraged to break all the rules.

Highly recommended, for all ages.

Been working on this book for over two weeks and its not that long...

Finally finished  
 
Akata Witch 
 by Nnedi Okorafor. 

As a teenager, I would have loved this book, absolutely.  I'd be acting it out in a minute, figuring out my own magical power and joining the quest with Sunny and her three new, magical friends.


As an adult...not so much.  The rules to her magical universe are dumped on you all at once, with no time to absorb the first before you're darting off in entirely different directions.  It's like a video game that only the very young can play.  You need all ten fingers on twenty obscurely named buttons to master the controls--and that's just in the first level.

It would have been better as a manga.

Better checked out from the library than paid for

Silent Echoes by Carla Jablonski


It started off good--maybe really good.  And the plot thickened...thickened?  Did I say that? 

No, I lie.  I wanted it to thicken but in reality it thinned down to a trickle, and ended.  What a waste of an excellent idea!   Girl from the present and girl from the past with a psychic connection neither truly believes.  What happens to you if you hear voices in (a) 1898 or in (b) 1998?  Let's just say people were a little more open to that kind of thing back then.

Wish I'd liked it.

A wow of a book

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

by Deborah Blum

From the web page: Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner’s Handbook – chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler – investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey’s Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others.

From the days when an appointment as coroner was a kickback offered to an elected official's cronies and supporters; through the hard years when medical science was so muddled that a defense attorney could always find "conflicting medical evidence"; this book takes us on a poison by poison adventure that often ends in death--by electric chair.  Ms. Blum does not spare the details, and I wanted them all.

A little knowledge of chemistry helps the story unfold, but don't shy away if you don't have it.  She'll teach you what you need to know.  Chemistry, mystery, politics and puzzles circle in a dance led by the few men who won't take the obvious for the answer--men who want the truth.  Truth, where ever it leads.
Even if it keeps you awake nights, wondering...did I make a mistake?

Is this becoming an eating blog?

Our trip to Fort Leonard Wood gave me an opportunity to try eating vegan on another person's pocketbook.  Also an opportunity to blow off sensible eating for a few days, and I seized the opportunity.  Stupid, I know, but I was in too big a hurry to care.  On the way up--hurry, hurry, hurry--I stopped mid-afternoon for a quick McDonald's fish sandwich and forgot to ask them to leave the cheese off it.   Recent research on foods and nutrition has convinced me to add a couple servings of fish to my weekly menu, so I can't call myself vegan anymore.  In any event, a McDonald's fish sandwich doesn't qualify.  McDonald's filet of fish compares to wild-caught salmon the way a candy bar compares to an apricot.

At some place called T's (or J's) steakhouse, in Lebanon, Missouri, I had fried catfish, a baked sweet potato, and onion rings.  Fail on two out of three counts.  The baked sweet potato was yummy--how do they get theirs so creamy inside?  Mine always turn up stringy.

We won't mention breakfast--I went for the fastest protein serving I could hope to swallow in ten minutes with a mild hangover.  Lunch was a supremely awful fast-food Chinese mixed vegetables.  But supper, remember this--Colton's has a mixed greens salad with mandarin oranges, topped with baked salmon.  Heavenly!

And for lunch, Schlotzsky's does a salad topped with strawberries, blueberries and pecans.  Verry Berry--Verry Good.. 

No postings...

...for a bit.  Any free time I have to compost compose a post is spent writing letters to my kiddo and gathering up silly jokes to put in them.  Basic training will be over soon!

Sneaking out at lunch

So here's the deal.  I'm going to make ribs for an unknown number of consumers tomorrow.  I have three racks of pork and one of beef.  I'll do one or two of the pork as Hoisin Honey riblets, the rest with off-the-shelf barbeque sauce.

Note to self: Central Market's price on fruits and vegetables is very competitive with chain groceries.   And the quality blows them out of the water.  It's crowded, yes--but for a reason.  The little old ladies and avid foodies who crowd the aisles aren't there because it's "trendy."

And if I go there at lunch time, I can get a salad with salmon.  Not at all vegan but so good.