Gratitude Monday - Brought To You By Bacon

The bacon I cooked for the batch of beans.

I love bacon. I am grateful for bacon. Bacon makes my day. I don’t eat swine-based bacon so much any more simply because after a few meals of it I feel too greasy. I still love the real stuff, but I’m more likely to eat beef, bison, or turkey bacon. Similar taste, especially the turkey variety, and not as much fat. In a way that’s too bad because fat bacon is so very tasty.
Since the Swine Flu snorted its way through the population we who think have had to put up with a great deal of nonsense, especially the head-shaking announcement from the WHO the other day.
Some gentlefellow suggested that even cooked pork might transmit the disease. Thanks buddy.
That said, improperly cooked meat can make a person sick, and if you’re eating improperly cooked pork, then H1N1 will be a freaking day at the beach compared with what else it will give you.
Sorry. Got carried away. Stupidity does that to me. It was retracted the next day, but the damage was done.
I got so irked that as a gesture of protest I made a batch of beans from scratch the other day. I used a recipe from The Bag Lady that’s so good it will move you to tears, and I doubled the amount of bacon called for in it.
The hog industry had taken a beating for various reasons over the years and this is one more blow.
We raised hogs for a few years when I was young and I rather enjoyed their company. Hogs are fine creatures, smart, personable, tasty.
Hog famers are decent folk who work hard and provide food for our tables. They have enough to put up with; they don’t need fear-mongering and nonsense.
Thank you farmers and thank you hogs.

Photo-Finish Friday --What the End of the World Looks Like at Sunset

Looking south to the end of the world.

Our ship had left the Falkland Islands a few hours earlier on its way to Argentina. It was sunset and cold and beautiful in the way that comes from the starkness of being alone in the great vastness of sea and sky no matter how many others are with you.
The ship, its guests, and crew ceased to exist for me as I looked over the edge of the world.
For as acutely as I felt how small one human is on the planet I was equally exquisitely aware that we are all small, and we all belong here.

Stuff My Characters Taught Me

Writing novels is getting to be quite the eye-opener for me. I was never sure I could sustain an idea for tens of thousands of words. So far I’ve got two in the first draft stage and a third with more than 16,000 words that I started on April 15. I am having the time of my life with it.
I belong to a wonderful writing site, Absolute Write, and I’ve learned a great deal there from warning signs for lousy publishers and agents to how to write a book proposal to just plain how to write.
What comes up often is how characters reveal themselves to the author. This used to throw me. Before I had two hints to rub together to spark a clue I thought that the author came up with the character and took it from there. Then I read about characters suddenly announcing all manner of interesting things to a tickled, if bemused, creator.
I didn’t understand. Then it happened to me.

This is what characters do. They are their own people. I am just their creator and frankly, there’s not much I can do once I’ve breathed life into them. They get what they want or they punish me.
In my first manuscript I had two characters mostly sorted out until they decided that their species are sex shifters.
Then halfway through the book another character walked out of the bush. It’s the same species, but pre-pubescent and therefore neither male nor female. This was news to me.

I thought I had most things figured out for the second book until one of my characters announced she was a lesbian. At first I tried to talk her out of it because I had no clue how to go about writing about her. She wasn’t having any of it. She is who she is and good for her. It’s better for the story that way. She also likes to wear her boots without socks. I tried that for about an hour. I don’t share the joy of it.

I wrote the second manuscript to take my mind off the first. Just before I finished it I got the idea for the third ms so I got going on it. The characters didn’t say too much to me initially. I had some ideas on my own and wrote them, but that was about it.
Then I made the classic error. I wondered why they weren’t revealing anything. The next thing I knew a kindly old lady in a funny hat announced she had five university degrees and an IQ of 147. Her degrees are in a branch of advanced mathematics, Environmental Psychology, and Cryptozoology. She hasn’t told me about the other two yet. I complain that I won’t be able to write about her properly. She laughs at me.

If nothing else writing books is a wonderful lesson. I’ve learned about sustaining ideas and punting things that don’t work no matter how much I’ve put in to them. I have learned my subconscious will direct me and to put my complete faith in my Muse, Marie-Josee.

And I’ve got to say it, I am having a blast.

Mountains Make It Better

Taken near Saskatchewan River Crossing on the Banff-Jasper Parkway just inside Banff National Park. Click, enlarge, enjoy.

I find mountains calming. They have a grounding energy and a quiet, graceful deliberateness that counteracts all the rushing about, worry, stress, and silly need for constant contact we have in our world today.

Give me a lonesome day in the fresh air surrounded by trees and a mountain to sit with and I am happy.

What about you? What brings you peace?

Twosday in Bloom

Two prairie anemones in bloom in our front yard two days ago. The green blades are garlic.

Tuesday is rapidly becoming my favorite day. Years ago a psychic fellow told me that Tuesday would “always be my best day” with the message ostensibly coming from my late mother.Whether it did or not is moot, the fact is I get to inflict my latest creations on an innocent world on Tuesdays and that makes me happy.

The rules of the game are put up two sentences that you’ve read and two that you’ve written.

What I read:

Two enlightening sentences about how the heart works from Understanding Electrophysiology Studies from The StayWell Company, copyright 1995, 1999, 2001.
“Too many signals make the heart beat very fast (tachycardia). Or signals may be sent so rapidly and irregularly that the heart muscle sometimes quivers and doesn’t beat at all (fibrillation). (Bolding theirs.)

My two sentences:

“Mrs. Inge Tuckle didn’t pay much attention to the latest upgrades in technology unless it had something to do with her. It rarely did.”

Many, many thanks to the Women of Mystery for the Two Sentence Tuesdays.

Gratitude Monday – Flat on the Flats Edition

We went for drive out west the other day. It was a beautiful Saturday. We cobbled together some lunch, filled a water jug, and went on our merry way on a 70 mile drive toward a spot out west called Ram Falls.

But we never arrived.

We were about 40 miles or so out driving through a lovely area through which Radiance Creek flows. Horses grazed on the east side of the road, but far enough away to be unconcerned by our trespass on their day.

I’d never seen horses there and have no idea if they’re tame ones left to pasture or transplants from a herd that roams free in Ya-Ha-Tinda 60 or so miles to the south.
We were enjoying the day. We pulled into a fish pond, a reclaimed gravel pit, for a pit stop when we saw we had a flat tire.
It was fresh, still hissing. We could see it deflate before our very eyes.

So my husband reinflated it enough to get us back to the approach where it was dry and then changed the tire. We went straight back to town.
It was still a good drive. It was a lovely day and really quite pleasant.
I’m glad he was there to do the work and I’m glad there was little traffic.
And if you must have a flat tire, is there a better spot?

Photo Finish Friday - A Rock and a Pretty Place

I loved the textured look of this huge rock on the hillside in the mountains out west.
Some day I'd like climb closer to it for more intimate shots of it. It looks like a lovely spot to sit and contemplate the scenery.