A Trip Back in Time

A lake along a loop drive in Banff. I was going to write something metaphorical, but it's too much work.

I had a reasonably misspent youth, and I mean that in the good way. Reporters, we heard in J school, are supposed to have life experiences. I can’t remember the exact reason given though it is moderately obvious. The more you experience, the more you know, and the more you will question. You’re less gullible if you’ve been around a bit.

You never know when an experience from the past will work its way to the surface and be exactly what is needed.

My current WIP is about a mirror. This lets me write short bits in the lives of many characters. It’s fun and I get to use fragments of life from overheard conversations to stuff that really happened.

For example, back in the Pleistocene epoch my best friend and I stumbled into her house at 4 a.m. stoned out of our gourds. Our tummies cried for attention. We sacrificed dill pickle potato chips to the munchies gods and giggled in terror that the crunching echoing in our ears would waken her dad.

I’m tickled silly that I can now call this moment research.
I suspect as the writing continues so will the mining of the past as well as whatever I can scavenge from the world around me.
Everything has a purpose; it is just a matter of discovering what that purpose is.

What about you? Has that thing you did all those years ago proved to be something you need now? Or as you still waiting to see the good side of it?

Twofer Tuesday and a Photo

A pair of red-winged blackbirds decorate the edge of a lake.

Another wonderful week of getting some reading done and even a bit of writing. It’s not as much writing as I’d thought, but in the great scope of the world that hardly matters.
I read this:

“The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it.”
-A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens. (Dent: London Everyman’s Library, Dutton: New York, reprinted 1964)

My efforts over the past few days put toward A Fly on the Wall:

“A nice mirror, my love. For the bedroom?”
Mora stared at him. “You want a mirror like this in the bedroom? Are you reading those magazines again, Sid?”


For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.

Gratitude Monday – Still Laughing

Laughter is one of life’s pleasures. It’s important to overall good health. I’d back that up, but that involves something called “research” and I am more than lazy.
I love to laugh and I am grateful that I can. I think it is what keeps us sane and it can defuse a nasty situation.
It’s also a pleasant way to spend time. What would you rather do, laugh or fume?

This brings me to my point: Fawlty Towers. We bought the complete set the other day and have watched two of the 12 episodes.
Even though I have seen them several times over I still laugh. I know what’s coming and I smile in anticipation. I laugh as hard or harder now than I did when I first saw them back in the mid-70s.
The shows are familiar enough just hearing “You naughty, naughty moose”(ep. The Germans) or “Brahms Third Racket” (ep. A Touch of Class) sets me off.

So, thank you John Cleese and Connie Booth for writing one of the smartest, funniest, and most enduring shows ever.

Photo Finish Friday - Earth and Sky Edition

A magnificent Bald Eagle soars above a field looking for food

while a Sandhill Crane stays close to the ground on a warm spring day.

A Bird in the Hand

A too-stuffed pine siskin.

Mike and the siskin strike a pose.

The pine siskins love us and need to be with us. They love us so much they eat everything we put out for them. This makes them full and dopey and easy prey for any prowling puss.

This little fellow was too full to fly so my husband picked him up and minded him for a bit until he could muster the gumption to take wing.

Soon the young 'uns will be out and eating and they are much too trusting. We'll be doing a fair bit of bird-minding before the summer's out.

Two Sentences or So on Tuesday

I spent most of last week reading. It felt good to laze in the sun with a book for company, and the neighbour’s pussycats were always ready to lend a paw during the hard parts.
Among the treasures I had the pleasure of getting to know was the one quoted below.
I love Edgar Rice Burroughs. From Tarzan to John Carter and everything in between he spun a good yarn and kept his protagonist in mortal peril until the very end.

Two sentences I read:

“The water was warm and had an unpleasant taste. The best that might be said of it was that it was wet.”

-The Land of Hidden Men by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ace Books, 1978 (copyright 1931, McCall Company, Renewed 1959) Original title: Jungle Girl.


I spent more time reading than writing, but still managed a bit. Here’s a little something from A Fly on the Wall:


“Won’t know ‘til we give it ago.”
“Uh oh.” Dottie Phelbos always worried when Mrs. Ingetuckle inadvertently rhymed. It was never good.


For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.

Gratitude Monday - Song of the Season

The best part of spring is the sound.

The sights are great, don't get me wrong, and the temperature and the warming to life of the earth are wonderful.

But the warm breezes, the frog chorus, soft rain or pounding storm, and the bird songs make the season.

For several years now we've been visited on by a pair of wrens. They nest in the bird box on the back porch, and in the bird condo out front, and probably in a few other spots which will remain a mystery to us. It is the habit of the wren to build a few false nest to throw off predators. As such they work all day every day gathering sticks and twigs and bits of whatever for their many nests. And as they work they sing. The sit on the fence or the deck railing or the clothes tree and lift their voices, and my spirits, in song.

Thank you, wren.