A day gone amuck chases away the doldrums

 

If a day could go amuck, this one did. I could have happily lingered in bed this morning. Sophie was asleep and not desperate for food, and I was comfortable, trying to recapture a pleasant dream. But I had things to do—groceries would be delivered at ten, company was coming for happy hour and supper. And there was a to-do list on my desk.

Along about nine-thirty I realized I’d never gotten a confirmation from Central Market nor the cheery email which says, “We’re working on it.” Checked my computer and twenty-seven items were still in my cart. Rescheduled the order for late afternoon.

Then Jean emailed that she had picked up some kind of bug and would not be leaving her apartment today. I was sorry but of course grateful she didn’t bring us whatever it was. Then the happy hour guests cancelled—a long story, but it meant I had to quick cancel one errand I’d asked Christian to include on his morning run.

And finally, Jordan came out and said she and Christian hadn’t communicated well and they wouldn’t be eating with me tonight because good friends were having a birthday dinner party for their daughters. There went my plans for good appetizers and crab nachos for supper. I hastily refroze the crab. Maybe we’ll have it tomorrow, maybe we won’t. I should learn that I am alone in my compulsion to plan ahead!

So what do you do when you’re home alone for dinner on Saturday night? You fix a cold salad plate with a small can of salmon. And use some of that huge container of guacamole I ordered this morning.

And so is the fact that I wrote 800 words this morning, may do more tonight. I’m not sure if the day going amuck chased away the doldrums or not, but I wrote those words in less than an hour. Of course, I’ve not re-read them. They may all need to be deleted, but for the time they moved the story ahead.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing today, and I’ve decided I’m a bit defensive about my writing. On a small writers’ listserv that I really value there’s been a thread about magical realism, one of those literary terms I never can quite grasp (I don’t think anyone talked about it when I was in grad school). A couple of posts really helped me grasp it, especially one linking the movement to the spirit world of Latina culture and citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So this morning I was all primed to enter my two cents worth, as the author of cozy mysteries, but overnight the thread had taken a deep turn into mythology, Greek and Norse and other, and Jungian archetypes and the like. Here’s a confession: that stuff is too deep for me.

I may have dealt more seriously with history when I was writing about women of the American West, but these days I am a storyteller. I write to give readers a good story, something to engage, amuse, puzzle them, and something to distract them briefly from the daily grind. Entertainment writing. I make no claim to plumbing the depths of the human psyche or tracing the origins of certain behaviors, or changing a reader’s life. That is not to say that a good mystery can’t weave in elements of the spirit life or insights into humanity—it should, but that’s not the reason for the story.

Right now I’m reading an older Murder, She Wrote, subtitled Highland Fling. I picked it up because of the Scottish setting. Turns out the setting involves a lot about the history and punishment of witches in Scotland—surely an element of the spiritual life (if a negative one) and mythology of its own, when you think back to the sixteenth century and the brutal punishments inflicted on suspected witches (specifically in this book, a pitchfork through the heart and a cross carved into the throat—pretty brutal for a Jessica Fletcher’s story). When a contemporary murder imitates that, Jessica must find the villain (if you’ve read any of the books, you’ll know the pattern.) To me, it’s crackling good reading, with just enough history, Scottish culture and landscape, food and brogue to lighten the mystery, and it’s fun. When I finish this blog, I’ll go back to it.

One of my core beliefs is that we each must leave the world a bit better than we found it, and sometimes that worries me in relation to my writing. I think of it as light stuff, not world-changing, and maybe I should be putting whatever skills I have to better use. My friend, Susan Wittig Albert, a prolific and popular writer, assures me that by bringing readers pleasure, I am contributing to the well-being of the world. Her China Bayles mysteries always have an underlying social theme, whereas my Irene stories don’t. But I’m working on that.

Enough rambling. I want my salmon supper and then I’ll settle down with Jessica. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Stay happy and cool. Sweet dreams.

 

Recipes & remedies

Recipes & Remedies                   

Please welcome my Wednesday guest, Connie Spittler. Her writing is found in twenty anthologies next to the words of The Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Desmond Tutu and Barbara Kingsolver. She’s written two award-winning nature books, a previous novel, a creative nonfiction book, and The Wise Women Video Series, archived in Harvard University’s Library on the History of Women in America. A graduate of Creighton University, she lives with her husband in Omaha, NE, next to a secret pond visited by mink, fox, a Great Blue Heron and other lurking wildlife.  

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Like colorful, connective threads, the power of recipes and remedies tie a family together. As a grade schooler, I remember picking radishes from our garden and thickly slicing them for a bread and butter sandwich. The most important part of the recipe was sitting on the back steps savoring the buttery crunch experience as the sun went down. This recipe, including back steps and sundown was passed on to my own kids.

I’ve heard of family members who go to great lengths to keep their food traditions alive, like the Mexican/American women who crossed the border with sprigs of moistly-wrapped herbs tucked in their bras. Plucked from relatives’ back yards, the bits of green were rooted and planted in their U. S. garden plots. My apologies to the USDA and rules prohibiting such smuggling. The sentiment that appeals to me is the importance of keeping heirloom ingredients intact for family recipes and remedies.

In The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies, my cozy mystery, the recipes and remedies belong

to Aggie, one of the club members. She’s an old gypsy turned herb and vegetable farmer who stirs up boiled parsnips with rosemary butter, oxtail stew, nut pudding, and a headache-curing tea of ginger, honey, lemon and cayenne. Her mixtures come from her own family recipe book, handed down from European ancestors. The scent of dill, the bitterness of yarrow, garnishes of dandelion greens and chive blossoms flavor the pages as she cures and cooks for book club members. Perhaps her most unusual recipe is for an aphrodisiac tea, an elixir composed of five herbs, one of which is imaginary. I didn’t want to be responsible for any bizarre reader reactions, in case an exact recipe was included and worked.

Aggie is one of three (it’s a small town) book club members. There’s middle-aged Lily, the fired and lonely librarian; and Piper, the young beauty shop owner, who’s fearful after finding a lump in her breast. Since they’re nice ladies, their erotica selections begin with Emily Dickinson’s Wild Nights! Wild Nights! But meetings are often cut short because of crime and a murder or two as the women become entangled in a search for a stolen ancient book of herbal cures.  

Called “a fantastical romantic mystery of friendship, science, sex and literature” by Sallly Deskins, editor of Les Femmes Folles, the release date for The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies is May 1, 2015. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon, print or eBook. http://www.Amazon.com/dp/0991409361

Susan Wittig Albert, author of Bittersweet, the newest China Bale mystery, described the book as “an intriguing, herb-seasoned page-turner” while Margaret Lukas, author of Farthest House found elements reminiscent of Alice Walker’s magic realism.

For more book info: www.conniespittler.com