Resting on the Sabbath – maybe

Sundays always just “feel” different to me. Maybe it’s because even in quarantine I know I’m going to church. This morning, Jordan wanted to “attend” the nine o’clock service because she wanted to spend mid-day at a neighbor’s pool. So I was barely up and into my morning routine when we put everything on hold for church. Another inspiring service, with Russ Peterman’s theme of “What Now?” After Easter, what now? What lasting impact does the Easter miracle have on our lives?

This morning he talked about anxiety and said his family decided they didn’t yet have enough stress and anxiety in quarantine, so they adopted a border collie puppy. He showed clips, and she is adorable but energetic with both puppy playfulness and border collie unquenchable enthusiasm for life. The clip showed her deviling the family’s older dog—biting at her ear, her collar, her face. The older dog’s look, according to Dr. Peterman, said, “Are you just going to sit there and let her do this?”

I could identify because Sophie is half border collie. Now, at nine, she is more sedate but she was wildness on wheels as a puppy. Dr. Peterman said it was actually a good time for a puppy because everyone was home and could train her. I remembered that I didn’t get Sophie until I was retired and home 24/7 with her. And I remembered my  scratched and bitten arms. One Sunday Jordan was so embarrassed by them she urged me to wear long sleeves to church.

After church, I piddled. I decided I would not work. I would take a rest from my novel. So I dawdled on Facebvook and read the entirety of the New York Times Community Cooking page. Then the Sisters in Crime posts, and truly whatever. But I knew in the back of my mind that I was avoiding the novel because my mind was in turmoil about where it should go next.

So I reviewed the notes I had made, and almost before I knew it, I was writing. I didn’t add much but it got me off dead center, and I went back and plugged some holes in the plot consistency, added some motivation.

But when I took my usual afternoon nap, I couldn’t sleep because I was still writing that novel. Woke with notes of things I must plug in tomorrow. I fear I am at the point where the novel is with me night and day. When I told Jordan it was costing me sleep, she said that’s the time you take a vacation from it. She’s right, and I should have done it today.

So chalk up one more day of distancing. Twelve of Jacob’s friends went to lunch today, and he was uncertain what to tell them about why he didn’t go. Jordan suggested, “I didn’t go because I don’t want to kill my grandmother.” I appreciated that. Much as I don’t like the idea, I can see two years of mostly being quarantined. Infections and deaths are already spiking where re-opening is happening, and I look with horror at people shown on TV eating on patios, shopping, going to the beach—all without maks. But we are also hearing that some of the most adamant protestors—a pastor, a bar owner, etc..—who decried the isolation policy are dying. I’ll stay home, thank you, and I am grateful that my family is protecting me—and themselves.

No more shaggy

You know how good you feel when you get a fresh haircut? It makes you suddenly realize how shaggy you looked before. That’s what happened at the Alter/Burton compound today. We got the trees trimmed—and there are a lot of trees on the property, including some magnificent oaks, one that I’ve watched grow into maturity since I moved here. We also have a black walnut (that’s what I was told), a hackberry that probably isn’t long for this world, a big old elm out front that anchors the house and I worry and pray about a lot, and lots of trees that started life as bushes and, before my day, grew into trees.

After the trimming, light filtered down onto the driveway through the open trees. Jacob said it looked “weird,” but I thought it looked wonderful. Our neighbors, Jim and Katey Carmical, will be glad that now their crape myrtles will get enough sun that they might bloom next spring. Our neighbor on the other side had a specific limb he wanted trimmed off a tree that obviously started life as a volunteer—it’s in a strange place for a tree—and that’s done. The tree men even rescued the football that’s been on the roof, in the gutter, for two or three years.

The crew was polite, careful, and meticulous about cleaning up. A good experience all around. Maybe tomorrow in the daylight I’ll get some pictures.

Today I also finished the major revision of my new mystery, tentatively titled “Murder at the Bus Depot.” I really like “Dealing with Delia”—fits the story but not the pattern of titles for my Blue Plate Café mysteries. I’ll send it to my beta reader in a day or two and see how he votes on the titles. After his suggestions—he always has wonderful ones—I’ll go back and do another revision read-through. Amazing the typos you find each time. The book will be out sometime in the spring.

You may think if I just finished it, it should be out sooner, but there’s so much to be done between “The End” and publication—beta readers, editor, formatting, advance copies, guest blog posts, etc. If I were smart, I’d plan an entire marketing campaign, but I don’t seem to be good at that. I went all out with Pigface and the Perfect Dog—publicist, guest blogs and radio spots, advance copies, big signing party, etc., and it’s disappointed me. Only one review on Amazon, slow sales, though those who’ve read it assure me they liked it a lot. If you’ve read it, I’d be grateful for an Amazon review—two sentences is plenty (I think Amazon wants twenty words). Okay, enough whining.

Nice lunch today with my beta reader (and friend and advisor of over forty years plus—he shepherded me through graduate school), his wife, and a friend we only recently found we shared. Lunch at our favorite deli, good conversation a little about writing and a lot about travel. I am not an easy nor avid traveler, but I do have a bucket list. More about that another time.

Procrastination

Writers have many ways of avoiding that empty computer screen—some clean the bathroom, others scrub floors or wash windows, a few go for long walks (for inspiration, of course), still others dig in the garden or mow the lawn. My preferred method of procrastination is cooking, so today, the day I had marked to charge back into my work-in-progress, I made black bean soup and pesto.

I’ve shared my recipe for black bean soup here before, so I won’t repeat it. Suffice to say it is one of those things that I cannot make without spraying it all over the kitchen—counter, wall, floor. The pesto went a bit better, but I also cannot cook without spilling, so now my relatively clean jeans have a big spot of olive oil on them. In my own defense, I will say that cooking from a seated walker is not easy—lots of standing up and sitting down, Probably good exercise.

I am not faithful about my exercises these days. I think that hospital stay demoralized me in more ways than one, and my walking program has taken a backward slide. Some days I can’t imagine walking unassisted. When I say I can’t walk, everyone from my daughters to the technologist at a mammogram yesterday says to me that I am walking, just not alone. So that remains my goal, and days like today when the difficulty of cooking, making the bed, even getting dressed when you have to wheel from one place to another fill me with determination to reach that goal.

But then my days are so busy they get away from me, and I realize it’s nine o’clock and I haven’t exercised, and I’m too tired. Mind you, these are not strenuous exercises—some are done in my desk chair and some standing at a grab bar in the bathroom. But they are tedious. I need to put myself on a rigorous schedule where exercise comes first in the morning (my best time), followed by time spent on the work-in-progress until I reach my daily goal of a thousand words. Takes will power to do that.

On a bright note, I wrote about 500 words on the WIP today. Number four in the Blue Plate Mysteries. Some days I think it’s great; other days I wonder what fool wrote that drivel. Tentative title: “Murder at the Bus Depot.”

A long, lazy Saturday

Okay, folks. I know I was a day off and a dollar short last night when I posted about Friday Fun—I mean Thursday Fun but Thursday doesn’t lend itself nearly as well to alliteration. And truth be told, I was a day off in my mind. Today, I know it’s Saturday.

Because it was a long, slow Saturday for Sophie and me out in the cottage, with only glimpses of Jordan and Christian. I often start Saturday slowly, somehow picking up the vacation atmosphere of the day even though my workdays are far from rigorous. But today I decided to take a vacation and bury myself in a book. It’s been a busy time, and I wanted to empty my mind. Also, just a possibility—I’m avoiding going back to the work-in-progress. I’ve now left it twice, and I’m uncertain about the last 10,000 words or so. I know the ending, but I’m not sure how to get there. Monday, ah Monday.

So tonight, I’m half way through what I think is the first Christian mystery I’ve read. I’ve seen posts about Christian fiction forever and wondered exactly what characterizes it. In this case the novel is not openly labeled Christian but clues give it away, although the author is someone whose work I’ve admired for a long time. This has a Bible study group solving crimes—first clue—and an engaged couple who are far too distant with each other and concerned about virginity (of course they don’t openly say it that way, but in one instance a vague “it” seems to refer to marital relations). In this day and age, I find that a bit unrealistic.

It’s not the Christian elements that made me a little disappointed in the book. I think it was the long buildup to the first murder. I am truly a believer in action (probably murder) in the first chapter. In this novel, there was a long spell of Bible Study meeting and a day-long picnic, with full landscape description, before I got to—aha! a body! In the woods. Meantime I was checking to make sure the book was truly classified as a mystery. After the murder, I was much more engaged in it. No, I’m not divulging the title or author—I really like the woman who wrote it.

Nor was the mystery quite enough to take my mind off the troubling news of the day I saw someone refer to Trumpf as President Embarrassment, and I may start using that title. But like many today, I am struck by his vitriol against sports players and his pardon of Joe Arpaio. Add to that his apparent unconcern with rescue efforts in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Besty DeVos has changed rules about campus rape to give rapists more respect—is she truly serious? And the Trumpf/Kim Jong Un war of words escalates. We keep hearing that conclusive evidence of Trumpf’s collusion with Russia is near—could we please have it before he and the North Korean dictator blow the world up in fits of ego? And always once again, there is the suspense about what greedy Republicans will do about the Obamacare repeal. The website for Obamacare will be down for maintenance during the enrollment period—did I really hear that correctly? I do know Republicans have tried to bribe Senator Murkowski by allowing Alaska to keep Obamacare. Can they legally do that?

So much in this world to worry about, and I find it more on my mind these days.