Oh, my, what a wonderful day

I had a rare treat today. I fixed lunch for the girl I grew up next door to. I thought I hadn't seen her in fifty years but she says she remembers coming to visit once--there's so much of my past I've forgotten. But when she walked into my house she said no, she hadn't been here before. Her husband, a retired Episcopalian priest and a wonderful man with a wry sense of humor, was with her, and we were joined by good friends of mine who are active in the Episcopalian church--they know each other from national church meetings. So there was much talk of Episcopalian politics (they are convoluted) but Judy and I found some time for reminiscing--and we need more time to do it again. We talked about her family and mine and incidents from childhood and books we read as youngsters--Albert Payson Terhune and Walter Farley--and we talked about going back to visit as adults. I truly wish we could spend two days, because already I've thought of so many things I didn't say, ask, whatever.
We sat on the porch for an hour, with hummus and crackers and then went inside for lunch. Fixing lunch for these people was a big deal for me, though I usually entertain easily. But I wanted this to be just right. I set a spring-like table with my mom's Susie Cooper china--a light turquoise border around a flowered center. The menu was curried chicken salad, fruit salad, bread, (I experimented with butter and used one that has olive oil and sea salt--couldn't tell the difference). Dessert was small mint chocolates. I think--hope--it was the perfect menu. I had thought to make a layered sandwich--slicing a round parmesan loaf into three layers and filling them with chicken salad, pimiento cheese and egg salad--but when I was at low ebb last week that seemed like way too much trouble and I changed the menu. I may still do that sandwich loaf sometime.
It's so lovely to call up past memories with someone who shared them with me...and we had little, odd moments to share: a Congo line for Dewey which led my dad to call me inside (he was a huge Democrat  and Judy's family was Republican), the time I had whooping cough and we finally talked over the fence, her grandmother who spent every day in a chair by the window that looked out on our house but assured my mom it was friendly interest. Wonderful stuff. The stuff memoirs are made of.
Then tonight Melinda from TCU Press picked me up for the annual dinner for Friends of the TCU Library. I saw people I was glad to see but a lot of people I didn't know and I missed a lot of faces I thought I'd see. Good dinner, generous happy hour, long acceptance speech (read from his book) from Rick Bass, winner of the TCU Texas Book Award. I'm not sure how long I'll keep attending such events but I was glad for a visit with Melinda and for a few people I saw and value--Paul Boller, Susan Hotard, Susan and Jim Smith, Sue and Alan Winter. I'm sure I've left some out.
A good day and I'm tired. 'Night all.

Larry L. King--a small tribute

I didn’t know Larry L. King well. In fact, in later years, I had to re-introduce myself to him every time I saw him. But I had the pleasure of working with him on several projects when I was director of TCU Press, and it really was a pleasure. Sure, I found him to be everything his obituaries say he was—larger than life, hard-drinking, hard living (though by most of the time I knew him  those days were over), and loud. I still remember standing in the hallway on the top floor of what was then, I think, the Texas Hyatt Hotel and cringing with embarrassment while he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “This is the goddamndest worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in!” And there was the night someone convinced the then-director of the press (thank heaven, not me) to pay an outrageous sum of money so we could bring Larry to Fort Worth to speak for an evening. Ten people showed up, and the book review editor from the newspaper fell asleep—a fact that Larry did not allow to stay secret. Yes, he had an ego—what writer doesn’t?—and he craved an audience, preferably a paying one. But he was one of the good guys.

The only major project I worked on with him was Larry L. King: A Writer’s Life in Letters, or Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. It’s a remarkable book, and I recommend it for a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of a truly complex man. He was a prolific correspondent and kept carbons—remember those things on onion-skin paper?—of every letter he wrote. After he donated all his papers—an unbelievable number of cartons—to the Southwest Writers Collection housed at Texas State University-San Marcos, he and Richard Holland collaborated to compile this collection of letters. Larry lived in D.C. since the 1950s and worked with Democratic politicians, knew the political scene, and was astute about it, as shows in many of his letters and some other writings, like the play The Dead Presidents’ Club. But he never forgot the West Texas of his childhood; it was the place that gave him identity and his strong identification with the Odessa-Midland area gave rise to some of his best writing, including many of the letters in this collection. They reveal a warm, tender, outrageously funny side to this man as he recounted, with love and irony, stories of his family and of his growing-up years. Some of his best essays also spring from his deep knowledge of the people of this region, their likes, prejudices, fears and joys.

When Willie Morris died, Larry wrote a heartfelt tribute to his old friend—no, not an obituary--a whole book. He sent it to TCU Press, and I spent a long weekend reading the manuscript and making editorial suggestions. Ultimately it went to a bigger, more prestigious press (that paid better than we ever could) but Larry wrote a kind letter of appreciation for my work and suggestions—and he sent me a signed copy of the book.

There were other, smaller crossings of our paths: once I was so bold to ask, and he blurbed a book for me. We re-published one of his plays—The Golden Shadows Old West Museum, based on a short story by Mike Blackman. He was the first emcee of the celebrity dinner at the Texas Book Festival, and he made a rousing good time out of what has become now a much tamer  event. From time to time, I saw him at later festivals. At every turn, I found him, under that bluff surface, to be a good, kind, and caring man.

I suspect in later life the hard living of his early years caught up with him—his obituary says emphysema—and I’m sorry about that. RIP Larry L. King. You brought a lot of humor and common sense to politics and to our view of Texas and Texans. You done good!

 

Rethinking my world

Maybe the holidays are a good time to stand back, look at your life, and rethink what you're doing. I've been charging merrily ahead, eyes always on the mystery I'm working on or the next one, but suddenly I've begun to wonder if that's what I want to do, if that's what I do best. All sorts of questions arise--if not mysteries, what? I won't, can't, don't want to give up writing, and I'd like to make money at it, but do I want to be in the oh-so-competitive world of cozy mysteries? Don't get me wrong--mystery writers are more supportive of each other than any group of people I've ever known, but there are so many of us that all except the stars are little fish in a big pond. When I was at TCU Press, I focused the list on Texas literature because that ultimately made us a big fish in a small pond. Is that my problem? Is it an ego problem?
In this day when independent authors are so much more accepted, and some making big bucks, do I need a publisher? Can I do for myself what they do? The answer is I doubt it, unless I come up with a smashing, unusual idea for a series. So far my cozies are, if I do say so, run-of-the-mill--they fit the genre nicely, they have interesting characters, they are a good cozy evening's read--at least I hope all those things are true. But they aren't breakthrough, mind-bogglingly wonderful.
I've just read the second of Susan Elia MacNeal's Maggie Hope series, about a young woman in England in the early years of WWII who ultimately becomes a spy--first a private secretary to Prime Minister Churchill where, believe me, she's privy to all sorts of secrets, and then in the second book as a "maths" tutor to Princess Elizabeth (now the Queen) and a spy sent to protect the young Lilibet. The history behind these books is solid, the plots good, and I'm hooked. It's the kind of thing I'd like to come up with.
When I first determined to write a mystery, I wanted one published mystery under my belt. Then, I told myself, I'd be happy. Of course it doesn't work that way--I've published three, a fourth is at the publisher, the fifth is written in draft, and I have plans for the sixth. Is that where I want to stop? I have no idea.
But the holidays are a good time to put all that on the back burner, where I truly do believe things simmer in your subconscious. I've started wrapping presents, and tonight I did my first baking--chocolate banana bread. This weekend, with everyone else already out of town, I'll decorate the house. I do love this time of year, and I do tend to put everything aside and focus on the holidays.

An amazing man

The TCU Bookish Frogs had one of their potluck supper/programs tonight. The speaker was a man who has long been a good friend but is known outside TCU as the best-selling author of popular books on the American presidency. Paul Boller came to TCU as a professor of intellectual history (that's what I always heard was his specialty, but we think of it as the presidency.) His books include Presidential Anecdotes, Presidential Campaigns, Presidential Wives and many others. At TCU Press, during my tenure, we were privileged to publish Memoirs of an Obscure Professor, the title being Paul's poke at a Chicago Tribune article's reference to him during the McCarthy days, when he was teaching at SMU. Among other things, the book contains an essay on his work as a Japanese translator during WWII. A man of many talents and great intellectual capacity, Paul was always a strong supporter of TCU Press during my years there; more recently, when the press was an endangered species, he stepped forward to ask, "What can I do to help?" And help he has.
Paul is, if what I hear is correct, 95 years old, and he's still tooling around town in a smart car.And he still gives a wonderful talk. Tonight he had us all laughing as he talked about his new book from TCU Press, Essays on the Presidents; Principles and Politics. No, folks, it's not a dull, political science text. It's a lively look at some of our presidents and the way they thought. For instance, there's a chapter on the presidents and Shakespeare, many of whom studied the bard and quoted him frequently. On the other hand, there's LBJ who, when presented a speech with a quote from Aeschylus, asked, "Aeschylus? The farmers aren't going to know who the hell Aeschylus was." When the speech writers said they'd immediately take the quote out, Johnson said, "No. Leave it in. I'll say my daddy said it." LBJ always liked to claim he was born in a log cabin until one day his mother turned on him irately and informed him, as he well knew, he wasn't born in a log cabin. Paul said it's his opinion that if Johnson hadn't inherited the Vietnam War, he'd have gone down in history as one of our great presidents because of his social programs. There's a chapter on "Bush-Speak"--referring to the first Bush. I once heard Paul give an after-dinner talk on this subject that was so funny women had mascara running down their cheeks and men were falling off their chairs in laughter--even Republicans. The final chapter is "They Really Said It: Quotes from the Presidents and their Wives"--I can't wait to read that one. Folks, if you're interested in politics or not, read this book. You'll laugh, and you'll learn a great deal about American history and the presidency. It may help put today into perspective. Did you know that in the early days of the government, it was considered rude for a candidate to speak on his own behalf, let alone ask for money? They had a derogatory term for it--electioneering.

A neat touch to the book and the evening: tonight they unveiled a portrait of Paul by Jeff Barnard, a longtime friend of Paul's who has, in his own words, been his carpenter and his driver on book tours as well as his friend. The portrait perfectly captures Paul's wit and sense of adventure. It serves in place of an author photo on the back flap of the book jacket.
P.S. The potluck supper was good, and people, including me, liked the ever-so-simple cobbler I made.

a literary evening with the Bookish Frogs

Lonn Taylor spoke to the Bookish Frogs tonight--mostly he read three short essays from his new book--but it was a delightful evening. With the Bookish Frogs, you get to meet and hear an author,  you get a terrific and interesting pot-luck supper (remember how much fun it is to discover who brought what?), and often  you get to see an amazing house. Such was the case tonight.
But first, Lonn Taylor. He lives in Fort Davis and writes a weekly column for the newspaper there. This compilation of his columns is not limited to the Big Bend area however but ranges widely over his interesting life and career--he was a curator at the UT Winedale Historical Center and was for twenty years a historian at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American HIstory. Best of all, he's a home-town boy who graduated from TCU, and one of the essays in his book is about little known bars that he frequented during his school years in the late '50s and early '60s. (Some of you may recognize one or two--just sayin'!). He also read a piece about his grandmother who, among other things, believed that your watch would stop if you rode a streetcar and that Abraham Lincoln was the illegitimate brother of Jefferson Davis. Fascinating stuff.
The food was good, the wine plentiful, and the house in which we met spectacular. It's in west Fort Worth, a '70s modern with a two-story living room (the current owners have added an almost-floor-to-ceiling bookcase with a ladder, and someone remarked to me that they were always so impressed by a bookcase with a ladder--me too!). They've kept the mirrors of the '70s, so that a good portion of the wall surrounding the fireplace is mirrored, and there's the most amazing powder room--every surface, even the inside of the door is mirrored. You can see parts of yourself you may never have seen before. I decided next time I needed someone to check my back for moles, I'd just call and ask if I could use their  powder room.The open entertaining aspect intrigued me the most--a wonderful long granite bar, with a sink, runs along one side of the dining room, with plenty of stools for seating. And the kitchen is spacious, open and gleaming. The dining room and kitchen walls are windows that look out on the narrowest of gardens, well maintained with gravel and unusual plant arrangements. A real treat to see.
If you like good  books and book people and you live in Fort Worth, you really should investigate the Bookish Frogs and support TCU Press. They have a Web page http://www.prs.tcu.edu/bookish_frogs.html, so check it out. See you at the next supper--and, hey, bring  your friends.

A riveting memoir--and the Bookish Frogs

Let me tell you about Gerald Duff. He's the author of fifteen books, with five coming out this year--poetry, novels, short stories. But I want to talk about his memoir, published (of course) by TCU Press. Home Truths is a memoir about growing up in Deep East Texas. Gerald spoke tonight to the Bookish Frogs, the friends group of the press, and it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've had in a while.
Home Truths, when I first read it, was titled Home Lies, because much of it is about  the lies he had to tell--and tell himself--to cope with growing up in a land of narrow-minded, fierce opinions where tradition rules over intellect or common sense. It's both a humorous book and a bittersweet one. Tonight his talk had  listeners laughing out loud, but there was much serious truth to it. He talked about the therapy of writing a memoir--how it makes you examine your life and get to know yourself, although he admitted there are some things in his life he still won't talk about, won't deal with. He quoted Socrates: "The unexamined life is a life not worth living." And he talked about guilt, that emotion that few of us escape.
But he also told funny stories--he believed his mother lied when she said she played basketball with Babe Didrikson Zaharias, until years later he saw a picture of the high school team that included both young women; the time he finally relented and confessed his faith in the Southern Baptist Church--well, I mean his faith in Jesus Christ but the confession was a ritual of the church--and he didn't feel any different afterward; the wedding of a cousin where the groom had a cigarette behind his ear, ready to light at any minutes. He was honest and forthright about the things that made him uncomfortable, but he could joke about the time he didn't recognize his second wife. He wove in advice he gave to students as he told anecdotes and read from the book, and he said that when he writes fiction, he gets one or two sentences down and sees what develops. He writes not plots but characters and sees where they will take him. It's a maxim I've heard all my writing life: listen to your characters. Now retired as a university administrator, Gerald used to write from 5:30 to 9:00 a.m. when he was working, and he believes that it's perspiration not inspiration that gets books written. It's also discipline--he aims for two pages  a day but now, with more time, he sometimes writes six or seven if the words are flowing. So, this was part memoir, part lesson in writing, and a lot of humor--a delightful evening. And the book will provide you with the same wonderful mix. I heartily recommend it.
A postscript about Bookish Frogs: for those of you who live in Fort Worth, it's a group that meets about every two months for a potluck supper--the food is delicious!--and to hear an author. Once a year there's a dinner, where every member gets a free copy of the press' "big" book from the year before. Interested? Write me at j.alter@tcu.edu. We'll be sending our information shortly after the new year.

Woohoo! A new cover

Here it is, the long-awaited cover to my forthcoming mystery. Guess I don't need to tell you the title, because there it is in big bold print. The publisher, Kim Jacobs of Turquoise Morning Press, was kind enough to consult me all along the way--neither of us liked the first mockup, apparently done by a designer. As Melinda at TCU Press said, it looked like it was a vampire story.  In this the final version, I'm a bit undertain about a skull (but then I'm the one who thought up a skeleton and suggested it for the cover art)--told Kim I think it's the teeth that bother me. LOL. But it is really appropriate to the book which, in spite of the title and skull, is a cozy mystery--amateur sleuth, no onstage violence, no lust--okay a sprinkling of longing. Anyway, I'm excited to have the cover because now I can build a new website and do all sorts of stuff to tell the mystery-reading world about my book. Launch date is August 29, presumably for e-book with print copy to follow in a week or so. If you're in Fort Worth, watch for a launch party at the Old Neighborhood Grill. When Peter suggested it, I said, "Perfect, because the Grill is mentioned in t he book several times."
I also did a guest blog today at Buried Under Books (http://www.cncbooks.com/blog/2011/06/14/searaching-for-ancestors-and-finding-stories/comment-page-1/#comment-73274). More of my Scottish adventures and a bit of family history, but it received lots of warm and favorable comments. All this re-living the trip online is making me ready to go back. Next week there'll be a guest blog on Scottish food--I loved it.
Meantime my own food blog is getting good reaction and response. Lots of people like it and I've had a couple of mentions of guest blogs. So I'm feeling pretty good about my "new" or "reborn" writing career. Retiring may be the best thing I ever did, much as I loved my work at TCU Press.
 Watch for another Potluck installment tomorrow, probably on tuna.  Did I hear a groan?

Among the Texas literati

Tonight was the annual banquet of the Texas Institute of Letters, and it was a grand night for TCU Press. The two major awards went to our authors--one to Jan Reid for the best novel, Comanche Sundown (TCU Press, 2010) and the lifetime achievement award (Lon Tinkle Award) to C. W. Smith, who has published several novels with us, including the forthcoming Steplings, a book about which we are all excited. (Sorry, folks, but I still consider myself a part of TCU Press in retirement.) In addition, two of our books were finalists in their categories--Edmund J. Davis of Texas, by Carl Moneyhon in the nonfiction category, and Smurglets are Everywhere, poetry by Alan Birkelbach with illustrations by Susan Halbower, in the juvenile category.
It was a fine evening of seeing old friends, people I've missed and wanted to see, meeting new people, seeing some I didn't know well but wanted to know better. I got hugs from Bob and Jean Flynn, Bob Compton, Fran Vick, Barbara Whitehead and Bruce; I visited with Susan Wittig Albert, a fellow mystery writer (she much more established than I), and said hello to countless people, some of whom have published with TCU and some not.
TIL is 75 years old this year, an organization founded to promote the appreciation of the literature of Texas. Membership is by invitation only, though the banquet, meetings, and awards are open to anyone. Sometimes in that group people's egos get in the way, but for the most part is a collegial bunch of writers who cheer for and support each other. TIL, with UT Austin, sponsors two annual six-month writing fellowships--fellows get to spend six months at J. Frank Dobie's Paisano Ranch devoting their time to writing, with rent and modest living expenses paid. Over the years, TIL has wisely elected young people to membership so that it's not one of those groups where everyone will go old at once.
All told, I'm proud to belong to it, and pleased to have been at the banquet in Dallas tonight. After all, I don't get to many banquets--and rarely to Dallas. We got stuck in an awful traffic jam on the bridge over the Trinity leading to downtown Dallas--there was no alternate route by which to escape. So maybe that's why I don't go to Dallas much.

Elmer Kelton

Raise  your hand if you've read a book by Elmer Kelton. Raise both hands if you've read The Time It Never Rained. That novel was the choice this year for the Mayor's Book Club in Burleson, a city adjoining Fort Worth, and Jim Lee and I presented a program tonight. Elmer, who died in 2009, was a Texas treasure, a man who wrote novels about the American West that weren't westerns. And The Time It Never Rained has been called one of the dozen or so best novels written by an American in the twentieth century.
Elmer was ranch born and raised but he was a bookish child with poor eyesight, and he never made a hand. HIs younger brothers could rope much better. His idea of watching the herd was to keep one eye on the cattle and the other on the book he'd propped up in his saddle. As he neared high school graduation, he told his father he wanted to study journalism, and in his words his father gave him a look "that could have killed Johnson grass" and said, "That's the trouble with you kids. You don't want to work for a living." Elmer studied at UT, his education interrupted by WWII, from which he brought home an Austrian bride and her son. He began publishing in Ranch Romances, a popular magazine, and then writing pulp, formulaic novels for Ballentine Books. In the 1970s he broke out of the stereotype with The Day the Cowboys Quit, a novel about the cowboy strike at Tascosa in the 1880s. As in all of Elmer's books, the research behind the story was thorough and impeccable. Other major novels during the 1970s included Stand Proud, The Man Who Rode Midnight, The Wolf and the Buffalo, The Good Old Boys, and, of course, The Time It Never Rained, all published by Doubleday.
For forty years, while writing novels, Elmer worked as an agricultural journalist, most of those years as editor of Livestock Weekly, the weekly bible for West Texas ranchers. He traveled to auctions and sat in coffee shops and absorbed the people and the land. It was his country, and he spoke their language. He said once he wrote Time because it became harder and harder to write a story about the drought. There were only so many ways he could say, "It isn't raining." He wrote the novel but New York publishers rejected as a quiet agrarian novel; in the early 1970s, he rewrote it completely and it was published.
Elmer liked to put characters in a time of change and see how they react. In Time, Charlie Flagg, a rancher getting on in years, sees change all around him. The seven-year-drought of the 1950s causes him to sell his cattle and raise sheep; then sell his sheep and raise goats. He loses his leased land and has to take a mortgage on what he owned free and clear. Others are taking government aid, but Charlie refuses. He had always been the patron, but relationships between Anglos and Mexicans are changing. His son leaves the ranch for the rodeo circuit, marries a floozy from Dallas. The fire has gone out of Charlie's own marriage. And yet he clings to what he knows is right; he plods ahead day by dogged day. This is a story of West Texas and the kind of people who survived in that dry, unforgiving, and unpredictable land, the land that Elmer knew so well. No spoilers here except to say that Elmer didn't believe in tying things up in neat little packages. That's not, he explained to me once, how life happens.
If you haven't read Time, maybe you saw the Tommy Lee Jones movie of The Good Old Boys. That book too is a good place to start dipping into Elmer's sixty-plus novels. TCU Press has reprint editions of many of the major ones (1.800.826.8911 or http://www.prs.tcu.edu/).
Elmer Kelton died in August 2009. I miss him still. There's not a book festival, historical meeting, or literary gathering where I don't still expect to see him. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around a world without Elmer. In tribute to that feeling, Jim Lee and I edited Elmer Kelton: Essays and Memories, now available from TCU Press. Elmer was one fine writer and one great and humble man.

Smurglets--they're everywhere, plus Friday the 13th

In September, TCU Press will publish a book of children's poetry titled Smurglets Are Everywhere, poetry by 2005 Texas poet laureate Alan Birkelbach and illustrations by my neighbor, Susan J. Halbower. It's absolutely a magical book. So the picture above shows six of my seven favorite smurglets. When the seventh, who was sick, made it to the picture, his oldest cousin made awful faces, so I chose this one to post instead. I wanted to post the book's front cover, but it's a pdf and they won't post to blogger. Take my word for it--it's wonderful. And if you look closely enough, you can make it out on the T-shirts above. Maddie's T-shirt somehow didn't make it to Frisco so I gave her my XL shirt. She clowned about the way it hung on her, but tweens are so clever--she rolled up the sleeves, tied it in the back, and it looks great. She opted however to give it back to me and get one that would really fit her.
Computer dependency is awful, but boy do I have it. Last night when I turned my computer off, it froze at "Please do not power off or unplug. Updating 2 of 11." I went to bed, but this morning it still said the same thing, so I did the unforgiveable and powered it off. It wouldn't start. A long weeked of no e-mail, no writing on my novel, no Facebook, nothing, loomed before me. Sure I could spend it reading, and I have a lot of cooking to do, but still. I called Jamie, because he bought it and I didn't know whether to call Sony or take it back to Best Buy or wherever he got it. He talked me through turning it off, taking out the battery, and putting it back in. Magic! The computer worked, though it's made me nervous all day. It's only five months old, so I didn't think it should crash. Of course, Jamie began the conversation with "Do you have backup? You've lost everything," followed by "Just joking." He's so good at that. So there I was back in business. When he returned my call this morning, I was in the bedroom and asked him to hold on while I went to the office. He said he would but by the time I got to the office, the phone was dead. I thought the world was conspiring against me, but he called back quite quickly. Then when I scanned my card in the little machine at the grocery, the machine went beserk. I'm afraid to touch anything else mechanical today. It's truly Friday the 13th. I think it was also 105 today. Both good reasons to say in, which I've done since the grocery store.

New projects--and a day with Jacob

My work at TCU Press, even in retirement, is winding down. The new director starts June 1. He's someone I've known, respected, and liked a lot, and I'm pleased as punch. It was nice to be weaned from the press, rather than abruptly separated, but now I'll have to turn my attention to other projects, although I still expect to have minimal involvement with the press. Tonight I finally outlined that mystery I've been working on (most English teachers wouldn't call it an outline--it'sless than half a page, but I know what's going to happen and whodunit), and I'm ready to go back to it. I also have what I think is a cool idea for a nonfiction Texas book, but I need to do some exploration before I'm ready to present a proposal. It's a book that I don't think has been done before--but, shoot, I'm not sharing the idea with anyone, even on this blog.
I'm also going to have to work harder at building my social schedule--I don't like days without any social contact, and I don't have many of them. But if I'm to stay at home and write all day, I need to make sure I have human contact as many days as possible. I'm not cut out to be a recluse.
In the last months of my discontent, when I've been voraciously reading instead of writing, I have I think absorbed a lot about the structure of mysteries--and the things I like about some, don't like about others. I'm hoping that will send me back to the Blue Plate Cafe series with renewed enthusiasm, although probably not until Monday. This weekend will be occupied with grocery shopping, cooking, family, etc. Already I'm wondering how to fit it all in, but Megan wants to take her boys to visit Uncle Charles, which I think is a swell idea. So it will be hectic--gosh, I might even have to give up my afternoon nap!
Jacob didn't feel well today, had a slight fever, and Jordan was hesitant to send him to school where he'd run, play and get all tired out, so after I went to the store, I had him for the rest of the day. He was cheerful, mostly wanted to watch a DVD,ate a good lunch but did nap for two hours. I went in to tell him it was time to turn off the TV and sleep, but he was already sound asleep. Later, he insisted, "I didn't shut my eyes." Sure, Jacob. When his mom came, a little after five, we were outside. Jacob has been following a particular small spider in my garden, and today he announced it's still there. Some bugs scare him,and others fascinate him--he was frantic when he thought I was going to hurt the spider when all I was reaching to do was dead-head a coreopsis.
After Jacob and Jordan left, Sue, my former neighbor, arrived for a glass of wine on the porch like old times, and we had a good visit. There was just the slightest hint of cool in the breeze. We're predicted to have storms this evening, but so far none. They're in the air, though, because Scooby overturned his dinner dish and didn't eat the food--a desperate sign on his part.

Spring weekend, Jacob and cooking

What a lovely weekend. Sunny and a perfect temperature all weekend. Last night, Jay came over with a beer, and we waited for Jacob to arrive and his Susan to come home. When Jordan arrived with Jacob, they joined us on the porch, and then Jordan's friend Julia came to pick her up--so we had an impromptu happy hour. Jay is so good with Jacob--he came inside and sat with us while we ate, and Jacob ate a tuna burger with melted cheddar on it, inside a bun, dipped in ketchup. Hooray! I didn't have to fix chicken nuggets.  Jacob and I had a pleasant evening, but this morning he was a bit of a grouch (he often is in the morning) and his grandmother had not put his nighttime diaper on so that it didn't leak--wet spot on the bed, which made him grumpier and a laundry for me to do.
Tonight old and good friends came for supper--I fixed an al fresco dinner, though we only had appetizers on the porch--store-bought hummus that I'd doctored with olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes chopped up,
marinated feta, and pita chips. For dinner I served a cold platter--strips of chicken and salmon, deviled eggs, artichoke hearts, cherub tomatoes, carrots, strips of Manchego cheese, half ears of corn (so sweet I longed for the whole ear)--the kind of food I love. Mary asked if I could fix that again in August, please. Paula brought gelato for dessert--so good! It's fun to visit with people you don't see very often, because you talk about ideas and concepts and things of the mind, though we lapsed into a lot of talk about cats. Still, it was a lovely evening, and we did talk about the museum district and the parking problem (Ron is director of the Amon Carter) and TCU Press and all sorts of matters. Makes me happy with my life to be with friends like that.
On to next week--once again I hope to work on my novel. I think I've finished my addiction to the series about the Blackbird sisters, but more about that another evening.
Jamie participated in a triathlon in Galveston today--I tracked his time on a website, but I don't know if he will have been pleased or disappointed. Waiting to hear. As always, I'm proud of him for his competitive spirit and his dedication to fitness.

Friends, after a bad week

It's amazing how friends can raise your spirits--as can good food. Last night Betty and I had dinner at a new Mediterranean restaurant which shall go unnamed because we weren't much impressed--hummus was bland, not enough garlic, dolma with lamb didn't have much flavor (I couldn't taste lamb at all!), and Betty said her Greek salad didn't have much character. So, even in spite of a good review in the paper and one friend's opinon that the hummus was the best in town, we won't be going back. Still we had a good visit and laughed a lot.
Tonight Jordan, Christian, Jacob and I met friends Elizabeth and Weldon at Chadra, a Lebanese/Italian restaurant down the street from me (the hummus is wonderful), and had a great dinner and lots of fun. Jacob was in an awful mood before we got there, but he decided he liked Elizabeth and Weldon a lot and was charming during dinner. Christian had never eaten at Chadra and was curious, so he had the buffet and loved it--this from the picky eater. I've had the buffet and eaten way too much, so now I'm cautious, but I love some of their lamb dishes. Tonight I split a kid's order of spahettini marinara with Jacob, and we were both more than satisfied.
Besides that, it was fun. Elizabeth is someone I brag about--she was a student worker in our office for about two and a half years some sixteen years ago or more, and we've stayed close. Family and friends were cautious about Weldon at first but have now heartily welcomed him into the family--an evening spent with them is always a delight to me.
It was good to have such an evening, after a week that has been awful. I went to the dentist, gynecologist, and haircut person--who told me I had lice eggs (fortunately not hatched) in the back of my hair, we had a major crisis at TCU Press, and I gained quite a bit of weight last week. So today I felt down and out, ready for the boost of an evening with family and friends. I did buy the special shampoo, wash all the sheets, the dog's bed, etc., and spray everything that couldn't be washed. We inspected Jacob's hair but he is not guilty. Don't know where I picked the critters up, but Rosa, who cuts my hair, said lice love a clean head. Some small comfort.
Sometimes you're just down, when a series of not-so-pleasant things happen.To me, that's the time to draw back, reassess, and not push yourself. I didn't do anything constructive at all today--just read a mystery. I have an essay to write, a class to plan, and a mystery to write. I blew it all off. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Work and rain

That's what my life seems to consist of this week--work and rain. Even though they predict an end to rain, it continues--nice cool days but rain! Often not enough for an umbrella--just enough to make me look like a drowned rat. And work--accidentally spent most of the morning at TCU Press yesterday. Got there about 9:30 and got involved until it was time for me to go meet a friend for lunch. Today was staff meeting, but I was out of there pretty quickly after that. I've decided to put the Google Book Settlement aside for a while and concentrate on reading manuscripts that are piling up. Next week, the office staff goes to sales meeting in College Station--meeting at the office at 6:30, so praise be I'm not going! So there's no staff meeting all week, and I hope to put TCU Press pretty much out of mind and concentrate on the chapter I need to do for the history of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. Yesterday I got the manuscript I edited for Texas Tech Press off to the author for his final approval. Wonder if I'll ever get back to writing mysteries.
The only break in my work/rain routine has been meals. Yesterday I met Mary Volcansek, who's pretty much the power behind the Center for Texas Studies ast TCU, and we talked about publishing projects plus, since we're good friends, had a pleasant visit. We ate at the Swiss Pastry Shop where I always order bratwurst, potato salad, and sauerkraut--I do NOT want to talk about what that did to my point count for the day Came home and realized I had 2.5 points left for a glass of wine and supper. Didn't quite make it, but had lost a tiny bit of weight when I weighed this morning.
Today I met Nancy Olson for lunch--we ate at the Modern Museum of Art which has a lovely dining room overlooking a huge pond, lined with gravel and beautifully landscaped. It's fun to sit at the window with the water lappng up right next to you. The Modern is noted for sophisticated food--but I rarely eat there because I don't find much on the menu I want. Today I had a salad with lime-tequila dressing (so far so good) and tortilla strips--well they were hard to eat, and as Nancy said, they went one direction in your mouth while the salad went the other. Nancy and I have been friends since the mid-60s when I first came to Fort Worth. She and Ray have lived in Santa Fe for, oh, at least 15 years now, and I treausre my visits with her. As we were finishing our lunch, she said, "Okay, who haven't we talked about?"
Tonight Betty and I went to the Tokyo Cafe, which is rapidly becoming our favorite--I think I'm addicted to wasabi. But I had miso-cured carpaccio in a sauce of molasses and balsamic vinegar--so good. And then salmon sashimi. I figured I'd had my salad at lunch and could eat protein.
Back to the manuscript I'm reading, which I think is really good. It makes me want to keep reading, and few enough do that.