mimi's Black Magic Chili

Tonight is the church's Halloween Hoedown and the return of the church-wide Chili Cookoff. If there's one thing that's pretty certain in church-related cooking contests, it's that the Bero/Gaston women will do very well. Mama, aka Miss Carolyn, is famous for her homemade soups and ridiculously good pecan shortbread, while middle sis, Cigi, makes a chocolate thing so good it ought to be illegal. I've managed to take prizes in a choir-sponsored lasagna throwdown (Chicken Marsala Florentine Lasagna), a firefighter-judged Italian Sausage Macaroni and Cheese, and two chili cookoffs. I've placed with both a white chicken version, Not-So-Dumb-Blonde Chili, and a black bean concoction I made up one morning that turned out pretty darned well.

There's a chill in the air this morning (okay, 66°, but that counts as chill in Central Florida), so I have something in the crock for tonight. If it's legitimately cold up your way, you're welcome to mix up a batch for yourself and warm up, Florida style. Here's the recipe:

mimi's Black Magic Chili

1 lb. fresh chorizo
1 sweet onion, diced
1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, divided
1 T garlic (2-3 cloves, minced)
1 can Ro-Tel diced tomatoes and green chiles
5 cans black beans, drained (leave some liquid)
4 T sofrito
2 T oregano
1 T Everglades Heat
1-1/2 T cumin
2 T key lime juice
olive oil

In a large frying pan, simmer the chorizo in a cup or so of water until cooked through. While chorizo is simmering, dice onion and four of the chipotle peppers (with their sauce). Store remaining peppers for another recipe. Remove chorizo from pan and cut into bite-sized slices. Drain pan, drizzle with olive oil, and return to heat. Sauté onion, pepper, and garlic until onion is transparent; add Ro-Tel and chorizo; cook until well-blended and chorizo is starting to crumble. In 5-qt. Crock Pot. combine beans, sofrito, spices, and lime juice. Add chorizo mixture and stir to combine. Cook on low 6-8 hours or high for 4 hours. Yummy with shredded cheese, sour cream, and blue corn tortilla chips.

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Newbery Project: 1920s

Some time back, I began a project to read all of the books that have been awarded the Newbery Medal. After scanning the list of winners, I realized that I'd only read a dozen or so of the books, the earliest of which was written in 1949 (Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind). So delving into the list at the beginning seemed a good way to tackle it. Unfortunately, a couple of ridiculously busy school years threw a giant roadblock into my progress, but I think I have my momentum back. For now, I'll space out the posts I've already created so you won't have a Newbery barrage! As I progress through the list, I'll review my thoughts on each decade's choice (the Medal was first awarded in 1923) and select my favorite work from each decade.

Let's just say that children's reading habits really have changed. Most of the books I checked out from the library were long--several hundred pages each. In reverse order, here are the titles:

The History of Mankind by Henrik Willem van Loon - He's not kidding. He started with aaaaaaaaaaancient history (think primordial soup) and covered most major world events through the end of the first World War. Surprisingly, the writing was quite engaging. It was the hardest slog, though, probably because it was nonfiction (not my favorite genre).

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting - I kept picturing Rex Harrison, especially when they finally met the Great Glass Sea Snail. Apparently, this book has had to be revised to take out some of the more offensive language common for the 20s that would not fly these days.

Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger - This is a collection of stories from South America illustrated with woodcuts. I'm still wondering what a "gentle huanaco" is. I'm thinking llama, but I could be wrong.

The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes - A pirate-y kind of tale. Slow going at first, like a ship pulling out of the harbor, but plenty of skullduggery to keep things moving as you go along.

Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman - Another story collection with silhouette illustrations this time. All of these are Chinese, but none were familiar.

Smoky, The Cow Horse by Will James - Since I've never fully outgrown my Misty of Chincoteague phase, I figured I'd like this one, and I did. Will James was a self-taught writer and artist, and I have to say that this book is an excellent example of strong authorial voice. A book on tape of this title would demand Sam Elliott as its reader.

Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji - By the time I got to this book, I started to feel that the early Newbery committee members were making a conscious effort to introduce American children to other cultures. This one is set in India and the central characters are Indian natives, but it definitely nods its head to the country's ruler at the time, Great Britain. Gay-Neck, the pigeon, ends up as a carrier pigeon for an Indian regiment fighting with the British in France during WWI. I liked it more than I thought I would.

The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly - Historical fiction that blends Polish history, the Heynal played four times at the hour from the Church of Our Lady Mary in Krakow, alchemy, and intrigue. What exactly is Joseph's father hiding in that pumpkin shell? Who are those creepy Tartars following the family from the Ukraine to Krakow? And will the Alchemist Kreutz discover how to transmute brass into gold?

And my favorite is...

The Trumpeter of Krakow!

Props to Eric Kelly for writing a gripping story that manages to teach you a heck of a lot about medieval Poland at the same time. I love historical fiction anyway, and this book, even though written for children, was complex and interesting. If you're able to find the pictured copy (like I was; I think my public library bought it as a first edition), spend some time with the great illustrations. Janina Domanska has done a marvelous job evoking medieval art with her chapter illustrations.

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Digging for the Pony

Most of us have heard the story about the man who wanted to teach an optimist a lesson. He'd finally had enough of the optimist's good nature, sunny outlook, and buoyant spirit. Frankly, the optimist bugged the living daylights out of him. So, he filled the optimist's room with manure. Instead of freaking out (as most people would), the optimist grabbed a shovel and got to work. After all, the optimist reasoned, with all this manure, "There just has to be a pony in here somewhere!"

Normally, I totally identify with the pony-loving optimist. I lean toward the bright side like plants turn their leaves to the sun. I look for the good side in people whose good side might measure .3 micrometers in width. Despite multiple encounters to the contrary, I generally assume that folks will live up to my expectations that they be honest, thoughtful, and compassionate. I'm a full-bore, obnoxious Pollyanna, if truth be told.

So it's more than a little disconcerting that life these days is backfilling that room with even more manure than usual despite my cheerful digging. I think I've gained traction at school, then one meeting with assorted powers that be has me doubting both my ability and my stamina. Increasing demands on teachers are pretty much sucking the fun out of my day-to-day work, so that leaves little energy for things I'd like to be doing when school's out, like...oh, I don't know...WRITING?

If you think about it, though, writing is a perfect vocation for a Pollyanna. So many things add to the manure pile: rejection, market woes, manuscripts that won't behave, characters acting out of character, false starts, dreck masquerading as prose--it's enough to make any sane person throw up her hands and switch to knitting, which is far more controllable and produces tangible rewards.

Luckily, writers aren't sane. So despite the overflow of stupid in my life right now, Pollyanna will end up bracing herself with an iced tea and a couple of cookies, picking up the MacBook-shaped shovel, and getting back to work on the current WIP. And someday, since I'm really really positive, I'll have my pony, which will look amazingly like a book contract. Who knows? Depending on the contract, I may end up with a real live pony to boot.

Back to the stables!

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Fifteen Cool Authors

I don't know how I missed this game on Facebook, but thanks to a Jaunty Quills post from my dear friend Nancy Robards Thompson, I'm stealing it. The Rules: list fifteen authors (poets included) who have influenced you and made an impression. Don't take too long to think about it. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

1. Dr. Seuss - This man taught me to love reading, as he did for most American children. Irresistible wordplay, humor, and wisdom, packaged with loopy, over-the-top illustrations. I hit the sweet spot with Dr. Seuss. I was exactly the right age to absorb the messages of The Sneetches and The Lorax and make them part of my life. My father read me to sleep each night with Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book, a tradition I continued with my own children. I'll also expand Dr. Seuss to include his colleague P.D. Eastman, the author of my personal favorite of the Beginner Books, Go, Dog. Go! These books will be read forever.
2. Laura Ingalls Wilder - History told in Half-Pint's voice. I adored these books and wished, oh, wished I could be as adventurous as Laura. And bad. She seemed to get away with so much more than I ever could! Wilder taught me that history was interesting and fun.
3. Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth is perhaps my favorite children's book ever. Ms. Hoogeveen, my sixth-grade teacher for the short portion I spent in Ohio, read it to our class, and I fell slap in love. It has everything: adventure, mystery, impossibility, wit, puns, and minimalist illustrations by the equally wonderful Jules Feiffer. Juster is, by profession, an architect (a career I considered pursuing once), also responsible for the masterpiece The Dot and the Line. The fact that American treasure Chuck Jones chose to animate both of these says a lot about the material and its endless appeal. I read The Phantom Tollbooth to my AP students every year as a post-exam treat for them. Okay, for me.
4. Carolyn Keene - God bless the anonymous women writing under this pseudonym, who provided me with puzzles to solve and a heroine with curiosity and a brain.
5. Mark Helprin - I first picked up a copy of Winter's Tale because I liked the cover. (What can I say? I fed my horse obsession for years with Walter Farley.) Between the covers is perhaps one of the most interesting, unclassifiable, poetic books I have ever read. Helprin's sprawling cast of characters and audacious plot make for a reading treat. This book made me laugh out loud (Woola-Woola boys), smirk ("Claret, like fillet and wallet. You don't say 'wal-lay,' do you?" is one classic bit), fall in love (anyone who doesn't gasp when Peter sees Beverly playing the piano just doesn't get it), and weep. I treat myself to this book over and over.
6. Barbara Kingsolver - I'm amazed by her. The fact that she's a biologist kinda gobsmacks me. Talk about someone who understands voice! Every character in The Poisonwood Bible is so distinct, you can practically hear them in your head. Same for the women in Prodigal Summer. She even makes nonfiction great--if you haven't read her memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, go pick up a copy. It will make even the most devout city-dweller wish for an ancestral plot of land and the will and ability to farm it. Amazing.
7. Ray Bradbury - This man loves language and is willing to fight for it. Fahrenheit 451 is on my all-time Top Ten Books list, but it's the way he builds a world that really makes me love him. His works are classics for good reason. There's no way you can come away from reading Bradbury without carrying the imagery of Montag's smoke-blackened face, the lion-scented playroom of "The Veldt," the twisted evil of Mr. Dark's carnival, the burning breakfasts disgorged by the frenzied stove of "There Will Come Soft Rains," or "The Sound of Thunder" in your imagination forever. As a writer, I'll always be partial to his advice, which is why Zen in the Art of Writing has a permanent place on my inspiration shelf.
8. Margaret Mitchell - My grandfather the doctor, who read constantly, once told me that I should write a book like Gone With the Wind because Mitchell was an amazing storyteller. He was right. Rose-colored history aside, that book is indelible because of the characters Mitchell created. I've yet to meet a reader who doesn't have strong opinions about Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie, and Ashley. I got sucked into this book in junior high and have reread it many times since because it's a cracking good story and because deep down, every girl has a little Scarlett in there somewhere. If she's really lucky, she's got some Melanie in there, too.
9. William Faulkner - Just like I think people can be divided into groups like cat/dog, blue ink/black ink, and peppermint/cinnamon, I think writers can be divided into Hemingways and Faulkners. Hemingways like conciseness of phrase, visceral prose, bold action, and absolutes. Faulkners, on the other hand, revel in mystery, nuance, and words. Faulkner makes the grand attempt and stuns and amazes in the process. I'll take "Memory believes before knowing remembers" as a first line a million times over "Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton." A million times. Faulknerian excess, I know, but there you have it.
10. Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird is a deceptive work. It's so simple on the surface that any decent reader can zip through it untroubled, but there is so much going on throughout that if you reach the end and you're not crying, you haven't been paying attention. Jean Louise "Scout" Finch is the unwitting prybar that broke open the white South to show it its flaws and taught us all something about dignity, respect, family, and truth. Harper Lee may be the most-celebrated one-hit wonder in the history of publishing. But if we only get one shot, please let it be as wonderful as this one.
11. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - Jody, Fodder-wing, and a yearling deer named Flag lured me into the mysterious underbrush of the Florida hammock when I was a child. This was one of the first works I'd read that I could truly see in my mind's eye, since Rawlings' Cross Creek is only a few miles up the road from our farm. Rawlings' memoir Cross Creek is a poem of a book, a celebration of a land that few people understand even exists in my beautiful Sunshine State. Shell Pond (our farm) and Cross Creek were far more real to me than any of Florida's famous beaches. Miami might as well be on the moon. Rawlings and her contemporary Zora Neale Hurston (another writer I could choose for this fifteen) told the truth of my home in voices I have heard my whole life.
12. Jane Austen - My college advisor adored Austen. He encouraged me to become a "Janeite" and read all of her works, but since I was basically avoiding anything that looked like a British novel at the time, I missed out. Until later. Reread after reread since, I marvel at the complexity of Austen's work, the sharpness of her wit, and the joie de vivre in her style. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of some talent must be in want of a muse. In Jane, many of us have found her.
13. Anne Lamott - Wise and hilarous, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird belongs on every writer's shelf. Her books on faith, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, and Grace (Eventually) are warm and welcoming and reveal an openness that many people of faith seem to lack these days. She's laugh-out-loud funny and sting-your-eyes truthful, someone who's been through the wars and wants to help guide you through, too.
14. Stephen King - I spent a long vacation week in the ninth grade listening to a tape of The Alan Parson's Project's I, Robot my best friend Kathryn made for me and reading The Shining. King's ability to peel back normal to show its rotting bones has always been fantastic. Plus, he gets pop culture like no one else. I loved his essays in Entertainment Weekly and pouted when he finally stopped writing them. His response to the literary establishment who were collectively horrified at his National Book Award medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters is the best defense of popular fiction ever. And then there's On Writing. Most of my writer friends own it and adore it. Part memoir, part craft manual, and all engrossing. Plus, he is the man responsible for the amazing films The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. For those ideas alone, he has my thanks, but he's given us all so much more.
15. Dick Francis - I picked up the first one because it had a horse on the cover (see Winter's Tale above). Francis started in a stableyard and a racetrack because he know that world better than anything--he was a champion jump jockey in England before injuries forced him off the track and into racing journalism--but what's amazing about his books is how neatly he incorporates research into every book. Although the racing world features prominently in every work, it never gets dull because his everyman heroes know about other things, too. How cool is it to pick up a mystery with horses and also learn about wine, survival techniques, living with a prosthesis, running a restaurant, and glassblowing? And yet, the pacing never flags. A gallop through a Dick Francis is a pleasure every single time.

I'm cheating a bit by not including a close group of writer friends who are fun and encouraging and wise and every one the kind of woman you're glad you invited into your life. I owe more than I can say to Kathy, Nancy, Caroline, and Melynda, plus many more I don't spend enough time with but admire the heck out of all the same. Here's to friends who get it, and the writers who inspired us all.

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Odd Couplings, Book Version

This post at Bookriot is one of the best things I've read in a while. It's a listing of the Top Ten Made-Up Literary Couples, with explanations of why the two belong together. With pairings like Jane Eyre/Rhett Butler, Katniss Everdeen/Aragorn, and Bella Swan/Lestat, how can you miss?

Reading a post like this makes you think of the possibilities. How about these?

Guy Montag and Belle (Beauty and the Beast) - Okay, cheating a little since she's a movie character, but she's drawn to tortured, guilty souls and could totally feed his awakened hunger for books!

Laura Ingalls and Hawkeye (Last of the Mohicans) - These two share a "westering" spirit of travel and a love of adventure.

Other ideas?

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You Ain't No 'Lectric Elephant

I grew up in awe of my maternal grandmother. A farmer’s daughter, she rarely had idle time. Nearly every hour of the day, she was busy—cooking, managing the books for the farm, making phone calls, volunteering at the church—and that was when she was retired! This is a woman who woke every morning at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am (so I thought then; I’ve since discovered I share her love of early mornings) and often had a pound cake cooling on the counter by the time the rest of us stumbled groggily into the kitchen.

I can’t imagine how her workload looked when she had my mother and aunt at home and helped my grandfather, the traveling salesman, keep track of his travel and orders and expenses. They lived in Atlanta then, and to help manage all that work and the obligatory social engagements she had to maintain as a good corporate wife, she had a housekeeper named Alice.

I don’t remember Alice well, but I do remember her ability for succinct and accurate interpretation. Alice gifted the family with one of our favorite phrases. My grandmother was busier than usual and worried about it (a family trait), when Alice finally pinned her with a look and said, “Now slow down, Mrs. Bero—you know you ain’t no ’lectric elephant.”

None of us has ever understood why she picked that particular phrase, but it fit so well we now use it all the time. A case in point: this past week. Despite a very relaxing break, I managed to contract acute bronchitis again, and so I spent the first three days of the new school year at home in the bed. I dragged myself to school Friday out of an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, but I’m paying for it this morning with a headache and a relapse. That’ll teach me.

Alice was right. Nobody is this family’s “a 'lectric elephant,” and I’d do well to remember it.

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First Footings

New Year’s Day is a big deal in the Scottish culture. Trust me, you haven’t partied until you’ve done it with people in kilts and bagpipes. “Auld Lang Syne” was written by Robert Burns, remember? Hogmanay, as the celebration is called, has a number of traditions, but one of the most fun is the First Footing. According to Scottish tradition, the first person to cross the threshold of your home in the new year will determine the kind of year you’ll have.

Well, I'm not combing my friends list to find a tall, dark-headed male in the superstitious hope that this year will somehow be better than last. What I am going to do, however, is be sure that my steps are aimed toward making this year a successful one. That means steps toward fitness, steps away from mindless eating, steps back into creativity, and steps leaving overwhelming stress and worry behind. Sounds easy when you put it that way, right?

May 2012 be a happy, healthy, and prosperous year!

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Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite moments of Christmas is proceeding into a candlelit sanctuary on Christmas Eve, singing "Of the Father's Love Begotten" accompanied only by handbells. That moment encompasses the mystery and hopefulness of Christmas. May you all have a day filled with many blessings!

Of the Father's love begotten,

Ere the worlds began to be,

He is Alpha and Omega,

He the source, the ending He,

Of the things that are, that have been,

And that future years shall see,

Evermore and evermore!

O ye heights of heaven adore Him;

Angel hosts, His praises sing;

Powers, dominions, bow before Him,

And extol our God and King;

Let no tongue on earth be silent,

Every voice in concert ring,

Evermore and evermore!

Christ, to Thee with God the Father,

And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee,

Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving

And unwearied praises be:

Honor, glory, and dominion,

And eternal victory,

Evermore and evermore! Amen.

Words from “Corde natus” by the Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius, translated by John Francis Neale in 1851, sung to the medieval plainchant melody “Divinum mysterium.” Nativity of Christ window from the Chartres Cathedral.

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Writers Behaving Badly

Years ago, when I first started writing, I bought a copy of Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, a collection of scholarly essays about the appeal of the romance novel edited by bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz. You see, reading romances was bad enough. Wanting to write them was tantamount to spitting in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey and betraying all my hard work as an English major. Reading dreck like romances required that I turn over my Mensa card immediately and scurry back to the respectable fiction aisle.

But what exactly does “respectable” fiction look like? Having read my share of literary fiction--prizewinning literary fiction, at that—I can’t say that I’m consistently impressed. Considering how snide serious writers are about genre writers (read about the kerfuffle when the National Book Foundation folks decided to award its annual medal for distinguished contribution to American letters to Stephen King here), I find it vastly amusing when a genre writer gets a good jab in at the literati. Like King’s acceptance speech. Or even better, this excerpt from British romantic novelist Mary Wibberley’s book To Writers with Love. Not long after being asked by a woman at a literary society when she was planning to write a “real” book, Wibberley attended an Arts Council presentation in which several women novelists read excerpts of their work. During the presentation, she writes,

A fleeting—but scathing—reference to Mills & Boon and romance in general was made by one of them during the question session. I kept silent, oh foolish me, but afterwards went and read the blurbs on the covers of the books these authors had brought for sale. One was about an eighty-seven-year-old woman who decides to commit suicide and locks herself in a cupboard to do so. I wasn't sure why. Another concerned a gorilla that is bred from a human ovum and goes to public school. So that's literature. I had so often wondered. One day (when I have time) I am going to write a book about a one-legged Armenian transvestite who is forced to flee (well, hop, I suppose) to a Tibetan monastery after being seduced by his lesbian dentist. I'm quite confident I'll get an Arts Council grant to write it. So, yes, lady from the literary society at which I spoke, I would like to write a real book. And that will be it. Or I might just build a pile of bricks.

*snort*

But one doesn't have to get snippy to get a point across. Bless author Maya Rodale for this gem of a response!

Check out more here.

Image from http://casserbs.tumblr.com/

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Thanks and Giving

I’m sitting at my kitchen table, the smells of fresh bread permeating the air. Nearby are sleeping dogs and a happy family. In a bit, we’ll drive over the river and through the woods to one of the grandmother’s houses (my sister’s MIL). We will have plenty to eat today, plenty to laugh about, plenty to share. This weekend will bring the Florida-Florida State game, Wicked’s Chex Mix, my Daddy, dinner with my sisters, and a meal with the men at the Fresh Start ministry downtown. If we’re lucky, we’ll also have some quiet time and even a nap.

Back in the 1950s, my aunt brought a special Thanksgiving blessing home from school. My grandfather liked it so much, he adapted it for everyday use. Here’s to blessings, both spoken and experienced.

For all thy gifts so good and fair,

Bestowed so freely everywhere,

Give us grateful hearts, we pray,

To thank thee this Thanksgiving Day.

Amen!

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I'm a Mean One

Unless you grew up under a rock, you recognize this image from the incomparable How the Grinch Stole Christmas holiday special, characters by the inimitable Dr. Seuss, animation and direction by the peerless Chuck Jones. I am totally feeling the Grinch as he stares balefully down on Whoville right now.

I’m sitting in a Starbucks and getting blasted by Christmas music. Note the date above. We haven’t even, to quote the Coneheads, “consumed mass quantities.” No turkey coma. No football immersion. No Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (best moment from the past few years: Cartoon Network Rickrolling the entire parade with the actual Rick Astley). It’s actually just a normal Saturday, but I’m being forced to endure the twin atrocities of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” and “The Little Drummer Boy.” Ho ho ho my fanny.

Let us just state for the record that we at Chez mimi are not anti-Christmas. We can get downright jovial. But we know how to focus on the season properly, which usually entails buying a tree later so it lasts through Epiphany and attending church throughout Advent, not just swooping in for an annual hit-and-run at the Christmas Eve service, with a followup on Easter Sunday.

What’s provoking this spew of Grinchlike bile? The incessant holiday creep that invades earlier and earlier each year. Starbucks is actually showing amazing restraint by holding off on the holiday music this long. Walmart has had trees and decorations available since just after Labor Day, for Pete’s sake--yet another reason they’re at the absolute bottom of my shopping pile. When you start thinking of praising a retailer for restraint for holding off on the mistletoe until the day after Halloween, something is seriously skewed.

That’s why I’m a big fan of Nordstrom. If I were aspirational in the income department, I’d shop there all the time just as a thank you for their no-Christmas-decorations-until-after-Thanksgiving policy. (Check out a news story about it here.) It’s just too bad that they have to post signs about the policy because people have become so inured to the shopping season stupidity.

It’s gotten so bad that KellyKellyKellyKelly, one of my oldest and dearest friends who happens to work for a major retail chain, told me that the mall where her store is located has demanded that all stores open at midnight on Black Friday. Frickin’ MIDNIGHT. If you’ve ever worked in retail, you know that a midnight opening means someone has to be there earlier, so that means lots of employees cutting their Thanksgiving Day short so they can allow denuded buttheads the ability to worship at the altar of consumerism RIGHT AWAY.

People, the stores aren’t going anywhere. If part of your holiday spirit involves going to a mall in the dark of night to grab bargains and elbow it out with rude, impatient people, then be my guest. I’ll be tucked in my bed. Visions of sugarplums optional.

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Snowed Under

I wish I could claim actual snow--that would be interesting and fun--but alas, no. The blizzard I’m facing is the end-of-term stack of paperwork. Grades are due Wednesday, so I’m full up with whining children who complain about bad grades (usually due to missing assignments) and grovel for makeup work. As I like to tell them, “There’s not enough extra credit in the world to make up for credit credit you didn’t bother to get in the first place.”

I’d feel sorrier for them if a more hard-line stance didn’t help. Just today, I got a Facebook post from a former student. She’s adjusting well to school and has an A in her college English class thanks to her “mean” teacher. It came at exactly the right time.

Now, an evening with friends, and a weekend of grading. Reality bites.

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The Bed List

Took Frack and a passel of her friends to the movies today to see Captain America: The First Avenger. May I just say that Chris Evans is one red, white, and blue hunk of YUM? More, please. Preferably before they release The Avengersnext summer.

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Readin' and Writin'

One thing about summer that I love is the time to catch up on reading. During the school year, most of the reading I’m doing is either keeping up with (or ahead of) my students, which often crowds out any meaningful time to read what I want to read. As a result, I’m usually woefully behind on the new hot books. It takes me forever to get to the old hot books—for instance, I just finally read Water for Elephants. I waited until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before I took myself to Hogwarts the first time. I’m like the person in the world to read The Help. And don’t even get me started on the books I’m allegedly supposed to read, the award winners and lauded tomes like Freedom and The Pale Kingand the international sensations like Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. Don’t know the girl with the dragon tattoo except what I’ve read in newspapers and such, but I’ll get around to her sometime. But not this week. I have a stack of YA I picked up at RWA National that’s going to migrate to my classroom, and I’d like to be able to talk them up when they get there.

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Downsizing

Four pounds doesn't seem like much when you're hefting it in the grocery store. Heft that thing in a travel bag through a bunch of airports (Atlanta's being a standout problem), up and down elevators and across pedestrian bridges in hotels, it gains mass the way most of us do during Christmas cookie time. Four pounds of laptop over your shoulder starts carving a groove in said shoulder, let me just say.

A month away from home can teach you a lot of things, like how to find laundromats in strange cities, how expensive it is to buy Dr Peppers from a hotel snack bar, and how—no matter how nicely they make it up or turn it down at night—that pretty hotel bed just isn’t as nice as your own. But the one thing all that traveling really teaches you is how heavy that laptop of yours really is.

All that traveling wasn’t for naught, however. I did get paid. And one thing I did with my check was give my back and shoulders a bit of a break. My new MacBook Air just arrived this morning. Two pounds and a teeny bit of change. The screen’s smaller—it’s the eleven-inch model—but I think the weight loss will compensate for it. Especially in the Atlanta airport, which all folks from the South are doomed to roam whether they want to or not.

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Just a Few Notes...

Revision time! My notes arrived from Dream Agent (Longest. Email. Ever.), so now I need to revise. Which is fine. I like revising. Really! The notes themselves aren’t that awful. Fixes here and there that several sets of sharp eyes managed to catch. Validation of nagging worries that I tried to ignore, but which kept creeping in. A roadmap for some progress. Little things. Really! Not at all like dynamiting and starting over. Even if it feels like it.

Okay. Enough whining. Back to work, since nothing else will do the trick.

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Knotwork

Sixteen years ago today, I stood in a custom-fitted raw silk dress (thanks, Mama), hand lightly resting in the crook of my Daddy’s arm, smiling at Mr. Man, handsome in his morning coat and striped trousers. Within a few moments--a few breaths, really--we were slipping Celtic knotwork bands on each other’s hands, promising to be true and steadfast, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The choice of vow wasn’t lightly made. Celtic knots are formed with one solid strand, woven in and around itself, with no beginning and no end. I’ve seen plenty of badly-done, broken knots (usually on cheaply made pretty things) to know the real thing when I see it. When I was a teenager, my mother gave my sister and me Celtic heart pendants. The Celtic heart is the single stranded-knot formed at the intersection of three circles--one strand, eternal; three circles, Father, son, and Holy Spirit. Mr. Man and I thought it fitting symbolism, both in the bands and in the vow.

The ring he placed on my finger that day fits more tightly than it did then, but the knots are true. One strand, woven closely with memories and promises, with no breaks despite sixteen years of wear and the inevitable conflicts of two people forming one life together. The strand of a life, woven in love, sealed in the Spirit.

I know the real thing when I see it.

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New York State of Mind

I’m writing this from my new apartment in El Barrio. It’s nice: One decent-size bedroom, a living area, a full kitchen, and a shoehorned bathroom, parquet floors, natural light. You know, something that would rent for more than I pay for my 4 bedroom, 2 bath house on a quarter acre in the ’burbs because even though I’m in Spanish Harlem, this is MANHATTAN, baby!

It’s worth the outrageous money we’re paying to stay here this week because Frick and Frack have never been to New York. We did the tourist thing in Times Square yesterday and have had enough of that, thank you very much. Today we have tickets to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, starring Harry Potter himself and Dan Fielding from Night Court. We’ll eat amazing food on Restaurant Row tonight and begin the austerity plan tomorrow (spaghetti cooked “at home” instead of one more restaurant meal with ridiculous taxes added on). We’ll do plenty of walking and gawking and photographing and even squeeze in to watch the big fireworks display tomorrow night.

My kids are already in love with The Big City. I appreciate it again--the variety of people, the arts on your doorstep, the vitality of neighborhoods and round-the-clock activity. But after nearly a month of travel, mimi has to admit that flying home to her swamp and staying for a while is sounding mighty tempting. Her Empire State of Mind has an expiration date.

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RWA National: Homework

Met with Dream Agent yesterday for our one-on-one. Thursday’s agency get-together in the Film Center Café was interesting and instructive (how often do you get to talk with agency folk and authors about agent-author relationships, etc.?), but this meeting was the meat of my week at RWA National.

I sit down at our teeny table at the bar, and Dream Agent pulls out the longest email I have ever seen. It’s her notes on the two proposals I sent her. We went over them in detail--and I mean detail. I’ve got plenty to work on ...and that’s not even considering her feedback on the other ideas I sent her, which are in a separate giant email, both of which she’s sending me when she gets back into the office on Tuesday.

We also determined that since I have no problems meeting a deadline from an editor, while self-imposed deadlines get slipperier and more evasive than Frank Abagnale, Dream Agent needs to be a bit of a taskmistress. Don the metaphorical thigh-high boots and pick up the whip, so to speak. I think she enjoyed that a bit, since she gave me a deadline of the third week of July to basically rewrite two synopses and clean up about five chapters’ worth of writing. And I’m spending next week in New York on vacation with the denizens of Chez mimi. So, two weeks, then.

Methinks mimi will be a busy--but happy--girl. She’s always liked school. Even the homework.

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RWA National: The Contemporary Romance Market

Authors Susan Andersen, Robyn Carr, and Kristan Higgins, joined by agent Maria Carvainis and ably moderated by Jill Shalvis, conducted this panel discussion on the state of the contemporary romance market. Here are some highlights from their talk:

1. •Readers are engaged by the intimate worlds that have been created by the author, to the extent that the locale itself is practically a character.
   

2. •Writers distinguish themselves from others through their voice and tone--that’s what differentiates the books.
   

3. •Fewer accounts are buying books in all markets, likely as a result of the recession and changed buying habits, not because of e-books.
   

4. •Weathering the market takes stamina (keep writing!) and a strong belief in self.
   

5. •Each author knew clearly what she offered readers in terms of their individual voices and the tone of their books.
   

6. •Author branding is a good thing if you can express it clearly in a few words, but you can’t identify your brand until you’ve written a few books. Brand emerges from the writing, not the other way around.
   

7. •It’s smart to read extensively in your chosen market to see what readers are buying, however...
   

8. •Modeling your books on what successful authors are writing is bad advice.
   

9. •Find a support group who will be truthful with you. In the case of an agent, seek one who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.

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