GREMLINS IN THE OFFICE

I hate to read over my blog posts and find errors. What I need is a good editor. Would you believe authors send me work to edit? This is one of those days when I should be curled up in bed with Lily (my cat), reading a good book. It’s cold and raining.  Little gremlins have sneaked into my office and scattered books and magazines  everywhere. I’m one of those writers that can’t keep from cluttering up the place. No, don’t think organize. It’s not in my DNA. As I cleared a path, I dropped John Donne’s book of poetry and the darn thing fell apart. If you haven’t read John Donne’s Elegy to his mistress going to bed here is a sample. …License, my roving hands, and let them go. Before, behind, between, above, below. Oh, my America, my new found land. Love all the be words.

VICTORIAN MYSTERIES

LIKE VICTORIAN MYSTERIES? Then you will love the Sebastian St. Cyr mysteries by C.S. Harris. I think she has written eight with a new one coming in the Spring of 2014. They are so good!! I'm reading a Christmas gift, a novel by Charles Palliser--Rustication. I have read Quincunx also a Victorian mystery. He is a great writer, wish I could write half as well. I love Christmas because so many people send me great books. I read in the TLS that Rose Tremain has another novel following Restoration, with the same character. I must order it. Oh, I made myself a promise that I would not buy another book until I had read ALL, ALL, the books that I have bought. Oh, maybe just one more.

CRUST-LESS PIMIENTO SANDWICHES

Are you longing for crust-less pimiento cheese sandwiches cut into little triangles? Deviled eggs on the side and the meal topped off with a chocolate sheet cake. Then you're ready for the departure of a loved one, or maybe not so loved, even a passing acquaintance will do in a pinch. Depends on you're craving, but pimiento cheese, deviled eggs and chocolate cake is the essential menu of every funeral in the Mississippi Delta. If you're past twenty-five then it's high time, and no dilly-dallying around, to make PLANS. I mean big plans. First the the negotiation of where to be buried, this takes great diplomatic skills. The Treaty of Versailles was a cake-walk compared to the Final Arrangements which includes menu, casket, music and finally your plot in relationship to the other members of your family. Buried at Mama's feet, for example is a prime spot but its been promised to seven other people. So if you really want a specific place you may have to blackmail, bribe or wangle a contract that everyone signs, and no one pays any mind to after you're dead. Here is the kicker, after working out the details, you spend the next forty years repeating your instructions. Believe me, when I was four, I didn't know the alphabet, but I knew my Grandmother's funeral plans. She died thirty-two years later. I sure am craving pimiento cheese.

WILD LIFE AND NOTES ON NANCY MITFORD

Our bear prints were identified as wolf prints!!! No wonder my cat, Lily refuses to go our side without a person. Don't wolves travel in packs? I moved to the country to enjoy nature, I may have too much Joy. I'm reading Nancy Mitford's Pigeon Pie, a satire set at the beginning of WW2. All serious writers should read Mitford. She writes wonderful sentences, has a great command of language and her plotting is superb. If you want to be a better writer, read writers who have all the skills, study how they put novels together and improve your work. I'll write a review later. I'm on my one millionth diet. Five hours and twenty three minutes without eating anything bad. Does anyone know how many calories are in a cup of pimiento cheese?

Review: THE SCENT OF WATER

If you are a writer then you've heard about painterly writers. Elizabeth Goudge depicts the English countryside with prose dripping with color, engaging the mind with a sense of wonder in the beauty of nature. Above all this is a novel of love in its final finest essence. It's about finding one's self and giving to others with wisdom healing and happiness. The Scent of Water goes on my shelf of books to be read again. A note on Nature: The robins arrived. There are bear prints in the orchard. My hair is falling out.

Bra In The Bookcase

I don't know why I have a bra stuffed in my bookcase next to Henry James's Turn Of The Screw. I've read Henry James, but never worn the bra. As one grows older, the comfort thing looms larger and demands too be accommodated, along with aching bones. Life in the country has a few advantages--one can sag. I'm reading Elizabeth Goudge's The Scent of Water.

Those Darn Italians

Oh, those darn Italians. Number three on my imaginary bucket list was finding and undiscovered Etruscan tomb at Tarquinia. I have dreamed of digging at the famed Necropolis since my college professor told me the Etruscans were the garbage pit of the Roman Empire. Well, congrats to archaeologists Maria Licidi, Elornora Attilia and Claudio Castelle for finding the first tomb in thirty years. Why the fascination with cemeteries? I grew up in the Mississippi Delta and all the females of our family have a morbid addiction to graves. Faster than scurrying mice, they drive hundreds of miles to wander aimlessly up and down rows of buried bodies. After all, and this is a little known fact, reading epitaphs is a Southern literary pursuit.

THINGS THAT MATTER

This Blog is a diversion from the important things that matter, like doing the dishes, or cleaning toilets. A few of my favorite things: Novels, poems, writers, artists and my imaginary life. Also, I like to amuse my sister who may be the only person to read this.