I Have a New Friend

I am older now than my mother was when I thought she was old. Being old is like being a child again, but with permissions.

"Momma, I have a new friend."

"That's nice, dear," Mother would have said. "What's her name?"

"Lou."

"Lou what?"

"Don't know," I would say with a shrug.

"Where does she live?"

"Over behind King Soopers somewhere."

"What does she do?" Mother would have asked.

"She's retired."

"From what?"

(I remember that mothers ask lots of questions. My mother did. I did.)

"Don't know exactly. Maybe she was like me. Did lots of things."

"You don't know much about her, do you?"

"Guess not. But I like her."

Mother would have laughed. "And what is it you like about your new friend?"

"She likes books."

A Book Signing

image from tatteredcoverbookstore.blogspot.com

Diane Mott Davidson 

Diane Mott Davidson, writer of culinary mysteries, signed books at Mountain Books in Conifer, Colorado, October 2.

She is gracious, delightful, and entertaining whether you're listening to her speak or reading her stories. And she makes a mean batch of Scout's Brownies from her book, Dying for Chocolate. 

That's the first book of hers that I read. Her main character Goldy is a mother, a good friend, a domestic abuse survivor, an amateur sleuth, and a caterer -- in that order of importance. As the series continues she adds wife to that list -- I would say tying for slot number 1.

In Dying for Chocolate, we meet all the main characters. Goldy, of course. She is happily divorced from The Jerk whose only positive contribution to her life is their son Arch. She has turned her passion for food into a career as a caterer. 

Marla is the Jerk's second ex-wife and Goldy's best friend. Marla has an extraordinary talent for collecting the town gossip which proves invaluable to Goldy's avocation as amateur detective solving local murder mysteries.

You know that info on the back of books? I seldom read that. Or book reviews. I read books because a friend recommends it or I hear an interview with the author on National Public Radio. But Dying for Chocolate I saw in the library and being notoriously addicted to chocolate, I checked it out based solely on its title.

Like all of her mysteries, it's set in the imaginary town of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, which is very like her town of Evergreen.

I was innocently reading along when I turned a page and there, in the middle of the murder mystery, was a recipe. That was on page 75. Then on page 98 there was a recipe for Scout's Brownies. To the kitchen! Murder mystery on hold, I baked them. They were delicious. 

Lucky for me because I lived in Oklahoma at the time, Ms. Mott Davidson had amended her high altitude recipe for us low altitude readers. I didn't find that out until the book signing. 

I've read all her books since. She inspired me to write Murder on Ceres. I took her a copy of my book as a gift.

I found out on Monday about her Friday scheduled book signing at Mountain Books in Conifer (from Colorado Public Radio, our local NPR station) and, of course I had to go. I'd never been to Conifer. I knew it was in the mountains and it would likely be dark when it was over, so I set about trying to enlist people to go with me. Daughter had to work. Husband had to work. Friends had other commitments. Well, shoot.

Conifer, Colorado. Google said thirty minutes away from my house. Four-lane highway. How bad could it be?

I left home at 4:00 pm to be sure I'd have plenty of time to find the book store and a parking place. After all, I clearly remembered my experience in February at Neil Gaiman's book signing in Ft. Collins,

There was a bit of rush hour traffic. It always amazes me how many people live up in the mountains and commute into Metro Denver for work. Needless to say, it was all uphill and curvy. Exits marked roads named "Raven Gulch" and "Sourdough Drive" and "Alpine Meadow." Of course they did.

The drive up? No problem at all.

Mountain Books is a wonderful bookstore. It's small and stuffed to the gills with books, new and used. Jesse, the owner, has been in this location for 18 years. His space is divided into categories -- Science Fiction, Mysteries, Religion, etc. and the books are shelved within those categories alphabetically by author. That pleases my library-trained heart.

His dog Sasha welcomes customers and keeps an eye on everything. Of indeterminate ancestry, she's a mature dog, about 30 pounds, mostly white with a lovely black patch over her right eye. Her coat is medium length and her tail is elegantly feathered. Most of the customers are local and they obligingly toss her ball for her to fetch.

Jesse suggested I walk over to the shopping center where there are several eating establishments. Of course he did. Everybody in Colorado walks. I'm getting used to it.

Weather Underground  forecasted possible thunderstorms for Conifer. Clouds were building, but to the east. 

They might drop rain out over the prairie but it wasn't likely I'd see anything from those clouds. And the aspen are responding to our changing fall daylight, their leaves bright as sunshine shimmering in the wind.

I bought Mott Davidson's latest, Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook, a collection of the recipes from her culinary mysteries, and sat down to wait. 

More fans filtered into the bookshop and we visited. One lady told me I was brave to drive in the mountains after dark. I decided to see what other books of interest to me Jesse might have. I found a Stephen Jay Gould I didn't have and one by Neil deGrasse Tyson -- both used for only $5 each.

One of the ladies said she got to hear Tyson speak at Colorado School of Mines a couple of nights before. How cool is that!

Another woman said I should be careful driving after dark because of deer on the highway. And elk are bigger than deer. Another said she'd seen a bear dead on the road the night before. Several agreed they'd heard someone hit a bear. "Do you know who?" they asked each other. "A bear?" I asked. "But they're not as dangerous as hitting a deer," they reassured me. Or an elk "because deer and elk are so tall, they'll come right over the hood into your windshield." 

Which brought on one woman's husband's experience with a deer leaping through his pickup truck's side window and going halfway through the windshield. "It was dead, of course." Of course, I thought. Then someone offered the wisdom that it would have been more dangerous if the deer had not died -- "flailing around in the moving truck."

Deer and elk and bears, Oh my.

To my relief, Diane Mott Davidson arrived bearing freshly baked Scout's Brownies. And signed our books. She talked about who inspired her villains -- which brought to mind Twain's warning that you ought not start a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. She explained that her husband Jim is nothing like the Jerk. And Arch is so believable because she has her three sons to draw on. 

Her husband is an aerospace engineer and has worked for NASA. She thinks he'll enjoy Murder on Ceres. Not only a wonderful writer, but she's kind, too.

And then it was time to drive home. In the dark.

When you see those yellow diamond highway signs showing a downward tipping truck above the percent grade you're coming to, you know you're in the Rocky Mountains and it's going to be steep. And yes, I do know to take those long, steep hills in Low gear, so my brakes don't overheat and fail.

After a half mile of 5% grade, (Doesn't sound like much, does it? But it is very steep.) I encountered an official Department of Transportation sign that read "ALL DRIVERS DON'T BE FOOLED 5% GRADE AND SHARP CURVES NEXT 5 MILES." Scared me, I'll tell you.

But then, it's like my husband says, it's not quite so scary when you can't see how far down it is. And in the darkness I couldn't see anything past the edge of the road. That's because the ground fell away to my immediate right and there was nothing there to be caught in my headlights.

At least I didn't have to worry about a deer or an elk or a bear leaping in front of the car from that side of the road. I just had to keep reminding myself that if one of those critters did come out of the darkness to my left, I should probably not swerve right to miss it.

I was relieved when I saw the 65 MPH speed limit signs. I knew I was out of the mountains and almost home.

Violence in America

Memorial in front of the Edmond, Oklahoma, Post Office

image from wikipedia.org

At 7:15 a.m., August 20, 1986, I drove south on Broadway in Edmond, Oklahoma, on my way to work. Just north of the Post Office, firetrucks blocked the street. Police cars blocked eastbound Edwards street. Local television station news helicopters hovered overhead.

I had to get to work. I took Ayers east to Boulevard and turned south. Ambulances sat waiting along Edwards and Campbell toward the Post Office.

I couldn't imagine what was going on. Edmond, my hometown, was a suburb north of Oklahoma City. Population? Maybe thirty or forty thousand. Ten to fifteen thousand souls bigger when the local college was in session.

As I passed the old Edmond Junior High School building, several people accompanied by police officers ran across the school yard  away from the Post Office .

Even now at nearly 90,000 people Edmond has very few murders. By that I mean one or two  annually and some years none. On that day, I knew of no murders in Edmond during my lifetime. Maybe there were some, but they were so long ago that I didn't know about them.

Domestic gun violence was not something with which I was intimately familiar. President Kennedy was murdered on my 16th birthday. That shattered my sense of security in one way. But that was twenty years earlier and 250 miles south in Dallas, Texas. I'd lived through daily television doses of violence out of Vietnam. But by 1986 those were a decade and thousands of miles away.

That day in 1986, I turned on my car radio and heard that someone was shooting people in the Edmond Post Office. Thirteen people died there including the shooter.

And now, almost thirty years, multiple work-place shootings, multiple school shootings, and a theater shooting later, it's happened again. Two days ago a man shot and killed nine people and wounded nine more at his school in Oregon.

Gun-control activists and anti-gun-control activists are back in the news advocating everything from no guns at all to everybody armed.

I think these mass shootings are a symptom of our society's predilection for violence. There are many more domestic violence based killings and gang-related killings in our country than these school shootings. They're symptoms, too. And we all know that treating symptoms while ignoring underlying disease does not cure.

Led by politicians and entertainment personalities, we passionately take uncompromising sides on the "gun issue" to the exclusion of the many other factors contributing to our problem. Mental health issues, people exposed to violent entertainment from a young age, our schools failing the most vulnerable of our children, our society's addiction to easy fixes. (We seem to forget that addictions don't solve problems.)

How about we enlist and listen to recommendations from our mental health care communities, our educators, our law enforcement communities? I know we'll get conflicting answers and it won't be possible to just point to the answer we want to try. (Easy fix again.) But somewhere in there, there will be legions of solutions that will work.

We might even try listening to the people around us -- our own children, our workmates, our playmates, that guy revving his engine at the stoplight -- and respond. Maybe respond by offering to make their lives a little more pleasant, a little easier.

If they need more than a smile and kind word, be willing to step up. Ask how that child got the bruises on her face. Ask that young adult wearing cuffs to hide evidence of self-harm. Recommend professional help. Report them to the appropriate authorities. And if you don't know what kind of professional help to recommend or which are the appropriate authorities, find out.

Afraid that would put you at risk? Aren't we at risk anyway, if we go to work or school or the movies?

You and I, working as individuals, can't stop wars or gang violence or world hunger. But we can offer to do what we do well. Offer a little free time to that over-stressed mom and maybe prevent an instance of child abuse. Volunteer to help that little league coach and show a child that they count. Be the kind of parent that says no to a request for the latest single-shooter video game and explain why. Encourage your son or daughter or the person at work to step away from an escalating personal conflict. Step away yourself.

Try to make a difference from the bottom up. We've been deferring to the folks trying to make a difference from the top down. And it's not working.

Let's wake up in the morning, put on a habit of optimism, and make a difference -- one person at a time, one day at a time.

Rita the Danish Television Show -- A Review

image from shaulaevans.com

As far as I'm concerned, Rita is a five-star TV series. It is available streaming from Netflix.

It is funny and sad and touching and raucous and different from anything available on American TV. It is, however, not for people with tender ears or delicate sensibilities. I'd rate it M -- for language, sex, smoking and other drugs, and controversial themes.

The series is in Danish and in Danish the F-word sounds the same in English. So you hear f*** and (since it's subtitled for those of us who are Danish-challenged) we also see it written out. Oddly enough the Danish word "troll" is translated in the subtitles as "ogre." "Okay" is "okay"; for our "yes" they say "ja" with J's pronounced like Y in "yes" which sounds very like the English slang "yeah"; and "yeah" in English  sounds like "yip" or "yips" in Danish -- probably spelled with that Y-sounding J.

Enough with the quote marks, already!

Rita is a dysfunctional mother from a dysfunctional home. Her own children have their problems, but function reasonably well, considering. She uses insensitive language in socially sensitive settings, has indiscriminate sex with unlikely and politically incorrect men, and does most of her introspection while smoking in her school's girls' room.

Did I mention that Rita is a school teacher in a small Danish school? Teaching is the main point of this series and the one place where Rita gets it right.

She's the right teacher for children who need the right teacher. And the right friend for people who need the right friend. Sometimes her advice is a questionable, but things always turn out right --  
sort of.

I love this series and I am sorry there are only three seasons available. There is speculation about a fourth season, but nothing concrete on that front yet. Here's hoping!

Flying Coyote -- flash fiction reprise from 4/15/2014

image from syracuse.com

“Always we remember your great grandfather. His name was Flying Coyote, and he was a very brave man and a fine leader. You are called Little Coyote because your father loved his father, your grandfather called Flying Coyote.”

The old woman stirred the fire and continued her story.

“When he was younger than you your grandfather fell from his father’s pony and hurt his leg very bad. It made him sick and the old ones feared to lose him.” She filled the horn spoon and blew softly across the liquid. “Bear With A Sore Tooth sang prayers for him and his old grandmother boiled willow bark and gave him the water to drink as I do you.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said swallowing. He cuddled the small coyote cub, he called Little Brother, close to him under the robes.

“I have been told it was this time of year – the time of the Full Pink Moon. The little pink flowers bloomed in the grass and the snow and the sun argued over who would have the land. Some mornings The People would wake to a deep blanket of snow, but by afternoon the sun would have eaten it.”

“Like yesterday?” he asked.

“Yes.” She filled the spoon again. “Like yesterday.”

She and the boy were outside the lodge so the rest of the family could sleep. A full moon hung in the black sky, so bright that only a few stars shone near it. The air outside the tipi was cold and still and fresh.

Little Brother squirmed out of the robes. Little Coyote grabbed the struggling whelp and held him tight by one hind foot.

“Little Coyote, you must let him go.” The old woman gently opened the boy’s fist.

They watched the pup caper and scamper around them.

“He’ll get cold and come back,” she said. “You’ll see.”

A red shadow began its slow march across the moon, but the boy did not notice. He watched the coyote pup.

“Your grandfather got weaker and weaker. He did not want to live.” She filled the spoon again and held it to the boy’s lips. “Does your foot still hurt?”

He stretched his leg, testing it. “Not so much.”

“Flying Coyote’s father went out onto the prairie to also pray. He played his prayers on his flute.”

An ember popped out of the fire and Little Brother stopped to sniff it.

“Will it burn him, Grandmother?”

She laughed. “No. His nose can feel the heat. He will be careful.”

She looked up at the moon, slowly being covered with red shadow. Little Coyote followed her gaze.

“What is happening?” Little Coyote asked in alarm.

“I have seen it before,” she said. “Some stories say that a great mountain lion is eating it.” Seeing his concern, she hurried on. “But I do not think that is what is happening. I have seen this before. More than once.”

Little Coyote could not take his eyes away from the changing moon.

She helped the cub back under the robes. “Soon the shadow will move on, and you will see your old friend the rabbit on the moon.”

Satisfied that his grandmother knew about things like mountain lions eating the moon he asked, “Did Flying Coyote get better?”

“Flying Coyote’s father was playing his flute under a moon just like this one. As the red shadow passed away, a bigger shadow flew across him. It was as big as he could reach.” She held out her own arms as far as she could. “And he was a big man.”

Little Coyote’s eyes grew big and round.

“Flying Coyote's father ducked so hard that the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees. And something landed on the ground right in front of him. A ball of fur dropped from that shadow in the sky.”

Swallowing hard, Little Coyote held his own wiggly cub close under his chin.

“It was like Little Brother – a baby coyote. And its only wound was a broken leg.”

“What did Grandfather's father do with it?”

“His took it home to your grandfather and told him the Owl Spirit had sent it as a gift. And now he must care for the little flying coyote.”

“What happened?”

“Since your father is here and you are here, then of course he got well. And that is how your Grandfather came to be called Flying Coyote.”

On Reading

image from grammarly.com

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have time (or the tools) to write."

                                                                                                -- Steven King

Reading and writing are kinda like the chicken and the egg for me. Not because I wrote before I could read. But I'm sure I told stories before I could read. So the gift of writing just made it possible to tell stories whether or not I had an audience.

When it comes to reading, I think people read according to their need. If you are considering buying a car, you read for information -- collecting facts, comparing them, and considering them. If you are on a spiritual journey, you read with the heart, seeking enlightenment. If you are tired and need to
relax so you can sleep, you read to be taken away from the day that has pushed you and pulled you into such knots and grotesqueries that you do not recognize yourself. Reading frees you to drift into Shakespeare's "Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care."

And then there's assigned reading for a grade in class; reading recommended by a colleague or friend so you can share thoughts and opinions; and, maybe best of all, entertainment -- purely entertainment. To scare you with things that go bump in the night. To thrill you with a high speed chase, with high decibel explosions, with a death-defying leap from a rocky cliff. To break your heart with lost love or failed dreams. To exhilarate you with love found again and dreams realized.

But, if you're a writer, you may have become an analytical reader -- someone who parses formats and language use and rules of style.

Dull! you say. Then you are not a writer. I have in this later part of my life come to enjoy discovering formats and language use and style in those books that I particularly like.

I used never to reread a book. Any book. No matter if I liked it and certainly not if I didn't like it.

First, I learned to watch movies more than once. If the movie was done well, I almost always got caught up in the story the first time I watched. I could not then and cannot now appreciate the structure. Indeed, if it is done well, I can't even see it. I do not hear the words as word choices the writer puts in the actors' mouths. I do not recognize the nuances the directer catches and keeps -- the framing of a scene; the lighting on the main character's hair, sometimes beautiful, sometimes disheveled; the color of a ribbon; the way an actor walks, shoulders upright and proud or collapsed in on them self, defeated. The first time through, I am unaware of all the intentional components used to draw me into the story, to help me experience it as if it were first-hand.

I watch it again looking for those intentional things.

Now I read that way, too. First for the story. Then, if it works, I read it again to see how it's put together. What is it about this book that generates thought, that inspires emotion? What is it that keeps me turning pages and wanting to see how it ends? That makes me care what happens to the characters? These are the elements and strategies I want to employ in my writing.

The hard kind of analytical reading comes when I don't like the book. Whether I like or dislike a book seems not to be dependent on how revered the author is or if it's on The New York Times Best Seller List. And it is the book I don't like that I must explore without the comforts of enthusiasm and admiration. I must identify why I don't like it?

Is it inaccessible? The James Boys come to mind -- James Joyce and Henry James.

Is it the story's premise? Steven King whose books I cannot finish before dark and can't read after dark. Tom Clancy who starts wars in altogether too believable ways. Both, by-the-bye are excellent writers. I just don't like such terrifying stories.

Poorly written books by people I like. I always want to give them the name of my writing teacher and encourage them to hire a good editor -- not just a line editor, but content, too.

These are the books that may very well improve my writing the most. These document the places I do not want to go and the manner I do not want to use to get there. I want to write books people can read reasonably easily. Books that will be exciting enough, but without the danger of nightmares. And books that will not jar them out of the story because of poor craft.

Writing is hard work that requires I study the craft. That's what reading is -- analytical reading is studying the craft.

To the barricades! Into the trenches! I raise my clinched fist and shout, "Read on!"

Signs, Signs -- a rant

Bachelor Elk Herd and tourists July 29, 2015

Sorry, y'all, but this post is a rant. See this glorious view of the Front Range Mountains. My daughter Grace took this picture from the car window as we drove easterly on Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park. As you can see there is a group of elk taking their leisure in the high mountain sunshine and an even larger group of humans endangering themselves, their children, and the fragile tundra plant life to get close to these wild animals. Wild animals, I might add, with full-grown antlers that they very well know how to use.

Signs all along the highway remind people to park only in designated areas. With a rise of more than 4,000 feet to its 12,183 foot high point, its many hair-pin curves, and its abundant unfenced wildlife, the highway is dangerous enough without cars parked hither and yon and people wondering back and forth willy-nilly across it. How can a traveler enjoy the grand vistas while they're worried about running over somebody's poorly supervised four-year-old? Or maybe running over that thoughtless somebody?

The signs warn against approaching wildlife. It's exciting to see marmots and chipmunks and pika and mountain goats and big horned sheep and elk and mountain lions and bear. But even the little critters bite. The big ones can do you much more harm. And if they do, they can be, and too often are, killed by the authorities.

The signs advise people to stay on the trails. Above tree-line the ground is not barren. It is covered with beautiful and fragile alpine tundra plants. Now these plants are amazing survivors. They must tolerate extreme weather conditions. They've evolved to survive grazing and trampling by the native animal population. They haven't had time to adapt to the more than three million humans who visit from June through October which is when the highway is clear of snow enough for human travel and the earth is clear enough for these plants' growing season.

These signs are not posted for their artistic qualities nor to provide practice for an apparently reading-challenged tourist population. These signs are to protect lives -- of the tourists, the other animals, and the plants.