_ Hundred-mile-an-hour wind gusts are fairly common in Boulder, Colorado, at least since I moved here. The gusts last night started around dark and walloped our cul-de-sac without mercy until noon today.

I slept approximately not at all.

The house shook,
the windows howled,
the fireplace flue played
the pan flute all night long.

_ This morning around five thirty I heard a little tap, a dainty scrape outside.
When I walked out my door at eight thirty, I saw this--

_ being held up by this--

_ engulfing both cars like this--

_ as nearly 8,000 pounds of pine tree blocked our driveway.

_ The arborist from Blue River Tree Care was already on the scene. He called in the largest crane that I have ever seen (and I’ve installed landscapes for 14 years)

which dropped a daredevil
down into the crown of the tree
who chopped two branches out
with a hand saw, attached the cables

and while we gaped from the upstairs landing window

that two-story pine tree

_ danced like a baby ballerina up over our heads

_ and touched down in point, where the crew promptly undressed her.

_ This miracle surpassed the miraculous activity indoors: my final day polishing
the last draft of my novel Tributary, 19.6 years in the making. Sharing the very last hours on this my magnum opus with the flight of the bumblebee pine tree--

I may have to take up the pan flute.
And play it hiking in the pines.

_ Authors have spilled their sweat and inky blood for you. It’s time you paid them back.

We count on online reviews to spread the word and promote our titles. Luckily, an online book review can take just a few minutes. So challenge yourself to review the best ten books you’ve read in the last year. And then do it every year. Contribute reviews to help boost your favorite authors and keep their books from going out of print!

It's simple. Here's how:

On any of the following bookseller sites, enter the title of the book you’d like to review. Then, once you’re on that book’s page . . .

_ Scroll down past the professional reviews and the “Product Details” to “Customer Reviews.” On the right hand side of the page, there’s a button called “Create your own review.”

_ You’ll be given the opportunity to create your reviewer name and password. Then you can 1) rate the book with stars, from one to five 2) enter the title for your review 3) type in a written review of at least 20 words. You can then preview your review and post it, once it says what you like.

_ Similar to Amazon, scroll down to “Customer Reviews.” Click on the “Write and Review” button on the right hand side of the page. Create an account for your reviewer self, and then proceed to rate with stars and a written review. You can choose to show your pen name or write an anonymous review.

_ On this site, you can only enter a star rating, so it is fast and easy!

All of these booksellers give you the chance to post your review to Facebook or Tweet it or email it to friends. It’s up to you, how far and how wide you’d like your review to spread its wings.
_

This is a great website for book fanatics. You can meet other folks with your reading tastes, read reviews by your "friends," write reviews of your favorite and unfavorite books, and win free books on giveaways. It really is a fine way to keep a journal of all you’ve read.

You won't be alone! Goodreads has 6,700,000 members who've added more than 230,000,000 books to their online "shelves."Click here for a pitch from one devoted fan. Or just join the conversation.

It’s easy to sign up on Goodreads. Once you have an identity, you get your own reviewer page. You can enter the name of any book, and it pops up cover and all. You can then read existing reviews, say whether you’re reading it or have already read it, and give it a star rating and/or add a written review.

When you sign up for favorite reviewers, you'll get updates on books they’ve read. You can join groups of like-minded readers. You can also visit author pages, to read blogs and watch book trailers.

Goodreads will send you handy suggestions for titles you may love and a monthly newsletter of what's new in your favorite genres.

Better still, you can go to authors' pages, and leave encouraging words. If they're active Goodreads members, you will be able to find out what they're reading and reviewing. Wouldn't you love to know what's on your favorite author's nightstand?

*NEWSWEEK reports that one way to get smarter and "Buff Your Brain" is to WRITE REVIEWS ONLINE. I quote: "Anyone can be a critic on the Internet—and you should too. When you like or hate something, review it on Amazon, Yelp, whatever. Typing out your opinion will help you to better understand your own thinking." (Sadly, the online version does not list the 31 ways to get smarter faster. But it does have a link to a great article on meditation and brain happiness by Amy Gross, former editor of O Magazine.)

_ May you live in the flow, however chilly.

_ Shelter from the storms . . .

_ And please buy books, give them away, pass them on and cherish them.

“The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.”
--Dr. Samuel Johnson, Preface to his Dictionary 

_

This is a butterball of a book! You have your dark meat, your light meat, your alien abduction, your two-headed cowboy, your small-town pranks, and The Scholar of Moab is literally stuffed with the screwy innocence of Hyrum LeRoy Thayne, strayed Mormon and willing servant of the Lord.

 

I do not normally review a book before I’ve finished it, but The Scholar of Moab is no ordinary book.

_ You need this book for the holidays. Your estranged aunt who wears brogans in the snow needs this book. Your brothers-in-law who are impossible to buy for need it. Your bishop needs it (if he has a sense of humor. If he doesn’t, he may need it even more.) I think you could safely send a copy of Scholar to philosophy majors, outdoor addicts, Moab addicts, high school drop-outs, romantics, cynics, geologists, belly dancers and German Shepherds.

_ Do yourself a big literary favor and read
Stephen L. Peck’s The Scholar of Moab.
Then please pass the gravy.*

*Share it with friends.
You can read more about The Scholar of Moab at Torrey House Press.

The brush tepee she builds near the old sod-roofed hut at the ranch.

The sacred Raft River Mountains where the novel ends.

The sacred white-faced ibis of Northern Utah.

And proving the vitality of black life in the white West,
Frank Durham's son rides rodeo in Pocatello, Idaho in the 1930s.

Of course, these historical photos are not actually my characters. But I love the juice they inject in my soul! I needed to let go of the final sleepy 100 pages of my manuscript and start anew. These photographs gave me the courage to do it.By Christmas, I'll have a novel worthy of its Utah roots.

Thanks to the Columbia River Basin project for photos of the buckaroo Tracy Thompson.

You might find this an amusing topic. If so, you do not have a farting dog.

My dog Sal can clear a room with one blast.

It is silent.

It is deadly.

We actually began naming her truly extravagant range of farts: rotted pumpkin, mustard gas, putrefying squirrel. When watching nightly movies became too painful due to fog darts, that is, dog farts, I took it upon myself to get to the bottom of Sal’s gaseous attacks.




Here are the family-tested results of my inquiry.

1. Get doggie probiotics from your veterinarian. They are not expensive. Buy a small packet of 10 tablets. Give your dog one per day before breakfast for ten days. You may notice quick results.

2. Buy a giant bottle of Beano. My vet says it is AOK for dogs. Dunk a Beano in something doggielicious like peanut butter or beef gravy. Give to your gasmonster morning and evening right before their meals. You may notice even more improvement.

If these two alone do not solve your gas attacks, your dog’s diet is the problem.

3. Continue using the kibble you always use but stop feeding your tender-tummy dog any canned dog food. And no cookies or bacon or quinoa, just in case they're in your repertoire. Try the following as supplements to settle their stomachs and make their kibble taste better: cooked white rice, yogurt, canned pumpkin and/or a little boiled chopped chicken. Rotate these daily, giving only a tablespoon or two with each meal. (I now keep cooked rice in the refrigerator at all times. If your dog's stomach is really upset, go with white rice exclusively for a day.)

If you still notice the occasional fart . . .

4. Try slowly introducing a tender-tummy food like Hills Science Diet ID. Sal only tolerated a fifty-fifty mix of ID and her usual kibble, Nature’s Balance Sweet Potato and Chicken. You do need a veterinarian’s OK to buy the ID kibble. My vet simply gave the go-ahead with a phone call, no appointment needed.

Of course, Dr. Fuller also gave me most of these brilliant gas-reduction ideas as well. I was desperate. He was a huge help.

Now Sal is 97% fart free. Our evenings are unfragrant. Pardon me for saying it, but Sally’s poop is firm for the first time in years. That makes poop patrol almost a delight.

If your dog is farting, it needs your help. Probiotics for a week, Beano for eternity, and serve easily digestible foods. Your pup and your nose will thank you for it.

Feel free to post any other fart-reduction tips!  Fog darts
in your house can be a thing of
the past.



My dear sister just reminded me: putting two medium-large rocks in your dog's food bowl will slow 'em down. They have to eat around the rocks. By gulping less air while eating, they reduce their need to fart. Try this first, before the probiotics. Thanks, Katherine!

P.S. If your dog eats unknown condiments of the wild (off-trail rancid who-knows-what) nothing will stop those farts but time.

May be a body part with which you are unfamiliar. Oh, you think you know it. You've dipped it in soft ice cream and scalded it with coffee. But do you know if you’re a SUPERTASTER? Have you considered the humble taste bud? Are you in the mood for some late night fun?

Cut out a small square of white paper, approximately 1” x 1”.

Punch a 7 millimeter hole in it (a hole punch works perfectly!).

Now take blue food coloring. And with a Q-tip, paint the end of your tongue midnight blue.

Place the white paper with the hole right over the tip of your tongue. It will adhere due to your spit.

Now have a friend with a magnifying glass count the number of taste buds within that 7 mm hole.

If you have more than 35 taste buds (the raised round “pink” domes dotting your tongue), you are a SUPERTASTER. My entire household qualified.

Supertasters react to flavors far more strongly than 75% of us do. If you count 15-35 buds, you’re a medium taster (50% of the population). Fewer than 15 buds on that tongue tip, and you’re classified a “non-taster.”

Here's a non-dyed tongue tip. And here's a YouTube video on SUPERTASTERS.

This may explain why SPAM was such a popular treat: 75%
of us can't really
taste it!

One way to combat a faltering economy is to indulge in your frugal side. Frugality actually puts you in contact with a realer reality anyway, so it’s good for the spirit as well as your net worth. The more you interact with the world to meet your needs, the better. I don’t mean society or cyberspace or created culture, when I say world.

Tonight, walking the dog with my sweetie after dinner, we passed a field of blackbirds perched on cattail stalks in a field empty but for one person in a royal blue rain jacket playing a recorder to them and only them.


Every bird in that field, all musicians themselves, sat facing the flutist. (It was dusk, so photos weren't possible.) S/he played for the twenty minutes it took us to circle the field, and played on after we’d departed.

Earlier today, walking the dog with my sweetie after breakfast, we met a frisky pup on a mountain trail who wanted nothing to do with her owner’s brisk goal-oriented workout run. Lily came pouncing off the trail to meet my dog, whose age and temperament yell NOT ME, I’M NOT PLAYING, but lo and behold, right nearby lay a pile of bear poop and Lily snapped her jaws on a firm dark morsel and couldn’t be persuaded to part from it. We called to her owner, “She’s eating poop!” and chased her in the friendliest way, knowing the gastric results of a dog on a scavenged diet, which of course Lily took to mean playing and poop, too? Fantastic! All this fun didn’t cost her a cent.

This afternoon, I hauled out the crockpot and combined two recipes to use what ingredients I had to make slow-cook red beans and rice. We get to smell this luxurious concoction for five whole hours while it simmers. And eat it tomorrow. Simple as simple. You can’t buy that at Sears.

I’m knitting a hat for a baby gift for Christmas. I’m writing a novel that may never make a dime. We’re still eating the chocolate frenzy birthday cake we made for my sweetheart’s daughter five days ago. And for her Halloween costume, she needs “hillbilly teeth.” No stores came through, so her father took a black straw we’d saved from dining out one night,* clipped off 1/3”, disappeared into the bathroom and came out with the most convincing hickabilly act I’ve ever seen, broken front tooth and all.


Did you love playing with oddments when you were little? You can do it old, too. Create the world you inhabit rather than buying it at stores. Or buy the parts and pieces and remake your life into a self-made interesting one. Get your hands on life. Play with nothing till it’s something. Play for blackbirds.

Frugal need not be stingy or austere. And always take photos.

My ex-husband gave me this as a card once long ago, and I burst into tears. Here was the secret woman I was not, a woman writing in a room filled with air and light. A woman undistracted. The painter is Vuillard. No painter has loved women and interiors so dearly.

I spent a dozen years with my writer-desires hidden in a tumble of life, like sheets, pulled over me. A potent simple love-filled sleep, and then

once I entered graduate school and started to write in earnest, a darker draining jumble.

I remodeled and walked and sewed and knitted and gardened my way through the birth-pangs of my first novel. It went nowhere in the real world. This longstanding pain remained private. The manuscript, after two years going the rounds with various publishers, collapsed in a closet from exhaustion.

About a decade after receiving that Vuillard card, I visited The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. One painting in particular stopped me. I stood mesmerized by this very small, very intimate portrait called “Woman Sweeping.” I trembled and I wept. I simply could not believe the domestic radiance, the woman and the room warm as velvet. The patterns wrenched me out of my twentieth-century freedoms into the intimacy of belonging somewhere.

This unassuming, glorious 17” x 18” painting is by Edouard Vuillard. Yet again, I didn’t choose Vuillard as a favorite painter. Vuillard chooses me.

He helped me through the brighter years, the green period when landscape design and planting trees and still a bit of sewing for tranquility flung me into the arms of a new novel, a contemporary novel, the novel where perfectionism dropped in a puddle and I wrote like a drunk on fire. Guest House. How fitting that most of

Vuillard’s paintings are interiors. Interlocking interiors which glow with belonging. Belonging is a central theme of Guest House.

And still the story goes. Just last week, I went to the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, to see a Post-Impressionist exhibit. I expected to be ravished by some of my old pals, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne. I have to admit I loved Renoir’s “The Dancer” so there was a small contest for my heart—but truly and utterly, Vuillard won the day. And I’m proud to say the painting among his half-dozen paintings which threw me over its shoulder and hauled me into its crazy den was “Profile of a Woman in a Green Hat.”

Can you begin to calculate the impact this 8” x 6” card-sized portrait has in a hushed crowd of reverent onlookers? With a Picasso blaring trumpets at it from across the room? I laughed out loud. I love it dearly. It’s Olive Oyl asking Popeye to can the spinach and give her a kiss.

Simeran Maxwell, of the National Gallery of Australia, says about our Olive: The face is an enigma. The conspicuous brow evokes a variety of responses in the viewer. Is the woman anxious, persecuted or suspicious? Is she shying away from our intrusive gaze, archly teasing us, questioning what we are looking at, or crossly glaring at us?

Simeran, she is saying: I am in my place. Don’t you envy my green lucidity?

Edouard Vuillard lived with and adored his mother for sixty years, his dress-maker mother. He loved his best friend’s wife chastely and was often in their company. The radiance of his heart seems the topic of each painting; love of women and their interiors.

A gal could do worse for a favorite. "I don't paint portraits," Vuillard once said. "I paint people at home." Ah, there’s the attraction. Being at home.

NPR on Vuillard.
The New Yorker on Vuillard.

And for the first time on my blog, here is the man himself . . . stunning.