Category: Winter

Monkey Business

1/24/2013

Kent Nerburn's Neither Wolf nor Dog is a great read with checkered origins. I enjoyed the book immensely. Nerburn's writing can be both simple as dirt and poetic as hell when it needs to be. His description of a massive storm in the Badlands towards the end of the book — gorgeous.

I started out loving this book. It was exactly what I'd been hoping to find since reading Lisa Jones' Broken: A Love Story, an exploration of Native American spirituality that was gritty and real. Nerburn can certainly write. But reading his last pages, I felt a slight suspicion and did a bit of research. The book is not non-fiction; Nerburn carefully chose and constructed this tale, populating it with people and events to suit his aim: to inspire in Anglo hearts a real understanding of Native points of view. He could have written this story of Dan and Grover, the Lakota road warriors, and their seemingly humble white amanuensis as a novel. It could have been a smashing novel. Apparently, it's being made into a movie soon. I have no comment on that.

Nerburn has defended the authenticity of the book as a work of art, a carrier of spiritual truths. But his defense showed no humility. And his fabrications have undercut the trust of this reader.

All authors are liars. Novelists lie blatantly, it's our trade. We lie to get at truth. Writers of non-fiction... well, I hope they still have standards of truthfulness. Neither Wolf nor Dog is a hybrid, it's spiritual road fiction, certainly not the first of its kind. But because the long haul tale was told and sold as truth, I stopped hitching. I'm actually kind of angry, the book was that good. I don't know which parts to trust.

Is Neither Wolf nor Dog worth reading? I think so. Fools gold shines like gold, just don't bite it.

On a lighter note, a great way to pass a winter's day--

Make baby bibs.

I took one to my dear pal Maddie last week, and her mom said, "I want a dozen more!" Her dad said, "We need a million of 'em." Maddie is one enthusiastic eater.

The monkeys started the whole project. I couldn't leave them all alone at JoAnn's among their flannel buddies.

I chose a handsome houndstooth check for the ties. You can use Velcro or ties at the neck, but Maddie is so strong Velcro is no match for her.

I could not resist the yellow rick rack, which actually catches spills!

I found the adorable pattern here.

I think the designer knocked it out of the park with her great fabric choices, including a soft chenille back. I just used good old flannel front and back. And muslin instead of interfacing.

When the literary world seems like a jungle, there's no better business than makin' monkey bibs.

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Thanks, 2012: The Year's Best

12/12/2012

4 Comments

Favorites have to stir the heart, and the following really stirred me up this year. Blessed to have enjoyed them, & happy to pass them on!

My favorite carol of the year, perhaps of the decade:

My favorite new TV drama series is old. And completely engrossing. Make sure to watch The Guardian through Episode Eight. Yes, Simon Baker brings a young Paul Newman to mind, but it is the content here that is so winning. Tough shark lawyer meets vulnerable kids as a reluctant public defender. Netflix has the series on Instant Download. My admiration grows with every episode.

Favorite novel of 2012 is, hands down, The Ordinary Truth by Jana Richman.

Cat Stephens was looking for a hard-headed woman. Truth features four. Ranchers all, with a past that has them snared like barbed wire and
a 300-mile-long pipeline that's about to suck their arid Nevada ranch dry.

Who gets the water—Las Vegas or the Jorgensens?

Be ready to eat dust and ride the rangelands to find out. Richman can really write desert.

And the pipeline is not fiction. See my favorite cause below.

My favorite new pastime--napping.

My favorite trees, and this is one tough category for me:

My apple tree, which produced five blossoms. I was so excited I couldn't hold still!

Van Gogh's "Poplars at Saint Remy"—at the Denver Art Museum, until January 2.

For a few years now, my favorite TV comedy series has been Modern Family.
With this year's Phils'osophy, the writers reached new heights. I would buy multiple copies of this book to give away, if only someone had published it! Phil for the holidays!

My favorite non-fiction book, which I am reading slowly to relish every insight: Priscilla Stuckey 's Kissed By a Fox.

The writing in Kissed is easily as beautiful as the cover. Stuckey explores our basic connection with nature which we've largely forgotten but which has not forgotten us.

Philosophers, biologists, mystics and economists all join voices with Stuckey to pinpoint and resurrect our profound state of being not just one with nature but being nature itself.

Let the fox kiss you. Let an eagle catch your eye. Let Stuckey's restoration of a creek in Oakland sing along with her recovery from severe sorrow and isolation.

Kissed celebrates the up close and personal power of connection.

Favorite new chocolate: Whole Foods Dark Chocolate PEAR & ALMOND.

My favorite cause of 2012: Utah's Goshute Indians claiming their water rights against a proposed Las Vegas pipeline that will decimate their arid homeland. The Goshutes ARE Spring Valley. And Spring Valley needs to keep its water under its own very beautiful dry feet.

If you have any gift-giving ahead in your holiday, the Goshute Legal Fund deserves
to hear from you.

Favorite quote: almost anything Rumi says, but here's the current zinger.

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

Favorite recipe: take one moment, pay attention, repeat and stir, bake until you are tender.

Happy holidays
and a dashing New Year filled with new and old favorites!

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Rest, Convalesce and Practice Napitation

10/26/2012

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Nothing says winter is a-comin' in like a few snowstorms, a new knitting project, and three great essays on the benefits of slowing down. Thanks, New York Times, Jana Richman and Pam Stone. Bears are not the only creatures who thrive on slow rhythms and deep relaxation!

Meanwhile, Jana Richman—devoted writer and lover of trees—contracted a head cold last week that effectively shut down her entire life and demanded she do nothing but contemplate.

And convalesce.

And make like her black walnut tree.

We all drop our leaves now and then. Now's a better time than then, she tells us.

Be still and embrace that restoration.

Strivers take note! This New York Times article says long life is achieved through sleeping in late, eating food from the dirt nearby, gardening all day, napping, and passing the evenings with friends. The small town lack of privacy might drive me wild on this Greek island. "It's not a 'me' place, it's a 'we' place." And that contributes to happiness and low crime rates.

Unemployment is at 40%, but all are cared for. All are fed. All fit in. No rushing anywhere. "We simply don't care about clocks here."

An eye-opening study of the absolute value of local foods and daily rest!

And Pam Stone shows us how.

If you've toyed with meditation and mindful slowing down, but always jumped right back into busy, give the techniques in her blog a try.

So many of my friends have reached the "I'm not invincible" phase. Where do you turn to refresh and recharge? How do you learn new skills when your whole life has been directed at achievement?!

Pam says find time each day to rest in acceptance. Napitation. Anyone can do that!

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Winter Knits

2/25/2012

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Nothing makes the chill of winter
(and snow shoveling marathons and 100 mph wind bursts) more satisfying than staying in, knitting in a sunny window for folks you love.

It helps to have babies to knit for,
and upcoming birthdays or baby showers. So here’s what I’ve been
up to for the frigid months of winter.

First up, eggplant for a toddler. I designed this and the following strawberry hat ten years ago when some strange irresistible force insisted I design children’s clothes.

I have no children. Perhaps this was my hands-on way
of coming to terms with that.

Although many call this hat a plum, I know it is the sturdy
reliable eggplant. With four whopping leaves on top.

Quite suitable for boys.

Luke loves his hat!

I love this shot his granny took near her garden!

Next up, the strawberry toque.

This hat is so much fun to knit, as the seed stitch takes a bit more concentration than good old stocking stitch. And once you’re done, you get to fiddle with those tiny leaves.

You start with a twisted stem, and then knit five of the strands
into individual pointed leaves.

When sewing the leaves down, make sure to let one or two
of the leaf tips curl up (sew leaf to hat three rows in from the
loose tail end).

This lends realism to the berry.

The toque is the perfect Christmas gift . . .

and it certainly made Violet happy!

Two things inspired the next knitting romp: a spring delivery date and knowing that my friends had just painted their new nursery room in two smashing tones of lilac purple. Which led me to this adorable sweater on Ravelry.

If you knit, and haven’t found Ravelry online, prepare to squander an entire afternoon! Their listing
of patterns and yarns is delicious. I fell for this one-piece “Baby Kina” sweater because it truly
flatters a baby’s form.

And look how cute it is in tangerine orange!

The $5 pattern is from a French company, so if you don’t speak French, ask a high school French student to help you place your order.

Here is my version, with buttons and rayon bamboo yarn purchased from Jo-Ann Fabrics. The yarn
is Caron's SPA "Silky Soft Bamboo Blend" and it's truly silky smooth. Any non-scratchy yarn that gets 22 stitches to the inch will work well for this sweater. The buttons put me over the moon!

I just finished sewing on the opalescent buttons today, and wrapped it up for delivery.

The new parents also get the “New Crockery Cookbook” and basket of the special ingredients required for crockpot cookery—one gift for the baby, and one for the soon-to-be-sleep-and-food-deprived parents.

Off to the grocery store for hot sauce, tapioca and Andouille sausage!

P.S. If you buy this cookbook, try pairing the Sweet Potato and Andouille Sausage Stew with orange date bread—ah, more winter goodness!

2 Comments

Cover Story

2/14/2012

17 Comments

This is the story of a cover and two lovers who searched for it diligently through rain and hail and sleet and dark of night. And nearly a hundred hours of online Google work and about forty mock-ups, until the publisher said yes.

Originally, the cover of my coming-of-age novel Tributary was a gorgeous expansive shot of the
Bear River in northern Utah--the setting of the novel shining in all its glory.

The distributor said no, the cover needs to
tell a story and indicate time period and character.
So my beloved partner Jeff (aka cover designer extraordinaire) and I set out to do just that.

I jumped online and after many hours found and
fell in love with a great period dress on ETSY. Turns out Vera Vague, queen of online vintage chic, was both the seller of the dress and the model inside it, and she was thrilled to have her person and her dress on a novel about a young Mormon woman who escapes polygamy.

Vera and I emailed joyously back and forth, and here is the resulting cover.

The publisher's response was puzzlement. "Tell us about the flowers in the lower corner," they said. "What do they mean?" Puzzlement was not the response we'd expected, so we showed this cover to family members, who were also puzzled. Tepid and puzzled. Thus, with some sorrow, we let this cover go and proceeded to do a photo shoot. If you can’t find the image you need online, make it. Because most folks we'd asked wanted a sweaty, hard-working, active Clair, not a rigidly posed Clair with her head cut off. My Clair is not a city gal, and this cover made her seem so.

The Shoot: After securing Clair’s tomboy outerwear at local thrift and antique stores (large overalls
and a calico shirt and battered hat), my two sisters and brother-in-law and I tromped through the wilds with a period Remington rifle, taking 170 shots of me gazing out over grand vistas, some with rifle and some without. We also shot my sister's mid-length locks from behind, as I have short hair. Then Jeff worked his magic in Photoshop to produce this cover--Clair in her element.

The publisher commented on Clair’s hair conditioner and highlights, and said the photo didn’t look 19th century. Jeff had spent two late nights and many long hours getting it right (he created three or four different versions of it, full color and sepia tone). Bah! We were three covers in, with nothing to show. And fully aware of how hard it is to make contemporary photographs look antique.

We inserted a shot of my grandmother, who is Clair, into the Bear River scene. Jeff even Photoshopped in the
Port Wine Stain mark on Clair's left cheek.

Too sweet. No story.

Then Jeff found the image of this gorgeous old barn in grass, which does indicate place and circumstance, but alas, this too was too sweet. Too quiet. And most readers want to imagine the heroine's face, not have
her plastered on the book's cover. Good-bye, Grandma. And good-bye to Jeff's favorite cover design.

With seven days left to meet the publisher's deadline, I had a vision. At 3:30 in the morning, inspired in part by growing guilt at all of the unpaid work Jeff had invested on my behalf, I saw a stack of Clair’s pressed flower cards above cracked earth. Earth stained by water. To me, being a poetic sort, this metaphor showed beauty arising from the difficult barren desert. We couldn't find an image of Clair herself, so the work of her hands stood in for her.

I genuinely love this cover. Jeff did, too. We thought we had it. I danced in the kitchen and felt carefree. “It's pretty. But where is Clair’s spirit?” the publisher asked. "Where is the journey?"

Jeff and I ground our teeth, and trekked onward into the historical cover fog!

We dallied with the one and only period photograph
I found of a woman actually working.

Not Clair. Not right.

Then we went back to the dark dress in profile, adding
the flower cards instead of the puzzling red Indian Paintbrush. Clair made and sold these cards, in my novel, so they had meaning. But alas, while searching for other historical covers
to inspire us, I found that we had created the perfect
romance novel cover . . .

Arghhhh. Clair's story is if anything an anti-romance. Back, yes back, to the Google search. I literally burned my eyeballs searching for images online for ten hours straight (I call it OCB—ocular computer burn). Nothing nothing nothing worked. Women in 1870 did not pose casually in their work wear for photographs. I lay on the couch that night in the dark, my eyes and my heart despondent, when my dear friend Lisa Jones called. Lisa knew about my novel and knew about the trying cover search. A first-rate author and intrepid visionary, Lisa said, “I see a river, I see a tributary. I see a Shoshone woman walking beside Clair in a snowstorm. There’s your journey. That’s your story.”

“That may be what you see," I said, "but it doesn’t exist.”

“We’ll shoot it ourselves. I have two Indian blankets. We’ll use an I Phone, make it blurry, you know, a Blair Witch Project without the scary bits. Your cover needs grit.” I called Jeff late that night. “Ain’t this a nutty idea of Lisa's?” He said, “It is fabulous. Go for it. The I Phone 4 takes high resolution photos. You’ll be tiny on the actual cover, so we only need outlines. We can add the snow, if it doesn’t snow tomorrow!”

So I gathered up my battered enthusiasm and off we went this past Sunday tromping through Colorado wilderness in eight degree weather. With Jeff’s daughter in pigtail braids, Lisa Jones with two I Phones, and only thrift store shawls and blankets to keep us warm. You may be saying to yourself about now, does this woman ever learn her lesson? Bonding with friends and family on a photo shoot trumps the need for results, the need for a cover. Really, how much more blessed could I be?

We had a wonderful time. Lisa plunged through snow and bushes, shooting 170 photographs at three different locales, and here’s what Jeff put together from that shoot.

Publisher's response to this mock-up: “Beautiful image, but I’m not seeing the 19th century Clair in there.” Can you hear our groans of agony? At this point, Jeff and I have five days until the cover is due. Jeff wheels into montage mode and, working doggedly, delivers this.

Which sends me out the door, crying in private,
it is so gloomy and has nothing of Clair’s spirit
or the spirit of the novel in it at all. It looks like
a non-fiction downer.

Then late last night, after dinner and a few laughs, with that little unquenchable spark of "I know you are out there somewhere" pushing me to try yet again, I typed “19th century pioneer women’s shoulders” into Google because that is exactly
what I needed to see.

And I found it. I found Clair.

Now if this blog were a novel, you'd have the ending right here, happy or not. And if this cover were in the bag, I might even show you the results. But being keen on representing the human condition fairly, I’d rather you felt the frustration and cliff-hanger unknowing that creating this cover has caused for us.

Yes, the publisher loved the new cover image. No we haven’t secured rights to use it. We may not even get permission, and will have to stage yet another photo shoot to recreate the look ourselves! With three days to go. Impossible?!

The moral of this Cover Story: If anyone ever asks you to design a historical novel’s cover, say no. Unless you value the journey more than the destination. This was our journey. You’ll have to wait for a later blog to see the destination, that is the final cover of Tributary. Let’s hope it’s a good ‘un.

Or I'm going for a brown paper bag.

(Feel free to vote on your favorite cover!)
(And feel free to hire Jeff for your cover design needs, unless your book is historical fiction!)

17 Comments

Save the Last Dance for Tree

1/19/2012

1 Comment

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.

(For those of you smitten with pan flute fever . . .

check out this crazy website!)

1 Comment

Happy Holidays!

12/14/2011

0 Comments

Happy
holidays,
dear readers!

May you live in the flow, however chilly.

May your newest seeds claim good soil.

May you find meaning in scanty times.

And comfort in unexpected places.

Shelter from the storms . . .

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

Because, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

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

Authors:
Keep believing
till the carrot falls off.

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FruGAL

10/30/2011

6 Comments

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.

*That black straw serves double duty—it's extra wide, perfect for shooting popcorn kernels at the neighbor's sometimes noisy dog and the brazen squirrels who hog our birdfeeder. We shoot, we miss, the miscreants scatter!

6 Comments

Keep Searching

12/14/2010

1 Comment

Happy Holidays!

Keep searching

for that path

to the deep creek within you
where it is always always

a beautiful, clear day.

Thanks to Dreamstime for the final photo.

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Red, White and Blue

4/13/2010

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Red: The color amaryllis blooms turn when they crumple in on themselves after a week-long fantasy display of peachy pink in your south-facing bay window. The amaryllis bulbs you’d left for dead from last year--stuck under an entry table near a heat vent which seems to have done the hibernation trick. Buds poked up late March and, with water, the exhilarated flower stalks grew two inches a day heading for the ceiling! Red begins decay and yet you’re thankful for it.

White: The color of apricot blossoms under April snow. Who can say which is better? Who can tell them apart?

Blue: The refracted valley light at base of Little Cottonwood Canyon when you’ve just pushed off the Albion chairlift and your goggles haven’t fogged. It’s an inky blue unexplained by weather patterns or the elevation or descent of moods. It’s what you’ve left behind. It is congestion. Three hundred twenty-five thousand minds can disbelieve they impact the earth at all and you know in that distant ink-dark blue floats three hundred twenty-five thousand pounds of wrong. Spring snow is heavy but forgiving. It slows you down so that you see red, white, and blue.

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All Lit Up:
love, mayhem, literature
__________

Favorite quotes:

"Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.”
—Willa Cather

"Nothing is as powerful as beauty in a wicked world."
—Amos Lee

Favorite tree:

Butterscotch-scented ponderosa pines in sunlight.

Favorite place:

The middle of nowhere.

Currently reading:

The Old Wine Shades

Just finished reading:

Finding Stillness in a Noisy World

Monkey Business

On a lighter note, a great way to pass a winter's day--

I found the adorable pattern here.

Thanks, 2012: The Year's Best

Favorites have to stir the heart, and the following really stirred me up this year. Blessed to have enjoyed them, & happy to pass them on!

Happy holidays
and a dashing New Year filled with new and old favorites!

Rest, Convalesce and Practice Napitation

Nothing says winter is a-comin' in like a few snowstorms, a new knitting project, and three great essays on the benefits of slowing down. Thanks, New York Times, Jana Richman and Pam Stone. Bears are not the only creatures who thrive on slow rhythms and deep relaxation!

Winter Knits

Cover Story

Save the Last Dance for Tree

Happy Holidays!

FruGAL

Keep Searching

Red, White and Blue

All Lit Up:
love, mayhem, literature
__________

Categories

Favorite quotes:

Favorite tree:

Favorite place:

Currently reading:

Just finished reading:

Favorite blog:

One Woman's Meat: Notes from Escalante

On a lighter note, a great way to pass a winter's day--

I found the adorable pattern here.

Favorites have to stir the heart, and the following really stirred me up this year. Blessed to have enjoyed them, & happy to pass them on!

Happy holidays and a dashing New Year filled with new and old favorites!

Nothing says winter is a-comin' in like a few snowstorms, a new knitting project, and three great essays on the benefits of slowing down. Thanks, New York Times, Jana Richman and Pam Stone. Bears are not the only creatures who thrive on slow rhythms and deep relaxation!

All Lit Up:love, mayhem, literature__________

Categories

Favorite quotes:

Favorite tree:

Favorite place:

Currently reading:

Just finished reading:

Favorite blog:

Happy holidays
and a dashing New Year filled with new and old favorites!

All Lit Up:
love, mayhem, literature
__________