My Weblog

Something Old, Something New

Things right now are, well, not normal. We’re in the midst of the first pandemic since the H1N1 Pandemic of 2009—and the first pandemic of the Social Media Era. (Facebook launched in 2004 and Twitter in 2006.) While social media has been valuable for getting important information about COVID-19 to the public, it has also amplified the speed at which misinformation and speculation spread in ways unimaginable even in 2009. As a result, people are afraid—afraid of getting sick, afraid of dying, afraid of losing friends and loved ones, afraid of losing their homes as livelihoods, and afraid of losing their way of life.

Although the feeling of fear is universal, the way people cope with fear is not. Some people lash out, others withdraw. Some seek out new ways to deal with a new reality (Virtual church services, anyone?) while others turn to familiarities from the past to help them navigate unfamiliar ground. Still others combine the old comforts with new methods. For example, the age-old practice of reading aloud was paired with the new technology of live-streaming audio and video to recreate the childhood joy of being read to. Probably the most viral (no pun intended) instance of this is Levar Burton taking Neil Gaiman up on his offer of the use of his stories to produce Twitter livestreams of Levar Burton Reads. (Friday at 6 pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern for adults.)

Me, I’m turning to old favorites to help me cope with a world I can’t control. (Although, come to think of it, I’m using new technology to do so, so I guess I’m in the hybrid coping camp.) I’m re-binge-watching Agatha Christie’s Marple and Agatha Christie’s Poirot on Hulu and BritBox. I know how each episode ends but the known outcome is what makes them comforting.

How about you? How are you coping? By reading? By being read to? Watching film adaptations of books? Writing your own works, pieces that deal with—or resist—the times? Comment on the blog or join the discussion on Facebook or Twitter.

Are You Turning Into Your Parents?

 

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

"What's the fastest way to get to the highway from here?" my husband asked me.
"The most direct way is US 1 to Broward Boulevard, but this time of day, I like to take Bayview to 26th Street to 4th Street, which turns into 3rd Street after it crosses the railroad tracks. That way you'll bypass the rush hour traffic."
As soon as I said those words, I knew I'd turned into my parents. My father never took the straight way to any place. He always knew a back way there, and as a kid, I was convinced his shortcuts actually took longer. But now I do the same thing – I'm always looking for a side route, which I'm convinced will get me there faster.

My mother kept a rag bag to clean up spills. As a kid, I grumbled when she didn't use paper towels like other moms. Now here I am, with a collection of rags in my kitchen closet. I tell myself I'm being environmentally friendly, but I know better. I've turned into my mother.

My stern German Grandmother Viets used to cut up old correspondence for scrap paper. Now I do the same thing. I'm recycling, I say. At least I haven't picked up her habit of cutting out the insides of greeting cards and then re-using the outer shell.
So far, I haven't picked up any habits of my Grandma Vierling, a sweet woman who loved to cook and kept her home spotless. But I keep hoping.
So what about you, readers? Do you have your parents' habits? Which ones?

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Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Malice Domestic mystery convention in Bethesda, MD. To find out where the Femmes will be appearing, check out Catriona's blog here: https://femmesfatales.typepad.com/my_weblog/2019/04/isnt-it-malicious.html

When Did You Know There Was No Easter Bunny?

By Elaine Viets

My husband Don, who's more savvy than I am, figured out the Easter bunny at age five or six. "I just knew it wasn't real," he told me.
I was a little slower. Actually, I was a lot slower. I should have figured it out years earlier. I mean, think about it: A giant male rabbit runs around filling all the Easter baskets in the world in one night? Did I know any man who did that much domestic work?
Most dads in my neighborhood couldn't organize a backyard barbecue. They poured equal amounts of beer into themselves and into their barbecue sauce, and then took all the credit for flipping a few burgers. It was the moms who made the potato salad and brownies, cooked the corn on the cob, bought the burgers, buns, beer, paper plates and napkins.
But like I said, I was slow to catch on. I still believed in the Easter bunny when I was nine years old. Since I was a tall child, who looked older than I really was, my mother was embarrassed by me prattling about the Easter bunny. She was afraid people would think I was simple. Like most kids, I'd given up candy for Lent, and all I could think about was the treats the Easter bunny was going to bring.
So what did Mom do?
One afternoon, about two weeks before Easter, I came home from school, opened the fridge, and found the whole family's Easter candy in the fridge: eight chocolate bunnies, boxes of fancy foil-wrapped eggs, bags of little milk chocolate eggs – the whole luscious, sweet-shiny horde – on a shelf where I could see it.
I was shattered.

Confronted with this body of evidence, I was forced to conclude that there was no Easter bunny. Some of the fun went out of the holiday, though the candy still tasted good.

Good Housekeeping magazine wrote an earnest article about this childhood milestone: "When Should I Tell My Children the Easter Bunny Isn't Real?"
The magazine suggested that when your kid starts catching on, a good way to gently explain this is to say, "The Easter Bunny is a lot like other things you know aren't real, but used to believe in — like the monster under the bed."
What? That is a dangerous thing to tell children.
Everyone knows the monster under the bed is real. But if you keep your arms and legs from hanging over the side of the bed, he can't get you.
So when did you know there was no Easter bunny?

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St. Louis chocolate, toasted ravioli, and other city treats star in my seventh Josie Marcus' mystery shopper mystery, Death on a Platter. Win the new e-book. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

I'm Not Springing Forward This Spring

 

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

About the only ones happy with daylight-saving time in our household are our two cats, Harry and Mystery. They get fed an hour earlier.
Don and I are now five days into the time change and still stumbling around like a meteor hit our house. We can't quite wake up, we fall asleep in the afternoon and then can't sleep at usual time. We feel . . . off.

At least, we're not alone. The Los Angeles Times called for an end to daylight-saving time.
"There’s just no good reason to keep skipping back and forth in time every year," the paper says.
Amen.
Daylight-saving time is dangerous. "Multiple research studies have found a higher rate of car accidents on the Monday following the shift to daylight-saving time. The same association is not found with the Autumn time shift," says the American Sleep Association. The change disturbs our natural sleep cycle. It also causes an increase in heart attacks. "Judgment is affected, as are scholastic scores and losses on the stock market."
Experts say daylight-saving time is killing us. Our kids could flunk out of school. We could lose a bundle in the stock market – and that would definitely cause a heart attack.
So what are we doing about daylight-saving time?
The European Parliament is expected to outlaw it "later this month," according to the Times. California – always at the forefront – voted to start the process to move to year-round daylight-saving time as well. Only Hawaii and Arizona don't have daylight-saving time. About half the states want to get rid of it.

Too bad time change is a federal issue. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has introduced a bill to make daylight-saving time permanent for the entire country.
If the US got rid of daylight-saving time, we'd have more daylight, even in the winter. A study by the California Energy Commission also said, "there might be small savings in energy usage by sticking with permanent daylight-saving time." So it's good for the planet.
Some people might object because it would be permanently dark in the morning, but I'm ready to stop the semiannual change.
So what do you think, readers – do you want to end daylight-saving time? Or do you hate getting up in the dark in the morning?
I think it's time for a change.

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Win AN UPLIFTING MYSTERY, my sixth Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper mystery. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

My New Year's Resolution

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

For 2019, I'm not going to try to lose weight. I'm through with the same old boring New Year's resolutions.
But I do have one resolution – an important one.
I resolve to see my friends.

I lost two good friends in 2018, and I miss them both. Nearly every day, I think about things I want to email Dick – the corny jokes, the awful puns we both enjoyed. I didn't see him nearly as much as I wanted to. I had work to do.
Ditto for my friend Valerie. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.
But I was busy with work, and didn't see them as often as I wanted. I regret that. Every day.
So this year, when a friend asks, "Want to meet me for lunch?" the answer is yes. I'm not hiding behind deadlines.

Life is short. We all know that. But this year, I realized it.
I'll get the work done somehow.
This new year, friendship comes first.
I've learned the hard way that death is forever.
But so is friendship.

Happy 2019!

 

How to Survive Thanksgiving

 

 By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

Green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with little marshmallows, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy, four kinds of pie, and Aunt Mildred's cranberry-orange surprise. All these delights are waiting for us next Thursday, along with a full day with our family on Thanksgiving.
For some reason, people find encounters with their relatives stressful. Consider Chloe, our hostess, trying to juggle her family, which ranges across the political spectrum.
There's Uncle Billy, wearing his MAGA hat at the table. Our hostess hopes he won't mention the T-word, but it's the first thing out of his mouth. "Pass the turkey," he says, and Chloe cheerfully hands him the platter. "You like dark meat," she says. "Take a drumstick. In fact, take two." Uncle Billy spends the rest of the dinner gnawing on his prize like King Henry VIII.

Then there's Cousin Nick, the gun nut, who believes that everyone has the right to bear arms. Our hostess is terrified he'll use the N-word. Sure enough, he says, "Any nuts in the squash?"
"Absolutely not," Chloe says, spooning mounds of his favorite vegetable onto his loaded plate.

Aunt Mildred is anxious to discuss her friends' latest operations. "You remember Edna, my neighbor, don't you?" she says in hushed tones. "She collapsed the other day. The doctors opened her up and found a tumor the size of grapefruit in her liver."
"Grapefruit!" says our hostess. "I forgot the grapefruit avocado salad!" Chloe runs for the kitchen. She comes back with a platter of that cool delicacy.

As the meal goes on, compliments are heaped on Chloe's cooking, and bowls and platters are emptied. Nedra, the family liberal, is anxious to discuss the Blue Wave, but so far she hasn't had a chance. "What about the blue . . ." she begins.

"Blueberry pie?" the hostess says, interrupting her guest. "I knew it was your favorite. Here's a big piece, with vanilla ice cream."
Soon the entire family is munching the pie of their choice: lemon, pumpkin, blueberry and mincemeat.
And Chloe is extremely thankful that it's not polite to talk with your mouth full.

 

Small Details

 

 

 By Joanna Campbell Slan

I have always been fascinated by small things, and after my mother took us to see Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle in the Museum of Science and Industry, I was hooked. Since I grew up poor, I couldn’t run out and buy all the tiny stuff I wanted. Shockingly, miniatures are expensive. Very, very expensive. Right now on Etsy, you can buy a miniature piece of Santeria Spiritual furniture (a chest of drawers) complete with voodoo items for $125. And that’s mainly a cute piece. A petit point bench is selling for $160. Are you beginning to get the picture? The joke in the mini world is: "The smaller the item, the bigger the price tag."

To me, the fun in miniatures is making the stuff. Particularly when I’m turning trash into treasure. Last year I decided to create a spooky scene to enter in the annual Halloween scene contest run by Miniatures.com. My concept started with a paper Starbucks coffee cup that my husband, David, had thrown away. It reminded me of a stove. An old round stove. If you have a stove, you are well on the way to a  . . . kitchen. Yeah. I decided to make a cooking scene, one that any tiny witch would be proud of. Because I wasn’t down in Florida, our home, I had to make do with any cheap materials I could scrounge up quickly. My imagination really went into overdrive. Here’s what I used:

 1. The stove is a Starbucks cup.

2. The spider web is wire and thread.

3. The spider is clay.

4. The saw is the cutting edge from a box of foil or plastic wrap.

5. The hand coming out of the trapdoor is clay.

6. The butcher block table is a bunch of pieces of wood glued together and cut into a square.

7. The rag with a hand print. I cut a cork into the shape of a tiny hand and used red ink to stamp it on a paper towel.

8. The cat is all polymer clay.

9. The cow skull is paper mache.

10. The “glass” jars are strips of plastic packaging taped in a tube shape.

11. The eyeballs are clay.

12. The broom is dead grass tied to a stick.

13. The witch’s hat is an empty tea bag painted with acrylic paint.

14. The basket is paper.

15. The green candles at the top of the cupboard are straws. Inside each is an LED light (up at the flame). Then I dripped green wax into and around the straw.

16. When it’s dark, there’s a light coming out of the stove, the candles, and the trap door.

17. I printed out an old chart about bugs and put that on the shelves.

18. The cupboard is cut from mat board, like what's used to frame pictures. The little witch on a broom was created by using a punched image as a stencil and filling it with wood putty. When it was dry, I painted it. String is glued down to the top of the cupboard to add dimension liked carving.

19. Cheese cloth dyed in strong coffee is the open weave fabric on the shelves.

20. The floor is paper clay, except for the trap door.

21. The pots are paper with wooden handles.

22. The plate on the butcher block table is a pull top from an almond milk carton. The fingers and eyeballs are clay. The cleaver is metal from a wine bottle, inserted in a wood dowel.

23. The basket with green balls is a nutshell that’s been sanded smooth.

24. The cauldron is clay. The “steam” is a bit of cotton batting.

25. The fancy bottles are stacked beads.

26. The plant in the pot on the top shelf is that bit of green plastic you get when you buy sushi. (Never throw it away!)

 And one last thing: The green bubbles are witch's stew. (Gorilla Glue covered with green acrylic paint.)

NOTE: Femmes Elaine Viets interrupting here. Joanna's miniature made a big impression on me. I voted for it.

The Miniatures.com contest runs from now until Sunday, Oct. 28 at 11:50 p.m. EST, and you can vote every 24 hours. Here’s the link:   https://wshe.es/CHKxTObS

To see more ideas about miniatures and how to make them, visit Joanna's  pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.com/jcslan25

 

 

Good Sense: Penny Candy

By Elaine Viets

My grandparents owned what St. Louisans called a "confectionary" - basically an early convenience store. It was the kind of place where neighbors could dash in and buy something without making a trip to the supermarket: a loaf of bread, a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup (which was a sauce in our area), baby formula, or a pound of ham when unexpected guests dropped in on Sunday afternoon. The ham supplemented the everyday baloney and pickle loaf on the cold-cuts platter and we kids knew better than to eat it. Ham was reserved for Dad and company.
But the best thing my grandparents sold was penny candy. Back when it was really a penny a piece – and sometimes two pieces for a penny. Mom and Dad worked the store on Sunday, which gave my grandparents their only day off.
Grandma and Grandpa gave each of us kids our own bag of penny candy. Back at home Sunday night, my three brothers and I would gloat over our candy haul like misers.
Here were some of my favorites:

Wax lips. This was candy we got to wear! I could pretend to have lush, movie-star lips. The wax lips were pretty tasteless, but they were fun to play with. They were an early interactive treat. Wax lips now sell for about $22 a dozen, bringing their price up to almost 2 bucks.

Candy cigarettes. "Just like Daddy!" said some of the ads. Yes, my Dad smoked cigarettes. We could pretend to be sophisticated and smoke our candy cigarettes. They broke easily, but their sweet, chalky flavor was pretty good.

Candy buttons. My all-time favorite. I must have eaten a pound of paper when I was a kid. Being a methodical child, I ate them by color – red first, then orange, then yellow, and finally blue.

Bazooka bubble gum. My least favorite penny candy, even though the gum came with corny Bazooka comics. To me, the bright pink gun was thick and rubbery with very little flavor. Also, I couldn't snap it or blow bubbles.

Wax Soda Bottles. Each bottle was filled with a poisonous-colored syrup. I loved wax soda bottles. The empty syrup-flavored bottles weren't bad, either.

As a kid, what was your favorite candy?

Win the new e-book version of Catnapped!, my lucky 13th Dead-End Job mystery. Helen Hawthorne, on the track of a killer, has to find a kidnapped show cat. She works at a cattery and learns how to give a cat a bath. It starts with Goop. Yeah, that stuff you use on your hands. Helen has a lot on her hands with a killer on the loose. "Full of wry social commentary." -- Publishers Weekly. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

Help! A Weather Event Is Coming

By Elaine Viets.

"Weather event."
The first time I heard this phrase was last year during Hurricane Irma. The massive storm was bearing down on South Florida. It was a menacing Category 5.

The governor ordered a mass evacuation. Don and I and the cats hit the highway –- along with about a million other Floridians -– to find safer shelter. No one knew which section of Florida Irma would hit: Would she slam Fort Lauderdale? Pulverize Palm Beach? Or kick the Keys?

We hunkered down at a friend's house in Boynton Beach and watched a lot of TV as Irma stalked our shores. By hunkered down, I mean we ate junk food, played with the cats, and ate our friend Ann's wonderful cooking. Sure, the wind howled and rattled the hurricane shutters (excuse me, the weather event shutters) but basically we were safe and snug until Irma blew over.

That's what everyone I knew called the storm – "Irma." Or the "hurricane."
All except the TV newscasters. They called it a "weather event."
Huh?
That sounds like something you'd sell tickets to. A weather event makes it sound like we had a choice:
Me: Did you go to the September Weather Event?
My Friend: No, I missed it. I was watching Netflix.
You can avoid most real events. You can just say no, send polite regrets, or promise to come next time.
But there's no avoiding a hurricane.

So far as I can tell, no live human outside of broadcast uses "event" in that sense. Except the National Weather Service. They have a list of "weather events" for your area, ranging from snowstorms to tornadoes.
"Weather event" downgrades the danger. It's one thing to be hit by a hurricane – but to have your house destroyed by a weather event?

Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz didn't have a weather event. It was a fearsome Kansas tornado.
The Carolinas have been through a horrifying weather event this year. Hurricane Florence missed us. Here in Florida, it's still hurricane season. It doesn't end until after Thanksgiving -– and then we are truly thankful.
As I write this, tropical depressions and waves are forming in the Atlantic.

I'm praying they're all non-events.

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What I Learned from a Computer Crisis

By Joanna Campbell Slan for Femmes Fatales

As with most crises, this one began simply enough. My AOL inbox showed 20,000+ messages. The number had built up over time. In a surge of energy, I decided to clean out the inbox. Four hours later, I’d winnowed the mess down to 3,000+ emails. Some of you might have even gotten an email from me, because if I had any questions about whether an email had been responded to, I sent a new email to double-check.

That night, I went to bed feeling incredibly organized. Yes, I was taming my email habit at last. My friend Marla had shown me how to use the rules function. Aaron, my computer guru, told me how to block offending domains. The number in my inbox had shrunken considerably. The leftovers could be dealt with the next morning. All was well in my soul.

Alas.

The next day, I opened my computer to find…40,000+ emails. I called Aaron. He did a remote session (oh, the computer gods have ways of controlling our machines from afar!), and reset the AOL account. He deduced that AOL wanted to save all my emails for 30 days. When I tried to destroy them, AOL thoughtfully replaced all of them. We thought we had the problem fixed, although Aaron’s last pronouncement proved prescient, “I hate AOL.”

“You told me that.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll say it again. I hate AOL. You get what you pay for.”

“Right, but I still use that account. I've had it for ages. Mainly for sites that force me to sign up or for when I make purchases.”

“Yeah, but I’m just sayin’…I hate AOL.”

“Got it."

Later that day, a warning popped up in the lower right hand corner of my screen. It told me that I was running out of disk space. I hit the Crap Cleaner button. I did the Malware cleaning. Usually that’s all I need to do. Of course, cleaning the disk space is a hassle because as you do, you clean out all the “cookies,” which are really bread crumbs that lead you back to places you’ve been. When the cookies are gone, you have to manually re-enter passwords. A pain in the backside. However, I was being a good little scout. I did it. And I kept writing on my newest Kiki book and a short story.

The next day…Armageddon. AOL decided I could NOT do without the emails I’d deleted and repopulated them AGAIN. I now had 220,000+ emails in my inbox. I also had 50,000+ emails in my trash folder. I couldn’t send or receive any emails. A big yellow caution sign covered my enterprise server, the joannaslan.com site.

So I decided to take out the trash (in the computer). I needed to hurry because I was catching a plane up to DC. From there I was flying to Seattle, Washington, for a family wedding. I hit the right buttons. Hit them again. Nothing happened.

In a panic I called Aaron.

As it happened, between the emails in my inbox and the emails in my trash, I’d used up ALL the available space on my computer. In fact, between the manuscripts on my laptop, the photos, the covers, and everything else, I’d used up 60% of my disk space. My emails ate the rest, the remaining 30%.

Fortunately, there was a fix. I could physically drop off my computer with Aaron, and he could install a bigger hard drive. A much, much bigger hard drive. So I did.

Now my computer is slicker than owl snot. (As if I’d know how slick owl snot is!) And faster than a speeding bullet. (Ditto.) Aaron kindly worked overtime to get the machine back to me. Between his efforts and the wedding and traveling, I took a semi-forced vacation from my laptop. Yesterday I actually floated around in my son’s pool for an hour. It was heaven, watching the clouds float overhead in a blue, blue sky. Here in Winter Park, Florida, the temperature soared into the 90s, and the water was perfect! I actually fell asleep while drifting in the plastic doughnut.

And you know what? Despite the hassle, and the cost, and the exasperation…I’m kinda/sorta glad this happened. I now have more storage space. I feel refreshed. I really needed to take a break from technology. My mind feels much clearer, and I'm ready to get back to work.

What did I learn from all this?

• I'm recommitted to cleaning my email inbox more frequently--and immediately dumping the "trash."
• I'm going to be more pro-active about using external back-up drives. I'll keep one up in DC at our business and one in Florida.
• I'll be putting more of my finished manuscripts in the cloud from now on as a way to keep things organized and to better manage storage.
• I'll always get the largest hard drive I can afford. When we bought this new laptop, it never occurred to us to see if we could get a bigger hard drive. This one is four times the size I had.
• I'm so glad I keep a little notebook with all my passwords written down. Another computer guru, not Aaron, told me that he spends a lot of his time working with people who put all their passwords on their computer only to have a computer problem and lose all access.
• I need to take a break from my computer once in a while. It's positively addicting. I need to clear my thinking and detach.
• I really appreciate Aaron. He's a girl's best friend when it comes to my computer. Everyone needs a computer whiz as a pal.

Oh... and Aaron still hates AOL.