My Weblog

Horse Sense

 

By Elaine Viets

I've been off my feed recently, ever since I woke up with a numb left foot. The docs decided something was haywire with the wiring along my neck and spine and I had a pinched nerve. I'm supposed to go for an MRI in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, the numbness turned into pain -– it hurt to walk.

My neurologist prescribed a cream, but the pharmacy said there was a problem with the prescription.

I'll say. A 90-day supply was $3,600! If I used that, I'd have a busted bank account.

"Neigh," I e-mailed my neurologist. "That's way overpriced."

His office called and said, "This is going to sound weird, but the doctor says if you don't want the cream you should try horse liniment."

Horse liniment? I thought my ears were stuffed with horse feathers. But the cheery woman said, "It works. I use it, too. He recommends Finish Line Feeds in Dania Beach."

 
Turns out lots of people use horse liniment. The prices are way better and names are interesting. I could buy Hamilton Care Equi-Block Horse Leg Tightener & Liniment for $19.29.

I wondered if that worked on cellulite.

There was also Absorbine Horse Muscle Relief Veterinary Liniment Gel for $14.95 and Farnam Horse Joint Pain Swelling Relief Thermaflex Liniment Gel for $9.95.

 My personal favorite was Chapman's Premium Equine Liniment – "For Man or Beast" – which boldly explained "How to Use Horse Liniment for People."

"Horse liniments have been used for decades to treat aches and pains in humans, and have been thought to be superior to human liniments," its Website said. "Chapman's has always used only human-grade ingredients for its formula, and initially was tested on Andrea Chapman (the originator) before ever using it on her horses."

There it was, straight from the horse's mouth. Here's how to get rid of those nagging aches:

"Make sure the area is clean and free of any moisturizers (creams and lotions). The reason for this is that moisturizers (lotions, creams) have an emulsifier in them and put a block on your skin, preventing it from absorbing what you want and need to be absorbed – the pain relievers. Apply and gently massage the horse liniment into your skin to relieve the pain of arthritis, sore muscles and joints. Avoid getting the horse liniment in mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth)."

There was also this enthusiastic, if slightly confused endorsement from Jean D, who has a stable in California:

"Very Impressed With Your Product," Jean wrote Andrea Chapman.

"My husband, Todd, came home from the barn and said to me, 'You should see Temptations' legs!' (He has ankle/suspensory problems)."

I assume that's the horse, not the husband.

Todd told her, "'You need to order more of that liniment!' Seriously, he is bewildered on how great they look. He raced last night and finished 2nd. Paced that fastest he's ever gone:) We have used just about everything out on the market, and are very impressed with your product. We have a stable full of race horses, here in Sacramento."

That convinced me. I'm off to the tack and feed store, friends. I expect to feel like a filly – and have legs like a Thoroughbred.

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Fire and Ashes, the second Angela Richman Death Investigator mystery, will be published July 25. Pre-order the  ebook for $3.99 here.  

What I've Been Reading

When I'm working on a book I don't usually read mysteries. What I read during the period of completing a manuscript varies, depending on whatever my mood might be. At present, during my downtime (usually a little while before bedtime), I'm reading non-fiction. It's good to read something completely different, and since I have a background in history, I usually choose history when I want non-fiction.

Penguin in the UK has published a number of volumes in a new "History of Britain" series, and I recently read Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070 by Robin Fleming. Unlike previous such volumes which focused more on political history and the deeds of kings and queens and lords, this book focuses on the material culture of the period. By taking this approach, Fleming offers a fascinating look at the lives of ordinary people. Britain has seen a vast amount of archaeological work over the past century and more, and Fleming provides an astonishing synthesis. There are of course references to kings and queens and so on, but the focus is on the way people lived their lives. This is not a fast read, but I think it's a rewarding one for anyone interesting in the time and place.

Besides medieval history, one of my interests is paleoarchaeology. I'm fascinated by the discoveries that have been mapping this story of human evolution. This past weekend I finished a brand new book by Lee Berger and John Hawks, Almost Human, published by National Geographic. In the past decade Berger, an American who is a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, has been involved in the discovery of two previously unknown hominin (or hominid) species, Homo naledi and Australopithecus sediba. In some ways the book reads almost like a thriller; I found it hard to put down. Berger also makes it easy to understand for those who might not be familiar with the search for, and the study of, ancient hominin species. The exciting thing is there are even more discoveries awaiting. South Africa is turning out to be a virtual treasure trove of ancient hominin remains.

Currently I'm working my way through the first volume in the "History of Britain" series, An Imperial Possession by David Mattingly. This one focuses mostly on the Roman invasion and occupation of Britain. I'm learning much about the Roman army than I ever expected to. It's interesting, but slow going as I try to absorb the details.

Reading non-fiction while I'm writing fiction helps me stimulate the brain cells, I think, plus the subjects are vastly different from what I'm writing. I can't completely give up reading while I'm working on a book, and this is a compromise that's actually helpful.

 

Related articles

'Small-brained' humanoid species lived at same time as early humans, scientists say

Odd Ancient South African Human "Ancestor" Is Young [Greg Laden's Blog]

Scientists in South Africa reveal more on human-like species

The Mystery Writer's Revenge

by Toni L.P. Kelner

A lovely by-product of being married to a psychologist is the interesting magazines that show up in our mail slot. They often end up in to-be-read stacks, but when unearthed, provide some unusual, but often fascinating, reading. A recent discovery was the October 2011 issue of Observer, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In very basic terms, a study gave test subjects the chance to avenge themselves on people who had wronged them in a economic exchange game. And as they decided whether or not to take vengeance, "The decision caused a rush of neural activity in the caudate nucleus, an area of the brain know to process rewards (in previous work, the caudate has delighted in cocaine and nicotine use)."

In other words, revenge really is sweet.

Sort of.

The rest of the articule points out the negative parts of the equation. One, a person seeking revenge tends to relive the unpleasant incident over and over again. Two, the target of the vengeance has to know he is being punished, and why. Three, the target often feels that he himself is being wronged, and the cycle repeats.

But let's just go back to that neural activity in the caudate nucleus--in other words, the fun part. I mean, who doesn't like a little neural activity in the caudate nucleus? Some mystery writers--and by some, I mean me--live on the stuff.

For example, many years ago I dated a guy who I will refer to as the-guy-I-should-never-have-dated, or for short, the Jerk. I won't go into the many ways in which the Jerk was the wrong guy for me to date, or the lousy things he did, most which I didn't find out about until long after we'd both moved on. Suffice it to say that I had a certain amount of animosity towards him. So when I was working on Country Comes to Town, my fourth novel, I killed him. Right there on the cover. And darned if it didn't get my caudate nucleus buzzing.

 

Of course, at the time I didn't know my caudate nucleus from my hypothalamus. I thought I was just (1) writing what I knew, which all the writing books recommended and (2) saving buckets of bucks on therapy. In fact, I've saved therapy bills in several of my books and stories. I offed an ex-boss in Dead Ringer, beat up an ex-great-step-aunt in Tight as a Tick, and made fun of the Jerk again in Blast from the Past. In the novel I just finished -- The Skeleton in the Armoire, due out in September 2013 -- I trashed the reputation of a former boss of my husband's.

Now, should any lawyers be reading this, I assure you that the serial numbers have been filed off of these characters. By the time I finish changing a character's name, ethnicity, job, and location, I'm the only one who would know who these people were based on. There's just enough of the original target in there to keep my caudate nucleus happy.

Now I don't want you to think I'm just thinking of myself. I take requests. In Tight as a Tick I killed of a co-worker of my brother-in-law's, and in Death of a Damn Yankee, the victim is the ex-husband of a friend of mine. In the "Where are they now?" books, I based every one of protagonist Tilda Harper's hellish roommates on a real roomate of a friend or family member. (And with each book, I was so very grateful I never experienced roommate hell.) 

So now you know why I'm hooked on mystery writing. I can wreak vengeance to my caudate nucleus's delight without ever having to deal with any of the nasty side effects. And if it's addicting, that's all to the good.

Note: I think I should get special recognition for using the phrase "caudate nucleus" more times in this post than in any other Femmes Fatales post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Member of the Family

By Elaine Viets

 Last November, our cat Mystery took sick. At 5 a.m., we heard an awful glorping noise.

"Not the rug, kitty!" I cried, stumbling out of bed. I carried her to the tile, tried to soothe her, gave her a spoonful of hairball medicine and cleaned up the floor.

After several days, Don and I knew our cat did not have an ordinary problem. Mystery was bred to be a show cat. She’s a seven-year-old Chartreux, a French breed with smoky gray fur and copper eyes. Mystery bit a judge at her first cat show. She was spayed and sold to us. Her brother won a slew of blue ribbons.

Mystery – her official name is Columbleu’s Unsolved Mysterie – seemed happy as a house cat. She played with her pal Harry, a brown rescue tabby, and was a loving, sweet-natured cat.

 

But in November, Mystery quickly lost more than two pounds. Now she was 9 pounds, 10 ounces. Her fur was ratty and her bright copper eyes were dull as old pennies. The hairball medicine didn’t stop the horrible morning wake-up cry,  "Not the rug, kitty!"

Don and I took her to the vet. He conducted tests and put her on a special diet of venison. (You can’t believe what deer meat pet food costs. Think about farming Bambi. Seriously.)

Mystery improved briefly, then the problem started again. She lost more weight and felt like a sack of cat bones. She quit playing and starting sleeping in my hair at night. Back to the vet. There we met two weeping women bringing their cat to be put to sleep. "We can’t afford to keep her alive anymore," said one. Her friend cried on her shoulder.

The vet gave us sad news: Mystery might have cancer. He recommended she go to a referral hospital for more treatment. We knew it would be expensive, but she was still young. I couldn’t face the grief of those women in the waiting room. Not yet.

At Lauderdale Veterinary Specialists, the vet opened the caddy and let Mystery come out and explore her office while she talked to us.  She said the only way to know if Mystery had cancer was if she had abdominal exploratory surgery. If we were lucky, Mystery would have inflammatory bowel disease, which could be treated with prednisone.

Don and I signed the papers for the operation. I looked at the four-figure estimate and said, "There goes the new couch."

"She’s family," Don said.

Mystery was not human, but she was a big part of our household. Our other cat, Harry, howled all night while she was in the hospital. The house seemed empty without her.

Mystery came home with her belly, paw and neck shaved. She weighed 9.6 pounds.The LVS doctor said our cat had incurable intestinal cancer and recommended chemotherapy.

"No," I said, crying in her office. "We won’t subject her to the horrors of chemo. Better to let her go."

But cats and dogs tolerate chemo better than humans. LVS referred Mystery to the Animal Cancer Care Clinic in Ft. Lauderdale.

If I ever have cancer, call me Fluffy and check me into ACC. Those ailing animals are treated better than most people I knew with cancer.

I thought the clinic would be a sad place, but it’s cleaner and more cheerful than many hospitals. It looks like the lobby of a boutique hotel.

Our first visit was in December. Now we have a routine: A nurse meets us and takes Mystery. We fill out a short questionnaire about her health. Then we sit with other pet owners and play with their animals, or retreat to a quiet alcove. The staff gives us coffee, tea and cookies.

We spend less an hour each visit – and that includes Mystery’s exam, tests, a corticosteroid shot, and a personal chat with her oncologist. If we have problems between visits, an oncologist is on call 24/7.

Every three days, Don gives Mystery her chemo, Leukeran. The pill is so strong he has to wear gloves. She wolfs it down in a Pill Pocket, then has Cerenia in another Pill Pocket to settle her stomach.

Mystery’s incision has healed and her fur grew back. She’s in remission and weighs almost 14 pounds. She plays, purrs, chases Harry, and has a big appetite.

Since November, Don and I have spent more than $6,100 on Mystery’s care. We skip vacations and eat out maybe once a month. I don’t buy expensive clothes. Don didn’t get new carpet for his car. Mystery is our major luxury.

We can’t beat cancer, but we can buy time. For us, it’s worth the cost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What would you go back to see?

By Kris Neri

If a time machine existed, what events would you go back in history to see? Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address? John F. Kennedy’s “I am a Berliner” speech? Maybe if you’re particular bloodthirsty, you’d like to go back far enough to see Anne Boleyn beheaded. Or to storm the beach at Normandy for the D-Day invasion.

Except for the beheading, I’d enjoy witnessing all of those events and many more. But an event I have always wished I could have been present for would be to be in that field in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, when a particular aircraft was said to have crashed.

Was it really an aircraft? The government has maintained all these years that it was a failed weather balloon. Probably true, right? Still, witnesses at the time insisted it was a spacecraft and that alien bodies were taken from it. Mostly likely it was just a weather balloon — real life can be so dreary.

The great thing about writing is that it’s just like having a time machine. No, it’s even better. Through my new Magical Mystery, MAGICAL ALIENATION, I not got to visit that field, I was able create the truth about what really happened there.

And not just Roswell, either. I also got to decide what really goes on at the infamous Area 51 at Groom Lake, Nevada. And if you think you know what those places are all about, you’re in for a big surprise.

MAGICAL ALIENATION once again features fake psychic Samantha Brennan and genuine Celtic goddess/FBI agent Annabelle Haggerty. Cheerful Samantha figures she has finally hit the mother lode in this book, having signed on as the spiritual adviser of the aging bad boy of rock, Rand Riker. It’s all fun and games at first, and Samantha, deserves some fun after her breakup from her former beau, Angus, the ever-hot Celtic god of youth and love and laughter, who, after stealing her heart, broke it by having a fling with a mermaid.

If only Rand weren’t headed to the New Age town of Sedona, Arizona to host a benefit concert for the most hated man in America, militia guru Normal Frankly, accused of trying to kill Arizona’s charismatic senator, Kenny Campbell. Samantha tangles with goddess-in-hiding, Special Agent Annabelle Haggerty of the FBI. Though Samantha and Annabelle were once mismatched partners in crime, they’re now on opposite sides, since Annabelle has become responsible for Senator Campbell’s safety.

Tensions spike when Normal Frankly’s militia pals free him from captivity. In their raid, they not only abduct his judge and jury, but also a passing U.S. Army convoy, allowing them to take possession of prisoner who has been the government’s most closely guarded secret for over sixty years — the Roswell alien.

By writing MAGICAL ALIENATION, I not only had the chance to look into unexplained happenings of the past, I also was able to look into the future, to a time of unprecedented war of the gods that manifested on Earth as an unheard of worldwide storm.

MAGICAL ALIENATION  picks up with HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE left off, introducing new gods and goddesses, including Fiona, Annabelle’s secretive goddess mother, and the trickster gods of Lugh and Taliesin, responsible for such real present-day phenomenon as bizarre weather patterns and crop circles. There is a reason why Allyson James, the national bestselling author of Stormwalker called MAGICAL ALIENATION, “…a hilarious tangle of gods and goddesses.”

With gods wielding unimaginable powers, and the shape shifting rock people twisting the very surface of the earth, as Sedona heads into the darkest night the planet has ever seen, Samantha rightfully concludes the fun and games have truly ended, and she wonders which, if any of them, will survive it.

But when Celtic gods are involved, nothing is ever as it appears.

Mostly, I love that they allowed me to travel to a space that was so fun. I hope you’ll find it so, too.

What would you go back to see if you could?

Summertime Blues

by Kris Neri

When I was a kid, I remember a science teacher telling us that the Earth would gradually keep moving closer to the sun until it eventually burned up.

Are we there yet?

I must confess that summer is my least favorite of all the seasons, with fall and spring being my favorites. I have a sometimes-contentious relationship with the sun, both too much and too little of it.

In my early adult years I lived in San Francisco. There is a reason why San Francisco is called “America’s   Favorite City.” It is absolutely beautiful, sometimes breathtakingly so. But the picturesque fog and I didn’t always live in joyous harmony. Day after day of gray skies dampened my mood, and the constantly changing barometric pressure gave me terrible sinus headaches. Summers there also aren’t like summers in most places. I remember the tourists, in their shorts and T-shirts, freezing in San Francisco’s cool, frequently foggy and windy summer weather, looking for sweaters to buy in department stores. On many summer days there, sweaters—and sometimes even coats— make a smarter dress choice than T-shirts.

I discovered when I moved to Southern California that I’m a natural sun person. Too many days of not soaking in those rays makes me gloomy. But even still, at this point in the summer, like many of us, I often grow heat-weary. When I happened to be feeling particularly grouchy about the summer weather, I used to say when I lived in Southern California that I lived in the part of town where we made heat for hell.

Then I moved to Arizona, and I discovered what it really takes to make heat for hell. Though I live well  north of it, where we just make heat for Purgatory, the last time I had a speaking gig in Phoenix in late June, the temperature reached 117 degrees. Really? Sure, it’s a dry heat, but so is an oven, and I don’t climb into mine. Even if Phoenix temps have gone down to a saner 100-107+ or – now, tell me that’s not a sign that my science teacher’s prediction was true, and the burning up process is well under way. At times this summer, record temperatures have been recorded over large parts of the country. If where you live hasn't started burning up, I suspect it soon will.

But there is a phenomenon here in the Southwest that I’ve come to enjoy, and which has made me fonder of the hot, late summertime. That is the monsoon rainstorms that strike many days here, simply because of their sense-stirring might. Huge gray clouds build up to the heavens, while the air turns a distinctly yellow-green color and smells strongly of ions. When the storm hits, the raindrops can easily exceed an inch to an inch and-a-half in diameter and the swirling winds are fierce. Within moments, the temperature can drop 30 to 40 degrees, and even after the storm moves on, the temperatures rarely rise as high, so it provides a break from the heat.

What’s odd is that the storms are so localized. Recently, we drove up to a high peak outside of town with a 360-degree view. No less than four localized storms in different directions draped the ground with wide sheaths of misty gray walking rain, while off to the west, the sun shone brightly through a stretch of far thinner cloud cover. Awesome!

Sometimes these storms are quite destructive — a section of my own roof had to be repaired after one,  as did quite a number of roofs in my neighborhood, and I sure don’t welcome that. But short of their creating havoc, it can be quite wonderful to watch them build.

There might not be any cure for the summertime blues, but sometimes there’s a respite. To my great surprise, since I’m not too keen on gray skies, I have come to embrace these wild, raging storms.

What do you like — or dislike — about your summer weather?