obama us and tattoos

The Queen takes her own picture with trepidation.







The Princess and others of the Royal Family




This camera thing could be big trouble. You can't just put people's pictures up there without permission as I now know. I'm a little nervous about the one I have here now, but hopefully everyone will be fine with it. And I don't think one can put one's own picture up repeatedly without looking like a dork (not that this has ever stopped me before).

Maybe I could lay out every pair of socks I have on the floor and take pictures of them. No, no. I could photograph all of my outdated kitchen utensils and bowls, etc. Would this be worse than old pictures of the Grand Canyon?

Don't worry, I've never been to the Grand Canyon.

I may start posting pictures of the track where I walk. Maybe the camera could be hoisted to my forehead--a BeckyCam--and viewers could see everything I see.

Yawn.

I could take candid pictures at Hannaford's and post them and then get sued. That might be fun. Or what about snapping the bad grapes that I sometimes see there? HAH!! Or, and this would be fantastic, JUST as the cashier hands me the receipt and doesn't say the magic word (and we all know what that is), I TAKE HER PICTURE AND BOLT!!! Flash and Dash!!!

I just love doing this. It's taking my mind off my troubles and especially off my writing troubles. See, now is when I actually have TIME to write, when I can actually DO it. So naturally my brain is empty. Every direction I turn in leads to a blind alley. It's like postpartum depression, which I had three times. One time the obstetrician gave me a bottle of purple liquid which he told me to take for the "blues." I remember looking at it and thinking, "it won't help." I was too depressed to take it. That's kind of the way I feel now except I haven't given birth, unless you count the chocolate mousse pie. I did give birth to that and with great labor. I haven't been given any purple liquid and don't want any either and in truth, what am I complaining about?

I get the Christmas "blues" every year.

Part of it is knowing that all the decorations that just went up have to come down. And it all looks so nice. Why can't it just stay up year round, that's what I'd like to know. Why can't life be like a lucid dream where I can tell people what to say and know what's going to happen and it would all be good? Yeah? That's what I thought.

I am Enjoying My Vacation no matter what.

love,
becky

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Hey. Sit up. Lean in. Don't fall asleep. The dessert is still out there, you know, and it could be witheld. I'm just saying.

Okay, so the year started as it always does with the Super Bowl. I forget who won, but I know it wasn't the Patriots. What? Oh yes, it was Pittsburgh and I was glad for Roger Bettis or perhaps it was Richard Bettis, that Bettis fellow, who retired after the game. The Bus they called him. John Bettis?

All right, all right, Jerome Bettis. I knew that.

I remember another player called the Refrigerator, William Perry? He was on the Bears and they KILLED the Patriots a number of years ago. We kicked ass after that, though.

Don't try to distract me.

What's the dessert? None of your business. You'll see it when it gets here.

So the Super Bowl commercials this year were lousy, I think. I do remember one where young women were dressed as sliced pickles and onions and jumping into "buns" to make Whoppers or hamburgers or some such. I can picture the ad team that came up with it.

"This is going to make history!"

"It will be better and funnier than the Budweiser lizards!!"

"We are awesome."

Oh my, weren't they sadly wrong.

So moving on from the Super Bowl, we had the Winter Olympics and it was held in a sort of wintry country. Was it Italy? Yes, the games were in Turin, and no one wore a shroud, though perhaps they should have. I didn't actually watch.

Anyway, I do remember that Michelle Kwan didn't make the team, but the authorities huddled together and came up with a preposterous reason why she SHOULD make the team and she kicked somebody else off and went. Then she got hurt and had to leave and the next person had to come. How much do those transatlantic flights cost anyway? I would love to know all about those bitchy little groups of figure skaters. We can only imagine the drama. They should have their own TV network--Thin Ice.

I think most entrants in the Olympics fell on their keisters. I think you could tune in each night and see video of entrants falling on their keisters. There was an American female skier who had her race won and so decided to do a loop-de-loop or scissor split or something else very strange, and fell on HER keister and came second or third in the race. She said it was no big and she couldn't wait to get home and have decent food or something like that. See? All our marketing efforts are coming to fruition. There was another skier, a young man, a surfer dude kid, who more or less did the same thing, didn't he? Brag about how much he was partying and then bomb every race? Bode Miller, that's the boy.

Yeah, dude. Bode. I wonder how many headline writers wrote "bodes well" or "bodes ill."

I think Dick Cheney shot somebody and the person who was shot apologized profusely for what the vice president and his family had to go through. There were many jokes about this on the internet, but I always delete jokes and so I don't know any. It's rather like feudal times, though, isn't it? Oh squire, hit me again, will you? Which sounds homoerotic and makes me think maybe feudal times were homoerotic in their way.

There was a rape case at Duke University and it couldn't have been timed better for the release of Tom Wolfe's I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS (good book). That's all I could think of and I'm not that different from other people. That's what my friend Chris and I always say. If we find someone annoying, we know that other people do too, because we aren't that different. It's comforting.

Then that really weird guy in Thailand, who was clearly over there for the sex, confessed to the JonBenet murder and was brought to the U.S. on a plane where nearly everyone including the stews, took his picture with their cell phones. You could tell he wasn't guilty by the way he kept trying to see himself on everybody's monitor. I wonder how much we spent for that. He definitely wore eye makeup.

Then we came into the spring time and my book was released. I was totally out of it for several months. I had the best time of my life, although I think other things may have been going on in the world. Oh gosh, I wish I could live it all over again.

The Red Sox were not even in the playoffs. It was a hateful fall for that reason. The only good thing was that the Yankees were eliminated in--HAHAHAHAHA--the first round. Very sweet.

I have gone through the celebrity obituaries and choose to name only two. Steve Irwin lived with gusto. Do we know anyone else, I mean anyone, who would jump into a brown river in the middle of the night to grapple with a creature of any kind, let alone a two-ton alligator? Ed Bradley, and I know nothing of his life, must have gone through hell to get his first job. He was elegant. I saw his interview with Bob Dylan and it was riveting. Dylan was so on edge, he was practically biting his nails. Bradley got Dylan to say that he could never write anything really good again, which was certainly wrong, but Bradley gets the credit for pulling such a thing out of his subject.

After reading the obits, I do feel that we all need to live to 80. At 80 people nod their heads and say yes, s/he lived. S/he had a chance for a life and took it. I intend to live well past that. I am going to be the world's crotchetiest old lady that ever was. I think I am already.

Oh yes and Theo Epstein, the young cute GM of the Red Sox, got engaged. I did want him for my daughter or at least for my editor Leah. Damn. [note to daughter's boyfriend: only kidding, I think you are awesome]

Doug Flutie retired. It doesn't seem possible.

Jerome Bettis.

Now you may have cake. Or whatever you would like. But I'm not having any. Five pounds to go.

A bientot
love,b

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One dead cheesecake


One dead chocolate mousse pie




AAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the relief.





Mummy (Grandma to beautiful little Maeve) got a new digital camera and would have included a self-portrait but didn't want to frighten viewers. Note: blender technique worked perfectly on cookies--on behalf of dumbass cooks everywhere who have done it the same wrong way for decades----YES!!!!! BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dishes Prepared at Great Length and Then Left Forgotten in Fridge:
Guacamole (worked over an hour on it)
Pimento Cheese Spread (not that good anyway)

Unfortunate and Regrettable Incidents From Party:
None

Wraps Left Behind:
One woman's black wool coat
One woman's blue ski parka
One child's navy blue sweatshirt

Aches, Pains, Ailments:
General malaise and heartache
Sore toes from red shoes


Off to work on my book,
love,b

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This boy has found a Christmas surprise in his parents' bureau: his father is Santa. I suppose we should be relieved that's the only surprise he found in there. Get back in your room, kid, and be grateful you're still in a Norman Rockwell painting.

Meanwhile, I've been surprised myself by being tagged for another blog meme. I'm it!!!

My good friend Martha O'Connor , who got tagged herself to fill in the 25 statements below(though somehow there are only 24), has passed the baton to moi. I told her if I answered them all honestly, I would have to leave town. She said go for it.


1. I've come to realize that my ex......knew a lot about avocadoes.

2. I am listening to.....rain on my new roof.

3. I talk....until they beg for mercy.

4. I love.....quiet.

5. My best friends...give me good advice which I don't always follow but I should.

6. I lost ..... enough pounds this year to almost get to High School Weight. It's coming!!!

7. I hate it when people...assume I have a cell phone. I don't. I don't want one. But no one will remember.

8. Love is....feeling like the back of your head might blow off from joy. John Steinbeck calls it "the glory."

9. Marriage is.....different for men and women. Men need marriage. They don't do well alone. Not that women don't thrive in marriage too, but they know how to survive by themselves. I think in the end they are made of sterner stuff.

10. Somewhere, someone is thinking.......nothing about me whatsoever.

11. I'll always be.....true to my school --HAH! Just wanted to see if you were still reading. No, "hoping" is my answer.

12. I have a crush on.....Dick Cheney (HAR, just checking again) Bill Paxton on Big Love. Except I wouldn't want to share him with those other wives. They are sluts but I am not.

13. The last time I cried was because....I banged my head on the car door. That sounds plausible, doesn't it? Some things I just can't answer.

14. My cell phone....[See? This is what I'm talking about.]

15. When I wake up in the morning.....I get immediately on the computer.

16. Before I go to sleep at night.....I do a puzzle.

17. Right now I am thinking about.....how much I can get written on my book before Jan. 16. Also I'm thinking about my refrigerator and how there was a big spill in it last night which I left to contemplate itself.

18. Babies are.....the ones who will be writing about all of us in another few decades. We'll be the old people in their books.

19. Today I.....will appreciate the blessings of my life. Or I'll try to if nothing has been broken.

20. I get on myspace and.....leave immediately. It's too hard to figure out.

21. Tonight I will.....collapse.

22. Tomorrow I will......continue the collapsement.

23. I really want.....the back of my head to blow off.

24. The person most likely to repost this is.....
Eliza Graham,
who is eight times wittier and classier than I am. She's a Brit. She can't help it.

Anyway, the happiest of holidays from CFE to you, dear reader. I hope you find joy on this day and all days.

love,
Becky

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Once again, you might think this was the national Christmas tree in Washington D.C., but you would be wrong. We decided to go all out on our tree this year. I took every penny from my teaching stipends and invested in this baby. Whaddya think? I admit it's a little overwhelming for my street, but you know, sometimes you have to go with your gut.

I also borrowed from my retirement fund and bought a ten thousand dollar black dress. It is killer in every sense of the word. Now if only my roof doesn't collapse and/or my windows blow out.

[ed. note: you can't be buying this. You don't think she has a retirement fund, do you?]

Was I rash? I do act rashly sometimes. But I finally have respect from the neighbors, or I think I do. They don't usually talk to me anyway. They're probably worried which way that thing is going to fall when it comes down.

PARTY MENU

Nachos
Brie pastry
Chicken Wings
Guacamole dip
Various chips and dips

followed by desserts:
chocolate mousse pie
cheesecake (new recipe--pray for no failure!!)

[BREAKING NEWS: sad oven accident with cheesecake involving breach in spring form pan integrity, but cc salvaged. Big split down the middle but will cover with cherry pie filling, same thing I do with old lingerie items]

layer cake
candy and nuts
additional dessert made by my daughter, god bless her forever

God, that doesn't sound like enough, does it? I won't be happy until people are staggering in gastric distress, though some stagger anyway for other reasons. I am always standing at the door begging guests to take stuff home. (TAKE THE COUCH!! PLEASE!!) Every year it's the same. That's what we like about the holidays, isn't it? The sameness? Or as my students would say, the same but different.

GOOD NEWS:
There was no soot in the wood stove. And here I've been stressing over it for weeks. See? Things take care of themselves.

The big question is will I be able to stay awake? My sleeping habits are so peculiar. I fall asleep heavily at 8pm and then wake up at 11:30. Can I do this at the party? I suffer from a messiah complex sometimes and feel I have to guide the events or they will fail. This might be a Virgo trait or just plain extreme egotism.

Of course we will have to go through the tiresome recitation of why I don't have cable TV and/or a DVD player. "Put a VCR tape in," I say. "They play fine. Remember when you loved Benjie?"

My kids never seem to remember their joy at seeing Benjie on the VCR and they give me that silent superior shake of the head. Then I get to give my favorite line of the year as I sweep out the door imperiously: "Get a life." A couple of years I tripped during the exit move, but I still think the line went over well.

So that's it from control center. All systems go and awaiting final touches. Maybe I'll buy one of those big blow-up Santa Claus On a Motorcycle balloons and put it on my roof, assuming of course that the roof holds.

Additionally, I don't have enough poinsettias.

I feel aneurysms forming.

love,b

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Huh? Again with the rats?

This was the title of a story my son wrote in the second grade. Oh good, I thought, now everyone will think we live in a tenement. But in truth it was a very sweet story and we don't/didn't live in a tenement and I didn't care what they thought anyway. So rats it was. And rats it is again today, boys and girls.

A shopper in a grocery comes very close to the rat in a maze, doesn't s/he? The aisles (or as my students would say, "isles") stretch endlessly, one can't remember where anything is, other rats are bunched up in front of the items one wants, such as silver polish, extract of almond, and margarita mix, which come to think of it, might make an acceptable cocktail at the last minute.

I am going to share a grocery list tip, not that I ever follow my own advice.

Arrange the items on your list in the approximate order of the grocery "isles." So for instance my own list for Hannaford's (at present they have won the Battle for Becky, but THAT COULD CHANGE) starts with the produce section. One lemon, right here. Got it. One orange. Ditto. Lettuce, green pepper, tomatoes, got 'em all in one grab. I am awesome Oops, don't forget the grapes. See? This way I can scurry about in that one section, get everything, and not have to traipse back later when I'm already near the end of the maze.

Incidentally, what's with these enormous shopping carts that I guess are supposed to look like bumper cars for the kiddies to ride in? Anything to keep them quiet, I guess, but even so, they take up more than their share of space and I'm ready to ram one. Don't mess with me right now, I'm full of truth and righteousness. You might not know it but I'm wearing a Wonder Woman logo.

At least it isn't cold. My friend just returned from visiting North Carolina and said it was in the seventies every day. Yikes.

Meanwhile, back in the maze, there's always that one shopper who somehow is going against the flow. Didn't she start in the same aisle as you did? What made her jump out, like a bowling ball out of one gutter and into another? You smile at her each time you meet, which happens to be every freaking aisle. DIE, PEASANT!

Then occasionally you meet the chatters, those who have run into their next door neighbors and CAN'T BELIEVE IT!! OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN SO LONG!!!

Wonder Woman smites them too.

Most people have the same glazed expression that you do. And that's the way it should be. You can see the ones who have allowed panic to swell in their hearts. MAYBE I SHOULDN'T MAKE THE CHEESE BALL. MAYBE PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF IT. MAYBE I SHOULD TURN AROUND AND GO BACK TO PRODUCE AND RETHINK THIS.

Do it and regret it the rest of your life.

The "medical" aisle is usually free of carts and shoppers. I try not to look at the poor individual scanning the shelves for some embarrassing item. What is it with men anyway? They always want to tell you about their hemorrhoids/bowels/defecatory problems. I always say the same thing. "I don't want to know you that well."

The dairy aisle is the last one at H's. A lot of bunching up occurs here, a lot of competitive grabbing for cream cheese and eggs. This is where you start balancing items precariously on top of each other in your cart. Those grapes and tomatoes you selected way back twenty years ago in produce? They are at the bottom. You gotta give credit to the Hannaford design team, huh?

So you eventually make your way to a register, where you are evaluated by the rat psychologists and given a coupon for your next trip to the maze. Then it's across the street to the liquor store and their version of the same thing. More about that another day.

Today's task? Cleaning. GROOOOOOOOOOAN. UUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH.

Time to play the Messiah. Loud.

love,becky

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Okay, so I know the picture doesn't seem to match the heading. But think about it. Rats become anxious in the maze under certain conditions. I'm not sure what all those conditions are, but hunger is probably one. Fear of someone stabbing them with a screwdriver is probably another. Existential questions such as why am I, a rat, in this maze in the first place might weigh heavily on the rat's emotional psyche, not to mention all the homely concerns such as rat mothers-in-law being lowered into the maze for Christmas, rat love disappointments, rat teenagers getting picked up for DUIs, and every sort of made-for-television drama.

But if a rat had to do Christmas shopping, were put under the stress of what this lovely artwork truly represents, that's when you'd see real anxiety. (It was a long way to get here, I know it)

And so here is my shopping update:

Most presents acquired but not wrapped.

Computer room festooned with gift items. You know, I just love festooning. Everything about it is fun.

In case you didn't know this, buying a treat for oneself helps the misery of shopping. You should try it, especially if you have languished in the quagmire of unselfish giving. Screw that.

Treats I have purchased recently:

red shoes (fab)

new pillow (don't like it, too firm--feels like I'm trying to lay my head down on a footstool)

necklace (don't want to describe in case I decide to give as gift)

3 pairs of pants that fit (desperately needed), including black DKNY dress jeans which look great with red shoes [Fashion decision: Abandon black dress quest, go with black pants/red shoes, though presented with new quandary of what to wear on top. New quest]

CD of Handel's Water Music, a piece I adored as a young violist in the eighth grade

new red candle,scarlet really and not red, with a great scent--may it burn in happy rooms

red tablecloth

cake cutter (now I have two!!!!!)

One sad fashion note: I am returning a beautiful white wool coat. It is truly stunning and I love it, but I have owned it for one month and never been tempted to wear it. I don't go anywhere that I COULD wear it. Grocery shopping? Double coupon day at Hannaford's? School? The 99 pub? I went to two parties last week and if I didn't wear it to them, when would I ever? It's time to see reality. Plus I can use the money for gifts and/or more treats for myself.

Could I be this shallow and self-centered? Is it possible?

Will more treats make me feel better?

love,
becky

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You earned your grade.

You earned it when you spent time or didn't spend time on the research paper.

You earned it when you came to class or stayed away.

You earned it when you handed in all the essays or did not, and when you rewrote some of them or chose not to.

I did not earn your grade.

I am not this person:














Nor am I this person:












Here is where you should look for answers to this conundrum:







Goodbye and good luck to all of my students. You have enriched my life and I am better for knowing you.

Inexorably, tumultuously, egotistically, ecclesiastically, calamitously and with undulating waves of pretentious ostracism,

A bientot

Mary R. Motew
[you can call me Becky now]

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You might think this looks like the White House getting their Christmas tree delivered, but it's actually the back entrance to my house. Well, it's the back entrance to my house if you've started on the holiday cheer, which I'm considering soon. See all the neighbors? Quite a few showed up this year to help out and I had to give them all cookies. And don't think I baked them either--Chips Ahoy all around. That woman who looks like Laura Bush? Ate a whole bag by herself.


Some traditions are cute. We always use the same tinfoil angel on the top of our tree, the one I made (with assistance) when I was eight or ten. In fact, I must have had tremendous assistance on it since the face has little sequins pinned for the eyes and nose and the hair is teeny-tiny strips of tinfoil, demonstrating fine motor skills I have never possessed and tasks I probably could not complete right now.


Another cute tradition is not cleaning the oven from year to year. The Ghost of Casseroles Past wafts out on Christmas Eve with the scent of lasagne, sweet potatoes, taco shells and other items that have dripped onto the oven floor over the years. I'm vowing to clean the beast in 2007 or at least do my best to wheedle and manipulate someone else into doing it.

It's tradition that the computer room upstairs becomes the gift wrap center for all citizens. As soon as I have it cleaned up from one wrapper, another one comes along to tear it apart. I keep it supplied with rolls of gift wrap, scissors, tape, nametags, ribbons and bows from other years. I have one gold mesh (mesh?) string of ribbon that I love. I only use it on gifts that will be opened here in the house, so I can get the ribbon back. Some people are starting to get wise to this so I hope I can continue with my subterfuge.

I'm not letting that gold ribbon out of here.

We say a small prayer before eating Christmas Eve dinner and that has become tradition. It is the only time a prayer is uttered here, well, aside from the earnest pleading that goes on when the power goes off and I'm trying to get somebody to go into the basement for me. Or clean the oven.

I may be running out of the cute traditions. Now I will mention one or two of the annoying ones, including the vacuum cleaner's tradition of aspirating a long plastic piece of matter and shutting down Christmas Eve afternoon. There's also the tradition of forgetting to make ice for the party and also forgetting to buy extra light bulbs. A business management course could be taught here in my house concerning the art of prioritizing: the bathroom gets a light no matter what; the
kitchen too. After that, no guarantees. I'm hard and cold when I have to be.

I'm forging ahead on Dalliance Woman, though I'm making myself hyperventilate with how risque it is. Coupon Girl Enters Sluthood.

Can you tell I'm wasting time? I still have to crunch numbers for grades to my students and do all my shopping and clean and cook. I may put my head in the oven if I can stand it.

Feliz Navidad (I hate that song)

love,
becky

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Here's how many gifts I have wrapped:
Zero.

Here's how many gifts I have acquired but not wrapped:
None.

Here's how many I still have to get:
All of them.

So you can see my progress has been slow. I do, however, have a list. And this is important.

A good shopping experience totally depends on attitude.

If you're not in the right frame of mind, you will be indecisive.

BUY ME!! [Oh, that would be nice a nice gift for Ludwig.]

I WOULD BE BETTER!! [But maybe he would prefer this.]

I'M CHEAPER! [This is true. Ludwig will not care and will never know what I spent.]

BUT I'M NICER! [Maybe I'll stand here for fifteen minutes and stare at both items. Maybe I'll talk to myself. Maybe I'll turn around in a circle or click my heels together like Dorothy. There's no place like home and I wish I was there.]

The gifts will talk to you. Pay attention and you will hear them.

If you're not in the right frame of mind, you will make bad choices. This is true in life too, but never mind that now. Who cares about life when you have to shop? What you want to avoid is that heavy sense as you walk out the door that you should have bought the other thing.

Learn to pay and not look back.


I am still seeking the Killer Cheesecake recipe. I have tried a different one every year and haven't been blown away by any. I suppose I could switch menu items, but my guests depend on me for this. Or maybe I'm fooling myself. NEVER DOUBT!!! NO FEAR!!

I am also seeking the Killer Black Dress. I am having no luck. They are all either far too dumb, far too expensive, or far too preposterous. Let me add another category: far too trashy. Don't get me wrong. I do trash sometimes. But this

might be a bit over the top, especially since I bear zero resemblance to the model pictured. Besides, anything sleeveless would give you serious hypothermia after wearing it for ten minutes here in New England, particularly in my house, where it's always bracingly cold. Although we do get the stove cranked up on Christmas Eve and it's pretty warm.

I think I'll wear a Killer Black Dress from a previous year.

Hope everyone is ascending the shopping Everest and can see the summit.

I have no idea what that means.

love,
becky

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I have never given a recipe on CFE and indeed am not a recipe maven of any sort. But this delicacy will have your guests signing over their firstborn to you, I guarantee it. Not that you would want that exactly.

INGREDIENTS CRUST:
3 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter

Okay this is the part I've been complaining about. Someone just told me to put the wafers into a blender and THAT will crush them uniformly. I have tried everything else, including rolling pin, potato masher, and meat mallet. I have stopped short of running them over in the driveway with my Honda. I personally believe that would work, but I am going to try the blender thing. I'll report back next week.

Anyway, combine the crumbs and the butter and press on the bottom and sides of a spring form pan. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

I love those spring form pans. Well, primarily I love them when you get to release the spring on the night of the party. There's always a bit of suspense, hoping that the whole mushy guts of it won't break your heart by doing something undignified. Although come to think of it, I'd rather have my heart broken by a pie than a person. Everything's relative.

So anyways--here are the ingredients for the filling. Low-cal this ain't.

1 pound semi-sweet chocolate
2 eggs
4 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
6 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
4 egg whites

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Add the whole eggs and mix thoroughly, then add the egg yolks to the mixture and continue to blend. Whip the heavy cream and add confectioner's sugar. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Stir the chocolate mixture, the whipped cream, and the egg whites together and pour on top of the crust in the spring form pan. Refrigerate for six hours or more. Drink wine for the entire six and screw the mousse, opting instead for M&Ms.

Haha. No way.

I really hate separating egg yolks from egg whites. My mother has a little plastic thingie that does it easily but I never remember to buy anything like that, so I am stuck with a regular spoon. Sometimes it works, sometimes it spills everywhere. Also, any recipe that requires more than one bowl is complicated to me. I feel like I'm on an assembly line and can't keep up. Like Lucy and Ethel in the candy factory.

Also, I do not own a double boiler. I fill up one large saucepan with water and then use a smaller one balanced precariously on top of the first. I do not recommend this technique. If it all spills, it's quite expensive. And don't try to use the chocolate mixture if it's filled with water.

This whole thing is one Big Possible Debacle for me.

But I'm telling you, it's unbelievably good.

Let me know if your guests don't moan.

A bientot

becky

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"There are" is the most common beginning to any student essay. Let me amend that. "There are" is the most common beginning to any thought, any paragraph, or any portion whatsoever of a student essay. The second most popular phrase is "many people."

Do not doubt me on this.

There are many reasons many people think this. There are many reasons many people think that. There are many more words in my word count now than there were before I caught on to this trick and many people will rejoice at this, most particularly my professor. I have her totally bamboozled. She is friendly and likes me. Are you really reading this, Professor? [yes I am] Many of the things many people think are some of the things my teacher told me are some of the many things that people think there are. And there are many people who think that.

Yeah, baby! Bring it!

There are some people who don't think what the other many people think. They are the ones who many people think are having a lot of thoughts about what some other people think on the opposite side. The arguments on the other side of what many people think are caught up from the wrong point of view. You can't just say it isn't true unless you read about what many people think.

I'm ready to mash the chocolate wafers, boys and girls.

love,becky

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At first we are strong, aren't we? No, no thank you.

I'll pass for now.

No, I don't think I will.

Thanks anyway.

Then you sneak in a bite of something. Just a lick really. It doesn't taste like it would be harmful.

Little bites aren't bad.

The next time it's a whole slice/serving of cake or pie. Not a big one, but a slice on a plate with a fork.

And the one after that is regular size. You're entitled. It's Christmas.

Forks, plates, napkins.

Why yes, thank you, I will.

Before you know it, you're popping those little chocolate balls, those Swiss things that I can't spell, into your mouth with impunity. They don't count. They're too small.

NO piece of candy really counts. Candy is tiny.

Candy is beneath the radar.

If you're cooking things at home, you start licking the beaters and the bowls and pretty soon the spoons. It's a short slide down, dare I say it's a mudslide down with thick double whipped cream. Plates of cookies that the neighbors bring. Lemon squares [though inferior to chocolate, they can be pretty good]. Sugared nuts.

Macaroons.

Well. Let's not go that far.

And finally, of course, dear god help us all, fudge.

Where does it all end?

I'll tell you where.

You. Passed out on the kitchen floor with chocolate covered cherries drizzling out of your mouth. Reaching for the telephone to call 911. Or 411 to get the number of that really excellent candy store where they make the chocolate pizzas.

That's where.

Fa la la

love,
becky

I'm still saying no thank you. Stay tuned.

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Here's how many gifts I have wrapped for the upcoming Christmas holiday.

None.

Here's how many I have acquired and not wrapped.

Zero.

Here's how many I still have to get.

All of them.

One of my kids goes out every year at 4pm on Christmas Eve and does all his holiday shopping. Maybe I'll try that some year, but not while I'm still hosting the gala at my house, which I am again in 2006. I try to accomplish three gifts at a time whenever I can. If I'm picking up something for one of my kids, hey, maybe somebody else would like that thing too.

I can bludgeon my way through a store with great efficiency when I have to.

I just don't feel like it.

[whine alert]

I have too many papers to grade, too many Works Cited pages to pore over, and too many ticklish situations to handle. The end of the semester is much less pleasant than the beginning, when all is hope and joy. THAT phrase makes me think of Dalliance Woman, which features two sisters with those names. I have written a few chapters on it but have some decisions to make.

Like what is the plot?

I mean I know what the book is about, but I need an actual story line, or at least I think I do.

So far I guess that makes everything I've written merely a musing. There's a title, and I do love titles.

MERELY A MUSING
NAKED IN AN HOUR
OUR LESS DOUR SELVES

This is much more fun than shopping. Stay tuned for the actual date I'll be mashing the chocolate wafers. My chocolate mousse pie is to DIE for. I plan to play the Messiah really loud and start on the Bailey's while I do it.

Fa la la,


love,
becky

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Primarily it doesn't suck because of great choral music. Am I right? Doesn't Handel's Messiah, particularly "Unto Us a Son Is Given," inspire joy? I like to blast it through the house and conduct some of the triumphant moments myself with a spatula or a peeler. One of the sections near the end--it goes something like "all honor [deep bass drum action] and glory [more drum] and something-or-other [tremendous drum]"--gets me really worked up. My kids laugh at me of course, but that has never bothered me. I think they secretly like it.

The Hallelujah Chorus is good too, but frankly, I've moved past it. I still like the final trumpet solo very much, but I'm more into the final "Amen" afterwards. I love that really high "AH" that the sopranos hit. MAN, does that feel satisfying. I always feel if humans can write music like that, all is not wrong with the world.

I do like seeing the presents under the tree before they are opened. My mother and I used to survey the room with all the children's gifts arrayed on the floor and the couch and wherever they would fit before we would go to bed. My mother would always say the same thing.

"It's a disgrace."

And I guess it was, although the real disgrace was 10am the next morning when the place was littered with ripped gift wrap and boxes.

I like the way people are nice to each other in the liquor store.

I like the way everyone comes home for the holidays. People who haven't been around all year round are right down the street and available for fun.

I like the way the house looks right before our big Christmas Eve party gets underway. I try to buy a new interesting candle every year.

Especially this year I look forward to holding little Maeve, my beautiful genius granddaughter, in my arms. And may I say that she prefers my rendition of "B-I-N-G-O" to any other lullaby. The kid conks totally when I sing it to her and waltz with her around the room. It's a good workout and maybe I will put it on tape and people can follow along with me and lose weight. Order today folks! The Becky Motew BINGO Fitness Tape!

For those of you keeping score at home, incidentally, I hit a new low yesterday. Only five more to go for High School Weight. (Sorry to intrude on the Christmas Doesn't Suck post, but I'm just so happy)

I'm going to Be Here Now for the next three weeks. I'm going to ENJOY preparing the holiday treats, even the tasks I hate, such as crushing chocolate wafers with a potato masher. Man, do I hate that. But I am going to really get the most out of it this year.

Anybody buying this?

love,b

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Let's be really analytical about this. It sucks mostly because of the shopping, doesn't it? Circling a parking lot like a rat in one of my father's traps, hoping for a small strip of asphalt so I can leave my car eight miles from nowhere and then wander through the mall on a vague quest.

People start talking to themselves after a while, or at least I do.

"Nah. He wouldn't like that."

"Hmmm."

"Oh, for heaven's sake."

"Hmmm."

No one really notices this behavior, because anything goes inside the mall during this season. I saw a woman standing in front of expensive kitchenware. All she kept saying was, "Oh, I don't know. Oh, I don't know." I felt solidarity with her.

Even after you decide you're going to buy something, you have the excruciating agony of standing in line to pay for it, all the while contemplating gruesome crimes against sullen clerks and shoppers who cut in front of you. "I want to stab that person in the heart with this pencil" sums up my own Christmas shopping spirit. Then after the triumph of paying and groveling for gift boxes, you get the excitement of doing it again at another store. Add to that the 80-degree temperatures inside most stores and the heavy winter jacket you foolishly wore and the day is sucking big time. I generally feel nauseous by now and my feet hurt and my knees too. I'm pretty sure I have a terminal illness.

But it could be argued that shopping is the least of the suckiness. Don't forget the two weeks of hard manual labor that precede Christmas. Now if you're willing to coast through and not clean the house, that's cool. But most women aren't and that even includes me. I will polish the silver (groan) and cook and bake and wrap the gifts and try to find the holiday tablecloth (praying there is no unconcealable gravy or wax stain on it)and dig out the ornaments and eight hundred other things. As I often say, women bring you the holidays, ladies and gentlemen. We are the ones who chop, dice, grate, slice, peel, devein, boil, parboil, sautee, fry, simmer, sear, flour, grease, sift, puree, mash, crush, and pound the freaking meal into submission. We are the ones who polish, mop, vacuum, Windex, scrub, wipe down, and dust. We rake. We move furniture. Sometimes we even paint and wallpaper if special guests are coming.

Not that I would ever complain.

Admission: I have never parboiled anything and don't know what it is.

I go into poinsettia trauma. I start by buying two of the cheapest ones at Hannaford's/Victory. Then they look so nice on either side of my fireplace that I buy two more. Then pretty soon I splurge and buy a really nice expensive one at the garden center, which makes the Hannaford's ones look puny and terrible. Then I have to return to the garden center and get at least one more big one and probably two, because you can't not buy them in pairs. So I end up standing there with wide eyes, swallowing, turning one way and then turning back, much like the woman in front of the kitchenware.

"Are you okay?" the clerk asks.

"Oh yes," I say. "Just wondering if I should buy all the poinsettias."

The whole thing is a money hemorrhage. Who can afford it? And by Christmas Eve, you are spending profligately. YEAH, OKAY, PUT IT IN THE CAR.

I'm getting out of breath.

Tune in next time for why Christmas does NOT suck.

It could be a blank post.

love,
b

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I love the democratic effect of the holidays.

You have to be at the airport, though, to appreciate it.

Think about it. When you're traveling, spending your time in the airport and on your way to LA or Chicago or a big city, you get to stride down the wide open concourse, walk past the sophisticated boutiques, the plentiful restrooms. Starbucks is yours. Everyone seems well dressed and educated. They read books. They have good haircuts and thick watchbands.

When you travel to East Podunk, you have to hang a left out of the main concourse and hike 300 yards down a dark bowling alley-type tunnel to find your boarding area. People sit on the floor. They have mullets. They are overweight and they eat Cheet-o's. There's no air conditioning or heat or food or rest rooms. You know you're going to a place where Nielsen doesn't even have a family.

But during the holidays, people go home. They go back to East Podunk, West Overshoe, Poplar Bluff, Grand Rapids. All these Rolex people with the good suits are standing around in the bowling alley area with the peasants.

It's a nice feeling.

Tune in next time for negative holiday feelings.

Title: Christmas Sucks.

Love from Mary Poppins,
b

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This is my brother Brian, one of the funniest humans walking the earth. He can imitate almost any animal, including a camel. It hurts my throat to try and imitate it. He also does a superb mosquito imitation.

We are the extroverted children of two introverts. How did this happen? I do not know. My mother used to say to Brian when he left the house, "For God's sake, act human."

"Don't encourage him," she would say to me and anyone else at the dinner table, and she'd get very irritated if you laughed. Meanwhile, Brian would be behind her, arms outstretched over her head like Frankenstein ready to kill her. If you were eating at the time, you were guaranteed to choke. My poor ex-husband helplessly incurred my mother's wrath because he couldn't stop.

Brian makes an entire football team out of his fingers, or a pair of ice skaters gracefully swirling about, or a lion. You can try this at home. Stick your middle finger out (upside down from the normal crude way) and put it through a potato chip, which will look remarkably like a mane. Your other four fingers, thumb included, make the four legs of the lion. Presto! And you can have one on each hand so they can kung fu fight!!

A lot of people try to imitate Brian's "bat." This is made simply by your thumb and pinky flapping as "wings" and ascending upward. It has to be accompanied by a "foo foo" sort of silent sound. Some animals can morph into each other with great ease, such as "hefferty Joe," a four-legged beast rather like the lion but without the potato chip, always with the middle finger leading the way as the "head." Hefferty Joe does a lot of sniffing and then flies away as the bat.

We never said we didn't need professional help.

My trips to Arkansas skyrocket in fun and plummet in productivity when I visit my brother and his wonderful wife Joyce. Brian didn't get to witness my father's mutilation of the rat during my recent Thanksgiving trip, but he was sorry to hear about it. He loves animals and is what my mother used to call "tender-hearted."

She was right about that.

Footnote to rat story: Clarissa, my dad's helper, said to him that he could have used a steak knife on it, which would have been sharper and might not have required two, as the screwdriver did. Dad nodded in approval at this suggestion, but then Clarissa told him she would not allow the steak knife back into the silverware drawer afterwards. It would have to be thrown out, she said. Oh no, Dad said, that's not necessary. It can be cauterized and returned to regular use.

Don't eat steak at his house.

It's a great life if you don't weaken (another saying of my mother's.

I've written three chapters of Dalliance Woman. It's emerging through the fog.

A bientot
love,
becky

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Kyra Davis, the author of the very successful mystery series that includes SEX, MURDER AND A DOUBLE LATTE, was married to man diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. The symptoms were barely noticeable at first. But as the marriage wore on, her husband’s erratic behavior—his
lies about his job, his extravagant spending sprees using her credit cards that almost resulted in her filing for bankruptcy, his fits of temper and other highly unsettling behavior—led to her divorce.
In her latest book, SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING (MIRA Books, November 15, 2006, $13.95)—a departure from her light-hearted mystery series—Kyra Davis tackles the subject of mental illness. With her usual wit and humor, Kyra probes a very serious subject, and one that is close to her heart: What happens when the man you love and subsequently marry turns out to be someone entirely different from the man you dated? How do you recognize the difference between mental illness and the usual marital problems that afflict all couples? How could a man who was so romantic and loving turn out to be bipolar ?
Kyra explores these questions as she chronicles the relationship between April and her soon-to-be husband, Tad, who is the man of her dreams: romantic, attentive and adoring who holds the promise of a normal, secure life. But on their honeymoon—Tad’s withdrawn behavior, his refusal to leave the hotel room, and other disturbing behavior—are cause for alarm. When they return home, however, and Tad reverts back to the man she knows and loves, April rationalizes his behavior during their honeymoon, but she can’t quite dismiss it. “The warning signs were there,” she later muses. No neon signs, mind you, just little sparks at the end of a very long string. Funny that I could have been blind enough not to realize that the string was a lighted fuse.”
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING chronicles every step of April’s relationship with Tad, from the engagement and subsequent marriage, through the unraveling and finally the turning point. As April tries to cope with what is happening to her husband, Tad is grappling with the demons that are driving him apart from April and threaten to destroy the one stable anchor in his tumultuous life.
In her unique style, Davis examines the disturbing subject of coping with bipolar illness of a loved one with the sensitivity, insight and perspective of one who has been there, and the humor of one who has had to make difficult choices in order to survive and move on.
Visit Kyra's website here.

Or her blog here.

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I spent Thanksgiving in Arkansas. It was fun and gratifying and restorative. The highlight was a rat's death.

This particular rat had been living in my father's garage for a while. But on Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, one of Dad's household helpers screamed when she went out to the garage and saw it run across in front of the dumpster. All of us inside the house heard the scream.

"It's a rat," Dad said and I guess he knew. My dad nowadays sits in his chair and reads Walgreens ads. It hurts me to see it.

The rat brought him alive.

I admire Dad for not calling the thing a mouse. Many would, because it's humiliating in some ways to have a rat in your house and not a mouse. But my dad is not afraid of the truth. My dad is blunt and purposeful. It was a rat.

First, he leaped up out of his chair. This was no small doing and we hadn't seen it for a while. He stepped briskly into the kitchen and got the peanut butter jar and the saltines. No one could stop him. He hobbled out to the utility room and set the have-a-heart trap overnight. Nobody helped him. Nobody wanted to. It's a gruesome thing, to catch vermin, at least in my view (although ref. my squirrel-catching career). For him, it's homeowning responsibility. In the morning, we got to hear another shriek from another helper when she went out to dispose of more garbage.

Success.

I had known over the years that Dad killed the things he caught in the trap. It doesn't make sense, of course, to catch something in a have-a-heart trap and then kill it, but that's what he does. I think he thinks the snap-traps are expensive. Maybe.

He took the trap outside (in full view of motorists and joggers) and started trying to stab the rat with a screwdriver. This is when my daughter came back from her run and witnessed the attempted murder.

"MOM! GRANDPA'S STABBING A MOUSE IN A TRAP!"

"That's okay," I said.

What else could I say?

Pretty soon his advanced age made it obvious that he wasn't going to be able to stab the thing. So he got another screwdriver from the garage and went at it with double dutch chopsticks strategy. I doubt he ever had to use two screwdrivers in his younger years, but he had to this time.

All the women, and my dad is surrounded these days by women-- me, my daughter, the helpers, even my Alzheimer's mother, were screaming inside the house. "STOP!"

Dad killed it. None of us was there to see it. You know why? Because we're cowards. Dad belongs to an earlier generation, the kind that killed rats and pests and didn't think anything about it.

He came back in and picked up the Walgreens ad.

I came home today.

I love my dad and honor him. He's the greatest.

A bientot
becky

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HAHAHA!! I mean the gobble/gobble kind of course, not the Constantinople kind. Though I'd love to visit Istanbul.

Actually, the map shown here looks a tiny bit like Massachusetts without Cape Cod. Or I guess you could say it looks like Tennessee, though a bit thicker and not as long. Tell the truth, if you didn't know what country this was, or state or province, what would you have thought?

I got into an argument in class recently when I said that in my opinion, an educated person in our country knows the capitals of all 50 states. "Not all fifty!" my students cried. "YES!" I answered. "Do YOU know all fifty?" they asked and I said I did. God help me. They started peppering me with states and I got them all. Good thing they didn't ask Missouri--is that Jefferson City? I know it isn't St. Louis. I still say an American should know all the capitals. You know, I think I'm a little fuzzy on some of them. North Carolina? Yeesh.

No offense to the midwest, but they like to go heavy on the Velveeta and the Cool Whip. I am headed into its confines tomorrow and hope to maintain control over my gluten consumption. (High School Weight, folks--it's coming!) It may be like the smell of blood to a wolf, though, if I get in front of that Rotel/Velveeta cheese dip. The last time I stood in front of a vat of it, I mawed it (maued?) till I was sick. See, that's my problem. I take a good thing and push the limits, although on the other hand, ain't nothin' wrong with a little limit pushing.

No bloggling until I get back on Saturday.

I am very thankful for all I have and especially for the ones close to me.

I love you all.

A bientot
b

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I have always thought that the turkey in this picture is far too heavy for this woman to be holding, especially considering the way she is sort of leaning forward. See? Doesn't it look as though she's going to lose control of it at any minute and thump that beast down on the table, where it will go sliding off the tray and onto the good tablecloth, grease and all? Watch out, kiddies.

And why is Grandpa standing there? He did nothing to help make this meal, unless you consider sitting on your fat ass watching bass fishing on TV a helpful activity.

Maybe it was. Maybe she was glad to have him out of her hair for five minutes.

I'll tell you this, though. He could have chopped the celery. He could have assembled the relish tray, found the extra forks, or taken the garbage out a few times. He could have done a lot of things instead of complaining about the hole in his suit pocket, which she then had to stop everything and mend.

Women bring you the holidays, ladies and gentlemen. Don't ever forget it. They clean them up, too. It's my job to remind the world.

I don't mean to diss the grandfather. He does look kind. Maybe he mashed the potatoes. Or maybe he stood around in the kitchen and explained the Taft Hartley Act to everyone working. Although that's not much help when the rolls burn.

It's cute the way everybody else is leaning forward at the table too. That's what you do when you are really happy and excited, which I guess they are. I guess they don't hate each other or harbor secret grudges the way most of us do. I wonder if anyone is playing footsie under the table. It's rather a wide table so it would have to be someone right next to you and I don't see any candidates for that. If I had to pick candidates, I would say the young man across from the black-haired woman. He's home from college and she's the mother of one of the kids, sitting next to her own mother or grandmother. College Boy is making his move and she is not saying no. It's thrilling for both of them.

What am I talking about?

See, when you write this stuff, it spews out of you naturally.

When you write a disreputable book like DW, you start to look at the world in a disreputable way.

Ha ha.

I am leaving for Arkansas on Tuesday where I will spend Thanksgiving. It will be something like the dinner depicted here, only less titillating. My brother and his wife will cook everything at their house and bring it over to my parents' house where my daughter and I will do our best to set the table and find chairs for everyone.

Am I thankful for my blessings? Yes, and I have many.

Be here now, everybody, and love the cranberry sauce. Maybe I will make the Dallas Monster. Now that is something to be thankful for.

A bientot
love,becky

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Just when Morgan Carter was falling in love with the simple life she'd built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, her true identity as an infamous Hollywood starlet was exposed. Now Morgan has a choice to make: return to her glamorous movie star existence--or stick with the wholesome life, and the new love, she's found in the Midwest.


In this sequel to True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet, Lola Douglas's heartfelt prose and headstrong heroine return to delight readers.

Did you miss the first book?

Well, there it is on the right. And here's what some have said:

Kirkus Reviews
The continuing travails of 17-year-old Morgan … come across with delightful zing, yet address serious subjects. … Douglas manages the lightest of styles while delving into deep issues for adolescents. Fun, breezy entertainment with thoughtful undertones.

KLIATT
More gossipy stuff for all those YA readers who love to think about celebrities and dream about their lives. ... This sequel [is] appealing.

Saving the World Daily Through Information (blog of YA librarian “Cedarlibrarian”)
The sequel does not disappoint. … This book has a lot more serious content than the first, but it's by no means gloom and doom. There's lots of girly brand-dropping, Hollywood gossipy angst, and romance. Verdict: Style and substance.

A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy (blog of YA librarian Liz B.)
If I didn't know better, I'd say Lola is the pseudonym of Drew Barrymore. Maybe someone 'in' the industry would be able to point out howlers and mistakes galore, but the essence is what is important: Lola respects these teens, the Britneys and Lindsays, MaryKates and Ashleys and Mischas. She respects Hollywood and the entertainment industry, yet is not seduced by it. This isn't a rosy picture of tinsel town. But it is a wake up call to the public not to judge teenagers by ridiculously high standards; to the adults in the profession to be adults, not business managers; and to the teens themselves, saying, you have choices.

TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A HOLLYWOOD STARLET – OUT IN PAPERBACK AS OF 11/2/06 (WITH A HOT NEW COVER!)

Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers Group

Teen star Morgan Carter's mom is trying to kill her. At least, that's what Morgan thinks when she's sent to Ft. Wayne, Indiana after a near overdose outside LA's Viper Room.

Morgan's going to recover out of the spotlight. Way out. She's given a major make-under, a new name, and a completely different identity. Morgan's plan? To write a tell-all book about her experience and stage a comeback. But when this LA girl finds love and a new life in Middle America, will she abandon it for another shot at superstardom?

WHAT PEOPLE SAID:

School Library Journal
This tell-all journal-style story is nearly as amusing and compelling as Meg Cabot's "Princess Diaries" and Louise Rennison's "Georgia Nicolson" series.

Kirkus Reviews
Despite the topic's darker subject, since the narrative is in chatty diary form, this is light, breezy and lots of fun, especially for girls with Hollywood fantasies.

KLIATT
(Starred Review) An absorbing read. Who has not imagined themselves in the ranks of the wealthy and famous, the mundane life a mask for the glamorous persona fighting to get out? The themes of finding the joys of the simple life, making true friends, accepting responsibility, and overcoming drug addiction are also well realized.


ABOUT LOLA:


When she was five, Lola Douglas wanted to be an actress like her then-hero, Drew Barrymore. Instead, she became a supermarket checkout girl, a video store clerk, an administrative assistant, a features reporter and a textbook development editor before deciding that writing teen novels was her real forte. Lola has lived in seven of our great United States, including Indiana, and says that during her five-and-a-half month stint in Fort Wayne no one ever forced her to see the movie Hoosiers. She was, however, coaxed into auditioning for a part as an extra in a Neil LaBute film (Your Friends and Neighbors, to be exact), but was rejected during the first round. When not watching too much reality television, reading Gawker, or obsessing over all things Marc Jacobs, Lola can be found working on her next super secret project, which will be published in 2008.

To this day, she remains fascinated with Drew Barrymore.

Visit Lola's website or her
blog

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I find the subject here fascinating. Mostly I try to imagine her in a spandex warm-up suit on a stairmaster at the gym, which is where she'd be if she were alive today. All those old time women looked ancient but weren't.

Can't you see this woman waiting on you at WalMart?

God, the repression in that era. To me, just the fact that she is facing sideways says the artist preferred not looking at her face.

TURN TO THE SIDE, MOM.

WELL, WHY CAN'T I LOOK STRAIGHT AHEAD LIKE ONE OF SARGENT'S PORTRAITS?

BECAUSE YOU JUST DON'T HAVE THE CHEEKBONES FOR IT. KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING, MOM?

WELL NO, NOT REALLY, JAMES.

JUST TRUST ME. ARE WE HAVING KIDNEYS FOR DINNER AGAIN?

They probably wouldn't have eaten that since they were Americans, but old James fancied himself a Brit so maybe they did.

Anyway, I'm looking at her hands gripping that hankie. Oh sonny boy, I'll do anything for you.

She also looks rather tall to me, a rangy thin woman who did without, scrimped and saved, made sacrifices. Her lips are pursed, another indication of tension, either that or dental problems.

DO I LOOK LIKE QUEEN VICTORIA YET?

When I read a Jane Austen book, or see one of the movies such as EMMA, I often wish I could live in that time period, but when I see a painting like this, I know the truth. Give me the present. I'll suffer through.

I sent off Groundhog Day never-ending relentless revisions of book formerly known as Victory to agent today. It's now called YOU CAN'T STAY FOR CHRISTMAS, which was not thought of by me but by a friend. If the book sells, I have to wash his car for the rest of his life, which seems harsh to me. But I love the title.

Be here now.

A bientot
love,becky

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This is Mary Cassatt's famous painting LITTLE GIRL IN A BLUE ARMCHAIR and one of my favorites. I picture that this child is pissed off because someone told her she had to act a certain way. Wear a certain thing. Be excluded from a certain event. My cousin, or I should say my cousin's mother, used to send my mother hand-me-downs from the cousin for my use. Karen was six years older than I. Need I say more? Oh, but you know I will.

YUCK. BLEEEEEEEEEEEEECH.

There was a particular coat/leggings set that had a horrible green velvet beret with it. I loathed the leggings--LEGGINGS!!! I"M KILLING MYSELF!!! NOBODY WEARS LEGGINGS!-- but the beret put me right over the edge. Even at that tender age, I did not look good in hats. My mother could not understand why I did not want to wear it. Horrible shouting matches took place every Sunday before church and when I finally appeared at St. Philomena's for Mass, I looked like a nineteenth century child labor victim, a young red-eyed psychopath. With a green velvet beret stuck to the side of my head with bobby pins, of course, because my mother always won.

Later when I was in high school, I wanted my hair to have bangs and my mother wouldn't let me have them. Can you imagine a high school girl nowadays being forbidden to have bangs? And putting up with it?

"If your friends tell you bangs would look good, they're not your friends."

Okay then, whatever. I finally cut bangs for myself and felt liberated beyond the stratosphere. She was right as it turns out. They didn't look very good, but I loved them and still wear them. Cheers for flat irons.

Anyway, Cassatt's little girl has got her skirt hiked up in defiance, to my eye. YOU"RE MAKING ME DO THAT? WELL, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. AND I'M NOT PUTTING IT DOWN UNTIL YOU PUT THAT BERET BACK IN THE BOX.

Mary Cassatt was a great artist and isn't recognized enough, probably because her subjects were close to the home, as it were, mothers and children. You see her pictures in maternity wards sometimes. This is only my opinion, of course. Cassatt grew up and became "close" to Edgar Degas for most of his life. I hope he treated her well.

A bientot, Mary

love,becky

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I have been blog-tagged by my buddy
Martha O'Connor , which means I now have to give five little known facts about myself and then tag five friends to do the same thing.

Okay.

So.

Five little known facts. What am I willing to tell?

1) This is pretty good and will drop a few jaws. I have had 17 root canals. That's right, boys and girls, 17 times I have endured the 22 prober (see previous post where thankfully I did not say how many I have had so that it would remain a little known fact and I wouldn't be s.o.l. right now.)

2) I can walk on stilts. This is really true. If you show up here at my house with a pair of stilts, I can get right up on them and take off down the street. I won't look back, either. My father built me some stilts when I was a kid and I walked everywhere in them, up and down the stairs even. I forgot about this.

3) I have seen two presidents. Dwight Eisenhower (oh god, that makes me old) was the first and I only saw the top of his bald head. I had the flu and was wearing a purple sweater with a zipper up the front. I think I puked in it. My parents took me out to see the parade he was in. I didn't really know what a president was.

The second one was JFK and I saw him a month before he was shot. It was at the Arkansas Livestock Show in Little Rock and all my friends and I skipped school to see him. It was rather sad in that as soon as people caught sight of him and got used to it, they started walking away in the middle of his speech. I'm sorry to say I did it too, because the carload of girls I was in was leaving.
I told my daughter once that I had seen two presidents and she asked me if one of them was Abraham Lincoln.

4)I know I have divulged this before, but not in its entirety. I am sorry to bring up the subject of puking again (see above), but the last time I ever threw up was St. Patrick's Day 1969. That's pretty impressive, isn't it? My kids never threw up either, when they were little. I don't know of their present upchucking history.

5) I was in an elevator with Muhammad Ali. I could have used my Wicked Witch imitation here, but I've already shared that. Also the fact that I can recite most of the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Old English. I'm going to do it next time I'm in line at Hannaford's.

Okay, whew. I got five. I will have to come back in and post the names of the five friends I will tag. Do I have five friends? Tune in and see.

Later in the day: Okay, here are two friends.

One is the lovely and talented
Elizabeth Graham .

The other is the devilishly handsome and also talented

Mark Vender .


God, I'm good at this. Pasting that computer code down like Elmer's Glue, baby.


Be here now, folks, because it's all good.

Except for the bad parts.

love,becky

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Starting a new book gives rise to excitement, optimism, hesitation, and fear in equal measure. Like Van Gogh's starry night, the new world I wish to enter looks bright and mysterious to my eye. It brims with possibility. My brain boils with new characters and funny names and odd conflicts. But after only one page in Dalliance Woman, I am not sure about the voice. First person or third? My previous books have been all in first, so maybe I should switch. Then again I like first and seem to do best in it, so maybe I should stay.

Maybe I should pick a non-dairy whipped topping.

Maybe that's what Van Gogh saw in the sky.

It's exciting to be starting over. My new friends beckon. I know that if I go forward each day, the book will get written. There's the optimism.

But then the fear lifts its ugly non-styled head. Maybe it won't work. Maybe it will be stupid and sappy.

NAH.

I am a goody two shoes, Mary Poppins at heart and always have been. I see the bright side. I can't help it.

It's all good.

Mostly.

So here I go.

A bientot, Vincent,

love,becky

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Ten teens, one unforgettable day

Over the course of a single day, the lives of ten teenagers will intersect in powerful and unexpected ways.

Among them are Nicole, whose decision to betray her best friend will shock everyone, most of all herself; Kelly, who meets the convicted felon she’s been writing to for years; and Maria, whose definition of a true friend is someone who will cut her. Derik discovers his usual good looks and charm won’t help him get the girl he really wants, while Joy, a fifteen year old waitress, hoping for true intimacy, narrowly escapes a very dark fate.

Seamlessly woven together, this collection of interconnected short stories paints an authentic portrait of today’s teen experience that is at once funny, moving, and often very haunting.






Nightmares. Dark Secrets. Premonitions of Death.

Welcome to Stacey’s World!

With over 250,000 books sold, the Blue is for Nightmares Collection is now available as a boxed set, including a copy of Stacey’s spell book, filled with some of Stacey’s favorite home remedies.

It begins with the dreams. White lilies, the death flower. Being chased through the woods, knowing she cannot outrun her pursuer forever. Visits from the spirit of a girl who was murdered. Threats and taunts from an unseen assailant.

But that’s only the start. When the dreams begin to spill over into Stacey’s waking life, that’s when the nightmare really begins.


About the Author:
Laurie Faria Stolarz grew up in Salem, MA, attended Merrimack College, and received an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston. She is currently working on Project 17, the companion novel to Bleed, also for young adults. To learn more about Laurie, please visit her website here.

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I love opening a new box of chocolates and contemplating all the possibilities.

I love the high school track in my town. It's peaceful there and special to me because all my kids played on its field, two in sports, one in the band. Sometimes I think I still see them as I walk around.

I love Christmas night when the whole shebang is over and I can enjoy leftovers and maybe a little something in a glass while my daughter makes a fire in the wood stove and we watch television.

I love my friends, each in a special way.

Same with my kids.

I love Keuka Lake in New York state.

I love the Buffalo River in Arkansas.

I love CATCH-22.

I love Fridays.

I love chocolate ripple ice cream and hot fudge and Dairy Queen.
Also Caesar's salad, salmon, lemon potatoes at the Aegean, and broccoli.

I love Handel's Messiah, especially "Unto Us a Son is Given."

I love writing a bit or a scene or a chapter that flies out of my fingers like it has a right to be here.

I love Broadway show tunes, although not Sound of Music.

I love Liza Minelli in Cabaret. I could watch it every night.

I love the Red Sox. I love hating the Yankees.

I love a giant cup of coffee with cream on a Saturday morning.

I love a few TV characters, but not many. I love Lucy, I guess.

I love John Boy.

I love working hard at a goal and accomplishing it (rare).

I love Lavender Smoke lipstick by Revlon which is no longer made. Boo hoo.

A bientot
love,becky

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This guy works in the dairy and never speaks to a living soul. He's cold most of the time so I guess it makes sense. He may be a serial killer. His overalls are creased. He carries that pitchfork in case someone forgets that he is NOT there to answer questions.

I SAID I DON"T KNOW.

Okay, sorry.

He is certainly not there to help you retrieve a particular kind of yogurt from the top shelf. And I wouldn't turn my back on him while he's holding that thing.

She works in the front as a cashier. She falls into the general cashier profile in that they are either young teenagers or middle-aged women. The only part she doesn't fit is that she isn't Chatty Cathy like the other older ones who will talk till you beg for mercy. This one is really and truly pissed off. Probably because she's married to Dairy Man. Imagine going home to cook tuna casserole and crease the overalls for HIM every night.

You can see I am not over my Hannaford's obsession, even though they have now obviously been trained to ask about my well-being as I approach the checkout.

"How are you?"

"Me? Are you talking to me?

"Yeah. How are you?"

"Oh. Well, I guess I'm--"

"Whatever. I need a bagger here."

I'M PRETTY GOOD TODAY SINCE I GOT THROUGH HALLOWEEN WITHOUT KILLING ANYBODY OR GETTING SUED BY LITTLE KIDS WHO BUNCHED TOGETHER ON MY KITCHEN STEPS SO DEEP THAT I COULDN'T OPEN THE DOOR. I GUESS THAT MEANS I'M BETTER THAN YOU, YOU SNIVELING CONTEMPTUOUS ARROGANT NONENTITY. THANKS FOR ASKING.

Okay, I'm better.

Happy.

Cheerful.

Next post? Love. All the things I love, including crostic puzzles and Keuka Lake.

A bientot

love,becky

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I am screaming because I have no choice but to stay home on Halloween. Yes that's right, trooping up and down the stairs to hand out candy to unknown costumed urchins. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. This is how I will look when I answer the door, and if the little ones develop psychoses from it, that's what they get with their Milk Duds.

I bought the grossest candy I could find, including Milk Duds, caramels, Snickers, and a bag of something else. All with nougat and Elmer's Glue inside, ready to remove sealants, fillings, crowns, and dental implants with one bite(see previous post).

I used to like to get Luden's wild cherry cough drops on Halloween, though I can't remember who exactly gave those out.

HONEY, DID YOU REMEMBER TO BUY THE COUGH DROP SNACKS?
WHAT ABOUT THE VICKS VAPORUB SAMPLES?

I think I'll give Advil tablets. The kids ought to know how to fight a sick headache before they get any older.

Everyone is so suspicious. Do they think I have the patience to put razor blades in apples? Can you see the person trying to do that? They've got a big cookie sheet spread with apple halves and blood from trying to get the blades to go in the right way. I would have no idea how to do that. And as far as poisoning the popcorn balls, I wouldn't know how to make a popcorn ball if my life depended on it.

If any of my friends are reading this, I'm still available for the movies tomorrow night, or shopping, drinks, cruising the Army base, or an outing of practically any kind. The candy can be yours.

Be here now. God, PLEASE be here now so I don't have to be.

A bientot
love,becky

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At one time I wanted to be a nun, as do most Catholic girls, I suppose. My desire was very great, however, and I think it's the reason I embrace every opportunity to dress up as one. I even make my friends do it. In this photo we are appearing at someone's birthday party and singing a pretty funny song, as I recall. My friend in the middle carried a ruler and whacked people for having impure thoughts, not that they would have gotten any from us.

My friends, you might notice, in a nod to verisimilitude (if you're my student, get a goddamn dictionary and look that up), left the makeup off. Not me, baby. Five pounds of lipstick at all times. Sister Mary Hussy. This was only one nun dress-up. There have been many in my life and I have enjoyed every one. Also, the costume is easy. A dark suit with two half slips on the top, one black and one white. You have to be careful they don't float down while you're walking.

Okay, so I'm building up to the confession (groan) that I don't have a costume for tonight's Halloween party. My mother made me an Indian maiden dress many years ago and I may try to root through my closet and find it. It's very tight under the arms, since it was made for me in the third grade, and I'm not sure I feel like putting up with it. I also have an Arkansas "hog" hat which is great fun, but nothing to go with it except my Razorback nightshirt. I may be just desperate enough to try it. Unwashed nightshirt or pain under the arms.....hmmmm, what would Jesus do? I think Jesus clearly would avoid the Indian maiden dress and opt for the hog hat. What would Buddha do? The Indian dress would never fit him, so it's looking more like the nightshirt/hat combo every minute. These are religious decisions in honor of today's photo. Thanks to my friends Lynn and Chris, who have let me talk them into many a folly.

A bientot

Be here now.

love,becky

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You want to talk about a Halloween horror movie--just looking at these gives me the shakes. They make me want to clutch my wallet, given the vast amount of money I have spent on my teeth. Probably the entire Halloween season here at CFTE should be presented through the lens of dentistry and/or endodontistry (root canal). I am such an expert on the latter, I could actually perform one myself. I know about the prober, the 22 file (I don't know if that is 22 millimeters or 22 caliber as in bullets, but that's the size they always ask for on me--I like to think my canals are longer than other people's), the little bits of paper they put in at the end--yeah, paper. Who knew? Maybe they're sequestering years of evidence of extra-marital affairs at the root canal office---in my mouth!!!! Not to worry, it will all go with me to my grave.

I had my first surgical above-the-gum root canal a couple of months ago. "You'll feel some pressure," the endodontist said just before prying the area open with a farm implement and pushing down with all her might onto my upper jaw. If you were imprisoned in a cell somewhere and had one chance to get out by pushing down really hard, that's how hard she was pushing. A lot more than kneading bread. Bread? You'd pray for bread.

I was six when I had my first cavity. My mother sat and waited for me in the antechamber of Dr. Smith, our family dentist. He was a sadist. He hated children and I'm proud to say I gave him even more reason to.

"Go ahead and spit that out," he said to me after all the drilling was over and tears were running down my face. I knew I was wearing that white cloth around the front of me for a reason. I wasn't as dumb then as I am now.

He never said anything about a sink.

I was obedient above all things. I spit all over him--blood, metal filings, saliva, everything that was in my mouth, all over his glasses, his face, and his fussy little zip-up blouson.

"NOT ON ME, IN THE BOWL!" he yelled and my mother said she and a man in the waiting room almost died laughing. Why? Because everybody hated Dr. Smith. I think my mother enjoyed bringing me there.

Despite brushing my teeth religiously, it was all downhill from there.

What hurts your teeth more, chocolate or hard candy?

You don't think I know, do you?

Which will rot your teeth faster, Milk Duds or Snickers?

Again, je ne sais pas.

Give me the 22 prober, please.

A bientot
love,becky

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Let's be honest. This is the superior candy in the world, is it not? Forget all that Hershey's hype and Heath Bars that suck your fillings and teeth right out of your head. Reese's is God's blessing on man. I would give anything to eat one. BUT I WON'T. My resolve is strong, boys and girls, even though I am at a terrible plateau (3 weeks and still holding).

If I do stay home on Halloween, which I intend not to, I will be sure to buy candy that I don't like. Yucky stuff that isn't chocolate. Skittles--give me a break. Although I do like candy with citric acid in it, the kind that rots the enamel on your teeth. I have a friend who actually likes Chuckles--can you imagine that? Those big jelly bean goobers, yuck again.

There used to be a candy bar named Bun when I was growing up in the midwest and I loved it. I would conceivably forsake Reese's if I could find a Bun again, and of course if I still felt the same way about it.

Disappointing Candy Bars:
Milky Way (BORING, it's the Ford Escort of candy)
Three Musketeers (too marshmallowy, nothing else in it, keep searching for nuts)
Snickers (another candy that could be used for tooth extraction)
Butterfingers/Clark Bar (exactly the same)
Baby Ruth (they're always stale)
Kit Kat (too airy)
Almond Joy (I don't like coconut, it's in your teeth a week later)
Zero Bar (truly gross--do they still have those?)

Maybe I'll buy four huge packages of Necco wafers. I could give them out like communion. Here you go, open wide--oh, I'm just kidding, don't send me hate mail. Anyway, you don't give out Necco wafers singly, you at least have to give a whole package. Or maybe four huge bags of Pez. What ARE Pez anyway? Do they have anything to do with Nez? As in Nez Perce, which I can never remember.

They always have a really cheap assortment of non-chocolate candy that includes tiny lollipops and hard candy. Maybe I'll get that and try to break my teeth instead of pull them out.

I will never be a Godiva girl.

Making progress on my revisions, YES!!! And I just remembered there are still Hershey's kisses somewhere in the house from last Christmas. I wonder if I could find them.

A bientot
love,
becky

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