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The Nose Hairs I’m Not Weed Whacking

May 17, 2013

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, family life, foodie, freethought, friends, Isms (religion), Me so happy, The Write Stuff (literary life), YEE HAW! cat fetching, Children's Book Week, CSA, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lego helmets, Little Farm of the Owl, mushroom stock, National Women Suffrage Association, Nova, Powell's Books, The Mighty Quinn Leave a comment

Tuesday May 14 was the Official Release Date ® for The Mighty Quinn. May I have some trumpets, please?

Ah, shucks. Thank you.

The book’s ORD coincided with a Children’s Book Week excerpt reading/book signing event at Powell’s Books on Tuesday evening.

The event went well, despite the fact that I would rather trim my nose hairs with a weed whacker than do anything resembling public speaking. Seeing all the beautiful, friendly faces in attendance, including RB, LAH, SCM, JG & TG, CC & SC, helped calm my cotton mouth jitters.[1]

I was totally surprised by an intended: the presence of two cherished, Bay Arean [2] friends. MH and Belle managed to keep a secret, that the lovely and talented LH & DA were flying up from the Bay Area for the evening. They honored me not only with their fabulous presence but also by bearing the favorite victuals of acclaimed authors everywhere a token of their appreciation, [3] a four pack of orange Jell-O.

* * *

We shall return to Great Moments in Self-Promotion Literary History after this word from our Feminist Free-Thinking sponsors.

Sometimes, someone else says it better. And sometimes they said it better some time ago. (in this case, over 140 years ago).

Reason & Science lead to atheism. Reason & Science lead to feminism. The National Women Suffrage Association was formed this date in 1869 in New York city. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage.”

· The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (Official)

* * *

Consider yourself a recipient of the Pretty Purple Toe award if you can guess which two of the following five are legitimate reviews of The Mighty Quinn.

An easy-to-use guide for bird owners looking to train their pets to perform simple tricks such as flapping wings, to more advanced tricks such as playing dead in the owner’s hands or ringing a bell, The Mighty Quinn walks the reader through a step-by-step process with explicit instructions and full-color photographs.
(Midwest Book Review)

A new classmate helps fifth-grader Quinn Andrews-Lee re-evaluate longtime friendships and stand up to a bully….Parnell creates interesting child and adult characters and confronts them with serious issues, including child abuse, care for the environment, ethics and even skin color… humorously interrupted by the realities of family and school life.
(Kirkus Reviews)

Every surgeon who carries out rhinoplasty procedures will benefit from The Mighty Quinn. The beginner is guided through the performance of a standard rhinoplasty…with the latest breakthroughs in the management of difficult cases, such as saddle nose, skin sleeve problems, and dorsal grafting.
(Aesthetic Surgery Journal)

“An absolutely delightful read and such memorable characters! Tweens will identify with both Quinn and Neally and will still be thinking about them long after they close the book.”
(Sandra McLeod Humphrey, Clinical Psychologist and children’s author).

It is curious how incest, impotence, nymphomania, religious mania and real estate speculation can be so dull.
(Richard Findlater, Time and Tide) [4]

This toe’s for you!

* * *

Thursdays are our pickup days for our weekly CSA share. We’ve been CSA patrons for five years; this is our first year with La Finquita del Bujo (“The little farm of the owl”). We get an email on Sundays which lists the likely contents of the coming week’s harvest. This week’s share will include (lots of) lettuce, plus beets and greens, carrots, kohlrabi, Chinese broccoli, dill or cilantro and chard or kale.

Daughter Belle’s AP Environmental Science class had a class project/party at the farm on Thursday. They made and baked pizzas, topped with veggies from the farm, in an outdoor brick oven. I told Belle I’d try to time my share-picking-arrival so as not to require any M4 [5]awkwardness for her.

In anticipation of the wine and broth braised root veggies I planned on making for dinner, I started a batch of mushroom stock on Thursday after breakfast. It made for a sensory-sensational morning. The savory, umami (or as I like to think of it, yo-mommy) aroma of mushroom broth wafted into the office as I performed what would otherwise have been the mundane tasks of checking manuscript submission status and fiction market listings.

No-Fuss (or a little, if you’re prone to botheration) Mushroom Stock

Hint: Keep a bag in the freezer for stockpiling the mushroom stems that are often not used in recipes. Shitake, porcini, button, crimini – no need for varietal separatism. A United Nations of Shrooms is best. Throw ‘em all in there. [6]

1. take a pound (~ 4-5 cups) of stems, along with a handful of dried mushrooms and perhaps some frozen whole ones, too. Heat a medium-sized stockpot over medium-low heat, add a small amount of EVOO and brown the stems a bit (no need to thaw first), along with a small peeled & roughly diced carrot. That’s all you need: shrooms and a carrot. If you’re a Stock Fundamentalist who believes that the only true path to Broth must involve the trinity of carrot/onion/celery, you can add small diced portions of the latter two veggies.

From the Book of Aromatics: in the name of the Carrot, the Onion, and the Holy Celery

2. Add ~ 8 cups of water, or enough to cover the shroom bits by at least two inches. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer until stock is reduced by one half (or more, if you want a really rich flavor). This will take at least 30-40 m.

3. Strain the stock through a very fine sieve (or colander lined with cheesecloth), pressing on the veggie solids to extract every last bit of shroomy liquid. You now have ~ 3 – 4 cups of stock. Use immediately, or frig and use within a few days, or let cool and freeze.

* * *

Several years ago our all-white cat, Nova, discovered the cache of Lego pieces in the upstairs bonus room. We in turn discovered Nova’s proclivity for a certain kind of Lego piece, when MH put on his shoes and yelped as his instep pressed down on a hard piece of plastic. Somehow, a Lego helmet had gotten into his shoe.

We are a barefoot-in-the-house family, and so there is always a motley assortment of shoes and sandals on our front door rug. I was the next to step on a helmet while putting on my shoes. A subsequent stakeout revealed that Nova, when she thought the coast was clear, would come downstairs, little white helmet in her mouth, and most definitely and deliberately drop it into a shoe. We began to remind each other to shake out our shoes before putting them on. We were not always consistent in passing on this reminder to guests. I’d like to think we just forgot about it, but must admit to the possibility that our omission was intentional, as we enjoyed the delightful (well, to us) expression on a visitor’s face – the mild eyebrow elevation of surprise morphing into confusion – when they went to put on their shoes and discovered they had been honored with Nova’s footwear enhancement.

Nova eventually tired of the shoe-game, and discovered the joys of Human-aided Helmet retrieval. We’d be sitting at the breakfast table and she’d bring a Lego helmet [7] and drop it by one of our chairs. A Lego helmet makes a distinctive clicking noise when dropped onto tile or wood flooring. She’d drop the helmet, we’d pick it up and lob it into the kitchen or down the hall. Its distinctive shape caused the helmet to skitter and bounce in an erratic manner Nova found irresistible, and she’d chase it, bat it around, and eventually pick it up and return it to us for another round.

She has done this, off and on and with variations in the game, for years. And with no other Lego pieces; only helmets. [8] We’ve found stashes of helmets under various pieces of furniture, and have rescued many from the central vacuum dirt canister in the garage.

Her latest variation is to find a helmet and bring it to the office. The office carpet muffles the helmet-dropping announcement, so she has devised another routine to get my attention. Helmet in mouth, she enters the downstairs covered litterbox, which is under the “kid’s” computer desk. She pees in the litterbox, or sometimes just pretends to – either way, the sound of her pawing about in it alerts me to her presence. She emerges from the box, drops the helmet in front of it, then dashes into the hallway, looking back at me with an I’m-helping-you-keep-your-promise-to-yourself-to-be-ergonomically-smart-and-take-frequent-breaks-from-the-computer expression. [9] I, of course, dutifully pick up the helmet and throw it for her. It will be at least six rounds of fetching until she decides I need to get back to work.

Or sometimes, I come into the office and see a helmet outside the litterbox, with no kitty in sight. Her calling card, I assume.

* * *

Remember to check your shoes before you put them on, and let the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Along with the zen-like calm that can only come from knowing that I carry a whoopee cushion in my props bag.

[2] Not Aryan, but Arean, as in, “of the Bay Area.” They flew in from San Francisco, not Berchtesgaden.

[3] A “souvenir” of sorts, from the shenanigans at MH’s & my wedding reception…which is a story best told in person, over something stronger than orange Jell-O shots.

[4] This was critic Findlater’s actual review for Lillian Hellman’s Toys in the Attic.

[5] Meet My Mother Moments

[6] Except morels. Oregon foodies are supposed to adore morels, but moiself thinks they taste like what muddy socks smell like.

[7] It seems we had an endless supply, from years of buying Lego Classic Space sets.

[8] She will play fetch with wads of paper, but only on the staircase.

[9] Really, that’s exactly what her kitty facial expression means. We’ve had it translated.

The First Lady I’m Not Tweeting

April 26, 2013

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, current events, freethought, friends, nature, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), YEE HAW! Ben Unger, Bill 3014, Children's Book Council, Freethought, Michelle Obama, Oregon Legislature, Oregon Potters Association, pledge of allegiance, Sal Esquivel, Sandy hook shooting, Scartletta Press, US currency motto Comments Off

Get Mighty!

Nice way to start the week. Really! This (part of the) post is sarcasm-free! And full of exclamation marks! Because, why not?!

On Monday Scarletta Press’s publicist forwarded the following email from the Children’s Book Council. As for the CBC’s Tweet suggestions, the mere thought of that particular networking service gets me all twitter-pated, but any of you readers are also tweeters, feel free to pass along the news. [1] Especially if you have Michelle Obama’s ear. [2]

Congratulations, The Mighty Quinn was selected for the CBC’s Hot Off The Press and is featured on our homepage! Here are some sample Tweets to help you promote your title’s feature. We’ll be spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter!

Get mighty! ‘The Mighty Quinn’ by Robyn Parnell is on @CBCBook Hot Off The Press! http://bit.ly/14JshQB #HOTP

This book is hot! ‘The Mighty Quinn’ was chosen for @CBCBook Hot Off The Pess! http://bit.ly/14JshQB

* * *

Rewind to Saturday, which had served as a more humbling reminder of the realities of publicity events. My press’s publicist had arranged for me to do a reading at an elementary school’s Earth Day project, to tie-in with one of The Mighty Quinn’s subplots. [3]. The school’s students and parents would be working with coordinators of an environmental stewardship group (which I’ll refer to as Greengood. Sorry.) to plant trees and otherwise “beautify” their schoolyard.

We (MH, daughter Belle and moiself) showed up at the time suggested by the school’s Greengood coordinator. It took several minutes to find the Person In Charge; the event was, uh, disorganized, to say the least…which I’d expected as per past experience. [4]

The event organizer and her comrades were Bright, Perky and Chirpy. And young. Very young. Nothing wrong with that, but did I mention that they were young?

Although the BPCs had placed signs up all over the school (“12: 30 p special event: Robyn Parnell, Storyteller”), they hadn’t given any thought as to where I would do the reading.

The Storyteller spot they decided on at the last minute was in front of a bunch of picnic tables outside the school gym, from which recorded music was blaring. Horrible, as in, really awful acoustics (I did get them to turn off the music).

Adults and kids were taking a break from tree planting, and some twenty boxes of pizza had arrived. Two BPCs said they’d organize the adults to do cleanup/lunch prep and call in the kids from the playground for the reading. That didn’t go exactly as planned.

The adults (and many kids) kept wandering in and out of the picnic table area, before and during my reading, and the noise level was quite high. It became obvious to me that most of the kids had their eyes and attention spans focused on the pizza to come. Fortunately, the excerpts I’d picked were short…and I made them even shorter when I realized that some of the adults (who had not listened to the BPC instructions, imagine that) had begun to pass out the pizza.

Life Lesson, #367 in a series: Prose is no competition for pepperoni.

My reading began and ended with excerpts of a chapter in the book where students are doing a community service project and one of the characters asks, “Is it time for lunch?” That segue seemed to be appreciated by the, oh, six kids who were actually paying attention at that point.

The highlight: one kid, as I was setting up, asked if I would be doing a puppet show. S/he [5] seemed disappointed when I explained that I would be reading a passage from my (puppet-free) book, and s/he asked if it would be okay for to leave “if it gets boring.”

Yeah, sure, kid. Don’t let the seesaw hit you in the *&# on your way to the playground.

I did not say that. I did let the kid play with the frog clicker I’d brought along (no puppets, but a prop!), and s/he stayed for the reading.

During the reading MH & Belle distributed flyers about community service ideas (the flyers were provided by Scarletta Press, quite beautifully done…with a couple of mentions of the book, of course). After the pizza break MH, Belle and I helped mulch the newly planted trees. The reading break may have been disorganized but the adults and students had done a lot of work: over 70 trees planted on the school yards and perimeter!

Highlight, the sequel: the kids who planted the trees got to name the trees, which I thought was a delightful way to have students make a connection to the tree, and thus be more likely to care for them. A Douglas Fir was named…wait for it… “Dougie,” and a red maple was named “Elena,” and so on. One tree was named “Bob,” a cause for an apology of sorts from one of the parents, when she saw me reading the tree’s name tag.

“It’s, uh, not a very distinctive name, is it?” she stammered.

“What’s wrong with Bob?” MH (son of Robert, aka “Bob”) wanted to know.

* * *

Gracefully segueing to another school-related topic (and, as it happens, another Bob). Bob Davis, this Asshat’s for you:

Minnesota radio host Bob Davis said he would like to tell the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims to “go to hell” for infringing on his gun rights. Yep, Bob Davis’s message for the bereaved parents is that having to submit to a background check is a greater tragedy than them burying their children.

There are no words for this. Although a few enthusiastic hand gestures come to mind.

* * *

As per enthusiastic gestures, I’d like to ask a certain group of public servants to run their priorities up their flagpole and salute ‘em.

Calling all Oregon State Legislators:
the Capitol House janitorial staff has found your cojones, concealed behind the sawdust-filled barf bucket in the Capitol Rotunda’s broom closet.

The great and groovy state of Oregon faces many contentious challenges, including updating our aging infrastructure, grappling with the dilemma of underfunded and underperforming public schools, and fixing a dysfunctional Public Employees Retirement System. Thus, our intrepid legislators, forging new pathways in the spirit of the Oregon Trail, decided to devote time, energy and $$ during the recently convened 2013 Legislative Session to a bill to require all Oregon school districts to display the US flag in each classroom and have students salute it once daily during school hours.

Really. House Bill 3014 passed the Oregon House of Representatives and is now headed for the State Senate.

Photo showing the old salute, taken in May 1942 in Southington, CT

Caption: Photo showing the old salute, taken in May 1942 in Southington, CT, just one month before the new salute became official.

Rep. Sal Esquivel, (R – Medford) is the bill’s chief knuckle-dragger in charge of do-nothingism masking as patriotism sponsor. Esquivel believes the Pledge of Allegiance teaches students about the nation’s legacy. “We need to teach kids the symbolism of that flag,” Esquivel said. “That flag stands for America. That flag stands for your freedoms. That flag stands for everything this country’s ever done, has been or will be in the future.”

It might behoove Esquivel to teach himself the literal meaning behind that flag symbolism. Is he unaware of our country’s history of civil and constitutional rights? Does he understand that the right to free speech includes the freedom from making loyalty oaths to the king government, particularly when those oaths violate that very government’s constitution by promoting religion? Are Esquivel and the bill’s supporters going to mandate that schoolchildren be taught the history of The Pledge to That Flag, including:

* that somehow the country survived for over 100 years without a pledge[6]
* that the “under God” reference was not added until over 60 years after the pledge was written [7]
* that the original pledge salute was one stiff arm outstretched toward the flag, [8] a posture later used by a certain German dictatorship?

“We’re dealing with schoolchildren and with role models in schools who are required to lead it. The circumstances are inherently fraught with compulsion or coercion and we feel that’s a violation of church-state separation.” (Anti-Defamation League, Nov. 14, 2003)

My own OR State Representative, whose energy and idealism I respect – and whose pragmatism I grudgingly understand – voted for the bill. Ick ick ick, I sez, even I realize that once such a piece of festering crap legislation is introduced it’s a no-win situation for any representative – particularly a newbie to the game [9] – to oppose it, or point out why such provisions are unnecessary, wasteful, silly and even sinister distractions from the real, pressing issues at hand. Any politician doing so would be subject to knee-jerk disloyalty accusations from the why-do-you-hate-America, drool bucket for brains crowd, and political rivals would relish the chance to use a “He voted against the flag! And the Pledge!” sound bite during the next election.

I can’t help but wonder what the legislature’s next efficient use of taxpayer monies might be. Perhaps they’ll form a committee to find and replace all the currency we frisky Freethinkers have been desecrating correcting; i.e., the dollar bills with “In God We Trust’ scratched out on the back.

Break out the Sharpies

* * *

I can only be pissed off at politicians for so long — this weekend is the Oregon Potters Association convention! The annual Ceramic Showcase, the nation’s largest exhibit and sale of pottery items ranging from sculpture to garden art to home accessories, is at the Oregon Convention Center, Friday through Sunday. Pottery-loving friends and I have made it a yearly tradition to mark our calendars and attend on the opening day. After years of showcases I’ve no room in the house for pottery, be it decorative or functional…ah, but what do I see outside my office window? An artless yard? [10] And there always seems to be room for just one more visage on the Wall of Faces.

* * *

Wishing y’all a weekend of friendly faces. Let the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] This is as close as I’ll get to groveling. Until next week.

[2] Or whatever part of the body one uses when tweeting.

[3] Environmental protection/community service. Silly do-gooder stuff.

[4] I’d given a mild warning to my publicist; still, it had been years since I’d had anything to do with a Greengood event, and I hoped for the best.

[5] Not to get all Gender Police, but really, I couldn’t tell. Nor could MH and Belle, when I later (and discretely) consulted with them.

[6] The pledge of allegiance was originally written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a socialist magazine writer.

[7] In 1954, amid the anti-commie hysteria, by Pres. Eisenhower and Congress, at the urging of a minister.

[8] Someone in the 1940s noticed that it resembled that, uh, other salute, and it was formally replaced by Congress with the now-customary, hand-on-heart.,

[9] Ben Unger ( D- Dist. 29) is a first-time representative, elected last November.

[10] Garden gnome free!

The Baby Sloth I’m Not Wrangling

April 19, 2013

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought, movies, nature, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) Boston Marathon bombing, children's books, Costa Rica Sloth Sanctuary, Earth Day, Fred Rogers, Groucho Marx, halibut, high school assemblies, The American President, The Brights, The Mighty Quinn Comments Off

Some pre-release book publicity for a good cause? Forgive the self-serving if ostensibly noble combination.

Oak Grove Elementary School in Milwaukie, Oregon is having an Earth Day/work-party day this Saturday, April 20^th. Tree planting, courtyard sprucing and other activities will begin at 10 am, followed at 12 noon by a pizza party, and a reading (for kids young and old) by yours truly, from The Mighty Quinn. Check http://www.solv.org/get-involved/events/oak-grove-elementary-earth-day-beautification-project for directions and more details.

No matter what your plans, on this upcoming Earth Day weekend there are plenty of other ways to Love Your Mother (Earth, that is).

* * *

“There’s pretty much sloths everywhere you look around here.”

Does that quote sound familiar? If you think heard something like it, perhaps from the HR person during your interview tour of your company’s cubicle land, then it’s time to look for a new job. Here’s the title of my dream job: Baby Sloth Wrangler, at the Costa Rica Sloth Sanctuary.

School spirit: Try to contain your enthusiasm.

I’ve occasionally received text messages from my offspring when they were stuck at a mandatory snorefest high school assembly. Typically, they were bored out of their gourds by the blah blah blah from their school’s administrators and/or lame “artistic” presentations from fellow students. I, on the other hand,[1] remember my high school’s assemblies with fondness. The assemblies were rare and welcome breaks from routine, and were also, for the most part, entertaining, with little to no speechifying by adults/administration.

From what son K has told and now daughter Belle is telling me, their high school finds numerous reasons to have assemblies, often merely to disseminate school/logistical information that could have easily been relayed via the teacher, in the classroom…information that is forgotten five minutes after the assembly has ended.

There are those kind of assemblies. And then, there are other assemblies.

Yesterday around noon I received the following text from Belle, during her school’s assembly, at which the choir and band were to perform.

OMG…this assembly is cursed. The color guard did a performance, and one girl got hit with her gun in the face and bled everywhere. Then ___ (Belle’s friend from the track team) passed out in the stands and had to be carried out.

Don’t think they’ll be forgetting this one so soon.

* * *

The Boston Marathon bombs. At the time I’m writing this, those responsible have not been apprehended, nor identified. Much has already been said about the tragedy. One thing hasn’t: that such horrific incidents only go to show, in this Bright’s opinion, how the most basic tenet of a certain theology gets it all dead wrong.

I’m referring to Original Sin and other such mental ass cheek flapping religious doctrines that teach of an innate, even inherited, fallen humanity.

There are seven bajillion of us on this planet. If human beings were truly and inherently evil at the core of their being, we would have blown ourselves up – we would have torn each other to pieces – a long, long time ago.

Look for the good, the kind, the rational, the helpful. You don’t have to look far. Yes, there are some incredibly sadistic asshats[2] fighting for slop space in this world. And there are the others. They don’t usually make the headlines, because there are so many of them.

I saw footage and photos of people in Boston, from professional first responders and civilian bystanders, running to help their fellow human beings. People were running toward the sites of the still-smoldering explosions, even as they had no way of knowing whether there were more blasts to come.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

(Fred Rogers)

* * *

One of my favorite dialog sequences from one of my favorite movies, The American President.

Janie (Presidential Aide) : The 10:15 event has been moved inside to the Indian Treaty Room.

President Andrew Shepherd: 10:15 is American Fisheries?

Janie: Yes, sir. They’re giving you a 200-pound halibut.

The President: Janie, make a note. We need to schedule more events where somebody gives me a really big fish.

Janie: Yes sir. [starts making note]

The President: Janie, I’m kidding.

Janie: [Stops and starts to smile] Of course, sir.

After a trip to our favorite market, the awesome New Seasons, I realized I needed to do more grocery shopping where somebody gives my daughter a really big fish. [3]

* * *

Dateline: long ago in a galaxy far, far away. [4] It was a beautiful, Bay Area day, clear blue skies, mid-70s with no breeze. A co-worker had called to trade shifts at Planned Parenthood, so my morning was free. I had work to do, but even a freethinker like moiself who scoffs at the s-word knew it would be a sin to work indoors. It was the perfect day for one of my favorite drives: taking La Honda Road (highway 84) to the coast.

Sitting in my favorite spot under a sandstone cliff facing the ocean, I had the beach (San Gregorio) to myself. Midway through editing the final draft of a story, I looked toward the water and saw a man and his golden retriever walking in the shallow surf. Man and dog turned inland, headed in my direction, and attempted to make conversation. [5]

“Great day, thought we had the beach to ourselves….” Man’s banter was neither interesting nor original, but also not (intentionally nor particularly) annoying. He was friendly…and also sliding into flirtatious. I was polite but not encouraging. I made a point of petting his dog and shooing his dog away from my manuscript and shaking the sand off of said manuscript with my left hand, making sure that my wedding band was on display.

He soon got around to, “Whatcha working on?,” a question I’ve since learned how to deflect [6] . I thought if I answered him truthfully – if he realized that, indeed, I was not on holiday but was working – he’d half-heartedly apologize for the intrusion and be on his way. Instead, I had found myself in what is a fairly a common experience for writers: receiving unsolicited advice from a non-writer as to how, or what, a writer should write.

He incorrectly assumed that I was a novice, unpublished writer. Wishing not to prolong our interaction, I did not disabuse him of that assumption. “I hear fiction, for adults, is really, like, difficult to break into,” he offered, with a wide-eyed look that was obviously intended to be helpful. “Have you ever thought of working your way up, by, uh, like, writing stuff for children, first?”

He seemed taken aback at my hearty guffaw, and his expression quickly morphed from helpful to confused as he found an excuse to return to his dog walking duties.

“If you write comedy, you’re sitting at the children’s table.”
(Woody Allen)

A common misconception among non-writers is that writing “for children” is somehow easier, and less prestigious, than writing “for adults.” Authors who’ve been published across the various (and somewhat arbitrary) age groupings scoff at the former notion even as they grapple with the latter – that a “children’s author” is a second class citizen in the world of literature.

This snobbery sometimes comes from a select list of fellow writers, those who take themselves and their I Am an Author of Important Lit-ra-chure credentials oh-so-seriously. These writers are invested in this alleged hierarchy of prestige, and wish to maintain what they see as the ghetto of being on the children’s list. And yet, the children’s list is a relatively recent phenomenon. It was only twelve years ago that the New York Times Book Review made the controversial decision to start a children’s bestseller list, separate from that of adult fiction. This was due in part to the rumored complaints by some self-styled Big Boy writers who got their Serious Literary Underpants ® in a knot when they found themselves increasingly sharing (read: ceding) top rankings with Harry Potter [7].

But, apparently, sharing list-space with Fifty Shades of Meh or the latest “adult” schlock literary sensation is reputable…enough.

When I was invited by local schools to do readings of my first children’s book, My Closet Threw a Party, the teachers usually introduced me (to their students, and/or to other school staff) as a writer, or sometimes as a “children’s writer.” When it was the latter, I gently corrected the distinction…and then had to explain why I wasn’t objecting to it, but simply felt that it was inaccurate.

Although I write for all ages, the vast majority of my published works have been for an adult audience. I’m just a writer. I didn’t feel then, nor do I feel now, that being referred to as a “Children’s Author” is in any way depreciatory. Quite the opposite. If anything, I feel I am not deserving of the moniker. I can’t think of a better kind of writer to be. Think about it: who – truly, deeply and loyally – loves a book more than a child?

* * *

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
(Groucho Marx)

Get your favorite book, for children of all ages (I’m partial to Green Eggs and Ham), turn on the light inside your dog, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] On the other hand…you have different fingers.

[2] Including the talking heads who insinuate the identities of the perpetrators when they have no reliable evidence.

[3] Our freezer is full of halibut filets, halibut scraps for fish cakes, halibut stock for halibut chowder….

[4] The Bay Area “peninsula,” 20+ years ago. Is that long ago/far far away enough?

[5] The man talked. The dog slobbered.

[6] People often have strange reactions when encountering a writer, writing. Sometimes I just say I’m an editor.

[7] By 2001 the top three places on the hardcover fiction list were held by JK Rowling titles, and a fourth Harry Potter book was on its way.

The Thumbs I’m Not Lowering

April 5, 2013

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men), books & magazines, current events, freethought, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), movies, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) Elizabeth Colbert Busch, Hiking the Appalachian trail, MAD magazine, Mark Sanford, Roger Ebert, Saudi Arabia, Steven Colbert, The Mighty Quinn, updesk 2 Comments

Roger Ebert loved movies.
Except for those he hated.

So begins the Chicago SunTime’s feature on the death of film critic and author Roger Ebert. Ebert was one of the few critics (in any field) whose work I respected, even when I disagreed with his opinions. I’ve always suspected Ebert secretly loved those movies he supposedly hated, because they afforded him the opportunity to pen the most entertaining of his critiques. Check out these two collections of some of his most scathing reviews, his books I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, and the exquisitely titled, Your Movie Sucks.

Having read a news article just days ago about Ebert’s announcement of his cancer’s recurrence, I feared the worst was coming, soon. Yesterday I intended to forward the article to friend and fellow movie lover CC [1]. I logged on to the computer, and there was the sad news.

Rereading that last paragraph, I’m thinking that while I may have “feared the worst,” Ebert didn’t. As followers of his blog know, Ebert wrote with clear-eyed eloquence about his battle with cancer and the contemplation of his inevitable demise, from the perspective of a literate, intelligent, contemplative and grateful atheist/agnostic/deist/non-believer/free-thinker…. [2]

Ebert was fond of a quotation by Brendan Behan, which he cites in the following excerpt from arguably his most profound blog entry – you must, must, must read it – Go Gentle Into That Good Night. [3]

I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.

“For 57 words, that does a pretty good job of summing it up. ‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
(Roger Ebert, 1942 – 2013)

I am happy he lived long enough to share that. Two thumbs up to a life well-lived. The balcony is closed.

The key to maintaining a motivated, youthful perspective is immaturity.
Chapter 324 in a never-ending series.

I rarely listen to music when I’m working on new material. Doing the bizness stuff – what I consider to be unpleasant, logistical/housekeeping chores of writing – requires both distraction and fortification. While researching agents to query about my novel, I had the following inspirational song [4] on repeat play. Which may explain my success in querying agents.

* * *

The new updesk is here! The new updesk is here!

Actually it’s been here for a couple of weeks, but the screw holes for the crossbar of the desk’s left leg were improperly threaded, and so a new left leg had to be sent from the company’s headquarters in Tennessee.

Two years ago, right around the time MH was having surgery on his back, I became concerned with the sedentary nature of my profession.[5] No matter that I am a lifelong, devoted, daily exerciser – the latest research says that we desk people are sitting ourselves to death. I installed an ergonomic program on my computer that makes little icons to pop up a regular intervals to nag remind me to get up and move/stretch. That helped…a little.

I began experimenting with a makeshift [6] standing desk, and discovered I liked standing and working. I also discovered that the relief to my back came at the expense of my knees, a discovery predicted by more of that pesky ergonomics research, which says that there are musculoskeletal problems associated with any prolonged posture.[7] Also, there are times when I just want to sit and work. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to quickly and conveniently switch between the two modes without having to unplug/schlep everything?

The techno Good Fairies [8] granted the wishes of moiself and others who seek to reinvent our work environment, as I discovered when I searched for adjustable height desks.

We received the new desk leg yesterday, and handy husband MH assembled the contraption. After three weeks of having my office torn apart/rearranged and my papers and materials divide up between the office and kitchen table, I am so behind with everything, and The Mighty Quinn is coming out in four weeks and I haven’t had time to get back to the office and take the desk for a test drive. Ah, but tomorrow with a push of a button I will be able to raise or lower the desk to two present heights, or any height from 26.5″ to 42.5.” The future is here (and, as usual, catches me wearing my sweatpants)!

* * *

Future, schmuture: back to the Middle Ages. Which means, of course, a breaking news update on an Islamist society.

Get your motors running, gals, and let’s go kick some Saudi ass!

In yet another stunning stumble leap toward entering the 19^th century, Saudi Arabia has lifted its ban on women riding bicycles. As you know, Saudi women may not drive cars, run for public office or vote, or appear in public unless smothered covered head to toe in a black funeral shroud stylish abaya-niquab-hijab combo. However, as of this week the Mutaween, the kingdom’s notoriously conservative religious police, are allowing female Saudis to ride motorbikes and bicycles in certain areas…providing that a male relative or guardian accompanies the biking babes.

The Mutaweenies also stipulates that women may not use the bikes for transportation but “only for entertainment,” [9] and that they must not ride near men “to avoid harassment.”

Saudi Leaders March for Equality

They’re baaaaack.

Faster than cinema patrons fleeing a Poltergeist sequel showing! More powerful than a politician’s ego! Able to leap inconsistent alibis in a single press conference! It’s SuperCluelessman!

I refer of course to the spectacle that is the political resurrection of Mark Sanford, the self-awareness-impaired former governor of South Carolina. This week Sanford emerged from the slime seemingly out of nowhere to win his state’s Republican House primary, held for the special election that will fill the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Tim Scott. The special election, slated for May 7, will pit Sanford against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, Stephen Colbert’s sister.

Brief background info: In 2009 Sanford resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association after he admitted to an affair with an Argentinean woman. [10] Sanford was later censured by both the House Judiciary Committee and the South Carolina House of Representatives, as per Sanford’s misuse of state travel funds to conduct his affair. But the real fun had come earlier in the year, when Sanford, the executive administrator of his state, became the subject of nationwide news coverage because for seven days his location was unknown to anyone – not his constituents, not his wife, not the State Law Enforcement Division which provided security for him.

Providing material for late night TV for weeks, Sanford had told his staff that during his absence he would be hiking the Appalachian Trail. When a reporter caught him arriving at Atlanta’s airport on a flight from Argentina, Sanford quickly organized a news conference, during which he admitted that when he was supposedly hiking the Appalachian Trail he was actually pursuing some Argentinean tail. [11]

Oh, but that was then and this is now. Sanford is now back on the campaign trail, and between self-righteous proclamations of change and milking the politics of forgiveness (he’s made mistakes, you know, and none of us is perfect, praise Jeeeeeesus), he also wants you to know that no one seems to know anything about his opponent aside from the fact that she is Stephen Colbert’s sister. On April third he made a point of highlighting this fact on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show:

“She’s not held office. Right now, the one thing that people know about her is that she is Stephen Colbert’s sister. Well, at the end of the day, Stephen Colbert is a very popular, well-regarded comedian, but at the end of the day he’s not on the ticket.”

Oh really? At the end of the day? Why not, at the beginning of the evening? Or, in the middle of the afternoon? Or at the cusp-if-not-quite-not-the-edge-of-the-dusk….

Forget all the other crap Mark Sanford has done and said. The most compelling reason for not voting in this lying, cheating, censured sack of shit into office is that he used that vapid idiom TWICE, IN THE SAME SENTENCE. Which I didn’t even think was possible.

May the hiking hijinks ensue.

* * *

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Our nicknames for each other, when planning our movie dates, are Gene and Roger.

[2] These and other labels were given, by others, to Ebert, who refused all labels for this himself.

[3] which also served as the last chapter of his memoir, Life Itself.

[4] Included as a cardboard record in a 1963 issue of Mad magazine.

[5] Translation: my back began to hurt.

[6] Translation, the sequel: monitor & keyboard propped up on lots of books and other non-desk items.

[7] Translation, the last: “ouch”

[8] Chill out, you paranoid dudes, it’s a compliment.

[9] Riding around in a circle to amuse yourself and your “male guardian” is kosher (ahem), but Allah forbid a women might actually use a bike to get somewhere.

[10] To whom he is now engaged. Whaddya think, should I send them a toaster oven, or candlesticks?

[11] Not his exact words. You can credit me on this one.

The Problem I’m Not Talking About

March 29, 2013

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men), books & magazines, category-free rants, current events, extended family, family life, freethought, Holidays, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel Better Marriage Blanket, Easter challenge for Christians, Evergreen College, family road trips, Fotografizophobia, Freethought, hands free cell phones, Henrik Ibsen, Interrupted, Joy, Kim Jong-un, LBJ tapes, Manzanita, North Korea, Richard Nixon treason, sloths, Tacoma, University of Puget Sound, Vietnam War, Wright Park 2 Comments

A woman clad in body-hugging, long-sleeve Nike shirt, Adidas leggings and New Balance shoes, [1] is running toward me. She is pushing one of those baby jogger strollers. You know how a rhythmic, rocking motion can calm and soothe many a fussy infant? Hers is not that kind of baby.

A lone seagull crouches in the grass, extends its necks and emits staccato, croaking calls, as if doing a series of vocal exercises to warm up for the squawking to come. A man who looks to be in his mid 30′s places a duffle bag beneath the canopy of a large cedar tree and begins some kind of martial arts exercises. I hear a wheezing noise coming from behind me; I’m on “alert status,” as one must be when walking in unfamiliar territory, and stop at a fork in the path and turn around. An elderly gentleman is about 20 feet behind me on the path. He’s rail thin, looks as if a strong breeze could knock him over,. He has a thick mass of shock white hair atop his deeply furrowed head, and he’s wearing a bright neon safety vest. He pumps his arms as he strides past me, flashing a beatific smile and greeting me with a cheery, “Good moooooooorning!” I take the fork to the right, and soon I hear the familiar, shuffle shuffle crunch snuffle snuffle that heralds the approach of a biped and its dog, respectively walking and inspecting the twig-strewn gravel path. Ahead of me to the south, a sleek black lab, let off its leash by its human, intensely and hopefully [2] streaks toward two seagulls resting on the grass by the duck pond. The birds watch the rapidly approaching canine, waiting until the last moment before nonchalantly spreading their wigs and rising helicopter-like over the dog, which rockets beneath them. The dog slows down for a nanosecond, glances back at its human, resumes its speed and slightly changes direction – reminding me of how a cat, when it somehow fails, begins to casually groom itself as if to say, Oh yeah, I meant to do that.

The simple sights and sounds of a city awakening to the assurance of a beautiful day.

MH, Belle and I are staying in an olde apartment building (ca 1912) across the street from the perfect venue for a morning – or afternoon or evening – walk. Wright Park is a 27 acre arboretum with a series of gravel loop trails, a duck pond, a lawn bowling/bocce ball court, a botanical conservancy, several themed works of bronze statuary and one seemingly random memorial. As my après-walk internet search later confirms, I’m not the only person to have wondered why, in the middle of a Tacoma park, is there a monument to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen? [3]

We are in Tacoma[4] for three reasons.
1. to return K to college (UPS).
2. Belle is interested in UPS,[5] and is doing campus tours and other activities UPS offers to prospective students. On our way back to Oregon we will stop at Evergreen College in Olympia, for similar check-out-the-school exploring.
3. there is no third reason.

K came home for his spring break last week. At the end of the week we made a two day trip to Manzanita and then drove the scenic route [6] to take K back to UPS. It seems as though all of Tacoma was out when we arrived on Saturday afternoon. There is something about Tacoma on a sunny day that reminds me of San Francisco. Perhaps it’s the city’s many hills, and the view you have atop them, to the north, east and west, of the bay (Puget Sound’s Commencement Bay, in Tacoma’s case). In cities like Tacoma and San Francisco, which are known for their often overcast/inclement weather, a clear, bright sunny day seems to bring out the best in residents and visitors alike.

Just in case you were wondering, after reading that last comparison, I neither smoke nor inhale. Apologies to San Fransiscoites: the afore-mentioned weather rumination is the only Tacoma characteristic that reminds me of The City. Your beloved Baghdad by The Bay’s charm remains intact, and unique.

Saturday night, after dropping off K at his dorm, Belle, MH & I had dinner at Pomodoro, in Tacoma’s Procter district. Not long after we were seated Belle removed her sketch pad and pencils from her purse. She and MH were seated across from me, and Belle looked in my direction as she began to sketch. I turned around to see if perhaps a cute waiter or bus boy was lurking behind me. Nope. This put me into a rather mild existential panic. I tried my best not to sound like a bad Robert DeNiro imitation as I asked, “Are you sketching me?”

“Yes,” Belle replied. “Hold still.”

I didn’t hold still. None of us held still. We were doing restaurant-things: eating, drinking, lifting napkins to our mouths, answering questions from our server, as well as allegedly conversing with one another. Belle said nothing more, but from her heavy sighs and eyebrow gymnastics it was apparent that she was disappointed with my lack of stillness, and other attributes that render me unfit for sketching.

I do not translate well to photos. I am not a still life, and loathe having my picture taken in any form and for any cause. The reasons for this are not particularly complicated or interesting; they are known to those supposedly closest to me, and in a kind and just world (calling Mr. Rogers) would be respected, even if not “understood.” This is rarely the case.

From the POV of a fotografizophobic, [7] when people gaze at you intently and allegedly dispassionately, judging the contours (read: inadequacies) of your bone structure and other facial features, hearing them say, “Hold still so I can sketch you/take your picture” is the emotional equivalent of hearing, Hold still so that I may throw acid in your face.

Unsolicited, adult-to-adult advice: when any sentient being declines to have their picture taken by you, respect their wishes and move on. Do not whine and wheedle, do not attempt any form of emotional blackmail (“The family reunion shot will be ruined if you’re not in it, and who knows if Uncle Anus will live long enough to attend the next one!”). Unless I am renewing my driver’s license and you are the DMV camera dude, or you are the hospital’s medical photographer sent to document my Mayo Clinic-worthy bulbous axillary tumor, back off. It’s that simple.

* * *
We interrupt this family travelogue to bring you a political rant.
Your regular programming will return shortly.

Department of I’m glad he didn’t live/I wish he’d lived to see this

My father had an inexplicable, embarrassing (to me) fascination with Richard Milhous Nixon. He’d been to Nixon’s “Western White House” home in San Clemente on official (IRS) business and had met the then Prevaricator Commander-in-Chief. To a man of my dad’s generation who began life as a dirt-poor country boy in a southern family of share croppers, meeting The President must have been seen as a pinnacle of the American dream. Thus, I tell myself my father’s interest was a case of celebrity worship, or that all-too-human fascination with any personal brush with power, and not that he actually admired the lying, venal, foul-mouthed, paranoid, commie-baiting, racist contender for worst president ever.

I thought no new revelations about Nixon could ever surprise me, even though I knew there were more tapes and documents yet to be declassified. Still, it was chilling to read the revelations contained in the LBJ tapes about just how low RMN would go to obtain power. In 1968, fearing that the Paris Peace Talks would end the Vietnam War and thus his election chances, Nixon secretly intervened to sabotage the negotiations. He sent his envoy to get the South Vietnamese to pull out of the talks, promising them “a better deal” if he were elected. LBJ, informed of Nixon’s treachery by the FBI, felt Nixon was committing treason, but feared going public with the information for several reasons, including national security concerns and having to reveal that the FBI and the NSA were bugging the South Vietnamese ambassador’s phone and intercepting his communications. Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey, informed of the situation by LBJ a few days before the election, decided it would be too disruptive to the country to accuse the Republicans of treason, especially if the Dems were going to win anyway (they were ahead in the polls).

What is that old saying, something about how all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing?

The peace talks collapsed, Nixon ended his campaign by promising an alternative to the inept Democratic strategy – look at them, they couldn’t even get the South Vietnamese to the negotiating table! – and won the election with less than 1% of the popular vote. His “better deal” led to the war dragging on until 1975…which caused the additional deaths of Twenty. Two. Thousand. American soldiers. [8]

Despite – or perhaps because of – being a fiction writer I’m a huge fan of reality. A part of me wishes my father could have read the transcripts, and that he and I could’ve discuss the revelations, and that he would have been able to understand at least a part of my vitriol for RMN, which is best expressed by Hunter S. Thompson’s He Was A Crook. Another part [9] wimps out on reality, and tries to embrace the idea that an old man went in peace, holding on to whatever fantasies he had, the Nixon one (oh….ick) included.

Richard Nixon…He was the real thing — a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that “I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon.”
(Hunter S. Thompson, writing in The Atlantic, May 1, 1994)

* * *

More freethinker troublemaking:

“Leave No Stone Unturned” An Easter Challenge for Christians

* * *

“It’s the problem…that no one likes to talk about. No wonder they call it Silent But Deadly.”

How’s that for a commercial lead-in? But really, ladies and germs,[10] The same type of fabric used by the military to protect against chemical weapons can be yours, with the purchase of the intriguingly named Better Marriage Blanket. Unfortunately, it’s not what you’re thinking. Or, maybe it is. Oh, who cares – any product with the selling point “offending molecules are absorbed before anyone knows they’re there” is worth a moment of your attention, right? Not only that, it’s given me the idea of how to solve the North Korea situation. Get our Navy Seals to wrap Kim Jong-un in a Better Marriage Blanket, and it’ll be like he’s not even there.

Speaking of other problems no one likes to talk about, there are those family road trips that do not end in all sweetness and light and witty anecdotes. Unsolicited adult-to-adult advice, revisited (the photography-free version): do not endure treatment from family members that you would find intolerable coming from anyone else.

Smarter people than us said this:

* Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
― Alexander Pope

* There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King Jr

* Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.
- George Carlin

* * *

Joy, Interrupted: An Anthology on Motherhood and Loss. Hmm, not the feel-good title of the year, you say? The collection contains some beautiful, intriguing, moving essays, poems and fiction on the subject of loss in the context of motherhood, including, in the last category, a story of mine. Two years ago I read the editor’s call for submissions and submitted my story “Maddie is Dead.” [11] It was one of those made-me-shiver incidents when the editor contacted me to say that she loved the story and wanted to include it in the collection, and by the way, is the story indeed fiction (it is), and by-the-by-the-way, did I know that her deceased daughter was named Maddie?

The anthology should be in book stores later this year and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

* * *

One last gasp at the road trip story. It was our first night in Tacoma, in the afore-mentioned apartment with Belle & Mark, and Belle was cranky due to a nasty, lingering cold and (gasp) no TV on site. She turned down any suggestion I had for playing cards, games, etc. I passed the time doing an online search for…hmmm, parameters, hmmm. What would be a spirit-lifting image to see? How about sloths wearing onsies?

Best. Search. In. A. Long. Time.

An adorable Bradypodidae, dressed in baby clothes. Hijinks are bound to ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] The Clash of the Titans?

[2] Warning: anthropomorphizing zone ahead.

[3] A Norwegian-American artist sculpted a bust of Ibsen, his mentor and friend. Three bronze busts cast from the original ended up in places with large populations of Norski immigrants: St. Paul, MN, Wahpeton, N.D., and Tacoma. Just because.

[4] The Tacoma narrative was written earlier this week, on Sunday and Monday.

[5] to her brother’s genuine if mild apprehension.

[6] Up the Oregon coast, crossing the Clumbia River at Astoria, following the Willapa Bay, cutting over to Olympia at the small town of Raymond. Which led us to wonder if there was a man in the town named Raymond, and if so, do all of the townspeople like him?

[7] Fotografizophobia is the fear of having your picture taken.

[8] .and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians soldiers and civilians.

[9] The part spelled “protective daughter,” no doubt.

[10] A lame popularized by Milton Berle in the 1950′s: “Good evening, ladies and germs. I mean ladies and gentlemen. I call you ladies and gentlemen, but you know what you really are.” It was funnier then. Supposedly.

[11] Previously published in The Externalist, issue 4, October 7.

The Stamps I’m Not Licking

March 1, 2013

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, current events, extended family, family life, freethought, friends, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV art shows, Bobby Jindal, Cat Adoption Team, David Muir, demons, fiction, fine art, fortune cookies, FSM, Jackson Bottom Wetlands, Jetsons, postage stamps, Republican Party, thrift shops, transporter, TV news, voles Comments Off

Department of Petty pleasures and Cheap Thrills

I miss the stamps.

Although literary and publishers have the (deserved) reputation for being resistant to change and slow to adapt to technology, the past few years have seen even many of the olde-time journals modify their guidelines. Publishers and journals who only accept hard copy/snail mail queries and submissions have become, in my experience, the minority.

Being able to submit manuscripts and correspond electronically has significantly reduced business expenses for me and other writers. I enjoy the lowered postage and paper and toner costs, and increased efficiency of correspondence. But, I miss the postage stamps.

I’m no philatelic by any stretch of the definition. Still, on the increasingly-rare opportunities when I have to mail a manuscript, I enjoy choosing the stamps for the task. A sixteen page story, plus cover letter and SASE, requires 4 ounces of postage, and as much as possible, I will “customize” choosing the various stamp combinations which will total the necessary $1.50 for the first class/large envelope fee.

My customization is idiosyncratic, peculiar, [1] sometimes admittedly petty, and until this daring revelation, known by and meaningful to only moiself. It includes such “guidelines” as:

* When submitting to journals with all-male names on the masthead, I choose stamps featuring female authors and artists

* When sending materials to publishers located in southern states with a history of slavery and/or segregation, I go for stamps honoring African-Americans and/or civil rights.

* For journals whose guidelines have overt or implicit religious or spiritual overtones, I choose stamps honoring scientists or other secular achievers.

And now you know.

* * *

I don’t often watch the network news or any TV news. For a reason that now escapes me I turned on ABC World News Tonight earlier this week and saw, for the first time, substitute host David Muir. Muir is apparently a legit reporter [2] and not a Chippendale’s model posing as a newsman on special assignment for Donald Trump’s latest reality show. I was taken…aback? affront? a-sideways? by his nudge-nudge-wink-wink delivery style. His sly glances, his way of slightly turning to the side and then looking directly into the camera made me think there was some off-mic photographer urging him on (in a heavily exaggerated fake Italian accent):

“Yes, yes, zer zey are, give zem more, you makealove de to de camera…”

Hmmmm. Maybe it’s just me, I thought. Or, it’s something to do with the specific story he’s reporting. I changed channels for a few minutes, then returned to ABC. There he was, on with another story, and those playful intonations and coy mannerisms. Every man, woman, and golden retriever staring at their television set was receiving this unmistakable subtext: “Yes, it’s true, I know what you look like naked.”

A Google search revealed that Muir is considered something of an “info Hunk,” a category I heretofore had no idea existed, by both gay male and straight female news groupies devotees. Ah, the joys perils of enlightenment.

* * *

Department of Sorry, Too Late:

Republican governor Bobby Jindal tells the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.”

* * *

Should the USA and its allies prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and thwart North Korea’s series of underground missile testing? Can the Social Security system be reformed, or should it be gutted and redesigned? How can renewable, non-polluting energy sources be developed in the face of ongoing budget crises and societal inertia? The answers to these and a myriad of other pressing questions are complex almost beyond belief. But, thank the FSM [3], there is someone willing to tackle one of life’s most insidious dangers: demonic possession of used goods.

Y’all might need to get out the smelling salts for this revelation. You know that hideous vintage Rudolph the Red-Nose reindeer Christmas sweater you got for next to nothing at the thrift shop? Did you think you were being a smart consumer when you got that crockpot at a garage sale instead of buying a new one? A certain religious evangelist, whose thoughtful intellectual discourse is rivaled only by that of a weed whacker, has some news for you.

In the World According to Telewhackadoodlery,[4] not only do demons exist, but these evil spirits can attach themselves to inanimate objects. That classic thesaurus you found at the Goodwill for only $1.50 – you don’t really know where it has been, do you? You’d better pray the second hand Roget away , lest it rise up in the night and unleash its demonic [5] powers upon you.

Thus, the return of the Horseradish-and-Batshit Crazy Yap Flapper award
goes to perennial award contender, Pat Robertson

Last weekend MH and had lunch at PF Chang’s. As usual, fortune cookies came with the tab. MH opened his, and unlike many fortune cookies, this one contained an actual fortune; i.e., a forecast or prediction.[6] He read his aloud, we both had a laugh, and I eagerly tore my cookie in half and discovered…nothing. No fortune; it was empty. Apparently, there is no future for me.

The busy week: Monday, Belle and I had our last CAT volunteer shift. Due to financial considerations, the feline-exclusive, no kill-shelter is closing a couple of its outreach adoption sites, including the one at the Hillsboro Petsmart, where we’ve volunteered since 2007. We’re still in a bit of shock and mourning over this, and hope to be able to volunteer for CAT in some other capacity in the future. The closing of one volunteer opportunity freed me up for another one, and on Monday, I fulfilled a long-time I-should-do-this goal and interviewed at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve. I will assume weekly volunteer duties there starting next Monday, where I will be helping gather information for a biologist’s small mammal survey. My new motto is: I Love Voles.

This week also saw the beginning of high school track season, which means Belle juggles two hour daily track and field practices with an afterschool job, her Oregon Zoo Teen volunteer duties, and the homework that comes with taking a bajillion AP classes…and which means MH and I juggle the resultant teen conveyor duties.[7] Where is the transporter promised by Star Trek? Where is the Jetson’s Jetpak? Dammit, the future was supposed to be here, by now.

Thursday night we had a most yummer dinner with friends, the lovely and talented couples MB & RB, and JR & DC. After dinner we all attended the opening preview reception for the Celebration of Creativity, an annual art show that, this year, runs through Sunday 3/3. This juried fine arts exhibit and sale features original works from 80+ artists in 15+ different media categories, from photography, jewelry, sculpture, fiber, glass, oils, wearables, acrylic, water color, pastels, garden sculptures, woodworking, pottery, mixed media…. Friend and artist LAH has a variety of pieces in this year’s show. MH & I have purchased many objects ‘d’art at the show (read: there is no more room on our walls), and look forward to seeing this year’s works.

As a patron of the arts [8] I often find myself thinking about the differences between fine art and fiction, especially when it comes to public showings or “sales.” At an art show, the art is right there – it is immediate. You see a painting or sculpture in its entirety. You can walk away from it, or it can grab you by the throat right then and there, or come back to haunt you as you peruse the other booths but keep thinking, I really, really love that enormous cable fish. There is little or no leap of “faith” required in its purchase.

In my few experiences at book fairs, both as a buyer and an author, I’ve come to think of them as dicey ventures. You walk by a table, there’s an author with a book, you see the author, you see the book and its jacket illustrations…but there are a whole lotta pages in between the front and back covers. Perhaps you can scan the cover blurbs [9] , perhaps the author reads select passages from the work, but you don’t know you’re going to like (or loathe) it until after you’ve bought it.

FYI, Cable Fish was rubber chicken-free at time of purchase.

May your weekend be artful, and may the hjinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] And also limited by the currently available stamp selection. I hate it when they discontinue my favorites.

[2] which is probably no news to everyone except moi, who, as stated, does not kept up with TV news.

[3] Flying Spaghetti Monster. Have you been touched by His noodly appendage?

[4] Saddle up the dinosaurs, in this world.

[5] (crazed; diabolical; fiendish; satanic)

[6] Attention, fortune cookie makers: complimentary statements are not fortunes. “People like you,” is not a fortune. “People like you are destined for disfiguring automobile accidents,” now, that’s a fortune.

[7] thanks to budget cuts, the bus doesn’t go where she needs to go at the times she needs to get there…and she still hasn’t taken her driver’s license test.

[8] My definition: I buy stuff. Art stuff. From artists whose works make me go, “Wooooo!”

[9] Hardly the place for objective recommendations. When’s the last time, after reading a mediocre novel, you realized you should have heeded the quotation on the book flap, which warned, ” Destined to become a classic the truth is, the prose is boring and derivative, the plotting is plodding. Get yourself a book of KenKen puzzles instead.”

The Fly I’m Not Casting

February 22, 2013

Robyn Parnell current events, freethought, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) college papers, E.J. Dionne Jr., goats, nuns, Pope, Sister Bertrille, Sister Mary Clarence, The Mighty Quinn, Thomas Jefferson 2 Comments

I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don’t have as many people who believe it.
(George Carlin)

The talking heads think we all just can’t get enough of that papal resignation stuff. Me, I’m trying not to sound or think like one of the old folks (What happened to February? Where does the time go?!). Meanwhile, Washington Post opinion writer E.J. Dionne Jr. tried one more tactic to get us to care about the papal succession, and threw in his two ducat’s worth, by positing that the best choice for pope may be a nun.

Dionne admits to certain pesky impediments, such as the fact that in the RC-world, “Women, after all, are not yet able to become priests, and it is unlikely that traditionalists in the church will suddenly upend the all-male, celibate priesthood.” Nevertheless, he opines that handing leadership to a woman (read: a nun) “would vastly strengthen Catholicism, help the church solve some of its immediate problems and inspire many who have left the church to look at it with new eyes.”

Amazingly, Dionne’s bio lists him as an opinion writer, and not a humorist.

I understand and recognize jesting, and satire and irony. Dionne’s article is free of all three. The dude is actually serious.

Appointing another pope, no matter what the shape, color or national origin of its genitalia, will not help anyone with 21^st century eyes to look at Catholicism with new eyes. As for helping his religion solve some of its “immediate problems,” those of us who’ve left any – and every— religion know that it doesn’t matter how you dress it up or down.

Although I have to admit, Sister Mary Clarence would rock that papal mozetta . Well, almost anyone would be an improvement, style-wise. Even Sister Bertrille for that matter,

Religions – from the liberally acceptable and/or relatively benign Wicca, Neo-paganisms, women-and-gay-ordaining protestant denominations, to fundie Mormon wife collectors, Pentecostal snake handlers, foam at the mouth homophobe evangelists, pontificating papal pederasts, and all the “moderates” in between – are simply incorrect. Their (mis)understandings of the world are based on mythologies and unsubstantiated claims that, while defensible for illiterate, scientifically ignorant Bronze Age denizens to have held, have no basis in reality.[1]

Absurdity playing dress-up is still absurdity. Donning the robes of religion does not make the illogical tenets of theology logical. Changing the gender, age, ethnicity or national origin of a religion’s figurehead is a meaningless PR gesture, as the figure will still be nunsense nonsense in drag.

”I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.”
(Thomas Jefferson)

* * *

I don’t know what triggered the following, college-days memory. But, unlike the remnants of the vegetarian chili I had for lunch, I’m grateful for its resurfacing.

GS, a friend who lived down the hall from me in my dorm, had to write a VIP [2] for his physiology class. The class was mostly filled with pre-vet school students ,[3] who were very competitive with one another. The assignment: delineate the actions of all muscles, both separately and in tandem, involved in executing a certain task of your choosing (e.g., opening a jar of pickles or blinking an eye).

The professor warned his students that the assignment was far more difficult than they realized; thus, he was going to give them two shots at it, so to speak. Those students who were able to turn in (what they thought were) their completed research papers at the end of the week would receive the benefit of the professor reading, but not grading, their papers over the weekend. The Prof would note suggestions for improvement and/or expansion and return the papers to the students on Monday, thus giving them a chance to revise their work before the final version was due on Tuesday.

GS, who had done a bit of trout fishing in high school, decided to describe the process of casting a fly. He was humbled and frustrated as he researched and wrote his paper and tried to describe the various muscular actions involved in what, to him, had seemed a simple, almost instinctive action. This paper consumed his life, all week, and his dorm friends heard all about it…but he was able to turn in his paper on Friday. On Monday he received his paper back, with his professor’s comments. The Prof noted that although GS’s detailed analysis of the kinetic choreography of the shoulder, upper arm, forearm and hand was impressive, as an avid fly fisherman himself the professor knew that GS had neglected to consider and enumerate the lower body motions (hip rotation, pelvic propulsion, foot placement, etc.), involved in casting a fly. [4]

GS realized he was way in over his head, and had a dark night of the soul Monday evening. I saw that he was still pacing the halls, his paper in his hands, when I left Tuesday at 5:30 am to go for my morning run. I didn’t run into him again until Friday evening in the dining commons. I, of course, asked what had happened with his revisions. He said he’d turned in his final paper as originally written, with no changes except for an addendum to his opening thesis: “This paper analyzes the coordinated muscular action of a person casting a fly, the person being a T-4 paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, with no voluntary muscle movement below the nipple line.”

His paper received the highest grade in the class.

* * *

Ways to feel really stupid inadequate incompetent.
#542 in a series

In all the excitement during the past couple of years, what with finding a publisher for finalizing the contract for The Mighty Quinn and taking notes for two more juvenile novels, another adult novel and short fiction collection, I neglected to check my own notes to see that I had not, in fact, done the final edits on the novel I had started to submit to agents and publishers.

I discovered this just recently. Thus, even as I’ve been enjoying the final editing process, I have to take time out ten times a day to do a Holy Jean Luc Picard on my forehead. I so did not make it so. Jeesh.

The more I thought about the current events of the past week, the more I wished I could be serenaded by goats.

Be careful what you wish for. Who knew goats could sound like old men complaining about stale toast, and scream like slasher movie victims?

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] I can’t believe I’ve gone this far without a footnote.

[2] Very Important Paper.

[3] UC Davis has a world-renowned veterinary schools. When I was a mere UCD undergrad, the vet students did an excellent job spaying my cat, and didn’t seem to mind that she bit at least two interns during her post op appointment.

[4] No footnote here. There’s nothing to see, folks. Keep moving on.

The Wild Rumpus I’m Not e-Reading

January 25, 2013

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, family life, freethought, Isms (religion), politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) Dr. Seuss, eReaders, inauguration, literary pretension, Maurice Sendak, Nook, U.S. Constitution, Where The Wild Things Are Comments Off

“You cannot write for children. They’re much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.” (Maurice Sendak)

It’s hard to imagine, in a world where we have children’s literature (ahem) with titles like Zombie Butts From Uranus, and The Fart Book: Whiff it, Sniff it, Lay it, Rip it! – Milo Snotrocket’s Gross-out Guide to Thunderpants and Toilet Tunes and Go the F*** to Sleep [1], that Where the Wild Things Are caused a bit o’ controversy when it was first published in 1963.

Some parents said that the book’s illustrations of fanged and clawed, googly-eyed creatures were too grotesque and frightening for a children’s book. Of course, most children (and adults) thought otherwise, and Maurice Sendak’s tale of imaginative Max’s journey is now a beloved classic. Celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the book’s publication by giving a copy to a child of any age who doesn’t have one, or break out your own well-thumbed copy for a re-read, and let the wild rumpus begin.

* * *

“F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They cannot be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won’t give a s**t.” (Maurice Sendak)

With all apologies to the late, great Maurice, spinning (slowly, naturally, without the aid of technology) in his grave: I gave up (in?) and bought an eReader.

We had one in the family: MH’s birthday gift, from K and Belle and I, was a Nook . When searching for MH’s gift I’d researched the various models available, and went with the recommendations of a techie whose name I cannot recall. Also, I liked the Dr. Seuss-ish sound of the device.

Dead tree scrolls I’ve not forsook
Since I broke down and bought a Nook.
I like to read by hook or crook [2]
and when I look open up the Nook
I’m treated to a new ebook.

It turned out to be quite the popular device. Belle used money from her after school job at Noodles & Company and bought herself the same version as MH. I had leftover gift $$ to spend (thanks, Mom!) and got the HD version for me, as I want to be able to see hamster and whistle and other images from The Mighty Quinn’s cover page in glorious e-color.

* * *

Inauguration, schmauguration

(written on Monday, January 21: There are going to be two prayers during President Obama’s inaugural ceremony: an invocation and a benediction. I will not watch today’s ceremony, for that reason.

Various Christian conservatives are arguing over what it means to have the first “lay person” (i.e. non-clergy, first woman, to boot) give the invocation [3] and a non-evangelical [4] blather the benediction they. As always, they miss the point. There should be no argument because there should be no deity-invoking in a secular procedure.

The founders of our nation, when forming the nation’s governing document, made it god-free. Religion is mentioned merely twice in the U.S. Constitution, and then only in exclusionary terms:

-”…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” (Article VI, Section 3)

-”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” (from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution)

The United States is the most diverse country on the planet in terms of world view or belief systems. Twenty percent of us are the “nones” (freethinkers, humanists, Brights, atheists/agnostics or the “non-affiliated”); the rest of us claim affiliation with denominations described [5] as mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestant, Catholic, historically black churches, Jewish, Mormon, Buddhist, Jehovah’s Witnesses, “other Christian,” Orthodox, Hindu, Wiccan, “other world religions” and “other faiths.” One of the few things people pledging allegiance to different religious beliefs can claim in common is their willingness to be live in this country and be united through our system of governance.

The presidential oath of office, laid out in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, is secular, in accordance with our secular democracy. There is no mandate nor even mention of placing a hand on (anyone’s) scriptures; no “so help me God”:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,
and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The Constitution does not mandate religious oaths; it prohibits them. Yet once the religious verbiage got appended in the inaugural oath, woe unto those who might consider removing it (surely, that would be evidence that they are Kenyan socialists!). And so Obama, like every pandering politician president since Chester Arthur in 1881, will follow suit, and place his hand on a collection of monarchy-upholding, Bronze Age fables one particular version of one particular denomination’s scriptures, and by doing so he’ll violate the Constitution in the act of promising to uphold it.

* * *

Beware literary journals helmed by MFAs [6]:

I have a file, once hard copy, now on my computer, labeled Most Pretentious Writers Guidelines.[7] Always happy to add another entry to the file, my happiness was doubled this week, when I came across the following as I was checking out a journal that had put out a call for material. The first blurb is from the journal’s how-we-journal-came-to-be description, the second from their About the Editors listing:

Several members of the editorial board of “The Lofty Spleen Review”[8] are graduates of the prestigious MFA in Creative Writing program at Pompeux College, one of the top five programs of its kind in the nation. As a highly educated, highly motivated group….

Editor Richard Knoggin[9] completed his M.F.A degree in Creative Writing at the prestigious Pompeux College of Cleftpan, Iowa.[10] The low-residency program he attended is rated as one of the top five in the nation….

Yeah, I get it. Y’all think highly of your pretentious prestigious, highly educated selves.

If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot immediately!
(Douglas Noel Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

* * *

Happy reading. May hilarity ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Okay, so this title is not marketed at children. Way too funny to share it with them.

[2] Obscure Anglo/Irish expression of disputed origins meaning “by any means necessary.”

[3] Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights hero Medgar Evers.

[4] Rev. Luis Leon, a liberal pastor at St. John’s Episcopal Church.

[5] By organizations that keep track of such things; e.g., The Pew Charitable Trusts & Religious Tolerance

[6] Use your best Mr. Rogers voice: “Can you say, prestigious? I knew you could! Now see if you can find a reason to use it, as many times as you can.”

[7] Writers guidelines, for those of you sane enough to be non-writers or those unacquainted with the term, are guidelines from a journal or publishing house that specify their requirements for material from writers.

[8] Not the journal’s real name.

[9] Not the editor’s real name.

[10] Not the college’s real name or location. Except in my dreams.

The Car I’m Not Decorating

December 21, 2012

Robyn Parnell exercise & fitness, extended family, family life, freethought, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, Yikes! Huckabee, prayer inefficacy, rain, Rudolph, Sandy hook shooting, Santa, snowing in Portland, Southern California childhood, The Dropkick Murphys Comments Off

Indeed, the season is upon us. If you need further evidence, let The Dropkick Murphys explain it to you.

Ah, but the season unfortunately includes you-know-what. I’ll get this rant out of the way.

Ban assault weapons! No, ban violent video games! No, it’s the combination of mental illness and access to weapons! At least have the discussion about gun violence! Discussion, schmussion – arm every sixth grader in America!

The enormity of the Sandy Hook tragedy is almost beyond comprehension. Our society, for a slopbucket-load of historical and social reasons (that moiself shall not address at this time), is increasingly called to make even a few baby steps toward comprehension…and consistently fails to do so. Instead, we end up lobbing verbal grenades at one another, occasionally pausing for a moment of silence at yet another memorial service for “the ____ victims” (insert latest shooting locale).

And then of course, there’s Mike Huckabee[1], former Arkansas guv, part-time Republican presidential candidate, ordained Baptist minister and Fox News (surprise!) blowhole. Huckabee is highly regarded in scholarly circles for…well, for nothing. Nothing, that is, that has ever leaked from his lips, although he does get credit for jettisoning something like 300 lbs several years ago. Recent pictorial evidence shows that much of his bulk is returning to the mothership, and his recent rhetoric evinces that most of it is settling between his ears.

In his latest self-serving spewfest exploiting a national catastrophe pronouncement, MH attributes the “violence in our schools” to what he describes as the systematic removal of religion from our schools. Oh, Mike, Mikey Mike, you Hucka-hucka burning…something. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the brain train isn’t coming.

I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the Huckster and other religious righties brainstorm knock their empty coconut noggins with the NRA and come up with a plan to place AR15-packin’ preachers in every classroom.

There has been much religious speechifying about the Sandy Hook shootings, to which my reaction is: ick, and ick again. But, it’s more than just ick-worthy. Many of us who are mythology-free find the public prayers/religious invocations that typically accompany such incidents to be almost as galling, and ultimately more perplexing, than the incidents themselves. The rhetoric and rituals are so ubiquitous, oft times it just seems like background noise or white sound, like the distant rat-a-tat-tatting of automatic weapons fire.

Okay. Perhaps another analogy might be more…appropriate? Perhaps not.

Of all the mumbo jumbo about “keeping the victims in our prayers,” “pray for the families of Sandy Hook,” “our prayers were answered when we found out ___ had survived the shooting…” most mind-bogglingly ridiculous to me is when the political talking heads called upon to Respond To This Tragedy ® end their statements with the seemingly obligatory[2] – what is it, invocation? plea? command? suggestion? – “God bless America.”

I do think God Bless America, ala Keep me in your prayers/I’ll pray for you, is one of those phrases that, like much public god-talk, is almost always employed without the benefit of reasoned contemplation. It is used as a reactive response to certain situations – the intellectual/rhetorical equivalent of Gezundheit. But to those who would claim to employ GBA etc., in all sincerity, what are you thinking? I don’t expect an answer, but, really: What particular, magical word combination or incantation do you believe will appeal to your celestial, imaginary friend, whom you apparently believe “is watching over us” and has the ability to intervene in human affairs (to “bless” you) and who may, somehow, someday, do that, despite the fact that if said celestial being exists, on December 14 it was watching over a madman entering a grade school and then twiddling its divine thumbs while six year old children[3] were being slaughtered?

Human beings – in the form of a sad/lonely/alienated/angry/deeply disturbed young man, with – God bless America! – access to high-powered firearms, carried out this vile act. Human beings in many forms – including the principal who died trying to thwart the gunman as he forced his way into the school, the teacher who hid her students in cabinets and cloakrooms but stayed visible to deter the gunman and told him her class had gone to the gym (after which he shot her, and moved on to another location), the teachers who risked their own lives guiding their students to safety, the emergency responders, the community who reached out to friends and strangers alike with generosity and compassion – human beings rushed in to help in whatever way they could.

* * *

Writing this week’s post from Southern California, I’m as close as I get to being a Foreign Correspondent.

Trust me, you do not want to spend several hours of your holiday-season birthday online, trying to book the last seat on a flight that leaves in less than 24 hours. But this is what you’ll find yourself doing if, after making a pre-birthday phone call to your elderly mother, you decide to do A Good Thing ® and surprise her [4] with a visit.

All together now: “What a gooooooood daughter.”

On second thought, hold your applause. I am hardly worthy of such magnanimous regard.

I had a (mostly) enjoyable childhood, growing up[5] in Southern California, to which my increasingly furrowed, sun-blotched skin now attests.[6] Still, I headed north as soon as I could. Although ’tis good to visit with the kinfolk, I get in somewhat of a funk when I travel to the Land O’ My Birth. There are a variety of reasons for this, some of which I may mention in a much later, much less sober post. For now, suffice to say I find the area to be crowded, grimy, desiccated.[7]

As per the latter, considerate Oregonian that I am, I brought some precipitation with me. The mere hint of a light shower elicits the obligatory, “Oh, we need the rain!” from the locals.[8] Out for a walk on Tuesday morning, I experienced a mild epiphany of sorts: I find SoCal almost tolerable in the rain. Even a moderate drizzle functions ala Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak – it serves as a mask or shield, temporarily veiling the area’s aridity, and…well…dirtiness. This place looks, feels and smells different (better) when it’s wet.

THE APOCALYSE IS NIGH, AND IT’S WEARING AN ELF HAT.

Oh, oh oh oh oh, before I forget – another story! Pick me, pick me!

As I returned to my mother’s house after my walk, I spied with my little eye a Hummer parked in her neighbor’s driveway. My self-righteous, what kind of person still has that gas-guzzlin’, manhood-mocking[9] behemoth snort was diverted when I saw something that made me approach the vehicle for closer inspection. The Hummer’s armor was fortified by what appear to be an oversized pair of Mr. Spock ears…no, they’re…elf ears? Plus, an elf hat was wired to the Hummer’s grill.

Soooooooooooooo, I sez to moiself. Last night was not a fluke.

I’d notified older sister NLM (who lives ~ 15 miles from our mother) about my spur-of-the-moment visit, and she’d graciously offered to act as my airport shuttle transport. As was pre-arranged, I called her when my flight touched down Monday evening. “Look for the car with the antlers,” she said, as I was headed for the passenger loading zone. I stood outside the airport terminal, in the dark, repeating “What?” into my cell phone as she in turn repeated her auto antler identification spiel. Sure enough, a red Lexus with antlers attached to the passenger door windows and a red fuzzy nose wired to the front grill pulled over to the curbside in front of me.

“The grandkids love it,” she explained to me. “It’s Grandma’s Rudolph the Red Nosed….”

Well, of course it is.

* * *

But I digress. I was walking.

Walking around my mother’s neighborhood, I crossed the bridge over Santiago Creek (as usual, the “creek” bed was totally dry, even after the rain), to do The Loop. The Loop is a secluded residential circle, composed of two of the nicer (read: most expensive houses) streets in the city. It’s been several years since I’d walked the Loop, but little seemed to have changed. The house’s front yards were, as always, buzz-cut short and impeccably manicured (do lawns have cuticles?). Leaving the loop via the bridge, I walked up and down a series of streets which had apparently been visited by one of those Neighborhood Holiday Beautification Czars, who had intimidated threatened extorted convinced each household to participate en bloc. Every one of the curbside sycamore trees on Ladidah Lane had green plastic wreaths wired to their trunks. I rounded the corner to Decorous Drive, where every curbside pepper tree had oversized, red felt gift bows wired to their trunks. The next street over had multi-faceted, red and green, mini disco glitter ball-style jingle bells affixed to red, green and white ribbons which were…wait for it…wired around the trunks of every house’s curbside Icky[10] tree.

Just as I was starting to get creeped out by the uniformity of the arboreal embellishment I received a text from Belle: Goooood morning!! And by the way – it’s snowing!!

Snow is a rare and generally appreciated weather wonder in the Portland metro area. I phoned my daughter, anticipating the delight I would bring to an old woman when I returned to my mother’s house with the news that it was snowing in Hillsboro and Belle had a day off from school…except that a somewhat disappointed Belle told me that it was a light dusting of snow and school had not been cancelled.

My mother, who spent the first 18 winters in Northern Minnesota, has a kneejerk response whenever I share news of what typically happens after a snowfall in Hillsboro. She trots out a litany of scornful clichés concerning the wimposity of those who let half an inch of snow close the schools and paralyze the freeways and major roads of a major metropolitan area. Every time she launches into her spiel my knee jerks in response, and I trot out my Litany of Justification (LOJ):

a. Unlike Minnesota, snow is not a regular/seasonal occurrence in the major metro areas west of the Cascades Range (Portland & Seattle).

b. Because of (a), the cities and towns of said NW metro areas cannot justify the expense of having and maintaining fleets of snow removal equipment.

c. Due to the geography/altitude and other climatological conditions that make (a) our default winter weather, it is not consistently cold enough in the Portland Metro Area to maintain snow, as snow, on those rare times when it indeed does fall. It will typically either rain a bit after a snowfall, or warm up enough to cause a brief melt, the temps drop overnight…

d. and we wake up to ice. Not fluffy powdery, stomp-worthy snow, but a slick, traction-resistant, accident-causing, coating of ice. Over everything.

And every time I do this my mother reacts to my LOFJ as if hearing it for the first time, and concedes the points I make in our area’s defense. The next time we participate in this ritual I should mention the upside to (d), which is that the phenomena of a thin but determined coating of ice makes for jolly entertainment for so many of us wimpy Pacific NWers. We cup our hands around a warm, foo-foo beverage of choice, huddle by our TVs, and enjoy the petty, smug pleasure that can only be found by watching the local news channels air footage of the idiot hapless drivers whose vehicles are spinning out and sliding down the hills on The Sunset Highway and other major roads leading in and out of Portland.

* * *

Dateline: just about now. Back up in Oregon. I counted at least seven more variations of the Rudolph/Santa’s elf – decorated vehicles while I was in So Cal. I’ve yet to see one up here. Maybe I just need to get out more?

Hilarity ensues.

Happy Holidays nd Thanks for stopping by.

Au Vendredi!

[1] Rhymes with Fuckatree; how portentous is that? Must be a sign from a god.

[2] For American politicians, lest they be perceived as commie/atheist/homo-loving/socialist/Kenyanappeasers.

[3] Many of whom, if they came from religious families, were likely calling out to their god(s) to save them even as they were being gunned down.

[4] and your husband, and children, and Mastercard balance

[5] Or just living. The “growing up” part is still up for debate.

[6] Waaay too much time spent at the beach. Before the concept of SPF.

[7] A years-ago trip to see my folks, our plane descends toward the Orange County airport, K and Belle have their noses pressed against the windows, their eyes widening in alarm: “What’s that brown stuff we’re flying through?” K asks. “Down here, they call it ‘air,’” I explain.

[8] Although it’s obvious they resent the need, or any interruption to their cloud-free, brown/blue skies.

[9] Nothing says overcompensation (read: I have a small penis) like an oversized vehicle. ..or firing guns at a group of children — make that firing guns at anyone, any thing. Except a block of wood.

[10] Mea culpa, botanists – no fauna is in fact “icky.” Since I can’t remember the name/genus of these trees whose prolific, tiny, elliptical leaves are shed year-round, I resort to the moniker bestowed upon them by my Aunt Erva (“they make such an icky mess all over the sidewalks.”)

The Cough I’m Not Suppressing

December 2, 2012

Robyn Parnell current events, freethought, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, reproductive rights, The Write Stuff (literary life), Yikes! asshat of the Week Award, Catholic pedophile apologists, current-events, douchebags, gay civil rights, judgmental, marriage equality, politics, Santa, SCOTUS, The Mighty Quinn Comments Off

Yes, I know it is months before the book’s real-time release, but there is a FB fan page for The Mighty Quinn.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mighty-Quinn/314422698666956

Like it.
You know you want to.
Please don’t make me beg.

* * *

Now that Santa’s left the proverbial pile of coal in select stockings,[1] it seems fitting to haul out the Asshat of the Week award. I don’t want to be stingy, especially at this time of the year, but really, so many asses, so few asshats.

The Iowa Supreme Court seemed to be a slam dunk, what with their ruling that a woman could be fired if her boss finds her “irresistible.” I’m looking forward to benefiting from the legal wisdumb of the Big Minds in such matters, when the inevitable lawsuit find its way to the SCOTUS, allowing them to rule on the workplace hazards of those deemed to be too fabulous.

As I was saying, the candidates for the award were legion. And during this Solstice season, with its focus on charitable feelings toward one’s fellow human beings, it seems only fitting to list a few of the other contenders.

It seems the Big Daddies of Catholicism spent a good portion of their holy season getting their rhetorical man-panties in a knot. The Imbeciles of Italy’s chief blusterhole spokesman, Joseph Ratzinger [2], used his annual Vatican Christmas message to diss marriage equality and other gay’s civil rights advancements as a “manipulation of nature” and an “attack” on the family. Meanwhile, the gentle folk of Ireland were privy to the gibbering of another pontificating baboon, this one taking the form of Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate[3] of all Ireland (I jest not; that’s his official title). Brady, one of Ratzinger’s fellow pedophile apologists, used his Cardinal’s holiday soapbox to exploit the death of a pregnant woman in a Galway hospital.[4] Brady misrepresented the proposed content of Irish Constitutional legislation while he urged the Irish people to protest plans for legalized abortion (the medical treatment that would have saved the afore-mentioned woman, who suffered an agonizing death from septicemia).

But wait, there’s more. Just days before the RC dudes chugged their Kool-Aid, another public figure was caught after indulging in too much eggnog. I refer to Mike Crapo, the aptly named Republican Senator from Idaho who was DUI’d after a cop caught him blowing through a red light. Crapo, a Mormon who has said he does not drink alcohol,[5] was a member of last year’s “Gang of Six” budget committee and is was considered a candidate for the top Republican spot on the Senate Banking Committee. It wouldn’t surprise me, should Crapo play the penitent, that his party would keep him on their list for the committee. Because there’s nothing our country needs more than a teetotaler drunk Mormon Republican kicking the crap-o out of our nation’s fiscal policies.

Oh, hell’s bells, let ‘em all share it. Supreme Courts, Popes, Irish Primates, Crapos – this asshat’s for you.

* * *

This week, the days I think of as the Tweenolidays, are some of my favorite days of the year. Dec 26-31; the pressure is off while the fun still lingers; there is still another major celebration on the horizon; the seasonal fatigue hasn’t yet set it.

‘Tis also the season to be jolly judgmental. I had the opportunity to refine this art yesterday, while waiting in the checkout line at a bulk/discount grocery store:

The Woman In Front Of Me, whose cartload of items was being scanned by the checker, was going through her wallet and pockets, counting her cash while her way-too-old-to-be-sitting-in-the-shopping-car-seat son dangled his feet from the shopping seat’s legholes. The boy loudly spewed wetness in my direction; TWIFOM occasionally/half-heartedly admonished her son to cover his mouth when he coughed. He ignored her. The next time he coughed I got his attention, smiled at him, and mimed covering my hand over my mouth, indicating he should do the same. He stuck his tongue out at me.

The checker was waiting. TWIFOM apologized for not having enough funds to cover her purchases (“I need to pay in cash”), even as both the checker and I could see that TWIFOM’s checkbook style wallet was bulging with forms of plastic payment. TWIFOM directed the checker to remove and reverse-scan certain items, to get her total down to cash-on-hand. While the checker did this I passed the time by silently critiquing TWIFOM’s choices:

(“No; keep the low-fat mozzarella! Your son does not need that box of Red Dye #2 Krusty Sugar Puffs for breakfast. And neither of you needs that processed lunch “meat,” which, BTW, costs twice as much and has 5 times the fat, half the protein and 100 bajillion times the sodium as the carton of eggs you’re subtracting…Thank you, Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster, at least she’s removing the Summer’s Eve box – wait,WTF?! She’s changing her mind…she’s directing the checker to rescan the va-jay-jay douche?).

I shut my eyes and took a brief trip down memory lane, back to when I was a health educator in an OB/GYN practice. I had a spiel for the traveling corporate reps who had the misfortune to try to convince me to stock free samples of their “cleansing wash”:

The vagina, like other bodily organs, is self-cleaning; douches are marketed as part of the primitive cultural baggage that teaches women that genitals are icky. Not only is douching unnecessary, the practice is associated with serious health conditions, including bacterial vaginosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. My boss, Dr. B—, says that your “Summer’s Eve” should more accurately be named, “Summer’s Deceive.” Only a douche would try to promote douching…

It’s one of my fondest memories, that of Fleet Laboratory salesreps leaving skid marks trying to flee our office.

But I digress.

I kept my diatribe to myself and seethed in silence. Meanwhile, TWIFOM placed her V-be-gone product next to a jug of blue-colored sugar water in her “keep” pile and removed – this was so painful to watch, my eyes almost bled – a bag of navel oranges, a second carton of eggs, and a gallon of 1% milk.

Excellent parenting choice. Pay for your lady parts to smell like morning at the bakery while your son’s only breakfast option is to lubricate his Type II Diabetic-inducing cereal with high fructose gel.

After finally settling with the checker TWIFOM bagged her groceries junk. The checker began to scan my items, and I noticed TWIFOM hds left her open wallet (the thing had so many credit cards into its slots it couldn’t be folded shut) on the checkout counter. I hoisted the wallet and managed to catch TWIFOM before she left the store. “Whoops, you don’t want to forget this,” I said. I handed her the wallet; she lamely joked about forgetting her head if it wasn’t on top of her neck, but offered no “thanks.” Nor did she apologize when her son launched one last, obviously intentional, spittle-laden cough in my direction as they exited the store.

On my way to my next stop, the market where I was to purchase the organic produce I am fortunate to be able to afford, I pondered the differing perceptions of, and the relationship between, having good luck and making good choices. I’ll notify the Nobel Prize committee when I figure it all out.

* * *

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
(Bill Vaughn, American author and newspaper columnist.)

Until next year, when hilarity ensues.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] It’s too early for a footnote, don’t you think?

[2] Bear in mind that “Pope Benedict XVI” ad nauseum are made-up monikers – attempts to confer an aura of authority to the theology-thumpers .

[3] A fitting label in so many ways, although the RC poobahs would remind you that “Primate” is a title of honor denoting ceremonial precedence in their church.

[4] I blogged about the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in my November 16 post.

[5] But he supported a federal bill to cut taxes on small beer makers (Mormon farmers in Idaho raise barley for Budweiser and Negra Modelo beers).

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