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As The Pirate King says in Gilbert and Sullivan’s PIRATES OF PENZANCE, “for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days, as a rule, are pul-lenty”. I couldn’t agree more, 
especially this year. Last year was no picnic, but I think of it fondly because, even though most of the nine days we were without electricity occurred during the first week of February, it was during February that the power was restored. This year, it was just: cold. snow. cold. more snow. colder. snow again. thaw enough that, when it gets freakin’ cold again, the snow becomes icy. It’s warmed up enough long enough to melt almost all the snow, leaving everything squishy and messy, and now it’s going to get COLD again. Every year, Charlie says, “January’s almost over,” in tones of relief. Every year, I say, “February’s the bastard.” Every year, he says it isn’t. Every year, I say, “Mark my words.” Every year, he admits I was right–this year, but not usually. Every year, I say, “Okay, I got it this year.” The secret to a happy marriage.
MA
writing prompt: What is your character’s least favorite month, and why?
Here is a picture of me in a costume suggesting who I think I look like in my sleep apnea mask. NOW can you guess? HINT: If you have or know a child, particularly a little girl, of maybe
between 3 and 7, you have a better chance of guessing. No, I don’t think I look like Barbie. Does Barbie have a hose coming out of her nose? Whaddya mean, “Firefighter Barbie does”? She does NOT!
Contest runs through end of February. Prize is one of my Hot Flashes on some kind of piece of merchandise.
The snow is almost gone. Warmer temps, rain, quite balmy. I love it! Only problem is, I can’t drive our car in the rain, because I busted the windshield wipers by trying to clear snow off the windows when it wasn’t really snow but ice. What a maroon. Charlie said, “Don’t turn on the windshield wipers when they’re iced up.” I’m like, “Yeah, I did it on purpose because I wanted to bust them. I’m funny that way. But you ain’t laughin’, though.”
Anyway, I’ll be borrowing Mom’s car, and hoping I don’t bust that up too badly. Maybe I could get a job in demolition.
MA
writing prompt: What was your main character’s favorite toy when he/she was little?
To this very blahg! At last, something worth reading in this space!
Wednesday, March 3, author D. B. Grady will grace me with his presence. David is the author of short stories and essays, and his just published his first novel, RED PLANET NOIR. RED PLANET NOIR is a hard-boiled 1930’s-flavor PI novel set in the future on and around the planet Mars. When David announced he was setting up a blog book tour, I jumped at the chance to get him on here. Even though he knows I have a readership of one (hi, Mom!), he agreed. That’s because he’s a chump nice guy.
So mark your calendars and check this space on March 3. It’s actual content, so you don’t want to miss it.
In other “news”, the snow is finally beginning to melt. We’ve had a couple of sunny days above freezing, and it’s finally starting to show. Charlie has his truck parked directly over the snowdrops, so I don’t know if they’re showing yet. The crocuses aren’t in bloom yet–or not poking above where the snow is still piled on top of them. But we do have some ground showing, and that’s good.
Youngest grandson’s 5th birthday party is today. I think I’m going to make bread pudding for the grownups. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
MA
writing prompt: If you could meet one author (living), who would it be?
We had a MOST delicious dinner last night, and it was ALL VEG. Not vegan, ’cause it had eggs and dairy in it.
One of my UK Twitter pals, @KJSmyling, gave me his recipe for British pancakes and, they being quite similar to crepes, I made some and used them like crepes. Worked out very well, indeed! While I was frying them up, I fried up some mushrooms, then added some frozen spinach to defrost the spinach and cool down the mushrooms enough to work with. Mixed in some shredded Italian mixed cheeses. Put a lump of this cheese/shroom/spinach (rhymes with Kucinich) stuff onto a pancake, rolled it up, and put it in a pan set very low. Continued until all but two pancakes were used and all the mix was gone.
Meanwhile, I had some canned cream of mushroom soup left (shut up–I like it) and some cream left over from our New Year’s Eve drinks. I thinned the soup with some cream and heated it up to put over the stuffed pancakes for sauce.
Charlie cut and cored an apple and left me half (he’s sweet like that), and I cut up my half. Put it in the pan I had used for the pancakes, added some sugar and cinnamon and butter and covered the pan and stewed it, stirring occasionally, until the apples were soft. Uncovered and turned up the heat a bit, stirring until the liquid was reduced to a thick sauce. Divided that between the last two crepes.
Had a can of sliced carrots, so I put them in a bowl, added butter, brown sugar and fresh local honey and microwaved until hot through. Drained off the liquid, mixed in a little cornstarch, nuked that until it was gummy, then stirred it back into the hot carrots, where it ungummed and made a glaze.
Took some more of the cream, added a little sugar, and whipped it. Put that over the apple pancakes and sprinkled with cinnamon.
MOST GOOD!
As for Mom, she has icicles the way Jurassic Park had dinosaurs. Every time she has some good long ones like this, she says, “Perfect murder weapon. No fingerprints, and the weapon disappears.” I grew up hearing that every winter. Is it any wonder I turned out the way I did? So here are some pictures of my mother’s perfect murder weapons. She has a lot of them. She could go into business.
MA
writing prompt: What are your characters giving up for Lent?
We’ve got so much snow, I keep expecting to see Yuri Zhivago bringing the mail. Last month, I was taking pictures of spring greenery, and now everything’s winter whitery. Bah. Bleh. Meh.
So poor old MomGoth had to look for some sparks o’ joy.
Back when I could get out of my driveway, I stopped by the square and took this picture of the Frank O’Bannon monument. I’ve been forgetting to take pictures of him: last fall, he was 
wearing a hunting cap, then he wore a Santa hat for the Christmas season. Now he’s sporting a blue knit toboggan. Anybody could be doing this, but I suspect his granddaughter, and she knows who she is.
Now I’m snowbound, but I’ve surrounded myself with joyful sparks. Here’s a lineup from the kitchen. My mother gave me the sweet tiny rosebush for Valentine’s Day. The cactus was a gift from Charlie’s aunt–yes, really–Charlie’s Aunt Ora Mae. The cactus was about the size of my thum
b when she gave it to me. I’m very proud to have nurtured it to be so big. I can’t remember who gave me the critters hanging onto the sides, but they were people who love me. One is a hedgehog and the other is a turtle with a baby turtle on her back. I think Mom may have given me the hedgehog, or maybe our #1 daughter, and maybe #4 daughter gave me the turtle. Pat, my “bestest pal”, gave me the fabric apples in the bread bowl. She made the bread bowl herself. Pat is a writer pal whom I met at the Midwest Writers Workshop over 30 years ago. We’ve been corresponding ever since, first by snail mail and now by email. At the back is a gorgeous copper tea pot with a place underneath for a heat source. Sort of a samovar kind of thing. I never use it, just look at it. Mom and I bought it, I’m pretty sure, at this yard sale a guy in the old neighborhood used to have every so often. We got lots of good stuff from him, until his neighbors shut him down.
So happy snowy day, and don’t forget to enter my contest, announced yesterday and continuing until March 1.
MA
writing prompt: Who does the snow make you think of?
Like they say: Winter is Mother Nature’s way of saying, “Up yours!” We’re supposed to get another 3-6 inches over the next couple of days. Yeah, I know they have it worse in other places, and I feel sorry for those places, I truly do, but I feel sorry for myself, too.
Mom and I went to the Presbyterian church’s Cajun dinner last night, and had a great time. They had everything with rice–sausage, chicken, shrimp and red beans. I got a little of each. I got Derby Pie for dessert (food o’ the gods). We met SO MANY people we know there, which we expected. We even met a couple of people we didn’t expect to see, whom we hadn’t seen for a long time. It was a very happy event.
Here’s something we had recently:
Meatless Taco Salad
- lettuce
- Southwestern black beans with cumin and chili spices
- salsa
- Mexican mix shredded cheese
- Fritos
- French dressing or taco sauce
Mix and eat. They use French dressing at my church, which sounds nasty but is actually quite good.
MA
writing prompt: Make a character go to a community event and run into an old friend unexpectedly.
I’m at the library today, trying to do my stuff on a high-speed connection…and there’s something wonky with the library’s connection–keeps dropping. Sometimes, you just caint win fer losin. *sigh*
Okay, but I fixed my connection on my home computer. Here are some things I learned about troubleshooting on Linux.
Nobody at any help desk (other than a Linux help desk) has done more than heard a vague rumor of Linux, and then they think it’s some kind of high-level foreign car.
If somebody says to you, “Let’s delete your connection and create a new one,” say, “I’ll get back to you.” Then WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR SETTINGS. Saves a lot of hair-pulling.
See, first I couldn’t figure out how to remind my connection manager that I have a pulse phone and not a touch-tone phone. Then my friend T looked online for me while I clung, weeping, to the phone. She read me some discussion, and something clicked. The initialization string, in case you’re wondering, has to be ATZ and the dial string has to be ATDP for pulse and ATDT for tone. So now you know.
Then, my connection was too slow to do much of anything. Charlie’s, using the same computer, was FAST. I finally realized it was a setting problem (did I tell you this already?). Anyway, check the connection settings to make sure the modem is set to same speed as the connection, so the lines don’t get data in their throats and choke on it. It’s hard to do CPR on a virtual chest. I guess you could do the Heinlein Maneuver….
Anyway, here is a proof that my husband loves me: a path he shoveled from our front door to my mother’s front door, so I could walk up and visit with her. 🙂
Happy Valentine’s day tomorrow to all!
Me, I’m about half-past ready for Spring.
MA
writing prompt: Have a character show love for another character in a non-“traditional” way.
Still snowy. Still something wrong with this frackin’ dial-up connection. *grump grump grumble*
Had to cancel SO many fun things this week because of the weather. Can’t do SO many things online because of the bad connection.
The TWN customer assistance lady yesterday, Ana, was major super double-plus-good, though. I hated to get off the phone with her. I bonded, I really did. She was so genuinely friendly and funny and kind and went WAY out of her way to help. It’s only because of her tracking down a working connection number that I’m on at all. When I get rich, I’m going to see if she’ll come to work for me as a personal assistant. Or, better yet, set her up in her own business and we can be friends and have lunch together and stuff.
Forrest, the neighbors’ crazy-go-nuts white dog, is here again. They try to keep him in a large fenced yard, but he likes it here and escapes whenever he can to come play with our black lab. They’re having a great time out there, romping all over. I don’t mind his being here right now, because I’m not going outside, though I hope he doesn’t interfere with the grandson’s sledding later. Forrest is one of those dogs who thinks people are holograms or something. He doesn’t knock you down on purpose, or even out of high spirits, the way our dog does, he just doesn’t understand why he can’t occupy the same space you do at the same time. They should have named him Quantum or something.
I need to go sit down and work on a story for Sword and Sorceress. I wasn’t in last year’s anthology, partly because I missed the frackin’ deadline, like a dope. The reading period is only a month, and it’s coming right up. It would help if it weren’t taking ten times as long to do my online stuff, but oh, well, that’s just an excuse, and a mighty poor one, at that.
No snappies again today. I tried, but it’s just taking too long to upload one.
MA
writing prompt: Your character spends most of the day with tech support. Good experience, bad experience or mixed bag? Anything come of it, other than the resolution or non-resolution of the presenting problem?
I spent the morning printing out a couple of stories, writing cover letters, tracking down their most recent submission guidelines and making up the envelopes and returns for them. Two of the many science fiction/fantasy markets that DON’T ACCEPT ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS. ‘Splain that, Loosie.
Then Mom and I went to Lisa’s for lunch. Got there at about 11:30 and they were already out of the daily special. You have to go for breakfast to get lunch there. Here is a menu from Lisa’s. Observe all the reasons evident on this menu that I love Lisa’s. Good, solid, heavy midwestern food. Low, low prices. They write their menu on a whiteboard instead of printing it up and handing it out, because it varies. And they no hau 2 spehl. Sanwich is totally how I grew up saying the word.
We had some errands to do, of course, then we went to the grocery. Saw all kinds of people we knew. We love going to town–It’s always a social event for us. 🙂
Went home and unloaded the groceries, then went back out and picked up 9-yr-old grandson from school, mailed my submissions, and went to the library, where we checked out THE FRESHMAN, an old Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando movie. Also Bert Parks. I’ve seen it before, but Mom hasn’t, and I thought she’d enjoy it. Crazy damn movie. 😀
Came home and played with grandson, made supper, ate supper, washed dishes–Oh, got a call from the sleep doctor saying he was ordering my equipment and I should be able to pick it up by the end of the week! Yay!
It’s supposed to SNOW again tonight and tomorrow. I’m supposed to go to Louisville Wednesday for two meetings. I’m betting I don’t get to go. More time to write, write, write and submit, submit, submit!
MA
writing prompt: What are some non-standard pronunciations/spellings you remember from your childhood or hear around you?
Can’t access the internet from home for some unknown reason. I’m at church with my laptop. I can connect to the router, but can get NO signal. So I’m connected to the router at the coffee shop a couple of blocks away. The signal is weak, but it’s there.
The upside is that Charlie is so irritated with being unable to connect, he’s actually talking about getting high-speed. heeeee!
Sky clear this morning, but tiny sparkles of snow filtering out of somewhere. It looks like cheesy special effects, only pretty.
I have four stories ready to submit, but no reliable access at the moment to submit online or check the most recent submission guidelines. If the connection doesn’t heal itself by tomorrow morning, I guess I’ll go into town and go to the coffee shop for real.
Now I need to get off and write my communion prayer. I’m Bread Elder this morning.
MA
writing prompt: How does your main character access the internet?
Here is where I ramble on about whatever happens to fall through my mind. I also have a 
Marian Allen's WEBLAHG 