Book is out

When I awakened this morning I found a friend sitting at our kitchen table.

“Your book is out,” she said.

 

“It is?! They didn’t tell me….You had to buy it then…”

“Yes. I’m reading it.”

“Well thank you. My first sale.”

I’m surprised for yesterday they told me I could make the corrections I want. I assumed I had slipped through the window of opportunity before it was out. Oh well, I’m doing the corrections anyway—they said "If you think it may gnaw at you we can make the change." (For a fee.)

Perhaps this will be like a mistake on a dollar bill. An error in printing makes it more valuable for a collector. I feel strange though knowing there are errors in the book, and it is out on Kindle and when I checked Barnes and Noble I found it was available on Nook as well. (I bought it. My second sale—rather neutralizes the first doesn’t it?)

Regarding the Nook—it’s ON SALE, 12% OFF... First day out and already on sale. $3.49 instead of $3.99

Also my friend told me that there are other books with the title of Don’t Tell Mommy. I had not checked Amazon.com. That’s okay, perhaps people will look through all of them, read excerpts, and LOVE mine.

Daughter Dear said I ought to have another challenge, a prize for the person finding the most typos in my book.  

The Zucchini Post

I began this blog post talking about the nature of reality and ended up talking about the nature of zucchinis.

That shows how my mind works.

Remember when you were a kid and your mother grew zucchinis (or you did) and one would escape your notice and grow into the size of your leg and weighed as much as your entire body sopping wet?

Yeah, I know, zucchinis are easy to grow, my daughter say she has to keep her Van doors closed less someone throw in some of their excess zucchinis, but I grew some and I’m proud of them.

Regarding cooking: I do it under duress, with rare exceptions. Here is an exception:

Zucchini Bread.

Okay I had 2 cups of grated zucchini, flour sugar, eggs. Oh oh, no nutmeg—we moved recently and I threw out many old spices. So, no nutmeg, no cinnamon either. Oh, we need raisins, okay. Loaf pans too. Off to the store.
 

I’m back. I have baking powder. Oh oh, where’s the baking soda. I scour the cupboards. No baking soda. I know enough about kitchen chemistry to know that when baking with fruits or vegetables, you need both baking powder and baking soda.

“Honey, would you run to the store for baking soda? It comes in an orange box, says, ‘Arm and Hammer.’”

Okay, all ingredients assembled.

 

Two loaves of bread.

 

Cost, about, $30.00 apiece.

 I exaggerate.

They were delicious.

If you were wondering about my take on the nature of reality, my answer was so simple I wondered why I hadn’t gotten it sooner. We are (to use an old cliche’)”spiritual beings here to have a physical experience,” all the neurosis, psychosis, mental illness,  biases or dementia we put on it does not affect the eternal spiritual being that we are.

“And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.”—Walt Whitman

 

P.S.

Do you want the Zucchini Bread recipe?

Something to whet your appetite:

Remember when you were a kid and your mother grew zucchinis and she missed one and it grew to the size of your leg and weighed as much as you did?

And then you discovered a delectable dish made with that giant vegetable. Look below, El yumo. ( I caught mine at a reasonable size.)

 

Oregon, Three Moves

The train, carrying my mother and me, rattled into the little inland port of The Dalles Oregon. I was seven years old, Mom was twenty-three.

That first morning my senses were assaulted by the immense form that loomed in front of the car. It was a mountain and coming from flat-land Illinois, it was the likes of which I had never seen. My soon-to-be step-grandparent’s house was situated at the bottom of the mountain, and every year High School Student burned a giant “D” carved into the side of that hill/mountain/whatever. Tires sometimes rolled into my grandparent’s yard--escapees from the hands of some fumbling student trying to make his way to the burn pile.

This was  a time before The Dalles Dam was built across the mighty Columbia River and caused a lake behind it where once existed the best salmon fishing on the planet. In earlier times it was said that the salmon were so plentiful that a person could walk across the river on their backs.

Some say The Dalles means “The Narrows” for that portion the river, called Celilo Falls, raced through a trough, having been virtually turned on its side forming a tumultuous white water that was a natural fish ladder. There Native Americans fished on rickety platforms built out over the water.  From those platforms they pulled salmon the size of a small boy from the river only to dip into it again, and pull out another.

 

Salmon dwindled after the dam was completed, some salmon can still be seen throwing themselves up the man-made fish ladders on their way to their ancient spawning grounds—that is the ones the river otters don’t gobble up for the ladders act as a funnel shoveling fish into their mouths.

Our second move to Oregon, well mine, husband was born in the Dalles, was from San Diego. On a trip to Oregon husband and I had stopped on the McKenzie River and found a forest so lush, with little wild strawberries trailing across ferns, and wildflowers succulent and open in the spring, that we decided here was an area where we wanted to live.

 

 

 

Both our girls had graduated from high school and were accepted into the University of Oregon. We caravanned up I-5, Husband driving a Ryder truck, me in the car with our dog and cat. Daughter number one and boyfriend were in one car, daughter two and husband in another. We arrived in September and I found it to be a fine time to snuggle in and write, and behind our house, although we lived in town, was a forested area that belonged to the University. On December 21, it snowed, and daughter, dog, and I ran into the forest frolicking and wondering  why everybody else on the block didn’t join us.  This was Eugene where forests and trees and green are as lush as The Dalles is dry.

Our third move to Oregon was this last April. After we had circled the Pacific Rim—Oregon to Hawaii to California, to Oregon, we returned to family, hearth and home, to that area that had given us webbed toes in the first place.

Oregon has bloomed for us, and green has glowed for us, the sun has shone for us, and frogs visit our house because there is a pond close-by where we can hear the frog’s singing. It brings back my former refrain, “The frog’s song calls the rain that settles the dust for our journey.”

Home in the garden:

 

 

Wildfire Aftermath

 

 

The family is safe, we’re grateful. The fire didn't touch the house. When my son-in-law approached the house on fire day and saw all the vehicles parked around the house it gave him some consolation, "They won't let their vehicles burn," he said.

When he thanked a firefighter for putting out the fire. The firefighter’s responded: “Search and Destroy! Our job!”

That almost elicited a salute.

Said son-in-law had been clearing areas in the forest, widening roads, and thus it was fortuitous that he had created paths for firemen and fire hoses to traverse. Fascinating timing, for he had been feeling that it was not “IF” a fire happened on or near their property, but “WHEN.”

Now comes the watchful reforestion. Which trees will survive the heat or scortching? What plants will we see sprouting in the spring? Son-in-law said he thought he would encourage mosses to grow. If you haven’t heard about it, the recipe is to blend moss with milk in a blender, and spray the mixture on an area you want mossed. This works great for pathways between stepping stones. And hopefully reforestation.

All the photos were taken by my daughter on her own property.

 

 

 

The dark shapes in the forest are firemen, I couldn't enlarge the picture.

 

 

Hope for the future...

Come May I trust the wild iris will return again. This area was not burned.

 

 

 

Everybody Has to be Someplace

Hello friends,

Welcome.

I may not have been on this page for a few days, but I’ve been somewhere.

Making websites actually.

Yes, again, I made a website on HostBaby, Bookbaby’s hosting site which they offered to me free for one year.  Took me awhile to get the hang of it, and then the first website of my creation didn’t look good on a PC screen, although it looked fine on a tablet. Went to  number 2—scratched it. Number 3 . Ta Da! It’s there.

It has three pages

• HOME
• BLOG
• CONTACT

Click on address below to view:

www.jewelld.net.hostbaby.com