In Defense of the Food-Borne Illness
I just saw a report that says that 90% of the perishable food in our kids’ packed school lunches get to temperatures high enough to induce food-borne illness.
I just saw a report that says that 90% of the perishable food in our kids’ packed school lunches get to temperatures high enough to induce food-borne illness.
Saturday, August 27 – morning
I hesitate to write this, because we’ve still got three more hours on the storm clock, but thankfully this hasn’t been as bad as the pundits predicted, at least in my area. I’m not complaining for one second. I’m grateful, eternally grateful. But given that the week started with an earthquake, which is to say the least unusual for New York, and ended with a hurricane, following a summer of desert-like temps, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were some celestial message I was supposed to divine from all these events. At Passover, we intone the ten plagues that befell Pharoah before his whole world fell apart. Should I be looking for locusts next?
But I also confess there is something about hunkering down before and during a storm that appeals to the pioneer woman in me (and it’s hard to be much of a pioneer woman when you’re 20 miles from the Big Apple). But I put in my supplies (chocolate chips and chocolate ice cream), and baked and cooked like we were going to be stranded on the prairie for weeks on end.
In what must be one of those memories from childhood which is delightful to the kid, less so to the Mom, I remember a huge snowstorm that paralyzed Baltimore. My Dad traveled for work, and my mother used to insist that he’d read the weather reports and head for the state line every time a storm approached. And this one was a doozy. No electricity or heat for days. No telephone or television. My Mom heated canned soup in a coffee carafe over a sterno light. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. At night, we slept at a neighbor’s house (why he had heat and we didn’t I have no clue). The kids had a super sleepover, and the adults stayed up late and played cards.
I have nothing but fun memories of that Baltimore blizzard, but I’m pretty sure that Mom and Dad had a lengthy conversation when he returned.
So we seemed to have skated through this latest storm with but a few branches on the ground and maybe a few extra pounds from all the “hunkering down” we’ve done.
Saturday, August 27 – afternoon
I spoke too soon. An hour after writing the blog entry we lost electrical power. Very frustrating.
Sunday, August 28 – morning
Still no power. The subway flooding means my husband will have to drive my daughter back into NYC this evening. My pioneer spirit is fading. I need to check out how much it will cost to buy a generator and have it installed.
Sunday, August 28 – evening
The force is with us again. Yea! We have hot showers, television, and enough light to read. Life is good.
Monday, August 29 – morning
We lost electricity again last night – about 10 pm. ConEd predicts repairs will be completed on the downed lines in our area sometime around midnight on September 1 – Thursday. I know others have it much worse, but I’m having a hard time finding a positive life lesson in all this.
Tuesday, August 30 – morning
Stiletto Faithful, can you share your best – or worst – storm memories? Remember misery loves company – or in the alternative – a good laugh. I’ll be reading your comments on my laptop at the public library, an oasis of normal in our small town. They still have books, power – and free internet!
Marian, the Northern, wet half of Evelyn David
————-
Brianna Sullivan Mysteries – e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah – Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
***New – Lottawatah Twister – Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Drops the Ball (Spring 2011)
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback – Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback – Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
Romances
Love Lessons – Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
But as Bethany grows older, she realizes that life in this small, close-knit community is not as simple as she once thought. . .that the riverside cabins that hold so much of her family’s history also teem with scandalous whispers. . .and that those closest to her harbor unimaginable secrets. Amid the dense woods and quiet beauty of the valley, these secrets are coming to light at last, with a force devastating enough to shatter lives, faith, and the bond that Bethany once thought would last forever. Spanning four decades, Sherri Wood Emmons’ debut is a haunting, captivating novel about the unexpected, sometimes shocking events that thrust us into adulthood–and the connections that keep us tethered, always, to our pasts.
From page one, you will become entrenched in the lives of Bethy, Reana Mae and the rest of their family. Your heart will ache for their past sufferings, and your mind will scream at them for the situations they now find themselves in. Can this current generation overcome the sins of those that came before them? Or are they destined to repeat those same mistakes? Will lies continue to be told? Will the prayers finally be answered? The raw emotion, the angst of the teenage years, the desire to be wanted, needed, and loved, the hatred, the lies, the secrets, the pain, the joy and the yearnings of Bethany and her cousin Reana Mae will take hold of your heart from the very first page and never let go. An amazing story of love, friendship, and the test of time that will stay will you long after you turn the last page.
Playing with Matches by N.C. Hyzy
Tough and tenacious, Riley Drake is a first-class private eye who runs background checks for a dating service on the side. But she has zero interest in helping billionaire John Stratton clear his name so the man can resume dating again. The handsome widower would be quite the catch—if it weren’t for the fact that he probably murdered his wife. Stratton’s woes are only part of Riley’s problems. Other clients—a TV celebrity with sexual-perception issues, a Trump-like entrepreneur with an embarrassing fetish, and a worshipful drug-addict trying to go straight—keep her running through the streets of Chicago, ready to take down anyone who gets in her way. Riley is determined to uncover all their secrets, even though she knows that playing with matches means you sometimes get burnt.
Mainstream mystery lovers should welcome N.C. Hyzy with open arms, as she’s sure to quickly become a favorite. You may know her better as Julie Hyzy, a gifted cozy author (see The West Wing Chef mystery series and the Manor of Murder mystery series.) With Playing with Matches N.C. has changed course from the books she’s known for and written a book with a bit more edge, more grit, stronger language, and a tougher heroine from what you would find in her other books. Creating a pen name will work to separate her two personas, so that those who prefer her cozy mysteries won’t be disappointed – or offended, if they should pick up a copy of Playing With Matches and find it’s not what they expected it to be. What you can expect is that it has everything and more that a solid mystery should be: great supporting cast of characters, a mystery that you’ll be hard-pressed to figure out on your own, twists and turns galore, and a kick-ass heroine. There is so much to love and learn about Riley (and her seemingly sad past) that I will be anxiously awaiting the next installment in this amazing new series.
by Rachel Brady
It happens to every blogger at some point: Idea Freeze.
Fortunately, I have kids. So when I get blocked, I ask them stuff. This time, I had a conversation with my middle daughter.
RB: Thanks for sitting down with me to help me organize some thoughts. Do you ever suffer from unorganized thoughts?
LB: Sometimes. Mostly while I’m being distracted when I’m trying to work, like when funny things happen or a smoke alarm goes off.
RB: What things do you think grown-ups should do more often to clear their minds?
LB: Take a second to relax. Breathe very slowly.
RB: Do you know what a comfort food is?
LB: No.
RB: It’s a favorite food some people eat when they’re freaking out. Do you have a comfort food?
LB: No.
RB: What are your thoughts on sleeping in?
LB: I like to!
RB: Let’s hear about the three situations that aggravate you the most and the ways that you handle them.
LB: One. When (my sister) is mean to me. I tell her to stop. Two. When I get hurt. I try to relax and heal it for a while. Three. When I got stung by the bee, I really wanted to smoosh it, but since it was already dead I just tried to relax and handle things normally.
RB: How do you feel about pets and about how animals make humans feel better?
LB: When I’m feeling bad and I pet them, they’re so soft. I get all caught up in my pets and how cute and soft they are. They help me get through it.
RB: What would you most like to get out of fourth grade?
LB: To try to get smarter and have more knowledge about all the subjects. To learn more things that are new to me.
RB: What advice would you give to your grown-up self if you could meet her in the future?
LB: Um, I don’t really understand this question?
RB: Let’s try it a different way. What advice would you give to your kindergarten self if you could go back in time?
LB: I would tell her things I already know so maybe she’d learn even more in older grades.
RB: What three pieces of advice would you give to other parents like me who want to do the very best job they can for their kiddos?
LB: One. Stay in work so we can have money and survive. Two. Try to be your normal self because I like you. Three. It’s really fun being a parent. I know that from you. Is it fun because you get to boss people around?
RB: That is one of the perks. What’s your favorite food in the school cafeteria?
LB: Pancakes. And nachos.
RB: At the same time?
LB: No, on different days.
RB: What’s the worst food?
LB: Um, are you showing this to my school?
RB: No.
LB: Then it’s the steak fingers. They have a terrible aftertaste.
RB: What else should I ask you?
LB: I could ask you some!
RB: Okay, you’re allowed three. Go.
LB: What is one of your favorite places?
RB: I love to go running on nature trails in the woods. Yours?
LB: At the YMCA playing soccer. Where would you like to be when you’re alone and mad?
RB: Either lying down in my bed relaxing or out for a walk. You?
LB: Probably in my bed like you.
RB: What makes you that mad?
LB: When (my sister) calls me bad words.
RB: Ignore her.
LB: Yep. Do you like to shop?
RB: I hate shopping. I don’t like to spend money! You?
LB: At the Dollar Tree, everything is a dollar. When I was little I got a purple horn there.
RB: How are you feeling about the first day of school tomorrow?
LB: Nervous and excited all at the same time.
RB: You’ll do great. Goodnight, pal. Thanks for answering my questions.
LB: Love you, Mom.
You is kind. You is smart. You is important.
Finally. A movie that lives up to the book.
A couple of years ago when I first saw the cover for The Help in a bookstore, I scratched my head. I was in Athens, Georgia doing a book signing at the B&N (or was it a Borders?) and the staff there were all wearing buttons to push The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (a book I haven’t read yet but have always admired the title even if its just because someone convinced someone at marketing to go with that mouthful). But I digress. I had to stop and pick up The Help, just because the title was so unusual. After reading the back cover, I realized help wasn’t a verb, but a noun. The premise of the book intrigued me and a couple of months later I bought the book on my Kindle. I absolutely loved it. I laughed, I cried, I was rapt with attention from cover to cover. I told everyone I knew about the book and convinced my book club to read it. They all loved it too.
Then I heard they were making it into a movie and I was skeptical. Because we all know what Hollywood does to books we love. They change things around (including endings) and mess with the author’s words and characters until you don’t even recognize the story anymore. But I had hope. I saw the trailers and loved the actresses who were playing all the key characters and I thought, why not give the movie a try? The day after the film came out I went to see it with my two daughters (who had also read the book at my recommendation). We all loved it. We all laughed. We all cried. We were all rapt with attention from the second it began to the second it ended. I loved it so much, I then went to see the movie again the following weekend with my sister. If someone calls me right now and asks me to go to the movies to see it a third time, I’ll be there. It will also be part of my DVD collection the day it comes out. I truly hope Viola Davis gets a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role as Aibileen because she totally deserves it.
Have you seen the movie yet? Have you read the book? What movies from books have seen and loved? Or hated?
Maria Geraci writes fun, romantic women’s fiction. The Portland Book Review calls her latest novel, THE BOYFRIEND OF THE MONTH CLUB, “immensely sexy, immensely satisfying and humorous.” Check out her website at www.mariageraci.com.
by: Joelle Charbonneau
I make lots of mistakes. LOTS of them. I have the tendency to trip over my own feet when wearing high heels, save documents in places on my computer that guys at MIT would never be able to find and occasionally, I have been known to bake oatmeal cookies with no flour.
Funny about the oatmeal cookie thing. On a good day, I’m a decent cook. However, this time the cookies lost all shape and melted all over the cookie sheet into a big mess. After one look, my inclination was to pitch the whole mess into the garbage can and start over. Only, I am a touch crazy and I took a taste. Yum. I then shoveled the crumbly mess into a bowl and used it to top ice cream. Double yum.
Baking is not the only area in which I’ve found a mistake can turn into an unlikely opportunity. A few years ago, I set aside a manuscript I’d been editing and started writing a totally different kind of book for kicks. It was the most fun I’d ever had writing. Any goofy or strange idea that popped into my head went onto the page. And to top it off, I was writing in a genre I hadn’t studied much.
Everyone always says you should study the genre before you start writing. I used to believe that. Scratch that. I still do. Only, I made a mistake. I didn’t really know the subgenre I was writing in when I started. Heck, I don’t think I’d ever heard the term for the subgenre. Belonging to RWA, I knew all the romance subgenres, but I wasn’t writing a romance. (To tell the truth, I was bad at writing romances….and I tried. Honest. I did. Another mistake, but one I learned from.) So instead of knowing what I was writing and making sure that I created a story that fit the expectations of the editors and readers of the genre, I just wrote.
Once I was done writing, I realized I had no idea what I had written. Yes, Skating Around The Law was a mystery, but what kind of mystery? Turns out I wrote a book that follows the cozy mystery guidelines but isn’t really a cozy. Well crap. I’d made a HUGE mistake. Everyone knows that it is easier to get a book published if it falls squarely in one genre. Yes, people blend genres all the time, but editors have a harder time selling those books to their editorial board because they are riskier. Double crap.
And yet, like the flattened oatmeal cookies, I couldn’t bring myself to throw that manuscript into the trash. It didn’t taste so good on ice cream, but I loved it. Turns out my agent and editor did, too. Thankfully, they also liked the soon-to-be-released SKATING OVER THE LINE, too!
The one thing I’ve learned from the experience is that sometimes mistakes are more than good lessons. Sometimes they are opportunities. You just have to take a step back from the mistake and decide which one it is. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll find your mistake is both. I bet if you think about it, you have a few tasty mistakes out there of your own that I’d love to hear about.
I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Next Sunday will mark the 48th anniversary of the March on Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s stirring “I have a dream” speech still resonates. Sadly, his dream is not yet fulfilled, despite the intervening years.
I was there that sweltering summer day. I knew as the words rang out that it was a call to arms. But almost 50 years later, what I also want to pay tribute to is the woman who took me on the bus from Baltimore to be a part of that momentous day; the woman who taught me the importance of never judging anyone by the color of their skin, their religion, or their sexual preferences. As she took her young daughter to the March on Washington, she also took Helen Jones, the lady who came once a week to clean our house. I was too young to go by myself; Helen too scared. Both encouraged, supported, and protected by Big Evelyn, as my mother was known in her family (as distinguished from Little Evelyn, her cousin, who was indeed six inches shorter than she), Helen and I walked with Mom from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of others, united in our quest for justice.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my mother. Her birthday is next month. She’s been gone for 23 years – just six weeks after my daughter was born. I am convinced that was no coincidence. She was so very sick, but absolutely determined to live to see her oldest grandchild graduate from high school and to hold her only granddaughter in her arms. My mother was a force of nature. There must have been times when she was scared and worried, but I never saw it. She was a product of the depression, an orphan by the age of 25, widowed by 28 with a 14-month old daughter to care for. But she took a second chance on love and married my Dad, and then had me. She taught me that you play the hand you’re dealt, you cope because that’s what you do. She laughed louder and longer than anyone. Loved designer clothes and put them on layaway to buy them. Had big feet – and a bigger heart.
She wasn’t perfect. She had a trigger temper, but didn’t hold a grudge. Demanded that you had good manners and showed respect for all people. Her best Jewish guilt line, that inevitably got me to do what I fervently didn’t want to do was: “Marian, you know what the right thing is.” Phooey, she always had me with that admonition — even when I was married and had kids of my own. She insisted that I do the right thing, even when the wrong thing would be easier and more fun.
She fought against injustice wherever she saw it. Her best friends reflected her belief that you choose your companions because you like them and share common interests, so they included an Orthodox Jew, a devout Catholic, an African-American Southern Baptist, and a host of others. If you enjoy good conversation, laughter, the theater, jazz, and yes, mystery novels, you’d have loved my mother.
It’s hard to live up to someone like Mom – and she’d be furious with me that I worry about that. But as I think back to that March on Washington, what an incredible gift she gave me. The lessons I learned from her, the original Evelyn, have lasted a lifetime.
Thanks Mom.
Marian, the Northern half of Evelyn David
Brianna Sullivan Mysteries – e-book series
I Try Not to Drive Past Cemeteries- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Dog Days of Summer in Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Holiday Spirit(s) of Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
Undying Love in Lottawatah- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
A Haunting in Lottawatah – Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
***New – Lottawatah Twister – Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
The Sullivan Investigation Series
Murder Takes the Cake- Paperback – Kindle
Murder Off the Books- Paperback – Kindle
Riley Come Home (short story)- Kindle – Nook – Smashwords
Romances
How about this one: “obese belly dancer.” Hmm. I don’t remember anyone writing a post on the subject. Maybe I was on vacation (wait, I don’t take vacations).
by Maria Geraci
First off, I’m glad to say that my daughter doesn’t read my blogs, so I feel pretty free to say whatever I please here without fear of the dreaded “Mom, you didn’t write that, did you?” repercussion. That said, I can continue. I’m currently down in Orlando, getting my youngest daughter settled into her freshman year at the University of Central Florida (the nation’s 2nd largest university with a student population of over 56,000!)
We’ve now made 3 trips to Target (latest figures have us at the 1,000 dollar mark), 2 trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond, a trip to Publix (to stock her up on her organic cereal) as well as a trip to the outlet mall to take advantage of tax free weekend to buy clothes. Both me and my credit cards are exhausted. Let me just tell you, boys are much cheaper and easier, so thank God I have one of those as well.
On day 2 of our moving in the dorm expedition, we took a break to eat lunch at Panera. It was an odd time of the day (2pm) so the restaurant wasn’t crowded, although it was pleasantly full. We got our food and sat at our table, when I noticed a young man (close to my daughter’s age) check her out (we moms are eagle eye experts at this). He had a computer and some writing supplies in front of him, so I assumed he was probably a student. After a while I noticed he went back to his computer and writing so I didn’t pay him anymore attention. My daughter and I finished lunch, and left the restaurant.
On our way outside to the car, this young man followed us outside and called out to my daughter,
“Miss!” My first thought was that we’d left something behind.
“I’m not a stalker or anything,” he said (this is when I started getting a little nervous.)
“Um, okay, ” my daughter said.
He then handed her a folded piece of paper with the words “to the girl with the black hair”. “I wrote this for you. You’ll never know my name, but I wanted to give this to you.”
My daughter looked a little stunned, but she took the paper from him. We got inside the car and looked at one another. “I hope it’s not porn,” I thought. My daughter opened the letter and read it to me as we drove back to her dorm. Shame on me. It was not porn. It was one of the loveliest love poems I’ve ever heard.
Now, maybe this guy sits at Panera all day long and gives different girls a similar version of this poem. Or maybe not. It was so specific to my daughter and to the events that were happening around us while we ate, that I have to think that he did indeed write it just for her (or else he’s just really good at putting in spontaneous details). Regardless, my daughter was completely charmed (and so was I).
“Keep that,” I told her. “You might never get anything like that again.”
She smiled and tugged it away in her handbag. “I’m going to pin this to my bulletin board and when I’m having a really bad day, I’m going to read it.”
Who said romance was dead?