as requested...recipes

nothing tickles me more than to share a recipe. here's the two requested by Gentle Readers of yesterday's blog:

Cranberry-apple-cornbread stuffing

1 cup dried cranberries
2 apples, peeled and chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 bag cornbread stuffing crumbs
1 bag cornbread stuffing cubes
1 32--oz box vegetable broth
2 Tbs olive oil
4 Tbs fresh sage, chopped
4 Tbs fresh thyme

saute the onion and celery in the olive oil until soft and mostly transparent. in a large bowl, combine the cranberries, apples, onion, celery and cornbread crumbs with the broth. when all ingredients are moistened, add cornbread crumbs, sage and thyme. this is enough to stuff a large (22 lb) turkey plus a 8x8 inch serving dish. feel free to use real cornbread - if you do, use half the loaf cut into cubes and toasted, the other toasted and torn into rough crumbs.

baked pineapple-butternut squash

1 stick salted butter
1 box dark brown sugar
8 cups butternut squash, cut into cubes
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
2 Tbs orange peel
1 Tb cinnamon
1/2 Tb nutmeg
maraschino cherries, if desired

in a saucepan, melt the butter and sugar together. add in the orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg. in a greased baking dish, combine the squash and crushed pineapple. pour the butter-sugar mixture overall and stir to coat thoroughly. dot the top with the cherries. this will bake gently for three hours or more in a slow oven (325) right along with the turkey. it can be made in advance and reheated in a microwave as well. it's done when the squash is soft.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

on the menu

this year thanksgiving at my house was delayed...Beloved and i were up at five am on thanksgiving morning making green bean casserole and candied yams for the soup kitchen in hartford. we got home around 1 pm, collapsed and slept til 5. i like the way this enables our children to meet other obligations with other parts of their families: my son hosted his dad, my oldest daughter went to her brother-in-law's.

but as my kids once told me, it's not really thanksgiving til i cook the turkey dinner. today is my day.

here's what's on the menu:

roast turkey with cranberry-apple-cornbread stuffing
mashed potatoes
gravy
cranberry sauce
baked pineapple butternut squash
string bean casserole
baby peas
crescent rolls, courtesy of mister pillsbury

and for dessert:
apple pie
pumpkin pie
frozen chocolate creams with cherries on top

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

i have a question

when it comes to privacy, i'm usually all for it. what i choose to do behind closed doors to my body and with my body is nobody's business but my own and i am quite comfortable with the prospect of someday Answering to any Higher Authority for any use i may make of said body.

im also not a exactly a touchy-feely person - unless tequila's involved. so i totally sympathized with the passenger who told the TSA agent "don't touch my junk." i totally get why a female passenger might describe a TSA pat-down as "practically a strip-search." i would object to that, too.

but what i don't get...what i really don't get...is why anyone would object to the full body scanners.

so what if they're like x-ray machines and people can SEE your junk? we ALL have junk, right? we ALL have nipples and butt-cheeks and belly buttons and pubic hair, right? so so freaking what?

in the name of security, i think i'd rather sashay clothed through a full body scanning machine than have ANYONE touch any part of me. and so what if some TSA agent in some distant room gets his jollies off by watching me? so freaking what?

i mean, seriously, Gentle Readers, have we really LOOKED at each other? sure, i understand there's questions about what the TSA could "do" with those pictures, but what does anyone think they COULD do? does anyone find those images sexually appealing?

and if they do...well, to that i say, whatever gets you through the night.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

falling like an axe

summer's crumbled into fall all of a sudden this year...autumn crept up on me, seemingly by surprise. The colors were so bright and so intense, i guess i didn't notice the leaves falling. this morning i looked out and over the ponds and into the woods - a view i haven't seen since mid april.

a few patches of emerald cling to the lawn, the dark green pines stand sentinel, but mostly the world's gone bronze and copper. even the silver willows have turned to gold.

the Angel chapters are falling into place. libby was accepted into the National Honor Society, my son's in the process of buying his first house. my grandaughter kicks and rolls in DreamTime, growing the seeds of the next generation, even as i so very briefly carried hers. my mother is going back to the hospital, Beloved wrestles with his own demons.

the crows on the newly bare branches are screaming this morning, the sky is turning pewter gray. the world is turning all around me. in the reflection on the pond, however, everything is still.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

updates in annie-land

suddenly winter feels like more than just a distant memory.

i walked the puppies yesterday morning in the middle of howling storm filled with hail and sleet and snow.

it's too cold to walk barefoot any more inside,let alone outside.

i've been working hard on the Angel book. so far, i've been really pleased with the progress. i hope you do check out our blog, Gentle Reader - karen my co-author has really spruced it up and i've been adding posts daily.

at the same time, other stories are running rampant through my head and i've found myself keeping a couple files open "just in case."

at the same time, i've been doing some deep work on myself - burrowing under and deeper, peeling away more and more of that which no longer serves.

it's been painful at times, but mostly it feels good.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

worried about holiday over-eating?

...join me and my co-author, karen m. rider, on our blog - Eating...the Angel Way - for a gentle approach to food and body image as well as tips for how to manage holiday eating...

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

please join me...

and my co-author, Karen Rider and i, on our blog...Eating...the Angel Way...for a gentle and loving approach to food and body image.

old friends we have

i remember my high school graduation. i remember the long green shoots of spring grass under my shiny shoes, i remember how my panty hose sparkled in the sun. i remember the long march down the quad to the chapel and i remember how the line snaked around the mounds of doggy poo left by mister von's big st bernard, lady.


i remember the interminable speeches, i remember the final hymn. but mostly what i remember is walking away when the singing and the processing and the speechifying was finished. i remember thinking, even then, how quickly those four years were over, that a whole new chapter had opened in my life and a whole enormous one was done.

it was the first time i was aware of such a stark demarcation between what was Then and what was Now.

last night, a friend from high school and i got together for the first time since that june day so long ago. instead of nearly 35 years, it felt as if i only blinked.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

thinking of voting for linda mcmahon?

have you seen The Wrestler? it's a movie with mickey rourke and a great song by bruce springsteen. to my way of thinking, it illustrates more perfectly than anything any politically-minded pundit might have to say about the worthiness of linda mcmahon to represent me in the senate of the united states.

notice i said ME. i don't know about the rest of the residents of the state of connecticut. they may all disagree with me - after all, she's got a gazillion dollars and all i have is a Story.

but as every writer knows, Stories are all about Truth. at a recent debate, another Grandma asked how mcmahon could justify the systematic dehumanization of women in which her organization continues to indulge. mcmahon replied with some waffle-mouthed answer straight out of the Army Manual on Prognisticating to the Press.

but let's face it, boys and girls. the people the WWE exploits mercilessly and without quarter aren't primarily women ... they're men. i dont care how big and strong a guy is, or how staged the fight - that shit has to hurt. as the mother, stepmother and mother in law of three beautiful young men and grandmother of someone who will be, i value male flesh because it's part of my flesh. i wouldn't allow my sons or my grandson to so abuse themselves for any amount of money. no matter how great you might think our healthcare system, original parts aren't interchangeable with man-made ones. since i've had first hand experience, so to speak, in the creation of those original parts, i feel highly invested in preserving them. pregnancy is too big a pain in the ass not to cherish the final product -whatever its sex turns out to be - for life.

and thats the reason i say we don't vote for linda mcmahon. voting someone into office who has made a veritable fortune off the destruction of the literal flesh and blood of another human being - be it male or female flesh - is like turning over the keys of a blood-bank to mr and mrs bedbug.


everyone says we want Change in washington. the only people who will vote for linda mcmahon this november are the ones who believe politicians are all blood-sucking parasites. and in her case... they'll be right.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

the sound of dialogue, or thoughts on dialogue, part two

more than any other part of a story, my experience as a reader is that i "hear" dialogue spoken aloud in my head, even if i'm reading silently (as i usually am.) consequently, one of the ways i use dialogue is to introduce and maintain each character's individual "sound" in the reader's mind.

the best way i've found to do this is to read your dialogue sections aloud. i actually recommend you read ALL your writing aloud - to see if you've captured your unique "voice." but when it comes to dialogue, this step is one of the most important. just the words the character uses, and the way in which the character chooses to express her or himself will reveal a lot about the character, for example.

it's also important to get the "sound" right because dialogue mimics conversation. you want the words to flow in the reader's head as naturally as a line of conversation flows off a person's tongue. having someone else read your piece, especially if they read it aloud, can be even more helpful when it comes to capturing the right tone of "voice" for each character.

in terms of when and how to use dialect, my feeling is to use it sparingly. people dont think they have accents, first of all - no one hears their own. dialect is like pepper - sprinkle it judiciously but don't let it overpower the stew. you don't want your reader wading through paragraphs of 'dinna's' and 'fashes' and 'lassies' for example. establish your character as whatever it is she or he is and then allow the reader to fill in the accent. accent is as much a question of cadence as it is of funny words and spellings- capture the cadence of an irish brogue, for example, and you will never have to use tortured english again.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

thoughts on writing dialogue

a mistake that writers sometimes make is to believe that dialogue and conversation are analogous. in other words, if this were an SAT question, it might look something like this:

Conversation is to people as Dialogue is to characters.

i think this analogy is wrong, but i think it speaks to why writers – especially novice writers – can feel dialogue is somehow “difficult.” it’s not enough to say that dialogue and conversation aren’t quite the same thing. dialogue and conversation are as different as a flower from a farm implement.

for me, the relationship between conversation and dialogue is more like that between poetry and language in general. or, in other words:

Dialogue is to conversation as Poetry is to language.

as i have come to understand dialogue, it's the deliberate distillation of conversation into an artificial form with the purpose of evoking meaning and feeling in a reader. poetry attempts to do the same thing with the language as a whole. poetry, too, is a distillation of the language into an artificial form with the purpose of evoking meaning and feeling.

dialogue should be used by a writer to do two things: reveal character and move plot. if a line of dialogue is not doing one or the other, or even possibly both… i get rid of it. so the next time you find yourself evaluating a snippet of dialogue, whether yours or anyone else's, ask yourself - does it reveal character or move the plot? if it doesn't, consider if it really needs to be there.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

little libby's big adventure

it isn't always easy for my kids to have me for a mother. im very aware of my limitations, and i've generally always tried to make sure my kids are aware of them as well. most of the time, the children have learned to make accomodation. they look the other way whenever i do, say or wear something embarrassing. they learned not to expect certain typical mom things from me - like participation in the PTA, bake sales, rides to practice or interest in wedding attire.

mostly they've grown to tolerate, if not love, my differences.

but every once in a while, one of them puts their feet down and insists i toe the line.

if it were up to me, each of my kids would simply apply to the university of connecticut and go. their grades are good enough to get in, the price is right and dollar for dollar, i think its one of the best educational deals in town. utilitizing my approach saves energy, money and that most precious resource of all - mommy's time. my older three saw the light and did just that.

and then there's libby.

libby's friends are being hauled up and down the east coast on that annual exercise in parental insanity called the College Tour, and thus libby decided she should be, too. normally i'd be highly resistant and do what i do best when confronted by something my children want to do and i don't: delegate it.

but to libby's credit, her grades are better, her SAT scores higher than her three sibs. she wants to explore Other Options and there's no one around to delegate. and thus, thirty years to the month i became a parent for the very first time, libby and i set off on a College Tour.

so far we've seen four schools in two states. may goddess have mercy on my soul.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

nice matters

as a writer, i've been conditioned to avoid "nice" like the plague. nothing should ever be described as "nice" - except in dialogue - because "nice" is vague, ineffable. you can't point to something and say "that's what nice is."

but maybe, come to think of it, you can.

another hate crime is splashed across the cyber-scape: this one culminated in a young man's suicide. he was a college student, was good at music. his room-mate thought it would be funny to film a sexual encounter between this young man and another. when it was made public on the web, the young man killed himself.

whoever turned the webcam and thought it would be funny to film such a thing wasn't nice. that person was low and petty and mean and small-minded and deserves everything i hope the DA is about to throw at him. and her, because there was more than one person involved. but the question is, where did these kids - because they are kids - learn such behavior? where did they learn it's okay to be mean to someone?

my suspicion is they learned it from their parents.

my book club recently read a book called You're Wearing That? by Deborah Tannen. far be it from me to dispute ms tannen's findings, but if that's really how most mothers talk to most daughters, i guess i understand why the world is such a despicable place. there's a difference between disciplining a child and being mean to a child and if you're not sure what that difference is, here's a clue. put yourself in the child's place and imagine yourself on the receiving end of whatever it is you're saying. and for mothers with daughters - especially the ones who participated in ms tannen's study - here's another: as long as the child is dressed appropriately for the weather and her basic hygiene needs are met, allow her her own choices in clothing, hair and overall appearance. it's none of your business how anyone chooses to wear their hair, and that includes your kid's.

because mean matters. and nice counts.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

suffer the little children

for what feels like weeks now, the first of the "cheshire home invasion" trials is underway. day after day, WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT labels are springing up like fruit flies all over the front pages of newspapers and on tv and computer screens. the testimony is so graphic, the pictures released so horrifying, a lot of people i know are refusing to look or even follow the story with more than glancing interest.

the cheshire home invasion is a horrible story. that it could happen here, in the mind-numbing land of steady habits, is even more horrible. that the state's wasting good money trying to get the death penalty when all you'd need are ten minutes, the petit family men and a few baseball bats strikes me as not quite as horrible but almost.

but what saddens and scares me even more are the people who are taking their children to see this trial. i can't imagine the lesson these parents are hoping to instill in their children. the justice system grinds on in all its majesty every day of the week. if you want to show your kids what the law really looks like, go down to your local courthouse. mostly its tedious and a lot of details and people sweat a lot so they smell bad. that's what the legal system is really like so i don't buy the rationale that this is a good introduction to Law in America.

don't get me wrong. i think you have to raise children who understand that the boogeyman is all too real and that little girls CAN die in awful ways. but i think these parents are doing something truly cruel to their children and i hope they're only doing it because they don't realize the damage they're inflicting. i dont believe in censorship and i think if you want to - god help you - encourage your kids to follow the trial in all its gory glory, go right ahead. but its not really a trial - everyone knows the murderers would've pled guilty if the prosecution wasn't so set on the death sentence. so it isn't really a true example of the american justice system - the facts of the case aren't at issue; the only issue is whether or not the defendants "deserve" to die. this isn't a pivotal matter being decided or a watershed case in state law; this is our legal system at its most sensationalized, at its tawdriest, if you will. a family's pain is being dragged into public viewing - must we all look?

and there's a difference, too, i think, in recognizing that every human being has the instinct to revenge a wrong - which is why i happen to think it would be okay in this case to give doctor pettit's family a few baseball bats, put them in a locked room with the two defendants for about ten minutes and dont ask any questions later about what happens in the room. however, abrogating that instinct and assigning that responsibility to the State is another question all together. just because there are people who do things that make others want to kill them - even for justifiable reasons - doesn't mean i think its okay for the State to put people to death. how many of the children who have attended this trial are going to be able to see THAT distinction, after viewing and hearing such graphic evidence first hand - EVER?

it seems to me fairly clear that parents who would inflict such experiences on their kids are engendering only one outcome, whether they know it or not: to scare the hell out of their children, to sear into their souls not only the idea of the boogeyman, but the memory of one of his faces.

damaged human beings are what got us to this horror in the first place.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

under an aries moon

the conjunction of the fall equinox, the full moon in aries and a precipitous return of summer weather brought on a migraine like i haven't had in months. but i woke up feeling better today, and charged with aries full-moon energy. since my sun's in aries, i feel all activated and charged, rather like a crystal all raring to go.

how do you feel facing Fall, Gentle Reader?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

another poem ... just because

The Invitation

Come walk with me into my madness
Where dark and light and up and down
Mold and fold into each other
Where before and after have no meaning
And in and out are all the same.

Come peer with me into the pit
Where monsters squirm and demons dwell
And laugh and cry with me
While we poke at them with
Sticks and spears made out of words.

Delight with me where flesh is formless
Blow fire on the cinders of my soul
And kindle therein a conflagration
That some new Light might shine
Upon the world.

Come dance with me upon the precipice
Of what is real and what is not;
As defined by choices only we decide;
And diving, fall, until we reach that place
Where everything is nothing inside out.

April, 2010

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

how to prepare to write the (pagan) novel

its getting to be that time of year. jack o'lanterns, falling leaves, and back to school can only mean one thing... NaNoWriMo is JUST around the corner. i haven't decided yet whether or not to attempt it again, mostly because november is usually a very busy month for me. however, when a Facebook Friend who runs the Pagan Writers' Community asked for contributions to inspire newbies, i put a few thoughts together.

- Clear space
Before starting work on a new project, I like to take a day or two to clean my desk and make space for whatever books or research materials I might need. I also like to take some time to make mental space for the time and effort I’m going to have to put forth. I try, as much as possible to carve out at least one hour of writing time a day no matter what else might be going on. If you have a particular time of day you know you write best, try to make as much time to write as your schedule allows.
- Spend time out of doors, or commune with your deities
For me, nature is our great nurturer. I observe what’s going on outside my window as source of comfort, energy and inspiration. Notice the phase of the moon, pay attention to the season. What’s going on in the animal world around you? How about the plants? Consider how you might harness your creative energy so as to be most productive, and enlist the help of OtherWorldly energies. For example, I don’t write well under full moons, so I tend to use the days immediately before, on and after a full moon as days to do anything but write. I find I frequently do a lot of planning under a waning moon, and write best under a new and waxing moon. You may find your energies are aligned as well to such natural rhythms. Now is a good time to strengthen your relationship with a goddess, god, or nature spirit to help you achieve your goal. Consider your relationship with your writing “deva" and consider how to strengthen it. This might lead you to my next step.
- Create a ritual to use every day
By bringing our attention to the words and actions associated with a particular ritual, the ritual creates focus, which creates energy, which creates the intention and thus manifests the goal. I use a simple ritual every morning to bring my attention back to whatever story I am working on at the moment. My ritual includes ordinary actions like going to the bathroom, washing my hands, and getting a cup of coffee. However, by using this time to envision myself releasing toxins and things I don’t need any more, cleansing my hands and fueling my creative fire, by the time I sit down at my desk I’m usually feeling quite productive. I also light some sage and a candle and sometimes draw a Tarot card if I’m seeking inspiration or feeling blocked.
- Set intention
My intention this summer was to take all the old ideas I’ve had kicking around in the back of my computer, put them into proposal form and send one a month to my agent. So far, I’ve sent her four proposals. My actual writing goals varied depending on the type of story I was telling and how much old material I had to work with.
- Take focused action
All the planning, ritual work and intention setting in the world will do you no good if you don’t take action. The art of writing is as much the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair as it is about anything else. Set a reasonable goal for yourself – one thousand fresh words a day is reasonable - ten thousand is not – and stick to it as much as you possibly can.

for my friend, debbie... and her dad

How did it happen that the sun
Could choose to rise today?
How can the sky be bright and blue,
And all the world so gay?

The trees remain in full green leaf
The cars buzz to and fro.
The world remains as just it was,
A day - or less - ago.

But now you lie so still and cold,
Your race forever run,
Your eyes forever closed to mine;
Your suffering finally done.

Thus it is that mine begins;
I wonder how it is
That everything seems as it was
Before my world went black.

finally free

i wore a jacket this morning when i walked the puppies and the light has a distinct gold glow, the air a sharp edge. but for the calling of the crows and the tap of Beloved's keyboard, sam's snores and buddy's sighs, the house is silent. silent, still, and empty.

these are the hours i crave. the grandchild is tended, the children are occupied, Beloved is otherwise engaged. even my friends, most of them, are off and busy. these are my hours, my days, the time i truly relish. some days im busy and productive and some days, to tell the truth, i do what i do best... which is nothing.

here's to a nothing kind of day.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

angels and other visitors

from the time i was very small, i was aware there are other energies besides the ones we can all see and hear and experience with our five senses. as a child, i saw my room fill up with light every night just before i fell asleep. as a very young child, i thought this was normal - after all, everyone told me i had a Guardian Angel and i even said a prayer to her every night.

shortly after i started going to school, however, i quickly learned this wasn't the case for everyone. i was also sick quite a bit and missed a lot of school. one day a little girl from my class, Lucy, and her big sister, Grace, came to bring me my schoolwork. while Grace talked to my mother, Lucy sat next to my bed in the chair my mother had moved from its place under my desk. she asked me when i thought i would come back to school.

i told her in great seriousness that the night before, my guardian angel had told me i would be better on wednesday (which was the following day) and i would be back to school on thursday. i could see from the expression on Lucy's face that this wasn't something she had experienced for herself and i quickly learned, from that time on, that it was probably better not to admit i listened to angels, even if what They said turned out to be true.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.