Friday's Odds and Ends

Another week has whizzed by. I was busy all week preparing for the big garage sale at the Winnsboro Center For the Arts, which didn't leave much time for writing, but I did get a few thousand words done on my current work in progress. How was your week? I hope it was productive and, most of all, fun.
 

This is Sammy. He likes to take over my office chair.

 I was dismayed to read about a bridal shop in Akron Ohio that closed because of the fear of Ebola. Apparently, Amber Benson, the Dallas nurse who had Ebola, had been a customer at that store and when news of that was revealed, customer stopped going to the store. The owner, Anna Younker, was quoted as saying, "It's like our store had cooties."

How sad.

The attack on the newspaper in Paris, Charlie Hebdo, was still big news for another week, raising a continuous flurry of news reports and commentary on the Muslim religion and its penchant for violence. Too often the reporting insinuated that all Muslims are terrorists, and it is only the Islam religion that promotes violence. That is simply not true. Throughout history other religions including Christianity have been twisted to support the right to kill in the name of that religion. Just think about the Holocaust. Just think about the battles between Protestants and Catholics that went on for so many years in Ireland. The truth is that none of these religions promote violence. They all teach about love and peace and tolerance. It is people who take those religious beliefs and tenets and twist them to serve their own purposes.

Friday's Funnies starts with this from Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis. In the first panel Goat is talking on cell phone and says, "Hey dad, did you get the Ken Burns Civil War D.V.D. I sent you for your birthday?"

"Yeah what do I do with it?"

"You put it in the D.V.D. player I got you."

"Where?"

"In the little tray."

"What tray?"

"The little tray in the D.V.D. player."

"Which one is the D.V.D. player?"

"On top of the TV set."

Dad says, "Okay okay gimme a minute will ya.....? There okay I got it in and now I'm watching an explosion."

"Good. You're watching the Civil War?"

"No. No. The TV exploded."

Goat walks over to Pig and says, "Never by your parents anything invented in the last 30 years."

(I think my kids say that about me, too.)

This one is from Dustin by Steve Kelly and Jeff Parker. Dustin and his friend, Fitch, are in a convenience store. Fitch is holding a lottery ticket and says, "This is it Dustin. This is the one."

Dustin says, "Seriously Fitch? A lottery ticket?"

"Absolutely, Dude. I've got a feeling about this one."

"Fitch, why do you keep throwing away money on those things?"

"You can't win if you don't play, man."  Then Fitch scratches off the ticket, looks up and says, "Lost again. Man, I wish I had a dollar for every time that happened."
  
Today's Writing Wisdom comes from Xander Bennet from his blog post, How Not to Write a Screenplay that was first posted last spring. Xander is a a screenwriter and author and his blog is all about writing and film. In this post he has an extensive list of things not to do, and amidst the humor are some points we all could take to heart as we write, no matter what form our writing takes. Here are just a few of the things we should not do:

Agonize over your script’s title.
Start a pointless argument on Twitter.
Decide you need to do more research. Fall down a Wikipedia hole and forget what you were doing.
Change your screenwriting software.
Wait for your manager/agent/friend/reader to email you back.
Make more coffee; you need it.
Eat more snacks; you earned them.

Friday's Odds and Ends

Here we are at day 3 of the Arctic Blast that is affecting much of the United States. The way the media is going crazy with reports you would think we never had winter before. Granted, winter does not usually come this early. I can't remember freezing temperatures before December here in Texas, but then my memory is not what it used to be.

I was worried about that - my memory not the snow - until my sister sent the following to me:

Brains of older people are slow because they know so much.  People do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information stored in their brains, scientists believe. 

Researchers say this slowing down is not the same as cognitive decline.  The human brain works slower in old age, said Dr.Michael Ramscar, but only because we have stored more information over time.The brains of older people do not get weak. On the contrary, they simply know more, but just may not be able to access the information.

Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for.  It is NOT a memory problem, it is nature's way of making older people do more exercise.  SO THERE!!

Whew! I feel so much better now.

Did you know that Medicare fraud adds as much as 10% to health care costs? Peggy Sposato is a data analyst for the Justice Department, and she pioneered a program that uses Medicare billing data to target suspected fraud. It is estimated that she has saved the taxpayers billions of dollars since the mid 1990s when she assumed her current position. As much as $20 billion a year is lost to Medicare fraud, and AARP has some helpful links that you can use to help spot and report fraud.  

An interesting commentary by Ruben Navarrette carried this headline: Life isn't far and never will be, so get over it.

Ruben went on to say that Americans need to stop listening to populist rhetoric and accept the many injustices of our system. He then quotes JFK, "There is always inequity in life...It's very hard...to assure complete equality. Life is unfair."

One point that Ruben made in his commentary is that sometimes dealing with the unfairness in life is what makes us stronger

He also seemed to be saying that instead of jumping on every claim of "unfairness" we should work on just accepting the reality and figuring out how to live within that reality.

One of the most absurd news items I read this past week was about Arnold Abbot, a 90-year-old man who was arrested in Fort Lauderdale for violating an ordinance that restricts public feeding of the homeless. 

Really? The police couldn't just tell him to pack up the food and go away?

Now I'll leave you with a bit of humor from One Big Happy by Rick Detorie. Ruthie is sitting at the table with her father, Frank, who is helping her with her math homework. He says, "You have 22 carrot sticks on you plate. If your friend Sam takes six sticks and your Friend Tessa takes four sticks... But Tessa returns two sticks... How many carrot sticks are on your plate?"

Ruthie thinks for a few moments and her father asks, "Shouldn't you be writing down some numbers, Ruthie?"

"First of all... I don't know who these people are. Secondly, if I did know them, I would never eat with them. Thirdly, it's a stupid question. Who wants to steal carrots?

"Now, if they were French fries? Maybe."

Brother Joe pipes up with, "She makes a good point, Dad."

I knew there was a reason I relate so much to Ruthie. I hated those word problems in school, too. What about you?

Have a great weekend everyone.
 

Friendship Deep and True

Just a short blog today. I have company, so I have been away from my computer and the Internet quite a bit this week. My friend, Jan, is visiting from South Dakota, and we have not seen each other for twelve years - lots to catch up on.

We have been friends since we were 11 years old, and other than the time I found her kissing the boy I had a huge crush on, we have always been close. Friendships that long and that deep are so special, and we can pick up where we left off as if the years in between just melt away.

Jan is from farm stock, and her parents taught two young teenage girls some of the values of hard work, honesty, frugality, and how to take from nature what nature gives us to eat, and leave the rest alone. The family lived behind the house I grew up in, and it was nothing for me to hop the fence and visit, especially when Jan's mom was making mashed potato donuts.

Perhaps we ought to make some.

Of the many things that Jan and I have had in common, one is a love for cats. I thought I had one or two too many with my four, but she has 16 on her farm - good thing they are barn cats. She does have one that lives in the house, which is something that never happened up until a few years ago. Cats were out in the barn to do a job - keep it free of critters that would get into hay and feed. They did not belong in the house. At least that is what her husband said for many years until he mellowed and said perhaps one or two could come in.

Jan is enjoying my cats a lot during this visit, and Sammy especially loves the attention, as well as the fact that one lady in the house bends a few of the rules about cats near the table.

Sammy likes to come running across the room and leap up on someone. He's not supposed to do that while we are eating, but Jan did not read the rule book and Sammy figured that out right away. I think I may have to re-train my cat when Jan leaves, but that's okay. We are having such a good time, I can ignore this one little indiscretion - from my friend, not the cat. Sammy will just have to get over it when Jan leaves.

Now for some Friday Funnies. This one is from Shoe:

Shoe asks his friend, "So, what did you do yesterday, Cosmo?"

"I took Skyler to the circus."

"Oh, yeah. How was it?"

"Really weird. During their act, two clowns got into an argument. One accused the other of stealing his makeup design… and he threatened to sue. Then the ringmaster yelled, 'I will not have this circus turned into a courtroom."

Hope everyone has a great weekend. And just a reminder that my YA novel, Friends Forever, is still a free read for Kindle and Kindle apps through midnight tonight. If you know a young teen who might like a story about friendships and how they ebb and flow in those Tween years, you might let them know the book is free.

Friday's Odds and Ends

We are looking ahead to a busy weekend. Some of our kids are coming out to celebrate my husband's retirement from the Permanent Deaconate. He has served the church in many ways for 35 years, and is now ready to just sit in the pew like everyone else. We will also have an early Father's Day party on Sunday, so this will be a weekend for just family and friends and fun. Aren't those the best?

Most distressing to me is news that dozens of anomalies, including dented pipe, were reportedly found along 60 miles of the southern segment of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline being constructed in Texas. TransCanada is calling these concerning problems with the pipe “small imperfections” along only nine sections.

Apparently, landowners in Texas, including those near my town of Winnsboro, have seen crews out digging up sections of the pipe that have been down for as much as six months.  A spokesman for TransCanada has said,  “The company does not have to reveal what happened, but seeing a completed pipeline having welds and dents cut out is reminiscent of other infamous low-quality pipelines built by a variety of companies that PHMSA has identified in the last few years. The odds are not favorable to avoid a leak when we are seeing problems such as these with a newly constructed pipeline, and a leak poses dangers for the people who live along this route.”
 
Did he really say what some of us have been saying all along? That the pipeline poses dangers?

We in the U.S.  are not the only ones against the pipeline. Government officials in Canada have rejected a plan to build the Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia which would pump tar sands through the province for export. The officials cited a lack of evidence that the company has the ability to transport the heavy crude safely, nor could the company prove that they would have a sufficient response to a spill should one occur. Those concerns are legitimate. People in Michigan are still cleaning up after a pipeline ruptured and dumped tar sands into the Kalamazoo River in July 2010.
 About the same time that I was reading the news report outlining Canada's objection to the pipeline, I came across a rather absurd comment made by Exxon CEO Tex Tillerson in response to a proposal from environmentalists to set corporate goals for cutting oil emmissions. He said, "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?"

Huh?

Okay, that's enough of a rant for the day. Now about a bit of fun from the comics. This one from Luann, another of my favorite strips.  Luann's parents, Nancy and Frank are trying on their summer clothes after a winter of having them packed away. Frank says, "Look I put on my summer shirt and found a pen and a pair of sunglasses in the pocket. And in my shorts I found a quarter and a dollar bill."

To which Nancy reponds, "Lucky you. I put on my summer clothes and found five pounds."

Unfortunately I can relate to Nancy. How about you?

Life Lesson: "Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction." Oprah Winfrey speaking to Harvard University graduates.

Monday Morning Musings

Yesterday was a grand day. Since it was Mother's Day I got to do whatever I wanted to, which included doing some gardening. For many years that was the day that I got a lot of bedding plants and put color all around my house. I don't do that much any more as I have a lot of perennials that come up every year, so in more recent years I just do some re-potting and mulching and feeding. The rest of the day yesterday was spent watching movies, eating popcorn, talking to my kids, working on a new jigsaw puzzle, and just have a relaxing day with my husband.

I did take a break now and then from all that relaxing to take care of the animals, brush the horse, walk the dog and pick a few berries. Thought I'd mention that lest you think I'm a slug.

The Sunday comics section of the paper celebrated Mother's Day in a big way on some of my favorite strips. On Baby Blues, Darryl and the kids buy Wanda a goldfish and a fish bowl for Mother's Day. Several panels show them shopping, wrapping, then presenting the present with a great flourish. When Wanda opens the present, the fish is dead. Darryl says, "Well, happy Mother's Day anyway."

Hammie says, "Can I flush the body."

To which Zoe replies, "It's Mom's special day. Let her do it."

In Pickles, Earl walks up to Opal and hands her a flower and says, "Happy Mother's Day, Opal. I don't say this very often, but you are a great mother and grandmother. And you deserve a much better husband than me."

Opal sniffs the flower and says, "You make a good point. But your trade-in value is shot, so I think I'll just have to keep you."

Then of course there was my favorite from Mallard Fillmore that I put in my blog yesterday.

Here is a picture of one of my Mother's Day gifts. The wooden horse, not the cat. Harry, the cat, thought it was great fun to try to get the horse to play. When it refused, he jumped down and attacked the kittens.

For those of you who like cozy mysteries there is a new one out, The Cat, The Mill and the Murder by Leann Sweeney.  You can meet one of the central characters and read all about the book at Dru's Book Musings.  And if you leave a comment on the blog you will be entered to win a copy of the book. I might even enter. Who can resist a story with a cat, or a dog, or a horse?

Over at The Blood Red Pencil there is a discussion about using cliches when writing. Some new writers think that they are okay because people use them all the time. I've even had some clients who were willing to take them out of narrative, but insist that they should stay in the dialogue. No, no, no. Give a reader something new and fresh to delight over.

Monday Morning Musings

Well, I missed posting a book review yesterday. I decided to take most of the day off from anything online, and that felt good. I think we do need to disconnect sometimes. I went out to lunch with my hubby, and then we watched TV shows we'd taped, and I finished the jigsaw puzzle I'd been working on.

I've seen two of the birds, cardinal and bluebird, already this spring.

Last week, Dallas Morning News columnist Jacquielynn Floyd wrote about the recent decision by the  Transportation Security Administration to allow small knives and other sharp implements on airplanes. There has been quite a backlash since the decision was announced a few weeks ago, with many people saying it is a dangerous move.

Floyd asks us to look at the decision with reason instead of emotion. We all still have strong emotional reactions to what happened on 9/11, and many people are anxious and fearful when they are flying, worried that their plane could be hijacked the way the terrorists took over the planes that fateful day. Floyd quotes James Fallows, a correspondent for The Atlantic, who has written extensively about flight safety. He contends that "reinforced coskpits and alert passengers make it impossible for a handful of terrorists with small weapons to hijack or crash a plane."

Patrick Smith, a commercial pilot agrees. He has written in his column for the Boston Globe that the 9/11 terrorists plan "relied almost entirely on the element of surprise, not weapons," and that surprise was a one time event." He believes that hijackers will never be able to take over an airplane with small knives again.

Whether or not we agree with those opinions, I think we should agree that we should bring more reason to the discussion, or any discussion, and not always act on an emotional knee-jerk reaction.

And now for a bit of fun. In the comic strip One Big Happy, Ellen, Ruthie's mother, is helping her with homework.

Ellen: "What type of sentence is each of the following - telling or question? Is that a banana?"

Ruthie: "That's easy. It's a question! And a dumb one! What else could it be? An Avacado?"

So what did you do this weekend? Anything more interesting than a jigsaw puzzle?

Friday's Odds and Ends

Here's some recent news regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline. Twenty-eight Vermont towns added their voices this week to the chorus of national and international; opposition to tar sands expansion by passing “tar sands free” and related tar sands resolutions in the past two days. This recent batch of local resolutions brings the total number to 33 in the region, and 49 when including resolutions in Québec. The U.S. resolutions state concerns about the environmental and public health hazards of tar sands or explicitly oppose sending tar sands through ExxonMobil’s Portland-Montreal Pipeline.

Tar sands oil is a particularly dirty form of oil that utilizes a carbon-intensive process to transform the tar into usable oil. The State Department just reported that the tar sands in Keystone XL will release up to 19 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. Tar sands spills are particularly risky and difficult to clean-up given the oil’s unique properties that cause the oil to sink in water.

If you are interested in adding your voice to the opposition, you can sign a pledge with CREDO Action. The oil companies have their voices in Washington, we have to add ours. 

Protect the Earth

Now just for fun, some comics:

This one is from B. C. - one of Wiley's proverbs - "Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll drink beer and pass out with a pole in his hand."

Another from Pearls Before Swine last Sunday. Pig is complaining to goat about his sister who is always borrowing something every time she comes over.  Goat tells pig to just tell her how he feels, and pig says he has tried but she doesn't listen.

So goat tells pig to draw it out for her. "Say, look sis, we're like planets, ech moving in our own ellipse, but sometimes outr orbits intersect and during that time you always want things."

Goat draws the intersecting planets and then Pig's sister walks in, asking to borrow a tack. Pig says no, and the sister pushes until Pig says, "Read my ellipse, no new tacks, sis."

In the last panel, goat goes to Stephen Pastis and says, "You ruin my entire Sunday."

This has been an exciting week, celebrating Read An E-Book Week. I have run two specials and am so happy that people were able to get my stories free for a few days. My historical mystery,  Boxes For Beds will still be free through Saturday, so grab a copy if you have not already. And if you are so inclined, leave a review on Amazon. That is always so helpful to other readers who may be considering the book for purchase later.

Pardon me while I experiment with embedding a Tweet. I am trying to learn how to embed videos and other things.

Boxes For Beds now #3 in mystery/historical for #Kindle. Thanks to all who got a copy. tiny.cc/pdxktw
— Maryann Miller (@maryannwrites) March 8, 2013

 Hey! It worked. What do you know. (smile)

A Different Kind of Sunday Post

In lieu of my usual Sunday book review, I am offering a bit of humor from the comics. I love to share the strips that make me smile and sometimes laugh out loud. This one from Sherman's Lagoon did make me laugh. Maybe because it is so true.

Sherman's son asks, "Daddy, what are these blunder games I keep hearing about?"

"Well son, Each lagoon picks once resident to represent it. Then, all the representatives have a big free-or-all battle where everything goes."

The son says, "So it's like congress."

"Except something actually gets decided."

If you would like to read a good book review, you can find one here at my friend, Kevin Tipple's blog. He has been reviewing books, especially mysteries, for some time and is quite good at presenting a balanced opinion.

Lastly, tomorrow is the "What's Your Chocolate" blogfest created by Laura Eno, Brinda Berry, Ciara Knight and M. Pax.

Please come by and discover the millions of ways people love chocolate.

Friday's Odds and Ends

Initially my plan for today's blog was to write about Robin Roberts and all the attention she is getting regarding her illness and treatment. My husband commented yesterday that he found all that media attention a bit disheartening since there are so many other everyday people who are fighting terrible diseases, and they do not get any attention. He wondered what makes her a hero and not those others.

However, after reading the news about Robin's mother's death. I will leave her alone. My heart goes out to her as I know how close she and her mother were. I'm sure that Robin was hoping to have her mother's support during her treatment.

If you like YA novels, you might want to head over to The Blood Red Pencil and meet Michelle Gagnon, who has written a new thriller. She says that while the book is for teens, she thinks adults will enjoy it as well.

Cleaning up my desk the other day I ran across an article by Jacquielynn Floyd in The Dallas Morning News that I had been saving. I tend to stack papers on one corner of my desk with the thought that I might comment on a story. This one is still relevant because it is about the huge salaries that DISD administrators are getting, including the $185,000 to a young chief of communications. I'd do the PR work for a mere $100,000, but I digress.

The point of Jacquielynn's column was to express a hope that the administrators actually do some good for the school district to earn those exorbitant salaries.

Isn't it a shame that the bulk of education money goes to the top?

A recent Non Sequitur cartoon made me laugh out loud. Danae and her father are standing near the edge of a cliff where a group of men carrying American flags are walking off the edge. Dad says, "That whole thing about lemmings is just a myth. Political parties on the other hand..." Check the link for today's strip. Another good one.

Today's writing tip from the comics comes from One Big Happy

Ruthie and Joe and James are trying to write a story. Ruthie throws up her hands and declares, "There's no story to this story, people. What can you say about a character named Ricky Roadkill?"

With great delight, James says, "You could tell how he got squished."

Ruthie says, "Hmmm... Yeah..."

Then Joe says, "But forget about a sequel."

For the next three days my suspense novel, One Small Victory will be free for Kindle. This will be the last time that book will be free, but I will occasionally have other work free. With so many other reading devices out there now, I just don't see the wisdom in keeping the novel limited to Amazon. Grab your free copy while you can, and if you like it, please do let me know by leaving a short review. You would be amazed how those reviews help an author.