Monday Morning Musings

I thought I would try a little different format for my Monday offerings. I've been accused of never wanting to change a thing - not even to move a sofa in my living room - so I am just showing some folks how versatile I can be.

WHAT I'M READING: Several books on tap for reviews. First up will be a humorous look at parenting, Mommy A-Z, which is scheduled for next Sunday. Good read so far. After that will come Silent Partner, a mystery that I am resisting the temptation to start reading. Need to do things in order, right? No link to that book as it will be released September 1.


WHAT I'M LAUGHING AT: The cat races that just started at my house. My cats love to chase each other from one end of the house to the other. If they would slow down, I'd try to get a picture.

WHAT I'M DISMAYED ABOUT: I may get lots of boos for this one, but I am really concerned about the doctor infected with Ebola coming to the U.S. Yes, great precautions have been taken as he was transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, but this is a very deadly virus, and according to experts, it is not entirely clear how Ebola is spread. Most commonly it is spread to a human by contact with an infected animal's bodily fluids. Transmission from first human infected can occur  through direct contact with blood or bodily fluids from an infected person. Others can also be infected by contact with contaminated medical equipment, particularly needles and syringes. While direct contact is the most common form of transmission, it is likely that it can also occur through oral exposure and through conjunctiva exposure. That has proven the case with non-human primates.


Dr. Mike Brantly is a 33-year-old father of two young children who works for the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan's Purse. He was in Liberia responding to the worst Ebola outbreak on record when he contracted the disease. Since February, more than 700 people in West Africa have died from Ebola, a hemorrhagic virus with a death rate of up to 90 percent of those infected. The fatality rate in the current epidemic is about 60 percent.


More about Ebola from the World Health Organization. While all of us pledging to remain civil about this, what do you think?

WHAT I'M LUSTING AFTER: BTW, this might not be a regular part of my Monday blog, but I just had to share the picture of this wonderful guitar owned by singer/songwriter, BettySoo. She did a concert this past Saturday at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts, and I fell in love with her guitar. The concert was great, too, but the guitar....

Thanks to the talented Michael Alford for the wonderful picture.

BettySoo said there are only four of these guitars in existence. The possibility of me getting one are so slim, I wish my waistline looked like that. Well, maybe not. I do need some meat between my belly button and my back bone. But am I right about this being a great guitar?
 
AND NOW JUST FOR FUN: This one is from Shoe by Gary Brookins & Susie MacNelly.

Shoe walks into his favorite bar and says to the bartender, "Hi, Fred. What's new?"

"Sigh... Nothing good, Shoe... My divorce from Ethel has been finalized."

"I can sympathze with you. How did the settlement turn out?"

"It became quite the nightmare," Fred says. "Once I realized the decimal point was just a bagel poppyseed."

And this from Mallard Fillmore by Bruce Tinsley.

Mallard is on the news anchor desk and says, "As 'Back-to-School' time nears, we're joined now by our Mediocrity Correspondent, Dylan Custard..."

Custard says, "I'm seeing some really encouraging signes in the mediocrity movememnt. For instance, more school systems are ending the elitist practice of naming a valedictorian!"

Mallard responds, "Woo. You must be excited."

"Guaredely optimistic. But there are still some disturbing statistics like these." He hold up a paper.

"What do they show?"

"Who knows?! They're all fill of numbers! Math-adverse students immediately feel marginalized..."

Sadly, that is not so far removed from what really happens in so many schools across the country.

Friday's Odds and Ends

I'm so excited. I received my first ever written review for a performance for my role as Big Mama in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The entire review is by Terry Mathews, the Arts Editor of the Sulphur Springs News-Telegram, has some wonderful things to say about the entire cast, especially the actress who played Maggie the Cat and the man who played Big Daddy.

The headline read: Cast brings life to ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ - Leah Conner and John D’Avignon lead with brilliant performances

And the section about me:  Maryann Miller as “Big Mama” is to be commended, too, as the wife of a rich and powerful man. The play was written in the mid-1950s, so Big Mama is drawn as a woman who ran the house and her family with little concern for the rest of the world. She fusses, stews and frets about Big Daddy's health and fawns over Brick, to the dismay of Gooper and “Sister Woman,” who have their eyes set on the future – when they'll be running things, along with their six children. Miller brought just the right balance of confusion, devotion and denial to the part.

This is the scene in which I get the "news" about Big Daddy

I know I'm supposed to be humble and all that, but I just love reading the last line of the review, especially since Mathews, who rumor has it is very hard to impress, came to last Sunday's performance when I did the last two acts so sick I wasn't sure I was going to make it through the play. 

This  wouldn't be Friday without a bit of a rant, so.... I'm wondering if the rising gas prices are a result of the oil companies pressuring President Obama to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. "Of course not," the spokesman for EXXON Mobil might say, but we all know the power of the oil industry.

Since I am still sick, I will keep this post short and end with a joke, courtesy of Funniest Clean Jokes :

One evening I went to visit my elderly grandparents. When it started getting late I asked my grandfather if he had the time, as I didn’t have my watch with me. “I don’t have a watch or clock around here he tells me.”

“Then how do you tell the time?” I asked.

“You see that trumpet in the corner? That’s how!” He picks it up, and thirty seconds later an angry neighbor shouts, “2:30 in the morning and your playing the trumpet!”

Finally, I'm pleased to announce that Doubletake, the first mystery I wrote years ago with a collaborator, Margaret Sutton, has been updated and re-released. It is now available in paperback and as an e-book. It was first released by a small publisher who did no marketing and the book languished until I got the rights back.

Friday's Odds and Ends

The first bit of good news is that it has warmed up just a bit and some of the places hit the hardest with winter storms this week are getting a reprieve. It's a balmy forty degrees here, and I am so glad I did not have to haul buckets of hot water to melt ice in the horse trough this morning. 

Today I'm sharing blueberry scones with all my visitors. Grab one and enjoy.

 In last Sunday's Parade Magazine, novelist Brad Meltzer wrote an interesting article titled Do Kids Still Want to be President. He did some research and discovered that, unlike when some of us were young and aspired to grow up to be President of the United States, today's young people don't have the same aspirations. In a poll of kids between ages of 10 and 16 that was conducted by the publisher Penguin Young readers only 27% of the kids said that they would like to grow up to be president. Among the 15 to 16-year-olds there were only 13% that said they would like to be president.

Meltzer thinks that one of the problems is the fact that we are so vocal with our dissatisfaction of the president. All the young kids see is the frustration that we have with politicians and government and all the negative press about the president. So why would they want a job that is so thankless?

Another news item that caught my attention this week was a column by Steve Blow with the Dallas Morning News. He wrote a piece about the difficulty he has hearing some of the dialogue on television shows, and he actually went to get his hearing checked because he thought that was the problem. What he discovered was that his hearing is just fine.

Photo Courtesy of ActiveRain.com

 One of the reasons many people have trouble catching all the dialogue in some TV programs is that the actors mumble more in today's shows than they did in shows 20 or 30 years ago. He wrote that he caught some reruns of shows that aired in the 60s and 70s and noticed that the actors spoke clearly and distinctly. So part of the problem with hearing dialogue in current shows is the way the audio is taped with actors talking fast, actors talking over each other, and a lot of sound in the background.

In the column, Steve also pointed out that the newer flat screen HD televisions have the speakers pointing to the back. He joked that he could hear the dialogue much better if he stuck his head behind the TV, although that did create a problem with the image. With the kind of technology we have to make what we see on screen so clear and defined, it would be wonderful if television manufacturers came up with a way to make audio match the same high standards.

Now for some fun from the comic strips. This is from Dilbert:

Pointy-Haired Boss is asking Dogbert, "What's the newest management jargon I need to pretend to understand?"

Dogbert responds, "Experts say you should engage employees and follow from the front."

Pointy-Haired Boss asks, "Does that mean anything?"

Dogbert answers, "No one knows. Just to be safe you should tell people you're doing it."

Pointy-Haired Boss asks, "Should I act as if I'm passionate, or is this more of a fake caring situation?"

Dogbert says, "Beats me try combining the two."

So, Pointy-Haired Boss walks away thinking,  "Fake passion plus fake caring." He comes up to an employee who says, "My uncle died."

Pointy-Haired Boss says, "Woot!! What was his name?!"

In closing, I just want to share a bit of a new review for my mystery, Boxes For Beds. The reader really, really enjoyed the story, and I am so grateful that she took the time to write a review. Here's what she had to say:

"Boxes For Beds" pulls on two of the most powerful strings in the human catalog of fears--the fear of losing your child, and the fear of being falsely accused. The author does a masterful job of setting up the story in the early 60's in Arkansas."

No Review Today

This darn flu is really kicking my butt. I am still not able to do very much, either mentally or physically, so today I will share a couple of links to book review sites that I thought you might like.

First off is Kevin R. Tipple's blog, Kevin's Corner, that features book reviews and more. Kevin has been reviewing books for a number of years and does more than just give an endorsement for a book. His current review is of Thorns on Roses by Randy Rawls. Kevin reviews mysteries most often, but sometimes he will review other genres. I noticed recently he had a review of a craft book. Interesting.

Another good review site for mystery books is Buried Under Books, the blog owned by Lelia Taylor. Lelia operated the mystery bookstore, Creatures and Crooks, for many years, so she knows how to evaluate a new book. Sometimes she does author interviews, and now and then features a special guest post about cats. She loves cats. Maybe that is why I liked her right away when I first met her online.

This last offering is not a review site, but it is a good resource for finding new books and new authors, as well as some authors you may already be reading. All Mystery e-newsletter was started by Rebecca Dahlke, and regularly features a quick introduction to several new mysteries in each issue. I am pleased to have Open Season featured in this week's issue. 

Okay, that's it for me for today, folks. Tissues and tea calling....

Wednesday's Guest - Slim Randles

Some news to share before I let Slim Randles entertain you with his cowboy humor. First off, my friend, Irene Sandell, has a new book out.  Irene is a retired history teacher in North Texas, and she has a wonderful way of blending fact and fiction in her books. Don't you just love the cover?

I have enjoyed her work since I read her first book, In A Fevered Land, a look at the oil fields in West Texas and the people who worked them. I can't wait to read this latest one.

"Irene is first an historian -- specializing in real Texas History, the stuff you won't (always) find in the textbooks. She has captured a genre in her historical fiction that stands alone."  George Arnold, Author

On a personal note, Dan Wright has just written a wonderful review of One Small Victory, giving it 4.5 stars. "It’s brilliantly written and never once ceases with the drama, making you want to carry on reading to find out whether it has a happy ending or not." 

I always blush when someone uses "brilliant" in a sentence about me. Thank you so much, Dan.

Now, here's Slim.....

It was like buzzards circling the body.

The Jones kid, Randy, was out in the Mule Barn parking lot with the hood up on his car. He was staring down into it as a first-time parachutist would look out the airplane door. You never quite knew for sure what lay ahead.

“Looks like Randy’s got problems,” said Steve.

“Let’s have a look,” said Dud.

So coffee was left to get cold and the entire Supreme Court of All Things Mechanical – Steve, Dud, Doc, Herb and Dewey – trooped out to see what was going on.

They formed a powerful semi-circle of wisdom around the youth and his engine with folded arms and facial expressions that said, “It’s okay, Kid. We’re here.”

Dewey spoke first. “Having trouble, Randy?”

“Won’t start.”

Doc, who has the most initials after his name, said, “Give it a try.”

Randy ground the engine, but it wouldn’t kick over.

“Stop! Stop!” Doc yelled. “Don’t want to flood it.”

All Doc knows about flooding is that the animals went on board, two by two.

“Randy, I think it’s the solenoid,” said Steve, looking wise.

“Doesn’t have one, Steve,” Randy said.

“Sure it does. All cars have solenoids.”

“Not the new ones. Haven’t made solenoids in years.”

Steve’s expression said, “Young punks, what do they know?” But his voice said, “Well, what do you know about that?”

“Need a jump?” Dewey asked.

“Got plenty of spark,” Randy said.

Randy looked at the older men and then bent to the engine and smiled. His voice came floating up over the radiator. “Might be the junction fibrillator. Or it could be a malfunction of the Johnson switch. If I rerun the wire from the organ housing to the pump by-pass, that might get it done.”

When Randy looked up, all the men had gone back in for coffee. He smiled and called Triple A on his cell phone.
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Brought to you by Home Country (the book). Read a free sample at www.slimrandles.com

Just For Fun

There is no book review for today, so I thought I would share a link to a terrific site that has book reviews: So many books, so little time    The most current review is of   The Dark Side Of Night by Cindy Dees  

The site is owned by a terrific lady, Lainy, and I have enjoyed her reviews a lot.

On the fun side of today's post, I have a few things that caught my eye in yesterday's comics section of the newspaper.

First off is a cartoon from Non Sequitur. Two ladies are sitting in a booth to raise funds for a charity. The sign reads: Help find a cure for egocentricity. A man stands in front of them and says, "Sure, I'd like to help, but what's in it for me?"

This is from Pickles - one of my favorites. Earl and Nelson, his grandson, are sitting on the couch watching TV. Earl says, "I rmember the day I got my first pair of glasses. I could finally watch the radio without having to squint."

Nelson:  "You watched the radio? Don't you mean the TV?"

Earl: "Nope. We didn't have TV. We all sat around each night and stared at the radio. Those were the happiest times of my childhood."

The next panel has Nelson walking away, talking to the dog. "That explains a lot about Grampa."

This last one is from The Argyle Sweater. Three cowboys are sitting around a campfire at night. The man in the middle looks decidedly uncomfortable. The caption reads: "As the distant cry of a lonesome coyote pierced the tense silence, Grady regretted asking if the Tucker boys were on Pinterest."