By Kimberly, Rock Star Betty

As we all know, Betties are wise, insightful, compassionate, and inherently interesting people, which is probably why Kimberly came up with the idea to interview various Betties for the blog. What better place to start than where it began, with our own Alpha Betty. Please welcome the indomitable Lucy March.

KP: Update us on Lucy/Lani happenings.  What’s going on with your new writing, Storywonk endeavors, backlist, etc.

LM: Wow. Lots! At StoryWonk, Alastair and I switched from a daily podcast to a weekly, called StoryWonk Sunday. It’s lots of great content, but all in one hit instead of doled out throughout the week. Much easier on us and our listeners! I’ve also launched a new format for classes; I’m pre-recording them instead of doing them live, and am able to offer much more (like audio-only files to listen to, and notebooks for taking notes) at a much lower price. The Making Magic class just went up, and more will follow in the coming months.

Right now, I’m working on That Touch of Magic, the follow-up to A Little Night Magic, starring Liv’s best friend, Stacy Easter. On the Lani Diane Rich front, I’ve gotten both Maybe Baby and The Comeback Kiss up for sale in ebook format, and very soon, Ex and the Single Girl and Time Off For Good Behavior will be up as well. Lots of stuff going on! If you visit StoryWonk.com or LaniDianeRich.com, you’ll find everything there!

KP: I’ve been hearing about this Write Well Academy you’re doing with Jenny.  What’s that about?

LM: Jenny and I both love to teach, and we hate leaving the house. Writewell Academy came from that. We pre-record videos of our lectures, usually running about 30-40 minutes, and provide a package with a notebook, workbook, and an audio file that students can listen to on their mp3 players. Students can choose their lessons ala carte, and they’re only $10 each, which is a steal for this kind of brilliance. Anyone who wants to can find us at WritewellAcademy.com.

KP: Next month, it’ll be a year since you stopped the daily blogging project.  Do you ever look back at that Year and Change and think “WTF?”  What are your thoughts when you look back on that year of emotional nakedness?  Do you ever still have moments where you think, “hey, I need to remember that for the blog?”

LM: There are times when I really miss it. I’ll have a thought about something that would be perfect for the blog, and I’ll ruminate on that a bit, wonder what the Betties would say, but I don’t post it, because that time has passed. I think it was a wonderful experiment, and it brought great people together and formed a fabulous community. I’ll always be really proud of that, but I resist those urges to go back and do it again.

I have a strong sense of nostalgia, and I’m the kind of person who tends to revisit places I’ve loved—I’ve lived in Syracuse, New York three times; Tucson, Arizona twice—and it’s never the same the second time around. I think everything has a time and a place and trying to go back to something you already did is just moving backward. Plus, I think that year of emotional nakedness was really important and essential for me, but it’s not something I’m anxious to do again right away. I kind of like having part of my life that’s just for me.

KP: I could ask how the Year and Change blog impacted your life, but that would be silly.  Hi there, Alastair.  Aside from the obvious, what unexpected things came from that project?  What did you learn from the experience?

LM: I think the rapid rate of growth was unexpected for me. I didn’t realize how much I could get from posting something honestly, and receiving the honest, and supportive, feedback from other people. I felt like I zoomed through that year, with epiphany after epiphany. Where I am now is the emotional processing of that understanding. For the last year since finishing A Year and Change, I have been emotionally catching up to the things I had intellectually understood during that year. It takes a lot of time, and with so much to process, it’s sometimes a little overwhelming. I think that’s why I’ve been so quiet; I just needed to retreat into myself and sort it all out.

The biggest surprise, though, was how kind everyone was. I thought I’d get ripped apart for being such a horrible person, especially when I shared the more unflattering parts of my personality, but everyone was so kind and generous, and to this day, it reminds me to be as generous with myself as the Betties were with me. I think that’s a lesson most people could stand to learn; would a Betty talk to me this way? No? Then neither should I.

KP: Speaking of Bald Betty, how’s Alastair adjusting to life in the States?

LM: Well, he’s not just adjusting to the new country, but to his new roles as a husband and a parent. Sometimes I think about how much his life changed, and how quickly, and it amazes me how sweet and good-natured he is all the time. I mean, he has his days, like we all do, but I always find it funny when he apologizes for being cranky, because he’s nicer at his crankiest than I am in my best mood. I’m not one of those women who needs a man; I never, ever intended to get married again. But it’s been such a revelation to have this level of intimacy with someone, to know and love one person so well you can hardly tell where you end and they begin. I had no idea marriage could be like this, and I’m so glad that I got the chance to find out.

The biggest surprise is the kids, though. There were rough days of transition in the beginning, but now they adore him. They run into the room and jump into his arms, or onto his lap. He’s strict with them, but so loving, and the way they’ve changed since he’s come into our lives has been astounding. They hardly ever fight anymore, they’re eating a wide range of vegetables and healthy dishes, and hand to God, there was one time in the car when they bugged him the whole way home for more stories about Socrates. I’m so proud to be his wife and partner. He’s the most amazing man I’ve ever known, and for someone who never had kids of his own, he’s a natural parent.

I’m sorry; you probably shouldn’t ask me about Alastair. I will go on for days, and I know that can be annoying. This is another reason why I don’t blog anymore. No one wants to hear happy stories…

KP: And now for the big question, How much do you miss us now that us Betties aren’t an active part of your life every day, every hour, every minute?

LM: I miss the Betties all the time! As I said, I’ve kind of retreated—not just from the Betties, but from everything. I podcast at StoryWonk, but that’s business. Personally, I’ve got a little more distance, and I think it’s because of all that emotional processing I’m still doing. Things are good, better every day, but there’s so much work to be done, so much internal housecleaning. I do miss the Betties, and I do check in on you guys. I rarely comment, but I am reading, watching, and sending FGBVs whenever they’re needed.

KP: Anything else you want to share with us?

LM: Just that I’m glad you got in touch! I do miss you guys, and I hope my absence doesn’t worry you! It’s just another part of the process. All is well here on the Ohio, and I send my love to all of you!

KP: Thanks so much for answering these questions.  As ever, thanks for being our Alpha Betty.

by Monica, Braless Betty

I for one love soup, my husband loves soup, so it’s a win-win at our home.  And because “frugal” can be a Capricorn attribute, I have an appreciation for recycling.  Leftovers can make a great soup.  But what about the broth?  I have seen soup starters on the shelf at the grocer.  They come in cans of dehydrated vegetables.  But to my notion, the sodium is off the charts.  And there are the bouillons, but again, 800-1200 milligrams of sodium per cube.  Yikes!  Campbell’s makes some great condensed soups that are good for soup broth, but again, sodium, sodium, sodium.  So my angle is, why buy something you don’t need?  Why not use something that you already have but usually throw out?  Something already seasoned?  Something with less than half the sodium?  Something that is more nutritious and has more flavor?  Interested?  Read on.

This is what I do.  Any time I open a can of green beans, peas, corn, beets, beans, whatever – I drain them before I heat the contents.  I reserve just a couple tablespoons of liquid because that’s all it takes to heat/steam whatever comes out of the can.  But I don’t drain the can down the sink drain.  I save the liquid.  I keep containers in the freezer that I add to every time I open any kind of canned vegetable.  There can be anywhere from a half a cup to a full cup of liquid, perfectly good liquid, in a 15 ounce can of vegetables.  This liquid has a lot of nutritional value.  During the canning process some of the nutritional value of the vegetable is extracted by heat and lost to the liquid.  Vitamin C is very delicate and unstable and its potency can be diminished during the sterilization canning process by up to ninety percent.  But that liquid still has more vitamin C than tap water.  Tap water has none.  I prefer fresh and frozen vegetables but I can’t always keep the fresh, fresh, and frozen can be expensive, so keeping a cupboard of canned vegetables is a staple in my kitchen.

I have a collection of Tupperware but prefer to keep that for fridge use, so instead of using my good stuff for freezer storage, I save dairy containers.  Cottage cheese, yogurt, sour cream, whatever, these pint and quart containers are perfect for dumping liquids in for freezing.  It’s also a great way to recycle!  You will be surprised how quickly these containers of broth stack up in the freezer.

(Vegetarian Betties, divert your eyes from the next paragraph.)

I also save meat stock.  If I boil or simmer meat, that broth gets saved.  After broiling or browning meat, I deglaze the pan with a little water and save that broth as well.  Here’s a tip for each time you add meat broth to the container – any fat will float to the top before it freezes, the next time you add to the frozen container make sure the liquid is still somewhat hot; this way, the top layer of fat will melt and float once again to the top as well as any fat in the new broth.  By the time you get to the top of the container there’ll be a wax seal of fat, like how grandma used paraffin to seal her jelly in jars.  This seal will also help keep the broth fresher while in the freezer and it’s easy to remove when you’re ready to make soup.  Let the container stand at room temperature for about an hour then just pop it off with a fork or spoon.  All the layers underneath are pure stock – no fat.

Now I need to warn you about something.  Layers of beef, chicken, and pork stock in a frozen form do not look very appetizing.  Nor do the vegetable liquids.  But take my word for it.  Once you’ve got a couple of quarts thawed and heated in your soup pot, these flavors blend into a delicious soup base.  Just remember, when you drained that corn it wasn’t nasty then, and it won’t be once its popsicle state with its companion layers of juices from other veggie varieties has returned to a simmering liquid form.

You can also save the liquid from when you cook fresh vegetables.  Save that broccoli water!  Save that potato water!

What I love about this method is that your broth is pre-seasoned, no reason to add any salt, it’s already in there, it has nutrients that tap water does not have, and it’s technically FREE!  Scratch bouillon off your shopping list!  Soups on!

by Kimberly, Rock Star Betty

When I first decided, after eleven years of marriage, that I wanted to have kids, more than one person asked me, “why?”  Why?  Well how should I know?  Is there a right or wrong answer to that question? Since then, I have decided that short of “to get on one of the pregnant teenager reality shows,” no, there is no wrong answer to that question, except maybe that it was wrong for anybody to ask it.  Still, the whole thing did get me thinking about why people choose to have kids.

My grandmother birthed eleven children.  E-lev-en.  She had two sets of twins back to back.  She used to say, in all honesty, that she had five babies in cloth diapers and glass bottles.  For her, I think the “why” of her reproductive habits had to do almost exclusively with a lack of birth control.  So let me just give a great big thank you right now to Margaret Sanger.

As for my mother and the women of her generation, the “why” is a little harder to pin down.  I think a lot of women had kids because it was expected by the society they lived in.  My own mother was a married woman who wanted a child.  She was also only eighteen years old, still a child herself.  She and I did our growing up together.  If you’re thinking that must have been a relationship fraught with difficulties, well you’d be right, although there was never any question about who the parent in the relationship was.  It was me.

The person who first asked me why I wanted to have children was the physician’s assistant to my brain surgeon.  Her “why?” was not a friendly inquiry or a genuine interest kind of question.  It was an accusation, a judgment.  What she was saying with that single word was that I had no business having children.  You see, the disease that caused all my brain tumors and the blindness, that disease is genetic.  The gene is dominant.  There is a 50 percent chance that I passed that gene on to my children.  Yeah, heart-rending guilt and I, we’ve become very close.  Ultimately, what that physician’s assistant was saying was that I had no business bringing a possibly sick kid into the world.

There is a view, held by more people than you’d think, who believe that children should only be produced under the most privileged of circumstances.  It is an elitist view of the highest order.  But it is a view that kept me from even daring to want kids for many years.  Not because I held that view myself, God no, but I feared the judgment of those who did.  You’ve probably heard me espouse sentiments like, “own it, baby” and “let your freak flag fly,” and I believe those ideas whole heartedly, but it was a hard fought fight to come to applying those ideas to myself.

I have an older cousin, who had a daughter.  She was the most beautiful, smartest, most delightful child you’d ever hope to meet.  Her life ended in a car crash.  She was only here for seventeen too short years.  Would my cousin trade those seventeen years to take away the unbearable pain he felt on that incongruously sunny June day?  No, of course not.  All the pain in the world is worth the memory of one of his little girl’s smiles.  Many of us followed “our girl” Lexi’s battle with cancer.  She was healthy.  Then she wasn’t.  Now she’s better, and I wish with all that I am that she and her family hadn’t gone through the nightmare that they endured, but I’ll gladly accept the lessons that she and her struggle taught me about hope and gratitude.

This is rambling, I know, but here’s what I want to say:  Children are a blessing.  They come into our lives, make impossible demands, supplant everything that we were before without so much as a “thank you,” and cause our very hearts to be ripped from our chests time and time again.  There is no rational reason for having kids.  It is the craziest thing I have ever done.  And I have never been more proud or sure of any decision I’ve made.  No genetic test results will ever change that.

by Anonymous

My therapist has been telling me for about a year that I am a regulator. It’s not an official psych term, just something she uses in her own life and has passed on to me. I love it for it’s simplistic accuracy and the fact that it sounds vaguely scientific, which is why she gifted it to me in the first place. As a regulator, I soak up the emotions of everyone around me and, if they are at all negative, do my best to mitigate whatever is causing them. My mother taught me to do this. Not by example. By necessity.

I’ve known this was an issue of mine for a while, but I only realized the depth and origin of it this week. That makes me sound pretty dim, but my therapist assures me that (someone who’s name I can’t remember, but who did the seminal research on family of origin issues) said that people aren’t really ready to delve into family of origin work until they are in their 30s or 40s, if ever. So I guess I’m on schedule. Yay me.

My brother was always my mom’s favorite. That was generally okay with me because I worshiped him, too. My brother got married over Thanksgiving when he was 25 and I was just shy of 22. When I came home for Christmas break that year, our parents announced that they were separating. I took it pretty well, as I was of the opinion that they should have divorced years ago, but my brother became increasingly angry with my mother as they marched toward divorce. As he withdrew from her, she turned to me as her new favorite child. I hadn’t changed my behavior toward her, but she suddenly considered me her best friend and I was the only guest at her marriage to my step-father, a man from her past she had reunited with long-distance when I was a freshman in college. My brother was kind of a dick about it, but I was, as ever, fully supportive of my mom. Still, I always knew, however much I stuffed it down in my mind, that my brother had only to look in her direction to take his place back as her favorite. I have always detested the parable of the prodigal son, though I never put together the why of it until this week.

I suggested to Mom that she take some time to be on her own before getting married again, but my now step-father lived in a different state and she didn’t want to keep doing the long-distance thing, so they married and she moved her entire life to be with him. She lured me to join her there by promising me free room and board while I went to graduate school. I met my husband through a friend I made during grad school, so I’m glad I went even though I now realize it probably set me back several years in forging my own identity. Actually, that’s not true. I always had my own identity and it was very strong, I just didn’t always know it at a subconscious level. More accurately, I didn’t share it with anyone because I thought it was wrong. I thought I was wrong.

I spent eight long years in that state, never more than a 30-minute drive from my mother, before hubby and I moved away. Even then, we were only a plane ride away, so Mom and Step-Dad visited often and we really didn’t have any big blow-ups until after we had kids. There was the time that I was laying on my bed next to my week-old son and my mother brought my dog onto the bed and she, the dog, promptly stepped on the baby. My mother was angry with me for losing my shit at her. At my mother, not the dog. The dog didn’t know any better.

Still, it wasn’t too bad when we only had one child. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, so I welcomed her advice. Usually. But when I had a second child, I started to get touchy when she’d tell me what to do. This wasn’t my first rodeo and I actually knew a lot more about my kids than she did, whether she wanted to accept that or not. I’m making her sound all bad and she wasn’t. But damn it, this is not about her, it’s about me and my feelings!

My older son talks constantly, often asking the same questions over and over again. Whenever I talk to my mom about this, she brings up the fact that I talked constantly as a child and, whenever I ran out of things to say, I would sing nonsense syllables. Because, you see, whatever I go through as a mother is nothing compared to what I put her through. If I call her on that, though, she becomes greatly offended that I would think she meant such a thing and sulks, saying that I’m so touchy she can’t say anything. So then I have to comfort her and soothe her hurt feelings.

Whenever I mention anyone in our house having an illness involving stomach upset, she immediately brings up the time in high school when I had a stomach virus and didn’t quite make it to the bathroom before vomiting on the carpet. What she remembers about that incident is my inconveniencing her because she had to clean it up, which is how she makes any current vomit situation in my life all about her. What I remember about that illness is that the stomach cramps were so intense my stomach as a muscle became sore, meaning that any movement of my torso at all caused severe abdominal pain, like my stomach and intestines had broken loose and were going to explode out of my body. I’ve never felt anything like it before or since. Then again, Mom always said I had a low tolerance for pain.

I had outpatient surgery not long after I met my husband. Since we had only been dating a few months, I asked my mother to drive me home from the hospital and let me stay the night at her house. As we walked in the door, I told mom that all I wanted was a glass of ice water and then I could sleep. She said she’d bring it to me and I went to lie down. I waited a while. Then I waited some more. Then I got up and went to the kitchen to see what was taking so long. Mom had picked up the phone to call a friend. I got myself a glass and took the ice tray out of the freezer. The ice was stuck tight and I knew from experience the only way to get it out of the tray was to bang it on something. I’ll admit I was pretty mad at this point, so I slammed the tray into the floor a few times, succeeding in enraging my mother. She got off the phone and demanded to know what I thought I was doing. I reminded her that I needed a glass of water in order to go to sleep. She said she had intended to bring it to me as soon as she finished her phone call and then she reprimanded me for being so whiny and selfish in my demands. She may not have used those exact words, but that’s what she meant. She, of course, remembers nothing of this.

But now on to current events. I have my hands full with my kids at the moment and there’s a lot of stress in my life. My mom has been passive-aggressively hinting for an invitation to visit, so I finally told her that I didn’t have the energy to make a formal invitation, but she’s always welcome and just has to tell me when she’s coming. That seemed to appease her and she sent me some general flight info so I could tell her when I could pick her up at the airport, with the understanding that she planned to come at the end of April/beginning of May. As March ends this Saturday, I asked on Tuesday if she had booked her flight yet. She said she has decided not to come right now because her dog has to have insulin shots (diabetes diagnosed several months ago) and she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving her with my step-father (who is diabetic himself and perfectly capable of administering the shot, not to mention the fact that he’s the one who walks her every day). That was fine. That afternoon, my husband talked to his sister, who said she’d like to visit over our son’s birthday at the end of May if my mom wasn’t going to be using the guest room. He asked me about it and I said she should absolutely come.

I had a session with my therapist the next morning and told her about the conversation with my mom. I told her that it hurt to be told that the dog is more important than her grandchildren. I told her how I used to make jokes about me being last on her list, behind my husband and my dog, and that I was never really joking. I told her about the time I asked Mom if the ability to inflict guilt was something learned or if it just developed as part of the process of giving birth. Mom told me that what you really need is someone susceptible like me – it had never worked on my brother because he just didn’t care. My therapist was surprised Mom admitted what she’d been doing. I had never thought of it that way. My therapist also pointed out that Mom had trained me well as a regulator of her feelings. We talked about a lot of the stuff I’ve mentioned above. She had to point out ways that I’m a different mother than my mother was. I was very anxious and frightened as a child and my mother’s response was to mock me, make me feel like a burden when I asked for help, and use me to regulate her own anxiety. My child is also very anxious and frightened, but I am responding by dealing with my own anxiety in therapy and doing my best to help him deal with his.

My mom called that morning after I had left the house for therapy, so DH answered the phone. Mom told him she had thought about driving out, but didn’t think the dog could make it so had decided against it. I would like to point out here that the dog, once again, was the reason she had ALREADY decided not to visit. Then DH told her, because he’s chatty, god love him, about his sister’s upcoming visit.

That afternoon, my mom called my home phone twice in succession and then my cell, all without leaving a message. I called her back as soon as I saw the calls on ID to find out what the emergency she couldn’t leave on the voice mail was, only to be told lightly that she hadn’t realized she had called the second time (I decided not to ask about the third call). She said it must have been an accident, but while she had me on the phone she would just mention her talk with DH that morning and the fact that his sister was visiting at the end of May. She said that she had decided to drive out, but now that SIL will be visiting later that month, she’s decided to cancel her trip so as not to burden us with too much company in one month.

Did you catch that? Her reason for coming has now changed from unwillingness to travel with her sick dog to concern for my welfare at having two different sets of guests within a month of each other. The subtext of which reads, “How dare you offer my visiting spot to someone else! You have mortally wounded me, but I will be the bigger person and suffer in silence for your thoughtlessness.”

I know I need to establish firm boundaries with her, but I just don’t have the energy to deal with the backlash. On the other hand, just talking to her on the phone these days feels like it’s sucking the life out of me, so maybe I should just bite the bullet.

After talking to my mom that afternoon, I went to a bookstore. I was looking in their (very small) psychology section for a specific book that I did not find, but I did see a book called The Narcissistic Family by Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert M. Pressman. I was intrigued enough to pick it up, given the day’s events, and was floored by the little I read in the store. I haven’t gotten to the therapeutic recommendations yet, so I can’t speak to that, but the descriptions of covertly narcissistic families are spot on for my family of origin.

According to the book, whatever the specific makeup of a narcissistic family system (two biological parents, two adoptive parents, single parent…), the defining factor is that the adults in the system are unable to focus on the needs of the kid(s).

Dad’s not getting off scot free, but I’ve been mad at him since the early nineties and the open anger with Mom is new.

I’ll come back with more stuff about narcissistic family systems when I’ve had a chance to get through the book. For now, I’ll leave you with this: At sixteen, my mother asked out of the blue if I was pregnant. I thought for a long time that this was just her awkward way of opening up the channels for a sex talk, which never happened because I said no and the subject was dropped. I’m now wondering why she was able to bring up pregnancy if she was afraid to talk about sex. I’m wondering if she didn’t actually care if I had sex, only if it resulted in pregnancy because at that point it would affect her. Not a very comforting thought, but that doesn’t make it any less likely to be true.

by Toni, Blonde Betty

I bought my first Christie Craig book, Don’t Mess with Texas, because of TxDOT (that’s the Texas Department of Transportation for the uninitiated).  It seems they had taken offense to her use of the catch phrase “Don’t Mess with Texas” as the title of a romance novel.  GASP!  Rick Perry on the cover of Newsweek:  OK.  Romance novel:  not so much.  To counter this imagined offense, TxDOT opted to sue.  (The suit was later dismissed by a judge.  A couple links to the original blog-posts can be found at the bottom of this post.)  Needless to say, I bought a copy for me and subsequently told all my friends they should buy a copy also.  Hey, if they were dumb enough to sue the least I could do was support her in particular and romance in general.

Not surprisingly I found a fun, humorous, sexy read.  I liked her voice and look forward to reading the other “Hotter in Texas” books later this year and next.

In the meantime, she self-published a “book of her heart” entitled Murder, Mayhem, and Mama.  It was a Barnes and Noble Nook First publication earlier this year.  I was intrigued by the description:

BEING A MAMA IS HARD. BUT THE JOB’S EVEN TOUGHER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD…

Cali McKay’s mama isn’t ready to pass over to the “other side” yet. Her unlucky-in-love daughter needs her now more than ever. Before Mama can chain-smoke her way to heaven, she’s gotta make sure Cali’s ex deadbeat boyfriend doesn’t get her daughter killed.

GRIEF SUCKS. LOVE HEALS…

Cali lost her mom to cancer. Detective Brit Lowell, lost his partner to murder. Now he’s in the mood to take down some dirtbags and Cali’s ex just happens to be a dirtbag leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him. Can Brit trust this beautiful woman to help take down her ex? Can Cali look past this sexy cop’s hard exterior to trust him with her heart? Can life get any crazier when Mama starts meddling from the grave? Only one thing is for sure–none of it will matter, unless they catch a killer before the killer catches them.

I expected a lighthearted comedic mystery / romance and that’s what I got.  The grieving hero and heroine darkened things up somewhat, but there were nice moments of humor to keep things from going too far down that path.  Mama herself provides a nice balance as does the mama cat that adopts Brit.  The story moves along nicely and there are some good twists and turns.

Though the story itself moves along, I wanted more depth of character from both Callie and Brit.  Early on in the story, Brit pigeon-holes Callie as the typical battered wife; just like his mom.  As this is the lens through which he views her, we never quite get a complete sense of who she is from his perspective.  Stuck in her grief, we see Callie as a shadow of her true self.  At the same time, we see Brit as the grieving, driven cop.  Again, we know there is more to him, but we never quite get past the veil to see his true self.

From an entirely personal perspective, I had trouble with the character naming in this one.  I have a dear friend named Brit.  Needless to say, my friend Brit is not the Brit of this story.  As my natural association is to my friend it was hard to disassociate enough to see the character Brit.

At the end of the day, this is a fun read.  Not quite a comedy, not quite a romance, not quite a mystery.  Fans of Janet Evanovich, Vicki Lewis Thompson, and the like will thoroughly enjoy this one.

Links:

http://killerfictionwriters.blogspot.com/2011/08/dont-mess-with-our-books.html

http://www.promantica.com/2011/08/dont-mess-with-texas-trademarks.html

by Monica, Braless Betty

A friend of my husband’s and mine lives in downtown Murphy in a nice home his mother gave him, but he also keeps a trailer out here in the country and when it’s not rented out he likes to spend time here to get out of town.  He kept a puppy out here but found that he wasn’t coming out enough times during the week to take care of the dog.  And since we had five dogs at home and three in town at the shop, he figured us to be the best “suckers” to take his dog for him.  And so we did.

Rascal and April, our little Australian Sheepdog, did NOT hit it off right away, but they became great buds in a matter of days.  I wasn’t thrilled with Rascal’s manners for quite some time; it seemed to take forever to break him from jumping up on me all the time with those big, dirty paws with hellacious size nails.  But when grandbaby came to stay for six month he displayed the best of manners.  He didn’t jump on her or knock her down.  I guess he didn’t need to jump on her because they both stood face level to one another.  She was age two at the time and hadn’t quite conquered her consonants; she called him Rackle.

After grandbaby went back home to Alaska, Rascal spent most of his time across the road at our neighbors’ farm.  Our neighbors had their grandbaby boy with them a lot while his parents taught school in the next town.  Evidently our Rascal was also called Buddy.  And evidently, little Brady thought the dog belonged to him.  And that was fine.  It wasn’t like we were dog poor.

Rascal is one of the gentlest dogs I have known.  Most dogs won’t allow you to put your foot on them, at least none of our other dogs do.  Rascal loves it!  Feet, hands, head, the more body parts the better.  He’s incredibly affectionate.

The most horrible thing imaginable that could happen to any parents or grandparents happened on our road.  My neighbor Grady and Brady were hit by drunk drivers and the four-wheeler that they were on got pushed into our creek.  By the time I found them, little Brady had been trapped underneath the machine and drowned.  Mary, Brady’s Meemaw, told me later that she thought the dog had gone crazy.  Rascal had been running incessantly up and down the hill to their house.  The accident was still unbeknownst to her and me both.  But looking back now, we both know that he was trying to bring help to his little buddy.  That was three years ago.  These days, Rascal and our two other dogs spend more time across the road watching over Grady and Mary then they do at home, and that’s alright with me.  They love the dogs probably more than we do!  And I am quite confident in saying that the table scraps from Mary’s table are much better than mine.

Rascal, however, shows up when I need him.  If a contractor or delivery man comes to our home, I have to go outside to their vehicle to greet them.  Rascal’s harmless but he has an ominous face.  His small beady eyes are piercing.  He looks mean but that is contrary to his true nature, he’s got a huge heart.  Literally.  He’s a black and white spotted dog and the big black spot on his left side is shaped in a perfect heart formation.

No one has seen Rascal since Easter, he’s gone missing.  I’ve called all the neighbors and no one has a female in heat and there isn’t any way that he was captured by a dog catcher.  Our SPCA is forty miles away and they no longer have funds for patrol.  Grady and Mary are heartbroken at the thought of him being hurt or stolen.  It is especially sore for them because the 28^th of this month will be the anniversary of the accident and “Buddy” isn’t here to bring them comfort.

Any prayers to St. Anthony for his safe return to us would be so very much appreciated.  If not for me, for the lovely folks that live across the way.

By Kimberly/Rock Star Betty

In his book, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain writes – and I’m paraphrasing here – that if you are lucky enough to have someone come home with you and …. continue with the lucky metaphor, the least you can do is cook them breakfast in the morning. Post-coital etiquette, I wonder if Emily Post ever covered that? Thank goodness we have Tony Bourdain. He recommends that everybody at least know how to cook up a decent omelet for such occasions.

My husband makes up a mean omelet. And it’s a good thing too. Generally, where my blindness is concerned, I take the position that there’s a way around everything. If there’s not a way around it, then I just put my head down and force my way through it.  That reasoning has served me well.  But, it collapses utterly when faced with the task of keeping half cooked eggs together in a single unit while flipping them over – and in a hot skillet no less. I tell you now, it cannot be done. Well, it can’t be done by me. Not without considerable burns to either skin or food or both.

So why not just delegate omelet making to Michael? Add it to his list of household duties, like taking out the trash or slicing the holiday turkey? Because he doesn’t like omelets. I know, right? Who doesn’t like omelets? What’s not to like? I’m at a loss to explain it. Me, I have yet to meet an omelet I didn’t like. Fill it with veggies, meats, a combination of both, or just some humble cheddar cheese, whatever – I’ll eat it happily.  My vacation a few years ago to South Haven, Michigan to visit my best friend from college was a lovely trip, full of wonderful moments, all of which pale in comparison to the Denver omelet that I got at that little diner on the strip. I think eggs are quite simply the perfect food. They are a great source of protein that nothing had to die to provide for me. If I buy organic, cage-free eggs from grass-fed hens, then I can feel good about myself. If I eat those eggs in an omelet, made with some veggies from the farmer’s market and locally made cheese, I can feel downright saintly about my meal decision.

Except it feels wrong to ask Michael to cook for me something he won’t eat himself. It just seems spoiled and indulgent. I’ve tried making the oven omelet, but the texture was all wrong – too soft and runny.  So this is my shout-out for help to the Betties. Does anybody have an omelet recipe that doesn’t require flipping? Anybody got any ideas for flipping an omelet without the benefit of sight? Or should I just resign myself to smoking a cigarette instead and going out for breakfast later?