Today is the first day of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo for complicated). My readers have kindly pitched in to help me get through this with a modicum of grace, and have furnished me with a topic per day for the next 30 days.

First on the scene responding to my call for help was the ever inspirational Pezmama. You'll be seeing her name here frequently in the next few days, as she came up with several great post topics for me. Before I address her question for the day, though, let me tell you a bit about her.

Pezmama's Rattling Around was the second blog I read with any regularity (Jane Brocket's Yarnstorm being the first). I first encountered it at a Five Minutes for Mom blog carnival last March; I spent spare minutes for the next few days reading through all her archives. She's fantastic: funny, honest, thoughtful, and generous. Pezmama is no longer an active blogger, but she had a tremendous influence on me when I was finding my own voice in this strange new medium. She has a great mind and a huge heart; because of these sterling characteristics, I have not let the fact that she doesn't like to read fiction tarnish my great admiration for her.

Pezmama's question of the day is as follows: "What kinds of writing exercises do you do (or prompts, maybe) that help you get your ideas on paper?"

For me, different kinds of writing demand different approaches. Here are the kinds of writing I do in ascending order of regularity: lyric writing, personal essays, blogging, and fiction (almost exclusively fantasy; my realistic YA novel Shannon's Mirror was an anomaly).

When I write lyrics, I usually start with a single image that grabs my imagination; with "New Birth," I used that of a candle burning in the darkness as my jumping-off point. I like parallelism in lyrics, so once I had the initial trope worked out for that song, the others followed quickly: a lily blooming in the snow; a fountain flowing in the desert.

Out of all the kinds of writing I do, the personal essay challenges me the most. When I read the work of a great essayist--E.B. White, Annie Dillard, Wendell Berry, Anne Lamott, or Adam Gopnik, among others--I'm in awe. It's like reading a well-plotted mystery: I enjoy reading it immensely, but it is difficult for me to puzzle out how it's actually done. As far as I can tell, a successful personal essay is constructed in sonata form: Introduction; Exposition; Development; Recapitulation; and Coda. This is the structure I used for my very first "book": a Mother's Day gift booklet called Legacy of Self: A Celebration of Motherhood; it's also the form I tried to follow in the two essays published in the collection Silent Notes Taken.

So with a personal essay, I'll take a powerful memory and see if I can explore its meaning in my life through sonata form. Arduous? Yes. Satisfying when done to the best of my abilities? Yes. Essays are the Crossfit workouts of writing for me.

I use no prompts when it comes to blogging--until now. NaBloPoMo will certainly be a boot camp of sorts, because in the past, if I haven't awakened with an idea for a post, I simply haven't bothered. Looking back at my archives, I see that I write between 12 and 22 posts per month; putting out 30 this November, even with all your help, will be a stretch.

Fiction: speculative fiction: fantasy. This is pretty much where my inner writer lives, plays, and takes joy. I have so many ideas for books that I doubt I'll ever get them all written, and I get new ideas all the time. Many of my favorite ideas come from dreams: often just a single, vivid image, the mystery and sheer coolness of which captures my attention and compels my imagination. I keep an Idea Journal on my computer; when I have a great dream, I try to write it down as quickly as possible while it's still fresh in my mind.

When I'm ready to start writing a new story, I pull out the Idea Journal and read through it. Often two or three images or ideas will attract themselves to one another in some sort of sympathetic harmony. I'll illustrate how this happens by using the example of a partially written novel of mine called Septentrion. For this story, three different components came together.

First was the discovery of the word 'septentrion' itself. I found it by chance in a French-English dictionary when I was looking up something else entirely. It has several related meanings in the OED: "1. The constellation of the Great Bear...; 2. The north; the northern region(s) of the earth or the heavens...; 3. A northerner...." The word instantly sparked my imagination, speaking to me of unexplored regions, mysterious and remote.

Around the time I discovered this intriguing word, I read the following verse in the book of Zechariah in the Old Testament (KJV): "Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord."

This scripture is unusual in its metrical symmetry and rhyme structure, giving it the flavor of an incantation. It triggered for me an extensive topical search on the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. This theme has been a matter of great speculation among both Jews and Gentiles (and later, Mormons) almost from the time of the tribes' disappearance. After reading many opinions on the subject--all very pragmatic--I began to toy with my own more fanciful theories regarding their dispersal and eventual regathering.

The third component of the beginning of Septentrion was an anonymous Inuit poem called "Magic Words":

In the very earliest time,
when both people and animals lived on the earth,
a person could become an animal if he wanted to
and an animal could become a human being.
Sometimes they were people
and sometimes animals
and there was no difference.
All spoke the same language.
That was the time when words were like magic.
The human mind had mysterious powers.
A word spoken by chance
might have strange consequences.
It would suddenly come alive
and what people wanted to happen could happen--
all you had to do was say it.
Nobody could explain this:
That's the way it was.

These three things combined in my mind into the seed of the book: a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy set in Manhattan, upstate New York, and the Canadian territory of Nunavut. I started playing with the idea, using the only prompt I ever use when writing fiction: "What if?"

What if the Lost Ten Tribes became somehow absorbed into Inuit culture? What if a shape-changing polar bear came to Manhattan in search of a girl who could save his people? From there, the story grew almost effortlessly, until I killed the joy of discovering the story by synopsizing it. But for me, it is such a compelling idea that I know I will eventually return to it and finish it.

A bit of Luisa trivia: as I first envisioned it, Septentrion would have had two sequels: Noctober and Novembrance. When I was searching for a domain name for my email address years ago, the first two titles in the trilogy were taken. Thus the genesis of Novembrance-the-Blog.

ZF-360 started with other "what if" questions: "What if the story of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute could be told so that it made sense? What if Irish Travellers kept themselves out of mainstream American culture to hide their magic from the world?

The Holly Place came from applying "what if" to several different arresting nightmares I am very grateful to have had: What if a person taught himself astral projection, but came home one night and couldn't get back into his body? What if there were a haven, mostly lost to the world, where a person could find healing if certain conditions were right?

I envision my answers to "what if" in the form of scenes. Characters seem to present themselves to me, inviting me to get to know them. As I learn who they are, I find out what they'll do in certain situations. Then I write what I see and hear and feel, with as much precision and clarity as I can muster.

If I'm ever blocked, it's as if the movie in my head is paused. Sometimes it takes some fiddling to get it going again; often it's a random sentence I write that gives me the next turn of the screw. "Cathy heard Mae crying in her bedroom." Oh, but Mae's sound asleep; who is really crying? Or did Cathy imagine it? A whole new plot point then unfolds and take shape.

Going back to the Inuit poem, "a word spoken by chance": that's all it takes to spark imagination when you're really listening. For me, ideas are all around, like a garden full of perfect, ripe fruit that needs only to be picked and eaten. And turning the ideas into stories is a matter of focusing energy and setting aside time for them, nothing more.

Which I need to go do right now, seeing as how National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) also starts today! 50,000 words in 30 days: I'd better get started.

Thalia's Child has written some really great Soap Opera Sunday entries lately about people in her own family. She inspired me to tell this story. (If you are new to the SOS scene, you should know that it is the brainchild of Brillig and Kate; see their fab sites for links to all sorts of great tales of love, grief, and drama.)

Here are a few bits of exposition to help you make sense of the following story. I am an active member of the LDS church, colloquially known as the Mormons.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the LORD:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the
children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite
the earth with a curse.

"The game is afoot!"

(Have you ever seen the movie Young Sherlock Holmes? How I love that film.)

Oh, and my post title? That's my Rowlingesque, fake Latin translation of 'Scavenger Hunt.' (For the real Latin, try Jenna.)

Since I have made the insane decision to participate both in National Blog Posting Month (Nablopomo) and in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) in the month that includes my birthday, that of our eldest child, and Thanksgiving (which I host for between 16 and 20 people each year), I figured I'd need some help.

Enter RaJ the Great and Terrible and his genius idea for a framework for Nablopomo: that of a scavenger hunt. For Nablopomo, I need to post once a day for the 30 days of November. I know; not onerous on the face of it, right? Except for the fact that there are MANY days when I wake up thinking that there's nothing very blogworthy going on. Ergo, I am silent.



**UPDATED**We're there! Thank you; I have the very best readers in all of Planet Blog.

Though this story is not terribly soapy, I am nonetheless officially calling it part of Soap Opera Sunday, that weekly blogventure concocted by Brillig and Kate, guaranteed to make you laugh, gasp, and maybe even mist up a bit.

If you read the post just below this one, you'll remember that I spent most of my spare time Senior year with a certain Paul: swimmer, water polo player, co-AP-class-taker. Despite the fact that we had tons in common, our relationship really was like two worlds colliding. Picture a Venn diagram where the two circles barely touch: that was us.

Paul was a jock from the side of town that had trees (in California's Central Valley, that means you are from a well-established neighborhood). His mother was the golf pro at the local country club. He grew up in our cowtown, and so knew 'everybody.' It didn't hurt that his grandfather had founded a world-famous non-profit corporation that was based in our town and employed a ton of folks.

I, on the other hand, lived on downtrodden Main Street right next door to a mortuary. My mom worked long, hard hours trying to support my siblings and me. We'd moved to town right before my Junior year, so I was an interloper on long-established circles of friends. I had very short, multi-colored hair; Paul's friends preferred hanging out with people who had that chlorine-platinum thing going on.

My few friends liked Paul, but they were way too busy to pay much attention to him. Adele, Traci, Janice, and I were the entire yearbook staff that year; our advisor had quit, and in the vacuum, we four co-editors ran the show. In the days before computer layouts, we spent tons of unsupervised time with those big, blue-lined sheets putting together a yearbook for a high school of 2,000 students. We took almost all of the candid shots (many we staged), developed them ourselves in the darkroom, and wrote every bit of the copy. I don't know how we had keys to that yearbook room, or how the school let us do all this on our own, but we did, and we pulled many an all-nighter making those publication deadlines all by our teenaged selves.

So I was either working on the yearbook or hanging out with Paul all year long. Paul and I talked about books, Carl Sagan, and music. I'd sit next to him while he played Bach's Two-Part Inventions on his mother's little spinet piano. He taught me how to drive, first in a golf cart, and then in his ancient station wagon. We golfed straight through the winter (he could play for free). We watched the entire eight hours of the BBC's production of Nicholas Nickleby with Roger Rees on PBS, completely riveted. Paul was the best.

Prom time came around; though outwardly a rebel, I was enough of a romantic to know that I had to get to Prom at least once in my life. I searched high and low for an atypical dress that I could afford, not wanting any pastel taffeta or satin touching my person. I finally found a Grecian-style white dress with a cool beaded clasp at the shoulder--very different, and very flattering. I put it on layaway. A few housecleanings and babysitting jobs later, it was mine.

Paul had no money to rent evening clothes. He was too busy with sports to have a job, and his parents weren't the type to hand out cash to him, like, ever. So he ended up wearing his only suit: a horrible denim-colored polyester number with Western detailing. But he was handsome and hilarious; I didn't mind.

Limo? Oh, no. But we didn't have to go in Paul's station wagon, with the vinyl seats so weathered they had petrified and cracked, exposing yellowed, crumbling foam. No, for Prom, Paul's mom graciously loaned him her K-Car--a nice, Reliant automobile, with burgundy velour interior. We were stylin,' folks.

Paul did scrounge up money for a gorgeous corsage: gardenias, my favorite flower in all the world. They looked perfect with my long, white dress.

May in the San Joaquin valley is about the worst time and place for someone with allergy-triggered asthma. I woke up Prom morning barely able to breathe. The jasmine was blooming enthusiastically, as if Spring had conspired to murder me. My mother took me to the doctor and to the chiropractor, but neither helped much. I fainted while Mom was curling my hair, but there was no way I was missing out on my big night.

I don't remember whether we went out to dinner. I do know we weren't planning on doing anything with groups; Traci went to Prom with this hot, long-haired guy we barely knew from the stoner crowd; Janice and Adele were boycotting Prom (probably becaused no one had asked them out). The swim crowd barely tolerated me, and truthfully? I was happy to have Paul all to myself.

We got to the dance, stood in line for photos, and danced a few slow dances. At that point, I'd had enough. I was exhausted from trying to breathe; I asked Paul to take me home. On the K-Car's radio on the way, we heard the new single by our favorite band for the very first time: "Every Breath You Take," by The Police. High irony, people.

I must have fainted again; the next thing I knew, I was in the ER. Apparently Paul had run into my house and right into my mom's room, scared her awake, and then sped to the hospital with me unconscious all the way.

The doctor gave me a shot of adrenaline, and almost immediately, I had blessed relief. Anyone who has never had asthma has no idea what it feels like to suffocate slowly no matter how hard you try to get air into your lungs. Gorgeous, perfect air: there's nothing better.

An extremely kind, huge male nurse took the very best care of me. My mom and I still call him 'The Gentle Giant.' He pinned my gardenia corsage to my hospital gown and got me fresh hot blankets straight out of the autoclave: bliss. I spent the rest of the night in a curtained-off area, Mom on one side of the hospital bed, Paul holding my hand on the other.

I haven't had an asthma attack since; I have no idea why. My asthma pretty much disappeared after that night.

Paul and I dated the whole summer after graduation, but then we broke up when he went off to UC Berkeley. It broke my heart, but he was excited to explore college life to the fullest extent allowed by law, and we both knew a long-distance relationship wouldn't work. We stayed in contact for a year or two, but after I moved to Utah to go to BYU, we lost touch entirely.

Patrick and I saw Paul a few years ago at my 20-year high school reunion. The three of us went to breakfast together. The two men were like Ps in a pod (pun very much intended); they got along great.

Paul has never been married; he's never even dated someone for as long as we went out (almost exactly a year). I asked him why over breakfast; he's handsome, in great shape, smart, employed, etc. It seemed to me he'd have women crawling all over him. He laughed and said he always ends up correcting his dates' grammar, something that's always a romance killer. Patrick said wryly, "Clearly that was never a problem with Luisa." Poor Paul: I hope he finds his own Grammar Fascista someday.

I had this great boyfriend named Paul my entire senior year of high school. He played on the water polo team and was a fantastic swimmer; at one time he ranked ninth in the entire nation in the butterfly stroke for his age group. I'm reasonably confident that you'll be reading more about Paul on Soap Opera Sunday, when I give you the highly entertaining and dramatic details of Prom Night 1983.

I had never been particularly athletic myself (outside of dance), so I learned much from Paul about training for competitive sports. One concept he introduced to me was that of tapering down.

When preparing for a big competition, athletes will train intensively for a period of time, then follow a very light regime in the days or weeks immediately preceding the event. This allows the body to recover fully from the hard training it has done, ensuring that it will be capable of peak performance during the competition.

"Why the nostalgic lecture?" I hear you ask in a gentle yet quizzical tone. I answer: merely to explain my recent bloggy reticence. I'm training for both NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, demanding events that occur simultaneously during the month of November. I have to gather my strength and summon my creative (eagle) powers; Heaven knows, I need to conserve what little I have in both respects.

It is because I am tapering down that I have lately chosen not to inflict upon you posts on such scintillating topics as:

1) The fact that the three black hairs growing from my chin have become my own personal hydra;
2) How amazingly neat and clean our basement is after my tornadic frenzy last weekend;
3) What a better yarn Malabrigo is than Manos del Uruguay;
4) Hilarious things Daniel has said in days past (one tidbit "Red Zeppelin");
5) The success of our story basket in the den;
6) The manner in which my novel-in-eternal-progress, ZF-360, is morphing yet again;
7) My consternation over the as-yet-unripe African jelly melons in a large basket in our kitchen;
8) The current dearth of appealing movies at our local theaters;
9) How excited I am that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize; and
10) My rant about the evil ninja deer and the havoc they are wreaking in our yard.

See? Don't you feel better about how quiet it's been around here? Brace yourselves; November is right around the corner.

And to answer the question of a cre8buzzer who asked whether we'll be celebrating Novembrance (i.e. me) all month long once Halloween is over:

Yes. Absolutely. Bring on the party, my friends.

Until then, I must focus on my training. Yeah, yeah; that's the ticket.

At long last, faithful readers, here is the final installment of "Clever Trevor," part of the ongoing Soap Opera Sunday series invented by those bloggoddesses Brillig and Kate. If you are new to the story, click on the Soap Opera Sunday hyperlink in the Topical Guide down and to the right to read Parts One through Four.


“Hey there.”

Veronica Mitchell at Toddled Dredge is a genius. In hilarious post she tossed off recently, she came up with a brilliant idea for a meme. I quote her:

Ten Literary Characters I Would Totally Make Out With If I Were Single and They Were Real But I’m Not, Single I Mean, I Am Real, But I’m Also Happily Married and Want to Stay That Way So Maybe We Should Forget This

Some of her adoring fans, including yours truly, begged her to create it. She relented and promptly tagged us all to participate; the responses so far have been fabulous.

Patrick’s out of town for the next few days; what better way to console myself in his absence than to wax poetical over literary flames who have warmed my heart in the past? That—and a little Frigor, plus maybe another viewing of The Scarlet Pimpernel—and I’m almost fine. I’ll list my literary crushes in chronological order.

1. Will Scarlet was my first literary love (Ned Nickerson never really did it for me, and I probably would have had a crush on Almanzo if I hadn’t been distracted by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s fabulous descriptions of food). I have an ancient copy of Philip Schuyler Allen’s Robin Hood that I read over and over again when I was nine. I pictured myself as one of Maid Marian’s junior attendants, running around the woods and having archery competitions with the handsome, tempestuous Will.

I was the winner of a crafty little meme quiz put together by the inestimable Radioactive Jam; my prize was being tagged. Hurray! RaJ knows how much I love memes. This one requires that I inform you of Eight Random Things About Me.

Hmm…this is harder than it sounds, since I’ve been writing this blog for about a year, regularly dispensing random information about me all the while. It seems I may have reached the bottom of the randomness barrel. Scraping, scraping….

1. I want to go on a trip to Antarctica for my 50th birthday. I’ve got a little over nine years to plan and save up for it. Hopefully it will still be there.

2. I don’t like candy corn.

3. Here’s how I rank the various James Bonds, best to worst: Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton. The first three really are neck and neck.

4. I think my leftover pasta sauce tastes great served over cottage cheese. In fact, that’s what I’m having for lunch today.

5. The first opera I ever saw was Puccini's La Fanciulla del West.

6. I love to snorkel. But I’m not sure I ever want to learn to scuba dive.

7. I’d rather be a forest than a street.

8. When I was in third grade, I was Carden School’s Spelling Bee Champion. The winning word was ‘lightening.’ The eighth grader who came in second was unaware that ‘lightning’ has a homophone. It’s all about the usage.

Whom shall I tag? How about new bloggy pals James Dashner, Piper, Alice, and Mary? Will you play?

I apologize. I'm leaving faithful readers hanging again. But the end to my Soap Opera Sunday series "Clever Trevor" has been tricky to get just right, and it's not there yet. So today, I offer you instead a summary of a scene that occurred here just this morning.

I'm always puzzled when I hear writers say that they write for themselves. It's not that I don't believe them; it's just that it's not my experience.

I do a lot of things for myself, but writing isn't one of them. Sure: when I'm daydreaming about a new story idea, playing around with it in my head is good, self-indulgent fun. But translating the dream into just the right words is WORK. Even when it's really flowing and at its most joyous, it's work to write. So why bother? I'm a busy wife, mother, churchgoer, housekeeper, and gardener. I have a lot of things competing for my time and energy. Why add more work to my list?

Why? Because I write for other people. Really: what's the point of telling a story unless someone is listening? I always have an imagined audience in my head when I'm writing. It's usually made up of close friends who love me and my ideas. But even this virtual congregation isn't enough, because I want reactions, preferably as soon as possible.

In other words, I want feedback. Deep down, I think we all do; I believe that's why we write, knit, paint, bake, and blog. We crave validation from those around us, reassurance that what we've created is worthwhile. Recognizing this truth, I coined the term 'feedcrack.'

Feedcrack may be addictive, but it gets the job done. It has kept writing high on the priority list lately, and I've made huge progress in a very short amount of time. So I'll be tanking up on feedcrack for the foreseeable future. I just hope no one cuts off my supply.

I've found a terrific fountain of feedcrack in a social networking website called cre8Buzz. When Brillig invited me to join, I thought it sounded like a great idea. I joined the site to get more exposure for my writing, and I've been thrilled that that has been the case. I've found a wonderful, warm community of writers who have been very receptive to me and to my writing. I've gotten solid constructive criticism and voluble appreciation on a project that had previously been languishing on my furthest-back burner. I'm not sure how else my work would have so quickly and efficiently reached readers who live in Finland, Sweden, western Canada, Britain, and Minneapolis.

After looking over my shoulder, James dubbed cre8Buzz "Facebook for grownups." and I agree with his assessment in the best possible sense. The happy surprise about cre8Buzz is how many nice, interesting, funny people--both inside and outside the writers' community--I've encountered there. It's not spammy or puerile. Everyone is kind and supportive. It's well organized and easy to navigate. Traffic to this blog has soared lately; it's been great.

Cre8Buzz has been in beta since the beginning of August, but it goes public tomorrow. In the next little while, membership to the site will be by invitation only (let me know if you want one; I'll happily send one your way), but everyone in the ethersphere will now be able to view the Buzz's content. We beta-testers are excited to welcome in the world. Drop by and see what you think!

As the leaves start to turn, my thoughts turn to...pie.

I love pie. Once upon a time, I worked at Marie Callender's. This was fabulous, because at the end of the night, the staff could take any leftover pies home. I enjoyed nearly all the pies they made there, from the ever-popular Sour Cream Lemon to the obscure Gooseberry.

As good as Marie's pies were, I've always preferred homemade. In summer, I love Banana Cream Pie. My mom used to make it all the time: her flaky crust, luscious vanilla cream custard, topped with fresh bananas and whipped cream was a winner. Recently I made a Chocolate Cream Pie from a recipe I got from the ever-reliable Cook's Illustrated. It was perfection: a tender yet crispy chocolate cookie crust filled with the most heavenly chocolate cream custard made from scratch, with whipped cream on top, of course. One grateful recipient of a slice said that the filling was as smooth as glass, and it was. Pure heaven.

As good as the cream pies are, it's the baked fruit pies that really work for me. I have a few specialties I whip up as Thanksgiving approaches. High-domed, deep-dish Apple Pie filled with tender slices of heirloom fruit. The rich yet mellow flavors of Pumpkin Pie made with pumpkin I've grown in my own garden. Mincemeat Pie: succulent, homemade filling finished with a woven lattice crust. Then there is my mother-in-law's outstanding Pecan Pie. Mmmm, pie...I have to watch myself, or I'll drift off into a Homer Simpsonesque reverie.

So imagine my delight the other day to discover that a friend of ours has just launched a website entirely dedicated to pie and its devotees. You've got to see it; Penelope's Pies is adorable and chock-full of good information.

I'm having a dilemma with regards to something I'm writing. I discussed it with Patrick, and he was very helpful, but I'm still not quite settled as to what's going to happen. So it's time for some reader response, people. Share your thoughts with me on the following conundrum.

I have a character who is experiencing paranormal events. She wants to confide in her best friend, but she knows she'll sound crazy. She needs help, though, and she's getting desperate.

What would you do if your best friend came to you with a crazy, supernatural story that s/he swears is true? This friend has always been utterly trustworthy and normal in the past; you've never had even the slightest reason to doubt her/his word. But s/he has absolutely no proof; in fact, when s/he tries to show you evidence, s/he fails pretty miserably and gets very upset and even more insistent about her/his story.

I know I'm being cryptic, so don't even try and guess what I'm trying to do. Please just give me your best prediction of what you'd do in this character's situation. Thanks in advance! I'm confident that you'll help me get through this muddle.

My mother was recently doing some sorting and purging of old boxes at her house and came across a box of my mementos. She promptly sent it off to me along with these:And these:Very welcome treats; thanks, Mom! I can get neither Mother's Circus Animal Cookies (the Keebler rip-off version is a cruel travesty) nor See's Candy here in the otherwise perfect Hudson Highlands.

*Updated* A lurker who prefers to remain anonymous asked for a detailed caption of the above photo. Clockwise (sort of) from noon: Madness concert program; The Police concert program; U2 concert sticker; first and second place ribbons for speech tournaments; visitor pass to NASA's Ames Research Center; essay from Honors History (grade: A); Merrie Miss achievement bracelet; Stanislaus County Essay Contest Scholarship certificate; Sam Gamgee journal; cover from Computer Programming class manual (loved that TRS-80); photos of Charles and Diana's wedding cut out of People magazine; mimeographed and hand colored worksheets on Elizabeth I of England; The Best of Omni, issue #6; a page from the 1980 Tolkien wall calendar, illustrated by the Hildebrandt brothers; and a rugby tournament program. There: I think that's everything.

One of the best (read: most embarrassing) items in the lot is that Sam Gamgee journal. I used that notebook to record what I considered to be my very best excerpts of creative writing between 1980 and 1981. Here are two snippets:


*Updated* Annette couldn't read the journal entries and was good enough to speak up about it, so here are the transcripts:

"Her golden hair sparkled and glistened in the last rays of the sunset, billowed and streamed in the slight breeze which fled through the meadow. It made a halo, transfiguring her into a fire queen, or a goddess of love. Her face took on a joyous expression, as if she were drinking in the last drops of warmth on her face. She spread out her arms in love and gratitude. Then the glorious moment passed, leaving the poor peasant girl to trudge home, sad and alone.

--March 1981"

"The wizard's mind was cold and twisted. Dark columns of evil hung from the caverns of his intellect, ruthlessly sharp and deadly. The expansive knowledge he had eagerly accumulated in his younger, fuller, years, when he was still "white," had gradually darkened and decayed until it was rotten. But in a way, as if it were being fed somehow, the knowledge grew, encompassing all manner of malignant studies and malevolent experiments.

As the years passed, these studies became increasingly cruel, often with people as their victims. Often, when one of those preyed-upon was screaming and writhing in agony unimaginable, he too would scream; but with laughter that chilled bones and curdled blood. He would become hysteric [sic], waves of hate washing over him. His insanity was horrific, and his name became hated passionately; and just as passionately feared. Mothers had only to whisper his name, and children were terrified into obedience. And so the legend was begun.

--April 1981"

Yikes. Talk about agony unimaginable; I was even more addicted to semicolons and adverbs at 14 than I am now. But progress is good, right?

We are talking Good Times, my friends. There is so much blog fodder in this box that I will be set for many a Flashback Friday and Soap Opera Sunday to come. Stay tuned.

Saturday night, Patrick and I were at wedding about three hours upstate; we'd left the kids in the hands of uber-capable Christian. At about 7:00 p.m., we got a call from Christian, as panicked as we've ever heard him. It seems that while Christian was putting Daniel to bed, Tess went downstairs to the basement, got a pair of kindergarten scissors out of one of the craft bins, and cut all her hair off. All of it: down to the scalp above her forehead and on the back of her neck. She left a few Carol Brady-type strands in the back, but other than those, she was very thorough. We calmed Christian down and told him everything would be fine--but I'm glad we had a long drive home.

Hurray! I'm finally back on the Soap Opera Sunday wagon. Brillig and Kate's brainchild is sweeping Planet Blog; check their sites for other great soapy stories. If you need a refresher, here are the links for Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

“I’m so glad we’re finally here,” said Jill. “I’m starving.”

Laura wrinkled her nose. “Really? I’m still too grossed out by the smell of that bus to be able to think about food.”

“Well, as soon as we check in, let’s go get some dinner. You should probably eat something.”

“This is some hotel,” breathed Laura as they pushed through the revolving door. It looked like a palace; huge, fluted pillars supported a triple-height ceiling that was painted all over with frescoes of nymphs and cherubs. Liveried doormen stood along the hall or helped guests with matched, monogrammed leather luggage sets. Laura tried not to gawk as they walked up the carpeted steps to the long marble front desk. A uniformed attendant looked up politely as Jill approached.

“May I help you?”

“Yes, we’re checking in. You should have a reservation for Jill Westphal.”

The attendant looked through his register. “Ah, yes, Miss Westphal. But before you do so, I should inform you that you have a visitor waiting for you in the bar. He just arrived a few moments ago. I’ll let him know that you are here.” He turned to the bank of telephones behind him.

Jill turned to Laura and squealed. “It must be Simon! But I wonder why he’s in the bar. Why wouldn’t he just wait for us in his room?”

“I hope Colin’s with him. Then we can all go to dinner.” Laura tucked her hair behind her ears nervously. She hadn’t had a minute to freshen up after getting off the bus and walking several windy blocks to the hotel. Maybe she could go find a restroom and put on some lip gloss.

“Jill,” said someone quietly. But it wasn’t Simon’s charming, accented voice. Jill and Laura turned around slowly.

Mr. Westphal stood there, his face grim.

“What exactly are you doing here, Jill?”

“I…I…” Jill shut her mouth and looked down at her shoes. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispered.

Mr. Westphal looked like he was trying to turn his daughter into ice with his stare. “Let’s go,” he said finally. “The car is in the underground garage. We have a long drive home.” Without even a glance at Laura, Mr. Westphal turned and walked away.

“Tell Simon I’m sorry I missed him,” Jill choked out. She gave Laura a look of apology, then hurried after her father.

Dumbfounded, Laura watched them walk away. She couldn’t believe Laura’s bravado had utterly wilted in the presence of her father. Their grand adventure was over before it had even begun.

How had the Westphals found out where they were? Crap! Her mother must have confronted Twee; they hadn’t told anyone else other than Colin and Simon what they were doing. Oh, her mother was going to be mad.

Laura couldn’t believe Mr. Westphal hadn’t said a word to her, that he would just leave her there. Was her mother on her way from the valley as well?

Laura doubted it; there was no way that Marie could have gotten off work on such short notice. And she must know through Twee that Laura wasn’t in any danger.

Now what was she supposed to do? She didn’t have the money to stay at this place. Her bus ticket home was for tomorrow afternoon. She twisted her empty locket on its chain and thought.

“Twee,” she whispered, feeling the cat’s presence at the edge of her consciousness, but knowing that she wouldn’t get an answer.

“What’s that you said, Laura?” Colin stood there, crisply handsome in his immaculate school uniform, looking like he’d just stepped off the set of Brideshead Revisited.

“Oh, Colin! It’s so great to see you!” Laura launched herself into his arms. Twin waves of relief and despair washed over her, and she broke down sobbing. Colin patted her back awkwardly for a few seconds, then pulled out a freshly ironed handkerchief and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she mumbled. She blew her nose and tried to blot her face dry. Fantastic, she thought. I’ll bet I look like a total hag.

“Laura, what’s happened? Here,” Colin said, taking her hand and leading to an exquisitely upholstered couch to the side of the front desk. “Sit down and tell me everything. Where’s Jill?”

Laura sank down onto the down-stuffed cushions and told him the whole story.

“Wow,” he said when she had finished. “I had no idea you were going to go to such trouble to come and see us. What do you want to do? Shall I take you back to the bus station and see whether we can get you home tonight?”

“No! Why should I go home to an empty house? My mom’s at work. Tomorrow morning, she’ll crash until it’s time for her to get up and go back to work again. I got here; I’m already in trouble. I just want to enjoy my time with you so that it’s all worth all the grief I’m going to get tomorrow night.”

Colin’s blue eyes were grave. “Well, then. Let’s set about doing that, shall we? Come along—Golden Gate’s coach is hosting a dinner party for both teams tonight at his house in Sausalito. The bus is leaving in about a half hour. Come upstairs to our room. We’ll have to break the bad news to Simon.”

“Okay. But where will I stay?”

“We’ll figure something out. If worse comes to worst, Simon and I shall sleep on the floor, and you’ll have our bed.”

The party was overwhelming. Laura felt like she was experiencing something from the pages of a magazine. The coach’s huge Arts & Crafts house had gorgeous views of San Francisco Bay; the lights of the City through the gathering fog sparkled like jewels set in gray velvet. There were tables of beautiful food everywhere, and there were at least a hundred people present. She’d been at Simon’s side for most of the evening, but now the two teams were engaged in some good-natured trash talk over tomorrow’s game, and Laura felt a little superfluous. She wandered out the French doors to one of the balconies and leaned against the railing gazing out at the dark water. A large black Labrador got up from a bed in the corner and nuzzled at her hand. Laura smiled and rubbed his sleek head.

“I’m Graf,” the dog said. “Twee wanted me to let you know that I’m a friend, if you need one.”

“Oh!” Laura knelt down and scratched his ears. “Wow. I had no idea. I don’t know how you guys are all networked to each other, but it’s nice to know you’re here.”

The lab cocked his head and panted for a moment as if listening to something far off. “Twee feels bad that he had to tell on you. He thought Mr. Westphal would offer to bring you home; he’s sorry that he misjudged the man’s character.”

“That’s okay. I know anger makes it harder for Twee to see anything about people; from the way Jill’s dad looked at the hotel, I’m surprised Twee could see him at all.”

“Well, what’s done is done. And I’ll be at the game tomorrow, as well. Let me know if I can be of help.”

“Thank you, Graf.” Laura smiled through sudden tears and gave the dog a hug.

“What a lovely animal,” said Colin, stepping through the doorway. “But I thought you were a cat person.”

“Oh, I like some dogs,” Laura said, standing up and brushing off her mohair sweater. “He’s a sweet one.”

“Really,” Colin murmured, moving closer to Laura and taking her in his arms. “Should I be jealous?”

Laura looked at Colin’s perfect face as it drew near her own, then shut her eyes in anticipation of his kiss. She was not disappointed. Long, slow, and soft: Laura felt as if she were melting in its warmth. Colin’s arms tightened around her, pressing her into his lean body. He kissed her harder, slowly moving his lips from hers and down her jawline until he reached an especially sensitive spot just under her ear. “Laura,” he whispered, “I very much look forward to our night together.”

Laura’s eyes snapped open; she broke away from Colin’s embrace and stepped back against the railing.

“What do you mean, our night together?” she said.

Colin chuckled. “I persuaded Simon to bunk in with Gray and Fletcher tonight. We’ll have the room to ourselves.”

Laura could only shake her head, eyes wide with confusion.

“You American girls,” Colin said, grinning. “Hot for it one minute, all innocence the next. You’re maddening.” He moved in again, but Laura backed up as far as she could go.

“Girls?” Laura knew she sounded like a mindless echo. “American girls? But you’ve never been to the States before.”

“We were on the East Coast for two weeks before we came to California, remember? You can’t have thought I’d been saving myself until I met you. Although you are definitely my favorite,” he said. He reached out and traced one long finger down the side of her neck until he reached the collar of her sweater. Grasping it, he used it to pull her towards him again.

“Colin, I think somehow you’ve gotten the wrong idea about me,” she said, putting her hands against his chest and trying to push him away.

“I very much doubt that,” he said, and kissed her again. Laura tried to twist away from him, but Colin pinned her against the railing. “You’re protesting a bit too much, love,” he whispered.

A deep, menacing growl came from behind them. Startled, Colin let go of Laura and turned to see the huge Labrador standing at his feet. Laura used the moment of distraction to slide around Colin and put Graf between them.

Graf bared his teeth at Colin and growled louder.

“Get away, you bleeding monster,” Colin snarled, and kicked at Graf. Graf snapped his jaws at Colin’s leg, letting the boy know that it was no accident that he’d missed biting him.

“Come away, Laura,” said Colin, sidling around the dog to the French doors. “We’ll tell our host that his mongrel’s out of control.”

Kneeling by Graf’s side, she sank her hands into his fur and shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard me. You’ve got the wrong idea about me, Colin. I think I’m much safer with the dog than I am with you.”

Colin’s perfect features grew cold and haughty. “Suit yourself, you bloody little tease,” he hissed, and stalked into the house.

“Thank you, Graf,” Laura whispered. “But now what am I going to do?”

I will do my very best to finish our story next week!

We eat a lot of pasta here at the Perkins Homestead. Why? Because it's so very good.

I use the pasta sauce recipe Patrick taught me when we first got married. His sauce is one of the countless reasons why he is the perfect man for me. Patrick went on a two-year mission for our church to Rome, and some angel in the form of a little old Italian woman taught him how to make red sauce. Someday in heaven, I will find her and thank her profusely. Here's what I've done with that second-hand-authentic tutelage.

Patrick's Pasta Sauce
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion OR 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced or pressed
2 teaspoons dried parsley OR a handful of fresh, chopped
1 teaspoon dried basil OR a handful of fresh, chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (I prefer Cento or Muir Glen brands, but Contadina works, too. Some other brands DO NOT.)
Optional: 1 lb. ground beef OR sweet Italian sausages, removed from their casings
Optonal: 8-10 oz. fresh mushrooms, washed and sliced, and a splash of white wine
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 pound dry pasta

Put the olive oil in a heavy, medium-sized pot over low heat. Add the onion or carrot and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. If adding mushrooms, add them next along with the wine and cook them until they release their juices, another few minutes. If adding meat, add it now, raise the heat slightly, and brown while stirring well to prevent big chunks from forming.

Add the garlic and herbs and stir for a moment or two. Marcella Hazan calls this process 'insaporire,' when you are infusing the oil with the heat-released flavors of the herbs. But keep it moving and be brief; you don't want to scorch the garlic, which is easy to do when it's in such tiny pieces. Add the crushed tomatoes and stir well. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Add the butter and cook the sauce until the butter is melted and the sauce is heated through.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions; drain, toss with a couple of tablespoons of butter, and serve with sauce and grated cheese.

This rich, intense sauce goes a long way; you might need less than you think to cover a serving of pasta. Because of this, even if you are feeding seven people, you'll probably have a fair amount of sauce left over.

Here's what I do the next night. Add a cup or two of cream to the leftover sauce and reheat it very gently. Meanwhile, slice and sauté a couple of zucchini in a little olive oil and salt. Once it's cooked but not mushy, add it to the sauce and stir well. Serve over more pasta--maybe a different shape, so the kids don't mutiny.

This is also the sauce I use for lasagne and pizza; I double the recipe when making lasagne and almost always use a béchamel sauce instead of ricotta cheese. Unbelievably good.

On my recent trip Out West, I entered a fabulous little independent bookstore in Spanish Fork, Utah armed with recommendations from a trusted friend. I've been making my way through the resulting pile o' books ever since. (It's a hard life I have, I tell you.) What have I learned? 1) The quality of fiction produced by people of my faith has increased dramatically in the past 15 years. 2) I really can trust this friend; she has unerring taste.

One book in the pile I have not yet read is A Door in the Woods, by James Dashner. It looks terrific; I'm just not there yet. Coincidentally, Mr. Dashner has started his own blog; I happened upon it today. At first glance, I was thrilled; it appeared as though his site's wallpaper were a photograph of some loosely spun alpaca yarn in various earthtoned colorways. Could it be that this new fantasy author is also a knitter devoted enough to his craft to adorn his blog with a photo of soft and lovely yarn from the Andes?

At second glance, I calmed down a bit. No, it's actually an (admittedly cool) image of one of his book covers. I just have knitting on the brain, since the fall issue of Knitty came out today. Yarn or no, I'm looking forward to getting to know Mr. Dashner a bit better. You should, too.

O, Canada. How I love thee.

Other things have me thinking about Canada this week. Last year, a friend of ours went hunting in Newfoundland and brought back a moose. He shared the delicious meat (it tastes like grass-fed beef) with his friends; I made the last of his gift into a wonderful stew last night.

It's my turn to lead our book group discussion this month, and the book I chose is The Blue Castle, L. M. Montgomery's novel for adults. The Blue Castle is Montgomery's only book set outside of Prince Edward Island; it takes place in Bala, Muskoka, Ontario, where Montgomery went on holiday once.

Here are more reasons why I love Canada:

Poutine! It's the ultimate comfort food. Take french fries, add fresh cheese curds, then pour delicious brown gravy over the top, so that the cheese melts somewhat, but retains its texture and shape. My mouth waters as I write. Oh, and Crème Budwig--like muesli, only a lot nuttier. Other delicious Canadian foods: toutons (bread dough fried in salt pork fat), figgy duff (similar to plum pudding), and maple fudge. Or really, maple anything.
Barenaked Ladies! Great Big Sea (I have a huge crush on Alan Doyle, second from the right in the photo above)! The Wailin' Jennys! Leonard Cohen! Rush, Triumph, Steppenwolf, and The Guess Who! Joni Mitchell and Neil Young! Oscar Peterson! La Bottine Souriante! There are so many great Canadian musicians. I even liked Céline Dion back when she was still singing in French and before she started beating on her skinny chest in platinum-selling, anglophone power ballads.

Robertson Davies! Mordecai Richler! Michael Ondaatje! Margaret Atwood! Mavis Gallant! Dave Duncan! Charles de Lint, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Yann Martel! Alice Munro and Lucy Maud Montgomery! A significan percentage of my favorite writers are from Canada.

Dan Aykroyd. Eugene Levy. Mike Myers. Catherine O' Hara. John Candy. Dave Foley. Phil Hartman. Howie Mandel. Andrea Martin. Jim Carrey. Canada is good at making funny people.

French without anxiety. I studied French for 12 years in school, but that doesn't mean I was a fluent speaker when I got to Laval. Imagine my relief when I found that the Québecois were thrilled with my French, a reaction completely unlike the ill-disguised sneers or looks of outright incomprehension I'd gotten when trying to communicate with those of a more Parisian profile. (The difference between Canadian French and European French is as dramatic as the difference between British English and American English.) Canadians were so kind and encouraging of my French, even sometimes asking me whether I was from western Canada (this is much better than sounding like an American, I assure you).

I have many ancestors who settled in or were born in places like Scarborough, Ontario; Grand Bay, New Brunswick; and Cardston, Alberta.

For my senior project in college, I wrote a detailed outline for a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel partially set in a mythical Canadian province called Nunavut. Right after I turned in my project for final approval in March 1999, the real province of Nunavut was officially created. I now (irrationally) feel as though I were the creator of this new province.

Our man Christian, shown here after getting his back-to-school haircut from stylist Dad, is a finalist in LDS author Anne Bradshaw's "Spotlight on Youth" contest! All the contestants are amazing kids, but of course I believe Christian stands out even in this great company.

Daniel, pointing at his own reflection in the mirror:
MOM! He's copying me!