Silver linings

And very black clouds.

There’s a hurricane out there. It may even have made landfall by the time you read this—although they say it’s moving very slowly—so maybe not.

There are going to be a lot of miracles this week connected to Sandy. There could easily be a lot of not so nice things happening as well. I’ve heard about some of them already. A playwright friend whose reading, long prepared and anticipated, had to be canceled and may have difficulty rescheduling. Another friend who gets a much needed extension on a project because a class can’t meet when subways are shutting down and mandatory evacuations are proceeding.

It’s easy, under circumstances like these, to take it personally. People have a tendency to do what I call omenizing. (Sometimes I make up my own words I’m a writer. I’m allowed.) I’ve even done a bit of omenizing myself.

This really good thing happened! Fate is on my side and everything will be perfect.

This really bad thing happened! The universe is out to get me.

Oddly enough, I thought this was going to be a post about the irony and the luck involved in moving from New York to Florida and finding that the two biggest hurricanes of recent years are hitting the City instead of the oft-troubled and occasionally inaptly named Sunshine State. And I thought I’d be segueing into a hope that there would be even bigger miracles—that the storm would turn out into the ocean, missing my fellow Americans and all the ships at sea.

But, as I write this, a little quote comes to mind that I first read in one of Robert Fulghum’s books, and I think this is the larger idea.

Sometimes it rains on the just. I believe that.
Sometimes it rains on the unjust. I believe that, too.
But I also believe that sometimes it just rains.
Neither God nor Justice or belief has anything to do with it.
—Anonymous

I think the fact that humans have the capacity to evolve to the point where we do not have to attribute these things to superstitious beliefs is, maybe, the biggest miracle.

And we can still hope that no one is hurt in the coming days.

Hope hard.

Hope never hurts.

If you thought Spenser was tough—

Meet Jack Reacher.

I found these books. I love it when I find a good writer who has written a whole series of books. (Of course, my favorite writer ever is Harper Lee, and she only wrote one book—but she only needed to write one.) It doesn’t happen often at this point, because I read a lot. It often seems like I’ve already read all my favorites—and sometimes more than once.

Just recently, however, I came upon Lee Child and his Reacher series. You wouldn’t have thought I’d like them. I tend to prefer the genteel English murder mystery to machismo and militarism. Violence doesn’t appeal to me.

But I had these books.

So, I checked them out.

I’m big on first lines. In my experience, a good first line is a good first step. It usually means the writer knows how to put words together. She knows how to get your attention. Chances are she will be able to keep it. (It doesn’t always work. The very best first line I ever read came in a book I could not finish. Just couldn’t get to the end of it. And I finish almost every book I start. That one was very disappointing.)

There are great first lines, and there are first lines that are just okay. I’m thinking the first line of the first Reacher novel was sort of in between. Averagely good. Which is to say, above average. Enough to set up that question in your mind: Why? And what’s going to happen next?

So, I kept reading. All the way through the next 15 novels.

The plots are surprisingly complex—with new twists. Not the same old action-adventure stuff at all.

The writing is good. There’s a voice there, a command of language, some psychological insight.

I know, for sure, that I would not like Jack Reacher if I met him in person—but I’d sure want him around if I were in danger. He meets violence with violence, and I’m not sure I approve of that in the real world (some would say it’s arguable that I don’t actually live in the real world)—but since he never attacks first, and the bad guys are like really bad, it works for me in the books.

He’s larger than life, of course, with a number of nearly super-human characteristics and an unlikely ability to figure out what the bad guys are going to do by just putting himself in their place. I mean, it’s not really believable that a person can stand outside the Four Seasons in New York, look at the surrounding blocks and decide that the quarry must be in the third brownstone on the left out of all the millions of places to hide in the city. But I can suspend my disbelief that far.

I like competent characters. Reacher is that, for sure. Those first 15 books were a good find.

Now I’ve got to go find the last two.

No avian fatalities

Fair flying weather for the feathered flock.

I cleaned my windows three days ago, and there have been no avian fatalities. It’s a miracle!

The thing about the windows is that they sort of act like mirrors. When they are clean, they reflect the surrounding trees and sky. The birds can’t see them. So, the moment when the windows have first been cleaned is the moment of maximum danger. It almost makes me not want to clean the windows.

Almost.

But part of what makes Casa Lagarto such a great house is the view. And you can’t see the view if you can’t see out the windows. (Although to be fair, I didn’t realize how dirty they were until I cleaned them. However. . .)

I cleaned them on Friday. It’s not a bad job. As long as the weather is reasonably warm, and you don’t mind getting soaked. I’ve got a long extension pole and a squeegee and a divided bucket. A little dish soap, a little elbow grease—actually, shoulder muscles are more relevant than elbows—and it gets done. The hardest part are the ones on the second story because that’s really the limit of the extension pole. The whole operation is shaky at that point. But, I persevered, and the outside of all my windows are now sparkling clean—with, it must be confessed, assorted streaks.

Could it be the streaks that have protected the birds?

No. There aren’t that many streaks. No more than on previous occasions when we did have some serious collisions. Twice, birds have knocked themselves out. One—an ibis—sat on the grass afterwards for so long that I even called the bird rescue team. I was given specific instructions on how to safely pick up the bird to move it somewhere safe from predators pending collection by the rehabilitators. When we went to do it, however, the bird pulled itself together and flew away.

It was a traumatic experience for everyone concerned—except, maybe, the bird rescue people who didn’t actually have to do anything. I suppose, though, that was a miracle, too. Just like the one that is keeping them out of harm’s way now.

And, every day, the windows get less clean and less dangerous.

Fingers and feathers crossed.

What I learned about pumpkin carving

at the pumpkin carving party.

Yesterday, we carved pumpkins. Here’s what I learned.

It’s good to get the little kids to scoop out the innards. Their hands fit, and they don’t mind the essential ookiness of pumpkin guts. (Well, 50% of them don’t mind. 1 out of 2. The pumpkins got emptied.)

The pumpkin carving tools sold at the Halloween store are useless. The plastic awl breaks. The plastic lever breaks. The scoops are too small. The saw must be handled very, very carefully, or it will break. (You’re not going to hand a tiny saw to a four-year-old anyway. Go get some real tools!)

You don’t actually need any creative ability anymore. There are templates. Any reasonably persistent and averagely coordinated adult can turn out a jack-o-lantern of amazing artistry.

You can have daytime pumpkins and nighttime pumpkins. The daytime pumpkins are like Mr. Potato Heads with foam felt features, all pre-cut with stick-on adhesive. All you need to do is poke strategic holes in your pumpkin for the insertion of pipe cleaners (now known, for some unfathomable reason, as “chenille”).

Little kids do better with the daytime pumpkins. Like I said, you’re not going to hand a tiny saw to a four-year-old. So, guess who’s really doing the carving? (Not me. I put the ears on the pirate and the bubble-gum balloon in the princess’s mouth. FYI, the self-stick stuff doesn’t stick well to pumpkins. I suggest Elmer’s Glue as a fall-back position.)

We ended up with a pirate, a princess and a cat in the daytime pumpkin category. The nighttime baton will be carried by a Frankenstein, a carved cat, and an old-fashioned freestyle jack-o-lantern.

A final word of advice. If you have free-roaming bunnies, you might want to put the pumpkins on the porch closer to Halloween.

I’m just sayin’.

You might have had to be there.

But maybe not.

I found this video. And I’m laughing and laughing. You won’t understand why, probably, unless you were a fan of the groundbreaking television series Cagney & Lacey.

Cagney & Lacey was the first, and quite possibly, the only tv show to have ever been brought back from cancellation by its fans’ campaigns on its behalf. It ran for seven seasons from 1981 to 1988, it enjoyed an uninterrupted and unmatched six year winning streak of Best Lead Actress Emmys for its two stars, and when it finally left the airwaves, it came back in four separate reunion movies.

I think it was also the first show where the two main characters were women. Previously, almost all dramas would center on one or more male leads, a couple of supporting men, and a token woman. As if one woman was enough to represent all women. As if there were no differences among women. As if the defining characteristic of any woman was that she was a woman.

And then we got Cagney and Lacey.

Two completely different women. In the same show.

Smart scripts. Extraordinary performances by Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless.

Let me say that again.

Extraordinary.

Fully-realized, three-dimensional, very real characters who changed and grew and suffered and thrived—and solved crimes! It was a police procedural that took on big issues—women’s rights, career vs. family, police corruption, love and loyalty and friendship. No other show I have seen has ever struck and maintained the balance this one did between the professional and the personal.

It had a great supporting cast, but the center was always Cagney and Lacey, Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless.

I loved it! And I still love it in the few DVDs that are available.

But what I’m laughing about today is this video I found of Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless singing at a 1999 benefit. If you were a fan of Cagney & Lacey, you’ll probably agree that it’s hilarious. If you weren’t, you might enjoy it anyway. If not, go get the DVDs. Watch a few episodes. Then come back.

Either way, here’s the link:

Sharon Gless & Tyne Daly Sing

Transplants

A 50/50 chance.

I re-potted some plants yesterday.

It was kind of a mass promotion. With less mayhem than in the days when the British army would toast “to bloody wars and dread diseases.” I’ve also heard that it was the British Navy and the toast was “to bloody wars and sickly seasons.” It meant, of course, that the officers had no hope of promotion unless there was an opening above them. Since superior officers retiring, by definition, required years, the fastest route to higher rank would be someone else’s death.

Fortunately—and somewhat astonishingly—none of my plants had to die in order for several of them to move up in pot size.

Oh! Wait! That’s not true. The tomato plant!

The tomato plant did yeoman service throughout the summer. But it went the way of all tomato plants—or, at least, any that I’ve ever owned. Yield tapered off. The leaves turned yellow. The stalks dried out.

I dug it up.

Which left me with a very large pot.

I never planted the tomato plant in the ground because I have the illusion that container gardening will require fewer insect encounters than in-ground gardening.

For a while, I left the pot empty. I did set my chrysanthemum on it—the one that became such a baroque resting place for the lizard—but I left it in the small container in which it came and just set it on top of the dirt in the larger pot.

I had a vague plan that, eventually, I would either plant the chrysanthemum in the large pot or transplant the Northern Lights grass into it. This is the kind of vague plan that can evaporate due to lack of initiative and an unwillingness to murder defenseless flora. (I’m not good with plants.)

However, I was weeding one of my flower beds the day before yesterday (I’m good with weeds), and I found several shoots of vinca in places where I did not want them. The vinca has proven to be very hardy—by which I mean I haven’t killed it yet. So, it seemed like careful extraction of these shoots and re-potting them might be a good idea.

Ergo, everybody moved up. It was a game of musical chairs—without the music and without the chairs. The Northern Lights went into the very large pot. The chrysanthemum went into the medium pot. And the vinca shoots went into smaller pots.

Sounds a little like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, doesn’t it? I wonder which pot will prove to be “just right.” Odds are against all three of them making it.

I’m a transplant myself, you know. Putting down new roots is hard.

I’m so bummed!

But I’ll get over it.

I’m bummed because I have been faithfully blogging every day since June 10th. Every day!

It was a little goal I set for myself. Start a blog. Write every day.

For four months, I have been meeting that goal.

Thursday, however, something went wrong.

I wrote a post on Wednesday night. I looked it over. Spell-checked. Proofread. Formatted. And I thought I scheduled it. But last night, when I logged in to work on a post for today, I discovered it sitting there with a big bold “Draft” label on it.

Oh, it had the right date and time listed where the schedule information appears, but something happened. I must have neglected to push the button that would switch it from a draft to a scheduled post. I thought I did. I even think I saw the post appear in my inbox. (Yes, I subscribe to my own blog. How else am I going to know if something goes wrong with the delivery system?) Apparently, I was seeing things, however, and it never went out.

So, today, you may get two posts. Because a person can’t waste a perfectly good blog post, can she?

But my perfect record is spoiled.

Sigh.

This is a very dangerous moment. It’s like having a piece of birthday cake for the first time since you started your diet six weeks ago. If you let it become this big failure, you figure you might as well eat the whole cake.

Oops. Failed to meet the standard I set for myself. Missed a blog post. No point in continuing.

Or, you can decide that a piece of cake during a celebration is not a terrible lapse. You can eat salad tomorrow.

So, I’m bummed. And a little annoyed with myself for not double-checking. (Rushing to watch the VP debate–but that’s no excuse.) On the other hand, there are far bigger tragedies in the world. Far bigger.

A 14-year old girl was shot by a bunch of religious thugs because she wanted an education.

Yes, it’s important to adhere to goals and maintain standards. On the other hand, my message to myself today is to keep a sense of proportion.

14-years old. She wanted an education. They shot her in the head.

My little blogging error doesn’t seem like such a big deal, does it?

The most amazing thing has happened

I can draw!

I’m no da Vinci, but I’m sitting here with a couple of semi-respectable drawings.

It’s all thanks to this website I found: Drawspace.com

Drawspace offers over 200 free lessons in how to draw, and they’re pretty good. I’ve been working my way through the beginner level, and I’ve learned some stuff. I’ve managed some pretty good anime drawings, assorted simple cartoons, a decent line drawing of a fish and an awesome hand.

I’m not so good with lips. They all look like an alien spaceship or something you’d expect to come out of the Little Shop of Horrors, but I think I’ll improve.

Eyes are also a hit or miss proposition just now. Conceivably, I’d do better with some actual drawing materials rather than a #2 pencil and the back side of laser printer paper. I’m going to look into that now that I am not the artistic failure all previous art classes led me to believe.

I’m not saying I’ll ever be da Vinci, but I’m having fun. Someday, I might be able to leave the sample drawings behind, and sketch something recognizable out of my own little head. Wouldn’t that be something?

It just goes to show that taking the time to work at a thing and paying attention to how it’s done is half the battle. Because if I can draw, I figure just about anybody can.

You should check out Drawspace.com. But be warned! Drawing practice is as much a time sink as Facebook—and that’s saying something.

So far, I’ve been very disciplined. I’ve managed to keep up with my workouts and my yard work and some other commitments I’ve made. But the housework is starting to slip down the scale. And the writing has tended toward the bottom of the pile for the last few months (years?) anyway.

That will have to stop.

But in the meantime, I think one creative endeavor usually feeds another—and, besides, I can draw!

Who knew?!

The rules don’t apply to me

Except they do.

I was wondering yesterday, for the umpteenth time, why it is I think I can go without eating?

I get all involved in something, and I don’t want to stop. Just let me mow this one more patch of grass, pull this one more weed. Let me check Facebook and then answer this email. Let me figure out why this WordPress plugin isn’t working the way it should.

Just one more minute.

And then it’s two o’clock, and I haven’t had breakfast or lunch.

My head hurts, I’m tired, I’m making mistakes, and I am grouchier than a grizzly bear.

Everybody has had that happen, right?

Only, I am way old enough to know better—so why?

There are laws of physics, biology, gravity. Nobody is immune.

The truth is I—and every other human being on the planet—function better with a blood sugar level that hasn’t dropped below 70 and some reasonable amount of sleep.

It’s a fact. We know this. Why do so many of us ignore it?

It’s like we’re walking around thinking, Okay, I know if I drop this anvil on my foot, it’s going to crash down and break my toes, but today, I’d rather throw it up in the air and watch it float away, and it’s going to do that because that’s what I want it to do.

Yeah. Right.

One of the things they say in AA—I’ve heard—is you should never let yourself get too hungry or too tired. It undermines your sobriety.

Here’s another thing.

It undermines your creativity.

Art takes energy. Your brain needs to be sharp and alert when those brilliant ideas come along. At the very least, you can’t afford to make the dumb mistakes like not saving your novel before the computer crashes or having your hand tremble as your paintbrush is just about to finish the hat.*

So, why is it that I think I can go without eating? I really do wonder.

* Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George

It’s only slightly related to this post, but I wanted you to understand the reference. Enjoy!

You can do everything

Just not all at once.

Here’s a tip for you.

Multi-tasking is a myth. So, there’s no point in wishing for that third hand. Your brain can’t manage as much as you are already giving it, let alone more.

The modern world—and, for all I know, the ancient one—has led us to believe that we are faster and more efficient if we try to do more than one thing at a time. Check your email while you make phone calls. Write the report while you watch 60 Minutes. (Trying to be charitable there. Most of us are watching Dallas—or Honey Boo Boo, I guess.)

It’s all a juggling act, we say.

The truth is even a juggler is only handling one thing at a time: a ball, a bowling pin, a fire baton. The juggler is handling each one quickly, to be sure, and switching her attention more rapidly than most of us to the next, but she’s only handling one. (I know. I learned how to juggle in college. Don’t get me started on what my dad said when he realized that’s where my tuition dollars were going!)

Think about it.

Your computer multi-tasks.

Or does it?

If you’ve got any of those tools that analyze its performance, you know that it really doesn’t. Resource allocation is the term. Your computer is switching resources rapidly between tasks. It looks like it’s doing more than one at a time, but it really isn’t.

Thus, the extremely annoying paradox of modern life that you have to do less to do more. You either have to set things up so that you can focus exclusively on your most important task—which is likely to be impractical—or you have to allocate your resources so that you can focus serially on several important things.

There are things you can do to help make that easier—and some of them are sure to come up later in this blog—but they all tend to involve a few tasks in themselves.

Scheduling. Prioritization. Organization. Automation.

I’m sorry.

That’s just the way it is.

Stay tuned for more suggestions, but for now. . .just slow down.

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

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