Blog Tag-I'm "It"

In general, I am not much of a follower of trends or fads.  One look into my wardrobe would make that abundantly clear.  This is especially the case with Internet “pass it along” kind of things. Nonetheless, something has come along that has grabbed my attention.  Caroline from the Big Book Little Book Blog tagged me in this little game where they ask eleven fellow bloggers eleven questions.

The rules, as I am told, are as follows:

• Answer the eleven questions that were asked of you by the person who tagged you!
• Make up eleven new questions and tag eleven new people to answer them!
•  Let them know you tagged them!
• Use a lot of exclamation points! (Okay, I just made this one up.)

It's your round at the pub and I've asked you to surprise me. What drink would you buy me and why?

A glass of ice water.  Surprise! 

Okay, take two.  I am not much of a drinker, but I feel that everyone should have a pint of Guinness in an authentic Irish Pub on St. Patrick’s Day at least once in his or her life, as I have.  This is despite the fact that it tastes like motor oil that has been wrung out of dirty sweat socks.  So, enjoy! The restrooms are over there, by the way.

If you had to spend the day as a character in a book who would you be and why?

Aragorn, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, was just a total dude from his first scene to his last.  Noble, brave, loyal, intelligent, and leader of a badass army of ghosts…what’s not to love? 

What was the last thing you read/watched that made you cry? (Real tears, preferably with snot bubbles!)

I am concerned that answering this question will cause me to have to turn in my “man card”.  Let’s just say that about five years ago, I had an elderly dog that I loved very much, but whose health was in decline.  At that time, I made the mistake of reading the terrific canine tome Marley and Me by John Grogan, which ends in the manner most dog books and films inevitably do.  ‘Nuff said?

I don’t DO snot bubbles, by the way.

They say that you learn something new every day. What was the last thing you learnt?

I learned that you should never, ever, no matter how friendly you are with her, remark to a very pregnant woman she is “as big as a house, in a good way”.  Never.  Not even once.  Trust me on this!

Marmite: Love it? Hate it?

It’s a British thing, so being a bloody Yank, I had to look “Marmite” up.  According to www.marmite.com (really!), “Marmite is a nutritious savoury spread that contains B vitamins, enjoyable in a sandwich, on toast, bread or even as a cooking ingredient. You'll either love it or hate it.”  Considering that Marmite a) is actually a yeast extract paste with added vitamins, vegetable and spice extracts, b) is considered 100% vegetarian, and c) originates in Great Britain, then I’d have to say I am best suited for the “hate it” camp. 

I truly love you Brits, but you have to admit that your cuisine can be kind of suspect.  “Toad in the hole”?  “Bangers and mash”? Seriously?  If I ever go to the U.K., I’ll be bringing a whole suitcase full of PB &Js.

Which literary love interests would you snog, marry and avoid.

This response could be an entire blog post in itself, so I’ll it simple and brief.  Disclaimer: I didn’t put a great deal of thought into these.

• Snog
: Dr. Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. (Don’t judge me, people!  I have a thing for smart women and for blondes, and not often enough do the twain seem to meet.)

• Marry
: An adult Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. (After  she’s graduated from Hogwarts, has a terrific, high-paying job in the Ministry of Magic, and can both support my staying at home to write tripe like this and keep me from getting destroyed by evil.)

• Avoid
: Lady Macbeth from MacBeth by William “Crazy Willie” Shakespeare. (Wouldn’t you avoid that crazy chick too?)

What's your usual order from Starbucks/Costa?

It takes me a whole lot of mental preparation to offer a stranger cash in exchange something “tall and skinny”, for fear of being misinterpreted.  As it is, I go into higher-end coffee shops with intentions of ordering something rakish and sophisticated, but inevitably freeze, mumble “large hot regular with just creamer please”, and then pretend to become very interested in the napkin dispenser.  Meanwhile the barista is looking at me as though I just stepped off the set of “The Beverly Hillbillies”.  It’s hard to truly savor a $4 cup of java after a humiliation like that, so I usually get my coffee at the gas station near the interstate instead.

What is your oldest memory?

I remember sitting on my mother’s lap when I was three and she was pregnant with my first brother, feeling him kick and talking to her about the new baby coming.  At least, I think that’s what the conversation was.  I was three.  I might have been talking to her about whether dinosaurs ate cheese puffs.  It’s kind of hard to say from this vantage point many years later.  These days I’m lucky if I can remember what I heard on the radio five minutes ago.

Paperback, hardback or Kindle? Which of these is your favourite reading format and why?

E-books, totally.  I never thought I’d say that, but I am hooked.  I really wasn’t looking for one, but I got a Kindle for Christmas in 2010.  Once I started using it, getting comfortable with its features and its feel in my hands, I fell in love with it.  Since the Kindle stole my heart, I’ve read only four or five books for pleasure in paper formats.  The amount and variety of reading that I’ve done has skyrocketed though, thanks to the Kindle.

My major exception for e-books is instructional texts.  I still like to have pages to turn and margins in which to write for that kind of book. Plus, you can’t hide a comic book behind a Kindle in class. 

What is your favourite quote/saying?

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” 
~Polonius, from Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

The speaker at my high school graduation was a favorite English teacher of mine, who made this the centerpiece of her address.  Yes, I actually listened to the speech and have remembered what she said after all these years.  Someone once told me I am the only person who ever paid attention to a high school commencement speaker.  That’s probably true, but I am glad I did.  I’ve always tried to “keep it real”, and I think that Mrs. Stone’s advice passed on from Shakespeare has been there in the back of my mind as a reminder to do so.

If you could bring back any TV show for another series (season) what would you pick and why?

There was an animated program from Japan adapted for American TV which I watched religiously when I was about ten called Star Blazers.  The show was on our local ABC affiliate every weekday afternoon at 4:30, and it was “appointment TV” for my friends and I.  Everything stopped when Star Blazers came on.  The program was an early Japanese anime series, created for audiences there in the early 70s.  It was dubbed in English (not terribly well) and brought to the States in 1979. 

In brief, it was a sci-fi cartoon about the crew of a resurrected World War II battleship that has been retrofitted to become the most butt-kicking spaceship EVER! They are on a mission to save the Earth by traveling to the edge of the Solar System to retrieve a formula that would save the planet from annihilation by radiation poisoning.  The catch was, they had to do it in less than a year, and some really nasty outer-spacey guys, the ones who radiated Earth in the first place, were constantly trying to thwart their mission by blowing them to smithereens.

I recently saw some original episodes online, and man, does it look CHEESY!  I didn’t notice that at all when I was a kid, but then again, a lot of things I thought were terrific in the late 70s would fall into the cheesy category today.  With the advances in animation technology that have been made, I am sure that the already-totally cool Star Blazers could become even better if it was remade in 2012.  Of course, if that ever did happen, my mind would again be blown, as would those of hundreds of thousands of other middle-aged guys who were once wide-eyed Star Blazers fans like myself in the late 70s.




My questions:

• What would be your second choice for a book to take to a desert island, if your first choice was eaten by a beluga?
• MacDonald’s or Burger King, if you had to choose, and why?
• What was the last album (CD, MP3, whatever) that you purchased?
• What genre would you love to be able to write well in, but have never attempted?
• Would you eat green eggs and ham?
• What is worse for you than bending back a fingernail?
• Who do you admire that is not related to you?
• What is an alternate name for your blog?
• Where would you spend your dream vacation and why?
• What is your rejected pen name?
• Why did you decide to answer these questions?

Bloggers I am tagging:

• Larry Enright @LarryEnright
• Mike Wood- Blog of Wood
• Kit- Blogging Dangerously @blogdangerously
• Mayor Gia @MayorGia
• Thomas Wilson- Storyteller @StorytellerTDW
• Ruby Barnes- eBook Author @Ruby_Barnes
• Johnny Virgil-Fifteen Minute Lunch @johnnyvirgil
• Piper Bayard @PiperBayard
• R.S. Guthrie- Rob on Writing @rsguthrie
• Kathy Lynn Hall- Red Mojo Mama Musing @RedMojoMama
• Handflapper- Handflapping @Handflapper

The Accidental Coffee

I am in possession of an entire pot of accidental coffee this evening.

Here’s the thing: I am not worth a tinker’s damn when I first get up in the morning, so I typically prepare the coffeepot the night before in order to avoid unpleasantness at dawn.  I do it every night, like clockwork.  And I did it tonight.  However, instead of hitting the “AUTO” button so it will start on its own in the morning, I accidentally hit the “ON” button, and then proceeded to leave the room.  A half hour later, I walk back into the kitchen to be greeted by a full pot of coffee.  

Accidental coffee.

Now this is the kind of problem that seems to always find me.  Specifically, a weird one.  What in the world am I going to do with a full pot of coffee at this time of night?

Drink this accidental coffee, you say?  Well, I suppose I could.  Only I have a heck of a hard time falling asleep at night if I drink any coffee after 3:00 in the afternoon.  And this is a pot that my father would say “puts hair on your chest”.  I planned to tackle the next chapter in the book I am co-authoring in the morning, so I made this pot using the so-called “good stuff” (i.e.-not the everyday brand I typically use), and it’s extra strong and extra large.  If I start guzzling java now, I’ll be awake until dawn and be a mess tomorrow.  Plus, I’ll have to run to the bathroom every half hour all night.

 I toyed with the idea of inviting some people over for accidental coffee.  The trouble with that is that it’s fairly late in the evening, and most of the people I would invite are home and settled in for the night.  They have work or whatever in the morning, and going out in the mid-winter cold to have something that will keep them up all night would be about as appealing as a root canal.  So that’s out.

There’s always the option of just dumping this accidental coffee down the drain.  I hate to do this.  You see, I come from a long line of people who subscribe to Yankee frugality.  It’s just not in my blood to waste this much coffee, especially a whole pot of “the good stuff”.  Plus if I did, I am fairly sure that somewhere in Latin America, Juan Valdez would shed a tear.  His burro probably would too.  I would have a hard time living with the thought of that.

I could get creative, I guess.  Maybe I could pour all this accidental coffee into colorful cups, put bright ribbons around them, set them on a decorative tray and take them to my neighbors’ house with a note of appreciation for their being such fine neighbors.  I’d ring the doorbell, set the tray down, and run away.  Then this accidental coffee would be someone else’s problem.  The thoughtful presentation and the kindness behind it would be such that they would have no choice but to take it in and drink it.  Trouble is, I have no colorful cups, bright ribbons, or decorative trays, and my neighbors aren’t all that terrific really.  Their dog tries to bite me and they sometimes play country-western music too loudly.  So that’s out.

The thought of setting up a roadside stand and selling it crossed my mind.  Briefly.  However, the market for accidental coffee sold on the side of the road on a quiet suburban street late on a Sunday night in mid-winter is not really a jumping one, even if the price was right.

So, it looks like I’ll have to compromise.  I’ll drink some of it, but not so much that I’ll be awake all night, and then dump the rest down the drain. 

Sorry, Juan

Winter Un-Whined

A few weeks ago, I wrote at some length about my dislike for winter.  At the time, I noted how effortless it is for me, and many people I think, to slip into whining mode.  I personally find it easier to dwell on the negatives to emphasize the positives.  And it seems that our culture agrees.  Turn on the TV, and you’ll find it brimming with cynicism, condescension, and general gloominess.  This programming wouldn’t be so prevalent if it weren’t for one fact: it sells.

This is actually me, circa 1972.  My attitude toward shoveling hasn't changed much since then.

You’d think these would be halcyon days for someone like me with a longtime reputation as a sarcastic wiseass.  And I suppose they would be if my cynicism was a part of me that I was comfortable embracing. 

But I’m not.  Not really.  I’ve got a pessimist’s head, but an optimist’s spirit.  Admittedly, I let the cynical me have his way more often than I am proud of, but in this post, I am not going to.  I am going to write a counterpoint to my posting of a few weeks ago, and tell you about some upsides of winter, at least as they used to be.

I grew up the oldest child in a largish family in a smallish house, and many were the days when we kids were tossed outside to play and get out from underfoot.  This was before video games and DVDs, so when stuck inside my brothers and I could become bored and whiney nuisances in very short order.  Fortunately, there were lots of other kids living in our neighborhood, and their parents also subscribed to the “you kids go outside and play before I lose my mind” theory of child management.  Unless the temperature was well below zero or a hurricane of at least category three was sweeping through the area, there was typically a gaggle of kids in my neighborhood with some crazy plot brewing.  This was especially true during the snowy winter months.

Across the street from the house where I grew up is a large hill. It’s short but steep, and was the ideal spot for death-defying sledding.  Bear in mind that I was a kid while “The Dukes of Hazzard” was popular on TV.  Consequently, we not only wanted to go down that hill as fast as possible, but we also had a yearning desire to literally fly on our sleds.  Every winter we spent at least a third of our time there making and remaking snow ramps, sometimes at least four feet high, and another third coming up with outlandish and often dangerous stunts that all centered around the idea of hitting those ramps at top speed and going airborne.  There were many times when you would crash spectacularly and literally lie there seeing stars for a minute.  Then you’d somehow get to your feet, march up the steep hill, and do it all again.  We did this dozens of times in a single afternoon, for days and weeks on end.  Thank goodness young bodies are flexible and resilient, because ours were routinely put to the test on that hill.  Our sleds were not as flexible and resilient as we were however.  To this day, you can still find shards of plastic on that hill left behind from destroyed sleds.

As kids, we were constantly looking to get high.  Specifically, we wanted to be high up on a roof or in a tall tree.  The further off the ground we were, the happier we were.  Entire afternoons could be spent plotting ways to get onto a particular garage roof or into the higher branches of a tree in our neighborhood without benefit of a ladder.  Using a “borrowed” ladder was a possibility I suppose, but it would have been both too easy and too obvious.  The neighborhood adults tended not to be in favor of children on their rooftops, so a ladder would have no doubt raised their suspicions.

In the winter, tall banks of snow made it easier for us to get off the ground.  Oftentimes, they were high enough that we merely had to walk up them, give each other a boost, and there we were on a roof.  Of course one poor sap had to stay on the ground, because there was no one left to boost him.  Fortunately, there was one kid among us who was strong but not terribly fond of heights, and in return for giving us boosts, we didn’t razz him for being a chicken. 

Once we got onto the roof, there was only one thing to do after admiring the view, and that’s jump off of course. 

Most structures in northern climes are built with high, steeply pitched roofs to allow the large amounts of snow we get to come off easily.  In some cases, it was close to a 15 to 20 foot drop from near the peak.  Of course by the time jumping season came around, there was plenty of snow to cushion us.  The key to jumping off a tall roof into deep snow is to never, ever stick your landing.  Newcomers to the sport often learn this truth the hard way, and find themselves buried up to their armpits in snow, at the mercy of their friends to help them out of it.  And we usually did, after letting them squirm for a while.  As with many things in life it seems, bending your knees and being flexible were important.  Once you got the hang of it, backflips and somersaults soon followed.

In hindsight, it’s a miracle none of us were killed.  At the time, the danger barely crossed our minds.  Some of you might be thinking that nothing ever crossed our minds.

During particularly severe winters, which many of them were, the snow banks could become enormous.  While we kids would pitch a fit and carry on forever if we were asked by our parents to shovel a walkway or brush snow off the car, we thought nothing of digging into mountains of ice and snow for days on end, often with plastic shovels or our bare hands, constructing snow tunnels and forts.  By midwinter, the snow was pretty packed, and tunnels dug into them were pretty secure.  The coolest thing was when you could actually build a side tunnel off one that already existed.  We considered them “escape tunnels”, though we never really specified from what we would be escaping. 

The winter when I was about ten, we had riddled the largest snow bank in the yard with so many tunnels that we really couldn’t build any more without risking the integrity of what we already had.  Bored, we got the idea that throwing snow from them at passing cars would be fun.  Our tunnels were not easily visible from the street, though we had some small portholes that allowed us to see vehicles coming.  It was easy to see a car coming, decide if it was a worthy target, and fire away if it was.  We didn’t pack the snowballs very hard.  We didn’t want to do any real damage.   

In retrospect, it was an interesting sociological experiment, as we decided which vehicles to nail and which to spare.  Mrs. Johnson, the older lady who always had a bowl of candy close by when we around, was spared by unanimous vote.  Mr. Anderson on the other hand, a grumpy math teacher at the local high school, got bombed.  There was also a kind of unspoken understanding that we would not hit the vehicles of our own family members.

Needless to say, our snow sniper days did not last long.  Two days, and we were busted.  We made the mistake of hitting the truck of a man who lived up the street for a second time, a man whom my father had known since grade school.  He stopped his truck, then pulled into our driveway and caught us red-handed.  My father got an earful over the phone from him that night.  Our geese were cooked, and it was all I could do to convince my father not to have the plow guy totally dismantle our tunnel structure.

It was not all action and adventure in the winters of my youth, however.  One of the things I remember most fondly were the quiet times during a snowstorm, when I was either waiting for my friends to arrive or just after they had left.  I liked to lay flat on my back in the deep snow, while snowflakes fell onto my face.  It could get so quiet during a snowstorm.  Most people laid low during these times, and few vehicles were on the roads.  The newly fallen blanket of snow muffled most sounds that were made.  I remember listening to the sound of my own heartbeat and the barely audible taps of tiny snowflakes hitting my face and clothing.  Sometimes the wind would blow through the evergreen woods nearby, making a unique hissing sound that I associate to this day with those quiet moments in the snow.  Occasionally, a brave little chickadee would venture out into the snow from the woods nearby looking for some seeds in my mother’s birdfeeder.  In a snowstorm like that, you could hear the flap of their small wings as the passed by.  Curious by nature, it was not unheard of for a chickadee to land close to me if I stayed still enough.  I’d slowly turn my head to look at it, and it would cock its head at me as if I’d lost my mind.  I never had one land on me, but always wished one would.

So, no, I admit it, winter is not all bad.  It’s all in the perspective you take.  My days of flying through the air in plastic sleds and jumping off rooftops into snow banks are behind me (unless I want to take some medical leave from work), but there’s nothing stopping me from bundling up during the next snowstorm and flopping down in the snow to experience the beauty of it all.  Maybe the winters wouldn’t seem so long for me if I just took more time to listen to snowflakes falling and socialize with a chickadee or two.

Book Review: Asylum Lake by R.A. Evans

BOOK BLURB: The State’s second largest Psychopathic Hospital opened in 1917 on 600 wooded acres overlooking a small lake near Bedlam Falls, Michigan. Through its doors came the weak and the weary, the disabled and the discarded, the frail and the forgotten. But an open door is an invitation, and some visitors, once invited, are loath to leave. The hospital abruptly closed in 1958 under a cloud of mystery. It has remained empty and silent, save for the memories trapped both within its walls and far below the surface of the nearby lake that bears its name. At the bottom of Asylum Lake, the unremembered are growing restless. 

Brady Tanner is trying to outrun memories of his own. After the sudden death of his wife, Brady retreats to the small town where he spent the summers of his youth. But he soon learns small towns can be stained by memories…and secrets, too. As Brady is drawn into unearthing these secrets, as he discovers a new love in an old friend, he is also drawn into the mystery of Asylum Lake and the evil that lies submerged beneath its sparkling surface. What is the source of this evil – and what does it want with Brady Tanner?




I run hot and cold with so-called "horror novels", but for some reason was attracted to Asylum Lake by R.A. Evans. In essence, it is the story of a young journalist who returns to his hometown after tragedy befalls him, and becomes involved in supernatural happenings related to his late father and grandfather, a mysterious bracelet, and the abandoned insane asylum across the lake from his childhood home.

While there is no shortage of the requisite blood found in most horror fiction, R.A. Evans is clearly a smart writer, and builds a multi-layered story in Asylum Lake with characters in whom the reader genuinely becomes invested. Brady is a likable and believable protagonist, and the other characters are equally well-drawn. Evans makes great use of setting and effectively incorporates several horror motifs, especially "love interest/child/pet in danger". His pace is quick, but not frenetic.

I can always tell a terrific read by its ability to keep me up past my bedtime.  Asylum Lake did this for several nights. I highly recommend the book, and am looking forward to more from R.A. Evans.


This book was published in the summer of 2010, and the author is currently working on the follow-up.  His blog can be found here: http://www.raevanswrites.wordpress.com.com

FIVE STARS!

What Whine Goes Best With Snow? (Updated 1/25)

***UPDATED AT THE END.***

When writing a blog without an editor, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of whining in your posts.  I have to be especially vigilant, because whining is almost like my default mode.  Who wants to read that all of the time?  They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step in solving it, and I think I do reasonably well at keeping it in check, both here and in other parts of my life.

Well, screw that.  (At least for this post.)  I am going to whine.  Specifically, I am going to whine about winter.

I hate winter.  I loathe it.  I despise it.  It makes me miserable and uncomfortable.  And where I live in northern Maine, we get more than our share of it.  Kids here were trick-or-treating in the snow this past October, and will probably be hunting for Easter eggs in it.  It’s long.  It’s also harsh.  Just this morning, the temperature was 22 below zero Fahrenheit.  That is literally cold enough for snot to freeze your nostrils shut if you inhale too deeply. 

To keep my winter whine flag from flying too long, I am going to limit myself to the top five things I hate about it.

#5-Static shocks:  Mercifully, static shocks are only a serious problem when temperatures outside are below around ten degrees, which is not usually a long period of time.  In a house with wall-to-wall carpeting, static can really build up.  By way of example, I have stood up from my chair in the living room and gotten a shock from touching the aluminum soda can I am picking up.  On my way to the kitchen, the cat brushes by my leg and we both get zapped.  (I also get a bonus hiss from the cat, who is convinced that I have intentionally done something mean to him.)  Then, as I touch the light switch in the kitchen, another static zap.  I reach for the refrigerator door, and get another.  All of this takes place within about 20 seconds.  And these are not little tingles either.  I am talking voltage!  Taking off a sweater at this time of year can generate enough electricity to short out an aircraft carrier.  Needless to say, the cats, and all of us for that matter, tend to be very edgy on really cold days.

#4-Creaky joints: I’ll be 42 years old soon.  I don’t really feel like being in my forties qualifies me as old, but some oldish things have started to happen to me, like the onset of our family curse: arthritis.  With each passing year, I am better able to forecast whether there is a storm coming by the creakiness in my knees.  It gets even worse in the winter.  The worst part is the involuntary groan that escapes from my mouth whenever I stand up in the winter.  I think I am one step away from setting out a bowl of ribbon candy, watching Matlock, and yelling at those dadburn kids to get off my lawn.

#3- Dangerous driving:  I’ve driven in a LOT of winter weather since 1985, and have had some pretty scary close calls.  I’m am sure that, aside from the time I commented that one of my female friends was as big as a house when she was nine months pregnant, my winter driving exploits are the closest I have actually come to death.  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a deer come flying across your hood in the midst of a driving snow at night, her rear hoof just barely clipping your side mirror as she clears your car by inches and disappears into the storm.  This is often the problem with winter driving.  You can be doing everything perfectly, and some other entity, like a deer or an idiot, can nearly cream you.  On the upside, this is my first winter with an all-wheel drive vehicle, so I am hopeful it won’t be as terrible.  Of course, all-wheel drive isn’t much help on glare ice, and this winter we’ve had more freezing rain and sleet than snow.  If you see a blue Hyundai in a tree during the next storm, just wave.  That’s me.

#2-Snow removal: Clearing snow is something I have to do for my home, the home of an elderly relative and my workplace.  It is important to me that these three places are clear of snow and ice, and therefore safe for the people who come and go there.  I take it very seriously, but getting all that snow and ice off the steps, walkways, driveways, parking lots, roofs, etc.  can be a chore of epic proportions sometimes. Over the years I have fallen off roofs, nearly been run over by a truck, literally blacked out from exhaustion, been buried in a mini-avalanche, taken more flips on the ice than can be counted, as well as experienced all manner of sprains, strains, and pains, all for the sake of snow removal.  I keep telling myself it’s good exercise.  Maybe if I say that for enough years, I might just believe it.

#1-Cold feet: One of my all-time biggest pet peeves is cold feet.  While I am descended of hearty Irish stock on both sides of my family, I think I must have a distant ancestor who hailed from Equatorial Guinea.  If so, I have inherited their cold-sensitive feet.  I’ve had the same pair of sandals for almost 20 years, because there are so few days in the entire year when it is actually warm enough where I live to wear them.  On the other hand, I’ve gone through dozens of pairs of wool socks and slippers during the same period.   I wear wool socks from October until May.  I’ve heard of electric socks, but clothing one has to plug in scares me a little.  Plus it would need a hell of a long extension cord.

End of whine.  I have wool socks to launder.

(1/25) UPDATE!: Add "spontaneous nosebleeds due to dry air" to this list of winter woes I have.  Especially those that come on unknowingly in the middle of the night while sleeping.  I woke up this morning in the middle of what looked like my own murder scene.  Why can't I have normal problems like everyone else?

Look What I Read!: Four Years From Home by Larry Enright

Note: I am currently putting together another Adrian McAllister short story to share with you here, but in the meantime, I wanted to put up a review of a book I read not too long ago by an author whose work I have come to enjoy very much.  His name is Larry Enright.  He tweets (@LarryEnright), he Facebooks (http://www.facebook.com/LarryEnrightAuthor), and he blogs (http://fouryearsfromhome.blogspot.com/).  Sometimes, he does all three at once.  He is very talented and entertaining.  What follows is my review of his book Four Years From Home which was originally published on the Goodreads website last year.  He is also the author of A King in a Court of Fools and Buffalo Nickel Christmas.  All three of his books are available at a major online retailer named for a long and muddy tract of water in a mosquito-ridden, tropical land.

Having finished Four Years from Home, I can honestly say I am very glad I read it, though it was a challenge to get through in places for one reason: the narrator.   He is just not a likable guy through most of the book, and his emotional grumblings and rambling fantasy sequences can get annoying. It's a lot like being on an airplane, headed to some fabulous destination, but forced to sit beside an obnoxious jerk for the whole flight. That said, there is more to him than first meets the eye.  The final destination at which the reader arrives makes a little discomfort along the way all worthwhile.

There are myriad ways I could potentially spoil the plot in this review, so I will simply say that Four Years from Home is the story of an oldest brother in an Irish-Catholic family from Pennsylvania trying to find out what happened to his youngest brother, a college student who is missing and presumed dead. This is no typical missing-person mystery however. No, siree!

If you are considering reading Four Years from Home, I'd highly recommend it. If you are already reading it and are wondering whether to stick with it, I say wholeheartedly "yes". I turned to reader reviews myself for reasons to keep with it, and I am glad that I did.

Four Years from Home is definitely an interesting, original work, and you will be glad to have read it when you are done.

Adrian and the Cannibal's Internet Connection: A Humorous Short Story

After eyeing the Cabela's sale flyers for weeks, the Prodigy PRC200A reel / Fish Eagle XML casting rod combo Adrian McAllister had been drooling over had shown up at last, and at over 20% off.  He hopped into his pickup at dawn that Saturday and fought the early-season tourist traffic for the two hour round-trip downstate and back to the outdoor megamart. By lunchtime he was 45 minutes from civilization at his favorite fishing spot, all by himself, trying it out.  It was nearly the biggest mistake of his life.

Adrian’s line drifted lazily in the placid waters of remote Number 5 Pond.  After the early trip to Scarborough and back, as well as the rough ATV ride through miles of woods, Adrian was feeling pretty lazy himself.  It was a warm June day, not a cloud in the sky, and aside from the ubiquitous blackflies and mosquitoes, a perfect one for fishing.  Adrian’s wife was hosting a Pampered Chef party at their house that afternoon, and she was frankly quite relieved that he was not going to be underfoot.  Adrian was equally relieved that he was not going to be present for the cackling hen-fest.  Now he had the whole day to try out his new rod and reel, drink beer, and maybe even catch a nap.  It was shaping up to be a great day to get away from it all.

The new rod and reel was proving a wise investment, as Adrian caught several good-sized bass within the first two hours.  And that was using mere earthworms as bait too.  He celebrated his fourth catch of the afternoon by opening his fourth beer of the afternoon.  Just as he tipped back his head to take his first swig from the fresh can, a crushing thud landed on the top of his skull.  There was an instant of sharp pain, a flash of white light, and then it all went dark.  Adrian McAllister had been knocked out cold and was being dragged away.

About an hour later, Adrian groaned and slowly opened his eyes.  It was difficult to focus, and he was unsure of where he was.  He felt wet, and at first thought he had blacked out and fallen into the pond.  The top of his head was throbbing in pain, but when he went to rub it, he discovered his hands were tied to his sides.  His feet were bound too.  He soon realized that he was secured hand and foot and sitting in a large cauldron half-filled with water.  Though it was hard to see clearly yet, he swore he could see a middle-aged black man in some kind of wild, colorful costume just beyond the edge of the cauldron, hunched over something and swearing vociferously.  The frequent flick of a cigarette lighter could be heard.

“Umm…excuse me?” Adrian said.  Mild-mannered by nature, he was polite even in these circumstances.

“What is it?” the irritated man snapped in English with a thick accent that Adrian couldn’t place.

“Well, I was wondering what was going on, actually.”

“I am getting ready to cook you!  You cannot see that?” the man said, as though this kind of thing was an everyday occurrence in 21^st century Maine.  The flick of the lighter continued, more rapidly and with increased intensity.  “At least I am hoping to cook you, provided I can ever get this damned fire started!”

“Wait…what?!  Stop for a second!” This was not at all what Adrian was expecting to hear.  “Cook me?! Why? And who are you?”

The man stood up to his full height and gave Adrian an impatient look.  He was tall and rail thin, probably around 50 years old, with a lined face and salt-and-pepper whiskers on his pointed chin.  His rough skin was the deep color of mahogany, with the complexion of someone who had spent many days exposed to the elements.  And his clothing was something straight out of a community theater production of South Pacific.  Bright feathers, shark teeth on a string around his neck, elaborate headpiece, golden baubles…the whole deal.  The only thing that seemed out of place was the pair of rectangular-framed reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

“On my home island, I am called ‘Larmustamitua’, but here in this land of pine trees and mosquitoes, they call me ‘Larry’,” the man told him.

 “Okay, um, ‘Larry’, my name is Adrian McAllister,” he said. “Why are you going to cook me?”

With a sigh, Larry tossed the useless cigarette lighter to the ground.  He picked up two sticks from the ground and started rubbing them together as rapidly as he could.

“I do not suppose you were ever a member of the Boy Scouts, were you Adrian McAllister?”

“No, sorry.”

Larry hunched down to the ground again and continued to rub the sticks together in hopes of obtaining fire.  He spoke as he rubbed.

“My wife Thalia and I are from a remote island in the South Pacific known as Kimbango,” he began.  “This kind of thing is somewhat common there.”  He rested his head in his right hand and gave another sigh. “At least it was years ago.”

“’This kind of thing’?  You mean eating people?  You mean cannibalism?” Adrian asked with no small amount of growing concern.

“One might call it that,” Larry the cannibal replied in that heavy accent.  “Thalia always thought it was a barbaric practice and had nothing to do with it.  She went to boarding school in England as a young girl, and came back to the island full of all kinds of fancy ideas for our island, like vaccines, getting wired for electricity, and not eating human flesh.  Her father was our chief, and she had his ear.  He made changes in a great number of things, thanks to my Thalia.  ‘Progressive thinking’ she calls it.  ‘Moving into the modern world’.  Humph!” He tossed his head in disgust.  “She and I had a quiet life on Kimbango.  It was nice.  She was working in the local school and doing some freelance writing while I was a fisherman and working part-time at Orange Julius.”

“Orange Julius?” Adrian asked incredulously.

“Yes, Orange Julius!  It is the only fast-food franchise we have on Kimbango, and our people highly esteem their delicious fruit smoothies as nectar of the gods. There is a problem with that?”  The irritated cannibal started rubbing the sticks together more furiously.

“No, no…not at all! Just seemed unusual is all.  But please go on.”  Adrian decided that if he could keep this guy talking, he might have time to come up with an escape plan.

“Then in the late-1990s, change came to our lives.  Some of my Thalia’s writing caught the attention of a big publisher here in America, and she received a contract for seven books.  She tried telecommuting over the Internet for a year or two, but it was not working out.  The plane trips halfway around the Earth almost every month were very tiresome.  It was terribly difficult on both of us, so about ten years ago we moved here.  I was not in favor of the move away from our home, but I was a tremendously bad fisherman and the Orange Julius had recently ‘downsized’ me, as they put it.  Since my Thalia was the one putting pandanus on the table, it was her career we followed.”

Adrian shook his head, wondering if he was hearing correctly, or maybe that bump on his head had done more damage than originally thought.  “So let me see if I understand.  You are a practicing cannibal from the South Pacific, living in the woods of Maine, and you are planning to make me your dinner?”  His voice was rising several octaves as the reality of it all began to sink in.

“That sums it up nicely.  Yes.  Though I am not at all practicing.  I am quite good at it, though I have not done it in years.”  He pushed his glasses up his nose.

“But what about your wife?  Didn’t you just say she was against it?”

“I will simply tell Thalia that it is chicken she is eating.  That is what you will taste like anyway.”

“Look, you really don’t want to cook me!” Adrian started to babble. “I’m sure that I’d be pretty stringy anyway.  And I’m just getting over a cold.  You might get sick.  You know, we really ought to talk more abou-…” His frantic pleading was interrupted by the tinny sounds of the 1989 pop hit She Drives Me Crazy emanating from somewhere in the cannibal’s pelvic region.

“Pardon me, I need to take this.  I am expecting a call,” Larry said, holding up a finger.  He turned his back to Adrian and pulled a silver cell phone from a pocket in his feathery garb, speaking into it heatedly.  The conversation was intense but brief, only about a minute.  Larry the cannibal then snapped the phone shut.  “Accursed corporate bastard sons of a one-winged buzzard,”   he muttered.    The tall Kimbangoan then turned back to Adrian and the sticks he had been rubbing together in hopes of making fire.  “Now, you were saying?”

During the phone call, Adrian’s plan had become clearer.  If he could manage to occupy Larry long enough, Thalia would arrive home and stop this madness.  Yes, she was a writer, but despite that she sounded like a reasonable woman who did not eat human beings.  Surely she would let him go free.  Adrian commenced stalling.

“Is, uh, everything okay, Larry?  You sounded kind of upset on the phone just now.”

“Oh that?  Our Internet has been down for three days.  I am not very knowledgeable about computers at all, nor is my Thalia, and those jackals at Passable Point Communications cannot send someone here to check it out for another three weeks!  Can you believe that?  How am I going to keep up with my episodes of The Bachelor?  There is no cable, and antenna reception out here is terrible!  It was better in Kimbango!” 

Just then, the cannibal at last got a spark from the sticks he had been rubbing together, and ignited some tufts of dried grass.  He chuckled in a satisfied way as he set them among the kindling at the base of the cauldron.  Wisps of gray smoke began to rise.  Adrian’s already heightened sense of urgency kicked up several more notches as he soon began to feel growing warmth from the cauldron bottom.

“Well, I know a thing or two about computers,” Adrian replied.  “Why not let me take a look?” 

Larry considered this for a moment.  “Well, it is going to take a while for this water to reach a boil.”  He rubbed some gray whiskers on his chin as he tossed a pinch of salt and a few peeled onions in with Adrian.  “Okay, but then it is back into the pot you go!  You need to simmer for at least a couple of hours, or you will be as tough as the soles of my Talia’s feet.”  His need for a reality television fix had outweighed his desire to eat human flesh for the time being.  Adrian’s hand and feet were untied, and Larry helped him out of the water in the cauldron.

“Thanks,” Adrian said, rubbing his wrists and the knot on his head. He finally got to scratch at some of the numerous blackfly and mosquito bites he had acquired while tied up too.  “Now let’s go take a look.” 

Adrian had no intention of running from the cannibal.  They were miles from the nearest town, in thick and overgrown pine forest.  Larry appeared to be in excellent physical shape.  Adrian knew he’d be tracked down in no time flat if he attempted to make a break for it.

From the entrance to the hut that Larry and Thalia called home, Adrian was surprised to see that it was larger inside that it looked from the exterior, and was nicely appointed with a mix of items from their native Kimbango, as well as more than a few from the L.L. Bean catalogue.    A chubby orange tabby cat stared at them enigmatically from the back of an overstuffed sofa, and a spectacular painting of what had to be a sunset in Kimbango hung on the wall.

“Over here.” Larry gestured toward a desk in the corner, where an open laptop sat.  “And do not drip all over the carpet or my Thalia will kill me!”

Adrian left his soggy socks and shoes at the door, and padded over to the computer.  The problem was evident as soon as he took a look at the router nearby.  One of the connections between the router and phone line out had come undone.  A few tufts of orange fur amongst the wires led Adrian to believe that the cat had knocked it out while nosing around.  He could easily have plugged it back in and instantly restored Larry‘s Internet connection, but that would likely mean quick trip back into the pot.  So, Larry began to putter around instead.

“I think we ought to do what’s called a “defrag”, Larry,” Adrian said, knowing full well that such an operation would take quite a bit of time.

“Do what you must,” Larry replied as he sat down in a comfy-looking leather recliner.  He pulled out a newspaper and began reading.  Adrian was amused at the site of a South Seas cannibal in traditional garb lounging in his Laz-E-Boy with reading glasses on the end of his nose, checking out the baseball box scores.  He turned his attention back to the screen on the laptop, as little colored rectangles flicked on and off, showing the progress of the defrag.

Larry looked over at what Adrian was doing every few minutes, but it was far from interesting to him, and after about 45 minutes, he began to snore.  Adrian took this opportunity to restart the defragmenting program, so as to prolong the lengthy process even longer.  He began to explore the hut while his captor slept, checking out the numerous pieces of Kimbangoan art on the walls and flat surfaces.  He almost wished he could visit there someday, in spite of the island’s man-eating past.

His reverie was broken by the growing whine of an ATV coming closer to the hut.  Larry woke from his nap and sprung to his feet.  “My Thalia!  She is home!”  The cannibal looked more than a little concerned.

A beautiful middle-aged woman with smooth, coffee-colored skin and wearing a flowered-print wrap entered the hut.  To Adrian, Larry now looked less like a fierce South Seas cannibal and more like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.

“My Thalia!” Larry said, opening his arms to greet her.  They kissed, and then Thalia asked the inevitable question in an accent as thick as her husband’s.

“And who is this?” she asked, gesturing toward Adrian.

“This? Well this is Adrian, of course.”

“Of course,” the woman said with a puzzled smile. “Hello, Adrian.  That must be your blue ATV I saw just around the corner from here?”

“Yes, it must be.  It’s a pleasure to meet you Thalia.”  Adrian now realized that his means of escape was closer than he thought.

All three of them stood silently with smiles frozen on their faces for nearly 30 seconds, until Thalia finally spoke up.

“So what is Adrian doing here in our home, my husband?”

“You are not going to believe this my love, but I met Adrian fishing on the pond today, and it turns out he is most knowledgeable about computers!” Larry said.  “He is here to restore our lost Internet!” Thalia arched a skeptical eyebrow.

“You just ‘met him’, you say?”

“Yes, my Thalia, and he is close to restoring our much-beloved program The Bachelor to us again, are you not Adrian?”

“As a matter of fact,” Adrian said, “your Internet connection is fixed!”  He a button and their homepage appeared.  Adrian had stopped the defrag and plugged the router back in while the two of them had been speaking.

“Delightful, Adrian!” Thalia exclaimed.  “We are so grateful!  Here, have some pandanus!”  She thrust a basket of the odd-looking tropical fruit at Adrian. “And you simply must stay for dinner!”

“Well, er, thank you so much ma’am.  But I really must be going,” he said, reaching for his shoes and socks and pulling them on. “It will be dark soon.”

“Of course, of course!” Thalia said.  A look that was a mixture of relief and disappointment crossed over Larry’s craggy face.

“Thank you so much, my friend,” Larry said.  And with a wink, he added: “And consider it an open invitation. We’d love to have you for dinner some evening.”

“I just bet you would,” Adrian said through clenched teeth.  “Goodbye now!”  He waved, turned, and made a beeline for the door.  His own ATV and escape were only a few yards away now. 

Once outside, Adrian broke into a full run and did not stop until he reached his ATV, which he started in an instant.  He gave no thought at all to his new rod and reel, now lying abandoned alongside the pond, and within seconds all that could be seen of him was a cloud of dust.

The Kimbangoan couple watched from the doorway to their hut.

“Such a nice man,” Thalia commented.  “In an awful hurry though, isn’t he?”

“Indeed he is,” Larry answered.

“My husband?” Thalia asked coyly.

“Yes, my love?”

“What’s for dinner?”

Larry sighed deeply.  “Pandanus again,” he said without enthusiasm. Then he perked up a little.  “Though I do have four fine bass from the pond to fry if you wish!”

“Wonderful!” Thalia exclaimed.  “And while we are preparing the meal, you can tell me all about why your grandfather’s huge cooking pot is at a boil in the back yard.”