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Category: Life’s Oddities

Sheltering in Place – Day 44

Today I started the final chapter of the latest Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, Casting Call For a Corpse. This novel has taken a really long time, probably close to 18-months. It’s not any more complicated than the others, but I’ve been a little busy, what with one thing and another. Let’s face it, just trying to decontaminate groceries from the possible contamination of COVID19 takes me awhile. I keep forgetting what I did and when I did it. That means I have to start all over again. But back to my books.  I can’t say I crank them out, anyway. It usually takes 10 to 12 months to finish one to my liking. Then I turn it over to my content editor and friend, Baird Nuckolls, and then the line editor, Paula.Grundy. That’s another month or two in the hopper. When writing, I often hang myself up on research and details. Take today. The protagonist and her husband are flying to Paris to celebrate their 6-month wedding anniversary. Sounds romantic and glamorous, right? Truth be told, it didn’t take long…

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Sheltering in Place, Day 42

The governor of California has extended the shelter-in-place mandate until the end of May! Good grief! I have committed myself to nattering on about my thoughts and feelings until the shelter-in-place days are over. But what am I going to drivel on about? Because, let’s face it, drivel I do. Let me marshal my options on possible subjects: 1 -Hubby. The man I married is an endless source of material. Love him though I do, he is responsible for much amusement around the house. And aggravation.  Usually, he’s endearing and thoughtful. He has been known to clean up the kitchen, load the dishwasher, and do a load of laundry, all before I get up in the morning. But just when I think he is the most thoughtful man in the world he goes and does something thoughtless, like leaving one of the stove burners on after he’s cooked something for himself. No matter how many times I tell him to turn the burners off BEFORE he lifts the pot from the stove, he keeps forgetting. We even have little signs…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 26

We’re all cooking more than usual these days, if we’re fortunate enough to have a place to live and food. I say with great pride I am Italian-American. Actually, genetically I’m only half Italian-American, but I was brought up in that household, surrounded by all my Italian-American family, so I think of myself as 100% pure. I do a lot of Italian cooking and we harken back to Bari, Italy.  If you look real close at the heel of the “boot,” you can see where my people come from. Or to be grammatically correct, from where they comes. There is a saying in my family: When company’s walking down the sidewalk, put on the pot of water for the macaroni. The gravy (tomato sauce) was always, always made. Of course, none of us are having too much company these days. Looking on the bright side, that means lots of leftovers for the next day. Unless hubby decides to have a late-night snack. You know him. Anyway, I tried this new recipe. It was relatively easy and I think it’s pretty…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 25

Yesterday was one of those above and beyond stressful days. It’s not just the Covid19 thing I have to worry about. It’s trying to keep a man who is recovering nicely from his angioplasty and is now full of energy and boredom. He doesn’t know where to put any of it except in his stomach. The fridge. His new BFF. If he isn’t eating, he’s thinking about eating, talking about eating, and planning his eating. It all seems to run in two-hour increments. Then there’s the mourning of what we’ve run out of that he has demolished and would like to eat. While the risks are low for catching anything from going to the grocery store, especially at 6 am, I keep hoping I can stock up on enough food to go for ten days to two weeks. Good luck to me. We keep running out. Or at least, running out of his favorite foods. Yesterday I did an Instacart. It did not go well. By the time it was my turn for the shopper to shop, over half the…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 24

Everything I am, I owe to my cat. Now some people might call this a harsh assessment of me, the human being. But I feel that Ellie has shown me areas of my personality that could use some work. First, humility. I can say with no small amount of pride that when I am with her she doesn’t seem to mind. This has boosted my self-esteem tremendously. Being not minded by your cat is a feat unlike any other. It is not often that your cat gives you a free-to-walk-about-the-place card. I take this with the humbleness it deserves. Second, clarity. Having prolonged chit-chats with another entity who dozes off upon occasion or interjects the conversation with yawning goes a long way in reminding one to keep up the pace of the subject matter. Do not rest or linger upon a particular subject. Do not indulge in long-windedness. When I do, Ellie hops off the bed and heads for her cereal bowl. Or litter pan. Either way, she makes it clear I am never going to win the debate championship.…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 23

I can’t get the hang of this ordering online thing. I either accidentally order in huge quantities (remember the TP) or order the same thing repeatedly. I now have three shipments of face masks coming from three different companies at three separate times. I have no idea how I did that. Of course, these delivery services don’t help. Things are often delayed or they back up the delivery date. A couple of weeks ago I  ordered food, perishable and non-perishable, to be delivered at a certain time on a certain day. No matter how often I phoned about it, nothing arrived. At around 11 pm that night I gave up and went to bed. When we awoke the next morning, Norman went to take out the garbage and there the order was, frozen stuff defrosting nicely and milk going bad. But I am nothing if not a Pollyanna. So I took a chance and ordered online groceries again, but this time from our neighborhood grocery store. That order was put in last week because they need a five-day lead time.…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 19

Remember those extra rolls of TP I accidentally ordered a few weeks back? Not only did we supply neighbors with some, but today we drove the 55 miles up to San Francisco to bring hubby’s 95-year-old mother and her caregiver/granddaughter (our niece) 10 rolls. Right now in SF you cannot get TP for love nor money. We added a small vase of fresh flowers and a homemade card, so grandmama would feel lifted. Our beautiful niece, in turn, gave us a can of worth-its-weight-in-gold Lysol Spray, plus some non-perishable snacks, seltzer water, and fruit. Yes, we have no bananas. Oh, wait, we do have bananas. Five of them. And an apple. And two oranges.   After exchanging boxes and chatting for about five minutes, they sitting on the stoop and us standing on the sidewalk, we drove the 55 miles back home. Even though we did our social distancing routine and it was a long time traveling for such a short visit, it was lovely, simply lovely. And absolutely worth it.

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Sheltering in Place – Day 17

I was glad I was a writer today. Or am a writer. Today, instead of dealing with the latest same ol’, same ol’ ONLY WORSE news of COVID 19, I got to do a car chase over Highway 92, wind up at Pellegrino’s Christmas Tree Farm (made-up) with Lee and Gurn (my protagonist and her hubby), who manage to sabotage the getaway helicopter of the villains. And remember, because I write cozies, there may be dastardly deeds afoot and villainy abounding, but things are always set right in the end. Yes, it may have only been in my mind but it was very real to me at the time. I zipped over 92, heading west with the early morning sun coming up on a glorious day in a glorious part of the world. Ah, the joys of the light-hearted mystery and the writing of them. And, of course, I had to do research on fuel for a helicopter (there are two kinds, depending on the engine), if the windshield could be penetrated by a bullet (yes), and how those blades…

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Sheltering in Place – Day 15

Okay. We have another 30 days of this shelter-in-place thing. We can do it. I am so confident in this, I am offering to be one of the cheerleaders of our group.  However, I’m not that thrilled with the cheerleaders on the left. First of all, who wears their hair that long anymore? I think I can relate to something a little more grown-up (see below to the right).  Here’s a cheer to get you started, somewhere between that and a rap song. After all, we must stay up with the times.  

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