Milestones

Yesterday was a very happy day in my life, my Baskin-Robbins wedding anniversary. Yes, I’m addicted to ice cream, but that’s not why I called it that. It was number 31!

My husband and I went to a new shopping center in the Glendale, California, called Americana at Brand, where we ate at a restaurant called Granville. The food was good and the ambiance was even better, partly thanks to our very attentive waiter. The fact that I drank a beer called Bison Chocolate Stout, and that our waiter, on hearing it was our anniversary, brought us a really decadent piece of chocolate cake--even called evil on the menu--made it really memorable, a great place to celebrate. I didn’t even mind that my husband watched part of the Lakers’ basketball game on a television mounted on the wall behind me.

It’s fun thinking about milestones like our anniversary and sharing them with family. Especially now, when our older son’s wedding will be in a few months. Yep, I’m going to become a mother-in-law. What a scary thought!

Our son is marrying a very sweet and lovely young woman. I knew I was going to care for her when I saw how great she was with our dogs!

I’ve been thinking about the advice I can give them, how to help them through the hard times that inevitably come. I’d love to think that everything will be smooth sailing for them, but no matter how wonderful a relationship is, life tends to toss roadblocks into it, usually unanticipated.

Plus, love changes and grows and matures--hopefully. My wish for them is that what they’re feeling for each other today will provide the basis for even more wonderful emotional connections to come.

I guess the best advice I have for them is to focus on that love. Try to be caring and patient with one another. I’m lucky enough to have a husband who lets me seethe and scream at life’s inequities, and even hint, at times, that he may have something to do with my irritation, but he’s still there for me--despite the occasional dirty look. There were some sticking points between us that I once considered huge, but over time they lost at least some of the edges.

Plus, we both got into this marriage as a partnership in many ways. Some of the time he was chief breadwinner. Other times, I was. We encouraged each other to take chances, to change and follow our dreams. We’re also tolerant of each other’s not-so-wonderful habits.

I think our relationship one of the main reasons I’ve been able to write romance novels, and mysteries with romantic elements. I mention him in nearly all the dedications in my books. Didn’t do it once, and I was asked if there was something wrong between us!

What’s your favorite bit of advice I can pass along to the happy couple? (Humorous is best!)

--Linda

Take off! (and landing)

All last week I kept hearing an ad on the radio – when I’m driving, I listen to the radio (much safer than cell-phoning or texting). It said that in honor of Minnesota’s sesquicentennial; that is, its 150th birthday, there would be a flyover of antique airplanes above the state capitol in St. Paul on Saturday around noon. My very dear friend Ellen and I love antique cars and planes, so I told her about it and we agreed we’d like to see it. But where were the planes coming from? She got on the Internet and found out they were gathering at the Anoka Airport (Anoka is a distant suburb of St. Paul), and there would be an air show out there. So we changed our plans and went instead to Anoka on Saturday. Another friend, Greta Lynn, was coming into town to visit grandchildren (and sleeping on our couch), so we asked her if she’d have time to come along and she would. So Saturday morning we drove out. They do an air show every year, but never before had they had these magnificent birds to display, and, despite the lack of advertising, the crowd was much larger than anticipated. A veterans’ organization had offered a five-dollar pancake breakfast and there was a very long line waiting for it (which we joined). When we finally got to the head of it, the man taking money asked us how we found out about the air show, noting how stunned the planners were at the turnout. But this was the sort of event that a person finds out about and tells all his friends.

On the taxiway in front of a row of hangers were warplanes from World War II. While we waited for our breakfast, a big silver plane landed and after awhile came taxi-ing up to park, its engines running very raggedly, pocketa, paki, boppety, BAM! and belching blue smoke. It was a B-25 called Miss Mitchell, who was depicted as a scantily-clad young woman on the left front fuselage. On the other side were black bomb silhouettes in clusters of five, each bomb representing a bombing mission. Total: 147! One hundred and forty-seven forays into the teeth of fighter and ground fire. What stories that plane could tell! And now it sat calmly in the warm spring sunlight, its war wounds covered over, Miss Mitchell's paint brightened, its defensive machine guns still bristling in all directions. We were permitted to peer into her open bomb bay, which was surprisingly small. She is privately owned, as were all the planes on display, an amazing fact all by itself. See one like her at http://www.aviation-history.com/north-american/b25.html.

Next was a P-38, one of the oddest-shaped planes I’ve ever seen. At the front end is a cockpit, and the wings each have a big propeller engine – but there’s no back to the fuselage. Instead, the engines run back in stems to where they join the tail, leaving a square hole in the center of the plane. The German pilots who had to deal with it called it the fork-tailed devil. P in front of a plane’s number designates a Patrol craft, but this thing was also a fighter and a bomber. It even sometimes carried torpedoes and went after ships. To see one, go here: http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/lockheed-p-38.html.

There was a Curtiss P-40, which is the kind of plane the Flying Tigers flew – they were Americans who got involved in the Asia theater of World War II before America formally entered the war. The P-40 in Anoka wasn’t a flying tiger, but it had the traditional fierce, snarling animal on its nose, much like this one: http://www.fighterfactory.com/airworthy-aircraft/curtiss-p-40.php.

There was a flight of six single-engine trainers – single-engine combat planes with enlarged cockpits used to teach fledgling pilots the deadly arts. They were painted differently to show designations for use by the Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marines – one had a tail hook! – but again, all were privately owned. See one here: http://www.warbirdalley.com/t28.htm.

One of the hangers out in Anoka is owned by the Golden Wings Museum that collects antique planes. And one was a big old "trimotor." That’s right, three engines, one on each wing and one on the nose. Built in 1931 as a passenger plane, it carried nine passengers. It flew so slow and so low that passengers could actually slide the windows open while in flight – though I imagine it blew things around a bit. The seats look like padded upright leather chairs. No seat belts. I had only heard of Ford Trimotors, I didn’t know anyone else made them. The one in Anoka is a Stimson, and here is a photograph of the actual Anoka plane: http://www.goldenwingsmuseum.com/Aircraft%20Pages/Tri-Motor%20-%20B.htm.

Did any of you see that PBS series on the aircraft carrier Lincoln? Remember the "look of eagles" about the pilots? Well, that same look is all over the people who fly these planes, when a pair of them walked through the crowd, it was as obvious who they were as if a spotlight shone on them. More than merely in great physical shape, these people are intelligent, competent – and cocky.

The pilots started the engines of all these planes and trundled slowly off, making a most tremendous racket, to the runway, and took off. In the sky, they gathered into formation and went off to their flyover, then came back to land at the Anoka airport. (And to think, we might have been over at the Capitol to get a mere glimpse of these planes passing overhead!)
Perhaps it’s because I served in the U.S. Navy, or maybe I’m just patriotic, but it moved me to tears to see these grand old veterans, these heroes and survivors of a very different and dangerous time, race their still-mighty engines and go charging into the air. It was the same feeling I got seeing all the human veterans who were out at the airport greeting one another, sharing memories of these old times, laughing and telling war stories. They are, by and large, gone to fat and walking sticks and hearing aids, but when sharing stories they become young again, falling into the cryptic terminology, the esoteric references only their fellow veterans truly understand.

CORRECTION: The bird I’ve been hearing some mornings and identifying as a robin is, apparently, a grosbeak. I went to a store that specializes in bird houses and feeders and baths to buy something to attract orioles – they love grape jelly and will return with their fledgling young to a feeder that offers it. Anyway, while there I told the story of the robin who taught me his song when I was a child and how I listen for the robin’s song every spring. And how the robins in my adopted state of Minnesota seem to have this little gurgle or glitch in their song. "But that’s not a robin doing that, it’s a grosbeak!" the woman behind the counter said. Apparently the two birds have similar songs, except the grosbeak’s is longer and more complex and it has this curious gurgle in it. As Bertie Wooster would say, I am dashed. Dashed if I’m not.

Nature - at arm's length

Here are two of my favorite paintings, from the permanent collection of the Met in NYC. I could sit in front of them for hours, and I have come close to doing that. They're representative of countless other landscape paintings that I love, like those of Millet, Corot, Church, and Pissarro.

What's so strange about that? Most of us relish the moments of meditation and pleasure we get from works of art. What I can't figure out is this — if I were actually standing in one of these landscapes, I'd be freaking out. So why do I love them?

In Cezanne's "Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley" there's grass everywhere, plants all around. I'm allergic to grass and I don't like plants. Though I can't see them, I'll bet there are bugs everywhere, too. I doubt that there's a coffee shop or a bookstore, or even a gas station within cell phone range. I doubt that AAA would be able to find me in case of a problem, and the nearest hospital — who knows how far away that is? I'd be hyperventilating after one minute.

Bierstadt's "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak" is even worse. The sun is strong. I don't like sun, in general. And there are animals. Eeek! I'm afraid of one half of the animal kingdom and allergic to the other half. Besides, they tend to add organic matter and odors to an open area like this meadow (valley? grassy knoll?), both of which I would find unpleasant if I were to stand at the focal point of this painting. I'm cringing at the thought of what would be on the soles of my shoes. And still no Starbucks or even a family-owned bistro. Nor a convenience store to buy bathroom tissue — oh, right, there's no bathroom.

My idea of roughing it on vacation: a couple of galleries at MOMA are closed, my theater seats are in the balcony, and late night room service takes more than fifteen minutes.

Thinking about this phenomenon — why I love paintings that depict scenes I'd go out of my way to avoid — it's a lot like my relationship with fiction.

I love reading and watching movies about crime — the ensemble heist, the perfect murder, the "lovable" serial killer, like Dexter — but I don't want it to touch me in real life.

There must be a name for this syndrome?

CONTEST: You Can Own (a SMALL) Part of a Steinway Piano

Okay, bear with me here...I got lost today. In the parking lot. Of the grocery store. I walked ‘round and ‘round pushing my cart up and down. A very nice man hustling his way into the store said, “Don’t you just hate it when you lose your car?”

Um, I had to explain that I’d lost my car WITH my husband and my dogs in it. And this was a Sunday, so it’s not like the place was that crowded. So I decided to go sit by the flowers on the bench outside and think about what I needed to do. (I’d neglected to bring my cell phone. Dumb, dumb, dumb.) Then got up and I tried again to find my husband. This time another man, cuter than the first, called to me from his convertible. “I bet you lost your car.” And golly, he was so darn adorable with his tan and his sunglasses—and his car was pretty hot--I thought, “Hm. Maybe I’ve tumbled down some fantasy Alice-in-Wonderland hole and he’s come to take me away. Forget the groceries!”

Nah....

I snapped out of that pretty fast.

My Brain is Addled...

By way of explanation, I have been thinking a lot about paranormals lately. I’m gearing up to start another series, so all sorts of weirdness has taken root in my addled brain. Gosh, when I start creating a new book or a story or even a project, I am lost to this cruel world. My brain moves into another realm completely.

Then I realized, I’d been looking for the WRONG car. We own four. We’d driven to the grocery store in David’s car, not mine. And sure enough, I started my aisle-by-aisle trek again and spotted my husband grinning at me from behind his steering wheel. We laughed and laughed. The dogs were happy to see me.

But I'm Evidently NOT the Only Person Who Gets Lost in a Creative Funk

I could feel really stupid. But I got home and dug up this article I cut from the New York Times last Sunday about violin soloist Phillippe Quint who left his $4 million instrument in a cab, as has Yo-Yo Ma (cello, taxi trunk), Gidon Kremer (violin, Amtrak train), Lynn Harrell (cello, taxi), and Peter Stumpf (cello, front step).

Which makes me very glad we sell Steinways. So far no one has misplaced one. (At least not one of ours.) Which is not to say, we've never had other problems. Three weeks ago, we were sitting through the first number in a concert with Leonard Slatkin featuring his friends, including Peng-Peng Gong, an amazing 14 year old. Check him out at http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/user_page.pl?url=pengpeng

Midway through, I heard a ping from Peng-Peng and with a pang, I realized he’d broken an A string. One of our favorite tuners Liz Baker was in the house, but Liz didn’t have an extra A string on her. (She was, however, wearing a pair of shoes that totally rocked. I’m sure she just didn’t pack an extra A string when she dressed for the evening.) She did manage to fix the Model D (Steinway's 9 foot concert grand) so that the broken wire didn’t fly up and hit the next musician in the chops. (He graciously told us after the concert that he managed to “play around” the missing A. I swear these high-caliber musicians are totally amazing.)

Which is a Very Roundabout and Sneaky Way to Introduce My Small CONTEST for You to Own Part of a BIG PIANO.

If you have ever wanted to own a Steinway—and it just hasn’t happened for you yet--I have FIVE genuine hammers from Steinway pianos to give away. I picked them up at the Steinway factory in New York. You can take the amazing tour of the factory by hitting the link above. (Sadly, they are rejected hammers, but no one needs to know that you and me!) If you send your name and postal address to killerhobbies@aol.com, I’ll pop one in the mail to you. First come, first serve until they run out.

Then you can tell all your friends that you own a Steinway, but that you happened to leave MOST of it in the back of a taxi….

The Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis

A Special Report
By Fay Zerb

I have been asked by Joanna Slan to write a little something about our miniature museum (the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis). This group was started in 1989 because a group of ladies were concerned about their miniature collection because their kids weren’t interested or didn’t have the space to keep them. The ladies didn’t want their stuff ending up in a yard sale. A lot of people downsize or go into a different living arrangement, and we get their stuff. Most of the things we have came from families once the miniaturist died.

When Owners Die

Several museums have folded once the owner passed away. (Joanna’s note: This, sadly, happened just this year to the entire Delaware Toy & Miniature Museum.) A lot of the museums were started by wealthy people had quite a collection of stuff, and they started their own museum.

How the Building Fund Started...and Plans to Expand

The group started sponsoring local miniature shows in 1991 to make money to buy a building for our museum. We actually bought our building in 2000, renovated the building and opened in 2001 with our first floor open to the public. Since then, our volunteers have been renovating the second floor, and we hope to open that level to the public this year.

The museum still sponsors miniature shows in the spring and fall where dealers from all over the country come to display and sell their miniature creations (dollhouses, roomboxes, dolls, furniture, food, landscaping, and everything imaginable) to the public.

Our museum is run by an all-volunteer board of 15 people. Our general members help staff the museum during our open hours. The museum costs a small fee to enter. If you are interested, you can visit the museum's website: http://miniaturemuseum.org/ and look at some pieces of our collection, information about the museum, information about the miniature show and much more.

Fay Zerb

Where Will Your Treasures Go When You Are Gone?

Note by Joanna: Fay’s post got me to thinking. What will happen to your hobby when you die? Have you thought of finding a good home for your collection? Does your family know who might enjoy or benefit from your supplies—that stash you haven’t used? Take a moment this week and write a letter of intent. I don’t know how legal it would be, but surely it might help your family make good decisions about your belongings. After all, you can't take it with you.

To be read pile

I'm on a list where people are posting pictures of their to-be read pile. Giant leaning towers of prose stacked up on the nightstand. Mine includes two manuscripts (Old Maid's Puzzle and Stamped Out), research on mountain lions, Pacific Grove and Julia Morgan, architect, the first mystery of friend (and soon to be KH blogger) Betty Hechtman (Hooked on a Murder)and the usual array of books.

TBRs and UFOs (unfinished projects in quilt lingo) are just a fact of life. I struggle to be non-judgmental and see them as bountiful abudance rather as anxiety-producing, brow-furrowing, stomach-churning to-dos. I try.

If it all gets too much, I purge. In fact, I'm getting rid of a UFO right now. Email me if you want it. It's a Judy Niemeyer paper-piecing project called Autumn Splendor. I believe all of the papers necessary are there. There are about 7 blocks complete, done in batiks in a wide variety of colors. I'm not guranteeing anything, but you should be able to get a lap quilt out of what's there. There's not enough fabric cut to finish. First one to email me gets it. terri@territhayer.com

So some pictures of my TBR pile:



TA-DA!

SUVs and idiot drivers – a lethal road mix

I hate SUVs.

I know that sentiment doesn’t exactly make me unique. But I have a personal grudge against them. More specifically, I’m angry at many of the people who drive them.

Here's why: my eighty-year-old mother’s life changed forever this year, when a woman driving a luxury SUV blew through a stop sign (while yakking on her cell phone, of course). She barreled into the driver’s side of my mother’s compact little Subaru without ever slowing down.

My mother and her passenger, who had been driving back from tea, survived, but they were both injured. My mother fared the worst. After several months of care and physical therapy she recovered physically, but emotionally she will never be the same. She refuses to drive anymore. Practically overnight, she went from being an active, vibrant, confident senior citizen to a fearful shut-in. Even now, whenever she rides in a car, she’s terrified during the entire trip. That accident was the turning point that ushered in the moment in her life when she became truly old. Old, frail, and frightened.

To help Mom recover, one of my sisters moved into her house; the rest of us talked her into getting a lawyer. But we quickly discovered that the state of South Carolina has some incredibly antiquated laws regarding consumer protection. The most my mother could hope for, even with good legal representation, was repayment of the value of her car and the cost of her medical expenses. Nothing for pain and suffering. Nada. Not one red cent.

I’ve never met the woman who ran that stop sign, but I despise her. My mother will suffer for the rest of her life due to one nincompoop’s incompetence and inattention.

I’ve changed, too. I’ve become an enthusiastic advocate of strong consumer laws and litigation redress. I’ve even started to look favorably on the much-maligned trial lawyers—I think they've got their work cut out for them to change some laws in South Carolina. Hell, let’s cut right to the chase—get me John Edwards on the horn. He’ll know what to do.

I know my anger shouldn’t be directed exclusively at SUV drivers. Any driver can be dangerous and incompetent. But in California, anyway, SUV drivers are notorious for rudeness, lack of consideration, and poor driving and parking skills. They often drive like they own the road—especially the luxury SUV drivers. I’ve started glaring at them when they cram their behemoths into a compact parking space (at crooked angles), and when they cut me off in traffic. Pretty soon, I'll probably become one of those irascible note-leavers. I’ll shove little pieces of paper under SUV wipers with messages like, “How do you spell p-a-r-k, moron?”

Well, I hope they're enjoying their hundred-dollar tanks of gas, which is what it’s starting to cost in California. It's a small comfort that fuel costs are finally starting to kill the American consumer’s love affair with the humongo-mobile.

Already, SUV drivers around Los Angeles are trading in their vehicles for the current trend du jour, hybrids.

But at least against a Prius, moms will have a fighting chance. As for me, I'm thinking about attaching a pair of giant antlers to the front of my two-seater.

I want a little something pointy to greet the next yahoo who cuts me off.