Trying Times

Hi everyone! I haven’t written a post in a long time, and with our stay-at-home days, now felt like the right time. I sincerely hope you’re all well and that you’ve found things to fill your time.

I stocked up on chocolate, so I’m happy. Too bad I didn’t stock up on toilet paper and tissues. Has anyone noticed, in the middle of all the talk about hoarding toilet paper, that the facial tissues have disappeared, too? Cleaning products? Forget it.

I know that people are having a difficult time during the Covid19 pandemic. Some people are feeling fear and panic. Wasn’t it Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, in his 1933 Inaugural Address, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself?” Be cautious, use your common sense, and live your life, even if it’s within the confines of your own home. Read a book, watch television, play games or do whatever holds your interest. I hear a neighbor outside mowing his lawn. I live in the far northwest corner of the United States. It’s still cold here and I wouldn’t be out mowing my lawn, but to each his own.

Because of a few health issues, I’ve made my last trip to the grocery store for a while. I’m not willing to take chances so I’m using my common sense and staying at home, looking for things to keep me busy. My writing keeps me busy. My housecleaning keeps me busy, too, but there’s only so much you can do. So here I am, writing a post after a very long time.

I’m a firm believer in humor keeping us going. My daughter has found several jokes online. Some of them are dark humor, but I have to admit that they can still make me laugh.

One of my all-time favorite movies is 1947’s “The Egg and I,” with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. It’s entertaining and based on the humorous memoir by Betty MacDonald. As a newlywed, her husband wanted to start a chicken farm in Washington State. When she visited her family in Seattle, she related stories of her adventures, or misadventures, on the farm. Her sisters talked her into writing the book.

Once, when visiting my grandmother, I saw the book sitting on her shelf and she gave it to me. I’m afraid it’s been sitting on my own bookshelf since the late 1980s. On a whim, I picked it up this morning and started to read it. I’m only a few pages into the memoir and I can already see the humor in it. I have a feeling when I sit down this evening, with the book, that I won’t be able to put it down.

I believe she wrote the book in 1945. In those days no one had ever heard of political correctness. She’s honest in her feelings, and she’s funny. Set aside the PC attitude and enjoy a good story.

So instead of watching a drama on TV, or reading a horror story, try picking up something with humor. Look for the humor around you.

One of my dogs, Sugar, has a “thing” on her neck. It looks awful. I called the veterinarian yesterday and they had me send photos of this “thing.” It seems she probably scratched or cut her neck and it’s turned into a bacterial infection. I drove to the vet’s office (and it felt so good to get out of the house) , parked, and called them on my cell phone. They have a little table outside, by the front door. A young woman stepped outside, set Sugar’s medications on the table, and scurried back inside. I then left the car and picked up the package. Nothing funny about this so far, right?

I brought home antibiotics and a spray for her neck. After I sprayed her neck, my other dog, Murphy, was so excited and wanted to sniff what I’d sprayed on her. Knowing him, he probably thought I did it just for him. One sniff and he made a fast U-turn and ran out of the room. Oh, yes, the spray has a pungent odor. Murphy’s reaction was one of those things you had to see to recognize the humor in it. Sugar is probably thinking, “Spray me again so he’ll leave me alone.” He does act a little pushy from time to time. By the way, Murphy is a very large Yellow Lab trying to run on a hardwood floor. His exit was not graceful.

My whole point is, try to stay busy, use your common sense and look for something that will make you laugh. At the very least, you want something that will put a smile on your face.

My thoughts are with you all and I pray for all of us every day. God bless you and I wish you good health!

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

(Sorry, but my website is a thing of the past. If I ever work up the courage, I may build a new one in the future.)

The latest Sandi Webster mystery is titled, “No One Will Find Me” and you might find a touch of humor as you get into the story. How do you combine a serial killer, suspense and humor? It can be done.

Amy M. Reade, Guest Author

My guest this week is author Amy Reade. Of course I had to read the post before I put it up, and let me tell you, you’re about to be entertained. (I also realized I’ll probably never travel with Amy. Yes, I’m laughing.) Her latest book, Trudy’s Diary: A Libraries of the World Mystery, will be available on April 16, 2019. Read on and I hope this blog brightens your day like it did mine. Welcome, Amy!

 

            Like all of you, I love reading Marja’s blog posts every Monday. I don’t expect to be able to match her for breadth and depth of topics and pure knowledge, but I hope I can at least entertain you while I’m here as her guest, which is both an honor and a privilege.

            (Thank you for the kind words! Marja)

            If you’ve read my books, you know that I love to set stories in places I’ve visited and found fascinating. I wrote a book set on the Big Island of Hawaii and three in the United Kingdom. I’ve also set stories in northern New York (where I grew up—write what you know!); Charleston, South Carolina; Colorado; and Washington, DC. I haven’t necessarily traveled to all these places recently, but some of them made such an impression on me that I put them in books long years after I visited.

            When I hear someone say “I love to travel,” I’m always a little bit envious. I picture people strolling down cobbled streets in Europe, sipping coffee and nibbling croissants at al fresco cafés in Paris, lounging poolside at a tropical resort under a huge cabana complete with cool towels and a frosty drink; or hiking against the backdrop of purple mountains’ majesty.

            I love to travel, too, but when I tell people that, what I should really say is “I love to travel despite everything that goes wrong.”

            Let me explain.

            This is what traveling looks like for the Reade family: after the initial complaints about where we’re going (these come from the children and it doesn’t matter where we’re going), they resign themselves to leaving at the appointed date and time. When that date and time arrive, one could be forgiven for thinking the date snuck up on us like a thief in the night. We run around like so many squirrels in a cage, packing, unpacking, repacking, making sure the kitchen is clean and the beds are made (in case, God forbid, we meet with an accident and someone has to come into the house to wrap up our affairs)…you get the picture.

            When we’re flying somewhere far away, I spend the first six hours of any trip crying about how much I miss the dog. Wine sometimes helps, and sometimes makes it worse.

            Upon our arrival at our destination, one of the children throws up. It’s almost always the same child.

            At some point during the trip, there is typically an injury or illness requiring medical attention, or at the very least, photographic evidence so people will believe us later. Once we went to Hawaii and all of us got pinkeye. Once on a trip to Washington, DC, one of my children stuck his/her head through the bars on the hotel window to yell “Hi, Dad!” (Dad was unpacking the car) and got stuck that way. It took three people to get the child’s head back into the hotel room. Once on a trip to Northern Ireland, one of the children went wading in a stream that was on the property of our VRBO and got a nasty rash that had remarkable staying power.

            Okay, you may say, so you’ve had a few lousy experiences.

            But what you don’t realize is that this happens on every single trip. There was the time I was driving a rental car and I hit the curb and the tire fell completely off, almost making us miss our flight and making the car rental guy yell at me, which made me cry. Thank God for the man who drove by and pitied me. He just happened to work for a tire store and he was a crackerjack tire-fixer. He got as big a tip as I’ve ever given anyone.

            There was the time one of our daughters (13 at the time) got stuck on London’s Tube without a phone, while the rest of us stared in horror as the train doors closed behind her. Luckily we were able to scream loud enough that one of the train supervisors took pity on us and stopped the train.

            There was the time we rented an apartment in a seedy neighborhood where parolees could wave at us across a tiny courtyard. There was the time we rented an apartment in another neighborhood where an actual rumble took place right below our windows when Venezuela lost a game in the World Cup that night.

            And here’s something fascinating: apparently this is genetic. One of my children studied in England last year. On a late-semester trip to Amsterdam with seven friends, she spent most of the weekend running from a crazed vacation rental owner who had tried renting the kids a room in a house that already had seventeen occupants and one bathroom. The kids spent the night on the floor of the Amsterdam airport once they were able to escape the clutches of the rental owner. Thank goodness I didn’t know about this until it was all over.

            But despite all these stories (and so, so many more), I still love to travel. I love to experience different places, cultures, foods, and customs. I can remember a place fondly even if we had a dreadful experience there (I believe there is a psychological term for this, something like “blocking”). I suppose the negative experiences I have imprint themselves on my brain, helping me to remember a place and the happy part of visiting.

            And home is always waiting, along with the dog. 

 

Author Bio:

Amy M. Reade is a cook, chauffeur, household CEO, doctor, laundress, maid, psychiatrist, warden, seer, teacher, and pet whisperer. In other words, a wife, mother, community volunteer, and recovering attorney.

She’s also a writer. She is the author of Trudy’s Diary, A Libraries of the World Mystery (Book One: Library of Congress), The Worst Noel (Book One in the Juniper Junction Holiday Mystery series), The Malice Series (The House on Candlewick Lane, Highland Peril, and Murder in Thistlecross), and three standalone books, Secrets of Hallstead House, The Ghosts of Peppernell Manor, and House of the Hanging Jade. She lives in southern New Jersey, but loves to travel. Her favorite places to visit are Scotland and Hawaii and when she can’t travel she loves to read books set in far-flung locations.

Her days are split between writing and marketing her books, but uppermost in her mind is the adage that the best way to market a book is to write another great book.

                                                         Social Media Links

Amy M. Reade

Website: www.amymreade.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/amreadeauthor

Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/AmyMReadesGothicFictionFans

Twitter: www.twitter.com/readeandwrite

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/amreade

Instagram: www.instagram.com/amymreade

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Amy-M.-Reade/e/B00LX6ASF2/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8189243.Amy_M_Reade

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/amy-m-reade

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CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw's website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

COMING SOON: People Lookin' Half Dead - A Bogey Man Mystery

The Family Curse

I have two friends who’ve been talking about their family curses. Yes, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it seems like these things usually happen in multiples and around the same time. Fortunately, they’ve both maintained their sense of humor.

 I think this cat has looked into the face of a family curse.

“My son wrecked the car yesterday, but he’s okay. Hahahaha” “A car drove through our living room wall last night. The fool missed all of us because we were in the back yard barbequing. hahahahaha” “The roof caved in last night. Fortunately, we weren’t home. Hahahaha”

Okay, maybe it’s not as much a sense of humor as it is shock. Some people laugh at the things that scare them the most. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. Oh, and those things didn’t really happen to my friends, but they have had their hands full lately.

Things happen to characters in books, too. Mysteries might be a little boring if something didn’t go wrong. Take my Sandi Webster series. Sandi tries to go her merry little way, but something always leaps right in front of her, like her menopausal mother or her eccentric aunt in One Adventure Too Many where they want to be in on the action. Do they care if they might be kidnapped? They wouldn’t believe it could happen. After all, they’re menopausal and eccentric.

Even the bad guys can be goofy sometimes. If you read a lot of mysteries, you’ve probably laughed at some of their antics. It’s all in the way you present them.  Of course, there are bad guys who are just plain bad.

Chris Cross, of the Bogey Man series, has his own crosses to bear. His mother is quirky and has her own agenda, while his father is quiet with a smile that resembles a grimace. Chris bears a close resemblance to Humphrey Bogart and too frequently emulates the real Bogey’s mannerisms. His wife, Pamela, has way too much fun becoming involved in mysteries, and his precocious son is too smart for his own good. Chris also has some close encounters with a gaggle of Church Ladies. (Think Snoop Sisters who go to church.) Let’s not forget Grandma Tillie. She’s nuttier than his mother, and she’ll be putting in an appearance in the next Bogey book.

Do these characters think in terms of a Family Curse? Not really, although Sandi once wondered if it’s her lot in life to be involved with elderly people and dogs.

Speaking of dogs, they can be just as nutty as people. Just ask Sandi or Pamela, Chris’s wife.

Sandi has a half wolf/half Golden Retriever who’s the size of a small bear and who smiles a lot. Bubba is big, and he has some irrational fears including what appears to be a ghost in the attic. His doggy smile frightens people because it looks like he’s baring his teeth at them. Sometimes that can be a good thing. She recently added a small Chiweinie to her household. This dog is a nervous licker and she has irrational fears of coughing, sneezing, and of course, loud noises like thunder. Both dogs are based on dogs I know. The Chiweinie is my daughter’s dog.

Chris has two Yellow Labs with issues of their own. Sherlock, the male, seems to take too many chances and Watson, the female, seems to think he’s an idiot. These dogs are based on my own Labs who have more than their share of issues. They’re both afraid of the dark, and I once saw the large male cowed by a snail. (That one’s going to have to go in a story.)

So, yes, sometimes fictional characters might feel like they’ve been cursed, but they keep moving along. Maybe we’d be better off if we followed their example. Needless to say, there are situations we can’t laugh off, but let’s keep it light when we can.

How are things going for you? Well, I hope. Can you relate to some of the characters you read about in books? Has a book ever helped you wade through bad times?

Until next week, keep smiling and try to laugh a few things off.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

Now that I've mentioned family curses and One Adventure Too Many - A Sandi Webster Mystery, you might think about giving it a try.