Blast from the Past

I got to thinking about some of my favorite TV shows when I was growing up. Thought I’d see if any of you could name some of them.

1. First of all, I enjoyed this showwhen I was 4. Completely addicted. This is easy.

2. Can you name this one?

3. Or this one?

4. How about this?

5. Did you watch this one?

6. This one is going to be hard for U.S. folks. For my friends in the UK, you’ll probably recognize it. I lived in England from 1984-1986 and I watched this show regularly. It was so bad! And so addictive!

Okay, name those shows! What did you enjoy watching as a kid?

A moment of crisis

Yesterday I had to take another batch of minions to the war museum for Field Trip #2. They needed another teacher to chaperone, since this last group only had one teacher going. So, 3 buses–around 90 kids :slap:–and I had to learn 29 names in 30 minutes or less. I did pretty well, if I do say so myself.

So we arrive at the museum, and I go to greet the docents. Opening the door, I find the museum strangely empty. Last week when I took my own students, we were greeted at the door. Today? Crickets chirping and that’s about it.

I check my watch. No, we’re not early. I walk inside a little ways and eventually see one of the staff. He asks, “May I help you?”

“Yes, we’re here for the field trip.”

He then speaks three words that will strike fear into the heart of any normal teacher. “What field trip?” :confused:

You see, the museum did not know we were coming. They had forgotten to write down the last date of our trip and wrongfully assumed that our group had finished up last week. So here I am, with 90 children, and no museum program. I remain calm. After all, what’s the bottom line here? Do I take them back or will they throw something together for us?

To be fair, the guide looked even more panicked than I was. “But we have another group coming in,” he fumbles. “And we don’t have enough staff members here.” Uh oh.

Again, I ask him what’s the bottom line. Eventually they gave us the lecture in a hallway surrounded by tanks instead of the auditorium. They then helped the kids tour the museum in 3 groups. Somehow, they salvaged the trip, and for that I give them credit. I believe he finally saw the mix-up (the educational coordinator and I had been e-mailing back and forth about the dates) and apologized profusely.

Then, to make matters even more interesting, we had a child begin fainting on us and had to call her mother. And, to top it off, we had a stowaway. Yes, one child had not paid her admission fee nor turned in her permission forms and got on the bus anyway. None of us were aware that any students were supposed to remain behind since they weren’t our students.

All in all, a day that warranted feet up on the couch when I arrived home. I worked on some line edits on a book I owe an agent, and deleted the pages off my current mss that were “off.”

Is it really only Tuesday?

How about you? What was your worst crisis at work?

Making a Breakthrough

I’ve been stalled on chapter 7 on my newest book for a while now. My gut feeling told me that something was very wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Yesterday I tried to summarize my book in a single sentence, and let me tell you, it was almost impossible. The working summary is this: A healer has to choose between a steadfast man who loves her and the wounded knight who broke her heart years ago. Once I worked out the sentence, it started to clarify the story. My critique partners will tell you I’m very guilty of “cluttering” the story with too many threads. :loser: Hope I have it worked out now.

Anyway, after that, I started focusing on my hero. I knew my heroine–her goals, her motivations, but not his. I took him apart, trying to understand the way a man would perceive a debilitating injury. Now we women know, in real life, there are two types of men: those who act like babies when they’re sick :hissyfit:and those who pretend they’re just fine, even when they’re about to fall over. The latter is a more heroic in a romance novel. That’s when I zeroed in on the problem: my hero was a whiner. But the good news? I can fix him. Now that I’ve discovered where I went off course, I can drag this book back to where it needs to be. AND! To make things even better, I found the source of their romantic conflict. Oooh, and is it ever good! Love that.

In other news, my son is discovering that age 4 requires more responsibility. He’s having to learn things the hard way. As a mom, it bothers me, but I’m convinced that I’m doing the right thing. He doesn’t keep his room clean, and we have a new policy in the household. Any toys that are not put away on time are confiscated. I have a plastic tub FULL of toys right now. Last night was the kicker. One of his treasured toys, Woody from Toy Story, was left out. He was outraged, and there were many tears at bedtime. Still, he has to learn to put his things away when he’s finished playing. Either way, he’ll accomplish this eventually–either by not having any toys left or by finally getting the message. I wonder how long it will take?

Anyone have any thoughts to share on what worked for them?

Weddings and Funerals

Have you noticed how family and friends, start to drift apart as the years go by? The last time I saw my aunts and uncles was at a wedding. Same with college friends. The other great occasion for reunions is funerals. We all get together, remark that it’s a shame we don’t get together more often, and then years go by until the next wedding or funeral.

I often wish I had a house on the Outer Banks–Reunion House, I’d call it. It would be a house where family could just come, spur of the moment, and visit. The days would be spent playing in the pool, on the beach, or sitting and watching the ocean. At night, we’d cook out on the grill, and talk while the sun goes down. Mmmm…nice.

My husband’s family does that every so often–we rent a beach house and all 26 of us will show up. Each family takes a night of the week to do the evening meal. That way you have 6 nights of someone else cooking, and one night of your own. Paper plates abound. I love that.

My aunt and uncle came into town last night with their granddaughter. My daughter promptly ensconced herself in their laps, flirting, hugging, and taking all the attention away from her brother. Typical.

Dinner was nice, and thank you all for your dessert recommendations. I ended up making two cheesecakes–one regular and one with Splenda. The Splenda one came out pretty well, actually! Here was the recipe:
2 pkgs. cream cheese
1/2 c. sour cream
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon rind
7 packets of Splenda

Why 7? That’s all I had left in the cupboard. But it actually came out pretty well. I topped it off with fresh strawberries.

Today will be an–er…interesting day! We have WWII Boot Camp during gym class. A long day for me, but the kids should have fun. TGIF!

Forensics 101

This past Saturday I attended my chapter workshop where we had a forensics crime lab guy come in to chat with us. Although I don’t write Romantic Suspense, I enjoy a good crime scene, the same as everybody else. I learned some interesting things! I thought I’d share them below, for anyone who’s interested.

1. Crime evidence is never stored in plastic bags like you see on television. It’s stored in cardboard boxes designed specifically for cotton swabs, in paper bags, or other paper containers. Plastic would cause some evidence (e.g. blood) to smell horrible.

2. DNA evidence can be found on soda bottles with saliva, using blood, and skin cells off a gun trigger.

3. If you have an unidentified stain and you want to determine if it’s blood, there are chemical tests you can do. Sometimes on the tv shows, they’ll treat the stain directly for drama. In real life, a cotton swab is used to obtain a sample. Then there are several tests. You often see them using Luminol on tv, the glow-in-the-dark chemical that makes blood obvious. There’s a problem with Luminol, however. It reacts with bleach. So if the criminal tries to clean up with bleach, the Luminol will be so bright, it’s useless. Most cops use the Leuco-malachite test (LMG). It’s a two-part test where you use a green reagent (hydrogen peroxide) and leucomalachite. When you add the two substances to the suspected blood, it turns blue. The problem is, there can be false positives. If the suspect was slicing up roast beef, for example, blood traces would be evident.

4. Police will never touch evidence. If they do, they have to submit it themselves and fill out a ton of paperwork. Not worth it.

5. Corpses are not outlined in chalk at the scene. They just leave them there until they’re done with the scene.

6. Wounded men/women might be outlined, since they won’t leave them to bleed to death while they’re collecting evidence.

7. Digital photography isn’t used very often when photographing crime scenes. Most juries understand that digital photographs can be altered and there isn’t much trust there.

8. Bullets and cartridge cases can be matched to the gun from which they were fired by the rifling ridges marked on the bullet from the gun chamber and also from the firing pin.

9. Revolvers don’t expel cartridges. They remain in the chamber, which means criminals don’t have to pick up cartridges.

10. The most common guns on the streets are a .9 mm and a .380 automatic.

In other news, I worked out my plotting problems and wrote 5 pages yesterday. All in all, a good day.

Will they Live?

I think there’s a chance these ducklings might be okay. When we first moved the eggs, we kept them fairly visible with a mound of leaves lightly dusted on top. I went to check on them yesterday and I couldn’t find the eggs! Just the leaves. I started wondering if my name would forever be Duck Butcher, but then as I stared at the pile of leaves, I realized there was a faint tinge of white. I wasn’t about to touch the leaf pile to unbury them, but I think it was the eggs.

My theory is that Mama Duck found her eggs and reburied them in leaves. Now whether or not she successfully hatches them is another thing. I’m not sure how long they’ve been there or what the incubation period of duck eggs is? I wish there was a way to know, so I could check on the whole rotten-egg status. Ugh. Let’s not go there.

I’m almost finished with chapter 6 on my newest Irish medieval. It came to a screeching halt last night, so I made myself stop and outline it. I stuck to the tried-and-true brainstorming methods. I busted into the Easter candy and devoured mouthfuls of jelly beans while demanding, “What is WRONG with this story??” There might have been a Cadbury’s Creme Egg involved. I’m not saying.

I worked on character motivations and brainstormed some ideas. I need to keep the story tension high, and it was starting to dwindle, so I’m trying to figure out where to add more without introducing aliens.

Today I’m taking the hormonally-crazed minions to the War Museum. Field trip! I’m always like a proud Mama Duck on this trip, because the museum docents ask the students questions about WWII, and my kids are able to answer them! It’ll be nice to have a low-key day, though it’s mentally-draining.

Last, I need your help. I need to know a good dessert I can make for someone with diabetes. I’m grilling a pork tenderloin with baked apples, and making a spinach salad as part of the meal. What should I serve to top the meal off? Any ideas?

Killer Ducks

So yesterday as we were adding more vinyl siding to the shed (I swear, I’m going to start my own home improvement show), my almost two-year-old daughter was playing and started screaming. A female duck had flown into the backyard, scaring my kid half to death. Now, what’s so scary about a duck? It might be that the duck is about the same size as my munchkin, and she didn’t exactly want to be a duck snack.

We tried to chase the duck away, but the female would NOT leave. Uh oh. Yep, you guessed it. She was a Mama Duck. We learned that she had built a nest under a boxwood in our backyard garden. Two eggs were found, upon initial investigation.

Dilemma time. On one hand, we’re talking baby ducklings. On the other, we have two small children who love to run around and play in the yard. Ducks or not, it’s quite possible that they would be aggressive toward our kids. And geez, it’s not as if the ducks don’t have an entire freaking pond behind our fenced yard!

So, we decided it was time for the Duck Relocation Project. We’ve given her orders to move the nest elsewhere. After removing the rest of the leaves from the garden, we discovered not 2, but 11 eggs! We took the leaves and duck feathers and relocated them to a protected area behind our fence and close to the pond. Using gardening gloves, we moved the eggs over to the new nest. The male duck was watching us and happily swimming in the pond. We threw breadcrumbs to him, and made a breadcrumb trail back to the nest. Hopefully he’ll realize what we did. The female duck wasn’t that intelligent. She kept flying back to the empty nest, staring at it as if to say–”I know I left those eggs here! They must be here somewhere!” Then she shot us hate-filled duck glances.:angry:

I tried throwing bread to her, to lead her to the new nest and she finally wandered outside the gate, following the trail. We’ll see if they do all right in their new location.

Some folks might not agree with the decision to move the nest, but honestly, the ducks were scaring my kids. They have a right to their backyard, so in a contest between ducks and children, the children win. I was going to post a picture of the duck nest, but since the time change it’s still dark outside and I didn’t get a chance yesterday.

Hope they survive all right. I’d rather not be known as Duck Butcher, as well as Fish Butcher. But at least the kids won’t be scared to play in their own backyards anymore.

How about you? Ever had any uninvited critters take up residence in your yard?