Miss You Most of All

"I think I'm going to miss you most of all" was what Dorothy told the Scarecrow at the end of The Wizard of Oz. It is this quote that the title of Elizabeth Bass's first novel comes from.
The quote also figures in the story line of a book about two sisters trying to make a go of Sassy Spinster Farm near a small town in Texas.
Laura is barely holding on to their father's farm when Rue and her 11-year old daughter, Erica, come to live with her after Rue's divorce. With Rue's encouragement, the sisters turn their homestead into a tourist destination where guests can learn how to raise their own fresh food. In addition to the income from the paying guests, they also market produce through CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes and the local farmers market.
Things become interesting when their onetime stepsister, Heidi, shows up looking for a place to hide out from her mobster boyfriend. The sisters didn't get along with their younger stepsister when they were teens and Laura and Heidi still hate one another. But Rue is more mellow. She and Heidi become friends.
There is much to laugh about in this book. It seems a realistic depiction of life, love and family - including the squabbles and sibling jealousies. Bass does a credible job of exploring the meaning of family, especially when Rue's cancer returns. I so wanted this elder sister to beat back the disease one more time. Not only did the author not write that happy ending, she wrote the most beautiful, poignant, believable ending possible. I really enjoyed this first time novelist.

Sharyn McCrumb has been a favourite author of mine for many years. Her "ballad" novels are my favourites, though I've liked everything she has written including her "Nascar" novels. The Devil Amongst The Lawyers is her latest novel. It falls in her ballad series and while she doesn't have a large part, we meet Nora Bonesteel when she was still a young girl. (Nora has the Sight. She and her ability to see things figure in many of McCrumb's Ballad books.)
"In 1935, when Erma Morton, a beautiful young woman with a teaching degree, is charged with the murder of her father in a remote Virginia mountain community, the case becomes a cause celebre for the national press." The book is a fictionalized version the real 1935 murder trial of Edith Maxwell, which took place in Wise County, Virginia.
I always like novels based upon true events, especially when they are handled as well as Sharyn McCrumb crafts hers.

Love, Lies and Liquor is the 2006 M.C. Beaton Agatha Raisin mystery. I have not been able to read these books in order, but that does not diminish their appeal.

Beaton writes another mystery series in which her character, Hamish Macbeth, is a Scottish village constable. Death of a Witch is the first book I've read in this series. These mysteries are also quick reads, like the Agatha Raisin mysteries. I'm still partial to Agatha, but I'm sure Hamish will grow on me as I read more of these entertaining little mysteries.


(Blogger's Note: This will be my last post for a few weeks as I recuperate from shoulder replacement surgery. I'm not very good at one-handed keying.)

Newton's First Law of Motion

"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." (Sir Isaac Newton 1642-1727)


Inertia: The resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest.

Laziness: A disinclination to an activity or exertion despite having the ability to do so.

Procrastination: Replacing actions of higher priority with tasks of lower priority in order to put off doing the higher priority items. (Finishing a book instead of doing the dishes?)

Guilty, guilty, guilty. I have always been one to put off doing anything I didn't like to do until someone/something made me do it.

Pain and lack of use of my left arm have compelled me to have shoulder replacement surgery. I thought scheduling the surgery and the knowledge that "things could go wrong" were enough to make me "get my affairs in order" just in case.

Old habits die hard. Instead of sorting, donating and throwing out, I have opted to believe all will go well and I will still have plenty of time to figure out what to do with my 'stuff' later. Besides, trying to decide who gets what was keeping me awake at night. I did get rid of so much before we moved, but I still have way too many things.

And too many of the things that I feel are most important to impart are the ones that no one in the family knows the history of or the value I place upon them. (A ring that was given to me by my Grandmother Lynam that was given to her by her Grandmother Richardson. The blanket box that belonged to my Great Grandmother Means. The 'Water Lily' quilt my Mom made before her marriage and her diary and pen. Dad's 'shoe' knife. My baby bank. How do I decide which of my children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews will be the right one to entrust with which heirloom? It is so much easier to decide the giving of jewelry, china and collectibles I have acquired than it is the items that belonged to my parents and grandparents.

I may still write down some bequests before my surgery - "just in case". But what I really need to do is find the will or external force which will make me do all the sorting, donating, throwing (and story telling) after I recover from my surgery and my arm is working again. It may be the denial that life is finite that keeps me from doing what I need to. i.e.: As long as I don't do anything, I will still have the time to do it.

The biggest fear is not dying. It is the "not knowing" what happens in the lives of my loved ones after I am gone. Live long. Love well.

No Night Is Too Long

I began reading Ruth Rendell's novels when I became a huge fan of Minette Walters and her writing was compared to that of Rendell.
The first couple of books I read of hers were okay - just not as good, in my opinion, as Walters. But I read a couple more and then a couple more after that until I decided I do like Rendell almost as much as Walters. (It is going to be interesting to see if my opinion of Walters has changed any when I go back to read the last two unread books I have of hers.)
In the meantime, I decided to try a couple of Rendell's books written as Barbara Vine. Somewhere I read that Rendell began writing as Vine in order to "take a more human, personal viewpoint". I also read one review which says No Night Is Too Long is Rendell/Vine's only true love story.

This book is a bit slow getting into and if you are the least bit homophobic, and began reading the book unknowingly, you will most likely stop reading around page 37. I am always in awe of male authors who can write convincingly of female emotions and vice-versa. I found myself wondering how a straight, female author could write such an erotic, emotionally charged scene between two males.

Way back in my early "I want to be a writer" days, I learned that you have to grab your reader on the first page; write something so attention getting that the reader can't put your book down.
Vine doesn't do that. She makes you read awhile before you realize she has sinuously pulled you into a plot with enough twists and turns to keep you reading and surprised.

I once had an in-law who was rather disdainful of some of the authors I liked because their books were "telescoping" - meaning you knew what the ending was going to be long before you got there. I suppose one of the reasons I like mysteries so much is because I do enjoy trying to figure them out before the ending. No Night Is Too Long contains several surprises - one of which had me gasping - "I didn't see that one coming!"

I read two Vine novels this month. The first was Grasshopper, which was very good; very entertaining and well written. But if you only have time to read one of these two, I recommend the former. Our library has four more Vine novels which I will definitely be checking out.

Another Agatha Raisin Mystery, The Vicious Vet, by M.C. Beaton and an Aurora Teagarden Mystery, Last Scene Alive, by Charlaine Harris were my two "read at the Y while on the stationary bike" books this month. I love both these women characters as well as the authors who created them. I believe it is my daughter who refers to these little treats as "popcorn books" because they are entertaining little reads you can enjoy just like a bag of popcorn.

Lastly, another one of those books I chose for its cover: The Unplowed Sky by Jeanne Williams. (The cover depicts a tractor moving through a wheat field with a farmstead and large silo on the horizon.) The cover made me pick up the book, yet another Kansas setting and a storyline of a threshing crew in the 1920's, made me check the book out. Williams is a Golden Spur and Levi Strauss award winning author. I would probably read more of her books. They would be calming between two Rendell/Vine books.

January Thaw

Ruth Ridnour - Age 17

A January thaw usually lasts around five days and occurs sometime after mid-January. The temperatures rise at least 10 degrees above average - sometimes higher - into the 50's or 60's. Family members may remember the gorgeous weather at Aunt Lois's funeral in January two years ago.

Quite often during a January thaw, all the accumulated snow melts. That didn't happen this year. We did have a couple nice days with temperatures in the 30's. There was some melting of snow, but the ground remained white.

I had always associated the January thaw with my Mom's birthday which was January 25. Until today, I thought that was just happenstance. But according to one website, the January thaw is a weather singularity which does occur on a regular basis around January 25.

I couldn't find a baby picture of Mom to illustrate this blog, so I'm using one of her holding Ron when he was a baby in 1940. The reason I wanted a baby picture was because of something I saw while watching the weather Saturday night - the record high temperature for January 29 was set in 1919 when it got to 62 degrees. Mom was four days old.

Mom's birthday was always easy to remember - one month after Christmas - and right around the time for a January thaw.

"More Than You Know"

Beth Gutcheon is a new author for me. I picked up her More Than You Know novel in the clearance section the last time I was in Half-Price Books in DM. I would categorize this read as a "dark" telling. Hannah Gray is an old woman when she decides to write the story of her life. At first it seems to be about her first "true love" and while it does evoke the transience of youthful romance, it also delves into the way love and hatred shapes lives.
The book is set in a small coastal Maine town and an inhabited island off the mainland. I would read more of Gutcheon's works if they were available at our library or when I run across them elsewhere. (Interesting that I unintentionally read two books this month which were set in New England coastal towns.)

I had almost forgotten what a treat M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin is! Revisiting the Cotswold's in The Potted Gardener makes me wish I could go there in person. (Something I've wished since first reading about the Cotswold's years and years ago.)
Agatha returns from a long holiday to learn she has a new, gorgeous, neighbor in Carsely. Not only does everyone seem to adore the newcomer, Agatha's bachelor neighbor, James Lacey (the man Agatha wants for herself), is having an affair with the new woman in town.
Naturally, the lovely lady is soon dispatched in a most unbecoming fashion. And even though she is warned by the area constabulary to "leave the investigating to us", Agatha can't resist questioning all her neighbors about how they really felt about the murder victim. Seems the new woman in town wasn't as well-liked by everyone after all.
These little mysteries are a treat. Agatha Raisin is such a jewel. What's not to love about a middle-aged, over-weight, antagonistic amateur sleuth?

Anita Shreve is one of the best storytellers. I've read all her books, including, now, her newest, Rescue. Peter Webster is a rookie paramedic when he pulls a young woman from her totaled car - an act that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage. Sheila is streetwise and tough-talking. Peter is as straight an arrow as they come.
The book is mostly about the love between single parent, Peter, and his daughter, Rowan and what happens when Sheila comes back into their lives when Rowan is a 17-year-old high school senior. Shreve's writing is so true to life. Her description of the only apartment newlyweds Peter and Sheila could afford reminded me of the place I began married life in fifty years ago.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is one of the absolute best books I have ever read. This was the second time I read it. It was just as good on the second reading as on the first.
This book was Mary Ann Shaffer's first and only - something I hadn't realized before. Ms. Shaffer worked as an editor, a librarian and in bookshops. Her love of books shines through this novel. Her life long dream was "to write a book that someone would like enough to publish."
Sadly, she died before that happened. Her niece, Annie Barrows, helped her finish the book and saw it through to publication. It seems so sad to me that Mary Ann Shaffer could not have lived long enough to see how many people loved her writing. Nor that she isn't around to treat us to more books of hers.

I know the first time I heard of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I thought, "What kind of title is that?" The book was already getting a lot of buzz, so as soon as it became available at the library, I checked it out.
The novel is set in England at the close of WWII. It relates, in epistolary form, the hardships, horrors, and losses of war. It also elates us with its tales of friendship, endurance, courage, hope and human connection.
Previously, I've passed on owning this book, but after reading it twice, I know it is one that I should have on my bookshelves permanently.

Road Rage and other Recent Reads

Baroness Rendell of Babergh, aka Ruth Rendell has finally roped me in completely. I will be reading my way through all of the books of hers our library has on its shelves.
Road Rage is one of her Inspector Wexford novels, published in 1997, the same year Ms. Rendell was made a life peer. (She sits in the House of Lords for Labour.) There are twenty-two Inspector Wexford novels. The 22nd said to be the last. At first I felt I should read them in order, then discovered I really didn't have to. Road Rage is #17. Reading some of the earlier works is sometimes confusing, as in: "Why don't they just check for DNA?" or "Why don't they just call the airport and have TSA hold the suspect?" As long as I remember what decade the book is set in, I do alright helping solve the crimes.

I am guilty of picking up a book based on the cover picture. "Don't judge a book by its cover" doesn't always apply. Happily, I have found a new author this way. The cover of Nancy Pickard's The Scent of Rain and Lightning shows a young woman walking down a road between wheat fields into the dark clouds of a storm.
The fact that the book is set in the ranch country of Kansas also appealed to me. Ever since my niece, Lorrie, told me about Monument Rocks in west central Kansas, I've wanted to see them for myself. These chalk pyramids in Gove County are renamed 'Testament Rocks' in the book and the county becomes Henderson, but the setting added to my reading pleasure.

Enjoying the first book I read of hers sent me back for a second: The Virgin of Small Plains; another book set in Kansas. This time in another area I would like to explore rather than just drive through a corner of: the famous Flint Hills. Two of my all time favourite books share being set in the Flint Hills - William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth and Janice Graham's Firebird.

These two books of Pickards are mysteries, but they are so much more than that. Pickard captures the essence of rural and small town middle America. She delves into the dark secrets of families and the "good old boys" network that contrives to keep their own out of trouble. Her lyrical prose is beautiful; her characters are so human I found myself comparing them to people I knew in my own small town.

Ms. Pickard is also author of the Jenny Cain mystery series, one of which I grabbed on that second library run: her seventh in the series - I.O.U. At first I wasn't sure I cared for Jenny Cain, but the more I got into the book, the better I liked her. I.O.U. is set in Port Frederick, Massachusetts, but it looks like some of the others are set in Kansas. I will try one of those to see if I really want to read more Jenny Cain adventures.

Liking a character can really affect whether or not you like a book. Remember how I didn't care for Return to Sullivans Island last month even though I had loved its predecessor, Sullivans Island, as well as other Dorothea Benton Frank books? I read Frank's Lowcountry Summer, the sequel to her Plantation and liked it as well as I did Plantation. I realized Frank's writing style is the same, so it has to be the difference in lead characters.

I have a couple more books to report, but I will save them to include with the two I am currently reading. I hope our winter is giving you time for a good read or two.

Do You Ever Wonder.....

If you are the person you were meant to be?

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother,

What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?

Here's what she said to me:

Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que Sera, Sera.

What will be, will be.

(Written by Jay Livingston & Ray Evans. Signature song of Doris Day.)

When I was just a little girl, my mother told me a story of how I had been mixed up with another baby while in the hospital. She said they brought another baby to her room. She told them it was the wrong baby, it wasn't hers. So they took it back and brought me to her.

There were many times in my young life when I just felt like I didn't belong in my family. I was too different from my brother and sister. It was then I wondered if the nurse had been right and Mom was wrong - was that other baby really hers? And if so, who did I belong to? My feelings must have been similar to those of a child learning they had been adopted.

So many things shape who we are. How would I be different if I had been named something other than Ramona Irene? I used to hate my name. It was too different from the other kids. I wished my name had been Carol. (In time, I came to love my name.)

If I asked Mom if I was pretty, she would answer: "Pretty is as pretty does." If she saw me looking in a mirror, she would tell me to "quit before you get conceited." And nothing I ever did was good enough for my dad. What if I had grown up with a little more self-esteem; self confidence?

What if I hadn't had a little sister with whom I always felt as though I were in direct competi-tion?

(This photo of Betty Ruth and Toby the cat along with cousin Janet Kay on the right, was taken at their Grandpa Joe Ridnour's on his fifty-first birthday, June 11, 1947.)

Betty never got to find out who she might have become. Her death at the age of 28 affected all the rest of her family members. For a few months afterwards, I even tried to be who I thought she had been for my mom and dad - driving to their place every weekend, trying to somehow fill the hole her death had left.



Would my children be the same if they had been named something else? Before I ever married, I had decided I would have four children - two boys and two girls. I would have a blond boy and girl and a brunette boy and girl. The blonds would be Douglas Sumner and Karene Denette. The brunettes were going to be Anthony Gerard and Roxanne Rene.

The only one of those names which was used was Douglas Sumner, my firstborn son. But he wasn't blond, so he really should have been Anthony Gerard. Would Doug be a different person if he had been Tony?

While expecting my second child, I wanted another boy. By that time I had discarded those other three earlier names. My second child would be Erik Deane if a boy and Lisa Rene if a girl. I had a girl. It seemed every other girl born in the late 60's was named Lisa. Much as I loved that name, I wanted my little girl to have a less popular name. She became Kari Leigh. I liked the name Carrie - but the spelling was too old-fashioned. And Lee was too plain. Would my lovely daughter be a different woman if she had been a Lisa?

Someone else in the family chose the name Eric for their little boy before my third child was born. Whether a boy or girl, I wanted to use my parent's first names for the middle name. So we needed something to go with Ruth or Louis. I don't remember now how I landed on the name Abigail for a girl - Abigail Ruth sounded good. She would be Abbie or Abby, anyway.

Deciding upon a boy's name was harder. Finally, watching a football game one afternoon, we heard the name Preston. It felt right. Preston Louis became my third and final child. His name never got shortened to Pres. And while Preston was an unusual name in the early 70's, it started becoming more popular a few years later.

So many things shape who we are: names, parents, siblings, spouses, circumstances. We can change our names if we don't like them. I could be Mona (never!) or use my middle name. But I believe, in our souls, we are who we were meant to be.