The Newbery Honor Book and the notebook pictured below were lying on the floor beside my chair when I heard them conversing.
See more Dialogue photos here.
Author: Kathy Waller
If You Use Facebook on Your Phone, PLEASE READ THIS
This is important information about using the Facebook mobile app on a mobile device. Read and click on the LINK for the whole story. It’s scary.
It’s no secret that I deplore Facebook. I use it because I must. Therefore, I am diligent in trying to understand how Facebook works. As a result, I deleted the Facebook mobile app from my iPhone more than a year ago.
If you are still using the Facebook mobile app on your smartphone or other mobile device, you really, REALLY need to read this article by Nick Russo. Drop EVERYTHING you’re doing and READ IT.
I’ll wait.
http://thebull.cbslocal.com/2014/08/07/facebook-crosses-the-line-with-new-facebook-messenger-app/
We may live in a world with no privacy, but Facebook’s coming changes to its Messenger app are an obscene violation of your privacy. If you don’t want Facebook to farm every aspect of your life (record every phone call you make, log every place you go, know everyone you talk with AND WHAT YOU TALK ABOUT), I urge you to consider deleting the Facebook app from your mobile devices before the…
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This Is a Test–Only a Test–Plus a Mouse
Please bear with me. I’m trying something new. Because I can’t visualize what will happen after I follow instructions, I have to experiment.
This may take several tries. Just ignore me and speak among yourselves.
If there’s no one to visit with, feel free to observe this mouse. He was a favorite toy, but one of his owners stuffed him under the refrigerator, and when I found and released him he looked pretty grubby and had lost a leg.
I intended to send him to Toy Mouse Heaven but obviously forgot, because a couple of minutes ago I noticed him staring up at me from the bottom of the toy basket.
The Fashionable Cows of DFW: A Lone Star Attitude
[There may be long blank spaces in this post. Please don’t stop reading–scroll all the way to the end. The blank spaces are beyond my control.]
In keeping with Dallas’ role as both the sine qua non and the arbiter elegantiae of Lone Star fashion, the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport houses a number of swank boutiques offering aspiring trend setters apparel on the cutting edge.
Today we highlight a shop that offers the latest wrinkle in Texas style a la mode.
First, for her, a tunic top made of Jersey and adorned with tiny embroidered rosettes. For him, a shirt of dark blue denim. Both are suitable for casual meandering or for more formal trailer transport to greener pastures.
In the background, a lovely dress in Angus black, falling in front to just above the knee, and in back to the hock.
A closeup, below, highlights flowers fashioned from brightly colored silk ribbons bordering a modified V-neck, redolent of the meadows in a Texas spring.
Next, another his-and-her combo: He sports a striped shirt, narrow verticals in navy blue, wider horizontals in alternating Babe ox blue, sea gray, and straw yellow, over a brown dun polo shirt. She looks stunning in a zebra-patterned skirt topped by a bodice of stone gray with dapples, red roan, brindle, and spring timothy. A circlet of bailing twine around her neck gives the outfit a festive air. Both garments could be worn for an evening of frolicking through maize stubble, or a midnight raid on the corn crib.
Finally, an accessory no true gentleman cow can do without: a western-styled hat. Fashioned after the world-famous Stetson, this chapeau is bilaterally symmetrical, allowing it to be worn on either the right or the left horn with equal panache. One caveat, however: The wearer must take care to remove the hat before attempting to roll under a barbed wire fence, lest damage occur.
It should also be noted that, although all the lady models are polled, the clothing displayed here can be worn by unpolled cows with no alteration whatsoever. Gentlemen cows, however, might have some difficulty wearing the hats without horns on which to hang them.
*****
The reviewer thanks Lone Star Attitude, DFW International Airport, for providing models and clothing, and for keeping her amused during a ninety-minute layover. In publishing this post, she intends no disrespect, but only admiration for those responsible for choosing to market their merchandise in such a delightful way.
Wremembering Wray
I’m blogging at Writing Wranglers and Warriors today. Please click on the link and share the memories.
Writing Wranglers and Warriors
Posted by Kathy Waller
On Friday evening family and friends gathered at a small country church outside Kansas City, Missouri, to celebrate the life of my cousin Wray Worden, who died last month at the age of seventy-six.
Wray
Wray, thirteen years older than I, and his two sisters served as my parents’ first children. They set a high standard I’ve never quite come up to.
During our last visit, two years ago, Wray talked about visiting with my family in small-town Texas. Afterward, I wrote a post about that conversation. I’ve since realized that many of my memories were really his.
So I’m repeating that post here, as my part in Wremembering Wray.
*****
January 24, 2012
I returned Sunday from four days in Higginsville, Missouri. I had accompanied my cousin Mary Veazey to see her brother, Wray, and his family. Wray has been in the hospital in Kansas…
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I Kid You Not
On a quick trip to Missouri, staying in the boonies past the outskirts of Kansas City,
in a possibly no-star hotel, adequate except for its lack of
- elevator, and
- proximity to restaurants without golden arches.
Checked online under Dining.
First thing I saw was the ad at the top of the page: What’s the best cure for toe fungus?
Checked under Bars and Grills.
First establishment listed: Q & R Pest Control.
I kid you not.
Decided the golden arches would do.
*****
Names have been changed or omitted for obvious reasons.
Adventure in the Far West
A week in beautiful Alpine, Texas, to attend the Writers’ League of Texas Summer Writing Institute held unparalleled adventure for Gale and me.
It started with getting lost about twenty miles from home and ended with finding a dead banana at the bottom of my Austin Mystery Writers tote bag.
In between lay
- being rear-ended at a red light;
- missing a turn but arriving at our destination anyway;
- finding the motel room severely deficient in electrical outlets;
Outlet under bed. By Kathy Waller. - wallowing on the floor, trying to plug an extension cord into an outlet installed behind of the leg of a bed attached to the floor “for your safety”;
- abandoning my camera in the Museum of the Big Bend;
- being informed that the hood of the car I’d just driven for seven hours through the Texas Hill Country and the Trans-Pecos, and into the Chihuahuan Desert, wasn’t properly latched;
- finding the hood up again two days later;
- recovering my camera;
- losing my cash;
- knocking the back off my mobile phone;
- scattering my purse, my camera, a take-out box of Creamy Bolognese over penne pasta, and myself all over the sidewalk in front of La Trattoria;
- wallowing on the floor wielding a broom and a flashlight, scraping my cash from under the far side of the bed;
- abandoning my purse in the cafeteria;
- recovering my purse;
Porch of Hotel Limpia, Fort Davis, TX. By Kathy Waller. - leaving Alpine, missing another turn, and winding up in Marathon;
- watching Gale lean out the window to ask a man where we could get petroleo;
- being told petroleo was in Alpine (26 miles) or in Fort Stockton (58 miles), but not in Marathon;
- on advice of residents (“There’s nothing out there”), giving up impromptu plans to swing through Del Rio;
- retracing our steps to Alpine for petroleo;
- on second attempt, not missing the turn;
- arriving at home without further incident worth mentioning.
I will mention that
- Karleen Koen’s class was up to her usual standard: As I’ve written before, she’s honest about what she can
Karleen Koen’s novels plus other incentives on classroom floor. By Kathy Waller. and cannot do for her students, but she shows them ways to increase their own creativity;
- the reading at the Alpine Public Library allowed student writers to share pieces written in the various classes, including a Sudan native’s account of learning to speak English, which was a scream;
- evenings out with friends at El Paisano (Marfa), the Reata (Alpine), La Trattoria (Alpine), the Stone Village Market, and the Hotel Limpia’s Blue Mountain Bistro (Fort Davis) were fun;
- having the Cowboy Plate at the Bread and Breakfast is a fine way to start the day;
- the highway up to the McDonald Observatory is neither as winding nor as precipitous as I’d remembered;
- thanks to recent rains, the Davis Mountains were green and, as always, very grand;
- cool mornings and evenings felt wonderful (and hot days felt like something else but weren’t as bad as Austin’s);
- we’re sorry our limited time didn’t allow us to visit Big Bend National Park;
Inside view of Bread and Breakfast’s front window. By Kathy Waller. - a mobile phone will work perfectly if the back is held on with a rubber band, and, when presented with said phone, a husband will laugh and reattached the back without a rubber band;
- I was not responsible for the rear-ending;
- Simple Green will probably remove dead banana muck from inside the Austin Mystery Writers tote bag; it will also probably remove the remnants of Creamy Bolognese from the outside of a camera case.
- A package of Oreos lifts the spirits immeasurably.
Gale has just published a post on the Austin Mystery Writers blog about the Writers Retreat. She focused on what we learned in class.
But I prefer to focus on extracurricular activities. There’s an education to be had in them, too. Especially the part about the Oreos.
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Elegance
Dinner with the cast of Giant at El Paisano in Marfa, Texas.
Photographs of James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson by Kathy Waller shot from photographs hanging in El Paisano Hotel, Marfa, Texas
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A Finely Shaped Head
When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily. ~ Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Don’t Cry for Me, Austin, Texas
I’m blogging today at Austin Mystery Writers. Come on over. Don’t let this opportunity pass.
Posted by Kathy Waller
*****
On Saturday, Gale and I will leave on a seven-hour drive to Alpine, in West Texas. We’ll attend the Writers’ League of Texas’2014 Summer Writing Retreat.
Big Bend National Park. By Kathy Waller. I’m almost ready to leave. All I have to do is
- print out and re-read all email correspondence from the WLT concerning the retreat;
- put together and print at least fifty pages of my rough raft, which isn’t too rough considering all the revising and polishing I’ve done, against all the best advice; (putting together the draft entails sorting through the many files I’ve saved under a variety of names, none of which makes sense now);
- buy new sneakers (the retreat doesn’t require formal dress) and a passel of socks to replace those the dryer has eaten; buy new khaki slacks if I can find a pair whose legs…
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50 “How To” Writing Posts on Craft
I know I’ve reblogged several posts lately, but I have to add another. Ramona DeFelice Long has an announcement that all writers will want to read. As always, her post is both brief and valuable.
In May of 2012, I announced a blog project for the coming month: I would post a How To craft post every day for the month, Sundays excepted. My month of blogging resulted in 27 posts about writing log lines, avoiding typo blindness, breaking the that habit, curing overpopulation, introducing characters, writing thematic statements, and so on.
Eventually, I put together all of those posts in a How To collection, which can be found under the FOR WRITERS tab. I continued to write How To posts in a more sporadic fashion, when the need or an idea arose.
Last week, I wrote my 50th How To post for this collection. All are available and tagged in one spot, so help yourself!
Writing a blog post every day was a fun, albeit crazy-making, challenge. I’ve thought about,and talked about, doing it again, but I usually talk myself out of…
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A First Line of Note
“Should I have taken the false teeth?” ~ Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man
About twenty years ago, I went on a Robertson Davies binge. I plowed through a number of his big, fat, fascinating novels, one right after the other. Then I moved on to another literary addiction, but Davies’ stories still haunted me. Last week I came across a copy of The Cunning Man, opened it, read the first line, and was again hooked. I’m going to have to read all those books a second time.
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Please come down…
I haven’t been keeping up with my blog reading, so I’m making up for lost time. Here’s something from the chronicles of Doodlemum, the blog that always makes me smile.
Hyperbole
Another gem from The Bonny Blog
Jo Stafford Sang at My Wedding
“Today, celebrate three songs that are significant to you. For your twist, write for fifteen minutes without stopping — and build a writing habit.”
Oh, all right, might as well stop complaining about these Do-Not-Edit twists. Nobody’s listening.
Fifteen Minutes:
I can’t think of three songs that are significant to me. I can think of the four that were played/sung at my wedding; they’re significant, I suppose. But I’ve written about them elsewhere. What’s significant is that I chose two and the groom chose two, and our choices differed so widely.
My hand stopped. This is hard to do on a computer: it’s too easy to go back and fix things, choose another word. Even when you’re trying not to. Cursive is easier.
Anyway, David supplied recordings of “A-You’re Adorable” and “La Vie en Rose” (Jo Stafford). We opened with the Adorable song, and that set the tone for the entire day. Emily Post ran up the aisle and out the door in disbelief. But the guests visibly relaxed, and that was a good thing. No tension, no worries. Even the bride had a good time. After she saw the caterer’s van parked in front of the fellowship hall.
My songs were “Simple Gifts” and “The Prayer Perfect.” My gift to myself was a trained soprano to sing them.
***
Saturday morning I’ll spend two hours writing as Natalie Goldberg prescribes. David and I belong to a practice group called 15 Minutes of Fame. We write/read/write/read, etc. We’ve done it for years–I met him in another practice group–and I enjoy it. But we don’t publish our work. Well, we do, if we want, on our blog, but we clean them up a bit first.
And I never write on computer in practice. Cursive is faster. If schools stop teaching cursive, how will students ever be able to scrawl a note? Or write in a margin? Or practice writing their names in different styles? Educators need to think.
***
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M. K. Waller 