Going Inkless

     Every family has their own nickname for Grandma- Gran, Nana, Mimaw, Noni.  They're influenced by culture and tradition, not to mention what little tongues are capable of saying clearly.  My mother's grandmother was Busha, short for "Babushka", a word meaning either a grandmother, an elderly woman, or a headscarf in Russia or Poland.  I never knew her personally because she passed away when my mom was still in grade school, but Busha, my Great Grandma Sobey, was still a part of my life.  I grew up with stories about her life, saw her picture on the shelf, thumbed through the handwritten cookbook she left behind, and every year as Christmas neared, her soft gingerbread cookies were part of the pantheon of treats we made with Mom.      So, this year, as I have been sharing favourite holiday recipes in various places on the internet (see our Facebook page or the Wordpress blog I've started as a place for that kind of thing) I natu...

     The pot of horrors would be bubbling on the stove all morning, neck and giblets, looking like a witches' cauldron leftover from Halloween.  Giblets.  It was a comical, almost friendly name, no doubt invented to deceive us into thinking they might not be as terrible a concept for food.  That bubbling pot meant gravy would be eaten at your own risk, but it would be made as Grandma always had, and her mother before her, and before that, in the days when no food was wasted however unappetizing.      There was a table full of vegetables to chop for stuffing, mashed potatoes, and other side dishes, not to mention a tray to snack on that we didn't bother to call crudité.  Thanksgiving was bigger than everyday, more special, but it was humble, too.  We always helped in the kitchen.  Before the meal preparation was more fun than dish washing after.  I suppose it always is, but when the holiday means more than the usual eight...

     I had my first chest x-ray recently.  Although they found none of the heart issues the doctor was screening for, they did discover mild signs of emphysema.  My doctor assumed the damage had been done before I quit smoking and seemed unconcerned that it would get any worse.       Only, I have never smoked.      Not even a puff...of anything.      So, the conclusion is that I was affected by second hand smoke, assumedly because I grew up in a house with smokers.  It's a stunning fact, especially because I haven't really spent any significant time in a smoky environment since I was 18.  That I could still be damaged by it decades later puts some weight into the arguments against smoking in public places.      I suppose I could be angry at my parents.  Given the availability of information, they probably knew smoking was bad for you when they started.  However, the news about...

In Autumn, the green chlorophyll in leaves fades away, revealing the yellow carotenoids underneath.  That's the scientific explanation of the colour change we see.  Another way of looking at it is that the gold was inside all along.

     I was going to be a baker.  That was my sensible, practical plan for keeping myself fed while I wrote.  I was well aware that authors who could support themselves with their craft were rarer than authors with talent, and if I was going to build a life where I could write all I wanted, then I would have to have another skill people would pay for.  Since I always liked cooking and baking, it seemed like an ideal solution.  It was all still art, but it was practical art, everyday art with immediate use.  People would always need to eat.      Of course, I learned all I could in our own kitchen and read scores of cook books in our collection and the library's.  I would experiment whenever I could, took all the classes the school offered, and added two years of more focused vocational training.  The typical teenage jobs flipping burgers and making pizzas were serious business for me.      Starting a famil...

     Writing tends to be a solitary activity.  We may be able to perform it in crowded places if we're lucky enough to have the focus while riding the train or sitting in some common space.  When you come down to it, though, the actual act of stitching the words together into meaningful patterns is all done alone in your head.  With that basic fact established, I will also say that writing is more social than most other things you do alone.  For one thing, writers of fiction tend to walk around with all sorts of people in their heads.  Even when we are alone, our minds are often working in social ways.  But the aspect I wanted to examine in this post was the camaraderie among those who practice this solitary art.      While it could be said that authors are in competition with each other, you rarely see them behave as if they were.  There is a realistic limit on how many books may be published in the world, and...

     I dreamt I was in bed one morning, lying awake, trying to get the last few minutes of rest before the alarm would ring.  Lists of what I would do for the day came rushing up.  They compiled themselves in steady ticks like an old printer spitting out one line, then another.  Still, I determined to stay prone, squeezing out every moment to which I was entitled.  I planned to hit the snooze alarm when the clock would blare.  I calculated the number of minutes that would buy me, the number it would leave me on the other side of the morning- how long I would have to get ready for work, and what I could do to compress the necessary tasks into the new timeframe.  I knew I wouldn't sleep anymore, but I was stubborn and wouldn't compromise the sleep time even if I wasn't using it for the intended purpose.  But I was.  Sleeping.  Sleeping and dreaming of not sleeping and wishing I was sleeping.      Sleep deprivatio...