Kiwi Fruit And Toilet Paper

/ Diane Henders / 27 Comments

I remember when kiwi fruit first appeared in our local grocery stores sometime around the early 1980s.  The fuzzy brown globes quickly became a fad despite the inevitable jokes about donkey balls.  (No, I can’t imagine who would have started a joke like that…  *crosses fingers and stares at the ceiling, whistling innocently*)

Anyway, it wasn’t long before every fruit tray at every upscale gathering boasted slices of kiwi.  It was exotic and sophisticated and the thing to serve!  But to be honest, I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with kiwi fruit.  When it’s good, it’s great… but there are so many ways it can be not-good.

If it’s the teeniest bit unripe, it’s sour with a lingering bitter edge that leaves your mouth puckered and your teeth furry.  Too ripe, and it’s tasteless mush.  Riper still, and the fermentation phase is interestingly fizzy; but I can’t say I recommend it.

If it’s been long enough since my last unpleasant experience, I occasionally buy some kiwis when they’re on sale.  Which is how I came to be sitting at the breakfast table, cutting into one.

Hubby glanced over and said, “That looks very… green.”

I took a bite.  “It’s not too bad, actually.  The last batch I had was an exercise in sour misery, but this one’s okay.”

He frowned.  “Why do you even bother?”

“Well, kiwi fruit has more Vitamin C than oranges.”  I swallowed another virtuous mouthful.  “And it’s very high in fibre.”

Hubby watched in thoughtful silence while I finished my kiwi.  Then he asked, “What kind of fibre is in that septic-safe biodegradable toilet paper you buy?”

I blinked.  “Uh…?”

“Because, you know,” he went on, “You could just eat clean toilet paper to get your fibre.  It couldn’t taste any worse than that kiwi.”

“Except for the nutritional value,” I reminded him.

“Okay; eat the toilet paper, drink water, and take a vitamin pill.”

There was probably a rebuttal to that, but I couldn’t think of it.  He’s right:  Fruit is basically just cellulose fibre, water, and vitamins.  (And flavour; but we’ve already established that kiwi flavour isn’t always an asset.)

I never thought I’d see the day when eating toilet paper seemed like a reasonable option…

*

P.S.  I just found an article that made my day!  I’ve occasionally been chastised by self-appointed Typography Police for my old-fashioned use of two spaces after a period.  They’re adamant that “the only correct usage is a single space after a period”, but that ain’t necessarily so:  https://www.fastcompany.com/90171175/science-just-settled-one-of-type-designs-oldest-debates.  So maybe I don’t have to retrain my fingers after all.  Hooray!  😀

Restaurant Masochism

/ Diane Henders / 27 Comments

And now for a replay of this week’s winning conversation:

Me (eyeing our monthly budget numbers):  “Wow, I didn’t realize you were so heavily into BDSM.”

Hubby:  “What?  I don’t even know what that means.”

Me: “Bondage/domination/sadism/masochism.”

Hubby (with sagging jaw): “Wha…?  Where did that come from?”

Me:  “Your monthly budget.  You said you spend about $100 a month on restraints.”

Hubby:  “Damn autocorrect!  That should have said restaurants!”

Speaking of restaurants, the other day we were sitting in a Subway and Hubby was (as usual) picking the anemic yellowish tomato slices out of his BLT.  He jabbed his finger at a prominently-displayed picture of a luscious red tomato.

“See that?” he demanded.  “That’s how tomatoes are supposed to look!  Not this… piece of… I don’t even know what this is supposed to be!”  He dropped another pale crunchy slice onto his napkin.

That’s when I realized that fast-food restaurants are absolutely unique in the business-to-consumer market.  Have you ever been served a fast-food meal that actually looks like the appetizing pictures on their menu?  I haven’t.  But it’s never occurred to me to complain about it; and I’ve never heard anybody else complain, either.

There’s no way I’d tolerate that kind of bait-and-switch in any other business.

Imagine me paging through car brochures and settling on a new Chevy Cruze. I pay my money, they hand over the keys, and I go out to the lot to find a 1982 Chevette dribbling oil and rust flakes onto the pavement, reeking of stale cigarettes and wet dog.  And somehow, I passively accept that the piece of shit they delivered is not even close to the pretty picture I bought.  I climb into that pathetic excuse for a car without a peep of protest, wave to the dealer, and chug away.

I think not.

Then again, in the car dealership I’ve got all the time in the world to argue over expectations and aesthetics.  If I delay the line in a fast-food restaurant, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll get lynched by an infuriated mob of hungry patrons.

So maybe accepting a limp, sad, greasy burger is more about self-preservation than submission and masochism.  That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.

I’ll let you decide…

Book News:  After a long simmer on the back burner, there’s finally hope for Books 2 through 14 to be released as audiobooks!  Stay tuned…

Tiger Nuts

/ Diane Henders / 21 Comments

The other day I was surfing the internet, secure in my delusion that there aren’t too many things left that can surprise me.

You see where this is going, right?  Yep, I got a surprise.

At first I thought it was only another instance of my self-diagnosed attention-deficit sexlexia, but on second glance I realized that I had actually read this label correctly:  “Tiger nuts”.  Skinned tiger nuts, no less.  (Because I guess otherwise the fur would stick in your teeth…?)

I couldn’t believe it either.

I’ve seen and tasted a lot of nuts in my lifetime… (stop snickerin’, youse guys) but I’ve never encountered tiger nuts (other than the zoological variety; which I have no desire to examine closely, much less taste).

But apparently tiger nuts (the correct spelling is actually two words, not the self-consciously concatenated version on the label above) are a type of tuber, like potatoes and peanuts.  Who knew?  The same label also included a banner to cheerily remind us it’s “Not a nut!”

I want a T-shirt that says this.

If only I could get somebody to say that about me.

But there’s no hope of that, because very soon after the tiger nuts, I ran across this product and my attention-deficit dyslexia kicked in hard:

You have to admit, that font is hard to read when it’s vertical.

I glanced at the side panel and thought it said “GoodFarts”.  Standing there in the grocery lineup, I nearly burst a blood vessel trying not to giggle.  The rest of the patrons eyed me suspiciously when I snapped a photo and turned away with my lips twitching, but fortunately nobody called the guys in the white suits.

My childish mind was part of the problem, but the urge to laugh came from another source, too.  My mind immediately seized on the idea of a ‘good fart’ and began manufacturing scenarios in which a fart might be desirable… which led me to a fond memory of my ex-father-in-law (may his delightful soul rest in peace).

One day he went to Emergency with chest pain, so they got him onto a stretcher and attached the usual monitors and devices.  No danger signs showed up, but the terrible pain persisted… until he finally belched and farted in quick succession.  With an engineer’s inborn panache, he sat up on the stretcher and announced, “All systems:  Go!”  Everybody cracked up.

Now that’s a good fart.  And he didn’t even need a ‘plant-based keto-friendly food bar’.

That product label makes me wonder, though:  How many animal-based food bars are out there?  Maybe they just heard about tiger nuts, too…

Nocturnal Ninja

/ Diane Henders / 40 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a light sleeper. Even while I’m dead asleep, part of my brain is alert for the merest whisper of any unusual sound.

Which is why I jerked awake a couple of nights ago with all my attention focused on the pitch-black corner of our bedroom. I’d heard something moving!

The last time I heard something in that corner there was a mouse skittering around, so this time I was instantly at DEFCON1.

But the sound that woke me hadn’t sounded like skittering. It was more like the surreptitious brush of fabric against the wall.  And that was impossible, because that corner is filled by a large peace lily plant (and by ‘large’ I mean ‘gargantuan’ — over four feet across).

I stared wide-eyed into the darkness, my half-awake brain conjuring ridiculous thoughts of some ninja intruder who had somehow bypassed our security system and sneaked through our closed bedroom door.

After a few heart-thumping moments, I woke up enough to realize that nobody could turn our noisy door handle without waking me; and if some ninja was actually skillful enough to do that, s/he wouldn’t be careless enough to brush audibly against the wall.

By then all was silent. I stared into the gloom for a while longer, but my eyelids were drooping. I’d tossed my clothes on the chair before I went to bed.  Maybe they’d shifted.  Whatever.  *yawn*

I was dropping back to sleep when I heard it again: the Surreptitious Rustle!

I bolted up in bed and grabbed my flashlight, glaring into the plant corner and seeing… a plant. Nothing else. No movement.  No ninjas.

Fine.

I turned off the flashlight, assured my drowsy and slightly incredulous Hubby that everything was okay, and lay down again.

And then… *RUSTLE*

What the HELL?!?

After another foray with the flashlight, I finally remembered that I’d watered and rotated the plant before I went to bed. It had been thirsty and a bit wilted, and now it was rehydrating and straightening up. And in the process, it was rearranging its big leaves against the wall.

I fell back on the pillow with relief, but I still didn’t sleep well with that monster plant crouching in the corner and quietly shifting position. And I may or may not have heard it mutter, “Feed me, Seymour!”

So from now on I’m sticking to my usual routine of watering plants in the morning. At least in the daylight I’ll be able to see them coming for me.

Any ninjas in your world this week?  (And if there were, would you even know?)

The ninja peace lily. I think I’ll name it Audrey…

Getting Down And Dirty

/ Diane Henders / 32 Comments

Psst!  Lean closer so I can share the latest sordid news from my personal life…

*glances around and lowers voice to a whisper*

Yesterday I had a sweaty four-hour session with five guys, and I’m so sore I can barely walk.  I guess I should just be grateful that the sixth guy with the really big tool didn’t participate much.

The whole experience wasn’t as much fun as the salacious stories say it should be; but maybe I was doing it wrong.

Here’s the photographic evidence:

That’s a 33′ x 83′ pond, about 80,000 Imperial gallons.

Yep, we finally got our pond done! The rubber liner weighs 1300 pounds, so Hubby and I planned the project very carefully.  Then we hired four guys from the local labour pool, and had an excavator operator (the guy with the BIG tool) standing by to place the rocks.

The excavator operator had dug the pond last week, and when I mentioned I’d hired guys from the labour pool to help install the liner, he raised an eyebrow. “Guys who can’t get a steady job in this economy? You’ll end up working harder than they do.”

But he didn’t realize that I have a secret weapon: I’m female, I’m strong, and I work really hard.  There aren’t too many young guys who’ll let a 55-year-old woman show them up.

(Have I mentioned lately that I love young guys?  My strategy doesn’t work nearly so well with older guys — sometimes they just shrug and say, “Nah, knock yourself out.  I’ve got nothing to prove.”)

Anyway, we got a great bunch of labourers — hard workers and nice guys.  We spent four solid hours raking, rolling, and wrestling (yes, I’m still talking about landscaping) to get the liner into place.

Even though Hubby and I had planned everything down to the last detail, we didn’t actually expect it to work the way we’d planned.  But it did — hooray!  Today we’re creaking and groaning a bit, but we’re triumphant.

And I gained a juicy story, so it’s all good. After all, how many middle-aged women can say they’ve gotten down and dirty with five guys at the same time? (And don’t forget the sixth guy with his really big tool.)  😉

Anything juicy happening in your world this week?

Sleight Of Hand

/ Diane Henders / 55 Comments

Lately my body parts have been trying to slip things by me.

The other day I shook a vitamin pill into my palm and then turned my hand over to place the pill on top of the bottle so I’d remember to take it later.  I heard the *click-skitter* of the pill falling on a hard surface, but even though I hunted everywhere it had apparently vanished into thin air.  Presto!

Then, for my next trick…

I sighed and shook another pill into my palm, and once again I turned my hand over to put the pill on top of the bottle. I’d seen the pill in my palm and I didn’t hear it fall, but when I moved my hand away… no pill.

What the hell?!?

My grasp on sanity is tenuous at best, and by that point I was afraid I’d lost it completely.  Fortunately, I checked my palm and discovered the pill craftily clinging to my skin by its sticky gelatin coating.

But palming pills isn’t my body’s only trick:  My mouth has been getting into the act, too.  Apparently whenever it spots an approaching tea mug, it sidesteps about half an inch to the right. You’d think I’d notice something like that in the mirror, but nope; everything looks normal. I know it’s happening, though — every time I take a drink, I end up sloshing tea down the left side of my chin.

And don’t even get me started about trying to get the aforementioned daily pill into my mouth.  If not for the fact that everything else seems to be working fine, I’d be wondering if I’d developed some serious impairment of my motor control.

Just to add insult to injury, a few days ago I cut my finger while I was trying to install my painting in its new frame.  And while I was peeling the Bandaid out of its wrapper, I got a paper cut.

Yep, an injury inflicted by a Bandaid wrapper.  Somewhere up there, the gods of irony are rolling around on the cosmic floor and peeing their pants laughing.

Come to think of it, that might explain the two inches of rain we’ve had this week.  Let’s hope I don’t perform any more entertaining tricks, or I might trigger another biblical flood.

If you need me, I’ll be out in the workshop sawing up a few cubits of wood…

Sun Princess

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

It’s that time of the year when I dress with care before going outside, making sure every square inch of skin is covered by long pants, long sleeves, gloves, hat…

No, I’m not bundling up for sub-zero temperatures; I’m just taking my wimpy skin outside on a sunny day.  I swear I put on more clothes in the summer than I do in the winter.

I’ve always been an ‘outside’ person. If fate was kind, I’d have been blessed with a leathery hide that tanned effortlessly. Instead, I have fairy-princess skin with a little mushroom DNA thrown in:  sickly white, delicate as tissue paper, and just as flammable.

After ten unprotected minutes in the sun I turn a nice shade of parboiled pink. Half an hour and my skin is angry red. If I spend any longer in the sun, it becomes clear why there are legends about vampires combusting in daylight.

I wear an SPF that would allow normal people to bask comfortably on the sunny side of Mercury, but my princess-skin is picky about sunscreen, too. Most sunscreens give me chemical burns, and applying zinc oxide is like rubbing my face with finely-ground glass.

After many trials and errors I’ve found sunscreens my skin can tolerate, and I wear them every day. I’m grateful for them, because I still need their protection even though I wear a hat.  But…

I hate them.

I hate the way they feel on my skin. I hate the way dirt and dust sticks to them. I hate the glowing white trails that show up when titanium dioxide slithers down to collect in my wrinkles. I hate the way avobenzone stains my clothes orange in our iron-rich water, and I especially hate that avobenzone is carcinogenic.  (Yeah, why don’t I just put a cancer-causing substance on my skin… to prevent skin cancer?  WTF?!?)

I especially hate the taste of sunscreen.  I know I’m not supposed to eat it, but I have to apply it right around my lips or risk a sunburn that looks like Bozo the Clown.  Then all it takes is one ill-advised swipe of my tongue to catch the juice from my morning orange, and I’m making a face like a horse with peanut butter stuck to the roof of its mouth.  At least my mother would be pleased to know that I’m finally learning to use a napkin.

Still, I don’t want skin cancer so I keep wearing my icky sunscreen and sweating profusely in my long sleeves, long pants, and hat.  I may or may not live longer, but it’ll certainly feel like it.

But the joy of gardening makes it all worthwhile!  Here’s what’s new in the garden this week (click on the photos to see larger versions):

I’m still rockin’ the garden. Only a few hundred tons of rock and soil to go…

 

The colours and scents are glorious!

 

The big fuzzy bumblebees are out now, and the anemones are heavenly-blue.

 

The lupin leaves are amazing on a misty day.

 

Our earliest rhododendron is just starting to bloom. This is Snow Lady – still tiny, but putting on a show!

Exercising My Options

/ Diane Henders / 52 Comments

First, my triumphant announcement:  Book 14 is finally live, hooray! (Click here for retailer links) Now, as long as there are no SNAFUs with the retailers, I can breathe a sigh of relief.  *crosses fingers*  Maybe I’ll even kick back and relax for a day or two.

Or maybe I should go and work out instead…

I have a love/hate relationship with exercise.  I’ve always been a bit of a jock, but I also have a bad case of inertia:  Bodies at rest want to remain at rest, and mine is no exception.

So I’m working away, planted comfortably in my chair, when I realize it’s mid-afternoon and my butt is putting down permanent roots into the chair cushions.  That’s when my better self murmurs, “You should get up and exercise.”

My lazy self whines, “But I’m busy and I don’t wanna! I’ll have to change my clothes, and exercising takes so much time, and it’s hard…”

This argument goes on for a while, but my better self (usually) prevails and pries me out of the chair.  It helps that I’m eager to get in shape for martial arts again — even though I’m too old and slow to compete, I still love to kick and punch the hell out of something that won’t hit back.

So I get changed and get started. Then there’s another whole round of whining until the endorphins kick in and I really get into my workout.  By the end, I’m frizzy-haired, red-faced, sweat-soaked, and grinning with the knowledge that I’m closer to my goal.  That afterglow carries me for the rest of the day, but the following morning is a different story.

I creak out of bed groaning and swearing and questioning my own sanity.  I mean, seriously, what’s the point? I’m going to die sooner or later anyway, and all the exercise in the world won’t change that. Why am I putting myself through this? I could just schlep around being comfortably weak, and I’d only be sore on the rare occasions when I overdo it.  I wouldn’t be sore every damn day. *whine, whine, grumble*

I was in my ‘cranky’ phase a few weeks ago when I arrived at my painting group. After struggling with my watercolour for a while, I let out a martyred sigh and announced, “I’m tired of trying so hard all the time! Why can’t there be just one thing in life that’s easy?”

One of my painting buddies spoke up immediately. “Gaining weight is easy.”

I stared at her, happily enlightened. “Dang, you’re right! And it’s fun, too!”

“Except for the long-term consequences.”

“Uh, well… yeah…”

*sigh*

So I’m sticking to my exercise program.  It’s slowly getting easier.

And hey, that painting turned out okay, too. After nearly two years of weekly attempts, I’ve finally created something I might just hang on the wall!  But I can’t decide on a mat colour.  Opinions, please?  (Click the thumbnails to enlarge.)

 

A Day In The Life

/ Diane Henders / 33 Comments

People often ask me what it’s like to make a living as a writer.  I tell them I’m living the dream; but I also add that my dream could be their nightmare.  Here’s a peek into my writing life:

The snow is finally almost gone!

(And some outdoor photos, since one of the best parts of my writing life is being able to pop outside for a few minutes whenever I want!  Click on the photos to see larger versions.)

Writing is my favourite thing, but I only get to do it about 16 to 20 hours per week.  The rest of the time I’m bookkeeping, maintaining my web page, marketing, keeping in touch with my readers through my blog and social media, and doing research on  publishing trends, legal and copyright precedents, book design, marketing, and new technologies.

The native ferns are already vibrant.

Weekdays, I usually work from 8 AM until noon, take half an hour for lunch, and work until about 4 PM.  Then I have a snack and hit the gym for a couple of hours (or skip the workout and stay at my desk, but I try to exercise at least 4 or 5 times a week).

I take an hour off for dinner and then I’m back in front of the computer from 7 to 9:30 PM.  I try to knock off at 9:30, but sometimes I work until 10 or 11 PM if I’m really in the flow.

I work 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year; but I sometimes only work half-days on Saturdays and Sundays.  (I know; I’m such a rebel!)  Even when I’m on ‘vacation’, I work an hour or two per day.

The heather and crocuses are in full bloom!

That may sound gruelling, but it’s flexible — I usually take Friday afternoons off to do some watercolour painting and grocery shopping, and I can make time for friends and family whenever I want.  I don’t watch TV, but if I’m not in the final 25% of writing or buried under a book release, I often read a novel in the evening.  (It’s market research — I love this career!)  I read fast, so I usually finish the book in three or four hours, and then it’s off to bed and on to the next day.

Such is my glamorous life.

The birth of a book is (maybe) a little more interesting: (I won’t include any graphic birth photos, I promise. 😉 )

The first minnow daffodil is blooming!

I decide which events will kick off the book and how I want the characters to develop, but I don’t do a lot of plotting in advance.  Instead I throw my characters into the action and see what they do for the first half of the book.

Every day I re-read and edit my earlier 4 or 5 chapters (by the end I’ll have read the whole manuscript at least 25 times) and then write my new content for the day.  By halfway through the book my characters have gotten themselves into a batch of impossible situations, and then I stop and spend a LOT of time deciding how they’ll get out.

The bees are hard at work already.

That’s when I write a plot outline, which is mostly a waste of time.  I make a “final” decision and write in that direction; and a few chapters later one of my hardheaded characters blows my plot out of the water.  I’ve never actually ended up following my outlines, but at least it gets my brain working.

By the 75% mark, all the plot threads start to come together.  Then I write obsessively while the rest of my schedule falls in tatters.

Tiny anemones, only a few inches tall.

After finally writing “The End” I re-read and edit the entire manuscript a few times to tune up pacing, stakes, and clarity before passing it on to my beta readers/editors.  (Nobody gets to see a single word of the manuscript before I’m completely finished — not even Hubby.)  In between final edits, I choose a title (I never know the title until I’ve written the whole book), do the cover design and photography, and write the cover blurb.

At last I announce a release date — hooray!  Then I assign ISBNs, register copyright, send the new book to Library and Archives Canada, convert the MS Word manuscript into epub, Kindle, and paperback formats,  and upload it to retailers.  When that’s done, I fix typos and update links in my previous books, and upload their new versions, too.

Crocuses, winter aconite, and heather.

After that I switch to my ‘marketing’ persona to develop ads, promotional listings, and social media announcements.

When the release furor dies down, I tackle any major work like updating my website, and finally take a breather for a few days.  But within a week or two (or less) the next book scratches at my mental doors, and next thing I know I’m writing again.  The administration is a slog, but the joy of writing makes it all worthwhile!

So… anybody wanna be a writer…?

I love crocuses!

When Neurons Misfire

/ Diane Henders / 36 Comments

So, the good news is that Book 14: “Friends In Spy Places” is finished and is now available for pre-order at all retailers, hooray! (Click here for retailer links.)

The bad news is that my brain has been sucked dry, wrung out, sent through a vigorous spin-cycle, and finally pinned onto a sagging clothesline in my cranium, where’s flapping uselessly in the breeze that’s whistling through my ears.

And it’s still in better shape than Hubby’s.

Unfortunately, that’s not a joke. He slipped and fell on some ice Sunday afternoon and is now the not-so-proud owner of a concussion, some bruises and sore muscles, and a nasty scalp laceration. Fortunately his CT scan was clear and he’ll be fine, but that little adventure wasn’t kind to his brain or mine.

Spending a tense 23 hours in the emergency room would have been enough excitement for  me, but I also volunteer as the webmaster for our local Rhododendron Society.  So on top of my usual post-book-release brain drain, ER stress, and sleep deprivation, I had a gruelling 4-hour meeting yesterday afternoon.  My poor little neurons aren’t even capable of firing anymore — at this point they’re only twitching feebly.

You’d think that might cause some creative (or at least unusual) thoughts, but the only thing that occurs to me is this:

There must have been a big sale on beans around here, because I’ve never before been subjected to so much of other people’s flatulence. The last four days have been a veritable fartnado.  My nose has been assailed at a lecture, at the hospital, in a grocery store lineup, you name it. It’s been so frequent that I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’m actually the culprit and I’ve just been too distracted to notice that I’m doing the dastardly deed.

Also, I learned a new technical term this week.  I had attended a lecture on mosses which included a field trip at the park, and someone asked our expert about the finely-textured bright green stuff growing on the trees from about 18″ on down.  When he began, “We call that the ‘DPZ’”, we all leaned in to hear his explanation. “Yes,” he went on sagely. “That’s the Dog Pee Zone, and the green stuff is algae, not moss.”

So apparently toilet humour is the best I can do for this week. Maybe next week will be better…

*strums lips and rocks back and forth, humming quietly*