Life

On My Knees, Preying

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

The past week was unusually hot. I like summer, but 38°C/100°F is a little too warm for me. So I’ve been getting up at 6:00 AM to pick veggies and water the garden. It’s gorgeous outside at that time: The sun is just coming up, the air is cool and fresh, and the only sounds are the birds and the trickle of the creek.

Coincidentally, there was a recent news article about how the bear population is exploding on Vancouver Island. Bears are now regularly seen in residential areas where there’s no record of a bear being spotted in the past 40 years. So big hungry critters were in the back of my mind when I hauled myself out of bed a few days ago and opened all the windows.

I was sitting at the breakfast table when a blood-curdling cry froze me to my chair. It was close. Somewhere in our yard.

After a moment of breathless immobility, I relaxed. The ravens were flapping around as usual. They have a huge range of vocalizations, so I figured one of them must have gotten creative. I carried on with my breakfast.

But only for another minute or two, until the terrible cry came again, even louder. The ravens fled. And my primitive lizard-brain screamed, “COUGAR!”

A couple of years ago, a big cougar came right up on our neighbours’ deck; so we definitely have cougars in the area. I scurried over to the internet and looked up ‘cougar vocalizations’. Sure enough, cougars make a lot of different noises; and some of them sounded just like what I’d heard.

No way was I going to kneel out in the garden like prey when there was a big predator around. But where was it? I hurried from window to window, peering out. Nothing. Then I went through our attached garage to look north.

As I eased the door open and cautiously stuck my head out, a Great Blue Heron took off from our pond with an irritable squawk.

Yep, it turns out that cougar cries and close-range heron squawks sound remarkably similar.

So I did my garden duties after all, and my week turned out fine. I hope yours does, too — may all your scary cougars turn out to be harmless herons!

Book 17 update: The draft is FINISHED, woohoo! The title will be Live And Let Spy. I’m editing madly, and I hope to hand it off to my first beta reader next week. Stay tuned for cover art and a release date, coming soon!

Half-Naked Ant-ics

/ Diane Henders / 35 Comments

Well, Mom’s admonition to ‘always wear nice underwear, just in case’ has proved (once again) to be good advice.

I used to think it was just silly. Seriously, Mom: What could possibly make me strip off my clothes in public?

(The Fates let out an evil chuckle.)

So.

There I was, out in our front yard on a sunny day, minding my own business. As usual, I was togged out in more clothes than most people wear on an Arctic expedition: Jeans, T-shirt with a long-sleeved shirt open over it, steel-toed work boots, knee pads, work gloves, sunglasses, a broad-brimmed hat, and enough sunscreen to kill a dozen coral reefs. (Note: We don’t have coral reefs in our front yard. No coral reefs were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

I was working on a rotten log, tearing handfuls of squishy wood into the rich mulch that our rhododendrons love. Trying to appease my cranky lumbar vertebrae, I sat on another fallen log.

Anybody who’s spent time around rotten logs can probably see what’s coming; but in my defense, I’ve done this loads of times all over our property and I’ve never had a problem before. But this time, I felt a painful little pinch. In… my armpit?!?

“Okay,” thought I. “Maybe it’s a bit of heat rash, or an errant hair follicle.” I scratched the spot and carried on.

But then there were more pinches. Armpit, shoulder. What the…?

You guessed it: There was an ant colony in my log seat. And a bunch of big black-and-red ants had climbed up the back of my jeans, under the loose long-sleeved shirt, and chowed down on the tender armpit exposed by my short-sleeved T-shirt.

Let’s just say I moved, um… briskly. I yanked off my overshirt, but by then the ants had found their way through my T-shirt arms and down inside my jeans.

So, yeah. I did an extremely graceless striptease in our front yard. The exhibition was made even more alluring by the fact that I couldn’t take off my jeans without first removing my bulky boots, which have long laces that require some effort to pull loose.

So there I was: Head down, ass up, hopping around and whacking at random parts of my half-naked body. The sun’s reflection off all that pasty skin could probably be seen from outer space. (And if that didn’t warn any passing aliens to avoid Earth, nothing will.)

But I guess it could have been worse. At least the neighbours can’t see into our yard, and no cars drove by. (As far as I know.) And I was actually wearing nice underwear, Mom.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s flung off my clothes in public…

Book 17 update: My optimistic plan to finish the draft last week was scuttled when I had a reaction to a prescription painkiller and ended up in Urgent Care for a day, then spent the week stoned brainless on heavy-duty antihistamines. Fingers crossed for this week…

Pithed Again

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

’Way back in 2014, I compared IMS to the experience of pithing a frog (from the frog’s perspective). At the time, I was slightly perturbed by the latent sadism in modern medicine. But now I’m here to tell you that if you’re looking for sadism, IMS is for amateurs. Yep, if you really want to get pithed, go for a nerve conduction study.

I read up on the procedure beforehand, and I was instantly suspicious of the euphemistic language: “Nerve response is tested using small electrical pulses.”

Uh-huh. Just like sticking your finger in a light socket results in “a transfer of electrons”.

Anyhow, I suspected the benign description was bullshit; I just couldn’t determine the size of the pile. So I arrived at the hospital for my test experiencing “some trepidation”. (Translation: “A sense of impending doom”.)

On the upside, they didn’t stick needles in me and then run electricity through the needles (which is what I had expected). Instead, they began with electroshock and then escalated to needles.

I described the joys of IMS in my previous post, so let me just say that the only thing more fun than having someone stick needles in your muscles is having needles stuck in your muscles and then being forced to flex.

The electric shocks, on the other hand…

I’ve noted before that I have *ahem* unusual (okay, inappropriate) responses to a lot of things. IMS made me swear uncontrollably. The shocks in the nerve conduction study… made me laugh.

ZAP! *My leg twitches violently* Me: “Hahahaha!”

ZAP! *Twitch* “Hahahaha!”

I think the tech was a little weirded out.

It was actually quite funny from my point of view. I tend to laugh when I’m relieved; and I was relieved that I wasn’t getting stuck with electrified needles. The pain didn’t linger long after the zap, so that was good, too. And seeing my feet and legs twitching and jerking as though they had a mind of their own was like watching a show put on by a particularly inept puppeteer.

(When I see those reasons in print, they seem like a pretty weak excuse for laughter. Maybe I’ll just have to acknowledge that I’m a nutjob, and move on.)

Anyhow, the test is done; and the doc sounded hopeful that my symptoms might improve without surgery. Better still, nobody stuck needles anywhere near my brain, so I’m gonna call the overall experience a win.

Guess I’ll have to get pithed some other day…

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 54 — so close to finishing! I’ll announce a title, cover, and release date soon, so stay tuned!

Eating (With A) Crow

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

Last week I went through the MacDonald’s drive-through for a quick bite. Not wanting to be disturbed by passersby, I parked at the farthest corner of the lot, next to a tall hedge. With my window open to admit the sweetly scented breeze, I chowed down.

I hadn’t taken more than a couple of bites before a large crow flapped over and landed on top of the hedge. After inspecting me with bright black eyes, he flew down to perch on the curb. There he cocked his head and watched every movement of the burger to my mouth.

Recognizing a mooch, I shook my head and said, “Sorry, buddy. Bread isn’t good for birds.”

He hopped closer, still watching my burger like a hawk… or, more accurately, like a mooching crow.

I repeated, “Nope, nothing for you.”

Undeterred, he hopped closer and flirted some more.

When I finished my burger without sharing, he shot me a disgusted look and flew up to the top of the hedge again. But then I started eating my sundae.

Down he came to the curb again, turning his head coquettishly this way and that so I could admire his glossy ebony feathers. How could I possibly deny him a taste?

I chuckled and said, “Sorry, buddy. You’re a handsome guy, but I’m not giving you ice cream, either.”

As if he’d understood me, he puffed out his feathers and let out a barrage of angry caws. After he had thoroughly cussed me up one side and down the other, he departed in a snit.

Later, I was telling Hubby about my mercurial dinner companion. “I was a little worried that he might fly up into my window,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to tangle with that sharp beak.”

Hubby smirked. “Well, if he had, you could have hit him with your crowbar.”

It took me an instant, because I do actually carry a crowbar in my vehicle. But then the terrible/terrific pun exploded in my brain.

GROAN!

At least he didn’t suggest that I could have eaten my burger’s condiments with my pickle fork…

*

P.S. I just realized that you have to be a gearhead to get that last sentence. A ‘pickle fork’ is an automotive tool used to separate ball joints and tie rod ends.

P.P.S. I further just realized that if you’re not a gearhead, ‘ball joints’ and ‘tie rod ends’ are equally obscure. And now that I’ve completely over-explained it, maybe it would be better to just pretend I made a dirty joke about balls and rods. ’Nuff said.

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 51, and Aydan is in a desperate race against time to save someone she cares about. But is it already too late?

Bee-Watching

/ Diane Henders / 34 Comments

I had a post all ready for today, but then I read it over and thought, “The world doesn’t need any more snark.” Yep, it’s been one of those weeks; but I’d rather concentrate on the good stuff instead of the tear-out-my-hair stuff. (’Cause I don’t think I can pass off bald spots as a fashion statement.)

So:

Bees! I adore bees. As a kid I was afraid of them, but my fear didn’t last. Bees were ever-present on our family farm and I never got stung; so I learned to ignore them. (I later found out that I’ve probably been stung quite a few times. Other than the initial ‘Wow, does that ever hurt’, I don’t have much reaction to bee stings.)

Anyhow, when I started gardening and growing fruit, my interest in bees ramped up. Then I discovered that without bees, we’d lose about a third of the food crops we eat. Now I’m firmly Team Bee!

When I started paying more attention, I realized how cute they are, too: Wee tubby fuzzy almost-bears with sparkly gossamer wings. We grow lots of pollinator-friendly plants, and a huge variety of bees come to the snack bar. You can hear the garden buzzing from across the lane.

Since I haven’t been able to do much outdoor work this spring (no thanks to my back problems, grrr), I’ve developed a new hobby: Bee-watching. From my chair on the porch, I can train the binoculars on the garden several yards away, and watch the action to my heart’s content. Here are a few of our many visitors:

This tiny guy is dusted with pollen.
Who says you shouldn’t wear horizontal stripes?
So fuzzy! ❤
One of the big bumblers
Snazzy two-tone bees!
No bees in this one, but I couldn’t resist photographing the fuzzy centre of a poppy.
Here’s how it looks fully open.
The bees’ snack bar. (Just ignore the weeds. Or, as I like to call them, “groundcover”.) 😉

I hope you’ve found some beautiful things to enjoy this week, too!

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 47 and John and Aydan are in serious trouble, with no rescue in sight. Sometimes no matter how smart and resourceful you are, circumstances get the best of you…

Of Loggers and Lapins

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

We live in the country, so we’re beset by garden-destroying wildlife. Our big fence keeps the deer out (mostly); but nothing stops rabbits. They usually stay away from the house, but every now and then I discover that my perennials have been ‘pruned’ by sharp bunny teeth.

It’s a love/hate relationship: They’re furry and cute; but they’re also destructive and damn prolific. From their standpoint, we’re the benevolent purveyors of gourmet plant material; but we also have a distressing tendency to run at them yelling and chucking pebbles. So we’ve maintained an uneasy détente, and the sighting of a rabbit in our yard is usually accompanied by (empty) threats involving rabbit stew.

But this spring, larger and more destructive critters arrived down the road: The local logging company decided to remove some timber from their property. We keep a set of binoculars by the window for bird-watching, but this time we used them to watch the big hungry machines growling through the woods.

They worked steadily for four days, but on the fifth day the racket was silenced. Instead, I could hear clunks, clanks, and the metallic chirping of a socket driver wrenching on some recalcitrant part. The machine started up, then shut down several times. At length, the truck departed and the defunct machine sat silent beside the road.

Several days later the loggers still hadn’t returned, but our resident rabbits put on an impromptu dance, leaping and chasing each other. We watched them through the binoculars, enjoying the show while muttering dark incantations designed to prevent them from getting too close to our garden.

The next day, I came into the living room to see Hubby standing at the window looking through the binoculars. I looked, but couldn’t see any rabbits.

“They’re probably screwing in the woods,” I growled.

Hubby burst out laughing. “Actually, I was checking to see whether the loggers were back. But I guess they could be screwing in the woods.”

So from now on I’m keeping the binoculars trained strictly inside our yard… just in case. The only full moon I want to see is the one up in the sky.

Have you spotted anything interesting in your neck of the woods lately?

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 43, and Spider and Linda’s baby is on her way into the world… at a time that’s convenient for her, and nobody else!

Cooking with Diane

/ Diane Henders / 30 Comments

I love creating new recipes, but experiments always carry a certain risk of failure. And sometimes my failures are *ahem* …notable. (Don’t worry, it’s still safe to eat at our place — I don’t experiment when I’ve invited company to dinner.)

Recently, I’ve been wrangling with brownies. I’ve used Hubby’s mum’s recipe for years, but one day Hubby said, “You know, these are great; but they’d be even better if they weren’t quite so sweet.”

“Easy,” said I in a burst of delusional optimism. “I’ll just reduce the sugar a bit.”

So I did. And instead of brownies, I got dense cake. It was tasty; but the texture was… meh. Over the next several weeks I churned out more variations, but none of them achieved the fabulously chewy texture of the original recipe.

By then we were (much to our own surprise) sick of eating brownies, so I shelved the project. But a few months ago I was researching ways to make my homemade ice cream softer, and I discovered maltodextrin. It’s used in myriad foods, but particularly in beer and ice cream to provide a good mouthfeel without adding a lot of sweetness.

Inspiration struck: Texture. Without sweetness. Aha! The brownie project was revived.

Our local winemaking store carried maltodextrin, so I got some and mixed up my ingredients in a burst of misplaced confidence. This would be the perfect batch of chewy, delicious, not-too-sweet brownies!

Except…

It turns out maltodextrin isn’t particularly soluble. It’ll dissolve in water, but the only moisture in this recipe is provided by eggs. Not the same thing at all.

Unaware of the impending disaster, I beat the butter and eggs, added the sugar and maltodextrin… and stared in horror as the mixture curdled into pea-sized lumps.

I cranked up the mixer to its highest setting, but the lumps had the texture of finely-grated leather mixed with half-solidified glue. I could break one apart if I rubbed it between my fingers, but I didn’t feel like doing that for hours. So I got out my blender and set it to Turbo.

No dice. The lumps were impervious.

But I hated to waste half a pound of butter, four eggs, and two cups of sugar. As I was staring at the pox-riddled batter, Hubby passed through the kitchen. After considerable discussion and some hilarity, we decided to strain out the lumps and carry on. I’ll spare you a description of the mess that resulted; but in the end we did get tasty chewy brownies.

The only problem is, I have no idea how much maltodextrin actually got mixed in; and a considerable amount of butter and eggs got subtracted during the straining process. So I had to reduce the flour to compensate and… well, let’s just say that I still haven’t perfected that brownie recipe. But if I ever need leather glue, I’m all set! (Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.) 😉

Any other creative cooks out there? What’s your most notable culinary ‘oops’?

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 39 and Aydan’s evidence trail has just hit a dead end. But the killers keep coming, so she’d better figure it out soon!

Electronic Drama Queens

/ Diane Henders / 27 Comments

’Way back in 2011 I speculated that my electronic devices might be alive, and maybe even moderately sentient. Today I’m here to tell you: Not only are my electronic devices alive; they’re also drama queens.

At first I thought they were merely minor chaotic evil. Imps, if you will. Not smart enough to develop an organized attack; only aware enough to grind to a halt when they sensed I really needed them to work.

But I was wrong. Lately my electronic devices have undertaken a passive-aggressive campaign to demand all my attention while making it clear that they’re the ones in charge. (’Scuse the electronic pun.)

First my laptop’s CD drive started whining at me: Making that small annoying “rrr-EEE-rr” sound that indicates it’s spinning up a CD. But there was no CD in the drive. And it wouldn’t stop. I finally gave up on fixing it and left the CD tray permanently unlatched.

Thwarted, the laptop began its next micro-aggression: Randomly jumping around in my document when scrolling. It would work fine for a while; and then I’d scroll down in Chapter 22 and suddenly find myself in Chapter 3. Or 10. Or…?

Fine. I started using the Page Up/Page Down keys instead of scrolling on the touchpad.

I could practically hear its thoughts: “What?!? Well, I’ll fix you.”

So it started flipping to battery power without warning, even though it’s plugged in. I wiggle the cord and it goes back to wall power. Then it switches back to battery for no apparent reason. Wiggle the cord: Wall power. Then battery again. I reach for the cord again, but this time it coyly switches back to wall power before I can touch it. It’s a relatively minor annoyance; but it gets my attention, which was apparently the goal.

The laptop is old, so I’ve been putting up with its quirks; but in retrospect that may have been a mistake. Now it’s infecting my other devices with its bad attitude.

My Kindle has developed a similar intermittent issue with its charging cord. And sometimes it stalls in the middle of a book and reboots, only to reopen the book in a completely different place. The Kindle is supposed to remember how far you’ve read, but mine doesn’t. Profanity ensues.

Sometimes, the Kindle won’t start at all; it just shows me an obstinate lock screen. It takes at least five minutes to recover and reboot from that; and it won’t always do it on the first try. (Because why would it pass up an opportunity to show me who’s really the boss?)

Clearly I should have disciplined the laptop before it could become a bad influence, because lately my desktop computer has been getting into the act with random reboot errors, too.

I don’t know where all this will end, but the escalation is making me nervous. If you see headlines about a woman who died in a bizarre mishap caused by simultaneous electric shocks from three separate devices, you’ll know what happened.

Meanwhile, I’ll be over here trying to placate my laptop…

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 37, and things are getting explosive… literally!

A Ferry Tale

/ Diane Henders / 35 Comments

Last week we had a big adventure: We took the ferry over to Denman Island!

Why are you laughing?

Okay, fine; you’re right. Before COVID, a ten-minute ferry ride would have been a mere footnote in our lives. But we’ve been cooped up for so long that it felt like an exotic vacation. It was a glorious sunny day with a fresh breeze, and it was a joy to be out on the water. Heart-palpitating excitement, I tell you!

I admit, though, some of the heart palpitations were due to unresolved trauma left over from my last trip to Denman Island. That was the time Hubby marooned me, sailing off into the sunset (or at least to the opposite shore) without me.

I’ve never let him forget it; but to be fair, it wasn’t really his fault. We were new to ferry travel then. We didn’t realize that when the operators load cars onto a small ferry, it means they’re going to depart within minutes. We also didn’t realize that schedules for the smaller ferries change without notice if there’s a mechanical problem or any other hiccup.

So we went over to Denman and spent a few hours roaming around, taking in some spectacular views and some ever-so-tasty food. After a lovely day, we took our place in the ferry lineup with forty-five minutes to spare.

That meant there was enough time for me to hike over and check out a nearby artisan’s studio, so Hubby waited with the car while I headed out. I kept an eye on my wristwatch, planning to be back at the car fifteen minutes before the ferry was due to sail. I was right on time.

But our car was gone.

In fact, all the cars were gone. I was nonplussed, but not overly concerned. I hiked down the hill to the ferry terminal, expecting Hubby to be waiting for me there. He wasn’t.

He didn’t have his cell phone, but I had mine with me. Against logic, I checked to see if I’d missed any calls. Nope.

“Okay…” I thought. “Maybe he’s driving around looking for me.”

He wasn’t. I retraced my steps, but there was no sign of our car.

I knew that if he’d been on the ferry he would have reached the other shore by then. There was a ferry terminal, gas station, and restaurant there; and they all had phones.

But he didn’t call me. I began to wonder if he was not-so-subtly trying to tell me something.

With no other choices available, I waited an hour until the next ferry came. When I disembarked on the opposite shore, Hubby was waiting for me. “I didn’t realize they were going leave right after we loaded,” he explained. “I thought it was like air travel, where you just sit there until your flight is scheduled to leave.”

“Why didn’t you phone me?” I demanded.

He rolled out some Husband Logic: “I knew you’d be on the next ferry. Where else would you go?”

I didn’t kill him.

But this trip, I stayed in the driver’s seat. Just in case.

Please tell me I’m not the only one whose spouse has marooned them on an island…

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 33, and a man wearing nothing but tighty-whiteys and a blanket has just given Aydan some vital information. Will Captain Underpants save the day?

Denman Island shoreline

Warm Fuzzies Too

/ Diane Henders / 23 Comments

The last couple of weeks have been… interesting. I’m still having trouble sitting because of my spinal problems, so I’ve applied to my insurance company for partial disability until I’m back on my feet (or, more accurately, back on my butt).

Let’s just say it’s *ahem* ironic (this is the most tactful word I can summon) that, in order to be compensated for a disability that prevents me from sitting and working at the computer, they require me to submit personal and corporate documentation that takes over forty hours of computer time to produce.

I’m reminded of the joke about corporate policy for sick days: “You may only be absent from work on medical grounds if you submit a valid death certificate signed by your doctor and witnessed by you.”

I’ll say no more, lest I tumble into a bottomless well of snark and cynicism. Instead, I’m choosing to focus on some more warm fuzzies this week. Here are some bright moments that can make us all smile whenever we remember them (or, better still, when they happen again):

  • The crisp ‘ping’ of your one perfect golf swing in an otherwise abysmal game. (Okay, that’s probably just me — most people get more than one good swing in a game.)
  • The first cold, crisp mouthful of beer (or your beverage of choice) on the Friday night after a tough week.
  • That last-minute substitution in a recipe where you didn’t have all the ingredients, and the dish turns out even better than the original.
  • After practicing for days, the first time that fast intricate passage flows from your fingers and out of your musical instrument without a mistake.
  • The once-in-a-lifetime euphoria of successfully choosing the shortest grocery store lineup.
  • The glorious synergy when you’re charging down the basketball court and your teammate throws the ball exactly where you need it to make the layup.
  • The pure satisfaction of standing in your lush veggie garden and knowing you’re surrounded by a year’s worth of delicious and nutritious food.
  • The lucky brushstroke that creates exactly the look you wanted in your painting, even though you didn’t plan it.
  • And the heart-lifting joy of spring flowers peeking out after a long winter:

What are your warm fuzzies for this week?

Book 17 update: Despite my insurance company’s appropriation of my writing time, I still managed to make it to Chapter 28. The Department is in disarray, and Aydan’s murder suspect got released before she could finish questioning him. Now she’s lost her only lead, and an(other) assassin is on the loose.