Monica Ferris

Free books! Really, truly, free books! August 6 from 1 to 6 pm at the BlackStack Brewery in St. Paul, Ellen and I will be there with other Minnesota authors. The others will be selling and autographing their books, but we, finding ourselves seriously overstocked, are giving away titles by Ellen Kuhfeld, Mary Monica Pulver, and Monica Ferris. Do Drop In:

Books and Beer Pop-up Bookstore

Love books? Love beer? Love meeting local authors?

Get on down to the Books and Beer Pop-up Bookstore!

Minnesotan authors will have their books for sale. Stop by to chat with them over a pint and find your next favorite book.

PARTICIPATING AUTHORS:
Check back to see additional authors that will have their books for sale!

Michael Bernabo- www.MichaelBernabo.com
Carl Brookins – www.carlbrookins.com
Midge Bubany – www.midgebubany.com
Scott Burtness – www.swbauthorblog.wordpress.com
Megan Carney – www.megancarney.com
Tom Combs – www.tom-combs.com
J. Lynn Else – www.teasippinnerdymom.com
Kathy Engen, Linda Heath – www.ShiftandSpark.com
Greg Gardner – www.greggardnerbooks.com
Meg Hafdahl – www.meghafdahl.com
Nancy Hedin – www.nancyhedin.com
Christine Husom – www.christinehusom.webs.com
June Kramin – www.junekramin.com
Ellen Kuhfeld, Monica Ferris – www.washuu.net, www.monica-ferris.com
Brian Lutterman – www.brianlutterman.com
K. Bird Lincoln – www.facebook.com/kbirdlincoln
Erik McCarthy – www.amazon.com/Life-Meaningless-Handbook-Erik-McCarthy/dp/1544264976
Amanda Meuwissen – www.amandameuwissen.com
Amanda Michelle Moon – www.amandamichellemoon.com
J. Lloren Quill – www.jllorenquill.com
Rhea Rhodan – www.rhearhodan.com
Scott Michael Stenwick – www.scottstenwick.com
Cole W. Williams – www.colewwilliams.com

And, just for fun, do any of you like model planes – the kind that really fly? I am amazed – seriously amazed – at where the hobby has gone lately. For example:

Remember card catalogs in libraries? I do, and I loved them. I was disappointed when, after going to a computer system, they discarded the stacks of narrow little boxes. Couldn’t they have kept them both? They made searches so much easier, and there was frequently the joyous experience of finding an even better book (or books!) in the next card or two down the row – Dewey Decimal System, anyone? I thought I – a science fiction fan from an early age – I was being a troglodyte in regretting their disappearance, but have found I am not alone. For example, there’s this:

I do want to say that the Internet, with its powerful search engines, is fabulous and I use them avidly. But I wish there was an app or something that would make connections like the Dewey Decimal System did.

The writing has slowed down again. I wish I knew how to restore my muse!

I am going to the dentist in a little while. It seems that in the last six months my teeth, especially the crowns, have deteriorated sharply. I went in for my bi-annual cleaning and I was shown photographs of the inside of my mouth and was shocked. The porcelain lining of my bridge has chipped away and a natural tooth has broken and there are other signs of wear. It’s like I’ve been chewing pebbles. So now I have to return to get the bad news from Doctor Lunden.   What is it going to cost to restore my mouth? Are my teeth salvageable at all?

Hurrah for the Glorious Fourth! I hope your hot dog and potato salad and Jello with little marshmallows and ice cream or Popsicles are particularly fine this year, and the fireworks are truly amazing. We live right next door to Aquila Park, which has an excellent display, set off at the bottom of a steep grassy hill while we sit along the top, so they go off close overhead – nice. The forecast is for scattered showers starting late in the afternoon, so . . . bummer. But we’ll see. They may scatter themselves elsewhere or hold off or finish up early.

I went to our biggest farmers’ market this past Sunday to order the geese for Michaelmas, and as I was working my way back to the car, I came across a booth selling spectacular bouquets in beautiful vases, and bought this one, all in shades of yellow, including roses. Ten dollars – the heavy glass vase alone is worth that. So it sits on our dining room table looking elegant.

The needlepoint bunny I’m stitching for my sister Dolores is coming along, though rather slowly, because I’m experimenting with blending flosses.

I’m changing the order of events in Tying the Knot. The plot is getting complicated and it’s going to be challenging to get all my characters in their correct places here and there to move the story forward. Meanwhile, here’s a glimpse from early on, when Betsy is talking with her ex-husband about their days in the US Navy, when he took her along on the USS Ranger aircraft carrier’s annual Dependents’ Day Cruise:

“Maybe you would have, at that. Remember that Dependents’ Day Cruise I took you on?” he asked. “You really liked it — and didn’t get seasick.”

“That was fun,” she said. Back in the day – and maybe still today – U.S. Navy aircraft carriers held annual “Dependents’ Day Cruises,” during which they took crew members’ relatives to sea for a day. Aircraft were launched and recaptured, did fly-bys and other demonstrations of skill. The USS Ranger was Roo’s assigned ship and Betsy was pleased to go aboard.   It was an experience like no other and Betsy’s mind warmed to the memory: The deafening roar of jet engines, the dizzying stink of jet fuel, the rush of air down the flight deck as the huge ship accelerated into a wind so powerful she could literally lean against it; the curious swift and purposeful movement of men in red, yellow, green, brown and blue knit shirts as they fueled, started and then guided the pale gray jets into position to be suddenly thrown forward from the bow into the air, the roar as they circled the ship, dropping from a height to a few yards above the water, the anxiety and danger as they came home, planes teetering downward one by one to reach for one of the huge cables across the stern with a tailhook which dragged them swiftly to a halt. And all the while, off the port bow hovered a helicopter called the “angel. ” Its role was to scoop up pilots whose aircraft failed to make air speed on launch or to catch the arresting gear on landing, while their multi-million dollar planes swiftly sank beneath the waves. (Once, years later, she’d had a conversation with an Air Force reservist who explained that while Air Force pilots were brave and skilled, Navy pilots were insane.)

It is amazing to me how often inspiration comes at inconvenient times. Like, for me this most recent time, at night, when I’m in bed falling asleep and with an early morning appointment. But POW! just as my thoughts are starting to jumble into a dream, I thought, Make It One. There just isn’t enough story for Tying the Knot. I’d have to pad – and I hate reading a book that’s padded with unnecessary digressions and the detective behaving stupidly to make the story longer. I need action and movement and danger and excitement. So, two weddings! And Connor deathly ill! And Betsy’s first husband is . . . um, up to something! Alarums and excursions! Let’s see, first Roo turns up, and then Godwin is excited at planning a huge, expensive wedding, then Connor falls very ill, then the wedding planner is murdered, then Godwin’s friend is suspected of murder but Betsy is too worried about Connor to investigate, then Roo does something stupid, and – yes! Wow, this could be good! Oh, boy! And next thing I know my clock is striking midnight and I’m wide awake. Should I keep the title Tying the Knot? After all, two knots are going to be tied, but on the other hand, I think Betsy marrying Connor will mean she sells Crewel World to devote herself to – what? Travel? Anyway, maybe a new title is in order: Goodbye, Crewel World. Because this will be the end of the series.

Awwwww . . . Sad. But it’s good to find myself back in the saddle. Because I think I have an inkling of a notion of an idea for an entirely different sort of novel.

Meanwhile, I’m wearing a knee brace, which is working pretty well and enabling me to cowardly put off knee replacement surgery for a while longer.

All the blood tests and the CAT scan came back negative for residual infection, so I’m good for the knee replacement – but I don’t want to undergo the surgery until I can’t bear the pain and complications to my life anymore. So on Friday I’m going to a clinic to be fitted for a brace to see if that makes life more bearable for a while longer.

Friday evening we drove up to Remer, a little town about a hundred and eighty miles north of the Cities. It rained a little and then it didn’t rain and then it rained some more, and the trip was further complicated by our attempts to avoid road repairs, so we left here around four-thirty and got there around ten. The trip was to help Remer celebrate books. Their little library – made from the old railroad depot, marked by a caboose (those suckers were big!) – was a beautifully remodeled and very pleasant hundred-year-old place with lots of volunteers. I bought twenty dollars worth of tickets to a drawing for a queen-size quilt featuring bears, plus one book from each of the other four authors and we still made a profit.

Oddly, Remer also celebrates Bigfoot, the legendary hairy creature whose presence is claimed in various states of the U.S. I say “oddly,” because I thought the hairy creature who haunts the northwoods of Minnesota is the Wendigo, a pale hairy creature told of by our Native American (Anishinaabe – Chippewa and Ojibwe) tribes up there. It has a light shining in its forehead and anyone who sees it is shortly to die. Funny how almost every culture in the world tells of a large hairy creature roaming its wild places. Lots of sightings over hundreds of years, but as far as I know no one has ever found the bones of even one.

Anyway, I bought a book from John Schreiber, C.S. Yelle, Margo Hansen, and Terry Oliver Mejdrich, each wildly different in theme from the others (seek their web sites) and had some extremely pleasant fellow authors to talk with between customers.

And my own book, Tying the Knot, progresses slowly – but it progresses.

I had an exciting and varied Sunday. First, it was my Sunday to make the coffee for after the 8 o’clock service at St. George’s, so I got there about 7:25 under a lowering sky. My partner in this endeavor was already there. She told me the weather forecast was for a very severe thunderstorm and sure enough, the sky got darker and darker with not a breath of wind. We went into church and right at the Consecration the sky blew open and thunder and lightning rattled the skies – and then the hail started, making such a racket that I was sure the roof was going to be ripped open and windows shattered. Though I sit in the second pew from the front, and our priest wears a microphone, I could barely hear the prayers over the noise. The rain came down so hard it was like a thick fog, and then the sky grew dark as night. But the congregation stayed in place and we all soldiered through the service. We adjourned then to the church hall and ate sweet rolls and drank coffee and congratulated ourselves for not abandoning the service and fleeing to the basement. But none of us dared to go out and drive home until it abated. On the drive home I noted several big branches down and one tree broken off at the base and half blocking the street.

At home the power was out in the whole building – well, sort of. As happened once before, half of the power in our apartment was out. The stove worked but not the refrigerator. My computer had power – but not my connection to the Internet. My land line phone didn’t work, though an old-style Plain Old Phone did. This was true for about half the apartments, plus the underground garage (including the door; they opened it manually and set volunteers to guard it), and the elevators – and we live on the third floor, very painful with my bad knee. I got two different reports of a nearby transformer going off with a big bang and burning briskly just before the storm broke.

For the past week or ten days, I’d been thinking of a certain shrimp dish served at a little Thai restaurant called Pattaya and getting more and more of a hankering for it. With a kitchen just half on line, I decided to eat out, and drove to Pattaya – only to find they don’t open until after three on Sundays. So I went to another, slightly more upscale Asian restaurant, recently renamed Kai and Little Crustacean (your guess is as good as mine). I was disappointed not to find that dish on their menu, and asked the waiter to recommend something approaching that mix of shrimp and fresh ginger. Instead, he went to the kitchen and brought out their head chef, and I described it to him: shrimp and slivers of fresh ginger in a brown sauce, with broccoli, pea pods, onions, carrots, and mushrooms, between two and three stars (out of five) hot. He said he’d make it for me – and my oh my, was it good! I told them that if I was ever in the unfortunate position of ordering a last meal, this would be it. You can believe I left a really good tip.

I did a little stitching and worked on a new Chapter Three of Tying the Knot until the power finally came back around six, in time for me to watch an old Columbo repeat before going to bed.

Monday I went to consult with the same surgeon who operated successfully on my MRSA-infected knee last year. He ordered up some X-rays and sure enough, that same knee hurts and makes grinding sounds because it’s gone “bone on bone” and needs to be replaced. He explained the surgery, which isn’t what I thought it was, but wants a CAT scan and extensive blood work done in advance – no need to tempt another round of that infection. And no cortisone or other treatment meanwhile for the same reason. Gah.  My advice: Never grow old.

It’s alive! It’s alive!

My muse is struggling to her feet. I’ve finished the re-write of Chapter One of Tying the Knot and begun Chapter Two. Exciting!

My muse is stirring! I have gone back to the start of Tying the Knot, and am actually working on it. Giant flaws, invisible to me in the darkness of writers’ block, are suddenly clear, and I am actually taking pleasure in writing. Glory Hallelujah!

Speaking of which: As has become my custom, I went with a friend yesterday to Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis for a Memorial Day ceremony that, as an honor and memorial to those who have died in military service to our country, is fiercely patriotic. The Colors are Presented, the Pledge of Allegiance is recited, the National Anthem is sung (begun in a low-enough key that the sudden break to a higher key is reachable by ordinary voices), the extremely touching song “If You’re Reading This Letter” is sung. The remarkable baritone Robert Robinson was the featured singer. He also sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and sang the verse:

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
Oh, be swift my soul to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!
Our God is marching on.

It took my breath away. In the chaos and racket and horror of battle, to call on oneself to not only dash forward, but to be “jubilant” about it requires a rare nerve. But there we sat, the living, awed in the presence of row on row of markers over those kind of soldiers, breathing the free air given us by that kind of jubilant courage. Hallelujah indeed.

And that hymn was written by a woman.