Our Belgian friend Christian, physicist and book collector, gave me a 1901 collection of poetry by Robert Burns (1759-1796) with a glossary of Scottish terms. Amazing treasure! Here are some great words we’ve lost and ought to get back, either…
Blog Archives
Novel math
The target word count for my novel in progress is 100,000, which is typical for my genre: literary historical fiction. (You can churn out more without publishers balking with some bulky sales numbers behind you) Which leads me to some…
Posted in Writing
Annoying: a hose down the throat
Sitting in a doctor’s office outside of Naples to discuss a stomach issue, I heard a man screaming wildly from the next room. My doctor explained: “He’s getting a gastroscope, a tube down the esophagus. It’s a bit fastidioso.” Now…
Posted in Just life
Rx: A good slap
In the years I lived in Italy outside Naples, I witnessed two instances of a non-AMA-approved but low cost/high efficiency bedside tactic. First instance: I was coming home late from a meeting. As I mounted the stairs to our apartment,…
Posted in Just life
Where’s God?
Set kids loose on theological contemplation and you can’t predict the outcome. Today at “Children’s Time with the Pastor” the question “Where can we see God?” unleashed exuberant responses from the younger congregants. In ME! In ME too! In Patrick?…
Posted in Just life
Warm soup for cold snap
To soften the load on our lumbering furnace, I’m very bundled up to write today: sweater, scarf, jacket, wool leggings, jeans, two pairs of socks. Yesterday I made a pureed root vegetable soup for a sick friend and just had…
Fruili Potatoes
Being recently in possession of some turnips, I was happy to find a recipe for same from Friuli, a beautiful, not enough visited wine-growing region of north-east Italy near Slovenia. Friuli was under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which accounts for its…
Posted in Food
Lessons from Raking
We have two large red oak trees in our front yard. I am the designated raker. Nobody is jockeying to take this post from me so I have plenty of time to muse while raking each fall. As in, “I…
What could get you locked up
The research I did in writing Swimming in the Moon on treatment of mental illness in the early 20th C was scary enough. Here are reasons a person (especially a woman, foreigner or poor person) could get committed in the…
End of the Red Baron
My novel in progress includes mention of the Baron Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, the Kaiser’s fearless flying ace, who reached cult status on both sides during World War I for his prowess in shooting down Allied planes.…
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