I promised I would come back to the topic of teachers—a topic about which I’m passionate—and here I am.
I’m talking about why I’ll never be a teacher. And why you shouldn’t be one either, unless you identify with the information below.
My protagonist, Alison Bergeron, is a teacher. And I’m married to a teacher. An experienced, dedicated, innovative, effective seventh-grade homeroom teacher, who also happens to specialize in teaching French. Nobody, besides all of us here at Chateau Barbieri, sees what he does when he’s not in the classroom: grading papers, planning classes, calling parents, responding to emails from colleagues. Nobody sees him get up at five o’clock in the morning so that he can catch the 6:18 a.m. train so that he can be at his desk by 7:45 to drink his one cup of coffee before students arrive. And nobody sees him get off the train at 6:00 at night because his school day is eight hours long and ends after four.
No—what people see is a man who is off for two weeks at the end of March, has a few extra days off around the holidays because he’s on a private school schedule, a man who takes his class to Cape Cod for a seafaring, science adventure every fall, and a man who takes over the lion’s share of the parenting duties in the summer, dropping the kids off at their various camps and activities while his wife slaves away in an un-air conditioned attic (that’s a choice, by the way. I like the heat. It keeps me “hungry.” And it’s a better climate for my shoes, which I keep stashed next to me. At least that’s what I tell myself.)
People’s reaction to seeing him around? “I should be a teacher. That’s some schedule you’ve got!”
Yes, go ahead. Be a teacher. Good luck with that.
To me, that’s like saying to your dentist, “Wow! You’ve got all of this neat oral hygiene equipment AND you make a lot of money? I should be a dentist!” Or to the local police officer, “You mean you can drive fast whenever you want? And wear a sexy gun belt dripping with weapons? And you won’t get a ticket for talking on your cell phone while in the car? I think I’LL be a cop! It sounds fun!”
You know what teaching is? It’s a calling. You don’t wake up one day and decide to teach, you teach because it’s the only thing you ever wanted to do or thought that you’d be good at. You teach because you love kids, want to see them grow and learn, and help them find their own path. You teach because you love learning and want to pass that on to your students.
Which is why I work in an attic, by myself, all day long.
Why, you ask? What about the summers off? What about the extra three days around Christmas? Here’s the god’s honest truth: I don’t like the kids in mass quantity part, and am menze menze (I apologize to my Italian friends for bad spelling) on the learning part (although I would love to learn how to make my own California rolls…and pole dance). But I’m grateful to, and astounded by, the people who want to do it.
Two of my best friends are also teachers—one teaches four-year-olds at a preschool and the other teaches high school students who have various learning difficulties, two very different types of teaching positions. And while they have their bad days—someone eats too much play-doh and hurls in the classroom, or someone can’t figure out how to write an essay in under three days flat and the SAT’s are around the corner—both are committed, dedicated, and professional above all. I admire and respect them and even if there were not another person on the planet and they needed a sub for the day would I say, “Hey, I’ll fill in for you! Sounds like fun!” I’d rather have a colonoscopy than get in front of a class of kids. Because you know what? I’d be really, really bad at it.
I was born to make up stories about women who can’t keep their noses out of police investigations, not to spend the days with a bunch of kids who can’t keep their noses out of their own armpits.
I wonder, sometimes, why Alison Bergeron—my protagonist and aforementioned nosy sleuth—is a teacher. Is it an homage to the profession? Or, does it just allow me to fill her days with interesting and slightly off-beat characters? Because if you’ve been on a college campus, in a middle school, or even around a bunch of elementary-school children, you know that the halls of academia are filled with characters. But whatever it is, she’s a teacher, she’s smart as hell, and she also has the summers off, which allows her extra time to play Nancy Drew.
So, here’s to our teachers who are specialized, trained, passionate, committed, and teaching our kids. Respect what they do. Thank them occasionally. And never, never say, on a hot summer day, “Hey—that’s some schedule you’ve got. I should teach!”
Not unless you want to be hit in the face with a flying eraser.
Maggie Barbieri
Let’s Talk About Sex
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangOy! I went to an Orthodox Jewish Day School through sixth grade (substitute Rabbis for nuns, keep the rules, and you get the picture). Try as I might to construct a love scene that involves nudity, I’m convinced that I will get struck by a lightning bolt at the first sign of heavy breathing.
Hey, I like sex – but even writing that sentence has me checking to see if Rabbi D is clucking over my lost soul.
Here’s the problem. My characters are two middle-aged adults who have been around the block a few times. At some point (should it be in Book 2? Hold out for Book 3?), they’re going to go steady, get lavaliered, maybe even get pinned, or the 40-something equivalent. In any case, there’s a point in an adult relationship that would suggest that somebody is getting some. So practically speaking, sex needs to be part of the Mac Sullivan-Rachel Brenner equation. Plus, circling back to Charlaine Harris, sex sells. What to do?
When I first started writing fiction, I described a love scene to my husband. I could see him trying to figure out how to phrase the question. Despite years of marriage and four kids, he thought he knew me, but perhaps, there was still a surprise to be had. Finally, he decided the direct approach was best. “Are you writing smut?” “No,” I answered indignantly. “I subcontracted it out.”
I suppose we could just have constant “fade to black” moments in our books, much like the Doris Day movies of the 1950s. It was a time when Hollywood was still peddling the idea that a “good” 30-something woman (Virginal Doris was 35 in Pillow Talk) would wait for a diamond on her left hand before any kiss would be permitted. Forget about any tongue involvement in those encounters. Kisses that ended up with the heroine actually sleeping with the hero, after the obligatory “fade to black,” still were not much more than a peck on the lips. Even I could have written those “sex scenes.”
We haven’t put it in the acknowledgements, but the Southern half of Evelyn David has agreed to write all steamy scenes. We don’t like to call it smut. We prefer to think of it as romance. Besides, she’s not worried at all about stray lightning bolts.
On the other hand, the Southern half is a Southern Baptist. Sex scenes don’t bother her a bit, but she is appalled at foul language. Put a damn in a sentence and she worries that her Mom will be disappointed in her. Me? I know words and combinations that would make a fleet of sailors blush. I don’t worry a bit if the good Rabbi will think I need to say any special prayers.
We’re finishing Murder Takes the Cake, the sequel to Murder Off the Books. Here’s a spoiler so don’t read the next sentence if you want to be surprised…but on page 98, there is a kiss. More of the Doris/Rock variety, but hey, there are 250 more pages before the exciting conclusion. A lot can happen between the sheets (of paper, that is). I’m making no promises, but I’m checking out rubber tires to sling around my waist…to ward off lightning bolts.
Evelyn David
My Write of Passage
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangCynthia Smith, author of Noblesse Oblige, is our guest blogger today.
Deep in the being of every non-fiction writer lies the longing to be a novelist.
So after seven non-fiction books that did fairly well (which means if I depended upon royalties alone to make a living I’d be flipping burgers at McDonald’s) – I decided to write fiction. Since I have long been a mystery book addict (I read 3 a week. My library charges after 7 days so I have to read fast) I decided to write a mystery. Heeding the lore that one should write about what one knows, I had 3 protagonists: me, my best friend in college and her 70-year-old Jewish grandmother who solved the mystery like a Yiddish Miss Marple. I sent the manuscript to an agent who read it over a weekend and phoned me on Monday to say “I loved it but I’ll never be able to sell it.” Why? “Because all the editors are 12-years-old and will never identify with your characters. You need a contemporary voice.”
Fast forward to my visit to London sitting on a train to Salisbury, seated alone in a compartment with an upper class young woman who wasted her window-seat position that I coveted as she wrote feverishly in a legal pad. “I’m on my way to see my solicitor because I’m getting divorced and he told me to write down what I want from my bastard of a husband.” Who asked her? But I find people tell me things. Perhaps because my simpatica look indicates I can help them. And I do. And did. That’s where I got the idea to create a protagonist who is a sort of private eye but more – she is a Private Resolver. Her name is Emma Rhodes.
Unlike the current female private eyes who live on takeout and cut their own hair with cuticle scissors, Emma is RICH: she dresses in designer clothes, has 3 homes all over the world because she demands $20,000 for two weeks work with a guarantee of success.
She is everything I would have loved to be at her age: gorgeous, an IQ of 165, sexually free, wealthy and above all a size 8. I starred her in three novellas and gave it to my agent from whom I received a phone call weeks later.
“Berkley Crime division of Penguin Putnam is interested. But there’s a small problem.” Oi veh, they probably want me to turn her into a transvestite. “She asked if you could extend them into three full-length novels.” My one-word-answer was “When?” And so I got a three-book contract, later extended to five-books.
The fun was creating the supporting cast – necessary in a series. Abba Levitar, a colonel in the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency who was Emma’s best friend and helper, and lover Superintendent Caleb Franklin of Scotland Yard, a gorgeous Cambridge-educated black man who I modeled after the hunk who bedded Jane Tennant in PRIME SUSPECT. Abba became my outlet for profanity since my agent told me foul language would not suit ladylike Emma. Where do I get Israeli curses? I don’t use the Internet for research; I like to network until I find a live source. I found a visiting Israeli rabbi and told him I’m a writer who needed Israeli curse words. It’s amazing how the word “writer” opens doors and mouths. “Kuze mach.” He replied instantly. “I wrote diligently. “What does that mean?” I asked. “It means the pussy of your mother.” I nearly fell off the chair. “Is that Hebrew?” I asked. ”No – of course not. It’s Arabic. We do not curse in Hebrew – that is the language of the Bible!”
Cynthia Smith
Author of NOBLESSE OBLIGE
Published by Busted Flush Press
Available from the following bookstores:
Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach Florida
Murder By The Book, Houston, Texas
The book will also be available though other online, chain and independent booksellers.
News Junkie
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangI admit it. I’m addicted to news. I listen to NPR in my office and car. I listen to CNN at home. It’s the background noise of my life.
But I’m picky. Not just any news show will do. I need my CNN and NPR fixes. Fox won’t do. Neither will MSNBC. Give me Diane Rehms treating every guest with respect and allowing them the time to answer her questions. Or Anderson Cooper, hip deep in the New Orleans floodwaters or standing outside the Sago Mine, giving us his view on the latest disaster. For something lighter, give me All Things Considered, In This I Believe, and The Car Talk Guys.
I think my obsession with CNN started about the time of the first Gulf War. I was fascinated by the minute-to-minute coverage that CNN was providing. Remember the CNN reporters broadcasting from their room while the bombs were dropping? Talk about reality tv – that was incredible. During the second Gulf War, I traveled through the desert with the embedded reporters. Sometimes I left the television on while I fell asleep, the sounds of real war playing in my ears – all with a five second satellite delay.
I know exactly when my NPR addiction started. The O.J. Simpson trial. I was doing a lot of driving for my day job during that year. I ended up hearing most of the trial through my car radio thanks to NPR. Kato Kalin? Judge Ito? Marsha Clark? I learned so much about creating bigger-than-life characters from that trial. And the murders of Nicole and Ron? I cried with Ron Goldman’s father. I felt Nicole’s sister’s anger. I listened to the testimony like I was a juror. It began as a real who-dun-it and by the end? By the end the mystery was how the justice system ever manages to work.
At night when I write, I like to have the television on. Maybe it’s a hold-over from my school days when I did my homework in front of the set. But these days it’s not returns of Gilligan’s Island or the Love Boat that keeps me company. It’s news. I need it. I crave it.
BlueRay is in. Hillary is in trouble. An explosion in Texas may increase gasoline prices by ten cents a gallon. Bush is in Africa – I hope he doesn’t do any more dancing. And hey, did you know that a beagle was the top dog at the Westminster dog show? Should have been a wolfhound.
These things are important, people!
Tune in.
Evelyn
The Theory of the Karaoke Gene
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangI was lucky enough to be the honoree recently at a book signing/celebration to introduce the denizens of my hometown to my new book, “Extracurricular Activities.” My hometown is not very far from the town I live in now—just twenty miles—but because we’re separated by a bridge, it seems to be harder and harder for me to get home and for my extended family to visit me. Look for a future blog entry where I discuss “the theory of why we won’t cross the bridge to see each other.”
But cross the bridge I did and I was happy for the opportunity. My parents have decided that every year an Alison Bergeron mystery is published, a book signing extravaganza will take place. Last year’s party, to celebrate the release of “Murder 101,” the first book in the series, was a free-for-all held on a Saturday night, complete with open bar, DJ, food, and dancing. It ended, as many of our family’s gatherings do, with the manager of the Knights of Columbus hall respectfully asking the attendees—we’ll call them “fans” for brevity’s [and ego’s] sake—to leave quietly so as not to disturb the neighbors. And to leave the silverware and the napkins behind. So, when the subject of this year’s book signing came up, I said to my parents, “Why don’t we have it on a Sunday afternoon? You know, make it a little more low-key?”
“Great,” they responded, they who go to bed at seven thirty and rise at four in the morning, “Sunday afternoon it is!”
“But more low-key,” I reminded them.
“Yes! More low-key! We’ll have karaoke!”
At this point, I guess I should mention that I have a reputation as a bit of a party girl. But when I say “party girl,” I mean that in the most wholesome way possible. But I guess at this point in my life, I think it would be more authentic to say that I’m a “party woman.” I’m not a lampshade on the head type (except for that one Christmas) and I’m generally fairly responsible. I’m usually the first one on the dance floor and the last one to leave and that’s without the benefit of liquid courage. But even in my warped view of a “good time,” I didn’t think karaoke qualified as “low-key.”The reactions to the news of the centerpiece of the frivolity were mixed and ranged from “Oh, good Lord, no!” to “I’ll sing a song—maybe, if I have a couple of beers,” to “You’ll have to pry the mic from my cold, dead hands.” (The last one being mine.) All of the interesting feedback leading up to the event lead me to surmise that there is definitely a karaoke gene.
And proof of this came when my niece, Erin—three years old and full of spit and vinegar—grabbed the mic from her mother (my sister) and belted out “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Who knew it had fourteen verses?
My sister looked at me dolefully. “I gave birth to you.”
Because growing up, even though we didn’t have karaoke, specifically, I spent many a day singing along to the Supremes on my close-n-play record player while my sister practiced her foul shots on the back driveway with the neighborhood boys. (They were very tall and she was not but she always kicked their collective butts. And probably still could if she wasn’t a respectable mother of two.)
I begged my sister all day long to do a song with me. In another life, my sister was a professional musician, so I thought it would be a no-brainer. But she doesn’t have the karaoke gene so she kept ducking me until it was no longer possible. After about an hour of exhaustive searching through the folders of potential songs, we finally decided to do a duet of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” a song I consider my signature tune. I thought we were good to go until a certain young lady, clad in a green velvet dress, approached the stage and said, “I want to sing, tooooo.” I dare you to try to sing the song successfully with someone else singing “shot!” three seconds behind you.
Based on the theory of the karaoke gene, then, it would seem that it is not a direct blood line from mother to daughter, but aunt to daughter, a maternal bloodline, if you will. Yes, the theory needs work, but all in all, makes a bit of sense, no? We’ll check back when Erin’s thirteen, and hopefully, a little more inhibited.
Maggie
More on Valentine’s Day
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangHubby and I have been married so long I have a hard time remembering. I know it’s over 50 years, we were married the year I graduated from high school, ‘51–you figure it out. We met on a blind date during my senior year. He was the cutest sailor, all decked out in his bell bottom pants. With a whole group of my school friends and their dates, we rode the streetcar to downtown L.A. to Chinatown. A favorite hangout for us back in those days. We ate dinner, everyone danced except my date and me–he said he didn’t know how. (This was remedied in later years and he later could tear up the dance floor.)
We came back to my girlfriends home as her mother was supposed to be there to drive me home. She didn’t turn up. Finally this cute sailor and I walked the five miles to my house–arriving around 2 a.m. All the lights were burning, both my parents were waiting up. (I’d only left a note that I was going on a blind date, needless to say they were worried and angry.) After a lot of explanation on my part, and my father giving my new, good looking friend the third degree, my parents invited him to spend the night. Turns out this cute sailor was going to school at Port Hueneme Sea Bee base, quite aways from L. A. He managed to make the trek back to my house nearly every weekend via bus or thumb.
When his schooling was nearly up, he proposed. He was so darn cute I had to say “yes.” (And I still think he’s pretty cute.) The problem was he was leaving for the East Coast and probably overseas deployment. I was only 17 and he was 20 and our parents weren’t willing to give permission for us to marry. In October, we’d both reached the magic ages, and he asked if I’d come back East to marry him. Of course I said, “yes.” Mom and I traveled to Washington DC on the train–an adventure in itself. We went to hubby’s family home in a dinky town in Maryland where I wasn’t greeted with great enthusiasm. They had the idea that I was some sort of wild gold-digger–after all, I came from California.
My family hadn’t been all that enthusiastic either. My grandfather thought sailors were worthless. No one thought our marriage would last, after all we hardly knew each other. We know each other pretty well now.
Hubby works with the kids at church at the Wednesday night Awana program. The kids made cute Valentine’s as a project–hubby made me one too. Yep, he still loves me after all these years–and the feeling is mutual.
And that’s my Valentine’s story.
Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com
John Madden, Whoopi Goldberg, and Me
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangAlso: Isaac Asimov, Aretha Franklin, Woody Allen, the list goes on and on.
We’re all perfectly sane, rational people, who are reduced to whimpering, pathetic blobs or medicated walking zombies when we click on an airplane seatbelt. We’re aviatophobic or as Erica Jong would put it, we’ve got a fear of flying.
Have I gotten on an airplane in the last five years? Yes. Does my husband still have full circulation in his left hand? For the seven hours it took to fly to London last year, I had him in a death grip that made Darth Vader look like Barney Fife.
Personally, I believe that if God had wanted me to fly, she would have given me feathers. I’m still holding out for the Star Trek transporter. “Beam me to Paris, Scotty” or if I’m being energy efficient, “Beam me to Paris, after you drop off Uhuru at the mall.” I’m not sure why I think trusting my molecules to Scottie is safer than a Delta flight, but at least the Enterprise’s engineer had a perfect on-time record.
Unlike a fear of rectangles, aviatophobia is not so debilitating that I have to deal with it on a daily basis. Most of our family is within driving distance, if you define driving distance as being on the road for 15 hours straight. Oddly, I have no fear of putting my loved ones on planes. What does that mean Dr. Freud?
I’ve got bus envy. John, Whoopi, and Aretha all have luxury-fitted buses to criss-cross the country. Me? It’s either Greyhound or drugs. Consider Madden’s motor coach (since it cost $800,000, it’s no longer called a bus or even an RV). In any case, his home on the road has a master bedroom with its own bathroom and steam shower, a full kitchen with granite flooring and countertops, a satellite TV, three plasma television screens, surround sound and high-speed Internet access. Sounds better than the house I live in. Think how incredible book tours would be if you had one of these babies to fire up and go.
Best flight I ever had was last October. I flew to Jacksonville for a family wedding. My doctor had prescribed Ativan for me – a wonder drug that doesn’t take away the fear, but at least makes sure that I don’t make a total, hysterical idiot of myself during the flight. I’d successfully tried out this medication a few months earlier on another trip and felt like I’d finally found a solution. Not a cure, mind you, but a way to endure, if not enjoy, a longer trip. Dutifully, I refilled the prescription the day before the flight. I popped two pills just before I walked down the gangway.
I wish I could tell you that it was a smooth flight. I wish I could tell you that it left on time and arrived early. Actually I could tell you that, but it’s all hearsay. I had no more than sat down in my seat than I was asleep. In a move that would be perfect for a murder mystery, Death by Not Paying Attention, I had inadvertently ingested double the prescription dose. (Each new pill was 1 mg, instead of the .5 mg pills I had taken months earlier. Had I read the prescription, I would have realized that I was only to take one pill, not two).
“When is the plane taking off?” I roused myself from a very comfortable nap.
“It did, it flew, and it landed. You missed it.” My husband explained, not totally unhappy to have enjoyed a trip with the use of both hands.
“Huh.” I wasn’t very coherent (that day or the next). But it occurred to me that it was as close as I was going to get to Scotty and the transporter. A trip that was over in what felt like a minute. Granted I slept through it (at what point is it considered unconscious?). But worked for me, worked for my husband.
We’re thinking of a trip to San Diego next summer. Think that Aretha or Whoopi want to share a ride?
Evelyn David
www.evelyndavid.com
I’m a Mystery to My Husband
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangGuest author Susan Konig joins us today.
I was trying to arrange an evening to meet with a group of residents in my town. We threw a few dates around. “How about next Thursday?” someone suggested.
“Isn’t that the 14th, Valentine’s Day?”
“It is, and I can be there,” said a mom of three young boys. “We’re not doing anything special.”
I laughed and understood. My husband and I hadn’t made any plans either. Was it because we had four kids?
One of the senior citizens weighed in. “I have to take my wife out to dinner,” he said firmly. “So, let’s see, dinner at six, home by seven. I’m available at 7:05.”
Sad, but true. This group of marrieds, young and old, were not the target audience to be whooping it up on Valentine’s Day.
Just as well. I do not make it easy on my husband. I get very irritated when he swears he is not getting anything for me and then caves to the pressure of all the other husbands riding on the commuter train home with boxes of chocolates and huge bouquets of flowers.
He arrives in our town and the florist who plans her fiscal year around men like him is waiting for him. Sure, he passed up vendors in the city selling for $40, $50 bucks a bunch. Now that he is steps away from our idling minivan full of cranky kids and shedding dog – not to mention stressed-out wife – he has no choice but to hand this woman $60 to save his rear end on this special day.
The purchase hurts financially but he feels as though he has done something good and noble by following the pack.
He hands me the overpriced blooms and I smirk. “What did you pay for these?”
I don’t want him spending all that money when he could have probably picked up a dozen perfectly acceptable tulips a day earlier for $10.
He doesn’t know that what I really want him to do is offer to watch the kids for an entire day or evening so I can go off and exercise or shop or think or write without interruption.
If I told him that’s what I want, he would swear up and down that he offers that all the time and I always turn him down. He’d be half right.
Sometimes he comes home from work after hanging out with his friends for a little while and working out to find me completely at the end of my rope as a wife, mother, and housekeeper (OK, I don’t really ever keep house).
He will say to me, “That’s it. Get out of here. Go, you’re off duty.” Sounds great, no? Except that there is no food for the kids and the baby needs a bath and he doesn’t know how to help our sixth grader with his math and American Idol is on and he won’t understand the staggered bedtime schedule of who has to go to bed when.
So I don’t go out and then I am even crankier. I guess I need him to come home with a bag of sandwiches and a plan. He tells me that if he’s home with the kids, he gets to watch them his way. But if I let him, I come home to weeping tales of “Daddy didn’t let us watch American Idol because YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM.”
I may get out of the house but I’m the bad guy when I return. Hardly worth it.
So he can’t plan and I’m no fun.
Another husband told me this week that he and his wife don’t make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day because every day is Valentine’s Day for them. Oh, please. I’d rather be grumpy and misunderstood one day a year and normal the rest of the time.
Susan Konig
Valentine’s Day Blues
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangI think Valentine’s Day is kind of a wimpy holiday. For a lot of people, it’s an afterthought. For the others? The ones with great expectations of romantic gestures and heartfelt expressions of undying devotion? Well, the results are usually a disappointment.
By the way, if you haven’t already figured it out, the author Evelyn David is really two people. The smart, witty posts on Mondays are written by the Northern Evelyn. The “what the heck does that have to do with writing” posts that show up on Thursdays are done by me – the Southern Evelyn.
Today, in between annoying coal miners, legislators, and federal regulators, all within the same eight hours (a personal best for me at my day job), I’ve been worrying about this blog. It should be easy for me to write 600 words on anything. Normally, I can’t even write the opening to a scene in less than 300. But today (which is yesterday if you’re reading this) my mind was scattered. Gathering any blogging ideas was much akin to herding cats (I know, I know, that phrase has been overused, but it’s still a favorite of mine and I intend to use it until I find another that means chasing down elusive, furry things that bite and scratch when you finally nab them.) I drafted several blogs – one on lying before congressional committees (don’t go before them and don’t lie) and one on the powers of the number 3 (don’t ask, I was digging deep for that one).
Valentine’s Day was an obvious topic choice. But what to say that hasn’t been said before? I could discuss the impossible search for a perfect card and color coordinated envelope (a real feat if you shop in a super store.) Ever notice how many people don’t take the envelope that the card gods intended to go with a particular card? What’s with that? By the time I start looking, the remaining cards and envelopes don’t match up – not even in size. Sometimes I’m choosing the card not for the design or sentiment inside; I’m picking it because it fits in the one remaining uncrumpled envelope.
And then there’s the chocolate . . . . I’ve always thought that chocolate was an excellent gift choice on Valentine’s Day – but please don’t give me those heart shaped boxes of chocolate wrapped in red foil and ribbon. For me eating the chocolate in those boxes is a scavenger hunt with some nasty surprises. I don’t like nuts. I don’t like coconut. I’m not crazy about caramel or hidden cherries. My favorites are those pieces that taste the most like a plain 3 Musketeers’ candy bar.
When I was younger, my brother always parked himself by my side when I opened the boxes of Valentine’s candy. One tiny test bite and I was usually handing off the offensive piece to him – who, like the Mikey of cereal commercials, would literally eat any kind of candy. One time I made the old fashioned fudge – the cooked kind with butter, salt, cocoa and sugar. I got some measurement wrong. The stuff set up harder than a brick and I literally used a dishtowel-wrapped hammer to break it into pieces. It was also lacking in sugar. I couldn’t eat it. My parents couldn’t eat it. It took my brother a couple of months, but he finally finished off the whole batch. He was a real trooper! Thinking of it – I probably owe him some money for dental bills.
Before leaving work, I took an informal survey of the other ladies in the office. What were they expecting to get for Valentine’s Day? Surprisingly, the answer was much the same. To avoid a lot of hassle and hurtful recriminations, they now bought their own gifts and picked out exactly what they wanted. Their husbands and significant others reimbursed them later for the costs.
I think I’ll do the same. Anyone care for a Klondike ice cream bar with a red ribbon?
Maybe, I’ll just skip the ribbon.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Evelyn David
All Hail Teachers!
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangI promised I would come back to the topic of teachers—a topic about which I’m passionate—and here I am.
I’m talking about why I’ll never be a teacher. And why you shouldn’t be one either, unless you identify with the information below.
My protagonist, Alison Bergeron, is a teacher. And I’m married to a teacher. An experienced, dedicated, innovative, effective seventh-grade homeroom teacher, who also happens to specialize in teaching French. Nobody, besides all of us here at Chateau Barbieri, sees what he does when he’s not in the classroom: grading papers, planning classes, calling parents, responding to emails from colleagues. Nobody sees him get up at five o’clock in the morning so that he can catch the 6:18 a.m. train so that he can be at his desk by 7:45 to drink his one cup of coffee before students arrive. And nobody sees him get off the train at 6:00 at night because his school day is eight hours long and ends after four.
No—what people see is a man who is off for two weeks at the end of March, has a few extra days off around the holidays because he’s on a private school schedule, a man who takes his class to Cape Cod for a seafaring, science adventure every fall, and a man who takes over the lion’s share of the parenting duties in the summer, dropping the kids off at their various camps and activities while his wife slaves away in an un-air conditioned attic (that’s a choice, by the way. I like the heat. It keeps me “hungry.” And it’s a better climate for my shoes, which I keep stashed next to me. At least that’s what I tell myself.)
People’s reaction to seeing him around? “I should be a teacher. That’s some schedule you’ve got!”
Yes, go ahead. Be a teacher. Good luck with that.
To me, that’s like saying to your dentist, “Wow! You’ve got all of this neat oral hygiene equipment AND you make a lot of money? I should be a dentist!” Or to the local police officer, “You mean you can drive fast whenever you want? And wear a sexy gun belt dripping with weapons? And you won’t get a ticket for talking on your cell phone while in the car? I think I’LL be a cop! It sounds fun!”
You know what teaching is? It’s a calling. You don’t wake up one day and decide to teach, you teach because it’s the only thing you ever wanted to do or thought that you’d be good at. You teach because you love kids, want to see them grow and learn, and help them find their own path. You teach because you love learning and want to pass that on to your students.
Which is why I work in an attic, by myself, all day long.
Why, you ask? What about the summers off? What about the extra three days around Christmas? Here’s the god’s honest truth: I don’t like the kids in mass quantity part, and am menze menze (I apologize to my Italian friends for bad spelling) on the learning part (although I would love to learn how to make my own California rolls…and pole dance). But I’m grateful to, and astounded by, the people who want to do it.
Two of my best friends are also teachers—one teaches four-year-olds at a preschool and the other teaches high school students who have various learning difficulties, two very different types of teaching positions. And while they have their bad days—someone eats too much play-doh and hurls in the classroom, or someone can’t figure out how to write an essay in under three days flat and the SAT’s are around the corner—both are committed, dedicated, and professional above all. I admire and respect them and even if there were not another person on the planet and they needed a sub for the day would I say, “Hey, I’ll fill in for you! Sounds like fun!” I’d rather have a colonoscopy than get in front of a class of kids. Because you know what? I’d be really, really bad at it.
I was born to make up stories about women who can’t keep their noses out of police investigations, not to spend the days with a bunch of kids who can’t keep their noses out of their own armpits.
I wonder, sometimes, why Alison Bergeron—my protagonist and aforementioned nosy sleuth—is a teacher. Is it an homage to the profession? Or, does it just allow me to fill her days with interesting and slightly off-beat characters? Because if you’ve been on a college campus, in a middle school, or even around a bunch of elementary-school children, you know that the halls of academia are filled with characters. But whatever it is, she’s a teacher, she’s smart as hell, and she also has the summers off, which allows her extra time to play Nancy Drew.
So, here’s to our teachers who are specialized, trained, passionate, committed, and teaching our kids. Respect what they do. Thank them occasionally. And never, never say, on a hot summer day, “Hey—that’s some schedule you’ve got. I should teach!”
Not unless you want to be hit in the face with a flying eraser.
Maggie Barbieri
Weather and Other Items of Interest … or Not
/in Uncategorized/by Stiletto GangHubby and I just returned from the Central Coast (California) community of Arroyo Grande. The weather was wonderful! Sunny and gorgeous. As we drove down the coast, the ocean sparkled. People who want to visit California beaches would be smart to go in February when the weather is often sunny as can be. In the summer, often the fog rolls in, making it chilly.
The weather was quite a contrast to the previous weekend when we were in snowy Chicago. We loved that too, though. In fact, I thanked the organizers of Love is Murder, our reason for being there, for having such a lovely snow storm for our entertainment.
The reason we were in Arroyo Grande was for me to participate with the Central Coast chapter of Sisters in Crime in a library presentation–which I did, of course. I’m always up for talking about my books and meeting new people. A chance to go to the coast was a huge incentive. We used to live in Oxnard (which is near Ventura) about one mile from the beach, and frankly, I miss the proximity to the ocean.
It was in Oxnard that I first became interested in writing about law enforcement. Our first house was in a neighborhood with police officers, firemen, and Navy personnel and their families. We partied and had coffee with our neighbors and got to know them all very well. Years later, my youngest daughter married a police officer who loved to tell me stories about what happened on his shift–he even took me on a tour of the police station and on a rather scary ride-along.
In my Rocky Bluff series (much darker than my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series), I’ve drawn quite a bit on my experiences from the days I hung out with those policemen and their families. If you’re interested, here’s a video about the latest book, Smell of Death,
http://au.youtube.com:80/watch?v=B1Q_1YJe2XQ
And to bring this back around to the beach, the Rocky Bluff series is set in a fictional beach community somewhere on the coast between Ventura and Santa Barbara–with some resemblance to Oxnard back in the time when I lived there.
Traveling around to promote books is fun, though not at all profitable. What I truly like best is meeting new people and my travels have been a great way to do it.
Now, back to working on my income taxes. Ugh!
Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com