Tag Archive for: Evelyn David

Where’s Bullwinkle When You Need Him?

/in /by

Anyone remember the cartoon Rocky and His Friends? I’m certainly not talking about that turkey of a movie that came out in 2000 with Rene Russo and Jason Alexander. Seriously Hollywood, there are some stories that don’t need retelling.

Anyway, I’ve gotten up close and personal with Rocky J. Squirrel – or at least his direct descendents. My attic has been invaded by flying squirrels.

It began three weeks ago. I awoke in the middle of the night to something. You know the sensation — although at the time, I assumed that it was Clio, our dog, trying to tell me that she needed to go out. Wonderful woman that I am, I ignored my first inclination – to wake my husband and tell him to take care of the damn dog. I sleepily accompanied Clio down the steps when I saw this little black animal half-flying, half-scurrying up the wall.

Forget wonder woman, I immediately headed back to the bedroom and screeched, “Get up.” I might point out that at this point, our faithful watchdog slid under the bed and was never heard from again that night.

My husband stumbled to his feet and headed for the door, when I, ever the Girl Scout leader, declared, “Put on your glasses.” No point in going into battle when you can’t see five feet in front of your face.

I resisted the urge to slide under the bed with Clio. After a few minutes, my husband returned and announced he had vanquished the intruder – or in this case, trapped what we thought was a baby squirrel in a paper bag and deposited him in the backyard.

Oh, would the story have ended happily right there.

Alas, over the next few days, we heard scurrying in the walls, although no more wildlife actually appeared where I could see them. A call to an exterminator informed me that squirrels were a protected species and couldn’t just be killed like rats. I wasn’t making such a fine distinction since my skin crawled at every sound. I needed a wildlife trapper. I had no idea that such a profession still existed. I thought trappers went the way of Daniel Boone and the beaver coat.

So now we have six traps installed in our attic, and the wildlife removal expert has promised to visit at least twice a week until the invasion has been definitively squelched. Then I need to hire a roofer to inspect our 18-month old roof to see where these squirrels are gaining entrance.

Cost? You don’t want to know, but let’s just say that Chanukah presents have been reduced to nuts for all.

I think I’ll move to Moosylvania.

Evelyn David

Computer Woes

/in /by

As I typed the title to this blog, I had to wait several beats for the letters to show up on the screen. My old laptop is not the fastest, but it’s all I have at the moment.

My desktop computer – a Dell Dimension E510 is up on blocks right now. About a month ago ….Okay I admit that several months ago I noticed a heavy fan noise that came and went. I figured it was just over heating. I’d open the door on my desk that houses the cpu and a few seconds later, the noise would go away. And yes, I’ve taken to leaving the door open to avoid that noise.

But back to my story – about a month ago I pushed the button to turn on my desktop computer and nothing happened. I thought perhaps the button was stuck, so I pushed it again. Nothing. I, of course, pushed it again, only harder. It started – the light on the button came on and the birds sang. No problem.

You’re saying something about heads buried in sand, aren’t you?

Yes, you are right, the same thing happened again a few days later. Then I unplugged the computer and replugged it. I also clicked my heels three times and spun in my computer chair. The cpu light came on.

At that point, I was unable to ignore it. I did have a problem. My computer with all my files, my writing, my emails, my life, was on borrowed time. So I did what everyone does now when trouble appears on their doorstep or desktop – I ran an Internet search.

“Dell computer won’t power on. Help.”

I found lots of advice and information. Who knew that the power light pulsed in different colors depending on status? An amber flashing light meant that power was reaching some parts of the computer but not all – I was advised to check for peripherals that might be sucking the life blood …uh power from my unit. I checked. Everything seemed to be plugged in properly.

I decided I’d better backup everything. I left my computer on for the next week while I purchased an external hard drive and used it to preserve all the details of my life.

More research yielded the information that I probably needed a new heart (new power supply unit) for my computer. I ordered one, plus a small battery that Dell recommended I purchase along with the power supply unit. I think it might be the pacemaker for the unit. Since I was going to be opening up my cpu for the heart transplant operation, I decided that I might as well add more memory and a larger hard drive.

The memory and hard drive arrived first. I was able to install them with a minimum of fuss with about a 90% confidence level.

While waiting for UPS to deliver the new heart, and feeling cocky with my recent success, I decided to clean the old power supply unit – just in case it was only dust causing the problem.

Taking out the power supply unit was fairly easy. But it involved a large number of wires being disconnected. After I had unplugged a half dozen or so, I realized I should have left bread crumbs so I could reconnect them later, but I had gone too far to stop so I didn’t.

I cleaned the power supply unit and then put it back in the cpu. Then I attempted to reconnect all the wires. I managed all but three. For some reason these three were now too short to reach anything. Not sure how that happened.

I stopped the operation, not willing to risk hooking up the heart incorrectly and killing the patient.

Today I got the new power supply unit in the mail.

Tomorrow I take the cpu and the new power supply to a trained heart surgeon. After all, my computer first aid skills only go so far.

And it is my life we’re talking about.

Evelyn David

p.s. Dell is having a sale. I might need a backup.

p.s.s. Anyone know why when I type on my laptop, sometimes the computer seems to lose its place and suddenly I’m typing on a previous line of text????

Fàilte (or Welcome as they say in Scottish Gaelic)

/in /by

I’ve just returned from the land of Highland Coos – those adorable shaggy cows that look like over-sized Shih Tzus. My husband and I spent a week visiting our daughter who is spending the semester at the University of Glasgow. Don’t ask me what time it is — my internal time clock is on the fritz.

My husband is a Scottish history junkie. So for days we wandered from Cathedral to battlefield to castle ruins, he examining old relics, me sipping tea and holding an informal scone contest (which the café at St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art won hands down).

Our first stop was Rosslyn Chapel, a small fifteenth century exquisite stone church, every single inch of which is covered with ornate and detailed carvings. You probably recognize the name because it’s the site of the big reveal in Dan Brown’s thriller, The Da Vinci Code. With the publication of the book in 2003, visits mushroomed from 30,000 per year to 30,000 in a single month! By the way, talk about the power of the Internet for research – our guide told us that until they filmed the movie, Dan Brown had never actually visited Rosslyn Chapel. As a mystery writer, I was more intrigued by the whodunit our guide shared. One of the stone carvings, completed in the early 1400s, was of maize. Keep in mind that new world corn was unknown in Europe at that time, was not cultivated on the continent until several hundred years later – and Christopher Columbus had yet to sail the ocean blue! Hmmm.

My personal favorite was Paisley Abbey, built in the twelfth century, with magnificent stained glass windows. While my husband was studying the role this old abbey played in Scottish history, I was enthralled by the romantic story our guide told. Marjorie, daughter of Robert the Bruce (think Braveheart with Mel Gibson), married Walter Steward, a local nobleman. Pregnant, she was on her way to the abbey when her horse stumbled and she was thrown. The monks desperately tried to save her, but alas she died. In a twist worthy of the best of the tearjerkers, her son survived to become Robert II, the first of the Stewarts (later to become “Stuarts”) who ruled Scotland until 1689.

I found great ideas for mysteries everywhere I went (does this mean I can deduct the trip as research?). We spent an afternoon at Scone Palace (which incidentally had only mediocre scones in their teashop). This is the crowning site of Scottish kings. I loved the ornate rooms and the absolutely phenomenal collection of porcelain which dominates the bookshelves of the wood-paneled library. The owners, who still reside at the palace, made the pragmatic decision that visitors would be more interested in looking at their huge collection of china than at old books. As an author, I feel honor-bound to protest. But the unsolved mystery, which perhaps could be the storyline of the next Sullivan Investigations book, is what happened to the Stone of Destiny? Also known at the Stone of Scotland, upon which the Kings of Scotland were coronated, it was stolen by the British in the 13th century and held in Westminster Abbey until Queen Elizabeth II returned it to Scotland in 1996. Sounds good except that the stone now residing in Holyrood Chapel in Edinburgh isn’t the original, according to experts who have studied its composition. So what really happened to the Stone of Destiny? Did the Scots, knowing the British were close, hide the Stone? If so, where? What happens in a whodunit when all the major players have been dead for more than eight centuries?

Sadly, even the best of vacations have to end – otherwise, what would you be vacationing from? Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of cheer, love, and good food (haggis, nothwithstanding).

Slàinte (or bottoms up as we say here in the colonies!),

Evelyn David

Happy Thanksgiving

/in /by

When I was a child my Thanksgivings were spent at my grandparents. I attended two Thanksgiving dinners, one just a few hours later than the other. My paternal grandparents served a sit down dinner with tablecloths and polished silver. My maternal grandparents served a buffet with paper plates and a scramble for spare forks and spoons. One was polite exchanges and tales of relatives and friends long absent from this world. The other was multiple conversations all going at once, the worries and joys of those present bursting forth in a loud medley of voices. As a child I was eager to take it all in – including the food.

I’m from Oklahoma and my family’s food of choice is a variety of traditional Southern dishes with some Tex-Mex and barbeque thrown in for good measure. At Thanksgiving we have roasted turkey, baked ham studded with cloves, cornbread and sage dressing, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, green bean casseroles, candied sweet potatoes, cranberry relishes, Jell-O molds, homemade yeast rolls, a variety of pies (at least one being pumpkin) and iced tea.

Iced tea is a staple in the South. No household is without it. I grew up drinking iced “sweet tea.” You might have to reach a certain age to drink coffee, but “sweet tea” was deemed suitable for all ages. Babies were given bottles filled with the sweet, cold liquid.

Some time in the late 70s, the custom changed to unsweetened tea or artificially sweetened tea. But I’ve noticed in the last five years or so, “sweet tea” seems to be making a comeback. If you walk into a restaurant in Oklahoma today, you’ll be offered a choice. I sweeten my tea with Equal now, but I remember the sweet tea of my childhood with great fondness.

Sweet Tea

To fix sweet tea – boil about six or seven cups of water, then add three large Lipton family-sized tea bags. Let the tea seep for 20 minutes, remove the bags. Pour the still hot mixture into a pitcher containing 1 to 1 ½ cups of sugar. (I have heard of people boiling the seeped tea and sugar, but that’s not how I learned to make it). Stir well. Add cold water to make one gallon of liquid. We would make one or two gallons of tea a day, sometimes more if we were expecting company.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving side dishes is the following:

Cranberry Ring

1 pound of cranberries
1 orange, peeled
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup of drained pineapple
4 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup chopped apple
1 cup of sugar, or less according to taste
2 packages of cherry, or raspberry gelatin

Put orange and cranberries through food chopper. Mix orange-cranberry mixture with nuts, pineapple, lemon juice, apple and sugar. Dissolve gelatin in 2 cups hot water. When gelatin has cooled slightly, add fruit mixture and combine. Pour into molds and chill until set. Serves 12.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Evelyn David

Thanksgiving Revisited

/in /by


All this week The Stiletto Gang is sharing Thanksgiving memories and recipes. We hope you’ll share with us your favorite holiday story and dish.

Six years ago my mother-in-law, a lovely, generous woman, had a severe heart attack that left her wheelchair-bound. It was hard for her – for all of us – to adjust to this new reality. But despite her physical frailities, what never changed was her commitment to family, especially her grandchildren.

Holiday traditions, those that we often think are etched in stone, had to be tossed aside that November. She couldn’t travel to our home, as she had for years, to help make the turkey and all the fixings. Instead, we drove to Baltimore, stayed in an over-priced, undersized hotel room, and ate at a nearby restaurant. Instead of turkey, I had filet of flounder. Instead of sweet potato casserole, I had Caesar salad. Instead of apple pie a la mode, I had an éclair.

I wasn’t sure what to think. But then I stopped focusing on what we didn’t have and looked around the table. I saw my children and their grandmother laughing and enjoying one another with such love and devotion. The Thanksgiving menu was from an alternate universe – but the Thanksgiving emotions were the same. We were indeed blessed and thankful.

Best wishes for a joyous holiday!

Evelyn David

Sweet Potato Casserole

6 sweet potatoes
¼ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter
Marshmallows

Boil sweet potatoes until tender. Drain and mash.
Mix in brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter.
Pour into ovenproof casserole.

Can be made ahead and frozen at this point. The night before serving, defrost in the refrigerator. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, top with marshmallows and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

The Long of It!

/in /by

When I was a child I wanted my favorite books to go on forever – the longer the story the better. Short books were like eating one potato chip – tasty but not enough to satisfy. I wanted to get lost in a book and stay there for days. And I hated reading books piecemeal. Someone was always telling me to turn out the lights and go to sleep, put down the book and go play outside, or warning me that I was ruining my eyes with all that reading.

As I got older I read faster so I could get through more of the story without being interrupted. In college one of my favorites was Stephen King’s The Stand. The original hardback had 823 pages. I’ve read all the Tom Clancy books, lugging them through airports like fat infants straining my arm muscles.

I loved Carl Sagen’s Contact and Colleen McCullough’s The Thornbirds, but at just over 400 pages they were practically short stories compared to two of my later favorites: Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove weighing in at 864 pages and a book that remains in my top ten – Antarctic Navigation by Elizabeth Arthur.

This 798 page book fascinated me. The heroine, Morgan Lamont, had been obsessed with Robert Scott’s 1910 Antarctic Expedition from childhood. The author takes us through Morgan’s early days and her quest to visit the South Pole and retrace Scott’s footsteps. By the time you finish the book, you feel like you’ve made that icy journey with Morgan. It’s not a book that will appeal to everyone. Elizabeth Arthur has been to the South Pole and she uses her knowledge of that remote locale. She makes the South Pole and its harsh weather a major “character” in the book. The plot is dependent on the place as much as Morgan’s need to achieve something Robert Scott did not.

From a recent discussion on the DorothyL internet group, I’ve read with great interest reader opinions on “long” vs. “short” novels. Many seemed to find places in long novels that “sag” or move forward only sluggishly. I confess that with some of Tom Clancy’s descriptions of the inner workings of ships and subs, I only half absorbed the paragraphs the first time through (yes, I’m one of those people who read books over and over.) But Clancy’s books have great plots and more often than not, the technical information he conveys lends depth and atmosphere to his thrillers.

I’m a fan of Nelson DeMille’s books. I just finished his newest, The Gate House. DeMille is great at creating interesting tough-guy characters and exciting plots based on real events. Sometimes the backstory runs a little longer than suits my taste, but as with Clancy’s books, I know the payoff will be well worth the slow bits. My favorite DeMille book remains the first one I ever read, The Charm School – a book I picked up in a hurry in an airport bookstore. A mere 544 pages long, it’s a true page-turner with a Cold-War plot. American MIA pilots from the Vietnam War have been taken to Russia and installed as unwilling teachers in a KGB “Charm School” for Russian agents. Two U.S. diplomats find out about the school and the game is on.

Short books are wonderful and fun – but for books you can literally lose yourself inside, give a longer book a chance.

Evelyn David

The Art of Entertaining

/in /by

The original Evelyn, bless her soul, hated to cook. Maybe a closer truth would be, cooking bored her. That’s not to say that we didn’t have a family dinner every night (six p.m. sharp). It always consisted of some kind of meat or chicken and two vegetables. The original time efficiency expert, my mother would heat two cans of vegetables in a pot of boiling water. Serve the veggies, toss the water. Done.

I was at least 18 before I discovered that meat came in any other color than grey. She overcooked everything, probably because she wasn’t paying attention. Chicken would bake in the oven for hours, seasoned only with paprika, to give it color. But there was always plenty of fresh fruit in the house, lots of store-bought sweets, and the height of her culinary experimentation was to mix two fruit juices together. My family believed she invented orange-pineapple juice — and maybe she did.

But despite the lack of any interest in preparing foods, my mother was actually a wonderful host. She was absolutely right when she insisted that it was the company that was important. She was gracious (she was Southern after all), generous, and inclusive. For my birthday parties, every child in my class would be invited, lest anyone feel left out. When I was in college and would come home for Passover, she would encourage me to invite roommates who might otherwise spend the Seders in the dorm. They were joyous occasions full of love and laughter…and she would order in the whole menu, soup to nuts.

My rebellion was, of course, to love to cook. For me, preparing a new recipe is like writing a mystery — full of the unknown, often some red herrings (figurative ones, though I do occasionally indulge in the fish) — and if put together correctly, a delight to enjoy.

Cleaning out my mother’s apartment after she died, I found no cookbooks or recipes scribbled on cards. I did discover a file of take-out numbers. But of course, she left me with the best recipe for how to entertain. Invite people you want to spend time with; worry less about the food and more about making sure that everyone is comfortable and cared for…and most of all, enjoy the moments when you are together.

It’s easy to get caught up in the holiday season hoopla. Have fun these next few weeks with those you love.

Evelyn David

To Honor those Who Serve

/in /by

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. My Dad was a vet, so was my father-in-law. Neither liked to talk about their wartime experiences, but from what I could gather, they were transformative. What they saw in battle left lifetime scars, despite the fact that neither had any visible injuries.

We know that is true for the young men and women who are returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers tell of the horrors they’ve seen, and the emotional scars of carrying those memories. No one is unscathed from their service. It is their courage, selfless commitment, and determination, in the face of dangers seen and unseen, that we must honor.

In the current economic crisis, the new administration will have to make some brutal budget decisions. Programs will be cut; services will be reduced. But let me add my voice to the call for honoring the debt we owe to our vets. We must invest in our VA system to fulfill our promise “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and his widow and orphan.”

Here are four critical veteran issues that demand immediate attention.

1. Allocate the necessary funds to provide the healthcare that our veterans have earned. More than 5 million vets receive healthcare from the VA — but the system is stretched beyond capacity and the wait for care is intolerable.
2. Reduce the backlog of VA disability claims. There’s more than a six month backlog of claims. Veterans shouldn’t have to wage another battle to get the benefits they’ve earned.
3. Support Advanced Funding for the VA medical budget. Currently, the VA budget is approved annually — but in 13 of the past 14 years, political bickering has delayed approval. Advanced Funding for the medical budget would mean the VA would know its funding a year in advance and could plan personnel, equipment, and services.
4. Support diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression. VA must continue to improve accessibility to mental health care services for all veterans and that takes adequate funding for research and treatment.

Parades are nice; stirring speeches make us proud. But let’s make sure that our veterans receive, in a timely fashion, the benefits they’ve earned.

With love and gratitude to Captain Carol Edelman, Major Melvin Borden, and all the brave men and women who have served our country.

Evelyn David

Intersecting Traditions

/in /by

My office has a Christmas or holiday luncheon in early December each year. Besides current employees, we invite retired employees and their families to attend. We eat a meal together, catch up on each other’s lives, joke, and generally have a good time.

For years we put together a pot-luck dinner at the office – cleaning, moving tables, and decorating for days. Eventually as all of us got older, the work involved outweighed the fun. We started going to restaurants for our luncheon. There are not that many to choose from in the area where our field office is located, and none that made the occasion special. We briefly went back to the pot-luck dinner.

One day we discovered, by word-of-mouth, an Amish family who prepared meals for groups. You have to make a reservation several weeks in advance and you have to have a large party. We tried it and enjoyed it so much we’ve done it every year since. Our catered meal at an Amish farm has become a tradition that everyone looks forward to.

For $13 per person, we are served “family-style” roast beef, ham, hot rolls, Tapioca pudding, home canned green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, slaw, iced tea, coffee, and two kinds of pie. It’s all you can eat and the best food I’ve ever tasted.

We eat in a simple one room building lighted by gas lamps. Hand-made quilts, jams, and food stuffs are displayed for purchase on tables near the open kitchen area. Long tables line the rest of the room. The food is prepared and served by reserved women wearing white muslin bonnets and long aprons. They welcome us with cheerful expressions and a calm manner seldom if ever found in traditional restaurants.

Each year I wonder what our hosts think of our loud, boisterous group comprised of people of many faiths. I wonder if they resent our presence; if they resent the need to feed outsiders in order to supplement their income. They’ve never indicated by word or deed that they are anything but happy to host our luncheon each year. But still, I wonder and feel a little awkward even after all these years.

Today, we’ve chosen a date for this year’s luncheon – December 2. My office manager will call a business where the Amish family receives messages (they don’t have a telephone at their home) and leave a message. In a few days we’ll get a call back, confirming the date and we’ll continue our tradition.

Maybe in some small way our tradition supports our hosts’ tradition.

Evelyn David

Finding Gold among the Dross

/in /by

I had a wonderful time last week visiting the Pequannock library. Rose Garwood, the librarian, and her staff, had decorated the room for Halloween – a perfect setting for my talk: How to Commit Murder – A Mystery Writer Offers Some Clues. There was a terrific turnout, delicious refreshments, and a lively discussion.

Knowing the vagaries of the New Jersey Turnpike at rush hour, I arrived at the library about an hour early. It gave me time to wander throught the mystery section. I squealed with delight, earning astonished looks from other patrons, when I discovered a copy of Rest You Merry, the first book by Charlotte MacLeod, in her delightful Peter Shandy series. I think this was the first mystery that I ever read that included humor as part of the storyline. Dame Agatha and Arthur Conan Doyle always presented a first-rate whodunnit, but as might be expected, humor was not their strong suit.

In contrast, I was laughing hysterically when I finished the first chapter of Rest You Merry, perfectly envisioning the scene she’d drawn. There was the sweet curmudgeon, Professor Peter Shandy, exacting delightful revenge against his neighbors who insisted he decorate his home for the holidays. So before stealing away in the middle of the night, he pays for an over-the-top Christmas decoration extravaganza, including flashing lights and a taped recording of I Don’t Care Who You Are Fatty, Get Those Reindeer Off My Roof. Too bad – or maybe too good for us readers – but when poor Professor Shandy slinks home, he discovers a dead body in his over-decorated house.

I enjoyed skimming the mystery, but found myself intrigued by the introduction that Charlotte MacLeod had penned for this edition, published by the legendary Otto Penzler fifteen years after the book’s original debut. She described how she originally created the first chapter as a short story which she submitted to Yankee magazine “and waited for my check. What I got was my story, by return post, with a stiffish rejection. Yankee was not amused.”

I had one of those aha moments. Charlotte MacLeod, who at the time of her death had published 30 novels and won countless awards, understood exactly what happens when you send off what you think is prose that would make Willy Shakespeare weep – and get back a rejection that hints that you might instead consider a job in the great outdoors, herding sheep or something.

Ms. Macleod, who died in 2005, is described, in the Wikepedia entry, “as a ‘true lady’and often seen with hat and white gloves.” She had her own rituals for the creative process: She “began writing at 6 a.m., continued through the morning, then used the afternoon for rewrites. She only started new books on Sundays and during writing would stay dressed in a bathrobe to avoid the temptation of leaving the house for an errand.” I too often stay dressed in my bathrobe, but alas, mine is a result of slovenly habits.

In any case, ten years after that original rejection, Ms. MacLeod decided that the short story would make a wonderful first chapter…and Rest You Merry was born.

It made me think that it was time to go through the virtual drawers of my computer and pull out some of those early rejects. I’m not sure I’ll find gold like Ms. MacLeod, but who knows?

Evelyn David