Always on Nights and Weekends by Nancy L. Eady

As I write this at 8:30 at night, I am waiting for my daughter to get back from the pet store, gearing up for the fight I know we’re going to have as soon as she gets back.  

It’s not that she’s coming home with a pet we haven’t given her permission to have (been there, done that, with three rabbits, a guinea pig, a kitten, two frogs and four hermit crabs over the last four years), but one of our three dogs, Daisy, cut the top of her paw between two of her toes this evening.  After some searching, we found the cone we keep on hand.  It looked pretty shabby.  In fact, it’s really not a cone anymore, but kind of a misshapen mountain peak with a narrow caldera on top.  

My daughter is convinced we need to toss Daisy into the car and head for the 24/7 emergency vet about an hour away.  I am not.  Daisy’s not bleeding out; she’s not crying in pain; she’s not even limping.  Yes, the cut looks a little deep, but there’s no bone showing.  I’ve sent my daughter to get us another cone and some other supplies.  When Kayla gets back, we’ll probably have a fight over whether to take Daisy to the emergency vet. Vets cost a lot as it is; emergency vets are even more expensive.

My husband agrees with me that we are going to bandage the paw, put the cone on the dog and then see what things are like in the morning.  (He had to work tonight.)  If Daisy’s doing bad at that point, he’ll be able to drop her off at the vet’s office then.  Hopefully the dog won’t need the vet at all.  

We have used the emergency vet before.  Years ago, with a different set of dogs, one of our dogs tore the ear on the other dog by stepping on it while they were playing.  Of course, this happened on a Saturday morning.  That was the day we learned that ears are very vascular, and they don’t bandage well at all.  To fix a torn ear properly, the vet has to do full surgery, with anesthesia.  That was that particular dog’s first Very Expensive Vet Bill.  The same dog’s second Very Expensive Vet Bill came the afternoon she decided to eat a box of golden raisins.  Grapes are toxic to dogs, and raisins are concentrated grapes.  I got home that day from work about 5:45, took one look at the box of raisins, and threw two dogs, one 10-year-old and myself into the car, high-tailing it to the emergency vet about 30 minutes away.  By the time they reached her, she was already past the narrow window a vet usually has to get the raisins out before they cause serious harm.  But this particular dog truly lived a charmed life.  She was saved from the raisins by a sock.  We have no idea how long the sock had been in her stomach, but it pre-dated the raisins.  This accidentally "medicinal" sock blocked the raisins from being absorbed into her body.  Even the vet tech was giggling about that one.  

I really don’t know why emergencies are so inconsiderate; you’d think at least once in a lifetime they would occur at a convenient hour.  Once you make it through them, though, they certainly make great story fodder!  

And for the record, there was no fight – instead, my sweet daughter got the cone on the dog and then took the misshapen cone and put it on herself to try to help the dog not be afraid.  It didn’t work, but it was a noble effort.

Do you have any emergency vet story, emergency room visit, or mechanical  failure you have been able to use in your writing?  

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION by Nancy L. Eady

The challenge a mystery writer (or any writer) faces is to tell a believable story from the writer’s imagination.  Real life, however, is much different. Here, we face outlandish situations people have difficulty believing are real. I have several of those in my past; as I relate them, ask yourself if you would believe these stories if they were in a work of fiction. I do promise you they are 100% true.

Back in the early 1990s, my husband and I visited Boston in June to attend my great-aunt’s 90^th birthday party. We flew in from Alabama and rented a car at the airport. We ended up with a neon green Kia Sportage, an early SUV with a high, boxy profile. On Sunday, with the party over we headed to the airport. Since we had some time to kill, and Mark had never seen Boston, we drove around the city. When we spied a narrow alley with an interesting graveyard, we turned into the alley. Suddenly, a twenty-piece marching band, complete with trumpets, trombones, woodwinds, and drums, swung out of the graveyard in front of us. Someone at the end of the band swung the gate shut. The alley was too narrow to turn around in, so we trailed behind the band like the grand marshals in a parade. A homeless man, a bottle shaped paper bag in his hand, walked out in front of the band and marched in front, waving one of the best parade waves I’ve ever seen. At the end of the alley, we came out on a major thoroughfare crowded with tourists. A police officer stood at the intersection to direct traffic. The homeless man wandered away, the band reached the street, and the police officer’s eyes met ours With a quirky smile, and a look that said, “Tourists!”, he raised his hands like he was parting the Red Sea and urged the band to either side of the roadway. He waved us through the band and off the parade route. Once we were safely on the way to the airport, Mark pulled over so we could finish laughing, too.

Then there was the time we took our first dog, Shadow, to the local football field. She had never run loose before. It was completely fenced in, so we didn’t have to worry about losing her. We all enjoyed it, but finally it was time to go. Mark started calling Shadow to him. He was walking straight at her, and she knew if she didn’t obey, she’d be in trouble. She started turning her head around to look everywhere but straight in front of her, saying through her actions, “I hear you, but I can’t see you.” It didn’t win her any more time at the ball field, but it was a clever try.

Fast forward to the last Bouchercon that was held in New Orleans. It was my first Bouchercon, and I was excited to be there, while my husband tagged along because he liked New Orleans. While I attended the various Bouchercon meetings, he drove around sight-seeing and ended up at the Metairie cemetery, where he met Lewis, the resident backhoe operator there. Lewis gave him a free tour of the cemetery, letting Mark ride the backhoe with him and showing him where all the “famous” graves were.

So, what’s your verdict? Are those incidents stranger than fiction, or would you believe them if they occurred in a book?

Telling Stories and Storytelling

Image courtesy of Roke from Wikimedia Commons

My grandmother always told me, “Now don’t you be telling no stories.”

She meant lies and other nefarious fabrications, not flights of fancy. The word “story” could mean either in her mind, and she frowned on both. Anything that wasn’t factual was suspect because non-facts had no foundation and therefore couldn’t be trusted. Stories were like gathering clouds—dangerous in their potential.

My husband would agree with her definition if not her assessment. He’s an engineer, suspicious of the frayed edge that all stories have, the place where facts start unraveling. He says that fact and truth are the same thing. He says that if he started writing equations based on my ideas of truth, planes would fall from the sky.

It’s a point.

And yet my brain can’t make sense of all the facts around me. Information overload sets in, so my brain begins editing my reality into something I can comprehend, erasing this, focusing on that. It connects my present experience to the other experiences folded and tucked in my gray matter, and by doing so, creates a chronology, a sense of past and future, effect and consequence. The human brain is wired for stories, and it programs our consciousness accordingly.

Not facts. Stories.

Memory is useful not for what it records, but for what it erases. For the vast majority of us, it is not photographic. It takes out the extraneous—however factual—and leaves us with essence—however slanted. And our recollection is slanted; it must be. No true and perfectly accurate memory exists. Certain details, by necessity, weren’t captured in the first place, and every subsequent time your consciousness touches the memory, it further alters it, even as the flawed memory is carved deeper into your brain.

Jonah Lehrer explains it more eloquently than I can in his Seed magazine article "The Neuroscience of Proust":

“Every time we remember, the neuronal structure of the memory, no matter how constant it may feel, is delicately transformed. If you prevent the memory from changing, it ceases to exist. So the purely objective memory . . . is the one memory lost to you forever.”

Criminal justice research shows how problematic this process is, revealing that even though juries value eyewitness identification as gold-standard evidence, it is actually the most fallible of testimony.

I think this is why I’ve always loved reading mysteries, why I eventually became a crime fiction writer. If my own memory was suspect, malleable, shaped by my subconscious every second of the day, then why not lean into that unreliability? Why not partner with it instead of fighting it?

And so I have. I’m hard at work crafting the seventh book in my Tai Randolph series, tentatively titled Prodigal Lies. Like me, Tai isn’t afraid of a little lie (white or otherwise). She spins them out of necessity, but also for the sheer fun of it. It’s one of the pleasures of writing her.

Sorry, Grandma.

*     *     * 

Tina Whittle writes the Tai Randolph mysteries for Poisoned Pen Press. The sixth book in this Atlanta-based series—Necessary Ends—is available now. Tina is a proud member of Sisters in Crime and serves as both a chapter officer and national board member. Visit her website to follow her on social media, sign up for her newsletter, or read additional scenes and short stories: www.tinawhittle.com.

Clothed in Imagination

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. ~ Mark Twain

If clothes make the (wo)man, does that mean that what you wear is a visible representation of your life, your story? Last year I paged through a J. Peterman catalog (they call it an Owner’s Manual) for the first time and saw that each item of clothing had a mini-story associated with it. Perhaps to add an additional layer of fantasy, most of the items are illustrated instead of photographed. I understand that they use this long copy technique to sell clothes, but honestly it made me look at my wardrobe and wonder what tales my clothes are telling.

Here are some sample stories from the catalog for your reading pleasure:

Trouble.

               An indiscretion here, some questionable assets there, and next thing you know a little ad in the back of that fashion magazine catches your eye:

               “Legally obtain a second passport…become a Perpetual Traveler, avoid taxes, governments and hassles.”

               You could head for Luxembourg or Turks and Caicos, but I suggest Quito, Ecuador. You can’t beat the year-round climate or the expat bars, and the dollars to sucres exchange rate is still favorable.

               In preparation for departure, I suggest you pack this soft cotton corset and matching skirt, with its blossoming skirt panels with pintucks.

               I can see you now, the soul of innocence, sitting in a café on the Avenida Amazonas, sipping a Trago spiced with cinnamon and reading about your mysterious disappearance in the International Herald Tribune.

Italian Colors of Vernazza.

 

Are intoxicating, like this dress, like Maya.

We first met as she sauntered across the cobblestone wearing it (I would later describe it to her as mosey, but she said that was too American).

It’s when I discovered I had synesthesia. Frank Lloyd Wright claimed to hear music when he designed buildings; Nabokov saw the letter o as an “ivory-backed hand mirror.”

Me?

Upon seeing Maya mosey (sorry) in her cheery linen dress, I heard an ebullient tambourine and smelled freshly cut nasturtiums. When she got close, with the soft linen clinging and contrast trim hitting her tanned legs, I had the sensation of tasting the most exquisite carambola.

Interesting, I know. N.B. Wine is not an antidote for synesthesia.

“My will to win.”

It was almost a confession, really.

He buttoned his slicker, his hands still shaking from being underwater for three minutes. Hair still smeared in sand. Skinned forehead still bleeding in a way you can only do pinned on the soft sea floor 30 feet down, 100 yards out.

I’d of course heard that statement before—haven’t we all? But this was different. It wasn’t a claim, a boast, nothing artificial like those words usually come wrapped in. It was a personal weight. Not quite a burden because he loved it. But something deep he carried with him that often tortured him, like his father’s expectations.

Salty ocean air can be an elixir (and breezy).

Apparently, you can also tell your story using jewelry. For instance, some jewelry companies like Origami Owl sell clear lockets in which the wearer can display meaningful charms that capture her story.

But who has time to shop for the perfect shirt or accessory when there are so many stories to tell? Or, am I too absorbed in my characters’ lives and fail to tell my own story?

As an aside, I don’t completely agree with Mark Twain. For instance, Lady Godiva is still remembered for riding naked through the streets in the 11^th century to protest a tax imposed by her husband. Today, she has delightful chocolates named in her honor.

Do you wear your story? Or, do you throw on whatever is handy and spend your time telling your characters’ story?