A friend shared with me that my name had come up in a group chat. Once I finished laughing, I asked the person who made the comment if they were okay with me sharing it publicly. So, anonymized to protect the guilty chatterbox:
Trying to make pies with 13yo. He's been up for twenty minutes and I swear he hasn't inhaled once.
Having just read Dorothy Grant's novels yesterday, I wish to trade 13yo for AJ.
Then there's the confounded look on his face as a certain senior NCO and I are making excited noises over her teaching her baby sailors the life hack of dance company hair clips (designed for holding despite serious movement) and mini (figurine) paints at the game store to match their hair colour and be invisible on inspection. Granted, he comes from a country with an all-male draft, so the very idea of how best to twist and braid hair to stay out of the way even with serious PT activity and long days is... well, quite literally foreign.
Often though, especially with friends who are widely geographically scattered, it's books. So when a book I've been anticipating comes out, I read it, and if it's as good as hoped, gleefully share it. Sometimes this is fiction in genres they don't read, or nonfiction in subject matter areas they don't care about, and they usually roll their eyes and humour me, knowing I do the same to them.
And then there was Arsenal of Hope.
In retrospect, while my friends are from all walks of life, none of them are anywhere near the sheltered end of the spectrum, and they've all picked up their own assorted scars along the way. So when I was enthusing over the joy of finding an even better working definition of PTSD than I'd used for years, and a whole lot more treatments, therapies, approaches, and coping techniques with a cheerful, rueful look at how they had or hadn't worked... Perhaps I should have anticipated that my friends were actually paying close attention instead of humouring me.
Look, I'm still not comfortable applying the PTS label to myself. But the first step to understanding even better what makes Calmer Half tick, much less most of the men and no few of the women in my life, was also the extremely uncomfortable first step to realizing why I do certain things. Or don't do certain things. Or have so much avoidance of doing certain things that it was plain as day to the people around me, and they figured I was perfectly well aware and just didn't want to talk about it.
I'm working on it.
It's led to more than a few raw, but cathartic conversations, as friends have taken my own struggle to bare their own emotional wounds in turn. This adult version of "You show me yours and I'll show you mine" sucks, you know? But better than not talking about it, and far better than suffering alone and in the silence behind the facade of everything's under control.
And given the number of friends who are authors, when we bare our wounds to each other, and finally let it out, we bleed fiction. Stories are, after all, a way of talking about pieces of the truths you can't say out loud with the actual names and dates, re-arranged for places that never were and people who are creations of a mind trying to process far more than our surface consciousness is aware of.
All fiction is a conversation - with our own subconscious, with friends, and with things that came before that we agree with, or more often violently disagree with. Alma Boykin can blame me for the running text conversation we had that took a orthogonal turn at "spell check", riffed from there into proofreading terribly-written academic textbooks on magic if magic actually worked, and... well, I have a weakness for bad puns and song lyrics. And in the first of her urban fantasy Familiar Tales, I can see some of both that we bounced off each other worked in as story and worldbuilding prompts.
CV Walter and I had a long, grousing conversation about the utterly toxic relationships that are being promoted as the ideal in much of current romance and urban fantasy (pet peeves of both of ours. We've also been in too many fights to have any patience for waif-like female characters easily winning hand-to-hand combat with heavily muscled, well-trained men twice their size.) She's currently writing a steamy scifi romance series... with competent women and men, And honest communication. And females wearing outfits with useable pockets. (As one reviewer said, the last is how she knows it's a fantasy, not scifi.)
After we both read Arsenal of Hope, Cedar Sanderson and I had long conversations about PTS from sources other than combat, which while it doesn't manifest in exactly the same way, it certainly rhymes. And so, too, does the process of healing. Including the suck of dealing with the demons in your head, that you can't cut off or leave behind like twelve inches of hair or the exes in another state.
And somewhere along the way, one or the other of us groused about the lack of honest representation in fiction of what PTSD's actually like... and of fiction that showed moving forward, and getting better.
Mind you, more than half the reason the last two books of mine got written was not only my subconscious chewing over dealing with the ways damaged people making the world, and themselves, and each other better, but also because 2021 has been very rough on my friends. Okay, I kicked the year off by catching LungPaoSicken for a second time, but at least I didn't have the PCS from Hell (Long story, not mine to tell), or another friend who was trying to accomplish all her duties while recovering from WuFlu with her husband in a medical coma from complications of same. (She has a really good command, thankfully, who takes care of their own.) That's not even counting civilian-side the nurses, EMTs, pediatric docs, and emergency dispatchers whom I love dearly, whose last two years have been... yeah.
And Cedar? Well, this was the year of "You're a civilian chemist, so you haven't hit this before. Welcome to what's essentially a deployment, when you have to hold it together for months on end and you don't know when he'll be back with you. I understand what you're going through, though the terms I use include acronyms you may not know." (She's quite fond of SNAFU, FUBAR, BOHICA, and FIDO now... In fact, 2021 may personally go down as the year that I taught Sarah Hoyt, the least military person on the right you'll meet, to know and love FIDO.)
So I've been writing things full of hope, and designed to make them laugh, or at least forget about their cares for a little while. (Yes, writing about the proper use of a sap in close-quarters combat was not only plot-appropriate, it got a certain twitchy gent to get this grin... "You paid attention!") But I can only write so fast. Of course I opined that more people, other people, should write more stories, and hopeful ones!
I didn't mean for Cedar to commit anthology! I felt even worse that after she took our conversation and explicitly set out to get more people writing realistic stories of PTSD, and the anthology call explicitly demanded they be stories of hope... I had nothing to contribute.
I tried. It refused the idea of short, and is working on becoming yet another novel. One of the hardest ones I've tried to write, especially because the running theme is about how much home changes while you're away, and how much it's not just them, it's you, when you've been Out doing Things. It's going to get finished, no matter how hard it gets, even if only because I have two retired mustangs and an active senior NCO giving me that look, about when am I going to give them another chapter. I may be a civilian, damnit, but I am not immune to the look. Even transmitted over text at distance.
...I can't go back home. It hasn't been home in years, and, well, many of the places, and some of the people, they're only alive now in my head. My home is people, and wherever Calmer Half is, that's my home now. But the land is still in my blood and bones, and I miss it.
And that left me having instigated an anthology without actually contributing. Worse, Cedar understood. I think I'd have felt better if she'd thrown something at my head. (Okay, she did also politely, pointedly "not-demand" I finish the novel. Encouragement, that's what we'll call it.) Jim Curtis (OldNFO) understood. And wrote something for the anthology, and tossed it at me to beta read. LawDog understood, and wrote a story of his own for it.
The last surprised me. But LawDog often does. He's quiet and sneaky and caring like that.
But Cedar felt I'd already said what I needed to, and it was hopeful, and if it wasn't a fictional story, it was a catalyst to getting other stories out there. In the resources at the back of the anthology, she excerpted part of the blog post wherein Calmer Half maneuvered me into reviewing Arsenal of Hope, and All Secure, and talking about PTSD and our marriage, in the first place.
So if you came here looking for the rest of the story, here's the link to the story that's not in the anthology, because it's not fiction: On Post Traumatic Stress, marriages, and two truly awesome books
And if you're looking for the anthology, it's here: You Can't Go Home Again
Calmer Half acquired some watercress. He stuck it in the fridge while making happy noises about watercress sandwiches. I asked how one makes said sandwiches, as I'd read of them, but never eaten or made one before. Besides, as his wife, I'm always happy to make him a sammich.
Apparently, according to the Ultimate Authority (his mum), watercress sandwiches are made by taking watercress, and... putting it between two pieces of bread. Dry. No condiments, no meat, no nothing... When I asked if he was sure nothing else happened to the recipe, he gave me a puzzled look. "You can take the crusts off?"
I am starting to wonder if this is a starvation food that a culture later convinced themselves was hoity-toity, like escargot?
After a week in the fridge, all ingredients are fair game. So I made myself a watercress sandwich. With sourdough bread. And mayo. And tomatoes. And three strips of freshly cooked bacon...
What? It's fusion cuisine!
...And it's actually pretty tasty!
There are a number of tagine recipes I haven't made because lamb is quite expensive, so I'll get 'round tuit when I get lamb. Except, at the gym, a friend from the Med was informing me that he was about to make so many ancestral souls scream, and substitute pork for lamb in a Lebanese casserole.
And I cocked my head to the side, and said, "You can do that? It works?"
"Oh, yes. The flavour is a little different, but it works just fine."
Well, then! I cubed up my pork loin, and promptly made a very nice dish.
3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 Tbsp minced garlic (or to taste)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds (I used powder, not whole seed.)
1 Tbsp fresh mint, rough-chopped
1-2 Tbsp fresh ginger, grated or chopped
2.5 lbs pork loin, cubed into bite-sized pieces
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2-3 summer squash, cut into bite-sized pieces
1-2 zucchini, cut into bite-sized pieces
3-4 mini sweet peppers, diced (or 1-2 yellow/red bell pepper)
1 can fire-roasted tomatoes
small bunch of parsley, rough-chopped
small bunch of mint, rough-chopped (in addition to the Tablespoon of mint used above)
1-2 lemons, cut into wedges
Heat the olive oil in the tagine (or enameled cast iron dutch oven). Toss in the onion, cumin, coriander, ginger, garlic, and mint. Once the onions begin to soften, add in the meat, and pour in just enough water to cover. Scrape the browned bits off the bottom, let come to a boil, then cover and simmer for 90 minutes.
Then add salt, pepper, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and if necessary, more water. Replace lid, cook for 15 more minutes, until the veg is cooked but retains a little bite.
Turn off stove, uncover, toss in parsley & rest of mint, stir, serve with lemon wedges on the side to sprinkle over the dish just before eating.
Served without couscous, it even counts for keto! Too much water? No worries, serve it as a soup!
This was good enough I am now plotting to bring in my mint plant this winter, despite the feline frustrations to indoor plants. That way, we can have it again and again.
Yes, yes it is.
Scaling the Rim is set roughly 70 years After (initial) Landing. Going Ballistic is set in 751 A.L., Blood, Oil, & Love in 752 A.L, and A Perfect Day in 753 A.L. (Or is it 754? Must go back and check. Pretty sure it’s the next summer, not two years later.)
…I haven’t worked out quite when Shattered Under Midnight takes places, because it’s so far off-planet that it doesn’t really matter to Akrep. Will probably take more stories to put the puzzle pieces together. And more stories to fill in the historical gap. (The problem with the direct sequel to Scaling was that I didn’t have the technical chops to write the story I wanted, when I tried to tackle it. It’s in the projects folder, waiting patiently with other partial stories, including the sequel to Shattered.)
As for those of you who asked about the slur "Dogs", some insults hang around a lot longer than the original meaning or application. In fact, it was originally applied to the security team on the arkship by the scientists, lifting from an old insult for polizei. They ran with it, just like other group have owned their insults as monikers (This group happened to have free and easy access to genetic manipulation, onboard ship. So their descendants who didn't, had cold tolerance... and claws.) By the time Lizzes walks into the ballroom, it’s a Fed insult for Imperial security forces and police, which… is almost full circle. (Linguistic shifts and etymology are like ecological history: utterly fascinating when you dig into them!)
And "shards"? Well, we'll cover exactly what happened to the arkships, and why the survivors ended up at the bottom of a crater huddled around geothermal warmth, later. That's a different book.
I know the trend out there is for "kick-ass heroines" who look like waifs and fight like 250-pound male MMA champions. You may have noticed I don't believe in that, any more than I believe in a cashless economy or successful central planning. But this one isn't about women kicking ass. (There is plenty of door-kicking in there. By gents trained to do it.) This is about the quiet strength to hold on when your world blows up around you, and roll with everything thrown at you without losing who you are, and what you value. Sometimes, courage is holding on one minute longer. Sometimes, it's choosing to trust, even when the person you thought you knew is stranger than you could imagine.
It's also about the not-trendy truth that the truly hard men who keep us safe don't usually look like cover models or movie stars, and you're not going to know where your vet has been and what he's done within the first few dates. Or even necessarily the first few years of marriage. Or ever. But just because he's having a hard time transitioning, don't mistake that for general incompetence: he's amazingly competent at things you may never know about unless the world has gone to hell.
And last, but not least, it's about what we do with a second chances.
There are also explosions, and a mocktail recipe I gleefully yoinked from a vet and his active-duty wife who have all the best random pieces of advice (I had to write it down somewhere I could look it up later. Why not in the book?) And a demonstration of why, sometimes, a sap is a better weapon than a gun in close quarters combat. And a toddler on a gleeful rampage.
I hope you like it. (Print book should be live later today; it's still in the queue.)
I was standing on a corner, minding my own business, when some dude...
No, I wasn't. But it's a good story opener, told thousands of times to cops, paramedics, and ER staff, along with the variant of "when two dudes..." and "Some b-tch." to cover misdemeanors, felonies, and general stupidities. It's probably been used at this point more than "It was a dark and stormy night..."
So, really there I was, sitting at my computer with a karmic debt owed because I had infected Alma Boykin with a story. She puts up a post about Roads, Home, and Wanderers. Complete with the music that inspired several scenes. I listened, and went "Ah! I actually prefer a different arrangement, because I can hear the words more clearly."
So I dug it up to listen to it again, while maundering off in the comments section about the difficulties of going home again.
And something started niggling at my mind, but I had a road trip I was on that I was paying more attention to.
And then Old NFO and I got to talking about the sacrifices the military makes on the home front, and how home changes on you when you're away.
And two days later, I got ambushed by a story. In which a career spacer finally returns to the farm, and finds that the past is another country that we cannot see again, even when we tread the same ground.
I thought it'd be a short story, but it's looking more and more like a novella. We'll see.
Jenna Brooks is a welder, and a fashionista whenever she can afford it. AJ is a former Special Forces spacer, who finds himself completely outside his comfort zone with her. However, terrorist bombs can overcome almost any divide - the hard way.
When Jenna stumbles over a corpse wearing an important clue, she's roped into a high-stakes counterterrorism operation to uncover a counterfeit fashion ring that's funding the terrorists.
As the trail of blood money and knock-off shoes starts leading closer to home, Jenna's going to need all the help she can get to stay alive. AJ's just the man to do that - but he's after a lot more than merely her safety. It may cost her everything she's worked for... and also her heart.
I know there are authors out there who begin with their audience in mind. They counsel the rest of us to make sure that we have characters drawn up who will represent the audience demographics, in order to be more accessible. They talk about making sure the reading level of the book isn't so high it'll turn away readers (and list off bestsellers who are all below 7th grade reading level.) They talk about writing to market with exactly the format and pacing that the genre readers love.
..I'm afraid I start with what-if? And ecosystems,. And sometimes with a character. Or a concept that won't let go. Sometimes a concept and a character who shows up and stubbornly insists this is their book. (Twitch. And AJ. AJ was not supposed to be in that book. AJ didn't care; he and Twitch showed up, anyway. Who's in control here?)
As for reading level... um, yes, yes I did say Gunny and Twitch were going to get her down the aisle, if it took a hecatomb of her enemies to make it happen. Hey, Kipling wrote about the grave of the hundred-head, so I'm not the only one who finds hecatombs just and fitting...
As for the pacing and the insertion of reader cookies, I'm not that good. I just write the story as the story demands, keeping true to itself as it works out the implications of the initial incident, and what the characters wants and need. And then I think about putting it out in the wide world, and that's when I start to worry that it's not really mainstream, and in a world of authors talking about shaving and shaping their round peg to fit perfectly in the round hole, I have a 20-sided dice that can rattle and roll into that slot, and I just hope when it does, it's not showing a natural 1.
So to look and see it's less than a month since blood, Oil & Love came out, and I have over 50 ratings or reviews? And most of you like it? You really like it?
I am awed and humbled. Thank you.
We had an old floor vacuum, a knock-off version I named Not-A-Roomba. Calmer Half noted that it was getting older and more worn out, and the operational noise level and rattling was getting bad enough it was driving me spare. So, he unilaterally declared we were using the proceeds of my latest book release and getting a replacement. (He does this: he checks the budget, evaluates the options, and then takes command and declares we're getting/fixing/replacing things where I've been pinching pennies and waiting until the old one was completely broken down/ worn out/ used to the last dregs. He's almost always right, too.)
Thanks to a sale at Big Box Store, we have an actual roomba now. Though I looked at it and went "Model e5? It's a sergeant?" Calmer Half gave me the sort of grin that tells you he just might have picked that one just to see if he'd get that reaction.
"The last one was definitely a miscreant E-4!"
Well, this one is much quieter, much faster, and it works. Everyone (except the cats) is happy.
However, when it came time to refer to it while chatting with friends, I started typing Actually-A-Roomba. That lasted about two mentions, and then I gave in. "Dear, mind if we name this one Roomba-Actual?"
"I was going to name it Roomba-Six, but that's fine, Love."
Normal in this household might only exist as a setting on the washing machine, but it works for us.
I was grocery shopping after going to the gym today, which was first of all, a mistake in and of itself. Today I went up 3 pounds to a rack pull of 145, and this means I was starving and exhausted. Even with a list, I was, ah, quite distractible.
Hey, I did have the chocolate on the list! Though not the German hot potato salad, or the Irish cheddar, or the... anyway. So, no sh-t, there I was, walking down the aisle minding my own business when I saw a box with a scattered remnants of paste squeeze tubes. You know, like you get for garlic, and ginger paste, and basil... but these were the wrong colour.
So I stopped and took a closer look, and then asked the blameless Lord "Why??!?!"
Not pictured: the tube of harissa paste. Look who I married and who I hang out with. It's worth trying... once. But not those. No, I left the other tubes alone.
Although I did take a picture to share the boggled mind that they exist. I sent it to Alma Boykin, who replied, "Blue Oyster Cult never met the Carolina reapers."
Now, I happen to like Blue Oyster Cult. And I giggled. But my brain has a plenty of images of North Carolina, mostly centered around waterfalls, amazing geology, awesome honey, lovely triple-canopy forest, and good friends. But did my brain pull that up? No! It instead went for the story relayed with a lot of laughter of "that one time I got shot on the Q course." Which involves a wonderful gent I know, a confusion with maps, a decision to hop a fence, and a chance encounter with a moonshiner defending his still.
So I send back to Alma a notice that my brain is now picturing The Grim Reapers, Cletus and Judson, hanging out in the backwoods at the ruin of the moonshine still from back when their families owned the land, and here comes some poor souls from the Q course, unaware that they're following the old 'shine trail....
And it's All Her Fault.
She giggled at me. So I tried to give it to her muse instead, even as she was laughing and going "I sense a Halloween story!"
So, where do ideas come from? Apparently, the answer is: "Questionable foodstuffs, poor life decisions, and good music, shared with good friends."
Funny story on the title: The working title was Like Blood for Oil, because one of the what-ifs that started my brain coming up for the story was "What if oil really was scarce enough that large countries would go to war over the ability to control a new field?"
You can't get that here on earth, but you definitely can when you're terraforming a new world. And I had a new world that already had resource issues thanks to a rushed terraforming, just waiting to be explored a little more...
Calmer Half objected to the working title, and I understand: there are a lot of people who are quite bitter about the idiocy of the slogan it was gently mocking. Rather than annoy potential readers, I changed it.
But I changed it to Blood, Oil, and Love. There's a comma after Oil, darnit.
So where did it go? Well, living with Calmer Half means that a lot of his Britishisms work their way into my speech. Writing an Empire based on 1800's Britain doesn't help. When I'm tired, I spell phonetically, and a lot of extra u's creep into words like colour and honour, and spellcheck most emphatically does not like that. So Calmer Half cleans it up in copyedit and "Americanizes" the manuscript. (This cuts down on the number of people complaining about my spelling to Amazon.) So, he took out the second comma because "It's Oxford, not American."
I happen to be a believer in the Oxford comma. I was long before I met him!
I already paid for the art with the comma, but he uploaded the book. Publisher wins!
Unless I can't stand it and re-upload with a title changed by one comma in the middle of the night.
In the meantime, have a crispy hot edge of a cold war, and eco-terrorists too indoctrinated to think about the stupidity of being anti-terraforming. Have a geophysicist who's in over her head, and a Recon who's finally caught the perfect woman, and is now wondering how the hell you keep one once you finally catch 'em. And a fairy God-Gunny Sgt, who would never be caught doing something as silly as waving a wand. Nah, he just knows a guy who knows a guy...
For your reading pleasure: Blood, Oil, and Love
Milestones make much more pleasing noises than deadlines when they pass by.
1. Going Ballistic is now live in paperback!
This has been an interesting process. Fortunately, now that we've gotten through uploading edits (fixed the blonde/blond confusion spellcheck didn't catch, and a few other typos), and learning all the little quirks of getting a paperback uploaded for sale...
2. Next week, all going well, Blood, Oil & Love will be released!
Mondays are made for the two steps forward, one step back progression through life.
1.) Shattered Under Midnight is now live in Paperback!
but,
2.) Somewhere in the publishing process, it stripped all the formatting out of the blurb. So, republishing.
and,
3.) The check engine light in the car is on.
Okay, maybe this Monday is more on the one step forward, two steps back side of the ledger.
Here's to a better week ahead for all of us!
It's not that I have nothing to say about Afghanistan, and the feckless, incompetent, arrogant traitors occupying the seat of our power.
It's that I am so angry, I don't have the words for it.
Fortunately, others do. Go here, for the most eloquent of primal screams of rage at all that has been wrought, and is yet to come. Read all the way to the end, or you'll miss the kicker.
https://www.combatflipflops.com/blogs/combat-flip-flops/written-in-taliban
I love my beta readers. They're awesome people, from all random walks of life. Sometimes I scratch my head and wonder why some of my more curmudgeonly guys put up with the romance in the books, although I never wonder why the ladies don't mind the body count (See Kipling on the female of the species).
But sometimes, they really do me a solid. Not just the cell phone picture after picture and explanation to explain how a diesel engine works for the research that goes into making sure I understand, despite it only coming out in one line of the story, which I really appreciate. Not just wading through the rough draft, and teasing me about all the words that escaped the spellcheck like colour and honour.
This week, one was just beyond awesome. I accidentally, when I had too much blood in my caffeine stream, sent two beta readers the wrong story. Instead of sending them A Perfect Day (With Explosions), I sent Blood, Oil, & Love, which is going through formatting for print and about to be released.
He didn't tell me I'd messed up. No, the first I knew about my mistake was when one sent a report back, with a few wily typos that had escaped many rounds of copyediting, and a few sentence fragments that had crept in with the last round of editing despite the copyediting afterward.
So, yesterday was the abrupt yanking that draft, fixing it, then handing back to Calmer Half to restart the formatting again (sorry, love!), and after profuse thanks, sending the *right* story to them.
I need to buy that dude a drink. Heck, I need to buy him a whole bottle!
Went out this morning to beat out a rug against the brick, and found one of the butterflies had completed its metamorphosis and was getting ready to fly!
Followed soon after by butterfly #2.
May your year hatch great plans, and great successes, too!
Some friends grow flowers. Me, I grow butterflies and barn swallows.
I've managed to keep the herbs alive this year, but efforts at actual flowers still defeat me. On the other hand, the fennel plants I got with the express intention of have someplace other than the dill for the swallowtail caterpillars to do their munchy best have 4 brilliant green chrysalides and 8 more caterpillars in various stages of growth hanging onto the feathery fronds and stalks.
As for the birds, we have a pair of very persistent barn swallows who think that an alcove on the house is the perfect place for a nest. Hard to argue with their point of view, given it's fairly sheltered from wind and weather, with clear approaches for flight paths. I argue anyway, but this year, I looked at them when they arrived yet again, and in the space of a week in which I wasn't paying attention, built a fine new mud nest. "Fine! You eat your body weight in mosquitoes. Keep doing that, and you can stay this year."
They stayed, the were fruitful and multiplied. Twice. I didn't realize the little buggers could have a spring clutch and a fall clutch, but after watching the hilarity of adult swallows giving fledglings flight lessons, there was once again a cheeping noise, and now there are three fuzzy little grey chicks. Okay, this week they've gotten their first adult feathers, so they're not quite as fuzzy as they used to be. Still, that's got to be a crowded nest at night.
So, I grow butterflies, and barn swallows... and books. Getting really close to the end of A Perfect Day (With Explosions), and then I swear, I'm going to buckle down on getting Blood, Love, & Oil out the door before the end of the month.
It's not flowers, but it'll do.
You know, brain, this could have been a sweet little awkward hilarious romance that you're writing.
Yes, there are blast-resistant trash cans. Yes, the guys are on edge in the crowd, and the mall security is checking vehicles entering the parking garage and shoppers coming in for bombs and non-permitted weapons, but it's still fish out of water about two high-speed low-drag guys trying desperately to do overwatch on one's wife while she's shopping for maternity dresses, and the woman they rope in to help interpret "the ten million illusory shades of colour and the whimsical notations assigned haphazardly to each."
Yes, even said gal they roped in is grumbling about the threats terrorists have been sending in to the news.
But I got 5 chapters in without any boom! I had high hopes!
And then, brain, you had to go and type the phrase "the nice, quiet shop."
Seriously?!?
It could have been just a nice little romantic novella. But you had to go and use the Q-word, and now things are going to go boom.
And resolving that boom probably is likely going to take a novel. Arrrgh!
I finished the first draft on the next book! And then I gave it to Calmer Half, for the tactical read-through. Because accuracy matters. (After he finishes, it's going to a geologist who will do her own accuracy read-through. I aim to always write something good enough that people who are skilled in the profession shown do not want to throw the book across the room.)
He came back with three tactical errors. One of which was a one-line fix, and two of which require rewriting an entire chapter. We'd already discussed the third one, and I knew it was coming; he has encouraged me to write it horribly instead of not writing it, because it'd be easier to edit to correct than to get right the first time. But the second, ah the second. He insisted I had to write the aerial shootdown. Which has been so frustrating to research and write that I copped out and had the viewpoint character looking the wrong way.
Calmer Half isn't going to let me get away with that. Darnit. He holds me to higher standards than I sometimes want to be held, and I love him for it, no matter how frustrating it can be. So, being unable to figure out what I need from online, I finally swallowed my pride, took a deep breath, and... asked him for help. (Yeah, I know. He's right there. Doesn't mean it's always the easiest option.)
"Love, what's it look like to someone on the ground when a plane launches a missile?"
He said offhand, "There are youtube videos."
"Oh, I know, and funker350 videos. But they're mainly air to air, from the plane. Or they're handheld shakycam, and assume you know what you're seeing, or staged, or Hollywood. Not useful if you're running and look up. Which is why I avoided writing it in the first place. Help?"
He took a long, deep breath in, and let it out slowly, then said, "When the fucker is launching a missile at you as you're trying to shoot it down, first it looks like something broke; the wing changes shape, and you think 'did something fall off?' And then there's a flickering as the rocket ignites."
"And then... it accelerates too fast to actually see the missile. Your eyes just can't focus on something moving that fast. A smoke trail suddenly appears."
His lips twisted in an odd grimace, and I said, "And when it hits another plane? I'm betting the Hollywood fireball is completely wrong."
He rolled his shoulders, trying to relax a sudden tension, and moved his neck side to side, before saying. "Eh. When it hits a fighter, with the missiles and fuel tanks, it's a fireball. It's a... a slam, that's the only way I can describe it. A slamming explosion. And a fighter just disintegrates, so explosion, fireball and smoke, and bits falling."
"Now, transport planes? They're so much bigger you can see the explosion along it's length, with the nose fore and tail aft. So you'll see a wing come off, and it gently flutters, slowly drifting down to the ground. The plane itself, as it still has that one wing giving lift, starts spinning and tumbling and it is the most astounding tumbling flopping. It bends at the break, too, as it spins and flops and it's almost comical. Things fall out at the breaks. You can see the bodies falling, if you're close enough." His voice went soft, and deep, almost guttural, "Sooner them than me."
Okay, maybe there's a reason that I don't ask him for help if I can avoid it, and it's not just pride. It's not liking poking old wounds. Time to retreat with humour. "You know, for someone who said he's not going to write about Africa, there's an awful lot of writing about Africa in this house."
He looked back at me, and the humour sparkled in his eyes. "But I'm not writing it!"
...right. That was accurate. And accuracy matters!
I first woke up confused, thinking "Why does Calmer Half's snoring sound like a cow?"
...No, wait, that's not Calmer Half.
That's a cow. Right outside our window.
Ah, somebody's fence is down.
...Yep, at least two cows.
Eating my lawn and lowing at each other at Oh Dark Thirty in the morning.
All right, self, grab a bathrobe, and the phone, and what's the non-emergency number for the police?
Welcome to Tiny Town, Texas!
...Damage assessment can wait for first light. If they got the neighbor's roses, there might be a revenge BBQ happening soon.
I finished the first draft, and got it out to two of my subject matter experts - promptly ensuring, in the way Murphy's Law works, that they both have had weeks far too busy to crack open the file and take a look. It's all right; I know it has some structural weakness and there will be rewrites, but until those come back, I"m in the odd space between stories, where the inside of my head is calm and quiet.
This is where I get very productive on the domestic front: not because I have any more energy (I don't), but because I have more attention to spend on finding what needs doing and fixing it. (At least on the weekends. Day Job has its own unique challenges right now that are using all the mental horsepower I can spare.) So in the space between stories, the space between workdays, and, critical for outside work, the space between rain... I'm at the computer less, and getting more things done.
Which aren't always the things I planned. For example, today I went out to mow the yard as soon as it was dry enough. (For the rain, O L-rd, I thank you. Better than drought, which this part of the world has known too well. Let me remember that when I start grumbling "I didn't move to South Seattle!") And instead, found that the mulberry tree was drooping under the weight of a bumper crop of fruit, brought on by the rains and whatever internal cycle it sets. (it's very common for trees to have cycles of unproductive and productive years. I haven't been paying close enough attention to get to know this one's yet.) So before I mowed, I picked half a gallon of mulberries, and set them aside to make mulberry pie.
This year's recipe was a little different, in that I tried einkorn flour and some dehydrated butter. (Testing out emergency ration offerings before the emergency is always a good idea.) It worked well enough, except the resulting pie crust wasn't flaky at all, but dense and chewy; you really do need to cut in cold butter to get a flaky crust.
Also, despite all my protestations that I sometimes really do cook dishes with intention beforehand and ingredients bought especially for it, today was not one of those days. Instead, cleaning the fridge brought the rediscovery of a container of dates on the bottom shelf, and a block of feta that hadn't even been opened in the cheese drawer, and a tupperware of pear-infused balsamic vinegar shoved back behind the milk (I put it on that shelf after the stopper disintegrated into the bottle, so I had to strain bits of cork out and then had to put the strained vinegar somewhere)....
Yes, I defrosted bacon, and made bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with feta, with a basalmic vinegar reduction dipping sauce. And mulberry pie for dessert. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with low carb. I regret nothing!
Yes, Calmer Half did give me a very odd look when he found out what was for dinner. That man can say more with a raised eyebrow than most people given a dictionary and an hour's head start to acquire extra vocabulary.
I'm afraid Calmer Half wants me to make this again, so I'm dutifully trying to transcribe "A pinch of this, a handful of that, and the chunk of hot-smoked salmon in the freezer" into proper recipe amounts. Take all amounts with a grain of salt.
Smoked Salmon & Clam Chowder
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp bacon grease
2 medium onions, diced fine
1 shallot
1/2 cup crumbled bacon
1.5 teaspoons cajun seasoning
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chicken broth
juice from one can of clams
reserve the clams to add separately
1/2 tsp celery seed
1 tsp thyme, dried
1 can mushrooms, drained
1 can diced hatch chiles, drained
2/3 of a can of corn, rinsed and drained 3 times
1.5 pounds of hot-smoked salmon (or a can of salmon, drained)
1 pint heavy cream
1 steamable pack of cauliflower rice
3-4 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped fine
2-3 Tablespoons fresh dill, chopped fine
Instructions:
1. In dutch oven, melt butter and bacon grease, and saute onions and shallot. Toss in cajun seasoning, too. When they're fairly well translucent, add garlic and saute for thirty seconds.
2. Add the chicken stock, celery seed, thyme, mushrooms, and the clam juice. (Reserve the clams.) Bring to a simmer, reduce heat, put a lid on, and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
3. After 20 minutes, remove the lid (hot!), and use an immersion blender to turn everything into a slightly chunky puree. Start the steamable cauliflower rice pack in the microwave.
4. Add the hatch chiles, corn, clams, salmon (not the skin), fresh herbs and heavy cream. Mix well.
5. Return to a simmer, and after about 5 minutes, taste, and turn off the burner. Should be ready to serve.
Note: all the cans except the clams are drained because otherwise this would end up way too salty... and canned corn needs the three rinsings to lose the tinned taste. If you're using canned salmon instead of hot-smoked, add a touch of worcestershire sauce for the savoury note.
Next time, might add a little more chicken broth, as this was awfully chunky thick stew consistency. On the other hand, Calmer Half likes it that way.
I may have been delighting over the idea and the execution of einkorn cookies a little too much in chat with friends, while also reminding them to take care of themselves... next thing I knew, I'd been suckered into a guest post.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2021/05/06/self-care-sanity-and-einkorn-thumbprint-cookies-by-dorothy-grant/
Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that the next time I make keto brownies and start singing praises to chocolate and capitalism, I'm going to get the arched eyebrow, and a Certain Someone is going to demand another guest post with recipe?
Today, I tackled trimming the hedge. Which was a much, much bigger project than I realized when I got stuck in, because Snowmageddon managed to patchily kill about half of the hedge, and there was no way to save the rest and have it look good. I tried.
The hedge was overgrown anyway, but I hadn't dealt with chopping it back because that was too much work for too little reward. Well, now it was time and past time, so it got severely pruned down to within the boundaries of the flowerbed and all the dead bits removed.
Calmer Half was somewhat aghast at the radical chopping of the hedge; he was not a fan of removing all the concealment of the front of the house. "Why didn't you just leave the dead bush up until new bush grew to replace it?"
"Because I don't want our house to be an eyesore."
He looked puzzled. "It's not an eyesore. There was a bush there. Now there's not, and that's a privacy matter."
I shook my head. "Honey, that's not how this works. Bushes have to be living or they're an eyesore." The long-winded explanation about needing to remove dead material in order to get proper growth would be wasted here.
He looked resigned, and accepting if unhappy. "You would know. You're the go-to on growing things. I most definitely am not."
I grinned. "Yes, I know. I love you, but your concept of caring for a bush begins and ends with 'Triple tap it left center right, aiming low, in case a terrorist is hiding behind it!'"
Calmer Half perked up."It does! And it works, too!"
Me, stumbling in the door squinting after an early morning appointment with the eye doc: Self, the world is too bright and filled with hurt. We need to make a simple, quick, comforting breakfast, because food will make the day better. Eggs?
Also Me: Why is the fridge so bright? Ugh. Grabbing things that need using. Don't want eggs.
Me: Self, you have half a red onion and a poblano in hand. What are you doing?
Also Me: Dicing and sauteing in oil, duh. Shrimp. There's shrimp in the deep freezer, and that's quick.
Me: ...Mexican?
Also Me: Don't wanna. Huh. Hey, don't we have an open jar of green curry paste? Yes, yes we do. And ginger. And garlic.
Me: Self, do you realize how much curry paste you just spooned in?
Also Me: Don't worry, coconut milk will take care of it. Oops, better start the cauliflower rice in the microwave. Why does the microwave have to have bright hurty light?
Me: Self, you're making a shrimp curry for breakfast??
Also Me: Simple! Tasty! Quick! What d'ya want? I'm hurting and uncoffeed here!
Me: ...okay.
The good news: a rainy Monday is a great time to go to the local garden store, as there are very few people there. Abundant parking, staff easily located and helpful, no lines! No elderly ladies who are eyeing you with the clear intention of running you over, shooting you or stabbing you if you touch those begonias they're eyeing...
The bad news: the serious gardeners have already been there, and stripped the place like very choosy locusts. No basil? No peppermint? Seriously, no eggplant? No dill, parsley, cilantro, or sage?
...but there was bronze fennel left?
Yeah, I don't pretend to understand that, I just grabbed the bronze fennel, thyme, and oregano, and supplies.
Even better news: the choosy herb locusts forgot about the farm & fleet store, and not only were they well-stocked with everything else I wanted, but they had a sale on terracotta planters.
Now to pick a day I did not do squats and overhead press to plant the rest of the herbs. Tomorrow sounds good. Think I'll water everything generously, and then go get a cuppa for myself.
Stopped by to see some friends yesterday, as well as their new baby. When the other small children were off in an adjacent room, the topic shifted to my stupid-long recovery. I grumbled "Everybody wants to wrap me in bubble wrap!"
The wife gave me a mom-look. The husband, former marine, said quite forcefully, "they're not wrong!"
...and the second-smallest child, who's still working on intelligible words, looked up, went tearing off to his older sister's room, and came back proudly trailing a length of bubble wrap bigger than he was.
Ok, universe, I can take a hint. Really.
For all of you who keep contacting me privately to ask how we're doing, we're fine. For every male who just winced and every female who just gave me the raised eyebrow of "and where in the vast unhappy spectrum of a woman's 'fine' are you?"...no, really, we're good.
Yes, almost a year to the day from the last round, we caught Kung Flu again. This time, Peter was hit harder, and I was not nearly as bad as last time. We're now both officially tested clear (the household had to be, before I could resume work.) Despite everything you'd expect, he's recovering faster than me. He was sicker, so it's taking him longer than before, but he's already less wiped out by the same tasks than I am.
The most annoying thing about Lung Pao Sicken isn't actually being sick; it's the way it completely knocks all your energy reserves flat on the long recovery. Even resting... is like trying to refill a bucket with the bottom blown out. I tried going back to the gym to set a baseline - standard recovery technique. I barely managed 65 pounds on squats, and couldn't do more than half a work set of overhead press with bare bar. And then was knocked flat for the rest of the day.
I tried going back to work the next day, and my boss sent me home hours early with "I don't want you overextending yourself, because I want you here for the rest of the week." Calmer Half's only comment on that was that I'd lasted an hour past what he'd estimated. Which I can't say anything about, because I only really made it through one full shift that week.
*sinal salute*
So this leads to me grumbling, in fact perilously close to whining, at him that I hate being weak and useless.
Small diversion here. So, my love has a vast command of invective in many of the languages that are common around sub-Saharan Africa. He chooses not to use it around ladies, and therefore I rarely hear it, but unlike some hoity-toity officers, behind my love's commission lies a rich enlisted history.
Not that many years ago, a doctor made the mistake of trying a very painful procedure on my love before the local anesthetic had kicked in. I was sitting in the lobby staring at a 12-year-old copy of National Geographic when a very familiar voice proved:
1.) the flimsy partitions that count as walls in a doctor's office are no match for a good parade-ground bellow
2.) Despite not speaking a word of it, I can recognize Zulu from phonetics, intonation, and phrasing.
3.) It was utterly clear that someone was getting their genetic history, future prospects, and relations with barnyard animals discussed in detail.
The three older ladies waiting their turn were turning pale and clutching their purses. The older gentleman decided he needed to be out the door and elsewhere in the hospital. The pretty young receptionist grabbed the desk with both hands and ducked down like she was afraid the ceiling was going to fall on her. Me? My first reaction was to check 1.) Is this my fault? No. 2.) Am I in line of sight? No. Okay, then time to smirk and try not to snicker aloud at someone Not Me getting read the riot act.
I did ask him later to translate, but he merely turned faintly pink around the cheekbones when he realized I'd heard, and stiffly inform me that it was not suitable for ladies.
So, back to telling my darling that I hate being weak and useless. And he looks up at me, and... let me tell you, when he is motivated, my Calmer Half can flat move. Which how roughly one disconcerted "meep? eep!" later, I found myself on the couch, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, with a half-awake and rather startled cat plucked from somewhere and pressed on my chest so I could not get up. And Calmer Half standing over me, informing in no uncertain terms, "The correct terms are 'recovering from illness' and 'beloved.' You will use the proper terminology!"
Ladies and gentlemen, without once raising his voice or calling upon his vast command of enlisted epithets, I done been told. Firmly. Time to lie on the couch, scritch the cat, and accept that no, the floor's not going to be mopped today, and maybe not this week.
So how are we? We are Recovering From Illness. And beloved. Very, very beloved.
I was sitting in the living room with my Calmer
Half*, enjoying a cup of coffee and the mutual exhausted silence, when
he opened his eyes, looked around, and focused on Jen Satterly's book
lying blamelessly on the coffee table. It's Arsenal of Hope: Tactics for Taking on PTSD, Together, and it's the... well, last
year her husband, retired Delta CSM Tom Satterly wrote All Secure: A
Special Operations Soldier's Fight to Survive on the Battlefield and the
Homefront, in which he details the effect that training and operational
tempo, combat and losing friends and the resulting PTSD had not only on
him, but on his marriages, on his kid, and on his ability to adapt to
civilian life. And how he's fought his way back from the blackest depths
to healthy and happy, and is trying to show others the trail he's
blazed, and that it's possible and there's hope.
I'm still working on the same book I was working on back in October - and slowly, slowly, it comes together. This one has been more research heavy, including but not limited to Rhodesian Fire Force tactics and how ships bunker (refuel at sea.) But I'm closing in: the recon team in is overwatch on the terrorist camp, and the exploration team is almost, almost to the coastline of the country they need to infiltrate and explore.
(It's very strange to compile everything and realize that all this research is still going to be a rather slim novel, almost a novella by the time I'm done. I feel like it ought to be a goat gagger for all the work, but the length of the final product is not indicative of the work put in. No doubt it'll expand after the beta read, when feedback from the distaff side tells me I need to slow down and put more explanation in.)
Anyway, last night I was sitting by my husband's feet as he sat by the fireplace, and talking about what I had planned upcoming in the book, to get them from the smuggler's ship they'd bought passage on into the actual country. (I'd just built the fire. I could claim I was monitoring it, but all y'all over a certain age or mileage know I was really just waiting until the pain from getting up was less than the pain from sitting on the floor.)
And my dearest Calmer Half said, "No, it wouldn't work like that. You could do this, or you could do that. In fact, it'd be best if you went back and had them procure these things, and arrange for them to be loaded on the ship before leaving harbor, and then you have this third option, with these operational concerns. And you need to keep this in mind..."
I did not want to go back and change three chapters, one of them so badly I'd have to rewrite from scratch. I did not want to have to do the more complicated way he was saying. I am already slow enough on the writing; I don't want to lose the momentum I have to rewriting. So I grumbled, "I don' wanna rewrite. And I really don't want to change my blocking for the next chapter!"
My darling Calmer Half, whom I love very, very much, gave me this look. You know the one. And replied mildly, "Well, you can write it how you want. It's your book." Softer, mulishly, he added, "But when I had occasion to do similar things, we used the scenarios I outlined."
Fooey. Darnit. Botheration!
I don't want to rewrite. But I'm going to, because he's right. You know, it'd be so much easier to be cheerfully wrong (until my betas caught it) if I didn't live with a subject matter expert!
After going off to my office and doing some grumbling, then fixing a nice hot cup of coffee loaded with Godiva's dark hot chocolate powder, and possibly a more than a little Bailey's as well, I sat down in front of the fire, and sighed. "You are right and I am wrong. All right. Now that I've got my temper tantrum out of the way, what am I doing?"
This recipe started life as "Cheater's Chowder", because it was a way to make a keto variant of clam chowder in about 15 minutes. But even when not trying to diet, I like this enough to keep making it, because it's quick, it's filling, and it's tasty. (Also, chunky not smooth, because Calmer Half prefers that.)
Then I moved to Texas, and the spices started to change. As well as the "what do I have in my fridge?" All measurements are rough guesses.
Quick Clam Chowder Slightly More Southwest
1-2 onions, diced
1-2 poblano peppers, diced
1 cup celery, sliced thin
1 cans clams (do not drain)
4 cups chicken stock (or water + better than bullion)
1/2-1 cup bacon crumbles (real, not fake bacon. Saute and dice if you don't have crumbles)
1-2 Tbsp bacon grease (or olive oil, if you're out of bacon grease and have crumbles)
1 Tbsp thyme
1/2 tsp mesquite-smoked salt, or to taste (depending on the saltiness of your stock and bacon)
1-2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp chipolte powder
1Tbsp minced garlic
2 cups half & half
1 steamer bag riced cauliflower, or 1 small-medium head of cauliflower, chopped fine (yay food processor)
First, chop your cauliflower, if needed. Put in a bowl, add a splash of water, cover with plastic wrap, poke a few holes in the top. Pop in microwave for 8 minutes. Or, you know, put steamer bag in there and follow directions.
Put heavy stockpot on the stove - I prefer an enameled cast iron dutch oven, but whatever makes you happy. Beware: this recipe can grow. Throw lump of bacon grease in, set to med-high heat. If you don't have bacon crumbles, chop frozen bacon into diced bits and toss in to fry. If you have thawed bacon only, fry, then pull out to crumble when cooled. Cook twice as much bacon as you need, so you can snack while working. Cook's privilege!
Dice poblanos, toss in to saute. Chop celery, toss in, stir. Chop onion, toss in, stir. When fairly sauteed, toss bacon in, stir. Add the salt, spices, and garlic, stir. When the garlic is nicely mellowed, add bay leaves, stock, and the can of clams, and stir to get all the browned bits off the bottom. When it comes up to a simmer, add the half & half.
Pull the cooked cauliflower out of the microwave, carefully open bag / pull cover off, dump in soup. When it comes back up to a simmer again, taste and adjust spices/ salt if needed. Serve!
Calmer Half: "Why are you putting whole spices in the rice?"
Me: "Because that's what the recipe calls for, and I have them? This is
my first time with this recipe, so I'm following the directions."
Calmer Half. "Ah."
An hour later, after a meal of tandoori chicken with date chutney on a
bed of peas and turmeric rice, Calmer Half rendered his verdict. "Do you
have everything you need to make this again? Do I need to pick up
anything when grocery shopping?"
All right, I'll call that successful. And will use whole spices in turmeric rice again (or in the case of the cardamom pods, smashed-open.)
Rice Cooker Turmeric Rice:
3/4 tsp turmeric
2-inch stick of cinnamon
4 cardamom pods, smashed open
3 cloves
2 cups rice, rinsed until running clear
2 cups chicken stock + water to bring it up to the line
pinch salt
Put in rice cooker, start. Next time, I may add a pat of butter, because it seemed like it could have used it.
One variant of the recipe had throwing frozen peas in the rice cooker, but I was dubious, so I made them in the microwave and spooned them on top afterward. It worked!
I'm writing a thing, and it took a turn I didn't expect. (Several, actually.) First, it wanted to be a short story. Then, it kept going, and picked up two additional viewpoint characters. I thought I finally had a sequel on my hands, but it turned out I had written the first three chapters of a novel, and at least one needs rewriting to a different point of view.
F*ck It, Drive On, as they say. I kept writing. Well, the problem with a military POV is that the guy in question is going to go off and do military things, independently of the rest of the cast (though they will matter to the plot later.) And those military things will include assaulting a terrorist compound.
I'm not military. I will never claim to have been such. What's a girl to do in a situation like this?
If you belong to the North Texas Writers, Pilots, and Shooters Association, you spend a while grumbling on a mapping program, then print out a topo chart on a piece of the earth whose terrain matches kinds sorta what was in your head, and take it to dinner.
And then the guys decry your choice of both compound site and nearby town location, and move them, and then proceed to wargame the heck out of it.
I am very grateful I have Calmer Half to provide love, support, direction, and I'm sure that was a snicker when I stomped to the tea kettle grumbling "The Appalachians are all folded the wrong way!"
I am also grateful for LawDog, "Your insertion site needs to be back here, and then hike at military crest... you are aware that's not ridgeline... to observation points here, here, and here..."
And Old NFO "You are not moving the LZ. Wheat fields were made for landing!"
And Aepilot Jim "You're gonna have the mortar guy carry his equipment four klicks? What kind of second lieutenant plan is this?"
And Jon Laforce for the "Yeah, no, pack weight is now that much for regular soldiers." And 155m howitzers' guy viewpoint.
And John Van Stry for encouragement and chocolate cake, and Monalisa Foster for sympathy at the "where did that come from?" characters and POV recommendations...
And last but not least, Alma Boykin for geology help, and commiserating via text afterward on being assigned homework prior to next week's meeting. And laughing at me.
Truly, I am blessed in subject matter experts, who also make great food. Now I just have to write the thing, to standards high enough to pass beta reading...
Old NFO's take here: https://oldnfo.org/2021/01/17/heh-7/
Some days, I have all my ducks in a row. Some days, I don't even know where my ducks are, and they might have been shot and are already being plucked by a happy hunter by the time I notice they're missing.
Like yesterday. I headed out to the kitchen at 4pm to start cooking, only to find the leg of lamb I'd pulled out of the deep freezer to finally cook had not thawed, and I'd underestimated just how many pounds it was.
"Hey, hon?" I looked at Calmer Half through a haze of exhaustion due to piling doctor's appointment on top of being ambitious at the gym that morning. "Can you check my math?"
"Yes?" He looked up from his computer, with a patient "I was in the middle of something but you need help" look.
"Thirty minutes per pound, for six pounds, is three hours, right?"
"Yes."
"And if we add half an hour of resting afterward, and thirty minutes for prep, that's four. And the directions say the roast should be at room temperature when it goes in the oven, but it's still semi-frozen despite being pulled out at noon, so that's at least two more..."
"You're up to six hours." He was still smiling, with the 'and this is why we have backup plans' sort of laughter in his eye.
"So it'd be ten o'clock before dinner's ready... how do you feel about going out to Mexican?"
He didn't miss a beat. "I'll drive. Let me know when you're ready to go."
