Eyeballs without auto-correct, by J.C. Kavanagh

VOTED Best Young Adult Book 2018 by Critters Readers Poll

My partner Ian and I decided that 2019 was a great year to embrace the idea of a joint new years resolution. We're not as young as we'd like to be. Or think we are. I mean, how many times can you be '39' again? So, we decided to pay more attention to what we eat and to review more thoroughly the ingredient labels on all store-bought items.

At the grocery store, we trudge to the 'healthy' aisle. That's where the old eyeballs come in - oh if only we could read what's written on the packages. We check every label, comparing products that look tasty and healthy. Many of them look like cardboard that's been flavored with salt and more cardboard. The selection becomes harder and harder. Why? It's tough reading the ingredients without the use of an electron microscope. Could the print be any smaller?

I discover a new type of cracker made solely from vegetables, mostly beets.

"This looks interesting," I suggest to Ian, holding up the box. "And they're garlic-flavoured."

Ian squints and turns the box over. He holds the box away from his body until his arm won't extend any more and begins to read the ingredients out loud.

"Potato flour," he says hesitantly.

"Spinach starch with germs removed," he adds. I cock an eyebrow. That doesn't sound right.

"Beetroot something-or-other. And ball sac vinegar."

I look at Ian with alarm. "What kind of vinegar?"

He squints some more and tries to focus, holding the box as far from his eyes as possible. His arm is going through the shelf and into the next aisle.

As he tries to focus, I suddenly get it. What he's trying to read. Balsamic vinegar.

Oh - my sides! I begin to laugh and laugh and I just can't stop.

Ah. Fun times with Ian even when the eyeballs dim.

Update on the Kavanagh clan that made my 1889 church pew
Sorry - research still not complete... will keep you posted!

GREAT NEWS!

Book 2 of my Twisted Climb series, The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends, was just voted Best Young Adult Book 2018 by the Critters Readers Poll. I am beyond thrilled! If you like action, adventure, drama and a dash of paranormal, you will love my books. Check them out and please leave a review on Amazon or Chapters or your favourite book site.

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2)

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll

AND

The Twisted Climb,

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

A pew and a Kavanagh link, by J.C. Kavanagh

Darkness Descends, 

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

It started with an old church pew. I bought it in 1989 from the St. James parish church in Colgan, Ontario. The church was celebrating a 100-year anniversary, and part of the celebration was replacing the pews, which were built from local trees and by local carpenters in 1889.

The 6' pew was in decent condition when I brought it home - made from pine, oak and walnut. The 'legs' were cast iron, fashioned in the Gothic/Romanesque style of the day. The wood holder for hymnals and booklets was intact, as was the card-sized metal plate frame that displayed the name of the family that donated money for the pew / church. Even the kneeler was included. And so a new life began for the old pew, first in my kitchen. Children and their friends ate meals on this historic pew - a pew that had once been reserved for peace and quiet. Not so in a kitchen filled with youngsters.

Years later, it began another life - outside on my covered porch. Many a person sat on that pew with a cigarette or drink in hand (back when smoking was discouraged inside your home and encouraged outside). It sat for many years on that porch, holding strong and steady.

And then this year, we brought it back to its original glory. My partner and I love to refinish/refurbish/re-do oh, just about anything. We had just built a 7'4" table for our kitchen, using 100-year old maple planks from a local tree. We had the planks planed, glued and kiln-dried through a Mennonite business and then finished it ourselves - sanding, staining and then two coats of epoxy. That project led to the next project - re-finishing the kitchen chairs, including my father's old captain chairs. And that of course, led to the thought, "Well, wouldn't the pew look grand in here too?"

So the pew was resurrected from the basement, where it had been resting for the last six years. We carefully separated the back from the bottom, the arms from the legs, and began a two-week project that included hours and hours of sanding, re-gluing cracks, re-gluing the back/bottom tongue-in-groove joiners, staining and varnish. Oh, and sand-blasting the iron legs and then spraying a protective clear-coat gloss varnish.

New table (temporary legs as we're still designing permanent legs), 
re-furbished chairs and pew.

We kept most of the original nails in place - the heads were rectangular! 

That's when I decided I would research the history of the pew, because I do love history. And to my surprise, I discovered that the pew may be linked to my own history - the Kavanagh clan. Back in the 1800s, the Colgan area was being settled by Irish Catholics in large numbers - sufficient to build several churches within a 5-mile radius. St. James was the grandest of them all, first built in 1851 and then replaced in 1889. The main church, still an active parish, accommodates about 700 people and the upper gallery about 150.

Artist's sketch of St. James church in Colgan, Ontario. 

Top right, weather-beaten church circa 1855.

And who were the builders contracted to construct this magnificent church? The Kavanagh brothers, Sam, William and 'Lil.' They had already built a small mission church, St. Francis Xavier, in nearby Tottenham. My mom told me that some of her father's uncles had emigrated to Canada and New York during the Irish potato famine (1845-1852). Unfortunately, they didn't keep in touch with their Irish kin. My grandfather's name, by the way, is William Kavanagh, born in 1902 and named 'William' in keeping with the tradition of carrying on the patriarch's given name. Coincidence? Only one way to find out. Research.

I'll keep you posted.

Current photo of St. James church, Colgan, Ontario, 

built in 1889 by the Kavanagh brothers. 

Total construction cost: less than $15,000.

Don't forget to add The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends to your Christmas list! Fantastic reading for young adults and adults young at heart. You won't be able to put it down.

Merry Christmas to all!

J.C. Kavanagh 

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2) 
AND
The Twisted Climb, 
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

When Killer Vine meets Vine Killer, by J.C. Kavanagh



The Twisted Climb
WINNER, Best Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll





I am enthralled with nature. I marvel at its beauty, its harshness, its harmony.

 

I'm certain that my Irish heritage plays a role in my love of the land. I've mentioned before in the BWL blog that I'm a descendent of the Kings & Queens of Leinster (County Carlow, County Wexford and County Kilkenny). Sadly though, I have no crown nor royal lands. But, I digress.

 

Back to nature.

 

Here in Ontario, we're still in the grip of winter. As I look out my office window, 15cm of snow dresses my property and drapes the branches of thousands of coniferous trees. Peace reigns. Canadian weather changes week to week, heck, even day to day. Last week, the temperatures were well above 0 Celsius, melting all the snow. Today, we are back to a winter wonderland.

 

Last week, we roamed our snow-less woods, marking trees that need to be cut down and searching for Killer Vines. Have you ever seen these suckers? They resemble small, flakey-barked trees, and they live to kill - the host tree, that is. The killer vine will 'climb' the host tree (or multiple trees), growing and snaking and entwining itself until it twists and sucks the life out of the host.

 

They are the Killer Vines and I am the Vine Killer. I have no mercy.

 

The chainsaw and branch cutters become my best friends when I'm on my vine-killing mission.

 

I will save the trees.

 

And I will kill the vines.

Killer Vine is outlined in red.
Note it branched into two, and further upward, four sucker limbs.

Killer vine resembles young tree

Killer Vine succumbs to Vine Killer!
This one required the Jeep to pull it down, thus meriting
a triumphant drag-along around property.

 

In case you think I'm a wee bit cuckoo, you have to know that I'm also a bird saver. A few weeks ago, a Junco crashed into a basement window. I heard him fly not once but three times (birds really do have wee brains) into the window and when I arrived, there he was, lying on my lower terrace. The temp was about -20 Celsius. I spoke to him first, just to assure him that I was his friend (all the birds know me as 'Nana J - the bringer of bird food'). He blinked a few times, acknowledging my presence and then, with my Olympic woollen mittens, I carefully brought him inside and laid him on the warm brick beside the wood stove. After half an hour, me and my partner, Ian, brought him some water and a handful of bird food. Well, that brought him to life. He stood up, hopped a few steps and then onto the window sill. "Out," he said, or I guess, chirped. So I put on the woollen mittens and carefully scooped him back into my hands and brought him outside. I placed him on the terrace and said, "There you go, buddy. Fly!" And he did.

 

Now I have plenty of titles to my name:

Princess (!)

Mom

Nana J

Vine Killer

Bird Saver

Author

 

The sequel to The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends will be published soon. Stay tuned!

 

Don't forget to take a moment and enjoy the wonders of nature.

 

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb
BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll
A novel for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.Amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

Say what you mean and mean what you say by J.C. Kavanagh

Best Young Adult Book 2016 P&E Readers' Poll

Last month, I wrote a wee bit about my Irish-born father and his dislike for Canadian winters. He passed away over 20 years ago and I still miss him. In fact, much of my writing is done on his old, oak, leather-topped desk. Cheers, Da!

This month, I'll share a couple of stories about my lovely mother - who will be 86 this year. She grew up in Dublin, Ireland and moved to Canada to start a family, almost 60 years ago. Like my dad, Mom discovered that settling in Canada was a big adjustment – the heat in summer, cold and snow in winter, and intense thunder and lightning storms in the spring and fall.

My cheeky mother, 1958

But the biggest adjustment for me Mather was not the weather – it was her choice of words. And their meaning. Or rather, their wrong meaning. She meant well. She just didn’t say it right.

“Will you kindly knock me up at 7 tomorrow morning?” she asked the landlord of her rooming house shortly after she arrived in Canada.

Fred, her landlord, stood there in shock, the redness of his blush matching the ginger of his hair.

“What? Don’t you knock up all your tenants?” me Mather asked. “Surely you don’t want me to be late and have my wage docked and not be able to pay my rent?”

Fred’s blush had become a dangerous maroon. “I… I could find you an old wind-up clock,” he stammered.

“Why bother?” me Mather persisted. “Just knock me up at 7!”

Fred’s face was now apoplectic. “But…. my wife…..”

“Nonsense, she won’t hear a thing,” replied me Mather. “Just knock on my door two or three times. I’ll wake up.”

Fred gasped and almost fell to the floor in relief. “Knock… on your door.”

“Well, of course,” says me Mather. “What else would I mean?”

And then there’s the time when me Mather was at work, new to her job as legal secretary for a firm in downtown Toronto. Her boss was a finicky old curmudgeon with little patience for his lovely Irish employee.

As she was collating and copying some papers, me Mather noticed a mistake.

“I’m waiting for those papers to sign!” bellowed her boss impatiently.

Mather was desperate. She had to erase and correct the error immediately, before he noticed. She hurried to her colleague’s office. “Quick – I need a rubber. Now!”

The woman looked up at me Mather in shock. “You need a rubber?”

“Yes! Quick now – I’m in a hurry and the boss doesn’t want to wait!”

Well, Mather learned very quickly that the terms used at home in Ireland had a completely different meaning in Canada. I still chuckle when she talks about something that’s banjaxed (broken), togs (bathing suit), boxing my ears (a humourous threat to slap you upside the head) and chin-wagging (a lengthy conversation). I know what she means to say even if she doesn’t say what she means. You know what I mean.

She's still beautiful! Mother, grandmother and great-grandmother

Summer is about to begin - enjoy! I'll be spending most weekends and about four weeks sailing around Georgian Bay on our sailboat, Escape Route II. Ah....

Enjoy life!

J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb

BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers' Poll

A novel for teens, young adults and adults young at heart

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.Amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)