Spoiled? by J.C. Kavanagh

 

The award-winning Twisted Climb series is available here:
https://www.bookswelove.net/kavanagh-j-c/

What is your definition of spoiled?

There are multiple definitions found in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary but I'll use the one that I'm referring to in this blog: pamper; pay attention to the comfort and wishes of a person.

My definition is similar - but more specific. 

The J.C. Kavanagh definition of spoiled: doing your partner's laundry.

I've always been the 'laundry-lady' and am quite content to wash, dry, fold, and put-away all our clothes. So, after living in our new home for about five months, and after I'd spent the afternoon completing the laundry chores, my partner, Ian, walked in from the garage. He was quite dirty from cutting trails on our property. 

He stood there for a moment, watching me fold the last of his gitch.

"Oh," he said. "You've done the laundry."

I nodded. Yah, I knew where this was going.

Ian smiled his best-winning smile. "I'd really like to wear these work clothes tomorrow."

"Sure," I replied, smiling back. "Yours are the only dirty clothes, so..." I waited a moment. "The machines are all yours."

His smile faded. "Oh," he repeated. 

I watched him retreat to the laundry room. He remained in there for some time and finally came out, looking rather sheepish. Gone was the radiant smile.

"Um... well," he fumbled for words, then took a deep breath. "Which one's the washing machine?"

I burst out laughing.

"But they look the same!" His excuse made me laugh even harder.

Washer and dryer - I guess they do look the same :)

Ah, life with Ian is always fun. (And I will spoil him as much as I can!)

Georgian Bay sunsets on our sailboat.

Keep smiling and don't forget to tell the ones you love that you love them :)

J.C. Kavanagh, author of
The Twisted Climb - A Bright Darkness (Book 3) Best YA Book FINALIST at Critters Readers Poll 2022
and
The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2) voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll
Voted Best Local Author, Simcoe County, Ontario, 2021
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)
Instagram @authorjckavanagh

What I am working on now by H. Paul Doucette

 

My newest release

Click to visit my BWL Author Page for details and purchase information

            Hello everyone. It has been a while since I was last here. My only excuse being busy being a writer (lol).

            I am currently working on two stories; the first, a suspense novel set during the Cold War, taking place in Canada in 1959. It follows RCMP Inspector Jesse Thompson from the force’s Intelligence Section as he investigates possible Soviet espionage attempts to acquire information on the latest Anti-Submarine Warfare Systems being developed by the Canadian navy in Halifax.

            As you see, I am sticking with my interest in history and my home town. Remember, I mentioned in a past blog that history, including your personal one, is a fertile field for story ideas that cross all genres.

            I am also working on the next Matt Murphy novel set in the 1970s in Toronto, Ontario. All this is on top of many hours of background research – my favourite part of writing. Fortunately, I am old enough to have lived through a goodly part of that history but I still discover and learn new things which often culminate in new story ideas.

            If you are curious about these backgrounds may I invite you to take a look at one of the Matt Murphy PI stories excerpts on the Author page listed on the BWL website. I think you will like Matt, as I know some of you liked John Robichaud (Robie). Matt is younger and living in a different city and at a different time. But, like Robie, he is dealing with a universal truth: crime is still crime; the ‘meat and potatoes’ of mystery writers.

            As a PI, he is not hamstrung by the rules and conventions of the regular law enforcement agencies and as a result, his cases take him into various areas of a major city’s underbelly as you see in the first book. He is drawn into the world of aspiring and professional dancers with their high spirited sense of self and sexuality, or as some might rather call...sensuality. He also experiences just how fragile and sensitive their egos can be threatened and how vicious they can become. He soon discovers the degree which their competitiveness will push them to achieve ‘the role’ in a production.  

            To illustrate the point, here is a brief excerpt.

 

                        ‘The woman sat at the dressing table, looking down at the pair of worn

                        pointe shoes and a small soft wooden box in her hand. She knew what

                        she was about to do could possibly destroy the girl’s future as a dancer,

                        but she didn’t care.

                        Opening the box, she extracted three shortened sewing needles and eased

                        them into the stiff toes of the shoes one at a time. When finished, she

                        slipped a finger into the shoe, making sure enough of the pins protruded.

                        Satisfied with her work, she returned the shoes to the locker then slipped

                        silently away.’

 

     I think you will also find the backdrop of Toronto during the years of the counterrevolution as personified by Rochdale College and Yorkville – The Village was then.

            If you read the story, I hope you enjoy it and, remember; history is calling.

 

            ‘Til next time.

            Paul

The book I've been writing since I found out I was going to be a dad by Tobias Robbins

 

https://bookswelove.net/robbins-tobias/

Since I first found out I was going to be a dad, I have been writing a book to my daughter. I am going to give it to her when she is older. This is the chapter concerning her birth. 

 

April 19th, 2014. 11:30 p.m

    Your mother's water broke a few hours ago. We were with the rest of the family at Aunt Becky’s hiding Easter eggs and playing board games. It wasn't even noticeable like in the movies. We headed to the hospital just in case. Now your mother is lying in the electronic reclining bed beside me, texting everyone she knows. I am writing this to you on the back of a printed copy of a poem from my collection. You are slowly pushing your way out of your mother’s uterus. We will be a family in a few more hours. I should have known you would be born on Easter Sunday - the symbols of life and natural creation are implied but its more than that. I was told. The doctor said you were due last Sunday and while on a short walk, we found a tiny bird egg. It was about the size of a quarter, light blue, and had speckles on it. I have gone on countless walks in and out of animal habitats and never seen a bird egg. I am not an expert but I think it was a robin’s egg. I knew then that you would be born on Easter. Your mother’s contractions are getting worse now but it's still bearable. Your grandma Sue should be here soon to do her best to alleviate any stress she can for your mom.

April 20th, 2:00 a.m.

    Though I am notorious for panicking in stressful situations I feel surprisingly calm- maybe it doesn't seem real yet. Soon the fluids will spill and the screams should start. Probably then my anxiety will rise. But I’m not a doctor. I’m not Mother Nature. This process is utterly out of my zone of control. All I can mitigate are my own responses to stimuli. While we wait for you to arrive I am reading a book called Kabuki, the Alchemy. In it, the protagonist says "If you are faced with a certain challenge perhaps it is the universe’s way of trying to show you something. You ask yourself, 'What am I meant to learn from this? How is this meant to push me in the right direction?’ " I'd happily take this pain from your mother. Pain and I are casual acquaintances. But chaos? Oh god no! Birth is chaos at its most primitive. It’s all out of my hands, I must accept my helplessness in this situation and let fate use me as it sees fit.

April 20th, 4:30 a.m.

    Your mother has never felt pain. Not real pain. Till now. No stitches, contusions or broken bones. To her credit, she tried her best to avoid drugs during the labor, but couldn't handle it. I wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did. Imagine the worst pain you can; that feeling in your mind's eye is just a shadow of the real pain of labor. A doctor gave her some drugs to numb her and I have no doubt it is worth the astronomical price he is charging.

April 20th, 6:15 a.m.

    The sun rises gold out the giant hospital window as I watch numbers flash on a monitor by your mother’s bed. 135, 60, 101. I have no idea what these numbers are. They equal the sum of your life plus your mother's. If these numbers are reduced to zero then a life will be subtracted. I have never been much for math. I try to ignore the indiscernible digits blinking on the screen and leave my stress there plugged into the wall. Let science worry. Let technology do the hard calculations. My job is simple: love your mother. Mine is the arithmetic of the soul.

April 20th, 7:45 a.m.

    We’ve been awake for nearly 24 hours, and now the hard part is about to begin. Your mother is working her damnedest to push you out into this world. So much effort for such a tiny thing. All the pain, the money, the planning. Every single day for nine months has led to this. I am here, your grandmother is here, and several medical professionals are here. But this is something you and your mother have to do on your own.

April 20th, 9:10 a.m.

    Done. Over with. Here you are. Your mom pushed you out with no problems. You have thick black hair and dark brown eyes. As you suckled for the first time I read you poetry. Now, if you will let me, I will get some sleep. Happy birthday.

 

My book, The Remnants of Pryr, comes out this winter. 

When one of the ancient founders of Pryr returns after a long exile and claims the world will end, the nations must adapt and learn to work together. If not, the Breath of Ruination will bring about a world-ending catastrophe. The kaleidoscopic cast, including gods, assassins, poets, and scientists, provides interlocking accounts in this geo-political drama that dates back to the founding of civilization.

 

 

September in Vermont

  Find my books here!

What is September like where you live? 

morning had broken at the farm...

Here in Vermont it's a magical time. Each day brings surprises. It can feel like all of the seasons in a single day. Our mornings might hold the promise of spring, while the afternoon temperatures rise to the warm welcome of summer days. But by evening light we'll catch a glimpse of the vermillion color of the coming glorious Fall on the edge of a maple tree's leaf in the backyard. And deep in the night, it's time to haul out the extra quilt as temperatures dip into winter territory!

In September we get our frolicking children off to school and happily anticipate welcoming visitors from all over the world coming to see the incredible crisp beauty of Vermont in the autumn. We're baking....apple cider donuts, cobblers made of our summer bounties of peaches and berries. The air itself is infused with plummy richness of it.

our town after a September rainstorm

And September is a time that the light creek or lakeside reading of summer transforms itself into deeper stories kept in happy anticipation of their company for longer nights by the fireside.

Happy reading. Happy September!

Old Time Medicine

                                           Please click this link for book and author information

When I was a child, I read numerous novels written over a century ago, such as Anne of Gables, Emily of New Moon, and The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery. Characters who got sick in these stories routinely mentioned taking laudanum. I hadn't heard of this medicine but assumed it was similar to our everyday modern drugs. So I was surprised to later learn that laudanum is essentially opium. 

Anne of Green Gables took opium?

She almost certainly did. From the 18th to the early 20th century, laudanum was a common drug found in most household medicine cabinets. People took it for headaches, coughs, diarrhea, and "female complaints." They fed drops to babies to ease teething pain and colic. 

Drawings reveal that the juice and seeds of the opium poppy were used as medicines in ancient Assyria and Egypt. Opium treatment emerged in Europe in the 1660s, when doctors dissolved opium in liquor and added cinnamon, cloves, other spices and sometimes honey to mask the plant's bitter taste to create a drug they called laudanum. The medicine worked quickly and more effectively than other drugs available at the time and came to feature in about 25 % of all prescribed medications. Opium was also the secret ingredient in 19th century drugs advertised and sold under innocuous brand names like Dover's Powder and Winslow's Soothing Syrup.

While doctors appreciated the value of opium, they were aware of the dangers. Overdose, called "acute poisoning," could be accidental or intentional. Opium was the most common method of suicide in the 1800s and too many drops of laudanum tragically resulted in infant deaths.

Addiction, or "chronic poisoning," was another problem. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's medical treatments led to a life-long laudanum addiction. His famous poem, "Kubla Khan," was inspired by an opium dream.  

  

The village of Nether Stowey, Somerset, UK, where Coleridge lived and wrote his poems "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

In the early 1880s, researchers isolated the active ingredient in opium and named it for Morpheus, the Greek god of sleep and dreams. Morphine is ten times as strong as the same amount of opium but can be more precisely measured, preventing overdose. Hypodermic needles were invented to inject morphine powder and soon people could buy hypodermic syringes in the Sears catalogue for $2.00. 

Next Bayer pharmaceuticals developed the even stronger heroin and marketed it with its other new drug, aspirin. Some people thought aspirin carried higher risks because it caused bleeding. 

But many doctors and members of the public pushed for restrictions on dangerous drugs. In the early 20th century, governments passed laws making opium and its derivatives only available by prescription and requiring companies to list ingredients on drug labels. Researchers gradually developed effective medicines with fewer serious side effects. Laudanum is still available today but is mainly prescribed to control diarrhea when other medications have failed. 

Why am I interested in old time medicine? It's because my new historical mystery novel, A Killer Whisky, deals with common drugs of the early 1900s. These also included cocaine - great for nasal inflammation - and whisky. During Prohibition doctors were allowed to prescribe liquor to relieve stress, pain, and other physical and mental ailments. Many people took advantage of that legal loophole and enjoyed the medicine's intoxicating side-benefits.  

References:

Halpern, John H., MD and Blistein, David. Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World. New York: Hachette, 2019.

Inglis, Lucy. Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium. London: Macmillan, 2019.

Malleck, Dan. When Good Drugs Go Bad. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.