Happy Halloween in February...

Yes, you read that right.

My dad called me February 13 to wish me and early Happy Halloween.
We both had a good laugh. Nearly twenty-five years ago, my dad underwent brain surgery to help control his epileptic seizures. While he hasn't had seizures since, he has had to relearn a lot of things he'd forgotten after doctors removed a quarter-sized piece of his brain. He's had a long journey.

I've always taken for granted the ability to read, to write, to think in the way I always have. I knew the things my dad had to re-learn. How to talk, how to write, how to name the every day objects we all "just know" because we've learned from the time we were little. In the blink of a ten hour surgery, my dad forgot a lot of those things. The names of his wife, his kids, his pets, even the names of holidays all these years later. His brain just didn't make the connection any more.

As writers, we all learn new things with every book we write. We forge new pathways in our brains and test our own memories as well as our sanity. I've learned some new things and had new experiences mostly out of my own interest which I've then transformed into new story ideas.

When I moved to a small town, I began to explore and use the scenery around me to create a mystery series about Katie Mullins who moved to a small town to hide out and ended up creating a whole new life. While I didn't get to work in a bookstore, I sure do haunt a lot of them!

As a karate student, I began to write a martial arts mystery series and my latest work in progress, is about a woman who ends up running a tea shop. All the things I write about in that book, I've partly learned in my brief stint working in a local Tim Hortons coffee shop. Now that I'm working at a haunted theatre... The sky is the limit. The things I learn go into books and the things I write become things I want to learn. It's all give and take.

As for my dad, even after the surgery and a lengthy recovery, he's now a singer/songwriter.
He used to be a lumberjack.

At a local coffee house with my dad and one of our CDs.

To be honest, we didn't always get along. We went for a long time gone without speaking to each other. Once we reconnected, I've been fortunate to work with him writing lyrics and have heard my words come to life on his numerous CDs.

As for Halloween in February, I figure next year I'll send him a package of pumpkin seeds for Valentine's Day next year.

Diane Bator

Check out my books here.

Women's Work Memories--Doing the Laundry

                        http://amzn.to/1YQziX0  A Master Passion   ISBN: 1771456744

A few things have changed for women, if not all that much on the rights side--we seem to be going backwards at the moment--however, in the material world, the traditional hard work of housekeeping has grown much easier. Laundry is one of those revolutionized tasks. Still, like cleaning the toilet, another traditionally designated woman’s work, I'd thought I'd share some memories about some of the things I've seen during my own 70+ years of life. 

I wonder how many of you can also look back on these same changes, or if you have some unique stories of your own. I’m going to move through time—my little slice of it--regarding laundry day.

The first laundry days I remember was at Grandpa’s house where we took our clothes for a familial Saturday wash, because they had a machine, a rockin’ and rollin’ wringer washer in the basement. Running the wet clothes through the wringer was men’s work in my family, although the women did the rest: pre-sort, load, hang, fold, dry, and iron. (Remember ironing? The day devoted to the task, taking the clothes out of the hamper and dampening them with a spritz or a sprinkle—the ones from a little top you bought at the Five and Dime to attach to the top of a coke bottle? The back ache/neck crick from standing for hours with a moving extended arm, the pre-air conditioning summer heat?)

And, of course, for small children, there were dire, but necessary, warnings.

Beware the dreaded wringer in which careless children get their arms caught and broken and maybe even dragged in and squished to death!  And don’t forget; the release bar to open the jaws is along the top, so…!

In the early Sixties, life took my mother and me to Barbados in the West Indies. It was not the shiny tourist trap it is now. At one time, we lived in the countryside which meant in a big temporarily for rent house—the “Bajan” owners were in the UK, attending to some business there. The big white house with louvered windows stood in a grove of large trees surrounded by what seemed to be almost endless cane fields. A maid from a cluster of houses further down the road, came along with the rent—that is, mother paid her the going rate to stay on with us and do laundry and some weekly housework, so that she would be support in the regular owner’s prolonged absence.

It was a long bus ride from Bridgetown where my school was, and in the evening, when I got home, I’d enter a small lane that had a bridge over a steep-sided, fast moving creek. Down below, among the rocks, local women always seemed to be doing laundry. Many small children, wearing undershirts and nothing else, crouched and played in the water, like little kids everywhere. Here, sometimes, I’d see Elsie, who worked for us, banging a piece of clothing I’d recognize as mine, on a rock as if it had done some terrible crime and needed punishment. First she’d scrub up lather from a big cake of Fels Naphtha soap which she kept beside her balanced on a rock. Next, she’d pound, and last she’d rinse it out in the stream. When I saw that laundry method for the first time, I came to fully appreciate the high tech of the chugging basement wringer washer at Grandpa’s.

Later, after coming back to the US, entering college and getting married—all in quick time order—my husband, new baby and I lived in an apartment building which rented to married students. It was a spacious old side by side duplex, now split into four apartments. I worked part time--part time school--in order to afford my first washing machine, a long-lived trendy bronze color Sears Kenmore top loader. Wet wash was hung from the back porch on a super long reel line. 

The kindly owner of our building had set lines up for both upstairs and downstairs apartments, although the tenants overhead had to hang their laundry while leaning out a window. As this was Massachusetts, sometimes it was too wet or too snowy or cold, so we all had drying racks for such occasions. As everyone knows, with babies, there is always a lot of laundry. And with diapers, it’s best to hang them out, even if they freeze for a day or so. 

As the old saying goes, “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” even if it’s 10 below...or in the 21st Century.   

~~Juliet Waldron

 http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi    Historical Novels by JW at Amazon

http://amzn.to/1YQziX0  A Master Passion   ISBN: 1771456744

A Visit to Tunisia by Joanie MacNeil

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/macneil-joanie/

Towards the end of 2016, Facebook continued to tantalize me with memories of our 2013 holiday of a lifetime, visiting places we’d never imagined we’d see.

A two day stopover in Dubai following a long flight from Australia was a welcome break. The journey really began for us on arrival in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, in North Africa.

Tunis is both an ancient and modern city. On our first free day we caught a taxi to the markets (souk) and the old medina. The driver gave us some advice: say NO, NO! He continued in his not very clear English.

Along the busy streets, we better understood the taxi driver’s advice, meeting several new best friends. This was a new experience for me. The usual line, we saw you at your hotel, or there is a craft market on, just for today. I can take you there. One keen fellow we couldn’t discourage, no matter how insistent we were, didn’t lose interest when we made a quick impromptu dash into a store. He waited patiently for us to come out, then full of stories, and carrying an enormous key, guided us deep into the old medina with its narrow streets, shops, rubbish and nose-twitching smells. His mission: to take us to a craft market, which in fact turned out to be a carpet shop owned by a friend.

The two men raved on about the view from the roof. I climbed up the narrow stairs to it check out for myself, while the men tried to talk my husband into buying carpets. The rooftop was roughly tiled, a mix of colors and patterns, and no shade. I imagine the space would have been a pleasant enough place to relax in the evenings. Rooftops of different shapes and sizes, some dotted with satellite dishes. A dome, a spire, the hill near our hotel; some assorted buildings and the telecommunications building, filled my camera lens. Our new best friend then took us to a perfume shop, but when we didn’t buy anything, he lost interest and left us to find our own way out through the cobblestoned narrow covered alleys. Fortunately we kept our cool, retraced our steps through the many twisted walkways. Exhausted, and having experienced enough of the heat, we climbed into a beaten up old cab, without seatbelts, driven by a young lead-footed local, for the most hair-raising ride ever back to the hotel. Nothing like the pleasant experience of the earlier cab ride.

A special highlight for me was the camel ride from Douz, the largest desert outpost in Tunisia, into the southern Sahara. The peaceful beauty of the desert at the end of the day, with its pale blue and pink skies; light coloured sand; some vegetation, and tourists in bright headscarves and traditional dress, atop camels of all sizes. Beautiful black horses, ridden by men in colourful rich purple and gold tunics, and carriages for those who didn’t want to do the one hour camel trek.

There  were photo opportunities to pose holding a tiny desert fox, for a fee of course. With one hand gripping the reins, I reached out with the other and patted one of the soft, tiny foxes. The Fennec fox is a small nocturnal animal native to the Sahara and other semi-arid areas. Adults grow to a height of only 20 centimeters. Ears like those of bats span 15 centimeters, and radiate body heat to help keep the animals cool.

I thought the camel roped with mine might bite my foot as she often came close for a nuzzle. I’d heard stories about camels that bite! I did get my foot tangled in the rope, which was a bit worrying, but not as much as alighting from my huge male camel. Suffice to say that it’s easier for someone with longer legs than mine to slide over the side with ease. My lower back ached so much, I thought I might not be able to walk the next day!

Other highlights:

·       Dougga archaeological site: the best preserved and most extensive Roman ruins in Tunisia. Backdrop: the Atlas Mountains. 

·       Coastal Carthage where, in comparison to Dougga, there is little evidence of Roman settlement.

·       Sidi-Bou-Said, the pretty Andalusian-looking village, perched above the beautiful blue Mediterranean. White buildings and bright blue doors added to the summer experience.

·       Monastir: a visit to the Old Town and Kasbah where The Life of Brian was filmed.

·       El Djem: a 3^rd century Roman colosseum originally seated 30,000, now a UNESCO world heritage site.

·       The troglodyte house at Matmata—the underground village, inhabited until the 1960s, served as the setting for the original Star Wars movie.

·       Crossing the salt lake of Chott el Jerid to Tozeur, an important oasis on the ancient caravan route between Algeria and Tunisia.

·       The added excitement of a sandstorm and flash flood during the jeep excursion from Tozeur to the mountain oasis of Chebika, not far from the Algerian border. The flooding was caused by a storm over the Algerian river catchment area. The awesome, spectacularly rugged mountains featured in The English Patient. We passed a pretty village in the mountains where the water swept by on its journey to the desert flood plain—the village was abandoned in the1990s because of flood damage and relocated on higher ground. On the way home, we drove past a bride, beneath a colorful circular canopy, perched on a camel in the midst of her procession.

·       A two hour journey on the Old Beys train, known as the Red Lizard, from Metlaoui Selja through the spectacular narrow, rugged Selja Gorges and return.

·       Visits to the Roman ruins at Sbeitla on our way to the sacred city of Kairouan, also of archeological/historical significance in Muslim history; the Grand Mosque, Tunis's oldest mosque; the museum, previously a Turkish palace, featuring mosaics from Roman times. The ancient floor mosaics were those from the original palace. Visitors had to wear paper shoes to avoid damaging the mosaics.

In the week we were in Tunisia, we travelled 1650 kilometers through agricultural areas with fruit and olive trees in the north; through drier southern regions, and desert with its cooling green oases and date palms; and industrial and mining areas.

Some of the villages we drove through were untidy, with haphazard buildings; others were much better cared for. Unfinished houses, still suitable to live in, with less fees to be paid by the owner in their unfinished state, were built from a special kind of red brick to suit the hot desert climate. Roadside food stalls, with local barbecued livestock for sale hanging amongst heat, dust and flies for anyone keen enough to buy and try. Smiling and not so happy faces. The men, sitting outside cafes in every village we passed through.  Apparently they walk in from their farms for breakfast, and stay until lunchtime, catching up with their neighbors from outlying areas. Further out in the countryside beneath makeshift shade against the heat, young men selling cheap fuel from Libya in plastic containers.

On the highway to the airport a small station wagon drove past us with mum, dad, a couple of children, and two goats in the back, probably going to the markets ahead. We saw local farmers herding their animals on foot, or riding a donkey over their barren lands.

Nothing about living in Tunisia is easy. It is very diverse; dry and sandy. A fascinating place to visit.

Joanie MacNeil

www.joaniemacneil.com