Christmas Vacation

We’re on our way to Christmas vacation tomorrow!

I’ve spoken of this before — I’ll be going to Starved Rock State Park in Illinois, to spend five days in a cabin celebrating the season. The holiday comes with nearby Utica (‘North Utica’ according to the maps) and Ottawa, towns that have managed to not be too touristy despite their existence as a day trip out of Chicago. I often call Ottawa a great campus town without the campus.

The park (as you can see here) is scenic in the winter, with frozen waterfalls and canyons throughout. Hiking is a little hazardous without good boots, however, because sandstone bluffs are bad to fall off of.

The area has a good Christmas feel. The downtowns don’t have a lot of missing businesses, the streets are decked with lights, and last time we were there there were ice sculptures melting on each corner. They might have snow when we arrive there Saturday.

Ottawa is a great place to eat. Among our favorites are Lone Buffalo (a brewpub), B.A.S.H. (Upscale casual fusion — the name stands for Burger and Sushi House), and Sunfield Restaurant (breakfast). There’s also an indie coffeehouse called Jeremiah Joe’s. There should be more, but there are not.

One place we’re going to discover while we’re in Ottawa is the Cheese Shop. Yes, that is its name. It is, not surprisingly, a cheese shop and deli. I encountered it many years ago on a hike on the Illinois-Michigan canal path. I dropped off the path and ended up right at the Cheese Shop. But it’s hard to find, tucked over in obscure Ottawa side streets. I haven’t been there in, say, 20 years but it’s still there. They might have the famous Polancic tenderloin sandwiches (a local delicacy) for lunch.

There’s also decent window shopping in Ottawa and Utica. I’m not much of a shopper, but I love window shopping. There’s a decent bookstore in Ottawa; a winery in Utica, various little shops.

We’re going to visit my sister and her husband while we’re there. Not a lot, because my sister is more of an introvert than I am.

It should be a busy few days, but I expect some time in the cabin to watch the fire in the fireplace, or in the Great Hall to enjoy a bigger fire and people-watching. Hopefully some time to write, as my next Kringle adventure will take place there.

Happy holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have been doing nothing productive these past few days– no writing, no grading, just reading Regency Christmas romances. The next couple of weeks will be brutal so I need the break.

It looks like I’ll start rewriting the Kringle novel when I’m on Christmas break in a couple weeks.

Today is Thanksgiving lunch at the Savoy Grill, followed by Wicked at the Screenland Armour. Very Kansas City.

Have a very good day, whether or not you celebrate.

Coffee in the Morning

I wake up to the best coffee in town. We buy green (unroasted) beans, and my husband roasts them. Today’s are fresh-roasted, having been roasted the previous afternoon. We have a fancy coffee machine that we bought used (because we’re cheap) and so our coffee is better than any cup we could get in town.

This is not to mean all of our coffee is excellent. Sometimes a bad bean gets through, and the coffee for the morning tastes like potatoes or wet swamp. (This happens so very seldom, only once or twice in my recollection, and we’ve been doing this for over 10 years). Sometimes we don’t roast dark enough, and the coffee tastes green (again, this happens very seldom). More often, we find that a coffee, although good, not quite to our tastes. For this, we have invented our coffee rating system:

Grandma has rejected this coffee.
Grandma drinks this kind of coffee.
Grandma should be drinking this coffee.
Grandma called, and she wants you to bring a dime bag so she can groove over this coffee.

In other words, 3 is a high recommendation and four is a really high recommendation, if you know what I mean.

We like big flavorful coffees over here. Not the kind you get at the grocery store, and seldom the kind you get at a coffeehouse (coffeehouses’ coffee often tastes sour because of overextracting or being held too long). Today’s coffee has a lingering sweet aftertaste, like rice syrup and molasses. No complaints here.

So I’m done with my coffee and rather caffeinated for the day. Which I really need, because it’s a Monday.

Sunday Lazy Sunday

I have nothing planned for today. It’s Sunday, and I want to soak up all the leisure I can before the work week starts tomorrow. I just woke up, and a nap feels like a good idea already. I’d do better drinking a cup of coffee and listening to chill music, which is what I’m doing right now.

The coffee is strong and the music mellow. A good combination, but I’m still sleepy. It’s only 7 AM, so I have a whole day of nothing ahead of me. I will probably do something, though — I have some internet searches for the upcoming novel.

Here’s a picture of Chloe doing what I feel like doing today:

Repost — Coffee

An Upcoming Writing Retreat

It looks like my summer vacation^* is about to end. I have a little over a week until meetings start. In fact, next weekend is my last weekend before school revs up. But I will have a writing retreat in Kansas City that weekend!

Writing retreats are when I spend a weekend some place with cafes where I can spend a good part of the day writing and where I can eat excellent ethnic food. My husband gets coffee and ethnic food out of it^**.

I’m working on short stories right now. The stories I’m working on reside in the Hidden in Plain Sight universe, to be published in a future collection. I’d rather write stories for competition/publication in journals and the like, but I don’t feel inspired. To read the first collection and get an intro to the universe, look here.

I will come back Monday just in time for meetings two days later. And the first day of meetings lasts all day and is followed by a picnic^***. Summer needs a last hurrah.

^*Such that it is. I work all summer, but at least I get to set my own schedule.
^** My husband doesn’t write anymore. I wish I could get him to write again, because I think he needs a flow activity in his life.
^*** The first day of meetings is not a picnic, however.

The Shop I Would Open

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

I have always had the desire to open a cafe. I would serve coffee and coffee drinks, pastries, and a light lunch like sandwiches and soup (I am in the US, so this is what people would ask for.)

In a cafe, one sells more than coffee or food. One sells atmosphere, coffee culture, thirdspace. One provides a place where people meet and find community. I would make sure I provided a welcoming atmosphere, from seating to decor to staff.

My idea is creativity and comfort. Two opposing tensions, but a dynamic mix. I hope to have different modes of coffee making available, and maybe even coffee flights for the curious. But there’s also a coffee of the day or an Americano.

In a perfect world, I would have the capital to put into this, and it would be my retirement job. I don’t. But I can dream, can’t I?

One Last Day

I’m on the road one last day. Travel has gotten old. I will have traveled 2000 miles in a week when this trip is done.

No inspiration yet. Probably because this van is not Starbucks. I miss Starbucks.

I could use a mini-vacation, a weekend trip to Kansas City to write and maybe pet kitties at a cat cafe. Anywhere but right here, where my knees are screaming and I can’t take pain meds.

Background Research

We got up early to write this morning, having arrived at Starbucks by 6:15. I’ve written 500 words done in two and a half hours, which is slow, but I’ve had to do several searches on Google in the process. I searched mostly on the nutrition status of several wild greens. I’m happy to say that garlic mustard is high in Vitamin C, so after shipping and imports in the US have broken down, people will still be able to get Vitamin C by eating weeds.

I’m writing about the collapse of the United States, after all. How does one prepare for that? Self-sufficiency (which is impossible, it turns out) and barter arrangements. If one anticipates the worst, one can prepare. A collective with a high number of educated individuals can anticipate, so this is not the tension in the group. Instead, they struggle with the fact that they will weather the catastrophic failure of the economy. Their battle is whether to share with others vs hide within themselves. With preternatural entities and a miraculous garden, this is not a trivial matter. A value conflict, with a side of fear.

I have had to do a lot of searches to write this book. Everything Barn Swallows’ Dance does to adapt to a calamitous change, I have to research. Questions like ‘How much wheat do 65 people eat in a year?’, ‘Dry-wash media for biodiesel’, ‘Nutrition in garlic mustard’, and ‘How much tannerite needed to collapse a building?’. (The latter question is one of those that writers have nightmares about, fearing the FBI will show up on the doorstep.)

It took the Internet to entice me to write. Before, I had the same questions to answer, but no way to do it quickly. Whose Hearts are Mountains was a story I started in graduate school, but never finished because I didn’t know what life in a desert was like. Once the Internet matured to the point where I could ask questions, I could write.

I need to go back to writing, but first, I need to find a recipe for garlic mustard pesto.

Where I’d Like to Be Right Now

I’m sitting at home again today, cowering in the air conditioning because “it’s going to be another hot one,” in Midwest parlance. I’m listening to playlists that help me concentrate, hoping they’ll inspire me to finish the last three chapters of Carrying Light.

There’s a list of where I’d like to be right now:

At The Elms, enjoying time in the Grotto;
At Broadway Cafe in Kansas City with noise in the background;
At Wild Horse Pass resort in Arizona having a drink in the swimming pool;
In a cabin at Mozingo Lake, on a writing retreat;
Sitting on a couch anywhere that doesn’t encourage slouching;
At a cat cafe, self-explanatory;
In a camper at Mozingo Lake, just because it would be different;
At Starved Rock State Park, except for all the crowds.

Where I do not want to be:

OUTSIDE.