Four humans and a pair of mutts

People used to live closer to family and perhaps that made the trip over the river and through the woods so much more enjoyable that they wrote a song about it. But in the Midwest, with the entire North pole blowing down on our SUV, the drive to Grandma’s house was a little farther and not so pleasant.

My parents live in Nebraska and on a clear day when you can see for miles and miles over fields of corn and cows it takes me about six hours to get there. But this past Friday morning after a few more lovely inches of snow had fallen, as another herald of Santa’s eminent arrival, the going was a bit slower. For most travelers on the road. Not so much for my husband, who believes that everyone else doesn’t know how to drive in “weather.” He grew up on a farm and was driving before he could see out the front window, and then was allowed to drive his poor siblings to school everyday when he was only fourteen. Therefore, his driving ability is double that of others who only started driving at the ripe old age of sixteen.

If I’d been driving on Friday it probably would have taken a bit longer, but I chose to read a book and lose myself in a fictional world of a North Carolina summer. It was hard to concentrate because every time I’d become immersed in the story, he’d be slowing down for gawkers doing 35 in the fast lane, craning their necks to see the cars in the ditch. The warm summer sun beating down on my head instantly turned to ice-slick roads and swirling snow from the tops of Semis and my fictional world dissolved as he expounded upon people dumb enough to use cruise control on slippery roads and pointed out the obvious flaw in their travel—they only had rear-wheel drive. Of course we weren’t using cruise control and we were traveling in a four-wheel drive vehicle, therefore we were totally unbreakable!

I know he wasn’t really as immune to the danger as he pretended because he actually kept both hands on the wheel almost the entire way, and believe me that doesn’t normally happen. He didn’t look up movie times on his cell phone, or call his mom to discuss the weather, or ask for snacks out of the cooler. He just drove onward, buzzing along at sixty to seventy miles per hour with his extreme driving experience keeping us on the highway and out of the ditch.

Driving to grandma’s house when the kids were young was one thing, but traveling with our adult children for eight hours in a space usually available in a doghouse was—shall we say—cozy? Actually, it was very much like a doghouse, because we had two dogs along as well. Most of our attention was on the dogs, yelling at them and trying to keep our food out of their greedy little yappers. They really love fast food drive-through windows. They discovered food always comes out those little openings and have the mistaken idea that we order it just for them. Probably because the dingbat teller at the bank always sends them a milkbone through the money tube thing. It’s like ringing a bell when they hear a voice on the intercom. And they do not travel well. I am definitely getting tranquilizers before next Christmas. For them…and me.

Apart from the death-defying highway conditions, there was more suffering to come. Yes, we love family, seeing them, visiting with them, but…their beds are torture devices meant to keep anyone from staying longer than forty-eight hours. And it inevitably works. I felt like Goldie Locks. First I tried sleeping in the bed provided, along with my dear husband. But the thing is only Queen-sized and seemed like a Barbie bed after being spoiled by my King-sized Sleep number. The mattress sagged in the middle so that I felt as if I were sleeping on the side of a hill if I faced the wall, and in a wind tunnel when I faced my husband. So, I got up and tried the recliner, but it made my neck hurt, because as everyone knows, they make recliners man-sized. The next night I started out on the couch, but it was one of those for show only things that felt like it was carved from brick. I ended up back in the chair and then finally the bed, where I fell asleep to the sound of one husband and two dogs snoring—while milkbones danced in their heads. Hopefully not my husband's.

Life in a Snow globe: Shaken and Stirred

I got my cards and Christmas letters out this year with days to spare. My daughter and I have baked dozens of bars and treats. Some for the neighbors, but most to take on our pilgrimage to the holy land of Nebraska. They don’t have treats there, just corn, Big Red football fans, and my family. So now I have time to blog and tell you all about the magic of Christmas.

You know those little miracles that occur at this time of year, like the sudden sprinkling of snow at the end of every holiday Lifetime movie even though it’s set in Los Angeles? Like that—only better.

Just today there was a little Christmas miracle when fumble-fingers Katie dropped a plate and it bounced off her arm, leg, and toes to safely land on my ceramic tile without shattering into a million little pieces. Yesterday I used a hundred dollar gift card at JC Penney and miraculously came out just under the set limit when they totaled my purchases at the register. Then when I went to deliver cookies to the neighbors across the way, their dog was not loose to rip out my jugular, but was safely locked inside the house. I heard wham, wham, wham, as it flogged itself at the door, trying to get at me with razor sharp teeth. No human was home, only the rabid animal, so I gratefully left the container on the front porch and made my escape.

These sorts of things don’t just happen. Everyone knows this is a magical time of year. How else could a fat man in a bright red suit, trimmed in white fur, scoot down a few billion chimneys and not get a speck of soot on his outfit? Or what about icicles? Icicles are completely free of the law of physics. They fall off only when no one is under them. Have you ever heard of a rash of icicle accidents involving head trauma and ambulances? No. Otherwise the government would have already pushed for walking around your house helmets. You can never be too safe.

The only thing that doesn’t seem to fall under “Christmas miracles” is the weather. The weather is unpredictable. Last year weather happened right when we were going to leave for the holy land and now they’re saying weather might happen again on the day we want to leave. I’m talking WEATHER in all caps. Shaken snow-globe blizzard conditions that never stop, blowing across the plains of Iowa and into Nebraska with blinding ferocity and the biting sting of freezer burn.

So, keep your Christmas snowfall miracle in Los Angeles! We don’t want anymore. We’ve had enough already. I’m looking for the Christmas miracle of tropical sunshine that melts deadly icicles. Just once…

"The Clouds Roll Away" by Sibella Giorello (Book Review)

About The Clouds Roll Away: Forensic geologist Raleigh Harmon returns home for Christmas but discovers Richmond, Virginia running low on goodness and light.

Although her exemplary service in Seattle lifted her disciplinary transfer, Raleigh lands a hometown civil rights case riddled with problems that could get her sent away again. When she helps out a fellow cop, her life goes on the line, forcing her undercover in a sting operation. As Raleigh realizes the lines are crossing and double-crossing, her domestic life starts to unravel. Her mother's mental health cracks like ice, her closest friend grows cold, and her old boyfriend DeMott comes a-calling, hoping for more than chestnuts by an open fire.

While the city glows with Christmas lights and carols, Raleigh is forced to rely on her sharpest skills to stay alive, hoping for that one clear moment when everything makes sense and the clouds roll away.

About Sibella: Sibella Giorello grew up in Alaska and majored in geology at Mount Holyoke College. After riding a motorcycle across the country, she worked as a features for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Her stories have won state and national awards, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. She now lives in Washington state with her husband and sons. Find out more about Sibella and her other books at her website. www.sibellagiorello.com 

My Review:

The Clouds Roll Away is the third book in Sibella Giorello’s Raleigh Harmon series. FBI Special agent Raleigh is back in Richmond after a disciplinary transfer to Seattle for a year. She is happy to be home again, but before she can really settle in and get back to normal, a cross burning in front of the plantation house that a well-known black rapper has recently moved into, starts racial tensions soaring and brings unwelcome media attention to bear on how the case is handled. Her supervisor wants it solved and solved quickly, but Raleigh’s resolve to get to the truth rather than just tie things up in a neat bow could mean the death of her career.

Raleigh Harmon is still dealing with the unsolved murder of her father, a mother who is teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown, and feelings for an old high school boyfriend whom she can’t quite get over. In the midst of that are dead bodies with KKK tattoos, crack houses, and gangbangers.

The Clouds Roll Away is not just a novel about race issues, but about heart issues. Without God’s redemption we are all lost in our depravity. Raleigh witnesses the sickness of sin in the rich as well as the poor, black and white, male and female. During the hap-happiest time of the year—Christmas—Richmond is seething with violence and hatred. I was profoundly moved by a scene in a crack house where two young children and their addict mother sit watching A Charlie Brown Christmas while a man is beaten and crack is being cooked on the stove in the next room. The children listen to Linus reciting the story of the Lord’s birth while their father plans murders and makes drug deals.

As an FBI agent, Raleigh witnesses horrors no one should have to see, while trying to maintain a calm, professional exterior. Her faith in God, and hope that someday she will solve her father’s murder seem to be what keeps her going. Raleigh doesn’t believe in luck. She knows who’s in control. And every once in a while the clouds roll away...


(I received this book in exchange for a review)

Sibella’s celebrating the release of The Clouds Roll Away by giving away a KINDLE prize pack worth over $150.00!

One Grand Prize winner will receive:

• Latest Generation KINDLE with Wi-Fi
• $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com

To enter simply click on one of the icons below! Then tell your  friends! Winner will be announced January 3, 2011 on Sibella's blog: http://sibellagiorello.blogspot.com/. 

About The Clouds Roll Away - "Beautifully written with exquisite descriptions, Giorello's mystery also features well-developed characters..."

—Booklist, starred review

Find out more here!

Blog Tour Schedule: http://litfusegroup.com/Blog-Tours/sibella-giorellos-the-clouds-roll-away-blog-tour.html) 

Are you absolutely sure you need to go out?

Snow has been piling up all day, leaving Minnesota blanketed thickly in the white stuff and pretty much incapacitated. My husband wouldn’t even chance a little drive to Target this afternoon. I thought it would be the perfect time to Christmas shop—with no one else there. But perhaps there really was no one else there. In that case, it would have been a wasted adventure. So, being the common-sense (old) people that we are, we stayed home and watched the snow pile up from the safety of our front window.

The news people have been very excited about the weather all day. They keep telling us that it’s one of the top ten snowiest days on record and the wind is blowing and the wind chills are dipping and look at all the cars stuck on the highway and stay at home if you don’t absolutely have to go out!

I’m not sure what they mean by absolutely. If I stick my foot in the snow blower and need to see a doctor right away, would that be worthy of traveling on city streets? Or would it have to be something more pressing, like getting to the movie theatre before they stop showing, Morning Glory? I still haven’t seen that one yet.

Apparently, the weather forecasters think going to work at a news station to stand outside in the blowing snow and tell us it’s snowing like the dickens is absolutely pressing enough to travel the streets of the city.

The weather makes them absolutely breathless with excitement. Probably from standing outside letting it whip them in the face while they yell at the camera. It’s Minnesota’s chance to shine in the weather department. Our weathermen never get to stand in the middle of 100 mile an hour hurricane winds, while sea spray and slanting rain soaks them to the skin, hanging on for dear life to the side of a dock. Snow is what they have to work with—and they are working it! 

It's not you, it's me

I’m sitting here listening to a free song download by Kristin Chambers called “It’s not you, it’s me.” I’m not trying to push business her way, (although it is free), just telling you where my strange thoughts are coming from today.

Everyone knows those words are the padded club that weak individuals swing when they want to break up with their “no longer significant other.” I was wondering what other relationships the words, “it’s not you, it’s me,” might be used to end things?

Maybe there are relationships you’d like to end before the new year begins, business associates you can no longer tolerate, a crazy relative you hate fishing with, or a reason to build that privacy fence between you and your neighbor.

“It’s not you, it’s me, neighbor. I don’t want to be tempted to stare over at your deck and see your very large wife sunbathing in the nude. A privacy fence will keep me from going blind.”  

Or what if I used it for the beautician who cuts my hair. “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m tired of this style and you’re a one trick pony. I think I’ll try Great Clips down the road. I never know what that girl with the purple hair is going to do, but at least it’ll be a change. Good luck with the shag.”

This Christmas it might be a nice little stocking stuffer for the family get-together. “It’s not you, it’s me. I feel we’ve seen enough of each other—after all, we grew up together. I’d like to see other people for the holidays instead.”

Perhaps the phrase would work well with the UPS man. “It’s not you, Brown, it’s me. I just don’t like the way you look in those shorts anymore. That potbelly is not what I had in mind when I ordered those boxes of stuff for you to carry to my door. The mailman looks as if he’s been working out lately. I think I’ll go with USPS from now on.”

I’m definitely going to try it on the girl at Subway. “It’s not you, it’s me. I really like black olives and when I say I want extra black olives I mean more than three slivers of one olive. I know your manager told you to be frugal but if you don’t give me extra black olives I’m going to smack you up side the head!”

I’m not sure if that last one fits, but I had to get it off my chest.

Would you like to end things with someone by giving them the line, “It’s not you, it’s me?” Leave a comment and vent your feelings. You’ll feel better.