Monday 19 August 2013
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Recipes
Need a big meal for family or drop-in friends? Want to keep it simple? Buy a large roast, pork or beef. Place onion soup mix beneath and on top, and cook at 300 degrees for the first two hours, then cover and cook for two to four additional hours depending on the weight of the roast. Slow cooking keeps it tender.
In a separate pan, clean and cut at least eight potatoes, skin on, and two onions. Make the potatoes about square golf ball size, they soften with cooking. Cut the onions about that size, but separate the layers. Mix in a bag of peeled baby carrots. Mix well, and cover with a 12-oz can beef pieces in gravy. Cook alongside the roast for two to four hours.
When everything’s done, serve on two platters or bowls, roast at one end, veggies on the other, and let folks serve themselves; or, if simpler, serve each plate and dig in.
All you need on the side might be a nice buttered roll or biscuit and a little fruit, Jell-O, or pudding which can be ready in the fridge.
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2013-08-19 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Thursday 23 May 2013
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Fragrance
Since my husband’s and son’s birthdays are two months apart, and Father’s Day is right in the middle, I couldn’t resist the new “man cave” product from the Scentsy Fragrance company. It’s a combo pack of fragrant waxes which are, shall we say, rather unusual: Cold Pizza, Smokehouse, Burn Rubber, Cola, Woodshop, and a golf fairway smell-alike. Dad was not overwhelmed. He says pizza belongs on a plate, and this fairway smells like a mud hole. On the other hand, Jay thinks they’re awesome! I like Cola, Woodshop, and Smokehouse best, and let’s just say Burn Rubber is really a stretch.
They’re no longer available. Dad says, as for Father’s Day, they’re truly a gag gift. Jay, on the other hand, is stocked up for the future.
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2013-05-23 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Thursday 23 May 2013
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Penned by a Friend + Writing
Editor’s note: This story first appeared in Magnets and Ladders magazine, but my mysterious mind couldn’t leave it alone. With Sharon’s blessing, I altered some circumstances which changed history for the lady in her original story. Read what could have happened in my story which follows this one.
Don’t Litter
By Sharon King-Booker
Ginger regained consciousness slowly. Two of her cats were standing on her chest, nuzzling her face and patting her with their paws. She pushed them away gently and slowly sat up. She felt the place on the side of her head. It was already beginning to swell and she could feel it throb with each heartbeat. She was surprised that the blow had been hard enough to make her lose consciousness but thankful it hadn’t ended up being fatal. The heavy-duty flashlight lay on the floor. She’d always heard those things could be used as weapons, and now she knew it.
She glanced around the room; her husband, George, lay back in his recliner. His feet were up and his head back as if he were sleeping. Only the dime-sized hole in the center of his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose, indicated that this was a sleep from which he was not going to awaken. There was very little blood evident, but Ginger knew that were she to lean him forward, the back of his head would tell an entirely different story. She rose slowly to her feet, steadying herself as the room began to spin crazily around her. She touched the lump, now the size of an orange, on the side of her head and winced. After the room settled down, she made her way painfully to the phone.
The bored voice which initially answered the 911 call sharpened as the man listened to Ginger’s incoherent explanation of what had happened. “I’ve got officers on their way now,” he assured her. “Try to keep calm and please stay with me until they arrive.”
A police car, siren screaming and red lights flashing, slid to a stop in front of her house. “Okay,” she told the 911 operator, “they’re here, thank you.” She replaced the receiver on its cradle and began sobbing hysterically as she turned to face the two officers coming through the front door with their guns drawn.
“What’s this all about, Mrs. Carson?” the taller, younger of the two officers asked, trying to look in all directions at once. Then he suddenly stopped as he caught sight of George Carson seemingly peacefully sleeping. He put away his gun and checked the body briefly while his partner conducted a quick search through the house.
“We never lock our doors,” Ginger gulped, trying to control her sobs, “That’s why we moved here. Nothing bad is supposed to happen in a small town.” She collapsed on the couch. “We were just sitting here watching television when these two masked men burst through the front door.”
Between sobs, she watched as the older officer returned from his search, holstered his gun, talked briefly to the other man then came to sit beside her, absently brushing aside the several cats already gathered there. “Can you give me any kind of a description?” He asked, pulling a notebook and pen from his pocket. The first officer left through the front door to radio in a report.
Ginger tried to shake her head then grimaced at the pain as she looked imploringly at him. “Not really,” she said. “It all happened so fast. I jumped up to confront them and one of them hit me on the head with something very hard. After that, I didn’t know anything until I came to and saw they had killed George. Once again she broke into hysterical weeping, at the same time cuddling the large grey tabby cat that had jumped into her lap.
“Do you think you could look around and tell us if anything is missing?” the younger officer asked from the doorway, brushing at his dark blue uniform pants where several cats had been winding themselves about his legs.
“I’ll try,” Ginger said, getting shakily to her feet and preceding the two men out of the living room.
In the bedroom, drawers had been pulled from the dresser and chest of drawers and dumped on the floor. Clothes, pulled from hangers in the closet, lay in disordered heaps. Her large jewelry armoire stood with doors open, drawers pulled out and a jumble of bracelets, chains and rings had been thrown on the bed.
Ginger began looking through the items of jewelry and turned to the two waiting officers with eyes wide and tears once more streaming down her face. “Oh yes,” she wailed. “My emerald bracelet and necklace that George just bought me for our anniversary are missing!”
The officers exchanged a look. They wondered how she knew anything was missing in the jumble of jewelry lying there. To their unskilled eyes, most of what lay on the bed was no more than fairly good costume jewelry. “Did you have those valuable items insured?” the older policeman asked, watching as two fairly young kittens leaped onto the bed and began playing with the tangled chains.
Ginger had lowered herself to the side of the bed and now looked up imploringly. “Er… um… I didn’t get your names,” she began and absently picked up a bracelet and dangled it for the kittens to play with. “I think they were insured,” she said, brushing a tear from her cheek. “But George was such a procrastinator. You know, I really don’t know for sure.” Saying that, she stood up and again led the officers back to the living room.
“I’m Officer Anders,” the older of the two men said. “This is my partner, Officer White. The crime lab people and medical examiner are on their way so we will just wait with you until they get here. Can I get anything for you?”
Ginger seated herself once again on the couch where she was immediately surrounded by a number of cats. “My head is really throbbing. May I fix an ice pack?”
“Of course, just be careful what you touch in there, the lab guys are awfully grumpy about such things!” White smiled at her in an effort to make her feel better.
Ginger busied herself with ice and towel in the kitchen while the two officers made a second circuit of the house, this time together. “The intruders must have known what they were looking for,” White commented to his partner as they re-entered the living room and opened the door for the Medical Examiner and crime lab personnel.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because only the bedroom was ransacked,” White replied as he motioned to the Medical Examiner and directed his attention to the body. “The lady says intruders came in and knocked her unconscious and then killed her husband,” he explained as the Medical Examiner looked over the situation.
“Any way to verify that?” The Examiner asked, looking around the cluttered room with critical eyes.
“She’s got a knot on her head. There’s no denying that,” White said and glanced toward the kitchen where they had heard the sound of the refrigerator door slamming shut.
A moment later Ginger re-entered the room holding a plastic bag filled with ice wrapped in a towel to the side of her head. Again she seated herself on the couch where she was surrounded by cats. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, officers,” she said. “It all happened so fast but I did see the two men were wearing gloves as well as their stocking masks.”
“What about size?” Anders asked. “Were they short, tall, fat, thin?”
Ginger again began to cry softly, stroking a lean Siamese that was rubbing insistently against her legs. “As I said, it was all so fast… but… I think the one who hit me was short and kind of fat. It was all so quick… and… poor George!” She wailed.
“So you don’t know if they shot your husband immediately after hitting you? Is that right?” The medical examiner queried.
Ginger shook her head carefully and winced at the pain that accompanied her action. “I’m afraid George was napping as he usually does when we are watching television,” she explained. “He probably didn’t even have a chance to react.”
White and Anders exchanged glances. “Then I wonder why they felt it necessary to kill him,” Anders wondered aloud.
“Well, I suppose he woke up and demanded to know what was happening,” Ginger offered and accepted the tissue White handed her from the box on the end table at the side of the couch. She blew her nose noisily and once again began to sob. “George is… was… very protective of our home and our things. Maybe they were… er… afraid.” her voice trailed off and she looked up at the two officers.
“He does look startled,” White said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. “I understand how it is when you come suddenly awake from a doze. I sometimes fall asleep watching television too.” He looked appreciatively at the bare leg showing outside her robe. He felt sorry for this lovely young woman who had obviously suffered both severe physical and emotional trauma. Her eyes were so beautiful, even puffy from the crying, and as soon as the swelling went down on her head… It might be worth coming back when he was off duty, maybe offer to help her clean up… if only she wasn’t surrounded by all those damned cats! On second thought, that litter box in the utility room had almost made him sick.
After what seemed like ages to Ginger, the lab people and Medical Examiner had completed their work and left with her husband’s body on a stretcher. She shuddered at the gore that was left where the bullet had exited the back of George’s head. “May I wipe that up?” she asked the two officers who remained. They were still involved with trying gently but firmly to remove the various cats attempting to sit on their laps or climb their pant legs. “The cats… er… you know,” Ginger tried to explain. “If you have all the evidence you need, that is.”
Both policemen were in a hurry to leave. “It will be okay,” White said, brushing at the cat hair clinging to his uniform. “Some detectives will probably call or come by tomorrow, but it looks like you are just another victim of the break-ins that have been happening around here lately. Up until now no one has been home and I’m so sorry you and your husband had to be the victims of such violence. You can tell the detectives about the insurance and whatever else you remember.”
“Thank you, you’ll excuse me if I don’t see you to the door?” She stroked a huge black cat with one hand, and adjusted her ice pack with the other. “I will definitely keep my doors locked from now on though and I’ll try to be able to answer all their questions tomorrow.”
After the policemen had left, Ginger got a basin of soapy water and began scrubbing George’s recliner with a brush, the water getting first pink then red as she worked. “This will have to go,” she told the cats. “I never could stand this clumsy old thing anyway.”
She’d heard stories about the police inefficiency in this “hole in the wall” town George chose for them. Their search, their questions? They didn’t even ask her what show they were watching to figure out the timing. In all the crime novels and television shows she would have been at the police station or at the hospital half the night.
She returned to the couch and took a big ginger tabby cat onto her lap. Stroking her along with the several other cats gathered around, she asked, “Did George really think when he gave me that necklace and bracelet as compensation for getting rid of you darling kitties that I would agree?” She rubbed her chin on the head of a beautiful long-haired white cat who had replaced the ginger tabby on her lap. “Then tonight when George actually had the nerve to tell me it was either him or you darling kitties that had to go, just which choice did he really think I would make?”
“Tomorrow we’ll take that bucket of dirty litter out to the garbage, darlings. It will be just another bucket, along with the other buckets of litter hauled to the landfill and no one will ever find the gun and jewelry or be able to prove anything. Maybe I’ll even throw in that awful flashlight. What if I’d given myself a concussion?” She sighed contentedly, slipped off her shoes and lay back in the midst of her furry family. “With the insurance money and in our new location you can each have your own litter box.”
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2013-05-23 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Thursday 23 May 2013
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Writing
Dig Deep
by Marilyn Brandt Smith
“I need a bathroom break,” Ginger Carson told the officers. They weren’t the ones she’d told how the home invaders forced their way in, stole the emeralds George had given her for their anniversary, knocked her out, and then killed her husband. Officers Davis and Marcos were digging for something she couldn’t give them. She hadn’t expected two hours of stalling and tricky questioning when she’d agreed to come to the station with Officer Smith from the crime scene.
“That’s fine,” officer Marcos, the “good cop,” said, “you’re here voluntarily. It’s just around the turn here.” He pointed down the hall as they left the interrogation room together. “How about another coffee while we finish up?”
“Okay,” she agreed absentmindedly. Surely they’d be done soon.
“I’m at the station now,” Ginger said softly as she entered the first stall. Her cellular reception showed four bars. The frazzled young woman at the mirror was about to walk out.
When she heard the door close Ginger continued her conversation. “I have to go to the hospital after I leave here…Oh, I was quite clever. Everything that needs to be out of the way is buried in that big barrel of used kitty litter in the utility room. No one’s going to dig through that. It’s all most people can do to walk around it without gagging or at least holding their noses…Of course the gun is safe. I put it in plastic. We need to get it out of there, maybe tomorrow? You may need to help me with all that insurance paperwork and with the funeral arrangements. I’m a grieving widow now, you know…Oh, they won’t keep me here. At the hospital they’ll do X-rays and, should they find anything…I had to hit myself pretty hard with that damn flashlight to make it look like I was attacked. If they’d give me something to get rid of this headache I wouldn’t mind a night of relaxation in their care…Okay Sis, see you tomorrow.” She straightened her dress and brushed a few stray cat hairs away before primping at the mirror. Those detectives had been such sissies about her precious babies. You’d think they’d never had cats jump in their laps and climb up for a hug.
Lieutenant Davis turned to his partner, “You want to write up the search warrant and run it out to the judge? I’ll call the hospital and make sure they keep her.”
“Can’t use what we got from that bug she’s wearing as evidence,” Marcos reminded, reaching for the appropriate form.
“No, but Smith told me when he brought her in that something didn’t feel right about that scene. We’d better not wait for those followup guys to go back tomorrow. A few things didn’t add up when she retold her story to us either. That’s enough to justify a search warrant.”
“What did Smith say, eleven cats and their kittens?” Marcos shrugged.
“When we move up in the department we’ll think cat hair and nasty litter were worth it,” Davis laughed, “but I’ll grab some gloves and masks and capes while you’re off to get the paper signed. This is exactly why we bought those extra security measures on the sly. I’ll tell her you got called away and wrap up pretty fast. Wonder what she’ll say when she finds out we have a warrant.”
“Here she comes,” Marcos mouthed as he started down the hall in the opposite direction.
Davis motioned her to the table and prepared to take notes. He wondered if she’d get that peaceful night at the hospital after all. It would probably be the last one she’d get for a while. He’d have to remember to grab that ID tag they’d made her wear when she came in for questioning. Throw the tag away; stash the bug for the next suspect.
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2013-05-23 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Thursday 23 May 2013
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Recipes
- 1 package (6-serving size) Jell-O vanilla instant pudding and pie filling
- 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple
- 2 cups sour cream
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 baked 9-inch pie shell, cooled
Combine pie filling mix, pineapple with juice, sour cream, and sugar in a deep bowl. Beat slowly or at low speed for about a minute. Pour into pie shell. Chill about three hours. Garnish with whipped topping, additional pineapple chunks, or maraschino cherries if desired.
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2013-05-23 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Thursday 23 May 2013
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Books
“The Innocent” by David Baldacci (NLS DB-74709) may sound like a “guy book,” but this hero has heart whether he wants to or not. He takes out bad guys for the government, but one night his assignment feels ugly. Suddenly he’s protecting a street-smart teenage girl on the run; testing the loyalty of government agencies and his sexy neighbor; and sorting out a puzzle of international plots, surveillance, and too many coincidences.
“Summerland” by Elin Hilderbrand (NLS DB-75757): Perfect Penny shocked the regular residents of Nantucket when she wrecked her boyfriend’s car after graduation. She and her twin brother should have been seniors in the fall, but everything changed. Was it the secrets? Who told her what? Adults with their heads buried in the sand grieved and groped. The secrets stayed hidden until a thief was caught, and a marriage ended.
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2013-05-23 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Monday 15 April 2013
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Writing
Hello, yellow daffodil,
Forsythia, and tulip;
How did you find your way out?
It’s been so cold for so long;
Does Old Punxsutawney Phil
Have a vision problem too?
But Mother Nature promised!
Did you get your strength from her?
Welcome to our world again;
Tell your pink and purple friends
It’s safe, and it’s warming up;
Thanks for believing in spring.
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2013-04-15 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith
Monday 15 April 2013
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Penned by a Friend + Touch + Writing
Temporary Employment
by Ernest A. Jones
I want to report about my new job. It’s a specialized position. In fact, I fear I’ve worked myself right out of the job. I had the sole responsibility for bathing two hundred and fifty elephants. Yes, you’re reading correctly, I had to bathe two hundred and fifty dirty elephants.
It was about a week or so ago that I bathed one hundred and fifty elephants, from quite small ones to rather large ones. These arrived in the first shipment and showed they had been well cared for. When I was finished, they stood all clean and shiny, some with trunks trumpeting straight upwards, while a few held their trunks in front of them. But they appeared to be thankful for the bath, and all were in perfect condition.
Today I bathed another one hundred elephants that arrived in the second shipment. Poor critters, these had a harder time in transport. It was obvious some of their trainers were harsh on them. Such caretakers should be fired and replaced, because five elephants were badly injured. We had to do surgery on them. Four had been treated so badly that they were completely missing a leg. That’s right, the whole leg was missing, as if sawed off and left lying at the beast’s feet. But the fifth one was the worst. How she could still hold her head up is amazing. She had her trunk completely cut off, lying at her feet.
Thanks to a good surgeon, we do believe that all five of these beautiful animals will be able to face tomorrow almost as well as the other two hundred forty-five. The surgeon was very good at reattaching the missing limbs, and it’s felt they will mend quite nicely. We hope they heal rapidly, and we’ll take the wrap off in a few days to make sure. For the next few days, we’ll keep these five away from the main herd. For sure, they’ll need some special attention and extra food. But regardless, they need not fear, for even if they don’t mend perfectly, they’ll still be allowed to remain and have a full life.
The other two hundred forty-five are doing just fine, eagerly waiting for new green pastures. I’m afraid they might be in cramped quarters for a few weeks, but they seem contented.
While I was bathing the last hundred and the surgeon was repairing the injured, it was snowing outside—probably a couple inches of the soft but very wet fluff before the warming temperature melted the snow. The snow vanished almost faster than it had appeared. We didn’t expose our equatorial houseguests to the pleasures of snowball fights, but they seem to be tolerating the change in climate quite well.
The preceding is what I wrote after cleaning two hundred and fifty hand-carved miniature elephants, all made out of shades of the jade rock. They were later given as remembrances at our daughter’s spring wedding. Even though I knew these were hand-carved, I was still taken aback when I beheld the different sizes and shapes. Here we get so used to machine-made items, all pressed in the same mold. But with these, each one was different.
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2013-04-15 ::
Marilyn Brandt Smith