Stuffed

Monday 15 April 2013 - Filed under Touch + Writing

Maybe I’m an overgrown kid, but I still love to touch stuffed animals–just not the stuffing. When I was a preschooler my puppy chewed up my little Raggedy Ann doll all over the yard, and I was the first to find a chunk. At seven, a foe and a friend had a fight over her plump panda which she lost. He wound up in tatters and fluffs all over the play room floor at the school for the blind in Austin. I admit it, I am tactually defensive to cotton and tears of cloth. It’s weird because, before those encounters, I had lots of fun in my grandmother’s cotton field with my own little bag. I took persistent pleasure in grabbing the fluffy stuff when I found an open bowl.

Now, if one of my flock gets a tear, I’m fast with the safety pin or needle and thread. Corduroy, fleece, parachute material, or leather are my favorites for skin and fur. Rocky Raccoon, Ollie the Elephant, little Foo Foo Bunny, and that famous “big blue frog” flaunt their big ears, big eyes, trunks and tails to my delight.

Don’t bring me those pillow types. I want something identifiable. Let me see that curly tail so I know it’s a pig or that stand-up mane so I know it’s a horse. Sometimes one of my guys like the University of Texas longhorn or the Kentucky wildcat goes home with an adoring fan. A few have wind-up music boxes; switches that make them purr and meow; and a couple of my new prospects, a hedgehog and a giraffe, will have scent packs that slip inside them through a zipper. There’s a cat that smells like a gardenia, and a pig that smells like pomegranate–better than the natural alternative, right?

I don’t put them all in one big playpen, although that would be fun. They’re scattered around the house, doing their own thing and getting my attention one at a time.

Comments Off on Stuffed  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-04-15  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Ranch Potatoes

Monday 15 April 2013 - Filed under Recipes

5 to 6 medium-size potatoes. Double this amount if you’re using small new potatoes.
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
1 16-oz bottle creamy ranch dressing. You can substitute other favorite dressing flavors for a different taste.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash potatoes. Peel or don’t peel, it’s your choice. Slice them about 1/4 inch thick or chop into pieces. Place potatoes in a 9 by 13 casserole, and sprinkle with seasonings. Drizzle with melted shortening. Pour dressing over the potatoes, and toss to coat well. If you like, before baking, sprinkle with chopped bacon bits, chives, and/or grated cheese.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Serves 8 to 10.

Comments Off on Ranch Potatoes  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-04-15  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Not your Traditional Travel Read

Monday 15 April 2013 - Filed under Books

“Sleepwalker” by Karen Robards and Kate Rudd (NLS DB-74479) is hard to put down. Another cop and a crook?–not quite. She has some mafia family connections, and he was once tied to a government probe gone south. Who’s good, who’s bad, and why are they running together? Attraction and distraction take them to the sea and to the sky to find answers.

“The Three-Minute Universe” by Barbara Paul (NLS DB-28046) is an old Star Trek favorite discovered by a new trekkie, well sort of. I fell in love with the crew based on some silly songs and parodies my son kept playing. Can the crew help people who have a good reason to be afraid of sharing their secret reason to know more than they do? Scotty has a sound-alike; Kirk courts Uhura to plan strategies. Climate control becomes an issue; a dangerous fire and a hurry-up hideaway bring readers close to the edge.

1 comment  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-04-15  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

From Stages and Studios

Monday 15 April 2013 - Filed under Music

Savor history! That’s what Louisville fans did on April 11. The KFC Yum! Center turned from basketball arena to concert venue to host Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood soared to expected heights. Unfortunately, Christine McVie chooses not to leave retirement for the road. Stevie Nicks brought down the house when she dedicated “Landslide” to the U of L men’s and women’s basketball teams for their first and second place championship rankings. If you don’t already have a collection, a two-disk winner is “The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac.”

Tim McGraw, “Two Lanes of Freedom” (2013) was made the old way. Musicians stayed in the studio ten to twelve hours a day for two weeks. A new label with new ideas grabbed some old flashback sounds and caught up with Taylor Swift for some vocals and Keith Urban to highlight one of many hits to come from this album. It’s good to see/hear the Tim McGraw who seemed to have gotten lost for a while.

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Welcome!

Monday 25 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

This is a “Welcome” post for new visitors, so it will always appear at the top. Skip down if you’ve “been here, read this.”

Welcome to my blog! I’m calling it a Minimag because it may blossom. It will appear unexpectedly, like other budding things do; one day it will just appear, ready for the taking.

Since I am primarily an author and editor, I’ll start with writing, reading, and recipes. Your feedback in the comments will help me know how to direct its growth. Fragrance, music, and texture are part of my nonvisual world, so they may appear among the other material. Look for something new once or twice a month.

Want to subscribe to my updates? Follow your browser’s instructions or use the contact form to get in touch.

Comments Off on Welcome!  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-25  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

A Serendipitous Poem

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Writing

Author’s Note: After reviewing a poem about Ireland which was submitted for consideration for Magnets and Ladders Magazine, I created a few lines to show the poet that we needed more information about why she wanted to return to the Emerald Isle. She agreed with my suggestions, and sent a nice poem which we published. Meanwhile, the wheels started turning, and my hints to her lead to my own poem. Enjoy.

If it Starts with an O’
by Marilyn Brandt Smith

O’Ireland, how I loved you,
The summer I was there;
Brought home a doll in woolen clothes,
Green eyes and ginger hair;
A wind-up hand-carved cottage
That tinkled “Galway Bay;”
What trunk or box or closet shelf
Still keeps them safe today?

Your harps, your flutes, your fiddles;
Shady glens and rolling hills;
The fires and hearths and home folk;
Morning walks in sun-drenched fields.
Connemara in your castles;
High spirits at pub and track;
The cheer, green beer, of Saint Patrick’s Day
Do their best to bring it back.

But your music’s my secret passageway,
Though it’s been some forty years,
The lilt, the bounce, keep you alive for me
More than all the souvenirs.

2 comments  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-09  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Known for their Nice Ears

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Writing

Bunnies
by Marilyn Brandt Smith
From my book: “Chasing the Green Sun”

When I was a child, my Easter basket was always crowned with a fuzzy stuffed bunny, usually pink, sometimes with a music box inside, and always with ears twice the size to be anatomically correct. Riding home from the School for the Blind on the Greyhound, one Thursday before Easter, a nice lady gave me a huge hollow chocolate rabbit, and I ate him all the way home. That was before we learned not to take candy from strangers. That was before we had to worry about weirdos.

We danced the Bunny Hop in school, read “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and believed that rabbits foot charms and keychains brought good luck. I wasn’t really into Bugs Bunny or Harvey and other cartoon or movie characters, but I did play Mrs. McGregor one year when our class performed the famous Beatrix Potter story for the whole school. Today my cute little six-year-old telephone friend in Michigan talks about the Max & Ruby show on TV. They lead much more sophisticated lives than Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.

Our ranch in south Texas had lots of rabbits who harmed no one, so my dad would make up good descriptions about their varied colors, and their work, hiding eggs for the children along the ranch road. It made me sad when I learned that farmers and gardeners shot rabbits just because they were helping themselves to part of the crops.

At twelve, I had the prettiest Easter dress of my childhood. It was white organdy with pastel trim, a peasant neckline, and a ruffled hooped skirt. I insisted on a bunny-shaped purse to match. That same year, a company in Austin donated Easter candy, after the holiday, to the dorms at the School for the Blind. We ate rabbits and eggs until school was out.

In college, my sorority had a sunrise breakfast, then we went to pet some rabbits at the farm home of one of the girls. I held carrots and cabbage leaves out for the big bunnies to snatch, and cuddled one of the little ones on my lap. They reminded me of kitty cats, but I just couldn’t get them to purr.

First jobs and first rides in a Volkswagen Rabbit came along. We had rabbit ears on our TV’s, and “Playboy Bunnies” took center stage. There were bunny slippers, and Annie’s Homegrown even makes bunny-shaped macaroni. The rabbit test to determine pregnancy is long gone, but everyone knows those critters have no trouble with multiplication.

Once my daughter’s rabbit fur jacket was partially eaten by my husband’s guide dog. Unlike the song, he had caught a rabbit, and he was no friend of hers, sorry Elvis. I cooked my first rabbit as an adult. “Tastes just like chicken,” well, almost. Later, I helped raise rabbits for a pet shop. One of our breeders had baby bunnies on Easter morning. A big guy named Tex wanted to be part of the family. He broke out of his hutch one day, and followed me around the house. I didn’t know how to train him, but gave him lots of love until he had another home.

One of our drivers, Pam Hare, decorated her baby nursery in, you guessed it, yellow rabbits. Did you catch the car commercial a few years ago where Elmer Fudd tells the public, “I used to hunt wabbits, but now I hunt webates”? I have a Canadian friend who wrote a book, “When a Man Loves a Rabbit.” Mark and Deborah are his personally-trained house rabbit companions.

Rabbits aren’t much verbal company, but did you know there are actually show rabbits? Tallest ears? Puffiest tails? They’ve inspired a few songs. I had fun teaching my granddaughters to sing “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” Somehow, over the years, I forgot the words to “Edgar the Eager Easter Bunny.”

Believe it or not, at Summer camp they still do the motions and sing “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” I found little Foo Foo recently in one of those catalogs where everything sings, talks, or screams obscenities at shoppers. She’s green with a big white cotton ball tail. Every March I perch her atop the table in our foyer, and trust me, we never see a field mouse.

3 comments  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-09  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Penned by a Friend

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Penned by a Friend + Writing

Leaving Oz
by Valerie Moreno

After all of the twisters,
Witches and pitches,
Yellow brick roads
That led to more glitches—

Where scarecrows talk,
Lions are teary
And a tin-man’s wish
For a heart makes him weary—

Facing the dangers with courage and awe,
Then finding the wizard’s a man with a flaw,
Still, when Dorothy decides to say goodbye,
Now I’m the one who begins to cry.
Wanting the magic to stay as it was,
Aching to keep the little girl in Oz.

1 comment  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-09  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Good Reads

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Books

Young Adult Fiction: “My Life Next Door” by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Young love has to hide because of her mom’s skewed class values. Then Mom makes a life-threatening mistake and a damaging decision. This is a lite but thrilling summer saga about two very likeable teens and their friends.

Available at bookstores or from the Library of Congress as DB-75070

Suspense Fiction: “Last to Die” by Tess Gerritsen

How did three young people whose parents and/or foster parents had been murdered, wind up at the same survival and recovery school in the Maine woods? How can Tess Gerritsen’s dynamic detective and forensic specialist team, sometimes at odds with each other, find out? How innocent are these kids, really? Who’s behind it all?

Available at bookstores and from the Library of Congress as DB-75320

Comments Off on Good Reads  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-09  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith

Great Sounds

Saturday 9 March 2013 - Filed under Music

New music: Rascal Flats: “Changed” (2013)

My husband and I watched the video about this group’s restructuring of management and recommitment to their music careers. “All Access & Uncovered” (2012) brings the guys and their families to life; traces their past success; hints at their struggle and recent loss of focus. Then it launches full-throttle into new enthusiasm, new inspiration, and best of all, dynamic new music. Watch and listen–you won’t be sorry.

Older Music: Bob Seger: “Live Bullet” (2011)

Yes, this grandmother author is an old rocker at heart. I thrilled to this album when it came out on vinyl live from his 1976 concert in Detroit. The re-release is updated with a bonus track. The crowd’s enthusiasm, Seger’s love for what he’s doing, and the magic of that concert will come alive as if you were there. I hear there’s another live Seger Detroit happening this summer. Wish I could be there.

Comments Off on Great Sounds  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-03-09  ::  Marilyn Brandt Smith