Joyous Yule—Happy Solstice

I’ve been having a good time in Oklahoma this winter. Of course, I’ve only been here a few weeks and the weather has been colder than, say, Arizona, but it’s pleasant anyway. It was made especially pleasant with my Solstice dinner last night with Amy and her children Zack and Taryn. Of course, the rituals had to be modified a little and I enjoyed having the four of us piled into the little dining nook in the trailer.

I fixed a “Redneck Baked Brie” as an appetizer, recommended to me by an editor working on my upcoming American Royalty 1: Coming of Age novel. He suggested I get a small round of brie, spread pesto on it, and top it with pine nuts. When prepared, pop it in the microwave for 45-60 seconds and serve with toast points. Believe me, we did serious damage to the brie. I coupled part one of the ritual with the baked brie with the question of “What are you leaving behind this year?” I was pleasantly surprised by the lively interchange. The kids (14 and 19) really got into as well as Amy and I did.

For me, I’m leaving behind heart problems. I am so through with that shit!

Main course was pot roast with potatoes and carrots. I’m happy to say it turned out fantastic! In the past, I’ve had mixed success with my slow cook pot roast. I did some extra research this year. A slow cooker brings the temperature up to a simmer at 209 degrees. The difference between the low setting and the high setting is how long it takes to reach that temperature. Low, eight hours. High, four hours. That was the problem I was having. My stainless steel cooker will go from cold to 200 degrees in twenty minutes and then stay there for as long as you let it cook. This time, I manually controlled the speed at which it reached a simmer. An hour at 155, an hour at 160, an hour at 165, etc. After seven hours and ten minutes, the cooker reached 205 degrees and held there until I served dinner. Perfect!

We accompanied the entrée with the question, “What do you want remembered from this past year?” My own memories of the past year were sadly damaged by the time I was ill. But the one I want remembered most was the development of my relationship with Amy. She was sitting right beside me.

Dessert was an assortment of cheesecake wedges. Nothing phenomenal about that. We enjoyed the food and I made coffee to have with it. Darn good and I asked the question, “What do you hope for the coming year?”

There were some good things expressed. For me, I hope to become more involved in the relationships I have. That’s not just with Amy. I’ve been spending summers at Sun Meadow for four or five years now. I knew I had friends there. There are friends I meet on weekends for a martini and cigar, a crab boil, or just to hang out and watch whatever is on the big screen. There are friends I play cards with. There are friends I eat dinner with at our weekly carry-ins. There are friends I play pickleball with. I knew I had all those friends.

I didn’t realize how special those friendships were until I got sick this summer. Friends volunteered to take me to the clinic. Friends drove me to the airport or even all the way to Seattle. Friends invited me to their wedding. Friends took me grocery shopping when I couldn’t trust my own driving. Friends fixed soup for me when I couldn’t face cooking for myself. Friends packed my trailer. Loving messages from friends gave me a will to live. My family in Seattle, Quinne, Michele, and Jason, gave me a place to stay and fed me when I was there for my procedures. They took me to doctor’s appointments, sat with me in the offices and took notes, held me when I was throwing up, and called the doctor when I couldn’t breathe. Without those three people in my life, I would have died. My sister in Texas opened her home and family to me for Thanksgiving. In this coming year, I want to do more to acknowledge and participate in those relationships.

So, that was my Solstice celebration this year. I hope yours was as warm and meaningful as mine.

This morning, I’m looking at the pile of dirty cookware and silverware thinking I need to get some water heating up so I can wash it all! No plates or glasses, though. We ate off paper. That’s the current downside in my trailer. I don’t have water. I step outside to the hydrant next to the trailer and fill gallon jugs with water for washing dishes and flushing the toilet. I shower at the lodge. Before we could get to winterizing my trailer, we had a hard freeze in Idaho and I burst a pipe at the toilet. Then when I was traveling to warmer weather, I failed to secure one of my cabinets well enough and a bottle of bourbon fell out and broke the handle on my kitchen faucet. Thankfully, the bourbon was okay. It’s a couple of the things I need to get repaired before warm weather, either by summer or by the time I give up on the cold in Oklahoma and move farther south. Whichever. It’s not like I wash dishes every day anyway.

I expect to have American Royalty 1: Coming of Age ready to post a pre-release version for Patrons in January while I do some serious rewriting in order to release the eBook and paperback commercially in June. This week, I’ll be releasing the paperback and eBook of Stocks & Blondes, the fourth in my series of cyber-detective mysteries and sequel to Municipal Blondes, released last summer.

Stocks & Blondes features detective Deb Riley, master of disguise, as she goes undercover to investigate the mysterious death and computers of a fifty-year-old web entertainer. Patrons have already read the book and comments are positive.

Whatever winter holidays you celebrate, I hope your time is as joyful as can be. May the best day you had in the past year be equal to the worst day you have in the coming year. Blessings!