After she inspired my romance genre paradigm shift, my daughter gave me this fun book for Christmas, and I am enthusiastically planning out the challenges.
First some house rules:
No "already fulfilled the challenge" loopholes. In other words, I can't get a prize for the meet-cute (#1 below) challenge just because I've read many such books already. I must meet the challenge again, with a new book.
No re-reading books to meet the challenge. I must pick something new.
If I really cannot find a book to meet the challenge, I may write a 5000-word (preferably 7000) short story that does meet the criteria.
A book cannot be used to fulfill more than one challenge (unless the challenge encourages you to do so).
Now, the challenges. Numbers 1-15 should be prefaced with "read a romance novel that..." and any of the italicized items can be combined with other challenges, if desired.
Visit your local bookstore and ask for a recommended romance read.
Pretend to be the main character of the book you are reading.
Make a list of ways to enjoy your own company. Complete three.
Write a love letter.
Write a list of ten things you know/feel/believe about love.
Learn 3 things about your ideal romantic destination.
Read a summer romance outside near a body of water.
Watch a movie/show based on a romance book.
Check out three romance novels from your local library.
As I finish each one, I'll add links to their own short posts.
Note: one thing I will not do, is share what the prizes are - I don't want to ruin the mystery, should you buy your own copy (linked above). I also didn't use my Amazon Associates link, so I won't make any money from the link (not that I've ever made any money through that channel).
"Read a romance novel with a protagonist much older than you are."
Well... I'm in my mid-50s, so "much older" means the heroine has to be at least 70 years old, and I wasn't sure how many romance novels exist where that is the case.
Fortunately, some friends recommended a novella by an author I've read before, and liked: Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventureby Courtney Milan.
I liked the book very much. It’s a historical romance that takes place in Victorian England, and the main characters are 73 and 69. The older of the two is quite wealthy, and her nephew and legal heir is a really awful person. He is a leach, living off the promise of inheriting his aunt’s fortune (and given that she is 73, it shouldn’t be far off), refusing to pay his debts (he hasn’t paid his rent in two years, having forged his aunt’s signature on the lease). He even hires prostitutes on the promise of paying them when his aunt dies. Bertrice and Violetta make it their mission to torment him. Madcap adventures ensue.
The story touches on the loss of friends (when one reaches her 70s, she will absolutely have outlived a few loved ones), the lack of power women had at the time, and the fact that being falsely declared incompetent was a real risk. It even touches on NotAllMen (see footnote below), Victorian-style, which was fun. The dialog was wonderful, and there were many beautifully described, funny moments.
The book displays more misandry than I typically prefer -- I like the main male character to be a good man, not a villain. Aside from the Terrible Nephew (that's what they called him), all the other men in the book were extremely minor supporting characters, so that made it feel a little unbalanced. On the other hand, the story was really just about Bertrice, Violetta, and the Terrible Nephew.
I really liked this septuagenarian romance, though it makes me wonder how common lesbian relationships were in Victorian times. I assume they happened, but they must have been pretty dangerous at least until 1967 when Britain partially decriminalized homosexuality. Anyway, a love story is a love story and this one was quite wonderful. I really wanted the main characters to continue on their adventures together.
I also really adored how the author reframed the reader's image of elderly women's bodies from the typical wrinkled and withered to:
"Skin that was dusted with age spots and veined like the finest marble."
"Breasts that time had given a graceful sway."
"Every act of gravity and time made beauty in nature—except when it happened to human women. Not any longer. Ravines carved in her forehead by time made a striking landscape."
Given that my own body has existed for 55 years, these descriptions made me feel appreciated, even admired in a way that most romance novels don't (or haven't in a long time).
The book got me thinking, though, about romance between elderly folks. It's usually handled on TV as something of a joke - the shows Parks and Recreation (episode 5.4 "Sex Education") and New Amsterdam (episode 4.21 "Castles Made of Sand") have both dealt with outbreaks of STDs among elderly populations in nursing homes, and the humor is in no small part based on ridicule and disgust. For some reason, people think old people doing the dirty is HI-LAR-IOUS and that their bodies are - to put it far more kindly than they did - unsexy.
I prefer to think of elderly bodies as scarred by time. Sexual desire doesn't go away just because someone accrues a few extra decades. Neither does our need for friendship, intimacy, cuddling, companionship, and love.
Now that I think about it, movies and TV typically have two modes for love among the elderly - either long-time partners who are about to be parted by death (tragedy) or elderly folks bed-hopping (comedy).
With the former, it's usually (I think?) about the husband losing the wife, which is evidently more compelling, more heartbreaking, than the other way around, possibly because women outlive their husbands far more regularly than the opposite and is somehow less interesting because of that? For the record, I disagree with this sentiment. I was lucky enough to marry my best friend, and chances are that I will outlive him, and well, that feels pretty damn tragic to me.
And with the latter, well, the stories range from condescending ("Aren't these old folks so cute for acting like young people?") to outright jerky (characters pretend to vomit at the idea of sex between the elderly). A particularly egregious example is from the 1971 movie Harold and Maude:
To be fair, the scene, which bothers me in isolation, is much funnier in context, and I appreciate the subtext quite a bit.
I'd really love it if there were more stories that fall in between the two, episodes more like 4.15 "The Benefactor Factor" in TheBig Bang Theory, where Leonard sleeps with an elderly wealthy university donor. Yes, there's some humor at her expense, but it manages to subvert the ridicule in a way that I like, and touches on her loneliness (she is also delightfully snarky toward most of the main characters), and the fact that both participants had a pretty good time in the process.
* While it is absolutely true that not all men are assholes like Bertrice's nephew, either in the book or in real life, the NotAllMen argument is nearly always an obtuse diversion that hands men an out, a reason not to try to change the system. Even good men (of which there are fortunately plenty in this world) still benefit from a system that favors them, and unless they are actively attempting to put an equitable system in place, they are part of the problem. I don't exactly fault them - it's awfully easy for anyone, including me, to look away, to go along to get along. Also - while things are MUCH better than they were in 1867 when the novella takes place, women today still only make 84% of what men do.
Prompt - Four Seasons (400 words): Structure a story based on the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Write 100 words for each season, with the four episodes tying together and leading to a dramatic or thought-provoking conclusion.
***
Winter
Sleet tapped the glass windows, and John Dee shivered with cold on Plough Monday as he re-read his notes on the new principles of cartography he wished to introduce to Queen Bess in his upcoming audience.
Walsingham strolled into his office. “Her Majesty wishes you to be the Official Uncorker of Ocean Bottles.”
Dee started to laugh, but Sir Francis’s eyes lacked mirth. “But … I am a mathematician and map-maker, sir.”
“Her majesty says, ‘Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.’ You have been tested. Those bottles may contain messages from spies.”
Spring
Dee was in the garden, enjoying the first warm spring day, when a royal messenger interrupted him, handing him a very old bottle, like no design he’d ever seen.
Dee sighed, carried the bottle inside to a windowless room, and locked the door behind him. He set to worrying the clay and wax stopper free, extracting the aged-stiffened parchment, and carefully unrolled it.
Greek letters. Interesting.
“Theophrastus… ocean currents …” he translated rustily. Dee pushed a pin into a wall map, marking Greece, writing “2000 yrs” underneath. He placed the bottle on a shelf with the rest of his salt-encrusted collection.
Summer
In the sweltering heat, John Dee sat looking through William Cecil’s atlas of manuscript maps, not allowing a single drop of sweat to land on the lovely collection.
My Lord Burghley, he wrote, the maps appear accurate, excepting the Roanoke and Virginia colonies, which lack proper proportions. I should be glad to draw —
A royal messenger placed a bottle on his desk. “Another one, sir.”
Dee opened the bottle, not allowing the messenger to see the message, and scanned it, picking out a few words of Spanish. “Columbus’s report of Hispaniola.”
“Oh! The New World? Your bottle-message collection is wonderful, sir!”
Autumn
Snow drifted on a frigid breeze across the messenger’s path as he carried a bottle to Dee’s house. Dee met him at the door and eagerly took the bottle.
“Good Yuletide, sir!” the messenger said, following him in.
Dee opened the bottle and read aloud, “The Spanish prepare for war against beloved Gloriana, 1st September 1580. —Drake.” Dee dropped the bottle, and it shattered upon the hearth.
The door slammed open. “’Tis a shame, John,” Walsingham said, leading soldiers inside. “I see I didn’t test you enough.” To his men, he said, “The Tower. And destroy the too-renowned bottle messages.”
Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil/Lord Burghley were also real; important advisors to Elizabeth I and sometimes patrons of Dee.
Cecil really did create an atlas of maps, and it is in the Royal Library today.
Elizabeth I supposedly created a position “The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” in the 1580s believing messages found in bottles washed up on the beach to contain coded spy messages, and it was on pain of death for anyone else to open them. However, this is no evidence of this, nor is there any evidence that John Dee held the position. He also lived to 1608, so even if he was sent to the tower in 1582, he survived the ordeal
Elizabeth considered Sir Francis Drake’s accounts of circumnavigating the earth to be Royal secrets.
Columbus set reports of his findings adrift in bottles
Theophrastus also did in about 300 BC, but as a science experiment, to understand the tides and currents of the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Coffee beans are spoiled by oxygen, light, heat, and moisture, so storing them in an opaque vacuum canister is a great idea ... in theory. I've tried several different vacuum storage canisters for coffee over the years, and they all suck (pun intended).
They mostly don't hold a vacuum, and it's just all too common to start your coffee routine by finding that the vacuum canister has equalized overnight, exposing your beans to at least oxygen and humidity. Some of that can be explained by fresh beans giving off CO2, so the vessel may be filling carbon dioxide (harmless) and not oxygen, but the vast majority of outgassing is done 3 days post-roasting ... and I regularly find broken seals weeks after roasting. Sometimes bits of bean build up on the gaskets, breaking the seal, but even regular cleaning didn't solve it.
So for years, I've used the Airscape canister, which was one of the best solutions inexpensive solutions out there, and it works by using a valved collapsing lid (it's the equivalent of squeezing all the air out of a plastic bag), which reduces the volume of air that comes into contact with the beans. I kept a week's worth of beans in the Airscape and stored the rest of my coffee in canning jars that I vacuum-sealed with a jar sealer. Canning lids and rings tended to hold a vacuum reasonably (but not perfectly) reliably.
Fortunately, Fellow recently released a coffee storage solution that doesn't suck, their electric Atmos canister (it's battery-operated and only needs charging every couple of months). It's super easy to use. You push a button, and it vacuums itself closed. Push it again, and the vacuum releases so you can get the lid off. And best of all, it monitors the pressure in the canister and automatically adjusts should the pressure change inside.
I've been using mine for several months, and I'm delighted with it. It keeps my current bag of coffee fresher than the Airscape, but it's not cheap ($75-$85 depending on size) but it does a really good job. Whenever I put a fresh bag of coffee inside, I brush down the rubber gaskets, and along the inside/top of the canister to prevent bean bits from interfering with the seals. The top section contains electronic equipment so it's strictly wipe-down only. No running water, and definitely no dishwasher. But I'm finding that it doesn't need much cleaning anyway.
The bigger size is good if you tend to buy your coffee in 1-pound bags (454g), and the smaller will hold 12-ounce bags (340g).
It’s a little bit hard to write about this openly because for so much of my life, I was embarrassed (even a little ashamed) that I enjoyed reading romances more than any other genre. If you asked me why I liked them, or even why they were worthwhile, the best I could come up with was that I learned a lot of history (which is true - and the historical romances are still my favorite flavor). In other words, I bought into the idea that they were trashy.
Note: Click on the image to enlarge it, then step through the whole meme within the image viewer.
I know some folks think romance novels are just thinly-veiled soft-core porn, and as someone who has been reading romance novels since I was 14, I can tell you unequivocally that they are wrong. Yes, they usually do contain (sometimes explicit) sex. And while there IS a sub-genre called steamy romance which comes - ahem, pun intended - close to that description, the erotic scenes are not the point of the genre. Except for the clean romance subgenre, which specifically excludes sex, those scenes exist only as a support for the story itself, usually to demonstrate that the heroine's partner is an unselfish and passionate lover who cares about the heroine's needs, both in the sack and out of it. But, even if you remove the sex scenes, the overarching romantic story is still there.
Anyway, a couple of years ago, my daughter sent me the meme I've included here, and it was wonderfully paradigm-shifting. I felt validated, and letting go of my embarrassment was more than a little freeing. I stopped being ashamed of the woman-centered escapism that I enjoyed so much, and last fall, I got to visit a small indie romance bookstore called Tropes and Trifles in Minneapolis, and it was wonderfully COOL. There are only about 20 such bookstores across the country (up from 2 just four years ago). Even though I don’t read paper books very much anymore, I’m grateful that the store exists. I bought a book, a T-shirt, and a tote bag, and got a recommendation for a book about a suffragette in the late 1800s.
I don't read exclusively romance - I read a lot of science fiction, WW2 historical novels and nonfiction, and really a smattering from nearly all genres (whatever catches my fancy, really), and I have an ongoing project to read as many Great American Novel (GAN) candidates as I can.
Prompt - Murder on the Train (500 words): Imagine you are on a train or at a train station when a murder takes place. Expand upon this scenario by writing a story of 500 words or fewer. Use the title of your story to maximum effect. Can it infer backstory, help characterization, or lead us directly to the action?
***
Constable Dudley Dougal stood next to an 1880s-era train car, nodding to each passenger as they climbed aboard. Jesus… an RCMP officer named Dudley. He’d taken the ribbing at the academy and tried to laugh off the photoshopped images of him sitting a horse backward. He couldn’t believe his first ceremonial duty was to escort an old train across Alberta. The railfans petitioned the RCMP for a Mountie to lend authenticity, and Dudley had been selected as his dad had worked the railroads for 43 years, and he’d chosen to wear the red serge to make the train nutters happy, even if it wasn’t authentic. Bored, Dudley glanced around. Ahead of the passenger car was the dining car, then a coal car. The black-painted engine was enormous.
He knew there were train experts aboard, but the engineer seemed less . . . experienced than usual. He had a surprisingly long full beard and kept tugging it and singing a train whistle “Woo-woo!” in time with the pulls. Dudley sighed. We’re going to be a good four hours late to Jasper. At least the fireman seemed knowledgeable.
“Mom! It’s Dudley Do-Right!”
Dudley closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled at the mother and son.
“Constable Dougal?” The mom asked, brandishing her phone questioningly. He nodded and posed for a selfie with them. He heard the the engineer and the fireman arguing, and revised his estimate. Five hours. He texted his wife Nell that he’d return home tomorrow.
After the last passenger boarded, he went to the engine and climbed up, interrupting the bickering fireman and engineer. The firebox door stood open, and glowing red light spilled out; the fireman had spent hours gradually bringing the temperature up. Unfortunately, the engineer had little self-restraint, fiddling with valves at random.
The fireman flinched, snapping, “Stop fucking around! I promised you could drive, but only if you did what I told you!” He glanced sideways at Dudley before muttering, “…and I called in favors for this.”
Six hours. “Ready?” Dudley asked. He ignored the sullen engineer, and waited until the fireman nodded before returning to the passenger car. He took his seat and gestured to the conductor who enthusiastically sing-songed, “Aaalll aboooard!” The train began to move, and everyone cheered, almost drowning the shouting up front.
Mercifully, the arguing eventually died off, and Dudley was able to relax into the clacking rhythm of the train. Pork chop scent wafted back from the dining car, making him hungry, so he started in on his packed lunch. The passengers detected the smell, too, and the selfie boy made his way to the dining car, only to come back shaking his head. “They just have boxed lunches. Choice of cheese or chicken salad.”
Almost on cue, the stench of burning hair hit, and everyone recoiled. Dudley dropped his lunch, shot to his feet, and sprinted toward to the front, radioing for backup.
It wasn’t such a boring assignment after all, but he was never going to live this down.
Cables are magic. They are super cool, look incredibly complex, and make the knitter look quite talented. But I'll let you in on a little secret: cables are easy and are barely more than beginner-level in difficulty.
Cable crosses change the order of the stitches on the needle, crossing them in front of or behind the ones next to them. And by combining cables, you can make incredibly complex textures and designs.
There are two main kinds of cables:
Right (or back) crosses - the cable leans or travels to the right
Left (or front) crosses - the cable leans or travels to the left.
Right Cross (back) instructions: Slip the called-for number of stitches purlwise onto a cable needle. Dangle the cable needle with those stitches to the BACK or behind your fabric. Work the appropriate number of stitches from the left needle, then pick up the cable needle, and work the stitches from the cable needle. In effect, these stitches crossed behind the ones you already worked.
Left Cross (front) instructions: Slip the called-for number of stitches purlwise onto a cable needle. Dangle the cable needle with those stitches in FRONT of your fabric. Work the appropriate number of stitches from the left needle, then pick up the cable needle, and work the stitches from the cable needle. In effect, these stitches crossed in front of the ones you already worked.
Here's a pretty good video that demonstrates how to create cables:
The terminology varies from pattern to pattern, but some use the front/back notation with abbreviations like C4B or C4F (ex., C4B = Cable 4 stitches in total, two onto the cable needle which you hold to the back of the work, plus the next two stitches from the left needle) and some use the left/right (ex., LC 3/3 = left cross three stitches by putting 3 stitches onto a cable needle, holding them to the front, working the next three stitches from the left needle, then working the three stitches from the cable needle).
I myself prefer the front/back notation because it tells you what to DO, whereas the right/left tells you how it looks when you are done, and I have to translate where to hold the cable needle in my head. But the charting software that I use to create my charts uses the left/right notation, so when I'm designing, that's what I use as well.
There's a nifty pneumonic that helps, though: "I left through the front door, but I'll be right back!" Left crosses dangle the needle to the front, and right crosses dangle the needle to the back.
Links to other cable tutorials and informational articles.
Cabling without a needle (I only do this if I'm working 2, 3 or 4 stitch cables, crossing only 1 or two stitches - more than that, and I'm not confident I won't lose a stitch or two).
Note: When cabling without a needle, I do my right crosses a little differently. I don't like pinching the loose stitches on the back of the needle, both because I can't see what I'm doing and I prefer to pinch with my thumb, and at some point I realized you could accomplish the same result by reversing the left/right needles:
Slip all stitches to be cabled to the right needle.
Insert the tip of the LEFT needle into the first (far) stitches slipped onto the right needle behind the work.
Pinch the left/near stitches against the left needle with your left thumb.
Withdraw the RIGHT needle from all stitches to be cabled.
Immediately insert the right needle into the loose stitches
