Author: WebJan

Writing was the Easy Part of this Book!

This is harder than trying to find a site for a wedding reception!

I finished writing my book just before Christmas. I took a break and then on January 2nd I started writing letters to literary agents and I did that 4 out of 5 work days a week for three months. I got nowhere. I learned through seminars and other resources that once I found an agent and she/he in turn found a publisher for me, I could expect 18-24 months to pass. As I’m looking at my 85th birthday approaching this summer, I decided I wasn’t going to wait 2 years to see this all come to fruition (I might not even be around!)  and I signed a contract with a company to self-publish. It’s going well, page proofs will be coming soon together with the cover design. I already have the text for the back cover, but now comes the hard part. Trying to find a site for a book launch party!

As the book is due out in November, that puts me smack dab in the middle of Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday gatherings and as I’m looking for a rather large room, there aren’t that many available. I have a charming site on hold, the ballroom, at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, but the date in November 19th and I don’t know if I’ll have a supply of books that early in the month. And they haven’t anything else available for the entire month of November and December. So where do I go from here? Hotels may be available, but they don’t have much ambiance. Country Clubs are another option, but I’m not a member of any. Location is a factor as I expect people to be coming from some distance so easy access is important. And then there’s the hors d’oeuvres menus – some are better than others.

I have the draft of a flyer and a poster ready, but I need the final version of the cover to proceed.

I have some bookings already, but I can’t secure more until I can print that flyer, which is waiting for the cover design.

I have a musical ensemble in mind, but I can’t book them until I know the date.

I’ll have to pare down the invitation list I made up, but I don’t know by how much until I have the date and know which site I’ll use and how many people can be accommodated.

Writing the book was all between me, my brain and my computer. This phase of publishing a book depends on a variety of factors not all of which are in my control. It was easier writing the book!

Tracking 40 years of home improvements thanks to weekly ledgers!

It’s been over a year since my husband passed on, but I’m still waiting to get the final estate probate papers. The pandemic hasn’t helped, of course, but just last week I learned that I needed to get an official appraisal of the value of our home as of May 15, 2020, when Alfred died! It seems part of determining any estate tax means knowing Alfred’s 50% share of our home at the time of his death.

I was also advised that doing this now will help vis-à-vis capital gains taxes on my estate when I go join Alfred, the rest of my family and my dogs in heaven – hopefully!

As we bought our home in 1968 when prices were a pittance of what they are today, our estate will be subject to a considerable amount of capital gains tax. Well, not wanting to give the government any more than necessary, and knowing we’ve made many home improvements, I decided to go back through our files and records to cost out all these home improvements. The first one I could readily find was in 1981 when we closed in a screen porch.

Alfred’s father was an accountant and he started to teach his son how to keep cash ledgers when just a teenager. Once he started, Alfred never stopped. He kept ledgers on every year of expenditures for 75 years! It drove me nuts when each week he’d sit down and write out every expense from groceries to hair cuts to magazine subscriptions incurred during each week. If his cash on hand didn’t match his expenditures, it was always, “Joy, what did you spend it on, I’m missing $24.00! I hated the nights he balanced his books because he was so exact it was always my fault if the books didn’t balance.

Well, today, I pulled a chunk of change away from Uncle Sam!  I went back in Alfred’s files of receipts and those darn ledgers and was able to document 38 home improvement projects between 1981 and 2021 for a considerable amount of money! When I told my lawyer, she was astounded, but said those records will make a substantial difference in estate taxes.

Alfred’s ledgers also enabled me to calculate the cost of every trip we took, which, when we donated our photographic collection to the University of George Bugwood website, enabled 12 years of charitable donation deductions. Our tax accountant was always waiting for us to get an IRS audit so he could see the agent’s face when Alfred walked in with all those ledgers and asked, “which expense would you like to challenge!” It never happened, but he was all prepared!

So as much as I hated those weekly financial reckonings during more than 50 years of marriage, they did make for both merry moments and chastising when Alfred had to have “miscellaneous” items in his ledger! But oh would he rub it in now! Left to my own devices, I’d never have been able to document all these expenditures, but that little kid who kept track of 10 cent bus fares and 25 cent movies in his teen age ledgers taught me a lesson that’s going to enable a bit more money for my heirs!

In the not so merry month of May baskets: Arranging for a traumatic experience

Reprinted courtesy of the Weston/Wayland Town Crier

She caught me off guard when she called – and besides, the event was at least three weeks away. I told her I’d had only one class in flower arranging, but she assured me it would be a wonderful learning opportunity. So, I agreed to make a May basket for the Wayland Garden Club’s informal spring flower show. The process proved to be traumatic.

As I knew there were many talented floral arrangers in the club, I decided early on that I couldn’t possibly compete with their arrangements of spring flowers. I decided I’d make a simple basket of woodland plants instead. In three weeks, I thought, there’ll be lots of things in bloom. But spring was cold this year and as I began scouring the woods and nearby fields, I found there was little to be had.

Then I received my basket and my instructions. Panic set in. Name everything? I didn’t begin to know the names of all the plant life in my woods. I called another garden club member for assistance and during the conversation she mentioned something about “hardening things up” for two or three days ahead. I had learned about the need to “condition” cut flowers, but what was I supposed to do with tree branches, ferns and mosses!

Four days before the event I took to the woods and fields with clippers and a water bucket in hand. My husband came along to make sure I didn’t fall into the creek, and our two golden retrievers thought this early morning exercise a delightful outing.

Previous scouting trips had enabled me to find my materials – cinnamon fern, and skunk cabbage by the creek, red maple boughs, pussy willows and multiflora rose branches at the woodland’s edge. I soon discovered that ferns grew on underground logs and skunk cabbages have roots that go clear down to the water table! Neither would yield readily to my trowel, which bent to the breaking point. Covered with mud, I returned triumphantly to the meadow and proceeded to cut my rose bush greens. The bush had a fine healthy crop of thorns. Now I was bloody as well as muddy!

Heading home

Once we headed for home, my golden, Toby, decided to lead the way. Passing me, he managed to gather up all six rose bush cuttings in his long, feathery tail. When I screamed, he promptly sat down and proceeded to wag his tail furiously, beating my rose cuttings into the dirt. I spent the next 10 minutes pulling thorny rose cuttings out of his long tail feathers while my husband made remarks about this whole excursion being a “10 on the stupidity scale.”

Once home, I got out my floral arranging “cookbook” and proceeded to follow instructions.
Submerge clippings,” I read. I filled the bathtub, but the branches didn’t submerge. They floated. So, I got a heavy Turkish towel and forced them below the water’s surface. After their “bath,” the book said, they needed an assortment of “drinks.” “Some like it hot, some like it cold, some like it in the pot,” etc. Bleach and water for the Skunk Cabbage and hot alcohol water for the maples, it said. I gave the Skunk Cabbage two shots of Clorox and I gave the maples two shots of my husband’s Manhattan mix and hoped they’d all be happy.

Then it was off to the neighbors to look for violets in bloom. I found no violets, but I found Wood Anemones – which proceeded to wilt and die as soon as I brought them home. Back for more, which this time, I cuddled with the fern and cool wet mud and they seemed happier. I spent the next three days making frequent trips to the garage hovering over my specimens to see if they were still alive. I did not sleep for three nights. At 2:30 in the morning I was down in the garage checking the Anemones. I am going to make a fool of myself, I thought, in front of 100 women who know more about this than do I.

When the morning arrived, I arose early and began my arrangement. I had been imagining it in my mind’s eye for days, but what was I really imagining? I knew virtually nothing about what constituted good lines. Maybe I’ll get points for creativity, I thought, because I sure won’t get them for design. Dear Lord, I prayed, please don’t let them laugh.

Finally, it was done and I carried it to the show. The judge took one look and said “Who did this mess!” When the judging was over, I had come in last. The judges found my plant materials “interesting” but my arrangement “off balance.” That, I thought, was an apt description of the entire scenario. (Post note, it was 20 years before I did another arrangement for a garden club meeting!)

I have Succumbed….

The temptations came, day after day, week after week and I ignored them. But today I gave in and succumbed to their allure. I’m speaking of the spring flower catalogs.

They offer such tempting photos and promises – how can one resist! They say they will bloom profusely for me. Dare I hope they will? I have a shade garden that offers only about 3-4 hours of full sun and I have to place those perennials saying “sun to light shade” carefully. Alfred used to always say the definition of a gardener is one who moves plants from one place to another and that’s rather true. If a plant tells me by its actions that it is not happy where it is, I move it! And I move many plants.

When we cut two trees down – two tall oaks – I had hostas “panting in the sun” clearly telling me they were not happy. Of course, I moved them and they once again flourished. I have many shady nooks for shade plants, but having only 3-4 hours of full sun in just one section of my garden, I have to be very careful how many plants I can cram in there! Nonetheless, today I succumbed to Viva La Vida Lily, Calico Jack Daylily, White Feather Hosta, Alexander’s Great Siberian Bugloss, Glad Rags Hosta, Isabel Maraffi Day Lily and a Chinese Ground Orchid. Now if they are all as magnificent as their names and pictures, they will be great additions to my summer garden.

I’ve kept a card file on my plants for 20 years now, noting what dies, what just disappears and how many blossoms I get on each individual day lily.. I have to have help planting now, but fortunately I have a couple of friends I can count on to help me. And how I LOVE sitting out in the garden watching the birds and chipmunks while having a morning cup of coffee or an afternoon glass of ice tea.

Of course at the moment, the garden is covered in snow with only a few bits of ginger showing their leaves and a few brown sticks of promises of things to come. But I could no longer resist the urge, so I whipped out my credit card and bought new plants. When it’s early March and the snow still abounds and the wind blows and the sun does little to warm you, you have to think and plan for spring. So I succumbed to temptation and I’ll not apologize for it! After THIS winter, I need to think of flowers and spring!

She’s been living with 12 feet of snow

By Joy Winkie Viola, Town Crier Columnist

            This winter I am struggling under the burden of 12 feet of snow. Oh, I know, the meteorologists may dispute that we’ve had quite that much white stuff fall on us, but there are more ways than one to measure snow impact. And I am dealing with 12 feet – four of which belong to two humans who track in and out with wet boots that leave muddy grid marks on the floor – and eight of which are attached to two golden retrievers. The latter eight are multi-capacity snow machines that regularly manufacture snow balls and ice balls, between toes and pads, that fall and melt wherever they land.

            Last spring, I redecorated our family room bathroom and was terribly proud of my dainty yellow and white creation complete with gingham-checked curtains, a plush yellow rug, and delicate yellow finger towels on the towel rack. Today it is the deicer room! The rug has been taken up, the finger towels have been replaced by a roll of paper towels and I use the top of the toilet seat as my command post for the deicing of dog paws. Old bath towels line the floor and the sink has become a depository for dirty snow and ice pellets. The nearby boot rack seems always to be overflowing and the floor tiles seem to be perpetually wet. Like children, it seems that the dogs no sooner get in and get dried off than they inform me of some compelling reason to go back out.

            Electra us a tomboy at times, but physically she is a delicate little English-type golden who somehow manages to play in the snow more daintily. But our big, red, eight-year-old male, Toby, has four feet the size of bear paws. And the ice balls between his pads come only in the large, extra-large and jumbo egg size.

As he finds this a hindrance to his mobility, I decided to be the good “mother” and make him boots in the manner my mother made me mittens – with long yarn attachments to prevent their getting lost.

            On the advice of a pet supply store owner, I bought a pair of children’s slipper socks – bright red with white rubberized soles – braided long stands of red yarn, sewed the yarn to the slippers, attached Velcro snaps, and then tied all the yarn tags to Toby’s collar. Trussed up like a turkey and sporting his four red and white “booties”, I proudly sent Toby out to play. He gave me a look that clearly said “Mother, you don’t really expect me to let my friends see me like this?” But I shoved him out the door anyway.

            It wasn’t long before he had three dripping red feet and Electra was pulling him across the driveway by the end of the fourth flopping red sock. Being the boy that he is, he buried himself in the snow, rolled over on his back, and came up running with four floppy red slipper socks flying in four directions on wings of carefully braided yarn.

            My husband trooped back into the house saying ‘I told you so.” I followed in my snow-encrusted Wellingtons and two happy dogs charged in behind me. And there I was, once again, confronted with 12 feet of snow. Will this winter never end?

Some Thoughts Along Life’s Road

As I read the morning newspaper, I was stuck by the number of articles detailing accommodations people have made to their lives in the wake of COVID-19. New Orleans has no Mardi Gras Parade, so some 3000 homes have been decorated to carry on the spirit and the tradition of the festival. Families are bringing elderly parents to their homes, taking them out of assisted living dwellings and hiring home health aides to help care for them – all  in an effort to avoid exposing elderly relatives to the virus. Schools have become inventive and individual  teaches amazingly creative finding ways to stimulate their pupils’ interests and lead their minds to horizons beyond the screen of a laptop. I thought about the ways I too had adapted. When I couldn’t visit my husband in the nursing home, I read our old travel diaries to him over the telephone. When COVID-19 took him from me, I converted half a century of memories to a book.

I thought about one of my favorite quotes in literature – a line Natasha says to Pierre in War and Peace, “You suffer, you show your wounds, but you stand.”  I always took that as something of a motto to live by. No matter what life throws your way, find a way to go over or under, around or through, but move on toward your goal. So many of us have had to do that this past year and, by and large, I think we’ve done it rather well. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been challenges, days of discouragement, frustration and pain, but there have also been days of joyous success, a sense of pride and happiness with thoughts of a task accomplished, a job well done.

Today I read another newspaper article about how travel agents are trying to encourage people to think and plan for vacations once again. Oh, how I join in that thought! When will it be feasible? When will it be safe? I’ve had one vaccination and my second is coming up soon. Dare I too dream? Of course, that’s what we do. We dream, we contemplate, we act. Wisely, one hopes, but with hope itself leading us forward. It’s been a rough row to hoe in this unplowed new garden of rocky experiences, but we’ve learned and we’ve grown and we will continue to do so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Schnitzel to Nockerln Chapter Excerpts

           As you can tell from the chapter titles that follow, mine is a book you’ll read when you want a break from the depressing daily news, you want some bedtime reading, you are thinking about your next travel adventure, you don’t want to travel, but you want to read about someone who did, or you’re ready for a bit of humor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1 – I thought he was Italian but I served him Schnitzel anyway

           “We were cut from different swaths of cloth. Alfred was fine wool. I was basic cotton. He was reserved, almost shy, brought up in European and Southern traditions. And he was Jewish. I was a bubbly Minnesota Protestant girl for whom hospitality was my middle name. His family was torn apart by war. My clan gathered for holidays and on July 4th ate fried chicken, corn on the cob, potato salad, fruit jello and jokingly said “Ja, Ja betcha.” He loved Strauss and opera. I loved Beethoven, and Dixieland. He drank Old Fashions, My drink of choice was A&W root beer.”

Excerpt from Chapter 1: (Entire chapter is 23 pages)

“The name’s Viola, he said, with a teasingly James Bond style introduction. He stood as he introduced himself, bowing slightly in a European manner. He spoke with a slight accent, but it was the twinkle in his hazel eyes that got me. “Who is this man?” I thought.. Little did I know that we would marry within the year and spend a half century traveling the world doing wildlife photography, birding, leading safaris and sharing all manner of adventures, both at home and abroad.

In 1967 we tried something new, –  a guest ranch in Wyoming in the shadow of Grand Teton National Park.. For the first time in his life, Alfred faced the challenge of mounting a horse, a very large horse with the ridiculous name of Peanuts. Peanuts had to have been a cousin of the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. He was huge. When Alfred expressed doubt that he could get his foot up into the stirrup and swing up that high, the ranch manager said, ‘Well we have a crane we use to lift hay into the loft. We could put you in that and swing you up like the knights of old.” Alfred decided he would not be humiliated by a horse and somehow, he’d make it onto the back of that animal – and he did!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2 – Bananaquits in the Lemonade and a Motmot in the Bedroom

           

Excerpt from Chapter 2 (Entire chapter is 24 pages)

“We arrived to find the entrance to her charming home was via a central set of ten stairs which then merged into a long double stairway that was totally reminiscent of a 1930’s Flo Ziegfeld production set. One could just imagine the chorus girls descending the steps in beautiful gowns with plumes of long feathers in their hair. But there were no chorus girls to greet us, just large Cane Toads who had the acrobatic ability to hop their way up the stairs. No smooth-stepping Fred Astaire, these guys, but they eventually made their way to the top and it was a ballroom for toads in the evening when the lights attracted insects to their liking. The large living room came alive with an after-dinner wildlife show – geckos on the walls darting in and out behind the pictured frames, toads hopping about the floor, wood rats scampering in the trees and, oh yes, the Motmot slept in the bedroom.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3 – His Name was Mr. Hu

           

Excerpt from Chapter 3 (Entire chapter is 24 pages)

It was very different being the leader of the delegation, First, I now had “old friend” status with the Chinese, having been there just two years before, Secondly, my relationship with Ambassador Wang Bingnan was most definitely affording my delegation extra care. But most importantly, it meant I had to shepherd the negotiations, make polite conversation, orchestrate the negotiation pauses and respond when questions were raised about US foreign policy. It also meant I was the one served the duck foot in my soup in recognition of my status!”