Sneaky Green

I went out to the garden today to see if any of the garlic I planted last summer was poking out.  It wasn't.  But I did see some green daisy leaves sheltering under last fall's leaves.  Another sign of hope that spring will come eventually.


I spent most of the morning and early afternoon searching my novel manuscript for mention of the keys, realizing that I forgot to write about one and didn't put in that there's one left over without a keyhole to belong to.  I am so glad that ACJ read the manuscript and is a good reader and editor who noticed the lack.  Much better to have her notice and have time to calmly go over it to find where it was, or wasn't, and fix it instead of having an agent or publisher point it out.  Once I sorted out what I was missing, it only took about 500 words to tuck it into place and tack on a mention of that one lone key without a home.  Thanks, ACJ!



Then I sat down and worked on the first Donegal Mitt.  This evening I got the mitt part done so tomorrow I'll knit the thumb and get started on mitt #2.  This is going quickly and is a much more satisfying knit than the black one was.  Black is such a pain to work with unless you're sitting in bright light.






10 March--Barbara Malcolm, Three Cheers for Murder. 

Flustered Sheila replied, “No, just interested in a big local story.  It just seems so strange that there are so few clues.”

“Well, I guess the murderer is smarter than the police.  She wouldn’t have to be too smart to put things over on the retarded people on the police,” Marlene snidely replied. 

“She?  What makes you think the murderer is a woman?”

Dismissively Marlene answered, “If you’d ever spent any time with those three, you’d think it was a woman too.  They were all the world’s biggest flirts, whether their husbands were around or not.  I guess their overblown popularity in high school and college led them to believe they would be irresistible to men forever.  If it was me, I’d wait for each of them in a quiet, dim place late at night and quietly and neatly sever their tiny brains from the rest of their bodies.  Maybe make an appointment on some pretext and put them out of my misery.  Maybe I’d take a sharp, unusual weapon no one would recognize and stab them in the base of their necks.”

Shocked, “Um...Marlene do you realize what you’ve just said?  That sounded awfully like what really happened.”

“Well, I’ve read the papers too.  I’ve had lots of years of resentment to think of things like that.”  She finished hastily, “Not that I’d ever do anything like that, of course.”

           Suddenly Sheila seemed eager to wrap up the interview.      “No, no.  Of course not.  Hmm.  Well, thanks for your time, Marlene.  I think I have enough for our booklet about the special businesses in our downtown area.”

Sheila Winters hastily gathered her notes and purse and took her leave of Marlene’s apartment.  She realized as she left the bookstore that she was almost running.  Emerging into the daylight she paused on the sidewalk to collect her thoughts, trying to convince herself that she imagined the things that Marlene had said.  Sheila smoothed her hair with a shaking hand and, looking out for traffic, crossed the street to interview Cecilia.

Watching Sheila collect herself on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore, Marlene reviewed the interview.  She thought of the things she’d said.  Had she revealed too much?  Gotten too worked up?  Yes, she thought, she’d gotten a little excited and maybe let her mouth run on a bit.  But all in all, she decided she’d handled the interview fairly well.     Marlene smoothed her hands on her skirt.  It was new bought just the day before.  For once in her life she felt like she had on the right clothes.  That the real Marlene was beginning to emerge from a lifelong slumber.

(you're right, Aunt B, Three Cheers for Murder was my very first writing; that explains so much)

The mailman walked right by my mailbox and outgoing mail again today but I was in the living room so I jumped up and raced outside calling "Wait!"  He turned and I said that today was the second day that he'd walked right by and he admitted if he doesn't have mail for me he doesn't look at the mailbox.  Frustrating.
--Barbara