A Sweet Season

Thanksgiving will be here soon and Christmas won’t lag far behind. It’s the hap, happiest season of all. That is, if you’re not half-dead from shopping, decorating, entertaining, Christmas card writing and baking by the time it arrives. Oh, never mind. It’s the happiest time of the year, dang it! I’ve learned to trim and not stress. Get an early start.

Yes, I say this every year, but this time I really mean it. The older I get, the more sense this makes. They didn’t call the wise men wise for nothing. I’m actually very thankful I can shop and bake and share. So many this year will need all the extra everything we can give due to the economy.

Here’s something cheap and lovely. Ribbon candy. Not only is it yummy, but I love its jazzy looks. I’ve been known to dangle the candy on our tree branches, which mysteriously disappears, one piece at a time. It’s also dazzling in a glass bowl. If you don’t snatch it early, you’re not likely to have it, though. Hint: you can find it at Wally World, that colorful, shiny candy in pretty little boxes.

Now, I don’t make the stuff. It looks like a job for Martha S. She could not only whip that candy up, but sell the heck out of it, too. Thankfully, people expect a lot less from me, and I’m quite charmed with that. Christmas cookies are easy.

These pumpkin cookies with ginger cream cheese frosting are one of my Christmas favorites. I make them every year, giving them to neighbors, friends, the mail man, and on and on. One year the waste management guys even left me a new trash can lid the day I left the cookies out for them. It might sound stupid, but I was so excited to get that lid. I really needed one. Anyway, the cookies look right special wrapped in clear cellophane and dolled up with curly ribbon.

Homemade gifts are the best kind. Please raise your hand if you’d prefer a lovely package of homemade goodies over something you don’t need or want, let alone remember what you received a month later? Me, me, over here!

Okay, then. Tis the season to share.

This recipe calls for raisins and just in case you don’t know how to plump them, it’s easy. They do add pizazz. Here’s how: Boil two cups of water and add however many raisins you want to add to your recipe. Boil for about three minutes then drain with cold water. The raisins will be so soft they’ll melt on your tongue. Promise.

Now to the cookies.

Pumpkin Cookies with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe makes 4 dozen cookies.

2 ½ cups flour, ½ tsp. baking soda, ¼ tsp. salt, 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed, ½ cup granulated sugar, ¾ cup butter, softened, 1 large egg, 1 cup canned pumpkin, 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 cup raisins

In medium bowl, combine first 4 ingredients. In mixer bowl, combine and mix sugars, then add butter and beat well. Scrape down sides of bowl and mix again. Add egg, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix until light and fluffy. At low speed, blend in the flour mixture. Add raisins, mixing only until well blended. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until cookies test done when touched in center. Cool before frosting.

Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

3 ounces cream cheese, at room temp 4 tablespoons butter, room temp 1/8 tsp. ground ginger 2 to 2 ½ cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons- or more- milk

Beat cream cheese, butter and ginger together until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and thin with milk to proper spreading consistency. Spread on cookies and eat!

Long-Haired Freaky People

And the sign said long-haired freaky people need not apply, so I tucked my hair up under my hat and went in to ask him why. He said you look like fine, upstanding young man, I think you’ll do. So I took off my hat and said imagine that, ha, me working for you. Sign, sign everywhere a sign, blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?

Remember this song? Just in case you’ve forgotten, I’ll jolt your memory. Signs, by the Five Man Electrical Band.

This is the time of year when we get pinched with nostalgia, or NOS-TA-LODGE-Ah, as my daughter used to pronounce it. Old pictures are good for that, and so are the holidays. Oh, the luck, or not, to have stumbled upon these pictures right now, tucked in a dusty book put together by my mom long ago.

My daughters said I looked like a hippie. Yeah, I see it. Slap a ring of daises round my head and deck me out in bell-bottoms and you could have tossed me smack into Woodstock. My name might have been Milky Way or Sunshine Rose. I still can’t believe I missed that. Man, I shoulda been there. Cool bands. Flower power. A bad moon rising. The whole she-bang.

I would have been a fab hippie. Peace out.

No psychedelic drugs for me. I’m partial to natural highs. It’s cool, man, it’s all cool. Most likely I would have been the hippie making sure all other hippies were well fed and didn’t wander off looking for Alice in Wonderland. “Nice fro, dude, nice fro. Now get the heck back over here, you’re missing Purple Haze.” I would have said something like that.

Okay, so I was too young to go. And my parents certainly didn’t drag us there. I really do love them for that. I hated getting dirty even at a young age. Woodstock rain and mud would have given me fits. My white vinyl Go-Go Boots would have never survived it. I shined those suckers every night and propped them next to my bed, sparkle, sparkle, pretty.

So,the other picture with the shorter hair. That was a year later, and, yes,I cut my own hair! Something about my shirt screams nerd bomber. And the Monkees when they sang, Daydream Believer. Didn’t they wear tan shirts with that type of collar? Never mind, it's not important. Even though I wouldn’t have won any beauty contests, it’s fun going back in time, yes? Somewhere in the closet, or under the bed is your own box or book of memories. Maybe it’s time to blow the dust off and tip-toe back.

Meanwhile I've got to go get my membership card to get inside..Hu!

Jonny Quest Moments

An adventure filled life. Don’t we all want that? I don’t know about you, but when growing up Jonny Quest was high on my Saturday morning agenda. I’d sit glassy-eyed in front of the TV watching the Quest team explore the globe, using Dr. Quest’s particular brand of scientific genius to flush out Monsters and madmen. Remember Dr. Benton Quest, ten-year-old Jonny, Race Bannon, mystical Hodji, and the extraordinary adorable Bandit? Maybe, uh hem…if you are old enough, we shared those same lazy Saturday mornings.

This cartoon never played down to children. You could sit cross-legged in heart or bunny pajamas, climbing up sharp mountains of political intrigue in places you only drooled about in history books.

Now I’m not saying you must be a globe-trotting world explorer to snag adventures. My thoughts on this are as ordinary as a summer’s day, which isn’t ordinary at all when you really experience it. Every day is a adventure as long as you’re alive.

Sigh… now isn’t that great news?

Now if you do happen to be a writer like me, who has yet to visit most of the intriguing places the Quest team frequented, the news is not horrible. We have harnessed something that doesn’t require the almighty dollar or the tick of time to claim. As kids we already figured this out. Writer or not, if your imagination is keen you still travel right alongside Jonny, holding your breath when Bandit barks at shadows. You are right down the Nile River, fighting off unseen watery forces. A blooming imagination can and does take you places. And don’t look now, but one day, when you have college tuition payed off, and if you’re lucky enough to still see, hear and walk, you might visit those places yet.

What I’m really getting at here is we make our own adventures. When we’re knee deep in dishes and laundry, kids rampaging through the house, or sassy pants teenagers claiming we know zero about life, all while spending our last dollar for clothes, flat irons, etc… it’s hard to yank up those adventures. But I swear, if you examine things closely enough, you’ll find them right smack in the swirl of activity.

A Shot of Inspiration

As writers we take our shots where and when we can get them. A recent adventure to the Austin Film Festival proved to be just the inspiration I needed. If you are an aspiring screenwriter, or writer in general, this was the place to be. First I must mention one of the classes I took was called A Shot of Inspiration, and as the class was in session, Daniel Petrie, Jr. writer of Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Easy, and Shoot to Kill, passed around shots of whiskey. Liquid inspiration, he called it. Of course we had our own cups. No swigging from the bottle. I’m notorious for giving myself away with facial expression alone, and I must have made an eye pop, combined with gape-jawed surprise, because the next day a fellow writer found me and said my expression at the mention of free whiskey was priceless. I really don't drink much. And just so you know, that whiskey scorched all the way down.

Seriously though, the four day event was nothing short of amazing. Not only did I meet other splendid writers, but plenty of directors, producers, etc. Here’s a few I got to take panels with and also meet: Marcia Nasatir, Tom Skerritt, Herchel Weingrod, Pat Hazell, Cheryl Hines, Gayla Nethercott and Peter Hodges, author of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, a personal favorite. Like I said, these were just a few.

Ron Howard was there, and I especially enjoyed his tennis shoe style. He is the original nice guy who just happens to be extremely talented and well known. Watching Apollo Thirteen, the movie he directed, with him and astronaut Jim Lovell in the audience was a real treat as well.

Classes, or panels ran from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and then there were plenty of independent movie screenings to watch. And if you were still fired up, parties to attend. We saw Serious Moonlight, directed by Cheryl Hines, Precious, Apollo Thirteen and several others.

The best part for me though was spending time with my oldest daughter, a screenwriter, and watching her get such a kick out of the events and movies. If you haven’t attended this event, please put it on your must do list.

Ride This Train

As writers we ride many trains over the course of careers. As Deanna, from across the holler at The Life of a Working Writer Mommy can attest, sometimes we just need to switch it up and try something fresh. She never believed she was suited for fiction, but here she is, writing great fiction. Go, Deanna! We never know exactly what we can do or what we'll enjoy until we give it a shot. In writing there are so many different trains yet many times we end up taking the same one over and over, not knowing which might serve us better. And lets face it, learning something new can be exciting.

So...tomorrow I'm getting off the fictional novel train for four days and hopping on the screenwriting train. My oldest daughter, Candice, who writes screenplays, talked me into going to the Austin Film Festival where we'll be learning much about screenwriting during the adventure. At night we'll be screening some pretty cool independent films, starting off with Serious Moonlight, Cowtown Ballroom, Precious, The Ugly American and The Donner Party. Now I might skip the last one depending on what kind of mood I'm in.

Award winning filmmaker Ron Howard will be speaking about The art of Storytelling. Okay, I won't lie, I'm pumped about that. From what I understand he is a great guy, and certainly a talented producer. And who could forget him as the charming little Opie Taylor on the Andy Griffith Show? And then on to Richie Cunningham in the TV series Happy Days.

I'll be back around next week to share the adventure, but meanwhile, by all means, go take yourself a train ride!