The Meek Shall Inherit...

So, I looked into the natural history of my marsupial buddies today, and here’s what I found.

Once upon a time, 70 million years ago or thereabouts, these little guys emerged from the Cretaceous North American underbrush. The proto-possums are called Peradectids, at least, that’s the latest research from the University of Florida and those sooooooutherners  should know a thing or two about possums, after all. They were sharing their territory with the dinosaurs, so things were probably pretty tough, but then, just 5 million years or so later—the mere blink of an eye in geologic time—that famous or infamous asteroid struck, putting a sudden, dramatic end to the long reign of dino domination. Possums somehow survived.

What is more, they used the new space they’d acquired, after emerging from various fallout shelters—probably the gigantic ribcages of their now deceased neighbors—and, in a fit of exuberance, split into several families. Eating insects, fruit and eggs and other people’s leftovers, they trudged down Mexico way and over the land bridge into South America, where they continued to evolve. At this time, South America, Antarctica and Australia were still cuddled up together on a big comfy couch of floating basalt, and so from here, the proto-marsupials marched on to find new homes.

The three continents finally parted company and drifted away from one another. Eventually isolated in Australia, the marsupial line would proliferate into many strange and wonderful shapes. Sadly, most of these exotic critters, are now extinct or on their way out, like the legendary Tasmanian Devil, who is really—cartoon aside—quite a fetching little beast.   

Meanwhile, in North America, all the possums went extinct during a time when North and South America were no longer connected. Therefore, for an epoch or two, North America was deprived of this a vital member of Nature’s clean-up crew.   Fortunately, for fans, like me, a short three million years ago, the land bridge between North and South America rose again—or the ocean receded, locked up in the polar ice caps or whatever—and possums returned to their ancient point of origin once again.

Now, while you are laughing at possum—squashed by the side of road—no doubt intentionally driven over by some bully of an ape with delusions of grandeur because he sits in a machine with an internal combustion engine—well, think again! The “dawn of man” --and guess what, guys? There wouldn’t have been any “dawn” at all without woman, too—this “dawn” began a mere 3 million years ago, about the time possum was returning from his very successful South American road trip.

Now, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit—true proto-primates came on the scene some 55 million years ago—but essentially, a possum is, was and has been, a possum. You’d recognize a Peradectid as a possum, but you sure as heck wouldn’t recognize that little shrew thing with the forward facing eyes hanging in a tree as a member of your high-falutin' family.

There’s something to be said for plain and simple, for humility, for not making a fuss and aggrandizing oneself--that, and for a body plan which allowed possum to survive 70 million years -- plus that legendary asteroid that took down the grandest, over-the-top animal family our planet has ever given birth to. It has been said that "the meek shall inherit the earth" and perhaps they will--which is one of the reasons why I admire this mundane, gentle creature. 

Cute as a boxful of possums

--Juliet Waldron

http://www.julietwaldron.com

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS

http://amzn.to/2gvXVxl

A restrained country romance about Post Civil War Pennsylvania--a young, too pretty German girl comes to America to the house of her well-married big sister and learns a few things about love, life and religion.

Butterfly Bride (Sisters #2)

http://amzn.to/1Nn8iOw

I wanted to write another Pennsylvania story to continue the family story/romance begun in Hand-me-Down Bride, especially because setting plays such a large part in all my imaginings. After thirty + years, exploring the backroads and byways, first on my bicycle and later on the back of my husband's motorcycle, I'm found much to interest me in this uniquely American landscape.

The period, too, the pious and still shell-shocked 1870's, as Americans struggled to recover from the Civil War, still resonates in this landscape. Every hilltop church surrounded by sinking gravestones whispers ever so many tales. There are markers for soldiers from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and onward, into the 21st century. There are men who married several wives, often followed by a sad trail of tiny gravestones. These are all those babies who didn't make it out of infancy back in those "good old days," and who sometimes appear to have caused the death of their mothers, all of them interred in a neat row.  The oldest gravestones are in German, speaking to the nationality of the first European settlers.  

Elfrieda, Sophie's little sister, started to reveal herself, along with her three suitors, each handsome, manly, and each "catches" in their own way. There's a rich young man, born to privilege, a laboring man whose pride and joy is a fast trotting horse, and a crippled veteran, now a Lutheran preacher.  Elfie, initially a careless butterfly, navigates through the rough water of her grown-up desires with the help of luck, love, forgiveness, and after a few painful life lessons. There is also a little help from scripture.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MEENIRA

Yes, this book is suitable for teen readers. Adults who don't want a lot of heavy breathing with their romantic, old-time country stories may appreciate the fact that character and good choices are important here, as is a little touch of redemption. 

~~Juliet Waldron

And, please, if you've got a moment, check out these talented

Books We Love Authors:

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

Happy Independence Day

In honor of Independence Day--and because I'm slacking off to hang out with a visitor--I'm going to post a quote. Like other formidable intellects who have taken an interest in the workings of society, Alexander Hamilton can be quoted in service of a whole host of POV's.  Digging around in such a trove online, I happened upon this one. It seemed timely, a bit "wake up and smell the coffee" mashed up with a good dose of "get over yourself" + "you've got your work cut out for you."



"Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?"  

Alexander Hamilton~ The Federalist Papers

~~ Juliet Waldron

Two romantic historicals set during the Revolution in the Hudson Valley
and one old-fashioned historical novel below:

http://www.amazon.com/Genesee-Juliet-Waldron/dp/1491222093/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1440277442&sr=8-2&keywords=Genesee+%2B+Waldron

http://amzn.to/1sUSjOH Angel’s Flight

http://amzn.to/1YQziX0

~~Juliet Waldron ~ All my historicals :  http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi

Also check out these talented

Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

SAGA OF THE DELTA DISHES

This is comes under the heading of "stuff." Rumination about a familiar kitchen object in "this ever changing world in which we live" (as Sir Paul McCartney would have it).

They are little, rectangular, white and micro-wave safe, created to be used for single service airplane meals. We bought a stack of them about 30 years ago at the Pfaltzgraff Outlet in Lancaster County. Finally, after many years of incessant use, they are beginning to crack. We use them for both micro-wave and as cat dishes.  In fact, if we get pick up one, the cats present themselves with expectation written all over their fuzzy faces. If I put a sandwich on one and take it out onto the back picnic table, Bob will hop up and come over to inspect it, just to be double certain the contents are not meant for him. 

After all, sometimes, Fancy Feast© comes on that dish…

There is nothing remarkable about them, but it occurs to me that they are an artifact of a particular time and place, one now receding in our collective memory.  By our mega-meal standard, these dishes are small.   No supersized anything would fit.

Today, not only is the once flourishing stoneware company Pfaltzgraff defunct, but the reusable nature of the dishes probably represented, to some clever sales person at a disposable tableware company, a great opportunity.

"Convenient! Fast! Just Throw Those Cumbersome Dirty Dishes Away!"

As it was, employees had to pack the plates into dishwashers and someone had to put the frozen-whatever back on them, too, before reloading them all onto the plane for microwaving. The airlines had to pay these folks. So, while they were economizing, they  got rid of all that staff--people--who represented wages and retirement.

It’s only recently that we’ve collectively begun to wonder where “away” is. We're discovering that because there truly is no “away,” disposable plastic is not only a false economy--another thing made out of petro-chemicals that will take a thousand years to fall apart--but a burden to our already over-burdened planet.

And, while all this "progress" was transpiring, another whole host of changes occurred, these along the cost cutting line. Now, on economy flights, you better carry on board anything you wish to consume, because most airlines, except for the long haul ones, have dispensed with offering their passengers anything but soda, juice, and a tiny package of nibbles. If you’re lucky.  

My handy little Delta Dishes remain, faithfully going in and out of the microwave and dishwasher daily as they have for the last thirty years.  They serve as spoon rests when I’m stove top cooking, as slice of pie plates or cookie trays. All this, and, of course, they are just the right size for a dab of cat food or a spot of cream for some importunate kitty.

~~Juliet Waldron

http://amzn.to/1sUSjOH

American Revolution/Adventure/Romance

 

~~Juliet Waldron ~ All my historicals :  http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi

And, please, if you've got a moment, hop on over to these other talented

Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

For Flowery May Day, My Nanina

 

My Mozart ~~ passion and music

 

 I’ve always prided myself on careful research on the historical characters who star in my novels. I’ve certainly done so in Mozart’s Wife, and although there are those who don't like my characterizations, there aren’t many who can reasonably disparage the research. Interpretation of fact, when dealing with historical characters, is always tricky. We weren’t there and we’ll never know what exactly did happen. All we have are the documents, letters, diaries, newspapers and hearsay. From those, the historical writer does the best that he/she can.  Two hundred and fifty years (roughly) is a long time for “the truth” to survive.

  Mozart's Wife ~ at Amazon 

 

My Mozart is another kind of story. While the characters are the same people who appear in Mozart’s Wife, they are viewed through another narrator’s eyes. As in Rashomon—or in many court cases—witnesses, even those with the best intentions, often tell conflicting stories. Back in the mid-eighties, when I wrote My Mozart, I was unable to discover much about the life of Anna Gottlieb. What there was in German and not translated or easily available here. As a result, I fictionalized my heroine. The historical Anna and the one I created are, in many ways, quite different.

 

Nightingale ~~ Dark Vienna

Here is a brief outline of what I have since learned about the historical Anna Gottlieb. She was born into a theatrical family who worked for the National Theater, just as mine was, however, in real life, she was one of four daughters. Anna was five when she played her first noted role at the Burgtheater.  Aged twelve, she played Barbarina in Mozart’s Figaro. At fifteen she played ‘Amande’ in Wranitzky’s Oberon, King of The Elves. At seventeen, she was Mozart’s Pamina in The Magic Flute at The Theater Am Weiden, which would be the peak of her career.  According to Agnes Selby, author of the well-respected  Constanze, Mozart’s Beloved,  a much older Anna was to remember: "The immortal Mozart created Pamina for me, and the same voice which is now unpleasant to you, was the delight of the great master, and I was, proud as a queen, carried on the waves of applause." She also recalled his gift of a beautiful fan given her by Mozart in appreciation of her artistry.

After Mozart’s death, Anna “defected” to the Leopoldstadt Theater. In 1798 she played the part of ‘Hulda’ in The Nymph of the Danube. She was famous as a mimic, and she often parodied reigning prima donnas. According to Grove, during this time she was “a mainstay of the company.”

The Napoleonic Wars ruined the economy and disrupted the ancient social and patronage system. After a four year’s absence, occasioned by war, Anna returned to the Viennese stage in 1813. Sadly, her voice and looks were now in decline. As a result, she now played smaller roles in comedies and often played old women. In 1828, a new director of the theater, Steinkeller, dismissed her. Lacking a pension, she fell into poverty. She unsuccessfully petitioned the Emperor for a pension. In 1848, she contacted the newspaper editor L.V. Frankl, to describe her plight, and he organized a fundraising campaign which sent her to Salzburg to view the unveiling of the Mozart memorial, which she longed to see.  In one memoir concerning that day, Anna is thus described: “There entered a tall, thin and eccentric looking old woman…”  She was the last surviving singer who had actually worked with Mozart.

 

So it appears that My Mozart is more “historical fiction” than semi-biographical. In my defense, I’ll plead that I’d fallen in love with the composer. As anyone who has caught the all-consuming Amadeus bug knows, this isn’t a minor ailment, nor is it unusual among people who adore music.  The effect of a Mozart Possession is visceral, shattering, as I’d imagine a gigantic dose of Ecstasy. I was Mozart’s fan, body and soul, and I wanted to write a story which expressed my love, my longing, and, most of all, the physical pleasure which his music brought to me. To write such a story,  I needed a narrator, someone who could be that delirious, head-over-heels fan. One evening, while reading Otto Erich Deutsche’s Documentary Biography of Mozart , I came across this quote:

"Most painfully affected of all by Mozart's fatal illness was Fraulein Nanina Gottlieb..."

~~~From Joseph Deiner's Memoirs, related at Vienna, 1856

 That was when I knew who the heroine --the ultimate, passionate Mozart fan--must be!

There is another matter to consider, too, and to me it’s not a small thing. As a writer, I’ve created many characters, working from the rough outline in my mind, until these “playmates” begin to talk and walk on their own, to tell me their stories. Nanina was different. From the evening I saw Joseph Deiner’s remark, I was visited by a presence--graceful, feminine—and deeply anguished. She came in the dark hours and sent me to the computer to write for most of the night, write a story as I’ve written no novel since. Pictures would arrive; I’d hit those keys. As I worked with “her,” I typed ever faster, while a story of a perfect first-and-only-love, of loss and of madness poured out. There was very little editing done until much, much later.  

Call it “automatic writing” or whatever you want. I’m not a big fan of categorizing paranormal events, although I’ve had more than a few in the seventy years I’ve been on the planet.  Whatever this unique experience was, I felt honored to be the chosen channel for a sensitive, talented individual—perhaps a beautiful soul from a time in Vienna where, ever so briefly, lived and loved a matchless musical genius.

 --Juliet Waldron

 

And, if you've got a moment, hop on over to these other talented Books We Love Authors:

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

NIGHT WANDERINGS, SENIOR STYLE

buy the book!
"...the rich and fascinating life of this poor-boy-turned-statesman is entertaining
and vivid..."
Jerika, Amazon Reader


**************************************************

And now for more Possum Tracks stories:

 

 

Old folks wander in the night. We have a host of dark hours’ issues—bathroom visits caused by decrepit plumbing, early a.m. wakefulness, aches and pains which require a get-up-and-stretch or—perhaps—an analgesic and a cup of herbal tea. Snoring, wakefulness, illnesses and a whole host of things, a decade back, brought my husband and I to move into separate sleeping quarters, in an attempt to score the now mythical “good night’s sleep”. In our house, too, there are cats who multiply the night time Alarums and Excursions.

B0B is our tiger boy-from-the-hood /spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold. Old habits die hard, so he still keeps a paw in the local night-time goings on.  As spring arrives, there are bunnies, voles, and mice on the move again, more especially their feckless young, which make easy prey.   We wouldn’t know about that, of course, in our human cocoon, but B0B does. He’ll stand on my husband’s chest and meow if he wants to go out. 3 a.m. or 4, he really doesn’t care how you feel about this, especially if there is an enemy abroad, such as the young neighbor tom now leaving some sort of smart-ass gangsta tag on a nearby tree or trash can.

 

No! This Will Not Stand! As soon as it comes to his keen nose’s attention, B0B has to get out there to rectify the situation by adding his own p-mail counter message. If the other guy is still around, that can lead to a confrontation, resulting in Miau-geschrie as Mozart describes the sound, or Katzenmusik, as Google Translate does.

Another feature of nights in this house, I may be a grandma, but I confess I can still wake up screaming from a nightmare, a thing which exasperates everyone else who lives around here, from my husband to the cats. Some past life experience, or, maybe, some random programming from deep within the ancient brain stored at the top of my spine—a poor little shrew sort of critter, chased by a monstrous version of B0B—erupts into the classic night–terror.

OH NO... OH-NO-NO-NO! 
IT SEES ME!

On these occasions, I scream. That either wakes me up, or brings my husband in to shout, "For God's Sake, woman!!"  In that case, I’m the pain in the collective wanna-be-sleeping-ass.

The other night, however, I managed to wake myself up from a near-miss with one of these scream dreams. This particular one had been of the War of the Worlds variety, the kind where you are about to be sucked up onto a booming malevolence hovering overhead. Fortunately, on this occasion, before the mental crescendo of terror, I’d managed to come to by myself.

Still feeling jumpy, I eventually righted myself for a walk to the bathroom. Might as well do that, since I’m already awake. However, upon rounding a corner into a space nominally illuminated by a night-light, I encountered something I hadn’t expected, a moving silhouette, humanoid, the head round. The body was tall, very thin and the arms seemed to dangle in a loose and unmatched way, like something out of The Walking Dead.

 I shrieked.  It did too, so I hauled off and punched it in the chest as hard as I could. After all, the thing was bigger, but it didn’t appear all that steady on its feet.

Maybe, if I could knock it off balance, I could escape…

A thud and a warm breast bone crunched against my knuckles. The creature spoke.
“Ow!” and then “Hey! What the hell?”

As I said at the beginning of this, old folks wander in the night. As you might have expected, my husband and I had unexpectedly encountered one another in the half-dark, and both of us, still groggy, had had quite a scare. Hard on the heels of fear had come irritation, then embarrassment, at last resolving in the only possible way--with a laugh.

 

~~Juliet Waldron
All my historical novels:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS
 

And while you're reading, hop on over to these other talented Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines