THE PRICKLIES

Who'd guess I'd be nostalgic over prickly things? Last weekend the Omaha Branch of Pen Women, actually the American League of American Pen Women - NLAPW, visited the 4-room glass house conservatory at our city's Lauritzen Gardens. Our March monthly meeting, set around the coming of Spring, was expressly chosen to inspire the creative work of our members who are professional artists, authors and composers. What a trip to the Mediterranean and Tropical Zones it was. Rivers of vivid colored cyclamen wandered along the first pathways. Fountains sang water music along the paths. Magnolia trees and blooming bushes invited us to linger. But I was drawn to the cacti and succulents. I admired the Teddy Bear cactus, so soft and cuddly looking you wanted to reach out and touch it. But it's a cruel April Fool joke if you do, because its spines are tipped with multi-points that embed in the skin and are almost impossible to remove. I remember not being able to resist the impulse to see how it felt. Oh my! Never did that again. As I looked at the hardy examples of cactus, I remembered my first days in the Sonoran Desert, strolling the yard, then walking the wash, learning the names and nicknames of plants growing on our property. Night Blooming Cereus. Jumping Cholla. Hedgehog. Barrel. Staghorn. Bunny Ears. Pincushion. Beaver Tail. Darning Needle. Fish Hook. Horse Crippler. One thing for sure, the persons who came up with these cactus designations had a sense of humor and a most eloquent turn of phrase.

THE NAME TAG

   In February, I attended the PubWest Conference in Pasadena, CA. The participants wore name  badges with their company or other designation. Mine said - Author.
   I discovered this brought  about lots of conversations with people not attending the conference. As I rode up and down the elevator of the hotel, up to my room and down to the meeting spaces, someone would note the badge and say, "Oh,you're an author. What have you written?" The perfect query for me to launch into a sentence or two about my quirky, cozy mystery THE EROTICA BOOK CLUB FOR NICE LADIES. The title always brought a smile and usually a question about the plot, which I was happy to answer.
   Later I remembered a term I thought was used primarily for promoting movie plots but now applied to all kinds of projects.I found out it's credited to Ilene Rosenzweig and Michael Caruso, while he was editor of Vanity Fair. The term came from a scenario of an accidental meeting with someone important in the elevator - and trying to make a lasting impression. Now a variety of people, project managers, salespeople, evangelists and policy makers commonly rehearse and use this way to get their point across quickly - from 30 seconds to two minutes is suggested.
   Unplanned and unknowingly, I'd made several "elevator pitches." I wonder how many books I sold.

The Paper Bag

This morning I sorted a maze of things on my part of the garage shelves, a task put off all winter - or longer. I picked up a small, empty brown paper bag from Chipotle's that had paragraphs of printed words down one side. I was surprised to read a legend from Paul Coehlo. At the bottom of the bag was printed the fantastic logo, "Cultivating Thought - Author Series."
Here's a brief synopsis of a familiar tale. A man carried water every day to his village, using 2 old pitchers... tied to a piece of wood across his shoulders. One water pot had small cracks and each day, the man lost most of the water from it. One day, the pitcher apologized for the flaw and the man smiled. "Look at the path tomorrow. The edge of the path is filled with growing vegetables and flowers. Each day I water this garden path line to turn your flaw into my advantage. On the other side of the bag, was a message from Paul. "We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage." Now I can hardly wait to read another Chipotle bag.

   Years ago, my graphic designer daughter Jami, after graduating from the University of Iowa, brought home the semester-end boxes of stuff. I looked through the items she wasn't interested in keeping and found this book from an art course she'd taken. Inside I found the architectural plan of a Carolingian era monastery named St. Gall in Switzerland. It had existed since 719 and was founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall built his hermitage. For many centuries it was one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe.The book had pages of drawings of various buildings and the grounds. I was taken with the garden and its listing of vegetables and herbs. I saved the book, knowing I would write about it one day. So, years and years later, when I started The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies, the prologue began in a monastery in the 15th century. A couple of versions later, the location changed to a chateau in Alsace, because of difficulty in researching monastic practices in that early time period.
   I still have the book. I still love the book. But that's how things sometime happen. An image set a spark, but the fire did not light for decades.