Cats

Our Cat’s Second Banana

Yup, that’s me. Our black cat named Two prefers my husband, Hank any day, any time, except when he’s not around, of course. I’ve learned to accept it.

Actually, right now as I write this post, Two is sitting on my lap. It is morning. I am drinking coffee. Usually, Hank is sitting across the table with the cat on his lap, but he’s away. So, I guess I’m good enough.

We found Two nearly ten years ago at the Taos Feral Feline Friends shelter run by Leanne Mitchell. Two wasn’t feral, but declawed by a previous owner — a cruel thing to do to a cat — and relegated to the old and fat room. (There are no cages at this shelter, just rooms in the Mitchell home.) The cat came right up to me. I told Hank this is the one. He chose to look around a bit, a fact I remind the cat from time to time to no avail.

Leanne gave us a bit of the cat’s history and also her real name, Dusty. We decided to name her Two because she reminded us of our two best cats, Amos and Lewis. Her full name is Dusty Two Cats.

Two settled in rather quickly. We discovered she is a talker. I’m not really nuts, but she can say, “no” and “I don’t wanna” — Hank can’t get her to say “yes” — and knows what “out” and “eat” means.

And she took to Hank, largely, I believe, because I was working and he was home. Also when he had surgery, she stuck to him like his little nurse.

When we are watching TV, Two will lie on Hank’s outstretched legs for an hour or more. I can only manage ten minutes, which might account for her preference. Then there’s the lap sitting at breakfast. She will do the same when he’s reading. (See the photo above.)

Two and I have our things. She will go a bit nuts on me with play biting and swats when I rub her down. When we drove 2,400 miles from New Mexico to Western Massachusetts this summer, she was glued to my lap almost the entire trip. Of course, I make sure she has enough food and fresh water all the time. And right now, she’s still on my lap.

But I’ve learned you can’t make a cat do what she doesn’t want to do. It’s strictly on her terms.

There have been times Hank has not been around because he was traveling to help one of our kids. The longest was six months last year. I was surprised how quickly she adapted to making me her one and only. I joked with Hank over the phone, “You are now dead to her.”

But, no surprise here, she dumped me as soon as he returned. I wasn’t hurt. It’s just the way things are with this cat.

ONE MORE THING: Thanks to the owners and authors of Crooked Cat Publishing for making me feel most welcome. For this who missed the last post, Crooked Cat will be publishing my mystery, Chasing the Case in May or June. Yes, given this post, I recognize the irony in the publishing house’s name.

ONE LAST THING: Here is a link for my books for sale on Amazon, including my most recent, The Sweet Spot, set in Western Mass. They’re not free, but they are for the taking. Check them out: https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Livingston/e/B01E1HKIDG

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The Sweet Spot

The Sweet Spot Is Here

As of today, my new novel The Sweet Spot is available in paperback and Kindle. I hope you will read the first of my hilltown novels set in Western Massachusetts. Of course, that means I hope you will buy my novel in whatever format you prefer. Thank you if you do.

To get the business out of the way, here is the link to my author page on Amazon where you can find my novel: The Sweet Spot on Amazon

Just like Edie St. Claire offers her new neighbor, Harlan Doyle, I toast the novel’s launch with a glass of well water that I’ve let run until it’s as cold as it is deep in the ground. Well, it is morning. Maybe later I’ll have a beer straight from the bottle.

To set the mood, I choose Country and Western music, preferably pre-eight track with the likes of Patsy Cline and Hank Williams.

For those new to my novel, here is a brief synopsis. It is set in 1978 by the way. Most in Conwell love Edie St. Claire, the widow of a soldier killed in Vietnam, until her affair with his married brother ends badly. She tries to survive this small town’s biggest scandal through the help of her rough-sawn family and a badly scarred man who’s arrived for his fresh start.

It’s been a bit of a process bringing The Sweet Spot to readers. I wrote the first draft in 2004 while I was recuperating from being hit by a car. I was a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The guy claimed he didn’t see me. It took me less than two months to finish the draft. I was living in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, where the novel takes place.

My then-agent wanted me to start the book in the middle, which I did, but he couldn’t sell it after all. The Sweet Spot remained unpublished for years. Once in a while I would give it a read until finally I decided to return to its original and rightful plot.

Eventually, after I had moved to Northern New Mexico, I showed The Sweet Spot to my second agent, who gave me some solid advice about upping the dialogue, which is one of my strengths. There were other changes. The novel got better. Alas, he didn’t sell it either.

So here I am doing it on my own, except for Michelle Guiterrez, the novel’s skilled designer. She came up with the cover and font after she read the novel. I believe it’s a classy-looking book. Thanks, Michelle.

I have also had the encouragement of writer friends like Teresa Dovalpage and Fred Fullerton.

Doing it on your own is tough. I should have kept track of how many times I read The Sweet Spot — forwards, out loud, and even backwards a few times. But it makes me feel good that I still enjoy reading the book. I love its characters, even its so-called bad guy. Edie. Walker. Gil. Harlan. Benny. Leona. Amber. The whole damn town of Conwell. They all came from my imagination but they are very real to me. I hope you feel the same. And if you do, I’d love a review.

The Sweet Spot on Kindle

The Sweet Spot in Paperback

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: Hank shot that photo of me holding The Sweet Spot in our front yard. Yeah, I’m really that happy about it.

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The Sweet Spot

Sibling Rivalry

With the Monday, Feb. 20 launch of The Sweet Spot ever closer, I wanted to offer a post on one of the novel’s themes: sibling rivalry. The Sweet Spot has a fun one between an older brother and sister that provides a humorous balance to the novel’s grimmer parts.

Alban “Benny” Sweet, father of the novel’s main character, Edie St. Claire, is the crusty old so-and-so who runs the town dump. Leona, his fiery and outspoken sister, lives next door on their dead-end dirt road.

Both are up there in years, but they haven’t lost their spark. They are among my favorite characters I’ve created.

Benny is a bit of a rascal who smokes and drinks. He brings home the good stuff people throw out at the dump, like furniture and appliances. His barn and shacks out back are filled with them, and he would do the same in the yard if his daughter would let him. He borrows tools from the town’s highway department without asking, which gets him in hot water with the road boss. His other two daughters, much older than Edie, won’t have anything to do with him.

Leona is a woman with no brake on her mouth. She dyes her hair bright red and wears makeup. Married three times but now single, she jokes about men, sex, and everything else. I believe people in town, particularily the natives, are a bit afraid of her because she doesn’t hold back. She cheats at cards even with Edie’s seven-year-old daughter. She’s a big fan of Edie’s softball team and doesn’t miss a game, especially when they’re home and she gets to drink for free.

Both love Edie and her daughter, Amber. They stand by them, especially when things get really ugly in their small town, or as Leona says, “We Sweets stick together.”

Much of the time we see Benny and Leona separately except for a few key scenes. (They are later in the novel, and I don’t want to spoil things.) They may talk about each other and their faults to Edie, but I always get the feeling they do it out of love and habit.

Here are two short scenes that give you an idea about the rivalry. In the first, Benny — Pop to Edie — talks about the newcomer, Harlan Doyle, who moved in next door.

“I tried to take a nap on the porch, but there was too much hammering next door. Bang, bang, bang, that’s all I could hear.”

“At Aunt Leona’s?”

“Nah, the other side. Doyle’s.”

The Doyle place was located at the bottom of their dead-end road, closed up after the last Doyle, Elmira, died, and the family who lived elsewhere couldn’t decide what to do with the property. It must have been three years ago, and Pop got a few bucks keeping an eye on the place.

“Somebody moved in? Elmira’s house has gotten really rundown.”

Pop glanced up from his plate.

“I went over to see what’s what and met the fella. Damnedest face I ever seen. Scars up and down like somethin’ clawed him. He walked with an awful bad limp.”

“What clawed him?” Amber asked.

“Didn’t bring it up. It’s not polite, honey. I’ll let your Aunt Leona do it.” Pop grinned at his crack. “Friendly guy though. Name’s Harlan Doyle. His father, Aldrich, grew up next door. Elmira’s boy. He went to Japan in the war, and when he came back, he married a woman and moved south to be with her people. They used to visit the old folks here once in a while. Says he remembers me.”

Here, Leona talks about the new neighbor, Harlan Doyle, who showed up at Edie’s softball game. They are walking back to the car after the game.

“Aunt Leona, how much beer did you drink tonight?” Edie asked.

Leona waved her away.

“I lost count after the fourth inning,” she said.

Leona’s voice was hoarse from yelling. She booed one of the ump’s calls so loudly he muttered and glared. At that point, Vera asked Edie to tell her aunt to pipe down. But Edie reminded her it wouldn’t make a difference if she did. Her aunt wouldn’t listen. She was having too much fun.

“Vera’s gotten as fat as a pig. She should go on a diet,” her aunt went on. “She can’t even bend over to pick up a grounder.” She paused to take a breath. “I see our new neighbor came to the game. Harlan Doyle. Nice name, don’t you think?”

“He said you went by to meet him.”

“I did.” Leona nodded. “Too bad about his face. Something or someone hurt him, but you get used to it.” She frowned. “And, no, I didn’t ask him how it happened. That’s what’s Alban would do.”

“Funny, Pop said the same thing about you.”

“The smelly bastard.”

Leona clamped her mouth shut. Edie almost laughed, but she held back because it would provoke her aunt into a long discussion about Pop, mostly about his no-good qualities. He still hadn’t cut the grass. The weed trimmer from the highway garage lay on the porch. But Edie was tired of nagging her father.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: Michelle M. Gutierrez’ great cover design for The Sweet Spot.

 

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The Sweet Spot

Fussing and Feuding

You’d like to think that everyone living in a small town would get along, but from my experience that isn’t true. When I was a reporter in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, I witnessed some doozies. I even wrote about them. And, yes, I’ve included feuds in The Sweet Spot, set for a Feb. 20 release in paperback and Kindle.

First, here’s the real stuff. Dogs are a big source of neighborhood feuds. Barking dogs. Wandering dogs. And, of course, biting dogs. When I was a reporter sitting in board of selectmen’s hearings, I saw perfectly nice people go at it. (A board of selectmen is like a town council, but New England-style.)

I once covered a great pig feud between newcomers, who didn’t like smelling the animals next door, and the local guy, who didn’t seem to mind because he was raising them for meat. When the newcomers complained, the pig owner just moved the pen closer to the property line. The feud went to the Board of Health, who actually ruled in the pig owner’s favor. (Tony Lake, who later became Bill Clinton’s National Security Adviser, spoke in favor of the pigs.)

Then there are the feuds that are more personal, like an affair, sloppy flirting or some wrong done a long time ago I didn’t know about. I remember one guy who lived way out in the sticks giving the road guys a hard time. I also recall a notorious feud between members of a town department.

Sometimes neighbors just couldn’t stand each other’s guts.

The Sweet Spot has two notorious feuds.

The first involves Edie St. Claire’s father, Alban “Benny” Sweet, and the town’s road boss. Benny, a cantankerous but lovable old fart, runs the town dump. He keeps borrowing stuff like tools from the town’s highway department and, of course, doesn’t bring them back. It ticks off the road boss, who gets his revenge by plowing and grading their road the very last.

The feud has a brief reprieve — a very brief reprieve — when the road boss, in a fit of anger, accidently runs over a dog, but that’s all I will write about that.

Edie becomes party to the second feud. But this one doesn’t just involve one other person, but a whole family following a tragedy. They put the blame all on her, and, man, they’re awful to her.

The excerpt below gives you an idea about the feud between Benny and the road boss.

Edie heard shouting from inside the house, and when she checked the kitchen window, the road boss and Pop were going at it near the highway department’s idling pickup. The man’s face was red and his fingers punched the air in front of her father. Pop, just home from the dump, had been hauling his booty into his shacks out back. Amber, she was relieved to remember, took off on her bike to Leona’s.

Edie stepped onto the porch, but the men didn’t notice her until she was beside them. Pop, his overalls caked with dirt, smelled sour and rusty like the inside of a garbage can.

“I told your old man to keep his hands off the highway equipment.” Spit flew from the road boss’ mouth. “Who in the hell does he think he is?”

“Leave Edie outta this,” Pop growled.

Edie didn’t like the look on the road boss’ face. She had seen enough bar fights, and her father, although a scrapper, was no match for a man his size or age.

“Take it easy,” she said. “Pop took care of the trimmer. He didn’t mean any harm.”

“That’s not the point,” the road boss said. “It don’t belong to him. All of this is town property.”

“I’m a taxpayer and a town employee, ain’t I?” Pop said.

Edie cringed.

“It don’t give you the right, you stupid little fuck,” the road boss said. “Stick to the dump where you belong. I don’t go taking your crap.”

The road boss’ belly jiggled beneath his chambray work shirt as he stepped onto the porch to get the trimmer. He cursed loudly when he noticed a gas can and tools belonging to the Conwell Highway Department. Pop cussed back while the man loaded the stuff into the back of the pickup. Her father trailed him, making certain he didn’t take anything of his, and in his agitation, he tripped. The road boss sniggered as Pop fell to the ground.

“You fucker,” Pop growled.

Edie bent over her father. Pop was too angry to take her hand although he managed to scramble to his feet when the pickup’s tires spun away. Pop jogged after the truck, and Edie relaxed. She knew he’d only run a few yards before he’d be out of breath. This episode would be over until Pop was brazen enough to borrow something else from the highway garage. The board of selectmen would never fire Pop because no one else wanted his job. Besides, he was popular with the townspeople, especially the newcomers who thought he was a colorful and helpful character.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: That’s the backside to The Sweet Spot’s cover by Michelle Gutierrez. The next step is to upload the contents etc. and order proofs.

 

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The Sweet Spot

Talk of the Town

I prefer living in a small town. I’ve had my share of big city life, but my comfort zone is being around a thousand people, give or take a couple of hundred. And small towns are the preferred setting for my novels, including The Sweet Spot, set for a Feb. 20 release.

I like living in a place, where on any given day I will bump into somebody I know.

I am also confident someone will stop to help me if they see my car stuck in a snow Sweet Spot Coverbank or broken down on the side of the road, which has happened. Their kids grow up with our kids. We drink and dance together at the local watering hole.

And because a whole lot doesn’t go on really, we take an interest in what our fellow residents are doing, good or bad. Yes, small town folk can be a bit nosy. They sure are in The Sweet Spot.

I grew up in a big small town along the ocean. For about 25 years, I lived with my family in a hilltown of western Massachusetts that had about 1,200 people, plus one store, one church, one bar, and one stoplight. I even reported on it and the neighboring hilltowns for a daily paper — my start in journalism. Now I live in an unincorporated part of Northern New Mexico.

Writers often use what they know, and that’s the case for me with the hilltowns. For The Sweet Spot, I came up with the town of Conwell. It’s not where I lived although it could have been. At least, I tried to make it true.

As for the folks who live in Conwell — they’re made up too — the slightest difference in those around them is worth noting. After all, this is 1978, before the internet took over people’s lives.

And The Sweet Spot has a big scandal involving its main character, Edie St. Claire that does indeed becomes the talk of the town. Folks are either on one side or the other in this tragic turn of events. Sad to say, those who are against Edie are the majority.

Let me offer you a peek at small town nosiness that’s early on in the novel. Edie works in the general store owned by her in-laws, Fred and Marie St. Claire. Here is this exchange she has with the store’s old guy customers who have taken an interest in her new neighbor, Harlan Doyle.

Now the retirees were settled in. Edie brought a wet rag to wipe the tabletops.

“Edie, your new neighbor was in this morning,” one of the men said. “Says he’s fixing up the old Doyle place.”

“That’s what Pop told me. What’s he like?”

Another man lifted his cup.

“He’s kinda tall and skinny,” he said. “He’s got brownish hair hanging to his shoulders. He didn’t look too old, but it’s hard to tell with the scars on his face.”

The first man nodded.

“He had a soft, slow way of talking like he was from the South or something,” he said.

Her father-in-law spoke.

“Real quiet guy. Odd name.” Fred’s brows creased as he tried to recall more. “Shoot, he said he used to come here as a kid.”

“Pop said his name’s Harlan,” Edie said. “Harlan Doyle.”

“That’s it. You meet him, Edie?” Fred asked.

“Not yet. I have to go over and welcome him to the neighborhood,” she said.

“Did Benny tell you about his face?” Fred asked.

“He said it was scarred badly.”

Fred’s eyes shot up and down.

“You’re telling me,” he said. “I didn’t know where to look. No one did.”

Edie held the rag.

“I think I saw him at the Memorial Day ceremony when we were at the stone for Gil,” she said. “A man stopped to see what was going on. He had a limp, too.”

“I wonder what he’s doing here. His grandmother’s place can’t be in any shape to live in,” Fred said.

“He told Pop he’s gonna fix it up.” She shrugged. “Maybe he’ll sell it.”

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: A snowy scene from last week. That’s the Japanese-style gate Hank built for the fenced front yard.

 

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