Adventures in Bartending: Christmas Edition!!

What says Merry Christmas better than festive shots? NOTHING.

On that note, I give you the Christmas edition of my periodic blogging adventure through the liquor cabinet that I affectionately call ADVENTURES IN BARTENDING!!

HERE WE GO!

Santa Shot

Ingredients:
3/4 oz. grenadine
3/4 oz. green crème de menthe
3/4 oz. peppermint schnapps

Preparation:
(1) Pour grenadine in a shot glass
(2) Float green crème de menthe on top
(3) Float pepperminet schnapps on top

Watch out!
The Santa Shot is a layered shot. I first talked about layered shots in an earlier bartending adventure. Making layered shots can be tricky. The steps are simple: pour the first layer into the glass, then place a spoon into the glass upside down, the tip of the spoon just barely touching the top of the liquid. Then slowly, sl-o-o-o-w-l-y trickle the liquid for the second (or third) layer over the back of the spoon.

Sounds easy, but it's painstaking work.

The Santa Shot tasted like a cold, extra-sweet, boozy candy cane. Yummy! A good shot for the women in your alcoholic life.



Santa's Breath

Ingredients:
1 part whisky
1 part Sambuca

Preparation:
(1) pour whisky into shot glass
(2) float Sambuca on top

As mentioned in my earlier bartending adventure about layered shots, this shot was a special lesson for me in density. Although I poured the whisky into the glass first, then oh-so-carefully layered the Sambuca on top, when I was done the whisky was the top layer. Oh the chemistry! Where's Mr. Wizard when you need him?

Santa's Breath is STRONG and vaguely medicinal. It'll put hair on your Christmas-loving chest.





Merry Christmas everyone! And DRINK UP!

BOOK REVIEW: Nancy Drew Mystery Stories The Clue in the Diary

Back in June I posted my first review of a Nancy Drew book. (You can read about it here.) My review compared the original, unabridged version of The Clue of the Tapping heels with the much more widely recognized--and abridged--version, the one with the familiar yellow cover.

I was pretty intrigued with the differences between the two books--which I felt went far beyond what was strictly necessary to update the story. But I was even more intrigued to discover that ALL of the familiar yellow cover Nancy Drews are abridged versions of the original stories. Being a collector, I vowed to keep searching for more unabridged versions of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories.

And well...

I FOUND ONE!!!

 

 

 

Here it is:

 

 

I was thrilled with my find. Having already read the Yellow Cover version of the book, I couldn't wait to dive in. What changes would I find? Would there be entirely new subplots and characters that had been removed from the Yellow Cover version, as was the case with the original Clue of the Tapping Heels? Would I come across any uncomfortably racist remarks? Anything was possible.

 

 

(That's the Yellow Cover version)

 

 

I'll give you a summary of the plot in a moment, but first the numbers:

 

 

The Original Version of The Clue in the Diary has 202 pages and 25 chapters

The Yellow Cover version of The Clue in the Diary has 174 pages and 20 chapters--so it's 28 pages and 5 chapters shorter.

 

 

The story starts out with Nancy and her friends Bess and George enjoying a picnic after a long day at a carnival. They're tired but happy, because it's been a fun day. At the carnival they met a poor woman with an adorable daughter named Honey who they befriended. They intend to keep in touch with them.

 

On the drive home Nancy and the gang come across a fabulous mansion on fire. They stop to help (though what kind of assistance they could possibly lend escapes me) and learn the mansion belongs to a wealthy but unscrupulous man named Felix Raybolt ("Foxy Felix") and his wife. Fortunately, the couple isn't at home, though Nancy does see an unidentified man fleeing the scene. She fails to stop him, but recovers a diary he dropped in his haste to leave.

 





Both versions of the book begin this way. In fact, as I read further into the Original Version I was struck by just how closely it resembled the Yellow Cover book. I had had a decidedly different experience with The Clue of the Tapping Heels. The two versions of that book diverged greatly right from the get-go. I decided to do a close comparison of the first fifty pages of both books, just to see what I could see.

 

In the first 50 pages of the Original Version Nancy and the gang go to a carnival, meet Honey and her mom, stumble upon a fire, find the fateful diary, have a fender bender, meet Ned Nickerson and come to learn that "Foxy" Felix Raybolt made his fortune by swindling investors--and that poor Honey's dad was likely one such victim.

 

The same goes for the Yellow Cover book.

 

So how do the first 50 pages of the two books differ? As it turns out, in mostly aesthetic ways. For example, in the Yellow Cover version of the story, George Fayne, friend to Nancy Drew and cousin to Bess Marvin, was described as slim and short-haired. It's also said that she "enjoyed her boy's name." The Original Version of the book described George this way:

 

She gloried in her athletic prowess, scoffed at anything feminine, and went to great lengths to explain to strangers that George was really her name and not a nickname.

 

Further:

 

George had cropped her straight hair as short as the style would permit, and combed and brushed it as infrequently as possible.

 

 

 





(an artist's rendition of George from the Nancy Drew computer games)

 

 

As an aside can I just say that George is a woefully underused character in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories? I always found her to be a delightfully subversive character for the time. Imagine a young woman named--of all things--George in the 1930s loudly and boisterously eschewing all things feminine? I LOVE THIS.

 



Anyhow, back to the comparison. Do you see what I mean about the differences being merely aesthetic? It almost begs the question: why change anything at all?

 

And how about this?

At the scene of the fire, Nancy's car is hit by a careless driver. Ned Nickerson, ever the helpful young man, accompanied the gang to a mechanic and stuck around long enough to be sure that they'd be able to get back home safely. Just before the girls depart, Ned says:

 

In the Original Version:

"You girls haven't seen the last of me," the young man called gaily after them. "I know the road to River Heights and you musn't be surprised if  I follow it one of these days!"

 

In the Yellow Cover book:

"You girls haven't seen the last of me," the young man called gaily after them. "I know the road to River Heights. Don't be surprised if I follow it one of these days!"

 

The first passage contains 35 words, the second 33. Clearly that selection wasn't edited for length. So, then, what was it edited for? Style? The Original Version of the book was published in 1932. The Yellow Cover came out in 1962. I don't think grammar conventions had changed in those thirty years to such an extent that the term "musn't was deemed to antiquated. Or had it? It's still recognizable today.

 

But there was one other change in the first 50 pages of the novel that I can only conclude was done to make Nancy Drew look better. Or at least, look less like an over-privileged lawyer's daughter.

 

The diary that the young sleuth recovered from the scene of the fire was written mostly in Swedish. Nancy discovered this late one night in bed when she tried in vain to read it. But how, do you ask, was Nancy able to identify the particular language that it was written in? Well that depends on which version of the book you're reading!

 

In the Original Version Nancy recognized the language because she used to have a Swedish maid.

 

"I wish  now that I had kept that Swedish maid. She couldn't cook but she might have been able to read this for me."

 

In the Yellow Cover book Nancy knew the foreign language was Swedish because she had an old Swedish friend.

 

"I'll have to find someone who can read Swedish," she said to herself. "If only Karen were here!" But Nancy's former schoolmate had returned to her native country with her family.

 

Wow...ummm...wow. I love Nancy Drew but even I have to admit that the flippant statement she made in the Original Version came across very bratty. Spoiled bratty.

 

Ahem. Well. In either event, both versions of The Clue in the Diary finished well. Nancy and the gang successfully proved that Honey's father hadn't set fire to the Raybolt mansion and Foxy Felix was convinced it was in his best interest to pay the impoverished inventor for the patent he stole from him. Best of all Ned and Nancy hit it off!

 



 

(I think this scene happens in a later book!)

 

 

 



THIS WILL HAPPEN GODDAMMIT!!

So I'm writing a novel: a YA dystopian novel.
And for the first time since I began self-pubbing short stories a couple of years ago I'm feeling like I would actually like to try to traditionally publish this one.

HAVE I LOST MY MIND?!?

I don't know. Maybe?

But I'd like to! I really feel like I've got something worthwhile going on here, you know?

But that, of course, means I have to finish the damn thing. SO I'M MAKING A DECLARATION!!

I hereby promise to you, to myself, to the NSA, and to any and all deities listening that I WILL HAVE THE FIRST DRAFT DONE BY NY 2014!!!


And here's a little taste, just for stopping by:

(The following is an excerpt from ROAD TO NOWHERE)

Cerulean met the little girl at Gruesome Point. That was where she met all the newcomers. The girl wore fuzzy pink slippers, pink bows in her hair, and a cheery nightgown that looked out of place with her gray surroundings and was all quivering lips, trembling hands, and wide, staring eyes. She looked like she had woken up to discover her nightmare was real. Which was pretty much exactly what had happened.

Meeting kids like this always made Cerulean want to cry, but she couldn't, at least not now. Now she had to put on a smile and be brave for the girl—assure her that life goes on, even in Nowhere.

She had to lie, in other words.

Cerulean smiled and approached the terrified child. “Hi,” she said in her most soothing voice, “I'm Cerulean. What's your name?”

“Where am I?” The little girl asked.

“This place doesn't really have a name,” Cerulean said. “We call it Nowhere. What can I call you?”

“I'm Indigo,” the girl said. “This place is scary. I don't want to be here. Where's my mommy?”

“Your mom's at home,” Cerulean said, knowing what question came next, and hating herself for how she was going to have to answer it.

“Can I go home?”

“I'm afraid not. At least not yet. We haven't figured out a way to leave this place.”

Indigo burst into tears. Cerulean wrapped her tiny body in a hug.

“Sshh,” she said. “You'll be OK. I'll take care of you. You can stay with my while you're here.”

Indigo just kept sobbing. “I...I want...my...mommy!”

“I'll be your mommy here,” Cerulean said. “I'll take care of you.”

She picked the distraught child up and walked toward home.

A short while later, after Cerulean's footsteps and Indigo's cries faded into the black night, Mayor Blue came prancing up the street toward Gruesome Point. He wore a pointy hat atop his head and a shirt five sizes too big that flapped around his bony frame like a sail in the wind. His skin was cracked and the yellowy-gray of old parchment and it was stretched across his skull so tight it pulled his mouth into a mean, tight-lipped grimace.

He paused at the spot where Indigo stood and bent over, examining something on the ground.

Presently he stood up and laughed. He held aloft a stoppered glass bottle. Its contents swirled and sparkled in the pale moonlight. A label on the bottle identified the substance as Tears.

“Girl's tears always taste the sweetest,” the mayor said in a voice like the rustling of leaves on a cold night.

And he skipped away into the night.

BOOK REVIEW: The Tree House Mystery

Ah, nostalgia.

Ladies and gentlemen and readers of all ages, today I review the VERY FIRST BOOK I EVER READ: The Tree House Mystery by Carol Beach York.

I read this book for the first time when I was five. And I read it to spite my older sister Tonya. Tonya was seven and in second grade and could already read. I was in kindergarten and couldn't yet read on my own and that fucking killed me. And then one day I found her copy of this book on the floor of the bedroom the two of us shared with our little sister Melissa and I decided then and there that I was going to read it. All by myself. Come hell or high water.

So I hid the book where Tonya wouldn't look and every day when I got home from school, after lunch and The Monkees (back then kindergarten was only half a day guys), I would go upstairs to our bedroom and sit in my bed and stare at the pages.

And stare and stare.

And then stare some more.

Until one day the words made sense. I mean, not all of the words. Some words I had to sort of figure out by using context clues from the rest of the sentence. And other words I couldn't fathom at all and I just skipped over them. But I could read most of the words! Enough to puzzle out the story.

The book is about a family--the Mayfairs. There's mom and dad Mayfair and Roger and Annabelle. They sell their house in the city and buy a bigger house with a huge amount of property out in the country. They get 23 acres, which includes a wooded area and a creek. In the wooded area is--can you guess? A big old tree with a tree house. At first Roger and Annabelle are excited about the tree house. But then they started noticing things--scary things--about it. Like the huge footprints in the dirt at the base of the tree. And the note tucked into the floor boards that warned them away and mentioned that "The Thing" would be back.

SPOILER ALERT!!

There was no "Thing." It turned out that two little boys who lived on an adjacent property had been using the tree house for a clubhouse while nobody owned it and just didn't want to give it up when the Mayfairs moved in. But Roger was glad to have a couple little boys his age to play with so they all got along and lived happily ever after.

Guys this book is just good fun. It's a short, easy read: a small chapter book appropriate for kids 5 to 9 or 10. There are 90 pages, big type and lots of sketches to accompany the text. Reading it again now I'm reminded of The Magic Tree House series. I wonder if Mary Pope Osborne read the Tree House Mystery when she was little?

21 Days of Words: SUCCESS!

Ladies and Gentlemen and Precociously Literate Children:

I am pleased to report that my 21 day writing challenge was a HUGE MOTHERFUCKING SUCCESS!!

I kept my commitment. I wrote every fucking day no matter how blocked, tired, or worn-out I felt. Some days I didn't write much. Other days I wrote a lot. But I wrote EVERY DAY. And since I didn't have any current works-in-progress at the beginning of the challenge I wrote all sorts of different, silly things. Sometimes I journaled. Sometimes I blogged. Most days I used prompts I picked or those picked by others.

And it was one of those prompts, picked by my awesome boyfriend Brandon, that proved to be the turning point for me. The prompt (a fake newspaper headline: "Road to nowhere set for repaving") began as just a silly lark but wound up opening up all new literary vistas for me. It's become my current work-in-progress. I'm writing it as a YA novel that I'm even considering trying to traditionally publish. Haven't decided yet. We'll see.

But I'm super excited about it. Squeeee!!

So thanks for all the moral support guys. You rock!! Writing rocks!! YAY FOR LITERACY!!

SNEAK PEEK: Road to Nowhere

Here's a little sneaky-poo from my #WIP, ROAD TO NOWHERE:

There was a billboard at the corner of Rainbow Street and Prism Boulevard, two blocks from City Hall, that overlooked the playground in Vibrant Colors Park:

A smiling mom and daughter were perched on the little girl's bed. The girl clutched a teddy bear. Mom held what appeared to be an inhaler, and was demonstrating the device's use to the girl. A banner splashed across the top of the billboard read: Neutral children sleep better, wake more refreshed. Be sure your child uses his emotion actuator each night. At the bottom of the billboard, in smaller type, was this message: Paid for by the Friends of Somewhere's Recycling Committee.

Follow me on twitter for updates as I continue to write! Look for these hashtags: #Wordmongering, #LetsWrite, #21DaysofWords, #WORDBITCHES, #AmWriting, #RoadToNowhere

BOOK REVIEW: Nancy Drew Mystery Stories The Clue of the Tapping Heels

So you need to know from the get-go that I've recently become something of a fangirl for Nancy Drew.
I was a fan of the Nancy Drew Mystery Series when I was little, but I wouldn't have called myself a fangirl then. I read a few of the books, then quickly moved on to other literary horizons. (Probably Anne of Green Gables. I was a fangirl for L.M. Montgomery for a while.)

Recently, though, while on a run-of-the-mill Goodwill jaunt, I rediscovered the series. And I can't even describe how excited I was to see the books there. I literally gasped: "Nancy Drew!" I bought the few books they had, read them, and that was that.

Next thing I knew I was scouring every Goodwill in the greater Austin area, with the help of my helpful and enabling boyfriend Brandon. I even put an ad on Craigslist. And WOW was that a success! I found a woman who needed to sell FORTY books! For a STEAL!

So why do I love Nancy Drew? And why should you care?

Nancy Drew was fierce. She was an original independent woman. She was smart, tough, and fearless but never brash or mean. She was awesome.

Today I am reviewing the 16th title in the series: The Clue of the Tapping Heels. And through this I will share with you how I discovered that Nancy Drew was censored revised.



This is the cover of the version of the book I found at the Goodwill. This version was published under the imprint of Applewood Books. They included a publisher's note after the copyright page in which it is explained that this edition of the book is complete and unrevised just as it was originally published and that it therefore may contain elements that may offend modern readers. The note goes on:
"These books are a part of our heritage. They are a window on our real past. For that reason, except for the addition of this note, we are presenting The Clue of the Tapping Heels" unedited and unchanged from its first edition."

I was intrigued. Before reading that publisher's note, I had never heard of Nancy Drew books being revised or censored edited for content. But apparently they had. I dove right into the book, nearly daring it to offend me in some way.

What I found was the Nancy Drew I knew and loved. This original version was longer than other Drew mysteries I'd read, and felt less rushed. The story had time to develop at its own pace. I liked that. There was a moment, though, when Nancy's boyfriend referred to an African American man he bumped into on the sidewalk as a "darky." That was, umm...unsettling. Nancy herself never made any racial slurs, however.

Since reading that version I've picked up the revised edition, with the familiar yellow cover.

This version of the story is 38 pages shorter. I've skimmed through it. It has absolutely been edited for content and length. The story has the same framework: Nancy learns to tap morse code and helps an old spinster who has too many cats and suspicious neighbors, but aside from that they're remarkably different books. Which makes me wonder if all the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories have been changed to this degree.

Right now I've just been collecting what I can find, which means with the exception of the original version of The Clue of the Tapping Heels, all my other books are the regular yellow hardbacks--the censored revised versions. I love them. And I'll collect all that I can find. But I look forward to also collecting as many original editions as I can.

Before I go! Allow me to share the recipe to a Nancy Drew drink I found!

1&1/2 ounces white rum
gingerale
splash of lime

This is light, sweet, and bubbly. Enjoy!