A Shady Lady's Garden

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I was a gardener well before I became a writer. I can probably blame Mrs. Hayes, my fourth grade teacher for instilling in me my love of gardening.  As much as I'd like to say it was my gray-haired nanny, she only grew four things. Roses, tomatoes, basil and figs. Nothing wrong with any of those, but a little limited. And I didn't learn to love figs until I was in my twenties. Nope, it was Mrs. Hayes and her cutoff milk containers, carrot tops and avocado pits.

When I got my first apartment in Brooklyn I filled the windowsills with herbs and ferns. And hanging plants - spider plants and asparagus ferns. (Remember those? And no...they were not in macrame thingys.) In one of my New York City apartments I created a roof garden - morning glories, coreopsis and a kiddie wading pool for those really hot days. It was great until the ceiling fell down in my living room.

It would be years before I got my first real garden. Three+ acres, some of it wooded and some which every year I manage to reclaim.

Let the other Reds rhapsodize about cheese or prosciutto. I'm all about loam and beneficial insects. Shrubs and perennials. Ground covers.

I have more than my fair share of deer and slugs but this year I've also had some wonderful wildlife sightings - spotted salamanders, frogs, barred owls and hummingbirds.

As you can see I have a lot of shade so I grow shadelovers like rhodys, azaleas, pieris, leucothoe.

And after close to twenty years my garden is finally starting to come along. Not done, of course.


It will never be done. It's a work-in-progress!
And when I'm not in my garden I write about someone who is...busman's honeymoon I think they call it.


So take a look, tell me what you think.

Do you garden? How does your garden grow??

Phone memories

HALLIE: I'm always startled these days when the phone rings. I think: Anyone who needs to contact me would send an email or text message.

Remember when every bit of really good news came by phone? Now, seems like only really bad news that comes that way ("Are you sitting down...?"

Now, if my land line rings (why do we still have two plus my cell??), nine times out of ten it's a telemarketer despite our having registered DO NOT CALL. Or that bizarre call that begins, "This is your credit card company. There is no problem with your account, but it is urgent that you contact us..." Or, if you move in those circles and it's three in the morning, maybe it's Charlie Sheen.

I wonder what would my father, who had me and all my sisters on speed dial, have made of the seismic shift away from using the telephone.

Do you remember when...

• You waited for a boy to call and kept picking up the phone, just to be sure it was working?
• You came home and counted the message blinking lights to see how may messages were waiting?
• It took so many calls and call-backs to arrange a get-together of more than two people?
  

So do you still have a land line? And how has your relationship with your phone changed?

ROBERTA: I think the next generation doesn't even consider a land line, right?

JULIA: My kids don't. I recently realized they didn't know how to answer a phone that wasn't theirs! We had to have a lesson: "Hello, this is -----'s phone, may I ask who's calling?"

ROBERTA: When I had my private psychology practice, I had to get a second line put in at home for emergency calls, right next to my bed. I dreaded that phone ringing! and then another line at the office with an answering machine. Now professional types just carry their cell phones with them everywhere. The good news (and the bad too) is that they're immediately reachable.

Back in the days of one phone per household, there were intense negotiations of how long anyone could be on the phone in my family--and when. I remember being intensely envious of my friends whose parents got them a "children's line." The line was listed that way in the phone book--you don't see that much now!

And one more thing--when you call someone's cell phone, it's almost certain you'll reach them. So no unexpected chats with the spouse or the kids. I wonder how many mothers and mothers-in-law never ever talk with their kids' significant others these days?

RHYS: We have two land lines, one for that other obsolete piece of equipment, the FAX. About twice a year we receive a fax and yet it sits on my credenza, gathering dust. Remember when the fax was new and vital to business?

I always use my land line unless I'm out and about, because the quality is better and I don't lose calls in the middle. When I phone my daughters inevitably I'll lose them a couple of times because they forgot to charge their phone, or in the case of my daughter who owns a swim center, she dropped her Blackberry in the pool.

But I can remember that bitter sweet waiting by the phone for a certain boy to call. Please, please call. Please, please, please... and then my father wanting to make a call just at the wrong moment. Agony.

I've never noticed that only bad news comes by phone. In fact it's always been the other way around. When I used to submit manuscripts before I had an agent, the editor always telephoned within a couple of weeks to accept. I've had all my notifications of award nominations via the phone. What a sweet thing to hear, "This is the Edgar/Agatha/Anthony committee and I'm happy to tell you...."

What I have noticed is that people have to stay in touch every second these days. Plane lands. Cell phones are whipped out. I've just landed. I suppose it's good. It certainly slowed down those old private eyes when they had to find a phone booth.

DEB: Oh, my gosh, I remember when telephone exchanges had NAMES! (Hey, at least I don't go back as far as the days of operators . . .)

HALLIE: Me, too! And of course I remember the number: Crestview 57146.

DEB: Because my parents worked from home, when I was in my teens they got me a "children's line" so my calls wouldn't interrupt their business calls. Oh, what bliss! Hours of uninterrupted gossip--in my room!!! And they didn't know when I was talking to boys. . . good thing, too, as I suspect those conversations wouldn't have passed muster.

But times have changed. Growing up, answering the family phone, you learned to chat politely to your parents' friends, your neighbors, your extended family. Now, although we still have a land line in our house, no one I actually WANT to talk to calls on it, and I'd be just as happy to do away with it altogether. My friends call my phone, my husband's call his.

Nor do I answer land or mobile if the call is unidentified. It's come to feel just as intrusive as a stranger ringing your doorbell.

And yet we chat on Facebook and blogs with people we may never meet, and feel comfortable with it. Weird psychology, isn't it? I'm not sure if the person-connected-to-phone is a good thing, but I don't think there's any going back.

JAN: An odd development, at least in my life is that now there are certain people I only call Cell-to-cell, partly because I recorded their phone number there, and partly because as Roberta pointed out, it's direct access. And there are people I call more now that I have their cell number than I would on a landline - like my nieces and certain friends.

Growing up, I had my own landline telephone, which I wheedled out of my indulgent father. It was a big mistake because I gave that number to the school department instead of the real home number and took it off the hook anytime I wanted to cut school. In today's world, the school department would call a parent's cell number. So I think that's progress.

JULIA: You were lucky! We had call waiting so my parents could receive calls despite two teenaged girls in the house. If anyone beeped through, my sister or I had to say goodbye! How about you, Hank? What did you have as a teen?

HANK: UPtown 3-2768. And my pink princess phone. I LOVED it. (Even though it was cooler to have an AXminster exchange.) PRAYED for boys to call. Checked, constantly, that maybe the phone was broken, or something, when they didn't.

Now when our landline rings--you need a landline, BTW, because cell phones DO NOT connect directly to 911--I leap into the air, startled. Then I argue with my husband about who has to answer it. Bottom line, I refuse to answer it.

Remember A Thousand Clowns, when Jason Robards answers the phone: "Is it someone with good news or money? NO?" and then hangs up? That's me. I HATE THE PHONE.

JULIA: I'm with you. I've come to dislike phoning. I am the queen of text messages - I can get them no matter what the background noise, and if it's important information, I don't have to remember it in my increasingly-porous head: it's right there! Written down!

I hope we don't have any emergencies, because we got rid of our landline a few years back. Out in the country, our local carrier covered four towns, and anything outside that area - including Portland, where our kids went to school and Gorham, where my husband works - was long distance. Plus, whenever we lost power, which happens several times each winter, for up to 4 days at time, the electrically-powered phone was dead. We started getting the kids their own cell phones: Victoria before her sophomore year, Spencer at the start of high school - Virginia's on track to have one by eighth grade! Once you have FOUR cell phones in a house, the landline starts to seem a little like overkill.

ROSEMARY: Most people who call me know - I don't answer the phone. I'm just not one of those "Hi Alice...Hi Ursula" gals from Bye Bye Birdie. Never have been. My business card doesn't have a phone number on it and if anyone actually pries my cell phone number out of me there's only a slight chance I'll pick up if it rings(the bag's so big, who can find the phone?)I just deleted 7 messages from from husband. He's the only one I pick up for and even he doesn't always get through. OTOH I love to be able to read email messages on my phone.

I did just cancel my fax line because I got tired of all those offers to Go To Orlando for $300!! which were the only faxes I got. This week, of course, I had to send a fax and still haven't done it...

Phone memories...love Judy Holliday in Bells are Ringing - about the answering service gal who butts into the lives of and eventually falls in love with one of her clients. (BTW Paula Holliday's last name is an homage to Judy Holliday.) And my personal memory...being in a hut in Tanzania in the middle of the night and having Mitch Kaplan call about an event in Coral Gables. Surreal.

HALLIE: Wrapping it up with more phone memories, here are my favorites:
Sexiest: Mary and George Bailey sharing the (old fashioned) telephone receiver in It's a Wonderful Life.
Funniest: Bob Newhart's one-sided calls (loved the one where Sir Walter Raleigh is calling from the colonies; Newhart greets him, "Hey, Wal-baby!" and tells him "That boatload of turkeys you sent us last November? (pause) They're still here, Wal. They're wallking all over. See that's not a holiday here..."
Scariest: Tippie Hedren trapped in the phone booth in Hitchcock's The Birds.

And do you remember these lyrics from "The Telephone Hour" in Bye Bye Birdie, the teens are all on their phones:

Have you heard about Hugo and Kim?
Did they really get pinned?
Did she kiss him and cry?
Did he pin the pin on?
Or was he too shy?

Well, I heard they got pinned
Yeah! Yeah! I was hopin' they would!
Oho! Now they're livin' at last,
Goin' steady for good!

Share your phone memories with us! We'll hang on...

Paula Holliday on DEAD HEAD!

ROBERTA: Dead Head, the third title in Rosemary Harris' Dirty Business mystery series has just been released. Rather than let Rosemary blather on about it , JRW asked Rosemary's heroine Paula Holliday to tell us about the book. Congratulations and welcome Paula!!

PAULA: Thanks Roberta. It's so nice to get out of the flash drive! As you probably know I'm a transplanted city girl who's moved to the suburbs to start a small business. When things are slow I spend a lot of time at the local diner. Just recently our small New England town has been rocked by a scandal. One of our neighbors is really a fugitive. She's been living here for years and none of us knew anything about her past. I'm hired to find out who informed on the woman and why..after all these years..it's still a secret that someone would kill to protect.

I had a lot of fun in this book, and I got to hang out with my crazy pal, Lucy Cavanaugh. I even met a nice guy but quien sabe, right? Most amateur sleuths don't have much of a love life.

ROBERTA: Any early feedback on Dead Head?

PAULA: Absolutely geeked that it's a Mystery Guild selection, Romantic Times gave it four stars, and one of Rosemary's favorite booksellers, Robin Agnew from Aunt Agatha's said she really liked it and laughed out loud. (I'm sure Rosemary will take all the credit.)

ROBERTA: Who's in charge of the dirty business mysteries--you or Rosemary?

PAULA: Aaahh – Rosemary thinks she is, but it’s really all me. There are just so many dead bodies you can unearth in the garden before you get arrested for digging in the cemetery! I like to get out, hang out with my friends and these days I’ve got some time on my hands so I keep getting involved in their, um, problems.



ROBERTA: If you found yourself in the office of a psychologist (say Dr. Rebecca Butterman of the advice column mysteries,) what deep dark secrets would you discuss?

PAULA: My life’s an open book. Three of them so far. (Pushing Up Daisies, The Big Dirt Nap and Dead Head) Okay some people say I have commitment issues, but seriously, what guy would let me run around and do some of the crazy things I do? I need to stay single, at least for the next two books.


HALLIE: Did it shake you up when you discovered that one of your neighbors was a fugitive mom?

PAULA: You coulda knocked me over. I know everyone has secrets, but this was a doozy. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt though. She was very young when - as they say – she fell in with a bad crowd. A lot of people were ready to cut her loose, but I’m loyal. And what I discovered was that we all have secrets – hers were just a little deadlier.



HANK: Ah—Paula, you used to be in the garden all the time. Is your interest in gardening, um, growing? Or are you branching (eesh) out into other things?

PAULA: Punny you should ask. Most gardeners have second or third jobs, it is, of course, a seasonal business. But I don’t see myself going into snowplowing. Lucy always tells me there’s a job waiting for me in New York, but I like the ‘burbs. I guess I have to really investigate what else I’m good at.

JAN: Paula, Any gardening tips for New Englanders deluged with rain???

PAULA: Stay inside and read a good book until things dry out! Walking on wet soil will only compact it and ruin your soil structure. Then hire Paula Holliday.

JRW: Paula, thanks for stopping in--we better let you go before Rosemary notices you're gone! Meanwhile, you can visit Ro's website for more on Dead Head! Congratulations Paula--and Ro!

ps check out the cool, animated trailer for Dead Head right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ27LuD1cg4&feature=channel

ON WHAT WE CARRY

Boy, youre going to carry that weight,

Carry that weight a long time

**Paul McCartney

HANK: I was looking for my little black notebook, the one I use to collect all the fabulous words and observations that are certainly going to make my next book into a blockbuster, and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it because it was lost in the black hole of my purse, buried among two black pouches (for bandaids, earrings, advil, library cards, unused gift cards, stamps, a safety pin and a lipstick in case I lose my other lipstick), a black makeup bag, a black checkbook, a black calendar, a couple of black glasses cases, and well, you get the picture. So I was going to ask you all, and I still will, about what you carry. And why.

And then, as so often happens, the world provided something else along those lines . The incredibly talented Jonathan Soroff, who does the interviews for the Improper Bostonian(a Boston alternative magazine), did a story on what the teenaged debs at the Boston coming out cotillion, the "WINTER BALL" carried in their tiny dressy handbags.

And wow. The book ideas came spilling out. Here, from Jonathan's article:

Deb #1: a cell phone, a fake ID, lip gloss, an extra set of false eyelashes and a bit of cash.

Deb #2: cash, a fake ID, a real ID, a cell phone, lip gloss, a diamond bracelet and a pearl necklace

Deb #3: a pack of Parliaments, a pink lighter, a cell phone, cash.

Deb#4: a camera, phone, hotel, fake ID, and Adderall

Deb #5: wouldn't say.

What's in your purse? (An *extra* set of false eyelashes?)What's in your main character's purse? How important is what they carry?

ROBERTA: Well now I really want to know what's in Deb #5's little bag!

Funny thing, I just wrote a scene in which Rebecca Butterman's purse is snatched. She very foolishly chases the perpetrator down an alley, when the strap on her purse breaks and all her stuff scatters at the foot of a dumpster. So I can tell you exactly what's in there: Sunglasses, Palm pilot, pens, lip gloss, wallet, tampons, comb, cell phone...not a diamond bracelet or pearl necklace to be found! You can see she's a practical sort of woman.

A friend asked me this week whether I'd ever gotten into buying fancy bags to match my outfits. Not a chance--just one big clunky back-saver that doesn't really go with anything. But that's certainly another kind of detail that could reveal character, right?

JAN: My protagonist, Hallie Ahern, is definitely too unstylish to carry a designer bag, real purse or laptop tote. She drags around an unsightly backpack which is an important part of her journalistic life.Inside? Notebooks, pens, wallet, Chronicle ID and cardkey, her cell phone, breathmints, files, sometimes saltines, and a digital recorder to capture "ambient sound" for the website. But it all spills out, and whatever she needs is rarely there when she needs it.

My own purse is somewhat smaller, although still in the large category. I carry sunglases, breathmints, wallet, checkbook, keys, Advil, small notebook, cell phone,an IPOD, and a PDA I almost never remember to use. I have dreams of being organized and prepared. Pipe dreams.

RO: When I saw the title for this blog I was reminded of a really great book called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Vietnam story, very powerful. No debs as far as I can remember.

HANK: I thought of it too, Ro. And my Dad told me he carried a little book of poetry with him all though World War Two. (Which included the Battle of the Bulge and a prison camp.) He says it was to remind him there was still beauty in the world. And that's kind of why I thought of it all...it could certainly reveal character. Even if character is pack rat. Or paranoid.

ROSEMARY: Paula Holliday, my heroine, is a backpack kind of gal. She, like me, carries a cell phone, but, kind of, under protest. (Ask anyone who's ever called my cell...it's rarely turned on.)But she's also likely to be hauling around ziplock baggies, Felco nippers, two pairs of garden gloves, and a magnifying glass to look at bugs.

Like Hank, I have a collection of squarish black things, none of which is ever the one I'm aiming for when I fish around in my black hole of a handbag. Apart from the usual suspects - phone, wallet, card case, camera, Ipod, and makeup case (black, of course)I carry two Tibetan protection mandalas that my sister gave me when I climbed Kili. They worked, so I carry them everywhere.

HANK: That's very hip, Ro. I have a good luck coin that came from...well, another story. But my purse weighs, I bet, 15 pounds. I cannot leave it behind. So I wondered, wht's making it so heavy? Besides my wallet and a little black pouch of stuff, I just counted 10 pencils, 6 pens, a stack of bookmarks for Face Time, a 2007 calendar, a 2008 calendar, my notebook, a stack of gift cards just in case I run out of money, a checkbook, business card case, a little bag of almonds, gum, those listerine breath strips, car keys, house keys, a makeup bag that you don't even wanna know what's in, a little flashlight..should I go on?

Is there a way to ditch all this? I try to think of it as a kind of weightlifting exercise.

Oh and PS--oops. We didn't mean "anything can happen Friday" to include nothing happening. Our bad. But watch this space--in fact, check the comments on Wednesday for what's going to happen Friday. Newly published or soon to be published mystery authors? Better visit JR!