Remember Kathy Bates’ character in the movie version of Fried Green Tomatoes? As I recall, some younger drivers had cut her off, claiming to be faster. She retorted, “Face it, girls. I’m older and I have more insurance.”

I loved that, and yet I haven’t adopted that sassy attitude as much as I wish as I age.
My mother, on the other hand, didn’t wait to age to become sassy. She’s always been outspoken. She doesn’t reserve her blunt commentary for family either.

At a doctor’s office, if she’s kept waiting too long—and, for my mother, that isn’t very long—she complains to everyone from receptionist to nurse to physician.

“How are you today?” the doctor will ask.

“Better now that I’m finally seeing you,” she’ll reply. “Do you realize my appointment was over forty minutes ago?”

On her next visit to the same doctor, she will remind him of his misbehavior on the previous appointment. “I love your mother,” one of them said recently, a lovely plastic surgeon sewing up my mother’s forehead after a large basal cell carcinoma had been excised.

Years earlier, my friends’ attitude toward my mother varied between those who thought her hilarious and those who called her a witch. She often laughs when she says something rude, and maybe that softens the impact.

Perhaps I confused being outspoken with being rude and bossy for too long. Two examples come to mind from my childhood of my mealy-mouthed behavior, something I generally dislike in characters in books or movies… and yet something I have to work to overcome.

I took swimming lessons when I was around ten, at a pool in town. I’d been swimming for years in Kentucky Lake by then, and I could float easily on my back or swim with my head upheld from the water. As we learned the crawl, I wasn’t comfortable putting my face in the water and breathing properly. But I tried.

On the last day of lessons, the instructor lined us up. “You have to swim from one end of the pool to the other to earn your certificate. It will come in the mail to inform you whether you advanced to the next level.”

I thought I did okay, though half the time I held my breath when I should have exhaled. As the days and weeks passed, I checked the mail regularly to see if I’d passed.

“Anything in the mail for me?” I’d ask.

“Nope.”

No certificate ever arrived, and I never told my parents what I was looking for. I was too ashamed at the mere possibility of having failed the test.

A couple of years later, we were living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I was adapting to a new school. I loved art class. One project involved drawing something of our choice and filling in the spaces with bits of paper cut and glued from magazines.

I had a new baby sister, so I was well acquainted with changing diapers. An ad at the time for suntan lotion portrayed a tanned toddler whose white bottom was revealed when a dog pulled her diaper down. I worked hard to draw the images freehand and filled them in meticulously with color-coordinated fragments.

“We’re going to display your work at the local library,” our instructor said, “so bring your parents to see what you’ve accomplished.”

I was eager to show off my work. My parents obliged, and we searched every floor of that library for my project. Plenty of projects on display appeared sloppier to me, but what did I know?

I was mortified. Perhaps mine was so bad our teacher could not post it. Or perhaps the subject matter was deemed inappropriate. I will never know because I was too mealy-mouthed to ask. I never saw my project again.
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Now, as I age, I resolve to be a little more like my mom and a little less like myself. Sorting the actual character flaws in ourselves from our often-flawed perception of what constitutes a defect is challenge enough. Beyond that, even if we succeed in the sorting, what can we do?

Just got back from a trip to Norway, so I've got a new travel blog to post as soon as I can get it typed. I've been having a bit of trouble with my eyes when I spend too much time on screens, so I'm lagging behind a bit on typing. The blog from my trip to New Zealand is also in the queue. Let me know if anyone has a preference as to which to type first!

As mentioned previously, I have several projects in the works, and I'm posting a synopsis of each to solicit input if you have any thoughts. The one below is sort of a thriller, but--like all my books--more character than plot driven. See what you think, and let me know if you'd like to see an excerpt.

As child TV stars, twins Adelise and Del Malone finish each other’s sentences.  When the series ends, offers abound for Del, but not for Adelise. She seeks love in a variety of doomed relationships, all aimed at replacing the one overpowering love she cannot pursue. In a vulnerable state, she meets Academy Award-winning writer Cole Townsend, who’s suffering from writer’s block. The secrets of Cole’s haunted psyche include the murder of his baby brother, which resulted eventually in the vivid detail of a brilliant screenplay. When he senses Adelise loves him less than her brother—just as his mother’s love for him was less than that for the new baby—he sees that only in murdering Adelise can he ignite the creativity he craves.

Like The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road uses multiple points of view and flashbacks to focus on a woman whose path has been shaped by her early experiences in the entertainment industry and by a lack of self-confidence. However, with respect to the complexity of the characters and the impact of sibling relationships in the face of parental abandonment, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road might be more aptly compared to The Dutch House.