Plan Your Family Vacation with Goby

Pam May 23, 2011 Comments Off

by Mimi Slawoff.

With our Oahu trip just a month away, our family of five is happily researching island activities. We’re using Goby, a downloadable app for iPods, iPads and iPhones to help plan our itinerary.

We’re also turning to Goby.com as a search tool from our home computer. Goby allows users to find activities, lodging, dining and events anywhere in the U.S. Using the site’s categories – what to do, where and when – we found fun things to do in Oahu.

Manoa Falls – the highest waterfall on Oahu – sounds like a great choice for us. It’s just two miles round trip and takes hikers through a rainforest to the falls. We’ll also visit Pearl Harbor, take a stand-up paddleboarding lesson and book a snorkeling tour. Of course, we plan to get in lots of beach time. I was pleased to find that Goby even provides a long list of beaches with descriptions of each one. Lanikai Beach sounds ideal and we’ll be sure to check it out.

It’s nice to find a search tool that’s so easy to use. And as an app, it goes everywhere with us. Click here to find out more!

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Photos of the Week – March 22

Pam March 22, 2011 1 Comment

Fajitas in the making!

(1) I love photos of food. My daughter is a foodie, and a photographer. Maybe she’ll end up doing spreads for Gourmet.

The calm between the storms

(2) Taken at Granary Square yesterday late afternoon. Looks like unstable – but beautiful – air.

Ironwood Court, Pine Mountain Club

(3) This is the street where our cabin is almost finished. No work going on today.

(4) The fireplace is almost done!

(5) My lazy cat, Moesha.

Enjoy your week.

Interior, fireplace in great room

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She is due to be “groomed” [read: anesthetized and shaved] soon. I can’t wait. She is so matty and uncomfortable. Just waiting for a little warmer weather. Although, since she’s an indoor cat, it really doesn’t matter…

Welcome to Lake Valencia

Pam March 21, 2011 Comments Off

Clogged drains. Torrential rain. Disaster narrowly averted.

Around 7 pm – 4-5 inches deep

Photo is blurry, but then so was I. And soaking wet. Beyond the fence in the back is the Summit Park arroyo.

Working offspring. Not her best look.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice. He bailed for 4 hours.

The Mechanical Hero. $169 at HomeDepot.

The aftermath.

Remember this. In May.

Can Wine Cure Cancer?

Pam March 18, 2011 Comments Off

View w wine What is it about wine?

Is it just me, or does just about everyone salivate at the mention of a glass (or three) of wine? Personally, I’m a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I can take it or leave it. But then, I don’t have a good history with it. When I was in my early 20’s, I freely drank whatever—including Scotch—and it didn’t bother me. Until one night I really poisoned myself on Cutty Sark and passed out in the bathroom at the Summer House in Woodland Hills. Yeah, it was over a guy. What a waste.

From that night on, and we’re talking thirty-some years, I haven’t been able to drink more than a few ounces of any kind of alcoholic beverage without getting ucky. Not lucky, ucky. Not enough to get a buzz until it’s buzz-into-nausea. Today, I notice a lot of folks around me have a love affair going on with the fermented grape juice. Most, if not all, social events include or are centered around wine and other spirits. We tend to celebrate. A lot.

All that being said, wine can be good. At least that’s what they say. Red wine, in particular, is supposed to be good for your heart. I don’t drink red, it usually gives me a walloping headache. I do like Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Sauvignon Blanc.

Wine is also good for cancer. Yep, it’s true. How do I know? Well, it must be, when the drinking of it at a backyard party can raise over $5,000.00 for the American Cancer Society…which is exactly what we will be doing on May 7^th of this year. POP A CORK FOR A CURE is in its fifth year now, and we are full steam ahead with determination that this will be a banner year. This year, we’ll add a local slant: proceeds from the auction of our famous (or infamous!) novelty cake will go to the Circle of Hope, providing badly needed support to courageous women and men battling breast cancer.

But you don’t have to be a wine aficionado, or even like it to join in the fun. There’ll be desserts, hors d’oeuvres, live entertainment, auctions and raffles and lots of joyful people to mingle with. There will also be that great feeling you get when you know that even though you’re having fun, you’re doing something good and right that will help someone else, someone with cancer who can’t help themselves.

Now that’s worth celebrating!

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Date: Saturday, May 7, 2011, 2 pm to 6 pm

Minimum Donation: $25.00

Click on the link above for more info!

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Friday Potpourri: March 11

Pam March 11, 2011 Comments Off

Anything I might have planned to say has been trumped by the devastating earthquake in Japan. But as I can’t really add anything new, I’ll leave that to the journalists already on it. I will add that I was very, very moved while watching the “home” videos taken during the shaker. Too close to home. Too many scary memories of 1994 and 1971.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel. Got stuck in my head on Monday and didn’t leave. All week. Funny song about a boy unsuccessfully trying seduce a Catholic girl.

The song was released in 1977 and banned by many radio stations. Of course, you can’t BUY that kind of publicity, and the song shot to the top of the charts.

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints… the sinners are much more fun.” Ahh.

Here’s a great live version.

Not pretty but just delicious!

RECIPE OF THE WEEK: Baked Macaroni and Cheese by Alton Brown. Yep, culinary god Alton knows how to cook comfort food, my friends. Big time. Don’t waste time reading all the comments, just make this dish and wolf it down and smile. Recipe is here.

PS – The only change I made was using dried onions (2 T) instead of the fresh chopped ones. I was lazy. Don’t forget to try frying the leftovers as Alton recommends. I couldn’t; we had no leftovers.

A RANT ABOUT SHOPPING CARTS: I drive my daughter about 4 miles to school every morning. As we get close to her high school, we enter into a neighborhood that is a little more socio-economically challenged. My daughter pointed out an abandoned shopping cart forlornly occupying a corner we passed. It caused us both to notice more carts along the way, until we’d counted eight or so on sidewalks, lawns and alleys. My daughter asked about them, and I explained that when people don’t have cars they walk to the grocery store. They push the carts all the way home, and then just leave them. Sometimes the carts are retrieved by a cart service, other times they are vandalized or stolen for personal use. She was surprised and a little troubled. “Can’t they just buy a cart for themselves?” I told her many of them probably could – they sell the kind you drag along behind you fairly cheap at the swap meet – but they choose to use the “free” ones instead. After she got out of the car, I counted eleven more across the street from the school.

Why is that? Is it just a sense of entitlement? Or a minor sort of rebellion? Surely it costs the supermarkets money in retrieval, damages and flat out loss of carts, which affects us all.

I’ll stop now before I start sounding like Michael Josephson (for whom I hold the deepest respect) on Character Counts.

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AND WHAT THE JUDGE SAID…

He said it to Lindsay Lohan, but he meant it for Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen, too, and anyone else who seems to think their notoriety gets them some special privilege in this world: “You’re no different than anyone else. So please… don’t push your luck.” Hear, hear.

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Photos of the Week: March 7

Pam March 7, 2011 1 Comment

These were taken between February 16 – 28 with my Blackberry. Not great quality but they record something

Our city's flag stash. These go up along one of the man drags every patriotic holiday.

North on Interstate 5 passing Pyramid Lake

Saugus Speedway; closed to racing but open to swap meeting. Has aged with character. These stands were already second-hand when installed in 1950.

Vintage Bug; I doubt its owner will mind.

Normally, I would blur out the license plate number, but this Beetle owner probably loves his vanity plate, and with good reason. I only snapped off one shot as I was strolling the swap meet, but you can see by the gleam that this little ‘buggy’ is in pristine condition. Makes me miss my ’69 Karmann Ghia, which was not a convertible but a fine ride nonetheless.

Next weeks pictures will be shot with my better camera.

Back At It

Pam March 6, 2011 4 Comments

My absence can be explained. And babysitting doesn’t count.

Excuse Number One: I’m back in school. Taking two classes, both them rather writing-intensive. English 101 (sigh; FINALLY) and History of American Film. Now, even with all that writing, I still should be able to come up with a blog once in awhile, but for…

Excuse Number Two: Blockage. Have had trouble writing. No trouble with creativity, or thoughts, or ideas for what to write; just haven’t been able to start. It’s like this… if I don’t perceive that I have enough time to put into a writing project, no matter how small, I won’t start it. It’s a rut, I know, perpetuated by…

Excuse Number Three: Identity. My blog doesn’t know what it is, or what it wants. Does it want to opine? Reminisce? Inform? Entertain? Bore people to death? This not-knowing-what-kind-of-content-I want is debilitating in itself. Readers, I understand, prefer consistency, and entertainment. What I had for lunch or how I cussed out another driver isn’t interesting, to me or to anyone else.

So, henceforth, I’ve made a plan to stick to a rudimentary routine. We’ll see if it works.

Meanwhile, it’s back to eating chocolate and watching the world go by.

California’s Lighthouses: The History and the Mystery

Pam January 13, 2011 1 Comment

CaLighthouses20110122 January 12, 2011 – Santa Paula, CA – The earliest of California’s 35+ lighthouses have protected its coastal waters for over 160 years, and are thus a big part of the state’s history. According to local So. Cal. author Pam Ripling (who also writes as Anne Carter), these iconic symbols of protection, guidance and times past evoke a variety of thoughts and emotions. In recognition of Blanchard Community Library’s Centennial Celebration of California History, Ms. Ripling will share her knowledge of our West Coast beacons, relating how they came to be and where they are now.

Beginning with an overview of the multitude and variety of light stations constructed statewide, Ripling with focus on a few of her favorites, relating rich historical detail and anecdotal background. Ms. Ripling will also explain how, as a mystery author, she is inspired by lighthouses and works with them as aura-enhanced settings for her novels. Throughout her travels, Ripling has visited many of these lighthouses and will offer an entertaining PowerPoint slideshow to augment her presentation.

Also included in Ms. Ripling’s talk will be a discussion for fiction readers and aspiring authors about the fascinating process of researching her subjects. She will explain why an abandoned lighthouse six miles off the California coast might be the perfect setting for romance…and possibly murder. Using the real-life St. George Reef Lighthouse as her inspiration, Ripling (as Anne Carter) penned her second paranormal lighthouse mystery, CAPE SEDUCTION, (Echelon Press, 288 pp., $13.99), released in the fall of September, 2010.

Extensive research included interviewing one of the last keepers from St. George Reef Lighthouse. While the station in Ripling’s book is entirely fictional, the Coast Guardsman’s memories were invaluable in helping the author create a believable setting for CAPE SEDUCTION. “He described in great detail what it took to keep the lighthouse working—without electricity—in the 1940’s, and what one would have to do to survive locked away in a tower entrapped by treacherous seas.”

Born in the Midwest, Pam Ripling is the author of six published novels, a variety of fictional shorts and non-fiction articles. The married mother of three is a member of Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles and her short story Just Like Jay appears in their newest anthology, MURDER IN LA LA LAND.

Ms. Ripling will be signing a limited number of her books for attendees.

Blanchard Community Library is located at 119 North 8th Street, Santa Paula, CA 93060-2709. For more info on the library’s Centennial Celebration, contact District Librarian Daniel Robles at (805) 525-3615.

Loretta Young: An Oscar and an Emmy

Pam January 6, 2011 Comments Off

vintage - loretta young Born today, in 1913, was film and television star Loretta Young. As a child, I adored this beautiful, versatile actress, and faithfully watched her program, “The Loretta Young Show” (1953 – 1961). Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, as Gretchen Young, Loretta (later named so by the studio for which she worked) was first a child extra at the age of four. By fourteen, she had a contract with what would later become Warner Bros., and a year later she made her first credited film, The Whip Woman.

Loretta made headlines when, in 1930 at age seventeen, she eloped with her co-star Grant Withers from The Second Floor Murder. Withers was nine years her senior, and the marriage was soon annulled. Apparently, some quick thinking moguls at the studio re-titled the starring pair’s soon-to-be-released film Too Young to Marry.

Overall, Loretta Young made something like 100 films, working with such Hollywood heavyweights as Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille, and Orson Welles. She was a beloved leading lady who appeared with Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracey, Charles Boyer, Ronald Coleman, and Robert Taylor, to name some of the many popular actors of the day. Her Oscar nod came with a Best Actress win for 1947’s The Farmer’s Daughter, beating out favorite Rosalind Russell for the coveted award. I recounted this scene in the beginning chapters of CAPE SEDUCTION, as my characters dine at the Brown Derby and remark about Loretta’s shocking upset. Nothing like real-life drama to bring a sense of authenticity to a novel’s era!

Loretta went on to receive an Emmy (1953) for her dramatic television series, the first actress to earn both the Emmy and the Academy Award. All in all, she accepting-oscar won three Emmys, two Golden Globes and one Oscar, and snagged many nominations. Possibly one of the most interesting stories about her concerns daughter Judy Lewis, known to the public as adopted during Young’s marriage to second husband Thomas Lewis. In her 1994 autobiography, Lewis claimed that she was actually Young’s biological daughter with actor Clark Gable, Loretta’s co-star in 1935’s Call of the Wild. The claim was ultimately confirmed by Loretta herself in a biography published after her death in 2000 from ovarian cancer.

She is attributed to saying, on strategy: “The trick to life, I can say now in my advanced age, is to stop trying to make it so important.”

Another Auld Lang Syne

Pam January 4, 2011 2 Comments

Our Lovely Tree

Happy New Year.

Have been thinking about what to say, but I’m so late I’m afraid all the good topics have already been written. And it’s already the 4^th; folks are probably DONE hearing about how bad the ending of LOST was, how sad it was when so-and-so passed away, how shocking it was to see Miley sucking on a bong. Okay, maybe not so shocking, that.

And the year to come? My plans? I have plenty. In the writing arena, I’ve made some decisions concerning my backlist, which has been just sort of sitting without much support from me. These three books are going to get a minor makeover and be re-released under my own publishing byline by this spring. New edits, new covers, new prices. I mean, why not?

Becoming a publisher means I can publish some other things, too, experimental works and some shorts for a couple of

Great Room Ready for Drywall

new authors just wanting to dip a toe in the water. I’ll need an editor or two, and some help with the cover art. Cover art must be first rate, it’s the very first impression and if it’s shoddy or amateur, no level of quality in the book will make a difference.

That being said, my books with Echelon (CAPE SEDUCTION, POINT SURRENDER) will stay with Echelon. I have no desire to move them, and will continue to promote them alongside my newly released backlist work. If I’m right, all will benefit. I will focus heavily on ebooks this year (as if I haven’t for twelve years already!), although with the help of sites like Amazon’s CreateSpace I can re-release my older books in paperback as well. I’m glad for that, for those people still digging in about paper.

Once I reach a level of completion with this project, I’ll be able to resume work on my next lighthouse mystery. ANGEL’S GATE is started, but I felt it was heading toward a proverbial cul-de-sac and I need to back up and take a turn. I’m hoping to be able to convince the PTB to let me inside the real Angel’s Gate Lighthouse in Los Angeles Harbor. I just need to meet the right person!

Upcoming:

On January 22^nd, I’ll be speaking at the Blanchard Community Library in Santa Paula, California. The topic? Lighthouses, of course! Specifically, California’s lighthouses, and how they helped shape our history (it is California history month, after all.) I will focus on a few specific beacons, then segue into those that inspired my work. Really looking forward to this event.

Considering Romantic Times Convention on April 8 at the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Pricy, but lots of fun. Will advise.

April 30/May 1, in addition to my yearly stint signing with Sisters in Crime/LA, I’m joining a small consortium of authors in a booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, this year being held at the University of Southern California. I hope UCLA fans won’t stay away!

The cabin in the mountains is coming along nicely! Should be done late February. I can’t wait to hunker down with my books and hot toddy before a roaring fire…

Outgoing:

Over the holidays, my niece and I took a day off and drove up to Santa Barbara for lunch. To our astonishment, both Barnes and Noble and Border’s were selling out their inventories, both closing their doors on December 31^st. These stores are across the street from each other. I guess Santa Barbara book buyers will have to turn to the web. And ebooks?

Speaking of those minute miracles, I am rapidly filling up the new COLOR NOOK my husband bought me for Christmas! Man, do I love this device. I’ve always been somewhat of a gadget person, but this thing is fab. Does almost all that an iPad does – for half the money. I’ve loaded it up with songs, photos, books – I can do a crossword puzzle, check Facebook, write an email and edit my latest manuscript – and I can do it in the dark!

Follow up:

Further to my “Long Lost Relatives” post, I was contacted by my newly discovered cousin’s ex-wife. I wrote her back, giving her all the info I had and the one photo from my website. She has yet to respond, but I can wait. It’s been my whole life, after all.

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Our Lovely Tree Happy New Year.

Our Lovely Tree

Happy New Year.