… Chinese bots who are visiting my blog.
There certainly are a lot of you.
Tag: completely self-indulgent posts
Rag-Bag Beanie
This is a simple rib-knit beanie. The only fancy thing about it, is that the yarn is made from twisting together scraps from my stash to create a “bag of rags” look. This is called a “Russian yarn ball.” And yes, they do frequently come apart as we are unwinding the Russian yarn ball, and have to be put back together again.
You could create a Russian yarn ball that was more Court Jester and less Bag of Rags, but I like this darker, duller look. I have a bonnet made this way, and I love it, but it turns out there are more opportunities to wear a beanie.
The beanie pattern is one a I photocopied from a library book years ago, and the idea for the Russian yarn ball is out of another knitting book from the library.
Beta-Read this Wild Book
Want to read the story behind this image?
I’m looking for beta readers for the draft of my latest novel, The Bright World. If you’re interested, let me know through the Contact page, and I’ll e-mail you a copy of the draft. I’m looking for what is confusing, unsatisfying, or what you would like to see developed more.
Here’s a map of the world it takes place in:
The Trove, American Falls, Idaho
American Falls, Idaho, is the ultimate American Small Town.
What do I mean by Small Town?: a brief parenthesis
For those who are not American–by which I mean the United States–“small town” doesn’t have quite the same connotations as “village.” A “village” sounds older, like it might have been there for a thousand years, whereas a small town, because it’s in America, is no more than 300 and often only 100 years old. “Village” also sounds more homogenous (is everyone related?), and more rural. A village might have feuds and unspoken rules in it that go back a millennium. A small town, while it is getting a start on these things, is basically a recent, frontier development. Though there are founding families, there’s also a lot more movement. City folk come in, start businesses, or get jobs as teachers. Newcomers arrive from other small towns. Children grow up and leave. Americans are very mobile, and the composition and atmosphere of a small town reflects that. There isn’t as rigid a class system as in most other places. And, though American Falls, for example, is the county seat, there’s also a lot less bureaucracy and fewer government jobs than in a town of comparable size in Asia.
On the other hand, a “small town” is definitely not the same as “hood” (short for neighborhood), which is a village-like section of a large city. Small towns are typically located in farmland.
Anyway. American Falls has the following: a river. A hydroelectric dam. A railroad to take farm produce away to be sold. A lot with silos, trucks, and piles of produce near where this railroad passes through town. Lots of churches. Post office, barber shop, mom & pop shops on Main Street (tree-lined), one of which is of course a bar. A hometown football team. Gracious parks, a golf course, and a nearby cattle lot that you can smell most days. Pizza, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants, because this is America after all. It also has a small hospital, though like most people I prefer to take emergencies to the city hospital 25 minutes down the road. Oh, and a community theater!
You can walk around American Falls during the day without fear. Law and order is maintained. The town is hilly enough that, on these walks, you can catch glimpses of all these small-town features and feel as if you just stepped into a slightly more modern, drastically less New England Norman Rockwell painting. Rising above the town, on the southwest side, is the Big State Highway, and, beyond that, the rolling foothills.
I felt I had to burst into this paean to American Falls in order to set the scene for the main point of this post, which is that a delightfully hippie shop has come to our small town.
An Art Shop comes to our Small Town
This is the interior of The Trove, which opened in American Falls in May.
Here we are looking towards the back of the shop. Notice that it features jewelry, leather goods, and paintings involving UFOs. And that the owners are fond of 78 records.
I first heard about The Trove from a person I met at the town festival this summer. This person, who was buying one of my son’s paintings, suggested that The Trove might be happy to carry our work, since its stated mission is to showcase local artists. Although we don’t live actually in American Falls, we figured we might be local enough to count. We headed straight from the town festival to The Trove, with the trunk of our car still full of paintings. Long story short, the owners of The Trove were amenable to this idea, and that’s why some of the paintings pictured above are by my son Andrew.
The mountain and the storm are my paintings, hung under the owner’s paintings of space and a (manatee?), over some quilts, and beside dish towels.
The Trove was even happy to carry a copy of my trilogy! So, if you ever find yourself in southeast Idaho, and want a touristy, artsy shop with lots of cool stuff, know that American Falls has one.
White Nails and Sho-Ban Casino Mug
Continuing with the “nails and mugs” series, just for fun. It’s these tiny luxuries that make life pleasant.
I got this mug at a local thrift store. I have never gambled at our local casino, but here is its web site.
The Sho-Ban tribal lands are less than an hour’s drive from my house. The Shoshone and Bannock tribes used to have a range that extended farther north, into central Idaho and Montana, as you can verify if you read the book Naya Nuki. They were moved to a smaller place, as has happened to so many tribes. Read this book for a strong argument that American Indians should be treated just like regular American citizens, not as collectivist wards of the state.
Anyway. Although I do not go to the Sho-Ban casino/hotel/event center to gamble, I have been there a number of times. Its banquet halls have hosted our local pro-life banquet for the last several years. Plus, I like to go and eat at their resto (fry bread! bison burgers!) and go to their gift shop. For my last two birthdays, I’ve asked my husband to get me a hand-beaded Sho-Ban item from the gift shop there. These things are not cheap, but boy oh boy, I love them so much. They also smell like woodsmoke when you first buy them.
Here’s a leather barrette beaded in classic Sho-Ban colors.
Apparently, people will come from out of state to play at the Sho-Ban casino. I’ve seen billboards advertising it in Utah, for example. And when my husband and I go and eat at the resto there, the servers assume we are staying at the hotel. I guess we are getting old enough to look the part.
To get from the Sho-Ban event center to our house, you can take the back roads. You can drive through the reservation, over Sage Hill, cross the Snake River, and come out on Highway 39.
It’s a little longer, but it’s prettier and gives a fresh perspective.
Rodeos also take place on the Fort Hall Reservation. I aim to attend one some day. We moved here in 2019, and by the time I realized I ought to attend a rodeo on the rez, they had been cancelled indefinitely because of you-know-what. But I think they are having them again now.
Reminder: The Strange Land will be 99 cents on Kindle Tomorrow
Ope, that’s not the cover we went with! That was an earlier draft of the cover. I thought you would like to see it, though.
Here’s the official cover:
The Strange Land will be Book of the Day over at onlinebookclub.org, which I’m sure Scott Hughes (the onlinebookclub guy) would be delighted if you’d visit. Scott is on all the platforms.
In a former life, I reviewed books for onlinebookclub. Now that I’m an indie author myself, I’ve used this site to get reviews and promotions. Their reviewers are, on the whole, terrific people.
How do you promote your book on social media when you are not, yourself, on social media? That is a good question, Grasshopper. What is the sound of one hand clapping?
The Strange Land is a coming-of-age story set in ancient Beringia, among a small tribe destined to become the ancestors of the Native Americans. It focuses on a teenaged boy named Ikash, but you’ll find all kinds of drama, heartbreak, mysticism, and wilderness survival among its large ensemble cast. Some people’s favorite character is the bear. Get this thick, satisfying ramble through Ice-Age Asia and enjoy it over your summer vacation!
O.K., that is enough shameless self-promotion. Next week, I’ll go back to reviewing other people’s books, peering at other people’s ancient ruins, and ranting about their failure to define their terms. It’s going to be fun!
But thanks in advance to any of you who have gotten curious about, or helped me promote, The Strange Land.
Quote of the Week: Teenaged Hunter-Gatherer
Grandmother Zillah had apparently come by for a private word with Ikash’s father.
“Not forever, my son,” he heard her say. “Surely you and the boys can shift for yourselves for one winter.”
Ikash did not want to hear this conversation, but now he was trapped in the bunk while it was going on. He pulled a blanket over his head and tried to go back to sleep. He found his mind skipping over the actual content of his father’s words (this was a tactic that had often helped him to stay sane), but focusing in curiously on the words of Zillah. Had she really said something about Mother going away for the winter? Where could she possibly go?
He heard her say “You remember all the trouble that Ninna had,” and “Sari loves to cook.”
“She’ll bungle it up,” said his father. “She always does.”
“Always?” said Zillah. “No one is perfect, you know.”
“You were, Mother. I remember.”
“I had servants helping me, foolish boy! I had Shufer and Shulgi to help me clean and cook, and a whole farm to supply our house in the city.”
About half these words were unknown to Ikash. “Servants,” “city,” and even “farm” carried only the vaguest meanings in his mind.
The Strange Land, by me, p. 36
The Strange Land will be 99 cents on Kindle this Saturday
Lord willing an’ the creek don’t rise.
I agreed with onlinebookclub.org to make TSL Book of the Day on June 14, but only on the condition that it was free on Kindle. As of drafting this post, I’m still communicating with my publisher to make the durn thing free. As John Piper might say, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. I’m certainly not. But, with plenty of prayer, I trust that TSL will be free on this Saturday and will of course, with plenty of prayer, rocket into the stratosphere due to large numbers of positive reviews.
Edit: 99 cents was the best I could do. I have made arrangements with onlinebookclub. It will be 99 cents.
The Strange Land is a family saga that takes place in Beringia, the vast plain that used to exist where the Bering Strait now is, in approximately 10,000 B.C. Please go out and get it, if that’s just what you were looking for in your summer reading! Thanks in advance.
