7th Grade Memories

Back when I first entered kindergarten, my mom did mild bit of forgery on my hospital birth certificate to get me into school a year early. So, I was 4 when I started kindergarten, 5 starting 1st grade, 6 at the beginning of 2nd, etc. I was a smarty-pants, so I did pretty well, spending all 7 years of K-6 in the same school.

If you’ve done the math with me, you’ll know I started 7th grade as an 11-year-old. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I’d gone on to the local junior high with my friends. But the summer between 6th and 7th, we moved from Los Angeles County to the San Bernardino Mountains. I would have to start those most agonizing school years, junior high, in a new school where I knew no one. Even worse, the school I would be attending was a diabolical experiment called a “junior-senior” high school (7th through 12th grade). Okay, it wasn’t diabolical. There weren’t enough students for two schools. But still, that was a lot for a nerdette like me to face.

I was positively geekish as an 11-year-old. I wasn’t too great at personal hygiene, knew zilch about makeup, was awkward and a little pudgy. I remember taking a stab at shaving my legs one morning before school, except I only had time to shave one. So I went to school with one hairy and one not.

So, not any kind of popular. Rubbing elbows with a bunch of cruel, haughty 13- and 14-year-old 8th graders was enough of a challenge, let alone those lofty high schoolers.

Luckily, the older ones ignored me as being beyond notice. The teachers adored me, since I was a Good Student. And there were a few students in my age group, the ones who walk with the angels, who were kind to me, even if they weren’t actually friends. A couple of the nicest were cheerleaders, so you can dump that stereotype.

But there were the mean girls, as there always are. They took such delight in embarrassing and belittling me. They were definitely not cheerleaders. There was nothing cheerful about them.

I sometimes wonder what happened to my tormentors. Maybe they married ugly guys and got fat. Maybe they had an epiphany and realized the error of their ways and were nice forevermore. Ah, I can dream.

So, worst high school memory–looking forward for weeks to the field trip to Disneyland, then getting hit with a horrible flu the day we were supposed to go. I went anyway and was miserable the whole time.

Best high school memory–dissecting a mink (long dead and preserved in formaldehyde–and no, today I would never buy/wear an animal fur of any kind). My lab partner and I decided to focus on the skeleton. When it took too long to cut the meat off the bones, I took the leg home to work on it there. Mom got the great idea to boil it on the stove in water. We boiled and boiled without effect until Mom got the idea to add bleach to the water. Extremely dangerous, but boy, did it work. Nothing but bones left after just a minute or so. Don’t try this at home!

Long story short, I was able to reconstruct a beautiful mink leg skeleton model (okay, there were some teeny tiny bones I threw away cuz I didn’t know where they went). My biology teacher was so enamored with the skeletal leg, he confiscated it. 😠 Sigh, all these years later, I still regret that he never gave it back.

New Skills = New Responsibility

Have you ever tried cooking something new (and a bit challenging) and it turns into a household staple? And when it becomes a must-have, you’re having to make that not-so-new thing again and again because your spouse or your kids (or you!) would be very disappointed without it?

I suspect were all trying new things with the pandemic shutdown. The staying-home-all-the-time part isn’t new to me because writing has been my day job for quite some time now. I’m used to working in front of a computer in my home office. But until the pandemic shutdown hit, I never had to worry about how I looked from the shoulders up or how the background looked via my webcam.

My new skill that led to a new responsibility was making homemade English muffins. I came across this recipe in the Washington Post back in March 2020 and thought I’d give it a try. My husband especially likes English muffins for breakfast so I thought it would be a nice treat for him.

I’ve been baking bread for years, so this wasn’t a huge stretch. But after the first batch, hubby definitely wanted more. He said he could just buy store bought, but I knew he would be much happier eating the homemade ones made him. So that one experiment has become an every other week (or so) ritual when hubby tells me, “I’ve only got two left. Can you make more?”

It’s become a nice cooperative effort. He’s never made bread, so I make the dough and let it rise in the fridge overnight. The next day, we work together to measure out the 12 blobs of dough that will become muffins. I put a blob on our kitchen scale and he shapes it on the cornmeal covered cookie sheet. Then after another 2-hour rise, he cooks the muffins in our electric skillet.

Over the 2+ years since we started our muffin making venture, I’ve modified the recipe. We use our electric skillet instead of the cast iron pan the recipe calls for because we ended up with burned muffins. Hubby isn’t super fond of whole wheat or honey, so I switched to rye muffins sweetened with sugar and flavored with caraway seeds. I’ve also gotten lazy and rather than the egg white called for in the recipe, I throw in a whole egg.

I’ve also started to make other breads more regularly. My favorite is olive bread, my version of a tasty bread we used to buy at the Bel Air market. I use Peter Reinhart’s lean bread recipe from his book Artisan Breads Every Day, and add 3/4 cup of sliced kalamata olives and substitute 1/2 cup of the olive brine for some of the water. It is divine.

Did you start something new during the shutdown? Let me know in the comments.

May Your Holidays Be Bright

Just a short message to all who celebrate Christmas (and those who don’t, but like the decorations, lol). I love seeing my tree up and take far too many pictures of it. I have nearly 12 years represented here, although I’m missing a couple years.

2008-2012 (mysteriously missing 2009)

I’m an ornament collector (I can stop any time, I swear). Every year I either buy new ones or my kids buy me one or two. And don’t even get me started on the socks they give me. Last year was doughnuts & llamas (not on the same socks, however).

2013-2016 (cameo appearances by Tenka & Zak)

This year I went a little crazy buying sea life ornaments. If you look close enough at 2021, you’ll see a couple jelly fish, a crab, a seahorse, a sea turtle, and a couple of flamingos, one dressed as a mail carrier and one as Santa.

2017-2021 (2018 MIA, photo bomb by Tenka)

I hope you have a lovely end of 2021, no matter what holidays you celebrate.

Is Recombined Really a Christmas Movie?

While my largest body of work is in the form of published novels, I have also written a number of screenplays. I have a habit of writing a script, then deciding it would make a better novel or writing a novel that later becomes a script. My Tankborn Trilogy started as a feature screenplay (for a full-length movie). The trilogy then came full circle when I adapted the world of Tankborn into a short film script. Here’s an account of how it all happened.

Back in September 2016, I attended a pitch session in Los Angeles. It was one of those “speed dating” kinds of things, where we had five or ten minutes to sell our work to a director. After time ran out, the director would move down to the next writer in line and we writers would do our sales pitch all over again.

The Tankborn Trilogy

I hadn’t intended to pitch my YA sci-fi trilogy, Tankborn, but I’d brought along a copy of the first book to show I had some cred. Once the five directors I pitched to spotted the hardcover sitting on the table, they didn’t seem to want to talk about anything else. I had screenplays to offer up, but the book was “IP” (Intellectual Property, a term I learned that night). And for many in Hollywood, IP is like catnip to producers and directors.

I hit it off with one director in particular, Regina Ainsworth, and I sent her my trilogy. Regina loved the books and wanted to talk to me about a possible movie trilogy. But by the time of our chat, I realized what I really wanted to do was to adapt the three books for television. Regina came around to my way of thinking, but then she upped the ante. To give us a “proof-of-concept” to use to pitch the TV series, we would make a short film.

We brainstormed ideas, and eventually agreed on the concept for Recombined. It took over a year from the concept to the script (rewrites, and rewrites, and rewrites). Plus we were fundraising, and Regina was locking down locations, crew, and cast.

Recombined Movie Posters

Meanwhile, we were writing draft after draft of the pilot for our series and working out the series bible. I was working on other projects as well, and helping Regina whenever I could. But as director, the heaviest lift was hers. Finally, in early December 2018, at the former Warner Bros Ranch lot in Burbank, our marathon shoot of Recombined commenced. For that part of the story, check out this post from 2019.

So, is Recombined a Christmas movie? You decide:

• It was shot in December, the month we celebrate Christmas
• The plot of Recombined revolved around a celebration, just like Christmas does
• It premiered in November, which is pretty close to Christmas
• There were festive decorations on set

Festive decorations

QED

So, what movies do you think are non-obvious Christmas movies? Share in the comments.

December Birthday Girl

December is my favorite month. Besides the holidays, it’s my birthday month. As a kid (and even as an adult), it seemed to take forever for my big day to roll around. My sisters’ birthdays were earlier in the year, so they got to celebrate long before me.

Even though I was a December baby, I always got a separate celebration and gifts for my birthday and Christmas. My mom and grandma loved to party and always made my birthday a fun day. Mom would often make a “Barbie doll” birthday cake. That’s me on the left with my older sisters.

We would make a piñata out of paper grocery bags decorated with loops of tissue paper, then hang it outside and smash it with a stick until all the candy fell out. So much fun.

Christmas was another high point in December. My grandma would put up a tree. For years, we had one of those odd aluminum ones with a color-changing light that shined on the metal tree from below. Also, my papa a fake fireplace for Santa that my papa made. What can I say? Not too many fireplaces in Los Angeles.

My sisters and I couldn’t wait until Santa came. We’d go to church on Christmas Eve and wake on Christmas to piles of gifts filling the living room floor.

My dad was Jewish, but he went along with the Christmas joy. Later, when I married my Jewish husband, we started celebrating Hanukkah. I learned to love latkes (yummy) and lighting the Hanukkah lights.

It was a different kind of joy when my boys were old enough to memorize the Hanukkah prayer in Hebrew before lighting the candles. They took turns on the eight days of Hanukkah, and they loved it when they were the one to light them on the eighth day when all of the candles were blazing.

I do love decorating my Christmas tree every year. I particularly like unusual ornaments, and always look for new ones. In addition to the owl, fairy, and octopus shown in the picture above, I have a porcupine, a Chinese dragon, a narwhal, and a gecko licking a candy cane, among others.

Do you have any favorite traditions from the holidays? Feel free to share in the comments.

Holidays, Family, Memories

With the November and December holidays approaching, I’ve been thinking back to how we celebrated in the past. As I was growing up, every holiday get together took place at Grandma’s house. From New Year’s Day through New Year’s Eve (including all the birthdays), everyone gathered at Grandma’s for too much food and drink, and sometimes way too many presents. After dinner, we’d often crowd around the dining room table for a poker game.

How I learned the crucial life skill of playing poker

By the time I had my first son, my mom and stepdad had bought a restaurant overlooking Mono Lake, and Grandma moved up there with them. After that, we celebrated at least Thanksgiving and Christmas in the dining room of the Mono Inn. It was a long drive (7 hours) with a toddler and a baby, but so beautiful once we were there.

Left, the family restaurant, middle, the restaurant dining room with all of us crowded around the table, right, Mono Lake CA

All those years that Grandma hosted the holidays, she did all the cooking. When I was old enough, she’d let me do the relish tray, but other than that, it was all on her: the turkey (for Thanksgiving and Christmas) or ham (for New Years and Easter), the mashed potatoes or potato salad, the yams or her incredible baked beans. She did it all. Amazing.

The dessert table, as if we had room after a huge Easter dinner. It’s possible I made the bunny cake.

How do you do your holidays? Always in the same place, or do members of the family trade off? Let me know in the comments. It would be great to share stories.

Memories of Halloweens Past

I loved Halloween as a kid. Spooky decorations. Carving jack-o-lanterns. Dressing up in a costume and going out door to door in the neighborhood.

And candy, candy, candy! After I got home from trick-or-treating, I immediately dumped out my candy on the living room floor and took stock of what I got.

My mom could be pretty creative with the costumes. One year she made my two older sisters matching pumpkin costumes. I don’t know why, but Mom tied them together by the wrist. Maybe she didn’t want them to get lost? One of my sisters told me she was in tears the whole night.

The next Halloween it was my turn to wear the pumpkin costume. Mom stuffed a bunch of newspaper into the big orange bag to make it round like a pumpkin. I remember how scratchy it was to wear. To give you an idea of what it looked like, here’s Gnorm the garden gnome wearing a pumpkin costume.

Pinocchio was one of my favorite books, so another year, Mom made me a Pinocchio costume. It had shorts with suspenders and a white shirt. To make me look like a wooden marionette, Mom wrapped brown Kraft paper around and around my arms and legs. I couldn’t bend my elbows or knees. Not sure how I made it around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat.

As a grownup, I’ve dressed up for the occasional Halloween party. A couple years ago, I attended a horsey Halloween. Those horses were saints considering what they put up with. Hershey, a quarter horse mare, was especially sweet to the kids despite being decorated with fake spider webs.

What are your memories of Halloween? What candy did you always want to see in your trick-or-treat bag? What was the coolest pumpkin you ever carved? I’d love to hear from you how you celebrated (or didn’t celebrate) the holiday. Let me know in the comments.

The Pluot Invasion

Is it just me, or did someone mess with August and make it last twice as long? Between triple digit heat here in Northern California, wildfires, and the ever present pandemic threat, I thought August would never end.

There are two other things I thought might never happen. One, I thought the fruit on my Flavor King pluot tree would never ripen. Two, once it did ripen, I thought I’d never get all the fruit off the tree.

In my last blog post, I talked about a Very Naughty Squirrel that stole all the fruit from my pluot tree. That tree was my Flavor Supreme, which only produced about a dozen pluots (it rarely produces much). The other pluot tree, the Flavor King, ripens much later in the summer. And this year the Flavor King exploded with fruit.

With all that bounty, you would have thought that Very Naughty Squirrel would have had a field day. But there has been no sign of any pilferage. For some reason, Mr. VNS doesn’t like Flavor King pluots Considering how much fruit there was, I might have welcomed a little thievery.

Whenever I’ve gone out to harvest, I’ve brought in the same enormous amount. And I swear to you that when I’ve gone out the next day, it looked like the tree had replaced the fruit I’d picked with a fresh batch. I brought in the last of it over the weekend, and I’m a little afraid to go out there again. There might be more.

I shouldn’t complain because these pluots are the most delicious fruit I’ve ever tasted. And the jam I make from them is like nectar of the gods. I just never thought I’d have such a large harvest that I’m sneaking bags of pluots into other people’s houses. 😉

I did can some (which was a disaster—can you say “exploding fruit?”). I plan to make more jam. And of course we’ll be eating fresh pluots like there’s no tomorrow. As good as they are, I don’t think we’ll get tired of eating them. I’m just worried they’ll overripen and go to waste. So, does anyone out there have some great recipes using stone fruit? I’m sure anything that calls for plums or apricots would also be good with pluots. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.

The Squirrel Wars

I grew up in Los Angeles, and in all my time there I didn’t see much wildlife. Up here in Northern California, critters are everywhere—turkeys, ducks, and geese waddling down the road, the occasional deer in the front yard, skunks and raccoons causing a ruckus.

Then there are the squirrels.

Squirrels that climb my oak tree. Squirrels that use my back fence as a superhighway. Squirrels who bury acorns that sprout a million little oak trees in the spring.

And squirrels that strip my pluot tree of every last fruit. Grrr!

Full disclosure, they only stole the fruit from one pluot tree. What broke my heart was that it was the FIRST TIME that tree produced more than one or two fruits. I had lovingly wrapped each of those pluots in tiny stockings (like the ones you use to try on shoes) to protect them from the birds.

That didn’t slow down the squirrel at all. The furry invader ripped the pluots off the tree and left me tiny stockings and pluot pits all over the yard. It only spared one lonely pluot. Apparently the branch was too skinny to support even a squirrel.

I ate the pluot. It was delicious. Which only made me sadder for the others.

And that squirrel wasn’t finished. It discovered my tomato plants on the other side of the yard. And it stole not one, not two, but three of the four tomatoes on my Early Girl bush. They weren’t even ripe! Who eats an unripe tomato? At least before dipping it in breadcrumbs and frying it?

An uncouth squirrel, I guess. I even caught him in the act, up in my oak tree, chowing down on the tomato.

It’s too late for this year, but what do you do to keep squirrels from making a buffet of your garden? I’d love to hear from you, even if it’s just to share your favorite recipe for fried green tomatoes. Drop me a line with your ideas. Next year, we’ll show those squirrels who’s boss.

Recombined Shoot

DGA director Regina Ainsworth on the set of Recombined.

As I described in my post Movie to Books to Movie to TV, I’ve been working with director Regina Ainsworth with an eye toward pitching my young adult sci-fi novels, the Tankborn trilogy, as a television series. Regina suggested we needed a visual expression of Tankborn‘s world as part of our pitch. To that end, I wrote the short script, Recombined, while Regina built relationships, raised funds, and gathered cast and crew who were as passionate about the project as we were. We shot the film December 1st, 2018 on one long (and very cold) day in Burbank.

I’ve written a number short scripts and have seen three of them made into films, but other than one SAG actor in one of those films, cast and crew were amateurs. The cast of Recombined were all SAG-AFTRA, and we had a professional union crew.

The Warner Bros. signature logo

The shoot took place at Warner Bros. Ranch, just down the road from Warner Bros. main studio. It’s where the iconic Friends was shot, and it’s currently the home of Veronica Mars.

It was an unusual arrangement allowing us to shoot a short film on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot (one of the security guards said “That never happens”), and we were all so grateful for the opportunity. The cast and crew blew me away with their performances and dedication to the film.

As screenwriter, my main role was to consult on the script as needed. I also volunteered to be amateur stills photographer (we also had a pro, Molly White, taking stills). I entertained myself by getting pictures of the action between shots.

Most gratifying for me as the author of the Tankborn novels was seeing my characters come alive. The lead actor, Naïma Hebrail Kidjo, did an amazing job breathing life into my main character, the GEN (Genetically Engineered Non-Human), Kayla. I loved how the makeup/hair artist, Alexandra Bayless, created the GEN tattoo on the GENs’ cheeks and how she did Naïma’s hair for her role as Kayla.

Naïma Hebrail Kidjo (Kayla) in the makeup chair getting her hair braided and standing for a shot in front of the blue screen.

The script is loosely based on a “wedding” scene that I’d originally written for Tankborn which never made it into the final published book. With several modifications, the scene became the script for Recombined. Since I started from my own source material, I had the freedom to add any necessary characters, including the GENs Gaddiel and the Intercessor who officiates the wedding (joining).

Left photo, Glenn Stanton (Gaddiel), right photo, from left to right, Dane William, Jessie Hendricks (Alia), and Leilani Smith (Intercessor)

Recombined is now in post-production, Regina working hard on putting together in a cohesive way the jigsaw puzzle of the shots we got that day. I can’t wait to see the final product.

A picture, or it never happened. Here’s me hanging out with actors Shay Ali (Ved) and Patrick McCarthy (Captain Ansgar) before the first shot of the day. Photo credit: Molly White