STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Oct 6, 2005? 

? A very warm happy birthday goes out to my mother today.

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The announcement section has moved from the bottom of the newsletter to right here on top with my personal comments.

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So to kick off our first announcement in this new format we have:

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Announcements:

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COVER THE BUTTER examines guilt, narcissism, good and bad sex--before Kate Cadogan
finally escapes to the lavender fields of Provence--at the age of 46. It's NEVER too late
to start over.

A Booksense Bestseller!
Dutton Adult/ISBN: 0525948767

Cover the Butter is a warm, funny and poignant novel, which charts the life of Kate
Cadogan, a "lost" housewife trying to make sense of her past and present.

Kate's story spans the 1960s to the 1990s, covering the turmoil, both good and bad, of
her transition from inexperienced teenage girl to worldly-wise forty-something mother.

Central to the story's emotional impact is the relationship between Kate and her Irish
mother, Biddy, whose moods swing in unpredictable and hurtful ways - one minute tender
and loving, the next heartbreakingly cruel. Coupled with a weak-willed father, who
succumbs to his wife's domineering ways, the Cadogan family is a complex mesh of pain and
devotion, humour and heartbreak, unfulfilled expectations and adoration.

It's this very complication that ties Kate in knots: she never seems to be able to break
free of her parents restrictive and confidence-sapping chains. And when she marries her
self-centred, emotionally distant and just a little bit pompous husband, Rodney, the
escape she once dreamed of is anything but.

Fortunately she has strong friendships, rooted in a shared childhood, and two doting
Welsh grandparents to whom she can turn. But even so, there are some secrets that she
keeps to herself, the pain of which, to this reader at least, seemed so real I could feel
the aching grief resonate off the page.

It is Kabak's ability to capture the entanglement of human relationships in such a very
real way that makes Cover the Butter such a powerful read. What I loved so much about
this book was the immediacy of the writing, which seems effortless and seamless. The
prose is stripped back and unadorned, but this is not to the detriment of atmosphere or
emotion. If anything it adds to it. Kabak has such an eye for detail that she can convey
the very essence of a scene or an emotion without wasting a word.

In many ways, Cover the Butter reads like the book that Maeve Binchy and Joanne Harris
might have collaborated on: friendships, family, romance, food and travel all rolled into
one. I loved it, and felt genuinely sad when the story came to an end. I had wanted it to
go on forever.

Review: READING MATTERS

http://carriekabak.blogspot.com/
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/AnnieRuddock/
http://www.coverthebutter.com/excerpt.html
http://www.prairieden.com/interviews/kabak.php

http://carriekabak.blogspot.com/

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Now on to the good stuff..........

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Today's Queue Stories
~**~**~**~

Listen for Their Voices? 

Joyce C. Lock

? ? ?  If we truly believe knowledge will pass away, why; spend lives competing to know about God, think our training is omnipotent truth, and war over doctrinal differences (causing separation of company from those not like us)??  Brother against brother is a testimony lost people notice.

? ? ?  When standing before God, He won't be asking what we believe, how much we know, or even where we studied. Though, we are accountable for 'who' we believe; gods or God.

? ? ?  With humorous intentions, a young teen expressed interest in having a T-shirt designed to read, "I only do what the voices tell me to do."?  "The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light," Lu. 16:8.

? ? ?  Jesus said, "My sheep HEAR my voice ... and they follow me," Jn. 10:27.?  "Be more ready to HEAR, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil," Ec. 5:1.

? ? ?  Wisdom begins once we stop telling God what He believes, ask Him, and listen for His answer.?  The Spirit of truth will guide us into all truth, Jn. 16:13.

? ? ?  Perhaps then, churches could unite in love: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all," Ep. 4:5-6. ? Paul's vision for the church included that we all grow into a unity of the faith.

? ? ?  "For there is (only) one God, and (only) one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," I Ti. 2:5.?  Out of the mouth of babes, listen for their voices.

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?© by Joyce C. Lock
http://our.homewithgod.com/heavenlyinspirations/

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~**~**~? 

Good Old Days, number three

Bill Walker

wildbill6807@yahoo.com

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Good old days, when before K-Mark, Wal-Mart, and some other chains. When you went to a certain store to buy certain things.?  That was a store that sold a certain line of goods. There was department stores. Sold men, women and children clothes and such. There was a Sears, Wards, Penny's stores. Stores that sold men clothes, that all they sold. Women stores same way. Man never be found dead in a woman store, unless he was buying fair lady some gift. He didn't go near certain counters.?  There was food stores, those sold only food, maybe mops brooms and such. You went to a store for certain things, that was what they had.

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Stores opened at 8 AM, some later at 9 AM. All was open by 9, closed at by 6 PM. That was Monday through Friday.?  Saturday was 8 or 9 AM, closed at 9 PM.?  Locked up tighter then a drum on Sunday.

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Saturday was the big day down town. People came to town. Farmers, factory people, all came to down town.?  Spend the day, or a good part of the day down town. There was a lot of cafes down town. That is if you made it a day to be down town, you met at Joe's cafe for lunch at a certain time. Cost all of a dollar for 4 bowls of soup, and something to drink. Soup was a good meal at Joe's, lot of ham and beans.

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Men set in the car, or stand in small groups. Talk about the crops, the weather, crooks in government.?  If it was fall and football time.. Talk would be ding bat Huskers lost another game. When are we going to have a team that can at least? beat Kansas State. Every one in those days walked on Kansas State, here we can't do nothing but get a tie. The score was zip to zip, in other words nothing, just as well as stayed home.?  One say well there was only 5,600 people wasted their dollar going to the game.

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Women folk was shopping, that could take all of the blasted day. Ralph said he gave wife 5 dollars. She will spend every nickel for something. Harry said yes he did the same, well a couple more dollars,? his wife? said she needed some women's things.

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About 8 PM here comes Mrs. Ralph, she has a small sack of grocery's. Tells Ralph there is two big sacks of stuff at Safeway. He says OK. Hope you didn't spend the whole 5 dollars. She said well came to 4.50 for it all. He says what,? 4 dollars and 50 cents for three sacks?? ?  She said well coffee is 39 cents now and we was about out. I needed sugar, and flour. Got a?  4 pound roast for 85 cents, and a couple pounds of lunch meat for 29 cents a pound.?  Pound and half of hamburger for 25 cent a pound. Tell you one of these days it is going to cost 10 dollars just to come to town, and buy food for a week.

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Hearts With Soul New BookTinker & Poo, The Boys Write

Bill Walker tinkerpoo2000@yahoo.com
Purchase, "The Boys Write"

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? ? ~**~**~

First Date, First Kiss

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? ? ? ? ? ? By Barbara Deming

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As we grew up, Dennis Walker and I couldn't walk down the same side of the road on the way home from school.?  In our classroom, teachers quickly learned early to put us in desks separated by several rows of other students.?  Captains didn't dare put us on the same baseball team during our physical education hour.?  If we got within striking distance, there would be much to-do about anything or everything.

What was our problem??  Though we had some background differences-his family was wealthy mine low middle class, he was Catholic, I was Protestant-neither of these made any difference to kids.?  For whatever reason we threw sparks off each other.
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Teachers had no control over our animosity.? ?  It finally came to a head when we actually got into a physical tussle one afternoon-I ended up with broken glasses, Dennis sported a black eye.?  The teachers insisted our mothers step in, stops this nonsense or they would do something unheard of in our small school in the early 1950's-suspend the both of us.

? I can still remember sitting in the Walker's living room, Dennis beside his mother on one sofa, me beside Mama on another.?  They were at wits end as they each questioned us.?  Words like "what is wrong with you two" ring in my ears.?  I do remember both of us hanging our heads, glancing at each other sheepishly now and then.
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Mysteriously, we silently agreed on that day that enough was enough.?  We had no more fights.?  Just like that.?  It took us a while to begin to hang out with the same kids, to play on the same team, or share a table in the lunchroom.?  But we somehow managed to do just that.?  Both classmates and teachers must have been holding their breath the first time we actually walked home together, laughing and talking all the way.
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Dennis and I did become friends.?  At fourteen he was in a serious auto accident with an older cousin at the wheel.?  As soon as he came home, I was one of the first to visit.?  Head still in bandages, he flared his face would be scarred.?  When he returned to school, his hand seemed to always cover that side of his face.?  When you were that age, back then, other classmates who hoot and tease each other about any touchy-feely event.?  No one gave catcalls when I gently pulled Dennis' hand away from his face and touched my lips to his scar.
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And, yes, Dennis asked me out on my first date, bought me my first corsage of pink and white carnations and, at the end of that first fun-filled, easy event, Dennis and I shared our first kiss.?  It wasn't passionate or thrilling.?  It was merely a thank you, a sweet applause for the fact that we had grown up enough to appreciate each other, a mutual agreement that we had had a lovely first date.
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We didn't become sweethearts or go steady.?  But we did remain champions of each other's fate long into adulthood.?  I wouldn't recommend the route we took to get to that first date or kiss but it did make a lasting impression.?  Classmates were scared to date either one of us for years.

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tejasbabs@aol.com

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? Bio: Barbara Deming lives, volunteers and writes in San Marcos, CA. Her next collection of stories, "Pink Poodle Pie (and Other Tales of How Women Get Even) will be released soon.

~**~**~

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The Haircut

By DC Green

I was growing tired of peering through my too-long fringe and startling every Indonesian I encountered with my jungled beard and wild, salt-puffed hair. So I entered the local general store and asked the old lady behind the counter if she knew where I could score a haircut. She reached for pen and paper. For a moment I thought she hadn??™t understood my lurching Bahasa Indonesian, until she handed me the paper. I read her scrawl: "Jam duabelas, besok (two o'clock, tomorrow)"

"Uh??¦ terima kasih, Bu, (Uh... thank you, madam)" I replied, and walked out.

Next day I returned as instructed to find the store jam-packed with what seemed to be every member of the village. Squatting down at the front were the children who followed us to the surf each morning, now trying their hardest not to giggle. In the middle were various workers and farmers, a few women and a short policeman. At the back stood the most elderly - all men, all wearing the same lidless black caps and inscrutable expressions. They were arranged in curved rows, as if for a school photo. Yet there was no camera here. Rather, all these people had come for one reason only: to watch the foreigner have his hair cut. Sweat began to bead on my forehead.

A young lady cowered in the rear doorway. The old lady from the day before appeared and led her quietly but firmly to the centre of the shop. She grimaced at me and seemed to nod at the simple wooden chair before her. I assumed this was where I was meant to sit, and edged around the crowd to do so. The old lady pressed a huge pair of scissors into the young lady??™s hands and pushed her towards my chair. I looked up. Her dark eyes eluded mine, but her body language spoke fearful volumes.

Through my mind flashed visions of the Dutch, who only abandoned Indonesia because the Japanese left them no choice. Was I to be stabbed in the neck with those glinting scissors to pay for unpaid colonial crimes? Sacrificed, to the pre-Allah gods, in this bizarre hair dressing salon before this grim Islamic horde, my jugular gushing dark blood all over this pretty girl??™s best Hari Minggu dress?

The young hairdresser placed a towel around my shoulders and began combing out hair knots with a slender hand. She started slowly, but gained in confidence as the crowd began to ooh appreciatively at her control of both comb and flashing blades. One bold child in the front row began to discreetly scoop fallen locks and even more discreetly pass them back while my appearance evolved from a semi-hippy state to Top Gun candidate material. The young lady even removed my beard with a cutthroat razor, despite my feeble protests.

Finally, she sighed and bowed, and was led away by the proud old woman. She had done a fine forty minutes??™ work. The crowd began to disperse, though a few lingered to shake my hand and nod that I was now a much improved person. We had all been through an experience that would not quickly fade from memory; and it had cost the villagers nothing for the show, and me the rough equivalent of 75 cents.

? miltonbarrels@yahoo.com

About DC Green...

By the time DC was born he'd finished his first three books (spent most of his time finding somewhere to plug in his laptop). When the doctor smacked DC on the backside, he squinted up and went, ???Waaah!??™ This of course meant, ???Ah, you must be my agent!??™

DC went on to become an award-winning fiction and non-fiction writer who travelled the world for surf magazines (mainly because he couldn??™t afford his own air tickets). Today he lives on the NSW South Coast of Australia with one slightly crazy daughter and three very crazy cats. His first book for kids, Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine, will be published this year by Ibis Publishing.

"My 14 year old son couldn't put DC Green's work down. He was lost as soon as he read the first paragraph. All I heard was peals of laughter interspersed with "Yeuch!", "Gross" and other teenage expressions of appreciation. Check it out."

- Maria Stepek Doherty

Check out DC's first four chapters at: http://dcgreenyarns.blogspot.com/

Or order a copy of Erasmus James and the Galactic Zapp Machine at: http://www.bookmarkaustralia.com.au/

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Writers Feedback

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Dear Carol,?  thank you so much for publishing my "prom" story.?  And what great company you published me with!

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Hugs,

Barb

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In Praise of Older Women:?  Thanks Carol, great words of wisdom all we women need to remember.? ? ? ?  Gabrielle.

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In praise of older women ??“ Carol can this apply to men too??  Sylvain

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This is GREAT!?  I've added it to my articles pages.. ok?? thanks, Karin

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Wonder Lady, every one needs to read this piece of write up, be it young or old.?  Life takes turn, for everyone will come old one day.?  It may seem long to come but it comes so creepy until it overshadows.?  So, the youngest of today shall come old someday and also look back to the days of his or her youth.?  Sometimes, it is painful to see yourself aged but there is beauty in being old because it is a degree you obtain which you need not to go to school for.?  You will surely get the certificate of old age whether you study on it or you slept over it.?  Thanks for the simple and beautiful story as it is getting me prepared for those moments of old age.

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GEORGEWATERS OJEIGBE ??“ LAGOS, NIGERIA

Carol,

? ? ?  Fantastic!?  I couldn't agree with you more my friend.? I think every woman and man in America needs to read this one.?  I already sent it on to some of my friends.?  Wishing you every joy, Joe

This is so nice Carol.... All the stories are that the group send in.Thank's.Joyce

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I just want you to know that I have thought this since I was? a little girl. Yes, young women are beautiful but in a different way. An older woman can hold her self with grace and poise that a young woman doesn't even understand. I think that many older women are far more beautiful in more ways than a younger woman could ever hope to be. But that young woman will be there one day also. My mom always says, how you see yourself, I was there once, how you see me...you will be! Hope your doing well and having a great day Carol!

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With affection you gorgeous old woman (tee hee)

Tami

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Carol, all older women should be proud to be one when they read your article.?  I knew those wrinkles were there for a reason. LOL

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Hugs,

Barb

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Dear Carol

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What you write is very true.

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Man so often is superficial. True beauty surfaces from the inside out.

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Like it does from you.

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Have a good evening.

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Rob (<:

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Hmmm

I am an "older" woman.?  I earned every single glistening gray hair on my head.?  I've laughed so many times, the crow's feet don't lie.

I'm not ready for bifocals yet, but they're coming.?  I'll decide then how I feel about those.

But what I WOULD like is a new leg.?  I know I've earned every vericose vein that I have, but boy, when you get older, those things hurt and swell.

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And just remember.........age is NOT important........

unless you're a cheese!

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What a beautifully written and interesting story, Este Lauder Perfume. It started me thinking about my mama and childhood.?  Thanks Carol. ??“ Sharlett

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Carol, your memories or lack of your mother wearing Estee Lauder is a wonderful piece. I wanted to hug you and wipe away all the hurt.

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Love,

Barb

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Hello Barbara,

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I enjoyed your story about the prom that never was and having baptist feet.?  I was not raised in a southern baptist church.?  I went to the community church in our little town which was interdenominational.?  We had several denominatons represented in our church.?  My parents frowned upon? me going to dances? when I was a teenager.?  It wasn't the dancing, because my parents would? often dance around the house and were very good at it. (Daddy taught me to dance too).?  It was the alcohol that was usually around during dances. Most places didn't allow alcohol in the buildings where dances were held but? somehow it was usually around? anyway.?  Those trips outside for a breath of fresh air? had a duel purpose.?  Anyway, I just had to laugh at your story because today? I am a southern baptist and? my husband and I love to dance!? ?  You know what??  There was quite a lot of dancing that went on in the Bible.? ?  Psalm 149:3...."Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre."? ?  Then there is Ecclesiastes 3:4:? ? "A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance."?  I believe God invented it.?  The problem is like most things in the world...it is what we do with the gifts and abilities God has given us.

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Prayer Requests and Updates

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? SENIOR WRITERS

Chief Writer: Sharon Bryant

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? Agee, Vance;? Apted, Violet;? Baker, Kathy; Batt, Al;?  Berry, Nell;

Boda, Ginger;? ? Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.;?  Cavalera, Robyn; Crider, Mark;? 

Deming, Barb; Doherty, Maria; Goodier, Steve; Halley, Ellie Braun;

Harris, Kathy Anne;? Hunt, Sharlette;? 

Jacobson, Gary;? Kiser, Roger Dean; Kerens, Claudia; Jenkins, Pamela;

Liles, Norma; Lock, Joyce; Mazzella, Joe;? Ojeigbe, Georgewaters;

?  Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan;?  Shiveley, Debra; Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Streidel, Saskia; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam; Verhoeff, Jan

Walker, Bill; Walker, Joe;? Warner, Gorden K; Walsh, Sue

Whirity, Kathy;? White, Robert;