I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions. Not of the sort like “I will exercize/write/whatever-makes-me-feel-virtuous more” variety. They generally don’t work out.

I do, however, believe in New Year’s Plans. Things like “I will go to the pool and swim half an hour three mornings a week.” I did that several years ago and have kept up with it pretty religiously. Or “I will work on my mess-in-progress for so many hours a week”. I find that as long as I make it specific, I’m pretty good at following through.

This year, I’m making a simple resolution, to remember to treat myself as a valued employee of my writing business rather than a slave. This means rewarding myself for making progress, allowing myself sick time if necessary, and making the time to lunch with writer buddies more often.

Of course, plans sometimes go awry. I’d planned to host my writer buddies at my home today for a post-holiday detox/New Year’s recharging party (complete with Mimosas, egg and cheesy things and of course, plenty of chocolate). However, we’ve had a minor blizzard which puts me to Plan B, hanging with the kids. I’m also snatching an hour to write while they’re out playing in the snow.

I expect the plans for this evening should work out. My husband and I used to go out for New Year’s in the years BK (Before Kids) but after that, sleep deprivation and the difficulty of getting sitters took over. Although in spirit I like the idea of family-friendly First Night celebrations, it’s usually so bitterly cold in our area that we’ve gone over to “cocooning”. We have a nice dinner at home, including at least one new recipe for the New Year. This year it’s cannoli cheesecake. Afterwards we all get into our PJs and go into the finished basement (aka the Man Cave) to watch movies until midnight. We watch the ball drop, we hug and kiss and then we’re all in bed by about 12:05.

So what is everyone else doing today or this evening? And I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2009!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Some snippets from an 1829 cookbook:

Coffee, like tea, promotes watchfulness; indeed some persons cannot sleep after drinking it in an evening.

It is considered good for asthmatic patients. A mixture of made-mustard in coffee, is reckoned good for rheumatic persons. Coffee is also considered beneficial in dull headache.

Roasted acorns, beech-mast, rye, pease, beans, &c. &c. are all used as substitutes for coffee; and by frugal French families chicory put to the coffee grounds, and boiled up afresh, is allotted to servants and young members of the household.

The bad quality of English coffee is become a sort of national reproach. Its capital defect is a want of material, or that material having either lain too long in powder, or in roasted berries. Coldness is the reproach of our coffee even more than muddiness.

So, coffee lovers: does this curl your toes? Are you picky about your coffee? Or do you drink whatever comes your way, as long as it has caffeine?

And don’t forget: next Tuesday, we’re discussing the first Ioan Gruffudd “Horatio Hornblower” here at Risky Regencies!

Cara
Cara King, who prefers tea

And apologies that this image is the only Regency-related item in this post. Right now, I’m snatching time to compose this post between school winter parties and packing for a trip to my parents and I have nothing relevant to say, except that maybe some of you can relate to my state last Saturday afternoon…

After coming home after running errands in blistering cold, I stared at my To Do List and felt so overwhelmed that I decided to make a fresh pot of coffee. So I rinsed the pot, ditched the old filter and discovered that the garbage can in the kitchen was full. I went out to the garage to throw it out.

As I returned to the kitchen, I saw the tray of cookies we were going to use as part of our Christmas tree decoration and remembered that I needed to put yarn through them for hanging. So I went upstairs to look for the white yarn, which I thought was in the sewing basket in the linen closet. Well, the yarn wasn’t in the sewing basket, but I ran across some crochet hooks, which reminded me that I planned to make a scarf for a friend and was going to shop for materials the next day. So I went through the crochet hooks and made a list of the sizes I own, to avoid buying more duplicates.

Then I remembered that I was there for yarn and concluded it must be in the larger craft box in the garage. As I headed to the garage, I passed the downstairs closet, saw my purse and remembered I was out of tissues. I made a mental note to get a small packet from the upstairs closet (where I’d just been, of course). Then I wandered into the kitchen and saw that I hadn’t put a new liner into the garbage can. I did that and then noticed the coffee pot still in the sink.

So I made some coffee, which made me want a cookie, which reminded me that I still needed that white yarn. So I headed back out to the garage and got the yarn. I drank some coffee, prepared the cookies for hanging, and felt a glowing sense of closure as I got ready to tackle the rest of my list.

But I didn’t get a packet of tissues into my purse until Monday.

Anyone else have days like these?

By the time this is posted, I will be on my way to my parents’ house, looking forward to a traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner, complete with smoked eel (ugh) and honey spice cookies (yum)! I hope you are all planning something fun and warmest wishes for a happy holiday!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Last year, I posted a copy of my annual faux-holiday letter (or, more correctly, my holiday faux-letter) here…and it got very few comments. Which may mean that no one’s interested.

But when has that ever stopped me? (After all, I’m supremely lazy, and I also believe that recycling is good for the environment.)

So here, unrequested, is a copy of my 2008 holiday-card-letter-insert-thingy:

CARA’S POLITICALLY GROUNDBREAKING, OVEN-BAKED, ADJUSTABLE-RATE, TRANS-FAT-FREE, RECESSION-PROOF, MORE-BELOVED-THAN-ROBERT PATTINSON, SO-GOOD-YOU’D-THINK-TINA-FEY-WROTE IT 2008 HOLIDAY LETTER

Greetings from the House of Books! My, a lot happened in 2008…

First: you may have heard of the Large Hadron Collider, a joint project by 100 countries and 10,000 scientists to discover sub-sub-atomic particles, further our knowledge of the universe, and win grant money, all while not creating a giant black hole that would eat the planet. The Large Hadron Collider succeeded in its last aim, but ran into a temporary snag on everything else.

What you may not have heard of was the Large Feline Collider, a joint project by two humans to discover super-super-evil kittens, further our knowledge of caring for lacerations and broken vases, and waste vast amounts of time saying intelligent things like “oh, what a cute tummy!” and “no, you can’t sleep in the fruit bowl,” all while creating two giant cats that would eat us out of house and home if only they could open their jaws wide enough. The Large Feline Collider succeeds in colliding with great destructive force several times a minute, with such energy that it turns any nearby object into several smaller objects.

I found sudden fame online this year, after my scholarly essay JANE AUSTEN’S “BATMAN” gained unexpected popularity with the surprisingly large intersection of the following three sets: (1) people who read Jane Austen, (2) people who saw THE DARK KNIGHT, and (3) people who think I’m funny. (I had until recently thought that the only member of all three sets was Todd, but apparently he has been joined by John Scalzi, several Australians, one of my long-lost friends from junior high, and a penguin.)

In other news, my novel MY LADY GAMESTER was translated and published in Germany. The part I don’t understand: in the book, the heroine’s little brother is a very bad student, struggling even with basic Latin. So how can he suddenly speak fluent German? Surely no lazy schoolboy could guess that the German word for “Elephant” is “Elefant”!

This summer, Todd and I and our stuffed cat attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, where Todd chaired a seminar that explained how to build a time machine in your basement. So, you ask, why don’t I have more time to write, now that I have a time machine? Well, I answer, I don’t have a time machine, because our condo doesn’t have a basement. (So why, you ask, doesn’t my future basement-owning self send a time machine back in time to me? Hmm… I’m asking myself the same question. And when I meet my future self, I’ll ask me in person.)

In still other news, it seems my cat has been running a Ponzi scheme, and has singlepawedly ruined the world economy. When asked to explain himself, he gave a muddled answer which included the words “mew” and “it wasn’t me, it was the evil aliens from Pluto.” (Sources close to the feline tell us that he once drove to Pluto in a Hyundai and unintentionally taunted the inhabitants about their deplanetation, giving the Plutonians a cold grudge against the hapless Earth cat. However, sources even closer to the feline say “he’s dirty as a three-dollar bill, and could really use a bath.”)

In national news, 2008 was a momentous year. Senator Barack Obama built himself an iron man suit and defeated the terrorists, the pessimists, the paparazzi, and the Volturi, to win the American presidency and become box-office champ. (Sources close to Obama once overheard him mutter “Yeah, I can fly.”) Mr. Obama’s next goals are rumored to be saving the TV show “Pushing Daisies” and improving his high score at “Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock.”

And remember — join us on the first Tuesday in January when we discuss the first Ioan Gruffudd Horatio Hornblower movie! And then come back the first Tuesday of February to discuss the Leslie Howard version of The Scarlet Pimpernel…

So, does anyone else out there have a Large Feline Collider? An Iron Man Suit? A time machine?

Cara
Cara King, who occasionally defeats her cat at Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock…

Happy Birthday, Jane Austen!!!!

This week, we’re supposed to be talking about our first Austen…but I’ve done that before here at Risky Regencies, so I thought I’d thrown in a little twist…and tell you what my first (and later) reactions were to my first several Austen novels and movie adaptations…

The first time I read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, I was thirteen, and I utterly loved it. (That part has never changed, though I do understand certain parts better now.)

I believe the first Jane Austen movie I ever saw was the Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, when I was a teenager. I liked it well enough, and for a while it even messed with my own memories of the book, leaving me with a vague belief that the book involved a lot of archery, and that Lady Catherine wasn’t all that bad in the end… 🙂 (When rewatching this at various times years later, I think I most admired Olivier’s interpretation of a shy Darcy.)

The second Austen adaptation I saw was the Rintoul/Garvie PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, also when I was a teenager. I liked it all right, but it didn’t excite me, and I definitely thought it inferior to the book. (The second time I saw it, I loved it. The third time, I was less enchanted, but really loved Garvie.)

Then, freshman year in college, I read NORTHANGER ABBEY. I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t more like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and wished there were more romance, and less satire. I really didn’t care for the implication that Tilney liked Catherine better for being ignorant! (I have loved this book more and more on each rereading…perhaps because I now read it for humor, while picturing Bath, and I ignore what I don’t like.)

Then I saw the 1986 BBC NORTHANGER ABBEY, and hated it! I thought Peter Firth was creepy, and the overemphasis on the Gothic bits just silly. I’ve always thought those were the weakest parts of the novel, so the idea to make them even more prominent just seemed wrong to me! (The second and third time I saw it, years later, I think I admired the costumes and Bath scenery more…but Firth and the Gothic bits have always seemed wrong to me.)

Next, I read SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, and was annoyed at how Marianne just ran on and on, and how Brandon didn’t have the sense to fall in love with Elinor. (This has remained my least favorite Austen…and I confess I’m always surprised when I run into anyone who puts this in their top two! I just see major weaknesses in it…)

So…those were my first impressions (and later reactions) to my first three Austen novels, and first three Austen adaptations. How about yours? Have your opinions on some of your early Austens (novels or adaptations) changed? Or have re-readings or re-viewings just confirmed you in your tastes?

All answers welcome!

Cara
Cara King, who hopes you all show up the first Tuesday in January to discuss the first Gruffudd Hornblower adaptation!!!