Everyday Maggie, Roxy Dog Update, Book Update, too!

I have a long, green skirt. Its bottom edge is zig-zag. It has buttons and embroidery all the way down the front and an elastic waist. It comes to my ankles. But that’s not how I wear it. When it’s hot like this, and I’m home in my solitude, I just pull that skirt right on up until the elastic waist is above my boobs, and voila! I have made a sundress. I can even tie the decorative string around my neck if I want. It still comes below my knees. What can I say? I am 5’1”.

This summer, I have used two witchy-looking skirts in this manner on the regular. (The other one’s black) This is as much trouble as I want to go to, to get dressed in the summer. Step in, pull up.

Bra? We don’t need no stinking bra! I see no one, I tell you. I hide in my cave and scribble.

However, my braless skirt-dress time is short this gorgeous Saturday morning, because the dreaded weekly grocery-shopping trip is today. We tag-team this hated task, my hubs and I. He’s done it on his own many a time, but my lifetime of conditioning leaves feeling quite guilty when he does.

When we do it together we always eat lunch at Moe’s. We get the burrito they call “The Homewrecker” because we like living dangerously, I guess.

Brown rice, black beans, peppers and onions, seasoned corn, and big ol’ scoop of guacamole. Hubs adds tofu to his, but it’s just swimming in so much oil, I can’t. He also adds pickled peppers and olives.

At least once a week, I make “Welcome to Moe’s” for dinner. When I do it myself, I use whole wheat wraps with no oil. I bake my tofu and season it perfectly without oil. I add mushrooms and garlic and frozen spinach to the peppers and onions I sauté without oil. I usually cook a blend of brown and wild rices, seasoned with tamari and garlic powder. And hubs insists I season the black beans with a taco seasoning packet.

I spread all the components in bowls on the counter, and toast the burritos, and we stand there and put our wraps together side by side. When we do it at home, we do the logical thing and spread our guac on the wrap like human beings, rather than plopping it on top like they do at the restaurant.

Lance usually has two, and his turn out perfectly wrapped, cylindrical and neat, with all the insides, on the inside.

This is not an easy task with whole wheat wraps, because they are stiff, and they split open easily and do not bend well. Oil as an ingredient makes them way easier to manage.

I always want only one burrito, so obviously, I need stuff more toppings into my wrap than it can possibly hold. I start out with what I think is reasonable amounts of fillings, but it’s always too much. Then I try to wrap it, using the method I have studied so intently some of the Moe’s staff are considering restraining orders. And yet, and yet, and yet…

I fold up the edges, then I roll, but it doesn’t really roll, per se. It sort of bulldozes all the fillings as it goes along. They squirt out, so I shove them back in and keep rolling. I end up with a bulging mass, its fillings squishing out both ends where my folds became splits. There’s a line of fillings that have escaped at the far end, too, like the foam left behind on the beach when the wave recedes.

I can’t pick this thing up without committing a food crime that would require a half hour to clean up. It’s a burritostrosity, really. So, after slathering it with Newman’s Own Pineapple Salsa, I take a fork and a knife, and I saw off a section and try to eat it that way.

Our home version of Moe’s is so messy, we each keep a kitchen towel handy as our napkin. (I need mine way more than hubs needs his.) And yet it’s so good. And so, VERY healthy!

Getting Through Some Current Challenges Together

Here are some of the scary things happening and how I’m dealing. Maybe it helps to know you’re not alone if these things have been bothering you too. But we’re all in this together, and we can share and commiserate.

Food Contamination: Notice all the veggies in that meal I mentioned above are cooked, and they are well-cooked, after being well-scrubbed and well-rinsed. I am not personally eating raw greens right now. I just can’t bring myself to, so I’m cooking them, using frozen, and hoping I can eventually grow my own in great enough abundance to sustain me. I read an actual study where using a salad spinner reduced contamination of greens 85% more than washing them alone, so my salad spinner will be here tomorrow. I’ve also read to rinse produce in a 1:3 ratio of vinegar and water. (So 1 cup vinegar to 3 cups water.) But mainly, I’ve just stopped eating raw greens.

My husband eats berries daily. Me only once in a great while. I admit I am concerned, and wishing we could just homestead for a living.

So we’re dealing with this by really thoroughly washing, doing the vinegar rinse, tossing any that look even slightly off or slimy, getting the salad spinner, and eating mostly cooked rather than raw greens, and mostly frozen rather than fresh fruits.

Also we’re buying produce locally grown when we can. Less handling = less risk.

The Heat: There’s no escaping the heat for far too many.

When it’s still cooling off at night, I open the windows at night and close them again early in the morning. The higher the humidity, the less this helps, however.

If you have AC, run it, I think. Climate change will not be solved by telling people to bake in the heat. There are ways you can offset the harm it causes. (Giving up meat for a month would do it for example.)

I think it’s helpful if I drink a lot of water, eat smaller meals less often, shower more often, be less physically active during these heat waves.

I also close off the parts of my home I’m aren’t using and cool only the rooms we’re in. This can keep we way cooler and also reduce our energy use.

But I live in New York. I don’t know what our friends in the southwest are doing right now. The other night it only cooled down to 91 in parts of Arizona. There’s no relief, and that’s unsafe. This is what our “tech genius bros” should be working on, instead of data centers that will make climate change significantly worse.

I can’t give us much hope about the heat. The truth is, it’s going to continue to get worse. We’re at the very beginning of the part where the result of our actions manifest. We’re going to have to come up with all sorts of creative ways to deal with it. If I lived in the south, I’d be thinking about moving north within the next decade.

Trees, trees, trees. It kills me that people cut down trees to put up solar panels. Are the panels going to do as much for the environment as that tree was doing? It’s stupid and unnecessary trade off. Put the panels where the trees aren’t. And never on the ground. They can cover the medians between highways. Solar roadways paves the roads with them. They can cover the roofs of buildings, and they can shade parking lots and bridges. Plant trees.

If you have trees near you, and the heat becomes unbearable and there’s no relief, go to the trees. It will be 5 to 10 degrees cooler directly beneath them and not just due to the shade. They inhale the hot air and it travels down through the trunk and roots deep into the cool earth. They exhale cooled air. They are living air conditioners.

Wishing you all cool nights and an early fall.

The High Prices: This is another tough one. The cost of everything we use keeps going up, but our incomes are not going up at all.

In our case, we keep finding things to cut, but then new things come up that we need to take their place. We need a car, as ours is on its last legs, but a car payment isn’t in the budget, so my fondest hope is that Arsenic and Old Ladies sells like mad.

We’ve changed our weekly grocery shopping habit from one store to four different stores. (And we are damn lucky to have four to choose from. Some places there are nothing but convenience stores!) We keep changing slightly, from what’s cheapest, to what’s tastiest, finding an affordable balance. We’ve definitely changed what we buy based on price. We get organic produce if we possibly can, and since we’re vegan, that’s the majority of our grocery bill. Not buying meat or cheese saves a lot on the weekly food bill, though.

Right now, in August in the northeast, we can buy locally grown peaches, strawberries, sweet corn, blueberries, zucchini, melons, tomatoes and more. (You just don’t see greens at the local farm stands though. I really need to grow them myself.) Even though not generally organic, local produce is a plus. They’re handled far less, so less likely contaminated. They aren’t trucked across the country so their environmental impact is lower. And buying locally supports our local economy.

When all else fails, we can always make a meal from beans and rice, with some broccoli, cauliflower, or greens on the side. Add a can of tomatoes and seasonings to switch it up. The darker the bean, the more protein it has. Lentils are a superfood and a complete protein unto themselves. There are entire villages where lentils are the main source of protein. I always use whole grain rice, which is packed with nutrition. White rice is just empty carbs. Ditto pasta. Whole grain is nutritious. White is empty calories. Same with all breads and grains. You don’t want “enriched” flours. They only enrich them because they’ve stripped way all the good parts. Get use whole grains.

Buy in bulk, store it with care, and really whittle down the shopping list so each week you throw away less and less. Food waste is a huge problem. We compost all our scraps so they don’t end up in the landfills.

I buy oatmeal in bulk then grind the oats to make oat flour, as it’s cheaper than buying oat flour.

I save veggie scraps in the freezer, then cook them in the Instant Pot to make broth instead of buying broth. After use for broth they go to the composter.

We mainly drink water and decaf coffee, so we don’t spend a lot on soda and we don’t buy juices at all.

Just some of my saving tips. I think going through our bank and PayPal accounts to find all the recurring subscription fees we’ve forgotten about is another important action to take.

We cut out our main TV streaming service. We changed cell phone carriers to get a better price. We switched our landline to the Ooma phone for like 5 bucks a month. We’re always on the lookout for ways to cut expenses. That just seems to be the way of things right now.

The Epstein Scandal

This one is a lot right now. I have to say it’s especially tough for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The way the Epstein survivors are being treated feels very much like every survivor being slapped in the face and told that what happened to them—to us—doesn’t matter.

It does matter, and it is important. It’s important to me, and to many others. And we will see the end of those abusers, one way or another. They’ll be imprisoned or they won’t, but in the end they’ll face their demons as they die.

I’ve seen a lot of people die. The ones who did bad shit, even a long time ago, die petrified of what’s going to happen on the other side. Whether they believe in an afterlife or not—they’re scared shitless when they face the end.

If no other justice comes, at least we have that.

I think most of them will die untried for these crimes. I think we’ll probably see a few of them tried sometime after 2028. Withered old men will be publicly shamed, stripped of their pride, and maybe their wealth, and maybe a few of them, of their freedom.

The thing is, how we feel inside ourselves…it’s not magically better after that. We won’t be healed when our abusers die, or when they’re found guilty, or when they do time, or when they acknowledge and try to atone. It’s still there, when all that’s over. Getting justice doesn’t fix anything, and we tend to think it will. We need to know that ahead of time, or the anti-climax of it can come crashing in on us with a wave of disappointment and even depression.

Our well being mustn’t depend on the outcome of this or any other case—and Goddess knows there are many. We have to be okay anyway. And we don’t have to wait. We can be okay now.

Our thriving is really the best revenge.

So I recommend extreme self-care. Survivors of abuse should spoil ourselves rotten because we damn well matter. We’re goddesses all of us, and we ought to be treating ourselves as such!

Love you all.

Roxy update

Roxanne Roxanna-Danna’s vision might be slightly improved. It seems to come and go, and depends on lighting and shadow and contrast and situation. If she’s concerned about where I am, and I have a light source near me, I can move my hand in front of it while she’s looking my way, and she sees that and relaxes.

Her hearing—If I yell really loud, she looks my way.

Everything else seems fine. She still needs an escort everywhere, but she’s feeling good. We still have one medication from Japan that hasn’t yet arrived, and we’ve heard it might help, so that’s the final step for now.

She’s adjusting. Hubs put a ramp with side rails at the back door so she can find her way more easily, even though she’s never without one of us by her side. She’s independent and wants to do it herself, so we walk close and kind of spot her. She’s feeling okay, I think. She’s an old girl, though, 10 now, which is elderly for a giant breed. She stepped on my bare foot the other day and I’m pretty sure broke a small bone in the top of it. Feels the same as when I did that once before, years ago.

We’ve had a series of old dogs hitting their final few years of health issues, one after another, with barely a year off in between. Daisy was sick for two years. Dozer began to decline a year after she passed, and he died two years after that. Then before we blinked, Niblet was old and demanding. She didn’t decline for as long. With her she just became very needy her final couple of years. And a year after she passed, Roxy began having issues. We’re kind of exhausted. (And broke from vet bills!)

But we’ll give her the best golden years she can have.

Niblet (left) and Roxy as a pup, before they decided to hate each other.

BOOK Update

Signed Copies: The pre-orders for autographed, personalized hardcover and paperback copies of ARSENIC AND OLD LADIES are LIVE. You can only order these signed copies THIS MONTH. They’ll arrive in September, (shipping right after release date, 9/22) and they would make amazing holiday gifts.

If you send me a photo of your receipt for the autographed paperback or hardcover, I’ll send you a link to get the eBook FREE.

Order now

eBook: The pre-orders for the eBook only are also open right now on Amazon. If you pre-order there, you’ll get the ebook automatically on release day, September 22nd.

Order eBook

Audiobook: I’ve just listened to and approved the first 15 minutes of the audiobook edition of Arsenic and Old Ladies, and it’s phenomenal! Anna Maste is masterful! I’m so sorry I don’t have a pre-order link yet for the audio, but chances are looking good for this to be done around the same time as the print and ebook editions, and it might very well release the same day. I’ll keep you posted.

READ Chapter One: You can read the first chapter now just to get geared up! Click the button below to read it free.

Chapter 1

And here’s the official trailer

https://youtu.be/_A4cP3KdIOY

Book II News

Arsenic and Old Ladies II: A Festive Fatality

Releasing in December 2026

I’m halfway through the first draft and steaming along! I anticipate four drafts with an edit after the third. I love these four women. I never run out of story with them.

That’s it for now folks. Talk to you next week!