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Caroline
Kettlewell: The non-blog or something*
March 2005
 Yes I know we're well into April, but....
Something new coming soon....
What would Elmore Leonard have to say about ellipses?
Meanwhile, it seems appropriate that I am reading an irreverent tale of pilgrimage (Travels with My Donkey: One Man and His Ass on a Pilgrimage to Santiago, by Tim Moore) during April. After all (warning: brief interlude ahead in which I betray my English-major roots), it's April that launches us into that oft irreverent story of pilgrimage, the Canterbury Tales. And Lord knows we've had plenty of "showres swoot" (that would be "sweet showers," i.e. spring rain, if I recall correctly. No one would call me a Chaucer scholar).
And so now, courtesy of bibliomania.com, an excerpt from the Prologue of CT:
When that Aprille with his showres swoot
The drought of Marche hath percèd to the root,
And bathèd every veyn in suche licoúr,
From which vertu engendred is the flour;
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Enspirèd hath in every holte and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe course runne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open eye,
So pricketh them natúre in their coráges:—
Thenne longen folk to go on pilgrimàges,
I don't know if I'm longen to go on any pilgrimages, unless you count that trip to the garden center I'm aching for. I'm questing for native plants: thus far, I have dug into the earth this spring 6 yellow- and red-twig dogwoods, three witch hazels, and a red maple that volunteered a year ago in a pot. The root had grown through the bottom of the pot and into the ground, interestingly.
On the list: native honeysuckle, and a few other items I can't remember at the moment. I'll see if I can't find my list and those nice latin names, for those of you who might like that sort of information. Have I mentioned before that I'm about a half-step above rank novice when it comes to gardening?
Speaking of gardens, I was delighted to discover yesterday at Starbucks (I'm not a regular, but when the caffeine need strikes and one is convenient...) that they are giving away free bags of coffee grounds to plop in your garden. I hope they keep this program going. I came home with a bag for my compost (a.k.a. "raccoon take-out") bin.
Put 'Er in Reverse
 My blog-savvy pal The Happy Booker rightly points out that proper blogiquette (that would be, of course, blog etiquette) or perhaps The Blog Manual of Style (is there such a book? No doubt there will be soon) decrees that entries run in reverse order. Which is to say, of course, most recent first, so that the casual stopper-by will see at once--mon dieu!--a new entry! One must read, no?
So, as you can see, should you be a regular viewer of this page, I have gone reverse.
At the moment I'm supposed to be working on a story on deadline (oooh sounds so important doesn't it? Breaking news, the editor hanging by the phone, me heatedly shouting the words down the line, a nation waiting breathless.... Or possibly not. Nevertheless, it is my deadline, so off I go, so that my editor won't have to tear her hair out and pace and gesticulate and stop the presses.)
Back from Beyond
Just back from a whirlwind trip to Wilmington, NC for a speaking engagement. All my trips seem to be whirlwind. Why is that?
It doesn't help that I'm the kind of person who tries to cram a long list of "last-minute" items into the immediate pre-departure interlude. Suddenly, there's a pressing need to wax the carpets or calculate PI to the fifteenth place (OK, I lie--I rarely calculate PI beyond the twelfth place ((OK, OK, what is PI anyway? 3-point-something...? 2-point-something? Or something? Look, it's been a long, long time since Mrs. Goings's geometry class, and the truth is that I don't find a whole lot of call for PI on a daily basis. Perhaps I travel in the wrong circles. Although I am looking for the key to making really good pie crust. That I could use. )).
But I digress (she said, stating the obvious). Wilmington, NC. Nearby, Wrightsville Beach, where we spent a day or two a few years ago at about this time in the spring. Never made it to the beach on this haul. Never made it beyond the ubiquitous and generic strip-mall-zone (although NC accent on my Starbucks barista grounded me geographically). The trip down was an  all Interstate, all the time drive, so on the homeward leg I struck out cross-country via State Route 117, which skirted me around the edge of Mt. Olive, NC, home of the North Carolina Pickle Festival, featuring the Tour de Pickle bicycle ride and a pickle recipe contest. (I would definitely advise finishing the former before sampling the latter.) Alas, the pickle fest is next month, but if any of you happen to make it there, report back, won't you?
Meanwhile, from faraway Beijing, we hear from Michael C. on the subtleties to master if you want to order vegetarian in China.
Writes Michael, in an engaging account of dining in China that should NOT be read while hungry:
...ensuring that one isn't served up with a plate of fried deer and snake strips requires then not the simple declaration that one doesn't eat meat (which guarantees, mostly, that one won't be served pork) but the further clarification that one doesn't eat *any* meat. "Wo bu chi rou" means "I don't eat meat," but the serious vegetarian here needs to tell a waiter that "wo chi qing zhen de," that is, "I eat pure," i.e. no meat.
"Wo chi quing zhen de." Right. Got that.
Could make a snappy T-shirt , don't you think? With a picture of a grateful-looking otherwise member of the food chain?
Which leads me to a brief excerpt from a minor work from my oeuvre, on the subject of liver, a food my mother used to cook on occasion in my childhood, a food I thought was perfectly vile even before I gave up eating things with feet:
 I can say without compunction,
that liver should be left to function
in the cow, who best could use it.
And if you asked the cow to choose, it
certainly would vote to keep its
organs, limbs, and parts, and pieces.
Which brings me back to NC, where we started. NC is a place big on--no, not liver, but  another reluctant member of the meat family, pork. Pork, barbecued, to be specific. For some reason, the owners of BBQ establishments suffer an apparently irresistible urge to put smiling pigs on their restaurant signs. Sometimes the pigs have little checkered napkins tied under their chins. This is really disturbed.
Which reminds me of my college days (not the disturbed part, though, then again, maybe so) when I worked the Saturday AM dishwashing shift in one of the campus dining rooms. There's really nothing like being up to your elbows in half-eaten food all smeared together to start your Saturday off on a bright note.
Our labors included scraping the leftovers, including your usual breakfast detritus derived from the hog family, into a very large garbage bag, which was subsequently (or so I was led to understand--truth in journalism requires that I report that I never actually saw what happened to the slop) gathered up by a local farmer and fed to his pigs. One wonders if they wore little checkered napkins under their chins.
Remember, Caroline is looking for a NEW NAME for her "JOURNAL" page (see here for more on that). Send me your ideas!
Ask and Ye Shall Receive
Ooooh looky looky what has come into my hands. I'm very excited. Thank you to Michael Town of our local Sierra Club. 
Oh, and AT LAST IT'S SPRING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Sorry, Elmore Leonard.) And it even feels like it.
I Will Evolve
Coolest t-shirt you can't get your hands on: The Sierra Club is selling these on its web site, but they seem to be perpetually  sold out. How about some bumper stickers, Sierra folks? We can put them on our plug-in hybrids!
The Sierra Club is running an "I Will EVolve" campaign.
And here's the site where you can't order a shirt. (But keep checking back and snap one up when you can.)
*Today my writer pal The Happy Booker referred to this section of carolinekettlewell.com as a "non-blog" and I liked the term so much I thought I might keep it. It's just contrary enough to suit me fine.
But then lengthy discussion subsequently ensued on this with my New York Web Consultant. Blogzone? Blognot? Blogsalot? Blather? Zu zu zu? ("blather" in Farsi, of course. You knew that, didn't you?)
One can't decide...
So.....
SEND YOUR NOMINATIONS for the RENAME CAROLINE'S JOURNAL PAGE contest (after all, "Journal" sounds kind of seventh grade, doesn't it? Which is fine in seventh grade, but those days, thank goodness, are past for me).
And speaking of zu, zu, zu, every now and then as I'm blathering on here, I'm thinking to myself "for whom doth the keyboard toll?" (or "clack," as the case may be). Is anyone out there?
My father-in-law forwarded to me the latest story (this from the Washington Post) on the ever-fresh (for writers, at least) topic of publicizing your book. Stopped by your local big-box book store lately? Notice that "new releases" table has a different pile of books nearly every week? It's the question that keeps your average (as opposed to your Instant-Name-Recognition subset) writer tossing and turning at night: how do I get my book into reader's hands? And of course the book industry is forever releasing new bits of dire news about how no one reads anymore.
On the other hand, this week the Virginia Festival of the Book lands in Charlottesville. For a few days you can immerse yourself in the world of the seriously book-besotted. Although I might add that last year at VA Book, the suffocatingly SRO event was "Buzz Your Book," so there's no getting away from the issue, I guess.
Rising Again
You just can't keep a good idea down. I've fallen a little behind lately in keeping up with news in the EV (that's "electric vehicle") world, so now comes a slate of lively updates.
1) Do not go gently into that good night: Last year, GM "called home" the remaining stock of EV1 vehicles, the stylish electric vehicle the company launched back in the '90s (remember the '90s? back in the last century?) while apparently making every effort to doom it from the start. Nearly impossible to get one's hands on, the EV1 was available by lease only, and only in very limited areas (mostly California). When GM called in the leases, EV1 enthusiasts held a mock funeral in mourning. GM said the cars were slated for recycling (a.k.a "the crusher). Recently, however, a small stock of surviving EV1s was found still uncrushed at a GM training facility, and a cause was born: a group of activists is holding a round-the-clock vigil at the site where the EV1s are located, trying to get GM to sell the cars rather than destroy them. Here's a Washington Post story on that valiant effort: "Fans of GM Electric Car Fight the Crusher."
2) The power of the plug (in): You've heard of the plug-in electric car. You've heard of the hybrid. But have you heard of the plug-in hybrid? Without getting too deep into the technical details on how hybrids work (but if you want 'em, check out the hybrids section of the always user-friendly How Stuff Works), the basic principle to keep in mind is that hybrid vehicles like the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius operate with a combination (or hybrid) of gasoline engine and battery-powered electric motor. Because the engine recharges the batteries, a hybrid, unlike a conventional EV, doesn't have to be plugged in to recharge. Today's hybrids are essentially gasoline cars with some battery-electric assistance to improve mileage and decrease emissions.
But what if you took the idea one step further? With existing hybrid technology and a bigger battery pack you could have a true hybrid, an EV for short-distant jaunts around town that seamlessly switches over to gasoline power when you want to hit the road for a longer excursion. Plug in the car to recharge the batteries after short trips and you have an all-electric, zero-emission city car. You might go weeks without refilling the gas tank. And when you travel longer distances, the gasoline engine recharges the batteries for you. Which, voila, addresses one of the favorite objections to EVs (you can't travel far enough on a charge, and what if you run out of power when there's no plug around?).
Here's a Christian Science Monitor story on do-it-yourselfers taking hybrid technology to that next step (including a group of students with a familiar comment: if a bunch of students can do this, why can't the big automakers?) Note in this article the former director of the CIA, James Woolsey, gives a plug to plug-ins as an important step in addressing global warming and oil dependency. And here's a piece from the California Cars Initiative that outlines plug-in hybrid technology.
Date posted: 03.25.04
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