A to Z Challenge: A is for Ailurophilia

by Lillian Csernica on April 1, 2022

THE FINE ART OF AILUROPHILIA

Most people think a Crazy Cat Lady is someone who gets fixated on cats, loses all sense of smell thanks to all the litter boxes, and sits around all day in their bathrobe and jammies. The truth is, Crazy Cat Lady Disorder (CCLD) is a spectrum disorder. The popular image of the Crazy Cat Lady is an example of someone at the extreme end of the spectrum. CCLD can manifest in milder forms, such as a compulsive need to collect Hello Kitty items or the tendency to wear cat ears and a tail when attending certain social events. Some of us are born with CCLD, some of us achieve CCLD, and some of us have CCLD thrust upon us. I fall into the third category. I was born a cat magnet.

The night I met Spice: I came home late from work. That meant I had to park on the street and cross the lawn to my front door. Out of nowhere this little marmalade tabby cat came zooming up to me and wrapped himself around my leg. I was still living with my mother at that time. Spice would sleep inside my car at night, then I’d let him out in the morning. After I got married, I took Spice with me when I moved to Northern California. He lived with friends of ours for two years until we moved into an apartment where we could have a cat. Spice lived to be eighteen years old.

The feral tabby: I’d been at a writer’s group meeting hosted by Jerry, a member of the group. Outside I saw this calico cat who looked rather thin and skittish. After a few minutes of coaxing, the cat came over to me and let me pet her. The poor creature hadn’t been eating well. Some fur was missing due to mange. Jerry and my husband stood at a distance down the sidewalk. Jerry looked perplexed while my husband stood there grinning. Jerry said he’d been trying to get the cat to accept food from him, but all he could do was put the dish down and go away. My husband explained my “cat magnet” powersmuch to Jerry’s chagrin. Jerry considered himself good with animals. When it comes to feral cats, the relationship is entirely on their terms.

The calico at the Cloisters: On our honeymoon, my husband and I went to the East Coast so I could meet all the in-laws who couldn’t make it to California for the wedding. We spent some time in New York seeing the museums and a Broadway show. At the Cloisters, it was a quiet day and the parking lot wasn’t very full. We parked around back by the kitchen door of the museum’s restaurant. I noticed a little calico cat hanging out by the kitchen door, clearly hoping for some food. As soon as I got out of the car, the cat spotted me and came running across the parking lot, meowing up a storm. The cat ran right up to me and just kept meowing away. Whatever the message was, it was urgent. (I now make a habit of carrying cat treats. At that time, I had no such thing so it’s not like the cat could smell food on me.) I felt so bad that I couldn’t understand what the cat was trying to tell me! All I could do was thank the cat for the message and tell her I’d be sure to pass it along. The cat meowed once more then ran back to the bushes near the kitchen door. During the rest of our honeymoon, my husband kept telling his family about this incident. That cat definitely wanted to talk to me!

The gorgeous cat in Japan: On my first trip to Japan I visited Yokohama for Nippon 2007, I the first World Science Fiction Convention in Asia. I took a side trip to Kamakura to see the temple of the Daibutsu, the fifty foot bronze Buddha. On my way back to the bus stop, I met a most unusual cat. Its outer coat was the color of mahogany, its undercoat creamy white, and its eyes were the green of Midori liqueur. The cat lounged in the sunshine of a residential driveway.

“Konnichiwa, Neko-san,” I said. “Daijobu desu ka?”

(“Hello, Mr. Cat. How are you?”)

The cat meowed in reply. I regret to say I couldn’t understand his comment. Being a proper Japanese cat, he wouldn’t allow me to pet him in public. He retreated to a branch in a nearby tree.

Crazy Cat Ladies are known for owning really impressive numbers of cats. My all-time high is fourteen. At that time I lived on an acre of land in a rural area. I had two cats of my own. The lady next door moved out, taking her mama cat with her and leaving the four kittens behind. Three of them adopted me. Two of those three were female and went into heat before I could catch them and have them spayed. And so I ended up with a total of fourteen cats. I did not cherish the vet bills, but I did have lot of fun watching the two mama cats with their eight kittens playing in the grass while the uncle cat looked on.

I have entered the demographic where owning several cats and wearing a bathrobe and slippers all day makes me one of two things: a Crazy Cat Lady or a writer. In my case, I’m both. Whenever gift-giving occasions arise, I often receive something that involves cats. One year my family threw me a surprise birthday party. The theme? Crazy Cat Lady. On a cake done in pink and lavender icing sat the Crazy Cat Lady action figure available from Archie McPhee. The figure has blonde hair. Somebody had colored it to become brunette like me. The cake also feature fancy candles that said “Birthday Girl,” along with various plastic toy cats and even a cardboard cat tree scratching post! On the table sat clusters of plastic toy cats in a variety of breeds and colors, enough to add up to my exact age. Somebody even went to the trouble of wrapping up a birthday present inside the box for a case of Friskies wet food.

My presents included a bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers that match the action figure. Granted, the figure already existed, but I can now say that as a Crazy Cat Lady, I have my own action figure. A purple zebra-striped birthday crown and a brand new pooper scooper scepter completed my royal birthday regalia. Having Crazy Cat Lady Disorder is a mixed blessing, but if it means people throwing me parties like this, I’m all for it.

All Together Now

by Lillian Csernica on June 18, 2020

 

Hello again. I come to you from the throes of the pandemic here in California. Our Governor Gavin Newsom now requires all of us (with appropriate exceptions) to wear masks when we’re out in public. Not just when we’re going into stores or other essential activities, but all the time. I’m delighted. As the mother of a medically fragile child, I don’t care how low the odds of infection might be. Any odds are too high when it comes to risking my son’s life.

This week I attended a writing class online with my dear teacher Andy Couturier, author of Writing Open the Mind and A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance. Thanks to the writing exercises Andy taught us, I created a piece of writing that I’d like to share with you.

The world has changed so much. Four months. Everything is different. If we know nothing else, we know we’re not alone in this world. We can kill each other by being careless. We can save each other by being mindful. We can unite, be strong, say a kind word. We can use that word, make signs, write on walls, spread it across the Internet, wear it on a T shirt, paint it on a car window. We can spread that kind word.

We can make the world better. Life is hard, times are tough, but we can make this pandemic a chance to heal more than just torn up lungs and traumatized minds. We can be the people we needed. We can delay the achievement of our private glories as we come together to build a world where we all can thrive.

I don’t know much, but I do know our hearts are all the same color. We are all the same in our component parts. Blood, breath, bone, spirit. We are all humanity. Bring back the Rainbow Coalition. Bring back the songs that we all sang together.

I believe this. I believe every word of it. I’m just one person. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Let’s start helping each other. We could all use a little more kindness.

#atozchallenge X is for Xenophilia

by Lillian Csernica on April 27, 2019

Welcome to one of the more unusual days in the A to Z Blog Challenge. X is a tricky letter.

My apologies for this post going up a bit later than the others. My in-laws from back east have been visiting and I got a bit behind.

birdgei.com

I have a confession to make: I am a Xenophile. This will come as no surprise to folks who have read this far in my A to Z. I love foreign people, places, and things.

When did this start? I was in first grade. A family from Japan moved into the apartment across the big grassy yard from where I lived. Hiro Takahashi joined my class. Getting to know him, his sisters, and his parents gave me my first glimpse into a whole new world.

 

From age 16 to 18, I worked as a professional Turkish-Moroccan belly dancer. My teacher, a marvelous lady from Saragossa, Spain, taught me so much about her part of the world. I still have the coin belt made for me by a Turkish man. 144 diamond-shaped silver coins, all stamped with the Venus di Milo.

http://www.royalcaribbean.com

As my high school graduation gift, my father sent me to the Netherlands. I spent the summer with the family of the girl who had been my Physics lab partner on a student exchange program. While I was there I took a weekend bus tour to Paris, France. I am now all the more grateful for that trip, given that it allowed me to see Our Lady of Notre Dame cathedral in its full glory.

amazon.com

My fiction has been translated into German and Italian. (Ship of Dreams became In the Spell of the Pirate.) I’m looking for someone to translate a novella into Japanese. If you know anybody, drop me a line, won’t you?

And of course I’ve had some adventures in Yokohama and Kyoto.

theconversation.com

Why am I so attracted to the Other? People fascinate me. How they think, what they think, and why they think it. Just the single concept of life after death has given rise to so many different schools of thought. The pursuit of happiness involves such a broad spectrum of effort depending on how one defines happiness.

Writing allows me to take apart some aspect of life and put the pieces back together in a new way. Am I trying to make some sense of what I’ve experienced? Probably. Am I trying to bring order to a chaos that leaves me frightened and bewildered? Probably. It’s not all one-for-one, of course. By the time I get to the final edit of a story, the pieces of me I’ve used undergo quite a process of transformation.

adrienneasher.com

#atozblogchallege A is for Angle

by Lillian Csernica on April 1, 2019

 

Welcome to my sixth year of participation in the A to Z Blog Challenge!

How I Learned To Be A Writer

This year I’m going to share with you 26 separate moments from my writing life, moments that taught me something worth remembering. Moments that helped shape my writing style. Moments that taught me how to endure the bad days and celebrate the triumphs.

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

A is for Angle

 

“Angle” is a term used by journalists when referring to the focus of the article they’re writing. It means which aspect of the subject matter they intend to emphasize as a means of making the article more relevant and interesting to the readers.

The concept of angle is quite useful to fiction writers. As the indie publishing market has exploded and competition for readership continues to increase, it’s becoming more and more essential to find a fresh approach, some new aspect of the stories we want to tell.

In my Kyoto Steampunk series, I chose to leave Victorian England behind and take my protagonist Dr. William Harrington to Kyoto, Japan. Once the Shogunate fell and the Meiji Emperor opened Japan to the West, Japan experienced its own Industrial Revolution, making it an excellent setting for steampunk stories.

Dr. Harrington’s adventures are a mixture of historical science fiction and Japanese fantasy. When I go to conventions to promote the anthologies where my Kyoto Steampunk stories appear, people are often surprised to hear I’ve chosen Japan for my setting. This fresh angle has resulted in a total of seven short stories so far, along with the novel that is my current work in progress.

Find that fresh angle! It will help you on your road to success.

Let Me Entertain You

by Lillian Csernica on February 28, 2018

April is coming. That means the A to Z Blog Challenge.

Those of you who joined me last year may recall my theme was Art Nouveau jewelry. We had a good time with that, I think. Lots of people said nice things. I began my life of Pinterest joy and now I’m up to a dozen different boards.

So here’s my question to you: What do you want to see this year?

I’ve covered writing terms, sword&sorcery movies, all things made of chocolate, and yes, the art nouveau bling.

I could go with a steampunk theme and tell you strange tidbits of technological history and the men and women behind them.

There’s a world of info about Japan I could share.

We could go for classic monster movies, the Golden Age of Universal and the everlasting talents of Karloff and Cheney and Rains.

Give me your ideas! Tell me what you want to see me tackle. I live to amuse you, so bring it on!

T is for Toilet

by Lillian Csernica on April 23, 2016

 

www.a-to-zchallenge.com

Sooner or later when traveling one must take a break from all the fun and excitement to find a restroom.  For me this has led to some of the stranger and more interesting bits of information I’ve picked up along the way.

Convention hotel bathrooms:

Pat and I have stayed in a variety of hotels over the years, from the random Motel 6 to the Hilton.  We have experienced many varieties of plumbing.  Being writers, we’ve compiled a list of questions and observations to do with this particular topic.

Why would any interior designer put the toilet facing the mirrors in the bathroom?  Only the most narcissistic person really wants to see him- or herself at that moment!

There’s one hotel where the doors slide together in a manner similar to Japanese fusuma.  They meet in the middle, leaving a narrow but perceptible gap.  The frames are heavy wood, so when they roll on their tracks, there’s considerable noise.  Not a happy thing in the middle of the night.

I’ve already mentioned the mind-boggling goofiness of putting the light switch outside the actual bathroom itself.

In the older hotels and motels, ancient plumbing is often temperamental.  If they can give me an iron in the closet, it would be nice to have a plunger in the bathroom.  Then maybe I wouldn’t have to go looking for one after midnight, which can lead to all kinds of trouble!

Airport restrooms:

Haneda airport has to cater to a wide variety of nationalities and religions.  I’ve never seen a bathroom stall with so many accommodations, several of which I could not identify.

travel.detik.com

Japan — During Nippon 2007, Pat and I spent some time at the main hotel in the Pan Pacifico Convention Center.  We later discovered the restroom was divided into the side for the Japanese ladies:

 

And the side for Western ladies and Japanese mothers with small children.  More buttons than we knew what to do with!

inquisitor.com

Generally speaking, there are no paper towels in Japanese restrooms unless it’s a site that also caters to Western guests.  Japanese ladies often carry cloth handkerchiefs with them.

Paris — When I spent the weekend in Paris with the Dutch bus tour, I had a room to myself in the hotel where we all stayed.  This might sound ideal, but it wasn’t.  The bathroom left me perplexed.  Having never before encountered a bidet, I had no idea what it was.  It did not look like a toilet, I could see it did not function like a toilet, so I was left to wonder where exactly the actual toilet might be.

Not until the next day did I finally ask somebody for help.  The solution to the mystery?  I could not find the “water closet” in particular because when my hotel room door opened it concealed the door to the little closet that held nothing but the toilet itself.

I’m positive some French architect did that on purpose just to make foreign tourists look silly.

My advice: Always carry toilet paper, a packet of sanitary wipes, a packet of tissues, etc.   Sooner or later you’ll be very glad you did.  What’s more, you may be able to bring aid and comfort to a fellow traveler!

Q is for Query

by Lillian Csernica on April 20, 2016

www.a-to-zchallenge.com

 

I thought it might be entertaining to list some of the questions I’ve asked and been asked in my many travels hither and yon.

Where’s your horse?  (Do people in Europe still think all Americans are cowboys?)

Do you live in a grape field?  (I didn’t know what to say to that until I realized the person asking the question meant a vineyard.)

Is this your mother?  (No, she was not my mother.)

Does your husband want to be in the picture too?  (The person with me was not my husband.  My husband wasn’t even in the same country at the time!)

 

Where are we?

Are you sure that’s where we are?

Then why aren’t we seeing ( insert name of offramp, landmark, national monument, etc.)?

 

Where’s the bank?  It’s inside the post office?  Where’s the post office?  (The local branch turned out to be about a mile away, on the far side of the Yokohama train station, on the third floor of an office building.  I would never have found it had it not been for the very helpful Japanese security guard who kept talking to me as if I really did understand most of what he was saying. At that time, I didn’t, but I caught enough to get me to the third floor.)

In French:  Do you speak French?

Non.

In German: Do you speak German?

Nein.

In Nederlands: Do you speak Nederlands?

Nay.

In English: Do you Speak English?

Yes!

(I was on the train back to the Netherlands from Germany when a nice German customs official needed to know if I had anything to declare.  He was so patient with me.  It must have been obvious I was really nervous and didn’t have a clue about what I was expected to say.  I’d already been asked for my “papers” {passport} twice.)

Drink from a Different Well

by Lillian Csernica on October 14, 2015

I’ve been working hard lately on two short stories that will appear in 30 Days Later, the follow-up anthology to 12 Hours Later.  The stories are set in the same milieu, Kyoto 1880.  My main characters, Dr. William Harrington, his wife Constance, his daughter Madelaine, and Nurse Danforth, are all upstanding subjects of Queen Victoria adjusting to life in a foreign country.  Two factors make this adjustment even more challenging.  One, Madelaine has taken an interest in clockwork and other machinery.  Two, the Harrington household keeps attracting the attention of various Japanese supernatural beings.

Does it sound like a strange mix?  It is, and that means research.  Lots and lots of research.  One minute I’m reading up on Victorian fashions, and the next I’m learning exactly why two pulleys are better than one.  I have to stop thinking of Madelaine’s bedroom as being “upstairs.”  Victorian mansions had two floors, sometimes more.  Japanese houses are typically one floor.  I have to load my brain with the correct information.  Facts + imagination are the warp and weft of historical writing.

Unfortunately, a frequent side effect of writing that requires a lot of research under the pressure of a looming deadline is mental fatigue.

I have just discovered a new way to cure mental fatigue that brings with it an additional bonus.

Before the boys came along, I cooked all the time.  I invented my own variations on the recipes in my cookbooks.  Now, Michael is on a liquid diet.  John has the ASD trait of being very finicky about what he will and won’t eat.  Chris works swing shift.  Thanks to insomnia, the boys, and my writing, I never know what my schedule will be like.  Bottom line, cooking and I have become strangers.  I love to eat, but I’m more gourmand than gourmet.

The mental fatigue hit me hard a few days ago. Out of curiosity I started watching “Food Network Star,” the reality TV show where three established Food Network experts mentor fourteen hopefuls through the competition to acquire what it takes to be the new Food Network Star.  Every week some of the hopefuls are eliminated until it comes down to the final three.

I like game shows.  I like cheering on my favorite players.  I like the way reality TV works (most of the time).  So watching this show is fun, entertaining, and relaxing.  It does not require the attention, the focus, and the retention of information that research demands of me, to say nothing of the hard work of actual writing.  Fresh input.  Stimulating another area of the brain.  Taking the pressure off.  All of that is important.

Now here’s the bonus: the process of becoming a Food Network Star is all about finding what is unique about you and what you bring to the entertainment marketplace.  The particular slant here is food and cooking, but we all know that today branding is the name of the game.

One of the biggest challenges for the competitors is learning how to describe a meal in thirty seconds.  Words.  It’s all about vocabulary.  Another challenge is to show the real you, your personal flair.  A big priority is to make a connection with the audience.  On TV that’s done through the camera.  For writers, it’s done on paper, but that connection is still essential.  Hook your reader.  Establish sympathy for your main character.  Make your customer CARE!

See what I’m saying?  There I was, watching this elaborate game show about cooks hoping to become media stars.  Suddenly I realized I was hearing advice and learning skills that could do me a lot of good as a professional writer.

When you hit the wall of mental fatigue, when you can’t stand another moment of what you’re doing but you have to keep on keeping on, go drink from a different well.  Go listen to NPR.  Go watch an expert talk about resurfacing a road, childproofing a house, or bathing an elephant.  Who knows what gems of information or inspiration you might discover?

How do you deal with it when you’re tired of writing?  How do you keep going when the clock is ticking and there’s no time to waste?

O for Onmyoji

by Lillian Csernica on April 17th, 2015

asianwiki.com

Onmyoji is an entertaining movie.  For those not familiar with the terminology, an onmyoji is a practitioner of onmyodo.  I encourage you to follow the link, because onmyodo is a fascinating subject.  If I get started on it, this post will end up being a lot longer than it should.  For our purposes, let’s just say that the onmyoji in this movie, Abe no Seimei, puts the sorcery in “sword and sorcery.”  His goofball buddy Minamoto no Hiromasa is the one who wears the sword.

sakurablue13.wordpress.com

From Wikipedia:

Onmyouji (陰陽師^?) is a Japanese movie that was released in 2001 and sent to the US in 2004. Directed by Yōjirō Takita, it tells of the exploits of Abe no Seimei, in Middle Ages, the Onmyouji (also known as: The Yin Yang Master) from the court of the Emperor. He befriended bungling court noble, Minamoto no Hiromasa, who enlists his aid to defend the Heian emperor. Meanwhile, an opposing onmyoji Doson is plotting the downfall of the emperor, while attempting to frame Seimei by unleashing a horde of yōkai to do his bidding.

There are some modern depictions of Onmyouji magic involving divination, transforming paper cutouts into beautiful maidens, and the like. Mansai Nomura is a famous kyogen actor, a type of traditional theater related to noh but of a more comic nature, and this role is considered something of a big transition for him. His portrayal of Abe no Seimei has been described as including a number of ‘foxy’ looks, perhaps in acknowledging the folklore describing Abe no Seimei’s mother as a kitsune. The lead actress, Eriko Imai, a pop singer, has very few lines and little involvement with the plot. The film was a commercial success grossing ¥3,010,000,000 ($36,567,313) becoming the 4th highest earning Japanese production of 2001.^[1] The film was also giving a limited theater release in North America where it grossed $16,234 in 3 theaters.^[2]

A sequel, Onmyouji 2, appeared in 2003. Both movies are based on the Onmyouji novels by Baku Yumemakura, which also inspired a manga series by Reiko Okano.

http://www.diary.ru

Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai), ready to kill Mansai Nomura.

I will admit it takes the kind of fascination I have for Japanese culture to really get into the action here.  Doson is a great Bad Guy.  When he sends the “horde of yokai” (monsters) against Abe no Seimei, we get to see the magic-users in the fight to the finish.  This makes Onmyoji rather unusual among Japanese historical movies.  So many of the taiga dramas are devoted to samurai and political upheavals.  Heian period costuming is quite a hoot to the eyes of Western audiences, so that also makes the movie worth watching.

I’m supposed to be listing bad sword and sorcery movies, right?  So how did this one make it onto the list?  The answer is simple.  This is the only sword and sorcery movie I could find on any list that begins with the letter O.

fixitinpost.org

It’s not smart to mess with the onmyoji!

When the Story Shapes Itself

by Lillian Csernica  on October 23, 2014

My NanoWriMo prep is well underway.  The plot outline is rough, but I wrote one.  I have my list of major and minor characters.  Today I brainstormed all the probable settings where significant action would occur.  That’s when it hit me.

I have to get Tendo and Yuriko all the way from the Ryukyu Islands off the southwest coast of Kyushu, the southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago, across Shikoku, and on to Honshu, the main island where Kyoto is located.  How much of the trip do they make by land?  How much do they make by water?  How many horses will the party need?  Will they take ferries, boats, or ships?

I have to figure all of that out before Nov. 1.  Welcome to writing historical fiction.

This does bring me a certain amount of relief, because I now know what Tendo and Yuriko are going to be doing for the first several chapters of the book.  Oh sure, I could just open in Kyoto with Tendo in his new position as a member of the Imperial diplomatic corps.  Trouble is, I’d still need to fill in the gap regarding how things went while he worked at the Satsuma Embassy on the Ryukyus, and that would be told in flashback.  BO-RING.  I think it would be much better to show the still newly married Tendo and Yuriko having to cope with yet another drastic change to their lives.  How are they dealing with married life?  Neither of them has had a serious relationship before this, and now all of a sudden they’re married and yet still on the run from their enemies.

 

 

I’ve decided to give Tendo and Yuriko one of the minor but important characters from the first book.  They will be taking Matamori along with them to Kyoto.  I don’t want to get into the entire plot of Sword Master, Flower Maiden right now, so let me just say Matamori is the Captain of the Guard for Kobayashi, the samurai lord whom Tendo’s father serves.  Kobayashi is the one ally strong enough to really protect Tendo and Yuriko from the evil schemes of Nakazawa, the bad guy.  Kobayashi wouldn’t send Matamori with Tendo and Yuriko if he didn’t believe their very lives were in danger.  I did not make this decision consciously.  Once I understood the length and difficulty of the trip to Kyoto, I knew I had to dramatize it.  Matamori showed up in my mind’s eye, riding along beside Tendo on horseback.

The story is already showing me how it needs to be told.

The trip to Kyoto will put Tendo and Yuriko under pressure.  This is a big promotion for Tendo, so he has to live up to it.  First he has to reach Kyoto alive.  Yuriko is still making the adjustment from first rate courtesan-in-training to the proper wife of a samurai civil servant.  Yes, they love each other with all their hearts, but will that be enough to keep them together?  A road trip of any sort means obstacles, delays, goods inns, bad inns, potential ambush, and several long boring hours just getting from one place to another.  This is the great part about mixing both travel by land and travel by water.  I wonder if Tendo gets seasick?  That would be embarrassing.

So much to research.  So much to discover.  A whole new adventure about to begin!