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6-18-2025 Almost Got The Cops Called On Me

Took the kids for ice cream, and the younger one loved the vanilla-caramel-fudge-chocolate chip-cookie dough monstrosity I purchased. My older one stayed sane and got strawberry with sprinkles. Things were fine, and then almost went to hell. 

Some twit came in wearing a shirt that said something like 'Anti-Vax Means Pets Too.' I'm still too pissed to remember the actual verbiage, but that was close. I was inches from going off in grand fashion and cussing this moron out in front of the whole ice cream parlor staff. He left pretty fast, which is just as well. The tirade I would have unleashed would have resulted in a call to law enforcement, and probably a permanent ban from said ice cream place. 

So, in case this ***hole finds this blog, here's what I would have liked to have said:

You don't like vaccines for pets, or people, I gather? Oooh...big bad guvmint telling me what I can and can't do with my pets! I do what I want hurhurhur. 

Let me ask you something...have you ever seen rabies in action? That is one pet vaccine that is mandated in my state (and most/all others, I think). 

I have. Let me enlighten you on what your pet will endure if you refuse to make at least a token effort to protect them.

If your pet is presenting with the raging form of rabies, more than likely it will be shot by either a private citizen or law enforcement. This goes double if you live in a more rural area. That's how your pet gets to die...with a bullet or two in them. What if they present with the dumb form?

Oh, you didn't know rabies can show up a few different ways? Yeah, it does. In general, smaller animals like dogs, cats, skunks, etc. will present with the raging form, while livestock is more likely to display the dumb form. By 'dumb,' I mean the animal will just stand or lie there, breathing, heart beating, but unresponsive to just about anything, even pain. They look like the next closest things to zombies. I got to see a horse like this. Yes, it was put down shortly after. No, I don't ever want to see it again.

So what if your pet displays the dumb form, is darn near comatose when you bring it to the emergency veterinarian, and you LIE about the vaccination status of your pet to us (though we as a staff suspected something was amiss when we observed the partially healed bite wound on one of the dog's legs)? Of course we are going to treat it, though it's kind of rough when we don't know what's wrong, since, you know, you kind of lied to us. But we're smart, right? We will figure it out.

Yeah, we'll figure it out when your pet wakes up long enough to lay open one of the clinicians from wrist to elbow, then promptly coded and died. I was standing not six feet away from this, treating another patient. Clinician goes to ER for his injury, which ultimately required surgical repair. That's when you decide to tell us that your dog hadn't been vaccinated for rabies in over five years.

Oh really? Well, sir, now you get to find out what happens to your pet if they are a rabies suspect.

First, the animal is euthanized if they are still alive. Your dog saved us that step. Next, their head is removed from the rest of the body. The brain is then inspected macroscopically and microscopically for evidence of the disease. Yes, you read that right. We cut open your pet's head and take the brain. Once testing is done and lab results in, your pet is cremated and you can collect their ashes (though frankly you don't deserve them, you P.O.S.).

That night was one of the worst in my four and a half years as an emergency and critical care veterinary nurse assistant. There's only a few that could top that one, and let's say those nights go a long way to explaining why the suicide rate among veterinary professionals is WAY higher than average.  

Sorry. Had to get that off my chest. That dude really set my kettle boiling.

Hilary

6-14-2025 Cataloging Will Destroy My Soul

And my wallet. And my sanity. 

I guess one perk of having the floors redone in my house is that it has forced me to actually photograph and catalog my fossils. I originally had a hard copy book (yes, entries done by hand, yes, I am that old school in some respects), but that stopped at about specimen number 450.

I'm at 742 now. And I'm not done. I'm not sure whether I should be laughing or shrieking obscenities into the void. I know for a fact that I have a box or two missing, as I don't have photos for some of the items on the spreadsheet. Meaning, I get to dig through my basement and find them. They are here somewhere...just a matter of rooting them up. 

I am finding out just how many specimens I missed cataloging over the years, though the pattern that I've picked up on is that the most lapses occurred right around the births of my two kids. From a medical standpoint, neither went well (in fact, my former doctor uses the birth of my first as a 'worst case scenario' story for the medical students). The second involved having my abdomen unzipped because a certain SOMEONE didn't want to come out and had to be served an eviction notice. 

Good times.

Maybe in a week or so I'll have my museum back in proper order, and maybe even fit to recieve visitors. It's just in my basement, and there are probably over 800 individual pieces. I have some of them lumped into one accession number. One in particular, the Carpocyon lot, has over twenty bones and bone fragments in it. If I gave each thier own number, I'd probably hit a thousand. I suppose I should thank a former student of mine for suggesting that I modify my original cataloging setup. I originally had it as JPNHM-001. This student pointed out that I would have to cap my specimens at 999 with that numbering system. So, I changed it to JPNHM-0001. 

See? 

Now I can got up to 9,999 specimens! 

Special thanks to that student for feeding the beast and making it more monstrous than it already was.

Maybe once this is done, I'll be able to concentrate on Moonstone Wish again.

Hilary

6-1-2025 Spreadsheet Hell

So, I do have a spreadsheet of my fossil/cast specimens. It's got over 700 entries, and I know I've missed a few. There's about 800 actual items in my museum, though some have the same accession number (because no way on this good earth am I number each individual Carpocyon bone...there's over twenty of those). 

Here's the problem.

I started the spreadsheet when I was at my old school, using that Google account. That account is listed as 'owner,' while my personal one is just an editor. 

Guess which account no longer exists?

Guess who finally figured out how to insert images in cells, got about a hundred done, and then realized she was using the wrong spreadsheet, aks, not the copy she made where she is the owner?

Ding Ding! This gal!

Cue internal cursing and mentally yelling words that I dare not type here. 

On the bright side, it's going much smoother since I started over again, and I have the process a bit more down pat. Now, if only I could get the images to fill the cell. I'm sure there's a way to do so, but I'm not the most tech-savvy person out there. Hopefully I'll have the whole catalog done by summer's end, and a good number of the entries redone as well. Eff GoDaddy for borking the original website so badly that I had to abandon it. On another plus, I have found that the camera on my phone is lightyears better than the digital camera I used to photograph some of the original entries. It might not hurt to redo those pictures after all.

Hilary

5-31-2025-Crossroads

I posted about this on my author Facebook page a few months ago, but I figured I'd do an expanded version here. 

Back in early August, I was heading back from my favorite writing haunt, the local Panera. Why Panera? It's generally quiet, nobody bothers me, and I get to sometimes act as Mom 2.0 to some of the kiddos working there. It's a win-win, and I get a free coffee each time I go (no, not a scam...I'm a member of their Sip Club...one free basic drink a day). 

I usually play music when I drive, and will alternate between the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, and early 2000's stations. Basically, my thinking is that at least one of them will have something worth listening to at any given time. These are all pre-sets on my car and my parent's car, which I was using this night. As I'm pulling out of the parking lot, that's when stuff got weird. 

The satellite radio started rapid-fire shifting through stations, though the display didn't change...it was stuck on the 1960's station, which is what i was listening to when I turned the car on. It had to have gone thought a dozen stations in the space of about two seconds as best I could tell. This was unnerving for a few reasons. First, this wasn't my car, and I want my parents to have a functional vehicle. Second, while there are dead spots in Jefferson City where the satellite radio doesn't play nice, this was not one of those spots. They tend to be more clustered around the capitol proper, where the bigger buildings can block reception. This area was pretty open. My next thought was that the subscription needed to be renewed, but then I remembered that my father had just renewed it a month or so prior. This is also not a car that has had any history of electrical problems, and you can bet that came into my mind almost immediately.

And here's where it gets really creepy. The station craziness stopped for 1-2 seconds, and what follows were the only discernable chain of words that I heard in this whole event. It was still displaying the 60's Gold channel, so I have no idea what the actual station would have been.

"Orisha of the Crossroads."

The voice saying those words was female, and had a very pronounced accent. Best guess was that it sounded Southern, Louisiana-esque. Another comparison for those old enough to remember would be that psychic lady, Miss Cleo, would would advertise when I was young. Then the station kicked back to the 60's, and hasn't done any weirdness like that since. 

I did a bit of research when I got home, and am still mystified as to why this particular deity came up. The Orisha of the Crossroads is Eshu, and is seen as the trickster deity who controls fate, crossroads, and the choices we are presented at those crossroads. I am not a practitioner of the Yoruba or Santeria faiths, though I am more familiar with the Norse god with similar attributes/behaviors...Loki. Strange, that.

At the time, I was on the brink of starting a new job teaching middle school after teaching high school science for over a decade. I thought the change would be good. It...wasn't. After one year of middle school, I'm going back to teaching high school chemistry. For quite a few months, I thought that whatever came over the airwaves was referencing that. Now, with more recent events, I'm not so sure. I am at a crossroads in my life in multiple respects, and maybe this was something trying to give me a heads up. 

Well, it worked. Now to see what else is coming down the pipe. Because something clearly is.

Hilary

5-30-2025-Mean Unicorns

This post is courtesy of one of my students who mentioned this during the last few days of school.

My classes were all watching The Last Unicorn. They didn't have chromebooks, testing was done, and where wasn't a whole lot left to do after 8th grade promotion. So, let's put on Sifling's favorite childhood movie! I didn't mind watching it five times in a row. Heaven knows I did that plenty as a kid. Here was the comment that spawned this post:

"Wow. The Unicorn is kind of mean."

I was straightening up the room and not entirely paying attention to what part of the movie it was, but I think it may have been where the Schmendrick said 'don't worry about it' in response to the Unicorn not being able to turn him into a real magician. In return, she said "I'm not." I should preface this post by saying I'm talking about the movie, not necessarily the book (though it is a pretty faithful adaptation).

Yeah, now that I think about it, the Unicorn does come across as mean, at least in her interactions with people/things she can talk to. She's a little less brusque with animals, though still demands respect from them (see interaction with the Butterfly, though in her defense, that one could drive anybody bonkers).  But her interactions with humans in particular...yikes. Even when she becomes human, she's not the nicest person at the outset, though she does improve somewhat. I think after the third viewing I may have hit on the reason why.

The Unicorn isn't a mean/malicious being in her deepest self, quite the opposite. I think it's more that she doesn't think the way a human does, and she's also been fairly isolated for a good chunk of her life. Here' the evidence I will present.

First, the Unicorn is immortal. It's not directly stated in the book or movie how old she is, but it's implied that she's not exactly young even by the standards of her species. It's also implied that she's never left the lilac wood where she lives, meaning, she hasn't had much chance for social interaction with, well, anyone. The Unicorns in that universe don't seem to be gregarious, and while perhaps not shunning interactions with each other, they don't seem to go out of their way for them, either. Maybe it was a 'get together only to mate' kind of thing. 

This would have made the Red Bull's task of rounding the Unicorns up even easier. If they didn't communicate with each other, they wouldn't know something was wrong if their kind started disappearing (because they don't seem to seek each other out). The first our Unicorn hears that something might be wrong is from two hunters that wander into her forest and speak of the lack of Unicorns in the world. King Haggard had been collecting Unicorns for years (how long, I don't know, but it's also stated in the book that he's pretty old, so it's safe to say this has probably been going on for decades). 

Second, the Unicorn doesn't process emotions like we do. She states as much in that she can't feel regret, but she does know what sorrow is. It's interesting to me that she understands the difference, but either choses not to exercise it, or is unable to do so. That is the prime reason she comes across as unkind when she talks to people. It's not that she is; she just doesn't know how to talk to people, and never had the opportunity to learn. When Molly first confronts her in tears and anger, the Unicorn doesn't know how to handle it. She tries to be nice, in her own way, but it seems stilted, like she's trying to follow a script that she's only seen once or twice. Maybe she was one of those Unicorns that went to maidens from time to time, but if that was the case, it's been a while for her, and she only sort of remembers what she is supposed to do.  

Another line that struck me was when Molly accused the Unicorn (now Lady Amalthea) of being cruel to Prince Lear. Now, is Lear awkward in his courtship? Yes, largely because he as as much clue about how to go about doing so as the Lady Amalthea does at interacting with people. Bless the man, he tries, and he does everything he can think of to win a woman's heart. And, if Amalthea were a real, human woman, it might well have worked. To Molly's way of thinking, Amalthea is being cruel and unfeeling towards Lear, and she is. There might be a way Unicorns court each other, and if that's Amalthea's baseline for comparison, she might not understand what Lear is doing. Molly does get frustrated with Amalthea for her treatment of Lear, and verbally lets her have it. However, Molly does not seem to understand until a bit later that the Unicorn doesn't process her emotions like humans do. She has them, but makes much different use of them. Only when Amalthea starts to become more and more human does she start to reciprocate Lear's attraction. Again, she is learning how to be human, and to an extent, un-learning how to be a Unicorn. 

So, the short version: The Unicorn's not mean, just socially challenged and has a somewhat alien way of thinking, at least by human standards. 

Hilary

5-29-2025-Tchotchkes

And here's your moment of irrational annoyance, courtesy of someone who didn't mean ill by it, but aggravated me anyway.

I'm always on the hunt for curio cabinets for my museum. Yes, I already have a bunch, but I particularly need ones that have doors on them (lockable being a bonus). The Junior Assistant Curator is starting to show interest in the fossils, and is just tall enough that he can reach some that are in a more open setting. The Assistant Curator is also interested, but knows to ask. I prefer to buy my cabinets secondhand, for a few reasons. 

First, good lord, have you seen the prices of new furniture nowadays? I saw one (very nice) cabinet for 1500 dollars. Um, no. Not when I can get something similar for 300 dollars or less.

Second, I'm helping someone directly by getting an unwanted item out of their home in exchange for some money. I'd rather support a person than a chain furniture store. Win-win.

Third, I'm no interested in all of them matching. A hodgepodge has a bit more character.

I've had the most luck on Facebook Marketplace, but I've also found a few at antique stores/flea markets. There used to be an upcycled furniture place near my house, but sadly, that business owner closed within a year, but not before I got three lovely cabinets and a haunted rocking chair from her. Yeah, story for another time on the chair. This last time, I'm at a flea market, and expressed interest in curio cabinets. I said the shelved needed to be very sturdy, as some of my items were pretty heavy, and I would prefer wood shelves to glass ones. I can work with glass, but I generally will put some kind of liner between it and the fossil to prevent damage to both. Here was the comment that made me bristle:

"Oh, got some heavier tchotchkes? This one should work for you."

Now, I hadn't mentioned that what I was needing to display was fossils. Part of me wanted to say something rather cranky in response, but I kept it in. I guess I didn't like the assumption that the only thing a woman my age would collect is trinkets. I wanted to say something like 'all but one of my 'tchotchkes' is over ten thousand years old, or is a replica of something that old. They also tend to weigh a couple of pounds each. But yeah, I just need a spot to store trinkets.'

Like I said, kind of irrational, but irksome nevertheless. It was also a turn-off in terms of me wanting to buy anything from this vendor. He had also made some racist comments (not directed at me, but I heard them) and overall seemed like a less-than-awesome person. I ended up not getting the cabinet. The price was right, but it was really banged up, with a cracked shelf and a LOT of damage to the wood (this wasn't very obvious until I got a closer look at it...I would be dumping more money into prettying it up than I wanted). Oh well. I'll find the right pieces at the right time, I guess.

Here's the thing...I'm really proud of my collection. It's taken me over a decade to put it together, and I'm not done. To have someone call it a bunch of trinkets, even unknowingly, was belittling. It would be like me calling someone's baseball card collection a pile of paper. Everyone's got their own thing. It's just that my thing consists of 800+ rocks, most of which could be used as projectiles in a pinch. They've survived this long, right? What's one more high-velocity impact?

Hilary

5-27-2025-That's Not What You Said It Was...

When one collects fossils like I do, it pays to know what you are looking at. It helps one not get ripped off. 

Here's a really good example of this notion.

A few years back, I was browsing a certain website for fossils (because that's what I do in my spare time when I'm not writing). I found one for about fifty bucks. It was listed as 'small baby mammoth jaw.' Not going to lie, something looked off about the piece, though I chalked it up at the time to there being only one rather crumby picture of the item. Still, fifty isn't bad for mammoth/mastodon material, so I bought it. 

A few days later, a box comes. A big box. Now, the 'baby mammoth jaw' was the only thing I had outstanding at the time, so I knew this had to be it. Maybe the seller just over-packed...some of them do that out of an abundance of caution. It's also very heavy, heavier than I would have expected from a 'small' fossil. So, I open up the box. A few things were noted immediatly.

1st: This thing was not 'small.' It was dang near a foot long and about ten pounds.

2nd: It was in absolutely atrocious condition. Stabilization with a load of PaleoBond was in this thing's very near future.

3rd: It was not mammoth. It was not elephant of any kind. 

What I had here, folks, was a sizable chunk of a lower jaw of an animal called a titanothere (see below). Superficially, they look a bit like rhinos, and they are distantly related to them. They were found all over the western North American continent and Asia. I already had some titanothere material in my collection, but nothing from the skull before this piece. You know how I paid about fifty bucks for the fossil? I've seen similar pieces going for ten times that, condition notwithstanding. So, yeah, kind of accidentally ripped the seller off.

How did I know this? The teeth were a dead (pardon the expression) giveaway. Elephants have very distinctive teeth, with mastodon being pointed and nipple shaped (hence the name) and mammoth teeth being flatter and corrugated-looking, for lack of a better term. The teeth on this specimen didn't match either of those descriptions, and a quick consult of one of my reference books pointed me in the right direction. Once I ruled out elephants, titanothere became my prime suspect based on size alone, but the book confirmation helped. 

Here's the second, bigger problem. A lot of titanothere material is found on Native American land, where collecting is illegal. I messaged the seller and asked where the fossil came from. If I got even the slightest hint that it was illegally obtained, it was going right back to the sender, or to the authorities. Turns out the seller didn't know where it came from. It had been sitting up in an attic for decades. All he knew was that a relative acquired it sometime in the 1980's or thereabouts. Based on the condition the fossil was in, I can buy that. Repeated exposure to temperature swings and moisture (commonly seen in attics) can play hell with fossil integrity. It took all of the stabilizer I had just to keep this thing in one piece. It's not pretty and never will be, but at least it's not crumbling anymore. It now lives with the rest of the titanothere fossils, but on a crochet cushion to prevent further deterioration. 

Without knowing exactly where it is from, I can't make an exact genus identification with one hundred percent confidence. If the piece is from the White River Formation, which I suspect it is, the best guess would be Megacerops. It would fit the size and location of the specimen, and that is the only titanothere found in that formation. Again, my identification hinges on where I think the specimen is from...if it's from further west, that would change my thinking. 

Hilary

5-22-2025-I'm Done!

With the school year...not with writing. I'll be at that until the day I die and get to go and make whatever supreme being out there utterly insane. You've been warned, whatever you are! 

I'm not going to say that I write as a survival mechanism, but this year, that was sort of the case. The writing, the stories, the creative stuff...that's what kept me sane for the past ten months. I shouldn't have been able to knock through a whole book in that space of time. When I look at the word counts for Moonstone Wish and the completion date of Lapis Blade, it does amount to a little over 100k words. That's...a lot. Yes, I know, this is coming from someone who did a 50k word manuscript in three weeks. Shattered was the exception (I hope) to how I normally write. I don't ever want to feel what seemed like a near-possession ever again. So, if there's any other objects in my house thinking of doing that, don't. Please. I've got enough on my plate (I'm looking at YOU, 2500 year old pendant. Don't even think about it.) 

So what's next on the docket after I finish Moonstone Wish, which might be in the next couple of weeks? Unless my brain throws a monkey wrench, I'l like to at least start Ruby Memory before the end of summer. Now, will that happen? Not sure. I've got a Gothic-horror-romance that's been brewing in my brain for a while, as well as a memoir compilation of my years of teaching high school science. How forceful those two projects get remains to be seen. I have a feeling the memoir might take a back seat to the Gothic one, but I've been wrong before. Besides, if I wait a year or two with that one, I'll have even more stories to add to it. Or I could just make it from my years in Linn. I'm not quite sure how to handle that one yet. 

If I do start Ruby Memory, I'm going to have to get through the diaries of the Romanov girls. I've gotten through a chunk of Anastasia's, and am going to try to finish that one and Maria's by the end of next week. At least with the younger ones, it is very interesting to see the sibling dynamic play out. Those four really did organize themselves into pairs...older and younger. This isn't to say they weren't close as a group. If anything, these four seemed tighter-knit than most sibling units I have seen. I think part of this can be ascribed to their personalities and their comparative isolation from other kids their age. I would have been interested to see how they would have developed friendships outside their close circle, because from their writings, they certainly would have been open to the idea. 

Hilary

5-17-2025-Pie of Legend

I like to cook. I've liked to cook since I was a kid. I collect recipe books and look forward to using them this summer. I particularly like to make/bake sweets, though increasingly I enjoy making them more than I like eating them. My first brush with dessert-making was when I was in elementary school, and hoo boy, what an intro. 

The recipe in question was called "Puffy Pebble Pie." This abomination came from a recipe book I got in my school library. If my memory is correct, it was called The Kid's Microwave Cookbook. I have scoured the internet for this title, because for some deranged reason I want to make this sugary horror again. I have not been able to locate one. I did find a different book with the same title, but it was a different collection of recipes. I don't think this cookbook was indie published (which wasn't really a thing when I was that young, and I doubt my school library would have stocked the cookbook if it wasn't traditionally published). My brain is wanting to say it was a Betty Crocker publication, but I could be wrong. If anyone finds this thing, please send it, or a link, my way. 

Now, why do I call this recipe an abomination? Draw your own conclusions from the ingredients list (again, from memory):

40 large marshmallows

Butter

Chocolate Ovaltine

2 cups of malted milk balls (1 cup crushed, 1 cup intact)

Pie crust 

Microwave the marshmallows, butter, and Ovaltine until melted (I used a nonstick pan with my mom's supervision). Mix in the crushed malted milk balls. Pour into pie crust. Dot with intact malted milk balls. Place in refrigerator until firm. Slice, eat, and witness your blood glucose level reach levels that will cofound even a hospital grade glucometer. 

Yeah.

It was amazing. 

I want to find it again.

Who wants to live forever, anyway?

Below is the closest visual match that I could find. It's a completely different recipe, but the surface looks similar:

http://hersheyland.com/recipes/whop-pie.html

Hilary

5-11-2025-Not Today, Creepy House

Back in college, my folks decided that I couldn't stay in the dorms anymore. There were a multitude of reasons, not least of which was when the guy next door to use tried to get into our room with a credit card and then peed on our door. Long story for another time, but before you ask, yes, drugs were involved. 

We ended up looking at something like twenty houses. My only real criteria was that it had to be in decent shape, and it also had to be under twenty minutes from the MU Campus. I worked at the veterinary teaching hospital at the time, and if we got an emergency page, we had to get there within twenty minutes. A little bit of land around it would be a bonus. 

One house we looked at seemed to fit the bill. It was about ten minutes from campus, had several acres around it, and the house itself was in good shape. On paper, it seemed pretty perfect, and the price was certainly right, about 50k below market value (in hindsight, this should have been red flag number one). 

I felt something off when we pulled up on the property. There was nothing there. No birds, squirrels, nothing. It was also creepily silent. Red flag number two.

The interior of the house was strange. There was no furniture, and it looked like it had been vacant for a while. The appliances were decent enough, and the carpet was okay, if a bit worn. One feature that struck me was that the bathrooms were carpeted, and with shag carpet, no less. Not a red flag in itself, but still weird. 

The whole place had an overall creepy feel. Normally, that kind of thing doesn't bother me too much, but I was getting uncomfortable. So were my mom and the realtor, from how they were behaving. Both of them wanted to get out of the house. Oh, it gets worse. I felt like I was being drawn to one of the back rooms that was down a short hallway (maybe a bedroom?). It was very much a 'come hither' feeling, and in my experience, that sort of call is never, ever good. We bailed out of there a few minutes later, and crossed it off our list with prejudice.

Fast forward a few years. We did get a house, and I was talking to a friend about our home search a few years prior. She's lived in the area for about thirty years, so she knows most of the spots around town. I mentioned the creepy house and the street it was on. Talk about coincidences...this friend lived very close to that particular property, and knew instantly the house I was talking about. She was able to fill me in on some details about the house, which made me even more grateful that we gave the place a pass. 

Turns out there was a suspicious death on the property, maybe in the 1980's to the best of her knowledge. The police didn't outright call it murder, but reading between the lines, that's sure what it sounded like. My friend said you will never see animals on the property, and even birds seem to shy away. Deer tend to skirt the treeline, but rarely cross onto the property. She also said that house goes off and on the market very frequently, sometimes twice a year. We couldn't find any officially documented paranormal stories associated with the property, but the feeling was undeniable. Something was, and very likely is, still in that house, and it's decidedly unpleasant. 

Out of curiosity, I looked up what I think is the address. It's not currently on the market, but was about a year ago. We will see if it comes up for sale again.

Hilary

5-10-2025-Beast of Gevaudan

This was one of those historical mysteries that still flummoxes people today.  For those not in the know, the Beast was an animal or animals that went on a multi-year rampage in south-central France from 1764-1767. It, or they, racked up quite a body count, and seemed to preferentially target women and children. Eventually, the animals were killed, and the deaths stopped. So, what exactly was this critter, or critters? Here are some of the ideas that have been presented over the years.

A lion-not super plausible in my opinion. The attack patterns did not match up well to a lion, or any big cat, for that matter. Descriptions of the Beast varied considerably, but nearly all agreed that the Beast was canine in appearance.

A hyaena-this one's a little more believable, but still would not be my pick. While looking superficially canine, hyaenas are actually closer to cats in the tree of life. They also don't act as the Beast did. Now, did some goofballs keep these things as pets back in the day? Supposedly yes. Do pets sometimes escape? Sure, but it still isn't a great match in terms of behavior or looks.

Wolf-now we are getting warmer. A big wolf, or wolf pack, is more than capable of doing the damage described in the historical record. Here's the issue...wolves weill usually avoid people. Unprovoked, hunting style attacks on humans are super rare, yet that seems to be exactly what the Beast was doing.

Wolf dog-ding ding! I think we have a winner! Here's why.

A wolf dog has the potential to combine the worst traits of the parents. You have the size and power of a wolf, and a lack of fear of humans from the dog. This is a really, REALLY bad combo. I have been around wolf dogs, several of which would be considered 'high content,' meaning more wolf in them than dog. Can they be fantastically loyal and protective? Most definitely. Do they have the potential to be extremely dangerous? Also yes. There's a reason these animals are illegal to own in a lot of places. 

The second bit of evidience is this. These animals looked wolf-like, but different enough for people to notice that they didn't look like complete wolves. Descriptions from the time include shorter muzzles, brindled fur, unusual tails, and extra toes. Now, for me, the extra toes is the giveaway. A lot of the bigger herding breeds such as Great Pyrenees have the polydactyl trait pop up in their bloodlines, meaning, they have extra toes. It's not super visible from a distance, but up close, a polydactyl paw looks very different from a normal paw.

Here's what I think happened. One or more of these large livestock guarding dogs managed to mate with some of the local wolves. Given the range and supposed number of animals, as well as their varied appearance, I would have a hard time believing that there was just one breeding event. There may well have been several over a period of a year or so before the Beasts started attacking people. If one has ever been up close to some of these bigger breeds, they can easily top one hundred pounds, and they tend to be blocky and muscular. They can also be very aggressive when defending livestock, a trait which they may have translated to their hybrid offspring.

Here's the other piece of the puzzle. Though wolf dogs tend to be more aggressive than their parent counterparts, the sheer number of attacks makes me think something else was going on. As a former veterinary technician/student, I am thinking there was some disease outbreak around the time the attacks started. My background has me looking very closely at rabies. Rabies was, and still is, an ugly disease. There's no cure, and it is fatal. Even the prevention is no joke (I had the rabies vaccine in veterinary school, and it's a rough, three course series of shots). Rabies causes extreme behavior changes, one of which is heightened aggression in the 'raging' form, which is what is more likely to present in dogs. The 'dumb' form is more likely to present in livestock. The animal becomes insensitive and unresponsive, and will just stand and stare blankly. I've seen both forms in a veterinary setting, and I still couldn't tell you which one is worse. 

So, there's my hypothesis. The Beast(s) of Gevaudan were wolf-dog hybrids, possibly high content wolf-dogs, and were met with the perfect storm of an outbreak of rabies. That would explain the variety of canine appearances and odd behaviors. I would LOVE to see the remains of the last one that was shot. According to some records, the carcass was buried somewhere on the Versailles palace grounds. A look at the mouth and tooth structure would tell me what I need to know.

Hilary

5-3-2025: How Did We Survive?

No, seriously...have you seen the playground gear my generation had? And that was at the start of the 'safety conscious' era. Most of my classmates and I were still using the old stuff.  Like these things:

I don't remember if my friends and I had a specific name for this device on the left, but the moniker 'steel-ribbed kid slinger' is perfectly appropriate. We tried to make ourselves into textbook demonstrations of the concept of centripetal force by spinning that thing as fast as we could and hanging off the bars for dear life. Yes, were were near horizontal to the ground some of the time. Yes, we got hurt. Yes, it was worth every second of terror.

How many here got their rears burned by the beauty in the middle? Hot summer day + shorts = second degree burns on your backside. It was jeans or nothing on those slides, especially if it was above eighty degrees. 

The one on the right? Heaven help you if you lost your grip. You were going to connect with at least one of those bars on the way down, and it was going to freaking hurt. And they got just as hot on summer days. Bruises and burns...the ultimate two-for-one! And don't believe for a second that those horse things were innocuous...go too hard on them and you would faceplant on the wood chips, pebbles, or concrete.

Any guesses as to how many bones I broke on these? Zero. I have no idea how I managed THAT statistic...anyone who spends a few minutes in my company knows I'm a total klutz. Case in point was when I bounced down a flight of stairs on my butt because I refused to make two trips to carry four bowls of dog food.

But that's a story for another time.

Hilary

4-12-2025-Vintage Book Trailers

A weird idea came into my head the other night, and I'm going to run with it.

Vintage Book Trailers.

Okay, hear me out. What if one could make trailers for old (like, public domain old) books to increase interest in them? I'm not just talking about known classics like Dracula and The Time Machine, though those are plenty cool in their own right. Did you know Bram Stoker wrote other books? They are just as good, if not better, than Dracula. The Jewel of the Seven Stars in particular is amazing. If nothing else, it would give me a little more practice with Canva, though I am getting better and better. 

I guess I want to encourage people to read something a bit more off the beaten path. I'm not short of choices in my house...I'm the child of a librarian, and we have probably over a thousand books in my place (no, I'm not exaggerating...my mom's room itself has over two hundred). I might upload them to my YouTube channel, along with other stuff I'm working on for Melusine's Endgame. 

I am considering picking up an extra stock video subscription. Canva does have a good library, but I figure the more I have access to, the better. The two I'm looking at are Storyblocks and Envato. If anyone has any experience with either (or preference), let me know. Price isn't really the issue for me. Ease of use and a diverse library are more important. 

Hilary

4-5-2025-I. Hate. Migraines.

Ooof...talk about your roller coaster weeks!

The school year did get extended (boo!) but they also pushed back MAP testing by a week (yay!). I doubt we will get all of the current unit covered by the end of the year, but we should be good for what is actually tested on. I admit, I'm having a load of fun...nothing like having an amateur paleontologist teaching a unit on Evolution. 

I did get a migraine, this time related to the storms we've been having lately. A bit concerning, since the weather hasn't triggered them before this past month. However, the new medication my new doctor prescribed? I don't usually call something a 'miracle drug,' but that's what this stuff was! It knocked the migraine out in about an hour. Imitrex usually took at least two, and that was if it took the headache away entirely (and lately that has been hit-or-miss). Best of all, no 'Imitrex hangover' as my doctor put it. If you've never taken Imitrex, it does leave you feeling weird for a day or so after. This new stuff, nothing. I've never tried ODT (oral dissolving tablets), so I wasn't sure what to expect. 

It tasted like those spun sugar mints. Really quite tasty! I was expecting bitter, or tasteless, but not, you know, pleasant. My doctor said that Imitrex was a wonder drug when it first came out decades ago (and it still works for a lot of people), but there are more targeted therapies now. This new one, Nurtec, targets a specific nerve implicated in migraines, with fewer (and in my case, no) side effects. The anatomy/chemistry nerd in me is always amazed by how far medicine has come in a comparatively short time. I'm not meaning to turn this post into a drug ad, but when one has dealt with these headaches as long as I have, anything that gives relief is a godsend (especially relief with little to no side effects).  I just hope that I don't pass these on to my kids, since they can be hereditary, though neither of my parents or other family have or had them, so maybe I'm just a one-off. 

In another first, I had an MRI. It was interesting. Loud as heck, though the earplugs helped. Not going to lie, I wasn't a fan of the dye contrast injection, since my veins suck and the technician had to use my hand instead of my arm. Oh well...at least it was my non-dominant hand. They let me keep my rings and bracelets on, and I could feel them vibrating the whole time. The tech said that meant there was at least a little magnetic material in them, but not enough to get hot or get pulled too strongly. An experience, to say the least.

Hilary

3-28-2025-A Mystery Solved (Maybe)

Well that was enlightening.

I changed doctors, this time to one who specializes in migraines. They have gotten much worse in the past couple months, including me getting two weather-induced ones. That's never happened before, so it was a touch concerning. Also, my current medication isn't working as well as it used to. I'm not sure if I'm getting multiple headaches, or just one long one that is outlasting the pill. I'm already at the maximum dose, and I already experienced an accidental overdose of that medication once before. It almost caused a collapse, and I'm glad a couple of my students were right next to me and able to steady me against a lab bench. Not fun. 

The first order of business is to keep a headache journal, so I can pinpoint any triggers besides the ones I already know (hormones and bright fluorescent lighting). Second, my meds are being switched! No more sumatriptan! The doctor said that medication was a miracle drug when it first came out, but now there are more targeted therapies that work better with few side effects. Don't get me wrong...the sumatriptan kicked the pain, but some of the side effects were almost as bad as the headache. The new one targets the specific nerve that misbehaves during a migraine and calms it down. From a research and medical standpoint, it is so cool how much migraine treatment has advanced. As anyone who has these delights...they can and will wreck your day. 

Here's the real freaky part. My doctor thinks there is a possibility that my migraines might be related to the car wreck that I was in. In 2008. Yes, you saw that right. A wreck from about eighteen years ago could be causing issues today. I did have whiplash (though being T-boned, spun, and flipped by someone going 60 mph will generally do that), but little other physical damage. My doctor asked if an MRI was done, and while I did have some kind of scan that day, I don't think it was an MRI. 

So guess who's getting an MRI in a couple of weeks? This author! My doctor said he orders one for all of his migraine patients as a rule, but this will also let him see if I do have lingering damage from the car wreck, or any other problems like closed off sinuses. It will be an experience...I've never had one, and the Anatomy teacher in me is curious as to what they are like. He also recommended some PT to address the tension in my neck and shoulders. Gee...why would I have tension? It's not like my job is stressful.

Oh.

Wait.

Never mind.

On an unrelated note, I blew my kids' minds last week when I described how canine legs are set up (we are starting Evolution and Common Ancestry next week). It weirded them out that most animals walk on their fingers/toes (digitigrade) versus palms/soles (plantigrade). The resulting diagram happened while we were waiting for buses. Those kids are better artists than I will ever be.

Hilary

3-27-2025-Spooky Gettysburg Story

It's dang near midnight (and will be past that by the time I finish this). Time for a spooky story!

My dad and I are history nerds. Battlefields are the go-to vacation for us, especially American Civil War. I know...weird for a lady. One vacation that I took with a friend, we stopped at the Kernstown battlefield site. It's not big, and not one of the larger engagements of the war (though nearby Winchester, VA is definitely worth a visit), but the volunteers there are top notch. One of them approached my friend and asked if he had any questions about the battle, and he actually directed them to me, saying I was the historian of the pair. From the look on the volunteers' faces, they were not expecting a twenty-one year old blonde college student to be asking the questions. I guess it's more of a guy thing, but they were impressed. I then dropped a couple hundred at a nearby bookstore (hey, cut me a break...I'm a librarian's daughter).

Anyhow...

Gettysburg is a must-stop on these trips, and the last one I took out there with my father was no exception. I had just finished my first year of college, and didn't do summer school that year. My dad and I went all over PA and VA, and MD for good measure. The hotel in Gettysburg where we stayed was literally right in the middle of the battlefield for the first day's engagement. Sadly, that hotel is now gone, but it was really neat to walk out my door and see where General Buford's cavalry hunkered down, or where the highest ranking casualty of the whole war sustained the wound that killed him. Yes, like I said, the hotel was IN the battlefield. 

Now, Gettysburg has a reputation for being haunted. It is. Full stop.  A given area of ground can't catch that many bodies and not end up harboring a few spirits. I experience something. I want to preface this by saying I have never been frightened there. I'm sure there are some less-than-pleasant customers out there, but I've not run into them yet. Frankly, I'm more scared of the ticks than the ghosts. That's not to say that there aren't a few who won't go out of their way to make one uncomfortable. Case in point...

I made my first trip to Gettysburg with my parents when I was in middle school. There was one spot where I was unnerved, and it was right by the Reynolds Monument. For those who have never been to the battlefield, the monument itself is on a small, manmade mound, and is maybe a twenty or thirty feet from the tree line. This is the spot where Major General John Reynolds was hit by a sniper, and died shortly after. Being from a military family on both sides, I am never going to be the one to show disrespect to a war monument of any kind. Mainly out of respect, partly because my parents would have kicked my butt ten different ways if I even considered the notion.  I'm facing the monument with my back to the trees, and I feel something come up behind me. I also picked up on a bristling hostility, like somebody really, REALLY didn't want me there. The temperature also dropped a solid twenty degrees, and with how hot PA summers tend to get, it's noticeable when this occurs. I walked away from the monument, and the feeling dropped off when I was about twenty feet away. 

Creepy, right?

Fast forward to the trip with my dad. I'm now nineteen, though I don't look a whole lot different than I did at thirteen, except being taller and losing the coke-bottle glasses. Went by the Reynolds monument again. Same thing over again. Temperature drops, and I feel like something is rushing up behind me, same feeling of hostility. Nineteen year old me is having none of it. I whirled around and said something to the effect of 'dude, I don't know what your problem is, but I'm not hurting anything. Chill out.' The feeling receded, and the temperature went back up. Here was the weird bit...I got a flash of something in my brain, maybe a fraction of a second. I saw a kid (not me) with some kind of object chipping at the monument. 

That night, I went out at twilight to the road across from the monument. My dad was about fifty feet away from me, and I was looking up at one of the trees. Then I hear footsteps walking up to me on the gravel. Spoiler alert...there's nobody out there but me and my dad. The steps stopped a few feet from me, but there wasn't the feeling of hostility from earlier. My gut told me this was the same person. I greeted him (that's one thing I usually do..treat spirit like people, and politely, unless the give me a hell of a compelling reason not to), and asked if he needed anything. No response, not that I expected any, but the vibe was very relaxed. I went off a few minutes later. I don't know if that more restrained approach was this individual's way of apologizing, but that's how I took it. 

We took another trip a few years later, only this time it was me and my husband. Same spot, same feeling. This time, however, no hostility. If I had to guess, maybe he recognized me? I didn't look very different from when I was nineteen, and I made a point to say hello when I got to the monument. I think we're good now. It just took over a decade.

So, what is going on with this spirit? I don't have anything concrete, but I can make a few educated guesses. I'm going to assume he was Union Army, based on how protective he is of the memorial to a Union general. Maybe he was part of Reynolds' corp. From observations of other families each time I'm at the battlefield, teenagers don't seem to like being between the monument and the tree line. From that little flicker of insight I had, my assumption would be that a teenager, or perhaps multiple teenagers, at some point either attempted to vandalize the monument, or succeeded. I'm thinking that this spirit really doesn't like teenagers, probably from that association. One of the park guides said that vandalism unfortunately does happen, though it's usually caught quickly. No idea when the desecration event I was shown happened, but I don't think it was super recent even at that time. All I could tell was that it was a boy and his back was to me. 

We might take a trip out there in a couple years, once the kids are older. So, person guarding the Reynolds monument, be on the lookout for me, and try not to freak out my kids, okay? I'll make sure neither of them do anything naughty. Peace out until then.

Hilary

3-26-2025-Scammers

Yes, the conference was amazing. Yes, I am still exhausted. Two agents asked for partial manuscripts for Queen's Night, so we shall see where that goes. I've still met my goal of being traditionally published, so this would just be icing on the cupcake.

I also posted a video on the main Melusine's Endgame page. It's mainly me poking around with Canva, but I'd say it looks pretty good. It's just a list of all the books in the series, but I was able to play around with images, color, and font.

On a more amusing note, I love toying with scammers. They infest most of the writing and author groups on Facebook (though some groups are better than others about policing). The fishing posts are pretty easy to spot. Lots of broken English, and they usually start with some generic opening like 'what's the hardest thing about writing' or something like that. Respond, and one of two things will happen. Some will ask you to friend and DM them. Others go straight to messaging you. Nearly all of these people are selling marketing and book trailer/website creation services of some kind. All of them are crap. I've had a bunch lately who show me screenshots of some little test they run on my website so they can say 'it's not optimized...I can optimize it for *some amount of money.* Yeah, sorry sweetie, I can do that myself. It's not hard. 

But dang, are they persistent. I've had a few become downright threatening. You know, saying things like it will be my fault my book didn't sell because I didn't hire them. It would be funny if I didn't know how many people get scammed by these jerks. They prey on those so desperate to be called authors that they don't think to research who they are talking to and what they really need. Chatting with them for more than a couple minutes reveals that English is not their first language. Some of them even offer to edit my books. Okay, first of all...your English isn't great, which means you will either do a poor job, or use some AI program to edit, and then charge me for that service. No thanks.

The books trailers they show are...trash. Some are even stolen from other places, or not authorized. When I run across those, I contact the real author and ask if they knew about the trailer. Most of the time, the answer is no. One I was shown was legit, but it was so bad that the original author accepted my offer to make a new one for her, free of charge (I can use the practice on Canva).  Another one was not even about the book it claimed to be advertising...I contacted that author too...boy was he mad. I've had a bunch demand that I send them my trailers so they can 'compare' them with ones they made. Pro tip: don't do that. That's an excellent way to get your trailer stolen and used by these folks who will say they are their own. 

I've been able to get some of them to lose interest by telling them I am traditionally publishing, and there is nothing they can do that my publisher and I can't do for free. It looks like these types mainly prey on those who self-publish and don't know any better. Very predatory, but luckily they all follow a similar script. Sometime this week, I will transcribe a particularly amusing multi-day interaction I had with one of these scammers, 'Grace Williams.' This chat started pretty standard, then escalated to the point of 'Grace' showing me profiles of famous authors who used her services. Long story short, I contacted the agencies of both of the authors in question, and they confirmed the profiles were fraudulent. When confronted with this information, 'Grace' first tried to call (yes, call) me, then block me. 

Funny thing...ever since this interaction, I haven't gotten any DMs from scammers. To me, this means one of two things. Either word is out about me and that I will troll these people for my own deranged amusement, or there are actually a comparatively small number of these types and they just have multiple profiles. I'm not sure which is more plausible.

Hilary

3-21-2025-Chicago! And Writing! And An Archaeopteryx!

Guess who's writing this from the Warwick-Allerton Hotel in Chicago? This girl!

After the couple of weeks I had, this conference will be a well-earned break. The students have been off the chain in anticipation of Spring Break, the greyhounds are nuttier than usual (and given that Jonah is a walking psychotic event, that's saying something), and my younger child decided it would be a fine idea to swallow a Band-Aid last week. He's fine. It came out the traditional way. I can't say the same for my sanity. In his defense, he is only fourteen months old. 

Since the Let's Just Write Conference doesn't start until about 6pm today, I spent the day at the Field Museum. Yeah, my Facebook and Threads are getting a workout.  The Chicago Archaeopteryx was amazing! Sue was her usual awesome self, and I got to have breakfast and lunch right under Maximo the Patagotitan's rear end. I'd say it was a most excellent start to the day. 

On to the actual conference!

Hilary

3-16-2025-Nerdy Archaeopteryx Post

One week until Spring Break. Just one more week. We've got this.

I've only got a couple more days before I drive up to Chicago for the Let's Just Write! Conference.  This will be the biggest conference I've gone to, and I'm excited and nervous. It will be nice to go back to Chicago for a bit, and yes, I am going the the Field Museum to see the Archaeopteryx. I do have a cast of the Berlin Archaeopteryx in my museum, but it's going to be that much cooler to see a real one. Fitting, as there is an Archaeopteryx in Melusine's Endgame. 

A lot of research went into that character. I looked up everything from best guesses about appearance to behavior to flight ability. From a distance, an Archaeopteryx could have been mistaken for a raven or large crow, though with a much longer tail. Based on fossilized pigments found in feather impressions, Archaeopteryx was likely either mostly black or completely black, with iridescent flashes. Sadly, the feathers of the head of the specimen in question weren't preserved, so it can't be said for certain what the color of the uppermost body was. 

Behaviorally, Archaeopteryx would have been active in short spurts through the day  and evening. This is based on its eye structure. In that sense, they would act a lot like modern birds, with burst of activity followed by an extended period of chilling out. Most of the activity would be hunting, as this critter was a predator, though a smaller one for its ecosystem. Its home would have been islands and archipelagos, and may have hunted in the shallow, tidal waters. All of the Archaeopteryx specimens have been recovered from what was once watery sediments (which is ideal for preservation). 

For flight, Archaeopteryx would have been capable of flying, though it wouldn't have moved with the ease and grace of most modern birds. Its wing structure, as well as its torso, indicate it would have flown similarly to how a pheasant does. So, capable of powered flight, but a touch on the awkward side. That said, if Archaeopteryx was sticking to the trees and just going from trunk to trunk or branch to branch, it wouldn't have needed to be super competent, just functional. Now, climbing would have been a different story. A close look at the feet of Archaeopteryx reveals a sickle claw on the second toe similar to that of a dromaeosaur (raptor), revealing that relationship. 

I did have to get creative with vocalization. Since that is soft tissue, it doesn't tend to fossilize (though some mosasaur soft tissue bits have been preserved, and those are pretty wild). I chose to make Petrie the Irate Archaeopteryx capable of vocalizations similar to a parrot, meaning he would use a syrinx. If you watch a parrot 'talk,' you will see that they aren't moving their mouths. They are generating their voice from the syrinx, and organ in the neck. Petrie will 'talk,' and though his vocabulary is limited, he is more than capable of communicating his needs. My main character, Natalie, suspects (correctly) that Petrie is male based on his behavior toward other males (aggression) versus females (affectionate). 

Luckily, even if Petrie does nail you, he can't do much damage.  He's two pounds on his best day, and has tiny teeth. The claws on his feet, however...best avoid those.

Hilary

3-7-2025-Support Indie Artists!

Why yes, I'm a nervous wreck. Why do you ask?

It's totally not because I'm pitching Shattered to an agent in two weeks. Not at all.

Yeah, I am so lying. 

On a happier note, I've decided to branch out and support other artists! Aside from the whole 'bracelet with every book complete' thing, I'm also trying to commission some of the critters. Right now, I'm in an awesome collaboration with a crochet artist to make Moonfire, a baby wyvern. We finally settled on the color scheme, and Moonfire is going to look fantastic! I wish I had that level of talent with yarn. I can straight crochet and make a blanket or a scarf, but that's about it. Moonfire won't show up until later in the Melusine's Endgame series, but I saw this person's work, and had to get in on it. She has even expressed interest in taking a stab at Petrie the Irate Archaeopteryx! 

The school year is starting to wind down. We are in the last week of 3rd quarter, and after that, let's just say 8 weeks will fly by. If you're in education in any way, you know that there tends to be so much crammed into 4th quarter that it seems like everything is spinning (which is weird, because 3rd quarter is usually an almighty slog). MAP testing, end-of-year trips, 8th grade graduation for me, Spring Break, all of that in the next few weeks. Oh, and I have to finish two more units in that time. May or may not happen...I'm not so sure there's enough days in the rest of the year for that to work. At least the last unit is Evolution and Common Ancestry, which is totally my wheelhouse as an amateur paleontologist. 

I will admit, the end of the year is shaping up to be strange. Renovations have started in the building (yes, even while students are still in session), and the changes are already drastic. Tiles being taken up, lockers removed, displays gone...all this in the past couple of days. The halls are going to look mighty strange in the next couple of weeks. I get where it's going, and I do think it will look amazing in the end, but it's a bit of a culture shock right now. 

Now to work on Moonstone Wish. I broke 50k words last night! I'm a little over halfway done!

Hilary

3-2-2025-Make It Stop...

Migraines suck, for a variety of reasons.

Unlike the main character of Amber's Lure, my migraines are painful. As in, I'd best be locking myself in a dark room for a couple hours and God help you if you disturb me/turn on a light/make noise of any kind. Yeah, that kind of migraine. At least I know what they are now. Previously, my doctor diagnosed them as tension headaches, and gave me muscle relaxers. I had one come on during the school day, and took a pill (having never experiences muscle relaxers before), and hoo boy, I'm pretty sure my last classes of the day thought I was drunk/high/both. And no, I should not have driven home.

I'm on a proper migraine medication now, Imitrex. Pretty safe, been on the market for decades, but it comes with some less than awesome side effects (like a lot of meds do). It kicks the pain, but leaves a tightness in my jaw and neck (not exactly painful, just weird), a funky disconnected feeling, and it cranks up my blood pressure a bit. I guess it's worth it. I'm functional on the medication, and I won't say the side effects are worse than the migraines, but they aren't the most pleasant.

Here's the problem. Every time I take one of those stupid pills, another book pops into my head. If you look at my website, it's a better than average chance that any given book you see was spawned by that medication. I have no idea why this is. 'Makes your brain more creative' is not on the documented list of side effects. This is why I have a backlog of sixteen books in my head. This is why I pray I don't get migraines, because if I get any more ideas come through, I will be writing until the day I die. I did not intend to take the Sarah Winchester approach to writing, but my cerebrum has apparently decided that's where we are going. 

Hilary

2-22-2025-Slow Fashion For The Win!

So, I get asked this question a lot, particularly at the beginning of any school year by students who don't know me yet (or don't have siblings who had me as a teacher). Why do I always wear dresses, or the occasional skirt/blouse combo, and never pants? I haven't worn pants, jeans, anything like that to work in years. The only concession I will make is the occasional leggings under a dress, and that is only when my knee is bothering me and I need to wear my brace.

Partially, it's a comfort thing. I prefer the feel of dresses and skirts to pants. I wasn't always this way, but I started to make that shift in college. Partly, it's a laziness thing. It's easier to grab one item and throw it on than attempt to coodinate clothes when it's 6 am and I don't have my contacts in yet. Fun fact...I'm the next best thing to legally blind without corrective devices. Without them, I can discern color and rough shape. Patterns, not so much. One thing I do to freak my students out is let them try on an older pair of my glasses from 3 prescriptions ago. They are horrified (especially the ones who say 'my eyes are so bad'). No, sweetie, yours aren't horrible yet, and mine are worse now than what those glasses show. Mercifully, I stopped deteriorating two years ago, but I'm still considering Lasik at some point. 

But, I digress.

Lately, I've also taken to wearing only bespoke dresses. Expensive? Yes, much more so than off the rack. Worth it? For me, yes. Here's my rationale.

I'm a weird size. The clothing size that fits my bust is usually at least one size too big for everything else. So, I either have to live with that, or get the stuff tailored. Neither option is awesome. 

The stuff in stores now is garbage quality. As in, wash it a couple of times and it starts to fall apart. Now, is that partially the idea behind fast fashion? Yes. These companies would rather you constantly replace stuff (as in, buy even more) than repair. That, and half the time the fabrics are so thin and shoddy that they don't take well to repairs anyway. I had one dress from Kohls that, I kid you not, had the whole side seam open up after two washes. I pitched it. It was a 5 dollar clearance dress, but if I had paid full price, I would have been peeved. My husband had a similar incident with a brand new pair of jeans from the same store. A huge hole opened up in the leg, and not even at a seam. It was right in the middle of the leg. I don't know if there was some massive flaw in the weave, but good lord. Even the clerk who accepted the return was dumbfounded.

Now, I'm not saying fast fashion doesn't have its place. For kids' clothes, it is perfect. They grow so fast that they might get a season or two out of a given garment, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to spend a lot on something you can't wear for long. Now, stuff like formalwear, that's obviously a different story, but for everyday stuff for a middle school kid, fast fashion is the better option. Heck, I look at how quick my two kids grow out of clothes. With my older one, I'm lucky if something fits him for a couple months. And don't get me started on shoes...

WIth the bespoke clothes, I can build a relationship with my seamstresses. There's two I go to almost exclusively, which I will link at the bottom. I pick the dress, send my measurements, and they let me pick the colors and other customizations (hello, pockets!). I am fueling an individual, a small business, rather than some multinational conglomerate that uses sweat shops. One of the designers, Angelina of La Feminite Dress, is also exactly my height, which is a bonus, since I can see exactly where a dress would fall on me. I prefer natural fabrics, and pretty heavily favor linen nowadays. I think I've become more sensitive to synthetics ever since I had Beren, and I don't see that going away. So far, so good with the linen, and I'm branching out into wool and silk blends....we will see how that goes.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RoseAndLinen

Emily is absolutely wonderful to work with! She's based in Minnesota. She will even sketch out ideas that you have. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaFeminiteDress

Angelina is based in Ukraine, and she is a rockstar! Anything you can think of to customize, any color, she can do it. At this point, I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm insane with the amount I order from her, but over half of my wardrobe comes from her shop. I am especially in love with the Ophelia dress.

Hilary

2-16-2025-Character

I want summer. Now. I have had it with winter, and we are barely halfway through February. Supposedly we are getting belted with ANOTHER winter storm early this week. Blech. Enough is enough. On the plus side, maybe I will get to the halfway mark for Moonstone Wish in the next few days. I won't finish it before the Chicago conference in March, but I might be two-thirds done by then. Anyhow, here's a bit about my main female character in Melusine's Endgame, Natalie Forrester. 

She's a paralegal working for the Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan. She's twenty-five at the beginning of Amber's Lure, and while not truly antisocial, will not go out of her way to hang out with people she is not close friends with. Going out and drinking with colleagues is not something she normally finds enjoyable, though the one time she does, it is to her benefit. Natalie does not make friends easily. One has to prove that they are trustworthy before she will open up to them. She does have two people she considers close friends, and they are the closest thing she has to family. 

Romantic life? Nonexistent. Natalie is a more than attractive young woman, though she will not take kindly to remarks about her appearance. She's five foot six and small framed, with reddish-blonde hair that she normally keeps tied back in a braid-bun. She goes out of her way to make herself look severe and unapproachable, and for the most part, it works. She has her reasons for not wanting people close to her, though again, she will not open up as to those reasons unless she truly trusts someone. 

Natalie has been on her own for years. She lost her parents to a drunk driver when she was eleven years old, and was placed in the care of her aunt and uncle. While her parents insisted on this placement with the best of intentions, it was to Natalie's detriment. Those relatives did not welcome a child, and provided for Natalie's physical needs, and not much else. They threw her out when she dropped out of high school, though that was only their excuse...they had been looking for reasons to not have to deal with a child anymore. It's not that Natalie was a bad kid (quite the opposite). She simply put too much of a crimp in her aunt and uncle's lifestyle. 

Natalie is fiercely independent, and very little scares her. Fear is one of the few ways to get her to lash out physically, though this is a last resort for her...she knows she does not have the physical strength to win a fair fight. 

Place a stun gun in her hand, however, and she's more than a match for even a five-century old vampire. 

Hilary

2-12-2025-OTMA

Another. Freaking. Snow Day.  

Mother Nature, can you just chill out? I don't want to still be in school in June.

Wait...scratch that. Mother Nature, do what ever the opposite of chill out is. We do not need more chill. We need temperatures above fifty Fahrenheit thank-you-very-much.

Among my research readings are the letters and diaries of Nicholas II's daughters. Yes, there's a reason I'm reading these. Yes, it will come into play in Melusine's Endgame. Bear with me.

Anastasia is the one that is nearly always remembered (I mean, how many movies have there been at this point?), but her sisters are just as fascinating. In photos, one sees a quartet of modern-day fairy tale princesses, aloof and untouchable. Their writings present a different picture. Each young woman had a unique personality, which gets lost when one only truly hears about one of them. I'll post a more in-depth analysis once I do a deeper read of each book, but here's my first impressions of the four Grand Princesses.

Olga: 

Smart, sensitive, and your typical oldest child. Perhaps not a natural leader, but not one to be shoved around, either. Musically gifted. A bit of a quick temper, though she seemed to recognize this was a trait she had to work on. Also stubborn, and could be a touch lazy about her studies. A keen desire to help others, and it didn't really matter who they were. I get the feeling Olga was one of those people who you could tell exactly what she was thinking just by looking at her.  Were she allowed her own path, I could see Olga being a professional musician, though only if the pieces interested her.

Tatiana:

Closest in appearance and temperament to her mother, Alexandra. Considered the most classically beautiful of the sisters, and she did enjoy the attention that engendered, though she doesn't come across as vain in her writing. Like her mother, comes across as distant and aloof, but very different among people she knew well. Along with Anastasia, the most natural leader of the group. Had a talent for hairdressing, and could wear ANYTHING and look amazing in it. Seems pretty unflappable. I could see Tatiana being a hair stylist today, and being the one people run to when 'oh-my-god-I-forgot-about-prom/hot date/fancy event-and-I-need-my-hair-done-NOW!' I can see Tatiana parking said person in a chair and working her magic.

Maria:

This poor kiddo got a bit lost in the shuffle. She was the middle child (if you count Alexei, her brother), and her writings do indicate she sometimes felt short-changed for attention. Given Alexei's medical condition and the attention her mother devoted to him, an understandable perspective. A natural with watercolors, and she does seem proud of them (justifiably so...she was pretty dang good!). A more than pretty young woman, and may have given Tatiana some competition for beauty of the family had she gotten a bit older. Quick tempered, like Olga, and easily dominated by her younger sister, Anastasia. Loved kids. I could see her as a preschool teacher or childcare provider today, and loving every second of it.

Anastasia:

Oh my word, this young lady. She's the type that would give a teacher like me fits. Very smart, academically capable like Olga, but lazy and less willing to apply herself. God help you if you got into a verbal argument with her. Clever and creative, and took selfies before we even knew they were a thing. To a degree, overshadowed by her older sisters, especially in terms of appearance (though like Maria, that improved with age). She made up for that perceived lack with her force of personality. Definitely the wild child of the sisters, and the one who got in trouble the most. Deep creative streak. I could see her writing for a living, with a strong bent toward the unhinged (I think something like Ren and Stimpy would appeal to her, if nothing else than to cork her parents off).

I'll post more in-depth once I get through each book.

Hilary

2-8-2025-Character

Rough week for all concerned. My older son got himself a nice case of norovirus. That delightful bug appears to be making the rounds at his school. I'm keeping a loose eye on him as I type this. I think he's on the mend, and luckily the baby doesn't seem to have caught it. I'm getting over one of the respiratory things going around my school, and if you want the truth, I'm not sure I entirely kicked the pneumonia from back in November. Gotta love being around the walking petri dishes.

Since I can't sleep, here's a bit about my main male character in Amber's Lure, Mikhail Romanov.

He's Russian, in case the name didn't tip one off, and pushing five hundred years old. He spent the majority of his life in and around his homeland, though did wander the European continent off and on. He came to the United States shortly after World War Two, and hasn't left since then. His English is fluent, though if one pays attention, his accent still shows through, particularly if he gets agitated.

He allowed himself to be turned into a vampire in his early thirties. He had his reasons, and good ones, by his way of thinking. Prior to that, served in Ivan the Terrible's court as one of his oprichniki, or secret police. Name the atrocity, that group committed it. Repeatedly. These were not nice people by any stretch. Mikhail doesn't regret any of what he has done. He had (and still has) no reservations about taking someone apart slowly. His one red line is children. Want to get on his bad side in a nanosecond? Harm a child in front of him, or ask him to hurt a kid. That's a surefire way to find out which afterlife is real. 

Mikhail is an artist, and his favorite activities are carving amber, and creating jewelry. He has well over a hundred amber carvings sitting over his fireplace. It's how he relaxes after a long day of drinking wine, running a nightclub, and other less pleasant endeavors. 

His fashion sense trends toward later Victorian or Edwardian. His preferred outfit is a shirt, pants, and waistcoat. He does own other items (and still has a lot of his clothing from when he was still human), though the occasion rarely arises for him to wear such items. Mikhail will usually stick to darker colors, and my main female character has seen no indication that he owns anything pastel. 

While he has no regrets, Mikhail does recognize that the past has a tendency to come back and bite a person, especially if one is pushing the five century mark and has done things that would make the most hardened serial killers pale. 

But other than that, he's a great guy! Right?

Hilary 

2-2-2025-Burning of Troy Opal

Describing objects with no known images is hard.

Case in point: The Burning of Troy Opal.

This stone makes an appearance in Opal Serpent, and is integral to the plot. Here is the problem. No images of this stone exist. No photos, paintings, sketches, nothing. Here's what makes that more than a bit odd.

The opal was a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife, Josephine. It was...impressive. Comtemporary sources describe it as being a black opal with loads of red and orange fire, and ranging in size anywhere from 700 to 3,000 carats. Yes, you read that correctly. 3,000. Even if the opal was 'only' 700 carats, it was still a massive specimen. There's confusion as to where it came from. It may have been from Hungary, where most European opals are found. However, the coloration and size is more consistent with the opals that come from Central America. Either way, it was a spectacular gem, and reportedly one of Josephine's favorite gifts. 

So why the heck are there no images of this glorious gem? Good question, though I *may* have found one. It does not help that the opal disappears off the face of the earth right around World War Two. The last known location was Vienna, Austria. So, yes, a stone that could be used as a sparkly bludgeon just up and vanished into thin air. I'm sure it's around somewhere...if the person reading this has the Burning of Troy, help an author out and send a picture? Pretty please? I promise not to share it! I just want to know that I'm on the right track with my descriptions.

As to the image I may have found? I can't be certain, but the stones in the portrait look an awful lot like I would expect something like the Burning of Troy to look. What if we aren't looking for a single stone anymore, but one that was cut down into jewelry? If the image I found is indeed the Burning of Troy, that's what happened. If they did...wow. The stones in the diadem are cameo carved, a bold move for a gem as fragile as opal. Those things will crack if you so much as look at them crossways. There aren't a whole lot of orange gemstones out there, and the stones in the diadem, earrings, and necklace aren't a great match for any of them. The stones appear to be either translucent or opaque, which rules out sapphires, garnets, zircons, topaz, and tourmaline. The closest visual match would be carnelian or coral, and, sorry, I don't see Josephine wearing something as common as carnelian or coral. Say what you want about her...the lady had fine taste. If this painting does show the Burning of Troy, I would be inclined to believe that the original stone was closer to the 3,000 carat mark. 

The painting in question is below. Draw your own conclusions!

Hilary

1-26-2025-Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna

Here's a study in contrasts...Ivan the Terrible's first two wives, Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna. 

Age compared to Ivan:

Anastasia and Ivan were the same age. With Ivan and Maria, there was a 15 or so year age gap. Contrary to what movies and pop culture would have you believe, this age difference wasn't exactly smiled upon, though it wasn't uncommon. For example, when Henry VIII (yes, that guy) married Catherine Howard, he was 49 and she was between 17 and 20, though most historians place her on the younger end fo that spectrum. Even then, that age difference gave contemporaries the heebie-jeebies. I guess the idea with Ivan and Maria was that she was young enough to have lots of kids? Spoiler alert...that didn't happen. 

Appearance:

Anastasia's hard to pin down. I've found references that say she was middle of the road in terms of beauty, and others that say she was stunning. Most seem to agree that she was auburn-haired, and had a sweet face. No contemporary portraits of her exist, though maybe at some point a reconstruction could be made from her remains. Maria was invariably described as exceedingly beautiful, but again, no contemporary images exist.  Based on where she was from, I would guess that she was dark haired and dark eyed, but that's a guess on my part.

Lineage:

Anastasia's family was not super high in the hierarchy of things, but respected. Maria was the daughter of a chieftain, so much higher up.

Religion:

Both were  Russian Orthodox, though Maria was initially Muslim.

Personality:

Anastasia had a calming, moderating influence on Ivan. Every historical source I've read agrees to that. She helped rein in the worst of his impulses, and the fact that Ivan started his reign somewhat well can probably be attributed to her. Is that possibly why Ivan chose her as a wife? It wouldn't be surprising, or would it shock me if the people around Ivan pushed Anastasia. Would Ivan have some kind of psychiatric diagnosis today? Given his behavior, most likely, with bipolar and manic depression coming to mind first. Saying he had a volatile nature and temper would be the most generous way to put it, and the man did not get better with age. 

Maria is harder to pin down. I recognize that contemporary sources might be biased against her, since she was foreign. However, I have found nothing to indicate that she was a nice person. She has been variously described as witchy, vindictive, illiterate, and manipulative. She was also not nice to Ivan's children by Anastasia. Again, could some of that be bias? Sure, but she seems to have been as close to the opposite of Anastasia as it gets. She may have been the one who instigated the formation of the oprichniki, Ivan's secret police/torturers/executioners/band of psychos. So, yeah, not finding a whole lot positive about her.

Death:

Well, they've got some common ground here. Both were poisoned. In Maria's case, it does appear that the poisoning was deliberate, though who was behind that assassination is still a mystery. It might have been Ivan himself, though sources of the time say that he went out of his way to find out who killed Maria, using the oprichniki. I don't know...it would certainly be within Ivan's character to poison someone he didn't like, but Maria also had more than her share of enemies in the court.

Anastasia also died by poison, specifically, mercury. Her death well and truly sent Ivan off the rails. Lots of people who he even suspected of involvment were killed in nasty ways, and he only got worse from there. For centuries, it was debated if Anastasia's death by poisoning was accidental or intentional. Mercury was used at the time for medicinal purposes (yes, I know, and this chemistry teacher is internally screaming at that notion), though it was also used as a weapon. A modern forensic examination of her remains showed an abnormally high amount of mercury, which would be more consistent with a deliberate poisoning (though, if she had been taking smaller amounts for a long time, that could explain the level as well...mercury is not easily excreted). If it was deliberate, I would love to know what the culprit was smoking to think that was a good idea to remove the one real restraint on Ivan's behavior. If they thought he was bad before, and he was certainly no picnic, he got infinitely worse afterward. 

Hilary