Tag: FridayFlashback | Frankie Bow

February 1, 2019

Four Fancy Ways to use Spam

Four Fancy Ways to use Spam
When I moved to Hawaii, it took me a while to warm up to Spam. It wasn’t in my house when I was growing up, and trying a new meat product as an adult is a daunting proposition.
But it’s hard to avoid Spam when you live here.
From Spam musubis (which look like giant sushi rolls).

Photo: spam.com

to Spam locos (on a pile of rice with egg and gravy),

(Source: Wikipedia)

Hormel’s handy potted meat product is everywhere. In fact, Hawaii leads the nation in Spam consumption, with an average of six cans per year consumed per resident.
Eventually I did try a Spam musubi—and liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Spam isn’t rubbery or full of gristle as I’d feared. Instead, it fries up to a nice crispy exterior with a soft interior. I’ve embraced Spam with the typical zeal of the convert, and it’s my privilege and pleasure to share a few Spam tips with you.
1) Spam sticks
A Spam slicer will make this much easier.

Slice the Spam, turn it sideways, and slice it again to make matchsticks. Fry it in coconut or peanut oil until crisp.

(Slicer and Spam Sticks Photos: Spam.com)

Delicious, and perfect if your sodium levels need replenishing.
2) Add flavor to nachos

(Photo: Waikiki Spam Jam)

3) Use as moisturizer in a pinch.
Rub a slice of Spam on dry skin. The oils will soothe the epidermis, and the enticing, meaty aroma is an all-day bonus!

(Photo: Freepik.com)

4) Art.
This Spam relief map of Hawaii was created by Jenna Turner at National Geographic. Photograph by Rebecca Hale.

Photo: National Geographic

Original post at Lori’s Reading Corner

September 14, 2018

Judging a book by its cover: What does your face reveal about your personality?

What do Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism look like? Now we know, thanks to Science.
Composite photos of individuals high in narcissism were in fact judged as narcissistic. Same with psychopathy and Machiavellianism.
“The results indicated that unacquainted observers reliably detected the dark triad composite… not only is the dark triad a set of psycho-social characteristics — it may also be a set of physical — morphological characteristics.”
Here are the photos.

I tried these on my students and they were indeed able to tell who was what, especially the female psychopath.

Probably wouldn’t get many babysitting jobs

What do you think your face says to the world?
Me, I think I’d rather not know. I just keep smiling and hope no one notices anything bad.
By the way, the “narcissist” in the featured photo is the composite on your right.
An earlier version was published on Jane Reads

August 31, 2018

Let's talk about campus murder mysteries

Let’s talk about campus murder mysteries.
I love reading them and writing them. What is it about academia that sparks thoughts of murder? Of course there’s the old saying that “campus politics are so nasty because the stakes are so small.” But that’s more of an observation than an explanation. I have some ideas:
Clashing agendas. Professors want to enlighten the world with their teaching and their research, and deplore the duplicity of administrators. Administrators, on the other hand, need to keep the dollars flowing in, and the legislators and trustees off their backs, and they don’t want some self-righteous faculty Speaking Truth to Power and messing everything up. Late-twentieth-century postmodernists have nothing on administrators when it comes to having a complicated relationship with Truth:

“Our position is, yes, Mister Yamada, your wonderful idea for a Golf Course Management major is going through, and before you know it, we’ll be putting out graduates who are ready and willing to work at your resort. And also, no, Senator Kamoku, of course we’re not considering offering a major in golf as a taxpayer-subsidized sop to our most powerful trustee. The very idea.”

From The Invasive Species

Same words, different meanings. Naturally, everyone on campus agrees on striving for “excellence.” It’s in the University Strategic Plan, after all. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same definition of “excellence.”

“Dr. Rodge,” as he tells his students to call him, doesn’t give midterms or final exams, assigns no homework, and gives A’s to everyone who signs up for his Human Potential class. I can’t force Rodge to “maintain academic standards worthy of our university” (Hanson’s words) or “teach a real college class and knock off that feel-good bull****” (Hanson’s contemporary, Dr. Larry Schneider). As long as Rodge shows up when he’s supposed to and stays out of trouble with the students, there’s not much else I can do. Especially not when the Student Retention Office keeps nominating him for the campus-wide teaching award every year.

From The Cursed Canoe
The student as customer. But not the kind of customer you actually listen to. To cater to students (and their tuition dollars), administrators are forever coming up with new programs and bringing the latest edu-fads to campus.

The student is the customer, and you know what they say about the customer.

Oddly enough, when students ask for more course sections, lower tuition, affordable childcare, and job placement, what administrators hear is “Can you impose some punishing new regime on the faculty that will make their lives harder without actually improving my education? Also hire more administrators pls.”

A few weeks after the Student Retention Office remodel was finished, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Engagement attended an ed-tech conference. Upon his return, we were directed to record our class sessions and post them online, so that students could watch them at their leisure. The problem was that we were “guides on the side” now, and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Engagement didn’t want to post hour-long videos of students sitting in circles talking. So we all had to go back to being “sages on the stage,” lecturing to the video camera, but this time we were cautioned to act as “facilitators of experience” rather than “providers of knowledge.” We’re still stuck with the immovable round tables.

From The Musubi Murder
And not only does academia provide plentiful motives for murder; it’s populated by nosy obsessives with library access who will drop everything to chase the faintest of clues. (This is also known as “research.”) So we have Christa Nardi’s Sheridan Hendley, Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar, Amanda Cross’s Kate Fansler, Joanne Dobson’s Karen Pelletier, R.T. Campbell’s John Stubbs, Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen, and of course Mahina State University’s Molly Barda.
In my view, the only mystery is why there aren’t even more academic detectives.
An earlier version was published on Christa Reads and Writes

August 24, 2018

The real-life version of the “Labor Day Race”

In The Cursed Canoe, Professor Molly Barda’s best friend Emma Nakamura practices with her crew for the “Labor Day Race.”

Emma’s big race was Saturday morning. I wasn’t actually planning to attend in person. If I wanted to catch Emma and her crew before they left, I’d have to be down at the water before dawn. The dark beach would be packed with team supporters and tourists, and, of course, plenty of little kids careening through the crowd. There would be a live Jawaiian band, or a noisy DJ setup. After their registration and last-minute checks, the paddlers would pile into their various canoes and stroke out to sea. Emma’s canoe and dozens of others like it would disappear over the horizon before the sun was even up.
The women’s crews would leave the bay, paddle the tough eighteen miles down the coast, and disembark. The women would get out and the men’s teams would climb into the same canoes and paddle back up the coast, where they would arrive at the starting point many grueling hours later. A spectator on the beach wouldn’t see anything after the canoes sped off. I’d be staring out at the empty blue water.

The Labor Day Race is a big deal—so much so, that all seven women on Emma’s crew want to participate. (Unfortunately, the canoe has only six seats…)

Man in Outrigger, Hawaii by Charles Bartlett 1923-27 Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Labor Day Race is inspired by a real event: The Queen Lili’uokalani Canoe Race, which takes place every Labor Day weekend in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. Started in 1972 by the Kai Opua Canoe Club, and named in honor of the last queen of Hawaii, the Lili’uokalani Canoe Race now welcomes over 2,500 paddlers from all over the world. The big day is Saturday, when the teams paddle 18 miles between Kailua and Honaunau. The women’s teams start first, racing the canoes from Kailua south to Honaunau.

Saturday's canoe race on the west coast of the Big Island. Source: qlcanoerace.com — Saturday’s canoe race on the west coast of the Big Island. Source: qlcanoerace.com

The men’s teams meet the women in Honaunau and race the canoes back up to Kailua. Tiny Kailua’s hotels (the town’s population is less than 12,000) are packed with paddlers the entire weekend.
Even if you’re not a canoe paddler, or much of an outdoorsy person at all, the Queen Lili’uokalani Canoe Race is worth a trip. Canoe paddlers are easygoing, hard-partying, and fun to be around. And the Big Island is a world away from the more touristy parts of Hawaii. Check out the schedule for the upcoming Labor Day weekend here!
Featured image oil painting by Arman Manookian, c. 1929.
Originally published on Brooke Blogs

August 17, 2018

Paddletics

In The Cursed Canoe, Professor Molly Barda’s best friend Emma Nakamura is the captain of a paddling crew. With seven women on the crew and only six seats in the canoe, things get a little competitive.

In fact, there’s a word for this kind of infighting:

Paddletics.

“We call it paddletics,” Yoshi said. “When paddlers get too competitive within their crew, and turn on each other.”

Yoshi has mellowed a lot since he first moved here with Emma as a freshly minted MBA. At first, he didn’t like living in Mahina. He claimed there were no decent jobs to be had, and would say things like, “I can’t live in a place where no one can tell I’m wearing a two thousand dollar suit.”

Tired of his grumping around the house, Emma got him into canoe paddling, which he embraced with the zeal of a convert. Most of his time is now spent paddling and hanging out at the beach. Today he wore board shorts, a souvenir t-shirt from the previous year’s Labor Day canoe race, and a cap with the logo of a local paddling shop.

One thing that hasn’t changed about Yoshi is his need to be the Expert. His favorite pastime is explaining things to people.

“Paddletics!” Pat exclaimed before Yoshi could expound further. “Molly, isn’t that one of those words you hate? What do the Word Police have to say?”

Pat knows I hate sloppy neologisms: Homophobe. Anything-gate. The worst of the bunch is the suffix –holic, which got snapped off the end of ‘alcoholic’ and now is attached to any word you can think of to indicate addiction or even mere affinity. Normally I enjoy arguing etymology with Pat, but right now, I wasn’t in the mood.

“I’ve heard worse. Paddletics could mean affairs of the paddle, in the same way that politics means affairs of the city.”

–The Cursed Canoe

It’s not just at the office or in the PTA that people vie for position and undermine their colleagues. Paddletics (derived, as you might guess, from “Paddle” and “Politics”) describes all of the infighting and backbiting that comes with a competitive endeavor. Paddlers have been known to talk down teammates, undermining the coach, or even threaten to leave for a competitor club.

So does this mean you should avoid canoe paddling?

No. The blog LiveScience tells us that spending time around the ocean can improve your health and well-being. Some paddlers describe their experience as almost spiritual:

“I’ve learned that sometimes I can’t change things, but I can go with the flow. I’ve learned to harness nature’s energy and use it to my advantage. I’ve learned not to get in Mother Nature’s way. I’ve learned to listen when she speaks. I’ve learned to respect, love and celebrate nature and her ocean.” (source)

And if you’ve been yearning for shapely, muscular arms, you can’t beat the hours of repetitive upper-body work required to push a four-hundred-pound canoe through the waves.

What if you live far from the water? You can get a taste of Hawaiian outrigger paddling from The Cursed Canoe, a Professor Molly mystery.

Originally published on Lynda Dickson’s Books Direct

August 10, 2018

Truth is Boring

One question that I get is,
“Am I in your book?”
I can see why people might ask this. The setting is a public university in Hawaii, similar in some ways to my own workplace. The main character is Molly Barda, who teaches in the Mahina State University College of Commerce. I teach at a university, in Hawaii, in the business school.
But I must insist: I am making most of it up.
In my author bio, I try to make this clear:

Like Molly Barda, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, a loving family, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining.

I have sacrificed Truth on the altar of Art.
Why? Because Truth is boring.
If I were really writing about myself and the people I know, my stories would feature kind, capable people doing their jobs competently and without incident. Snore.
So I punch it up a little: Ruinous budget cuts. Reckless, showboating legislators. A powerful and well-funded Student Retention Office staffed by self-assured dimwits.
Molly, my protagonist and narrator, is neurotic and socially awkward. Her bottom-line-obsessed dean won’t let her report cheaters, because he refuses to scare off paying customers. Her next-door colleague is the reason she’s not allowed to close the door when she has a student in her office (it’s called the “Rodge Cowper Rule”). Her students don’t know what “plutocracy” means, but they’re pretty sure it has something to do with planets.
So no, you are (probably) not in my book. I promise. Now go read and enjoy!
Originally posted on Brooke Blogs

August 3, 2018

"Okay, who needs to die?"

What genre do you write?

I write mysteries that don’t have explicit sex or violence, so technically they’re in the “cozy mystery” category, although that might be a little misleading. I think that because of the success of series like “The Cat Who…” and the Hannah Swensen mysteries, sometimes people expect cozies to have cats and recipes. My main characters tend to be indifferent housekeepers and terrible cooks who can barely care for a pet. In Sinful Science, the main character, Fortune Redding, sort of inherits a cat, so I suppose that fulfills the cat requirement.

How did you come to write cozies?

As Toni Morrison advised, I write what I’d like to read—PG-rated mysteries with humor, especially in an academic setting. I enjoy Dorothy Sayers, Amanda Cross, Sarah Caudwell, and Joanne Dobson, for example. And speaking of writing what you like to read, I was already a fan of Jana DeLeon’s Miss Fortune series when I discovered that Amazon’s Kindle Worlds was offering the opportunity to write in the Miss Fortune universe. I jumped right in and wrote Sinful Science, and had a lot of fun with it! [2018 update: Kindle Worlds is no more, but the Miss Fortune novellas live on under Jana DeLeon’s own publishing imprint!]

Who is your favorite character to write about?

In the Miss Fortune universe, I love Gertie and Ida Belle, two retired ladies who are not quite what they seem. Their bickering is a lot of fun.

Who inspires your books?

For my murder mysteries, what usually happens is that I get home, sit down at my computer, open up my word processor, and ask myself, “Okay, who needs to die?”

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I teach at a public university, read murder mysteries, and hang out with my family.

If you were stuck on a deserted island what three things would you take?

Assuming there was an electrical outlet, I’d say 1) My Keurig machine, 2) A supply of coffee, and 3) cream for the coffee.

Originally published at Community Bookstop

July 27, 2018

Interview: Five Questions (that Turned into Ten)

Interview by liannathaniel first published on I Read What You Write
1. What does it mean to you to be called an author?

Frankie- People have different ideas about what it means to be a writer versus an author, and which is better. K.M. Weiland’s site is called “Helping Writers Become Authors,” which implies that author is the preferred state of being. Dean Wesley Smith, on the other hand, defines a “writer” as being active and forward-looking, already working on the next book while the “author” rests on his or her laurels. Rather than step into the middle of that debate, I’m just happy that I have the opportunity to write entertaining stories, and share them with other people.
Lian- That is why I love this question. It means something different to everyone.
2. What is the first book that you remember reading?
Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. I don’t think it had much to do with inspiring my literary career, but I liked the pictures.
I loved Richard Scarry when I was little!
3. If you could have lunch with 3 authors (past and present) who would they be and what do you think you would all talk about during lunch?
C.S. Lewis, E.F .Benson, and Sarah Caudwell. I wouldn’t say a word; I would just listen to the conversation. Oh, and it would have to be at a nonsmoking restaurant. Otherwise Sarah Caudwell might just puff away on her pipe and not say anything.
That is a super fun image.
4. If you could be friends with a character in one of your stories who would it be and what kinds of things would you do together?
Pat Flanagan, the pessimistic newsblogger/English Instructor in the Molly Barda mysteries, is modeled after a very good friend of mine who passed away two years ago. We used to search out little hole-in-the-wall diners. Years ago we found the most amazing apple pie at a place called Champion’s in Escondido. They’re still there, and they still don’t take credit cards.
I sorry to hear about your friend. it is terrific that he can live for you as one of your characters.
5. Who do your stories appeal to?
People who enjoy the Molly Barda Mysteries are diverse age- and gender-wise, but what they all seem to have in common is experience working in extremely bureaucratic organizations. They also have excellent taste.
–Well, we can’t fault them on their taste. 😉
6. What is your all time favorite book or author?
There isn’t just one, of course, but I’ll say Sarah Caudwell, because she’s much less famous than she deserves to be, and every time I read something by her I fairly collapse with envy. Her writing is hilarious and perfect.
7. Which of your current works in progress are you most passionate about?

I’m excited about writing in the Miss Fortune world. Working within the constraints of another author’s characters and setting is a real challenge, but as they say, creativity thrives under constraints.
-That sounds like it would be challenging.
8. What or who inspired you to begin writing?
I write what I like to read, so I guess you could say I’m my own inspiration.
-I have heard that all good writers start out as happy readers.
9. How do you avoid or defeat writers block?
There are definitely days when I don’t want to face my work in progress. What works for me is to have a system and just keep at it, step by step. First, outline the plot. Then, turn the outline into a series of beats. After that, expand the third-person present tense summary into the first-person past tense story, and don’t worry about getting everything perfect. Once I get to that point I have a completed first draft, and it’s a lot easier to go back and edit.
-Having a system is a great way to keep on going.
10. How do you define success as an author?
If my writing can make someone burst out laughing as they read, that for me is success.
-Success! My mom laughed her head off while reading Sinful Science!!

July 13, 2018

What is your favorite..?

Twenty questions for Frankie

Favorite color: Black for shoes, white for walls.

Favorite Soft Drink – Coke Zero. Manly, yes, but I like it too.

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor – All of them. It’s ice cream, isn’t it?

Favorite movie: I'd watch Paris is Burning again. — Favorite movie: I’d watch Paris is Burning again.

Favorite book and character: Emmeline Lucas of Queen Lucia

Favorite singer, group, or band: Peggy Lee

Favorite Carnival Ride – It’s a Small World at Disneyland, before they remodeled and toned down the New Guinea section.

Favorite Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter Activity – reading murder mysteries, of course!

Favorite Place to Read – On the elliptical machine. Multitasking! (Not pictured: Wine glass in cup holder)

Favorite Place to Write – Wherever I can take my laptop. But no handwritten drafts. My handwriting is atrocious.

Dream Vacation Destination – Cooking lessons in Italy! Or just Italy, period.

Interview originally posted on Escape with Dollycas, 2016

July 6, 2018

Where everyone has a green thumb

I really did have a lot to learn about gardening. I was not one of those persons gifted with a green thumb. In fact, I seemed to have the opposite of a green thumb, whatever that would be. A red thumb? That didn’t sound right, although green and red opposed each other on the color wheel. A brown thumb? A black thumb? Was that racist? Maybe a skeleton thumb, like the Grim Reaper.
—The Black Thumb, a Professor Molly Mystery
I have the proverbial black thumb. I am the worst gardener in the world. I’m not simply incapable of coaxing a living thing out of the ground; I’ve had actual cactus perish in my care.
I am death, destroyer of flora.
Or so I thought, before I moved from Southern California to the rainy side of one of the Hawaiian Islands.
It turns out that I am not the plant kingdom’s answer to the Grim Reaper. In fact, now that I’m here, I’m surrounded by thriving, vigorous verdure. How do I do it?
Simple: sun plus rain. Hawaii generally has the highest ultraviolet index in the United States (13.2 today, on a scale I’d always assumed only went up to 10). And the eastern, or windward, sides of the Hawaiian islands get soaked, with up to 10,271 mm or over 400 inches of rainfall per year. Notoriously damp Seattle, by comparison, gets barely 50 inches.

Mean Annual Rainfall Hawaii — Source: University of Hawaii

I live in one of the soggy blue spots on the map. Here the default landscape is jungle. Gardening mostly involves beating back nature with gallons of herbicide and powerful weed torches (basically flamethrowers for your garden).
A brief visual comparison:

So now you know my gardening secret: Year round sunshine + buckets of rain + neglect gets you a lush, green landscape every time.
Just don’t forget the mosquito repellent.
First published for The Black Thumb release at Brooke Blogs