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National Raspberries N’ Cream Day 2024
Okay, back on the food of the day trail. Today is National Raspberries N’ Cream Day because, why not?
Raspberries
Women with a higher intake of berries appeared to have delayed cognitive aging by 2.5 years. So it’s like your brain is 2.5 years younger if you’re eating berries. ~Michael Greger
I mean, nothing says 🌞 high summer 🔥 like berries. Right?
Here’s me being positive. As much as I detest this least favorite of seasons, I can see the good side of it anyway.
Berries, iced tea, scantily clad women, it’s all good except the heat.
Fortunately, I get to sidestep the heat due to the nature of my current work.
Back when I was working at the factory, 🌞 summer 🔥 was utterly hellacious.
The benefit of that work was not so much that I could escape the heat (I couldn’t), but that I was too busy to care.
Another benefit of it was that I was running around so much that it led to natural weight loss.
I was quite literally melting my arse off.
Not so today. I’m sat here in the lap of luxury doing what I do best.
So, in the spirit of sidestepping seasonal heat, so much the better if I can enjoy a seasonal treat such as fresh berries.
Parfait Means Perfect
Raspberries and Cream Parfait 🧁 Easy Recipe!
What could be more perfect than berries in 🌞 Summertime 🔥?
There’s watermelon and plums, peaches and nectarines, corn on the cob and so much more, but berries are certainly a hallmark of the season.
So, treat yourself to a fresh berry parfait because it’s per-fect.
One direction – Leeroy because you are perfect
What’s also great in my least favorite of all seasons is having some fun with the kids.
My kids are a bit too old to zrbt anymore. If you don’t know what that is, it’s when you pick them up and blow raspberries on their bellies.
ONE MINUTE ENGLISH! Blowing a raspberry! (EPISODE 55)
Just as there are seasons in the year, there are seasons in life. One day you can zrbt your kids and the next you can celebrate their graduations and weddings.
As much as you’d like certain things to last forever, there’s a lot of joy to be taken in celebrating every season of life.
How much more sweet than fresh berries is a gaggle of kids becoming adults and growing into the confident, self-assured people you knew they’d eventually become?
Cream
The cream rises to the top…you know, that stuff on top of a pond. ~Me
Yes, that’s a fairly charged political statement, but that’s not what I’m on about.
It’s about my clatch of immortal villains, The Conclave.
They show up in a rather horrific and grisly scene early on, but it takes a while to introduce them individually outside of the ritual space.
Being that the first three books of the series are referring to aspects of the Golden Age of Comics, I’m trying to work out just who these geriatric reprobates are.
One of the things about comic books is that whoever you think the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) is, there’s always another one who’s even worse right behind them pulling the strings.
In the MCU, this was Thanos. In Spider-Man comics, it was often Norman Osborne or Wilson Fisk. In DC Comics, most roads led to Ras Al Ghul or Darkseid. In Marvel Netflix, it was The Hand.
In any of these scenarios, even when you thought you had the ultimate end point, there was always someone else waiting to fill the power vacuum.
That’s one of the themes of most comic book or superhero stories and The Sentinels series is no exception.
The world never, ever stays saved and there’s plenty of suck to go around.
And in the spirit of 💩 rolling downhill, if there’s enough suck to go around for the superheroes, there’s plenty left over for the normies. Otherwise, how am I supposed to get my Collateral Impact anthologies written?
There is an allegedly Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” Like many things, the provenance of this “curse” is an exaggerated case of garbled transmission or a game of telephone. Regardless of the provenance, the premise remains.
That’s really the heart of modern storytelling. What happens to someone living in interesting times? How can we torture this poor S.O.B. for our entertainment? What does it say about the human experience to put imaginary people in harrowing circumstances?
I’ve seen some AuthorTubers who insist that this is the only way to tell a story. Ever the contrarian, I’d cordially invite them to suck it.
For modern bookselling trends, that is the “only” way to write fiction. However, those trends are largely dependent on the big traditional publishers’ MO.
Grandpa, tell me about the good old days… I’m old enough to remember when Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons were on Prime Time TV.
To the point of those insisting on “conflict” in fiction for it to be a story, fine.
Yes, you had all kinds of adversity.
Maybe the crop would fail.
Maybe Nellie was being a brat.
Maybe Pa couldn’t find any work in Mankato.
Maybe having a houseful of kids in the depths of The Great Depression could be a challenge.
There were plenty of problems to overcome, but they didn’t have to worry about the very fabric of reality being shredded.
They didn’t have to face ravening hordes of blood-sucking monsters or typhoons of flaming meteors.
They could have first kisses and pie-eating contests and heartwarming family suppers and it was still storytelling.
You don’t have to be a complete asshole to tell a story. Nice actually works. That’s why there’s a whole “cozy” industry in various genres.
The actual world is plenty fucked up. Some people like their escapism with light sabers, wand-waving wizards or teams of superheroes. Some people like political intrigue or military adventure. Even so, there are plenty of people who like nice.
There’s nothing wrong with nice. Nice actually sells.
How many years did Murder, She Wrote and Father Brown go on for? How much did we enjoy Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel?
So, if you’re trying to find your feet in the writing world, don’t take anything that anyone says as if it were graven in stone.
People have opinions. People tell you what has worked for them.
Depending on their personality type, they’ll say as much or they will try to sell you on their authority and lay it out as absolute law.
It isn’t.
Nobody and nothing are perfect or absolute.
Take the advice in the spirit it’s offered and tell the story you want to hear or read or see.
If it’s never been done before, great, novelty has its own charm.
If it’s been done to death, but you’ve got a new spin to keep it interesting, great, people like familiar tropes and settings.
Do what only you can do. Bring your own perspective to a story and it will be interesting. Just do it…
That’s all for today. 🌞 Summer 🔥 is burning away with delightful haste and I’ve got a lot of work to do. I hope your week is less hectic and more parfait.