Little rat reader


Tim gave me the most recent Stephanie Plum book (Janet Evanovich’s Now Or Never: Thirty-one On the Run) at Christmas and I read it this week. When I added it to my Goodreads library, I glanced at reader reviews. Many are angry about the romantic choices Stephanie made in the book. I’m not about to give any spoilers on the off chance a web search might lead someone here, but the decisions Evanovich (and Plum) made were what I’d have done as a writer and were true to the characters, plus what she didn’t include was also a good choice. No unhappiness here!

Also, Nurse Lisa aka Lisa in Iowa confirmed that the small rat in my stuffed animals cabinet was one she brought and discreetly put on one of my bookshelves when she visited us in Houston back in February of 2008 (probably what turned him into a reader). Since I began “gray” week with Lisa’s big rat, I’m finishing it with her wee rat.

Wee rat also liked the latest Plum mystery. It’s stunning, really, that there are THIRTY-ONE novels in this series. They are the ultimate comfort read for me. It should be noted that there are four additional Stephanie Plum books that include her escapades with Diesel, the paranormal bounty hunter (who shows up in at least one of the numbered novels, as well), and Diesel has his own books with pastry chef Lizzy Tucker (I think there are three, and I’d appreciate more of them).

Today, I will really, really try to get back to work on my own novels (I’m only on number seven). Editor’s Note: I didn’t. I haven’t.

Gray Thursday


Just my legs in the mirror’s reflection as I waited for my post-op exam, where all looked good. Did have something put on the wound which is still burning a little three hours later, but that’s all right. I’m very grateful for my entire medical team from my primary care doc to the specialists and nurses, PAs, and NPs who always take good care of me.


I have a long way to go to finish the beginning of the first coloring pages in the “Mountain Jewels” section of The Magical Unicorn Society Official Coloring Book. This group of unicorns is gray (of course!), each with distinct mane, tail, hoof, and horn colors in red, green, blue, and purple.

Tom’s working from home at his desk next to mine in the office. Though I usually don’t sit in the office when he’s working, the range of music his phone is streaming is excellent, so I’m working quietly next to him. I took that photo mainly so I could show that I’m FINALLY having my first coffee in nine days because I finished my antibiotic (doesn’t get along with coffee) yesterday. We still have snow melting outside, but I craved cold coffee.

I’ll add the finished coloring pages to this post later.

We have dogs all around us.


Like the princess and the pea, Anime rests on four layers of blankets/beds.


The smol dog Eva hogs the heater.


Jack and Delta: Uneasy are the heads that claim the daybed against interlopers.


As promised, below are the newly completed pages from this book. Excerpts from the book include this info: Mountain Jewel unicorns are known for their short tempers and gruff personalities… [They are] wary creatures who don’t often trust humans… Found in some of the harshest environments on Earth, [they] can survive high altitudes and cold temperatures…and are fiercely loyal to each other.

For me?!?

Continuing with the week’s theme color, I idly looked through photos for something gray until one of this deck showed up.

Now that I’ve photographically catalogued what’s in all my boxes, I figured it would take only seconds to find the deck and photograph it again, then while I was at it, pull a random card. But when I’d only turned the deck over to begin shuffling, this card was there.


I went no further. Not only was it exactly what I needed to see, it’s one of the times I won’t consult the accompanying book for guidance or suggestions. I recognize and acknowledge the card’s meaning for me on multiple levels. Good ol’ crow energy.

This cartoon made me laugh recently and not because I’m a killer. Dear “Serial” Killer: You’ll never get used to it.

Mindful Monday


Shades of gray.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Speech given at the National Cathedral, March 31, 1968.

The first photo is mine, contents of one of my boxes. Background for the above quote to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day is from a photo of my 2006 acrylic on canvas painting “Enlighten,” filtered to be gray.

The skies are gray this morning, too, as our bad weather begins to roll in. My mood’s a bit gray, as well. I have no “fear of missing out” today. My hope is to maintain limited exposure to any media, including social media and news, and find a more creative purpose for my time.

Sunday Sundries

Things that are gray. Or grey, as that spelling seems a little more magical than “gray,” and to me, all of these items have magic.


From bottom left, a rat sent by Lisa in Iowa years ago when we had to remove rats from our attic in The Compound amid much drama and mishap. In the end, the rats were gone, the house was secured, and despite it all, there were moments of humor, and Lisa’s rat symbolizes that. It was, in fact, that kind of magic that brought Lisa into our lives when she read the humorous TJB books, wrote us a letter, and a bond was formed. It included a visit to The Compound and meetings at Saints and Sinners, and it endures to this day.

Next up is little Dedo, a gift from me to Tom one year. Dedo is a small gargoyle on the Notre Dame Cathedral who is said to have a protective, caring presence. Dedo is a symbol of kindness and safeguarding. Sounds like Tom. Sometimes when you want to wander across the Internet, look up stories and legends about Dedo and his likenesses.

Then there’s Batman, whose sartorial choice for this look is a gray bodysuit. Through the decades, his bodysuit has had bold colors of several hues, zebra stripes, a mummy bandage look, brown, and black, but most often, he’s in gray. Batman is a symbol of hope and justice. He has no superhuman qualities, but he represents the best of humans in his quest to protect others, disable villains without killing them, and give people a belief in a better future.

An elephant, besides being my college mascot, symbolizes many things in different cultures. A list includes: power, wisdom, loyalty, fertility, strength, high moral character, longevity, stamina, moderation, eternity, memory, vitality, majesty, and intelligence. Speaking of magic, many years ago, over coffee, a professor told me a fact about elephants that made me rethink a certain bias I had, planting a seed that would fully bloom in the 1990s and change my life for good and for better.

Oh, the shark bites…the book. He’s only being playful. I doubt I ever gave any thought to sharks at all until one night when a few of us were hanging out in the lone convenience store in the wee town where I went to high school. (As I recall, the sister of one of my friends worked there, and she didn’t care if we gathered there. There was nothing else to do.) I picked up a book, read the first few pages of Jaws, thought, Eek! Not for me! and put it down. Later, I saw the movie when it came out, loved it (and also ended up loving the novel), and from then on, sharks held a fascination for me. I appreciate seeing them in their natural environment thanks to skilled photographers. I like seeing them in cartoons. They continue to have mystery and, like the elephant, a majesty to me.

Finally, we have what I dub a “melancholy of Eeyores.” In the pantheon of characters who inhabit Hundred Acre Wood, Eeyore seems to have a theme for many people, who think he’s: sad, depressed, pessimistic, downtrodden, negative, gloomy, and hypersensitive. However, he’s also a thinker and a planner. The magic of Eeyore is that he’s greatly loved by his friends. They don’t exclude him, berate him, try to change him, or avoid him. He brings a balance to their group, and they love him without conditions.

Finally, I included the writing prompts book Complete The Story. I feel as if I’ve story-told enough in this post already, so I’ll leave you with the prompt below. Maybe something among the worlds of gargoyles, heroes, and animals pictured will trigger your imagination or a memory that helps you create a story of your own. The story begins…

On the 4th day of the 10-day selfie challenge, I wished I’d never bought a smart phone. The photo of me was innocent enough, but what I accidentally captured in the background opened up a whole world of trouble. I had been walking…

Happy imagining and writing!

A writer’s heart


This resonated with me when I saw it today, and that’s all I’ll say about it.

I hadn’t planned this, but a doctor’s appointment I spontaneously made on Wednesday and was scheduled the same day, led me to a referral to surgery on Thursday, when I had a very minor surgical procedure that went fine, with a follow-up next week to conclude things. Probably the most challenging part to me is the antibiotic I’m on which requires a bland diet and no dairy. I’m already bored with what Debby said is the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast (dry). I have no interest in rice by itself. In the mornings, I’m eating oatmeal (I never use milk with it anyway), then for other meals I switch between apple sauce and bananas, and dry toast and saltines. No coffee or tea. Just water and occasionally for a treat, a little cranberry juice. Nurse Debby is handling my four days of dressing changes.

When Tom took his vacation between Christmas and New Year’s, he was finally able to put time into recovering files from the backup drive of a computer that died in early 2020. (We’d misplaced that drive and thought after searching other backup drives that everything was lost.) We weren’t sure that whatever hit the dead computer hadn’t also impacted the contents of the rediscovered drive, but he transferred literally thousands of documents to another external drive. Today, I began accessing some of the contents for the first time.

I feel, like the subject of a previous post, that I’m time traveling, having already sifted through hundreds of personal photos I thought were gone. It’s been surreal, because so many of those photos encompassed our sale of The Compound, our move to Houndstooth Hall, the Harvey flood, the deaths of Margot and Guinness, the new dogs that came into our lives to become Anime’s pack and our little friends–just so many dogs and people and things.

There are photos I don’t remember taking. Places I don’t remember going. For example, I found photos that I think might be from Mark Rothko: A Retrospective in the Beck Building at the Museum of Fine Arts in December 2015. I vaguely remember going to an exhibit in years past, and I have bad photos that inform me this was probably the one. We were in the middle of selling one house, moving into another, it was the holidays, and I was working crazy hours, so I’m not surprised it’s all a blur.

These were a couple of photos I found in my files, probably taken with my phone, that I think were part of that exhibit. I could probably find the first one online if I wanted to do a deep dive in image searching. The second one looks like it’s behind glass, reflecting paintings from another wall, and I’m not sure the colors are true. It could be more of a challenge. Regardless, Rothko’s art always feeds my soul and seems like the perfect way to finish my red-themed week.

Photo Friday, No. 943

Current Photo Friday theme: Collection.


An Accidental Collection

Recently, I was thinking of things I’ve collected. Dolls, of course, particularly Barbies and their accessories, angels, pigs, wee plastic animals and cars, and apparently coloring books; most of these didn’t begin intentionally. I might like an item, buy another occasionally, and then friends and family will add to them with gifts. There are also things that ended up with me after divorces and deaths. I asked Photo Friday if “Collection” had been used as a challenge, and now this week, it has!

I didn’t set out to collect Coca-Cola items, though it’s a product instantly recognizable worldwide, and I’m indifferent to the value (or lack) of anything pictured. These items represent my personal history with four distinct families.

Included in this photo are two tins, one that looks like an old Coke vending machine; the other, a miniature suitcase. I have a lot of tins in general, partly because Lynne collects them and has given me several; because fun is one of the few things I’ll join; and because they can be useful for storing things.

As far as the bottles, the first (starting on the left) is a special issue for a family wedding, printed with the couple’s names and the date. Anyone can order personalized bottles from the company, but in this case, the groom was the son of a Coca-Cola executive. It was a perfect souvenir for wedding guests.

The next two bottles are part of Coke’s 75th anniversary collector edition. I once had six of them, in their little divided cardboard carrier. Though I sometimes tell a funny story about how that went from six to two, these two are a symbol to me of three generations of a fractured family who is a cherished part of my history.

Though the next 10-ounce bottle is a 1994 holiday greetings bottle, I likely saved it because it reminds me of the bottles of my childhood and of family stories. One involves a hospital stay for me when I was 3-4 years old. Per doctor’s orders: I got all the little bottles of Coke I wanted. (It sounds crazy, but there was a medical reason.) This bottle also reminds me of Saturdays with my father at the gas station. He’d buy two small Cokes and a single package of Tom’s or Lance peanuts, then split the peanuts between us by pouring them into our Cokes. I loved that mixture of salty and sweet, but I especially loved hanging out with him.

Next is a 1983 commemorative bottle celebrating Alabama Head Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s 315 wins; and a 1992 aluminum can celebrating a century of Crimson Tide football championship titles following the team’s formation in 1892. Alabama is my father’s alma mater, as well as my own, and both my first husband’s and Tom’s. But there are people from my family and Tom’s who attended Auburn, and this tray featuring Bama’s head coach Bear Bryant and Auburn’s head coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan commemorates the last Iron Bowl game Jordan would coach in this fierce rivalry on November 29, 1975, just before he retired.

Next, that’s a 16 oz double-insulated can, spill proof, with a screw-off top for filling with the beverage of your choice–though you’ll still be advertising Coke! Then a couple of red aluminum bottles (emtpy) because I like their classic look.

Finally, the last bottle is the one I’ve had the longest. From our earliest teens, Lynne (who shares her birth city with Coca-Cola’s) and I would carefully check the bottom of each of our Coke bottles to see what city and state it was from. There was a goal: that city of our music idols, that city where we set our first stories, that city we imagined we’d one day live in. She found her bottle first, and eventually, I found mine, too: LOS ANGELES CALIF the bottles are stamped. I don’t know if Lynne still has hers, but mine went with me through high school, college, and every home in Alabama and Texas afterward.

I love that I’ve visited L.A. Love that I’ve known people from there who patiently answered (and still do) my endless questions. Love that it still remains part of the stories I imagine. Love that my restless self eventually settled in a large city which shares a whole lot with Los Angeles: urban sprawl and seemingly endless miles of highways, a diverse population in every way, sports teams, an appreciation for the arts, and a WE WILL PREVAIL attitude.

Have a virtual Coke from me, L.A. I will always celebrate you.

The Muse and The Time Traveler

I pulled out all the tiles from my Magnetic Poetry® Wood Words box. From the moment I began to assemble my poem from among them, I knew exactly who and what inspired it. When I placed a specific word, I also knew what photo from my archives I hoped to find to share with the finished poem.


From September 2009, based on a challenge from television’s “Project Runway” for my website’s “Runway Monday” series, I found her. She’s in fashion I designed for her of silk, satin, polyester, tulle, and crepe. A sheer coincidence only a handful of people will understand: I’d named this doll Maggie and said she was dressed as a Time Traveler. I’m grateful to my Muse and this Mattel Model Muse doll. I hope she likes the role she plays. There’s no role I’d rather have in my world than writer.

Here’s her poem, destined to be named “Time Traveler.”

©Becky Cochrane, 2025

Today is the anniversary of the date Riley died in 2008. The L.A. fires and their consequences have kept me emotional for the last week already, so this year, Riley’s loss feels a little sharper. The other night, Tom and I watched The Last Waltz, which I haven’t seen probably since the late seventies, when it was released. I still remembered the songs, the performers (band members and musical guests), and some of the conversations with members of The Band as they talked about how the concert (the focus of the film, as directed by Martin Scorsese) was bringing to an end their sixteen years of performing on the road.

Though most of the members worked together again, they never again performed live as a group with Robertson. Now all are gone, except for keyboardist Garth Hudson, who’s 87 and has been reported as a resident in an assisted living facility since 2022, when his wife Maud died. ETA: Garth Hudson died on January 21, five days after this post.

  • Richard Manuel: Died in 1986 at the age of 42 
  • Rick Danko: Died in 1999 at the age of 55 
  • Levon Helm: Died in 2012 at the age of 71 
  • Robbie Robertson: Died in 2023 at the age of 80

I think the footage of The Band singing with Bob Dylan got to me the most, maybe because Riley loved him so much and considered him a songwriting muse. I had a lump in my throat listening to “Forever Young” and “I Shall Be Released.” So many memories. In an alternate life, Riley and I might have ended up in L.A., friends sharing a house in a neighborhood like Altadena, while I pursued all the things that would have informed my fiction and he played everywhere anyone wanted to hear a guitarist, pianist, and songwriter. I’m not sure either of us ever wanted fame and fortune as much as the chance to create and be true to ourselves. Riley did play all over the Southeast (I’m not sure about his time in Nevada), and he wrote a lot of songs. I never lived further west than Texas, but I’ve had fiction published, and what I’m working on now includes real settings (many of them decimated by the fires) and celebrates my fictional artists (none of them native-born Angelenos) of Los Angeles.

I’m so grateful for the years of friendship Riley and I shared. Though we aren’t the Muse and Time Traveler of the poem, Riley’s part of why they exist.