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What I'm writing in YEAR OF THE DOG

I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
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Gingerbread @adagioteas #teaadventcalendar #adventcalendar2021

Today’s tea from my Tea Advent Calendar is Gingerbread. A perfect flavor for today, being so close to Christmas.

The tea contains black tea, natural gingerbread flavor, cinnamon, orange, and ginger. When I opened the packet, I could smell the ginger, although I don’t know that it smelled quite like gingerbread.

I steeped it for 3 minutes in 8 ounces of 212ºF hot water.

I didn’t quite like the smell of the tea unsweetened, so I didn’t even taste it, I just added almond milk and sugar. The tea tastes okay, it doesn’t really taste like gingerbread, but I don’t particularly care for the gingerbread flavoring used. I guess this just wasn’t personally to my taste.
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