“Life is partly what we make it,
and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
~ Tennessee Williams


Hi all,

First, happy Mother's Day to any and all moms in the group!  I hope you feel very loved and appreciated today!


Second, this was a bit thrown together.  I've actually been working on something else but decided I needed a bit more time with it.  You'll likely see that in a couple weeks. 

Finally... I know I asked the YG this but can't recall if I asked the newsletter only folks so... if you have any ideas on things you'd like to see in JABB or that might be helpful to you as you go about your lives and remember John, please let me know.  Thank you.

God bless,
Jenni

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So... May 13th is when we "celebrate" the Commemoration of the Murder Trial That Wasn't Then Was.  I recap this every year so just very briefly: round about Season 5 of TBAA it was reported in a spoiler magazine that there would be an episode in which Andrew was put on trial for murder... innocently, natch!  Many of us loved the dramatic potential of that but, alas, it never happened.  So we made up a holiday on which we mused over the theme.
 
Back in May 2005, I wrote a Dyeland story in which that played out.  Hence the "Then Was" in the title of the celebration.  Now, the Dyelanders are a group who like to be prepared!  So something tells me they would have a plan up their sleeves were their darling Andrew ever falsely imprisoned again.  And maybe they'd even have a very special recipe planned...

Before we proceed, big thanks to Michelle for pointing me in the direction of the recipe this is adapted from.  You can find info on *real* Amish Friendship Bread here and here.

 
From the Official Dyeland Cookbook...
 
Amish Friendship Bread... with Jailbreak Friendly File
(to be used if Andrew is ever falsely accused and jailed again)


 
Ingredients needed:
 
-1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
-1/4 cup warm water
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
- 3 cups white sugar, divided
- 3 cups milk
-10 pound crate of Kleenex
-1 file
-1 shirt from Andrew's closet
 
Directions:
 
Day 1:
 
1.  Calm down.  Yes, Andrew may be in a cell... in an orange jumpsuit that really does NOT suit him.  But he will be okay.  Hug shirt.  There, now you feel better, right?  Oh please stop crying!  You're getting the yeast wet!  Eh, I spose it doesn't matter, anyhow.
 
Still with me?
 
2.  Okay, in a small bowl, dissolve yeast in the water.
 
Oh no.  You found Andrew's favorite ice cream bowl, didn't you?  Put the bowl down.  PUT IT DOWN!  STOP CRADLING IT!!!  You can watch him down all the Mint Chocolate Chip or Rocky Road or whatever floats his boat in a very short period of time.  He'll be free in no time!  You'll see!
 
3.  Pray what you just read proves true...
 
4.  Let stand 10 minutes...  Commence thinking about that time Andrew had an assignment in that Amish community.  Remember that beard?  We loved that beard...  And then Rose called him Amish Boy forever after...  And those suspenders...  Loved.  Them.  And no Monica to snap them.
 
Put down the phone!  PUT IT DOWN!!  Calling Monica to chew her out for something that happened in 1999 will NOT help.  She hasn't snapped his suspenders since, after all.
 
All right?  Okay.  Ten minutes is up.
 
5.  In a 2 quart container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. 
 
Remember that time before Lady Beth taught Andrew to cook and he somehow made all that sugar and flour and milk explode all over his kitchen?  He blushed so much!  It was adorable.
 
::sigh::
 
Get out the Kleenex.  Use them.  Hug the shirt.  You'll be okay. 
 
6.  Mix thoroughly and slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture.  Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly.  Leave loosely covered at room temperature.
 
7.  Think the following: "What?!?!  I have to wait 10 days to do this?!?!  But I need to bake this file into this friggin bread NOW.  Andrew is in jaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I want him ooooouuuuuuuuutttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
 
8.  Have now had cathartic release.  Will just have to be patient...  
 
9.  Just start eating the sugar you were supposed to use on later days.  It's called self-medication.
 
Day 2:
 
1.  Look into jail's conjugal visit policy.
 
2.  Contact the folks at Merriam Webster.  Need to get the definition of "conjugal" changed...  
 
3.  Oh, yeah... Stir the batter.
 
Day 3:
 
1.  Call the judge.  Talk up Andrew.  Calmly agree that your behavior is out of line.  Promise not to call again.

2.  Swoon over that time Andrew was a judge...
 
3.  Pine.
 
4.  Stir the super slow batter again.
 
Day 4:
 
1.  Call Amnesty International.  No luck.
 
2.  Call the ACLU.  Not there either.  Andrew is, after all, not American...
 
3.  Call PETA... well, Andrew's in human form and humans are animals, right?!  Tell them a dove's friend is in trouble when that line of reasoning doesn't work.  Listen to the click as they hang up...
 
4.  Stir the batter as you bemoan lack of rights and legal aid organizations devoted to angels of death.
 
Day 5:
 
1.  Finally something other than stirring!  Pour in a cup each of flour, restocked sugar, and milk.
 
2.  Write Andrew letter. 
 
3.  Rewrite Andrew letter when prior letter becomes too tear-stained to read.
 
Day 6:
 
1.  Seriously?!?  Back to the freakin' stirring again!?

2.  Cry into Andrew's shirt because you have used all the Kleenex.
 
2.  Go buy more Kleenex. 

Day 7:
 
1.  Stir...
 
2.  Fill purse with Kleenex.  And the shirt.
 
3.  Attend opening statements.

4.  Thank Adam for grabbing you when you tried to leap into the defendant's occupied chair...  Woulda been undignified...  Also may have gotten tazed...
 
Day 8:
 
1.  Stir.
 
2.  Cry.
 
3.  Pray.
 
Day 9:
 
1.  Stir. 
 
2.  Realize there's only one day until Operation Free the Lovely One/Amish Boy/the Skin Horse/Andrewkins/Swan Boat/etc./etc./etc.

3.  Ponder if maybe Andrew's abundance of aliases may be sending the wrong message to legal authorities...
 
Day 10: 
 
1.  Stir in another cup each of flour, sugar, and milk.
 
2.  Remove 1 cup to make your loaf.
 
3.  Finally you can put the file in!
 
4.  Give 2 cups to other Dyelanders along with above recipe and extra files... need back-up plans.  Save one cup.
 
5.  Bake at 325 degrees for an hour.
 
6.  Deliver loaf of bread to Andrew in jail during non-conjugal visit.
 
7.  Listen as he explains that the Father has a purpose for him there and breaking out isn't it...
 
8.  Leave... remembering why it is you've always loved this guy.
 
9.  Pray.
 
Day ?:
 
1.  Andrew's free!!!  Thank God!
 
2.  Hug him.
 
3.  A lot.
 
4.  Seriously.
 
5.  Bake bread with saved cup of batter.  Stare, dewy-eyed and enamored, as Andrew enjoys it.
 
6.  Sigh contentedly.
 
7.  Say a prayer of thanksgiving.

8.  Hug Andrew again.  Repeat this step as desired for all eternity.  :-)


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Hi again,

So I felt like I should add a lil.  I have a story mostly written but, like I said, I wanna work on that a bit more.  So... you get...

Ask a JABBer

With this feature, I just answer or field questions to other JABBers about what we do here.  It's easy filler material basically.  ;-)  They can be questions about JABB's history, Dyeland, general fannishness, whatever!  So if ya ever have any questions you'd like to see answered here, lemme know!

These are two questions someone asked me... Nicole, was it you?  ;-)  So I thought I'd answer where everyone could see.

1.  How do you decide what the weather is like in Dyeland?

Answer: Dyeland has very convenient weather.  ;-)  If it suits a story to have it storm, it storms.  If a heat wave is necessary, there's a heat wave.  In general, Dyeland's weather corresponds to what I experience in the Midwest U.S., though.  It's extremely hard for me to write about enchanting fields of wildflowers in, say, November.  It makes it seem colder.  Similarly, today's a pretty warm day so I just can't even imagine writing something where Andrew and Co. huddle in front of a fire sipping cocoa as a blustery wind blows outside.   When the action moves out of Dyeland to, say, L.A. or New York (i.e. somewhere real), however, I do generally check weather reports.  However, sometimes conflict is unavoidable.  Like I think by the time I sent the cruise story, the Caribbean was having severe weather while in Dyeland-mode those same days were beautiful cause they'd been written a while before.  I wouldn't go back and rewrite a story over weather discrepancies.

2.  What's the deal with Andrew's cell phone?  How do any cell phones work both in Dyeland and on Earth?

Answer: Shhh!  No one's supposed to think about that!  ;-)  I have no clue how cell phones would function in alternate worlds.  C.S. Lewis didn't have to deal with cell phones in Narnia!  So I just pretend they work as normal.

As for Andrew's, it was purchased as part of a group plan with other Dyelanders. 
Because God intended for Andrew to form these friendships, He's all for something that would keep them connected on some level even when Andrew's away on assignments.  God would also, of course, know that Andrew would *always* observe cell phone etiquette to the max.  So NO texting while driving, no talking on it or texting while with someone, etc.  It would also have the added benefit of making him seem less "other" and possibly more approachable should an assignment overhear him having a "Yeah, I'll grab a loaf of bread.  How's Yva?  Mick did what?!  Are the dogs behaving?" type of conversation.

Also, Andrew's phone would have been appropriately angelized.  It would, for example, never, ever go off during a revelation
scene!  Eeek!  Basically the battery temporarily dies whenever God wills it to.  In addition, he doesn't *always* have it.  When he was homeless it was just sitting on a counter in Serendipity or something.  Ditto when he was in Iraq.

Finally, I think the phone probably has different numbers attached to it.  Like if Andrew needed a cell phone for a job as when he was a police officer in "Safe," he could probly give one number out that would only work for the duration of that assignment and both that and his real Dyeland number would ring on the same phone during that assignment.  After that assignment, only the original Dyeland number would work. 

Essentially, I did not plan this phone out at all.  Suddenly he just had one.  So now I'm going backward and making sense of it.  ;-)

JABB TOC

JABB 328

(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from "Touched by an Angel" and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions.  They are not being used to seek profit.)