Under the Radar

The April 11 edition of The New Yorker is a good one for cartoons. There were at least four that made me laugh, like the clown pointing at a defendant in a courtroom and saying, "J'amuse!"

The one that really hit me hard, though, was a man behind a desk speaking on his phone, asking, "How do you know if you're under the radar or washed up?" Because that phrase, "under the radar," is frequently used in (positive) reviews of my books. It's a military reference - "under the radar" meaning to fly in low and undetected, and presumably be less likely to be shot down. Which is good for the aircraft. But what does it mean in a literary context? Is it good for the book? Or does it just mean it isn't being read?  HellifIknow.

Speaking of snow...

Yes! You can see our house peeking through the trees in the upper right hand corner. And Mary's head almost sticks up above the snow pile. The ramps and daffodils are up.  We have squirrels in the attic. I think they've been there for a while, but they were under the radar until a few days ago, when they started chewing on something located immediately above our bed.  Now they are on my radar in a big way. I am looking up recipes for squirrel pie, squirrel ragout, squirrel etouffee, and squirrel-on-a-stick.