A Weekend Away...

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

My youngest daughter, Mini-me and I took a mini vacation to Colonial Williamsburg this weekend—just the two of us. It isn’t often we get away together. It seems as if for the last five years I’ve been on deadline as I am now. So why, you may ask, am I romping around Colonial Williamsburg when my book is due in 16 days? My only answer is: Because, maternal guilt is a very powerful motivator.

As usual, this is all my husband’s fault. He took our other two kids out backpacking for five days over Fourth of July weekend leaving Mini-me and me at home with the dogs. Not that there is anything wrong with the dogs. They’re cute, cuddly, and you know, loyal. But it’s not as if Mini-me and I got to do anything fun.

Now, between you, me, and the doorknob, Mini-me and I don’t think backpacking is much fun—after all it involves bugs, a hell of a lot of walking, poison ivy, going to the bathroom in the woods, and eating freeze-dried food, but that’s not the point. The point is that they got to do something they thought was fun and we didn’t.

When my husband and the kids came home, I told them that Mini-me and I were going away just the two of us to do something fun which would not involve woods (we’re allergic), too much walking, bad food (we’re food snobs), bugs (that darn allergy thing again) and questionable toilet facilities (just because we know how to shit in the woods, doesn’t mean we want to). I had no idea what we were going to do, but I had a strong feeling it would involve someplace with 24-hour room service.

Luckily I found a great deal through Travel Zoo, signed up, and even paid for it. Two nights in Colonial Williamsburg was ours any Sunday through Thursday, the only catch was that it had to be used by September 27th. No problem. After all we had the whole summer. September was months away.

Isn’t it amazing how time flies while you’re not having fun? Well, we had some fun. After all, if you’ve followed the blog you’ve read allabout my trip to Idaho.

Right after I killed myself to make my deadline for Back To You: Bad Boys of Red Hook, my editor asked if I could write a novella, Hometown Girl, to introduce the new series. I said, sure, no problem. I whipped that puppy out, had a fabulous time writing it, sent it in (a few days early in fact—a first for me) and went back to my contracts to see when my next book was due...Imagine my surprise when I realized it You're The One: Bad Boys of Red Hook was due October 1!

Now mind you, this was mid-August and I hadn’t even written the synopsis for You're The One. Any sane person would have gone into apoplectic shock. It’s a good thing I’m not sane. I just thought I’d hunker down and write like the wind. No problem.

Then my husband went missing. (See above—it’s all my husband’s fault) Okay, so he wasn’t missing in a literal sense. If you read my last blog here at Killer Fiction you’d know that for the last few months he’s been working 16 – 20 hour days, seven days a week. Now that I think about it, the last weekend he had off was when he and the kids went hiking.

So instead of hunkering down and writing like the wind, I spent the majority of time not only in deadline hell, but in deadline hell without my domestic god to do laundry, cleaning, and at least the partial feeding of kids and dogs. Yeah, I was on my own, rediscovering how much I dislike housework, laundry, and taking care of teenagers on my own. Every time something came up, my work got put down and when school started and things got really crazy. It was then it occurred to me that I still had a promise to keep. I had to take Mini-me to Williamsburg and I had to do it on a holiday—Mini-me couldn’t afford to miss more than one day of school.

Thank God for Rosh Hashannah! So here I am, running all over Williamsburg with Mini-me and having a great time.

See... I got to put Mini-me in the stocks to show her what happened in the olden days when teenagers didn’t listen to their mothers.

We enjoyed looking at the dresses women wore, but Mini-me decided that if she had lived back in the colonial days, it would have been “way better to be a dude.”

We ate at the King’s Arms Tavern—twice. Yeah, it was really that good...

We shopped...

And did our share of flirting with the men in uniform.

There is really something to be said for men in tight breeches. 

I can't wait until we see what trouble we can get into tomorrow morning before we leave. I have a feeling it's going to involve a candy store and the world's longest Gummy Worm...

So? What have you done in the name of maternal guilt, or if that’s not a problem for you, what was the last time you went out and did something fun, even if it wasn’t at all convenient?