Celebrate!

I’m just back from my stroll around the cemetery. I’m walking longer distances now and doing it at a faster clip. Plus I’m not gasping for breath like I did when I started a month ago. So, progress.

I’m not a fan of bathroom scales. In fact, I don’t even own one. I’ve had the same weight on my driver’s license for twenty-five years and as far as I could tell, the driver’s license clerks weren’t poking each other in the ribs and chuckling or doing eye rolls every time I replied, “No” when they asked if height or weight had changed. And negative. I don’t plan to divulge what weight is on my driver’s license, but thanks for asking.

As far as managing my weight, I generally know it’s time to cut back on the junk food when I need a wire coat hanger to get my jeans’ zipper up. Barring that, I’m good to go.

This week I was antsy and in the mood to put something--anything--in my life in order so I decided to declutter my bedroom closet. I love my closet. Big, but not too big, with built in storage areas along the entire wall. I grab my step stool, climb up, and survey one of the storage areas where I keep my jeans and slacks. I love jeans. And I tend to hold on to them longer than I should--as evidenced by the number of straight legs jeans I found stowed away in my closet. I hauled the clothes down and put them on my bed and decided to try each pair of jeans on before I decided whether to keep them or toss ‘em. Well, with the exception of the straight leg jeans. I basically gave them the heave-ho. I don’t care that people say they’re coming back in style. It’s boot cut or flare for this gal--or nothing at all.

It was when I started trying on jeans that the fun began. I tried the first pair on and frowned. They were too big. Strange. I tried another pair on. Same thing. If I cinched a belt tight enough to keep my pants in place, I’d have ‘jean pucker’ around my waist. I went through the whole stack of jeans and found about five that fit.

Since it had been awhile since I weighed myself, (think years) I pulled out my daughter’s scale, made sure it was adjusted correctly, took a deep breath, and stepped up. Since I rarely weigh myself, I took the precaution of peering through my fingers to view the number. I couldn’t believe it! I’d lost TEN pounds.

Now, I know that doesn’t sound like much when you see the dramatic ‘Biggest Loser’ weight losses and transformations, but for me it’s huge! I’d undertaken my ‘shape up’ program with the objective of getting ‘heart healthy’ and toning and firming--not dropping pounds so it was an unexpected bonus. And positive proof that walking is great exercise for those of us ‘of a certain age’.

And I couldn’t close this post without acknowledging the fact that tomorrow is our nation’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

Other than my customary walk or bike ride, I have no big plans. This year will be somewhat different. One daughter is visiting friends out of state and one son is working. Normally we go to my brother’s house or cook out and watch the fireworks from our front yard. It’ll be strange this year, but that’s what happens when the younguns grow up.

‘Things change, Kathy,’ I remind myself. ‘And you have to adapt. It’ll give you time to write. Or read.’

I’m not sure I like this ‘growing up’ stuff. I thought I would. Now I’m not so sure.

What plans have you made to celebrate Independence Day? Any traditions you hold to each year? Any special place you are planning to travel?

Be safe, be happy, and celebrate the birth of the greatest nation on earth!

Have a wonderful 4th!

~Bullet Hole~

Camp Rocks!

I apologize for posting so late today! I just got back last night from three days at Girl Scout camp with my daughter and once I rinsed off 36 hours worth of bug spray, sunscreen and dirt and had a cold bottle of beer, I crashed until 1:30 this afternoon.

Somehow, I survived - mainly because of the amazing staff and the other wonderful moms and girls I bunked with. We built fires, cooked outdoors, went on a two-hour trailride (my horse was Zeke, Margaret had Flame - which was a much cooler name, I thought), swam (right after breakfast both days - and that's when you get your shower in too only to load up on bugspray right afterwards), ate s'mores (you know, I don't think it's possible to have too many s'mores - do you?), hiked for - oh - about 10,000 miles, participated in the ropes course and archery, sang silly songs and played even sillier games, scratched mosquito bites, fought off gnat swarms (after swallowing enough to actually benefit from the protein), received the 5-Year Award at the final campfire ceremony and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

I'm sunburned, tired, Diet Coke deprived, covered in bug bites, my butt hurts (2 hours in the saddle is A LOT) and couldn't be happier.

Weird isn't it?

One of the many great things that happened was meeting emerging, young writers - not just among the kids, but also among the counselors. Shutter and Weaver (counselors go incognito with aliases, an idea that has probably saved their sanity more than once) were awesome young women with real futures in writing. I had donated my books to the camp at the beginning of the season for the staff to read in their downtime and they really enjoyed that. I felt like somewhat a rockstar the way they said, "I've never met a real author before!" Of course, I didn't want to break the mood by telling them that I'm really just a robot held together with rocks and chewing gum.

The camp staff are amazing. They never complain, are always upbeat (especially when they wake you up at 6:30am). We had this counselor named Oatmeal who was hilarious and went waaaaay above and beyond for her campers on several occaisions. It was Weaver's first time as a counselor - but you'd never know it from her knowledge and enthusiasm. Many of the counselors are from other countries - I met young women from the Netherlands, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia and Hungary. THAT IS SOOOO COOL!!!

But the real heroes are the moms who take time off from jobs, their families and other responsibilities to spend time with their daughters and impacting other girls. It really makes a difference. I've made so many lifelong friends it's unreal. We stay in touch and see each other every year. It's a major bonding experience when you are all on the back steps of your cabin using your water bottle to brush your teeth twice a day. After all these years, I can spit pretty far - a skill I never imagined I'd have.

It's also the one time a year Margaret allows us to dress alike. Well, it's more forced on her than anything. But after 5 years of camp together, we have quite a wardrobe of Camp Conestoga t-shirts. It's pretty dorky, I know, but that's kind of our trademark and the staff remembers that, "Hey! Aren't you the guys who always dress alike?" I like to think the laughter is complimentary.

Now I'm back to working on Coney's book, which I've tentatively titled (nice alliteration, eh?) I KILLED HIM MY WAY. So it's back to the real world. Sigh. I miss it a little. Maybe tonight I'll sit on my deck and let the mosquitos turn me into a blood buffet - just for old times.

The Assassin

His Person

FYI: Tomorrow I will be blogging over at http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/ about writer's block and muses. All you writers, pop over and visit.

Crime Scene Christie


WINNER, WINNER, WINNER!

Christine's Bowe's is the winner of the "Pamper Me Like A Bride Contest."

Sharon Berger and Michelle are the HM.

I will be getting those prizes out to you soon.

Crime Scene Christie
***

Can someone tell me who wrote: To love and lost is better than to have never loved at all? If you know, I’d appreciate your sharing the information because I need to kick his $%&! Seriously, he needs to have his writing license revoked.

Okay . . . I know that saying has a powerful message, and I know I’ve used it in the past to offer condolences to others. I’ve even used it as my premise in my books and in essays. Deep down, in some place inside me that I can’t reach right now, I even know it’s true. Problem is, I’m in the lost stage right now and I’m hurting like the dickens. Grief will do that to you.

Jake entered my life about six years ago. Funny thing was, I was dealing with grief at the time. Only six months earlier, I’d witness my eight-year-old Boston Terrier get run over by a car. I swore, never again. I even laid down the house rule. No more dogs. If you find a lost dog, don’t even bring it home unless it has a tag so you can contact the owners.

Then, while I was away doing travel articles in California and I get this call. “We got trouble,” my husband said.

My son had been followed home by a stray dog—a labish-cockerish looking big black dog with a gray muzzle. Not that my son had broken the “no-tag” rule. The dog had two tags. One for a Great Dane and another for a Lhasa Alpso. No way, was this dog either one.

“Find it a home,” I insisted to my husband. “Find it a home before I get home.”

A week later, I show up and there’s this big black dog waiting for me. “He’s old, mom,” my son insisted. “If we took him to the shelter, they’d kill him.”

I frowned.

“He’s smart, too,” my son said, trying to sweeten the deal. “I said sit and he sat.”

I looked at the dog. “He has no personality,” I accused. Bosco, the Boston Terrier, would have been bouncing off the walls, this dog just sat there. I stood up. The dog stood up. I said “sit” and did the hand motion for the command. He sat. I said “Speak” and he cocked his head at me and stared. I could tell he knew I wanted him to do something. Finally, he raised his paw. “No,” I said. “Speak.” He laid down. We laughed. “No. Speak.” He rolled over. He knew every trick in the book except speak.

“Can we keep him?” my son pleaded.

My heart was still hurting for Bosco. “We have to post signs and maybe the owners will come forward.” I sent out a prayer that this would be the case. But you know it didn’t happen. Someone had tossed this dog away, probably because it was getting old, and I was stuck with it.

The next day my son named him Jake. And Jake named me “his person.” I knew when it happened, too. He just walked up to me, looked right at me with his big puppy dog eyes, and laid his head on my lap. I so didn’t want to be “his person.” I actually tried to push him away.

“Love the boy,” I told him. “He brought you home.”

“Love the daddy. He’s the one who will feed you.”

But nope, Jake had made up his mind. Whether I liked it or not, he’d chosen me.

I’d heard about one-person dogs, but I’d never really met one, until Jake. He was friendly to everyone, but he’d bypass anyone to sit beside me. If I walked out of the room, Jake walked out of the room. If someone looked at me crossways, Jake got between them and me. I was this dog’s mission in life. I was his world. I was . . . “his person.”

Let me tell you, when someone loves you that much, you just can’t help but to start loving him back. Even when you didn’t want him. Even when you knew he was already an old dog. Even when you knew that he was going to break your heart.

We took him to the vet and the doctor put Jake at anywhere between 9 and 12 years of age. That was five years ago. And during those years, he became my best friend. When I was in the office writing, he was in the office. We were in the office a lot. Jake watched me write eight books. I brainstormed my plots with him. I tested my jokes out on him, which is probably why I kept trying to make them funnier. Jake didn’t know how to laugh, not more than he knew how to speak.

When I went outside, he went outside. When I took a potty break, Jake took a potty break. It got harder and harder for him to get around. But it didn’t stop him from limping after me wherever I went. The last few months, he couldn’t make the stairs and my bedroom is upstairs. So every night, my husband picked up the sixty-pound dog and gently brought him upstairs to sleep beside me on his cushioned bed. And because he was embarrassed about not being able to make the stairs, we would all clap when my husband put him down, and Jake would wag his tail as if he’d done a great thing.

He never had an accident indoors, but age snuck up on him. I swear the few first times it happened, he’d see the mess behind him and give one of our four cats the evil eye. When accidents continued to happen, I started cooking for him. Chicken and Rice. We’re talking boneless chicken breasts with long grain rice. It was so yummy, that times the family opted to eat Jake’s food.

Hubby kidded me several times, “You make me go pick up take-out for us, then you cook for the dog.”

I would just look at hubby and say, “But you don’t love me as much as he does.”

Even hubby couldn’t argue. No one has, or probably ever will, love me as much as Jake.

When his cancer got so bad that I could tell he was in pain, I knew what I had to do, but dang it, I didn’t want to do it. So, I sat him down and had a talk with him. Told him it was okay to go. But that damn dog just looked at me and I knew what he was thinking, “I can’t go. I won’t leave you. You are my person.”

So after a year, and thousands of dollars of vet care, I had to help him say good bye.

I laid on a rug at the vet’s floor beside him and told him how much I loved him as he slipped away.

Yes, I know that loving Jake was a joy, a gift, but losing him still hurts so darn much. So find me that writer, would you. I still want to kick his butt.

I’m going to miss being Jake’s person.

Money Well Spent

I was in Petsmart yesterday, and of course, if I’m in a pet store I have to look at their wares. So I checked out mice and geckos and snakes and then rounded the corner to the birds. There were those cute little finches and then the standard parakeet. Which reminded me of a story about how years ago I thought it would be a good idea to own birds and a cat at the same time.

So I had a couple of parakeets and they were pretty and turquoise (my favorite color), and they were a mess, but I like them anyway. Well, one day, the cat managed to get IN the birdcage. Hey, he was a Siamese cat and everyone who knows cats knows how sneaky the Siamese are. So by the time I got to the scene of the crime, the cat had bitten one of the birds. There was no blood, mind you, and at first I thought everything was okay. Until I noticed that when the bird ate, the seeds popped out a hole in his throat.

Okay, so this might be a problem (unless you need to lose weight and right now, it’s not sounding like a really bad idea for me personally), so I packed up the bird and took him to the vet. The vet said she could put a stitch in the bird, so the bird had surgery. $50 later, I was on the way out the door with my stitched $15 bird. Now, I know some will point out that I could have let the cat finish off the bird and bought THREE birds with that $50, but I’m an animal lover and was happy to pay for the surgery.

So the vet said to watch the bird closely and call her the next day to tell her how it was doing so she could give me further instructions. So the next afternoon, I check on the bird who seems fine (food staying contained, anyway) and I call the vet’s office. I tell the assistant who I am and why I’m calling and she says she’ll check with the doctor. She comes back a few minutes later and says “Dr. Turner is aghast that bird’s still alive.”

Really? Dr. Turner wasn’t aghast when she charged me $50 to stitch him up.

Well, apparently to spite Dr. Turner, that bird went on to live two more years. So I guess my $50 was money well spent????????

Deadly DeLeon

YouTube Sunday!

This video is one of my all time fav bits from one of my all time fav comedians, Eddie Izzard. (Whom I will actually be seeing in concert next month. Wee!) But, until Nikki sent me this clip, I had no idea how funny it could be set to Legos. Congrats on the win, Nikki!

Next week I’ll be giving away another pack of steamy Ellora’s Cave playing cards, so send me more of those funny videos!

(P.S. Despite the Legos, the language in this video is not for kids.)

Hero-Worthy Inspiration with Natasha Moore

Please join me in welcoming the fantabulous author Natasha Moore to Killer Fiction as she talks about one of my favorite subjects – heroes. (*sigh, swoon*) Natasha writes erotic romance for Ellora’s Cave and deliciously spicy contemporary romance for Samhain. So, feel free to drool as she talks about her hot hero inspirations. (I know I will…)


I want to thank Gemma for inviting me to be a guest here at Killer Fiction today. For the last couple days I’ve been trying to find some way to tie together my two very different stories that were released last week, besides the fact that I wrote them. My sexy contemporary romance, The Passion-Minded Professor from Samhain, is a novel about a divorced diner waitress and a chemistry professor that takes place over a couple months. Sunrise is a short erotic romance included in Ellora’s Cave’s latest Cavemen anthology, Jewels of the Nile II, about a local artist and a concert musician that takes place over a couple hours.

Then I started thinking about my heroes – don’t we all? lol – and I realized that out of all the heroes I’ve written (and I just signed my eleventh contract, so I’ve written a few) these are the only two who I named after their inspiration. I don’t even have a person/actor/fictional character as inspiration for all my characters, but I did for these two very different heroes.

Chemistry professor Dr. Daniel Jennings is a typical absent-minded professor at the beginning of The Passion-Minded Professor. My inspiration for his character was Dr. Daniel Jackson, a role played by actor Michael Shanks in the Sci-Fi Channel’s series, Stargate SG-1. Intense, intelligent and passionate, he was the perfect jumping off point for my Daniel.

Sunrise started with the heroine, Caroline. I knew her right away. Well enough that I started writing the story in first person, present tense without even planning to. She’s waiting for her lover, not sure if he’s coming tonight, not sure if he’s ever coming back. Then suddenly, he’s there. And he speaks. And he sounds just like Alan Rickman. I had no idea until that first line of dialogue that my hero was British. So I had to name him Alan.

I love it when my characters surprise me. It’s one of the best things about writing. How about you? Have characters in a story you’ve read or written surprised you enough that you still remember it?

And if you’d like to check out the blurb, excerpt and/or buy your very copies of my new releases, you can check them out here:
The Passion-Minded Professor
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/the-passion-minded-professor
Sunrise in Jewels of the Nile II
http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419916540

Natasha
Romance with more…sizzle
www.natashamoore.com

Communication Situation

I cannot communicate with men lately. I’m not sure what happened, but it’s just not working this week. Maybe I’ve just met too many of them lately (40 and counting…), or maybe it’s going over and over that same get-to-know-you conversation, or maybe it’s just something in this hot, smoky California air (80 separate fires currently burning in Nor. Cal.!) that’s messed with me. But I cannot communicate with men.

First off, I am disappointed to say the Firefighter did not step up to the plate. I'm pretty certain he never read last week’s blog (so much for subtle hints about flowers, huh?) and the one conversation we had this week went something like this:
Him: When can I see you again?
Me: You’re the man with the busy life, you tell me.
Him (after very pregnant pause) I might be going camping. So, not this week.
Me: (mumbling) Figures.
Him: What?
Me: Nothing. Have fun. Gotta go. Buh-buye.
It’s been two weeks since I last saw him. Even though he continues to say he wants to see me, I have to believe that if he were that interested, he would have found the time by now. As it is, I have to take those Sex & the City words of wisdom to heart and figure, he’s just not that into me.

Which leads me to the second bit of proof that my communications this week are cursed. Michigan Man. We met online and, after a fun phone conversation, I agreed to meet him a few days later. I’ve been working like a demon this week, so we ended up meeting kind of late at night. I’d just come off a long day of rewrites followed by a long phone conversation about more rewrites. I was mentally beat. Not good. I have a condition called foot-in-mouth-itis, and it strikes especially hard when I’m tired. Michigan Man was really cute, very “boy next door” Midwest look about him. Not the type I usually go for, but a really sweet guy and a good listener. Again, not good for my condition. I ended up spilling the whole thing about my January 1st resolution to find Mr. Right, my mis-adventures in dating since, the Pirate, Coma Guy - good lord, I even told him he was number 40! Way too much info.
Me: So, after all that, I’m kind of what you’d call a dating pro.
Him: You mean like a… (long pause)… real pro?
Me: What do you mean, ‘real’?
Him: Like, for profit.
Me: Oh my God, I am not a hooker!
Him: (blushing) Right.
By the end of the night he looked sufficiently scared and kept asking if he was going to end up in a blog. (um… duh!) Poor guy…

And, my communication issues just got worse as the week went on. Mr. Real Estate (remember him from last week? My own personal Mr. Big.) asks if I’m free Wed night. Since he’s so much fun, I answer, absolutely, yes. So, Wed morning he texts me: “How does 7 look?” I answer back that it’s perfect. So, seven rolls around and I’m ready, waiting, and even a little excited to see him. Only he’s not there. So, I call him. He picks up right away.
Him: What’s up, sweetie?
(How cute. He called me sweetie. Squishy feeling.)
Me: Fine. Where are you?
Him: Just driving through the car wash. Why?
Me: It’s seven,
Him: (long pause. Yeah, I’m beginning to dread those by now.) Wait… you thought I meant we were meeting at seven?
Me: Um… yeah?
Wrong. He goes on to tell me that he meant he’d call me at seven to decide what time we wanted to get together. So, basically, that morning he texted me to make a date for a time to make a date? Mental forehead smack. Please, don’t confuse the blond like that.
But, to his credit, he apologizes for the confusion, says he’ll drop everything and be right there. And he did, pulling up five minutes later and getting ready to go out in record time (even for a guy!). Seriously, he was showered and dressed in the time it took me to read just one People’s Best & Worst Dressed column. We ended up going out for wine tasting and Chinese food (which, you wouldn’t think is a very good combo, but actually, it was!) and had a really fun evening, so I guess it all worked out. At one point he even asked if he could take me to a baseball game this summer. Considering that our local team’s stadium is kind of ghetto-adjacent, I hesitated a little. But he assured me that as a “hot blonde” no one would give me any trouble. Mr. Big called me a hot blonde. (There’s that squishy feeling again.)

But, even though that evening ended well, it wasn’t the end of my communication difficulties.

A couple weeks ago this guy wrote to me online. Super blond hair, super blue eyes, super tan. All California boy. (Can you tell my thing for lifeguards is getting out of hand?) We exchanged a few emails, talked on the phone a couple times, and he seemed like a nice guy. Polite, intelligent, a total “manly” man - a little rough around the edges, maybe, but owns his own construction business, so no slouch. We agreed to meet for coffee 11AM Thursday morning. Even set a place and time. Fast forward a few days. He calls, but I’m not able to answer. (Okay, honestly, I didn’t answer because I was out wine tasting with Mr. Real Estate at the time.) So, he leaves a message, says he’s just checking in to make sure we’re still on for tomorrow. It’s really late by the time I get home from my evening of Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay, so I decide to wait until morning to call back. Morning rolls around, but, not knowing him well enough to know if he’s an early riser, I text instead of calling. I let him know that, yeppers, we’re still on for coffee.
So… 11AM rolls around. I head off to Starbucks, grab my latte, sit in the sun. It’s a nice day out (despite the smoke) so let a few minutes roll by. And I start to get that feeling. You know the one – that stood up feeling. I pull out my phone and call him. He’s really surprised to hear from me.
Him: Wow, Gemma?
Me. Yeah. So, did you get my text?
Him: What text?
Me: Crap.
So, I tell him, the one where I confirmed that, yes, I’d be here.
Him: You’re there?
Me: Yes, I’m here. (And, apparently being stood up.) Where are you?
Him: When you didn’t call me back last night, I figured you didn’t want to see me after all, and I went to work instead.
Sigh.
So, after a few minutes of polite chit-chat, I hung up on my California Builder Guy and decided this was just not my week. Instead, I took my latte and myself across the street to the beauty supply store and bought an extravagant amount of scented lotions, bubble bath, and hot pink toe nail polish and decided a weekend in, hanging solely with my girly-girl self, is definitely in order. At least until I get this communication situation under control again.

~Trigger Happy Halliday