I had a fun post planned for today but life just keeps a happen' and I have to get ready to go meet up with someone and try to smile unselfconciously for a photo (not gonna happen) to go along with my interview for our local paper. So, I'm going to go with something short and sweet.

I have noticed that, as I draw closer to my one year anniversary as a bloggist, that my blogging habits are starting to change. It makes me wonder about the blogging habits of others. How do you blog? Do you post every day or just when you feel like it? Do you read everyone in your dashboard or on google reader whenever someone posts? Or do you read just certain posts? Or certain days? How long have you been blogging? Do you find your obesession waning or increasing since you started to blog? Do you feel pressure to read the posts of others or do you feel like it's okay if you let it slide sometimes? Do you feel there is a direct connection between how many blogs you comment on and the hits and comments on your own blog?

So, come and tell me all about it--you can choose to comment anonymously if you want to.

The Big Guy is always talking Jabberwocky, as I call it. Someone else might call it "saying things of a contradictory nature" but, hey, BORING (unless, of course, it is Sir Anthony speaking--he can say anything he wants, in my book--oh, I am a card this morning, am I not?).

For example, the other day I walked into the kitchen to see all 12 packages of the super economy size box of saltine crackers lying side by side on the counter.

“Big Guy (who is 19 going on 9), why did you take all of the crackers out of the box?”

“So I could see them.”

“Can’t you see them in the box?”

“Yes, but they are hard to get out so I took them out and put them on the counter.”

Or this gem of a conversation that occurred when I had just returned from the grocery store:

(Big Guy) “I smell something strange, juicy and delicious.”

“Is it the (still hot) rotisserie chicken?”

“No, it’s something strange and juicy that I have never smelt before. I think it’s you.”

Or: “You always never hate me as much as you used to sometimes love me. You know?”

“No. I don’t know. I can’t make heads or tails of what you just said.”

One thing he is pretty much right about--I'll love him always, sometimes, and never never.

(I was interviewed today by Andre Gensburger of the Clayton Pioneer (he wrote a book, too--go see!) What a nice guy! The article won't be out for a few weeks but I will be sure to post a link when the time comes--it's not as if you are already bored to tears with all this stuff you have already heard a million times--no siree-bob! Still, it might be fun to check it out to see whether or not I can produce a hag-free picture to go with it. Oh! And check out my friend Shirley's TWO new Regency-set historical romance Avalon books--the covers are gorgeous--I'm so jealous!)

Dear Mom,

If I ruled the world, I would say that we shouldn’t have to go to church on Sunday and that homework wouldn’t happen and that sugar would be good food instead of junk food (I mean sugar, the junk food, not Sugar the dog).

Your Little Guy


Dear Mom and Dad (as taken down by the MC)

If I ruled the world, no one would get sick and everyone could get a new body anytime they wanted. And animals could talk.

Love the Big Guy


Dear Mom, (or Dad. Whatev,)

If I ruled the world, I would make the rule that you and Dad can’t talk after I go to bed. You are too loud. And you can’t watch TV. Or chew. Ever.

Love the Middle Child

P.S. Novel writing day is going well--I wrote almost 4,000 words yesterday! Woo hoo!

There are some who think of blogging along the lines of high school; popularity contests, campaigns for who will be the Homecoming Queen, the head cheerleader or the student body president.

True, there is some of this in blogging. Some of these childish bids for attention are part of the reason someone will check out one blogger or another, but it isn't why they stay.

The glue that holds bloggers together isn't how we are different from one another but how much we are alike. For that reason, I find blogdania a very joyful place to be, a place that has facades, to be sure, but also a place where the facades cover mostly the superficial while all that truly matters shines forth in all its glory.

It's a good place to be.

We were stranded. (Find out how by going HERE and then HERE. It’ll be fun, I promise.) The Spouse had gone off to find sustenance and we were huddled in a cold third story motel room that had many inches of ice on the inside of the window. Even the mold smelled cold.

Since The Spouse was headed for a grocery store only a few blocks away, I was a bit disturbed when 45 minutes went by and he still hadn’t arrived. Finally he called me on my cell phone (the phone in the room was only for calling the lobby for essentials such as clean towels, clean sheets, and what the hey, a clean room) to tell me that the grocery store was closed (at 8:30 at night. On a Saturday. In a resort area) and that he had to go farther afield to find a convenience store. One that charged an arm and a leg for the convenience of actually being open for business.

I was glad he called, not only so I could give the Big Guy a definitive ETA for the food but b/c my cell phone pretty much died at that point. No matter, I had bought a card full of units to fill up my track phone. This was especially important to me since The Spouse and the Middle Child were going to be leaving me alone with the boys whilst they went off to the faaaaaaar away resort whilst we stayed in the resort motel with a phone that only worked for calling the lobby (one which was only actually answered when employees were actually present, which turns out, was actually only about 8 hours a day). Boy, was I prepared or what?

The Spouse arrived with the food. I don’t remember too much about it except that I got a cold salad, there were a few apples, some of what he bought to be heated didn’t fit in the microwave and the lot cost roughly half of our entire food budget for the three day trip. No matter, we fed the kids, got them in bed and all was well until the Big Guy needed to use the bathroom. Oh, how could we have forgotten the fact that our Big Guy needs his own personal toilet, one with no quirky eccentricities and of the industrial strength variety that could send a flock of tennis balls to their watery grave without a qualm? We lay there in trepidation, tense with anxiety, wondering whether or not this was going to be the time the toilet was flooded--or hopelessly clogged--or both. I can’t rightly recall all the gory details and in which order they occurred but I do know that we got up the next morning (or perhaps it was the one after that) to discover the floor awash in toilet water. I believe the clog actually came later that day . . . .I remember it involved the purchase of a special de-clogging tool on the Sabbath (b/c whomever answered the phone in the lobby didn’t work on Sundays, nor, apparently, did the person who unclogged the toilets—whatev!) but those were not our only Sunday expenditures.

First, we had planned on either eating in the hotel restaurant (of which there was none) or buying food at the grocery store (which was closed) Saturday night in order to get us through the Sabbath without making purchases. The Spouse refused to pay the money they wanted at the convenience store for anything but the merest tidbits of food which were rapidly consumed ASAP so it was off to the grocery store Sunday morning to buy food, off to Kmart to buy snow boots (the ones we had bought for the trip were sitting in a nice box in the garage waiting to be loaded into the trunk—no doubt, they are probably waiting still) followed by a frustrating interlude at the pay phone to load up my track phone.

Let me explain. I couldn’t use my phone to fill it up b/c it was out of minutes and therefore did not work. I couldn’t use The Spouse’s cell phone b/c it had mysteriously disappeared. I couldn’t use the phone in our room b/c, well, see above. Finally, my phone working, we went back to the motel, we ate something, the Middle Child and the Little Guy and I went off to play in the snow with our new shiny boots whereupon I became so frozen and stiff that I suddenly couldn’t move (California hot house pansy that I am). The snowdrifts were as high as the Little Guy and I couldn’t pull him out. The Middle Child couldn’t get him or me out so I sat down in the snow and gazed up at the third story window of our room thinking that this was how I was going to die—frozen to the ground, literally a stone’s throw away from salvation. Too bad the stones were all buried under the snow.

Then I thought about the fact that we had come to give the Middle Child a snowboarding lesson, something that filled me with anxiety considering we only had the one phone which meant I had no way to call The Spouse whilst they were gone in order report any toilet flooding of an apocalyptic nature, any major barfing, out of control tantrumming, etc. etc. It’s not like he could do anything about it, poised as he was bound to be at the top of the mountain with nothing but a snowboard to get him the miles from the actual resort to the actual resort lodging, it just made me feel better to know I could get ahold of him. So, lying there as I was (by this point) I somehow found the strength to stand, got the Little Guy plucked from the snow, and off we went to the parking lot to find that phone.

This is what I knew: The Spouse had phoned me from the car the night before on his way home from the convenience store. The last time he saw the phone was when he tucked it between his legs. I figured that, in his exhaustion at having been done to death all day in a series of incredibly frustrating events, he forgot the phone was there and when he got out of the car, the phone tumbled to the ground where I hoped it was still. As I mentioned before, one could only park in certain areas b/c of the whole snowplow situation. The night previous, The Spouse had parked (and later reparked after our morning of Sabbath-sinning) in the last space allowed in that particular row. This space was now empty so I began inspecting the huge drifts of plowed snow just adjacent to that space. Me--cold, stiff, in a weakened state and a hot-house flower to boot, pitted against foreboding towers of snow. Nevetheless, I was going to find that phone if it killed me. Finally I had the bright idea of sending the Middle Child back upstairs with the Little Guy to ask The Spouse if he would please use my track phone to put a call through to his cell phone. I would follow the sound of the ringing like bird crumbs.

. . . . . . . The mounds of snow I was temporarily (read: until I got a clue) obliged to search

Sure enough, ten or fifteen minutes later (two frozen kids going up six flights of stairs with huge heavy metal doors at regular intervals along the way is a journey of epic proportions) the phone began to ring. But it wasn’t coming from the snowdrift. No, it was coming from a strip of snow right next to where our car had been parked the night before. I only had to dig through about an inch of snow to find it. Hallelujah!

Later that day we headed into Incline for pizza. Turns out that the highway was totally free of snow even though our little resort area looked as if the world had been snowed in for weeks. Crunch crunch crunch went the snow chains. We had to pull over and try to remove them with the icy wind blowing us to bits. I believe The Spouse had to break them to get them off. Did I mention they were brand new?

That night, as we tried to sleep through the stench of the flooded and clogged toilet (yeah, it just wasn’t getting much better in spite of our higly-experienced efforts and our Sabbath-sinning purchase of a tool that was supposed to fix it) I felt grateful that at the very least, I would have a tether, a lifeline if you will, to The Spouse whilst he and the Middle Child were off doing the thing for which we had come.

The next morning, they had their snowboard lesson. They each got two runs down the mountain. (Two!!) They were gone a frightfully long time so I called The Spouse’s cell phone to see if they were going to be back by checkout time but to no avail. It turns out that retrieving a cell phone from your heavy coat whilst wearing heavy gloves during a Snowboard lesson is one of those impossible things. In the end, we had to pay extra money to keep the room for an additional hour. As soon as they walked in the door, I threw some luggage at the Middle Child and bade her load the car then pushed The Spouse onto the bed and stripped him of all of his snow gear. Before he had even so much as caught his breath, we had wiped the dust of that place off our feet.

Fifteen minutes later, we realized we were passing the same snow-chain rest stop that had taken us four hours to travel from on our way there. We watched it go by in utter disbelief. The best part of our little adventure? It cost us a mere $800 (that’s two zeros). Due to the Middle Child’s strong sense of self-preservation, she has never uttered the word “snowboard” again.

I think it probably all started with the car accident. Except that the morning was a bit off, too, in that I put up a wonky post addressing the question as to why women would want to expose their sensitive flesh in the dead of winter (as they do) which was a big hit in blogdania, let me tell you. (If you want all sorts of hits on your blog, be sure to include the word “secret” in your title. I’m going to do it every day from now on, mark my words.)

I was born modest (yes, that’s a link. Click on it to read a post that proves my modesty from babyhood—with illustration). What this means is that I never went in for spaghetti straps, tube tops and bare midriffs, even before I was an old married lady. I was so relieved when the 80’s brought tops that wrapped around your throat and pants dragged up to your ribs. Sure, I was known to wear my share of shape-revealing leggings but never without a nice long baggy shirt to hide the overall effect. (Baa! Baa!!)

Lately, it seems you can’t watch a commercial for denture cream without--ahem!--the girls being on display. I have to admit, I am becoming a bit accustomed to the whole thing but I still find it distracting. I can’t even begin to think how it must be for all the men out there. “What did you say? Tony’s alive and Jack just took down the main bad guy? How did I miss that?” (That would be on account of the girls attached to that female agent running behind Jack and, conveniently, just to the left.)

The other night, in the privacy of my own home and after the kids went to bed, I decided to discern if I am “that” kind of girl, i.e. one who looks lovely and natural with the girls on display. I pulled out a low cut shirt (which I own thanks to the layered look—baa!) and a wonder-bra that my husband begged me to buy a year ago (which I have worn but once) and viola!

Let me just say, I totally get the attraction. Who doesn’t love cold, prickly, fluorescent white gooseflesh? I didn’t relish the ten-pound weight gain effect either. Nevertheless, The Spouse hadn’t the slightest interest in watching the latest episode of 24, either. Who’da thunk? (Sorry--no photo due to lack of any brain activity whatsoever.)

P.S. I wrote 3,300 words of Miss D Two yesterday! Woo hoo! AND I got some time to read some blog posts, too—not commenting saves a ton of time! Who’da thunk?

Yesterday’s post was all about a time in my life when I ditched my punch bowl since I knew my home would never be big enough to throw so much as a baby shower, (even if the mother was a skinny preggo like TAMN). Besides, why would I invite anyone in to witness my life as Keeper At The Zoo? Someone might get wise and call Child Protective Services. Meanwhile, I had utterly given up my lifelong dream of being a published author since I honestly wanted my kids to live long enough to reach adulthood and my husband to live long enough to see them do it (sorry if that seems overly dramatic but they were sick, people--sick!) even more than I wanted to write and I was too tired to figure out a way to do it all. So my one publishable manuscript spent its life being knocked around in a box (probably the one in which the punch bowl used to dwell).

Fast forward to the night before the Big Day. I knew I ought to go to bed early and get rested up for my speech (about which I was uncharacteristically pants-wetting nervous) and the party (I hadn’t given one in eons—what was I thinking?) and the last of the house cleaning (it’s pretty small but it hadn’t been properly cleaned in, um, eons) and a last ditch flurry of exercise in order to lose four more pounds before afternoon (I’m nothing if not unrealistic) but I hadn’t decided yet on which section of Miss D I was going to read at the signing. I was up until midnight reading, out loud, section after section, looking for a part that said good things about my characters yet refused to reveal my lack of proper elocution (hey, I know what the words mean and how to spell them—mostly—but pronouncing them in such a way that they could be understood is a different matter altogether).

Once I made my choice (which proved to be a real winner) I laid awake for hours, thoroughly sick to my stomach and insanely worried about how everything was going to get done and would anyone show up and what if too many people showed up and what if they were all someone I know, yet, what if strangers came too, and what could I possibly say that would not bore some to tears but make others want to buy the large supply of books the bookstore owner had unaccountably chosen to order. By morning, (I woke far too early) I realized I was as nervous as I was on my wedding day and as excited as I was to (finally!) see England and it was not a good combination. After a number of unfortunate events in the bathroom, the day started. And there was nothing I could do about it.


The Details, Good and Bad:

Good: My kind friend Janey took care of preparing most of the food, all of which was delicious and plentiful and gorgeous to look at. The chocolate dipped strawberries were the real winners, some like tuxes and some like spider webs, soooooo pretty and they tasted even better than they looked.

Good: Having so many supportive friends (and even some family) show up to listen to me talk (which, after all, they can do any old time) and buy my book and come to the after-party to eat all that great food and make my day even more special.

Good: Receiving gifts! Totally was not expecting that! Thanks Shirley (crocheted hand warmers and a combo neck/nose/lips/ear warmer as well as a copy of her new regency romance, An Agreeable Arrangement, which sports a cameo by Sir Anthony and Lord Avery) and Jen, who has been a rock of support and encouragement (love the chocolate bath toiletries! How perfect are they? Can’t wait to try them out!).

Good: My friend Lisa informing me that my Little Guy, who was sitting with a group of his school and church friends, said “The reason why we are all here today is because my mother wrote a book.”

Bad: No pics of Janey, Stacey, Jen, Lisa or Shirley or even my mom and dad.

(This is where pics of them would be had I any.)

Good: Shirley’s husband bravely eating the black gel on the cake (he threw himself under the bus for us ladies—what a guy!!)

. . . . . . . . . . . .black gel galore (but the inside tasted yummmmy!)

Bad: Not getting a picture of his black teeth afterwards.

Good: Getting to eat lots of chocolate-enrobed wheat.

Good: Going to Applebees with Jami, her sister and my daughter and eating Italian-flavored pasta and chicken and then, for dessert, hot chocolate -flavored wheat with vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge, and talking and laughing for three hours whilst The Spouse held down the fort at home.

Bad: The Spouse, who was in charge of getting the food out and ready whilst I signed books, didn’t realize that he was supposed to add other ingredients to the fozen berry juice concentrate so the punch bowl contained merely juice rather than “punch”.

Bad: no pics of the punch bowl table with its hot pink tablecloth and ruffled skirt.

Good: The Spouse worked himself to the bone to make my day special, as did the Middle Child. And she didn’t hate me for it afterwards.

Good: My sister adored my damaged heart shaped sugar cookies and even took some home with her.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .my damaged sugar cookies

Good: I got to have a for-real, honest to goodness, “I’m a published author now” book signing and after party. How cool is that?

Good: I think I made my parents proud.

(Hey, my lovlies, it took me most of Monday to write this what with my wheat-brain going on just now and tomorrow is my novel writing day so I am going to be late getting around to all of your posts--but I will!! Love you all so much! Thanks for all your support!!)

I have heard it said the reason people of the medieval ages were so preoccupied with religion and what would happen to them once they had died was because death was something to look forward to in a life full of lice, middens and rampant disease.

There was a time in my life that was as full of thoughts of the afterlife as any medieval maiden’s (such as:)

Will I ever have my own home in this life? (That’s okay, I’ll have a mansion in heaven.)

You mean I’ll never be pain-free again? (That’s fine, I’ll have a new body after I’ve died.)

There goes my life-long dream to travel! (It doesn’t matter; there’s no place or time I’ll be denied once I am shed of this life.)

I wish I could see the Big Guy free of his disabilities. (I can’t wait until we are dead and I can know who my son truly is.)

Do I really need to keep this punch bowl? (No, I’ll never have the need/opportunity/capacity to throw that kind of party in this life. If there is punch in the next life, I’m sure a gorgeous crystal bowl will be provided.)

During my personal medieval times, these thoughts were the chicken soup for my soul.

Fast forward a decade or so to a day when the once-wretched hovel dweller was princess of the castle.

It even had a punch bowl.

(Tune in tomorrow for all the details on the kind of day that makes you want to hang around for a good long while.) (Plus pictures.) (And thank you so much for all of your encouraging words in my comment box. It means a lot!!)

Sorry to post twice in one day, especially since I still have tons to do for tomorrow (clearly writing posts and reading my email and hanging out on Facebook is way funner than cleaning house) but I had to share this update with regards to the black gel frosting on my Miss D cake (scroll down to see cake). Someone who shall remain nameless (with initials R.E.E.D.) got ahold of this picture . . .




.......................................................................Me, pre-cake

. . . and using his exceptional artistic talent and skill, turned out this approximation of how I might look once I have indulged in an orgy of black-gel-frosting-cake consumption.

It has been suggested that I put off the finale of my stinky murder-in-the-snow story to fill you in on all the book signing news. I figured you were all sick to death of Miss D by now but since I don't have time today to do the rest of my story justice, I'm game! Above is a picture of my lovely cake for the after-party (sounds so Oscar Night, doesn't it?) It's chocolate mousse under all that black gel. I probably wasn't thinking clearly when I okay'd that. . . we're all going to be walking around with black teeth, I fear. (I'll be sure to bring my camera so you can verify.)

It was a vacation doomed from the start. You know what I mean (unless you haven’t read part one, in which case, go HERE). However, once we found our turn off to the ski resort, we thought we were home free. We were in raptures when we saw the name of the resort show up on a huge sign, then we saw the actual ski area and then more driving and more snow and driving, driving, driving . . .as it turns out, the ski lodge, (well, hotel inn thing, ah, let’s face it, it was basically a motel) was almost a mile away from the resort. So much for my sitting in the lobby by the fire watching the skiing from the window—there was no way I could leave the Big Guy in our room alone all day while I sat in some resort lounge with the Little Guy a mile away. My vision of reading and sipping hot chocolate in a glamorous location went POOF!

When we finally pulled up in front of the pokey little place, there was a sign that said we were allowed to park in front for loading and unloading only. Wha? Didn’t they realize it was snowing outside? Like, a lot? We were expected to trudge through the snow to the parking lot around the corner any time we wanted to go somewhere? (Turns out that strip of parking had to be empty b/c the snow plow came through early in the morning—important to know for later.) Well, okay, we would worry about that another time. We got all our stuff—the usual clothing, bottled water, snacks plus toys for the boys, electronic and otherwise, the huge bag of snow clothes and boots (did I say boots? B/c that would be incorrect since we left the snow boots—newly purchased for this very adventure—in a box in the garage where they were waiting to be loaded into the car) and headed in the door.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It wasn’t a good smell, either. It smelled like the place was pretty much wet all of the time (and it pretty much was). The locker area for snow paraphernalia was right in front (makes perfect sense but I’m not a skier so I wasn’t expecting it) and "wet" wasn't the worst smell that hit me. Faugh!! The lobby was a bit better. We immediately started looking around for the hotel restaurant, but guess what? There wasn’t one. As we checked in we were told there was a microwave and small fridge in our room. That was something, at least.

It wasn’t until we headed up to our room, all of us loaded up with our things (except the Big Guy who needs all of his faculties about him to keep from tripping and falling down) that we learned there was no elevator. Our room? On the third floor. The first flight of stairs, though wet, were okay, but the following flights, two for each level, were metal and each had a heavy metal door at the bottom and the top. We begged the Big Guy to open and close the doors for us but he just couldn’t seem to manage (for those who are new here, our Big Guy suffers from cerebral palsy and that’s just the beginning of his list of differences). So, after banging our way up the stairs (did I mention, six flights?), the Big Guy whining and complaining all the way, me wanting to get my hands around someone’s neck (anyone’s would do), we finally arrived in our room.

The maid was still cleaning it. Here we were, five hours later than expected, and they were still cleaning our room! It was clear it was needed. It was dirty and smelled way worse. Someone had suffered—deeply--through some kind of alien sickness and only moments ago, it would seem. The maid finished up and scurried off. As soon as she was gone, we called the lobby and asked for another room. The new room was much better (and ready which begs the question—why not put us there in the first place?) but the fridge smelled, the microwave was tiny and there was a four inch crust of snow on the inside of the window.

It was now getting close to nine and we hadn’t eaten anything but crackers and cookies since we had left the house around noon. So, The Spouse got into the car to buy TV dinners and whatever else he could find to get us through Monday morning (the next day was Sunday and though we felt okay about going down to a hotel restaurant to eat, we didn’t want to take the kids “out” to eat on the Sabbath).

Meanwhile, I turned up the heat in the room, got things unpacked and tried to tune out the whining of the Big Guy who not only needed food—after all, one has to feed a 6 foot 250 pound body on a fairly regular basis—but his “mental” medicine, as well, and he was hours overdue. (You don't want to spend the night in the same room with the Big Guy when he hasn't had his depression/anxiety/bipolar meds.) Since he can’t swallow pills, he has to have it served to him crushed in ice cream—only Dryer’s brand chocolate would do—so we had to wait until The Spouse got back from the grocery store. Once everyone was fed and medicated, I felt things would get back on track.

But I was wrong.

Until recently, The Spouse and I were so lacking in resources (read: money, energy, sanity) and so abundantly blessed with abundantly troublesome kids with abundant misdirected energy that going anywhere was pretty much beyond our means. However, we did get one or two little vacations back in what I think of as “the dark days”. In each case we would start to thinking how we really needed a break and wouldn’t it be lovely “if”? We would plan it all out, see how much money it would cost, then throw the whole thing up in the air and set it on fire. Meanwhile, some guardian angel would write it down in the book of heaven and viola!--the exact amount of money needed would magically appear and all other obstacles would be made smooth. Clearly (at least it was clear to us), each of these trips was sanctioned by the Almighty.

Then one January day we decided we would give the Middle Child the birthday wish of her heart--snow-boarding lessons. Since a six hour round trip to the nearest snowfall and back was out of the question (our then 16 year old Big Guy, with his propensity for barfing, laughing maniacally and talking non-stop at 100 decibels, was in danger of being tossed onto the road an hour into any car trip) we decided to stay the three day weekend in a lovely establishment highly recommended by a sister who said--and I quote--“It is so fun to sit there by the cozy fire and watch the skiers outside while you sip hot chocolate.”

I pictured the Big Guy upstairs in our room with cable and chow (it had worked in the past), the Little Guy playing happily with toys and books at my feet whilst I sipped said chocolate, The Spouse and the Middle Child enjoying a snow-boarding lesson somewhere within shouting distance. So, we packed the car and left around noon, smug in our cleverness at leaving after the morning rush of traffic one generally encounters going up to the snow on a Saturday morning.

True, we had to sit at the toll bridge for nearly an hour before we got through, but I still had no presentiment of disaster until we stopped at some gas station/restaurant/gift shop two hours later to use the facilities only to find that the wait for the ladies room was 45 minutes. (The wait for the men’s room was five. That’s a subject for another post, one better written, no doubt, by Shelle). So, okay, we were only an hour and forty-five minutes behind schedule. Good thing the snowboarding lesson was for Monday morning! We still had plenty of time to get to the lovely recommended establishment and play in the snow before going out to eat our nice warm dinner.

When we hit the snow, we avoided putting on our chains for as long as possible. We laughed, a bit snidely, at the folk who were pulling over at the first hint of a flake, especially the woman with the Tahoe license plates. Surely she knew how to drive in this little bit of snow! When we could avoid it no longer, we, along with everyone but the smart lady from Tahoe, pulled into a rest stop to put on the newly acquired chains, the ones The Spouse vehemently assured me he could put on himself and, despite 1,000 attempts, could not. That was when it hit me—this trip had not been sanctioned the way so many others had been. No planning it out to the penny, no throwing it up in the air, no guardian angel, no money falling from the sky . . . we wanted to go, so we went. We were doomed.

After forever in the freezing snow and forking out $10 for someone (conveniently lying in wait for rubes like us) to put on our chains, we were finally again on our way. So, we were another 45 minutes behind but we were still doing good. We pulled up behind the other cars waiting to turn off onto the road to Tahoe and waited. And waited and waited and waited. We waited for an hour before The Spouse turned off the key in the ignition, got out and went to speak with the police officers we spotted up ahead. We were told not one, but two big-rigs had jack-knifed on the road ahead and we should turn around and go home.

Go home?!?! There was no way we were going to go home! This was no day trip! We had reservations at a very nice establishment and a whole weekend planned. We made a quick call to the hotel and let them know we would be late. They said, no problem, as long as you are here by ten, it’ll be fine. (It seems all the employees went home at ten. We thought this strange but no matter—we would be there in plenty of time!)

We had “planned” to be in Tahoe by three P.M. It was now nearly five and we were driving at about two miles per hour. We wondered how an accident, even two accidents, could possibly take so long to clear up. It became dark and then darker, the kids were starving (but barf-free) and we had no idea how much longer it would take us to get to our destination. Finally, after three hours of this, The Spouse had had enough and decided he was going to pull around the clump of cars to see what in the world was holding us up. That was when we realized we had been caught behind a pack of knock-kneed California drivers crouching in the beam of light from a giant snowplow.

Once I got The Spouse calmed down and driving was once again safe, we drove the last few miles to the hotel with humiliating ease and speed (on the way home, we learned that the $10 chain-fiasco rest stop was a mere 15 minute drive from the turn off to our hotel). We made it to our destination two hours shy of our ten o’clock deadline and boy were we cold, tired and hungry! We couldn’t wait to unload the car and run down to the hotel restaurant and have something hot to eat and drink. Little did we know our troubles had just begun.

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One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. (I actually had to google the above lyric. You know you are getting old when A—this song was part of your childhood, B--you can’t remember how it goes and C—the gray is already showing through the hair color you applied yesterday!)

My book cover; the reason: I love my book cover. I really do. In fact, its resemblance to the Twilight covers is a true boon. No one can deny that dark flower on the black background makes one think of “books whose success led their author a merry dance all the way to the bank”. I could love me some of that.

What my book cover does not say is Jane Austen, Old-Fashioned Romance or So Funny It Will Make You Laugh Out Loud. (I just reread it for the 217th time and let me tell ya', I let out a couple of barks of laughter that had my ferocious-but-napping guard dog jumping ten feet in the air . . .

. . . not sure, though, if that means it’s funny. It could just mean that I’m narcissistic, pitiful, and lame. Sadly, the narcissistic, pitiful and lame are generally the last to know. Maybe I should ask the dog.)