Rug(s)

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At the ring of the bell I raced across the room, so intent on reaching the door before my dog, Pepper, that I knocked over several boxes of Christmas lights that were stacked in the living room.

Pepper and I had been having a battle of wills lately. I was determined to save the packages that arrived almost daily from inclement weather, and Pepper was set on chasing away those persistent interlopers who constantly tried to leave suspicious boxes on our doorstep.

Pepper, tenacious little Schnoodle that she is, was winning the battle.

So when I threw open the door I was slightly out of breath and grinning because I knew, for this bout at least, that I had won.

I’m sure the delivery guy thought I was nuts. Especially when I threw my arms into the air and shouted, “Yes! My rug is here!”

I was rather surprised to see the rug on my doorstep even though I had purchased it on ebay a month earlier. I had watched via tracking as it made its way from New Jersey to Washington, only to grit my teeth helplessly as a shipping error diverted it out of my grasp to a stranger’s porch somewhere in Florida.

The delivery guy was kind enough to bring the rug inside and place it on the living room floor. I appreciated that, since a 10 X 13 rug can be a little awkward to move around.

He was out the door almost before I could thank him. As I said before, I think he thought I was a little nuts.

I looked at my lovely rug–all nicely rolled up in plastic–blinked, and looked again.

There on my living room floor lay my long awaited rug, and its twin. A quick glance at the shipping labels assured me that both rugs were addressed to me.

I immediately emailed the rug company about the error and am awaiting their response. I don’t expect it to be speedy or accurate, since I had just been told the day before that my rug had not even shipped yet. According to their records it was still sitting on a pallet in their warehouse in New Jersey.

What will happen in the next act of this comedy of errors?

 

Shrimp advice

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A word of advice.

The next time you order shrimp at a restaurant, look at it very closely. If it appears undercooked, even a little, DON’T EAT IT!

The stomach you save may be your own.

This message brought to you by VRT, who loves shrimp but not food poisoning.

By the way, did you know that one of the symptoms of food poisoning is dizziness?

So now I get to explore what it’s like to be that old stereotype, a dizzy blonde.

I don’t like it.

On marriage

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Yesterday I saw part of Oprah’s interview with Justin Bieber.

Oprah asked Justin if it was true that he wanted to get married before he was twenty-five. Justin replied that it was, so Oprah told him he should rethink that decision.

As if she could in any way be considered an expert at marriage, at any age!

I was married at twenty-three and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Some people might say that I got lucky. Well, yeah!

But luck isn’t everything. My husband and I work at our marriage. We always have.

We are no more perfect than any other couple. Every so often we fall into bad habits. We bicker. We sneer. We put our own wishes before those of our spouse.

And then one or the other of us will remember our first date. Or maybe I should say dates.

For our first date we drove with another couple seventy-five miles to New Orleans. While there all of our keys, money, etc. was stolen, leaving us stranded.
On our second date someone slashed the tires of my new car.
On our third date someone shattered the back window of my car.
For the fourth date someone else had to drive because my now beat up new car wouldn’t start.

Some people might have viewed the run of misfortunes as a sign that we were poison for each other. But we’re made of sterner stuff.

Instead of running from the problems, we simply dealt with them. We got a locksmith to replace our stolen keys, fixed the flats, replaced the rear window, and took my car in for maintenance.

But most telling of all, we talked. A lot. The night of the window-shattering incident, with the glass from the rear window still glistening on my backseat, we sat in the moonlight and talked about everything under the stars. Literally.

You see, adversity can either push you apart or pull you together. We were fortunate to begin our relationship in a flood of the stuff. We learned early on that we could handle problems together.
Our first week was a test of compatibility and we passed with flying colors.

Which is why I say that the age at which you marry (within reason) is not nearly as important as who you marry.

Trust, friendship, and the ability to communicate are the best building blocks of a good marriage. That and the willingness to put in the effort.

The love my husband and I share is layered, deep, and very, very strong.
My husband is my best friend.

 

Tempted

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No matter how much I love something I’ve created, there comes a time when I’m rather sick of it.

Right now, I’m struggling to finish Gray Zone. Rewrites are always hard. But since I’ve already rewritten Gray Zone at least seven times, going through it one more time is a particular torture.

I know this thread of tension I’m adding to the story will improve it, but I just want to be done. I’ve already poured myself into the book. I’m ready for the next step. Publication.

As I already said, I’m struggling.

Unfortunately, as I was updating my writer’s resume today I looked through my folder of ideas. I discovered an entire category I had forgotten about! I have ten story ideas for the BTE series sitting there, waiting for me to pick them up and flesh them out.

One of them even has an outline defining eighteen chapters.

I’m soooooo tempted to write it! I want to jump in, lose myself in the story, create a new world, become friends with new characters, see it all play out in my head.

But I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to Gray Zone.

There Gray Zone stands, with hands on hips, waiting for me to complete it. There is a glint in Gray Zone’s eyes that let me know that it feels it has already been patient enough. It waited for an entire year while I was in the MFA program, and it didn’t even mutter a peep while I devoted my attention to the Stone Woman script.

It glared a bit, but kept quiet.

I will resist temptation. I will put aside the BTE sequel for now and continue my work on the Gray Zone novel.

Maybe the fact that I’m adapting it into a script will make up for the long wait.

Patience, like that shown by Gray Zone, deserves a reward.

A disturbed day

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You know those days that we all have every so often when things happen? Not necessarily horrible things, or good things, but just things that disrupt the normal day.

Yesterday was one of those days.

It all started when I tried to write in the area I recently defined as my office, which just happens to be near the bathroom. All went well for the first ten minutes, until the sound of running water disrupted my train of thought. I waited for it to stop and dove right back into writing as soon as silence resumed.

Which only lasted ten minutes. The sound recurred every ten minutes throughout the rest of the day. No matter what I tried to do to make it stop, the merry tinkle of wasted water always came back. Just like clockwork. Every ten minutes for five seconds. On and on.

After an hour or so I had become so accustomed to the rhythm that I was able to block it out. Unfortunately, it was about that time that the workers next door decided to start in with hammers and drills. Bang, bang, bang. Brrrrrrrrr. Bang, bang. Brrrrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrrrr. 

That too lasted the rest of the day. Only unlike the running water it was erratic. I couldn’t manage to convince my brain to ignore the noise, so writing time was over. (As was my sanity!)

Later in the day there was an incident with my little Schnoodle. The other day I had bought this really cool metal stand that holds both her water and food bowls.

She’s picky, so after I gave her food I waited around to see if she was going to eat. When she began gobbling her dinner I sighed in relief and went into the other room to fold clothes. The next thing I heard was several loud crashes and high-pitched yelps.

I ran into the kitchen to see poor little Pepper racing around trying to escape the metal stand. Her tags had fallen between two of the decorative rods of the stand, and when she raised her head the stand had come with it.

I’m sure in her mind she was being attacked by a giant cage that was trying to capture her!

Food and water were everywhere. I grabbed Pepper and disconnected her tags from the stand just as my daughter, who had been upstairs, ran in asking who had screamed. She was surprised to hear that the screamer (from upstairs it had sounded like a child) was the trembling little fur ball crouched in my lap.

She’s a cute little thing. Totally undeserving of the abuse she received from her food stand.

She’s still mad at her attacker. I tried to take a picture of her next to her stand. It took a lot of coercion to get her anywhere near the thing, and when I finally succeeded she refused to look at it.

I guess if she doesn’t see it it isn’t really there.

The last incident was quite a bit scarier, at least for me.

I decided to eat some leftovers I had brought home from a restaurant. Since it was in a paper container I put it into the microwave, pressed two minutes, and ran into the other room to grab something.

I returned to find my husband putting out the fire that had been my box of food. The flames had been more than a foot high!

Anyone in the mood for fire-roasted leftovers? Anyone?

Stone Woman script pitch

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One of my assignments was to film myself pitching my movie, Stone Woman.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Until I was told that it had to be under three minutes. One second over and the instructor wouldn’t even view it.

I had so much to say and so little time!

The first time I filmed I came in at three and a half minutes. Slowly, take by take, I finally got it down to three minutes.

If you’re wondering, this is about take fifty or so. I did a few more after this to get the one I turned in. This one is still a few seconds too long.

I thought I should share it. If I don’t talk about my script the right people, the ones who can produce it, will never hear about it.

So all of you producers, directors, and film company executives out there, have I got a movie for you!

By the way, this is my 300th post to this blog! Yahoo, yippee, and any other word that begins with the letter Y and means I’m happy to have reached this milestone.

Two plus eight equals–

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I love eavesdropping! It’s the best way to see what people really talk about, and how they do it.

Yesterday, while walking the dog, I caught the following tidbit from a mom who had just loaded her child onto the school bus.

“So I just don’t think she’s learned the ropes yet. You know, the difference between one and ten. That two plus eight equals–”

Slight pause while she calculated the answer.

“–equals, well, whatever. The school isn’t teaching her what she needs to know.”

Hmm. I wonder if she helps her child with her homework?

 

Just sayin’

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There’s an old joke that says that the definition of a lunatic is someone who does the same thing over and over but expects different results.

Based on the election results I’d have to guess that there are quite a few crazy people around.

I’m just sayin’.

Fifteen what?

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Here’s a sliver of a conversation I overheard this morning between two guys working on a neighbor’s house.

“It’s gonna cost them fifteen grand!”

“Fifteen grand?”

“Yeah. Fifteen hundred, almost two thousand. Fifteen grand.”

And there you have it. The real reason you should get a written estimate.

Drip by drip

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I can breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe.

I’ve not been able to work on Gray Zone since I finished school, even though I’d figured out exactly what needed to be done. Something was stopping me, holding me back.

So this morning I reverted to my old way of working. I got up, spoke to no one, made a cup of coffee, and opened up Gray Zone on my computer.

Success!

Okay. So maybe I didn’t do a lot of writing. Probably no more than one hundred words or so.

But it’s a start. A small one, but a start.

Hey, don’t knock success, no matter how small. I’m hoping that this trickle of work will erode away whatever is damming the flood of creativity.

Drip by drip, word by word. I’ll get it written. I’d rather a flood than a trickle, but I’ll take what I can get.