I learned that The Roy Rogers Museum is closing.  I’m sure you’re shrugging and wondering why this should concern me.  By and large it doesn’t.  I’m not really the generation that would truly appreciate Roy Rogers.  There is a little twinge of sadness associated with the fact that he and Dale Evans and Trigger were a big part of the golden days of Hollywood and TV, but I’ve never been a fan of the cowboys of that era.  I have no love for The Lone Ranger the others of that ilk.

However, The Bandit does.  He has watched every episode of The Lone Ranger on DVD.  I can’t interest him in The Muppets, but put on The Lone Ranger and he’s good for hours.  Honestly, I don’t get it.  Maybe if The Muppets had a horse.

Regardless, the museum is closing.  All the memorabelia is being auctioned off at Christie’s on July 14 & 15th.  Should I put in a phone bid for Trigger?  They are auctioning off the horse!  My Honey told me to tell my dad about it since he’s always threatening to buy The Bandit a pony. 

Does anyone else think it’s creepy to stuff your horse?  I’ve loved my dogs like children, but the idea of stuffing one of them and putting it in my home **shudder**.  They are expecting to get somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $200,000.  Are you kidding?

I’d consider buying it put I don’t know how I’d keep it from getting clobbered by all the ceiling fans in my house.  I say this like I can pull $100,000 in change out of the couch cushions or something.

I think Roy’s Bonneville is a wiser investment.  After all, I can keep it outside in the yard.  Besides, it has those nifty steer horns on the hood.

I’ve told you before that My Honey is a musician.  I am required by my marriage vows to go to every gig.  I promised to love, honor, cherish, and attend. 

He had a show on Friday night and, of course, I went.  It was in the little dive bar that has been around for a zillion years, and My Honey has been playing there at least that long.  In fact, the rhythm guitarist’s wife and I were discussing that we’d been coming to that bar longer than many of the little chippys that were there had been alive.  THAT my friends, is a sobering thought.

I arrived at the bar hours after My Honey – he and his bandmates had “load in” (band speak for taking all their crap: amps, guitars, drums, etc) hours before they were to go on.  I showed up there just after Ava’s Husband.  We sat out on the patio and laughed and sweated for a long time before My Honey was to go on. 

There was a pretty good crowd outside and we had a table located right in the center of the patio.  I was at one end of our group of tenish people and My Honey chatted with his band mates and friends on the other end.  At one point, My Honey, Ava’s Husband, and several other musician friends looked over at me from the other end of the crowd.  All at once – as a group – and peered at me expectantly.  I’d noticed a little ruckus and some laughing, but remember, we are at a very loud bar with live music just inside, and he was a good ten or fifteen feet away.  I had no idea what they were talking about or why they were looking at me.  I ignored them, shrugged, and kept on with my on conversations.

About fifteen minutes later, I commented on Ava’s Husband’s T-shirt.  It said, “I Like Intercourse”.  The back had a logo for Intercourse Beer from Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  It really was the perfect shirt to wear to this sort of function.

I said, “My Honey should have worn his shirt that says, ‘Feel My Bottom’.”  It refers to the slogan for his bass amp.  It’s a whole music thing I don’t pretend to understand.

Ava’s Husband’s jaw dropped and he stared at me for a second before he spoke.  “You didn’t see that?”

“What?” I had no idea what he was talking about. 

“Just a few minutes ago.  You were looking right at him.  I thought you were pissed.”

Oh.  It begins to dawn on me.  He must be referring to when everyone turned and looked at me en masse.  Still, I didn’t know why, and what did this have to do with My Honey’s shirt?  Oooooooh, wait. 

“Is that the shirt he’s wearing?” I asked stupidly.  Maybe I should be paying more attention.

Ava’s Husband’s eyebrows rose.  “Yeah.”

I started to chuckle.  “Did someone grab his butt?”

“Yeah.  That girl over there,” Ava’s Husband revealed.  “I thought for sure you’d be pissed.”

Said girl was maybe 21 and 4 minutes old because she’d gained entry to the 21 and over side of the bar.  Blonde.  Pretty in a mostly clothed sort of way.

No, I’m not pissed.  I laughed heartily as a matter of fact.  The story still makes me chuckle.  My Honey was embarrassed – which is pretty typical of him.  He’s fairly shy.  As a matter of fact, I had to make him take me out on our first date then, 6 months later, I asked him to marry me.  I bought him a diamond ring and everything.  I carried that box around in my pocket for two weeks before I got brave enough to ask.  That will be ten years ago in November.

Of course, I made him go buy me a ring, too.  Seriously, diamonds are a girl’s best friend.  And Coach purses but one doesn’t tradionally get those for engagments.   

I’m gonna add another line to the vows.  I promise to keep better eye on My Honey’s butt.

It’s summer here.  That means it’s hot.  This morning, on my way to work, it’s 88 degrees.  It’s getting quite muggy, too, because of the monsoon rains that are brewing.  Every afternoon, we all look up, and watch the clouds gather, coming in from the south.  They get darker and more ominous, hanging heavily over the city.  And we wait.  We wait for that smell that means the rain is mere seconds from falling and drenching your hot skin and cooling the parched desert.  Unfortunately, there is much teasing from the weather gods before rain actually comes.  The clouds build up for days, every afternoon filling us with false hope.  There are wild, unsubstantiated rumors flying around.  “We got a few drops yesterday,” someone will say and you feel unwarranted jealously welling up in your chest.  A few drops may be worse than nothing.  Just the taste of a dream is most likely more soul crushing than someone else obtaining what you long for.

Sometimes the clouds are just cruel.  Off in the distance, long vertical streaks line the sky – a tell tale sign that it’s raining somewhere.  The desire to jump in your car and drive as fast as the wind to find that water, to feel it on your face – it’s unbearable and irrational.

But still, the heat pushes down on us and we have to welcome it, suffer it, because without the heat the clouds won’t come. 

What brings on this love letter to rain?  World Cup Soccer.

Huh?

All over the world the critics on the TV and the blogosphere are railing against the vuvuzuelas – the obnoxious horns the South Africans blow endlessly through out the games.  Life long fans of soccer are being turning away from the games because they can’t tolerate the horns.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the games and I couldn’t understand what about the vuvuzuelas was so annoying.  In fact, the first game I turned on, I didn’t even hear them. 

Actually, truth be told, they unsettle me, but not the way they do the rest of the planet.  It finally occurred to me why this is.

They sound just like cicadas.  The desert is rife with the humming bugs during the summer.  You can’t walk outside without hearing them.  They, along with the crack of lightning and roll of thunder, are the song of summer.

The vuvuzuelas sound like a summer-rain lullaby to me.

It’s finally happened.  I’ve gone crazy from the heat.

All day long I’ve been a mess – dreading the appointment I had for an interview on TELEVISION! Gasp.  Wheeze.

The day didn’t start well.  I didn’t wake up until 7:40.  Sassy had to be at camp by 8:00 for a field trip.  They were roller skating and I’d have never heard the end of it if she’d missed it. 

I came flying out of bed, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“I tried to wake you up, Mommy,” Sassy told me, “But you wouldn’t get up!”

I know she did.  I dimly remember her trying to get me up but I just couldn’t seem to rise.  Shining was out of the question.  And poor Bandit, he was having none of this running around nonsense.  The boy is not a morning person.  It’s how I know he’s mine.

So the one day I have to dress nice, do my hair, wear makeup.  Unbelievable.  I called Ava – she’s my boss (hahaahahahaha – that’s so amusing!) and told her I’d be late.

I threw on jeans and a tshirt and got the kids off, came home and groomed myself.  I was only an hour late.  It all worked out since I didn’t take lunch. 

So all day, every time I thought about the interview, I wanted to be sick.  I’d given myself a headache over it.  Ava was beyond excited.  She kept giggling from her office at me.  Kelli kept telling me I was crazy.  My mother told me not to worry as I would be more attractive than Eleanor Roosevelt.

uuuh....yeah....thanks Mom

Deep beleagured sigh.

So my entourage met for dinner after work and then headed to the studio to be there by 7pm.  Ava, Kelli and her daughter, our friend Leigh, and I trooped down there like I was going to the gallows.  Actually, Ava kept giving me little hints like:  “Don’t giggle.  Don’t gesture too much.  Don’t look at me during cause I’ll be laughing.”  Isn’t she helpful.

Anyway, we got down there and there was a sign on the door: Closed until further notice.

They’d run out of funding!  Praise to Allah, Glory to God, Thank the Saints, who ever is up there, out there, where ever that saved me from that horrible experience.

The sign asked for donations so they can reopen.  I’m sure that Cable Access is a very worthy cause and that there are many good things that go on there.  I know our friend that does Meeting the Writers LIVE really enjoys what he does.  But I’m begging you not to send in money. 

I can’t go through this again.

It is with dawning horror and a great sense of nausea that I tell you I will be on television tomorrow – Wednesday, July 7.  The good news is that it’s only cable access.  If it was Oprah you can be absolutely sure I’d be emaciated from all the vomiting.  I’m sure you find it hard to believe, even those of you that know me, but I’m really quite shy.  I disguise it by being a stand up comedienne.  But you should know that the entire time you’re laughing at my antics and hysterical stories, I’m screaming in my head to shut up.  I would be thrilled to disappear into the wall paper, but the Leo in me won’t allow it. 

Anyway, Channel 73 or 98 depending on your cable provider.  The show is called Meeting the Writers LIVE and the host is from my local Romance Writers of America chapter. 

He promised to play nice and I promised to arrive sober.

Tuesday July 6th is the release date for book 2 in Jennifer Ashley’s MacKenzie series.  You may recall how much I LOVED book one, The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie.  This one tells the tale of his younger brother, Mac, the artist.

I wrote about it on Examiner.com.  Go check it out.

As you may also recall, Jennifer Ashley appeared at the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books and she will be there again in 2011.

Pick up her book.  I promise you’ll love it.  The early reviews have been outstanding.

Several of my favorite blogs had the same idea today, but this is such excellent writing, I couldn’t resist posting it also.  I thought about it all day, but ultimately decided I’m going to run the risk of seeming a copycat.

This is written in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting and the corrections are by Benjamin Franklin.  Doesn’t that make you a little tingley?  Giddy?  It does me.

It was Mark Twain that said, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug” and, wow, did Mr. Jefferson use excellent, powerful words.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…..”

Powerful words indeed.

Ta-Da! Here’s another version of my favorite commercial.

Unfortunately, my man, and the rest of the family too for that matter, smell like this:

In fact, this is what we have planned for the entire weekend.  It is supposed to be hotter than the sun for the 4th of July.  By all means, let’s set some stuff on fire.

I was delighted to see that the powers that be are updating Wonder Woman.  Some of you may know of my fascination with superheroes.  I have a pet project about a super hero that I think I’m going to pick up again now that OTHER one  is off to the agent.

But I digress.  I don’t know about you but I think it’s about time they updated Wonder Woman.  If you don’t recall, this is what she’s looked like since 1941.

I think, that while Linda Carter is hot, and she served her character well during her tenure, she is a little embarrassing.  How could she possibly fight crime without her lady bits flying out of that bustier?

I also suspect that poor Linda had some difficulty breathing.  And another fine point has been brought up.  Where did she keep her stuff like the keys for her invisible jet?

So this is the new Wonder Woman.  Her new costume has a studded denim jacket, black leggings and spurs on her boots, and gloves.  Behold.

DC Comics is quoted as saying about her new incarnation, “We will be making her stronger, favoring her smarts and her resolve and her resourcefulness, and making the remains of the world she once knew special by incorporating them into a more vital, unpredictable world. We take her very seriously.”

And how did Linda Carter respond?  “I think Wonder Woman has a mind of her own. And I think she was just kind of ready for something new. She’s got an attitude and if this is the new thing that she wants to wear, well, by God, she’s going to wear it. And I like that. And I hope that in the story someone mentions, where’s the old one? And she says, get over it!”

Well spoken, Ms. Carter.  I wholeheartedly agree.  For crying out loud, Wonder Woman was an Amazon not a strumpet. 

Ha! Strumpet!  When’s the last time you saw that word in print?