NEW RELEASES
For this kind of money the 3D should happen in your lap
I took my family to the movies this weekend. We saw Jack the Giant Slayer. It almost killed me.
How you ask? When did going to the movie become so dire? The whole affair started out innocuously enough. I loaded Sassy and The Bandit into the car with My Honey and my father. My dad and husband were chatting in line and my kids were either fighting or horsing around – who can tell anymore. It changes at the drop of a hat anyway. Once minute happiness knows no end, then BOOM, someone’s crying and the other is tattling.
I approached the box office and requested two adult tickets, one senior and two children. That’s when the horror happened.
“That’ll be $61.00,” the pimple-faced extorntionist told me.
“What!?” I exclaimed. I don’t know that insanity had me in my grip, but I swear I was anticipating a grand total of $29.00. It’s not like I’d already added the total up in my head or anything. Maybe I thought this was 1982, but that $61.00 absolutely caught me off guard.
Then the concessions were another $26.00.
Holy mother of Odin. It’s not like I’ve been living in a cave, but when the hell did this happen?
My feet are always cold, too.
March 1
Oh dear Heaven, it’s Friday and we owe you Five Favorite Things. This week crept up on us for sure. Maybe it’s because we’re so sidetracked with the book coming out, being obsessed over Amazon rankings, the signing at the country club tomorrow, and the Tucson Festival of Books coming up next weekend. Then there was the ring debacle and the even bigger nightmare of getting the contest widget to work right. Amylynn really needs a nap – she’s been a little extra cranky this week. Ava’s no help at all since she just likes to poke the bear with a stick when Amylynn’s like that. Still, we have made it to Friday and that’s a beautiful
Don’t be confused. This is the OLD Titanic
thing. These things amused us during the lulls in Amylynn’s breakdowns this week. We hope you agree.
1. Titanic. Some crazy Australian billionaire is building an exact replica of the original Titanic. Why do so many crazy people come from Australia? Not bad crazy. The Super entertaining brand of crazy. We don’t know either, but it sure seems they breed them over there. It’s never been on our list of places we really need to visit primarily because that flight is like 75 hours long and Ava can’t hold her breath on germy airplanes for that long. Still, we’d probably really like it because we wouldn’t feel quite so crazy over there. These might be our people. Anyway, back to the boat. He’s building it in China. Uh huh. China. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? He was brilliant enough to point out that with the handy development of global warming there aren’t as many icebergs in the North Atlantic to cause trouble. Still,
Loud, pesky alien
we think we might like to go. He wants people to wear period costumes, so that sounds fun. No word if he’s making the cast of the movie take a cruise but if he is we’re definitely in. We have some stuff to chat up Leo about. Don’t forget to pack the shark repellent.
2. Loud noises. There was a sonic boom over town this week. The air force base declared it wasn’t them. Uh huh. Obviously it was space aliens returning that Mars robot. Anyway, the funny part comes in with the comments on the website of the local newspaper about possible explanations. One person suggested, “it’s the Republican party self-destructing” or “It was thousands of potholes enlarging simultaneously”. Also, “It was just China running some tests.” 
Our favorite: “The Legislature passed another flaky bill and the State moved severely to the Right???” There are funny people out there.
3. HUGE feet. We loved this picture because of the sheer size of this foot. The polar bear in question, Boris, lives in Tacoma, Washington. He needed a little eye work done and a root 
canal. That seems reasonable since he’s 27 years old. While he was under, they did a mani/pedi. Will you look at the honking foot this guy has? Imagine yourself coming across a bear big enough to belong to that foot out in the wild. Mercy. Still, we’d give him a quick snuggle while he was under. Maybe kiss his belly. How many opportunities do you get to kiss a polar bear belly?
4. Best fashion accessory. Quvenzhane Walllis, the little girl nominated for best actress for her role in Beasts of the Southern Wild, carried a variety of stuffed puppy purses during the Red Carpet season. She looked super cute at the Oscars. Why did she pick that particular dress, you ask? Because it was sparkly and fluffy. Finally, someone who knows how to navigate the red carpet without looking like a dolt.
5.The red shoes. Somehow we didn’t know that apparently all popes wear red shoes, but we guess they do. We love red shoes. A lot. When we looked it up Wikipedia stated, “The Papal shoes are the red leather outdoor shoes worn by the Pope. They should not be confused with the indoor papal slippers or
why wouldn’t you want to wear these?
the Episcopal sandals, which are the liturgical footwear proper to all Latin Rite bishops.” Doesn’t this sound awfully complicated? The Sisters have a hard enough time keeping sling-backs and peep-toed shoes apart without getting religion into it. There is a lot to learn about Papal footwear – you simply wouldn’t believe it. Paul VI abolished buckles from all ecclesiastical shoes. We don’t care so much about that, necessarily, but we don’t like his stance on use of the indoor velvet papal slippers which he also discontinued.We may have to rethink this whole running-for-Pope thing if there are this many footwear decisions to be made. By the way, do you think we could get a pair of those velvet Papal slippers in the Vatican gift shop.
We’re giving away Francesca’s engagement ring!
The winner of Francesca’s ring is Michelle A.!!!!
Congrats Michelle. Wear it well!
Where you can find me in the next couple weeks
I have so much happening in March.
This Saturday, March 2, my friend Sabrina Devonshire and I will be at the El Conquistador Country Club to sign books from 9-12. I’m dragging Ava there, too. We only travel as a set. We’re a very small gang.
On Saturday March 9 I’ll be signing at the Tucson Festival of Books Booth #179 right outside the Student Union and the UofA Bookstore tent. You can’t miss it. There’ll be plenty of books by lots of great writers – local and otherwise. If you’ve not been to the Festival you really should. It’s an amazing spectacle.
Also at the Festival on Saturday from 4-5 I’ll be conducting a workshop with Jennifer Greene and Jesse Petersen on Comedy in Romance. Jesse is a hoot and you should check out her Zombie series – they’re hysterical. FYI – she’s also the same writer who wrote the blurb on the cover of my print copy. I happen to love both her Regency romances as Jess Michaels and Jenna Petersen and the Zombie stuff as Jesse Peterson.
More exciting Lady Belling’s news
It may come as no surprise to you that Ava and I are crazy. Not talk-to-ghosts and never-bathe crazy. Still, I’m not going to say that Ava and I don’t have very distinct leanings towards becoming Crazy Cat Ladies in our in golden years though. I suspect if you’re a reader of the blog you’ve already diagnosed that particular peccadillo. I don’t know if there is such a thing as Crazy Panda Ladies, but Ava and I are willing to be trailblazers.
As part of the Lady Belling’s Secret book release, Ava and I decided that we should give away Francesca’s engagement ring.
That seems easy enough, doesn’t it?
Clearly you’ve never shopped with the two of us. It’s painful. Excruciating. Mind boggling.
At some point during the whole experience I usually lose my temper and yell at Ava that she’s crazy and I’m totally right at the time. She won’t even disagree. My crazy comes in different forms – my issues encompass driving myself too hard and obsessing over details. That doesn’t mean Ava’s still not crazy.
It took us FOREVER to find the right ring. We ordered it. It was done. Then it took forever to be delivered. AND IT WAS WRONG. So Ava took up the banner and made our complaints and we ordered the right one.
And it didn’t come and it didn’t come and it didn’t come. So Ava got back in touch with the vendor and guess what… The ring is no longer available.
Oh dear God.
This was bad. I didn’t know if I could go through with shopping for this ring with Ava again. The last time gave me a migraine.
We were back on the web, searching and searching and searching. Our conversations went like this, “How about this one?”
“I don’t hate that one,” she’d say.
“OK, let’s get it.” My mouse would hover over the Buy Now link.
“No.” There’d never be a reasonable explanation. It was too pink. It wasn’t round. It was silver not gold. It was ugly. It was too cheap. It cost too much. Her karma didn’t feel right about it. I don’t freaking know.
After a while, I went back to my own office and just started yelling across the hall. Then I’d email her a likely contender with subject lines like Here’s Another One You’ll Hate or Option #17 or Option #83.
Finally I sent her one with the subject line, I’m Giving Up Hope. HOLY SHIT! she liked this one. I put it in the virtual cart that very instant before she had a chance to think.
Here it is. It’s a gorgeous Sterling silver and 14K gold created ruby and diamond ring.
Contest starts on Friday, March 1st.
Stay tuned……
Olives by Birdboxstudio
I LOVE the Oscars
I was really trying to write a blog tonight – but the Oscars are on and I’m watching them and Twitter at the same time and I can’t get over how freaking funny people are.
And the dresses. Dear God. My Mom keeps asking when I plan to be over my diet. I have an answer now. When I look like Stacy Keibler. Of course, I’ll have to grow like 3 feet as well.
I loved Daniel Day Lewis’s speech. Who knew he was so funny? I’d guessed he was charming – he is Irish after all. But funny seemed like too much to hope for.
I do have some advice for Jennifer Lawrence ~~ Honey, I fall down and embarrass myself all the time and I really understand your desire to get up as quickly as possible when you do it in front of an international audience. That’s just the natural instinct of self-preservation kicking in. I’d hate to fly against natural instincts, especially one’s I employ so often myself. But, pumpkin, when Hugh Jackman jumps up to your aid, you lay there for a minute. For Zeus’s sake, girl. Lay there. Perhaps you lean against him, suggest he carry you up the stairs. Find a boo-boo for him to kiss if at all possible.
You know that girl is going to resent leaping up from those stairs for the rest of her life.
February 22
It’s entirely possible Amylynn has lost her mind. Ava’s no help at all, either. Mostly she just rolls her eyes and says things like, “OMG – is that a spread sheet?” or “Are you trolling Amazon AGAIN?” Nevertheless, we spent a lot of time giggling. We do that. It’s either that or we kill people. I think we can
all agree that we don’t want option #2. Unless, you happen to know someone who really, really deserves Option #2, then we might be persuaded. Here are the five things this week.
1. All the alcohol. Maker’s Mark freaked everyone out last week when they had a press conference and informed the drunks of the world that they were lowering the alcohol percentage of their bourbon. Apparently, it was a gasp heard around the world and they quickly recanted. Look, after a long day at Bank of No Forks or with your kids or whatever, sometimes you really need your 90 proof.
2. Extreme Over reactions. The Belarus Supreme Court convicted a guard to two years for allowing a light 
plane across the border. Said plane was loaded with hundreds of teddy bears wearing parachutes and human rights slogans which were dropped over the city. Can you imagine walking along the streets of Belarus only to see a crap load of Swedish teddy bears bombing your city. At the very least, it gives you something to talk about at dinner while you gulped down your Maker’s Mark. (Ava had no idea Belarus was a country, she thought it was a city in eastern Europe but no, Amy is insistent that’s its a country.)
3. Men are so dumb. A Texas couple decided to have another child. We guess their two year old was lonely, so the wife went and got herself knocked up. They told her she was having twins. OK, that’s a bit intimidating
but not insurmountable. THEN, they informed her she had managed to spontaneously conceive TWO sets of identical twins. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s quadruplets. Four. Four babies, not two. There was no fertility assistance, drugs, or doctors involved in any way. There’s like a 1 in 70 million chance of that happening. Momma managed to have four healthy baby boys named Ace, Blaine, Cash and Dylan to join their brother, Memphis. Did you catch that – A,B,C & D. Where does the dumb man part come into the story, you ask. When interviewed,
the husband/daddy/idiot actually said, out loud, that they’re going to keep trying for a girl. You just know those boys inherited that stupid gene from their father. God help that poor woman.
4. Grand niece. It’s the week of babies! Ava’s first grand niece was born on the 21st and weighed a perfect 7.1 lbs and was 20 inches. Her name is Harper Paisley and look how adorable she is!!! Deep dark secret alert – Ava is afraid of all babies under 12 months. You will never find her holding one, not even this cutey but she does like to admire them from afar. Per Ava; “No one likes
If they’re good enough for LL….
if you break their baby, in fact, they never forgive you.”
5. Chakalates. Chaka Kahn has her own chocolates. It looks exactly like her hair. We’re sure you can imagine how tasty that must be. Do you supposed she woke up one morning with a driving need for her own food line. She probably leapt from her bed, looked in the mirror and said, “EUREKA! CHOCOLATES!” Often when famous people do this sort of nonsense, the Sister wonder where their people are. You know, the people who furrow their brow, shake their heads gently and say, “hmmmmm, well…maybe not.”
Blog Tour stop #2
This time I wrote a guest post. It’s me so don’t expect a treatise on international politics from 1800 Great Britain. You can expect some ridiculous rambling on food. I can almost promise you.
I”m giving away a free print copy to a random commentor. That could be YOU! If you’re super nice I might autograph it and everything.
