Ho hum.

I always feel at odds when I’m not working on a project.  Book 2 titled Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret has been sent to MY AGENT.  I haven’t heard back from her yet on what she thinks but, in all reality, it’s way too early.  Nevertheless, I fret. What if she doesn’t like it, or what if she doesn’t like it enough. I have to stop thinking about it or it’ll just freak me out more.

I have some great ideas for book 3 in the series and I have a secret project I’m dying to sink my teeth into, but I don’t want to start another year long project until I get some direction from the agent.  For now, I’m working on expanding my pirate novella from 15,300 words to some where in the 20,000 word range.  Well, “working on” is a very loose way to describe what I’m doing to it at this point.  At the moment, I’m rereading my research on pirates and the history of New Providence.  After that, I sit around and get distracted.

Today was the end of summer bonanza at Sassy & The Bandit’s summer camp. Each grade did a song or dance. I want you to picture the following scene: a herd of six year olds, hair slicked back with gel except for Bandit who had the addition of a curl down his forehead. They all lined up on stage and then the music for Grease Lightening came on over the PA system.  They didn’t sing the song, but they did do the dance – and it was hysterical. I video taped it and you can hear me cackling away during the entire thing.  At one point, they all broke out small, black combs and slicked back their hairdos, their hips cocked to the side, all cool.

Sassy’s third grade class danced the “Tootsie Roll”. I have no idea what that dance is, or if they just made it up. I’m not hip like that. I can tell you the kid across the street with the hot rod is having trouble with his 1970 Barracuda because his timing is off and he doesn’t have enough vaccuum to get the power he’s looking for, but I have no idea about the latest dances (or the old dances) at the clubs.  Of course, the kid doesn’t want to hear the old lady’s opinion.  Nor did he take my offer to teach him to drive the thing, although my hand is just itching to get ahold of that shifter.

Regardless, my daughter was beautiful up there.  I swear she was the only one who knew the dance steps, but then my opinion was clouded.

Thanks to this blog post, I have effectively managed to distract myself from writing for at least an hour.

Success.

Once again the local Picayune has us amused with a news story from 1912.

Mesa – July 27, 1912

George Nun is beginning to get discouraged along the line of matrimony, and he has had enough reverses to make the most patient of men discouraged and out with the world.

He has been in search of a wife for the past several years, and although he has had many offers, for some reason or other none has proved successful and he is still in search of a better half.

He says the young ladies in and around Mesa are beginning to make fun of him and are writing letters to him in ridicule.

The following is a copy of one written by one of the young ladies of Mesa, which Mr. Nun handed to The Free Press yesterday:

“Dearest George: Read your advertisement in the Arizona Democrat.  I have been looking fo r a husband and I find by your description that you are a handsome young man.  I have seen you on the streets several times and fell in love with you at first sight. I am 34 years old, five feet seven inches tall and weigh 131 pounds. I have large brown eyes and a wealth of dark hair. Also a beautiful complexion. I enclose a lock of my hair for you to look at. Come and call on me Sunday at eight o’clock. Then you can get Bishop Ed Hunsaker and we will drift into matrimony. Your future wife, MISS MARJORIE MAPLE.

Mesa, Arizona, one block east, Main St. Box 644.

P.O. – I am well to do.  Am a stenographer. Love and good luck to you.”

Young girls should be careful what they write and to whom they write as their letters are liable to get into hands other than those for which they were meant and the writing is liable to be interpreted, as in the case of this one.

The young lady who wrote this letter is near 20 years of age, has brown eyes, light hair and no such beautiful complexion as stated in the letter, wears false hair and is far from being a stenographer.  She is quite well known in Mesa, and her friends would no doubt be surprised to know she would write a letter of this sort.

Holy cow!

How can a responsible newspaper print a story like this, leaving so many questions? When I read the story I was appalled they would print the letter with the name of the lady as well as her address.  I couldn’t believe The Free Press and Mr. Nun would accuse the ladies of ridiculing him and then turn around and do the exact same thing to this poor girl.

Ava interpreted it differently, thinking somehow the lady was making fun of Mr. Nun in the letter.

Either way, we will never know. 

I looked through archives and couldn’t find any photographs of either Mr. Nun or Miss. Maple.  It does seem apparent that Mr. Nun is very full of himself, pointing out that he has received many offers.  He implies the ladies are throwing themselves at him in a desperate attempt to marry the man.

We’ll never know. And I am frustrated by that.

I had another of my gloriously enlightening chats with The Bandit last night.

I can’t remember how it got started or how we ended up on the topic of girlfriends, but there we were anyway. He admitted that he was currently without a girlfriend and that didn’t seem to bother him too much.  I assured him there was plenty of time to get a girlfriend later. He confessed that he thought he’d stay single for a while, that really he had no intention of finding a girl real quick when school starts up next month.  He mentioned Casey – his first girlfriend from preschool. 

“We’re not dating anymore.” That’s the word he used: dating.

“Well, it’s not easy to hold down a long distance relationship when your six.  You haven’t seen Casey in a year and a half,” I reminded him.

“Yeah.” He nodded his head sagely in the dark. 

“What about kindergarten? You mentioned several girls you liked.” 

“I thought about dating some of those girls but I changed my mind.” He’s so matter of fact.  Now he’s mentioned “dating” several times and I want to know exactly what that means in his world.

“Does dating mean you ate lunch with them?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly.

“Does it mean you held hands at recess?” 

“NO!” he answered even quicker, slightly indignant.

“Does it mean you stole a kiss?”

I expected a rapid fire response in the negative. Instead, he answered calmly. “We weren’t allowed to kiss at St. Private School.” That’s probably best, I thought.  With the way people have gone off the deep end these days, my six year old was liable to end up in a sexual harassment suit.

I kept probing for an answer. “Well what did you do when you were dating?” 

“Nothing.” He giggled. 

“When you were dating Casey, how did other people know you were dating then?”

“I kept it a secret.” Ah, the water’s are becoming less murky.  “Nobody knew.”

“Did Casey know?” This seems like a significant piece to the puzzle, does it not? 

I never got an acceptable definition of “dating” or, even if in fact, Casey knew they were dating at all.  I don’t intend to let this subject matter die.  Something very interesting happened when I dropped Sassy and The Bandit off at camp this morning.  A little girl came careening out of the crowd of kids yelling, “Bandit! Bandit!”  Now my boy is a player – I think we’ve sort of deduced this already by the above conversation, so he met her greeting with cool aloofness. But here’s the deal. I was certain I knew that little girl and I confirmed it when I went back up to the attendance book at the office.  Casey is spending the last week of camp with my boy.  Very interesting.  I don’t know if she will be joining him in this new school but it seems completely reasonable to assume she might.

I can’t wait until bed time tonight.

Groupon replied to our last email volley.

Greetings Q-Sisters,

I’ve received some interesting information from our P.R. department regarding your inquiries. The cat has actually not left his head at all— he’s merely hunkered down and pawed his way further into Andrew’s hair maze. The purring vibrations brilliantly stimulate the braincase, which is an essential part of the daily deal creating process. His name is Archer. As I have noticed that “Groupon Descriptions” are #3 in last week’s list of “5 Things That Kept Us From Slitting Our Wrists” post on July 15, it is highly unadvisable for us to provide you with Andrew’s muse-cat.

Spice now plays the organ at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Daniel Kibblesmith is our office cobbler, so neither are up for adoption at the moment.

I hope this helps and thank you for your interest. I wish you all luck writing your historical fiction romance novels. Aaron says hello.
Regards,

Jane F.

I’ll be honest, we are disappointed.  We were really looking forward to Kibblesmith, or Archer as they insist on calling him although I think they’re wrong, and Spice coming to stay with us for a while.  I could really use some brain stimulation and, if Kibblesmith is as good as they are implying, his aid would be invaluable.

Also, we love shoes and could use our very own cobbler.

The Sisters had a committee meeting and we decided not to reply – for now, although we reserve the right to pester them again at a later date.  We’re actually kinda concerned they might take out a restraining order. 

I, for one, hope Groupon doesn’t think we’re breaking up with them just because we don’t reply.

You hear that? I still love you, Groupon!

Here’s my commercial boyfriend.  I thought this was appropriate since it’s 80 million degrees here this summer.

Let me first state that I think the library system is a very good thing and should be supported by our tax dollars.

That being said, it could be suggested that I might actually be hugely responsible for any  private funding the libraries in my town receive.  It seems in my 41 years and 342 days on this planet (note the subtle plug for my birthday) I haven’t quite mastered the way the library functions.

Obviously I’m not an idiot.  You sign up for a card, you check out a book, then you give it back after an appointed amount of time.  It’s the giving back part that has me flummoxed. I can’t understand why.  In the age of electronic communications I receive emails warning me the due date is approaching, that is has indeed arrived, that it has passed, and finally one that tells me it has really, really passed. Eventually, I’ll get an email like this.

Dear Ms. Bright (or is that an alias?)

You checked out Ralph and the Motorcycle on January 12, 2011.  It is now July 13, 2011.

We are not amused “Ms. Bright”. Either you return Ralph with his motorcycle by tomorrow or we’re sending our “collection department” to your home.

At this time you currently owe $47.16 in late fees. We can do this the hard way or we can do it the easy way. We will be happy to accept your $47.16  in cash no later than 5:00pm tomorrow, or we’ll start by removing the tires from your car.

We know where you live, “Ms. Bright”. We know what you drive.

Sincerely,

Guido Santucci

Library “Collections”

Here’s the really crappy thing.  I’m darn near certain Sassy never read Ralph and the Motorcycle.

Is it because it’s summer? Are the dogs taking over the world? Are they planning a coup? Are they banning together to

He looks too dopey to be the brains behind anything

form a cabal?

The Sister’s have no idea what to think of this behavior. I have owned many, many dogs most of whom had weird idiosyncrasies. Hugh adored bunny slippers. No one was allowed to touch Shirley’s feet. Sophie always sat like a lady. Bytor hid hotdogs and donuts in shoes. Molly refused to eat alone. But until now, I seriously thought Roscoe the Idiot Dog was the only dog in canine history to sit on the kitchen table.

Ava’s Girl sent this picture today.

What is he doing?

Please say hello to Rockett O’Reilly, better known as Rocky, who lives at the Louis Compound. To the best of our knowledge, neither Rocky or Roscoe have ever met. But what do we know?  Perhaps they have a long friendship wherein they keep in touch by some sort of dog telepathy or a Twilight Bark system like they used in 101 Dalmatians. Hell, they may be using cell phones or Internet connections while we’re at work.

Kelli, we urge you to keep an eye on Max. 

This is how empires crumble.

Et tu, Rocky? Et tu?

Good news and bad news! The good news is we heard back from Groupon.  The bad news is really more for Groupon and that is that we have more questions.

Here is their reply:

Thanks for your wonderful email!

I’ve gone ahead and forwarded your message to our P.R. department.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help and, in the mean time, enjoy the picture of Aaron, his bride and Spice.

Regards,

Jane F.

This is the picture Ms. F. enclosed.

We know what you’re thinking.  The first thing that occured to us was, “Who the hell is Aaron?” We’ve done some research on Google and, quite frankly we still don’t know.  I don’t know what they’re thinking of over there at Groupon, but there are a lot of people named Aaron working there.  Also, none of these “Aarons” on the internet are wearing beards nor did they pose for profile pictures on the internet. That is very inconvenient.

Following is the letter we fired off to Groupon this evening:

Dear Cindy Lou Who,
 
Thank you for your response.  We will now stop bad-mouthing you on our blog.
 
We were delighted by your enclosed picture of Aaron, his wife and Spice. While researching who Aaron is, we came across the name Daniel Kibblesmith.  It that his real name? It’s a fantastic name and it may be appropriated.
 
When do you think the PR Department will contact us so we can make arrangements to pick up the cat.  Also, if Spice is still available, we’d be happy to have him, too. We’d hate for him to be alone.
 
We look forward blah blah blah.
 
Best,
 
The overly anxious Quill Sisters
 
PS – what is the cat’s name?  We can’t keep calling him “cat”, although we do think Kibblesmith is an excellent name for a cat.

As always, we’ll keep you posted on their response as soon as we receive it.  We have nothing but good thoughts about Kibblesmith and Spice coming to live with us.

As part of the state centennial celebration, our local paper, The Picayune, has been reprinting news stories from 100 years ago.  Today’s article relates interstate travel from Phoenix to Los Angeles. 

Phoenix July 1912

That the crossing of the desert between Phoenix and Los Angeles will soon become an almost daily occurrence is the prediction of Dr. H.A. Hughes, who today stated that he was seriously thinking of organizing a party of five or six cars over at the same time.

Dr. Hughes feels that the trip could be made in three days with the greatest east and not prove tiresome. In fact, he thinks it could be made in much less time but feels that by dividing the trip into three daily stretches, greater comfort would result to the occupants of the cars. 

Several weeks ago, a little ford Model T, manned by Morgan Lloyd and Mark Dunbar, left Phoenix for Los Angeles and make the trip with east, the only delay being caused by tire trouble. 

Lloyd and Dunbar were in no hurry and took six days for the trip, but the latter, who has returned to Phoenix, stated that it could easily be made in half that time.

The most pleasant way to make the trip would be to leave Phoenix early in the morning and drive to Yuma the first day, a leg of the journey that encounters practically no bad roads.  An early start from Yuma would land the autoist in Campo by night, where excellent hotel accommodations can be procured, while the drive from Campo to San Diego and thence to Los Angeles over the coast road, which in reality is a boulevard almost equal to paved streets, could be made with east the following day.

This whole story made me laugh heartily.  I would certainly kill myself before we got to Yuma if I was in that car.  Or, more likely, the other passengers would kill me.  I’m not a good road trip person.  I hate sitting still for that long. I just want to get where we’re going already. I don’t like to make stops for bathrooms or, really, even eating.  I’m inclined to just stay in the car and push on. 

I will admit that three days is a lot more palpable than the approximate ten days it would take on horseback.  I’m not sure how the gentlemen in the above story got across the Algodones Dunes since the plank road wasn’t built until 1915. Yes, the plank road.  The speed limit on the plank road was 10mph. This makes me cry just thinking of it. 

It wasn’t much of a road — a 6.7 mile one-laner with pullouts for passing. During sandstorms, the road could become impassable, forcing motorists to wait. But sandstorm or not, it was always a rocky ride, earning the road the nickname “Old Shaky.”

In 1925, traffic increased to 30 cars per day — a problem; officials reacted by regulating the traffic: east-bound traffic would leave on even hours, westbound traffic on odd hours. But this wasn’t enough: after 10 years of use, the road was falling apart and traffic jams were frequent and sometimes nasty when the right-of-way was disputed.

Can you imagine the misery scooting along the plank road at a mind boggling 10 miles per hour? It’s 110 degrees outside without a wisp of shade, and automobile air conditioning is still decades away. But I am still highly amused by the idea of a traffic jam on the road with all of 30 cars on it a day.  Regulating the departure times by odd and even hours is hysterical.  Maybe that’s what California should consider with the panic over the weekend closure of the 405 Freeway.

When Kelli takes her family to San Diego next week, she can be very thankful.

As soon as there is teleportation I will be gleefully happy.

I left my head on my desk today with my phone.  Lately I’ve been really forgetful. I must have too much on my mind or something.  I don’t have

If you're in Turin, Italy you don't have to know what this is

 enough brain space for stuff like traffic laws because it’s full of crap like what hits the group Bananarama had in the ‘80s or what a velodrome is.  

Ava and I went out the other day on a work errand.  I drove.  I always drive because Ava hates driving and because I’m good at it although the following story will belie that statement. 

Ava was talking a mile a minute. Honestly, I don’t even remember what she was talking about. We were sitting first in line at a red light.  I was watching the opposite light so I’d know when ours was going to turn green.  I recall thinking that our side should get to go already because there was no one in sight going the perpendicular direction. I saw green and pushed down on the accelerator. About half way through the intersection, I realized we were all alone. Our light was still red. I realized what I’d seen turn to green was the other directional’s left turn signal. 

“Oh my God,” I said, startled. “I just totally ran that red light!” Then I started laughing that nervous laugh that rapidly goes out of control.

“Oh, I didn’t even notice,” Ava said looking around at the street scene.

I floored it hoping to put some distance between us and the pack of cars I left behind so I wouldn’t have to suffer their stares of disbelief when we drove down the road together.  It was no use.  The next light turned red and I was forced to stop there and wait for all the cars to sidle up next to us and ogle the stupid woman.

“Don’t make eye contact!” I urged Ava. 

I couldn’t take my own advice and glanced over at a car to the right.  Just as I suspected, the woman in that car was glaring at me in righteous indignation. Of course, that just made me laugh harder.  By now I had tears in my eyes. If a cop had pulled me over at that point to issue me the ticket I totally deserved, I still wouldn’t have been able to get control of myself.  The other driver did not find it at all amusing that I was laughing.  I don’t know what she expected from me. Perhaps the etiquette in these situations is to get out of your car and personally apologize to each and every other driver. I’m not sure if even my lying prostrate in the intersection or atoning my sins via self-flagellation would have satisfied her.

I am very sorry, co-citizens.  I was remiss and I promise to do better.

To My Honey: if this post makes you angry and worried then it is all made up.  Ava was driving. Uh huh. Yep.