First, if you’ve had a bad day or perhaps just need a giggle then head on over to The Bloggess.  Read the post from April 20.  I laughed so hard that I not only snorted but managed to have a complete asthma attack – and I don’t have asthma.

Also, My Honey is out of town this week.  This is good and bad.  Good because My Honey really needed a vacation.  Bad because that leaves me alone to fend off both children and the Idiot Dog.  So far there have been no visits by the police, the fire department, Animal Control, or Child Protective Services.  I think I’m doing a hell of a job.  I’m calling the Nobel committee and nominating several stay at home moms and dads I know.  Or maybe the Vatican if I believed in saints and that nonsense. 

Either way – I’m doing better than I thought I would.  It seems they’re all paying attention to when my head is at its maximum level of tolerance before it explodes.  Apparently, when Daddy is here, they don’t care if my head explodes.

But there have still been a few moments that have me wondering.  For example, I was in the office after they had gone to sleep working on various things.  I didn’t hear Bandit get up, but at some point he did.  I know for sure because I didn’t put him to bed with a half-peeled orange and several short-bread cookies.

Also, there has been an infestation of fruit flies.  Ewwwww, right?  I kept looking in the kitchen for a missing banana or some other atrocity, but I couldn’t find anything.  It was a total mystery until I realized that the damn little things seemed to be coming from the living room (?????).  I discovered a mummified, half-eaten apple behind the green chair and about 75,000 fruit flies.  The Bandit has been expressly forbidden from hiding behind the furniture and eating fruit.  One would have thought that this would have been an implied rule, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 7 years of intensive on the job training, there are no implied rules.

Anyhow the best news of all is that My Honey isn’t in Europe – only Missouri – so there is no way in hell I’m going to believe he can’t fly home due to the Ash Cloud.

From my daily calendar:

Albrecht Durer obtained the very first copyright in a special grant from Emperor Maximilian.  He proclaimed his new right in the 1511 engraving Life of the Virgin,

Hold! You crafty ones, strangers to work, and pilferers of other men’s brains.  Think not rashly to lay your thievish hands upon my works.  Beware!  Know you not that I have a grant from the most glorious Emperor Maximilian, that not one throughout the imperial dominion shall be allowed to print or sell fictitious imitations of these engravings?  Listen!  And bear in mind that if you do so, through spite or through covetousness, not only will your goods be confiscated, but your bodies also placed in mortal danger.

Perhaps I will use that copyright in my next historical. 

How ironic is it if I steal another person’s copyright?

My father had his surgery on Thursday.  He’s doing well, thankfully, but there were a few hiccups along the way.  The hospital he’s staying at is REALLLLLLLLLLY big.  Like many buildings in the Southwest, it’s not tall but rather wide.  It’s only a one story building, but is spread out over acres and acres of land.  After 8:30pm all of the doors are locked except the ones at the Emergency Room, but the visiting hours are 24/7 – so long as you come in through the Emergency doors.  Here lies the problem: my father’s room is always in the exact opposite far corner than the Emergency Room, through miles and miles of twisting corridors.  I measured my footsteps yesterday – it was 1,065 footsteps from the Emergency Room door to my father’s room.  I looked that up on the Holy Grail of information, Google, and using the average stride as a measurement, 1087 strides is a mile.  So just to go see him, I have to walk just shy of two miles – INSIDE THE HOSPITAL.

It’s a damn good thing I love him.

So, last night I got off work at 9:00pm and went to see him because there had been some issues when I saw him before work, and I wanted to make sure he was settled and alright or I would put on my Mama Bear suit and use it to kick the necessary butt in order to achieve that status.  When I got there, at 9:45, he was much less agitated than earlier in the day, but he was complaining of a headache.  You may recall that I’m the Queen of Headaches, so I offered to rub it away.

There I am, in a darkened observation room with five other patients surrounding a central nurses desk.  I’m leaning over the bed, talking to him in a low voice and rubbing his temples and forehead. I’m also wearing my work clothes that clearly state where I’m employed.  A nurse walks into the room and demands, “Are you family?”  I repeat, she demands this in quite a snotty tone.

I was unable to resist a comeback.  “Yes, I am.  Do you really have a problem with strange people sneaking in here in the dark of night, walking two miles in to a patients room and rubbing their heads?”

She huffed and walked away. 

I really hate asinine questions.

For those of you following the story, after many aggravating delays, my father finally had his surgery today.  It took FOREVER but all went well so we’re all thinking positive thoughts.

The Bandit had his first soccer practice of the new season this afternoon.  That little dude is just so cute out there.  We moved him up a little in the age brackets because he was the only kid on his team last year that actually played during the games.  The rest were dreaming or picking daisies or flinging themselves on the ground because they didn’t get the ball.  His father and I are hoping that a little more competition will be a  good thing for him.

Stay tuned for more silly tales from the soccer field, and we’re still looking for his bed.  Sassy is getting very close to her two recitals – one with her after-school ballet program and the other with her Saturday ballet class.  In one she’s an ant and the other a ball of cotton candy.

I’m getting ready to send the rest of the pages off to the agent that requested more of my novel.  The Sisters Three are reading it again for the 7,589,126,579 time.  I’m finding it a little boring this time.  Truly, it has lost its appeal.  We can’t even be objective about it anymore.

This is from my daily calendar:

In despair over living in a reunited United States, James Whistler’s fiercely Confederate mother hopped a ship to England.  Her son was there, enjoying  a bohemian lifestyle complete with all-night whiskey parties and a live-in girlfriend.  Imagine his shock upon learning that Mother Anna intended to move in!  She took over the housekeeping, managed his studio, and invited his friends over for dinner, during which she lectured about the evils of drink.  One day when his model failed to show up for work, Whistler turned to this mother.  Initially he positioned her standing, but the frail woman was unable to hold the pose.  He directed her to sit, propping her feet on a footstool.  Anna was dressed in her usual black dress, with a white cap on her head: as a result, the painting is strikingly monochromatic.

And as Red Foreman said on That 70’s Show, “Fun time is over.”

So guess what?  Guess.  Oh, you’ll never get it so I’ll tell you.  I had a pitch session with a Literary Agent at the Tucson Festival of Books last month and today she emailed me and asked for more pages.  YEA!

Do you want to know the reason why?  I’ll tell you why.  The Sisters and I were just discussing this at lunch today.  The whole reason why the agent asked for more of the book (It’s Clearly Love with Thomas and Francesca) is because I’ve decided to put it away and not work on it anymore.

Seriously.  That’s the way the universe works, doncha know.

Also, in sillier news.  The family all went out today searching for a “big boy bed” for The Bandit.  He’s turning 5 next month and he’s outgrown his toddler bed.  He has his little, adventurous heart set on bunk beds.

Who else thinks this is a bad idea?

I’m going to start an escrow account for the emergency room co-pays.

I wanted to let you know that the lovely but battered Celtic girl finally got herself untied from the tree.  My heroines are plucky so you know she did it herself.  Her Knight is on his way, but she’s already escaping through the woods with a sword she can’t even heft.  Go, girly!

Tomorrow my dad has his surgery, so think positive thoughts.

I’m working on the montage for The Sea Rose.  This one is going to be WAY harder than Out of Heaven.  Once I started thinking of the inherent difficulties of the montage for a pirate tale from 1700, I also thought of the issues involved with a Knight tale from 1300.  Why do I always have to make things so damn hard?

My outstanding cover artist just sent me the cover for The Sea Rose.  So, by popular demand, here is that cover for the novella coming soon.

Nice, eh?

Editing hasn’t begun, but having the cover makes everything more real AND I can get to work on the trailer montage.

Here is the book trailer for Out of Heaven:

The Archangel Gabriel is going to Earth to win the woman he has loved for eons.  He is confident that it won’t be that difficult… but, he only has one day to meet her and make her fall in love with him.  She’s been hurt before and he finds that she’s not exactly a pushover.  And as if he needed a further challenge, there are mischievous demons trying to keep them apart.

It’s 11:13 pm and I’m trying to get this poor girl untied from a tree and I can’t get past her dress.  Really, why should we care what the poor girl is wearing?  After all, her shoulders are numb and her hands are severely chaffed from the cord wrapped around her wrists.  The hem of this mystery dress is torn and filthy from the three days she’s been dragged through the Norman countryside. 

She’s bleeding and miserable, but I can’t help her escape because I can’t decide: A) What her damn dress is called.  Is it a tunic?  An under-tunic?  A super-tunic (I didn’t make this up!)?  B) What is the fabric?  Is it wool? Silk?  C) She’s a Celtic (?) princess (?) so I’m guessing she’s wealthy, her attire would be very fine, but it’s cold there and this is 12 – 13th century so……

I really hate when I obsess over this kind of nonsense.  I’ve been in the same place, literally, for hours.

Here is the last sentence I wrote:  Her knees rubbed nearly raw by the sticks and stones of the forest floor, her dress…..

And that’s where I stumble.  Her dress what?  For God’s sake (the God of procrastination and OCD).  I know I should just rewrite the sentence all together, but you know it’s all going to circle back to what she’s wearing.

And all this time, I thought the Knight would be the problem.

I have no less that three reference books – most with pictures – laying on my desk and I’ve been all over the Internet.

And yet there she is, tied to a tree in the rain, cold, wet, miserable and afraid.

Do you suppose she still has shoes on?  Oh crap.