A bang-up weekend

Ah, the things we do in the name of research! Sometimes it's boring (whoops, just wrote that as 'borking' ... hm), like when I interrupt the writing to make sure that a certain song that'd be just perfect for a scene had been released by the time of the flashback, or when I invariably have to remind myself whether the sun sets in the west or the east in the US of A (I've had more than one cowboy riding into an impossible sunset). Other times, though, it's way cool.

Take this past weekend, for example, when I attended ladies' gun day at our shooting range. Because when you're gearing up to start writing some new running-and-screaming Jessica Andersen books for next year (yay!), you gotta get in the mood. And, well, where else am I going to get to shoot everything from arrows, to black powder muzzle loaders, to tricked-out rifles and pistols with laser sights? 

Arizona had volunteered to help for the day, so we got there early, registered, and got our T-shirts and hats. He got a pretty blue shirt and a red hat that said STAFF. I got screaming yellow. Really? Yellow for ladies' day? Clearly a man had ordered the shirts. At least I could snag a pink hat off the Smith and Wesson swag table. 

We smooched and headed in our separate directions, and I quickly made some new friends. I'm not sure how I got good at that, seeing as how I was the total loner as a kid. Romance conventions, probably. Anyway, friends! We sat together, swapped life stories, and complained about the screaming yellow until it was time for the safety briefing. Where we learned that the shirts were so the staffers could see if one of us wandered down-range.

Oh-kay, then! Yellow is my new best friend! Safety first! Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear!

After the briefing, we headed out with our guides (Arizona was in charge of my group of six) to rotate through eleven stations, where range officers instructed us on the different weapons. And where I learned that I am a speshul snowflake ... apparently, it's not only unusual to be left handed but right-eye dominant, it really screws you up for target shooting. Whoops! But that was the cool thing about having  a whole day to play--I experimented with shooting lefty, righty and using different stances, until I figured out what worked for me.

And ... pictures!

This is me killing balloons. Okay, maybe I was pretending they were zombies.

And bowling pins. Which were really Mayan demons.

Death to clay pigeons ... Or Mayan bat demons. Those suckers can fly!

A crossbow. For when gunpowder just won't cut it. And, well, when you suck at using a compound bow because of that whole left-hand-right-eye thing. I'm digging the point-and-shoot here!

And, finally, the hand cannon:

I nailed the bullseye with this one, but my hands tingled for a good five minutes after, and I ate some serious gunpowder. At least there was a cute-ish guy standing there with his hand on my back, ready to catch if I went flying backward!

All in all, a totally fun day, and something out of our usual routine. Except that I still have a Mustang Ridge book to finish before I can get to the running-and-screaming books. I'm off now to make sure my subconscious doesn't try to sneak something scary into Gran's kitchen. 

Though, come to think, I bet she could handle it ;) 

Google Searches Gone Horribly Wrong

This is our second spring of owning our cute little house, with its one-car garage and ski-jump of a driveway. Last spring we were mostly concerned with clearing out the yucky leaves and finding patio furniture that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. This year, we’ve actually had a minute here and there to watch the plants start to green up and a few flowers show their little faces.

We have one daffodil. It came up behind our porch. We named him Steve and are thinking of getting him a friend or two for next year. We also have this bushy thing that makes pink flowers.

And over the past week or so, ever since the pink flowers emerged, we’ve been having conversations that begin with, “What’s the name of that pink flowery thing, do you think? It might be fun to get more of them.”

I believe the answer to this question is: an azalea. But seriously, have you ever tried to Google “hot pink bush”? Warning: don’t try this at work. Because ... yeah. Biology lesson ahead. Okay, maybe not a lesson, per se, because I mean, I've seen ladyparts before. But not necessarily from that angle.

Now, this is not the first time I have gotten myself into trouble by practicing unsafe Google. Like when Arizona was getting ready to make the wheels for my new downhill mountain bike. He likes to customize everything, which is totally sexy, and he agreed to trim my bike out in pink. (I figured so much of the equipment we use is anti-girly, that I needed a dose of estrogen. I then named the bike Fang. Because, hey, you can be girly and Fangtastic at the same time!)

Anyway, back to wheels. This is one of Arizona's wheels. See those blue things that attach the spokes to the rim and can be used to adjust the tension, in order to make the wheels all round and stuff? 

For my bike, he gave my choice of blue or green, and if I wanted pink, I had to find them online because he wasn't having much luck. The subsequent conversation went like this:

Me: Okay, so what are these things actually called, so I can Google them?

Arizona: Nipples.

Me (beat of silence): You want me to Google pink nipples.

Arizona: Pink nipples, comma, hot biker chick?

Me: Not helping. Okay, I’ll think of something. (Heads upstairs for computer)

Arizona (calling up the stairs): While you’re putting in an order, I need the tool that goes with them.

Me: What’s it called?

Arizona: A nipple clamp.

Yes, he was kidding about that last part. Fortunately. And I did eventually, after numerous online searches of varying cringe factors and a couple of virus alerts, find the pink nipples I was searching for, at a UK store that caters to unicyclers. Because, apparently, only clowns like pink nipples. Or something. And my wheels look pretty sharp, if I do say so myself!

So, just as Arizona’s fortune cookie fortune from lunch the other day said SOME FORTUNE COOKIES HAVE NO FORTUNE (I kid you not), I guess the moral of the story is: practice safe Google … or if you’re not going to, make sure you’re using protection. (And maybe not doing it as your boss walks by!) And may the Force be with you!

Sponsorships that make you go ... WTF?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to ding folk for finding ways to make their finances work. Sure, it makes me twitch when I'm watching this season of Deadliest Catch and the captain of the SEABROOKE is all decked out in his Bass Pro Shop finest, but (shrugs). That's his call, and at least the connection makes sense. Crab fishing (whoops, just wrote that as 'crap' ... thanks autocorrect) in the Bering Sea isn't *that* far of a leap to sport fishing. It's at least in the same family.

Same with TV ads. Sometimes Arizona and I even make a game of trying to figure out what demographics are supposed to be watching a show, based on the type of ads that are playing. Ninety percent tampons and chocolate? He'd better check his man card at the door. Truck ads and manly deodorant? Whoops, I'd better go put on more pink. (I'm totally generalizing, of course--but, hey, that's what they're doing!) 

But every now and then, there's an epic fail of sponsorship that just makes you go ... huh? 

It happened this past weekend. There I was at a romance writers' conference, sitting at the bar with an ever-growing group of friends that was sucking all the free chairs from elsewhere in the room (as tends to happen with these things). Our human amoeba had positioned itself below a silenced television playing the Kentucky Derby, and we were doing the MST3000 version of the play-by-play. You know, when you add in your own voiceover, which is arguably (and especially when slightly buzzed writers are involved) better than the real thing.

And someone asked: "What is Yum, and why is it on that horse?"

Sure enough, there it was ... Where the AmEx logo used to go quite logically, we now saw the logo for Yum brand foods, right there on a thousand pounds of very expensive horse flesh. Mmmmm...... race horse. Nom nom nom.

It got even worse when paired with some of the horses' names:

And let's consider the companies that belong to the Yum family. A&W root beer is pretty benign, but Kentucky Fried Chicken? Okay, that's getting a little creepy. Or, eek, Taco Bell? What's actually *in* those new breakfast UFOs?

Seriously? Without going into the horse slaughter debate, or whether or not I would eat old Dobbin if it came to it, that just seems ... Wrong. On so many levels. Yet (because I am going to hell for a variety of reasons), it totally makes me giggle.

So say it with me ... Race horse ... YUM!

The Law of Dunkin' Donuts in New England

This past weekend, Arizona's lifelong BFF came for a visit. Now, I was a little nervous about this, as the one other time I had met BFF in person, Arizona and I were still very new to each other and only saw each other on weekends, and I was used to us hoarding that time together. So let's just say that I didn't share my toys as well as I could have. Fortunately, it's three years later, water under the bridge, and let's face it--women are far more prone to agonizing over things that didn't go quite right in the past. Guys are more like 'hey, what do you want to do for dinner?' So it's been a very fun visit, I get why these guys have been buds for a Very Long Time, and I've been enjoying their "remember when"s. 

Over the course of our putzing around our local environs, showing BFF the sights, eating way too much, and then burning off the eats with a bike ride, some cultural differences have come to light in comparing our little corner of Connecticut to points west (like, yanno, Arizona). To whit: the law of Dunkin' Donuts, which reads as follows:

In southern New England, one will never be more than ten minutes from a Dunkin' Donuts.

Now, this rule was very important to me during my horse showing days, because it meant that when we were on the road at some ungodly hour, headed somewhere based on directions that involved things like "turn at the big rock" and "the show grounds are just past where the landfill used to be," and caffeine and donuts were desperately required, we only needed to keep driving, and we would come to a Dunkin' Donuts. 

Granted, I would have to add my own creamer and sweetener, because I never had my "medium tea, milk and one sugar" come out the same twice, and most often it would have a layer of crunchy sugar sludge at the bottom (ew!). And there's a serious naming disconnect, in that what I think of as a chocolate donut is labeled "glazed chocolate" while the plain donut with chocolate icing is called a "chocolate frosted", yet when you go through the drive-thru there's a 50/50 chance of getting the wrong one regardless of which name you use. So after a while, you just say "chocolate donut" and cross your fingers.

But I digress. 

The thing is, it turns out that Arizona (the state) doesn't have the same rule. In fact, out there, the Dunkin' Donuts are few and far between. Mind you, Arizona (the guy) has mentioned this in the past, but I think part of me had attributed this to the decade he spent in NYC, away from the wild west. (Whoops, just wrote that as 'wild wet', which totally wasn't where I was going.) So it's interesting to hear that it's a real, current thing. Really? No DDs? No ten-minute rule? This is going to take some time to process. You mean there are states out there that aren't peppered with Stop 'n' Shops, Jiffy Lubes, and Eastern Mountain Sports? Dude...

So how about you? What comes under the ten-minute rule where you live? Now I'm curious!

Caption That Photo!

You know when you ask your hubby to come with you to one of your favorite places (say, the horse rescue where you volunteer), to take a couple of pictures for a magazine interview that's due today? And then when you look at the pictures afterward, and you're like ?????

Yeah. It was like that.

Caption it? My first thought is one of those things you reeeealllly don't want to say when you're around horses. To whit: Here, hold my beer.

Anyone else?

What are friends for? Pushing the comfort zone!

Tommy Lee Jones tells us in the movie Men In Black (a guilty pleasure of mine) that “[a] person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals …” I would also argue that people—especially friends—can harangue us into doing stuff we might not have done otherwise. Get a tattoo, maybe, or sing The Lion Sleeps Tonight at an open mic night. (For the record, I did the karaoke thing but don’t have a tattoo, even though I’ve been talking about getting one for years … anyone up for a dumb crowd moment at the next conference?)

I’m kidding. Sort of. But my point is that while the crowd mentality can lead to some questionable choices, it can also push us out of our comfort zones in a good way. Sometimes, the trick is telling the good push from the bad idea. Take the other day for example. Although Arizona and I are a pair of introverts who happen to do very well being alone together, one or the other of us will sometimes get a wild hair and suggest it’s time for a group outing—whether a party, a double date, a group bike ride, or whatnot.

Last week, we decided to be joiners and meet up with a mountain bike ride that was listed on the group’s website as “moderate pace, novice-intermediate.” What we got, though, was three very good bikers who had stayed fit over the winter and were looking to burn off some calories on the trails. And, as we shot off from the meeting area, zooming along a narrow trail at about twice the speed of Arizona’s and my usual leisurely warmup, I thought, “Uh-oh! I could be in trouble here!”

But you know what? I stuck it out for a hard, fast hour before I turned back so the others could do their thing without keeping an eye out for me. I burned calories. I jumped off rocks. I went fast. And, honestly, I tackled a few obstacles that I normally avoid when it’s just hubby and me, because I didn’t want the others to see me wuss out.

I find the same thing with writing sometimes. While it’s by and large a solitary sport, getting a group of people together, whether at someone’s house, a coffee shop, or even online can help push me out of my comfortable little zones and into a too-fast, on-the-edge-of-disaster pace. I don’t pause to sight-see or answer email, don’t let myself look down or back, and just keep going, racing to see what’s around the next story corner or at the top of the next plot hill. And when it’s over, I come away thinking, “Hey, that was fun!”

So how about you? What kind of trouble have your friends gotten you into recently? And what works better with friends than alone?

Mud, rocks, and split infinitives

With spring finally finding its way to our corner of New England, Arizona and I have emerged from hibernation, blinking up at the sun and taking stock of a few post-winter chores that need doing. First on that list? Hauling the mountain bikes down off their racks, giving them a quick tune-up and hitting the trails. 

This, of course, involves a fine titration of clothing--I get grumpy when I'm too cold, especially from windchill, but warm up quickly and need to start shedding. Ergo, I wear lots of layers, which is a fine New England tradition. Arizona, being a guy, wears shorts and a shirt, shivers for the first twenty minutes and is comfortable for the rest of the ride ... and teases me about being an Onion.

Despite the recent heavy rains, the trails we frequent have been in good shape, and we've been careful to hike our bikes through the soft areas to preserve the surface for later in the season. And although I, having been diligent on the treadmill and elliptical over the winter, had the brief fun of out-riding Arizona at first, that lasted maybe three rides before he--ridiculously athletic and a lifelong biker--started leaving me in his proverbial (and literal) dust. That's okay, though, because he is a star about waiting for me to catch up, and always greeting me with a "Good climb!" or "Nice downhill!" 

Which brings us to yesterday, when we decided to explore a set of new-to-us trails about a half hour away. The loop we picked was touted as 'intermediate level' by a couple of websites, but I have to wonder if this was in comparison to the guys who do the Red Bull Tour, because from where I was riding, it was all pretty gnarly. Me? At this point in my mountain biking career, I can do one or two hard things at once--hop up onto a rock while going uphill, or jump a log and then make a hairpin turn. This place, though, kept asking me to do those things on a foot-wide trail with a sheer drop on one side. Eep!

Having rearranged my teeth last fall on similar terrain, and being under orders from my beloved not to hurt myself, I sensibly creepy-crawled verrrry slowly through many of the tricky sections, quite often getting my front wheel trapped by a rock or root because I was going at a snail's pace. Which then meant I got to hop off and hike my bike to the next easy-ish section, giving me time to think about biking as a metaphor for the way I write. To whit:

MOMENTUM IS GOOD. Or, as a very famous horse trainer says in a very famous quote: Make every mistake going forward. If you go too slowly and second guess every written word, pointy rock, or galloping stride, then you're more likely to trap yourself and stall out. So it's generally better to carry the sort of speed that makes the little bumps less noticeable. That way you can focus on the big obstacles. In writing, I have to fight not to overanalyze my first draft, trying to get each word exactly right, even though I know they'll probably change during revisions.

BUT DON'T GO TOO FAST. Just like going too slow can lead to a crash, so can going too fast and outrunning your ability to make good decisions. And, newsflash, it usually hurts worse to crash at higher speeds! (My once-dislocated, still sort of crooked two years later elbow can attest to this.) From a writing perspective, this is where I can get myself in BIG trouble--when I'm writing along quickly, have this *brilliant* idea that's sooo much cooler than what I have in my outline, and follow the new direction. Mind you, sometimes it works, and I get the adrenaline rush of having bombed down a rocky hillside right on the edge of disaster, and making it through safely. More often, though, at some point it goes BOOM! And then I'm left to pick up the pieces and find my way back to the main trail.

And so ... as I settle in for a morning of writing, I'm reminding myself, like Goldilocks and her bears, not to go too big or too little, but aim for just the right amount of effort. Will I manage it? Probably not. More likely, I'll have some sections where I go too slowly and stare at the pointy rock I'm trying not to hit (which ensures that I will hit it), and others where I outrun common sense and go flying off the trail into some prickly bushes. Overall, though, I'm hoping it'll average out to just about right, and I'll hit my word goal for the day, the week, the month ... In the meantime, I'm wishing you, my friends, readers and fellow writers, a very good week, with dry trails, good lines, and a loved one waiting for you up ahead to say, "Great climb!"