So this past Friday was a little crazy. Having failed to finish my revisions on the fifth Mustang Ridge book (or, rather, having finished one pass of revisions and deciding it needs one more before I can in good conscience turn it in; rather manically toying with the idea of renaming it Sagging Middle at Mustang Ridge; and giggling when I pictured the cover art to go with), I turned my attention to getting myself to a certain Sheraton in the middle of Connecticut, where I was booked to spend a weekend of quality Writer Time with my peeps, listening to Cherry Adair give her most masterful Master Class on Writing. (No, autocorrect, not 'Wiring'. That's a different master class, and probably a different Sheraton.)
And, yes, the above was one hell of a run-on sentence. You're welcome.
I had a to-do list, and I to-did it, from vacuuming the homestead (where the cat-hair bunnies had started procreating) and packing sufficient semi-matching clothes, to making a supply run so Arizona would have food while I absconded with the One Car. All while trying to make a 5 pm departure time, because when you're driving on Route 95, why not plan it for rush hour on a Friday? Just as I was wrapping up (no, not warping up; this isn't Star Trek, though come to think of it, warp speed would've been nice), I got the kind of text that one tends to get at the beginning of a girls' weekend.
It was from my most excellent roommate, G, and it read (paraphrasing, but pretty darn close): I'm in the bar with the troublemakers. We're all checked in. Push door handle up. Do. Not. Push. Down!
The bar thing? That made perfect sense. The troublemakers? Check and check. All's good with the room? Awesome. But I've got to tell you that the handle thing sounded pretty ominous, especially with the punctuation. Was that Siri being 'helpful' or was it a dire warning? And what handle? Should I beware some door, or (horrors) did we have a quirky toilet?
Sure, I could've texted back and asked her. Instead, figuring it was the sort of thing that would make sense when I got there, I loaded up the One Car, snuzzled Pixel T. Kitten, told Lucy T. Cat to watch the perimeter, assured Arizona that I had all the proper safety gear with me (New England vs. Arizona: I keep a down parka in my car; he packs jugs of water), promised to text him when I got there, and kissed him see-you-Sunday. And off I went.
The drive was uneventful, and I even secured the sort of parking spot Arizona likes, far from the crowd, under a light and with landscaping on one side. (This after our poor unsuspecting Suba-Roo got sideswiped whilst parked at a Mass Pike rest stop. He's all better now--and kudos to the woman for sticking around to give us her info--but I've stopped rolling my eyes when my beloved parks nine miles from the Walmart entrance.) Checking in was no problem, schlepping my boatload of crap (some trips I pack light; this wasn't one of them) to the fourth floor was straightforward, and our room was right on the corner.
There was a sign on the key-card-reader-thingy. It said: PUSH DOOR HANDLE DOWN.
I froze. Wait. Hadn't G said to push it up? Yes, I could've gotten my phone out and checked. But I like to live dangerously. Or follow instructions. Or something. So I swiped my card, waited for the light to turn green, and pushed the handle down, as instructed.
The door stayed locked.
Ruh roh. Had G said to push it up or down? What if she had said Don't. Push. Up? Would injudiciously pushing it up wipe the memory, meaning that both of us would have to get our cards re-keyed? Or, worse, wait for the maintenance guy to replace the card reader on our door? (Both of which have happened to me more than once at conferences.)
Or (and here was where the WriterBrain kicked in) was the device wired to a hefty blob of C4 stuck on the far side, ready to start counting down from three at the proper up-push signal? Might it trigger a guillotine? Hey, maybe the whole hotel would go into lockdown, with blast shields thudding down to cover all the doors and windows, sealing us in. The members of the new Republic of the Fourth Floor would be forced to live off the vending machines and whatever snacks we had brought with us, pooling our resources and developing a Lord of the Flies society, except with my blankie rather than a conch shell. Yikes!
Palms suddenly sweaty, I put down the rest of my crap, making a respectable pile in the doorway (including a box of granola bars and several six-packs of Ritz-and-peanut-butter crackers that I could add to the Fourth Floor collective, perhaps making up for the fact that I was the one who Pushed The Handle Up). Then, holding my breath, I swiped the card again. And this time when the light turned green, I pushed up.
And darned if the door didn't open, just like G had said it would.
So in the end, all was well. Nothing blew up, and nobody got locked on the fourth floor to reenact the fall and questionable rebirth of society. I got into the room, changed into a t-shirt that read Romance Writers' mating call: "Hey, honey, want to do some research?" and headed down to the bar to get started on my weekend.
And who knows ... Maybe one of these days I'll write a book about a hotel going into lockdown--with the hunky hero and scrappy heroine trapped together, of course, and forced to team up in order to vanquish the villains and get everyone else to safety--and you'll all know exactly where it came from!
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
DIY Take II ... Less of a Disaster!
Since some of you got a laugh over my plumbing oops a month or so ago (which I later used as an excuse to have PlumberTodd swap out the fixtures in the shower thankyouverymuch), I figured I would semi-redeem myself by sharing this past weekend's Build-A-Desk adventure.
Okay, so maybe I've been doing most of my writing on the living room couch lately. Maybe I haven't been using my treadmill desk nearly as much as I should. And, okay, maybe the whole litter-box-in-the-office routine has put a thick layer of dust on Things That Would Rather Not Be Dusty. In my defense, the rest of the house is clean-ish. (No, autocorrect, I don't mean 'my house is clannish'. It's clean. Ish.) Anyway, I got a wild hair last weekend and launched Operation Office (OpOff).
I cleaned. I dusted. I washed. I decluttered. I donated. And when I was done, I had a small, mostly empty space containing a treadmill, a bookcase, a litter box (now with a lid on it), and an empty wall that was crying out for a little desk.
I had a few criteria for OpDesk: 1) a small surface area, to discourage clutter and fit in the small room; 2) no drawers (ditto); 3) not a lot of $$; 4) zero wobble; and 5) padding on the top (my mountain-biking-dislocated elbow, while back to normal in strength and function, gets sore when I lean on a hard surface for too long). Which left me with ... half of a massage table? An ottoman on stilts? Hm. Hey, wait! thought I. What if I make my own?
Cue trumpets as I hied off to Home Despot (as Arizona calls it) for a quarter sheet of sanded plywood, two porch-rail spindles, and six brackets.
Total spent on materials, ~ $60. It would've been less, but I bought the pretty brackets and a yoga mat to use for the padding. The primer and paint was left over from last summer's Paint The Shutters project, and was promptly applied (with much Cursing of Gnats, since the glossy blue Rustoleum is a strange attractor, and for every bug I picked off the surface, two more did the dive-bomb thing). Then, using the pretty brackets, I mounted the plywood to the wall.
This was my first mistake. My second was assuming that the wall and brackets were all built on something approaching straight lines and ninety-degree angles. The end result? My carefully cut-to-measure table legs were far too short, dangling from the tabletop like something MC Escher might have done on purpose.
Me? Not so much.
Well, hell. (Note to self: next time, mount the legs first, then stick it on the wall. I'm sorry to report I was too annoyed to take a picture of my levitating desk.)
Not to be sunk for a second DIY project in a row (or confessing same to Arizona), I invoked Homeowner Logic. To whit: When we bought our cute little house, we replaced the gnarly vinyl stick-on flooring with nice laminate, so I shouldn't put my still-a-little tacky painted table legs directly onto the floor. Instead, this project clearly required a layer of adhesive felt and a pair of rubber furniture feet. Success! (And free, 'cause I already had the felt and the feet.) Which yielded (cue fanfare number two):
(See? Even Pixel T. Kitten approves.)
And would you look at that? My 'hmm, that's about the right color' choice of yoga mats was spot-on.
Okay, so the folding chair (complete with splatters of blue spraypaint from Project New Front Door) is a little grotty, but I'm currently debating between stealing Arizona's desk chair (he keeps talking about replacing it with something taller, after all) and getting one of those inflatable balls and seeing if I can avoid getting bucked off it while I write.
So there you have it! A semi-successful (well, except for the Mickey Mouse shim job on the legs) DIY from Doc Jess. And a couple more pictures, because so often in online interviews, I'm asked what my writing space looks like.
My treadmill desk (a far less sophisticated DIY project, complete with pipe clamps holding it onto the treadmill):
Random bookcase of stuff--a copy of each of my printed books on the top shelf, giveaway books on the bottom, favorite research books second to the bottom, and desk toys and keepsakes in the middle, each with its own story.
And... the view, complete with the all-important kitty shelf! (See? I'm not the only one who likes padding on her horizontal surfaces.)
And that's the end of my tail ... er, tale!
Okay, so maybe I've been doing most of my writing on the living room couch lately. Maybe I haven't been using my treadmill desk nearly as much as I should. And, okay, maybe the whole litter-box-in-the-office routine has put a thick layer of dust on Things That Would Rather Not Be Dusty. In my defense, the rest of the house is clean-ish. (No, autocorrect, I don't mean 'my house is clannish'. It's clean. Ish.) Anyway, I got a wild hair last weekend and launched Operation Office (OpOff).
I cleaned. I dusted. I washed. I decluttered. I donated. And when I was done, I had a small, mostly empty space containing a treadmill, a bookcase, a litter box (now with a lid on it), and an empty wall that was crying out for a little desk.
I had a few criteria for OpDesk: 1) a small surface area, to discourage clutter and fit in the small room; 2) no drawers (ditto); 3) not a lot of $$; 4) zero wobble; and 5) padding on the top (my mountain-biking-dislocated elbow, while back to normal in strength and function, gets sore when I lean on a hard surface for too long). Which left me with ... half of a massage table? An ottoman on stilts? Hm. Hey, wait! thought I. What if I make my own?
Cue trumpets as I hied off to Home Despot (as Arizona calls it) for a quarter sheet of sanded plywood, two porch-rail spindles, and six brackets.
Total spent on materials, ~ $60. It would've been less, but I bought the pretty brackets and a yoga mat to use for the padding. The primer and paint was left over from last summer's Paint The Shutters project, and was promptly applied (with much Cursing of Gnats, since the glossy blue Rustoleum is a strange attractor, and for every bug I picked off the surface, two more did the dive-bomb thing). Then, using the pretty brackets, I mounted the plywood to the wall.
This was my first mistake. My second was assuming that the wall and brackets were all built on something approaching straight lines and ninety-degree angles. The end result? My carefully cut-to-measure table legs were far too short, dangling from the tabletop like something MC Escher might have done on purpose.
Me? Not so much.
Well, hell. (Note to self: next time, mount the legs first, then stick it on the wall. I'm sorry to report I was too annoyed to take a picture of my levitating desk.)
Not to be sunk for a second DIY project in a row (or confessing same to Arizona), I invoked Homeowner Logic. To whit: When we bought our cute little house, we replaced the gnarly vinyl stick-on flooring with nice laminate, so I shouldn't put my still-a-little tacky painted table legs directly onto the floor. Instead, this project clearly required a layer of adhesive felt and a pair of rubber furniture feet. Success! (And free, 'cause I already had the felt and the feet.) Which yielded (cue fanfare number two):
(See? Even Pixel T. Kitten approves.)
And would you look at that? My 'hmm, that's about the right color' choice of yoga mats was spot-on.
Okay, so the folding chair (complete with splatters of blue spraypaint from Project New Front Door) is a little grotty, but I'm currently debating between stealing Arizona's desk chair (he keeps talking about replacing it with something taller, after all) and getting one of those inflatable balls and seeing if I can avoid getting bucked off it while I write.
So there you have it! A semi-successful (well, except for the Mickey Mouse shim job on the legs) DIY from Doc Jess. And a couple more pictures, because so often in online interviews, I'm asked what my writing space looks like.
My treadmill desk (a far less sophisticated DIY project, complete with pipe clamps holding it onto the treadmill):
Random bookcase of stuff--a copy of each of my printed books on the top shelf, giveaway books on the bottom, favorite research books second to the bottom, and desk toys and keepsakes in the middle, each with its own story.
And... the view, complete with the all-important kitty shelf! (See? I'm not the only one who likes padding on her horizontal surfaces.)
And that's the end of my tail ... er, tale!
Monday, September 1, 2014
Here Snakey, Snakey, Snakey ... (aka Domestic Superpowers)
The other day, it went like this:
Me (doing a boogie-woogie victory dance in the living room): That's right. Uh-huh. I rock!
Arizona (looks up from reading on the iPad): What did I miss?
Me: This! (Holds it out with a flourish.) I successfully folded a bottom sheet into almost a rectangle.
Arizona: And this is important because why?
Me: I don't know. It just is. Sometimes. When I feel like bothering. Otherwise they just get wadded up.
Arizona: Um ... Congratulations?
Okay, I'll admit it. Sometimes I still get the occasional "look at me, doing wifey sh*t" moment with him. I like keeping our little house fairly neat, and have been known to mend his clothes, especially when a favorite goes down. As far as he's concerned, I have two domestic superpowers: the ability to iron patches on things (I can and have sewn stuff back together for him, but it's not my favorite, so I'll iron-on wherever possible!); and the ability to rescue the little string or elastic thingie from inside the waistbands of any pair of gym shorts or sweatpants. He was suitably impressed when I recently re-strung a pair that had lost their string entirely (all hail, the power of the extra-long shoelace). Hey, we all have our little moments of brilliance, right?
Now, Arizona was a bachelor for a long time, and is fully capable of taking care of himself ... in a very guy's-guy sort of way involving lots of takeout, frozen pizza, canned chili, and boxes of Triscuits. When we were first dating, I was pretty sure he only had one pair of pants and two shirts--not because they were dirty, but because they got very familiar, very quickly. I later learned that he hates shopping, so when he finds something he likes, he tends to buy multiples, usually in the same color. The joke used to be whether he should wear his tan pants, his tan pants or his tan pants. Lately, he's gone wild and added gray.
The same goes with food. The first time I met Arizona's BFF, he looked in the freezer, snickered, and said, "He's still living on frozen pizza, huh?" Now, granted, that was my freezer, and my now-that-I'm-single-I-can-eat-whatever-I-want diet, but I have since re-emerged into the land of fresh ingredients, salads, and actual cooking. And I'm doing my best to lure Arizona out with me ... with varied success. Grilled chicken, steak or shrimp are all okay, especially if they come with a baked potato or refried beans, bonus points for tortillas, because then I can sneak in some lettuce and fresh tomatoes. Other than that, though ... Well, I'm developing a strategy.
It's called Feed-The-Snake.
On one of the horsey forums I follow, there's a subsection called The Menagerie, where folks get to talk about their other pets. Usually, it's questions about crate training the puppy or 'Why does my cat pee next to the litter box?', but there's a lady on there who has these lovely amelanistic (ha, autocorrect, choke on that!) corn snakes, and breeds one clutch per year. From when they first break their shells (pip), she takes lots of photos, and lets us follow along as they emerge from the eggs, get temperament tested, get their first meals, and go off to their new homes. This year, it's been extra fun because a couple of them were purchased by other members of the forum, who have picked up their stories.
Backing up a little, though. Before they go to their new homes, the breeder lady makes sure they are "confirmed eaters." With some, this means little more than putting the hatchling in a little Tupperware that's different from their home container (so they don't get used to biting finger-sized pink things at random), and dropping in a thawed baby mouse (pinkie). With others, though, she had to get more creative--heating up the pinkies, cooling them down, covering the cage, making the food seem to move ...
Back when I was a little kid, I had a terrarium in my bedroom, and would "borrow" critters (frogs, turtles, snakes, etc.) from the great outdoors, keep them for a couple of days or weeks, and then put them back where I found them. Or I would catch tadpoles or caterpillars, watch them metamorphose into their final forms, and then release the adults. Sometimes, this meant the same sort of tempt-the-critter when it came to eating, with me often putting a bug or bit of meat on the end of a piece of uncooked spaghetti and making it look like it was trying to escape.
Which brings us back to Arizona. When it comes to fruits and veggies, it's not enough to simply dump them in his cage--er, leave them on the counter. Through trial and error, I have uncovered a handful of healthy things that he will eat if I cut them up in bite-size pieces and leave them in front of him while he's in snack mode on the couch. Pepper strips with ranch dressing that he doesn't know is yogurt based, chunks of cored apple, orange sections with all the icky white stuff picked off the outside ... I don't quite have to hold them up and do "Here, snakey, snakey, snakey ... would you like a nice thawed mouse?" But I do it sometimes, because it makes him laugh. And then he eats the darned pepper, because I made it for him, and it's there, and its the right size and shape, and apparently, feeding the snake is another of my domestic superpowers!
What's yours?
Me (doing a boogie-woogie victory dance in the living room): That's right. Uh-huh. I rock!
Arizona (looks up from reading on the iPad): What did I miss?
Me: This! (Holds it out with a flourish.) I successfully folded a bottom sheet into almost a rectangle.
Arizona: And this is important because why?
Me: I don't know. It just is. Sometimes. When I feel like bothering. Otherwise they just get wadded up.
Arizona: Um ... Congratulations?
Okay, I'll admit it. Sometimes I still get the occasional "look at me, doing wifey sh*t" moment with him. I like keeping our little house fairly neat, and have been known to mend his clothes, especially when a favorite goes down. As far as he's concerned, I have two domestic superpowers: the ability to iron patches on things (I can and have sewn stuff back together for him, but it's not my favorite, so I'll iron-on wherever possible!); and the ability to rescue the little string or elastic thingie from inside the waistbands of any pair of gym shorts or sweatpants. He was suitably impressed when I recently re-strung a pair that had lost their string entirely (all hail, the power of the extra-long shoelace). Hey, we all have our little moments of brilliance, right?
Now, Arizona was a bachelor for a long time, and is fully capable of taking care of himself ... in a very guy's-guy sort of way involving lots of takeout, frozen pizza, canned chili, and boxes of Triscuits. When we were first dating, I was pretty sure he only had one pair of pants and two shirts--not because they were dirty, but because they got very familiar, very quickly. I later learned that he hates shopping, so when he finds something he likes, he tends to buy multiples, usually in the same color. The joke used to be whether he should wear his tan pants, his tan pants or his tan pants. Lately, he's gone wild and added gray.
The same goes with food. The first time I met Arizona's BFF, he looked in the freezer, snickered, and said, "He's still living on frozen pizza, huh?" Now, granted, that was my freezer, and my now-that-I'm-single-I-can-eat-whatever-I-want diet, but I have since re-emerged into the land of fresh ingredients, salads, and actual cooking. And I'm doing my best to lure Arizona out with me ... with varied success. Grilled chicken, steak or shrimp are all okay, especially if they come with a baked potato or refried beans, bonus points for tortillas, because then I can sneak in some lettuce and fresh tomatoes. Other than that, though ... Well, I'm developing a strategy.
It's called Feed-The-Snake.
On one of the horsey forums I follow, there's a subsection called The Menagerie, where folks get to talk about their other pets. Usually, it's questions about crate training the puppy or 'Why does my cat pee next to the litter box?', but there's a lady on there who has these lovely amelanistic (ha, autocorrect, choke on that!) corn snakes, and breeds one clutch per year. From when they first break their shells (pip), she takes lots of photos, and lets us follow along as they emerge from the eggs, get temperament tested, get their first meals, and go off to their new homes. This year, it's been extra fun because a couple of them were purchased by other members of the forum, who have picked up their stories.
Backing up a little, though. Before they go to their new homes, the breeder lady makes sure they are "confirmed eaters." With some, this means little more than putting the hatchling in a little Tupperware that's different from their home container (so they don't get used to biting finger-sized pink things at random), and dropping in a thawed baby mouse (pinkie). With others, though, she had to get more creative--heating up the pinkies, cooling them down, covering the cage, making the food seem to move ...
Back when I was a little kid, I had a terrarium in my bedroom, and would "borrow" critters (frogs, turtles, snakes, etc.) from the great outdoors, keep them for a couple of days or weeks, and then put them back where I found them. Or I would catch tadpoles or caterpillars, watch them metamorphose into their final forms, and then release the adults. Sometimes, this meant the same sort of tempt-the-critter when it came to eating, with me often putting a bug or bit of meat on the end of a piece of uncooked spaghetti and making it look like it was trying to escape.
Which brings us back to Arizona. When it comes to fruits and veggies, it's not enough to simply dump them in his cage--er, leave them on the counter. Through trial and error, I have uncovered a handful of healthy things that he will eat if I cut them up in bite-size pieces and leave them in front of him while he's in snack mode on the couch. Pepper strips with ranch dressing that he doesn't know is yogurt based, chunks of cored apple, orange sections with all the icky white stuff picked off the outside ... I don't quite have to hold them up and do "Here, snakey, snakey, snakey ... would you like a nice thawed mouse?" But I do it sometimes, because it makes him laugh. And then he eats the darned pepper, because I made it for him, and it's there, and its the right size and shape, and apparently, feeding the snake is another of my domestic superpowers!
What's yours?
Monday, August 25, 2014
Caption That Photo- The Charity Cowboy Man-Titty Edition
Calling all my wonderfully creative (and occasionally naughty-minded) ReaderFriends! I need slogans for half-naked cowboy types. Think you're up for it?
Okay, here's the sitch: the rescue (fully nonprofit, accredited and aboveboard) at which I volunteer does these really awesome Men of Beech Brook Farm calendars. This involves us posing and photographing half-naked (and sometimes more than half-naked, lol) local hunks--friends and significant others of the volunteers, local athletes, Navy guys, Coast Guardies, etc.--as they interact with the rescue's horses and donkeys. As you might imagine, this is *not* a hardship for most of us.
Then there's Photographer Guy.
Now, PG is plenty openminded and a Very Good Sport--he's a valued volunteer, a board member, the adopter of a rescue horse and a star of the 2015 calendar lineup (and no, I'm not telling you what month). He's also a trained graphic designer, as well as a fellow Battlestar geek and my go-to for movie recommendations. The calendar is his baby, and he does an amazing job. However, this means that over the past few months, poor PG has spent a whole lot of his time posing, photographing, cropping, arranging, rearranging and discussing half-naked male cowboy-types. And, as you might imagine given that I'm involved in said conversations, they don't always stay G-rated.
Okay, they *rarely* stay G-rated. (hangs head) Though in my defense, I wasn't the one that said "Is that a piece of his you-know-what showing?" Which then commenced an extended analysis of the photograph (and flesh-colored object) in question. In great detail. With lots of zoom. And giggling.
(It's a piece of the saddle, by the way. We swear.)
ANYWAY, the photos are in and done, the calendars (complete with centerfold!) are in production for delivery beginning in October, and the pre-order forms are live ... and, like many of us, the rescue is scuffling to make ends meet. We really need this fundraiser to be a success. So we're looking for ways to get the word out! PG, being a Very Good Sport, came up with this flier:
Which I think is pretty awesome. And, no, I wouldn't mind nailing--er, pinning that guy to my wall. (I would apologize to Arizona for that, but he enjoys a good cheerleader carwash as much as the next guy.) When PG posted this, though, and suggested that we do a new one each month he added a semi-plaintive: "Could you guys come up with the rest of the slogans? It's really not my thing."
So, to help out poor Photographer Guy, I'm appealing to you! I need some pithy sayings that we can pair up with pictures of horses and hunky men. They should be naughty but not too naughty (though if you want to get raunchy in the comment trail, be my guest), and make us want to have a copy of the Men of Beech Brook 2015 hanging on our walls.
And ... go!
Oh, and want to pin that guy to your wall, or know somebody who would? Preorder here!
Okay, here's the sitch: the rescue (fully nonprofit, accredited and aboveboard) at which I volunteer does these really awesome Men of Beech Brook Farm calendars. This involves us posing and photographing half-naked (and sometimes more than half-naked, lol) local hunks--friends and significant others of the volunteers, local athletes, Navy guys, Coast Guardies, etc.--as they interact with the rescue's horses and donkeys. As you might imagine, this is *not* a hardship for most of us.
Then there's Photographer Guy.
Now, PG is plenty openminded and a Very Good Sport--he's a valued volunteer, a board member, the adopter of a rescue horse and a star of the 2015 calendar lineup (and no, I'm not telling you what month). He's also a trained graphic designer, as well as a fellow Battlestar geek and my go-to for movie recommendations. The calendar is his baby, and he does an amazing job. However, this means that over the past few months, poor PG has spent a whole lot of his time posing, photographing, cropping, arranging, rearranging and discussing half-naked male cowboy-types. And, as you might imagine given that I'm involved in said conversations, they don't always stay G-rated.
Okay, they *rarely* stay G-rated. (hangs head) Though in my defense, I wasn't the one that said "Is that a piece of his you-know-what showing?" Which then commenced an extended analysis of the photograph (and flesh-colored object) in question. In great detail. With lots of zoom. And giggling.
(It's a piece of the saddle, by the way. We swear.)
ANYWAY, the photos are in and done, the calendars (complete with centerfold!) are in production for delivery beginning in October, and the pre-order forms are live ... and, like many of us, the rescue is scuffling to make ends meet. We really need this fundraiser to be a success. So we're looking for ways to get the word out! PG, being a Very Good Sport, came up with this flier:
Which I think is pretty awesome. And, no, I wouldn't mind nailing--er, pinning that guy to my wall. (I would apologize to Arizona for that, but he enjoys a good cheerleader carwash as much as the next guy.) When PG posted this, though, and suggested that we do a new one each month he added a semi-plaintive: "Could you guys come up with the rest of the slogans? It's really not my thing."
So, to help out poor Photographer Guy, I'm appealing to you! I need some pithy sayings that we can pair up with pictures of horses and hunky men. They should be naughty but not too naughty (though if you want to get raunchy in the comment trail, be my guest), and make us want to have a copy of the Men of Beech Brook 2015 hanging on our walls.
And ... go!
Oh, and want to pin that guy to your wall, or know somebody who would? Preorder here!
Monday, August 18, 2014
A Laxative Walks Into A Bar ...
Do not fire nail gun at people, pets or windows. Do not stick fingers in moving blade of finish mower. Do not get clothes caught in PTO drive of tractor. Do not drive tractor under low power lines with the bucket up. Unplug wood chipper before clearing jam. Do not handle chainsaw by its blade ... Back when I had the farm, I used to love collecting the craziest warning cartoons from the various pieces of equipment we amassed over the years, and speculate on the real-life situations that prompted them.
(Which is an admittedly gruesome hobby, but, hey! We all get our jollies where we can find them.)
The other day, though, I was putting away some stuff in the bathroom, and caught sight of the following on the box of an ear-wax-removing kit: Never use toothpicks or hairpins to remove wax from the ear canal. And I thought "Whaaa ...?"
You know how little snippets of favorite books get stuck in your brain? Well, one of mine is from one of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books, in which Ford (I think?) discusses finding detailed instructions on the side of a box of toothpicks, and knowing that the human race was ultimately doomed, because any species that needs help picking stuff out of their teeth with a stick is really beyond help.
So the discovery of this little earwax gem got me wondering what other silliness might exist in my bathroom cabinet. I did a little rummaging around, and found the following:
On a bottle of painkillers: Do not take this product if you have an allergy to it. An allergic reaction may follow. (Paging Captain Obvious.)
On my solid antiperspirant: Do not ingest. (Doc Jess pictures herself thinking, "Wow, it's really hot out today, I better eat a whole stick before my date." *Nibbles on a stick of Lady's Choice.*)
On a bottle of spray sunscreen, a tube of aloe-based sunburn creme and a box of the fizzy denture cleaner I use on my Invisaligns: Not for Internal Use. (Because, really, I worry about my sunburning my internal organs, and it'd be easy to confuse my denture cleaner with my Tums. Not.)
But my favorite comes from a bottle of laxative tablets: Store at 25C (77F). Excursions permitted between 15-30C (59-86F). I had never before considered taking laxatives out on an excursion. Where do you think they would like to go? The beach, perhaps, or out to a movie? The mind boggles.
Okay, so maybe I didn't find any laughably dire warnings on my hair drier (I think that particular label fell off, and I know enough not to dry my hair whilst showering) or my pillow (I long ago tore off the tag that said "Do not tear off", 'cause I'm a rebel like that). But it turns out there's more entertainment in the bathroom cabinet than I would've thought. And that was just one shelf! One of these days, I'll go through the rest and report back. In the meantime, I'm taking my laxatives to the zoo.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Brain Bleach on Aisle Five, Please! (And a confetti cannon moment)
The other day, it went like this:
Arizona (perusing one of his online fishing forums): Do you know this guy? There's a joke I'm not getting. (shows me the following picture):
Me: Hmm. I dunno. One of the dudes from Duck Dynasty, sans beard? (pauses) Or, ha ha, one of the guys from Deliverance, maybe? We could do a Google image search.
Arizona: You can do that?
(We all have our little skills. Mine is the ability to find most anything on Google within a relatively short period of time. I'm sure the average six-year-old could kick my ass, but as far as Arizona is concerned, I'm a black belt in Google-Fu.)
Me: Sure. You just do this ... and this ... and ... What do you know? It *is* one of the guys from Deliverance. Yikes. I saw the movie once, back in high school. Guess it left a mark.
And when I say 'in high school,' I mean it. History class, last period, junior or senior year. The prof sent around a permission slip, asking our parents to sign off on us seeing it, and opt-outs were sent off to study hall. Then, for three afternoons running, we watched Deliverance. And after that last chunk, we all walked out of the classroom, shaking our heads and muttering the late-80s version of WTF?
There wasn't any in-class discussion before or after, no sense of what we were supposed to take away. It wasn't the first movie we had seen in class, but the others had been war movies-- 1776, The Red Badge of Courage, The Great Escape ... They had at least related to what we were studying at the time.
But Deliverance? What were we supposed to take from that? Be wary of banjos? (Prior to seeing the movie, I had a worn Earl Scruggs tape that I loved to death, rewinding the banjo duel over and over again. After the movie? Less so.) Don't go camping? Or, if you do go camping, watch out that your party doesn't undergo a breakdown of its mini-society? Don't wander off into the woods? Unclear. But whatever the message, something clearly stuck, because twenty-some years later, I had that search image stuck firmly in my head, and it brought with it a creeping sense of 'someone is watching you from the bushes.'
Yikes! Brain bleach on aisle five, please, because clearly that left more of a mark than I realized! So how about you? What movie left a horrifying-funny mental mark on you? Did Jaws forever ruin you for swimming off Cape Cod? Did It make you a coulrophobe (someone who's afraid of clowns)? Share, please, and make me feel better!
And, in the meantime, a confetti cannon! (Jess tries and fails to put an animated cartoon confetti cannon here. Please imagine one.)
Harvest at Mustang Ridge spent a chunk of last week in Amazon's top 10 for Western Romances, and cracked the top 100 for Hot New Releases in Contemporary Romance! Woo! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who purchased Krista and Wyatt's story. And for those of you who are still on the fence, now is a great time to dip you boots into the world of Mustang Ridge! It even had a price drop today! (Okay, from $5.99 to $5.97, but still ... LOL.)
Click on the book cover for the Amazon link, or click here for an excerpt :) And THANK YOU!
Arizona (perusing one of his online fishing forums): Do you know this guy? There's a joke I'm not getting. (shows me the following picture):
Me: Hmm. I dunno. One of the dudes from Duck Dynasty, sans beard? (pauses) Or, ha ha, one of the guys from Deliverance, maybe? We could do a Google image search.
Arizona: You can do that?
(We all have our little skills. Mine is the ability to find most anything on Google within a relatively short period of time. I'm sure the average six-year-old could kick my ass, but as far as Arizona is concerned, I'm a black belt in Google-Fu.)
Me: Sure. You just do this ... and this ... and ... What do you know? It *is* one of the guys from Deliverance. Yikes. I saw the movie once, back in high school. Guess it left a mark.
And when I say 'in high school,' I mean it. History class, last period, junior or senior year. The prof sent around a permission slip, asking our parents to sign off on us seeing it, and opt-outs were sent off to study hall. Then, for three afternoons running, we watched Deliverance. And after that last chunk, we all walked out of the classroom, shaking our heads and muttering the late-80s version of WTF?
There wasn't any in-class discussion before or after, no sense of what we were supposed to take away. It wasn't the first movie we had seen in class, but the others had been war movies-- 1776, The Red Badge of Courage, The Great Escape ... They had at least related to what we were studying at the time.
But Deliverance? What were we supposed to take from that? Be wary of banjos? (Prior to seeing the movie, I had a worn Earl Scruggs tape that I loved to death, rewinding the banjo duel over and over again. After the movie? Less so.) Don't go camping? Or, if you do go camping, watch out that your party doesn't undergo a breakdown of its mini-society? Don't wander off into the woods? Unclear. But whatever the message, something clearly stuck, because twenty-some years later, I had that search image stuck firmly in my head, and it brought with it a creeping sense of 'someone is watching you from the bushes.'
Yikes! Brain bleach on aisle five, please, because clearly that left more of a mark than I realized! So how about you? What movie left a horrifying-funny mental mark on you? Did Jaws forever ruin you for swimming off Cape Cod? Did It make you a coulrophobe (someone who's afraid of clowns)? Share, please, and make me feel better!
And, in the meantime, a confetti cannon! (Jess tries and fails to put an animated cartoon confetti cannon here. Please imagine one.)
Harvest at Mustang Ridge spent a chunk of last week in Amazon's top 10 for Western Romances, and cracked the top 100 for Hot New Releases in Contemporary Romance! Woo! Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who purchased Krista and Wyatt's story. And for those of you who are still on the fence, now is a great time to dip you boots into the world of Mustang Ridge! It even had a price drop today! (Okay, from $5.99 to $5.97, but still ... LOL.)
Click on the book cover for the Amazon link, or click here for an excerpt :) And THANK YOU!
Monday, August 4, 2014
I Am Mean To Naked People (and a NEW BOOK!)
No, I’m not mean to my new book. I’m asking you to pretty
please buy a copy of HARVEST AT MUSTANG RIDGE, which will be in stores (online
and a few select physical locations) tomorrow!
Click here for an excerpt!! Click here for buy links!!! Click here to get Jess to stop abusing
exclamation points!!!! (Just kidding. There’s no app for that.)
I am, however, mean to naked people, as it turns out.
Admittedly, Arizona and I don’t have the most highbrow of
taste when it comes to TV viewing. (Or, really, much of anything, save for
sports equipment and my Western boots.) So it isn’t unusual for the following
conversation to take place:
Arizona (flipping channels): Is there a new Naked People on
soon?
Me: Sunday night, I think.
Arizona: Cool. Maybe these two will do something more
interesting than sit around and starve.
In this case, the naked people belong to the Discovery
Channel show, Naked and Afraid, where
two strangers, one man and one woman, are dropped somewhere isolated and
environmentally hostile, with one piece of gear a piece (usually a machete and
fire-starter, though the latter can vary if one of them—usually the guy—views
him/herself as a magician when it comes to starting fire with a bow drill).
Then they’re filmed for twenty-one days of survival, and an eventual trek out
to an extraction point some distance away from their campsite.
Before and after the ordeal, they are rated based on their
experience, abilities, and mental toughness. Otherwise known as “Have you ever
made a fire?” “Can you find food?” and “Can you manage not to tap out or be a
total douche (or bitch) to your partner for three weeks?” The latter seems to
be the tipping point for most of them.
The show appeals to Arizona’s survivalist tendencies, though
from his running commentary, I suspect he would be off making his own camp by
day three if paired with most of the people on the show, male or female. Me? I
watch the show strictly for his MST3000-like asides, which elevate things to a
whole new level. I didn’t think I was much of a fan.
The other day, though, I was channel surfing and stumbled
across something called Naked Dating.
And I thought “Why not?” Here’s the setup: A naked guy gets set up with a naked
girl on your typical TV-type date at some swanky beach resort, they like each
other well enough, and express mutual affection. Then the naked guy gets set up
with a hotter naked girl, while the naked girl gets set up with a less
confident, less charming naked guy. When the four mingle, Naked Girl 1 gets the
cold shoulder from Naked Guy 1, and angst ensues.
And guess what? Turns out I would much rather watch naked
people get dropped on some mountain in Belize, where they freeze their butts
off, get chewed on by a cloud of mosquitos! Because if I'm going to watch two people be naked and miserable, I'd way rather it be in a situation where some ingenuity and teamwork can get things done ;)
How about you? What’s your guilty viewing pleasure? Are you
a fan of cheesy shark movies on SyFy? A closet watcher of Toddlers and Tiaras? Soaps? Judge
Judy? ‘Fess up!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)