In Gratitude for Friendship

"The friendship that can cease has never been real." - Saint Jerome

Okay, as promised, part two of my eight day sojourn south. I left my friends and their new black lab puppy and headed around the beltway to Springfield, where I met up with more friends from childhood. Can you say Chicago/Beach Boys concert? We were there, whatever summer that was—1974, I think it was, maybe 1975. Anyway, the three of us went out to dinner at their favorite restaurant, a wonderfully trendy place where I had the tastiest filet mignon and real mashed potatoes made from red-skinned potatoes.

I’m the kind of girl who would rather have a second helping of mashed potatoes than dessert, so I was in hog heaven. Those potatoes were my dessert! Afterward, we went back to their house, where they invited me to try out their new wireless internet thingy---it wasn’t a computer, but you could check your email and surf the internet on it--so check my email I did, for the first time in four days.

Amazing how quickly it piles up—and how quickly you can forget all about it—which is what I did at the conference. Totally. Didn’t give the internet a second thought. I was on vacation. The lobby of my floor, however, was a mysterious pocket of free wireless in a hotel that charged $12.95 a day for internet use, and $3.95 for 15 minutes of use down in the lobby, ka-ching ka-ching, so every time I stepped off the elevator, there were people left and right hunched over as many laptops as in a computer showroom. Over the course of four days, I watched our floor’s secret grow and grow. Nearly 2000 writers and free internet?...you do the math.

My friend’s husband went to bed and she and I sat up late into the night, talking books and trips. She’s a librarian and had attended the RWA booksellers and librarians luncheon the day before the conference, so we’d missed each other at the hotel. The national conference is known for passing out free books—each publisher hosts an autographing of their authors and provides the books for it—but the booksellers luncheon is a true bonanza. My friend came home with four shopping bags full of books.

Fortunately, she can donate the booty where she works, so even more readers will be able to enjoy them. Me, I managed to keep my take down to only a dozen books I don’t have time to read, knowing I’d just have to carry them back on the subway. But if you plan to attend a RWA conference, I’d suggest bringing a second carry-on size suitcase (empty) just to take home the free books. Every time we sat down to a meal there were free books on our seats. We also got free books in our free extra-sturdy tote bags provided by Harlequin, celebrating its 60th year in business.

Anyway, my friend and I talked about going to the RWA conference in Nashville together next year (still up in the air), and made tentative plans to take a trip to Ireland together in about eighteen months or so. Just enough time to save up for it and go. She’s on her way to London in the fall, but I’ve already been to Florida and DC this year, so it’s time to step back and save my pennies for a while.

The next morning we had breakfast, I checked my email again, and headed off toward the Chesapeake Bay for my next stop, the home of another childhood friend, the sister of my friend in Rockville (their brother was my 6th grade boyfriend.). She lives in a delightful beach community. Before I was even out of the car, the neighbor across the street was over offering to help if I needed anything. I just handed the phone out to him so he could talk to my friend directly, whom I had called to let her know I’d arrived.

My friend recently lost her husband, so I’m glad she lives in a community where they look out for each other. I spent the afternoon reading and resting and catching up on my laundry, an unexpected bonus, since I was now out of my conference clothes and into my casual wear. That night we went out to dinner at a steak and seafood restaurant on a pier at a marina. We sat on a picnic bench outside, ate our broiled scallops and fried oysters in the balmy breeze, and watched the lights come on in the boats on the water and the array of stately homes that lined the waterfront.

We also had a beer, my second of the year. For that story, read my blog post from the Florida cruise. After I ordered mine she looked at me knowingly and asked, “When’s the last time you had a beer?” I smiled proudly… “January.”

I’m such a wild woman, I know. We sat there, two friends of 40 years, sipped our beers, and talked about life and love and loss, until it was time to go. Then we went home and made peach tea with fresh mint and stayed up late talking some more, while she showed me the bead jewelry she makes and sells at craft fairs. She asked me to pick something out and I went to bed with six bracelets and a necklace, undecided. The next day I chose one bracelet and bought two more.

The following day, another friend from our childhood arrived. (I told you there were three of them, remember?) I’d called her the day before and asked if we could get together for lunch. Said I’d be happy to meet her half way or even drive all the way down to the county where we grew up and she still lives. But no, she wanted to come up and see everybody, so she all but dropped everything and came right up—on crutches, no less. She fell off a ladder cleaning windows and has been on crutches for two months.

We spent the afternoon catching up—I hadn’t seen her in three years, since my high school reunion—until my hostess got home from work. Then the Rockville contingent arrived (including the new puppy and its sleep-deprived family) and we all went back to the same steak and seafood restaurant on the water for dinner. Theirs was not the only dog present on the pier as we ate and took pictures and teased and reminisced. The Rockville group left right after dinner, no doubt to go home and catch some Zzzz’s. A sound plan, as long as the puppy didn’t sleep all the way home :).

Back to my friend’s house, where the three remaining women stayed up too late again, once again drinking tea and talking about love and loss—and faith. How faith gets you through. Both of my friends are overnight widows. One minute they had husbands and the next---they did not. One killed by a drunk driver, another lost to a heart attack. Then there’s me, divorced after 16 years of marriage. As one of them asked, “Who would have thought that three out of four of us would end up single in our fifties?”

You never know. And that is why friendships like ours are so important. So that you have someone in your life who will tack a couple of days onto a trip and come and have a beer with you at a picnic table on a pier. Or one who will drop everything and borrow a car (hers was in the shop) and drive a couple of hours (while on crutches!) to see you.

Here’s to 40 years of friendship, ladies, through good times and bad. I love you.

My Trip to Florida - The Last Installment

Time to wrap up my blog on my trip to Florida. Tomorrow I am blogging as part of the Romancing February group promotion, and Wednesday we have an interview with TWRP author Melissa Blue. Then it will be time for FWL again. How fast the weeks go.

I spent a full day with Dayana Knight before having to return to the frigid north. Her DH, Dayana and I started out with a leisurely breakfast at a real diner—I love diners and was thrilled to go to this one, which I had seen from across the street when we had our FRW cruise kick-off party at the Ale House. I had an awesome Mediterranean omelet (yes, I can still remember it weeks later, it was that good) and probably some home fries. Sorry, the omelet caught all my attention. I am definitely going to start using more feta cheese when I make eggs. The combination of flavors is…making me hungry again.

Then Dayana and I drove back up the coast for a boat ride on The Jungle Queen Riverboat, which took us through the intercoastal waterways of Ft. Lauderdale, where we saw rows upon rows of up to $30 million dollar mansions and $15 million dollar boats, some of them three stories high—like mini-cruise ships, they were—docked next to the houses. Houses and boats owned by federal judges and actors and the heads of mega-companies like Firestone, Waste Management, The Sunglass Hut and some Miami Dolphins. Houses used by film crews as locations for Al Pacino and Jim Carrey movies and others I can’t remember. Menopause, you know. It fogs the brain.

But now and then, in between these magnificent mansions, were these little flat-topped summer cottages from the 50s and 60s before big money decided to take over Florida, so you could get a glimpse of what was there before the mansions multiplied. I got the sense that before it became so developed, Ft. Lauderdale was just a place where the family went for vacation or to get away for the weekend and do a little boating to relax.

What was really surprising was the number of for sale and foreclosure signs on both the houses and the boats. The big ones. Not the little ones. The families who own the little ones, I am sure, are aware that they are sitting on potential gold mines when they finally decide to sell.

Still, I got the feeling the people who owned those humongous houses were so busy off making money to support them (the taxes alone on one house was $200,000) that they didn’t have time to enjoy them. The countless colorful iguanas sunning themselves on the docks and tree limbs had more life in them than I could see stirring in those houses.

The cruise took us to a little island where we could get something to eat and drink, stretch our legs and witness some alligator wrestling. We were directed to a pit where there were two alligators and a wrestler. The wrestler grabbed the alligator’s tail to shake it out of its somnolent state, and to show us how dangerous they could be when riled.

After a few vicious snaps, the wrestler approached the alligator from behind and in a very Zen, breath-holding for the audience way, climbed on its back and secured its legs with his own. Then he managed to reach around and slowly pull the alligator’s head up until its snout was pointing in the air and the man could tuck the snout beneath his chin and hold out his arms and keep the alligator immobile using his strength and chin.

At that point, the wrestler said there was no good reason for him to be doing what he was doing, and he lost me. I’m not into animal cruelty, even for alligators. Dayana and I wandered off to a nearby booth, where another man was selling Indian jewelry and dreamcatchers and sunscreen and photo ops for people wanting to hold a baby alligator.

That was where we learned that the reason they pull the alligator’s head up so high is to shut off the blood flow to the walnut-sized brain, and the real danger is when the blood flow returns and the alligator emerges from his man-induced fog in a reptilian fury.

He told us before the advent of casinos, alligator wrestling was the primary tourist attraction to generate income for the Seminole Indians. Now, the alligator wrestlers are hired by the state to go out and remove alligators when they wander too far from what little is left of their wild, and start scaring people. It’s either call in an alligator wrestler or shoot the damn thing. So they consider it a rescue mission of sorts. They’re saving the alligator from certain death.

He paused often in his story telling to listen to what was happening over at the pit. He said he needed to be on alert in case something went wrong and he had to jump in and wrestle the alligator. A couple of weeks ago, a wrestler lost part of his hand. Young kid, he said, thought he knew everything. He said part of the problem was they weren’t allowed to go all out in wrestling the alligators like they do in the wild. Then, it’s just man vs. beast and all bets are off, because both of them are fighting for their lives.

He said he does it for the adrenaline high, because there’s no money in it anymore, and no company will insure him—would you? He said he lives in downtown Ft. Lauderdale and has four alligators of his own, at least one raised from a baby. Kinda makes you wonder what the neighbors think about that :).

He also said the animal rights people are always coming to the island and giving them grief about the alligator wrestling, to which he says, “Did you arrive here by boat?” Because there are signs posted everywhere that this is a manatee zone, and, “I can’t tell you how many manatees I have seen with slash marks across their backs from propeller cuts.”

I, unfortunately, didn’t see a single manatee, but I can’t imagine how they survive with all those monster boats trolling up and down the canals.

Time to go back down the river, and see downtown Ft. Lauderdale and the prison and lots of fun-looking restaurants. But we were headed home, where Dayana’s DH had been slaving away making dinner and we had another fine meal of rice, steamed veggies, salad, and the best roast chicken I can remember tasting. Melt in your mouth tender, it was. A little classical music, some wine before the fire—I could have watched that fire all night—a leisurely walk around the block with Gypsy, and then we settled in to watch The Lake House, with Sandra Bullock.

Dayana’s DH couldn’t help but laugh at the way Dayana and I tore that movie apart, being writers, you know. We analyze everything.

We also made plans to do it again sometime, maybe take a long weekend and visit the Keys.

The next morning it was off to the airport, and back home to the frozen tundra. But as the plane flew over Florida, I couldn’t help but think, that with all the pink and coral and blue painted houses down there, the landscape looked like one of those beautiful beaded jackets, with soft pastel colors and sparkly baubles.

Cruise With Your Muse - The Final Hours

Okay, Cruise With Your Muse, day two and more…I left you hanging at The Dungeon. Well, not really, but I’ve been so busy working on Justice is a Lady (85 pages this weekend!!) that I haven’t gotten around to blogging. If I’m writing this, I’m not writing books, and if I’m writing books, I don’t have time to blog. Funny how that works.

A good thing I paused, though, because I forgot to mention Christina Dodd’s speech on The Sidewalk of Success, and how we all fall off of it now and then, but the important thing is to get back on it. And we can step back on it at any time. Success is relative. It can mean finishing a manuscript, querying an editor, getting an agent, that first sale, a multiple book sale, or hitting the NYT bestsellers list…you decide what success is to you and go for it.

Christina also told us about her first sale, Candle in the Window, which she was told would never sell because it has a blind heroine. Now, 16 years later, it’s still in print, and around her house they call it, “The book that won’t die.” Don't know about you, but I'd love to have a book that sells for sixteen years:) I read it way back when it came out, and it’s on my keeper shelf to this day. Precisely because the heroine was different.

So after that very inspirational talk, they had a drawing for a full ride to (oh, darn…I can’t remember now) someone’s very nice conference in the fall—plane fare, lodging and conference fee—about a $1000 prize, tickets were $10 each--donated by Heather Graham, which was won by M.A. Ellis, that dynamo of promotion I told you about earlier. I’m telling you, positive energy attracts positive things and I couldn’t have been more thrilled for her when she won. She was just glowing.

You can bet she will be selling her books left and right at that conference, too. M.A. actually lives about 45 minutes down the road from me and maybe we’ll get together for lunch or something to talk writing and marketing. It’s on my list of summer activities to consider. Maybe we’ll even have a beer. You know I’m all about multi-tasking. Why else would I attend a conference on a cruise ship?

Okay, so off I went to change for dinner and attend the FRW cocktail party in The Dungeon, a cavernous bar with low ceilings, and very low blue, almost black lighting. Lots of gothic-looking statues in alcoves. I spent the time sitting in a dark corner catching up with Maggie Toussaint and enjoying a very tasty rum punch. Then it was time to toddle off to for dinner, for our singing wait staff and another fabulous meal. I’d held back on dessert the night before, but this time I was going all out.

The first night I had pork medallions with mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes. I went for the mushrooms every chance I got on this trip, since nobody at home likes them. Tonight it was these little steak tenderloins with vegetables grilled to perfection, and this awesome pumpkin-apple soup. The group at the table ordered multiple appetizers and we shared. In addition to the soup offerings we had some kind of toasted ravioli and cool shrimp cocktail. We did the same for dessert—key lime cheesecake and strawberry shortcake were the ones I tasted. (Yes, I did gain three pounds on the trip, which took me two weeks to work off at the Y but it’s all gone now and only the memories remain :).

Afterward, I went back to my room and set my luggage outside the room in preparation for leaving the next day, then trekked through the casino and to the other end of the ship (one...more…time) to catch a stage show of hits from the 40s, 50s, 60’s etc., ending with this weird tribute to ABBA. The costumes were very white and space-cadet like. But I enjoyed it, and then headed back across the length of the rocking ship to sleep like a baby once again.

Breakfast was in the buffet lounge, and I sat with Rhonda Penders, Sandra Kay and Tina Gayle from TWRP as we loaded up our plates one last time before disembarking. We were already in port, and had all been assigned different departure times, based on cabin location. Finally I caught up with Rhonda outside of customs, where Mona Risk and her husband gave us a ride back to the motel, and we met up with Dayana Knight and went to---what else—a bookstore!

We noshed on some quiche and chocolate in the café before heading off to Dayana’s for the afternoon and using her computers to check our emails. Then we did some driving around sightseeing before we headed out to The Olive Garden for more good food. Afterward, we spotted a shiny new pink car and I took Rhonda's picture next to it so she could tell RJ, “Look what I bought!” on the TWRP company credit card :).

We then drove up the coast and took Rhonda to meet a friend she was staying with for a few days of well-deserved down time. Back at Dayana’s, nirvana awaited. Florida might have been balmy to me, coming from the sub-zero north, but Dayana thought it was cool out, so we turned down the lights, had some tea and visited while watching the fire.

I think it was the best moment of the trip for me. Comfortable clothes, a full belly, a cup of tea and good company in front of a cozy fire. My idea of what life is all about. As Dayana and I talked (we’d never met before), we decided we had to be twins separated at birth. We uncovered similarity after similarity…and we even had the same shower curtain and rug, both purchased around the same time, many years before. It was a hoot.

More next time on Millionaire’s Row and alligator wrestling….

Flying to Florida - Cruise With Your Muse

Last week this time I was just getting back from my trip to Florida. So many impressions to blog about, so little time. If I’m doing this, I’m not working on my WIP, but if I don’t do this, the moment will get away from me. A few TWRP authors have already blogged about the cruise and weekend, Dayana Knight, my wonderful hostess after the cruise, Sandra Kay, whom I met in the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, and Mona Risk, who was kind enough to give Rhonda and I a ride from the cruise ship back to the hotel so Dayana could pick us up for our adventures afterward. So I won’t repeat what they said here.

My trip started when my friend Wendy picked me up to take me to the airport. We stopped at McDonald’s along the way for what I like to call “road trip” food, and a couple of Egg McMuffins later, we were on our way. My first flight was in what I’ve heard called a “puddle jumper,” a small commuter plane to Detroit with teeny tiny seats you can barely fit into. I sat in the back row and looked and chatted with the flight attendant, who had been 7 minutes late to work because of needing to clean her car off of snow and ice, and got more beautiful each time she passed by, as she was putting on her make up between seeing to passengers and passing out cups of water. Me, I’d had a choice between putting on make up or vaccuming the living room before I left, so I chose to vacuum. Call me weird, but I like to come home to a neat and orderly house after a long trip, not chaos :).

As I looked out the window, I saw miles and miles of perfectly delineated squares in the countryside. Nothing but white and these almost regimented squares created by the cleared off roads separating them. I looked down at all those neat, orderly squares and rectangles, and smiled and thought, “How God must laugh at us,” trying to create order and establish ownership over something that isn’t really ours anyway—we just like to think it is. I got the feeling of “This is yours and that’s mine, and you’d better not cross the line without good reason unless I invite you to.”

I saw a city in the distance, and, being geographically challenged, thought it might be Cleveland. Turns out it was Windsor, Ontario. We were flying over Canada.

We landed in Detroit, and I spent two hours exploring the airport. They have this awesome tunnel there between terminals where they play music and the colors of the walls change according to the colors of the rainbow, or the chakras, if you're into New Age things. Some of it was light and uplifting, other parts were downright creepy, with the walls all dark and red, and ominous music playing. Passenger reactions were mixed. Some were enjoying the light/music show, others were trying to escape it, moving as fast as they could. Inside the main terminal they had an unmanned subway-type train that went from one end of the terminal to the other. Since I had time and wanted the exercise, I walked to my gate, but after I found it, I went exploring, and took a ride on the train. In less than two minutes, you could get from one stop to the other. Good to know if you were in a hurry to catch your flight.

Something prompted me to buy something to eat, which turned out to be a good idea, since, much to my surprise, no meal was served on the flight from Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale. But you could buy a snack pack for $5 if you wanted to. I opened my chicken Ceasar salad and tried not to feel guilty for eating while my seatmates didn’t.

Got to see Cape Canaveral on the way down the Florida coast, and the Everglades (what is left of them) and Lake Okeechobee. How the landscape has changed in the 33 years since I took my senior class trip down to Tampa. And not for the good of the ecosystem, but that’s not what this blog is about. It’s just something I observed many times over on the trip.

Landed in Florida, and got my luggage back (thank God) and decided I was the only person in the airport still carrying a suitcase. Note to self: before your next trip, get one of those suitcases with a handle and rollers. Never have I been so glad that I work out at the Y as when I was lugging my 35 pound suitcase from point to point, dodging porters, as I had no idea where I was headed, and didn’t want to tie one up while I searched for my hotel shuttle.

Found the shuttle and met Sandra and got to the hotel, where my roommate Rhonda was already checked in. More lugging of the suitcase to our room on the other side of the outdoor pool and bar where people were already celebrating Happy Hour. It’s always five o’clock somewhere, right?

In the room, I discovered the air conditioning was not working and Rhonda had already called the maintenance people to come and fix it once. Not good enough, I said, thinking of a night of hot flashes in a motel room with no A/C. Rhonda called down to the desk, and we changed rooms. Yet more lugging of suitcases up and down the outside corridors.

We visited a while, then went downstairs to meet the others for dinner at a party put on by The Florida Romance Writers, where I got to meet fellow Roses Linda Carroll-Bradd and her husband and Dayana, and Maggie Toussaint, and Tina Gayle and Patrice Wilton and too many FRW authors to name. Rhonda is a circulator, and I’m the kind of person who finds a corner and stays in it, so she went off to do her thing and I enjoyed talking with the people closest to me.

Dinner was awesome, but our little group didn’t stay long, as all of us get up early, had had long days and were tired. Back to the motel for phone calls with family, a little more chatting with Rhonda, and a very good night’s sleep, thanks to the extra comfortable beds and working air conditioning :).

More next time when I get to it, as I’m running out of time this morning…but for an advance peek, check out the blogs Dayana, Sandra and Mona wrote. Sadly, a few days after our wonderful weekend together, Dayana lost her beautiful Sheltie Gypsy Lee to cancer, just another reminder of how fragile life can be. She seemed to be doing so well while I was there, we even went for a lovely evening walk, and they were so hopeful about remission.

So be sure to hug your loved ones today, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.