Okay, maybe closer to purple. Not on purpose. It was one of those bright ideas that seem so harmless at the time. “Hey! I think I’ll try a different hair color!” And then I picked out The Box Of Doom and now my hair is…blue.
Well, it’s different all right. After I give it a couple of weeks to grow out, I am going back to normal. Meanwhile, I’m blue. Navy blue. Deep violet. If only it was around Halloween, I could pretend I meant to turn myself into Elvira Mistress of the Dark.
RTR has reviewed The Gripping Beast!
“For time-travel romance lovers, this one is a must read and even if you don’t enjoy time-travel romances; The Gripping Beast is worth a try!!!” – Susan Tam for The Road to Romance
Wahoo! Must read, does it get better than that? 😆
Brain still busy. Made it through one entire week of Atkins with no caffeine, and nobody got hurt. Now starting week two. I think this may be the first book I’ve ever finished without caffeine and chocolate. Or pizza.
Swiped this one from Sylvia. Brain still busy.
4 movies you would watch over and over:
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Mummy, The Thing, Army of Darkness
4 places you have lived:
California, Idaho, Washington, New Hampshire
4 TV shows you love to watch:
Monk, Kim Possible, Scrubs, still missing Tru Calling
4 places you have been on vacation:
Vegas, Kuaii, Warm Lake, Stanley ID
4 Websites you visit daily:
One Look, PBW’s, The Witch’s Voice, my Yahoo mail page (because mail doesn’t download unless you pay for the service, so I have to check it online)
4 of your favorite foods:
I’m skipping this one since I’m on Atkins Day 7. You don’t want to know what I’m eating.
4 places you would rather be right now:
In bed, in Hawaii, Deception Pass, or a BIG library
I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Siberia around the year 975.
Your profession was that of a designer, engineer or craftsman.
Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
You always liked to travel and to investigate. You could have been a detective or a spy.
The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
You fulfill your lesson by helping old folks and children. You came to this life to learn to care about the weak and the helpless.
Do you remember now?
No, but this explains the small helpless people I spend my waking hours tending to. I do love travel and investigation, which I get to do vicariously through research and writing.
Find out about your past life here. Link swiped from PBW. Yes, I’m doing what everybody else in blogland is doing this week because my brain is busy. Must. Finish. Book.
Diana’s doing it. Everybody else is doing it. And I don’t really have a topic today, so…here’s the opening of my first book!
Disclaimer: my first book sold, which is very unusual. But not without some in-depth revision. And I didn’t try to write a novel until I’d spent years writing other things. Poetry, short stories, essays. By the time I wrote a novel I’d gotten an award in the Presidential essay contest, had two short stories and some poetry published and sold commercial verse for greeting cards. And it wasn’t my first novel sale, so thank God I didn’t stop at one.
Catalyst by Charlene Teglia copyright 2005 Cerridwen Press, all rights reserved.
The Notice to Quit came on white, legal-sized paper in typically official-looking print and intimidating language. Like most legal documents, it gave the distinct impression of being intentionally designed more to confuse than communicate, although the very form communicated a great deal. And very clearly, too.
It wasn’t completely unexpected. Still, it was something of a shock.
Just in case she was jumping to hasty conclusions, Veronica read slowly through the Whereas’ and Aforementioneds twice. Then she sat abruptly on a convenient chair near the front porch door before her legs gave out.
No, she wasn’t jumping to hasty conclusions.
Her landlord really meant it this time.
It wasn’t completely unexpected, now that she thought about it. He’d been furious. Actually, his face had been purple with rage when she’d last seen him, waving his fist and sputtering incoherent expressions punctuated periodically with that cat!
“That cat” wound around her ankles in a silent query before jumping up to her lap to examine the page firsthand.
“It’s not good news, Sebastian,” Veronica muttered, absently stroking his permanently rumpled coat. “In fact, I think it’s safe to say that ‘disaster’ is the word we’re looking for, here.”
She wondered if a calamity of this scale rated a hot fudge sundae, or just a handful of chocolate chip cookies. It was definitely an occasion that demanded some emotional bolstering. Because she and Sebastian were out on their ears. Again.
She couldn’t even really blame Sebastian this time. She blamed herself, if anything. But then, who could have imagined that their landlord was a raving lunatic? He’d seemed so rational. So normal. So sane and even-tempered. She couldn’t have guessed that he’d turn out to be so hysterical. So paranoid.
But to claim that her cat was personally responsible for every single thing that had happened…well, it wasn’t the sign of a sound mind, Veronica had to admit. He’d actually wheezed in helpless fury that Sebastian was stalking him.
Ridiculous.
Okay, so they’d gotten off to a bad start. Sebastian was an acquired taste under the best of circumstances. That really wasn’t an accurate description of the conditions her landlord and her cat had first encountered each other under.
Sebastian had been rolling in the dirt, and had come up to see who was visiting out of typical cat curiosity and courtesy. Rubbing against her landlord’s immaculate woolen trousers had been a friendly gesture, not the deliberate act of sabotage Ward had taken it as. And Sebastian couldn’t have possibly known the man was allergic to cat fur. Even if the cat had somehow known, however, tripping him was plainly accidental.
It was just unfortunate that he’d fallen into the prickly shrubbery by the porch.
Veronica sighed at the memory and decided that she really should have seen the inevitable end coming there and then. No man liked to look foolish in front of a feminine audience.
The male ego was a fragile and uncertain thing, and Ward Greeley’s evidently hadn’t been sufficiently robust to escape that incident unscathed.
Well, one thing seemed certain, anyway—they were moving.
Veronica eyed the form once more and wondered if Ward had had the gall to copy it out of the book of legal forms kept in her library.
Sebastian batted at the page and made a chirruping sound of query.
Obliging him, Veronica read out loud, “Notice to Quit Premises. We are herein required within thirty days after service of this Notice to quit the premises described above or the undersigned will initiate legal proceedings to recover possession.”
“I’ll give him possessed,” she muttered to the cat in a dark aside.
He swished his tail in agreement.
She read on to Sebastian’s wide-eyed fascination, “The undersigned hereby declares a forfeiture of the lease or rental agreement under which you hold the herein described premises, et cetera, et cetera,” she finished resignedly.
She crumpled the notice in disgust and dropped it to the floor.
Sebastian immediately leaped on it, chewing and shredding the paper with an air of unholy glee.
Veronica eyed the cat and decided that she could relate to the reaction. She was tempted to take out her frustration by ripping it up herself. Instead, she’d better call a Realtor.
“What rotten timing,” she told the cat with a scowl. “It’s May and the summer people are arriving like locusts. If there’s a place for rent anywhere, it’ll be a miracle.”
She slumped despondently in the chair.
It was true. From spring until fall, New Hampshire’s Lakes Region boomed. Finding something empty that wasn’t a tar shack and that had indoor plumbing was too much to hope for.Maybe, she mused, the time had come to move on in more ways than one.
Maybe it was time to admit that she was about to turn thirty, unmarried and not even dating seriously.
Maybe it was time to quit stalling and buy a house. Face the fact that if she wanted to settle down with a white picket fence, she’d have to provide her own because if her prince was coming, he’d evidently lost her address.
Which wouldn’t be surprising, considering how often she’d moved since she’d acquired Sebastian.If she got started right away, she might even find something within her deadline. Thirty days. Same number as her upcoming birthday. Veronica wondered if the universe was trying to impress her with a lesson in irony, or if she should put it down to coincidence.
I’m turning thirty, she thought unhappily. And what do I have to show for it? Homeless. Manless.
Well, the homeless part she could do something about. She could buy a house and settle down to spinsterhood.
She already had the requisite cat.
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