Explain to me how hotels can stay in business when they don’t answer rate requests via email. I don’t mean they don’t list an email address. No, they have email addresses or forms. But they do not answer when a rate request is sent. In some cases, the web page warns that it may take a couple of days (Pretty inexcusable–it’s not like I’m trying to stay at top hotels that are so swamped with business they don’t have time to answer an email or two.)

I’m working on a trip to northern NM and southern Colorado for my parents. I’ve emailed more than 15 hotels. I’ve received…5 replies. One of which does not count because the *lovely* guy said, “Please give us a call.” If I wanted to call, don’t you think I’d have picked up the phone? Another hotel, I did call–because I was tired of waiting days with no answer. She asked what kind of room I needed and immediately began taking down information: Address, phone number, etc. Uh, lady. I called for the *rate.* Do people really book a room without knowing the rate???

Part of the point of sending an email rate request is to be able to do comparisons. Find availability. Hear about the amenities. Not one hotel has bothered to mention amenities when replying. NOT one. Folks, here is a perfect time to sell yourself to an interested party. Tell me you have coffee pots in the room. Maybe a fridge. Maybe a room with a view. Free breakfast??? Anything. But what do I get? At best, I get a response. At worst, I get a “what dates?” when I already specified that in the email. Well, actually…at worst, I get no reply at all.

And sometimes, folks, the first to reply wins. In this case, the first to reply looks a lot better customer service-wise than those who do not respond at all. That’s a black mark before I even know the rate.

So far, I have booked 3 different hotels. All three were ones who responded via email, within two days or faster. Sure, I called some of the others–but the customer service or rates or other issues held true to form with the NO RESPONSE to my original request.

If you can’t answer an email, I don’t have a lot of faith you can run a hotel.

Just about died gardening this morning. Unbelievably hot even at eight in the morning. Sure, I could go earlier. Doesn’t help. The humidity is so thick it stands next to you. Too bad it doesn’t laugh. At least then there might be a breeze.

And this morning had to be the morning I spotted hornworms. UGH. Gotta be the ugliest, most disgusting worm on the planet. The things are as fat as my middle finger. I killed about four and then. THEN. I found The Largest Tomato Hornworm I’ve ever seen. The thing had to be six or seven inches–not stretched out as they can do. Ugh. I had to cut the stem it was on to bring it to the porch to show BMHusband. Besides, you can’t peel them off the stems even if you were so inclined (as-if). They have suction claws. Yes, they do.

So I bring it to the porch. BMHusband was suitably in awe of the hornworm that my garden grew. But then we just stood there staring at the thing. Who wants to stop on a seven inch pool of disgusting green smarm??? And yes, the stuff oozes and squirts out–sometimes a foot or more. GROSS.

What a disgusting morning. I’m ready for autumn.

Is he spying on us??? Trying to break in???

No, it turns out that Junior is climbing the screen because he spotted a lizard!!!

No, he doesn’t need the lizard. He has plenty of food. We even open the door when he wants to come in. But that doesn’t stop our intrepid hunter.

That screen is gonna have to go.

I have been craving chocolate eclairs for many days now. I stopped at the local grocery where the display yielded eclairs with some sort of whipped cream inside — for a buck a piece. Folks. Not even close. I can squirt whipping cream with the best of them. I am not paying you a dollar for an eclair the size of my finger with fake cream inside. It’s supposed to be a pudding/custard cream. Not whipped.

We don’t have a luxury bakery in Cedar Park that I know of. Which means if I want chocolate eclairs, I either have to fly to NM and go to the Flying Star or make them. So today…

No, I did not fly to NM. I tried making eclairs. The puff pastries went pretty well. Got them in the oven, got the cream filling started and the chocolate melting. Puffs looked good, coming along. Cream wasn’t thickening well. Looked a lot like…milk. Wasn’t boiling either. Was taking too long. Sigh. Puffs came out, looked good. Drizzled the cream into the eggs and back to the pot. Thin, very thin. Maybe it would set up in the fridge.

Chocolate topping–excellent. I’m good with chocolate because I’ve worked with it. A lot.

The puff pastries were a bit gummy inside–another five minutes and possibly all of them slightly smaller so they flaked better–would have been perfect. The stupid cream never set up and it was too sweet to boot.

So, here I sit. We will not be eating chocolate eclairs for dessert.

Hmph.

I don’t know why this is cool to me, but it is. I think it has something to do with thinking about all the work that went into making the champagne–200 years ago. The grapes, the aging, the bottling. Then it was shipped…and sank. All the hands that touched it, the place it was supposed to go. And there it was preserved under water for 200 years. That’s a long time. I think there must have been a few ghosts captured in those bottles, maybe swirling around them like the waves.

Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom is no longer on sale. The price is currently 99 cents, but that will revert/change to $1.99 in a matter of hours. Generally speaking new pricing takes effect in 48 hours so if you want the cheaper price: Ready, Set…Go!

Thank you to everyone who purchased Sage!

The oil gushing into the gulf was stopped today for the first time in months. I hope it stays capped and sealed. I hope it never happens again. I’m not satisfied with my government’s slow and lazy response–I hope that the clean-up effort takes on a high priority and gets the attention it needs. And I really, really hope that no more oil goes gushing unchecked into the gulf.

Karen Cantwell–fabulous author of Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery) has a blurb about my book on her blog! (She also has the first chapter up with my permission.) She is running various contest to come up with a title for her next book and also a contest to win an Amazon gift certificate. Check it out.

The cucumbers are coming in pretty fast and furious. Today I had to crawl under a tomato plant and half a cucumber plant to reach a very large cucumber. My knees got muddy and I got dripped on (I had already watered, of course.) Ugh. I like gardening, but crawling in the mud is not the same thing as digging in it.

I joined Goodreads. Kind of new over there and finding my way around, but if you’re on Goodreads, send me a “friend” message and we’ll be friends!!! So far I’ve joined an e-reader group and a cozy group. No, I don’t need more books to read, but that is likely to happen! Oh, I found this paranormal group as well.

Oh–one more exciting item. I’ve seen the mock-up covers for my next novel, Under Witch Moon (an urban fantasy.) Wow. I’m working with an artist and let me just say that I’m very pleased. Deb Wentz, the artist, has done two possible covers–which means when they are finished, you, the audience will get to help me choose! But I must tell you–they are both very, very good!!!

Adriel should have known that with a werewolf, it never ends with just one body. She would have gone to the police after witnessing Dolores’ death, but she’s not certain the killer she saw is actually responsible for the other murders. Besides, the police don’t believe in werewolves, and they aren’t going to believe she is a witch either so what can she tell them?

She keeps her eyes and ears open as she tries to help her latest client escape the clutches of a voodoo witch, but things just get worse when more bodies turn up. In fear of a murderer who knows he was seen, a voodoo witch out for revenge and a werewolf gone berserk, she is greatly relieved when she meets White Feather, an undercover cop. Unfortunately, he isn’t convinced she is innocent of all wrong-doing.

It’s going to take every spell she knows and a few she hasn’t tried to solve the murders and stay alive.

A few years ago, I quit corporate America. I wanted to write. Or, do just about anything else. Don’t get me wrong. The money was nice. There were good people, there were bad. But most of all there was craziness and an emptiness that ate at my soul.

I was lucky. I took my husband out of corporate America with me. Or maybe he took me. Either way, every time I hear the song “You Don’t Have to Cry” (Crosby, Stills and Nash) it reminds me of the very real reasons I left. The only part that doesn’t apply is that husband came with me. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any regrets either.

Are you thinking of telephones and managers
And where you got to be at noon
You are living a reality I left years ago
It quite nearly killed me
In the long run it will make you cry
Make you crazy and old before your time
And the difference between me and you
I won’t argue right or wrong
But I have time to cry my baby
You don’t have to cry
I said cry my baby you don’t have to cry
I said cry my baby you don’t have to cry…

Amazon has put my book, Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom, on sale for 79 cents. Yes, 79 cents! If you are one of the four or five people who have not already purchased it…well, there probably won’t be a better time. When the sale is over (and I have no idea when that will be) the price will go to $1.99.

With Amazon’s helpful sale, for the first time ever, Sage sold over a hundred copies in one month. Woot!

So you will recall my search for clothes that fit. Since that failed, I decided to make myself some shorts–with the hope that by winter, I’d know how to make sweatpants that fit. Well. This has been interesting. I carefully measured and thought out the pattern. Three times. I sewed diligently. I thought they were looking okay, although there seemed to be a lot of material for just one pair of shorts. After accidentally putting the waistband on so that the ties were in the back…I became anxious, but not terrified. I redid the waistband. I tried them on. Hmm. Rather…large. So large, in fact, they are loose on BMHusband. He could wear them if he doesn’t mind that one pocket is lower than the other. I can fix the fact that one leg is shorter than the other, but not necessarily the pocket. And he’d have to use the string-ties (which I accidentally sewed in so tightly that at first instead of being a tie, it was more of a noose.) These shorts are a cross between Frankenstein and Godzilla. But the material is a really nice material…

Sigh.

Last night, Scamper decided to use the garage as shelter again because it was raining and drizzling periodically. No problem. She came inside the house from the garage, ate her treat and some dry food, wandered around and then parked herself in the garage. Half hour or so before we went to bed, we closed and locked the inside door to the garage; if she wanted in again, she’d have to go out the big garage door, which was cracked open. She could then come ’round to the back door where the cat door is (and the chime rings so we know the cats are there. Except when it isn’t Scamp or Junior and it’s raccoons, skunks, neighbor cats…you get the idea.)

I went to bed and half hour later or so, BMHusband came in. We’d been in bed maybe fifteen minutes when it sounded like a soccer game started in the living room.

“What was that???” Husband asked.

“Sounds kind of like the cats playing. Where is Junior? Maybe he’s playing with the balls.” We both got out of bed.

Husband said, “Junior came in while I was brushing my teeth. But Junior never plays with the balls unless Scamper plays with the balls.”

Lights on, we both peered about nearsightedly.

Husband said, “That looks like Scamper.”

“Yup. Sure does.”

“How did she get in here? I shut the door!”

“Looks like she found a way in.”

“Junior came in while I was in the back bathroom brushing my teeth. I saw him. Figured it was a good time to shut the door and lock it.”

“Looks like maybe she came in with him,” I said.

“But where was she when I shut and locked the door???” he asked.

“Not in the garage.”

While we had this conversation, Scamp sat there in the dining room, tail curled calmly around her legs. Junior came over and gave my legs a hug. There was no panic. Maaaaybe Scamper didn’t realize that she had no way back out. I doubt it. She’s a pretty smart cat and she knows her exits–at all times. Maaaybe she’s starting to believe we aren’t trying to trap her inside for nefarious purposes.

I asked her if she’d like to go back into the garage (it was still raining and now that we had interrupted the soccer game, it wasn’t likely to restart.) I opened the door to the garage and got out of her way. Sure enough, she scampered right on out there. She was still there in the morning when we opened the door. In she popped, had a bite to eat and then back out. Several times. You know. Like a cat, but not a particularly feral one.

Three of my titles can now be found at the Sony Bookstore.

They are, of course, the first three titles I published: Catch an Honest Thief, Sage, and Executive Lunch.

Scamper has been spending more and more time in the yard. It’s always nice to see her out there. Junior could be inside in the air conditioning (so could Scamper, but as-if!) but he often chooses to lounge…in the strangest places.

Yes, he really is wedged inside a cinder block.

As for Scamp, here she is under the grill:

Of course it’s hard to see her. That is the plan. She prefers it that way.

It’s been raining quite a bit these last three days–and for the first time ever, we found Scamper in the garage out of the rain! We leave the door cracked for her, but other than exploring it a time or two, she has not used it that we know of. Apparently it was soggy enough that she took shelter there last night. It’s only been two years cat…

Even though I’m published and cruising along on my own, I still read a few agent blogs. Worse, I still hear about a few agents who tweet, twitter or otherwise take their complaints about query letters/writers online. It’s funny the first time you see some of the crazy marketing angles a writer might choose to put in a query letter. As writers, we all try to come up with an angle to stand out from the crowd. Some ideas are better than others; some are downright rude, awful or scary.

But what is worse than the misshapen query letter is the cruel crowd mentality that takes hold when an agent or editor decides to share these “gems” with the masses. Agents and other writers jump onboard these blogs/twitters and everyone seems to have a good time shredding the absent writer. The crowd quickly thickens to a “I’m sooo much smarter than that” mentality. There’s also usually a large case of suck-ups commiserating with the agent on the life of misery the agent leads just to find a few gems for a (no-doubt) grateful and hapless audience (readers everywhere.)

I well understand the frustration of the daily grind in any job. I well understand that writers should not post rant letters, act unprofessional or throw too many barbs at the uncaring publishing industry. While the industry (computer industry, state government, whatever job it is) may be uncaring, it is not “unseeing.” Posting rejection letters or personal thoughts about an agent, editor or boss is not professional. Nor is it professional or seemly to post bad query letters for the sake of showing superiority or to make others gather round and throw stones. Yes, teaching query writing and using examples is a legitimate educational purpose. Laughing at someone who made a bad decision or mistake…not really all that funny. I’m quite certain that if I posted unprofessionally there would be all manner of people who would think, “I don’t want to ever work with her!”

Turns out, I feel exactly that way after listening to someone in the industry posting and laughing at someone who made the mistake of knocking politely at the door.

Every couple of years we get some beautiful…well, spiders.

This one has been hanging out for about a week now. I have to watch carefully so he/she doesn’t get sprayed with neem oil.

That funny stitching across the middle of the web–looks a lot like my sewing…

Or…stolen merchandise.

Out taking our walk this morning, we went down a side street we normally don’t take to check out the garage sales. (Lame). On the way back, we passed a place that had a peach tree hanging over the sidewalk from a back yard–with peaches falling off and rotting on the sidewalk. IT nearly KILLS me to see that. What a waste. I picked up a PERFECT peach from the mess on the sidewalk and then nabbed one from the tree. BMHusband got mad at me because the neighbors were out doing their garage sale and everyone saw me. Well, too bad. What a WASTE. Gorgeous peaches just ready to be picked. I wanted to ask the lady if I could pick some (her front was around the corner and she was out having one of the garage sales) but I wasn’t certain BMHusband could take the embarrassment of such a rogue wife.

I think I’ll go back in the dead of night and get a couple of the rotten ones and plant them. Okay, okay, I won’t. But I want to. With all the work I put in gardening and trying to grow trees—it just kills me to see such waste. They sell for over a buck a pound in the grocery and people can’t be bothered to pick the ones in their yard??? Shoot, they could have picked them and SOLD them at the garage sale.

What a waste.

Junior prefers to spend most of the night outside these days, especially near a full moon when it’s nice and bright outside. Nighttime is the only time it’s under 90 degrees in Texas at this time of year. He came in at about 11:30 and then showed up on the bed and stared at me about 3 a.m. this morning. He’s not demanding really, just persistent. He does put his paw out and rests it on my leg if I don’t “get” that he wants out.

FINE.

I let him out. Back to bed. Almost asleep.

A few minutes later–cat fight. I marched out there…nothing. No cats. Quiet. Back to bed. 10 minutes later, cat fight. I marched out there…the cats were in the yard next door, no Junior running for help. Told them to pipe down. Quietly of course–it was the middle of the night. Back to bed. At 4, cat fight. Out again. There he was all fluffed up staring at the escape route to the front yard. Picked his Mr. Fluffy butt up and plopped it inside, closed door. Got some sleep.

Cats. Need I say more???

Blistering hot out there. I garden some each morning–getting in cucumbers and tomatoes, definitely enough to keep us in business. I froze the first set of romas–about a can and a half, maybe two. I’d like about 40 cans…and they are still coming in slowly, steadily. The spider mites did slow down, but the plant lice and aphids got a pretty good grip on a cucumber plant or two. I’ve been spraying every other day to keep things under control. It’s easier to shoot the neem all over them one plant now and then rather than the whole garden. Too dang hot to do the whole garden. I feel like I’m getting third degree burns through my clothing–and I have some burlap hanging up in the garden for shade!

We put in a new drip irrigation despite the heat. It needed to be done. Leaker hoses have failed me the last two years because the garden is just too big and the hoses don’t last. The irrigation system seems to be working, and I’m thankful it’s in because now is the high watering time. I might actually water less this year with this new system. It does a better job of hitting the right places.

Of course if I had decent shade in the afternoon, I’d be doing even better. Next year–trees. Or maybe kiwi plants. I hear they grow fast, can be trained on a trellis to go where you want and of course… there’s the whole fruit thing! Something has to be done. I’m keeping the garden partially shaded with giant umbrellas and burlap, but nature would do a whole lot better. I just didn’t realize I needed shade when I picked a sunny spot for the garden!

We’re eating our veggies, mom!!!

One of the boons of e-readers is the bargain books to be found. I often use Inkmesh–you can see the link down in the left-column where the list of my books shows the current, cheapest pricing. Inkmesh is a search engine for e-books, but it can take a day or so to “grab” the cheapest prices. It doesn’t actively look for books and highlight them, but I recently found this site:

KindleCheapReads They have reviews now and then, but daily–they post about books that cost five dollars or less. They post books from big publishers (that is their main focus) smaller publishers and independent authors-whatever great deal comes along. Check it out!

Along the lines of bargains, I came across this book that looks right up my alley:

Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery)

Soccer mom and film lover, Barbara Marr is on the brink of a dream: launching her own movie review website. But on her 45th birthday, this stay-at-home mother of three unwittingly launches herself and her suburban housewife friends into the middle of their own explosive action adventure just like the movies – except these bullets are real.

I downloaded the sample. Can’t wait to get to it! The sample was great. Bought it and now I have a whole book to read!!! finished it and it was highly entertaining! I’ll do a review over at Amazon and maybe here on the blog too. If you like mysteries with a lot of fun, check it out. There are some highly improbable scenes, but all in good fun and a great little-page turner. My kind of book.

UPDATE: And it turns out Kindle Just Went Down In Price to $189!!! Guess it might be a good time to buy–or a better time anyway!

When the guy at the fish counter tells you that one pound of live clams feeds one person…he’s talking about a very, very *small* person. Like maybe a five-year-old who doesn’t like clams.

I bought 10 pounds of the things, thinking I’d freeze most of them. Wow. We’re looking at probably 3 meals…if I stretch them. And we are talking clam linguini type meals or clam chowder–meals where you have lots of surrounding pasta to fill in the blanks. We are talking smallish meals for two people.

I thought maybe I was doing the clam shelling wrong–I read you take off the “skin” that covers the neck (and covers most of the clam from what I can tell). Well, even with that *on* the clams, we’d be lucky to get another small portion out of the ten pounds.

I guess it’s back to the canned clams for us. I thought the cans were expensive at almost two dollars a can. (I generally use a large can and a small can for one dish–so about 3 bucks worth of clams.) Using the fresh clams I’ll be using about ten dollars worth of clams for each dish. Yikes!!! Someone stop that clam!!! I think he stole my wallet!!!!

It’s all very nice that Congress is having yet another hearing (This time to pick apart BP oil company). But could y’all stop talking and stop the oil??? A drawn out hearing isn’t going to stop the oil. Stop talking. Start doing. The house is burning down while everyone is talking about clean-up, insurance and payouts. Guys: STOP THE OIL.

Get every oil skimmer manufactured IN THE WORLD out there. Get people available to use them. Get tankers out there to collect the oil. Put out a call for the best minds in the business because we’re going to have to try some things that have never been tried to get this thing to stop.

Hearings are just noise and useless ones at that. We need action. And no, not visits to the shoreline. Not speeches. We need to stop the oil from gushing into the ocean and destroying the environment. Congress has gotten into a very bad habit of thinking the American people are fooled by “hearings.” Hearings are meaningless, useless politics and solve nothing. Action guys. Action that collects the spill. If each Congress person took responsibility to oversee ONE action item, gosh, maybe some of the actions would result in cleaning the mess and stopping it. If even one of them took a viable action, I’d be impressed. Yelling at some guy on TV for several hours doesn’t solve a damn thing.

It will surprise no one but me! The winning cover of Executive Retention:

Cover B: Money and Dark Rooms

Copies of Executive Retention are available at Amazon and Smashwords.

After solving one case of corporate crime, Sedona expected to get her peaceful life back. Problem: She is still a manager at Strandfrost, and there is still rampant jealousy over her promotion. Is the danger of being railroaded by her not-so-illustrious colleagues worse than taking a new undercover job from Steve Huntington?

Crooks are coming out of the woodwork and family troubles are stewing. Sedona needs to keep her sanity intact, piece together mismatched clues and dodge more than one stray bullet. If she can manage all of that, maybe she’ll have time to figure out whether her love life stands a chance.

Edit: It usually takes about a week. I’ll announce it here on the blog as soon as it is available. Executive Retention is now available.

I’d like to thank everyone for voting and for the comments and suggestions which improved all of the covers. Thanks also for the private emails with passionate arguments for or against a particular cover. You have been helpful, FUN and I’m looking forward to doing this again…I think!

writing tablet??? Executive Lunch has now been reviewed in Ireland!!! I “met” Marleen in one of the (many) online book clubs where I am a member. As you can tell from her review blog…she is a voracious reader! I feel privileged that she chose to read and review my book!!!

In other news, the tomatoes are coming in nicely now. Oh, the spider mites still give me problems and I have to spray neem oil weekly, but things are going better than last year. I do have to hand pollinate the cucumbers still (no bees!) and I’d like more of the bigger tomatoes please…

On the book poll front…I think we have a pretty clear winner unless something drastically changes overnight. I’ll post the winner on Monday. I’ve already been working on the basics of getting the book uploaded to Amazon. Things should be a go for getting Executive Retention online at Amazon before June 23.

Due to popular demand…I’ve brought back Cover C. Now while this may appear to be starting over, it’s more of…adding in all the suggestions, listening some more…and adding in more suggestions. It should be noted that Cover B has shown a solid lead each time I run a poll–I only do the new posts to keep things clean and to allow for those who have changed their minds about a previous vote!

Cover A: The Writing is on the Wall

Cover B: Money and Dark Rooms

New Improved C

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For any still with me–thanks!!!

Copies of Executive Retention are currently available exclusively at Smashwords. The cover on the Smashwords version will change to show the winning cover, but having an early means of distribution allows me to make the book available to reviewers and anxious fans!

Executive Retention will go on sale at Amazon and other outlets approximately one week after the poll closes (sometime around June 23). It will be priced at $2.99.

If you haven’t read Executive Lunch, it is available for purchase:
at Amazon
at Smashwords
at Barnes and Noble
at Kobobooks
at Apple istore