Wendy on Wilma

A first for me in ten years. I bought refundable airline tix for me and my family in case Hurricane Wilma heads to Tampa as a Cat 4 or worse. I also bought stuff at Sam's Club in case Hurricane Wilma heads to Tampa as a Cat 3 or less. The upshot? We are now hurricane proof here in Tampa now that I'm so prepared. You can thank me later (I hope).

This is the picture that I want to put in the upper-right hand corner of this site but I can't do it. If anybody knows how to use Picasa or Hello, please let me know. Thanks! 

The Good? Mommy

Re: writing Yes, regarding writing -- as in, I can now relax and write. After asking my daughter if she thought that yelling and screaming was a good way to get what she wants ("Nooooo....") I got her to agree to go to sleep with a glass of milk (she wanted another 3-course meal) but first I had to figure out something: Her: "Oh no, now I'm worried about Santa!!!" Me: (thinking that somehow the man in the red suit has been identified as a stranger): "What about Santa?" Her: "I've been mean and he won't bring me any presents!" Bawling, sobbing, etc. Me (suckered as usual): "Santa knows that you are a good girl almost all of the time. He'll just say, 'Gee that Little Missy was in a bad mood on Tuesday, October 18.' and he'll chuckle and plan to bring you lots of what you want." Her: "Ahh, I love you Mommy." Me: "I know that even when you're being a Bambaloo, you love me. Don't you worry about that. I love you more than anything." Hugs, kisses, and in the end, yes, she got her way for the most part because she was demanding food and I gave her drink and really, what's the diff? But now I can write.

RE: writing I do not have writer's block. I have writer's ... incontinence. I'm well into the sequel to my first novel and it's better, funnier, yadda yadda. I'm also well into several travel articles, blog posts, website updates and agent pitches. I want to write, write, write. But what am I doing instead? I'm planning my daughter's Salvadore Dali costume for her class's Halloween presentation; planning her snake costume for Halloween trick-0r-treating (we are going to add in the alligator legs sticking out); helping her with plans for both a class retreat and Brownie camp-out; helping her with her travel journal from our trip to Texas; and right at this moment, I'm trying to ignore her yelling from her bedroom that I don't like her anymore and that she's surely going to die of hunger and that I don't have a good attitude. Wait... she says she is starting to starve ... she's warning me -- I'm not a good mommy... she doesn't love me or like me (this is real time folks)... I'm not her mommy anymore... I'm a bad, bad, bad mommy... I don't follow the mommy law that says that mommy's always give their children what they want. Oops, now she's threatening to hit me in the head if I don't follow the mommy law. OR ELSE!!! The creative juices will have to stay in the bottle a little bit longer. Bye folks.

The Bad Mommy

RE: writing I do not have writer's block. I have writer's ... incontinence. I'm well into the sequel to my first novel and it's better, funnier, yadda yadda. I'm also well into several travel articles, blog posts, website updates and agent pitches. I want to write, write, write. But what am I doing instead? I'm planning my daughter's Salvadore Dali costume for her class's Halloween presentation; planning her snake costume for Halloween trick-0r-treating (we are going to add in the alligator legs sticking out); helping her with plans for both a class retreat and Brownie camp-out; helping her with her travel journal from our trip to Texas; and right at this momen, I'm trying to ignore her yelling from her bedroom that I don't like her anymore and that she's surely going to die of hunger and that I don't have a good attitude. Wait... she says she is starting to starve ... she's warning me -- I'm not a good mommy... she doesn't love me or like me (this is real time folks)... I'm not her mommy anymore... I'm a bad, bad, bad mommy... I don't follow the mommy law that says that mommy's always give their children what they want. Oops, now she's threatening to hit me in the head if I don't follow the mommy law. OR ELSE!!! The creative juices will have to stay in the bottle a little bit longer. Bye folks.

Today at Sticks of Fire

I posted about ethanol today at Sticks of Fire. Yawn. Just kidding. I was interested to see that there was (at least a year ago) a look-see into making ethanol out of orange peels here in Fla. What a great idea. I hope it works and is ecologically sound and cheap and all that important stuff. Then maybe when I finally get a Prius, it will run on electricity, gas, and/or ethanol. Now if I could only fuel a car by stuffing the tank with the leftover cookies I bought when I had a sweet tooth at the store and then regretted later having them around the kitchen.

I remember, I remember

I've been in San Antonio, TX this week. I really enjoyed the history talk at the Alamo. I confess I always thought that it was a bunch of hard-headed fools who held out there for no good reason. But history seems to indicate that they were a bunch of hard-headed fools who held out there for very good reason: they had little other choice. As for the rest of San Antonio -- I'm a little underwhelmed. It's so geared towards tourists that the entire downtown seems to be comprised of hotels and restaurants blaring country western music and serving Mexican food. There's a store selling "jackalopes" at every corner. I think that the over-the-top, this-is-Texas approach is unnecessary. Our resort blares country western music from hidden speakers all over the property. You can't float around the lazy river without being reminded that you're in Texas, darn it. I'm looking forward to my return to Florida where we wouldn't dream of overplaying our image (yeah right).

Future Hostile Take-overist

At the San Antonio Museum of Art: Little Missy to cashier at gift shop: "How much are these?" (holding up a small package of stretchy snakes) Cashier: "I don't know why don't we look it up?" Little Missy: "Because if it isn't $1.00, I ain't buying it."

The Globulist

In another installment of our ongoing discussion about religion, my daughter has decided that she is a Globulist (stay tuned for change -- last week she was a "Traditionalist" meaning that she didn't want to have any religion but she did want to celebrate family traditions like, uhm, Christmas). I'll explain globulism in a second. But first a little background. Around our house, religion doesn't play much of a role except for these existential conversations that I have with Little Missy (age 6, by the way). I think that it is up to Little Missy to choose what she believes and so we discuss all kinds of religion possibilities at our house. Yesterday, she asked me if there couldn't be both God and evolution too. (I swear she reads the news.) Her reasoning was that something must have created the cells from which evolution spun out. So God made cells and evolution took it from there. She's a thinker (yay). When we revisited the topic today, I asked her who made God. "He just formed." "So why couldn't the cells just form?" "You just want me to only believe in evolution." She's a thinker (yay). "No," I said, "you know I what I think. You get to believe what you want to believe." "Well, God was made from globs of air that kept getting pressed together until they formed a body and a head and that was God." "So you're a Globulist?" "Yes. Now let me tell you about ghosts." But I think I'll save that topic for closer to Halloween.

Texas Hold'em

Re: Travel I'm going to San Antonio and Austin on Sunday for a week with my family. If you wish to recommend a good place to eat, by all means please do.

Take me to the Glass Forest

Proving that they are actually aliens, my pets attempt to form the symbol from the TV show, Threshold.

A Laughing Matter

Did I really see that? Heading south on I-275 from USF to downtown, there is a billboard sign for a funeral home with a tag line that says something like, Celebrate Life. All good. But the image is of a way too happy woman laughing at ... You tell me?

Tampa Writers Alliance

Last night I attended the monthly meeting of Tampa Writers' Alliance. It meets on the first Wednesday of each month at the downtown Tampa library (German something). Warner Conarton gave a great talk about using the Karpman triangle (victim, rescuer, persecutor), a psychotherapy theory, when plotting. I guess you had to be there. And really, you ought to be there if you are a writer in the Tampa area. It's a great, eclectic group of writers supporting writers. Next month the topic will be science fiction writing. Look for the Tampa Writers' Alliance booth (and the Hoyden Press/Parvenue Throws A Party booth) at the St. Pete Times Festival of Reading on October 29.

Link to my Sticks of Fire post

Click here to see my post at Sticks of Fire. There are lots of comments already!

London Pix

re: Travel To view a few more of my London photos, click here.

Look At the Last Post Entitled Alison Lapper Pregnant

Re: Travel In Trafalgar Square in London, there now resides a beautiful, controversial, powerful, moving piece of art: Alison Lapper Pregnant. It sits on the Fourth Plinth and will be there until sometime in 2007. It was just unveiled a couple of weeks ago. For more about the artist and the real-life subject of the sculpture, check out this article. For my snapshot, see the last post. It really is amazing.

Alison Lapper Pregnant

Hi to Tampa Book Buzz fans too!

Thanks for the notice, Lisa of Tampa Book Buzz and Tampa Film Fan fame. And hello to those of you who popped over for a look.

Hola friends from Sticks of Fire!

Hi to those of you who popped over to pay me a visit today after Tommy made my introduction on his site. I'm sending him a post tomorrow for Sticks of Fire from my London trip (which technically I'm still on because I'm still in transit as we speak). I'm delighted to collaberate with the Sticks of Fire gang because I too love all things Tampa. Chat with you soon. Wendy

Don't forget the motor city

Re: me I'm sitting in the Detroit airport on my way home to Tampa from London. Can I just say that London is my favorite city? Yes I can. London is my favorite city. On this trip I did some research for my next novel and I got to see Ewen McGregor in Guys and Dolls. He really is not a great singer but he looks good and his rendition of Luck Be A Lady had me swooning. My hotel was a bit dodgy, to say the least. As you opened the door it smacked into the bed. When you sat on the toilet, your left foot was in the shower. High on one wall was a hole that looked suspiciously like a bullet hole. Oh, and my door had a very flimsy little handle lock so I felt compelled to lodge a chair in front of it so that the three sozzled blokes who overheard me asking for my room key couldn't try to pay me a visit. And London is still my favorite city. Next time, however, I may not jump at the too-good-to-be-true bargain package offered on Travelocity. The upside to having paid next to nothing for my hotel? I could afford high tea at the Savoy, two shows, one tour bus, shopping at Harrod's, and a bunch of other stuff on my whirlwind weekend abroad. Life is good.