The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ―Edmund Burke
funny Camptown Races’ second “Family at the Holidays” book just surfaced at Amazon. This is a fun (and yes, erotic) series about a large family heading back to Mom and Dad’s house for Thanksgiving, some with kids in tow, some with new partners. Genial & pleasant romantic reading.
Love it if you’d download Sofia and Rico in the Bakery; love it even more if you’d leave a review at Amazon! ♥♥♥
Have you ever noticed that a doctor can cure whatever ails you simply by making an appointment with you? Amazing, isn’t it?
My theory: I’ve become so scared of doctors that the very thought of having to see one — let alone having to talk with the critter — scares the peewodden (and the ailment) out of me.
Exactly one-half hour before I have to revisit the gastroenterologist, who was not happy to hear the vast quantities of omeprazole she has me swallowing have made no dent whatsoever in the GERD that arose after the last Adventure in Medical Science. I personally think I have esophageal cancer (of course…who wouldn’t?), but she seems not to be very ruffled by that possibility.
Whatever it is seems to have gotten significantly better since she had her underling call and demand that I come in to see her.
Magic!
Before I forget, in the half-hour before I have to fly out the door:
We’ve LAUNCHED the new “Family at the Holidays” series. It will run through the month of November, right up to that wonderful, scary, fun, hassle-filled annual rite, Thanksgiving Day!
This is the story of a large Latino family whose grown children are summoned (as usual) to the family homestead for a big Thanksgiving reunion. Some have to drive a long way. Others live close-by and so are called upon to show up with food in hand. All of the kids are interesting characters. All of the grand-kids are…well…kids and teenagers. You know what that means. First story is Ruby and Frank in the Bedroom.
The author of this series has quite a nice sense of humor: low-key, mellow, and charming. It’s the kind of thing that leaves you chortling quietly as what she’s saying begins to dawn on you. I really love reading her stories. And yes, they are explicit, that being the nature of erotic romance. But funny.
Feeling reasonably pleased with the cover layout for this one. I think I’m getting better at cover-line design. If I get around to fiddling with it (probably won’t: too much to have to do), I might pull “in the bedroom” up tight against “Ruby and Frank” so that the descender on the “y” in Ruby appears to “hook” one of the letters in the second line.
But maybe not.
I thought making the font shadows pick up the shadowing in the quilt was freaking genius. 😀 Definitely, I missed my calling.
And one last thing: watch this space over the next couple of weeks. I’m going to run two give-aways: one for a fun little business book I picked up, a good and fast read with lots of practical advice; and one for a chance at an expensive gift, either for yourself or for a Christmas present.
Details to come!
As I mentioned in my last, having cut back on routine Costco shopping seems to be saving a ton of money. To give you a clue of how many tons, consider the fact that I’ve been doing most of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Sprouts, and September’s bills came in at about 2/3 of budget.
Whole Foods is not cheap. But…its reputation as “Whole Paycheck” is suspect.
Couple of days ago, I stopped by the Safeway on the way to Whole Foods, figuring to pick up a couple of low-brow items that can’t be had in those more politically correct and environmentally self-conscious pastures. While I was there, I spotted the SAME baggies of red seedless grapes that WF sells. Thought, Might as well grab those here, because Safeway is bound to be cheaper than Whole Foods.
Well. No.
Paid $2.99 at Safeway. The very same product in the very same bags in the very same size was $2.69 at Whole Foods.
It’s not the first time I’ve found Whole Foods can have pretty good prices compared to other retailers. The only store that underprices WF on the prepared dog food I had to give the beasts when I was too sick to make real food for them is Fry’s, a decidedly downscale chain. Whole Foods’ price for the same product is about half that of Petsmart.
On the same trip, I spotted a few other items priced the same as or more than Safeway’s cost. The only thing at WF that’s consistently higher than Safeway is the meat. But Whole Foods’ meat is undeniably superior to Safeway’s. Usually the wines are higher, but WF always has a sale on something in the $8 to $10 range that’s not the usual California plonk. Veggies are all organic and so appear to be higher, until you compare the prices of Safeway’s bug-sprayed products with the prices of the organic produce in the same store.
So. Maybe shopping at Whole Foods is not bound to drive one to bankruptcy, after all.
Last month’s Costco AMEX bill showed up a couple day’s ago. It was only $660!!!! That’s about 2/3 of its budgeted figure, and probably the smallest AMEX bill I’ve ever had!
The reason for this miracle, I think, is that ever since the last of the endless round of surgeries, I’ve lost interest in eating well and lost interest in shopping at Costco.
Any trip to Costco is likely to turn into an impulse-buy carnival. Whenever I’m in that store, I’m tempted (and usually cave to temptation) to buy 18 times more stuff than I need at the time and three or four things that are just too, TOO neat to pass by. Because, after all, we know they’ll be gone by the next time we get to Costco, eh?
Instead, I’ve been buying at grocery stores, Walgreen’s, and Target, and only buying as much as I need at any given time. Whereas you’d think that buying in bulk would represent a cost savings, apparently it doesn’t. At least not in the short run. It might, if you only bought things that are cost-effective in bulk — the paper towels and the toilet-paper, for example. But Costco’s meat (for another example) is no cheaper than grocery-store meat, and most of the other stuff, while appealing, isn’t something that you just have to have.
A second, probably lesser reason is that I’ve taken to occasionally paying for things with a debit card, so as to get a few dollars back in walking-around cash. Without the teaching job, I have no reason to traipse to the credit union to deposit checks twice a month (after the District gave away all our private information to hackers, forcing me to close my checking account and get a new one with a new account number and to put a freeze on all my credit-bureau accounts, I canceled the direct-deposit). So a debit payment works to provide a little cash now and again.
But I don’t think I’ve paid more than about $150 or $200 that way. Even if I put $200 on the debit card, that’s still only about $860: way under the $1100 budget.
Telling, eh?
What a great Halloween Hubbub last night!
Like other gentrifying neighborhoods, on trick-or-treat night the the ‘hood attracts families from the surrounding down-at-the-heels apartments and decrepit single-family tracts. Parents sense the area is safer for the kids, and they know the residents will hand out better candies and treats less likely to be laced with meth or razor blades. So they bring their costumed babes in by the truckload
They are SO cute!
The favorite costumes this year seem to be ninjas and (oddly) Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz. And princesses. Princesses are big. 😀
One little girl showed up in a historically perfect flapper dress, turquoise with swinging layers of fringes. It was VERY pretty and amazingly cute. Really, unless her mom made it (which would’ve taken half the year!), I can’t even imagine what the parents must have paid for it. Now if she’ll just not grow much for the next eight or ten years, she can wear it to the senior prom!
The neighbors here like to bring a table and chairs out front to greet the little spooks and fashion plates. I spent the evening across the street with the Accountants. Mr. Accountant brings out a portable firepit, the kind with a screen and lid on it, and lights up a Coleman lantern inside it. It puts out a little heat, but not enough to catch fire to any costumes.
You never SAW so many little kids in your life! They were all well-behaved, and their costumes were grand. Often the ones that were obviously home-made were the best: one little girl had on a simple sheet cut and stitched so it would flow diaphanously. It didn’t cover her head — it was more like a white, GHOSTLY floor-length tunic. It was neat.
The Accountants had made a Costco run and bought 150 candies. These ran out by 7 p.m. Since no one pays in cash anymore, we didn’t have pennies or nickels or dimes to hand out. So that kinda shut us down. Next year we’ll have to get more loot.
One nice thing about having everyone sitting out in front of their houses — besides the opportunity to socialize — is that it cuts way, WAY down on the vandalism. People are a lot less likely to smash your pumpkins, tear up your plants, or egg your cars if they think they can be seen. Plus I think it’s a lot more fun to sit outside and watch the kids frolicking around than it is to have to get up and traipse to the door every five minutes.
Halloween has gotten to be my favorite holiday. I really used to dislike it — the whole trick-or-treat meme strikes me as kind of extortionate, and I resent having to buy candy whose leftovers I’ll never eat and that I feel ethically opposed to donating to the poor. However, the idea of sitting outside to join the party changes things altogether. Instead of a nuisance, lately Halloween has become one big party.
When I was a little kid, I used to adore Halloween. My mother put the eefus on that, though. One Halloween, when I was all ready to go and amazingly excited (I was kind of an Aspergery little kid and didn’t make friends, so had a pretty isolated, boring life), my mother got mad at me for some minor thing — I don’t even remember what it was and probably didn’t understand what her problem was then. To get back at me, she announced that I would not be allowed to go trick-or-treating.
That was so upsetting that I never liked Halloween after that. I think I went out the following year, didn’t have a very good time, and then after that just stayed in my room.
So that’s probably part of the reason that as an adult I disliked having hordes of kids show up at my door demanding treats…or else.
However, now that Halloween is an old-folks’ party, it has a whole new appeal! 🙂
Holy mackerel! It’s been TWO DAYS since I last posted here. How two days passed in an hour and a half escapes me… Just now I’m engaged in preparing and preposting two months’ worth of bookoids for the Publishing Empire. {heh…maybe that’s what I should’ve called the current enterprise!} That is a much larger job than it seems.
It entails creating covers for 16 books (plus boxed sets, which just now are on-the-side jobs); obtaining ISBNs for each one (a truly time-consuming nuisance: you’re doing well if you can get one ISBN registered in under ten minutes); reviewing, correcting, and updating copy for each book; and posting cover image and contents for each book to Amazon.
I’ve learned you can enhance efficiency and reduce distraction by doing all of these tasks for a bunch of books in one sitting (actually, it’s going to take about three or four days…), rather than breaking in to whatever you’re doing to jump through the endless hoops for one book at a time. And you can post the completed MS and cover art at Amazon and “save as draft.” If you’ve done every step but the last one (and done each step right…), all you have to do on the scheduled “publication” date is go back into your Amazon “bookshelf” and click “publish,” thereby saving yourself a lot of time-consuming hassle on that date, when you might want to be doing something else with your time.
So, here’s an OPINION POLL:
Which of these do you prefer: the one with the black Roberta Stuart byline, or the one with the red?
The question is, which “Roberta Stuart” byline would be most visible in an Amazon thumbnail? Black? or Red?
Demonstrate the POWER OF THE HIVE MIND and cast your vote for one or the t’other! Tell me in the comments to this post which one you think is more effective.
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You’ll recall the last time I visited these precincts, I was considering whether to get rid of the fancy Christofle silverware in favor of some stainless flatware that can go in the dishwasher. Well, my friends, the deed is done. And, after traipsing all over the Web and all over the city, I finally found a set that’s not too cheesy and not too expensive at…so obvious, why didn’t I think of it before this morning?…Williams-Sonoma!!
I did indeed go over to Sur la Table. Total wasted trip. The one set that looked like it might be OK when viewed online had all the heft of plastic. Just junk. And they way they had their flatware displayed — jammed upright into random containers — confirmed that the proprietors regarded the stuff as junk, too.
Revisit Crate and Barrel’s: unappealing, lightweight, not so very junky, but junk.
Across the city, driving driving driving… Arrived in another mall that hosts a Williams-Sonoma and a Pottery Barn. At the Williams-Sonoma, in addition to scoring a couple of tasty snacks, I found two sets that appealed. One — the coolest of them — had heavy handles that unfortunately were made of pewter: “hand-washing recommended.” Saleslady said that translates as “handwash, period.” Defeats the purpose. The other was this brushed steel retro design reminiscent of the set my ex- and I bought shortly after we were married, yea verily way back in 19 and ought-67. It was moderately weighty and not displeasing in appearance.
And marked down 20 percent.
Just in case, it was over to Pottery Barn to check out their wares.
Forthwith, BACK TO WILLIAMS-SONOMA. Pottery Barn had a couple of attractive designs but they were…oh yes. Silver plate. Purpose defeated again.
So I purchased the following:
Not too awful, eh? These little gems can go straight into the dishwasher. And, although they’re not as elegant as a set of fine Christofle, they have a decent heft to them and they’re distinctive without being obtrusive.
Kind of interesting, this flatware safari. If I’d ordered the stuff online that appealed to me, from Sur la Table, I’d have been very unhappy and probably would have ended up traipsing to Scottsdale to return the junk. Overall, I went to five brick-&-mortar retailers plus an unknown number of online sellers before finding a design resembling what I wanted. And really…I don’t think I’m that picky! There’s nothing extraordinary about these pieces. Well…except insofar as they display a modicum (and I do mean modicum) of quality.
Think of that.