Two months old, December 2001.

Allie McBeagle is ten today. Unlike my previous pets, I have never forgotten her birthday because we brought her home from the kennel on December 18th and she was exactly two months old. Over the last year, she’s made a big deal about turning ten. She wants a “baby burger” and a kiddie cone from Dairy Queen. Here’s where I confess that she eats the kiddie cones once or twice a month. It’s not my fault. My husband started it. That dog can inhale a kiddie cone, cone and all, in 3 minutes. And that’s holding back.

So…the “baby burger.” I don’t know if such a thing exists. I’ll probably order a cheeseburger instead and let her have 1/4th of it. Bad, bad, bad. But the beagle made ten, and so she deserves it. Our last dog, an Alaskan Malamute that lived to 13.5, had pizza on his tenth birthday. We’re big on ten!

Allie between 4-6 months. All the black is gone from her ears and her face is entirely brown.

Allie’s goal is to live to 16. So that’s six years to go. The average lifespan of a beagle is apparently 12-16 years. She’s been running three times a week for the last two, so is in better shape at 10 than she was at 7. But that’s not the reason she wants to live to 16. No, you see, there’s competition. Every pet of ours since my dh and I got married has lived longer than the preceding pet. Slink, the first cat, lived to 6 (got run over). Kanik, the first dog, lived to the aforesaid 13.5. Seiki, the most evil Siamese cat that ever existed, who nearly died (the first time) when he was four, lived to 15.5 years. And now Allie wants to outlive Seiki. So I hear. I mean, it’s not like the dog talks to me. Well, she tries. But it’s not like I listen. Creativity does have its bounds.

"A Walk in the Park" at ten years minus 2 days old. She began turning white in the face when she was four, but lately there's a lot of white! Happy dog.

Do you celebrate animal birthday milestones, or do you think I’m soft in the head? Come on, admit it, if you were a dog, you’d want to live with me.

In the several weeks since both my sons have left home, I’ve taken to running or long-walk-to-the-park-ing with Allie McBeagle in the mornings and a short trek around the block in the afternoons. Hey, she’s turning ten in a month. I can afford to slack off. Besides, Youngest Son trained her in the art of the “short walk” over the summer.

Last week, we (Allie and I) spied a doe and her fawn on the right side of the road, at the edge of an undeveloped lot. We were on the left side of the road. Allie was on her leash (busy car road), but because she’s nearly ten she doesn’t immediately alert (or care about doing so) to the deer like she did when she was little and she chased a deer in the neighboring orchard into the provincial park in the middle of winter and was thereafter lost for 6 hours until the orchard caretaker found her right where I screamed “Stay!” and brought her home.

Last week, she barely pricked her ears at the scent of the deer and fawn. As always, the sight left me in awe, and my natural inclination is to say, “Hi, guys” and even approach. But I’ve learned not to approach or even want to be around a doe when her fawn is around, or might be around, and you have a dog. So, I was in awe, but I was in a wee bit of terrified awe. I never ever thought I’d be afraid of Bambi’s mama. I thought deer were gentle creatures. But three or so weeks ago, My Liege and I were walking Allie in the huge provincial park near our house with a multitude of walking and biking trails…which the deer also love to traverse. We were doing the “short-short” walk (as opposed to the “long-short” walk), which took us off the main trail down to the road that overlooks a lake of many colors. There’s a portion of this highly used trail (by humans) that is very peaceful and ethereal. It’s hard to believe that in a few minutes you’ll come out to a view of road and/or the wide pedestrian pathway. During this walk, Allie was not on her leash. We always let her off-leash in the park and clip her back on if other dogs on leash approach or, heaven forbid, we see a bear (warnings of bear sightings are usually posted at the park’s entrance; no one’s ever posted a warning of a deer sighting—maybe they should). So, this walk she was off-leash. She was ahead of us and going up a little hill in the narrow path, when M.L. and I noticed, to the left of the path, a deer. Standing there looking very serene and peaceful.

“Well, hello,” I said (as is my way), and then, remembering the times Allie had tried to chase deer in her youth, I said to M.L., “Should we leash her?” I’m pretty sure he said yes. Because his next step was to go ahead and leash Allie while I stayed a few feet behind so as not to startle the doe. Because, you see, this doe had not taken kindly to our dog’s presence. Her nose was twitching and she pawed her front hooves (hoofs?) on the ground. It was clear she wanted to cross the path without any interference from us. And we were trying to be clear by standing absolutely still that we wanted her to. On the one hand, I wished I’d had a camera, because she would have made a beautiful shot. On the other hand, it was obvious there must be a fawn in the area, although we couldn’t see it. M.L. leashed the dog and kept her on a short leash, and the doe darted across the path and into the woods to our right…but didn’t take off completely. No, she started to stalk us. I’ve never experienced anything like this (my husband has been treed by a black bear and a moose, but normally wildlife loves me). We walked the path without looking straight on at the doe to our right. She continued following us, stamping her hooves and pawing the ground. At one point, I kid you not, I took the dog and M.L. picked up a large branch and shoved it at the doe to get her to stay off the path right behind us. Suddenly, my BFF’s stories about deers attacking humans in the communities around Victoria, B.C. weren’t so funny. Literally, I just LMAO’ed at the thought a couple of days previous. So the story goes, the deer are born on peoples’ property and so consider it their territory. Small dogs and cats are considered ON the deer’s property and can get in trouble/run down. Apparently, so can humans.

Our deer was most likely born in the provincial park. We never did see her fawn, but it’s safe to say the fawn was born in the park, too. Along with the bears and cougars and rattlesnakes we’d rather not encounter.

I’ll never again feel safe approaching a deer…unless my dog isn’t around. Then, okay, I’d give it a go. We often get them in our neighborhood, and we have “sit spots” in our huge back yard in winter. The deer sometimes leave “candy” (deer droppings that look like chocolate-covered raisins) our dog used to find irresistible. I know, disgusting, but there’s no accounting for a beagle’s taste. She also thinks four-week-dead fish smell amazing.

Have you ever had an encounter with a form of wildlife that surprised you? Last week, catching sight of the doe and fawn on the other side of the road, I just wanted to stand there and admire them. Instead, I kept my head down and a short leash on the beagle until we were safely out of sight. Because, believe me, that doe had her eyes trained on us every step of the way.

After a July that was mostly, well, like March, summer has finally found its way to my neck of the woods. We can’t count on it hanging around for long, so I’m trying to make the best of it. Recently, I enjoyed two back-to-back long weekends, one with my dh at my parents’ lake house to celebrate our anniversary, and then last weekend we took the boys to Whistler (where the 2010 Winter Olympics were held). In between, I’ve been madly meeting deadlines for Penny.

The Whistler weekend was spur-of-the-moment, as Eldest Son is moving to the Middle East to teach school for a year. He’d just finished his summer job and Youngest Son had a few days off work, so we packed up and drove several hours to the mountain resort. I haven’t been to Whistler in over a decade, and we had a blast. Last time I visited, the group I was with went mountain-biking. This time, my family and I rode the Peak to Peak gondolas that travel between Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain, tried out ziplining for the first time, and E.S. went bungee jumping! My God, that kid is fearless.

I don’t have photos of the ziplining, but I did buy the bungee jumping CD. So here, in pictures, is a taste of my summer. How’s your summer going?

Out to dinner in Whistler, E.S. and Y.S. (left to right):

Whistler view from our hotel:

The husband et moi in the Whistler Mountain gondola:

At the Whistler summit (the chair lift ride from the gondola drop-off helped me kinda overcome my fear of heights…but not by much!)

View of Whistler as we’re descending in a Blackcomb chairlift after riding the Peak to Peak gondola:

Eldest Son bungee-jumping:

I asked what his thoughts were on the way down. He said, “Big river!”

Bungee-jumping is now on my Bucket List. I figure if I can zipline, I can bungee-jump. Except I need a couple more ziplining experiences to confirm it. And I don’t plan on repeating the experience any time soon! I was lucky I could manage a wave.

Yes, I know, it’s supposed to be the other way around.

An inordinate number of elderly people are dying around me lately. If bad news comes in threes, let’s hope this is it. Because next week I’m going to my third funeral in as many weeks.

The first was the mother of a friend. She lived to 90, which is respectable, so that one I could rationalize. The second was my sister’s boyfriend’s mom. Actually, I didn’t physically attend that one, but I was with my sister in spirit. Then, earlier this week, I learned that my father’s older brother died in his sleep at 84. I don’t like it when people die in their 80s. I really don’t like it when they die in their 20s, but “she died at 90″ works much better for me than “she died at 83.”

My grandfather (my uncle’s father) lived to 106, so 83 sounds “young” to me. Even my grandmother, despite having a stroke at 81, lived to one month shy of her 89th birthday. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around my uncle dying at a younger age than either of his parents.

Amid all this doom and gloom, my second niece on my dh’s side is having a wedding reception of sorts this weekend. She eloped a few months ago, in the States, but several Canadian members of the family couldn’t attend the first reception, so we’re doing it all over again. It’s a white-themed party. So everyone has to wear white.

Yeah, me and white. We’re great buddies. White and me will last about 20 seconds, until I eat something and likely drop it.

But I’ll take white over wearing black any day when it means celebrating the union of two young people.

Now, here’s a tip if you ever have to phone someone to tell them a family member has died: make double, triple, nay, quadruple sure that you HAVE THE RIGHT NAME. Of the person who died. Believe me, hearing the wrong name will give the recipients of the bad news unncessary conniptions. And hearing that you yourself have died can’t be enjoyable, either.

I’m not happy anyone died. And I’m well aware that mistakes can happen, so it’s not the fault of the person who did the calling. Next week, I’ll travel with my sisters, brother, and parents to pay my respects to my oldest uncle. I remember him painting art in his basement studio when we were kids. I remember the crazy purple lounge suits he and my father both received from their wives one Christmas. My uncle liked the suit, but my father was appalled. I think it was the only time he wore it. What can I say? He was a logger.

My uncle enjoyed gardening, boats when he was young, and his art. As the years passed and my cousins and brother and sisters grew, my uncle remarried and moved away. We didn’t see him often. But he was always pleasant to talk to, and I looked forward to seeing him every time.

Rest in Peace, William Richard Procter.

I recently returned from a holiday to Newfoundland. My husband and I had a great time. I took along my netbook and had intended to blog during the trip and post pictures, but it didn’t work out that way. Now I’m digging myself out from under the 4.5 hour time change and ensuing jet lag while preparing for the RWA National Conference in New York City that begins in a couple of weeks. I’m flying in a few days early (cross your fingers for me, because Air Canada is on strike, and I have no idea how it will affect travel in ten days), so I’m also in “conference prep” mode.

I will eventually post pictures of our trip and share some storiees, but I need to get my focus back first. While we were gone, I received the cover for WHERE SHE BELONGS, my December release from Five Star Expressions. I love it. It totally captures the mood, and the photo the art department found for the waterfall that’s featured in the story looks very much like the real waterfall on which I based my fictional waterfall (if that makes sense).

I’ll post the cover in a day or two.

I wasn’t the only one to receive a cover. Penny also received the cover for the electronic release of A LITTLE WILD, coming from Samhain Publishing in November. The original release date was for early October, but because I’m gone twice during June I asked for a postponement. This cover is amazing, too! Both covers feature the heroines only—not a hero in sight! I find that rather amusing that art departments of two separate publishers interpreted my Art Fact Sheets to create heroine-only covers, but both these stories are heroine-centric, as in the story is more the heroine’s than the hero’s. In each book, she has the most baggage and issues to work through.

Again, when I have time, I’ll post Penny’s cover, too.

Even though Penny’s release date has been postponed, I just received edits from my editor and want to work through them and have them back to her before I leave for NYC. I also received back the blurbs and tag lines and need to give them another look. So I’ll pop in here when I can, posting covers (for which I expect much oohing and ahhing) and pictures and stories about Newfoundland and Labrador while prepping for Conference and working through my edits.

More soon, promise!

Er, make that “round up.”

In the I Can’t Find Enough Hours In The Day department, otherwise known as What Have I Been Up To?, I thought I’d pop in with the following:

Paint colors aren’t nearly as exciting as recent TV advertising would have one believe. At least, if you’re painting the interior of a mud room closet white, they aren’t. White is white, and such a delight. But, in the end, it’s just white.

I’ve decided it’s The Summer of White. I hereby pledge to paint every white room and piece of white wainscoting and white trim in the shared areas of the house (ie. the mud room and one hall, plus the kitchen wainscoting and trim. Okay, and some outside of doors. The parts that face into the hall). It’s way overude. I mean overdue. (Overude sounds over-rude). I figure if I only paint something white every couple of weeks, I won’t aggravate the bicep injury I created in the fall doing too much outdoor painting.

Nearly ALL the white sundeck trim I painted last summer has peeled off! White is a complete PITA sometimes! Or maybe it’s the rain/roast days of summer we “enjoy” that’s the PITA.

Come to think of it, where’s the summer? Okay, summer technically doesn’t start until June 21st, but this is ridiculous. One day it’s hot enough for air conditioning, the next I want My Liege to light a fire.

And none of this has anything to do with writing.

So, in the Writing Department, Penny has received a tentative release date for her erotic romance single title (sometime in the fall. I actually have a more precise idea of when in the fall, but I’m  not ready to announce it yet. Things are “in the works,” as they say). Because Penny loves to sit around on her lazy duff all day, this means I have to fill out her Cover Art Information Forms and write her cover blurb. I’m doing that this week.

As for Cindy, I’ve been working on my romantic comedy short story series and doing a lot of E.S. Just Moved Out post-cleaning.

I overindulged in peanut butter cups while awaiting the Rapture.

And I’ve been serving as a mentor for the ChickLit RWA on-line chapter. Me! A mentor. Imagine that.

I’m working with a writer on the other side of the pond. So far it’s been a pretty cool experience. I just hope I’m not piling too much “help” on her. I just figure, we only have two months to do this (May and June), and I’ll be out of town twice in June (I employ big, burly housesitters), so we don’t have as much time to work together as we should. So I’m giving it. And hopefully it’s helping her.

I would have loved a mentorship program like this when I was first starting out (I wonder if there’s such a thing as “when I was lastly starting out”?). But that was in pre-Internet days. I remember joining the RWA Outreach Chapter, which conducted all its business through the mail. That’s how I connected with my first critique partners. I still critique with one of them from time to time. My critique partners were my “mentors,” and I acted in the same capacity for them. I guess we were peer mentoring, because none of us were published at the time.

I’ve hooked up with other critique partners over the years. A couple of CP’ships lasted several years and were profitable for both sides. I still consider some of these writers very good friends. But sometimes “Real Life” interferes, family needs change, careers take off, and one or both partners needs to take a step back. Deadline Pressure is a real killer.

What else?

I haven’t had time to blog-hop the way I used to. It’s far easier to keep up with people on Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, I’m thinking of canceling my MySpace account. I never go over there anymore, so why bother? Penny is thinking of having me cancel her account as well.

Eldest Son is now fully moved out but Youngest Son’s summer job doesn’t start until June. So May continues to be an “in flux” month, much as April was. So, lest any of you think the reason I haven’t been blogging is because I went back to South America, no such luck, I’m here. Just wound up from trying to find time to wind down.

All aboard the Get ‘Er Done! train. Leaving the station… Now!

My great-nephew turned one on Saturday, and Eldest Son turns 23 today. E.S. also moved (partway) out of the house on Friday. I say partway because the moving occurred all weekend, and he’s left a lot of his stuff here. He’s moving in with two other people while he finishes his teaching certification and B.Ed. and gets on with life. He’s lived on his own before, two years away at university, one of those in Residence and the other in a basement suite with (at first) strangers of multiple nationalities. But this is his first time living entirely on his own dime.

Attending my great-nephew’s first birthday so close to E.S.’s birthday, compiled with E.S. moving out, brought back a ton of memories. I’m in memory-mode, anyway, as one year ago yesterday, my husband and I began our trip to Peru. Every day for the next three weeks, I’ll be reliving that trip, thinking about what we were doing on such-and-such day.

Plus, thirty years ago (the same age my niece, the great-nephew’s mommy, is turning tomorrow), my husband and I had just returned from backpacking through Europe. We weren’t married then. We were traveling in sin.

But, today, my “baby” is 23. We’re having a family dinner and a Dairy Queen ice-cream cake.

The thing I love most about babies turning one is the face-plant they usually do in their cakes. My great-nephew had a huge party and received tons of presents. When E.S. was a baby, my husband and I were living a 3-hour drive away from our hometown. So E.S. had only one friend at his party, a baby girl named Meghan. It was a low-key affair, to be sure, but he didn’t suffer cake-wise. A week later we traveled back to our hometown and had another celebration—and another cake!

Happy birthday, E.S.!

Everyone say, “Awwwwwww.”

…The taste of her rubber-bat nose.

Way back in February, My Liege and I went to Mexico for two weeks. I intended to blog about our holiday, I really did, but I didn’t click “Save Draft” within WordPress, you see—and my beautiful prose disappeared when I stupidly clicked a key I shouldn’t have.

I was so bummed out I couldn’t continue.

But now weeks—nay, months—have passed. Surely, I can try again.

This, my friends, is the tale of two cheapskates.

You see, when we went to Mexico, I had three “must-do’s” on my plate: (1) I must rent dune buggies and put my back out of alignment bouncing all over the desert; (2) I must prove I have vanquished my fear of heights (or fear of falling, as Youngest Son would put it) by going ziplining; (3) I must swim with dolphins!

Number one went South faster than a Canuck in November. We tried, oh, we TRIED, to rent dune buggies, but the dune buggy place in the area of Cabo we were visiting had gone belly-up, we discovered. We learned this while trying to rent dune buggies long-distance for a weekend jaunt to Cabo San Lucas. But the fellow at the kiosk in the monster-sized grocery store was much more interested in getting us to a Time Share presentation that would save us big bucks riding the dune buggies than he was in actually booking the excursion that we decided the whole thing was too much of a PITA. If we really want to ride dune buggies, we can go to Oregon. Right?

Number 2 was the ziplining. I did not care how much it cost, I was going! My father (with whom we were staying) said, “Very well, I shall taxi you to the ziplining place.” (It sounded more like, “Pass me a Corona,” but I was translating.) Well. Not only was the ziplining absurdly expensive, but it consisted of acrobating over a dry, dusty canyon with monster rocks on which to crack my skull. Terror overcame me. If I’m going to die ziplining, I’d rather it be over a green jungle canopy, thank you very much (I vow to go ziplining in Ecuador next year—you heard it here first). (I’m trusting that when the time comes, you won’t remember).

Sigh. Two adventures that didn’t materialize.

But I would, I vowed, I WOULD swim with dolphins while we were in Cabo San Lucas.

Then I visited the website. What? It was ultra expensive. So I knocked it off my list, too.

I know, I know, it’s ridiculous. We had a free place to stay—what was our problem?

Off we went to Cabo San Lucas. We stayed in a nice hotel in the marina area, had fun whale-watching and visiting Lover’s Arch and Divorce Beach (where a rogue wave tried to kill me, but I am nimble of foot and quickly scampered out of harm’s way). I even did a nice Rambo-roll getting back in the boat for our trip back to the marina. Our glass-bottomed boat captain dropped us off on a Saturday afternoon and we began trotting back to our hotel. When, what should we pass but the Swimming with Dolphins place! “Let’s just pop in and see what it’s about,” I told My Liege.

Turned out we were there in time to watch the last show of the day. So we did. And it looked marvelous! It looked wonderful! Fun and exciting! I bopped M.L. over the head and said, “You’re going deep sea fishing with my dad, so I want to swim with dolphins. I don’t care how much it costs. I’m worth it!” To which he replied, “I’m going, too!”

Hmph.

But we had vanquished our Inner Cheapskates! We booked spots for 10 a.m. the next morning.

And it was wonderful! It was exciting! We were separated into groups of eight, and each group had two dolphins with which to cavort. And cavort we did. They’re beautiful creatures, and it was amazing to be so close to them. To pet and stroke them. To panic as two converged on me at once (they’d swim wherever the trainers tossed the fish). And the swimming portion was great fun. Our dolphins swam on their backs. To swim along, you had to hang onto their “upper arm fins” while resting on their bellies. Cameras clicked the entire time. But they weren’t our cameras, oh, no. You see, cameras weren’t allowed within the pool area. I’d already figured out why. Because the lovely trainers were snapping dozens of photos and surely we would be allowed one each. After paying nearly $170 U.S. each for the pleasure of swimming with the cool dolphins?

Silly me.

After the show was over, we were herded into the Photo area. Smiling, I asked the attendant, “How much are the pictures?” My Liege had our surely-it’s-included-in-the-price piccie all picked out. But they cost—gasp—$25 apiece!! Apiece! Or $100 for 8.

I had stopped listening at this point. “I have my memories,” I sniffed. “And a dislocated elbow from Rambo-rolling into the glass-bottomed boat. I don’t need no effin pictures to remember how wonderful it felt to swim with dolphins.”

And that was that. I swam with dolphins, but I had no proof. At which point it occurred to me that while I had no proof of swimming with dolphins, neither did I have proof of NOT swimming with them. Which meant that maybe I DID go ziplining and dune buggy riding and simply have no proof of that, either. Just because I don’t have pictures doesn’t mean I didn’t do it, right?

Well. You all know me. I can not tell a lie very often. We did not rent dune buggies and we did not go ziplining. We DID swim with dolphins but were too cheap to buy proof.

We flew home knowing we had paid over $300 U.S. to swim with the dolphins and could not fork over another $25 for the photo.

But fate loves us. Fate was on our side. Because a couple of weeks later, whilst (nice word, that) I was Skyping with my parents, they said, “Steve’s in the Gringo Gazette!” (an English newspaper).

All those pictures the dolphin place snapped? They plastered one of my dh all over a half-page ad. Hah! NOW we have proof of our experience! A little grainy, but what can you expect from a pair of cheapskates?