Tell Me Tuesday

Today is Dadbert’s birthday. Happy birthday, Dadbert!

Dadbert is my new blog nickname for my father. I call him Dadbert quite frequently, and it’s more respectful than “Old Man,” which is another of my nicknames for him, so I decided it made a better blog nickname for He Who Gave Me Life than Mon Pere. Also, Dadbert doesn’t require an accent. So Dadbert it will be. Live with it. 🙂

What’s the news in the blogosphere? Writing or non-writing? From writers or non-writers? Myself, I had a bit of a tough writing week last week. Oh, I made progress, but every single sentence was like pulling teeth. Can I blame it on Mercury Retrograde? Or hormones? Or both? I think I will. However, now the hormone cloud has lifted, and the writing is moving along much better. In fact, I’m nearly to the NaNoWriMo mess of already drafted scenes for this project. I’m so close, I can breathe on them. I’m so close that I’ve started re-reading the NaNo scenes to ensure they and those I’m writing now will still bridge to each other. And you know what? I think they will. This gives me no end of joy. You mean there was a purpose to my NaNoWriMo experiment? I should know more next week.

Now, I open the floor to those brave enough to comment (yes, ye Commenters are a brave lot). What’s going on in your neck of the woods? Any news to share? If you have no news and you just want to give me a pat on the back, I won’t stop you.

Oh, and come back tomorrow, because I’m starting my very own MeMe! One big difference, I’m not tagging anyone. Participation in Cindy’s MeMe is strictly voluntary. So if you don’t come back, you don’t get to see what it is. And wouldn’t that be a shame?

 

SATC, The Movie

Eldest Son took me to see Sex and the City, The Movie yesterday—a belated Mother’s Day present. How would I describe it? “Predictable but fun.” (Yes, you can quote me). If you’re a fan of the series, it’s worth seeing in a theater, although it is “waitable” (as in waiting to rent the DVD). I didn’t want to wait, though, because I figured by then I would have heard all the spoilers.

I read an interview where Michael Patrick King (the writer) said he didn’t want the movie to feel like 3 back-to-back episodes of the series, but, um, that’s pretty much how it feels (okay, it feels more like 4 back-to-back episodes). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. Here we have some very well-loved characters, and there’s only so much Mr. King (good name!) could do with them without alienating his fan base. I give the movie a thumbs-up. Should they make a sequel? Definitely not. The movie provides a nice nightcap to the series. But I don’t need to get drunk.

The funniest part of the movie? “The Charlotte.”

The tenderest moment? “The Bridge.”

IMO, anyway. If you’ve seen the movie, what’s your take?

There’s a cute “Match Your Man” quiz on the Sex and the City, The Movie website. Look in the bottom right hand corner. I took the quiz, and it looks like Harry is the best match for My Liege. Well, I’ve been married to the guy forever, so that makes sense. 😉

You want spoilers? I got spoilers! I’ve formatted them in white font, so if you DON’T want to read spoilers, whatever you do, do NOT highlight the following paragraph. Highlighting the following paragraph WILL reveal the spoilers.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Spoilers:

  • Carrie and Big get married

  • He breaks her heart first

  • Charlotte gets pregnant

  • Steve cheats on Miranda

  • They get back together

  • Samantha leaves Smith

  • They don’t get back together

  • The girls are all happy and together at the end.

Bite Me

Until last week, I’d never read a vampire romance. I’m not prejudiced against the sub-genre—I’m squeamish! The Gremlins movies keep me up at night. So I always figured I’d find vampire novels scary. Guess what? I don’t!

mulvany_wicked.jpgAm I the only reader this late to the genre? This is where I confess that because of my squeamishness I wouldn’t have picked up SOMETHING WICKED if fellow Looney Binner, Catherine Mulvany, hadn’t written it. (What’s a Looney Binner, you ask? Loooong story). I’m so glad she did write this novel, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

Here’s a blippy:

When investigative journalist Regan Cluny travels to the California desert to find out why reclusive millionaire Charles Nash is financing an archaeological dig, she’s attacked by a gang of vampire bikers. The bikers leave her for dead, but Nash comes to her rescue. He’s shocked to see the puncture wounds on her neck, even more shocked to realize she’s the image of his beloved Katie, a woman who’s been dead for over a century. Like Regan’s attackers, Nash is a vampire, tied to the bikers by a vicious blood feud that dates back to the Civil War. He’s tried to keep a low profile while searching for the legendary Font of Miracles, but the bite on Regan’s neck tells him his past has caught up with him. And this time he’s not the only one at risk. Because of her resemblance to a dead woman, Regan’s in danger, too—not only from the bikers, but perhaps from Nash as well. The attraction between them is a powerful force. If he can’t control his baser urges, she may find herself face to face with…something wicked.

Yum-yum.

Does anyone have other vampire romances to recommend? (Not that my TBR pile needs to get any taller, but you know how it goes…)

Last Chance!

Two of them, actually.

  1. The South Jersey MOM magazine Beach Read Giveaway contest ends May 31st. If you haven’t entered your name in the drawing to win a free trade paperback copy of BORROWING ALEX or a book from one of the other talented authors included in the contest, hop on over to South Jersey MOM now. Scroll down past the Giveaways on the top of the page until you see CHICK LIT’S BEACH READ GIVEAWAYS. Please remember that this contest is open to U.S. residents only.

  2. Brenda Novak’s On-Line Auction for Diabetes Research also ends May 31st. It’s not too late to check out the awesome items and put in your bids!

My Poor Tulips

As promised last week, evidence of my patheticism as a gardener. Keep in mind, there are dozens of tulip bulbs planted in this garden:

tulips1.jpg

Yet, aside from these, um, beauties, only a few purple tulips and one yellow tulip bloomed this year. No scarlets at all that I can recall.

Try not to focus on the mucky gravely bits around the garden wall (I’ve cleaned up it up since taking this picture, I promise). Try to focus on the fact that I built the wall myself!

I have a theory regarding my lack of tulips this year. It’s either the fault of the freak snowstorm in April freezing my flowers as they were trying to grow, or it’s the fault of this Evil Entity:

keisha1.jpg

Keisha. Born a scant year ago, the formerly precious Keisha faithfully used her litter box until this spring, whereupon she discovered my tulip garden and proceeded to commandeer it for her own nefarious purposes.

Evidence:

tulips2.jpg

See the dig holes behind the tulips? The dirt scooped out of the garden? Well, it wasn’t me, I can tell you that much. No, Keisha is the guilty party, and I hereby sentence her to twenty lickings by Allie McBeagle.

Here’s my worry… When the tulips have had their day (the bulbs are now gone, but Little Pisser tells me the still-green stalks “feed” the bulbs for next year’s crop), I like to fill this garden with bedding plants. I may not be much of a gardener, but even I can’t bear to leave the dirt patch beside our kitchen door devoid of color. How do I stop the Evil Entity that is Keisha from digging up my bedding plants? Aside from throttling her, that is, because I wuv her!

Help! Any tips from gardening experts out there?

Tell Me Tuesday

Did everyone have a great Memorial Day? It was very rainy here in non-Memorial-Day Canada. I did some writing, then—

Beep-beep-beep! Incoming Alert!

We interrupt this non-eventful Tell Me Tuesday to inform Cindy’s readers that while she has nothing earth-shattering to report (other than that she’s been updating five years worth of photo albums and is only on 2004), her good buddy Kate St. James is over at the Red Sage Revealed blog talking about why Kate’s husband is The Luckiest Guy in Town.

Drop by and join in the—

Kate, get out of here!!

Just kidding, folks. I’m happy to have my friends commandeer my blog. And Kate really is a very dear friend. I’ve known her for years, you can trust me when I say that she’s quitegood_vibrations_md.jpg sane on her good days, and she’s a helluva writer. If you don’t believe me, check out her first novella, Good Vibrations, which appeared in Secrets Volume 21: Primal Heat in December 2007. I’ve read it dozens of times, and, I’m telling you, it’s hot, hot, hot! Not to mention fun. Fun, hot erotic romance. What more could you want?

Kate’s blog about how My Husband is the Luckiest Guy in Town (well, not my husband, but her husband, you understand) is definitely worth a read, and you can find her previous Red Sage blog post, What Makes a Man Sexy? here.

Tomorrow, as promised, I’ll post photographic evidence of my patheticism as a gardener. Drop by, because I really need some advice.