We are new parents this month. One scrappy terrier and two chicks later, we roost cozily together with our two cats and three children most nights.
Most nights, that is, until someone turns the heat lamp off in the chicks boudoir and they cheep furiously, chirping for the orange metal mother ship that has disconnected, not unlike Jilly, our five year old, yelling for me when she can't find her purse/blanket/cheese stick/whatever.
The cats hiss at the dog when it walks by and jump onto the highest point they can find. Only occasionally does the dog seem surprised. She came from the pound, where we found her 12 pound body in a cage next to a cage with a 100 pound titan named Hercules who barked interminably during our stay. She is unfazed by the chicks, the cats and even Jilly, who picks her up and squeezes her like a pillow uttering words of endearment loudly in her ear such as "Peppa I wuv you".
I tucked Claire and the dog into bed last night. The dog put it's head on the pillow, under the covers, and looked up at me. I didn't even think of the doggy smell on the sheets because she was just so obnoxiously cute.
Animals, like humans, don't really need much more than food, water, shelter and attention. Life really doesn't have to be so complicated. Maybe I should just stick to the basics more often, seek more heat lamps and warm beds, and let life be sweet and fuzzy like a soft chick next to my son's cheek.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Finding the Umm in Summer - Kelly
Sure feels like summer here: the first mosquito bites of the season, the first grass burr under(bare)foot, the car's AC breaking on the first 90 degree afternoon.
You need to know that summer is my least favorite time of year. I despise heat.
For five of the last seven years, I’ve escaped to my favorite home away from home, Ashland, Oregon. There I revel in cool mornings and evenings. I also get to hang with my friends in the Lithia Writers Collective.
What’s not to love?
Will I go this year? I don’t know yet, but I’m steeling myself for another Texas summer, just in case.
To psych myself up for that dreadful possibility and to make up for the first paragraph’s glum trinity, I’m determined to conjure some positive things about summer in my native state.
• Friday mornings around my friend V’s pool. She’s gracious enough to extend a standing invitation to the women of First Amendment Friday (i.e. our wine and conversation group), kids and all.
• Consumption of the year’s summer beverage with friends and family (in moderation, of course). Our standard Pinot Grigio (from Target! In a box! Go get some!) will likely, this summer be supplanted by a vodka concoction. The current contenders are sweet tea vodka, mixed with either water or lemonade; fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and plain vodka, with or without a salted rim; and blood orange Italian soda with vodka. My sister-in-law plans something that involves soaking pineapple chunks in vodka, too. Vote now for your favorite.
• Enjoying (in the morning, early afternoon, or at night) the patio furniture I finally talked The Man into purchasing at the end of last summer thanks to a ridiculous combination of discounts. Our patio is on the west side of our house, and if you sit there from 3-7 p.m., without shade, you will not be enjoying anything.
That’s three….do you have any to add?
You need to know that summer is my least favorite time of year. I despise heat.
For five of the last seven years, I’ve escaped to my favorite home away from home, Ashland, Oregon. There I revel in cool mornings and evenings. I also get to hang with my friends in the Lithia Writers Collective.
What’s not to love?
Will I go this year? I don’t know yet, but I’m steeling myself for another Texas summer, just in case.
To psych myself up for that dreadful possibility and to make up for the first paragraph’s glum trinity, I’m determined to conjure some positive things about summer in my native state.
• Friday mornings around my friend V’s pool. She’s gracious enough to extend a standing invitation to the women of First Amendment Friday (i.e. our wine and conversation group), kids and all.
• Consumption of the year’s summer beverage with friends and family (in moderation, of course). Our standard Pinot Grigio (from Target! In a box! Go get some!) will likely, this summer be supplanted by a vodka concoction. The current contenders are sweet tea vodka, mixed with either water or lemonade; fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and plain vodka, with or without a salted rim; and blood orange Italian soda with vodka. My sister-in-law plans something that involves soaking pineapple chunks in vodka, too. Vote now for your favorite.
• Enjoying (in the morning, early afternoon, or at night) the patio furniture I finally talked The Man into purchasing at the end of last summer thanks to a ridiculous combination of discounts. Our patio is on the west side of our house, and if you sit there from 3-7 p.m., without shade, you will not be enjoying anything.
That’s three….do you have any to add?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Mad Scientist, Secret Lab, Clones! Creepy Creeperson, M.D. is Back.
Did you guys read the latest from Dr. Zavos, the mad scientist hell bent on making cloned children? Yesterday he claimed he’s already cloned 14 human embryos and put 11 of them into the wombs of four women who wanted to give birth to cloned babies! The cells? Yeah, culled from dead children. Apparently grieving parents are desperate enough to do almost anything. This is total movie material, including the fact that he’s operating out of a secret lab, suspected to be in the Middle East where there’s no ban on cloning.Why would a parent want a developmentally challenged version of a previous child to the tune of more than $45,000? Why not just have another child naturally? It seems the easiest way for Dr. Zavos to get test-cases is to prey upon parents who cannot get beyond their grief. Is this ethical?
One of my favorite freelance clients is the Women’s Bioethics Project, a think tank in Seattle that focuses on making sure women don’t get hosed in the policy making process. Let’s face it; almost all biotechnology issues have to do with women yet the majority of the people making laws about biotechnology are olde white guys but. Having hair sprouting from your ears does not necessarily make you wise, sometimes it just make you crotchety, shortsighted, and misogynistic. (Color me jaded.) Anyway, if you are interested in women’s rights with regard to medicine and biotechnology, check out the Women’s Bioethics Project. Interesting stuff.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Plaster girls in bonnets--Marcia
Today, the kindergarten literacy aids were sent into the streets of Medford with door hangers, announcing the upcoming Kindergarten Round-up.
We need to boost enrollment. Next year is going to be a hard sell. We will be moving out of our shared housing at Hoover and back into our brand new school in the middle of the year. (YEAH!!!)
The three other aids and I showed up in our mobile-trailer library with our prerequisite coffee cups and water bottles. I dressed Kindergarten-y--floral skirt, white blouse, and black Mary Janes. The other aids dressed for battle: sneakers, running pants, and sleeveless shirts. I was impressed.
We decided to hit the financially challenged neighborhoods first, as a group. This is always a good eye-opener. The HUD apartments are immaculate. Everything is swept and tidy. No beat up Barbie cars or sun-dyed Big Wheels strewn about. There is nothing to tell you about the people that live within. Order and quiet force us to keep our voices down. Where moments ago we'd been joking about ditching our propaganda in a nearby dumpster and heading to Donut Country we're serious now. We fan out. I am the leader and direct my comrades left, right, and center.
We move swiftly trying not to jostle doorknobs or rustle our fliers, we don't really want to have anyone come out. There is a sense of people behind doors. But nothing moves.
We pack up and head back out for the circa 1970s Woodlawn Apartments. I used to think there were maybe 24 apartments at the Woodlawn. But the lot is really deep and wide, and there turns out to be over 100. At first I am not sure they are all part of Woodlawn, I check to see if all the street lamps have that big white ball and that all the window trim is forest green. We divise a plan and attack. Here the doorknobs are a little grottier, the stairwells a tad more like the projects. I pass a bicycle with a sticker on it that says Suck My Dick. Seriously. Are there people that say "OK!"
I start to worry about blond, blue-eyed April. She looks like she's 23, and her knickers are the tightest. What if some meth freak drags her into his apartment. How would I find her?
I climb a cement staircase. There is a jug of bleach by one door and a can full of cigarette butts by the other. I wonder about the bleach. Do people bleach their feet before entering? Is he/she bleaching the stoop? Is it for recycling hypodermics?
We decide to do the apartments across the street and move forward with great vigor. I can't keep up with these ladies. My whole family had the 24-hour flu, only staggered. So I've either been cleaning up barf since Sunday, or adding to the mess for three days. I'm not in top shape for the mission.
The sign says "Something Estates" and in small letters "living opportunity--Equal Housing Something". We wonder if this is a place only for the elderly or for the disabled.
We start hanging our little yellow papers. "Oh goody" I think, there's a rolled up diaper and an empty Huggies carton, "Ages 3 and up" out front of this one. That means Kids!!!!!
At the same time we spot a shoeless little boy up the driveway. "There's one!" We say, confidant that we will find Roosevelt converts here.
Knowing my population I can't help but wonder if the boy has been sent outside while mommy "works" or takes her "medicine". But I'm wrong. He follows us silently up the sidewalks. An older hispanic woman pokes her head out and shouts at him to come back in, to get his shoes on. But he doesn't listen. He smiles and follows us until we are finished.
Our next stop is East Medford's drug den. A lovely old neighborhood with broad sidewallks, old Elm trees, porches and camelias that must have been planted in the early 1900s. But unlike Bend's Westside and Ashland's Railroad District, few are gentrifying down here. Craftsman bungalows are decomposing before our eyes.
What is amazing though, is that even at the lowliest hell hole, people try to make the space their own. Despite a derelict house, a hibachi in a flower pot, curtains that are water stained, someone has planted a few zinnias by the stoop.
Another porch is made cool and welcoming with a handmade broom propped in a corner and a cute iron table with matching vinyl covered chairs. I hang my flier on the stoller handle as I duck under the pine boughs that arc over the pathway.
On one porch I go to hang my doo-hickey, registering, porch, stoller, plush couch, ashtray and then ahhh . . . Where others have put plaster statues of frogs fishing or doing a jig, sun-bonnetted girls, myriad aryan angels, bleach bottles, or cans for butts by their door, this person has propped a romantic painting of a flaxen-haired woman either in the process of buttoning or unbottoning her bloozy white blouse. She just neglected to put one globular rosy-tipped breast away or forgot to air out the other. It is unclear. Different, however, from the cross-legged frog and windchime crew.
What do people think when they come to my door? I think I better run home and put away the scooters, basketballs, shoes, gatorade bottles, and Shark Men, that litter my front door. I think about people's need, no matter the circumstances, for a little beauty or humor, or something to call their own. I see how at the Stevens Street Apartments where people are being given a fresh start, they are following rules, keeping things tidy, being proud of their little patch of a chance. At the others, they are maybe at their last chance, and things are not so pretty. Some don't even have real front doors just sliding glass doors hung with sheets and a worn out rubber mat from Bi-Mart. These are the only places that make me want to wash my hands. The stripped bike and heavy chain, the reek of so many cigarettes is depresssing. No Cat Crossing sign here, just an abandoned Dora the Explorer backpack and a cardboard carton with a stray chile in the bottom.
Then the little houses, however hard the life, however many children, there is the stab at expression.
We finish off in the neighborhoods that have stopped sending their kids to Roosevelt. The families that have opted to send their kids off to private or Christian schools, or transfer into the wealthier districts like Lone Pine or Hoover.
Here the driveways and borders have had their dose of Round-Up, the tulips and jonquils are still in bloom, lawns are mowed, dogwoods are in bloom and only one house has a plaster statue and a hibachi. I know who lives at this one, and she does send her kids to Roosevelt. She's one of the most active parents in the PTA.
All of us noticed how all but the meanest situations flowered with this desire for a spot of beauty, the will to express. It leaves me today, with this great desire to take care of what is mine. Remember how lucky I am, and to show my gratitude on occasion.
We need to boost enrollment. Next year is going to be a hard sell. We will be moving out of our shared housing at Hoover and back into our brand new school in the middle of the year. (YEAH!!!)
The three other aids and I showed up in our mobile-trailer library with our prerequisite coffee cups and water bottles. I dressed Kindergarten-y--floral skirt, white blouse, and black Mary Janes. The other aids dressed for battle: sneakers, running pants, and sleeveless shirts. I was impressed.
We decided to hit the financially challenged neighborhoods first, as a group. This is always a good eye-opener. The HUD apartments are immaculate. Everything is swept and tidy. No beat up Barbie cars or sun-dyed Big Wheels strewn about. There is nothing to tell you about the people that live within. Order and quiet force us to keep our voices down. Where moments ago we'd been joking about ditching our propaganda in a nearby dumpster and heading to Donut Country we're serious now. We fan out. I am the leader and direct my comrades left, right, and center.
We move swiftly trying not to jostle doorknobs or rustle our fliers, we don't really want to have anyone come out. There is a sense of people behind doors. But nothing moves.
We pack up and head back out for the circa 1970s Woodlawn Apartments. I used to think there were maybe 24 apartments at the Woodlawn. But the lot is really deep and wide, and there turns out to be over 100. At first I am not sure they are all part of Woodlawn, I check to see if all the street lamps have that big white ball and that all the window trim is forest green. We divise a plan and attack. Here the doorknobs are a little grottier, the stairwells a tad more like the projects. I pass a bicycle with a sticker on it that says Suck My Dick. Seriously. Are there people that say "OK!"
I start to worry about blond, blue-eyed April. She looks like she's 23, and her knickers are the tightest. What if some meth freak drags her into his apartment. How would I find her?
I climb a cement staircase. There is a jug of bleach by one door and a can full of cigarette butts by the other. I wonder about the bleach. Do people bleach their feet before entering? Is he/she bleaching the stoop? Is it for recycling hypodermics?
We decide to do the apartments across the street and move forward with great vigor. I can't keep up with these ladies. My whole family had the 24-hour flu, only staggered. So I've either been cleaning up barf since Sunday, or adding to the mess for three days. I'm not in top shape for the mission.
The sign says "Something Estates" and in small letters "living opportunity--Equal Housing Something". We wonder if this is a place only for the elderly or for the disabled.
We start hanging our little yellow papers. "Oh goody" I think, there's a rolled up diaper and an empty Huggies carton, "Ages 3 and up" out front of this one. That means Kids!!!!!
At the same time we spot a shoeless little boy up the driveway. "There's one!" We say, confidant that we will find Roosevelt converts here.
Knowing my population I can't help but wonder if the boy has been sent outside while mommy "works" or takes her "medicine". But I'm wrong. He follows us silently up the sidewalks. An older hispanic woman pokes her head out and shouts at him to come back in, to get his shoes on. But he doesn't listen. He smiles and follows us until we are finished.
Our next stop is East Medford's drug den. A lovely old neighborhood with broad sidewallks, old Elm trees, porches and camelias that must have been planted in the early 1900s. But unlike Bend's Westside and Ashland's Railroad District, few are gentrifying down here. Craftsman bungalows are decomposing before our eyes.
What is amazing though, is that even at the lowliest hell hole, people try to make the space their own. Despite a derelict house, a hibachi in a flower pot, curtains that are water stained, someone has planted a few zinnias by the stoop.
Another porch is made cool and welcoming with a handmade broom propped in a corner and a cute iron table with matching vinyl covered chairs. I hang my flier on the stoller handle as I duck under the pine boughs that arc over the pathway.
On one porch I go to hang my doo-hickey, registering, porch, stoller, plush couch, ashtray and then ahhh . . . Where others have put plaster statues of frogs fishing or doing a jig, sun-bonnetted girls, myriad aryan angels, bleach bottles, or cans for butts by their door, this person has propped a romantic painting of a flaxen-haired woman either in the process of buttoning or unbottoning her bloozy white blouse. She just neglected to put one globular rosy-tipped breast away or forgot to air out the other. It is unclear. Different, however, from the cross-legged frog and windchime crew.
What do people think when they come to my door? I think I better run home and put away the scooters, basketballs, shoes, gatorade bottles, and Shark Men, that litter my front door. I think about people's need, no matter the circumstances, for a little beauty or humor, or something to call their own. I see how at the Stevens Street Apartments where people are being given a fresh start, they are following rules, keeping things tidy, being proud of their little patch of a chance. At the others, they are maybe at their last chance, and things are not so pretty. Some don't even have real front doors just sliding glass doors hung with sheets and a worn out rubber mat from Bi-Mart. These are the only places that make me want to wash my hands. The stripped bike and heavy chain, the reek of so many cigarettes is depresssing. No Cat Crossing sign here, just an abandoned Dora the Explorer backpack and a cardboard carton with a stray chile in the bottom.
Then the little houses, however hard the life, however many children, there is the stab at expression.
We finish off in the neighborhoods that have stopped sending their kids to Roosevelt. The families that have opted to send their kids off to private or Christian schools, or transfer into the wealthier districts like Lone Pine or Hoover.
Here the driveways and borders have had their dose of Round-Up, the tulips and jonquils are still in bloom, lawns are mowed, dogwoods are in bloom and only one house has a plaster statue and a hibachi. I know who lives at this one, and she does send her kids to Roosevelt. She's one of the most active parents in the PTA.
All of us noticed how all but the meanest situations flowered with this desire for a spot of beauty, the will to express. It leaves me today, with this great desire to take care of what is mine. Remember how lucky I am, and to show my gratitude on occasion.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Studying Kids Studying Bugs -- Jennie
Hey readers!
While I figure out how to transfer my own blog onto the Lithia site, please sneak a peek here.
Enjoy!
While I figure out how to transfer my own blog onto the Lithia site, please sneak a peek here.
Enjoy!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Piece Work - backstitching a freelance job--Marcia
I miss my blog.
I woke up this morning craving a little time with her. She is a place where I can write whatever I want. I can be as good or bad, short or long, irrelevant or irreverent as I want.
I don't think anybody reads this. I certainly don't get paid. And maybe that's the beauty of it all. Maybe that's what I'm hankering for right now.
I've been in the writing trenches for over a month, and left my little bloggie alone to whither and die. I missed her, every Wednesday I'd think about crawling into her clean white space and filling it with fragments from my life.
Wednesday would come and go, I'd make a mental note of things i wanted to talk about: the birth of the Princess and Captain Morgan's baby Dutch, our foiled spring vacation, our neighborhood Easter, Erma Bombeck, teaching kids to read . . . But I knew I could not look up from my research, could not afford whatever time away from the manuscript I was working on, to play with my blog.
So many bitter thoughts went through my head. As time wore on with the museum job, I made less and less money. And yet, I couldn't stop. Facts needed to be checked, hypothesis iron-clad, writing pristine. There were nights it got later and later and later until it was morning and time to make coffee and wake the kids for school. All I wanted to do was cry, or quit.
I missed the day James' training wheels came off. I missed tennis practice, I missed baseball games, I missed hockey matches, I missed family dinners and bedtimes. Spring break was a grind, keeping my children at bay, trying to buy time, trying to work.
My family proved that they could do it. They could give me the time and space I needed to write. They were wonderful. James cried. He missed me. He wanted me to stop. But he didn't interrupt. My husband manned the dinner hour and helped occasionally by putting out clothes for school.
As the writing wore on and on, it started to make sense. Truths that I thought might be hidden in the quilts and needlework turned out to be so, it just took a while to prove it. I finally loved the quilts, loved the women who made them, and was impressed with the time they lived in. They taught me to shut up. Our lives are so easy. Our freedoms vast.
In the late 18th or early 19th Century I would have been a spinster who probably got burned at the stake. There is no way I could have kept my mouth shut, my corset cinched and my mind and body supine.
I am trying to be grateful for the schooling I've just been given--on so many levels. The most obvious: I learned a bucket load about how our country was founded, about women and their role in supporting our country, and about quilts. What do you want to know? I can tell you.
About writing? I learned that I am prone to wedding cakes instead of Hot Pockets. I am a rich detail girl not a pop-it in the micro fake meatball and cheeser. All I needed for this job was a Hot Pocket. I could not deliver. I had to make the four-tiered thing first and then scale it back down. Not good. Not cost effective--especially for my soul.
The money offered was less than an entry level school teacher makes in a week--it took me eight. And now they're holding the check. Do I feel insulted? Yes. Welcome to writing.
I have to look on the bright side. I did finish something. I was proud of it for a short period of time. I learned a ton. I got to work in a world-class museum. And, I have a really good manuscript in my hands. I do something with it, or I don't. It's all on me.
I woke up this morning craving a little time with her. She is a place where I can write whatever I want. I can be as good or bad, short or long, irrelevant or irreverent as I want.
I don't think anybody reads this. I certainly don't get paid. And maybe that's the beauty of it all. Maybe that's what I'm hankering for right now.
I've been in the writing trenches for over a month, and left my little bloggie alone to whither and die. I missed her, every Wednesday I'd think about crawling into her clean white space and filling it with fragments from my life.
Wednesday would come and go, I'd make a mental note of things i wanted to talk about: the birth of the Princess and Captain Morgan's baby Dutch, our foiled spring vacation, our neighborhood Easter, Erma Bombeck, teaching kids to read . . . But I knew I could not look up from my research, could not afford whatever time away from the manuscript I was working on, to play with my blog.
So many bitter thoughts went through my head. As time wore on with the museum job, I made less and less money. And yet, I couldn't stop. Facts needed to be checked, hypothesis iron-clad, writing pristine. There were nights it got later and later and later until it was morning and time to make coffee and wake the kids for school. All I wanted to do was cry, or quit.
I missed the day James' training wheels came off. I missed tennis practice, I missed baseball games, I missed hockey matches, I missed family dinners and bedtimes. Spring break was a grind, keeping my children at bay, trying to buy time, trying to work.
My family proved that they could do it. They could give me the time and space I needed to write. They were wonderful. James cried. He missed me. He wanted me to stop. But he didn't interrupt. My husband manned the dinner hour and helped occasionally by putting out clothes for school.
As the writing wore on and on, it started to make sense. Truths that I thought might be hidden in the quilts and needlework turned out to be so, it just took a while to prove it. I finally loved the quilts, loved the women who made them, and was impressed with the time they lived in. They taught me to shut up. Our lives are so easy. Our freedoms vast.
In the late 18th or early 19th Century I would have been a spinster who probably got burned at the stake. There is no way I could have kept my mouth shut, my corset cinched and my mind and body supine.
I am trying to be grateful for the schooling I've just been given--on so many levels. The most obvious: I learned a bucket load about how our country was founded, about women and their role in supporting our country, and about quilts. What do you want to know? I can tell you.
About writing? I learned that I am prone to wedding cakes instead of Hot Pockets. I am a rich detail girl not a pop-it in the micro fake meatball and cheeser. All I needed for this job was a Hot Pocket. I could not deliver. I had to make the four-tiered thing first and then scale it back down. Not good. Not cost effective--especially for my soul.
The money offered was less than an entry level school teacher makes in a week--it took me eight. And now they're holding the check. Do I feel insulted? Yes. Welcome to writing.
I have to look on the bright side. I did finish something. I was proud of it for a short period of time. I learned a ton. I got to work in a world-class museum. And, I have a really good manuscript in my hands. I do something with it, or I don't. It's all on me.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The True 3G Network
Two to Three Weeks.That's how much longer the oncologist thinks I will have a mother.
I realized yesterday that my daughter hadn't seen her grandmother in weeks, and that each needed time with the other. So, last night, Anna accompanied me when I went over to put Mother to bed.
I've never felt more like a fulcrum.
I held two hands: one gnarled and cool, the other smooth and warm.
I stoked two heads: one bald, the other covered in thick, lustrous curls.
I rested my head on two shoulders: one bony and brittle, the other round and strong.
This is the true 3Generation network.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Pondering the Miracle of Life--Kerry
Spring has sprung.
After the harshest winter in forty years, I stare out the window lost in sensory wonder.
Pink cherry blossoms.
Yellow daffodils.
Children skipping.
The smell of barbecues and lawnmower gas. (That one's for you Christy).
There might be a haiku somewhere there...
"If you find yourself out of the race, so far behind the pack that you can hardly see its dust-if the odds weigh against you, the odds against happiness returning to fill your days with joy, the seemingly overwhelming odds that you will never recover from whatever is beating you down- take a moment and consider life's cosmic odds and how you're already beaten them," writes Forrest Church in Utne Reader about the miracle of our just being born in the first place.
Spring reminds me of miracles.
After the harshest winter in forty years, I stare out the window lost in sensory wonder.
Pink cherry blossoms.
Yellow daffodils.
Children skipping.
The smell of barbecues and lawnmower gas. (That one's for you Christy).
There might be a haiku somewhere there...
"If you find yourself out of the race, so far behind the pack that you can hardly see its dust-if the odds weigh against you, the odds against happiness returning to fill your days with joy, the seemingly overwhelming odds that you will never recover from whatever is beating you down- take a moment and consider life's cosmic odds and how you're already beaten them," writes Forrest Church in Utne Reader about the miracle of our just being born in the first place.
Spring reminds me of miracles.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Project Buenos Aires!
Envy has been dripping from my pores ever since I heard about the gaggle of YA authors who planned a writing retreat in a castle in Ireland. In my head I've been planning my own writer's getaway. We can dream, no? While castles in the British Isles do have a certain allure, I'd also like a place that has really really great food and wine. And nice weather. And an excellent bookstore. So when I saw this site that shows photos of the most interesting bookstores in the world, I knew it would be Argentina. Just look at this photo!
Isn't it the most exquisite site in the world? Acres of book! Acres!
Plus, Buenos Aires, known as the Paris of South America, figures prominently in Book Two of my series, so I figure it's meant to be. We can rent Jardin Escondito, Francis Ford Coppola's villa in Bueno Aires.
We'll write like fiends all day (with breaks for dips in the pool and tapas, natch) and then talk books and writing over scrumptious food and great local wines.
Who's in? Say 2011-ish when we're all wildly successful? Vaminos!
Isn't it the most exquisite site in the world? Acres of book! Acres!Plus, Buenos Aires, known as the Paris of South America, figures prominently in Book Two of my series, so I figure it's meant to be. We can rent Jardin Escondito, Francis Ford Coppola's villa in Bueno Aires.
We'll write like fiends all day (with breaks for dips in the pool and tapas, natch) and then talk books and writing over scrumptious food and great local wines.Who's in? Say 2011-ish when we're all wildly successful? Vaminos!
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