My Memorial Day Pictures are IN

Remember, some of these pics will load to a fuller, crisper view. Click on the ones that appeal to you.

Beautiful, Isnt' it?




USS. Massachusetts














Sea Wall near Fairhaven Mass.







Mating Horeshoe crabs
They stayed attached for over 24 hours.

Ouch!





View from our room










Cape Cod silly.

Restaurant is out of business, but pranksters weren't.l

Rugosa Rose amongst the boulder strewn coast line.

I'm back

Hi!
Went on a fantastic holiday weekend trip.
Usually I have pictures to accompany my posts but my digital camera no longer focuses.
I took regular pictures so I'm going to have them developed and transferred to disc. That way I'll be able to share them with you and my family members.
What did I see?
The battleship Masschusetts.
Beautiful ocean vistas.
Cannons.
Young Marines in a flag raising ceremony.
Sunshine
Horseshoe crabs mating - for hours and hours
Jelly fish in their natural habitat

It was exhilarating but I'm glad to be back home.


I usually have pictures to share, but since I don't, I have some back ups to at least bring a Mona Lisa smile to your face.


Enjoy!

Oh By The Way, Can someone PLEASE tell me why, oh why do photographers think its sexy to put otherwise viewable hunks in white socks?

Seriously, why is one sock up and the other down? Is there a message in that?

How can socks be so brightly clean and white anyway?

And he's shaved! Everywhere I care to look is shaved.

Why?

Does it even matter?

Your thoughts please ...


Because you know what? I feel ....

Bugged.

FYI

Thank you so much to everyone who shared their own stories of nightmares from their childhood bedrooms.

Many were truly amazing!

FYI - going on blog hiatus until after the holiday. I'll miss cruising and commenting on your blogs. I hope you'll miss me too - just a teeny bit.


Since I'm going to be busy, I thought I'd leave some visual aides to engage your thoughts.

Enjoy!

OH! I have to mention this. In my travels today I had two elements of wildlife run across the road in front of my car. One was a frog - good sized one too ( and yes, it hopped, not ran.) The second was the most amazing because in all of my 40 years, I've never had happen what I had today happen. A Black Bear ran in front of my car!!!!!!
Is that cool or what? Woot!

















Have a relaxing weekend everyone!!

Nightmares in Your Bedroom

Today I was floating around blogland. I came across M.E.'s blog which got me to thinking.
Yes, here I go again.


My question today is:

When you were growing up, were there any scary elements in your bedroom that you remember to this day?

I have two - one silly and normal and the other, not.

The first is the nightmare of getting bitten at night.

It started after my room was getting done over once I became a "tween". My Dad let the rolled rug drop and it busted a hole in the wall.
Instead of patching it up, they put panelling over it.
Always had a cold spot there, but no ghosts.
What triggered the nightmares were sounds. I'd hear mice/squirrels/chipmunks (never knew which) scritching and scratching in the walls. Scurrying to and fro as though searching.
I swear they'd always find , The Spot.
The weakness.
My worst fears were that they'd gnaw through and attack me.
I would lay there, listening, following their direction with my ears. Feeling the sweat pore off of me as I hid under the covers.
*ahem*
I was very imaginative back then.

Prior to that, my nightmares were in a more otherworldly venue.
When we moved into the old farm house, I finally had my own room.
It was on the outskirts of the city so we had woods in the back.
That first night, I woke up and walked over to my window. It was high up in the wall, so I had to step onto a chair so I could see out.

There, before me, was a parade of circus animals, all bright, cheery, exotic and beautiful.
The problem was, they were leaving.
I had the distinct impression that happiness was leaving my new home.
A physical sensation pressed upon me that hope and easy times were abandoning me.
Very creepy.

Obviously, being a 5 year old, it was a dream. A realistic dream in the mind of a child.
However, that was the start.

Remember, it was an old farm house. Over one hundred years old. An old house can be drafty, settled at odd angles and prone to providing plenty of ammo for an imaginative and fearful child.

This is the second: The haunting

I had my own closet with a thick, heavy door painted white.
It moved.
Back and forth. Just a inch in, just an inch out.
Silently, smoothly , it moved.

I never imagined monsters in the closet like most kids you read about. No.
The door was the monster.
It moved.
I would stare at it, willing it to stop. Or start. Depending on what frame of mind I was in.
Will I be brave tonight?
Or terrified.

It didn't do it all the time mind you, but I could never figure out a pattern.
After all these years, I doubt I could have.

Did it really move?
Did I really see it?

I believe so.

When my parents had done over the room for me, they replaced the door with one of the new, lightweight hollow doors that are popular now.

Since then, and I will tell you - I stared for hours, for days - the new door never moved.
Not a millimeter.

So, was the door haunted? Your guess is as good as mine.

I still remember that my bedroom was not the haven most girls rooms are said to be.

How was yours?

A drool-licious NK link

Deidre Knight's Blog has the yummiest, spiffiest, coolest tribute to cover model
Nathan Kamp I've yet to see.
If you are a fan of his, you simply have to check this out! The Nathan Show

No interest? If you've missed my TV show rant, check the post below.
(at least I have a good pic there too)

What a waste of time

Hello everybody!
You know me,
(at least , I hope so)
I usually pass on regular TV shows.
I hardly EVER talk about them here.
You'll not see me blab about what everyone else does; Survivor, Great Race, those numerous reality TV shows, or any of that untalented and undisciplined schlock.

What I will mention is Armegeddon 10.5. which was " shaking the airwaves" for three nights.
If I got the title wrong - gives you an idea where this little post is heading...

Can we say: Commercial Overload?
Stupid and uninspiring acting?
Predictable story line?
Unrealistic anti-climatic ending?
Emotional distance and when they did succeed in dragging emotion from me, I wanted to "bitch slap" many of the characters. So much so, that when some of them died, I felt like saying "About time - NEXT!"

What the (%$#%&) were they thinking with all that amateurish camera zooming. I swear, if I were epileptic, I'd have been having my own friggin tremors on the floor. It nigh caused me to toss my cookies or at least cross my eyes in visual distress.
What the hell kind of technique do they call that anyway?????

The ONLY good thing I can mention would be the special effects. They were quite dazzling. Seeing Las Vegas sink into dirt like a acursed pyramid being swallowed by the sands of ancient Egypt , was quite thrilling. There were elements of Dante's Peak (which I love), some from the Night of the Twisters ( in which John Schneider played a dad there too) and that stupid Volcano movie. (OK, I know some people actually liked that movie, but come on! Unrealistic! )

At the end of the three nights, I expected more , perhaps a cerebral and complete exploration of the ramifications of the new fault line?
The fact that the ocean now goes up into Canada - someone explain that to me.
Salt water all the way up?
Can that, theoretically, really happen?
Against Red Hot Lava All The Way UP?
Also to have hot lava so friggin close to nuclear power plants and not have any affect on them, can we accept that?

Another point that I seriously took offense to, was at the end when the MILITARY was supposed to be placing detonators on the gas wells(?) the geologist was telling them to "hurry" with commanding authority. The geologist was telling them to "move out!". (WTH) The geologist was with them supposedly as they set the charges for all 28 of the wells. Why?
EXCUSE ME? Our military demolitions experts train vigourously and thoroughly. They would not need a geologist, to tell them to move out from a helicopter. That's the commanders job. A military guy. That is their role, function and responsibility. Didn't these movie people do their homework? I'm a civilian through and through. Knowing nothing about military procedures it still struck me as being wrong. Inaccurate. Insulting, even.
Anyone want to clarify, correct me and/or educate me in this regard?

I grit my teeth - trying not to be verbally profane in my disappointment. So I'll just say:
Damnit! That ending sucked. Like a lemon in a vaccuum.

*whew* Vent over. See? No fault line on my butt.
















Sometimes I just have to humor myself. Guess I'll divert myself with visual acuity.






Gotta love a guy that plays with a big ball.


Gosh, I DO feel better. More like my normal innocent self.


Hope you are having a better day!!!



TTFN

Correction accomplished

Just a quick note here.

If you've ever been curious or bored enough to click on any of my side links to discover what it is that intrigues me enough to permanently save a link, you must have seen my MySpace link.

You would have been thwarted. It never worked.

I've had the link to nowhere for a little over two months. I was extremly frustrated because no matter what I tried, it never, ever worked. The odd thing? The address was perfect. No typo's anywhere, although typo's are a major fault of mine and are effectively embarassing.

I checked the addy again and again.
Perfect.
What to do?
This morning, I played. I was adding even more links when I decided to try , again, to solve the mystery.

I had the two pages up and glanced between the two. Remember your Seseme Street? Which one is not like the others?

I played that, and guess what I discovered! The solving required the removal of a simple "/" -
How flippin' simple!

Seems 99% of links all have that "/" symbol at the very end. I thought it was important - a necessary component of the command.

Turns out, it is superfluous in this situation.

Who'd have thought?

The correction is accomplished, the link is up and I can now continue onto other weird and wonderful paradoxes of life.
Woot!
In celebration, I will post something for YOU to smile about:






This is the mailbox that authors might wish all their "rejection letters" ended up in.



Nothing to add here, LOL. Have a great day, all.

A Day with the Ladies

OH yeah. Traveling with these ladies allows me to continue to think I'm a really young "chick". 99% were 50 yrs and older - much older.

It wasn't 100% because one lady's grandchildren came along.

On Sunday, we went to Manchester, New Hampshire's Palace Theater. I hadn't been to a live performance in ...oh, about 6 years.

It was the last performance of the run of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

All I knew of it, was that Donny Osmond used to play the title role. I am SO glad I went. The show was fantabulous! The music, the dancing and the hysterical surprises we received from some of the story skits. Although the lead was not played by Donny Osmond, the guy was hunkalicious - Jason Levinson - and his voice was lovely to the ear.

Matt Stokes played the Pharoah. (WOW)

Both of these men appeared courtesy of the Actors' Equity Association.

Have you SEEN this play? My gosh, I don't want to give the skit away but I haven't laughed so much and so long for quite awhile. One of the older ladies, when the "Pharoah" came out on stage with all his finery, SCREAMED with laughter! She was still talking about it on the trip home.

At the end, our bus wasn't there to pick us up. Show let out 45 minutes early. While we were waiting on the sidewalk, the actors started coming out. When we saw "Joseph" ,(Jason Levinson) we started chanting ' Go, Josheph, Go!" And we all started clapping.

What was notable about this scenario? He might have been cool and smooth onstage accepting the applause of the crowd - put him on a public street - clap wildly and loudly in appreciation - and he was humble, pleasantly bashful and sweet. He has a nice smile which he shared with us before his two female "attendents(?)" quickly escorted him to the cafe next door.

Now the Pharoah, he was a taller man with a sigh-inducing build. When we saw him without his adornment, the leader of our entrepid gaggle of gals tentativley asked , "Elvis?"

He grinned and said "Uh-huh."

What do you think we did when he owned up to his role?

"Elvis has left the building!!!" Woohoooo!!!!!"

While we clapped and applauded him on the sidewalk, he grinned and graced us with his reponse:

"Thank you...Thankyou Very much" -a classic and perfect Elvis impersonation. LOL! After he said "Thank you" a few more times, he - who also had two female 'attendents' - left chuckling and in very good humor.

Having a plethora of adoring and silly female fans, even older ones, must have been an ego boost. How could it not be? *giggle*

I am SO glad I went on this trip. I couldn't wait to share it with you.

Retro Blog time

Can you believe that I've been blogging for ONE WHOLE YEAR?

Truly, is has been a wonderful experience. I've explored areas in my brain that have been unused and abandoned for years.

What a waste.

I've met hordes of awesome people.

Joy.

I have people who COMMENT.

Bask in the wonder of it all.

When I started, it was common to receive (on a busy day) three comments.
I considered myself very chatty and fun.

Self-delusion is a dangerous thing.

Now, I go with the flow. Still experimenting, spreading my wings and finding blog buddies that should I ever meet them, I'd call them "friend."

In a mushy and sentimental frame of mind, I thought I'd do a little Blog Time Traveling into the past and dredge up some blog sludge to share.

Are you ready?

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Motto's? Are you Serious?

Would you ever consider any of these to be your own personal motto?

If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
(huh?)

If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
*whew*, only $20 bucks? Close call!

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Are we saving them from wearing polyester pant suits? Using Pocket protectors? Wearing white socks with sandles?

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
(I would like to think anything written by an OOTB author qualifies):-)

The early worm gets eaten by the bird, so sleep late.
(unless you have kids , then THEY sleep late *wink*)

*ahem*, Back then , I thought I was being funny. Sad, isn't it?
Now THIS is funny:

New Type Implant

A British company is developing computer chips that store music in women's breast implants.

This is a major breakthrough, since women are always complaining about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

Have an awesome Saturday folks!

The unromantic subject

I was driving along- mind wandering and drifting - when I noticed this really cute guy standing behind one of those tripods that surveyors use.

There's a simularity there, but I digress. *cough*

I had the oddest question pop a neuron.

Why haven't there been any heroes, either in romance or in suspense thrillers, who has a job as a Surveyor?

Can't the job hold a reader's interest?


I questioned : Besides the usual - standing on the side of a road squinting through that little telescope thing - where else are these people sent to do their job?



Are they ever sent into deep woods to start mapping out an area where a large commerical or industrial project will eventually rip open virgin land for planned progressive defilement?


Has a surveyor ever stumbled on old ruins?
Fell in forgotten wells?
Felt watched?
Heard noises amongst the forests' refuse?

Has a surveyor ever tried set up the tripod on uneven ground, only to discover a partially decomposed body?

How much adventure can occur during the work day of your average surveyer? I think the job would be a perfect foil for intrigue, suspense , horror or a mystery. Romance would be a secondary thing....darn.

Pondering all these things prompted me to post.
I need to share my musings.
Not to leave you nodding and saying There she goes again, off in another world that surely isn't Earth but, what professions do you feel would not read well in books. What jobs have not even been written about.
And why?


There is one major reason that I would NEVER want to be a surveyer. Can you guess? WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!!















You guessed it. I am a woos. A chicken little.
A girly girl.

My bowels would produce bricks - if this and its kin were anywhere near me.

Of course, things can't get worse, right?












Ooops, shouldn't have asked......

Please, someone fill me in

What rules of vampires are inviolate? Inviolable? (Gee, which word is in proper context?) -

Besides the drinking of blood or of human elements.

Why do I ask?

I'm curious as to how fluid writing a paranormal is.

How much leeway does a writer have? Are there options that absolutely are not allowed?



Granted, I have more interest in writing in a romance venue versus horror - but the question is valid no matter the genre.



When writing historicals/regencies , you have a set pattern of rules to work within. There are some items, like Almacks which cannot be altered.. What goes on there might be dabbled with, but not the function or means for entrance or acceptance.




Do vampires have set parameters also?



Your thoughts on this are eagerly awaited.

Thanks!

Step Right up for NATHAN'S INTERVIEW PART DEUX

HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO KNOW THE FULL STORY?

HOW CAN YOU RESIST NOT SEEING THE REST OF NATHAN KAMP'S INTERVIEW.

SURELY NOT YOU?!

COME ON, CLICK ON NATHAN AND BE AMAZED AT THE FINALE

Actually, I liked the fact that we get a clearer insight into ,
NK - the MAN - not the mug.

And really, Big thanks to Michelle B for doing such a wonderful and personable interview. Her skills are top notch, natch.



Click on Michelle's name above to be taken to her site. Drop her a line and let her know how you liked the interview. Bet she'd LOVE to hear from you!!




Meanwhile, I'll just let you enjoy the view.

LOL email I want to share

I couldn't find pictures that exactly follow the story, but what I found I think paints the picture clear enough. Enjoy!

Two women were playing golf.
One teed off and watched in horror as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole.

The ball hit one of the men. He immediately clasped his hands together at his groin, fell to the ground and proceeded to roll around in agony.







The woman rushed down to the man, and immediately began to apologize.

"Please allow me to help. I'm a physical therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you'd allow me," she told him.

"Oh, no, I'll be all right. I'll be fine in a few minutes," the man replied.

He was in obvious agony, lying in the fetal position, still clasping his hands together at his groin. At her persistence, however, he finally allowed her to help.

She gently took his hands away and laid them to the side, loosened his pants and put her hands inside.
She administered tender and artful massage for several long moments and asked,

"How does that feel?"

He replied, "It feels great ......but my thumb still hurts like hell."





Appearances can be deceiving folks, LOL!

A Pink Toe Google

Oh, I thought I was going to be funny and Google weird things. I'm on a "weird" kick.

Pink Toe = sounds cute, silly and frivolous.

I expected lots of pink things, like animated toes, painted toe nails ... pictures of toes in shoes - feet things. The initial images I posted here are what you'd might expect.

I did.


However, that is NOT what you see when you first Google. The first two pages were absolutely flooded with something I never knew existed. I was in shock. You see before you the original PINK TOE !








Avicularia avicularia, the Pink Toe Tarantula.

And according to what I viewed, plenty of people think they make good pets.

Just not for me.

How about you?

A Gross and Stupid Question

Ever have one of those days where you think too much and the strangest questions pop into your head to perplex not only you, but anyone you mention it to?

Lend me your brain and gird your stomach. I have come up with just such a question.

First some background. I gear this towards romance book readers who enjoy the hero as being either a current of former Navy SEAL, Special Forces or any branch of the miltary either real or imagined where the men have to be bigger than life to do the job and do it right.
Case in point would be the men in books by Christina Skye, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Tara Janzen, Sandra Hill ... please add any of your favorites here.

Usually, at some point in the book, we see them on a mission. A dangerous covert mission.




You recollect that on "stake-out" is when they have to wait - for hours; total stillness, awareness and body control, for hours; no twitching, scratching or sneezing, for HOURS - you get the gist ....

What happens when nature calls? I mean, do they have special padding? Do they , um, for lack of delicacy - go with the flow? If so, how do they disguise the scent? Seriously. How do they deal? If they have allergies, and their noses turn into spigots, remember they can't move. Again, how do they deal? The sound of honking into a tissue must be a big no-no. What do they do?

OK, so I think weird things. But there must be answers out there. And if there ARE answers, that means someone has asked the question before me. So that means, they were weird first, and I am normal.

Isn't logic great?

It's Up, the interview is up!!

The first half of the interview with Nathan Kamp is up!
Nathan

WOOT!

Dare you answer this Question?

I've mentioned it.
I've hinted at it.
Now, I am going to outright ASK it.

WHO WAS YOUR FIRST ANIME CRUSH ????

Mine was Roger "Race" Bannon from the Original series of Jonny Quest. He was the alpha male Body Guard that protected 11 yr old Jonny. I was not even a full year old when this animated series aired. Didn't stop me though. Even back then I knew what I liked. OLDER MEN, LOL!
But that's another story. *grin*










(L)Race in 1964 - Hubba Hubba (R) Race 1996 - WTH? What did they give him? Estrogen??




The one thing that the original Race was not, was P.C.
And,
His form was nice and tight, even back then!







Race Bannon.



A man good with his hands, not just his mind.



Now, it's



Your turn!

Don't be shy.