Pistols at Dawn

Fellow American Title II Finalist, Michele Ann Young's first book is now out! Pistols at Dawn is a Regency set historical full of danger, romance and intrigue. Read all about it here on the Title Wave blog.

Cat Crap Part II (or Day 4 and counting...)

Yup, the suitcase is still unpacked. Thank God I have company in this rather little bizarre habit of mine. Hellloooo Erin and Ellen! Actually, Everybody Loves Raymond (a really funny sitcom that is no more) had an episode about just this (the wife leaving her suitcase out for a bit after the vacation was long over) But I promised MG (Mike Geraci) I'd unpack it this weekend.

Now, on to Cap crap part 2. For those of you that read my blog about Cap crap part 1, you know that I sort of smashed my 2 cars together after being distracted by Lucky the cat's crap in the garage. Well, Lucky has struck again.

I came home from work Friday morning, totally exhausted after 12 hours of birthin' babies, only to discover a really bad smell when I walked in the house. (MG swears it wasn't there when he left for work.) Now, MG leaves for work about 6:30-7:00 am. I came home about 7:30-7:45, so Lucky only had about a 3o-60 minute window to do the deed. I followed my rather spectacular olfactory talent (the one that apparently you have to be female to have) directly to the source within seconds. Lucky had crapped all over my beautiful Ralph Lauren queen sized bed comforter. The one I bought just a few months ago.

I almost killed that cat.

Thank God that he was no where in sight.

So, I did the best I could to scrape the stuff off, heaved the 100 lb ( I swear, it weighs a ton) comforter off the bed and dragged it to the laundry room, which of course, is on the other side of the house. This is where things started to go wrong. If I had been thinking, I would have stuffed the comforter in the my car and driven to the nearest Dry Cleaners. Now, in my defense, I did read the laundry tag on the comforter. I SWEAR it reads, "May wash in delicate cycle in Extra Capacity Washer--yes, Maria, this means your Super Duper Kenmore Washing Machine".

I swear, that's exactly what the tag says.

Thus, I load up the washing machine with cold water and Woolite, and begin to stuff it in my machine.

Maybe, just maybe, I get about a fourth of it in, before I admit to myself that the tag must be wrong. My Super Duper X-tra capacity Kenmore just isn't going to do the trick. So I leave the the section of the comforter that Lucky liked best in the washing machine to soak and go off to have a bowl of ice cream . Somehow, the ice cream makes me feel much better and I go off to sleep because I have to work again that evening.

I wake up at 2 pm with that awful feeling that something just isn't right. Oh, yeah, I think to myself, I have about half my comforter stuffed in my washing machine full of water. What to do next? I come up with a most brilliant plan. At least, it seemed brilliant at the time. I decided to drag the comforter out of the washing machine and toss into the kid's bathtub. This seems rather logical to me. Doesn't it? I mean, surely, the bathtub is large enough to hold the comforter and it's just down the hall from the laundry room. Yes, perfectly brilliant. I can hand wash the comforter in the tub. A most excellent plan.

Now, of course, suffice it to say, that if while dry, the comforter weighs a ton, it weighs nearly 2 tons wet. It takes me and my 15 year old son to pull the comforter out and drag it down to the bathtub, where I discover that, yes, my bathtub is too small to hold the comforter to wash. Sigh...

This is where the story gets too long to blog about. Let me just end with this.

End Result:

Comforter is now washed and drying in a rigged up apparatus that MG set up in the garage (because you know that my Super Duper X-tra capacity Kenmore Dryer isn't big enough to hold it.)

And... somehow, in all my gyrations (although I'm still sticking to my story-- I NEVER tried to actually wash the damn thing) the spin cycle in my washing machine is now broken. The little black belt that does something beneath the machine burned out. This is a most bizarre coincidence, in my opinion...

Cat crap tally for June:
2 dented up cars
1 broken washing machine

It's a good thing I love that cat.

Day 1 and counting...

Okay, Mel, I'm back. Thanks for the blog patrol duty!

So I go back to work today. This means that vacation is officially over and the battle of the suitcase begins. For some odd reason, I have a mental block that involves unpacking my suitcase after vacation. This drives Mike Geraci crazy.

It's not like I'm messy or anything. We've been back from Acapulco since Sunday and I've cleaned, done laundry, bought groceries, etc... but for some reason the idea of unpacking my vacation suitcase completely wears me out. I think this is definitely one for Freud.

Speaking of vacations, I had a fabulous one! Acapulco is absolutely breathtaking, although the heat and humidity was a killer (and this coming from a Florida girl!) So hot was it? It was so hot, that within 2 minutes of getting a soda with a glass of ice, the ice would be completely melted and you'd be looking at drinking that "Coca Cola light" lukewarm. The first thing I did when we got to Atlanta was get an ice cold soda.

I did manage not to get sunburned this year (Thank God) Although I do have this mysterious little red burn next to my collar bone on the left side. You know, right next to where the bathing suit top strap is? How is it that one teeny tiny section where you don't get the sunscreen on well enough can burn like that? Kinda shows you just how well the sunscreen actually does work. I would hate to be that red all over.

Let's see, reading done on vacation:

Much Ado about You -- Fabulous! Next trip to the bookstore, I'm getting the next book in the series--Kiss Me, Annabel.

Macbeth-- Yes, I actually reread Macbeth while on vacation by the poolside. My current wip has a bit of a Macbeth theme in it and thanks to some inspiration from Louisa, I decided to read it again. And am I glad I did! I had forgotten just how much I really loved the play.

More vacation stuff to come...

Hurry up.

I know you're home now...so you may as well get back into the groove of the blog-o-sphere.

We need pictures and details.

Now.

Out of the Closet Reply

If you're looking for Maria....You'll have to search here:


She's busy right now soaking up the sun and flirting with the pool boys. I'm jealous. I tried to convince her to let me go as her oldest daughter, but that didn't fly. Humph.

Anyway, she'll be back sometime next week.

TTFN

Cat Crap

It almost ruined my day. Ruined and almost being key words here.

Yesterday was just another day in the Geraci household. Mike was out of town again, on business, and I was running Kevin (14 year old son) to a tennis tournament. Lucky, our beloved family cat, had apparently gotten trapped in the garage and did what he normally does when he gets nervous. He crapped. Not pretty little hard turds, like Lizzy, our not-so-beloved family cat does. No. It was a runny mess. He not only crapped all over the garage, he also did a nice little pile right on the my son's tennis bag. After a few expletives and disenfecting the tennis bag, we piled into the Expedition where then, in my haste, I promptly ran smack into the other family car.

Yep. I ran right into my own car.

Now, this probably wouldn't be so bad, except that when I realized I had done this, I tried to go forward, and God only knows how, ending up "hooking" both cars together. The right rear end of the Expedition was now linked to the left rear end of our little Suzuki Forenza.

After freaking out for a few seconds and cursing Mike Geraci (afer all, if he wasn't out of the country, he would have been the one taking Kevin to tennis, so none of this would have happened. Right?)I called AAA to come help.

"Your car is what?"

"It's hooked to my other car."

"Uhm... ma'am, how did that happen?"

"I ran into it."

"Oh. Well, so , do you need a tow truck?"

"I need something."

"Hmmm... there's a 2 hour wait on tow trucks. But I can get you a guy with a wench within the hour."

"Yeah! A wench, whatever that is, it sounds good!"

About an hour later, this kid (he looks about 18) shows up with the wench. "Wow. I've never seen anything like this before!" (insert excited voice)

"Want to take a picture?" I ask.

"Uh, no, ma'am."

One hour later (in 90 plus degree Florida heat and humidity) poor wench boy still can't get my cars unhooked. So he calls for one of the popular tow trucks. Another hour later, tow truck guy comes.

Tow Truck guy, whistling under his breath, "Wow. I thought I'd seen it all!"

"Can you get the cars apart?" I ask, praying he'll say yes.

"Uhm, we can try. But first, we need you to sign this waiver."

So I sign the waiver that basically says that in trying to get the cars apart, I understand that they could do mega damage to both cars.

After about 30 minutes of pulling and tugging, my cars are free!

Both guys and their AAA approved trucks head off. "Have a nice day, ma'am!"

The good news:
1. both cars are driveable.
2. Only the little Suzuki needs body work.
3. With hubby out of the country, I think I can get it fixed before he gets home and discovers it.

So no one was hurt and I provided an entertaining story for the AAA people to laugh over. All in all, it could be a lot worse.

Woo Hoo!

Okay, so I'm not such a blog dummy after all. I finally did it! I was able to upload an image to my sidebar. This might not seem like a big accomplishment to most people, but believe me, for me, it's big.

I have my wonderful RWA Online friends, Lucy and Kait to thank for that. Lucy for suggesting Kait, and Kait for talking me through the process. Thanks!!

Speaking of blogs, here's a fabulous one hosted by the editors at Avon Publishing.