Welcome BARBARA VEY!!!!

By Jeanne Adams and Cassondra Murray

ROOSTER CROW!!! DRUM ROLL!!!! TRUMPET FANFARE!!! DRAGON ROAR!!!

Please welcome, the one, the only
BARBARA VEY!!!!!!!

Cassondra: Jeanne, you're going to scare her off.

Jeanne: Barbara? No way. That woman has nerves of steel. She took on Publisher's Weekly, after all. And has now become the personality behind one of the top reviewer sites on the 'net. Barbara's Beyond Her Book Blog is the "go to" spot for information about the top books in Romance today. She's always got positive reviews. She's always going to a conference or event and sending back pictures and live streaming video and interviews to keep everyone "in the know" about the latest in romance, in books, and in what's up in our industry.

Cassondra: Yes, Barbara ROCKS. However, didja really think we needed a trumpet fanfare?

Jeanne, looking abashed: Well, maybe that was overkill. But I do so love a good trumpet volley. Figured if I was going to dust off the trumpets, and trumpeteers, then we might as well have a good blaring welcome blast, don't you know.

Cassondra shakes her head and turns to our guest: WELCOME to the Lair, Barbara! Jeanne and I have met up with you all over the country, at RWA events, Thriller events and more, but this is the first time the two of us, together as a team, have had you join us in the Lair. We're so glad you could make it.

Barbara: Thanks, Cassondra and Jeanne. And thank you to all Romance Bandits and friends.

Cassondra: So how did you get started doing what you do, Barbara?

Barbara, laughing: That's the very first question I always get asked is, “How did you get this amazing job?” I guess the easiest answer is by being an avid reader. Because I was reading a book a day (at that time) I kept noticing an ad at the back of the books called “Get Caught Reading at Sea.” Turns out there was going to be an author/reader cruise with about 30 authors and all I could think was that I would be on a ship for seven days with authors who had no where else to go.

Jeanne: Oh, noeeesss! No escape! Haha! Actually, I'm teasing. As an author, I think that would be fabulous to be on a ship with dozens, if not hundreds of avid readers. Not only would I get my extrovert fix, but I'd get to enjoy being both a writer and a reader too! I take it you went on the cruise?

Barbara: Oh, yes! I made my reservation and immediately started reading a book by every author. Then I emailed the author to say I enjoyed their book and looked forward to meeting them on the cruise.

Cassondra: That was courteous. And how like you, Barbara.

Barbara: Thank you! Once on the ship, I got to meet every author and one morning, while breakfasting with Marjorie Liu, I saw a woman all alone and asked her to join us. She turned out to be Karen Holt, Deputy Editor of Publishers Weekly.

Now, being a reader, I thought Publishers Weekly was a publisher, so I told Karen to sit down and I would tell her everything that was wrong with publishing from a readers point of view.

Jeanne: Good heavens! That's awesome! What did she do?

Barbara: Well, she took notes and wrote a story about me in Publishers Weekly that included my picture. A few months later, Karen contacted me and said PW was starting an online magazine and thought I would be perfect to write a blog from a readers point of view. I declined and told her to send books instead.

Cassondra: More books to feed the habit, right? But if you declined....

Barbara: Exactly, I loved the books. As to the blog, thankfully, Karen kept calling and after my son showed me a blog and explained that I should write it like I was talking to a friend, I accepted for a 3 month trial. Well, it’s been over 4 years and I’m still at it.

Jeanne: OMGosh, I had forgotten that you didn't, at the time, even know what a blog WAS, much less how to write one. You're such a natural at it, it doesn't seem possible. But you absolutely write it as if you are talking to a friend - me! - and that warmth and fun come through in every posting of Beyond Her Book.

Barbara: Thank you, Jeanne. It was an experience! I’ve learned many things along the way. Remember, being a reader I had no clue to how publishing worked. I now know so much more! Here are some key things I learned that I think most people don't know:

There's a difference between an editor and an agent.

An author doesn’t pick their own cover.

There are many imprints under one giant publisher.

An author isn’t necessarily responsible for all the editing mistakes in a book.

Publishers have certain criteria that writers have to follow. (I just thought they could write whatever they wanted.)

Writers actually have to work hard at writing a book. (I thought they sat around in sweats eating junk food and the stories just magically came to them.)

There’s a lot more to publishing a book than any reader ever wanted to know.

Cassondra: Amen to that, Barbara! The sheer number of steps in the process boggles the mind. What else has happened for you since you became the woman behind Beyond Her Book?

Barbara: I’ve been blessed to meet my favorite authors and discover many new ones in all my travels and traveling is one of my favorite parts of what I do. I get to go all over the United States and talk to amazing people and then write about it. How cool is that?

Jeanne: Have to say, that is TOTALLY cool! What's been the most exciting thing you've done so far?

Barbara: My first Comic Con in San Diego was overwhelming, but when I was invited to interview some movie and tv stars, I thought I was dreaming. I went to press junkets where you sit in a room and the stars and director of a movie come in and go table to table to talk to the press and all of a sudden I found myself one of the press.

Not knowing the rules, I asked for pictures and hugs from Dakota Fanning, Chris Evans, Richard Dean Anderson (and the rest of the cast of Stargate), Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, the entire casts of Burn Notice, Fringe, White Collar and Psych. I had lunch with Stephen Collins at the Hard Rock Cafe and talked about 7th Heaven and First Wives Club.

I met Bruce Campbell and had my picture taken. My son posted it on Facebook and declared me the “coolest mom ever.”

Cassondra: This is amazing, Barbara! I'd agree with your son. And kudos to him for helping you find the confidence to take that first step to blog, and big kudos to him for recognizing that his mom is an outstanding part of our Reader/Writer world!

Jeanne: Well said, Cassondra! So, what's coming up for you next, Barbara?

Barbara: I'm very excited to tell you about that. Next year I’ll be hosting my first Barbara Vey Reader Appreciation Luncheon in the Milwaukee area. This has been a dream of mine for years. Thirty-eight authors have agreed to come in to meet, greet, eat with and sign books for almost 300 readers. This is a real coup for the midwest.

I don’t know what else is in store for me, but I look forward to each new adventure.

Jeanne and Cassondra: Barbara, thank you SO much for being with us today!

So Banditas and Bandita Buddies, have you ever done something wild and crazy, like jump into a new career? What was that like for you?

Barbara has an outstanding blog in Beyond Her Book, what questions do you have for her about the blog and how she got started?

Would you have had the courage to hug Joss Whedon? What about the guy from Burn Notice? Grins.

As a reader, which authors would you love to sit down to lunch with, like at Barbara's upcoming luncheon, and chat about books?

SPECIAL NOTE......
Don't forget to check back for a big announcement on October 14 as we kick off Trick or Treat. The best treat of all will be awarded during the Duchesse's Halloween party on October 31. If you're not in the know after the 14th, you might miss the treat.

Real friends help friends...babysit?

by Cassondra Murray
With two very special guests

I’m just cleaning up the bar—the center for parties and activity in the lair—putting the last glasses away as the huge grandfather clock in the front room begins to chime. I’ve been burning the late-night oil the past few nights, coming up with a new signature cocktail for the lair.

Okay, truth. I’m stuck on my latest story and when I’m stuck, this is what I do. I clean. I decorate. I mix drinks. Anything but sit and stare at that blank page.

The clock finishes its chiming.

Midnight.


Well, almost midnight. The darn thing is always running ten minutes fast. I suppose I could fix that. Use up a little more of the time I’m NOT writing on my uncooperative story.

I go out to the oversized front foyer and stare up at the clock face, two feet higher than I can reach. Where’s one of Joanie's gladiators when you need one?

I turn to get a ladder when my phone bleeps with a text. Probably Jeanne in the writing caves, asking where the heck I am and why the heck I’m not down there, staring at my going-nowhere story and typing words. Can’t fix a blank page. I can just hear her saying it. *sigh* I won’t be able to hide forever. I pull the phone out of my pocket.

Not Jeanne. It’s Dianna Love.

Where r u? it reads.

In the lair. Goofing off. I type. Where r u? I hit send and head for the closet in the kitchen.

Bleeeeep. At the front door. Let us in.

What? Dianna is at the door to the lair—this late? She’s the one who gets up at 4:00 in the morning—about the time I’m usually heading to bed. And who is “us”?

I glance at the time on my phone to make sure I haven’t fallen through some time portal. Yup. Eight minutes to 12.

I lift the heavy bar, flip the big metal deadbolts and swing open the door to see Dianna on the front porch. “What's going on? Why didn’t you knock or ring the bell?”

“I didn’t want to wake up everybody else,” she says, glancing around with a nervous look. “Where are those gladiators?”

“Not to worry,” I say. “Ermingarde’s asleep.”

“What ith ermmy-gah?”

I look down toward the source of the gruff little voice. “Oh, hi Feenix!”

I can’t help but grin at the leathery little guy. Feenix is a two-foot-tall gargoyle with big yellow-orange eyes and EVL TOO printed on his shirt. His shirt says that because he belongs to someone who rides a GSX-R —or Jixxer, for short-- and has EVL ONE on her motorcycle tag. He grins back, showing off his two fangs. I explain, “Ermingarde is the lair’s dragon.”

“What ith dwagon?” This question also from Feenix.

Dianna breaks in as she steps over the lair’s threshold and Feenix follows, thumping along on his fat, four-toed feet. She tells him, “A dragon is something you don’t want to meet right now, Feenix.”

I glance at the grandfather clock, then at my phone again. Something is definitely off here. “Uh, Dianna, it’s almost midnight. You don’t do midnight.”

“No kidding, “she says. “But you do. That’s why I’m here. I need you to help me babysit¸ remember?”

I squint at Dianna as though she has three heads. “You’re serious? Now? First off, I don’t have a maternal bone in my body….and second…I thought last month when you mentioned babysitting Feenix, that it meant a couple of hours maybe. This afternoon...outside.”

“As if I inherited any mothering genes?” Dianna gives me a wry grin. “ I have fish and motorcycles. And yeah, I thought this would be day gig, too, but Evalle came over in a panic an hour ago. She was out taking Feenix for a ride near my house when she got a RED V 2 text and had to take off for VIPER headquarters. She had no time to take Feenix home, so she swung by my house, and reminded me that Feenix is my responsibility, too, sort of like a godparent I guess."

Evalle Kincaid is an Alterant—half Belador, half unknown. VIPER is a multinational coalition of all types of unusual beings and powerful entities created to protect the world from supernatural predators.

As one of the Belador warriors who support VIPER, Evalle works in the southeastern region—more specifically in Atlanta-- protecting humans. Dianna became fascinated by this secret group about seven years ago when she realized most humans don’t know they exist, and she decided to chronicle their activities. Since then, she teamed up with #1 NYT best selling author Sherrilyn Kenyon to co-write what is believed to be a fictitious series on the Beladors.

The first Belador novel, BLOOD TRINITY, came out in 2010 and debuted on the New York Times list. If only people knew the truth behind this series…

Then again… better that they think it’s fiction. Otherwise there could be widespread panic.


Evalle is one of three main characters in the series. The other two are Evalle’s best friends, Tzader Burke and Vladimir Quinn. All three keep Dianna and Sherrilyn busy documenting Belador activities.

The text Evalle received tonight—RED V 2— was a Code Red to drop whatever she was doing and go straight to VIPER headquarters in the north Georgia mountains, and that’s how Dianna—a definite daywalker—has ended up on a midnight ride all the way to the lair for babysitting help from an admitted vampire like me.

“Looks like we’ll be up for a bit,” I say as I turn down the lights in the front foyer. “A bunch of Bandits are down in the writing caves, on deadlines, so I bet Sven has coffee going in the kitchen.”

I ask Dianna, “what’s up with the VIPER team? Some kind of emergency?”

“Apparently there’s been an increase in demon activity in downtown Atlanta. Evalle couldn’t say much. Just that she wasn’t able to ask Tzader or Quinn to take Feenix home because they were called out, too.” Tzader is the North American Belador Maistir (translation – head Belador badass) and Quinn has a rare gift—he can mind lock--plus he’s the investment genius who oversees Belador finances.

I glance behind Dianna as I shut the door, to find her vermillion BMW F-650-GS motorcycle parked just at the bottom of the flight of steps leading to the front porch.
“You’re on the bike?”

“Yeah. Feenix rides all the time with Evalle, so I figured it would be easier and more familiar for him than riding in a car. And I thought this way I might actually keep my leather car upholstery intact.” She casts a look at the sharp claws on Feenix’s short fingers.

“What ith upothery?” Feenix blinks up at both of us, looking from one to the other. I grin as I shut the door and Dianna tries to describe a car seat to someone who has only recently learned how to count to ten. Evalle rescued Feenix from a demented sorcerer and the little guy is just learning to talk.

I turn back around just as a gladiator walks into the room on his regular midnight security patrol through the lair. He stops in his tracks, holding a silver-colored training shield at his side.

Feenix starts to flap his wings and dances from side to side on his pudgy little feet. “Peetha!”

Dianna takes one look at the gorgeous man and grabs Feenix’s four-fingered hand. “Ah, shoot. The shield,” she says. Feenix is stronger than he looks, and tugs Dianna forward, heading toward the metal-clad warrior, saying, “Peetha. Peetha. Peetha.”

“No, Feenix,” Dianna says, struggling to hold him back. “That’s not a pizza. You can’t eat the shield.”

“Bran,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm, “you and the other gladiators might want to lose the metal shields and armor just for tonight.” Bran frowns at me. “Oh, and if you could grab one of the other guys, y’all should hide that suit of armor at the door to the back hallway.” Bran’s frown deepens, and I explain. “Feenix loves anything silver…he eats metal. He thinks your shield is a silver pizza.”

Dianna is trying to distract Feenix when a streak of yellow feathers darts into the room. The rooster takes one look at Feenix and starts to flap and sqwawk.

Feenix beats his bat-like wings in the air wildly, lifting off the floor, and makes a honking cry sound. His eyes glow bright orange and smoke curls from his nose. Dianna tells him, “Calm down, Feenix. The Golden Rooster won’t hurt anyone. Promise.”

“That crazy rooster was at Jane’s place in New York until a few minutes ago,” Bran says. “I don't know how he got back in here without my knowing it.” Bran takes off up the curving staircase after the GR, and Feenix finally settles back to the floor, eyes rounded in worry. “Roother?”

“Yes,” Dianna soothes. “Nice rooster.”

Well, that “nice” part is debatable, but Feenix has managed to not blow fire out his nose and burn down the lair or make rooster crispies, so with the little gargoyle calmed down, we make our way to the kitchen. I can smell the coffee as soon as we open the door.

As we walk in, Sven is coming through the back with a small stainless steel bucket full of shiny, silver-colored lug nuts. He glances up, taking in Dianna and Feenix. “They’re here already?”

He sets the bucket on the table and grins at Feenix. It’s hard not to grin at Feenix if you’ve read BLOOD TRINITY, the first book in the Belador series, and I’d given Sven a copy last October when the book was released. Sven nudges the bucket forward. “I got him some treats.”

“Sven, this is why we love you,” I say. Sven tosses one of the lug nuts to me, but before I can catch it, Feenix leaps up, flapping, and snags it out of the air with his tongue.

“Yeah, but I had an ulterior motive,” Sven says, and runs his hand lovingly across the giant Viking commercial range—all silver-toned stainless steel. “My appliances are sacred. I also got him a bean bag chair.” Sven points toward the corner of the kitchen at an enormous, bright green bean bag.

“Wow,” I say. “That’s ugly.”

“Yeah,” Dianna says, “but Feenix will love it.” As if to prove her right, Feenix toddles over to the bean bag and pokes at it. Then he drags it across the room toward us.

“Nathcar,” he says.

“Coming right up,” Sven says, and reaches for the remote. He clicks the tv above the refrigerator to the appropriate channel. He obviously paid attention when he read BLOOD TRINITY.

“So,” I say, and raise one eyebrow at Dianna, “what does one do when one babysits?”

Dianna frowns at me. “Don’t ask me. I like to fish and ride motorcycles. You never babysat?”

“Twice,” I say. “In emergency situations like this one. I promised to keep them alive, and that’s what I did. I did not promise fun, and we didn’t have much. All my children have fur or feathers. I have no clue what to do with a ba—uh….a two-foot gargoyle”

“He seems to be doing just fine,” Sven says, and nods toward Feenix, who is happily cuddling his stuffed alligator, watching NASCAR® and sucking on the steel lug nut like a lifesaver candy. “Hey, Feenix, I thought you had an art contest going on. Got the finalists yet?”

Feenix looks at Sven, then around at Dianna, “Where’th my picthur?”

Dianna sighs. “I would have thought Evalle had explained this to him by now. The finalists will be announced on September 19th at www.MyFeenix.com.”

“That’s next week,” I explain, when Feenix looks confused. He makes a happy grunting noise and goes back to his NASCAR® show.

I pull up one of the old kitchen chairs around the heavy wooden table. Dianna chooses another chair as Sven sets out human snacks and pours coffee for himself and the two of us. Clearly, he recognizes two incompetent gargoyle-sitters when he sees them, and plans to stand guard over his beloved appliances. “Hey," I say to Dianna, "Why don’t you tell everybody how this has turned into The Year of Feenix?

“It really has,” Dianna says, and grabs a carrot stick from Sven’s tray. “And I wish I'd planned it, but it was all fate. I’d intended to draw Feenix last winter, then hit on the idea of the art contest, because of having been an artist before I started writing. We set it up so that high school and adult artists could create images of Feenix for prizes—money, art supplies, and books for the artists and for school art departments and libraries. And we scheduled the announcement of finalists for September 19th.”

Feenix makes happy sounds and flutters his leathery wings as the cars in the pre-recorded race scream around the track. Dianna keeps one eye on Feenix and smiles as she sips black coffee.

“But then the next book release got moved up, right?” I munch broccoli spears with Sven's homemade ranch dressing, and watch Sven refill cups and start another pot of coffee.

“Yeah,” Dianna continues around a bite of carrot. “ALTERANT, book 2 in the Belador series, was originally scheduled to be released in November, but Pocket (the publisher) changed the date. They set it for September 27, just two weeks after the My Feenix™ Art Contest Finalists are announced. And ALTERANT starts with Feenix—so that was a really cool kind of kharma we couldn’t have planned if we’d thought of it.”

“And,” I say as I point at Dianna with a piece of celery. “You’ve got a Belador story coming out as a free e-book in the next couple of days, right?”

“Right. This week, we’ll release the free story FIRE BOUND—and Feenix has a big role in that too.” Feenix looks over at Dianna and grins. “So this is definitely your year, isn’t it, Feenix?”

“Yeth, dammit!"

"Feenix!" Dianna and I say at the same time. Sven turns toward the sink and snorts back a laugh. Evalle accidentally cursed in front of Feenix just once, and he picked right up on it. She's been trying to undo that ever since.

Feenix blinks his yellow eyes and shifts around on his bean bag. "What ith year?” He flutters his wings and Dianna rolls her eyes.

“I’ll announce the release of the free story this week on my facebook page,” Dianna says. So everybody be watching for that. Also, you can check my website for the news, too. It’s www.AuthorDiannaLove.com. And, you can read an excerpt of ALTERANT there as well."

“Looks like we’ve got a long night ahead of us,” I say. “Sven, keep the coffee coming, and make it strong.”

Here's the blurb for ALTERANT.

In this explosive new world of betrayals and shaky alliances, the only Alterant not incarcerated faces an impossible task -- recapture three dangerous, escaped creatures before they slaughter more humans…or her.

The way Evalle Kincaid sees it, saving mankind from total destruction should have cleared her name. But when words uttered in the heat of combat are twisted against her, she's blamed for the prison break of three dangerous Alterants. She has one chance to clear the cloud of suspicion hanging over her…for good. All she has to do is recapture the escapees. But deals with gods and goddesses are tricky at best, and now the lives of all Beladors, and the safety of innocent humans, rides on Evalle's success. The only person she can ask for help wants to see her dead.



So, Bandits and Buddies….have you ever had to babysit?

A lot of you are moms and dads, but before that, what was your first experience caring for a little one?

Did you babysit for money, or was it your younger brothers and sisters you had to care for?

Are you like Dianna and me? Did you have to work at the whole “caregiver to kids” thing? Or did it come naturally to you?

We’re going to need lots of help tonight, cuz we’re both clueless about babysitting a two-foot-tall gargoyle who can fly and breathe fire. At least Sven has lots of treats on hand. So tell us, what would you do to entertain Feenix?
(And no, letting him barbecue the Golden Rooster is not an option.)

Give us your best babysitting tips and advice, for a chance at a free book Dianna will give away as her thanks to you for staying up with us and helping babysit Feenix.

Dianna is expecting her early copies of ALTERANT any day now. So she’ll give away a copy to one person who helps us out tonight and tomorrow.

Sven, your free copy is already set aside.

A Steamy-Hot Soak

by Cassondra Murray


Do you have a shower in your house?

No, I don't mean a baby shower or a wedding shower. I mean the kind in the bathroom...the kind you stand under to wash your hair and get clean.

I don't.

Do. Not. Panic. I engage in cleansing activities daily. Ones involving lots of water and soaps, shampoos, masks, scrubs and exfoliants. But other than a two-year stint in an apartment after I was first married, I've never lived in a home with a shower. I've always had bathtubs.

I grew up in a tiny farmhouse on a gravel road in rural southern Kentucky, miles from the nearest town, and when I was a small child, our facilities included a path and, at night, a flashlight. I am living proof that the lack of an indoor bathroom as a child...well, it won't keep you out of college.

We had running water in the kitchen, but no water heater. I still remember taking a bath each evening in our huge, oblong galvanized bathtub--complete with sloped ends for leaning. My mom heated water on the stove and carried buckets of it into the bathroom. I splashed and splashed in that tub, with my own armada of toy boats floating around me.

I was still very small when one day I came home from my grandmother's house and the outside wall of the bathroom had been knocked out. The bathroom was really just a glorified closet in our old house, and to add the fixtures and appliances, my dad had to extend the room about two feet beyond the main body of the house. It looked a bit like a hump on a camel really, when it was finished, with the fixtures barely squeezed in. We had the shortest tub available, but still, the "hump" had been added onto the house to make it fit.

The fancy new bathtub was shiny and fun--and slippery. The thing I wanted most, though, I didn't get. No way, no how, no matter how much I pleaded, were we getting a shower.

My dad, until the day he died, refused to believe that he would use less water with a shower than a bath.

It was runnin' all the time, for cryin' out loud. How could it use less?

We had a well, so it wasn't as though we were paying for the water monthly, but like most parents who'd grown up in the Great Depression, he had a thing about not wasting stuff, and in particular he did not want to waste water. It's understandable, when you realize that any water he had as a kid, he and his family had to carry from a spring or pull up from a well in a bucket. He figured the whole "showers use less" mumbo jumbo was propaganda spewed by the plumbing industry so they could sell more fixtures.

That "save water" mentality has left me always aware of my water usage, and with many areas of the country in drought and dealing with water shortages, I'm now glad I grew up with that awareness. Then, though, I wanted a shower for the sheer joy of standing underneath that steamy stream.

That's why I still want one.

My college dorms had showers, but let's face it. Most dorm showers are lousy, sterile, non-private experiences, and bear no resemblance to the glory which an excellent shower in a gorgeous tiled bathroom with an adjustable-pulse shower head can be. But for the college years, I at least had a shower. Then I moved into an old house, and I've had tubs ever since.

Here's the thing though.....in our present home, and the one just before this, I didn't have just ANY tubs. They were, and are, claw foot tubs. Big old honkin' cast iron monstrosities sitting on iron feet.

I love showers. I probably still like showers better, truth told. They're energizing. And I'm not the only one. I asked around about this. Okay, I asked Jeanne and Nancy. Hey, they were available. Duchesse Jeanne is totally on the shower side. She doesn't mind baths, but rarely takes them, and could live just fine with only showers in the house.

Nancy, always examining both sides of the argument, states the merits of each. "For washing hair or cleaning up after a workout, the shower is primo," she says. But "for relaxing and/or contemplating the mysteries of the universe, nothing compares to a bath. And ya can't read in the shower."

Hmmmm. I happen to know that Nancy has a claw foot tub in her house.



Mysteries of the universe notwithstanding, I've always just loved showers. And my husband, contrary to the "women like baths, men like showers" expectation--actually prefers baths. I could postulate that he thus lacks incentive to help me install a shower in the house, but, well...better not to go there.



But you know what? Those claw foot tubs, over all these years, have had a rather profound effect on me. Not just on the shower vs bath question. This is about quality. The claw foot tubs have raised the proverbial bar.

This past spring, I traveled to visit friends who have showers in their home. They have walk-in showers, mostly, but in two of their bathrooms they also have the tub-with-shower-surround combination which is common in most American bathrooms.

I'd been taking showers at their house for several days. Yummy hot showers with lots and lots of wonderful steam. But at some point, I leaned over to shave my legs and for the umpteenth time, got a face full of hot shampoo-ey water draining off of my head--and a face full of wet hair. The water ran into my eyes and made me have to stop shaving, let my contacts clear up so I could see, wipe off my face with a towel, then bend over again to shave my legs....rinse and repeat soap-in-face experience. And repeat. And...you get the idea.

Who the blazes designs shower enclosures? Men? That's what I'm guessing. If women designed these things, there would be a little bench-like step for you to put your foot on--or maybe even sit on--so you could shave your legs without eating wet soapy hair.

Oh and there would be lots of places to set bottles and such. Spots where they would actually, oh, I don't know, stay in place, perhaps? Radical thought, that. And the soap dish would be designed so the soap would not slide out as soon as the water hits it. You know...WET soap would stay put. I've noticed that dry soap does fine as a decoration in most shower soap dishes. Clearly, the shower designers are not actually testing these enclosures under actual dirt-removal conditions.



Several days into these sub-standard shower experiences, I came in from a long day of tromping around a museum, walked into the guest room at the back of the house and I wanted a bath.

I ran the tub full of water, poured in some shower gel to substitute for bubble bath, and climbed in. Ahhhhh. Soothing hot water. Poofy bubbles. I leaned back. And promptly banged the back of my head against the wall of the shower surround. There was not enough slope to the back end of the tub for a nice, relaxing lean. And what lean I could get, well, it didn't do any good because once I'd leaned, my head was shoved forward by the shower wall so my chin was almost on my chest and my neck was hyperflexed.

Ow.

Who, precisely, designed this tub? I'm betting it was somebody who takes showers.

I sat up in the water and was enlightened on a couple of matters. First, my head needs several inches beyond the tub before it hits the wall, and it should be illegal to build tub-shower arrangements without said inches present. Second, my antique claw foot tubs, all hand-me-downs from old houses I've lived in, or from ones which have been torn down, are treasures for far greater reasons than their antique value alone.

At home, in the evenings just before bed,


I run a tub of hot water, and pour in stupid amounts of bubble bath. I light a scented candle, turn off the lights and climb in. The back wall is sloped perfectly for a gentle recline. I roll a towel to rest behind my neck and just soak. And soak.

I lie there and soak until I turn to a prune. If it's raining, the way it is now, I listen to the pitter-pat of the drops hitting the window near my feet. On summer nights, tree frogs sing me to sleep. And sometimes I do fall asleep, waking when the water cools, with all of the tension soaked out of my body.

I learned some years ago that I like a shower in the mornings because it's energizing, and I like a bath at night because it's relaxing. So in this, Nancy and I are alike.

Some seriously fantastic love scenes I've read have been set in showers. But then, the best shots in movies are in the tub--with the sexy starlet barely hidden beneath the piles of bubbles.


I am campaigning for a shower in our bathroom. (We have only one bathroom, since we're restoring this old house, and one is as far as we've gotten). It'll save water, and it'll be faster and more efficient. And it'll energize me in the mornings.

But it'll have to be one of those gooseneck showers with the suspended curtain rod over the claw foot tub. Because although I love, love, love showers, no fancy spa jets will convince me to switch out my cast iron tub for a walk-in shower stall.

I'd love both, but if I have to choose, I'll keep my candlelight soaks, with the little table just to the side, for my glass of wine.

What about you, Bandits and Buddies?

Do you have showers or bathtubs in your house?

Have you ever had a claw foot tub? Did you love it or hate it?

If you had to choose one or the other, would it be shower or bath for you?

If you like baths, do you like bubbles?

If you prefer showers, are you the "in and out in five minutes" type? Or do you like a long, indulgent shower just every now and then?

What's your favorite shower scene from a novel?

Have you read any steamy scenes involving bathtubs?

I'll give a $5 gift card to Bath & Body Works to one commenter.

Chiggers

by Cassondra Murray

Are y’all feeling good after Jeanne’s yummy-smelling perfume blog yesterday? Well, brace yourselves, because I’m fixin' to replace that good-smelling afterglow with somethin' worse’n a pot o’ cabbage boilin’ on the stove.

For any of you who have NOT smelled cabbage cooking, “stinks” does not even begin to describe it. It’s enough to turn you against green plants and gardens in general.

I’m just warning you. So if you think you can take it, go right ahead. Read on.

No, I am not blogging about stinky stuff.

Well, then again, maybe I am, in a metaphorical kind of way.

Y’all remember the malt vs float blog from last month, right? The one where Jeanne and I chose sides? (I was float, she was malt.) That’s one point on which my evil twin, the dear Duchesse Jeanne Pickering Adams, and I, part ways. Another point on which we differ is that she prefers winter. She likes to shiver. I, on the other hand, hate to be cold, and am a shameless hoyden for spring and summer—oh and a nice long, unseasonably warm autumn that lingers until mid-December.

It doesn’t bother me at all to have the heat, as long as it’s not a horrid drought. People say, “but it’s a dry heat!” And I say, “so is hell.”

And it doesn’t bother me as long as I can get relief, when I want it, with air conditioning, a tall glass of lemonade or my grandmother’s sun tea (sweet tea, of course, as anything else is just wrong), or even a nice cool glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc.

Jeanne hates the beach. I was born with a palm tree in my soul.

In most other ways, we are indeed evil twins.

I’ll sit on the porch, sipping my icy beverage, and gently “glow” (that's ladylike country talk for "sweat" in case y'all didn't know) into the long summer evening as the sun sets in a streaky purple and cerise-colored sky, and the lightning bugs flicker across the tall fescue in the pasture. Jeanne will be fanning and wanting to go inside where it’s cool.



That love of summer firmly established, I admit that there is one thing about summer which I am never loathe to see pass.

Chiggers.

Do you have chiggers where you live?

I hate chiggers.

For you lucky souls who do not have chiggers where you live, and may not know their entymology or (sarcasm alert)the joy of having multiple chigger bites on your body, all itching at the same time…well…let me just say right here that chiggers are NOT ticks. And since we’ve known about Lyme Disease, and especially since Brad Paisley came out with that song about ticks….

I’d like to see you under the moonlight
I’d like to kiss you way back in the sticks
I’d like to walk with you through a field of wild flowers
And I’d like to check you for ticks

…..Well, ever since that, ticks have gotten way more than their fair share of publicity.

Honestly. You can see a tick when it’s crawling on you. Even the itty bitty deer ticks, though they take a bit of concentration to identify. When you take off your clothes at home and shower, you’re quite likely to notice a tick trying to make its way up your leg. I have a reasonable level of hatred for ticks (and most other things with more than two legs which attempt to crawl upon me). But that is honest parasitic advancement, in my opinion.

Chiggers, on the other hand....chiggers are sneaky.

Do you know what chiggers look like?

Probably not,because you can’t actually see the microscopic little buggers, but if you’ve ever had chiggers, you know what I’m saying. I had a picture of a chigger all ready to post, but I decided against it. I figure y'all have computers, and know how to use Google. If you want to know what these little critters look like, it's just a Google search away.

Ahem...back to the point...

If you’ve ever picked blackberries, I’m guessing you know all about chiggers.

Wild blackberries are my favorite summer fruit. I grew up picking blackberries with my family every summer. So one summer just after Steve and I got married, I was feeling all sentimental about my childhood, and when I got the chance to pick blackberries, I took it.

A friend of Steve’s had several acres, and each year he used his riding mower to mow paths around the clumps of wild blackberry bushes, or “vines” as we called them in Southern Kentucky.

I suppose these paths of short lawn-like grass gave me a false sense of security.

We spent the afternoon, and I came home to our tiny apartment with a gallon of the incredible rich, sweet-tart fruits, and my tummy already full from eating them straight off the vines. But by that evening the red bumps started to show up.
I was covered with chigger bites. Steve counted 120 itchy red bites on my body. I was miserable.

For you who are lucky enough to NOT know, most chigger bites happen in the spots where your clothes are tight. Chigger bites aren't actually "bites" you see. And they're not terribly dangerous.

The teensy little mites simply move into one of the hair follicles in your skin-- and there they set up housekeeping for a few days. A few very itchy days.

They prefer the hair follicles in restricted areas. Like the crease under your breasts where your bra rides. Isn’t that a fun place to have red bumps that are itching like fluttering hell-bats from the pits of doom?

Or your tummy where the waistband of your pants rests. Oh, and the best place of all--the elastic legs of your panties. Yeah. They congregate there--where your body moves and bends—and in places like your ankles, just under the bands of your socks.

And that movement? That just makes them itch all the more.


And there is Nothing. You. Can. Do. About. It.

Like Measles or Mumps or the flu, they have to just do their thing. Run their course.

The “experts” say they gravitate to those spots because they like the dark--areas of tight clothing. Me? I think they just go as far as they can go and most of them stop right there, where the clothing gets tight, and it’s too bloody much trouble to climb any further. And that’s where they dig in.

If I were a chigger, that's what I would do.

Lazy little sorry critters they are.


Of course, “dig in” is wrong too, according to the experts.

I suppose I owe it to the experts to say that chiggers are a mite-like thingy. And it’s the larvae which are the trouble. They look nothing like larvae to me. They look more like a tick, in their larval stage, actually. A tick you cannot see. Otherwise, the experts say, chiggers, or “harvest mites” of which there are more than 30 species (oh JOY!) don’t cause any trouble. It’s just that larval stage.

They say if you go home and shower immediately you can wash the chiggers off. I have not found that to be the case. Showering has never helped me because the chiggers have already found their spots and sandbagged themselves in.

I’ll spare you the details of their actual activity while in your follicles. The point is, they itch like all heck.

People have said for a long while now that if you paint over the chigger bite with
nail polish that it’ll kill it—that it can’t breathe then . I suppose it does appeal to the logic, doesn’t it? The idea that this layer of shellac-like nail polish suffocates the itchy little demons to death.

After all, if I’m going to itch and suffer, I’d like for the cause of it to suffer along with me.

However, being from strong country stock, as I am, I’ve never believed this. And this is one point on which the experts agree with me. They say this nail polish trick does absolutely no good.
I don’t know what I think about the experts and their opinions about chiggers. They may be right. Or not.


That evening so many years ago, Steve painted all 120 of those chiggers with pink nail polish.


When I was a little girl, my parents would get me ready to pick blackberries in the following way: First, I had to wear long pants and long sleeves. Then they took a kerosene—yes, kerosene—dampened cloth and swabbed it around my wrists and ankles.

And you know what?

Nary a chigger.

That’s right. It kept the chiggers away. And given the negative qualities of DEET, which is the only kind of insect repellent which will keep chiggers away, I’m not certain the kerosene was any worse.

But that day when I was first married, I had no kerosene, and the blackberry picking was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I thought only briefly about chiggers, then I determined to be careful.

Ha! Chiggers give no heed to careful. They jump—yes, according the the experts, they wait on vegetation and jump toward their intended hosts.

This past June I cleared the weeds away from the flower bed around my mailbox. Tall weeds. Lots of them. And guess what?

That evening Steve counted 116 chiggers on me. And he painted them with clear nail polish. I told him I thought that didn’t do any good. He said just in case it did, we should paint the chiggers.

I itched for three days.

I hate to see the end of summer, but the one thing I do not mourn is chiggers. They can freeze their little chigger hienies off with the first frost. Jeanne, you are vindicated.

I hope they go to the darkest corner of chigger hell.

What about you, Bandits and Buddies?

Are there chiggers where you live?

Have you ever had a chigger bite?

I’m not allergic to poison ivy. Are you? If so, what do you do to stop the itching?

I have a selfish motive here, because I’m writing a scene in my latest manuscript like this….have you ever read a scene in a book where the hero or heroine was all itchy?

Hmmm…it doesn’t sound all that romantic, does it?

Are you a summer person like me? Or are you like Jeanne—a winter person? Do you look forward to the greening in the spring? Or to the first frost of Autumn, when the bugs get their comeuppance?

It’s the end of summer. Are you glad? Or are you sad?


And did you ever pick blackberries?

To Float or not to Float...

A Jeanne and Cassondra Food Fight....

Cassondra: I was in New York a couple of weeks ago, like many of the Bandits, and had a chance to spend just a bit of time with the one Bandit I sometimes refer to as “my evil twin.”

You might wonder why we would think of ourselves that way, since I’m short and dark haired, with a rather overpowering preference for black clothing, dark blue nail polish, and deep purple lipstick, while Jeanne is tall, stacked and blonde, with a tendency to wear *shudder* earth tones.

Jeanne: Hey! I resemble that remark! (Heehee. Actually, it's quite a nice description....thanks!)
Cassondra, rolling her eyes: Nevertheless, for you who might not have noticed this, we tend, often, to think alike about certain things. We’re both extremely analytical, come from strong marketing, art and design, and business backgrounds, and we both like things that go boom.

Jeanne: I love it when she calls me analytical. I SO don't think I am, but it's nice to know someone ELSE does!

Cassondra: Will you let me finish?

Jeanne: Pray, continue, my Evil Twin.

Cassondra: Thank you. We also both come from small country towns, love plants and gardening, and have a strong interest in a lot of similar things.

But when it comes to food, the similarities….well…I begin to doubt our twinhood.

Jeanne: Gasp! Say it isn't SO!!!

Cassondra: Yes! It's so! During the New York trip, a vast chasm opened between us. Yes, that’s right. We’re disagreeing about food again. And this time, it’s sacred.

Jeanne: (muffled laugh) It's a sacred cow-product! Oh, noes!!

Cassondra stifles a grin: This is serious! Y’all remember my ice cream blog, right? So you know I’m no stranger to cow-originated goodness. So it’s probably no surprise to you that I love floats.

Jeanne: Ugh.

Cassondra: Hey! I mean I don’t just like floats. I love floats. Being much like the Sally character in When Harry Met Sally, I like them made a certain particular way, of course. I do NOT want the ice cream all blended together with the soda. That’s just gross.

Y’all remember Koogle, right? Peanut butter and jelly blended together in one container? Like that. Blech. Grrrrross.

Jeanne: Oh, now that WAS disgusting. Bleech is right.

Cassondra: Thank you. But as to floats, the ice cream and the soda of choice should not become some amorphous, smooth substance. The ice cream and the soda must remain individual. It’s a marriage of two distinct and opposite individuals, one with a crisp, bright burn, and one with a sweet, soft, creaminess. It is NOT a genetic blending experiment, where everything ends up looking the same. Ew.

I want generous scoops of ice cream, with Coke or root beer poured over the top (allowing proper time for the foam to go down, of course), then poured over the top again, until the container is full to the top of soda, and then I want extra Coke or root beer on the side. While I realize there is a group of float lovers who prefer to have their Coke poured in first, then their ice cream scooped in, because, they say, it doesn’t foam nearly as badly that way, I say this is bowing to convenience. Maybe even bordering on laziness, this sacrifice of quality for speed of preparation. I am a Coke Over Ice Cream float girl.

I do not want chocolate ice cream, nor any other flavor except rich, natural vanilla. No swirls, no nuts, no candy additives. I want a bit of time for the ice cream to become malleable. Then I poke at it with the long-handled spoon so bits of it break off into the ambery liquid. So I can then slurp the glorious combination.
Yummmmm.

Now, brace yourselves, because I know you’ll be shocked. I was. But our beloved Duchesse, Jeanne, my otherwise evil Bandita twin….dare I even say it?

She does not like floats.

This, I do not understand. Instead, she likes malts.

Jeanne: Yes, yes I do.

Now let me be clear. It's not that I find a float abhorrent or anything, it's just....well...Let me put it this way. It's a million degrees here in DC this week. The humidity is about 110%, with blue skies, and no rain. I'm hibernating in the house. Hiding, actually. Do you know what that kind of humidity does to my hair? Eeeeek!

Coke, Diet Coke, Root Beer - they're all wonderful, but there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that is as refreshing and "bring-down-the-core-temp-good" like a milkshake. In particular, a malt. You know, a mix of cold, gorgeous ice cream in vanilla, coffee, chocolate (pick a flavor, but it's got to be real ice cream), luscious milk, and malted flavoring. YUMMMMM!!!

Cassondra: Okay, we agree on the "real ice cream" part, but once you get flavors or - UGH! - MALT in there, we are at a very wide cravasse in our twinhood. I cannot understand this passion you have for malt. Malted milk balls--okay I can tolerate those. But malt in your ice cream? Yuck. Give me a good, old fashioned float any day. You know, an ice cream float - ice cream floating in a soft drink, like root beer.

Jeanne: Ohhhh no. No fizzy, fuzzy stuff messing up my ice cream, please and thank you. I'm planning to have a malt today in fact, and tomorrow, and probably the next day as a defense against the evil heat and humidity. (We have a code orange heat advisory - baaaaaad)

Cassondra: Truly, you astonish me. Why would you want to diss my perfect summer beverage? I will admit to one exception to my strict coke/vanilla combo.

Jeanne: Just the one?

Cassondra: Oh, be quiet. The one is the orange dreamsicle float, with vanilla ice cream and orange soda. Oh. My. Gosh. And when anyone has a sick stomach, I make them an orange sherbet with 7-up float. Goes down easy and stays down when nothing else will.

Jeanne: Remind me not to be sick around you. Hate to admit it but I'm SO not a dreamsicle fan. My DH - he'd LOVE for you to be around when he's sick. He's an huge fan of orange/vanilla combos, no matter what frozen form they take.

And going back to the point at hand, why would you want to ruin a perfectly good scoop of ice cream by submerging it in, or pouring Coke over it? Or Root Beer? Why, for that matter, would you ruin a perfectly good, ice cold root beer, by dumping ice cream in it?

Cassondra: Oh, please. I’m sorry, but what, precisely, IS malt? I’ve wondered this for a long while now. They never let you actually see it, and I find that deeply troubling. It doesn’t come from a “malt” plant. There is no “malt cow.” No “malt truck” drives up and unloads cans of it. They dump it into the cup when you’re not looking, then they keep their backs to you while they put in the ice cream and blend it all together.

Jeanne: *rubs hands in glee* Malt is made from grain, m'dear Twin! It's the food of the Gods, don't-cha-know. Snork!!! See, you get a grain AND a dairy serving when you get a malt!

(Nancy, that makes malted milk balls a grain food! We're saved!)

Cassondra: Maybe we should switch husbands since your husband, Ralph, likes floats and dreamsicles. My husband, Steve, likes floats, but alas, Jeanne, like you he LOVES malts. In fact he likes EXTRA malt in his vanilla malts. I have no idea how we ended up together.

He has a theory that floats, actually, are a regional thing. A few years ago, he worked for a big hospital corporation, and traveled all over the country visiting hospitals and helping with their scheduling software. He’s run across several places where floats are not served. At one point he was in Texas, (I think) when he stopped by an ice cream shop—one of the little glass-walled kind that I blogged about a couple of months ago—and asked for a float. They looked at him with a blank stare. Then they frowned.

“A what?” they asked.

“A float,” he said. “You know, ice cream with coke or root beer poured over it?”
The girl looked over at her ice-cream scoop-wielding companion. Scoop girl came over and stood near girl number one, making an impenetrable wall of “ya ain’t from here are ya” confusion. They’d never heard of a float.

I mean really! They don't know about floats! How can this be? After I’ve heard such nice things about Texas? I might start to believe that Texas really is a whole other country—an alien one where they don’t serve floats.

Jeanne: Now, I do find that hard to believe--the not knowing about floats. Or maybe it's that your region (Kentucky) and my original region (North Carolina) are so close and so similar that they DID know about floats.

However, your point about Texas being an alien country is also well taken. It IS where they filmed Cowboys and Aliens, so....coincidence? Perhaps not!

(Then again, anything that features Daniel Craig AND Harrison Ford? Rrrrrowwww!)

Cassondra, laughing: Could be, could be. Steve explained the concept, but they could not imagine pouring soda (pop, Coke, soft drink, whatever they call it down there) over ice cream.

You know what I think, though? I think they served him the malt he settled for (Bleh), then they closed the windows, and late that night, after dark, with the lights out, they scooped out some ice cream, poured root beer over it, and found their way to Nirvana. The question, of course, is whether they’ve kept it their special little secret, or whether they’ve shared it with others, spreading the float love across a barren, malt-infested land.

Jeanne: Malt infested? Oh, for Pete's sake! It's GRAIN, I tell ya'! So we're a grain infested land. Excellent. Amber waves, and all that. Snork! Tell Steve we'll fix him right up with a malt, and you and Ralph can go slurp down some carbonated milky goo drinks. I swear, I'm sending Steve a ginormous box of malted milk balls for Christmas, just to tweak you. Bwahahahahah!

Cassondra: Ya'll can have them. I'll studiously ignore them as I find Nirvana in ice cream and Coke. Oh, and your husband is too tall for me, and you're taller than Steve, so you keep Ralph, and I'll keep Steve. Kay?

Jeanne: Of course, because, hey, we chose them for other reasons than ice-cream-beverage preferences. *VEG* But when visiting all together, the four of us? Ya'll go to the other side of the table with those floats. Steve and I will keep our malts allll nice and soda-free.

Okay, so who's side are YOU on? Malt or Float?

Flavored ice cream, or pure, perfect vanilla?

Toppings, nuts, and fruits? (And here I AM in Twinhood again because I don't like cold nuts - SNORK! - nor do I like fruit goo on my ice cream)

Cassondra: Fruit goo. Ewwwww. Real fruit? That's different. Love me some bananas or strawberries....slurp...or chocolate....yummm..oh..ahem...

Jeanne: Back to being Twins - I'm there with you on real fruit on ice cream - or IN ice cream. Just not goo.

One scoop or two? Or four?

And last but not least, besides vanilla, what's your favorite flavor?

Small Town Summer

by Cassondra Murray

I grew up in a small town.


Okay, that’s not entirely true. I grew up way out in the country, on a farm, but the town closest to us was the one we considered “our town.” It’s where we went to shop at the Houchen’s Grocery store, and do laundry at the Wishy Washy on Saturdays. When people ask me where I’m from—you know, when the conversation is not the kind where you say, “I grew up on a farm about 8 miles out of town, in a community called Glens Fork, in Adair County…”—when the conversation is brief and you’re just making nice, that town is what I say.

It had a big red brick courthouse in the middle of the town square. The kind with double doors on opposite sides of the building, so you could enter from either direction. The courthouse had a tower with a clock at the top. That clock never was right.

When I was a little girl, there were benches outside the courthouse doors, and old men would sit on those benches and tell lies and whittle.

There was a pool room down a side street. Y’all know about that pool room because I’ve blogged about it before, in the blog about ice cream. The town also had a little café tucked into a corner of the square, and a Ben Franklin store.



Ben Franklin was every kid’s dream before Toys R Us came along. There was also a Western Auto, with gardening tools, wheelbarrows, rocking horses, and a little red wagon in the front window. That’s where my dad bought some of my best Christmas presents ever. My Play Family garage. My electric train. That’s where he bought my first guitar. And that changed who I was forever.

I know I talk about my town a lot. I guess it’s because it’s such a part of who I am, and it’s a part of who I am not.
Nowadays I live half way between two towns. It’s ten miles north to the bigger city, which has a university, gobs and gobs of restaurants, and is building a new performing arts center. If you turn right out of my driveway, you go to that big town.

But if you turn left out of my driveway, ten miles the other direction is…..a small town. One with a courthouse and a square a lot like “mine.” If I have a choice, I always turn left.

And last night I did turn left, and drove to the small town to get something I needed. I noticed as I drove through, that there was a big crowd at the Frosty Freeze. My husband, Steve, wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to pick up something to eat.

Frosty Freeze is a little glass and concrete box in the middle of a parking lot. There are two big trees out front, and several picnic tables arranged under the orange-ish street lights. I angled into a space at the side and got out. I walked up to the window and got in line. When it was my turn, the girl took my order. Two barbecue sandwiches, a small vanilla malt with extra malt, and a small pineapple shake with extra pineapple. Oh, and a funnel cake.



I paid, then I sat down on the curb to wait. All the tables were full. School is out here, and high school kids moved back and forth, hovering between parked cars and around the beds of pickup trucks. A couple of farm boys climbed out of one truck and came around the front to place orders. But more high school kids hung out at the tables and around by the bug zapper, and they weren’t ordering anything. They were just hanging out.

I watched the dance of awkward wanting, and was swept away—back to my teenage years, cruising through the streets of the place where I grew up. I was swept back to the essence of all that is small town.

My town—the one where I grew up-- had the carcass of an old movie theater on one corner of the square,with a neon marquis out front that read Columbian theater in big vertical letters that reached almost three stories high.

But that marquis never lit up when I lived there. I got to see one movie in that theater when I was a small child. It closed down later that fall. The drive-in, further out on the edge of the city, was closed long before I was born. There was no roller rink, no professional or semi-pro sports team, no wave pool or museum.

There was absolutely. Nothing. To. Do.

So on Friday and Saturday nights, the kids from the farms and the suburbs, such as they were, drove into town and cruised. They circled the square, went down the big hill on Jamestown street, out toward the parkway, made a big circle around Sonic, then went back toward the courthouse, where they'd circle the square and repeat. All at about 15 miles per hour, so they could stick their heads out the windows and talk to the cars they were meeting. Sometimes they'd take breaks and hang at Sonic or Dairy Queen, or in the Pizza Hut parking lot.

This town where I sat at the Frosty Freeze is a little better off. They have an actual working drive in (refurbished) that shows first run movies. And they’re only 20 miles from the bigger city, so they can get to the mall, the arcade, and the minor league baseball games the larger town offers.


And yet it was the same. The smell of barbecue and deep fried yummy goodness. The sound of the shake mixer. The ziiiiip-pop of the bug zapper in the back, and the low rumble of big pipes on a farm boy’s pickup truck.

Parents murmuring to their children as they helped little fingers with ice cream cones, just the way they did at Sonic and Dairy Queen when I was a young girl. Bright colored bows in pony tails. Softball uniforms. Bare feet, brown with dirt from playing outside in the yard all day. Swimsuits under t-shirts. High school rings wrapped with rubber bands. A pretty girl's long hair blowing in the warm evening breeze. Tan skin and young love. The banker’s daughter and the poor farm boy. It’s the stuff romance is made of, for me.

I determined, last night, that some things time cannot change because the reasons for them don’t change. My evidence was standing right there at that window, ordering barbecue and a small chocolate shake. Even though there is more to do in this small town, there they are, just the same as we were, cruising up and down Main Street on a perfect summer night. Hanging at the Frosty Freeze.

The girl came to the window with my order, and I walked away with my white sacks of un-politically-correct food. But I also walked away reminded of who I was, to a degree. Reminded that although I love certain things about big cities, I will always be a small-town girl at heart. An artsy girl who still gets a thrill from the growl of a diesel pickup truck engine, broad shoulders and a farmer tan. All just three blocks down from a big red brick courthouse with a tower and a clock on the front.


The only real differences are that I’m a lot older, on the outside looking in now, and those farm boys stroll right by without a sideways glance.

Oh, and their courthouse clock is right.

So, Bandits and Buddies, tell me about the place where you grew up, and what said "summer" to you when you were young.

Were your summers in a small town, or a big city?

Where did the kids hang out on those long, hot evenings? Was there a movie theater? Any chance there was a drive in?

Did you ever cruise main street on Friday and Saturday nights?

Have you ever ridden in the back of a pickup truck?

Do any of y'all remember Ben Franklin or Western Auto stores?

And do you like to read small town love stories?