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?

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?

One Mom's Encouragement--Dianna Love Passes It On

by Cassondra Murray with Dianna Love

Y'all pull up a bar stool and put in your order for a glass of wine or one of Sven's fabulous cocktails. I've poured myself a glass of California Cabernet, and I want to celebrate a new--and very different--project by lair favorite--and my long-time friend, Dianna Love. She's just launched something that's *cue valley girl squeal* totally awesome, and I want her to share it with you, and the reasons behind it.

If you're a lair regular, you know by now that Dianna's first book won a Rita Award, and she's gone on to co-author two successful series with #1 NYT Bestseller, Sherrilyn Kenyon. The first was Sherrilyn's original BAD Agency series. The lastest is Dianna's brainchild--the rockin' Belador urban fantasy series.

Many of you have read my interviews with Dianna in the past, and been inspired by her drive, determination, and what seems like a bottomless well of energy, which she draws on when pursuing something she cares about. I recently learned that she gives her mom a lot of the credit for encouraging Dianna to go for her dreams and follow her heart--first into art--and later into her newest passion, fiction writing.

As we head into the weeks before Mother's Day, I asked Dianna if she'd share a little about her mom, what that encouragement meant to her, and how that's led to her sponsoring a national art contest based around her latest book.

Welcome Dianna!

Dianna: *lifts her glass of Australian Shiraz* Thanks! It's always great to be back here in the lair!

Cassondra: You’re an inspiration to a lot of people because you’ve basically had two very successful careers. Many of the Bandits and Buddies know that you were an artist before you were a writer. But that's key to your latest project, so for those new to the lair, will you tell us briefly about your “past life?”

Dianna: Sure. My life revolved around art pretty much from the first time I picked up a crayon. I was blessed with the ability to draw photo-realistic art and by the time I was in middle school, I was selling detailed pencil portraits for $5 each to earn money for art supplies. My parents had five kids and no extra money for frivolous use of school supplies like paper and pencils. I have never forgotten an uncle who worked in a paper mill and brought me a ream of paper once when he came to visit. The memory of that gift has stayed with me since grade school.

Cassondra: What a great gift for a budding artist.

Dianna: *nods* Over the next few years as I grew into my teens and on into adulthood, I went from drawing portraits on 18” paper to painting them 20 feet tall way up above the ground. When I was first living alone at seventeen, I used my art to do side jobs between three “regular” jobs I held during the week. By age twenty, I was building a business in painting signs and murals. Over the next thirty years, I expanded to creating massive three-dimensional objects for unusual marketing projects and eventually created unusual high-tech advertising pieces for events like the Olympics and companies such as Coca-Cola.

(Cassondra interjects: That Coca Cola sign on the left is in downtown Atlanta--it's an example of the kind of projects Dianna's company built.)

Cassondra: I’ve known you for a long time, but only recently came to understand the roles your mom, and her encouragement, played in your art career. We’re coming up on Mother’s Day, and we've got a lot of moms in the lair with us today. I think they'd love to hear a little about your childhood and your mom. I especially love the story about the tv station interview. Will you tell that one?

Dianna: *takes a sip of Shiraz* Yes. My mother was no wallflower, but she was a wife during an era when the man had the last say in a house. With five children, there was no doting on any one, but I remember my mom coming to first grade just to see something I’d drawn. I thought I was in big trouble *grin* – that was the only reason a parent was asked to come to the school back then -- but I’d used my newsprint sheet of paper--anyone remember drawing on newsprint?--(*cassondra raises hand*) to draw an involved series of the Billy Goat’s Gruff cartoon, and I guess my teacher was impressed, because she called my mom in to see it.

By the time I reached sixth grade, my mom had gone through years of having me draw at the kitchen table and on anything I could get my hands on, plus I’d won some art contests by then.


Cassondra: But in sixth grade something pivotal happened?

Dianna: Yes. We had two six-week sessions of art that year. I was in heaven. Free art materials and time to draw--but more about that later.

My art teacher entered a batik I created in a national contest, which I knew nothing about until they announced in home room that I’d placed 3rd…and that I was to be interviewed on television. They might as well have said I was expected to travel on the next moon flight.

Now back to that "time to draw" in class thing....My dad had grown up during hard times and expected us to only study in school—and that didn’t mean drawing or painting. Art was a waste of time and money to him, so when I told them about the television interview, he said no.

I had never heard my mom naysay him, but she said yes. She dressed me up and drove me to that interview. The first and second place winners were seniors who they also interviewed. Everyone was very nice, going over questions with me before they started rolling.
That was a memorable experience to be sure.

But more than anything it made me realize that my art did count because my mom said so. Never underestimate the power of believing in your child.

Cassondra: How did you use that belief and encouragement—how did you transfer it into something concrete as you moved through your teens and into your adult life?

Dianna: My mom would do anything for her children for the short time we had her (she had a heart attack and died when I was seventeen). She patiently listened to every story, helped with everyone’s homework and cut no one slack when it came to being a good person and the best you could be at anything.

Because of her encouragement and pride in what I’d created, I never considered giving up my art. But my father told me I couldn’t depend on it to make a living. I believed that as a teen, and took mechanical drawing in school to appease him. Being a strange right brain/left brain artist who loves math, I aced the class, but one thing it did was show me that I hated the idea of engineering or architecture.

I never walked around thinking I’d be the next Rembrandt painting portraits all day, but neither did I enjoy working in an office, so I gravitated to painting signs and murals. Living alone at seventeen is a two-sided blade of positive and negative. Every day was a struggle to survive back then, but the positive is that the only voice I heard was my own and that one told me to follow my heart.

I have always felt as though my mom is nearby watching over me and I still feel her spirit with me in everything I accomplish.

Cassondra: *swirls wine in glass* I want to talk for a minute about passing on the encouragement your mom gave you. I’ve seen you sit down with new writers and help them through tough spots in the writing--or in the business--more times than I can count. But your encouragement of others didn’t start when you started writing. Once you had your own sign business and your own shop, you helped other young artists get started and taught them how to do what you did. Your consistent willingness to teach others and share the work and success might seem counter-intuitive to some people. Will you talk about why doing that fits your basic philosophy of encouraging others?

Dianna: It goes back to my mom's influence. She would stop to help any child anywhere. I remember her saying that she hoped someone would help her children when they needed it if she wasn’t around to do it at some point. She was the original “pass it up the line” person who helped others because that’s who she was.

I’ve never thought about how often I do it, because helping others is just a natural part of my being. I never considered my competitors in business or art to be my opponents or enemies, and I feel the same way about writing.

My philosophy is that the better job we all do in whatever field we’re in, the more successful we all will be and when it's writing, that’s good for readers and the business. On top of all that, it makes me very happy to see others succeed, so I benefit too.

Cassondra: When you made the switch from painting to writing, did it feel as though you were giving up one dream to pursue another? Did you have any moments when you wondered if it was the right thing to do? If so, how did you make your decision?

Dianna: I loved painting, but I’d spent so many years away from home working, in everything from cold to suffocating heat, that my urge to write came at a good time for me. I’d been making up stories in my head, so when I reduced the amount of time I was climbing to paint and build, I started writing these stories down in between times I spent painting in my home studio.

But the writing really captured me. My husband kept telling me I couldn’t continue to paint huge walls and write books, because the schedule was killing me. I work every day, but my writing was demanding so much I couldn’t keep up the pace. So I finally made the decision to go full time into writing. It was a difficult decision because I’d spent my life building a business in art, but this is where I refer back to the question about helping others--back to what I learned from my mom.

I had so many friends in the sign business by that point that I was able to place all my clients in good hands and help my friends at the same time. My husband still oversees two large sign maintenance contracts we have, but I’m rarely involved in that now.

Cassondra: You've shared how art competitions played a role in your development as a young artist. When did you first get the idea of sponsoring a national art contest, and what’s your purpose in doing that? And why the focus on high schools in particular?

Dianna: I kept thinking I wanted to create an image of Feenix, our sweetheart gargoyle in the Belador series, and started sketching on it when it hit me that this would make a fun art contest.

I had the opportunity to enter art contests from 3rd grade on, and those played a part in building my confidence in a field everyone considered a waste of time. I can’t tell you how often you hear that you can’t make a living in that field – I proved them all wrong. *grin* I think confidence-building is especially important for young artists who might let naysayers talk them out of pursuing a dream.

When I came up with the My Feenix Art Contest, I wanted everyone to be invited whether they hand -drew pictures, created on the computer or made stuffed animals, so the contest has three categories-- Flat Art, 3-D and Digital-- for each of the two division--the High School Student division and the Adult division.

Cassondra: You’ve spoken before, here in the lair, about your dogged determination to remain true to whatever you’re passionate about. I’ve heard you say “A bad day painting was better than a good day doing anything else.” How does this art contest play into that, and how do you see it encouraging others to follow their passion?

Dianna: I do believe following your passion should be at the core of what you do if you want to be happy in life. I think just entering an art contest is a big step for many artists who are timid about submitting their art to a professional group.

The contest has no entry fee and all of the initial submissions are sent as jpgs. There’s a category for digital art, but even the hand-drawn and three-dimensional art is submitted as photos for the first round. We did this to make it as easy as possible for anyone to submit.

Sometimes just the act of doing one thing to move your craft forward is all it takes to get you thinking more seriously about your art--and that's true of writing too--of whatever your art is.

Cassondra: Our Bandit Buddies run the gamut from late teens to parents to grandmothers, and everything in between. What would you say to our visitors in the lair today about pursuing their dreams at any age, and how would you suggest they encourage others in their lives to do the same?

Dianna: That’s a great question, and I have a story about how important that is.

Years back, I attended a social event at the home of a female business associate. I commented on the beautiful still life and landscape paintings in her home by one particular artist whose name I couldn’t decipher.

Her mother, who had come to live with her that year, was from Puerto Rico and spoke no English, but the woman loved to watch Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting television shows where he gave art classes. Her mother was in her mid 80s when she picked up a paintbrush for the first time in her life and shocked everyone with her talent. It been a secret passion of hers forever, but she never had the opportunity to try. Now her family has these amazing paintings to remember her by.

A lot of people have those secret yearnings.

I think we have to stop once in a while and ask the people closest to us, “Is there anything you’ve ever wanted to do that you haven’t and you’d like to do now?” Or just listen—pay attention-- when we hear that new or different sound in their voice when they’re telling us about something that has caught their attention.

Have an open mind about listening. That’s all it takes sometimes to encourage someone to pursue a dream.

*Bandits and Buddies shift to make room as Sven and Paulo set trays of snacks on the tables and bar*

Cassondra: If someone is an artist—or KNOWS an artist—who might like to enter the My Feenix Art Contest, how do they get more info?

Dianna: You can go to www.myfeenix.com and find out everything you need to know. The instructions and entry forms are there on the site. Top prize in each adult category is $1000. Top prize for students is an iPad, plus money for school art departments and books for school libraries.

Help me spread the word--and pass on the encouragement. It's never too early--or too late--to go for your dream.

Cassondra: Feenix first appeared in BLOOD TRINITY, first book in the Belador series, which was released last October. The second book in the series, ALTERANT is scheduled for release September 27th. You can read an excerpt of BLOOD TRINITY, see the blurb for ALTERANT, and meet the Beladors at www.authordiannalove.com

What about you Bandits and Buddies?

It’s not always a mom who plays the role of encourager. Has anyone ever encouraged you at a low moment? What did they say?

Have you gone for something that scared you, and been encouraged in doing so by either watching someone else, or having someone tell you to go for it?

What have you gone for “against the odds,” or what are you going for right now?

Have you taken a moment to encourage someone else in the pursuit of an important dream or goal? Who was it? Your child? Brother or sister? Critique Partner? Friend?

Who has made a difference in your life with a touch, a card or phone call or a word when you most needed it?

Sven is passing another round of drinks, so eat, drink, and tell us how you've helped spread the encouragement, or been encouraged at just the right moment.

Oh...and tell us what drink Sven is mixing/pouring for you. *grin*

Dianna is giving away two signed copies of BLOOD TRINITY and one of the coveted Belador t-shirts!