Lugging the Luggage on a Lugger...

by Anna Campbell

..to a Desert Island!

When this post comes up into the light of the lair, I'll be heading for the end of my wonderful two-week cruise on the 'Pacific Dawn' (that's it on the left) to New Zealand.

I'm so excited about this. In return for giving a couple of talks about romance writing, I get a free cruise. How cool is that?

I've never been on a cruise before and I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. So all round, it's wonderful. I look forward to sharing lots of photos with you in next month's Bandita blog.

I even went wild and bought a digital camera for the trip. It takes me forever to adopt new technology - which may turn out to be the subject of a future blog. Perhaps called Lugging the Luddite!

I'll be stoked if I take a shot as pretty as the one of New Zealand's South Island on the right! Isn't that beautiful? Wow!

So needless to say, I'm in the throes of packing because I leave on Saturday (it's the 25th November here right now - Happy Thanksgiving!). So far, I have a huge number of Anna Campbell books for giveaways, and ten books from the TBR for me to read, and all my Christmas cards to write, and the work in progress which I'm hoping is going to get some attention in amongst all the excitement. And I need lots of the sort of clothes I wear at RWA conferences. Thank goodness, it's a boat and there's no excess luggage charges!

So as I started putting out all this stuff that I'm taking with me, I wondered what were the five things I'd take to a desert island. And I came up with:

1. Richard Armitage (hopefully he can build and hunt and light fires and do plumbing and foot massages!)

2. A year's worth of Smith's potato chips, especially barbecue flavor

3. Sunscreen

4. 50 cases of champagne (hmm, I'm starting to like the sound of this island!)

5. MOBY DICK. Because while Richard is off catching dinner, I might actually read it in the absence of other entertainment

OK, what five things would you take to a desert island?

Oh, and if you want the Banditas as company, we count as one item. Oh, man, perhaps I should take the Banditas and their cohorts instead of MOBY DICK. We'd have a WHALE of a time!

As this is my last post for the year, I'd like to wish you and yours a very happy Holiday Season.

Thank you so much for all your wonderful support during the year. And thank you to all my wonderful Bandita sisters. You and the Bandita buddies are definitely something I give thanks for, not just today which happens to be Thanksgiving, but every minute of the year.

See you all next year!

Oh, and now for the bad news - I'm not sure what email access I'll have on the ship so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to respond to comments.

But hey, guys, party on!

When did this happen??

by Susan Seyfarth

It has recently come to my attention that I am no longer a spring chicken.

This should not have been a shock to me. I said goodbye to my twenties some time ago. I've always known that at some point I would have to go blond & stop using the word 'dude' lest I embarrass the children. And yet age blindsided me all the same.

So what happened? Where did all those years between Young & Not Young go? When did aging get so...abrupt? Wasn't it just yesterday that waiters were requesting ID whenever I ordered anything more interesting than soda? That my sisters were killing themselves laughing every time I got offered a child's admission or kiddie menu? When did young men start calling me ma'am & offering to carry my groceries?

I honestly couldn't say. But certain recent events have forced a reckoning. I will offer them now, for your consideration:

1. I recently discovered that the inside of my left forearm is sporting a permanent set of wrinkles from all the hundreds of hours I've spent with a diapered butt on it. Let me say that again: Permanent. Wrinkles. From carrying babies. I actually felt faint when I realized these lines weren't going away within a few minutes (hours, days, I checked) of putting said child down.

2. We were in a restaurant last week & a whole herd of teenagers walked in, sporting their prom finery. They looked so fiercely young & vulnerable & proud & hopeful that I seized up my five year old & said, "Oh, look at the prom kids! Aren't they beautiful?" And then I realized that that's how I think of high schoolers now--kids. Really, really young kids, too. Because they're, like, HALF my age. HALF, people.

3. I read a book in which a fourteen year old character & his girlfriend said they preferred email to IM for love letters because they liked the old school kick of really slowing down & considering each word. They actually called email old school. Okay, I didn't get an email account until I was a senior in college. Enough said.

4. This one isn't technically mine, but it speaks to the point, so I'm using it. A friend was at a meeting & somebody asked a question which was met by total & uncomfortable silence. My friend tried to break the tension by intoning, "Anybody? Bueller?" The silence then went from tense to puzzled because nobody got the reference. He looked around & realized his colleagues were all in their early to mid twenties & had never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off. My pop culture references are no longer current. Gah.

5. This one is the killer. Totally clinched the deal. So I was on vacation with my folks recently & at some point we washed a load of underwear and socks. At which point I discovered that my mother & I wear identical underpants. Okay, how demoralizing is that? I wear the same underwear--right down to the brand, the style, even the freakin' colors--as a woman thirty years my senior. It could be argued, I suppose, that I have a really, really hip mom. And in many respects, that's true. But we should not be wearing matching undies. I draw the line at that, and am left with this inescapable conclusion:

I'm old.

Geez.

So how about you? Have you ever had a moment that changed your definition of yourself? When did you discover you'd crossed over? Become Them rather than Us? Old rather than Young? The Man rather than the Rebel? Was it a moment, a series of events, or a slow, gradual slide? Share, because I'm feeling old & alone...

5 Random Things of Which I Am Afraid

by Susan Seyfarth

Here are, in no particular order, five random things of which I am afraid:

1. Snakes

And it's not the biting thing, really. It's that they have no legs, & yet are so very, very fast. This is a violation of some kind of natural law. If you're on land, & you're moving extremely fast, you should have legs. At least two, if not four. Or more. But to have none & still go faster than I can? This is wrong. Deeply, deeply wrong, & very disturbing.

2. Drains

Any kind of drain. Swimming pool, bath tub, storm drain. I'm not worried about getting sucked down. I'm worried about something unauthorized coming back up. Something alive. Something slimy. Something...pipe shaped. Oh lord. (see fear #1 if you can't decide where I'm going with this.)

3. The Ocean

I once went for a swim in a little lake near my house & had a blue gill mistake a mole on my back for a tasty treat. This tiny, toothless fish attacked me like it was auditioning for a part in Piranhas, the Movie. I believe I may have actually have leapt up out of the water & run across the surface all the way back to land while my husband looked on in bemused fascination. If a blue gill can do this to me, I don't even want to know what might happen should I attempt to share water space with sharks, jelly fish, or sting rays. Or, God forbid, eels. (Which brings us back to Fear #1, the water version. Only this time it IS about the biting.)

4. The Telephone

I find talking on the phone very stressful, especially to people I don't know well. I have a hard enough time making small talk with people I can see, but to sit there & try to figure out how a conversation is going without any visual cues? Eeeesh. You can't imagine how hard I resisted cell phones. I finally broke down, but I swear it's like putting a phobia in my purse & letting it stalk me all day.

5. The Mackinac Bridge

This is the bridge that connects Michigan's Upper & Lower Peninsulas. It's four lanes wide & the middle two are grates. Seriously. You can see through them to the water below. When I was a kid, a Yugo blew off. I didn't witness the event myself, but I don't care. They swear it wasn't the wind, that the driver lost control, but I refuse to drive on the grated lanes. I'm an asphalt girl, all the way. And even so, I sweat from one peninsula to the other.

Come on, admit it. You have some weird fears, too. Tell us! We won't laugh, promise.