Neither rain, nor sleet nor trains...

Can keep an author from going where she needs to go. Last Friday was great fun. I enjoyed hamming it up at a library event with my friends and fellow writers Susan Wiggs and Kimberly Fisk. (Great women, great conversation, and chocolate - what was not to like about that?) After the event, it was off to Bellevue (lovingly known as the east side to Seattle residents) for a romance writers conference (where there would, of course, be more chocolate). Sheila was at the wheel . . . and Kimberly, who was riding shotgun was wishing she'd had more wine and chocolate before we left. Our timing wasn't the best, going through Seattle when a Mariners game is letting out. Let me just say that a salmon would have an easier time spawning upstream. We encountered the mother of all detours and wound up stuck in traffic waiting for a turn signal to change. This would have not been so stressful if we hadn't been waiting on a train track. Yes, I know. Does that get the stupid award or what? I kept thinking the conga line of cars was going to move forward any second, but nobody was going anywhere. And yes, there were no trains on the track but still... I know I saw SOMETHING waaay down there. A light. The light at the end of the tunnel, as in follow the light to the great beyond. Sure we were going to die any minute, I further risked life and limb and car fenders and squeaked by the car in front of me, went another way that had Kimberly reciting the Lord's Prayer, and, low, and behold, we finally wound our way back to the freeway entrance we needed. I sprouted eighty-two new hairs in the process but we made it to our conference and had a great time. As you can see by the picture of me happily, hamily smiling with authors Cherry Adair and Elizabeth Boyle and my fabulous editor from St. Martin's Press, Rose Hilliard. Now I'm once more safely home and I keep thinking about that old kids' song about the peanut sitting on the railroad track with its heart all aflutter. How does the peanut's story end? "Toot, toot! Peanut butter." Well, when you act like you have the brain of a peanut what can you expect? Thank God I have a very efficient guardian angel!

.

---