Why I Wrote Zip Last Week

After years of putting it off, last week we finally had our upstairs air conditioner replaced. Turns out the old hvac closet is too small to meet new code regulations, which means the system had to be relocated to the attic. While we were at it, we decided to replace all the ducting, boxes, and vents (we've had mold issues ever since Katrina) and install a duct in the master bedroom closet since it gets hot enough in there in the summer to melt shoes. That meant I had to completely empty the closet (because, drywall dust and dirty workmen).

All those workmen in the house, opening up holes in the attic, pounding, ripping, sawing, dragging heavy equipment in and out, etc, meant I had to lock up cats. Huck and Angel were shut in my office, and Huck showed his displeasure by claiming my desk chair and giving me the evil eye every time I suggested I might want to type. Everyone else just howled.

And then, once the work was all finished, I had the joy of cleaning up and putting everything back in the closet (still working on that). What fun--not. Although I did find some things I'd forgotten about, including my childhood collection of dolls in native costume, added to every time we visited a new country or my dad was sent somewhere (he was in Intelligence). Of course I had to stop and play with that. I also decided to use the opportunity to try on everything with an eye to my upcoming March book tour (yes, it is happening; more on that when the dates are finalized).  That was also fun--not.

Between the galleys for the hardcover Who Buries the Dead and mass market Why Kings Confess, Scout's death, and now the hvac overhaul, it feels like ages since I wrote anything on this new book. To work.

A Life in Small Boxes

From the time I was seventeen until I was in my late thirties, I never lived anyplace longer than 18 months. After that, I started staying longer. But I always knew I'd be pulling up stakes again sooner or later. Sometimes my moves were simply across town. But often I was relocating across continents and oceans. And because I'm a sentimentalist (which is a nice way of saying I'm inordinately attached to my Stuff), I was always careful to keep the small boxes things came in so I could safely pack them for my next move or stash them in my parents' basement until I was in a position to retrieve them.

And so, long after I'd inadvertently lost contact with my high school friend Sue, I kept the box for the silver chamberstick she gave me as a graduation present. I kept the random box that nicely fit the two old blue-plate specials my grandmother gave me when I was eighteen (along with a lecture on the evils of gambling, for the plates were all that remained of a restaurant my grandfather lost at the turn of a card in 1928). I kept the box for the Wedgwood Peter Rabbit cereal bowl I bought my daughter in England her first Christmas; the box for the alabaster cat my mother sent for my thirty-fifth birthday when I was in Jordan.... You get the idea.

When I moved to New Orleans, I fully expected to relocate again in a couple of years. I put all those little boxes inside big dish packs and stuck them up in my attic. And this past weekend, as we were getting the attic ready for the A/C overhaul we're having done, I found them.

As I went through each and every little box to be certain they were all empty, I realized that here, in small boxes, was the story of my life: flimsy, half-crushed boxes for treasures from China and Egypt and Spain nestled next to little Brio train boxes and boxes for porcelain dollhouse sets with torn bits of Christmas paper still adhering to them. Then, a bit misty eyed, I hauled all those boxes out to the curb for the trash.

Yes, I will move at least one more time, probably in the next 3-5 years when Steve retires. But I don't need all those small boxes anymore. And while I know it says volumes about my stage in life, I'm not sure I'm ready to admit yet what that is.

Come September

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with September. As a child, September was irrevocably associated in my mind with back to school (I really, really hated school). I was very much a child of summer; I loved the long days of blue skies and golden light, of endless lazy hours spent reading or fishing or running through ripening hay fields with my dog.

But there were still things I loved about September. I’m a Libra, so September means my birthday (unfortunately not as welcome these days as it was at the age of ten or even twenty-one). All those years in Idaho, Oregon, and Colorado left me with a nostalgic yearning for crisp, wood smoke-scented mornings and the sight of frost-nipped trees blazing in brilliant scarlets and yellows against a fiercely blue Indian summer sky. But my favorite time of year was still summer.

When I moved to Adelaide, Australia, everything turned upside down. Suddenly, September meant spring, the beginning of a new year of growth coinciding with the beginning of my new year. In a sense, it was a perfect match. For a time.  Then I moved to New Orleans.

The summers of New Orleans aren’t the warm, balmy days of my childhood or even the hot, dry days lightened by cool breezy nights that made Adelaide so wonderful. Here, summers are a brutal thing to be endured, with an enervating heat and a level of humidity reminiscent of being smothered by a steaming wet towel. These days I spend summer dreaming of its end, the same way I once waited for the passing of the cold, dark days of a northern Idaho winter.

Except, of course, September in New Orleans is still ferociously hot. Not only that, but the most dangerous time for hurricanes is three weeks on either side of September 10^th. So all through September, the first thing I do every morning is turn on my computer and look at the “Severe Weather” section of Weatherunderground.com to see if anything is brewing out there. Ask me my favorite month these days, and I think I’d say...October. Or maybe April. April sounds good.

How about you? What’s your favorite time of year? Does it change depending on where you live?

Sometimes, Life Sucks

It's been a bad week. I had a close encounter of the clumsy kind with a tree branch and tried to poke out my right eye. I'd show you the lovely picture of me with half the side of my face bandaged, but the Internets are forever, so it ain't gonna happen. The good news is that it will hopefully be all right in the end. But I haven't managed to get much done over the last ten days or so because eyes are rather important to a writer.  I was able to devote some of those hours I spent lying in a darkened room with my eyes closed to plotting out my next book, though, so it wasn't a complete loss.

And then, probably because I was so stressed, I came down with a nasty respiratory infection. (And don't even get me started on my mom's house!) Hopefully things will sort themselves out in a few days. In the meantime, that's a picture of Indie eating the manuscript for Sebastian # 11. Yes, he still doesn't have  home of his own, and this manuscript still doesn't have a title. Maybe September will be better.

Goodbye to My Faithful . . . Chair

Eons ago, when I was still an unpublished author, I sprang for what at the time felt like a really expensive desk chair for someone who'd yet to sell a book. I suffer from a bad back thanks to a serious tobogganing accident in my misspent youth, and so I ordered a chair that was custom built to give me the support I needed. It didn't look like much, but it was a wonderful chair.  Every single book I ever published--and a few I didn't--I typed in that chair. When I moved from Australia to New Orleans, it came with me.

Eventually the fabric began to fray. I thought about recovering the seat, but there always seemed to be something else to do. When it went through Katrina, I refused to set it out on the huge trash pile that lined our street and simply scrubbed it down with bleach. My family said, "Don't you think you ought to get a new chair? That thing is embarrassing." I said, "I know. But it's so comfortable. And it's been with me through so much."

But eventually, the foam seat started to disintegrate. The adjustment mechanisms quit adjusting. Even my cleaning lady (tired of sweeping up bits of crumbling foam) said, "I think you need a new chair." And so, last Mother's Day, we trooped down to Ethan Allen and ordered a replacement. Today, it arrived. Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, it's comfortable. I guess after twenty years and twenty-two books, the time had come.

Letting the Good Times Roll

It's official: according to researchers at Harvard and British Columbia, the five happiest cities in the United States are all in Louisiana. They are, in order: Lafayette, Houma, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria. A sixth Louisiana city, Lake Charles, made it into the top ten. (New Orleans, I'm afraid, wasn't very high up on the list).

So why is a place bedeviled by deadly hurricanes and oil spills and poverty so happy? Who knows. But I suspect it has something to do with strong family ties and deep roots, a devotion to good eating and good music, a love of outdoor activities and eating and festivals and eating and... You get the idea.

The unhappiest city in the country was identified as New York City, followed by St. Joseph, Missouri and South Bend, Indiana. Anyone know why?

The Other Thing I've Been Doing This Past Year

In addition to writing my Sebastian books, I've also spent the last year getting this house ready to sell.

This is the old Arts and Crafts-era cottage my mom bought when she moved back to New Orleans after my dad died. My elder daughter lived here while she went to medical school, and when she graduated last spring, we decided to fix it up before we put it on the market. It wasn't in that bad of shape, but it's situated in a part of the city that has become hugely sought after (it's actually SIX FEET above sea level). People buy these lovely old homes, rip off the cedar siding, throw all the lovely trim work and beautiful windows in a dumpster, then blow them up and out into hideous monstrosities. We didn't want that to happen, so we finished redoing the bathrooms, completely renovated the kitchen ("with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances," as the real estate ads all say), repainted it inside and out, had the floors refinished... You get the idea.

We thought it would take maybe three or four months. It's taken more than a year and just about killed us. But it was on the market less than twenty-four hours and sold to the first person who looked at it--and who loves it just as it is and says she doesn't want to change a thing. Mission accomplished.

And yet.... This house has been a part of my life for more than twenty years now, with lots of happy memories and laughter tied up in it. I suspect I'm going to shed a tear when the sale actually goes through in a few weeks.

The Rule of Three. Or Six.

What is it about bad luck always coming in threes? Or sets of threes? It all started a few months ago when my refrigerator went on the blink. We barely got that replaced when we needed a new hot water heater. Then the dishwasher went out right before Christmas. The stove went the day after Christmas (always a lovely time to try to have new appliances delivered). The guy who installed the new dishwasher told us we'd better have our kitchen faucet replaced ASAP. That's five. So I should have known this was coming: last week, my washing machine died.

At first, I was almost happy about it, for I have hated the danged thing since it first broke down a month after we spent what seemed like a small fortune buying it. All together it broke down something like eight times in the first two years. Plus, no matter how hard I tried, I could not keep it from getting moldy. But the thing I hated about it the most was my own stupid fault, because I should have realize that you can't soak clothes in a front loader (I'm one of those people who really likes to soak). So I was excited about the idea of replacing it. Only, then I discovered just how difficult it is to find a machine--even a top loader--that will let you actually fill it up with water and turn it off to soak your clothes for as long as you want. Seriously? Doesn't anyone soak their clothes any more? I had to wait EIGHT DAYS to get this thing delivered from the Back of Beyond.

When the delivery guys wheeled it into my laundry room, they laughed and said, "You were smart; you went with one of the good ole fashioned kind. Them fancy new things ain't worth sh*t." No kidding. Now I have a mountain of laundry to work my way through. And I know it looks silly, but I decided I couldn't part with the dryer because I keep my paper towels and spare laundry detergent in the storage space beneath it. So now I'm eyeing my air conditioners and thinking, One dryer + two air conditioners=three. 

Al Fresco Dining

The weather warmed up enough on Saturday that we decided to take the kittens outside for lunch.

Scout is able to eat on her own. But it's so hard for her to keep herself upright and steady that she gives up and flops over before she's had enough to eat. So Steve--who is her special person--basically just sits there, helps keep her in position, and moves the food around to make it easier for her to get.

Banjo is a bit trickier. He can manage to eat certain specific canned foods if I hold them up to his mouth. Otherwise, he's pretty helpless. But he is a real sweetheart. And if you're wondering about the funky tail, it's because when we rescued him, it was broken.

Eight Years On

It was eight years ago this morning that Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, changing our city--changing us--forever. So much has happened in the past eight years that in some ways those horror-filled hours and days and months seem long, long ago. And yet...

I can still feel the gut-wrenching despair of opening my front door for the first time after the storm and seeing what the floodwaters had done to the inside of my home. Still vividly recall the anguish of sitting beside my dying aunt in an understaffed hospital with boarded-up, shattered windows and orange FEMA blankets (because their laundry service had been swept away). Still remember the endless, strained jokes about blue tarps and National Guardsmen with machine guns at the corner and driving up to Baton Rouge for groceries and water. And none of us will ever forget that inimitable stench of decay that clung to the city for months and months--and, in some places, years.

They tell us the city has now regained 75% of its pre-Katrina population. That means more than 25% of us never came home, because our population today includes many volunteers who came down here to help, fell in love with the place, and decided to stay. It also includes new Hispanic residents who came to work on the reconstruction and also stayed.

In many, many ways, New Orleans is "back," as they like to say, although the changes are there, and heartbreaking. Yet change is a part of life, as are trauma and renewal. None of us will ever be the same again, in some ways that are good, but in others... Not so good. The memories of Katrina are always with us, a part of who we are. Yet every year on this date, those thoughts push their way to the front of our consciousness, and we go through our day shadowed by the old hurt and fear, shock and horror, despair and pain, disillusionment and bewilderment.

And we mourn what we have lost.

Careful, Or You'll End Up in My Novel

Sooner or later, we all have one: the proverbial neighbor from hell. 

The rest of my neighbors are pleasant, even if some are a bit peculiar. One lady seems to be bipolar and has substance abuse and anger control issues, but I have never called the cops on her (someone obviously does, though, because they’re always coming to cart her off). Another of my neighbors used to be Aaron Broussard, the Jefferson Parish president who had fifteen minutes of fame during Katrina. He was always nice, but I say “was” because he’s now in a federal pen. One next-door neighbor is a very affable, extremely buff black FBI agent with an impressive collection of automatic weapons, whose presence is rather comforting during hurricanes. But then there’s the jerk on the other side…

Once, after Katrina, he called the cops on me when I stopped his workmen from moving his fence posts another foot inside my property line (they were already six inches on my property, but he managed to pull that off before I bought the house). Another time he sprayed Round Up on the gardens of the houses that border his back yard. And just this past weekend, when I wasn’t home, he sent men with chainsaws to lop the tops off four of my small trees and seriously butcher my Bradford pear tree (he doesn’t like things that grow because the wind carries leaves and petals into his pool). Yes, I could call the cops on him because we’re not talking branches hanging over the property line but limbs that were on my own property and the tops of the trunks of trees growing in my front yard. But the trees are already ruined, and while I used to be a rather scrappy person, I’ve mellowed enough these days to realize that fighting with people only introduces disharmony and aggravation into my own life.

Besides, I have a way to get back at him that is open to few: I intend to put him in one of my books—maybe even more than one—and it will not be a flattering portrayal.

I have in the past put an ex-husband in one of my books, and killed him. One of my daughter’s old boyfriends has been an endless source of inspiration for a number of characters with borderline traits. An annoying woman from our local RWA chapter is making an appearance in the book I’m writing now. There’s a reason Steve gave me this sweatshirt for Christmas one year:

Of course, I also put people I like in my books, or at least bits of them. Both Hendon in the Sebastian series and the Colonel in the Tobie and Jax books have aspects of Steve in them. My two daughters inspired the little girls in one of my historical romances (and yes, they recognized themselves when they grew old enough to read it). It’s something all authors do, consciously or subconsciously. Sue Grafton once told me that she turned her daydreams of killing her ex-husband into A is for Alibi .

In you-know-who's case, I’ll change enough that he won’t be able to sue me on the off chance he should read my book(s). But I will have endless fun with him. And quietly laughing at him is much more pleasant—and productive—than getting angry, and much safer than trying to get revenge. However, the next time he lets his pool get nasty, I am definitely calling code enforcement.

UPDATE: I must confess that my attempt at maintaining a Zen-like calm did not work. By Friday, when I realized I was still too upset by the incident to write, I did call the police. They warned him that I could charge him with  "simple criminal destruction," although I have decided not to press charges at this time. He's still going in my next book, though!

Back to Writing

Life has been getting in the way of writing a lot lately. First, a huge chunk of my time went to helping my daughter get ready to move (and fixing up her furniture, as discussed in the previous post). Then I went over to San Antonio for a week to help her get settled in. Then, just to complicate things, the day after I came home, I smashed my right hand so badly I could neither type nor hold a pen. Talk about frustrating!

But I've now picked up where I left off with Who Buries the Dead, which will be book # 10 in the Sebastian St. Cyr series for those keeping track. All that time away enabled me to come back and look at the manuscript with fresh eyes, so that I immediately spotted solutions to a few niggling little things that had been bothering me. I wouldn't exactly describe the last few weeks as a vacation, but it has certainly been a break, and I hope that will prove to be a good thing.

While we were gone, one of my climbing roses invaded the screened in second-floor gallery where our two cats with "elimination issues" (fondly known as the P Cats) live. I plan to cut it off even though they're not toxic to cats, but in the meantime, Whiskies has really been enjoying it!

Happy Holidays

The gingerbread houses are built...

The villages are up...

And the tree is decorated...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The End of Summer

When I was a little girl, my favorite time of year was always summer. Summer meant blue skies, long warm days, no school, lots of hours to play or read or do whatever I wanted to do. I never understood how my mother could say her favorite time of year was autumn. To me, autumn meant school (in case you hadn't noticed, I loathed school), rainy days, cold--everything I didn't like.

Now that I've moved to New Orleans, where my mother was born and raised, I've come to understand why she loved fall. Summers here are brutal, something to be endured and--come hurricane season and the dangerous vortex of August and September--feared. Don't get me wrong; I still love blue skies and warm days and the exuberant burst of glory they bring to my garden. But I've also come to look forward to the softer days of autumn, to clear, crisp mornings and gentle mists and the scent of woodsmoke on a biting breeze.

Last weekend, we went up to our lake house. The lake is glorious this time of year, and offers a glimpse of the fall coloration that is so gorgeous farther north but is largely lacking around New Orleans. This post has no real point, except that I changed the photo on my desktop this morning to the one at the top, and thought I'd share it. And I can't even take credit for the pictures, because they're the work of my daughter, Danielle, who crept out with her camera early to catch the morning fog, and then went off again in the golden light of evening.

So what's your favorite time of the year? Do you find it changes depending upon where you live? Or maybe aging has something to do with it...

To Gladden the Heart

One of the things I love about flashmobs is the slowly dawning joy you see in the faces of the people watching as they realize what they are witnessing. Here is Beethoven's Syphony No. 9, presented in the Catalonian city of Sabadell by Banco Sabadell. Participants include the Valles Symphony Orchestra and the choirs of Lieder, the Friends of the Opera, and the Choral Belles Arts.



There is something so uplifting and infectious about this kind of pleasure.

It's the sort of thing that makes you feel good about the human race. If only we could have more of it in our world.

Happy New Year!

I survived Christmas, the Wedding, a houseful of guests, and New Years, although I have to admit I haven't written a word in over a month now. But the happy couple is off on their honeymoon, I put my stepdaughter and partner on their flight Monday, saw my sister off today, and I find myself actually eager to get back to What Darkness Brings (still getting used to that title).

**

Hope you all had a good holiday season. (Yes, that is Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve, although the photo was taken by a friend, not me.) I think I'm going to skip the resolutions this year; at this point I suspect I lack both the energy and the initiative. How about you? Do you do New Year's Resolutions?

Holiday Time

This has been a hectic Christmas, with lots of out-of-town guests, a widening pool of flu victims, a Christmas tree that smashed to the ground (breaking several dozen of my favorite ornaments and burying the village at its feet), and sundry other happenings. But we managed to get the tree back up and the village rebuilt, and we're muddling through and still having lots of fun.



These photos were taken with my iPhone, because it's much easier to just snap and email the images, so they're not of the best quality. The two above are of my buffet village, while below are the resurrected tree (bolted and wired to the ceiling) with its village, and a closeup of the village harbor...





Here's hoping your holidays are full of good cheer!