Silver James

I’ve always thought the Hobbits had it right! We should all enjoy “second breakfast.” Of course, I’d put on more than the 10 pounds I’ve gained back since this whole isolation things started, so maybe I’ll just stick with second coffees. And thirds. Fourths. Whatever it takes. Anyway, it’s another Monday. Yippee.

So, I forgot to tell this story last week. When it happened, I made myself a note to use it and then promptly lost the note. Guess what I found?!?! The kids’ need some fence repair so a week ago, Lawyer Guy took his long tape measure to go up to see how many panels they’d need. Only has returned to the office so she wasn’t there. Baseball Boy and Stormy were. Stormy, as always, wanted to help. They got the measuring done, but on the way up, LG noticed some weirdness with one of the turn signals on his truck. He’d just replaced the bulb a few days previous. Anyway, as he had the hood up looking for the problem, Stormy offers to help. LG explains that he doesn’t have his tools with him and will need to go get them. According to LG, the conversation went like this:

Stormy: “I can help, Big Daddy.”

BB: “Stormy, Big Daddy said he needed tools. We don’t have what he needs here.”

Stormy: “What tools do you need, Big Daddy?”

LG: “Needlenose pliers and…” He names off a few other things that I don’t remember now.

Stormy: “Okay.” He wanders off, returns moments later with his tool bag (a Christmas present from us–a REAL bag with REAL tools because that’s what he wanted. He pulls out his pair of needlenose. “Like this, Big Daddy?”

BB head slaps, LG laughs, and says, “Exactly like that, Stormy.” And so they fix his truck.

Still having weird dreams–when I actually sleep. I don’t always remember them, often waking up thinking, “That was weird!” but no details. Then I had the one about an international writers group I belonged to. I let my membership lapse last month when it came time to renew for…reasons. Anyway, organization held their yearly conference in what was basically a deserted mall. There were weird hallways with rooms and there was a big store whre the staff was located. As this was my “last” conference, I went to say goodbye to some favorite staff members. They were all making boxes. Big boxes, like 18″ by 18″ by 36″. There were no goody bags to hand out. No lanyards with names. Just this huge pile of boxes. I got to hug my very frazzled friend and then I left, walking out of the mall without a backward glance. See? TOTALLY weird! Almost as weird as the one where the pigs with umbrellas were chasing my dogs.

Stormy had back-to-back soccer games Saturday. They picked up two new players from a team that dissolved, though the majority are from his private church school. Interesting microcosm of the world on his team. Stormy has blond hair and blue eyes but he’s also Choctaw and Muscogee-Creek. A brother and sister duo are Black, their parents are white. Yes, they were adopted, along with their other sister. Another little boy is Hispanic. Another mixed race–Black father, White mother. The other little boy looked to be all white. All the family groups camped on the sidelines, “socially distancing” between groups. All the families cheered all the kids–and the kids on the other teams we played. Parents and grandparents and siblings visited and played and teased and exchanged hugs. Screw social distancing when you can get a hug from a kid! THIS is how you change things, how you teach people how to get along, not dragging your kids to protests that can turn violent and teaching them to fear. One of the photos that DIDN’T make the majority of the news channels showed a cop who appeared to be White comforting a Black child who was scared and crying and looking for comfort, evidently because she’d gotten separated from her mother in the crush. THAT’s the narrative people need to remember. Anyway, moving on.

Speaking of cops… One followed me the other day and when I turned onto my home street, he bleeped his emergency lights, smiled and waved as he pulled around me. I have thin-blue-line stickers on my back window and I think that’s why. I was feeling pretty cool about it and told LG when I got home. He immediately went to check my brake lights and turn signals. “Cops’ll do that sometimes when they don’t have time to pull you over to tell you.” That’s LG. Always practical. FYI, all systems are go so it was totally a thank you for the support.

In other stuffs, TV and sports is all reruns, except the finale of “The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch” was a whoah! Not much else on. Ah well. On the book front, I’m almost done with my re-listen to the last book of Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series and the opening books of the follow-on series, Psy-Changeling Trinity. The newest book, ALPHA NIGHTS, hits my Audible app tonight around midnight. Yay. New stuff!

MOONTRUCK: BETRAYAL is almost ready. 🤞 for later this week. I’ve got edits/revisions coming on Cooper’s story, #9 in my Harlequin Desire series. I keep saying this but it really is time to stop procrastinating and forget about all the BS, get lost in worlds of my own creations where I have control, and “git ‘er done!” I’m still working on that.

In the meantime, how are y’all doing? Still healthy? Still safe? Any good news? Any bad news? I’m here to cheer or commiserate.