Friday, November 28, 2014

Friday Freebits with Ginger Simpson #frifreebits

Did someone respond to Cassie's email?  Let's see how "Betrayed" is moving along.

As soon as she touched the mouse, his profile appeared, Blue Eyes. Despite her better judgment, Cass sat and started typing.

Hello back,
Glad you answered. This is my first time doing this, but then I bet everyone says that. I never thought I’d be corresponding with a mystery man.

I read your profile and enjoyed what little I read, but I’d like to know more about you, too. I consider myself to be an independent woman and, like most others out there, I’m looking to meet the right guy. I’ve been married once, but he certainly wasn’t the one. What kind of business do you own, Evan? 

I’m in the insurance business and live alone in the San Fernando Valley. Where are you? I think it’s a little too soon for a phone number exchange. Do you mind if we just email one another for a bit?
Hope to hear from you soon.

Cheers,
Cassie

Before she changed her mind, she clicked send. While turning off the computer, she wondered what possessed her to be so impulsive…so desperate.


She shrugged. No harm done. He probably wouldn’t answer anyhow.

****

So, someone named "Blue Eyes" responded.  Hmmm.  Wonder where this will lead.  Tune in next week and let's see.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

A Page Straight from Juliet Waldron #apagestraightfrom

Black Magic
by
Juliet Waldron


Goran, the now grown son of Red Caterina and Christophe (as told in Red Magic) encounters a shocking destiny when he returns from years of soldiering to the Heldenberg.

  From Book 2 of the Magic Colours series:          
With an unearthly scream, Count hurled himself forward. For an instant Goran froze, watching as a green miasma flared, as the eye teeth extended. The Count’s long handsome face lengthened; his mouth became a forest of gleaming ivory, his breath an opened sepulcher.
            “Despair and Die, poor fool!”
            Blood beat in Goran’s forehead, in his loins, in his chest. The horns exploded, and he towered over the Count, his body a rippling, muscled mass. Flames shot from his eyes and spat through cracks in his black sinewy hide. He raised an arm, made a fist and roared with such rage that the stone walls of the Raptor’s Nest rocked. 
            “Corpse! Be gone! 
            The Count fell back, raised a hand to ward off the blow. The green orb protecting him wavered. Surprise twisted his features. His pale lips moved rapidly; he cowered. For an instant, he seemed only an elderly gentleman, dressed in shabby, antique clothing. As Goran reached, wanting nothing more than to grasp and crush him, when the green orb changed to black. It coalesced and fell, leaving only a heaving, crackling sooty mass upon the floor. 
            “Mary is mine!” The Count’s last words hung in the air.
             Goran blinked. The spot where the vampire had stood was marked only with a glowing pillow of creosote, like the oily residue of a chimney fire.
             Goran turned around and around in the great room. He was alone, with only the neatly covered furniture and expensive hangings for company. Furious, he threw back his horned head and roared, then stamped and stamped again. The Italian mosaic fractured; the ground beneath the floor shook. He stamped harder, crashed his giant frame into the painted walls till they cracked. A chunk of ceiling fell. He raised his arms and bellowed, called to the over-looking Heldenberg.
             The ground beneath his feet groaned and then swayed. Glass shattered as the great row of eastern windows blew out, but that only served to fuel his fury. He threw furniture through the opening and pulled down the priceless hangings. As his claws grazed wood and fabric, it burst into flame.
             Finally, he hurled himself through the broken windows, and changed again, without so much as an instant’s forethought, into a Langenmeier, long wings spread across the void. Black clouds swirled and boiled down from the heights like an avalanche of darkness. Lightning struck the roof again and again, blasting away slates.
             Below, something enormous moved on the mountain, a huge boulder parting from a stone outcrop directly uphill from the mansion. Slowly, shearing, grinding, and then gathering speed, it bowled toward The Raptor’s Nest.
             Goran exulted when he recognized it—not a boulder at all, but a squat troll, like the one he’d seen on the day he’d rescued the baby Steenbock. Misshapen and gray, bracken waved upon its knobby head. It sometimes rolled and sometimes waddled, thick legs angled wide. With a thunderous crash, it struck the side of the building. Bricks flew into the air; the many-turreted roof began a balletic inward collapse.
             With a deafening roar, the storm arrived, saturating the air with icy water. Goran stretched his wings and pushed away into the rain, aiming for a distant clear line. Studded with twinkling stars, it lay due west.
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Coming soon--(I hope October) from Books We Love.
 
 http://yesterrdayrevisitedhere.blogspot.com/

See All my historical novels @
http://bookswelove.net/julietwaldron.php
http://www.julietwaldron.com
 
 

Monday, November 24, 2014

God's Wife - IT WILL KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF - Leo Buscaglia

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge.  The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was:  A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old Gentleman's' yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.'

*********************************************

2. Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted.

A little girl said, 'I know all about Adoption, I was adopted.'

'What does it mean to be adopted,’ asked another child.

'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'

************************ *********************

3. On my way home one day, I stopped to watch a Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was 'We're behind 14 to nothing,' he answered with a smile.

'Really,' I said. 'I have to say you don't look very discouraged.'

'Discouraged?' the boy asked with a Puzzled look on his face...

'Why should we be discouraged? We haven't been up to bat yet.'

*********************** **********************

4. Whenever I'm disappointed with my spot in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott.

Jamie was trying out for a part in the school play. His mother told me that he'd set his heart on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen.

On the day the parts were awarded, I went with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement. 'Guess what, Mom,' he shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson to me....'I've been chosen to clap and cheer.'

*********************************************

5. An eye witness account from New York City, on a cold day in December,
some years ago: A little boy, about 10-years-old, was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.

A lady approached the young boy and said, 'My, but you're in such deep thought staring in that window!'

'I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,' was the boy's reply.

The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water
and a towel. He quickly brought them to her.

She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with the towel.

By this time, the clerk had returned with the socks.  Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes.

She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, 'No doubt, you will be more comfortable now.'

As she turned to go, the astonished kid caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, asked her:


'Are you God's wife?'

Friday, November 21, 2014

Round Robin with Ginger Simpson #rndrobin1114

This month's question centers around a month when people usually gorge themselves under the guise of being thankful.  We're supposed to share our favorite food or meal and tell how we got hooked on it.  So...here's my sad story:

Once upon a time I was really, really fat.  My youngest sister happened to get a job with a place called "Lite Life" and they did stomach stapling.  The before and after pictures she showed me really made me want to join the ranks and get healthier.  After all, I'd been told my entire life I resembled my father's family and they were all dying young.  As it turns out, my father died at 61.

Anyhow, I digress.  I had the procedure done and lost 118 pounds.  Sadly, that was 23 years ago and now I'm relegated to eating small portions, throwing up often, and in starvation mode which has caused me to gain back a great deal of what I lost.  I'm pretty sure, those pictures I saw have long ddisappeared  I think there might be a few people who have viewed this surgery as a success, but I'm not one of them.  In fact, I've had six procedures in the past two years to stretch the opening into the pouch so food can pass through.  Bariatric surgeons I've seen all want to do a gastric bypass as a cure, but that just seems to be opening another can of proverbial worms.

So...enter my other sister who is convinced she can make me thin and healthy.  We start on Monday, but I'm not sure I can drink 96 ounces of water and do a Paleo diet, but I do expect I'll be in water aaerobics three times a week, killing myself on an elliptical till I can manage a half hour, and eating food I never expected to put into my mouth.  What we do for the sake of vanity and health.  Just the idea of being in a bathing suit if frightening enough.

Before I lost weight...I ate all kinds of pizza, burgers, pasta, sandwiches, fries, and all those things good.  At least then I knew why I was fat.  Now I breath air and gain weight.  It sucks, and I'm actually looking forward to eating something other than crackers and cheese, one crispy taco, and chips and salsa.  Of course, I do good to drink 16 ounces of water in a day...96????  Egads!

Maybe next Thanksgiving, I can share a much happier tale.  In the meantime...chew on a turkey breast for me, eat lots, and give thanks for what you have, even if it's a spare tire...at least you can earn it.

Happy Holidays!

OH..and trot on over to the other participants for their "mouthwatering" answers:

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Friday Freebits with Ginger #frifreebits

Amazing how fast time goes when you get older...and this month I did.  It pains me to even utter the words...sixty-nine.  Good Lord, I'm staring 70 in the face.  *lol*  Oh well, like a good friend says, "any day on this side of the grass is a good one."  So, on with Betrayed, but only six paragraphs from Cassie's story:

****

The whirring of her old machine contrasted starkly compared to the new one she used at the office. Someday she’d buy a new home system, but for now the old one served her purposes. Until recently, she’d only used the one at home for personal banking; but last night she’d actually joined an online dating site and posted her profile. Was that the move of desperation? As pathetic as it seemed, anxiousness overcame her to see if anyone had responded.

Since her divorce five years ago she had only dated a few times. The caliber of available men seriously disappointed her. Cocktail lounges and bars were nothing but meat markets and frequenting them was like fishing in the “reject pond of life". Every man there had already been caught and thrown back, most likely for good reason. The rumor that supermarkets served as a good meeting place turned out to be nothing more than an old wives’ tale. Few men shopped at Cassie’s neighborhood store, and the only males working there were teenage baggers and an ancient butcher; all the cashiers were women.
Cassie focused on the bright side. At least if she selected a choice piece of meat, she’d enjoy it for dinner and not worry about having to sleep with it.

The truth: she was tired of being alone - sick of always attending social functions by herself and never knowing what it felt like to be part of a couple. Her ex-husband had been room like a roommate. She needed a partner in her life and was running out of places to look. If stooping to perusing Internet dating sites was what it took, then so be it.

Again, the devil dangled the another option. She immediately pushed that black thought aside. Besides, her mother needed her.


“Hurry up!” The computer wore on Cassie’s patience and she swore under her breath. “Damn! I could give myself a friggin’ manicure before the homepage even pops up on the screen.”

She wiggled the mouse back on forth thinking it might help, and soon realized the futility of the action. It was just as absurd as people who continued to push elevator buttons.

****

Will anyone respond?  I'm sure you know someone will; they always do.  Tune in next week for more.

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