Stop and Smell the Roses!

I have certainly been remiss in keeping up this blog. Wish I had a really fascinating story (read: excuse) with which to entertain you, but, alas….

Actually, I have been writing another Jiang Li story. Those of you who have read Brother Rat will be familiar with Jiang Li, those of you who haven’t read Brother Rat, well, all I can say is, “Buy the book!” Somehow, though, I think writing is exciting only for the writer. Watching a writer write must be a close kin to watching paint dry.

Today is the first Saturday my friend, Judy, and I went to breakfast at our usual Saturday haunt and couldn’t sit outside on the patio due to the coolness of the breeze. It wasn’t really cold, but was too cool for comfort, so we moved inside-and sat under the blowing air conditioner for a few minutes until another table opened up.

If any of you are in the Tri-Cities area, I will be at the Roxy Theater in Old Towne Kennewick between 5-9pm on Thursday 1 October as one of the ‘artists’ in the Art Walk. I will be signing copies of Brother Rat, so, come on down (even if you don't buy one, drop by, say 'hi' and check out the antique store!

Found a new blog yesterday, http://celibatesexawriterslife.blogspot.com/ Yes, it’s called Celibate Sex, the Life of a Writer. If I can figure out how to link it to mine off on the sidebar, I shall. Alas, I’m not over bright when it comes to computers, so I may just have to link it within the blog. But check the site out. Richard has stories and chapters of stories on the blog. And his intro is to die for!

My Gratefuls:

1. Restaurants with inside/outside seating and tolerate customers moving forth and back.

2. Potato chips with hot sauce

3. Early morning coffee on the patio watching, and listening to, birds and squirrels

4. Google and related search engines

5. My children – Sonja and Aaron

My Wonderment:

The other day while washing dishes, I saw movement in the tree outside the sink window. I looked, and there was a squirrel darting along one of the limbs. It just happens that my climbing rose, which competes with the grapes on my arbor, has also found the tree, and a cane full of roses was beautifully draped across the branch (see pictures below). The squirrel darted to the roses and stopped. Then he very carefully smelled each rose on the limb before scampering into the arbor to munch on grapes. Even animals need to, and do, stop to smell the roses.

Squirrel outside my bathroom window eating a walnut from ‘his’ tree.

Branch upon which the squirrel scooted, then stopped and smelled all the roses within reach.

Close up of one of the roses.