Last night, I had company. I bet that's the first time I ever typed that sentence on my blog. :-) My step-cousin (I think that's how our relationship works out) was in town on business and my parents invited her over for dinner at my house. And since I'm sadly lacking in kitchen supplies, my mom and dad hauled over all kinds of stuff from their house. All kinds of stuff. Gah!
I came home from work and my counters were loaded with stuff. Loaded, I tell you. More than you can possibly imagine anyone would need for a dinner for four. I grew up in chaos. My parents are horrible pack rats and there was always clutter everywhere and that included our kitchen counters. Seeing this in my house when I walked in the door was enough to make me shudder. I told myself it was only for a few hours, I could handle it for that long.
Gail arrived not that long after I did and after giving her a grand tour of my house (including the two rooms I haven't unpacked boxes in yet and my dad took her to my basement. sigh.) We started talking. I'd gotten her hooked on romance novels and we started talking about books. :-) You gotta love that. It turns out we already love some of the same authors--Sherrilyn Kenyon, Karen Marie Moning, Christine Feehan. I also recommended a few authors like Julie Garwood and Jayne Ann Krentz and promised to email more suggestions. Because Gail travels on business all the time, she reads on planes and in hotel rooms so she goes through a lot of books and she needed more authors to read. :-)
It was a really fun evening and I saw the coolest movie she made for her grand nephew's first birthday party. If I could remember the name of the program, I'd hunt it down myself because it was a phenomenal movie, combining still photos and video and covered big events in his first year of life. Way cool!
It was really nice to socialize a little bit--I haven't done much of that in ages because I'm always writing--or so it seems. The highlight of the night, though, is this story that Gail told me. I hope y'all don't mind my passing it along here because it's like the coolest thing ever.
Gail was in Tucson to do a presentation and she ran out of books and headed to the store to get some more. I can't remember if it was B&N or Borders for sure, but I think it was Barnes & Noble. Anyway, she always buys a huge stack because she can go through a book in a day and a half. She goes up to the counter and she and the clerk start talking about romance novels. The clerk reads them too. So Gail mentions that she has a relative who writes romances. The clerk asks who and Gail tells her, Patti O'Shea. (Here's the cool part.) The woman behind the counter says, "Oh, my God! You know Patti O'Shea!" And from the way Gail told the story, there was that level of excitement. :-) Gail said it was like you were a movie star or something. Now isn't that the coolest story ever? this is one I'm going to savor for a really long time--like today when I'm back to fighting with the WIP.
Gail didn't stay real late since she has a flight this morning. This is good since I get up at 4am, but you know what? Even though I got to bed before 10pm, I still feel as if I was hit by a truck. It was a great evening, though, and I'm really glad we got together.
Of course, you should see my kitchen. My parents cooked since they wanted the food to be edible and it looks like a tornado went through the place. My dad even managed to get stuff on my burner again--it looks like a little melted plastic of some sort--and I was scrubbing on that last night for a while. We were all tired so my mom and dad went home and I went to bed with stuff everywhere--in my sink, on my counter tops, on my table. I told my parents if they're going to trash my house like this, they can't use it as their party pad any longer. ;-)
