Posted by: Author | October 15, 2014
Wordless Wednesday
Posted in Wordless Wednesday | Tags: Wordless Wednesday
Posted by: Author | October 13, 2014
Tuesday Tales- October 14, 2014- Letter
Here we are, another Tuesday, another Tale. The word prompt this week is letter. I was going to do something really cool and use letter of the law ( I am a lawyer, after all) but I just couldn’t work it in like I wanted even though I had my characters talk about the law. This is all I could do to work in the word letter.
Be sure to check out the others here. We’ve got some really good stories going.
Kat ended the call and shoved the phone into her purse so hard she almost ripped the lining.
“Friend of yours?” Paul looked over and quirked his brows.
“Very funny. It was David. He accused me of running over his foot. He followed me when I left Amos’. When he knocked on the window of my car, I took off and it seems I may have broken his toes.”
“Do you really believe that load of rot?”
“Sounds feasible to me.”
Paul backed out of the parking space. “Do me a favor and call the hospital—better yet—call one of your mates who David would let know if he was having some medical issue. I think you’ll find the man is a liar.”
“You really think so?”
“I do but you know what really concerns me?”
“What’s that?” Kat leaned on one hip and watched Paul’s profile as he drove toward the restaurant and her car.
“He’s at your house and from what I could hear on this end, he’s not leaving. Do you have somewhere you can stay until you can take legal action to keep him away?”
“Legal action? Do you really think I need to go that far?”
“I do. He’s a walking disaster. I’d call him the British word that I really think he is but it’s not fit for your ears.”
“My ears are hardly virginal.”
“Never mind that. What about my question? Do you have a place you could stay?”
“Not really. I moved here a few years ago and have only made male friends who live bachelor lifestyles. I imagine most of them wouldn’t want me in their space. Obviously, I could go to a hotel but I really don’t want to leave my home. If I do that, he wins.”
“If he breaks in and harms you, he wins.” They arrived at the Wok and Roll parking area. Paul pulled his car next to hers. “We have plenty of room. Come stay with us. I’ll follow you home for you to pack some items.”
“No.” Kat shook her head. She wasn’t going to be a victim again. Not happening. “I’m going home and am going to sleep in my own bed.”
Paul reached across and took her hands in his. “Not to be flip, but I don’t think writing the man a letter of resignation as his friend is going to be the way to go. I believe you can’t merely brush off his behavior. He seems obsessed and people like that are dangerous and unpredictable.”
“I have a gun and I know karate. I’ll be fine.”
“Listen to me. Please. You may be able to defend yourself but how will you live with it if you have to kill someone to protect yourself? That’s a hard thing to get over.”
“How do you know that?”
“A family member. Not me but someone close to me.”
“If I don’t stand up for myself, I lose all respect and I can’t allow that.”
“Lose whose respect?”
“My own.”
Posted in Tuesday's Tales | Tags: Tuesday tales, Tuesday's Tales
Posted by: Author | October 13, 2014
I Don’t Get It- Daughters-in-Law
I’ve blogged about this before but I still don’t get it. Why do most girls these days not want to be part of the families they marry in to? It seems to be an epidemic as I hear it a lot from people I know that they have the same issues.
I’m sad today because even though it’s a good day for my son- it’s his first wedding anniversary- I am hit anew (right in the face is my perception) with the fact that my daughter-in-law wishes my son was the only one of our family in her life. It hurts my feelings every time she posts pictures on FB of “her” wedding (and she went nuts posting this morning) and only posts shots of her, my son and her family. It’s like we weren’t even there. I feel like she would say – if she could get away with it-“Thanks for the use of your uterus to grow my husband and thanks for raising him. Now, go away and never come back.”
She seems to forget he’s partially the awesome man he is because we raised him to be kind, polite, trustworthy, a hard worker and to love with his whole soul. But for us, he may have been a different person.
This may all sound petty of me but there you go. It is what it is. My own mother-in-law didn’t like me and it was a hard thing to take- I’m in the opposite role now- I like the girl but she doesn’t like me,
I prayed their whole lives that the situation would be different when my sons married. So far, with one married, it isn’t. AND I know it’s not just my imagination when the second son, who is not married, tells me all the time that he is going to do better for me. If he sees it, it has to be obvious, right?
Anyway, I can normally go about my day and not think about this lack in my life but today, I feel like I’ve been slapped. My husband can brush it off and wonders why it hurts me so much but I guess I’m more sensitive than he is.
My sons- groom adjusting groomsman’s boutonniere
Posted in Random thoughts | Tags: anniversary, daughter in law, family, hurt, Love, sad, son, wedding
Posted by: Author | October 10, 2014
Friday Facts- October 10, 2014- Arch de Triumphe
The Arc De Triumphe was erected by Napoleon in 1806 as a monument to the soldiers who fought and died in the French Revolutionary War as well as the Napoleonic Wars. It is engraved with the names of the battles (French victories) as well as the generals who led France to the victories. The design was modeled after the Arch of Titus in Rome. Napoleon was a massive fan of the Romans and their emperors so he wanted something equally as grand (this author’s opinion here).
The place is massive and sits in the middle of a very busy roundabout at end of the Champs Elysees. It is reached by an underground tunnel that takes you under the street. There is a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (which I couldn’t get on the correct side to take a photo) which is from WWI.
The carvings on the sides and the top are absolutely stunning. It’s really a masterpiece of construction. Click on the interior ceiling picture and check out the craftsmanship. Impressive. Further reading here.
Posted in Friday Facts | Tags: Arc de Triumphe, Arch of Titus, carving, Champs-elysses, France, French, French Revolution, Friday fact, Friday Facts, history, Napoleon, Napoleonic wars, roman, soldier, war
Posted by: Author | October 8, 2014
Wordless Wednesday
Posted in Wordless Wednesday | Tags: Wordless Wednesday
Posted by: Author | October 6, 2014
Tuesday Tales- October 7, 2014- Short
This week’s word prompt is short. I had to work hard for some reason, to get this one in. The hero in this story is all about the banter. I guess I learned something about him as I wrote this week- he hides behind silliness. I wonder how that’s going to play into the rest of this story.
Check out the other authors’ work here.
“Man, you really are literal, aren’t you?”
“Better watch out then. That could bite you in the bum someday if you say the wrong thing.”
Shaking her head, Kat looked heavenward. “Lord, give me strength.”
“Uh-oh, it’s always bad when they start praying.”
“Sounds like you have a lot of experience with women having to search for divine intervention.”
A cloud passed across Paul’s countenance at her comment but quickly passed as he smiled at her. “Not nearly as many as the tabloids would have you believe.”
“I never read those.” Kat waved her hand in the air dismissively.
“Good to know. Maybe you aren’t too prejudiced against me then.”
“I’m not prejudiced at all.”
“Sure you are.”
She gaped at him. At a loss for words.
“Remember your curry comment? That was prejudice straight out, lady.” Paul winked.
“Do you always talk in circles?”
“No, I’m always literal, remember?”
“I can’t keep up.” Kat refilled his teacup then her own.
“Speaking of keeping up, would you like to take a stroll down by the lake this evening?”
“I would love to but it’ll have to be a short one since I have to be at work early tomorrow to finish a test.”
“You left in the middle of a test? What would the teacher say?” Paul stood and pulled out his wallet.
“Wait. No. You’re not paying for this.”
“Why not? I ate more than half of it. And besides, I know the owner. She gives me a discount.”
“I came here and ordered. Paying my own way is very important to me.” Kat opened her purse.
“Far be it from me to take that from you then.”
Posted in Tuesday's Tales | Tags: short, Tuesday tales, Tuesday's Tales, word prompt
Posted by: Author | October 6, 2014
Good Times!
I had a wonderful time on Saturday evening this past weekend. I have some dear friends that I’ve known since I was in elementary school. We all lived in Virginia in the early 1970s. My dad worked with the father of this family in Washington D.C.
In 1972, the unit they worked for transferred to Pensacola and so, when we moved down, we already had some built in friends. This family who also moved when we did had three children close in age to me and my sister. We would bake Christmas cookies in winter and play outside together in summer.
All of the kids attended high school together and then went our separate ways to college, post grad, law school and medical school but we always maintained the friendships. Sadly, one of these dear friends passed away close to two years ago of cancer and we miss her every day. The other two live one in Atlanta and one in Houston.
The parents of these awesome friends still live in Pensacola and I make a point to see, call or email them often to keep them close. I adore these people as if they were family and they pretty much are.
Saturday, the mother and father planned a surprise party for the oldest son who flew in from Houston a few days before to be here for his birthday. His younger brother came in from Atlanta as well.
The party was a huge surprise and success. We laughed, we cried (and laughed til we cried) and it was just a blessing to all be together again. It was bittersweet due to the loss of their daughter but we celebrated her as well by the stories we shared.
I wouldn’t trade the love in that room for anything.
The birthday boy was my medical expert for my blind character in Moon Dance and he’s encouraging me to write a gay romance next. I told him I had an old one that I wrote back in 2007 but it was so bad, it couldn’t be fixed. He offered to help on that, too. LOL
Posted in Random thoughts | Tags: Desert Breeze Publishing, family, friends, happiness, law school, Lifetime, Love, medical school, Moon Dance, pals, Pensacola, Washington DC
Posted by: Author | October 3, 2014
Friday Facts- October 3, 2014- Peanuts
I thought I’d take a break from Paris-based Friday Facts and share something I particularly love. I grew up reading the Peanuts comic strip in the newspaper. We also had a collection of the strips in a boxed set of books. It was something my father shared with my sister and me. We still quote lines to each other all the time- like at Christmas, we might say, “I got a rock” which of course comes from the Halloween strips. One strip we quote a lot is “I’m lookiting.” It seems more and more television reporters are saying “lookit” instead of ‘look at”- what’s up with that?
Anyway, the anniversary of the first Peanuts comic strip was yesterday. It first appeared in papers in 1950 on Oct. 2. This was way before I was born but since they are still running today – many years after the awesome Mr. Schultz’s death- they are obviously still relevant. Interestingly, that first strip was only in seven newspapers. WOW! Hard to believe since at the height of its popularity, it was in over 2,600 papers and in 75 countries. It reached over 355 million readers and was translated into 21 languages. Now that is some impact, isn’t it?
Mr. Schultz published 17,897 strips – how massive is that number? I have to say WOW again. This number is pretty daunting, isn’t it? To draw that many comic strips and always have fresh material? Amazing.
As a history buff, some of my favorites were the ones where Snoopy was the WWI flying ace. They always made me laugh- “Curse you, Red Baron!”
Here is the Lookiting strip and the first strip, too:
Posted in Friday Facts | Tags: anniversary, Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown, comic, comic strip, Curse you Red Baron, family, father, Friday Facts, lookit, quote, sister, Snoopy, statistics, WWI Flying Ace
Posted by: Author | October 1, 2014
Wordless Wednesday
Posted in Wordless Wednesday | Tags: Wordless Wednesday
Posted by: Author | September 29, 2014
Tuesday Tales- September 30, 2014- Pretty
This week’s word is Pretty and when I was working on writing to this prompt, I realized that I have actually overused the word pretty in this manuscript. Pretty sure I didn’t want to do that, I did a search and destroy (which wasn’t pretty) and got rid of a bunch of them- so, here’s one that survived. See how easy it is to add pretty to anything? Pretty awesome, huh? LOL! Check out the other Tales this week as well here.
“Thank you,” Natalie said as she crushed the note to her chest. She took a deep swig of her wine and tossed some money on the table. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at work tomorrow, Kat. Please pay my bill.” Natalie stood. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Baker.”
“What about me?” David asked.
“Not so much, sir, since you had to be forced to talk to me.” With those words, Natalie sailed out of the bar.
Kat wanted to laugh out loud at Natalie’s words and exit. She did nail that on the head for sure. Putting David in his place was a welcome sight.
Sadly, it didn’t work. “Your friend is rude, Kat my dear. I can hardly fathom that she’s someone you would want to hang out with.”
Even though she really wouldn’t want to be closer friends with Natalie, the mere fact that David would presume to tell her who to hang out with was maddening. “I can’t believe you. Who are you to judge my friends?”
“I’ve told you who I want to be. If you’d give me a chance, we could be a couple and you’d be happier than you’ve ever been before.”
“I’ve told you I’m not interested,” Kat said. “Now leave me alone about it.”
David reached over and placed his hand on top of hers where it sat on the table. She jerked back but he tightened his grip.
“I say, old chap, the lady says she’s not interested. Let her loose,” Paul said.
“Mind your own business, mate.” David spoke in a false British accent with a hard emphasis on the word mate.
“I suggest you remove your hand from her person unless you want me to have you tossed out of here.”
“Oh, big brave rock star is going to throw me out? What about the possible damage to your fingers? How will you play your instruments with a broken hand?” David did move his hand then. He made a fist.
“Stop it. This is ridiculous. No one is going to get in a fight here.” Kat wanted nothing more than for David to leave but she wasn’t going to sit by while the two of them pulled out their macho personas.
“I’m not leaving so I suggest you get the Brit to go.” David practically snarled the words.
“I’m pretty hacked off right now, mister and I’m not going anywhere either. You treat this lady as if she’s property and I won’t stand for it.”
“Cut it out, both of you. I’m my own woman and I don’t need anyone to defend me.” This was awful. She had to get out of here. Kat stood and shoved her chair back. So much for having a drink and hoping to meet Paul to get to know him better.
Posted in Tuesday's Tales | Tags: pretty, Tuesday tales, Tuesday's Tales
Jillian Chantal 