BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Continued from $750.00 Later…

Now, at this particular juncture, I am certain that some of you – mostly the male readers, though not all I’m sure – are just dying to know about the hottie in the hooker shoes…

Well, you see, it’s like this… She was a Goth nurse for the RAF back in WWII. Yes… She was way ahead of her time as far as fashion trends go… But anyway, I had been dropped behind enemy lines. Problem is, they forgot to give me a parachute. Fortunately, I bounce.

I was on a mission to steal Hitler’s mustache. Unfortunately, there was an ambush and I was horribly wounded… The bouncing hadn’t helped, trust me. After crawling for 40 days and 40 nights through muddy trenches and seedy Schnitzel Dens, surviving on what little beer and potato salad I could manage to steal undetected, I finally gave in to exhaustion. When I eventually awoke, I was in a hospital bed and the first thing I saw was…

Okay, enough of that crap.

At any rate, we finished dinner while Joyce handled the crisis on the phone. The crisis being the $750.00. What about it? I’m not going to tell you yet.

So… Where was I? Oh yeah… So anyway, the next day, following more doctoring from Joyce, I was treated to a driving tour of Fort Hood by Butch (remember Butch, Joyce’s husband? Good…) who also happened to be my official “handler” for the weekend, and a guy who can fix up one hell of a breakfast. Let me tell ya’, Butch saw to it that I started the day out right, with everything from Santa Fe Omelets, to French Toast, Biscuits, Bacon, Sausage, and all the trimmings. In short, the rest of the country of Texas could take a few lessons from Butch where food is concerned.

Following the tour I did a meet and greet at the store proper. This is where I came face to face with “Bouncy Brandi” the perkiest non-blonde I’ve ever met. I had heard plenty about her already, especially her price tag – remember that phone call about the $750? But we’ll get to that eventually…

Later that evening we gathered at Lolly Central, out on the range, so to speak. Srsly. I kid you not, the directions to get to Lolly and her husband Doug’s house are, Take the highway, go over the river, through the woods, turn off onto the gravel road, then turn off onto the dirt road.

Not kidding.

So, anyhow, we had a BBQ that couldn’t be beat – Chicken, brisket, salmon, and all sorts of trimmings, along with beer. I met and had a chance to chat for a moment or two with Dr. Steven Farmer, the other author guest speaker for the event. Very nice guy with all kinds of interesting things to talk about. During all of this Joyce was still doctoring me with the “Skunk Jooce” and “Healer Tea.”

My buddy Althie, the crazy German woman of Texas, who has been promising me sauerbraten was there too. Guess what? She didn’t bring me any sauerbraten. But that’s okay. She’s been really busy, and she did the next best thing – she brought me the necessary pre-packaged fixin’s, straight from Germany, to prepare my own sauerbraten and Knödel. Just add beef. So, I’ll be whomping that up in the very near future…

But back to the hooker shoes…

During all of this, “Bouncy Brandi” leans over to me and says, “Just so you know, I was really nervous about meeting you. So… for you, $750.00…”

“What?” I asked.

“$750.00,” she replied, all matter-of-fact and businesslike.

Since her husband was sitting just across from me I said to him, “Dude… I think your wife just propositioned me.”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “She’s like that. No worries though, we need to finance a room addition so we could use the extra cash.”

“But… $750?” I asked.

Bouncy Brandi leaned over again and said, “Hey, I’m giving you a discount because you’re my second favorite author. Best $750.00 in Texas right here…”

That’s me, ya’know. Always second fiddle to someone.

I told her to let me think about it, because I really wasn’t sure what E K would think of me spending that much money on a perky Goth nurse from WWII.

“Okay,” she said. “But don’t wait too long, or the price goes up.”

…And not a lick of that has anything to do with why this particular entry is called, “Food. It’s Really Not That Hard…” To understand that, we have to jump into the wayback machine and set the dials to OstaraFest 2008…

To Be Continued in Lolly, Lolly, Lolly… coming March 30, 2011…

More to come…

Murv

In keeping with some sort of bizarre tradition, apparently I should write a “last blog post of the year” sort of thing. (I’ll get to the beer in a minute)

I was completely unaware that this was something bloggers are supposed to do. Or, maybe it is something that only Authors who are bloggers are supposed to do. Maybe it has something to do with my last name starting with S. I really have no effing idea, to be honest.

Best Of Both Worlds (NO CYRUS REF ALLOWED)

In any case, I didn’t know I was supposed to do this…

And so, here I am… Sitting on the raggedy edge of 2010, with less than one-third of the day left… The day that will put a bullet in the brain of Two-Thousand-One-Zero. Yes… New Year’s Eve, just in case you missed a page on your calendar.

I have a Schlafly Coffee Stout in hand… For those of you not from around here, it is a wonderful Oatmeal Stout from a local Micro… Well, MINI… Brewery that also contains Kaldi’s coffee – another Saint Louis tradition. If you can get your hands on this stuff and you are a beer drinker who enjoys both coffee and stout, you will love it. Guaranteed.

But back to this 2010 thing…

Since I have no clue what I am supposed to say, and since it is New Year’s Eve, I’ll just go all Robbie Burns and get a bit Auld Lang Syne for a bit…

Long, long ago, I wanted to do a lot of things, just like any other kid. But what I wanted to do most of all was make sh*t up, write it down, and have people read it for enjoyment. If possible, I wanted to do that for a paycheck. But I wanted to start in a different spot before I got to that…

My plan for my life was to be a journalist. In particular, a war correspondent. Why? Because there is always war, and war is news. I even went to college with that aspiration, majoring in Journalism AND Photo Journalism. My plan didn’t stop there. I intended to win not one, but two Pulitzers. Once I had accomplished that, I would come home, meet the woman of my dreams, court her, marry her, and then settle down into a house with a white picket fence, have 2.3 children (how the .3 was going to work out, I wasn’t sure) and then write NYT Bestselling novels for a living.

That was when I was 18…

Evil Kat, ice skating at Steinberg, January 2009

Now, with 49 about to touch down in less than two months, which then puts me on a gear down, VFR approach to 50, having fully cleared the outer markers, things are different.

I didn’t become a journalist. Though it was my major I became a Computer/Electronics Tech. But I kept writing. Before I could become widely published and win even one of those coveted Pulitzers, I met the redhead. She was beyond the woman of my dreams. She was everything. So I married her as soon as I could get her to say yes. And, I continued to write. Eventually, novels were published.

And here we are at the end of 2010. A less than good year economywise.

But here’s my thing – I’m married to the most amazing woman on the planet. I have the greatest kid known to man – not 2, not .3, but a solid 1. I may not have a Pulitzer and I may not have hit the NYT – yet – but I write novels for a living. I have more than 10 under my belt now, with two due in 2011. In the past year alone I have hurled more than 500,000 words at paper  – real & virtual – and that’s just Novel, Novella, and Blogs. Not counting Tweets, updates, and micro-blogs…

I’m doing what I love, I have a roof over my head, an amazing wife, great kid, and food on the table… 2010, for all its trials and tribulations, including the loss of good and old friends, hasn’t been the bitch that some others have been.

Besides… Here I sit, writing a “Last Note Of 2010” to you, with a Schlafly Coffee Stout in hand, and 11 more in the icebox. I dare 2011 to top that…

Have a safe and happy New Year everyone…

More to come…

Murv