Oh what a beautiful weekend!

Yes, the play on the song from Oklahoma! is deliberate. I have just had the most wonderful weekend. I went with Melinda, TCU Press production manager and my good friend, to Austin for the Texas Book Festival. My weekend was divided between family and the festival, so tonight's post is about family. Tomorrow I'll talk about the festival.
The last few years Melinda and I have developed a routine for our annual trip to Austin. We leave about ten, stop for lunch--for a couple of years we stopped at West and went into the authentic Czech restaurants in town, but now our destination is Heritage Homestead, a 500-acre community on the Brazos, outside the town of Elm Mott, where people have chosen to return to the earlier days of craftsmanship. They create pottery, wooden objects from furniture to cutting boards and canes, homemade soaps, weavings, all sorts of things. You can visit their gift shop or tour the actual workshops. For us, the destination is the cafe--homemade food, including wonderful bread. The members of the community all dress simply, no make-up for the women, plain hairstyles pulled away from their faces and caught in a chignon or braid. But they are most gracious and welcoming. After lunch, we browse the shop and then head for Austin, where we pick up Melinda's good friend KK (by now my friend too) and head for Z Tejas for happy hour. This year author Marcia Daudistel and her sisters met us, plus Dan, TCU Press director, and my kids, Megan and Brandon. The group split up--Melinda, KK, and Dan went to set up the display, and I went home with Megan and Brandon to greet my grandsons Sawyer (7) and Ford (turned 5 today).
They took me to Vespaio, an upscale Italian restaurant that is my absolute favorite in Austin. The last time I was there they took me to tell me they were expecting Sawyer, so it's been a long time, and I have longed to go back. I feasted on white anchovies and veal-filled ravioli. Brandon ordered the mixed grill and gave me one of his marrow bones--generous beyond belief, but I was grateful. Haven't had marrow in a long time and love it. The boys really behaved well--it was a noisy restaurant--and the evening will remain a remarkable memory.
Halloween birthday party: Sawyer is the one in the tri-cornered hat and red coat--he was a Revolutionary general though in spite of the red coat he insisted he was on the American side. Ford was a ninja turtle but he's barely visible--and don't miss the spider pinata.

I spent some of the next day at the book festival, but Ford's b'day party was in the afternoon--twelve or so kids in costume whacking away at a spider pinata and sitting spellbound for a magician, then eating pizza and the richest chocolate cake I've had in eons.
Sunday was a lazy day--I slept until 8:30! Unheard of! Megan fixed a late breakfast, and then I was off to the festival for a couple of hours. Came back about two, napped, we went to Central Market and then I fixed oven-fried potatoes topped by cod fillets--thanks to Krista Davis for the recipe. I haven't watched a baseball game in forever, but I was being sociable and reading while the grownups watched the game. I got hooked, mostly by the intense concentration of the players and the pressure they were under. Like the rest of the nation I watched Hollander pitch with awe and was sorry they pulled him for the last inning--I can see why, but I also saw him beg the manager to let him stay in. Even so, what a coup for a 25-year-old, so yes now I'm watching again tonight.
Melinda and I usually have breakfast with an old friend on Monday before heading home but Melinda was running late, we got lost, and by the time we got there, she had left. I'm hoping for a Christmas visit. Meantime we had a good breakfast--I ate maybe 2/3 of a baked potato omelet, sinful! And then we were on our way. Home by one o'clock and glad to be here.
But I have a weekend of memories.

Sophie spent the weekend with Jacob and Jordan, and I'm afraid she's spoiled rotten, but they all had a good time. Jordan said to me today, "Sweet baby is a lot of work!" Amen! I have titled the first photo "Spoiled rotten"--Sophie is soon going to be way too big to be a lap dog!

Frittering away the day

Several years ago Texas Coop Power published an essay I wrote "On Learning to Putter." I originally called it "Learning to Putz," but the editors were afraid of the Yiddish implications of that word. Anyway, it's an art I never perfected. Today I think I came close. I really need to finish reading my mystery manuscript for the final time, but I found a thousand other things to do, some of them quite frivolous.
One that wasn't frivolous was taking the dog for his annual checkup. At almost eleven and an old man, he's still a handful in the car and on the leash. When I get there, I call and a technician comes out to get him--I simply don't need a broken hip! But he was pronounced in fine health, and when I reported my 19-year-old cat was also doing well, the lady vet said she thought she'd send her kids to my house--I must be doing things right. I'm always  relieved to have annual vet visits behind me.
Had an egg salad sandwich at Carshon's with a friend where we talked about everything but our books--proud of us--and had a good visit. The rest of the day went in straightening out phone bills--haven't quite gotten the cell phone one fixed yet, checking with the bank, calling Jordan about a menu for her porch party Sunday night, reading that new food magazine that came, paying some of my cousin's bills, reading emails--I'm on way too many lists. A biggie today though has been playing with Twitter. It always confused me, and I tended to post once every two weeks and then ignore it. But I'm following an on-line learning group and amazed at what I find. You can follow me at @JudyAlter. A big hurdle was changing my name from @JudyTexas--Krista Davis, the group leader, convinced me that if I want to be known as an author by my name, that's how I have to appear on Twitter. So far, I've made the change but left behind the hundred or so people who were following @JudyTexas. I've lined up a bunch of people to follow but don't know what to do about the followers--I suppose that's a lesson on down the road. I keep emailing the Twitter learning group and feel I'm probably the dunce of the class. (Special note to Brandon: I'm not following you because I can't understand your tweets and they show up on Facebook anyway--feel free to follow me:-)
Tonight I still want to go through that food magazine one more time, make a shopping list for Jordan's party, work some more on following people on Twitter--I think the truth is I've read that mystery so many times I'm burned out. Don't get me wrong--Skeleton in a Dead Space is a great story and you should all buy it when it launches August 29. It's just that I know it by heart now.
Sorry, I have to go tweet now.

One of those days

Not much to blog about tonight. This morning I was, to borrow a phrase from a fellow member of Sisters in Crime, a domestic diva (the title of Krista Davis' series of really good cozy mysteries). With most of the family coming this weekend, I got busy and washed all the sheets in the main house--except for the trundle which I'll do tomorrow. I don't much like housekeeping, except cooking and I don't mind cleaning the kitchen, but I hate, hate, hate changing beds.Three down, one to go. I'm fairly sure the linen in the guest house is clean. Plus tomorrow I'll have to wash all the napkins, place mats, etc, from entertaining.
Had a good lunch with my friend Fred, where we talked about all kinds of things but for once neither about the press nor about my work in progress. Just visited--he has a wonderful, wicked sense of humor, and we had a good time. Plus good food at Carshon's--I had lox and cream cheese.
Tonight I fixed lamb burgers for Jay and Susan--Jay howled when he heard I'd fixed them for Jordan and Christian and not for him. They were good, and I made a new guac--feta, lime juice and avocado. Really good. We sat on the porch enjoying the pleasant breeze and talking until almost nine.
So no, no constructive work done today, but a pleasant day. Hey, I'm retired--I don't have to set the world on fire every day. It's a lesson I keep trying to teach myself.

Blogs and block parties

Thanks to Krista Davis (The Diva Runs Out of Thyme, The Diva Takes the Cake) I was invited to be guest blogger at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen today to answer some questions about my cookbook (http://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/) Most of the questions were food-related, but one stumped me and still has me puzzling this morning. Why, with my success and awards as a western writer, did I decide to switch to mysteries? The first part is sort of easy--the market for the fiction I was writing disappeared, the editors with whom I had good relationships moved on, and my agent died--I have never found an agent since and got tired of hearing "You write so well, I wish I could sell it." But why mysteries? Because I love to read them and have read some that I thought I could better. But that's a shallow reason for jumping into a large pond. LIke the world of western writing, authors in the mystery field (Sisters in Crime, Guppies) are incredibly supportive of newbies. But the mystery pond (to stick with my metaphor) is deep and cold--I bet it's no exaggeration to say at least a thousand writers, never published, are trying to get an agent at any given time. Think of all those agents fending off submissions--since I do acquisitions for TCU, I know exactly how they feel. It takes me back emotionally to the days in the late '70s when I never had a book published. Many of my fellow Guppies (Going to be Published) make a science out of querying--sending out fifty queries, keeping careful charts of queries, rejects, requests for partials or, blessed moment, a full manuscript. Even then, contract offers are the exception and a cause for great rejoicing among all. Attending cons (conventions) and the like is a good way to meet agents, but it may result in merely a polite request, not one that the agent takes seriously. I've about decided cold querying agents who know nothing about you is an exercise in futility--maybe I lack the persistence that I hear so much about. I had hoped my credentials as a western novelist would transfer but they seem to carry no weight in the mystery world.


Will I give up, with one mystery completed and in the hands of of a small publisher for eight months now and the sequel ready for revision? No, I won't give up, but I don't have the fire in my belly that I did when I started this, and I welcome other projects that take me away, like the cookbook. I did query the publisher in late June and was asked for more time. I would query again but a couple of weeks ago my horoscope said to be patient and not ask a question I might not like the answer too! Wonder how long horoscope advice holds true?

Jacob continued in his exuberantly cheerful and energetic mode this morning, and every time he said "I want" and I got up to get what he wanted--more milk, another waffle, to peepee--my feet ached like anything. He was so cheerful and happy I couldn't complain, and he's far too young to say, "So go get it yourself." So I hobbled on sore feet. At one point he told me he loved Wywy, and I said, "You're so noisy you scare Wywy." He said with a sad look on his face, "I'm not noisy. I'm a good boy." I assured him he was, but his happy noises scared her.

Tonight I truly didn't want to walk two blocks, over rough sidewalk, to the block party--Jay said it was only four houses away, but that's not true. Anyway, he gallantly offered to drive, so off we went and had a great time. It was fun to meet neighbors I never knew, though one knew Jordan and another knew I was at TCU, so as always there are not six degrees of separation in Fort Worth. Everyone brought appetizers, and I ate sparingly, thinking they would not do my diet any good. We sat and visited, though I was fidget-y and ready to go home--it was 10:30 before I got home. I'm not used to staying out that late!

Then again, off again rain

This morning it was sort of sunny when I woke up but there were dire predictions of storms to come, so I rushed--I really did--to get to the grocery before the storms began. It was sprinkling when I got there and apparently it really dumped while I was shopping, but it was back to sprinkling when I came home, so I only got slightly damp unloading groceries. Maybe it was the weather and the greyness, but I felt at loose ends. Did my yoga (not my best session but Elizabeth say not to worry about that), and then decided to tackle the shower stall in my office bathroom.

That's a story in itself. Two or three years ago--who knows how long?--I decided to clean out my drawer of financial information, etc. You know, you really don't need investment reports from 1985 of accounts now closed. So I carefully sorted some things into a bag to be shredded and others into one that could just could to the recycle bin. About halfway through the drawer, I got bored, put the bags in the shower stall (no one every uses it) and forgot about it except for an occasional guilty thought. The other night, when I got the TIAA-CREF folder out for Jim Chaffee, I realized that I had records in it back to the early 80s, so I went to get out the bags. Now I knew Scooby had been sleeping in there, but I was unprepared for the mess--the black garbage bags had disintegrated into small pieces, and many papers were already shredded. The shower stall was ankle deep in paper mess. This morning I spent over an hour cleaning out about 3/4 of it (tomorrow I'll tackle the remainder). There was lots of dirt and grit--when Scooby's coat is long, he brings it in, though I think some of it was kitty litter (unused, I hope) and I couldn't quite figure that.

By then it was lunchtime and I decided retirement meant weekends were for leisure. I avoided the cookbook and other projects on my desk and spent much of the afternoon reading Krista Davis' second novel, The Diva Takes the Cake. I an enjoying the novel a great deal, and my hat's off to her for the way she ends each chapter with a cliff hanger suprise, then begins the next with a digression--a letter to her syndicated column or a query to her rival's website, while the reader is itching to find out what's going on. A nap, and then time to cook dinner for Jordan and Jacob--sauteed flounder and salad for us, a wider variety for Jacob but he ate mostly green peas and blueberries. But we had a good time, and Jord and I had a good visit. They all leave, Jacob included, for four days in Jamaica Tuesday--he will happily tell us he's going to a beach.

Just before they arrived it began to rumble and thunder. When I fed Scooby he tried desperately to get into the house. I blocked that and told him to eat his dinner, but when I looked he hadn't touched it. So I let him in, put him in the office while we ate. After Jordan and Jacob left, it was sunny again--we got no rain out of that thunder--and I encouraged a reluctant Scoob to go outside and eat his dinner. Then I sat on the porch with a glass of wine and my book. It was a lovely night, cool and comfortable. I'm sure I've said this before, but my house is in an old neighborhood (my house was built in 1922) so there are lush green trees all around, and it's a real pleasure to sit there and just stare at the scenery. Calming and peaceful, which is what I'm all about these days. (Last night Elizabeth said I looked different--relaxed!)

A pleasant day. Who cares if I didn't accomplish anything. I did have a stray thought about contracts and emailed the controller--only to find she was working on Saturday. When I accused her of that, she said, "So are you, and you're retired!" I told her it was a stray moment.