When I saw this, I laughed out loud. don’t know what it’s like in your car, but in the Rossetti-mobile, it’s EXACTLY like this.

I have no clue why My Beloved soldiers grimly on, getting us lost, but it drives me around the bend and back again. (Sticking grimly with the metaphor here.) I suspect it’s something to do with that caveman instinct buried in the male hindbrain.

We bought one of those GPS navigator thingies to use while driving in the US and Canada. Guess what? He argued with it. He still argues with it. For the voice, we chose “Jane”, the cultured British gal. Sounds like she’s just stepped out of the BBC office for a mo to freshen up the lippie. For a while there, I was sure dear Jane was impervious to the ranting, but now I’m not so sure. She’s been dropping the occasional H. What’s next? Dropping the entire bundle?

Mind you, she and I might dead heat on the KER-SNAP!!  With the emphasis on dead.

Do you know any man who asks for directions? Do they even exist?

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I’m not going to spoil your pleasure by dropping hints, but this is just wonderful. What wicked fun! Enjoy, my dears!

Sigh… They don’t make ‘em like they used to - or do they? Heh heh.

I thought you might like to see some real Australian animals.  I’ll tell you more about Broome and the Kimberley in another post - or several. Big subject, that!

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I was invited to present a couple of workshops at the Romance Writers of Australia Roadshow in Perth, along with the amazing Keri Arthur (woot!) and the delightful Kelly Hunter, who is also our Madam Prez. I did a workshop on Deep Point of View and another on how to write sexy, which the organising gals called The Sealed Section. *snort* I had a load of fun and I learned lots of useful things. Hope everyone else did too. Hmm…

My Beloved and I had some spare time in Perth. Now Perth is a truly beautiful city. I love the wide Swan River and the fresh vibrant ambiance of the place, but… When we were there, the city turned on the worst weather EVER! Perth is always windy, but it was almost gale-force, honest. The rain blew in horizontal sheets. It was foul.  Also cold.

So what did we do? We went to the Zoo.  It’s a fabulous zoo, with all sorts of exotic animals, but I thought some of you might be particularly interested in Australian fauna.

This elderly dingo was off on his daily constitutional with his keeper. The ones we saw in the wild in the Kimberley didn’t look anywhere near so prosperous, just lean and mean.  But it gives you a good idea of these beautiful animals. Sadly, the station-owners lay baits for them, in order to protect their cattle and sheep. What that means is that the surviving dingoes often have to hunt alone rather than in a pack. So they can only prey on smaller animals, like bandicoots and numbats and other little furry critters. No wallabies or roos. The little guys have a hard enough time with feral cats and foxes. Not a good situation if you’re small and tasty and endangered already. *sigh*

This is a life size statue  of a Red Kangaroo in Perth. (Yeah, yeah, I know I promised real, but if you think I’d be snuggling up the real thing, you’re nuts!) I thought you might like to see the size of it. This is about as big as they get. Mind you, I’m not especially tall at 5ft 3in, but it’s impressive isn’t it? Gives a whole new impression of cute and cuddly roos. A big male like this can jump over 30 feet in one bound. You can also see how windy it is! Sunny Perth-  huh!

More on the Kimberley later. Don’t won’t to overload you with too many pictures of red rocks just yet…

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey .  He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard.

His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over..  I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.
Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Pop,
Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.
Love,
Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Pop,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love you,
Vinnie

BOOM! BOOM!

Oh dear! Couldn’t resist, sorry…

 It’s newsletter time, which means…

Rackety Kate and the Pirates

Chapter 19

Delightfully Devious

The story so far:
Duka has won his Duchess, but at the highest cost possible for a man like him. But he has a job to do. There are still more goods for sale…

You can read all of Kate here – http://www.deniserossetti.com/kate.html

Duka stepped out from behind the screen. “Settle down, rot ye!” he roared.

One by one, the pirates quieted, save for the occasional rumble of laughter.

His natural dignity unimpaired, Duka eyed the crowd with profound disfavour. “We have an auction to finish, goods unsold. Shall we get on with it, shipmates?”

“Aye!” The shout echoed around the forest.

“But I thought we’d see…” whispered Kate to Jack. “You know…Duka.”

He was holding her so closely that when he chuckled, she felt the reverberation through her whole body. Goose bumps of delight paraded down her spine. “You thought pirates weren’t capable of self-control? Harley and Chan will wait a little for their pleasure, you’ll see.”

Actually, it was the Rossetti woman Kate had her doubts about. Fortunately, the excellent common sense of her readers kept the crazy one in check. They wouldn’t rush headlong into sensual gratification, no way. A smug smile curved her lips. Rossetti’s readers were people of restraint and self-discipline, intelligent and discerning in their pleasures.

Absently, she nuzzled Jack’s shoulder, thinking how wonderful he smelled, of clean linen and warm healthy man. Sighing, she glanced up in time to see Harley and Chan tugging the screens aside as fast as they were able.

The scene on the stage hadn’t changed. Tom Cavanagh was still fastened to his St. Andrew’s cross, his cat now curled up against one big bare foot. The Count de Nothos still smouldered in his silver chains, Peter lay lounging on the couch with the Duchess’s leash in his hand, while she sat neatly on the floor near his feet, looking down her aristocratic nose.

“Let’s get to it, lads,” called Duka. “What am I bid for this fine gentleman here?” He waved at Tom Cavanagh, magnificently helpless.

“Wait,” croaked the First Officer. “Dammit, man, wait!”

***

Want more? You can read all of Kate and see more pirates on the Rackety Kate page. Want even more than that? Join my newsletter - see below.

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I’m so sorry. You must think I’ve abandoned you, or died, or something.

I’ve been totally buried in edits. And immediately after I finished the first lot, My Beloved and I went away to Perth. I did two workshops for a Romance Writers of Australia Roadshow there. Together with the amazing Keri Arthur and the delightful Kelly Hunter. My first workshop was on Deep Point of View - writing from inside your characters’ heads. I was blown away by some of the talent in the room. In the afternoon, I did a “Sealed Session”, all about writing erotic and sexy. It was quite a hoot, believe me. We covered all kinds of topics. *grin*

Then we flew up to Broome, in the northwest of Western Australia and did a trip out to the Kimberley, to Purnululu National Park, where the Bungle Bungles are - the most extraordinary mountain range, shaped like beehives, pierced by incredible gorges and chasms. It was HOT out there. More about it later, with pictures.

Since we’ve returned, I’ve been re-buried under edits and on the Deadline From Hell. I should surface next week. I love to chat with you, but I’m thinking that in the long run, it’s the book that matters. Yes?

Anyway, all positive thoughts will be greatly appreciated. I’m not the happiest of campers at the moment…

You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night, when you pass by a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.

2. An old friend who once saved your life.

3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car?

This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.

Wait for it… Wait for it…

You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first.

Or you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back.

However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.

The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with his answer.

He simply answered: ‘I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay  behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams.’

Sometimes, we gain more if we are able to give up our stubborn thought limitations. Never forget to ‘Think Outside of the Box.’

Yeah, right. Stuff like this makes me want to reach for the nearest bucket. Talk about smartarsery! I much prefer this answer…

HOWEVER…., The correct answer is to run the old lady over and put her out of her misery, have sex with the perfect partner on the hood of the car, then drive off with the old friend for a few beers.

Doncha love happy endings?

Off to Perth at some ungodly hour in the morning for the Romance Writers of Australia Roadshow, then on to Broome. Pearls and diamonds…oooh, yeah! More later.

I’ve been playing online Boggle for some months now - and guess what? I’m lousy at it. Downright terrible, useless. I keep trying, but I’ve only improved marginally. I think I’m addicted. *sigh*

If you’ve never played, the idea is to find words among the letters - forwards, backwards, diagonally, up and down - it doesn’t matter as long as you can form a word.

Here’s the site, it’s called Wordtwist. I play the 5 X 5 board. You get three minutes to type in words that must have at least four letters.

I think I’m insulted. I’m supposed to be good at words, right? HAH! I’m not. I can hardly get out of the “very low” range. The couple of times I hit “average” I went on a chocolate binge to celebrate. Part of the problem is that I’m a fumble-fingered non-typist and you only get three minutes. But I still can’t believe the high scores. *grumble* On bad days, I wonder if such super-bogglers even exist.

I tell myself it’s more to do with patterns and spatial ability - not my strong point - than vocabulary. But…oh dear!

You have a try. It’s absolutely free. You can even get an account. Here’s the link to the Wordtwist site and here’s the link to the 5 X 5 board I play. Let me know how you get on, okay? WARNING: This is the biggest time-waster known to woman. Guess what I’m doing instead of my revisions?   *rolls eyes*

I can never find any of the lids to my Tupperware containers. Yes, they live in a cupboard, but it’s a low corner cupboard and I have to bend right down to peer into it.  Therefore, I can NEVER seem to find the square lid that I need for the square container - only the round one. I’m convinced those pesky lids go skipping off somewhere like teeny-weeny flying saucers. 

So here’s an interesting scientific study on where Tupperware lids get to.  Don’t miss the most gorgeous video of a puppy playing with Tupperware too. Scroll down a tad.

We all know I’m the Queen of Procrastination ruling over the Land of Clutter - because I say so frequently. But is it only me? When you open the cupboard door, do your lids line up like soldiers and salute?.

From today, I’ll be trying a new type of post on the blog - short, cute and quirky. As you may have noticed, I’m finding it harder to write longer posts as frequently as I would like. It’s not a Good Thing for the posts to come further and fuuuuuurther apart, is it?

On the other hand, it’s also not a Good Thing for me to skimp on my real job - which is writing the best books I can for you to read. Is it?

So I’ll be trying to blog every couple of days, even if the post is a minimum - a joke, a picture, a link to something interesting. But because I can’t resist talking to you about ideas and interesting stuff and Life In General, I will still be writing longer posts, but I’ll be popping in the other bits and pieces to keep you amused in the meantime.

Here we go - one cute and one quirky (C&Q). You guess which is which.

The first “Testicular Guard” was used in cricket in 1874.

The first helmet was used in 1974.

It took 100 years for men to realize that the brain is also important.

 BTW, you’re welcome to send me C&Q (cute and quirky) fodder.