I’ve just come from Kansas City where I spent the weekend with an old friend.  We had an absolutely lovely time.  (Waving to Ann!)  On Saturday night, we went to KC’s “Power and Light” district which is a collection of restaurants and bars around an open courtyard with an enormous, theater-screen-sized TV which was playing football.

One of the bars was a country bar with a mechanical bull.  Now I’ve been to lots of country bars in my life.  I love country music.  But I’ve never seen a person ride a mechanical bull in person.  It was very entertaining!  Ann and I were totally sober, having had our margaritas much earlier that afternoon.

The other bar patrons, not so sober.  I think you’d have to be plastered to consider getting up on the bull!  Unfortunately, you’d have to be sober to stay on.  Most of the riders just slid off in the first few seconds.

Once, on a cruise, I got a little pickled while on a shore excursion and actually considered parasailing.  I went as far as walking to the kiosk with Money In My Hand.  Luckily the weather had just turned bad and they’d started to pack up for the day, LOL.  Later, I shook my head at myself.  What was I thinking?  I wasn’t -it was the tequila talking and it’s very loud.  I have to admit I’m a little wistful that it didn’t happen.  I would have loved to have seen the blue ocean from that high, but it’s not something I’d ever consider attempting under normal circumstances.

Have you done anything that you later looked back and said “What was I thinking?”  Anything spur of the moment that you’re really glad you did?  Anything you’re not so glad you did?  Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull?

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During her frequent travels through England, Liz Carlyle always packs her pearls, her dancing slippers, and her whalebone corset, confident in the belief that eventually she will receive an invitation to a ball or a rout. Alas, none has been forthcoming. While waiting, however, she has managed to learn where all the damp, dark alleys and low public houses can be found. Liz hopes she has brought just a little of the nineteenth century alive for the reader in her popular novels.

Oooh, I feel so vindicated . . .

I love studies, don’t you? It seems some think tank or university is forever doing one, mostly to tell us stuff we kinda-sorta already knew. Just recently, for example, I’ve learned that tanning beds can be as dangerous as arsenic (can you spell M-E-L-A-N-O-M-A?) and that certain weight loss drugs can cause liver failure, and should be used only after careful consideration. (Personally, I think weight loss should always be given careful consideration. And I’ve been thinking about it for a looong time . . . )

But there was a headline in my local paper last week that finally made me pump my fist in the air:

Study Shows Multitaskers Do It Badly

Plodders and planners everywhere, shout it out with me! Yes! We already knew that! Not since the Rutgers study showing the inverse relationship between self-doubt and good judgment have I felt so vindicated. In my past life, when I would from time to time find myself looking for a Real Job, all the advertisements would say—somewhere in the first line—must be a self-starter, capable of multitasking.

Tsk, tsk, I would say to my anal, organized self. Multitasking is just another word for doing a bunch of things half-assed all at once. Making things twice as mucked up as they would have been had you gone at ’em one at a time. (Preferably in alphabetical order.) Yes, I’m a self starter. I just can’t self-start two things at once. So what’s an honest gal to do? Well, you lie. Yes, I would boldly state, I can multitask. It just sounds way more exciting than saying, “No—but I can do one thing at a time really, really well . . . ”

So nowadays I find it convenient to work for myself. At home. Alone. Where no one can un-sort my color-coded Pendaflex file folders. And I guess I’m out of practice with my multitasking. Last time I tried it, I backed my Volvo into the freezer and ejected a Pink Martini CD into the passenger seat—all at the same time.

So what about you? Are you Boringly Organized? Or Boldly Spontaneous? And what’s the funniest thing you ever did in the midst of multitasking? And by the way—does your freezer still seal? Because there’s some funky black mold growing down one side of mine.

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Our Sunday blogs, which I always enjoy, got me thinking about gorgeous men today.

I like looking at pictures of them. I think I like pictures more than movies or video, in fact. For one thing, pictures can’t talk. If I am engaging in an aesthetic appreciation of male beauty, I don’t want it ruined by the guy opening his mouth and sounding stupid.

This happened once when I was watching television. A show was following the lives and training of two twin German models, and intially the sound was off when I flipped to it. My, my, my, these two were hot. Then I turned up the sound. Goodness, goodness, goodness, these two were shallow and self-obsessed. Sound off again. Nope, it was ruined.

Now, this sounded pretty sexist even as I wrote it,  like I am totally objectifying these poor guys. That is because I am. The truth is I am not going to have a relationship with these gorgeous men in publicity photographs. They are selling sex appeal, and I don’t think I should be blamed for buying in on those terms.

Anywho— today, after having a walk down memory lane by reviewing (literally) our Sunday blogs, and appreciating nature’s finest work as represented by these  men, I found myself trying  to count how many similarly gorgeous men I had actually seen in real life.

My criteria was pretty strict. First, I had to have physically seen them. No pictures allowed. Then, they had to be of a universal template. In other words, they could not be my type but not your type. These had to be faces that every woman would agree was handsome. And they had to be totally gorgeous. Not just okay, but jaw-dropping, throat- drying, tongue-tying gorgeous.

I counted seven such sightings. You read that correctly. Seven, in my entire life.  This is pretty pitiful, if you ask me.

So what is going on? Does every gorgeous man disappear from real life to live the celebrity existence? Do I have to move to California to see a goodly number of gorgeous guys per year? Hey, I’m not getting any younger, and I just think I deserve to have more gorgeous men around. Living, breathing ones. I should not have to resort to pictures on the web.

What about you? How many have you seen? Are they all living in your town and not mine?

Describe the single most gorgeous man you have ever seen in your life and where/how you saw or met him.  You did not have to talk to him. Just seen him in real life.

Anyone who posts will be entered in a contest for a copy of an Audio edition copy of my RITA-winning novel, Lessons of Desire (Recorded Books, unabridged– optional choice of regular print version available to winner.)

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As we continue our FROS MEN IN (and out of) UNIFORM MONTH, let’s check out who we’re saaaaaluting today. Why, it’s sexy, hot, and uber yummy Rudy Reyes!

As our beloved goddess Judy Patooty informed me in a breathless (and very well documented) email, Rudy is a former Marine Sgt with the First Recon Marines that were featured in the HBO mini-series Generation Kill. Judy says, “He actually played himself in the miniseries (which is a fantastic miniseries by the way)!”

I want to see this miniseries. NOW.

RIGHT now. As in THIS. VERY. MINUTE. OR. ELSE.

Here, check out Sgt. Reyes and see if you’re not struck with the same panting, heated desire to see the miniseries, too.

YUM! Here’s more!

And yet more! Here he is on a calendar.

Oh yes. There’s a calendar. I want this calendar. If anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas, THIS IS IT.

And because I don’t want to hear people whining, “Karen, yes, but what’s he look like UP CLOSE without his shirt?” (Do I know you gals or what?), here he is UP CLOSE AND WITHOUT HIS SHIRT:

Whew! My keyboard is smoking! Thank you, goddess Judy Patooty, for sharing the Reyes Goodness with us during our delicious FROS MEN IN (and out of) UNIFORM MONTH!

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Its time for Fun Contest Saturday!

Two of our Goddesses have books coming out in the next couple of weeks! Suzanne Enoch and Julia London. That means its time for a scavenger hunt and a prize!

Please do not post your contest entries here on the blog. To be entered in the contest you need to email your answers to goddesscontest@gmail.com with the subject line “September 26 Contest”.

Answer these two questions:

1. What is Kero?

Find a hint here.

   2. At which house do the ton gather to celebrate Christmas?

    Find a hint here.

One lucky reader chosen at random from the correct entries will win a signed backlist book from each of our featured authors!

Contest deadline is Sunday, September 26 at midnight EST.

Tell me, ladies, do you use Saturday as a day to catch up on work or a day to relax and do nothing?

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Okay, I know, as a rational person, that the universe doesn’t care what I’m doing. But occasionally I can’t help feeling it’s pushing me toward something. Or that there’s a freaky correspondence between the behavior of inanimate objects and what that means to my life.

For example, if you’ll recall from my last Will and Jane, I have an extra Will action figure. He really does fall down a lot, too. I only bought him because I wanted the other four writers in the package, and I got an extra Will in the bargain. But from the day I got him, he had trouble standing up. He’s bent a little. It’s as if my first Will refuses to let my second Will survive. Why? Because my first Will was MEANT TO BE. Yes, I know, it’s illogical, but there you go.

My illogic extends to book plots, too. The second book of my new series, The Hellions of Halstead Hall, is about Lord Jarret Sharpe (Stoneville’s brother). I toyed with all sorts of plots, trying to find one that would involve him in his grandmother’s brewery in an interesting way. I couldn’t get anywhere. Then, while doing research about breweries, I discovered that the development of “India Pale Ale” involved a bunch of very interesting historical events that came together just at the time my book is set. That told me only one thing–it was MEANT TO BE!

My husband and I met in an utterly flukey way. He had a friend who was dating someone at my grad school. I met the friend at a grad school party on Mardi Gras. Later in the afternoon, when I’d lost my group and was watching parades alone, I spotted his very tall friend above the crowd and went to talk to him. HE, in turn, introduced me to DH, who happened to be with him at the moment. DH and I would NEVER have met under normal circumstances. It was MEANT TO BE.

I know intellectually that all of this is sort of superstitious. That none of my “signs” mean anything. But they feel like they do, so I take comfort  in them. It’s called Magical Thinking, and psychologists pooh-pooh it. I don’t care.

What about you? Do you ever have coincidences that signal to you that something was “meant to be”? Do you believe in signs and portents? Or does the skeptic in you always over-ride the superstitious part? Do you have any of your own personal superstitions?

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If you’ve ever seen the musical Fiddler on the Roof, you’ll remember that the father of several girls sings a rousing song about tradition, which is his main rationale for employing a matchmaker to marry off his daughters.

I think tradition is all well and good, but there’s such a thing as taking it too far. Recently I saw a news clip about a romantic wedding in the Tuscan countryside. After an attempt to throw the bridal bouquet from an airplane, the flowers got caught in the plane’s rear rotor. The bride and groom were okay, the pilot and copilot not so much.

Some people will go to great lengths to honor customs, even risking life and limb. You all know that Friday night football in some states is a religion. Rabid hockey fans can be downright dangerous. Take the group I used to hang with right out of college. We had some seriously demented habits of playing pranks on other group members. No doubt because we lived in a small town and got bored with behaving properly.

Some customs are more tame, such as never wearing white before Easter and after Labor Day. I saw Miss Manners on a news show recently. Does anyone nowadays actually follow the proper etiquette we were taught as kids?

Then again, some customs have quaint explanations. My mother-in-law tells the story about always cutting a ham off at the ends before baking. It was only years later she learned the reason. Her mother only did that to make the ham fit because the baking pan was too small!

Do you and your family follow any universal traditions? Have you started any of your own? Do you have certain traditions you cherish or shun?  Have you ever caught a bridal bouquet — and would you ever throw one out of an airplane?

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