How many of you are creatures of habit? You’re positive that “that other way” is just not for you, even though you’ve never tried it. If you asked me, I’d say “No, not me! I’m willing to try anything!” But that would be a teeny, tiny lie. It’s been brought to my attention (many times) that I’m not willing to try new things. Last week in the midst of my umpteenth email debacle, I was talking to Julia London and told her I was switching to Gmail. Her remark “It’s about time!” Yes, I am the last person in the universe using the MSNbrowser and email. You know why? Because that was how I learned to email and surf the web six years ago. That’s my comfort zone and I only leave it kicking and screaming.

When my son begged me to read Harry Potter, I refused because I just wasn’t into that type of book. Finally, I tried one on audio book and was hooked. Please don’t remind my son about this because I really don’t want to say “Yes, you were right” for the zillionth time to him. When the Twilight craze started, I steadfastly and publicly refused to read them. Well, I still haven’t read them but I do own and frequently watch both Twilight and New Moon and I am dying to see Eclipse.

Whatever you do, please do not bring up the subject of sushi to my bff J Perry. Please, I beg you. For years the thought of raw fish was just… icky. Never would I even try it. Then at the RWA conference in San Francisco she literally shoved a tuna roll in my mouth. O.M.G. I was in love. A couple months ago when we finally got a decent sushi restaurant I literally wept tears of joy.

You would think after all these years and citing all these examples that I would learn to be open to stuff but I’m not. After all, that would be leaving my comfort zone, right?

What’s the last thing you swore you wouldn’t like and once you tried it you loved it? How open are you to suggestions from family and friends? Are you adventurous to try new things?

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My mother was a Queen of Practicality. She was amazing at stretching a dollar, and a shrewd bargain hunter. She could also see a scam coming a mile away, and she dismissed most modern marketing techniques with the words “It’s nothing but a racket.”

In particular she loathed hidden costs that companies locked you into once you bought something. Barbie dolls? It was a racket because once you bought the doll, your kid kept bugging you for more expensive outfits and accessories. Home printers? It was a racket because they sold you a cheap printer, then soaked you on the expensive ink.

Having been raised by her, I am sensitive to these things too. I avoid the rackets, although they are so common now that it is hard to do so totally. Still, I am very conscious of hidden costs. I like to know what I am getting into when I buy something, and make it a point to find out in advance.

Most of the time.

This year I bought something and missed the hidden costs regarding both time and money. And I am paying for it now. Boy, am I paying.

See, I had my front yard totally relandscaped this spring. It was sort of an impulse (note that word impulse. Queens of Practicality don’t buy on impulse.). The landscape architect dazzled me with photographs and drive throughs of neighborhoods displaying his talent. Images of gracious living surrounded by well composed gardens turned my head. I signed right up.

A week later, the neighbors thought HGTV had descended. One day there were tired, outdated foundation plantings. Two days later, after twenty workers swarmed my property and trucks full of greenery deposited their wares, I had something out of magazine. It was as gorgeous as I had hoped. I was tickled to death. I even convinced myself  the value of my house had risen overnight by as much as the landscaping cost.

Before the landscape designer left, he gave a few instructions. For the first season, we had to water the new plants to establish them. Okay,that made sense. Three minutes a day on the big ones, he said. About 90 seconds a day on the small ones, and 30 seconds on the perennials. These details floated to my ear while I grinned over my Curb Appeal Makeover. Sure, fine, no big deal, 90 seconds, whatever.

That night, I watered the plants. See those numbers up there? Welllll, we have a lot of new plants. Multiply the recommended watering time by the newbies and we are facing a nightly chore that takes over two and a half hours if done right. And, no, we can’t use sprinklers. Do you know how long you have to sprinkle to give a plant the same water as holding a hose on it directly for three minutes? Not to mention the cost of all this water is so huge (another hidden cost) that I hardly want to waste more by using a sprinkler.

Within a week we were dreading the end of dinner and the start of watering slavery. We began praying for rain, so we would get a respite. This is the only summer in my life when I would be glad for thunderstorms every single day. Instead we have had heat wave after heat wave, and the storms go north or south of us. We listen to the distant thunder while we stand in the twilight, holding our hoses.

The landscaping is still real pretty and all. I’m sure I will love it  bunches in the seasons to come. And should I sell the house, which I don’t plan to do, I’ll get get back a lot of the initial investment. But the hidden costs in time and money—- somewhere in heaven my mother is shaking her finger at me.

Are you a Queen of Practicality? Do you take pride in how you can stretch a dollar and bargain hunt? Any tips to share?

Have you ever made a big impulse purchase, or do you take your time and research it all?

Any rackets out there in the marketplace that bug you?

Any rain where you live this summer? Want to send some to me?

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All right, it was 96 flipping degrees yesterday here in sunny Southern California. And it was humid, which made the actual air temperature precisely 378 degrees, I believe. And it’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow.

Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but I don’t like hot weather. I’m hot all the time, anyway. (Ask Karen Hawkins. The first thing I do when we get to our conference hotel room is turn the air down about 10 degrees.) If I had my preference, I would keep my house at 60 all the time. Then I could wear sweat pants when I wanted to, and cuddling up with a good book would actually be pleasant rather than torture. Ah, but then my electricity bill would be $10,000 a month and I would have to eat only soup and stop collecting action figures.

I have two fans going right now, and my thermostat set to the environmentally-correct 78 degrees Fahrenheit. When I go to bed I put the ceiling fan onto F-1 tornado, but I do have to turn the thermostat down by a couple of degrees or I just can’t go to sleep.

One of my cousins has been known to wear a sweater when it’s 80. During the winter people bring extra sweaters to wear inside my house because I almost never turn on the heat. Now of course being in Southern California a cold day is maybe 50 degrees, so I’m not totally crazy. I don’t think.

Part of my obsession with temperature is because of my profession. If I’m not comfortable, I can’t…step out of myself in order to write. That need to be comfortable is also why I own about 50 T-shirts and live in shorts for about 360 days out of the year.

I love San Francisco and Seattle, but I love sunshine, too. Oh, what a dilemma.

What’s your most comfortable temperature? Do you run hot, or cold? And does it drive the people around you crazy?

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We did a blog a few days ago on cat people and dog people.  Well, I have both, but today I am a Dog Person.

I have a dog named Loki.  He is named after the Norse god of mischief and the name is perfect for him.  We had some bumps with Loki at first and there were days I wished I only had cats when he was at the height of his puppydom.  But now he’s two and has settled down to be a nice, goofy, 75 pound lapdog who thinks he’s a cat.

(Sometimes he tries to get into the cats’ hideyhole, but only his nose fits.  He gets so sad.  It’s hysterical.)

Anyway, Loki is a good dog.  Today, though, he is a Very Good Dog.  Last night he thwarted would-be home intruders by barking and growling and snarling like he had all three heads of Cerberus.  Good dog.  Very Good Dog.  He is now Loki the Brave.  He got a mega-treat, given to him by my trembling hands.  Nobody was hurt, but it was scary and I was SO GLAD he was there.

This got me thinking about dogs who do heroic things.  Of course there is Lassie, whose barking always saved Timmy from the well.  There are therapy dogs and seeing eye dogs and companion dogs who help people every day.  You read about dogs who bark to wake their families, saving them from fires.

I like to put dogs in my books.  In my second book, HAVE YOU SEEN HER, the heroine has two identical German Shepherds, Jim and Jean Luc (yes, that’s my Star Trek nerdiness shining through).  She’s only allowed to have one dog in her apartment, so she walks them one at a time so her landlord won’t know.  Having two dogs helps save her life at one point in the book as the dogs fiercely protect her.

Do you have a brave pet?  Do you have a favorite brave pet story?  Who are your favorite fictional pets?

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I grew up watching Broadway musical movies. Some of my favorites were The Sound of Music, Oliver!, Song of Norway, Grease, Xanadu … I liked a lot of them. I even developed a theory for why they were popular–my theory was that the musical numbers act as interior monologue does in novels, allowing us to see inside the characters’ heads. They’re like the soliloquies in plays. Only to music.

But I digress. In recent years, I thought my interest in musicals had died. Everybody raved about Moulin Rouge. It barely made an impression on me. Everybody loved Phantom of the Opera. I yawned (I still don’t get why that’s popular, and I ADORE Gerard Butler!). I couldn’t figure out why I’d lost my love of musicals. Did I just not like the convention of characters breaking into song anymore? Were the songs too dull? Had I, gasp, outgrown musicals?

Then last year I saw the Mamma Mia movie, and I loved it! Still, I told myself that it wasn’t a real musical. Being an ABBA fan already, I knew all the numbers going in, so it was just like an ABBA concert. Except that I did like the story. I liked it so much that I bought the DVD (the special edition one, no less).

Last week I went to see Wicked with my bookclub. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it all that much (it was a musical, after all), but I was curious. Plus, I told myself that I needed to get out more.

It turned out to be wonderful. I was enraptured from beginning to end. I liked the songs. I liked the story. I teared up at the end of the musical, which I rarely do. That’s when I figured out that I still like musicals. I just want the story and the songs to resonate with me. A musical I don’t like is irritating as hell. A musical I DO like is rapture. What a relief to find I still like them!

It’s funny, because I’ve done this with performers, too–ones I thought I’d outgrown (Neil Diamond, Judy Collins) and then rediscovered.

So what about you? Do you like musicals? Why or why not? Which are your favorites? Is there anything (art, music, books, hobbies, habits) that you thought you’d outgrown or lost interest in and that you suddenly like again?

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We’ve had a lot of storms here recently – it’s going into the rainy season.  As I was listening to the thunder, I can remember being a little girl and wondering what could make such a racket.  At one point I think my dad told me it was the angels bowling.  I can remember thinking that made sense.  After all, I’d heard of lightning “strikes.”  Bowlers got strikes too, right?

Kids see the world from an utterly different point of view.  There are technical explanations for this – how the neural pathways and logic of children develop as their bodies grow.

I just think it’s fun.

When I was a kid, I read that the USA bought Florida from Spain.  I asked my dad, “How did they get it over here?”  In my mind I was seeing a boat with a giant tow-hook, hauling Florida across the Atlantic.  To my dad’s credit, he kept a straight face.

My sister had childbirth all worked out.  She’d seen a plumber’s helper and she’d seen a pregnant woman’s belly.  And she’d seen a belly button.  To her, the logistics were clear -  plunge, plunge and out pops a baby.  Makes me grin and wince at the same time.

We took my oldest daughter to Disney World for the first time when she was five.  It was a magical time for her – on the cusp of fantasy and reality.  She quickly developed a theory – the characters in the suits were obviously people in suits, but Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty walking around – they were real.

I love to listen to kids talk about how stuff works.  Sometimes it’s hilarious and sometimes it’s magic.

What do you remember wondering about when you were a kid?  What fun things have your kids, nieces, nephews, etc said that made you smile?  How did your folks explain thunder?  And how did we get Florida over here? (That last one is a joke for those of you still jonesing for coffee.)

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This is a true story. I have not even changed the names to protect the innocent, because there are no innocents in this story.

On Wednesday, I went to TJ Maxx to buy a basket. I did not find a basket, but I did find a purse, a pair of New Balance sneakers, and a quilt for the bed. You know how that goes.

I have to test out purses. I have to walk around with them over my shoulder for a good ten minutes to see if they’re comfortable, if the straps have a tendency to fall down, if the purse looks good on me when I happen to pass by a mirror. I assume everyone does this. If you don’t, don’t tell me. I’ll just feel ridiculous.

Part of my purse testing procedure is to see if it will hold my stuff. Sure the purse looks cute on the rack, and even over my shoulder carrying nothing but wadded up paper, but will it still work when holding my essentials? My wallet. My cell phone. My make-up bag. My sunglasses. My reading glasses. My notebook. My pen. My…well, you get the idea. So while I was waiting in line to pay for my quilt and my sneakers and my purse (no basket, and I came into the store needing a basket), I pulled out some of the paper and put in my wallet and my make-up bag. The purse gaped. I decided not to get the purse. I pulled my stuff out of the purse, bought the goods, and went home.

This is not the end of the story.

The next morning I had to run to the post office, and as is my habit, I put on my lipstick once I’m in the car (don’t ask me how I got into this stupid habit, and it is stupid, but I can’t seem to break it). I get in the car, put on my seat belt, and scrounge around in my (old) purse for my make-up case. It’s not there! In less than a second, I knew where it was.

It was in the purse I didn’t buy. The purse at TJ Maxx. The purse with wadded up paper and MY make-up bag. I hoped. What if someone had bought the purse? What if they found my case and gave it to the sales clerk and she threw it out? Should I just give up? Should I consider my make-up bag a total loss?

This was a very easy decision to make. I love that make-up bag. It’s cute, the right size, the right price, and I haven’t seen another one like it since I bought it. I wanted my make-up bag back. And then there’s the make-up. I have five lipsticks in that bag, two liners, a tiny package of dental floss, and nail clippers. The contents total about…$200.

Okay, I’m kidding about that, but it was too much money to just toss out without an effort to get it back. Plus, one of the lipsticks has been discontinued and it’s the perfect color for me. You know how that goes, too.

I worked over plans in my mind as I drove to TJ Maxx. Would I ask the clerk if she had my make-up? Would I go directly to the purses and search out my bag? Would I then tell the clerk that I was leaving with my make-up bag (if I found it) so she wouldn’t think I was a thief?

This is what happened: I walked in. I saw the purse immediately. I walked over to the purse. My make-up case was inside. I took it out. I put it in my purse. I walked out of the door.

I am still expecting the police to show up at my house. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to convince them that I was only “stealing” back my make-up bag.

Yes, this is my public defense of my actions. If you’re reading this, you are now a witness to my innocence. What I said about no innocents in this blog? Forget I said that. I am innocent! I only needed my make-up bag back!

Facing a jury of my (female) peers, I think I’ll do okay.

Oh, and while you’re out shopping today, go pick up a copy of The Courtesan’s Wager. It’s cheaper than a lipstick, and harder to misplace. It will even fit in your purse.

Describe your perfect purse. How do you shop for a purse? How many purses do you own? How often do you switch them up? Do not tell me if you’ve ever “stolen” something from a store; I do not want to start a ring of thieves, unless we can also recruit the White Collar guy, then I might need to rethink the whole ’stealing is bad’ thing.

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