​I don’t like how much Facebook appears to know about me. Somehow, they’ve discovered that I enjoy Martin Freeman’s work as an actor. To punish me for being a fan, they’ve been plastering my Facebook page with BritBox ads for a television series called The Responder. Starring Mr. Freeman.
 
I want to tell you, I’m not impressed by the show’s title. The Responder? He’s a responder, not even the first responder? Well, maybe it’s a British thing. Perhaps the show’s producers don’t want to make it sound like Martin is all full of himself. Or maybe the Brits feel that it’s enough that Martin responds to a crisis at all. “It’s nice of him to come by, don’t you think?” Inspector Corbyn asks his men. “Half a day late, half a week late, whatever works for Martin. He’s a jolly chap.”
 
Do people in England still call other people, “jolly chaps”? Did they ever? If you find out, don’t keep it to yourself. Let me know.
 
I first noticed Martin Freeman in the British version of The Office, an entertaining show with an adequate title. The Office title doesn’t sizzle, not like Jurassic Park. When I saw Jurassic Park on a theater marquee, I immediately parked my car, then stood in line to see the movie. The Office doesn’t intrigue potential viewers, either, not like Better Off Ted. On the other hand, I may be the only living person who loved that television show, so what does that say about entertainment today? If the Hollywood production factory can only squeeze 26 episodes out of a Better Off Ted, the name of the show isn’t all that critical.
 
There are two points I’d like to make before escaping the blog today. The first is, Facebook needs to run different ads on my FB page. Unless something more exciting comes along, I won’t be signing up for BritBox. Except for Martin Freeman and his accent, there’s nothing about this new show that makes me want to subscribe to another streamer service. If the program was called Jurassic Detective or Better Off Ted Returns, they’d get my money in a heartbeat. The second thing is that my Vella story, Sharp Teeth, comes out on June 1st. When I'm writing, I struggle with titles, too, but I like this one. The novelette’s subtitle is A Story of Lost Love and Werewolves. Unless I stumble along the way, there will be a new episode every three days.
 
If you’d care to take a peek, Amazon will let you read the first three episodes for free. There’s no Martin Freeman appearance in the first part of the story, but after…?
 
No, not even after. He might be a jolly chap, but he’s likely a jolly chap with lawyers. Lawyers aren’t jolly at all.
 

Since you brought the subject up, though, I suppose I need to mention my newest novelette, World War Zayne. If you’re wondering whether the novelette involves zombies, its subtitle is Boys’ Love During the Time of the Zompocalypse. Because it’s not really a new publication, I’m not sending out a newsletter to share this announcement. It’s only you, dear heart, who has to suffer through what I’m about to tell you.
 
It’s a tight 12,000-word story that involves zombies, biting, the world in chaos, and romance. It’s also kinky. There’s male/female love, which has always been the case with my fiction, and male/male love, which is something new in my writing. Since my romances often have a few twists under the bedcovers, I believe my readers can handle a little something different. If you only know my work through The Runaway Mail-Order Bride, this is not anything like that. Not even close.
 
But, as I said, it’s not a new publication. Not entirely new, anyway. Back when the zombie genre felt hot, Glynn and I wrote a tight 12,000-word story called World War Zelda. (There’s no underline because Zelda has been pulled from the marketplace.) That tale involved zombies, biting, the world in chaos, and romance. It was kinky. Exactly the type of thing I wanted to read at the time, and exactly the kind of thing I hoped others would want to read, too.
 
I was so wrong.
 
It turns out, it takes a certain kind of person to want to read about the collapse of civilization spiced up with a good session of hot shower sex. Not enough of those people wanted to read World War Zelda. Maybe they would have tried it if I’d subtitled the novelette, The Hot Shower Sex Edition.
 
It wouldn’t have hurt. Almost everything sounds more interesting if you include the words, “the hot shower sex edition.”
“Did the mailman come?” “He sure did. The hot shower sex edition!” “What’s for dinner?” “Bean burritos with a side of rice. The hot shower sex edition!” You say it makes no sense; I say it’s marketing genius.
 
Zelda came out years ago. Jumping past all of those years to last week, I was sitting on the sofa, reading manga. Boys’ Love manga. I mentioned to my writing partner that I wanted us to plot a Boys’ Love story, not for 2022, but for one distant day in the future. To my surprise, he was paying attention to my rambling and the words, “the future”, triggered something inside of him.
Leaving the sofa, he told me had an idea. (No, it wasn’t hot shower sex.) I reminded him we had no time to spare until 2024. He told me that his idea would only take a dozen hours or so.
 
Less than two days later, he brought me a print-out for World War Zayne: Boys’ Love During the Time of the Zompocalypse. He’d rewritten W. W. Zelda, of course, but he’d changed enough of the body of the story that it felt fresh to me. One of the first surprises was the way he’d altered our main character’s primary sexual relationship. In Zelda, our heroine loved her slacker-ish boyfriend and wanted to be with him. In Zayne, our hero wasn’t getting along with his driven girlfriend. They stayed together because neither of them was quite unhappy enough to separate. Knowing how things were going to unfold, I realized that this was the approach we should have taken with the first version of the story. It made things more interesting. It made the ending more enjoyable, too.
 
The only part he didn’t get right was the “Boys’ Love” sections of the manuscript, but he’s not a Boys’ Love reader. That’s my hobby. It cost me the better part of the next day, but it came out nicely. Or so I hope. The question now is whether other readers will enjoy this version, too.
​ 
If the novelette struggles to find a readership, you know what I’ll do? I’ll change the title to World War Zayne: The Hot Shower Sex Edition! And, if that works, can The Runaway Mail-Order Bride: The Hot Shower Sex Edition! be far behind?

​Now that the show is over, I can share a couple of my gourds that were in the exhibit. “Steampunk Bunny” is to the left, “Trapped” to the right. 

​ 
​Starting Thursday of last week, the Good Witch and I were volunteering at the Wuertz Farm’s 17th Annual Gourd Festival. The Powers That Be held the festival on a weekend that included the Olympics and the Super Bowl. I selfishly worried that this was a mistake. It isn’t as much fun making gourd art if no one sees it.
 
I shouldn’t have worried if people would show up. Thousands of visitors came through the gates. Not Super Bowl numbers, but pretty good for an event in Casa Grande, Arizona.
 
Instead of focusing on my words for today’s post, I spent my time chatting with festival goers, selling tickets to the Game of Chance, and holding my breath as the judges evaluated the work I’d submitted into the various competitions. Both the Good Witch and I did okay, each of us bringing home new ribbons to add to our work rooms. We also shared a first-place ribbon for a project we did together.
 
None of this was miraculous. We’d worked at a gourd festival before, we’d won some ribbons before. Last Saturday, though, something happened that I didn’t believe was possible. Call it Miracle #1. It occurred during the mini-gourdster race, the Grande 500.
 
My sleek little whale racer, Thar She Rolls, was tagged as Racer #10. My hubby’s wind-resistant behemoth of a snail racer, The Snail Trails, was tagged as Racer #9. There were 2o cars in the big race.
 
Before the Grande 500, there’s a touch of pomp and a dab of circumstance. Musicians played as the racers and their owners paraded through a large metal shelter to the 32-foot race track. (My partner hated the parade. Being on display is not his idea of fun. “Never again,” he growled.) The parade ended at the track, which was positioned in front of two sets of bleachers and an enthusiastic audience. The cars were timed as they go, two at a time, down the track. The top six finishers were then raced again.
 
It was a blast. Three of the cars flew off of the track, finishing their run on the concrete floor below. A few of the racers stopped in the middle of the track, their weight or their wheels not up to the challenge. Two of the cars hit the cushion at the end with such force, they knocked the stop aside. The racers were snatched up before they could make it to the bleachers.
 
Rolling on only three of its four wheels—the fourth refused to make contact with the racetrack, because of course it did—The Snail Trails led the charge. Like I said, that baby had some size to it (relatively speaking). When the smoke cleared, my whale racer, Thar She Rolls, rolled swiftly. It came in first. The even bigger surprise was when the snail racer came in third! It was a miracle. Miracle #1 of this blog.
 
The second-place finisher was Ice Sled. Although it's hard to see in this pic, the Penguin-mobile was so cute, children were approaching its owner, telling them they liked it. No one said that about the whale. Or the snail.

​For me, Miracle #2 is happening right here. Twelve months ago, on February 15th, I promised to write and post a new blog every seven to ten days for an entire year. I met my goal. It paid off in a couple of ways. Besides forcing me to sit down and write something that wasn’t fiction, these posts drew more people to both of my websites. The audience for MarsNeedsWriters tripled while the readers for AnneGlynn increased over twenty-fold. Considering some of my posts, how can I be anything but pleased?
 
Gilligan’s Island? Really? Since I had a week to come up with each topic, you’d think I’d scribble something of greater than average interest. I’m sorry this didn’t always happen often enough.
 
If you’d prefer to try someone who finds something interesting to say regularly, stop by Ken Levine’s blog spot: here. He’s been a novelist, a director, a DJ, a baseball announcer, a cartoonist, a television showrunner; it’s no wonder he has stuff to share. Look at his archives and you’ll see over 10,000 posts to read. If you stop by here and a new blog is missing, go to his place.
 
Fair warning, though: Ken is opinionated and can be persnickety. A lot of his posts are Hollywood-heavy. Also, when he can’t find an appropriate photo for whatever he’s writing that day, he’ll post a photo of Natalie Wood on his site, instead. I think it’s done because of love or lust, but maybe Natalie drives traffic to his blog. Who knows?
 
I asked the creator of The Snail Trails if we should start posting photos of Chris Hemsworth to our websites to drive traffic to our blogs, but he wasn’t buying it. I offered to substitute pictures of David Tennant, instead, but he saw through my little ploy.
 
He knows I’m more of a Dr. Who type of woman than a Thor kind of girl. If I was posting images of Tennant’s Who every week, this blog would never go away. Since I can’t, I’ll be blogging less often. I will be by occasionally, though, so don’t think of this as goodbye. It’s more of a--
 

I had to use the picture somewhere, didn't I? It's just too fun.
 
Until next time, stay well and stay safe.

​Since this is a PG-rated website, I try to watch my language. I try not to curse around children, people I don’t know, the highly religious and the easily offended. But if you’re a friend, I will occasionally throw a little spice into the conversation.
 
You won’t find any swear words in this post, either, because I’m going to substitute asterisks for the naughty words. Which brings us to Murderville on Netflix. Because the program’s not on network television, the actors have some leeway in how they speak. Cursing can occur and sometimes does. In episode #2, it happened frequently.
 
If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s roughly a comedy-murder mystery. In each episode, the middle-aged and eccentric police detective Terry Seattle (played by Will Arnett) is teamed with a different celebrity as his partner. Terry and the show’s regular cast have a script to follow. The celebrity does not. He or she enters the situation as Terry’s newest partner, expected to improv his or her way through the half-hour show. During the show, silliness reigns supreme while a few scattered clues and red herrings are thrown into the mix. At the end of each episode, there’s an entire Agatha Christie thing going on, with all the suspects brought into the room. At that point, the celebrity is asked to identify the murderer.
 
Of the four episodes I’ve watched, the guest stars have done a pretty good job of finding the guilty party. Those of us who play along at home can try to solve the murder, too. So far, I’m four for four.
 
No brag, just fact, as Walter Brennan used to say on The Guns of Will Sonnett. If you don’t know Walter Brennan or The Guns of Will Sonnett, you can find episodes on YouTube.
 
As I was saying, Murderville, episode 2, leaned a little heavily on the profanity. Not in the scripted passages, mind you, but in those that were improvised by former football player and Detective-in-Training, Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just the way he speaks, but my, was his speech colorful. How do I know this? In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, he recounted his reply when asked what kind of role he wanted when acting. “I told ‘em, ‘Well, I don’t want to talk too much. I want to blow **** up. I want to shoot ****. Basically, I just want to **** **** up.”
 
In his appearance on Murderville, Marshawn didn’t blow **** up, didn’t shoot **** up, and he talked a lot. For a man who’d never done improv, I thought he had a powerful presence and did an interesting job… but he used the same four-letter words too frequently. After the fifth use of the same curse word, I decided the man needed some new swear words.
 
The problem is, there haven’t been any great new swear words for about 200 years. Today’s current favorites were among in the favorites in the 1800s, too. Our ancestors, the Victoria lords and ladies, used the same S-word, F-word, C-word, and B-word that we hear today.
 
The M-F word? It dropped in at the beginning of the 20th century. Being a progressive guy, Marshawn threw a couple of them on the show.
 
The Victorian Era had other curse words that have fallen by the wayside. Words like “blazes” and “dratted” and “bootlicker.” These are pretty weak tea in the 21st century. But wouldn’t it have been fun if Marshawn used a few of those words? “The dratted bootlicker who killed our victim is that strumpet, Mary Agnes! May she go to blazes!”
 
If you haven’t guessed, “bootlicker” and “strumpet” were also popular swear words back in the day.
 
As much as I admire some originality while swearing, it’s escaped me so far. While packing my gourd art for the upcoming Big Show, I lightly nudged a figure on my mermaid sculpture. It immediately broke off.
 
“****!” I said. “****!” Distraught, I went with two of this century’s standards. It turns out, me and Marshawn both need new swear words.
 
Before I go: If you aren’t a Netflix subscriber, or if you’ve already burned through the six episodes of Murderville, I’m told you can get your comedy-murder mystery hit by trying Murder in Successville, instead. A BBC production, Successville ran for three seasons and was the inspiration for the creation of Murderville. In Northern America, there’s no one streaming the series, there’s no Region 1 DVDs, and it’s not even on BritBox (USA). The only place you can find it is YouTube (here).

Me and Dolly. We both were up at 3 a.m. this morning.
 
I was awake because I didn’t like what I’d written for this blog on Tuesday. The post was loaded with too many uses of “I” and “me” and “my”, which is ever so boring, so I decided not to share it with you. Yesterday, I couldn’t think of a decent substitute for what I’d written, so I did some other writing before puttering away on my gourd racer.
 
More about gourd racers in just a minute.
 
This morning, guilt brought me out of bed. Don’t you hate it when your mind decides you shouldn’t sleep? Now that I was two days behind schedule, I needed to get this blog written and up. Since I don’t want to wake up at 3 a.m. again tomorrow morning, here we are.
 
Dolly Parton gets up at 3 a.m. every morning. Willingly. At 76 years of age, she probably sings “Jolene” as she kicks off her covers. She says she prefers to start her day this early because she welcomes the quiet. Three in the morning is apparently a great time to do a little writing and a good hour to spend some time with God.
 
If I was God, I’d recommend we get together a little later in the day. Maybe after I’d had a cup of Joe or two.
 
It came as a surprise to me, but I like Dolly Parton. I didn’t expect for this to happen. She seemed like a lot, if you know what I mean, but years ago, I went to a concert. She was the opening act; a performer I didn’t want to see. I wished the promoter had picked someone else, anyone else; and, from the surrounding voices, it sounded like the rest of the crowd felt the same way. There wasn’t a lot of applause when she came on the stage. By the time she left the stage, she’d gained a legion of new fans. As a performer, she was warm, friendly, funny, and self-depreciating. She gave a performance that left the entire audience on their feet, cheering.
 
The headliner that followed did all right, but it was Dolly that won our hearts that night.
 
# # #
 
I have a favorite new term: “Word loaf.” I was listening to a wonderful ASMR when she stated that the poorly written, horribly constructed novel she was reading was a terrible mishmash of words thrown together without sufficient thought or purpose. The book was a “word loaf.”
 
# # #
  
“Slow and steady is definitely going to lose the race,” my life partner told me.
 
“You don’t know that,” I replied to him. “During a gourd run, anything can happen.”
  
Have you noticed that you can’t spell “replied” without including the word “lie”? We both knew I was lying when I said we didn’t know his gourd racer was going to do badly in the upcoming Running of the Gourds.
 
“Is there a prize for the slowest racer?” he asked me. I wish there was. Roll a rock down the racetrack, it’s gonna beat his gourd.
 
If this is all new to you, a gourd run is fun to watch. If you were once a Cub Scout or raised a Cub Scout, their Pinewood Derby is not dissimilar to the Grande 500. In the Pinewood Derby, per Wikipedia, “Scouts build their own unpowered, unmanned miniature cars from wood, usually from kits containing a block of pine wood, plastic wheels, and metal axles.” The only notable difference for the Grande 500 is that there are spruced-up gourds riding on top of the pine wood cars. On the day of the race, the Gourdsters are timed as they’re sent down a 32-foot ramp. After everyone has had their turn, the times are compared and the fastest Gourdster wins.
 
Having taken part in the Grande 500 once before, I knew what to expect. My whale racer (entry name: Thar She Rolls) is small, sleek, and heavily weighted around the rear axle for maximum speed. You bet I took notes the last time. Thar She Rolls has an excellent chance to make a better showing than my last racer.
 
In the spirit of fellowship, my guy decided he’d enter the race, too. This from a man who has no experience with gourding, Gourdsters, or clay work. Having been a Cub Scout, he’d taken part in the Pinewood Derby before. It did not go well. That was another occasion when he wished there’d been a prize for the slowest racer.
 
I suspect he regretted his offer to enter the Grande 500 the moment he made it. But, once the words were said, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He picked out the biggest gourd allowed—“It called to me”—joined me in my work area, cut himself on my tools, and literally bled to make his creation. His snail racer (entry name: The Snail Trails) will stand out from the other competition. It’s maxed out in size, weight, and wind resistance. If you say his creation is enjoyably ugly, I know he wouldn’t disagree.
 
Will he build another racer for next year? You don’t have to wonder, he’s already told me: “Oh, hell, no.”

​The Good Witch has asked me to join her in fulfilling a series of New Year’s Resolutions. She came across this article from realbuzz.com and thought it would be fun if we gave it a go. “We” because she knew this isn’t the kind of list you tackle alone. It’s more fun with a partner.
 
The Realbuzz Team came up with “10 Unusual New Year’s Resolutions.” Honestly, that’s who is listed as the author of the piece: the Realbuzz Team. This means, one person did most of the writing, but four of others threw out some suggestions and demanded credit. Or so I imagine.
 
Broken down to the basics, the list reads like this:
 
Do something nice for others every day. My favorite of their recommendations, so I bumped it up the list. They listed things in their order, I’ll go in mine.
Being nice is a lovely idea. Feels even lovelier for this particular year, doesn’t it? Can I stick with niceness for 365 days in a row? The Good Witch knows it would be a struggle. Even if I managed to do it, at some point, niceness would feel like a chore. It shouldn’t be a chore.
 
Try a new food each week. If you’ve wondered through these blogs at all, you’re aware of how much I hate spending time in my kitchen. If the coffee maker wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be, either. I don’t need a new food each week. God created pizza.
 
Break a record. Either a personal record (something like, “This is the most hot dogs I’ve eaten in a day!”) or a world record (their idea? Go for the fastest mile ever while running in swim fins). I would have loved either idea at 16. I’m not 16 any longer.
 
Get your photo taken in five interesting places. That’s a straight-out “Absolutely not!” for me. With the pandemic still raging? I’ve had to travel by plane twice recently and would rather not do it again for many, many months.
It stings because there’s one country in particular that I’ve been dying to see. I just don’t want to see it and die.
 
Learn a party trick. Team Realbuzz offered a couple of suggestions here, neither of which appealed to me. Contort myself? Again, maybe if I was a teenager. Learn how to recite the alphabet backwards in less than 10 seconds? I could do this. takes me 6 seconds to run through the alphabet in the correct order—I timed it. I’d have gone faster if I didn’t slip into doing the alphabet in a singsong voice—so 10 seconds to flip the order sounds doable.
There are two problems with this, though. One, with my memory, it’s going to take time to learn this party trick. Is this party trick worth the time I give it? Second, the Good Witch will want to try the backwards alphabet trick, too. Since we attend many of the same parties, I’ll become the “not as good backwards alphabet woman.” That sounds awful.
 
Make a new friend a month. Not acquaintances, but real friends? I’m lucky to make a friend once every five years. And I count myself lucky when it happens.
 
Develop a good relationship with your body. My body and I get along just fine. As long as I do as it tells me—no caffeine, limited sugar, watch the fats—it doesn’t punish me too harshly. Yes, I know, there’s a real S&M vibe there.
 
Learn something you never learned as a child. The Team suggests learning a handstand or riding a bike. As an alternative, learn how to correctly spell a word that you never quite got right when you were young. I used to do handstands and ride bikes, but I’ve always had trouble with the word, “embarrass.” It’s those two r’s, those two s’s, they trip me up. I only got it right today because of Spellcheck. But what if I never learned how to write the word without Spellcheck? How embarasing.
 
Make the usual the unusual. By now, the Realbuzz people are struggling to get to 10 items on the list. They suggest I eat fancy chocolates and then wash them down with champagne. There’s not one piece of that sentence that’s any part of my life.  
 
Sort out a financial worry. Because of realbuzz.com, I spend too much money on eating fancy chocolates that I then wash down with champagne. It's crazy expensive. Only Realbuzz Team members can afford such a habit.
 
I wished the Good Witch well with this ambitious agenda, and she immediately decided to go for something else. (If you must know, she is limiting her contact with the Bad Witch to once a month. Once every two weeks. No more than once a week. Which is a very good idea.) I went for something more achievable. Three things, actually.
 
Resolution #1: Put The Awful, Terrible NO GOOD Mail-Order Bride into book form. I’ll leave the chapters on Vella, too, even after I do. No one reads the story on Vella, as I hope you know, but Amazon keeps sending us monthly bonus money, anyway. It’s like we have our own wealthy, but befuddled, grandmother sending us birthday checks every 30 days. We’ve always had luck publishing books in February, so that’s my target.
 
Resolution #2: Complete these blogs. I promised to write a blog a week for one year and I’m almost there. This is Blog #50.
 
Resolution #3: Change my author’s picture on Amazon Central. I haven’t had blonde hair for a while, to my life partner’s regret, and the photo needs an update.
 
I don’t like how I look in pictures, never have. I think I may have found a solution to this. The image above came from a cellphone app known as Sketch Editor. There are several similar apps, like Sketch Master, Sketch Drawing, Pencil Sketch, but this was the first one I found, so I used it.
 
You can see from the drawing that the app struggles with shadows—what’s going on with the top of my head, anyway?—but the bags under my eyes, the wrinkles, the unsightly bits all got penciled away. Pencil-me looks better than real me has looked in ages.
 
Glynn says this is a cheat. I say, life can use a few cheats.
​ 
The topic remains under discussion. 

​Whoever’s in charge at your electric kettle company, let’s discuss a project rate for me to come in and work for you. I promise, I’ll be better at copywriting than whoever it is you’ve currently got.
 
I believe the electric kettle industry could use my help. The folks at SMEG Brand, makers of the SMEG electric kettle, are one of them. I mean, c’mon, they named their big dollar electric kettle ($169.95) SMEG. When they come out with a brand of dishware, they’ll probably label it PUKE.
 
There are better options. I can provide them. But, once again, I see I’ve gotten ahead of myself.  
 
First, let me tell you about my sudden interest in electric kettles. When I was visiting with family members last week, I was looking for a teakettle to brew a little Earl Grey.  The homeowner told me she didn’t own one. If I wanted to use it, though, her electric kettle was right there on the countertop.
 
For those of you who own electric kettles, why didn’t you tell me about this modern miracle? An electric kettle heats water faster than a conventional tea kettle. It turns itself off when the water is ready. It doesn’t whistle. Oh, how I hate that whistle.
 
I loved that electric kettle. I drank more tea more often just for the pleasure of using it.
 
When I returned home, I told my personal Boy Wonder that I wanted an electric kettle of our own. He didn’t see the need for one until I told him it would heat the water for his ramen more quickly. It would heat the water for his oatmeal faster. It wouldn’t whistle while he was on the pot (and not the teapot, if you get what I mean).
 
He can't stand the sound of a tea whistle, either. When we didn’t find what we wanted locally, I turned to Amazon. That’s where I discovered that the electric kettle industry needs someone who can polish their copywriting. A job—to remind you—that I’m ready to do. I won’t be cheap, but you don’t want cheap. When you go cheap, you end up with this ad line: Make boiling water fascinating (Topwit Electric Kettle).
 
That’s a flat-out lie, Topwit organization. When people want to impress other people, they are eager to find something extraordinary to share. There is no one on the planet who would bring a date to their kitchen, just so that he or she could watch water boil. In your heart, you know that.
 
A different ad line drove me away from the CHINYA Store. There, they claim, Complete Your Kitchen, Better Your Life. With that one line, I realized we don’t share the same life philosophy at all. If they’d posted Bulldoze Your Kitchen, Better Your Life, we could have been friends.
 
The words “kitchen” and “life” were also part of the Miosal Brand’s sales pitch. They said their kettle was a Warm Helper For Your Kitchen Life! while also promising that Safety and Quality Is Our Top Concerning!
 
Miosal Brand, you’ve got my email address. Use it.
 
But the client that really needs a hand is the EcoRealx people. First of all, did they mean to call their company EcoRelax, but someone scrambled the letters? If so, I say, let’s get that fixed. Second, the EcoRealx slogan is keep clam and drink coffee. Yes, you read that correctly. For reasons only they know, this company supports in-home clam adoption and coffee bean consumption at the same time. It’s a bold and unexpected approach to marketing.
 
For the right price, I can make it work. Hire me and I’ll contact clam providers, establishing easy clam access for those customers who are clam-deprived. I’ll advise people on how to care for their clam and provide suggestions on feeding, entertaining, and socializing with their clam. Bring me into the organization and I can be All Clam, All the Time.
 
That’s not all I can do for you, EcoRealx. In an effort to sell your $80 electric gooseneck kettle, you told Amazon shoppers everywhere, In 2021, EcoRealx travels through time In an “Eco” way, take you shuttling back and forth between delicious coffee and Relax life. No periods, random capitalization, run-on sentences… ProWritingAid and I have some issues with what you’ve written. Worse still, no one knows what this means.
 
Yes, you’re right, these are words in English. I give you that, especially since English is (hopefully) not your native tongue. you can do so much better. Well, you can’t, apparently, but I can. I’ll give you a tip for free: Forget the whole “Eco” way thing, whatever that is, and lean hard on the clam aspect of your presentation. Trust me.
 
It’s a winner. 

​I know the blog has dropped a couple of days late, but family life takes precedence over web life. I realize this pic isn't the best, either. What can I say? Sometimes you have to make do.

I'm not so much "on the road" as "in the airport" today. Being a proper little doobie, I arrived two hours before my flight. Once I reach Phoenix, I'll wait 90 minutes for the shuttle to arrive, then nearly another two hours before I reach home. *Sigh* This is not the most enjoyable way to spend a day.
 
As almost everyone knows, there's no longer much fun to be found in an airport. The "two hours early" rule seems about an hour too long. Security measures have improved—not that going through a security checkpoint isn't a special level of Hell, in and of itself—and crowds seem to be herded through the process more quickly than ever before. But Google Assist informed my phone that I needed to hit the road at 0738 if I wanted any chance to meet the recommended two-hour pre-flight deadline… and here I am. Blogging.
 
It's something to do while I sit, sit, sit and wait to be cattle-driven into the great metal bird. Despite Federal rules and regs, I notice some male members of society refusing to keep a mask over their mouth and nose. This isn't meant to be a sexist comment. It's only that, while on the trip here, I only saw men using chin-masks. On the way home, I only see men using chin-masks. Perhaps they're worried about chin-COVID. If that's a thing, I'm okay. My mask covers my nose, mouth, and chin.
 
I'm feeling a little grumpy. Can you tell? On the way here, the stewardi also appeared grumpy. It seems that no one is enjoying air travel any longer. We're all sharing this ordeal together, and all anyone wants is to be done with it and get home.

If it didn't take so long, I'd have gone by car. Driving from Point A to B, in my opinion, is frequently enjoyable. Generally, I can leave when I want and travel with people I like. (On the trip here, I sat beside a man who sniffed constantly. Speaking from behind his mask, Drip Nose assured me he had allergies, not a disease. Before staying with ancient relatives, I used a home COVID test, just in case.) Driving, travelers can stop and enjoy the sights as we go, riding in companionable silence, or listening to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, as the miles roll past.

I love listening to that decades-old radio mystery drama. Bob Bailey wasn't the first Johnny Dollar, and he wasn't the last, but he was the best. He sounded 6'2" tall and nicely muscled. In the television pilot that he filmed as Johnny Dollar, Bob turned out to be 5'9" and thin as a rail. Less of an action hero than the action hero's accountant. It's no wonder it never went to series.
 
It doesn't matter. His voice is marvelous. If you're wondering, the "transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account—America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator" can be downloaded free and legally, all over the internet. If you haven't given it the program a try, you're missing out.

I wish I'd loaded a few episodes to help this day pass more quickly. I will next time. Oh, Johnny Dollar, take me away! 

​For all of its not-goodness, 2021 ended nicely for me when I assisted in the construction of a gingerbread house. The kit came with already-baked walls and roof panels, somehow edible until June of this year, that only required a minimum of assembly before the goodies were applied. After I did the set-up, it looked like this:

​Yes, that’s load-bearing icing and plenty of it. Then the little ones came in—six-years-old and nine-years-old, girl and boy—to finish the hard part of the job. The decorating! The finished product lasted long enough for a couple of photos and congratulations from Mom and Stepdad. 

​Then the devouring began. My devouring days are over, but the wee ones attacked the house, gorfing the gumdrops and pretty bits just as quickly as you’d imagine. I wish I’d taken an after pic of the destruction.
 
2021 hadn’t quite concluded when, returning home, my guy and I did a store run. Christmas items were already discounted by fifty percent of their original price. Yes, this means shoppers could pick up the Holiday Time Toilet Golf Game for a sweet five bucks.

Grabbing my phone, I discovered that there are multiple companies that make toilet-based putting games. I know, right? Amazon is missing out on the Holiday Time version, but they’d be happy to sell you the Potty Putter Toilet Golf Game for a hefty $19.99. The toy has almost 4,000 ratings (4.5 out of 5 stars), there are nineteen answered questions—Q: Do I have to tip the caddy? A: Depends on how bad your game stinks—and it’s Amazon’s #1 Best Seller in Golf Putters.
 
I was astonished. I thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever until I saw my writing partner reach for his wallet.
 
He said, “I wonder how long it will take me to play eighteen holes.”

​I do hope you had a lovely Christmas. We were able to share ours with little ones, so I couldn’t have been happier. No, that isn’t entirely true. I would have been happier if I’d been able to bring a fruitcake to the gathering.
 
If you’ve been following this blog for a bit, you may already know that I don’t like to kitchen. Some may say, “cook”, but I say, “kitchen.” If I’m not in the kitchen, people can’t expect me to cook. (No one has ever said, “Hey, while you’re in the back bedroom, why don’t you whip us up a little snack?”)
 
The rules are simple. When there are children in the house, I will feed them. When there are adults in the house, they can feed themselves. Easy. Even if they enjoy kitchening—as crazy as it sounds, I’ve heard rumors of grown-ups who like to prepare food—I will not ask them to whip me up a little snack. The people who know me best realize it’s madness to ask me to prepare them a snack. So, when I volunteered to break a fruitcake to the holiday gathering on Saturday, my hostess knew it wasn’t anything that I’d actually make. We both expected that I’d swing by Costco on the 23rd and pick up a fruitcake.
 
I understand if you abhor fruitcakes. Most fruitcakes are kind of gummy and miserable. I used to abhor fruitcakes, too, until I discovered the delicious goodness tagged with the Kirkland Signature name. Once I got a taste of their treat, there was no looking back. It didn’t matter if I was invited to someone else’s home or not, I brought one home. It would last for weeks and, for weeks, I would enjoy it.
 
Not this year. For the first time in forever, Costco had no fruitcakes. I found a pleasant Costco employee who confirmed the obvious: No fruitcakes this year. At least, not at my store, the only Costco outlet within 100 miles. He’d heard that there’d been shortages of an unknown nature, problems that were yet to be explained, and that only a limited number of fruitcakes had been made. All of which had been shipped to Canada.
 
Canada! Words failed me. Canadians already have everything good in the world, now they take my fruitcake from me? Not just from me, but from everyone else on this planet? Where’s the justice in that? My new Canadian son-in-law is going to have some explaining to do the next time I see him, I’ll tell you now.
 
The pleasant employee, seeing the look on my face, said I could always make one myself. (If you’re the kitchening type, here’s the New York Times “Good Fruitcake” recipe.) Or, if I didn’t like cooking, he suggested I try the store’s Chocolate Chunk Peppermint Loaf. Eight bucks for what feels like eight pounds of bakery good.
 
“Is it available in Canada?” I asked. “Say ‘no’.”
 
He said, “No.” A person can’t climb the Costco corporate ladder without some basic commonsense.
 
I bought the heavy thing. Brought it to the Christmas Eve party where everyone ignored the bulky thing. I didn’t blame them. It smells of peppermint and disappointment.
 
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to post this blog a day early and go build a gingerbread house with the babies. (No cooking involved. It’s all icing assembly and gumdrop decorations.) See you in 2022!