Dear Reader,
It’s finally starting to feel like summer and it reminds me of some of my favorite things.
I love frogs, the color, the silly way they look, just fun to look at. I have an indoor ceramic collection spaced everywhere. They make me smile. Outside I have nine huge frog planters that have plants and flowers in them. Every single person who comes here comments on them. And you know, what, I never got one wart.
I also collect Emmett Kelly clowns. I’m not sure how many I have. Somewhere around fifty is my best guess. I keep them in a china closet. I have two that are downright UGLY. Some are silly and buffoonish if you know what I mean. Then there are the serious sad ones. The reason I like them so much is because they are two people. They wear two faces like most of us do. The private one and the one not so private. What you see is not what you always get. Also, NO ONE touches them but me. I clean them myself. Some of them are way over 100 years old. I treasure each and every one and each one has some sort of story behind it just like the frogs but that’s for another time.
Speaking of summer, people ask me what are some of my favorite books for summer reading? Honestly, I never did a whole lot of summer reading for some reason. I prefer to read in the winter for hours at a time curled in a chair with a fire going and hot chocolate with a ton of mini marshmallows in it. When I was a kid my favorite thing in the summer, though, was to read Nancy Drew. Right now I have two books I look forward to reading. Damascus Countdown by Joel Rosenberg and The Runner by Christopher Reich. I’ve also been known to pick one of my own, usually one of the older ones and read it to see if I can remember the details or what was going on in my life when I wrote it. Nine times out of ten I can’t remember.
Happy Summer, everyone.
P.S. Just to put some spice in my life with these crazy times we’re living in I decided to do something wild and wicked for the summer. I planted organic carrots and radishes and a few other things. Ok, maybe not so wild but the radishes should be spicy. I’ll let you know how they are if the squirrels don’t get to them before me. Please share photos of your gardens with me. We’ll pick a winner at random so you can enter as many times as you like and I will send you a signed copy of Fearless.