Trading Places

“Val, what’re you doing up so early?”

I jumped at the sound of Kit’s voice and turned in her direction.

She was wearing a black silk robe belted tightly around her slim waist. Resting across her forehead was a red satin night mask embroidered with the words Dreaming of Paris.

“Well, right now I’m reading the latest garbage on Miley Cyrus.”

“You saying she’s garbage, or what they’re writing about her is garbage?” I was glad she didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, as she poured herself a cup of coffee, she said, “Ahh, glad you got this started. I need it faster than usual. I didn’t sleep well last night, thinking of—”

“Paris?”

“No. Thinking of you . . .” She removed the mask and tossed it on the counter.

“You didn’t sleep well thinking of me? How do you think I slept?”

“Um . . . not at all?”

“You got it.”

She leaned over the counter and patted my hand. Then she heaved a big sigh. “Don’t worry, Valley Girl. I’ll think of something for us to do next.”

In our biggest role reversal ever, I answered her. “I already have.”

from LETHAL PROPERTY, coming in May!

Easter Eggs: How Roz and Her Houston Family Roll

Before Easter becomes a distant memory, I’d like to share a wonderful tradition I enjoy with my Houston family: The Egg Decorating Contest. Our contestants range in age from two to seventy, and special allowance is given by the Judge, who permits us to decorate our eggs at home and bring them on Easter Sunday fully dressed. 

A word about the Judge (Ken): He remains totally impartial and, like all judges, cannot be bribed or corrupted.  This I know from personal experience.

So, after spending several days deciding what would appeal to him most, I set to work boiling six eggs (in case I made a mistake) and roaming the aisles of Hobby Lobby. And after ungluing my fingers more than once, I was ready to go.

The competition this year was fierce (darn those two grandsons of the Judge, who jump to the top of the Leader Board simply by showing up and telling Grandpa how much they love him).

One special note: There was another entry that cannot be shown here.  BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE (Quatro!).

Grammy Sarah submitted this entry of Cash mutton bustin' (this is Texas, after all).

Future King of England, Baby George.

No explanation needed (unless you don't live in Houston).

Four-year-old Cash's Pirate Ship.

Two out of three eggs enjoy a fun day in Galveston.

Easter Island (someone had to do it).

AND THE WINNER IS….. Jennifer Day, with KISS!!

Some of the fierce competitors: Cash, Kimberly, Bodie and Quatro.

THANK YOU, KEN AND SARAH, FOR A REALLY FUN DAY!
(And while y'all are here, want to go back to the top of the page, leave your e-mail address to follow us, and you'll then be notified any time there's a new blog post here?! Fun, fun, fun!!)

Roz's March Madness

March 2014 is a momentous month for me. I retire from my day job March 31. When I began with the company, way too many years ago to count, I was the baby in the office. Now I’m the senior.

I made the decision to leave three months ago. It wasn’t easy. I’ve had a long and interesting career in the airline industry, and my colleagues have become family. They are an amazing group of men and women. We have developed a team closeness, and support and care for each other. Not seeing them every day will be very sad for me. But, since my job is in the cargo side of the airline world, I won’t miss having to figure out the complexities of sending plasma to Djibouti, freeze-dried Tex-Mex food destined for the space shuttle, or miniature horses to Saudi Arabia.

Roz with some of her work family:

As for the future, I am excited about my new life. The first thing I plan to do is relax a little. Then I will tackle all the things I haven’t had time to do properly for the past few years. This list includes the mundane, like really, really cleaning my house, doing a more than half-assed job in my yard, and sorting out closets and drawers that no longer open or close properly because of the junk I’ve rammed into them through the years. On a lighter note, I plan to spend more time with people I have neglected (most have already retired) and visit friends and family, taking my own sweet time and setting my own schedule.

My already-retired friends assure me I’m going to be busier than ever, although I’m not sure that is my main goal. I was once a ferocious reader, but in the last few years I’ve managed only about one book every two or three months. Outrageous for a writer. I plan to load up my Kindle and go to town (or at least to my couch) and catch up on my favorite authors. I also look forward to going to movies and museums, during the day, with the luxury of those establishments being half-empty (except for the other retirees with the same plan).

But most important, I plan to devote the lion’s share of my time to writing. Currently, I squeeze it in on weekends and days off (hence the drawers stuffed with junk, where it can take me a good twenty minutes just to find a pen that works). 

My writing partner, Patty, has done all the heavy lifting so far (e.g., all that techy stuff I know so little about). Lucky Patty can now share her workload with me (after a suitable training period). But lucky me, I get to return to Val and Kit, as often as I like, without worrying in the back of my mind if the shipment of frozen yogurt I booked to Kazakhstan that morning will melt before it reaches its final destination.

We are currently working on the final touches to Lethal Property, to be released in April. This is the next mystery starring our two favorite non-detectives. And I’ve already located my webcam, which was hidden between a miniature umbrella and a box of unopened chocolate-covered cherries in my desk drawer. Val would understand; Kit would be appalled. But I’m ready to Skype with Patty and get to work.

Roz (with visitor Patty) in her home office,
 where she'll soon be spending ALL her work time.

Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

Since the dawn of time, and even before that, we’ve been asking ourselves the same old question. Is it worse to be widowed or divorced?

Let’s look at divorcées first, and of course a lot depends on the circumstances. For those enduring divorce, it matters what side of the divorce fence you find yourself sitting on. If the divorce was your idea and you just feel compelled to leave your lazy, good-for-nothing spouse who won’t take you hunting/shopping, then the age-old question doesn’t even apply to you. Especially if you happen to have a third party waiting in the wings who totally “gets” you because you have so much in common, like NFL football/Downton Abbey.

But what if the divorce wasn’t your idea? What if you foolishly thought you’d be married to this person forever? The person who’s now hastily packing bags, saying good-bye to the dog, and canceling life insurance policies? The one who can’t back out of the driveway fast enough? In this case, you might prefer being widowed. Yes, lying, cheating spouses who fall off cliffs or accidentally pour drain cleaner over their cereal can’t hurt. Well . . . it can. But it will hurt the deceased a lot more than you.

Now, our hearts go out to those who lose a much-loved partner to death. Such a loss is painful and unbearably sad, and no matter how many times people tell you they understand, they just don’t. But the widowed will have a circle of folks rallying around them insisting they must grieve in their own time, absolutely no rush, and life will eventually get better. The divorced people who’ve been wronged will probably get the same advice, but for a much shorter time period, and it will be peppered with instructions to get over it, move on, get out there.

Whichever heart-wrenching situation you find yourself burdened with, it will be life-altering, and recovery can be agonizingly slow. The widowed and those divorced against their every wish and effort will both feel pain and loneliness. But the good news is that life will eventually return to some kind of normalcy for the suddenly single, no matter how they got there.

Perhaps the difference is that the widowed can look back on a lifetime of good memories and remember the husband or wife with love. The divorced, after cutting the spouse’s clothes into tiny pieces and removing his/her face from five thousand photographs, can hopefully come to the conclusion one day that too much time was wasted missing the departed one.

And as for the spouse speeding out of the driveway, let’s hope that at the very least, he/she gets a ticket for bad behavior.

In our latest novel, DRESSING MYSELF, our heroine faces much of the above, but the conclusion of her story might surprise you.

Two New Books and One New Dog

It is our pleasure to start the new year by introducing our readers to Jessie Harleman. Her story is now available on a Kindle near you in Dressing Myself (our first novel NOT in The Val & Kit Mystery Series).

Jessie has been happily married to Kevin for twenty-eight years. With their two grown kids now out of the house and living their own lives, Jessie and Kevin have reached the point they thought they longed for, yet slightly dreaded. But the house that used to be bursting at the seams now has too many empty rooms.

Still, Jessie is a glass half-full kind of woman, eager for this next period of her life to take hold. The problem is, it just doesn’t go the way she planned.

Meanwhile, our two supersleuths, Val and Kit, remain in dogged pursuit of a murderer in their latest escapade, Lethal Property, to be released this spring. This No. 4 in The Val & Kit Mystery Series showcases their old cohorts along with the usual sprinkling of new characters, including a special four-legged friend who's a big Downton Abbey fan.

Speaking of friends with four legs, we have a new guy in our gang. Please meet Brew, the sweetest boxer we know. He was “rescued” by our editor Sarah and her husband and is now a permanent fixture in their home. Although he looks kinda tough in this picture, he’s really a pussycat . . . well, maybe not a pussycat; he’d box us just for saying that.

When Roz was a child, she was very afraid of dogs, but for no particular reason. Her family never owned a dog, and she never had an encounter that justified her fear. But she can remember visiting another family that did own one and literally climbing on the kitchen table to escape (Roz doing the climbing, not the dog).

Now she wonders why. The first dog she owned was a Labrador puppy (Oliver). A tiny bundle of black velvet with a face that could melt the hardest heart. Even so, her husband had to assure her there was nothing to fear before she reluctantly agreed to take the pooch on. Within a few weeks he was sleeping in their bed, and she was rushing home from work every day, wracked with guilt that she’d had to leave him alone for several hours. The only solution was to add another Lab to their family. This time they went blond (Duncan).

Today she’s rather suspicious of people who don’t like dogs. What’s not to like?  As an adult she’s owned four dogs at one time or another (including Jessie, below) and has had a couple more for sleepovers when their owners were out of town.

For her part, Patty grew up having dogs, as did her children. Now she and her husband have three granddogs, all Labs: one black, one yellow, and one chocolate (Harry, Hank, and Chester, top to bottom below). Like all their grandchildren of the two-legged variety, each has a distinct personality and a unique set of traits and, um, talents. Grandma and Grandpa know immediately which one stole the Christmas dessert off the table, which one pooped on the floor, and which one will run and hide in the chicken coop when the Fourth of July fireworks begin.

       

But all the dogs in Roz and Patty’s lives have been sweet, loving, and loyal to a fault. Most of them have had a great sense of humor, and one was a little snooty; but without exception, they've all been good people.

Roz’s Flippant Memories of Christmas Past

I flip the page on my 365 Nouns and Adjectives Calendar to reveal November 30, 2012. Sure, we’re heading into December; it’s literally around the corner, or in this case, on the next flip. But hey, plenty of time to do all the stuff that needs to be done before December 25. I’m still enjoying the Thanksgiving afterglow, and then I flip.

December 1: The word is Preparation. It’s cute. And I’ve got twenty-four days to prepare. I’m so on top of things, this is gonna be a breeze.

December 5: Word is Breeze. Order three gifts online. Two show up (never do receive the third one and spend the first four months of 2013 straightening out my credit card). Feeling generous, I put a five-dollar bill into the bucket attended by a bell-ringing Santa outside Walmart when I stop by to get my tires checked.

December 12: Word is Organization. This might be useful for someone less organized than me, but I am completely on track. Unfortunately, the two online gifts that made it to my door must be returned. Wrong size and color. Why did I ever think Kimberly would look good in chartreuse, especially trimmed in tiny black cats? She’s twenty-eight, for crying out loud, not eighty-eight. But no problem. Hideous top can be returned, and I’ll do all my shopping the old-fashioned way—in real stores. It’ll be fun.

December 14: Word is Yuletide. Now that’s more like it—we’re getting festive. Two tiny hitches, though: I’m reminded of the Secret Santa gift I must purchase for my unsuspecting coworker, and the secret stocking-stuffer items that must fill my designated stocking at the home of the friends I’ll be staying with. The idea is to cram as much into the stocking as possible, with no item costing more than five bucks. I was assigned Nickie, who doesn’t even wake up, much less get out of bed, for a five-dollar so-called gift. Still feeling generous, I put two bucks into Santa’s bucket on my trip to the store to buy air freshener.

December 17: Word is Festive. (I thought we’d already covered this.) So now it’s time to get serious. So far, of the twenty or so gifts I have to buy, I’ve managed only two. And both of them are for me.

December 20: Word is Relaxation. Are you kidding me? Who relaxes five days before Christmas? I begin planning a trip to the mall, something I promised myself back in July I would never do again. But I have no choice. On the way in, I put a buck fifty into Santa’s bucket, although Santa himself is not actually there and has been replaced by a teenager wearing a Texans T-shirt.

December 21: Word is Enjoyment. Obviously, the sadist who penned the calendar has never spent a whole day at the mall wandering aimlessly and chanting what shall I buy? As I leave, I see Santa is back, and I’d like to assure him I donated yesterday, but his look implies I’m going to the top of the naughty list. So I cough up all the loose change at the bottom of my purse (seventy-three cents).

December 23: Word is Furtive. I look it up and am delighted to discover it actually applies to me. During day two spent at the mall I appear to be avoiding notice or attention from any of the salespeople. But I’m determined not to leave without a gift for everyone on my list. Mission vaguely accomplished. I do, however, have to wait until a large family exits the mall, so I can go unseen in the middle of their throng. Big-time furtive. Because I have no cash left, I can’t risk being spotted by Santa.

December 24: Word is Tidings. Word should be Phew. I just made it. All price tags are removed; gifts wrapped tastefully; and ten miles of curling ribbon disposed of. Before I go to bed, I send e-cards to everyone I intended to snail-mail actual real-life Christmas cards to.

December 25:  Forget to look at the word.

December 26:  Word is Gratitude. And I have it.

Fictional Women Do Eat Quiche (If We Say So)

Kit James is a gourmet cook. Valerie Pankowski, not so much. She favors cereal for dinner, while Kit can rustle up a perfect frittata, even in a stranger’s kitchen with half the ingredients missing. We know all this because we made them do it.

Back in 2011, when Val and Kit were first introduced in The Disappearance of Mavis Woodstock, they were new to us. We four were still getting to know each other. We were creating two women, telling their story, making it up as we went along. By June 2012, when the girls appeared in The Murder of Susan Reed, we had become old friends, and we knew what we were dealing with, even though they gradually took on a life of their own. Obviously, we knew what Val and Kit were thinking and what they would say before they said it. And with the help of Word, and our two heads in the background writing and proofing, we continue to pull the strings on their lives, making sure they don’t repeat themselves, their hair color stays constant, and they arrive at a destination in the same outfit they put on that morning.

Getting to know Val and Kit has brought us such joy and so many laughs. They’re both fiftysomething and are shameless Starbucks-aholics. When serious thinking or recapping events is required, they’re often found at their favorite coffee shop downing lattes. Val is your everyday, salt-of-the-earth working gal. Money is often as tight as the clothes she’s trying to fit into. She lives in a tiny apartment, which she loves, even though it’s been compared at least once to a rabbit hutch.

  

Kit, on the other hand (like Val before her divorce), has no occupation and lives in a large, stylish house. Her long-suffering husband, Larry, has tried numerous times to curtail the outlandish schemes of his wife, but so far his attempts have been unsuccessful. She has a wardrobe of designer outfits, all ridiculously overpriced (in Val’s opinion), and they fit her slim frame perfectly. On any occasion, she turns up in the perfect ensemble, while Val spends a good deal of time digging through her closet, trying to come up with something that doesn’t need repairing and won’t bring on one of her dreaded hot attacks. While Kit seems to never be less than perfectly made-up, Val’s attempts at cosmetic enhancement generally fade an hour after being slapped on.

In Death in Door County, the girls embark on a trip to Wisconsin to visit Val’s mother, Jean, never a big fan of Kitty Kat. She blames Kit for every indiscretion her daughter has ever committed, and she’s probably correct. Kit is the alpha pal of the two; Val follows in her wake, often kicking and screaming.  

Creating our two protagonists has been pure delight. They have become real people to us, and judging by many of the kind reviews we’ve received, we think they are real to some of our readers too. In our daily, nonfictionalized, very real lives, we often find ourselves saying oh, that is totally something Kit would do or that’s exactly what Val would say.

Kit is courageous, blunt, and loyal to her pal. Val is kinder, softer, but also faithful. What binds the two is their love for each other. True friendship is a rare blessing; and we should know.