Goddess Market Meltdown

Today was the Goddess Market in Greensboro, and fellow author and friend Pam King Cable and I took our books, our author pens and our party decorations to Wayneck Medical Center. It had stormed during the night but the sun was out in blazing force as we manned our booth from 1-5.

With "Goddess Market" being the theme, the vendors were all asked to come in their best Goddess Attire. Since I have a humor book on cats (Lessons In Stalking) and Pam has a book of literary fiction on Southern Women (Southern Fried Women), we came ready with a Southern Woman/Cat theme. On our table were signs. On Pam's side the sign read, All Southern Women Are Goddesses. The sign on  my side of the table read, Call Yourself A Goddess, Cats Still Know They Rule.

As you can see, we had fun with masks. I switched to cat ears early on over the mask because it was sweltering hot. Pam resorted to pouring bottled water down her neck and we both lost a few pounds to sweat. All of which would have been worth it if we'd sold any books.

Don't get me wrong, we sold a few. But not enough to cover the vendor cost plus the cost of our supplies not to mention our time. Festivals are always a crap shoot. Sometimes you can sell a bunch of books, other times it's like a wake.

We had lots of people stop by. Lots of laughing and exclaiming at the cuteness of our covers, the cleverness of our books, and most would tell us a story about their cats before placing our books back down on the table and saying, "Well, you girls have a good day."

I told Pam one thing I've noticed about my cat humor book is that people who come to my table and say they own cats rarely buy the book for themselves. My best sales are to non-cat owning people who have cat lovers for friends. They know their friends are cat freaks, just like me, and will love anything with a cat on it.  THAT's my market.

Now I just have to figure out how to reach them.

England Diaries - Conclusion

I think it's about time to wrap this travel blog up and start writing again about the important things in life. Namely, my cats.

So. It's Tuesday, May 23rd and we've spent close to 7 hours hiking that day but it's still only 5 pm. We go back to the hotel to shower and decide to see a movie. The Da Vinci Code has just come out and is playing at the small little theatre in Keswick. The doors opened at twenty till 8 for the 8 o'clock showing and you paid at the snack counter for both your tickets and your snacks to the same kindly man who owned the place. On his advice, we shelled out the extra money for the balcony tickets. We also bought a large popcorn but--alas--English popcorn is sweet, not buttered. Less need for napkins, though.

The theatre was packed.  Some seats were reserved in advance and had 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper taped to them, marking them as such. The owner closed down the snack area and turned on the projector. After 15 minutes of straight commercials, no previews, the lights came back on. This was so everyone had a chance to buy ice-cream from the girl who had magically appeared in the balcony with a full tray of ice-cream. I'm telling you, it was like chow in the water.

So everyone is fed and the 8pm movie finally starts at 8:22. (Good movie, btw. Go see it).

The next day, Blair is sick. (This is the day I popped in on the blog to say hello to you all). He skipped breakfast and stayed in bed until 10:30 checkout. He rallied though, and pulled through it. We grabbed the train back to London  and just missed getting inside our hotel with all our luggage before the rain started.

The next day, Thursday, was our last in London. We went to Hamleys Toys where the staff is encouraged to play with as many toys as possible and which is MUCH fun.  Blair wanted to visit the Sherlock Holmes museum which explains the accompanying photo.  I was frankly sick of touring at this point and was being a big poop and refused to get in the picture and be Watson. Shame on me.

We hit Harrods, looking for gifts for people and as so often happens when it finally comes down to buy things, found absolutely nothing  we wanted.

Here's where the benevolence of the Universe comes into play. I was tired and grumpy and wanted to go back to the hotel and nap. We went to our room--and by this time it was 2 o'clock--and room service hadn't come yet. I was already not happy with the accommodations as they'd placed us in a corridor with construction going on. I called the front desk and they sent someone immediately to come clean. Not wanting to be in the way, we left.

Blair wanted to ride a double decker bus and coaxed me along, which I'm glad he did. We sat in the front row up top and it was fun. We got off at a stop and noticed a large crowd of people around The Theatre Royal Haymarket, advertising the Noel Coward play "Hayfever," starring Dame Judi Dench and Peter Bowles.  The play started in 30 minutes. "Want to go?" said Blair.

I love Judi Dench. "Yes," I answered. But when we went to buy tickets, only first row side balcony seats were left. "They're pretty bad," said the ticket seller. We bought them anyway and are so glad we did.  All it took was leaning forward on the rail for the entire play for us to have a PERFECT view of the play. Dench was right in front of us for several scenes.  We immensely enjoyed the play and it was just the icing on the cake for our trip.

We went back to the hotel and I was done. I was ready to pack and go home. Blair had seen a steakhouse he wanted to eat in near the theatre, so we picked up some groceries for me for dinner in the hotel room, and he walked back out to the theatre district for dinner.

Friday morning we left in pouring rain to walk to the Underground. We were hauling the luggage and so couldn't carry umbrellas, so we just had the hoods of our jackets pulled over us and got thoroughly drenched.  I'm an early airport arrival person and thank God I am--the lines were huge both to drop off luggage and for security.  We had left almost 2 hours early and only had 35 minutes to wait before we boarded our flight.

Once back state side, our flight from New Jersey to GSO was cancelled and we had a 4-hour delay. I was almost numb by that time and both of us felt sick by the time we got to GSO, just because we'd been up almost 22 hours at that point. SO happy to be home.

And thus ends the adventures of Dena and Blair in the UK. Thank you for your patience in sticking with me through this. One thing we did decide is that a 2-week trip is too long for us. Future trips will only be 8-9 days. 

And what was the first thing I did when I walked in my front door? That's a no-brainer.  Kissed and cuddled the girls, of course.

Ah yes, all is now back to normal. 

England Diaries - Part VII

We're in the Lake District in England, climbing Cats Bell. It rains something like 275 days a year in the Lake District but the day we've set aside to go hiking, we have sun. We're psyched.

We start the climb to the top of this tall peak. Except when we get to the top, we see another taller peak just up the trail. Fine. We climb that. Then--hey! There's another peak. We climb that. You can see how this went...it was us against the  mountain.  Care to guess who won?

At some point as we were climbing--oh, let's say the 3rd peak--it started misting. By the 4th peak it was a steady rain and by the time we reached the last peak (the last we were willing to climb, that is) it was windy enough to almost blow me over and there was hail.  

It was worth it for the view though. This photo isn't even all the way on top of the climb but given the hail, those photos are a bit dark so you get this one instead. 

We climbed down which was a heck of a lot harder than climbing up had been. Wet, slippery rocks. It was so steep at crumbly at some points that we just scooted down on our butts at some places.  And again--no warning or danger signs! Just nature.  It was great.

So we climb down and realize the whole climb up and back took under 2 hours.  Now what? I'll tell you now what. This is the part of the trip where my husband turned on me and took me on a forced 7-mile walk around the lake.  See the lake in the picture? That's what we circumvented.  And the picture doesn't begin to show the full scope of the lake. It was a very looong lake.

Things didn't get bad until the last mile or two. My feet were tired by then. And I never was convinced Blair actually knew where we were going. He told me "just a little further," about an hour and half before we came anywhere near the end of the trail, so I remained suspicious.

But the lake walk was some of the prettiest hiking we did. Once off Cats Bell, we came into full sun. We tied our jackets around our waist, snacked on nuts and just walked. Here are some pictures from our walk:

 

   

      

A Moment to Reflect

I don't blog much on the war in Iraq. Namely because I'm poorly informed, unsure what I think about a lot of it, and I like to keep this blog more lighthearted. However, my yoga instructor shared something with me the other week that has stuck in my mind. So much, that I've decided to share it here.

 

Her brother is career military--I want to say Army or Marines. He's on his third tour of duty in Iraq. She said he's been lucky that he hasn't had to shoot anyone, but he has been shot at several times.

 

The other week two of the men in this man's unit--friends--were in some big truck or Army vehicle and a grenade went off and they were quite literally blown up. The vehicle was still in tact though and my friend's brother had the job of cleaning up the truck.

 

Having to perform a task like that is beyond my comprehension. Can you imagine what that must be like? The smell? The look of it? Knowing what it is that you're wiping off the equipment? I told Blair the other night that I guess I could do it if I had to, but I don't know that I could do it and keep sane.  

 

I'm sure this is one of the "tamer" stories of what's going on in Iraq, but I haven't been able to shake the mental imagery from my mind. I don't have any family or friends or know anyone over in Iraq and the war is a bit distant for me.  It's good sometimes to be reminded of the sacrifices being made by others.