Dare I say I cannot wait for the end of November? That is not a popular statement in this household. Hubby is insistent - at high decibels - that I be a football fan at this time of year. Which is fine because I do enjoy watching football - but not when there's a lot of yelling and screaming and jumping up and down no matter what's going on on the field.

Today, for instance, it's Ohio State v. Michigan State. Michigan State is my hubby's adopted team because the California Golden Bears have been wavering between crap and mediocre for the past decade. With all of his energy focused on Michigan State, I am expected to drop everything, plant my butt on the sofa even if I don't want to, and yell and scream right along with him.

Unfortunately for him, yelling and screaming is not in my DNA. I don't like doing it. I don't like hearing it. All I want to do is go into a quiet place and watch the game between doing other things. Have it on in the background, in other words. When there's a good play I'll clap and cheer, but most of the time I sit watching in quiet interest.

It's the same with other sports. He yells and screams at hockey - November to June. He yells and screams at baseball, April to October. He yells and screams at college football, September to January. Pretty much all year long, really. One of those things that we don't agree on.

I've pointed out that the coaches and players can't hear him. We're in California and they're not. That doesn't matter. When I mention that little detail, he flaps his hand in dismissive manner and continues bursting my eardrums.

There will be a brief break in the action once the main football season ends and the bowl games are decided. In the early part of December there will be a few divisional championships, Big 10, Pac-12, SEC and so on, and he'll watch those. But that's not huge because he doesn't have any real favorite teams in most of those divisions. Just Michigan State and - HOORAY! They just won with a field goal as time expired!  Loud clapping but no yelling (at least from where I'm sitting). Now, I do hope they do well in their bowl game.

Still, I can't wait for the end of December. At least with hockey, we only have games on weeknights. Weekends aren't taken up with sitting and watching and yelling and screaming all day long. I swear, it starts at eight-thirty or whenever he gets up and turns on College Gameday, and continues all day long until the last game ends at nine o'clock or later that night. It's loud and tiring and tiresome.

Today I spent most of my day upstairs, writing. I watched the game on mute so I could at least yell happy things at appropriate times and commiserate at not so good times. That was determined, to keep him from bugging me to come down and watch the game with him.

Yes, he's my hubby and we should do things together, but it's painful. Because MIL and hubby are both hard of hearing, the TV is set to BLARE. I wear earplugs and am nagged not to, even though it has no effect on him. And there's the yelling.

Another reason I stayed upstairs is that I am determined to get 'In A Green & Shady Place' finished and ready to go by the end of January. It's coming along and I'm happier with it now that I've changed it up, making it a bit less pleasant for my MC and getting rid of the pure vanilla unicorn happiness.

The first thing I did today was write a blurb for it. A former Harper Collins editor will be opening up his blog for pitches next week. I don't know what he's looking for, how many words or what genres, but if he's looking for what I have, I have my blurb written.

In my experience, the blurb is about the hardest thing of anything to write. How to you distill the most interesting bits of the story into a form that's only a couple of hundred words, one that's 'hooky' enough to interest a potential reader? I've got a link to an editor's blog that addresses that question, and I think I've done it with my 'back of the book' summary. Now it's resting. Kind of like a roast after it comes out of the oven. Tomorrow I'll take another look at it and see if it's nice and juicy or if it needs some work.

Once I get 'Shady' finished, I'm planning on getting to work on 'Genevieve'.

My goal is that next year, once things on the home front change into what's next, I will have three or maybe four of my women's fiction books ready to go, along with my erotica series. I'll issue one per quarter to build momentum and readership, hoping to develop a following who will buy these books and others that come along and will provide some additional income for a few years, at least.

Those are my goals. Now it's up to me to make it happen, as much as I am able. With that said, I think I need to finish this up and get back to work.

Have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

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A Little Music and Quiet Happenings in a Quiet Life

May I suggest you play this marvelous piece in the background while you read this? It's not hip hop, rock, country or one of the typical genres. It's just a fantastic instrumental piece. And when you get there (if you get there), trust me - it's worth it. Besides, listen to one minute (it's a ten minute piece) and if you don't like it, turn it off. What have you got to lose?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdlWXlTAK8

Anyway, here we are at another Saturday and I’m whipped into submission by the week. Tired, even with the caffeine, and not quite sure which end is up.

It was a good week, a really good week, actually. No bad happenings on the roads. Got a lot of things going at work that will, I hope, open other doors. Of course, I’m still struggling with that stupid database.

See (no worries – I’ll be very short but I have to vent), I don’t want just the form that’s linked by the two tables to reflect the information. Doing that is a piece of cake but I want to be able to see a bunch of records all at once, and the table view is the best. Therefore, I want the ID I assign to the record and the associated field to show up in the other table so I know without a lot of hard thinking what I’m looking at. Then I can I enter all the pertinent information that explains why I want them there in the first place.

The problem is, I’ve tried everything the books say and it still doesn’t work. But, since that’s the only shadow on my week I’ll call it good and leave it.

I did get started on a new template form for another project and I think that’s going to make the folks for whom I’m doing it sit up and take notice. Just suggesting having over-writeable fields was exciting. Now, when we sit down next week and I can show them off… Yay, me!

Other than that, things muddled along. It felt like summer for two days but we’re back to spring today. Fog and cool, which I love. It feels good against my skin.

 Last night, getting home, I was less than pleasantly surprised to find that my husband had done a bunch of laundry and it was will hanging on the line. He doesn't work. He stays home and takes care of his elderly mother so it was a bit disconcerting to get home to a pile of laundry waiting to be folded.

You know what, though? It was actually a good transition. Folding laundry (unless it's a fitted sheet) isn't precisely rocket science. It was a pleasant evening - not hot with a soft breeze - and I had a perfect excuse to be out in it instead of inside fixing dinner, taking care of Sam, or doing some other must-do. Halfway through the process my husband showed up with a glass of wine.

I don't drink a lot - I prefer not to because I don't like the way it makes me feel, but I won't say no to a little. A bottle of beer or one glass of wine is almost always enough. So it was very welcome and added a nice touch to the peacefulness of being outside, doing a simple task in a lovely evening.

After getting the laundry off the line I sat down on the deck steps and relaxed - something I never do - and that was nice, too. I need to do that more often because it set up the rest of my evening in a good way.

By the time we finished dinner, the Giants had won their game against Philadelphia and there was nothing worth watching on TV, so we popped in a disk from the 'Odd Couple' series and watched a couple of episodes of that.

This morning we'll have Giants baseball (they're only 1/2 game back from the Dodgers!) and tonight Blackhawks v. Tampa Bay (Go 'hawks!).

The Warriors are playing in the NBA finals against the Cleveland(?) Cavaliers. I am not at all interested in basketball. I've never been able to get excited by it, but I do feel terrible for the Cavaliers who lost one of their key players to a fractured kneecap. Now that is one injury that makes me cringe just thinking about it! Just how does one fracture a kneecap? Never mind, I don't want to know. So he's out for three to four months.

Just quiet happenings in a quiet life around here. Nothing bold, nothing exciting, just being and getting from here to there.

I hope you enjoyed that piece of music - have a lovely day!

Best~

Philippa

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All Sorts of Stuff

I have not got the first foggiest idea what to write about this morning.  My writer's drought seems to have far reaching consequences, so I'm going to just set it on Existential Stream of Consciousness, and see where it takes me.

How about them Giants (baseball)? It's about time! They have come alive again after starting off the season in very bad fashion. In the first half of April they lost eight straight. In May they've won five in a row. Pretty cool!

A lot of it has to do with injuries.

Hunter Pence (right fielder) was hit by a pitch in Spring Training. It broke his arm, badly, and he's been on the Injured Reserve, since. He's back to taking batting practice and then they'll send him out to one of the minor clubs to play a number of games and rebuild his timing and swing. It'll be a couple of more weeks, at least, but it'll be good to see him back out there.

Jake Peavey, one of their starting pitchers, has been out with back spasms. He's coming along and should be available again soon.

Matt Cain who threw a 'perfect game' in 2013 had Tommy John surgery and surgery to remove bone spurs in his throwing arm toward the end of last season. He seemed to be doing well, throwing in Spring Training (even though he was complaining of discomfort). He started one game this season and... out. With a strained forearm.  After R&R he's finally starting to throw again, but it has been a long road to recovery. I just hope that they keep a closer eye on him, and that he stops if it starts to hurt. No sense ending your entire career chasing after one or two more starts.

Travis Ishikawa (first base), who hit the last home run that got them into the World Series last year, has had back problems, but he's in rehab and should be available again, soon.

Then, Angel Pagan who missed the end of last season because of back spasms that ended with surgery, had his hand stepped on by a leaping player night before last. He was sliding into second base when the guy leapt for a ball and came down, right on Pagan's finger. In a post-game interview, he said the nail is split. OUCH! My finger hurts, just thinking of that.

Casey McGehee (third base) is the Charlie Brown of baseball. He has been playing so badly, I actually feel sorry for him.

He was an off-season acquisition from the Miami Marlins to replace Pablo Sandoval who signed with the Boston Red Sox.  Unfortunately, his greatest ability seems to be hitting into double-plays. He has got the worst luck when it comes to doing that, and it's almost always inning ending because there seems to almost always be one out on the board already.

For weeks he flubbed more plays than he made - missing balls, dropping balls, missing throws. At home plate, with his remarkable ability to consistently hit into double plays, it was really ugly. So ugly I feel sorry for the poor guy. Recently though, in the past few games, he's started to look better. He's fielded more plays than he's flubbed, and he's managed to get some base hits.

At this point, with the injuries resolving and players getting ready to come back, I'm starting to pity Bruce Bochy (team manager)! He is going to have some major headaches once these guys are all fit and ready to go.

Justin Maxwell has been playing great right field all season so far. He has made some spectacular plays, and his been a clutch hitter, but when Hunter Pence is ready to go, what's Bochy going to do with him? Bench him? Send him back to the minors? Trade him? That's going to be a tough call, although it won't have to be made immediately. Pence is going to need time to get all the way back (even though the guy is a gym fanatic so is probably still in fantastic condition except for his arm).

Heston and Hudson, two starting pitchers that have stepped up in the absence of Cain and Peavey will likely be benched. I don't know if there is room on the roster to keep these guys in reserve, or if they'll be sent 'down'. Both of them have been pitching extremely well, going deep into their games and keeping their earned run averages low.

As for Charlie Brown, if McGehee doesn't get his act together, I could definitely see Bochy keeping Matt Duffy available to play third base.

He came up into the minors as a short stop - arguably the toughest position to play since you're all over the place. They've been using him as a utility infielder - putting him at third, at short, at first. He's been doing pretty well there at third, and he's been hitting well, so that might bode well for his future.

Still, the roster is going to be over-full and Bochy is going to have to make some tough decisions. I just hope they're the right decisions and the team can keep putting wins up on the board.

Turning to hockey, it is making things very hard this spring.

I want to watch baseball - the A's are doing about as well as the Giants - right around .500 so far this season. The difference is that the Giants appear to be on a meteoric climb from the cellar (last place in the National League West) into second place (behind the LA Dodgers). With their season turned around, hockey is back to second place but the Stanley Cup playoffs are really fun to watch, too.

Since I don't have control of the remote (my husband insists it is his Right), I'm just a passenger on a wild ride. Giants baseball... click... A's baseball... click... Chicago Blackhawks... click... Calgary Flame... click... baseball...hockey...hockey...baseball. It's almost a relief when the various games end so we can settle in one place!

Last night, the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Minnesota Wild 1-0, so they're up 3-0 in their seven game series. One more, and they're into the final round. The Wild played well and hard, but Chicago just seems to be unstoppable. The best man on their team, though, is their announcer. Mike Emerick. This guy could make grass growing seem exciting - he is great to listen to during the game, never seeming to miss a call and with a genuine love for hockey that exudes from the speakers.

Anaheim and Calgary are 2-1, respectively. Calgary came back last night and won their game - which was impressive because Anaheim is such a strong team. The Anaheim goalie wasn't happy about one of the calls made by the officials - I didn't see the play about, apparently, an Anaheim goal was denied because the officials couldn't determine if the puck had crossed the goal line completely. Since there was doubt, they waved it off. In the end, if it had been scored, Anaheim would have won the game 4-3 in regulation, instead of losing 3-4 in overtime.

Thank God we're not basketball fans, too!  The Golden State Warriors are doing well in their playoff series. They lost their first game in the playoffs last night, in round two, against the Memphis Grizzlies. So that series is tied 1-1. I hope they win the next two and advance into the finals, but I really won't be paying attention.

Go Giants!

Have a lovely day (and I promise - no more esoteric American sports! Unless I have another drought and have nothing better to write about).

Best~
Philippa

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