Of Very Big Trips and Refrigerators

(NOTE : For the very first time - and hopefully the last - I am posting the same blog the same month on two different blogs, It's not because of laziness - though the idea of such idleness is seductive - it's just that (1) it's a very good blog and (2) the events herein are so big and important to my personal and my writing life that I would have said the same things just with different wording... but that's hard work, so here it is. I hope you will understand and enjoy.)

by Janis Patterson

Well, we are back from our Very Big Trip, and a Very Big Trip it was, too. Two and a half weeks cruising the Nile from Cairo to Luxor. Our ship was modest but still luxurious and only for our group, the staff eager to please, the food 4 star delicious, the accommodations more than comfortable. We were met at the airport in Cairo and when the tour ended in Luxor flow back to Cairo on a chartered plane to begin our trips home. Our ‘shore excursions’ were spectacular; even though this is my seventh (and The Husband’s eighth) trip to Egypt, we saw things we had never seen before, such as the ruins of the Hawara Pyramid of King Amenemhat III and the gloriously painted images of the foreign dignitaries in the tombs of Beni Hassan. We were accorded the rare (and almost never granted) privilege of going down into the Sphynx precinct where we could stand between the paws (almost twice as tall as I) and touch the Dream Stela of Thutmosis III. This was The Husband’s and my second time in this carefully guarded area, as before we were married my darling friend Zahi Hawass had given us permission to explore. And of course we saw the must-sees of Karnak Temple, Deir el-Bahri, Amarna, Abydos and the Ramesseum. And more.

If you would like to know more about our incredible trip, you can go to my website (www.JanisPattersonMysteries.com) and subscribe to my newsletter, where I will write about it in more detail. Originally I intended to do just one newsletter about it, but it looks like it might become two, because my personal Trip Diary is now topping 40K words and even a truncated version will be most healthily-sized!

However... lest you think life is perfect, my life had problems. About ten days before our departure, our aged HVAC went out, for five days leaving us with no AC during the early September heat of Texas. Worse, my hot tub (a necessity for my arthritis-ridden body to exercise) died. Our similarly-aged refrigerator died. Even our landline phone needed work! We soldiered on, though - the HVAC was replaced, my wonderful hot tub man had it fixed, filled and ready for me to use when we returned, the phone was taken care of, and we had decided to leave the fridge problem for when we got back.

Then two days before departure Lufthansa cancelled our DFW/Frankfurt flight and switched us to United (meh - not my favorite airline) for DFW/Houston/Frankfurt. Well, okay... except the DFW/HOU flight was ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATE taking off, giving us just 26 minutes to get all the way across the Houston airport. We managed, though - barely - and made the HOU/FRA flight with four minutes to spare. Once we finally arrived in Cairo everything was fine.

Our return flight was not cancelled or rearranged (thankfully) but because of the screwy flight schedules we had a 14 hour layover in Frankfurt. For years and years I have insisted that Frankfurt airport is one of the seven circles of hell, and this trip just underscored my belief. Rather than book into the airport hotel, we decided to save the $250+ it would cost (saving it for our next trip in 18 months or so) and just find a comfortable customer lounge to wait in. Except we came in after midnight and landed in one of the most remote and unused terminals. The train connecting the terminals had stopped running, there were no food or drink kiosks and no customer lounges... just a small customs station which would take us out of the security area and miles of brightly lit marble halls. Oh, the AC was on full blast and it was both chilly and raining outside.

A kindly driver of one of the little electric trams in the terminal was off duty, but he volunteered to take us to an area several floors up where passengers and short-layover crews could sleep. Good on them if they could sleep there, because I barely managed a short nap. This was a hallway, a plain open hallway, with about 20-30 army-style cots. No pillows, no blankets, no nothing but a bunch of very uncomfortable cots. And no people. After the tram driver left we saw no one until after 6 am except a Japanese couple who appeared to be in the same fix we were. There was a restroom, though, some 50 yards and two hallways away. It was sort of like being in one of the grimmer Twilight Zone episodes.

Now it’s a funny story to tell. Then it was pure uncomfortable, teeth-chattering misery.

So how does this all relate to writing? It’s obvious - when you really really really want something in life (writing or anything else) you do whatever you have to do, endure whatever you have to endure in order to get it. This trip to Egypt was important to us, and whatever the gods flung at us we handled because that was the way to get what we wanted. And it was worth it. If you want to write, you must write, no matter what life throws at you. Only you can decide if your writing is a hobby you dabble in when the conditions are perfect or if it is a career where you forge on through in spite of everything. Your choice.

By the way, The Husband bought me a refurbed MacBookAir to take on this trip mainly so I could keep a comprehensive trip diary to share with my readers. I wasn’t going to write a book; I was going to take a rest, as I don’t have any contracts until January. I don’t have to tell you what happened, do I? And I’m already 8K words into a new story about a murder on a Nile cruise ship...

A final word about the refrigerator. The day after we returned we went shopping, not illogically expecting to have a new refrigerator within a couple of days. My kitchen is very bright and light, so of course I wanted a white refrigerator. We were shocked to find that all the off-the-floor ones with the features we wanted (French door, bottom freezer, ice and water in the door) are available only in stainless steel or rarely in black. Well, that’s fine for those who don’t mind looking like they live in a laboratory or a morgue, but I wanted white. Finally after a day of searching we found a place that agreed to special order a white one for us. White - a special order! (And at a cost roughly twice that of my first car!) Who would have thunk it? As you’ve probably guessed, I will do what is necessary to get what I really want, so we’ll have our new refrigerator in three weeks. I hope.

The next three weeks are going to be interesting.

The Perils of Having a Writing Wife

by Janis Patterson

I married late, well after my writing career was started, so The Husband knew exactly what he was getting. Sort of.

A down-to-earth and sublimely practical man of science well into a long and honorable military career, he knew I was a writer of fiction. He also knew that writers were thought to be eccentric. He just didn’t know how much.

Luckily he is a courageous and adaptable man, for as our marriage progressed, he learned more than I think he ever wanted to know about the unknown side of writing.

For example, he will leave in the morning after kissing a pajama-clad me in my office, already sitting eye-to-eye with the computer. He will come home some eight or nine hours later to find a pajama-clad me in my office, exhausted and emotional, sitting eye-to-eye with the computer. The laundry is undone, the bed unmade, dinner is a frozen lump still in the freezer, and I will look up in surprise, asking if he didn’t leave just a little while ago.

He has gotten used to me murmuring the name of my hero (or villain) in my sleep without wondering about the possibility of infidelity.

He has finally learned to accept that when I am asked what I do, I smile sweetly, give the questioner my best grandmotherly twinkle and say in soft, mellifluous tones, “I kill people.”

He no longer becomes alarmed when he finds books on poisons larded among my cookbooks.

He has become accustomed to my handing out business cards (with my websites only – no phone or address) prodigiously and has even learned to carry a few of them in his wallet. Apparently being married to a multi-published novelist carries a certain cachet.

I’m glad, because on retrospect I’m not sure writing is a lifestyle I would have chosen. I believe that almost anyone can write, given enough time, training and work, but that writers cannot help but write – it is an inescapable part of them, like some sort of birth defect. He has learned that when I stop in mid-word, my face goes blank and my eyes focus on some distant point that I am not having a fit, merely an idea. This is usually followed by a frantic scribbling on anything around, from a cocktail napkin to the back of my hand. He realized early on that I carried enormous purses not for make-up or other feminine junk, but to accommodate my tiny notebook computer, which he called my ‘purse computer.’ Now that my uncertain back has put paid to large purses, he never sees me without a pen and scratch pad – and usually a few choice (and unacceptable) words, because I loathe having to handwrite anything.

Unfortunately, the creation of worlds and populations on little more than caffeine and imagination can be an unsettling process for a non-writer. Currently I am working on a book set in contemporary Egypt – yes, yet another one. One of the side effects is a profusion of photographs of obscure archaeological sites blooming all over my office. Another is that our dinner menu has suddenly leaned heavily towards kushari, kibbe, hummus and tabouli. Luckily The Husband is as big an Egyptophile as I (doesn’t everyone know by now that he proposed to me in Egypt?) and he takes this with equanimity.

I’m not always that lucky. While writing Dark Music before my marriage, I lived in an apartment. The hero was a concert pianist who specialized in Chopin. I played Chopin almost 24/7 for the three months it took to write the novel. Though I tried to be quiet and respectful, before long my neighbors were begging to know when I would finish the book.

When I was writing The Hollow House, a cozy mystery set in 1919, I pestered The Husband about WWI and suitable firearms. Being something of a WWI/WWII historian, he happily complied.

He was less happy when, at a very crowded local gun show, we saw an automatic M96 Mauser Pistol Rifle, the firearm I had decided on for my villain to use. It’s a very distinctive and rather rare piece. I pointed it out gleefully and said to The Husband, “Look, darling, isn’t that what I used to kill Jake?” The gun show might have been packed, but suddenly there wasn’t a single person within arm’s length of me for a long time.

Due to several ancient accidents, I sometimes have a slight limp, especially when I’m tired. In Exercise is Murder, the heroine has a severe limp, though hers was caused much more dramatically by a bullet wound. As my tattered and beloved sweatshirt says, “It’s All Research.” The Husband has become accustomed to my asking all kinds of sometimes bizarre questions wherever we go.

I’d like to say I’m strong-minded enough to keep control of my characters, to keep them on the page instead of letting them seep into my life, but I’m not. As every character, good and bad, shares at least a few aspects of its creator, so does the creator reflect – at least temporarily – a modicum of the character. We create our characters from the inside out, and I believe Loucard’s Principle, that when two things touch, there is inevitable transfer from each to the other, however small. 

I realized that The Husband has not only learned but accepted this, for when I am in full damn-the-torpedoes-and-write-mode, so submerged in the story that I never get out of my pajamas and we survive on take-out suppers, he has developed the habit of peering around my office door and asking, “And who are we today?”

Maybe he’s lucky. He remains faithful, but still gets to live with a wide variety of women, all in one package.  He married a writer.

Of Work, Word Counts and Conferences

by Janis Patterson

I love writing blogs.

I hate writing blogs.

It's great fun to be able to spout my thoughts, share tidbits of information, give some writing hints... just in general communicate with other word people.

Maybe it isn't blogs giving me the trouble, it's the schedule. I do not do well with schedules. I know the schedules are set months sometimes years in advance, but that's no excuse, at least not for me.

The only bad thing is that LIFE always seems to get in the way. I have some health problems. We travel. In truth, we just got back from a trip to Alexandria VA for the international conference of the American Research Center in Egypt - which was fascinating! Also spent a loooong day at Arlington National Cemetery, where

we saw the magnificent Confederate monument (and lots of others). What I don't understand is why the national cemetery of the United States reveres, maintains and protects a Confederate monument while in Dallas the anti-history vandals are salivating in their desire to destroy the local Confederate monuments. It's not logical. But then vandals are seldom logical.

The next day we went into DC and saw the Egyptian Queens exhibit at National Geographic. It was a good exhibit, though a little bit too much Egyptology 101 for my admittedly snobbish academic tastes. The last exhibit, though, made up for everything - including the rather nasty case of food poisoning I picked up a little later in the day. It was a black granite statue, about two feet tall, and is one of the few known representations of Cleopatra VII (THE  Cleopatra we all know). It's been around for a while, but no one ever realized who it was supposed to be - the statue was regarded just as 'an Egyptian queen' for many years, until some astute person realized that it had Cleopatra VII's unique triple uraeus - the rearing cobra that all pharaohs wore on their forehead. If the statue is accurate, Cleopatra was a very nice looking woman - not anywhere near the stunning beauty she was reputed to have been, but still very nice looking.

Then there was the conference. Three days of listening to multiple papers on just about every facet of Egyptology and current digs, to say nothing of seeing many dear friends whom we can only visit with once a year. And a couple of really neat parties. I really enjoy digging out the sequins and beads once a year, especially since my usual attire is either sweats or shorts. Small wonder that blogs and schedules drift out to the periphery of my consciousness. Even my daily word count on the current WIP - normally sacrosanct - went out of my mind and were totally ignored, even though the deadline is looming uncomfortably close.

Oh, I've got lots of time - I say. I can do that tomorrow - I say. No problem - I say. That's a week away - I say. Plenty of time - I say.

I lie.

Unfortunately, I'm the same way on deadlines, replying to party invitations, whatever... There's always something that needs to be done NOW and I can always put off doing something about whatever is coming up later... I'll get to it, I know.

And you know what's crazy? I always do.

Letting Go

by Janis Patterson

It’s been said before, but writing and launching a book is uncomfortably like having a baby. There is a considerable gestational period, followed by a protracted and unexpectedly painful effort to bring it into being. Then there are the anxious checks to make sure it is perfect followed by the seemingly never-ending concentration and work to do your best to set it up right in the world.

About all the author misses is the diapers. I guess there are some things to be thankful for.

And it doesn’t get any easier with subsequent books. Each is an individual effort and each must be handled in the way best for them. One thing is true for all books - and babies, for that matter - each is a heck of a lot of work.

I know whereof I speak. In 2014 I released (all re-releases except for one) a book every two weeks from 1 June to 31 October. Madness. In 2015 I wrote four books, but only released two. (Hey, I had an excuse - due to various business reasons The Husband and I were gone for what seems like half the year.)

One of those trips was to Egypt, where we were invited to come stay at the excavation headquarters for an archaeological dig. The director – a dear personal friend - had long suggested that I might want to set a book in that fantastic house. And fantastic it was - terraced, domed, set high above the Nile – built in 1906 by an English Egyptologist named Somers Clarke. So, after our stay there and a lazy holiday in Luxor, we returned home and I started to work on A KILLING AT EL KAB.

They say you aren’t supposed to have favorites among your children, and I guess that’s true, but it’s not possible with books. This one is special to me - not just because it’s a cracking good story, which it is - but because it brings back so many special memories.

Now it’s just about time for it to go out in the world. I’ve agonized over the edits and rewrites, and driven my cover artist (the inimitable Dawn Charles of Bookgraphics) and formatter (the superb Rik Hall) half mad with my pickiness. I’ve sweated over the metadata and keywords, both of which I regard as toys of the devil. I’ve decided on 15 March as the formal release date - assuming that the proofs for the paperback edition arrive by that date - as that will make it a year since we departed for Egypt.

And so my book - this very special book - is waiting offstage to go out into the world and try its wings. Please be nice to A KILLING AT EL KAB. You see, it’s my baby.

Slavery to the Technology Gods

by Janis Patterson

I have been forced to cave. Again. You all know that I am not only a techno-naif, but a techno-phobe. I wrote my first books on a 1939 Smith-Corona portable typewriter. It was manual made completely of metal and came in a case made of ¼  inch plywood. The whole thing was heavy enough to make a dandy anchor and the only reason it was called it a portable was because it was smaller and lighter and easier to move than the elephantine office models. By the way, I still own it and always will. It was my father’s in his youth, and he gave it to me the summer before I entered the fourth grade. I treasure it.

As dependable as the old portable is, however, computers are so much easier. Or at least, they’re supposed to be. Don’t get me started on the continuous “upgrades” and “improvements” that have been made. (Said in full sarcasm mode.) I don’t see why – when my work method (putting one word after another and then saving the whole) has not changed appreciably since the days of the old SC manual – every few years I should be forced to lay out a lot of money and then spend time learning a lot of things I don’t need to know simply because Gates et al want to force everyone in to giving them a few more millions. If the techies want all those new frills and fol-de-rals, fine; let them have them, but they shouldn't pull support from other systems preferred by many. To do so is nothing but greed in its purest and most hateful form. In my opinion Word 2003 was the optimal word processing system. All the commands were on one row and of a size that one could see without squinting, the design was crisp and no-nonsense and easy to use, so naturally it could not be allowed to stay.

Of course I realize I am the oddest creature, and probably a thorn (I hope!) in the side of computer designers. Just because I pay for something and I am the one to use it, I feel I should have it set up the way I want. I should not be constantly subjected to the whims of some tech-crazy designer who changes and “improves” (sarcasm mode back on in full spate) something just because he can – and can not only charge for it, but force us to accept and pay for it.

I’ve written about how my beloved 15 year old Dell finally had to be replaced – it was on the now-unsupported XP operating system, which was made unsafe to use on the ‘net. As a lot of my work is done on the ‘net, I couldn’t put my work computer at risk, so I found (at a price I could actually afford!) an almost new 17” Gateway through the good offices of a friend. It was a love/hate relationship from the beginning, with the emphasis on ‘hate’. It had Windows 7 and Word 2010, both systems that have complicated things to a ridiculous degree. What took two clicks to accomplish in 03 now take seven or eight. The designs are fussy, the procedures arcane, the negotiations around ‘networking’ ridiculous. ‘Networking’? What part of “personal” computer don’t they understand? Still I was glad not to have to deal with the much-maligned Windows 8, which I understood to be hideously complicated and more like a cell phone than a computer. I prayed never to have anything to do with such an unnecessary design.

Until we went to Egypt two months ago. As this was a working trip, I bit the bullet and took along my computer. My 17” laptop computer. I had a smaller ‘purse’ computer, but it was 5 years old, had no virus protection and was starting to act wonky. Besides, I didn’t know what off my computer I would need. (Turned out to be nothing, but that’s with my 20/20 hindsight.) The purse computer weighed just a little over a pound less than the big one, too, and I thought I could manage everything quite easily.

I did manage everything… but not easily. Despite the best and very physical efforts of Lufthansa airlines to force me to put my computer and cameras in the luggage compartment for the flight from Hell I never let them out of my hands, and that did terrible things to my shoulder and already problematic back, causing problems that persist to this day. (They are getting better, though – just not fast enough for me!)

So, when I saw a tablet on sale that I could afford, I caved and bought it. It’s an ASUS, comes with its own keyboard which makes a case when closed and the screen part can be removed to make a traditional tablet. It also comes with Windows 8.1 – which is just as ugly and uselessly trendy as I had feared – and I’m terrified of it. I spent most of yesterday with my sainted software man at our local computer store as he set it up in the way I prefer and drilled the basics of use into me.

The little tablet with keyboard weighs less than two pounds, and will fit into most of my purses, to say nothing of my traveling ‘office’ backpack. For that alone I will love it. I still fear what will happen when it is deliberately made obsolete and once again I and everyone else will have to pay for “new and improved” technology we neither need nor want. 

The Research Trip to End All Research Trips

by Janis Patterson

It has often been said that research is the bane of a writer’s life. Not only must it be done and done well unless the writer wants to appear as an ignoramus to his readers, but to most writers it is a delicious time sink. One fact leads to another one to another one and so on and before you know it you’re on an entirely different subject and a whole day is gone – enjoyably spent, but still spent.

I personally love research, and just not when it takes me all over the world. Yes, the world. If you know me at all you know I love Ancient Egypt. While writing THE EGYPTIAN FILE (a romantic adventure done by my Janis Susan May persona) I received lots of help from Egyptophiles all over the world, including an ex-pat Brit who rents flats in Luxor and the director of an archaeological dig. We became friends, to the extent that the dig director (Muddir in Arabic) invited The Husband and me to come stay at the dig house during the next season to research a new idea that was boiling in my brain.

Civilians are never invited to stay at dig houses, so of course we said yes, practically before the pixels were dry on his invitation. And, because it seemed foolish to go all the way to Egypt just for a few days, so we decided to tack on a couple of weeks and make a real holiday of it. We hadn’t been to Egypt since 2010 and had been planning to go again in 2016, so adjusting our plans was easy.

We didn’t know until just a couple of weeks before we were to leave if the dig house stay would come off – we had to be given written permissions from two separate branches of the Egyptian government (The Antiquities Commission in Cairo and the Aswan Governate) and had to coordinate our time at the dig between other visitors, such as other archaeologists coming to study and the BBC, who was shooting a documentary.

However, like all good fairy tales, everything fell together perfectly. Our permissions came through easily and we were off. Unfortunately, we flew Lufthansa, which is rapidly becoming my most hated airline, but everything else was a charm. We rented a West Bank flat from the fantastic Jane Akshar – who had so generously acted as my researcher-on-site for THE EGYPTIAN FILE when it had become obvious that we wouldn’t be able to make it to Egypt for that book. The flat was fantastic – 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, lounge, dining room, kitchen and balcony, and oh what a balcony! It overlooked the Gurnah hills. With the telephoto lens on the camera (forgot binoculars, darn it!) we could see Deir el Bahri, the temple of Hatshepsut. Every morning I woke just at dawn, made a cup of tea and sat on the balcony watching the sunlight dribble down the hills as the hot-air balloon flights went up.

We also got to go to our hostess’ birthday party, where we were entertained by a 14^th century Sufi dance, a fantastic display (most definitely not the everyday Whirling Dervishes) that none of the guests (all of whom were Luxor residents save us) had ever seen. I will remember that all my life. Since we were not on a tour (I hate the “on-the-bus-off-the-bus-you-have-30-minutes-to-see-whatever” kind of thing) we were free to do what we wanted. We spent two entire days at Karnak temple and didn’t cover all of it. We didn’t visit things that most tourists do – the Valley of the Kings, for example, or Medinet Habu. We’ve done those several times before. We preferred to see less well known things. Also, we remembered that this was a vacation as well as a holiday and spent a lot of time relaxing. I took my computer so we could both keep up with email – internet access came with the flat. And, believe it or not, the flat with all its space and luxuries, was roughly the same cost per day as a plain room in a mid-star hotel.

I even got the first few chapters of the new book roughed in. Want to know about it? It’s a cozy mystery, written by my Janis Patterson persona, and will be called A KILLING AT EL KAB in a unique mix of fiction and fact. If all goes as planned it should be in publication this fall. When I was roughing out the story at the dig house all the archaeologists were fascinated, wondering who would be killed and speculating with what. Actually, they had some pretty good suggestions, some of which will be incorporated into the book.

Now I have read incredible scholarly articles by these people. They all have practically an alphabet soup of degrees after their names. I was in total awe of all of them. The afternoon of the first day I had an idea on how to start the book, so I hauled out my computer, put it on the dining table and started to write. Suddenly I noticed that everyone was very active suddenly, walking behind me quite slowly, craning their necks so they could see what I was doing without really appearing to snoop. I even heard one whisper to the other in tones of awe, “She’s writing a novel while we watch!”

Wow. Just wow.

I even broke my cardinal rule of never letting anyone see anything of a work in progress and offered to let anyone who was interested read the first chapter – as long as they understood that it was raw copy just as it fell from my fingertips. About half of them did, and were most lavish in their praise. I’ve never been treated like a rock star before, and probably never will be again, but it was nice. Very nice.

Yes, research can be fun.

And there’s one thing more I must add. When I said that we were going to Egypt, some reactions just stunned me. The general consensus was fear, predicting that we would be hacked to death with scimitars the moment we stepped off the plane. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Egypt was just Egypt – lovely and calm and welcoming. The lack of tourism due to unwonted international hysteria is worrying, because those in the tourist industry are suffering, but there was no sense of danger or urgency or anything. The Egyptian people love Americans and are all warm and friendly.

Another thing that astonished me was I wrote a friend an email and almost instantly received back a surprised reply “I didn’t know they had the internet in Egypt.” It had never occurred to me that they wouldn’t! Live and learn, I suppose.

We’re already hoping to go back next year.

It's Christmas. Again.

by Janis Patterson

Remember when we were children and it seemed that geologic ages crept past between one Christmas and the next? Now it seems that the pine needles from one holiday season are barely swept away before another Christmas is barreling toward us.

This year I’m soft-pedaling the holiday. We have no small ones at home (save for the furbabies, who really don’t care) and all our family get-togethers are at other people’s houses this year. Yea! I don’t have to decorate. Or even dust.

It’s not that I don’t have the Christmas spirit – I’m just tired. A publishing blitz of ten books in four and a half months, four new books written, freelancing and regular blogs, plus the normal things like family, friends, the day to day things of laundry and cooking and the rest… it gets exhausting. Add on Christmas shopping and wrapping and parties and it gets even worse. Plus I’m getting older. (I will have to admit that I have reached the cereal years – every time I move it’s snap! crackle! pop!) Somehow putting up wreaths and crèches and garlands and animated lawn ornaments – though they are beautiful – doesn’t really excite me this year.

The Husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I didn’t have a clue. I mean, there are the things we can’t do anything about, like world peace and more sales (lots and lots, please!) of my books (Please, Santa – I would like to earn back at least the costs of publishing) and for Microsoft to quit making us change every few months to new programs that are both unnecessary and overly complicated. Then there are the things I really want but we can’t afford, like a new Herman Miller Aeron office chair (which costs about the same amount as my first car) or an office/workroom built above the garage. We already have everything we need, and a lot of things we want, so this year we have agreed that while there will be a few little trinket packages for Christmas morning, our main presents this year will be our trips. We are planning a lot of trips in the new year – the FRW cruise conference in February, perhaps a trip to Egypt in March, a sometime trip to Vegas we won, NINC in October and Denver in June…

Oh, have I told you about that? The Historical Novel Society is a prestigious international association which is holding its conference in the US this year – in Denver in June, to be exact. And…. (drum roll) I have been invited to appear on a panel on “Egyptology and Elizabeth Peters.” You all know what Egyptomanes The Husband and I are, and Barbara (Mertz, aka Barbara Michaels and Elizabeth Peters) was a friend. That invitation is truly a memorable gift.

While I love Christmas presents and parties and decorations, none of those are the true meaning of Christmas. There are those who can talk with much more eloquence than I about love, and faith, and grace, and all the other real things that Christmas means. Beside such cosmic truths poinsettias and reindeer and all the rest fade into insignificance.

So – this year I am going to try to be a better person, and keep the true meaning of Christmas in the forefront of my thoughts. I will be kinder and try to be a truly better person. I will try to treasure the things that really matter – family, friends, love, beauty and all the rest.

In one thing, however, I will remain the rebel – in gleeful defiance of the cleric Abu Musaab Wajdi Akkari (the one who said that wishing someone Merry Christmas is “worse than fornication, and drinking alcohol, and killing someone”) I will proclaim at the top of my voice “Merry Christmas to all!”