Code Three

Gabrielle came back through town on her Route 66 trip. My Chief, true to his word, gave them the 50 cent tour of the Headquarters fire station. We also took Gabrielle and Tamara on an engine ride. Since it never gets old to ride on a fire truck, I tagged along.

After a relatively quiet day at our station there was a 9-1-1 call for our engine while we were out on the ride. We were already close to the call location so it was decided we would go directly there. You know what that means right? We got to go sirens and lights to the site. Yeah bay-bee! You read that right. Sirens. Lights.

On any other ordinary day this would never happen. It was just one of those right place, right time things. I tell you Gabrielle and Tamara have some sort of karmic Midas touch. They have the most extraordinary luck. Believe me when I tell you, this was very unusual indeed.

Can you dig it? A fire engine ride with sirens and lights? Very cool. Of course once we arrived we had to depart the scene. Apparently a ride on an engine did not qualify us to actually put out the fire. Can you believe that? Sheesh!

Our crew, particularly the Engineer was aces and so sweet. They answered questions and put up with our schtick. I guess I should buy them a pizza or something. What do you think is an appropriate thank you for the guys? I'm sort of scratching my head over that one.

Oh and in case you are wondering, it was a relatively minor incident and no one was harmed or anything. But dude...was that cool or what?

A good day. A very good day.

There are days that we know in advance are gonna be good because a particular event is taking place. We look forward to those days. We plan, anticipate and celebrate accordingly.

Then there are days that are just sublime and splendid because something really terrific happens that was completely unexpected.

One of my favorite places to visit is a blog called A Diary of an Adult Runaway. Gabrielle is charming, often hilarious and is an Aussie transplant in Paris. You never know what she's going to share from one day to the next. I love her eclectic topics and adore the pictures of her travels. I'm a fan and frequent visitor to her site.

This morning before I left for work I cleaned up my emails, checked my Access Romance post and left to start my day. I receive my emails to my phone and often just clear them out until I get back home because I don't have time to read them at work. However, this morning I had to make a call for my boss and needed to use my personal phone. When I picked up my phone to make the call there was new email. One of which was from Gabrielle.

I knew from her blog she was going to be visiting the States and wanted to drive Route 66. I'd let her know months ago that I was on the route and hoped she stop by.

Yep, you guessed it. The email was to let me know that Gabrielle and her friend Tamera were driving through town today. After I finished my call for work I rang the number from the email and we were able to meet at a nearby Starbucks in the early afternoon.

What a blast! What did we talk about? Just about everything. Books of course. Tamera and I have many of the same books on our keeper shelves. Loveswepts. Remember those? Yeah, we'd all read and had our favorites. Dub-yah even came up in the conversation. The visit was all too short and we came no where near exhausting our conversation.

It may sound corny, but I marvel and rejoice in the connections and friends I've made the past three years blogging. This was just such a great and unexpected surprise. What a day. What a very good day.

All I can say is Wow! Oh and Gabrielle, if you come back through my Chief will have a fit if you don't take him up on his offer of a station tour and engine ride. He was serious.

Thinking Blogger

Wendy, bless her, tagged me with the thinking blogger award. I'm honored especially since many days I proof read my posts to find incomplete sentences and words with the last letter missing. Oh, I'm thinking alright, just not about what I'm doing. Always with the multi-tasking am I. You think I'd get a clue.

Anyway this is all part of an experiment. At least I think that's what it is. Go read this original post and you can decide exactly what's going on. My job is to pass on the rules to the blogs I am tagging.


The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote. (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).


Here are my five:

1. Web Petals - Author Marjorie Liu's blog. Lots of info about writing and pictures of her dogs too!


2. Post Secret

3. Diary of an adult runaway - Gabrielle Luthy's blog. An Aussie writing in Paris.


4. Samantha Winston - Sam is the busiest and most interesting woman whose life I spy on through her blog.

5. The Sandbox - This is a blog started by Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame. I've mentioned it before. It's a place where the military and their families can post. I don't read it daily any more because it can be depressing. But it's about real people and makes the war(s) real.

I haven't a clue if any of the sites I've named will respond because, damn those nuns, I'm trying to comply with the original post about blogs that make me think, so there you have it. Which by the way, if Wendy hadn't already been nominated, she'd be on my list. So would KarenS and Dear Author, already tapped of course. Love, love, love all around out here in Romancelandia.

The Joshua Tree

These pictures are for my pal and fellow cross stitcher, Gabrielle. The good digital camera is AWOL so I took these with my phone and they aren't the best quality.

This is the family tree I cross stitched in 1985 using a Joshua Tree for the family tree since we live in an area where they are a part of the landscape. It was a Christmas gift to my parents and when my Mom died in 2004 my Dad thought I should get it back. I have it hanging on a wall in my bedroom right now, but I don't know if it will be its permanent home. For another thing, there are alot more of us now and I don't have enough room to add everyone to it! But it is a precious reminder and I enjoyed every stitch...I kid you not. I was so excited to stitch something so personal and completely designed by me.

Fred Head that crazy guy in Texas

Gabrielle Luthy lives in Paris. She has a great blog that I read almost everyday. Recently she has written a couple of posts about Fred Head the guy in Texas running for State Controller who is villifying his opponent Susan Coombs because she wrote a romance novel. I'm not linking to Mr. Head's site because I refuse to give him any help, however oblique, by having us all link over there.

Anyway at the end of her post yesterday(October 16th) Gabrielle has this great video from You Tube. It's long...about 11 minutes, but funny in a scary "you've got to be kidding me!" way. If you have a sec...go check it out.