I've been busy.
(Shuffles feet, looks down.)
Seriously, though, I have been working. I've finished the fourth Patty O'Donnell book, which is now in the hands of my publisher, and I've been doing a lot of research for the next one. No idea when book 4 will be published, yet. That one's set in Arizona. Book 5 will be set in Ireland.
There have been reading breaks in there. The next post should include more about what I've been reading for pleasure.
'til next time~~~
3/19/2016
5/28/2015
Patty O'Donnell country
When I decide to post, I guess I post a lot.
Remember, click on a picture if you want to see a bigger image.
Patty O'Donnell, my series character, grew up on a ranch in the east central part of Arizona. The area is north of the towns of Springerville and Eagar, sister communities that lie at a point where the highway heads up into the White Mountains. Patty's family heads into Springerville when they want something they can't get in North Fork, the fictional town they call home.
Springerville city limits. We noticed that towns in this part seem to incorporate a lot of area where no one is actually living.
Springerville is in the Round Valley, a nice green area where Basque shepherds watched their flocks in the second half of the 1800s. If I'm remembering correctly, they get a lot of runoff from the mountains.
North of the Round Valley is a vast area called the Springerville Volcanic Field.
This is an area of wide pastures
and volcanic domes,
and it's difficult to get a feel for the scale of the place from photographs. Trust me when I say it's awe-inspiring. For a sense of perspective, though, here's this...
If you click on it and look at a bigger version, you can see how tiny the road gets, and how big the dome ahead is, farther beyond it. We saw some domes with dark scars on them. Apparently some people mine them for cinders.
There are just over 400 domes in the Springerville Volcanic Field. Yes, someone actually counted them.
Some pastures have areas that look as if a vast herd of cattle all decided to take a dump in the same place.
These are, in fact, basalt outcroppings. On some ranches, these are fenced off, and on others they aren't. One wonders what this does to cows' hooves.
Scientists used to believe that the Springerville Volcanic Field was millions of years old, and that the volcanoes were extinct. More recently, they understand that the field ranges from 300,000 to 800,000 years old, and that there's a reasonable chance that it might erupt again. The youngest parts support grassland and a few shrubs.
The older parts support grass, more shrubs, and some trees.
The ranch Patty's family runs is on both types of land.
This area's elevation is in the 6,000-7,000 foot range, and has a climate that is milder than you might expect for Arizona, with summer highs averaging in the 80s, and lows averaging in the 50s. They can get snow in the winter. It is quite arid during the dry seasons. It had not been long in the monsoon season when we were there, so things hadn't greened up much.
I'm switching the comments back on, but if all I get is spam, they'll go back on moderation. Just don't have time to clean the comments out on a daily basis.
Remember, click on a picture if you want to see a bigger image.
Patty O'Donnell, my series character, grew up on a ranch in the east central part of Arizona. The area is north of the towns of Springerville and Eagar, sister communities that lie at a point where the highway heads up into the White Mountains. Patty's family heads into Springerville when they want something they can't get in North Fork, the fictional town they call home.
Springerville city limits. We noticed that towns in this part seem to incorporate a lot of area where no one is actually living.
Springerville is in the Round Valley, a nice green area where Basque shepherds watched their flocks in the second half of the 1800s. If I'm remembering correctly, they get a lot of runoff from the mountains.
North of the Round Valley is a vast area called the Springerville Volcanic Field.
This is an area of wide pastures
and volcanic domes,
and it's difficult to get a feel for the scale of the place from photographs. Trust me when I say it's awe-inspiring. For a sense of perspective, though, here's this...
If you click on it and look at a bigger version, you can see how tiny the road gets, and how big the dome ahead is, farther beyond it. We saw some domes with dark scars on them. Apparently some people mine them for cinders.
There are just over 400 domes in the Springerville Volcanic Field. Yes, someone actually counted them.
Some pastures have areas that look as if a vast herd of cattle all decided to take a dump in the same place.
These are, in fact, basalt outcroppings. On some ranches, these are fenced off, and on others they aren't. One wonders what this does to cows' hooves.
Scientists used to believe that the Springerville Volcanic Field was millions of years old, and that the volcanoes were extinct. More recently, they understand that the field ranges from 300,000 to 800,000 years old, and that there's a reasonable chance that it might erupt again. The youngest parts support grassland and a few shrubs.
The older parts support grass, more shrubs, and some trees.
The ranch Patty's family runs is on both types of land.
This area's elevation is in the 6,000-7,000 foot range, and has a climate that is milder than you might expect for Arizona, with summer highs averaging in the 80s, and lows averaging in the 50s. They can get snow in the winter. It is quite arid during the dry seasons. It had not been long in the monsoon season when we were there, so things hadn't greened up much.
I'm switching the comments back on, but if all I get is spam, they'll go back on moderation. Just don't have time to clean the comments out on a daily basis.
Fun in Arizona part 2
So, on with the vacation...
In checking through the guidebooks, we noticed that Fort Apache was not far from where we were staying. Naturally, it was a spot my husband was interested in visiting, so off we went.
There are a number of old buildings from the old fort, along with a Visitor's Center and Museum, and a school for the local tribes.
This was an original building, the Adjutant's Office, which is now a post office.
This is the school. There are also boys and girls dorms, the home lived in by an early commanding officer, the remains of the barracks, and a number of other buildings, many of which were later additions. Of course, by this time, the fort no longer has its protective walls. An interesting visit.
After the 4th, the campground cleared out pretty quickly, and for the rest of our time there, there were probably at most 10 sites that were in use. Of course, part of the time, the lower camping loop was out of use because of a big water leak in the line. Only a few stalwarts in RVs stayed there, due to the fact that they had to haul in water if they wanted it.
There was a walking trail near the lake that we went on one morning, before it got too hot. Nice views of Lake Lymon.
We also had some other campers in our site. It was fun watching them at work.
Sunrise came early, and was beautiful.
One thing that we noticed a couple of times when we came back from playing tourist elsewhere was that some of our tent stakes were up out of the ground. We weren't sure what was going on with that, if some of the other campers' kids were doing it for fun, or what. We ended up staking those lines down by tying the cords around some big rocks.
On our last afternoon there, we'd decided to spend time at the campsite to get a little rest before traveling home the next day. It was unusually hot even for there, and we eventually retreated to the tent to try to nap. It was monsoon season, and there were clouds building up around us, promising to bring the temperatures down to a more reasonable level. (Monsoon simply means 'seasonal'. It doesn't specifically denote to torrential rains they get in India and elsewhere.) The rain finally started, a light sprinkle, then a little heavier. And a bit heavier. And then the straight-line winds hit. With us inside the tent. I'm not sure how long they lasted, but I'm really, really glad that we'd staked out the tent on the side the winds were coming from with really big rocks. Otherwise, we and everything in the tent would have gone rolling off down the hill and across the campground, ending up no telling where. The wind was so strong that it was blowing rain up under the tent fly into the tent, and through the gap where the zipper pull met the other zipper pull on the back window. After that, we knew how the tent stakes had gotten pulled up before.
Our last night there, a bunch of people showed up in the campsite across the one-way road from our site. Some arrived early to set up, others arrived later in the afternoon. The campground rules were that there was supposed to be quiet time past 10 pm and before 7 am. These people chose to ignore that, and were extremely loud until nearly midnight. They also chose to ignore the fact that there were young children in nearby sites and loaded their very loud speech with a lot of curse words. The next morning, when their next nearest neighbors were packing up to leave, which happened somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30, that family and their kids made a lot of noise, slamming and banging things as they packed all their stuff back into their RV. We were already up and packing ourselves, and felt like applauding them.
On the trip to and from Arizona, we noticed a lot of these.
You might have to click to get a bigger image on that one. There were miles and miles of these, many thousand individual wind turbines, in Texas, and some in Oklahoma. I've seen one or two locally, but never on this scale. I guess that's what a wind farm is.
In my next post, I'll tell you something about the area where Patty's family lives.
In checking through the guidebooks, we noticed that Fort Apache was not far from where we were staying. Naturally, it was a spot my husband was interested in visiting, so off we went.
There are a number of old buildings from the old fort, along with a Visitor's Center and Museum, and a school for the local tribes.
This was an original building, the Adjutant's Office, which is now a post office.
This is the school. There are also boys and girls dorms, the home lived in by an early commanding officer, the remains of the barracks, and a number of other buildings, many of which were later additions. Of course, by this time, the fort no longer has its protective walls. An interesting visit.
After the 4th, the campground cleared out pretty quickly, and for the rest of our time there, there were probably at most 10 sites that were in use. Of course, part of the time, the lower camping loop was out of use because of a big water leak in the line. Only a few stalwarts in RVs stayed there, due to the fact that they had to haul in water if they wanted it.
There was a walking trail near the lake that we went on one morning, before it got too hot. Nice views of Lake Lymon.
We also had some other campers in our site. It was fun watching them at work.
Sunrise came early, and was beautiful.
One thing that we noticed a couple of times when we came back from playing tourist elsewhere was that some of our tent stakes were up out of the ground. We weren't sure what was going on with that, if some of the other campers' kids were doing it for fun, or what. We ended up staking those lines down by tying the cords around some big rocks.
On our last afternoon there, we'd decided to spend time at the campsite to get a little rest before traveling home the next day. It was unusually hot even for there, and we eventually retreated to the tent to try to nap. It was monsoon season, and there were clouds building up around us, promising to bring the temperatures down to a more reasonable level. (Monsoon simply means 'seasonal'. It doesn't specifically denote to torrential rains they get in India and elsewhere.) The rain finally started, a light sprinkle, then a little heavier. And a bit heavier. And then the straight-line winds hit. With us inside the tent. I'm not sure how long they lasted, but I'm really, really glad that we'd staked out the tent on the side the winds were coming from with really big rocks. Otherwise, we and everything in the tent would have gone rolling off down the hill and across the campground, ending up no telling where. The wind was so strong that it was blowing rain up under the tent fly into the tent, and through the gap where the zipper pull met the other zipper pull on the back window. After that, we knew how the tent stakes had gotten pulled up before.
Our last night there, a bunch of people showed up in the campsite across the one-way road from our site. Some arrived early to set up, others arrived later in the afternoon. The campground rules were that there was supposed to be quiet time past 10 pm and before 7 am. These people chose to ignore that, and were extremely loud until nearly midnight. They also chose to ignore the fact that there were young children in nearby sites and loaded their very loud speech with a lot of curse words. The next morning, when their next nearest neighbors were packing up to leave, which happened somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30, that family and their kids made a lot of noise, slamming and banging things as they packed all their stuff back into their RV. We were already up and packing ourselves, and felt like applauding them.
On the trip to and from Arizona, we noticed a lot of these.
You might have to click to get a bigger image on that one. There were miles and miles of these, many thousand individual wind turbines, in Texas, and some in Oklahoma. I've seen one or two locally, but never on this scale. I guess that's what a wind farm is.
In my next post, I'll tell you something about the area where Patty's family lives.
Fun in Arizona
Or, Adventures in Middle-aged Camping, 2014 edition.
Click on any picture and you'll get a bigger version.
This is what many people think of when they hear the name Arizona.
This is also Arizona.
And this.
And this.
Those lightish trails running down the mountain are ski runs. No snow since it was in July, but in the mountains they do get snow.
And this is proof that it actually rains in Arizona.
So, what were we doing in Arizona last summer? Basically, it was a research trip. My main character, Patty, grew up on a ranch in an area near the real-world towns of Springerville/Eagar, and I'd long had in mind how the place should look, but thought it would be nice to go see what it felt like and sounded like, and yes, what it looked like. (I was, in fact, completely wrong about how it looked. Glad we went.)
We arrived on July 4th at Lymon Lake State Park and quickly set up our tent. We were proud of how easy it had been to set the tent up and stake it down...until the winds came up, yanked up the stakes, and threatened to send our tent tumbling across the crowded campground. After a quick scout around, we determined the best spot to set up was on an awkward slope to one side of the picnic shelter in our site. With the wind blowing, we had to clear the ground of large rocks and stake down the ground cloth for under the tent before we could stake the tent down again. This meant one of us had to fight the wind to keep the tent from blowing away while the other fought the wind to keep the ground cloth from taking flight while it was being staked down. One of the rangers came by and showed us how to tie off to big rocks to anchor the tent, which we hadn't done because we hadn't known it was allowable. This comes up again later. It took us an hour or better, fighting the wind, to get the tent set up where it would be for the next week.
Pretty much every site in the campground was taken that night, so it was pretty noisy with people getting drunk and celebrating, though we didn't have to contend with noisy fireworks because of a burn ban. It was not the most comfortable night. With the slope of the ground, I had to be careful how I moved on my air mattress because it wanted to tip me off. My husband's mattress was on a slightly more level place, apparently.
Springerville Visitors Center and Museums.
Over the next few days, we visited Springerville repeatedly for meals and a brief driving tour. A couple of our favorite places were:
Booga Red's had the best Mexican food in town, in our opinion. Tried a number of places, but liked that one best.
Visited Java Blues for a few meals, and for pie breaks. Really liked it.
Also drove up to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert national park. If you've never been there, you should go if you're ever in Arizona. Photos don't do the colors justice.
Made our way down to Phoenix for a night. If there's a Hard Rock Cafe in driving distance, my husband will want to go there. Also got to have dinner with Cathy of Kittling: Books and her husband Denis. We had a really wonderful time visiting with them. Denis grew up in England and had a lot of interesting stories to tell, and the two of them together have had a few adventures exploring their adopted home state.
Spotted these along the way to Phoenix. Not sure what they are, but they added some nice color to otherwise sunbaked land.
To be continued in next post...
Click on any picture and you'll get a bigger version.
This is what many people think of when they hear the name Arizona.
This is also Arizona.
And this.
And this.
Those lightish trails running down the mountain are ski runs. No snow since it was in July, but in the mountains they do get snow.
And this is proof that it actually rains in Arizona.
So, what were we doing in Arizona last summer? Basically, it was a research trip. My main character, Patty, grew up on a ranch in an area near the real-world towns of Springerville/Eagar, and I'd long had in mind how the place should look, but thought it would be nice to go see what it felt like and sounded like, and yes, what it looked like. (I was, in fact, completely wrong about how it looked. Glad we went.)
We arrived on July 4th at Lymon Lake State Park and quickly set up our tent. We were proud of how easy it had been to set the tent up and stake it down...until the winds came up, yanked up the stakes, and threatened to send our tent tumbling across the crowded campground. After a quick scout around, we determined the best spot to set up was on an awkward slope to one side of the picnic shelter in our site. With the wind blowing, we had to clear the ground of large rocks and stake down the ground cloth for under the tent before we could stake the tent down again. This meant one of us had to fight the wind to keep the tent from blowing away while the other fought the wind to keep the ground cloth from taking flight while it was being staked down. One of the rangers came by and showed us how to tie off to big rocks to anchor the tent, which we hadn't done because we hadn't known it was allowable. This comes up again later. It took us an hour or better, fighting the wind, to get the tent set up where it would be for the next week.
Pretty much every site in the campground was taken that night, so it was pretty noisy with people getting drunk and celebrating, though we didn't have to contend with noisy fireworks because of a burn ban. It was not the most comfortable night. With the slope of the ground, I had to be careful how I moved on my air mattress because it wanted to tip me off. My husband's mattress was on a slightly more level place, apparently.
Springerville Visitors Center and Museums.
Over the next few days, we visited Springerville repeatedly for meals and a brief driving tour. A couple of our favorite places were:
Booga Red's had the best Mexican food in town, in our opinion. Tried a number of places, but liked that one best.
Visited Java Blues for a few meals, and for pie breaks. Really liked it.
Also drove up to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert national park. If you've never been there, you should go if you're ever in Arizona. Photos don't do the colors justice.
Made our way down to Phoenix for a night. If there's a Hard Rock Cafe in driving distance, my husband will want to go there. Also got to have dinner with Cathy of Kittling: Books and her husband Denis. We had a really wonderful time visiting with them. Denis grew up in England and had a lot of interesting stories to tell, and the two of them together have had a few adventures exploring their adopted home state.
Spotted these along the way to Phoenix. Not sure what they are, but they added some nice color to otherwise sunbaked land.
To be continued in next post...
5/03/2015
Recent Reads Continued
On with the job...
Death at the Door by Carolyn G. Hart
Part of the Death on Demand series.
The Prime Minister's Secret Agent by Susan Elia MacNeal
#4 of the Maggie Hope series set in WWII, I believe.
Tabula Rasa by Ruth Downie
Gaius Petreius Ruso series #6. This is such a fun series. Really like her writing voice.
James R. Benn:
Billy Boyle WWII series:
A Blind Goddess
The Rest Is Silence
Raging Heat by "Richard Castle"
Ngaio Marsh:
Inspector Roderick Alleyn series:
Enter a Murderer
Death in Ecstasy
Vintage Murder
Artists in Crime
Death in a White Tie
Overture to Death
Death at the Bar
Death and the Dancing Footman
Color Scheme
Died in the Wool
Final Curtain
Swing, Brother, Swing
Night at the Vulcan
Scales of Justice
Singing in the Shrouds
Dorothy L. Sayers:
Lord Peter Wimsey series:
Clouds of Witness
Unnatural Death
Lord Peter Views the Body
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Strong Poison
The Five Red Herrings
Have His Carcase
Murder Must Advertise
The Nine Tailors
Gaudy Night
Hangman's Holiday
Busman's Honeymoon (to the point where the ghosts show up)
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Thea Phipps:
Charades With a Lunatic
The Doll in the Wall
Strange Caper
Bella Wildeve series. Rereads on the first two, third is new. Fun, enjoyable stories.
Dick Francis's Damage by Felix Francis
Continues to handle the franchise well...
Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King
The most recent Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book, set primarily in Japan this time.
P. G. Wodehouse:
My Man Jeeves
Thank You, Jeeves
Right Ho, Jeeves
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jill Paton Walsh:
Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane:
Thrones, Dominations
A Presumption of Death
The Attenbury Emeralds
The Late Scholar
Walsh picks up where Sayers left off, beginning with her notes for future adventures of the pair. The first two are set 1) shortly after the pair's marriage and honeymoon abroad, and 2) during WWII. The last two are set later in their lives, with Peter being in his sixties and the reluctant Duke of Denver. The last has a very recent copywrite, so there may be more of these coming.
Wouldn't it be Deadly by D. E. Ireland
Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Yes, that Doolittle and Higgins. Started it a while back, wasn't in the mood, came back and finished it later. Eliza has spunk and street smarts. Higgins is his usual arrogant self, except when he isn't. You find out why he's not married.
What I still have on my Nook to read:
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
And by Ngaio Marsh:
False Scent
Hand in Glove
Dead Water
Killer Dolphin
Don't know when I'll get to these, as I'm writing now and don't read a lot while I'm working.
Next post will probably be about our vacation last year...
Death at the Door by Carolyn G. Hart
Part of the Death on Demand series.
The Prime Minister's Secret Agent by Susan Elia MacNeal
#4 of the Maggie Hope series set in WWII, I believe.
Tabula Rasa by Ruth Downie
Gaius Petreius Ruso series #6. This is such a fun series. Really like her writing voice.
James R. Benn:
Billy Boyle WWII series:
A Blind Goddess
The Rest Is Silence
Raging Heat by "Richard Castle"
Ngaio Marsh:
Inspector Roderick Alleyn series:
Enter a Murderer
Death in Ecstasy
Vintage Murder
Artists in Crime
Death in a White Tie
Overture to Death
Death at the Bar
Death and the Dancing Footman
Color Scheme
Died in the Wool
Final Curtain
Swing, Brother, Swing
Night at the Vulcan
Scales of Justice
Singing in the Shrouds
Dorothy L. Sayers:
Lord Peter Wimsey series:
Clouds of Witness
Unnatural Death
Lord Peter Views the Body
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
Strong Poison
The Five Red Herrings
Have His Carcase
Murder Must Advertise
The Nine Tailors
Gaudy Night
Hangman's Holiday
Busman's Honeymoon (to the point where the ghosts show up)
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Thea Phipps:
Charades With a Lunatic
The Doll in the Wall
Strange Caper
Bella Wildeve series. Rereads on the first two, third is new. Fun, enjoyable stories.
Dick Francis's Damage by Felix Francis
Continues to handle the franchise well...
Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King
The most recent Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book, set primarily in Japan this time.
P. G. Wodehouse:
My Man Jeeves
Thank You, Jeeves
Right Ho, Jeeves
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jill Paton Walsh:
Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane:
Thrones, Dominations
A Presumption of Death
The Attenbury Emeralds
The Late Scholar
Walsh picks up where Sayers left off, beginning with her notes for future adventures of the pair. The first two are set 1) shortly after the pair's marriage and honeymoon abroad, and 2) during WWII. The last two are set later in their lives, with Peter being in his sixties and the reluctant Duke of Denver. The last has a very recent copywrite, so there may be more of these coming.
Wouldn't it be Deadly by D. E. Ireland
Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Yes, that Doolittle and Higgins. Started it a while back, wasn't in the mood, came back and finished it later. Eliza has spunk and street smarts. Higgins is his usual arrogant self, except when he isn't. You find out why he's not married.
What I still have on my Nook to read:
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
And by Ngaio Marsh:
False Scent
Hand in Glove
Dead Water
Killer Dolphin
Don't know when I'll get to these, as I'm writing now and don't read a lot while I'm working.
Next post will probably be about our vacation last year...
5/02/2015
A long overdue list of Recent Reads
Had to go back and look at the last time I'd posted one of these to see where I left off. There is a year's worth of them, so these may end up being divided...
The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson
Difficult after a year, but I seem to remember enjoying this. Goldie was not quite in the TSTL category here, which made it much better.
The Norfolk Mystery: A County Guides Mystery by Ian Sansom
First in a series. Enjoyed it. It's been a year, so I suppose I should start looking for the next one.
Michael Pearce:
A Dead Man in Malta
A Dead Man in Naples
Two more Sandor Seymour books.
Agatha Christie:
Dead Man's Folly
The Big Four
Hercule Poirot--The Complete Short Stories (haven't actually finished this)
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case
Crooked House
Death on the Nile
A Murder is Announced
Murder on the Orient Express
Nemesis
Peril at End House
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram's Hotel
Elephants Can Remember
The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side
The ABC Murders
And Then There Were None
Rhys Bowen:
Masked Ball at Broxley (short story)
Naughty in Nice
The Twelve Clues of Christmas
Queen of Hearts
More Royal Spyness adventures.
Mary Daheim:
Gone With The Win (from her Bed-and-Breakfast series)
Okay. Didn't enjoy it as much as her Alpine Advocate series.
From her Alpine Advocate Series:
The Alpine Advocate
The Alpine Betrayal
The Alpine Christmas
The Alpine Decoy
The Alpine Fury
The Alpine Gamble
The Alpine Hero
The Alpine Icon
The Alpine Journey
The Alpine Kindred
The Alpine Legacy
The Alpine Menace
The Alpine Nemesis
The Alpine Obituary
The Alpine Pursuit
The Alpine Quilt
The Alpine Recluse
The Alpine Scandal
The Alpine Traitor
The Alpine Uproar
The Alpine Vengeance
The Alpine Winter
The Alpine Xanadu
The Alpine Yeoman
The Alpine Zen
Long haul for Emma Lord and the Sheriff. Finally ended well for them.
Joan Hess:
Claire Malloy series:
Murder as a Second Language
Pride v. Prejudice
The two latest in this long-running series.
Maggody series:
Malice in Maggody
Carola Dunn:
Daisy Dalrymple series:
Death at Wentwater Court
The Winter Garden
Requiem for a Mezzo
Murder on the Flying Scotsman
Damsel in Distress
Dead in the Water
Styx and Stones
To Davy Jones Below
Rattle His Bones
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
Die Laughing
A Mourning Wedding
Fall of a Philanderer
Gunpowder Plot
The Bloody Tower
Black Ship
Sheer Folly
Gone West
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Heirs of the Body
Newest one is out very soon, if not already.
Cornish Mystery series:
Manna from Hades
A Colorful Death
Valley of the Shadow
Interesting series with old-lady sleuth, her police officer niece, and a local artist who I hope becomes the niece's love interest. Set in the 60s or 70s, so women police officers were still a new thing.
Barbara Ross:
Clammed Up
Boiled Over
Series set in Maine, if I remember correctly. First two books. I'm planning to get the next one, which is out now.
Charles Todd:
Bess Crawford series:
The Maharani's Pearls (short story)
An Unwilling Accomplice
I really enjoy Bess Crawford. Smart and brave.
Inspector Ian Rutledge series:
A Fine Summer's Day
This one was set just before WWI, his last case before joining the army and having his life changed forever.
I will have to finish these in another post. Whew!
The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson
Difficult after a year, but I seem to remember enjoying this. Goldie was not quite in the TSTL category here, which made it much better.
The Norfolk Mystery: A County Guides Mystery by Ian Sansom
First in a series. Enjoyed it. It's been a year, so I suppose I should start looking for the next one.
Michael Pearce:
A Dead Man in Malta
A Dead Man in Naples
Two more Sandor Seymour books.
Agatha Christie:
Dead Man's Folly
The Big Four
Hercule Poirot--The Complete Short Stories (haven't actually finished this)
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case
Crooked House
Death on the Nile
A Murder is Announced
Murder on the Orient Express
Nemesis
Peril at End House
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram's Hotel
Elephants Can Remember
The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side
The ABC Murders
And Then There Were None
Rhys Bowen:
Masked Ball at Broxley (short story)
Naughty in Nice
The Twelve Clues of Christmas
Queen of Hearts
More Royal Spyness adventures.
Mary Daheim:
Gone With The Win (from her Bed-and-Breakfast series)
Okay. Didn't enjoy it as much as her Alpine Advocate series.
From her Alpine Advocate Series:
The Alpine Advocate
The Alpine Betrayal
The Alpine Christmas
The Alpine Decoy
The Alpine Fury
The Alpine Gamble
The Alpine Hero
The Alpine Icon
The Alpine Journey
The Alpine Kindred
The Alpine Legacy
The Alpine Menace
The Alpine Nemesis
The Alpine Obituary
The Alpine Pursuit
The Alpine Quilt
The Alpine Recluse
The Alpine Scandal
The Alpine Traitor
The Alpine Uproar
The Alpine Vengeance
The Alpine Winter
The Alpine Xanadu
The Alpine Yeoman
The Alpine Zen
Long haul for Emma Lord and the Sheriff. Finally ended well for them.
Joan Hess:
Claire Malloy series:
Murder as a Second Language
Pride v. Prejudice
The two latest in this long-running series.
Maggody series:
Malice in Maggody
Carola Dunn:
Daisy Dalrymple series:
Death at Wentwater Court
The Winter Garden
Requiem for a Mezzo
Murder on the Flying Scotsman
Damsel in Distress
Dead in the Water
Styx and Stones
To Davy Jones Below
Rattle His Bones
The Case of the Murdered Muckraker
Die Laughing
A Mourning Wedding
Fall of a Philanderer
Gunpowder Plot
The Bloody Tower
Black Ship
Sheer Folly
Gone West
Anthem for Doomed Youth
Heirs of the Body
Newest one is out very soon, if not already.
Cornish Mystery series:
Manna from Hades
A Colorful Death
Valley of the Shadow
Interesting series with old-lady sleuth, her police officer niece, and a local artist who I hope becomes the niece's love interest. Set in the 60s or 70s, so women police officers were still a new thing.
Barbara Ross:
Clammed Up
Boiled Over
Series set in Maine, if I remember correctly. First two books. I'm planning to get the next one, which is out now.
Charles Todd:
Bess Crawford series:
The Maharani's Pearls (short story)
An Unwilling Accomplice
I really enjoy Bess Crawford. Smart and brave.
Inspector Ian Rutledge series:
A Fine Summer's Day
This one was set just before WWI, his last case before joining the army and having his life changed forever.
I will have to finish these in another post. Whew!
11/27/2014
Carl Griffis--April 28, 1940-October 31, 2014
I put this post off for a while--not an easy one to make. Carl Griffis was my father.
Back in March, Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It was at stage 2b, which his doctors viewed as early enough to be treatable, so they went at it with chemo and radiation, and successfully killed the tumor. (Esophageal cancer is caused by acid reflux apparently. Dad wasn't a smoker, so it wasn't that type of cancer.) The tumor had narrowed his esophagus, which made it difficult to swallow, and the treatment made the area in his esophagus extremely irritated, so he was being fed through a tube into his small intestine.
The next step in treatment was surgery on July 14th to remove the damaged part of the esophagus. What was expected to be the removal of just a portion of the esophagus turned out to be the removal of most of it, as the damage was greater than the doctors had thought. His stomach was stretched to take the place of the missing esophagus. The biggest problem with that was the removal of the valve that keeps stomach contents from going back up.
The hoped-for nominal two week recovery never materialized. Setback after setback cropped up, and two further surgeries were required, one to insert a tracheostomy tube to protect his lungs when bile reflux from his stomach entered his lungs and gave him a persistant case of pneumonia, and the other to correct a twist in his intestine that was suspected of keeping his stomach from emptying properly. The extended use of the tube feeding left him malnourished, as it was only intended to be a temporary thing. He did not thrive. Three and a half months after his surgery, he passed away.
I don't celebrate Halloween anyway, but his dying on the 31st would have killed the holiday atmosphere of the day if I did.
There was a memorial for him November 18th at Engineering Hall on the University of Arkansas campus, where Dad taught for more than 40 years. Quite a number of colleagues and former students showed up, and a bunch got up to talk about him. It's nice to know that he was truly loved by so many people. My sister, who shared caregiving duties with me and alternated days with me taking Mom to the hospital to visit Dad, had put together a slideshow using family photos. The hardest image to look at was the last, which was taken the week before he died. He was smiling and waving at the camera, but we knew what had come before, and what came shortly afterward.
I'm glad he is no longer in pain.
He will be missed, by a whole lot of people.
Back in March, Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It was at stage 2b, which his doctors viewed as early enough to be treatable, so they went at it with chemo and radiation, and successfully killed the tumor. (Esophageal cancer is caused by acid reflux apparently. Dad wasn't a smoker, so it wasn't that type of cancer.) The tumor had narrowed his esophagus, which made it difficult to swallow, and the treatment made the area in his esophagus extremely irritated, so he was being fed through a tube into his small intestine.
The next step in treatment was surgery on July 14th to remove the damaged part of the esophagus. What was expected to be the removal of just a portion of the esophagus turned out to be the removal of most of it, as the damage was greater than the doctors had thought. His stomach was stretched to take the place of the missing esophagus. The biggest problem with that was the removal of the valve that keeps stomach contents from going back up.
The hoped-for nominal two week recovery never materialized. Setback after setback cropped up, and two further surgeries were required, one to insert a tracheostomy tube to protect his lungs when bile reflux from his stomach entered his lungs and gave him a persistant case of pneumonia, and the other to correct a twist in his intestine that was suspected of keeping his stomach from emptying properly. The extended use of the tube feeding left him malnourished, as it was only intended to be a temporary thing. He did not thrive. Three and a half months after his surgery, he passed away.
I don't celebrate Halloween anyway, but his dying on the 31st would have killed the holiday atmosphere of the day if I did.
There was a memorial for him November 18th at Engineering Hall on the University of Arkansas campus, where Dad taught for more than 40 years. Quite a number of colleagues and former students showed up, and a bunch got up to talk about him. It's nice to know that he was truly loved by so many people. My sister, who shared caregiving duties with me and alternated days with me taking Mom to the hospital to visit Dad, had put together a slideshow using family photos. The hardest image to look at was the last, which was taken the week before he died. He was smiling and waving at the camera, but we knew what had come before, and what came shortly afterward.
I'm glad he is no longer in pain.
He will be missed, by a whole lot of people.
4/09/2014
And we have audio!
Rio Star has just been released as an audio book.
In an email conversation I had with the narrator, she mentioned that it must be very strange to hear an alien voice inhabiting the world the writer created. It's been very interesting hearing the voices she's given my characters, and the many different accents she had to use. I never really gave much thought to the number of nationalities that show up in Rio Star. My only quibble is that I wish someone had asked me about the pronunciation of Patty's husband's name, which is Irish Gaelic and doesn't sound the way it's spelled. (It also explains why I managed to have two characters with the same first name without realizing it, because they are pronounced so differently.)
Otherwise, the narrator, Kathy Bell Denton, did a fantastic job, and it was a real blast hearing my characters speak and Patty's thoughts given voice. As a writer, you never really know how your work is to others until you hear it read out loud, because it strips away what you think is there and shows you what really is there. I quite enjoyed it, but then, I'm biased, lol!
Rio Star is available as an audiobook from Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes, supposedly.
Speaking of Patty, she's been whispering in my ear lately, so maybe there's still hope for more from her.
Some recent reads:
To finish off the Hornblower run--
C. S. Forester:
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies--This is a series of short stories following Hornblower's adventures commanding the West Indies fleet, trying to control pirates, smuggling, and renegade French soldiers.
Robert Goldsborough:
The last two of his Nero Wolfe books:
Silver Spire
The Missing Chapter
Michael Pearce:
The Mamur Zapt series:
The Camel of Destruction
The Snake-Catcher's Daughter
The Mingrelian Conspiracy
The Fig Tree Murder
The Last Cut
Death of an Effendi
The Bride Box--This one is new, available only as an ebook from what I could see.
The Sandor Seymour Mysteries:--A second series by Michael Pearce, featuring Scotland Yard detective Sandor Seymour. Set, as with the Mamur Zapt books, in the years just prior to WWI.
A Dead Man in Trieste
A Dead Man in Istanbul
A Dead Man in Athens
A Dead Man in Tangier
A Dead Man in Barcelona
Agatha Christie:
After the Funeral--Poirot
I did finally finish The Jamaican Affair of 1805 (see previous post), at a point when I was between batches of books. My opinion is unchanged.
More later~~
In an email conversation I had with the narrator, she mentioned that it must be very strange to hear an alien voice inhabiting the world the writer created. It's been very interesting hearing the voices she's given my characters, and the many different accents she had to use. I never really gave much thought to the number of nationalities that show up in Rio Star. My only quibble is that I wish someone had asked me about the pronunciation of Patty's husband's name, which is Irish Gaelic and doesn't sound the way it's spelled. (It also explains why I managed to have two characters with the same first name without realizing it, because they are pronounced so differently.)
Otherwise, the narrator, Kathy Bell Denton, did a fantastic job, and it was a real blast hearing my characters speak and Patty's thoughts given voice. As a writer, you never really know how your work is to others until you hear it read out loud, because it strips away what you think is there and shows you what really is there. I quite enjoyed it, but then, I'm biased, lol!
Rio Star is available as an audiobook from Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes, supposedly.
Speaking of Patty, she's been whispering in my ear lately, so maybe there's still hope for more from her.
Some recent reads:
To finish off the Hornblower run--
C. S. Forester:
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies--This is a series of short stories following Hornblower's adventures commanding the West Indies fleet, trying to control pirates, smuggling, and renegade French soldiers.
Robert Goldsborough:
The last two of his Nero Wolfe books:
Silver Spire
The Missing Chapter
Michael Pearce:
The Mamur Zapt series:
The Camel of Destruction
The Snake-Catcher's Daughter
The Mingrelian Conspiracy
The Fig Tree Murder
The Last Cut
Death of an Effendi
The Bride Box--This one is new, available only as an ebook from what I could see.
The Sandor Seymour Mysteries:--A second series by Michael Pearce, featuring Scotland Yard detective Sandor Seymour. Set, as with the Mamur Zapt books, in the years just prior to WWI.
A Dead Man in Trieste
A Dead Man in Istanbul
A Dead Man in Athens
A Dead Man in Tangier
A Dead Man in Barcelona
Agatha Christie:
After the Funeral--Poirot
I did finally finish The Jamaican Affair of 1805 (see previous post), at a point when I was between batches of books. My opinion is unchanged.
More later~~
3/02/2014
Getting the year off to an ice start...
How to make a white car blend into its background...
This has been an ice winter. (And no, that's not a typo.)
I imagine a good 2/3s of the US is sick of winter by now. I know we were sick of it all the way back in December. We're getting thunder sleet just now, preceded by freezing rain and to be followed by snow. Predicted low tonight of 4. Ugh. Good reading weather, though.
There is an interesting psychological thing that happens locally when icy stuff is expected. Freezing stuff usually stays on the ground a couple of days once it's fallen--usually the temperature is warm enough to melt it off quickly, though the last snowfall we had was on the ground for a week and a half. Not what you would think of as highly dangerous circumstances. But the few days before the storm often sees people in panic mode, buying enough food to survive a month of isolation in their homes. I'm very glad I don't work at a grocery store.
There appears to be some movement on the audiobook front. (Did I mention that Mundania bought a small recording company and is putting its books out in audiobook format? I can't remember.) We'll see how it goes.
Speaking of books, here's some recent reads:
Robert Goldsborough:
More Nero Wolfe~~
Murder in the Ball Park
Death on Deadline
The Bloodied Ivy
Fade to Black
C.S. Forester:
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Lieutenant Hornblower
Hornblower and the Hotspur
Hornblower and the Atropos
Hornblower During the Crisis
Beat to Quarters
Ship of the Line
Flying Colors
Commodore Hornblower
The Hornblower Addendum --Five Hornblower short stories
Michael Robertson:
Moriarty Returns a Letter --Latest in the Baker Street Letters series, and the first of these I've read.
Michael Pearce:
A Cold Touch of Ice --Part of the Mamur Zapt series. Good stuff.
John Mahon:
The Jamaican Affair of 1805 --I have to emphasize that I bought this out of curiousity. CS Forester died partway through writing Hornblower During the Crisis, so the story was unfinished. This book a) was written and published with the approval of CS Forester's sons to finish the story, and b) has a very fan-fictionish feel to it. There are many ways that Hornblower does not act and think like Hornblower in this, at least to my mind. There was an attempt to turn Hornblower's common dandelion-like wife Maria into a rose, and it was almost as if an effort was made to teach Hornblower lessons in humility. I stopped reading this at a certain point, and am uncertain if I will finish it. There is a second story out there that purports to finish Hornblower During the Crisis, but I'm already gun-shy about it and don't know if I'll risk the money on it.
Dean King:
A Sea of Words --This is a lexicon of words and terms used in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series that may be unfamiliar to modern readers, as they are often sea terms used in the 1800's, along with definitions of sails and rigging and stuff. Very interesting. A slow read, though. Nice in small doses. I have not finished this yet, but am working on it a bit at a time.
Current Read:
Lord Hornblower
If you haven't read the Hornblower series, you'll notice that the book that Forester didn't finish is in the middle of the series. That's because Forester actually began writing the series with Beat to Quarters, and eventually circled back to write the early career of Hornblower. It makes for a bit of a jolt when you start at the chronological beginning of Hornblower's career as a Midshipman and move forward until you reach Beat to Quarters. It can feel as if two different people were writing the series, since those first-written books are fuller of detail than the latter-written books.
Enough of this for now. I hope winter ends soon, and that you're not under a blanket of snow at this moment. Brrr.
1/29/2014
Recent Reads
And now, for some long-delayed recent reads:
Agatha Christie:
The Murder at the Vicarage
Death in the Clouds
Dumb Witness
The Hollow
"Richard Castle":
Frozen Heat Once again, based on the series Castle, as written by the show's star. (actually written by Dan Brown. Someone had to do it, lol!)
Laurie R King:
Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes meets his match, and his wife.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
The Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
Beekeeping for Beginners Short story, tells the meeting of Holmes and Russell from Holmes' point of view.
Charles Todd:
A Question of Honor Bess Crawford
Cold Comfort: A Novella Ian Rutledge short story
Ngaio Marsh:
The Nursing Home Murders
Ruth Downie:
Semper Fidelis The fifth Ruso novel, set in Roman Britain at the time of Hadrian's visit.
Robert Goldsborough:
Picks up where Rex Stout left off...
Archie Meets Nero Wolf: A prequel to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries
Murder in E Minor
The Last Coincidence
Patrick O'Brian:
The Aubrey/Maturin series, set during the Napoleonic Wars:
Master and Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbor
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
The Truelove
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue at the Mizzen
21: The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey Three chapters of what would have been the next novel, had Patrick O'Brian not died when he did.
The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a sort of conglomeration of incidents from the books, and makes up a sort of 22nd adventure, since it really doesn't follow the plot line for any of them.
These were a mix of ebooks and paper.
Winter hasn't been pleasant for any of us this year, it appears. Looking forward to it ending.
More later~~
Agatha Christie:
The Murder at the Vicarage
Death in the Clouds
Dumb Witness
The Hollow
"Richard Castle":
Frozen Heat Once again, based on the series Castle, as written by the show's star. (actually written by Dan Brown. Someone had to do it, lol!)
Laurie R King:
Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes meets his match, and his wife.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
A Monstrous Regiment of Women
O Jerusalem
Justice Hall
The Game
Locked Rooms
The Language of Bees
The God of the Hive
The Pirate King
Garment of Shadows
Beekeeping for Beginners Short story, tells the meeting of Holmes and Russell from Holmes' point of view.
Charles Todd:
A Question of Honor Bess Crawford
Cold Comfort: A Novella Ian Rutledge short story
Ngaio Marsh:
The Nursing Home Murders
Ruth Downie:
Semper Fidelis The fifth Ruso novel, set in Roman Britain at the time of Hadrian's visit.
Robert Goldsborough:
Picks up where Rex Stout left off...
Archie Meets Nero Wolf: A prequel to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries
Murder in E Minor
The Last Coincidence
Patrick O'Brian:
The Aubrey/Maturin series, set during the Napoleonic Wars:
Master and Commander
Post Captain
H.M.S. Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon's Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason's Harbor
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
The Truelove
The Wine-Dark Sea
The Commodore
The Yellow Admiral
The Hundred Days
Blue at the Mizzen
21: The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey Three chapters of what would have been the next novel, had Patrick O'Brian not died when he did.
The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a sort of conglomeration of incidents from the books, and makes up a sort of 22nd adventure, since it really doesn't follow the plot line for any of them.
These were a mix of ebooks and paper.
Winter hasn't been pleasant for any of us this year, it appears. Looking forward to it ending.
More later~~
11/10/2013
Two weeks to the Day of the Doctor
Are you a Doctor Who fan? The fiftieth anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, is coming on November 23. Apparently the BBC is same-time broadcasting to a lot more places than just England for this one, so check to see if you can get it locally. Looks to be quite an adventure!
The BBC has some clips up, viewable here.
Excited, and yet sad at the same time. This is Matt Smith's second last episode as the Doctor.
More later. I have some recent reads to add, though not much news at the moment.
The BBC has some clips up, viewable here.
Excited, and yet sad at the same time. This is Matt Smith's second last episode as the Doctor.
More later. I have some recent reads to add, though not much news at the moment.
8/10/2013
Sad news
I've just found out that Barbara Mertz, who is better known to many of us as Elizabeth Peters, died on August 8th at 85, after a long battle with cancer.
Link to news article
There was mention on her website for a number of months of an Amelia Peabody story that she was writing, but as the mention was taken down, I'm not sure whether to be hopeful that the manuscript was finished. Even if it wasn't, she's left quite a collection of books behind.
Here's another article from the Washington Post
And one more from the Huffington Post
Elizabeth Peters' official Website
Link to news article
There was mention on her website for a number of months of an Amelia Peabody story that she was writing, but as the mention was taken down, I'm not sure whether to be hopeful that the manuscript was finished. Even if it wasn't, she's left quite a collection of books behind.
Here's another article from the Washington Post
And one more from the Huffington Post
Elizabeth Peters' official Website
7/03/2013
May I present...Plus, adventures in middle-aged camping.
This is my son, Ian, and his wife, Raven. They were married at the Disney Boardwalk on June 3rd, on a hot, clear Florida day, with the central lake of that particular resort area behind them. Total list of people in attendance was probably less than 20, themselves included, although the Disney staff on hand brought the numbers up. Disney's contract limited the number of people who could be there, and the venue was very small anyway, so it was really just the right number for the site. I thought her dress was quite beautiful, layers and layers of pink ruffles, and I'm sure I'm not the first mom to think her son was particularly handsome on his wedding day. There was a violin player who played selections from various Disney movies as the bride came up the aisle, and afterward during the reception.
The cake was two-layered and iced in blue, white and cream, with a small copy of a famous Disney castle on top.
The next day, my husband and I went on our first vacation alone in over 24 years, heading just under 200 miles north of Orlando to Amelia Island, which is just inside the border of Florida on the Atlantic coast. You can look across the river there and see Georgia. We hadn't been there in maybe 16 years, so it was pleasant to walk on the beach and enjoy the sun and the breeze. I can't exactly say fresh air, though, as there's a paper mill not far from where we were camping. Sorry, no pictures. I hadn't figured out how to use the camera I'd brought. The wedding photos are courtesy my mother-in-law.
We chose to stay at the Amelia River campsite at Fort Clinch State Park. If you're imagining wads of mosquitoes, you're not far off, though there were less than what I'd expected. Still, we had a nice site within the campsite loop, with enough trees around to keep us mostly isolated from the other sites. The tent we brought was not such a good idea, though. It claimed to have been sized for four people, but was claustrophobically tiny. We ended up visiting Wal-mart and buying the next size tent up, which worked much better for us. On the negative side, it rained the first night, and was humid and oppressively hot, my knees were hurting which made crawling in and out of the tent uncomfortable, and I of course had to get up repeatedly to visit the facilities due to all the water I'd drunk during the day. Dratted middle-aged bladder. It wasn't a fun first night.
We did discover something the first night that was new to us, though maybe not new to you. We were settling in for the night, and had not yet turned out the light inside the tent, when we heard the sound of the ice chest being opened right next to the tent door. That was quickly followed by the sound of rattling plastic and some raccoonish squeals and growls as at least two of the critters fought over the spoils--three souvenir cookies from the wedding and a bag of carob covered almonds, all tucked inside a large ziplock baggie.
Once the critters had dragged away the goodies, my husband reached out and closed the ice chest, which only had bottled water and bottled tea in it at that point. The raccoons came back and opened the ice chest twice more, I guess checking to see if we'd added anything to the chest since the last time they'd been there.
It hadn't occurred to us that raccoons would get into the ice chest. We put the chest inside the tent the next night, and heard them rattling things in someone else's campsite during the night.
The next day was gorgeous, and we spent time on the beach, then walked around the shopping district of old town Fernandina Beach, mostly hunting for souvenirs. It began raining toward evening, and not wanting to be confined to the tent, we went to see the new Star Trek film at the local cinema. By time time we returned to the tent, it was well past ten o'clock, and we crawled in to find that the tent walls had sagged enough to come into contact with our bedding and had leaked. By the time we'd gotten there, it had stopped raining, so we were able to open the windows and get air in. We'd also bought a small fan, which stirred the air inside the tent enough that we slept fairly well in spite of the damp bedding.
We'd been scheduled to stay a third night, but ended up spending it in a motel, due to tropical storm Andrea (Erm...I think that was the name). The park evacuated all campers for fear that the storm would bring some of the very big and very old trees down on tents and RVs. I don't know about you, but I'm just as happy not to get crushed beneath a falling tree.
I know the above makes it sound like I don't like camping. I do. We have a really nice backpacking tent that we used on a trip through Arizona and Utah one year, that housed myself, my husband, and our son quite well, but that was before I injured my knees enough to make it hard to crawl in and out, and before the idea of sleeping on the ground gave way to the idea of sleeping on air mattresses. I think next time we'll bring a tent that's roomier and big enough to stand in, though. I know my knees will appreciate it.
There are two books to report on this time around...
His Majesty's Hope, by Susan Elia MacNeal. Set during WWII. Maggie Hope has been secretary to Mr. Churchill, was assigned to protect Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, and had trained to be a spy. Her first mission has her parachuting into Germany, a job which her German contact is convinced she's not ready for. Third in a series. I'll have to look for the first two.
Proof of Guilt, #15 in the Ian Rutledge series. Inspector Rutledge's unfriendly boss has had a heart attack and is out of commission, though no one knows if it's permanently or not. His temporary replacement is a man from Scotland who has no familiarity with London or the way things are done at Scotland Yard. He's determined to see the case he's assigned Rutledge to finished quickly, even if it means sending innocent people to their deaths for crimes they didn't commit. And Rutledge suspects his former boss has left information in his personnel file that has poisoned this new boss' attitude and expectations of him.
There was a third one, the lastest Maisie Dobbs book. I got partway into it, as far as the point where the brother of the dead woman explains that his sister could ease people's pain just by touching them. Erm...no. I'm not into that. This went on the did-not-finish list.
As far as writing goes, Kira is cooperating at this point, and has even begun to tell me what she would and wouldn't do to an extent. Always a good sign. We'll see how it goes.
More later~~~
4/16/2013
Changing of the seasons, in more ways than one
It's been a while since my last post. Sorry for the silence. Life has been a bit busier than usual.
My son's getting married. He's twenty-four, and has been dating a young woman in our congregation for a couple of years. They're about to tie the knot.
No, for security reasons, I'm not saying when, but once he's gone, my husband and I will begin that phase of our lives that happens to most couples when their children have all moved out. (Although, my parents actually got to experience the whole having-the-house-to-yourselves thing several times, since my youngest sister is unmarried, and has at various times ended up using their spare bedroom over the years.)
I'm sure this will really hit us after he's gone, but right now everyone's exhausted trying to save money for the big event. For my son, who's been saving for their honeymoon for some time now, this has been more of a marathon than a sprint, but the finish line is coming up, and we'll all have to trust that we'll have what we need when we get there.
There's another bit of news as well. For a long time, I've been trying to get the fourth Patty O'Donnell story off the ground. It's been like going out to chop down a tree, only to find that you're trying to take down a titanium trunk with a stick. No dents, no nuthin'.
If you hang around writers long enough, you will hear that our characters have lives of their own, that they express opinions about what we write and let us know when we've got them doing something they wouldn't do. Not that we're crazy or anything. It's like we have this constant movie in our heads where our characters try out the scenes before we write them. When you've developed a character thoroughly enough, you know how they would react to things.
It seems that I've been misreading what Patty's been telling me. After Reef Runner, she seemed to go into hiding, and I thought what she was needing was a break to recover from what I'd put her through. I've been searching for just the right story to coax her back out, but nothing has worked. She was, in fact, telling me she wants out. She wants to be left alone to raise her family and live her life without villains lurking around every corner. I've decided to honor that and let her go.
It doesn't mean that I've stopped writing. One leading lady has retired, but during the last few years, another auditioned for the part, although I didn't know that's what she was doing at the time. I do not know yet if she's series material, but we'll see how it goes.
And now, on to the real seasonal changes. This spring has been...odd. It's usually warmed up better than this by now. Instead, we're on an up and down and up and down ride with the temperature, they're still getting some pretty hefty snow storms up north, and we're getting rain. Lots of it. Last time I looked, our level on the drought scale is down to D0, which means things are Abnormally Dry, but that's the bottom rank on the scale. The ground is fairly saturated now, and we've got storms coming in over the next few days that are supposed to dump a couple of inches of rain on us. It's enough to make you wish you had rain boots.
I have nothing to report in the 'books read' category, at least not this time around. Haven't had the time or the inclination lately. That will end, I'm sure, but for now it must be endured.
Until next time~~~
No, for security reasons, I'm not saying when, but once he's gone, my husband and I will begin that phase of our lives that happens to most couples when their children have all moved out. (Although, my parents actually got to experience the whole having-the-house-to-yourselves thing several times, since my youngest sister is unmarried, and has at various times ended up using their spare bedroom over the years.)
I'm sure this will really hit us after he's gone, but right now everyone's exhausted trying to save money for the big event. For my son, who's been saving for their honeymoon for some time now, this has been more of a marathon than a sprint, but the finish line is coming up, and we'll all have to trust that we'll have what we need when we get there.
There's another bit of news as well. For a long time, I've been trying to get the fourth Patty O'Donnell story off the ground. It's been like going out to chop down a tree, only to find that you're trying to take down a titanium trunk with a stick. No dents, no nuthin'.
If you hang around writers long enough, you will hear that our characters have lives of their own, that they express opinions about what we write and let us know when we've got them doing something they wouldn't do. Not that we're crazy or anything. It's like we have this constant movie in our heads where our characters try out the scenes before we write them. When you've developed a character thoroughly enough, you know how they would react to things.
It seems that I've been misreading what Patty's been telling me. After Reef Runner, she seemed to go into hiding, and I thought what she was needing was a break to recover from what I'd put her through. I've been searching for just the right story to coax her back out, but nothing has worked. She was, in fact, telling me she wants out. She wants to be left alone to raise her family and live her life without villains lurking around every corner. I've decided to honor that and let her go.
It doesn't mean that I've stopped writing. One leading lady has retired, but during the last few years, another auditioned for the part, although I didn't know that's what she was doing at the time. I do not know yet if she's series material, but we'll see how it goes.
And now, on to the real seasonal changes. This spring has been...odd. It's usually warmed up better than this by now. Instead, we're on an up and down and up and down ride with the temperature, they're still getting some pretty hefty snow storms up north, and we're getting rain. Lots of it. Last time I looked, our level on the drought scale is down to D0, which means things are Abnormally Dry, but that's the bottom rank on the scale. The ground is fairly saturated now, and we've got storms coming in over the next few days that are supposed to dump a couple of inches of rain on us. It's enough to make you wish you had rain boots.
I have nothing to report in the 'books read' category, at least not this time around. Haven't had the time or the inclination lately. That will end, I'm sure, but for now it must be endured.
Until next time~~~
11/20/2012
November again.
My character Patty is a bit annoyed with me right now. She's been trapped in the back of a horse trailer for a few weeks now, along with a nervous mare. She made it out of the trailer at one point, only to go back in when I changed my mind about how to start the scene. Ah well, I guess that's how life goes when you're a made-up person.
I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a special theory of relativity with regard to the passage of time, one that says that when you hit around age 50, your sense of the passage of time changes so much that it's like driving off a country lane onto a superhighway. It doesn't seem to me like it should be November already.
We got enough rain a while back to move us down to the 'severe' level of drought, but have since moved back up to 'extreme'. In case you're wondering, the levels are: D0-Abnormally Dry; D1-Moderate; D2-Severe; D3-Extreme; D4-Exceptional. I don't know that we were ever actually in the Exceptional category during the summer, but according to the drought tracking maps, we were very close to it. Burn bans and all, which meant a number of unhappy fireworks sellers since not that many people were buying. No burn ban currently. The weather's mostly been clear, with temps in the fifties and sixties during the days. Very little to complain about, though, compared to what's gone on in the Northeast.
One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Janet Reid, who is a literary agent who works with a lot of mystery fiction. In one recent post, she talked about authors who self-published their work with the thought of using it to get the attention of the big presses. She has Some Hard Numbers to report about what those authors are up against. I'd heard some numbers bandied about with regard to how many copies needed to sell before a big press would take notice of you, but these are magnitudes greater.
The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that you need to write because you enjoy it and because you really don't have any choice (a writer will understand what that means), and not because you think you're going to get rich. The Hollywood stereotype of the rich author lounging by the pool with cocktail in hand, taking a break from the latest round of book signings and literary parties, is just that, a made-up stereotype. For the vast majority of us, it ain't gonna happen.
Now, about what I've been reading lately...
On the NOOK:
World's Greatest Sleuth!, by Steve Hockensmith.
Holmes on the Range series. Old Red and Big Red are invited to a contest by Big Red's publisher, pitting themselves against the authors of other dime-novel detective stories and a few real detectives for the title World's Greatest Sleuth. Set against the Chicago World's Fair in the Old West days.
Some Agatha Christie:
Poirot's Early Cases
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Secret Adversary
Three Act Tragedy
In Paper:
The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, by Robert W. Lang
Oldly enough, an interesting read. I find myself looking at cabinet details with an eye toward how they were made. Though it's always better if there's no one else in the room when you open cabinets to look at how the hinges were installed, lol!
All for now~~
I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a special theory of relativity with regard to the passage of time, one that says that when you hit around age 50, your sense of the passage of time changes so much that it's like driving off a country lane onto a superhighway. It doesn't seem to me like it should be November already.
We got enough rain a while back to move us down to the 'severe' level of drought, but have since moved back up to 'extreme'. In case you're wondering, the levels are: D0-Abnormally Dry; D1-Moderate; D2-Severe; D3-Extreme; D4-Exceptional. I don't know that we were ever actually in the Exceptional category during the summer, but according to the drought tracking maps, we were very close to it. Burn bans and all, which meant a number of unhappy fireworks sellers since not that many people were buying. No burn ban currently. The weather's mostly been clear, with temps in the fifties and sixties during the days. Very little to complain about, though, compared to what's gone on in the Northeast.
One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Janet Reid, who is a literary agent who works with a lot of mystery fiction. In one recent post, she talked about authors who self-published their work with the thought of using it to get the attention of the big presses. She has Some Hard Numbers to report about what those authors are up against. I'd heard some numbers bandied about with regard to how many copies needed to sell before a big press would take notice of you, but these are magnitudes greater.
The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that you need to write because you enjoy it and because you really don't have any choice (a writer will understand what that means), and not because you think you're going to get rich. The Hollywood stereotype of the rich author lounging by the pool with cocktail in hand, taking a break from the latest round of book signings and literary parties, is just that, a made-up stereotype. For the vast majority of us, it ain't gonna happen.
Now, about what I've been reading lately...
On the NOOK:
World's Greatest Sleuth!, by Steve Hockensmith.
Holmes on the Range series. Old Red and Big Red are invited to a contest by Big Red's publisher, pitting themselves against the authors of other dime-novel detective stories and a few real detectives for the title World's Greatest Sleuth. Set against the Chicago World's Fair in the Old West days.
Some Agatha Christie:
Poirot's Early Cases
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Secret Adversary
Three Act Tragedy
In Paper:
The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, by Robert W. Lang
Oldly enough, an interesting read. I find myself looking at cabinet details with an eye toward how they were made. Though it's always better if there's no one else in the room when you open cabinets to look at how the hinges were installed, lol!
All for now~~
9/28/2012
Identity Theft, part two
Sigh. Guess someone thought signing me up for memberships on websites without my permission is a good thing.
Imagine my surprise when I checked that given-out-to-friends-only email address this evening to discover that I apparently have a member page on Facebook. The first email came on Wednesday, and there have been 133 of them, some confirming friend requests, and some remarking about photos that have been posted on the account.
Except, I don't have a Facebook account. I never signed up for one because they're too time intensive to take care of.
If you stumble across this thing, I have nothing to do with it. I did notify Facebook that my email was being used fraudulently, so hopefully it'll be shut down very soon.
Imagine my surprise when I checked that given-out-to-friends-only email address this evening to discover that I apparently have a member page on Facebook. The first email came on Wednesday, and there have been 133 of them, some confirming friend requests, and some remarking about photos that have been posted on the account.
Except, I don't have a Facebook account. I never signed up for one because they're too time intensive to take care of.
If you stumble across this thing, I have nothing to do with it. I did notify Facebook that my email was being used fraudulently, so hopefully it'll be shut down very soon.
9/06/2012
Green In The Midst Of Drought Edition
I'm uncertain yet if I like the new posting interface on Blogger. Seems sometimes like the guys who design this stuff tinker with it just because they can, and not because it really needed it. Take, for instance, the new Windows 8 interface--they've apparently done away with the iconic desktop and replaced it with tiles as if it were a tablet computer. Sorry, guys. I think I'll stick with Windows 7 as long as possible. I like my laptop to have its wallpaper and all, not look like a tablet. And the chances that I'll get a tablet computer are pretty remote. I'm a writer. I need a keyboard to work with, not what passes for one on the already small screen a tablet computer provides.
Summer seems to want to hang around a while longer. Don't guess I mind that, since it means it stays warm rather than getting cold sooner. This whole year has been running about two weeks early, as far as the weather and the seasons go, though. Not sure what that will mean for this winter. We're supposed to be heading into an El Nino winter, but they're not certain when it will start, since it seems we're in a pause between the El Nino/La Nina cycle.
We've been in the upper ranges of the drought scale for a while now, with the dividing line between Extreme and Exceptional falling very close to us on a map of the State. Hurricane Isaac (tropical depression by the time it reached us) helped take the edge off that, though I know we need a lot more rain that what we got to bring things back to where they should be. I know there were a lot of places that got flooding and tornadoes and wind damage, so it was awe-inspiring to watch on radar as the core of the storm passed somewhere within 50-100 miles to the east of us, all nice and polite and dropping a rather gentle rain with a light breeze most of the day. We maybe got 1 or 2 inches, spread out so much that the ground had a chance to soak it up as it fell.
Of course, now the grass is growing like crazy, so there's the trade-off of someone having to mow in the humid heat. The trees, though, are already half bare. They've been dropping leaves for a couple of months, slowly at first, then more heavily as the drought got worse. With all the dry grass and brown leaves on the ground, there were times recently when it could have passed for fall, if not for the fact that the thermometer reading was up around 100F.
I promised, right before summer hibernation, that I'd post a list of what I'd been reading recently, so I guess I'll see what I can drag up. There may be some duplication from previous entries, since I can't remember precisely what I've already posted...
In paper:
Deader Homes and Gardens, by Joan Hess. New Claire Malloy. Claire, teenage daughter Caron, and new husband Peter Rosen are crammed with their belongings into Claire's small apartment, and it's more than they can take. With Peter off on police business, Claire searches for the perfect house, and finds it...but is it really available? Claire isn't about to let murder stand in the way of getting her dream home if she can help it. Fun read. Given that much of the series is set in a fictional version of the place I grew up, it's easy to picture places I know when reading these.
On the Nook:
A Man Lay Dead, by Ngaio Marsh. First Inspector Alleyn book. Enjoyed it.
Charles Todd: (not in order)
Ian Rutledge series:
A Cold Treachery
The Kidnapping (Short Story)
The Confession
A Long Shadow
A False Mirror
Bess Crawford series:
An Unmarked Grave
James R. Benn: (not in order)
Billy Boyle WWII series:
A Mortal Terror
Rag and Bone
Evil for Evil
Blood Alone
The First Wave
Margaret Frazer: (not in order)
Dame Frevise Medieval series:
Winter Heart
The Murderer's Tale
The Bishop's Tale
The Outlaw's Tale
Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear.
Currently reading on Nook:
Dear Mr. Holmes, by Steven Hockensmith. Holmes on the Range series, short story collection. Narrator Otto has a wonderful 'voice'. Lots of fun to read.
A lot of these I read long enough ago that the details aren't clear enough to give a synopsis. I enjoyed them, though.
Also currently working on Patty's latest.
Until next time~~
Summer seems to want to hang around a while longer. Don't guess I mind that, since it means it stays warm rather than getting cold sooner. This whole year has been running about two weeks early, as far as the weather and the seasons go, though. Not sure what that will mean for this winter. We're supposed to be heading into an El Nino winter, but they're not certain when it will start, since it seems we're in a pause between the El Nino/La Nina cycle.
We've been in the upper ranges of the drought scale for a while now, with the dividing line between Extreme and Exceptional falling very close to us on a map of the State. Hurricane Isaac (tropical depression by the time it reached us) helped take the edge off that, though I know we need a lot more rain that what we got to bring things back to where they should be. I know there were a lot of places that got flooding and tornadoes and wind damage, so it was awe-inspiring to watch on radar as the core of the storm passed somewhere within 50-100 miles to the east of us, all nice and polite and dropping a rather gentle rain with a light breeze most of the day. We maybe got 1 or 2 inches, spread out so much that the ground had a chance to soak it up as it fell.
Of course, now the grass is growing like crazy, so there's the trade-off of someone having to mow in the humid heat. The trees, though, are already half bare. They've been dropping leaves for a couple of months, slowly at first, then more heavily as the drought got worse. With all the dry grass and brown leaves on the ground, there were times recently when it could have passed for fall, if not for the fact that the thermometer reading was up around 100F.
I promised, right before summer hibernation, that I'd post a list of what I'd been reading recently, so I guess I'll see what I can drag up. There may be some duplication from previous entries, since I can't remember precisely what I've already posted...
In paper:
Deader Homes and Gardens, by Joan Hess. New Claire Malloy. Claire, teenage daughter Caron, and new husband Peter Rosen are crammed with their belongings into Claire's small apartment, and it's more than they can take. With Peter off on police business, Claire searches for the perfect house, and finds it...but is it really available? Claire isn't about to let murder stand in the way of getting her dream home if she can help it. Fun read. Given that much of the series is set in a fictional version of the place I grew up, it's easy to picture places I know when reading these.
On the Nook:
A Man Lay Dead, by Ngaio Marsh. First Inspector Alleyn book. Enjoyed it.
Charles Todd: (not in order)
Ian Rutledge series:
A Cold Treachery
The Kidnapping (Short Story)
The Confession
A Long Shadow
A False Mirror
Bess Crawford series:
An Unmarked Grave
James R. Benn: (not in order)
Billy Boyle WWII series:
A Mortal Terror
Rag and Bone
Evil for Evil
Blood Alone
The First Wave
Margaret Frazer: (not in order)
Dame Frevise Medieval series:
Winter Heart
The Murderer's Tale
The Bishop's Tale
The Outlaw's Tale
Elegy for Eddie, by Jacqueline Winspear.
Currently reading on Nook:
Dear Mr. Holmes, by Steven Hockensmith. Holmes on the Range series, short story collection. Narrator Otto has a wonderful 'voice'. Lots of fun to read.
A lot of these I read long enough ago that the details aren't clear enough to give a synopsis. I enjoyed them, though.
Also currently working on Patty's latest.
Until next time~~
6/14/2012
Interstellar Illusions
Source: Hubblesite.org
This is one of my favorite Hubble pictures (there are many). The galaxies shown are not actually colliding. They're actually about ten times the distance apart than the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda, and it's just chance that they've aligned in such a way that we can see the nearer one highlighted by the background one.
It's been a while since I posted last. My apologies. I've done some reading to report on, and lots of thinking about the new book, with some stuff seeming to come together in that direction. We'll see how it goes. Next post will hopefully be soon.
Enjoying what seems to be a normal June, though May was significantly drier than usual.
3/29/2012
Update
My publisher just let all us authors know that they've acquired a company that records audio books, so at some point in the future, my books may be available for listening to. There's no schedule, and the voice talent will apparently get to choose which books they want to record, so when and if this happens, I'll let you know.
Website updates may take a bit... I had intended to add mobile accessibility to the site, and discovered that in order to do that, I have to know either Javascript or PHP, so I have a bit of learning to do before I can do what I was wanting. Still intending a simple update in the meantime, but the big stuff will have to wait.
Have done very little recreational reading lately, so I have no list to give you this time around.
Do you enjoy Doctor Who? Here's the preview for the upcoming season, courtesy of the BBC: Preview
Spring has been unusual this year. We've been having April weather in March. The old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb all took place within the first week. Not that I'm complaining. Except for the pollen part. So many people have had pollen allergies come up a month earlier than usual, and it's been confusing for everyone.
Not much else for the present~~
Website updates may take a bit... I had intended to add mobile accessibility to the site, and discovered that in order to do that, I have to know either Javascript or PHP, so I have a bit of learning to do before I can do what I was wanting. Still intending a simple update in the meantime, but the big stuff will have to wait.
Have done very little recreational reading lately, so I have no list to give you this time around.
Do you enjoy Doctor Who? Here's the preview for the upcoming season, courtesy of the BBC: Preview
Spring has been unusual this year. We've been having April weather in March. The old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb all took place within the first week. Not that I'm complaining. Except for the pollen part. So many people have had pollen allergies come up a month earlier than usual, and it's been confusing for everyone.
Not much else for the present~~
2/02/2012
An odd sort of identity theft...
Over the past month or more, I've been getting spam from a dating website.
At least, I thought it was spam. It ended up directly in my spam folder, and I deleted it unread, just like I tend to do with all the other spam I get. After a while, though, I noticed the subject lines on the emails were not normal spam subject lines. These looked like the type of emails that social network sites send out to notify you when there's activity on your 'page'. Except, I don't have an account with any dating websites--I've been married for 27 years and love my husband dearly, and have no desire to look for someone else.
Then something else occurred to me--the email address these things were being sent to was a private email that not very many people have. Primarily, people whom I've considered my friends.
It's always a bit icky when you realize someone's appropriated your email. Just ask anyone who's had to explain to their email provider that they've been hacked and their email stolen. This had that extra bit of ickiness, though. Someone I know took my email address, and set up an account with this dating website, in essence stealing my identity and planting it in a public place where I have no control over it. I haven't been to the website. I have no idea what's in the profile on the 'page'.
There are enough clues, between the use of the private email and the profile name, which sometimes pops up in the subject lines of emails sent by the site, that I may have a fair idea who did it, and why. Not cool, guys. And very inappropriate, for reasons that you know as well as I do. Proverbs 27:11. Be wise, and delete the account, please, if you haven't already.
There was a previous version of this post, if you read it and wondered what happened to it. Shortly after it was posted, all email activity from the dating site stopped. It could mean the profile was taken down. If so, thank you. It could mean the email address was changed, in which case the profile may still be active. It's also possible my blog is showing up on the profile page, in which case potential suitors were probably quite turned off. I was way more ticked last night. (If this is showing up on the profile page, please point this post out to the site moderators. Maybe they can do something about getting the 'page' taken down.)
In case you're wondering, a Google search showed the site was one of the bigger free dating sites, and the last email I got from them, which I did open and look at, was a newsletter-type thing letting me know where there was 'singles activity'. Well, I'm sure someone's happy to know there's singles activity out there, but since I'm happily settled, it's not me. The only possible reason I can think of to visit the site would be to check that the profile on it has been deleted.
At least, I thought it was spam. It ended up directly in my spam folder, and I deleted it unread, just like I tend to do with all the other spam I get. After a while, though, I noticed the subject lines on the emails were not normal spam subject lines. These looked like the type of emails that social network sites send out to notify you when there's activity on your 'page'. Except, I don't have an account with any dating websites--I've been married for 27 years and love my husband dearly, and have no desire to look for someone else.
Then something else occurred to me--the email address these things were being sent to was a private email that not very many people have. Primarily, people whom I've considered my friends.
It's always a bit icky when you realize someone's appropriated your email. Just ask anyone who's had to explain to their email provider that they've been hacked and their email stolen. This had that extra bit of ickiness, though. Someone I know took my email address, and set up an account with this dating website, in essence stealing my identity and planting it in a public place where I have no control over it. I haven't been to the website. I have no idea what's in the profile on the 'page'.
There are enough clues, between the use of the private email and the profile name, which sometimes pops up in the subject lines of emails sent by the site, that I may have a fair idea who did it, and why. Not cool, guys. And very inappropriate, for reasons that you know as well as I do. Proverbs 27:11. Be wise, and delete the account, please, if you haven't already.
There was a previous version of this post, if you read it and wondered what happened to it. Shortly after it was posted, all email activity from the dating site stopped. It could mean the profile was taken down. If so, thank you. It could mean the email address was changed, in which case the profile may still be active. It's also possible my blog is showing up on the profile page, in which case potential suitors were probably quite turned off. I was way more ticked last night. (If this is showing up on the profile page, please point this post out to the site moderators. Maybe they can do something about getting the 'page' taken down.)
In case you're wondering, a Google search showed the site was one of the bigger free dating sites, and the last email I got from them, which I did open and look at, was a newsletter-type thing letting me know where there was 'singles activity'. Well, I'm sure someone's happy to know there's singles activity out there, but since I'm happily settled, it's not me. The only possible reason I can think of to visit the site would be to check that the profile on it has been deleted.
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