Ice Dancing

overcast, wet flurries, temps 0

Did you see the ice dancing last night at the Olympics??? Amazing, beautiful, performances. I adore the American pair who've been skating since they were kids...love the old video of them skating together. But what joy to see Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue dance. And win.

It was transcendent. And they were so happy. Joyous. And, to add to the delight, as Hope Dellon my US editor said - Tessa Virtue is not only a brilliant athletes and gorgeous...she has the BEST name ever. I think I might have to start using it. Tessa Virtue...

Watched a wonderful film last night too - before the ice dancing...a small, hilarious british film called In The Loop - political satire. Great.

Finished the copy edits yesterday as you know - but today's struggle was to ship them back. called UPS - who refused to picked them up today even though Michael called at 10:30 in the morning. We needed to pay an extra 2 dollars, which we were willing to do...but wait, no, we couldn't pay it, the US publishers had to pay it - but wait - their account wasn't set up for this admittedly new UPS rule. So they'd pick it up from us tomorrow but, no, they couldn't tell us when in a 12 hour period they might arrive.

UPS. I wonder if they know they have competition? From FedEx, from the post office, from emails... I wonder if they've heard of the economic downturn - where it might be a good idea to ramp-up customer service. Ugh.

I wrote to my magnificent US publishers - Laura at St. martin's Minotaur and ran through the situation. She got back within minutes saying she'll clear it up. And she did.

But this was more than an hour of productive time take. ugh.

But they came, whisked it away - took them about 30 seconds at the door, if that.

Had a fun day today...porridge at Nicks with Michael. Then grabbed a cab through the snow and slush to an annual medical...routine. then walked home, and while Michael had lunch with a very good friend - David Rosenblatt - I answered emails, did some writing and marvelled at Marjorie from Connecticut (her new legal name...or MFC for short) - the Queen of Facebook. This woman is unbelieveable. Added almost 100 people to my Facebook account today. When she get's me to 1,000 she will ascend to Empress of Facebook. At 10,000 she becomes the Archangel Marjorie (from Connecticut - to distinguish her from Archangel Marjorie from Manitoba) and at a million she is a Goddess.

We should all root for Marjorie becoming a Facebook Goddess.

At 4pm I had a meeting over the phone with Torin, of ProLiteracy about adult literacy and different strategies to raise awareness. And tonight at 8 I have a Skype chat with members of the book club at the Independent bookstore, Mysteries and More, in Nashville, Tennessee. I love skype - makes a visit to places I can't actually get to right now easy and fun.

Greg, his wife Mary and I did a test about a week ago and managed to connect but we're on satellite at home and the connection is a little weak so the signal jumped and both the video and audio was distorted at times. We needed to come in to Montreal for doc appointments anyway so we decided to stay in the apartment for the night since we have highspeed here.

Looking forward to the discussion.

I must say, I had a fun day too relaxing on the bed, watching trashy video's (none as fab as In the Loop from last night) and eating pastries. Ahh, the life of a struggling writing. My big struggle is getting up.

Be well - I'll talk with you tomorrow.

Honestly, it's a pot roast...

overcast, cool, temps 6

Turtleneck and sweater day. Fire laid about to be lit. Wonderful late autumn day. Trees almost bare. When they decide to lose their leaves it doesn't take long.

Had breakfast in Knowlton this morning...wonderful. This afternoon need to pack, do laundry and have another recording session. I'm doing the narration for a film on literacy. Hope to finish it this afternoon. Have to, actually. Am off to Montreal tomorrow morning, an event at 7:30pm at the Pierrefonds library in Montreal, then another one Wednesday evening at the Poite Claire Library, then an early morning flight to Chicago then on to Indianapolis, for Magna Cum Murder.

I'm actually the guest of honor there, and am really looking forward to it. It's a wonderful conference for mystery readers and writers. Quite academic, since it's sponsored by Ball State University. But also organized by the amazing kathryn Kennison and Jim Huang. Jim runs a fabulous mystery bookstore in Indianapolis.

From there, next Sunday, I fly to Toronto for the International Federation of Authors festival at Harbourfront...and a series of events in and around Toronto - including a couple of fun ones in and around Collingwood.

So plan to hop into a bath, relax, and enjoy. And take it one event at a time.

Gary's back working on the place and had to give him the embarrassing news that late last week I tried (important word there...tried) to flush a pot roast down the toilet.

When he'd finished laughing - which was dangerous since he was up on our roof - he said he'd bring the 'snake' back this afternoon and de-roast us.

Oh, and had a fabulous review of THE MURDER STONE in this weekend's Irish News. They named it a 'Hot Book', gave it 8/10. So that's good.

Will try to blog tomorrow...be well.