Alexander Graham Bell. I Hate You.

I am so full of rant, I don't even know where to start. Well, maybe first, I want to complain that cell phones these days just don't do my rage justice. See, the big black rotary phones we had when I was a kid, they had some weight to them. Someone pissed you off on the other end? You could slam that puppy down and hear it in the next room. It left a high, reverberating ring clanging into the silence. It was a beautiful thing. 

I don't care how hard you tap that icon, it will never give the same satisfaction. Not. Ever.

So why do I need the physical gratification achieved by the slamming of a telephone receiver? Rogers. Every month when the bill comes in, I have to call them to figure out why they are forever, endlessly, inexplicably, adding charges onto my bill I never authorized, asked for or okayed. And believe me, I never get explanations. Hell, they completely cancelled my Ipad account without a word to me, then continued to charge my credit card for data I couldn't access because they had disabled my sim card without telling me that, either. All on an account that was pre-paid. In other words, I had to request the data and pay for it before I could use it. At least, that's the contract I signed. So how did three months go by where they charged my card for data I hadn't asked for and couldn't access? And then tell me that was my fault? Um....no.

And seriously, don't get me started on the Iphone bill...

And then today, hubs, who is home all day with the kids doing the stay-at-home dad thing asks me to arrange for the school to call me at work and arrange a time for him to go register our son. Oh. And can I call the girl's dance studio and figure when her classes and registration is? And set up a time for him to go do that with her? Really....what?  

The girls at work tell me this is a generic male trait, this thing I can only describe as phone phobia. Because seriously. I don't even have a phone on my desk at work and I can't turn my cell on except on my half hour lunch break, so this is not just a simple little thing for me to do between work files. This is a major get up, find an empty desk with a phone and hope my boss doesn't wander by and wonder what the hell I'm up to kind of thing while I spend a half hour arranging his appointments for him.

And they want to reconfigure our jobs so instead of writing letters, we phone our clients to get the information we need. Shoot me now. Really. I'm not kidding.

While the Cat's Away...

Image by Alexander Briel Perez

Yesterday, my husband made a split-second decision to go to the West Coast for an emergency business meeting. I helped him get clothes ready, he made a run to the store for shaving cream (although why he couldn’t take my travel size can is silly—so what if it smells like baby powder?!). Hours later, he was gone.

Don’t get me wrong…I love my husband. We both work from home, and while that might make many women shudder at the mere thought of spending 24/7 with their significant other, we do very well, having found plenty of outlets to get the hell away from each other when necessary.

But this is different. And as soon as he announced his travel plans, I began making my list of what I’d do while he was gone. I’m a night owl. I will use this time to my advantage, like maybe, but not limited to:

Read in bed. With the light on all night if I want. The compulsion to smother complaining husbands momentarily eliminated.

Eat in bed. Something with crumbs. They’re my crumbs, I don’t mind them.

Watch TV with the volume turned up so I can hear it and I don’t need to rely on closed captioning to know what’s going on. God forbid I should wake up HRH.

             

Go to a movie. Or two. I love going to movies and will see anything except horror. I will make good use of this movie time. Watch me.

No cooking. Unless it’s something I want. I like to call this Fend For Yourself Night. You want it? You make it.

Write something. Or not. It’s my call.

What are your favorite things to do while the Cat’s away? Give me more ideas!                                                                                                                                                              

Marriage is the end of the road...

Welcome guest blogger, Zee Monodee!

I was 14 when I received my first proposal. No, it wasn’t from my then-boyfriend! Instead, a professional matchmaker – called an agwa here – brought this offer to the table. How did this happen? I had been to my cousin’s wedding, and there, dressed in a lehenga suit (you know those Indian outfits with long embroidered skirts and short, equally embroidered blouses, with a hugely heavy drape called a dupatta), I easily looked to be around 18 with my long hair pulled up in a complicated updo (yes, we stopped at nothing to shine at weddings. Some even went as far as outshining the bride, but she’d probably not mind, seeing how an Indian or Indian-origin Muslim wedding went on for about 4-5 days).

The match? A young doctor, 26 years old, who’d recently come back from England after his studies. Very good prospect (I mean, a doctor!), from a good family, and better yet, he had fair skin. In short, a handsome boy. And he was ready to wait for me to finish high school!

That match received a ‘no’ from me. Seriously, I was 14! But it was the first of many such ‘good’ proposals I fended off between then and the age of 17 (when I did get married! That’s another story, but in a nutshell, my British boyfriend, who, thank goodness for the family, happened to be a Muslim boy, and I couldn’t be allowed to ‘date’ seriously. It’s marriage or the highway. We were married shortly after...and divorced just as quickly. So here I was at 18, back in Mauritius, a divorcee, while my peers were graduating high school. Springboard for penning this story.... Anyway....)

In traditional societies like India (whether you’re Hindu, Muslim, Tamil, or even Christian), a girl is ‘allowed’ to flitter around like a caged butterfly until she is 20, tops. If she gets married before then, all the better, because let’s face it, what else is there for girls except than to become wives and produce the first offspring (preferably a male!) a year later? Beyond 20, she starts to become a ‘case’ because *gasp* what if she ends up an old maid?

Such is the case for the Indian diaspora all over the world, and the Indo-Mauritian community is no different. Marriage is the end of the road for a woman.

So what happens when that marriage explodes, and you end up getting divorced? Back in the year 2000 and around, it meant you’d be shunned, labeled a divorcee as if that was a scarlet letter to be ashamed of. And also, how dare you even imagine you can end up with a ‘proper’ boy when you are ‘tarnished’? (Understand by that, a man not a divorcé or a widower).

What happens is that you, as the ‘jilted’ woman in this equation, put on your big girl knickers and go out to forge your own path on your own terms. Sod what the rest of the world thinks or how they are labeling you – life is waiting for you; you simply have to embrace it.

Less than a year after my divorce, I met a man, who was divorced too, and that shared bond of being ‘castaways’ became the foundation on which we built a marriage that has been going strong for over a decade now.

Lesson learned? There is always hope; we just have to believe.

The Other Side

The Other Side available HERE

Divorce paints a scarlet letter on her back when she returns to the culture-driven society of Mauritius. This same spotlight shines as a beacon of hope for the man who never stopped loving her. Can the second time around be the right one for these former teenage sweethearts?

Indian-origin Lara Reddy left London after her husband dumps her for a more accommodating uterus—at least, that’s what his desertion feels like. Bumping into him and his pregnant new missus doesn’t help matters any, and she thus jumps on a prestigious job offer. The kicker? The job is in Mauritius, the homeland of her parents, and a society she ran away from over a decade earlier.

But once there, Lara has no escape. Not from the gossip, the contempt, the harassing matchmaking...and certainly not from the man she hoped never to meet again. The boy she’d loved and lost—white Mauritian native, Eric Marivaux.

Back when they were teens, Eric left her, and Lara vowed she’d never let herself be hurt again. Today, they are both adults, and facing the same crossroads they’d stood at so many years earlier.

Lara now stands on the other side of Mauritian society. Will this be the impetus she needs to take a chance on Eric and love again?

Research, Research and a Little More Research...

Welcome guest blogger, Georgie Lee!

Research, for me, is not an onerous task. When I’m ready to start writing about a particular time period, I can’t wait to go to the library, pull every book available on that era off the shelf, take them home and lose myself in a time period. However, research isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It can be overwhelming deciding where to begin, what to look for and when to stop. Today, I want to offer some advice and a few suggestions for getting started and seeing it through until “The End.”

The first thing to do is…

Start Big: You know what era you want to write about, so it’s time to learn about the era. General overview books are a great place to start because they give you the key politics, ideas, people and events that helped shape the time period. Once you know the basics, you can begin to…

Narrow things down: Decide when in the era you want your story to take place then focus your research accordingly. In my upcoming Regency novella, Hero’s Redemption, the hero was involved in the battle at Hougoumont Manor during the battle of Waterloo. As a result, I did a great deal of research on the particulars of the battle including the manor layout, the French soldiers who stormed the gate, the British soldiers who held them off and how the wet weather turned the ground muddy. Details like this are important since they helped me craft scenes and add to the historical realism of the story. So once you’re done narrowing things down, it’s time to...

Get personal: The details of everyday life help create characters, make them real and flavor a narrative. To make the Regency period come alive in the story, I researched everyday life including dress, food, furniture and the plans of both London town houses and country manor houses. I sprinkled these details throughout the story to help make the setting come alive and draw the reader into the time period. However, be careful with how much historic detail you add to your story. Too much will make it read like a college mid-term instead of a sweeping saga. So, what happens when the research you need isn’t there? Well, it’s time to…

Think outside the box: Depending on what time period you’re dealing with, or what obscure historical event you’re trying to incorporate into your story, you may or may not have a wealth of information to draw from. This is when it’s time to start looking at primary sources like journals, autobiographies and even government reports. These writings will give you more detail on a subject than a general history book will and most are in the public domain and available free on Amazon. It’s time consuming but worth it, even though at some point I’m going to have to…

Know when to say when: Research can be fun. It can help you outline your story or navigate a tricky plot point. However, it can also distract from writing. There is no end to the research available or the hours you can dedicate to it. It’s an important part of the process, but so is sitting down and getting words on paper. So, don’t be afraid to put your research aside and start writing, because the great thing about research is, you can access it any time and you can always do more.

Thank you everyone for stopping by and a special thanks to Valerie for having me here today.

Hero’s Redemption

by Georgie Lee

London, 1817

Devon, the Earl of Malton, is a hero for his deeds at the Battle of Waterloo. But he suffers terrible nightmares, and drinks himself to sleep most nights. A habit he vows to break when he awakes one morning to find a woman sharing his bed, no memory of how she got there, and her angry brother at his door.

Cathleen is mortified when her wastrel brother and his greedy wife propose a blackmail scheme involving the earl, but as a penniless war widow she's at their mercy. She goes along with the plan and sneaks into Devon's bed one night, and ends up comforting him through a night terror.

Charmed by her beauty and kindness, Devon determines that rather than pay the blackmail, he will offer his hand in marriage to Cathleen. Although she is deeply attracted to the stoic earl, Cathleen cannot understand why Devon would want to marry her. What she doesn't know is that Devon owes her a debt that can never fully be repaid…

BIO:

   A dedicated history and film buff, Georgie Lee loves combining her passion for Hollywood, history and storytelling through romantic fiction. She began writing professionally at a small TV station in San Diego before moving to Los Angeles to work in the interesting but strange world of the entertainment industry.

   Her first novel, Lady’s Wager, and her contemporary novella, Rock ‘n’ Roll Reunion are both available from Ellora’s Cave Blush. Labor Relations, a contemporary romance of Hollywood, and Studio Relations, a love story set in 1935 Hollywood, are currently available from Montlake Romance. Look for her Regency novella, Hero’s Redemption from Carina Press on July 29, 2013, and her Regency novel, Engagement of Convenience, from Harlequin Historical on October 1, 2013.

Buy Links:  Carina Press|Amazon 

When not writing, Georgie enjoys reading non-fiction history and watching any movie with a costume and an accent. Please visit  www.georgie-lee.com for more information about Georgie and her novels.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Georgie-Lee/259729314054846?ref=hl

Twitter: @GeorgieLeeBooks

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2985551.Georgie_Lee

Blog: http://georgielee.blogspot.com

Website: www.georgie-lee.com 

Technology Bytes!

By Guest Blogger Lily Gayle

 I love gadgets and technology. I don't always understand how they work, but I've always had a knack for electronics. My husband gets flustered trying to install a DVD player. Not me. I love the challenge.

When I tired of high phone bills, I switched to internet phone. When my internet provider sold out to another company and the server kept going down, I disconnected my DSL. I set up a Gmail account and got a hotspot for the internet. I just added a clip-on wireless router the size of a cigarette lighter to my desktop monitor and plugged it in with a cord. Then I plugged the hotspot in and placed it in a central room of the house. Ta-da! Internet for everyone and no modem!

Then I got get rid of my internet home phone. The only people calling on that line were telemarketers and politicians, and my friends and family used my cell phone.  Now, I have fewer bills and fewer cables connecting all that technology together. And connecting everything was simple enough, given good instructions. But I soon learned, electronics can be much more complicated. Sometimes, technology bites!

My parents are 75 and 78, but they try to stay current with the latest technology. They both have their own computers, email addresses and Facebook pages, but they live in the boonies so their choices of internet providers is limited.

A few years ago, they upgraded from dial up to satellite internet through their satellite television provider. The company set them up and my dad figured out how to set up a wireless network. Then a week or so ago, a telemarketer called my mother on her land line and convinced her she could save money by bundling her internet with internet phone service. She did the math and figured she could save $10/month.

The company guaranteed she could keep her phone number and email address. They came out to the house, installed the new internet dish next to the old internet dish, and showed my parents how fast their service was. My parents were pleased so they agreed to cancel their old internet service when the tech suggested it. They didn't want two internet bills. Then the tech dismounted the old dish from the roof and my mother no longer had access to her email account. The tech told her she could still use her Gmail account. But my mother didn't have one. They also didn't have the internet phone, but the service tech promised the box would arrive in the mail and all they'd have to do was plug it in. Yeah. Right!

The box barely came with instructions. So, when I brought my mom home after her  cataract surgery Wednesday, my dad asked if I'd hook up the internet phone box as  it required hooking up cables under his desk and he's 78 with a recent hip replacement and a bad knee. No problem.  Or so I thought.

When I had Vonage, it was just a matter of running cables and turning things on. Vonage took care of the registration and porting my phone number. Not so with this company. After hooking up the box, the customer has to log in to the website and handle the registration and porting. I followed all the instructions and hooked up the cables but when I logged on to the website, it kept kicking me out and not letting me log back in. When I finally managed to log onto the site long enough to register the pone, I got an error message. So, I called the company. Five hours and three service techs later, I still couldn't register the phone and the service techs had no idea what was wrong. They said it was a "bad" box but they still wouldn't send a tech out. They told me they'd call me Friday and let an advanced tech walk me through the process again.

"If it's a bad box, why not just send a new one?" I asked.

They couldn't do that until an advanced tech went through some tests on their end. Why they couldn't run those tests that night, I'll never know. But their responses and answers to questions bugged me. Something didn't add up. The way they told me to hook up the cables prevented anything from working. The way I had hooked them up gave my parents internet, but no phone.  There had to be a problem with the cables not the box.

So, the next day after work, I drove the 45 minutes to my parent's home with a box of old portable phones and cables I'd used when I had internet phone service. I hooked everything up and ta-da! It looked as if everything was going to work. I was even able to get back on to the website and register their information. But I still didn't have a dial tone and I still needed to transfer their existing phone number. So, I called tech support. Again.

Nothing they suggested worked. During all the redundant things they asked me to re-do, such as resetting the IP address and rebooting the computer, their website went down. This had happened the night before too and they claimed my computer wasn't hooked up correctly, even though I hadn't changed the connections and had just been on their website a couple of hours earlier.

One tech told me I could only log in using Internet Explorer. One told me I could only log in using their service provider's email address. One told me I had to reroute the wires so the internet cable connected directly to the phone box in order to access their website. In a nutshell, no one knew what they were doing!

I finally got connected to a tech supporter with some sense. We got everything working again, but the phone still didn't have a dial tone. He said the box was bad and they'd send out a new one. When I asked if he could send a technician to hook the box up for them this time, he said, "No. None of our service techs are trained to install the phones."

"WHAT?!" I shouted over the phone. "You have service technicians who need training before they can connect the internet phone box and yet you expect a 75 and 78-year-old geriatric couple to crawl around under the desk and connect the wires?"

I was livid. Even if my mom wanted to go back to the previous company, the dish has been taken down and she'd have to pay another installation charge and probably sign a new contract. She still has her land line, but that's double what the internet phone would be if we could ever get it connected.

As for the new internet provider, they are double the cost of the previous provider. My mother's savings were to be on the phone service, which we can't seem to get connected. So, now, my parents are stuck paying the higher phone bill and the higher internet bill until we can get some resolution on this internet phone line. They are NOT saving money!

In the meantime, I have retrieved most of my mother's email addresses and I've gotten her back on Facebook. The tech support  guy promised to call me today and let me know if my parents need a new box or if I need to go back out there and change some wires or settings on the computer. And that's when I went into bitch mode. I managed to get the company to postpone charging them for the phone service until it's actually working and I got them to extend the introductory pricing offer for an additional three months. And apparently, they expedited shipping on that new phone box. The company didn't call me today as promised, but my mother just called to let me know that Fed Ex had delivered the new box.        Looks like I'll be playing internet Geek again as the company still won't send out a technician to connect the phone. They did, however, promise to walk me through the connection process over the phone. Now, I just have to find time to get back out there.

Yep. I think I'm keeping my hotspot and cell phone. No matter where I go, I can take it with me. And I don't have to deal with installation or poorly trained technical support!

Author bio: 

Lilly Gayle is a wife, mother of two grown daughters, and a breast cancer survivor. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and little dog, T.T. When not working as an x-ray technologist and mammographer, Lilly writes paranormal and historical romances. 

Over the years, she's convinced her family to take side trips to museums and historic sites while on vacation. Her daughters never complained—to her face—and thankfully, her husband enjoys those same activities. However, he doesn't seem to enjoy science fiction and the paranormal as much as Lilly would like. 

Lilly grew up watching western, science fiction, and paranormal movies and television with her father. Her mother and both grandmothers taught her a love and respect for history, and she credits her love for reading and passion for writing to three wonderful teachers.

Visit her at www.lillygayle.com

When PMS Strikes

Yesterday, I was PMSing... big time. I knew the signs: the binging on shit food, the bitchy demeanor, the short attention span, the need to be right or kill someone. Yeah, the signs were all there, but I ignored them. Well, not really, I crammed three mini brownies down my throat in as many seconds, ate enough Now and Laters from Lily's stash of candy when she wasn't looking (polished them off, actually), and got into a stupid flame war on someone else's Facebook page with some nimrod who… Well, we won't go into that right now. That's a different blog entirely.

Suffice it to say, all of the signs were there, but I couldn't help myself. I had that broom in one hand, lightning rod in the other, and lasers shooting from my eyes. God help you if you breathed in my vicinity.

And, then, after I carried on a pointless argument with this assshat on Facebook for a few hours wasting precious editing time--because, I don't know, I was in the full grips of raging hormones--Charlie came home.

After saying "hello," the first words out of his mouth were: "Have you thought about dinner?"

"No."

"Well, we need to eat."

"We do?"

"Yes, so, what do you want for dinner?" (Read: what are you making for dinner?)

"I haven't thought about dinner, but you can make it or go get something."

Charlie: "Aren't you hungry?"

"No, but you can eat without me."

"I want all of us to eat together."

Pant! Pant!

Really? You cannot see the sparks flying off of me in every direction? Do I look like I fucking care about dinner? I've stuffed myself with shit. I'm full. You are a big boy, old enough to either make your own or go out and kill it. I don't care. Just leave me &#$!@* alone!

I don't quite remember the rest of our conversation, but he finally left. At some point, I realize I have to make something or Lily will have a melt down. One PMSing female in the household melting down is bad enough, but add a prepubescent female melting down, too? Yeah, that's ugly.

Oh, and I realize that I am crossing the street to participate in a woman's circle around a fire pit with some friends at 8 pm. It is 6:30. I need to make food quickly.

So, I'm putting together blue cheese burgers. Charlie is hovering over me. The sparks aren't flying quite as profusely, but the steam is still wafting out of my ears in small puffs. He's nattering away at me like a little chirpy bird, and I'm eying the spatula. It's a grill spatula and has a meat tenderizer-like edge on one side. I start thinking about what I can do with it, how I could silence him just for a few minutes. (grin)

Instead, I step outside to start the gas grill.

He follows me and asks, "Would you like me to start the grill?"

"Sure."

Far be it from me to stop him from being helpful. I quickly escape inside for a moment of peace… which lasts all of two seconds. He follows me in and continues his incessant chattering. I'm not paying much attention to it until he asks:

"Are we having salad?"

The embers flare to life. I don't even look at him and say, "Are you making it?"

Silence.

Mwahahaha

That's right, I'm making dinner. Tonight, suggestions are best left unsaid, especially when I am wielding a large knife as I slice a tomato.

Yeah, when PMS strikes, it's best to run! (grin)

Finishing (Or is she her mother's daughter?)

A month or so ago, I found myself scolding Lily for not finishing projects. If she takes a sewing class somewhere, she will finish her project. If she starts a sewing project at home, it will sit for, I don't know, she may never finish it. Ever. (This is not an exaggeration.) So, we'd started a sewing project, and, much to my frustration, it sat there and sat there and sat there until I finished it… because I couldn't stand it.

So, we had a discussion. Okay. Let's be honest. I lectured, her eyes glazed over, and nothing changed.

Surprise!

After this very vehement "discussion," I realized who else was guilty of not finishing projects.

Yeah, you guessed it. Me.

How can I expect her to do something I don't? It's all about being a role model. And what I have been showing her has been less than stellar in this area. Well, at least, when it comes to my own projects. I finish work projects, but I have a couple of crochet projects I've been "working" on for the past two years. I had three until I crocheted the last row on a scarf and two flowers. Yes, really, that's all that I needed to do to finish the project.

The other two are a bit longer. One is a granny "square" afghan. I'm getting closer. I have seven more squares to complete it. Of course, today, I discovered some errors that I am currently fixing, but I am getting closer to being finished. What I will do with it when I'm done? No idea, but I'll be done.

Once I finish it, I'll move on to the next. At one point, I was crocheting one a day, but life got in the way. Now, I'm managing two to three a week…sometimes, but I'm doing it.

I have three--er, four, um, five?—in progress stories. There's a script I started writing some ten years ago and still sits, waiting for me to finish it. I also have two musicals that sit unfinished.

Hm… who's the queen of unfinished projects? Gee, I don't know. Could it be… Me? Apparently, we have a princess, too: my daughter.

Maybe, if I continue with this new direction, I will be the queen of finishing projects. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have a few new stories published, too.