A Clown Dog's Christmas - Update

Checked Amazon a short time ago..
CLOWN DOG is now available for Kindle.

Book signing tomorrow in Hollywood - looking forward to it! 

More about A CLOWN DOG'S CHRISTMAS

Well... It's already Dec. 11 and I'm in waiting mode.
The suspense is killing me... waiting on an e-mail from Amazon so I can ship some books to the local warehouse... and waiting also to hear when the e-book conversion is finished.  Remaining shopping days for Christmas 2012 are going fast.

Meanwhile I have printed books which I'll bring down the hill to a neighborhood coffee house this Sunday.  Sunday is Hollywood's Farmer's Market Day.  I'm hoping people who come to buy their fruit and veggies will also stop by to check out my book.  CAFFE ETC. (yes, double ffs).  is a great coffee place...Bill and I have lattes there every Sunday.  They have yummy breakfasts, too.  The owners Viviana and Brian have been so kind to let me put up a table to promote my book.

So while I'm waiting to hear WHEN the book will be available for order via the net,  I'll post some pics - the book's cover and the promo bookmark I created.

Introducing... A CLOWN DOG'S CHRISTMAS

Long time no blog.  I've been working diligently on my novel,  A CLOWN DOG'S CHRISTMAS.


Right now I have an artist finishing a cartoon for the cover and an editor nit-picking through the spelling and punctuation. It will be available in print and as an e-book by mid-December.

Above is a photo of Pebbles, the book's star. My lovely friend Yulia took the picture when she visited us in early July.


Here's the blurb, more of less, of what will appear on the back cover of A CLOWN DOG CHRISTMAS:

It's late December. But instead of Christmas cheer, Pebbles faces life with a clown who's turned suddenly sad!

Pebbles learns the reason for Beppo's gloomy mood.. and also realizes her career as a clown dog may end before it's begun!  It's time to act... and in real life, not just in the recital hall at Budapest U.

Pebbles must use all her talents, plus every skill she's learned in clownery classes, to give Beppo the one Christmas gift he needs most - hope.

My Summer Vacation, a Quick Trip into the BWCA

I lived in northern Minnesota while growing up.  My family camped occasionally, but after a few outings with a tent we switched to renting cabins during the summer, usually in the middle of the state. This summer, for the first time, I ventured way north, into the massive acreage of lakes and forest known on the U.S. side as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Here's our happy group after meeting up on a Sat. morning and getting our gear together:

There are 10 in the photo but unhappily a work conflict left one of us behind.  There are also 2 dogs in photo.  They will share our wilderness adventure.

In photo below you can see our group of  21st century voyageurs ready to be motored across Moose Lake.  Once dropped off we will say adieu to motors. We will depend on our canoes, paddles and muscle power for water transport and for strong backs to lug (or I should say portage) our stuff (or I should say gear) from one lake to the next.

Our group of  9 set up camp on a small island - Robin's Island, I believe.

Bill and I pitched our tent mere feet from a marker pounded into stone: the official international border.
So, from my temporary home's little rear window I could see Canada - You betcha!

New Friends in My Neighborhood

How lucky I am to have two new friends in my life!
At the end of August, Yulia and Vera left their homes in Moscow to visit Los Angeles for the first time.

Thanks to the Yulia's great camera, I have super pics to share.

 Yulia (left), Vera (right) and me in the middle - at Venice Beach

Vera (left), Yulia (right) - the very blue Pacific behind them.

Vera and Yulia on one of our treks in the Hollywood Hills.



As you can see, we had fabulous weather during their two-week visit.

It was enlightening for me to be a tourist in my own home town.
I hope to share more about our time together in future blogs.

My new friends flew home two days ago.
My home seems empty without them. 
But in my neighborhood of memory they are with me.
I send them love across the globe...

Ahh, the Lovely Jacaranda

We DO have seasons in Los Angeles and this is my favorite time of year, partly because of the glorious blooming jacarandas in my neighborhood. Here's Roosevelt golf course in Griffith Park. 

We're sharing the tee box of the Par 3 seventh hole with a jacaranda in full bloom.

Even the parking lot at Roosie becomes lovely when its jacarandas are blooming. Although you might prefer not to park beneath them when they shower down their deep purple petals...

 
 

Griffith Park Bear

For years I passed by the bear, paying little more attention to the statue than to a tree or street sign. But in 2011 I started to take notice.  Sometimes on cold days the bear wore a hat or a scarf.  On Valentine's Day 2011 he could be seen with a pink and red crocheted vest.


At the beginning of this year curiosity finally compelled me to park the car on Fern Dell and check out the bear's story. The Griffith Park Bear resides at the corner of Los Feliz Boulevard and the Fern Dell entrance to Griffith Park.  On that day, he was in his natural state.

From the base of the statue I learned that Berlin gave the bear statue to the City of Los Angeles.  At this point I assumed Berlin chose a bear because it's an emblem on the California state flag.  Later, of some research, I realized Berlin's mascot is a bear.

This year on Valentine's Day I was a little disappointed to see the bear without the pink/red granny square vest and only wearing a couple strands of mardi gras beads and a floppy hat.  On St. Patrick's Day he looked more cheerful with a jaunty green boa and a crocheted sash.

Now that the Griffith Park bear has become part of my neighborhood family I feel bad I didn't stop by yesterday.  I wonder if the bear was carrying an Easter basket.  Or wearing a fancy bonnet.

About a Squirrel in Hollywood

Last spring I wrote about an orphaned owl we found near our house and brought to a wildlife rescue center.
It's only February but the wildlife around here has decided it's springtime again. One day I spotted a tubby squirrel hopping onto our deck. I'm guessing it was a "she" in nest-building mode.  I'd been wondering what bird or animal was unraveling my cotton rug.  It had been hanging on the deck rail to dry after a day of rain.

I made the rug for my dog but she never really liked it - Pebbles has an artistic sense - I think she objected to my sloppy crocheting - the rug, intended as the usual rectangle, turned out to be more of a trapezoid.  I haven't seen the squirrel for the past week.  I hope the ex-rug cotton makes a comfy nest for her kittens.

My New Neighborhood

My new neighborhood is Maxton Falls, the setting of my recently published e-book.

Long ago I inherited my sister Karen's collection of Nancy Drew.  She graduated from H.S. when I was in second grade and is the youngest of my three sisters.  Her N.D. mysteries stayed behind after she left home. And I couldn't wait to be able to read them.  In the early 60s I discovered another series with heroine Trixie Belden.  Last year I donated most of my Trixie Belden collection to a thrift store in Cambridge, MN where Mom lives and where my Belden tomes have lived.  I saved the first two of the series as mementos - the covers of these shown below:

 

Trixie and her girlfriend Honey are the girlfriends shown on the covers.  Their neighborhood included the nearby town of Sleepyside.

Jade and Nettie are my girlfriend detectives. I'm happily working on their next adventure.