I Have Not Disappeared

 Just packing, taking trips to Goodwill, hiding out during house showings, and finishing up goodbye visits and doctor visits.

I've been finishing reading a good book, too, that I want to review soon. 

We leave Sacramento November 3rd, go to Pittsburgh to visit Rajan's brother and wife, and then on the 5th leave for Portugal. We move out of the house into a hotel on November 1st to finish emptying the house. We already voted earlier and had our ballots acknowledged.  I'm hoping to get my review done before we leave - maybe at the hotel. Then I may have to go dark for another week while we arrive in Braga and acquire WiFi in the flat. I'll be online until November 3rd and will try to peek in on your sites.

Meanwhile, HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU ALL.

The Crazyness of Our October

 The long silence this time is due to the crazyness of our October - shown in this calendar:

We've crammed in visits with friends, doctor appointments, poetry meetings, house showings with our real estate agent, etc.

It started off with a bang with my book signing on October 8th at Avid Reader. There was a nice turn-out and I sold some books, but the biggest pleasure was seeing family and friends again. Here are a few samples below:

My husband took some pictures, and my grandniece's husband took some. (The flowers are from this lovely family.) Many friends came whom I hadn't seen since before Covid lockdowns.

The Book Signing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile: This Sunday night I'm pleased to be reading again for the Chapparal Poets at 4 pm, courtesy of Rick Costa, who invited me to a reading from Portugal last year. I will be reading from my as yet unpublished chapbook, Dreaming of Galicia.

Then Monday, I'll be interviewed by George Cramer about Deadly Verse on his super blog at https://gdcramer.com/ . I'm really excited about this. An author himself (Robbers and Cops; The Mona Lisa Sisters, published by Russian Hill Press, all available on Amazon.com), George Cramer interviews well-known authors in great depth. A couple of weeks ago he interviewed Terry Shames, one of my very favorite mystery authors! So I feel quite honored to be interviewed by him.

Please do drop in Monday and say hello. (See above link.) Drop in today, too, to learn more about him on today's blog post: the tables were turned and he was intervied!

As for pictures of our get-togethers with friends, sadly, I get so involved in the conversations these days, that I forget to take pictures. However two astute friends recently did whip out their cameras, so we have a couple of visual memories to take back with us: On the right, earlier this month we got together with Nancy Herman and her husband Tom. Nancy and I originally were in a writing group together - and still are, although it's gone mainly online in the form of manuscript exhanges. On the left, our friends and neighbors Alice and Bill Welborn wined and dined us Thursday for one of the most relaxing afternoons and evenings we've had in ages. They were babysitting a cute dog named Riley, who was quite sociable, as you can see. I am looking forward to more relaxing days like this when November unfolds . . . .

 

How about you? Does life ever get too busy for you? Do you ever get so involved in conversations that you forget to photograph a special get-together? Do you keep in touch with friends from afar? And . . . do you babysit pets for friends? Are you a pet person? If so, dog or cat? (Hubby and I are both.)