Freeeeeeeee!

I heard that little pig in the Geico commercial when I typed that headline.

Anyway dear people, the BOOK is free to download on your Kindle or Kindle App today and tomorrow (June 14 and 15),  So please get yours and tell your friends.  If you like it, feel freeeeeeeeee to write a review on Amazon.  If you don't, well, you can tell me or maybe just keep that to yourself.  (I'm smiling as I write this but inside I am all steel).

Happy Father's Day.

Here's a link to the freebie for my countrymen.

And here's a link for all my friends in Blighty (Amazon.uk).

Thank you all.

Favorite Queen Elizabeth Anecdote and A Little Something for HRH's Birthday

Queen Elizabeth in 1967 - the Famous Admiral's Boat Cloak Portrait by Cecil Beaton

Sometime during the last sixty years, Elizabeth II R was introduced to a famous photographer at some official palace do or another.  (The internet has failed me in trying to track down the photographer involved).  The appropriate introductions were made according the appropriate protocols and the Queen, model of tact that she is, began a polite conversation by noting that she knew a great many photographers.  The photographer in question responded, "And I know a great many Queens."

I like to think that she approved that particular quip.

Anywho, HRH E2R has a birthday coming up next weekend.  It isn't her actual birthday, which is on April 21.  The weather is a little too dodgy then for a parade or trooping the "colour" etc. so they move the party to late May or June. 

This year, it is on June 16.  Have you thought what you might get for HRH?  I am happy to say that, for once, I have planned ahead.

Are you sitting down?

I am offering her Majesty, and everyone else with a Kindle and working knowledge of English, a free download of my book, Up, Back, and Away. 

The giveaway commences at midnight on June 14, 2013 Pacific TIme, and ends midnight June 15.  (With the time delay that covers her big day). 

The book is a time travel adventure story wherein our hero, a fifteen-year-old boy from suburban Dallas, is sent back to England in 1928 (on a vintage English three-speed bicycle) to "find a girl with a gift, a girl born out of her time," and a "secret that was not meant to be" and then return home with them both.

So, if you have a Kindle and the slightest bit of interest wait til next weekend and pounce, or click,  really.  Remember Queen's Birthday = free book.  Queen's Birthday = free book.  Queen's Birthday = free book.  (This is supposed to be like a Manchurian Candidate style trigger for you).

Incidentally, the paperback is on sale now at one third off the cover price so, there ya go.  Also, if you have Amazon Prime you can borrow the book (and other Kindle books) for free anytime. 

What Would J.J. Walker Say?

What did he ever say?  No - I'm not answering that (One should never ask a lady what sit-com catch phrases she remembers....)

Below is a  a little blog post I wrote last fall.  I later pulled it from here, I thought, I can rebuild it, make it stronger, so I revised it and sent it to the local paper and they put it on their website.  I stumbled over it there tonight and decided it really belongs back here.   It's still mine (they didn't pay me, of course).  So it's back again, with an edit or two to freshen it up.     

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“Click if you remember this!” A spate of these commands has arrived on my Facebook page lately from friends and acquaintances of my age.

I have been asked to click if I could identify an ice-cube tray, Captain Kangaroo, Corningware casserole dishes, and a picture of Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York, and the little girl who played Tabitha (whoever she was — I can’t be arsed to Google it).

Apparently, the subtle thief of youth has done his business and I have become the holder of arcane historical knowledge.

Since I recognized each at an instant, I have apparently joined the new, or at least incipient, elderly. How did this happen?

Carol Burnett, Marimekko pattern wallpapers, Mikey-who-hates-everything, etc., are among my generation’s age-defining shibboleths — what Betty Grable, roller towels and lap rugs were for the group I am accustomed to thinking of as actual, proper old people. (Or, maybe, Dean Jones, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and love beads, for the new old people).

And the hints that age has crept up on me aren’t coming only from Facebook.

My boss made a reference to Laverne and Shirley at work the other day to a bright thirtysomething colleague and she looked at him with complete, utter blankness. Even prompting — “Two girls who work in a brewery in Milwaukee, spinoff from Happy Days?” — brought no flicker of recognition.

Fonzie, hold me!

I do think, however — in my defense and others closing on their 30th high-school reunion — that the pace of life today has had the effect of rendering a lot of things ancient before their time, perhaps including us. I have a 15-year-old daughter who has taken to referring to the period prior to 2011 as “her childhood.” Obviously that’s over. Duh.

But I am wondering how soon she and her peers will find themselves in the position of historical interpreters. I’ll bet that, before they finish college, their FB friends (assuming FB has another five years in it) will be asking them to click when they recognize any one of the Teletubbies, or a flip phone, or Saturday mail delivery.

By the way, despite the fact that I recognized all the history flash cards that have recently been presented to me, I didn’t click on any of them. It was just too depressing to think (and admit) that I am part of a lost world, already.

Also, I worried that Internet-trawling market bots would use those clicks against me. The ads at the side of the page would likely become infinitely more depressing (reverse mortgages, The Scooter Store, diabetes supplies, etc.) Other, worse things would likely follow.

In my heart, however, I clicked.

My God. How old must that girl who played Tabitha on Bewitched be by now?

You Know that Song From Fiddler?

"Sunrise, sunset.."

Like that, til you're all crying and everything?

As one of my Twitter correspondents put it, (about her own child): "last year he was five.  Now he's going to the prom.  Since when do they let six-year-olds go to the prom?"

So, It's, Like, All Magical Here and Everything...

I took my fifteen-year-old daughter and her friend to their yoga class this evening.  I skipped the yoga and went for my umptybazillionth walk on the Stowe, Vermont recreation path.  If the Weather today around here had asked a magic mirror (or anyone else, for that matter), "who is the fairest of them all?" The answer would have been, "You are, you rare Vermont weather, you."

The sun was setting when I started out and Leprechauns and elves were skittering over the stripily-shadowed path. I almost got impaled by a unicorn - almost, but not quite, phew.  Unfortunately, all these creatures slipped away before I could take their pictures with my crumby little ipod camera.  Here are a few shots I got of things that were standing still.

A Breather...

Hey team.  If you've had it with that book already, think how I feel.  (Smiley emoticon).

I promise that I will shut up about someday but, alas for you, that day is not (quite) this day.  I do feel the need for a little break, however, like you, and for something lovely and quiet.  So, here's a favorite song, from a favorite soundtrack, from a favorite movie that provided a certain amount of inspiration for a certain book, that shall remain nameless.

It's Publication Day!

OK people.

Five years in the making, long hours at the keyboard, the odd flash of inspiration, walks in the woods, struggling over plot points, nights worrying about historical details (how much did a bicycle cost in 1928 and how many people had electricity?), now,at last, here it is.  What I have come to think of as THE BOOK.

I only just approved the final proof an hour or two ago.  Here's a link to the paperback.  In the next few weeks it should be out as an ebook and very soon, in the next couple of days, also available in paperback through the usual Amazon channels.  An audiobook version will follow later in the year, I hope.  Your friendly local bookseller should also be able to order copies for your favorite shop.  (Wait a little before asking, you ravening hordes, you!)

So looking forward to hearing from one or two of you...