Sunday Afternoon

It's been a glorious day today.... sunny, warm, hardly a breeze..... and the neighborhood is as quiet as a church. Not a lawnmower in sight, nor in hearing distance.

We sat out in the yard this morning, with all the kids. Even ShadowBaby was outside today. He's an inside cat, but sometimes my husband likes to be his hero and he will let him out to play in the backyard. I'm not exactly thrilled with that, because then ShadowBaby will always want to go out. And how do you explain to this baby cat that the back door is okay, but the front door isn't. When ShadowBaby is out in the yard, I am out there watching him like a mother hen. I can't help it. The other two cats are used to the yard and are content within the fences. I don't know if ShadowBaby would try and climb the fence, nor do I care to find out.

We're going out for dinner tonight, to our friends B & P's home. They've been here for dinner, and to some of our Charades and Christmas parties, but this will be our first time to their house. Funny story about how B and I met.

B is a "BOI," which means "born on the island." The island being Galveston. He writes a column for a local paper, and a few years ago, he turned all of his columns into a book. Wonderful book that I found at one of our local bookstores, even though he had a book-signing at Barnes & Noble.

I read his book not once, but twice. Wonderful stories (all true) about growing up in Galveston, and about the local characters and celebrities who lived there. After the second reading, the book just sat on my shelves. As I got new books, I had to make room on those bookshelves. Can't keep everything. So periodically, I weed through the shelves and take out books that I give to friends, or sell on Half.com or eBay. With B's book, I thought eBay was the way to go, so I listed it.

Within a day of the listing, I had an eMail from the irate author. Why on earth was I selling his book? And starting it at such a low price? Did I read the book? And if so, how could I be parting with a book he put his heart and soul into?

Of course, I eMailed right back, and asked him why I should believe that he was indeed the author and not just some nut who bothers eBay sellers? eMails flew back and forth, and he convinced me that he was who he said he was. Ooops.

B told me that if I would stop the auction, he would trade me one of his signed hardcovers for my softcover copy. Not only that, but he'd deliver it personally, since he wanted to meet the person who had the nerve to peddle his book on eBay.

Far be it from me to resist such an offer, so we agreed to meet. He came here one afternoon a few years ago and he and my husband and I spent a couple of hours talking. Wonderful afternoon. And he signed a hardcover copy of his book for me, which is still on my shelves, and I've read it three times now. The next time we all met, we got to meet B's wife P. We've all been friends ever since... they come to our house for the parties, we've met them at restaurants for dinner from time to time. And B and I eMail one another a few times a week.

B, however, doesn't understand my devotion to Barry Manilow. He makes fun of me all the time about that. Usually starts off with "Why would a grown woman...." He can press my Manilow-buttons and get me going. I think he does it just to get a rise out of me. He was sympathetic, however, when I told him that last week's Manilow concert was cancelled because Barry had bronchitis. Either he was truly sympathetic, or he's just letting a little time go by so he can zing me on that one.

I don't trust B where Manilow is concerned. Not even on my bookshelves--- his Galveston book is certainly up on the shelves, but it's a couple of bookshelves away from Sweet Life (Barry's book)... I'm not taking any chances.

So that's about the story of the day here. I typed this entry earlier this morning, and tried to print/publish it and something went wrong with the server. I lost everything I typed. Now where on earth does it go when that happens? I know I typed it, so it's lost in here somewhere. Heaven only knows if this one will go through. I hope it does, because I don't want to type it all a third time.