Okay, everyone who knows me, stop sniggering now. They all know I haven’t done housework in decades – at least not willingly. Not that I was ever very good at it. It helps to marry the perfect man. And as for cooking – when my children bring their children to my home someday for their favorite childhood meal, little Happy Meal boxes will circle the table. I know it. I have a lovely kitchen because it came with the house.

But it’s because I have no passion for it.

It all just has to be done again tomorrow or next weekend. I get rid of the dust but it just comes back. The clean clothes get dirty again and carpet needs vacuuming. I’ll cook whatever you want (I actually can cook – but don’t ask me to decide what to make), but the meal will be over and the next one is coming. The dishes still have to be washed.

But writing . . . I’m creating something that will last. I can read it over and over again. I can write it and put in some little thing that bring a fictional person or place to life. And others will read it and maybe they’ll remember a line or a character and then it’s real and part of their lives forever too. What I write can put a picture in someone’s head and they can follow me. Maybe their picture isn’t exactly like mine, but that’s okay, they’re still seeing something I created in their own way.

I can still remember reading about Trixie Belden’s little house down the road from Honey’s mansion and the fun they had with Jim and Trixie’s brothers. No one better try to tell me that Hogwarts isn’t real or there are no Ents. Now I can be part of the magic.

Now that makes me passionate.

This assignment wasn’t easy for me – I haven’t been on a date in 30+ years. But after pondering it of course one came up. There’s always one.

I was in college and my roommates and I were invited to a party with blind dates at a military college.  No names here, but think about it. Doesn’t that conjure up the picture of those luscious cadets in uniform, looking all hunky?  Believe me, those guys are models hired for the brochure. No one from the same universe as those hunks was there. I’m 5′ 7″, on the tall side for a girl (at least back then) but my date came up to my boobs, which were much perkier prior to nursing two kids.

— Aside to say that later he and I became good friends. He was fun to talk to and hang out with, just not for dancing, and he had no control over this party —

Anyway, the legal drinking age back then was 18 because my generation had reared up on its hind legs and said, if we can’t vote or drink, you can’t draft us! We still have the vote but some time without my notice the drinking age drifted back up. So there was drinking, a lot of drinking. I was, as usual, the designated driver. I was born with the job and it’s not really that bad. I could act as stupid as everyone else, but I could remember it the next morning and didn’t have a headache.

The plan for the evening apparently was to get completely bombed and ‘get some.’ Note for any guy reading this – that is definitely the wrong order of activity because some things don’t work at peak performance when one is bombed.  But I digress and it has nothing to do with this particular memory.

I have no idea if such things as fire codes existed at that time, but we had to have broken it by at least a couple hundred people. I do remember standing in line at the women’s room for quite some time only to discover when I got inside that due to overcrowding, girls were also peeing in the sinks. Can you tell what a great time I was having?? After three or four hours of ear shattering music, no place to sit and the inability to hold a conversation, I’d had enough. After locating my roommates—who couldn’t hear me and I did hate to shout “Let’s get the hell out of here!” at a volume that could be heard—I leaned over and took the cigarette out of one of the girls’ hands and took a puff. That got their attention (and still remains the only puff I’ve ever had on a legal cigarette – but that’s another story) and we headed out, dragging our drunken cadets behind us. Thanks to us, they were some of the very few cadets who weren’t walking squares as punishment the next week. I do wonder if they remember they’d had dates . . .

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Oh yes. She saw him surrounded by women. He would see her. She’d calculated everything carefully and he would not be able to ignore her now.

Would he recognize her? She didn’t look the same, she didn’t feel the same. Yes, it was risky. But everything about her had changed. She was confident now, on her own financially and emotionally. She’d heard rumors about him, but they were only rumors. Probably started by jealous ex-girlfriends. Women who couldn’t handle him.

He turned slightly and she saw his profile. Even her confidence dipped a little. He looked too good to be true. No, he needed someone like her in his life now that he was going places. She had turned herself into this woman in order to live that role. And live it she would.

She straightened her spine, lifted her chin and moved in his direction. He turned and she glanced in his direction quirking an eyebrow. Then glided past him toward the bar. She knew this man was not used to being ignored and felt him stir as she continued on without a backward glance.

She was not surprised when she reached the bar to hear his voice overriding her own, ordering a glass of champagne for each of them. With long elegant fingers, he extended the second glass to her. “Adrian Montgomery.” He bowed slightly and she took the glass. “And you are?”

She looked him up and down as though sizing him up. “Victoria Grant.”

*****

Stop by http://www.rebelinkpress.com/RebelReasoning/ to see the other ideas from this photo – sizzle….

Just got back from a wonderful, and much needed, vacation to the beach for a whole week. For the first time in recorded history, we had no children with us. Face it, we have no “children” anymore though I suppose I will always refer to them that way.

Could not have asked for better weather – mid 80’s all week and it didn’t rain at all. Every morning I got to walk the beach before it got too hot, then I would sit out under the umbrella (I don’t tan and gave up trying a long time ago) and read, listen to the water, feel the breeze and visit with Hubby. A dip in the ocean or laps in the pool then I’d go inside for the heat of the day. I always laughed as I was heading in while everyone else was heading out.

Afternoons I reserved for writing and editing, and I got a lot done. “Finished” up a novel I’d been working on – though that’s a relative term and there’s lots more I need to do after I let it sit for a little while. And got started on a new idea that has been so much fun, if more research than I’m used to. No spoilers!

It was just what I needed. To sleep late and let a scene play out in my head before getting up. To stay up late and scribble that last little bit before it escapes. Knowing all the while that I didn’t have to get up and go to my “real” job and force myself not to think about that scene because that’s not what they’re paying me for.

How do you relax and recharge? A trip to the mountains? A picnic? Letting the laundry go one more day? Attending your local RWA meeting? I’m already clamoring for that next week off!  Leave a comment and be entered in the 4th of July Hop, and stop by http://thebloghopspot.com/event-page/ for the full list of participants!!