HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIRBORNE

Every January 1st thoroughbreds automatically turn one year older. Airborne is 27+ which is amazingly old for a horse. He's still being ridden and still jumps when the mood strikes him. I've owned him for over 20 years.

He's able to shy and bolt and unseat a rider even at his age. He's done everything from hunters and jumpers to musical kurs to combined training in his lifetime. And he's a mystery.
One that I'm trying to solve.
Thoroughbreds have an upper lip tattoo if they've been on the track. His is practically unreadable. I know his sire : Sensitive Music but little else except that he was most likely foaled in '81 or '82 and raced on the west coast until a bowed tendon sidelined him.
So I'm trying to research his lineage and race record with the help of the jockey club and my friends who showed with me in the '80's.
Why?
Because it's been a mystery for as long as I've owned him and it has something to do with my next novel.
And I want to find out.
It compels me this curiosity. The very same curiosity and desire that makes a reader not want to put down a book. That makes a reader turn each page until they get to the end.
That's why.
So here's to 2009.
And the solution to Airborne's past.
And we both wish a happy new year to all bloggers!
May you attain just enough of your goals to give you heart to continue but not all of them so you still have something to aim for.
Much aloha and see you next year!

LETITSNOWLETITSNOWLETITSNOW...

To those of you who guessed the Pacific Northwest you are right!

So I'm presently going back over those winter scenes that I wrote in Hawaii.
There are some things that are better to experience first hand.
Your breath condensing on the inside of your scarf making your face wet.
How cold starts from your thighs and migrates to your butt and how when you come inside your butt stays cold much longer.
Of course that might be a function of fat.
Hard to tell.
But other things.
Like hills. How hard it is to walk through deep snow.
Like the sharp smell of evergreen. The smell of the cold. The feel of frigid air in my nose.
The sounds of ripping chains against the slushy pavement and crackling wood fire in the insert.
Lots of things.
Like no matter how many pairs of socks you put on it isn't enough.
My tan lines are fading.
Help me...
Send sun.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS PATRICIA WOOD?

HINT #1: It's NOT HERE...

So where am I? The state of confusion? The place of no return? The depth of despair? The pinnacle of euphoria?
It ain't Kansas that's for sure.
And it's not Hawaii.
HINT #2: I spent 2 hours shoveling cold wet white stuff out of a driveway.

AND consuming mass quantities of hot buttered rum which to a sailor is mother's milk.

HINT#3: Tooloose is nowhere to be found!

So bloggers guess away. The answer and more pictures to follow tomorrow!

RED SUNRISE IN THE MORNING WAS A SAILOR'S WARNING...

So this was what I woke up to.


I don't know if it's true or not but I'll let you know. It might have been a delayed warning about the weather we had LAST week.
But it did get me to thinking.
All those homilies and aphorisms that we hear...
"For example.
"That's a good way to lose an arm."
I mean really. Has anybody actually made a study of this?
And who do they test it on?

"Bad things come in threes."
Great. If it were ONLY three. But who's counting?

"What goes around comes around."
Now I in fact say this. But does this happen? Or is it just an obvious statement of physics?

I'm sure you bloggers can come up with a ton more.

I'm working on one right now. It has to do with Tooloose.
I came up with it right after he hurled into my packed suitcase.
"Cats have nine lives."
I want to check it out.

"Here Kitty Kitty..."

LUCKY WE LIVE ON A BOAT IN HAWAII (NOT)

So this is what a tropical storm looks like when you live on a 50 foot sailboat. First the wind blows so vigorously it smears the wet on the bimini (cockpit enclosure).


Then the rain pours so hard that you have to go on deck at 4 am and lay tarps. NOTE: It only leaks on MY side of the bed.




Then when there is a lull - you are lured out to take pictures of the brown-red water in the harbor and you stray too far and get caught by a squall and drenched.



So I'm writing in my cute little office in the forward cabin. The boat is tossing and heeling at the dock and my office chair rolls back and forth. I'm starting to get a bit sea sick. Girl Kitty and Tooloose are DEFINITELY experiencing 'mal de mer' in fact I've stepped in it twice...
So what's a writer to do?
Easy... I'm working on the part in my new novel where there's a storm...
It's like they say...
Write what you know.
So what's the weather like in YOUR neck of the woods?

A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY...

Happy Anniversary Pat and Gordon
From Tooloose

December 7, 1986.
Gordon chose it because being from Hawaii he knew he'd always be able to remember the date. And yes...he wrote the invitation as a day that will live in infamy and encouraged the guests to come in costume...which many did.
As an added enticement he added a line on the invitation saying that at least two of the Beatles or Henry Kissinger would attend.
Alas.
They did not.
But our horses Belle and Gofer had a great time. And we DID make the Everett Herald so there ya go.
Oh and my horse Belle (show name Pretty in Pink) and I also did the hunters at the Evergreen Classic. So Weddings and Hunters. What a gal.

Ah the eighties...
Interestingly enough my next book takes place in the eighties...
So Gordon and I will be holoholo (on vacation) this weekend.
And Tooloose will be in charge of ORION.
Uh oh.

I CAN HAZ MANUSCRIPTZ

Tooloose's Clazz on Book Publizity 101


Imagine if you will waking up to this visage staring at you.
So Tooloose has or rather haz this idea. He thinkz rather than him taking the time to actually write a book he can help you promote yourz.
So here it is.
TOOLOOSE WOOD'Z TOP FIVE ZECRETZ FOR AUTHORZ.

1. Replace the Z on your computer with a Z (Oppz already did that). This way the readerz will know you are on the cutting edge of literature.

2. Pay somebody famouz to carry your book around. Like Hulk Holgan or the little tiny pointlezz dog in all thoze dizney moviez.

3. Leave your book in reztroomz all over like at airportz and train ztationz and reztaurantz.

4.Zneak into Good Morning America or the Today zhow and do not get thrown out.

5. Write another book that iz better than your firzt one.


Zo there you have it boyz and girlz and azpiring writerz.

Now.

Where is the cat fud you promized me?