As I look back on all of my birthdays, I’ve started to think about the different ways I’ve celebrated them. When I was a kid (except when we were traveling to or from a cottage my family used to rent in Northern Michigan), I got to choose my favorite dinner. And I always chose the same thing–turkey salad from Sanders, a famous restaurant and ice cream parlor in Detroit, Michigan. My mom always had the turkey salad delivered to the house, packed in dry ice, along with Sanders’ famous ice cream and birthday cake. Heavenly! As long as my three sons were all living at home and unmarried, I used to let them choose their birthday dinners, too.

I also vividly remember my fifth birthday because my Mom threw a huge party for me. I can picture myself playing in the back yard with friends and each of us received a special paper doll with a complete wardrobe that could be attached with magnets. Funny that I remember the magnetic paper doll more than any of the presents I received that day. And I still have images in my mind of running on the lawn in my party dress. It’s been a long time since I’ve worn a party dress on my brithday! I think I’m going to revive the tradition this time.

Another memorable birthday was also one of those milestone ones. This time my editor Brenda Chin (who is the best editor in the world) invited her authors to go white water kayaking. What fun! We were all in individual kayaks and I eventually flipped out of mine and had to cling to a big rock until I was rescued by our guide. And he was the epitome of a Blaze hero! High quality eye candy. I eventually put him in one of my books.

Another birthday that stands out in my mind was the one when my oldest son took me to my favorite local restaurant, Rosalie’s, in Skaneateles, NY. I was going through a divorce at the time, and I was so moved by his thoughtfulness. He didn’t want me to be alone. But he didn’t just take me to any restaurant. He took me to my favorite even though it was an hour’s drive away. Kevin has also inspired many of my heroes. He has a lot more than eye candy going on.

I could go on and on. Believe me, I have quite a few birthdays to remember here. Recently, I’ve been celebrating a lot of them during RWA’s National Conferences. And that’s what I’ll be doing this year. On July 28, I’ll be signing books at the Literacy Signing in the Dolphin Hotel in Orlando, and then my roommate is treating me to dinner. I’ll be wearing my party dress to both events.

And I’m going to do something different this year. Instead of confining my celebration to just one day, I’m going to continue to celebrate all year. Another author and I are already planning a trip to Spain next March, and I have a list of new things that I’m going to try. Not a bucket list. I’m not quite ready for that yet. But birthdays are too marvelous to celebrate them on only one day.

How do you feel about birthdays and what special ones do you remember? Please share. And I’ll send either my new August release, “Twice the Temptation,” or any book from my backlist to the top five stories.

Happy Birthday to all of you!

Lately, my favorite things are reading, traveling, and (I hate to admit it) catching the new summer series on cable TV. I think at some time in my (not too distant past) sitting by a pool or on the sand at a beach would have been right up there. And swimming would have hit the top of my favorite-things-to-do list. (But a visit to a pool or the beach always involved a book. Or two or three.) Lately, my old favorites like riding my bike, roller skating and running aren’t even making the top ten anymore.

Just in case any of you are favoring more sedentary activities (as I seem to be doing), I’m going to recommend a great book, a new TV show, and a travel destination.

The book I highly recommend is one that I picked up in the Borders at the Jet Blue JFK terminal because I had a four hour layover. It was Elizabeth George’s latest Thomas Lynley mystery, and I loved it. (I have to admit that I love to read mysteries probably even more than I love to read romances. Give me romantic suspense and I’m in heaven!) I used to be an avid fan of Elizabeth George’s, but I haven’t read her in a while. This story and the English setting fascinated me, and since she’s never a quick read, it distracted me from things I had to get done. For me, that’s always a sign of a really good book. (”Silence of the Lambs” once cost me a whole day in Hawaii! Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” made me miss most of a Labor Day Weekend at a good friend’s house.)

Now for the TV series. So far my favorite new series of the summer is “Memphis Beat” on TNT. “Covert Affairs” on USA is premiering tonight, but it will take a lot to edge out “Memphis Beat” as one of my new favorite summer shows. Of course my “old” favorite summer TV series include “White Collar,” “Burn Notice,” “The Closer,” and “In Plain Sight.” But the thing I really like about “Memphis Beat” (aside from the fact that it’s a cop show) are the characters and the setting. I’ve watched three episodes and I want to visit Memphis.

The travel destination I’m going to recommend is Queechie, VT. I’d never heard of it. My sister dragged me there on our way back from Nargansett, RI to Syracuse, NY. We did visit a beach first, and the route makes a nice triangle on the map. We stayed in Woodstock, but the place that drew my sister there was the glass blowing factory that Simon Pearce established in Queechie. Simon relocated his family there from Ireland and bought an old mill to design and manufacture his glass. His wife is a potter. In addition to a waterfall and glass and pottery demonstrations, there’s a fabulous store and a gourmet restaurant. Shopping, great food and wine–that seems to define what I like in a travel destination–even more than a beach. Queechie is a bit out of the way, but if you’re visiting New England, I highly recommend it.

One more thing–as long as I’m listing favorite things and recommending… It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” If you haven’t read it, I recommend it. If you have read it, I recommend reading it again. I had the great pleasure of teaching that book for fourteen years to ninth graders, and I never grew tired of it. I intend to read it again myself before the summer ends.

Have you got a list of favorite things you like to do in the summer? Do you have a book or a travel spot or TV show that you’re crazy about? Or do you have a memory of reading “To Kill a Mockingbird?” or seeing the movie?

Please share.

But lately, there’s a certain bird I’m watching very carefully. Every day. I may be becoming obsessed with her. She’s a Robin who’s built her nest in what I believe to be a very precarious spot. It’s tucked into the small space between my front porch light and the wall of my house. I can see her through the etched glass in my front door. And when I check on her, which I do more and more frequently, I think she can see me too.

Since my office is right next to my front porch, I can hear her every day through the wall. She makes a kind of croaking/burrowing sound. Curiosity had me making several Commando-like approaches to my front door to investigate. I finally caught her in the act of sharpening her beak on the wrought iron top of my porch light.

Strange.

Sometimes, I’ve caught her just sitting there with her beak open and no sound is coming out. At least no sound that I can hear.

The whole nest making process took some time. Initially, there were two Robins working on it. Their first attempt fell off the porch light. The chattering I heard through the wall of my office alerted me to the event. When I looked through my front door, I saw this pile of long dried grasses, twigs, and other unidentifiable debris littering my front porch. The two birds stood in the center of it chattering away at each other. I went back to work thinking that they would seek a safer place to rebuild.

They didn’t. The second nest took about a week to create. She did most of the work while he perched on the overhang of my garage giving instructions and critiquing her efforts. (So typical, I thought.) The end result looks like a Martha Stewart creation gone very bad.

But they evidently were satisfied. It’s been about three weeks since they completed the nest. She wasn’t in it very much at first, but for the last two weeks, she’s seldom absent. When I came back from a weekend trip on June 20th and my son carried my suitcase to the front door, she flew to the driveway across the street and yelled at him. When he came to visit mid-week, she flew to the overhang of my neighbor’s roof and refrained from commenting. (He did tell her that everything was all right.) Last night we celebrated my youngest son’s birthday, and she stayed right in the nest while company came and went.

She seems to be getting comfortable with us. She’s in her nest right now. I’ve checked on her three or four times since I’ve started writing this. I have no idea how long she’ll be there–or whether or not she’s laid any eggs yet. Nor do I know how long the little ones will stay in the nest–or how that will work out.

What I do know is that I’ll miss her when she’s gone. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother too.

Does anyone have any interesting bird or animal stories to tell? Or does anyone have any information on how long a siege I’m in for? I’m hoping that this doesn’t turn into an Alfred Hitchcock experience.

I’m offering a free book for the most interesting story and also a free book for the most helpful advice. The winners can choose from my latest Forbidden Fantasy trilogy (”Led Into Temptation,” “Taken Beyond Temptation,” or “Twice the Temptation”). Or a choice from any book on my backlist.

The last movie I actually went to see on the big screen was “Julie and Julia.” There’s a clue. I’m evidently drawn to movies about strong, interesting women. But I also started thinking about why I watched “Sex and the City” on TV fairly religiously. And it wasn’t just the women who drew me. It was the writing. There was always the chance of surprise, of something happening that I couldn’t predict.

And there were well drawn characters, characters I was engaged with. Characters I wanted to meet again and again. And that started me thinking…

Well drawn, engaging characters and good writing are what usually draw me to watch a TV series. That’s why I watched “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City” and why I continue to watch “Burn Notice,” “White Collar,” “In Plain Sight,” “The Closer,” and more recently “The Good Wife.” The first three have the good writing and well drawn, engaging characters going for them, and the last three have the added bonus of telling stories about strong women.

(Just as an aside, I also watch NCIS and NCIS Los Angeles, faithfully. But I really think it’s for the eye candy. Although I am fascinated by Hetty. Love her!)

But I’m going to see “Sex and the City 2″ on the big screen because I like the women and I’m interested in seeing what the writers came up with to create a sequel for a movie that was supposed to tie the TV series up. If they pulled it off, I’m interested in seeing what they did. If they didn’t pull it off, I’ll enjoy seeing those women again.

And I also have very fond memories that are associated with “Sex and the City.” The man who turned me on to the TV show was the father of a friend of one of my sons. Along with my son and several of his friends, I was a guest at the man’s house over a Labor Day weekend, and on Sunday night, he turned on HBO and told all of us that we were about to watch one of the best shows on TV. Everyone enjoyed it. (Our host and his wife happened to be in their seventies. He was an ex-race car driver, and the owner of a profitable car dealership. My sons and his friends were in their mid-twenties and all completing residencies at the same hospital, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the show. I was hooked on the series after that, but I was particularly intersted in its wide audience appeal.)

My second fond memory associated with the TV series dates back three or four years to the summer when I went to New York City with my sister, my sister-in-law, and my two favorite nieces and we took the “Sex and the City” bus tour. It was a blast. We drove by all the sites where the filming of the series took place, stopped for cupcakes and, of course, Cosmopolitans. Our final stop was at a sex shop, in honor of Miranda. (I still have a very interesting deck of cards that my nieces bought me.) What fun! (We also saw “Wicked.” More strong women!)

So when I go to the movie theater this weekend, I’ll be remembering all of that–especially my nieces.

Will you be going to “Sex and the City 2?” What are the movies that you are looking forward to seeing this summer? And what are the movies that bring back memories for you?

In my dreams!

In reality, I’m not getting to that beach any time soon. The end of April and the beginning of May are always hectic for me. I teach at two colleges. The semester is ending, I have student papers to read, grades to turn in, reports to file, and a book deadline.

Adding to the fun this year: I have to buy a new car since my lease expires on May 1st, and one of my sons is getting married in a couple of weeks.

But I still need a break! And this morning it struck me! I know how to take one. All I have to do is make what Julia Cameron calls “an artist date.”

If you haven’t read Cameron’s book, “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” I strongly recommend it. It’s not just for writers. It’s a great book for anyone who would like to tap into their more creative selves. My sister-in-law who ran a shopping mall was the first person who recommended it to me. She claimed it changed her life.

What exactly is an “artist date?” According to Cameron, it’s a specific time you set aside (she suggests two hours once a week) to “play” with your inner artist. The possibilities she mentions range from browsing a junk shop to visiting an aquarium or watching an old movie. (She also recommends visiting a beach–but I live in upstate New York, and on Tuesday we had hail and snow! My inner artist is particular about her beaches.)

Cameron stresses that what you do on the date isn’t important. The essential thing is that you commit time to being only with your inner artist. (No friends or in my case, sister, allowed.)

It’s been quite a while since I carved out time to spend on an artist date. But I’m determined to do it. Two hours? I can squeeze that in.

One of the things that I used to do with my inner artist was to just window shop at the mall. And there are two stores we always walked all the way through: Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn. For some reason, those two places soothe my soul. Maybe it’s because of all the pretty, impractical things that I really have no immediate need for–but that I can thnk about, dream about. No pressure.

Another thing I’ve always loved to do with my inner artist is to ride in a car with the top down. My mind empties and the pressure blows away with the wind. And May is the perfect month for riding in convertibles…

Do any of you already make dates with your inner artist? If so, what do you do? If you’ve never tried it, I’d love to hear some of your ideas. I have a feeling that my dream of a week at the beach is still a ways off…

Let me know.
Cara

Most of the wedding showers I’ve been to lately have been very formal affairs held at restaurants, but my son’s bride-to-be wanted something more intimate and fun, and her guest list was one that I could accommodate in my house. She and I downloaded games from the Internet. Her favorite game was “How Well Do you Know the Bride?” (Much to my embarrassment, I got a very low score on that one, but I know more about her now, including her favorite movie star, Joachim Phoenix, book, “Harry Potter,” and rock band, Metallica).

My contributions to the games were a word-scramble and a list of famous romantic couples with one of the names blanked out. (Who would have thought?) The word that they had the most difficulty with was “rocitman.” Other words that gave them trouble were: “gertproophag,” “uncentanmeno,” “tyshailer,” and “trager.” In the famous couples category, the duos that gave them the most trouble were Napoleon and ______________ and Fibber McGee and ________________. (However, one of the young ladies was able to successfully research Fibber McGee on her Blackberry.)

Romance is definitely in the air at my house, but when I think back on the things that I’ve associated with spring in the past, romance hasn’t always played a role. So today, while I was sipping peach flavored champagne and eating just one more very thin slice of carrot cake, I made a list of what I’ve associated with spring.

1. Easter Sunday clothes. My earliest memories of spring are all aboat Easter Sunday and a new wardrobe. My mom always used to make sure that my sister and I had new shoes, a new dress and coat, and, of course, a new hat to wear to church on Easter Sunday. (Does anyone still buy a new Easter hat?) The change of wardrobe was a real ritual in my childhood–and one that I didn’t continue with my own children. Of course, I have three sons–so hats, shoes and new clothes were not anything they were interested in. Add to that the fact that my marriage took me from Detroit, Michigan, to upstate New York (a place where brutal winter changes to summer overnight) and I even gave up buying myself new clothes for spring.

2. Easter egg hunts. My mom made a big deal of these. My sister and I got to color the eggs, but she hid them, and she was a really good hider. This is a ritual that I did carry on with my children for a very long time. As they grew older, they “hunted” for clues that would eventually lead them to a modest prize of money rather than candy.

3. Spring cleaning. I used to be very big on this. My mother certainly was. But lately, I’ve become a slacker. However, the wedding shower motivated me to step up to the plate, and I have to say that I’m really liking the way my house looks. My walls are freshly painted, my garage is cleaned out, and even my office is temporarily clutter free. Plus, there are the tulips.

4. Forsythia bushes. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re the bushes that bloom in early spring with yellow leaf-like flowers. Then the yellow leaves turn green. I like lilacs too, and they always make me think of spring. But forsythias bloom first, and there was a bush in the backyard of the house I grew up in. Two years ago, I planted two forsythia bushes, and I can see the buds already.

5. March madness NCAA basketball. I live in Syracuse, New York, and I have three sons–what can I say? Saturday night after the shower, when two of my sons and my brother were allowed to return to my house, I got to watch West Virginia beat Kentucky. I’m not saying I’m a fan–but one year I wowed my sons and my husband but filling out one of those tournament grid “thingies’ where you slot in all the teams until the final four and I had more winning teams than anyone in my house!

Those are the spring things I’ve been thinking about today. Do you have any “spring rituals” to share? And if you can get five words right on my word scramble, I’ll send you an autographed copy of my upcoming May Blaze, “Led Into Temptation.” Happy Spring!

I’m not going to list them all. There are way too many, but when I’m surfing channels on my TV, there are a select few I have to sit down and watch until the end.

I fell in love with “Moonstruck” the first time I saw it, and nothing has changed my mind. I’m half Italian–so that could come into play. But I also think that love–when it comes–”strikes” us, and it has very little to do with logic and usually nothing to do with what we think we want. Romeo and Juliet might have lived to a ripe old age if Romeo hadn’t crashed the party the Capulets were throwing that night. (I particularly like the love story of Cher’s parents that’s threaded in. And what’s not to like about the performances by Cher and Nicholas Cage?)

I’m also a fan of “The American President.” When it first came out, I paid to see that movie more than once because I enjoyed taking my sister and then my nieces to see it. It has the classic romance plot structure: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, and boy gets girl back. Plus, it has great performances by Annette Benning, Michael J. Fox and Martin Sheen. Once again, love is a surprise and not a very convenient one.

I love, love love “Myrphy’s Romance.” If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it–James Garner and Sally Field in a May-December love story. (All men should look as good as James Garner does at sixty!) This is a movie that I insisted my parents rent, and I watched it with them. So my perception could be tainted by the fact that both of them really enjoyed it–especially my mother. Once again, love comes as a surprise–but this time it’s the heroine who’s truly shocked by it. And my favorite scene is when she realizes that she’s fallen in love for the first time.

If you ask my three sons what my favorite movie is, they will say (stifling a groan–or not) that it’s Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” (That’s because when they were growing up, they had to watch it with me several times each. I wouldn’t allow them to change the channel. Mom’s rules!) It’s not a classic love story. It’s classic Hitchcock, and the sexual tension is to die for. Hitchcock was a master at creating it.

Those are the romance movies that the candy aisle started me thinking about. Do you have any special favorites? I’d love to hear about them.

Thanks to my Dad, I’m an optomist. I tend to see the glass as always half full. So I really believe–especially at the beginning–that I can actually make some good changes in my life. A partially new me is at least a possibility.

However, I will admit that the top two resolutions on my list are annual repeaters:
1) I’m going to lose weight.
2) I’m going to exercise at least five days a week.

Does that mean that I failed in past years? Not really. (See…I really am a glass half full kind of girl). I’ve always had to keep close tabs on my weight. It’s another thing I inherited from my dad. But I also inherited his solution which was to set a limit on how much weight he would allow himself to gain (five pounds) before he took it off. My taking off time starts in January.

The exercise thing is a bit more problematic for me. Last year I started off strong and walked every day on my treadmill for the whole month of January. Then I reverted to my old couch potato self. This year I’m trying a bribe. Each time I go to my basement to get on the dreaded treadmill, I get to watch a half hour of “Midsommer Murders.” And the DVD set is staying in the basement! So if I want to know “who done it,” I have to go back down to the treadmill the next day and find out.

This year, in addition to my stand-by resolutions, I’m adding a third. In fact, I’m going to put it at the top of my list and I’m going to really take some action. My primary New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to de-clutter my house.

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time. Mostly because I am a world class clutterbug. I’ve even done some research on the problem. About eight or nine years ago, I bought a book on Feng Shui and another book about clearing clutter and reorganizing my life. I even read parts of them. I’ve also read tons of articles on simplifying my surroundings, rightsizing my life, and purging my trash.

So on an intellectual level I know that clearing the junk out of my house will improve the flow of chi. I know that untimately, if I’m clutter free, it will help my writing, my creativity, my teaching…and, hopefully, everything else in my life. I’ll even make more money. (Maybe I’ll even be using my treadmill in March or April!)

I know how the de-cluttering thing is done. I’ve been an avid viewer of the Canadian TV show, “Neat,” where this attractive lady comes to your house and saves your sanity (and sometimes your marriage). She not only helps you throw out the trash you’ve been hording, but she also helps you organize what’s left. The show is a lot like “Clean House” but with less “drama” and no yard sale.

But in spite of my knowledge of the process, my kitchen drawers remain the burial grounds for junk, at times, I can no longer walk into my closets, and more times than not, my purse won’t zip shut,

However, this year will be different. I’m actually going to attack the problem. I’m going to set aside two hours a week and go through my house room by room. I think I can handle that. Of course, there will be a bribe involved–a nice glass of Chardonnay to relieve the stress of purging.

And since I’m my father’s daughter, I’m going to believe that next year, I really will be a whole new me. I will no longer be a clutterbug. I’ll be a recovering clutterbug!

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions that you want to share? Or do you have any stories to share about the resolutions that are always with you?

My earliest one dates back to the year when I was two and a half.

And it isn’t Christmas Day or Santa or the presents I remember that year. In fact, I don’t remember those at all. It’s Christmas Eve that stands out because that was the day my mom and my brand new baby sister came home from the hospital.

I can still picture the Christmas tree tucked in a corner of the living room. The lights are on and there’s a fire crackling in the fireplace. But what I remember most clearly is standing on the couch in the living room, peering out the front window, and waiting to see the ambulance pull up at the curb. Because that’s how my mom and the new baby were scheuled to arrive.

According to my mom, I paid very little attention to her or my new sister. It seems I was totally fascinated by the ambulance. (I can still see it with the big red light fhalsing around and around. Amazing!)

The next Christmas that stands out in my mind was when when I was five, and my sister and I were living temporarily with my grandmother, my great-grandfather and my Aunt Mary.

My Aunt Mary fascinated me. She was a single woman who worked and went out on dates, and my sister and I were always welcome in her room. She used to let us play with her make up and she never tired of answering questions or helping us put on nail polish or letting us try on her clothes.

That Christmas Eve for some reason, I was allowed to sleep in her bed. And that was the night that I heard reindeer land on the roof. No kidding! I really heard the bells and the sound of the hoofbeats. But I was very quiet and I pretended I was asleep. The next morning, there were lots of presents under the tree, and I remember getting a tea set. The plates and cups and saucers were blue.

I also recall having a conversation with my great-grandfather about how Santa delivered the presents because there was no fireplace in that house. He had it covered though. He told me that he’d let Santa in the back door. Probably right after I’d heard the reindeer land on the roof.

My great-grandfather was a fascinating man too. He chewed tobacco and spit into a shiny brass cuspidor. And he always ate his dessert first–just in case he died before the meal ended. My grandmother wouldn’t let my sister and me join him–not even on Christmas.

The final memory I’ll share is my son Kevin’s first Christmas. He was three months old, and my husband and I surprised each other with the same gift–a movie camera. Talk about an O. Henry “Gift of the Magi” Christmas! We returned one and used the money to buy a projector and a screen.

Which Chritmas memories stand out in your mind?

I absolutley loved “White Collar.” So much so that I watched an immediate rerun on Saturday morning–and I’m on a mind-crunching deadline! The two main characters are an FBI agent assigned to white collar crime and a convicted forger who is released into his custody as a consultant. I found myself liking both men–even though I’ve been partial to art thieves as heroes ever since I first saw Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief.” Instead of a hero and a sidekick, this series has two heroes. What more could a girl ask?

And the reason I was tempted to watch it again and that I will tune in next Friday night is because I really like all the characters–including the wife of the agent and his junior lesbian assistant. They’re all smart, they all intrigue me, and I want to see what they’ll do next.

That got me thinking about what other TV shows are on my “must see” list and why. It turns out that what seems to attract me to a TV show is always the characters–their quirks, their foibles, their flaws, and their complicated relationships with other characters, including their families.

The characters are certainly why I’ve been a fan of NCIS since it started. (Okay, I also think that Mark Harmon is serious eye candy. When he was a guest on “West Wing” and they killed him, I stopped watching that show. But I like all of the other characters on NCIS too–especially Ducky and Abby.) The characters and the way they develop over time are why I remained hooked on “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” until both series ended.

My current favorite TV show is “The Closer,” and that show is all about character. I’ll tune in for every episode, not because I’m interested in the case, but because I’m dying to know just how Brenda is going to solve it (and how the officers she works with will help her.) I love the way the writers have developed her relationship with her colleagues over four seasons. But I especially love the way the love story between Brenda and Fritzie has grown.

Okay–so characters are important to me when I select the TV shows I want to watch. That led me to consider what part they play in my writing. The answer to that is that they mean everything. I can’t even develop a good working premise until I figure out who the characters are. And in spite of the fact that Blazes are relatively short books, I love to create unique secondary characters.

I particularly enjoy creating older characters. In one of my Blazes I even ran a secondary love story between two characters in their sixties. (He was an ex-con and she was an art thief.) In the book I’m currently working on, the hero and heroine have to solve a murder that happened fifty-five years in the past. I’m dealing with the challenge of keeping the senior citizen killer smart, mobile, and able to kill again.

After musing about my fascination with characters (since my “White Collar” experience last Friday night), I’ve decided that one of the reasons “characters” are important to me is that I’ve grown up with a lot of them in my family. And my love of older characters probably stems from the fact that one of my great grandmothers had fourteen children, so I grew up with a lot of wonderfully unique aunts and uncles.

The one who comes to mind is my Aunt Ethel who lived into her nineties and to the very end loved Casino gambling, drank her martinis straight up, and always managed to look as though she’d just come from a cover shoot for Vogue Magazine.

And how did I get from “White Collar” to my beloved Aunt Ethel? I warned you I would ramble.

Are characters (including secondary ones) important to you?