To continue Rhonda’s theme from yesterday, I’ve returned from the RWA National Conference in Orlando where I also had fun at Harry Potter, but did not win any awards. However, I do have pictures.

The massive literacy signing that kicks off the conference raised over $55,000 in two hours. The authors are sitting alphabetically and since I’m an “M”, I took this picture from the middle. It shows just half the people. There’s an equal number behind me.

After a couple of days of workshops and meetings, we’re ready to party! Here I am at the Harlequin party with Geralyn Dawson. One of the food tables had candy apples with yummy sauces.

All too soon, I was back home and doing laundry.

When you return home after traveling, do you unpack immediately, or put it off until the next day—or week?

Why? The culprits are the vicious fire ants you see crawling on the boots in the picture. Within seconds, they aggressively swarm, attacking anything that disturbs their mound. Each one stings multiple times, injecting a venom that leaves pimple-like blisters that can scar and itch like, well, fire. Their mounds are huge and appear within hours, especially after a rain. A rain, like, oh, the one we had last week because we were on the wet side of Hurricane Alex. Did I mention that fire ants float? You don’t want to go wading in flood waters. ANYway, they build their mounds everywhere, including electrical boxes and air conditioning units and the edges of vegetable gardens belonging to writers who have deadline brain, as perfectly described by Sarah on Monday. And when these writers, who have recently finished their books, stumble outside to rescue their drowning veggies, they aren’t quite as mentally agile as usual and fail to notice the new mound until they are standing right in it. Wearing flip flops. That was Friday. As of this morning, my ankles are back.

Fire ants bring folks together. We can always tell people new to the area because they’ll stare at the ants instead of swatting at them as fast as they can. Complete strangers will race up and start batting at their legs while yelling, “Take off your pants!” People will do this even though they know they’ll probably get bitten on their hands. They’re willing to take a bite to save somebody from serious discomfort.

Fire ants are why you won’t find scenes with couples cavorting in the grass in my Texas-set books. Or wandering barefoot through the grass. Or having picnics on the grass. In fire ant territory, there is no splendor in the grass.

When I use settings I’ve had to research, I always wonder if I’ve missed something like fire ants that I wouldn’t know without living in the area.

What’s something that’s unique to your area of the country or world? What gets overlooked in books and movies? If I set a book in your hometown, what tidbit would I need to know? I’m after insider info, here.

The kitchen thermometer is flirting with 100° F in the shade, so I’m declaring that summer has arrived. Bring on the ice cream! I like ice cream that has stuff in it. Crunchy, gooey stuff. Not so much the fruity stuff, although I love raspberry sherbet. But we’re talking ice cream today. Vanilla is essential for topping pies and making Dr Pepper floats, my deadline fuel, but if I’m eating ice cream by itself, I want nuts, and caramel, and chocolate. My current favorite is Blue Bell Pecan Pralines ‘n Cream. I like Blue Bell, but it’s expensive. On the other hand, I detest the way other brands are downsizing. Or even worse, whipping the product so that air increases the volume and leaves foam when it melts. Blech. So Blue Bell remained the gold (or brown-rimmed) standard for us until my brother-in-law claimed his home-town favorite, Graeters, was better. Impossible. So he ordered it and served it to us. And, well, okay. It was better. But not by much and at $4.99 a pint, now that it’s available locally at Krogers, it’ll remain a holiday treat.

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

I’m dog sitting for a couple of weeks, something I like to do. People keep telling me I need a dog. No, thank you. I’ve had a dog–a miniature dachshund. Sure, I’m a dog person, but after years of caring for beasties, both human and canine, I’m ready for a break. Dogs are work. Just look at the two with me now. Although HINT: they had a tempting start, I’m sitting outside watching them as I write this and by the time I got to this sentence, I’d been out of the chair three times to check on them. The first time, they were eating the bushes–seriously, they uproot them and chew. The second time, they were both way too interested in the corner of the grill, sniffing intently and pawing. I had to investigate in case they’d found a toad. See, toads have a toxin in their skin and dogs who eat them go on a bad trip, as they used to say. Apparently there is foaming at the mouth, disorientation, and failure to recognize humans. I do not want to verify this. The third occasion was because, even though they’d had a yummy breakfast of dried dog food, they were eating, uhm, disgusting material. Good times.

And then there is their stuff. They arrived with two crates, eleven chew toys, two baby gates that had to be installed, bowls, collars, leashes, harnesses, two kinds of treats, about ninety-five pounds of dog food, Benadryl, glucosamine tablets, a giant dog bed, four blankets, and three single-spaced pages of instructions.

I know what some of you are thinking: get a cat. But that’s because you’re cat people. Dog people are thinking: at least there’s no litter box.

So which are you? Dog person or cat person?

I’m currently working on a Blaze where the heroine goes on a dozen dates, so when I saw a review of Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating or Having Sex, I checked it out. While I was interested to see if the authors’ deal-breakers matched my deal-breakers, I really wanted to avoid having the hero commit any no-nos. The authors, Ellen Rakieten and Anne Coyle, rank men’s transgressions as Red Flags, Storm Warnings, Not Getting Any, and Kiss of Death. Examples of Red Flags are black jeans, crocs, cell phones clipped to the waist, ugly, gray sweatpants, and vanity plates. Storm Warnings are jorts (jean shorts–who knew?), being overly cologned, having a soul patch, fanny packs, shaving your chest, rearranging your junk in public, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. As for Not Getting Any, we have tube socks, bike shorts, holiday sweaters, double denim, open mouth breathing, and owning a rodent. Kiss of Death transgressions include wearing tighty whities, hair plugs, attending a medieval festival, bringing a baseball glove to a professional game, mesh tops, and guylights.

Some of these made me laugh and some were very familiar. Gleefully, I read the article aloud to my husband, who hates what he calls “arbitrary” rules. A little while later, I heard him rummaging around and he emerged from the closet with the belt clip to his cell phone. He made sure I was watching as he clipped the phone to the waistband of his jorts. He also wore tube socks and a tee-shirt on the storm-warning list. Oh, and there was a shadow beneath his lip–a one-day-old soul patch. I just looked at him and said, “No.” He laughed and left the house in his car with the vanity plates. He was probably going to shop for crocs. Later, he changed into black jeans. Also bike shorts, but he was actually biking. At least he didn’t bring home a rodent. Or a girlfriend.

Clearly, I was blinded by love when I was dating, so I don’t know about the 311 things. Sure, berating the wait staff would make a guy undateable for me, but what’s wrong with black jeans?

What makes a guy undateable for you?

An Easter Egg is a hidden feature, inside joke, or message in places like software, movies, video games, DVDs, or books. For example, George Lucas references his first movie, THX-1138, in every film he makes. In STAR WARS, Princess Leia is held in cell block 1138.

For fun, I put one in my second Blaze, HIS LITTLE BLACK BOOK, out this month. It’s on page 28. Readers not in the know will miss it, but I’m letting Blaze Blog readers in on the secret.

I try not to repeat main character names even after forty plus books, so when Sophie the pug dog visited last year I thought, “There’s a good name,” and used it for Sophie Callahan, heroine of “Text and the Single Girl.” When Sophie the pug arrived, she deliberately checked out every room of the house. She disturbed nothing, merely observing the status quo. Then, with a Grand Duchess air about her, she set about being the dog of the house. Her self-confidence became part of Sophie Callahan’s personality. Months later, in a funny coincidence, Sophie came to visit for a week at the exact time I was working on the manuscript revisions for her story. She quickly learned the household routine and would trot into my office and camp out in the knee hole of my desk while I worked. Here she is.

So when you read Sophie’s description, “She had pale blue-green eyes with an exotic tilt that kept her from looking too ‘girl next door-ish’ in spite of the ponytail, slightly pug nose and a few freckles”, well, here’s the inspiration. I know, it’s a horrible picture, but she sure doesn’t look girl next door-ish, does she?

What Easter Eggs have you discovered or learned about? Have you hidden some of your own? Or is this all new to you? Post a comment for a chance to win a copy of HIS LITTLE BLACK BOOK.

Super Bowl Sunday? My blog day is Super Bowl Sunday? No one is going to be surfing the Internet on Super Bowl Sunday–not even me. It’s my turn to have the gang over so I’ll be busy making snacks featuring the all-important fat and salt food groups. But forget about the game. Let’s talk commercials. With advertising time during the Super Bowl going for about $2.5 million for 30 seconds this year, companies want stellar commercials and the ad firms that deliver get almost as much attention as the products.

Sometimes they get it right. Some of my favorites have been the E*Trade Baby, who’ll return this year, the Hulu ad with Alec Baldwin, the Budweiser lizards taking out a hit on the frogs, and the dog coaching a Clydesdale so he can make the team next year. There have been some incredibly bad ones, too. I’m lookin’ at you, MacGruber. SoBe? Football players as ballerinas? Mutant lizards? And you want us to drink your product?

This year’s advertisements are listed here, along with videos if you miss any. Come back after the game and tell me your hits and misses. Tomorrow is okay, too. As a bribe reward, I’ll give away a copy of HIS LITTLE BLACK BOOK, my March Blaze. It’s an Encounters and the first story features a hero deciding on a Super Bowl commercial. How’s that for a coincidence?

See the picture? That’s my son getting his diploma from the University of Texas–the same UT who’s playing Alabama tonight for the national championship in football, but that’s not the point. (Unless you’re a Longhorn, which I am not.) The point is, I am done! Done, done, done! I have just checked “raise son to adulthood” off my list. He is raised. Break out the champagne! I did the best I could and now I’m sending him out into the world where I hope he’s hugely successful and sells like gangbusters. Oh, wait. He’s a child an adult, not a book. But you know what? I feel the same way after finishing a book, getting the edits, giving a final polish, and letting my baby go off to the publisher where he’ll be given a slick cover and released into the world. Afterward, all I can do is sit back and wait for the reviews. When you think about it, that’s pretty much what I’m going to do now, along with hoping someone out there wants to hire a sociology major with minors in economics and business administration. Well, that, and watch the game tonight.

Just this once . . . HOOK ‘EM HORNS!

Anyone else going to watch the game?

There are two kinds of people in the world–white light people and multi-colored light people. Okay and maybe those who decorate with a single, non-white color. I’m going to include them with the colored-light people because I think they secretly want to be colored-light people, but are intimidated by the trash talk from the white-light people who claim decorating with white lights is classier than using multi-colored lights. Piffle, I say. It’s the holidays! They’re supposed to be festive. Twinkly fairy lights are pretty, but I can see them any time I drive past a restaurant with a patio. What’s special about that? For Christmas, bring on the color. Yes, I am a multi-colored Christmas light person. Not only that, but my tree lights twinkle. Individually. At night, I like to stare at the random shadows the lights make on the ceiling. If it’s really quiet, I can hear a faint plinking sound as the bimetallic strips flex in the bulbs. To me, that’s the sound of Christmas.

Which is it for you–white lights or colored lights?

Last week, my husband and I went on a cruise to San Juan, Puerto Rico, Grand Turk, St. Thomas, and the Bahamas. That’s me on the left, swathed heavily against the sun. Unfortunately, that is not my husband on the right. Nevertheless, I had a great time. I had hoped to go kayaking and be able to trade stories with the intrepid Blaze Senior Editor, Brenda Chin, but it was not to be. Instead, I toured del Morro, annoyed iguanas, shopped in St. Thomas, and made friends on the beach (see left). I handled an alligator and went on a pub crawl–and I won the toasting contest with this limerick:

There were two couples from Texas
Who could have been driving a Lexus
But they went on a cruise
And are enjoying the booze
And afterward hope they’re not exes.

My prize was a lovely key chain.

The fact that I was on a pub crawl at all is solely due to the Blaze influence. Blaze heroines are confident and go after what they want. Their attitude has begun to rub off on me. Would a Blaze heroine sit around moping about her cancelled kayaking trip? Absolutely not, and neither did I. And now I have a new key chain and a new friend! (see above)

While I was cavorting in the Caribbean, did I forget the Blaze Blog readers? Why no! Straight from St. Thomas is a lovely, dainty, sterling silver Larimar necklace that a lucky blog commenter will win. Larimar, or blue pectolite, is found only in the Caribbean and is the result of lava merging with copper. The more times you comment, the better your chances of winning. On Sunday night, I’m going to ask the girl next door to draw a number and will post the winner on Monday morning.

I don’t know my new friend’s name since I, er, didn’t bother asking. It didn’t seem important at the time. What shall we call him?