At last

I was at the post office yesterday and the line was nearly out the door. The two people at the counter didn't go anywhere for nearly 15 minutes while everyone in the line chafed and shuffled and fretted. I was a little worried since the parking meter only had 26 minutes on it.

A very pretty young blonde with skin like new cream, black mascara ringing her pale blue eyes, and wearing a sarong and flip flops and a very short older woman, eyes deep brown nested in a wreath of smile lines, with short, wavy helmet hair threaded with silver and I stood at the end of the line. A short cranky bear of a man with a beard checked his watch every 15 seconds as we three women chatted and joked. The bear finally grumped off to go to "another post office where they aren't so &*$%*#*@ slow". We three looked at each other and smiled and then encouraged the people in front of us, one by one, to go to a faster post office, providing them with directions if they hesitated. Slowly we made our way to the head of the line.

"Why are they raising postage rates?" Blonde asked.

"Because they can," I said.

Silvered-hair and Blonde laughed. "Besides,"I added, "they need to be real snails to carry the mail. It's faster than using carriers." Everyone in the post office laughed.

We came to the head of the line and Blonde frowned. "He's so slow." She was about to get Papa Smurf, the guy with the blue fingers. "He's efficient," I said. "He's sloooow."

Silvered-hair got Terry, the lady whose husband died a year ago and I got Ed who is always smiling and glad to see me. Then I was out of there and to my car in record time with one minute still on the meter. And I thought it was going to be a quick trip.

The point of all this is snail mail (now with real snails). I just received an email from my publisher. After six weeks of waiting, my contracts finally arrived. That's priority mail for you. I now have lots of instructions and information and will soon meet my editor (virtually, of course) and we will begin the process of getting my book up and ready for bookstores everywhere, and I do mean everywhere because we already have an international tie-in, which means my book will soon be available, once it's edited and packaged, in Asia and Europe. I can hardly wait. My publisher said he was sending my copy of the contract and I should have it in about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks. I think he's being overly optimistic about those snails. Of course, where he lives it's much warmer than here and the snail tend to get frozen in their slime trails from time to time.

He also said the artist has been given my suggestions for the cover art; I was pretty explicit and detailed. I have a vision. They asked if I had any ideas . . . and I did. Now, whether or not they follow it is something else again. I'll just have to wait and see. Now for a question.

Do you like characters more who are vaguely described or intricately described?

We now return you to regular programming.

That is all. Disperse.