Rain and Bookshine

[Mari Sloan]

It's raining here in Southern California. Heavy rain here is even more destructive, and welcome, than snow is in Atlanta. When light rain begins it creates an oily surface on the streets that can spin a car out of its lane just as catastrophically as ice or snow does in the world of my former life. Rain in Georgia, even heavy rain, may flood the local river but it doesn't bring the hill sliding down on top of you as happens in the recently burned areas here. Rain is civilized in Georgia. It is frequently slung sideways on the crest of a howling 25 to 35 mph wind here, and cold!

When I left work we not only had water "pooling" in the trash cans lined stratigically under the leaks in the showroom ceiling, but we were talking about organizing an office pool to guess on which day of the expected three day rain event the ceiling will actually cave in. The furniture store is in an unusual building with the warehouse on top of the showroom area, but a good bit of the water from the roof rolls downhill into what is a dirt area uptop from around the airconditioning units, and finds its way to the showroom ceiling. Since a landlord has very little responsibility for the upkeep of commercial rental property in this state, my company priced the repair, only to find out that we would have to hire a crane to remove the huge airconditioning units on top of the building to do the repairs, and then they would have to put them back. Replacing parts of the roof and roofing shingles are the smallest part of the cost. Needless to say, major repairs are postponed and minor patch-ups are done as soon as the roof dries off every time we have a good rain. We have numerous places where the ceiling not only has the ugly brown spot but it's starting to sag a bit. When I left to begin my weekend, the mood was festive. Personally, I think unless it rains heavily the entire three days, the roof will hold. I'm glad that I have a tennis court between me and the Santa Monica foothill in back of our studio apartment, and that we are in a spot that seems to have relatively few earthquake tremors and has already had a fire recently, so we have a firebreak now. At least when it rains heavily on the roof above my head now at home, it doesn't sound like the apartment we had in The Valley, where heavy rain sounded like it was hitting the roof with buckets still attached. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! We've only had one wind event here where it rattled our large windows so fiercely I put the cat in the bathroom in case they shattered. This is an exciting place to call home.

I got home to discover more excitement on the way, of a different kind. My sweet old man (and business manager--the publisher of It's ME! Ink Press) met me at the door with a big grin and the news that the local Barnes & Noble is going to make us a poster for the window for the Beaufort Falls Book Signing event scheduled for February 25th--7pm, Thousand Oaks store. :-) I'll be IN the window all month and they'll be buying a number of copies of the book for the signing. The ones that remain will be on the shelves. SinC/LA is also working on setting up a panel of local mystery authors to be held sometime in March at the store, which would be a good opportunity.

Let it rain, I have bookshine to keep me warm!!!

:-) Mari

[Kelli Stanley]

Mari, thanks for reading Convivium and all your kind comments! :) I'm so glad the Latin didn't get in the way--that's what I hope will happen with the book (though it has a glossary for those that are interested).

And congratulations on the B&N signing (complete with poster! Yay!) I loved your concept of "bookshine" --- and we don't have to be a bootleggers to make any. ;)

Stay warm and dry, and keep in touch--I'm looking forward to giving you a big hug in LA or SF! :)

Kelli