Catching Everything Up

With apologies to you who read it in your email box...

1. We left Medford the last week in September and drove to Reno where Crow Mother lives.
2. Spent 2 days there, being Aunt Mame and Uncle Lithus.
3. Hit the road on Sunday for a cross country trip...in the jeep...that has no catalytic converter....or air conditioning....or heat...or much of an exhaust system. It was a BLAST. We laughed our asses off for 5 days and plenty of beautiful (and boring) countryside.
4. Arrived at the Lovely Cats' in CT by (late-) dinner time on Thursday.
5. Friday friends started to arrive and there was much craziness and last minute running around before my birthday party.
6. Saturday, my friends who arrived early and I hid in the basement while the Lovely Cats and Lithus pulled off the coup of a lifetime and finished the party prep.
7. Saturday night, I had the best night of my life, bar none, as the Lovely Cats and Lithus threw me a party for my 40th birthday. I had very intentionally kept it small, small, small. 20 people were there. It was a once in a lifetime event for me and everything a 40th birthday should be.
8. For a few days, we recovered.

The rest...

Here's the big news, first ~ we're moving to Malaysia. Lithus goes Sunday out of JFK. I join him the end of the month. I've also learned there's no way to build up to it so I just drop it like that. rofl. Don't know for how long ~ six months or 16 years. It depends on so many factors, not the least of which is how much we like Malaysia and living in Kuala Lumpur. He will be logging in the darkest jungles of Borneo 7-10 days a month and we will be in the city the rest of the time. I do expect it to be a while given that we are too much about the adventure to not find a way to enjoy living overseas.

But there's still more ~ FALL INTO ME is available for preorder on Amazon and the proofs got sent back to NY yesterday. Meanwhile, I am writing on Carter Anne's story, too. That got hung up for a bit because I forgot for a while that I write trashy romance novels and not great literature. Instead of just letting my male character be an archetypal Super Man, I tried to make him just an ordinary guy ~ only there was no conflict unless he was indeed the son of the influential politician who managed to get Carter Anne her job in DC (unbeknownst to her, of course). So, I gave in and let him be the archetype and am moving forward once again.

On a related note, and I feel remarkably guilty making this about me and my career because it is so much bigger than just that, HOWEVER my fabulous editor who has been considered THE premiere editor of romance novels for years now actually died on the 28th of September. She had taken a leave of absence at the beginning of summer, explained I would have to write Bobby's story without her but she would be back in time for Carter Anne's and we would pow wow about where we would go with my career and all that once she got back in the first week of October. Turns out, the leave was for cancer treatments. It was a slow moving, not terribly aggressive form of cancer and she was doing great and then...she died on the 28th. So who knows what happens now. *sigh* It's so strange to think I won't ever hear "Pobble! Kate!" when I answer the phone again.

Lithus is no longer working for New Company but is now working for Newer Company. New Company couldn't get contracts for the winter. The industry is still reeling from the economic crash last year; Carson released a whole bunch of really good pilots into the pool recently; and there are more helicopters and pilots than there are contracts these days. Plus, as the war in Iraq winds down, there will be still more pilots looking for jobs here. So, we're grateful to be getting out of the country for a bit and for Lithus's reputation that allows him to keep flying. He's actually turned down jobs that have been offered because we are so excited with Newer but the fact that they came his way makes me hugely proud of my love, especially given that one of the companies literally has pilots standing in line at their door and Lithus hadn't even applied with them. Yep, they came to him.

And that, I believe, brings you up to date. *whew*

From here out, I will (hopefully, anyway) be better about posting semi-regularly. And am even considering a travel blog once I hit Malaysia. I'll keep you posted. For now, though,

Those are Pobble Thoughts. That and a buck fifty will get you coffee.