Back from the dead

I'm ready to come out of hiding.  Well, I wasn't hiding so much as I was taking a long look at my career.  It just took me 2 years to do it.  Well, not really 2 years, I had a lot of interruptions.  My daughter is now a college freshman and since I married a man with children, this is the first time in my 33 year marriage that we've had an empty nest.  (And thanks to college girl, empty wallets <g>).

So the last couple of months I've been working on a deal with Grand Central (shout out to Donna Bagdasarian) and we finally got things all worked out.  At least I think we did.  That was the day my pool motor committed slow suicide, making this awful, deafening sound because the water was so low but I'm pretty sure I got it right.  But it was a Lucy Ricardo moment.  I was cradling the phone with my shoulder and went toward the clump of bushes where the pool controls are hidden.  I wasn't alone.

There on the top of the hedge was a black snake sunning himself.  Or herself, I have no idea how to determine snake gender and I'm not about to learn now.  I needed a plan B.  So I decided to just get the hose and add water, all the while praying that my pool didn't have a crack or a pipe issue.

All this comes on the heels of my house attacking me.  Last week the garage door broke.  My hubby pulled on the red emergency cord and snap - it was lying limply in his palm.  We called the installation company but it would take them 3 days to come out.  So we waited for the grounds service and asked if they would venture back inside the bushes to shut down the pool motor.  Nice guys and happy to do it, even when Snake 1 and Snake 2 slithered out from beneath the hedge.  I'd love to meet the person who determined that snakes are more afraid of me than I am of it.  What a crock. Seeing those snakes was enough to make me pee myself.

Turns out the garage door only needed a new fuse and rip cord and the pool was nothing but evaporation from the strong winds.  And I'm counting the days until I can move into condo because the only person more afraid of snakes is my darling hubby.

More on my return to writing  - including the release date for the next Finley adventure - NO RETURNS!  Finley faces the most difficult case of her career - herr mother is the prime