All proceeds go to LiveSTRONG for cancer research and awareness.

PB was my friend. He and Mrs. PB lived in England. My husband and I lived in California. We would go years without seeing each other. But we shared one of those rich and rare friendships. We could start our conversation again, just where we had left off, as though no time had passed at all. We were very sure we would grow old together, watching our kids and (some day) grandkids grow. We thought we had all the time in the world.

Then last month, we received the sad news that PB had died from cancer. I wanted to shake my fist at the universe. I wanted to shout “No-o-o-o!” from the roof top. But all I could do was melt into the kitchen chair and say, “I thought we had more time.”

At the time of his death, PB and the Mrs. were in Wales living on a farm purchased with the intent of lowering their carbon footprint. They raised their own chickens, vegetables, and even a pig. They kept their home warm (and welcoming) with a wood cooker, and they bartered with their neighbors for whatever they couldn’t raise.

On the day of PB’s funeral, they converted his old Land Rover to carry his casket. His son, now a naval officer and wearing his dress uniform, drove the old girl. Mrs. PB and his daughter rode followed in the “good car” with a tow rope, just in a case.

As you have guessed, PB was such a unique person. In fact, I was inspired to “borrow” his looks, speech, and mannerisms for a minor character in my first book, A PRIMROSE IN NOVEMBER. After I heard the news about him, I pulled the unpublished manuscript out of a drawer and self-published it. It seemed to be a way to keep him alive. But somehow, that wasn’t enough. 

I decided all the proceeds from the sale of the PRIMROSE ebook should go to charity. I picked the Lance Armstrong Foundation, LiveSTRONG. It raises money for cancer research, raises cancer awareness, and encourages people to live life to the fullest.

To participate in “Buy a Book! Save a Life!,” go to Amazon and purchase A PRIMROSE IN NOVEMBER on Monday, Dec. 19^th. Together, we can make it a best seller for a day, encouraging those who don’t know me and didn’t know PB to buy the book and donate money to a good cause.

Please join me in this event. The book is available for $1.99 at the links below.

• Amazon (US)  
• Amazon (UK)  
• Amazon (FR)
• Amazon (DE)   
• Amazon (IT)
• Amazon (ES)  
• iTunes/Apple  
• Smashwords  
• Kobo (Asia)  
• Barnes & Noble   

For those of you without an ebook reader, you can download a free Kindle-like reading application here for your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod, Blackberry or Android. 

Anyone would love you, Judy

Years ago, after several miscarriages, I became pregnant again. The whole pregnancy was riddled with doubt. Would the baby go full term?

I felt that the first words I said to my offspring—if there was an offspring—should be special. I decided I would sing a Judy Collins song.

My daughter was born one October night at the first 1:30 am, just before they turned the clocks back. There were a few stares when the nurse handed my baby to me and I warbled my first words to her:

“Anyone would love you,
Anyone at all,
Anyone with any sense is bound to fall,
I’m sure that anyone whose heart is free,
Seeing you would say,
‘Here’s love, at last, here’s every lonely dream come true,’
Oh anyone, believe me, would love you.”

My debut was meant to be my last public performance.

Twelve years later, my daughter had scoliosis surgery. It involved deflating one lung, spreading her ribs, inserting screws into her spine, seeding the vertebrae with cadaver chips, and joining it all with a   titanium rod. When it was over, she needed a morphine drip for the pain. At one point, her IV needle fell out and needed to be reinserted.

A pediatric surgeon was called in, since no one else could find a vein. My daughter squirmed in agony, waiting for her much needed pain-dulling meds. The surgeon’s first three attempts failed. The doctor moved to another location and  my daughter cried out, “Will someone sing?” Music had always been a source of solace for her.

Finally, I could be something besides a useless bystander. I’m not sure if the rest of the pediatric ICU appreciated it, but I sang.

“Anyone would love you.. anyone at all…”

A vein was a found. Sleep followed. The healing began. Thank you, Judy Collins, for that beautiful song. It’s been with me for the most important moments of my life. Don’t worry though, I won’t be competing with you for concert venues. I only sing in hospitals.

Numbering Like We Had in 'Nam... NOT

People will read “5 Ways to Lose Abdominal Fat” or “10 Reasons to Bring an AK-47 to Work” while ignoring an article entitled “Reading This Could Save Your Life.” But why?

1. There is an end in sight. If there 10 ways to cook a skunk, you can be sure that after #10, it’s over.

2. You can read the items in any order. Skip around. The subject won’t change.  You won’t get lost.

3. White space. People love white space. It helps them feel like they are reading more than they are.

4. You don’t feel obligated to get to the end. This isn’t great literature. It’s a list. The 7 best practical jokes may be listed, but you can stop at #3 and go buy a whoopie cushion.

5. You always know how close you are to the end. Web pages—and blogs—can go on forever. Numbered lists? Not so much.

6. By item #6, you know if there is any point in continuing. Maybe the author provided 5 really lame reasons to sleep with pigs, but if reason #6 is lame too, you can close the window. {Wait! Don’t click on that little X up in the corner. You only have one more to go.}

7. Our world is chaotic. Numbered lists give a sense of order to the universe. If there are 10 ways to salvation, all is right with the world. If you have to struggle through a Bible, a Kuran, or stone tablets—oh wait, that was a numbered list. Anyway, life is unpredictable enough. Who needs unending stress?

Just another dip in the road

Hello, City of Cupertino. There’s a dip in the road you really need to fix at 10554 Santa Lucia Road. I know it’s there because I crashed my bicycle after hitting it .

In years past, it would have never been there. With today’s budget crisis, there are potholes everywhere.

This particular dip gave me a lot of road rash, black and blue marks, and a really sore shoulder. It also made me to go buy a new helmet, since the old one cracked when I hit this baby and slid (and slid and slid.)

I was limping around, feeling sorry for myself, while slowly walking my dog near my house. That’s when I got the wake-up call. My neighbor who is recovering from cancer came past, walking with his wife, and keeping a faster pace than I was.

That’s when I realized, I don’t have it so bad. Miners in Brazil who don’t get out of a collapsed mine until Christmas… They got it bad. Me? I’ll be back on my bike as soon as it gets out of the shop.

Relax. There's time.

   At some point, I crossed an imaginary line. Time, in my lifetime, became finite. Suddenly, I didn’t want to talk to uninteresting people, read uninteresting books, or take boring vacations.

   It was as if I had x amount of time left, and y number of things to do in that time. I didn’t want eat crummy food, drink bad coffee, or write uninteresting blogs—though I probably will.

   I became obsessed with maximizing my remaining time. Even while doing something “worthy,” I was anxious about not getting to the next worthy thing. In short, I wasn’t enjoying life.

   Then I remembered a lesson I learned while traveling. If you visit  an interesting place, like London for example, there are so many must dos and must sees—the Crown Jewels, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, ad infinitum. No one has enough time in one trip.

   So, I told myself, “Do what you can do comfortably (comfortably being the key word) and do the rest the next time.” If I never returned to London, it still made the current visit more enjoyable.

   I think it’s the same with life. I’ll do what can do comfortably, and then do the rest in my next life. If there is no next life, I’ll never know. And if there is… well, perfect.

  It allows me to enjoy the moment. This moment. And that’s all any of us really have.

Is it just me, or is this normal?

There may not be a litmus test for how much you dislike your job. However, I’ve done some intensive research at past jobs. (BTW, this research is on-going.) The signs include:

You would rather be at the dentist. Any time that sitting in the dentist’s chair is preferably to sitting at your desk at work, you have a problem.

You never whistle at work. I heard someone walking down the hall, whistling and realized, I never whistle at work. This may not be a valid test if you can’t whistle. You could substitute singing.

You volunteer to be laid-off. The order is out at your company—after all, it is Silicon Valley. They want to reduce your department by 10%, and you are waving your hand like a kid in first grade who needs to go to the bathroom.

Now that you know the warning signs, you can’t do a thing about it. It’s a recession, for heaven’s sake. There are no jobs out there for you. Just the lousy one you have already.

You can either reassess your situation or you can take some tips from the characters in my latest novel, OLD HU$BAND$’S TALE$. HINT: Play the lottery or plan a bank heist. Empower yourself!

 “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

- President Obama to Wall St.,  4/29/2010

     It’s a real danger in Silicon Valley. I’ve seen it happen to my neighbors—but not me. <sigh> Now the President is warning us of this rare, but terrible, plight. Just so you don’t fall into the “Oh, no, I have more money than I need” dilemma, I’ve gathered some helpful hints.

Don’t let it happen to you. Check for the following signs, most courtesy of Jeanne Sahadi of CNNMoney.com

Signs you have too much money:

1. Bling H2O bottled water-$38/bottle for the limited edition bottle decked out in Swarovski crystals bottled in Tennesee.
2. Silver sleeve for your Haagen Dazs- $1,057 from jewelry and silverware designer Theo Fennell. It slips over a pint of your favorite flavor. The sterling silver tub is engraved with the words “Haagen Dazs.”
3. BMW 3-series wagon – A man in California reportedly purchased one for the sole purpose of having his housekeeper take his dogs to the vet.
4. Girl’s bed – $47,000/Designed like a coach available at Posh Tots.
5. A Gucci chainsaw – Gotta have it.

Hold That Train

     In my former life, I was a journalist. Once, I had decided to write a news article on train travel, and Amtrak had comped me three tickets to do it.

     The travel required that I ride the Coast Starlighter from Salinas to San Luis Obispo, wait 20 minutes, and catch the train back. My daughter, 4, and my mother-in-law accompanied me.

     It was a great experience, but we were delayed on the first leg, which meant we would miss the connection home. To my surprise, when we reached San Luis Obispo, they had held the train that would take us back to Salinas.  Apparently, Amtrak didn’t want a “fun train travel” article to turn into a “when you miss your train home” article.

     The best part of having a train held for you is walking the length of the train with everyone staring  at you. For a moment, we weren’t just Grandma, mom, and little girl, we were famous people.

Feeling Blurry

     It’s not easy living the virtual life. It’s now Spring in Silicon Valley and the sun is beckoning. But that puts such a glare on my laptop screen, I am inside.

     There’s blogs to write, Facebook posts to answer, and I must follow Lance Armstrong on Twitter. Somehow, he finds a way to live a virtual and real life, but then, as a cyclist, his balance is better than most folks’.

     So, I need to install some app on my computer that allows me to virtually ride my bike and tweet, update my website and burn calories.

     Until there is, I am anchored to the sad fact that one must go outside to ride a bike. Maybe that’s a good thing. Though I think falling down in an application and virtual road rash would be easier to take than the real thing.

     Don’t honk if you see me out there. It always scares me.

Beware of Clumsy Squirrels

     The squirrels of Silicon Valley are like no others. They love to cross the road on telephone wires. I have always wondered if one day, one wouldn’t slip and land spread eagle on my windshield. I guess that’s why you have windshield wipers.

    Back when I was a newbie commuter here, I remember the first time I saw the true expertise of Silicon Valley drivers. A squirrel was running in circles at the intersection of El Monte and El Camino. Why he lost it at that time (the morning commute) and the intersection (one of the busiest in Mountain View) is a mystery. Maybe he was drunk and slip off a telephone wire. To my surprise, my up-until-now heartless fellow commuters were doing a great job of not hitting the squirrel.

     It inspired me enough to add it to my book, “OLD HUSBANDS’ TALES” where a group of eclectic, high tech coworkers, who will bet on anything, lay money on the odds of a squirrel surviving in the intersection of De Anza & Stevens Creek.