Shh... I'm not supposed to be here

I'm writing this from my horse trainer's home office while she and her hubby are out at a movie. I've been working for Tina every other week for a coupla months now, and I'm kind of officially off-duty but I need to hang around because Duffy-puppy is in her Monday night obedience class.

Mostly, I'm here to tell you how much complete and utter fun the Southern California Writers Conference LA (Newport Beach) was this weekend. I drank a little too much wine and my eyes feel like they're full of ground glass, but damn, I'm energized! My workshop was superb. Right people for the message, right message for them - does it get any better? They were so lovely and willing to listen and take a chance on the funny side of life. I'd have 'em all over to dinner if I knew how to cook. I sure hope Michael and Wes invite me to do the San Diego conference, if Gordon decides not to do it. That'd be the bomb.

But back to the ranch -

I was going to call up some school districts and ask them if they're interested in field trip information because we're offering ranch tours to children's groups, BUT... after Googling all the districts and getting phone numbers, I can't find Tina's phone in her house to call anyone. I can use my cell phone except it sometimes decides it doesn't want to hear me now and flakes out on me. I did go out to the barn office to try to make the calls but it's hot out there. As in, 113 degrees hot. As in, a dress rehearsal for Hell. I made one call from the barn phone, and said, "Dear God, why am I out here?"

So I'm sitting here in Tina's home office, using her computer, which is a Mac but it's okay, I'm bilingual. Tina's left-handed, which means I'm reaching across with my right hand to click on the mouse. And I'm wearing my bifocals, which means I'm craning my neck up so I can look down through the correct part of the lens.

And Duffy-puppy could be laying outside in the kennel with his friend, Buddy, under the misters, which make it very cool and pleasant. Instead, he's standing at the kennel door, barking and making me miserable.

Yeah, the life of a writer is a glamorous one.

The things I do for Christmas

My family and I did two important things today:

1. We took our annual Christmas picture.

2. We got our (live) Christmas tree.

The tree was pretty inconsequential. The picture - not so much.

In the olden days, we went to a "professional" photographer for the holiday pix. I'm using the quotes because the studio was one of those 1-hour places in the mall that have the appropriate backdrops but don't care if your baby is spitting up formula through the entire 10-minute session.

Then we got smart and started doing our own.

Of course, we had to have the whole family in the pictures, which used to mean the dog and cat. One year, we tried to include Ben, the gecko. Turns out Ben's very small, not very photogenic, and considered to be an appetizer by the dog and cat.

Those pictures were hectic enough, but now that we have two horses, the ante has been raised considerably. We take everyone out to the Silver Rose Ranch in Chino Hills (where the horses are boarded), find a green spot and take as many pictures as possible, in the hopes that one of them will look good enough for a Christmas card.

For the first time anywhere, I am going to show the outtakes of this year's session. This is what we deal with:

In this first shot, notice that Mikey the dog wants to get down because he does not like sitting on the bench's slatted seat (in theory, I agree, it's not comfy).

Katy, the cat, wants off the bench, off the ranch, and back at her nice house. The older she gets, the more she hates this day, and usually coughs up something disgusting on the carpet later, just to punish me.

Frostie is the chestnut horse to the left. At this point, she doesn't want to look at the bench because it wasn't there this morning and if she doesn't look at it, it will go away. Her son, Snoopy, however, wants to eat the bench because he's ADD and wants to put everything in his mouth...

Including our son, Marcus. His shirt and hat were endlessly fascinating, and I spent most of the time pulling his big face away from my teenager's neck. (Hey, I got it - the next book will be about horse vampires!)

Here's a little closeup:

Notice my right hand trying to get his attention while the taut lead rope tries to tug him away. Good sport that he is, Marcus smiles through the whole ordeal, while Katy is still determined not to pose for the papparazzi.

We finally got Snoopy's attention, when...

Frostie sees something in the bushes and gets Dale's attention, which makes Katy think she can make a break for it. At this point, only Snoopy and the dog are camera ready.

Twelve shots later, we finally had a picture no one would cringe at when we sent it out to friends and relatives. Here's the one we picked:

Okay, so Katy's still not smiling, and Frostie's ears aren't pointed forward, but five out of seven of us were facing the camera, so ya gotta take what ya can get.

It was also the millisecond before Snoopy made one final attempt at the teenager.

Now I just have to write the Christmas letter, and decorate the tree, and buy some presents, and...

REMINDER: BORDERS! CHINO! TOMORROW! NOON! BE THERE!