Wash by Liezl Buenaventura

Here's another awesome sketch by Liezl Buenaventura. I especially love the pose here, he looks so very....Wash! The coffee cup is a great detail. You know our boys can't function without their cuppa.

Thanks again, Lizz!

Rabies, Mud, and Palm Trees

Well, no sooner am I back from Pennsic War up in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, but I had to take off to Isle of Palms here in South Carolina for a family gathering.

I had one whole day to do laundry. I started when I rolled out of bed Monday morning and didn't stop till I went to bed late that night.

I'm kind of sick of being inside a moving car. I'm just saying.

The week before that involved me getting bitten by a feral cat and the cat having to be quarentined for rabies observation. That's always a laff riot when you're already freaking out about driving a day and a half away from your kid. I didn't particularly want to have to send the cat to the shelter in the first place, nor was I all that interested in getting a call while I was that far away from home on vacation that I needed a a series of injections before I started foaming at the freaking mouth. Fun times.

In case you're curious, no, I don't have rabies.

So I'm typing this sitting in the kitchen of a rental house. At least here, I have Internet access, which I didn't have at Pennsic.

I used to go to Pennsic every year, but then I got sick and needed surgery, and then 10 months after that, I got pregnant, and then after that, my daughter was too small to leave...in other words, I had some adventures along the way and life intervened. Which is fine, it's been a great ride. But the husband decided that this year I needed to get out of the house, go reconnect with friends, and visit my old life a little bit.

Well, I was terrified. You'd think I would have wanted to go, and did. I wanted to go, but I didn't want to leave, if you understand me. If it hadn't been for a friend riding with me, and me being her only way there, I would have bailed out.

I have to tell you this...for the past six years, I've been having this dream about Pennsic. Those who have been to Pennsic know that Pennsic can pervade your very heart and soul, and while you may not be there at Pennsic, Pennsic never quite leaves you once it gets into you. My dream was this: I would be going to Pennsic just long enough to tell everyone I wouldn't be there. Just drop in and let everyone know (never mind that in reality, it takes me a day and a half to get there) I was sorry to be missing them again that year.

Yeah. I know, it's nuts, but hey, dreams don't always make sense.

When I showed up at the Pennsic gate this year, in a flash of crazy synchronicity, Cinderella's "Coming Home" started playing on the radio. And for at least a day or two, I could not shake the feeling I was dreaming again. Every time I'd been there for the past six years, it had been in a dream. Now that I was standing under the Pennsylvania sun, the Queen Anne's Lace waving in the breeze and the sticky, cow-manure scented mud cloying around my boots, I could not shake the feeling that I was once again dreaming. Although I had no message to deliver this time. This time, I didn't have to tell anyone I wasn't going to be coming.

So I walked down to the camp of a wonderful friend who I had never met. We'd been corresponding since the year I'd gotten sick. We'd talked on the phone and via email. She was one of the first people I told I was pregnant. I knew all about when her son went to Iraq, and when he returned. We were wonderful friends...we'd just never met.

I walked into her camp and she ran to me and it was like embracing a family member whom I'd been long separated from. That alone was worth the trip.

Yeah, I cried like a damn sap.

But then there was many others who I had yearned to give a hug or a handshake to, and old friends who I never imagined I'd be separated from so long to see. My week was a wonderful blur of connecting with friends old and new. I'll never take friends for granted again.

And for my daughter, who stayed home with her Daddy, well, she fared far better than I did during the week. Daddy kept her busy and the week sailed by for her. I was the one who cried on the phone while talking to her, not the other way around.

I'm glad I finally got to make my long trip. I was never so glad to have gone. And even so, I have never been so glad to return home.

I count my wealth by the love in my life. And I am filthy rich. Life is good.

A Very Brief Break

Hi, folks. Haven't updated in a bit. Just not ready to post it, and too much on my mind last week or so to be able to focus on it. I'll be out of town for about two weeks, off and on. Once I get over this hump, it will be back to business as usual.

It's been a really screwy week and a half for me. I'll explain when I get back. Like I said, have had too much on my mind.

In the meantime, I have another print coming, which I am looking forward to seeing, and some other stuff in the works for you.

Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me.

Have a good couple of weeks,

'Gina

Header Pics And Other Musings

NOTE TO NEW READERS: The header has been recently updated with art by Diego Candia, soo this post no longer pertains to the artwork shown in this header. I may post the old header elsewhere on the site at some point.

Hi, folks. Working on the next bit of story, not done with it yet. I was housesitting last week, at my folk's. Their internet connection is not great. In fact, the last chapter was actually cranked out on my netbook, then posted Sunday night, from my own place, after the Sunday Night Irish Jam at the Publick House here in town.

So I'm a week behind getting my life in order and getting ready for vaction. We're in what my group affectionately calls Pennsic Crush.

Basically, that's a euphemism for "Running Around Like Beheaded Chickens Getting Ready For A Vacation That Will Pretty Much Beat Us Senseless."

I'm going here in less than two weeks. I may or may not get the requisite number of posts up before then. If I don't, I apologize in advance. But I'll be gone first week in August, so, don't worry, I haven't forgotten you all. I'll catch up.

In the meantime, as promised, here's the key to the header pictures. And for the person who asked, yeah, I actually fixed the pic of Saint so he is shaggier now. I just need to get it uploaded.



1. Lily
2. Saint
3. Fiona
4. Bender
5. Tommy
6. Luis
7. Wash
8. Jesse
9. Storm

Luis by Liezl Buenaventura

I'd have to say Liezl really outdid herself on this great picture of Luis. I dunno, but I think this might be my favorite so far, and that's saying something.

I told her the challenge with Luis would be capturing his personality. I'd say she did that and then some.

Thanks again, Lizz, you rock!

Guest Post by Bill- (Prequel 2)...Texas Draw

My friend Bill, who shot the western theme pics of me, is a multi-talented guy. Not only is he a great photographer, but he's a fun and entertaining writer as well. He sent a a ton of pics to me along with this fun exchange he'd written between Saint and Wash, in which Saint gets schooled in a lesson Wash is already wise to.

I told Bill it was great fun for me that someone was writing fanfic of my story...he said it was less about the story and more about the pictures of me dealing poker.

I liked it so much that I got permission from him to post it here. It's close enough to the actual storyline and characters, I figured heck, why not just post it as an actual story post instead of a fanfic? So for the sake of continuity, it takes place on the last run our boys took before story start, which would be about a week before Chapter One.

Anyone else interested in doing a little writing, don't be shy about contacting me. I might even post it if you like, as either fanfic or a guest post.

Oh. And by the way. My three year old is now going around telling everyone I ate penguin poop.



You look like hell.

I wish that was all it was… I’m gonna need an advance on next months pay - two or three dollars….

You got paid just last week!

I’ll pay you back. I work steady and you know it.

What happened?

I ain’t sayin’…..

You will if you're gonna see my money…

I got scalped and I never took my hat off.

Cards?

Yeah, Texas draw poker.

Don’t you know never to sit down at a game unless it’s with people you know? You’re a damned fool!

Well, I just got educated, that’s all.

How much did this education cost?

I ain’t sayin'….

You will, if you're gonna see my---

OK! OK! - for what the other nights schoolin’ cost, I ought to be a Perfesser or a Doctor, or sumpthin’.

HOW MUCH?

Dammit! - It was a woman what done it to me! How was I to know she could play poker like that?

Sort of dark hair - eyeglasses maybe?

Yeah, how’d you know?

Congratulations - that was "Shotgun Mary" that taught you a lesson. I heard she was back in town.

Well, thank-you for your timely warning. That her real name?

Hell no. Nobody knows her real name. She got that moniker guarding "special" shipments for a freight company in Wichita.

She had to be cheatin’. I got a mind to get my money back.

Don’t do it. The Commanche learned the hard way to leave her alone when she was ridin’ shotgun.

She can’t be that good.

Idiot. Don’t mess with a woman that can scare the Commanche. They even had a special name for her.

What was it?

I ain’t sayin'….. If I told you, I'd have to go to church for a least a month.

How’d a woman get that way?

Well, the story is that she used to have a nice homestead in Missouri, but there’ll be a noose waitin’ for her if she goes back.

What happened?

She got caught hiding runaway slaves and the local bushwhacker gang came by to show her the error of her ways. It got right ugly - She sent three of 'em to the promised land. Mary got out with nothin' but the clothes on her back, a shotgun, and ten rounds of double-O.

I really need that two dollars.

Why now? You can’t spend it till we get back home.

I’m going back to town and buy her a drink.




© 2009 Regina Shelley on behalf of Bill.

Smokin' Chick

As you can see, I've got a profile pic over there that features me playing a round of "poker" while puffing on a big, fat stogie.

My friend Bill came out here and shot a ton of pics of me for this blog. Just cuz. He correctly observed that I was dressed in clothing from the wrong period in the original picture. So he shot a bunch of very fun "Western theme" shots for me, which I will probably be posting here and there. It was a fun day.

I have to tell you about the cigar. Call it a cautionary tale, if you will. Or just laugh at me. Everyone else did.

Unlike some of the boys in the story here, I don't smoke. And I especially don't smoke cigars (I'm talking to you, Saint). Bill suggested we run up to the Wal Mart and pick up a cheap cigar for a prop. So, off went Marie (Bill's wife), my three year old daughter, and myself.

The clerk was all like "you're doing what with it?" She was amused that we asked for the cheapest, fattest smokes she had on hand. We ended up getting short blunts, at the bargain price of five for three bucks. That's economy, right there, folks.

So, not wanting to look like amateurs by having me puffing on a neatly cut, unsmoked stogie, I went outside to light the thing and puff it down a bit. I am the absolute, no contest, most incompentent smoker on the face of God's Green Earth. It was kind of windy out, the thing kept going out because I wasn't puffing it hard enough, the smoke was making my eyes water, the works. I had to really give it a couple really good pulls to get it going.

Let me state for the record, I was a Theater and Speech minor. I have had to puff a few smokes on stage before. Not a big deal. However, cigarettes are not cigars. This sucker was filling my mouth and throat with a horrible, cheap-ass, foul-smelling cloud of toxins that would probably kill the lawn if I exhaled it close enough to the ground. Oh, dear Lord it was bad. I started retching. I cannot believe anyone would ever do that more than once.

I'm on my hands and knees, eyes watering, gagging, and holding a burning cigar in my hand when I hear my three year old step up to me and say to Marie "Why is Mommy sick?" And then I thought to myself "Oh, NO! My child is seeing me smoke! I'm a terrible example!"

Then I had another thought: "No, she's not seeing me smoke. She's seeing me dry heave into the azalea bed while holding a smoke. I'm a GREAT example!"

But it's all cool. Marie told her I was sick from eating penguin poop.

It would explain the smell.