A/N - Okay, a few Ducky & Sandy snippets prove that I'm alive (and the fact that I didn't use my "irregardless" code word proves I'm not being held prisoner and posting under duress).

I've lost a few things in the months we've been apart including my brain and...my index cards. I know I promised a long story ages ago (like, um, 2015) that has to deal with how Sandy ended up with the second store. The whole tale is plotted and blocked, and put down on my infamous multi colored 3x5 index cards, a stack some 3-4" thick and neatly packaged with a couple of elastic ponytail holders. They're safely put away in a box somewhere. Or in a drawer. Or on a shelf.

That's the problem with putting something away in a "safe" place-it's frequently so safe, you can't find the damned thing anywhere.

So if you get any psychic flash, I would be ever so grateful if you would let me know where the bloody 'ell I put the stupid thing. (At least this week I found the original key to the little Saturn. The key I lost last October. The one I duplicated from the emergency "credit card key" this past June (Why don't they make those any more? They were brilliant.).) Since we're coming up on Halloween. I'm even cool with Ouija board communications; my mother was a genius for finding missing crap. (She had 5 kids. It was a learned skill to keep her sanity.) But I digress; onward to the safe, quiet world of Ducky and his scrambled family.

February, 2013

I'm Not a Morning Person. I'm not a Night Owl. But I can Rock 11AM Like You Wouldn't Believe

LibriCon was on the horizon. If I was going to sell, sell, sell, I needed to shop, shop, shop. Three weeks to hit (hopefully) seven states in the Eastern time zone; if we kept it to just the one van and divided the driving, we might cut it down to two weeks—"we" being fellow bookseller Evelyn and yours truly. Evelyn would as least hold down the shotgun seat while we snaked out way through the states hitting up other booksellers to trade and a few scheduled sales big enough to warrant the drive. (If we really bought a ton, she could drive a U-haul on the way back.)

She had gone to enough long haul sales with me that she knew the system by heart: outbound books in green boxes on the left side of the truck; incoming in red boxes on the right. Rather than leave her car at out house, I swung over to Kalorama to pick her up.

3AM has some advantages. Nobody on the road is a big one. And… Um… Okay. Maybe only one advantage, when I think about it.

Since Charlie had her own insanely early start for a school even, she and Lily were already awake and scarfing down breakfast. Just the idea of food made me wince, but I gladly accepted a refill on my coffee. I recognized Lily's traditional bacon/eggs/toast/hash browns but Charlie's bowl of cereal was a mystery to me. "Do I want to know what that is?"

"Shredded-raisin-coco-crispy-cheeri-apple-fruity-lucky-sugar-bran-chex," Charlie said with a grin.

"Uh…what?"

Lily laughed. "She decided to clean the pantry last night. We all have a bad habit of not finishing cereal, so there was a quarter or half cup of Shredded Wheat, Lucky Charms, Raisin Bran, and about ten other cereals. She threw them all together and voila."

Now I really felt ill. "I'd call it chocolate frosted sugar bombs from Calvin and Hobbes. I guess it's a taste only a teenage could love."

"No worse than a suicide…I guess?" Lily shrugged.

Ah, a suicide. That had been my mistake—telling Charlie about suicides: a mixed soda, where you take a hit from every flavor offered at the fountain and mix them all together. Unless you were good at remembering formula percentages, the taste varied from collection to collection. It was fun in college; now it made my teeth shudder. Definitely something left to high school and college palates.

I shuddered again and sneaked a peek at the clock. Usually Ev was the one waiting for me. I was a little early, but not much. "Ev sleep in?"

"She'll be down in a sec," Lily said with a hopeful look.

"Probably still in the shower," Charlie said cheerfully, putting her bowl in the sink. She turned on the hot water full blast. After a moment, there was a piercing scream and she turned the water back off. "Yep. Still in the shower."

Lily, who had jumped a good foot when Ev imitated Janet (or Jamie Leigh) Curtis, was still wide-eyed. "Effective. Devious…but effective."

Gotta remember to stay on that kid's good side.