Into the Woods with a Good Book #amreading

by Giselle Renarde

I have a little ritual I repeat from year to year.

Every year when we arrive at the cottage, the first thing I do is peruse the bookshelves.

The cottage is not our cottage, and so the books are not ours. The owners of the cottage are avid readers (of literary fiction in particular), and their new books quickly carve a path to the cottage bookshelves.

But, among the newer books are a host of older ones, the jazz standards of the cottage bookshelves. They're always there and I never tire of seeing them. Plenty of Canadian fiction: Robertson Davies, Stephen Leacock, Margaret Laurence.

A few years ago I read A Bird in the House. This year it was A Jest of God.

There's a reason I don't bring my own books to the cottage: I'm generally a slow reader, and choosing a book from the owners' shelves challenges me to read the entire thing in the span of a week.

You can't take it with you--the book, that is. This isn't a lending library.

So I spend the week reading.

At home, I start every day with a book. Now that I've kicked coffee, I brew a cup of tea and I sit and read for a while. But at the cottage that while stretches out, fills much of the day. Reading, eating, board games, DVDs at night. That's a family vacation at the cottage, and it's really something special.

If you'd like the inside scoop on this year's cottage vacation, I invite you to read my second book of correspondences, Hi Babe. It's just a little book of letters, the ones I wrote to my girlfriend while I was away.

This year's vacation was more eventful than relaxing--not at all what I'm looking for at the cottage. As much as I complain about the city, our family getaway proved that life follows you wherever you go. It even follows you into the woods.

Thank you, technology.

If you're at all interested, grab a copy this month from Smashwords, where you can get it for free during July's big ebook sale: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/879056?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica

Enjoy!

Contextual Kink

by Giselle Renarde

Sweet's always asking, "What's something you want to do that we've never done before?" I don't know. Considering she once told me we'd never have a sexual relationship, we've done a metric fuck-tonne of... well, fucking.

I flip the question back at her every time, and every time she's got an answer on the tip of her tongue: "I want to have sex with you outside. I want you naked in the woods."

Thanks, but no thanks. Been there, done that. Sex in the woods reminds me of being a teenager and having nowhere else to go. (Do kids really have sex in their parents' houses these days? I could never have done that. Yikes! Never!)

Anyhoo, Sweet's been extra wonderful lately and I took on short-term employment this spring to earn some extra cash, so last week I whisked her away on a romantic adventure... IN THE WOODS.

Well, not really in the woods, but by overlooking a lake. There were trees around so, yeah, you know what? Let's call it the woods. I rented a quaint little cottage and treated her to a magnificent meal. After that, I was pretty much ready to explode. I was so full it hurt to laugh--and I know, because Sweet made me laugh the whole way back to our cottage.

I took a bath while she sauntered in and out of the washroom, taking off her makeup and beginning her extensive nightly beauty regime. After that, I put on a cotton camisole just long enough to cover my butt. Sweet tossed her silky red nightie over her head, and we played a board game in front of the TV. She indulged me in a rerun of Night Court, which (as you may recall from previous posts), I wasn't allowed to watch when I was a kid. It's just an old sitcom, but for me it'll always represent being naughty and getting away with it.

It must have been eleven at night by the time we'd finished our game. Without a word, I slipped outside. The night was wonderfully dark--something I'm not accustomed to, living in the heart of a major metropolitan centre. The only lights around came from the other side of the lake, which was a long way off.

Beyond our deck there was a stretch of land, a few trees by the shore, and then the lake. Earlier in the day, Canada Geese and about a thousand little goslings had been feasting on something in the grass. Now they were somewhere out there, honking at God-knows-what.

There were other cottages on the property, but ours was closest to the lake. If I stood at either edge of the deck, I could look back and see those cottages. One was lit up, but I didn't see anyone inside. The other had been dark all night.

Sweet followed me outside and wrapped a pashmina around my shoulders. I needed it. The night air was cool, for June, but once Sweet folded me into her arms, the chill just fell away. Her body warmed me from behind as she asked, "Why did you come out here?"

Did she really have to ask? "So you would follow me."

She giggled and kissed my neck and, after looking around in every direction (including UP, just in case), I slipped the straps of my camisole down my arms until it pooled around my ankles.

And here's the thing: even though Sweet's been asking for sex outdoors for years, I didn't get naked for her. Well, maybe it was a little bit for her. Maybe it was a lot for her. But in that moment, in the darkness, under the stars, with a gaggle of geese honking like old-timey automobiles stuck in an old-timey traffic jam, I really just wanted to strip down to nothing.

I didn't plan this encounter when I booked the cottage. I didn't choose a relatively remote location so we'd have the opportunity. I had no idea our deck wouldn't be visible from the neighbouring cabins. It wasn't until we got there and saw the space that we both knew, without even hinting to each other, that we'd found the perfect place.

So Sweet got her wish. She got her sex in the great outdoors.

And I got mine.

Twice.

Welcome Guest Blogger, Multi-Published Author Judith Rochelle!

The Oh Get A Grip crew is thrilled to welcome today's guest blogger, multi-published author, Judith Rochelle:

Vacation? Vacation? Not this one

Many years ago my father-in-law remarried and his new wife fame complete with two full-grown married children. And their children. The son was smart enough to live in Albuquerque but the daughter lived in Michigan, where we were living at the time. And the newlyweds thought it would be wonderful if---let’s call them dick and Jane---went on a vacation with my husband and me. Over Christmas. To Puerto Rico, where we already had made vacation plans.
Going on vacation with Dick and Jane was like traveling with—well, what can you say, for example, about a woman in her thirties who brags about buying her panties in the children’s department and they all have the day of the week on them.

So, okay. We rearrange our plans and we’re off on vacation. Right. Also, from Michigan to Miami we had their children who were being delivered to the grandparents for two weeks. We pick up Dick and Jane and their kids and head for the airport. Only to get there and realize Dick has left his wallet on his dresser. At home.

“I’ll be back before the plane leaves,:” he assures us.

“Sure,” we say. Meanwhile Jane and the kids are about to become hysterical.

Dick leaves us all at the airport and speeds off to retrieve his wallet. We have the pleasure of escorting to Miami three people who have never flow before and are hysterical the minute we enter the waiting area. Then they refuse to get on the plane until Dick gets there, but the plane is loading so we are now dragging the three of them, kicking and screaming, onto the plane. And as we pull away from the gate, there’s Dick, plastered to the window, looking out at the departing plane. Now there are some real hysterics to deal with.

We land in Miami as I’m about to slit my throat and hand the kids over to the grandparents while my husband tries to find out what happened to Dick-who it seems is now being routed through New York. At Christmas. And everyone insists on sitting with us in the airport until the plane for San Juan leaves.

So we get on the plane for San Juan, with only Jane by now, who proceeds to drink four glasses of wine because she’s so upset. Which we paid for. We land in San Juan and can’t find a cab to take us to our hotel which is too short a ride for them unless we pay double the fare. And of course, to make things better, when we go to check in, the one thing Dick and Jane were responsible for got screwed up. Instead of changing the reservations, they cancelled them.
Did you ever see a wilds woman screaming at the top of her lungs waving a confirmation in the air and turning the air blue with every profanity known to man? I think they gave us rooms just to get us out of the lobby.

Of course the restaurant isn’t open---it’s Christmas Eve---we haven’t had lunch OR dinner, and Jane is now not only hysterical but drunk. And Dick has not shown up. We enjoy a fabulous meal from the vending machines sitting in the lobby, because Jane won’t go to her room until Dick arrives, and she’s getting weepier by the minute.

We finally, at three in the morning, persuade her to go to her room and we are just settling into our beds when we hear Bam! Bam! Bam! next door. Dick has arrived! Yay!

From there things only got worse, including Jane hailing police cars as taxis because they had lights on top, and Dick taking them on a motorcycle ride to the rain forest, only to have Jane fall off and Dick not notice it for an hour.

So here’s my advice to you. Since you can’t choose your relatives, at least you can choose not to go on vacation with them.

Judith, can you tell us about one of your books?

Redemption

Blurb: Lisa Mallory’s marriage from hell ended with her husband, Charles’s, unsolved murder. Once a suspect herself, she barely survived the scandal that erupted when his secret life was revealed. Four years later, her life finally back on track, her eight-year-old son is kidnapped and not returned, despite the ransom payment. Every public and private agency has failed to turn up clues to Jamie’s whereabouts or the identity of his kidnapper. Now she’s left with just one option- Ethan Caine, a friend of her brother’s and a burned-out Special Ops warrior for whom she has nothing but contempt. When he turns up evidence that Jamie is being held somewhere in Mexico, she insists on going with him, over his strong objections. But in the exotic environment of the lush Quintana Roo jungle, passion explodes between them, and they wonder if it’s possible they could dare to hope for the future.

Excerpt:

Of course it was raining. How fitting, Lisa Taylor Mallory thought, as she shifted on the folding chair provided by the cemetery, carefully not to move out from under the umbrella the funeral home attendant held over her. Next to her, four-year-old Jamie snuggled closer to here, needing the assurance of his mother’s warmth.

Dr. Howard Devol, pastor of Alamo Baptist Church, under his own umbrella, was intoning passages from the Bible. He had already eulogized Charles to the point of sainthood. Lisa had clenched her fists and swallowed the nausea the insisted on rising at the back of her throat.
Let it be over. Please, please, let us just get this over with.

She let her gaze travel over the crowd of mourners. The cream of San Antonio society and the financial world gathered in their best funereal attire to mourn a man whose sins were swept in fire at the foot of a mountain. Everyone had come, afraid of the fallout if they stayed away. The abundance of black umbrellas nearly formed a canopy of the assemblage.

The funeral was for Jamie, for whom this had all been so frightening. He needed, even at his age, to have closure and known his father would be on a path to Heaven. He could say his prayers at night and feel he had a direct link to him.

Beside her, she felt her brother, Josh, squeeze her arm, a signal that said everything will be okay.

Okay wasn’t exactly the word she’d have chosen to describe the current state of her life. She clenched one gloved hand in her lap. No, okay, wasn’t even in the ball park.

At last the interminable ceremony was finished. Josh rose and nudged her to stand with Jamie. The pastor signaled her to come forward. With Josh’s arm supporting her, she stepped forward to the casket and took the white rose the pastor held out to her. She stared at the casket for a long moment, then dropped the rose on its mahogany surface.

In a voice so low only her brother heard it, she said, “Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.

Buy it now at: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/ or http://www.amazon.com/

Check out Judith's website at http://www.judithrochelle.com/

What the ....?

Well I’d been waffling all week about what to write for this topic. I’ve had a variety of vacation experiences in my life, from the fabulous to the horrific, but nothing was leaping to mind. Then on television tonight I heard a word that made it easy. Yep, this one sent the stupid-meter soaring higher than the price of filling up the gas tank.

STAY-CATION

The media has decided that this is a great new thing, to bring families closer together and encourage participation in our communities.

Bull Puckey.

What it means is, “We’re too broke to go anywhere, but we can’t get cash for our vacation days. So we’ll take the time off and stick around home. We’ll do some local stuff so it only sucks little rocks instead of big ones.” Don’t even get me started on the other word they used, “home-tel.” That one’s just too moronic to contemplate. I was dashing to the bathroom when I heard that and I really hope it was a spoof.

So I guess my summer plans are suddenly trendy. Last summer was a big vacation, and this year, with astronomical gas prices, there’s just no hope of getting the hell out of Dodge. So, yes, we’ve talked about ways to make the summer suck a little less. Our kids are teens, so their idea of entertainment revolves more around friends than around anything else anyway, but yeah, we’d decided to make it a point to take in a couple of small Renaissance Fairs, and a few local museums that we’ve overlooked in recent years. Maybe let each of the boys drag a friend along, just so they have a good time too. And to think, we figured all this out without knowing there was a word for it. However did we manage that?

This is a new word for a very old concept. It’s called making do, people. And it’s how ordinary folks always have and always will cope with reality. Obviously, the pundits and politicians who are telling us how great this is never had to sit on the back porch with a homemade margarita and pretend it was the beach. Or convince a couple of kids that the sprinkler is as much fun as the water park.

On the other hand? It IS kind of cool to rediscover forgotten treasures in your own part of the world. Detroit has a world-class art museum, and my kids have never seen it, at last not that they remember. It’s free one day a month. Guess which day we’ll be going? Minor league baseball is pretty cheap, and it's actually more fun to watch, because it isn’t so slowed down for television. And when you come down to it, time is a bigger investment than money, anyway. Doing something, anything, makes more memories than sitting by the pool and having someone bring you pretty pink drinks.

Or so I will be telling myself all summer long.