When love is new and fresh it’s called “puppy love”. It’s called so because of the devotion a puppy oftentimes gives its owner, and we see that in the boy with a crush following a girl, or vice versa, that happens in our younger years. Sure, wikipedia says it’s also called “kitten love”, but here at the Winter household, we have true kitten love. We have the cute and cuddly kind like you see in the picture. And we have the other kind too, which more often than not resembles an old married couple. Baxter (He’s the spotted guy in the picture), will stand on Delta and do his “thing” (even though they’re both fixed), while she’s sleeping in the kitty bed. She’ll give him a look that says “not right now, I’m trying to sleep” and put her head back down while he’s stomping away on top of her. Eventually he’ll figure out she’s more interested in snoozing and flop over right on top of her.

Yep, sounds like an old married couple.

The truth is the love and devotion these two show each other would be the envy of any couple from a romance book. I’ll see them curled up together in the recliner. Or sometimes, one will come to snuggle with the other, providing lots of ear and face licks in the process.

So I vote we rename it “kitten love”, because really, who needs puppies when you have these two around?

And you know what’s better than kittens? The guy who let you adopt them.

Okay, maybe not beer, but I find it completely amusing how my horse has gone from a “pasture pet” to a stalled little princess in the space of a few months. I’ve had my mare, Fortune, since she was three months old. She’ll be ten in August, so yeah, we’ve been together a while. And since generally she’s treated like my 1000-lb Barbie^TM (add to that the fact that I don’t ride), well she’s had a pretty cushy life. Hang out in the pasture with her buddies, get fed, grained, and can’t forget the horse cookies, then every once in a while be brought inside where she’s fussed over, brushed, made pretty, and then we walk around for 20 minutes or so. Read the rest of this entry »

Because, as the Kentucky Derby showed on Saturday, sometimes the little guys can score one against big guys with deeper pockets. And the cool thing is, when that happens, it’s probably an even bigger win, because it revitalizes interest in the sport (or in the publishing industry).

For those who don’t follow horse racing (and shame on you), a $9500 gelding (from Canada) named Mine that Bird came from way behind to stun the field. I suspect, in reality, that there were probably traffic jams, which created the perfect opportunity. But that’s okay. Because things like that happen in both industries. And it’s a good thing when it does.

Why? Because it inspires hope. Read the rest of this entry »

Romance exists down a gravel road

While visiting our place in Southern Missouri last month, my partner and I decided on a rainy, and rather chilly, day to go driving around. We were less than 50 miles from Arkansas. Why not go? Then we could say we’d been to Arkansas. Since it was too cold and rainy to stand on our land and discuss where to put things, or hang out and read, and a drive sounded lovely. So, since we both like long drives, we went, and discovered a very beautiful lake and more gorgeous Ozark scenery.

However, on the drive down, imagine my surprise when I passed a road sign that said “Romance 2 Miles.” Funny, I thought, looking at my partner, we have romance back at the hotel in the Jacuzzi suite. Given that I write, and publish, romantic fiction, I knew I had to get a picture of me (and maybe even my car with the magnetic signs advertising Pink Petal Books) by the Romance city limits sign. So, on the way back, we found our sign for Romance (after thinking we lost it, because we thought Romance could be found closer to the Arkansas border than it was) and turned.

Romance, it seems, exists down a gravel road. (And no, Lex, not with two farmers and a couple of pigs as you suggested. Unless that’s something they don’t tell the locals.) Not wanting to go down a gravel road in the middle of nowhere with no signs, we turned around, and alas, didn’t find Romance, Missouri, that day. (I did find out later, from some friends who are locals, that yes, Romance does exist down a gravel road, and there isn’t much more there except a church (inspirational romance?) and a couple of houses (contemporary romance?).

But it got me to thinking, how many other states have a town named Romance?

Well, it turns out three. And, looking at the geography of them, I can say that as far as I’m aware, Pink Petal Books is THE closest publisher to Romance. Missouri. Arkansas. And Wisconsin.

Further research revealed that all three towns are unincorporated, so there’s a good chance that if the towns aren’t on a gravel road, they’re probably near one. And I suppose that’s a metaphor for life. After all, most of us don’t know where romance is. It’s not on any major maps. And we have no clue how to get there. We just happen to stumble across it one day and decide that we rather like the destination. And maybe, just maybe, we find it on a drive to Arkansas.