“This picture reminded me of that story in the news yesterday about the man in Florida who had his hand bitten off by an alligator. The guy was a tour guide in one of those airboats that run through the everglades. He held a fish over the side of the boat and the alligator snatched the fish and his hand.  Sad enough he lost his hand. But here’s what happened—the Feds, EPA I suppose, have now filed charges against him for the crime of feeding the alligator!!

And that reminds me of this. A story, also in the news yesterday, about a woman marine biologist who captains a whale watching ship. Worked hard all her life on researching the whales. She was in Monterey Bay several years ago when someone in her crew whistled at a humpback whale, hoping that it would move closer. One of her employees called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for ‘harrasing’ the whale, and when the bureaucrat agent contacted her to request a video to view, she sent one, for some reason enhancing the whistle part of the tape. NOAA immediately indicted her for editing the tape under an ancient False Claims Act (1863). Three years later she’s lost her business. Federal agents raided her home and removed all her scientific photos and business files and computers.

And that reminds me of a story in the news today. Mayor Bloomberg in NYC is mandating through regulations breast feeding of babies instead of using bottles! (We’ve moved from regulating soft drinks and junk food now to breast baby’s milk). Hospital are to hide away their bottles and formula, and if a mother requests one, she gets a lecture along with each bottle.

Someone tell me please—what’s going on here?  1984 redux?

Hello friends – If you were following our Dancing on Glass tour in August, you may remember that we were rudely interrupted by the disappearance of my computer half-way through! Whoever took my computer also took our little touring car. So, take a look. How about this one for a replacement?

After the earthquake (okay, people in California stop chuckling), and driving parallel to Hurricane Helen down the coast, we ended up on Friday, August 26th in Augusta, Ga. Lots of history here. Had a booksigning scheduled that night at Lifeway, but spent the afternoon in the Augusta History Museum. It’s a great spot–there was a steam passenger train from the 1920′s like the one my grandparents rode in the 1920′s. I got on and sat in one of the seats for a while, imagining.

The booksigning in Augusta was great. Hal Perdue, the Manager, had balloons to welcome everyone, and wonderful food, and punch–his own recipe. Here’s a picture of Hal and me and all those balloons. Hal had copies of the Moon in the Mango Tree and Secret of the Shroud as well as Dancing on Glass. Had some great conversations with readers! Hope everyone enjoys the books.

From Augusta we went to Buford, Georgia where I had a signing at another Lifeway store. Met hurricane Nora there–that’s Nora St. Laurent who hosts The Book Club Network.com. This is a really lively site for book clubs and authors to meet and chat. I highly recommend it–Nora lights a spark! Some of Nora’s local book club members came by and I loved meeting them. We had a drawing for “River Road Recipes” there and Marilyn won. Those are the favorite recipes for my heroine in Dancing on Glass, Amalise Catoir.

Now–I’ll share with you her favorite recipe. (Which happens to be one of mine) Red beans and rice. You can do this in a crock pot, even better. Cover the dry beans with water with about 2 inches above the beans to spare. Add chopped onions, garlic, sausage (Amalise likes it hot!), a few bay leaves, salt to taste, and a ham hock. Put the crock pot on high for six hours, or low for eight or nine hours. About one hour before finishing up, add one tsp. of cumin, and two or three tablespoons of butter and stir until the butter melts. Then put the top back on the pot for another hour, make the rice, and serve. The butter somehow binds the gravy, makes it thick and really good. Yum-let me know if you like it.

Now that I’ve risen from the ashes, I’ll continue the Driving Ms. Pamela blogs again soon. Until then – Pamela.

Readers my computer has been stolen!!! I’m now in the process of blocking access to this website temporarily. I’ll miss talking to you, and will keep writing the blogs as we go along, to post when I get home and get things straightened out. In the meantime, I’m praying no weirdness comes across! Hopefully we’ll be back up and running by the end of the week. Pamela

This is an irritable interim post. We’re in Augusta, Georgia having survived an entire day with our GPS, generally referred to as ’Amazing Grace.’ Those of you who were with us on our past Driving Ms. Pamela tours will be familiar with AG and her sometimes erratic behavior. For example, on past tours we’ve been convinced that she’s possibly (A) a soviet spy, (B) a co-conspirator with Hal, alpha computer from the movie 2001 Space Odyssey, or (C) an alien invader. At any rate, after planning our visits to bookstores in Charlotte, NC  this morning with great care, so that we would move from one to the other with no wasted energy or time, Amazing Grace refused to cooperate. We found ourselves constantly in front of construction sites, blinking yellow arrows we’ve never seen before, and suffering numerous irritable commands such as ’take the next legal U-turn.” Charlotte, nevertheless, is a beautiful city

For those of you interested in planning such a book tour, by the way, I have a new discovery. Being a technological idiot, I’ve just found out how to plan a route so that we’re not criss-crossing the city all day long. In the event you don’t already know this–here’s what I’ve learned. First, google ‘bookstores in XXX city’. You’ll get a list, plus a map. Write down the addresses of the bookstores you want to visit. Then go to MapQuest and click on ‘directions’, then ‘plan routes.’ You put in your beginning address, and you can add as many after that as you want. MapQuest will organize them according to proximity!! (Better than Grace has ever done, I’ll say.)

Driving down NC Hwy 77 to Georgia was such a pleasure. In Louisiana we have huge billboards all over the place. Apparently they’re not allowed in NC, or else no one cares to put them up. Either way, the result is a long, serene drive between green forests–beautiful. Only problem was that for no reason at all that I could ascertain about once an hour Grace would blurt out ‘recalculating route’. Jimmy and I would jump and panic, thinking we’d somehow landed on the wrong road. Then Grace would say “continue on highway 77 South’…!!! I think she gets a kick out of this. Here’s a picture of me and Grace. Grace is in the trash basket under my foot.

I may let her spend the night there.

Tomorrow I’ll be signing books at Lifeway Christian Store in Augusta, GA. from 5 – 7 PM. We’ll have a drawing and the winner will receive a copy of River Road Receipes, THE book for Lousiana cooking. If you have time and you’re in the neighborhood, stop by andsay hello and put your name in for the prize! Pamela