As of yesterday, the master bath at our house is back in business!!!  The guys who have worked so hard to put our home back together have my eternal gratitude, including our Architect and son, Tom.  Later today clothing will start migrating back downstairs on its long-delayed return trip to the closet.  Some of the clothing is moving, but not all of it because it’s time to do a sort and send some of the rejects off to other lives in other places.

For example, the powder blue leisure suit that came to grief with a glass of red wine as we made our journey to bring our granddaughter home from China six years ago is NOT going to make the cut.  Yes, a dry cleaners succeeded in getting the wine out of it, but somehow the whole idea of powder blue has lost its charm.

Actually, now that I think about it, I had a non-leisure powder blue suit, a power suit, that attracted red wine when my husband attempted to re-cork the half-empty bottle after our son-in-law’s birthday party at a restaurant in Tucson.  That was about ten years ago now, just last night.  It was the end of January in Tucson.  We were at the Arizona Inn where, after the spill, an attentive waitstaff immediately doused me with soda water.  Their fast action was good for getting the wine out, but it also meant I was wet all over.

If you don’t think it gets cold in Tucson in January, try walking back to a car in freezing weather and wet clothing.  Thinking ahead, our exceedingly considerate server produced one of the hotel’s terrycloth robes.  I rode home that night wearing my bra, panty-hose, high heels, a robe, and nothing else. The next morning, although we weren’t actually staying at the hotel, we returned there for breakfast–having dropped the suit off at a dry cleaners along the way.  I walked up to the desk, carrying the robe discreetly, I thought, in an unmarked brown paper bag.  “Good morning, Mrs. Jance,” the desk clerk said with a knowing smile.  “Are we returning the robe?”

Obviously the word was out.  Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a brand name!

I like to think that I’m a person who learns from my mistakes–eventually at least.  And now I have. Since I have no intention of giving up red wine, I’m declaring that powder blue is out of my life for the duration.

This afternoon, in addition to sorting clothes and through the magic of the Internet, I have a Skype interview scheduled with twenty-five or so fans and readers living somewhere in the wilds of Maryland.  I consider this a dress rehearsal for the tour which starts next week.  Before the interview, I have to wash and iron my hair, put on suitably authorial clothing, and then take a seat in front of my husband’s desk top Apple computer.  I am a woman of a certain age.  I have seen how I look in that all-too-close-to-Hi-Def screen.  Let’s just say I am not looking forward to this with a good deal of enthusiasm.

The next problem is that during the interview we’re scheduled to talk about Judgment Call–last summer’s book.  That is not the book I just finished writing–Second Watch.  It is not the book I’m about to go on tour promoting–Deadly Stakes.  It is not the book I am currently writing–Tagged for Death.  It remains to be seen if I’ll be able to remember any of the details in that book.  The moderator sent me a helpful list of “Points for Discussion.”  I looked at the list and was hard pressed to remember how or even if some of those issues surfaced in Judgment Call.  Before the interview, I should probably grab the book and at least read what it says on the cover.

We’ll just have to see what happens.  As for my friend in Grand Junction, Colorado, who is disappointed that I won’t be coming there to do a signing?  And for people in Texas and Florida who are offended that I’m not coming there, either?  Maybe you can contact your library or local book store and see about scheduling an Internet interview.  All you need is a Skype connection, a place on my publicist’s schedule, a group of interested readers, a bookseller interested in selling books, and me.

I PROMISE not to wear powder blue.