Right in the middle of tearing through Book 13, I got a fun care package from my brother and sister-in-law. He does the ridiculous, she does the sublime (and some of the ridiculous). It’s always entertaining, though.
He warned me the box was coming and said there was something in it from “All Roads Lead Home” that needed to be re-created. Now, we had talked about him shipping some alcohol to me, so I began to wonder if the ingredients for “Red-Headed Slut” (the drink) might be showing up. I had no idea.
To be honest, I had to ask when I opened the box, because it still didn’t make enough sense to me. Then he reminded me of Doug and Billy’s Star Wars battle with homemade light sabers. When it gets dark enough tonight, I’m turning off the lights and will be varooming around the house with my glow-in-the dark saber.
Now, if you’ve been around a while, you’ll remember THIS POST with another care package my brother sent me. He’d just published Book 1 – Rookie Privateer – in his Privateer Tales series and station foam had erupted to seal the place from being exposed to space. He filled that box with spray sealant foam and I had quite the entertaining time extracting the wonderful gifts he and Janet sent to me.
This time, planning preceded execution and the unpacking wasn’t nearly as difficult. Though, there was still some foam that hadn’t completely hardened and even though I knew it, I still stuck my index finger into it. Apparently, a five year old still resides in my brain.
While the ingredients for the red-headed slut weren’t in the box, a couple of bottles of Fireball Whisky were. Spray foam is a perfect way to make sure those bottles remained in place.
Now, the fun started. The cats had been very interested in the box – because well – it’s a box! And there were new things that smelled like someone else’s house.
Jim & Janet wrapped the bottles in multiple layers of plastic bags so the foam didn’t adhere. But the fun was inside the bags. I pulled the first one open and couldn’t figure out why there was … oh my gosh, it’s CATNIP! I spread it out on the carpet and the cats went nuts. Janet (Jim?) had packed a little toy ball in amongst the catnip and I tossed it to Earl. He was gone.
TB landed on the catnip and wanted no one else to have any part of it. Grey wanted nothing more than to roll her little body all over it. He kept hissing, eating and batting at her whenever she got close. But she was persistent. Then she grabbed the toy from Earl and chased it around the room while little boy started rolling on the carpet. Happy, happy cats. I don’t often give them catnip, but wow do they love the stuff.
I opened the second bottle of Fireball and there was MORE catnip. It hit the floor, too and they were in pure bliss. Rolling, nibbling, more rolling, more nibbling, chasing, running. It was too much for them to handle. What fun, what fun.
The cats have finally fallen asleep. TB here on the table beside me, the kittens on the heating pad at my feet. I’m waiting until it’s dark to turn off all of the lights and swoop around the rooms with my glow-in-the-dark light saber. Okay, maybe I’m waiting for darkness and a couple of shots of Fireball to glow in my tummy.
I still have more editing and re-writing to do. There’s a vignette that needs to be written, a cover that needs to be finished – because the email newsletter comes out Thursday morning at six in the morning. If you haven’t signed up, do so right now – (right there on the right side of this page). You don’t want to miss all the fun.
Thank you, Jim and Janet. You made a good day – great!