Allison and Jane and the Oscars

I love Allison Krauss. Her song "There's a Ghost in this House" has a lovely, lilting, melancholy quality that haunts.

Lately I've been thinking of that song a lot. You see, since Wednesday I've noticed a vague odor in my kitchen. I can't pinpoint it, and I've sniffed in every cupboard, in the trash compactor, and under the sink. I've looked under furniture and vaccumed up every little piece of everything.

And yet I keep singing, "There's a stink in this house." It's not a good smell--smells like something dead, and believe me, after the Month of the Rats, I know what dead smells like.

Reminds me of the first time I met cop writer Mark Mynheir--over dinner at a writer's conference, we spent the entire night talking about how to describe the smell of a dead body. (You had to be there.)

But I digress.

I'm heading to Colorado Springs tomorrow to be with gal pals Nancy Rue and Kathy Mackel, and guy pal Al Gansky and his lovely wife, Becky. Looking forward to meeting Susan, aka Accidental Poet, whose blog I've enjoyed for a long time now. Not sure how consistent I'll be in this space, but we have a Book of the Month coming up, so I'll try to at least get those posts up.

I heard--but haven't been able to confirm--that the state of Texas somehow overruled their governor's mandate that all schoolgirls be vaccinated against HPV. Anyone got the details on that?

Good news this week from Foreword Magazine (a general market magazine that goes to bookstores and libraries. It features books from independent publishers). They have a "Book of the Year" contest every year, and three of my books are finalists: THE NOVELIST, MAGDALENE, and UNCHARTED. I like this contest because it puts Christian novels up against general market novels--Magdalene, for instance, was entered in the historical category, so it's competing against all entered historical novels. Years ago, when I first started entering this contest, there wasn't a specific category for religious fiction, so the first time my book won a medallion, it was right up there with a book in the gay and lesbian category. I like that--it speaks to me of salt getting out of the salt shaker. :-)

And about the Oscars--I'm not going to be watching (because I'll be at Glen Eyrie), but the Wall Street Journal offered an interesting perspective this week. All the actresses in the "Best Actress" category played roles that could be described as "women behaving badly." And three of the actresses are in the AARP range--Meryl Streep is 57, Helen Mirren is 61, and Dame Judi Dench is 72.

My hat's off to all of 'em. Long live mature women, and thank heaven the writers are giving us something other than twenty-something-women fighting over sixty-something men.

LOL. I haven't seen any of the nominated movies this year. No time to go . . .

One more thing, and I'll end this rambling post. A few days ago I mentioned my friend Jane Orcutt and asked you to pray for her. Jane's condition is not good, and several of my friends have set today aside to pray specifically for her. Will you please ask the Lord to strengthen, encourage, and heal Jane? Thank you for praying.

~~Angie