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I woke up yesterday with the song "The Drowning" by S. J. Tucker in my head. She sang at the Wolf Howl/signing Tuesday night, so no big surprise that I went to bed with her songs in my head and woke with the same. For all of you that were able to see us Tuesday, was it not cool?

The only two logistical problems that I did not foresee was; S. J.’s amazing voice made it a little hard to hear people as they came up to get their stuff signed. The other was that I couldn’t dance to the songs, because I had to sit in my chair and talk to you guys, always lovely, and sign books. I had not thought how hard it was going to be to concentrate on business while she was singing. Especially, songs that I enjoy so much, and often bop around the office to. Her cover of "Fever" nearly undid me.

Jon got to dance to his heart content at his end of the table. As he put it, "The music in my head is loud enough for everyone to hear!" He had a good time at his end of the table talking to you guys and dancing. Charles, on the other end of the table had it harder. He, like me, had a job that wasn’t conducive to dancing. He was trying to be serious and do his security gig, but I’d catch him out of the corner of my eye, starting to dance in place. He’d catch himself, and stop, but what he really wanted to do was join Jon in the dance. So did I. His wife, Kathy, was able to join us again, as she did for the kick-off signing of BLOOD NOIR. This time some quip from Charles, and her, got me to invite them to share with the class. It was a comment someone asked about whether Anita could take boyfriends with her to hunt vampires with the police. I said, the police frown on you taking boyfriends and girlfriends out to hunt bad guys. Then we got the story of the one and only time Charles took Kathy for a ride-a-long. Yes, they got a call, but she stayed in the locked car, and she had the shotgun. I trust her with the shotgun and so did Charles.

So questions were answered before the signing, stories shared, then we managed to get through all the signing without Charles and I breaking into a full out dance. But it was hard, darn you S. J. and your siren’s call. We stayed on target, signed it all, then we mingled a little as she was winding up.

The song she ended with was "The Drowning", and I could finally dance. So I did. It was like being set FREE! She even did an extra verse of the song because I was dancing. Thanks, S. J.

The reading of Anita #17 went well. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, though I had to read it with the phosphorus grenade info being wrong. I actually stopped the reading to explain that I did know it was wrong. Older style phosphorus grenades acted as I wrote, according to military advisers, but newer style phosphorus markers, act differently. I’ll change it before it goes to New York, but I’ll have to loose a cool visual to do it. But, it’s wrong, cool visual, or not, so it’s got to go. Oh, and they can call them "markers" but if you are within fifty feet when they mark an area, you’re dead, or will wish you were. Nasty stuff. Which, of course, is why it’s so tempting to play with it in a book.

The wolves howled during Pam’s talk about the Wolf Sanctuary. She, like me during a reading, stopped to let us all hear more clearly. Though she knew which howls were which kind of wolves, which was cool. Then we got to walk down closer and see if they would howl for us again. They did. They howled for us in the summer light, one day before full moon, two days before summer solstice, and we stood in the green wood and listened to the music of wolves rise around us.