Stockton’s Small Business of the Year 2003-2004

One of the topics I’ve covered is a book I just finished reading -- The Conspiracy Club (Jonathan Kellerman). Lead character is a psychologist on staff at a hospital. Primarily, he uses hypnosis to help patients, a trivial (but significant to me) part of the story line. The author is very impressive in his portrayal of hypnotherapy, and for this I was/am grateful. Too often it is unfairly misrepresented in fiction.

Right now my Leo is out walking the neighborhood, hanging one of those annoying pieces of material you find on your door knob, on neighbors’ doorknobs. No, no, we’re not advertising Evergreen or even Charming Children (our new book). He’s supporting a local candidate in the upcoming elections, and getting some nice fresh morning air at the same time. I’m proud of him for doing his part. I figure my part is to be proud of him, which doesn’t require my leaving the house.

I love having my office at home. My desk is situated where, during the colder months, I have a view of the fire burning in our pellet stove; and during warmer months, I have a view through my window of our many trees and the squirrels who frolic in and around them. We have grey, brown, and black squirrels, quite common of course. BUT we also have a new little critter who has a distinctive white tip on his/her tail! The others are too many and too similar to name, but this one, I feel, deserves distinction. I’m thinking maybe, “Tipper.”

We also have a raccoon. We’ve spotted him during the night drinking out of our waterfall. We’ve also found his footprints on the kitchen floor, near the doggie door and right next to our dog’s empty food dish. Which explained why we were going through so much dog food but Artax wasn’t gaining any weight. So we’ve recently taken to putting the dog dish in our microwave when we go to bed at night, to protect it. One morning one of my sons came over, with a cup of coffee he wanted to warm up. He gives me a bad time for spoiling my animals (not to mention grandkids), and when he opened the microwave door and saw the dog food there he said, “Really, Ma. This is going too far.”

Speaking of going, I’d like to thank all of you who responded to the last newsletter with some really impressive suggestions for Frank’s and my next get-away. So many ideas poured in that I had to print them all out and start a “get away file.” We have some good traveling times ahead of us, that’s for sure. Next time the mood hits me, we’re outta here!

Not only were the recommendations great, but it was also good to know that people are actually reading the newsletter. I love responses from readers, except for those that say “Remove my name” which, thankfully, are few and far between. Frank assures me I shouldn’t take them personally, but that’s easy for him to say. He’s not the one sitting with slaving away at the computer, barefooted in shorts and a t-shirt, sipping iced tea and listening to Hawaiian music in the background.