April 2023

Poppies, Ostriches, and Magic Castles

Southern California is in the middle of a wildflower superbloom, and because I was visiting my BFF last weekend, I got to see it!

California poppies were blooming in droves at the aptly named Poppy Preserve. The photos are great, and yet they still don’t do it justice. If you’re anywhere in the area, I suggest a visit!

A collage of three pictures featuring bright orange poppy flowers, along with smaller yellow flowers, blue skies, and wooden power poles

While we were exploring for the weekend, we found a tiny little roadside attraction called OstrichLand USA. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not driving past a place called OstrichLand without stopping to check it out.

For a mere $8, I was given bowl of food pellets and set loose to feed the resident ostriches and emus. This was far more fun than I expected, mostly because giant birds are hilarious all on their own. When they’re trying to use their ridiculous necks and beaks to steal your food bowl, it’s even better.

And they are ridiculous. They remind me more of velociraptors than chickens, because have you ever seen an ostrich’s foot? Nightmare fuel.

A male and female ostrich eating feed out of a bowl bolted to a dustpan

The fancy dinner I was talking about a while back also happened while we were in CA—a visit to the Magic Castle, the home of the Academy of Magical Arts. Yes, there’s a club for magicians, and I will always, always think of Gob on Arrested Development insisting he’s “an illusionist” not a magician.

To get in to the club, you have to be a member or know a member, but membership is expensive and, you know, for magicians, so that wasn’t an option for us. Instead, my BFF booked us into the on-site hotel and talked them into giving us tickets. Win!

The club is in a cool old house that was built in 1909, and the ambience is exactly what you would expect from a club for magicians—a little old school, a little glam, and a lot quirky. The strict dress code meant everyone was dressed up, so it was a fun vibe.

And the magicians at the Castle were incredible! We saw several short shows, including two close-up acts. For the second one, I was two feet from the magician, and I still have no idea how he did some of his sleight of hand, which is the best kind of magic.

It was hard to dress super fancy while traveling, since our bags were full of normal clothes, but Mr. M and I made a respectable showing. Honestly, he made a much better showing than I did, but such is life when your hair goes poof at the slightest drop of humidity or wind. 😂

Mr. M in a black suit, silver waistcoat, and maroon tie with me beside him in a shiny silver dress, with yellow walls behind us.

Now we’re home and I have to buckle down and make some words. The fantasy romance I’m working on crossed 53k while we were gone (it was a working vacation), and I have a slew of interviews and Q&As to do for Capture the Sun—which comes out two months from tomorrow. Ahhhhhh!

My publicist is talking to BookPeople about possibly doing an in-person event for the release, so if you’re local and you’d be interested in seeing my smiling face in person, drop me a comment and let me know! 💕

Rollercoaster Escape

Have you ever gotten stuck on a rollercoaster? I have, as of yesterday. It wasn’t particularly scary or dangerous, since we hadn’t even made it all the way out of the loading bay, but they still had to call maintenance to free us, which wasn’t particularly fun, either.

It was one of the coasters where your feet dangle, and something must’ve went wrong right after they released us, because we moved forward maybe twenty feet before they shut the thing down. Then they made announcements that we couldn’t hear while the shoulder harnesses gave us the hug of death—okay for less than a minute while riding, less okay for many minutes while waiting.

I don’t love being trapped, so my watch helpfully notified me that my heart rate had spiked even though I didn’t appear to be moving.

Thanks, watch.

Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, a maintenance crew with a manual safety release gizmo and a stepladder showed up to help us escape one row at a time. It was interesting from a “how does this work?” perspective, but I could’ve lived without the knowledge, lol.

My bff wished we’d been farther along so we would’ve had to walk down the track, and as someone who is deathly afraid of heights, I might’ve tried to incinerate her with my Glare of Doom(tm). It didn’t work, which is good, because I love her when she’s not thinking about making me walk down a scary grating staircase in the sky.

The failure was a disappointing end to an otherwise super fun day, but at least I got a story out of it, I suppose. Now if someone is stuck in a rollercoaster in a future book, you know where the idea came from. :)