YO! Barkis is one year old today! Happy birthday to my shiny boy! Here are a few highlights of the Year of the Dog:

Here he is a year ago …

…getting more handsome every day…

(sometimes I’m naughty)

…. I’m in Canine Good Citizen Class…

.

 … I love the beach!

…and I climb trees so I can look out to sea…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEE! Woof, from Barkis.

He’s so humiliated.

So…..On our beach walk today, Barkis homed right in on these skeletons. They’re 3-4 feet long. NO CLUE what they are. I call them Thing One and Thing Two. Anyone?

Cell phone pics of Barkis’s first road trip: 

A compulsive quiz-taker, I just had to find out what my dream home would really look like. Loved the “sulking corner for the scorned.” Barkis isn’t too sure about the cat named Vincent. Here’s my analysis, based on my replies to the quiz. Click the link at the bottom to custom-create your own dream home.

I’m such a sucker for dogs in costume. Would you please check out Barkis in his ladybug get-up?

We lost a big alder tree (along with power for a few hours) in Thursday’s wind storm. Here’s a cell phone pic. Barkis was excited! Me, not so much.

“There is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
–Ratty to Mole in The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

Around here, we go boating. A lot. It’s just so scenic. On the Sound, it’s also a way to avoid traffic. When I had jury duty in the summer, I went to the courthouse by boat–a 15-minute ride–thus saving myself a one-hour commute. It’s a way to try restaurants and visit friends on the mainland and to entertain people when they visit.

 Jay used to watch a TV show called “Sea Hunt” with the main character called Mike Nelson, played by Lloyd Bridges. Anyone else remember that show? I’m totally blanking, but I think Jay hears the theme song in his head when he’s out on the water.

Here’s something you don’t see every day. A yard barge. They moved my neighbors’ house away on a barge. Gorgeous day. There’s a slide show here.

So there I was, putting the finishing touches on my revisions, when the carrier John Stennis came steaming home.

Welcome home, Navy guys! This closeup gives you a perspective of its size. Note the 200-car Washington  State Ferry in the background:

In fact, seeing how tiny and vulnerable the people on deck look was the inspiration for the mishap in one of my books.

Barkis took it in stride…

But the show wasn’t over. Along came a shiny new yacht, with a helocopter hovering overhead, apparently filming or photographing it.

I put up a slide show of the whole business. And here I thought living on the water was supposed to impart a zen-like calm….

In further news about my apparel, 5000 sailors saw me in my jammies when an aircraft carrier went by my house.

It’s pretty common to see a carrier in this part of the world, but I also live in a spot where the carrier can see
me. 

Which is a tad disconcerting when you are standing in your yard, blinking at the dawn, having been awakened by an insistent puppy with a very small bladder.

A passing aircraft carrier is surprisingly quiet, even surrounded by tugs and Coast Guard vessels. It glides by, barely leaving a wake, and on a very still morning at about, say 5:30a.m., sound easily carries across the water.

But I still think Navy guys are hot.

…Make LEMONADE CAKE.*

I put two recipes on my web site this summer, along with the promo for my August book, Dockside:

The small Catskills town of Avalon, New York, on the shores of Willow Lake, is what I think of as a “Velveteen Rabbit” of a place. It has become real because we love it there. Thanks to everyone who has visited my fictional town in the Lakeshore Chronicles. Dockside is a story for everyone who’s ever dreamed of making a life at an idyllic lakeside inn. Researching this book, I met so many innkeepers who shared not only their passion for hospitality, but some pretty amazing innkeeping secrets as well.

Each section of the book is introduced by a snippet about the Inn at Willow Lake, followed by a hospitality hint from a working innkeeper. They’re little grace notes, the sort that make a guest’s stay just a little sweeter. But the real sweetness comes from the unexpected romance of single dad Greg Bellamy, and the town’s former mayor, Nina Romano. In fact, expecting the unexpected is a major theme in this book.

News

• Thanks to all for asking about Just Breathe, originally scheduled to be published in 2006. It is now tentatively slated for September 2008, and I promise, it is worth the wait!
• By popular request, I’ve added a link to the recipes from my books. Finally! Click here: http://www.susanwiggs.com/recipes.shtml
• As always, you’re invited to join in at the message board. If you have a question, ask it there, and I promise to respond right away. Since it’s a public forum, pride compels me to be prompt so I don’t look like a slacker.
• Also, please check out “The View From Here” (Themed photo shows, including   Barkis the Wonder Puppy, at www.susanwiggs.shutterfly.com).
• My local bookstore, Eagle Harbor Book Company, will send autographed copies of my books anywhere you want, personalized however you like. Check it out here: Eagle Harbor Book Company.
• You can get a Printable List of my books, which includes related books and series by clicking this link: Printable List.
• You can also subscribe to my occasional newsletter by sending a blank e-mail to Words4Women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
• Check out the most mysterious site on the Web at www.purpleamoeba.com.
• And below, the promised recipes. Enjoy!

Happy Reading,

Susan Wiggs

*Note: I couldn’t make up my mind which recipe to post here, so I’m giving you two. Please, try them both. They’re unbelievably delicious:

LEMONADE CAKE

• 6 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1 pkg. lemon cake mix, without pudding
• 3/4 c. sugar
• Small package lemon-flavored instant pudding
• 3/4 c. water
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 c. cooking oil

Mix lemonade concentrate with sugar and stir well. Mix the remaining ingredients and beat with electric mixer for 3 minutes. Bake in greased and floured 9×13 pan for about 35 minutes or until done when tested. While cake is still hot poke holes all over cake with large fork and pour lemonade glaze (1T lemon juice + 1 cup powdered sugar) over top. Leave in pan until cool. Dust with powdered sugar. If you’re feeling artistic, lay a stencil on the cake and then dust with the sugar to make a pattern.

ICEBOX LEMONADE CAKE

• 1 prepared angel food cake
• 1 quart vanilla ice cream
• 1 6-ounce can frozen lemonade (keep this semi-frozen–slushy)
• 1 small carton Cool Whip, flavored with ½ tsp. lemon extract
• grated lemon peel, for garnish

Slice cake cross-ways into three even layers. Soften ice cream just enough to thoroughly fold in the lemonade. Spread the bottom layer of the cake with ice cream. Add the second layer, spread with the remaining ice cream. Add third layer and spread entire cake with the Cool Whip. Freeze cake in the freezer. Take cake out of the freezer about half an hour before serving time. Garnish with grated lemon peel.

“Wiggs’s uncomplicated stories are rich with life lessons, nod-along moments and characters with whom readers can easily relate. Delightful and wise, Wiggs’s latest shines.”

–Publishers Weekly review of Dockside

Who doesn’t remember GO DOG GO, aka the best early-reading book in the history of the world?

My niece taught Barkis to climb the juniper bushes today and they spent hours up there:

 Barkis is 10 weeks old today! Ruff!

Would you please check out my adorable new companion? He is a lovely Doberman, eight weeks old today, and I named him Barkis, after a character in David Copperfield (and, not coincidentally, in Summer at Willow Lake). Dickens’s Barkis is a simple cart driver who falls in love with Peggotty after tasting her pies, and then sends David to give her his now-famous message, “Barkis is willin’.”

Barkis Verbossa Wiggs gets to keep his floppy ears and undying affection for his people. He already loves the great outdoors, and sleeping on my feet while I write. Consider me smitten!

This week, I’m a foster mom. Sonny the lab-mix has come to stay while his people are on vacation. He loves the beach! Who doesn’t love the beach? Gorgeous morning and a good writing day to boot.

I’m starting something new (the novel formerly known as Untitled), had a wacky brainstorming meeting with my writers’ group (aka the Brain Trust) and researched* a whiz-bang opening sequence, complete with flying bullets and catering vans careening off into the North Sea. Sophie Bellamy is in for a bumpy ride.

*If you live anywhere near The Hague, Holland, I would love to hear from you! I have some questions….