Luxurious

I realized this afternoon that my life is luxurious.  I have the luxury of time to basically do

what I want to do when I want to do it.  If it wasn't for the pandemic, I'd be out and about.  But I'm not, not much anyway.  Today I realized that the manuscript I'm sharing on here is going to be finished in a day or two and then what?  Well, I have one more manuscript that I can share on here.  So I spent today formatting it, reading it for content, and trying to figure out how to finish the danged thing.  It's the second of my National Novel Writing Month efforts.  I got to 50k words, just barely, but the story isn't finished.  I have five pages of stream of consciousness about what happens to each thread of the story, now all I have to do is take those pages and turn them into the rest of the story.  Yeah, that's all.  It's huge considering how much trouble I'm having getting any writing done every day, except for this blogging.  Blogging I can do but real writing, story writing has become difficult.  But I'll manage it.  Somehow.

This rabbit was laying sprawled in the grass like a furry Jabba the Hut this afternoon and as soon as I snapped the picture, boom, it was sitting up like any other rabbit.  I tried to take a picture of a posing chipmunk too but, once again, as soon as the camera was up and ready off it went.  Even the squirrels have stopped hanging around long enough for me to take a shot.




I've been seeing monarch butterflies flitting around but none has stayed still long enough either.  *sigh*  I blame the heat and humidity which have returned in spades.  There's a reason I stayed indoors today.  It was yukky outside.

18 July--Barbara Malcolm, Tropical Obsession. 

It was not hard to find Manning; he was sacked out sleeping in his filthy apartment in the neighborhood behind the food store.  The door was propped open and the curtain across the doorway was pulled back in hopes of catching any little breeze.  Manning had one arm thrown over an underage island girl.

Her eyes flew open at the sound of the policeman’s shoe scuff on the cement porch. 

“Get yourself up and out of there, Dani,” he said, “You are too young for this foolishness and need to think better of yourself.”

Dani moved Manning’s arm and rolled out onto the floor.  She slid a dress over her head to cover her nakedness, slid her feet into flipflops, and scurried out past Rooibos.  “Yes, sir,” she said, “I will.”

“I’ll be keeping my eye on you, young miss,” he said as she slid past him on the porch. Rooibos rapped on the wooden door frame.

Manning moved on the bed.  “See who that is, honey, and make them go away.”  His arm slid across the sheet searching for Dani.  “Where…” he raised his head and squinted at the shape silhouetted in the doorway.  “What do you want?” he said.

“I would like to speak to you about Mr. Jack Spencer,” Rooibos said.

Manning groaned and rubbed his forehead.  “I don’t know anything about Jack Spencer.  Go away.”

“Oh, I think you know quite a bit about Mr. Spencer.  You know how much money he paid to be part of your treasure scheme, you know he wanted to get that money back, and you know how he came to be standing at the edge of Oil Slick Leap from where he fell to his death.” Rooibos folded his arms across his chest.  “We have a lot to talk about, Mr. Manning.”

Manning rolled off the bed, stepped into some shorts, and came toward the door.

Rooibos dropped his arms to his side.

Manning came closer to Rooibos, one hand on his hip and the other pointing at the detective’s chest.  “I don’t know who told you all that, but it’s all lies.”  Sunlight glinted off the gold doubloon around his neck.

“I see you’re wearing that gold coin you used to fool people into believing that you had found treasure.” Rooibos said, “I could buy a coin like that in Litmann’s Jewelers for about one hundred dollars just like you did.  Jacinta told me about your purchase.  She remembered you because you flirted with her and asked her out for a drink but, being a respectable woman, she refused.

Manning brushed his words aside.  “That’s a crock.”  He lifted the coin and brandished it in Rooibos’ face.  “I got this off a shipwreck my partner found off Boca Onima.”

“No, your Venezuelan partner got his fishing tackle caught on wreckage near his home harbor, you brought it up, and sunk it where you could pretend to have found a treasure ship so Mr. Spencer could see you salvage things.  Things like rigging and railings, just no treasure, sorry.”  Rooibos went on.  “It isn’t a surprise that Mr. Spencer wanted his money back.  All you had to show him was some waterlogged wood and some barnacle-encrusted chain.  Not even a cannonball.  Tsk. Tsk.  I would want my money back too.”

Manning moved forward, his hand outstretched to push Rooibos away.  “Get off my porch.  Come back when you have a warrant.”

Rooibos quickly reached up, grabbed Manning’s wrist, and spun him around.  He snapped a handcuff on that wrist and grasped the other one before Manning knew what was happening.  “Dax Manning, you are under arrest for the murder of Mr. Jack Spencer, for destroying protected underwater property, for running a confidence game, and for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

Manning tried to jerk his hands apart and then sagged.  “Can I put on shoes?”

Rooibos escorted him to the bedside where his sandals lay, waited while Manning slipped them on, and took him away.

Today's toss was a big flashlight, a pewter saucer, and a silverplate teapot I bought a few years ago to use for a craft that never happened.  Banished to the box in the car.

Stay cool.
--Barbara