Busy Bee

This will be a busy day. Wednesdays are always busy for Fio because that's when she drives into Austin, which means she's scheduled to the hilt. Her lista amarilla (yellow list) is instructing her to start with a visit to her CPA, where she hopes to learn how to simplify her tax preparations and get advice on handling hijo menor's (younger son's) student loans. Then Fio will scoot across town to meet up with friend Paula at Dan's Hamburgers and find out if she and her husband can join Fio and Husband for a Palace Theater production of West Side Story. Then Fio will drive up the street for a business appointment at 1:00. Finally, she will head down to the periodico (newspaper) office and hand over chocolate and copies of her political poems to Serena, who guided her through her commercial debut.

At home, Fiorella will devote herself to her current book, pack away one more box of Christmas ornaments, and maybe work on her mura de rocas (wall of rocks), then settle down for another episode of El Color de la Pasion. Did she tell you that it's turned out that Nora Gaxiola has just learned that her father is not Alsonso Gaxiola, but Alfredo Suarez?

Warrior!

You  can come out of your bomb shelter now. Fiorella is at semi-peace again.  She took her laptop to Click, where Patrick, despite working on it for about twenty minutes, couldn't get the "send" file unclogged and had to give her a reference to someone else.  But when she got home and opened up her computer again, everything was A-OK.  Apparently Patrick had fixed the problem, and a fresh boot-up was all that was needed to finish off the job.  Yea!

Now to conquer her other electronic problems.  And to ace that interview she intends to have with the American Statesman book reviewer.

Be strong, Fio.  Remember that BuzzFeed said you are a warrior!

Happiness

Let's make one thing clear: Fio has been published since she was five, when her art appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal.  Later, she wrote for school publications--her elementary school newspaper, her high school literary booklet, Latin booklets.  She put in a stint as editor of the state Latin publication, had some poetry published, and wrote a doctoral dissertation. She self-pubbed more  little booklets, wrote for the American-Statesman, for her own neighborhood newspaper, and for local magazines.  She had more poetry published, plus a short story.

But she's never had a full-length novel published till now.

WHAT THE HEART WANTS--on Amazon, published by Forever Yours, Hachette Book Group.

Extra! Extra!

The mighty Statesman is striking out.

Fiorella is repelled by the new format of blaring headlines, larger font, lack of right justification, and page reorganization that the Austin American-Statesman has embraced. The impression she gets is that there is more white space and less news. The Sunday comics have undergone a revision too. Some of the dumber strips have been enlarged while Doonesbury has been reduced so small that Fio has to squint to read it.

Fio can only surmise that the Statesman, tired of contending with the electronic trend, wants to fold, and is deliberately alienating the faithful. Amen.

Newspaper War, Chapter Two

This time the newspaper is totally missing. It may have been delivered, but not to Fio's door. If it was left at the street, anyone walking by could have picked it up.

Fiorella, who sticks to her guns, called the American-Statesman again and complained again. Kristin (remember that name) assured her the situation would be rectified. We'll see. For a newspaper whose readership is dropping daily, the Statesman certainly is cavalier about pleasing paying customers.

Fio phoned Husband at work to bring home his newspaper for the day. At 5:30, he drove in with not only his newspaper, but two more he'd picked up in driveway.

This story is not yet over.

Newspaper War

FIO WON! The American-Statesman is being delivered to her door again! She doesn't know what did it--Husband's phone call, her phone call, her letter to the editor, sending her Fio column to the editor, the usual carrier returning from a holiday vacation, whatever--but Fio's day is starting as it should again.

But she's going to think twice before giving the carrier a twenty-dollar tip again next Christmas.