Northwest Airdale Rescue is a wonderful organization that places "Spare Dales" or Airedale terriers that, through various circumstances must be given up by their owners. We were lucky enough to forever home our beloved Emma from NW Airedale Rescue about four years ago after our Glennie journeyed over the rainbow bridge. Our son, who was raised with Glennie, is as devoted to Airedales as we are and keeps tabs on the website's "available" dogs. He's constantly phoning to tell us of a wonderful Dale that needs to come live with Emma as a companion and further lighten our souls as he lives in a high rise apartment in Seoul, Korea so can't home his own Dale.

A few months ago that was certainly on our minds as there seemed to be room for another Airedale in our home. But Emma suffered an ACL injury to her rear right knee that set her back pretty hard and her days of professional cat chasing or even playing are way over. No ones knows her age, but the vet thinks Emma may be about twelve. She's getting to be a teetery ole darling and needs help getting up more now. The rescue site has a wonderful eight year old Dale called Chewy who desperately needs a forever home as his family is going out of country and can't take him. And these days we can't either. Very sad for all concerned.

Maybe you have room in your life and home for a lovely, goofy Spare Dale who's happy, friendly, healthy and will be your forever adoring pal? Think about it. Makes you smile, huh. Having an Airedale in your life keeps you healthy, happy, laughing and fully engaged. Who doesn't want that? Every book I write has an Airedale in it, just like everyday of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMelinda

Last Saturday the DH and I flew low in QuickSilver all over Tacoma, trying to find the Borders where B.L. Morgan was signing his John Dark Shocker Blood and Rain Apparently there's a lot we don't know about the car's nav system as we toured north Tacoma, finally crossing I-5 to Tacoma Mall. The DH wondered if Borders might actually be near there. It was and we dashed inside as the signing started at noon. It was closer to 2:00 by that time and I was concerned that Bob Morgan would be gone. He was still there and prepared to spend the afternoon. I groaned in the spirit, for sitting booksignings isn't one of my fav things. I was unconsciously projecting that upon Bob, who was all juiced up about signing his first book with a great, grisly cover at a big chain bookstore.

I bought his book and when the DH went to pay for it, Bob and I chatted. I calmed down, remembering that it was his signing not mine. The coach and motivational trainer part of me began to notice how Bob interacted with people entering the store where his small table was set up. He was on his feet. I held a copy of his book as we talked, moving a little to the side so people could see him and that someone was talking to him, buying his book even. People are naturally curious, but they're shy, too, as a real live author can be scary, because what if you like them, but don't want to buy a book you've never heard of? How do you say no? Best not to give them eye contact and just hurry by, though Bob greeted them. Several stopped and picked up the book while Bob talked the story's shocker-ness to them.

Bob writes extreme "shocker" detective stories. For the signing, he dressed the part, but he's a nice guy and looks it, too, despite sporting a shirt covered with skulls. He's also very honest and immediately told a prospective buyer that his publisher says Blood and Rain is the most shocking book he's ever read. The fellow he'd told that to was holding what seemed to be a light, cozy mystery and a game, I think. He didn't buy and moved away. I asked Bob if he'd noticed what the guy had already selected to purchase. He hadn't. I told him and said that actually this signing wasn't about Bob's trying to sell books. It was about the prospective buyer. In order to "sell" anyone anything, the seller has to figure out what the buyer wants and tailor his "pitch" to those perceived or communicated wants. This is pure Sales Training 101 and Bob seemed really interested. He's a great listener and consequently a great salesman as he perceived that I wanted to teach and gave me what I wanted.

The next day I received the following email from Bob:
Dear Melinda,
Thank you very much for coming out and giving support and the advice that helped out a whole lot. I ended the day with selling 14 out of the 20 books that the store ordered. I figure I did pretty good especially since the store manager (Jesse) stopped by when I was at 9 and said that that was one of the best signings that he's ever hosted. When you guys showed up it really gave me a bit of a boost. What Melinda told me took a few minutes to percolate after you left. The books were already bought by the store so my job really wasn't selling them, it was only telling the people who showed some interest what was inside and matching the info that I gave to that person. That took a whole lot of the pressure off and I was just able to talk to people and have some fun. It worked better as the day went on. When a person who showed interest was older than me I mentioned the influence of Micky Spillane because they might actually know who he was. That sold at least 4 of them. When the person looked younger I mentioned that there were gang members, zombies and voodoo in the book and that got some sold too. I am really happy with the way the day went. This is all a learning process.

BTW, the picture at the top hasn't anything to do with encountering B.L. Morgan and his book. The photo may have something to do with the Da Vinci Code--well, our thrill at being at pyramid at the Louvre twice in one year, anyway.

Ciao, ciao, MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMelinda

Bonjour, mes ami!

When I logged into Blogger, I was stunned to see how much time had passed since my last post to MMMLog. In fact, Blogger seemed surprised as well because it took more than a bit for my dashboard to drift up from the vast blogger ocean. In any case, here I am. Back from two weeks in France and seriously Franco-phoned.

By the time the DH and I boarded the Air France A330 nonstop to Seattle from Paris, we were almost convinced I could actually speak, if not understand, French. After all, I'd practiced the language asking for directions, a glass of white wine, the room key, the toilette, many other necessaries and usually got what I thought I'd ordered. Mostly. There were a good many surprise results of my communication attempts such as our lunching on a small, cold pasta salad that we thought was going to be a hot and hearty main dish. If I'd paid attention to where it was listed on the menu, I'd have noticed that it was under "fresh" stuff right after the aperitifs and starters. Ah well, my multilingual wine ordering skills proved salutary, as they often do. One thing I did learn was that if I attempted French, observing the pleasantries, the people I spoke to would rattle off French back at me. Sometimes, though, they would immediately speak English. Then I knew what I'd tried to say was so maimed as to be incomprehensible, perhaps bordering on insult, resulting in their taking the American polyglot in hand to save her from possible arrest, a bloody nose or starving to death.

This was our first Rick Steves tour--Paris and the Heart of France in 11 days. Rather than my detailing the itinerary here, I'll send you to his website. According to Rick Steves' "backdoor" touring philosophy, the more you spend the less experience of foreign cultures you have. Also, his tours are rated as to activity level with a lot of strenuous (five-six miles a day) walking. So I guess I was expecting a bare bones, near backpacker hostel experience. Our tour was anything but that. The hotels were usually three star, decent and clean. All had great bathrooms that looked as if they'd just been remodeled with new fixtures and tile. The beds were awful, low and hard. And small, sometimes seeming less than a double. All were noisy except our lovely rooms on St. Michele island and Arromanche, Normandy. Steves kindly supplies a great set of squishy and very effective ear plugs with his travel kit of excellent and entertaining phrase and guidebooks plus a money belt. The first three days in Paris, our room in the Marais district near the Bastille at the Hotel Castex was on the front, two stories up. Yikes. The traffic was LOUD all night. I put in the plugs and off I went to dreamland. However, I did awaken from a troubling dream where I was hearing impaired . . . good times.

I'll do more fun in France in later posts. Right now I've got to get back to the book. While in France I discovered that the book I thought I was writing was not the the story that needing telling. I've returned juiced up to create this new tale. That's just one of the benefits of travel--gaining a new perspective on the world, and if you're lucky, your life.

Ciao! (Yup, I actually heard French young somethings use that word!)
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMelinda