In this blog: A Funny Taste
Ideas? A Reminder from your last Blog
Notes from Joy
BOOB Girl Talk for your groups
New Offers in The BOOB Girl Series
Geoffrey the Mastiff Leaned lovingly against Robinson Leary’s leg. He looked up at her with big, loving doggy eyes.
“Go Away!” she whispered, looking down at his oversized head. “Go Away, Geoff!”
Geoffrey leaned in harder.
Robbie moved her leg. Geoffrey fell against the hallway wall with a soft thud.
Robbie peeked slowly and carefully around the corner.
She watched as a short, homely figure left one of the apartments on the second floor of Meadow Lakes Retirement Community. The figure turned, locked the door, and hurried down the hall in full waddle.
Robbie waited until he was several yards ahead of her, then slipped out from around the corner and followed him.
Geoffrey limped along beside her, quiet as a cornered racoon. Geoffrey was hoping Robbie would yell, PLAY and he could pounce on the short person ahead of them.
Instead, Robbie was inching along on her tiptoes.
Geoffrey followed her half-way up the hall.
Boring!
He turned around and headed toward the dining room.
Humans!
He hurried to get through the dining room door beside Alphonso Greatwood, owner of Meadow Lakes. Alphonso was in his scooter, The Green Machine, and reached down to pat Geoffrey’s head beside him.
“Hey old man,” he said.
Geoffrey looked up and grinned at the huge man beside him. Alphonso, former linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs football team, was scooter-bound and bald. A fair combination for a giant black man who still acted as a commentator for Chief’s games now and then.
Alphonso and Geoffrey headed for table 12 and hot coffee. Alphonso grabbed the big thermos pot of coffee and Geoffrey slid under the table to find the feet of Mary Rose McGill, his favorite. He lay down with a comfortable, contented sigh.
“Hey Alphonso,” Hadley Joy Morris Whitfield said.
“Hey back,” Alphonso answered.
Mary Rose and her husband, Wiley Vondra, looked up at Alphonso and said, “Hey Alphonso,” together.
They live in Nebraska. “Hey.”
Raven Five Horns, an Apache, strolled in through the big doors.
“Hey!” everybody said.
Raven nodded, grabbed the coffee pot, and poured a mug full to match Alphonso’s.
“Where’s Robbie?” Mary Rose asked.
Raven glanced around the group at table 12 as if he would find her there and point her out.
“Not here,” he said.
“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” Marge Aaron, retired homicide detective grinned.
Raven grinned back.
It was several minutes before Robbie dashed through the door, out of breath and clutching her leather computer case under her arm.
“You won’t believe this!” she said in a loud whisper.
“What?” Wiley asked loudly. With Wiley, they couldn’t tell if he didn’t hear Robbie or if he was just curious.
Robbie grinned. “I spent most of the morning lurking in the hall outside Neal O’Neal’s apartment.
They looked at her.
“You LURKED?” Marge asked.
“I lurked,” Robbie said, “I am good at lurking.”
“Okay,” Marge said, “You lurk. I detect.”
“I question,” Mary Rose added.
“I investigate,” Hadley said.
They all looked at Alphonso.
“Uh, I run ‘em down?” he said, a question mark at the end of his sentence.
“I choose selective participation and pass.” Wiley grinned.
Mary Rose slapped his arm. “That means you’re lazy!”
“No, I practice selective participation,” Wiley countered.
They were quiet, then they all looked at Raven.
The corners of his lips twitched as if he were about to smile. “I’m Apache. I track.”
They all looked at Robbie.
“I followed Neal into the coffee shop then sat where I could hear him talk to Don and Clyde and Glen.” She was grinning like the cat who swallowed a canary.
“You know, we learned how his wife dragged him home from bars by his ear and how he put her wooden leg on the roof and sawed rungs off the ladder?”
They waited.
Robbie took a breath.
“Well, she got even. She poured out half a bottle of his prune juice and filled it with motor oil.” Robbie waited for effect. “He drank almost the whole bottle.”
Wiley was grinning from ear to ear.
Robbie paused.
“And……” Mary Rose urged.
After it was almost gone, he realized it had a weird after taste.” She looked at her audience. “He hurried over to a neighbor with it and asked the neighbor to taste it. The neighbor said, “Oh my God, you’ve been drinking motor oil! They called the doctor. She paused again. She had their attention.
Robinson Leary, stand-up comedian.
“What did the doctor say?” Mary Rose asked, leaning forward in her chair.
“The doctor said to not let Neal get far from the bathroom.”
Robbie burst into laughter.
They joined her.
“His wife wouldn’t let anyone in the house for two weeks!”
“I have a question,” Marge said, “Since you’re so good at lurking, can you lurk up his wife?”
They looked at the former detective. No one had every seen Neal O’Neal’s wife.
Where was she? Was she dead?
Read on good friends and send us some ideas.
Senile Squad Meets The BOOB Girls
Two people let me know another old person was writing books about old people for old people. One thought my ideas had been stolen. Not so! But oh. How I wish I had thought of this!
Chris LeGrow, an Omaha cop, has written two books: The Senile Squad and The Broad Squad. The story is of a retirement (really an extended care) facility for retired cops who do sneaky, rogue, undercover work to catch bad guys.
Chris, Ted and I had a long, fun coffee yesterday. He and I want to grab a couple of bar stools and talk about writing what I mentioned above – writing books aby old people about old people for old people.
We like each other, we fit well, we laugh a lot together. We will make good conversation sitting on those bar stools. Now - - We need your help.
What should we talk about?
A couple of thoughts:
1. Start out with our history – Chris is a cop almost ready to retire He’s seen a lot of death and mean stuff. I was a bereavement specialist and saw a lot of grief and mean stuff, too. How did we end up writing comedy mysteries?
2. Put the names of our characters in a basket, have five names drawn, and talk about those characters.
3. How we picked names for our characters.
4. Events in our lives went into our stories.
We need about five more ideas. That’s where you come in.
What else should be include?
What should we title this hopefully fun, entertaining, and informative conversation?
Shoot me off some ideas, BOOB Girls! If you were in the audience, what would you lie to hear?
Three Specials:
1. One BOOB Girls Birds Poster:
Janet found one lonely poster (size of a small movie poster) by Jim Campbell of the The BOOB Girls as birds. From Left to right: Esmeralda St Benedict, Maggie Patten, You (because there is always room for one more at Table 12, Mary Rose McGill, Robinson Leary, Marge Aaron, Hadley Joy Morris-Whitfield, Patty Whack. And below is Marge’s red cane and the evil Finigan Farquer peering around the tree and “lurking.”
First one to respond saying you want it gets it for $30.
2. Any Six Books for $60.
Take your pick, first six, last six, mix and match. A great way to start a collection or fill in the missing ones.
3. An idea for a very special gift.
Read the A Note from Joy below then order book I for a friend with cancer. Type the words You are my Chemo-Sabe on a piece of paper and write a note to go with the book.
A Mother’s Day Gift – Th BOOB Girls. Click here!
A note from Joy
Ted and I were at the Orpheum, a beautiful, restored theater in Omaha. It is in a good part of town, surrounded by great restaurants and elegant people. In the middle of the first act, lights from telephones came on, racing over an area just rows in front of us. “Turn on the lights!” someone yelled. The lights came on, the curtain quietly closed across the stage. EMT’s rushed in, helped a woman up off the floor and helped her out the door. I looked at the well-dressed lady sitting beside me. “I was waiting for gun shots,” she whispered. God Help Us.
“Whose apartment was it?” someone asked at coffee in our coffee shop – The Nest. We are in Arboretum Village, in a good part of town, surrounded by great restaurants and elegant people. It is across the street from an elite hospital known as “The Methodist Hilton” when first built. The night before someone had shot a bullet through the sliding glass door of an apartment deck on the third floor. It was three apartments down the hall from us. God Help Us.
When I was young, I was sure that by the time I was a Burned Out Old Broad the world would be fixed. Now we listen to the sounds of gunfire in Europe, the sounds of gunfire in theaters and in a good part of town surrounded by elegant restaurants. And we listen to them at schools. As Mary Rose McGill’s brother tells her in book XII,” Yours is the only country that shoots its own children.”
God Help Us.
I am once again available for speaking!
The BOOB Girls Talk will be shorter, 30-40 minutes, and will be available only within 150 miles of Omaha. And there is an entirely new, delightful talk: The Gun Found at Marks.
Complete with gun!
Talk 1: The BOOB Girls – the Burned Out Old Broads at Table 12
Talk 2: The Gun Found at Marks (true story in book XI)
For information, email joy.johnson@msn.com or call at 402-639-2939.
These are laugh out loud talks that include how older women are beautiful and BOOB Girl Books will be waiting for you.
