Post Thanksgiving Post

Happy post-turkey Monday.

Our family went to Coeur d’Alene for the holiday. Flew up Wednesday night and came back Sunday night. Speaking of turkey, I got a kick out of a gaggle of them (is that what a group of turkeys is called?) that came sauntering across our property on Friday. Nine fat toms. We saw nary a turkey on Thanksgiving, but as soon as that auspicious day was done, out they came, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Strutting around like they owned the place. You could practically hear 'em thinking, “Whew, made it through another year!”

And we think turkeys are dumb.

The Friday night after Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year in Coeur d’Alene. First there’s an evening parade. Yes, a parade in the cold. These are hardy Idaho souls. The parade is much like the town’s Fourth of July parade down the main drag, except everything’s decked out with Christmas lights. Then after the parade, everyone goes across the street to the wide, green lawns of the resort to see the fireworks. Yup, again just like Fourth of July. First some carolers sing Christmas carols (no “happy holidays” in THIS town). Then the owner of the resort (who foots the humongous bill for the firework display) leads the vast crowd in a countdown for the fireworks to start. The crowd chants from 10 down to 1, then boom, the jazzy Christmas music blares out of huge speakers, and the fireworks begin. They go on for about 10 minutes or so. So way cool! I absolutely love the combination of the music, the festive feeling, and the fireworks. Immediately after the fireworks, the resort lights blitz on for the season. This is no small amount of lights. We’re talking one and a half million lights. All the trees around the resort are wrapped, with a huge wreath hanging from the building. But most of the lights are in display scenes, starting at the beach and strung on barges across the top of the lake, down to the floating green of the golf course. The resort runs their cruise boats every evening for viewing of the displays. Anyway, when all these lights come on at once, it’s a pretty cool sight.

Well, we certainly had a good conversation about last Wednesday’s post on “big words.” Thanks for everyone’s comments. Very interesting to see the different viewpoints. Nick Harrison, thanks for your comments, and for sending the post to your compadres at Harvest House for their feedback. The post and comments have gotten me thinking about the various kinds of third person POV (from very close to removed). There is a connection between the two topics. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.

By the way, I just got my mitts on another six ARCs for Web of Lies. This for sure is the last of ’em. If you’d like to receive one and would be willing to post reviews/talk up the book to folks you know, please e-mail me. Don't wait long. When they're gone, they're gone.