Leslie Gould

Calling All Jane Kirkpatrick Fans

Jane Kirkpatrick is speaking at the Willamette Writers May 6 meeting. I lifted the following off the WW website:

Tues., May 6 "Enduring Stories"
Jane Kirkpatrick, Author
All Portland meetings of Willamette Writers are held at The Old Church, SW 11th and Clay, near Portland State University in downtown Portland, unless otherwise noted. Doors open at 6:15 pm, with a speaker or panel at 7 pm. Meetings usually run until 8 pm, with opportunities to meet the speakers or panelists after they speak. For more information about meetings, call 503-452-1592. Meetings are free to members of Willamette Writers, $5 for their guests, college students are free, and $10 for non-members.

The Oregonian places Jane's novel A Sweetness to the Soul in the newspaper's list of top-100 Oregon books, and besides being a fantastic writer, she's also an outstanding speaker.

I plan to go after my screenwriting class ends that evening. I'll already have parking! Hope to see you there.

Palindromes

Several months ago when my (grand!) niece Ava was born, my girls and I were talking about palindromes. Ava...Hannah...Racecar...Bob…just to name a few. We’ve been talking about them again after watching this Weird Al video, a parody of Bob Dylan’s "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Isn’t language amazing? (And how about Weird Al? How does he come up with this stuff?!)

Courage

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
--Anais Nin

Spring break...

wasn't really a break, but it was a lot of fun. My husband, daughters, and I went to the beach with eleven other members of the Gould clan (coming and going throughout the week). Our boys stayed in town to work, but then on Monday we got a phone call from our oldest that our youngest "broke his leg." Peter rushed back into town and then to the ER. It turned out to be a torn meniscus--not a break. We're not sure how bad the tear is and won't until after the doc sees it later this week. It had been four years since a visit to the ER for our youngest son--a record. How did it happen? you might be asking. Soccer? Basketball? Football? No. Tripping on his way out the back gate on a 7-11 run with two of his buddies. He landed in the flower bed on a loose rock, turned, twisted, and ended up on the sidewalk, writhing in pain. Poor guy.

Peter came back to the beach the next day, and then I went into to town the day after to check on the boys and pick up my brother-in-law from the airport (on his way home from Colorado/Nebraska/Vietnam), and take him back out to the beach with me. We were all so glad to see him--he'd been gone for over two months.

On Friday, my youngest daughter and I flew to Las Vegas with her soccer team for a tournament. It looked like all we might see of Vegas were the freeways and soccer fields, but then we had a few spare hours and took the girls to New York New York, to the M&M "Factory," and to MGM to see the lions. On the last day, by accident on our way to the airport, we drove down the strip. I took a photo of the "Eiffel Tower" out the window.... I have more to say about that later when I have the time.

The girls took second IN A SHOOTOUT! in their division. They played hard and the final game was one of those intense heartbreaks, which means it was a really good experience for them. The girls are all so much fun and had a great time.

Anyway, we had a lot going on last week, but thankfully, as they always seem to, everything worked out... “All's well that ends well” or en francais: “Tout est bien qui finit bien.”