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Category: News

My Brush with Royalty

Watching the royal wedding brought back memories from long ago, my one and only brush with royalty…
It was 1990, I was pregnant with my first child. I was working as a photographer in Washington, DC and my husband and I had gone to Florida for a business trip he had to take. A few months earlier, I’d contacted the British Embassy after having read about an upcoming garden party; I figured any self-respecting garden party would need a photographer so I pitched my services.
The charming press person at the time politely told me they had a photographer but would take my name for future events, should they arise. I figured that was the last I would hear from him.
Fast forward a few months later, to a dingy hotel room in Bradenton, Florida. My husband had to attend a carnival trade show because a product his company produced was being knocked off and pawned off as carny prizes. He’d hoped to persuade those power mongers (read with a wink) who operate carnivals to buy the legitimate product, rather than ripping his company off.
Now, if you’ve ever gone to a carnival, you can probably conjure up images of your average carny type: Seedy-looking men, missing and rotting teeth, grizzled faces. There’s usually an all-around feel of felons-freshly-sprung-from-prison about the place, coupled with the aroma of years-old trans-fat sizzling away in deep-frying vats awaiting a plunge from a 2000-calorie corn dog or maybe a fried twinkle, perhaps a grease-sopped funnel cake if you’re lucky.
Well, the difference between a carnival and a carnival trade show (at least 20-some years ago) is simply that the grease isn’t as old. Same creepy people, same vile food, same crappy products. So we were coming off a most relaxing day amidst the seedier element of society at Carny-ville, and were relaxing at the hotel when I decided to check our voice mail.
Back then we’d only recently acquired an answering machine. I know this sounds crazy, but they were newfangled devices then. Technologically-stunted as I’ve always been, I’d barely figured out how to check our messages on the thing before we left for our trip. And while gone, one morning before embarking on our carnival trade show expedition, I called home to see if we had any messages. Which was when I heard the voice mail from a Gareth So-and-So from the British Embassy, asking if I was interested in an upcoming event. He needed an answer immediately.
Of course I called back pronto. Remember, there were no cell phones back then. Wait, there were. When I worked on Capitol Hill in the 80’s I’d gone to a hair salon near the White House and remember seeing an Important Looking Man lugging a small suitcase in one hand, holding a phone receiver attached to the suitcase by a long coiled cord, with the other. This was back when offices had rooms devoted to housing gargantuan “mainframes” to operate computers. How far we’ve come in so short a time…) But making long-distance calls from anywhere other than home was a cumbersome process back then: using a calling card, you had to dial about 70 numbers without screwing up the number sequence and then get connected to some remote operator or bell tones, enter in another 20 digits and maybe then you’d be connected to your number. Amazingly I dialed through successfully, and got hold of Gareth before he’d found another photographer.
“Hallo,” he said to me in a gorgeous clipped British accent. I don’t care what one looks like, when you speak with that accent it erases all flaws instantly. I swooned over the phone. In a professional manner, of course.
“I have a job you might be interested in,” Gareth told me. I figured maybe another garden party, one of those things where women wear silly hats (Princes Beatrice, anyone?)
weirdly, don’t they look like the wicked stepsisters from Cinderella?
“His Royal Highness will be coming to Washington and there are several events for which we need a photographer.”
I tried hard to maintain my composure and not choke. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Needed me. Prince Charles, then the celebrated man of the hour, considered studly despite his jug ears (and yes, they are quite juggy). The embassy needed moi, go figure, to shoot the man (with a camera of course).
I tried to remain cool, as if often I was invited to be the official photographer of the world’s most famous royal (next to his then-wife Princess Diana).
I told Gareth I needed to check my schedule, and pretended to leaf through my sad-sack calendar, the dinky 4″ x 4″ one like you used to get for free at the Hallmark store (yep, electronic calendars were years away). And of course I instantly leapt at the chance, no doubt appearing pathetically excited and simpering about the prospect of this brush with British royalty.
I was, as I said, pregnant. At that time speculation abounded that Diana and Charles were going for a girl, and rumors were running amok that she was indeed pregnant. I pondered drumming up some small talk with Chuck about his pregnant wife (a presumptuous leap on my part), what with us having so much in common, I knew we were bound to be BFFs and all. Fortunately I opted out of that tack. Because it wasn’t long after that that we all learned that Charles had been clandestinely telling his extramarital fling Camilla he yearned to be her tampon or maxi pad or something equally abhorrent. Clearly he wouldn’t have been keen dishing on Di with me when he was fantasizing about being inside Camilla’s knickers (literally).
My husband never once wanted to come along on my photo shoots (particularly the dull ones, like the American Institute of CPAs; can’t blame him, though those CPAs were a lovely bunch). Even my Liz Taylor shoot he shunned. But he jumped at the chance to be my assistant for the royal visit.
Prior  to undertaking the job, we got a mini-lesson on dealing with the Prince–i.e. avoid dealing with the Prince. No handshaking, speak to him only when spoken to, that sort of thing.
I was told the Prince always had a group photo taken with his equerry staff (the cadre of helpers who travel with him everywhere to be sure someone puts the toothpaste on his toothbrush, that sort of thing). So we assembled the group amidst the splendor of the British Embassy, an elegant building filled with a vast collection of priceless artwork. I directed the men to line up in two rows, some seated, some standing.
“I need all of the men seated to place hands in laps,” I instructed them.
“Your own laps,” my able-bodied spouse interjected, to the horror of the embassy staff.
Silence hung in the air as I awaited the big man himself firing me from the job. But then instead, Charles placed his hand over his mouth and…snickered. It was a very royal sounding laugh, a ha-ha-ha rather than an all-out guffaw. But enough so that I knew the job hadn’t slipped through my fingers, and for my husband to this day to be able to stake his claim on having gotten Charles to chuckle.
Shame Charles and Di never did end up being our BFFs, no double-dating was in the cards, no naming each other our kids’ godparents. But we’ll always have Charles’ chuckle.

FREE BOOKS TO DISTRACT YOU WHILE YOU'RE HOME-BOUND!

Hey all!

First off, I think you need a Pippa picture right now. My pup Pippa has brought me great joy in this stressful time and I love to share her pictures on Instagram because, well, puppy! Even if she’s growing rapidly into a full-sized dog! So here’s puppy therapy for you:

By now I hope you are all staying home and avoiding being too close to others in an effort to slow down the spread of this awful Coronavirus. If you aren’t, I hope you will reconsider that because this is the real deal and maybe I’m more acutely aware of the sacrifices that medical professionals make since my youngest daughter is a medical student, but my goodness, what selfless humans doctors, nurses, EMTs, firefighters etc are. As the saying goes, they run into the fire when everyone else is running away. So please, please, please, consider staying home so that we can lessen the sudden onslaught of cases of COVID-19 which will be overwhelming hospitals and creating dangerous situations for those carrying for the sick.

And while home, maybe avoid an overdose of news because it ain’t too cheerful. I want to let you know I’ve got FOUR free books for you to help you escape all the grim reality. So please take advantage of them and ENOY escaping for awhile! I know, I know, it’s not a trip to Italy, or to a Jamaican beach, but for now, it’s better than watching the numbers of cases rise on the 24/7 news. 

Posting links below:

Book one of the It’s Reigning Men series, Something in the Heir, is free here:

Kindle

iBooks

Nook

Kobo

Google Play

Also Red Hot Romeo is free! A hot Italian, a gorgeous supermodel, and fabulous wines…what’s not to love?!

You can check out the first book in the Royal Romeo series for free here:

 

And Falling for Mr. Wrong from the Falling for Mr. Wrong series is free here:

Kindle

iBooks

Nook

Kobo

Google Play

Lastly, Skirt Chaser is now free!

Kindle

iBooks

Nook

Kobo

GooglePlay

 

And if you enjoy these books, there are plenty more in each series to read on and they’re very affordable at $3.99!

Nothing like a world emergency to clarify all of the most important things in your life. I’m so very grateful for my wonderful family, my adorable dog, a home with a roof over my head, spring weather so that we can at least be outside and enjoy the blossoming trees and listening to birds singing. I’m grateful for all of those medical professionals willing to put their lives on the line for us, and for the many reporters who also have risked themselves for reporting from Coronavirus hotspots, and experts being available 24/7 on many TV networks to answer questions from a nervous public. 

Our country has been through many awful things before, things that required far greater sacrifice, sending millions of our young people overseas to fight in dreadful wars. Staying at home is easy peasy in comparison. We can do this folks! Stay safe and thanks for staying home to protect the vulnerable, those who are immunocompromised, the elderly, and of course our medical care providers on the front line in this new and eye-opening war. 

Love you all and stay safe! ❤️

Long Time No Me!

Well, hello, stranger!

And by stranger, I don’t mean you, dear readers! I mean this blog, that has been woefully neglected by moi for a while, and I have no one to blame but myself.

I often have good intentions to maintain this blog more regularly, but life seems to get in the way. And my last post certainly attests to that – it was before Christmas! Argh!

In my  defense, two days after I’d posted that, on my birthday, just about an hour after I finished a book and turned it into my editor and was all psyched for a stretch of relaxation and enjoying having the kids home for Christmas, we learned that sadly my father had passed away unexpectedly. He’d spent his winters in Hawaii and thus far from family, and no one had heard from him in about a week. It was so very sad for us all but we were all very grateful that he died in his happy place, a place he hadn’t expected to be able to return to after having fallen gravely ill last summer with Lyme disease of all things.

My father’s passing meant much word needed to be done ASAP —  my brothers and I had to close up his life, settle all affairs, clear out his house in Pittsburgh and his condo in Hawaii — both of which were overflowing to the brim with junk (uh, we filled three 6-ton dumpsters to the brim in Pittsburgh alone!). Dad was a hoarder and boy, did we have to purge and purge massively. Between the time spent emptying out his belongings and then organizing two memorial services, and the myriad emails and texts going back and forth amongst family during this time, all of a sudden my other have-to’s took a backseat for a while. And to be honest, having lost both of my parents suddenly and unexpectedly in the past couple of years, it kind of threw me back on my heels for a while as I processed this all. Which meant my productivity just evaporated, and I had to postpone a book that I had due to my editor repeatedly, only finally just this week turning it in months late. In the midst of this all, my middle daughter was getting married, so it was a lovely chance to redirect from sadness to great joy — we kind of ran the gamut of emotions in a very condensed time frame.

Without a book releasing for a while, I decided to bundle the first three books in two of my series  — The Royal Romeos and Falling for Mr. Wrong for the first time to make available to readers at a great price—I’ll post info below if you’d like to check them out. If you’ve not read any of them, this is a great time to give them a try for a real bargain! And don’t forget books 1-3 of the It’s Reigning Men series are also available in a bundle! And I’ll post below a picture from the wedding and the breathtaking view from my dad’s condo in Hawaii, where I’d never been until we had to go there to clear it out—you can see why it was indeed his happy place.

  

For those of you anxiously awaiting my next book, thanks for your patience as I let life get in the way a bit. Bird Dog, book 4 in the Confessions of a Chick Magnet series, is with my ever-so-patient editor and will finally be released July 16th!

I’m writing this, by the way, Memorial Day weekend, kind of lamenting that we’re not somewhere fun, like a beach or a pool, relaxing with friends and family, but also enjoying the chance to do absolutely (well, mostly!) nothing for a day or two without feeling terribly guilty. It’s the first chance I’ve had to start working my way through the many things that got waylaid over the past several months, so it’s nice to feel like I’m making progress, interspersed with watching episodes of my latest guilty reality TV pleasure, 90-Day Fiance (it hardly gets better than watching 90-Day Fiance Pillow Talk!). 

quite a view from my dad’s condo in Oahu — of which I am now a temporary 1/4 owner of! Sadly we can’t afford to keep it–anyone interested?!

 

And lastly, a lovely family picture ❤️❤️❤️ from our daughter Kendall’s wedding!

Happy reading, everyone!