This Sunday I'll be speaking at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival. A bunch of other writers will be speaking as well, you can go here to check it out.

The event begins at 11:00 at the Chilmark Community Center.

Here's my info:

When: 2:00-2:45 in the Stonewall Tent

A talk followed by a book signing.

Roosters, cold showers and ghosts.

One thing I forgot about our house on the Vineyard is that it’s next to Herring Creek Farm. And on Herring Creek Farm there’s a certain rooster who enjoys a good 4am wake-up call. Every morning from 4-6am said rooster feels compelled to get all of us vacationers out of bed, lest we enjoy a rare chance to sleep in. Still, I guess a 4am rooster beats a 6am alarm clock when what you’re waking up to is South Beach and not a cold shower.

Because on Monday my husband discovered that, in addition to everything else the lightening blew out in our house, it also fried the hot water heater. All I can say is thank god I’m gone for two weeks. Hopefully by the time I get back everything will be fixed. Hopefully. This whole thing is just really bizarre and we never know when we'll find the next thing that no longer works.

Which brings me to ghosts. Last night we took all the kids into Edgartown for a little ice cream. We happened to come across a huge cluster of people following a woman around the streets as she held a gas lantern. Turns out it was the haunted house tour, and it was so cool. The kids and I stopped while Vicki and Vangie took the rest of the kids on to Scoops. We heard some great stories about the Victorian Inn and sightings of apparitions, some recently. We are going back for the full tour next Tuesday night. It was just very cool.

So on our way back to the car, cones in hand, we passed the Victorian Inn again. It was very dark and my son decided to play the cool dude by yelling, “Come on, ghosts, come and get me! I’m all yours!” over and over again. So I hung back, told Vangie and the rest of the kids to watch this, and ran around the parked cars, crouched down in the darkness and waited for Tanner to make his way to me. He was on his last bellow of “Bring it on, ghosts!” when I jumped out and yelled, “Aaaahhhh!” He jumped three feet in the air, let out a huge scream and was scared to death. Needless to say, we all died laughing. That will teach him to taunt the spirits.

Spent the last week making sure I had every single thing checked off my list and taken care of before heading off on a two-week vacation. And I pretty much succeeded. So on Saturday I just finished up grocery shopping (using a list provided by Vicki in advance of the trip to Martha's Vineyard) and played with the kids in the pool. And I thought I was golden. And then the thunder came.

Turns out the terrific thunder and lightening we had Saturday afternoon wrecked havoc on my house. It started with the discovery that the TV in the family room wasn't finding any channels. And because the stereo receiver is located in the same entertainment center, we also learned the receiver wasn't working. And neither was the DVD player. Or the cable Internet connection to my office computer. Or the electric garage doors. And the list goes on and on as one by one we discovered all the things that once made life convenient and entertaining had been fried. And were now a pain in the butt and not the least bit entertaining.

So this morning, instead of waking up and looking forward to two weeks of R&R I'll be trying to figure out how to get all this stuff fixed - while on an island and nowhere near my house. Not to mention the horrible muscle pain in my neck, which I figured out must be the result of some serious games of chicken in the pool yesterday. At least the physical discomfort matches the dread I feel at calling all the people involved in getting my house back in running order.