It’s Leap Day, and according to Shelagh Rogers of CBC’s Sounds like Canada, the day has been proclaimed as a tribute to frogs.  Apparently they’re disappearing daily, and I’m not surprised, given the situation right on my doorstep.  As I’ve mentioned earlier, a developer has bought the land beside us, and it’s being subdivided into 18 lots.  Their surveyor told me proudly that they’re going to fill in all those pesky mosquito-filled ponds while they’re at it!  I always find it so funny that we are horrified at the practices in other parts of the world, meanwhile the same thing is happening daily right here in Canada.

While awaiting the comments from Harlequin’s Critique Service, I decided I’d better get started on the second novel.  This one is conveniently set in the steamy, tropical heat of Nicaragua.  I was thinking about my desire to write cheap romance novels, and wondering why, when I remembered my addiction to soap operas.  Actually, it was just one, All My Children, which had me in its grip.  I started watching it when I was 16 and continued to watch it as often as possible for the next 20 years.

My gramma started it all by being hooked on a daytime soap, The Edge of Night.  She was also crazy for the primetime soaps Dallas and Dynasty.  So, I guess I came by my soap opera addiction honestly.  I remember living in Prince George where my friend Bev also liked a soap, and it was on at the same time as mine.  As we were often at each other’s places for lunch, we would watch one, and then switch to the other person’s during a commercial.  Somehow, perhaps due to the glacial pace of the stories, it worked.

Before the advent of the video recorder, I oftentimes would miss the show, and this would be torture.  I remember one day my then boyfriend was at home when the show started, but I was at a job, and too far away to drive home for lunch.  I had him turn the TV on super loud and hang the phone in front of the set.  I then spent an hour on the phone, listening to my show!  It had to be on really loud, so that I could hear it, so my boyfriend left the apartment.  The TV was then just left on until I arrived home.  I used to wonder why the neighbours sometimes looked at me with malice, and I think I now know why.

So as I use my fond memories of the foibles of the soap’s characters, I will plod through Novel #2.  Or I suppose I could use the soap opera spinning itself out before me in real life.  Nicky has a girlfriend!  Remember how the basement was filled with young males 24/7?  Now it is empty and quiet down there, as Nicky is over at his girlfriend’s apartment and the old friends have been cast aside as quickly as one throws out an old black and white TV set.

Last night Denis was away for work and Nicky was at The Girlfriend’s.  I was alone in my own home, and the giddiness I felt at that moment of realization was heady.  Of course, in order to celebrate properly, I immediately wolfed down a half a pound of chocolate!