There was my character, sitting in a squad car

Enough of morose posts. They do clear the air, somehow.

Yesterday morning, we took a stroll along the bridal path in Central Park in NYC. On the way back to my friend's apt., we had to cross 5th Avenue. Yesterday was the Aids Walk, so the cops were out in force, even the canine corps and the riot police--I did the Aids Walk for years and believe me, we never had any occasion for the riot police--but they were there anyhow. As we crossed t 5th Avenue, I looked into a squad car stopped at the red light and there was Spike, my character, a female cop in Northern Wisconsin. It was Spike in every detail from hair to makeup.

It is really cool to see your character, one that came straight out of your head walking around (or in this case driving) out of the blue. Once I saw my character Petra (The Shadow Warriors) in Roche Bros. in Wellesley. Sometimes I write with a real person's physicality in mind, so of course, one is not likely to see them, (if a photo) or else it's someone you work with and you see them every day, noting all their little eccentricities to get authenticity into the writing.

Love it! So, yanno, life is strange.

We're half in diet mode this week, as we won't be the other half and were certainly not last week. My friend in NYC made the most fantatic wild mushroom lasagne. Can't tell you how good it was, because words fail. Although vegetable (are mushrooms veggies? Don't think so) it was not without calories. We ate at a Alsatian restaurant on 2nd Avenue, and that fare is not exactly low cal either.

I'm making a couple chicken salads for the diet days. Never tastes like diet food, even w/o mayo. Just tasty. I belong to a list server and recently the topic of eating healthy while travelling came up, and what lengths those women go to on the road was truly astounding.

My rule when travelling is "eat what is put in front of you, and you never know when your next meal may arrive." Carry a snack along, too. These rules have served me well. Travel is godawful enough without a growling stomach. The worse snack I ever had was on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Cincinnati. It was a low-fat strawberry Fig Newton and two other like-minded pieces of faux food. So bad I wrote a letter. I hate artificial flavoring and will do just about anything to avoid it. Yeccch! And I love the old-fashioned Fig Newtons. There are naturally low-fat and whoever the idiot was to take the rest of the fat out should be condemmed to eat them, esp. the strawberry ones, yech, barf, through all eternity.

Cripes, here I am ranting again. Time to go to the store and buy the healthy ingredients for the South Beach Chicken Salads. Then come home and write.

Grapeshot