Tag Archives: Wendy Welch

A Little Ditty…about Jack and Wendy

Posted on by
2

Writer Wendy’s weekly blog

My husband doesn’t like my gingerbread house. I’m not sure why.


He got really nervous a couple of years ago, too, when I wrote a novel about a couple that ran a bookstore, and the husband died. Of natural causes, I hasten to add.

Bad Boy in the Bookstore had a plot based on real life. Jack did federal prison visits for decades, and one of the guys was an absolute charmer of a sociopath, in for murder committed during an armed robbery.

Over the months he and Jack bonded, and the guy was a tunnel master who had escaped at least three times from federal hospitality—to the point that he was taken out to classes on training officers in escape prevention.

So when Jack was trying to put a staircase into a coal chute to give us internal access to a newly-discovered basement, he started talking to the guy about it. And came home with a napkin scribbled over with diagrams and angles and a list of supplies.

I was livid. There just weren’t that many bookstores in private houses within visiting distance of the federal penitentiary. The next time this guy escaped, why wouldn’t he come straight toward us?

Jack laughed. The guy usually headed for Mexico or Alaska, where his charm would get him taken up with the wealthy set. One of his arrests was on a yacht raided because the party got too raucous.

Well, the plot about wrote itself, how this charming gentleman shows up after the male half of the bookstore owning couple dies (OF NATURAL CAUSES, so calm down, Jack!)….

It was a fun book to write, but it was, in fact, fiction. But ever since I came home with this gingerbread house, Jack keeps looking at me funny. Sorta like the time we got trapped by storms, coming back from Dublin, Ireland for Christmas. We spent two days in Chicago, and one of the films Jack watched during that time was The Shining.

If you know your horror films, you know this was about a Jack and a Wendy trapped by a snowstorm. I went for a swim while Jack watched it, but when I got back he just kept staring at me. Staring, and smiling…..

If the gingerbread house starts to show signs of possession—the heads on the little gingerbread guys start spinning, say, or we find one of the cats suffocated by gumdrops—we will take appropriate action and dissolve the house in milk.

Until then, calm down, Jack. And here, have this gumdrop…or some Wendy-made Christmas tea…

Life Is A Gas–

Posted on by
Reply

Jack gets in over the wire again in time – –

A few weeks ago in a previous post I mentioned that our gas furnace had stopped working. A very nice and obviously competent young engineer got it working, but a week later it stopped again, so he came back, carried out a more ‘in depth’ inspection and got it working again. At that point he suggested, in the tones of a cheerful funeral conductor, that time until we would be calling again might not be long; would we like to talk parts or full replacement?

We moved here over four years ago, and I always assumed that the furnace was fairly new. But it seems I was wrong; it’s probably over twenty years old and nearing the point where other things could need fixing. So we faced the same dilemma everyone does from time to time: soldier on with repairs to the existing unit or bite the bullet and have it replaced with a new one.

Enter our second engineer, who carried out another inspection, which happily revealed that the duct work throughout our (very old) house was fine, and so was the air conditioning unit. So we would only need a new furnace, and there was easy access to the basement. He also petted our cats, commented on the wine fermenting and the canning going on in the kitchen, all the stuff.

Were we being softened up? No, because as it turns out, we mentioned something about using their company once before, perhaps three years ago, and not being entirely comfortable with the condescension of the person who came.

“Oh, yeah,” said our new friend, Will. “That’s the guy who doesn’t work for us anymore. He was infamous.”

The company had apparently learned its lesson, as the two lads who came this time were excellent communicators throughout and explained things thoroughly without trying to ‘hard sell’ us a new unit. They both sat with us and patiently went through the pros and cons of our decision, one way or the other.

The decision, in the end, is personal to us. Everyone has to make their own decision in these moments, but we are confident we got all the advice we needed to make the right one.

Speaking of advice, I bless the fact that Wendy nag– er– persuaded me we should install a log stove three years ago. Until now it has been an occasional luxury. Right now it’s our main source of heat and working well…

…and the engineers complimented us on our cozy home, leaving their warmth as well.

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack