I can't wait for her to ask me where I keep the horses.

Good evening!

It's a story I enjoy telling, how I came about the name of my heroine in my second novel Lies in Chance.  The heroine, Shara, got her name years ago when, on a marching band bus, a chaperon asked me my name.  "Sarah,"  I said.  "With an H,"  I added, because those of us named Sarah always have to clarify how we spell our names.

Oh yeah...that's me.

The woman, bless her silly heart, wrote my name down, "S-H-A-R-A."And a character's name was born.

I'm telling you that so that you can help me understand why on EARTH Noelle C. would possibly think that "Lies in Chance" is actually ABOUT ME. 

See a couple days ago we got to talking, mostly because NBM was out of the office and that means that Noelle C makes a beeline for my desk to chat about this and that and what freak show health thing she's latched on to because she read it on the Internet.  Oh yeah, AND she's really, really deaf.  I mean deaf like you have to shout at her or she won't know you're in the room.  How she manages on the phone I do not know but she does and so I plow on through her massive set of crazy.  At least she doesn't microwave trout.

Anyway, we were talking and I told her about my books.  And she's a dear thing, she doesn't read, but she'd really like to. So she said she'd buy my books.  So today I brought them in, signed them, and she was very excited.  Not excited enough to actually READ one of them during her lunch, but whatever.  At least she read the back cover.

And I know she read the back cover because she came up to my desk and said, "Well, this does sound like you."

Now, all authors struggle to find their voice, that magical thing agents and editors demand we have in order to succeed in authoring.  So I was pretty jazzed to think that Noelle C, a dear, goofy, insane exhibitionist could pick out my voice in just a few short paragraphs.

"Yeah, it sounds like just you...oh, wait, it is you!"

That's when I realized she was reading the AUTHOR paragraph on the back of the book.

Did I mention she's deaf?  I tried, I really did, to tell her that no, the book wasn't about me it was by me.

"Well, I can't wait to read this book about you."

And I can't wait to have her ask me where we keep the horses...and why I'd be working at Dunder Mifflin if I am an heiress.

File this under "Gone but not forgotten."

On the first of every month our snack guy comes buy to collect the money in the honor box for the snacks we've stolen...I mean eaten.  He came a bit late last month, on the second, after Elsie W was...you know, relieved of her duties.  He counted the money and left a happy little note suggesting politely that we PAY FOR THE SNACKS.

So today he stopped by to pick up the cash and NBM asked him how short we were last month.

$1, or whatever you feel is fair.

"$11.37."

Friends, the honor box is $1 per snack.  I get paying in change, and I get forgetting to pay or not paying at all when you're relieved of your duties on the 2nd before you can write that check to the snack guy.  BUT, $11.37?"

So at one point she dropped in 63 cents and said, "Close enough!"

Oddly enough...this month...we were not short one penny.