The book of Barkley has gone to the final copy edit and production phase, which will take 8-13 weeks (the work to actually get to publishing wasn't all that time consuming but with Bro's decline in health, it was not on my list of priorities.) But the news it's going forward cheered me this week, even if Big Bro won't be here to read it in book form, as I had hoped.
It will be available in print in bookstores, through Barnes and Noble and various e-book formats.
A number of you offered to copy edit which was appreciated, but a professional copy editor was lined up. Thank you though, my dear friends, Midwest Chick, Guffaw in AZ, Kymber and Jane for reading through the whole thing for honest feedback as a reader, not an editor, before I sent it off to the publisher.
We're looking at late June/July available in bookstores and online. Logistics for signed copies to be worked out later. Yes, I could have had it out much faster as kindle only, but a lot of my readers, are like me, old fashioned and like paper. Though I know pictures would have added to it, it also adds a lot to the cost of printing and time involved, and I was hoping to have this out before Bro passed. The publisher IS making a Book of Barkley website where there will be pictures to augment the book's chapters.
For tonight, as I get caught up from a month away from my "office", an excerpt of a chapter:
Many of you remember those old Calgon commercials with the beautiful but frazzled woman leaving screaming kids, barking dogs and chores behind for a soak in a giant bathtub full of bubbles.
Although there are some things that even a bath won't fix, having one is a nightly ritual for me. In the morning, I just get a super quick shower, just to wash my hair and go. Nights though are my time to relax. The new, smaller house I bought after I moved to Indiana had a pretty small bathroom but it did have a big 1960’s style tub, narrow with tall sides, which I could fill up deeply with water.
There have been so many strange places in which I've laid my head over the years, so many miles. The wheels have clicked past places of opulent wealth and desolation more profound than ruin, velvet sunsets of plush richness and the cold iron dawn marked by bullets and a soldiers iron footprint. They've clicked past solitary countryside and crowded highways dotted with one too many crashes, which slow everything down to a crawl. Sometimes the first responders are simply standing on the median, with no hurry to tend to that past tending. Cars creep past, the morbidly curious, heads up as if listening, a profoundly studious and distracted listening for that which they will never hear, nor were ever intended to hear.
On such trips, by the time you get to the hotel, you can either raid the mini bar or take a long bath. Given that a thimbleful of booze is a mini bar is more expensive than what I had for dinner, I choose a long bath, and many a night was spent with just the cooling water and I, there before sleep.
Still, coming home from work tonight, even after an uneventful day, the bathtub still invites. Barkley, however, sees the bath, not as his person's chance to relax, but competition for my time.
How do you explain to an animal that what to him is playtime without him is sometimes my only way of unwinding? It's that time when the day drops back to deep thoughts, the ones you were trying to get past, the work that is piling up, that tattered picture hidden in your wallet of someone whose eyes are focused on a place that did not include you. It's respite from that ticking of a clock in the next room that reminds you that time drives on like fiery steel, overtaking even the swift. You can think too much about such things; the face in the mirror, the souls own inquisitor, or you can ram your small plastic cruise ship into a giant rubber ducky and make explosion sounds.
I opt for the later.
Over the few years in which Barkley has been part of my household, bath time has become a routine. I keep the water lever low enough that he cannot drink out of it. I make sure my bath toy collection is kept out of sight and reach so we can avoid that whole "chase the dog and the last attack sub around the living room naked" thing. I've learned not to let him make me feel guilty with the looks, still reaching over to pat his head every so often and talking to him of my day.
But tonight, after a busy time of adjusting to new job, and new home, with lots to be painted or fixed, I just want some "alone" time. Barkley and I face each other like chess pieces, the Queen this time, not going to be taken by a mere Black Knight. He's learned the command "stay out" used in the kitchen when I'm cooking, so I tried it in the bath, to hopefully get him out of the room, yet leaving the door open so he can see I'm OK.
It worked! With a sigh, he turns and exits, going out of eyesight into the hall, the sound of his toenails clicking on the tile, and then muted by carpet. He's only about three feet away, but the way the door and tub are aligned, I can't see him.
I should have tried this sooner, I think, as I finally set my head back to relax as the water cools.
Something flies past my field of vision. I open my eyes. There, next to the tub is a rolled up pair of socks. I hear a gentle whine. I ignore it. A minute or two later, here comes another rolled up pair of socks (Dad isn't the only one that can roll up socks into the size of a tennis ball).
Another pair is tossed into the bathroom. I pull myself out of the water far enough I can see what is happening.
Barkley is TOSSING the socks into the room with his mouth, trying to get my attention. Apparently, my packed and open suitcase is a veritable buffet of socks tonight. I'm either going to drag myself out of the tub with that ponderous impetuosity of defeat or I can stay here while, one by one, my undergarments are flung around the room as the evening's entertainment. . . ..
Come on back in a couple of months for the rest of the story in The Book of Barkley. And come on back tomorrow, for their just might be something of the Lab variety around here if all goes well at the Lab Rescue.
