Friday

The air is cool and somewhat on the crisp side. Crisp for here, anyway. My mood is lighter and the sun is up. So far so good.

My husband is out of town and it is just as well that he didn't have to suffer my moods the last couple of days. My poor son.

Choosing to believe the conclusion that the plot to vaporize us on Sunday from Reliant Stadium is indeed a hoax from a nitwit 20 year old in Milwaukee, I have made plans for lunch with two girlfriends next Thursday. It was quite the challenge to figure out calendars of three somewhat busy women but victory is ours.

Tomorrow is the monthly lunch with my old childhood friend from Shreveport, now also living here. Actually she has lived here more than 20 years which is a lifetime compared to my meager 8 years here. We had to resort to actually picking the third Saturday of each month and penciling in lunch together so that we would get together regularly. She is lots busier than me as she works downtown in a very tall skyscraper for an international law firm while raising a son, now a senior in high school, almost as a single parent. Her hubby is like mine but is away even more than mine.

I think it's a shame that women have such a challenge physically staying in touch. We can e-mail and speak on the phone but visits in person are so important. Sitting over a table and sharing a meal and good conversation is one of life's greatest joys to me.

On the political front, let me say that some of the races in this state are getting a bit on the stranger than fiction side. The race for Texas State Comptroller is in the news recently as it is one such race.

The State Comptroller, the incumbent Susan Combs, is running for another term. She is a Republican. Her opponent, Fred Head, is a Democrat and referred to by the Houston Chronicle as "a long shot". Remember his last name for the sake of this story.

Susan Combs, it is noted, is a published author. In 1990, a romance novel written by her was published entitled "A Perfect Match" , which is a story about a woman working for the NSA and she meets a superspy. Apparently romance follows this meeting.

Now, I have to say the genre of romance novels is not one of which I know anything. I don't believe I have ever read one. Maybe I should. According to Fred Head, remember his last name is the twist for me here, the romance novel is pornography. He has made this his issue. She is pushing pornography, people, and may be read by young people. You would think a person with his last name would not go down, sorry, this path as it brings chuckles to a person such as myself. As far as has been reported, this was her one and only book published.

This book was published in 1990. Fast forward to present time. Now, the Romance Writers of America is headquarted in an area community here in Houston. They claim a membership of 9,000 writers and the genre has sales in the area of $1.2 billion annually. Did you know half of all popular mass-market fiction books sold and 39 percent of all fiction is in the romance novel market? Me, either but that's according to the association.

"Women all across the United States and foreign countries are very angry at what they see as an attack on women." That was a quote in the Houston Chronicle from the article I read yesterday.

The membership in the association is indignant, to say the least. Members are quoted saying they will vote for Susan Combs no matter what their normal party voting pattern. They won't support Fred Head. Poor man thought he would brand her as some kind of hypocrite by pointing out she wrote a romance novel while claiming to have strong moral values. She has been married to the same man for 31 years and her husband likes to joke that her story's hero is patterned after him.

Fred Head. Bless his heart.