Dixie Cash (aka sisters Pam'la Cumbie and Jeffery McClanahan) has written her third Domestic Equalizers novel, I Gave You My Heart, But You Sold It Online
(Morrow, $21.95, 0060829710), which is just out. In the book, the
Equalizers--Salt Lick, Tex., beauty shop owners Debbie Sue Overstreet
and Edwina Perkins-Martin--try to solve a mystery involving a rodeo
superstar whose ex-girlfriend is running up a tab on his credit card, a
Texas Ranger and "the murky world of Internet dating and mating." Cash
has been touring for 10 days and here Pam'la offers the second entries
in an ongoing journal:
Dear Diary,
Thursday, November 2
The Oklahoma leg of the Dixie Cash Road Tour began several hours late and minus one Dixie. Dixie 2 came down rather seriously ill and couldn't travel. With undaunted can-do spirit, Dixie 1 carried on, but with a change in plans. I recruited my husband to drive and away we went, headed for Tulsa to promote I Gave You My Heart, But You Sold It Online.
My husband and I live in a small town. Sometimes one of us has to drive into Fort Worth for something. He never drives in Dallas. I haven't driven in Dallas since I was in the retail business some years back when I occasionally went to the gift market.
We left Dixie 2's house in Arlington around 3 p.m., plunging headlong into the jaws of the beast, more commonly known as Dallas rush-hour traffic, with DH driving and me navigating. It was a hair-raising experience. Like a moth to a flame, we seem to be drawn to every freeway that is under construction and the worst of the traffic in the whole state of Texas. Along with backhoes, road graders and dump trucks, we valiantly battled thousands of cars and 18-wheelers.
I'll never know how, but eventually we came out alive on the north end of all of that, just in time to cross the Red River. For those who don't know the area, the Dallas and Fort Worth bedroom communities to the north have just damn near crawled into Oklahoma. It wasn't that long ago that everything north of the Metroplex was cowboy country.
Oklahoma is full of toll roads. "Take the toll road to Tulsa," I told my husband. (If that doesn't sound like a good title for a song, I never heard one.) My thinking was that we could go faster and avoid construction. Ha! Was I wrong! A good part of the toll road was under construction and the speed was restricted to 45 mph. And they still charged the same toll! We managed to turn a four-hour drive into one that took sevens hours.
We did arrive in one piece, but at the wrong hotel. We must have looked as harried as we felt because the hotel staff took pity on us and offered us two warm chocolate-chip cookies. Because we hadn't eaten since an early lunch, they tasted like filet mignon. Fortified, we finally found the right hotel, where we stuffed ourselves and collapsed.
Friday, November 3
Rested and rejuvenated, we were picked up (thank God) early by a local librarian and whisked away to KTUL-TV 8, Tulsa's ABC affiliate, to make a short appearance on the local morning talk show. It was fabulous. The interviewer, whose name was D.C., was great. Friendly and fun, she made me feel relaxed enough to avoid stumbling over my tongue too much and we had as many laughs as three minutes will allow.
Then we were back in our pickup truck headed to Oklahoma City. There we were picked up by a lovely lady named Julia and driven to a signing at Full Circle Book Store.
Saturday, November 4
Julia picked us up again and we returned to Tulsa. Since neither my DH nor I was driving, we didn't notice the construction nearly as much. In Tulsa, we went to a busy Barnes & Noble managed by a very friendly and accommodating guy. Can't say enough about his enthusiasm.
All in all, Dear Diary, I signed a lot of books.
Sunday, November 5
We started back to Texas headed the wrong direction on I-35. We were well past Edmond, Okla., before we realized our error. Although my DH was behind the wheel and is a typical macho guy who won't ask directions, we did stop at a convenience store, where two nice ladies put us on the right path. At least we didn't get clear to Kansas before turning around.
Heading south again, things went well until I-35 came to almost a dead stop somewhere considerably north of Fort Worth. Why? Because it was race day. Traffic to the NASCAR speedway always ties up traffic for hours on several major roads. After some creative maneuvering through the back country, we made it back to Arlington in time to watch the Dallas Cowboy football game with Dixie 2, who was feeling better.
The Oklahoma trip ends our pickup tour, but not our book signings. The coming weekend, we'll be signing at the Bosque River Books & Ballads festival in Clifton, Texas, followed by a book signing the next weekend at the Texas Star in Abilene, Texas.
Launching I Gave You My Heart, But You Sold It Online has been great fun. Among the many things going on to support the launch is a delicious cross-promotion between HarperCollins and Lone Star Steaks: a sweepstakes drawing with the prize of a very nice box of succulent Texas beef. At the same time, Lone Star Steaks is selling the "Dixie Cash" package on its Web site and giving away a copy of the new book to the first 30 purchasers. Check it out. You can go directly to Lone Star Steak's web site or click on the link on our Web site.
By the way, Dear Diary, do I need to tell you that I have become a strong proponent of public transportation?
See you next time,
Dixie Cash
Dear Diary,
Thursday, November 2
The Oklahoma leg of the Dixie Cash Road Tour began several hours late and minus one Dixie. Dixie 2 came down rather seriously ill and couldn't travel. With undaunted can-do spirit, Dixie 1 carried on, but with a change in plans. I recruited my husband to drive and away we went, headed for Tulsa to promote I Gave You My Heart, But You Sold It Online.
My husband and I live in a small town. Sometimes one of us has to drive into Fort Worth for something. He never drives in Dallas. I haven't driven in Dallas since I was in the retail business some years back when I occasionally went to the gift market.
We left Dixie 2's house in Arlington around 3 p.m., plunging headlong into the jaws of the beast, more commonly known as Dallas rush-hour traffic, with DH driving and me navigating. It was a hair-raising experience. Like a moth to a flame, we seem to be drawn to every freeway that is under construction and the worst of the traffic in the whole state of Texas. Along with backhoes, road graders and dump trucks, we valiantly battled thousands of cars and 18-wheelers.
I'll never know how, but eventually we came out alive on the north end of all of that, just in time to cross the Red River. For those who don't know the area, the Dallas and Fort Worth bedroom communities to the north have just damn near crawled into Oklahoma. It wasn't that long ago that everything north of the Metroplex was cowboy country.
Oklahoma is full of toll roads. "Take the toll road to Tulsa," I told my husband. (If that doesn't sound like a good title for a song, I never heard one.) My thinking was that we could go faster and avoid construction. Ha! Was I wrong! A good part of the toll road was under construction and the speed was restricted to 45 mph. And they still charged the same toll! We managed to turn a four-hour drive into one that took sevens hours.
We did arrive in one piece, but at the wrong hotel. We must have looked as harried as we felt because the hotel staff took pity on us and offered us two warm chocolate-chip cookies. Because we hadn't eaten since an early lunch, they tasted like filet mignon. Fortified, we finally found the right hotel, where we stuffed ourselves and collapsed.
Friday, November 3
Rested and rejuvenated, we were picked up (thank God) early by a local librarian and whisked away to KTUL-TV 8, Tulsa's ABC affiliate, to make a short appearance on the local morning talk show. It was fabulous. The interviewer, whose name was D.C., was great. Friendly and fun, she made me feel relaxed enough to avoid stumbling over my tongue too much and we had as many laughs as three minutes will allow.
Then we were back in our pickup truck headed to Oklahoma City. There we were picked up by a lovely lady named Julia and driven to a signing at Full Circle Book Store.
Saturday, November 4
Julia picked us up again and we returned to Tulsa. Since neither my DH nor I was driving, we didn't notice the construction nearly as much. In Tulsa, we went to a busy Barnes & Noble managed by a very friendly and accommodating guy. Can't say enough about his enthusiasm.
All in all, Dear Diary, I signed a lot of books.
Sunday, November 5
We started back to Texas headed the wrong direction on I-35. We were well past Edmond, Okla., before we realized our error. Although my DH was behind the wheel and is a typical macho guy who won't ask directions, we did stop at a convenience store, where two nice ladies put us on the right path. At least we didn't get clear to Kansas before turning around.
Heading south again, things went well until I-35 came to almost a dead stop somewhere considerably north of Fort Worth. Why? Because it was race day. Traffic to the NASCAR speedway always ties up traffic for hours on several major roads. After some creative maneuvering through the back country, we made it back to Arlington in time to watch the Dallas Cowboy football game with Dixie 2, who was feeling better.
The Oklahoma trip ends our pickup tour, but not our book signings. The coming weekend, we'll be signing at the Bosque River Books & Ballads festival in Clifton, Texas, followed by a book signing the next weekend at the Texas Star in Abilene, Texas.
Launching I Gave You My Heart, But You Sold It Online has been great fun. Among the many things going on to support the launch is a delicious cross-promotion between HarperCollins and Lone Star Steaks: a sweepstakes drawing with the prize of a very nice box of succulent Texas beef. At the same time, Lone Star Steaks is selling the "Dixie Cash" package on its Web site and giving away a copy of the new book to the first 30 purchasers. Check it out. You can go directly to Lone Star Steak's web site or click on the link on our Web site.
By the way, Dear Diary, do I need to tell you that I have become a strong proponent of public transportation?
See you next time,
Dixie Cash