SquawkRadio

We’ve talked about pets on Squawk before.  I remember waxing tearful and lyrical when our guinea pig, Muffin, died.  This is going to be a less lyrical and more pragmatic piece, because it’s about animals who aren’t pets.

If you have a small child, people think it’s a really great idea to give you a scientific experiment that involves life.  The latest manifestation of this kindly impulse is a plastic box filled with a weird blue material and a swarm of biting red ants (we know they bite because the material said so; we know they’re scary because if you take the box top off they swarm desperately to the top, trying to get out).  The idea of this pleasing scientific birthday present was that you chill your ants in the refrigerator for a few minutes to make them less likely to bite you and then dump them into the plastic container with the blue gunk in it.  Then you watch them burrow through the clear plastic walls.

Sure enough, our ants burrowed.  At first they just tried to get out, and when they found that was not going to happen, they started burrowing.  They made, oh, 6 tunnels.  The children loved this.  Every day after school they fought to hold the plastic box (shaking up the poor ants in the process).  They measured the burrows.  Great scientific thoughts were hatched on all sides.

Then the ants stopped burrowing.  Their little ant brains had processed the fact that 6 tunnels and a small plastic box encompasses the world.  So they went back to desperately trying to get out.  My children stopped looking at them.  I couldn’t help it.  The box sits on the kitchen counter, and I visit them, watching them try over and over to climb the plastic sides.  They’ve started to die now (only three months, the material promised).  I can’t put them outside because there’s snow out there.  There’s nothing I can do but allow the poor things to die, mired in blue mucks and trying to their last minute to climb a smooth plastic wall.

Then there was the so-called metamorphosis experiment.  This thing came as a froglet and quickly metamorphosed into—you guessed it—a frog.  A weird, white frog with five long fingers on each hand.  It was an under water frog, the material said.  It forgot to say that this kind of frog just keeps growing.  And growing.  It also forgot to say that the frog turned out to be banned from the US ecosystem and could not be set free, as we were informed by the pet store.

So after a year or so we bought this frog its own tank.  It stayed in the basement, singing under water.  This disturbed house guests a lot at night, but what could we do?  We bought it various castles and ferns for its water.  It grew old and seemed to lose its sense of smell.  My husband had to go down and make a fuss with the water before the frog would realize its food was there and come scoop it up in its little hands and take it to its mouth.  Finally after five years our local pet store owner realized that its singing meant it was female—and thus valuable.  He took our frog to breed froglets.  There was a huge collective sigh of relief.

Do I have to go into the butterflies?  The monarch butterflies who are supposed to hatch and sometimes do—and sometimes not?  The butterfly who couldn’t open her wings, and so lived for three days in the little cardboard box?

Is it any wonder that there are so many stories depicting humans as Gods?  Am I the only one who gets totally bent out of shape by red ants in captivity, or an African frog who finds herself in a New Jersey basement?

It hardly seems fair to let Hugh Jackman, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and the other “Big Boys” get all of the swoons so today I bring you some “new” lovely, interesting men who have recently tracked on my radar.  Enjoy! 

No one can accuse Oliver Hudson of not having a great pedigree.  He’s the son of Goldie Hawn and 70’s music star Bill Hudson and the brother of adorable actress Kate Hudson.  With those genes, it’s no wonder he’s so pretty!  He’s currently starring on the CBS sitcom RULES OF ENGAGEMENT with deliciously snarky David Spade and the hilarious Patrick Warburton (Reminder him as David Puddy from SEINFELD?)

Once I got past that whole Marky Mark/rapping/Calvin Klein underwear model thing, I realized what an excellent actor Mark Wahlberg was.  (He nabbed an Oscar nomination for his scorching portrayal of a Boston cop who speaks profanity as if it were a second language in THE DEPARTED this year.) He was absolutely adorable in THE ITALIAN JOB and he still has some of the best biceps in the business.

I’d watched illusionist Criss Angel on A&E’s CRISS ANGEL: MINDFREAK before but I didn’t pay that much attention to him until an observant reader wrote and told me they thought he’d make a wonderful Julian in THE VAMPIRE WHO LOVED ME.  Hmmm....that certainly got my attention.  Nobody can deny that the guy has a pretty face and charisma to burn.  So if you like your men a little “freaky”, Criss Angel just might be the magic man for you! 

I’ve always been a Lex Luthor woman myself.  Tom Welling as Clark Kent has always been just a shade too pretty and clean cut for me.  But when I saw him go all “bad boy” during a recent SMALLVILLE episode after he tasted some Red Kryptonite right off of Lois Lane’s lips, I began to see him in a whole new light!  A very hot, sizzling light!

I always thought it was odd that soft-spoken, bespectacled Carmine Giovinazzo on CSI: NEW YORK made my pulse race until he was voted one of the Sexiest Men on TV and I realized it wasn’t just me.  I don’t know if it’s his unassuming manner, his tough guy past, his soulful eyes or that fabulous New York accent but there’s just something about his character of Danny Messer that makes me want to hop a plane to Manhattan.  (Picture Teresa biting tongue to keep from finishing with obvious pun.)

So how about you?  Have you discovered any new hotties lately or taken a fresh look at someone who never caught your eye before?

(And if you’re coming late to Squawk today, make sure and scroll down to read a message from a real-life romance hero )

And just for fun, here are some of your suggestions as afternoon additions! 

Eddie Cahill from CSI: NEW YORK

George Eads from CSI

Ioan Gruffudd from HORATIO HORNBLOWER, THE FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING GRACE

Toby Stephens, the most recent incarnation of Mr. Rochester from BBC’s JANE EYRE

My name is Matthew, and I am a Rooster. (In case you don’t know, a Rooster is someone who is proud to be married to a Squawker. And I am!). My wife Andrea is a Squawker, and I am happy to say that the very kind ladies of SquawkRadio have graciously allowed me to write a few words to my beautiful wife, to celebrate her 40th birthday today.

I first heard about SquawkRadio last year after the floods in New Orleans, and how the Squawkers were helping out a fellow author and friend Leslie. For everyone in the Squawk community who helped out – congratulations. In fact, no one was probably as touched as I was – as touched, and as surpised to know that I now own the most expensive unbound copy of Eloisa’s “Taming of the Duke” in the planet! So how better to celebrate her birthday and her life than by writing a few words here, which I am assured is the centre of the planet.

This story is about a woman named Andrea. Andrea is the love of my life, the only girl I have ever known and ever loved, and according to our wedding vows, will be the only one I will ever love until death do us part (good thing to know!).

I first met my future wife in a co-ed boarding school we both attended, back in the early 1980s. Although I’d like to say that it was love at first sight, it was 2 years before she agreed to go out with me, and another 4 years before she agreed to go out with me (again). And another 3 years before she finally gave up waiting, and asked me to marry her on Christmas Eve.  And if that is not enough proof of the synchronicity of the universe, I had an engagement ring waiting for her in my pocket. After knowing each other for 7 years, she had beaten me to the punch approximately half an hour before I was going to ask her!

We agreed to marry each other, and here we are today, bound together in a life sentence. But if I may borrow a few words from Robert Bly, my sentence has been a thousand years of joy.

It happened one autumn when I met you, way back in Grade 9. Of all the girls in our school, you were surely the fairest of them all. Your wicked ways have captivated me, and I have to admit I’m a fool for love. (I was a dangerous man). Andrea, you are my barefoot princess, my shining star – and the woman I hope my daughters become. 

Dear Friends,

It’s finally here!

Sugar Daddy has gone through the process of being extracted from my imagination, through my fingers into the keyboard, onto the paper and subsequently the editor’s desk, then back and forth for revisions and copyediting, then dressed in a beautiful cover, multiplied at least a hundred thousand times, shipped to stores, unpacked and placed on the shelves, where it tries to beckon alluringly to all passersby, some of whom will actually buy it and take it home.

And it takes all that for a story to go from my heart to your hands. You’d think I’d have gotten used to this by now, having been an author for more than twenty years.

But yesterday, when I saw the book on a front stand at Borders, I felt exactly like I did when my first book was published.  (Except older, with hair color and better jewelry, accompanied by two short people who seem to be calling me “Mommy.")

There is absolutely positively no way for the cover to look as good on the computer monitor as it does in person. The colors are so saturated and rich and glowing, you’d swear the cover has batteries tucked inside somewhere. (Don’t say anything, Xtina!)

I hope readers will enjoy this Cinderella story about Liberty Jones, a young woman from a trailer park who dreams about finding love and family. Liberty’s life takes her to places she never expected to go. Which life often does. And it has a happy ending, which I believe, even in this cynical world, is possible for all of us.

Here’s something fun : Sugar Daddy is being released right now in the UK, and they’ve put their own cover on it.

I think it is so charming! This rendition of Liberty reminds me of Audrey Hepburn in the movie “Sabrina.” And I like the way the suitcases represent Liberty’s journey.
Sabrina was another Cinderella story. I loved the original with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, and I even loved the remake with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond.

What other Cinderella stories--movies or books--have you enjoyed in the past?

My desk top is dying, my notebook is dying, and never have two electronic deaths been so unlamented. Why? Because this time, this time, I am going to run with the cyber-wolves. This time, I am going to get me such a fast, such a secure, such a solid machine I will never have to replace it again! (Yeah, I said that four years ago, too. So?) The only question I have is where will I find my new Compu-Couer? Should I stick to the path I know best and replace these rotting hulks with a Vista-licious PC because as all my current software is made for Windows? Or will I fly in the face of fiscal responsibility and get me one of them new Mac Notebooks running OX Leopard?

I don’t know! I’m having a hard time deciding so a few times a week ( and twice on Saturdays) I haunt the aisles at CompUSA, fingering the Toshiba Satellite keyboards and playing with the plasma touch screens. I pour over hard drive configurations and study Computercentric magazines like they were the new testament. I whisper into microphones and test angle shots of my face on webcams but eventually I end up standing under the “COMING SOON” banner advertising Leopard and whimpering with impatience.

The only misgiving I have about getting a Mac is the fact that Mac people hate Bill Gates. Which is fine. PC people hate Bill Gates, too. Hate with impunity, I always say. But no Mac-ite hates Steve Jobs. They love him. They love him and they LOVE their Macs. Which has lead me to wonder why. Which has led me to talk to more and more of the Mac-amillions and the more I talk to Mac people, the more their enthusiasm unnerves me. They get a manic look their eye, like a proselytizer spying a potential convert. I want to buy a new computer, not to join a cult! When you first turn on the computer does Steve Jobs appear to you that night and make you his Apple-slave (and do they get to wear cute togas?) What do they really do at those “free” Apple workshops (and does it involve microchips?)

So, tell me, what do you own a PC or a Mac and why? And if you own a Mac, did you have a microchip implanted when you bought it and, if so, does it also control your appetite? (Okay, okay, I just thought it was worth asking)

I’m not a morning person by nature. If I had my way, I’d go to bed every “night” at four A.M., sleep until noon or so, then get up and go about my day. In fact, that WAS the way I lived my life as a single person with my own place. I was tending bar then, so I could work ‘til the restaurant that employed me closed, then go out with other night owl friends to bars that stayed open even later, then come home and decompress over the mail and newspaper, then go to bed just before the sun came up. I didn’t have a problem with insomnia back then, because I was able to live by my body’s clock with no problem.

Ah, good times, good times.

As a married mother, however, I have to live by a bunch of different clocks. The school clock. My husband’s job clock. My mom’s doctor’s appointments clock. Some days, the New York publishing clock. And none of them run anything like my own. I’ve suffered from chronic insomnia ever since I stopped working nights and started living my life by day.

There have been some nice benefits from living during the daylight hours, however. I no longer have to make my bank deposits via the ATM and wait to have them post. I can get prescriptions filled while I wait. Sunrises, I’ve discovered, are every bit as beautiful as sunsets. Still, it was fun to go to the all-night grocery store at three A.M. and see the cashiers running up and down the aisles to keep themselves entertained, and never have to wait in line to pay for my purchases.

The one thing that has made my forcible entry into morning-personhood bearable, however, is the family bed. Morning, surprisingly, has become my favorite time of day, because that’s the part of the day where my family and I steal a little time for closeness. We deliberately set our alarm clock ahead a half hour every weekday morning, and we program the coffeemaker to have our coffee waiting for us when we wake up. My husband always brings me my first cup in bed, then he and I spend about fifteen minutes holding hands and chatting about what the day ahead holds, or what happened yesterday.

At the halfway point, my husband goes to wake up our son, and then both of them stumble back to our room and tumble into bed. By now, both cats have joined us, as well (or, more likely, they’ve both passed the night sleeping between my husband and me), so the bed, a cozy queen-size, is more than full. My son usually dozes for another fifteen minutes while the cats wrestle and pounce around and over him. If we’re lucky, he might mumble something meaningful (he was a real chatterbox until he became an adolescent--go figure), but more often, he just sleeps.  He’s joined us in the family bed every morning since he was a baby, a custom I always adored, but which I honestly didn’t think would continue this long. I love that it does, though I doubt it will last much longer.

Which is all the more reason to embrace these quiet mornings with the family for all they’re worth. And to me, they’re worth more than anything. Certainly more than a little readjustment to my body’s clock.

So how about you? Do you have any morning rituals to help you face the day? Things you have to do, or else the day seems a little off-kilter? What do you like better--morning life, daytime life or night life?

Join Lisa Kleypas at one of her SUGAR DADDY autographings!
Thursday, March 8th 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE 12635 IH 10 West, San Antonio, TX 78230

Friday, March 9th 7:00 PM
HASTINGS BOOKS 2020 S. Georgia, Amarillo, TX

Monday, March 12th 7:30 PM
BORDERS 12788 Fountain Lake Circle Stafford, TX 77477

Tuesday, March 13th 7:30 PM
BORDERS 4477 S. Lamar, Austin, TX 78745

Thursday, March 15th 6:30 PM
WALDENBOOKS North East Mall 1101 Melbourne Rd. Ste 3094, Hurst, TX 76053

Monday, March 19th 7:00 PM
BOOKS & CO. 133 E. Stroop Rd., Dayton, OH

Tuesday, March 20th 7:30 PM
BARNES & NOBLE 240 Route 22 West, Springfield, NJ 07081

Wednesday, March 21st 7:00 PM
BORDERS 3637 Peachtree Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30319

Thursday, March 22nd 7:30 PM
BORDERS 1500 16th St , Oak Brook IL 60523

CHRISTINA wll be blogging about Laura Lee Guhrke’s AND THEN HE KISSED HER on Saturday March 10. Make sure you read this wonderful historical romance and come prepared to discuss it!

Eloisa will be posting an extra chapter for Pleasure for Pleasure this week—the very chapter that her fans voted they wanted!  So please check by Eloisa James Website in a few days.  If while you’re there—try out the Contest.  Eloisa is giving away a gorgeous brooch that she bought in Venice last summer.  You could be the winner!

Connie is so pleased that HOT DISH has been voted as Favorite Women’s Fiction/Chick Lit book of 2006 over at ALL ABOUT ROMANCE.

TERESA found this pic of she and her daddy this week, proving she’s always had Hollywood star quality.  She’s currently slaving away on her new book just for you, eating a lot of dark chocolate M&M’s and trying to catch up with Charlaine Harris’s “Sookie Stackhouse” series by reading DEAD TO THE WORLD and DEAD AS A DOORNAIL all in one weekend.  She’d also like to congratulate the winners of her FEBRUARY CONTEST!  Teresa from California won an autographed hardcover set of AFTER MIDNIGHT and THE VAMPIRE WHO LOVED ME, Joan from Florida won an autographed copy of THE VAMPIRE WHO LOVED ME and Jennier from Idaho won an autographed copy of AFTER MIDNIGHT! You can visit Teresa’s website at www.tereamedeiros.com