Thank You Lonnie Bell – The Claire Saga MOS Set Is Complete

After submitting to rain enforced lock down for 24 hours, during which the grands did their best running rendition of banshees in training, yesterday the sun came out and Luke and Georgie took the kids to a well-needed outing at the Denver Zoo. Those poor animals.

That gave Lisa a chance to perform recovery work on some of the house and replenish some of the Casa Claire resources.

After an unexpectedly busy early morning that prevented me from blogging, I took care of the remaining chores but then decided, in the happenstance way that my life usually proceeds, that it was time to deliver the final(?) book in The Claire Saga to Mike O’Shay’s in Longmont to install it along with its siblings on the MOS Literary Bookshelf.

And I didn’t really appreciate how much I needed to do that, until I arrived at MOS. You see, given that this is the final(?) book in TCS, there was an undetected, slight postpartum malaise that had been circling me lately, especially during melancholic inclement weather. I had a long conversation with Claire about it early yesterday morning while I freed her thick coat of its caked mud covered winter fur, and she, in true Claire fashion, told me in her wisest and most compassionate voice to “get over yourself.”

She said, “go do something for someone else, it will make you feel better. But first finish brushing me, and don’t forget the ears.”

So, I completed returning Claire’s fur from looking like she had risen from the Mekong River in a scene from Apocalypse Now to its spring sartorial splendor,

and she thanked me by scratching her substantial derrière against the fence rail until she knocked it loose and added to my to do list, and then joined Honey for a badly needed nap behind the workshed, while I finished my chores.

But as I gazed upon the comfortable and mystical Claire and her lady in waiting, I thought about what my sage mule said. She was right, paying life forward has always been an emotional panacea for me.

But what to do?

I had sent out most of the copies of the book to the characters’ real life counterparts, and been informed by the Fatwa Clairettes that even the infamous BC received his copy,

And then it occured to me.

You see, with the Ozmandians visiting, the book dropping and all of the celestial harbingers providing a natural distraction, it had been a busy month since Lisa and I have gotten to MOS for our usual early weekend dinner. So, I hadn’t had a chance to drop the book off.

So, with Lisa’s blessing, she refused to take a break from her own chores, I grabbed two copies of WTLLM and headed south along 287 for a twenty minute drive to Longmont.

It was just around noon when I arrived, so the place was still relatively empty, and Lonnie Bell, my dear friend and the jovial Manager of MOS, who is also the genius behind the MOS Literary Bookshelf, made time to catch up while I inscribed one copy for him and the shelf, and a second for our favorite regular and book critic, Kyle Dooley.

Now a quick aside about Lonnie Bell. He is one of the nicest humans I have ever encountered. Indeed, five minutes in his presence and you feel better about yourself than after an hour long session with your mother at your law school graduation.

Anyway, Lonnie made a big to do about receiving the book,

and placing it with the others,

And then we spent some time catching up about our own lives and then the lives of some of the regulars, starting with Kyle Dooley. You see, Kyle is a dear friend, one of Claire’s most devoted fans and actually appears as a Hell’s Kitchen bartender in FJM. Lonnie promised to give Kyle his copy of WTLLM upon his next arrival. So Kyle has a now complete inscribed set of TCS.

Now, one of the other regulars Lonnie and I discussed is an older gentleman cowboy named John McBride. I mentioned to Lonnie that I included John in this book’s acknowledgments. Lonnie said he knew John would be thrilled, and gave me a little background into John’s life, the good times and the rough.

I had known John from my encounters with the weekend regulars who staked out the same quarter of the MOS bar like the crew from Cheers. John always wore this awesome cowboy hat. He looked like the Marlboro Man, or a character from Yellowstone. He has a great whiskey voice and always made a fuss about me being a writer to anyone and everyone within view or earshot of his bar stool. He always took great pride in making these announcements. His gravely fuss always made me feel like I was somebody.

When I was wrapping the final touches on WTLLM, I went back and added John’s name to the acknowledgments. I have included other regulars of staff and guests from MOS in the past and always mention them as a group, but I wanted to make sure John knew how much those silly moments meant to me.

When I got back to Casa Claire, I recounted my time with Lonnie to Lisa, who can often be as wise as Claire, if not as stubborn, and she suggested (instructed) that I go back and give John McBride his own copy of WTLLM.

So, I did.

John was thrilled.

And right after I finished inscribing the book, I looked over at Lonnie Bell behind the bar, and he said “that felt good, didn’t it.”

And he was right. It’s always the little things that make the biggest difference in your life.

It felt so good, in fact, that I don’t even give a shit that it is again Monday.

But, my fine, five readers, we still need to finish our java and head off to do battle.

But first, I have some kitties to cuddle and rounds to make.

And no matter what else we get up to, big or small, let us make today a great one.