independent book stores

Celebrate the Small Things is a weekly celebration created by VikLit and now hosted by Lexa Cain to celebrate the happenings of the week, however small or large. You can learn all about it and sign up for it here.

Today, I’m celebrating independent bookstores! Here’s my book, Lady, Thy Name Is Trouble, on an actual brick-and-mortar store bookshelf! Phoenix Books (in Vermont) is carrying it at both their locations, the Burlington store on Cherry Street and the Essex store in the Essex Cinemas shopping plaza. Yay! (Happy dancing!)

Phoenix Book Store

And now for today’s A to Z —

O is for — Olaf from Disney’s Frozen

“Hi, everyone. I’m Olaf and I like warm hugs!” Olaf, the animated snowman, stole the show in Disney’s hit movie, Frozen. Talk about comedy relief. Just about everything he said and did had me in stitches.

From the beginning when he meets Anna and Kristoff on their way to find Elsa, to his receiving his own personal snow flurry at the end of the movie to keep him from melting, Olaf infuses the story with warmth and humor and a childlike innocence that makes me smile even now as I’m thinking about it.

So many hilarious moments — that first meeting with Anna and Kristoff; Olaf’s middle and bottom parts running away from the snow monster and leaving his head behind; when Olaf tells Anna to run from the “rocks” Kristoff is talking to; and when he slides down the hill toward the town after being told by Kristoff to keep a low profile and you hear a scream from someone as Olaf says hello to them.

Olaf is one of the funniest and most endearing characters I’ve ever met. My favorite Olaf moment is when he tells Anna that “some people are worth melting for.” Wise words from a true friend.

Photo Credit: http://wondersofdisney2.yolasite.com

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

What other celebrations are going on out there?

This week I’m celebrating getting my book into a local independent book store! I’ve always wanted to see my book on an actual brick-and-mortar store shelf. I’m really excited about it!

And now for today’s A to Z —

C is for — Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau from Blake Edward’s Pink Panther films.

Jacques Clouseau is a police inspector in the French Surete. Dimwitted, bumbling, and hilariously inept, he, nevertheless, and usually completely by accident, manages to solve the case. At least, most of the time.

Anyone who has ever watched any of the Pink Panther movies starring Peter Sellers knows he is a slapstick comedic genius. The first time I watched the movies, I laughed myself to tears. The silliness of his clumsy antics and his over-the-top disguises still bring fits of giggles. And his warped French accent is priceless. How he did all that with a straight face, I’ll never know.

The movie series with Sellers includes The Pink Panther (1963), A Shot in the Dark (1964), Return of the Pink Panther (1975), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978). Other Pink Panther movies were made with other actors, both before and after Sellers’ death in 1980, but in my book, Sellers owned the character, and none of the others even comes close to equaling his portrayal.

Here’s a brief example of Sellers’ inspired lunacy from The Pink Panther Strikes Again: