Today I will extol on the virtues of a very unique chocolate candy bar, Nestle's Violet Crumble, named, I'm guessing here, for the character Violet in Roald Dahl's Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. I must admit, I personally laughed until I very nearly wet my pants this summer, when I watched Johnny Depp's amazing on-screen antics, and the Oompah Loompah's homages to old movies were just what I needed to hearken me back to my film school days. But my son and I were the only ones in the theater laughing, so I guess Tim Burton's genius didn't necessarily have the same effect on the general population, who seemed to prefer Gene Wilder's singing in the original film version from the seventies.

Ok, I digress, but my friend Carol brought me a King-sizeViolet Crumble from Australia, where they are all the rage. This is an 8" long piece of 'enhanced' honeycomb, coated in chocolate, and the light crisp texture is amazing. It literally snaps in your mouth. And how good for you, honeycomb! The ancient Romans ate honeycomb and touted its health benefits, so let's review, a candy bar that is good for you, what's not to love? Leave it to the Swiss to figure this out, and leave it to me to want scads of Violet Crumbles in my pantry, but alas, I don't think I can buy them in the US of A...and there lies the problem.

Don't you hate it when you eat something new that you become addicted to, and you can't find it in your local area? My sister, who works in the UK, brought me the most wonderful concoction, a combination of hazelnut and chocolate, made by Ferrero in Italy, and I'll be danged if I can find them here. Oh, to be a world traveler, pockets full of strange coins and colorful bills, to be able to peruse the shelves of the world's candy stores...

I've saved one last bite of my precious Violet Crumble. If I write another chapter in my novel today, I get to eat it. It's sitting there on my desk, taunting me. Did I say that 'chapter' could be considered to be a couple of sentences?

Make New Friends & Keep the Old...One is Silver, the Other Will Buy You a Drink When You're Stuck in Akron

Yeah, so it's been awhile...ok, 8, 9 months since I blogged. Get over it. I'm back with a vengeance and determined to talk at you at least 3x a week, as part of my New Discipline. Goes along with my New Diet & Exercise Plan. Hey, wanna buy some real estate? Sorry, I digress.

Spent the weekend in Akron Ohio. Very nice people there, let me say that straight out. Kudos to them for trying to start a Reading Festival, very ambitious, you are to be congratulated. And I am fully cognizant that the Rust Belt is still very rusty, hard times and all that. I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault, I don't own Goodrich.

But let's just say there were some technical difficulties with the Festival. There always are, I can deal with that. But flies swarming the breakfast bar at the hotel are never a good thing, even when one's room is paid for, thank you, Akron. Next time, skip the shuttle service (it was a lovely 3-block walk) and spend more on the hotel. One that can pass the health inspection, perhaps?

And here's a note to the Festival Organizer: if you schedule an Author (that would be moi) to speak, you probably should ask the caterers not to roll their very large carts down the side of the room during the Author's remarks...thanks to the ladies who tried to listen to my speech, we enjoyed a great laugh after the third cart swept by and our eardrums burst, plus our sign-language interpreter ROCKED, which was a good thing, because by then we were all deaf.

The only good thing I can say about my trip to Akron, aside from the fact that I had the foresight to bring along some Kit Kat bars, is that I hung out with 2 amazing, iconic women: syndicated columnist Kris Radish, and actress-par-excellence, Marcia Wallace. Let me be specific: we didn't just hang, we clung to each other, the sole bastions of sanity and reason amidst an Event Gone Sour. If I hadn't met these ladies, I would have kicked some serious ass and taken names, but as a result, enjoyed a very pleasant dinner (thanks, Bricco's!), lots of laughter, and resonated with the new bonds of friends who already seem like childhood pals.

Kris & Marcia were my lifeboat in a sea full of sharks and men who name-dropped and strutted their meager publishing successes around like Mick Jagger in a henhouse.

Kris & Marcia are the real deal; thanks for spending time with me, sharing laughs and stories, and remember, we'll always have Akron. NOT, you will recall, ever again in this lifetime!