Characters that enhance Gladys Tripalong in Gladys Tripalong's Private Journal

Daniel Tripalong: Daniel is the sixteen-year-old only child of single mom Gladys. His occasional sarcasm can’t mask his devotion to her. Life is good in the Tripalong house.

Carol Smithers: Carol, a sophisticated corporate lawyer, is ten years older than Ev and two years older than Gladys. Carol is outwardly haughty and stern. However, with her guard down, you will glimpse her status as the family matriarch with the heart of a marshmallow.

Ev Tripalong: Ev, a popular and respected real estate agent, is the self-proclaimed mediator between the bossy Carol and the precocious Gladys. She expends a lot of energy mollifying Carol, the controller, and cautiously re-directing her madcap middle sister.

Joe Little: Joe met Gladys mid-way between her thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth year. His upbeat demeanor and tough-guy persona compliment her wacky personality and diminutive feminism. Forty-year-old Michael Landon look-a-like is divorced, and the father of a college age son A newcomer to Alberta, the brilliant detective has a reputation for solving difficult cases.  All you single ladies may as well cross Joe off your wish list; Gladys has centre stage.

This novella will be available through Amazon the first week of December

Bits and Bites of

 Gladys Tripalong’s Private Journal

Several martinis later, Carol helps herself to one of Ann’s éclairs. As she takes a big bite, gooey pink and green icing slides onto her hand. She grimaces, wipes crumbs from her mouth and green goop off her hand, and turns to her younger sister. “Ev, are you ready to share your final thoughts?”

 Ev gulps her tenth, or eleventh, or twelfth martini almost drops the glass as she passes it to Carol, using three tissues to blow her nose, wipes her eyes…smearing her mascara, and then settles on a stool that Carol positioned for her. In a boozy voice, she begins:

ODE TO GLADYS TRIPALONG

Not long ago, on a snowy night so cold
We sat in silence as we’d been so told

While a lovely ballerina in a tutu new
Waits in the wings for her entrance cue

Arms above her head in a perfect arch

She prepares to make her history mark

Her audience on the edge of their seat
She points her toes and gets set to leap

A pretty pirouette is almost engaged
As she tumbles from the very high stage

Horrified, we watch as she slips out of sight
Some say she instantly died of the fright

Sweet dreams dearest Gladys Tripalong
Finally you performed a spectacular swan song.

Someone giggles.