You're Done Working. No, Seriously. Shut it Down.

I currently have a love-hate relationship with Thursdays. The chiropractor where I work is closed on Thursday, so it's my day "off." Which means most weeks—like today—I sleep in, come downstairs about 8:00 still in my jammies because I've already wasted an hour and a half, and sit at my desk working until my eyes are so strained I can't see the words on the monitor. That's when I take a lunch break, kind of panicking because it's already 1:00 and I'm only halfway through my to-do list. Yesterday's to-do list. After lunch, I work until the kids come home, do laundry and dishes while they ignore my presence, then go back to work until I'm forced to stop.

Tonight it was Maya doing the forcing. So I left 8 things undone (luckily, they weren't "important" things) and shooed her away long enough to write this post. Now, since my husband is watching the Cleveland Browns play some form of professional football (probably the bad form), I'm going upstairs to watch Tuesday's episode of Covert Affairs. It looks Auggie-centric. *sigh* Love Auggie.

Come on, Maya. My lap is all yours.

It May Actually NOT Be a Train!

Yes, I'm seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Though I might have put my editor into a coma. That would be a bad thing.

I actually got to watch some TV last night. OMG! BOBBY! I was in so much shock I couldn't have an emotional reaction to it. The one thing they could never, ever do, and it looked like they did it. Much like at the end of season 2, however, we knew there was one more episode before hiatus (well, those of us who watch Nikita knew that), so I held my breath until the preview for the next ep. As soon as Dean said he was breathing, I could, too. They just CAN'T kill Bobby! Again, I mean. For real.

This weekend will be for catchup. Leaf raking, gutter cleaning, the 44 e-mails I've put off while I focused like a laser. Shopping, which might be a little fun rather than tedious and frustrating. We'll see. School play tonight. Number One wasn't involved this year, but one of her best friends was, so we'll go to see her.

Today I'm also blogging at Fresh Fiction about pets. My mother-in-law had a funny story so I stole it. I also shared some pictures of our cats. Come tell me your pet stories, and enter to win an e-copy of Under the Moon. That second link is directly to the contest page, so you can go directly there if you don't have a comment for the blog page.

Tomorrow I'm interviewed at Flutey Words. Aubrie asks some really great questions!

Okay, that's all for now. I'm off to find a pair of jeans without holes. Wish me luck!

Yesterday's Near-Death Experiences

Today I am nowhere but here. Tomorrow I will be at The Qwillery, so come join us! I'm giving away a gift certificate to the online bookstore of your choice.

So yesterday morning, I arrived at work and hit the bottom step to the employee entrance. In a split second, that foot shot sideways, and I came down on my shin (dented, bruised) and knee (scraped, bruised, still achy). The knee slam aggravated my right hip, too.

On the way home last night, I'm driving along, slowing as I near a busy intersection. Now, I'm on a major road that has no stop signs or stop lights for at least 5 miles. There were cars ahead of me and behind me, and stopped on either side, exiting side roads. I locked on the guy on my right for some reason, maybe his car was inching out. He was watching to his right. You know how you just KNOW something is going to happen, even if you don't think it in so many words?

Yeah, he pulled out, still not looking in my direction, making a left turn across my lane. I did the slam-and-swerve, as his rear fender filled my vision. I had two seconds of resignation, sure I was going to spin him around, but I swear I missed his bumper by just a couple of inches. I thought he bumped me on the way by because my car lurched, but it was either my car settling after the violent stop, or the car behind me bumped me. I actually have no idea if there was a car behind me, because I was too busy watching the jackass in my rearview mirror, continuing on down the road without even a flash of brakes.

Guess I jammed my right wrist and the seatbelt had fun with my left shoulder and neck. Those are better than they were last night, but still twingy. And I'm still pissed at the MFer who can't look both ways.

And THEN! This is the best one. I was sitting at the dining room table, using my laptop. Frisbee jumped up behind me, as she is wont to do, and stretched up to put her paws on my shoulders. Then she tried to sit back down, but her claws got caught in my sweater. I gagged and choked a "help!" until Number Two came out to unhook those claws I couldn't reach.

*glares at needy cat*

What? I wanted petting.

So far, today has been a much safer day.

What's your most memorable near-death experience?

Poor Kitty

I wonder how long cats' memories are.

BG, our youngest, most curious, most social cat just stood outside my office door and gave an inquiring cry. She's been wandering around kind of aimlessly, and I know why—the kids aren't here.

All summer, she's been going back and forth between their rooms, hanging out on their dressers and stools and beds. We've had a lot less Camp Nana this year, and she's always out of sorts when they're gone. She kept crying at us last night, too, like asking "Where the he** is Number Two? It's bedtime!"

We're a week away from the start of school, and we've had BG for three years now, so I know she'll adapt to the schedule. But always before, I've been home most of the day. If she wanted company, she'd come to my office. Now ALL of us will be gone.

Whatever will she do?

Hilarity Ensued

Number One goes into the living room.

#1: "Ohhhhhh, Frisbee, did you have to barf?" *grabs one pick-a-size paper towel*

Me: "Is it like a big hairball, or just a little barf?"

#1: "Just a little barf." *gets halfway into living room, stops short* "OH MY GOD SHE'S EATING IT."

#1 and #2: *groans*

#1 to #2: "You're helping me." *reaches for more paper towels*

#2 to me: "Well? Do I have to?"

Me: "Yes. There are gloves."

#2 to #1: "Give me 4."

Me: "No, you only need two."

#1: "Is she still eating it?"

Me: "Yep. She's moved on to the big pile now."

#1 and #2: *groans*

Me: "Well, wait until she's done, you'll have less to clean up."

#1 and #2: *groans*

#2: "I'm so glad I'm not hungry."

#1: "I feel sick."

Circle of Bunnitude

Number One and her father—and, to a lesser extent, Number Two—are obsessed with "boonies." That's bunnies with an oon sound instead of an un sound. They search for them every time we pull onto our street, and squeal when one is spotted in our yard.

Several weeks ago, we saw a boonie preparing a nest smack in the middle of the back yard.



She packed dry grass and fur into it and went to the other side of the yard. A few days later, the grass and fur had been scattered. We haven't seen much activity since, but in the interest of being on the safe side, they created the Circle of Bunnitude (pronounced "Boon-i-tood").



That was taken a couple of weeks ago. The grass is taller now. Around that time, the neighbor's old dog came exploring and I caught her nosing in the nest. I think her owner got her before she really did more than nose, and we haven't seen any signs of trauma. Nor have we seen baby boonies. Though we didn't know we had them before, not until Dolly started playing with one.

A younger-looking but full-grown boonie was hopping the perimeter of the Circle of Bunnitude last night, but I have no idea how long it takes boonies to grow to full size (probably longer than it's been) and the neighborhood is rife with them, so it could have been any boonie.

So now we have to decide: let the Circle of Bunnitude get out of control, or risk running over something with the lawn mower? Number One usually does the mowing nowadays, and last year she almost ran over a nest in a different part of the yard, so I know what her vote is going to be.

I guess I should invest in a machete.

Boiler Room Treasures

J and the kids have been slowly cleaning out our monster dump of a boiler room. Today they found two treasures.

The first is a book Number One wrote in first grade. I don't have a scanner, so instead of taking pictures of every page and really slowing down your browser, I'll just post the text. Commentary is in italics.

Chapter One: My Mommy
My mommy is a great great writer. She's the best writer I ever knew.

Yeah, cuz she knew a lot of them when she was six.

Chapter Two: My Daddy
He plays Chase the Monkey. Daddy is the lion and we are the monkeys and the lion chases the monkeys.

Daddy is obviously the fun parent.

Chapter Three: My Little Sister
My little sister named [Number Two] is very, very, very funny. "One movie that both of you like," said Mommy. "Okay, but we watch my movie first?" asked [Number Two]. "No, we're only going to get one movie," said Mommy. "Okay, but we watch my movie first?" asked [Number Two]. "Yes," said mommy.

Number Two would have been 20 months old at the time. She's much smarter now.

Chapter Four: My Grandma Tee
Grandma Tee is a very, very, very, very, very, very good sewer. She sewed our dresses for Uncle Andy's wedding.

Chapter Five: My Uncle Andy
My Uncle Andy just got married to a girl named Nikki.

Chapter Six: My Aunt Nikki
She is very beautiful. She has dark brown hair.

Chapter Seven: My Grandpa Chip
When we went to the tower that we can see all of Dallas, Grandpa Chip spit on my glasses and I spit on his glasses and we wiped our glasses off. He also is a good kicker.

Yes, ew, and yes, this is totally my dad. I have no idea what he was kicking that so impressed Number One.

Chapter Eight: My Grandma Patt
Grandpa Chip and here were fighting to kiss me once, so I crawled away without giving them a kiss.

Typos are exactly what was in the book, which was typed by her teacher. Number One think they were typed exactly as she wrote them, but despite our general satisfaction with this school district, I have never been impressed with their typing ability. I'm sorry, teachers should NOT be fluent in Typotic.

Chapter Nine: Miy Aunt Cindy
She babysits sometimes

Poor Aunt Cindy, that's all she got. Since there's no period, I have a feeling the typer got interrupted and missed some stuff. Though Number One did draw a picture on the page afterward and didn't add any more text.

Chapter Ten: My Uncle Kenny
He's just like my daddy. He tickles me a lot just like daddy.

Chapter Eleven: My Uncle Bob
Uncle Bob spoils us rotten. He took us to the pool once. That's spoiling us rotten. He and us were fighting and he threw me and Alex up in the air and we landed in the water.

Good thing my kids don't get to spend a lot of time with Uncle Bob, what with that spoiling rotten thing!

Author Page
Hi my name
[Number One] and I'm
six years old.
I have a lit-
tle sister nam-
ed [Number Two] an-
d she's two ye-
ars old.

This page was hand-written, and I thought the hyphenation quite creative.

They also found a box full of old racetrack. Number Two and J spent, like, an hour setting up an elaborate track, and then it wouldn't work. I cleaned the contacts on the cars and the track itself, but it wasn't working, so they took it all apart and did a simple oval. Once that worked okay, they added some switches and a loop. They weren't the only ones who had fun:




The two kitties who are allowed downstairs were alternately attracted, confounded, scared, and then excited by the little zippy things flying around. Fun was had by all.

Until they got bored.

Diet Effectiveness Backfires

So, my cat is fat. Or at least, she was. Maya, our oldest cat, was rescued from the pound only a few months after she'd given birth. The vet said she hadn't regained her girlish figure. It soon became apparent that she wasn't going to. Her belly was too pouchy. Ready to be filled, apparently, because over the next few years, she grew.

We gave her only a quarter cup of indoor formula cat food twice a day. That's, like, a quarter of what the bag said to feed an adult cat of her size. But she always went after the dog food, and even though we'd put it up when the dog didn't eat it, it wasn't possible to keep her away from it completely.

We never thought she was getting enough of the dog food to gain so much weight, nor did she ever get people food, but she still turned into Puddle Cat (she's on the left):


A while ago, because all three cats were getting into the dog food more and more, we cut back on that quarter cup of dry, indoor-formula cat food. Maya was only getting an eighth of a cup because she'd gotten so big. I noticed that it was working. She didn't puddle so much. Then Dolly died, and there was no more dog food for her to get into. And WHOA.

She weighs less than BG, aka Tiny Cat (the cat on the right in the above shot)!

Wii Fit has a Pet Stats feature so you can weight your pets, and that's how we know. Maya is still pouchy, but she's squeezable enough to get through the bars of the gate we have at the top of the basement stairs:


That's about 2.5 inches between bars. !!!

So that's the backfiring part. We don't mind Maya getting downstairs, but I'm afraid she's going to hurt herself. Every day, I hear her either coming up or going down, squeezing herself through those bars.

The gate is up to keep Frisbee from going down. She's a big cat, weighs more than the others because she's longer and a heavier breed (and got into the dog food, too), and hates to jump down from any height greater than about three inches, so the gate works. But I think we're going to have to take it down, and take a chance that she forgot how much she likes to pee on the rug downstairs, just to keep Maya from dislocating a hip or causing internal bleeding.

OR, we could just let her get fat again.

Nah.

So here are my kitties now:


Maya, No Longer Fat Cat


BG, Apparently Densely Packed


Frisbee, Always and Forever Demon Kitty

Watch Kitty

I’m sitting in the dining room, working.  It’s evening, so of course there’s a lot of traffic on the street, people getting home from work, going out to dinner, etc.  Frisbee is our watch cat. She doesn’t cry for every car that goes down the street, but she does alert us when the neighbors are home, and we can tell a difference when she cries because one of us is home.

A few minutes ago, she was cryyyying and cryyyying and cryyyyyying, and even though she just (finally!) had her nails trimmed, I wondered if she’d gotten herself stuck in the screen again.  Nope.  Our neighbor was stopped right in front of our house, waiting for her husband to pull out of their driveway, and Frisbee didn’t seem too happy about the limbo—car running, person inside, no sign of them coming up to the house.

*break for chauffeur duties*

This has been a pretty quiet winter for me.  We used to have two dance classes a week, plus indoor soccer or winter training.  Number Two usually had an after school club once a week.  But they both quit dance when it interfered with soccer, and this winter Number One’s team’s age group got canceled last minute, and Number Two needed to rest her Osgood-Schlatter.

But it’s about to gear up again. Number One is on paint crew for the high school musical.  They lost more than a week due to snow and the make-up day, so they’re probably going to be stretching out their sessions. Soccer open gym starts next week, and it’s at a different school. So she’ll get home at 3:21 and need to be at open gym at 3:30, until 5:30, then go straight to paint crew, which starts at 5:30 and usually goes until well after 8. Homework and dinner will be after that. She usually goes to bed at 9ish!

Also, Number Two’s after school clubs will be coming back. It remains to be seen if she’ll do one, but if she does, it will mean picking her up in the afternoon, probably around the same time her sister will need to go to open gym.  I may just force Number One to walk between schools. They’re not far, and it certainly won’t kill her. :)

Oh, before I forget AGAIN, SciFi Chick/s is doing the Supernatural March Madness again.  I think this is the  third year, and she’s running preliminaries right now.  It’s always so hard to pick favorites!  Go check it out.

I’m a Slacker

I was just catching up on blog reading, and now I feel like a slacker. I have a friend who has twice as many kids as me, her day job takes her outside the house, she has fifty family and school and extracurricular obligations a week, and she STILL manages to blog every day.

Obviously, I’m not that dedicated.

She also writes funny and fun posts, while I write about paper towels.  It’s a wonder anyone ever reads this thing at all.

*crickets*

My dog is mostly better now, I don’t remember if I’ve said that here.  Her head tilt is almost gone, and she can walk and eat and everything is fine.  Except for the residual effects that have nothing to do with the vestibular syndrome itself.

First, there’s the eating thing.  She doesn’t want dog food anymore.  We hand fed her real meat at the worst of the condition, and she’s gradually gotten back to eating dog food, but she clearly prefers not to eat it.  She’ll snarf around the kitchen looking for crumbs and she’ll eat the cat food, so I’ll put her dish back down, and she’ll turn away.  Too bad.  She can starve.  (Not really—we actually have plenty of crumbs on the floor.)

The other thing is that she can’t walk on non-carpeted floors anymore.  She avoids them, and when she can’t, she dashes across them.  Now, even when she was healthy, she wasn’t the most graceful dog.  You could call her, in fact, one of the least graceful.  So when she dashes down the hall or across the kitchen, she inevitably slips, her feet splay out, she crashes into the wall, and down she goes.

I haven’t been able to take her for grooming because of her balance issues, so I bought nail clippers.  Oh, yeah, you can see where this is going, can’t you?  I bought nail clippers with the plan to clip her nails, thinking if they weren’t so long, maybe she wouldn’t skid so much.  They didn’t have a styptic pencil, though.  So I just decided to be really, really careful.  And I was.  Despite her wiggliness, I was really careful, and didn’t cut down very far at all.  Of course, on the eleventh nail, the blood vessel must have come all the way down to the point, because…yeah, she bled.  All over the carpet, the tile…me.  I sat holding her down as she was desperate to get up and run from me (no pain, she just didn’t like me holding her foot!), trying to get it to stop.  I thought it had, but it hadn’t.  Then I used flour, and that worked.  Phew.  Kept a newspaper bag over her foot for an hour, though, just in case.

Guess who’s never using clippers again?

Random Stuff

Carina Press has made its first acquisitions! Congratulations to Shannon Stacey and Charlene Teglia! I'm especially excited about more Stacey books that aren't historicals. :)

Aside: When Carina announced itself, an author made mention of them and said they were going to publish erotica. When I commented that they say they're acquiring all kinds of books, she said she thought that was obfuscation. So I'm pretty smug that at least one of the launch titles isn't erotic. :) (Correct me if I'm wrong, Shannon! You didn't call it that, anyway.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm so despondent that we have soooo many more weeks without Supernatural. I'm clinging hard to shows that are still on—Bones and Fringe tonight, and I think How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory are still new next week. But Glee is done (what an awesome show last night—Matthew Morrison is just incredible) until friggin' APRIL, and FlashForward and V until March...I just don't get the way the networks are handling television nowadays.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not done with Full Fusion, the YA book I started for NaNo, but it's flowing very nicely, I know where I'm going with it, and I should finish it next week, as long as I don't let it get buried under the other obligations of December.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nowadays, we have to take pleasure in small things. Our littlest cat, called BG most of the time because her official name is Baby Girl but Bad Girl suits her better, has a problem with cystitis. She's been on Cosequin for a while, but got inflamed again a few weeks ago, bad enough to bleed and be in the litter box every two minutes. I started mixing the meds with wet food as well as her dry food, and that worked for a little while—she was ingesting more of it—but it didn't last.

So I made some drastic changes, things I really should have done before, but for some reason it didn't occur to me to, and the doctor didn't mention them. I've tried using urinary health treats, but she didn't like them, and originally, I was more concerned with keeping the cats' weight down.

Well, that's not working, so I switched their dry food to a urinary health formula. I spotted "special diet" canned food for urinary health and am using that. I bought (on the advice of my friend Kim, animalloverextraordinaire) a pet fountain. She doesn't drink out of it. She still goes for the dog dish, but since the dog doesn't want to walk on the tile (still has a head tilt and falls all over the place when walking on anything but carpet) and the fountain is within reach of the carpet so she drinks out of the fountain...I'll get rid of the dog dish.

But the biggest change was the cat litter. I used to use Arm & Hammer fragrance-free, but they discontinued that, so I started using Tidy Cat Multi-Cat for Small Spaces. Frisbee has tolerance issues (as in, she won't tolerate something she doesn't like) so I've always been wary of changing cat litter. But I saw that Scoop Away now has a fragrance-free litter (or at least, my store is now carrying it) and I switched to that.

Not only is BG currently doing fine, urinarily, this Scoop Away is so much better than Tidy Cat! OMG, you guys! I can walk through my living room without having pieces of litter stuck to my socks! This stuff doesn't track! Or at least, not past the one-foot radius of the box, and even then, it's minimal. AND it actually does what it says it does, and the clumps stay together, which means I'll have to clean out the entire box less often, and I can't even explain how happy that makes me.

Okay, yes, my pathetic life is full of paper towel rants and cat litter raves. But like I said, it's the little things!

In Balance

Every individual has a driving force, a philosophy of life, a guide that shapes everything they do. Mine can be summed up in one word: balance.

I'm always striving to balance work and family and pleasure, nutritious food and yummy junk, things I want and things I need, exercise and activities, the checkbook, my friendships...everything! It stretches from big picture to day-to-day, and most of the time, I fail. I spend 17 hours a day on work and very little on family, or 17 hours on family and nothing on work. My ideal is to clean the house a bit each day, but I always end up doing it all at once, which means it's never done properly or fully.

Anyway. Today, I'm really satisfied with my balance.

Last night our 14-year-old dog (for her size, that's 88 in people years) launched into a panic attack over we could not tell what. We were thinking stroke or something, with the way she couldn't stand or walk and her head kept rocking from side to side and her eyes were twitching and stuff. Or we thought respiratory distress, her panting was so harsh and heavy. We had the kids say goodbye to her, just in case, and took her to the doggy ER at 11:30.

Turns out she has a simple disorder, vestibular disorder, that hits old animals in spells. Essentially, she's on her own personal tilt-a-whirl. She adjusted to it so she stopped panicking eventually, and Benadryl keeps her calm and not vomiting six times in three hours anymore (motion sickness!). But she can't eat, because she can't aim her nose in the dish and when she does manage it, she lists to the left and falls over. She keeps knocking into furniture and banging her head into the wall and floor. It's horrible!

So this morning, I spent at the dining room table, staying near her because she can't handle the stairs down to my office. I got 2400 words done with her at my feet. Then I did the dishes, caught up on all the e-mails from the weekend, and did a few tasks awaiting my attention.

When Number Two came home we read together. I did the dishes again, and talked with her and her sister before they brought their laundry downstairs. That's about halfway done now. The three of us spent a couple of hours playing Wii. I contributed to parental stereotypes by sucking hard. (They wouldn't let me play the things I'm good at!)

Now I'm blogging here and at Gab Wagon. I have a bio to write for one client, another to type for another's website, and a few other blogs to read. I'll finish just about the time Number One and her father leave for the health club, so I'll hang with Number Two until she gets in the shower (and finish the laundry, I hope!). Then I can relax and watch How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle before I go to bed for a decent night's sleep.

All the bases covered! Gosh, it would be nice if every day was like this!

Stoopid Cats

I don't get it.

When there are two full, clean bowls of water on the floor, what possesses a cat to jump on a counter she's not supposed to be on and shove her head into a glass to try to access the quarter inch of water on the bottom?

And even when her head is obviously far too big, to keep shoving and pushing until the glass falls off the counter and shatters?

And most importantly, when this happens and she a) is terrified by the loud noise and commotion AND knows to run from me, and b) has lost her toy/beverage...

Why do it again?

Stoopid cats.

Quiet Perfection

In an effort not to repeat myself, I just looked back over my old birthday posts. 2007 describes my birthday in historical (mine) terms, and 2006 describes my crappiest birthday ever.

Shit. Hold on, I think the dog just barfed.

Phew. I got her outside. That would have rivaled 2006. Well, okay, not really, but having to clean up dog barf on your birthday is pretty crappy. And justifies the use of the word "shit," though I apologize because I try not to curse so publicly. Kids might be listening.

Anyway. I started this blog in July 2005 and apparently felt uncomfortably announcing my birthday that year, so I didn't post that day. I did find this post, though, which amused me because I've been having similar thoughts about the whole holiday thing. I guess I probably do every year. Just stop with the annoyance, people, will you? For sheesh.

Hm. OK Cupid just sent me birthday greetings. Even said happy 38th birthday. I don't know how they know that. I must have told them, but even so, Borders isn't so rude as to call out my age when they send me a 25% off coupon.

Anyway. Again. Today is very low-key. Even though I get to sleep in for the next 12 days (kids off school), J insisted I not get up this morning. It didn't amount to sleeping in, but it did mean no animal feeding or litter box cleaning, no breakfast making or dishwasher filling, no bus stop in 14-degree cold.

I spent a couple of hours reading with a warm, soft cat on my lap. Now I'm doing this, and I think I'm going to go to the post office and pick up Neato Burrito for lunch. Dinner is, I think, at Red Lobster, though I tried to decline. And I suspect I have a dark peppermint ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery in the freezer.

No presents from J and the Numbers this year, but you know what? That's beyond okay, because remember what my present is? SALUTE TO SUPERNATURAL in March!!!!!

I did get some gift cards from my dad and brother, some already spent for real, some spent in my head. I might watch some TV (I have last night's Prison Break recorded, but I think that's about it) and do some more reading.

Might write, too. I had a new idea this morning, had some scenes writing themselves in my head, and then my brain was trying to turn them into a book while I was in the shower, which always sucks because there's no way to get the ideas down, but it's inevitably where they pop up. I won't work on that new idea, of course, I have way too much pending before I can get to a new book. But thinking about this new idea had me thinking about my already-done books, and how much I love them, despite the work they need before they can sell, and how my purpose in writing the paranormals/urban fantasies I write is to ground the stories so fully in the real world that the reader has very little need to suspend disbelief, and feels like they could really go outside and bump into my characters at the supermarket. You know, between crises. :) And how can anyone not think that was really cool?

So I'm obviously feeling pretty optimistic and yeah, that's a good way to feel on your birthday.

I probably won't post again until later in the week, so Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah (why does every spell check give me a different spelling for that word?) to everyone!

How Can I Come Up With a Title When I Don't Have a Topic?

My cats have lost their water privileges.

Recently, I've been finding one of the two cat water dishes tipped over or splashed, or even just the mat under them wet. I took that dish away, assuming it was too tippable—it was just a "disposable" storage container—but it didn't solve the problem. I caught Maya—the good cat!—deliberately tipping over the other, more stable, meant-to-be-a-pet-dish dish. I'd just filled it, and the water cascaded across the freshly washed kitchen floor. So now they have no dishes. They mostly drink out of the dog's water dish, anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~
Why do kids always say, "Mom, I need a note" five minutes before it's time to go to the bus stop?

~~~~~~~~~~
I miss Doyle.

I'm watching Angel season 1, and Doyle was my favorite character. The way he died was great, well done, but the fact that he died has brought the show down in my estimation. And it was only the ninth episode! I didn't believe it until Wesley actually replaced him in the opening credits.

I looked up the actor, because to leave a show that early, I figured he had to have gotten something else, like a bigger role on a new show. But not only did he not get a new show, not only did he hardly ever do anything again...he died of a drug overdose three years later! It's tragic. My husband suggested that might be the reason he was canned, the drugs, but if it was, it didn't show in his performance. He was sweet and brave and weasly and Wesley has his points, but he just doesn't measure up.

~~~~~~~~~~
I felt borderline hypocritical yesterday, but then I realized I wasn't at all hypocritical, I was exactly what I'd always said I would be.

Number One has gorgeous hair. It's so thick, we can't find ponytail bands that will hold it properly. When she's on the soccer field, it looks like a horse's tail. And she's 13, so it's lush and healthy as well as long and thick.

Well, it was long. Almost small-of-her-back long. And it was due for a trim, but she wanted it shorter, like shoulder length. I lamented, but said it was okay. I mean, it's her hair.

A few years ago, my mother-in-law was telling me about a friend's grandchild who'd gotten a spiky mohawk and colored it some putrid color. I said "so what?" She didn't debate the topic, but the look on her face said I was nuts. I've always felt that hair is not worth fighting over; there are more important things to put your foot down on (facial jewelry is one of the minor ones—overnights with a boyfriend would be a major one).

Anyway, the hairdresser of course tried to talk her out of it, but Number One kept saying, "It's just hair" and "It's not like it won't grow back." So then Lisa, the hairdresser, was measuring how much she wanted off, and said if she went about an inch higher, she could donate it to Locks of Love, something she'd done once before, and she immediately agreed. We feel good about that—her ponytail was about the size of two normal ones, and it takes 15 to make a wig for a kid with alopecia. And when someone donates, Lisa doesn't charge for the haircut. So I wasn't going to argue.

But when she cut off that tail...oy. Some of the shorter hairs were at the nape of her neck. So instead of being just above her shoulders, it's just below her chin in front and barely at her neck in the back.

It's a lovely cut, with ragged ends and a great curve that looks adorable on Number One, and she's delighted with it. But I cringed a lot, and made noises in the back of my throat, and kept asking if she was okay with it--like it could be put back or something. That's when I felt hypocritical. But then I realized, I always said my kids could make their own decisions about their hair. But I never said I wouldn't be vocal about my own thoughts on the matter.

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I don't know why I keep reading Supernatural: Rising Son. Okay, I do know. I keep reading because I got the comic book store to put every issue in my husband's box, and once it's there, I can't make myself give it back, and I don't think to cancel it. But every issue, I hate it more and more.

BIG HONKIN' SPOILER ALERT

Okay, I can buy the storyline as an alternate "what if" scenario, but not something that really happened in the canon of the show. I mean, they made Sam a killer. He's old enough in the comic to REMEMBER that in the present. To remember that people were after him, and that he could do things. His visions wouldn't have been so out of the blue.

Worse, they made John a murderer. Not someone who hunts supernatural evil, but someone who pre-emptively kills men in horrific ways, and I just don't buy that of John. Sure, he was a terrible dad, but that's because he left his kids alone all the time and was obsessed with finding Yellow Eyes and raised the boys to have all kinds of issues. The John in the comics who's killing all these guys is not the John who would be in so much pain when Meg kills his friends. Murder deadens you, hardens you, makes you less able to connect to other people, and in the comics, this is happening way before he had "falling out"s with all his friends.

Plus, Dean killed a man, a regular person, and whenever that happened in the earlier days of the show, it was a Big Deal. If he'd first done it at age 10, he'd be a totally different kind of person in the present.

The thing I do kind of like—well, I guess I'm conflicted about—is that Lilith has been introduced as someone who wanted Sam way back when he was a kid. I don't like the details of it, what she's trying to do, and a lot of the worldbuilding in the comics doesn't jibe with the worldbuilding of the show. I mean, sure, if Kripke had the budget, he'd totally have a demon build a monster out of shattered train parts and have it go after the Winchesters. You can do more in comics. But the creation of a semi-sentient hunk of autonomous, killing metal? Doesn't belong.

Anyone else bothering to read them? Liking them, or not?

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So we got a phone call last night. I didn't answer, and I was asleep when J came to bed, so he didn't tell me about it, and we don't really cross paths in the morning until he's in the car. I found out from one of the moms at the bus stop that the call was an Instant Alert from the school superintendent, telling us to check the website and our e-mails. Apparently, there's a guy in a white van with brown curly hair and a tattoo trying to pick up kids. He tried at the high school and at one of the elementary schools. Not the one my kids go to, but one friends of mine have kids attending, and those schools are only two miles from my kids' and less than five from my house. Easily expandable territory.

This is where the balance of parenting gets so hard. I walk Number Two to the bus stop, but not Number One, and they both walk the half a block home on their own, with the other kids from the bus. That's the only place they'd really be vulnerable, and now I feel I have to meet them every day, or at the very least go outside to watch them get off the bus. I don't want to let Number Two practice soccer in the front yard, or walk up to her friend's house. Yet I don't want to make her a prisoner or be overprotective, either.

We were talking about this the other day, a group of us, about how when we were kids, we left the house in the morning and roamed the neighborhood all day. Parents didn't know where we were. At my cousins' house, we were often deep in the woods (probably not as deep as it seemed, but out of calling range) or way up the street and around the corner. We came in when the streetlights went on. No way can any of us let our kids do that now. There are more cars on the street, driving faster, and the risk of abduction just seems too damned high.

I bet it's not. I bet that proportionately, the risk is the same as when we were kids. What's changed is the information society. When a child in Florida gets abducted in a car wash parking lot, we hear about it almost instantly in Pennsylvania or California. With video. So 20, 30 years ago, if we didn't know someone it had happened to, it wouldn't affect our behavior. If we did have a personal connection, if we knew someone who'd been taken, it would scare us into taking precautions. Now, though, we know everyone. Everyone could be us. And we live our lives accordingly.

And we try to find a balance between giving our kids some independence and protecting them from the horrors out there, knowing that we don't really have that much control.

Random Friday

I can't believe I've had nothing to post all week.

Which is more boring? Nothing new for five days, or a post like this one? (Feel free to comment anonymously *g*)

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I recently did some research on dryers. A Consumer Reports article about efficient clothes drying mentioned that clothes should not be completely dry when removed, and should be removed promptly. Most care tags on the clothing itself also says remove promptly.

Why? It just gets stuffed into the laundry basket for a couple of days.

(I also don't like the idea of parts of the clothing being damp. I have mildew paranoia.)

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Titan magazines has problems. A few years ago, I subscribed to the LOST official magazine. They had my money for, like, three months, and I didn't get the first issue. When I called, they said my subscription would start with the second issue. Annoyed, I canceled immediately.

So now they have a magazine for Supernatural. A friend got me a subscription, weeks and weeks before the first issue was released. But I didn't get it, and neither did she. She finally called, and they said the same thing. Second issue for me, third for her--they had no more first issues available. I ended up buying us both the first issue at the bookstore. They had a ton of copies.

I don't get why Titan is more concerned with their distributors than their subscribers. It's not a cheap subscription ($32.95 for six issues, which is $1.50 less per issue than the cover price of $6.99). And we're guaranteed buyers. Plus, if you make us happy, maybe we'll buy copies of other show-related magazines.

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Anyway, I got issue one earlier this week, and issue two today. It's pretty good. Lots of interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff. I don't know what the strike and halt to the show's production will do to the magazine. Hopefully it won't last much longer.

Two tidbits of info:

1. Eric Kripke would ideally like to end the show after five seasons.

2. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is (was?) shooting The Watchmen right next door to SPN.

And BTW, if you don't know yet, Supernatural returns to TV on January 31 and has four episodes to air before it gets removed from The CW's schedule as of February 28.

Yes, let's all sob in sorrow and also be delighted that we get more new shows than most anything else that started in the fall.

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The Patriots play tomorrow night! Can't wait for Number Two to watch her first playoff game! I swear, she's a bigger football fan than her father and I put together. She's recording Super Bowl X (we're about to have XLII--that's 42). We had this exchange the other night:

Me: Whatcha doin', hon?

Her: Watching the Baltimore Ravens losing season. I want to see why they fired the coach, Brian Billick.

Me: You know, they wanted to interview Josh McDaniels for that job.

Her: The Patriots' offensive coordinator?

You don't need to know football, I don't think, to get the significance of that conversation. How many 8-year-olds know the names of assistant coaches? And 8-year-old girls, at that?

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Looking for an exciting, adventurous sci-fi romance? Check out the latest Hunters for Hire book from Cerridwen Press: Danger on Xy-One by Vicky Burkholder.

I've read this book, and it combines heart-pounding adventure with unique secondary characters and the kind of romance that develops naturally, without contrived conflicts and irrelevant obstacles. The worldbuilding is especially solid, without being dry and dull, as can often happen in SF. Give it a read!

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We got a new kitten yesterday. Her name is Baby Girl, and Number Two won't let us change it. I can't fight her--it's her cat. She won't let me call her BG, either. But I can't call her Baby Girl! It's so silly!

She has adjusted very well, though we're mostly keeping her in Number Two's room, since she was spayed on Wednesday and needs to be kept quiet. Also, because Frisbee is furious. You haven't heard such growling since the original Exorcist. She's furious with all of us and feeling very neglected. Poor demon cat.

Maya, aka Box Cat, and BG are getting along fine. Dolly, aka Dumb Dog, hasn't noticed her existence.

Yep, that's my friendly household!

Pets, Plans, and Travel

These are the last topics that have only one post labeled such, so I'm finishing my boost in one fell swoop.

J told me the other night that Number Two wants a kitten for Christmas. We have two cats and a dog. The dog has stained every carpet with florescent yellow bile vomit. The cats have shredded all our wood furniture. Our vet bill, while certainly lower than other people's is daunting.

Then there's the litter box.

We only have one, because when we had two they both just used one, anyway. And since the cats are banned from going downstairs, there's very limited space in which to place a second box. I'm the one who cleans it all the time. Do I really want to have to do it MORE often?

Plus, kittens are a lot more work. They chew things, they climb things, they get lonely and cry all day/night.

But Number Two really wants one. She insisted she'll take care of it (she already shoulders a lot of the feeding duties anyway). But Daddy got her afraid of me. She said she won't put it on her Christmas list, but could Daddy please let Santa know for her? The heart weeps.

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I have no plans for December. Well, not true. I have some plans. I want to write a short story so I get to 300,000 words. I want to start editing Behind the Scenes to eliminate the loss of tension at certain points. And I have some critiquing to do (should be doing right now, as a matter of fact!). And, of course, I have vague holiday preparation plans. I need to do Christmas cards, and make a gift list, and go shopping, and figure out what we're doing when. And we need to get a tree and put up the lights. And we have kids' events--dance recital for Number Two, orchestra and chorus concert for Number One.

But other than that, I have no plans.

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I didn't travel that much this year. I did the May retreat with my chapter, CPRW, and in August I went to Myrtle Beach for our family vacation. I think that's it.

Next year will be another story. I have plans to go to the NEC conference in April, the CPRW retreat in May, National in July (a serious reach, but I'm not giving up hope), Cape Cod for our summer vacation, and a tour of Ohio so I can speak at the Maumee Valley chapter and visit family in Akron, Toledo, and Delaware (no, not the state, the city near Columbus).

That's a LOT of traveling. Good thing we have a hybrid!

Random Thoughts

Trish Milburn, my guest blogger from October 19th, has advanced to the second round of the American Title contest! Yay, Trish! Voting for that round begins November 12. I'll try to post a reminder for anyone who is interested. Check out her blog tomorrow for some super-exciting news, too.

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My cats don't like each other. Well, they don't hate each other, either. Frisbee always licks Maya, usually right before they chase each other and fight. And we even saw Maya licking Frisbee once. But they never occupy the same recreational spaces. If we're on the bed watching TV, and Frisbee is with us and Maya jumps up, Frisbee jumps down. If Frisbee is in my window, Maya will wait until she's gone, then take her place. They won't sit look out the front door at the same time. In fact, the only time they're close and not fighting (or preparing to fight) is when we're feeding them.

So imagine my shock when I went to bed Monday night and found this:



They were there again last night! And I didn't have the heart to send them out. I contorted myself around them until Jim came to bed.

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I'm a mess.

I hate age-related generalization as much as I hate gender-related generalization. Forgetting stuff is more because of an overload of things to remember (or a lack of use of the brain) than age by itself. I've met 80-year-olds in better shape than I am. But it is really hard to dispute that recovery is slower the older I get, and wear and tear is taking its toll.

This week I've had:

Stapler Palm (from stapling 50 or so booklets for Number Two's reading program)

Folding Thumb (from folding those booklets before stapling)

Bowling Arm (and back and ribs)

Walking Legs (tight muscles from walking twice as long as I usually do)

Walking Foot (pain in the ball of my left foot from 4+ miles of asphalt)

Anger Fist (from slamming the side of my my fist--repeatedly--against the bedroom door after walking into it in the dark when it is never ever closed at that time of day)

But by far the stupidest was Pavilion Head. It was accompanied by a nice case of sideways whiplash and a bruised butt cheek from the card case in my back pocket. I'd been inline skating with Number Two, who was impressed with my skill. I told her I'd been skating for 30 years, and experience counts, even though I don't do it that much anymore. She wanted to see how fast I could go. I showed her.

Now, inline skates are nearly impossible for me to stop with. So I ran, deliberately, into the wall around the ladies room. No problem. Except the wall didn't meet the ground. So, yeah, my skates kept going, and there was nothing to grab. I didn't go down that hard, but did hit at an angle, which meant my head bounced off the side of the building.

Yes, I am stupid and prone to such when challenged.

What's that? Where was my helmet. Oh, um...in the trunk of the car. Number Two was all geared up with pads, but her helmet was soaking wet. I couldn't make her wear it. So I didn't wear mine. Which was fine, she never fell, and of course neither did I until...you know.

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I know most of my blog readers--the ones I know personally, anyway--are not that interested in football. But I can't help it, I have to talk about it.

The New England Patriots are 8-0, and have slaughtered all their competition so far, including the top-rated defense in the NFC, the Washington Redskins. Everyone thought Dallas would be tough...final score was 48-27. So then it was that Dallas was overrated, but Washington, well, we hadn't played anyone yet. They'd give us a run for our money. Yep. Final score, 52-7. Indianapolis, who is 7-0 and has beaten some teams who are arguably tougher than those New England has beaten, is our opponent on Sunday. It will be a great game, and is being hyped as such. (Two undefeated teams have not faced each other this late in the season since 1921.)

The problem is, everyone is turning on the Patriots. They're bullies. They have no class. They're evil to Indianapolis's goodness, mainly because they keep running up the score (I guess Indie doesn't do that, despite their 60-14 score differential the last two weeks).

I've found myself indignant about the whole thing, trying to argue why it's a good thing they don't take Tom Brady off the field earlier (he can't be expected to be in playoff form if he only plays half a game every week), that we go for it on 4th and 1 when we're up 38-0 (they could stop us and get the ball back and keep us from scoring again), that we don't take a knee (giving the ball to our fifth-string running back allows the other team to force a fumble and gives them a fighting chance--and it also gives that fifth-string running back some film for when a trade or free agency come into play).

The truth is...maybe it is wrong. Maybe we should rest Tom and let Matt Cassel play some football. Maybe we should sit down in the middle of the field in the third quarter and let the other team play without us (probably we'd still win). Maybe Bill (our coach) has an unreasonable chip on his shoulder and he's trying to punish everyone he thinks has some role in putting it there.

But I don't care. I want to watch my team play. I want to see the magic that is Tom Brady 83 yards to Randy Moss in double coverage. I especially want to see Wes Welker and his soccer-player body make sweet moves that cause defensive backs to fall over their own feet. I want Laurence Maroney--or, hey, Kyle Eckel--to run through a porous defensive line. I want Chris Hanson (punter) to stay on the sidelines. Give me record-setting touchdown numbers, gigantic offensive yardage, more points. And more. And more than that.

Because it's fun. And geez, isn't that what football's all about?

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I'm all set for NaNoWriMo! I finished redoing my website. I have my spreadsheets all set up to track my progress and chart my story info. I have little bits and pieces of the story and the world and the characters--mainly the latter two--jotted down and rubbing against each other in my head. So tomorrow I embark on a 30-day adventure.

NaNo's goal is 50,000 words. That's all I need to do to win. About 1668 per day. But last year I did just over 85,000 in 29 days, so I want to beat that. My last book was closer to 88,000, so I probably will. The word count, anyway. We'll see about the days.

What are some keys to success in NaNo?

Clearing your schedule is a big one. Which is why I signed up for four two-hour shifts at the kids' book fairs over the next two weeks. *sigh* I also have two proofreading/editing jobs coming soon. Jim will be home for six days over Thanksgiving, and we plan to redo the dining room. He wants a medieval castle, so I said we should use joint compound, carve the stones into it, paint it light gray, and then sponge dark gray over that. Yeah, that's a lot of work. there's only one real wall, though. The rest of the walls (one with a large bay window, the others just arches into other rooms) we can just paint.

Anyway. I shall have to go gangbusters on the days I am totally free to make up for the days I only get a couple of pages done. Last year I didn't miss a day. I have to do the same this year, and that means the Neo will get its first real strong workout.

I can't wait!

Oh, if you're also doing NaNo, let me know your user name so I can Buddy you. I'm Nuj. Good luck!