Category: Misc

Watch this space

Three out of the four of us have spring colds. Miss B is the lucky one, currently virus-free.

In other–and more exciting–new. The “Mom & Me” watches Kyra and I sent away for arrived. Although, honestly, I think she had more fun eating the Rice Krispies and contemplating the arrival of the “Mom & Me” watches. Of course, she would eat Rice Krispies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I let her (she asked for them tonight).

Now, these watches looked cool on the box, and according to the the marketing claim, our lives wouldn’t be complete without them:

  • Now… You and Mom can always be in sync!
  • Set of super hip, sporty watches – includes one adult size and one kid size
  • Choice of a fabulous Barbie style or totally cool Hot Wheels design
  • Made of thermoplastic rubber

Wow. I’m all over that thermoplastic rubber. Clearly we opted for the fabulous Barbie style. Although based on the actual product, I imagine there are only about three “Mom & Me” pairings out there who can wear their watches. Ours?

Much. Too. Large. But then Miss B and I have thin wrists. (No fun for doing pushups. I never could fatten them up–the wrists, not the pushups.) But considering that she’s sitting on my lap while I write this (thin wrists, but long arms), I guess we’re in sync.

I dream of Geek Girl’s Guide

So last night, I dreamed that The Geek Girl’s Guide to Cheerleading was out in the stores. The cover was blue. Will the cover really be blue? Time will tell.

Anyway, I was paging through a copy and discovered that some of the words in the story were not written by me and Darcy. Paragraphs and scenes slipped in at some point between the two of us turning the manuscript in and it being printed.

So, I was talking to Darcy (in that dream-like way, sometimes she was right next to me, sometimes on the phone, and sometimes we simply had that Borg connection) to see what she spotted that was different.

And that was about it. We weren’t really upset, more intrigued by these strange passages in our book.

Now, in the morning, all I can think is: Me? Anxious?

Not at all.

Much.

When planets talk

I think I’ve confessed my fifth-grade sense of humor when it comes to the planet Uranus. Or rather, the “old school” pronunciation of Uranus. It makes me laugh. It has always made me laugh. It always will make me laugh. I make no apologies.

So, imagine my excitement when I read this month’s horoscope* and found:

You have an excellent day coming up on May 12, when Jupiter and Uranus will be in gorgeous communication with one another.

 I have no idea what this means, but I like the sound of it. I’m marking May 12 on the calendar.

*Perfectly sensible writers read their horoscopes. This is because so much of publishing is out of their control. If you have to listen to someone, it might as well be Uranus.

Only a writer would think this

So yesterday, thanks to rain and traffic, I ran out of audio book during my commute. I was, tragically, reduced to listening to drive-time radio. You know something’s out of whack when you voluntarily channel surf to Radio Disney because, you know, they might be playing something better.

And is it possible for a station to play a block of Tom Petty songs and NOT include Free Fallin’?

I didn’t think so. That song always makes me think of the movie Jerry McGuire (“You had me at hello.”), which makes me think of Tom Cruise. Then I think of Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah’s couch like a maniac, like a crazy person, enthusiastically. 

But I digress. One station is sponsoring a “50K every workday” contest. So, did I hear this and think:

“Wow. 50,000 dollars. That’s a lot of money.”

No. I did not. Sad to say, the first thought that crossed my mind was:

“Wha–? They’re giving away 50,000 words?”

I’m not making this up. Besides, they could give away 50,000 words. After all, there are all those NaNoWriMo novels out there.

Lush (green, electronic) life

So, some people celebrate a sale with champagne and dinner out (well, we did go to Stinky Feet Burger King play place). We celebrate with small, electronic devices:

This is the Eee PC. Very small. Very light. And yes, I did ask for the “lush green” version. I was thinking maybe the blush pink, but Kyra is coveting that one (when she’s older, when she’s older, although she already knows the difference between a play PC and a real one).

I kept the Linux operation system on it. You can load XP. But. Meh. More trouble than it’s worth. The Eee PC comes with OpenOffice and that’s all I need for writing.

So far, the only drawback is the tiny keyboard. It’s even smaller than a Mobile Pro keyboard. And my biggest complaint about that is instead of right shift key, I kept hitting the up arrow key. But I’m training my fingers to use it. Of course, I have bony thin fingers, and that may make a difference.

Overall, it’s working very well. And if Stinky Feet Burger King play place had WiFi, I could log on there, too.

Where I’m at

Sitting on the bleachers at our local high school gymnasium, waiting for the district-wide orchestra concert to start and surfing the ‘net on my Eee PC. No, I won’t actually surf during the concert, but last year we waited, and waited, and waited for it to start.

This year, we decided to tag team it since last time, Miss B nearly went insane. And normally, she’s very patient when it comes to watching Andrew’s various activities.

It’s noisy and chaotic, but the music is actually pretty good, for a 5 – 12 concert.

But truthfully, I’m just psyched I can log on and access the net. I’m thinking I could blog the Golden Heart and Rita finals this year with this thing.

See? The uses are endless.

Weekend update

So, we promised to take the kids to the dollar store that’s next to their swim school. Or rather, was next to their swim school. Now it’s a mattress and furniture liquidation place. To make up for that, on Saturday, we went to stinky feet Burger King play place. Yeah. I know. The high life. Someone make it stop.

Those who live in big plastic bubbles shouldn’t throw cheeseburgers. Shilling for Burger King unintentional.

I bought Andrew a pair of new spring shoes since he totally blew out the original pair I bought. I. Mean. Totally. But he’s undecided. So, today I asked if they’re his or mine. Because, get this, we wear the same shoe size. I would totally wear those shoes.

I finished my short story, Speechless. It came in just under 5,000 words. Anyone want a 5,000 word YA short story in first person, present tense that manages to combine speech team, vanilla chai deodorant, and dead sexy class clowns? Yeah, I didn’t think so. (Earlier today, Bob asked if I were writing about him; given the above list, I’ll let you answer that yourselves.)

And, last, but hardly least, I think we may have spring here in Minnesota. Shhh. We don’t want to scare it away.

Fortunate Friday

 My fortune cookie fortune today:

Your destiny is to be famous.

Wow. For a fortune cookie, that’s … specific. They’re usually not quite so bold. I’m hoping they mean famous as in Louis Pasteur rather than, say, Paris Hilton.

Of course, it may be my destiny, which I end up refusing. This will lead me to write one of those introspective, navel-gazing, literary, semi-autobiographical novels (and if I can make it both pretentious and obscure, so much the better).

Depending on what destiny thinks of that, it will either end up on the NYT list or in the remainder bin.

Ah, destiny. You are a cruel mistress.

Wow. I should take him up on that

From the SPAM files, too funny not to share.

I am Mr. Wang Hongzhang, Chief Disciplinary Officer, People’s Bank of China (PBC).I have an obscured business proposal of US$24.5million for you.
Please reach me promptly if interested.
Kind Regards,
Wang Hongzhang

One question: What is a Chief Disciplinary Officer, and what, pray tell, does a CDO (like the acronym?) do?

Oh, wait. According to Google, he exists. And you know Google is never wrong. So if he exists, and this email exists, then woo-baby, hand over the 24.5 million. Obscured or not.