Overheard in ER

So yeah, I have a diagnosis now, YAY. And it's not something that is going away, BOO. I'll not be mentioning it again, unless something critical happens like my insides get evicted by a surgeon, because nobody likes a sick cranky asshole. In my dotage, I promise to be chipper and bake cookies and only take it out on my progeny by  hitting them with the tennis-ball end of my walker, rather than nattering on about how all my joints had to be replaced with ham hocks and my blood has to get filtered twice weekly through a cheesecloth. It'll keep them on their toes.

Anyway, I was sitting in the ER yesterday and eavesdropping on the staff outside my curtain. Our shitty old hospital has a new wing, and it is a swanky place to drop dead in, let me tell you. They gave me three heated blankets just because they could, and two gowns so I could wear them back-to-front like a sandwich. Posh.

And the nurses were in good moods, because they only had a librarian covered in hot blankets and two drunk hobos to worry about.

"I'm so hungry. I like one spam sandwich."

"Spam... sandwich?"

"Yeah! You never eat that? Spam sandwich, spam omelet, spam musubi, put em in fried rice... What? I like spam. But Lynette going teach me to eat yogurt."

Something beeped, feet shuffled away, and a couple minutes later they were back.

*inaudible grumbling*

"You need one hug? I can hug you. I'll do it. You just tell me, I get my arms out. You look like you waiting for one hug. I going hug you. Brace yourself."

It's all hugs and spam at Wahiawa General, folks.

animals of summer

 

 

Buck the Chicken has moved into the coop, and her enthusiasm over my poor yard work skills has been very gratifying. NO MORE RAKING FOR ME.

Sookie showed a marked lack of appreciation for the wig I made her out of her own fur.

We spent Sunday grilling meats and drinking seasonal beer and sitting around on the porch listening to Jim Croce under the lilikoi vines. Did I mention I am a fan of summer? I really am.

Show off

My big plans to drown myself in a pint of Pilsner were interrupted by the arrival of the advance copy of my new board book in the mail.

It's a book about poo, but it's mine! ("Pau" means "finished/done".) It turned out really nice, my editor and the printers did a top-notch job.

To show that it is real, and that I am real (and un-drowned), here are a bunch of awkward poses with the new book. 

In which I have feels

(updated with link to offending vacation)

Remember my resolution never to go back to Maui, after the concussion/helicopter rescue/horror shit show that was our last vacation? Well, a family member is going there next month, and I bent my heart around the idea of going over to meet her, but there are no rooms at the inn because of summer demand, so OH WELL. I'm off the hook for that one. But it dredged up a bunch of feelings about what happened, and about the people I would have liked to see, and the people I would have liked to want to see me, and the people I never want to see again. And that dredged up even broader feelings about places I would like to go, and people I would like to see, and people I would have liked to want to see me, etc, and BAH. Going back to planning my imaginary book tour.

My entire work year revolves around summer reading, and the program has been going full crack for two weeks now, with another four weeks to go. And I enjoy the bustle of activity, with the bloodthirsty older children demanding gruesome ghost stories and gross camp songs, so it's cool. But I have been trying to carve out time at night to work on my book, and it's hard. And I need to get things ready for father's day, which is followed the very next day by my mother's birthday, and then there is the chicken coop and the cats and the bedtime routines AND AND AND. I'm getting everything done, but I feel a bit like someone with one leg on a moving train, trying to hop fast enough to get on board.

Then I got in a fight with someone who is Wrong on the Internet about whether or not children should use AR-15s. For the record, my stance is NO NO FUCKING NO. Christ on a cracker. I support gun restrictions. I support police officers and soldiers and people who are trained to handle these things for a living. I do not support my classmate, who shot his girlfriend in front of their kids, or my stupid high school boyfriend who pointed a rifle at me (and who is now in jail for stealing a door while high on meth, thank you very much. A DOOR) and I do not think an AR-15 would have helped my childhood friend when her mother turned a gun on her.

So I was slumped at my desk and feeling pitiful when one of our 13 year old volunteers (one of several kids stuck at the library because they have no child care during the summer) came to sit next to me.
"Where are the books on dark magic?" he asked. "Like, spells and stuff."
"They've all been stolen."
"Why?"
"Because people think you will turn into a witch if you read them."
"That's stupid. Do they think I'll turn into Donald Trump if I read about him?"
"Yes."
"What."
We had a nice talk about intellectual freedom, and then he noticed what I was researching on my computer.
"I'm trying to find out when people started putting photos on headstones," I explained. We clicked around, looking at old sculptural tombs and crypts.
"Those are awesome. I know what I want my headstone to be. Like, a big glass dome, with me in the middle."
"Like a snow globe?"
"YES."
"Or one of those water toys, where you push the buttons and try to get the hoop over the peg."
I pantomimed pushing a big button on a headstone, and he wooshed his arms around limply. "Ten points, grandpa!"
"Or we can have you mounted in crystal, like those tacky paperweights with a 3D eagle in them," I said.
"It would be so beautiful."

I love youths, people. I really do.

Much calico

Here is 20 lbs of calico for Portia.

The best cat, the kissingest cat, the hammiest cat.

Buck

Again - you all heard me say 'dogs', right? Well, I rescind that. I'm just not a dog person, unless it's a really old, fat dog that just wants to lay on my lap. You know what else I am not? A chicken person.

No more orphaned creatures for a while, please.

A few weeks ago, one of the 5th graders chased a mother hen on his bike, separated her from her chicks, grabbed one of the babies, and then brought it to school to show off and throw around the playground. The little freshly hatched chick was confiscated by a teacher, who brought it into the library and told my mother to babysit it, because she's been identified as the designated bird rescuer. And then they never came back for it, because PROBLEM SOLVED. So she came home with a chicken. Again. The last time this happened, Rocky turned out to be a rooster, and he returned to the school campus to run rampant and terrorize the feral cats. But Buck here appears to be a hen. And a fancy hen at that; she has lush feathers growing off her ankles like bell bottom jeans. My mother is running off to Indiana for a month, so I'm taking custody of the chicken. Buck is getting really fed up with being kept in a bird cage, so I took my mom down to Costco with the truck and she loaded up a chicken coop for the back yard. I ran over small children and old people with the big flat shopping cart, which was a lot more fun than careering around with the regular cart, and the boys spent the afternoon building the little house. Zenny tried to move into it. She closed herself in and flapped and clucked very convincingly to persuade us she was a chicken, and I almost conceded, but in the end the rain drove us all in for cocoa.

I have read all the complaining homesteader articles about urban dimwits taking in chickens without being prepared for the reality of animal husbandry and understanding the importance of culling the herd/eating the old hens, and let me assure you: I am one of them. Buck will lay eggs until she decides not to, and then languish in the pen until she dies of old age, because I am totally not interested in wringing her neck, and that is that. Sorry, urban chicken people.

But don't worry, the neighbors won't mind, because the guy next door breeds fighting cocks. Anybody who dislikes the sound of URR URR-URR URR URRRRRRR is advised to stay away. I don't mind it, myself. It is the comforting sound of crickets and cicadas in these parts.

But we had better get $189 worth of eggs for the rent, young chicken.

out of my hands and into the air

Like a dandelion. Made of email.

I edited, revised, re-edited, held my breath, and sent my book to two agents. All my fingers and arms are crossed - I feel so good about this story. And while I wait for yays or nays, I will finish the spot illustrations, and I will start another book. I am going to give this endeavor the whole chunk of my heart, because that is all you have time for in a short little life.

edited to add:

YOU GUYS. I got a reply. Just a small one, but it wasn't a nay. Something may come of this yet.

*hyperventilating and dying

summer starts - picture post

Things are growing, the lychees are coming in, the lilikoi blossoms are bursting open, the slugs are doing acrobatics off my eggplant bush. I'm stitching a lap quilt, when I can shake the cats out of it. And these Cara Cara oranges - folks are swarming the bins at Costco for these things. There are mobs of people ramming each other's carts for them. They are a sort of grapefruit-orange hybrid, and they are so richly colored and juicy it's criminal. I was never a big orange-eater until these oranges, and now they are the only thing I have eyes for. Go buy some.


See? It's not all horked-up noodles and existential dread around here.

No points for my cooking skills though

Looked in mirror this morning and shrieked. "Bags! Bags under my eyes!" Took closer look. Not bags. Tiny speckles of burst blood vessels all over my face.

The night before, I had loaded up my diet tracker, put in a lite beer and leftover noodles, went into kitchen to drink the beer and reheat the noodles, ate a few to be sure they were still good, realized they were not good, had a few more just to be sure it wasn't the beer making them taste funny, and then barfed. Kind of suddenly. A bit violently.

Went on diet tracker to find out how many activity points I get for barfing up eight noodles and 1/4 beer. (2)


So that's how my summer is going so far.

Haunted cutlery

Spot illustrations happening over here.

Watch out now, this is some spooky stuff.

run away!

Concept sketch for main character.

war against pinkwashing cont.

I am still opting out of pink, unless my daughter independently chooses it (which she does, sometimes - especially if it's dessert-related), and here is reason umpty-thousand why:

We have a pom pom craft for summer reading. The kids pick a pom pom, color and cut out eyes/feet, and tape it on our race track. Over the summer they'll reach the finish line. It's cute.

Dad: "pick out a pom pom, sweetie."
Daughter looks through pile of colored pom poms.
Dad: "there's pink. You like pink."
Daughter takes a pink one. Picks up a purple one to look at. I tell her she can take any color. She slowly puts the purple one back and sticks with pink.
Dad: "You can make a girl pom pom." He fishes out pink crayons from the coloring bin and gives them to her.
Unsmiling daughter presents me with a pink pom pom with pink lips and pink eyeballs. I tell her she did a good job and she can make another one next week, any color she wants, and I help her stick it to the race track.

Went back into office and slammed face into desk.

Repeat this scenario 12 times a day.