Sock weather

The nights have been cold, and the days are chilly enough for socks and sweatshirts. I dug through my Stephen King books until I found a short story about Roland that I hadn't read, then curled up with tea and a blueberry muffin to chase away the cloud of depression that has been over me.

Mike tried to dye my hair red for St. Patty's, and was successful for most parts of my head. Tonight our Scottish group has a dance demo at Aloha Tower. I'll be joining the crowd in the drunken block party and cheering on the dancers with Gavin on my hip, then joining everyone at Gordon Biersch for a home-brewed root beer before doing my bit as the designated driver. Part of me wishes I could get a babysitter, hit the town, and have a few drinks like everyone else, but this is a family outing, it's not for me. I would only end up sitting on a bench somewhere, frowning at the crowd with a half-sipped drink in my hands, anyway.

I am not wearing green, but at least I put a corned beef on to simmer. Impulsively, I got online and ordered a subscription to Juxtapoz magazine, and I feel a bit better.

it's called "research"

Monday, my favorite day of the week! (No, really.) Weigh-in day and date night. I did manage to lose a pound after all, and this evening Mike and I will go see Sideways. Looking forward to it.

I found myself with nothing to do during Gavin's nap today. The house was cleaned yesterday, I did the dishes already, I have no homework due, my boss hasn't sent me web design work, I finished the book I was reading, and I completed an illustration last night. Ha! Two hours of mindless television, all mine! I balanced out the mental decay of Real World and Celebrity Fit Club with a million crunches and pushups. No time is ever wasted as a librarian, they say. Two hours of watching MTV is a hard study session of pop culture, so that one day my reference knowledge might impress a patron. Sure.

On a more mature note, I also filled in the specifics on the collaboration agreement for my publisher, which I will mail today, bringing us the final step toward having our book published. We will be given 20 copies of the book when it is released, which will make for some very convenient and narcissistic gifts for our relatives this Christmas.

Chocolate malty balls

For the first time in months (or maybe years), Mike and I went out shopping together, looking for black men's work shoes.

Gavin was so happy to have his dad's company. He threw himself into Mike's arms at every opportunity, and showed him how to play with toy cars on every surface he could find. The two of them entered a chocolate shop with big shiny eyes and identical "ooh"s and "aah"s, and they were cute enough that I bought them some treats. I inadvertently tortured Mike by giving him the simple (so I thought) task of picking out a pair of shorts for Gavin. Half an hour later, he was tugging at his hair with frustration, so I grabbed an outfit for the kid and turned Mike towards the men's section instead. He immediately found himself some clothes, to my surprise. We left with a new spring outfit apiece; but no black shoes. We finished the evening by watching The Notebook and enjoying each-other's company over popcorn.

But now I had a shoe mission of my own. Our cockroaches have a taste for cheap faux-leather loafers, and ate big holes in my work shoes. I decided it was time to search out the perfect pair of librarian shoes; conservative, closed-toed shoes with enough of a heel to make up for their dowdiness. This sent me on a three-hour hunt through 5 stores, and as much as I like my stupid quests, I hate shoe shopping. At first I settled for a $45 pair that gave me real misgivings - I'm simply not the kind of girl who can spend that much for shoes with so little substance. I went to Ross and found exactly the shoes I was searching for - closed-toe, inexpensive, and just a bit slutty. (Although my mother clucked her tongue at them and said, "Sorry, kid, nobody at the library is going to be stuffing dollars into your pants in those." Rats.)

Gavin has been developing sentences. Recently he has said, "Mom, I watch Thomas? We go buy Thomas," and "Mom, where treats for kitty?" and "No, mama no poop, baby poop!" Yes, I am a proud mama. Last night we took him to Scottish dancing, where he figured out how to make forts out of sectional dancing mats. My mother stuck a few together to make a box and closed him up inside, keeping him busy for an hour while Mike and I danced.

Exciting events in the next few weeks: I must suffer through an intensive class weekend this Sat and Sun; Mike is dancing a demo at Aloha Tower on St. Patty's day; Easter with a 2-year old promises to be fun; and the Highland Games are on the first weekend of April.

I'm a happy girl.

Sign on the line

The contracts are signed, ready to be delivered to the publisher. The illustrations are burned to disk. Big breath, plunge.

Yesterday was a long day at the library. The air conditioning in the A/V room burned out, and I helped lug big fans upstairs to circulate the aroma of hobo farts. Yuri had me alphabetizing five year's worth of old personnel files, and I was returning from the office with a stack of green file folders when one of our regulars stopped me to flirt. He was a surprisingly smooth talker. The first sober stranger to hit on me at work, and he wasn't bad looking, either.

When I got home, my mother announced the end of my donut quest. Seems she found about 5 pounds of chocolate donut holes at Costco. I bagged them up in gallon-sized freezer bags and poked them in the freezer, leaving out two for myself. Counting it as a win.

To top it off, the library finally paid me. While this is exciting, my daydreams of all the wonderful things I would buy with my first paycheck have suddenly evaporated in a miserly haze. It will be with gritted teeth that I force myself to buy the bras, undies, socks, and shoes I so desperately need. Perhaps I'll spend the rest on my dentist bill. Ugh.

The Quest

I was assigned a book to read for my YA lit class, and for the life of me, I was unable to find this book. It was missing off the shelves of every library on the island. Every book store said it was out of print and hadn't been stocked since 1995. A used copy ordered from the internet got lost in the mail. I was determined to read this damned book, and it was with bitter satisfaction that I unwrapped the battered packaging of the lost book when it finally arrived in our mailbox, three weeks late and after my assignment was already due (I read a different book, but it really didn't matter, winning was the point).

So now I've been hunting for chocolate glazed donut holes for nearly 2 weeks. I want just one. One! So of course every grocery store in the area is out of stock. At first I was just glancing at the bakery and snack sections as I walked by, then I began making express trips just to look. Yesterday, I dragged Mike and Gavin all the way to Kailua to visit the one Dunkin Donuts on our side of the island - and they were closed for A/C repairs. This means a trip across the island to the Dunkin Donuts in Waikiki, I think.

I should count my blessings that my life is so boring. Adventure is never fun while it happens.

A day at the library

A charismatic guy approached me today about tax forms. A tanned man in his fifties, with a boyish look. He spoke quickly, switching languages and laughing about his own observations on life. Yuri offered to find him the tax form online, but he put on a 100 watt smile and said, "Oh, I have time. I'm determined to find this form in hard copy, it has become something I must do." His efforts to be charming were kind of working on me, which was weird.

He kept talking for a few minutes in an engaging manner, claiming to be a multi-lingual naval architect, until Yuri persuaded him to go upstairs to hassle the reference librarian. "He's nuts," Yuri said as he left. I was worried. I hadn't thought he was nuts at all. I thought he might be the kind of person with enough personality and brains to be nearly indistinguishable from a crazy person. An eccentric. In the short time I spoke with him, I had started to trust him - and I thought of the massive cult in South America that drank a vat of poisoned Kool Aid. Really weird to meet that kind of person - and to discover I was the kind who might fall for it. Oh no.

Turandot

A call to my Italian readers: in Puccini's Turandot, the singers pronounced the name both "Turan-DOT" and "Turan-DOH". Which, if either, is more correct?

Home dry cleaning kits are fun for all ages. Sitting on the kitchen floor with my black dress, I removed all the parts of the kit and experimented with the little plastic pads, cleaning fluid, lemony-fresh steam cloths, and neat little zippered pouch. Tossed in the dryer for half an hour, my dress was as good as new - even if the zippered pouch emerged covered in blue melted crayon. Call that a narrow miss.

Leaving the boys behind, my mother, grandfather, and I had dinner at the local Mexican joint before hitting the opera. I scanned the crowd for my mom's future husband, earning curious glances from several gentlemen who looked like James Bond with their expensive jackets and handsomely creased brows. My mother did not make eyes at anyone, but the opera was beautiful. Much more melodic and charming than the Flying Dutchman (Wagner!!). Still a bit sick, I nodded off during the second act, my head bobbing up and down as I was lulled to sleep and then jarred awake by the flow and crash of the music. Embarrassing. I perked up during the 3rd act and tried to make up for it by applauding until my hands tingled.

not so bad things

Coincidences. It seems as though every time I eat a vinaigrette, I get a stomach flu, and every time I eat low-fat popcorn I wake up with a sore throat. I wait just long enough between trying them again that the next wave of illness starts up again. A vicious cycle.

I went to the community college yesterday to see a man about a website. Maybe it isn't too smart of me to take on another job on top of full-time grad school, parenting a toddler, working at the library, and illustrating a book, but we really need the money. As of right now, our budget for next year doesn't include food. On the bright side, this might mean we have to sell the exercise bike, which has been parked in our tiny living room for over a year now.

Today I'm off to the library to check out Tony Hillerman's autobiography for my presentation next week. I find it a bit odd that Hillerman was on our list of YA authors. Of the three books I read, each featured young adults only as props, with limited dialog and the bad habit of being gruesomely murdered. Not that I minded. I enjoy any book about the Navajo reservation, and I liked being brought back there while I was reading.

Valentine

The table was covered in flowers and chocolate when I came downstairs in the morning. Gavin and I smelled the roses and looked at the heart-shaped box for a few minutes before we walked to the store to pick up Mike's Valentine's Day liquor (I'm a die-hard romantic, obviously) to go with the box of chocolate covered cherries...

The Chocolate Covered Cherry

1997. Three months into our relationship. On Thanksgiving weekend, Mike and I packed up our letterman jackets and hopped in the rattling Chevy Nova for a road trip to Indiana. During the long stretches of cold Midwestern road, I read aloud from a book of Stephen King short stories. At midnight, we stopped at a lonely gas station and bought steaming cups of cappuccino, pouring little packets of flavored creamer in them until they were sickeningly sweet and delicious. The car was littered with the usual traveling debris; empty tubes of Pringles, juice boxes, soda cans, tissues, clothes. And two boxes of chocolate covered cherries.

Unable to finish reading the Night Flier in the dark, I took out the candies to break the monotony. I popped one in Mike's mouth and turned up the radio. We drove onto a long rail-lined bridge, and I chose that moment to crack a joke. Mike laughed, and then made a funny noise. I thought my joke must have been much funnier than I thought, but it quickly became evident that Mike was choking. The bridge had no shoulder. I grabbed the wheel and had a moment of panic when I didn't know what to do - stop in the road? Could he wait until we pulled over? Would he be able to operate the brakes? Were we about to crash and die?

But this is Mike. He held his breath and waited for the lanes to widen, then pulled over smoothly and politely hacked up a wad of cherry. He wiped his lips and then smiled at me, "You just tried to kill me." I decided at that moment that I loved him.

Fast Forward

8 years later.

Mike smiled when he saw the chocolate covered cherries. "You're trying to kill me," he said on cue. He's a few years older and has more hair, but he's still the guy I tried to kill all those years ago. He took me to a coffee shop in the afternoon. We sat in big purple chairs and sipped over-sweetened drinks while Gavin played with a coffee stirrer on the floor. We stopped for ice cream, and then had dinner with my mom at our favorite Chinese joint. I did my best to pick at all the food, and I chased the meal with a half hour on the recumbent cycle, but all was lost once the liquor came out. It was really a good day.

The Illustrated Woman

I hope my cataloging professor doesn't mind drawing up a Library of Congress classification for my name - because I'm about to be a published children's book illustrator!

I just got off the phone with the director of Mutual Publishing, who is sending me a preliminary book contract to look over before signing a final contract and moving towards a summer release of our book, No Slippers. She wanted to make sure my mother (the author) and I (the illustrator) would be available for book signings.

Omigodomigodomigod.