Quest for a dry basement: post the second

The concrete man was supposed to come over on Friday evening to go over with Quin what we want done, but it rained so he cancelled. Ironic.

In the mean time, Quin has taken all the long nails and is working on taking out the stairs himself:

I've been told that I have to walk around the house to water the plants now. I said, "Yes, dear," but secretly I'm still jumping out the sliding glass door. I have to get these chores done during school time, and if I went out the front door I guarantee all school activity would halt. By jumping out the back door, I am in visual contact of the table where they're working at all times.

Quin also trimmed back the shrubs and trees around the patio so they wouldn't get in the way when the concrete man starts ripping things apart:

It's weird; we can see the whole yard now. I would have taken a "before" picture but he didn't forewarn me that he would be doing this. But those of you familiar with our house can see, it's a big change.

I tried to get a picture that showed the crack in the pavement. The patio is really two separate slabs, and we're only replacing the one under the stairs with more concrete. This pic is really too dark to see it; the new patio will end where the basketball hoop is now:

Quest for a dry basement: post the first

The rain has finally stopped (and it sounds like we didn't even get the worst of it: New England, you have my sympathies). Now the real work begins. My husband has a plan that will make water drain away from our house instead of into it. Something about a trench and some clay... it would take an engineer to explain it. Suffice it to say step one was dismantling our deck, which was built on top of the concrete patio (removal of which will be step two, but will require the aid of a professional).

I'm not a deck fan myself. I don't like to be up high. I like a patio, close to the ground, preferably under some trees. So losing the deck wasn't a heartbreak for me. Plus, it was getting kind of punky anyway; and the boards on the steps would tip when you walked on them - not a feature I look for in stairs.

So the deck is gone, and my back door now looks like this:

The space between the sliding glass door and the top of the concrete steps is somewhere between a big step and a little jump. Add to that fact that they're not on a level, that you have to step down to get to the concrete. See those metal brackets? They are all covered in rusted nails, all spiny and sinister-looking. And the steps have long twists of metal coming out where the fellow who put on the addition blasted out the space. See those pots in the background? Those are my tomato and pepper plants, the ones that need to be watered daily. Plus the patio is one of my favorite writing places, when none of the neighbors are leaf-blowing, melting styrofoam in their Coleman grills, or murdering their children (to be fair, I'm sure it only sounds like they're murdering their children).

Note: When trying to make a big step down do not hold onto the sliding glass door for support. It tends to move.

All this is just so when I don't blog for a while, you'll know I'm in the hospital with puncture wounds and tetanus. Oh sure, I could go out the front door and walk around the house, but it's such a long way...

Why I shouldn't watch Sesame Street

Big Bird: Telly, don't you want to boing?
Telly: No.
Maria: But Telly, you love boinging!
Telly: Not anymore. I fell off.
Big Bird: You fell off? But you're the best boinger on Sesame Street!

And of course there was a song, Boinging is For Me: "Boing fast, boing slow; boinging is the way to go..."

I swear, the writers of the show are only pretending this is all about a pogo stick.

*sigh*

I'm guessing by Monday I'll have ducks swimming in my backyard. On a somewhat related note, I should learn not to complain outloud over commas in books I'm reading. My husband sent me this e-mail this morning:

Kate

I opened, Aidan's windows,. Just, giving you a heads, up, because rain is likely.

Thank, you

Quin

Ha ha. Very funny. I better take out my swimsuit; I'll probably need it to work in the basement this weekend.

Vicarious thrills

I haven't blogged about basketball in a while (as if you missed it!). My home team, the Timberwolves, made the decision not to play Kevin Garnett or Ricky Davis for any games in the last two weeks of the season. Alledgedly, they had injuries. Not that this fooled anyone; by the terms of our trade to the LA Clippers, we would get a first round draft pick only if we ended up one of the ten worst teams in the league.

Yeah, that's a fun prize to watch your team chase. NOT!

The funny thing was, they still screwed up and won the first few games. But in the end we were the seventh worst team and so we get our draft pick. As if one player is going to matter. I feel bad for Kevin; I don't think he's ever going to take this team all the way.

But I have been keeping up with the playoffs. I took great pleasure in the Phoenix Suns beating Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. This is partially about me hating Kobe, but it's also a bit about liking Steve Nash. He always seems to be having fun when he plays; he's a joy to watch. Plus he's good. And that's not just me, he got MVP this year. He was MVP last year too, so hats off to Steve Nash! And a big thank you for spanking Kobe Bryant!

So now it's the Phoenix Suns against the LA Clippers. I'm torn on this one; I'd be happy for either team to win. I'm pleased that Sam Cassel has been doing so well with his new team. I think it was a mistake we ever traded him, and not just because of his skills as a point guard. We have so many young guys on the Wolves now, we could really use the leadership Sam has been showing with the Clippers.

(And I should really let the Kobe thing go. My boys got little Lego minifigures of NBA basketball players at their Lego Club a month ago - 3 to a box. Oliver got the box with Kobe in it and wanted to give it back, and he was rather loud in his protests against the Kobe. But I convinced him to keep it. It also had Steve Nash.)

A link for writers

This is a must read:

http://www.evileditor.blogspot.com./

I'm not sure who this guy works for, but he is hilarious. I haven't laughed this hard in a good long while. It's a bit like Miss Snark's Crapometer: he posts novel queries that people send him and makes... suggestions for improvements. I suppose a large part of the humor for me is a byproduct of being very nervous about making that query plunge when the novel is done (which is a ways off, but I like to get started early on the whole worry thing). But this quote really sent me off the deep end (Evil Editor's words are always the ones in the blue brackets):

Resolution is my 86,0000-word novel [If that's too many zeros, fine. If that's a misplaced comma, we need to talk.]

Of course it's possible this is only funny if you're a writer...

Two good fantasy novels!

So I'm back from my vacation, which was happily rattlesnake-free. I read three books - three books in a week! I can't remember the last time I did that. That's not true, actually, it was last July. I read the first five Harry Potter books while waiting for book six, which I ripped out of the FedEx man's hands and devoured in a day. So that was six books in two weeks, but it was mostly rereading which always goes faster for me.

At any rate, two of the three books I read were first novels from fantasy writers. Finally I found some good ones - and two in one week! The first was Doppleganger by Marie Brennan. Please, do not just this book by its cover:



Woman with tight leather, cleavage-baring outfit - I'm not a fan. Especially since the woman in the book wears clothing made from something called windsilk that covers every inch, including the face. Think ninja. But cover art gripes aside, I enjoyed this novel. It played on the theme of the price of magic, which is one I always get into. The plot unfolded in a very satisfying way, revealing the mechanics of the relationship between the witch Miryo and her Doppleganger Mirage (the warrior woman) bit by bit. Everytime I thought I'd found an unintentional loophole, it was neatly resolved. There is already a sequel in the works, and I could see this going series, but it doesn't leave anything unresolved at the end, only the sense of possibilities for more. Most admiringly, although there was clearly quite a bit of world-building going on, the book doesn't attempt to tell you everything about this place. The emphasis is on this story and these characters, no long essays on their political structures or what have you.

And none of my gripes from before pop up at all. In fact the literacy thing is an issue raised in the novel (albeit briefly).

The second book I read was a contemporary fantasy, which isn't what I write, but then again neither is high fantasy in fictional worlds. It's called The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt.

(Blogger is pissing me off. It says my image was uploaded, and yet it isn't here. So even though it has a better cover than Doppleganger I can't show it to you. You can take my word for it or see for yourself at Amazon.com here).

The plot is nothing new - a girl opens a door to another place (Dreamtime/land of fairy/medicine lands all rolled up into one), but doors to other worlds is an old favorite of mine; I don't think I can read to many stories on that conceit. And if the girl in question is one who writes and draws her own comic books... dude, I'm so there. Plus, this one has the addition of a cast of very engaging characters. They are all art students or former art students, and most have their own unique shadings of mental illness, but they all feel very real. My favorite was Denis, the obsessive-compulsive fan of modern art, who preferred intellectual approaches to art over emotional ones (the exact opposite of me, actually). Denis is an asshole, sure, but he's a very engaging asshole.

The third book I read was not fantasy or even fiction. It was The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings by Amy Tan. It actually came out before Saving Fish from Drowning, I'm not sure how I missed knowing it was out there (it certainly seems like Amazon.com emails me every time there is a new release remotely like a previous purchase). It's a collection of essays, many about her mother, all about writing in one way or another. It was a very interesting read, and I would particularly recommend it to other writers. It's not about the craft per se, not the way Stephen King's On Writing is, but the musings of a successful writer are always worth a read, in my opinion.

While reading Saving Fish from Drowning, I was wondering what drew me to her work. After all, I don't have mother issues, but I don't think it's Schadefreude that's drawing me to these stories about mothers and daughters. I think it's because Amy Tan seems to share my underlying world view, a sort of yin and yang between rational science and irrational magical thinking. Her books all have that interplay between them, where it's possible to simultaneously believe that there is no such thing as ghosts because there is no scientific proof and all those sounds coming from the atiic have very mundane explanations, and at the same time believe that there actually is a ghost up there. To believe that there is no such thing as fate while you stock up on good luck charms.

It sounds paradoxical, but that's just the way my brain works.

Just a quick post...

...to say I'll be going out of town for a week, so no more posts until I get back. We're making our annual pilgrimmage to AZ (here's hoping it's less eventful than last time). We're going to the Grand Canyon, so I'm sure there will be a post full of pics when we get back.

Friends and the First Amendment

So the woman trying to sue some of the writers of Friends for sexual harrassment lost her case. Here's the full paper, but those interested in the First Amendment can skip up to page 37 for the Concurring Opinion. Have I mentioned I'm the geek that likes reading this stuff? I have? OK.

Here's the gist: the woman was hired as a typist/transcriptionist, so her job was to sit in the writers' room and type up what was said (why can't I have that job? I suppose the lack of shows being produced in the Twin Cities area is a factor). Apparently she found the degree of sexual banter going on disturbing. It all sounds rather juvenile: a bunch of guys bragging up their exploits, pretending to masturbate, and defacing words and pictures to make them dirty. Sounds a lot like high school. Nothing was directed at the woman in question (a lot of it was in reference to the actresses, who probably won't sue but I wouldn't be surprised if they never again work on shows where those guys are writers). This woman just found the environment intolerable.

The paper is interesting. It makes references and comparisons to several other harrassment judgements. It really shows how pervasive harrassment has to be to be considered, well, pervasive. It's quite a few notches beyond the point where I'd be looking for a new job, that's for sure. I've never been in a workplace like that, so it's a bit disturbing to read about them. And yet this Friends woman I can't summon a lot of sympathy for, mostly because no one was actually talking to her. Partly because HELLO! Had she never watched the show before she took the job? Plus, sitcom writers toss out dozens of jokes for every one that makes it into the show (which is why that job doesn't appeal to me - I'm too in love with my own words to toss them out and watch them get shot down like that. Plus, me? Not so funny). Count the sexual jokes in just one episode of Friends than multiply it by, say, 20. That's a lot of sex talk. And it's hardly surprising if a bunch of writers trying to amuse each other go a lot more blue then prime time TV will allow.

Most of what they were doing sounds exceedingly juvenile anyway, too juvenile to be remotely threatening. One writer brags up the shot he had with one of the actresses that he didn't take. Sorry, now I'm laughing again. It's like your geek friend who could have nailed that cheerleader when she was all drunk at that party that one time but he didn't, but he tells the story a million times and it never becomes more believable.

But my favorite is this quote:

Reich also acknowledged he and others altered inspirational sayings on a calendar, changing, for example, the word “persistence” to “pert tits” and “happiness” to “penis.”

Now that's funny. Juvenile, but funny. Mostly because I have a strong dislike to "inspirational" anything, I guess.

What is missing in this picture is the corresponding circle. The woman in question apparently only worked with the male writers and listened to them drone on and on about their exploits in the writers' room and the break room and the hallways. (And the idea that writing only happens in the writers' room strikes me as kind of funny. But read the Concurring Opinion for the perspective of the creative merit of what's left on the cutting room floor - still protected by the First Amendment even though you didn't use it on prime time TV). At any rate, what this poor woman needed was some time with the women who worked with these naughty boys. I guarantee you they were having some laughs at the expense of their male brethren. I can see them discussing the guys' famous exploits, and speculating on the fine ladies of the Niagara Falls area these guys were scoring with. Certainly much fun was had at the expense of the fellow that could have made it with one of the actresses (I'm so not believing that).

What throws me out of a fantasy novel

For writers looking to query their first novel, Miss Snark recommends reading other current first novels in the same genre to get a good idea of what your competition is like (rather than comparing yourself to, say, George R.R. Martin, etc.). So I've been reading a lot of first novels these past few weeks. Or should I say starting a lot of first novels. I've only made it all the way through two: The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay (which was a bit too much like Tarzan for my tastes, but otherwise the writing was good and I expect his second novel will be one I really enjoy) and Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell (which is labeled sci-fi, but with its focus on forgotten knowledge and old gods it kinda feels like a fantasy, but on the whole could best be classified as a kick-ass adventure story except no one has a shelf for that). Otherwise, I've been doing a lot of grumbling out loud while reading these things. Believe me, reading that Amy Tan book last week was like a tall, cool glass of iced tea on a hot, muggy day. Bliss.

The book I threw across the room last night was so bad even the commas were pissing me off (to which complaint Quin said, "What is it with you and commas? Have you ever brought up commas and not have it all end badly?" Which is true, but those are stories for another time). But I don't really feel like complaining about the writing (although if your MC does the exact same thing, like "cry out in horror" 3 times in 2 pages, that's pretty much the end of the book for me, OK?). I'm going to talk about the other things that throw me out of a fantasy book. Most of it has to do with research.

Now I love fantasy, it's my genre. Because I love it, I expect more from it. (Be glad I'm not your mom). So here is my semi-list of a few things that throw me out of a fantasy novel.

First one: hallways. There is some question as to when historically hallways came into fashion (read this debate if you're interested, it hits most of the points I'm thinking of), and of course it depends on what part of the world we're talking about, and how rich the homeowners in question are. Here's the grub: if you tell me your blacksmith's house has a hallway in it, I'm going to want to know how he heats and how he lights it (and what he wants the dead space for anyway). The idea of bedrooms branching off a hallway is pretty ingrained in our modern brains, but back in the day it was a lot more efficient to just heat one room and have everyone sleep there (particularly if they are poor and the weather's cold). The one room house makes a lot of sense to me, but you don't see it much in fantasy (everyone wants their characters to have more privacy, I guess). A step up from that is interconnecting rooms, each with its own fireplace. This was the model for even rich people's homes for a long, long time. It solves the light and heat issue and gives some privacy since the rooms have doors between them (which makes me think of Nicole Kidman and her ring of keys in the movie The Others).

On a related note, baby sleeping in its own room. Didn't happen until, what, the Victorian age (and again only with the rich). Still doesn't happen in most parts of the world. Even if the mother is rich, she has a wet nurse and the wet nurse sleeps with the baby. But a baby sleeping alone in it's own room? I don't think so.

Some people are bothered by food in fantasy novels. The whole how did Samwise get potatoes since that's a New World vegetable thing. Unless your novel is actually set on Earth in the past, this isn't going to bother me. What does bother me is characters in an arctic climate eating tropical food. Or someone eating fresh, red apples in springtime. Do some research. What's the climate like where your story is set? What sort of food would grow well there? What could be tough to grow but worth big bucks if you managed to get a crop in? And what would be a rare delicacy from a far off place? Read some history books about what life was like for the commoners back in the day: only the rich had anything like a varied diet.

Another deal-breaker: literacy. If every character in your story can read and write, I'm going to have a hard time swallowing it. Let's go back to the blacksmith with his spacious home (he was in the book I couldn't manage to read last night). He and his wife were leaving notes for each other around the house. Let's leave out the rarity of paper for a bit. This young blacksmith would have been working at his father's side, learning the trade, ever since he was old enough to hold a hammer (and I'm going to bet those weren't often just 8 hour workdays). When did he have time to learn to read? Who taught him? Why? He's a blacksmith: you come up and tell him what you need and he makes it. He doesn't take written orders, now does he? No one was writing books that would interest a blacksmith until after the printing press, not to mention books were just flat-out rare and very expensive.

Also, everyone in these books is always fully literate: no one struggles with unfamiliar words or has dyslexia or anything.

*sigh*

You can see how seldom I'm pleased by a book these days. If you don't mind, I think I'll dip back into George R.R. Martin for a bit. I have a novella of his I haven't read yet. Once that's recharged my batteries I'll plunge back into these new novels.

Then I'll probably write another list.

Saving Fish from Drowning

About a year ago I read I book I really hated called The Lovely Bones. The narrator is a dead girl who is raped and murdered in Chapter One, and the rest of the book is her watching her family move on. They move on very fast. They are all very serene and accepting. Even when Mom leaves to relive her youth, no one is particularly upset. Some therapeutic sex is had - in one case rather disturbing therapeutic sex. But it kept reminding me of a MST3K quote from the short A Date with your Family: "Emotions are for ethnic people." It didn't seem to be a book about real people, or at least not the sort of people I know and identify with. I said at the time that if Alice Hoffman had written it would have been much improved. Not that Alice's characters are particularly ethnic (I don't know why that quote was always in my head), but they are always emotional.

(And what was with the fixation on women and children as victims? The book almost seemed to imply that when men are murdered it's not tragic. Why? They must have been asking for it? They should have been strong enough to make it a fair fight? I just keep thinking of a kid that was killed in Brooklyn Park some years back. He was 18, honors student, already accepted to college. He was sitting on the steps of his apartment building talking to a girl and was shot in the head with a stray bullet. The fact that he was 18 and not 8, man and not woman does not lessen the tragedy for me). Anyway, like I said, hated the book.

Which pretty much brings us to the novel I just finished, Saving Fish from Drowning. Not by Alice Hoffman but by Amy Tan, which would have been my second choice I'm sure. This is also narrated by a woman who dies mysteriously in the first chapter. Now this book I like (although it's not my favorite Tan; that would still be The Hundred Secret Senses). Is it just that I have more in common with crotchety old Chinese women than I do with dreamy young girly-girls?

No. I've said before the actual writing in The Lovely Bones is, well, lovely. Alice Sebold was a poet before she was a novelist and it shows. No, I hated that book because nothing made any freaking sense. The girl dies and she sort of hovers about, dogs sing in choruses and there's ice cream. She never once wonders when she's getting to heaven or anything of the sort. Did she have no expectations for life after death? Doesn't she feel ripped off or lied to? And we're told she's watching her family because that's how she wants to spend her time, but we're never told the mechanics of how she gets inside their heads.

I'm a spec-fic writer. We're all about the mechanics of how.

So. Saving Fish from Drowning. The MC in this one is a Buddhist, but a Chinese Buddhist which as she tells us means a bit of this and a bit of that. Her expectations for the after life and how they differ from what she's experiencing are brought up more than once. In Buddhist thought, the soul does not go on to the next incarnation right away, so there she is floating and waiting. Her friends were going to go on a tour to China and Burma with her as their guide; at her funeral they say a little prayer that she will be with them "in spirit", so of course she has to go. And how does she get inside the minds of the other characters? The MC tells us it's something Buddha would have called "the Mind of Others", and how she understands this changes as the book progresses.

And the characters are very real. It's an interesting catalogue of all the ways people can miscommunicate. I particularly liked the character of Harry Bailey, who works with dogs and constantly thinks that people will respond to the same behavior controls that dogs will. Sometimes he's right and sometime's he's wrong, but he was always amusing.

The Stephen King novel Misery also plays an important (and nongratuitous) part in the story, which I found amusing since the two writers are friends and bandmates in the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Just a quick post (with pictures)

So the mold in my office has been dealt with, the walls painted, and the furniture back. For the curious, here are some pics:

The exciting paint-buying post, which is really about comics

Last night the whole family piled in the car and went to the hardware store to buy paint for the office. We have such good family fun! Oliver has been lobbying hard for Mace Windu purple; since I don't have particularly strong feelings about home decor or color options, we went with lavender (real purple would be much too dark in that room; it gets no direct sunlight). While the employee was mixing the color, my husband suggested we stroll down the mini-mall to the comic book store.

Like I'm gonna say no.

It's really a comics and collectibles store, so while Quin, Aidan, and Oliver looked at action figures I wandered the comic book section. I had half an idea to get another Hellblazer (origin for the movie Constantine), but they all have fancy titles, nothing obvious like Volume 1 or Volume 2, so I wasn't sure what would come next (an advantage of online shopping, you can always find out in two clicks of a mouse and never interrupt anyone doing their homework behind the counter).

Then I saw it. FRAY. I have heard of this Dark Horse limited run and always intended to track it down, but never quite remembered that I wanted to. And then there it was, a nice eight-issues-in-one-volume collection. The only one left. I think it was waiting for me.

For those not in the know, FRAY is a comic that Joss Whedon wrote about a vampire slayer in the future. I read all eight issues last night (my sleep schedule is so out of whack; it always takes a month for me to "spring forward" and usually even longer to "fall back". The government is evil. Wait, where was I?).

I would have dearly loved this comic when I was a teenager (I love it now, but you know what I mean). Back in those days I sought out all the woman-oriented Marvel titles - Dazzler, Firestar, Magik, Red Sonja - and while I liked them all in their own way, they were never quite there except for Kitty Pryde and Wolverine.

It's not just the writing in FRAY that is spot-on; the artwork is exceptional, particularly in regards to how the women are drawn. But that's apparently not a coincidence. As Joss says in the intro, "I had come to Dark Horse with one stipulation: No cheesecake. No giant silicone hooters, no standing with her butt out in that bizarrely uncomfortable soft-core pose so many artists seem to favor. None of those outfits that seem to casually - and constantly - reveal portions of thong. I wanted a real girl, with real posture, a slight figure (that's my classy way of saying "little boobs"), and most of all a distinctive face. A person."

At any rate, I was standing there in the comic store gazing longingly at my amazing find when Oliver comes up to me with a graphic novel of his own clutched tight to his chest. And he has a look on his face that says he knows he has to ask, but he also knows Mom is never going to refuse to make a comic book purchase. So he brought home Star Wars: Darth Maul. I'm not sure exactly what it is; he read it with dad at bedtime. Why he picked Quin I don't know; there was a lot of loud grumping on not knowing how to read comic books (Dude, top to bottom, left to right. If you can't tell which came first, they're probably meant to be simultaneous).

My son is already a comic geek. I'm so proud.

Warning: Not for sensitive viewers

Last night, my husband came down to my basement office and uttered what are perhaps my least favorite words in the world: "Do you smell something?"

Nothing good ever comes after that question.

He can't describe what he's smelling, and I don't smell anything, so we get to play 20 questions. "Is it a plastic smell? Is it a cat gack smell?" Finally we settle on an "earthy" smell, and he's localized it to the outside corner of the room. You know, the one with all the bookshelves. I unloaded one bookcase and moved it out of the room, then gave the other one a mighty shove (Thank you, adrenal rush) so he could see the corner.

Sure enough, it wasn't good. The best way to put it is to say the wallpaper was attempting to escape from the wall. It was bubbling and peeling in a very suspicious way. After a brief conference in which we discussed how we were intending to remove the wallpaper this summer anyway (I hate wallpaper, it always looks dirty to me; we've been taking it off the walls of all the rooms of the house systematically and my office is the only room left), Quin reached down, snagged a corner, and pulled it back.

Like I said, nothing good. But the deep chest cold I couldn't shake for February and most of March makes sense now, if I've been sharing airspace with this for who knows how long:

As you can see, the evil wallpaper is now gone. Evil carpet will have to stay for a while longer. Of course this sort of major home project has to rear its head when Quin is not only doing tons of overtime, he's going out of town for two days next week. So it's all on me (in a surprising reversal from his usual "I'm the only one qualified to do this" stance, I've gotten the spousal OK to take this on). There are four bookcases in that room, so every other room in the house is taking on the extra book load for a while. I have books coming out my ears. Not to mention, the biggest case I had to unload was Quin's books from college. Architecture books, coding, private pilot books. Everything big, everything hardcover. I went to bed last night very, very tired.

Today I stripped off the paper (and took the pics). Everything has been sprayed down with mildew and mold killer. Let me tell you, my office stinks. Worst of all, I discovered as I pulled the paper that it wasn't just this corner. It runs along the floor down both of the outside walls. Check it out:

Ugh. The suck part is that I have to work in that room. It's the only one with the phone line for the Dictaphone. And the weather, which has been warm for the past few days, is getting chillier again today. But it's not like I'm going to close those windows. I don't know what's worse, mold or mold remover.

Oh yeah, I'm smelling it now. So if it's been a few days, and you haven't heard from me you might want to stop by, just to be sure I don't look like this:

Gorram cat...

It being that spring time of year (and being that I live in MN), I started my garden indoors last week, planting seeds in starter boxes. I have a tray of sweet pea vines (which I've never grown before) and a tray of morning glories, which I do every year for our lightpost and trellis. The seeds sprouted just fine so I set them by the sliding glass door (being my only southern light option besides Oliver's room, which really isn't an option). I do this every year, and it's never been a problem, but this year we have a new kitty. A kitty with a taste for greens, apparently. I have been spending the last few days trying to keep him away from my sprouts, but he's nipped the tops of most of them (and spread a lot of dirt around in the process). Spike Spiegel has not been my favorite cat lately.

But then last night he started acting weird. He wanted to sit on my lap, but he wouldn't purr and he made weird moaning noises when I touched him. I got on the internet and googled "morning glories, cat" and found out they are toxic plants. I had no idea. The websites I clicked to all recommended an immediate trip to the vet. Having had my last cat die quite suddenly, I panicked. (Side note - cats are like kids, these things never come up during normal office hours). Having paid nearly $1000 to keep that last cat alive one extra day because I thought the emergency vets were telling me he'd pull through (when in fact it would have required many more $1000 days of care), I put my husband in charge of things this time. I'm not capable of saying "That's too much, go ahead and kill my cat". My husband, who is still hoping for a flatscreen TV by Christmas, can make those kinds of judgement calls.

So Quin called the emergency vet, and they gave him the number of some sort of veterinary version of Poison Control, but that was a $60 phone call. Quin suggested we wait until morning and see if Spike wakes up dead. I didn't find this funny. I was also not amused by his intention to get on the internet then and there and google "Wake up dead" because he thinks it's a Bible quote. By this time I'm very upset (also the game's about to start, in case you thought he was the only one with screwy priorities). So he makes the call.

In the end, we paid $60 for a vet tech to tell us our cat was tripping. She laughed, apologized for laughing, then called a vet who confirmed that Spike was tripping. Morning glories are hallucinogenic. Now I regret not handling the phone calls myself, as my husband is wondering how hallucinogenic they are, how many you'd have to eat to feel the effects, and how nauseous you'd be before they kicked in.

Numbercrunching with writing

You can always count on Tobias Buckell to tell it like it is. He did some number crunching regarding his short stories which is interesting. I was also about 15 when I wrote my first not-for-school story (and I wrote that first novel at 16), but my time since then has not been anywhere near as productive as his. But I also have two wonderful sons to show for my time so I can't kick myself too much. At any rate, I find the last figure he mentions particularly telling: Tobey figures he's made about $1 an hour at his writing overall. Hmm. I'm working on the third novel, I've written about 30 or so short stories. I've made a grand total of $25 from my writing (also when I was 16). I'm not crunching my own numbers, it will only make me cry.

Yet another Timberwolves post

On Tuesday I got to go to my second ever live Timberwolves game. This went much better than last year, although watching a 14 point lead dwindle away to nothing and having not one but two cliffhanger endings (the ref set the clock back 0.9 seconds after it ran down the first time because someone fouled Kevin Garnett) made for a high pressure evening all the same. I'm still liking Ricky Davis, he has a real flair to his play, but to be honest I think that individually the whole team is there. Reed, Blount, and Banks are playing better for us than they ever did for Boston, Rashad McCants is showing potential, and Marko Jaric still makes sweet steals when they let him play. Yes, they are there as individuals, but they are not there as a team. I think the reason we keep hosing things up in the final seconds is that the guys just don't know each other well enough; they don't gel like they should.

So I would say this year is a wash (mathematically we haven't been eliminated yet, but come on), but next year... Next year will be our year. Give these guys an off-season to gel and they've got it.

I'm not betting money on this, though. I'm an optimist/realist.

Poor little blog...

...you have been woefully neglected. The novel progresses slowly (see the handy-dandy little counter to the left). My goal is to be done by Christmas. There are two kinds of writers: writers who blast through their first drafts and then go back and rewrite (I envy them), and writers like me who take three steps forward than two steps back then three more forward... The upside of that is when I'm done, I'm done. I'll do one last read through to polish this and that, but nothing major. The downside is each chapter gets written and rewritten about ten times before I call it "done", and even then about every three chapters I back up and go over the old chapters again before I move on. I don't keep very close count of my words, but I would guess the 1000 words a day I write only translates to 1000 a week of keepable prose. So there you go. And forget about the month or two I spend on the outline. I am a pokey little puppy.

Good news: I've finished the short story that will be my WOTF entry this quarter, and I love it. It's my favorite thing I've ever written. Of course whatever I've just finished writing invariably becomes my favorite thing. But this is really good, and the research I did opened so many doors, I just might have to set a novel there someday.

You know, when this one is done.

My son, the android

Aidan was spinning in circles last night and then complaining of feeling dizzy. Oliver advised him to "just lower his dizziness levels. That's what I do!" Umm, OK. And this was before we let them stay up late to watch Futurama with us. It was the one with Beck in it, so Oliver was enraptured. They had to get to bed before Boondocks, however, even though it was the episode with "Mace Windu" (Sam Jackson). It's hilarious; he plays a son of a congressman/wigger and has a monologue combining his "say what again" speech from Pulp Fiction with Rumsfield's knowns/unknowns speech that's quite brilliant. But there's a reason they play this show on Adult Swim.

The bigger news is Oliver got a haircut, or half of one anyway. It happened while I was working. Apparently he had caked his hair with food one too many times for Dad, who cut him some bangs and then stopped. Quin says he was going for Dutch Boy, but I see Willy Wonka. Which I probably shouldn't have said out loud, because now Oliver wants to keep it that way. I'm not sure if that was why he was wearing a dress shirt and tie when I got up this morning; some things are just inexplicable.

Aidan also got a hair cut, but since he always wants his hair short, the results are somewhat less dramatic:

Things that make you go ewww...

Miss Snark had a post a while back where she asked what in a book makes you go ewww. I think between books and movies, there are three broad categories of things that will always turn me off: Serial killers, child abuse (particularly sexual abuse), and talking animals. I occasionally like things which deal with these subjects, but they have to be truly exceptional.

For instance, serial killers. Didn't like Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon or, god forbid, The Cell. I like aspects of them; the acting might be good or in the case of The Cell the visuals are amazing, but I can't ger around the whole serial killer thing. People who like these sorts of things usually tell me they like them because they are curious about what makes serial killers tick. I guess I'm more interested in what makes normal folks tick than the rare extreme deviant from norm.

My exception in this category... can you guess? It's Seven. Why? I've asked myself this question a lot, because my distate for serial killer movies and my love of this particular film are proportional. I think it's a few things. First, this film is really more about Morgan Freeman and is relationship to life in the city than it is about serial killers. And Morgan Freeman rocks. Second, you never see the murders or the victims before they've been killed. There is no vicarious "thrill" watching some clueless chick who's about to get it. There are no scenes of actresses screaming or just being terrified. In particular, we neve see the scene where he gets Gwyneth. Granted, that's mostly for reasons of "what's in the box" suspense, but I can see a lot of writers or directors wanting to use it as an after-the-fact flashback or even intercutting it with the final scene. We never even see her head in the box; it's all implied. So kudos to David Fincher for not going there. The stalking and killing are so incidental to the plot the serial killer himself has no scenes until the very end of the film. And I love the way Spacey played him; he does not radiate evil. He's just this guy.

I can't think of any examples of abuse that I liked unless you include Lolita. I was expecting to hate that book but was quite entranced. I'd give the Kubrick movie a B.

The third category, talking animals, is pretty far afield from the first two, I'll admit. But it's the one that bugs me the most. Bambi, the Lion King, etc. etc. I just can't stand it; I don't know why. But there are probably more exceptions to this rule. Finding Nemo was great, and I enjoyed A Bug's Life as well. I loved Babe, although to me that's really a movie about a laconic farmer. I very nearly never saw this film because the annoying singing mice were so prominently featured in the previews and ads I was sure I would hate it. I do hate the mice, but the movie is good.

On a related note, here is a link to animals that don't talk: Garfield cartoons where all the dialogue except Jon's has been deleted. Now it's a sad tale of a desperately lonely man and his pets. Warning, the site tends to exceed it's bandwidth so you might have to try it more than once to actually get there.