Day in the Life of an Idiot

It's been a rather long day. First, I volunteered at Mason's school to chaperone a field trip to the Minnesota zoo. We had a good time, but our teacher Mr. G. is not the most organized. He's an awesome teacher, but, dude is less organized than ME. This says a lot.

Luckily, I am self-reliant.

So, we got through the day and didn't lose anyone. Most of us were where we were suppose to be most of the time. Everyone made it back to school. I think we even managed to have some fun. The bird show was particularly awesome.

When we got back home, which was earlier than usual, since Mr. G. let Mason and I go as soon as the bus dropped everyone back at the school, we discovered our dear, beloved gerbil Ms. Busy Bee had passed. Previously, I wrote about XOXO and her possible stroke. Well, XOXO aka "Bullet" survived and is doing really well. Ms. B. had been acting kind of strange the last couple of days, and we all thought by the little chirping noises she was making she had probably caught a cold. She was still moving around quite a bit, though yesterday I took her out of her cage and held her for a long time because she seemed a bit cold and unresponsive. By evening, though, when I tried to pick her up again, she ran off. I took that to be a good sign.

Alas, I was wrong.

She's now wrapped and boxed and in our freezer waiting for a spring thaw so that we can bury her. I'm skipping hooping tonight so that we can perform a passing over ritual for her.

:-(

My gerbil XOXO seems to have had a stroke. We had a gerbil in the past that suffered from epilepsy, so I suspect his sort of thing can happen as well. On the flip side, after I took her out of the cage and helped her eat, she's been foraging around on her own with a lot of lurching enthusiasm.

Mason is quite distraught, as she seemed pretty listless earlier. I actually have a bit of hope seeing her working really hard right now, flinging seeds around and finding a corner to prop herself up in. But, then, I'm always the hopeful one....

In other news, Mason and I decided to spend the first day of his winter intersession by completely wasting our minds on a Bleach marathon. We have now completed the Bount arc, and will have to order DVDs of the next series. We spent the entire day in front of the computer, and we fortified ourselves with raspberries, Japanese candies that I'd bought for the event at an import store, Doritos and cheese, and Izzy's pop. It was AWESOME. My brain felt pretty rotten by the end, but it was actually a lot of fun.

Mason and I went to kuk sool this evening, which was fun, even though I was the only adult. I think we burned off a bit of the Doritos and other junk. Then, I managed to miss a podcast call that was supposed to happen at 7:00 EST and I mistook that for 8:00 CST, instead of 6:00... but I wasn't the only author involved, so even though I feel dumber than a post, I didn't really inconvenience anyone but myself.

Gah.

Hope your Monday was as fun.

Unbelievably, Mason is at school today. We had to fight blinding snow-filled winds, stupid drivers, and slippery streets to get him there on time. I also had to delay getting my coffee, which made navigating the above that much tricker.

It's also COLD. Our first minus degree (F) day this winter.

My cough still lingers, but after a very rough night it's a bit more productive and less painful. I think I shall survive after all.

I spent yesterday nursing my cough, writing my murder mystery synopsis (and then sketched out a paranormal police procedural) and watching the roofers my crazy neighbors hired trying to battle the snow and wind as they ripped off the layers of gunk and dropped it all over my yard. Which was then instantly covered by snow. They worked well into the storm, until 2:30 pm, and I'm absolutely certain there are buried tools and roofing materials still in the yard, now under three inches of snow.

What some people will do, eh?

Mason was absolutely giddy this morning to wake up to see all the snow. Everywhere there are those huge piles where the plows toss everything. He kept saying, "Oh, I'm SO going to climb that after school!" and then letting out one of his maniacal laughs.

Also, I need to get some video uploaded to the YouTubes, because last night I captured on film our gerbil, Bee, leaping up on to the wire mess cover, hanging upside down, climbing across it until her little arms can't take it and falling off. What's weird is that she'll do this over and over. And I think I accidentally encouraged this daredevil behavior by giving them seeds the first time she did it. But it makes for pretty funny video.

I also promised a review of BONESHAKER (Cherie Priest), but since it's so new I think I may just leave it with a "you should read this book." I should say that I'm neither a fan of steampunk nor zombies, and this book has both, yet I was quite engaged all the way through. I'm now FINALLY reading HALF A CROWN the last book in Jo Walton's still life with fascism series, or whatever she calls it. I already have a sense of foreboding and I'm only fifty pages in.

We interrupt the regularly schedualed program for this local announcement:

Tuesday March 10, 2009:
Who Owns What? Learn about permissions and copyright

On Tuesday, March 10 at 1 PM, the Twin Cities chapters of the National Writers Union and the Professional Editors Network will hold a free workshop abou t permissions and copyright and other intellectual property issues concernin g writers and editors.

Location: St. Louis Park Library, 3240 Library Lane, St. Louis Park. Two attorneys—Debra Kass Orenstein and Kenneth Kunkle-- will explain copyright and permissions.

Literary property lawyer Debra Kass Orenstein is in private practice representing writers, publishers, and agents all over the country. She has worked in the legal departments of Harper & Row (now Harper Collins) and McGraw Hill and was General Counsel to the Lazear Agency in Minneapolis. Attorney Kenneth Kunkle’s practice focuses on legal issues affecting creative professionals. He assists his clients with a variety of matters, including copyright, trademarks, licensing and general business issues.

Please join us for this FREE event! For more details about the Twin Cities National Writers Union, visit www.nwu-tc.org For more details about the Professional Editors Network, visit www.pensite.org

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And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

So I'll be at MarsCon this weekend, and at some point it would probably also be wise to post my schedule (if, for no other reason than that the retyping/reformating of it would help me remember to go!)

But most of my brain has been eaten by gerbils.

Least you think I'm being metaphorical, I should tell you that yesterday, after school, we bought two, two-month old gerbils. Oh, and they are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute. I am actually a huge fan of rodents. Gerbils, in fact, were my very first pets. Shawn and I kept gerbils in our college dorm, even though the keeping of pets was actually forbidden (gerbils were easy to hide.) We had gerbils before we had cats and then we successfully had cats and gerbils until we finally got too sad at how short their lifespan actually is (not much more than two years.)

The best thing about being with the same person for twenty odd years is that there are moments like the one that precipitated our buying gerbils. So we're at the pet store a month ago, probably buying cat food or litter or something for the fish. Shawn sees some gerbils on sale. We both remark how cute they are, and go on with our lives. Then, over the course of several days, Shawn says shyly, "I really love gerbils." Really? "Yep," she says and we go on to talk of other things. Then, finally a few days after that, I get from her, "I REALLY like gerbils. I kind of miss having them." Aha! Now I understand. Shawn wants gerbils. If I didn't know her as intimately as I do, I probably would have thought she was just being wistful, but, honestly, our conversation about having children went much like this... only it took a bit longer for me to get the hints and she finally had to just blurt out, "I want to have kids!"

So now we have kid... and gerbils.

The gerbils have no names yet. There is a bit of contention in the household as to what they should be called, so we're considering a "name jar" where we can put slips of paper with name ideas on them and perhaps, randomly chose at some point. I have been aggitating for "XOXO" (pronounced: "zoezoe" because Shawn jokingly claimed I'd bought a Valentine's card for someone named "zoezoe" when all that was written on the outside of the envelope had been XOXO.)

Enough about that for now. I must to go check on said gerbils, shop, write an article for the Midwest Muse (my local RWA chapter newsletter), and, of course, write the book.

Hope you all are well.