Is this thing on?
Sorry to have disappeared. Thank you to everyone who's written and clicked through and wondered if I was going AWOL again.
I'm not. Just was absolutely beyond exhausted, and I hadn't really even realized how much. I had signed up for Holidailies, thinking it would get me back into the groove, and instead, I just stalled completely. Apparently, finishing up a novel completely robbed me of words. I owe e-mail! I owe phone calls! I owe cards!
On the very good news / family front, both my sons graduated this month: Jake, (youngest), went through Firefigher training school and made Firefighter II. And we didn't know until they mentioned it at graduation, but it turns out that the school he went to was one of the top three in the nation. Wooo! Luke (oldest), graduated from college with a Criminal Justice degree, and his college is rated one of the top six in the nation for that degree. He's worked his behind off, and we're very proud of him. Of both of them.
There were a few times when they were younger that I wondered if they'd survive (each other as well as peer group stuff). Only a few times. (3,462,198 times.) It's amazing to see these... these men of mine. They're men. How in the hell did that happen? I can't be old enough to have men as my children. This is too bizarre.
At the same time, to sit around together at family events and everyone is laughing and cutting up and going off on riffs that has the rest of the family rolling, to see the grandparents sitting there with the kids, to know that this won't last forever, but we've got it, we've had those moments, they're ours... we got there, the magical "there" you hope and pray for as parents and as a child yourself. To know we had this, especially this year, is the greatest gift I could have received.
Hope you all have a wonderful New Year, where you have those magical moments for yourself, where your dreams come true, and where disasters do not strike. We're gearing up for the annual 'tater launch party. See you next year!
(I've been asked, as a Christmas tradition, to re-post this story.)
When the kids were little -- I think Jake was three and Luke was seven -- Christmas felt like it was going to be slim. Make that downright anorexic. So I was looking for a way to bring a little fun into the season, something that wouldn't cost much.
I had a brilliant idea. (I should come with a warning label: If brilliant idea occurs, step way-the-hell back for your own safety.)
Anyway. The idea was to have someone play Santa at our house for a pre-Christmas visit. We'd invite all the neighbor kids and their parents and each family would bring a gift for their child ahead of time. I'd hide the gifts away and squirrel them to our Santa, who would come in the house with lots of Ho Ho Hos and joy and jovial warmth and after regaling the kids with whatever it is Santas regale kids with, he'd give out the presents. There would be hot chocolate and apple cider, a beautifully lit Christmas tree in the background. Maybe even singing, if the kids wanted to sing. We woud be so sappy, Hallmark would sue. Or throw up, but whatever, it was going to be great.
When I write it out like that, it sounds like a very nice day, doesn't it? It really does seem normal and sane and I should have known that in my world, "normal" and "sane" do not apply.
It progressed innocently enough... I invited all of the neighbors, who loved the idea, especially since it was a fairly tight season for everyone. The "gifts" to the kids were held to a very low budget, so everything was fair and equal. There was a tree, decorations, lights, apple cider and hot chocolate, brownies, cookies, you name it for a sugar fix, someone was going to bring it. All I needed was a Santa.
Finding someone with a Santa suit wasn't quite as easy as I had expected; most of the people who have them are booked for all of December, and it was two weeks before Christmas and looking a little bleak. And forget getting one of those guys for free. Like I was crazy for thinking this was the season of giving or something. Of course, the kids already knew that Santa was going to come to our house for our party, the specific date was set, so there was no going back at that point. (Could you look a bunch of 3 to 7 year olds in the face and tell them Santa wasn't showing up? If so, here's your application to Mercenaries-R-Us and Osama's on line two.) So. Had to find a Santa. Was getting a little scared as the day approached and there was no Santa to be had.
Then a member of our family, who we still speak to even after this event, suggested a certain older friend-of-the-family. I had met this FOtF several times, and he's a little... erm... warped. He is very very sweet, but also sort of odd, disjointed, but in a quasi-live-in-a-fog sort of way. Jovial, though, he had down pat. He had the rotund belly, the jolly round cheeks, the perfect Santa nose. The thing that worried me was that he was incredibly bashful. And when he did speak, he was extremely quiet. I couldn't remember him putting together two whole sentences in a row, unless you call smiling and nodding a lot "sentences," but at this point, I figured, what could it hurt?
Now, in retrospect, I understand why the heroine always goes down into the dark basement when she's heard a noise, there's a serial killer known to be in her neighborhood, someone who'd been stalking her and had keys made to her house, and yet she goes anyway, armed with only a pony-tail clasp and Malibu Barbie lipstick. She was thinking what could it hurt?
Our house was tiny, so the plan was for me to hide the bag of toys at our back door for Santa to grab, then he'd go around and come in the front door, where everyone was gathered in the living / dining room area. Tree lit? Check. Apple cider? Check. Hot chocolate? Check. Sugar high toddlers on the ceiling? Check. So many people packed in there, we were going to need pregnancy tests soon? Check.
But no Santa.
An hour goes by. The kids get higher and rowdier and the adults get fidgety and gossipy and God only knows how many families we managed to break up on that one night. Meanwhile, Jake (three) wandered off to the kitchen. I could see him (very very tiny house) from the dining room, when we heard a noise outside. A distinctive 'HO HO HO" noise. At last.
Everyone turned expectantly toward the front door. I don't want Jake to miss this, so I run into the kitchen to scoop him up, when suddenly, the back door BURST open with Jake not a foot away from it, and in bound Santa, HO HO HOing at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS, and RUNNING, people. RUNNING. There was NO ROOM TO RUN so Jake turned away from this screaming giant red monster and beelined it back to the living room, which meant he went OVER me, over a few other people standing in the way and did Santa stop? No, no he did not. Santa ran smack over me, over a few other innocent bystanders, and to top it off, the whole running time? He was throwring candy. Hard candy. And I don't mean "lightly tossing it to the cute little four-year-old standing there with her jaw open in abject fear...." No. I mean hurling it, 95mph over the plate there, Babe, pinging parents, knocking out a couple of random elementary kids and everyone started dodging and diving for cover and did he STOP? No. No he did not. He kept whizzing that candy and HO HO HOing and running (now in circles in the living room) and kids were screaming, Jake was crying, Luke was hiding, I was still on the floor in total shock, and when he did stop, finally (I think Carl tripped him), he started with the presents. Not a single jolly word did this man speak. He pulled out presents, asked the kid's name, and the really smart kids hid behind their parents, because he HURLED the gifts at their heads. Hurled. I'm not kidding you.
By this point, there was hot chocolate and apple cider everywhere, there were a couple of wet spots on the sofa I didn't want to identify, most of the kids were wailing and trying to climb their nearest parent and on top of everything else, Santa had managed to drop one of the kid's presents outside... though I had the presence of mind to realize what had happened and I had a stand-by gift ready (in case one of the parents forgot) and so that was solved. When he finished slinging the last present, did he SIT DOWN and calmly tell lovely stories to the kids to keep them from growing up to be SERIAL KILLERS?
No. No he did not.
He started up again with the running and HO HO HOing and throwing even MORE CANDY. You'd think the man was on a float and we were thirty feet away, and when he finally finished careening over a couple of kids who hadn't been trampled on the first go-round, he sprinted to the back door and ran out into the night.
The back door slammed and the whole house hushed for a moment in stunned silence. Parents looked at me like I should be locked up, and those were the nice polite expressions, comparitively speaking. Then the shrieking began, and the confusion (toys had been dropped and stomped on by Santa on his way out) and there was just no way to rescue it. I've never seen a bunch of people leave a party faster in my life.
But I tell you what. Whenever someone would say to those kids, even years later, that they "better be good because Santa was watching"... man, they'd straighten right the hell up. And I don't think a single one of them touched hard candy for years.
(Just to wrap up... I thought the Santa would have realized how badly things had gone, but the next time we saw him and his wife, he was back in bashful, quiet mode and his wife told us that he'd reportedly had an aboslutely delightful time, that it had been one of the best Santa/parties he'd ever attended. And he sat there and smiled and nodded.)
If you remember, I mentioned a little while back that I'd been asked to contribute an essay about New Orleans and Katrina for a book. Well, the amazing publisher, Chin Music Press, is now going to donate all of the profits of all of the books which are pre-ordered through January 6, 2006, to relief efforts in New Orleans.
How amazing is that?
Go here to see their offer and lots of information about the book.
Go here to read the blog which updates you on the process and progress.
I am flattered to be included with such talented writers as Colleen, Jette, and Ray.
Right now in New Orleans and the Chalmette areas, they are bulldozing blocks and blocks and blocks of homes. Acres of homes. Gone. Eighteen wheelers are pulling up to piles of debris stacked up by bulldozers -- debris which used to be a home. Backhoes then lift the home and the personal items and the memories and drop it into the truck. And as the truck pulls away, the bulldozer moves on to the house next door. To begin bulldozing again.
There are stories still coming out of here which break our hearts. There is talk of raising money for Habitat homes for displaced musicians, to try to bring some of the lost culture back to New Orleans so that it won't disappear forever into some oblivion.
I love that this publisher is so awesome that they're trying to help, and trying to do so in a big big way. They're donating all of the pre-order profits. When is the last time you heard of a publisher doing something like that? I hope you'll support them. Please pass along their link to anyone you know who might love a book that is beautifully designed and has some fine writing (and even let me in).
Meanwhile, 100% of my fee will go to Katrina relief as well. I hope to help promote their efforts because really, this is something I can give, some small way to hold onto a piece of New Orleans.
Pooks tagged me for a book meme, where the point is to write fifteen things about books. I like this topic. (Imagine that.)
So...
1) My love of reading started very early. I'm not sure if it was because my mom and dad were voracious readers and I always saw them reading, or if it was because I just loved being in a different world than the one I lived in and would have gravitated to books or a sanitarium at some point, anyway. My aunt brought boxes and boxes of books to our house whenever she was finished with them and I'd squirrel off a box or two in my bedroom and be in heaven. I loved going to the library when we were kids and if my memory's correct, I'd check out the maximum I was allowed every time. I love libraries, but suck at returning things on time, so end up buying instead now.
2) I'd stay up and read all night when I was in junior high / high school. My dad routinely had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to go to work. I'd hear his alarm, turn off my light, wait for him to get dressed and leave (because I wasn't supposed to be up so late reading since I had to get up at 6:30 in the morning for school). I'd listen for him to leave, waiting until I heard the whine of the truck engine make the corner and pass out of range (in case he looked back in his rearview mirror, he might be able to see the glow from my room) and then I'd read at least another couple of hours until 4:30. I'm sure most of my high school thought of me as tense, or not terribly friendly and the truth was, I was incredibly sleep deprived. But I still read all night through whenever something grabs me, no matter what I have to do the next day.
3) I think a bookstore is my idea of heaven. I love the thrill of walking in there and seeing so many stories from which to choose. I love the smell of new books, the virgin feel of a text which hasn't been opened yet.
4) It never really occurred to me to just read one genre; I read pretty much everything (except horror). Overdosed on southern fiction and literary fiction for a while there in college, but do love it, still, alongside thrillers and capers and mysteries and... er. I may have a problem.
5) I ended up with a creative writing degree and pursued an MFA. I stopped 6 hours short of the MFA in screenwriting due to the fact that I'd signed with an L.A. agent and had to get another script done (and didn't have time for the two French classes I'd have had to take to graduate.) Seemed a moot point at that time.
6) When given a choice between books and jewelry for Christmas or my birthday, jewelry never even got a consideration. In fact, lots of things completely lost out if I had to choose between them and books.
7) My favorite birthday / vacation idea is a week of no obligations, non-stop read-a-thon.
8) I have a lot of books on my TBR pile, perfect for the rare events like #7.
9) There are too many times I'll end up tossing a book after just a few chapters. I'll give one a chance for that long, but if at that point, I'm not hooked, it just ain't gonna happen. I have too many more on the pile to be read and like Nancy said, life's too short when there really are so many great books out there.
10) I have read many classics (partly as a result of the English degree and the MFA), but constantly hear about so many more I feel like I "ought" to read.
11) Even so, if I have the time to read and there's a current page-turner sitting there vs. an age-old classic that's supposed to be "good" for me to read, I'll hit the page turner every time. I want to be entertained, to escape, to live vicariously.
12) There are a few books I pull out and re-read every year. They're not important books, and they may not have even been a best-seller, but they meant a lot to me at a particular time in my life and re-reading them not only reminds me of where I was, but how far I've come from that point. I think books saved my life, many times over, because I could read about something and start to understand a bit of the world that seemed chaotic to me, or I could find someone who was going through something similar and not feel like I was alone, a complete freak. (Notice that I am not hoping that I'm not a complete freak. I just like knowing I'm not the only one.)
13) One of my prized possessions is a first edition Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time.
14) I didn't read many normal children's classics until I had kids of my own. I read whatever my mom and dad had around (everything from Agatha Christie to Louis L'Amour to whatever the latest bestseller was).
15) Logic flaws will drive me to throw a book at the wall. Especially when there's a clear way to have solved it, if the writer had thought outside the box a bit. It's probably my biggest pet peeve, and a big flaw will make me not want to read that writer again.
Well, hmmm. Fifteen doesn't feel like enough, but I'll stop there and tag Diane, Tamar, and Gwenda.