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Why is There a Tiger at the BBQ?

This past weekend I went to a BBQ, and upon walking into this family’s yard my first thought was not, “Wow, what a gorgeous house.” Or even, “cool, a pool.” It was, “Holy mother of God that’s a tiger!!!” Now mind you, there was not actually a tiger. There was however, an almost life-sized stuffed animal of a tiger that one of the kids had left on a lounge chair. Now notice, I said almost life-sized, therefore not actually big enough to be a real tiger, and I don’t know that anyone else would have mistaken it for the genuine article. Especially since who in their right mind would have a pet tiger and let it roam around free during a BBQ without warning your guests of its presence! This did not matter. My brain saw it, refused to acknowledge the absurdity of it being real and immediately began to freak the fuck out. I’m actually amazed that I didn’t run over my host trying to get out of the yard. Instead I completely missed the names of everyone that I was being introduced to while trying to stave off a panic attack, and wondering why everyone was so calm with a mother fucking tiger in the yard! Eventually, probably a span of ten seconds but it felt like half an hour, my brain calmed down enough for me to register that it was indeed a stuffed animal, not a real tiger, at which point I blurted out, “Oh my god, I thought that was a real tiger.” Which I’m sure helped to explain the absolutely terror-stricken look on my face, but did nothing to calm the look of “We’re in the presence of a crazy person” that was on everyone else’s face. What can I say, I make quite the first impression.

Plush-Tiger

And quite frankly, I blame this entire reaction on my childhood which has instilled in me an irrational fear of large cats. I know what you’re thinking, there’s nothing irrational about being afraid of lions and tigers, which is true. But the irrationality of my fear comes from the fact that I’m afraid of them to the point that I expect to see them in completely nonsensical locations … like poolside at a family friendly BBQ. This is because I grew up a couple of miles from the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, which is an absolutely gorgeous tiny little spot, that also happens to have the highest population of mountain lions per square mile in the entire Rocky Mountain region. That means that if you look all the way from Canada through the US and down into Mexico, the frickin mountain lions find Grand Lake, CO the most hospitable spot.

Dorothy

Therefore, when city kids were learning about stranger-danger we were learning about what to do should you encounter a mountain lion in the wild. Which if you spent anytime outside the odds were pretty good that you might, whether you knew it or not. Needless to say, this made quite the impression on me, and formed a very healthy respect/fear of the creatures. Because of this, at night when I had to get up to go to the bathroom, it wasn’t the boogie man, or monsters that I feared, okay I was afraid of them too, but mostly, it was the mountain lion that slept at the end of the hall at night. So whenever I had to go to the bathroom, I had a set procedure.

Step 1 – Jump off the bed landing far enough away that the monsters underneath couldn’t swipe my ankles.

Step 2 – Open the door then run as quickly as humanly possible across the hall to the bathroom.

Step 2.5 – Glance quickly down the hall while crossing to ensure that the mountain lion isn’t there yet.

Step 3 – Slam the bathroom door shut, while simultaneously flipping on the bathroom light, making sure that the light turns on before the door is fully closed or the boogie man will jump out of the mirror and get me.

Step 4 – Go pee.

Step 5 – Repeat process, but in reverse, to get back into bed.

To be honest, I’m amazed that I didn’t just wet the bed to avoid the hassle. But I didn’t, and as long as I followed my procedure all was well. Until one night, when I did the mountain lion check and saw a sleeping mountain lion curled up at the end of the hall. Okay, it wasn’t actually a mountain lion, but we had just gotten a new dog, and it is amazing how similar a golden retriever/golden lab mix resembles the coloring and size of a mountain lion in the dark. I, however, was unable to make this distinction, racing across the hall in the middle of the night, checking to make sure that the coast was clear. As the coast was most definitely NOT clear, I lost my shit, and ran down the hall screaming into the living room. Of course, hearing one of her people screaming, the dog jumped up and chased after me. Now I was being chased by the mountain lion at the end of the hall and once in the living room, still screaming, I started to climb up on and across all of the furniture. Apparently in my addle-pated state, playing lava seemed like the thing to do.

Mountain Lion

By now the dog was thoroughly concerned and had followed me up onto the furniture and was trying her dead level best to catch up to me so that she could protect me. My poor father, hearing the ruckus and probably assuming that his daughter was being axe murdered, arrived in the living room to find a berserk child practically climbing the walls to get away from a very concerned and worried dog. After that, I don’t really remember what happened, although if I had to guess, I probably didn’t sleep for a week. Needless to say, I had a bit of an over-active imagination as a child, and apparently that hasn’t changed much. Hence, my belief that there could be a tiger at a BBQ. Good grief!

8 Terrible Titles

I have been tagged by a fellow writer to participate in the #8TerribleTitles blog hop. Here are the rules:

  • Open your manuscript and scroll to a random passage
  • The word or phrase where your cursor lands is your first terrible title
  • Repeat until you have eight terrible titles

So without further ado, here are my contributions from In a Time Never Known, my historical fiction novel set during the American Civil War, publication 2015. I, of course, added snarky tag lines:

 

He Coughed Up Some Blood and Groaned

– A no-holds barred telling of the scourge that was tuberculosis in the Wild West.

 

This is The Spot

– In a much anticipated sequel, Lady MacBeth gets counseling to help her reconcile what is actually a spot, and what is simply a figment of her guilt-riddled imagination.

Lady MacB

Her Father’s Shipping Conglomeration

– This touching biography of Tom, the first FedEx store owner in Sheboygan, WI, will keep you riveted from the first roll of packing tape to the last.

 

To Approach the Top of the Hill

– In his controversial new book, Dr. Phil posits that not everyone is ready for success, and that there are steps that must be taken before approaching the top.

 

In Her Mother’s Hand

– Little Janie has always known that her mother is a kleptomaniac, but when Janie herself is accused of stealing a precious keepsake, will she take the blame, or reveal, that like every other time, the answer lies in her mother’s hand?

Klepto

She’s Bleeding!

– In this heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Claire comes to terms with the fact that she is the last of her friends to get her period, and thus cross over into womanhood.

 

The Comfort of Kady’s Embrace

– Kady, a mild-mannered prostitute, discovers that she has the ability to heal the sick through carnal embrace. But how can she explain this gift, and will anybody believe her?

 

The Demons of Our Realities

– Demon hunters Billy and Joe have to act fast when an exorcism gone wrong shifts all of Earth’s demons to an alternate reality, and all of the alternate reality’s demons to Earth.

 

Hmmm, I think some of those might actually sell . . .

Thanks for inviting me to play Jayme! For more #8TerribleTitles check out her blog here.

When Practical Jokes Go Awry

My roommate and I have been battling our shower curtain since, well pretty much since we moved into our apartment two years ago. To be fair, it’s not the shower curtain, it’s the rod. It would constantly slip and then eventually the whole thing would come crashing down. Sometimes it took absolutely no provocation, we’d be sitting in the living room enjoying our morning coffee and a loud crash would echo out from the bathroom. Other times you’d be in the shower and tug on the curtain a bit and down it would come. It was good times. Eventually, I went out and bought a shiny new shower curtain rod so that these issues would be a thing of the past . . . exact same problems as before. Either our bathtub is just the tiniest bit longer than a standard shower curtain rod, or we have a ghost that has a serious grudge against shower curtains staying up.

Ghost in Bathroom

So, to solve this problem I just started resting each end of the rod on top of tile wall that surrounds the bathtub. Problem solved! New problem: now the shower curtain only hangs down into the tub about two inches, which means when the slightest nudge or spray of water hits it, the bottom of the curtain flies out and water gets all over the bathroom. Ugh! Needless to say, my roommate and I have become very careful shower-ers. Until this weekend, when I had a brilliant idea! Emily was at Target so I asked her to pick up the cheapest shower curtain hooks they had. I added the second set of hooks onto the original set and voila, for $1.50, our shower curtain is now long enough that our troubles are over! To double check my work, I stepped into the bathtub and closed the curtain. Emily was holding off taking a shower until I fixed the shower curtain, so I loudly announced that I was finished. She hollered a “Yay!” from her room. That’s when I realized that since she was in her room she had no idea that I was now standing in the bathtub behind the drawn curtain. This is when I had my second brilliant idea of the weekend – I was going to stay in the bathtub and scare the crap out of Emily! The following is my inner monologue.

Okay, she’s still in her room packing to go to her parents’ house, perfect. I’ll stand in the middle of the tub and when she pulls back the curtain I’ll say “Boo!” It’ll be great! Oh, wait a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her scared before. I wonder if she’s more of a fight or a flight person? If she’s a fight person and I’m standing in the middle of the tub, she’ll be able to punch me right in the face before I even see it coming. Hmmm. I really don’t see her doing that . . . but am I willing to take that risk? Okay, I’ll be in the middle of the tub, but I’ll be up against the back of the wall. That way if she tries to punch me she’ll have to over extend and it won’t hurt as much. Huh? You can’t really stand all the way back, the curve of the tub is too much. Okay, I’ll scoot my feet back as far as they can go and lean against the wall. There, perfect! This is kind of awkward. Who cares! It’ll totally be worth it!

***

Good lord! Is she moving out, how much stuff is she packing? Just come take your shower already!

***

Ooo, she’s coming in the bathroom! Should I do a scary face, or a creepy smile? Smile, definitely creepy smile! Okay, she’s going for the light switch, closing the door, any second now . . . any second now . . . any second . . . oh good grief, what is she doing? Wow, you really can’t see anything through this curtain. I have no idea what she is doing. Which I guess is good, because that means that she has no idea that I’m back here. Awesome! Wait a minute. That also means that on an everyday basis, someone could be hiding behind this curtain and neither of us would have any clue until we pulled it open. *shudder* Note to self – start leaving the shower curtain open, so that serial killers who break in will have to find somewhere else to hide.

screenshot-med-13Second note to self – stop watching Criminal Minds, it’s warping your brain. Oh! Oh, she’s moving, get ready!

Oh no. No, no, no, stop! Stop, don’t do that! Aw crap, she’s going to the bathroom. Now this is just awkward. Should I say something? No, no that would be worse. Stay the course, she’ll be done in a second and all will go as planned. Unless of course, she has to poop . . . oh god! She has to poop! Nooooooo! I should say something, I should really say something. She doesn’t want me in here listening to her poop, I wouldn’t want somebody to listen to me poop. But she’s already pooping, I would be interrupting her poop. You can’t interrupt a good poop, that’s sacrilegious! Crap, crap crap, this is not how this was supposed to go!

***

I wonder if she’d notice if I opened the window? Kat, no! Of course she would notice. Pull yourself together Michels, you’ve smelled worse. In fact, this doesn’t even hit the top ten worst poops you’ve smelled, you’ll be fine. Stay the course, it’ll be worth it … I hope. Actually at this point I just hope that she doesn’t kill me. She has a good sense of humor, she’ll think this is funny … I hope. *Puggles barking* Oh crap! Shhh! Shhh! Puggles stop it. If you keep barking, she going to wonder why I’m not shushing you. Oh God! What if it’s Earl coming home? No, no it’s not Earl. They’ve stopped barking. Good.

***

Oh good lord, my feet are purple! I’ve been standing so long at this awkward angle that my feet have gone purple! Okay, I can wiggle my toes still, that’s good. I should move my feet, switch positions. No! You can’t do that, this bathtub creaks with any sort of movement. Maybe if I bend my knees a little bit. Stand, bend, stand, bend, get the circulation going. There, that seems to be helping some. Oh, oh, she flushed, okay get ready! No! Don’t get undressed first, just pull back the curtain and then this can all be over! Argh!!!! Crap. Now she’s naked, I’ve heard her poop and she’s pulling back the curtain really slowly. *She sees me, gasps and wraps the curtain around her.*

“Oh God! Were you in there while I pooped?”

“Yep, good poop!” thumbs up. She starts laughing.

“You are ridiculous. How did you breathe?”

“I was gonna open the window, but I thought you’d hear it.” She laughs some more.

“I feel like we’ve bonded.”

“Me too.”

“Can I take my shower now?”

“Yep.”

I step out of the bathtub and return to my now cold coffee in the living room. The shower starts, I get a text message, “Can you tweet about that? I think it deserves a tweet, or a blog post.” Oh, definitely a blog post Em. Most definitely a blog post.

Mercury in Retrograde – A Rant

A co-worker just asked me how I was today and I expressed to him that I was kind of in a bad mood. At which point he shook his head and said,

“Well you know, Mercury is in retrograde, so that’s to be expected.” mercury-retrograde-sign

Now I will admit that I enjoy reading my horoscope from time to time. I’ve had my birth chart (or whatever it’s called) done and got a kick out of looking at it. I am not, however, what you would call new-agey. I don’t rely on the stars or psychics or astrologers to tell my future . . . or even to make decisions for that matter. And normally a comment about Mercury being in retrograde would have shot right past me and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. That didn’t happen today. Probably because I’m in a bad mood.

However, in the interest of work place harmony, I smiled and nodded until he walked away. So you my friends, get the rant that was intended for his new-agey, Mercury in retrograde ass. I apologize ahead of time for the language.

WTF?!?!? What does that even mean, and why would the planetary alignment of Mercury have anything to do with me? No don’t answer, I don’t want to know! Maybe Mercury’s alignment has absolutely nothing to do with my bad mood. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in over a week. Or maybe it’s because I had a bunch of blood drawn this morning and now I’m anemic and have a headache. Maybe it’s just because you looked at me funny. Or maybe it’s because I just finished doing a week of positivity on Facebook and this is the only mood left after being little Miss Mary Fucking Sunshine for seven days.

Perhaps it’s because my audio book hasn’t arrived at the library yet, so I’ve been forced to listen to the crap LA radio while on my commute for the past four days. Or because the five-hour energy that my other co-worker gave me has now made me so buzzed that we could have an earthquake and I don’t think I’d notice. Maybe it’s because it’s now getting darker in the evenings and by the time I walk my dogs when I get home it’s dark. Maybe it’s because right now in the office it’s too hot to put on a sweater, but too cold to leave one off so between the chills and the sweats I now feel menopausal. Speaking of which, maybe I’m just PMSing and a cocktail and chocolate cake would make everything better. MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE EITHER A COCKTAIL OR A CHOCOLATE CAKE!

Maybe it’s because my Pandora Broadway Shows station keeps playing big bands from the 1930’s instead of show tunes, which just makes me want to have a cocktail even more. Maybe it is any or all of these things that is contributing to me being in a bad mood, which has absolutely nothing to do with Mercury being in retrograde! Maybe I am in charge of my own moods and I’m choosing to be in a bad mood. Have you ever thought of that?!?!?!

Mercury Cartoon

Huh? Well that’s kind of stupid. If I choose my own moods, why I would choose to be in a bad mood. That seems like a waste of time. Maybe I should change my mood then. And maybe look up what the heck Mercury in retrograde means.

I’d still like a cocktail and some chocolate cake though . . . if anybody wants to hook me up with that . . .

Okay, I Guess You Can Call Me Type A

A friend of mine commented, as I was completely absorbed in meticulously drawing a chart and doing sums, that it was so interesting watching a Type A personality work. Unlike most “Type A” comments that I get, she wasn’t making fun of me. Or at least she better not have been making fun of me since I was helping her figure out her budget! At any rate, not fifteen minutes later she shook her head and laughed at me for my starkly non-type-A action of wiping the dust off a can by rubbing it on my pants. However, this didn’t strike me as odd at all, after all I’m type A not a clean freak. But of course this got me to thinking, and whenever I start thinking about something in particular it always leads to the internet and doing research. Like you do.
What did I find? That all of the people that have been making fun of me for years for being quintessentially type A, were pretty much completely right. Out of all of the articles that I read I think the Huffington Post summed it up the best with their 16 Signs That You’re a Little (or a Lot) Type A. Here’s how I scored:

  • Waiting in long lines kills you a little bit inside.
    • So not true! I do something else while in line like responding to emails, updating my to-do list or working on my next blog. Multi-tasking baby! That response makes me more Type A doesn’t it?
  • You’ve been described as a perfectionist, overachiever, workaholic or all of the above.
    • Um . . . check, check and check.type-a
  • You bite your nails or grind your teeth.
    • Ha! I have a no.
  • You have a serious phobia of wasting time.
    • At. All. Times. One of the reasons I really don’t like movie theaters is that I can’t do anything else while watching the movie.
  • You’re highly conscientious.
    • I’m great at big events/parties where I’m in charge and have to be constantly doing things to make sure that people are taken care of and everything is as it should be. I hate hosting small parties though because I stress out the whole time that people aren’t having fun, or I don’t have enough food or I have the wrong kind of food, etc.
  • You’ve always been a bit of a catastrophist.
    • Nah, everybody has an earthquake survival kit in their bedroom, their car and at work . . . right?
  • You frequently talk over and interrupt people.
    • I don’t do it on purpose! I get excited.
  • You have a hard time falling asleep at night.
    • Every. Damn. Night.
  • People can’t keep up with you in conversation, or on the sidewalk.
    • I can’t help it if I have long legs and talk like the Micro Machine Man when I’m excited!
  • You put more energy into your career than your relationships.
    • This might explain why I’m single . . .
  • Relaxing can be hard work for you.
    • But making spreadsheets IS relaxing!yogathoughts1
  • You have a low tolerance for incompetence.
    • How about no tolerance for incompetence? Yeah, let’s go with none.
  • You’d be lost without your to-do list.
    • I will never understand how people get by day-to-day without a to-do list. How do you remember all of things that you need to get done? I once tried to go without a list. It was the worst three hours of my life.
  • At work everything is urgent.
    • If you don’t need it done right now, than why did you give it to me right now? C’mon!
  • You’re sensitive to stress, which can lead to high-blood pressure and heart disease.
    • Ha! Another no. I have shockingly low blood pressure. I do however have anxiety and heart burn . . . so maybe this is a yes.
  • You make it happen.
    • If you didn’t want it done and done well, why did you ask me to do it in the first place?

Huh, 15 out of 16. Yeah, I guess you can say that I’m a little (a lot) Type A.

Life is a Cliché

There comes a time in everybody’s life when you realize that you are going to have to finally face the music and either accept the life that you have, or start making some serious changes to become the person that you want to be. You can change your look, your location, your job, you can even buy all the latest toys with the coolest bells and whistles available, but until you start to change your own thought patterns and processes you’ll still be the same person. You’ll just look different and be surrounded by cool stuff. But what happens if you choose to make those changes?

I recently made that choice, specifically pertaining to my attitude toward my job, and let me tell you, it has been like a breath of fresh air. I get more done and I’m happier. You see, I am still in a sustenance day job. It isn’t anything that I specifically enjoy doing, but I also don’t hate what I’m doing. The problem lies in the fact that I know what I would rather be doing, but I haven’t gotten to the point that that pays the bills. So until then, sustenance job, and somehow I managed to find that needle in a haystack job that pays the bills, but doesn’t consume my life. It doesn’t stress me out, and when I leave, I leave it all on my desk. Work doesn’t come home with me.

Attitude

Despite this, for a good long while, I have hated my job. Because it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing and it took up precious time that I could have been devoting toward my writing. The game changer for me happened when I realized that by hating my job I WAS taking it home with me. I was creating more stress than necessary and allocating unnecessary head space to a sustenance job. How ridiculous is that? So I decided to stop. I decided to stop dreading coming in in the morning. I decided to stop counting the hours and the minutes until I got to go home. I felt a bit like a fish out of water for a while, but I’ve started to get used to this new attitude and getting out of bed in the morning is so much easier now. Not to mention that my days are much more pleasant!

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like every day has become a bed of roses for me. I still have my down days, and every now and then I find myself in bed like a petulant child telling my alarm clock that I don’t wanna get up! But things are better. The fact that I’m getting up earlier also means that I have time to make some coffee to drink on my way in to work, so I’m sure that that helps too. But really, it’s the attitude change that has really made the difference. This is a step. And quite frankly this step is probably the calm before the storm, because I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from being able to venture out on my own and I definitely feel like there won’t be very much calm then. Lots and lots of busy, but good busy so I’m looking forward to it. The trick will be to keep that attitude once I’m there! What attitudes can you change that will make your life better?

cliche2

*This blog brought to you by @SteveLeeHwd who challenged me to write a blog using all nine of the clichés listed in this article from HuffPo.

 

Top Ten Ways You Know You Have IBS

1. The thought of eating ethnic food you’ve never tried before makes you break out in a cold sweat. Actually the thought of eating anything new makes you break out in a cold sweat.

2. You’ve lost track of how many times you’ve had to employ the courtesy flush more than once in a sitting. See #1

3. You will eat the same thing every day for a month with no complaints, because your IBS isn’t acting up and you don’t dare rock the boat. See #2

4. Going from trim to muffin-top back to trim over the course of an afternoon isn’t disconcerting, it’s just a day of the week that ends in Y.

5. You’ve come to accept that a bad IBS day during allergy season means that you’re staying within 10 yards of a restroom. At. All. Times.

IBS6. Conversations about poop don’t strike you as odd. In fact you find it a little bit odd when you realize that some of your friends don’t talk about poop at all, and you have a special bonding moment when your new-mother friends realize that they have someone to talk about poop with.

7. You are familiar with every homeopathic and OTC “tummy fix” and are secretly, or sometimes openly, annoyed when someone offers you one that isn’t your preferred brand.

8. You know that if you ever get appendicitis you’ll probably die because you won’t realize that that pain isn’t your normal pain/cramps/malaise until too late.

9. You play the “Is it worth it?” game with at least one dish at every buffet, BBQ and party you go to. Sometimes it’s totally worth it, other times you rue the day you were born.

10. You’ve perfected the art of farting in public . . . because it happens . . . a lot.

fart fish

They’re All Gonna Laugh at You

I take great pleasure in the fact that I can make people laugh. The more they laugh, the more I want them to keep laughing, so I keep cracking jokes. More than one person has asked me if I do stand-up. That’s on the bucket-list. Until then I keep my act much more spontaneous with smaller audiences. I think I’ve always been so drawn to laughter because of the power it has. Laughter is therapeutic, contagious and can diffuse some of the tensest situations. I definitely use laughter as a self defense mechanism. If a mood is too dour, or a conversation begins to drift into unwanted territory there’s nothing like laughter to distract and redirect the focus. My particular brand of comedy is self-deprecating. I generally make fun of myself or my situation . . . or word play, which I’m sure is a huge shock to everyone.

I credit the development of this particular brand of comedy to my father. He is very clever and gets seemingly endless joy from jerking people’s chains. Well as an inquisitive child I would bombard him with questions about anything and everything. Most of the time the teacher in him would come out and I would get a detailed answer. Generally much more detailed than I was actually interested in. However, every now and then, when the mood would strike him, he would answer questions like this:

Kat: Why is the sky blue?

Dad: Because it would look weird green.

Kat: What does the ‘H’ stand for in Jesus H. Christ?

Dad: Henry.

No hesitation, nothing but confidence. Then he would walk away or go back to doing whatever it was he was doing, conversation closed. Now is a good time to add that on top of being inquisitive, I was also very gullible. So I would believe him. After all, he was my dad and 98% of the time his answers were absolutely correct. However for that 2%, his answers were complete bunk and I was left to figure out which were which, and I did figure it out. Generally in a very public, loud fashion.

I have a very underdeveloped filter – okay, it’s not underdeveloped it’s overworked keeping me from swearing like a sailor at all times – which means that thoughts tend to jump straight out of my mouth. I don’t pull punches. I also say stupid things with full confidence because I learned them from a “reliable” source. So on more than one occasion growing up, I would announce things to a gathering of classmates like, “No, the ‘H’ stands for Henry. Jesus Henry Christ.”

Then they would all laugh at me.

You’re probably laughing at me right now. In retrospect, it’s pretty funny. So I was faced with a decision. I could either get really embarrassed, hate my life and slink away to hopefully never show my face again, or I could laugh with them. After a couple of these incidents it occurred to me that maybe this was my lot in life, so I should go with the flow. I started to laugh with them. That’s when I discovered that not only could I laugh with them, I could make them laugh more. I really liked that feeling. I could transform from the butt of the joke, to the joke, to the joker. It’s a powerful feeling, and there is nothing like the rush you get from brightening someone’s day and putting a smile on their face. I am completely addicted to it. They’re all gonna laugh at me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Laugh

The Queen of Sophistry

I had a little mini panic attack yesterday because it occurred to me that my car registration expires in either March or April, but I couldn’t remember which one. If March, then I’ve been driving around on borrowed time. A frickin’ parking ticket in this city starts at $60. I can’t imagine what an expired registration ticket costs. So as soon as I got home I raced to my desk, dug through the “Important, Don’t Lose this Shit” pile and pulled out my shiny new registration sticker. I breathed a sigh of relief – April. I also silently called myself a dumbass because it occurred to me that I could have simply looked at the back plate of my car instead of stressing until I got home. Live and learn . . . and stop calling yourself a dumbass, dumbass. Damnit!

Sophistry Quote

Now I know what you’re thinking. If I already had the sticker, why hadn’t I put it on my car already? Well that’s simple. I paid for my registration back in February, when I got my tax refund, but it doesn’t expire until April. Therefore, by putting the new sticker on in February I would be cheating myself out of two months that I paid for on my old sticker. What kind of sense does that make?!? Truth be told it raised my hackles a bit when I put the new sticker on there today with 20 days left on the old sticker. But since the rest of my month is really busy I was afraid that I’d forget and I figured that losing 20 days on my old sticker was cheaper than a ticket in May for expired registration.

Yes, I am well aware that this line of reasoning is absolutely asinine. If I truly followed this thinking to the letter I wouldn’t pay for my new registration until the end of April. However, I am waaaaaay too type A for that. In fact I’m pretty sure I’d be in a permanent flop sweat waiting for the new sticker to get in at the end of the month if I tried. So I pay for it in February which makes my head happy, and I put it on the car in April to stick it to the man! Okay that’s totally not sticking it to the man in any sense whatsoever, but it’s as close as I’m willing to get in this particular instance as I’m really not overly fond of parting with my money unnecessarily.

Unless of course it involves getting out of paying for parking. I can’t stand paying for parking. I will show up places 30 minutes early so that I have time to drive through every nearby neighborhood on the off chance that I can find free parking. I have boycotted places simply because there is no free parking anywhere nearby. I blame this on growing up in a tiny, backwater mountain town where a parking lot with painted spaces was considered fancy, and the only reason you had to pay for parking was if you ran over somebody’s beer and had to go buy them a new one. Therefore, I would rather spend $5 at CVS on random junk/food to get my parking validated instead of paying $3 for parking.

parking

Again, I am well aware that this line of reasoning is absolutely asinine and true, that is more expensive, but it’s the principal of the thing! I would rather pay more for something tangible, than pay less for the privilege of having my car take up space for twenty minutes. Think about it. Paying for parking is essentially paying for the privilege of your car taking up space. That is asinine! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go drive around for ten minutes trying to find another two-hour free parking spot.

Top Ten #10 – Snafus Encountered While on the Road to Publishing

So this whole project started over a year ago when I found out that I was going to be an aunt for the first time and I decided that I wanted to write a children’s book for my new nephew.  If I had known then what I know now, I probably would have just knitted him a blanket and called it a day!  But alas, hindsight is 20/20 and I went with the book option.  Over a year later it is done!  Whoo-hoo!!!!  Well it’s in final review, and I’m counting my chickens a bit before they hatch, but at this point I figure I can handle anything they throw at me.  So the final of my ten top ten lists to usher in the new year:

Top Ten Snafus Encountered While on the Road to Publishing

Cover

1. Found an awesome illustrator . . . lost an awesome illustrator.

2. Found another awesome illustrator . . . can’t afford awesome illustrator.

3. Fine, I’ll illustrate it myself . . . poor choice, poor choice, POOR CHOICE!!!!

4. Found an amazing artist . . . who usually draws nudes . . . maybe put some clothes on em?

5. According to my research we can make the illustrations whatever size we want . . . several months later . . . remember when I said we can make them any size we want?  I was wrong.  We need to go in and change the size of all 32 illustrations.

6. What do you mean the scanner is only big enough to scan half the illustration at once?

7. What do you mean the scanner dulled out all of the bright colors?  I hate scanners!

8. “Wait, why does it say that?”

“That’s the text that you sent me.”

“Well that’s from two rewrites ago.”

” . . . wanna send me the current text?”

“Probably a good idea. Right on that!”

 

9. Wow, that file is way to big for the upload . . . tweak, tweak, tweak . . . that’s a little better . . . tweak, tweak, tweak . . . a little better . . . tweak, tweak, tweak . . . ah crap!  Now it’s too small!

 

10. “Okay, take one final pass and then we’re done.”

“Wait, where’s all the punctuation?”

“That’s how you sent it to me.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. Yeah, we’re gonna need to fix that.”