Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
|
|
|
M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
|
|
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 The Liar's Diary Trash needed a little cash to pay for parking this week, but I had forgotten to get her any until Monday morning. We were already out back, she and M. Small in her car and I standing next to it, when she reminded me, "Were you going to give me your twenty?" "I'm in the driveway," I said. Obviously, the money also serves to compensate her for putting up with me. * * * I've been trying to figure out how to express my appreciation for everyone who preordered my book on the 18th (and other days, if any such people exist), and all I've come up with is this: pay it forward. No, I'm not going to make you watch that horrible movie. Instead, I'm going to help promote somebody else's book. I don't know this person, and haven't read the book, but I'm signing on to a community effort to help promote it on behalf of the author, who can't do much promotion herself on account of the cancer. So let me just pass along what I've learned through my agent about the first novel by Patry Francis, The Liar's Diary: When new music teacher Ali Mather enters Jeanne Cross’s quiet suburban life, she brings a jolt of energy that Jeanne never expected. Ali has a magnetic personality and looks to match, drawing attention from all quarters. Nonetheless, Jeanne and Ali develop a friendship based on their mutual vulnerabilities THE LIAR’S DIARY (Plume / February 2008 / ISBN 978-0-452-28915-4 / $14.00) is the story of Ali and Jeanne’s friendship, and the secrets they both keep. Jeanne’s secrets are kept to herself; like her son’s poor report card and husband’s lack of interest in their marriage. Ali’s secrets are kept in her diary, which holds the key to something dark: her fear that someone has been entering her house when she is not at home. While their secrets bring Jeanne and Ali together, it is this secret that will drive them apart. Jeanne finds herself torn between her family and her dear friend in order to protect the people she loves. A chilling tour of troubled minds, THE LIAR’S DIARY questions just how far you’ll go for your family and what dark truths you’d be willing to admit—even to yourself. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Patry Francis is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize whose work has appeared in the Tampa Review, Colorado Review, Ontario Review, and the American Poetry Review. She is also the author of the popular blogs, simplywait.blogspot.com and waitresspoems.blogspot.com. This is her first novel. Please visit her website at www.patryfrancis.com. So there you go. Actually the official date that people were supposed to do this was yesterday, so there's a good chance you've already heard about this. But since I'm generally on the trailing edge of blog trends anyway, I figured I might as well be consistent. posted by M. Giant 6:35 PM 3 comments 3 Comments:M.Giant i usually get your jokes, but the twenty and already in the driveway are lost on me no matter how many times i read it
By For Anonymous: "What's your twenty?" i.e. What is your location/ where are you? CB slang.--Lila
By Ahh!!! Thank you! Now that is funny! I feel dumb now...lol
By Sunday, January 27, 2008 Recycling Day Ever since Trash discovered that our city recycles not only aluminum cans, newspapers, and glass bottles, but also plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, and all kinds of paper, our house has been in utter turmoil. Turmoil! Okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit. But only a bit. Recycling day is every other Monday. We collect the recycling in paper grocery bags at the top of the basement stairs throughout that period, and every other Sunday night we separate everything and put it out on the curb (or rather on the snow bank, this time of year) in and around a green plastic bin. Yes, I said "in and around." The problem with the bin is that it really only holds two grocery bags, so anything beyond that is going to have to go in a bag next to it. Thus one of the most important parts of recycling is figuring out which of the three or four bags that week is least likely to blow over and end up scattering its contents all down our street. We're pretty good at that -- most weeks. And the other weeks, we're also good at pretending we had nothing to do with it. Still, I hate that flimsy green bin. The nicest thing I can say about it is that the lid always falls off, and is quite handy for fanning the flames when we have a fire going in the chiminea. And this was before we more or less doubled our recycling output. It was already problematic in terms of how much room those grocery bags were taking up at the top of the stairs. There used to be the spot for the cats' food dishes next to them, but the recycling ended up squeezing them up into the kitchen. Who ever heard of eating in the kitchen? There are other minor annoyances. The kitchen trash takes longer to fill up, which means it sometimes starts to smell before it's full. Also, our stock of paper grocery bags started getting depleted at an alarming rate, resulting in wasted space in the form of the empty three-inch gap between our refrigerator and the cabinet. And I can't even tell you how many times lately I've tried to squeeze past the recycling with a hamper full of laundry and ended up tipping over the empty soda cans into a clattering cascade down the stairs which I then had to pick up, and then go put M. Small back to sleep. Okay, actually I can tell you how many times: eight. Trash has also gotten frustrated with the situation. And in hindsight, maybe initiating the recycling of cardboard boxes that close to the holidays wasn't the best move with a multiple-gift-receiving three-year-old in the house. I've told her that I'm still figuring out the new system to accommodate our new recycling regimen, but since I also said that the one bedrock principle of any system will involve letting the recycling accumulate in the house for two weeks, she seemed doubtful. As far as our bi-weekly waste output, I'm not saying that we could fit all of our garbage into our glove compartment like Ed Begley, Jr., but for a while there, the extra space left over in the trash bin each week was being more than made up for by the amount of recyclable materials blowing down our street on Monday mornings. I did come up with one idea, which was for her to call and see if she could request more recycling bins from the city. When Trash explained the situation, the operator was even like, "Oh, yeah, you really can't do that with only one bin." Thanks for the flash.. It took a couple of weeks, but when we got home on Friday we saw that our flimsy old recycling bin with the loose lid was gone, and our front stoop was stacked high with sturdy, roomy plastic bins, complete with solid lids that are attached to the main unit by a short length of rope. I'm still working on a final system, but having a bin on the back deck devoted to broken-down cardboard boxes seems to have made our stairs a lot more passable. Earlier today, in preparation for the recycling pickup tomorrow, Trash filled the second bin outside with cans and bottles, and the third with newsprint and other paper. So now there's nothing blowing down our street but a frigid breeze. And Trash came up with the idea of keeping one of the collection bins inside during the week, where before we had nothing but paper bags. So far, it's a good system. There may be a few wrinkles to work out, but since the most major one is not having anything to fan the chiminea with, I think we'll be able to figure it out. posted by M. Giant 6:34 PM 13 comments 13 Comments:
Get a can crusher. It won't handle the cat food cans, but a good sturdy one will take care of pop-cans with no problem, and will reduce, if not completely crunch down, things like soup cans.
By
If you really want to be impressed by how little you throw away, get one of the city's composting buckets and set yourself up a pile, back by the garage. Your garbage will be less stinky if the coffee grounds and veggie peels aren't in it.
By We don't have to separate material, which is great, but we're supposed to stuff everything into flimsy plastic (!) bags, which are far insufficient for the amount of cardboard, newspaper, and waste paper/catalogs I collect over a two-week period.
By Our city made recycling free and gives us two bins to start (but no lids). We recycle EVERYTHING which drives my husband crazy. Oh well. Better a crazy husband than we feed so much garbage to the nasty incinerator!
By We joined our county's recycling program last year. They provide a sturdy blue bin with lid & wheels (yay!) for paper/cardboard and gigantic, heavy duty, blue plastic bags for glass/metal/plastic. At first, we had problems filling them up, but the more you do it, the more things you find.
By
Oh my gosh, I never thought to call the City of Minneapolis to request more bins. You are a genius.
By
Long time reader, first time commenter... :)
By
For us apartment/condo dwellers I've found that this system works pretty great:
By
wow, you make me feel lucky to live in Seattle. Not only do we recycle everything, but it's free, we don't have to sort it (except separating out glass), and they give us (free) 60 gallon recycle bins with attached, hinged lids. They also give us a small container for glass. I feel like I'm bragging here. About recycling. Which is weird. Really I am just feeling grateful for something I did not know I should be grateful for.
By We live in Wyoming,Michigan and we have the option of paying extra to our private carriers for recycle-We used to have community recycle bins we could drop off at but they decided to end that practice. Anyway we have a small bin we use inside-It's actually two laundry net bags hung on a metal rack that we put our recycle in inside-sorted partially, plastic and glass in one, Cardboard and Paper in the other. Then when that fills up we transfer them to three large wheeled plastic trash cans we bought ourselves and keep outside our back door separating the paper and cardboard and the glass and plastic in one bin.Recycling here only takes plastic w/one through seven, food containers only and metal and glass food containers only. Then twice a month we wheel all three containers up to the curb for pickup. We've been doing some version of this for over 10 years,since they shut down the free community recycle drop off centers. Its become a habit and we're glad to limit some of the waste in the landfills but as you can guess because it costs extra for pickup and storage that most people around here don't do it. If communities are really serious about recycling they need to make it cheaper and easier. I guess everyone has an opinion and a recycling story! Good luck with yours.
By
Woah, mega comments! Who knew recycling was such an international hot-button issue?
By
What Jenonymous said. Here in Toronto, we have green bins for compostables (food scraps including meat, kitty litter, diapers, and female "products"), plus blue boxes for paper/plastic/cans/glass, plus regular garbage pickup. Green bins are colected every week, and the blue boxe and garbage pickups are picked up on alternate weeks.
By
I live in a Chicago suburb where we don't have to separate our recycling at all, and we get 60-gallon cans with lids--bigger than the trash cans!
By Thursday, January 24, 2008 Can I Help? One of my favorite qualities about M. Small is his helpfulness. He's always asking, "Can I help?" This is generally more true when one of his parents is starting some novel and unfamiliar task, rather than something he sees every day like loading the dishwasher. But if you break out the power tools, he's all over it. It's kind of nice, because for years we put off all manner of projects around the house. He was too distracting and demanding as a baby and a toddler for us to take on anything too ambitious when he was awake, and when he was asleep we didn't want to make any noise with the power tools. Yes, we did have the second story on our house added to in 2006, but other people did that while he was out of the house. But it's easier, now that I can give him something to do while I get something done that I've been putting off for a while. Like, last fall we got a new wall cabinet for our upstairs bathroom. It didn't come with wall anchors or even pre-drilled holes, so I had to put those in myself. Lining everything up was a tricky business, but fortunately M. Small helped by climbing on my shoulders while I handled the tape measure (which he kept trying to steal) and the level (which he kept trying to steal) and the drill (which he kept trying to plug back in because I unplugged it between every hole). With his assistance, I was able to actually get one of the screws into the right place. Later on he helped me by going to sleep, so I could realign the other seven. The only challenge is to come up with a way for him to actually help that isn't a) patronizing, b) boring, or c) hard, d) frustrating, or e) dangerous. I can't just tell him, "hold this sponge," and the time I asked him, "rewire that light switch," he just looked up at me blankly. And you have to keep changing it up, or he'll get bored and come up with his own tasks. Like a couple of weeks ago when I was installing that wall bracket for the TV in the study. I got too occupied with time-wasting distractions like deciphering the non-verbal assembly instructions, and when I looked up he was helping me by dropping all of my drill bits into the floor vent. But it's worth it, because as he grows up I want him to know that I value his help, and appreciate his desire to be with me, and encourage him to contribute to what people around him are working on. Just like my dad did with me (for all the good it did him). So the other day, when I borrowed one of his colored pencils and flopped on our bed with a big stack of paper, you know he wanted to help. He loves coloring! When he heard I was working on a book? Good! He loves books! When he heard it was my book? Even better! He loves me! When I explained that I was marking up my copyedited manuscript to send back to my editor this week, he didn't understand a word of it, but he loved it anyway! And so on page 38 or so, there's a long, russet streak next to a dark-green "STET" in my handwriting, an artifact of how much he was able to help before Trash reeled him into her lap and distracted him with our Flickr account. Pointing out that my manuscript doesn't have any pictures like his books do helped as well. All of which is just my cheap little daddy-blogger way of saying the copyediting on the book is finished, and my marked-up copy is in the mail back to my editor. Not just because she wanted it back ASAP, but because I wanted it safely out of the house before something happened to it. posted by M. Giant 5:48 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:
I love "stet." It makes me picture you rolling your eyes, sighing, and writing it, just barely holding back from underlining as well.
By Two blogs I read talked about the value of "stet" in the same day. Are you secretly a Canadian knitter?
By The literal translation is "may it stand," if anyone cares. Which, probably, no one does.
By You know, most young children might not know that you're speaking in a patronizing manner. I know I don't. And thanks, I'm glad you like my shirt.
By Speaking of your book, how did the Amazon pre-order go? I had to buy an hour early, but I hope it still helped. Can't wait to read it!
By Monday, January 21, 2008 Work From Home! Today started out like a normal Monday. Trash left to drop M. Small off at day care and then go to hero job, and I was leaving the house just a couple of minutes behind her. But I was barely clear of the driveway when my cell phone rang. "Where are you?" she asked in a surprisingly urgent tone of voice. This is what happens when Mom and Dad both work for companies that are open on MLK day, but forgot that Child goes to a day care that isn't. Normally Trash is the one who gets stuck being at home in these unexpected situations. She's done this any number of times-- working at home while also watching the child -- but this was my first time. I learned a lot, including the origin of the rule stating that the spouse who was gone at work all day isn't allowed to come home to the spouse who has been both providing child care and doing their day job at the same time, and criticize the condition of the house. That rule makes a lot of sense. One nice thing about the job that I changed to last summer is that now I can work from home when I need to. I e-mailed my boss to let him know that I was going to be at home instead of the office today, and he was fine with it. He's in Boston, anyway, so it's not like he would have noticed my empty desk. So how does it work having a boss who's in a different time zone? Well, part of the deal is that every Monday morning, I have to e-mail him a list of all the stuff I'm working on that week and that day. This morning, the top item on the list was, of course, "Keep the house from getting torn apart." So I spent some time on that. I also pulled the bad-dad move of parking him in front of a cartoon to distract him while I got some work done. Don't worry, I didn't leave him there all day. I made him lunch at one point, too. No, I'm kidding. It wasn't that bad. Bless him, he gets bored with TV after a while. I knew this would happen, so I got as much work done as possible while it still held his interest. That way, when the inevitable time came that he stomped into the study, tool me by the hand, and started towing me out of the room on my wheeled chair saying. "Don't work, Daddy!" I'd be ready. So I'm glad to say that in addition to the stuff I got done for my job today, I also made lunch, built a fort and pitched a tent in the living room, read several stories, assembled a racetrack, imposed some discipline, and wondered how Trash does it. I'm still debating whether to include those items on my next status memo. I've always laughed at those "work from home" spam e-mails I'm always getting. But now I'll laugh even harder. posted by M. Giant 4:09 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:I love the Freudian typo: "hero job." Hee!
By
Put those things on your resume too ;-)
By Thursday, January 17, 2008 Friday Pre-Order By the time you read this, it's probably already Friday, my birthday. So I'm reminding you that if you're in on my nefarious plan to grossly inflate my book's Amazon ranking for one brief shining moment, today's the day. Doors open at 3:00 Central. Knock yourselves out! If not for me, how about for this little guy? Kitten Chow and hairball medicine ain't free, you know.  And thank you. Update as of 9:50 CST: Current ranking is 209,208. Check back for more updates later! 10:50 CST: Current ranking is 215,427. It may look like shrinking, but I prefer to look at it as a tiger preparing to pounce! Okay, a small house cat. 1:00 CST: Just got back from lunch to see that we've shot up to 67,828. Five figures! 2:15 CST: 22,763! If my math is correct, that means we've passed over 186,000 books. Of course there's no way of knowing how many of those were written by Rachael Ray. 2:25 CST: Better still, in the sub-sub-subcategory "Books > Entertainment > Pop Culture > Popular Culture," we're at number 80. 80! That's above Chuck Klosterman, and two slots ahead of a book by the guy who voiced the Sheriff in Cars. M. Small will be so proud. 4:15: Apparently it's still lunchtime at Amazon HQ in Seattle, because it's been over an hour since the last ranking update showed us at #13,842 overall and #54 in the sub-sub-subcategory. Either that or they're onto me and I'm about to get Super Saver Shipped to Gitmo for cyberterrorism. Don't worry, I'll leave you all out of it. 4:22: Yeah, I thought that last update might shake it loose. I'm touched and proud to report that we've broken the four-figure mark, and are currently ranked at #9,089 overall, and #35 in the sub-sub-subcategory. Why, yes I am currently outselling The Urban Dictionary, thanks for asking. 6:26 Holy God! We're at #966 overall and #49 in "Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology" and #4 in "Books > Entertainment > Pop Culture > Popular Culture." I will always remember the birthday on which I outsold (however briefly) Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and Oprah. 9:29: #514! I'm pretty sure I have more books than that in my house. 10:08: #523. Looks like 514 was the peak, which is so much better than I ever wouldhave expected or hoped. Thanks to everyone who came through for me today; it's been an awesome birthday. And if you still haven't preordered but plan to at some point, don't feel like you missed out; it's never too late. Thanks to all of you! posted by M. Giant 8:15 PM 19 comments 19 Comments:
He's ADORABLE!!
By
Excavator (have you shortened that to anything yet? Ex? Vator?) is incredibly cute!
By
echaos: Absolutely! And yes, they do.
By
Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!
By Happy Birthday! The cost of the book is a small price to pay for all of the entertainment you give me on a weekly basis. Plus, I get the book.
By
At 3:06 Central, you're #54 in Pop Culture, just in front of "Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!)". Chew on that, prudes!
By Happy Birthday! I've now pre-ordered your book and also the books of several other bloggers that have been sitting patiently in my Wish List.
By get your publisher to get the cover photo on the amazon page, its too cute of a cover not to share with the world.
By
Pre-ordered. :)
By
Plugged your book again and pre-ordered it. In the words of Principal Skinner, "Done and done!"
By Ordered and used as excuse to finally get Veronica Mars s3 even though that on its own would have qualified for free shipping. I bargain with myself quite nicely. Happy birthday!
By
ordered - Happy Birthday!
By
Dang. I wish we'd all thought of that: buy some weird item together with the preorder of the book.
By 5,655 at 6:22 EST. That's great! Congratulations!
By Preordered, with pleasure. Happy Birthday!
By I bought three. One for me, two for gifts.
By
De-lurking briefly. I was going to buy the book anyway, so why not do it like this. Happy birthday, and thank you for the blog and your other online work (you watch "Celebrity Apprentice, so I don't have to!)
By
Congrats! What a fun birthday. Also - I forgot to mention earlier that your tag for the photo is hysterical. That is all.
By You are up to #514 as of 10:30 Eastern. Congrats!
By Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Digging Out Part II Last weekend I installed a wall bracket for the TV in my study, partially to hep ralize Trash's vision for the room and partially to make recapping more ergonomic. The bracket comes with four huge wood screws that are designed to go through the sheetrock (or plaster, in our case) and anchor themselves into the stud behind them. Under the impression that wall studs are generally sixteen inches apart, I marked four little circles to drill the pilot holes. I am proud to say that I only drilled one hole before realizing that I wasn't anywhere near a stud. Reaming the end of a bent hanger around inside the hole didn't help me locate one. Now, I'm not sure about this, but I think I own a stud finder – one of those handheld electronic devices that you hold up to the wall and it magically tells you of there's a stud behind that spot. But after rummaging around in my tools on the basement storage shelves for several minutes, I eventually gave up and returned empty-handed. And I located the stud the old-fashioned way: by tapping on the wall with a hammer until I found a spot that sounded less hollow. Only drilled two dud holes in the wall in the process, too. So the job got finished, at least. But I realized that what I really need is…wait for it…a stud finder finder. * * * Once Excavator figured out that we humans, at least, meant him no harm, his kittenish exuberance came to the fore. We had forgotten what that's like. I sensed that we had made a breakthrough when, at bedtime last Thursday, I hauled him out of the back of our closet without having him hiss at me even once. Then, when I got in bed, I put him on my chest, and he commenced purring. That's what he did all night, in fact. I know this because Trash and I were awake for most of it. He and I bonded for a while. And then he and Trash bonded for a while. And then all three of us bonded for a while. And then just he bonded, because Trash and I were trying to get to sleep. His bonding, however, made that difficult. Some kittens' idea of bonding is a little kneading and snuggling, Excavator's, we are learning, is roughhousing. What this means is that you gently stroke his fur, and he responds by wrestling with your hand, kitten-sharp claws and teeth out just enough that you constantly feel their points. It's a bit like petting a squirming cactus. And then you stop petting because you're dozing off, but he's still working your fingers, alternating between licking them and tickling them with his claws and brushing them with his teeth. You just sort of lie there and tolerate it, pulling your fingers out of his mouth every minute and a half or so, just when you feel a set of pointy molars about to chomp down for real. Then you sleep with your hands under the covers. And that's when he comes for your face. I remember this phase with Turtle, and the untold number of nights I spent sleeping with my face under my pillow. But at least Turtle kept her teeth out of it. After a long, long while, Excavator settles down, and takes his Howitzer-fire purring downrange to curl up between our legs. And then this…this is when you hear the other bedroom door open and shut, and the sound of sock-clad feet padding down the hall to your room, and the approach of a three-year-old who wants to climb in bed with you. Which he does, and then thirty seconds later he announces, "I want to go back to my bed," like, who's stopping you, Sparky? But of course he wants a ride, so by the time two boys get out of the bed and one comes back, the boy who stayed the whole time -- specifically, the small, black, fluffy one -- is all excited again. And by the time he's settled back down, the three-year-old is back, and this time he has to pee. Not since M. Small was still M. Tiny have Trash and I endured such a wretched night's sleep. In between our two young boys tag-teaming us through the wee hours, and my fitful dreams about a whole chapter I forgot to include in my book (not that I can remember a word of that chapter now) and about an awkward double date Trash and I were having with John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer (I'm spending way too much time weecapping The Office lately), I could barely stir at eight a.m. Which was doubly unfortunate, since I was supposed to get up at seven. At one point I actually said to myself, "If we hated sleep this much we would have gotten another baby." Completely forgetting to take into account the fact that we kind of had. As of this writing, Excavator has settled down a bit. Like, if you try to avoid his attentions by creating an airtight seal around your head using your blanket and your pillow, he'll stop trying to pry his paws in there after no more than a half hour or so. It's nice to see him mellowing out, but I'm already starting to miss the days when he was more kittenish. Except when I'm sleeping, obviously. posted by M. Giant 7:22 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:This is exactly the reason that we long ago started kicking the cats out of the bedroom at night. Well, it started with this, but now that they're old, it's because they decide they are hungry at 4 or 5 am and start knocking stuff off shelves.
By
As the humans in a family of a similar cat, I don't know if it will give you hope or dread to hear that some cats don't ever completely outgrow this phase.... Our Chloe will be six in April and still attempts to disrupt our sleep repeatedly on a nightly basis. Lock her out of the bedroom? She'll yowl in the hall like she's being given a full-body wax, and that just keeps the kiddo up, too. No sense in having more cranky Smiths than we need to come the 6am alarm!
By Pictures??? Please?
By Our cat spent the better part of his childhood methodically destroying every single paper-based article in our house. Once that mission was completed, he developed an annoying tendency to howl loudly while knocking things off shelves. We kept thinking he would grow out of it, but he is now 6 years old and I still have to block off our bookshelves with clear vinyl and thumb tacks.
By I second the picture request!
By
I'm such a sucker for punishment, because this makes me want a kitten!
By Friday, January 11, 2008 Digging Out We brought Excavator home last Wednesday. Someone told us we should wait eight days before introducing him to Phantom, keeping them separate in the meantime. It's been eight days as of yesterday. Naturally, we stopped segregating them last Friday. I recall how, three years ago, I lamented the inconvenient irony of having named a cat Phantom, given her ability to disappear in the basement. I had no idea. Her vanishing acts were nothing compared to those of Excavator. And when you do find him, he lives up to his name by forcing you to dig him out of tiny hiding spots. Normally we'd just back off and give him the chance to come out on his own time. But he's supposed to be taking his antibiotics twice a day, so we can't let it go. Which is what has led to scenes like Trash and I up on the basement furniture, trying to corner him as he skitters around on top of the suspended ceiling tiles. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I've gone downstairs just in time to see a fluffy black blur disappear out of reach into the dark, doorless storage closet, or even further out of reach into the crammed, disorganized, and inaccessible-to-humans crawlspace under the basement stairs. Sometimes he hides behind the furnace, a spot that has two exit routes. One person can keep him "treed" back there, but if that person commits to reaching in, Excavator can get out the other way and sprint to a more unreachable spot. Two people should theoretically be able to corner him, but he proved fast enough to get past M. Small the other day. That was disappointing. And then I have to dig around in these places to find him. I imagine him trying to be as small as possible in some tiny, dark space, listening to me lumber around outside like the monster in Cloverfield, crashing and making terrifying noises like "Come on out, sweetie! [kiss kiss kiss]." Too many times, I've been reduced to awkwardly sticking my hand into some all-but-nonexistent air pocket and grabbing blindly onto whatever part of him I can get my fingers around. Which seems dangerous. Not because he claws or bites -- because he doesn't -- but because he hasn't been fixed yet. He does, however, hiss furiously. From the point you shine the flashlight beam into his eyes (did I mention the flashlights? Trash and I are like Mulder and Scully with the flashlights any more) until the moment that his last desperate claw comes unmoored from the carpet/storage box/rafter/underside of the box spring, he tries to scare you off with the most hateful demon-cat invective he can summon. Which is just adorable. Even M. Small has taken to happily announcing, "I'm hisking! xkxkx! xkxkxkx! I'm hisking at you!" while grinning like a loon. But finally you get Excavator free and squeeze him to your body, feeling his heart rattling inside his ribcage like a hummingbird on speed. And then he starts purring louder than a machine gun. This, aside from the antibiotics, is the main reason I can pry him out without feeling too guilty. Despite his shyness, he's obviously lonely, as demonstrated by the length of the marathon snuggle sessions he voluntarily participates in. Yesterday we went another step, and locked him out of the basement. Now he can still hide under the guest bed or in the depths of our bedroom closet, but he can't vanish from sight for any more 36-hour periods. Those made us kind of nervous, like he had hidden himself so deep he couldn't get out any more, and we'd never see him again until we emptied the entire basement and drilled a significant distance into the earth's mantle. And how's Phantom adjusting? Well, she freaked out on him the first time they met last Friday night. There was screaming such as I have not heard since the last time the neighbor's cat got too close to our bathroom window. Now she just hisses at him whenever I put them on the bed together, but her heart isn't in it. She's as lonely as he is, in her way. She spooked him off when he tried to sneak up and clean behind her ear yesterday, but I think the only one who's still really enjoying hissing at anyone is M. Small. And I think Excavator is noticing, and it's making him feel safer. Hence his behavior last night. But more on that at a later date. * * * Not that you need reminding, but next Friday is the day of the Great Amazon Pre-Order Caper. Or the Good Amazon Pre-Order Caper, at least. posted by M. Giant 8:53 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:Tuesday, January 08, 2008 Happy Birthday To Me Okay, so I've decided what I want for my birthday. From all of you. Now, I know that it would seem like the WGA and the AMPTP have already gotten together to get me the best gift ever. My birthday is in the third week of January, which for the last three years is when the dreaded 24 fourcap gets dropped on top of me. Trash and I took trips on my birthday for several years in a row, until I had to start spending my birthdays with a remote in my hand. But not this year. Hence my mixed emotions about the writers strike. But if you're not a striking writer or a moneygrubbing studio suit, there's something else you can get me. Or rather, do for me. Pre-order my book. No, not yet! My birthday is Friday, January 18th. On that day, let's say in the afternoon, I would love it if as many people as possible would go to Amazon and preorder my book, A TV Guide to Life. You may think this is a poorly veiled ploy to artificially inflate my Amazon ranking for a brief moment. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is in fact a bare-ass naked ploy. You want in? I'm thinking 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time will be the ideal window. I'd love to just say 3:00 p.m. straight up, but I don't know how many of you have Amazon blocked on your work computers. Plus I don't know at what time my Australian readers (I know you're out there, mates) get up in the morning, when the sun is still low in the west or whatever antipodean madness you guys have to deal with. I'll remind you closer to the date, but go ahead set an Outlook reminder, or program a cell phone alarm, or just keep saying to yourself, Preorder in the afternoon, see Cloverfield in the evening. Or, if you hate the whole idea, feel free to skip Cloverfield. As of this writing, the book is ranked #240,796. But if all of us can get together at about the same time, I'm optimistic that we can push it all the way up into the 240,600s. You've got to believe! And also spend a bit of money. But the believing will make that easier. Don't think so? Pre-order a copy while not believing, and then pre-order another copy while suffused with faith, and see which one felt better. You might even like that second one enough to do it a few times. Don't let me stop you. posted by M. Giant 7:25 PM 10 comments 10 Comments:I'm in! And pre-Happy Birthday!
By I already pre-ordered it. Should I cancel and re-pre-order? I think that would mess up the numbers. What do I do? I don't have the book to know if I've learned this yet.
By I'm in Australia, and 3pm-7pm central Friday is 8am - 12pm Saturday which is actually a pretty good time for me. In case you really wanted to accommodate your I'm sure legion Australian readers.
By Plus, you don't actually have to pay for it until they ship it, so it's like a surprise when it shows up then a SECOND surprise when it shows up on your credit card. Hooray!!!
By
Count me in too! If anyone wants to do a further good when preordering the sure become greatness that is "The Book" :-), you can link to Amazon through the Basset Hound Rescue of Georgia website bhrg(dot)org. That way you can help a brother AND some homeless Bassets out. It's a great organization and could really use the assistance. M.Giant, as a fellow animal (and rescue org) lover, I hope you don't mind me using your naked ploy post to make one of my own!
By This will totally work. It doesn't take very many purchases at all to wildly inflate your rank. I can't wait to see how well we do, but I think the results will be impressive.
By Outlook reminder set! Hoping you will be able to say "Best Selling Author" on the jacket of your next book.... :)
By
I'm glad K worked out the Australian time, because when I did it, I got it wrong.
By De-lurking for a moment to say that I've set my Outlook reminder. Happy birthday from a fellow Capricorn!
By Outstanding! I'm moving to Alaska and my PC will be boxed up by then, but I can order it from work right at 3pm before my exit interview. :) Whoo! Can't wait to see how high we get it!
By Saturday, January 05, 2008 Day Break I've written before about the measures we've taken to insulate our home over the winter months. In most cases, we've simply put some of that plastic shrink-wrap over the windows. I say "simply," but it's not actually all that simple. We have Venetian blinds, so I have to either resign myself to leaving the blinds in the same position all winter or spend time cutting fiddly little holes in the plastic for the rod and the cord. Then I have to find the hair dryer, because that's the only time it ever gets used. It might be the only reason we own one. Trash always asks me why it takes to long to cover a window. I tell her it's like wrapping a Christmas present that you're going to have to look at twenty times a day for the next five months. Plus you have to keep the postal packing tape handy to patch up all the holes M. Small keeps putting in them. He's a child driven by scientific curiosity, so he's always testing the amount of force you need to apply in order to puncture the plastic with various items. After a while, that window starts looking like a Christmas present you wrapped up to mail to someone but still have to look at twenty times a day. For this reason, we decided against shrink-wrapping his (very large) bedroom window. But we still wanted to reduce that giant heat sink, so one evening a few weeks ago, we just hung up a few blankets and quilts from the window frame. It warmed the room up almost immediately, and when we went in to check on him late at night, it was nice and toasty and we didn't even worry about the fact that the only blanket he hadn't kicked off his bed was the one under him. We did start to worry a little bit the next morning, when it was 9:00 a.m. and we hadn't heard him stir. He's normally a morning person, up before we are (or at least before I am), especially on weekend mornings like this one. So eventually Trash went in there just to make sure he wasn't dead. He wasn't, and she solved the mystery. M. Small's bedroom window faces east (like ours does), so it's not unheard of for him to be awakened by the first rays of the morning sun as they filter through his closed blinds (like we're not). But at 9:00 a.m. on this bright December morning, those quilts on his window worked like blackout curtains, effectively turning his room into a small Vegas suite, albeit one without as many strippers. Oh, and did I mention that we made this discovery at the beginning of a three-week break from his day care? What this means is that when he sleeps in, I sleep in. So for me, it was like an early Christmas present (and birthday present, and anniversary present, for the next three years). The first few nights, I would make sure that the curtains were sealed against the next morning's light, as though I were the Renfield to his Dracula. Trash disapproved. Apparently she's willing to wait until he's thirteen before she lets him start sleeping until noon. But then she's always been more patient than I am. So we found a compromise. One of the blankets is pulled aside, and between that and his natural circadian rhythms, he's now usually awake by about 7:45 or 8:00. Monday, he goes back to day care. How are we going to get him back on his regular schedule with its 7:00 a.m. wake up time? Well, tonight, as we were finishing up dinner, I threatened that if he left the table without being excused for a fiftieth time, I was going to put him to bed immediately. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to see that as a "threat" so much as an "offer," so when he did it again I had to follow through. And thus he was asleep two hours before his regular bedtime. Something tells me that "up before 7:30 a.m." isn't going to be as difficult as "down until 6:00 a.m." for the next few days or so. Just in case, I'm debating secretly putting that curtain back in place. Trash might protest, but we can talk about it tomorrow, after I've had a good morning's sleep. posted by M. Giant 8:43 PM 1 comments 1 Comments:Thanks for the great idea! I'm going to set this up tonight when I get home!!
By Wednesday, January 02, 2008 Welcome Home I'd like you to meet our new cat. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of him yet, so you'll just have to wait. We all deal with grief and the final stages of a loved one's life differently. In Phantom's case, whenever one of her fellow cats dies, she quickly becomes a great deal more affectionate toward the humans in the house. After Turtle's demise, it was kind of nice to have Phantom suddenly drop the grudge she's held against me since we got her three years ago and I had to give her daily medicine for two weeks. The shy, aloof cat was suddenly a sweet kitten, hopping up into my lap and purring and curling. And farting. That's how she acts after a cat dies. Before a cat dies, for some reason she gets diarrhea and then craps all over the place upstairs. Which is bad, since the catboxes are in the basement. It happened in Turtle's last weeks, and in Strat's final days. In both cases, it stopped almost immediately after the other cats' deaths, which was a small blessing in difficult times, at least. Being the only cat in the house over the past week and a half has been tough for her. The last three nights, she's woken me up at least once by licking my head and neck. She doesn't have anyone else to clean any more, you see. Presumably I'm the dirtiest one in the house. We knew it would be hard on her, so we got the ball rolling on backfilling Strat's position before he was even gone. We called the same vet-friend who hooked us up with Phantom and Turtle three years ago. Actually, I called her as a surprise to Trash, and Trash called her as a surprise to me. Kind of like "Gift of the Magi," but with a dying animal. We told M. Small that he got to pick the next cat. One day last week we drove down to the pet hospital way down in Prior Lake, and spent some time in a room with two rescue cats. One was an orange-and-white girl, and the other was a male with long, black fur. They're both around six months old. We had already been leaning toward getting another boy, and M. Small's reaction to the black one sealed the deal. While Trash was holding the kitten, he clawed at Trash's neck and shoulders to get away. Which M. Small thought was hilarious. So there you go. Welcome to the family. He needed some shots and testing and stuff before we could bring him home, but all of that has been done over the past week. This afternoon I went and picked him up. He was almost eerily quiet in the carrier next to me during the ride home. When we arrived at the house, I brought him downstairs and shut the basement door, to keep him and Phantom separate for now. I set his carrier in the middle of the floor, opened its door, and told him I'd be right back. And I was. I just haven't seen him since. There are few places in the world more rich in hiding places than our basement the week after Christmas, you see. Hence, no picture. We had also told M. Small that he could name the next cat, which may have been something we'll regret. In fact, he may regret it himself one day. But that's the risk of letting a three-year-old name a pet. As soon as the kitty comes out of hiding, I'll get some pictures of him so you can finally meet little Excavator. posted by M. Giant 3:31 PM 14 comments 14 Comments:He'll resurface eventually. When we brought home the latest cat, (also black,) he also disappeared, and stayed invisible for nearly a month, and was very shy for several months more. We referred to him as the shadowcat.
By Welcome to the M. Family, Excavator! :D
By I, too, have a black cat that was skittish for a long time, but she eventually warmed up to us and the other cats. Also, I love the name Excavator...it might especially apply once he discovers the litter box.
By Excavator - tee hee! My nephew named his cats "Tut" (he was a year old and couldn't say cat) and "Buzz Lightyear" (he was three and into Toy Story).
By Well, when M. Small is old enough for the Star Wars phase, you can always shorten it to "Vator" (it is a black cat)....
By
Shouldn't it be M. Excavator?
By
Congratulations on your new Excavator!
By
As someone who works with John Deere's construction product line, I couldn't think of a better name for a cat. Seriously, skid steer or wheel loader just don't flow right. And you may raise some eyebrows if you named him "backhoe"... ha ha ha.
By
My kids are awesome at naming pets. We had several Pininki's because the name was too great to flush along with the dead fish who used the name. My all time favorite was a mouse named popdylootis with a companion called apple-doody.
By Chao -- that's one of the reasons we only got one cat. His second choices were "Dump Truck" and "Front-End Loader."
By My three year old nephew named my new kitty Stink. She was a stray cat we found on our farm and she had "issues" with cat food.
By Ha ha! Again with kids naming pets; we have a yellow Manx that the kids named "Butter" which got changed to "Butt Butt" when my roommate's 2 year old granddaughter couldn't handle "Butter." Butter has a black and white sister named "Oreo," also courtesy of the kids. Maybe we should feed them more.
By
My 3-year-old nephew wanted to name his (as yet unacquired) puppy "Uncle Colin Puppy", after my boyfriend (one of his three favorite adults ever). While Uncle Colin was quite amused by this suggestion, all the adults figured that by the time the boy turned 10, he might regret that choice, so he was steered towards something else, like SuperPuppy (fitting, given his Superman obsession).
By Congratulations on your new family member! Good to hear another rescue kitty is finding a loving home.
By 
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
