Fruit, Flowers and Small Appliances (and a heads up!)

According to Google-Fu, Arizona and I should have celebrated this past weekend with fruit and flowers (if we're traditional), or an electrical appliance if we're a more modern couple (and I can get over my instinctive twitch where it comes to getting household gadgets as alleged gifts, because, really, our vacuum cleaner sucks, and not in a good way). 

We, however, eschewed the fruit, flowers and vacuum for steaks. And not just steaks, but drinks and dessert, at a sit-down restaurant (an old favorite) without a newly crawling six-month-old in my lap trying to "help" as we toasted each other with actual adult beverages and said, "Happy four years." 

Yes, folks, this past weekend marked our fourth wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? And despite the small appliances thing, I think four is a very nice number. So I've collected a few special fours that I'd like to share with you!

Four is:

The number of years Arizona and I have been married, the number of months we knew each other before we got engaged, and the number of months our engagement spanned before we were married.

The number of teeth Wallaby is currently sporting. Well, almost--he's got two on the bottom and one on the top, and another top one is going to come through any minute now. Which means we're going heavy on the ice cubes and chewy things today, and keeping a tight rein on BBIs (Boob Biting Incidents).

The number of burners on our stove. And, coincidentally, the number of objects I have melted because, even having lived in our little house in the trees for three years now (aka 36 months, which is divisible by four), I still get tripped up by the little diagram on the back of the stove and turn on the wrong burner. I mention this having melted the feet off my rice cooker last night. Because I rock.

And, most fun of all ….

The date on which COMING HOME TO MUSTANG RIDGE will be in stores next week! August 4 is next Tuesday, and you can preorder now! This is a full-on paperback and digital release, and it's a story I adore. It follows on the heels of STARTING OVER AT MUSTANG RIDGE, so if you missed the novella, grab it now!

And tell me … What is your special four??

Kid v. Kitten: the Flowchart

As Wallaby celebrates his half birthday (six months, ermagherd!), he's working very hard on the crawling thing, up on his hands and knees and trying to figure out how to get in a forward-moving gear. So I've been putting a 'bait' toy a little ways ahead of him, to encourage him to reach forward.

All good stuff, right? But I've got a confession. His current bait of choice is a two-inch ball of tinfoil that I tossed on the floor for the kitten. He'll follow that sucker as long as I want to keep moving it … or until the kitten intercepts.

Obviously, there's this whole gazillion-dollar industry devoted to producing "child development aids" and another gazillion-dollars aimed at convincing parents like me that little poopsie will be doomed to a life of underperformance if he/she doesn't have several hundred dollars worth of new toys for each stage of his/her little life.

At the moment, my son is obsessed with shoes, curtains and cat toys. Which is fine by me, as we're using them to practice what he needs to practice. I do, however, keep a close eye on what's being played with, and by whom, and I run each toy decision through an advanced decision-making tree that I though I would share with you in the form of a flowchart. 

Enjoy!

Network TV and the Little Blue Pill

I'll confess--one of the big reasons I haven't had any success cutting the cable and switching to streaming movies and TV shows is that I kind of like commercials. The good ones are like little miniature stories told in fifteen or thirty seconds, and from a storytelling perspective, it's fun to see what actually shows up on screen versus what my brain fills in. The bad ones can be just as entertaining, too, from a creative-mockery standpoint. 

For example, who really thinks those two guys in the car are funny, Sonic? Not me. And why do I find Hannah and her horse the slightest bit watchable? 

In addition, it can be fun thinking about why certain ads are run when they are. Okay, so I get the car and auto parts commercials during Top Gear, but the fourth "Enjoy the go" Charmin commercial in fifteen minutes during Rizzoli and Isles? Do they think those of us watching a female-centric crime drama have wiping issues?

It gets even more pronounced when Arizona and I watch programming On Demand, as our cable company (Commie-cast) sometimes takes one big sponsor per show. For Orphan Black, it was Subaru. Okay, I get that. But for The Last Ship, which we just recently got caught up on, it's Viagra.

All Viagra, all the time. If there's a commercial break, whoops, Viagra! Either the old Italian guy trying to chase down a pill while a much younger hottie waits for him back at the villa, or a different hottie telling us that half of men over fifty suffer from ED, blah, blah. Now, don't get me wrong--I'm all for the product. If you need it, have at it! But did the programming folks ever stop to think what kind of a message they were sending. To whit:

Me (groans): It's the Italian guy again. Bet he's going to lose his last pill down the drain, and the pharmacy will be closed.

Arizona: What does this say about the people watching this show?

Me: That they're missing the prized 18-49 demographic, maybe? Or hitting the upper end of it, at any rate.

Arizona: Or that watching it is the anti-aphrodesiac. 

Later that afternoon.

Me: You want to watch another episode?

Arizona: Bring on the Boner Death Show!

To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self

Ermagherd! Last night, you totes got into see Def Leppard for free, and it was da bomb! 

(Translation into 1989-speak for my back-then self: (in Boston-accented Valley-girl) Ohmigod, I, like, totally saw Def Lep live last night, freebie. It was wicked awesome pissah!)

Does anyone else out there do this? You get to a point in your life--maybe something happens, or maybe it's just a random Monday--and you look around and wish you could time travel, or send a note back or something, and talk to your younger self. Me? I do it lots. 

Not so much to warn myself against doing something--I figure I've learned more from my mistakes than the things that came easy. I wouldn't go back and tell then-me not to date my ex, or to get out far sooner than I did, because while that might have saved me from some very dark times, those experiences made me who I am today. 

Those dark days, though … I wish I could get a message through time to thirty-seven-year-old me. Back in July of 2010, my ex was suddenly an ex and I was clearing, repairing, repainting and landscaping an entire four-bedroom house for sale while keeping the horse farm going and trying to write a romance. I was sleeping a few hours a night, and had the TV playing Law and Order marathons damn near 24/7, trying not to think too much, and crying when I did--not so much for a relationship that hadn't been doing either of us any good for a while, but for the life I was saying goodbye to, and the background mantra that a woman is more likely to die in a plane crash than get married after thirty-five. I kept telling myself it was going to be okay, but in the wee hours, that sounded pretty hollow.

Now, I wish I could whisper back to that self of mine and say It's not just going to be okay, it's going to be amazing. Just hang in there. 

Five years later, I'm a wife and a mommy. Mr. Right and I have a cute little house in the trees, an awesome baby, an eleven-year-old car, and a list of fun things we want to do together. And, last night, I got to see my teen-self's all-time-favorite band perform live!

It went like this:

RescueDeb (president of Beech Brook Farm Equine Rescue): Hey, volunteers! We've been selected by an organization called Rock To The Rescue. We're going to be featured at the upcoming Styxx concert at Mohegan Sun, where we'll be selling tickets to raffle off a signed Fender guitar. Our rescue gets a quarter of the proceeds directly and the rest goes to their foundation, to be given out as grants. No admin fees, all proceeds to charity, all good stuff. Who wants to sell raffle tickets? You can stay after and see the show.

Me (former hair band junkie, though not a huge Styxx fan): Sure, I'll go.

RescueDeb: We need bodies. The more the merrier!

Me: (emails two friends who have supported the rescue in the past, and who I think might go for a hair-band night at the casino)

RhondaFriend: Drat! I'm out of town!

GailFriend: Hubby and I are in! We were talking about going to the concert. Styxx rocks. Love DL, too. 

Me (blinks): DL … DL … D … ERMAGHERD! Is Def Leppard going to be there????!!!??? SQUEEEEE!

See, back in the day, my then-bestie, KristinFriend and I were The Biggest Fangirls. We didn't just have every Def Leppard album ever made--on cassette first, then CD--we had VHS copies of every rockumentary, interview or video we could get our hands on, plus acid wash jeans and blue jean jackets lovingly decorated with their logos and lyrics in puffy washable paint, and we spent hours talking about … well, you get the picture. 

So, yeah. Def Leppard. And, it turns out, Tesla, as the warmup act. Can you say Hair Band Heaven? It was a total blast. Not only did the Beech Brook Farm team kick ass selling raffle tickets, making lots of $$ for the rescue, we were then given access to a little section of seats slightly behind the stage, to watch the show! The sound quality wasn't the greatest because we were behind the speakers, but who cared? I knew all the words and my brain filled in the music.

And, because I was up way too late and am a little scattered, here are a few impressions, in no particular order:

-The crowd was older than it would've been when I was sixteen, and the panties that got thrown on stage were a lot bigger. (Though, in fairness, the pink ones might have been a slipcover.)

-Old rockers may have to take it down an octave now and then, but they sure know how to work a crowd.

-There's no better text to get from hubby in response to 'I'm thinking of staying longer, everything okay?' than 'All good. Dealt with giant sh*t. Baby asleep now. I'm watching sharks.' 

-There was this one guy in the crowd I couldn't stop staring at. He was wearing all white, looked like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and stood stock still the entire time, staring off into space. Everyone around him was moving and rocking and banging heads, and he just stood there. And no matter what the lighting, he seemed to glow. I don't know what his story was, but I was tempted to borrow a phone and take a picture to see if he would show up.

-If you would have asked me back when I was sixteen what it would take to get me to leave a Def Leppard concert before the last song, my answer would not have been: It's been six hours since I last nursed.

-Nothing says "boys' night at home" quite like looking this morning for the little mesh feeders that I'm using to introduce bits of banana or avocado into baby Wallaby's diet, and finding them under the coffee table, one lovingly filled with a teaspoon of enchilada, the other with the same amount of Hawaiian pizza. 

And so, I wish you good music, ReaderFriends, a blast from the past, and maybe a whisper from your future self on a dark day, saying, It's not just going to be okay, it's going to be awesome … with a side of enchiladas and Hawaiian pizza!

Is This Your Cat?

So the other evening it went like this:

(Me futzing around on the computer while Wallaby naps in his room and Arizona snoozes on the couch.)

(Car drives up Steepest Driveway Evah … moments later, a brisk knock sounds at the downstairs door.)

Me: Goes out onto upper porch to check out the situation. There's a strange man standing there, pretty big, looking kind of intense. However, the car is a minivan-ish thing, there are two kids in the back and a woman in the passenger side. Despite those episodes of Criminal Minds about serial killer families, I decide they're probably not an immediate threat, and go down the stairs. "Can I help you?"

Him: "We're Number Nine."

(There's probably a science fiction reference there, but I take it to mean that these are our neighbors a few houses down, who we know to wave at and occasionally return their dogs.)

Me: "Hi. Welcome to Nineteen."

Her: (Sticks arm out window.) "Is this your cat?"

Me: (Regards little black-and-white fluff ball with a mingled sensation of uh-oh, I'm in trouble and SQUEEEEE!) "Um, no."

Her: (Face falling.) "Darn. We were hoping … It just came into our yard. And we've got those two big dogs. It's really friendly … and there's that storm coming ..."

Me: (Puts on my "SUCKER" hat, steps forward and takes kitten.)

Kitten: (Correctly reading "SUCKER" sign.) Burrows under my chin and purrs. 

Me: (Realizing that kitty is pretty much an animated skeleton beneath the fluff.) "I guess I can ask around, and find her a home. Or maybe she can stay."

Neighbors: (General relief, some small talk--they seem like really nice people, actually, and we've got some stuff in common. Arizona and I really need to have that block party we keep talking about. Anyway, they take off.)

Me: (Regards house.) "Okay, kitten. Be cute!"

(We go upstairs.) 

Arizona: (Rouses. Blinks at kitten. Realizes it's not Pixel or Lucy. And then, because he's awesome, he says "Awww" and reaches out to take the kitten.) "Are you hungry, little one? You look hungry. Come on, we've got some squishy food in the other room."

[Later, after I put out some Facebook calls on the local forum, asking if anyone is missing a kitten, or wants one, and get a whole lot of "Congratulations on your new family member!" posts in return …]

Arizona: (Looks at me wearing purring kitten on my shoulder and the baby in my lap, while Pixel sits near my feet and Lucy hovers in the doorway, trying to look uninterested.) "I guess I should thank you for deciding to volunteer at the horse rescue. I thought you were kidding when you said you didn't dare work at a kitty rescue."

Me: "In my defense, it doesn't count as crazy until the cats outnumber the people. And, no, I'm not going to use that as logic for having another baby. I promise!" 

Because three feels like the exact right number to me, in both people and pets. So please join us in welcoming Bunker to the fold!

Cutting Our Teeth and a NEW RELEASE!

Wallaby may look like the spitting image of his daddy at the same age, but he's very much my kid when it comes to responding to pain versus frustration. I dislocate my elbow biking? I pop it back into joint and walk a mile out of the woods to the car. The cable goes out in the middle of an episode of iZombie? I screech like a banshee. 

Similarly, when Wallaby gets a shot, his response is to glare at the nurse, but if he's trying to master a new skill and can't make his body work the way he wants it to? Watch out, eardrums! So it perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise that his first two teeth came in last week without much in the way of fanfare.

(On his part, at least. I may have been rather more dramatic when he unexpectedly bit down on a tender part of my anatomy. We're working on that.)

Dude … I've got teeth … (and some styling pool noodles taped to the edges of … well, everything that has an edge).

It's fitting, really, as kiddo's first two teeth coincided with the release of my first self-published e-book, a Mustang Ridge story about starting fresh. In fact, I'd like to share my Author's Note with you: 

Dear ReaderFriend,

This story is dedicated to new beginnings because recently so many things have begun anew in my life, including marriage, motherhood, and my honest (and occasionally successful) attempts to live in the moment and find something to love about every day, even the toughest ones.

That’s part of what makes Della and Max so interesting to me—she can always find something to love about old clothes (even the most shiny, flammable and shoulder-padded monstrosity), while he’s constantly looking ahead to his next job and shiny new gadget. So I love watching the two of them slow down and enjoy the time they have together … until poof! It’s over and they have to figure out what comes next.

For my part, I’m enjoying the moment, and am grateful to you, my ReaderFriend, for choosing to read Starting Over at Mustang Ridge. I hope that Max and Della’s story reminds you to find something to love about each and every day … And if you can’t, that it reminds you that sometimes a change of direction can be just what a girl needs!

***

Whether we're talking teeth or a new publishing venture, beginnings can be an exciting time! Thank you as always for sharing my weekly milestones, writerly and otherwise, and if you'd like to help out, please buy, read and review your own copy of Starting Over at Mustang Ridge for Kindle or Nook!

Spiders on Drugs

Howdy ReaderFriends! After a fun weekend with family, with science editing jobs piled up, the release of STARTING OVER AT MUSTANG RIDGE, and Wallaby cutting his first two lower teeth, I'm swamped! 

So please accept one of my favorite Youtube sillinesses (that word has too many of some letter or another, doesn't it?) in lieu of an actual post today, and keep an eye out for a real post when I'm out of the weeds and/or the new story goes live!