The "F" Effect

It's New Year's Eve, and a dreary day, so let's have story time, shall we?

Say, hypothetically, you have a teenager who is flunking math. And say, hypothetically, you punish said teenager by taking away said teenager's iPod.

What happens next?

A) The teenager sighs but takes the punishment like a trooper.
B) The teenager calls you a name and slams the bedroom door.
C) The teenager threatens to run away from home.

Let's pick...C.

OK, so the iPod has been stripped from the teenager's grasping little fingers. There's wailing. There's whining. There's gnashing of teeth. Parental ears are genetically coded to block such teenage assault. The iPod is firmly tucked away for safe keeping. Grumpy, slumpy teenager stomps to the bus and is whisked away in a belching cloud of fat, yellow bus exhaust.

While on the bus, the teenager rants against the inhumane parental punishment, leeching the one entertainment available to the teenager on the laborious ride to school. Quick with pen and paper, teenager vents by authoring a note:

"I'm leaving. By the time you read this, I'll be far away."

Teenager slaps the note down, crosses arms, and sulks all the merry way to school. A day goes by, fraught with learning, and when teenager comes home from school, it's necessary to wash away all that learning residue, and hops in the shower. Whilst in the shower, teenager hears dog barking like a maniacal Cujo-resurrected-from-doggie-hell kind of way. Teenager drips to the window to inspect what is disturbing the force.

Oh my. The police have arrived!

Crazy, salivating dog is tucked safely away in a bedroom while teenager eyes the suspicious cops lingering by the front porch. Teenager does not confront them.

The phone rings. It's the police requesting an audience with teenager.

While teenager is speaking with the police at the front door, the father parental comes sliding into the driveway. The father is confronted with the idea that teenager just may have some serious issues. Teenager could be on the verge of running away. Teenager could want to end it all.

What the he...? the father blusters.

"The teenager left a note on the bus."

Teenager looks sheepish. "Oh yeah..."

Father parental explains that teenager was angry in the morning because the iPod was taken away. Teenager was being overly-dramatic, and is not in crisis.

"That explains it," says the officer. "However, the ambulance has already been called."

"Wha-huh?"

Teenager is gurneyed into the ambulance and carted off to the hospital where teenager is gowned and tagged and told to wait for a crisis counselor. Teenager watches T.V. and does all the happy things teenagers do...minus the iPod, of course.

3 1/2 hours later a crisis counselor takes 5 minutes to evaluate teenager, coming to the conclusion that said teenager is a normal teenager who got angry and thought about running away for all of 2 minutes. The teenager is not in crisis, stop wasting my time, thank you very much. Teenager is sent packing.

Sheepish teenager arrives home. Teenager still doesn't get back the iPod, but the parentals get landed with a 4 figure bill to pay for it all.

This is called the "F" effect.

Hope you enjoyed the story!

Doctor Appointments Can Be Exhausting

OK, so I finally feel like I'm back on the grid both electronically, emotionally, and physically. Sometimes shit never ends, ya know? No phone or internet for 15 days; then the computer gets some kind of virus (I think) because the computer functions, but I can't load any web pages; work is slam busy with 12-15 hours days; and then I got the mother of all migraines...sort of like a move-and-puke kind of day. Lotsa fun, huh? Good golly, miss Molly, dress me in red and call me jolly.

So anyway, here I am in all my whining glory!

As if my life doesn't have enough *excitement*, I took a half day off from work because my daughter had a doctor appointment right after school. We live in a small town that shares a middle/high school with 3 other towns, so her school is actually 2 towns away from where we live. No biggy. It's a drive, but really, no biggy.

So I tell her *three* times before she leaves for school, "Don't get on the bus, don't get on the bus, don't get on the bus," because they say kids learn by repitition. Apparently that doesn't work for *mothers' voices"...which are basically tuned out at the first syllable that dares escape moms' lips to daughters' ears.

I have to pick her up by 2:20 to get her to the doctor by 3:15. I pull up to the school at 2:18, and I'm thinking I'm so slick because I'm usually running late and driving like a bat out of hell to get me to the church on time, know what I'm saying? So I pull in and park along the sidewalk.

No Cassie.

Despite the little stick figure perched on my brain waving this big-ass red flag that says "she got on the bus", I figure she's taking her time since she didn't have to run for the bus, so I wait almost 10 minutes.

No Cassie.

I park, enter the school, search the hallways, have her paged to the office, pace the hall.

No Cassie.

At this point, it's becoming clear she's put her little fanny on the bus. Not good. But I can't call her to make sure, because I have her cell phone because my son has my cell phone because he's broken his cell phone. So I call him to find out if she's on the bus home with him. Good plan, until you figure into the equation that he forgot to bring his (my) phone and it's at home, on the kitchen table, ringing with not a soul to hear it, except the dog, and the cat, neither of whom give a flying fart because they've both snuck into my room and are sleeping on my bed which is off limits.

By this time it's 2:40. If I leave *right now* I can still make the doctor appointment, which is pointless without the patient. I call the doctor and explain that dear daughter is MIA and I have to go home and find her so I can kill her (okay, I didn't say that last part, but I sure as hell was thinking it). They tell me to call when I get home and they'll see if they can still fit her in.

I turn on the car, and bells are ringing and the gas guage dives to E. Great. Juuuust great. There are 2 gas stations between the school and my house, and now I'm going to have to sacrifice five whole minutes of my time to get gas.

So I pull into the first gas station I see, go in and pay, and start pumping. A few minutes later I have all of 1/2 gallon. Wha-huh? I peek around the pump and ask the nearby gentleman pumper if he's getting any gas. Nope. I run inside and tell the lady her pumps ain't pumping. She can do nothing but "call someone". I run back outside, turn off my pump, run back inside to get my money back, but then have to wait in line because by now everyone else is doing the same thing. I get my money, dive back into my car. It's now 2:50.

Off I drive (fly) to gas station #2. Bells are ringing and clocks are ticking. But gas station #2 is so full of people who left gas station #1 before me that the line extends to the outer limits. I seriously do not have time to wait in line. I look at my gas guage, look at the line, and hit the pedal. I'm going for it.

I get home. Dear daughter is there. "Ooops, I forgot," says she. I call the doctor, and get a busy signal. I call 5 times before I get through. By this time it's 3:10, and it takes me 35-40 minutes to get to the doctor's office, the appointment is at 3:15. You do the math.

The good news is that I didn't run out of gas!

Back on the Grid!!

This is huge. This is exciting. This is the *best news ever*!

We are back on the grid. After a week with no power, and 2 weeks with no phone or internet service, it feels good to be able to communicate again. I feel like I've been away for 2 months, instead of 2 weeks.

So, you know, being without power sucked. Especially when it's cold. We can't run our wood furnace without power, so had to huddle by the fireplace. Which worked great for about 3 days, until smoke started pouring out of the side ventilators. Filled the house with smoke. So on top of being cold and miserable...the house reeked. 2 weeks later, whenever I pulled my laptop out of my briefcase at work, I still get a whiff of woodsmoke.

So the last week I've been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Washing rugs. Washing floors. Today, it was time to wash curtains. Oh, and you remember all that laundry piled up in the doorways? Finally got through all that, too.

And though I keep finding spots of candle wax here and there on the floors while I'm cleaning, and there's still the faintest hint of smoke, and we have piles of cut up trees and limbs that would do a beaver community proud, things are slowly getting back to normal.

Freak Storm Hits

A freak storm has hit Connecticut. 20 some inches of very wet, very heavy snow with half the leaves still on the trees, so all of those trees, and power lines, and power poles, came a'tumbling down. Yes, just like the walls of Jerricho.

You'd think the acapolypse has arrived. No heat. No lights. No water. No nothing. My house is filthy. We've been melting snow on the gas grill to bathe with, which I guess is all right, except I keep finding pine needles in my hair. 7 days worth of clothes for 4 people are blocking the doorways. The cat and dog are fighting for lap rights beneath the blankets. We're on day 7 of this crap, and quite frankly, I'm in a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, mood!

I'm in a neighboring town, with electricity, in Panera Bread with free wi-fi. So I'm checking in with my little pretties. You may not hear from me again for a few days.

But we're alive. We're kicking. And we're doing LOTS of reading.

OOPS

My apologies to author JA Clement, whom I interviewed, and then slapped another author's name on the interview. Ay yi yi! Some people are so not meant to multi-task.

Seriously, who would have thunk that there were 2 authors with the initials J.A. that I know?

So, as I sit here with my thumb up my butt and my face heating up so fast I could probably launch the next space shuttle just by looking at it, I have to apologize. Again.

I will rerun the interview next Wednesday and give credit where credit is due.

For now, I will go slink under my desk and wish back time.

Cheers!

Banned Book Makes a Comeback

There's just something about banned books. I hear a lot of people, other than the arguement over whether books should be banned from libraries or schools, go out of there way to read books on the list. It's the forbidden fruit mentality...if you can't have it, you want it.

Interesting article today from the Associated Press:

CHARLTON, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts library has put the Mark Twain work "Eve's Diary" back on the shelf more than a century after it was banned.

The Charlton Public Library's trustees this week unanimously voted to return the book to circulation, reversing the board's 1906 decision to ban the 1905 short story.

Trustee Richard Whitehead said the move was made to coincide with the American Library Association's Banned Books Week.

The book was written from the perspective of the biblical Eve. It was banned because trustee Frank Wakefield objected to nude illustrations of Eve. Whitehead tells The Telegram and Gazette (http://bit.ly/r0CFgm) he considers the illustrations works of art.

The 1906 decision drew attention from The New York Times, which reported that Twain was not particularly concerned.

Charlton is 40 miles southwest of Boston.

___

Information from: Telegram & Gazette, http://www.telegram.com

Check out some new stuff!

Couple of things you should check out. Look over to the right. See? My book trailer is up and running! Take a click and check it out.

Okay, now look over to the left. See? I'm hosting a giveway! Take a click (on the book cover itself...that'll take you right to the enter and win page), check it out and enter to win.

This could be your lucky day.

:)

I got Spammed!

Hey my pretties, I have a migraine today, so not doing too much on the computer but...

Yeah, I got spammed. Who knew? A spammer left a comment on one of my posts, from India no less. Selling, oh, I forget, iron or something? While blogger does have a spam-wall, one got through. I'm not complaining though...who knows how many spam comments actually have been blocked from coming through?

So, which begs the question...why would some iron seller spam me? I'm not a manufacturing company, I don't buy iron, I don't work with iron...quite frankly, I could care less about iron. I read books. I write books. And nothing I've read or written has anything to do with iron.

Ah, well, it was easy enough to delete.

Now, back to my migraine.

Cheers!

Shoeless Wonder

Okay, so today's my daughter's birthday...she turned 12. So, our morning is starting out pretty good. She's up on time, she's happy (it's her birthday after all), she gets dressed and eats her breakfast and brushes her teeth and her cupcakes are packed. All good.

1 minute before the bus comes, the poop starts hitting the fan.

1. I'm handed a permission slip for her 6th graduation and after-party...due 2 days ago.
2. She hasn't put her shoes on because she can't get them untied from the day before (yes, admit it, we all do it...take our shoes off without untying them first).
3. I'm running around trying to get together the cash needed for the party, fill out the permission slip, and get her to sign it.
4. The bus has arrived.

I'm stuffing money and paper into an envelope, she's screaming at me to help untie her shoe (I non-politely decline...see #3 above), and the bus is patiently idling at the end of our driveway.

I cram the envelope into her hand and she runs for the bus. I am chasing the dog who has managed to escape from the house.

Sounds like we made it, eh?

1 hour later, I get The Phone Call.

"Hi, Mom."
"Hey."
"Can you bring me my shoe?"
"Wha-huh?"
"Yeah, I came to school with only one shoe on."
"How could you go to school with only one shoe on?!?"

This was obviously a stupid-mom question, because I get the typical kid-answer: "I don't know."

I mean, seriously, who goes to school (or work or anywhere) with one shoe on??

Wait. Don't answer that.

Thankfully for my Shoeless Wonder, I happened to have taken the day off today, and was able to drive to school and hand in her shoe. Of course, I just *had* to ask the Principal..."Have you ever had a kid show up to school with one shoe?"

I bet you can guess the answer!