Conference count down

Well, I’ve managed to miss a LJ birthday for 

[info]kellyrfineman

 and a get out the vote celebration for 

[info]carriejones

. I also missed the release celebration for Love and other Uses for Duct Tape by aforementioned 

[info]carriejones

. Why? Because we are down to the Nitty Gritty.

NO! Not the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
The little stuff that has to happen before the NESCBWI annual spring conference. The special meals, the registration confirmations, the closet for the doorprizes, the people who want refunds (they can’t come now because their husband’s cousin’s sister is having a baby that day), the number of screens, and whiteboards, and mics, and folders and… you get it. I think I have another 30 emails each time I turn away from my computer. 

So Happy Birthday to Kelly. Carrie, my grover says “I heart Cawwie” too. (I’ll bring him to the conference so he can tell you himself.)

Luckily, the snow has stopped. (Shhh, don’t say it outloud, it’s bound to start again.) My husband is home. My dog, while not cured is at least not pooping on the floor. My sons are practicing for the May Day celebration at school. (Maypole anyone?) And baseball season has started. Must have, my son has started carrying around his  baseball mit, and my husband tries to surf back and forth to baseball while I’m trying to get a good look at Jason Taylor on Dancing With the Stars. (The man is fine. Grover thinks so too.)

Nine more days and a wake up.

ACK!

The good news: My hubby comes home today! On a plane.
The bad news: It is snowing.
The good news: His first plane has landed and he is in Atlanta.
The bad news: It is snowing in Maine and his second plane is delayed.
The good news: It is only delayed 45 minutes.
The bad news: The snow isn’t stopping and it might be more.

Ack! Why is it snowing? It is March 28th. Almost April? Answer: This is Maine. Again, ack!

Sam update

Thank you all for your kind thoughts. I checked in with the doc today and Sam may be improving with the med cocktail they are giving him. We’ll know more tomorrow. Last night I got a full night’s sleep. The first one in a long time without cleaning up or taking Sam for many night walks.  I imagine him at the vet talking to the other dogs:

“The house is crazy without the Alpha dog (my husband). The puppies are loud and rambunctious and the bitch keeps yelling at me and the pups. I’m just happy to get a break from the stress. It was giving me diarrea!”

Hope to get real hugs at the conference in two weeks. Who’s coming?

Sam

My dog is dying from the inside out. He must be. Sam is 12 years old, and for the past two months he’s had diarrhea. Now he seems unable to control his bowels. Just this weekend he’s had a few inside accidents and the clean up has been no easy task. The most recent clean-up just complete, I’m spent. This is the same two months that I’ve been single parenting because my husband, Chris is in Memphis with the Navy. The same two months leading up to the New England SCBWI conference that I’m helping to coordinate. The same time, of course, that our newish van is overheating stranding me and my kids during a March snowstorm and me forgetting to charge my cell phone. (Okay, we weren’t stranded, but walking miles with a 6 and 8 year old in a snow storm is no fun.)

I wish I was one of those women, those writers who could come up with some witty entry that makes everyone laugh at my anguish. But right now I just need a hug. I’m so exhausted and I’m ready to send Sam to the great dog house in the sky. The only problem is that there has been no diagnosis. No parasite I can get rid of, no food issue I can remedy. (Rice, tried that. Boiled chicken, that too. Changing food, yup.) Can you put your dog to sleep for pooping in the house? Granted, it reeks and is a watery mess (TMI sorry) but doesn’t there need to be something else wrong?

I don’t know. I’m reaching the end of my ethical rope. I’m bringing him to the vet tomorrow– today and boarding him there. I need a break.

Women’s History Month

A huge thank you to Kelly Fineman whose rant is both dead-on and inspiring. Therefore, I am posting in honor of Women’s History Month (which began with International Women’s Day (also ignored in this country when others in Europe got a day off…) Below, please find a few of my favorite books  that have to do with girls and women who had historical and political vision and the authors and illustrators who have artistic vision.

From Kathry Lasky and David Caltrow:

She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head!
(Illustrated by David Catrow)

Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall are very proper Boston ladies, but they find the latest nineteenth-century fashion in women’s hats appalling. All over town, fashionable ladies are parading around with dead birds perched upon their heads! So Minna and Harriet gather together the most prominent people in the area to form a club to protect the birds—the Audubon Society. Eventually they garner enough nationwide attention to initiate the passage of important bird protection acts.

 

Also two books by Shana Corey:


Katie Casey is in a league of her own: “She preferred sliding to sewing, batting to baking, and home runs to homecoming.” Unfortunately, baseball is not considered ladylike in 1942. But when the male professional baseball players are called away to war, Katie has her chance to step up to the plate.

and

Amelia Bloomer is not a proper lady. She thinks proper ladies of the 19th century are silly. They’re not allowed to vote, not supposed to work, and all that fuss about clothes! Ridiculously wide hoop skirts, yards and yards of hot petticoats, and cruelly tight corsets supported by whalebone or steel made women faint at the drop of the hat: “What was proper about that?” So Amelia, being so very improper, sets out to revolutionize the world for women.

(Images and jacket copy swiped from Amazon.com but go to your local independent bookstore to buy these, or shine up that Library card and check them out.)

Sorry I’m not more creative as it is 1 am and I just felt that this needed to be posted. Not as eloquent as Kelly’s rant but there it is. I’m sorry I’ve been so absent but the conference is two weeks away and I’m on week 7 out of 8 for single parenting.

Stop. Listen. Enjoy.

Dear Friends,
There are few times in politics when we are privileged to witness a speech that is so thoughtful, so honest, so grounded in reality that it becomes a turning point for our country’s history. Words that you have to memorize in social studies or government class that come from dead men such as Lincoln or FDR or John or Robert Kennedy. The speech given by Senator Obama is one of these. The problem with these speeches is that they take a great deal of time to craft, and a great deal of time to deliver. The problem with these speeches is that they take a great deal of time to listen to. This means that we have to stop the frenetic pace of the day, of giving to and nurturing children, of working and driving, and picking up the house and picking up the broken pieces of our lives to listen. To stop and dismiss the 30 second sound bite for the 30 minute speech. Please. No matter who you are or where you are on the political spectrum… Stop. Listen. Enjoy. We haven’t heard this level of discourse from an elected leader in the past eight years (or longer). When your grandchildren have to memorize sections of this speech, you can say you heard it when it first happened.
Anna

Creative Space

Laura Hamor posted about trying to quiet the world in order to hear your muse entitled Creative Space. I’m having a really hard time doing this recently. Thoughts of money, relocation and jobs fill my thoughts. I’m trying to (in a Zen way) allow these thoughts to come and then go but I’m bad at that. Instead I hang on to them, turning them into projects. Relocation? Surf the net for maps and chamber of commerce sites for various places to go. Jobs? Browse Career Builders, Colleges I’d like to work at, and even B & B’s that are for sale. Money? Obsess. Now that I have an agent, will he be able to sell my work? I couldn’t sell it. I need a day job.  So I am sitting at the computer without producing much. However, my writing partner is expecting the next chapter of my current WIP on Thursday so at least that lights a fire under my bum. Maybe my muse is the muse of fire. Hmmm… fire, heat, warmth… that’s it, my creative space is somewhere warmer. No wonder I can’t get anything done.

Fun in the snow on Saturday. But the current ice storm forecast has me down.

Earl’s Diner is Closing

Earl’s Diner inhabits a small portion of the space owned by Earl. The country/bluegrass amphitheater and the oversized barn that houses his collection of John Deere tractors and farm machinery take up the rest of the lot. My husband grew up, up the road from Earl’s and it was the place his family went for breakfast. “Down to Earl’s.” I’ll remember a lot about Earl’s: the Bell jar fruit glasses, the table legs that were jeans and cowboy boots, and the way my oldest son (who was only a toddler then) used to watch the ladies make the cinnamon swirl buns that were as large as a dinner plate. He’d press his little hands and nose against the large window that gave people a view of the mouth watering treats.  I remember the huge tubs of butter and lard. That’s what made it so good. YUM . My hubby will, I’m sure, remember much more. A farming community held together by country fairs, school events, and weekends that started with breakfast at Earl’s. God speed Earl. Check out the NYTimes article here.

Taking Care of Business

” For reasons I cannot explain
There’s some part of me wants to see
Graceland”
Paul Simon

Well friends I’m home from Memphis, TN. The snow sparkles and shimmers outside my window and icicles drip on my neck each time I scoot out the door and I am happy. Happy to be home in my comfy bed, happy to empty my suitcase, happy to have my computer and my routines and regular bedtimes. It was lovely to reconnect as a family for 10 whole days. We’ll be back together when the snows melt. (Or maybe sooner considering the persistent snowfall.)

We did visit Graceland and I felt that I was, as the song suggests, pulled there by some inexplicable force. I loved the obvious, the stained glass peacock windows, the mirrored TV room with 3 TV’s, the fabric covered walls of the billiards room, the golden seat belt buckles on the airplane.

But the lasting memory is the more subtle fact that this man, this celebrity, this incredibly prolific artist was frozen in time. Elvis was frozen in his youth and as a poor youth he bought a fancy house that is actually pretty small compared to the Extreme Makeover homes of today. We still see him as he was because he and his work never had a chance to evolve. The tour and its information were choreographed to move the thousands of people through his life in a clean and organized manner. The treatment of his death gets one sentence about “heart failure” and “prescription medications.” Even as we walk through hallways glistening with gold and platinum awards, we, I feel for him because of what could have been.

We did plenty of other things too. I highly recommend the Pink Palace Museum and the Children’s Museum of Memphis. FedEx is headquartered in Memphis and has given a lot of corporate funds to the CMOM which includes a great flight exhibit. We also saw A Year With Frog and Toad at the Orpheum theatre. If you are a parent in Memphis look out for other children’s productions, including the Very Hungry Catepillar, coming to the Orpheum later this spring. A huge thank you to the Bricks and the Abbots for taking us in, feeding and treating us like family. Take care of hubby while he’s down south for me.