Generation Exhausted

Stuck in the stacks

Could also be called "Be Careful What You Wish For"

On Saturday morning God sent me the sign. While driving the teen to work, we passed a yard sale, and I noticed a few bookcases on offer. It was pouring rain, and I was still in my pajamas (See also "Why bother getting dressed if you're not getting out of the car?"), so I didn't stop.

Later that afternoon, while picking her up, the sun now shining, and me now clothed, the pair of bookcases was still there. I pulled up to the curb and shouted in inquiry, "How much?"

"Six dollars the pair," came the answer. I dug in the ashtray for change, and frisked the teen. "Ok, five dollars," called the desperate vendor, misreading my delay. By the time we parked the van, she was saying, "I'll take four, and load your car for you."

I couldn't have asked for a better indication that it was time to do the books. And so the project began. The children have schlepped all their books to the basement, their bookcases have also been moved, and the ones in my bedroom are almost empty.

Let the cataloguing begin!

Oh god, let the cataloguing end. We have TONS of books. Perhaps THOUSANDS. And so far, the only organizational divide that makes any sense is fiction versus non.

We toyed with the idea of alphabetical order, but discarded that. We have picture books, early readers, juvenile fiction, YA, adult, mystery, thriller, chicklit. Every time I come up with a system, another book pops up and screws up the whole thing. If I group by author, then The Cat Ate My Gymsuit ends up alongside Amber Brown in the midst of the children's books. Should Sweet Valley Twins go alongside Sweet Valley High? And there's no way I'm putting Smart Women alongside Superfudge.

And never mind that just when I think I've got it right, I run across a book that should go here, but it's the hardcover edition and doesn't fit on that particular shelf.

And forget about help from the children. I sat the little one down on one side of the room and said "Ok, Mommy's going to hand you all the non-fiction, and you jam them on that shelf there for a minute. Just to get them off the floor so I have room to move." Ten minutes later, I heard a clunk. I'd hit her in the head.

Because her nose was buried in Famous Dead Canadians. "I never knew we had this book!" she said, not even noticing that Plato's Republic had just bounced off her noggin.

Three days later, there are still stacks of books waiting for me to shelve. I'm not even out of the children's section yet. All the Young Adult and Adult books just keep getting moved around as I sort and shuffle.

And the irony is that although I have three copies of the Magician's Nephew, four copies of Sweet Valley Twins #4 and FIVE copies of VC Andrews Gates of Paradise, I still can't find Happiness.

Yes, I will take a picture when I'm done. If I'm ever done.  One of the teens wandered down there in search of something to read tonight, and I followed her, nattering, "Don't you DARE mess up my system!" I shoved an Agatha Christie at her and told her to read the DO NOT REMOVE tags on all her pillows if it wasn't enough to get her through the night.

Riding the roller coaster

Here is a glimpse into the life of a freelance writer: (note - for "month" you may also substitue "day", "week" or "year". It's all the same.)

Month One

I am great! My potential knows no bounds! I love this life that pays me to do something that is FUN!

Month Two

I've forgotten how to write. Words run around inside my head and by the time they make it to the page, they have morphed into CRAP. It's no wonder no one wants to buy what I'm selling.

Month Three

I am brilliant! They love me! The clip file just continues to grow!

Month Four

All the good ideas are taken. I have no original thought. I am so far from fresh, I am STALE. Maybe I can get a job typesetting menus for takeout pizza.

Month Five

I know the secret is butt-in-chair-hands-on-keyboard, but I don't care. The blank Word document in front of me just serves as a reminder that I am HOPELESS. Perhaps I should investigate a part-time job at WalMart.

Month Six

I wish someone had told me that the last thing I wrote was going to be the LAST THING I WROTE. I think I will throw up now. And then cry. And then call WalMart.

Month Seven

SCORE!!! I sold something! My career's not over and I don't suck after all!

There you have it. Is it any wonder I'm exhausted?  All I can say is that my hubby must love me very much to be able to put up with me sometimes.

Oh, and map props to Ann, and her post of August 17. Specifically, the instruction to "send a pitch letter to a magazine, newspaper, or online market that you've always dreamed of writing for" I skewed the instruction a bit, and sent a new piece to an old market that has formerly only bought reprints from me. And seven days later, I'm back to smiling again.

She thinks we don't luuvvv her anymore

Calling all members of the Luuvvv Thang - Ms. Scarlet is having herself a pout feeling unluuvved because she thinks we don't care. A week ago she posted about a big announcement, and we're all so polite and patient, she thinks we don't want to know.

The truth is, we're dying to know, BUT YOUR BLOG DOESN'T ALLOW ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.

Not having Blogger I.D.s, we're locked out.

So please, Ms. Scarlet, spill - what's the big news?

Summer daze

First of all, let it be proclaimed that I am the WORST FRIEND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

No really, I am.

On Friday morning, my very best friend in the whole wide Internet called. On the telephone. I spoke with Linda for half an hour, chatting about this and that. She had called to tell me about a professional opportunity in front of her (how'd it go, by the way?) We talked about her upcoming weekend away. Little stuff.

Eight hours later, I realized that it was Linda's 34th birthday and I HADN'T SAID A WORD ABOUT IT.

Happy Birthday friend. Hope it was everything you wanted, and more. AND I'M SO SORRY I FORGOT.

Birthdays are on my mind of late. Two weeks from today, I will turn thirty-four.  The old Club 32 seems miles in the past.

This summer, one of my friends celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday by having her first baby. Earlier in the summer, another of my friends turned forty and became a grandmother.

Age doesn't make any sense any more. This summer, more than ever, I understand what the lovely and talented AGK once said:

"You're only as old as you feel. Some days, I feel 19 -other days, 99."

Today, I feel 99. Here's hoping that tomorrow, it's a little bit less.

Maybe I could get him to do my filing

A few nights ago, as I sat here in my lovely basement office, a cricket strolled by. Not hopped. Strolled. Sauntered, even.

A word about my office - there is no fourth wall. It's essentially open to the rest of the basement, so things like crickets, small children and the occasional basket of laundry are bound to wander by every now and then.

This is a BIG cricket. Larger than my pinky finger. As I explained to my husband, "I have seen smaller mice." This cricket is BIG.

So big that after he wandered by, and under the bookshelf, and then into my office proper, I could hear the sounds his cricket-footsteps made as he walked over a stack of books I have on the floor.

BIG.

"Well, why didn't you squish him?" my husband wanted to know.

EWWW.

That would be like squishing a small mouse, and since I am reluctant to even bat mice on the head with a broom, squishing something that BIG is obviously out of the question.

For the record, my mice-killing technique consists of instantly leaping onto a chair/countertop/roof, waving a broom frantically and screaming at the top of my lungs. It rarely works.

Since the cricket first appeared, I've heard him every night and seen him twice more. He doesn't chirp, but I can hear him walking. I'm tempted to offer him a cup of coffee, if he'll lend a wing with some of the tidying that needs to be done.

Crickets are good luck, so no I'm not evicting him. Instead, I've decided to name him Kip. Kip the cricket.

I won't squish you Kip. You're safe here. Just walk a little more softly, 'kay?

And for one brief moment, we could see our future...

So there we were, cruising along Lambton Road 4 in the dark, fields and farms stretching endlessly out from either side of the road. I had an inkling of where we were - south of Lake Huron and north of Lake Erie. And, since no border guards had accosted us, I could only assume we were still east of Lake St. Clair.

We bandied about the idea of finding Sarnia and hopping onto the Bluewater Bridge. Coming home "the American way" would likely be shorter, I explained to my confused passengers, but they didn't seem entirely comfortable with that.

A word about my confused passengers. They were enjoyable companions, and very entertaining, and truly, I love them to death. However, I must regretfully give them both a failing grade in Map Reading 101.

This has nothing to do with control issues. I am perfectly comfortable in allowing my passengers to handle the map, provided they read it correctly. And in a timely fashion. When the driver says "Should I turn at this next road?", the correct answer is "yes!" or "No!" Not "Hang on a sec, what was the name of that last town?" while they flip the map this way and that. I cannot "hang on a sec" at 90 km/h.

And then, once again, there were lights in the distance, and we came to an intersection. A large billboard provided reassurance:

Welcome to the St. Clair Shores Region. Your Future Is Here.

Since we'd all been wondering for years where our future was, that was nice to know. But really, they could have sent us a memo or something, instead of leaving our discovery of it to chance.

On to the next town, and the next Tim Hortons.

Which is when I told my passengers about The Secret Location Of Tim Hortons Central Command.

Buried deep in a bunker below Hamilton Mountain in Hamilton, Ontario, lies Tim Hortons Central Command. A rabbit warren of passages and rooms plays host to secret meetings, where decisions are made, like, "Should we stop accepting garbage through the drive-thru window?" and "If we start serving bagels will our workers' comp premiums go up because of the dangers inherent in slicing?"

Banks of TV screens show the goings-on at every Tims in the world. That's right - when you make funny faces at the drive-thru screen, you're not just disturbing the girl in the store, you're performing for a cadre of highly trained personality specialists who are paid $85 an hour to analyze customer behaviour. If you accidentally place your order at the garbage can, they flag the tape and play it for fun at the annual Christmas party.

Powerful computers track how many people file nuisance lawsuits because they bit their tongue while rolling up the rim with their teeth. Others track inventory, and penalize those stores that put one raisin too many in an oatmeal raisin cookie.

There are test kitchens, where experiments are conducted to ensure that the fruit in a fruit explosion muffin really will explode. In auditoriums, actors are trained to pose as irate customers before being sent "into the field."

I know this is true because I heard it from some guy who heard it from some girl who had a cousin who used to work there as a security guard.

Really.

Anywho, we made it home, eventually. Anyone want a cup of coffee?

You're only lost if you don't know where you are

Anyone who says I got lost last night is lying.

A mere 72 hours after my joyous return home, I was on the road again last night to fetch my oldest daughter. In a grand conspiracy on Saturday night, my sister-in-law had given me two glasses of wine, and in my weakened state, I had agreed to let the teen join her aunt, uncle and cousin on their camping trip this week. Since they were camping at a Provincial Park a mere 90 minutes from our home, and they live a few hours in the other direction, the plan was that I would fetch the child last night.

With Mrs. WilsonWorld along to keep me company, we embarked upon our adventure. The first clue that this road trip was not going to go as planned was the realization that there are no Tim Hortons on Highway 79 heading north.  If you have the $500,000 to spare for a franchise, I strongly urge you to consider lovely downtown Thedford as a location.

The second clue was the discovery that the park was more than 90 minutes from our home. Undaunted, I drove on, knowing that eventually, I'd hit Lake Huron, at which point I only had to turn right.

The third clue was that we drove around in the park for an hour before we located their campsite. Apparently, the people responsible for signage in Ontario Parks are the same people that work for Hyundai. There are no words on the signs, only symbols. If you've ever driven a Hyundai, you know how challenging it can be to have no words.

Having fetched the child, we started for home immediately. By this time, it had been four hours since our last Tims coffee, and we were getting desperate. We drove back through Thedford, and glanced quickly around that thriving metropolis (pop. 1000) in case we'd missed the Tims the first time through. We hadn't. There really wasn't one.

We had come to the brink, and it was time to make a choice. Throwing caution to the wind, we turned right - in the dim recesses of our memory, we recalled a Tim Hortons in Forest, some miles to the west.

Our approach to Forest sparked a flare of nostalgia for the summer camps of years gone by. I treated my travelling companions to a rousing rendition of "Here we are in the camp at Forest Cliff", and was rewarded with their own musical recollections of their own camp songs. I began to share other camp stories, but broke off in mid-sentence as a subtle hum of energy filled the air - something was about to happen.

Something indeed. Rounding the bend in the road, there it was - the roadtrippers' Mecca. My large double milk was a mere set of traffic lights away.

I cruised into the drive-thru lane, lowered the window, and waited patiently for those lovely, lovely words: "Welcome to Tim Hortons, how can I help you?"

A minute later, when it became clear that the garbage can wasn't going to take my order anytime soon, I coasted a bit further up to the speaker.

It had been a whole two hours since the teen had eaten, and she was threatening to expire if I didn't provide her with sustenance. Like the good mom I am, I immediately ordered a yoghurt & berries.

They had none.

I ordered a butter croissant.

They had none.

They probably didn't have chicken salad sandwiches either, but I didn't think I could bear to know for sure. Instead, I leaned pathetically out the window, and inquired forlornly, "Do you have any food at all in there?"

Fortified with coffee and oatmeal raisin cookies, and a Coke for the teen (which came, by the way, in a paper cup with a straw, a rarity at Tims), we hit the highway again. It was at this point that I attempted to beat my shotgun passenger at her own game, and challenged her to a round of Junkyard Poetry.

She came up with a moving Ode To Tim Hortons, which I'm sure she'll share with you. She didn't get to finish, as it was dark, and I turned off the dome light after ten minutes. When I was six, my mother told me it was against the law to drive with the dome light on, and even though I've never come across that rule in any handbook, I believed her.

The dark highway stretched out before us as we sped more or less west. Our plan was to continue on until we A) arrived home, B) accidentally drove into Lake St. Clair, or C) we got to another Tim Hortons, which would hopefully have butter croissants. As the moon rose higher, and the clock ticked on, we passed the time in genial conversation, with the odd burst of song. It was then that I educated my companions as to the little-known secret of the world-famous doughnut shop: The Location of Tim Hortons, Central Command.

I'll tell you the story too, and share the rest of our journey with you, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I've seen more highway in the last week than I have in the last two years, and I'm beat.

Goodnight!

How can you miss me if I never leave?

Back from our quasi-vacation - just a quick trip "up north" to spend the weekend with aunts and uncles and cousins, all on the in-law side.

We had our own little tent city on part of the aunt's 100-acre property, but full use of the facilities in the house as well. In spite of the distance - both geographic and otherwise - we had a wonderful time. It's a little un-nerving though to have such startling reminders of the passage of the years.

The first time I met this part of hubby's family was about 14 years ago. At the time, oldest was barely a toddler, and there were several other toddlers right in around the same age, all boys. I have pictures of them playing on the swing set, and playing with bubbles.

This weekend, the former toddlers - including mine - all piled into a car and went to the lake for the afternoon. Even worse, one of the former toddlers was driving, and it was HIS OWN CAR.

God, I'm old.

It really was pretty up there, but I'm a city kid at heart, and was glad to be home. I'd rather hear sirens in the distance at night than the howling of the wolves.

I also survived the drive, nine hours each way. Coming back, we crossed over the 400, and could see, for miles, the cars almost at a standstill. This would have been the cottagers, coming home from their weekend. I just don't understand what makes a cottage worth that kind of traffic stress.

Anyway, lots to do, since I took a day off. I'm still catching up!

I can't find Happiness

It all started when I realized that Happiness was missing.

Late last spring, in the midst of the Colorado Craziness, I vowed that when the Summer Slowdown hit,I was going to do something about the books.

The something, of course, was to take an unused corner of the basement, install several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and put most of the books in the house on the shelves, organized according to type and author.

You see, we have books everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Each of the girls' rooms has at least one bookcase full, my room has two bookcases plus three long wall shelves, the living room has bookcases, there's a bookcase in my office - there's even a bookcase already in that unused corner of the basement. EVERYWHERE.

Of course, we try -the girls' rooms have mostly "their" books, but as they move through various levels and stages of reading, the books move around. In many cases, my books have now become their books. (by the way, Lani, Oldest loved Maybe Baby). There are also books that seem more suited to one location than another - for example, one wouldn't think of placing Windows for Dummies anywhere but near a computer, right? Likewise the Reader's Digest coffee table-type books that go in the living room, the books reviewers send me that end up in my office bookcase, etc.

Between the moving around, and the fact that all five of us read....not just read, but READ...our cataloguing system has become the stick-it-wherever-there's-room variety. And that doesn't even take into account the books that haven't been shelved -those we are currently reading, or finished reading last week and haven't got around to putting away, or it got kicked under the bed and forgotten about.

The Summer Slowdown is over, and the new "book nook" is still non-existent. I've gotten around to clearing the junk from the unused basement corner, but that's about it.

In the meantime, Happiness(TM) by Will Ferguson has not turned up yet. And Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon appear to have joined it on the spirit-book plane.

Where the heck did they go? I have visions of my missing books all stacked up comfortably on a pile of odd socks, the ones that disappear in my dryer. You know, the ones that the little sock-fairies steal.

Odd socks I can handle, but no fair taking my Happiness with you!

I warned you

So, I followed through and have started a Disney blog. If you're a Disney World nut, or think you might be, or even just want to know why an otherwise level-headed rational writer would go all ga-ga over a mouse, I invite you to check it out. And come back often!