Blood & Magic Scales & Laundry

My Saturday so far…

1. Blood tests this morning – 2 lab techs, 4 needle pokes, hot packs to coax out my minute veins, and an hour+ later, the blood was obtained. Being seriously dehydrated from fasting doesn’t help my blood pressure any, that’s for sure.
2. In the lab waiting room, I started reading Thalia Chaltas‘ Because I Am Furniture, a YA novel in verse. So good. You almost don’t want to read because you don’t want to be in the narrator’s abuse-filled world, but then you can’t stop reading.
3. In the hospital parking lot, right beside where I parked when I went to the lab, there was a bathroom scale sitting on the pavement – white, dirty, red numbers under the glass bubble at the top. It almost begged me to step on it. And my weird brain (let’s call it my writer’s imagination, shall we?) pictured it blowing up when I – or someone else, preferably an evil villain – stepped on it. Too many action flicks? Maybe. Then I imagined it transporting the innocent weight-seeker to a different time or place when he/she stepped on it, a portal to some other world where mass and numbers and algebraic formulae swirl about reeking havoc. Um, yeah. I didn’t step on the scale, but I should’ve.
4. Came across a Cadillac hearse – the model was “Eureka”. There is definitely some funny in that.
5. And now, some writing time. And laundry… lots and lots of laundry. Man, my life is glamorous.

More than you want to know

The lovely Lin Wang has given me the Kreativ Blogger award! Woot! Thank you, Lin.

In response to receiving this award, I’m supposed to post seven things about myself that people might find interesting. So I get the glory, and you all suffer the consequences… heh. I really don’t want any of my readers to fall into a coma whilst reading about me, so I’ll try to be brief.

Ahem.

Little-known yet strangely fascinaing facts about yours truly:

1. Nothing must touch my neck. I have a touching-my-neck phobia (perhaps there’s a name for that?). Don’t laugh – this has serious wardrobe implications.
2. I’m compelled to pick up all sea glass that I come across, even though I never do anything creative with it. (Not so Kreativ after all, am I, Lin?)
3. I’ve held a human heart in my hands. And a brain. And a spleen. (I work as an autopsy assistant.)
4. For three years, I lived in a tiny mining camp in the middle of the Yukon… and loved it.
5. I watch It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas and re-wind the ending several times, each time crying all the way through the scene where everyone’s bringing money to help George (especially when his brother toasts him, calling George “the richest man in town.”) Go ahead. Watch it – see if you don’t need Kleenex.
6. I have low blood pressure. If I stand up too fast, I fall down. I’m not a Weeble.
7. I can’t sleep if the closet door is open. No, I’m not scared of monsters… unless it’s the disorderly gaping-hole-of-unclosed-door monster (a close relative of the messy chair-not-tucked-into-table monster, who also scares me).

There you have it. Now I fear y’all know way more about me than you ever wanted to know. Or should know. (I’m normal, I swear!… Hey, quit laughing.)

I’ll be back soon to nominate some of my fave creative blogs. In the meantime, here  are the rules for those who receive this award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they have been nominated.

Breaking News

Crop circles and nine-day weeks

Today has been full of weirdnesses (and no, the creation of the word “weirdnesses” is not one of them):

1. Dead-heading rhododendrons feels kind of like plucking large, long-legged, sticky insects off  branches. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

   

2. Son#1 pointed out a newspaper ad for a local restaurant that said “Authentic Mexican Food 7 Days a Week” across the top, and “Closed Saturday and Sunday” on the bottom. Is there a 9-day week that I don’t know about?
3. I saw a young woman this afternoon who reminded me of someone I used to know – someone who died years ago. I did that rubber-neck second-glance thing anyway, as if checking to see if it actually was the person I knew, back from the dead.  That’s the kind of thing that lands a person in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode.
4. I watched a YouTube video of Michael Jackson’s Thriller the other day because I wanted to remember how to do that weird zombie dance for some reason. Today, well… RIP M.J.
   
5. Wallabies that are high on opium have been walking in circles, creating crop circles. So that’s what causes them! (And here I was thinking they were caused by giant peant butter cups landing in the fields….)
6. My laptop keeps freezing up today. It’s never done that before. The screen suddenly goes black and the only way to bring it back to life is to restart the computer. It makes me very nervous. I fear for my computer’s life.

The day’s almost over, so maybe that’s it for weirdnesses. Maybe….

Aspiring Author disappears

The low-budget news team reports on Aspiring Author’s mysterious disappearance:

Revisions and the low-budget news team

I just received my first revision letter — yay! While waiting for said letter to arrive, I spent a little time procrastinating on the internet. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the result of some of that procrastination time:

And now the hard work begins….

The next kindle?

Check out the kindle 9XXXD. There’s seriously no limit to where e-reader technology can take us.

(With thanks to Jennifer Jackson.)

Fake Saturdays and brain freeze

It’s a very Saturdayish Monday. The kids are off school for Spring Break, and I’m not working today, either. The sun is shining (spring! yay!). I slept late, went for a run, baked muffins, and am now in the midst of beta-reading a friend’s work. Very Saturdayish indeed. That’s the best kind of Monday, don’t you think?

::takes Son3 and friend out to 7-Eleven for Slurpees::

Okay, I’m back. Apparently to ten year olds, sun + above zero temperature = Slurpee weather. Now they’re both happily sucking back some sick combination of frozen creme soda, orange, and cola. (Yes, they layered their Slurpees. Ick.) I’m happy with my non-slushified Diet Coke because I’m one of those people who gets nasty brain freeze really easily.

That reminds me of what was probably the worst case of brain freeze in history…. Back in my “youth leader” days, one of the girls in my fabulous and oh-so-mature bunch of teens decided to snort Slurpee in through her nose. Priceless. Er, I mean, ::puts on mature adult voice:: not at all recommended, do not try this at home. Anyway, I wish I had it on video for you, but alas, no. Instead, here’s a brain freeze skit from Uphill Both Ways:

Wishing you all a good Saturdayish Monday.

Peace….

Friday Five: Adventures in surfing

I may occasionally be guilty of spending too much time online. (Okay, those of you who really know me will have just snorted your coffee out your nose.) Fine. I spend too much time online every day. But there’s just so much cool stuff out in cyberspace! Here’s a “Friday Five” of things I’ve discovered whilst surfing online this week:

1. Cutest-ever promo for breast cancer research:
2. Photos of everywhere.
3. A very odd book which looks both disturbing and delightful:
4. Time passing.
5. Book art:

See what I mean? Cool stuff.  But now I’m going off-line so I can get some work done. Ah, but my work will be so much cooler now that I’ve received all manner of inspiration input.

Peace….

You know it’s a weird world when…

…while strolling along the beach you notice a running shoe washed up among the driftwood and you feel compelled to check if there’s a foot inside it.

There wasn’t.