transvestite_rabbit's Xanga

December was as epic as November was fail

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 06:29:10 GMT

Events that made this month oh-so-much better than last month:
1. No cats died here
2. Two kittens of utter adorableness allowed us to adopt them
3. This one requires a story:

About two years ago I wrote a book. A good book. One that a publisher would surely wish to add to its catalog. Work that would cause an agent to want to represent me. That kind of book.

I sent my proposals off to some agents. None of them actually said "hahahahaha!" but I got the message.

Well, who needs an agent? I sent my proposals off to some publishers, including Scholastic, which I thought would be the grooviest possible publisher for my book. If you've never submitted a book proposal to a publisher before, let me sum up the process for you.

You visit the publisher's website and read their guidelines
You prepare a package that contains exactly the things the publisher's guidelines tell you they want to see, like a synopsis, a marketing plan, and a promise to sacrifice your first-born child, signed in blood
You send off the package and note how long the publisher's website says it will take them to respond
You wait that long, and then longer
You keep waiting
You eventually conclude that proposals that are sent over the transom (publisher-speak for unsolicited submissions) wind up on a slush pile (publisher-speak for materials they have no intention of looking at) so wide and so deep that you may as well have pitched your proposal directly into the sea

After awhile I shoved my manuscript into a virtual drawer and went on with my life. I knew I'd given up too easily. Some authors send proposals to dozens of publishers before they get a yes. I'd only hit about six. Finally, after a year had gone by, I dusted it off and tried one more time. I sent my carefully constructed package to a publisher I thought was a good fit but steeled myself for another brush off.

Just a month later an email from the publisher appeared in my inbox. My heart sank when I saw it. A "piss off" message to ruin my day, no doubt. I pointed my cursor at it, closed my eyes, and clicked.

I about fell off my chair when I read the first line. "We are very interested in publishing..." I squinched my eyes shut and opened them again, thinking I must have misread it. But it was an actual honest-to-god yes.

So I'll spend much of 2010 refining and tweaking the book (the publisher wants it expanded beyond its current form), which is slated to be released in the fall of 2011. And that's an epic end for 2009.

Never give up, never give in, never back down.

Happy new year, Xanga friends.

2009, in song

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:45:56 GMT

Well, I thought Uncle Jay's year-end wrap-up was better last year, but what the heck. It's still fun.

The Day After, now with Bonus Recipe!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:07:20 GMT

Clearly the thing to do after nearly a month-long orgy of overindulgence is head for the local farmers’ market to buy some more food. Well, what else could I do? Chinese leftovers become unappetizing once the prawns turn.

The Geek and I headed south, finding the traffic in the U-district eerily light, much like Christmas-now-past. Perhaps a third of the usual vendors populated the University farmers’ market. I thought at first that all the people who had drunk themselves blind and caused a family scene that would nudge their own children along the path of alcohol-fueled holiday rages were now sleeping it off, dreaming of Monday and the return of safe and predictable routine. Then I realized the neighborhood had simply emptied out because the students were on winter break—no doubt home ducking their own families’ flying dishware.

Kale, parsnips, and carnival squashes filled my bag. TGeek prefers products to produce. He bought cheese, wine, and sausage. (As a side note, the pears purchased last week are now sliced and simmering in a pan of port. The divinity of poached pears could make you weep if you hadn’t already spent your allowance of sentimentality for the year.)

Clearly the thing to do after the children have received present after present, spread over weeks, thanks to their dual heritage is to take them to retail-land to spend some of their gift cards. Lulled into complacency by the zippy trip to the U-district, I headed for the Target, imagining a wide-open parking lot and sleepy, bored, teenaged employees.

Gridlocked, friends. Automobiles swarmed the area like locusts, eating the pavement, leaving only tar-stink and dust. After wading, I mean waiting, through the plague of traffic, I reached my destination, wishing I’d had a few plates to hurl at the rudest of my fellow drivers.

Tigger, on the prowl for some “skinny jeans,” headed to Plato’s Closet, the repository of teen togs conveniently located next to Target. Little Bit and I followed the big red bullseye in search of leggings and tights for the younger crowd.

Target apparently caters to a very young crowd. Their shelves and racks held many items sized 4-5 and 6X, a few in the 7-8 realm, and almost nothing in the 10-12 she requires. What we did find still didn’t fit—pants in her length were so wide around the waist I could’ve put both of our kittens in there with her. Pants with a smaller waist were too short. We did find a pair of bright blue “skinny” pants that had an elastic adjuster inside the waistband. I had to cinch it seven notches on each side to get it close to snug around her.

Happily, Tigger found the items she wanted on her own, checked out with her gift card, and joined us in Target, so I was spared any additional shopping aggravation. Thank you, Santa!

…Fast-forwarding through the trauma of getting home and the subsequent joy of sending TGeek to get take-out pho…

Little Bit playing Jingle Bell Rock on the (digital) piano. Tigger working through a Japanese lesson on the computer. TGeek reading on his Kindle (a replacement for the one that was jacked from his car last month). TR blogging. It’s an electric world, baby.

TR's Parsnip Chips

Peel parsnips and slice into thin rounds or half-rounds, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Toss with olive oil and salt, maybe cumin if you are feeling adventurous, cayenne if you are feeling very adventurous. Lay out in a single layer on a tray and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Flip them all over and bake another 10 minutes, 'til they are browned and crisp-ish. Eat them right off the tray before your family shows up. They are too good to share.

OUT AND IN

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:42:36 GMT

Out: Chanukah. This was the final night. I won't have to shave down the bottoms of those cheap, crappy candles that don't fit in the menorah again for a whole year.

In: That other December holiday. You know, Solstice. I hope it's not raining too hard when we go out to dance in the woods.

Out: John Irving's Until I Find You, a weighty tome in the genre of literary fiction. I started reading this book about a week ago. In Part I, an artistically talented but moronic woman drags her four-year-old son around Scandinavia in a fruitless search for the boy's father, who doesn't want to be found. Each chapter is nearly an exact replica of the previous one, and each one made me wonder if someone had dropped this woman on her head when she was a baby. I gratefully began Part II, in which the boy begins school in Canada, thinking it would surely be better. After several chapters of the boy being repeatedly molested by malevolent teenaged girls, I've determined that it would be more enjoyable to whack myself over the head with this 800-page volume than to read any more of it. OUT.

In: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder, by Xanga's own Jeff Markowitz. I started reading this one last night and found it fast-paced and fun. I nearly wept with relief. IN!

Out: School. The girls have two weeks off to enjoy their Chanukah presents and play with the kittens. I, unfortunately, have a full day of classes tomorrow (Saturday).

In: Peppermint mocha in the morning--breakfast of champions.

WWTRD?

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:48:53 GMT

What better time than the Holiday Season™ to wrestle with a consumer-related moral dilemma? Let’s dive right in.

I shopped at the mall today—not my favorite activity. But the Holiday Season™ waits for no one, and so I gave my credit card a workout. At a department store I selected several items and prepared my credit card for further abuse.

A dim-looking young man welcomed me to the register and began scanning my items. He had some trouble with his machinery, and the most expensive item failed to ring up, a detail he failed to notice. When he was finished, he informed me that I owed him 25-something dollars—about a third of the true cost of my not-yet-purchased purchases.

Any competent employee would have recognized that the items on the counter could not possibly cost only 25-something dollars. But “competent” is not the word for this boy. He had no clue.

I had to make a split-second decision: pretend to be equally clueless and walk out with a 50-something dollar item I had not paid for, or inform him of his error and cough up the money?

What do you think I did? What would YOU do?

Unbelievably Cute

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:13:07 GMT

Today's entry can be summed up in two words: NEW KITTENS!

They are about 12 weeks old.

Emma

Charlie

Been a long day

A little jealous

Correspondence

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:09:15 GMT

Dear Tigger,

Congratulations on a good report card from your first trimester of middle school. Your grades reflect your responsible attitude and hard work. I know you are very pleased that only one of your teachers commented that you talk too much in class, but let's get that down to zero in second trimester, shall we?

Dear Technogeek,

For future reference, "she's worse than you!" is not the correct way to describe your coworker's wife to me, even if you are just talking about the dietary preferences of which you disapprove. Ignore this advice at your peril.

Dear Nancy Pelosi,

I was watching c-span at the gym the other day, and some congresscritters were bloviating away, periodically making requests for more yammering time from "Madame Speaker." But when the camera moved to your podium, the woman doling out the time was not you. What gives? Does the Speaker of the House get a stunt double?

Dear Senator Stupak and all the other legislators that want to use women's healthcare issues as bargaining chips,

I can't say what I think of you because my daughter reads this blog. You may assume my remarks would have been less than complimentary.

Dear Jon Stewart,

I know, I know! I've missed your show every night this week, and here it is 11:05 pm and the tv is not even on. It's not you; it's me. I'm tired. I'm going to bed. Be funny without me.

The trouble with Wikipedia...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:16:15 GMT

Can you spot what's wrong with this Wikipedia entry?

Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble prohormones it causes the AIDS, the two major forms of which are vitamin D₂ (or ergocalciferol) and vitamin D₃ (or cholecalciferol).

How can I trust the rest of this article? Who knows what else has been inserted or altered? Damn you Wikitrolls.

Thank god that's over

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:02:32 GMT

My 12-year-old uses the words “epic” and “fail,” but not together. Epic means spectacularly wonderful in middle-school-speak, while fail refers to anything that falls short of what one might hope. Tigger sprinkles both terms liberally in conversation, as you might expect of a person at the Age of Drama.

I’m here to tell you, November was fail.

Oh sure, it had its high points. Thanksgiving went well, even though the pumpkin cheesecake stepped out of the oven with the Grand Canyon of cracks in the top of it. And then I dropped a jar of jam on it, resulting in a dent next to the crack. My inner Martha demanded that I cover all the imperfections with a sour cream and powdered sugar topping before serving, but my exhausted outer TR said “screw the topping, let’s eat.” And verily, it was delicious.

On Sunday we dressed up (that’s “wore jeans with no holes” in Seattle-speak) and watched my pal Gungaboy and the rest of the Seattle Men’s Chorus perform their spectacular holiday show. That event earned an “epic!” from Tigger, who liked it so much she wanted several CDs and begged to be taken to the upcoming concert of the Seattle Women’s Chorus as well (yes, we’re going).

The rest of the month, however—fail, fail, fail. For one thing, it’s on record as one of the top ten wettest Novembers, in a city where it rains every day in the fall. Only this year, instead of the gentle misty rain we’re accustomed to, it poured buckets, day after fail day.

Our cat died.

Some scurrilous reprobate robbed my husband’s car.

But wait, it gets worse.

A pretty, gray and white cat took up residence in our yard. I called it Dominic. Feral, unwilling to come inside or be petted or cooed over, the cat showed up at the door for the meals we provided, and sheltered under the garden shed. Dominic had longish hair, making it difficult to judge its gender. Over time, the cat got noticeably fatter. So plump, in fact, that we suspected it to be pregnant.

We didn’t want Dominic to have kittens under the shed where we couldn’t get to them. If kittens were to be born on our property, we wanted to handle and tame them. So we borrowed a cat trap from a crazy cat lady of our acquaintance, made an appointment with the vet, and baited the trap with tuna.

Dominic loved tuna. SLAM! Trapped cat. Technogeek took it to the vet.

What I thought was going to happen: Dominic would be judged a pregnant female and we would keep her in a large cage in the laundry room until the kittens were born and weaned.

Or: Dominic would be judged a male. He would be neutered and vaccinated, and then we would return him to his carefree life of fresh air and free food.

What I did not think about or expect at all: Dominic would be tested for FIV (kitty AIDS), found positive, and euthanized. But that’s what happened.

We could’ve just brought him (he turned out to be male) home and released him anyway, but FIV is incurable, much like the human variety. Dominic was not the least bit tame. During the exam he completely flipped out, tried to climb the walls, and bit the vet so hard he (the vet) had to go to the emergency room. So we would not be able to care for him, give him medicine, etc. And since FIV is highly contagious, he would likely spread it to other cats, including the kittens we will probably get soon.

The word “euthanized” implies that he was “put to sleep” for his own good, out of mercy and compassion. But really, he was put down for the good of other cats. I think it was the right thing to do, but I’m still uncomfortable with it. I feel awful. Dominic never bothered us. He just showed up twice a day and ate the food we gave him. Then we caught him and had him killed. Fail.

That was last month. Thank god it’s over.

Recently Overheard at Casa Rabbit

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:24:25 GMT

TR (speaking to12-year-old child who is about to leave for school): Tigger, WHY are you wearing pajama pants?
Tigger: It's "dress like an emo" day.
TR: Emos wear pajama pants?
Tigger: They're Hello Kitty pajama pants!

(Child leaves, door slams)

TR: ...???

TR (speaking to 9-year-old child furiously scribbling numbers and variables): Little Bit, time to go to bed.
LB: Mommm, can I please do one more simultaneous equation problem first?
TR: You need your sleep. You can do more math tomorrow!

TR: Should we have pumpkin pie or pumpkin cheesecake on Thanksgiving?
LB: Well, we always have pumpkin pie, so this time I think maybe we should have pumpkin cheesecake.

TR: Should we have pumpkin pie or pumpkin cheesecake on Thanksgiving?
Tigger: Cheesecake!

TR: Both girls said cheesecake. The die is cast.
TechnoGeek: Ok, just watch out crossing those rivers.
TR: ...???