Fick

Eleanor and I made banana pudding today.  I let her stir at the stove for the first time. I explained that water was thin and ketchup was thick. We were slowly stirring the milk and eggs and sugar and so on until it becomes thick. Then we pour it over the sliced banana’s and push the cookies in.

Eleanor hates the sound that the stand mixer makes. I love the merangue, however, so I run it anyway.  She watched with me as the fluffiness got all toasty.  We’re going to share it tomorrow with family and friends.

What Elly took from our cooking adventure today was FICK.  Pudding got fick. The blanket at bedtime was fick.  What gets fick? Why did the pudding get fick?

Fick.  Love it.

She picked it, not me.

I’ve spent considerable time today looking at party plates with Eleanor.  Her birthday is just under a month away, but more importantly, it’s one VBS and two weeks of swimming lessons away.  That’s an eternity in mom years. But I digress.

Eleanor, approaching 4-years old with glorious tantrums, is the prettiest princess loving princess that ever-ever was. Every day she tells me that she wants to be a princess, or can I be a princess now? or I’m getting married to a prince next week tomorrow.  That’s my favorite, obviously because he’s paying for the wedding, as I have yet to make any deposits.

Color me so surprised that she picked THIS theme for her party:

No kidding – that was her choice. She’s so full of surprises.

Here’s Sara’s party pack for this year:

See – even though she was born on Halloween, there is not ONE pumpkin in the kit.  I can control myself.

We can’t be trusted with Croutons and other things I learned at Mensa

The Mensa AG 2009 is now a think of the past (HA! Puns.) There were some sessions at the AG that were GREAT! others sucked out loud.

Let’s start up front, shall we? Emilie’s AG GOALS:

1. Be a good Wingman for AMY.
2. Work toward getting my book published.
3. Enjoy time with my friends and family.

Amy.  My friend Amy is a sweet girl. Smart. Nice personality. She wants to get married.  I think she is good people, so I can back her up. Bambi and I thought taking her to Mensa would be just the thing. Many people have met and married from visits to the AG.  Why not fish where the fish are? As they say, the goods may be odd, but the odds are good.  Our campaign was simple; we would wear buttons that said “Have you met AMY?” Just like Barney on “How I Met Your Mother,” we were ALL Amy’s wingmen. It worked pretty well. Amy got dates.  In the end, Amy found a GREAT date on July 4th at the Mensa Banquet. Fireworks come in  more than one form.

As a brief aside – and this is for YOU, Alias Mother, Amy was specific that she wanted a guy that would go to church with her.  Hence, we went to the Christian Mensa Meet and Greet. The idea was to fish where the fish were, right?  ANY-way, the leader of the session was horrid.  Here’s the transcript from the session where people introduced themselves:

Leader: Ok, and you are?

Mormon Lady: I’m Nice Mormon Lady, and I’m from…

Leader:  Well, your not Christian.

M: Um, yes I am.

L: You don’t believe in Jesus.

M: Er, yes I do.

L: NO! You DON’T.

M: It’s called The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Later Day Saints.

L: But you aren’t Christians…

And this started the general fight in the room. The leader of this session was a monster.  After the M&G, I waited off to one side as Amy chatted up a handsome Christian man with commitment fears, but charming none-the-less, and listened as the leader continued the argument on out in the hall with one of the participants.  John was his name. John started to get so upset he turned purple.  I intervened as he was storming off and took his side. I told that woman she should be ashamed of herself for what she said. She really aught to have been, too. That’s no way to spread the good news.  What a turn off.

For as much as the HAVE YOU MET AMY? buttons got the word out there, I can’t get credit for the AMY-JAMES matchup. Bambi gets the points there. We all went to the Saturday night banquet and had to find 5 seats together. Not the easiest of tricks. The hall was packed. Dr. Demento was the featured speaker. We share a table with James and his Entourage, and Bambi realizes that she’s sitting next to the single guy at the table, and so she makes Amy switch seats with her. The rest is history. BUT…

I have to tell you about the dinner we had. Mensans are smart, REALLY smart, but sometimes we have social problems.  Inappropriate jokes. The inability to take a hint. A penchant for talking nerdy.  You know the type. As it turns out, we may not be clever enough to dress our own salads.  Dinner started with Caesar Salad.  What came to the table was chopped Romaine lettuce topped with Parmesan threads.  We all waited for a moment and then a waitress suddenly flung dressing over my shoulder and onto my plate.  I yelped, partly in surprise but mostly in outrage. WTF? I said, “I’d prefer to dress my own salad.” She said, “No.”

That’s right – NO.

The same was true for the croutons, which were spooned from over my shoulder again. On the one hand, I’m thinking, if you aren’t going to let people doctor their salad to their own liking, then why not just toss and plate the salad before you serve it? I think the people at the William Penn Omni were trying to be elegant with the table service, but they forgot to inform their waitstaff about the ELEGANT part. They had a small chaos problem that clouded the experience for me. Whatever. I apologise for being an ass about it. Bygones.

The book:  There were several sessions I thought would be interesting and useful as I work toward getting Chenda and the Airship Brofman published. The first was Chasing Joy: the long and winding road to getting published. The speaker, Gwyn Cready, writes romance novels. She had a number of interesting insights and I was glad I went to see her. The next thing I went to was Getting the Science Right. This was hosted by Diane Turnshek, a short form SF writer and Astronomer.  I chatted with her before the talk and afterward asked her about a few more things, and ended up talking with her for the next several hours.  NICE woman.

She took me to meet the other SF writers from Pittsburgh: Furma and Phil K and Bill Keith.  Yes, that’s William H. Keith – writer of 85 science fiction novels. Wonderful people who told me all kinds of great things about places to hang out on line and where to get good critiques of my writing.  It was a real treat.

The last session was the one I thought would be MOST valuable to me- Stupid Author Tricks: How not to get published. It was OK, but not great. On the one hand, I was pretty pleased to find out that I wasn’t doing anything REALLY stoopid. I didn’t meet any agents or publishers, but I did have a good experience. So- victory.

Lastly – I DID have a good time with my family and friends. Next year, in DETROIT, I plan on doing so again. And much more… I hope they will at least trust us with the croutons.

AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

I went to several good programs today, but at only one session did I tell the leader that she should be ashamed of herself.
Met several Science Fiction writers and had a nice lunch. More soonly.

MENSA AG 2009

The thrust of out vacation this year is the Mensa Annual Gathering in Pittsburgh. If you don’t know what a Mensa AG is, think Smartie Party.  Emphasis on the Party. There are a variety of talks and activities planned, and lots of snacks, and I am really REALLY looking forward to a few of the talks. Tony will be playing trivia. Then we will have some snacks. Amy is taking over the puzzle room.  And then we’ll get a nosh. I’ve got a Mexican Train Dominoes tournament Friday night, and there will something to snack on, and, Lynn is taking in some Science and Robotics lectures and Bambi is meeting a lot of old friends over some snacks.

The kids, however, are driving me BONKERS. Elly would have a fine time at the kids activities if I could just dump Saralyn off somewhere. By the way, I’ve changed Saralyn’s name to Screamy McFussypants.  She got us kicked out of the Kids room in less than 5 minutes. Brat. So now Eleanor is fussing because we are stuck in the hotel room while I quarantine The Screamer.

Saralyn made the drive up here a living hell.

I’m tired of getting kicked out of libraries and events.

She’s a pain the rutabagas at every opportunity – and that’s no lie.

Bambi got to put her dogs in a kennel for 50 bucks a day.  I’m thinking about running down the street to AnthroCon and borrowing a few ears and a tail and dropping Screamy at the nearest kennel till Sunday.

Oh, yes.  The Furries are in Pittsburgh, too.  They make the Mensa folks look CLASSY.

I am having a nice time, but, the babies are wearing on me. And don’t say I’ll miss this some day, or they will grow up before you know it.  I need to hear that right now like I need a set of implanted whiskers and a dog collar.

Yes, this still happens.

I’m enjoying my time in Pittsburgh. We’ve done the incline and the Cathedral of Learning (way cool). We stopped at Falling Water and the crash sight of United 93 (moving). I’ve walked the streets of downtown and taken a Ducky Tour. I even ate at the Dirty “O”. However, the most remarkable thing I’ve seen is the guy at the Turkish Restaurant. He doesn’t take credit cards. Not remarkable in itself. But when we asked if he took such, he said, no, but you can pay me tomorrow when you come back.

Really. Trust.

It wasn’t just lip service, because a shabby looking workman came in and he took some bottled water from the cooler and sheepishly asked, “Can I pay you tomorrow?” The Turkish Guy said, “Sure, and take a Snapple for your boss.”

Looking out for the hard-working blue-collar man. That guy’s in Pittsburgh running a YUMMY restaurant: The Istanbul Grill.

A promising rejection!

I got this letter today (the names have been changed to protect, well, everyone):

Dear Emilie

Thank you so much for your interest in Shmancy Literary Agency. I am afraid, however, that I will have to pass on this project. As I am sure you are aware from my website, your manuscript is simply not what I am looking for. I would recommend contacting GIGI at YOUCALLED agency. Tell her that I recommended her for this project.

Best of luck with your writing and I wish you success with placing this manuscript.

Agent Guy

Shmancy Literary Agency

How about them apples…?

Hot and wet

May parents called me from my house yesterday. Thisng were getting a bit hot there.  No A/C.  Rutabagas!

I get home and find that, no, our relatively new air system is not on the fritz, it’s just wheezing under the strain of a very dirty air filter.  No problem. Alas, as I walked out of the mechanical space, I noticed the water leaking out of the hot water heater.

Double Rutabagas.

On the one hand, I am glad that I don’t have to have an HVAC repair guy come.  But. Now I have to pay the handyman to replace the water heater. It’s just as well that we fix the problem now rather than having it burst while we are on vacation.  Thank GOD for small favors.  My dad said to me this morning that God doesn’t give us more problems than we can handle. I replied that sometimes he gives me more problems than I can afford.

THIS. Was supposed to be someone else’s problem by now. Someone. Please by my house.  It’s soon to have a new water heater and clean, cool air.

Suddenly – there was more rejection.

Yep.  Another. Polite, but no feedback.

For those scoring at home:

15 queries sent.

3 rejections.

1 DCU-WCY overdue.

I guess that means I have 11 live ones out there.

Here’s the part where I itch to send out more queries….

This just in – more rejection

I’ve been a busy bee this weekend. The grand total for Literary Agents I am sending letters to is now up to 13.  I just received a quick rejection from one I sent an e-mail query to yesterday.  I won’t name names, but you might stumble across him in my blog roll. He’s got great advice on his blog, so don’t flame him.  Sadly, no feedback, but he is a “query only” kind of guy who merely says thanks or no thanks. Hence the quick turn around.  There’s no backlog in his in-box.  That’s appealing in an agent that doesn’t want my book. So now I hurry up and wait – for the next rejection.

I am dusting my mantle for my mother of the year award. One kid ran into the middle of a busy parking lot today.  While I turned to yell at her to come back, I closed the car door on the baby’s hand. I sucked today as a mother before 9AM.  Yikes.