A Very Mixed Day

So this being one of my free days at home before I go off to Minnesota, I had a lot of things to do. First a trip to the vet for annual Ferret exams which were… mixed.

Dexter, the nine-year-old ferret with adrenal disease, is losing his fur because we’re heading for the long, drawn-out end. Guesstimate: six months or so, but he’s a hell of a happy fella in the meantime. How can you complain about that? (Aside from the complications of missing his litter box constantly.) Sadly his companion, Taz, has gone quietly blind and, while he’s only six this December, he has the condition of an eight-year-old ferret. A pretty healthy eight-year-old ferret, but an old ferret nonetheless. Considering that they only live to be ten or so, this is bad. We love them both very much, but the unvarnished truth is they probably won’t be with us another year. Sad as it is and heartless as it sounds, I’ve put my upset over it aside for the time being since there’s nothing I can do and a lot of other things I need to do right now.

So there’s the bad news and I had to rush home to catch a call from a radio interviewer from the Minn/St.Paul area. Good interview after a few technical problems and it’ll be airing on KFAI in the Minn/St. Paul area on Thursday sometime between 11 am and 1 pm. About 6-8 hours before my appearance at the Roseville B&N.

And after that a quick Happy Hour with a friend, catching up on the gossip, phone calls to other friends, settling contracts for an MWA event in October here in Seattle, then swooping home again to rustle up dinner for Jim–pizza and salad, sorry. Meanwhile, I’ve had to ask for a deadline extension on the novel to the end of October, since the tour and all have kind of knocked my productivity down, but it’ll get done–it always does.

Then it began to rain and I had to fetch said pizza with a plastic bag over it to protect it on the 800′ walk from the gate back to the boat. When I sat back down to work, something went “plop.” Not only was it raining outside, it was raining inside. But only right next to me.

It seems that while I was in Denver, Mr. Kat got the bug to install a new vent in the main cabin roof. He carefully removed the old, tiny vent… but got no further due to a lack of tools. So the hole–a mere two inches in diameter and surrounded by four smaller bolt holes–happily vented to the free air. Or in this case, the free water. Which was dribbling down it from the boom above the hole. And splashing me. I tried to cover it with some aluminum foil and tape, but the tape wasn’t sticking and I couldn’t find the duct tape.

Eventually Mr. Kat found said tape and has now fixed the hole for the time being. If the weather dries up over the weekend, I suspect we’ll find some tools and finish the job but in the meantime, I’m hoping the tape holds.

And the ferrets hold on.

Strange day, eh?

Sunday and Monday Still on Tour

So Sunday I headed to several other bookstores before zooming down to Huntington Beach to hang out at the Barnes & Nobel in the Bella Terra center. The area’s really changed since I used to hang out there with my boyfriend back in the late 80s. The center’s very colorful and upscale and full of interesting-looking things I never did get to look at.

The event went well. Jeanne, the CRM, was terrific and set up a wonderful area to chat in. Here she is doing some last minute arraging as the audience waits patiently.

The YAs in the back were annoyed that I kept talking since they were busily using the bookstore’s resources as a library to compose some kind of report or such paperwork. Tough beans, kids.

Aside from them, the event was pretty good, though I suddenly noticed just how pudgy I’ve gotten from sitting so much and walking so little. bleh… However very cool fans make me forget that I’ve been neglecting the gym far too long.

It was all tons of fun and I met so many great people and have been generally treated like a princess. Which is extra cool.
And when I was done at Bella Terra, I was whisked away to John Wayne Airport for a flight home, where I am still recuperating from the past four days before trotting off again for Roseville MN Thursday.

Today I checked the mail and got one more fabulous present:

Click to see the Polish and German Covers larger

Yup, more foreign language editions! These are the Polish (left) and German (right) editions. The Polish has a slight gloss over the figure of Harper which causes that odd white line on the photo from the flash and the German is a lot different from the version we saw online several months ago, but it’s very cool, nonetheless! They are also really thick. The skulls on the cover of the Polish edition repeat at the top of each chapter heading and the German edition has an ad for Poltergeist in the back with a matching cover in which the eye is gold to match the type, as the eye in this version is red. I’m very pleased!

And my husband’s first comment on seeing them? “Oh cool! She doesn’t have her finger on the trigger!” Men….

I just wish I could remember my German well enough to read the one. Since I don’t know Polish, I’m out of luck on that one.

One Author, Two Days

Friday I headed to San Francisco, which was fabulous–I love this city. My escort, Frank Lauria, met me at the airport and things were pretty non-stop from there. We went to Borderlands to sign books for the fabulous Alan and Jude, then to a few other shops the particulars of which have already slipped out of my mind. A quick drop off at my hotel, a small sandwich and then I was off to my big signing at the Borders on Union Square. Which at first looked like a bust–only one guy! but the staff made an announcement and within minutes I had an audience of about 8 people. We chatted about a lot of bookish stuff and I signed books–including a lot of stock.

Then we hooked up with fellow writer Dana Fredsti and her magnificent beau, David, and carried on to the Cortez restaurant for wine and “small plates.” Dana had the crab cake. Or should I say “Crabby cake?” Looks kind of grumpy to me….

the crabby cake

Afterward, I was escorted back to my elegant old hotel, the Serrano, which has a really gorgeous lobby, and staggered off to bed so I could get up at 6 for my flight to San Diego.

Now… I must complain. United Airlines or possibly SFO is so very fucked up at this particular location that I had to wait in 3 different lines just to check in, drop my bag and get through security. I barely made it to my with 10 minutes to spare, even though I arrived with 1 hour and 40 minutes to do it in. Yuck! Boooo.

Anyhow, I spotted Caitlin’s book on the shelves of the Compass Bookstore in the terminal as I scooted past–yay, Caitlin!–and scampered on my way to be shoehorned into a coach seat to San Diego.

Where I was met by Larry Lewis who whisked me away to so many bookstores I lost count and showed me the revitalized downtown of SD as well as the now-magnificent Balboa Theater. It was fabulous! And I forgot to take pics….

We had a lovely Chinese lunch and then popped into Mysterious Galaxy for the big signing, which went great. It’s a tiny store, but the audience–which included my old friend Andrew (Blue Ninja) from my gaming days and my even older friends the Gassners–was small but fun and the staff was wonderful. Another place I’d love to return to.

Then I hopped into a car and was driven to Huntington Beach by a charming driver named John. My sister dropped in right after I arrived and we had dinner and… went to a bookstore where I signed stock.

She also gave me a bat puppet! Have I mentioned I love bats?

Bats are Cool!

Now I just have to get to the rest of the bookstores and hit my major signing at the Huntington Beach Barnes and Noble and I’ll be done for a few days.

Well, except for the copyedits on the MEAN STREETS novella and the rest of the novel that’s due Oct 1…

Oh yeah: and the signing in Roseville MN on the 21st. Busy busy….

Portland has Wild Animals!

Or at least wild authors in robes.

So Richelle and I set off for Portland today and things went very well. Lots of chat on the train, great interview for me with Ed Goldberg at KBOO, drop-ins at nice bookstores with lots of our books and then… a really lovely signing event at Powell’s in Beaverton where Evil Peter and the crew made us very welcome and we signed a good number of books–about a dozen or so each–and had a very good time.

Then we had some drinks and nosh with friends of Richelle’s and finally back to the hotel where we discover… animal print robes!

Richelle is charming as a zebra

The rare and exotic Richelle Zebra

While I opt for leopard

Leopard becomes me, no?

Friday our idyll in animal robes will end. Richelle will return to Seattle while I’m off to San Francisco for another signing at the Borders on Union Square (Post Ave). Can’t possibly be as “wild” as this.

How I Spent My Tuesday (and Wednesday)

On Tuesday, I got to go to Seattle Mystery Bookshop, which is one of my favorite specialty stores, and sign books. The store wasn’t very busy since it was a Tuesday at lunch time, but a few books did sell and I signed a huge pile of all three books. Here am I down to just the Underground copies.

Mmm... boooookssss...

Fran and the crew were great as always and my friends Nan and Jessie dropped in, too.

The really cool surprise was a visit by Rick Boetel, the Historian at the Underground Tour nearby who helped me with a lot of the research about the Underground and the era of its construction. Rick was very pleased with the descriptions and the details which was a huge relief to me, since I had lost touch with him and didn’t know if I’d done it well. I’m pleased beyond expression that Rick and the Underground folks are happy with it. I also got a note from a fan who happens to be a vet who once worked for the homeless and low-income pet clinic in the area and she, too, thought I’d done a good job, so I’m utterly over the moon about all of that. Thanks you guys!

Afterward, Nan and I had lunch, then I popped home to do some paperwork and write last night’s huge post. Today has been full of last minute things, like…

Fixing the cell phone. Again.

As you know, things were imperfect at last report on the cell phone front. Having replaced the ancient Motorola with a slick and shiny red Samsung slider, I was really annoyed that the phone worked only intermittantly and the best help the critters at Radio Shack could give me was to suggest I pull the battery and card periodically to force it to reset and replace the phone with another unit when I got back to Seattle. After quite a bit of discussion and study by the amazing Mr. Kat, the consensus was that while the phone might have issues, the real problem was most likely the five or six year-old SIM card.

So along with shipping off a book to Derek Tatum, a squeezy to a friend who really needs one to keep monsters at bay, and a postcard to a fan, I stopped by Radio Shack and got pretty much nowhere. Finally I trotted across the street to the AT&T store where they took a look at the SIM card and the battery and declared the SIM card toast. They copied the info to a new one–which was not so easy considering the grilled-bread quality of the original card (which still read “Cingular!” on it) and replaced it after making some updates to my account information that would stop the cell sites from being confuzzled–apparently their sites are a bit on the nervous side and don’t like to see unexpected Samsungs playing guerrilla Motorola.

So as of now the phone seems OK. We’ll see how well it performs while I’m out of town.

Meanwhile, a ton of paperwork, a haircut (no, not that drastic, just enough to remove the lower four inches of craptacular split ends), ferret stuff, and a half-ton of laundry later, I think I’m ready to go on the morrow.

So in the early (but not the O-Fuck Early) I shall scoop up Richelle and we shall repair to the train station for a leisurely Amtrak to Portlandia (during which ride I need to write like a demon to catch up a bit) where we shall run about like insane creatures to local bookstores and to the offices of KBOO–where I shall be interviewed–and then off to Powell’s in Beaverton to sign books and make merry afterward! Yay!

Then I shall carry on on my own to San Francisco, San Diego, and Huntington Beach before a short stop at home and then the final stop: Roseville MN!

Onward! I still have squeezy lights to give away.

Post-Con Update: with Pictures! (super-long)

So… On Tuesday last I had my first offical signing of Underground at University Bookstore, which went quite nicely thank you–I think Richelle is much funnier than I and she actually remembered to invite people, which I didn’t.  But I have an excuse: I had to leave the next morning and I had things like… packing on my mind.

And at 6 am, off I went, care of our favorite Airport Service driver, Mosen.  Flappity, flappity, I’m off to Denver.

When I arrive, my already funky 6-year-old cell phone finally gives up the ghost for good and leaves me with a very annoying instrument I can only hear in speaker mode.  Bleh!  But I don’t have time to fix it, so I make do. And am picked up from the airport by Mario Acevedo, who then dines me and drops me at my hotel.  Where, as I am signing in, I discover an old friend, Richard Foss, registering next to me.  Very cool!

The clerk warns me that the only room of my type that they have at the moment is on the 24th floor and there is construction going on on the 25th–but only 9-5 M-F.  I can wait a few hours for another room to be prepared or I can take this one….  I think the 24th floor will be fine, since I have little chance of sleeping past 9 on Thursday or Friday due to my weird Con schedule.  I say “OK.”  Oh… what a silly woman am I….  But I take my bag to my room, shift a few things around, and head for the Colorado Convention Center.  Now, the fun starts.

Con registration is very hard to find, hidden as it is in plain sight… at the back of the convention center.  This requires a looooong, undirected and un-signaged ramble past a John Deere convention and a Statistical Analysts convention (or something like that), to the tables where I am eventually rewarded with my badge and bag o’ stuff.  I even double-check to make sure the other membership I had to sell off is properly transferred to its new owner and I’m now free to get in trouble–assuming I can stay awake.  But there is always coffee…

Ramble around, get in trouble, find Mario, get in more trouble which involves drinking and almost being late for dinner with two local friends of mine from teh Intarwebs.  Molli and Wes wait patiently while I extract myself from a vodka-and-soda and we take off for dinner, accompanied by Harper, herself.  Or at least a very good facsimile:

Wes, Molli, and Harper-the-Dollfie

One may notice Molli is wearing a Harry Dresden Classified Ad T-shirt, because she has a ton and a half of good taste.

We have a really great dinner and I am totally stuffed silly by the time Molli and Wes head for home.  OMG–my tummy is so full I may never eat again!  I go back to my hotel, drop off the leftovers, discover a phone call on my fucked up cell phone and listen to the message which is from Mario asking if I’m done dining and would I like to come out for a drink?  So, I say, yeah and head to the Sheraton.

It starts raining.  It’s not very hard, but it’s persistent and I’m a bit wet by the time I get to the Sheraton and very turned around by the time I find the ASFFA party.  Which Mario and John Picacio have already vacated.  Oh look: there’s another message on my barely-functional phone.  Mario and John have abandoned the very dead party for the Hyatt hotel bar, which name of same I mis-hear.  I’m staying at the Hyatt, too!

The other Hyatt.

So I go out and walk to the Convention Center Hyatt.  I begins to rain a lot harder. I can’t find the “Samba Room” but eventually am spotted wandering in the rain by Mario, who waves me into the STRATUS Room.  I have a drink or three… which do not seem to have the effect on me that most people experience in Denver.  No, strangely, the alcohol hits me not at all.  Until Drink #4 when I become instantly exhausted.

Luckily, before that happens, I meet Charles Stross–who in spite of my fears turns out to be very nice and incredibly sweet.  We have far too silly a conversation at the bar until Charlie nearly falls asleep in his beer and cleverly bids us all good night before he becomes the same sort of zombie I should be–but amn’t.

Meanwhile I hook up to a conversation with Alan Beatts, of Borderlands Books.  We end up closing down the bar and Alan kindly walks me back up to my hotel.  It has stopped raining and we sit on a bench outside and talk until 3 am.  Poor Alan. I stumble to bed and finally get into it just before 4 am.

Remarkably, I do not have a hangover–which is really good since I am awakened by a strange tapping sound on the walls at 8:17 am.  Followed by the sound of someone removing said wall with a sledgehammer.  I do not see the sledgehammer, but I’d like to: so I can use it on the clerk who said the room would be quiet until 9.  I heave myself out of bed, shower (without having to pack a bag and walk 4 blocks with my soap and towel first), dress and trot off for my first full day of connage.  I can’t remember what I’m doing, but I do it anyhow.

Later I have lunch with the fabulous Mario, Jeanne Stein, Warren Hammond, and a fellow named Matt whose last name continues to escape me, even though I try very hard to catch it.  Lovely.

Warren Hammond is Cool

More wandering about, more food, more drinks, banging into people I know or have wanted to meet all over the place–this is the way the whole con continues through Sunday.  Except for my own panels, I never seen a single piece of programming.

On the other hand, my own panels go great and on the Urban Fantasy Panel on Friday, I’m really pleased to see that more than half the audience is male.  They think UF is all girly stuff except for Jim Butcher and Simon Green and I’m tickled pink for the opportunity to turn these guys on to the other stuff in the niche (and pimp Warren and Caitlin and Mark and a bunch of other cool people.)  Patricia Bray, Sarah Hoyt, Darlene Marshall, and Lucienne Diver make it all tons of fun and very informative.  (I’m in love with Patricia Bray.)

I run into more fab folks outside–including Joshua Palmatier who reminds me I promised to write something for him.  Oops…

But that’s OK, we’re both swamped, so it’ll be OK. I have lunch with my agent and get lost in the convention dealer’s room until I return to my hotel to leave my laptop–which I’ve foolishly been carrying with me all this time.  I do not take a nap, due to the sound of tap-dancing squirrels resounding in the walls, but deal with my email for a while, losing all track of time… Until I get a barely-understood phone call from Mario, asking if I’m still coming to dinner….

I trot off for dinner and then my signing at the Tattered Cover with the able assistance of Mario and the Denver Mobsters.  Arriving at TC, we discover Jen Scholes lying in wait and looking adorable–as always.  And Charlie

Charles Stross at the Tattered Cover signing Aug 7, 2008

and Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman at the Tattered Cover signing Aug 7, 2008

already waiting for my laggard butt.  Things go well, except that Joe and Charlie are so much better at this Author Thing that I figure my biggest asset is in my bra.  It’s really not that bad, but… wow… these guys are So Good!  damn it.  They sign a lot more books than I do, but… they are bigger names and they are gracious and charming the whole damn time!  Poop!

Denver Mob and I hook up with Charlie to return to the convention hotel and go looking for parties.  We find few and end up in the Hyatt bar again.  (See a pattern?)

Friday dawns to the sound of hammers and a concerto for power drill.  At 8:20 am.  Unlike the real, hardcore fans, I cannot sleep wherever I happen to find a couch.

Some people can sleep anywhere....

But I still have a lot of fun and another old friend turns up: Marc “Animal” McYoung whom I haven’t seen for literally two decades.  He and Jeanne Stein become best friends as we all wander around looking for beer, then dinner, then various parties….  I can’t remember most of it, but I do remember meeting John Scalzi.  Who turns out to be from my home town!  W00t!  This con is made of Win!  I have too much fun.  Jeremy Lassen has the best suits ever.  And there is a lot of drinking.  Once again, thrown out of the bar at closing time… This time in the company of Richard Foss–who’s been shut out of nicer bars than this one.

Once again, no hangover and it being now Saturday and all my stuff is done, I think I shall sleep in… but the Giant Electric Rat Gnawing On My Wall At 8:20 am (also known as a “Sawzall”) has different ideas.  Oi.. vey.  Good thing that tool’s on the next floor up or I’d find him and shove that appliance up his charging socket!  Thanks… you rat.

I try to have breakfast with Mr. Foss, but he has an appointment and has to run off, so I kill time until I can go have a coffee with my stand-in editor (Jessica Wade, since Anne Sowards couldn’t come.)  I go looking for coffee and find… John Hemry having coffee with Jessica Wade!  I join them and end up wearing my coffee from tits to knees.  Whoops…  Luckily, the pants are coffee-colored–which is odd, since I’d have sworn they were olive green.  The shirt is largely OK, but I do smell interesting enough to attract engineers.  I survive and neither John nor Jessica thinks I’m a total numb-nuts.  They do have some question about my ability to drink, however….

And I finally throw in the towel and buy a new cell phone. Which I take back to the hotel and plug into the charger while I check email–and it’s a good thing, since I find a bunch I need to deal with.  When I check the phone it’s not charged… because I forgot to put in the battery.  I rectify that and spend another hour trying to program the phone once it’s charged.

And Mario again has to remind me to come to dinner.  On the new phone!  It works!  yay!

Jeremy Lassen is not amused... but Mario is

I trot off and meet a large crowd of Denver Mob and Associates and head off to dinner at the Wynkoop Brewery.  Another lovely time is had and we head off for the Post-Hugo insanity.  Which begins with a parade of winners through the lobby of the Hyatt and onward to the Sheraton.  We follow them to the Ace/Roc after party, where I again encounter… John Scalzi–who has the most lovely date in the room.

Yani and John.. who is not sure about me...

And a Hugo:

John and his Best Fan Writer Hugo award, it looks... pointy...

Isn’t that cute?  Now he just needs to get that Best Novel one and he’s good to go!  (But how can you complain about being beaten by Michael Chabon?  I mean… really?)

And the evening is very silly at the Ace/Roc sponsored party.  Ginjer is surprised when I leap out from behind a chair to take her photo–because is that not the best T-shirt EVER?! I want one…  (so does everyone else.)

Stalking Ginjer....

And I discover that, yes… everyone is shorter than Duane Wilkins.

Duane and the petite and wonderful Jessica Wade

Finally we all trundle off, head for bed, and generally fall away.  I stop to complain to the front desk about the Rodents of Unusual Size living in my walls and am awarded… a pair of earplugs.

The Rodents hold off until 9:30 on Sunday.  I “sleep in” then wander off to see the end of the con, where I… discover my new phone doesn’t work!

I trot back to Radio Shack and with the assistance of the Fosses, get it fixed.  It never works quite right ever, but to this moment I have not had a chance to go back to the local RS and rectify that….

After fixing the phone at least to a degree, I return to the Hyatt to hang with the late stayers, and have dinner with the SFWA Musketeers–which includes John Hemry, Elizabeth Moon, and Lee Martindale.  A truly incredible dinner with fascinating people ensues and no one throws me out for saying very weird things.

Somewhere along the line, I lose the opportunity to have John sign some books for my husband, but that’s OK.  I have a lovely walk and chat with Lee to our hotel, then double back to the “other” Hyatt for “dead dog” drinks with the last of the hardcores–which includes Jim Minz of Baen who gives great conversation and is really fun to chat with.  Alan Beatts hatches a plot to storm the amusement park in Montreal next year, and I finally give up… and head to my hotel for the last time.

The two-legged rats do not awaken me until 9.  Fucking rats.  Breakfast is coffee and a scone at the Corner Bakery, and a quick, final trot around Denver, where I rediscover Catilin’s building and sign books at B&N, before I’m picked up by Mario for lunch and a trip to the airport.

Denver clearly loves Caitlin...

We stop at the Buckhorn Exchange–Denver’s oldest restaurant–and have this view during lunch of all the critters who have ever been on the menu:

Old Menus in the Buckhorn...

Someone has apparently eaten the last unicorn…

Peter S. Beagle never knew...

and we missed it. Mmmm… unicorn on toast….

And home to Seattle, on route to which I benefit from being seated in the same row as a man so tall he needs two seats just to insure he has sufficient room, so… there was a half-empty seat between us. Score! needless to say, I don’t sleep… I read Nymphos of Rocky Flats all the way to Seattle.

Next year… Montreal! BYOU (Bring Your Own Unicorn.)

Home Again… for a few days

I’m finally home from WorldCon. Unlike many friends, I seem to have had a perfectly ordinary flight home. And the very long weekend was fabulous with many thanks to Mario Acevedo, Warren Hammond, Richard Foss, Jeremy Lassen and Alan Beatts who all contributed to the deliquency of this writer. I’ll write more when I’ve caught up to a few things, like…

Signing at Seattle Mystery Bookshop tomorrow at Noon!

Eep!

And gave away 94 squeezy lights at the con

And need to do the laundry and re-pack so I can do the rest of the tour, which kicks into High Gear on Thursday with a trip to Portlandia with the gorgeous Richelle. W00t! More soon, I promise!

Including dead animal heads!

oh yeah: Underground made #4 on the B&N SF hardcover list.

Launched

The release went pretty well, it appears. Nice crowd, though I have to admit is was largely Richelle’s doing, since I, like a dingbat, forgot the send invites to anyone for the signing. D’oh! I did particularly miss someone, though–my Minion, Thing One, who didn’t show up this time and I haven’t heard from her in a while (and naturally I’ve lost her card). If you’re out there, Maia, please drop me a line.

I’m off to Denver very early tomorrow and not sure if I’ll get around to updates, but I’ll try. And not I have to go to bed so I can catch a plane horrible early…. If Jim took any pics of the signing I’ll try to get him to show them to me so I can show them to you.

This is It!

OMG today’s the day the book comes out! I have a ton to do, like pack and go to an interview and go sign books at University Bookshop tonight. But the sick and fabulous Mark Henry is having a contest at his blog to keep you happy. So go visit ZOMBIE CHOW and see what’s up!

Very Nearly It!

This is It! Or very nearly. Tomorrow is Book Launch day for Underground! W00t!

Today I saw my very first ever copy of the actual book in the wild, as it were. I still don’t have my author copies, but I dropped in to Seattle Mystery Bookshop to sign some stock for mail orders and there it was! Contrary to what I’d expected, the entire cover was foil, not just the name! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to keep one, but I saw them and they are Purty! For you collectin’ types here’s a tip: I always sign pre-release things in a particular ink, so if you want to get something really unusual for your Kat collection, get in touch with Seattle Mystery and snag up one of their pre-release signed copies. I didn’t sign a ton of them, so it’s guaranteed to be a limited offer.

And on another happy note, the IRS finally decided I was a good girl and gave me a check for that economic stimulous thingy. Which shall ever after be known as Alcoholic Stimulous in my mind, since I figure it’s all going to the bar at WorldCon this week!

Also I got the famous squeezy lights, finally! The notebooks are back ordered, but the Underground swag is here and I’ll be taking it with me to Denver and on tour! Yay! Here’s a picture of the little light (it comes on a keychain ring):

The Underground squeezy light

Two to Go…

Just two days until the release! OMG!

Meanwhile, the folks at Ferrets Anonymous in California have redesigned and relaunched their website after several years of neglect–here’s hoping it’s a sign of coming positive change for ferrets in California.

Grammar Crackers

A friend sent me this. It cracks me up (click to see it in its large glory)!

grammar crackers--they's gud for u!

And–my god! It’s only three days until Book Day! (Although I’m informed by the marvelous Joshua Palmatier that he’s already spotted Underground at his local Waldenbooks.)