It’s official.  I signed by representation contract today and mailed it back.

The giddiness is renewed and  fresh!

The Bandit seems to be loving “kinnygarden”.  He is making a batch of new friends.  There is one in particular he has identified as his new best friend.  The boy’s uncle is quite famous and prominent in the news right now, but of course, The Bandit knows none of this.  He and his new buddy eat lunch together everyday.

“Who’d you sit with at lunch today, dude?” I’ll ask, vainly trying to suck out any details of his day.

“It’s Buddy, Mom, always Buddy.”

This morning when I dropped him off at his class and helped him shove his backpack in his wee little cubby, Buddy’s dad came up and introduced himself to me again.  Apparently, Buddy had inadvertently hit The Bandit in the eye and he wanted to apologize.  I’d heard nothing about this, so I’m certain it was a non-event and I told his dad so, but Buddy had made an apology card.  It was adorable.  The boys hugged it out.  All is well.

When I spoke with Sassy’s new 2nd grade teacher, I learned that she is “quiet as a mouse” in class.  I have no idea where Sassy goes after I drop her off at her class, but clearly she has found an imposter to attend in her stead.  “Quiet” is not my daughter.  Not even with strangers.  She is a talker.  She chats.  Her report cards tell me so.  This is a mystery I will have to dig into a little deeper.

Speaking of Sassy and talking.  The other day we were in the car and she asked me, “Do you know what the two bad “F” words are?”

I’m 41.  I grew up in the 80’s.  My husband plays heavy metal and I’m tattooed for God’s sake.  I know all the good curse words and their appropriate conjugations.  But two F words?  I know the BIG one.  We all know the BIG one.  But I was puzzled about what the other could be.  There are several candidates but I just wasn’t sure.

“Sure I do,” I told her.  “Do you?”

“Yeah.”  She seemed fairly impressed with herself.

“What are they?” I asked.

“You won’t yell at me if I say them, will you?” she asked tentatively.

“Not this one time,” I assured her.

“F**K is one and the other one is….”

Drum roll, please.

“Friggin.”

Whew! I exhaled in relief.  I’d much rather her know both of those, as inappropriate as they are for a 7 year old, then fag which is where I thought she was going.  Fag, while not having the impact of the BIG one, is just a mean and nasty word when used in the appropriate context. 

Not that I want her using any of those three words, you understand.  But isn’t that what summer camp is for?  Learning the stuff your parents don’t want you to know?  I’m glad I got my money’s worth.

I know lots of ways to get a thrill.  Roller coasters, birthday presents, narrowly missing a speeding ticket – all of these things are thrilling. 

But sometimes it’s the little things that give me the biggest boost.  Stupid little things.  Like when I’m cooking dinner and I actually concentrate enough to make all the food required for the meal. 

When there’s a coupon in the paper for $2.00 off the shampoo you really like but costs a fortune and then further in the paper you find it on sale somewhere.  Double Bonus!

Clearance Coach shoes at Dillards.

I could go on and on, but I got one of my little thrills today.  It’s really so stupid but it makes me cheer out loud every time it happens.

I’ll be writing along and a $20.00 word comes up in my sentence.  If I spell it right the first time, without a snarky red, wavy line from Microsoft, I get giddy.

This particular time the word was: coalesce. 

I just did it again!  It’s a short word, but is has that sneaky “sce” at the end. 

I probably just need a vacation.  I might be truly pathetic.

(Just so you know, when I ran spell check I got “truly” and “sentence” wrong.  Deep sigh.  And then reality comes back up to bite you.)

I sent The Bandit off to kindergarten today.  He looked very small in his little uniform.  I was so flustered, I forgot to take his picture.  He was so cute putting his little Lone Ranger lunch box and his Transformer backpack in his cubbie.  Deep sigh.

Someone better get me a puppy because bad things are happening in the area of my womb.  It’s feeling very vacant, and I need something cute and little.

Speaking of The Bandit.  I’ve starting charging him a dime every time he calls someone a moron.  I took the hint from Ava – and it may not be the best parenting skill, but the incidences have cut way down.

I’m wanna start charge Sassy a dime everytime she tattles.

I expect to retire by October.

I have a couple of pictures for amusement. 

1. We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner again.  It’s The Bandit’s favorite.  It was also Day 1 of my diet.  How’s that for cruel?  So to be good, I ordered a salad.  It’s called Luau Salad.  This is how they describe it:

Grilled Chicken Breast Layered with Mixed Greens, Cucumbers, Green Onions, Red and Yellow Peppers, Green Beans, Carrots, Mango and Crisp Wontons with Macadamia Nuts and Sesame Seeds. Tossed in Our Vinaigrette.

Sounds yummy, right?  And healthy.  This is what it looks like:

 Oh My God.  It was so yummy.

Really yummy.  YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY.

2. This next picture is a bumper sticker I saw while out shopping with Sassy and my mom today.  I thought it was hysterical.  I might have it tattooed to my forehead.

HELP STOP GLOBAL WHINING.

Genius.

And funny.

3. This next picture is of Ava’s new kitty.  Or to be more precise, Ava’s daughter’s new kitty.  The girl wanted a kitty for her birthday – desperately.  That’s all she asked for and all she talked about.  Ava is a clean freak.  It’s tragic.  That’s why I can’t ever let her come over without 4 day’s notice to buy a new house with all new furniture.  Because of her peccadilloes, she would only agree on a cat if it was the hairless kind that doesn’t have hair to shed.

I was appalled by this.  You can’t cuddle a bald cat.  And they’re scary looking.  I would be too if I looked like that.  They probably can’t help it.  I’m sure they have a complex. 

Her poor daughter wanted a cat so desperately, she’d convinced herself that bald cats were cute.  That, dear reader, is a travesty.  I nagged and badgered and hasselled Ava on her daughter’s behalf until I guilted her into agreeing on a cat with hair.

This, oh faithful ones, is Ricky, the Abyssinian.

I think he’s adorable and apparently Ava’s daughter is over the moon.

I’m just thrilled he has hair.

I was cleaning my desk again today.  I do that when I’m stuck on a section in the book or I’m just looking for a way to procrastinate.  I found this from a daily calendar from years ago.  I thought it was so hysterical at the time that I put it on the bulletin board over my desk and it was still there, under mounds and mounds of other stuff.

Some background information:

In 1978, Warner Bros made one of those big disaster movies that were all the rage, The Swarm, starring a huge cast: Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Olivia DeHavilland, Richard Chamberlain, Patty Duke, Jose Ferrer, Richard Widmark, Slim Pickens, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda. 

I’m sure I never saw it.  I don’t go in for horror movies – even the stupid ones.  I’m not sure why that is, exactly, since I can and will read any number of horrifying books.  Stephen King is a particular favorite of mine.  I’ve even read a number of horror books that have been made into movies and not seen the films because they’re just too scary.  I’ve read Rosemary’s Baby, The Amityville Horror, and all of King’s books and have only watched The Shining.  I might possibly have seen all of The Exorcist – but not all at one time.  That movie scares the shit out of me.  And then when they released a director’s cut – Holy Crap.  I’m totally out. 

Kelli on the other hand…  I’ll get to more of her later.

Back to The Swarm.  The movie was released in Taiwan and this is their stab at the liner notes for the DVD.

The Swarm – Monsters by the millions, and they are all for real!  Excell to take the director of the disaster condition the text, once the successfully be responsible for the Neptunian number and skyscraper conflagration of a the action in the drama part, and have to feel the elephant of the public soul with result, have the authentic fact conduct and actions the basis, persons the details that match wits also there is certain science can’t he stunt of the letter, high also increased then that penetrate everywhere.

I swear I didn’t mistype any of that.  Honestly.  I defy you to make sense of that mess.  Neptunian number?  Elephant of the public soul?  Skyscraper conflagration?  It all sounds very mystical and intriguing, doesn’t it? 

Back to Kelli and her horror movies.  Kelli has seen them all and she loves them.  Tomorrow  for Friday the 13th, she is going to an all night scream fest called Scream-o-rama at the art film house.  She’s going with other crazy friends to 12 hours of vintage horror movies.  They go in at 9pm and it’s over at 9am. 

I told her I’d have an old priest and a young priest meet her in the parking lot in the morning.  Just in case.

Michelle is my biggest fan who is not related to me, and thus required to love what I write.  Michelle is the first person who read my book after Ava.  She would patiently wait as the pages rolled off the printer each day so she could read what had been written the night before.

She read both my novellas before they were published.  She didn’t think angels could be hot, and she really wasn’t too sure that she wanted to read it, but I convinced her to change her mind.

I believe that I also gave her the first Julia Quinn book to read and, right along with the Quill Sisters, quickly found a favorite. 

This is what Julia posted on Facebook earlier:

Julia Quinn is trying to decide what to read next. Any recommendations?

This is comment #173:

 Michelle ArcherSince I am sure you have read all you own books I would like to recommend local Tucson author Amylynn Bright. Amylynn currently has two novellas available at www.wickedinkpress.com“The Sea Rose” and my fav “Out of Heaven”. Both Novellas are good, if I can’t have a Bridgerton I will gladly take the archangel Gabriel. Happy Reading!

From my calendar – because my brain is full of the work the AGENT wants done on the book.  But this bit of info is quite intriguing.  You’ll see.

What do Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway have in common?  Not much, beyond the shared history of cross-dressing, of course.  Both men spent much of their childhood wearing girl’s clothes at the behest of their mothers.  Wilde’s mum, Lady Jane Wilde, was an eccentric poet who liked to outfit herself in outlandish costumes, each one topped with a bejeweled, feathered headdress.  Apparently starved for a dress-up companion, she felt she had missed out by not giving birth to a girl.  To compensate, she simply pretended little Oscar was a girl, hiding him behind a series of frilly Victorian frocks.  But before you jump to conclusions, there’s no link between such behaviour and homosexuality – although it would explain much about Hemingway’s macho posturing.  Did someone say overcompensating?

Sassy has decided that she’s vegetarian.  She isn’t doing this because she has compassion for animals, or a political view she wants to express, nor even a conscientious health decision.  She has declared she is a vegetarian because she thinks it will get her out of eating food she doesn’t like.  Or thinks she doesn’t like.  Or has a suspicion that it smells funny. 

Of course, this encompasses all meat except chicken nuggets, McDonald’s hamburgers and fried chicken drumsticks.  It also covers several vegetables so she really doesn’t have a firm grasp on the concept.  She was especially distraught when, for example, I made an entirely vegetarian dinner (I know! I cooked! Alert the media) consisting of eggplant parmesan.  I assured her this was a meal consistent with a vegetarian diet and, because I’d outwitted her, she had no choice but to eat it.

This has become a hobby of her father and I – finding stuff and tricking her into eating it.  I told you several months ago that we’d tricked her into eating tuna.  She still doesn’t know what it was, but she had two helpings.  I did it again tonight.  I made tuna cassarole (something I despise but I’m willing to make and eat it if it tortures my kid) for dinner tonight. 

She initially acted suspicious.  “What is this?”

“It’s fish and noodles and sauce,” I tell her truthfully.

She sniffs it again as if her nose was akin to Roscoe’s and she will be able to discern the difference.  “What kind of fish?”

“White fish.”  I give her some green beans.

“What kind of white fish?  Is this tuna?”  She looks at me all squinty eyed.

I meet her gaze head on and, without blinking, I tell her, “It’s white fish.”

And she ate it!  HA!

We got her to eat calamari twice in the last month, too. 

You can’t tell, but I’m twirling my evil mustache even as you read this.

I blame his father.

The morning was hectic to begin with.  I had a meeting of the 2011 Tucson Festival of Books – Romance Committee at 10am.  We meet at at the little cafe area at a Barnes & Noble that is thankfully not far from my house.  My Honey was trying to make breakfast before I left and, just before I walked out the door, I inhaled scrambled eggs and a piece or two of bacon. 

I made it to the meeting just in time – or at least I wasn’t the last one there, which I consider a victory.  I warned the rest of the committee that My Honey was going to Phoenix to catch a Diamondback’s game so he would be handing Sassy and The Bandit off to me on his way out of town.

I encouraged them to talk quickly and hit the high points early, because by the time they got there, all hell could break loose.  I’m sure they didn’t believe me.  Well they do now.  I assure you.

At first, things went well.  I sat them at the next table and they played with some quiet toys for about 15 or 20 minutes.  In all reality, that was a phenomenal performance but, after then, they got a little squirmy.

Finally, I agreed to allow them to go to the children’s section alone.  I debated it for a number of reasons.

1.  They would be alone.  They might really impress me, or I might hear an announcement over the loud speaker looking for the parent of the children that just set fire to the Sesame Street display.

2. I’m leery of strangers.  What Mom isn’t?

3.  They would be alone.  See #1.

I told them they had to hold hands and NOT leave the store under any circumstances.  And then I turned them loose with a threat and a promise of a bribe.  Go ahead and judge me – I’ll wait.

They did pretty well.  At first.  But you saw this coming didn’t you, Dear Reader?  I went to check on them once, and I was thrilled beyond measure to see them sitting on a little bench together.  Sassy was reading him a book.  I complemented them.  That was my first mistake.

I ran back through the store to my meeting without missing much of a beat.

One of the ladies from the committee asked, “Where are your kids? Oh, there they are.”

I turned my head and it happened like slow-motion:  First Sassy came into view and, behind her, I could see The Bandit’s head bobbing along behind.  Just as his whole body appeared, his shorts fell down around his ankles.  Everyone in the cafe broke out in peals of laughter.  I launched from my seat and yanked them up, lifting him from the floor a good eighteen inches, but it was too late. 

He’d heard the laughter. 

I did the whisper yell in their ears and told them to go back to the children’s section while holding up his pants and read stories. I promised to be done shortly.  They disappeared again, but not for long.

That little tableau repeated itself two more times.  By the third time, he was running half the length of the store in abbreviated little steps, his shorts around his ankles, his Batman underpants proudly displayed.

Each time he was greeted with laughter from the crowd and vehement hissing from his mother.  He grinned from ear to ear, thrilled to be the center of something so very amusing.

Finally, the committee took pity on me.  “Honey,” our co-president said to me, “all we’re gonna do next is plot what panels and workshops are going in what order.  You don’t need to be here for that.”

I didn’t need anymore urging.  I took my exhibitionist home forthwith.

I FINALLY got to speak with the agent.  And she found my book “delightful” and would be “happy to represent [it].”

This is Kevan Lyon from the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.  Doesn’t she look like a wonderful, astute lady?

There are a couple of things she’d like me to do to the story – small things that will tighten it up and clear up a few things.  AND she is moving her home/office – thus the phone issues, so I have some work to do.

I am over the moon excited!!!! as I’m sure you can imagine by my horrible punctuation.

Stay tuned for more excitement as this whole thing moves forward.

YIPPEE!!!!!!!