Breakfast with me

Whee! I'm bumping Friday bits so y'all can go over to Creative Construction, where the featured breakfast guest this morning is the fabulous ME!

Come by and get breakfast and say hi!

Why not a cheetah?

In which I am left uncharacteristically speechless.

Sometimes I struggle to find the story in the Thursday News of the Absurd Will Someone Please Write This Book Inspirational Moment (TNoftheAWSPWTBIM). And then some weeks, it falls into my lap fully formed and all I can do is stare and say, "Wow."

From YahooNews and the AP:

Newspaper claims suspect transformed into a goat

One of Nigeria's biggest daily newspapers reported that police implicated a goat in an attempted automobile theft. In a front-page article on Friday, the Vanguard newspaper said that two men tried to steal a Mazda car two days earlier in Kwara State, with one suspect transforming himself into a goat as vigilantes cornered him.

All that work to transmogrify and caught anyway. Man, that's rough. My only question is: why a goat?! Why not something with a fighting chance of running away?! And is he gonna get made fun of next week at black magic burglar school or what?

We've discussed goats in handcuffs before, but never shapeshifting ones. Do you think this might explain Elise's problem?

Hiding in the Basement on a Snowy Afternoon

with apologies to Robert Frost

Whose boots these are I think I know.
His socks are in the basement, though,
So I am searching for them here
Beneath the house, where fungi grow.

My toddler son must think it queer
When Mama says, “Be right back dear,”
I hear him struggle to unzip
The moment that I disappear.

He rips off hat and gloves and coat,
Unties the scarf from round his throat,
He throws his sweater on the heap
And dumps out all my diaper tote.

The cellar’s lovely, dark and deep.
But I have snotty drip to sweep,
A naked boy to catch and keep,
And hours to go before I sleep.

What Husbands Are Good For*

In which I wish The Mighty Thor were not in Vegas this week working.

What Husbands Are Good For

Part One: They take up space in the bed, so you don't have to have conversations like this:

2:45 am
Tinkerbell pads softly into my room.

TINK: Mama?

JACQUI: (snort)

TINK: (leaning on bed) Mama, I can't sleep.

JACQUI: I can.

TINK: Can I lie here with you?

JACQUI: Okay, but no talking, no touching me, no putting my hair in my nose.**

Tinkerbell climbs into bed.

JACQUI: Good night, my love.

TINK: (rustle, rustle...sniff...sniff) Mama?

JACQUI: What?

TINK: There are no tissues near your bed.

JACQUI: Go get some toilet paper from the bathroom.

TINK: Your bathroom or my bathroom?

JACQUI: I don't care. Shh.

TINK: (goes to bathroom, blows nose...blows nose again...blows nose...is in danger of blowing nose off face. Opens metal garbage can. Clangs lid closed. Returns to bed.)

JACQUI: Good night, my love.

DESTRUCTO: Mama?

JACQUI: (telepathically) GO BACK TO SLEEP, DESTRUCTO.


3:19am

TINK: Mama?

JACQUI: (sucks drool back into mouth)

TINK: See that shadow over there? Where there's the dark part and two light parts?

JACQUI: What?!

TINK: That kind of looks like you in your glasses.

JACQUI: Tink, you have to go to sleep. It's the middle of the night.

TINK: Actually, it's 3:19.

JACQUI: That's the middle of the night.

TINK: No, midnight is the middle of the night.

JACQUI: 3:19 is night.

TINK: But it's a.m.

JACQUI: No more talking. Go to sleep. (thinking to herself: This is annoying. I have to sleep. She's going to wake up Captain Destructo and I am screwed. My wrist hurts. I typed too much yesterday. Tomorrow's blog post is hilarious. Except that one part. I should delete that one part. When did I schedule it to appear? Maybe the whole thing is bad. Yes, the whole thing is terrible. No wonder nobody reads the blog. What aboutthefivehundredthingsIhavetodotomorrow? I HAVE TO GO TO SLEEP. What the heck is Tink doing over there?! SLEEP NOW! SLEEP NOW!)

TINK: I'm thirsty.

JACQUI: (deep, aggravated sigh) Okay. Stay here. (goes downstairs, deletes whole blog post, gets milk, returns to bed). Drink this and go to sleep.

TINK: (rustle rustle, slurp. Crash.) Mama, can I ask you a question?

JACQUI: Does it have to do with sleeping?

TINK: Why is your clock table so far away from your bed? I almost fell!

JACQUI: Can we discuss my furniture placement in the morning?

TINK: But I can't reach my cup!

JACQUI: Good night, my love. (does not sleep. Can not possibly sleep now that my to do list has come into consciousness...)


3:30am
A train goes past, choo-chooing in classic fashion.

DESTRUCTO (over the baby monitor): Choo choo?

TINK: (giggles)

JACQUI: Shh!

TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!!! CHOO CHOO CHOO!!!

DESTRUCTO: Choo choo! Mama! Choo Choo!

TINK: (giggles) Choo choo!

TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!

JACQUI: (thinking: what the heck is the train conductor doing? Shut up! I hate you, conductor of the train. I hate you hate you hate --)

TRAIN: CHOO CHOO!

DESTRUCTO: Choo choo!

TINK: Choo choo!

JACQUI: Stop it.

TINK: He's doing it.

JACQUI: (turns off baby monitor) No, he's not. Go to sleep.


3:35 am

DESTRUCTO: Mama! (loud enough to be heard down hall without monitor) More choo choo! My want more choo choo!

JACQUI: (cries softly to self)

TINK: Mama, what should I do with this? (reaches hand very close to my face)

JACQUI: What is it?

TINK: A booger.

JACQUI: Blah! Blah! Put it in a tissue.

TINK: I left them in the bathroom.

DESTRUCTO: Mama! My have llama drama 'bout choo choo!***

TINK: (giggles)

JACQUI: (throws self out window)

Sigh. Wish it were fiction.

Have I raved yet about the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney? Love them. Hilarious, completely real about kids' emotions, and the bonus perk of the phrase "llama drama," which your kids can use to refer to useless tantrums. If you have kids 2-7, I highly recommend these. And a bed that can't possibly hold any children.


* Is "For What Husbands Are Good" the grammatical choice?!
** All of these things are past infractions.

Fill in the blanks

In which we play Mad Libs with your story.

I'm on a Rick Riordan kick. Last week I read the first installment of the 39 Clues series. This week, I read The Sea of Monsters, the second book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.* If you were a Harry Potter fan and haven't checked out Percy Jackson, you gotta go find it. It's not the same kind of fantasy, but it has all the adventure and humor plus Greek mythology. And the chapter titles are the best ever, including my number one chapter title of all time: "We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment."

I stand in amazement at Riordan's ability to get to the point. No drawn out introductions, no "character building" scenes that go nowhere, and absolutely no question what his characters' motives are. And the goals are tangible, not "I want my mother's approval." We all want our mothers' approvals, and that need certainly drives our choices, but it can't drive your whole plot. Or most likely your plot will go nowhere. It's okay for your character to have this kind of internal motivation, but she needs an external, tangible goal too.

So, here is your challenge this week. Fill in the blanks in each of the following sentences. You can't put more than seven words in each blank. No excuses, no "oh, my book is different," and absolutely no purely internal or emotional answers.

1. What my character wants most of all is ___________________________.
... to get back to Kansas.

2. In order to get it, he/she has to ________________________________.
... convince Oz to help her.

3. The first step to achieving what's in #2 is to _______________________.
... get to Oz without being killed.

4. If my character isn't successful, the tragic and terrifying result will be _________________.
... never seeing her family again. Or, having to live with munchkins. Or, having that darn song stuck in her head forever.

Can you do it? No, seriously. Just try it.

* If you go to the Percy Jackson website, by the way, you can hear RR read the first chapters of each book.
p.s. Sweet cover image by John Rocco. Man, that guy is everywhere. I LOVE his work. Plus I sat next to him at Adam Rex's seminar in LA this summer and the under the breath comments were hilarious.
p.p.s. ALA awards going to be announced in four minutes. Stay tuned for rants and raves.

I be kreativ

In which I post blurry pictures of things that make me smile.

Brenda has passed me an award for being so creative. This is especially nice to get because it has been suggested to me by the real life peanut gallery that I have been, um, a bit, perhaps, CRANKY lately. So today I will spread sunshine all over and share with you (as the award dictates) seven things I love.

Seven Materialistic Things Jacqui Loves
A Poorly Photographed Photo Essay
(including one somewhat gross half-eaten lunch photo)

1. the buns-warmer in Thor's car










2. My witch boots, for which Thor wrote me a prescription once when I was depressed, AND

3. My woolly clogs, which I wear every day when the snow's not too deep.






4. The roasted vegetable salad with no eggplant and a side scoop of tuna from Cafe Zola here in Ann Arbor, where they once also posted an enormous photograph of me tickling Captain Destructo as part of an art exhibit.







5. Tantré Farm, the local organic community farm we joined last summer. I dream all winter of their vegetables and Destructo asks weekly, "We go market market?" which means farmer's market to him.









6. Face moisturizer. Right now, I'm using the Ultra Facial Moisturizer from Kiehl's, which can be yours for the low price of one million dollars per ounce, but any thick yummy cream will do. I love washing my face and waiting a while and then slathering it on.









7. My new gray woolly fingers-optional gloves. They are fuzzy and warm and I can type in them.







I tag, um, everyone. Post me a picture of something materialistic that you love and report back.

The Sculptor's Muse

This week's Thursday News of the Absurd Will Someone Please Write This Book Inspirational Moment (TNoftheAWSPWTBIM) is not absurd at all; it's just a book I think one of you should write.

From YahooNews/AP:

Dina Vierny, the muse to sculptor Maillol, dies

I did not recognize the name Maillol immediately, though I recognized his work (my favorite, La Nuit, to the right). And I did not know Dina Vierny, but listen to her life story:

Born in 1919 in what is now the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, and was then part of the Russian empire, Vierny fled Stalinist Russia with her family, settling in France.

Through a family friend, she was presented to Maillol, becoming his model in 1935. She collaborated with the artist until his death in a car accident in 1944, inspiring sleek, bold works like "La Montagne" (The Mountain), "L'Air" (Air) and "La Riviere" (The River), one of his last works.

She worked for the French Resistance during World War II, eventually getting herself arrested. Maillol sent her to southern France to stay with his friend Henri Matisse, reportedly instructing him to use her as a model. They became fast friends. She eventually also posed for Raoul Dufy and Pierre Bonnard, who used her as inspiration for his "Grand Nu Sombre."

Vierny grew into an art lover in her own right, opening a gallery in Paris' artsy Saint-Germain-des-Pres district as early as 1947. The statement by her sons, Bertrand and Olivier Lorquin, said their mother spent a lifetime "passionately attached to art," as exemplified by works collected at the Musee Maillol.

Wow. She only escaped Stalinist Russia, inspired Maillol and Matisse, worked for La Resistance, was in prison, and started a museum? I want a biography, a well-written, possibly historical fiction based on her life, illustrated with photos of Maillol's sculptures.

And it should be in the style of, um, darnit. I haven't read enough good historical fiction for kids. Who do I want?

And which one of you will write me Dina's story?

* photo from Wikimedia Commons