ewein2412

sheesh. Sara failed her Cycling Proficiency exam... I think she just failed the practical (they had a written test too). So did 3 other kids in her class, and she's only been able to ride for a year and a half and has NEVER done any cycling on the road, so. The line she took was: "But I've never failed ANYTHING before! I wish I *had* failed something so that I would know what it feels like!" The line I took was: "But at least this is something that doesn't *matter*--it's not going to affect your schoolwork or your academic record--and you've had two weeks of road training and are much better than you used to be." And also, "And you know Daddy failed his driving test the first time!" And also, well, now you know what it feels like, it won't be so horrible the next time. (although it always *is*)

"But now I can't bicycle to school!"

"Sara, we already established that you weren't allowed to bicycle to school ANYWAY." (it is a five minute walk, and before school starts it just mad with cars delivering kids at a nasty corner.)

AND the CAT BIT ME. I'd taken her to the vet and he'd given her her boosters, and as he was getting out the worm pill he goes, "she's very well behaved, isn't she?" and I said, "She's never scratched anyone in her entire life." and added, "of course, I'll probably have to eat my words in a minute." NO--she did not actually scratch me, but after the vet gave her the pill (I was holding her from behind) she turned around and just CHOMPED down on my thumb. After a couple of excruciating seconds she let go and I plopped her in the pet taxi (it's top-loading), which she was only too glad to get back into, but she wouldn't let me come near enough to put the lid on--the vet had to do it. So then I was bleeding all over the examination table and the vet was bizarrely stunned--very deadpan. "golly. that's a really bad bite. hmm. cat bites can be very dangerous. A dog bite can crush your hand, but cats' mouths are full of very nasty bacteria. You'd better watch that. If it starts to swell or goes red or *anything* you'd better go to your GP right away." [pause] "Of course, he may not know what to do. So you'll have to get him to call us."

so, me being me, I've got visions of my thumb being amputated, my beautiful right hand marred forever by the addition of a toe as a prosthetic digit MDR (that's french for LOL... "mort de rire." It just seems so appropriate.)

not quite 24 hours later it seems ok--a bit sore, sporting no less than TEN tiny puncture wounds. The cat has forgotten all about it and is her usual sweet self.

In other news, I think I may be approaching the endgame of this impossible novel at last. I get so darned hung up over the transitional details: when the food is served, who comes and goes, who is carrying the tray, blah blah blah. Where is this important sword, for example, while everyone is getting cleaned up and eating? I suppose we can assume that the person who's in charge of it has got it in sight at all times, and that he cleans it off after they fall in the bog. And I have not made note of it anywhere, but in the back of my mind I am really concerned that Telemakos's shamma gets washed--the only reason he's not wearing it in the last scene I wrote is because it has *got* to be drying somewhere. Do I *have* to explain this? (Clearly my life revolves around laundry.)

"There are too many grammatical and spelling errors in The Sword Dance for Word to continue to display them."

sigh... so anyway, there's more madness over at simien_mtn_fox.

Yesterday Sara and her whole class went away for a week at an adventure activity centre in the highlands. There are a bunch of videos from last year on youtube that show you the kind of stuff they get up to--trapezing and fencing and building rafts and piles of mud!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nxBMb8zkajw

Sara's main worries are, pretty much in this order: 1) Will she find enough to eat? 2) Will she be able to live without cuddles from Mummy/Laura (the cat) for a whole week? (it's not really a WHOLE week--just monday to friday, but she has never been away from both parents for more than a night) 3) Will she be warm enough? 4) Will she be able to brush her own hair with enough success that mummy won't cut it all off when she gets home?

(Sara is front/left in both pictures)

I went to see them off yesterday and they were all very cute, with their TONS of stuff (they have to take three pairs of sneakers and sleeping bags and stuffed animals and about a trillion sweaters). They seemed very excited and not too worried. The place they are staying is where Beatrix Potter's family used to go before they went to the Lake District.

In other news, we have made the BEST home improvement we have ever made, and constructed a summerhouse. It is like having Thoreau’s cabin in the garden. I find it an unbelievably inspiring place to work—I just sit there and all my troubles and distractions fall away. Plus, it is like having a porch. I had always imagined it would be nice to get an extra hour of sitting outside on sunny days but I had not realized that we would also be able to sit out there on RAINY days and even on RAINY nights. Which means pretty much ALWAYS (on Sunday morning one of the other Sunday school mums looked up at the elusive sun and exclaimed, “What is that golden orb?”)

If anybody thinks I am making it up about the rain,

2008

2007

2004

From the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books review, by Karen Coats, of The Empty Kingdom:

"[Telemakos] is a future king in the tradition of T.H. White's fully human Arthur, a person of great strength, wisdom, and daring who is nonetheless flawed, perhaps fatally, by an inability to discern who to trust."

*dies*

This same reviewer called him "kingly" in her review of The Lion Hunter. I don't know where she gets her conviction about his adult career but I love this woman.

--------------------------------

Sara's school gave their "Annual Festival Concert" in connection with Perform in Perth. It went on a bit too long, maybe, but it was worth it (these performances always make me cry!). A few kids did readings--set pieces from The Wind in the Willows and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--and it really is beyond me to describe these clear young Scottish voices, unmiked and unafraid, declaiming across the 1940s dinner hall:

"Why, it's the ONLY thing! There is NOTHING--absolutely nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Our school had done very well in the Scottish country dancing competition--first place of all the teams in the Over Tens, and first place in the Under Tens as well as best overall in their category! So we had a cup and a shield on display as well. These were kids we all knew--some of the dancers were in Mark's class (the age of 2nd graders in the US) and some were in Sara's class (5th and 6th grade). They performed in their school uniforms, navy skirts and white blouses, and the school navy-and-silver-striped tie. Truly, truly a lovely thing to watch.

Sara is in the school choir. They've had a sporadic smattering of rehearsals and didn't perform in competition, so this was really their big night. They sang "Imagine" and "The 59th Street Bridge Song." The latter was particularly charming. Again, it made me quite teary--it is the only piece I remember playing in my first school concert, in 4th grade, on the flute in the school band. And the reason I remember it is because the timing was so darn difficult to master, as a beginning reader of music. So I reckon I had a special appreciation of what it took to get them all singing their parts together. No words or music (as it should be)--they did it all from memory. I thought they were great.

Next week Mark will have his moment of glory, as Pea 2 in "The War of the Vegetables." I made SIX TOMATO costumes this weekend and THIRTEEN TOMATO HATS last Friday. It will be worth going just to see the costumes!

Sara sent me this "Club Penguin" comic that she'd done (at my own computer) and I sent her back a message asking her to do a Telemakos one.

There is a limited audience that will appreciate this, but for those who do... AHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sara writes, "This is the story of how Telemakos kills a hungry lion."

( Fullmetal Telemakos )

my daughter is... ridiculous, and awesome.

it arrived yesterday. I think this just about completes the list of ~~demands~~ polite requests that I moved in with over twelve years ago when I first came to live with Tim. Actually, it was not at my request that the piano finally arrived. It was only after Sara had taken over a year of piano lessons on the 5-octave electric keyboard that Tim finally said, "Sara's worked really hard at this and it would sound so much nicer on a piano..."

I bought the keyboard for myself, a couple of Christmases ago, because I was so homesick for the American tunes to "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."

May I add here: The genius of Mozart, the REAL genius of Mozart, is not that he wrote amazing music. It's not even that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that any old dope with a little bit of musical ability can play. The REAL genius of Mozart is that he wrote quite a bit of amazing music that is relatively simple to play AND--this is the genius part--he makes you feel like a virtuoso while you're playing it.

I do appreciate that a heap of Amazon's policies are debatable, but I *LOVE* the new concordance feature.

consider this sequence, taken verbatim from the antepenultimate line of the 100 most frequently used words in The Lion Hunter:

"shoulder side sister small solomon star still stood take telemakos"

It's just lovely.

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Overheard this a.m.:

Sara: "You kicked me in the willy!"

Mark: "You don't have a willy. You have a bikini."

---------------------------

god, I'm disorganized.

…is how Mark reported on his heart-stopping horseriding experience on Friday. Sara and Mark were having their final “semi-private” riding lesson of the term. They’ve been at it for 10 weeks; Sara’s been riding off and on for four years, and what with one thing and another she hasn’t had much chance to develop any real skill. It’s not entirely her fault. The riding school where she was happiest, and where she’d finally stopped having a leader and was learning to canter and do little jumps, closed down last November when the woman who ran the place was put in jail for “borrowing” a 5-figure sum from her previous employer. We got Sara in at another riding school, but she didn’t like it as much, and after a few weeks had a bad experience with one of the ponies that shattered her confidence. So we just stopped for a few months. When her previous riding school re-opened under new management, we started both kids there again.

They’ve been doing really well, and Sara’s got her confidence back, and is very happy riding one of the same ponies that had been there before. The school is still getting its bearings; it has been HOPELESS about scheduling and a little disorganized with a rotating series of instructors. On Friday the kids had a new instructor, H., under the watch of their usual teacher A., who is going away for a couple of months. The kids both started off (in the riding ring) without leaders, a first for Mark in his 10 weeks of lessons.

He never said anything about not having a leader, and H. the new instructor didn’t know this was his first time, and he was doing really very well; so when she told him to try a trot, away he went. His pony, Buster, tried to cut the corner going around the end of the ring and Mark hauled on the reins to get him going straight. Buster paid no attention and Mark hauled harder, and then it became clear that Mark was a little freaked out, and you could see Buster thinking: WHEEEE! I'm going to have some fun. He set off at a canter around the ring with Mark weeping and yelling: “I DON’T LIKE THIS! THIS IS NOT FUN! I AM NEVER RIDING A HORSE AGAIN!” Meanwhile me and the two instructors were shouting at him, “SIT BACK! DON’T SCREAM! SHORTEN YOUR REINS!” etc. That bloody pony set off down the ring at a gallop and sailed over a two-foot jump. A., their usual instructor, went shooting past me through the fence muttering under her breath, “Wow, he is really sticking it.” When she tried to catch hold of Buster he swerved away from her and that’s when Mark fell off, and his feet were still caught in the stirrups, so for about 20 feet he was dangling upside down from the saddle while Buster continued to canter across the ring (by this time I had also shot through the fence after them). Finally his stupid shoes came off (they’re always coming off) and that’s how he got disentangled.

He was so lucky. I could tell, when he leaped into my arms screaming that he was NEVER GOING TO RIDE A HORSE AGAIN, that he wasn’t hurt; I could tell that he was weeping with outrage and not with pain. When we examined him later he had the imprint of a horseshoe across his back and shoulder, and another across one inner arm, and some scratches on his ribcage, but a day later you could hardly see any of it. For twenty feet he was hanging upside down beneath flying hooves, but they only just barely clipped him, and he didn’t hit his head (his head didn’t touch the ground--he says, “All I could see was wood chips”). We let him cry and cuddled him and then managed to convince him that yes, in fact, he ought to think about riding a horse again, indeed he ought to think about riding this horse, and in fact he might as well ride him right now. So that boy got back up on that pony and (with A. leading him this time!) went trotting around that riding ring for the next half an hour.

I have never, ever, I think, felt such a heartaching swell of love for Mark as I did when he set off around the ring on Buster’s back after that fall: unhurt, thank god, and so, so brave. He is only 7.

Sara deserves a word of praise here, too. You might recall that she had had a severe crisis of confidence in the beginning of the year and was only just recently trotting again. During all this commotion she was in a corner of the ring holding Chunky firmly still, not allowing him to join in Buster’s frolicking. She was very upset and wanted to go over and make sure Mark was okay but she was worried, rightly, that if Chunky got involved with Buster it would just make things worse. So, unsure that she was doing the right thing, she made a decision and stuck with it. I was very proud of her.

There is a dramatic epilogue, too! Afterward, Mark asked me (as he has done every week since their class did a “Diversity Week” theme on China) if we could stop at the Mei-Mei Chinese take-away that we pass on the way home and get some noodles (he says that this week he actually wanted egg-fried rice). Every time he asks this I find some excuse why we can’t stop at the Mei-Mei Chinese take-away. This week it was: “We have to get home because my friend is coming to visit us this evening. Oh, and also I have a really good excuse why we can’t stop at the Chinese take-away. It’s on fire.”

It actually was ON FIRE. As we drove past there were 2 fire-engines parked out in front of it and firemen going in and out and smoke coming out! There was even an article about it in one of the local papers the next day (Sara thought the picture caption was very funny: “Scene of the Drama”). We must have got there within a minute or so of the fire engines, because according to the newspaper the road was then closed for an hour.

So… 999! Ow! indeed. It was all quite enough drama to last me at least the rest of the year.

----------------------------------

School ends on Wednesday and we are off to the US on Thursday to see my wonderful Gramma (who is now 91). We’ll be gone a month. I am going to be at Readercon 6-8 July in Boston, so maybe I’ll see some of you there?

14 June 2007

Well, I threw myself a party to celebrate the "release" of The Lion Hunter. It was conceived at the last minute and in spite of 24-hour notice, everybody just seemed so delighted to be involved. I was rather stunned by the enthusiasm and excitement with which friends and neighbors responded. "A cocktail party!" We had gallons of mimosas/Bucks Fizz and Shirley Temples for the TWENTY-SEVEN CHILDREN that turned up (along with plenty of grown-ups, too). I made a bunch of castle-shaped cakes (vaguely Arthurian-themed) and Mark put together a tremendous Book Display, which he also gave tours for. He wants to do this again for The Empty Kingdom so that he can make another display!

the cakes... shades of San Marino

Mark's display

I sold and signed a bunch of books, too. It was really nice to mark the event with an Occasion, because otherwise I just sit around checking my Amazon ratings--always a really, really bad thing to do. But quite frankly, we ought to have more cocktail parties, even without an occasion to mark.

16 June 2007

The Moonwalk has come and gone! My team, The Fair City Fillies from Perth, took off at 11.45 p.m. on 16 June 2007 and finished at exactly 3.15 a.m. That's 13.1 miles in 3 and a half hours. DARNED FAST WALKING, if I do say so myself, and I did, often; I reckon as the lone American in the group, I was in charge of complaining about the pace. And also complaining about the WEATHER, which was: Raining and 50 degrees F. Not ideal weather for walking at night in your bra. But I did it. How do you like the look?

I failed to find any colored lights, but there were a lot of other people who had them. We walked all around Arthur's Seat in the dark, and when you looked back down the hill it looked just like the scene at the end of "Night on Bald Mountain" in Fantasia, when the holy people are endlessly walking along carrying their little lights. There were so many people participating that you could never see either the beginning or the end of the line.

10,000 women (and a few men) took part in this charity walk. The organizers are hoping to raise £2 million, which means that YOU, my friends and relations, have generously donated more than twice what they are expecting each individual participant to raise: currently £ 458.41, which at the moment is the equivalent of $ 908.11. Thank you so much! I am touched and humbled by your contributions.

Many thanks for your support, and love to all!

(On-line donations to The Moonwalk are still being accepted, raising money for breast cancer
projects within Scotland. My page is here)

Mark was 7 years old on Friday (30 March). Last weekend (24 March) he had a party with ten schoolfriends (and his sister) at a place called The Sensation Science Centre, where they watched a marginally informational but very entertaining 3D film, ran around the cool exhibits, and built homemade volcanoes in the education classroom. I had been going to make a volcano birthday cake to go with the theme, but after the second bl&*dy b#*&ery attempt fell apart getting it out of the Bundt cake tin, I gave up and made these instead, which were a tremendous hit with everyone including attendant parents and the Sensation staff. (The remnants of the volcano were piled on a platter in the formation known as Dinosaur Rock, and this "eroded" very quickly.)

So anyway, now Mark is 7. His second birthday cake, for his Birthday Tea on his actual birthday, was the planet Saturn--blissfully easy and a change from the Fire Engine Birthday Cake which he has requested, and which I have dutifully produced, complete with flashing lights, every year for the past four years. The Saturn Cake was inspired by our recent trip to the Dundee Observatory, where we saw stupendous Saturn, its rings in all their glory, and four of its moons including Titan. We also saw the Double Cluster in Perseus and the Andromeda Nebula (according to Wikipedia this is an archaic name for the Andromeda Galaxy, news to me, but the expert guiding the telescope is retiring this year so maybe he can be forgiven for being old-fashioned). Now, none of us had ever looked at Saturn through a telescope, and it was a school night, and to get to the observatory you have to drive along an extremely tortuous lane through woodland up an extinct volcano overlooking the lights of Dundee city, so by the time we arrived we were all keyed up with the atmosphere and the nighttime excitement of it all; and seeing Saturn's rings really kind of boggled us.

Mark was also boggled by the observatory's dome, which is made out of papier mache (it is one of two existing papier mache observatories in the world) and can be rotated via a manually operated crank.

As an aside… Our rabbit, Bru, who was much loved but only with us for 3 months before he died, arrived on Easter day last year--so Mark was really convinced Bru was the Easter Bunny. Now I am worried he is going to be known by other kids as that horrible boy who not only breaks the news that Santa is not real (he says: "I HATE the pretend about Santa!") but also this latest: "The Easter Bunny is DEAD!"

----------------------------

Speaking of Easter, this weekend I will be at Contemplation, this year's Eastercon. As far as I'm aware the only programming I'm involved in is the children's literature panel on Mon. 9 April 11.00-12.00, discussing 'the nature of children's literature - why are some classics are no longer considered "suitable"? What do children today want, and what do parents want for them?' I think originally

sdn was going to be on this panel too but unfortunately she's not going to make it, citing work commitments as her top priority at the moment, and I can tell you this is TRUE because she is working on MY book (among many others!). Last week she sent me Cliff Nielsen's wonderful sketches for the cover of The Empty Kingdom, which is the second half of The Mark of Solomon and is due out spring 2008. I have stuck them up over my desk, where images of Telemakos Meder now outnumber images of John Constantine.

1) Ramblings about other people's illustrations of my stuff

Charles Vess has done the illustrations for The Coyote Road, in which I have a story forthcoming called "Always the Same Story." It always stuns me a little when I see a picture that someone else has done which is nevertheless associated with something I have written--I'm never quite prepared for the fact that someone else has actually read and understood my own personal and interior creation. It feels, just a little, as though someone has read my thoughts. And the best pictures are always of scenes that I haven't quite imagined myself, but which are obviously deeply connected to the story.

I love Scott Multer's original cover of The Winter Prince, which ever so subtly and appropriately puts Lleu on the defensive and Medraut on the attack, with Lleu's determined yet impassive expression a contrast to Medraut's furious intensity; and then, Greg Spalenka's more recent cover for the paperback, which is similar to the original but differs in that rather than crossing swords, Lleu and Medraut are struggling for possession of a single sword.

The French and Dutch editions of The Winter Prince are both illustrated, and astonishingly, each, independent of the other, in the first chapter shows Medraut with his back turned, a satchel over his right shoulder, making his way toward Camlan. It's exactly the picture that *I* did for the first chapter.

My reaction to illustrations I don't like is usually, "Well, THAT person hasn't read the book!" rather than, "Oh, you've really misinterpreted that." As long as someone reads the story and understands it, I don't care for toffee how they interpret it. The illustrations in the French edition of The Winter Prince, by Françoise Moreau, are very stylized and cubistic (someone commented that they're actually very "French"). In the general scheme of things the artwork isn't to my taste, but I love them anyway because each one is so fraught with symbolism and design; and if that's the way Moreau perceived my story, well, that's her right as a reader. She certainly was a careful reader. In the first of her pictures, where Medraut is arriving at Camlan, he is looking ahead into a dark hallway lit by a single torch (in the composition the torch finishes a perfect triangle whose other points are his head and his satchel); in the bare lower corner of the page are nine grains of wheat, which are described in the text as littering the dark halls. It just slays me, in one of the later illustrations in the book, that the illustrator gives life to one of Lleu's hallucinations.

I love to have my stories illustrated because these pictures are, in a very concrete way, confirmation that someone has read what I've written. It can be a very cloistered life sometimes, sitting with a computer or a pen all day, and your own mind ticking away.

------------------------------

However, I have Another Life, which includes Weasels and Grandparents. Here is the latest update on the home front:

2) My Grandmother

Gramma is HOME. She went home yesterday--if you've been to Mt. Gretna you know that the downstairs of the house is meant to be disabled-friendly so that my brother can visit. This mostly means that it's wheelchair accessible and we've got a "disabled bathroom" (which fortunately was NOT disabled yesterday; as Gramma reported, "I was so surprised to be able to take a shower--the pipes in there usually freeze when the temperature dips below 20." Clearly, some improvements may be necessary before she spends another winter there on her own…). I don't think she has a wheelchair; she's been working hard at walking, and Medicare will only pay for a walker OR a wheelchair (not both). So. Rugs have been rolled up, there's a hospital bed on hire and set up in the corner by the fireplace (the downstairs is all open-plan), a microwave has been installed, and we're working on better lighting and on rearranging the kitchen.

Gramma always sings the Doxology whenever she comes back into the house after time away, and the first thing she said to me when I called her last night was, "I sang the Doxology SO LOUD!"

3) A Rant Against the UK Children's Clothing Design Mafia

Sara comes home from school and announces sadly, "I'm afraid so-and-so [her so-called best friend at school] is going to force me to get a crop top."

A crop top, I have discovered, is a piece of underwear that mediates between being what they call a vest (a sleeveless undershirt, which all the little kids wear for warmth) and a training bra. The crop top is supposed to be more "grown up" than a vest because it looks like a bra--kinda sorta, apart from the fact that it is designed for people who don't have breasts. Sara thinks they're stupid, and amazingly enough she formed this opinion on her own without any assistance from me, although I don't actually have enough words for "stupid" to tell you what I think of this garment.

Sara is 9. She is about the size and build of your average 7-year-old. She is not going to need a bra for some time.

HOWEVER, they all have to take off their clothes in the gym hall to put on their gym kit, girls and boys TOGETHER; and of course since they've now all had their first unit of sex-ed, they've gone all self-conscious about their bodies, and it's understandable that they want some undergarment to cover up their skeeter bites.

So I told her I'd get her a camisole. Grownups wear camisoles, after all (they don't wear crop tops, to my knowledge, at least not as underwear, and not if they haven't got anything to cover up). I went shopping for camisoles a few days later. Everything on offer was covered in pink ribbons and hearts. BLICK, BLICK, BLICK. I finally found something white (Sara is very fussy about white underwear). Lo and behold (as Gramma says), in the size for ages 9/10, this camisole comes with a reinforced "hidden support" shelf. Not available in the size for ages 7/8.

Why is my 9-year-old being FORCED TO WEAR A BRA? CAN'T THE UNDERWEAR DESIGNERS DO THEIR WORK BASED ON SIZE RATHER THAN AGE? Can I point out that IF your 9-year-old needs "hidden support" you will buy her a BIGGER SIZE? Or a BRA??? GROWNUPS can buy camisoles without built-in "hidden support", so WHY CAN'T KIDS??????

It is so insidiously evil it makes me want to scream. And the pink ribbons and hearts. They make me want to scream too. I think it is far more rampant in the UK than in any other country I've been lately (USA, France)--they seem DETERMINED here to turn their girl-children into frilly little throwbacks to the 19th century. Whatever happened to Free to Be You and Me?

Grrrrrrr.

My aunt gave me a pair of Hee!ies for my birthday. (Best birthday present ever! I wanted them very much.) It is amazing how NOT like skating it is to skate on your heels--I am also amazed that I ever managed to work out how to use them, which involved a lot of being pulled up and down the Promenade on the Deal seafront by my husband and children. Today I seriously brained myself with them for the first time. Skinned knees again at 42!

This is what I did this summer:

1) Flew small planes in NJ/PA/VT and got a US pilot's license. I can now fly planes registered in the US as well as those of 23 European member states. Or something like that.

2) Attended the 20th and final Children's Literature New England (CLNE) institute.

As a direct result of schmoozing at CLNE, I have been asked to speak at Children's Literature Midwest, the infant offspring of Children's Literature New England. If it goes ahead as planned, it will be held sometime next August, possibly in Ohio. The theme is "Conflict and Resolution." I have to come up with a reading list of relevant children's books to talk about. Suggestions are VERY, VERY WELCOME.

On the home front:

1) My grandmother (who is 90, remember?) visited us for 3 weeks in October. We took her to Bamburgh and Lindisfarne and Hadrian's Wall and Dover and the Lake District… everywhere, really. I did not manage to take her flying.

2) The bunny died while we were in the States in July--of old age, apparently, but it was very traumatic for Sara especially. She did such a stellar job of taking care of Bru while he was around that we let her choose a new pet. So now we have Laura [Ingalls Wilder] (….), a black and white female kitten, 11 weeks old.

3) A friend's child (the little brother of Sara's best friend) had a malignant brain tumor "the size of a tennis ball" removed ten days ago. He appears to be making a remarkable recovery, much to everyone's relief, but it has thrown the neighborhood into a state of high-strung emotion.

4) There are BABY DOLPHINS in the Tay. We went to see them on a boat.

Work-related bad news:

Both The Winter Prince and A Coalition of Lions are now officially out of print. The headache I am getting over trying to purchase remaindered copies of Coalition in paperback would make your eyes cross. None of MY children have brain tumors that I know of, so I am mellower about the fantastic administrative snarls that dog my books than I perhaps ought to be.

Work-related good news:

The Lion Hunter is scheduled for publication in summer 2007 (14 June 2007, if the crystal globe that is Amazon.com is to be believed--they also appear to know that it is going to be 208 pages, although we have not finished editing it yet!). The Empty Kingdom is set to follow in spring 2008. Together the books are parts 1 and 2 of a thing called The Mark of Solomon, which in my brain I always refer to as "The Adolescence of Telemakos." "The Mark of Solomon" is probably a better title.

I have seen lovely cover sketches for Lion Hunter, by the fabulous Cliff Nielsen.

Murder-talk

A very funny link (ok, my sense of humor is a maybe a little warped). This is what happens when you get Google to translate the entry for "Mordred" on the German Wikipedia site:

In which Plumb Bob is married to Mrs. Morgause, and Guinevere takes Lance Plumb Bob as a lover!

----------------------

and apologies to all for being such an inconsistent correspondent.

Mark has: an infected stubbed toe (penicillin), a fungal infection on said toe (fungal cream), a stress-related skin disorder all over his foot (steroid cream), eczema, and headlice.

UPS: has sent me an out-of-the-blue bill for £ 371.57 (that's like, SEVEN HUNDRED BUCKS) for the remaindered copies of A Coalition of Lions which arrived last month (yes, I have already paid megabucks to UPS via Publisher X to have them shipped here in the first place). UPS claims that this SHOULD have been a COD payment. I have told them to refer the invoice back to the shipper. so there.

My car: is now sporting a massive dent in the rear bumper and boot where I reversed it into a bollard, too low to see behind me, while picking up Mark from school to take him to the doctor.

Hmm, actually I can't think of any other woes at the moment that aren't in fact self-inflicted (Scottish Aero Club newsletter due, house a mess, writing that needs doing). Maybe I will go make some improvements now.

This was in her schoolbag tonight. Her maternal grandfather's genetic footprint is all over this (except that when I was her age it was The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century).

( Anybody recognize anybody? )

The Metoffice is NO LONGER MY FRIEND. Excuse me, that last forecast did NOT say "SNOW OVER THE ENTIRE TAY VALLEY AT 12.00."

The plan was to fly to Cumbernauld (not very far) and have lunch there today, but I wimped out about 5 minutes outside the circuit when the visibility dropped to about 3 km at 2500 feet and it was snowing inside the cockpit. God, I hate it when that happens. I went scurrying back to Perth and landed in considerable murk. It was very weird weather; forecast clear, and the airfield where I was headed had said they had clear skies when I called to tell them I was coming, yet as I walked out to the plane I thought, geez, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was about to snow. The airfield staff at Perth agreed that it was impossible to tell what the cloudbase was just by looking--it could have been 1000 or 4000 feet; you could see the sun shining through the cloud, as though it were fog. There was no wind. Someone had taken the plane out earlier without any hitch.

It's not major snow, just flurries, but sheesh. I don't do snow. It is nice to fly over, not in.

-----------------

In other news....

Apparently we offered to babysit a rabbit for a year while the owners travel around the world on their honeymoon. They are bringing it here on Easter weekend (I think this is very funny). It is probably a good way to acquire a pet, since the couple's parents, our neighbors, will look after it whenever we go away, and we won't need to feel guilty about asking them. I was thinking maybe we'd keep it a secret from the weasels--or drop dorky hints like, "The Easter bunny is coming to live with us!"

in still other news....

A friend of mine who has a boy in Mark's first grade class wanted to know if it was true that I was planning a sleepover for Mark, Joe, Kira, Vicky and Benjamin this weekend. Apparently Mark has been taking everyone's breakfast orders. Needless to say I have already told Mark this is NOT HAPPENING!

It is still snowing.

OK, Deep Sea World. We had an "un-birthday" party for Sara here last Sunday, mainly because she is always in the U.S. for her birthday in July and never gets to have a party with her schoolfriends (and consequently is not invited to any, either, but maybe that's just bitter'n'twisted mummy's p.o.v.). Anyway--14 kids ranging in ages from 5 to 9, all engrossed in starfish and piranhas and sharks and seals for an hour and a half! It was darned hard work, but the kids all had a fantastic time. One of them (a BOY) even came up to me in the school playground the next day and said thank you a second time.

The best feature of Deep Sea World is the "Underwater Safari"--they have a Perspex tunnel through the main aquarium. You go through on a moving walkway and watch the sharks swimming overhead.

The pictures are up at the request of

sdn. Those of you familiar with such things might notice that Sara is once again wearing her Edward Elric costume, of which she is very fond. She refuses to wear the coat in public because she is worried someone will recognize it and she'll be embarrassed!

( Deep Sea World Pictures )

On Friday morning we went to the hospital instead. Sara had her appendix out in the wee hours of Saturday morning. She and I have spent the past 5 days in Ninewells, the big university hospital at Dundee--they discharged her yesterday (my brain has been so fried by all this that when I tried to think of the word "discharge" yesterday all I could come up with was "manumission"; and for two whole days I could not remember Tim's cell phone number, which I have known for at least 8 years). Among other incredible joys and delights that we suffered while incarcerated, we had to treat Sara for HEADLICE; and when I finally got out to my car after 5 days, with Sara waiting in the ward in her coat for me to come to the door to pick her up, my battery was completely and utterly flat. Tim the Heroic arranged for someone to collect Mark from school, bought a set of jumper cables, drove the 20 miles to Dundee, found my car on the roof of the multistory car park, and by the time I had toiled back and forth between the car and the hospital to let them know what was going on he had got the car started.

Sara is fine. ( The rest of the story... )

"NOW THAT THINGS ARE BACK TO NORMAL I CAN GET SOME REAL WORK DONE" (hah).

E Wein: "I'm going to take the kids to Narnia this weekend."
Tim: "Narnia isn't a real place, you know."
E Wein [hilariously]: "Well, we've got a wardrobe, haven't we?"
Tim: "Yes, but you can't get inside it because it's so full of your [expletive deleted] New Yorkers."

The World of Mark (age 5)

Mark: "Mummy, do you know where I can get a pillow case that is white?"
E Wein: "Can I ask what you might need a white pillowcase for?"
Mark: "I'm going to make a time machine."

-----------------------

Today he also asked:
"Mummy, why does there have to be gravity?"

------------------------

In other news… Shopping in Perth. What kind of crazy person would want to buy a pair of SCHOOL SHOES for an 8-YEAR-OLD in JANUARY in SCOTLAND? My God, I can feel my blood pressure rising even as I write about it. We go into the school uniform shoe shop. [cough. Clearing my throat.] We go into the SCHOOL UNIFORM SHOE SHOP, where we usually buy all our shoes, and say: "Look, Sara's shoes have holes in them. Her feet are wet. We would like some new ones. They don't have to look like these, they just have to be serviceable school shoes."*

They had ONE PAIR in her size, which looked like boy's shoes (they were clunky and ugly), and she said they hurt. We said: "Look, haven't you got ANYTHING else in her size? They don't have to be boots. Just something she can wear to school."

Salesperson: "Well, we've got these sandals." (They were black.) "And they're on sale for only £5!"

Sara: "But my feet are already wet!"

(When I repeated this story to Tim, he said in his best Eric Idle voice, "What do you mean, you don't want a piston engine? It's a bargain!")

E. Wein: "When do you get your new stock in?"

Salesperson: "I'm sorry, not till Easter."

------------------------

Sometimes it is very hard to be polite to people. Like when I can't find shoes for a child in January, or a LONG COAT FOR A CHILD IN OCTOBER, or a WOOLLY HAT FOR A CHILD IN DECEMBER (previous shopping failures). We live on the same latitude as Kodiak, Alaska. This is not a third world country; what is the DEAL????

Anyway. We didn't get any shoes in the school uniform shoe shop. We went somewhere else and managed to find something marginally more feminine (still black, still clunky) that actually covers Sara's feet.

-----------------------------------

When Sara and Mark come out of school in their uniforms they are just hilarious; Sara in her smart blue trousers and tie and her fleece-lined bomber jacket looks like she's about to go fight the Battle of Britain, and Mark with his tie askew and his duffle coat flapping open looks like a mini John Constantine.

*Our local state school has the most formal uniform of the schools in Perth, and they have to wear black or navy shoes.

Cast: E Wein (Mummy); Sara (age 8); Sara's friend Rebecca (age 8); Mark (age 5); Rebecca's sister and Mark's friend Vicky (age 5)

E Wein: Rebecca, why have you got a towel on your head?
Rebecca: I'm a gypsy, and we have to steal things, and it's in World War Two so we have to hide from the Germans.
E Wein: Okaaaay. Mark, why are you wearing goggles?
Mark: I'm a builder. I'm a German builder, and I'm trying to knock down the gypsies' house.
Vicky: I'm a German too.

(In fact Vicky is half Scottish, half Nigerian, and what the heck, she's also a US passport holder. Notably absent from this conversation is Sara, who clearly engineered the whole thing—I happen to know she read Twenty and Ten by Clare Huchet Bishop two times last week.

All of this DOES explain why Sara and Rebecca had locked themselves in the bathroom for 20 minutes while Mark and Vicky tried to bash the door down.)

---------------------------
Mark came home from school saying that they had to have a minute of silence to "think about their poppies" for Remembrance Day (the first graders have only got to do one minute because they can't sit still for two). I asked him what he thought about.

"Our next door neighbor," he said.

Sometimes he makes me cry.

I have been waiting for six months to share this moment (no, Sara did NOT change her mind at the last minute about who she wanted to be):

( Sara in costume )

Sara's friend (at party): "Who are you supposed to be?"
Sara: "A BOY!"
E Wein: "Just call her Shorty."
Sara: "WHOAREYOUCALLINGSHORTY?!!!!!"

Poor thing, nobody had a clue who she was. She carried a downloaded picture from the anime Fullmetal Alchemist in her pocket to show people JUST HOW COOL her costume really is. I went for Artistic Effect rather than Accuracy in the detailing, since no one was going to recognize her anyway (the belt, which she insisted on wearing backwards because it wasn't accurate, has got a really cool rhinestone pentacle for a buckle); but the beauty part of the costume is that all the clothes come from the children's department of British Home Stores!

Mark was a tiger.

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Entries tagged with weasel world

bad day in the gatland household

(no subject)

i don't even know this woman

sunbird spam

we have got a piano!!!!

random

“999! Ow! This was very horrible!”

two events

Mostly about a certain small boy

Various

Note to self: Buy kneepads.

my woes

fangirl art by Sara

randomly

(no subject)

we didn't make it to narnia.

reality check

uniform drivel

Poppy Day

Halloween