A bunch more things have happened since the last entry thingy here. Of course. Like you were sitting on the edge of your seat thinking “Oh no! Weetabix must have a very boring life right now because she’s not updating!” If there’s still anyone reading, anyway! Hi! I suck.
July had Esteban’s yearly Men’s Camping weekend, where they don’t shower, blow up a lot of fireworks, and stay drunk mostly the entire weekend. Ward goes with him and seems to enjoy the hell out of all of it, the not showering, the blowing up of things, and especially the concept of beer at breakfast. I was on June Duty, and since I still felt bad about leaving her on her own last year (their camping conflicted with Blogher in Chicago) I wanted to do something more than just going dragging her to my favorite shopping haunts in Milwaukee. After all, we’ve been there, done that, as recently as February when we were all down there for the reading. I suggested Chicago, perhaps to the Bliss spa or something. June had never been to a spa, whereas I am practically a spa addict, so I regaled her with tales of my various spa ablutions, mostly referencing Vegas, since it seems to honestly have the best spas. At least, it has my favorite spa ever. We were in the pool while the boys were sitting on the deck, discussing what they would be blowing up and how badly their armpits would undoubtedly smell while doing it and then I did a quick mental calculation on the cost of gas and parking and the cost of hotels in Chicago and then had a wicked idea.
“Why don’t we just GO to Vegas?” I whispered.
June’s eyes got a little wide, but then she swallowed back her apprehension and, after a few questions, she said “Ok, find out if we can get a flight.” And without telling the men (and I said that I wasn’t telling Esteban until after the flights were booked, because forgiveness is easier than permission, so she did the same), twelve hours later, I had found flights, hotels, booked our spa appointments, and bought tickets to O and Phantom. We called the weekend “Girl Camping” and have to say, it was much MUCH nicer than smelly Boy Camping. Every now and then, throughout the weekend, we’d be having brunch at Tableau in the Wynn (lobster eggs benedict, freshly squeezed orange juice, blood orange marmalade) or soaking in a deep hot tub with Melinda and Shawn at the spa or drinking a very delicious alcoholic beverage in a piano bar, and we’d wonder what the boys were doing. And then we’d laugh and laugh and laugh. My favorite conjecture was “Picking a tick off of someone’s ass?”
I have not missed a farmer’s market a single weekend (if I was in town, anyway) but this weekend was a rare trifecta of perfection. It was the last of the strawberries, the tail-end of the black cherries and the beginning of the blueberries. Last week, I got a bouquet of ginormous yellow lilies with flowers as large as trombone bells, but this week, I opted for some pink and purple stock along with some pink lizanthus. I also ended up buying 10 lbs of blueberries, with random ideas of making some kind of jam out of them. This is probably a mistake, because unlike the success of the strawberry jam plan, I don’t already have an amazing fancy recipe involving blueberries. Ah well. I will think about that tomorrow. At least I have all of the accoutrements for jammery all at hand, should the perfect recipe present itself, and at very worst, I can throw the berries in the freezer, as I have done every summer for the last decade. I usually throw the berries into pies, cobblers or pancakes, but now it can be for the Jam Of The Future!This, by the way, is the reason that Future Weetabix really finds Now Weetabix annoying as hell.
I am in the middle of a submission drive, in that I’ve set up the printer I bought myself months ago (which has been hiding behind my office door, waiting for a rare and hard-to-acquire device called a “surge protector”) and researched markets, bought envelopes and am all set to start shipping stuff out. It’s funny when I reread the stories, sometimes I don’t even remember writing them. The Body Image story, for instance, I know that I wrote it (and extensively rewrote it, removing one character entirely and expanding another one) before the thesis defense but I honestly really like just about everything in the bundle. Well, except for the Baby Story, but I think that’s because I posted the rough draft here a very long time ago and I feel a bit like I got caught half-undressed by the postman there. I am feeling a little bummed, though, about the likelihood that some of them won’t ever be published, especially after what is considered my best story was just summarily thumped by four second- and third-tier publications. Although Aaron Birch of Hobart really did write the nicest rejection notice I’ve ever gotten. I’m half-tempted to post one here, just to get some feedback on them. And also, because I’m addicted to reader feedback, now that I recently received a fan letter from someone who has had that iPod Guy story stuck in his craw for TWO FREAKING YEARS. Also, he e-mail flirted, so that’s always an ego boost. Meh. I’m just talking here. Ignore me.
