Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

Monday is Memorial Day which means that outside every Krogers and Sam’s Club and fill-in-the-name-of-any-high-traffic-store-here is a guy in uniform, usually elderly, with a bunch of cheap flowers and a can, making me feel guilty because I’m not shelling out for them. I’ve seen those poppies all my life; in the little blue-collar town I grew up in, you wore one of those on Memorial Day because the VFW was everywhere, and everybody you knew had either served or knew somebody who had, and I have mixed feelings about that town. Plus the flowers are poppies because of John McCrea’s “In Flanders Fields:”

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

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Today’s Random Sunday is brought to you by the Apple iPad because I WANT ONE. But I can’t have it. I have to finish the galleys and the first Liz and my essay for BenBella before I can start slinging that kind of money about on random electronics, but it’s hard to concentrate because I WANT ONE. I want one with the burning passion that Light reserves for everything she wants, which is everything. I, at least, am focused on one thing, while Light eyes the blue bunny pen, the wildflower seeds, chocolate chip cookies, Luigi’s lemon ices, and the bag I’m making for Krissie, none of which she can have and all of which she yearns for. When she is told no, she gives this little moan, not a whine, more like a short keen. Then she sees something shiny and moves on. But I am fixated. It doesn’t help that every magazine that arrived at the house this week had a full page ad for the damn thing on the back cover. It haunts my dreams. I WANT ONE. But I can’t have one so moving on . . . read more >>

We have a new pet, sort of: Walter, the dumbest squirrel in the forest. He got his name after we watched him speed around the deck with five barking dogs after him, never thinking to jump onto one of the zillion trees around the deck. Or as Lani said, “Poor Walter. Never was the same after he got hit with that walnut.” (This place gets bombarded by walnuts in the fall; sounds like the house is being shelled.) My introduction to Walter came when I was crocheting in the living room and saw this squirrel leap for a branch, miss, and plummet to the deck. Did I mention, a zillion trees? You’d have to work hard to miss them all, but Walter managed it. Then the dogs went crazy (“SQUIRREL!”) and Walter jumped up on a table where they couldn’t get him, and the dogs surrounded him. Now Walter has some options. He can run along the wide railing and jump on a tree. He can jump off the table and onto the narrow decking under the window that the dogs can’t get to. He can leap for one of the zillion branches that are right beside him. Or he can leap down into the middle of the dogs. Guess which one Walter picked? It was such an astoundingly stupid move that the dogs just looked at him and then at each other, like “This isn’t it right, must be a trick.” Then Walter staggered over and fell through the railing. I’d say his days are numbered, but clearly God loves the little rat. Either that or he does it on purpose because he loves the drama. We get a lot of that around here. read more >>

According to my horoscope, the first part of March was going to really suck for me, and what do you know: my horoscope was dead on. Sympathy to all my fellow Virgo-with-Scorpio-Risings. Therefore it will probably be at least another twenty-four hours before I blog again to flog Wild Ride which will be out on Tuesday because snarling and ranting is no way to sell books and influence people. How bad has it been? This is what my current mental state looks like:

In other words, I’m ready to rip up your upholstery and devour your pet hamster. Whole.
Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll be back to my normal mildly grumpy self and we can go on as usual. At which point I will also be explaining to Sweetness that the white bookcase we’re putting in her room will not turn into giant flesh-eating bats at 3AM and rip chunks out of her arms while she sleeps, and that I only told her that so we could put the damn thing in there without her bitching at us. Sweetness has a dark side. But then so does Fake Aunt Jenny.

I should have listened to you. “It’ll crash the site,” you said. “You’re gonna have problems,” you said. “Nah,” I said. Then Mollie e-mailed me with a heading that said “Yep-site crashed” and I thought, “Well, hell. Who knew?” Then I remembered: you all did.

But we’ve got it fixed now! We hope. It wasn’t supposed to be a nightmare. I apologize to everybody. ARGH.

In other news, we (Lani and I) started The Diet today in order to become Healthy People. So there may be some crankiness for the next two weeks since that’s how long it’s going to be before I can have chocolate pudding. Or bread. I think I get to have french fries again in 2012. Also, did you know the directions on the sugar-free Jello package tell you to stir the stuff for two minutes? Who does that? It’s Jello, not bechamel sauce. Yes, that’s cranky. Sorry. I’m in chocolate withdrawal.

And really sorry about the site crashing and the frustration and the general miasma of malfunction. I’m sure tomorrow will be better.

Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS! Have some chocolate. Please.