i like shiny things

I am a small mushroom in the forest of children's books, but every once and a while I get a nice ray of sun. The other day it was when my editor and friend sent me the cover for my new book. The Year of the Dog, my first middle grade novel is going to feature gold foil on the cover! This is a quite a landmark in my publishing career. To non-children's book types this is but a piddling accomplishment, but to one who has toiled the achievement of a shiny, additional cost cover is no small feat.

It is so pretty and gold that when Robert saw it he said, "Hey, it looks really good. They should give you that gold sticker award and it'll match."
"Uh, you mean the Newbury Award?" I said.
"Yeah," he said, "it would go perfectly."
Somehow I doubt aesthetic reasons are in their judging criteria.

gold star day

So yesterday was a really good day. Robert got test results back from his CT scan and it showed his tumor had shrunk. Yippee!! We are very happy, we had been scared that we'd have to change treatments again. We used to hope to hear about miraculous cures, nowadays we settle for stability.

It's been a pretty long haul for us, we're going on about 3 years of chemo treatments, experimental drugs and tests (nonstop). It's been so long that a lot of people forget that Robert even has cancer. I never forget. Recently, I've come to the realization that chemo with steroids is like extremely bad PMS. Here's an example:

normal Robert:"Honey, I'm going to throw out your tomatoes, they look like they are getting fruit flies."

chemo Robert: "Where the *^$!%$!! are these fruit flies coming from? *^%!#&@! They're coming from your tomatoes, *&@%!# why do you leave these things out? Is it so hard to get rid of them?! Why is our kitchen is always such a *^#%@!$! mess!"

Too bad I can't give just give him a Midol.

hello, blog!

So, to the disdain of the two people closest to me I have decided to start this blog.

When I told my sister Ki-Ki, she scrunched up her face and said, "You're gonna blooooog?"
"Yes," I told her, "it'll be fun! People can read all about the little things going on in my life."
"I don't care for blogs," she said, "they're just not interesting."
"Mine will be," I insisted, "I'm very interesting!"
"Uh-huh," she said, "to you."

My husband Robert was not much more encouraging.
"So a blog is like an online journal?" he probed.
"Yep," I nodded.
"But why would you want people to read your journal," he said, "It's private."
"For fun!" I said.
"Well, promise me you won't write anything about me in it," he said.
"Okay," I said, "I promise. I won't write anything about you, how you have pajamas with big red hearts all over them or how you watch Battlestar Galactica or how you don't know how to spell the word 'receive'. I know that embarrasses you."