Ramblings from the Gryphon Rose

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Okay, this is cool

I just got an email informing me that I was one of the featured profiles on NextCat. Neat!

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

I'm terrible at self-promotion

I always forget to post when I've got new books out! This one's been out for almost a month already:




It's my first children's book (nonfiction, at least) since the PowerPuff Girls book I did several years ago, so it's nice to step back into that arena again. More soon!

Last gasps of the whirlwind

Well, it was a long and stressful weekend-plus, but not without its good points.

Thursday night I had dinner with slothshaman, xochitl42, her husband (that’ll take some getting used to!), and our pals Raphy and Tom. Much fun! Then xochitl42 and her hubby and I went and saw Indy4. No spoilers—I enjoyed about 75% of it quite a bit, could have done without a major plot element, and hated the climax. I didn’t regret seeing it, though.

Amusing anecdote: We saw the 9pm show, which meant we got out at 11:30. Thursday night. At the E-Walk in Times Square. As we were exiting our theater we heard a wave of laughing and giggling and chatter coming up the escalators, and saw a massive throng of women lined up and waiting eagerly. You guessed it: they were all going to the midnight showing of Sex in the City. Ugh.

Friday I helped xochitl42 prepare for her move. That night we had a few friends over to hang out and relax and goof off a bit.

Saturday was the move. It went reasonably well, actually—not too much stuff, we only got mildly wet (avoided most of the downpour), and no one got seriously injured. Moving out of a fourth-floor walk-up with narrow, twisted, uneven steps, though? Not recommended. Afterward we drove the truck over to our place, unloaded xochitl42’s desk and desk chair, which we’re minding for her until her eventual return, boxed her computer up more carefully, and had pizza before waving the two of them good-bye. Our real farewell will be next Monday but it was still tough.

Saturday night . . . was bad. Our son broke out with in worst hives we’ve ever seen and was having trouble breathing. We called his doc and she said “ER. Now!” Fortunately by the time we saw the ER doctor (who was very nice and saw him right away, thanks to jendaby) his own adrenaline had calmed the reaction down a little bit, and they gave him medicine to take care of the rest. And we now have an epi-pen for him, which is a good thing given the severity of some of his allergies. We think he probably got hold of a pepper flake from the pizza we had for lunch—peppers are his most violent allergy these days. It was extremely scary, and we are very, very grateful that he is okay.

Sunday, not surprisingly, we were exhausted. But jendaby definitely deserved a break, so I stayed with the kids and sent her off to Raphy’s birthday party, where she had a good time. After the kids were in bed I spent my time cleaning the office, clearing off our desk, moving it out of the way, and then moving xochitl42’s desk in and reassembling the computer. It’ll take some getting used to the new setup but it’s nice. Haven’t figured out what to do with the old desk yet—it may take up residence downstairs as a secondary workspace.

I didn’t sleep well that night—I had trouble breathing, either from allergies, dust, a cold, or some combination thereof. Yesterday was work as usual, and I got through it though I probably wasn’t at my most alert. Last night our son was difficult about going to bed, so after we finally got him to settle down we watched Fool’s Gold because I needed some light fluff. It was perfect—funny, silly, playful, and not requiring an ounce of brainpower.

And now it’s on with the week—jendaby’s out tonight, I’m going to a movie screening tomorrow, we might have friends over Friday. I’m hoping to sleep sometime in between.