So What's Your Super Power?

I can already hear the question marks flying. Questions surrounding my sanity. And no, I’m not crazy, but I do believe everyone has a super power. Not like flying, or zapping an arch enemy with eye lasers or anything cool like that. I’m talking about real super powers. The kind we all come with. The kind we keep hidden under our Clark Kent selves that we don’t like to brag about and seldom reveal without blushing. My hubby’s is, duh duh da duh—(that was fan fair in case you didn’t catch it) Super Dish Washing Man. He also does laundry and lets me sleep in. If you don’t think that’s a super power, you’re wrong. It is. An awesome one!

After church on Sunday I started a book, The Queen of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner, recommended by my friend Nikki. As I read, my family evaporated. Or I did, I’m not sure which, but I was in the land of Attolia, and I stayed there all day. I didn’t cook. I didn’t get kids ready for bed. I didn’t do ANYTHING but read. It was fabulous. I read all night as I moved on to The King of Attolia, book three in the series. (Book one, The Thief, was also great.) I made myself go to bed at 4:30 in the morning even though I wasn’t done with the book.

Guess what I did on Monday? Yup, you got it. I read. Guess what my hubby did? Yup you got it. He ripped his shirt off in the nearest phone booth and changed into Super Dishwashing Man. (He looks good in spandex. Of course nothing, and I do mean nothing, is sexier than a man doing dishes!)

Not only were my dishes done, my kids fed, bathed, played with, cleaned up after, house cleaned, and laundry done. (I told you he was good!) But he ordered me to sit down and write so I could meet my goal. Talk about super powers!

This made me think about myself. What is my super power? Hmmm. I came up with a few possibilities but finally settled on, duh duh da duh—The Procrastinator! Mwahahahaha! Hey, not all super powers are good ones. With this power I am able to stall large projects in a single bound, forget to feed my kids while reading books, put off chores, and even miss my day helping the Kindergarten teacher.

How did I end up as the villain? Poor Super Dish Washing Man.

And what about our kids? What strange mix of powers did they end up with coming from such diverse parents?

Child A: Go-To Girl. Able to help anyone while wearing a cheerful smile. (Please note that even though her super power clearly puts her on the hero, not villain side, she is trying to kill me by driving the car.)

Child B: Bottomless Pit Boy. Consumes more in one sitting than a full grown man!

Child C: The Gum Locator. Sounds like a strange ability, but hey, he must be part blood hound. He can track down a piece of gum hidden in the back of a closet or bottom of a purse faster than you can say chew.

Child D: The Pink Princess. This power is based on the ability to wear more pink than should be humanly possible while dancing like a princess. Not a very useful power, but a cute one.

So, what is your super power? If you’re reading this take a minute to post a comment on your secret, or not so secret, ability. And no lurking. Lurking is not a super power, but commenting is!

How could I be so OLD?

My daughter is trying to kill me. Not outright with a weapon or anything like that, she's much more subtle and devious. She's getting her driver's permit.

Do any other words in the English language strike such fear into the hearts of adults? Even boys aren't that scary. (Well, at least not yet. She can't date for six-and-a-half more months.) Am I really expected to turn this girl loose with a car? I've spent a large portion of my life taking care of her and keeping her out of danger. I spoon-fed this kid strained sweet potatoes, and read labels, and researched car seats, and changed the batteries in the smoke detectors. For years! Well, I didn't keep spoon feeding her the sweet potatoes, but the point is I devoted sixteen years of my life to keeping her alive. And now I'm supposed to say, "Here's the keys, try not to die?"

Am I alone in this?

And what happened to me? Somehow I went from a young woman and leaped in one giant hurdle to middle-aged woman. Ouch. What is it about having a child behind the wheel that makes you old? I mean other than the self inflicted claw marks down your cheeks from gripping your face too tight as you try to teach them to parallel park, and the bald patches from ripping out your hair by the roots during a close encounter with a semi in an intersection?

It's basic math. They teach it in school. Math makes you old. Someone sees your kid driving, and then out pops their fingers. “Let's see,” they say. “If she was at least twenty when she gave birth add six, carry the one." Walla! Old.

I don't feel old, well, not until ten p.m. or so, and I don't think I look that old. I don't have grey hair (yet), or that many wrinkles, but who can argue against the powers of addition? I'm now officially old.

You want me to do what? And, what the heck is a cosine anyway?

In another life I was good at math, but that was seventeen years ago. In this one I forgot everything I ever knew from my past life as a student. It's gone. Vanished like mist. This didn't used to be a problem for me because I don't often run into situations in life where I need to remember my Calculus or whip out a Trig equation. I'm a mom, not an astronaut. I do laundry and clean up cat food and toilets messes. Not much math in that. Right? Wrong. Mom's have to do math. At least if they have kids who have to do math.

Enter the problem. My fifteen year old is in Geometry and Trig. I understand that this is a good thing. It would be even better if I could remember what Trig  was. Homework each night goes something like this . . .

Child A: Mom, can you help me with this?

Me: Groan. What is it tonight?

Child A: I don't know. I don't get it.

Me thinking: Neither do I.

Me saying: Did you read the book.

Child A: Blank stare.

Me: Let me see it.

Problem number one out of thirty-six: Find the measure of angle A using given data.

Me staring at page thinking: Stab my in the eye! What the heck is a cosine? I know I knew this once. What happened to it? Where has it gone?

Child A staring at me saying: Mom?

Me reading chapter and "remembering" Trig.

So let this be a lesson to all of you students and parents alike. You do need math, even if you don't know why you'd need to find the measure of angle A. I don't get paid enough for this. Oh wait, I don't get paid at all.

Gooder Is Not A Word and Freelance Editing By My Cat

A strange thing happens when you write books. You develop an internal editor that won't sleep. Everything you read, listen to, or see is subject to this inner critic. And I do mean everything. Radio commercials, books, movie scrips, your children's grammar, this blog. If any of you are writers I know you are dissecting this right now because I am, too.

This morning my six-year-old told me she was gooder than she used to be. Instead of being happy with her about this achievement my brain went right to editing mode and, "Gooder isn't a word," slipped from my lips before I consciously thought about it. So I guess I shouldn't get upset when my cat does the same thing to my manuscripts.

Now I know that any readers out there are raising their right eyebrows in disbelief. How can a cat edit manuscripts, you ask? They don't read. I know these thoughts are in your brains, because they were in mine. This is how it was . . .

I was sitting in my writing chair editing my manuscript. When I finished a page I laid it on the ground next to me and moved on to the next one. My cat, the same one who tried to bury the soy milk offering I gave him like so much poop, (see my first post for the full story) came and sat in front of my pages.
He stared at them for several long minutes. I stared at him. Have you ever seen a cat "reading" a book before? If you haven't, you should. It was funny. At least until he stood, flashed me an irritated look, and promptly tried to bury my pages.

My mouth fell open, and I grabbed my precious book. After frowning at my cat and turning my back on him, I returned to my editing only to realize he was right. The pages were rank. Like poop. I rewrote the whole chapter. The only problem is I don't have the nerve to show the new pages to my cat. He's a tough critic.

Three Apple Cores Down Under or The Great Toilet Adventure

Since the last blog post (Which, if you are paying attention was only TWO days ago. Yeah me.) several friends suggested I blog about apple cores and toilets. This may sound like a strange combination. It is.

But not for our house.

My ten-year-old loves apples. Not likes, or enjoys, or even is extremely fond of, but loves them. We can't keep enough of them in the house. He'll eat a ten pound bag in a day. We have to lock them up. Really.

The eating isn't the bad part. It's the disposing. You would think that any child who eats so many apples and is told so many times (at least ten a day) to throw his cores in the garbage, would have a thorough understanding of the concept. Not so. He has Fragile X Syndrome and certain things just don't stick. This is one of them. We find apple cores (and more things than you can imagine) scattered everywhere. Under beds. In drawers. Behind dressers. In closets.

And in toilets.

This wouldn't be so bad if he didn't flush them, but he gets some strange satisfaction out of seeing them swirl around and disappear down the hole. The only problem is everything, and I do mean everything, that follows doesn't go down the hole. Um yeah. Nasty.

We've become champion toilet removers. My hubby and I can empty, remove, de-clog, and replace a toilet in seven minutes flat. Most of the time. Not this time. It was bad. Soooo bad. Soooo clogged. Soooo foul. I hesitate to go on. I may be scarred for life.

We took the toilet off, turned it upside down, and stared at the mass of brown, reeking mess oozing from said hole. Someone needed to reach in and clean it out. You guessed it. Me. Up to my elbow.

I spent the next half hour scouring my arm. I don't know if an apple will EVER look appetizing again.

Shamed into posting, and the three reasons I stink at this.

Over the weekend I attended a get together with some writing buddies I met at the WIFYR Workshop last June. If you haven't heard about it check out the web-site. It is an amazing conference! http://www.foryoungreaders.com/

While hanging with my writing peeps the subject of blogs came up. More than once. And, needless to say, I was ashamed, horrified, and otherwise humbled by my meager blog. Now, you might have noticed that I don't post very often. There's a reason for this. Several actually. I'll list three.

1: I have no life. Plain and simple. I sit down and read other people's blogs (people with lives) and wonder, What do I have to say? What have I done that's blog worthy? Somehow changing the batch of laundry for the sixth time today, or sticking my hand down the toilet to retrieve three apple cores doesn't sound as exciting as anything anyone (and I do mean anyone) else has done. I have no glamour in my life. I do have dishes. (See, not glamorous. Even if you have a really good imagination.) I also have carpool, which could be glamorous if I drove a convertible, but I don't. I drive a MAV. Otherwise known as a Mother Assault Vehicle, or a van. Not exciting.

2: I'm neck deep in revisions on my novels. Yes I have a couple of them and they still count if they're not published, but not as much as if they were. And I have four kids who do strange things like shove apple cores down toilets and dirty an absurd amount of clothes and dishes leaving me no time to blog.

3: I don't have a Ham radio license.

Despite these three very good excuses. (Especially #3) I will here and now vow to blog at least once a week. And if that fails, there is always the once a month option.

Getting kicked out of D.I. on New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve my mom, sister, and I went to the local D.I. to search for books. (For those of you who aren't from around here, it is a non-profit thrift store.) And, yes, I think the fact we went to a thrift store on New Year's Eve pretty much proves we don't have a party bone in our bodies. But, neither did the other 107 people that were there either. The place was hoppin.

We had only been there five minutes, when a deep masculine voice came over the loud speaker and informed us the store would be closing in ten minutes. It was 2:50 p.m.! Who knew places closed early on New Year's Eve? Obviously not me, or the other 107 people.

Five seconds after the announcement, they shut off the lights. Five seconds! What was I supposed to do? Stop in the middle of the shelf of used books I was salivating on and feel my way to the register? I still had ten minutes to find something to curl up with by the fire. (And I mean a book, not one of my 107 fellow shoppers.) So, I did what any sane, book loving person with ten more minutes on the clock would do. I planted my feet and hollered to the ceiling, "We don't need lights to shop!" and kept looking. So did my mother and sister. Although I must admit, they didn't yell anything at the invisible man in the ceiling. They are much more socially acceptable than I am. And ninety of the 107 people agreed with us. They stayed, too.

This didn't make the invisible man happy. He continued to announce that the store was closing. He even gave us directions to the registers. We ignored him.

Then, he sent his minions. Visible ones. They fanned out through the store, asking, ordering, begging us to go to the registers. One of them told us to leave because he had a life, too. I mean really. Did he think we had lives? We were refusing to leave a thrift store on New Year's Eve.

After a few more announcements, we graciously agreed to go, and followed the herd of shoppers to the registers where we stood in line for twenty minutes! I could have been drooling on books and annoying the invisible man. Well, there's always next year.