W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Today is the official Wendy Birthday Day. But I've been celebrating with friends and family for almost a week now. Tonight, J4 took me to a new place called Olivia's on S. Lamar. Trendy place, delicious food (scallops!), and a waitron we knew from Hyde Park B&G too. Plus J4 gave me an Andrew Davies DVD of BRIDESHEAD REVISITED and President Obama's book. Cool!

Last Wednesday, Leslie took me to Eddie V's Edgewater Grill. We ate late (9 pm) and the usually crazy-busy place was not busy. Then she showered me with a dozen gifts, most of them lavendar related or purple, including a honking 3-carat tanzanite ring!

And I must've gotten 12-15 wishes via FaceBook and on my Writergrrls list. Very sweet messages too! So I'm feeling cherished.

And just for grins, here's a photo taken of me on my first natal anniversary. Fierce concentration in the face -- look, I had it even then!

That's also my very first pet, a cat! (How could it not be a cat?) She didn't have a name until she had kittens, then she was forever "Mama Cat." She lived a long time, liked me best, and had dozens and dozens of kittens that we gave to good homes.... Ha, I knew I was born with the pale, fine hair, but I see here it always had the cowlicks that give me fits unto this very day...

If you're a mutha, happy day to you. My mom and the rest of my family will be over around lunchtime to celebrate the day, and my birthday. I got to choose the lunch venue, so I chose (heh heh heh) Bone Daddy's. I can guarantee there will be no twee roses and ruffles there! Plus, in an example of family mind-melding, my brother had just sighed to my mom, "oh that BBQ on TV looks good" just before I called. I also got Mom flowers and chocolates, since at this late stage in her life she has two of everything an old lady could want... But she loves flowers, so woo hoo.

Childless spinsters like me are right out of luck on this holiday. I've got the requisite two cats of a writer too, so I'm really working the stereotype. And my cats, the lazy parasites, have never yet given me even a card on this day! Well, maybe if I started giving them an allowance...?

Naw, they'd just spend it on catnip.

Then I read about the powerful effect of these high-dollar, very creepy baby dolls. Really! They're individually airbrushed to have sweet little cheeks. They have human hair and are modeled on real children. But man, I find homunculi of all types so weirdly off-putting. Women are collecting these things, big-time. True, unless you have the homuncuphobia, holding a real baby or a fake baby can trigger hormones that bathe you in contentment and well-being. I do get that with real babies, plus I'm almost always able to get them to talk to me (really, even the parents crowd around and say "I've never heard her/him do that before!"). But these fake babies? eewwwwhhhh

But if I was to get one, here's a blonde, new baby girl. ( I'll hide the big photo behind the cut... )

My friend Jennifer Marine (another Jennifer friend -- not the J4 I post about often) will have her first book out soon. Here's the cover, and I love how the designer so emphasized the very word that caused other publishers and agents to fear their approach ...! She and her co-writer choose this title because they're being contemporary and clever and brave about posting some real truths.

She's worked so hard for this book, and it's such a cool success story. Follow her journey at No One's the Bitch.

Amazingly enough, that's what Port Aransas on the Texas Gulf Coast is called. Ha!

My brother Andrew and I left a week ago and spent three days there. He went dreaming (as in, visions of sugarplums, only the sugarplums have fins) of catching fish. I went to have three days on the coast to work on draft #2 of CAN'T SAY NO. Turns out the weather was chilly only the day we got there. By Monday it warmed up and stayed warm until we left (in the warm rain) on Wednesday. I liked our sweet little hotel on one of the main roads, Avenue G. The Seashell Village is family owned and operated, and the decor is sort of Caribbean yet tidy. But it had a big drawback -- it was noisy. The rest of Mustang Island was extremely quiet (compared to the wild and roaring summer), but at this hotel they were building a new unit so there was hammering, sawing and machinery all the daylight hours. Dang it.

I didn't get much done on my goal. But Andrew was in heaven when he went out on a morning fishing cruise (the Island Queen, which is run by Woody's) and caught the biggest fish! I actually had to buy him an ice chest to carry the fish back in! Andrew is a big, burly, eccentrically dressed guy and I saw the other people on the cruise sort of eyeball him as they departed. But when the boat came back (I didn't go -- trying to get writing in), those same people were all buddies with him and his biggest fish. Sweet!

Andrew's health is bad, with such bad arthritis in his back and legs he can't stand or walk for very long. So he wasn't up for anymore fishing after that first day. (I'd gotten us a place in town to be near the piers, but he never did go out on one.) But he was so pumped up from the successful cruise it didn't matter to him. We did find interesting places to eat and souvenir shop -- Seafood and Spaghetti Works, Taqueria San Juan, Crazy Cajun -- and for him eating out is a huge treat too. ( See Some Pictures... )

A funny, awkward thing happened today at Whole Foods (aka, Whole Paycheck). I went early afternoon to buy the chuck roast for the Christmas dinner (they have better quality beef and you can taste the difference). I knew that the place would be swarmed by late afternoon and all day tomorrow with holiday meal shoppers. As it was, the meat counter was wacky busy.

The chuck roast they had out was a pound too small or a pound+ too big, so the groovy long-haired butcher guy said he'd have a new one chopped for me. Meanwhile, a dark-haired chatty woman in red shoes was also waiting for chuck roast and didn't know for sure there was such a thing as beef stock. She'd been given a list and couldn't find it on the display. I told her there surely was and we discussed our pot roasts. Hers would have lots of garlic and she'd cook it in a crockpot*. Mine would be slathered with chopped horseradish and cooked for a long time on my stove.

When my chuck roast didn't come from the back after 5 minutes of craziness, she'd already gotten her pot roast, but in handfuls of bloody pieces. I like mine pretty and one hunk! But we were buds now so she insisted that "her" butcher cut me up 4.5 lbs of chuck. Winking, she says, "see how friends take care of friends?!"

Ehhh. I took it to be friendly and thought it was a hoot, then just as I was in the checkout line, I hear a page: "Customer with the chuck roast, your order is ready at the meat counter." So I went back and told the groovy butcher I'd gotten pieces and was it the same thing? He said the one he had cut for me was all one hunk, and "who did that for you?" Awkward!

I gave him back the chopped-up one and took the pretty one and skedaddled. I just have a hard time deflecting someone's warm and generous impulses. Those are good energy! Especially in the crazy-mad season of bad driving we're having.

I'm looking forward to my Yankee pot roast. Pot roast is something the Yankees did well! And I've successfully converted my family from turkey to beef. (C'mon, goose for Christmas I could see, but turkey already gets its day. Plus I don't much like eating turkey and I really don't like cooking anything you have to sanitize your countertop, hands, all utensils, plates and anything it touches...)

*I get my first crockpot this Christmas! Not particularly a kitchen-gadget person, but there are meals thruout the year I could use this for...

My employer is one of those (typically huge) companies that decided to have mandatory holiday time off. You use your vacation (and, in my case, create a negative balance you have to work off) and are gone, by fiat, for two weeks. I have nothing against two weeks off -- that's a great concept! But I wanted to use my vacation time for the Mythic Journeys Conference in June and the Maui Writers Conference in August. Having a lot of time off during the chilly and grey winter is not-so-great.

So Friday we celebrated our last day of work until January 5th with a holiday lunch at the Headliners Club. Again, a place I hadn't thought of in years, but delicious food for the 2nd time in a week. Especially the Headliners Crab Salad and the array of special holiday desserts! We took a festive photo with their luxurious holiday decorations, and NC caught a picture of me turning away from the window view. (Both behind the cut.) And most of us went home with sweets or tea or geodes as we gifted across the department too, so that was sweet! My offering was a hand-beaded Texas ornament from Bookpeople.

At my (Blake Snyder workshop originated) Austin Cats group yesterday at Melody's, she had a gift of a ream of paper for each of us. How appropriate is that for a writer? And she'd had her girls color thematically appropriate pictures for each of us (see behind the cut). Very cute! And we did some good analysis of people's scripts too...

On the way to Melody's, I stopped at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market to get locally made truffles for some friends' gifts. I found a guy and his girlfriend there from East Austin who make fascinating arrangements of succulents -- the plants are SciFi looking, the pots are interesting and the prices were great -- $20 to $75. I bought two for gifts (see behind the cut). I'd already given J4 her gift -- the pop-up book of phobias -- but she loves succulents and this was too interesting not to get her one.

Which brings up a long, leisurely (if noisy!) dinner Thursday night at Mandolos where several of us gathered to chat with Dr. Tom Konrad, in town for a week. Patrice told us she'd turned in Book#2 to Ace in September. Clayton just listened quietly, and Jennifer was there to catch up too. We told them about our trip to Cape Cod for the rustic writers conference in August. We got there at 7pm, got desserts after our meals, and they chased us out at 10pm. Fun chat, but awkward too as Patrice is a huge Stina supporter and we had to talk around that subject at one point.

Still to come: visits to Keep Austin Bazaar and Greune, Texas; a Christmas Eve party; shopping for the roast beast dinner I'll make Christmas Day; and visits with family and friends to exchange gifts and cheer. Also: a new draft of my script CAN'T SAY NO and a short trip to Port Aransas with my brother and his fishing tackle. ( Photos Behind the Cut... )

... she is gone. I just made the third turkey-and-cranberry sandwich since Thanksgiving and ate up all I had left. I gave most of the turkey leftovers to my family (i'm a red meat girl more than a poultry person). I cooked again for Thanksgiving, and all the food was yummy. Well, to be truthful, I didn't cook the turkey this year, though I have successfully many times in the past*. I planned to order a whole smoked turkey from Hoover's Cooking but procrastinated one day too long. So I ordered servings of smoked turkey breast, gravy and dressing from Pok-e-Jo's.

I used to think Pok-e-Jo's was a low-rent BBQ, but they do all their meats very tasty -- and I'm talking they compare well to the Salt Lick in Driftwood -- and they do great sides and a variety of them. Like green bean casserole, mixed veggies, cornbread dressing, broccoli salad, chocolate pudding -- in addition to the standard red beans, potato salad and cole slaw.

Then I made the smashed potatoes, green bean casserole, hot rolls and pumpkin pie. Mom made her Paula Deen corn casserole. A smallish family gathering this year, but fine. And they went off with bags of leftovers...

I've been off work this whole week because I have a huge writing project due. But I procrastinated, and procrastinate still. Plus I just write slower than it seems I should. This is a comedy screenplay that will be read one week from today. But I'm only at page 50 of about 95 pages. I return to work Monday, so it's going to be crazy if I try to write evenings and get it done. It is being a fun story, but why oh why can't I be a flash writer? (I know why; those folks who write fast invariably write shallow junk I don't enjoy. I write stuff I myself like to read, and that takes awhile.)

Also, I haven't farted around and wasted time. I have yet to see one of the 4 movies on my list. I didn't start reading any new books. I wanted to shop and visit some, but didn't go out much on purpose. My reward should be a good first draft of CAN'T SAY NO by now!

*My first Thanksgiving turkey I learned there are not one, but two disgusting innards bags jammed up in the butthole of the turkey. I knew about the first one, but I roasted the second one inside it. It's like a trick they play on you!

Austin just broke a record for number of people participating in a Michael Jackson's THRILLER dance. It was promptly then beaten by Monroeville, PA, then that one by Nottingham, England... But as someone pointed out on a list I'm on, who's beaten the one made by the Phillipino prison camp at 1,500+? It appears: nobody yet!

So here's the one performed by the Cebu Detention Center. They didn't have all the zombie makeup and tattered clothes -- everybody (except one!) is in an orange tshirt and pants with flip-flops. The one who "plays" Michael Jackson isn't the best dancer, but he looks like the meanest face, so wonder how he won that, hmmmm.... And then there's the "girlfriend." I love how from a distance you think there's a woman there, but close up..... Also, my brother who loves Vincent Price talks about how little VP liked Michael Jackson, who got him to do his part for a flat fee and so Price never shared in any of the millions this song and video made...

Friday night was fun! martang got folks together for a dinner at the delicious Brazilian restaurant in N. Austin, Sampaio's. Oh, those delicious little wheat-free, rice-bread yeast rolls were as good as I remembered! With my allergies, eating bread in a restaurant is a rare event, so got one whole order of them to myself. Ah, cheesy deliciousness! We missed jipp, but it was fun to see willyumtx again and Jeffles and his (now) wife Sarah, she whom I hadn't seen since the Easter-egg/Engagement party in April of last year. There was a dish on the menu, grilled pork rolled in coffee, with a red cherry reduction sauce, that had intrigued me when I was there before. This time, Marty, William and I all three got it! And... it was only okay. The guys loved theirs, but I felt like I was eating overcooked meat crusty with coffee grounds. Not a primo experience. My next time, I'll stick with their fish dishes.

Left that dinner and was a little late for my dream-study group. A good gathering, the closest thing I do to going to church. One of my buddies there had a dream the very night he learned about a tragedy. His ill and manic/depressive older brother had committed suicide 10 days earlier and they'd only just located family to tell them. My friend dreamed his brother was younger, with two strong hips (multiple hip replacements had made him disabled), walking along a narrow wall away from my friend, with wonderful balance, and he'd turned back enough to grin broadly in goodbye. Very poignant! ( Read More... )

... as in Jabba the Hutt. Tucker is 10 years old, 26 pounds, and 36 inches from nose to tip of tail. He's a BIG boy!

Because he's so big and old, he can't groom his long fluffy hair like he needs to. So summertimes, he gets shaved down. It makes him a little chilly, but he seems to love the freedom.

He's been spending 90% of his time on the sofa these days. Sometimes when he props himself up to lick his belly, he just kinda slumps there, watching TV. Like a chubby human, or Jabba the Hutt. Check it out: