Empty nesting part deux

My dear sweet expensive daughter. It was not her fault to be the recipient of faulty genes. After being diagnosed for a rare condition, she is managing and finally made it back to Oberlin College in Ohio, where, ironically, she is Pre Med. My son is busy, apparently riding camels in the deserts of Mongolia, and eating a lot of real Chinese food, in Shanghai. We are glad he is thriving there, babbling away happily in Mandarin, and enjoying being away from everything familiar and boring, like us. We have a quiet house, and much lower grocery bills. I miss my babies, who are about to turn 21.

So we are officially empty nesters, and are looking at each other trying to figure out if we want to travel (me), sit and pay bills and yell at Fox News (him), and pray we do not get dreadful phone calls from either hospitals, sick family members, or quasi hysterical children due to car mishaps and passport issues (yes, and yes). In the meantime, I am cleaning out the studio, selling off my creations at local shows, and have retired from wholesale shows. The world has changed and I am lucky to have had a great ride with some amazing stores, buyers, catalogs, and travel experiences. Oh the stories I could tell. I promise, I will. Stay tuned, and happy quasi retirement to me.

La Vida Loca, my first book, will be out soon!

Holy Mudda Of Gawd,

She is done. Fini. I have written my little tootsie off for 15 years, and now it is finally ready to go to print. I just have to decide about cover art, and whether or not to dedicate it to my goldfish. They are literally the life giving force around here, and are awfully cute and friendly. I think it would be best to give credit to them since I forget to feed them every now and then. When I do remember, they are not happy and splash me with their tails in protest. Maybe even nibble my fingers in anger. Once fed, I apologize, water the plants and sing to them in my off key warble. Life goes on and we all just keep swimming.

I met with my editor/cow prodder in chief today for the final time to join my work in the annals of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and other books busy collecting dust mites at your local libraries. Hopefully, this one you will pick up, chortle, hit spiders with it, and pass on as good bathroom reading to your nosy neighbor. Perhaps you will come to a book signing with placards and camp out on my front lawn to protest the indignities you have suffered after reading. If you like it, just leave me a gift of some fresh eggs, mint, like my editor did, to celebrate the end of this tome. I promise it will not go to waste, and be very appreciated! I will post announcements and links to purchase soon. And please don't shoot the author.

La Vida Loca!

California is an amazing place, for good and bad. It is the land of extremes. You have the extreme fires in LA, the extreme heat of the desert, the extremely stupid politics, and the bizarro mayor who seemed not to give a rats' behind that her city was burning to the ground. Oh, and the governor, who seemed more like a meme of some greasy weirdo with an overcoat you best not meet on a street at night.

On the flip side, it had booze for miles and miles. Not that I am even close to a lush as 2 is my limit, but it was impressive that Trader Joes, The Grocery Outlet, Albertsons, Costco, and Walmart had aisles of strange brews indeed. Here where I live, we have the famous Pennsylvania "Blue Laws" where you can't buy hard liquor in regular supermarkets, nor on Sundays, you have to sell your firstborn to get a cold beer, and only in a package good store or a licensed pub. I mean, it is crazy. California wants you to drink all their wine and spirits at a pool, eating strange nuts fruits and crackers with funny Swedish names you cannot pronounce. Plus, everything is organic or has some kind of story, like the goats eat the grass the beef is fed on by a farmer whose family also runs marathons for charity. Yawn. I think I will go to the pool and forget I read the package.

We managed to go out to a few restaurants. Everything there is super-duper expensive, and gas is insane. Once you get over your sticker shock and realize that the bus boy makes more than you do, you live with it. I could not find was a decent Chinese restaurant. or Hoagie place, or a REAL Jewish Kosher Deli without bacon on everything. They had lots of great Mexican places, from abuela's kitchen to carts dishing out the best tacos and empanadas anywhere. Followed by cervezas of course. We managed to go to 2 fancy pants places, where the average age of the diner was dead.

Most importantly, I finished the 1st draft of my book, with the working title: La Vida Loca (tm), and I was amazed that I devoted so much time to getting all of my crapola organized and not some random stream of consciousness. I had some good advice along the way, but now is the time I need to fly by the seat of my pants and see where this takes me. My goal is to be sorta like David Sedaris, who, if you have been living under a rock, is funny and weird and quirky but in the best way.

I saw that there was room for a more feminine version and one that is going to turn the world on its head and make people think. There is so much absurdity in the world and life is not fair, so you have to just laugh a little. THat is my goal, but right now, I have to get ready for my upcoming trade shows and annual starvation torture of the ACC Baltimore, where I sel sell sell, and my feet are yelling at me to sit sit sit.