Cow Appreciation

This Friday was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a. That means that if you dress like a cow from head to toe, the wonderful folks at CFA will give you a full, free meal. So the six of us dressed like cows and went to CFA for dinner. And they gave us $38 in free food, including their spicy chicken sandwiches, sodas and waffle fries. (If you’ve never had CFA waffle fries you have missed one of the world’s two fast food delights. The other being In ‘n’ Out Burger’s “double-double, animal style.”)

Here’s a photo of two members of our herd.

Half the fun in going, besides the free food, was seeing all the other semi-crazed free foodies dressed in bovine attire. They ranged from babies in cow suits to kids in trash bags with black spots to grown men with tails.

CFA also gave us cute stuffed animal cows to take home. Fun, fun. We'll definitely go next year.

The Game that Never Ends

Last night we decided to play Clue. It’s not anyone’s favorite game, but Cal wanted to play so we all agreed. I shuffled the cards, inserted three in the “secret envelope” and dealt out the rest of the cards.

Everything went along swimmingly for about fifteen minutes. Then, Cal got a phone call. From the tenor of the conversation it sounded like the conversation would be long. The boys went off to play computer games, Ariel practiced violin, and I picked up the thriller that I’m halfway through. (The good guys are stuck in the hideout of the bad guys, and one of the two people they’re rescuing just died. Plus, the good guy’s girlfriend is very angry they went without her and she’s sending them text messages.) Anyway, after an hour, Cal hung up and we were back on track with the game. However, by this time Matt and Jake had gotten giddy. There’s nothing to make a game of Clue drag like male teen giddiness. For example, sending their sister’s token to a room to the opposite end of the board just for the heck of it. Or renaming the weapons—the knife becomes the booger-picker, the revolver is the booger-picker shooter, etc. As you can imagine that goes over really well with Ariel.

About that time, the phone rang again. We all left for our various amusements. (In the book, the ticked girlfriend was coming to the rescue of the trapped good guys.) This conversation was only about twenty minutes. After that, we came back to the game. We all traipsed around the board from one room to the next. Never seeming to find the right combination of person, weapon, and room. Finally, Ariel got tired and announced she was accusing “Mr. Green in the library with rope.” Luke announced, “Nope, the library’s wrong.” Then Matt accused “Mr. Green in the hall with the rope.” I said, “No, Matt, it’s not the hall.” Then I accused “Mr. Green in the billiard room with the rope.” Jake said, “Wrong.” At this point, Matt opened the secret envelope and said, “Uh, there’s a problem.” It turns out that Mr. Green did it with the rope and the lead pipe in some non-existent place. Perhaps, the fourth dimension. Yep, I messed the cards up. So the three hour game had no resolution.

Time to get back to the thriller and find out if the girlfriend really saves the guy or gets caught herself. The bad guys are really bad, so I’m hoping that she’s packing her booger-picker shooter. (Sorry, I couldn’t help that—I’ve been spending too much time with my 13 and 15 year old boys.)

Writers' Quotes

"I assumed the burden of the profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you are writing, and aren't writing particularly well."

~Agatha Christie

The Story's Calling

I don’t know about other writers, but when I finish something I’m completely at loose ends. Don’t get me wrong, I have a ton of things to do. I have a couple big gardening chores that I need to finish. Two Shakespeare costumes that need to be sewn. A basement that needs to be reorganized. And a storage closet that needs to be sorted.

But even with all those projects, I find myself wandering the house. I think I miss those characters whispering in my mind. Okay, it’s not that they stop. They do keep talking. They want to tell me their next story. But I have my fingers in my ears and I’m muttering, “I’m not listening. I’m not listening.”

Why? Because it’s hard to stop the story and the characters. And if their first story doesn’t sell, I don’t want to start their second because I hate to stop in the middle. Actually, I started their story, and I’ve left the MC in a very bad place. I really want to go back and rescue him, but it takes a lot of emotional energy and I’m not sure I want to commit unless I can finish it. And besides there are the costumes and the closet and the gardening... What? (Fingers come out of my ears.) The MC did what? You’ve got to be kidding. Sorry, gotta go. The story’s calling.

Vectors and Calculations

The other day Ariel announced that she’d figured out how to back-up the car. Now since she’s been driving for years, it came as a bit of a surprise to me. Granted, she’s pretty bad in reverse, but hey, she can do it. (Though there was that incident with the Hummer...)

So I asked her what she meant. She said, “I’ve realized that backing up—whether it’s parallel parking, reversing down a driveway, out of parking place, or doing a three point turn—is a vector problem. And the point of motion is the front tires since we have front wheel drive and those are the wheels that turn.” She had a look of triumph on her face.

I nodded my head. She was right from a mathematical standpoint. I said, “Yes, sweetheart, and if that helps you, I’m thrilled. The rest of us just turned around, pick a fixed point and back up.”

But that didn’t diminish her excitement. After all, when we’re driving anywhere as a family, this is the child that offers to calculate acceleration when we’re going around a curve because it’s a “cool calc 3 multivariable problem.” She also explains the mathematical principles of why we brake going into a curve and why we accelerate on the way out, and then she offers to calculate it. The rest of us nod politely and look out the window. Who knew people could get so giddy about math?

Zzzzz

I know I usually post on Friday mornings, and now it’s Friday night. But here’s the thing: I was busy revising/editing. I started at about 7:30 am and finished at 4:45 pm. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked on writing/editing/revising at one stretch. The good news is that I finished the revision, and bad news is that I haven’t been this exhausted in ages. I’m too tired even to read. And much too tired to write more.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the happy dance that I’ve finished the revision. Tonight I just want to sleep. Zzzzz.

Writers' Quotes

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.

~Orson Scott Card


Don't you just love this! It's so true.