Cat's first mouse. (Isn't that sweet?)

We had a landmark moment the other day: Cat caught a mouse. It was her first mouse, she was very proud. I suppose. I mean I guess she was proud of it, she brought it home to show us. She had no idea what to do with it, except bring it home to show her people that she’d caught a mouse. She did her job as a cat: catch mice. Yay? (I thought her job was to warm my lap and purr, but Hubby corrected me.)

Anyway, it was cause for celebration. After some discussion on Google Plus, it was decided that I should go so far as to bake a cake in honor of the event. It was chocolate if anyone’s interested. German chocolate with that caramel-coconut frosting because I like that stuff and was in the mood for it. Wait, no, because Cat likes it - it’s her favorite. 

When The Girl found out about the mouse, surprisingly she didn’t fuss. She did go get some of Cat’s kitty treats that are supposed to help her breath and practically force fed them to her. The Boy just nodded in passing on his way to the Xbox where he proceeded to kill zombies. Cat joined him later in support of the cause.

So, there you go. Our cat is growing up. She apparently isn’t completely neurotic despite being told she’s going to be fed to a fox, although she’s still home every night before dark (good kitty). The HOA hasn’t caught on to her wandering outside of our yard yet, or hasn’t figured out where this little black cat lives to send us a letter. I keep waiting and crossing my fingers. The foxes or The HOA - who will see Cat first? (Or the four little Chihuahuas down the street. She likes to tease and work them into a frenzy. Remember I said there weren’t any barking dogs? Yeah, until Cat met them. Sigh.)

Chocolate and Sex

Mother’s Day follow up: we went by the local chocolate factory after the holiday for no particular reason. The holiday went well, but Hubby decided I deserved chocolates. There’s a reason we’ve been married twenty years.

Friday night, as The Girl sat beside Hubby and me, playing Minecraft, (being mindless and blowing off steam after a hard day of trying to forget about dissecting a frog in biology, and worse, trying to forget her mother was there to help; showing her friends and peers I’m not the evil creature of torture that parents are portrayed to be) we decided to have a chocolate. Hubby produced the required sugar and handed me a chocolate. I tested it, found it pleasing. He took a nibble, has no tolerance for sugar and handed it back. I gave the rest to The Girl. She was more than happy to finish it off. Hubby handed me another one. Repeat process.

The Girl asked why chocolate was so popular with women. We believe in being honest with our children, so Hubby explained it releases endorphins in the brain. Considering the movies she’s already seen, I think it’s little late to start playing coy. Like sex, I finished for him.  

“Wait,” The Girl said, as I handed her the third chocolate. “That kind of means I’m having sex now. And since we’re sharing, this is incest.”

Hubby closed the box of chocolates. No more for The Girl. She’s warped.

Help! I need to learn how to write YA fanfic!

Okay, so my father-in-law has something to say about the quality of literature being produced. He’s concerned about errors in production. Apparently, in my haste, I mistook that for being his main concern. He also got his hands on some article that talked about kids having shorter attention spans and not reading as much as they used to. And another about children’s literature being darker and containing more adult concepts.

Suddenly my Twilight fan-fiction writer cover was going to come under scrutiny. I don’t write young adult, I don’t even read young adult literature. I write romance. Usually erotic romance. Can you get any farther from young adult literature than that? I hope not. The Girl still assures me she doesn’t see that stuff in the books she reads. The Boy would be mortified by a kiss in any book he picked up. (If it’s not death, destruction, and zombies, he’s not interested.)

"So who is watching what is being published for these kids to read?" Dad demands. Silence. Ahem, Tori, your turn. “The market.”

Again with the wrong answers. Okay, Hubby, give your dad a lesson in supply and demand economics. Go ahead. Nudge, nudge. Crickets chirp. Yeah. Right. Deep breath.

Okay, listen. Dark stuff was always out there, just not in bulk. The Lord of the Flies would be easily absorbed by today’s literary tone, I think I read somewhere that it even took a while to get attention in 1954. My high school senior English AP had The Catcher in the Rye on the reading list just to be edgy and be able to swear in class.

Yeah, YA lit is more open about some things that concern that age group: sex, cutting, drugs, peer pressure, suicide. It’s the same stuff that concerned teens in the 90’s and 80’s and 70’s. Now teens can look at how their teen protagonists in books are handling it. Because just like in the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s or whatever, odds are they’re a wee bit reluctant to sit down with the parents to have a heart to heart chat. Heaven knows every time I have a little time to loosen up The Girl and try to get her talking it’s like pulling teeth on an irate crocodile.

Did the father-in-law want to hear that? No. But The Girl backed me up. (Bless her.) So we’ll wait until he finds another article on the subject. And I better learn to write Twilight fanfic. Eek!

Writing Fanfic . . . or not

I had an interesting conversation at a family dinner with my father-in-law a few days ago. Sorry, that's a lie. The conversation was mostly boring and frustrating as hell because he's a wee bit on the senile side, but he made a point. We gave him a book for Christmas, which is pretty normal, (something about living during the time of Christ, honestly not important). What was a big deal was that there was an error. Not factual, but a typo. In three hundred pages, this eighty something year old caught a typo. Personally, I'm impressed. Not only that he caught it, but that there was only one, and I told him so.

That was, of course, the wrong answer. It spawned a big debate about the quality of the books being produced.

I write. My in-laws know I write, which is why I had this conversation with my father-in-law to begin with. They just don’t understand what I write. The word ‘romance’ is never, ever uttered in their presence. To them I write paranormal, because my first book was. So the whole family thinks I write Twilight fanfic, even though at the time I hadn’t heard of Twilight. Considering the truth . . . why yes, I write Twilight fanfic. Grit my teeth and smile.(The internet is a vague concept to them, and blogs are so far in left field I'm really not concerned.)

So you say there was an error in the book, Dad? That doesn't surprise me. Most books sent out by major publishing houses do go through an editor, but it’s a quick technical edit looking for major errors and plot holes. They’re human. They’re hopped up on caffeine. They’ve read four books already that week and have a virtual stack on their desktop to go. Give them a break. Don’t misunderstand, I respect these people. I cannot do what these editors do and I know that. When I pick up a book from a major publishing company and see the occasional error, I chalk it up to Starbucks and pressure from the independent publishing companies cranking out a hundred romance novelas a week in ebook format. They are many and they’re bringing the goliath ‘Big Six’ to their knees bit by bit. And don’t even get me started on editing in the self publishing market . . .

Father-in-law now has a slightly glazed look in his eyes and the rest of the family is horrified by my rant. Only the patriarch of the family is permitted to rant. And there’s a look in his eye like he has something to say. Heaven help us, a speech is coming.

I sat and made myself comfortable like a good little daughter-in-law who sits at home and writes Twilight fan-fiction. Which I don’t. Oh goodie.

Mother's Day Preparations

The Girl approached me as I taught her to make quiche last night and asked if 'Not Her Boyfriend' could come over Sunday morning and help her make me breakfast for Mother's Day. Let's be honest, she should have asked Hubby, but he would have said no and I might have said yes. And she knew I felt guilty for freaking out 'Not Her Boyfriend' pretty bad by calling him "sweetie" and might want to make it up to him.

I see her reasoning, but no. So what do I want for Mother's Day? Not breakfast in bed. I'd rather not wake early and panicked to the smell of gas, arguing, and unidentified crashes in the kitchen. Also, they never clean it up right afterward. I will eat whatever they make, most likely, I'm not usually that picky. (Except duck eggs. But another time on that.)

The kidletts could do all their chores and get caught up on their homework without having to be nagged. By "they" I of course mean "The Boy," and of course I'm dreaming, so moving on... They could go 24 hours without snarky comments. (Glancing meaningfully at The Girl.) She hands me a mirror. Right, moving on...

Hubby is funny. He watched The Girl doing her scramble for a Mother's Day gift last week that she does every year about about this time. (The Boy just watches his sister impassively. He has faith either Dad will cover him or Mom will handle it herself). Hubby does much the same for his mother. He finally took pity on the kidletts this morning and said "Amazon eBook." He knows my account info and showed them my wish list. Thank the patron saint of online shopping he didn't show them my recently viewed. I did some research and... Is there a patron saint of the internet? There should be. More than one. There's too much to cover for just one. 

So, books for Mother's Day. Specifically, eBooks for Mother's Day. I think it should be the new trend. Knowing The Girl, I'm betting on something practical.

The Scientific Method

We had three birthdays in rapid succession giving us a thirteen-year-old boy, fifteen year old girl, and one year old cat. Now, you'd think the thirteen-year-old boy would concern me, but it’s the other two I'm writing about today. Hubby and I have many theories involving the idiot cat, which I’ll undoubtedly delve into at some point. We have all the usual concerns involving the girl too. One concern her interest in the scientific method.

Now most adults may be thinking “What kind of mother are you to discourage that kind of academic exploration?” And many parents out there are nodding knowingly and thinking “Yeah, got it, no more needs to be said.” I’ll say it anyway.

They say you can't put frogs in boiling water because they'll hop out. You have to put them in cold water and slowly bring it to a boil. I am not going to tell you how I know this isn't true. Anyway, The Girl started with this premise, put the cat in my bathroom sink with an open drain, and Cat snuggled in. So far, this is pretty normal. The Girl turned on the faucet: a nice, alluring, playful drip. The result is a happy cat. Bat, bat, bat at the drip, lick paw, bat.

Now the ‘science’ begins. The Girl closed the drain. Cat continued to bat at the drip, bat, bat. The sink began to fill. Lick paw, bat, bat. Cat’s fur was starting to get wet, not just her paw now. Bat, bat, bat, lick. Hmm . . . Lick paw, her paw's dry. Hmm . . . Cat's confused. The sink's filling, The Girl’s laughing. Bat, bat, bat, lick, still wet.

Cat shifts in her sink and everything becomes clear to her. You might say it 'sinks in.' She stares at the sink now almost half-full of water, something that wasn't there when she climbed in. Like most self respecting cats, she decided it was time to leave. That sounds simpler than it was. The funny thing about a cat jumping out of a sink with wet paws - it's slippery.

The end result of The Girl’s experiment? Hubby will be the one Cat will blame, for no reason other than he lives here.