Obsessed

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I used to be one of those people who was never, and I mean NEVER, without something to read. If I didn’t have a book handy I’d read a magazine, a newspaper, an encyclopedia, a label, or even someone’s t-shirt.

I would read several books at the same time. I’d have one book in the bedroom for late night reading, another in the living room for those rare spare moments, and a third in my purse for the times I had to wait for my kids after school or a sport.

And okay, I’ll admit it. I can read upside down. Though I tried not to do it, ’cause other people do have a right to their privacy, after all.

Long story short, I was obsessed with reading.

But no more. The obsession is gone. I now catagorise myself as a casual reader.

That ravenous hunger for the written word – the one that once made me stay up all night to read five books, just because – is gone.

Pouf!

Before you congratulate me on getting my obsession under control I probably should let you in on a secret. Well, it’s more like a confession.

Sigh.

Here goes. I didn’t so much as get my reading obsession under control as I switched it. I no longer have the insatiable craving to read because I have the insatiable craving to write.

Now I’m the person who is never, and I mean NEVER, without a writing project.

Phew! It felt good to get that off my chest!

In some ways it’s easier. I can do a lot of the prewriting anywhere. I don’t really need pen and paper to plot a story or explore a character’s personality traits. Much of that can be done in my head while I’m in line at the grocery store, or listening to a friend’s overlong, boring story about…

What?

Oh, no! Of course I’m not talking about you! I’d never zone out while listening to one of YOUR stories. I promise. See, my eyes aren’t glazed over even the tiniest bit.

Anyway, the strange thing is that I’m the same type of writer as I was a reader. I always have multiple projects going the same time.

Well, I guess if I have to be obsessed with something…

 

Stone Woman novel excerpt

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I adapted the Stone Woman screenplay into novel form and now it’s time to begin the rewrites.

I’m not yet sure what the final version will read like – I’ll rewrite it a zillion and three times before it goes to print – but here’s where it is now.

Open the first page to:

“No, no, and again no!” Nicole yelled over her shoulder as she bulldozed her way through the thick jungle brush and stumbled into a clearing.

The honeymoon was not going as planned. Not only was she tired and sweaty from the long trek through the jungle, but a mosquito had just bitten her elbow and those ever-present howler monkeys would give a concert just when she wanted to think.

But to be honest, jungle inconveniences weren’t the problem. The problem was Michael. She didn’t know if it was because he was tall while she was petite, or because he was two years older than her, but he insisted that he had every bit as much right to make decisions for the two of them as Nicole did.

Only—he didn’t.

*   *   *

So much work to do. But hey, I like the story. It’ll be worth it!

Letter to Seattle City Leaders

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Seattle has a new nickname – City in Ruins.

I know, I know. You’re trying to fix the homeless problem. I’ve heard you say it a thousand times. Just give you more money and-

-And nothing!

You CAN’T solve the problem by throwing more money at it.
You CAN solve it by enforcing the law.
That’s right. We already have laws in place to stop most of this mess. It has never been legal to camp in city parks or on sidewalks.

Have you ever been around people? I sometimes wonder. Because people do what is easiest.

Make it hard to camp illegally in Seattle, make the campers uncomfortable and ill at ease, and they’ll stop.

Before you know it those droves of interlopers who have polluted our city with waste and drugs  will be gone. They’ll tuck their tails between their legs and scurry back to wherever they came from.

My neighborhood is one of the forgotten ones. A neighborhood full of families and small businesses, a neighborhood struggling to overcome the constant mismanagement of the City Council.

There’s a corner a few blocks from my house where sketchy people hang out. Right about when the City Council decided that citizens of Seattle mattered less than whatever drifter rolled into our town, the population of that corner exploded.

So now if I want to walk from my house to the business district I’d have to stroll through a disorderly crowd, most of them obviously drunk or loopy on drugs. I can’t count the number of times I’ve witnessed one or more of them dropping their drawers and…well, you know. It’s not at all hygenic.

As you might guess, my family has decided to use our cars to visit nearby stores and restaurants. And if there are sketchy people hanging out in those parking lots, we keep driving.

I’d rather take my business to a nearby town rather than put my family at risk.

But today, while walking our dog, my daughter found a tent in our very neighborhood. Not on the outskirts, not at the sanctioned site just up the road.

It makes me feel unsafe in my own neighborhood.

My question to you, Seattle City Leaders, is what are you going to do about it?

Happy Mother’s Day!

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To all the moms out there in this crazy world, I wish you a beautiful, relaxing day with your child. Or children, if you are so blessed to have multiple!

Watch, listen, and remember. Notice, really notice, the wonderful creature you’ve helped create.

This is your kid. Your greatest achievement.

Even if you’re instrumental in finding the cure for cancer, it won’t compare to the importance of nurturing a little human into a big human.

All those nights without sleep,
the messy house,
the worry,
the hours spent shuttling the little monster hither and yon…
all worth it.

It’s about the survival of our species.

And that special bond between a mother and her child.

Close cat call

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Guest Post by Pepper Curious: 

I was following a very interesting scent today when I almost got to have a private conversation with one of those pesky cats in my neighborhood.

I say almost because just as I got close enough to realize the scent I was following was that of a certain black cat that always does his best to irritate me–right when I looked up and saw that very cat sitting at the top of a set of steps–he took an olympic leap right over my head and shot off around the house to the backyard.

A fenced backyard, of course. This cat is sneaky and knows exactly which yards are out of my reach.

It is probably just as well, since I hadn’t had time to plan what I would say.

I’d probably tell him to stay out of my yard. I just hate going outside first thing in the morning to be met by the lingering odor of cat. Yuck!

I’ll catch up with him sometime. One of these days….

Why you should read to your child

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(From a talk I gave several years ago. I apologize for the length.)

When I was asked to come to speak about the importance of reading aloud to children, my first thought was “But doesn’t everyone already do that?”

Then, I started thinking about how busy most of our days are. I promise you, some days it feels like I am trying to squeeze 26 hours of activities into the allotted 24. I am surprised that I can even find time to breathe, much less take on one more responsibility.

But for me, the responsibility of reading to my children has always been more of a joy than a chore.

It could be because I have always loved books.

It could be because it brought back fond memories of being read to as a child. Even though I probably didn’t understand the story, I remember my mother reading Tarzan to me well before I could read.

Or it could have been because at the end of a tiring day, I could turn on the reading autopilot and let the book do the thinking for me. I could spend quality time with my children with very little effort expended. Then, when I was done, I knew the children would all be in bed, and I could have a little peace and quiet.

As a matter of fact, the only times my children did not get read to before bed, was when they were so exhausted they couldn’t even put on their own pajamas. And sometimes even then I read them a short story, until they began to snore their little child snores.

Now, I am a person who does not like routine. But I found that the routine of reading to my children every night provided them with so much comfort, that it was worth a little discomfort on my part.

So what if I missed my favorite show.

So what if the dishes were waiting for me, I needed to make some phone calls, bills needed to be paid, and I was exhausted.

So what if I had a million and one things waiting on my To Do list. I just knew in my heart that this was the right thing to do, and I followed my instinct. This time I spent reading aloud with my children was special to me, and more importantly, it was special to my children.

I will tell you, I have never regretted the millions of hours I have devoted to reading to my kids. The youngest is now 10 and the oldest is 19 and in college. They are all excellent readers, and as often follows, excellent students. And of course absolutely perfect in every way.

Well…they are all excellent students.

So that has been my experience.

Okay, so now you might say that I was just fortunate to have kids who are able to do well in school, which sets them up for success. You could be right.

I don’t know about you, but I want to give my child every advantage I possibly can.

I know some of you might believe that since the schools focus quite heavily on reading, that it is not really that important that you read to your child every night. After all, most children in Seattle Public Schools have a certain amount of time they are required to read every day.

But a child doesn’t start school as soon as they are born. By the time a child is 6 years old, they will have only had 700 hours in schools. That same child will have had 52,000 hours out of school!

Now based on studies, you can pretty much know in advance how prepared a child will be for school just by knowing where the child’s family is economically.

A typical child coming from the poverty level will hear 13 million words by the time they are 4.

A child from a working class family will hear 26 million, and from a professional 45 million.

The number of words heard makes a difference, because the more often a child “meets” a word, the better able they will be to understand and decode it. Skills which are vitally important in reading.

As a matter of fact, a child must meet a word 12 X before they start to recognize it.

So the child that has heard the most words will have the best chance of more easily learning to read.

We all know that the ability to read is directly related to success in school.

Okay, some of you might be thinking. I’ll solve that problem by talking to my child more.

Great idea, except nothing is ever as easy as it should be. The total number of words heard is only part of the story.

You see, we use the same 5,000 words over and over. They make up our Basic Lexicon. There are an additional 5,000 words that are used less often, but still, we pretty much only use and reuse the same 10,000 words in normal conversation.

To have a good vocabulary, a child will need more that those 10,000 normal words. A child must be exposed to rare words.

As you can see by this chart, even prime time TV, which you would think would be full of great vocabulary, doesn’t even compare to a children’s book. Would you have ever guessed that your child would be better off reading a magazine or a comic book than watching television?

On a side note, many people overestimate the level of vocabulary used on TV. For example, the typical Cosby Show episode used vocabulary at the third grade level. And very few rare words.

Of course, the vocabulary a child will acquire through books is only a part of the puzzle. If all a child needed was to hear more rare words, you could probably just pop in a PBS video, and your job would be done.

Boy, would you be missing out, and so would your child.

Because you see, in this whole read aloud activity with your child, the most important part of reading to your child…is you.

When you take the time to read to your child, you are saying to them “you are important to me.”

You are telling them “reading is something I enjoy, so I want to share it with you.”

You are giving them a new place of comfort that will be available to them for the rest of their lives.

They may not consciously remember why, but when they get older, they’ll get that warm fuzzy feeling every time they pick up a book. And you will have created that warm fuzzy place for them.

You will have made reading a fun activity.

So if you already read to your child, keep doing it, and enjoy the time you spend with your child.

If you don’t yet have the habit of reading aloud to your kids, it’s really never too late to start. Kids love getting attention from their parents. Unless, of course, they are getting the negative kind because they have been writing on the walls or forgot to do their homework.

So don’t worry if your child can read. Just as you don’t stop talking to your child once they learn to talk, why should you stop reading to them just because they learned to read. You can still share the drama and fun of reading.

Oh, and you remember me mentioning my 10 year old? Well, she still gets read to even though last year she tested as able to read at an 11th grade level. We just read harder books that are, of course, fun.

Successful hunt

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Guest Post by Pepper Curious: 

I had a successful hunt today!

I caught a bird!

I was so excited.

It was great until my silly person panicked and made me let the bird go.

Before I could recapture it, it hopped away and hid.

Now it is lost to me.

I wasn’t going to hurt it. I was just going to play with it for a while.

Probably.

Hi Victoria

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Again with the Victoria!

It happened to me twice this week. Two different businesses called me Victoria, one on the phone and one via email. Both had my name right in front of them.

I have nothing against the name ‘Victoria’, except it is NOT my name. Never has been.

Is the name ‘Veronica’ really that hard to understand, say, or remember?

It seems simple enough to me.
A ‘v’ followed by an ‘e’ followed by an ‘r’ followed by an ‘o’ followed by an ‘n’ followed by an ‘i’ followed by an ‘c’ followed by an ‘a’.
V-e-r-o-n-i-c-a.
Ver-on-i-ca.
Veronica.

This weird glitch in the human brain that causes people to call me Victoria (or sometimes Vanessa, Monica, or Virginia) has plagued me my entire life. You’d think I’d be used to it. Or at least not care.

But I’m not, and I do.

Veronica. My name is Veronica.

Got that?

The mystery of the missing stones

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Pic 1: Our back fence in the fall.

Pic two: Our back fence now.

See the difference?

No?

Focus on the right side, where the fence meets the stones. See it now?

I’ll help you out. Here’s a close-up.

I have two questions.

Who removed the stones from the bottom of my fence?
(That person-size gap wasn’t there before and no one in my household moved them.)

And why?