the wife

Ten seconds radio air time = 42 syllables.

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Yesterday, my wife paid for a day sponsorship at our local NPR station, to congratulate me on the release of Child of Fire. (It was supposed to be a surprise, but… oops!)

That pleases me, partly because I love our local NPR affiliate and I want to support them, and partly because it would be cool to hear my name on the radio in some other capacity than “Harry in Seattle writes to us…”

Here’s the interesting thing, though: The day sponsorship messages have to be ten seconds long, and that means 42 syllables. Interesting, huh?

I leave San Diego today

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Today I will be taking the train out of San Diego back to Studio City. Yesterday’s signing went well–I even got to sign the poster!–and lunch with my editor and publicist went very nicely.

Yesterday was also the day my credit card forced its way out of my wallet and I spent some money down on the exhibitor floor. Nothing crazy–I certainly didn’t buy the 100 dollar lightsaber that changed color–but I did pick up some nice books at the Mysterious Galaxy booth and some magazines for my son. I also picked up the Call of Cthulhu movie (Yay!)

Famous people sighted yesterday (in chronological order): Joshua Jackson from FRINGE, Woody Harrelson from the upcoming ZOMBIELAND, Amanda Tapping from SANCTUARY and various STARGATE series, and Grant Imahara, one of the MYTHBUSTERS.

More importantly, I got a call from my wife yesterday–she’s back from her camping trip in the Olympic Peninsula, and called me here at the hotel. It’s been almost a week since I talked to her, and… yeah. I miss them both. I’ll be back in Seattle soon enough.

I eat

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Tonight, I’ll be meeting my family (wife, son, visiting sister-in-law) for dinner at my favorite restaurant. It’s provincial French, and very simple. Not too fancy, but delicious food.

I wish they’d put the Normandy Chicken back on the menu, though.

Should I mention that I had completely forgotten about it, and that my wife had to call me to remind me? No, better not.

No Fireworks…

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In previous years, we would all be at a park a few blocks from here to watch fireworks.  It was far from the action, but we could see it all and who needs to fight the crowds?

This year?  Well, as we just discovered barely more than an hour ago, those fireworks have been cancelled this year.  There’s still another display, but it’s across town, and being carless, we could never get there in time–not even the buses can run quickly enough.

Fireworks on TV this year (which is fine by me, since I’m not that enthusiastic about them).  My wife and son are terrible disappointed.

HNBD

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Today was my not-birthday. As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I have the same birthday, and that sucks–somebody ends up doing the dishes on their special day. So I moved my day back a month.

I don’t much like cake, so I had my traditional (melon-free) fruit salad. My son bought me a new baster and my wife gave me the same gift I got for Christmas–permission to buy a rilly rilly nice computer when the G4 Mac Mini on my desk gives up the ghost.

At this point, I’m starting to hate my old computer. I glare at it when iPhoto lags or I can’t upload video from my camera–someday it will be dead, and with Apple Care expired I will get new very very soon.

I hope.

I also had market fresh nectarines for my snack breaks at work, and a beautiful steak with sauteed mushrooms for dinner. Nice. All I need to do to make this a perfect day would be to get to bed early.

Three for Thursday

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1) In about an hour, I’m going to have a yearly performance review for day job. Good thing I’m posting to the internet right now. (Update: not fired)

2) I wish I could find the spot in WordPress that would let me capitalize the first letter of my name. It’s so annoying seeing it that way. Of course I find it as soon as I post about it. Of course I do.

3) Last night, I asked my wife to sit down next to me and I said “I have to tell you something you’re not going to like.”

For most husbands, the next line would be something like “There’s this woman at work…” or “I spent the grocery money on a new Playstation” or whatever. My wife knows better. She knew it would be either about our son’s school or something I’d done to cause pain to my own self.

In this case it’s the latter. After being fine for 10 years, I’ve started having wrist pain again. When I told her, she immediately grabbed my arm and started working on me.

(Digression: One of the physical therapists in town has started telling people that my wife is one of the best massage practitioners in the state. The boy and I had the same reaction, separately: “Only the state?”)

She started to traction my wrist immediately, turning it this way and that, and the way it cracked as it released startled the hell out of me. Wrists shouldn’t do that. She also worked on my forearm for a while, and lemme just say that shit hurts. Yes, I’m a big wimp, but it still hurts like hell. She just about had me ready to confess to anything she wanted.

It’s better today, but I can still feel it. I see ice in my future.

This makes me happy

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Remember a couple days back when I said my wife was painting behind me? Well, she has a commission. It’s not finished, but I’m estatic to see her working on it.

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Oh, and I fixed WordPress. I even got rid of those faint gray links.

Today

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I’m not around much today. I’ve taken a break from my daily goal to get a cup of coffee and skim my friends list, when I found this.

My wife is sitting behind me, working on her latest canvas. It’s a good life.

Tomorrow…

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Tomorrow, the whole family will be going to the Apple Store to buy some sort of iPod for my luddite, tech-phobic wife.

Amount of research I have done on this purchase so far: none.

Pizza tonight

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My son’s school is having a benefit pizza party tonight. Mom and boy are already there, hanging out at Volunteer Park or the library nearby, and I’ll be catching a bus over there later to join them. It sucks that they have to kill three hours between the end of school and the start of the party, but it didn’t make much sense to have him ride home on the school bus for an hour, demand food at home, then take a Metro bus in the other direction.

As for me, I’m making progress on Everyone Loves Blue Dog, but I can’t shake the feeling that I should have finished by now. I really really want this thing to be in my rear view mirror. Man Bites World is sitting fallow while I tinker and trim, and I am itching to get back to it. … Blue Dog is solved. It’s done. At this point, I’m just managing the reader’s experience, which is important (very important, I know) but it isn’t interesting.

Also, I’m tired. Tired enough to feel kinda sick. If we owned cell phones, I’d call my wife and beg off.