We left and it was hot and sunny. We got over the coastal range and it was cloudy and windy.

We knew better than to forget the sweatshirts, though.

*sorry for the sappy mommy post. What can I say? I didn’t see her for THREE days, and she was sick the whole time. SOB SOB.

My sister just told me that my brother-in-law’s cousin, 23-year-old Ryann Bunnell Crow, has been missing since Jan 30th.

Here is the TV news report and the article. If you are in the area, please take a look.

Progress on:

Toilet tissue roll replacement: satisfactory, though still needs reminding.

Washing & drying laundry (his own, but that’s enough): satisfactory. Training complete.
Putting away laundry: mostly satisfactory.

Toast-making: excellent. Training complete.

Washing own dishes: utter failure. Cannot comprehend that rinsing it out is not equivalent to soap, scrub, rinse, dry. I fear anything he’s “washed.”

Doing more than just taking trash can liner out of trash can and setting it on the kitchen floor so that he “can fit more shit in there,” maybe even taking it out to the porch, instead, so that we can run it downstairs the next time we go out: failure. Reinforcement via shock therapy? Fail. Am trying starvation next.

Kitty litter replacement: Sigh. Still thinks it only needs to be replaced when the cat is ready to go on the clothes.

Tasks still doing myself because at least I know it’ll be done right: 1,233,302.

1) She almost passed out while trying to sing the last part of “Nessun dorma” along with Pavarotti … while driving to Safeway to get groceries for dinner. Road safety = FAIL.

2) If a fresh loaf of French bread enters her car, still warm from the Safeway bakery oven, chances are it will not come out of her car. (Digging through grocery bag for warm French bread while driving = double road safety FAIL.)

3) If the bread, by some miracle, does make it out of the car (usually with a huge chunk ripped out of it) it will likely not last until the the noodles are cooked.

4) Meljean’s idea of variety is having different kinds of noodles: spaghetti, fettuccine, rigatoni, or that spirally kind. Oh! or the bowtie kind.

5) She writes blog posts in the third person.

Here’s Pavarotti:

SETTING: Meljean’s kitchen, 10:25, about twenty minutes after she and her husband (who we will call Bobby) have returned home (and not having eaten yet.)

COMPLICATIONS: Meljean doesn’t want to cook anything substantial or time-consuming, so she pulls out the mac & cheese (generic brand, because she likes that better, and in dinosaur shapes, because she bought it for her daughter thinking her daughter would like that, but her daughter DID NOT LIKE IT AND WHERE WAS THE MACARONI? And so all of the regular macaroni mac & cheese was gone, leaving Meljean with Dino mac.)

ACTION: Meljean cooks Dino mac. Meljean stirs in cheese and realizes that it’s different than usual generic brand, and does not smell very good.

MELJEAN: (calls to husband, sitting in living room with computer on lap and tv to sports channel) Yo! The mac & cheese is going to be gross! It’s the bad version of mac & cheese!

BOBBY: That’s okay, I’ve gotten used to everything you make being the bad version of whatever it’s supposed to be.

MELJEAN: You can’t see it, but I’m flipping you off.*

BOBBY: You can’t see it, but I took my wiener out of my pants and put it in your ass.**

*Was really scooping the gross mac & cheese into a bowl…because Meljean is also used to eating the worst of whatever her food is supposed to be.

**Was really sitting on the sofa trying to look up Peyton Manning’s SNL commercial.

I went to bed about four-thirty last night after finishing a scene that I really liked (even if it was also very rough), woke up late for 1st day back to school, somehow got daughter/husband there on time, drove sister to work…and was stopped because my brake light was out.

While stopped, I learned that my license has been suspended for the past year. (Because last year, I’d been pulled over for having a missing headlight, and found out that my license had expired when I turned 30. Then I forgot about the court date, and sent in the money, but apparently even though you get a receipt/clear from the courts, you’re supposed to take that in to the DMV so that they can reinstate your license. Whoops.)

Went to DMV, was reinstated as a legal driver.

Now, 9:30, I’m back home and about to start writing again.

I am heading down to my parents’ house tomorrow morning (with my laptop). While everyone else is cooking, I’ll be writing … which is probably for the best, as my culinary skills are not legendary. Yesterday I took a day and made sure I had all of the story threads mapped out through Michael’s book (the eighth full-length novel), and they all fell nicely into place. I hope they stay that way during the writing. 

A couple of people have asked, but DEMON DAWN doesn’t have an official release date yet. I turn it in February, so that means it’ll be at least Fall ’09 … but later than that is more likely. This is, by the way, because of me and not the publisher — writing this year seemed to take twice as long as before, so even though I’m back on track, there’s a gap. 

The MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS anthology will be out this summer, though — and I’m working to get a free read up on the site that will be a nice prequel to DEMON DAWN and the upcoming arc, as well as an intro to anyone new to the series. That will probably be late summer. 

So, that’s next year. For now, have a great holiday if you’re in the U.S., and if not, have a great week, anyway

(Oh! and don’t forget that the BUY A BOOK, WIN $100 contest has been extended to Nov 30!)

1) The mini meat cleaver that came in the Hillshire Farms gift pack that your sister bought on sale after Christmas last year — and you aren’t really sure if she bought it for herself or if she planned to give it away this year (because summer sausage lasts a disturbingly long time), but it doesn’t really matter any more because you opened the package — makes an excellent pizza cutter. 

2) You can eat microwavable pancakes with the plastic knife that came with McDonald’s Southwest Chicken Salad. The fork would have been more handy, but you used that for the salad, so what the hell are you supposed to do? 

3) When you finally do have time to do the dishes again, messing around with your blog template is much, much, much more appealing. Not that updating the theme is just an excuse to put it off. It really needed to be done. (And if you prefer the old theme, you can use the drop down menu to the right to switch back to the Lazy Meljean theme.)

Hmm. Now, it’s time to write. So I guess I’ll hold off on those dishes for a little while longer … I think I have a spork in one of the drawers somewhere that desperately wants to be used, anyway.

So, yesterday I was at the school picking up my daughter and husband, and had to kill a little time before we went home. So I took my daughter out to the playground, where a second-grader was doing a cherry-drop off of the bars.

Only her cherry-drop wasn’t what I’d always thought of as a cherry-drop (which is when you hang from your knees, swing until you get high enough, then flip off.) So I showed her that, then a few other things that I hadn’t done in twenty years.

And completely amazed myself that I could do them. Amazed her, too. So I showed her how to do them, and she picked it up fast.

Her parents will probably kill me when she slips for the first time and ends up cracking her knees coming out of a death drop, but she’s going to be the queen of the playground for a little while.

But me … well, I was awesome for about two hours. First were the blisters (oh, how I remember those from elementary school. Every autumn, I had blisters until the calluses hardened my palms into steel. Now, my weenie hands are only good for typing.)

And my Achilles’ tendon is sore. Ouch ouch. I landed way too hard on a couple of those dismounts.

But worst are the backs of my knees. I bruise easily, but you should see the suckers behind my knees. It’s like someone whacked me with a baseball bat. And my back muscles are tight.

So I’m hobbling around and thinking, why oh why?

Yesterday, I was ten again. Today, I’m getting a good look at seventy.

Why, oh why?

I told you that November 4th was an important day. What I didn’t tell you, because I don’t share my cynicism with you just yet, is that last November 4th I’d have said I really didn’t think this could happen. Because I haven’t told you this, either, but your daddy has had the n-word shouted at him more than once since we’ve been married — not because he’s black, but because his skin isn’t white, and despite our living in a neighborhood where hatred like that supposedly doesn’t exist anymore. 

But last night, I sat on the sofa with you, watching a mixed-race man give his victory speech. I don’t know if the man America has elected will be able to follow through on his campaign promises. Maybe so, maybe not. Here’s what I do know: Already, the world you’ll grow up in is different than the one your mommy did. But more importantly, the world you’ll have is different than the one your daddy did, a world that has dreams that aren’t just dreams now, but possibilities — and realities.

And so when you tell me that you want to be President, and that maybe you can “be the first girl President,” I can say — and believe – that maybe you can. 

But considering that you’re five, and that you’ve got thirty years to go before you’re even eligible to run for that office, I trust you’ll forgive me when I hope you aren’t the first. 

The second or third would be awesome, though.