Dim Sum Diaries
Back from Reno, NV and the romance writers conference. Have much to blog about, and somehow survived two thousand women, a whole lot of ego and estrogen so densely packed in one place. I'll blog more in detail later. For now, the only thing I have to say is that some people have interesting sayings...

Examples:

He is a vagina whisperer...


Which I guess is supposed to mean the lucky man is like "The Horse Whisperer" by Nicholas Sparks...and he is really good with...vaginas...

If I was in a room full of horse poop, I'd look for the pony...

Again which I take to mean that she sees that the glass is half full instead of half empty. But just an interesting non-Californian way of putting it.
Just found another cool weblog by Sasha, who took these gorgeous black & whites of Gosford Castle, an abandoned castle in Northern Ireland. And I'm totally stealing the following blurb from boingboing:

Sasha sez, "Plans have been made to restore it into apartments, a hotel, and a casino over the years, but they all failed and the castle has been empty since 1983. The castle itself is unique, only one other castle in the world has been built in this style (Normandic Revival). The other castle is in Wales, and has been beautifully restored. Due to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there hasn't been a lot of money for projects like this, which has led to the castle slowly turning into a ruin the way it is now."


Starting to get ready for Reno, packing, etc etc etc. Just came back from a weekend at my parents. I'm getting pretty excited!

On a completely unrelated sidenote, here is a warning to any prospective person who wants to marry into my family (maternal), don't piss my mom (your potential aunt-in-law) off, because you'll regret it. That is, don't invite my mom and the aunties out for dinner, then when Auntie M's significant other has gotten off from work late and shows up to dinner when it is almost finished, and he has his bowl of rice in hand with chopsticks, don't loudly say, "No you can't eat any of the dishes because this one dish is for my dad's lunch, this other dish is for my lunch tomorrow and this last dish is for my fiancee's lunch tomorrow," and force him to only eat white rice.

Because then you'll piss everyone off and I'll publish thine exploits on the internets. :)

So Obviously A Scam
Originally uploaded by miriyaparino.
At my parents' house and just after dinner I see this paper posted on the side of a grungy pay phone. I didn't have a camera with me, so I ripped it off (much to the consternation of onlookers) and scanned it for internets consumption. Wouldn't it be funny if everyone actually called him?
Hubby has safely returned to the nest from his long ass business trip, and is currently rolling around the floor with the kids in mock wrestling. They really missed him. :p

I'm going to go have my hair done in a couple of hours. The writers' conference is coming up and I need to look au courant, which means the long stringy hair and unibrow look is unacceptable. Then I'm supposed to stop in at an old friend's son's birthday party on the way to driving up to my parents.

Quite a busy week coming up.
I'm moving to London, cuz they have all the good shit.

Bah!!!
I am posting an extremely gratuitous photo of Hugh Jackman because this is my blog and I think the blog needs some eye candy.

I can already imagine Hubby rolling his eyes and heaving a sigh at me. :)

The Following Blog Content Has Been Provided by Berk


Apparently I've invaded France.

From the bowels of le hypermarché, Berklee found the following:



Thanks, Berk!

And since we might as well go whole hog, I also found this off his site, let me link the most stunningly realistic simulation of fighting with your girlfriend (or wife), as it were. Because its true!
Daughter got her first same age friend, non relative let's give us a kissy kissy phone call today. I stared at her thoughtfully as she chatted on about what she'd been doing since school let out. The girl is only 7 years old...I'm not sure how I feel about her getting these "phone calls". I mean seriously, she's only been out of diapers for awhile...what is with the sudden leap into growing up so fast?

*sighs*

And since el kiddos are with me at home full time now, I've decided to try to expose them to culture etc etc etc. Which includes making them listen to all nine hours of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (Complete Ring Cycle) whilst in the car (there are potty breaks). Also, they've been enrolled in day camps at the local childrens museum, to which they protested vehemently.

"But Mommy, I don't want to learn about volcanoes!" Daughter grumped.

Fast forward a few days later, she was chatting on about how they'd made volcanoes out of cookies and frosting for a snack, etc etc etc...

I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, you mean you listened to Mommy, and went to camp...and you actually enjoyed it????????" I asked in a surprised tone of wonder.

She gave me the the look. "Oh Mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It's good to be the mom. :p
So anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows how much of a romance genre fiend I am. I have oodles and oodles of romance books and I think I may have singlehandedly kept the romance industry in business through the sluggish years of 1999-2004. :p

So since at home, have decided to do a bit of housecleaning. I only tend to buy romances by authors I like now, so as to avoid disasters like this. So anyways, just throwing old romances (which are in pristine condition btw) into a huge plastic bag to donate to the AmVets thingie cuz I'm too lazy to resell on ebay. I think I have over 200 books in the bag now. Hubby was in amazement when he saw 2 huge garbage bags of books sitting by the staircase.

"You are so out of control," he remarked.

Yes, I am.

Maybe I'll take a pic of it later. :p

PS - Some of my fave authors started a group blog.

Just caught this pic via boingboing. It seems to capture one aspect of the common sensibility.

In my own life, I'm getting ready to go to a writers conference at the end of July. Found out my critique partner had one of her manuscripts final in a writing contest, so that's pretty exciting!

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm writing. Due to my own lazy-assedness and addiction to WoW and family obligations and still in a "duh" state since being laid off, I'd have to say no, not really. I do feel tho that I'm slowly gaining back some momentum and starting to get into the swing of things again. Blogging more regularly, for one. Trying to take a daily walk with the kids, enjoy the sunshine, lose some of the squiffy-ness I seem to have acquired because of not walking. Spending enjoyable time with the kids, who seem to love bickering with each other, folding laundry with me and making up their own theme song to everything (much like their father).

Caught Son the other day, dancing around the room and singing:

"Yeah...eat mac and cheese...and...shake yer booty!!!!"
Just heard about the London bombing on NPR. Which made me think of the UK bloggers I read...immediately went online to check what was up. Andrew, glad your ok. :)

I'm horrified, and I wish I knew what else to say...