Howl

Everyone is off this week except for me. Not only am I not off, I am not anywhere near off.

I am one busy bee this week!

By the end of this week I am going to feel like this.

Ha, ha! You know me, that is my Thanksgiving song. It is funny because it actually is a hymn of thanksgiving. Not to us, Lord, but to Your Name be the glory. I always play it when Thanksgiving dinner is over and I will do that this year, that is for sure. As long as I survive it that is.

Every Monday I find myself actively resenting that the weekend is over. I mean I take it personally. I grow nostalgic thinking back. That picture above, that is a dog that I hugged on Saturday! You cannot tell from the picture but he was huge. When we were getting out of the car we glimpsed his rear from behind the house and my mother said, "That looks like a cow."

The dog was at the estate sale...


... where I bought my black telephone. Unfortunately the dog was not for sale.

This week is an especially tall order because Thursday is Thanksgiving.

We have special challenges for Thanksgiving this year the chief challenges being my little nephews George Andrew and George Henry. We have to use their middle names to tell them apart.

George Henry is 6 and does not know fear. Remember, last Christmas I went with him on the infamous Sled Ride Into the Unknown. Wow, what a sloppily written Web log post that was! You could tell I was out of it.

George Andrew is 2 and has just discovered that crayons can write on walls. So there go the crayons for this year. For years I have relied on crayons to keep the kids busy. Well, they do not work that well anyhow.

I was sitting there the other day thinking, I hope the French doors survive! They have survived generations of various families who have lived in this house. But with George Andrew you never know.

Also what about the Czechoslovakian china? My mother has handed over to me this beautiful set of Czechoslovakian china with delicate red, blue and gold to be used at the Thanksgiving table. I am looking at it thinking, um, Mom, are you sure?

My sister Margie is coming in from New Jersey. My sister Katie called making plans for Friday. "You're off, aren't you?" she said.

NO I AM NOT OFF!!!!

Zut alors, these people from another planet!

That Non Nobis Domine, that is me going through my week! Carrying my book on Leonard Pennario on my shoulders while holding down my full-time job.

Well, the book is going well anyhow!

I think I will have the first draft done by the time my braces come off which is Dec. 30. There is a rightness to that because the reason I have the braces goes back to when I was in California with Leonard. Then early in 2010 I can do what I have done for the past two years and blow all my vacation early in the year. That will give me four weeks which should give me enough time to revise my first draft and do my second draft.

After that is when publishers will come calling.

Well, first there is Thanksgiving to get through. I say for Thanksgiving the same thing I say for the book.

I can do it!