Numbers Are Hard, Yo

Let me tell you the tale of my doctor’s appointment.

At 10:45 am, I arrived at my doctor’s office for my annual checkup, ‘cause you know, I’m all proactive about my healthcare.

I went up to the desk and this happened.

Receptionist: Name?

Me: Bronwyn Green. I’ve got an eleven o’clock with Kristie.

Receptionist: *squints at screen and tilts head* Hmmm…I’m not seeing you. Birth date?

Me: June 3rd.

Receptionist: Are you sure it was at 11?

Me: Yep. See? *holds out appointment card*

Receptionist: *reads card* 11 o’clock on the 6th of February.

Me: Yeah-huh. I don’t know why I’m not in the computer.

Receptionist: Honey…it’s the 4th today. It’s Monday. The 6th is on Wednesday.

Me: So what you’re saying is that I don’t understand how calendars work.

Receptionist: *nods apologetically* Do you want me to see if we can squeeze you in today.

Me: Well, I did get all pretty to come down here.

Receptionist: *tilts her head and looks questioningly at me and rightfully so since I was a windblown mess*

Me: I shaved.

Receptionist: Oh. Right! *looks at computer screen* Why don’t we get you in with Natasha, then?

Doctor: *enters room, shakes my hand* Hey. I heard you shaved.

Tonight while we were eating supper, we got a call. I let the answering machine get it. It was a reminder to arrive 15 minutes early for my doctor’s appointment. At 11 am. On Wednesday. The 6th.

Matt: You got there 48 hours and 15 minutes early…overachiever.

The Day I'm Having

I'm apparently having *that* day.

Before I share my tale of woe, I have to tell you what I've been doing the last couple weeks.

I've been volunteering at my son Corwin's school to help out the art teacher with her pottery unit. With 4 classes and 30 kids per class, it's tough for one person to help a room full of teenagers with all the issues with hand building and joining and glazing. This is where I came in. I'd made a joke at parent teacher conferences about crashing her pottery unit and she said that she'd love it if I did. Well, I took her up on it and helped out in almost every session. I had a blast. The kids are great and there's some definite talent in there. The teacher gave me 25 pounds of clay to take home, so I ended up making a ton of Christmas presents and had a lovely, relaxing time while I did it. 

This week, the pieces are out of the kiln and we've been glazing. Today was my day to oversee the kids who still weren't done yet while the teacher moved on to the still life lesson with the kids that were. While I was in the back of the room with the kids who were finishing up, I worked on another project. A project that involved a vat of acrylic adhesive. While we were cleaning up, I dropped the damn thing.

The container hit the ground and the contents splattered EVERYWHERE. Seriously, that shit flew 15 feet - plastered me, a girl who was talking to me, the table, the floor, the wall. It. Was. Everywhere.

I felt like a total ass. Luckily, the teacher thought it was hilarious. We got it cleaned up, but I'm still picking crusty glue out of my hair.

The day started with me spilling essential oil on my couch. The couch that isn't even a year old yet.

Then after school, Corwin and I stopped by 7-11 to get eggs. (Yes, I got eggs at the convenience store. I was tired.) Corwin asked for a Gatorade, so I decided to bring home a pop for Killian.

Guess who dropped the damn thing on the floor.

Guess whose legs are still sticky.

Yeah...it's that day.

My Screw Up. Your Benefit.

I'm sure no one here will be surprised to hear that I screwed up.

Again.

When I panicked and dragged myself out of bed last night to draw a winner for the M.H. Mead contest, I thought it was the 4th. You know, the day I was supposed to draw the winner.

Evidently, it was the 3rd.

I know.

They're called calendars. I should really take some time and figure out how they work.

However, Margaret is AWESOME. And she's volunteered to send ebooks to everyone that entered!

Yep, you read that right.

And I have to say, I love this book. So much. Near-future sci-fi at its creepiest best!

So a huge thank you to Margaret and Harry for being freaking amazing.

And for those who benefited from my idiocy...you're welcome.

Catching Up. (Again.)

I know when I list off the stuff I've been doing it won't seem like I've been too busy to blog, but I'm gonna do the round-up anyway.

Much of last week was spent trying to get everything in order for Matt to leave for a three week long trip to Singapore. (Read: I was doing a metric crap-ton of laundry.)

I was also grounding Corwin for his usual offense of not doing his damn homework. Once a quarter, the kid goes rogue and either does it and doesn't turn it in or just doesn't do it. Needless to say, there was some "child management" going on.

Thursday morning, I brought Matt and one of his colleagues to the airport to head to Singapore.

Thursday afternoon, I lived up to my reputation of being the Klutziest Klutz Who Ever Klutzed. I got out of the car at the gas station and managed to slip and fall. Not on ice. No, that would actually be understandable. No, this chick slipped and fell on the damn sidewalk salt used to melt the ice. No ice in sight.

Yeah. I have no idea either.

However, what I do know is that I sprained my left ankle and right wrist, bruised the hell out of my knee, gouged the palm of my left hand and hit my head on the pavement. Because I'm just that clever/stupid/talented/adjective of your choice.

Since then, I've had a fair amount of insomnia - I don't sleep well when Matt's not home. It doesn't help that Angus thinks that 3:30 am is a perfectly reasonable time to play fetch with his sparkly pink puff ball. Of course, last night, there was no puff ball in sight. Just me lying awake from 3 am until I had to get up at 5:30. Shoulda just gotten up and worked.

Yesterday, I got a cortisone shot in the wrist in hopes of alleviating my chronic carpal tunnel numbness and pain. It was kinda freaking to feel the doctor wiggling the needle around in there. And my arm was really weak afterward, so I'm super grateful that Brynn drove me to and from. But I'm not sure the shot's doing any good. It might be because of the sprain. I'll probably try another one and see what happens.

See? Doesn't seem like this should have kept me away from blogging. But it did. Sigh.

What? No laugh track?

So, I attempted to put the creamer back in the fridge.

It didn't go well.

I knocked the vat of salsa off the top shelf. Then when I was bending over to pick it up, the creamer bottle fell out, bounced off my head and hit the floor. The flip-top lid broke and creamer spewed everywhere. Brand new bottle, of course.

I sopped it up with a towel then bent over to clean up the mess with a washrag. I slipped a little on the wet floor and caught myself on the fridge door where I managed to simultaneously push the water and ice dispenser levers.

I managed to shoot freezing cold water in my left ear and catch chunks of ice behind the lens of my glasses.

You understand why I was moderately surprised by the lack of sitcom laugh track.

The Day I Ruined Bill’s Life

Do you ever feel like you should come with a warning label?

I do. A lot.

This is one of those times.

When I’m doing research, I’d rather talk to people in the field as opposed to reading about it. I always end up with some oddball question that can’t be answered by a book or website. I also like hands on research. This is how I ended up taking a ten week citizens’ police academy course. Yes. It was just as hilariously awkward as you’d think it would be. But, it was totally worth it in terms of research material as well as meeting people I genuinely like and respect.

My other favorite research method is cold calling. This is when I try to repress the fact that I’m actually very shy, suck it up and start making phone calls to people in the field that I’m writing about. I usually end up having to explain myself to at least one or two of the office staff before being allowed to leave a vaguely awkward sounding voicemail message where I hope against hope that my subject calls me back.

I’d like to tell you about Bill. He called me back. He’s probably regretting it with every fiber of his being at the moment, but more on that later.

Many of you know that I set my werebear shifter story in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Why, you might wonder? Well, I wanted someplace that black bears would be relatively common. I wanted an area I knew well-ish. And hey, honestly? I just really like that area.

So anyway, I called the Baraga DNR (Department of Natural Resources) office since that was the town in which I’d decided to set my story. The very nice secretary passed me along to Bill’s voicemail and a while later he called me back. I explained that I was an author and that I’d like some information about bears. He kindly obliged, told me some awesome stories about bears, Michigan’s bat population and how DNR officers jump out of helicopters to tag moose.

He asked a little more about me and my books, and I explained the erotic romance genre and the popularity of ménage as well as shape shifter stories. He was clearly baffled, but a good sport about it. I asked him if I could cite him on the acknowledgment page, and he kindly agreed. Now, when I cite a source, I always do a full citation. So if it’s one of my cop buddies, I spell out their name, rank and department. I did the same thing with Bill.

Just Right released with the rest of the books in the Not Quite Wicked series and went on to do quite well. I wrote the next book in the series and went off that summer to vacation in the Upper Peninsula. While I was there, I got to meet Bill. He’s just as awesome in person as he is on the phone. He’s funny, knowledgeable and tells great stories. He took me, the hubby, our kids, one of my brothers and 2 of my nephews into an iron mine. We did the tour and then he got permission to take us off the tour track farther back into the mine where it was dark, wet, muddy, rife with debris and giant holes in the ground. More importantly, there were bats.

It’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis that I love bats. Well, so does Bill. In fact, the locals call him Batman.

He is, understandably, not amused by this.

But he is a bat specialist. He showed us where a few young males were hanging out the inside of the rock walls and fluttering around. He gave us all kinds of great info. I loved it and so did the rest of the fam. We went out to lunch, then Bill took us to the Millie Mine Bat Viewing station. Of course, it was daytime and the bats were snoozing, but I was still pleased to see they had a safe place to sleep. All in all it was a great day, and I was so glad to get a chance to thank Bill in person for helping me with my research.

Fast forward to the end of this school year. Per Bill’s request, I sent him a signed copy of the Not Quite Wicked anthology. Apparently, said copy of the book got passed around the office, Bill was mocked mercilessly because he’d been involved with a “sex book”. And that’s when it got a little ugly. He was ridiculed endlessly because I’d been too thorough when listing out the location in the acknowledgments.

I was terrified that this absolutely wonderful guy was going to lose his job because I was doing my job and documenting. He’d gone out of his way to help me out with info, not to mention, spending his day off with my family, and I had jeopardized his position. In short, I felt like utter shit.

I offered to call/write and apologize to everyone in the office if need be. He didn’t think it would be necessary, but he told me he’d let me know if it came to that. Well, the school year ended, and I didn’t hear anything. Summer wore on…nothing. Finally, it was vacation time. I thought about calling to see how things were going, but time got away from me. Also I totally chickened out. While vacationing in the UP, I even drove past the Baraga DNR office on my way to Copper Harbor, and I thought about stopping. I even talked to Brynn about it from the road. I think she dared me to stop in and say hi, but that seemed like a terri-bad idea, so I kept driving.

Well, I got a phone call today. It was Bill.

My stomach immediately sank when I saw the area code. I was terrified that he was going to tell me he’d lost his job and it was all my fault.

I’m pleased to report that this wasn’t the case. Although, there’s other…stuff.

Apparently, last night was the DNR Wildlife Division Annual In-service where they hand out awards. I’m imagining it to be like the Academy Awards with more fur and claws and far fewer sequins and borrowed jewelry. I could be wrong though. Maybe the DNR peeps like bling as much as Hollywood.

Anyway, in addition to the other awards, the fine folk at the DNR give out the Bone (formerly Boner) Award every year. From my understanding, it’s given to someone who’s done something especially boneheaded—an epically stupid blunder. And I think we all know who this year’s recipient was.

Oh, yes.

And who’s responsible for him getting this award?

Why, yes. That would be me. This is where the warning label comes in.

Bill ended up receiving the award (a bone mounted to a piece of wood) with a big ole poster of the cover of Just Right, with his face photoshopped in there somewhere, while someone read passages of the story. Aloud. Evidently, there was a bit of trouble finding non-dirty bits to read. Oops.

Oh yeah…and? They retired the award last night. Apparently, they don’t think it can get any worse than this. I feel certain I could disabuse them of that notion quickly enough. After all, I’m not considered a cautionary tale for nothing.

According to Bill, had he known he was going to receive this honor, he would have called me up and made me go to the ceremony with him. (Not cool, Bill.) Luckily, for me, he didn’t.

However, he thinks that sales may spike this week because many of the attendees were googling me on their smart phones. (Yay…I think…) He also said that if he’d had a stack of the books, he could have sold them all last night.

And apparently, as punishment, when I’m on vacation next summer, I have to stop at the DNR office and get my picture taken with Bill and the Boner Award. I can only imagine how truly, truly horrible and awkward this will be. But after what poor Bill has gone through, it’s the least I can do. I also plan to take him out to lunch. There will likely be a blog about it. Unless I die of embarrassment before I can post.

Hope springs eternal.

The Dumb. I haz it. Again.

Some of you may remember last summer when some rat bastard kid from Killian's drivers ed class swiped my iPhone from my purse. Well, I'm pleased to say, I finally have a replacement. (Long story short, it would have cost a ridiculous amount of money to replace it before my contract was up.) But anyway, my new phone. I love it so.

One of my favorite aps is ShopShop. It's basically a shopping list. But...you can have multiple lists, so in addition to the grocery list, I have a menu list, a to-do list and a plotting list. It's super handy - I use it everyday. The best part about it is I never forget my shopping list when I'm at the store. Unfortunately, this causes other issues.

For instance, I was talking to Mia the other day while I was at the store. I'd picked up the kitty litter, the furnace filters and the apples, but I knew I need more stuff. I started searching my purse for my phone with my Lists o' Wonder, becoming increasingly more panicked.

Me: Crap! I can't find my phone.

Mia: Oh my gosh! When do you think you had it last? Where's the last place you remember seeing it?

Me: I'm not sure...I know I had it in the car because I called you. I--for fuck's sake!

Mia: What? did you find it?

Me: I'm talking on it.

Mia: Ohhhhhh.

And then we laughed and laughed because we both had the dumb.

Here's the best part. This is not the first time I've done this. I did it a few weeks earlier while talking to Brynn. But as soon as I started to panic, Brynn said, "Uh...you're on it." She didn't call me a dumbass...but I think it was implied.