Category: LHA

I dreamed last night I was back in Denmark. (I lived there for a year when I was 16.) I love having Denmark dreams. They are like cheap vacations. I get to hear the language, try to speak it, buy Danish newspapers, see old friends, and eat all my favorite foods. In the past couple of weeks I have run across a couple Danes at school visits (Dav, Anne, hvordan gaar det?) and that probably triggered the dream. It was kind of a bummer to wake up.

I stayed up too late watching the first part of the original Rocky movie. It is the perfect Philly film. I want it on DVD for Mother’s Day.

In other Philadelphia news, the first camera installed at a notoriously bad intersection caught 525 drivers running red lights in the first 48 hours. You read that right: 525 morons who thought they were more important than anyone else on the road blazed through a red light in ONE intersection in 48 hours. Stupid, dangerous, pig-headed, criminal, selfish morons. Running red lights is an epidemic in this area. Do not do this. It gives you bad karma and will bring evil deeds to the next four generations of your family. Red means stop.

Yesterday I finally got in touch with a historian I’ve been calling for a month. She was very nice, but did not say what I wanted her to say. A crucial piece of historical information that I really, really, really wanted to use in the book I’m finishing up cannot be verified. (Insert temper tantrum here.) I am broken-hearted about this. I have one more person to call, another researcher, but chances are slim and none that she’ll have a miraculous primary source that no one else knows about.

The rest of today will be devoted to rewrites and verifying historical things. Not a bad way to spend a cold Saturday.

This morning’s mood score:
Happy stuff – Danish dream, Rocky movie, red-lighted-running jerks busted, working on history = +4
Sad stuff – having to cut out favorite section of book due to lack of primary sources = -2
Score = +2 It’s going to be a good day.

I am working my way through the 7 steps of losing your radio station. Today is numb acceptance.

No more whining. I promise.

Today I write.

Attention all Philly-area lovers of rock and roll:

Y100 is dead. They killed one of the best radio stations ever. Y100 goes off the air tonight.

ARGH!!!!! How can do this? What are they thinking?? And who are THEY??? I want their numbers. I want them to call me up and sing to me when I am writing. No, I want them to pay Dave Matthews to sing to me when I’m writing. OMG – how am I going to write without Y100???

(off to sob uncontrollably)

Go here to vent and mourn and sign the petition to bring THEM to their senses!

Rally, troops, rally. We will beat the corporate fiends back into their holes! I want my Y100!!

OK, here is how it happened. The lady who does my hair (with my permission) told these families when I would next be getting the white stripe down the middle of my head removed. But I thought they’d be coming AFTER I looked human, not when I was in full-alien get-up, complete with foil. It turned out to be a lot of fun. It also turned out to be a “unique” experience.

Had a blast at Murray Ave. The snow did close school early, which meant I gave four presentations in a row. You’d think that the impending early release would have made the place a madhouse, but it was all good. There was a moment of exuberance when the official announcement was made (understandably), but the kids were terrific. They had extremely good questions and positive energy which made my job easy. Many thanks to Julie Antoni for the juggling necessary to squeeze an author visit into a snow-shortened day. Thanks for the pretzel, too, Julie!

I think soft pretzels are a Philly-area thing. We didn’t have them in Syracuse. Lots of the schools in SE Pennsylvania have a Pretzel Day once a week, when kids can buy a big soft pretzel for a quarter. When my daughters were in elementary school, Fridays were always Pretzel Day. Around here, us civilized folks put mustard on these pretzels. Yummmmmm….

Snow days call for soup, so I thawed out my leftover turkey stock and made turkey soup for dinner. I don’t have any school visits tomorrow so it can snow all it wants. My job for the next three days is to hammer on the revised text for the historical picture book. I’d like to turn it in to my editor on Monday.

I’m glad you liked PROM, Barry! I believe that Hodder is set to publish PROM in the UK this July.

Basketball update: Chris Webber is coming to the 76ers (gasp) and Villanova continues to kick butt and takes names – they stomped on Boston College last night. I didn’t see the game, of course, because I am a big lam-o and was snoring by 10 pm last night.

The South Dakota videoconference was interesting. The technology worked like a charm (used an Internet 2 connection, for those of you who know what that means), but I must admit I missed not being up close and personal with the students.

Here’s an entry for the Strange But True Fan Sightings: while I was getting my hair colored yesterday (thank you Halse ancestors for the genetic quirk which blessed me with white hair before I was 25) a couple of girls who like my books turned up with their moms: Jenny and Kristen from Cheltenham. I may have scarred them for life, because I am not a pretty sight with all those chemicals and foil and whatnot in my hair, but they did not run out shrieking. They hung around for an hour and I signed their books. As they left, I gave thanks to all the gods that they didn’t bring a camera.

I leave for Murray Avenue Middle School in an hour. I hope I can get all my presentations in before the snow hits and school is dismissed early.

I need coffee.

PROM comes out in less than a week.

I need coffee and Tums.

(later) – I almost forgot! best thing that happened yesterday: I saw a pair of red-winged blackbirds in the cattails.