Things I Need to Figure Out (Preferably Soon)

[mrissa]

1. How to throw in lines of operetta without boring or appalling the readers.

2. How to keep from panicking at the smaller-than-peak but still utterly reasonable number of short stories I have in circulation.

3. What I am doing for Christmas baking, other than the obvious things. (Pepparkakor, fudge meringues in both raspberry and pistachio, gingerbread of the loaf variety, apple bread with toasted hazelnuts, layered fudge. Those are the obvious things. What else?)

4. What to bring to Thanksgiving dinner. (This problem is subtitled, "Can you teach a 95-year-old great-aunt new greens?" I suspect in this case the answer is yes. Your auntage may vary.)

5. How to send someone else grocery shopping and still end up with enough groceries to feed us actual meals.

6. What to read for ten minutes in the group reading at Fantasy Matters on Friday.

7. What to get a favored small person for his birthday. (Hint: not a rocket cake. Because ladysea is already making that. I had this explained to me very carefully more than once by the said small person.)

8. What to wear for Fantasy Matters that will also be appropriate for a concert that night, where by "appropriate" I mean "will not kill my feet, freeze my butt, or require timprov to look unduly menacing."

9. When I can wedge in additional lunch, dinner, tea, or general hanging-out with people I like but don't see enough of (that is to say, all the people I like, individually or in very small groups), and how I can do it without going into an introvert coma and hiding under my desk until Lucia Day.

10. What is wrong with the bathroom and who should fix it (who as in which professional, not which housemammal).

11. How on earth it can only be Tuesday, and, simultaneously, how on earth it can be mid-November already.

12. What novel to write next.

Comments

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

5. Give them a complete list with quantities. If you want 5 pounds of potatoes, say so, or he may come home with 2 and be unsure why you're vexed.

7. If you are more specific as to "small" maybe I can help? I do have a smallish boy-child and have been buying and recommending gifts throughout his development.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

5. Alas, this is not the problem. The problem is that I come up with meals largely by looking at produce and deciding what looks good. And "get some stuff that looks good and the stuff that I would put with it" is not going to actually be functional as an instruction set.

7. He's turning 4.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds like you're stuck on #5. As for #7, that was right about when Boy hit his fire trucks phase. While I'm often a fan of non-major brands, on the fire truck front I never found anything to equal the Rescue Heroes line by Fischer-Price. Excellent quality and were still like-new when we handed them off to a younger child. Good quality wooden blocks were another big favorite. Unfortunately 4 is sort of too old for Duplo but not quite old enough for Lego for lots of kids. Boy also really dug the whole dress up thing at that age. He had a doctor kit from FAO Schwartz and a wide assortment of hats and gloves and costumey bits.

If you're the book-giving relative (which I am), the Pigeon books by Mo Willems are to die for. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Also the "Click Clack Moo" series by Betsey Lewin and Doreen Cronin are hysterical, age-appropriate and are still favorites in our house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the ideas!

[ckd]

My niece absolutely loves Click Clack Moo.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Today, I adore you more than usual.

That is all.

You may go about your routine.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. *hugs*

[carbonel]

You do not need to figure out what novel you are writing next.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's why I removed it from the list, yes.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

1. Operas typically come in non-English languages. Perhaps you can use that to your advantage and have some snarky commentator explain what's going on? :) We are like snarky commentators in my house.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas. Operettas tend to be more skewed towards the listening audience being able to get the jokes -- think Gilbert & Sullivan rather than Puccini. Also, the world of this book is not this world, and the country in which the story is set is the origin of most serious opera as well.

Which doesn't preclude snarky comment -- I'm just trying to find the balance where the snark is fun rather than tedious.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

1. Have a sufficiently random character (by which I mean a known character whose mental state often tends toward "non sequitur," not someone picked aleatorically) sing some lines (you decide on the level of inappropriateness of the occasion of the singing). Then confusion can ensue and the character can explain what prompted him/her to go off on the musical tangent.

If you do not have a sufficiently random character then you could always have someone overhear a walk-on.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think I have explained this sufficiently badly as to make no sense to anyone but me.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

P.S. I am in deep sympathy with you on the second clause of #11. I had to write a check this morning, which means I had to suddenly become aware of the date. It is NOT the fourteenth! No! It isn't! I deny it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm even okayish with it being the 14th. It's just...eight days to Thanksgiving. Not at all, couldn't possibly be right!

[akitrom.livejournal.com]

RE #7: Whatever you get, cover it in a cardboard box and then decorate it to look like a rocket cake. When aforementioned youngling objects, feign confusion. "I thought you said you wanted a rocket cke." Then, before emotion chaos is irrevokable, reveal actual present.

Sub-note: given this stunt, avoid choosing a live chicken as present.

Complete threadjacking comment: could you please contact me at c.mortika@gmail.com regarding your interest and requirements for being a guest at a sf convention.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Should have mail in your inbox. If not, try marissalingen for a gmail address.

[sraun]

I don't have any ideas to add for #3 - but could I get your recipe for pepparkakor? I adore the stuff when I get it from IKEA or other importers.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure (http://www.marissalingen.com/pepparkakor.html).

[greykev.livejournal.com]

#7

a sled for him & a big person to ride on?

One of those snow fort kits? (plastic form to make snow "bricks" with)

a "marble run" blocks set?

box full of ping-pong balls? (what could go wrong?)

a bunch of cardboard blocks (http://www.graveyardmall.com/meanddodejuc.html) (ie enough to build a fort he can't see out of when he stands up)

Um, a pony?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

These are all very good ideas, except that I had already done the shopping by the time I read them, and also I haven't ever seen one of those snow fort kits, and also he already had a pony. Well, a dog the size of one, anyway.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

saddle for the pony? ;-)

Hope he has a great day.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

#2: You have fewer stories in circulation because you've sold more of them. That can't be a bad thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Because I've sold more of them and because I'm writing fewer in a given year. And the latter part isn't a bad thing, either, because I'm liking a much higher percentage of the ones I write, and because I wasn't really all that pleased with writing twice as many in a year. (Various factors there.)

But there is a down side, even though the whole is a good thing. The way I manage dealing with rejection is that there are always several other things out there in circulation, so if any one thing gets rejected, it's one out of a large-ish crowd. (When I started submitting stories seriously, I didn't prepare one for submission. I prepared three.) Also I deal with it by viewing short story submissions as a dose of hope: on any day, any day at all, something good could happen, in that I could sell a short story. So I need to adjust my brain to dealing with a smaller level of cushioning and a smaller dose of hope. I think adjusting the brain is the right answer -- trying to get back into a short story writing frenzy with mixed quality of results (or with consistent results neglecting novels and other stuff in my life) is not the answer. But it is a change I need to perform on my outlook.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

You are writing the correct number of stories for you to write.

The fewer that have not yet been accepted, the better.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

4) steamed rainbow chard with Trappey's pepper sauce.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, once you get into the cayenne, it's approximately a guarantee that Onie, Grandma, and Grandpa will not be able to eat it. And while not everybody has to be able to eat everything at Thanksgiving, I'd like to have some chance that they'll be able to try it, even if they don't like it.

They like a remarkable number of things once they try. But cayenne is pretty much always going to be outside their range.