Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway

Today is my grandma's 80th birthday. We're having a big party for her on Sunday--where by "we" I actually mean my folks are doing all the work--but today is the official date. I don't mostly put birthdays on here because I don't want it to seem like a statement if I miss one. But 80, 80 is a big, round number. Eighty is a thing.

Grandma is my last grandparent standing. I mean, I have Grandpa Lyzenga, but I married into him when I was full grown rather than having memories of walking with him when I was tiny; and as much as I will sometimes introduce Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil as my Lingen grandparents, and as much as they are doing their darnedest, they are in fact a really really special great-aunt and -uncle, which is its own thing and not to be denigrated.

But Grandma has enough personality for four grandparents all by herself. (So, I know firsthand or hear quite vividly, did each of my other grandparents in their own ways. Lack of personality: not an issue in this family.) Grandma is an Energizer bunny. I wrote in her birthday card that she embodies the adage about blooming where one is planted, and I really think that's true. She does well with new people and new situations. She just dusts herself off and tries again, whatever she needs to try again, and I have never once heard of a situation she couldn't eventually make that work in. Never once. Her persistence inspires me. I hope it lasts long past 80.

Fairview Ridges is a nice hospital. It is a good hospital. It is pleasant and clean, and you see the staff washing their hands all the time, and the cafeteria is not too bad, and there is a Granlund sculpture out front. It is very near our local Vietnamese place of choice and also not too far from a big chain bookstore, a SuperTarget, and other conveniences. It is reasonably near us and even nearer my folks. They are the people who verified that I did not have a brain tumor. They are the people who figured out what's wrong with timprov. As hospitals go, I couldn't ask for a nicer.

All the same I do wish we could keep my grandma out of it for more than a couple weeks at a time.

My grandma has been readmitted to the hospital. She has an abscess where the appendix was. She also has pneumonia and a urinary tract infection. They did a procedure this morning to try to take care of the abscess. They believe that went well, but the next 48 hours will tell; if the procedure this morning wasn't enough they may have to do a full surgery. She will definitely be in the hospital until Monday, and longer if need be.

We will be unable to fetch Grandma's oldest sister, my Onie, for Christmas this year. She will not spend Christmas alone, as there are lots of relatives in her area, but usually she spends it with us, and this year that's just not possible.

Prayers and warm thoughts/wishes are appreciated. I also appreciate quick distracting e-mails on topics such as what you're reading or what you're watching or what you're excited to give for presents. My gmail is marissalingen.

Now that much of the family has been called or directly e-mailed, I will put this here: my grandma had an appendectomy this evening at the hospital nearest us. It went as well as "you are 77 years old and unexpectedly need your appendix out right this minute" can go, and she is resting as comfortably as the hospital staff can manage. (We loff their nurses. Truly. Also Grandma's surgeon was really excellent.) She will be in the hospital several days while they make sure all is going well in various ways.

I was down there tonight after she got out of surgery and have seen her and talked to her and reassured myself.

Dear 2009: I never thought your antics were cute and funny. Never. Not even for a day, because that first day? That was the day you took Aunt Donna. We are so over you, 2009.

My grandma appreciates prayer, but she is not averse to warm thoughts, positive wishes, etc., either. I've disabled comments because I'd much rather converse on e-mail right now.

The closing on Grandma's house went through yesterday. It is done done done. She lives here now.

Very soon her furniture will also live here. We hope.

I have been not saying much about these things because ack, real estate transactions, a million things can go wrong. But the million things opted not to go wrong in this case, and now we have Grandma here for real and to stay.

I have just noticed that I have been so careful not to say anything about Grandma's moving dates in case something goes wrong with the people who are buying her house or whatever that I have not mentioned how soon it's supposed to be coming. I mean, it's not just superstition: even if the people who are buying her house have done everything right, things can go wrong with mortgage companies at the last minute. Strange and arcane are the ways of real estate transactions. It all makes me very nervous, because it doesn't feel like it just depends on people being sensible, it feels like it depends on people being sensible and having form XJ447b62 filled out properly instead of form XJ447b62a.

But: failing anything strange and arcane going wrong, my grandma will live here in the south suburbs in slightly less than two weeks.

Eeeeeeee!

I keep saying to her, "Everything is going to be so much better when you're here, Grandma." And I really do think it will.

She's coming up for her last pre-move visit this weekend, for my birthday, and we're going to see Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil and the Smothers Brothers (consecutive, not concurrent) and generally have a fine old time. And then the next time I see her after that--good Lord willing and the creek don't rise--will be when she's moving in. To be 15 minutes away from me.

Eeeeeeee!

I have other pre-birthday things to accomplish--the making of the ritual birthday double-chocolate scones, for example, but that has to wait so they're fresh. Nobody wants stale scones. (Note to zorinth: I don't mean to taunt you, but they're very like my chocolate bread. Sorry.) It'll be a busy-ish week with that and other things. And then at the end of it there will be birthday and Grandma.

In my head all cons are one con. So if I've ever seen you at a con, my brain expects to see you at World Fantasy Con this weekend. This is one of the many ways in which cons are like comic stores. Or like libraries if you subscribe to the Terry Pratchett view thereof. (I find it faintly heretical, like asserting that all grandmothers are really connected through another dimension as one grandmother, to which my brain protests, "Not mine!" And it's not like my grandmother is all that non-traditional as grandmothers go. Unless you think about it for more than two seconds. Um. So perhaps I have a skewed notion of tradition, is what I'm saying here. Matriarchies are traditional! By which I mean what people always mean by "traditional": we've always had them, and I'm not responsible for what the rest of you do.)

So the thing about yesterday's post about thinking the book I'm revising is going to be pretty good:

It feels much safer to think things are crap. If it's all crap and the book gets a hundred and one rejections, well, of course it did. It's crap. The world is a logical place, and the bits all fit together sensibly: crappy books get rejected, and the world keeps turning. But if it's not crap, and it gets a hundred and one rejections, that's a lot harder to fit together. (You can, by the way. There are all sorts of logical reasons for a good book to get rejected. Not viewing the world as a series of total orderings helps immensely with this. But it's emotionally harder to get there.)

Also, the minute you assert that something is good, you have brought up the topic and opened yourself to passing ruffians arguing the point. Even if they don't argue the point actively, but merely with their left eyebrow. It's like asserting that a book or a person is funny. If someone goes on and on about how hilarious you are when introducing you to their friends, odds are extremely fine that you will have nothing funny to say for the entire time you're talking to them. That you will say things like, "That reminds me of the time I was doing my taxes and found an error in the fortieth line," or, "That's a very interesting point. Not many people know about the history of my toaster oven...." It's like being pretty: you wait for someone else to say it, because if someone squeals, "You look awesome in that dress!" and someone else says, "Well, from the front, at least," the second person is the jackass. Whereas if you greet a group of people by saying, "Hello, I look awesome in this dress!", you may have sewn up the role of jackass for the evening.

This does not preclude me telling people -- for example yesterday -- that I look awesome in hats, or that I look really good in dark green, or whatever. But it took me awhile, and mostly I attempt to do it in tones that let them laugh kindly.

So on the one hand, you don't want to be known for sending editors books that are really no good, and even you know it. But on the other hand, asserting potential goodness of books is tricky. Puts your judgment in question.

(Still and all.)

My list of things to do before I leave for World Fantasy on Thursday morning is quite sensible and reasonable, and I expect all the items to be crossed off the list before I go, probably before dinner Wednesday night. And this is extremely alarming. I crossed all of last week's items off the list, too, and it turns out I'm a little spooked by this. I'm perfectly fine ignoring the list and doing things that aren't on it because I feel like doing them. But not having things on the list in the first place? Very weird. Very weird indeed. I think I will try to avoid this becoming too common in the future. I think a Mris's list must exceed her grasp, is what. It's good to know these things.

So. Today is somewhat better than yesterday, on the food poisoning front, but I would not describe myself as feeling up to snuff, tip-top, or any other anachronistic expression for "fine." And aren't you glad I'm not the sort of lj'er to put all the details in here? I knew you were.

Problem is, two of the things on today's original agenda (from, say, Saturday's idea of the week) are not things that can be shifted indefinitely in time. mmerriam is not giving a reading at Dreamhaven "sometime" or "whenever I can get there." mmerriam is giving a reading at Dreamhaven tonight at 6:30. I firmly believe in going to friends' readings to support them (and ideally also to hear the stories!), especially for an early-career reading when you can't just assume that fans will show up en masse. (Not that you can assume that anyway -- that's how I got a pameladean in my life, basically: because the rest of you deadbeats who already know and like her didn't show up at her reading, so it was perfectly easy for some random woman she'd never met to start talking to her and dd_b and lydy after, without feeling awkward about the hordes of friends and fans.) So I would really, really like to do that, if I'm at all able.

Also, my grandmother's birthday is Thursday, and she gets here (to my folks', not here here) on Thursday, and it would be wise of me to have a birthday present no later than -- you guessed it -- Thursday. Even if we don't see them or celebrate Thursday, greykev arrives Friday, and I doubt that I will have much time for/inclination towards running after birthday presents after that. I don't know what to get her, either. She's sure whatever I come up with will be just lovely, and as I keep telling people, that makes one of us.

So. I'm not really sure what to do here. If I drive up to the city, I may strand myself 20-40 minutes from home if things deteriorate. On the other hand, time is of the essence here. (And for once, better public transit is not the answer: I've had to get off BART to go be sick in a BART station bathroom, and it was not, shall we say, the best afternoon of my life. Again, aren't you glad of the lack of detail there!) And sadly, my grandmother doesn't want anything to be had at Dreamhaven or even -- most unreasonable of her all around, I realize -- at Phoenix Games across the street. So I can't just do one and call it good for the next few days.

I may do a trial run to a nearby store and see how that goes. Hmm. That sounds sensible, actually, and if they have something for Grandma's birthday, so much the better, right?