Thanks to 1)my setting an iCal reminder that tickets were going on sale at 10am today, which happened to go off when I was driving and couldn't do anything about it but then 2)thanks to the amazing and wonderful Webmeister, who, despite being really busy with other stuff, responded to my frenzied phone call by getting online and whipping out his credit card, Daughter and I are going to be going to see this! at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, CT. Woo Hoo!

I just hope my man David Cook is going to be the one headlining as the 2008 American Idol. Otherwise, America will have got it totally wrong. He is by far and away the most talented one in the competition. Blows that little puppy dog Archuletta away. Watch this and dare to tell me I'm wrong.



So make sure to vote for him on Tuesday - early and often, as they say!

Oh, and the best part of all this? Remember a month or so ago I blogged about how my daughter's friend's mom surprised her with a trip to LA for her birthday and my daughter was feeling a little deprived and all she got was a note telling her I loved her in her lunch bag? Well, after I surprised her with the Idol tix, she said, "This makes up for going to California".

Gotta love that.

On October 23rd, 2003, a small booth opened in Grand Central Station as part of new project called StoryCorps.

.

Dave Isay is the visionary behind StoryCorps. Not only that, he's one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet and a huge fan of my son J, which of course would make me a huge fan of his if I weren't such a huge fan already. Dave realized that the richness of our human history isn't necessarily to be found in the stories of the great and the good, in the rich and the famous, but rather in the stories of everyday people - the bus drivers and the teachers and the nurses, people like you and me.


I was SO excited to finally get to meet Annie Perasa. If you haven't ever listened to the interviews with Annie and her late husband Danny get a box of tissues and listen here. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You cannot listen to this and not fall in love with these two wonderful people. When I first heard this broadcast I was driving my son to school at 7:30am in the middle of the Never Ending Divorce and found myself in floods of tears.

"This is the kind of love I want for you, honey," I told Son, whose somewhat bemused reaction was "I'll probably never even have a girlfriend!"



Here's Annie addressing the crowd as Dave Isay looks on.



Meanwhile, here's yours truly with the wonderful Michael Garofalo, who edited our StoryCorps interview with such care and sensitivity (and showed Joshua how they bleeped out his nemesis' name :-)


We'll really miss the Grand Central Booth - but J is donating some of the money from his Bar Mitzvah trust to StoryCorps to help fund the new booth. In the meantime, we're going to have to book some sessions at the Foley Square booth.

3:10 am Daughter comes complaining of high blood sugar, feels like going to throw up

3:12 am Daughter throws up in my bed

3:15 am Puppy eats the throw up


6:15 am Text the Webmeister to tell him how sometimes I just love being a mom.

7:30 am receive text from Webmeister saying "Well, at least you didn't have to clean it up."

So glad he could put it all in perspective.

I love my daughter. A lot. She's smart. She's funny. She's creative. She's a great artist, as can be seen here by the special painting she did for Lisa Yee:



She looks cute when dressed up in a Moroccan outfit to do this dance she really didn't want to do with her Hebrew School for Israel at 60 Day



But one of the things I love most about my daughter is that she has such a good heart. This evening I'd just gotten out of the bath when Daughter came in with the phone. "It's Aunt Sara and it sounds like she's crying," she said. Sure enough, it was my Cousin Sara, who'd just flown in to Westchester County Airport from North Carolina and found that her car had a broken axle. She and her son were stuck on the exit ramp of the parking garage and needless to say Sara was a rather unhappy camper.

I threw on a sweatshirt over my PJ's and hopped in the car to go pick them up and bring them back to our house. Before I left, I gave Daughter instructions to boil the kettle for tea when I called to say we were on the way home because I knew Aunt Sara was going to need a nice cup of tea with lots of sugar to calm her down when we got back - probably followed by a glass of wine, but tea first.

Well, Daughter not only had the kettle boiled, but she'd laid out an entire tray - and how could Sara fail to be cheered up when she walked in and saw this?



I really love that girl.

Yesterday I taught two 1 1/2 hour fiction workshops for Middle School Young Writers Conference of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University. Patricia Reilly Giff gave the keynote address, and I was so excited to have the opportunity to meet her and hear her speak. Even better, what she said about how she writes fit really well with the Powerpoint presentation and writing exercises I'd already done, so I was able to draw on things she said in the keynote in my workshop. Dontcha just love when that happens?

Here's some of my students busy during the writing part of the workshop:



I always love getting away from the solitude of my basement writing lair to speak with the kids - it's mentally energizing and physically exhausting. Does anyone else find that?

My favorite part came near the end of the day, when I was speaking with two girls after the second session. One of them was telling me about this really cool writer who started this website with this Nerdfighters website with this brother and how she's such a huge fan. "Oh, you mean John Green," says me. "I know him." This gives me instant coolness by association. Thanks John, wherever you are. We middle aged moms need coolness however we can get it. Anyway,this girl said, "Well, John Green has been my inspiration as a writer and now you are too."

I thought, Wow. If I can make it into the same sentence as John Green in a teen girl's mind, there's hope for me yet!

In other news, last year at the Walk for Diabetes I bought a discounted photo session for a photo session at a new photo studio that was opening here in Greenwich called Venture Portraits. Tomorrow is our session and we're supposed to bring things that express our personality. I'm bringing my laptop and my book covers. We're also going to bring Benny and in honor of the occasion, Amie and I gave him a haircut. Considering neither of us has any grooming experience, I think we did an ok job:



However, my kids aren't lining up for a Mom coiffure. Can't say I blame them!

I've been immersed in work on book 3, which I'm really, really excited about. It feels great to be in the thick of a book again, getting to know my characters and hearing their voices when I'm in the shower and driving my car. I'm having a few days where I'm so into what I'm doing that I resent any and all interruptions. Well, except for the puppy. Well, sometimes even the puppy, but not for long, because he's just so incredibly CUTE!



Because part of the new book is set in Argentina, it involves a lot more research than anything I've ever worked on before, and that's been challenging and fun. I'm to maybe take a trip to Buenos Aires in December with the Webmeister for research while the kids are with their dad, but given the weak dollar and my budget and the price of flights that might just be a pipe dream. Still, it's a pipe dream I haven't given up on yet.

Meanwhile, on the reading front, here are some recent good reads:

EVERLOST by Neal Shusterman I was intrigued by the premise (two kids get trapped in limbo called Everlost after being killed in a car accident) and being plot challenged myself, by the plot and how he ties various strands together at the end. If my son still read bedtime stories with me (sniff, no longer :-( ) it's one I know he'd like.

HOW TO BE BAD by E.Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle - Three words. SO. MUCH. FUN. I read the ARC, which was generously posted to me by Debbi Michiko Florence and and immediately passed it on to my daughter, who is almost finished it and now has a waiting list of five friends waiting to read it. The fab authors are going to be making an appearance locally in CT and she's excited to meet them. When I told her I know Emily and Sarah from Teen Author Drinks Night she asked, "You mean, so when they see you they'll say 'Hi Sarah'?" I presume they'll say that since Sarah's my name, but hey, they could say, "Hey gorgeous, or "hey whosi-what-I-forgot-your-name-since-you-haven't-made-it-to-drinks-night-in-so-long..."

Anyway...great book!

Currently reading DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS by Randa Abdel-Fattah, which I am totally loving. Great voice, wonderful insight into what it's like to be a Muslim girl in secular Australian society in a post 9/11 world.

On the good watches front, last weekend The Webmeister, Daughter and I went to see Baby Mama, the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler movie, which was terrific. The Webmeister has a big crush on Tina Fey, of which I completely approve. Just as Colin Firth (and, I would now add, James McAvoy) is the Thinking Woman's Crumpet, Tina Fey is the Thinking Man's Crumpet. Both Fey and Poehler were terrific in this humorous and entertaining film.

And now...I've got to go see who gets kicked off American Idol.

Enjoyed a lovely, relaxing vacation at home with the Webmeister and the dogs last week. It was the first time our "blended family" of puppies spent time together, and they had a blast, particularly Benny, who followed The Webmeister's Roxy around like...well, like a lovesick puppy.



Benny's heart throb lounging on the sofa

Roxy would race out to the garden to chase squirrels and Benny would trot along behind as assistant squirrel chaser. He couldn't keep up with the much quicker, more agile Italian greyhounds, but boy, did he have fun trying.



We had to say a goodbye to Mary Poppins, who left after being with us for 12 years. Fortunately, she'll still be in the area, so we'll still see her, but to say that tears have been shed is a bit of an understatement.

The kids are back now, and today we had some good news. My daughter's HBA1C test was much improved, and she earned herself enough money from her dad as a result from bribery incentive to get a Wii, which fortunately I'd tracked down and bought a few months ago in anticipation of her success. We set it up tonight and have been getting hooked on Wii Tennis.

Am watching American Idol and David Cook is awesome. Sorry you West Coasters, but I just had to say that.He's my pick for winner this year.

The Webmeister downloaded this Etch a Sketch program onto his iPhone and before she left my daughter did these rather amusing portraits of the dogs:

One of the Webmeister's Italian Greyhounds, Roxy, in a sundress:



and our Havanese, Benny, as a Bar Mitzvah boy:



They crack me up every time I look at them.

My kids are spending the week their dad, and with my tax bill and the economy being what they are, the Webmeister and I are having a vacation chez moi. He's brought down both of his dogs, so it's just the two of us and the three dogs at home for the holiday. We sat on the sofa on Friday evening after the kids left just listening to the quiet, which was so loud it was almost palpable.

I told the Webmeister how glad I was that he was there with me, because when I was on my own, those transition nights were the absolute worst. After a few days I'd get used to the quiet and start to enjoy the ability to go out without having to worry about a sitter, but that first night was always hell.

Anyway, the dogs are hilarious. Benny is following Hank's dog Roxy around like...well, like a devoted puppy. Roxy is the chief squirrel catcher and Benny trots along after her as her faithful apprentice, trying to learn all the tricks of the trade.



Here's Benny in a rather interesting rest pose on the sofa - with Roxy's little face peeping out from behind the pillow.

Yesterday we went to see the U2 in 3D movie on the IMAX screen in Nyack. I've never managed to see U2 live and this just whet my appetite to so even more such that I've now determined that next time they tour I will pay anything to get a ticket. If you even remotely like U2 you should go see this move - the technology is so cool.

And...how Twilight Zone is this? The concert was filmed in Buenos Aires. And the new book I'm working on is set in...Buenos Aires! (At least part of it is, anyway...cue TZ music)

I've been catching up on some good book reading too.

YA

How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff loved it - great premise and voice

Before I Die - Jenny Downham loved it ditto and had me sobbing at the end, absolutely sobbing

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian - Sherman Alexie SERIOUSLY loved it and Markus Zusak now has competition for my author crush affections

Grown-up

The Ministry of Special Cases - Nathan Englander part of my Argentina research brilliant book and I was fascinated (and somewhat heartened, given my lack of research budget) to read an interview with Englander that he didn't go to Buenos Aires until after he'd written the book yet he'd created this really true atmosphere. At least it seemed true to me, as someone whose never been there.

Away - Amy Bloom I loved this book until the last few chapters, and then I felt really let down by it.
I'm not sure why. Anyone else read it who wants to have a discussion?

Netflix Film Watching

Sydney White - Enjoyable fun on my mother/daughter queue. What's not to like when it's got Amanda Bynes in it?

The Third Man - Classic on the Webmeister/me queue. Joseph Cotten and a thin, pre-Gallo Hearty Chablis Orson Welles work their magic in the rain-soaked streets of post-war Vienna. Shadows play a major part.Cinematography is superb.

Readers might remember last July when the Webmeister and I were in Berlin, we visited the Zoo and it's most famous resident, the adorable polar bear cub, Knut:



So cute, that Knut!

Well, the other day the Webmeister forwarded me some rather disturbing news about my furry now not-so-little friend. It appears Knut has gone all Britney on us.

Knut the polar bear has turned from a cuddly cub into a publicity-addicted psycho, one of his keepers has claimed.

Markus Roebke said Berlin Zoo's celebrity animal was obsessed with the limelight and howled with rage when denied an audience.

"Knut must go and the sooner the better," he said, insisting that the bear should be sent to an animal park where he received less attention

"He is addicted to the whole show, the human adulation. It is not healthy.

"He actually cries out or whimpers if he sees that there is not a spectator outside his enclosure ready to ooh and aah at him.

"When the zoo had to shut because of black ice everywhere he howled until staff members stood before him and calmed him down."

Mr Roebke added: "The trouble is that he identifies himself as a human and not as a polar bear...Knut needs publicity and that must change."

Mr Roebke is not the only observer to question Knut's sanity. In January, a prominent animal conservationist branded him "an animal psychopath".

From adorable star to "animal psychopath"? Oy!

Will Knut be joining Britney in rehab?

Stay tuned!

Ok, here's a word I bet you didn't know: Coprophagia. Yes, that's really what it means. I didn't know there was a name for that disgusting habit either, until I started googling "dog eat poop" to figure out why Benny was doing it. Still, it doesn't seem to be doing the little monster any harm. He gained two pounds in the last two weeks. I guess he really is full of...beans. Yeah. Perhaps he's engaging in this disturbing behavior because he is being turned into a transvestite by my daughter, who has discovered a whole new purpose for all those clothes we bought for her American Girl dolls: He is so totally America's next Prom Queen. Anyway, it's been a busy week chez Saraclaradara. On Thursday The Webmeister, Son (who was on break) and I headed into NYC. Son and TWM went for lunch at Mars 2112 and then went to teen boy Mecca, aka The Nintendo Store at Rockefeller Center, while I headed south to Soho to meet my uber-wonderful editors Jen Rees and David Levithan for lunch to discuss what book I should work on next. I'd come up with a bunch of ideas and I'm really excited about the one that David and Jen thought was the best project to follow up PURGE. Won't say too much but I'm hoping at some point I might be able to take a trip to Argentina for research purposes. In the meantime, there's the Internet. Over the weekend, TWM and I indulged our inner high schoolers and went to see LEZ ZEPPLIN at the Fillmore East at Irving Plaza. Yes, it's like it sounds - an all girls Zeppelin tribute band. Highly recommended if you ever get the chance. Now it's back to work - and I'm so excited to be getting immersed in a new book. Nervous - you know, with that "OMG, can I actually DO this again? Were the first two flukes?" feeling in my stomach. Does that ever go away?

besides the fact that she created the magical world of Harry Potter and got so many kids to pick up and read thick tomes.

Besides the fact that she wrote the fact she wrote the first book when she was a struggling single mum (struggling single mum-dom is something I can really relate to right about now).

I love JK Rowling because she's not afraid to admit publicly that when she was going through that struggling single mum-dom that she went through a period of being depressed and feeling suicidal, and that she found counseling "absolutely invaluable".

But this is the part that makes me feel absolutely love her, and know that we'd have plenty to talk about over a cuppa should we ever meet:

"The funny thing is, I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never.

"I think I'm abnormally shameless on that account because what's to be ashamed of?"

She urged anybody suffering from depression to "go and get help".

"I went through a really rough time and I'm quite proud of the fact that I got out of that," she added.

I do so admire this woman, as a writer and as a person.

You know that expression "Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids?" Well, in my case it's true, except you can add the_webmeister to that equation. See, my kids and TWM have ganged up on me in a fiendish plot destroy little sanity I have left.

I've blogged previously about my history of Furbicide and subsequent Furbiphobia. My children tell me I am cursed. I'm starting to believe them.


TWM arrived Friday evening and starting yesterday morning, evil furry things started popping up in unexpected places.

Like my bathroom drawer:



and the fridge



and the tumble dryer



and my handbag



and my car



and this particularly huge and hideous and TALKING specimen in the glass cupboard



There were more, believe it or not (and believe me, I wish I didn't have to believe it). We got home from the City at 3am after seeing Joe Hurley's 9th Annual All Star Irish Rock Revue at Webster Hall (fun) and when I pulled down the bed covers to put my exhausted middle aged bod to bed, there was YET ANOTHER Furby! Fortunately, Benny appears to be developing a taste for the nasty little blighters:



He'd better get chomping. There's a whole zombie legion of Furbys in this house. The things seem to multiply faster than rabbits. AAAAAAAH!

I'm writing about this a bit belatedly, but on Leap Day I had a wonderful visit with a local mother-daughter book group who'd read CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC a few months back. We met at this lovely local tea place called The Drawing Room, which I highly recommend if you're ever in this neck of the woods - well, the burbs.

One of the moms commented on how as a published author she'd expected me to be "larger than life" and how I was "refreshingly normal". I had to laugh and tell her that not long before I'd been cleaning up puppy poop and doing laundry and all the other normal mom stuff.

Anyway, I really enjoyed myself and it's inspired me to try and get going on the mother daughter book group for my own daughter that I started talking about a few months ago and then didn't do anything about. (Bad Mommy!!)



Meanwhile, last Friday was my er...forty somethingth birthday and Mary Poppins outdid herself with the cake.
Daughter and I are big fans of the Food Network show The Ace of Cakes and after you see the cake Mary Poppins made me, tell me if you think she couldn't get a job at Charm City Cakes:




Awesome, isn't it? The tulips are from my son, who is the sweetest for remembering that they are his mom's favorite flowers, and the flower arrangement is from The Webmeister who is coming down next weekend to celebrate.

Here's a close up of the cake.



Inside the cake was chocolate pudding filling (yum). It was delish!

I had a fun lunch with Nora Baskin on my bday too.

Now...back to the grindstone!

To my political and spiritual soulmates and fellow Pisceans docstymie and writerross here's one from the Fab Four:




May your day be filled with love, wonder and chocolate.

xoxo

Daughter got her new specs today. I guess one of the good things about not having a muscle imbalance that requires complicated prism thingies to be ground into your lenses at enormous expense is that you can get your glasses really quickly.

Anyway, here's a photo of the two of us:



When my son and I pulled up outside the house, Daughter waved at us from the living room window. "She looks like a younger version of you!" Son exclaimed.

Daughter prefers to look at it thusly: "You look like an older version of ME!"

Either way, she is under strict orders to keep the new glasses away from chomping puppy jaws.

Benny, the kids and I attended our first session at Puppy School last night. Benny was the smallest dog there by several order of magnitudes. He was also the only one that pee'd on the floor. Hmmm. Guess that sets us up for most improved at graduation, right? He was flirting heavily with a rather attractive Samoyed called Lily who could have eaten him for a snack. I guess it was the white fluffy attraction thing going on.

So we've been busy practicing the sit/stay combo, with periodic success.

It's exhausting.



Meanwhile, in other news, my daughter found out that she's got to join the rest of the Littman clan (well - except for Benny) in FourEyesdom. This wouldn't be so bad except that it's turning out to be a very expensive week on the spectacle front, because Benny decided he wanted to get into the act as well. Apparently while I was wearing my reading glasses, he managed to get hold of my normal glasses and he left a rather impressively irritating set of teeth marks in my lenses. Now I happen to have this muscle imbalance that requires a very complicated prism being ground into the lenses and it costs a fortune to get them thinner than the bottom of a Coke bottle, which is why I don't get new glasses very often. I'd budgeted to get myself a new pair for the launch party of PURGE in April 2009. My last new pair was for the launch of CONFESSIONS in Feb 2005. But alas, it looks like this budget might be blown. At the moment I'm walking around trying to ignore what look like little raindrops at the bottom of my right. But it's really starting to drive me crazy. Argh.

I wish my pet insurance covered glasses.

Meanwhile, the culprit sleeps blissfully unaware of the economic havoc he's wrought:

Cindy Lord asked for a Benny update - so here's a picture of His Royal Cuteness:



He's quite a little character. We're still working on the whole house training thing - he manages to get onto the peepee pad about 50% of the time. My family room carpet is in serious need of a serious professional cleaning, but I'm going to wait till he's totally trained before I do it. He mostly sleeps through the night - sometimes if he wakes up I play some music on my iphone and he goes back to sleep. The problem is he wakes up at 5:30 and wants to pee and then party. Argh.

We start puppy school on Monday night. Wish us luck!

Meanwhile, I thought I'd seen the last of the Evil Furby but the other day my printer was out of paper and when I opened the cupboard door to get some more paper....



(please ignore my messy cupboard)

I blame the Webmeister.

Do you think Furbycide is included in the Puppy School curriculum?

On Sunday, Daughter, (who is a major league lisayee fan like her mother) and I went into NYC to meet...LISA YEE. We picked her up at her swanky hotel off Park Avenue, bundled her into my considerably less swanky and extremely dented Authormobile and whisked her off to Brooklyn, where we had a wonderful brunch at Auntie Susie's in Park Slope.

Daughter has a new BFF



and Auntie Susie herself took a picture of us all together after our yummy scrummy meal during which abundant chocolate was consumed:



Afterwards we hit some cool Brooklyn stores for what the French refer to as "Faire du Leche-Vitrine" (which means window shopping but is literally "window licking").

Lisa kindly bought Daughter some heart-shaped Peeps for explosion purposes, which Daughter enjoyed immensely:



Just how big of a Lisa Yee fan is my daughter? Well, the night before our brunch, I went into Daughter's room and she showed me she'd just painted her favorite characters from Lisa's trilogy.



Can I kvell a little here? Isn't she talented? Daughter, as well as Lisa?

Anyway, Daughter played the role of Peepy Paparazzi (Peeparazzi?) and you can
here's the TMZ photo essay which I tried to hide behind a LJ cut but failed miserably.

Peepy sampled the chocolate mousse



But then got carried away and went for my coffee



Peepy ended up looking like I've been feeling most of this week:



Then she started hitting the champers (Peepy, not my underage daughter, I hasten to add)



and ended up not making a whole lotta sense:



Started hallucinating



And then had to sleep it off






It was great to see Lisa and Peepy. Come back and visit soon!

About this time two years ago, my son and I visted the StoryCorps booth in Grand Central Station and he interviwed me, asking the most amazing questions. An edited clip of that interview was played a month later on NPR's Morning Edition, to an absolutely incredible response.

Last week I went back to the StoryCorps booth and finally got to meet Michael Garofalo in person. Michael is a Senior Producer at StoryCorps, and he's the guy who worked so hard to edit our interview down from 40 minutes to 3 minutes in compelling yet extremely sensitive way. He asked me some follow up question about how we came to do the interview, what it felt like to hear ourselves on the radio, and how we were affected by the response to the piece. Some of this will be used for a promotional clip on NPR.

Michael told me how everyone at StoryCorps loves J and wanted to meet him, and since it's vacation week I offered to bring the star of the show to the StoryCorps offices in Brooklyn. So yesterday Son, The Webmeister and I headed into Fort Greene.

It was incredibly cool to get to meet the people who get me crying practically every Friday morning when I hear the StoryCorps clips on NPR. Michael showed us how they edited our piece - and the authors amongst us will related to the fact that for this 3 minute piece they did 19 edits! J really enjoyed seeing how they bleeped out the name of his 7th grade nemesis.

In a world obsessed with celebrity, the work that StoryCorps does is critically important, because every week when we listen to these brief recollections from the lives of everyday, average people we realize that everyone has a story to tell, and, perhaps more importantly, that everyday, average people are anything but everyday and average. The word heroism has become overused in recent years, but when listening to clips on StoryCorps I find myself marvelling at the quiet fortitude of people I might never otherwise have known.



Here's J and me with StoryCorps founder Dave Isay (the tall one) and Michael Garofalo (the less tall but still taller than me one).

Meanwhile, Daughter was at home with Mary Poppins and she decided to surprise me by making dinner. It was all very secretive, but she ended up creating what we shall hereinafter refer to as Kick Butt Meatloaf. (I'm sure you were wondering how meatloaf and StoryCorps were related...) I've never been a big fan of meatloaf (the dinner meat, not the singer, whom I found somewhat entertaining) but Daughter's meatloaf was a culinary delight that might make me rethink my previous antipathy.

And now, Reasons to love the Webmeister number #189: He's a techno-geek. (He, J and I had a conversation in the car on the way to Brooklyn about the difference between a nerd and a geek. Conclusion: A Geek is a Nerd with fashion sense.)

So I'm writing this blog from the car as we travel along I-80 heading towards Scrotum Scotrun , PA. You will, no doubt, be relieved to hear that I am not driving at the same time. The Webmeister managed to rig up this thing so we've got wireless internet in the car. Pretty Kewl, huh?