I'm On Fire!

Here it is January and I'm just getting around to posting about Christmas. I'm really falling behind in my bloggy duties.

Santa's been here and he's a slob.

Before the rip fest!

Ready, set....

RIP!

Worst. gift. ever.
This piece of crap is supposed to play games. I spent most of Christmas trying to download games onto it. At wit's end, I finally emailed the company. This is their response:

As stated in our manual, features are subject to change without notice,
games is no longer a feature with our players. There are many other
great things you can do with this player. Thank you for your purchase.

Best Regards,

Joey
Visual Land Team
Support Representative

Dear Joey - I hope your crouch is infested by the fleas of a thousand camels. And by the way, the only great thing I can do with your shitty non-game playing game thing is to throw it in the dump!

Santa got a little ghetto with the "stockings"

The family checking out their loot.

Yes, that's my grandmother. How could you tell?

Benji LOVED this gift. Shame it wasn't his.

That's great, Daddy, but can we play with it now?

Our version of a rope tow

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Keeping with tradition, we spent another fabulous New Year's Eve at Casa de LaBev.

After midnight and 8 out of 10 kids were still going strong!

Rockin' the PJs and party hats!

So there you have it, 2010 lazily wrapped up in a picture-laden post. It's what you've come to expect from me, no?

And I have to admit, things will probably not get any better. I have been commissioned to write a book and that will probably be taking up my time and brainpower.

I'm really excited about the project. I originally wrote the proposal for this book in 2006. The publisher loved it and gave me the green light to start researching and writing. Shortly thereafter I began writing a new project, called a dossier.

(I just spent the last 45 minutes looking for the picture of our dossier, but no luck. But trust me, it was HUGE! Hundreds of pages. Don't believe me, ask Bev, who had to notarize almost every page. It devoured most of my 2007. Of course when I finally finished it, Beck came home and our lives didn't slow down a bit.)

So the book was put on the back burner. Hell, let's be honest, it wasn't even on the stove top. It was probably in the back of the fridge, next to something green and moldy and wrapped in plastic wrap.

Flash forward to November 2010 and out of the blue I get a letter from the publisher asking me to get my ass in gear to consider starting the book. This time, the timing is perfect.

So now I've been writing summaries, filing out paperwork and collecting historical documents, which has been very interesting and hopefully I'll share some along the way.

So that's where I've disappeared to. I'm very excited but also have a mountain of work in front of me.

But I will make an effort to keep up my little bloggy.

Close Encounters of The Deliverance Kind

So yesterday I found myself in the Great North Country; husband-less, child-less... just me and the sweet open road. So I decided to take a 2 1/2 hour side trip to see a little field in the middle of no where visit a historical site in Stark, NH.

I know what you're asking... "WTF?" "Mala, what's so interesting about this site that you'd drive all over creation to see it?" Well, you know I have mentioned I'm working on a book (or at least something I hope someday grows into a book), well my story, although fiction, historical fiction actually, takes place in a real place, and the remains of that place just happens to be a little field hours north of where I live. I've been doing research on this place for about a year but I have never had the opportunity to actually visit it. Oh sure, I've read historical books about it and I've Google Earth'd the hell out of it, but really I've just wanted to go there and see it for myself. So Sunday, since I didn't have anyone harassing the piss outta me was cruising solo, I decided I would finally make the trek.

So after a few hundred miles, much of which without any radio reception and cell phone coverage....yeah right!, I made my way north of the White Mountains, through towns that I can't figure out why on Earth anyone would live there, I finally made it to little, tiny, don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it Stark. I drove north of the town until I found the little historical marker for Camp Stark. The road was long and not a soul on it. I pulled over and actually felt a little giddy for finally being at this special little spot. I'm a very visual person and to write a story based around this place, I desperately needed to see it, walk on it, breath it in.

I was wearing a skirt and heels (shut up! It happens every once in a while) so while sitting in the driver seat I wiggled and maneuvered into some jeans and sneakers since I needed to hike through some woods to get to my destination. At the half way point of undressed and public nudity, a seedy pickup zipped past me. I immediately saw the break lights. "oh shit" I thought.

Panic does not make jeans go on faster, especially with a steering wheel in your way.

I watched as the pick up made a u-turn in the middle of the road. I told you, middle-o-nowhere'sville! I started chanting "shit! shit! shit!" like it would help me get dressed faster. And as the truck passed again they banged another sharp left and pulled up behind me. I scrambled for my sneakers and totally felt like I had been busted for doing something immoral... geesh.

So the next part of this story I'm ashamed to even admit... I got out of the car and walked to the truck. In my defense, I was totally thinking it was someone who assumed I was broken down. I mean, why else would a female all by her lonesome anybody be pulled over on the side of a deserted road hours away from civilization.

That 'oh hell' moment hit me as soon as I looked in the cab.

I now know what this kid looks like as a grownup. Oh and he brought his even less attractive cousin.

I thought for a moment, would it be socially unacceptable to just saunter back to my car without a word?

"I'm all set. Just stopped to read the sign" I said... you know, totally assuming still they were just being good Samaritans.

"Why don't you come home with us?", one of them said. I couldn't tell which one because the sonic wave of alcohol stench made me close my eyes tightly and brace myself. Oh. My. Hell.

As I turned to walk back to my car I could here them slurring, "Where you from?" "She got NH plates." "You English?" "What you mean Great British?" "Lady, what are you?" "Why don't you come home with us?"

I closed my car door and hit the lock button. I looked around.... nothing but woods and mountains. I grab my cell phone and that bitch has been searching for service the past 43 miles. Great. One thing's for sure, scream all you want, no one is going to hear you. And it could take months to find a body... if they ever found the body. Oh, and for the first time in my life EVER, I hadn't told anyone where I was going. I had just been enjoying the peace and quiet. FML.

So I sat in my car, with Jeb and Earl parked right behind me. I didn't want to drive because I had the feeling they'd just follow. So I just sat there, pretending to be on my cell phone. And we all sat, like some creepy game of Hillbilly Chicken. Ten Freakin' Minutes later! they finally pulled up beside me and shouted "alright, bye then!" and drove off. Scary Mo'Fos!

I watched until the truck dissolved into a tiny speck and disappeared around the bend. And then I waited a few minutes to see if they'd turn around again.

Finally I got out of my car and trekked through the woods to the clearing I had driven so far to see. I looked back at the road, it was hardly visible. Could I see the truck if it came back? Probably not. Damn it!!! I've been wanting to come here for so long and now I'm here, it's a beautiful day.... and my skin is crawling. Every step deeper into the clearing in knee-high grass made my stomach turn more and more. Every cell in my body was screaming to leave. So I quickly took a few photos and literally dashed back to my car.

I had nearly a 3 hour drive home to stew and be angry at the fact I didn't get to experience this historical area at all. No, instead it got ruined by some tooth-less, dirty, drunkhill billies!

But at least I'm still alive to be pissed. So I've got that going for me.