*phew*

First of all, Happy Birthday, Chicken!!!

I’m not going to do a whole post on her–mostly because it would embarrass her very much, but I am going to say the following:

1. I have taught the young Paduan well–she’s a sarcastic little shit, and if she doesn’t cut it out, we’ll have some very satisfying skirmishes during the next five years.

2. She’s beautiful–she doesn’t believe it, she will NEVER believe it, but I think she is as beautiful now as I did when she was two. Except now she’s housebroken which is a definite plus.

3. She’s going to do frickin’ amazing things–like go away to school and travel the world and become something that makes craploads more money than either her father or I do. And even if she doesn’t, we will still be proud of her, because I know whatever she choose in life it will make her happy.

4. She’s the best big sister a mom could ask for–not only does she play with the little ones, she likes it and she’s good at it, and her siblings adore her to the nth power…seriously–what’s not to like?

5. She’s one heck of a cartoonist–and someday, Vapy and Voi (her two cartoon characters who blow each other up in chemistry and get lost in the mall) are going to be as famous as Dilbert. And then she’s going to make lots of money and buy us a nice house someplace where it’s always 75 degrees and we can retire. So really, she’s a good investment all around.

She is 13 today…heaven help us all, the kid who’s had PMS since she was two years old has entered the teenaged danger zone, and Mate and I are about to be living with the original Katie Kaboom. (Animaniacs…AWESOME show!)

And now, my old fat body is just WIPED from her weekend… Saturday’s schedule looked a lot like my Tuesday schedule–and it seems as though my feet are now seriously complaining about not getting a day off… I’ve been gimping around all day, and it’s damned hard to be ‘mobile’ in a classroom when you can’t take a step without wincing in pain. NOt that the little fuckers have cut me a break, either… man, I’m doing better this year, but the crowd hasn’t improved much… (And, of course, once I wrote this, my 6th period just came through an assignment with shining colors…feh! They do that to me just to get my guilt river running.)

Anyway, when I took Chicken and her friends shopping, I found myself buying for the little ones–the Cave Troll was very taken with his Tigger and Pooh dolls and his sweatshirt, and for Ladybug? Well, inspired by the Samurai, I got her some baby crocs, w/charms…I wish I’d taken pictures, because she’s so damned proud it just makes my heart hurt… she also enjoyed the Tinkerbell Halloween costume… at last, at last, she has something to rival her brother’s dinosaur costume in cuteness. Her royal ladybug-ness is satisfied–imagine ‘princess wave’ here.

One of the fun things about the b-day party is that my parents came on Sunday night and brought my nephew, and so Chicken got to have lots of people singing “Happy Birthday”–the really funny thing was that the Cave Troll and Ladybug insisted that they got their turn at the candles. Opening presents was not such a big thing, but they damned sure wanted to blow out the candles…GOTTA love this age!

And that’s about it–I get to go to my first expulsion hearing on Thursday–yippee? It will be an experience…one I’m not sure I can legally blog about, but if you’ve been following along, you should remember the student I’m talking about, so you already know the particulars…he tried to take out two administrators, and is (according to every teacher I’ve talked to) a complete psychopath…I think if we don’t win this one, we’ll be sorry!

OH yes–one more thing. I just pulled this stat off an amazon.com discussion site, and I thought I’d share. The thing is, VULNERABLE has sold nearly 1000 copies–I’ll know exactly how many in about two months (they’re about two months behind on i-Universe.) Anyway, 1000 copies doesn’t sound like much–until you look at these stats.I just wanted to thank everybody who has bought a book, and bless you all who have told me that I don’t suck, and generally astound you all with how sad it is, that the world does not read nearly as much as it, perhaps, should.

For the books published in 2004,

79% (950,000) sold less than 99 copies

96% (1,150,000) sold less than 1000 copies

98% (1.175,000) sold less than 5000 copies

This is a lump total of all books, fiction and non-fiction, from small presses to giants.