Writing | BulgingButtons

November 19, 2013
by BulgingButtons 8 Comments

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About My Mother

In keeping with the ten things theme, here are a few interesting (to me anyway) bits of information about my mother.

1. Her first job was at Sears folding underwear. To this day she doesn’t shop at Sears. I think she holds a grudge.

2. Her parents, hardworking immigrants, gave her a car at age sixteen.

3. My mother took care of my father’s medical practice’s business side from home. She also filled in at the office when needed. She even had a cute white uniform for the job.

4. My mother used to be a sun worshipper. Did I mention that my dad was a dermatologist?

5. My mother used to be late for everything. I was always the last kid to be picked up from things. Now she’s habitually early. Weird.

6. My mother enjoys taking her 5 grandchildren out to lunch. I think it’s because she steals their french fries.

7. My mother’s favorite mug features a photo of my son and my niece when they were quite small. She drinks hot water from it. I’m not kidding.

8. My mother LOVES Zumba.

9. My mother has always had the most beautiful gardens, beginning when she was a young bride with a tiny yard.

10. My mother refused to give up on my father in the last years of his life, when he was terribly sick. She hired around the clock help, put a hospital bed in the family room, and wouldn’t hear a word about placing him in a nursing home. “He took care of me my whole life, now I’m taking care of him,” she would tell people. I never realized how strong she was until then.

November 18, 2013
by BulgingButtons 8 Comments

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About My Dad

Of course this is silly, since you don’t know anything about my dad. Still he was a very interesting guy and I could write a few volumes just about him. Here, though, are ten small bits of him.

1. He graduated from the University of Michigan, pre-med, in three years instead of four.

2. He had tons of quotes he would spout off, all the time. There was something for virtually every occasion. Toward the end of his life one of his favorites was, “give time, time.” Huh?

3. He took us to Israel when I was a kid and he brought back a shofar (ram’s horn) that he would sound at the Jewish High Holy Days. My brother has the shofar and continues the tradition.

4. He would wake up very early in the morning and read, mostly non-fiction. He had volumes and volumes of books on art, history, religion, anthropology, etc. They are all annotated with his underlines and comments, and many of them have accompanying articles tucked inside. He would correspond with authors and public figures too, and this was long before the internet.

5. He would cross the bridge to Canada to eat a burger because he didn’t want anyone to see him and report back to my mother about his indulgence.

6. He warned my brother that he might get cancer after purchasing a house near a radio tower. Sadly, it was my dad who got cancer.

7. My dad’s primary site for his cancer was in his brain. He was given a three month prognosis. He died seven years later. Long enough to walk me down the aisle. Long enough to meet my son.

8. It rained on the morning of my wedding. The venue called to say they were moving the ceremony inside. My father said no. He insisted that they stick to the original plan. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding, just as I had envisioned.

9. My dad’s mother lived a very long life. Up until the end she lived independently. My dad would often visit her and take a nap on her couch.

10. The last thing my dad said to me as he lay dying, robbed of most speech by Parkinson’s Disease, was, “I love you.”

November 17, 2013
by BulgingButtons 19 Comments

NaNoWriMo Freak-o

So here we are, just past the midway point to November 30. I’ve been diligently working on my Young Adult novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo in case you’ve missed it elsewhere) and so far I have about 23,400 words. Not quite halfway to the 50,000 word goal, but not too far off either.

I’ve been adding to my novel each day, and I’ve watched my word count steadily rise. I have been religious about backing up my work, and I’ve created a PDF or two, just in case. Everything has gone just fine. Until tonight.

Picture this, my fiance has run out to the grocery store, so I decide to add one more scene before he returns. On his way out the door he reminded me to back up onto the snazzy Peter Griffin flash drive he bought for me for just this purpose. No problem. I backed up and was ready to go. Except for one thing. I couldn’t open my document. What? Wait, I just had it. I just backed it up. Except that what I’m now looking at is about 6,000 words shy of what I had just produced.

I was stunned. I was panicked. There were tears. I told myself to calm down. I reminded myself that there were no fatalities involved. I clung to the notion that I had a PDF that was only about 2,000 words short of the version staring back at me from the screen (better than 6,000 lost, right?). Then I put on my logical reasoning cap. I was able to unearth the most recent version of the book in a relatively short time.

Just then my sweetheart walked in the door. I told him of the narrowly averted disaster, and he was properly concerned. He also admonished me to keep backing up. Grr, backing up started this whole issue. I understand its importance, and I believe in it, but I had clearly done something wrong. Later in the evening I tried again to work on that scene. My computer met me with a snide little message saying that there was no such document, and would I like a blank one instead? NO, I would NOT like a blank one. I want the one with 23,400 words in it, thank you very much.

After a second freak out session (no tears this time) and a second round of calming down, the document was found in the same place it was found before (go figure). My sweetheart spent a few minutes backing up all the relevant bits and pieces (this is way more complicated than just a plain old word document, in case you’re wondering why I’m such a dummy about this), then he showed me the correct way to get my work stored on Peter Griffin. Aha! Now that I know the correct procedure I think I’ll have a lot more success. Hopefully no more freak outs are in the near future. I don’t have time for them. I have a deadline.