How to have a Birthday Week

Dear heavens, Blog, where have I been? I know, I know, my remissness blog-wise is inexcusable. But the excuse I can give for the past week is that I've been having a Birthday Week (currently on Day 7). And what more festive activity for Day 7 of my Birthday Week than to tell our readers how to have a Birthday Week!

Great decorating job, co-workers!

The foundation of a BW is your birthday itself, natch. Odds are in the busy and complex world of 2011, you are unable to celebrate the day with all your family and friends on the same day. Maybe you and the significant other are planning a romantic dinner, while your parents are hosting you a different day, etc. In my case this year, I had a fun lunch get-together planned with my dad on my birthday itself, a Thursday. Meanwhile, the dinner with husband, daughters, and daughters' BFs was planned for Saturday. So, take these occasions and build your BW around them!

Now, add to the mix any fun activities that happen to be scheduled during the adjacent week. I, for example, had a massage appointment set up for Tuesday. I haven't had a massage in like 10 years, so this definitely qualifies as a special occasion that makes my Tuesday a festive BW day. Maybe your activity is less thrilling, like grocery shopping day, but that doesn't mean you can't make it festive. In that case, you might splurge on a bunch of your favorite entrees, drinks, snacks, or desserts...you know, Blog, make it your dream food shopping spree!

It's the Domes Art Fair!

Another factor that will help you is the scientific fact that every week includes a weekend. And weekends tends to be opportunities for special activities. See what's happening in your town and make it a BW activity. For example, in Milwaukee this was the weekend for the 2nd Annual Domes Art Fair, at which my daughter Katie's boyfriend happened to have a booth. How exciting! And anything exciting is BW fodder, Blog. The early kickoff on Friday meant a checkmark by that day for me.

Taking advantage of fun adventures you always enjoy definitely counts, so Saturday I took a groovy trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum (yep, Saturday was double festive!), and Sunday went to lunch and shopping in lovely downtown Cedarburg.

"The 500 Fingers of Dr. T" rocks.

Sadly, you will still have some weekdays to fill, and at least one will require creative thinking. If your office observes birthdays with treats, bringing in doughnuts, cake or cookies certainly adds a celebratory air to your random Wednesday. And remember, you can have festive fun even in the evening in your humble home. Wednesday evening it was a fab French Silk Sundae from Kopps (an annual treat) and a beloved movie I hadn't seen in 40 years, "Dr. Seuss's The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T." It's a party!

Here's a little tip: Sometimes it can be fun to NOT plan a BW activity and just be on the lookout all day for some happy surprise the universe sends your way. In my case, my blank Monday was made festive when my coworkers surprised me by decorating my office while I was out having a long weekend. Sweet! And it made for a complete seven-day extravaganza of fun.

A couple more suggestions: Birthdays are yet another reason to join Facebook. It's so fun getting greetings all day from your friends all over the world. You don't have to thank each one individually, but I find that doing so just makes each gesture more meaningful. It's a cyberparty all day! Meanwhile, if you can line up your BW with some several-day fun time, like a trip or a visit, that week will rock all the more. I was lucky that my uber-friend Martha stayed with us four fun days.

And that's all there is to it! The added benefit of observing a Birthday Week is that it will teach you to look for fun wherever you are and whatever you do, Blog. It's amazing how having a party attitude makes party feelings materialize on the most ordinary days! And that's a bonus b-day present for sure.

Maybe not your view of Facebook, but--

Blog, I know you keep dropping hints about getting your own Facebook page, but you know the rules: no disembodied anthropomorphic beings allowed. There aren't a ton of rules about Facebook, but there are some.

Meanwhile, there's really no rule about how a person looks at the role of Facebook in their lives, and I'm not here to tell anyone what that role should be for them. However, I feel like talking about how I look at it for me. Which of course may not matter to our readers, or even to you, Blog.

But it's my blog and I'll pontificate if I want to.

Today I got a friend request from a stranger. I do put out there in the cyberverse that people who are fans of my writing are welcome to friend me on Facebook, so sometimes that happens. Typically the person then introduces him-/herself with some nice words of appreciation. What's not to like? Other times, I get a request from a friend of a friend who has perhaps read my comments on that friend's status and would like to know me better and vice versa. Also very cool.

But this was one of those strangers who is a Networker. If you, dear reader, are a part of any sort of category, like I am a part of the authors of the world, you know whereof I speak. "Networkers" on Facebook are those who love to accumulate hoards of "friends" with that one thing in common, in my case, writing. I can appreciate the networking functionality of Facebook, although I'd prefer people keep that stuff to LinkedIn, which is really designed for professional networking. But hey, it's okay.

However, sometimes what Networkers are really trying to build on Facebook is a place for self-promotion, and only for self-promotion. Before you throw that pot/kettle/black thing at me, Blog, I won't deny that I sometimes bring up my books on Facebook. But I try to do it sparingly and in ways I would comfortably do at a party with my "real life" friends. Different story for the Facebook page for Aggie's Nine Heroes, since it's fan page and people know that going in. Many of my friends occasionally self-promote, and I'm cool with that too...it's reasonably proportional.

So back to our story. By Facebook's list of our mutual friends, I could see this stranger who sent the friend request was a writing networker. Typically when I get these, I'll accept, and then I'll give the person a week or two of posting. Oftentimes I really like them as a person and thus make a new friend. Othertimes less so, and then I block them. Yes, I admit it, that's what I do.

However, today's stranger was different. I accepted her request and then, as is my practice, checked out her wall. She was an author, all right. But what I found was 75% postings of political nature--links to articles, diatribes, etc. And as it happens these were not of my particular political bent. Result: immediate unfriend.

This is not to say I vehemently dislike anyone whose political views differ from mine; that's true of many of my dearest, oldest friends (and also my dad). What I vehemently dislike, frankly, is the behavior of posting endless political diatribes to one's friends on Facebook. It's a free country, do it if you like, but I don't have to read it. To me it seems like complete disrespect for those friends you have who disagree with you.

Whatever happened to the adage that, when in social groups, one ought not discuss religion or politics?

At any rate, clearly this person knew nothing at all about me and didn't really care to. And this leads to my problem with Facebook Networkers in general. Facebook is supposed to be for friends, people who either know each other or have a commonality that could genuinely lead to friendship, like I do with fans of my writing. When I accept a friend request and then see on his/her wall "Joan Blow is now friends with Diana Laurence and 17 other people," I'm tempted to unfriend or block right there.

What you are doing is very likely simply adding me to your promotional pool. Unless you truly use Facebook to share yourself, your interests and activities, and to engage with mine, you're not using the medium the way I do. I fear your ensuing status updates will be a steady stream like this:

Joan Blow Tell me what you think of my awesome new book cover!

Joan Blow I just added Pizza Bend, WY to my book tour--hope to see you there!

Joan Blow I just can't decide which guy in my new novel the Werewolf Alley series is the hottest. But then, it will be hard to top Tristan O'Donahue from the last one, or at least that's what my fans say!

Which, while better than a string of political diatribes, does not strike me as the best use of Facebook. But that's just me. (Of course if it's also you, you can click the Right On Box below.)

P.S., there is a real Joan Blow on Facebook. I really didn't mean her, I'm sure she's super nice.

My Angry Birdcage

I play Angry Birds almost every day, and what of it, Blog? I will not go to rehab, no, no, no. In fact, I was determined to celebrate my addiction with some sort of appropriate craft project. Hence...my Angry Birdcage.

Obviously polymer clay was the medium of choice for making some Angry Birds, so I thought about what best to do with some Bird sculptures. I considered jewelry with Bird beads, but worried that their little crest and tail feathers might break off. To keep the bitty creatures safe, what better solution than a cage? Of course, that would require a cage in the proper scale...

Optimistically, while out on a walk with Davie, I scored a nice fallen branchlet to use for perches in my cage. And then Saturday, while shopping the 99% useless and pretty scary Everything Must Go sale at our local closing World Market, what should I find but a perfect cage for six bucks! Kismet.

So I modeled my birds to the scale of the cage, which I won't deny was a bit of a challenge, Blog. Itty bitty beaks, itty bitty tails, and almost invisibly small eye pupils, oh my. And that Blue Bird? Kinda maddening to sculpt.

Our cat Selke will demonstrate the size we are talking about here. Keep in mind she is a very small cat.

The Red Angry Bird looked nervous as well as angry. Even after he was joined by his brethren, he appeared quite on the verse of swooning. Life would be safer in a cat-proof cage.

And so I installed my twigs in the cage, lining the bottom with some moss. I mounted the Birds with Fabric Glue, which I have to tell you is awesome for an application like this. It acts as if you are creating tiny, gripping rubber bands on the fly, that can be moved around a bit to secure Bird to branch. Thank heavens for that glue...it was a real pain (ship in a bottle variety) arranging those Birds.

Quite a fine habitat if I do say so myself, and the Birds seemed pleased as well as angry.  Green Boomerang Bird looks elated, and Black Bomb Bird looks thrilled, don't you agree, Blog? I mean, as well as angry?

And here are Blue Splitting-into-Three-Birds Bird, White Egg-Dropping Bird, and Yellow Zipping Bird, getting their party on.

You'll be glad to know we have the perfect spot for this cage to hang, in the faux tree o' lights in the living room. Check out how totally awesome it looks at night, like an Angry Birdcage Disco:

Soooweet! Now our only challenge is to keep the Toast-Powered Levitating Cat from dive-bombing the little critters....

Aggie FTW! (Hollywood Book Festival, that is)

Awesome news, Blog...and I couldn't wait to share it! The Hollywood Book Festival just announced the 2011 winners of its book competition, and Aggie's Nine Heroes won honorable mention in the Fiction book category. And they say it was a huge field of competitors this year!

Winners are chosen based on the author's storytelling ability (blush, blush) and the book's deserving  recognition by the film, television, game and multimedia communities.

So far Aggie is one-for-one in book competitions, so let's hope this will encourage more people to find out what makes it such a great book. Hey, don't take the author's word for it...ask the judges! :-)

Sometimes I'm cranky especially at dorks like this

Blog, I'm the kind of person who can be livid and no one notices. I just seem way nice all the time, or at least mild-mannered. Nevertheless, I do get really mad, especially at incompetence. And what I call "incompetence" is sometimes stuff that no one else even notices, I'm sure. Here's an example...

I really hate it when people behind the wheel are oblivious to the needs of other drivers around them. Today I experienced a classic example of this during morning rush hour. Here's the scenario, Blog. There was this huge line in the left lane at the stoplight because everyone was needing, one intersection further on, to be on the left to enter the freeway. I decided rather than get in that long queue, what the heck, I would get in the middle lane. I kinda figured I'd be able to merge to the left in the short block before that freeway ramp.

Why did I figure this? Because there's always at least one dork who doesn't move forward. Either....

1. they feel that one must leave three car lengths when going 10 mph, or
2. they are putting on their makeup and need to finish the lipstick before pulling forward, or
3. they just don't watch for the light to change

It's 3 that really irks me. If you are in the all important position of watching for the green light, you owe it to the people behind you to initiate motion ASAP. Your dawdling could cost some person (like me) two minutes on their work time clock if the light goes red before their turn.

So, this morning, natch, there was one of these #3 dorks at the head of the line. Here's your aerial view, Blog:

I am SO glad I didn't get into the left lane.  Here's what happened:

So I got skips over like 25 cars.  And probably saved two sessions of lights worth of time. No harm to the waiting cars, that would have been unused empty space had I not gone ahead.  And who knows, Blog, it might have been my passing and moving into the left lane that tipped off Stupid Red Car to notice the light changed.

I gloated. I only wish there had been a way to transport that car to the end of the line.

People, people...when traffic is heavy and lights are short, get your car through as fast as you safely can. Some may think this is the raving of a Type A personality, but I just think it's courtesy. Right, Blog?

The Toast-Powered Cat Levitation Device

Blog, we all know about the mind-blowing paradox of what would happen if you affixed a piece of buttered toast on the back of a cat and then dropped said cat. Because there are two immutable principles in the Universe:

1. A cat always lands on its feet.

2. Toast always lands buttered-side down.

I am not the first to theorize that were you to strap toast to a cat, the only possible result would be that it would remain suspended in the air. Now, what if you were to also contrive headgear for said cat that would allow it, via brainwaves, to control the direction of the contradictory cat/toast forces?

Well, you would undoubtedly get something like this:

Today I built an experimental scale model of the Toast-Powered Cat Levitation Device, including Toast Pack and Control Headgear. Don't tell me this isn't just awesome. In case you are too stunned to believe your own eyes, look again:

Sure enough, it IS real, Blog! In an artificial sort of way! And theoretical! No doubt you are dying to know how you too can make your own T-PCLD, because that is the natural human response to these photos. Never fear, I am here to provide complete directions.

1. The next time you throw away an old calculator, be sure to do as I did: take it apart and save the clear plastic circuitry sheet. Because you just never know, do you? Ditto the weird green bottle top, scraps of aluminum and brass, odd hardware doohickeys, leather lacing, and copper wire.

2. While it is possible to do this with real toast and a real cat, remember you are making a scale model and resist the temptation. Find a cat Beanie Baby and open a seam to remove the beans. (Q: What color are the beans in a Beanie Baby? A: Pearly white. Or as Davie would reply, "Magic.") Replace the beans with fiberfill stuffing, and resew the open seam. You may also want to replace the lame thread whiskers with nice springy ones made from Tiger Tail type beading wire, as I did. And take off the Ty tag, it will interfere with the brain waves.

3. Make a piece of buttered toast from polymer clay. This requires ivory and brown clay, textured with a toothbrush and needles, then painted toasty with brown eyeshadow. Make a nice melty butter pat of light yellow, and be sure to paint the pat with Future for shininess after baking your clay toast.

4. For the Toast Pack, curve the brass sheet around the cat's body. Determine the spot above the cat's body + equipment. Remove sheet from cat and drill a hole at the spot with your Dremel tool. Affix the circuitry sheet with a little Super Glue at the edges. Wrap with the aluminum strip. String colorless thread, doubled, or fishing line through the hole, and tie to a piece of bent wire inside the device. Secure wire and thread with clear packing tape. Mount toast to top of Toast Pack with Gorilla Glue.

5. For the Headgear, curl the wire with round pliers and bend into scientifically appropriate shape. Leave a long end to stick inside bottle top, threading also through weird hardware, which should fit snugly on the bottle top tip. Bend end of wire under head bracket to hold bracked in place against bottle top. Pack inside of bottle top with foil to secure wire in position. Run leather lacing through holes in head bracket, pulling tight to hold bracket snugly against wire and bottle top.

6. Slip the cat, hind legs first, into the Toast Pack. Put Headgear on the cat's head and tie leather lacing to secure. Tie the other end of the colorless thread or fishing line to a strong magnet. Now you can hang the cat from iron or steel objects, or use a large steel washer and pinch a flat mounting object between magnet and washer. It's portable! Of course!

Then let your cat fly and watch the amazing results. Birds beware! Dog, pooh on you! Firemen, no need for those tree rescues! NASA, eat your heart out! Okay, so that was hyperbole.

Blog, don't you love science? It's so exciting.

Stuff I wouldn't buy even if I were filthy rich

Hey Blog, ever daydream about what you'd buy with your lottery winnings? I know, what can an anthropomorphized disembodied being use, really? Well, this week a person in my life spent a carpload of money on a luxury item and it got me to thinking about the Two Categories of Luxury Stuff. You know, "Stuff I would buy only if I were filthy rich" and "Stuff I wouldn't buy even if I were filthy rich."

See, Blog, to each of us there are some things that people get all hepped up about that we don't covet at all. Things that make a person say to herself, "Jeez, imagine the great stuff you could buy with the money you threw away on that lame thing!" I'm sure everyone in the blogosphere is wondering what luxury items just leave me cold, so here are a few:

1. Jewelry that features giant diamonds.

2. Memorabilia items owned by famous celebrities.

3. Sets of super expensive matching furniture, and/or stainless steel appliances.

4. A luxury car like a BMW.

5. An iPhone and/or a Mac. Yeah, I'm that way.

6. Front row seats to a concert by some hugely popular artist/band.

7. Designer clothes, shoes, and/or purses.

8. Celery. I really don't like celery at all.

9. A private plane.

10. Tickets to the Super Bowl for life.

So, because everyone in the blogosphere really wants to know, here are some things I would buy only if I were filthy rich:

1. A boat and a lake property where I could keep it. And also someone to take care of said boat.

2. Some really awesome art like maybe a glass piece by Dale Chululy.

3. A rock wall and water feature built into my living room.

4. A private seminar on polymer clay art with Christi Friesen.

5. A home theater system with leather recliners and stuff.

6. Lobster for dinner on a regular basis.

7. A wing in my house that I could convert to a home for a couple dozen shelter cats.

8. A ton of advertising in every possible medium for my books.

9. A vacation home in a warmer clime where I could live in the winter when Wisconsin sucks.

10. Two weeks in NYC and tickets to every show on Broadway and to the Tonys. Annually.

So readers, what do you think? Is there a luxury item you can't see ever wanting to own? What would be your first luxury purchase after the windfall?

Oh, and I would not keep the Chululy in the part of the house with the couple dozen cats.