Many thanks...

to all the young writers from Bayside Middle School who attended my writing workshops yesterday! Thanks also for all those students from Bayside who wrote me the amazing letters after my last talk at the school. They are so beautiful I'm going to hang them up someplace. (I'd love to pass some of them off as my own artwork, but since they're signed, I'll have to give credit where credit is due.) Finally, a particular thanks to Vivian Hicks for arranging those events and for taking me out for a delicious lunch!

Today I'm off to see two more episodes of the Alice show at a screening in Vancouver. I can't wait. The last two episodes I saw made me laugh until I cried. Which reminds me that this evening might be a job for waterproof mascara. And new shoes. As well as a new top.

Please check the sidebar on this blog for upcoming events. I'll be in Richmond and Surrey on Tuesday the 4th and at the Vancouver Public Library on the 5th. Stop by if you can! I'll also be Edmonton the following week at the Capilano Branch of the library on the 11th and at Audrey's Books on the 12th.

Now I have to go scream and yell like a mad woman at the flicker who is drumming for honeys on our metal chimney pipe. He goes on the make at about 5:00 a.m. and keeps it up for most of the morning. He is making me old before my time. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to pull the old scuba suit out of the basement and set it up, water machine gun in its arms, on the deck. I doubt that will work, but I can throw it off the deck when I get too irritated with Flicker the F*&%#r's constant racket.

Until then...

Yet another...

reason not to invite Dick Cheney over for dinner.

Fantasy

Apologies for the scarcity of updates. I've been buried in revisions to the new book I'm working on. And in my spare time I've been wandering around the Imperiled Forest. I'm a bit concerned about my mental health, because several times now I've found myself wandering around it while crying and listening to Jack Johnson's soundtrack for Curious George. Don't ask. I just know how upset both George and Jack would be to see the stakes and surveyor's ribbons and know that soon the old growth trees will be felled to make way for yet another crappy housing development.

I've actually developed a bit of Curious George-induced fantasy. It goes like this. One day, Jack Johnson will be swinging through Nanaimo on his way to go surfing in Tofino. (He'll have heard about the west coast surf scene and about the amazing Bruhwiler family, as seen on 49 Degrees). He'll get a flat tire and have to pull his van over to the side of the road. As he walks over to the gas station, he'll pass the Seven Valley's Development Coming Soon sign. He'll sigh and shake his head sadly. Then he'll spot one of the pretty ribbons that we've put up. Or he'll spot one of my new signs (photos to come shortly) and he'll take a walk into the Imperilled Forest. There he'll read one of the please save us notes posted on the trees and he'll think, Dag! I just made a mint on that Curious George soundtrack. Got an Oscar nomination and everything. I think I'm going to save this patch of forest and turn it into a surfer's haven. We will put up little shacks amidst the trees and this will be our resting spot on our way to and from Tofino.

After Jack opens his surfer's haven, when Frank and I walk through the no-longer-Imperiled Forest, we'll be treated to surfer sing-alongs as well as an ever-revolving show of interesting surfer fashions.

We will be happy, the trees will live, the birds will have someplace to live, Jack Johnson will visit the island, and I won't have to cry every time I walk to the end of our street while listening to the Curious George soundtrack.