Robin L. Rotham's Blog, page 7

Happy Holidays!

Well, it's just a few minutes from midnight on Christmas Eve and unbelievably, I'm about to go to bed. The gifts are all wrapped (the girls did most of them!), the house is clean, and my first holiday dinner dinner party is out of the way. And it was even a success, despite my having burned the mincemeat pie crust.




I get to sleep in tomorrow (until 8 a.m. -- heaven!), make breakfast, have prezzie time with the family, and then head to church. From there we'll go to Mr Robin's family for most of the day. Then in the evening, I'll drive about 1.5 hours each way to pick up my nephew.




Monday will be my first large dinner party in the our house. I'm expecting about 30 people. Wish me luck!




Before I sign off, let me just express how grateful I am to all of you out there -- my friends and family, my publishers and fans -- for your support and encouragement. Seriously, I am the most blessed person I know.




Wishing every one of you joy and peace this holiday season,




Robin

Twelve Days of Christmas...Plus Two Extra Verses?

Some of you may not have read my old posts about my former foster daughter Margo, but all you need to know for now is that she lives in our old house with her four -- count 'em, FOUR -- children. The eldest (11), I fondly refer to as the Demon Spawn, and his younger sister (7) is his Young Apprentice. When we moved out of the old house two years ago, we had to leave some of our stuff because there just wasn't room for it in Mr Robin's grandma's house (which we lived in until this new house was completed). One of the things we had to do without was our Christmas tree, which I'd bought on clearance less than a year earlier. There was no place to store it, no place to put it up.



Mr Robin went over yesterday to get the tree so we could put it up today, for the very first time. It arrived all stuffed into a carseat box. The Demon Spawn had taken it upon himself to open it sometime during the last couple of years and assemble it in his bedroom. Then he'd decorated it with all our decorations, none of which arrived with the tree.



When we started to unpack it, we noticed it stunk to high heaven (like her house), and gradually I began to notice that my hands were getting very sticky. UGH. We had just gotten all the various branches sorted into piles when I pulled out the big, bushy top to the tree...



And found it decorated with old moldy Mini Wheats...and cat shit. I must have missed those verses in the Twelve Days of Christmas.





Unclean Decorations...



Yes, I threw the entire tree away. I know it seems wasteful, and I did think about soaking the whole mess in the tub, but it just wouldn't have been the same. I'd always look at that tree and know some strange cat(s) had desecrated it with their crap. (Plus, I'd have had to clean cat crap out of the tub, too.)



What would you have done?

Yes, I Threw It Away

Some of you may not have read my old posts about my former foster daughter Margo, but all you need to know for now is that she lives in our old house with her four -- count 'em, FOUR -- children. The eldest (11), I fondly refer to as the Demon Spawn, and his younger sister (7) is his Young Apprentice. When we moved out of the old house two years ago, we had to leave some of our stuff because there just wasn't room for it in Mr Robin's grandma's house (which we lived in until this new house was completed). One of the things we had to do without was our Christmas tree, which I'd bought on clearance less than a year earlier. There was no place to store it, no place to put it up.



Mr Robin went over yesterday to get the tree so we could put it up today, for the very first time. It arrived all stuffed into a carseat box. The Demon Spawn had taken it upon himself to open it sometime during the last couple of years and assemble it in his bedroom. Then he'd decorated it with all our decorations, none of which arrived with the tree.



When we started to unpack it, we noticed it stunk to high heaven (like her house), and gradually I began to notice that my hands were getting very sticky. UGH. We had just gotten all the various branches sorted into piles when I pulled out the big, bushy top to the tree...



And found it decorated with old moldy Mini Wheats...and cat shit.





I must have missed those verses in the Twelve Days of Christmas...

Yes, I Ate It

Had lunch yesterday at the local Pizza Hut and ordered pizza rolls. When the waitress set my plate on the table, she bobbled it, spilling a little marinara sauce. This was what she served me. I swear on everything I hold dear that this is exactly how she served it -- the only change I made was turning the plate about 90 degrees to get a better shot with my cell phone.



Am I supposed to eat this or deep-throat it?

My ten-year-old and twelve-year-old daughters couldn't figure out why I laughed 'til I cried and took pictures of my lunch. Can I just say I'm very glad about that?

Blogging at Smutketeers Today!

Today I join Kate Pearce and Lauren Dane for Day 4 of the 12 Days of Smutketeer Christmas! We're telling stories and giving away awesome prizes -- AND I posted my grandmother's recipe for hot cinnamon punch. Mmm-mmm!

So drop by and say hi!

She's Doing Something Right

Before I start, let me say that I'm going to be using asterisks to name a couple of YA authors because I don't want to attract a bunch of teens and preteens to my adult content-oriented site. I also won't be mentioning their books by name, even the name of the book I'm particularly excited about, for the same reason.

So yesterday my ten-year-old daughter Jana finished reading the fourth and final book in a blockbuster paranormal YA series -- in case you haven't guessed it already, one of the movies based on this book premiered Friday. The book is 750 pages long, and she read it in less than a week. During a SCHOOL week. Admittedly, she was home sick with strep two of those days, but still, I think it's quite an accomplishment for a 10yo girl, especially one like her.

The thing is, Jana suffers from dyslexia, and as recently as a year ago, she hated reading. Well, she liked to read one particular series of very short books for younger kids (Junie--need I say more?) but once she finished those, she had no desire to read further. She hasn't been officially diagnosed with dyslexia -- the school tested her and said yes, she has many of the markers but it's not bad enough to require special ed -- but I know she's dyslexic. Despite the fact that she's very smart and a hardworking, straight-A student, she consistently scores well below the (very low) benchmark for reading proficiency for her grade level. Last week I was trying to help her understand what she's supposed to glean from newspaper articles she was assigned to read, and I told her to write down five words -- who, what, where, when and why, then figure out each for each article. Who was it about, what about them, etc. This is what she jotted down:

who

wath

wen

were

why

Seriously. She's in 5th grade and can't spell the basic interrogative pronouns. She still reverses her b's and d's, p's and q's (although she usually catches herself upon rereading), and she has incredible difficulty sounding out new words--when she first tries to sound them out, she often starts with the last letter. If that's not dyslexia, I don't know what is.

The other evidence supporting my position that Jana's dyslexic is that both of my siblings had learning disabilities in reading, and I know they're hereditary. My brother was diagnosed very early with mild dyslexia and got all the help he needed. He went on to become a college professor. My sister was less fortunate. She was diagnosed with ADD and unspecified learning disabilities in reading and math, but the diagnosis came way too late to help her. (They grew up in different homes -- my brother was given up for adoption to a financially well-off family and had a stay-at-home mom, while my sister and I grew up with a single mother who worked two jobs to keep us afloat.) The school didn't catch my sister's learning problems until 8th grade, and by then she was so frustrated with the whole scene that she wound up dropping out that same year. She's hardworking, funny, and has an excellent vocabulary, but though she later went back for her GED, to this day she can't spell or do simple addition to save her life. It limits her job options severely. And sadly, she's never read a single book for the simple enjoyment of it. She'd rather nail her thumb to the wall than read a magazine article, much less a book.

Jana has no problems with math, and since she's so good at compensating for her reading difficulties, she doesn't qualify for any kind of special assistance or accommodation from the school. It worries me that she's going to have a harder time getting into (and getting through) college, especially if she has no official diagnosis, but trust me, I'm going to be all over this until she graduates from high school.

But getting back to this 750-page book she just finished... Just this fall, she got hooked on another author (G*rd*n K*rman), who writes lots of short three- and four-book adventure series, and she's got a stack of 20+ books waiting to be read for school book reports. But when she found out that we couldn't go see THE MOVIE on the opening weekend, she decided to drop everything and read it. She couldn't stand waiting those few extra days to find out what happened to B, E & J, especially when some of her classmates might get to go see the movie over the weekend. And when Jana makes up her mind to do something, she damn well does it no matter how long it takes her.

If you'd asked her just two weeks ago if she'd ever voluntarily read a 750-page book, her answer would have been an emphatic NO WAY! But she was so invested in the characters in the movies, she just HAD to read the last book. Now she wishes she'd read them all. She won't read the earlier ones now because she already knows what happened -- the suspense is gone.

But she knows she CAN read a 750-page book, and she knows she can enjoy the hell out of it. She'll never again be too intimidated top read a book because it's long. I attribute this entirely to the author's eminently readable writing style. I read the whole series myself a couple of years ago, and read each book overnight because they just sucked me right along at a breakneck pace. My older kids (12 and 14), who both drive up the reading curve in their grades, have tried reading some of my favorite paranormal adult books (one of whose authors had some unflattering things to say about this author's writing), and they gave up after the first couple of chapters because the prose was dense and the plots moved too slowly for young minds. So "bigger" authors can diss this lady's writing all they want, but if she can write a 750-page book that both a dyslexic ten-year-old and her author mother can read and enjoy in less than a week, she's obviously doing something very right.

Whatever Happened to Customer Service?

Okay, it's rant day on my blog.  Yesterday both my girls tested positive for strep, and I told the doc my son also had a cough and sore throat.  She said if he still felt bad this morning, to bring him in to be tested.



So, since he only wants to miss one day of school and you have to be on anitbiotics for 24 hours before you're not contagious, I dragged my ass out of bed at the usual 6:20 (which sucks when nobody's going to school) and took him in first thing this morning.  The clinic is open for walk-ins from 8 - 9 a.m. and I wanted to be first in line.





Well, we were second.  When we pulled into the parking lot at 7:50, there was already a car waiting, a dad with his little girl who's still small enough to be riding in a rear-facing car seat.  As we sat there waiting for the doors to open, several cars pulled into the lot between 7:55 and 8:05 but they were all nurses/office people.  The doors weren't unlocked until 8:05, and they didn't start taking people back until 8:15. Even then, they were waiting for the computers to boot up, etc., and even though we just needed to see a nurse for the throat culture, we weren't taken back until 8:25, after a couple of other walk-ins who showed up.



You know, in my day (yeah, back in the stone age, ya whippersnappers), I always had to be at work early enough to get any necessary prep done before my shift actually started.  If the sign on the door said we opened at 8 a.m., that door was unlocked right at 8 a.m. (or sooner) and we were all in place, ready to help people.  When I was a cashier at TG&Y, I had to have my register counted and ready to check people out before the doors opened in case someone just wanted to duck in the door for a pack of gum on their way to work. When I worked in an office, I was expected to be there at least 15 minutes early to get the coffee started, the computers booted up, etc.  Even now, after all these years, I'm 10-15 minutes early for EVERYTHING.  The kids are at school at least 10 minutes early so they have time to get to their lockers and find what they need for their first class.



Unfortunately, that kind of work ethic seems to be a thing of the past, at least around here.  Every single time I go someplace right when they're supposed to open, they're invariably 5-10 minutes late (or more) unlocking the doors and nobody's ready to help me after the doors open.  What happened?! Even if the employees don't care about punctuality and preparedness, you'd think the employers would.  Is being late and already falling behind first thing in the morning the kind of rep you want your business to have?



On the other hand,  I have a degree in business management and a buttload of continuing education in leadership and customer service, much of it from Disney Institute, so my standards are pretty high. Am I just expecting too much?

The Only 13 US States I've Never Visited

A few days ago, I figured out that I've visited, at least driven through/into, 37 US states -- which means that there are exactly 13 states I haven't visited.  Seemed like a pretty good TT, so here goes:



1. Alaska



2. Connecticut



3. Delaware






4. Hawaii




5. Maine




6. Massachusetts




7. Montana




8. North Dakota



9. New Hampshire



10. New Jersey





11. Rhode Island




12. Vermont




13. West Virginia



I intend to visit all these states before I die.  So what about you? Have you been to as many states as I have? More, even?

And The Winner Is...

Danell! 




Congratulations, Danell!  You've won a $10 Amazon gift card and your choice of any one of my books, either ebook or autographed print.  Just drop me a line and let me know where to send them.




And thanks to everyone else who played!  I'll be running another contest in November, so be sure to check back in.

Thirteen of My Favorite TV Shows

Here are thirteen of my all-time favorite TV shows, shows that I followed religiously and couldn't stand to miss an episode of.  The thing that most of these have in common is that there was/is at least one romantic relationship that I was rooting for.



1. Fringe. Rooting for Peter and Olivia. Our Olivia. (And am I weird to be kind of rooting for Walter and Astrid?)




2. Smallville. At first I rooted for Clark and Lana. And even for Clark and Lex, in a way. And then, of course, for Clark and Lois. (And Chloe and Jimmy, then Chloe and Davis, then Chloe and Oliver...)




3. House. Well, I was rooting for House and Cuddy. Now I'm rooting for House to end it all in some spectacularly public and gruesome manner.




4. Bones. I came late to this one but got hooked into rooting for Bones and Booth. I was SERIOUSLY pissed this last season when they deprived me of the very thing I'd waited and rooted for all this time, but I'll continue to watch to see if the writers can redeem themselves.






5. Frasier. OMG, this is still seriously the funniest show on television. I absolutely adored Niles and I was desperate to see him and Daphne get together.  They were so perfect together!




6. X-Files. Of course, I was mad about this one from the beginning and rooted for Mulder and Scully. I've never gotten the kind of emotional resolution I wanted from that show, and believe me, I watched every single episode.




7. The Nanny. Watched this faithfully from the beginning, just waiting for that HEA, and the show didn't disappoint. I came out of it with a tiny girl crush on Fran Drescher just because she could make a character who could be very annoying instead very charming.




8. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wow, I was such a fanatic, I watched it at work -- in the lobby -- at the Vail resort condominium where I worked, on Saturday evenings, the busiest day of the week. I rooted for Picard and Dr. Crusher, and Will Riker and Deanna, but mostly I rooted for Data. He was the most appealing character on the show.




9. Beauty and the Beast. OMG, do I even have to say who I rooted for? I was bitter at the way the show ended, and so much happened off-screen, I felt cheated. But I still loved the show. Vincent, ah, Vincent... If only more men were more like you.




10. The Incredible Hulk. Poor David Banner -- such a good guy and he got such a raw deal. I wish someone would finally give him the HEA he deserves.




11. Laverne and Shirley. I don't really remember who I rooted for in that one, as far as romance, but I never missed it.




12. Little House On the Prairie. I had a love/hate relationship with that one. It was just too heartbreaking sometimes. Like when Albert accidentally set a fire at the blind school and killed Mary's baby and Mr. Garvey's wife. First you make Mary blind and then you kill her baby?! How could either Mary or Albert get past something like that? And then they left us hanging, with Albert having leukemia! WTF was that about?!







13. The Six Million Dollar Man/The Bionic Woman.  I thought they should have gotten back together.








Bonus. Mork and Mindy. Yeah, I admit it, I was dying to see this show when it premiered, and of course the day the first episode aired, the picture tube in our old console TV went out so I had to just listen to it like an old-time radio show. Gah! That was agony, I tell you.  I loved the show for years and was thrilled when Mork and Mindy got together, but the show went south for me when their "baby" was Jonathan Winters. That just stretched the limits of my imagination a little too far.




So what were some of your favorite shows over the years?