Hannah Rae's Blog, page 19

I am not a rollercoaster person

...but I sure do enjoy a good water slide!

My buddy, Buddy, and I chaperoned the senior trip earlier this week and it was a pretty fun time. We went to Kalahari, which is in the Poconos, and ride some very fun slides. I got flushed down a giant toilet and went down an amazing blue and green slide not once... not twice... not thrice... but FOUR TIMES! Oh, it was so much fun! And climbing UP the stairs to go DOWN the slide is such a good workout!

What's also a good workout is going in search of a waterfall that was discovered by Stu, Kyle, and an abundance of students. Stu and Kyle tried to show this phenomenon to Buddy and me... but we got lost. This is the "waterfall" we ended up finding:

To quote Buddy, "This is nice, but I’m pretty sure my parents have almost the same thing in their backyard."

The most amazing thing regarding our hike to the "waterfall" is that I hiked the entire thing in $1 flip-flops from Old Navy because I had no idea we were going on a hike and my sneakers were on the bus! I survived without so much as a stubbed toe (even though I was slightly worried I'd end up like my friend Tiff, who sprained her ankle on last year's senior trip...).

That's today's blog. I’m at Fourscore, waiting for my trivia team to arrive, and I keep catching whiffs of banana. Weird, right?

Okay.... byeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Uptempo, Down

I had a book club with my Hannah Rae Readers on Saturday night to discuss something that I wrote called Uptempo, Down. Of the guys in the band Flannel Lobster, this is Finn's story, and it takes place at Moonglow, NC, which some readers may recognize as Jonny's hometown. (Jonny from The Way Back, that is. If you're looking for a sequel, this isn't it, but Uptempo does answer some questions readers may be asking after The Way Back...)

Anyway, because one of the characters in my new book is a baker who owns a cupcake shop called For the Love of Cupcakes, I made some miniature cupcakes for Saturday's event:

Chocolate espresso with espresso icing Chocolate with peanut butter icing Chocolate with chocolate-cream cheese icing Chocolate-almond with almond-coconut icing Lemon with lemon-cream cheese icing Vanilla with blackberry icing Coconut with coconut-cream cheese icing.

Here's a picture:

Are you jealous? I'll bet you are!

For the most part, folks seemed to enjoy the book. We talked about the characters a good bit (people love Finn and Edna, want more of Bert and Russo, and are tired of Bas and Lucy... even though Bas is the most important character because he fuels the plot of just about every novel and is my absolute favorite to write about. ‍♀️ Whatevs. Bas brings me joy and I will continue to tell his story on the pages of my novels because I ADORE him.)

My marketing manager Mary thinks that we may be able to edit and release Uptempo as early as next winter, but we'll see. It's a pretty fun read--and a fast one--but I want to read over it another couple of times before I make any rash decisions.

Here's a picture of my beloved reading group. Their feedback, even when it's not 100% positive, makes me a better writer and I am so thankful to have them in my world! ❤️

Trivia Recap: 5/11

The Players: Hannah (English teacher), Ben (not a trash collector), Alex (coffee shop owner), Darren (math professor)

Opening Category: Coffee!

Hint of the Day: Snow (because we didn’t get any this year…)

It was a tiny team this week because Victoria was “in the land of dental hell,” Mary didn’t have a babysitter (we don’t count Mary’s babysitter as a member of our team because she doesn’t contribute to the answers, but Mary does require supervision when she comes to trivia each week; she gets rowdy), Brock was somewhere that was not Gettysburg, and Phil had another meeting. That fellow is always in meetings…

Before the game actually began, I remembered that I had a small gift for Ben. Want to know what it was? Of course you do! It was a pickle sticker that said “I ❤️ pickles,” which I purchased for him while visiting a pickle shop in Jim Thorpe. Upon giving it to him, Ben said, “You know, I don’t really love pickles that much.” To which I responded, “Sure, but it’s our bit. It’s what we do.” And then Alex pointed out that we do the same thing with Blink 182… which also came up a couple times last night because I was talking about how bothered I am by certain voices. Like, I once went on a date with a guy who was really handsome and nice, but his voice was terrible. I struggle with that. Sensitive ears, I guess.

Round One:

Since The Educated Friends won last week, we got to choose the opening category, and as Darren explained in last week’s blog, Alex chose the opening category of Coffee! We all knew that Brazil/Brasil was the answer because we know that 40% of coffee beans come from there, and that was the clue. Alex wanted us to spell Brazil with an S, but Ben spelled it with a Z on the little slip that we had to take up. This resulted in a comical argument between the two, which (in my opinion) Ben won when he left the table saying, “I’m not going to spell all the countries the way the countries spell the countries. Deutschland.”

Before trivia started, Darren had texted to say that we could send him a picture of the categories and he would help us choose our bonus categories. He didn’t actually give us input on bonus categories, but he did express disappointment that he’d be missing For the Comic Book Lovers. You see, Darren was running late because his son had a baseball game. He showed up in time for Three Clues / One Name, which was helpful, but it would have been more helpful if he’d been on time because he knew the bonus for the comic book category and the Coffee Shop category that we missed completely.

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All in all, Round One was a bit of a struggle for us, which is unusual because we typically do very well to start the game. Still, our hopes remained high.

Round Two:

Unique Cover Songs, the audio clue of the day, was a fun one because the songs were sung in foreign languages. I recognized Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” (even though I know Letters to Cleo’s version better), which proved helpful to the team. We all knew “Rock the Casbah” because EVERYBODY knows that song! Rock ‘n’ roll! And thank goodness Alex and Darren have some teenybopper tendencies because they recognized Justin Bieber’s song… whose name I cannot think of right now. 1990s TV Sitcoms proved to be fun -- Tia and Tamara of Sister, Sister fame! -- and Ben was an asset regarding films based on fairy tales. I am continually impressed by both Darren and Ben’s ability to figure out dates. They are so rational and logical about sorting through all the files in their brains; it’s a fascinating thing to watch.

It was around this time that I randomly asked Alex if she would prefer to swim with a whale shark or a manatee. This is just how my brain works, folks. Alex chose a manatee. I’d choose a whale shark because I used to have a picture book in which a small scuba diver was swimming beside a whale shark and the whale shark was placed beside a school bus. I just think it would be really neat to swim beside something that large… and have it be a shark! Ben chose a whale shark too because he could “guarantee manatees kill more people than whale sharks.” Alex and I disputed this, saying that manatees are known as the cows of the sea, but Ben said he’d prove his point.

He couldn’t, of course. Despite his cockiness when he pulled his phone from his pocket to do internet research, he quickly discovered that there are no recorded instances of manatees hurting anyone.

I also confided to Alex that I love to imagine what it would be like to be a small scuba diver and swim in regular things that have been filled with water. Bathroom and kitchen sinks are great for these imaginings because some of them have really fun shapes! Ben then talked about how when he was a kid, he’d look out the window of a car (while on a trip or whatever) and right there where the ground met the sky, he’d envision a little guy who had to get by all the obstacles that cropped up. Kind of like that fun dinosaur game that shows up when the internet doesn’t work on a Mac. I love that game! I’m actually quite good at it. Anyway, I told Ben I was going to someday use that mental video game of his in a book because I thought it was totally adorable and clever.

Halftime:

We aced this. The top half required us to identify movies based on stills. I wasn’t very helpful with this because I am not much of a movie watcher. To commit to a movie, in my mind, is just a lot. D’you know what I mean? But, like, for some reason my brain doesn’t feel that committing to an entire series is a big deal because those episodes are chunked into 45 minutes or so. Much more reasonable.

The bottom half of the halftime sheet was matching authors to their books, and I was kind of helpful with that. Darren and I knocked that out in a matter of seconds. No more than one minute, certainly.

Round Three:

Alex and I had wanted to choose Dog On It as our bonus category, but we ended up going with Actors and Their Roles. It wouldn’t have mattered either way because we got the points for both. The categories that were tricky were A+B=C Board Game Edition and Country Music Duets. We missed both. None of us is very familiar with backgammon, which proved to be problematic, and we don’t listen to much country music either.

6-4-2:

Confession: We should have listened to Ben when he told us the answer was Wonder Bread after just one clue, but I really didn’t think that was right. Turns out, it was right. We got it for 4 points but could have had it for 6.

Round Four:

As per usual, Ben and Darren figured out the answer to MLB Divisions, and I think we got 20th Century World History right as well. (I think I was getting a beer at that point because I was pretty certain I wouldn’t know the answer.) We would have gotten Olympic Geography except for the fact that I thought Sydney was the capital of Australia and it’s not. Granted, no one was sure what the capital was… but still.

Final Category:

Reality TV was the category and the question was “Which show won the Emmy for seven straight years starting in 2003?” Darren knew the answer, which put us into second place. (In case you’re wondering, the answer was The Amazing Race.)

Next week’s opening category is The Flintstones (the show, not the vitamins), so I might need to watch some old cartoons in the near future. Yabba dabba dooooooo!

Saturday Blog

I just remembered that I need to write one more blog this week to complete my challenge (for myself) to write seven blogs this week (even though Darren wrote one of them and I just posted it... and that one was possibly my favorite).

Here are things I made today:

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Another great thing that happened was Harvey was chewing on the lampshade (he likes to do that) and I reached up to stop him and he wrapped his little perfect paw around my finger and began to nibble it and it made me love him more than I already did... which seems impossible, I know, but it happened.

Random thing: I had a dream last night in which I got two new kittens and I didn't want them. I sometimes have kitten dreams and I always want them, and if kittens unexpectedly showed up at my house I would want them (in real life), but the dream was proof that Harvey is enough. I love Harvey soooooo much. He is possibly the greatest thing that's ever happened to me (other than Ernie, who is tied with Harvey) and that is the end of this blog.

Trivia Recap: 5/4

Trivia Recap: May The Fourth. Get it? It’s a Star Wars Joke.

The Players: Mary (English teacher), Victoria (veterinarian), Alex (coffee shop owner), Darren (Math professor), Kyle (Drunk. See below.)

Hello again, Hannah’s readers! It’s me, Darren! Hannah and Phil are off at some concert tonight ,(Hannah here. I added a video to the end of this post; it wouldn't upload last night... but now you can see the fancy feet!), and Ben is [redacted] and Brock is in a galaxy far far away, so we were short-handed but never fear: The Educated Friends played on. Earlier today, Hannah texted me and said “You can write the blog if you want” and I figured that was really a request or even a demand more than it was an offhand comment. I don’t want to anger her since she will be a famous writer some day, so here goes.The opening category was Quilting and Alex has recently started quilting and she described herself as getting obsessive when she takes on new hobbies, so when she asked if we would trust her enough to make that our bonus category we agreed. And she did in fact know that it is considered unlucky to stitch a heart into a quilt that you are giving as a wedding gift! (Although she did NOT know that if you sew a quilt on a Sunday you will have to undo all of those stitches with your nose after you die and go to heaven, as I learned from Quilting Daily. ) In the rest of the first round, we all knew about The Office and green rooms and George Washington Carver, but we could not come up with the name of the thing you hit the balls through in Croquet even though we were told it shares the name of a Star Wars character. No, it’s not an Ackbar.The audio category was clips of Star Wars actors in non-Star Wars roles, and we recognized Mark Hamill’s Joker and Liam Neeson’s particular set of skills, but none of us watched Battlestar Galactica so we did not recognize Katie Sackhoff.In movie quotes, I knew that Renee Zellweger “had me at hello”, a line which women seem to find more creepy than romantic when I say it to them while standing in the rain. Chemical Element Word Games asked us for the element which would have the lowest score in Scrabble, an answer which Victoria pulled out at literally the last possible second (TIN). There was also some stuff about Tom Selleck’s various tv roles.The halftime round involved naming all the rooms on a Clue board, which Mary and Alex got very quickly, and recognizing movies with Star Wars actors. We got all of them except Ewan Macgregor in Angels and Demons, which made us miss Hannah because we know how much she loves Dan Brown. It turns out that I was the only one in the whole bar who recognized Carrie Fisher in Blues Brothers, which one of our rival Street Sharks said is because I am “of a different generation”. Hmph.

The third round opened with Triple 50/50: Alive or Extinct, and we chose it as our bonus category even though Victoria said she doesn’t actually learn about extinct animals in veterinary school. She still was willing to bet her life that the California Condor was still alive and then we decided to put ‘extinct’ for both of the others knowing that you only needed two and at least one would be extinct. As it turns out, they both were extinct so we got lots of points on that question.

Mary knew about Supernanny and I knew the Everly Brothers (maybe I am of a different generation, after all) and we all knew that the largest replica X-Wing Fighter ever was made out of Legos and not something dumb like butter. We got the 6-4-2 question for 4 points on the hunch that Homer Simpson was a character in The Day of The Locusts and we were in second place by one point going into the final round.The final round may have been the ugliest round of Pour House Trivia that I have seen.Tell me, can you name a Denzel Washington sports movie that was released 30 years ago? Of course you can, it’s REMEMBER THE TITANS, right? Wrong. That movie was released 23 years ago and they were actually looking for HE GOT GAME. Can you name the three countries that border Lake Victoria? Of course not — and we even had someone named Victoria on our team! Can you name the organization that rates nonprofit groups as part of the Wise Giving Alliance? If you were like us you thought it was the United Way and not, in fact, the Better Business Bureau. Do you know the interstate that connects Louisville to Cleveland? Well, it turns out that Victoria does but for some reason she didn’t say it out loud so we put 75 (which connects Lexington to Toledo) instead of 71.

Luckily, we did know Macbeth is the Shakespeare play with the three witches and that was our bonus category, but that was the only question we got right in the whole round. However, it seems like most teams bombed the round -- I am curious to see the full breakdown on the Pour House Trivia blog -- and we were still in second place going into the final question.Before I tell you about that final question, I should mention that it was during the third round that a man named Kyle (who we are pretty sure is NOT Mary’s cousin) came and sat down next to us very excited to play trivia with us. Oh, and reeking of alcohol. We let him sit down with us, but as it turns out it seems like he did not in fact want to play trivia, but instead was there to hit on one of us. (No, not me, but one of the younger, attractive, female members of the team.) He did not know any more about sports movies than we did, despite his assurances that he would, and after he realized we were actually interested in discussing African geography rather than hearing about where he went to high school, he walked away without saying anything. He was last seen playing ball with a bunch of kids across the street from the bar.Back to the game, the category for the final category was “Another Star Wars Question” and the question started with “At Samuel L Jackson’s request…” and Mary and I looked at each other and immediately whispered “PURPLE!” without answering the rest of the question. That was in fact the right answer and it was enough for us to come from behind and win! Even without Hannah.We let Alex choose coffee as the opening round for next week, when hopefully Hannah will be back to take over the reins. Then we all left and went home because the bar was closing. For people of my generation it sure is fun to close down a bar and still be able to get home before sunset.

Phil and I are going to another show!

5:19PM

I ran out of time to write a blog before meeting my concert husband Phillip for tonight's show... so I’m writing another blog with my thumbs while riding shotgun. Here's hoping for zerO motion sickness!

The reason I wrote "zero" like that is because we're headed to ZerOday for beers and dinner beforehand. I’m gonna get Casual Ruckus! Woot! (That's a really good IPA that Phil introduced me to.)

Tonight's concert is going to be an interesting one. We're going to see a band called Moon Hooch and it's comprised of dudes on saxophones. Three dudes, I think... but I'll find out for sure in a couple hours. I hope they're cute!

Later

We ate dinner. I forgot my phone and Phil took some pictures.

I got the salmon BLT without the B. It was great.

7:38ish

The show happened. It was amazing.

It is still happening and I love this guy's feet. I have already completely divorced his mullet... but his feet? T otal fan girl for his foot work.

Would you care for a spot of tea?

I’m writing this blog on my phone because my laptop is almost dead and the charger is being finicky so it needs to stay on the kitchen counter for now. Anyway... that being said, this will be short.

Today in class, my sophomores and I had a tea party. (I actually had four tea parties: periods 1, 2, 6, and 7.) The reason for this? Chapter 24 of To Kill A Mockingbird. Aunt Alexandra hosts her missionary society and I hosted my students. We had tea (the kids use waaaaaaay too much sugar; good thing they're flossing and brushing now because their teeth are at serious risk of cavities!), Oreos, ginger snaps, vanilla wafers, oatmeal pies, and vanilla sandwich cookies. Nearly everything was consumed; I have very few leftovers.

I love Chapter 24... even though it's tricky to understand. So much of what's said needs to be inferred. In my opinion, it's a brilliant piece of work, but most of my students need to talk it out in order to fully understand the content. Once they get it, though? They like it. Especially period one!

(Admittedly, period one likes most things. I adore that group of kiddos and am so fortunate I get to start my day with them.❤️)

One of the best lines in the whole book comes from Chapter 24: "His food doesn't stick going down, does it?" Miss Maudie (who is BADASS!) says this to Mrs. Merriweather (who is a hypocritical racist), and even though that line doesn't make a lot of sense without putting some thought into it, once it's understood, it's QUITE the insult! I love Miss Maudie. I hope to someday have a dog and name her Maudie. Either another Kerry Blue, a Bedlington, or an Otterhound.

I have to end this now. I could go on and on about Chapter 24, but my thumbs are tired.

Like a Dad Joke...

Everyone knows there ain't no bad joke like a dad joke, but what everyone might not know is that my coworker Rob loves bad jokes! And I hate them! It's literally taken him years to realize just how much I hate them, but he now understands and only shares the especially bad ones (to be read as "good ones"? I don't even know...) with me at school.

Fortunately for Rob, I discovered Logan Lisle of Dock Tok fame about a year ago and find him to be both cute and funny. In addition to this, he's motivational, because when he started Dock Tok, he didn't have a whole bunch of followers, but he kept doing what he was doing because he knew he was funny and had faith in himself that eventually the rest of the world would realize his hilarity. And it did! Now Logan travels the world, seeing the sights and getting hair transplants in Turkey and undergoing corrective eye surgery and whatnot. He's a well-traveled dude with a more-than-respectable following and in addition to both of those things, he seems really humble and kind. Most of his jokes are absolutely awful (to be read as "absolutely incredible") and I often take them, tweak them a bit to make them mine, and then present them to Rob in a way that he never suspects a punchline is in the works. Sometimes I send them as texts:

Other times (like today), I share them in the hallway between classes:

Hannah: Hey. Do you ever think about how there are, like, way more planes in the sea than there are submarines in the sky?

Rob: Well, no. I never have before. But I guess that's true. You don't really see submarines in the sky, and there are definitely more planes in the sea as a result of crashes.

Hannah: [nodding in agreement] Yeah... that's plane to sea.

Rob: [Momentarily speechless, then shaking his head in wonderment] See? Some of them are funny!

Hannah: Yeah, well, they're infinitely funnier when I tell them.

And that's today's blog. Special thanks to my friend and coworker Rob, because he always falls for the bad jokes I tell him and he also thinks they're funny... and also special thanks to Logan Lisle, because he gives me material and motivation. I forget if it was on Instagram or TikTok that I watched/listened to his motivational speech about not giving up, but what he said impacted me. The guy's funny, but he's also very real, and that pep talk really encouraged me to keep writing and posting and doing what I'm doing in the hopes that maybe someday someone will realize that I'm a better writer than a lot of the folks who get book deals.

Fingers crossed!

And check out Dock Tok if you haven't already!

Life With Arlo: Grandma's House Edition

Grandparents obviously aren't supposed to have favorites, but my mom definitely has a favorite granddog and it is not Arlo... Nevertheless, she occasionally invites him over for a brief visit because she understands how very much he adores her.

Because Arlo is an absolute menace to society, the last time he paid a visit to my parents' house was the day he ran away from home and took himself to my parents' house ()... until we stopped by last Wednesday while walking the neighborhood that evening.

My mom met us outside and Arlo proceeded to throw himself at her, wanting to cover her face with kisses and plant muddy footprints all over her sweatshirt and wrap his wiry arms around her in a hug. And because my mom is a very kind person, she invited us inside. I was given the go-ahead to take off Arlo's leash.

I should not have done this.

Next time we visit Grandma's house, Arlo will be on drugs because he literally never stopped moving. He was like a tornado, leaving a mess of destruction in his wake, and went from one room to the next, exploring anything and everything. Unlike Augusta, Arlo couldn't care less about the cats living at my parents' place, but he very much enjoyed their food. Then, supposing my terrible terrier had worked up a thirst after devouring Bertie and Pops's leftovers, my mom gave him a dish of water.

For those of you who have never owned a male Airedale, placing a bowl of water on the ground probably doesn't seem like such a big deal, but if you have owned a male Airedale (and maybe a female one --- I just never had a problem with Agatha doing this though), you know that they tend to eat the water. Augie, my Kerry Blue, laps at the water, and even though she has a beard, she somehow manages to not make a mess. Arlo, on the other hand, tends to stick his entire snout in the water dish and gobble it up. I mop regularly as a result.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/58cc22_ac24b5941d3a4e38a79c3278e32569c2/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

For reasons that neither my mom nor I can understand, Bert, her orange cat, decided to venture into the living room while Arlo was visiting. Now, like I said earlier, Arlo isn't fazed by cats. He's grown up with them and generally has great respect for them. I've taught him that they are the superior creature and he mostly understands that. The problem is this: Bertie, when he finally realized Arlo was in the room (and Arlo, in turn, noticed him), began to growl.

Arlo didn't understand this. His cats don't growl at him, you see, and I believe he took offense to this behavior because he barked... which made Bert's fur stand on end and his tail grow big and fat. So then there was barking and growling and I tried to calm Arlo (which I managed to do because it was just his ego that was hurt) and Bert took off and a lamp may have fallen onto the floor, along with a book or two.

We left after that.

And then my mom mopped... for obvious reasons.

But do you want to know what else my mom had to do? Blot urine from her carpet because Arlo attempted to mark his territory by peeing on her new chair. Fortunately, the boy has terrible aim and missed by several inches, but what an absolute asshole, right?! I know. I can't take him anywhere!

And that, folks, is my dog...

I love him --- really, I do --- but I can't say that he always makes me proud.

First-Page Post! (#2)

I've been slacking on the blog writing lately... but with good reason. Rather than get into the reasons right now (they have to do with art and writing and teaching -- all good, nothing bad), I've made a goal for myself to post a blog every day this week. Let's see if I can do it.

Because it's already ten o'clock, and because I'm really invested in watching the most recent episode of The Company You Keep, today's post is the first page of something I've written. Remember the rules:

You don't get to know which book it's from. The content may change between now and publication.

With that being said, here's the opening page of a novel that's near and dear to my heart. (I dare say the nearest and the dearest...)

There’s something magical about October. It sweeps into Boston on one giant gust, causing calendar pages to flutter as it filters down back roads, a crisp breeze laced with bonfires, baked apples, and slightly burnt pumpkin seeds. Leaves change from green to yellow to brown overnight. They release their grips on gnarled branches and float-tumble-fall to the ground, scuttle-stepping across pavement like fast-walking crabs. Toothy-grinned jack-o-lanterns suddenly occupy doorsteps; silky spider webs stretch between posts of wrought iron rails while plastic arachnids cling to their satiny threads. For no apparent reason, children crave the chalky texture of candy corn.

Sebastian Porter, holding a cup of coffee with one hand and a guitar case with the other, inhales a great gulp of the chilled air, filling his lungs. He isn’t thinking about Halloween; his thoughts are not on witches or ghouls or vampires with glow-in-the-dark fangs. It is nine o’clock in the morning on the first of October and he still has nearly thirty-one days before he’ll be expected to come up with a costume of some sort. Whatever he opts for will be simple and not the least bit embarrassing. His roommate will be disappointed (as usual), but dressing up has never been Sebastian’s thing. Not since high school has he donned ridiculous face paint and garb, and only then did he agree to it because of a girl. He’d allowed her to make him up as a clown with oversized shoes and an absurdly large nose; he’d reluctantly donned a leopard-print toga and had his hair teased to resemble Tarzan.

He’d even neglected to put up a fight when she’d handed him a pair of taupe-colored footed pajamas, complete with a homemade yarn-rimmed hood to serve as the unruly mane. He hadn’t complained when she’d shaded his face with hues of orange or drawn whiskers on his cheeks and an upside-down triangle on his nose, because it had been his duty to portray the Cowardly Lion that year. “And I’ll be the Scarecrow, and Bert can go as the Tin Man,” she’d rationalized. “It’ll be fun!”

Bert, not surprisingly, hadn’t minded that his costume of spray-painted cardboard had prevented him from sitting down. He hadn’t been at all bothered by the fact that his hands and face had been smeared with silver. Halloween was always his favorite holiday; it still is.

They’d been in high school that year—had in fact probably been too old to go trick-or-treating—but all three had meandered through the neighborhood and collected candy in a basket that should have been carried by Dorothy. “She couldn’t make it this year,” Bert had explained to anyone who asked. “She’s home with Toto. He came down with a bad case of kennel cough.”

Now, remembering the trio of Wizard of Oz characters, Sebastian is torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to forget the memory all together. The first option is easier; the second option is probably for the best.

Aaaaand... that's all you get until publication (whenever that might happen)!