A Novel Concept

I intended to post this as the first post of December. But, you know, that was before I saw Noah and his floating zoo taking a spin down main street...

Some friends have been asking me how the pipe dream of writing a novel went. Well:

I did it. I wrote my obligatory 50,000 words, and look! I have a nifty lil' badge to show for it! Wahoo! Now for a Q&A session:

Q: So, you wrote a book in one month?
A: No. The novel is not finished. 50,000 words really isn't very much, but it's plenty for 30 days and for a lazy person like yours truly. Wish you could see me right now. I'm still glowing with pride! I mean, I MADE it! I'm really proud of myself!

Q: Can I read it?
A: Whoa. Hold on there. Are you nuts? You have no idea what it's about. It may bore you to tears. You may no longer want to be my friend. Friends don't ask friends to read rough-draft manuscripts. It's unkind. Besides, it's not finished. Perhaps if you promise to be brutally honest, and want to help edit it, well...perhaps. And then only when it's ready for editing.

Q: What is it about?
A: I won't say. I'm not done writing it, you see, and I honestly believe the more you tell about your book instead of writing it down, you are killing your story. And, if you are a low-energy person like myself, all possible energy needs to be corralled into writing the book. All I will say about it is that your head sure can produce some surprising stuff after you have lowered your standards and have flushed all expectations down the toilet. Whatever you think it is about, I promise, that won't be it.

Q: So, are you going to finish it, or what?
A: Oh, yes! I haven't come this far for nothing! And I discovered that I really, really like writing fiction. I can't stop now. But—where am I going to find the time? I have a slice of two hours I can use in the evenings to write, and I want to blog as well. And there is the family, the church-stuff, the cat...something is going to have to give. This is a common theme out there in blogland, isn't it? But I have come up with a brilliant plan—I'm going to turn off my comments!

Q: What? Why?
A: I have a theory that the most time-consuming part and addicting bit of blogging is the comments. I care about getting them too much. Way too much. I fuss over them, I count them, I go out and leave comments all over the blogosphere like mouse droppings hoping that people will then feel obligated to leave me more comments, also like mouse droppings, on my own blog. It must stop. Especially since mouse droppings are gross. And unsanitary. Don't mice have toilets?

So, if I turn mine off, at least for a little while, it will do several things: Free up some time; tone down (cure me of?) my obsession; and leave you comment-addicted folk like myself one blog less where you feel obligated to leave a comment.

At least, that was the plan. But people complained. I was shocked. (Why can't you just lurk quietly and be satisfied, like the majority of people who come here?) So if anyone has a brilliant idea to get more time in my life, let me know.

Q: What is the meaning of life?
A: Well, Douglas Adams postulated in one of his writings that it was "42." Works for me.

ONE MORE NEW POST BELOW (if I haven't already lost you, that is)

Something I'm Happy About

For those of you who have reading about my house-sprucing adventures (i.e., Me vs. The Rental From HELL), I would like to show you evidence of a brilliant stoke on my part to beat at least a portion of this house into submission. I present to you a before-and-after picture set:

BEFORE

This isn't a true before picture: after all, the walls are already painted and the carpet was replaced. You should have SEEN the walls. Yellowish-brown with smoke. And you could see exactly where pictures had been hanging.

AFTER

And now I'm going to bed. Write in another...who knows? two weeks? (sniff)

She Beat Me to It!

Hey bloggers—I need your help. I've been trying to set up a fund for donations to help relieve the need of people around here, just to find, today, that someone else has already done it!

So, click on the picture to go to her site to donate. And if you haven't created your own post to spread the word, please do it now!

Thanks so much!

Overwhelmed

It rained last night.

Which is completely normal for this time of year.

What is not normal—for this time of year or for any other time of year—are the dead cows in the trees.*

Yesterday the boy and I spent some time at the local LDS chapel, which is serving as a shelter for people who have been flooded out of their homes. We were there to make sandwiches and serve them to the hungry people. (Jeff wasn't with us because he managed to get to work by trading his usual 10-minute commute via the I-5 for an hour-and-a-half meandering drive through the foothills.)

After that, we came home and I spent (*sigh*) about two more hours on the !@#$% telephone trying to check on people and trying to get more help for the church/shelter kitchen. (Aside: Hmm... "church/shelter" is not going to work. Too bulky. How 'bout..."churlter," or "shelch"?)

Like I was saying, I've been talking to a lot of people in the past few days, and have heard a lot of their stories, and have even seen a thing or two myself.

For example, while I was at the shelch, somehow I ended up babysitting the Bishop's cell phone.** While I was performing this sad and regrettable service, I intercepted a phone call from the Red Cross.

"Oh, hey. We wanted to let you know we have received a report of a man armed with a rifle in an LDS building, but we don't know which one. Is he in yours?"

Yikes.

Bishop went around and, thankfully, he didn't find anyone with a rifle. What I want to know is what the guy needed a rifle indoors for? Hunting dust bunnies? Didn't he know they aren't actual bunnies?

Another story: We have here in Centralia a pleasant couple who hang out near exit 82, frequently bearing signs that say things like, "Everyone needs help at some time in their lives." Very eloquent, don't you think? Anyway, they've been at that exit since I've moved here, and I've often seen them chasing away other mendicants from their corner. For convenience's sake, I shall call the one "Beauregard," and his lovely female consort, "Barfy."

Anyway, Beau and Barfy showed up at the door of the shelch claiming to have been flooded out of their home. Bishop, who was not born yesterday (or even within fifty years of it), recognized darling Beau and Barfy and asked them, "What's your address?"
Whereupon Beau sweetly replied, "F*** off!"
Beau and Barfy were escorted out of the building, no matter how many compliments they let fly, and were told that the shelch was for flood victims, not for folk looking for free food.

Story Three: There are about 10 (or 15? somewhere around there...) residents of the shelch that were brought from a flooded convalescent home. These folks are scootin' around in wheelchairs, not really noticing much of what's going on around them, probably not being able to tell the difference between the shelch and the convalescent home. But they do know when it's time to eat.

One of the older gentlemen who was not in a wheelchair—we'll call him Tim—was wandering around trying to use a stick of gum as a key to get into his house (which was a utility closet) and he broke a fire alarm trying to use it as a telephone. He also had a very aged and sick dog who was throwing up...and doing other, nastier things...all over the floor. Before too long, Tim got shipped off to the hospital, and his dog to the vet, but not before he made an impression on a lot of people, and his dog made a several impressions on the carpet.

Tim-ness that my husband witnessed: Tim is tucked away on a cot under the jackets in the hall, and he is still sleeping (it's 5am). Another fellow opens the door and comes out of a classroom (his temporary suite) and passes Tim with the amount of noise a mouse would make.
Tim sits up in his cot and yells, "G** d*** it all to hell! What is going ON?!"
Poor guy just whispers back to him, "I'm just walking to the bathroom. Sheesh."

Short cow story: One woman told me that although she was okay, since her house was on a hill, all the property around her was under water. This included a large pasture where a neighbor had his cattle graze. She spent part of her day tearing down part of the fence and herding the cattle up on her land because they were starting to drown.

Sad cow story: It was a woman at the veterinarian's who told me about the drowned cows that were left stranded in trees when the river started to recede. (I am grateful I did not see these.)

General note: There are 14 families (at least, by my count so far) in our ward whose homes are uninhabitable at this point. Many, many more have sustained minor water damage. And somehow, my family came through unscathed. The stupid, broken rental from hell has survived untouched. Ironic, that.

Plans: Today was more phone calls and babysitting another woman's children so she could help out at the shelch. Tomorrow, I'm going out with the boy to distribute...er, disaster clean-up kits? Don't know exactly what is in them, but supposedly, it's everything you would need to clean up your home from a diaster such as this, neatly sardined into a 25-lb plastic barrel. And Saturday will be marathon-cleaning day where the ward splits up and tackles clean-up jobs. So I'm going to bed. (I'm so, so thankful I have one, and that it is warm and dry.)

Signing off,
One Soggy Muskadillo

*Aren't you grateful that I don't have pictures of them? I am. I'd feel obligated to...ewww...post them.
**This is something you NEVER want to do, but especially in the face of a disaster, because the dumb thing never stops going off.

In the News

Would you believe it? Our soggy little town made it onto CNN News. The first four photos are our town, and starting from about frame 1:02 in the video "Washington State Storm"—well, that's our town they're talking about! And that stretch of I-5 that's under 10 feet of water? That's Centralia! The second video that plays, "Floods Swamp Washington"—that's ALL Centralia, and that's the Wal-Mart I...uh, used to shop at. I don't think it will be open anytime soon.

What is wrong with me that I'm excited to find this on national news?

Did You Hear about It on the News?

We've been wet. Just a little bit.

A little bit of winter rain, and the silly Chehalis River overflowed all over the I-5. Looks like it will be closed a few days, huh?

So Jeff is at home, not being able to drive to work, and I have spent a good portion of my morning on the telephone going down the ward list, calling people to see who is flooded and in need of assistance, and who is okay. Most of the names I am unfamiliar with, because most of the people on the list don't come to church at all.

Me: Hello, is this Ms. Jones?
M. Jones: Yeah. Who is this?
Me: This is Sister U from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'm just calling to see if you are flooded.
M. Jones: Damn right we're flooded. What church did you say you're from?
Me: (Repeat church name, then:) If you need a place to stay, the church building on Mt. Vista has been set up as an evacuation site, and you can get a warm meal there...
M. Jones: Where is the church?
Me: (give directions)
M. Jones: (laughs) Sure, we'll be there! That is, if you have a boat to come pick us up in! How do you spell your name?

(Who cares? Your house is flooded and you're asking me how to spell my name? People sure are odd.)

At any rate, it's been an interesting day.

Us? Oh, we're fine. In a way, it's weird: look outside the window of our dear home crap home, and things look normal: wet, many puddles, but no big deal. Most of the people I've talked to are just fine. Some people I've talked to today have described told me about mild water invasion in their homes. And, of course, the people with serious water issues I haven't even talked to, because the phone lines are down and/or the electricity is shut off.

So. It looks as though we're going to be plenty busy for the next few months digging mud out of people's homes and working on general clean-up. Wish us luck.

And if you say prayers, shoot a few off in this direction tonight, would ya?

Off to Pursue a Pipe Dream

Hope everyone had a great Halloween and ate lots of stuff that was bad for you. What? It's time to go visit the dentist? Good luck with that.

This post is basically a notice that I will not be around for the month of November. That's right. I've given up my blog time to attempt to write a novel. (snicker) I know, I know, hence the title of the post. But I have to try, you know? Life isn't exactly slowing down, and I've realized it never will, so if I'm ever going to do this, it may as well be now.

Want to do it, too? Check out National Novel Writing Month online and sign up to write a novel in a month with the rest of us insane, dorky, wanna-be writers.

See you in December.