Well, the publishing process already threw me a slight curve ball: they asked for a picture. I hates having my picture taken, precious. I hates it more than Gollum hates Hobbitses. Ok maybe the hate is comparable. Anyway. Thanks to Amore Photography, who also did our engagement and wedding pictures in the last couple of years, I don’t have to use a wedding pic. I generally embrace my awkward where I can, but that may be a step too far for a publisher’s website? So we did a super-fast photo shoot in a Barnes and Noble while the horde looked for things to use up their gift cards.
And that’s how my headshots ended up with a BN cafe wallpaper background, which I think is hilariously perfect. Amusingly, no one working at BN gave a second look, although one older couple got huffy because we were in the way for a standing shot by the annual planners for a minute. And because she’s a pro, the pics don’t look like an 80’s grad photo. Yay!
I’m through chapter 7 in revisions. Progress.
In wholly unrelated weirdness, if you recall, SK’s mother passed away late last summer. Since then, the kids (SK and his siblings) have been slowly going through the house, the finances: all the hard estate stuff left when the house a family had for 60 years has to be cleared. Amid the big emotions and abundance of paperwork, there have been a few discoveries of unexpected treasures. Treasures in both the literal sense of the word, like little caches of coins in random drawers or cabinets, and in the “oh my God what is this and WHY?” sense of the word.
Behold, a fabulous find from the back of a cupboard above the stove:
No, nobody knows whose teeth those are. No, nobody wanted them (I suggested, because I’m a terrible smartass, that each adult could have a tooth and they could be made into pendants, but that was appropriately vetoed by the siblings, likely with some new reservations about their new sister-in-law). Anyone who knew whose mouth(s) they came from is gone, so SK brought them to a local jeweler. I wonder how old they were, and how long they were in that cupboard. I’m sure there’s a story there eventually.
Turns out, jewelers can BURN OUT the teeth and weigh the gold itself, and buy it. Ok, first of all I didn’t know teeth could be burned…I thought they generally survived cremation, which makes me wonder what the hell that guy used to extract the tooth from the gold. Is he secretly in league with the tooth fairies, in which case I need to know if they’re the cute Tinkerbell sort who leave him money for each tooth, or the terrifying Hellboy II sort that eat all the bones from the inside out? Oh yeah, watch that movie if you want fairy tale nightmares.
Second, gold is really high right now…so the siblings split the total, which turned out to be a couple hundred dollars and change, between the four of them. Some days, SK being the personal rep of her estate is just fascinating, and provides weird blog fodder for me and random, unexpected pocket money for him. Thank you for that, Mary. I hope you’re amused at these shenanigans.
No Pithy Phrase 