Happy Halloween!

Tootsie's new shoes

We got about 2 feet of late October snow. Tootsie tried some shoes and ended up walking about a block and then got in the back pack for the next miles.

Alec Greven will be sharing some thoughts here on my blog...

My blog is soon going to incorporate a new feature: GUEST BLOGGERS.

My first guest blogger is going to be Alec Greven who will be popping in periodically to share something of interest.

If you don't know who Alec is, please see this website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbB76ejvAro


I personally am tired of "balloon boy" kind of news.

I am interested in people who make a difference.
I am interested in people who do wonderful things to change a small corner of our world.
I am interested in kids who encourage.
I know a young man who is making a difference, particularly encouraging others his age.
It becomes obvious when you spend time with his family that they are doing a great job with him.

As any teacher will tell you; family, and in particular the parents make all the difference in a child's success.

Alec is blessed with wonderful parents, who safeguard him and have poured great values into him. It shows when you speak with him, or them.

He also has very cute siblings, his little sister "laughs at things that are scary" and has loads of energy to keep up with her two older brother and his little brother is a cute firecracker with great questions and enthusiasm.

All in all, just a down to earth, great family.

What would it be like to be in elementary school and appear on national television shows and to accomplish a dream people many times your age aspire to?

What kind of boy has published four books before he's even hit middle school, with another one on the near horizon?

What person under ten years old already is in Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Greven

There are several reasons I want to include Alec in my small corner of the literary world; He is a terrific, unspoiled, unassuming young man.

He is NORMAL.

I meet authors all the time and some could take some lessons from him.

I get asked at almost every school I visit, "when could I ever get published?" by both students and teachers. I often point these aspiring authors to my buddy Alec's story.

There is more proof in the pudding than in talk.

Alec's new book, How to Talk to Santa, is available now at major retailers and on-line booksellers. It is clever, insightful and fun.
There is one chapter in particular that made me laugh out loud. It has to do with tricking your sibling to include items on his gift list that you actually want and might not have room for and a potential backfire.

It resonates with me, particularly because it was a trick I deployed on my older brother and it did in fact backfire. I still want that doggone train track and it was a tough thing to watch my brother and his friends playing with it in his room across the hall from me with a barricaded doorway!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Santa-Alec-Greven/dp/0061802077/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256738403&sr=1-1

Alec and I will be doing a signing together in Mid-November at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch.

Please pass this on to your fellow emailers and bloggers and share this young man's story and watch for his postings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/newsbeat/newsid_7887000/7887032.stm?lss

Sometimes you just gotta laugh!

This month has been rough, scary and very Halloweeny for me. I started with the intention to chronicle phobias and fears, one a day was the plan, but life sometimes jumps the tracks.

BUT, earlier on I posted my own personal fear, one of which is the fear of clowns.

EXCERPT FROM EARLIER POST: I suffer from something called Coulrophobia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulrophobia which is the fear of clowns. Could have been watching Blinky The Clown on television as a child or the fact that my brother tormented me as a small child with a Clown Jack In The Box or most likely the time my mom forced me to go the the circus and somehow ended up in the front row, where a clown plucked me from the crowd and before I could even get to the center ring there was a center ring on my trousers from where I, being so scared of the clown, wet my pants in front of a mere two million people crowded into the big top???


It is a deep rooted fear. I literally feel cold shivers when I see a clown nearby. I thought it was some of the experiences I chronicled earlier, BUT, while looking for some photos to share when we gathered to remember my dad, I came across this little gem. How fitting that in the month of costumes and dress up, there I am in my earliest get up (gee, thanks mom for testing my masculinity at such a young age), BUT the real kicker is the kid I am holding hands with. NO WONDER I am terrified of clowns! I mean, I was three years old!!! Sometimes, you just gotta laugh!

My cat chimes in about the phobia of felines... read her face, nuff said!

Lachanophobia - Fear of vegetables

While researching phobias to entertain all three of you who might read my blog if there isn't anything else to read or anything on television, or to have something semi-interesting to talk to your dog about, I have found that almost all things organic or inorganic have been labeled a potential phobia. Leading me to think about the famous quote that the greatest fear itself is fear of fear, yes there is a phobia of fear.

Lachanophobia, The fear of vegetables is one many kids fake having. Not so much a fear, but a dislike or preference for something else (like candy). I cannot for the life of me convince anyone that pickles count, I mean what is a pickle if not a vegetable?

The cucumber turns into a nice slice or chip that goes well with anything... A deep fried dill pickle chip is a wonder to behold and can be found at Cajun restaurants. Try it, try it... you will see, it is so wonderfully vegetabley...
For the record, I LOVE vegetables (except for turnips and that kind of thing...) but a garden grown tomato, pea, cuke and many more are the very best! The next best are the kind you find at places like Sunflower Market, sometimes SO close to home grown... I wonder what a deep fried tomato would taste like...?

Macrophobia - the fear of waiting, long waits.

Macrophobia - the fear of long waits and of waiting!

Nothing represents to me weirdness more than a drive-thru Starbucks, or more specifically the one in my 'hood'. I kind of get the one on Sante Fe and other pull offs on the way to a downtown or uptown destination, where there is no foot traffic and no lobby.

But this one is smack dab in the middle of suburbia.

Okay, the other day I pulled into the starbucks and parked. I walked in and got my coffee and walked out to sit in the sun on the patio. The car that was in line outside, parallel to the table I had set my laptop on to hold the table (afraid to wait for a table I suppose) was still behind ten other cars that had literally still not moved an inch.

The woman in the car had her window rolled down and was on her cell phone (and putting on her eye makeup and instructing an overly patient toddler who was fidgeting in her car seat), complaining to the unseen other side of the conversation person, about how long it was taking to get her coffee and how she cannot function in the morning until she has had it.

My fear of one-sided conversation CELLPHONEOPHOBIA started to take hold of me and the distraction of hearing her blow by blow frustration about the wait distracted me from adding to the next great American novel.

Finally she had moved up a car length and it had at this point been somewhere in the fifteen minute zone. Did I mention that her and now the other fifteen cars piled up in the line had their engines running taking what was a $4 cup of latte now to probably about $8 and likely one of those nifty little milks for her daughter which would run her another $3.


She would have done much better to have walked in, spent the time relaxing on the patio under the sun, with her daughter, than the half hour she spent talking, er complaining on her cell phone and waiting for her cup of latte (how did I know what she got? She told the person on the other end of the line maybe three times, info that wasn't interesting the first time. Perhaps Twitter would have enjoyed knowing it?)
So, I guess since I am unwilling to sit in "traffic" for a cup of coffee, I am qualified as a Macrophobic! And now with my iphone I can order my two favorite vices (Starbucks and Chipotle) from my phone and it will be waiting for me in the express lane! Ahhhhhh.....

Autumn in Colorado...

A run in the sun, then a bit of rain, a bit of sleet, a bit of snow... All on one October day. That is the beauty of Colorado. These pics are in my hood.


Spent a good part of the day writing and working on the edits my editor sent me for the Go Ask Mom series. I hope all this hard work pays off in happy readers. Sometimes kids don't believe me when I try to tell them you have to write, then rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite! This picture is taken from my window as I sit here on my laptop working. Enjoy the weather wherever you are!

dentophobia - Fear of the dentist

WATCH THIS VIDEO!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtMizMQ6oM

Having logged many hours in the dentist chair over the years, I know that the fear of dentists is real. I included the video to bring levity to it. It is the drill that is the worst. I asked my dentist last time I was there, when, with all of the technology available to us today, will they make a drill that doesn't make that awful sound. He just shrugged and told me I didn't have to worry about it. NO CAVITIES!!!!!!!!!

An autumn walk with my pup and my iphone...

Is there a better time than autumn in Colorado?
I think not. I took my dog Tootsie aka Batman for a walk and took a few shots. Nary a cloud in the sky, colors all over turning and an underlying sense of cool on an otherwise warm day.

Feline phobia -Elurophobia

Elurophobia

Feline Fear
My Cat, Baby Ruth aka PWOWIE----->
Two times as many men fear cats as women, according to information available on the internet.



After interviewing 10 men about fear and loathing when it comes to cats, seven of the ten, or 70% said they weren't afraid of them, just that they didn't like cats. When pressed to tell me why they didn't like cats, only one, that is only 10% could give me a reason and that was allergy.



My Cat, Baby Ruth aka PWOWIE----->










So, I pressed the issue and asked several of the guys if they also didn't like kittens. I got a few eye rolls and one said, "Well, who doesn't like kittens?"
And just for the record, I like cats AND I am a guy!

Illustratorbooknotcomingoutassoonasexpected phobia

It was announced earlier that The Gabriel Book of World Records was coming out Fall of 2009. SCREECHING HALT is what you just heard in the background...

Things are sailing along, book 3 is coming along well, editor is happy, I am happy, illustrations are looking great and then BAM! I got an email from the new illustrator of the Go Ask Mom series, who is working toward a past deadline, with the subject line: Take a deep breath, go to you're happy place then look at the attachments.

SO this one can be filed under Illustratorbooknotcomingoutassoonasexpected phobia

chronomentrophobia

chronomentrophobia- The fear of clocks

When I was a senior on high school my literature teacher assigned each of us to come up with a quote that defined us for the yearbook. Being a procrastinator myself at the time... I met the deadline with only minutes to spare by grabbing a reader's Digest on the way to class and finding this gem: "Time is Nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once."

After a search to find the author of this quote it seems it is attributed to UNKNOWN. Time is something only humans contemplate, or so we think. My dog doesn't watch the clock (or does she?) but she always knows when it is walk time, run time, dinner time, Mom's home time, etc..., but I am quite sure she never FEARS time.

Time adds the dimension of a clock ticking down the days and often reminds us of MORTALITY


While searching for TIME images, I found one with Dali's famous melting clock that caused me more fear than any I have seen.

Someone actually walks around with this tattoo of Dali's melted clock ALL THE TIME?????

The times they are a-changing.
Bob Dylan