Okay, gang, since my schedule is now crammed beyond belief, even with the film festival over & done, I think I'd better go ahead and wish all you Americans out there a very Happy Thanksgiving. If any among you would like to stop over today or tomorrow (or even very early on Thursday) to help me clean house while I try to get some more work done on the new book, please feel free! Yay!

It's mostly just vacuuming, vacuuming, and yes, more vacuuming. Plus you'd have to wash the kitchen floor. But, hey, it's not a very big kitchen floor so that's kind of cool. Plus, I own a mop -- it's not like you'd have to get down on your hands and knees or anything unless you absolutely insisted on it because you have the perfect outfit for it, etc. It would maybe take two hours, tops, to do all of it. Two hours that, unfortunately, I don't personally have right now.

Well, okay!

Yesterday, mom dropped off the all important turkey (I'm cooking it but she's generously provided it) and the even more all important bottles of wine. Luckily, she and I are the only members of the dinner party who actually drink wine so there should be plenty to go around with very little of that awkward  & covetous "grabbing of the last dregs". (Wait, I smell a redundancy here: last & dregs? Hmmm.) Anyway. More than enough wine to go around, so if anyone out there feels like stopping by on Thursday night to oversee the cleaning up part, please feel free to do that, also, as I'm probably going to faint dead away from all that wine!

So! There's plenty to be grateful for this year, gang. Right off the bat, I'm seriously grateful that two, yes two, royalty checks arrived ahead of schedule which means I'm going to have great holidays clear to the end of the year. Yay. And...let's see. Okay. I guess that about sums up my gratitude. Ha ha. (Obviously I care about way more things than money -- otherwise, I wouldn't be a writer by trade, would I??? I heartily encourage all you starstruck wannabe writers out there to just give it up right now and move on. Go do something more lucrative like being a famous movie star or a super model or something because writing is a drug that's no good for you, no way no how. Just say no! Or, at the very least, say: no, thank you!)

To be serious, though, in terms of gratitude, I have so very much to be grateful for that I can't even begin to post it on something as evanascent and trivial as a blog. But there is one new guy in my life that I am very grateful for. I was hoping he would come out and say hi to mom yesterday, but he was too shy and hid down in the family room with the other furry critters. However, I unveil him to you now, my happy, healthy, terribly sweet 3-year-old who appeared on my kitchen stoop about two months ago but finally got the all-clear to come inside from the vet over the weekend:



Why, yes, I've named him Blackie! Can't imagine why! I really go all out for those  pet names, don't I? There was Kitty for 18 years. Then Buster, Bunny, Fluffy, and now Blackie. Ah well. I save my vivid imagination for all my wonderful stories & books. Blackie is a sweetheart, though, and gets along reasonably well with Buster & Bunny. (No one at all gets along with Fluffy, but that's just how it goes around here. In fact, the expression on Blackie's face after his first "whirling dervish of claws, fluffiness, and teeth" encounter with Fluffy was pretty much: What the fuck was that???)

Okay. I guess that's it for now. I have to get a little writing done around here before dashing off to yet another meeting, yet another fabulous meal! Have a good holiday, wherever you are folks. And if you're not American, then just have a wonderful week! Thanks for visiting, gang. See ya!