No Pictures-- trust me, you'll thank me later.

Okay, before I totally disgust anyone reading with this totally gross and yet oddly hilarious story that I've debated whether or not to post, I'm going to put out some promo, because that's the way good business people do things.  First, they sell their product.  THEN they gross you out.

So first things first.

Diesel Books wants me to tell you (and I'm really proud of this actually) that Super Sock Man is going to be their featured book on April 3rd-- that means that 11 a.m., EASTERN Standard Time, the book is going to go on sale for $.80 a copy.  So, the first ten people who hit this link (and the link doesn't go live until THAT TIME, April 3rd,) Super Sock Man Deal can get the book for really frickin' cheap.  I'm posting this on Facebook and Twitter, so even if you forget you'll probably see me poking people, and I just wanted to let y'all know!

Also...

Country Mouse is available for pre-order at Riptide, and will be fully released on April 23rd.  I'm VERY excited about this one because it's my first attempt at co-writing.  What's really funny is that although Aleks and I had a blast writing this and maintained a spirit of fun throughout, the general consensus is that this brainchild could be along the lines of Horton the Elephant's elephant-bird.  People see my name and Aleksandr's name in the same space and their brains explode.  It's weird, because, seriously, y'all-- this was FUN!  It was enjoying characters and playing with them and letting them play (in all lasciviousness) with each other.  But then, I think for both of us, this is one of the lighter things that can be found in our rosters, so maybe that was it.  We started out with no preconceptions of one another, and we simply wrote for pure joy.  No angst, really, nothing to prove--just word and character play with another writer.  I've enjoyed the hell out of it, and working with Rachel at Riptide Books has been a lot of fun as well.  (Aleks is part of Riptide Books, so it was only natural this story would go there for publication.)  So don't get this one for the heavy drama-- get it for some good, hawt fun!

And now for the disgusting story.  I'm SERIOUSLY WARNING PEOPLE-- if you have a weak stomach, bail on the blog now.  Take the links and the news and leave while you still have some respect for my ability to draw a line, wouldjapleeze, and thankya!

Okay-- so here goes.

Last night, Zoomboy went to the King's game with his father, and had a lot of fun.  He also ate some bad bad popcorn.  So Mate is reading in bed and I'm out at the computer, all showered and ready for bed, when I hear... yeah.  The sound of someone's stomach being emptied in an all-fired hurry.  So I ZOOM back to the bathroom and on my way I pass Mate who is ZOOMING the holy-hellfire-fuck AWAY from the bathroom, because, as we've already discussed, he doesn't DO vomit.

What I don't realize is that Zoomboy didn't make it to the bathroom, so when I cleared the hall rug and hit the hardwood floor, my foot skidded on the, uhm, used popcorn and I went DOWN in the puddle, and I went down HARD.

I was lying there, feeling the, uhm, moisture soaking through my nightgown and counting my owies (scraped foot, bonked head and giant bruise on my right hind yab) and Mate calls back, "Amy, are you all right?"  Because he's not coming back to help if he doesn't have to, right?  Chicken--who watched me go down from her bedroom--says, "Mom, are you all right?"

"I think so," I say, and that's when Zoomboy came out of the bathroom to check on me too.

And threw up all over me, because being coated on one side was apparently not enough.
And that's when Chicken started to laugh so hard she couldn't breathe.

Eventually I got up, cleaned up, wiped everything down, got ZB in the bathtub and showered until the water was cold.  Mate huddled in the living room apologizing every two minutes (and he hollered it down the hall too, which was also funny) and in the morning?

Yeah, my yab ached like a sucking funofabitch.

To add insult to injury, the kids were up at six-thirty this morning.  They wanted to play an April Fool's joke on their big brother.  We told them to knock on his door and tell him he was late for school.  So they sat in the middle of our bed and screamed at him to wake up because he was late for school until we kicked them out of our room and told them to go watch cartoons and eat pop-tarts.

But not popcorn.  No one in this family is going to be eating popcorn for a VERY. LONG. TIME.