Writer's blog

What an uninspired play on words! Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. By now i'm sure you all know that i'm a discount warehouse of bad puns anyway.

First off I have to say that i've been a negligent parent. These past few days 1-UP has been largely confined to her cage or left to her own devices as assembly people came over and I get the place a little more organized. Having become more than a little proficient at escaping her cage, i've had to padlock the door and essentially place her under house arrest while i'm out or asleep so I can remain relatively sane. Having discovered that her usual door opening tricks no longer work, she instead found a way to remove the bottom panel of her cage and try to escape from there. Fortunately, the bottom panel does not lead to any exit. Its still a feat for something that has no opposable thunbs or indeed any fingers to speak of to do though. I should observe her carefully.

Like any guilty parent, I overcompensate by feeding her an inordinately large amount of treats. If this keeps up, she'll be a fat waddly ferret by the end of the month. While that does have certain advantages, the reduced mobility and climbing ability being chief among them, I prefer her to remain her sleek self. Speaking of climbing, the little fuzzy nearly gave me a heart attack when she climbed up and stuck her head out of my OPEN bedroom window. Fortunately I was fast enough to grab her before she could entertain any notion of soaring (or falling) through two storeys. Even if she did survive, the chinese restaurant downstairs would seriously freak out. As if I don't have enough problems as it is.

Which brings me to my next point. Thanks to the installation of the wrong fire alarm, the restaurant downstairs has set off the fire alarm twice this week. I joked with the building manager and asked whether it was Firemen Appreciation Week.

He wasn't all that impressed.

After a day of chores, Naomi came over and we headed over to Kinokuniya, making a detour at the local kebab place along the way. She had never tried shisha before so we had a go of the apple flavored variety and chatted lightly while we watched Sydney go by. I have to say that the kebab place is strategically located for a good shisha session. I should go do it again. Once we've smoked our fill, we took a bus up to Town Hall and went into the bookstore for the main even of my day, a book signing with my favorite author Neil Gaiman.

Needless to say, the line was pretty damn long. The last time I had the pleasure of meeting Neil at a similar event, I didn't have to wait as long by virtue of the fact that there wasn't quite as many people. So Naomi and I alternately sat, scooted, shimmied, and plain old walked our way along the store until we finally reached him. Before the line started to move though, we were treated to a reading from 2 chapters of his upcoming book and then to a short Q&A session. Fast forward 2 and a half hours later, we were finally free from the line. Between the two of us, we managed to get four books signed.

Good times!