Books have arrived!

Two copies of THE BOOK were in the mailbox, thank the goddesses, and not on the porch in the pouring rain.

Hardcover looks very official and academic, plain blue cover with author name and title on the spine and front, no book jacket. It kind of scared me; "Who is this important person?" I wondered. Holy sh*t, it's me! No, it's I.

Anyhoo, the paperback is too cool for words, very moody cover with subtle detail under the shadow.

Harriet and I are arguing about who takes which copy to work tomorrow to show off. She says I'm on a college campus so I should take the collegiate version. I'm going to walk it all over our building. If work permits, that is.

Was it Tina Turner who sang, "I'm so excited!" Too many exclamation points here. But you get the idea.

Faithful Unto Death has arrived!!!

U of Michigan tells me that this grand book is available to bookstores NOW. Also, they're thinking of serializing it on the web site--right up there with Chas. Dickens and Stephen King, yowza!

We're planning some Michigan events, one at Ann Arbor in August, and hope to include one at a bookstore in Cadillac, plus a visit to Macinac Island (Island Books) in September. I expect we'll need to include a Traverse City bookstore, too, since that's close to where the action was.

I sooooo much hate it that Uncle Gale and Aunt Charlotte are no longer with us. I remember them all gathered around the table at the farm, saying things like "No, it couldn't possibly have been him", and "Well, it COULD have been suicide, or even an accident!" "Oh, don't be ridiculous".

"Faithful" is on its way!!!!

U of Mich Press spring catalog is on their site, and we're on it!!!!

Good write-up and this is the first I've seen of the cover, it's really cool, in a brooding sort of way.

This is soooo exciting, and here I am at work, trying to pay attention to the job that keeps us in beer and skittles. Or something. Argh.

The book is on its way!

U of Michigan sent me a large package, which unfortunately arrived on the first rainy day we'd had here in Indy for months! I unwrapped 400+ pages of edited manuscript, some of them rather soggy, and we spread the wet ones out on the dining room table to dry.

I was amazed at the things they found that needed my attention. Name spellings that changed slightly (when the 1894 Benzie Banner spells a name one way and the court documents spell it another, who gets the tie-breaker? We decided not to argue with the court!), conflicting dates, and things that were vague enough to be confusing and needed further notes.

Harriet, who edits medical documents for a living, did yeoman's work on this beast. She found typos that U of Michigan's sharp-eyed editors missed!

If it's not wonderful when we finish, it's my own damned fault. Have to get the final thing sent off in time for them to receive it by 12/10.

It's finally happening, yowza!

-bt-

Harriet's second foot surgery--the continuing saga.

Tina and Vicki built the grand wheelchair ramp. Deb, Harriet, and Winston (in the blue harness) kibbitzed. High fives all around!

Harriet's getting very adept at wheelchair piloting. Mark W from work created a handy wheelchair carry-tray which also serves as a portable desk.

We went to the doctor today to have stitches removed. He said "It looks good" and we looked at him in disbelief. Some background: before the surgery, he met us in the pre-op area and wrote 'YES' on the appropriate foot with an indelible marker. Two weeks after the surgery, we were back in his office because the foot was getting more, rather than less, painful. They diagnosed a minor infection, which they outlined with another indelible marker. A week after, antibiotics had kicked in and the red area had shrunk back. Another week, stitches out, leaving a half-inch wide black L-shaped area, with multicolored patchy skin flaking off inside the 'L', wavy black marker outlining the area, and 'YES' written above the whole thing. Looks good? Hmmmm.

Millions of people happy?

Kermit the Frog, in the Muppet movie, wanted to go to Hollywood to make movies because it would make "millions of people happy". So I just got this little Smart car because I find them unbearably cute, and I've noticed that people turn around on the street and smile at it. Not quite up to Kermit standards, but nearing it!

T. L. Thacker's "Life on a Michigan Farm" a hit!

This came in an email from a pal who writes and is in process of self-publishing her work, "In Spite of Everything".

We gave her a copy of T. L. Thacker's Life on a Michigan Farm Between the Great Wars, and she has this to say: