My PI is finally starting to dry up, though I’m still itchy as a bear with mange. I keep rubbing my back up against things–walls, posts, parking meters. I had no clue that this would be a seven-day scourge. And no, I still don’t know where I got it.

For your Friday reading pleasure, here’s the link to an article I wrote for the newspaper this week about a local business that employs autistic adults to help organize and package teaching tools for autistic kids. It’s an incredible story, if I do say so myself.

Also, finally, I’ve put a new flash fiction story up on Flasheville.

AND, I’ve thrown a couple posts up at The Great God Garlic. If you’re a garlic ho too, and want to be listed in The Great God Garlic’s links, let me know!

Hurrah. Happy weekend, all.

One of the mixed benefits of this bloggie is the occasional freebie thrown my direction. I’ve gotten to go to a movie premiere for free; I’ve gotten to act in a local film; people have sent me random gifts (although no chocolate or beer); and I’ve received advance copies of several books.

I love books. But I don’t love ALL books. If someone sends me a freebie, though, I often feel obligated to write about the book, whether I like it or not. As a journalist, I’ve wrestled with the ethics of freebies, and had several discussions with my editor about when and what is okay to accept. With the bloggie, the ethical lines are a bit more blurred. So I’ve decided if I’m going to write about a freebie book, I’ll just tell you guys ahead of time, and you can decide whether or not you want to read my blather about it.

This is all to say that I just finished skimming a hilarious and sad free book, sent to me by a smart publicist. Yes, I said hilarious and sad, which you’ll understand soon.

The book is titled “The Kindergarten Wars: The Battle to Get into America’s Best Private Schools.” It’s written by a former independent schools board member (though he refuses to say which school) named Alan Eisenstock. The cover has a little box that reads: “Inside the $500,000 decision…”

Wow. Yes, that’s half a million dollars to send your child to, I assume, 12 years of private school. I know price differs from school to school, but still. That’s a wad o cash.

Anyway, I had a difficult time reading parts of this book, because I’m tied in close to the independent school community. While my kids don’t go to private school, I did, from 4th to 12th grades. I then worked for three different independent schools after graduating college. I’ve consulted for other private schools since then. My dad is on the boards of two private schools (the one he attended, and the one me and my sisters attended). Most of my father-in-law’s career was in private schools. My youngest sister’s child just started Kindergarten at the school she and I attended.

That said, I strongly believe in public education. One reason I live in Asheville is because the public education opportunities are excellent here. One of government’s primary tasks should be to educate its citizen’s children to the highest standards. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. Public education, as far as I can tell, fluctuates wildly across this country in terms of strength and efficacy. Of course, private education isn’t consistent either. So much depends on the quality of the teaching and administration. So, you could pay 1/2 a mill and still NOT get the education you may dream of for your chillens.

The hilarious and sad part of The Kindergarten Wars is how crazy these parents can be. Some of them will sell their very souls to get their child in the “right” school. The preface tells the story of a woman interviewing with the admissions director at an exlusive school. At the end of the interview, the director discovers that the woman does not yet have a child. In fact, she’s not even preggers!

This story sound a bit urban mythy to me. I can’t imagine an admissions director not asking about the child first. Regardless, the point is well-made.

If you are considering applying your kids for private school, this book could be helpful. Just understanding the culture, if it’s not already on your radar, may help you negotiate the emotional minefields of rejection and acceptance. Or it could scare you into checking out your kids’ public education options more closely.

If you’re not having to deal with this craziness, count yourself lucky. I do.

1. “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.” (Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA.)

2. “What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.” (Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.” (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company )

4. “This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.” (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

5. “No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.” (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

6. “My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.” (CIO of Dell Computers)

7. Quote from the Boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.” (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.” (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

9. “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.” (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

10. We recently received a memo from senior management saying: “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above.” (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

11. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!” (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards)

12. And the winner!! As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director’s office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired and the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

This weekend was all about beer.

This week will be all about suffering from a patch of PI (poison ivy) in the middle of my back. I have no idea how I got PI. I swear I did not at any time remove my T-shirt while at Brewgrass (the Great Smokies Beer and Bluegrass Festival), nor did I roll in the next-to-nonexistent grass on the hillside overlooking the stage. I did take the liberty of peeing in the woods once (the porta-potty line was ridiculously long–come on, people, it’s a beer fest–you must supply adequate outflow facilities!). But when I did so, I was actually on the edge of the forest, with my back against a car, not a vine-clad tree trunk. So, here I am, itchy and swollen in the one spot on my body that I can’t reach. I’ve had to train my boy to spray my back with Caladryl lotion (which, by the way, is a fluid of the gods. All hail Caladryl! And in spray form to boot!).

Brewgrass was brilliant, and I’m glad it’s only an annual event, because yours truly is both a lightweight and a lover of good beer, which can be a deadly combination on a sunny afternoon.

My only momentary glitches of good taste (I think) came when 1.) I gushed all over the Head of Eastern Sales for Flying Dog Brewery (I was excited to meet him because I used to work with the guy who owns the brewery–who, was, in fact, one of the great mentors of my young career). O, and you can get your mind out of the gutter I know it’s sloshing around in, kay?

My second glitch was the necessary purchase of a baseball cap (it was sunny when it was supposed to be rainy) that reads: “BEER: helping ugly people have sex since 1862.” Which, of course, makes me wonder what happened in 1862? Was Budweiser invented then?

Continuing my adventures in all things Ale, on Sunday morning, instead of going to church, I took Ash’s advice, packed the kids up and took them down to the newish site of Highland Brewery, where I waited in line with a bunch of other hungover people in order to purchase six bottles of Imperial Gaelic Ale, the limited edition, high-gravity, last to be brewed in the original brewery, beer that was only available between noon and 5:00 on Sunday. Each party-flu suffering person was only allowed to buy six one-liter bottles, and at $10 each (cash or check, which meant I had to pay a portion with two Sacajawea dollars that had been prettily weighing down my wallet for several months). The bottles of Ale are particularly beautiful, though I have yet to crack one for a taste of its interior nectar. But I have them! Hurrah! And the kids learned how important it is to support local businesses.

So, basically, the weekend was grand, although I’m still tired and itchy. Off to Caladryl Land!

Damn, just realized the boy’s asleep and E-spouse is on the road. Watch carefully as I perform the yoga pose known as “Spraying Insect Who Landed in Middle of Back” or “Arm Wrench and Finger Plunge while Standing on One Foot.”

Really now, I’ll shut up.

Okay, anonymous graphic designer (see comments below) has some ideas for simplifying transfer of the EM logo to wearable gear.

I like the idea of just using the EM head with the lovely little horns (when my boy looks over my shoulder at my bloggie, he always says, “Mommy, why do you have horns?” My answer: “That is a long and delicious story that you are simply too young to understand.”).

I also like the idea of having a simpler, and potentially edgier, typestyle. I’m up in the air about dropping the Maltese cross design with the faux perspective. I kind of like that.

Anyway, if you have any good typestyle ideas or just want to lift my logo and play around with it, please go for it. For a baseball cap (embroidered) less detail is better for the logo and the words “Edgy Mama” should be easy to read.

If I choose your idea, I’ll send you a free baseball cap once they’ve been created.

Thanks! Happy weekend!

O possum poop,
O possum poop,
How do I remove you?
You’re squishy and smelly
A warning to all that’s feral.

A trap contained your defecator
for a day and a night
because he was too dumb to go
though I propped open the door.

How will I catch the wild cat,
When the trap is full of scat?

O possum poop,
O possum poop,
I must catch the cat of fire,
In order to, I guess, I’ll have
to scrub you from the wire.

I’m freaked about the killer spinach. I mean, how do I make a salad without bagged, pre-cleaned spinach? I eat the stuff all the time. While no one in North Carolina has taken ill, there is not a spinach leaf to be found in the state. Spinach is one of my primary sources of greens, and while I’m not above integrating it in its frozen state into soups and casseroles, I can’t eat the thawed gunk on its own. What to do?

I’m also freaked about the military coup in Thailand. Bloodless, but a coup none the less.

Thailand is one of my favorite countries in the world. I’ve traveled there extensively and tasted of her myriad offerings. Thailand is sandy beaches and colorful Buddhist temples. She is peppery-hot mouse-drop chilis and vats of jasmine-scented rice. She is beautiful and complex in her own smoky, sexy, street-congested way.

Thailand has struggled with the paradox of democracy and a deity-like monarchy. She has a powerful, and partially corrupt, military. She is negotiating a bloody Muslim uprising in the South. She has all the makings of a pot of chicken coconut soup close to exploding into full boil.

I just hope that only steam and scent result.

Willie Nelson and three of his buddies were given misdemeanor citations in Louisiana yesterday for having some pot and shrooms on the tour bus.

Come on guys, give Willie a break. He’s 73 years old, and smoking a bit of Mary Jane is probably helping keep his fingers nimble so he can pick that guitar. Heck, it’s gotta be better than the slow stomach-lining dissolve that most folks his age are dealing with from years of popping legal drugs.

And shrooms never harmed anyone, did they? Hey, if they put the Red-Headed Stranger in the right frame of mind to write soul-wrenching ballads, I say “Eat on!”

The NC Writers’ Network Fall Conference is coming up in November, which means I have to get my heinie in gear NOW, as anything for critiquing, master classes, and the manuscript mart is due in like two weeks!

Having a deadline is good for me. I’ve been ignoring my fiction for way too long, although if I don’t start writing more of my ideas down, I’m going to start vomiting words. Which isn’t pretty. Or fun for those who are nearby when the flood erupts.

So, I might post bits and pieces of work for your delectation, critiquing, etc., over the next few days. I’ll try to give you the sexy bits, as I know that’s why most of you visit EM.

A few random weekend quotes:

My boy: “You’re the best Mommy I’ve ever had!”

My girl, after a egg meets sperm discussion that she initiated: “I understand, Mommy, but I think I’m going to keep this a big secret.”

Two minutes later: “Do you think the Tooth Fairy will remember to come tonight?”

(Yep, the TF fell down on the job a couple nights ago. She’d had two glasses of wine before bedtime).