I Expose Another of Betsy's Gross Shortcomings

Having survived the utter weirdness of being interviewed by a cat (yeah, you read that right), I wasn't surprised to be approached by Rocco's owner. Or Rocco's pet. I dunno how it works with them. Mostly I just try to keep my head down and work on the copy edits for UNSTABLE, and think up new and disturbing things to do with the ice cream maker I got for Christmas.

(And I don't mean 'a cat' like, "She's such a cat!" or "He's got the reflexes of a cat" or "I've got nine lives like a cat so it's weird that I'm dead now," but an actual cat, as in: "Why does it always want to shit in the shit-box when I'm making French toast?" So meditate on the horror. I sure did.)

Anyway, in keeping with the cat-centric theme of Rocco's book blog, I posted a sneak preview from the first pages of UNDEAD AND UNSTABLE. There are minor spoilers within, but if that doesn't scare you, head over and take a peek.

Oh...also, in UNSTABLE Betsy kills Sinclair, buys a Payless Shoes franchise, then burns down the mansion and moves to an apple orchard in Wisconsin after killing everyone she has ever loved.

Kidding. Heh.

http://catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com/2012/01/unchallenged-and-unconquered-maryjanice.html

My Readers Make Me Alternately Laugh And Cry

Tell me about the weirdest/lamest/annoying-est Christmas present you've received. Easy, right? I proposed this idea for a contest as a way to trick unsuspecting readers into letting me force my books on them, and had no idea I would tap into my readers' deepest fears/desires/nightmares/ulcers at the same time.

I'm seriously lucky to have the readers I do; I try to run 1 or 2 contests every month and am always thrilled see so much enthusiasm and so many entries. It's always great fun to read through the entries and it's always difficult to pick the winners. And I thought that *before* the Xmas contest.

This contest visited upon me wrath and laughs and tears from same. But after getting a small glimpse of what my readers have endured through the years, I've realized all over again how fortunate I am. My oddest gift was a Frankenstein that wiggled his hips and danced and dropped his pants. That was the friggin' Hope Diamond compared to what my readers went through.

Below, the "winners", if that's the right word. I'm not sure this is a contest anyone wants to win, frankly...I ended up going with several honorable mentions because it was impossible to narrow the winners down to three.

In all seriousness, thanks for sharing your wonderful entries!

* * *

The worst/strangest/weirdest Christmas gift I ever received was called the boyfriend pillow. It's a pillow shaped like a mans torso with an arm.... and a "personal massager" inside. There is a zipper on the side under the arm. What makes this gift the worst/strangest/weirdest Christmas gift I ever received is that I received it from my 83 year old great aunt. My great aunt did not like me very much and at the time I was going through a divorce that went against her beliefs, so to this day I have no idea if it was a sweet little mistake and she had no idea there was a vibrator inside the pillow or if this was her way of taking a jab at me (calling me a slut). I was so embarrassed, it was given to me in front of the entire family... children and all. There is no way I will ever know but I do believe she was taking a jab at me.

2.The worst gift I ever received was from my ex mother in law aka psycho mom.

She fancied herself an artist and she had a "bone table" where she would lay out bones to dry (after cooking a chicken or turkey, etc) to use in her art.

One Christmas she gave me a pair of horse tooth earrings (my husband at the time also received a turkey thigh bone bolo tie) because nothing says let's celebrate the birth of Christ like a pair if molars from a Clydesdale!

As you can see, she deserved her title.

3.When I was ten I wanted a pair of roller blades so my mom thought it would be funny to get a large box for mens roller blades and put a small leaf blower in there to help me with my chores. I cried.

Honorable Mention -

When I was 12 years old, I opened a gift from Santa that was panties and matching bras... I looked at my mom and asked her "how does Santa know my bra size?"

Honorable Mention -

Undoubtedly the weirdest gift I ever received is when my boyfried came back from working on his PhD fieldwork with...a dead marten for me! It's a relative of the weasel. It had been run over...not by him.

However, it's by far NOT the worst gift I ever got! I love martens, I worked with them on my Master's project. And he learned taxidermy to prepare the fur for me in time for Christmas. I loved it, I kept it for years until it looked ratty (as opposed to weaselly).

What can I say...the man knows me. So I married him. :)

Honorable Mention -

My strangest Christmas gift has a backstory-

It starts when I picked my Grandma up to bring her to my parents house to help wrap gifts. (My grandmother is amazing, but sadly she has Alzheimer's.) After wrapping all the gifts it was time to go. My grandma got her coat on and went to put on her shoes. Her shoes, however, could not be found. We looked everywhere. My mom even asked me. "Billy, did she have shoes on when you picked her up?"

I said yes, but to be honest. I wasn't certain. My mother was doubtful and told me that I have to be careful. She could catch pneumonia. Finally my mom lent her a pair of shoes and I took her home.

Flashforward to Christmas Day. My oddest gift was my Grandmother's shoes from that night; neatly wrapped and placed under the tree. No wonder we couldn't find them.

I opened the box, held the shoes up and exclaimed to my mother; "See! I told you she had shoes on when I picked her up!!!"

Honorable Mention -

Where to begin...these were all Christmas gifts from my husband in different years:

-- hummingbird made of barbed wire
-- ceramic cactus with light up Christmas lights
-- weird elephant thing with bowl on top
-- stuffed dead kitten

After 35+ years you would think he would learn, but no. I now buy my own Christmas presents and address them from him to me. When I open them I say "Wow! Just what I wanted! How did you know?"