Adopt an Adorable

That's not Seamus. That's Cosby...and he needs a home.

I'm participating in Petfinder.com's adopt the internet day--March 15th. Seamus is an adopted dog--shocking, I know, since we look so much alike. I have volunteered with our local pet adoption agency for over twenty years now. Finding homes for these wonderful animals is definitely a passion of mine. So, in honor of Seamus, and for Cosby and the many like him, today I remind you---

More than 320,000 pets are waiting for homes on Petfinder.com. Help Petfinder Adopt the Internet today and find forever homes for as many as possible!

Wherein I Give Up

So, yeah. I gave up.
I gave up hoping that somehow magically, just as it seems it magically appeared, this coat o' fat I've been wearing would disappear. It seems intent on staying.

And you may recall that my dear oncologist looked me straight in the eye, post "I have these lingering chemo side-effects" whining, and said "I'm willing to bet all of those would go away if you lost some weight."

The nerve.

The common sense.

So yes. I've acknowledged that the thirty pounds I've gained since Chris and I have been together  may in fact be related to our lifestyle and not chemo (yes, you read that right...30. 3-0. O.M.G.  But, um, for the record, Chris and I have been together almost 7 years...but I digress....). While chemo may have caused my metabolism to come to a screaming halt, it's likely it was only moving at a very leisurely pace previously. In fact, I think my metabolism was stopping to smell a lot of flowers along the way.

Time for a change. I've consulted with a dietitian/ nutritionist and...and...and....hired a personal trainer. (Raise your hand if you're shocked. Right...I'm now typing with one hand myself.)

Here's what I learned from the nutritionist that seems to be helping me a lot:

1) I think about what I can eat, not what I can't eat.   This has been the most helpful bit of advice, since I'm not good at denying myself. So if I'm at a restaurant, I go right to the "lite" menu and pick something. I do not look at the things I cannot have (and I try to ignore the server when the specials are explained). When I make a meal for myself or go grocery shopping, I do the same thing. It's worked much, much better for me!

2) I'm eating more fiber. In fact I'm eating a ton of fruits and vegetables (aided greatly by the fact that a client dropped off 2 big boxes of the most delicious oranges!) and my snacks are fiber bars. I have yet to feel hungry, which makes the below goal much easier...

3) I'm trying to stay at or under 1,500 calories a day. That used to be a meal for me. But, 1 and 2 above make that not too difficult. Now as for difficult....

4) I'm limiting my alcohol.  This has proven to be the most difficult. Not so bad when I'm just at home (but I do miss my glass...es.... of wine late at night, especially when I'm writing. Writing and wine go together in my mind...). It's much harder when I'm at community events, parties, or, um...Chris's Sunday Night Chef Fights!

So far though, I've lost 6 pounds, gained 2 back (I have no idea how that is, but it is...). It's been 2 weeks. I didn't even mention it before this because I wanted to make sure I was really doing it. And I am. The goal is to lose that 30 pounds. Yeah, I'm going to have to stick with this awhile. Maybe forever. (Can't think about that now...baby steps!).

I'll tell you about the trainer in the next post. My arms hurt to much to keep typing now....

Our Good Fortune

 I've spent the last few days at home with Seamus, working a little, writing a lot and reading Sara J. Henry's "Learning to Swim" (which is fabulous--if you haven't bought it yet, all I can say is what are you waiting for??!).  I also received my signed copy of The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley, which, I will admit, I've also been peaking at more than a little. I'm looking forward to diving in and absorbing the whole thing soon. 

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about her memoir:

"China sat in the rooms of our house like a question," begins Conley in this luminous memoir of moving her family from Portland, Maine, to Beijing on the eve of the 2008 Olympics. Conley's husband had accepted a dream job in Beijing, and they had decided to say "yes to all the unknowns that will now rain down on us" including common difficulties faced by many families moving to a new city: a new school for her two young sons, finding new friends, and adjusting to a new apartment all compounded by the intensity of learning a difficult new language and adapting to a new culture. Conley's writing is at once spare and strong, and her description of having to present an unflappable front to her children while being hit "with a rolling wave of homesickness" pulls the reader into her world like a close friend. As Conley starts to hit her stride in her adopted city, she discovers lumps in her breast and finds herself on a different kind of journey, which she describes as "an essential aloneness that cancer has woven into my days." She explains in this engaging memoir that after her treatment in the U.S. was over, she returned to Beijing, where she searched for the perfect Chinese talisman to "ward off the leftover cancer juju" and hoping to help her boys move past their own fears of their mother's mortality.

Susan was kind enough to stop by this li'l ol' blog on her whirlwind (real) book tour.  So, with no further ado...here's my interview with Susan:

TDL: Susan—Thank you so much for stopping by my humble blog. I’ve interviewed a few authors on this blog and the first question is always the same, so let’s get started!

      We here at The Dog Lived (and So Will I) love our wine. What do you recommend we pour when we first sit down to read The Foremost Good Fortune? And what should we sip when we finish it?

SC:  When you sit down to read The Foremost Good Fortune you might start with a sparkling wine—Schrambsberg Blanc de Blanc. It was first brought to China by President Nixon in 1972 when he met with Mao. This wine is light and crisp and the opening of my memoir is a kind of travelogue and parenting handbook of successes and disasters that would go well with a really good sparkling wine. While you’re finishing the book, and my family and I have come out of what I call the circus that was my cancer treatments, maybe a wine that is a little more complex is in order—like an aged Pinot Noir.

TDL:      I noted that on the first page of your book you mention a “legal career” (it’s just slipped in there ever so quietly). Were you a lawyer? How did you make the transition from the legal field to writing? (And I’m not at all asking that because I’ve been a lawyer for twenty-five years…not at all…)

SC:  I was never a lawyer. But I had dreams of a legal career. I went so far as to try being a paralegal in San Francisco straight out of college. I worked for a well-known woman trial lawyer who brought a lot of gender cases to trial. Fascinating stuff. I learned a whole lot. Then after two years I realized that all the writing I was doing as a paralegal was writing I was meant to be doing in a graduate creative writing program. 

TDL:    As I understand it, when you left for Beijing with your family you had plans to finish writing a novel. How did that transition to a memoir about your time in China to a memoir that included your breast cancer experience? And…what’s the status with that novel?

SC:  That novel is alive and well. Knopf bought it as well as the memoir. The novel traces the life of a thirty-year-old woman from California, who comes to terms with love and with her brother’s death in France. The plan is for the novel to come out fairly soon after the memoir. Moving from the novel to the memoir (and now back again to the novel as I complete another draft of it) has been a study for me in narrative arc. It’s all storytelling—but the voice is distinctly different in each book, and in one I was limited by my experience and in the other I was only limited by my imagination.

TDL:      Can you share with us a little about your breast cancer? (What kind, what stage, how you found it… a lot of my readers are fellow BC warriors.)  Is breast cancer very prevalent in China?

SC:  My flavor of breast cancer was early stage—I think technically Stage 1b. I had estrogen positive cancer and HER/2/NEU negative. The grade of my cancer was aggressive and there were several tumors as well as DCIS. The hitch for me was additional cancer found after surgery in the mastectomy tissue which led to a concern about clean margins. I did a course of radiation and then I went on a hormonal suppression protocol, which I will do for about 5 years.

I found my cancer myself—the tumors appeared as small marbles in my chest wall. The mammogram I had in Beijing did not indicate any cancer. It was the ultrasound in China that revealed the tumors, though at first they appeared as cysts, which was confusing to everyone involved. I know each of our cancer stories has its own unexpected turns. No two are alike. I am three years out now and feeling very healthy.

TDL:      You capture a tremendous amount of very vivid detail in your writing, and the photos on your blog (and in the book trailer) are gorgeous. Did you use the photos while you were writing? What techniques did you use to capture all the details? Did you keep a journal? (If you say it was all from memory…I’m just going to stop writing now. My memory was bad enough pre-chemo!)

SC:  I am lucky to have a husband who is an avid photographer. So that has been a great thing in terms of having mental photos of the places I am writing about. But the way I capture detail in my writing is mostly through notes I take in a journal. My background, and that graduate school training I mentioned earlier, are in poetry. I was a poetry major in college and then again in grad school. I have taught poetry seminars and workshops for years at various colleges and schools. And I think that is where the eye for the details comes in for me. Poetry relies so much on that vivid image, and I was able to take that reliance on imagery in poetry and weave into the prose of the memoir.

TDL:      You mention on your blog that you found yourself walking the path between poetry and memoir. Wow. I find this to be a gorge and there’s no walking it! (Writing Poetry scares the beejeezus out of me! But I’m loving writing a memoir.) Can you tell us more about that? Your memoir is not in rhyming stanzas or iambic pentameter, so I’m all confused.

SC:  Okay. And I know. Poetry can be aloof. It can be scary! But here is what I think:  narrative poetry is actually, as Mary Karr said so wisely not that long ago, memoir’s first cousin. Both forms are interested in tracking a story. Both forms are trying to translate experience and to do it an authentic way. Both forms need to rely on description and image. I started in poetry and so it doesn’t scare me. But I get how it alienates a whole lot of people! One of the things I often do when I am leading a poetry workshop is try to demystify poetry, so that all we are reading for in the stanzas is the delight of the language. We are not trying to “solve” some secret mystery.

TDL:     I usually end with a dog question that is generally something along the lines of “why don’t you have a beagle?” But I assume there wasn’t a dog with you in China. So we’ll just go with, “is there a beagle in your future?” 

Oh this is actually a sad question for me. There may be a beagle in my future because the boys and my husband, Tony, and I adopted a rescue puppy last fall from Alabama and she didn’t make it. She was sick upon arrival and though we tried to get her through, the virus she picked up in the Alabama soil was too strong. So talk of dogs is very much on the table right now. Which kind of dog? Maybe a beagle! Thanks so much for your great questions! Happy wine. Happy dog. Happy reading.

We like our wine and our dogs and our books around these parts. Thanks for stopping by. 

P.S.--a beagle is a wonderful family dog. My theory is this: beagles are sturdy and "manly" looking enough that men aren't embarrassed to walk them; cute enough and small enough to make women happy, and energetic and friendly enough that kids love them.

Readers--I've given you the gift of two fantastic book recommendations. Go forth and read. And be sure to let me know what you think.

You can also watch her stunningly gorgeous book trailer by clicking HERE;  and visit her webpage at www.susanconley.com

Cheers, Woof and happy reading!

Sleeping Sitting Up

Seamus's surgery was moved up to today--doctor's schedule, Chris's schedule, my schedule, Seamus's schedule all pointed to today as the best option.

The good news is that none of the bumps or lumps were cancerous. The bad news is he has stitches and "super glue" in various incision spots and apparently this is making it uncomfortable for him to lay down.  I picked him up at 4:30, brought him home, fed him and then got him settled in bed (my bed, of course). Since then (a few hours now) he's been trying to sleep sitting up. Then he falls asleep, falls or moves down and boom! he's awake and sitting back up.  I've been positioning pillows around him to get him some support so he can sleep and stay asleep. The photo is the particular set up that seems to work. He was asleep before I got off the bed to get the camera and is back asleep as I type this. I'm sure the pain medications helped. (I'm contemplating my own pain "medication" in a glass shortly...).

He's supposed to be wearing a cone (Elizabethan collar, if you prefer) because he has stitches on a back leg, but so far, he's not at all interested in the stitches. So I'm just going to let him rest, cone-less. It's been hard enough for him to find a position to sleep in, without having a plastic conehead hindering him.  It's funny, he's right where he slept when I was going through chemo and sleeping a lot, and he was keeping me company. So I think I'll just  keep him company now, too. That's how we roll in our cancer (free!!) house.

Lucky 13

 I'm lucky #13 on the "Inspirational Cancer Blogs" list...or something like that!

And Leah...I still need to hear from you so I can send you Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry!

A Toasty Winner

Seamus has worked his magic. And we have a winner!!

Before we get to that....allow me to explain...or, er....blame. The reason Seamus is picking the winner of the contest for an autographed, hardback, hot off the presses copy of Sara J. Henry's "Learning to Swim" is...well, it's Quinn Cummings fault. She ran the same contest and had her cat choose the winner. And truth be told, although this kills me, the cat performed spectacularly. And really, you can't train a cat, so it's rather impressive. Well, I have news for you. You can't train a beagle either. And I can't stand to have dogs out-done by cats. So here, for the dogs, is Seamus picking a winner of our contest....(blame Quinn....)..

 Congratulations Leah! Please email me with your address, because I can't seem to find an email address for you. Also, Seamus would like to let you know where to send him his additional bribery money toast.

All in all, I think Seamus was more dignified than Squeekers the cat. He seemed to really consider his options and take some time properly selecting a winner. He didn't just leap at the first entry he could get his claws on. Here, you be the judge. Watch how the cat barely considers the options available....

Oh sure, you could call that decisive. You could say the cat knows what it wants. You could. But us? No. Seamus and I call that impulsive, frivolous, maybe even irresponsible.  Oh no, we're throwin' down.  Cats vs. Dogs? I'm just sayin' I think the dog wins. Sure, sure, Quinn had more comments and her nails were better done than mine, oh and whatever, la-ti-dah she took the time to print out your names all fancy on that Excel spreadsheet, but you know....I got home from work at 8:30, and Chris informed me our neighbor had called complaining about Seamus's barking today so he (Seamus that is) and I had a long talk about the meaning of bad behavior and Seamus was all subdued and whatnot, and I was all soaking in some unpronounceable red wine (Alicante Brouchet), and Chris was all "he's your dog," so basically,  I'm just happy I remembered to do this. And that Seamus can open an envelope. Now when the mail gets delivered tomorrow....something tells me I'll be less happy about this.

But for now...Leah wins!! And the rest of you should just go buy the book. My copy arrived in the mail today. So, I'm going to go read myself to sleep now (or stay up all night reading it cover to cover!!). 'Night all. Happy Reading!

Last Chance to Comment

Because Seamus's schedule is a little booked these days, he will not be doing the drawing for Sara J. Henry's debut novel "Learning to Swim" until the evening on February 22nd. Thus, you have until 5pm Pacific time to leave a comment below and enter to win. You can't win it if you're not in it. More cliche's to follow...

Free Books!

Sara J. Henry: Sara in Vermont: My Friend Ben is Ever-so-slightly Crazy. Or Maybe Not. But He's Giving Away Books.

Too good not to mention this even though I have to start with "A friend of a friend...." but hey, I get to end with "...is giving away free ebooks!" So, yeah, click on that link and find out more. Then of course you'll want to leave a comment below and be entered to win a free book here!! The free book here is Sara's own book "Learning to Swim"--a pristine, autographed hardcopy. You only have until February 22nd, so don't spend a lot of time thinking about your comment (I know how you writer-types can be).

Free book Friday. Now that's a good, good day.

Bernard Pivot Blogfest

I haven't actually participated  in a blog-festy sort of thing before but this seems easy and fun. Launched by blogger Nicole over at One Significant Moment at a Time, it's the Actor's Studio questionnaire. I'll be honest...I'm just going to do it off the top of my head (there's a certain laziness to this approach, I know. Whatever.) If you want to join in the blogfest, better hurry...we're all supposed to be posting this today.

Also, comments here or in the post below will still enter you in the contest for Sara Henry's book, Learning to Swim.

1. What is your favorite word? Beagle
2. What is your least favorite word? Stitches (can't even stand to type that!)
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Coffee
4. What turns you off? Lack of Sleep
5. What is your favorite curse word? Ah, I'm a simpleton. It's just F*ck.
6. What sound or noise do you love? Silence
7. What sound or noise do you hate? Anything loud
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Literary Agent
9. What profession would you not like to do? Doctor (see #2)
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? "All your dogs are here."
11.  
12.  
13. Okay, I can't get the formatting removed...this is not part of the questionnaire. But if you'd like to join in the fun (which this formatting problem of mine is definitely not part of), hop on over to Nicole's blog.
14.  

(Not) Live From Vermont!

As promised, this blog is on fire with postings now! So here is my exclusive, one-of-a-kind, only on this blog interview with Sara J. Henry! (And that's us at last year's LA Times Festival of Books). And you, yes YOU, have a chance to win an autographed copy of her book, Learning to Swim, see details below!

My interview with Sara:

Teresa: Sara, you've read the blog enough to know this was coming...my readers, soon to be your readers, will definitely need to know what wine to be sipping when they curl up with your book. And then, what wine should they drink as the book concludes?

Sara: I’m going to let our mutual friend, writer Reed Farrel Coleman, answer this question, as my method of choosing wines (it does have to be red wine) is usually Oh, that’s a pretty label or Oh, there’s a bicycle [or dog] [or kangaroo] on the label.
Reed says: “To sip as you settle down to read Learning to Swim, I would suggest the 2008 The Boxer, an amazing Mollydooker (yes, spelled that way) Shiraz. To celebrate a great reading experience at the completion of the book, I would suggest one of the finest values in sparkling wines, a bottle of Gruet from New Mexico.”

T:  In your other interviews you mentioned this manuscript sat lonely in the bottom of a drawer before you dusted it off and the good folks at Squaw Valley convinced you it needed to see the light of day. For those of us with dusty, lonely manuscripts ourselves and for whom the squaws of Squaw may not yet be calling, what advice do you have? (At least this isn't one of those wide open-ended questions!)

S:  Hmmmm. I’d say, apply to Squaw Valley Writers Conference, seriously. It’s a fantastic place, you get admitted (or refused) on the basis of the first 5,000 words of your manuscript, and it’s open now for applications. It’s fairly reasonably priced, as far as week-long conferences go, and they offer scholarships and cheap housing.
Failing that, I’d say join a writing group, virtual or real-life. (I also belong to Backspace, a $40-a-year forum with lots of published author who will critique pages and query letters.)
But what you really have to do is decide if you can let the manuscript go. If you aren’t passionate about at least parts of it, it may need to be abandoned. The fact was I loved my characters and my setting and the core theme of my book, and I had pretty much the same opening chapter you see now. But the middle of the book was pretty bad, with a meandering plot, cardboard characters and absent ones, and a languid pace (not a good idea for a book that turned out to be a thriller). I knew it was bad (the folks at Squaw never got to see the middle) but didn’t know how to rewrite. For this I literally blockaded myself, a trifle more severely than I first intended: I broke my fifth right metatarsal, had it pinned back together, got on a plane a few weeks later for a five-week house-swap near Sydney, Australia, at the beginning of their winter. And there, doggedly and painfully, I learned to rewrite.
Reread, revise, rewrite. And repeat several times. And read it aloud, too. It's very very hard work, if you want a good book at the end of it. Worth every minute.

PS The drawer is metaphorical - it was on a computer disk. Yes, back in the olden days when we used disks.


T:  Writers, particularly published writers, often say the key to writing success is keeping your butt in the chair. My (totally imaginary) personal trainer says I need to get my butt out of my chair. My butt, and my brain, find this confusing. Please advise: Who's right?

S: They both are. Seriously. I get my best ideas and work out all sorts of scenes while walking, riding my bicycle, or – try not to laugh – painting walls. I love painting walls (what I hate is the tedious prep work, because I’m a perfectionist). The rhythm of moving the roller or paint brush lets my brain run, and I find it oddly relaxing. And if you aren’t living life, you have nothing to write about, and you’ll lose the spirit that makes you want to write.
But you also have to write – and realize there are times it is not fun – and make yourself do it.

T:  There is, as there must be, a dog in your novel. How important is the dog and why isn't it a beagle?

S: It’s not a beagle because it is modeled after the best dog in the world, my now-deceased German Shepherd-golden retriever mix named Tiger. I still remember the ad I answered to find her: Mother pure-bred golden retriever – father traveling man. Six of the pups clearly had a German shepherd father, four had a black lab father. Oops! But now Tiger will live on forever, in this novel and the sequels.
She’s important because she is the boon companion of our heroine, Troy Chance – providing comfort and love, as dogs do.

T:  What was the best and the worst day you had in this books' journey to publication (we'll accept answers anywhere from the imagining of the story to the moment you type your answer)?

S:  I can’t boil it down to one day, but I can to one feeling: that horrid sick feeling of knowing I’d written a novel that wasn’t salable and lacking the gumption or confidence to actually do something about it – and sometimes taking it out and glumly looking at it and and having NO idea how to rewrite. Or looking at book reviews and knowing that I should have my book done and out there, and I didn’t. Turning point: when a friend's 24-year-old son got a lovely novel published. At 24! Nothing to get you going like that.
The best was probably the day my to-be agent, Barney, called me. I was traveling and had just plugged in my Ooma phone device to a phone without caller ID, so I had no idea who it was when I answered, so I was quite relaxed. And it was one of the best agents in the business – who of course I had never really expected to hear from – who had read my query and opening pages and wanted me to email my manuscript so he could read it that holiday weekend. It was completely unexpected and unexpectedly perfect, and a moment where my life changed forever. (And he called me back the following Sunday to tell me he liked it and to offer to represent me.)

T:  Will we be seeing you at the LA Times Festival of Books this year and if so, how do you feel about its controversial move from UCLA to USC? Is this important to folks outside California??? Where else can your fans flock to see you live?

S:I’m sad to see it move because we had such a great time there last year, I’d learned my way around, found several fun restaurants and built some nice memories, and it was within walking distance of a nice and reasonably priced hotel! Even with just one visit, it felt like home. Plus there was The Mystery Bookstore there, now sadly closed. (Note to readers: independent bookstores are closing at an alarming rate - go now to your favorite one and buy something!)

I’d love to come to the LATFOB this year but I think with other book events that I won’t be able to make it. But I have a bunch of events planned and more to come – I'll launch Feb. 23 in NYC and will return to Squaw Valley for a panel and reading Aug. 9!

T:  And finally, who do you feel is the next up and coming "dog and I both had cancer" memoir-ist? And how excited are you to see his/ her manuscript published?

S: Ah, Teresa, you know it’s you! I found you through your cancer blog (because I was looking for someone who might be going to a specific writing event) so was reading your blog while you went through much of this – and met you when you still had your post-cancer rather short haircut! And I will be stupidly excited to see your book published! And will be cheering madly from the sidelines.

 _______
Phew. I'm glad she got that last one right. And Reed did an excellent job on the wine selection as well--the New Mexico Gruet sparkling wine is incredible! (Chris uses it in one of his Forgotten Grapes shows...how's that for unprompted coincidence?)

And now it's your turn. Run out (or online, if you are a "butt in the chair" kind of person) and buy her book! It's a great read. Like Sara says, support an Indie and order the book from an independent bookseller...like this one:  Powell's or this one Vromans or heck, just find one near you by using this link to Indie Bound. Just buy the book, people.

Oh, and Sara reads the blog. So feel free to leave her questions, comments or rave reviews below in the comment section. In fact....one commenter will be randomly selected by Seamus, to receive an autographed copy of Sara's book! Just leave a comment before February 22nd and you are in the running! (Sorry, US residents only...the shipping gets a little crazy otherwise!) Seamus claims he cannot be bribed, but he will accept offerings of steak. Also, toast.

Happy reading!