Tonight, my son said, “Hey, only 14 days until Christmas!”
And I said, “No, honey, that can’t be right because it’s 16 days until my book comes out.”
He looked at me weird and said, “What’s today’s date?”
“December 11th,” I said, confidently.
My son looked at my husband, and my husband looked back at my son. The look said, “She’s trying to count again. We’ll say nothing and keep eating pizza.”
“What’s 25 minus 11, Libba?” my husband asked, starting to laugh.
“Um, 14?” I said.
“I knew it was 14 days until Christmas! Whoohoo!” My son shouted.
“Your countdown on your blog is WRONG!” My husband says with glee. He exults in my mathdyslexistupidia a little too much, if you ask me.
Fine. So I can’t count and it’s actually only 15 days until TSFT pubs. But hey, on the bright side, it’s only 15 days.
I meant to say “Happy Haunkkah this past week. Of course, now it’s the eighth day, so I hope everybody got some latkes. (I married a nice Jewish boy and have I gotten any latkes this Hanukkah? No. I have not. However, I have been singing “The Hanukkah Song” for over a week.) We celebrate pretty much every holiday in this family. I call this time of year, “Hanumas,” which sounds sort of like a festive, ecumenical bread spread.
Oh, and one of you lovely posters suggested that I give a quote a day from TSFT as part of the countdown. I thought that was a Jim-Dandy idea and perhaps it will cover for my lack of math skills. So, here is today’s quote from THE SWEET FAR THING. (And no, I will not tell you what chapter it’s from, ’cause I’m sneaky like that.) In fact, I’m just going to open the book to a random page, put my finger on it, and see where I am.
“A woman’s face presses against the surface, and I stumble back, gasping. Her features emerge from the murky deep of the well. The eyes and mouth are closed as in death. Her face is bleached of all color. Her hair floats on the water beneath the ice like the rays of a dark sun.”
There’s your sneak peek for the day.
OFFICIAL TSFT COUNTDOWN: 15 DAYS. No, really.