My Birthday Wish

Another Day, another year older. Oh what joys! Instead of waxing philosophic on another year, I'm just going to reblog the post I did for last year's birthday.

So my birthday's coming up in a week or so (August 27th) and I really don't have a lot of expectations. Dinner out with Fighting Nun, a good day out with  the whole family, my mom sending me homemade cookies, one or two small things, nothing big.  And that's the way I like it. A fuss being made over my birthday is old hat and I'm over it.

But there's something I'd like you all to do for my birthday if you've read my blog, or my tweets at all. I think you can probably guess what that is. George Mark House looms and will always loom large in my mind.  It's like an old friend who I forget about for big chunks of time but when I get back in touch, I fall right into my same rhythms with it.

I've done fundraisers and little things for them in the past with varying results and because I haven't had much time to organize myself, this one will be small and will probably have the same results. But I'd like to try and send them as much love (and money) as possible. I still have a small bevy of bracelets I made for the last fundraiser. On a first come first serve basis, I'll give those bracelets to the first five people who donate to George Mark House between now and my birthday. As always, if you've been saving up loose change for a rainy day, cash it in and send it. And if you do, let me know and I will parade you with as much gratitude as I have.

Just donate to George Mark House using their page, send me an email receipt ( tyliagardner @ hotmail (dot) com )  and where you'd like the bracelet sent to or or DM me on twitter with the information and boom, we're in business. Don't feel like donating, especially if you're not one of the first five, but you'd still like to donate?  No problem. Just tweet, or social media a link to George Mark House and you can have my blog for a full day. Want to promote your book , your blog, want to force my blog to post silly cat videos for a whole day? I will hand you the keys to castle if you give George Mark some love between now and my birthday. Seriously, any bit of love you can provide to George Mark house is enough and will garner you my love and and respect for the end of days. It's not only appreciated by me but George Mark House as well. Not enough people know what they do and how important they are to special needs and bereaved parents like myself.

They just recently had to stop their bereaved parent meetings, much to the chagrin of myself and parents like me. Tell them that their services and their support of my family and families like me is appreciated by throwing them a bone and some love, however small.

[Ed. Note: I've decided to extend my Birthday Challenge until the end of August, you have until 12:00AM August 31st to win loot or space on my blog!]

 I'm not doing a fundraiser this year. I 'd like to save that for Ukiah's birthday, but If you do chose to donate  a little bit of money to George Mark House between now and their annual gala and tell me about it, I still have some bracelets and some jewelry lying around that I'll gladly send you or I'll make you something special! But mostly I want their message and what they do spread out to the world. If you can,  tweet about it, put a link and their banner on your own blog, put it on tumblr. I don't care, just get the message out. I won't hand over the keys to my blog this time, but I will keep the karma rolling and tweet anything you want out to the world. On my birthday all I want is for George Mark House to shine and the message of what they do to reach as many people as possible. Thank you. 

My #PitchWars Bio

What should I say about me that hasn’t been said already?  I’m a bad picture taker (you knew that). I frequently ramble about nonsensical and pop-culture things (you knew that too, just check my archives). I’m frequently sleep deprived and someone is ALWAYS interrupting my dreams (I still haven’t reached the exciting conclusion to my Logan Marshall Green Vs. a Viking dream. Come back dream, come back!)

A thing that you probably don’t know about me. I wrote a book that I’d really (really, really) like to get published, which is why I’m trying this #PitchWars thing out. A thing you should know about me is what inspired the story and what my going motivation is for getting it published and out into the world.

Well, there are two motivations really. The first is my son. He was born on April 15th, 2008. He died, in our arms, at home April 5th, 2010. He’s the inspiration behind the story. I saw him and so many kids like him in the NICU just like him fight invisible monsters on a continual basis. I saw all these incredible little differences in all these incredible babies and they changed me.

I’m not just a mom, I’m a full-fledged momma bear with the world’s sharpest claws and the fiercest love. I’m not just a momma bear to my two kids but to all the kids. And I mean all of the kids. I don’t care if you’re a grown-ass adult with your own mortgage and your own kids. If you want a mother to utter the words “I love you” just so you feel some motherly love in your life, well I’m the person for the job. Need some right now? Fine. I love you! Need a little more? Okay. I love you. Done. My son taught me that we all have an infinite bottomless well of love to give. I not tap into mine and give out freely.

I’m also a mom that loves freely and openly and most importantly, happily. I know how to laugh and enjoy things things with an open heart in ways I could have never imagined. My daughter taught me how to do that because she is not afraid to be who she is. That’s a hard lesson I’m trying to learn.

It means I have to not be afraid to be who I am and go after the things I want, and that’s to be writer and to share my son’s story and the journey he took us all on and sharing how he continues to affect my life.

So, enough about me. What about the book? The book is called The Broken and I've been known to say that it's part sci-fi (although paranormal or magical realism might be more apt), part auto-biography. It's YA because  I'm targeting kids who were in my son's same position. All of my son's victories and a lot of his defeats are in the pages of this book. It's about growing up to find out you are a lot stronger than you think you are, that you're not just a diagnosis or a disability or all of the unkind things the people around you say that you are. It's about finding a voice and finding out that its strong.

I look forward to meeting all the mentors and fellow writers and everyone whose embarking on this year’s #PitchWars journey.

An Obligatory Pictures Post

Pictures came up in conversation the other day with some of my twitter friends (Laura Zera and Lorna Suzuki to be exact) and I mentioned I haven't tried to take a selfie yet because I take horrible enough pictures WITHOUT being my own photographer. I'd just make it worse by being the photographer. They'd be horrible. They'd be so bad they'd rend a whole in the fabric of space time.

Well Lorna doesn't believe me, so I thought I'd provide proof.

I don't take good pictures. And I mean that in every sense of the phrase. I suck at being a photographer. When I'm taking pictures of my daughter for any given length of time,  I always find I delete about half of them for blurriness or she looked down too fast or any number of reasons. It's not a skill with which I am very adept.

I also suck at getting my picture taken. Like really suck at it. Like I've had my husband almost turn to drugs and alcohol in order to get through a picture taking section. It's not good. 

Here's what happens on any particular picture taking escapade. When I'm asked to smile, I immediately start to over-compensate and I unhinge my jaw like I'm a boa constrictor about to devour an entire bird. My husband calls this phenomena Pterodactyl-ing it, and it happens, oh about every third picture I take. So then I over-compensate for THAT by barely smiling with my mouth and then trying to smize (Smiling with my eyes. Thanks Tyra Banks.) but I always take that too far and going into to what I call Manson-lamps territory. My eyes are big and they are scary. The third picture I usually get distracted by my daughter or something out of range and I'm not even looking at the camera at all. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That happens just about every time I try to take a picture. It's not a full ten on the pterodactyl scale. Probably a six, but it still ain't good. This includes bonus 'baby ain't look at the camera action' as well as 'welcome to fly-away city population pterodactyl. I mean, what was my hair doing. "Alright she's distracted. A strand of us will make a break for it. We'll call you from the outside. Godspeed." Both of those things only add to the picture-take problems. We've only on the rarest of occasions both been facing a camera with decent looks on our faces with my hair deciding to play nice. It's just not good.

And then you have the terror that is the Manson-lamps phenomena which makes my pterodactyl face look like an exercise in restraint. The very next picture that got snapped was this one. See what I mean?  I brought the teeth down but all the manic energy residing in my mouth agape smile when straight to my eyes.  I look like one of the creepy men from that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where nobody can talk and those guys come at you all eyes and smiles, very happy to perpetrate the horrors they are about to administer on your bodily person.  Even my daughter was giving the camera a 'I don't know about this person' look.

But the bunny ears were adorable.


That's not to say that taking a good picture is not a quality which I possess. Once in  blue moon I'm capable of not unhinging my jaw, not giving off manson-lamps and looking at the camera in one foul swoop. I mean, look at this picture. I look normal! Put together even. It's miraculous when it happens, let me tell you. The sun rays peak out from the clouds and the gates of heaven open. It's an awesome thing. But these pictures are few and far between. I mean this picture? Taken last year, by a professional photographer who had to coax that smile out of me slowly. It's a process to get me to take a good picture is what I'm saying, a long drawn out process requiring copious amounts of patience, or barring that, copious amounts of alcohol.

9 times out of ten I look constipated or surprised. Sometimes it's a combination of the two. (Actually, in this photo I'd say it's more of a combination of scared and constipated, or scared I'm not going to be constipated for much longer. I'll let you be the judge. )

Now I could delve deeper in the horrors that is my personal photo collection. But I think you should just take my word for it here on out, and if you ever do take my picture, brace yourself for the horrors that await you on the other side.

..... I'm sorry.

Random Conversations about our Daughter's Television Programming

Bloody Munchkin: The thing I don't get about the Jake and the Neverland Pirates besides 'Jake where are your parents!?!?!' is that the help out Captain Hook sometimes even though Captain Hook is evil kinda? And he sometimes comes up with crazy schemes to try and get treasure but then these kids are collecting gold doubloons for their treasure, which how does Captain Hook not see that these kids are picking gold out of the air first off. And second off if he's so damned treasure happy why doesn't he just follow the kids back to their secret island and steal their treasure and get on with his damn life? I don't understand.

Fighting Nun [waits a beat]: I think you are over-thinking a kid's show.

Bloody Munchkin: Says the guy who basically crafted fan-fiction regarding the crab with the wooden pincer on Tumble Leaf on this entire crab's back-story regarding how he lost the limb and then regained the mechanical one, which if memory serves involved combat and a lost love.

Fighting Nun: But that was awesome and dark and compelling!

This conversation has been brought to you by our daughter's programming and the fact that we have no life.

Book Review: Shaken

I’ve been wracking my brain as to what to say about Susan Hatler’s Shaken: Book One in the Mind Reader Series. There’s so much I can say, want to say that it’s hard to know where to start. Let me start with the fact that it’s a perfect YA book. I’d also like to say that I love this book so much, I’m jealous I didn’t write it. It’s a fun thrill ride that I couldn’t put down and was so good that I had to run to Amazon to see what else in the series I could buy (nothing right now, as it turns out, which Boo! Dear Susan Hatler; Please write faster. If you ever show up to my Starbuck’s again to write a few chapters regarding this series, I’ll happily cheer you on and encourage you to write like the wind.).

Kylie Bates is a smart, driven 16 year-old who is great at school and horribly sarcastic and snarky with boys she likes. Her daily routine consists of journaling her dead mother, making sure her 4.0 GPA doesn’t dip and trying desperately to not be a spaz around her current crush. Until she finds out she can read minds. Things take a turn for the weird when she realizes she can see people’s thoughts by touching their hands. Things take a turn for the dangerous when her father asks her to use her new abilities to help find a missing girl. The very same people who kidnapped the girl may be the ones looking for her.

With the help of Trip, a determined 17 year-old from her school who wants to become a detective, they try to unravel the mystery of who took the girl and what they want and what the girl’s abduction has to do with her.

This book is a thrill ride that explores the tricky territory of telepathy, telekinesis and the even trickier territory of navigating high school, the crushes, the friendships, the family relationships, the classes.

Let me just say that not since, I dunno, Mr. Rochester have I had such a strong crush on a literary character. Trip is like Cliff Pantone mixed with Christian Slater’s character from Gleaming the Cube.  He’s layered and complex for a 17 year-old and determined in ways most love interests just aren’t. The sixteen year girl in me just completely fell for him. 

This is a really fun book and well worth a pick up. A+

Book Review: Love at First Date

I’m not sure this actually counts as a book review since Love at First Date feels more novella length than anything and it was such a breezy read, but since I’m still on the hook for my May book review, here goes. 

Love at First Date follows Ellen, a customer support representative trying to find love in Sacramento but in the most regimented of ways, using a detailed dating service. It’s not until she starts finally going out on dates with the people she’s met through her profile that she meets her real match blindly through some twist of luck (or if you’d rather, a dog she’s watching and a clogged hair brush).

Henry, the man who helps save her best friend’s dog and whose eyes she can’t stop looking into is all she can think about. Although she wishes she could stop. She tries busying herself with men she’s met from her dating profile because she’s convinced they meet her compatibility markers and if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother, it’s that marriages don’t work without finding common ground.

Love at First Date is an enjoyable bit of fluff and a very quick read, but it isn’t all fluff. This book has a lot on its mind, or rather, the protagonist has a lot on hers, like how she’s supposed to make it work with a man when her mother, who was married twice before and couldn’t even make it work with Ellen’s birth father long enough to get married. Can she really find what and who she wants when she sees all of her mother’s old mistakes?

 There’s a lot of interpersonal relationships at play here too. Can she find love, be allowed to find it, when her friends have interpersonal lives falling apart? Will there meddling help or hurt? And can Ellen finally get out of her own way to see what’s in front of her?

I not only enjoyed reading how all those questions got answered, but how they were posed in the first place. Susan Hatler does a great job of really getting you right in the character’s head, showing you exactly what makes her tick and just what kind of neuroses are really at play.

 Love At First Date is an enjoyable fast-paced read and well worth your time. It’s an A.

Piggy Banks for George Mark House Special Thanks

Well, April's here. April 5th came. Then April 15th and I survived them both. Truth be told, with a company meeting in the middle of those days as well as a visit from my parents and my daughter being my daughter (Read: Busy, really, really, really, busy) I didn't have much time to dwell.

Keeping my mind on George Mark House and trying to help them to the best of my ability kept me going when the quiet moments threatened to make me fall apart. If you participated by tweeting, I thank you sincerely. Special thanks go to the ever amazing Eden Baylee, Steven Luna, and Laura Zera, who are worth their weight in gold.

I'm trying to complete my nav bar with special thanks to all those that helped. It meant so much to me and I sincerely need you to know that. I'll keep the special thanks section open until the end of the month, in appreciation for spreading the word for George Mark House and the good that they do.

In other news, I made Ukiah a piggy bank. Well, I painted a ceramic bank that I'll set aside especially for Ukiah. It's not a piggy bank as his last one was. It's a ducky and it is much small than his original bank, but it has his name on it and it has blue eyes, like Ukiah did. It also has some special touches his sister put on it just for him.

It will be about three or four more days until I can pick it up and see our handiwork but I think it's a good way to keep him close. 

Until the next time I do this, please keep Ukiah and his story with you and think of the good you've done in helping George Mark House stay afloat. Thank you.

Book Review: Gone with the Wolf

Okay, before I get started with this review proper, you need to know that I once met Kristin Miller and she was as generous and friendly as anyone I've ever met. She was at a coffee shop trying to type a few pages out on deadline and she still took five minutes to talk to me. I became a fan of the person before I even became a fan of the author.

The second thing you need to know is that this book fit every one of my pleasure centers from the get-go. It involved werewolves for chrissakes! That's all I needed to dive in whole-hog.

Based on all that, I'm not sure how unbiased I'm capable of being regarding this book, but I'll give it a try. The book centers on Emelia, a bar-owner and temp employee at Wilder Financial who wants some answers regarding the deed to her bar that ended up in the hands of the CEO of Wilder Financial, and Drake Wilder, the head of Wilder financial who is also a three-hundred-year-old alpha werewolf.

The two meet at the very beginning and sparks fly. Only for Drake the meeting means so much more. Emelia turns out to be Drake's luminary, the life-partner and soul mate he was destined to meet. It becomes extremely tricky, bringing her into his world. For one, she doesn't know that he is the CEO who has the fate of her bar the Knight Owl in his hands. And for another, Drake has a twin brother who wants to be Alpha hell-bent on Drake's destruction and Emelia is the chess piece he needs to win control.

Some of the plot lines feel a little worn here (I mean, I'm sorry, but an evil twin?) but the book makes it very clear that it's not really about the plot. It's about establishing the romantic chemistry between the two leads and let's be honest, it's about the sizzling sex scenes. To which I say, that's how it should be, because those pieces are top notch work. The way the two leads play off of each other, the different ways in which the fit and then bristle against each other is what really works.

It's a really quick read. I started reading it while I had a plane to catch and finished it the next day. For the record, I don't recommend reading this in a crowded place. I think I flushed red twice during my plane trip. This is definitely a read while you're at home, alone, with the doors locked kind of a book.

If you're looking  for a fun, quick romantic read, this should be right up your alley. B+. Good stuff.

April 15th 2014

She made cupcakes.

There was something about that act that surprised me. Not the act necessarily. I mean my mom will bake for any given reason. And she desperately wanted some bonding time with my daughter and cupcakes seemed like the way to do that.

It's just the day she picked to make them. April 15th, his birthday.

She had a valid reason. It was his birthday after all. Just because he wasn't here to enjoy it didn't mean it wasn't worth celebrating with cupcakes.

I'd never thought of it that way. Could never have thought of it that way before. There was too much heartache there to celebrate with freshly baked sweet foodstuffs. But that simple act made that day something else.

We took most of the cupcakes to George Mark House. I dropped them off at the Nurse's station, because I felt they'd get the most out of it and are the most deserving. It's their heart and devotion to the patients of George Mark house that keep the place going. I'm hoping my favorite nurse was working the PM shift last night and that he got to have a cupcake and it made him smile.

We also took a few other things to George Mark House. My mother made a quilt for them. She makes one per year for the house. Sometimes it gets auctioned off at their annual fall gala. Other times the house actually uses it. They have two apartments that families can live in while their child stays at George Mark House and once they put one of my mother's quilts in the apartment bedroom, a thought that still makes me smile.

We also dropped off a Safeway gift card of $100. That was the money from Ukiah's Piggy Bank plus a little extra. That's a $100 dollars of overhead they don't need to think about any more. Ukiah's piggy bank did that.

It's not much. I was once told it takes $700 per day per child to run George Mark House. If you round that up due to inflation and say it's $1000, it doesn't do hardly enough, but it is something. And I consider all the incredible tweets and awareness raising my friends online helped me do this year a lot of something. And I thank you deep down from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks to you, more people know about George Mark House and the good they do. Thanks to you, more people know about my son Ukiah and the legacy he's left in his stead. And that's huge! I'll be updating my list of supporters, all those of you who tweeted and retweeted soon to show my appreciation for what you did.

April 5th and 15th weren't easy days. They never are or are going to be, but thanks to you, and the good you did, the were better. So much better.

The cupcakes helped. Cupcakes help everything.

April 5th 2014

We tried not to think about it too much.

There was too much to do anyway. With a two year old who we're constantly keeping track of, there's always too much to do. There was grocery shopping to do, a birthday party to get ready for, laundry. There's always laundry.

It wasn't until we left the birthday party  and we wound our way to George Mark House that I let myself feel it. Four years ago on April 5th, our son died in our arms. It wasn't about to let me go so easily.

We went to the rock fountain where my daughter had a snack and we watched a bird bathe itself. We went to his tile, visited his rock at the staff fountain by the chapel. We wound our way around the grounds and went to the playground so our daughter could play.

Everything was very quiet, very peaceful. We didn't stay for too long. I signed us in at the nurse's station and back out again. I only saw one face that a I recognized and I'm not sure she recognized me.

My daughter didn't want to leave. She never wants to leave. She loves it there.

As we made our way out, she cried and moaned "Bro Bro Rock" "Bro Bro Place". I cried for a bit. I'm not sure why that triggered it, but it did. I don't always know what she understands about her brother. I think she knows she has a brother and he's not around. I think she knows that there are certain toys, cloths, blankets that are his, even though he isn't here any more. She gets a little mad when she sees toys in the hallway cabinet, that are kept and not played with. Everything should be played with after all.

Her 'Bro Bro shirt' is her favorite clothing item. It's got a small outline picture of him on it. She points to it and says Bro Bro. There's certain things she knows and understands about it. How much she grasps, I'm not sure.

Ukiah is just going to play a part in all of our lives in ways big and small for the rest of our lives, hers especially I think.

After George Mark House we went to Lanesplitter, partly as an homage to our son and partly because it's been years since I've had a slice of their pizza and I needed it, like NEEDED it. I'm going to quantifiably say this; Best thin slice, neigh, best slice of pizza pretty much anywhere. Yeah I said it.

(Dear Lanesplitters, please open a restaurant in the tri-valley. It doesn't have to be in Livermore, which would be nice, but it doesn't have to be here. Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon. I just want to be able to get to it in twenty minute drive, instead of an hour. An hour is almost too long to drive for pizza. I will continue to drive to Temescal for your pizza if I have to, but I NEED it closer. Please.)

It was bittersweet, being in the restaurant where we'd go many a day to decompress after many a hospital visit. It was our little retreat, a six block walk to 15'' Carnivore and a cold pint. It was the place where we could reflect and figure out a plan of attack. It was a place where we could be ourselves after a long day at the hospital.

It is now the place where our daughter dumped about half a canister of Parmesan on the floor (sorry). Old memories and new memories.

Once we got home, I didn't think much more about the day, what it meant, the grief. After all, there was too much to do.

(Please consider making a donation to George Mark house between now and April 15th. You'll be supporting a wonderful organization and getting some of handmade jewelry in the process. See my fundraising post for more information.)

Ukiah's Piggy Bank and a George Mark Fundraiser

So the piggy bank broke Friday. The Piggy Bank. The little piggy that went to the market and provided George Mark house with a day of care for one lucky child. Ukiah’s Piggy Bank.

I wasn’t in the room when it happened. My husband was doing what he usually does when being in a room for longer than fifteen minutes; he was rearranging it to make it perfect. He’d moved a furniture item and the shelf on which the piggy bank was perched fell and the piggy bank broke into a million ceramic pieces.

When I got upstairs to witness the scene, my heart broke into a million pieces along with it. I was absolutely bereft, although I didn’t show it. I shed a few stray tears, but I didn’t have time for much else. My daughter was in the room with my husband when it happened and we needed to wrangle her away from the debris.

We spent a good amount of time scooping up all the loose change, change I hadn’t cashed in since the last Piggy Banks for George Mark fundraiser. We had it to put all of it somewhere. I brought out two smallish tins, thinking it would be enough, but instead we ended up using a fairly big plastic bin. Close to five years of putting in all our spare change, two years of the little munchkin having to share change with her brother coin per coin netted a nice little collection.

April 5^th is almost around the corner. April 15^th too. Those two days and the eight days in the middle are always the roughest for me. I had planned a bunch of distractions to keep me occupied around those dates, so I don’t feel the lingering, the weight, the pain. But they’ve mostly fallen through. I was supposed to run a 5k on April 5^th, but that got cancelled. I’ve got a work trip smack in the middle of these dates, but I’m not sure it’ll be distracting enough. My parents are coming and will be here on the 15^th, but I’m not sure how that will go.

But I do know that on either or on both days I’ll be going to George Mark House and cashing in the nice little chunk of change we’d saved up in Ukiah's piggy bank. Maybe I’ll use a portion of it to buy Ukiah another piggy bank, so it’s always there, a fixture in our house and in our lives. He deserves that legacy.

I'll do what I did for my birthday. I still have a few more U Hope bracelets to give away. The first four people who donates to George Mark  and sends me an receipt  of their donation via email will receive a bracelet. Anybody else who donates and sends me a receipt will receive a special jewelry or bead gift (your choice). 

If you do donate, please tell them its in memory of Ukiah Gardner. They'll know exactly who you are talking about. They always do.

And if you can't donate, don't worry about it. Spread the word. Tweet about George Mark House (Use the #Supportgmch hashtag and if you want, tag @gmch in the tweet), Facebook it (Send me a link via twitter or email), or use any form of social media you want just to let people know George Mark House exists and the incredible work they do.  Do that and forward it to me and I'll give you free space on my blog. This means a blog post or as many blog posts as you want, space on my sidebar, whatever space you'd like to have.

Ukiah's never very far from my thoughts. Doing this means means he's in yours and that makes a world of difference to me.