Scooter Was Too Busy Bed Hopping To Give Away The Surprise

I don't want you to think I've merely been twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear if my publisher is going to accept the This Is It Never Again Shade Of The Moon Version Three. It's true, my thumbs have been twiddling rather more than usual, but that's because thumb twiddling is a well know aerobic exercise. My thumbs now have an extremely healthy heartbeat, thanks to my publisher.

Actually, I've been quite busy the past 10 days or so. There's the obsessive checking of Life As We Knew It    Amazon and Barnes & Noble rankings. They change hourly, you know (well, B& N only changes hourly if the ranking is under 1000, but lately it has been so it has been), and there are two of them to check, so that takes up quite a lot of time.

But when I'm not running to the computer and pressing those magic connection dots, I've been social. Very social. Far more than I usually am, which is really not a lot, given that I live alone and work alone.

First my friends Joyce and Lew came for the weekend. We ate chicken and corn salad and saw Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 3D, which was 2D too many. Since the apartment lacks a guest room, I slept on the air mattress on the living room floor.

Then Monday night, my friend Linda stayed over. This time, I slept on the fancy air mattress in the den.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights, no one slept over, and I was back in my bedroom. But Thursday night, Linda slept over again, and it was back to the fancy air mattress in the den.

Scooter likes both air mattresses, but he's particularly fond of the living room one.

What Scooter knew but Linda didn't, was the plan for a surprise retirement party Thursday night. Linda's final day of work was Friday, so I invited four mutual friends, and we surprised her. At my insistence, we even yelled "Surprise!"

We had Ronda Jo's tuna salad, and corn salad (hey, it's an easy recipe) and Cynthia made a green salad, and Pam brought fruit, and Janet made this incredibly delicious chocolate thing, which we topped with vanilla ice cream. Geri brought the retirement card for us to sign.

Here's the basic idea of Ronda Jo's tuna salad. It comes from the classic America COOKS cookbook.

A can of tuna
celery
red apple (I used an obscure tart one)
raisins
pecans (which I prefer to walnuts)
mayo

We have no idea who Ronda Jo is, but she's legendary in my social circle for her tuna salad.

Oh, the corn salad recipe comes from Woman's Day, and it pretty much goes like this:

Corn (I used frozen because I'm lazy)
scallions
cherry tomatoes
salt
olive oil
lime juice

The lime juice is what makes it.

So the surprise party was a great success and I really think Linda appreciated it.

Then Saturday night, my friends Geri and Paul and Pam and Bruce and I went to the annual New York Philharmonic concert + fireworks at Bethel Woods. This time Geri and Paul brought the supper (turkey sandwiches and potato chips and cookies) and Pam and Bruce brought veggies and cherries, and I supplied left over vanilla ice cream.

The concert was great and the fireworks were the best ever.

I got home after midnight, and thanks to my gloriously obsessive nature, I checked the Amazon and Barnes & Noble rankings before going to sleep. Am I glad I did. My B&N ranking was a personal best (the likes of which I'll never see again).

Sunday I spent doing nothing, except checking to see if the fruit flies have come back (they haven't. but something is biting me, so I am now terrified I have bed bugs). Today I bought groceries and twiddled my thumbs.

Good thing thumb twiddling is aerobic. I've got to burn off all that cake, ice cream and chips!