Happy Passover, Etc.

That Etc. is there to cover a multitude of holidays, but mostly Easter, in case I don't blog again this week.

None of these spring celebratory holidays should be happening so early and in such a wretched miserable awaiting still more snow March like this one.

But I don't make up the calendar, and in spite of what you might think, I have no control over the moon.

Speaking of the moon, the one fact I've learned this dreary winter is that February can't have a blue moon even in a leap year. Talk about unfair (and as a younger child, I frequently do).

I'm still trying to figure out how to inscribe the upcoming copies of The Shade Of The Moon. Thank you all who have offered opinions, in comments or emails or by voting in the poll.

My current thought is You are the future. I like it for a few reasons. It's pretty easy to remember, and since the vast majority of the books I'll be inscribing are for people younger than moiself, it'll be true. Technically, I, a quintessential baby boomer, am the future and all of you will be paying for it, but it's better if I don't point that out on a regularly inscribed basis.

The only problem with You are the future is the "the," which remains a word I handwrite funny. But I might be able to keep that under control if I'm not in a hurry, and if I am in a hurry, it'll mean there's a long line of people waiting for me to inscribe copies of the book, either at IRA or ALA or the Decatur Book Festival, and long lines of people will make me so happy, I won't mind that they're going to have to figure out what my "the" scribble actually means. Which they should be able to from context, and a nice little puzzle like that will exercise their brain cells and guarantee them a happy old age.

So the inscription would go something like this:

To _______________

You are the future

Susan Beth Pfeffer

_______, 2013

It makes as much sense as Trust In Tomorrow, which I just realize I capitalize. Hmm... If I capitalize You Are The Future, I might not have that "the" issue. And it looks very profound, all nicely capitalized. It's easier to write without caps, but it might be worth the extra effort.

Ooh, ooh. And it would be an act of rebellion. Remember Life As We Knew It? It has perfectly nice capital letters, like titles generally do. Then came the dead & the gone, and I favored small letters for that one. But without asking my permission (or if they did, I've forgotten), my publisher went with small letters for this world we live in, when I would have preferred the traditional capital letters. They're doing the same for the shade of the moon, and the next paperback reprinting of Life As We Knew It will be life as we knew it.

So every time I'd inscribe The Future Is Yours, it'd be my way of saying, All those titles should have capital letters.

It's a shame no one is ever going to write a biography of me. Because all this inscription business is worth at least two chapters.

Meanwhile on a completely different and much better subject, my goddaughter and her wonderful cheese company Lakin's Gorges Cheese, got a great writeup.

I can only hope the reviews for The Shade Of The Moon, whatever its inscription, will be half as good!