If you don’t think God has a sense of humor, then you haven’t lived my bewitching life. Just a few days ago, I was helping my daughter look words up via the thesaurus for her assignment on The Pearl. And sure enough, one of my favorite words, bewitching was listed under captivating. For some reason I never thought of the word bewitching as having so much appeal. For me, I always equated the word with the television show Bewitched and didn’t really think much about the word outside of the TV show. But, the “ing” gives it so much power. It makes the word move, which is exactly what I was expecting to do, move my body to a Dragon Con convention in Atlanta, Georgia, this very Labor Day weekend, 2010. But things kept getting in the way, things also known as life. My generous spirit and outgoing personality and can do attitude landed me in a lot of trouble this week, apparently one of my friends friends whom I entrusted with a collaborative book project, me pay, she edit, turned into a “she” said “she” said kind of scenario. With the basic premise of that story being, I don’t give a shit about you Gina, I have success issues as well as control issues, and a convenient memory, so take your book the one you spent the past year writing, of which you even followed what I asked you to do, credit me as editor, and take my recipes out of the book.” There is only one thing I hate, it is liars. But as everyone in the universe is already aware, I don’t hold grudges, dwell on much, nor do I gossip or talk about others, unless they are liars. Then I occasionally dwell and occasionally dish. Consultation with my husband led me “just agree” that I should remove the recipes, even though that wasn’t what we agreed upon. After a trip with her sister to Sur La Table (a place I dream about, but don’t ever have enough money to actually buy anything at, except my Le Cruset, which was twenty years in the making of a reality), I received a panicked phone call last October or Novemberish. It reminded me of a conversation that a girlfriend and boyfriend might have, so bizarre. “Well, I just went to Sur La Table with my sister and she and I don’t think there is a place for your Fresno State Cookbook. The cookbooks are high end, with full color glossy photos, and I just don’t feel comfortable having my name associated with your cookbook, it won’t be competitive enough and your printing capabilities seem really limited. Then, the boyfriend girlfriend breakup line. “Your Twilight cookbook has a hook, your Fresno State Cookbook doesn’t.” And, it wasn’t like she was getting paid to dull free advice, why girlfriend boyfriend and not sister to sister? Because she invested time in a project I created willingly and saw something better on the market, decided to break off our relationship based upon a strange sense of loyalty?
Back to the coveted volunteer position as my Bewitched friend Alice so aptly put it.
I was supposed to be volunteering in Atlanta, Georgia at Dragon Con, meeting fans of I Dream of Jeannie as well as the stars, instead my husband’s paycheck got lost in between our old bank and credit union, and then my sociable, vivacious six year old son, got a sampling of public school via the top ranking MUSD school in all of the valley, if not the country, exactly one block from our typically suburban cul de sac, and he started having meltdowns so severe, tears gushing from his eyes, snot running down his nose, wishing for mommy, pretty strange stuff, separation anxiety. So I kept asking myself, God, why did you delay my husband’s paycheck? Why did we not have the funds to send me to Atlanta for the convention? Why can’t we all find a way to go? I was so disappointed primarily because I do a lot of things for other people and rarely ask nor do much for myself, except for write, which is really my great escape. Hint: Gemini’s such as myself love talking, love writing, and love sharing, but only the truth and only if it makes the Gemini feel better. Adult spoiler: I recently read that Gemini’s love to talk about sex, more so than actually doing it. Which my husband will probably agree to that statement. Which in case would account to me having so many gay guy friends, cause they are sweet, not threatening, and they love to listen and talk too. In which/witch case I have a problem, Gemini is ruled by the twins, like cousins Serena and Samantha from Bewitched. Which means, when one twin fesses, the other twin is mad because she wanted to be the first to share the news.
Welcome to my life two court TV producers sent me and David letters telling us that they think our story would make good tv, and the producer of Judge Mathis is like, how is this entertaining? I said, “I don’t know, other than me writing a Twilight cookbook”, I’m not sure how, you sent me the letter. “Well, they’ll have to agree to come on TV, so before you read me those emails, just hold off and I’ll see if they are interested.” Ok, the renters sue us and God provides two reputable judges who think this stuff will make good TV and then I need to explain myself to the producers??? Read this, and maybe you’ll find something tantalizing, heee heee.
As if I’m not having enough stress, I started thinking that the letters were fake. I kinda just went through a whole gamete of emotions. My son, he just started back up at his old school today, so I have to email his former school and teacher, yuck. At least she answered, and was fine with our new found decision.
Back to Dragon Con. Why they call it that, is beyond me, I guess I had my own fire breathing dragon issues to keep me close to home. My husband had another thought. My husband said the reason why I wasn’t supposed to be on the plane is EARL. Hurricane Earl is headed to Atlanta and God didn’t want me to be in harms way. Instead he wanted me to help my son say “goodbye thanks for the short trip to public school”, and for me, “thanks for the rude email from friend of a friend about taking her recipes out of my cookbook”, a week after I spent a little fortune on producing the book “thanks God for the beautiful proof of my clients’ Liz Longo’s beautiful book on Australian birds.” “Thank you God for allowing me the opportunity to see my mom on her 63rd birthday, thank you Lord for allowing my publicity campaign with Smith Publicity to be extended via Iuniverse’s dime for an unspecified extension period of time, “thank you God for allowing me the opportunity to be verbally bashed by my husband for trying to explain my feelings, who in turn felt so guilty for his verbal thrashing of me, wrote an apology letter and now has a stomach ache, wonder why? “Thank you God for giving me the chance to go on Rachel Ray, she’s still thinking.” “Thank you God for helping me to learn to express myself and get the weird Facebook mail from my never was a boyfriend who warned me not to let “success go to my head.” Ha, I said, feet firmly planted here on earth. Thank you God for this never was a boyfriend/friends connections, because this has allowed me the opportunity to meet people who make a difference in the world, like his friend Alan who produces movies. Thank you God for giving me creative parents and a mother with a Masters in English who is editing at the moment the best children’s book on the New Orleans Oil Spill ever written. And a husband, who actually sat down long enough to read the book and who loved it! “And thank God for my can do attitude, give me lemons, I’ll make lemon meringue pie. Throw me manure, I’ll fertilize my garden with it. Give me words, I’ll use them. Recycle them, I own a green, environmentally conscious publishing business, POD (print on demand), you want it, it gets printed, it doesn’t collect dust or take up space, until you decide it is worthy. “Thank you god for allowing me the compassion to rent to those hateful people that abused our rental home and decided to sue us”. They’ll have their day in court, so will we, except a judge on TV will pay us if we win or lose, and we will even get an all expense paid trip to Chicago or LA, and I’ll get to bring our proof, and our pain.
The little Twilight cookbook I’ve been peddling around, the one that was supposed to sell a million copies, which instead of getting to enjoy the Summer all around the globe promotions tour, I was forced to help A&M carpet get out of bankruptcy by paying them our vandalism insurance deductible, pick out carpet for a home we don’t live in currently, deal with new renters demands and convenient memories, remember in between shampoo suds that I was supposed to call Canada for a radio interview. With a towel wrapped around my body, no time to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, daughter at ballet camp out of town, husband at work and son watching Jimmy Neutron in our living room, “Hi, sorry I was late calling. I’ve got carpeting on the brain, the renters did a number on our home, I’m ready for the radio interview, and in five, four, three, two, one…. “Hello this is Sharmine, (like the toilet tissue) I have Gina Meyers on the line from California, she will be talking about Love at First Bite, The Unofficial Twilight Cookbook. All in a days work. And, that’s why God wanted me to be in Fresno and not Atlanta. And, on my way to that little old school full of love to pick up my once again happy, contented son late, since a hot dog at Sam’s Club landed in a free unexpected upgrade with my cell phone provider, plus free internet access (watch out, I didn’t sign Oprah’s pledge yet, joking), I saw a white tanker type truck with a trail of toilet paper dragging from the back. Some might be embarrassed for the truck, some might need to wipe their own stinky crack, some might not even notice, but the wordsmith, she wants to either teepee with it, or tell the truck, “hey let me get that for you.”
Important info for anyone who cares: Kasey of Bachelorette fame is on Facebook, he is from Fresno and his last name is Kuhl. That’s cool.
Stepdaughter said when Emmy award nominee also from Fresno, Chris Colfer (of Glee Fame) was doing a play at Clovis East (she was helping with). He was quite the diva. Quite a surprise. Not.
