Now with extra tentacle!

Oh, hi.  Oh.

Welcome to this week's update of "Saturday" the book.  We're back up to Thursday in India's world.  I realize all this jumping back and forth is going to seem a bit choppy and disjointed, but you'll have to bear with me.

Here's what Thursday looked like the first time we dropped in on India McGreevy some months ago:

When I'm having an awful day, food is usually the one thing I can count on to bring me a modicum of comfort and solace.  I've mentioned before that I think food is nourishing not just physically, but also emotionally.  Plus, food is delicious.

Sometimes, though, when the universe is feeling particularly spiteful (or it just works out that way by chance), your one opportunity for comfort on a bad day turns out to be a big, steaming disappointment:

Years ago, I visited Japan.  One stop was on an island called Naoshima.  It has an incredible hotel and an even more incredible art museum.  I was traveling with a good friend of mine and we spent the day exploring the island and museum.  Dinner time rolled around, but the hotel restaurant was booked.  It struck me as odd that there were NO other options for food within miles of the hotel and the one option that did exist couldn't accommodate the guests.   Also, they were a bit snooty about it.

Deciding to teach that snooty hotel a lesson, we had the hotel drive us ("In your FACE, snooty hotel! By the way, could you give us a ride?") to the small fishing town nearby.  The drive was like a roller coaster.  Not the fun kind.  The kind where the fun part is that you lived.

The restaurant was traditional.  Up until that point, I'd assumed we had already eaten traditional Japanese food and that I was ready for anything.  Turns out: Not so much.   The first thing they served us was some kind of pickled vegetable mix.  I think the pickling agent was formaldehyde.  The second course was sashimi (which the dictionary wants to correct to "mishmash", so I assume it's never eaten sashimi).  Oh, you think, I love sashimi.  This wasn't a cute, 2-ounce portion of delicately cut raw fish.  This was a STEAK of raw fish.  It had scales on one side.  Finally, there was octopus tentacle.  Again, not a cute, manageable portion.  I could have worn this thing as a scarf, but I was afraid it would strangle me.  This tentacle had suckers on it.  Actual suckers.

Not wanting to appear as culturally insensitive as I actually am, I ate all of it.  And I learned a lesson.  To this day, I have no idea what that lesson was.  It should also be noted that the hotel did not learn a lesson from this experience.

Progress Report:

I can't remember when I told you I would be finished with "Saturday".  It's possible that when the Kickstarter campaign wrapped up, I said I'd be done in about a year.  Well, we're well past that point at this point.

I'm currently working on page 32.  There will be 35 pages total.  I had to add a page because I screwed up the page count at some point and forgot to correct it.  That pushes the finishing date further out.  So, to sum up, here's my action item list:

-Four pages
-Cover
-Editing
-Misc
-Get this book printed

I don't know how long these things will take.  I'll guess 9 or 10 months.  That seems like a long time.  And, in some respects, it is.  But I've been working on this book for five or six years now, so ten months is comparatively brief.  Also, it's important to me to take as much time as I need to make this book as good as I can.

These last four pages are going to be as spectacular as I can make them.  They're an intense amount of fun.  But they'll take time.  The extra time is worth it to me.  I'll keep my fingers crossed that, once the book is finally complete and in your hands, it will have been worth it to you, too.

Cheers.