Proof positive that I found the right publisher for my nutcase little memoir coming out in September: this very gewgaw, a plunger from the island of Lilliput that arrived on my doorstep courtesy of Lynn, my editor at Behler Publications.
You’ll note a resemblance to the rubbery implement employed on the cover (and suggested by my daughter Madeleine):
Clearly, my book is in good hands. I don’t know what I love more, the wee tchotchke or the accompanying letter (“I saw this and thought of you!”), which suggests that I now remind people of shit and all devices related to its disposal. I’m the shit lady! Yes, I am! I wrote a whoooole book about the nature and disposition of poop, most of it figurative, emphasis on “most,” and then I started a blog about same. As a result, next time you see a plumber’s snake, your first thought might be that congested toilet you bravely unclogged with your bulging forearms at Thanksgiving, but your second will be me. Yup. Me.
And strangely, I am okay with this. No shit.
Figuring. Shit. Out. 
A seriously amazing book. No shit.
! Thank you on all counts — for taking a chance on me, on it, the title, the cover, the tchotchke, everything.
Sorry Dad, Dan, and Pop Pop think of you as a wonderful person, mother, daughter, athlete, family supporter and advocate, and a lover of our family and all its strange directions roots and twists. Perhaps a little maudlin but true