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It’s been a long, long day. Our print deadlines are looming — in fact, we found out today that the files are actually due to the printer and CD compositor a whole week earlier than we’d thought, which I can tell you brought untold amounts of hopping-around joy into our lives. An author who got his proofs today wrote me snippily that he wouldn’t even look at them for another week and a half (why? no reason was given), which would basically mean he wouldn’t respond until after we ship; when asked politely if he could recommend someone else from the group who might answer our queries, he basically said, “Well, yes, I know lots of people who could do it, but we all have lives and can’t be bothered so I’m not going to tell you anything. So there.” (Keep in mind that this guy actually volunteered to review the proofs. It’s things like that that make me want to publish chapters in their completely raw, unchecked, and unedited form, and send all the complaints directly to the authors.)

Seeing Nigel when I finally got home was good, but then on our walk he discovered a rather messily dead squirrel lying on the sidewalk; most of the rest of the walk consisted of me trying not to throw up on someone’s front lawn.

Still, there’s always dinner, right? It was late and I was not feeling up to creativity, so I heated a veggieburger and thought I’d do a summer squash medley to go with it — and use my brand-spanking-new, swanky-as-hell eight-inch (um, roughly 200 mm or thereabouts) chef’s knife that my wonderful parents gave me for my birthday. It’s all pretty and pointy, with a really good balance, and I’d spent the hours I wasn’t working this weekend admiring how well it fit in my hand, and how sharp the edge was in comparison to my aging four-inch paring knives (which had been, except for a cheap but sturdy breadknife, my entire kitchen arsenal of sharp thingies).

And yes, that was foreshadowing. I managed well enough while slicing a crookneck squash and zucchini, though I did get rather overexcited by the fact that this knife is actually big enough to do the whole fancy speed-chopping bit, in which the point stays on the cutting board and you simply rock the blade up and down while scooting the food along. Surprisingly, though, no injuries there. My downfall came when I was washing the knife — as is my custom with my other knives, I ran a finger along the side of the blade to check that the soap was washed off, and stupidly didn’t angle the blade down when I turned it to face me.

On my regular knives, this would have had no effect, because although I sharpen them at home, they haven’t had a professional edge for years.

On this knife, it nearly took off my fingertip.

On the whole, I think I’d rather cut myself than burn myself. I still have very faint pink scars on my hand (same hand — in fact, the same finger) from last year’s Great Mutant Pepper Boiling-Oil Incident. (Almost exactly a year ago — well, plus about two weeks. Same finger, same time of year. Must be something to do with all the pollen in the air, or maybe I’m just more distracted when I’m under deadline.) The oil burns hurt like hell on a jetski for quite a while, and started hurting again every time they were exposed to water for ages after that. At least with the cut, there was basically no pain, just a little twinge. Both incidents involved a lot of swearing, but today the air turned blue because (1) I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been, (2) I was getting blood all over the kitchen (at least burns generally don’t ooze, at least not immediately), and (3) Nigel kept thinking that I was holding a treat instead of applying pressure to the cut, so I kept having to put my hands down where he could reach them so he could see I wasn’t trying to tease him by keeping a biscuit just out of his reach.

I think the cleanup afterward is the most annoying part. I did my best, but I know I’ll be finding crusty red droplets in odd places for a week. Bleagh.