What Do I Do with the Expanding Tigers?

Hi all, first things first, my Backstory is up at MJ Rose's blog! Backstories are the stories behind the novels~how they came to be written. My road to publication was long, winding, and probably not what you'd expect. Check it out and do stick around for MJ's other Backstories, all very interesting.

A few of you've emailed about my REAL LIFE tour stops... they're all posted here.

Late-breaking virtual tour stops:

Kathleen O'Reilly mentions me in her Diary and quotes my favorite bookseller in the review!
And Andi Buchanan commiserates in Mother Shock.

Ann Marie Michaels will blog about me later in the week to plug my LA reading... I GET TO MEET ANN MARIE! YAY! So I'll linkety link her then.

OK, now onto my panic attack. (These have become daily occurrences.)

I've just learned a reporter from the Los Angeles Times is COMING TO MY HOME on Friday to interview me. Yes, they are going to enter my home, sit down in it and speak with me. They are going to view my home, as in my refuge... as in MY DISASTER.

Guess what I've been doing for the last several hours?

Hint: I'm high off the Windex fumes RIGHT NOW.

It is so enjoyable, picking up dirty underwear off the ottoman (NO, sorry to disappoint you, but they're not MINE), throwing away various varieties of drink boxes (NOT MINE), and driving the bulldozer into my office... (YES, I do claim that nightmare as my own, but not the Triscuits sprinkled into the computer keyboard... I don't eat Triscuits!).

Here is my current puzzle and it might just send me to bed. Perhaps you, my loyal readers, can help.

There are some expanding tigers in the kitchen. You put them in water for three days and they grow to 100X their original size. Right now they're soaking. They've grown quite a bit and somehow apple seeds have fallen out of them into the water. Or else someone dropped apple seeds into the soak-bowls, which is entirely possible. (You can see how little control I have over my home.) The tigers are starting to become fluffy and disgusting, and, as a matter of fact, revolting. But of course they are very important. They are a scientific experiment.

So my question is as simple as this.

What do I do with the expanding tigers?

And on a similar note, there are some new rules for the house. I'm going to pitch them tomorrow. Here they are:

• No one is to walk across the clean floor.
• No one is to sit on the freshly plumped up sofa.
• Got that? No standing, no sitting.
• No food is to be eaten in the house. All food is to be consumed outside on the grass.
• No one is to use the bathrooms, especially the toilets. If you need to use the bathroom, walk down to the market and use theirs.
• No sleeping on the freshly made and plumped up beds. Instead, sleep on the grass to mush the food scraps into the lawn so they are unnoticeable.
• Brush your teeth near the tree in the backyard. Spit. Rinse well with hose. Under no circumstances is toothpaste to be spit into the sink.
• No one is to sneeze within the house.
• No one is to breathe within the house.
I think that all sounds really reasonable! How about you?