Category Archives: life

Busy, busy, busy

Posted on October 27, 2008 | Leave a comment

Been working the dayjob a little extra because of some trips I’ve been making, so it’s made it tough to get by here and post a blog. And it’s been tough to get the writing done. I am just CREEPING along. Bleah.

Went to Waco this past weekend for a writing retreat. Critiqued some stories and got a crit. Did some fun writing exercises which might turn into stories later. Others helped me get a handle on characters. It was peaceful–except when the trail riders were giving out awards just outside our cabin-shack where we stayed.

Don’t have much to share, actually. I’m kinda brain dead. So I’ll just let you know I’m still alive. Still plodding through the book. Been out of town, fixing to go again. And working a lot. So. That’s my life.

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Posted in life

Return to semi-Normalcy

Posted on October 10, 2008 | 4 Comments

So. I’m going to open with the good news.

I just got word. THE ETERNAL ROSE, the 3rd book in my One Rose trilogy, won the 2008 Prism Award for Best Fantasy. (THE BARBED ROSE (book 2) won the Prism in 2007, fyi.) Needless to say, I am totally chuffed. It was fabulous news to come in the wake of all the hurricane disruption.

The dead refrigerator is gone from our front curb. So are the branches off the “pine” in the back yard and the other branches. We didn’t have much in the way of trash, compared to so many folks. There are two huge, huge vacant lots–one off Broadway near the “entrance” to the island, and one off Seawall somewhere. (I drive by the one on Broadway on the way to work. Haven’t been by the one on Seawall.) Anyway, both of these lots are used as a collection spot for the trash and debris picked up by the city, before it’s taken off the island by two contractors. The trash is piled 10-15 feet high and covers almost the entire lot that I’ve seen. The other one is in similar state. They’re removing trash from the lots as fast as they can fill up the trucks and drive them off, but more keeps coming. And it doesn’t seem as if they’ve made a dent in the trash and debris piled outside the houses I drive past every day.

On the other hand, MY life is pretty much back to normal. Dolly the granddog is home. We finally have all our services back, including internet. The computer is doing strange things (like spontaneously shutting down/restarting every 10 to 20 minutes or so), and may have to go in to the shop, but we have hot showers! And drinkable water! And cable television. All the amenities.

I only had to drive across the causeway to work in the Texas City newspaper office for three days once I went back to work this week. The newsroom moved back to the island on Thursday. Now we only have to make the trip over the causeway to pick up mail. They’re delivering first class mail to houses on the island now, (which means no magazines, etc.) but the post offices, including the P.O. Boxes, won’t open … well, the downtown post office, where our box was, is “closed indefinitely.” However, picking up box mail at the temporary place is a lot easier than picking up residence mail. So we’ll probably keep doing that for a while, till they start delivering ALL the mail to houses.

The grocery stores are open. Target is open. The junior college and schools are back in session. I feel so utterly grateful that we came through this with so little damage and disruption. Especially when I see all around me people who are dealing with the loss of everything they own. Still, as so many of my friends have said, “It’s just stuff. Stuff can be replaced.”

And I still have a book to write. I have been slogging along this week. Four pages most days, though today, I only wrote one. I got my page proofs yesterday. These are the first proofs I’ve ever gotten that actually look like book pages. (Harlequin sends these really funky looking things…) So I wrote one page, and got to work on the proofs.

Because of the disruption on the island, the proofs got returned to Tor the first time they sent them, so my original deadline’s been extended, but I think I ought to be able to get them in the mail by that date, if not back to them. And I still want to write at least a half-page every day before I start working on the proofs. They’re pretty clean, so it shouldn’t be too tough.

Now, I just need to get back into an exercise routine. The beach is pretty much gone, near my house, and they’re trying to keep people on the island side of the seawall, anyway. The rocks are still littering the sidewalk, so it’s not really fit for bicycle riding. I’ll just have to head over and walk. The weather’s starting to cool down a little, so the walking will be pleasant. I’ve been a real slug while I’ve been evacuated…

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Posted in Happy news, hurricanes, life, writing

Finally going home

Posted on October 1, 2008 | 10 Comments

The fella went down last Thursday–to avoid the 10-mile long backup of people trying to get to the island on Wednesday. No electricity. No gas. No drinkable water–but flushable toilets.

I went down on Saturday with my sister and niece, so they could pick up her car. It was a totally gorgeous day. The surf was almost non-existent. We got a mini-tour of the city–mostly just what was around our neighborhood. Then I got the fella to drop us off at the seawall just up from our house so we could let the niece walk down the jetty.

See all those rocks in the background? They’re at the bottom of the seawall, which is where we’re standing (on the top). They were covered up with sand before the storm. This is one of the few places along the seawall that still had sand, and it’s only there for about half the distance between jetties. I’ll see if I can get a couple more pictures onto my dad’s computer, so I can share them with you. Our visitors just stayed for a little while. Maybe an hour. Then they had to take their rescued, non-damaged car, and go back home. I stayed.

The weather was really nice. It was cool out on the seawall where the breeze was blowing, but it got hot walking back to the house. Still, it was cool enough that I could take a nap after our company left and didn’t get overheated at all. We waited a little late to cook supper that night. We were pushing it to get everything cooked on our grill before we lost the light. We dined by candlelight.

Sunday, we moved the refrigerator that belonged to the rent house out, because it was just totally gross. It was the only thing that had to go. Our own refrigerator grew a little bit of gunk, but this one… It dribbled gunky water when we had to tip it to get it out the front door, and made the whole house smell like dead fish. Had to wash it up with Clorox solution. That helped. A lot. We found out that even though our neighborhood only had a few houses with minimal damage, the city had told the power company that there was too much damage to turn the electricity on.

Just one street over, in houses that back up to the houses across the street from us, that is true. (See pictures.) But not in our street. So the fella (and at least one neighbor) called the power company up and told them the correct information. By 4 p.m., we had electricity. We’re still boiling the water to wash dishes and drinking the bottled stuff. The gas isn’t on, so we don’t have hot water. Fortunately, the cold water is closer to lukewarm (though with the cooler weather, it’s not as close as it is in August…) so cold showers aren’t that cold.

Let’s see, what else did I do on my island visit? Oh, we packed up stuff the son will need at college. They transferred the local campus students to the main university campus, and he managed to get into an apartment, so we needed to bring up more clothes, his computer cords and peripherals, and some linens. That went into my car.

Most of the damage on the island was due to the storm surge. The previous two pictures are of the neighborhood right next to ours. The water action took out a lot of brick and stone walls. Wind took out others. If just the top was knocked down, we figure it was wind. If the whole thing was down–water.

The tree lying on its side on the junior college campus is a pecan tree which didn’t get knocked over by the wind. It looked fine right after the storm. But the salt water that covered the campus killed the tree, and three weeks later, it just gave up and laid itself over. Looks maybe like the roots died, because not much of them came up when the tree lay down.

I took some pictures of the Strand district downtown, but I had the camera turned sideways, and I can’t find a program on Daddy’s computer that will turn them right side up and save them, and when I get home later this week, I won’t have internet access. I don’t think. All of the buildings downtown took on water. All of them have a lot of damaged contents. But I don’t think any of the buildings themselves were damaged structurally. They don’t look damaged. But I’m sure you know how much that’s worth from this non-expert.
This picture here is of the seawall at one of the seawall parks near 45th Street. I think this is the one with the 1900 Hurricane Memorial at the far end (off to the right) that was in so many of the “Live from Galveston” weather reports during Hurricane Ike.
Anyway, down below the park areas, a whole lot of rock and broken concrete and rubble was piled as…protection? Support? Not sure why it was piled up there. But the storm waves picked up a whole lot of it and deposited it on the seawall and street.
You can see three benches in the right foreground. Those are concrete benches. There were quite a few of them at these parks. The benches got floated around and totally rearranged during the storm. Handrails got ripped off the staircases going from the top of the seawall to the beach. Boats floated up onto the freeway. There’s one stuck on the walls in the median between the north and southbound sides. Damage everywhere. And yet, lots of places didn’t take much damage at all. (Like my house.)
I feel utterly blessed. I don’t know why my home and our belongings were spared, but I am so totally grateful. I’m grateful for friends and even acquaintances who have worried and wondered and for all the doors that have opened to take us all in. Even (or maybe especially) the evacuation kennel looking after Dolly the granddog.
I’m going home to stay probably tomorrow. Dolly should be home by Saturday. The boy has his new apartment put together. His class schedule still has two classes at one time, but hopefully he’ll get that worked out soon. (His classes meet only one time per week in marathon sessions because they’re having to squeeze them in wherever. One class meets at the Methodist church on campus.) The Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Kroger grocery store on the island are all open, as are a few gas stations. We’re still boiling water, but life is beginning to come back together. Thank God for all the blessings he’s given.

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Posted in hurricanes, life, trips

Post-Holiday Rush

Posted on July 9, 2008 | Leave a comment

Last weekend was a holiday weekend. After running like a crazy person all of last week, the weekend arrived and I had a chance to relax. Somewhat. I did a little bit of running to get downtown to the parade, because the fella was going to be in it. It was kind of a short parade, and I forgot to put on sunscreen ahead of time, and the shady places weren’t the best parade-watching places, but it was a nice parade. I saw him glide by in the Mustang convertible, but was too far away to wave. And then we wandered around the Railroad Museum and looked at the model trains and listened to a few of the speeches, and went home again.

The boy’s girlfriend came down for the weekend, which was fun. He’d asked for days off, but he had to go in and report before he could officially get off–though he did every time. And that was nice too. Friday the Fourth, we were very lazy. After the parade, we “rested” until time to go watch the fireworks off the 37th Street jetty. It’s nice that they can shoot fireworks over the water, because it really cuts back on the fire hazard worry. And they were some spectacular fireworks, about a 30 minute show. I enjoyed it a lot. Then we drove home and grilled steaks. Yum.

Saturday, we went to see “Get Smart.” I actually liked it better than the TV show, because Max had some smarts. The fella and the boy had already seen it, but the girlfriend and I hadn’t. So we made them take us. There are still a few movies I want to see. I’m hoping the grandboys haven’t seen Wall-E yet, since they’re coming for the weekend. It would be fun to take them.

This week hasn’t quite been as wild and woolly, but it has been busy. The boy’s vehicle isn’t repaired yet, so we’re having to take each other to work, depending on who has to work longer hours. I got the car today. He gets it tomorrow.

I’m trying to get a synopsis written so I can send a partial off before I go to San Francisco for the RWA National Conference. And once again, I know some things that will happen, but I don’t know exactly how or why they will happen. I’ll figure it out when I get there. I got most of the plot events figured out, right up to the finale, and then Pthfthffftttttpbthpt. Nothing.

I know that the hero and heroine will essentially rescue each other. Or team up to rescue themselves and beat the bad guy. But I have no clue exactly how they’ll do it. I’m not entirely sure just how far their teaming up will go. I don’t want it to happen like it does in New Blood, but … Hmm. Well, usually, if I leave it alone and let things bubble in the swamp where my stories come from, something will bubble up from the primordial goo. And I think the fermentation is already making wine…or something. So that’s where the writing is.

Oh. I walked yesterday. So I’m one more mile towards Rivendell. That makes–um–7? (Yeah, I didn’t walk far. But I walked.)

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Posted in family, life, movies I watched, New Blood, Old Spirits

Life in All its Confusion

Posted on July 3, 2008 | 1 Comment

Yeah, I know. Haven’t been here in a while.

So. ApolloCon was lots of fun. Saw my friends Rosemary Clement-Moore (of the Prom Dates From Hell books) and Shanna Swendson (of the Enchanted, Inc. series), and Chuck Emerson of Houston Bay Area RWA, and made some new friends. I met A. Lee Martinez who also writes some cool books, and his girlfriend Sally who is very cute and funny, and Rie Sheridan and Martha Wells, and I even got to meet Allen Steele who was the Guest of Honor–except Every One of my panels was opposite Every Single guest of honor. I did manage to get to be on a panel with Steele, who is a very nice man, and with Steven Brust, who has an amazing leather akubra-ish hat, and reminds me of Kinky Friedman, only without the cigar and Jewish cowboy-ness. Listened to some amazing music. Bought some art.

I bought some new books –Martha Wells’s The Wizard Hunters, and Shanna’s new Enchanted book, Don’t Hex With Texas, and Rosemary’s Prom Dates. And yes, I’ve already read them all. Now I need to get the next book in Martha’s series, and I need to get another book I wanted, but I don’t remember the title, and I don’t remember the author’s last name–I just remember it was a fantasy, and it had horses in it, and an alternate world. Drat. Now I’m going to have to try to figure it out. Ha! Patrice Sarath (See, I can find these things if I am sufficiently motivated) and the book is Gordath Wood from Ace fantasy. Yay! There may have been one or two others I need–yep, the new Jack Campbell is out. Okay, need to buy more books. (Okay, I don’t NEED to, but…)

And then, on Sunday, when the con was over, I headed out for the hospital in Austin. My mom was supposed to have minor, in-and-out day surgery last Wednesday, but when they looked inside, turned out they needed to do more than they’d thought, so it turned into major surgery. I was really worried she’d be going home from the hospital with nobody to look after her and Daddy (he’s only slightly less forgetful than she is), since the sister who lives next door was out of town at a wedding. Since my dad can barely take care of himself, I wasn’t sure how he’d do with taking care of Mama too, right out of the hospital. Fortunately, they kept her in the hospital through Sunday, (and Daddy stayed in the room with her the whole time, so he had some looking-after too), and I was able to get there and take them home on Monday and stay a couple of days. The surgery went well, she’s healing really well, the tumor they found hadn’t spread so she won’t have to have any further treatments, and my sister comes home today.

I think I’ve convinced them that when they’re hungry, they ought to eat, so they don’t lose any more weight. Daddy’s looking awfully thin, I think because when he starts a meal, he gets up to do something in the middle of it, and forgets he’s still eating. But one day, he seemed to forget he’d already eaten and made himself another sandwich and ate a second lunch, so hopefully, he’ll make up for it. Several small meals during the day is probably better for them anyway.

And now I’m home again, and still have a synopsis to write. And I’m kind of brain dead. The boy’s girl is coming down for the weekend, so we’ll play over the holiday, and maybe my brain will come home again.

No writing. Not much exercise. I walked to the mail box and back with Mama, and halfway around the house, and back and forth across the hospital three or four times–but I don’t think that got me very far toward Rivendell. But, ya know? Sometimes life throws you a few fastballs, with curves. I’m still here.

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Posted in books I'm reading, Cons, family, life

Rain! and Hecticness

Posted on June 24, 2008 | 1 Comment

It’s been a very dry spring on my island. We just barely missed making the Top 5 Dryest Springs Ever because we had a little stormlet two days before the official first day of summer. Then on the first day of summer, while I was driving back to town from Fort Worth, The Sky Didst Open and The Deluge Didst Pour Forth.

While I was on the highway. And I had to visit the little girls’ room (so to speak). I’d’ve made it all the way home, except everybody slowed way down–because when the Sky Opens here, the Deluge Really Does Pour Forth, and the freeways tend to flood three or four inches deep. And when they flood, people hydroplane and crash into the other cars if they drive too fast. So it’s a good thing that people slow down. But I had to get off the freeway and find a pit stop. Then I had to squeeze my way back amongst the cars driving slowly in the pouring rain, because it didn’t show any signs of slowing. And it didn’t. Rained all the way home. Rained me into the house. Stopped long enough for the fella to bring my stuff in the house without raining on everything. Then it started raining again.

Rained again today. Hard, but not terribly long–though it’s still sorta sprinklish. We have friends in town, from our little Panhandle town, come to the beach. It will be fun to get to see them again, but there’s a lot of cleaning up that has to be done. And grocery shopping. I did already get by the fish market… You know we have to serve boiled fresh shrimp to all our visitors.

This is going to be a VERY hectic week. Besides our visitors, our “bureau” at the paper is short one person, because she got slapped in the hospital before she keeled over, and they need me to put in extra hours, if I can, but there’s a funeral I ought to go to (relative of a relative), and I’m taking Friday to head over to ApolloCon. There’s a couple of other things too, that I may skip out on–or maybe not. Depends on how everything else goes. But I’m tired.

And I’m trying to pull together a partial of Old Spirits to send the editor. I think my chapters look pretty good. But I need to write a synopsis that makes sense. That’s not going to happen this week. Not as crazy as life has gotten just now, but I’m thinking about it. Trying to figure out how to summarize stuff I’ve written, and sort of exactly what will happen in the parts I haven’t written. I think I need to pull a big chunk of courtroom stuff out… of all the courtroom stuff, maybe. It’s very loosey-goosey just now, and I know I’ll need to tighten the heck out of it before it’s done. But for now, I guess I’ll go with it.

Going to read from New Blood at ApolloCon at my reading Friday night. Hope a few people will be there early enough to want to hear it. Have to print it out to be ready to read.

Here I have written this huge long blog post, and I haven’t even mentioned the cool beach stuff. Like, beginning last Friday, when I went out to walk on the beach (sans Dolly), and the fish were WAY in shore. And of course, the pelicans and dolphins (and I even saw a skimmer, which was way cool) were inshore chowing down on them. I love to watch the brown pelicans fishing, because they’re so cool about it. When the fish are thick, the pelicans will fly just ten or 12 feet above the water, and when they see a fish, the feet will drop like webbed landing gear, and BAM! They’ll hit the water. They dive so fast, and there’s always a splash–a big one, given the size of the birds. But it doesn’t faze them–up they pop, maybe float a minute, and off they go, into another take-off to get ready for another dive. They can dive from as high as 50 feet without getting hurt, but given how murky the water often is, I wonder how they can see fish in it. Maybe that’s why they fly lower. But then, I have seen them dive from way high up, so they must be able to spot them. It’s so much fun to watch that drop–Bam! (er, splash?)

Today, I took Dolly back out again. She’s really pretty good, but I think I’m letting her get into some bad habits. I think she figured out how to jump around in the surf while on the leash–she can run in circles and still run and jump. I think she watches for the bigger waves (still not very big, but she’s short) so she can jump them and let them float her a second or two. There were all kinds of dead fish on the shore–some of them really big. I saw one that was a good 2 feet by 1 foot from dorsal to ventral. Big fish. I don’t know if they just got stuck in the shallow water, or what, but… Lots of great big feathers from the pelicans too. Dolly couldn’t figure out how to pick one of those up to carry it with her. There were big washes of broken shells that were still big enough to hurt my tootsies. And more sargasso, but not enough to make blankets. After the sargasso cometh the jellyfishes… Come on, seaweed! Keep coming. Don’t want jellyfishes.

Since Catie has encouraged me to walk to Rivendell, I’m going to do it. I don’t remember how far it is, but I’ve walked 6 miles on the way. According to the Eowyn Challenge, I have made it into Tookland. It’s going to take me a Really Long Time to do this. At least the only thing I have to climb are the rock jetties, every half mile or so…

Words written–who knows? (I’ve typed in 92 pages–but I’ve written lots more than that)–I did write 20 pages last week.

Miles walked to Rivendell: 6

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Posted in life, New Blood, Old Spirits, the beach, work, writing

Forty-Two

Posted on June 18, 2008 | 1 Comment

Those of you from the South know that I am not making up random numbers to title my blog. Forty-Two is a game. I didn’t realize that it was also called Texas Forty-two, or The National Game of Texas–but I am not surprised. Forty-two is played with dominoes, and it has a little bit in common with Bridge, because the person who wins the bid chooses trumps. It has a little bit in common with Spades, because it’s a lot easier to learn than Bridge, and it is generally a fast and furious fun time.

Monday night, we had a couple over for root beer/Coke floats and Forty-two. I wound up partnering with the male half of the couple, and We Wiped The Floor with our respective life partners. First game wasn’t quite a skunking. They won one hand. The second game was neck and neck, but my partner bid two marks (we’re not purists who actually count up the points in a game–if you win a round–one shuffle–you get a mark. Period.) and I helped him win it. It’s always more fun when you’re winning.

It was fun finding a new family who plays Forty-two. In our families–both the fella’s and mine–you learn how to play Forty-two at least by the time you turn 13. It’s possible to learn it as young as 10, but really, you’re not ready for the cut-throat strategizing, or counting the spots and remembering what’s fallen–and all the bazillion rules and variations on rules and ways to bid and make a bid–until you’re around 13. I have many, many memories of family Forty-two tournaments.

Once, when I was in high school, we had gone to Yellowstone Park for a weekend, and after dark, we needed a game to play in the cabin we were renting. I don’t think the sisters were old enough yet to be in the Forty-two game, but my brother and I had learned. Except we didn’t bring the dominoes. So we went over to the Old Faithful gift shop to buy some. And the only dominoes we could find were in a travel set. Instead of the nice 1-inch by 2-inch playable dominoes we had at home, these were about 1/2-inch by 1-inch, without much thickness at all. See, you have to set your domino hand up on their edges so nobody else can see them, because it’s really hard to fan a set of seven dominoes. But these travel-sized things were so narrow, they kept falling over, so everybody could see who had the double-five or the six-four. (Which is bad. Take my word.) We eventually wound up holding them in our hands. These were small enough you could kind of line them up on your palm and see them okay, and keep everybody else from seeing them. I remember laughing a lot that night.

There is usually a lot of laughing during Forty-two games. There is also a fair amount of fist-shaking, and name-calling. (You gunky! is a popular one.) When the middle sister had finally achieved the proper age to be taught how to play, I remember that the brother had just learned a new word: Renege. And so, being an obnoxious teen at the time, he kept accusing everybody–especially the sister–of reneging. Of course, she had never heard of the word, and had no idea what he was accusing her of, and–being a touchy pre-teen–quickly grew offended. So the next time he spouted off “You reneged!” she came back with “Well, you bedogged!”

If he was going to make up insults, so was she. We still accuse each other of bedogging.

I really like to play against my father-in-law, though it’s not quite so much fun to play as his partner. He has this not-so-good habit of bidding on his partner’s hand. Or on, well–nothing. Just because he hasn’t had a chance to bid in a while. And this is despite the fact that there is no such thing as a re-shuffle. If the bid goes around and nobody bids, the shuffler (there is no deal, each player has to draw their own dominoes) HAS to take the bid. He hates the force bid–but he’ll bid on nothing anyway. Makes him easy to set.

I have more Forty-two stories. But I think that’s enough of a riff on dominoes for today. I love dominoes. The world would be a better place, I think, if more people played Forty-two, and learned how to call each other gunky and bedogger, and still be friends.

Oh. I wrote 2.5 pages Monday, 4 pages yesterday, and 4.5 pages today. Not bad.

And I think I’m going to (maybe) try to “walk to Rivendell” which is 458 miles. Which will probably take me better than a year. I did about 2 miles today. With the dog. Exhausting.

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Posted in addictions, family, life

In the Water!

Posted on June 16, 2008 | Leave a comment

I finally got in the water for the first time this year, and it was as wonderful as I thought it would be. I really like the Gulf. I like the warmth. I like the mild waves. I like floating and, well, I just like it. I wanted to go out this weekend, but you know, there are rules about swimming.

I believe in the Buddy system. You just do not go swimming–especially in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas coast–without a buddy. Yes, there is a lifeguard, but you need somebody there With you, paying attention To you, who will notice when you’re not where they thought you were. So, I had informed the fella I wanted to go swimming. But he wasn’t feeling well. (He’s been dealing with allergies and bronchitis all week.) I was hoping I could get him to at least come down to the beach with me to sit on the sand and be my swim buddy while not swimming. But the boy got off work early. He came home at 6 p.m., instead of the 11 p.m. hour we were expecting him. And I got him to come with me.

We also took the dog, because Dolly likes to swim too. We walked over. I still think that’s total coolness, that I can WALK to the beach to swim. We had to take turns going out to floating depth, because dogs are short and one of us needed to stay with her in the shallows. I was walking back to our stuff to put the boy’s glasses on his shoe when he was out past the breakers, and Dolly slipped her collar. She didn’t mean to–she just wanted to go sniff something else–but she came back and let me put the collar back on her. There was a little Yorkie yapdog barking like crazy at her, and she wanted to go over and say hello, and we were mean and wouldn’t let her, because the Yorkie was behaving so aggressively, it would get itself eaten. And then people would be mad.

I had a wonderful time in the water. I went out twice to float–just laid back and let the water rock me. Got caught once when it broke over my head, but I didn’t have to touch bottom. Just spit out the water and straightened out again. Oh, and I was body-surfing in, and got stuck in water just a tad too shallow. See, it’s kind of a production for me to stand up when I’m on the floor, or the ocean bottom (those bad knees again)…and the water kept knocking me over before I could get up. It got rather comical, before the next breaker sort of pushed me up to my feet… The second time, I started walking a little sooner.

Then we had dinner and all of us went out to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I enjoyed it, though the fantasy elements had me rolling my eyes a little. Just once. It was fun.

Father’s Day, the boy offered to take his dad out to dinner at the restaurant where he works, but since the fella will be having lunch there three times this week, he said “anywhere but there,” even if it is one of the nicest places in town. (Darn.) So we went to the Chinese buffet, because the Japanese place is closed for lunch. And we took naps and I had a really good Father’s Day. Not so sure about the father in the family… 😉

This will be a very, very busy week, with stuff going on just about every evening. No, not just about. Every. Single. Evening. And to get everything done, it cuts into my morning writing time. I am going to work like mad to try to get at Least 2 pages done every day–and I’m afraid that will be a tough job. Still, I did get my 2 pages for today, between sticking a chicken in the crock pot for supper, doing laundry, cleaning up for group meeting at our house tonight (still have to buy ice cream on the way home…), and… I’m sure there was something else I was doing this morning. Oh yes! cleaning the boy’s bathroom, because he didn’t do it. And we’re having people over tonight. (The ice cream is to make root beer floats.) 2 pages. Basically, I finished up a “confrontation” scene. I had ideas on where to take it next, but had to write them in the margin, because I was just out of time.

(Had to go to the bank, the post office (My bookrak books came in, Yay!), and to Comcast to take back the old converter box and get a new one, before work. Fortunately the Comcast office is right next door to the newspaper office, literally.)

Who knows when I will get to go back into the water… I’ve got a “roundtable critique” thing in Fort Worth this weekend, ApolloCon next weekend and… well, there’s bound to be something else going on, but darned if I know what it is. At least it doesn’t take long to get to the beach… :)

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Posted in food, life, Old Spirits, the beach

The Tuesday Blog

Posted on May 20, 2008 | 2 Comments

It’s Tuesday and I’m blogging again. I seem to post a lot of blogs on Tuesday. Mostly because Monday tends to be really crazy and I never manage to make it by here but I Really want to post at least one blog a week so y’all won’t think I’ve forgotten you, and Tuesday seems to be when I can make myself get over here and do it.

The problem is that many times, by the time Tuesday gets here, I can’t think of anything to blog about. I’ve forgotten whatever it was I did over the weekend. Maybe because the weekend seems so far behind me. Anyway, it’s Tuesday again, and I’m blogging.

About what? Um–we went to see Iron Man a week ago Sunday, and out to dinner for Mother’s Day. This past weekend, I overdid it a little on the flower beds and pretty much slept the rest of the weekend–though we did buy some “previously viewed” movies and watched American Gangster Sunday night. I want to go see Prince Caspian, but haven’t found the time yet, and since we’re moving into Graduation Season, I’m not sure when we will. Maybe we can go on a Wednesday, or something.

I did walk on the beach yesterday morning. Still haven’t looked up those silly plover birds, because I can’t find where I put my bird book. I think it’s in my office, but where??? No special observations yesterday–seagulls, shells, sand, water–the beach is always great, and before 8 a.m. on Monday, I pretty much have it to myself.

The writing is moving ahead. Only 3 pages yesterday, but I got 6 today, and now I need to think about my book’s theology before I can forge ahead. Since this book is about spirits, and demons have cropped up already, and ghosts and “ascending”–I have to think about that sort of thing. I know how it works–I just have to figure out how to explain it, and decide how much explaining I want to do at this point.

A fantasy novel requires a lot of explaining, and I’ve set it up so that the explaining makes sense–one of my characters doesn’t know much about the magic and has to be told. But I do sometimes feel as if the story’s getting bogged down in all the explanations. Today, though, it went well. I didn’t expect this particular scene at this point, but it works well, does what I need it to go and sets up one of the major complications that will come into play later. So yeah. I’m feeling good about the writing.

RWA chapter meeting today. I’m totally not interested in this program, but I’m going anyway, because hanging out with other writers and talking writing gets my writerly juices flowing, and I need as much flow as I can get. I also get to hang out at the book store. Yay!

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Posted in life, movies I watched, Old Spirits, writing

Pelicans, and other thoughts

Posted on May 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

The thing about living at the beach is that you have to LIVE at the beach. All that regular, everyday stuff still has to be done, even though the beach is only two blocks away. Cooking, laundry, scrubbing bathrooms, going to work–all that stuff takes up going-to-the-beach time. So you just have to go anyway, and still, somehow get everything done.

I was thinking about this as I walked on the beach today. Tide was in-ish. (Didn’t look for the times in the paper this a.m.) I could walk around the boulders, but the waves still came up–just not too high. I was thinking about how I still had to go home and do stuff, but wasn’t it great that I could spend this little amount of time out communing with nature.

The sargasso seaweed is starting to come in. In places it looks like a crinkly, crocheted blanket, it’s so thick. I’m not sure if the birds eat something on the seaweed, or if they eat the stuff that’s tangled up in/hiding in the seaweed, but the birds–seagulls and sanderlings and plovers and willets–seem to hang out near it and hung through it.

Today, I found the biggest shell yet. Most shells that wash up on our Gulf coast are small. Mostly they’re scallop-type shells in white or black or yellow-stripes, an inch, or maybe two across. The vast majority are much smaller, some smaller than my tiniest toenail. But this one is at least 4 inches across. Maybe 5. Bigger than the palm of my hand, and deep, and almost black. Part of the rim was broken off, but it’s pretty much whole. I also found what I think is a piece of coral. I think it might be brain coral, from my minimal research. No picture of it yet…

I only saw one pelican flying today. Monday, row after row flapped by overhead. Usually I see at least one line of pelicans heading east–maybe it was a wind thing. Yesterday and Monday were very windy, today was less so. Anyway, Monday, I decided to count the numbers of pelicans flying in their lines.

When I was growing up not far from my beach, and would come down to swim and ride the ferry and such–I never saw a single brown pelican, much less a white one. They were quite endangered. One reason I decided to count how many I saw on Monday. I think I’ve also mentioned here that pelicans like to fly single file. I assume this cuts down on the headwind issue, like the wild goose V, but I’ve never seen pelicans fly in an actual V, just single file.

Anyway, I counted two lines of eleven pelicans each. Then one of thirteen. Then one of seventeen pelicans. That’s a lot of pelicans. I was beginning to think that pelicans had a thing for odd numbers–but then I saw two separate lines, flying somewhat close together, of eight pelicans each. One had seven at first, but there was a singleton flying really hard to catch up and fall in at the end of the line. Now I shall do math.

I had to get out a pen and write on the bottom of a cutline page. I saw in one thirty-minute walk sixty-eight (68) brown pelicans. (If I added wrong, please correct my arithmetic in the comments. thank you.) That’s a LOT of pelicans. They were all flying the same direction, so I’m reasonably certain it was 68 different pelicans, not the same ones flying in circles. Which to me is absolutely totally cool, since it was my own childhood when pelicans were so endangered you just did not see them on the island. At all. Oh, and I didn’t count the single pelican I saw flying in to land beside one of the jetties. So that makes 69.

The beach belongs to the birds from dawn to about 10 or 11 a.m. I may go out walking at 8-ish, but the beach is still theirs. They tolerate me grudgingly.

I got started writing a little late. The plumber guy came and fixed the toilet from its intermittent running (which can be shocking while in the shower, since it would run every five minutes and alternately scald/freeze you while it ran) and I took my sweet time cleaning up after the walk. But I still got 3.5 pages written. Did 6 yesterday. I’m not sure I’ll keep what I wrote today–or that I’ll keep it in this location, but it’s written.

Oh. I just remembered. I entered my very first juried art show Saturday. The very first one where I took paintings in and let other people (who are neither relatives or friends) Look at them and decide whether they were worthy of hanging in a show. They were judged in the non-professional category, of course, which probably helped, but there are some very good non-pros. Anyway, one of the two paintings I entered made the cut. (I suck at painting/drawing hands and feet. And arms. Some arms, anyway.) I didn’t win a prize, but I made the cut.

So my painting of Robert is going to be hung in this art show. (It’s in the blog archive if the other link doesn’t work. I can’t figure out how to post it on the blog with this work Mac. Just scroll down till you see the painting of the person near the bottom…)(If you want to see it.)

I’ll take a picture at the show, so you can see it hanging with other people looking at it. 😉

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Posted in life, pelicans, the beach, thoughts, writing