Merry Yule

Another lovely day in the making

The sun is uncertain and there's a cold wind, but I still managed to get a few minutes of reading in the sun beside the pool. I even took my sweater off and pulled my pant legs up to my knees. Soon, the thoughtful and generous Susan will be picking me up at the hotel. We may go to a light lunch someplace in Orlando. It's a drive (we took it the day before yesterday in a rented car) so it's very nice of her on many levels to come on over and see me.

People are wearing parkas, but it's not that cold for a northerner. Still, I'm going to bundle up if I decide to go hot tubbing later on. The official high temp predicted for today is 55, more than twenty below the average for this time of year. Not exactly brr, but it's a lot less fun to hot tub and then be nothing but layers on layers of goosepimples by the time I make it to the door leaving the pool area.

I'm not disappointed by the weather (much--it would have been sooooo fun to spend time at the water park right across the street.) It's been fun and relaxing and the flowers, wow, the flowers. So many varieties in bloom right now, and it's winter. I wonder how it looks in spring and summer. And the orange juice, and the margaritas .... Ripe citrus, really ripe, hand-squeezed, is amazing.

I love the bright orange of ripening oranges on the trees when we drive past the orange groves. I saw a nursery selling potted citrus trees--they were heavy with fruit and I so wanted to take one home, but it's impractical on a gizillion different levels. My orange trees really suffer, especially over the winter.

I truly love the Pacific Northwest. Having said that, there are a lot of really fascinating, wonderful and beautiful places in the world and I'm glad I get to visit them. Given a chance, I'd love to see Orlando again. Maybe next time, the sun will be out a bit more.

Happy happy sun sun

It's cool and cloudy, but for a brief time this morning the sun came out. I got to be there, by the hot tub (and in the hot tub) actually basking. I'd forgotten how good it felt. Not as good as gardening (weirdly, because gardening is hard!) but relaxing and soothing, like a gentle massage. R. got his requested time by the pool with a bikini-clad wife, and I got to do some reading on graphic design but mostly I reclined beneath the golden warmth of that strange and seldom-seen-in-winter object in the sky that I love so much.

I taught belly dance to martial artists, decompressed at a dog park and got to fawn over lots of really neat dogs, had great Cuban food in Mt. Dora, a great margarita at the hotel bar, incredible censored and I've had some decent work time. I might even get some stuff actually done. I'm hoping for more sunshine later, too. Because as much as I like getting stuff done, I really, really love the SUN.

Weeds, Tea and Soup

The garden is growing really, really well.  Too well, in some cases.  Can you have too much bok choi? Apparently so.  Sadly, the goats don't like it, which I find weird, but useful in that the deer haven't bothered it at all.  I guess I have to eat faster.  Something to think about--bok choi, when cooked, forms a nice, not-too-thick gel.  It might be a good ingredient for soups.  If an experiment comes out all right along those lines, I'll post about it.

Anyway, I noticed something that produced a duh moment for me.

I have areas in my garden where not just the plants, but the weeds are positively huge.  It made me realize that the places that have small weeds are under-fertilized.  Sooo ... when I put the beds to sleep (heh) in the fall, when I put down my homemade fertilizer and cover things over, I can put extra in the places where the weeds are really pitiful, and less where they're gargantuan.

Not that I'll have weeds, of course.  Everything will be perfectly manicured and weeded by then.

But if I did have weeds, I could totally use them as a gauge for how much fertilizer to put down.  Aaaand, the beauty part, if I overdo it in the fall, its not going to burn my veggies because I won't have any in the ground at the time.  It'll have time to mellow for many months before I plant again.  Remember, though, if you add amendments in the fall, if they're super water soluble, they'll just wash away into the soil too deep for the plants to reach them in spring, so either protect against rain or just wait until after your seedlings sprout in the spring.  Don't fertilize when you plant seeds.  It messes them up when they germinate.  If you must, scratch the fertilizer in at least six inches, preferably farther, away from your seed line.

Speaking of fertilizer, I have a scary bucket of chicken poo waiting by.  I haven't decided what to do with it.  It's super hot, and only partially composted.  I'm tempted to spread it between the smallest of my zucchini plants and maybe make tea with some of it to water with around the fruit trees.  Chicken poo is awesome fertilizer, but you have to be careful.  It burns, baby, burns!  There's really no way to measure how hot it is, so I'll have to guess.  In cases like that, it's good to remember that you can always add, but you can't take away the damage from too much once it's done.  It's not like too much salt in your soup, where you can stick in a couple of celery stalks or add potatoes to fix it.

Soup again.  I must be craving it.  I think I'll make soup for dinner tonight.

Watch out for the weather.  Stay hydrated in hot spots, and look out for lightning.  We had an incredible lightning storm just east of us.  It sounded like fireworks show off in the distance, and for a while I thought that's exactly what it was, a post-4rth show, until I looked out the window.  Often there were multiple flashes at once.  We don't usually get that kind of weather around here.  I was very, very glad I could appreciate it at a distance instead of being directly under it.  It must have been terrifying.  Here's the weather report for it.  Photos here.  BTW, it takes three to four hours for me to drive from my home to the worst-hit areas of the storm, but I saw the closest edge of it quite well from our deck.

A Married Couple at Work

Soon now, our house sitters will move in (note to self, have to clean the kitchen!) and we'll be off for the much-anticipated work weekend.

My DH and I work really well together.  At least, it works really well for me.  We succeed at the dueling keyboards model of going out to dinner, which we don't call going out to dinner unless that's the actual focus.  Most of the time it's going out to Wifi at a place that has food because our chosen work time conflicts with mealtime.  We also succeed at the dueling keyboards model of hanging out around the house, and often bounce ideas off of each other when we take breaks for food, to stretch, or to deal with animal stuff.

We had a great time working at home together, during that all-too-short time period when we were able to do that.  I think we both worried that we'd see too much of each other and get sick of each other, but that didn't happen.  Maybe spending hours and hours not talking to each other with only mouse clicks and keyboard keys getting tapped in rapid succession helps shield us from over exposure.  But I don't think I'd ever get tired of hanging around my DH.  He's the kind of sunshine that won't give me a sunburn.

So we're both working hard to get to the point where we can both work full time at home, and so that I can travel with him on some of his trips overseas.  Not all of them.  Someone needs to hold down the fort, and we do have dogs.  I don't think the cats and chickens would miss us very much.  They love anyone who feeds them.  But Chase, and our red-eared hounds Brian and Finn, tend not to eat when we're away. I'm not exaggerating.  I have family members and former house-sitters who can attest to this.  As a result, I'm nervous about being away for more than a few days.

But I would like to visit with some of the people and see some of the places he's connected with.  Really wonderful people, living in legendary or beautiful or exotic or all-of-the-above places.  It's funny how life works out.  The introvert travels and meets tons of people while the extrovert stays home.

It's funny, too, that both my DH and I have been athletes most of our lives, but we both work at a physically demanding job that requires hours and hours of sitting employing small muscles instead of the great big muscle groups.  I like it.  And I look forward to focusing on that work.  You can bet, though, that we'll be walking on beaches and maybe even running or sparring with bokken.  We'll make the time, somehow.  It's going to be a jam-packed working vacation and play is integral to our working life together.  Without the physical stuff, my mental stuff languishes.  And my DH is a genius physical sort of guy.  He inspires me to belly dance, and keep in shape, and keep some sort of semblance of physical prowess good enough to defend myself if I need to.

He doesn't just inspire my physical self.  (Rrrow!)  He inspires me in all aspects of life, so I guess what I'm really anticipating during our time together is a kind of holistic inspiration. That sounded way fuzzier than I meant--but it's true in a very real sense.  That inspiration will go into the skull machine, and out the words and art and maybe even music will come.

We may not talk to each other, but the communication is there.  We're going to get a lot of stuff done as a result, way more than we'd get done individually.  I tell my kids and it always proves to be true, at least in our family.  Two people working together can get way more than twice the work done than two people working independently.  Weird, but it works for us.

Hopefully, by this weekend, you'll see a lot of new stuff up on the Wyrd Goat website as a result of our working retreat.  I'll keep you posted.

Spring bliss

Why I love spring in the Pac NW:

Storms, especially lightning storms.  They're rare here and seldom have ground strikes, so I consider them lovely rather than something that's terribly hazardous like they might be in other parts of the world.  

Those sudden, blustery winds and downpours followed by sun and rainbows.  If they're fast and hard enough, sometimes I can smell the ocean in the westerlies.

The contrast of dark-bellied clouds and bright blue sky.

Glorious heat to bask in one day, sweet coolness the next.

Flowers everywhere!

The first flights of bees at my tiny heather blossoms and pussywillow blooms.

Daylight stretching and opening up so fast it seems unreal.  We'll be gaining over an hour of daylight in a single month.

New leaves.  Bright greens, yellows, pinks, reds, purples, sometimes draped like lace, sometimes sharp and clean, always beautiful.

And I love spring fever.  Even the goats kick up their heels and dance in the field.

I love spring.

Sore

I had a big weekend, thanks in part to the boy and the girl.  Much gardening was accomplished by all, and man am I sore.  No one got sunburned, though.

Beans are in, broccoli is in, beets are in, radishes and turnips are in, we have borage planted at the ends of rows to attract bees, and we harvested some rhubarb in the process of cutting off flower heads.  I heard from someone that they have rhubarb that never flowers.  Must be nice.  Mine seem to always want to, but I foil their sexy plans as much as possible.

Also, big excitement (I know, I'm such a plant nerd) in the asparagus patch.  I've finally had my first good-sized spear come up.  Will I cut it?  Heck no!  I probably could, but these darned asparag--uh, asparagi?  Asparaguses?  Asparagus plants have been struggling for years, and I want them to get so big and strong that they become pests.

Looks like it'll be a good year for peaches, cherries, apples, pears, Asian pears, and marionberries (yum!)

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the garden will do this year.

Still to plant:  The darned tomatoes, eggplant and peppers I've been potting up, zucchini, cucumbers, sunflowers, plus some ornamentals and herbs I've started from seed.  It should be a big and fun garden this year, assuming our weather cooperates.  My soil is at about 60F.  Really, really good.  It's just a bit too cool for squashes and cukes, cooler than I like for tomatoes, and way too cold for peppers.  I'll try the eggplant about the same time as the tomatoes.  The peppers will have to wait.

So, I'm curious.  Am I pretty much the only person who goes out to the garden with a meat thermometer?

Home Town

My DH mentioned yesterday that I connect our family to the community at large simply by seeing the same people every day. I don't always know their names, but I recognize them at the grocery store, the hardware store, at the Christmas tree stand, and I often say hi when I have time if they don't look too busy.

I want to say that this is important, but is it? Maybe in an emergency a person who recognizes me might be more likely to stop and help, but even in that unlikely situation I think a good person would stop and help regardless of whether they're a friend or a stranger.

Is it important for people to know their neighbors, or at least recognize them?

I don't think there's a clear answer. I just know that I enjoy living in a place where I can go to the post office and small talk about the new building going up with my vet and the person who bags my groceries and the person I helped with a return the previous day.

For my fellow Nanoers--have you backed up your Nanowrimo project? Don't put it off!

Moments of Happiness

I'm catching up on paper-worky stuff, and I got about 3000 words written today.  

But the really, really good thing that I did today was go for a walk with my DH, my daughter, and our dogs.

We have two big white dogs (Brian and Finn) and our recent adoptee/ranawayfromotherfamilywhodidn'twantherback (Chase) and they are quite the pack.  Brian and Finn take up the entire back seat, which makes things a little crowded for our daughter.  I don't know how she survived.  And fluff, white fluff! was flying everywhere.  We had our window rolled down and the fluff was blowing thicker than Colorado snowfall.  Seriously.

But we managed to get to the river despite my DH having to drive in whiteout conditions.

At the river ... (skipping the part where we were all tangled up in dogs at one point)

Brian and Finn, being veterans of this thing called going to the river for a walk, waded right in and picked a direction to walk.  It was even the same direction.  Meanwhile, Chase was frantic.  They were in the water, the danger water!  She didn't dare stick a toe in.  Hilarity increased when she discovered the true evil lying in the depths (3 inches) of the evil water.  A stick!  A stick with algae and mossy-looking water weed on it.  Oh. My. GAWD!

And then, suddenly, something in her snapped, as if the string that kept her high-strung stringy snapped.  She pranced in, lifting her feet excessively high at first.  Next thing we knew she was darting in and out of the water with the other dogs, and the darting became casual wading in and out as the mood took her.

The dogs calmed, we turned around, and we started walking the other way and we had one of those incredible moments.  Soft breeze, soft sunshine, sparkling river, the dogs calmly exploring at the water's edge, and we were together in a time and place of complete peace.

It didn't last, but these things aren't meant to last.  Three days from now I probably wouldn't remember the herons, one circling and one waiting patiently in the mud, unless I wrote about them.  It wasn't a big deal.  But that's part of what made it beautiful.  

On the way home Chase sat in my lap, all tuckered out.  She rested her chest and neck on my arm for a while, while I cradled her body with my other arm.  And then she lifted her head and rested against my chest like a child, her soft ear tickling my cheek, her chin on my shoulder.  I wondered if she had moments at her other home like this.  It doesn't matter anymore, I suppose.  But I hope so.  I hope she had, and always will have moments of happiness wherever she may be.

I hope we all do.  We need them.  Just for the contrast, you know?

WorldCon Reno: Renovation Memories

Fast forward to my first day of work after Worldcon, and then going home to zucchini sauce on squash ravioli (delicious, btw.)  I'm really tired but I want to spend all my spare time either writing or gardening, preferably both.  What I really could use is a way to dictate stories while I'm gardening.  There are ways to do it.  I just can't afford them (yet).

I learned a lot from the panels I attended at Worldcon, and I got to talk to some really fabulous people.  I'll write about highlights in no particular order on the blog until they no longer seem interesting to anyone, even me.

Convention Highlight One

I went through the art show early on.  I was impressed by the quality and quantity of art, so much so that I suffered a kind of burn-out thingy that made me feel like I was skimming Shakespeare and not getting the important parts.  And then I reached the Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell panels, and realized I was looking at cover art.  Something went ping in my brain.  

I'd been looking at cover art with an artist's eye for composition, rather than a graphic designer's eye for where the hell will we put the title and author's name.

I'd just about finished processing the wow moment (it took about 48 hours) and I thought I had it all figured out, when I attended a panel about book covers.  

Naturally, my world flipped another 180 degrees, and because art is magic, I didn't end up in the same place I started.  It was like coming home after a few years and finding that nothing is quite as I remembered it.  

If you can imagine this (assuming you care):  You can plan your art to include the title and author sections and get a really nice, capable and striking cover, or you can compose a spectacular piece of art and in the process of trying to figure out where to put the damned title and byline, do something really creative and get a spectacular cover.

There's also plan C, where you leave opportunities for text on the cover, but do whatever you want to make things full of awesome, and then place the text in creative and unexpected ways that will often make people take a second look as much if not more than the art itself.

Part of it is luck, and part is design, part is time constraints and part is what energy you have to devote to this stuff.  I took notes in the form of sketches because I couldn't write adequate descriptions fast enough, but I can do a halfway decent 30 second sketch thanks to life drawing.

Personal convention highlight one:  Having a double hot chocolate with the extraordinary Chris York and her wonderful husband.  Good times, good conversation, fun, learning, sadness (I didn't let her know at the time that I still feel pain at my father's passing after almost twenty years) and much talk about Sydney, literary agent.

Non-convention highlight that's conceivably anyone's business but my own:  playing in a warm pool with my DH, remembering what it was like to pretend that I was a mermaid.

Good times.  I could have stood for at least one more day in the area.

Alas, now it's back to work, and double-alas, not the work I want to do.  But it's necessary.

Roughing It

Here we are at Worldcon in Reno, Nevada. So far I've gone for a swim, ate dinner, and met a couple of great friends in the hallway. We got to the convention center too late to pick up our badges, so I have a temporary Thursday thingy. Not that I'll use it. Exhaustion has set in.

I love our room. It's so ... tacky. Normally I'm all over the gilded mirror, elaborate tile and big beds but partly because it's squeezed into a relatively small space and partly because it's not very well matched up stuff, I feel like I'm staying at a Victorian-meets-pseudo-Roman bordello. It's wonderful. I especially like the huge jet tub (almost as big as our bed) that's right next to the bed. And the jet tub has a mirror over it--gilded (of course!) Our shower doubles as a steam room.

I would love to peek into their giant suites like the bridal or presidential just so I could giggle. And yet, in its own tacky way, it's almost kinda gorgeous.

If you've stayed in this hotel you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not going to out them, though. I don't want even the slightest chance of anyone feeling bad, though I'm sure they're not exactly blind to the shortcomings of their decor. And those shortcomings are offset by the fun.

Tomorrow: more pool time, silly drinkies by the pool, meet-up with some wonderful writers, gawking at art, writing, etc. But first I have to go to reg and pick up my badge. I come all the way out here and it's nothing but work work work ....

She did it!!!!

Congratulations, my daughter.

Your teachers and every member of the tribe is so proud of you.

Especially your dad and I.

Bravo.

Love, Mom

Exciting Times

Masks has taken a strange turn thanks to a book I'm reading.

I love it when that happens.  And I love strangeness, especially when it feels familiar despite the fact that it's bizarre.  Stuff like this encourages me to play with my brain.  

I'll review the book that upended Masks and sent it spinning into unforeseen directions when I'm done.

In other news, the boy is home for a visit.  I'm always happier when he's here.  He has a project he's working on and I'm hoping to guide him through the process of creation.  I know how hard it can be to begin something creative.  When we face a blank page, we're really facing ourselves.  It's weird but true that when we're faced with ourselves, we don't feel up to our own challenge.  You'd think that hey, it's my challenge and I want to do it, what's the harm in trying?  And there is no harm ... just terrible, nasty doubt and that doubt knows all your buttons and switches because it's you.

Anyway, I have to go to work now.  I wish I could stay home, but I'm just too darned ethical to call in sick, even when I'm feeling sick-ish, since my malaise is entirely my own fault.  It's not a cold, it's not a broken bone or a severed artery ... it's called insufficient sleep after a huge day and then waking up before first light to take my DH to the airport.  Thank you to all the folks who turned out for my DH's first-ever book signing and reading at Cedar Hills Powells last night.  I had a ton of fun before, during and after, and I'm all right with feeling dragged out, headachy and feeling like I want to eat nothing all day today because my tummy is unsettled.  It was totally worth it.  

Totally.