Sunburn and good food

I have a mild sunburn. It's awesome.

I normally don't celebrate sunburns, but you know, it's been a long cold lonely winter (as the song goes) and it felt really, really good to walk in the sun and lay in the sun and forget to put sunscreen on my part-line on my scalp (and I didn't wear a hat--oops) and feel that tingle after the sunset.

It finally warmed up. Not enough to tempt me to go to the water park, but enough to actually feel a bit overheated by the pool when I stretched out in the chair.

It's cold and rainy now, in the forties (F) with scattered showers and a really unpleasant wind coming in from the east. I will say that it's very, very good to be home and everything looks rich and beautiful and wild here. I didn't see a lot of natural areas in our section of Orlando, and all the parks were theme parks rather than a place to take your dog for a walk or to hike or throw a frisbee. I didn't realize how much I liked living somewhere as rugged and ungroomed as my home county. Of course, wild spaces in that part of Florida would probably be really unpleasant and swampy.

Dunno.

Anyway, it'll be hard to go back to work tomorrow, but it felt really good to sleep in my own bed last night. I'm looking forward to it again tonight. That, and a home-cooked meal. We plan on home broiled steaks. I think ours tastes better than the ones at the fancy restaurants. I had egg salad made with our home-raised eggs and all my favorite seasonings for lunch and it tasted really, really yummy.

Wanna try my recipe? You have to be something of a cook already to pull it off because all the seasonings are to taste. The 'pinches' are estimates at best:

Hard boil two eggs. Drain the pan, put in cold water, and let stand for a few minutes. You can chill the eggs in the fridge if you want, but there's nothing quite like fresh, warm egg salad. Trust me.
In a sufficiently-large bowl (a larger soup bowl works) put in a large dab of mayonnaise--at least 2 tablespoons. Add:
fresh cracked black pepper (or white if you prefer)
tiny pinch of hot paprika
small pinch of regular paprika
large pinch of wasabi powder (or use premade wasabi if you have it)
large pinch of yellow mustard powder
small pinch of coriander powder
small pinch of turmeric
small pinch of cumin
a couple of dashes or a pinch of dill
tiny pinch of salt (remember, the mayonnaise is salty too!)

Stir. Chop or use an egg guillotine in one or two directions to slice the eggs and stir them into the seasoned mayonnaise. Best on toasted Dave's Killer Bread or a nice light rye.

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.

Estrogen: The Fountain of Weee

I had a wonderful time at Estrogenfest this last weekend. Hence my silence the past few days. No internets, no chores, just women, waves and art. My creative batteries have been recharged, and I'm ready to get back to work.

I seriously planned on writing while I went away, but I'm glad I didn't. I think that, unbeknownst to me, I needed the space. Focusing on visual arts for three days felt like rebuilding my computer's desktop. All the same stuff is there, in the same order, but the brain is running better.

For all that, though, it's good to be home, and I'm glad I wasn't away for, say, a week or a month. A weekend is just perfect for a rejuvenating escape.

As part of my artsy-fartsy focus, I got to take lots of photos. I'll be posting some, and painting some, in the days ahead. Yep, you heard me right. I'm painting again. I suspect that if I allow time for painting, I may be able to give myself little boosts and breaks every day. It'll be a nice experiment, and even if it doesn't work out, I look forward to playing with watercolors for a little longer. It'll stretch that coastal experience, and extend the high I get from the massive amounts of estrogen I'm exposed to when I go to one of these all-women retreats. Weee!

Markree Castle

Our vacation is almost done.  I'm torn between feeling sad that Ruairi and I will be going different directions soon, and homesickness, especially for my friends, the animals and my garden.

We're in the castle sitting room right now.  The castle is beautiful and smoky and lush and drafty, as castles are wont to be.  We were very early, so our rooms weren't ready when we came in.  They gave us coffee and water on a tray and offered tea and scones.  Portraits with gilded frames hang on the wall.  One has a lady in a mink cape with a large ring on her right hand, which is held to her breast.  Green marble columns (from Connemara?) support a wedding cake ceiling.  The walkways near the main stairwell slant toward the rail side, bent from ages of supporting people moving about the castle.  The walkway closer to our rooms is level, but I can feel loose boards through the rugs.  Some rooms have famous names on the doors.  A French employee serves as a butler, though he handles much more than wine.  He also lights and maintains the many fireplaces, and brought us drinks in the late evening.

Wind gusts harass the trees.  We took a walk in the gardens, down to the chilly, clear river, through wooded areas on well-kept paths.  An archery target set up makes me want to set up my own archery range as soon as we get home.  Here, it's soggy and a walk in the woods in my last pair of shoes (the others are muddy--one got sucked off my foot in deep mud at one point) would be unwise.  I don't think they'll let me run around the airports in my stocking feet.  Otherwise I might have been more tempted to ask that they call the archery instructors to take me around on a shooting walk.  The receptionist said they have bear and deer shaped targets in the woods.

We had a fine dinner and I just finished a hot port (aka mulled wine.)  Feeling very relaxed and sleepy.  I got some writing done on a novel.  Not much else to say except that it's been a beautiful day, both the sunny part and the storm.  One more overnight to go after tonight, and then I'll be flying home.  

More Fun in Ireland

We've been to so many places since my last post, and there hasn't been time to write about them.  I don't have that much more time now, but I thought I'd post a couple of pics at least. 

Our family hired a pony cart on Inis Oirr (Inisheer,) one of the Aran Islands.  The driver took us on a nice tour of the east side, which included a shipwreck.  The three biggest of us walked part of one hill to save the pony, which acted up several times at the sight of having to drag around four big Americans.  There was seating for nine, by the way.  Not sure how the pony coped in the height of the season!  Probably with much grumpiness.  My DH used to be known as Aran Storm to some ... and we wanted to have a guinness at the local pub, Ruairi's ... but alas, they were closed.  At least we got to walk about, have a guinness at another place instead, and also got to sunbathe on a beautiful beach.  He and I basked on dark, smooth rocks.  We got sunburned.  Sunburned!!  Not bad, though.

Afterward, our ship, the Tranquility, took us to the base of the Cliffs of Moher.  On the way, Ruairi pointed and said, "You hear that sound, Highness?  Those are the shrieking eels ..."  The cliffs are amazing from up top, but even more spectacular viewed from the sea.  We got up close enough to see the thousands of birds nesting and swirling around the rocks.  We had perfect weather, and the sea was very kind, but still fun as we had a few rollers give us an fun and easy ride on the way over.

More later, possibly even tomorrow, as we're taking a vacation from packing/driving.  Our extremely entertaining host is going to take us on a tractor ride after breakfast up a big hill, and we're going to get a close look at some Connemara ponies.  There's also some nice pubs and the sea close by, here on the outskirts of Clifden.  I'm looking forward to putting my feet up in the afternoon and maybe reading a few chapters from one of the many books in the B&B's library, or challenging my DH to a game of chess.

Ireland the Beautiful

Rock of Cashel

We're taking our first down-time break of the trip.  Not exactly a pub crawl, though that may come later.  

Blarney is a lovely village beset by tourists.  This time of year is usually crowded, but the economic downturn has kept away all but the most determined tourists, and many of them are avoiding the rain at the moment.  So things seem pretty 'normal' for a place this size, at least to me.  It's quiet, peaceful, and people are just going about their business.  At about 2pm our local time, the buses will stop running quite so often and the owners of the White House, where we're staying, tell us that we'll have Blarney Castle pretty well to ourselves.

Still not sure about kissing the stone.

So far my favorite place has been Cahir Castle.  Dungeon cells, tower refuges, walkways with no safety rails (take that, poopyheaded overprotective gov'mints!) and plenty of nooks and crannies, plus a healthy dose of history, made the castle very special.  I could have spent twice as long there, but as it was they locked us in and we had to be let out with one other tardy group of German tourists that ran around one of the walls taking pictures of each other hanging precariously out of various crenellations.  We wouldn't do anything nearly that silly.  Much more sensible to tickle each other while going up steep staircases or climbing onto narrow ledges off of towers.

Ahem.

The Rock of Cashel was also fun, but more crowded, and we weren't able to get up into the kewl parts.  They're still restoring the poor thing, which has seen better days.  Despite this, some partial paintings (!!) survived and were restored in pieces.  Others were so fragile they were sealed behind an opaque covering for future generations more clever than us to restore.  The Rock has a beautiful view of a Cistercian Abbey that we didn't have time to see, and besides, it looked like a long, muddy trek to it and it had been sprinkling off and on.

So many places to visit, all old, all beautiful and mysterious and interesting.  I'm looking out at Blarney Castle from our window, hoping the rain will give up soon.  The weatherman (aka morale officer) has been telling the locals we'll have better weather any time now.

Any time.  Really.

But honestly, it hasn't rained as hard or steadily as it does at home.  If they think this is bad, boy, they're got another thing coming if they visit our neck of the woods.  And yet, I hear tell that we have sunshine.  My garden has probably exploded!  I'm looking forward to the rest of our vacation, but I have to admit that sometimes I close my eyes and remember how my roses and peonies looked last year, and imagine Wizard in my lap purring up a storm.

Intermission

By the time you read this, I'll be in stranger climes, drinking wine and tasting the sea salt that's settled on my lips each time I sip.  I might even be relaxed.

Travels (by kzmiller)

The drift, the swift lift, the breathless drop away

The sea, the bright sky, the boisterous, idle play

To wander, to see

emerald, sapphire and gold

To listen, to be

more than can be told 

All in the moment, today

Tomorrow we'll go another way

The Joys of Flying Away

It's the final countdown for my incredible journey or amazing race or whatever it is I'm going on.  The last minute details  are popping up, but I'm knockin' 'em down, with massive help from my friends and family.  This is one of those times when the downside of having lots of animals becomes very readily apparent.  I'll miss them lots, probably about a week in.  I'm a little nervous about how they'll get by without mommy to love them, but that worry is starting to be overshadowed with push-pull.  The push is that they'll be in good hands.  The pull is that my focus is now on flying with everything we'll need.

Ah, travel.  This is one of those times when my nerves start to tingle and my palms start to sweat.  I'm not a regular flier, which my DH takes delight in by teasing me (to keep me laughing, I think.)  Every time I drive by the airport now, I get flutterbelly.  It's not just being up in the air.  It's knowing that if I've forgotten something, things can get really hellish really fast.  Passports.  Tickets.  Boarding passes.  Luggage.  Money.  Having to run in an unfamiliar airport if our flights don't match up just so due to weather conditions or problems on the runway or a flight check that doesn't clear.  I don't mind waiting, even for a very long time.  I mind missing a flight.

I will post pictures and stuff, maybe while I'm there, maybe not until I get back.  Which reminds me of another set of details that make my head hurt.  The amount of electronics I pack these days is weird.  Laptop.  Digital camera.  Cellphone.  Ipod shuffle.  And they all have different power requirements.  And converters, of course.  Remember back in the day when all you brought was a camera and some film?  I'd sigh wistfully, but you know, I remember that I could handle only so much reading while I flew, and that making phone calls home was a challenge to say the least.  Operator, can you get me someone who speaks English or who can understand my broken Czech?

No stress, deep breaths, this is fun, we want to do this, remember?

[palms still sweating]

Wished, and got

They say be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.  Well, we're not there yet, but we've applied to get accommodations in Ireland and I can almost taste the Irish whiskey.  

One step closer to a journey.  

I'm enjoying the idea of walking a long way so that you can start walking.

In other news, I got another story idea, so I'm working on it.  Please be a short story and not a novel, please oh please ... it's only got one pov character in it and one main problem!

I haven't been writing in my livejournal.  Bad me, I know.  I'll get back on that soon.  

That's all for today.  Oh, and yes, we'll take pictures in Ireland.  We're down to single digit number of weeks.  Yeeeee!

Threes

My mom always says that things come in threes.  Gawd I hope so.  I don't want to take a fourth hit right now.  Three is more than enough.

I can't go into too many details, because they're not mine to give, but I will say that we lost one more goat (Skunk!) and now we know why.  So far the other goats are okay, but we may lose them all.  The really good news is that they're now eating well--extremely well, which tells me that the situation is probably through their systems and they're making up for lost ground.  I think we're out of the woods.  But I'm reeling.  Skunk put me through a virtual veterinary school.  Through her I learned how to deal with neck wounds from a cougar, how to give penicillin shots, how to deal with hypoproteination, worm overload, false pregnancy and hoof wall rot.  We made it through together, and she stuck by me through my ignorance and incompetence.  And now she's gone.  We've lost animals for all kinds of reasons around here.  Some of it was intentional (butchering,) some through accident, illness ... but it never gets any easier.  We'll lose more, because we'll always have animals.  But for the first time in a while, I want a vacation from the responsibility.  I look at Dakota and think man, she's old and having trouble getting around.  Will I lose her soon?  I look at Lucky and try not to think about the fact that his epilepsy seems to be getting worse--longer seizures, closer together.  We knew this would be the progression that might eventually lead to medication.  It just seems like a lot to bear.

Then there's the joy and stress of Ireland.  We've run across a major hitch.  We'll meet in Ireland for sure, and see all kinds of neat and fun places, and it'll be good, but we have to make a decision that's not mine, but the boy's to make.  I hurt every time I think about the situation.  I feel so helpless.  How do you compromise or make adjustments when it's all or nothing either way?

The DH and I argued.  We sorted that out, but believe it or not, this all came to a head on the same day.  Goats, Ireland, argument.  

When the DH and I argue, we either play argue (we did this for entertainment for a long time and used the excuse that it's probably not healthy to have no arguments in a relationship) or we argue about something that isn't easy to resolve.  If it was easy to resolve, there'd be no argument.  So although things are sorted out, the core of the argument remains, and it eats at me.  

I've been moving along, letting the fallout from Seattle's failed Worldcon bid distract me, pampering the kids with restaurant meals and trips to the bookstore, home cooked spaghetti and bakery desserts.  We bond over re-viewing Veronica Mars episodes and the little victories that come from seeing the goats sunning themselves, alive and well, near the barn when we wake up in the morning.  But The Three never went away the whole weekend, even for a second.  These things are haunting us, and bring strange, unsettling dreams and strain to our smiles.  

The boy and I are starting to get the sniffles.  Stress=reduced immune system.  Hopefully we'll sleep good tonight, eased by good conversations with my DH, goats who seem happy and healthy and recovering, and the luxury of time in which to deal with what we need to do.  We need to rest up.  It's going to be a long week.

Fly Away

I purchased our roundtrip tickets to Ireland today!!  I'm all bouncy now.  Choosing seats on the plane,  the agent printing out our itinerary, finding out about carry-on restrictions (1 40 pound bag that can fit into overhead, separate laptop bag is fine) and all that made our trip feel much more real.  We paid a very pretty penny for it, but it's still relatively inexpensive compared to the rest of Europe.  Tomorrow I'll go back with a list of the hotels we want to stay at as well as setting up the arrangements for the bed and breakfast stuff.  The hotels we can either book normally online or through the agency, but the bed and breakfast thing is technically a 'request' through a third party that negotiates with folks in Ireland.  They can say no, but they'll offer an alternative that costs about the same--they don't turn people away from doing touristy stuff.  It's a new thing for me, so I'm a little nervous, but nervous in a good way.  I'm very curious about how it'll be to stay at those places and how easy it'll be to find them.

Every place we're staying offers a complementary breakfast.  The rest of the meals we're on our own.  

I am really looking forward to this on so many levels that it's hard to resist making a long row of exclamation points.

Oh, what the heck.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even though it's way early, I'll be making sure our passports are all in order and I'll start making lists of what we'll bring.  This is one trip that we won't be bringing any extraneous bs.  Everything will be compact, practical and durable.  There are tons of suggested packing lists online and I plan to go over them closely.  The emphasis lately has been bare necessities and packing light.  Lots more people are traveling with only carry-on.  I don't know if we'll pull that off but we'll definitely try.  If we can't quite manage to travel that light, I'll aim for one checked bag between the three of us.  I hear that everything there will be smaller than we're used to, including the cars, so I want to make sure that we don't have to sit on our luggage when we tour around.

Yay Ireland!  

Sightseeing

Attempts began to salvage a recent wreck near Tofino, Vancouver Island B.C.

View from our deck of a Christmas parade of ships in Victoria, Vancouver Island, B.C.

Magical

Indoor and outdoor lights combine at a waterfront restaurant

The land of inlets

Beautiful territory up here.  Mostly forested, ferries taking shortcuts over water where bridges can't span, moist ocean air, seagulls, calm water, silver skies.  We visited with a favorite aunt last night.  Good food, conversation that spanned the usual (for us) gamut from the artistic to the animal.  We're just outside the region where the sun shines more often than not.  There's a hole in the rain, a weather pattern that shelters Sequim from constant drenching.  I wonder if it's seasonal or year-round.  Anyway, we're a few miles away, lit by a cloud-diffused sun. 

It's cold, colder than I'd guess from looking at the thermostat. It might be the damp, or that I haven't acclimated yet.  Anyway, it's coat and sweater weather.  So naturally we can't find swimsuits for sale anywhere.  The girl is growing too fast and not swimming often enough to keep her in swimsuits.  It's like needing shoes for a child that runs around barefoot everywhere.  When you go someplace where shoes are absolutely required you wonder if you're a bad parent for not just having them available on general principles.  I think her most recent swimsuit is two sizes too small.

I'm a little on the pooped side.  Although we have places to stay every night, we're technically still traveling.  I don't unpack my clothes into the dressers.  When we get up in the morning we're watching the clock for the checkout time.  This morning my DH did laundry.  Clothes are tumbling in the drier.  They'll be done in time, but still, I'm checking the clock.  It doesn't detract from having fun, but it isn't relaxing.

Time to do my five Tibetans.

Hmm.  That sounded kinky.

Posting will continue to be sporadic until about the 10th of December.  I hope everyone's having a good first part of December!

(41474, still) Last minute stuff

I'm still prepping for the homecoming and for OryCon.  Note to self: try not to overlap two major events, an art deadline and a writing deadline again.  Evah.  (I know, I know, I'm dreaming--this kind of stuff always overlaps.)

This blog will very likely be dark or at least very shady until Nov. 24, 2008 due to OryCon, and sporadic thereafter through early December due to various trips around the Pacific NW.  Posts will pick back up to their usual almost-daily schedule starting on or near Wednesday December 10, 2008.  

I hope to see many of you at OryCon 30!

Dreaming of the Caribbean

We've been contemplating the possibility of cruising in the Caribbean.  Not sure we'll be able to pull it off, but one of the possibilities could connect us with The Brig Unicorn.  You know me and tall ships and cannons.  

The trick is figuring out who will take care of the animals while we're gone.  The cruises I've been looking at are 7-10 days.  That's a long, long time to be away, especially since we'll probably spend two additional days flying.  If all we has was cats I wouldn't think much of it. We could ask someone to just fill up their bowls and maybe clean out the catboxes once.  We'd probably come home to kitty protest puke and unrolled toilet paper everywhere, but hey, they'd forgive us eventually.  The dogs and goats and bunnies ... whole 'nother matter.

We may also take the train to Seattle and from there the ferry to downtown Victoria, stay there for about a week or so.  Far, far less expensive, but unfortunately the time away from home is the same.

I love our dysfunctional farm, but it would be nice to be able to clean the place up, ask someone to pick up our mail and feed the cats, and go without worrying.  Instead there's a good hour or more of work out here between feeding/watering animals if for no other reason that there's a lot of walking around that has to happen plus the dogs will need some attention in the form of catch or just sitting with them and snuggling.  Fortunately the time periods we're looking at won't require hours of garden watering.  It'll be raining and cool in the Pac NW (which would be a downside to going to Victoria except that we don't do that much that's strictly outdoors there.)

In the Caribbean it'll be warm.  Mmm, I close my eyes and remember the tropical skies ... and open them to our local periwinkly-blue and grin, because we live in one of the more beautiful places in the world, and right now it's warm and gorgeous and homey and most of my favorite things are right here.

Back from Radcon

I'm alive, I'm home.  Radcon was a fabulous success.  I sold "What is a Garden" and connected with lots of writers, artists, a couple of editors, small press folks, etc.  Some of the fun with conventions is that you can get a chance to talk to people you know but never have time to connect with, like David Levine, Jim Fiscus, Sara Mueller, Renee Stern and Jay Lake, and meeting for the first time with writers and artists that you feel like you've known all your life.  

I'll link-y dink to them later but right now I have ten thousand emails trying to storm across the border.  Well, that might be a slight exaggeration.  I realized that I had to say that only because some people really do get that kind of volume.  That could have been a Radcon panel.  When hyperbole isn't.

I also took some photos and I'll share the ones which I think I can get away with posting without being threatened with something unpleasant.  

Thanks to Radcon Bob and all the folks who made my stay at Radcon so wonderful.  You guys are the best.  Special applause goes to our housekeeper Debbie, who always had a smile and a warm greeting for us and kept our room positively immaculate and stylish, and Monica the extremely patient and witty server at the restaurant.  They worked you hard and long hours and I suspect you didn't get tipped nearly enough.  You put up with dumb kids who drank too much, surly, tired people who snapped at you, people who tipped too little or not at all, and a workload that would make Hercules weep.  I had a great time, and much of that is in thanks to you.  I'm going to go fall down now.  Next time, the promised pics, and the Barbie Lady Strikes Back.  

Turning Forty

The boy and his dad and his dad's best friend went camping this weekend. I'd planned on cleaning up the house and getting some projects done plus painting and writing. That didn't work out for various reasons--dogs running off, a visitor from out-of-town, much needed mom/daughter time (we were bad and shopped)--but it was still a good weekend.

With a milestone birthday coming up I've been feeling weird. Not mortal weird--that happens all the time and I'm used to that. Not crisis weird either. If I had a word for it I'd name it but I don't so I'll just make one up. I feel dooblesh. Dooblesh involves sensations of wasted time or time going by too quickly interspersed with a craving simultaneously for healthy food and chocolate. Dooblesh has me yearning to write but, despite having time to do so, I end up on the couch with my daughter watching I, Robot. Later I watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while munching on squash, chocolate, chicken strips and drinking a glass of wine. I get a bag of popcorn but I end up not popping it. I wash one pot and give up on the rest of the dishes immediately. I stop by my barely-begun self-portrait--watercolor on yupo, of course--and pick up a brush, but then put it back.

It might be turning forty, or it might be autumn. Autumn is the wandering. I got a good whiff of actual crisp morning. It's on the edge of uncomfortable to sleep with the windows open, though it's better now that I've added a second comforter to the bed. I'm wearing sweaters. I'm both restless and aimless, something that happens pretty infrequently. I'm usually simply one or the other. Restless Kami does chores, or paints, or gardens. Aimless Kami does sudoku or writes or gardens.

Hmm. I'm seeing why I garden a lot.

It's a good time to go on vacation, but I'm woefully unprepared. Programming Hell happens this coming weekend and I'll be in Canada for it, something I dread. I'll have to put together instructions for the convention's programming staff, CC everyone and hope that the critique sessions, manuscript crit and submit panels, hands-on mini-seminars and the open read-and-critique sessions all end up where they need to be with the people who want to be involved with them. On the 26th, I'll consider it out of my hands. We won't be gone yet, but I'll be too busy prepping to spend any time dealing with convention stuff. My focus will shift to the family, and sleeping in, and wandering.
Oh yes, this is good timing, unintentionally so but the chance to drive away from it all when the wind and the chill and reddening of leaves all play a traveling tune is magic. My feet can skip to the music and the landscape can move all around me, taking me everwhere, which is sort of like everywhere but quieter and less fussy. My family and I will adopt gypsy hearts, or maybe we'll become something even less tame and more playful, otters with wings or things with starlight shining in our eyes.

Rory's encouraging me to bring along paper and paint and brushes. That's going to be a big bag, but I think he knows that. Good good. They can plant me in a park or a garden somewhere and go play while I drip and stroke and splatter and flood colors onto paper. I like the idea of them having fun together someplace as much as I like the idea of being alone for a while among strangers in a strange place. Maybe someone will come up and talk to me, or maybe they'll avoid me, not wanting to disturb a work in progress even if it's weird art that doesn't suit their tastes. Meanwhile the fam will be mom-free. Everyone needs a break from the mom now and then, just like the mom enjoys an occasional break from them. I wonder if it's possible to be non-mom-like around them, and for them to be non-husband and non-child-like around me. I think it might be too intense, or a difficult or silly game that leads to secret names, asking questions and spying, or something unexpected and silver-bright.

It's late, and I'm not forty yet. The morning alarm is set, the dogs are home, clothes are tumbling in the dryer. It's quiet and I'm the only one awake. I'm definitely doobleshing. I thought that the restlessness was wearing off, but it's not. I really want to get up and try painting again. I thought maybe the aimlessness had gone, but I have a feeling that I won't actually paint. I'll look at the painting, and pick up a brush, and then think better of it and move on. I don't mind so much. I don't mind feeling dooblesh. Windy impulses will carry me along until I get blown up against the bed (out of the gutter, you!) and then I'll sleep, one dream closer to forty.

Will it Rain?

Sometimes it takes me forever to get around to doing something new. If I've done it before, I tend to just heave a sigh, commit and go. If not, I go pathetically slow.

Today it was finally 'drip system' day. It's actually comprised of low volume sprinklers, not a true drip, but it was ideal for the rock garden, which is just under the maximum 600 square feet that the system can handle. After edging the grass side of the rock garden (a good delay tactic) and some weeding (yet another excellent stalling technique) I finally got out the 1/2" main line and strung it through the garden's backbone, the highest point on the slope. Then I read the instructions again. If you read the instructions often enough, it's possible to stall out on the work progress until dark. But it wasn't dark by the time I stopped reading. The fact that I started reading just after lunch time and that the instruction book is only 50 pages long and comprises mostly of illustrations and that many of the pages were not relevent to my situation probably has something to do with it. I set out my stakes and screwed in the little sprinkler heads, pointing them in roughly the direction I expected they'd need to point. and then I got the 1/4" feeder lines. At this point I almost read the instructions again, but severe boredom with the booklet was setting in. I got the punch thingy and started at the lowest end--since I left myself slack, if I made a mistake, I could just cut off the end and try again. But the punchy thingy turned out to be super easy to use. In about twenty minutes I had all the feeder lines in, the sprinklers hooked up, and bam. I flushed the system and then turned it on.

And it worked!

Now I want to set up the other dry places where I have to hand water. There's a couple that I couldn't justify a system because they're so small--I'll pick up a soaker hose for them. But the rest I'll get a drip system set up for them. Now, I could save a heap of money and just keep hand watering. I've got the hand watering areas down to a minimum. There's just one catch.

When we go to Victoria at the end of September, will it rain? If it doesn't the whole time we're gone, the garden will have to be watered. If it's hot, it'll have to be watered several times. Whoever ends up playing caretaker for the house needs to have a simple way to take care of the watering without memorizing where the important plants are among all the weeds. Once upon a time when a good friend played house sitter for us, we went for a walk around the place (it was all hand water back then) and he took notes and I was sure all the important bits would get done. There wasn't nearly as much developed and most of what was developed was in discreet, clear sections. Now some of those areas are overgrown or in partial use, like the veggie garden where some of the areas are fallow and others are in use and you can't always tell one apart from the other. And there are plants on slopes that need to be watered slowly or the runoff will strip away the topsoil, exposing their roots. I can't expect someone to stand there with the waterer in flat or mist mode, watching the water very slowly soak in.

The answer is to get as much of this stuff on water systems where the settings are correct for the plants' needs, and then our caretaker can just go from section to section, plug in the hose, water for a few minutes (or a half hour in the case of the soaker hoses) and then move on.

Or maybe it'll just rain and it won't be an issue. Then it'll just be a matter of feed the animals and go back home. Or go back to watching movies, if we have a house sitter, which would be the ideal. The place is more self-sufficient than it used to be, so a house sitter isn't an absolute necessity like it once was, but I'd sleep easier knowing that someone is there to quiet the dogs if they're barking at night or they'll hear a goat bawling if one gets stuck, etc.

Most of all, though, I hope it rains. At least a little. Because even when it's all set to go, it'll be a long chore. Mother Nature does a much more thorough job than the sprinklers and soaker hoses, too.