The car broke down! On the freeway! In Redding! I limped to the shoulder and parked safely, whereupon ensued an hour-long wait for a tow truck…in 106 degree heat…bleah! We’re now waiting for a cab, to go to dinner. Waiting in a nice air-conditioned motel room, ah. I’m beginning to have reservations about this car….

Another lovely day in paradise today, although this photo is from a day or two ago, as I finally managed to get a few photos off my phone and send them to my computer: We are doing a visiting marathon. One of the visits today included an adorable clutch of chickens. The chickens were very

SCENE: Late night walk on beach Group: Off we go to walk on the beach! Little Dog: (lags behind) Group: Come on, Little Dog! Little Dog: (lags further behind) Me: Oh no, no no, I know where THIS is going. Little Dog: (lags still further behind) Me: (carries Little Dog for entire walk on beach)

Scene: INTREPID WRITERS have rejoined DAD and STEPMOM* for another vacation opportunity. This time on the Northern California coast. 5:00 a.m., everyone sleeping World: RUMBLE RUMBLE BANG SHAKE CRACK Me: Mumble grff WTF was that?? Mark: An earthquake! Me: Hrm grumble really??! Mark: I’d guess it was 4-point-something, and really near here! Both of us:

I had the most ridiculously pleasant experience flying to the Bay Area yesterday, I can’t even tell you. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe me. Nearly empty plane, landed early, no turbulence, etc etc. Ridiculous. Met up with Mark (yay!); we had a delicious lunch at La Note, and then caught a matinee of Brave, which was

Busy day today, packing to leave for California for a few days. Plus I went to the doctor for this eye-thing, which of course very nearly vanished because I had a doctor’s appointment, but I still went in and he looked at it carefully and gave me some eye drops, plus cortisone cream for the

Gah! No more writing to word count! All I am doing now is cutting, cutting, cutting. At least there’s a good story under there. But it’s buried WAY deep. I got through another chapter today. Slow going: I worked all afternoon and evening on it. But it is now 14 pages long when it was

I basically spent all day working on Hogboblin today, unwriting…editing, that is, which at this point amounts to the same thing. I got through a whole chapter, plus I deleted the chapter that was from the POV I’m not using any more. (I read it, and decided it didn’t have anything the book really needed…so,

After a good deal more writing-avoiding behavior (my desk is so clean! All the piles are cleared off the dining table! And so much laundry done!), I got back into Hobgoblin today. And it went fine! I hadn’t looked at it since January. I’d reread it at that point, from a printout, which I have

I went hunting for a sturdy bookcase today, to use as a junk-and-garden-stuff collecting place by the back door. After being only temporarily distracted by wonderful cheap silver at Goodwill, and a new Salt and Straw foodcart on Division (evil!), I found the perfect thing. Before: After: Somehow, mess looks so much better when it’s