Interstices & Liminal Spaces

Yesterday, I saw four deer, a beaver splash (missed seeing the beaver), a beaver dam, a grey egret, a dozen ducks, and almost as many geese. We were looking for the otter, but hey, no complaints. And all of them were across the street from my husband's office.... Excuse me. The deer were roaming the hills around the airport.

(Also a bumper crop for dead animals, I'm afraid: skunks, a coyote (!), a possum, and something that wasn't a ferret but was closely related. Do we *have* stoats in the US?)

Interesting day, though, definitely. I'd never seen a beaver dam before. That was just neat.

What a lovely weekend! Warm enough to air out the house and go hiking -- plenty of deer to be seen, and a muskrat far off yesterday and much closer today. We went to an astronomy talk Friday night on the large moons in the solar system, then got to see the Orion Nebula and Saturn and Titan through telescopes. Saturday, we went hiking on both easy and moderate paths (strenuous will have to wait for a weekend when my ankle isn't throbbing); today we went on the easy paths. Cute dogs everywhere, and birds, and more turtles sunning in the surprising warmth than I'd have expected. It was really nice.

Then alysswolf IM'd me to tell me that Animal Planet was running the 'Puppy Bowl,' which has been hilarious. Puppies in a mock-stadium, playing with toys (lots of small footballs), and pawing at the glass waterbowl (with the camera under it!) and barking, and being rotated in and out as they get tired. Great fun if you get a chance to watch!

Now I'm off to write in between waiting for commercial on the Super Bowl. (Watch the game? Nah.)

We found the river otter again! We found his lair and got to watch him swimming around. WHEE!

Wow! Like lunatics, we went hiking today deliberately because it was supposed to snow. Oh, it snowed all right! Lots of tiny flakes, then bigger ones, then clear skies, then grey clouds and more snow.... The lake trail we usually take was downright frigid with the wind blowing across the lake hard enough to cause whitecaps. Ducks were bobbing in the center of this green-grey expanse of waves, and the snow blew straight across at us, barely dropping altitude at all. What few dogs we saw were having a blast in the cold weather, and we got to see bluebirds, and red-headed woodpeckers, and robins who were annoyed that we kept 'following' them (they were on the path ahead of us), and sparrows.... I nearly froze (thanks for the scarf, tarshaan!!), but it was great fun.

Off to wrap presents. Well. Maybe I'll make dinner first. In general, though? Wow! Snow before Christmas.

Tuesday? Sucked. Majorly. We're talking "dead rats through a straw, and not particularly well." (To quote Emma Bull's War For The Oaks which I cannot recommend highly enough.)

Today? WHEE! I saw a river otter this morning! Got to watch it play in the water and look for breakfast for ten minutes before it decided not to trust this human on the bank. Plus, another 2000 words on Yuletide, plus edits. I need to read a few things to fill in a couple blanks, and there's a two line exchange of dialogue that needs to be added, but basically, I can send it to the betas tonight.

unmisha? I can't explain why in a public post, but if you can spare time to look at this one, I could *really* use your eye for stories in particular. If you see this and can spare time to look at an 11 page fic, will you let me know? ranalore, wenchita, are you two still up to look at this for me, or am I editing primarily in hardcopy?

Okay, off to get lunch, then read up on the details I need to add/fix. Almost done, almost done, almost done, WHEE!

Oh, and last, a public service announcement, also known as, 'So that others may benefit from my screw up....' When ordering from Amazon or other internet dealer, I strongly recommend separate orders for separate groups. Even if you think you're going to have them all come to you for dispersal. Even if you think you have plenty of time in hand before they're due. Do them separately, so that you can modify *only* what you want if it turns out they need to go directly to recipient, or need a change in shipping status, or, well, anything. ::sigh:: I have nieces in TN and LA; I have nephews in MS and NC. All four sets of presents are now going to LA. I am *so* going to owe my sister-in-law for helping me fix this....

Well, as opposed to being temporarily perched here. Hmm. I think that makes sense.

How do I know? The streets look right. And the sky, and the contrails overhead, and the trees, and the birds (spotted woodpecker today, who had to think about whether it was worth pecking into the birdfeeder...), and it's finally feeling like I might, kinda maybe, live here. I could get to like that.

And, oddly enough -- or maybe fittingly, given that subject line -- we're going to the opera next Tuesday. "The Human Voice" (actually in French) and "The Lighthouse" (in English). Both with projected subtitles, I'm told. This should be interesting. Now I have to find out where TPAC is, and make sure I take my driver's license and credit card for the 'Will Call' tickets, but I'm looking forward to it.

Last, probably least, and mostly for the record -- Ticketmaster *sucks* dead rats through a straw and not very well. But screw 'em. I'm going and I'm going to be with Dragon so it'll be fun regardless.

Meanwhile, I've been reading and making notes on source material for my Yuletide fic most of the day, so I think I'm going to go back to work on the novel. Night, all.

I'm back. I got writing done, I got a cooking lesson, I walked a lot, and straightened out some plot problems on the pro novel... taken all in all, it was very productive.

The Eyrie has moved to http:rhi.moonlit-eyrie.com/ I'm going to put redirect pages on the old site and tell Jai that she can change the passwords. I have the Darius fic from the last lyric wheel on a webpage and ready to be posted, and I'm slowly cleaning up bad links and snafu'd links and the two typos kind souls have told me about in Shades.

I got lovely lyrics from tarsh for the HL Lyric Wheel. Must look them over and then write. eponin10, killabeez, I don't need a beta, but I may need to email one or both of you some questions, I think. Also need to start on the Halloween fic. Hmm. I'd better set word counts per day for pro- and fan-fic and tape them onto my monitor....

Went hiking by a lake today and saw half a dozen turtles, an egret, a dozen-plus sweet-tempered dogs, and half a dozen deer. And tomorrow, I go back on my diet. Bleah. Unfortunately, my doctor fussed about my blood work. It's not bad, but it's higher than he likes on a couple things. I didn't exactly get the healthiest breakfast in the world that morning before they got the blood sample, but I needed an incentive to get back to working out and eating right. Might as well use this one, right? It's getting started again that's always hard for me. Staying on it after the first week or two is easy. Good thing I like my tea and coffee sans sugar, though. Caffeine, you must save me. Oh, well. At least my heart rate and blood pressure were doing much better from the last time he saw me. I'll manage this, too.

Ole Miss even won their homecoming game yesterday.

All told though, yeah, a good week. And now to shower, and back to work!

(PS -- ranalore, remind me later and I'll post a couple questions I've got for some of the other writers on writing and meta. But right now, I need that shower and word count worse, sorry.)

That was a proper way to spend a morning: walking around a lake, pointing out turtles and egrets and squirrels and chipmunks to each other. Petting dogs and saying good morning to people and enjoying a perfect fall day.

What a lovely weekend. Off to get a shower, now, though. Be glad you're on the other end of the internet from me. ;->

I drive through the airport every day taking Dragon back and forth to work. (One car family.) Along the drive, there's a patch of hillside, overgrown with grass and wildflowers. Just the occasional bright splash of color in waist-high dun and green grass. More dun than green, despite the rain; it's been warm here.

Today, they mowed it.

Whoever came through with the bushhog left the larger clumps of wildflowers intact. Riots of tigerlilies here, some pink and purple and white wildflowers there. Quite deliberately. So, now my trip has more bright clusters of color (some of which I hadn't known were - they're shorter than the grass had grown) among the close-shorn dun and green grass.

Sometimes, people are just too neat for words.

I took the trash out last night, and it was a *gorgeous* night. 73 or so, enough humidity to leave dew on the grass already, and the moon showing over the apartment building. So, on my way back to my apartment, I walked straight through to the far side of the building and out onto the grass on the other side to go stare at the moon some more. What can I say, it's darker over there, and there's no lingering odor of garbage.

I walked out onto the grass, and caught a flick of motion off to my left, but I thought it was just one of the local stray cats. Being a cat person, I went to investigate and hopefully say hello, maybe scritch some ears while I admired the moon. Er, no.

About, oh, five feet away, I realized that no, the tail moving through the remains of a garden was *not* feline. Neither was that particular rodent waddle. About that point, my backbrain did its job and took over and I left, not moving quickly, but sure as hell not stopping, and staying quiet about the whole thing.

Because, you know? I'm not about to spook a skunk from three paces away. Especially not when the tail's already pointed at me!

::shaking head:: Gimme Pepe LePew anytime. Much cuter. I will say, I didn't realize skunks had that raccoon 'waddle' of motion, though. Kinda neat to know, but... eep. And me with no tomato juice in the house.

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ETA: Speaking of a skunk in the garden, my mother just called me to tell me she's sending a newspaper clipping about a class-action lawsuit which will affect me. A notice was posted to anyone who might be affected by a proposed change in retirement payouts from my former employer. So, I'm going to write for information on the lawsuit. Hoo boy. Skunks, all right....