Help me, I'm melting...

Beastly hot, it’s been for the past few days. Bleah and urgh and yech and all that sort of thing.

I did work on the short story on Wednesday. Thursday I got next to nothing done. I went through the Black Oak Lodge file box and cleaned out a bunch of extraneous useless paperwork (still to do: shredding of registration forms from too many past years), yet failed to find the budget forms for the past two events, which would be terribly helpful in putting together the current budget. And there was poking at the story, too.

Said short story is set in an indeterminate time in the Wild West, when women still wore corsets and men ruled things (at least, as far as they knew). I’m deliberately avoiding specific details, because if I sell the story I won’t get paid enough to warrant hours of research. What’s fun about the story is the voice: I really like this character and I want to do her justice. Still, I’m kind of embarrassed that the story isn’t finished yet, because it’s been taking far too long. (And yet it’ll still be turned in well before the deadline…)

Yesterday Morgana came over and helped me decortate the house, which was as usual an adventure because I always buy stuff on sale after the last holiday, so I’m always surprised by what I pull out of the storage bins. Ken had to put up with us asking him to do X, then tracking him down and asking him to do Y, not realizing he was still working on X. To make matters worse, he’s come down with an energy-sucking cold (which I’ve so far escaped, but I suspect it’s a matter of time. I was actually envious last night that he got to chug Nyquil.).

We also did a massive shopping for the party last night, and I’ll have a few things to pick up at Trader Joe’s today, along with ice and anything else we’ve forgotten. I made my killer coleslaw last night (it’s better the next day) and am gearing up for sausage (turkey sausage, natch) cheese balls and pasta salad. It’s weird catering to friends who are vegetarian and/or have other food requirements. When did that happen? Anyway, the party is potluck, but we want to make sure there’s enough “safe” food for those who need it.

Before shopping, I took Ken out to dinner at Roxsbury Deli so he could partake of their cold-healing matzo ball chicken soup, and in fact that’s all he ate. (Well, later at home he constructed a peanut butter and banana sandwich, but I choose to pretend such a thing never occurred. Ick!)

Anyway, the party’s tonight and I have a million little things to do (since Ken’s sick, I’m taking on more prep duties than usual), so I must dash! ::whooshes off::

My woods

I'd like to clone myself, please

Accomplished so far today:

• suitcase, computer bag unpacked.
  
• new cleaning lady met, house now very clean and fresh-smelling. (Although she was supposed to come tomorrow, and called two days ago to switch, so we had to get up early this morning and didn’t even have her clean the rooms that look like suitcases exploded in them.)
  
• chiro appt. It was 94-effing-degrees in bluster of moisture-sucking Santa Anas. I left NY why?
  
• basic necessities grocery shopping (dinner for the next two days, at least).
  
• water jugs filled.
  

Not yet accomplished today:

• cleaning off desk of piles of stuff unpacked from various bags.
  
• commencement of Halloween decortating.
  
• library book pick-up (I hope it’s still there tomorrow, since the message was left early in our trip. I don’t even know what book was still on hold, even. I have two to read already, one that’s due back in 5 days.)
  
• laundry. And lots of it, too.
  
• writing.
  

But right now, I’m all about a snack and a cup of tea. And as few clothes as possible.

Homeward bound

Hellfire and damnation! Something’s wrong with Afalwen’s sound output—it doesn’t recognize any output device, be it the internal speakers or the headphones. So we’re on a 4-hour flight from ORD to LAX, and we can’t watch a DVD. ::scowl:: (Ken forgot his computer charging cord, so his laptop is uncharged.)

I should be writing, but I’m tired and I don’t wanna. I’ll stamp my feet for a while and read some more, and then go back to being an adult and work on the short story I’d really like to finish by tomorrow. I got so busy with scanning photos and running back and forth that I didn’t get it done, nor get any work on Ghosted done, which means I really have to get my cute butt in gear to get caught up this week!

Along with decorating the house and hosting the Halloween party on Saturday. Eeeeeeee…

[Update: Got quite a bit done on the short story—go me!]

Lemon...crud?

Got up early again today to help set up for the Plattsburgh Library’s book sale, bribed by the perk of being able to snatch up any particularly spiffy looking ones for myself. I didn’t find anything of great excitement, but wandered off with books on mythology (a general one on world mythologies and a little one on Vietnamese myths), a book on Elizabethan music from the 1950s, a funny book on Welsh language (I flipped it open to a little cartoon of a man in a train station saying “You’re late” [in Welsh and English], and the response [at least, the English one] was “Hell no we’re not!” I want to learn to say “Hell no!” in Welsh, because the concept amuses me greatly), and a book on organization and finishing projects. Because I helped with setup, I could’ve had them for free, but I donated a dollar to the cause.

This afternoon we all headed back to the mountains, this time to Lake Placid so Ken could talk to the tourist folks about the possibility of a CCR in the area. They’re very excited to have us, and we have lots of info to pass on to the actual site committee (of which we are not a part).

Then we took my parents out to dinner at Great Adirondack Steak and Seafood, where Ken had homemade root beer (they have a small brewery on site) and my dad had one of their ales, and I had half a lobster topped with shrimp scampi that almost made me pass out with delight. Unfortunately, the menu description failed to mention that the entire thing would be covered with mushrooms, and to my horror and dismay, when the waitress set the plate in front of me, I almost started to cry. Seriously, tears welled up and I felt almost panicky because I didn’t want to send the whole thing back and wait for a new one. So I ordered a second glass of wine and picked off all the little mushroom bits and gave them to Ken and my mom, and the food was out of this world, because you can’t go wrong with garlic butter, even if there’s the chance of mushroom taint.  ::shudder::

Oh, and the wine menu described one of the white wines as having, among other things, “lemon crud.” I took a picture to send to Jay Leno. :-)

Wait, I said what?!

Something strange happens to me when I come home: I open my mouth and strange things come out, things I would never say. Like, “So, Mom, are you going garage sale-ing on Saturday?” And the next thing I know, I’m dragging myself out of bed at an ungodly hour so we can be lurking outside the first garage when the sale starts. I don’t even like garage sales! But I’m here to hang out with my parents, so…

I came away with a book for my mom, a book for me (a Meg Cabot, as I’ve only read The Princess Diaries and wanted to try one of her adult books, too), and two books for the local library sale, which I’ll be helping set up tomorrow (Mom’s on the committee).

After lunch, we headed up to our family cabin in the Adirondacks. My grandparents bought the land early in their marriage, and although their farmhouse is no longer there, my dad built a log cabin just before the ’80 Olympics. I was 13 at the time, so the cabin is like a second home for me (even more so now that my parents no longer live in the house I grew up in!). My dad was already up in the area, but at hunting camp with his hunting buddies. He came out of the woods for supper with us.

The fridge had been closed at some point while turned off and had been infested with mildew, so I spent part of the afternoon taking everything out and scrubbing the hell out of it. The living room also needed a good vacuuming and tidying, so…

After supper my mother plied me with wine again and proceeded, for the second night in a row, to beat me at Trivial Pursuit, despite her insistence that she was bad at both version (they have the 80s one at the house, and some weird British edition at the cabin. You’d think I’d be okay at the British edition, but I know nothing about snooker, footie, or obscure English politics. My mom, on the other hand, made up answers and got them right.)

Today I took a walk down to the brook that borders the northern part of our property, and lay on a rock in the middle of the water and listened to the brook and the wind in the trees and didn’t think about anything at all. There are few places where I’m able to shut off my brain like that… I really didn’t want to leave.

I’d also like to know how I’ve been able to forget what autumn leaves smell like.

When we got home, I got back to scanning and indexing family photos, breaking 700. (Lest you think I have some inhuman powers of scanning, note that I’d previously hit about 580, so these are on top of those.)

~ ~ ~

If I can make my mother laugh so hard she cries, I consider it a good day. It’s been a good few days.

~ ~ ~

Today’s Halloween Sock Watch: purple with witches and brooms and black cats and bats.