Oh, is THAT what it is!

On my way home from the LARA meeting and book signing on Sunday, I was thinking about various projects, just letting them run around in my head. I’d like to have Ghosted ready for the Novel Workshop in February (provided I can swing the cost…eep), so it’s next on my plate in terms of big projects. I’m still unsure/unclear about some areas, so what I have to do (among other things) is lay all the scenes out on the table and let my subconscious figure out what goes where. So there I was I driving (singing loudly along with Rick Springfield’s Venus in Overdrive), and loosely pondering all this along with the concerns and fears that I wasn’t figuring it all out and I didn’t know what the hell a particular plot point had to do with anything when suddenly I realized it wasn’t just a clue, it was a parallel mystery/subplot that the protagonist had to solve in order to solve her bigger problem as well as her emotional arc.

Holy crap, dudes. My subconscious has been waiting a damn long time for me to figure that out.

So that was pretty nifty.

Then I got home and I was pondering the short story I need to write next. Fantasy, nostalgia about anywhere from the 1920s to the 1980s. I’d like to keep it to about 1K, so a new story in my WWII/Thirteen Treasures of Britain universe would take too much set up. We’ve been watching Penelope Spheeris’s Decline of Western Civilization II… Another “Duh!” moment. Early 80s, hair metal, the Sunset Strip, a groupie who saves her band from selling their souls to the Devil…

Just finished writing it. :-)

Now, on to brainstorming the next couple stories, so I can get them off my plate and get back to work on Ghosted!

Blurry, but it's all I've got!

From today's reading: Eden Bradley and Andrea Dale!

More reviews to blow my little mind.

I am…stunned at the latest crop of reviews that are coming in. (Thank you, Google Alerts!)

Here's another for "Devouring Heart" in The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica:

"'Devouring Heart' is the only lesbian tale in the book and Andrea Dale presents a heartbreaking tale of love and how far a lover will go to keep a partner. There is a good use of metaphor between the title and the relationship and this is one of the few tales that ends sadly, yet I have a tender place for this as one of my favorites for evoking that aching sense of love and love lost."

And this about "If the Shoe Fits..." in The Trouble With Heroes:

"And Dayle A. Dermatis’s 'If the Shoe Fits' is a funny (and rather ingenious) semi-modern twist on Cinderella, in which we find out why that shoe was really so important to everyone."

Thank you, kind reviewers. You're making a bad week much, much better!

Best Lesbian Romance 2010

When We Almost Met • Evan Mora

Coming Out Party • Anna Meadows
The Only Girl I Want • Sommer Marsden
Five • Cheyenne Blue
The Outside Edge • Sacchi Green
You Are a Full Moon Without Clouds • Pamela Smiley
Firsts • Hannah Quinn
Soaked • Erin O’Riordan
I Never Thought of Love • Jacqueline Applebee
Girls and Their Cars • Renée Strider
Hard to Hate Her • Kris Adams
Queens Up • Andrea Dale
Reclamation • Nell Stark and Trinity Tam
The Letting Go • Shannon Dargue
The Last Dance • Dalia Craig
All In • Radclyffe

Interviewed

Here's an interview with me about "Now You See Her," my story in Peep Show: Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists. Enjoy!

Sometimes reviews can make me cry

"Singling out individual stories in this collection is hard because each of them is effective in its own way. However, one especially memorable story for me is the one lesbian story in this collection: “Devouring Heart” by Andrea Dale. In this heartbreaking tale, the good intentions of both vampire and mortal can’t make up for the communication gap between them. This relationship makes a valid-enough metaphor for real-life relationships in an incestuous lesbian community, and the story seems true to its literary roots."

The story is in The Sweetest Kiss: Ravishing Vampire Erotica.

The full review of the anthology can be found here. (At the same place is a review of Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica, which doesn't specifically mention my story but is nonetheless lovely and positive.)

Now, where can I find reviewer Jean Roberta so I can kiss her on the mouth?

The Trouble With Heroes

It's out! It's out! Squee!

Dear Journal, how badly I have forsaken you! I have been so seduced by the immediacy of Twitter, the faux friendliness of Facebook, by the ease at which I can update those things from my iPhone. You have languished here, neglected—but never truly unloved, dear Journal. I can never quit you.

For those of you who haven’t been following the 140-character soundbytes…

I can’t thank my sister enough for flying out to NY just after I left; if she hadn’t, I was either going to stay, or my mother was going to forcibly toss me onto my plane home, in which case I still would have come to Florida, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself. My sister being there to help out meant I could turn off my brain for a few days and, in the words of a wise musician, just be.

Styx concerts are, in fact, one of the few times when I really can shut off my brain and just be, just experience, just exist in the moment and the music. When they stop touring, I’ll be in the market for a good therapist…

Anyway. In the past five days, this is what I’ve been up to:

• Flew to Florida to spend time with the incredible Helen and her beau Dave.
• Finished my CES story and turned it in.
• Sold a story.
• Went to Styx/REO Speedwagon/Nightranger concert #1. (Actually, that’s reverse order of how the bands went on!) JY had two backstage passes for Helen and Dave, but since Styx’s tour manager knows us (and it wasn’t a busy night, I suppose), he let us tag along. Got to chat with JY, Lawrence, and Todd. All three said they hadn’t really planned to dress up for Halloween, but Helen and I did tell Lawrence that if we were going to, he had to, too.
• Sold another story.
• Went to concert #2 dressed as a Ren Faire wench with my boobs up under my chin. Received appreciative looks from pretty much every member of every band. Lawrence threw me his water bottle. Dave Amato of REO tossed a pick into my cleavage when I wasn’t looking. (Great shot, but it bounced off and I had to fish it out from under the woven metal floor of the barrier. Being a tool user, I chewed a piece of gum and pulled it out that way. Meanwhile, Helen was giving him a thumbs-up.) For her part, Helen threw on a Hawaiian print dress and lei, and at a party store I found her a flashing flamingo pin and flamingo deely boppers. The deely boppers were also a huge hit with the bands. Ken went the Jedi route.
• Made some edits on the CES story and sent it back.
• Started a new story.
• Realized I couldn’t bring the water bottle home intact and was forced to drink said water. Last time I did that, I got the worst cold of my life. Here’s hoping that won’t happen again. Plus I do have several other pristine bottles from Lawrence for cloning purposes.
• Laughed so hard with Helen we couldn’t breathe.
• Was reminded time and again how incredible (and patient, and adorable, and smart) my husband is.

Now, after a long day of travel (and still discombobulated from this damnable time change), I’m home safe and sleepy, so I’m going to get a little more work done, watch something silly on TV, and pass out early. I’ve got a busy week of writing (not to mention a hair appt, a Shire meeting, and Coronation/Queen’s Champion) ahead of me!

Peep Show trailer

Here's a trailer for the recently released Peep Show: Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists, which contains my story "Now You See Her" (a companion story to "Come to My Window," which is in Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica, although "Now You See Her" is het). Both stories are set in Montréal.

The video probably isn't safe for work unless you have a really understanding boss. Still, there's no direct nudity, and the excerpts aren't graphic. Enjoy!

Heading home

I fly home from upstate NY this evening, arriving after midnight in CA. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in at least a week and a half, so by the gods, I’m sleeping in tomorrow. (Just try and wake me!)

My father is better, although his cancer isn’t curable. He’s getting stronger every day—everyone's amazed at how much he's able to do already. (He had a partial hip replacement the day after I got here, because the day I flew out they finally figured out he had a broken hip. That he'd been walking on for possibly up to a week. Which says a lot about my dad's right there.) He's also never lost his sense of humor. I’ve been writing down all his funny quips. More than once my mom and I laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe.

I can’t thank everyone individually, so I’ll have to do what little I can here:

Thank you. Thank you all for the notes and texts and voice messages, and for the thoughts and candles and prayers and energy. I felt them, and they helped more than you can imagine. I have the most amazing friends in the world!

I’m not going to discuss specifics/details here, but if anyone would like more info about what’s been going on, I’ll send a private e-mail.

(I would also like to credit the ZooBorns and Daily Kitten blogs for giving me warm fuzzy breaks the few times I’ve been able to snag some Internet access.)

Otherwise, it’s moving forward with researching hospitals and possibly clinical trials (if anyone has specific knowledge or info about osteosarcoma, please let me know). One of my sisters is flying here on Wednesday, and my other sister is exploring when it’s best for her to visit.

Meanwhile…

I got the first part of my latest CES assignment done here, and the customer was very happy with it. I’m a bit behind on my personal schedule for finishing the main story, but here’s hoping the person in front of me on tonight’s flight doesn’t put the seat back and I can hammer out a couple thousand words. It’s not due ‘til the end of the month, but we’re flying to Florida on Thursday, and I’d like to have it off my plate by then.

I’m feeling strangely energized about work, even in my exhaustion and stress. Part of it, I suspect, is that it’s an escape. Part, too, is the reminder that life is fleeting and fragile, and we have to grab it with both hands and fling ourselves into it. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead. We have a limited amount of time in this plane (of existence, not a particular flight, that is), so we might as well make the most of it.

The somewhat languishing Out of the Frying Pan revisions will come next, then some short stories and probably some article pitches that I’ve been meaning to do. I’m pondering some sort of NaNoWriMo challenge of my own in November; it doesn’t make sense to start a new novel right now, and I have a lot of smaller projects to do: stories to write, article pitches to write, novel submissions (more for Waking the Witch, starting the ones for Seasoned With Danger, writing the first few chapters of one or two more novels that I have pitches for and getting those circulating), a novella submission, maybe writing some novellas. Okay, maybe “writing some novellas” will get pushed into December. And probably the new novel chapters. ::gg::

We’ll see. We fly home from Florida on November 2. We have SCA events pretty much every weekend, plus Ken’s giving a presentation on his Iron Butt ride at the local BMW dealership in Newbury Park. Plus Thanksgiving. Plus my niece is coming to visit so she can see a show in Hollywood, and my sister and my other niece might be coming with her. All of which would be totally groovy.

Okay, now I really have to get some work done before my dad wakes up!

Change of plans

My father is very ill; I'm flying to NY tomorrow to help out my mom. I'll update when I can. If you need anything urgently, you can call me, or call Ken.

Any light/healing thoughts/energy/prayers you can send would be amazingly appreciated. Thanks.

What passes for normal around here

I worked out today for the first time in…pretty close to forever. But there’s no sense dwelling on that, so let’s just say Yay! for working out. Because I get bored doing cardio, I tried to break things up a bit: 10 min warm-up on the cross-trainer (level), back and abs, 10 minutes CT (program 1), arms, 10 minutes CT (program 2). I didn’t want to overdo it right out of the gate, so I kept the weights and/or reps low.

My goal is to work out again tomorrow and Saturday, because Friday and Sunday are more heavily booked. Speaking of being booked, we’d intended to see the Eddie Izzard documentary in LA this afternoon and then go to the In the Flesh reading, but I looked at my schedule, laughed hollowly, and cancelled all those plans. I got to play the last two weekends, and now it’s time to buckle down again. Here’s what’s going on:

Writing

• Tomorrow is the deadline for one fantasy/horror anthology and two erotica anthologies. For one of the erotica anthos, I’ve already submitted a story, but the editor said it might be too light for the overall tone of the book, so I’ve started another one. I should try to get that finished tonight. The other one is lower paying and I think my brain is already letting it go. I have an idea for the fantasy/horror story, and when I told Ken, he said “Ooh!” I just need to get my character sorted and toss her into the trouble.
• I have a CES assignment due at the end of the month, but today the editor said the client wants a 1.5K prologue to the story, very soon. Groovy. That’s next on the list.
• I have one OOTFP scene to finish and another to write, and then the partial goes back to Teresa.
• Thankfully, I have no other end-of-month deadlines other than the CES story (already turned in the story for the antho that closes then), but I do have two in mid-Nov and one at the end of Nov.

Home Stuff

• Need to put everything away from the War. All the laundry’s done and most of that’s already put away, thank goodness.
• Grocery shopping. Meals are planned through the end of the week. Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning. Edited to add: Went grocery shopping tonight. Check.
• Various other small things, like financial stuff. (Whoo, excitement.)

SCA

• I’ve got to have The Oak Leaf finished before I leave for Florida on 10/29, and I need to do it in little chunks, otherwise my tendonitis flares up.
• I’ve just got a little more beading left to do on one part of an Italian sleeve, and then I can assemble them. (The dress was finished in 1998 and then modified to fit me better earlier this year.) My goal is to wear it to Coronation the second week of Nov.

Fun Stuff

• Herbal Guild tomorrow night, to make presentation and Yule gifts. I need to check my list to see whom I’ve already bought gifts for, then decide what to make.
• Friday we have tickets (w/Morgana and Brian) to Spamalot in Orange County. We’ll head down early to skip traffic, and have dinner somewhere fun.
• I’m part of a group book signing after the LARA meeting on Sunday, and after that Nanci and Lenny are having one of their amazing parties, with Paperback Hero and Forever Vinyl performing.
• At the end of the month, two Styx shows in Florida! I get to see Helen again, yay! And then a group meet-up of Helen and Dave, Rik, Rowdy, Dean, and Ken and I!

The goodness again

(Picture from the concert, looking back at the masses of people...)

So I’m sitting at the departure gate, and a little boy in front of me—8 maybe? (I’m crap at judging ages)—spills a cup of water all over himself. I missed the actual spillage, just looked up to see the cup upside down on the ground and a rather morose expression on his face. Now, I have this thing about wasting unused napkins, and you never know when you’re going to need a napkin—like when you forget to pick up a couple when you buy your food and now you’ve got mayo on your face, or, like now, when you manage to fling your drink onto yourself. So I hauled out a handful and gave them to his dad. A moment later I heard the kid giggling with pure delight as his dad blotted his shirt from the inside (maybe it tickled?).

Then, as I was in line to board the plane, they called my name. Turns out I’d dropped my driver’s license. I boarded with a quiet sense of See, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Same kind of thing at the show yesterday. There was a teenage girl in a wheelchair, a big Styx fan, and it was the first time she was seeing them. There was space next to me, so her dad maneuvered her in there, and I helped block random drunken idiots. The drummer for Eddie Money made a point of giving a drumstick to a security guard to hand to her, which I thought was awesome. I basically used my “You guys love me” fu to get her stuff from the band: First Lawrence’s water bottle (which he apparently wanted me to pour on myself; guess I looked sweaty. Or he has a shower fetish. Let’s go with the latter.) and then a Polaroid (making it clear it was for her), then a pick from Ricky. Made me happy. Well, happier, because being at a Styx show is just shy of pure nirvana for me.

And quite frankly, I need all of this. September was an unequivocally craptastic month on every front. I wrote an entry about it but I think I’m not going to post it. Release and move on. I may end up talking about pieces here and there, as I try to work through some of it. (Like the conviction that I’m somehow a bad friend, because for the second, or possibly third, time this year we’ve not been invited to a party hosted by people I thought were pretty good friends.)

Onwards.

~ ~ ~

So I was waiting in LAX to fly to PHX two days ago, and I checked my daily Tarot reading via the iTarot app on my phone, and it said “The jig will be coming up.” How beautifully apropos!

~ ~ ~

Why do I only drink orange juice when I’m on a plane?

~ ~ ~

Now Animotion’s “Obsession” is stuck in my head. Why? REO’s “Don’t Let Him Go” was far preferable. (Although you can’t really be annoyed by lyrics like “My fantasy has turned to madness/And now my goodness has turned to badness.”)

~ ~ ~

So, I have one day at home (plus this evening) before we leave for Great Western War on Wednesday. Of course we haven’t even begun to pack, which is a stressor right now. (One of our three meals is cooked and frozen, and Ken was in charge of the second while I was gone, so that’s something.) Still, I’m looking forward to it. A friend is getting his Pelican (highest-level award for service, and he deserves it in spades) and there will be friends to see and hug and laugh with. On a more somber note, there’ll be a memorial for an amazing, incredible woman who died last week. She touched the lives of everyone, and she was taken far too young, and I’m struggling with feeling angry at the universe for it.

We have to come home halfway through the war (which is about two and a half hours away) to give the cats subcutaneous fluids (and I’m also going to have a chiro appt), but I’m grateful that Eostre no longer needs twice-daily subcu fluids.

~ ~ ~

Starting our descent into LAX. Must go!

The good catches up

This morning, on the way home from Arkansas, Ken found a woman’s purse in a restaurant. He went to the trouble of putting it in the mail to her.

This afternoon, Ken’s wallet fell off the bike as he drove away from a gas station. Someone turned it in to the police station. The money (about $80) was gone, but all credit cards, etc., were intact.

Obviously we don’t know if the person who turned it in is the same person who took the money, but if it was, I’m going to assume s/he really needed that cash, and I’m okay with that.

The good really does catch up.

What the—

I was tired all day today (yesterday, actually, given when I’m posting this). I didn’t get to bed as early as I should, and got up early to carpool to Collegium. I haven’t been sleeping well anyway, and I was tired enough today that if I turned my head too quickly, I got seriously dizzy.

(That said, Collegium was much fun, even if I only took two classes. Got lots of drive-by hugs, and I carpooled with nifty people.)

So I went to bed early. I was in there by 9 or 9:30, I think (yes, that’s extremely early for me), and read for a deliciously long time, which meant I turned off the light around 10:30. I did have a little trouble getting comfy, especially given the cats were being particularly loving and adorable and taking up much more of the bed than their share. (Yes, I’ll accommodate my spot in the bed for them. They purr.) But what I’m saying is, Sleep Good.

Until 12:30 a.m.

That’s when the doorbell rang. We still have the original doorbell to this house, and it’s loud. Really, really loud. It’s a shrieking buzzing sort of thing that startles me in the best of times when I’m expecting someone. Waking me from a sound sleep? Terrifying.

Ringing, and repeated knocking. I’m trying to find clothes to throw on. I can’t even process. Ken’s safe in Arkansas, so it can’t be the police to tell me he’s been in an accident. Is it our tenant? Is her apartment/our garage on fire? There are no sirens (we’re only a few blocks away from the fire station). More ringing and knocking.

I finally get downstairs, get the porch light on, look out the window. I don’t see anybody. I cautiously open the door. Nobody on the porch, either.

Thankfully my neighbor—the one who speaks English—had just arrived home from work. She said there’d been a young girl at my door, on a cell phone, and then she took off down the street.

We stood outside talking for a few minutes as I willed my heart to stop pounding out of my chest. Other than that, the night was quiet. It’s taken me a couple hours to fully settle down.

So much for my early night and solid night’s sleep… But now I’m going to try again!

Do be do be do be over

Another bad thing: There’s a big multicultural celebration going on in the park so (a) loud Spanish is reverberating down the street into my house and (b) there are stupid people parked all around my house.

Okay, other good things, too:

• Morgana liked her birthday present (which I’m not going to describe because other people are getting similar ones for Yule).
• I picked up a jar of Patak’s Jalfrezi Curry sauce at the British shop (our local shop doesn’t carry it).
• Curled up and watched Must Love Dogs w/Ken whilst eating pizza and drinking wine. Movie was…scattered, but amusing enough. The best part was not having to think for a while!
• Now going to snuggle in bed with a good book and the cats (and Ken, natch), and then dream of a better tomorrow!

Requesting a do-over

Can we have a do-over, please?

I woke Ken up at 7:30 this morning because I was snoring. I’ve been having some weird breathing issues ever since I thought I was coming down with a cold last month—even though I can breathe fine through my nose, I’ve been mouth breathing, my breath catches on the way out at times, and I get dry mouth, meaning I have to get up several times a night to (a) drink water and (b) pee. Frack.

We went back to the thrift shop and the chair I wanted to buy was gone. We did pick up a filing cabinet for the sewing room, but the chair was the special thing. Frack.

We were running late but were ready just in time to meet up with folks to caravan to Santa Monica for Morgana’s birthday tea. Except I had it firmly in my head that it was at The Tudor House, when it was actually at The King’s Head across the street. Frack.

Found out someone had misinterpreted something I’d said and passed on misinformation as if it had been verbatim from me. Frack.

On the way back up the coast, Ken and I had a disagreement. Frack.

When we got to the bike dealer to pick up his loaner bike, they weren’t actually open until 5:30 (we got there at 5:17). They’d closed at 5, and don’t reopen until Tuesday. Ken’s supposed to fly home from Colorado Tuesday after returning the bike there. Which means he’ll now have to change his flight, which will cost money. Frack.

Also on the way, my car starting making a weird noise and smell. Still drivable, and we had to get it back to the dealer for a few other minor things next week, but this is also an added expense plus I can’t drive it to the LARA meeting in Encino tomorrow morning. Frack and double frack.

Oh, and while we’re at it? Four friends at the Styx show in Vancouver last night—the one where we had the offer of front-row tickets but turned them down because we were paying for an ailing cat instead—failed to call me during the show.

On the plus side, tea was lovely, and it’s overcast and cooler today. I suppose now I should throw caution to the wind and go down to my study and try to write…

Dazed and confused

My brain seems to have gone walkabout, except for short stretches of time. Sigh. I blame this Mercury-going-retrograde thing, for want of a better victim.

Tuesday morning I took Eostre to the posh vet for a recheck. Her values were still up, and although she didn’t appear to be dehydrated, there was something else that showed up that normally does if a cat is dehydrated. So, now she’s on three medications—along with the first two (each once a day, although one of those is ¾ of a pill, so I have to give her a half and then a quarter), the third is three times a day. Worse, she’s now getting subcu fluids twice a day.

Grimoire handled the subcu fluids well. He loves sitting on people’s laps, so the lap time and scritchies often made him purr, even when the needle was in. Eostre, on the other hand, likes to be near you. Maybe touching you with one paw. No laps, no real cuddling. So it’s already A Bad Thing, and Then There is the Needle and the Fluids. She’s gotten a bit better, but there have been times when I’ve been reduced to tears afterwards. :-(

Anyway, Ken arrived home Tuesday afternoon, and there was much rejoicing. Morgana and Brian invited us over for dinner, and then we hung out at Textile Guild. Lots of people there, and it was great to just hang out with friends. I feel blessed by all of them.

What did we do Wednesday? I know in the afternoon we went up the hill to drop off the bike Ken borrowed at the dealer (he used the wheels and carried the final drive in case of his own failing during the rally) and pick up a new laptop charger for him. And since we were in Thousand Oaks, of course we had to have dinner at Cho Cho San. Mmmm, suuuushi!

Thursday we were very good and went to the local Farmer’s Market (two blocks away) and stocked up on yummy fresh things:

• green grapes
• small watermelon
• cantaloupe
• strawberries
• broccoli
• salad greens mix
• green onions
• little yellow tomatoes
• Japanese cucumbers
• corn on the cob
• fresh tamales (two beef, two chicken, two Jack cheese-and-chili)—they were supper tonight along with the corn and some Spanish rice I whipped up. Nom!

We also went grocery shopping and have food for the next few days. We forgot to factor in that Ken will be leaving sometime Sunday to ride to Colorado to return that borrowed bike. Oops! Well, some of it will keep.

We were going to go to the movies that afternoon, but I was feeling all out of sorts because I wasn’t getting as much work done as I needed to, so I sat at my writing computer until my eyes bled (at least, that’s what it felt like). Mercury, retrograde, ptui.

I went thrifting with Morgana this afternoon, and lo, our thrifting fu was mighty! Actually, mine was okay, but hers was definitely mighty! I came away with a hat (to become a steampunk hat), a black lace scarf (for the veil of the hat), a couple pieces of antique linen, a couple of Halloween decorations, and some magazine boxes (to split with Morgana). I also found a fantastic wing chair for $10 that Ken and I plan to pick up tomorrow. And possible a filing cabinet for the sewing room. Need to double-check that.

Huh. I was ready to fall over at 8:30 tonight, and somehow it’s almost 11 now. WTF? ‘kay, I’m outta here. Tomorrow is Morgana’s birthday tea in Santa Monica, and it would behoove me to get up at a decent hour and get some writing done before we leave…

In the Flesh write-up

The write-up of last month's In the Flesh LA reading has been posted. There's even a picture of Sophie (well, kinda) and a couple of me as well. Enjoy!

Adventures in Spokane

I am such a dork! First I thought the restaurants at GEG were before the security checkpoint, so Ken came to the airport to have lunch with me before I flew out. Nope. We made do with a coffee kiosk that had sandwiches. I wasn’t hungry yet, so I just bought a mocha for now and a sandwich and water for later.

Water. Before the security checkpoint. Doi! Hard to believe I fly an average of once a month. It broke my heart to leave an unopened bottle behind, but what can I do? I firmly believe TSA is getting kickbacks from the bottled water companies for this ridiculousness.

~ ~ ~

Other than that, a wonderful weekend! I got to the hotel Thursday and met up with our friends Ernie and Pauline, who plied me with wine in the hotel bar before we went our separate ways. I checked Ken’s SPOT tracker and figured out when he’d be in, then set the alarm for 6. (Ugh.) The three of us were outside in our Team Meese shirts to see him swoop up to the finish/check-in at 6:59 a.m., squeaking in right before the penalty period started. Whoo! Ernie and I both got some good pictures that I’ll upload soon. Some riders arrived looking completely knackered and zombie-like, but Ken had a huge smile on his face.

After he went through his paperwork and got scored, he was ready for a nap, so I settled into the hotel atrium, caught up on e-mail as best I could (the wireless was slooooow), and got some work done. Then it was time for pre-banquet drinks, at which Ken was pulled into a room with nine other riders… So yeah, we knew going in that he’d made the top ten. Just didn’t know where yet.

Our friend Margaret also finished, despite losing two days (!) to a bike problem. She thought she was out, but then she got the bike fixed and she managed to finish. (You have to hit a minimum number of points to finish; it’s not enough to just hit the checkpoints. About 1/3 of the starting riders didn’t officially finish.)

Have I mentioned I’m so proud of Ken! ::beam::

After the banquet I hung out with Ernie and Pauline more while Ken had his picture taken and was congratulated a million times. We were both still exhausted, though, so it was still kind of an early night. Also, he had a 7:30 a.m. appt to be interviewed for the DVD.

I slept in a little longer, then met him and Ernie and Pauline for breakfast. They headed out after that, and Ken and I headed to the nearby Riverfront Park, a lovely large shaded green park along the river. (Hence its name.) This weekend was the big annual Pig Out in the Park frenzy, with about 60 food vendors, some merchants, carnival rides, etc.

We wandered through and found the gondola ride, which took us over the Spokane Falls and back (and gave us some smooching time :-) ). Then we left the park on the other side to visit the historic Davenport Hotel, built in 1914. The Hall of the Doges ballroom, inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice, was gorgeous! We had a great time wandering around and looking at all the historic photos, too.

Back in the park, we grabbed some food (soba noodles and fresh veggies for me, a slice of pizza for Ken, and chocolate-dipped cheesecake on a stick to share), then rode the historic Looff Carousel.

After that, we were wiped—plus it had gotten pretty hot—so after swinging back through the merchants so I could pick up a couple of holiday presents, we headed back to the hotel, changed into our suits, and hit the outdoor pool, which had a fun slide and a waterfall to plash under. We soaked in the indoor jacuzzi (where we ran into other IBR folks) before going back to the room and collapsing for a while. We’d toyed with going back into town and having fondue for dinner, but neither of us had the energy or inclination. So we hit the hotel restaurant, where he had fish and chips (and was a heathen because he put ketchup on them!) and I had an amazing pesto scampi ravioli to die for.

Back in the room, Ken fell asleep at 7:30 and was out for 12 hours. :-) I stayed up for awhile catching up on blogs and Twitter and Facebook, since I simply didn’t have the brain power to write. (I thought about it, though!) I still fell over pretty early (for me), though. It was nice to get a full night’s sleep—haven’t done that in a long time.

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Is it wrong that I just correctly answered a history trivia question on the plane because of a Sting song?