Mondayness: good things

Things I’m lovin’ today:

1. blue sky, red leaves, crisp breeze
2. getting out of my car in the parking lot of the grocery store and noticing that, as usual, I smell the sea instead of exhaust/parking-lot-blech
3. outlining (yes, me – outlining!) my Sekrit Project to fast-draft during NaNoWriMo
4. chai tea
5. this song:

Hope there are good things in your Monday.

Peace….

Pocket Truths

What truths about you are hidden in your pockets? This is a get-to-know-you meme. Instructions: empty your jeans’ pockets, or a pocket of your purse or jacket. List what you find, and what those items say about you.

Okay. Here’s mine….

1. guitar pick – because I love my Ibanez, and because I did the children’s music at church this morning, and also a little bit because I just like to have one with me cuz it reminds me of the music. Music is the doctor.
2. small piece of green seaglass – because I can’t NOT pick up seaglass when I find it, and because the cooler autumn air means I actually wore these jeans to the beach the other day. Long pants – yikes! Still had flip-flops on, though. Not ready to let go of summer just yet.
3. a neatly folded tissue, just in case – because I have allergies, and because I am a mom. I was also a Girl Guide once upon a time and still live by that well-ingrained motto, be prepared. The neatly folded part is because if I folded it haphazardly or *gasp* just stuffed it into my pocket, I would have to pull it back out and fold it properly. I’m a little odd that way.

That’s all. I tag anyone & everyone willing to share their pocket truths. (Please post a link in the comments if you do this on your blog so I can check out how weird you are. Er, I mean… so I can learn more fascinating things about you!)

Peace….

Blood & Magic Scales & Laundry

My Saturday so far…

1. Blood tests this morning – 2 lab techs, 4 needle pokes, hot packs to coax out my minute veins, and an hour+ later, the blood was obtained. Being seriously dehydrated from fasting doesn’t help my blood pressure any, that’s for sure.
2. In the lab waiting room, I started reading Thalia Chaltas‘ Because I Am Furniture, a YA novel in verse. So good. You almost don’t want to read because you don’t want to be in the narrator’s abuse-filled world, but then you can’t stop reading.
3. In the hospital parking lot, right beside where I parked when I went to the lab, there was a bathroom scale sitting on the pavement – white, dirty, red numbers under the glass bubble at the top. It almost begged me to step on it. And my weird brain (let’s call it my writer’s imagination, shall we?) pictured it blowing up when I – or someone else, preferably an evil villain – stepped on it. Too many action flicks? Maybe. Then I imagined it transporting the innocent weight-seeker to a different time or place when he/she stepped on it, a portal to some other world where mass and numbers and algebraic formulae swirl about reeking havoc. Um, yeah. I didn’t step on the scale, but I should’ve.
4. Came across a Cadillac hearse – the model was “Eureka”. There is definitely some funny in that.
5. And now, some writing time. And laundry… lots and lots of laundry. Man, my life is glamorous.

Bleeding but happy

I’m scratched, stained, and bleeding, but I have blackberries:

Soon I shall also have blackberry pie, blackberry crisp, and blackberry jam. And all’s right with my world….

Breaking News

The low-budget news team reports on a disturbance at the home of Aspiring Author.

Yes, it’s true. This round of revisions is done. But, you say, how is that possible? You were on vacation! Indeed I was, but it turns out sunshine and sand and family time and good books are all fine fuel for revising. Who knew? And now, the manuscript is off to my trusty crit partner and then should be winging its way to Brilliant Agent’s desk sometime next week (eek!) (um, unless trusty crit partner has devastating news for me after reading the manuscript… time will tell).

(Vacation pics under the cut.)

Bliss

(See you in two weeks.)

Love is fun…

…and definitely dance-worthy!

(Yes, this is way off my usual topics of Island Life and Writing, but I just found this video (thanks Lisa Schroeder!) and had to share. Hope you enjoy it!)

The lost generation

This is cool:

Peace….

That’s entertainment

Last night DH, Son3, and I picked up a drink at Sbux and sat down by the marina to watch the boats coming and going. I love the smell of the marina – sea air and fish and creosote and boat gas. (Okay, listing it out like that doesn’t make it sound that appealing, but man, the combination is so awesome. Aromatherapy extraordinaire!)

Some massive yachts were moored there for the night — one called Reward, another At Ease – and we couldn’t help speculating on who might own such boats, and what it might be like to live on one (one had a sundeck that I’m sure was larger than the one on our house). (Gee, maybe I should write a story about a yacht-dweller… surely I’d have to go cruising — I mean, do research — right? )

The boats were interesting and all, but sea-life trumps boats any day. Minnows were jumping, or rather, they were flinging themselves well clear of the water in a hilarious display of bug-catching. I’ve no idea how they can propel themselves like that, but it was a fine show. We also saw an otter swim by, apparently unfazed by the power boats zipping past. I only caught a couple glimpses of the otter, but then, the coolest thing: a Great Blue Heron flew to the wharf and settled on the edge very near our vantage point. With slow, delicate movements, stepping carefully with his funny backward-bending knees and peering into the water, he stalked his dinner. Step. Step. Freeze…. Gotcha! He grabbed a fish in his bill, manoeuvred it into the right position, then swallowed it whole. Yummy. We watched a while longer as he poised on the edge of the wharf waiting for his second course to swim into range, but then a speedboat docked nearby, and the heron flew to another fishing spot out of our view.

The ferry had come and gone from the neighbouring island and was on its way back again by the time we were ready to go. On our way home, we stopped to pick up a movie, but IMHO, nothing in that video store could beat the entertainment value of an hour at the marina. It was a good evening.

Peace….

Crop circles and nine-day weeks

Today has been full of weirdnesses (and no, the creation of the word “weirdnesses” is not one of them):

1. Dead-heading rhododendrons feels kind of like plucking large, long-legged, sticky insects off  branches. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am.

   

2. Son#1 pointed out a newspaper ad for a local restaurant that said “Authentic Mexican Food 7 Days a Week” across the top, and “Closed Saturday and Sunday” on the bottom. Is there a 9-day week that I don’t know about?
3. I saw a young woman this afternoon who reminded me of someone I used to know – someone who died years ago. I did that rubber-neck second-glance thing anyway, as if checking to see if it actually was the person I knew, back from the dead.  That’s the kind of thing that lands a person in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode.
4. I watched a YouTube video of Michael Jackson’s Thriller the other day because I wanted to remember how to do that weird zombie dance for some reason. Today, well… RIP M.J.
   
5. Wallabies that are high on opium have been walking in circles, creating crop circles. So that’s what causes them! (And here I was thinking they were caused by giant peant butter cups landing in the fields….)
6. My laptop keeps freezing up today. It’s never done that before. The screen suddenly goes black and the only way to bring it back to life is to restart the computer. It makes me very nervous. I fear for my computer’s life.

The day’s almost over, so maybe that’s it for weirdnesses. Maybe….