What the heck -- where did the end of February and most of March go?  Man, have we been horrifically busy.  Work, projects, visiting relatives, you name it.  Some fun times, some not so fun-- that's life.  Among the highlights of this blur of a month was buying the very first brand new car I've ever owned, then, at mile 17 that I put on it (with a total of 43 miles on the odometer -- I hadn't even signed the freakin' papers yet) getting a written warning from a Highway Patrolman.  Unfortunately I was paying more attention to the whiz bangs in the new car -- mirror, radio, what's this button do?-- than my speed.  A week and a half later I was gifted with an extremely pricey (and annoying) speeding ticket, a real one, by a different Highway Patrolman.  Alas, I will be spending Easter Sunday morning in Defensive Driving School.  ::sigh::

Find of the Month:  A German-made bookshelf unit in the Post Thrift Store, made of three sections of beautiful varnished knotty pine.  One of those sections is a curved corner unit.  I rearranged the other two sections a bit to fit my office and it's just fabulous. 

My ancient cousin fell and broke her hip 2 days before I had her scheduled to go into assisted living.  She had surgery and went from the hospital straight into a nursing home and we had to empty out her apartment.  She was quite the pill for the first two weeks but is finally calming down, so we might be able to get her into assisted living after all.  For awhile she was so difficult that they wouldn't have accepted her.

Goblin came through his surgery with all the grace of a drunken sailor.  My poor boy was on the table for quite a bit longer than anticipated, with the accompanying increase in anesthesia.  It seems the cyst was attached to some kind of larger mass underneath.  The vet speculated it might have been caused by an old injury.  (What old injury?  ::grrrr:: to his original owners...)  Anyway, they got it all, the biopsy came back negative, and my staggering little boy is now his old self but with a nice long scar from 14 (ow ow ow) stitches.


Ghost is fine, cute as a button and my CuddleBug.  Poe is also fine.  She likes Daddy's nose.


The Husband (westonochse) and I will both be presenters at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, coming up in about two weeks.  We're also on a bunch of panels -- I have to get one of my rare Google Groups newsletters together.  If you aren't signed up and want to be, let me know.  I mean it when I say I send updates only rarely-- I've only sent one out so far.

And finally, best for last:  I pulled out a long-ago novel proposal and reworked it from start to finish, then, because the old stuff just wasn't on the mark, hammered out 50 new pages of writing-- yes, NEW PAGES-- to start off the novel.  I did all this in 4 days.  For awhile, it felt like the old me, circa mid- to late-1990s, was back.  Said packet has been sent off to an agent and I am now typing with fingers and toes crossed.  Feel free to cross a few of yours on my behalf.

It snowed here today.  Yes, we live in Arizona.  WTF???

Today marks exactly five years since my Dad and I arrived in Arizona, having picked up two households, a fully equipped garage, three vehicles and a mini-bookstore, and moved the entire sheeeebang 1,700 miles from the Chicago area.  I was going to post a couple of photographs-- the first house we rented, the first house Wes and I bought, the first dog we adopted.  And therein lies the ache: I have never been the most diligent of photograph filers, so I found myself going through pictures (because the envelopes were undated and untidily stored) that for the most part only made me sad.  Images of Lily in the first house Wes and I owned, taken on the first day she arrived from Oregon.  A shot of my great-grandparents' headstone, in the cemetery where I spread my mother's ashes (because she said as a child, her time with them was the happiest of her life).  A box of non-pictures-- Christmas, Easter and birthday cards from my Mom, my Grandmother, and my Aunt, all now gone to whatever waits in the Great Beyond.  Pictures of our beautiful New Orleans, taken at a convention before Katrina and the failure of the levees.  A photograph of my friend David Gemmell, taken at a convention dinner, another of my former boss and friend, David Kayner.  Not the memories I was actually wanting to record, but they are a big part of my life and so here they are.

There have been disappointments, losses, changes, and lots of hard work.  But there have been joys and gains and new dreams, too.  So while Arizona is not the paradise I thought it would be, it has been exactly what I, or anyone, should have expected:

It's been life. 

What the HECK happened to July?  I can't believe it's been since the 10th that I posted-- what a freakin' blur!  For crying out loud, we haven't even had time to give the dogs a second bath yet, and the generally accepted months of summer are almost gone!  And we've only gotten out the kiddie pool for the dogs once so far!  (Yes, we bought them a kiddie pool; no, they won't go in that, either.  Don't get me started.)

Let's see: Necon was a blast, and I am bit by bit getting picture links and pictures on the Necon site.  Look for more actual photos there by the end of the week, thanks to a few great people who've donated and/or agreed to let me swipe their images.  It's a good thing that old American Indian legend about having your soul stolen by the camera's image isn't true, because the Necon folk would, indeed, be zombies by now.  There's likely some question about that being true in and of itself, but I won't go there.  Nope, I won't.

What else?  I am unsupervised as once again The Husband (westonochse) is bouncing all over the country on business.  So little me, so many Chippendales.  Okay, just kidding.  Really.

Work is... well, work.  The Super Secret Squirrel Project is not progressing very well, being pushed back in favor of other stuff.  But as always, I have great plans for it.  My in-laws came and went, having found and bought their own, exceptionally beautiful (covetcovetcovet) home not very far from us.  We all went to Kartchner Caverns last Sunday, and it was quiet spectacular.

Kudos to faustfatale, who won an IAMTW Award (the first year they've been given out), for her book, Snakes on a Plane.  Excellent!

And finally, at the end of this month, I will return to the world of martial arts, at least for a long weekend.  I have missed it, a lot, since moving away from Chicago and the Degerberg in September of 2002.  The one place I tried here was too heavy on throwing, and my back made it quickly and loudly known it was unhappy about throwing in such quantity.  I've tried to at least keep in shape, and about a week or so ago, I saw a flyer for a Martial Arts Instructors Training Camp in Grand Junction, Colorado, headed by an instructor under whom I was lucky enough to study numerous times.  This is my chance to refresh my memory (and break my body, ha ha) on all the good stuff I haven't had in five years.  With this coming up, I'm trying to cram in as many workouts as I can.  Ow...

And, of course, we must have images.  As always, click for close-ups.  So:


Okay, it's way toooooo late.  Must sleeeeeep....

Hi to everyone, and happy day before the 4th of July. Things have been busy and time has been flying by so quickly I can barely keep up with everything. I had friends visit, got busy busy at work, then family arrived.  I have skimmed through LJ as best I can, and I apologize to anyone who posted something mondo important to which I should have replied.

The Husband (westonochse) and I celebrated our fifth, yes, fifth wedding anniversary this past weekend. As I told almost everyone who asked or offered congratulations, "Yes, can you believe it? Five years and I haven't throttled him yet!" We spent the time at a swanky Tucson resort where The Husband manged to find an awesome deal, we ate (boy, did we EAT), saw Rise of the Silver Surfer (awesome), and even hiked in the very hot July sun on Sunday morning. We picked up the teenaged daughter for her summer visit by driving to Phoenix on Sunday evening (when she was supposed to have been flown into Tucson; boo on America West Airlines-- their treatment of passengers, particularly a 16 year old girl, goes so far beyond shabby that we weill never, ever, fly on them again). We now have Mom, Dad, nephew, daughter, and miniature Schnauzer staying with us for a bit. It's a houseful and actually great fun (yes, I really mean that). The look on Goblin's face when itty-bitty Finny grumbles at him is truly comical. Tomorrow we have a cookout planned with my Dad and a couple of work friends coming by to join in.

The menu:

• Citrus Orange Achiote Pulled Pork
• Chipolte Coleslaw
• Corn Pudding with Green Chiles
• Red, White & Blue Jello Triffle
• Von's Famous Deviled Eggs
• Whatever other yummy thing we find at the store.

Hardly any work on The Super Secret Project, despite having some time off work.  Really need to buckle down on that.  My good intentions just aren't getting me anywhere.

New pictures in some of the galleries:

    In the Dawgs Gallery, check out "Futility" and "Only If I Must."

    Life Shots has a picture of me and Dad, and me and The Husband's Blue Elvis.

    Arizona Stuff has a couple of shots of a new creature, and the latest update on the Cactus on Steroids.

    Friends has a couple of shots showing recent pals visiting.  Since we live so far away from everything, I have to import my pals, often from the east coast.  Shira comes from there, as do Marsha and Beth, while Michelle lives it up in the California sun.

Dad tells me he's adopted a little girl from the local animal shelter, a Russian Blue named Sushi (now there's a name for a cat!).  That's good news-- he's been lonely since cancer took Sugar several months ago.  Sushi is being spayed right now, and I can't wait to meet her and add her picture to the melting pot that's the Internet!

I'm not sure my self-imposed deadline thing is working.  I started with a bang, then began to get serious side effects regarding the dry eye problem, which is getting worse instead of better.  It's hard to concentrate on developing a character and plot when every time you blink it feels as though the edge of a knife is being dragged across the surface of your left eyeball (then add feeling like you have several sharp shards of sand in it besides).  We're going to try a call to the opthamologist tomorrow and see what, if anything, can be done to get our insurance to allow me to see him again... assuming such a visit would actually accomplish anything.  Eye drops burn and make the eye blurry, thereby making me even more cranky and miserable.  ::hmph::

In the meantime, the living things in the yard are enjoying the warm days and cool nights that have finally arrived.  A few pictures from the Spring 2007 Gallery:

  

  

There's more if you follow the Gallery link above-- I didn't want to bog down the LJ. 

The baby bunny?  It was in play-dead mode and our highly hunter-oriented dogs (especially Ghost, who theoretically has a much more developed sense of smell because she's deaf) literally walked right over it.  The only thing that would have been funnier would have been if they picked up their toes like it was a mud puddle.  The bunny could have fit in my cupped hand.

Upper right: Flying Saucer Cactus.  SEVEN blooms at once.  The cactus was much chubbier originally, and the blooms sucked everything out of it.  If you click on the photo, you'll note the stick I had to use to prop it up because it was literally bending in the middle from the weight of the blooms.  Oh, and at this point it was still in the way small pot we bought it in, because we were afraid transplanting it during the bloom would harm it.

Top left: Ghost.  She appreciates the flowers, too.

And finally, bottom right (no, I don't have to go in order, so there): CHERRY TOMATOES in our potted containers!  Three of them on this plant, one on another, buds on yet another.  And we have jalapeno buds on our pepper plant!  Clearly we need to buy 80 acres and start farming.

And overalls.  Yeah, we need overalls. 

...does not extend to everything.  Our inside plants seem to grow quite nicely, including a huge philodendron that I've had since 1981.  Of course, nothing on the inside is particularly difficult to grow, although The Husband (westonochse) recently brought a new palm into the household.  I'm hoping that does okay with my rather inconsistent watering.  One thing that is thriving is the little spidery-type (no, I can't remember its scientific name) cactus that is hanging in front of the kitchen window above the sink.  I bought it about a month and a half ago and it took until two weeks ago for me to find a hanging planter with which I was satiisfied.  It likes me, it likes its new home.  And today it showed me:


Check the gallery (link below) for another amazing close-up shot. 

While any citrus-type tree we bring home seems to be doomed from the start (and tomatoes don't fare much better), I can do okay with my three windowboxes full of herbs.  There are also other things that much appreciate our futzing over them:


And finally, I give you the Danger in Our Front Yard:


If you have a few seconds, there are more images in the Spring 2007 Gallery.  Each one can be clicked on and magnified mondo times (up to about 2200 x 1700), and some of the bloom shoots are just incredible close-ups.  I'm quite pleased with this little digital camera/video.  It appears it's good for more than Great Dane Videos. 

Wait-- is there life beyond Great Dane Videos??!

The weather here seems to have finally broken for the better.  It was in the mid-60s today, and I think we're talking only mid-30s for the night's low.  It's far too late for the totem pole cactus in the front yard; it's black and dead and will have to be dug up and returned to Home Depot (thank you, 1-year warranty and the ability to find receipts).  Also to be returned are 5 utterly dead Bird of Paradise bushes.  In the meantime, The Husband ( westonochse  ) has refused to give up on the three baby palm trees in the backyard, no matter how completely destroyed they look.  We have very little time left on the warranty for those, plus they would be a son-of-a-gun to dig up, so if they are truly dead, we'll just eat the cost.

Having gone through too many Chicago winters, I truly feel for the people trapped inside the deep freezes going on around the country right now.  My Chicago time left me over-sensitive to not just cold, but cool-- I truly can't tolerate it when the temperature drops.  I'd rather have heat, and if I have to deal with humidity to get it, so be it.  When going to a Monday night reading at the Red Lion one summer, I met a friend in the downstairs area who said to me, "You look positively radiant, and I could just die, I'm so hot and miserable!"  She'd had a 20-minute drive through city streets in an air-conditioned vehicle to get there and could've passed out in the 95 degrees and 90% humidity temperatures.  I'd just come from a one hour and forty-minute bumper-to-bumper "expressway" drive from the suburbs and-- you guessed it-- I never turned on my air-conditioning because I hate it.  I just rolled down the windows and sat in the heat.  Chicago winters have left me with permanent frostbite damage between the toes of one foot and a complete abhorrence of anything vaguely winterlike.  I think of my tiny, 90-year-old second cousin in her Chicago apartment off Clark Street and I shiver for her.

On a lighter note, just because I can, I give you...

I'm flattered to say that "Feeding the Dead Inside," my twisted, cold-hearted story from Mondo Zombie, is on the recommendation list for the Preliminary Bram Stoker Ballot. For those HWA members who might be interested, there's a link to a pdf file of it off the Stoker Recommendations page. I would give it away free to everyone, but I can't in good conscience do that because then the publisher doesn't get paid (everyone knows how I feel about bootlegged copies of DVDs and videos and such). I haven't done much promo for it, so it still needs a couple of recs to be able to hang in there for the finals against all of the great competition.

In other news (okay, not much), The Husband (westonochse) and I found ourselves completely exhausted last night. He went to bed with a book (no comments, please - ha ha) at 7:30; I followed with no book (shhhhhh) at 9:40. Oddly enough, we're both still tired tonight. Maybe it's the weather, which turned cold and rainy sometime after lunch (and yes, I'd left my car window open because it had been so pleasant at lunchtime) and now has a chance of snow. Wait, I'm in Arizona, right??! Anyway, I actually went to the gym and got on the treadmill for the first time since November, and even did some lat pulldowns. It is, after all, a New Year.

Not doing stellar on the writing, but I have done some. The only thing we're tasked to do this weekend is to put away the Christmas decorations, so I'm looking forward to getting back to it.  It's amazing how fast the time goes when I'm writing, and how slow it goes when I'm not. 

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