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???

That's what I think I'll call months from now on-- "Fly Bys."  With everything that's going on, they all seem to do just that.  We've had lots of stressful challenges lately, with car issues, school things, family matters, home repairs, job stuff.  The cousin I moved up here in August is scheduled to go into assisted living on the first, which gives us 9 days to close up financial stuff and move her.  She is not amenable to, well, anything, but it's really not safe for her to live by herself anymore.  Nothing has changed about the job-- despite my best efforts to that end, and it's just more aggravating as days go by-- and precious little time has been devoted to writing, although I keep hoping.  The universe has not particularly smiled upon us so far this year, but again, I remain ever hopeful.  The wall is still not fixed, although someone finally came out today and looked at it.  Faced with this 9 day thing, I can't help but see (again) that every time I seem to catch up on stuff to do and get free time within my grasp that I might devote to Highborn, something thunders in to snatch it away.  My sweet Goblin also faces surgery a week from today to remove some skin tags and have a cyst on his side removed.  Keep your fingers crossed about that one.  He's been very apt to suddenly become scared of nothing lately, and I don't imagine being cut & sewn will help his trust issues.

Weather seems to be trying to warm up and we're seeing some green in the yard.  Okay, so they're weeds, but they are green.

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!

After this morning started as a beautiful day, low-eighties and kind of hazy/overcast, we had another incident of TFW this afternoon.  It came on suddenly and viciously, blowing metal chairs over, trying to destroy my fragile tomato and herb plants. and hellbent on beating the palms to death.  We ran around like crazy trying to tie up plants, stop the pool cover from blowing away, moving portable plants to more shielded locations, etc.  Spitting and blinking away the dust, trying to keep our balance, etc.  For those who are not familar with it, TFW stands for THAT F***ING WIND, although lately I'm starting to think of it as TFLSW (THAT F***ING LIFE-SUCKING WIND), since it sucks the moisture and life out of everything in every direction.  It also makes The Husband (westonochse) extremely crabby.  He's not the only one, but I tend to view it with a sense of surrender, since as with so many things birthed by Mother Nature, there's absolutely nothing I can do about it but clean up the mess afterward.

So, because we need to be a bit cheerier here, I invite you to another one of Goblin's infamous Movie Moments, this one titled THE QUACKER.  It was filmed sometime ago, but that Quacker just never, at least to me (and Goblin) loses its hilarity:

Does this really need an introduction? We think not:

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...

... and see what goes on.



Yes, our secrets are revealed.

(The fault behind this is placed entirely, utterly, and squarely on The Husband's westonochse) shoulders.)

Lots of rain here, definitely into the monsoon season. The main road to get to our street periodically floods, but so far we're okay because we can take a detour. While it adds about, oh, 12 miles to the trip, at least we don't get swept away. Unfortunately with the rain has come a substantial drop in temperature and elevation in humidity: 70 degrees and 88% humidity is not my ideal climate. To me, that's cold and damp. Yuck.

Got some auctions going.  Check it out if you're looking for Buffy/Wicked Willow, BadAss SuperHero Women, or a little zombies and suspense.

Harkening more fondly back to the hot and dry days of last month, here for pictorial enjoyment is this shot of our WaterPig, Goblin:


Click on it for a closer look at how a WaterPig bites the water.  :)

I have now been to the gym 5 times in 2 weeks and 1 day.  My MP3 player died last week, so I got another one over the weekend; there's nothing, absolutely nothing worse in the world of exercise, at least in my opinion, than running without music.  The new one works pretty well.  I'm tired, having forced my way back up to 2.56 miles in 30 minutes.  That may not sound like much, but prior to resuming the workouts, I was horrified to read my workout book and realize I hadn't been to the gym since August of 2005.  Yes, 2005.

::tsk::

Yours truly, The Husband (westonochse), Ghost and Goblin, all dressed up for our little town's 4th of July Pets on Parade!  Not a bad family outfit considering we discovered the event at the last minute and made our "costumes" at 9:30 p.m. last night.