Robin McKinley's Blog, page 196

AGGLEBLAGGLEDORGLE* URK! Also GALVINIZED BLISTERING EEEEEEK!**

 

 Or, there are Serious Disadvantages to Living in a Separate House from Your Husband, husbands being made for dealing with Certain Things.  Look at what I found waiting for me at the cottage last night:

 [insert more strong language HERE.  Blah!  Arrrgh!  YAAAAAH!:]

Peter always says 'oh, poor thing' and picks it up gently in his handkerchief.  EEEEEEEE.  I'm not a true arachnophobe;  mostly I pursue a policy of live and let live.***  And I think I told you I had an ethical crisis when I found ...

STOP PRESS

 

This just in! 

 Important critter news!*   

With photos! 

* * *

* And two guest posts in a row.  This has never happened before.  But I didn't get Jodi's email till after I'd gone to bed last night. ^  However it couldn't come at a better moment as, as a result of not writing a post tonight, I have successfully slopped, thrashed and struggled through the sucking bog that opened out before me and PEGASUS yesterday, and tomorrow—I hope—it and I are back on firm ground again.^^  Thank you, fate...

Guest post by Jodi

Baaaaaby ferrets!

On Friday, we only went to Charlottesville to hang out, I swear. We didn't intend on buying anything major. After running to a couple stores to see if we could find anything to lift a piece of furniture a couple inches off the floor,* and eating dinner, we popped into the pet store so Jeff could ask the fish people there a question.**

When we walked in, there were two women playing with their granddaughters on the floor — and a pair of baby ferrets. I'm less interested in...

Guest Post by Black Bear

A little bit about crossbows

So a while back on some forum thread or other, I incautiously babbled a little about medieval crossbows and archery, and my limited experience of same.  Strangely enough, Robin then asked me* if I'd consider guest-blogging a bit about archery, and I said yes, with a couple of caveats.  The first caveat is, I am a terrible archer.  I'm not just being modest—I don't have great vision to begin with, and astigmatism to boot, and when I shoot on a range there is a...

Midnight

 

That was frelling midnight that just struck . . . oh GODS no that was midnight HALF AN HOUR AGO, that was midnight thirty that just struck, I was going to stop and hit the blog half an hour ago . . . and I'm still sitting here in a daze of PEGASUS.  Oh, ungleblarg, midnight . . . and that means one less/fewer* day left before The Eighth of October.  Absolute Final Do-or-Die Due Date.  Aaaaugh.  Aaaaugh. 

            Colin last night and Vicky tonight both asked me if I'd finished the...

In Which I Am Saved by Footnotes

 

 It's been a long, crummy, pustular kind of day for a wide, sky-embracing rainbow variety of reasons, most of them unrepeatable*.

            . . . In fact it's been such a lousy day** I can't think of anything blog-suitable that I have the energy to write about.***  So maybe I'll just go to bed early.†  . . . Although perhaps after I scare myself a little more with He Was Despised.  I suspect Blondel wouldn't wear it if I rearranged the accompaniment so the singer doesn't have to keep...

Guest blog by Jeanne Marie

The Problem with Pits

 

Stormgoddess wrote on Tue, 04 August 2009

"I love bully breeds, and I get really bent out of shape when people malign them.  …  Of the dozens of AmStaffs, American Bulldogs, and Pit Bull terriers I have met on parks and sidewalks in the past nine months, one was dog aggressive.  … 

Robin responded:

"I apologise for being a wet blanket but let's not get totally carried away. I've already said I love bullies–and Dobermanns–and I've known some sweetheart Rotties. And...

Tuesday Afternoon

 

. . . has already become Sacred Voice Lesson.  Rats.  There's Sacred Home Tower Bell Practise, Sacred Variable Music Lesson Usually Including a Piano, and Almost Sacred Wednesday Tower Bell Practise.*  I've been taking voice lessons, what?  Is it as much as two months yet?**  They have no business entering the sacred category this quickly.***  I object.  I protest.  Okay, listen up, all you regular blog readers.  If I ever start saying things like 'I'd really like to try . . .', 'I'm...

TWICE-BORN

 

We had champagne tonight because

 

PETER HAS FINISHED THE FINAL DRAFT OF HIS NEWEST NOVEL*

 

Peter said, I suppose you want champagne?  I said well of course.  He seemed to think I was being feckless and amusing.  Hey.  There is nothing feckless or amusing about finishing a book.**  I don't see that there are any better reasons for champagne.

            Meanwhile, I was up till four a.m. this morning reading SPINDLE proofs . . . and I still had to finish this morning***.  I mean, later

Must. Finish. SPINDLE.

 

The page proof corrections for the new reissue of SPINDLE'S END are due tomorrow—and I'm reading the princess' birthday ball.  It's going to be a long night.

            The proofs are, I think, pretty clean, their main failing being the entirely deranged way the instant word-snapping programme, which comes FREE with every offset-lithography-or-whatever-the-frell-it-is-these-days package sold in the industry today, bites words in two at the ends of lines according to rules passed down by the ...