Falling on my head like a new emotion

Here's recent progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 5338 (even for 2 days - much better, now we're talking)
Present total word count: 36,028 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Consultation with great historic gent who serves as the voice of reason; car chase! Okay, ambulance chase, really. But you know.

Things accomplished in real life: Got up at 7:00 a.m. with the puppy, who badly needed to pee; fed all the critters breakfast; put on some yoga pants and sneakers and took the aforementioned puppy for a run;* did the dishes, made the bed; paid some bills; cleaned up some dog poop; watered the yard and thereby summoned the rain gods.

Other: For the last week it's been dark and stormy LOOKING. Without any actual rain over here. My garden was not happy, so I ran the sprinkler and then it started raining, because I am a wizard. By the way: It turns out that dogs are scared to death of sprinklers. Or maybe just my dog is scared to death of sprinklers. For dog reasons.

Other Part Deux: Yes, I'm wrapping up this project a little early today. I have a couple of shorter/smaller things I need to address, and I want to get a jump on them this afternoon.

State of the Four-Footed Demographic: Holding pattern. Cat avoids dog, more or less; dog tries very hard not to BARK WILDLY AT CAT and only somewhat succeeds. Watching him sniff along after her is like observing the world's most tense, furry game of red light/green light. She stops. He stops. She goes. He goes. She stops. He stops. Etc. until he loses his cool and starts barking/chasing her, and she runs under the bed. Sigh.


* When I spoke on FB re: running with puppy, I received some concern that I was overexerting the little guy. To be clear - I am a crappy runner who can't go more than a block or two at a stretch; we did maybe a mile in total, over about 30 minutes. And this is a 40+ pound puppy who would cheerfully run twice that distance, if I could keep up with him. Trust me. He's tried.