I've faced the quakes, the wind, the fire

And another week goes by wherein I've been too busy/distracted/otherwise engaged to do any blogging. Now let's see ... how about a highlights reel? Very good. Here goes. Don't worry, it's pretty short. Okay - it's kind of short.

First and foremost, I worked. I answered long-ignored emails, did another ten thousand words on Ninja Planet (all told), and wrapped up a draft of the previously discussed Schrodinger's Project. Sent it off to my agent this afternoon. Depending on her evaluation, I'll either go back to the drawing board or kick it toward the editor and see how it shakes out.

Apart from that, probably the most interesting thing I did all week was take a Writer Field Trip out to Ducktown, Tennessee. It's about an hour and a half east of here, up in the Smokies - a beautiful little place that used to be a frankly awful sort of place, courtesy of the old Burra Burra Mine.

Why? Because I owe a short story for an anthology come New Year's, and I needed a 19th century Appalachian mining town. East Tennessee doesn't exactly equate deep Appalachia, but you can see it from there - and since it was near enough to do as a day-trip, I decided that it was close enough. The drive was nothing short of gorgeous, and the town itself was lovely. There's a small museum there, on the site of the mine's former headquarters. I poked through it at length, and then - because I was encouraged to do so - I wandered the grounds for awhile and took pictures.

If you've ever wondered what a collapsed copper mine looks like, well, here you go.



So, yes. A very pleasant day all around. Lovely drive, learned a lot, hung out in the mine's old hoist house talking to a nice woman who was a retired marine - and yea verily, we discussed pumpkins.




The pumpkin bread I bought was delicious. I nommed it on the way back to Chattanooga.

The only other thing of note (which I can think of right this moment) is that today we took Greyson to his new groomers. This place is closer than the previous (inferior) groomers, and we made it all the way there and all the way back with exactly zero instances of dog puke.

Eight months old, and the little guy seems to be getting the hang of riding in the car. We hope. Later this week, we'll try to take him to the dog park. It's even closer, and he's bound to enjoy it more.

Oh, he doesn't hate the groomers, but he's rather nervous re: the dryers and the noise. Still, the staff treated him kindly, and he was primped to fancypants status that had him prancing around at home. I definitely like this place better.

Sure, we could hypothetically try to bathe him ourselves, but we haven't leveled up to that tier of Independent and Responsible Dog Ownership. This is partly because Greyson is weirdly ambivalent about water. If it's coming from the sky: no worries. LET HIM ROLL IN IT and then come tearing inside and SHAKE LIKE A MOFO so that we soak every towel we own cleaning it all up. But if it's coming from a spigot or a hose: FLEE IN TERROR. Besides, he's got those extra toes/claws and copious foot fluff that needs attending once very 5 or 6 weeks. Frankly, it's worth the fifty bucks to pay someone else to deal with our pretty pretty princess of a pooch.

In other news, he's taken up archaeology as a hobby. Sometimes, the little bastard just needs a nice sudsy bath. Administered by a trained professional.

Bonus hilarity: The cat's reaction to the dog's brief absence.

You see, his old groomers were way at the other end of town, out near the mall - so when we took him there, we'd hang out and go shopping, run errands, and whatnot. This was the first time we ever took him someplace, left him there, and came home to wait out the primping.

The cat was just about hysterical. She wandered from room to room, checking out the dog's favorite places, yowling as if she was heartbroken.

Mind you, this is an animal that behaves like a furry little KRAKEN OF HATE every time the puppy tries to play with her. Usually, she wants to know where he is purely so that she can either avoid him or growl at him. (She goes out of her way to do this, once in awhile. These are not her finest moments.)

But we take him away for a couple of hours? And we get a protracted feline chorus of WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM? MY BELOVED LITTLE BROTHER! HE IS GONE, OH GOOD LORDY HELP US, HE IS GONE!

When the groomers called, we picked him up and brought him home. The cat stayed on our bed, eyeing him as per usual ... but when he sniffed up to her, she didn't hiss. He took this as encouragement, and flopped down on the floor in front of her for a nap.

I call it progress. Because I take what I can get.
Anyway, I guess that brings us up to the present.

So how have you guys been?