A Professional Dilettante

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do every day.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust.

1) Spend months and months traveling all around the world, with someone else staying at home to take care of the cats and the garden.

2) Be one of those outlier indie book authors who sells umpteen million books.

Well, as long as we're dreaming...

Oh, and I just discovered mug cakes, via a rather tasty brownie version.

First. About 800 words today. Over 5500 words on Ghost Light so far. All in that seriously weird POV. So maybe this is going to work? Or not. I'm still dubious. But we plug on.

Second. Meme.

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do every day.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust.

Let's go with the obvious first, and get it out of the way.

1) Watching Grand Geyser go off for the first time in September, 1999.

Then, hmmm...

2) Being made to keep my appointment with the dentist even after my sister went into labor with my first nephew when I was fourteen.

3) Catching my first (and only, so far, not that I fish anymore, anyway) salmon in Homer, Alaska when I was fourteen.

Apparently fourteen was a memorable year [g].

4) The day I left husband #2 in April, 1993. Unpacking that one would take far too long, but trust me, it was memorable.

On the museum front, I conducted my first interview, a colonel on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, for the new exhibit yesterday. I spent more time getting on-base (forty-five minutes, most of it spent waiting for a visitor pass) and waiting for him to get out of a meeting that ran over (for over half an hour) than I actually did interviewing him, but I did get some worthwhile information out of him.

I don't normally start interviewing this early in the process, but he's about to get transferred somewhere else, and will only be here for another week or so, so it was now or never. The rest of the interviews will start happening closer to Halloween, and probably run through the middle of December.

Forgot the meme yesterday, in all the excitement of finishing the flame quilt (yes), and the Seahawks losing their first game this year (no -- and they were ahead for most of the game [sigh], but at least they're still 4-1 on the season...).

So I'll just pretend I didn't miss a day, and go on from there:

Ten Day Journaling Challenge

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do everyday.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust.

I'm tempted to skip this one along with the day, actually, because a) I don't listen to a lot of music, and b) I'm not sure what being addicted to a song means.

But here are six pieces of music I like a lot and have listened to a number of times, does that count?

1) The soundtrack to the movie Wag the Dog. I've never actually seen the movie -- I originally ran across the CD at Half-Price Books and saw that it was composed and performed by Mark Knopfler, so I bought it and fell in love with it.

2) The soundtrack to the PBS series about Lewis and Clark. Lots of lovely fiddle music and a theme that breaks my heart.

3) Great Big Sea in general is one of my favorites. "When I'm Up" is the young Miles Vorkosigan's theme song, and the lyrics of "Stumbling In" could have been written by him at the end of Komarr. And a song simply titled "Love" has the best rhythm ever.

4) "China Grove," by the Doobie Brothers.

5) "Pirates", by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

6) "My Life," by Billy Joel, which was my personal anthem in high school.

Wow, it's gorgeous out there (and yes, I've been out enjoying it -- I just got back from a three-mile hike through the woods, not, I note, in a national park). After one of the rainiest Septembers on record, it's all blue skies and upper 60sF out there, with a touch of crisp in the breeze and wispy cirrus clouds. I should have taken my camera. Maybe tomorrow after the Seahawks game, since the weather's supposed to hold till Monday.

Anyway.

Ten Day Journaling Challenge

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do everyday.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust.

Gods, I hope I don't have seven of them. And again, anyone who knows me or reads my LJ/DW is going to know most of these.

1) Vines.

2) Manmade heights (natural ones like cliffs don't bother me).

3) Manmade closed-in spaces (again, not natural ones, like caves).

4) The dark. Not so much just because it's the dark anymore (the way it was when I was a kid and slept with my head under the covers), but because scary and dangerous folk tend to like the dark.

5) Needles and syringes of the varieties intended for poking at the human body.

6) ETA the next day: Dear godlings, I can't believe I forgot PUBLIC SPEAKING. Where "public" means more than about half a dozen people at a time.

And I honestly can't think of any more. I mean, I have a healthy respect for large predators like bears, and I'm not thrilled with spiderwebs, especially when I walk into a faceful of one, but I'm not scared of them. So that's okay.

First, the I did good part.

Last Christmas my mother gave me a hundred dollar gift card to LL Bean (she's gotten to the point at almost 90 where she doesn't shop anymore, and had asked me where I'd like to have a card from). When I went to spend it last January, they were already sold out of the sweaters I wanted to spend it on, so I just hung onto it. Their fall catalog, complete with lots of sweaters, came in yesterday's mail. With a completely-unexpected code for a one-time 20% off my entire order. So I got online and used my gift card and the code, and bought two beautiful new wool sweaters (one crew-neck and one zip front) and a nice shirt, and paid only $3.86 out of pocket. Bean's is expensive by my standards, but their stuff never goes out of style (I suspect because it was never in style in the first place, but then neither am I [g]), and it lasts forever. So I'm pleased.

Second, day three of the ten-day meme:

Ten Day Journaling Challenge

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do everyday.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust

I run the risk on this one of sounding just a bit, er, not quite on my nut. Frankly, I don't care [g]. Also, some of these are seriously first world issues. So, not in any particular order except as I thought of them...

1) Ghost jams (those traffic jams with no visible reason for existence).

2) Misbehaving inanimate objects.

3) Bad service in restaurants.

4) People who make assumptions without asking first. Actually, let's just go with people who make unwarranted assumptions about other people, period.

5) Being lied to.

6) Not being able to choose my relatives.

7) Fall coming before I was ready for summer to end.

8) Relatives who ask questions that aren't any of their business.

Lastly, this is one seriously odd point of view character I'm writing this time. And I'm at least half sure I may end up writing her into a corner because she's so limited (as in I'm really scared that there's going to be stuff that needs to be in the book that she has no way of seeing or hearing). But she's the one who is insisting on telling the story, and no one else has stepped up, so here we go.

Over 800 words today, anyway, and I think I've hit the end of Chapter 1.

It's gorgeous: http://twistedsifter.com/2013/10/the-story-of-glass-gem-corn/

I don't know who introduced me to the Twisted Sifter blog, but I'm sure glad whoever it was did. This is just the latest of the fascinating stuff I've seen there.

I am such a sucker for this sort of thing.

Ganked from quietann.

Ten Day Journaling Challenge

Day One: Ten random facts about yourself.
Day Two: Nine things you do everyday.
Day Three: Eight things that annoy you.
Day Four: Seven fears/phobias.
Day Five: Six songs that you’re addicted to.
Day Six: Five things you can’t live without.
Day Seven: Four memories you won’t forget.
Day Eight: Three words you can’t go a day without using.
Day Nine: Two things you wish you could do.
Day Ten: One person you can trust

I suspect none of the ten items I can come up with for the first one is going to be news to anyone who reads my LJ, but oh, well.

1) I've been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back via mule.

2) I've traveled to Alaska via the Alaska Highway back when 1200 miles of it was gravel.

3) I rolled my car once.

4) I'm in love with Yellowstone.

5) I have too many relatively useless letters behind my name: B.G.S., M.L.S., Museum Cert.

6) I am decidedly a cat person, although I like most dogs I've met.

7) My favorite flower is bearded iris.

8) My favorite color is the shade of green labeled "green" in the Crayola crayon box.

9) I do not like coconut or raisins.

10) Peanuts hate me.

I have been fortunate, for the last eight and a half years, to live within walking distance of a really, really good independent grocery store, with the best and most reasonably-priced meat and produce in the area.

I went in to do my shopping there this afternoon, only to find out that they're closing down for -- I won't say for good, because it isn't good. Not one little bit. But they're shutting down and won't be opening back up again. The staff apparently found out on Tuesday, and, except for getting rid of the last of their non-perishable stock and selling the fixtures, today is the last day. The deli and the meat counter and the produce and the dairy are all but gone and they won't be getting any more deliveries.

I am so, so disappointed.

I just picked 32 burrs out of Ivan's fur.

He was only outside for about half an hour!

The draft of Cross-Country is finished!!!

96,163 words in 79 days. Not too shabby!

Gonna let it ripen for a couple of weeks, then I shall give it a going over, and see what we can see.

That was fun. Makes me want to take off like that again. Maybe one of these years soon.

Now I guess it's on to Ghost Light, although I'm thinking about NaNoWriMo-ing it. We'll see.