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Month: July 2019

That Time of Year

It’s that time of year for me. When friends text “hey, haven’t seen you!” and follow up a minute later with “right. End of July. See you in September!” When parents bump into me in the grocery store and suddenly I’m holding an impromptu “know your rights” discussion in the frozen section (next to the Haagen-Dasz “Spirits” ice cream, if you must know, and thankfully I don’t have any “Rum Tres Leches” in my cart yet to sit there melting and possibly drawing raised eyebrows.) The time of year when I’m having my friend in the passenger seat text cryptic messages like “FOSS kits” to my work email because I’m driving and can’t write it down but I really need to poke someone about that tomorrow. When I’m cruising all the back-to-school sales looking for the BEST deals because the more money I can save now, the more we can help out a parent in a bind later. When I’m at work emailing IT, checking on desks that should have arrived by now, and calling Facilities because the AC in the gym is still down–all at the same time. When I’m tracking down seemingly-random pieces of paper for HR and giving the copier a swift kick on the way past (I don’t actually kick it, but I am pretty quick at righting its wrongs.) We try, every year, to be ready. We do inventory and figure out what we need. We do research, and figure out where to buy it.…

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Everything old is new again

Those of you who are very observant probably noticed that this blog wasn’t posted yesterday like it was supposed to be. My bad. I need to put this on my calendar or something because I apparently can’t remember crap. Grump. But in cheerier news, I finally, finally, finally started the rewrite of Survivor, my psychological horror novel from 2004. It started its life as a carelessly written idea in a file I tucked away somewhere on my hard drive. When I decided to take a class on novel writing, and one of the requirements was a completely new idea, I happened to find it by accident. I worked on it literally for years, sometimes setting it aside for another book, but always came back to it. It fascinated and haunted me. In 2009, I finished the first draft. It was 225,000 words, too damn long but that was okay because I was quickly becoming the queen of the machete. I told myself for TEN FREAKING YEARS that I’d get to it, I’d get to it, but something was always getting in the way—important stuff, but stuff nonetheless. So when I found myself with a bit of room in my schedule and a writing challenge for this month, I said, “I wonder if I could finally do this. I’ve waited long enough.” So I did. In the beginning, it felt so wrong, because I remembered what the original was like. Even though 2004!Erin sucked as a writer, it still felt firmly…

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Summer, Alas

Hi, friends! Here we are, in July, and I find myself yearning for late August, at the very earliest. I am not someone who deals well with being hot. My ancestors hail from the frigid north, and, as they say, you can add layers if you’re cold, but eventually you run out of things you can take off. And aside from the heat, there’s the light. I don’t mind being able to go out late, but the birds don’t get the memo that 4:30 in the morning is not an appropriate time to sing. And the smaller members of the family are out of school. Which means either they’re around and need looking after, or they need to be taken places and supervised. I’m getting very little done. I mean, I am getting a little done, but I’ve had to resort to getting up early to try and get stuff done, which only works sometimes, depending on whether or not people can sleep through the sun and the birds. Oh well, it is what it is. And I guess its not all bad. Though we did overbook ourselves on activities, but it should clear up in the next week, and then maybe we can actually relax and enjoy the season. And maybe I’ll be able to get more done. How’s your summer? Are you more of a heat or cold person yourself?

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The Gardening Saga Goes High

(No, not that kind of high…although marijuana is now legal in Canada.) In this year’s edition of the battle with the bindweed, spouse and I decided to put in raised beds for our vegetable patch. There is now landscape fabric underneath the beds (with a hole so the worms could get through and work their magic on the soil), and fabric and mulch on the paths between the beds, and new, uncontaminated soil IN the beds to give us a head start. And all the digging and weeding will be an awful lot easier on our backs. Having the beds built in the spring meant that we got a slow start on the planting. It was too late for most things that go directly in the ground as seeds, so we only put in a few–beets, carrots, and bush beans (unlike most beans, these don’t need to grow up a pole, so they won’t shade our neighbours’ vegetable patch that is directly to the north and now two feet lower than ours). I keep meaning to try a fall crop of seeds, too, if we can get anything harvested soon enough so there’s space. (Our first frost date is somewhere around the end of October or beginning of November.) New this year, we’re trying potatoes, which are growing like mad, so that’s exciting. I’m hilling up the soil around them so they’ll be easier to harvest later, but they’re growing so fast I can barely keep up. We’ve also got…

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Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 5

by Siri Paulson Read previous installments: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Marius leaned on the railing of Niko’s airship, watching the dock workers as they clung to the spire below and untied the ropes that had tethered the ship. On the deck to either side of him, pirates hauled the ropes in and coiled them with impressive precision. The air sacs swelled, and the sails filled. The vessel slipped away gently into the night. Behind, the lights of the city gleamed like cloth-of-gold; ahead were the more scattered lights of the countryside, and beyond that a wide velvet-rich blackness that must be the sea. Nobody had paid him any mind, once he understood to keep out of the way. The pirates rushed to and fro, climbing and hauling and shouting. Niko stood on the raised deck at the…stern?…of the ship like a veritable island of calm, only making gestures now and then, or speaking to a crew member who rushed off to convey his orders. He looked like a man who could pull off a scarlet justacorps coat – not flamboyant, but self-assured as Marius himself could only dream of being. Just watching the man made his blood quicken. Marius watched, fascinated, until he realized he was trembling with cold. Now he understood the long coat and woolen tricorn hat, which had seemed above Niko’s station, for all that he wore them well. The crew seemed warm enough, moving about in shirtsleeves, but he…

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