It wasn’t too long ago that the butterflies in the Adirondacks were visiting the New York Asters growing in our garden. But that’s all done now and Garage Sale Season seems to be winding to an end as well.

 

I have to admit Garage Sale Season is one of my favorites. In the Adirondacks the biggest garage sale of them all is the “World’s Largest Garage Sale” in Warrensburg right off exit 23 of the Northway in New York State. It’s immense! There’s no possible way to see it all.

 

For a country town Warrensburg is pretty big. Many of the private homes are close together in the style of suburbia and many families join in the fun of the garage sale. But the big attraction is the endless line-up of vendors reaching for miles on the main street. So this garage sale has new items as well as old.

 

My favorite purchase this year was a light tan leather jacket bought from a woman around my age (which is in the youthful grandmother range) who had just decided to give up riding her motorcycle. She felt it was time to move on to other things, but I couldn’t miss the longing in her eyes as she passed on her jacket to me. I promised to take good care of it, although unfortunately it won’t be enjoying the open road in quite the same way any more.

 

Yesterday the Jury Duty Season began for me. Queens County is reported to be the most integrated borough in New York City and the jury room was surely proof of that. Just about every name and nationality was represented there. The guard in charge of the jurors, however, was up to the task of handling it. Evidently he considered it very important to properly pronounce everyone’s name and he did it with a practiced roll of the tongue. Plus, he was gifted with an easy sense of humor and great patience when dealing with people like me who tore the wrong piece out of their jury summons. He made the whole process quite painless.

 

As it turned out, I was accepted on a case that will probably last for a couple of weeks. It will disrupt my schedule a bit and I have been known to groan as loudly as anyone about having to go, but I know the jury system is an important part of the American system of justice. Plus as a bonus I get to meet a lot of new people from different backgrounds. What could be better than that!

 

Whenever the Olympics are on TV, I’m always proud to see the American teams parade in. While the teams of most other countries are largely homogenous, the U.S. teams are a kaleidoscope of different colors and types. Our country looks like a microcosm of the whole world. And I always feel great pride in that. I think we are the face of the world to come. And the jury room down at the county court house in Queens is an excellent example of it.

Today’s news is indeed upsetting.

According to headlines in the New York Times, not only is the office of the Vice President suspected of strong arming the people of the United States into a war and ruthlessly silencing critics of it, (“In Indictment’s Wake, a Focus on Cheney’s Powerful Role” by Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt, Oct. 30, 2005, copyrighted by The New York Times --- NYTimes.com) there is also an article about the continued lack of armor suffered by our American troops and the new Iraqi troops that we are pushing to take on more responsibility.

Evidently both armies are waiting on American companies, who are no doubt adding plenty to their bottom lines, but aren’t able to add enough to the front lines to protect our children or our allies.

This is a national disgrace!

Our Iraqi allies are not supposed to begin receiving the hoped for 1,500 armored Humvees till December “and most will not be built until next summer, military and company officials said. (“Lack of Armor Proves Deadly for Iraqi Army” by Michael Moss, Oct. 30, 2005, copyrighted by The New York Times --- NYTimes.com)

Of course the insurgents are taking full advantage of all this and will continue to. They aren’t going to quietly wait while our side gets its act together. They’re going to take full advantage while American children and Iraqi soldiers die.

True, the Iraqis need training and a straightening of their Army’s administration. But while the Pentagon experts are taking care of that, people at home should be taking care of the things they can.

I read an article sometime earlier in the month about a local New York mother sending her boy off to Iraq, paying her own money for his body armor. About the same time, I saw a popular TV series feature a story about a group staging a fund raiser to buy armor for the American troops. Where is the government???

Why are corporations lobbying for sweet deals and why is Congress giving tax cuts to those who don’t need them, when our children are going without armor in a war that we sent them to? The Pentagon has told Congress what it needs. What sense does it make for Party Bosses like Cheney to fight so hard for a war that they cross the line of legality, but don’t bother to do what’s really necessary to win it??? Why didn’t Cheney use some of that arm twisting to make sure our troops and allies were properly supplied? We shouldn’t be having bake sales to do it. Bush and his base should be putting their money where their mouths are. Then maybe we wouldn’t have passed the 2,000 mark on American casualties.

How can we expect the Iraqi people to trust us, when we don’t even take care of our own?

Once upon a time....there was a couple with four cats, one bird, and a whole lot of tropical fish. Most folks would have thought that was quite enough pets. But this couple was not “most folks.” They had been thinking about getting a dog for a long time. And so, one March morning they went to a shelter in the Adirondacks and adopted a puppy. He was six weeks old at the time, a passive easygoing puppy that the caretaker at the shelter described as a moosh, all tan with occasionally darker fur. His mom was a shepherd mix and his dad was a husky. The couple decided to name him Wolf....although Wolfie actually fits him better.

Even before he arrived, the top cat (named Charles) was already suspicious. He was an older cat of about ten years who maintained his position mainly because he was good at policing the food dishes and because he was so much smarter than everyone else. He had seen the large crate set up in the bedroom in the Adirondacks and knew that change of some kind was in the air. He didn’t like change in any form and noticed when even the smallest thing was out of place.

At that time, Wolf was about the size of the second smallest cat, the one nicknamed The Queen. He was comfortably smaller than either of the male cats. So it was thought that the cats would have a chance to adjust to the situation before the dog came to full size. To say the least, they weren’t happy.

Anyone who’s ever had a baby puppy will know how hard it is to begin housebreaking. On Saturday when we got Wolf, I thought he was adorable. On Sunday, I was very tired and it was hard to keep both the puppy and my husband happy at the same time. On Monday, I thought the puppy was magic. On Tuesday I thought he was less than magic. And so it went.

We decided to begin crate training and housebreaking in the Adirondacks so that my husband could get a full night’s sleep in Queens during the week. He only had to suffer along with me on weekends.

This was not our first puppy. We had had a pet store puppy for about a week a few years back. It was a disaster! We ended up giving her back. She was four months old at the time and living in a small crate in the store with nothing much to do to amuse herself but drink water. This taught her the opposite of what she needed to know to become housebroken. She was an hysterical dog. She barked and howled constantly and still had the bladder control of a newborn. But unlike a newborn, she had the energy to fight me every step of the way. After a week, we all needed a good dose of valium, the cats included. The cats hid the entire time she was with us. In short, she was the puppy from Hell despite the fact that she was a Lab and Labs are supposed to be just about the perfect dog. Well....not Samantha.

We saw a young child with a Lab shortly after we said good-bye to Samantha. They were at an outdoor crafts fair, so we had the chance to observe the dog for some time. He was about the same age as Samantha, yet he was calm and didn’t bounce in every direction while barking madly. And he didn’t need to go to the bathroom every ten minutes. We were amazed.

Happily, Wolf was much easier to take care of than Samantha….except for the late night walks that I had to do half asleep. All animals have personalities. We’ve found this to be true even in the case of our tropical fish. From the first, Wolf seemed to be intelligent, willful, lazy, and a major wuss....all at the same time.

The wuss part made him seem harmless to three out of the four cats. The secondary male, Brian, took one look at Wolf and decided he wasn’t worth bothering about. He led the way on things and helped with late night walks while we were in the Adirondacks. The top cat, Charles, was furious because he hadn’t been consulted. He pouted in seclusion for days. Then he became afraid that Brian might steal his throne, so he reasserted himself and began sitting in his usual places like an overweight ancient cat god. Tabitha, aka The Queen, was the second to come around. She kept Wolf in his place until he passed twenty pounds. Then he stopped flinching at her growls and the two began baiting each other, which Wolf thoroughly enjoys.

The holdout was and is the smallest and youngest cat. She used to be fearless. Unfortunately, she thought she was part bird when she when she was young and one day she tried to fly across the kitchen. She sort of fell out of the sky and injured one of her legs in the process. It healed completely, but the realization that she could get hurt did something to her little kitty mind. Ever since then, she’s been more nervous than the rest of them and she seems to forget who we are if we’ve been away for a couple of days. I call her Poor Mad Hope now. But don’t pity her too much. Wolf is now sixty pounds, while Hope is no more than ten. Yet she’s convinced him that he isn’t allowed in the bedroom in Queens. All she has to do to intimidate Wolf is to rush at him and he runs out. It’s almost impossible to coax him into the bedroom there anymore. Like I said, he’s a wuss.

The headlines of late have been full of tales about politicians and military types who are having trouble adjusting their thinking to the new times and tribulations. When new problems arise, their first thought is to attack it by using techniques that worked before, but no longer apply to this time.

My mother-in-law will be turning 96 in a few months. She doesn't like the idea of adapting to new things either. She's seen a lot of changes and she dislikes many of them. Things like cable television, and panty hose, and dish washers, and air conditioners, and women wearing pants. Of course, there are some things she's glad have changed, like segregation.

It got me thinking about immortality. After all, I write stories that have to do with long lived fairies and vampires. I'm beginning to think immortality is something that could be a burden unless you were able to adapt easily to change. I mean, what if you're my mother-in-law? If she'd rather air dry clothes in her basement than use a gadget like a clothes dryer, how could she adjust to things like automatic check-out in supermarkets? Or bill paying by computer? Or identity fraud?.......Between you and me, I don't think she'd make a very good vampire. Before long, she'd be eager to greet the sun.

I've come to believe that real genius is in learning. Those who can learn (whether human or immortal) can see change coming and adapt. They might mourn the loss of the old and familiar. But then they'd jump right into those pantyhose and boldly go forth. Those who can't do that, would probably hide, or try to stop the earth in its revolutions, or get caught up in confusion.

Age can lead to wisdom. But only if you're willing to learn.

Tonight the show I'm in goes up. My tapping feet are not quite sure they've got all the steps down, but the show must go on! Happily, my husband and I are both finally cured of our bronchitis. For me, this is the first time I've felt completely well since November.

Our 1920's cabaret group runs to about twenty people. Some of them are "old-timers" who've been with the community theatre group for a very long time, like me and my husband and the lady who's worked so hard at directing and choreographing our piece. But there are many talented young people fresh to NYC who are excited about doing one of their first shows here. We're lucky to have them. We'd love to have them come back for more shows, but I have a sneaking suspicion most of them will be moving on to bigger and better things after this show closes.

Besides my group's 45 minute spot, there are three one act plays set in the 1920's. I haven't seen all the plays yet, but it should be an enjoyable evening. I'm betting our crew will be the most exhausted, though. We're squeezing in something like 50 songs and four major tap numbers into those 45 minutes. The last tap number leaves me so out of breath that I can't sing the final song.

I've gotten good playback from the people who have seen the show in rehearsals. Several of them have urged me to put together my own cabaret act. We're not talking anything big here. I'm an unknown middle aged matron-type with a middle aged matron figure. I won't be drawing big crowds. But I wouldn't mind putting together some little something of standards just to feel like I did something with my voice for a bit. Manhattan has little places where you can do that sort of stuff.

Writing has taken a back seat to the show and being sick for the last couple of weeks. But I look forward to visiting my old character friends after the final show on Sunday. Sometimes after a show performers feel what my husband calls "post show depression." Lucky for me, it's hard to feel that way when you have people like Wolf & Virginia and Baen & Melanie waiting for you.

To close out on a theatrical note...The musical "Gypsy" with Bernadette Peters was slated to close, but has been given a reprieve. When the closing was announced there was such a rush for tickets that the producers thought it was better to wait. Secretly I'd like it to stick around so that maybe Patti Lapone could have her try at Rose. Ms. Lapone has recently gotten great reviews for the Encore! version of Can-Can. Her vocal range would be great for the role.

The closing notices for the musical "Never Gonna Dance" also went out. The idea of a new Fred and Ginger styled musical was nice, but the reviews said that the Ginger role wasn't done as the hard dame with a soft center the way Ms. Rogers used to play it. She was played like a dewey-eyed ingenue. That type is largely out of style nowadays. Some old stock characters are ripe and ready to be brought back. The grande dame especially. But dewey-eyed ingenues???...No.

The bronchitis is still hanging on more than I'd like. The fever backed off yesterday, but returned today. Despite it, I had to go out food shopping because we've got yet another winter storm predicted for tomorrow. This is the coldest and messiest winter I can remember in NYC.

Food shopping in my neighborhood is not easy. My husband says it's not for amateurs. The supermarkets are the same size they were some fifty years ago when there were very few people living around here. Now there are high rise apartments everywhere and the small supermarkets can't realistically serve the number of people coming to them. Store shopping carts can't fit down the aisles because they're too narrow and there are boxes piled up everywhere. There isn't much of a choice because there isn't any room. And merchandise gets piled straight up to the ceiling, well beyond the reach of average-sized humans.

My husband suggested I bring one of those supermarket grabbers with me. Sometimes there are one or two of them lying around that you can use. Otherwise, he's been known to search out a ladder, or unstack six feet high piles of soda cans to get to the flavor he wants. I'm not as macho as he is, so I usually only buy what I can reach. When I stumble into one of those huge stores with wide aisles and lots of merchandise, I always walk around wide-eyed like a kid who's entered some kind of magic wonderland. I've been known to stand in awe at the sheer magnitude and selection of some of those freezer aisles. That there could be such bounty and ease of shopping...is just amazing!

One thing I've really been unhappy about lately is that the local stores seem to be washing up the areas where they package chicken without rinsing them down properly. So chicken takes on the taste of cleaning fluid. A taste that can't always be detected beforehand, but doesn't cook out and can't be masked by seasonings. I've started only buying pre-wrapped oven stuffers. I appreciate the stores trying to be clean. But could they rinse too?

Oh, well. The good news about today's shopping trip is that I managed to get three good sized bags of cat food. There's been a shortage of dry cat food around here lately. Don't ask me why. Most of the stores only carry the tiny boxes that don't go far when you've got a multiple cat household. And to make matters worse, those tiny boxes are so high up that you can only manage to knock out one or two them. Maybe my husband's right about bringing that grabber.

My mother-in-law's house has finally been sold! And that makes things a lot easier for us. We don't have to constantly stoke the boiler with water or pick up the mail or pay bills in reference to it. The moving of furniture will probably end sometime in March, but it will happen in manageable dribs and drabs.

And so, what's the first thing that my husband and I did? We got sick. Again! Yet we're trying to be stoic about it and attend as many rehearsals as we can for the one hour cabaret piece that we're in. The dancing is very fast paced tap and at times it's difficult for us non-professional dancers. My old tap shoes are standing up to the challenge, but my feet aren't always what you'd call eager. Still, we need as much practice as we can get. The singing part of the show is harder to practice when you're sick. My usually strong belt voice is being stifled by this creepy crud illness as if there were a hand wrapped around my throat.

But still, we're getting out, mixing with people, and doing something besides worrying about my mother-in-law. So it's all for the good.

The positive side to being sick is that I had some extra time to finish up the next chapter of Full Circle and outline a bit of the forthcoming chapters. The durn thing is *so* complicated! And being away from it for a while makes me worry that I'll lose control of it. But I keep on pushing. Chapter Sixteen has been posted to Fanfiction.net!

I always feel a sense of hopefulness at the New Year.

For New Year's Eve we went to see the musical "Wonderful Town" on Broadway. Going through Times Square was not the easiest thing to do on New Year's Eve this year. You had to be seriously into crowds and not mind waiting or being searched.

The security at Times Square was unbelievably tight. They literally checked each person, sometimes at several checkpoints. You couldn't walk around anywhere you wanted to. People going to the theatre had to show their tickets and get a police escort to cross Broadway. They were trying to keep the streets totally unclogged and weren't allowing random crossings. The initial checkpoint did the metal detector thing. People staying at hotels in the area had to show proof, some were asked for ID's. Coats had to be opened to prove you weren't carrying weapons. Of course this took a lot of time. People were backed up quite a ways. Theatre-goers (like us) were especially frantic to make their 7:00 curtain.

By the time we got out of the show, I think the area around Times Square had been closed off. The streets around it were teeming with people who couldn't get in. We tried to walk around the enormous cordoned off area to get to our friends's apartment, but we almost got trapped at the top of Fifth Avenue and Central Park. People were so jammed in you couldn't move. Finally we threw politeness to the wind and barreled through into the park. We got to the relative quiet of the upper east side shortly after. I've never been one for crowds. But there were plenty of young people there enjoying the big party.

"Wonderful Town" was something of a disappointment. It was well-performed, but the piece seemed out-of-date to us. It's about two innocent sisters from Iowa with the straw not quite out of the hair who brave New York City in 1935. One of them wants to be an actress (even though she's a "good girl") and the other wants to be a writer. The plot seemed kind of quaint by today's standards and the music didn't seem that strong to me. However, we have a couple of friends who are wild about it. So as usual it comes down to personal taste.

We saw "The Boy from Oz" last month with Hugh Jackman and liked it much much better. Jackman is simply amazing! I don't know how he can keep up his high energy performance, dancing on pianos and talking directly to the audience at various points. I think he should get the Tony for this. Unfortunately, the show isn't anything without him. He's taking vacation sometime soon and the show is closing down while he's away. "Wonderful Town" didn't close down when Donna Murphy was ill. It kept right on going. It's interesting to note, though, that Hugh Jackman's performance changed sometime during previews. A friend of a friend saw it early on and said that Jackman's performance was tepid at best. She said Jackman didn't do any of the comfortable ad-libbing with the audience that we saw him do and he looked nervous. Well, somewhere along the way that changed! If you're in NYC and the show is up, go see it!

On Monday night we went to see the latest incarnation of "Gypsy." That's one of my all time favorites. From the first time I saw it, I wanted to be Louise, the ugly duckling who grew up into a sexy swan. Nowadays I'd love to play the role of Rose. But there's no likelihood of that. The church where my husband and I do community theatre would never do a show about a stripper. So, I content myself with watching other women play it. I'm wondering when Patti Lupone of "Evita" fame will try.

I loved Bernadette Peters as the witch in "Into the Woods" and as Annie in "Annie Get Your Gun." But in "Gypsy" I had the feeling that she was ripping her voice apart. Like Donna Murphy she had vocal issues in the beginning. These old roles were created for women with lower belt voices. Donna Murphy didn't sound as if she was in any distress by the time we saw her, but Bernadette Peters did. Still, the audience adored her and she certainly gave it everything she had. I just think she should have relaxed into the part more. "Gypsy" has a great score and a timeless plot. It's the kind of the thing where you can let the energy role off you. You don't have to punch it up.

Anyway, I shouldn't talk. My belt voice is badly out of shape. I'm going on an audition Friday for the next show at our community theatre. They always do a selection of one-acts in this slot. Last season I wrote and directed one about two real-life lady spies in the Civil War. This year I've been asked to join a forty-five minute 1920's musical cabaret complete with tap dancing.

It's sort of a reunion for some of us, but new people will be welcome as well. The director/choreographer has done many a show there. I'm just hoping they don't notice how bad my voice has become from disuse and I wonder if my tap shoes will hold out for one more show. The last time I wore them, they had strap problems. I wouldn't do this except I really need the happy escapism right now. At least I won't be directing or choreographing. I just have to show up for rehearsals.

On the negative side, we spent New Year's Day itself in the emergency room with my mother-in-law. She's been in the hospital since and they've been doing an endless array of tests on her that don't seem to come to much of a conclusion. In addition we're racing against time doing the final things that need to be done to prepare her house for sale.

My husband's cousin is coming this weekend to move some family things that we're holding for her. I'm thinking of handing out blinders to her and her husband when they walk into my apartment so they won't see the nasty clutter. The place looks like the annex to an antique shop with lots of excess furniture and cats scattered about. It may look like that through next month as we wait to move the various pieces to their final destinations.

There hasn't been much time for writing in all this. I have the next chapter of "Full Circle" waiting for a rewrite and one additional scene. I need to get it out soon because a few people have asked about it. The next installment of my original fantasy "Betony" needs a little going over before it goes to its readers too. And the "Champion of Anat" was left off at Baen's entrance. It's been like that since last month . . . or maybe November. The holidays were kind of a blur.

But at least I got a chance to put up our little Christmas tree in the Adirondacks. That tree with its old bubble lights still glows pleasantly in my mind's eye. It seemed to say that 2004 would be a good year. Here's hoping that it will be!

Up in the Adirondacks we have seventeen inches of snow on the ground. It's still fluffy because it's been so cold. It only slipped above freezing for a few minutes yesterday in the sun. Which was good because it defrosted our satellite dish so it could move and hubby could tune in the game. When I got up in the morning it was ten degrees. By Adirondack standards anything about zero is warm.

There's too much snow in the yard to walk around without snow shoes. I'm planning on a trip down to the river later. I'll see how much ice has built up around the edges and see where the local red fox couple has been hunting. Most of our two acre yard is unmarked by footprints of any kind. Our cats don't go off the porch because the snow is higher than some of them are. They usually wait till we leave snow shoe tracks around the house. They can walk in those.

The plow service has already built up quite a pile of snow at the end of the drive way. The way we're going, it probably will be taller than we are by the end of the winter and won't completely melt until the middle April. That's the Adirondacks. Winter is the dominant season. But the great white pines standing 100 feet tall keep it from looking bleak. They look quite decorative edged with snow. There's a real winter wonderland outside our door.

The only thing I find strange is that most people haven't decorated outside this season. There are a few outstanding arrangements . . . an old Victorian house that looks like an enormous gingerbread house lit up at night . . . a house with a big broad smile and blue window eyes . . . and a full sized Grinch trying to steal Christmas on somebody's lawn. But those are the big overdone displays. Most Adirondackers decorate porches and small evergreens near their house. They decorate early and leave their outside lights up into January and sometimes February. Long winters make you want to extend the holiday season. I wonder what's up with this year. We're so late to it, we probably won't do it either. But for us it's a time thing. Our little four foot tree isn't up yet and I'd like to do that first.

I assume the main town streets are decorated as usual. Lake George Village has throngs of people in the summer going to the arcades and staying at the enormous hotels. But at Christmas time and through February it looks like a quieter version of Bedford Falls from "It's a Wonderful Life." It's hard to believe it's the same place. Up in Saranac Lake they probably already have their yearly ice castle built. It's made of big blocks of ice from the lake. They illuminate it with colored lights at night. To add to the festivities, they have a big parade. Of course Whiteface and Gore Mountains are probably well into the ski season by now.

It's good to get away from all the craziness of selling my mother-in-law's house. We still have stuff to move, but the sale is supposed to be completed in the beginning of next month. The house is now cleaner than it's been in ten years. It looks so different without all the clutter. I can sense the house looking forward to the new owners and a new life. One phase is over and another is beginning. Such is the circle of life for all of us I guess, be it person or house.

2004 isn't far away.

I'm running a race to the weekend. Will I get everything done that needs to be done so we can go away to the Adirondacks? I don't know. Laundry has already gotten crossed off my to-do list. Trying to get an open spot in the laundry room is real work and can take lots of hours I don't have.

Tomorrow I will be at my mother-in-law's house all day watching the junk people pile up all of her stuff in a dumpster to be carried off at the end of the day. Fifty years worth of stuff.

On Sunday the junk people gave a tag sale to sell as much of it beforehand as possible. But there was a big snow storm, so not too many people came. My husband and I toured the place last night and it was sad to see how much had been left behind. The leavings of a life . . . of six lives really, my father-in-law, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, my husband, and two granddaughters (with a few assorted ex's thrown in for bad measure).

On Thursday we're having some movers take two of the items that we were hoping would be sold, a china hutch and a drop leaf table. They are both beautiful old pieces, but nobody wanted them. The head junk-lady had been very excited about them, but no one else was. My husband and I couldn't bear to see them thrown in the dumpster, so we're cramming them into our apartment somehow.

When the house next door to my mother-in-law was sold a few years back, she was still living in her house and doing fine. She was about 90. She's 95 now. Her next door neighbor had been moved to an assisted living facility just as she is living in now. They brought in a dumpster just as we're bringing in tomorrow and emptied his house of everything, carting it all away to some dump site. My mother-in-law told us about it and mentioned how sad it was. Now it's happening to her. Well, at least a few of her things won't end up there for a while, at least not till it's our turn.

My mother-in-law sort of knows we're selling her house, but not really. On the day of the tag sale she tried to run away from the assisted living facility again. She kept packing her things and her aide kept unpacking them. She said she was going to live in the Bronx with her sister Anna (who by the way has been dead for forty years). At least she doesn't miss her house anymore. And she doesn't have to live with the sadness of seeing all of her treasured possessions go into the dumpster. We seem to be carrying that burden for her.

It's my husband's turn to get sick. But I think he has a cold instead of the flu. This morning I'm hoping my sneezing fit was from allergies and not because I caught his cold. Enough sickness already here!!!

We spent the weekend dealing with boiler issues and moving furniture out of my mother-in-law's house. Our apartment now looks . . . old. I believe strongly that many of these things should stay in the family, but I suddenly find that our white kitchen with its gleaming glass table is my favorite room because it's the brightest. Don't tell my husband. I think he prefers the antique look more. I admit it's more masculine. Oh, well, he puts up with my fondness for stuffed animals.

The snow from the weekend is starting to melt back a little. With the presence of the moon it made me homesick for the Adirondacks. Up there the moon gets so bright you can read your watch by the light. And trees cast moon shadows.

Being sick for Thanksgiving wasn't fun. But I still got to watch the Macy's parade with hubby. Our favorite part is in the beginning with the songs from the different shows. I missed out on the actual family feasting. But my sister-in-law sent my husband home with a Thanksgiving care package, which I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed. Tomorrow somehow I've got to be well enough to go to a special wedding . . . Hopefully I won't be coughing enough to drown out the "I do's."

Next week we begin moving pieces of furniture out of my mother-in-law's house in preparation for its sale next month. I have my doubts about how well this will go. We're not exactly young anymore and some of the pieces are daunting. I expect our apartment to be filled to overflowing till some of the pieces end up in their final home. We're not putting a Christmas Tree up this year because of it. I don't expect all the moving to be finished till sometime in January or February. Our cats are not going to be happy. Especially the top cat, whose name is Charles. He hates change in any form. I'm also going to have to do some cleaning up and throwing out in our apartment to prepare for all of this. I'm so sorry I lost a week being sick.

The good news is that I got another chapter of Full Circle out on Thanksgiving Day. This is definitely the most complicated thing I've ever done, or probably ever will do. I'm just hoping I can thread it together well. I've started Chapter 16 which will feature a Council Meeting and a major move by Raphaela. As the birth of Virginia's baby grows closer, she's going to become more of a character.

I haven't had a chance to do much other writing. With Betony I'm close to finishing a new installment. It would be nice to have that out to my three readers before Christmas, but I think that's unlikely at the moment. The Champions of Anat are the last of the group. Baen's still waiting to walk onstage. I really should do that soon so that I don't lose the momentum of the character. Although, I don't think he'll let me.

The short story I've been working on, A Thank You, is out to three readers as well. I'm really curious to see how that will go over. I'm planning on sending that out to some literary type mags to see if it will get picked up. I'm just not sure if the subject matter will get in the way.

My friend Beverly sent me a really fun feminist kind of forward. I'm not usually into forwards, but I liked this one. I'm afraid I don't know the original author. But my thanks to him/her wherever she is.

"Here's some refreshing news:

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen - had to be a girl.

We should've known. Only women, while pregnant would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost."

We're now in the process of breaking up my mother-in-law's house. Various family members are taking various pieces and the stuff that's left will be sold in a tag sale during the middle of next month. One of the things my husband wanted was a painting that used to hang in his parents's livingroom. It's almost four feet in both length and height and depicts a seated lady dressed in red against a black background.

The lady is clearly middle-aged with black hair touched with waves of gray piled on her head. Her red gown is loose so that we can't tell much about her figure, but she doesn't look thin. She has a black cape edged with gold thrown rakishly over her shoulders. She wears long black gloves past her elbows decorated with rhinestones at the top and she wears long rhinestone earrings as well. Her hands dangle comfortably together at her knees in a very casual pose. And as for her expression . . . Well, she is a middle-aged woman who seems very comfortable with who she is. She obviously considers herself quite beautiful and sexy. She seems to think her graying hair is a crown, something to be worn with pride and not dyed away. And she wears red even though her figure isn't stylishly thin. She's not ashamed of her age or anything else. She is full of life and confidence and fun.

In short, I'd like to be her when I grow up!

There have been times when I've suspected that Full Circle was cursed. The fact that I hadn't been able to update it for the last six months since Chapter 13, just made it seem even more true. But yesterday, I managed at long last to finish Chapter 14 and even begin 15.

Yesterday I also I stopped in at Barnes and Nobles and bought copies of that brilliant (formerly self-published) fantasy book "Eragon" by young Christopher Paolini and "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley.

"Eragon" of course is interesting to me because of its history. It was self-published and went on to garner so much attention that it was picked up by Knopf. Of course it helps that the young author and his parents are also wonderful marketers. I was first interested in the book because of its involvement with a dragon. I also wouldn't mind comparing the original self-published version and the Knopf version because I've heard that at least one child fan of the original was disappointed by the "professional editing" of the Knopf version. Interesting. But it obviously hasn't hurt sales.

"Sunshine" is Ms. McKinley's first vampire novel. I've read a few of her other books. She has a rep for writing both young adult and adult books. She has reworked a number of fairy tale classics, including "Beauty and the Beast" (which she did two versions of) and "Deerskin" which is definitely an adult tale originally from the Grimms. "Sunshine" is written in first person and follows the heroine's relationship with a vampire.

I flipped to the end (as I always do) to see if I could tolerate it before I bought it. I've had enough doom and gloom, broody vampires, and can't-fall-in-love, selfish heroines, who seem to attract endless numbers of hunks. I like balanced stories with background romance where the spotlight is more on the adventure.

What I find interesting so far in "Sunshine" is that the existence of vampires is well known to the rest of the world. They aren't just myths. The Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton treats them the same way. So does Charlaine Harris's more comic series. For my own Champion series I intend to keep them as myths to the uninitiated. And I'm limiting myself to only one moody vamp type. In this case, a lady. Too often vamps come in one-mood-fits-all. Baen hasn't quite stepped on stage yet. But already I can see he intends to walk away with it.