You're Doing It Wrong

I accomplished a lot of things this weekend but not as many as I wanted. I made another batch of tomato sauce today and froze in serving-appropriate packages. I also did a small batch of applesauce but just for eating. I didn’t want to deal with canning today. Now I’m cranky and I have two more things I want to do before bed.

I still can’t find my camera battery charger. I keep thinking when I clean off a shelf or tidy up a drawer, it’s going to appear but so far no luck. I’m going to have to figure it out soon because ye olde camera battery is wearing down. I’m guessing the best way to find it would be to buy a new one.

Portland Cutlery went out of business at the beginning of the year. I got my knives sharpened there. I was sorry to see it go. I bought a bunch of stuff when they were clearing out. I still wish I had bought those steak knives.

Now I don’t know where to get my knives sharpened. There’s a chain store at the mall but I’m afraid they just have a machine in the back and the kid sticks the knife in and waits for a buzzer to go off and then comes back out and charges you $8. I haven’t investigated. This is a story I’ve invented as an excuse not to go to the mall.

I should learn to sharpen knives myself. Because you know, I really need one more thing for the weekend list.

This is my first weekend free and at home in two weekends and my first weekend at home without rain since before Labor Day. That means the yard is jungle, the house is a mess and my personal universe is untidy, my list a mile long and I don’t know where anything is. I have something like 200 emails sitting in their various folders and about 20 things on my desktop that I need to deal with and oodles of photos that have been downloaded, many 2-3 times, unlabeled in stupidly named folders, which is always a recipe for disaster.

This morning I decided to tackle house stuff before electronic stuff. So I’ve done housework, processed another batch of tomatoes, laundry load #5 is churning right now. I whacked back the hedge out front and implemented my “15 minutes-a-week to a weed-free yard” routine which is a big fat failure so no sense attempting to replicate in your own weedy yard.

Now I’m pooped and I can’t decide whether to work on some of the stuff on my desk or make food and watch TV. Hm.

Tomorrow will be a major writing and office organization day along with more tomato harvest and processing. And I’ll probably whip out a loaf of bread. I need to feed my sourdough before I forget.

One big thing happened which is that last week I made my first professional sale. Or any sale, ever.

Asimov’s Science Fiction is going to publish my story: “The Battle of Little Big Science” which I wrote during Clarion West, week #3.

I’m not really sure why I’m not making a bigger deal about it. It’s like I’ve been working for this for so long and now that it’s finally happened, I’m too embarrassed to talk about it. I don’t think that bodes well for my future in this business.

I don’t know the publication date, yet. Sometime next year. I’ll post about it endlessly at that time so you’ll have plenty of time to run to the store and buy 20 copies. Hopefully, there will be more to come. But I’ll need to work on submitting first.

This was the scene in Atlanta. Comfy clothes. Laptops. Snacks. Kira.

I keep thinking that I’m going to have more time to write stuff later but then the time never comes. Meanwhile, all these things I want to report on keep piling up. This is going to be it.

I don’t think I have anything to add to the Atlanta stuff I already wrote. It was a good trip and I’d love to do it again.

My new close personal friend Lila. This is the only picture in the car that turned out because she’s not a sit still kind of dog.

Twice in the last two weeks I’ve had that college dream where I have to go back to college and I don’t know where I’m going to live. I also have that dream where I’m in college but forgot to go to my class. This is a housing-anxiety specific dream. I haven’t had it in ages. I also had that dream where my teeth are falling out. I hate that dream. I always wake up and touch my teeth with relief.

Took Mom and Dad to a soccer game. Timbers won.

Mom and Dad came to town last Thursday and we’ve been running around doing all kinds of stuff. Besides soccer we shopped around downtown, went out to many fine meals, went for a walk on the nature trail, bought lamps, saw The Informant! which I recommend seeing knowing as little about it as possible. It was a nice surprise. We went to the Farmer’s market and then Bob took Dad to see Inglorious Basterds and I took Mom to Powell’s and the cooking store.

This is the crowd at Chapman School. There are about twice this many people behind us.

Probably the best thing we did while they were here was go see the Vaux Swifts at the Chapman School.

This is one of those things that I’ve heard about for years and it always sounded cool but was never anything we made a point of doing before. Swifts are birds that are migrating to South America. They eat bugs in Portland and at dusk in September they all fly into this chimney at the Chapman School. Here’s the Audubon page that will explain the whole thing with more facts.

It’s a huge scene with tons of people and kids. They bring picnics and get together in groups.

We spread out a blanket on the lawn. The birds were active when we got there but as the light faded there were more and more and their movements became less chaotic.

Big blur of Vaux Swifts Going to Bed

It’s tough to convey just how cool it was, especially since I’m tired and trying to hurry with this so I can go to bed. It’s like huge clouds of birds swirling in a mass and then floating into this chimney.

A falcon and a hawk showed up for a snack and all the people started booing. Then at one point the cloud of swifts chased the falcon across the sky and everyone clapped.

Near the end there was this giant mass of birds twisting like a tornado and then another mass of swifts joined it and it was like it was choreographed and everyone applauded.

Everything about the evening was perfect.

This clip gives a vague idea of what it’s like.

I brought in another 6 lbs. of tomatoes on Friday. That means 16 lbs. last week. I made a salsa and pasta sauce. Photos to come. I’ve got another busy week ahead but I think I’ll have time for more updates.

I got back from my trip last night with only enough time to catch up with my spouse, cobble together something to eat and watch the season finale of True Blood. (bleargh!)

I don’t understand why I’m so tired today I can hardly see straight. It was a relaxing weekend. I got plenty of sleep. The plane ride was uneventful. I finished She’s Come Undone (mini-review to come), I listened to some podcasts courtesy of Escapepod). I dozed. I got a decent amount of sleep last night. I feel like I hiked from Atlanta except my feet don’t hurt.

A few photos eventually. I’ve got family coming into town so I don’t expect to be online much this weekend but we’ll see.

Cracker Barrel general store

I’ve been in Atlanta since Thursday visiting Kira. I probably should have updated our adventures earlier but I never seemed to get around to it and I’ve had a massively productive writing day today which means my eyeballs feel like they’re going to drop out of my skull so this is going to be brief.

We’ve had a fabulous time either tooling about Atlanta running errands or hanging out around the house writing or not writing.

Two of my Clarion West Classmates have written apocalyptic stories where Cracker Barrel played a role. I did not know what Cracker Barrel is. We don’t have that on the west coast. So Kira took me to Cracker Barrel (photo of the general store, above) which was completely awesome and I never have to go there again.

I tried to order a few things that I haven’t seen on a menu like fried apples and turnip greens (gak!) and something called a frozen mug apple cider. The adorable server brought me a warm apple cider in a mug and a tall glass of ice and told me they were out of frozen mugs. “I had no idea what it was,” I told her as I spooned ice cubes into my mug. “You could have brought me anything.”

Kira had a bunch of stuff to do and the first few days we ran around. Her errands weren’t in the shiniest parts of the city and my initial impression of Atlanta was that is was sort-of an armpit. In some places it looks like there was a contest to build the ugliest strip mall. There are also a ton fast food places, many of them with chicken in the name. I wish we had more time to take photos. Later we drove around some much prettier parts so I withdraw my original opinion. I will say that this is the most consistently bike and pedestrian unfriendly place I’ve seen in awhile.

I’m on my way home tomorrow.

I was going to write a long cranky post about customer service but I changed my mind. But a quick note to the bank: It makes me uncomfortable when I walk through the door and the teller shouts across the room, “Welcome to [our bank.] I can help you right here.” I would argue further that the shout is redundant because the whole reason she’s standing there is so she can help customers like me.

I get to sneak in one more out-of-town trip before summer is really over. I’m taking the red-eye to Atlanta tonight to visit Kira. I’m sure there will be stories and photos from the road.