Less than 24 hours till we leave for America - hurray! We are, of course, in total packing mode...and, equally predictably, in total panic mode about leaving Maya behind. :( When I found out about the local petsitting service that matches pets to "foster families", I was thrilled to have a better alternative to kennels. Now that the moment has actually arrived (we're dropping her off tonight), I'm swinging over to total panic about the whole idea of leaving her with strangers. What if she does something wrong and they get really angry at her? What if they don't hold the leash tightly enough, and she runs away? What if--????? Sigh. I hate having to leave her behind anywhere when we go on vacation - especially when I know she'd love staying with my family. Stupid airplane trips and pet immigration laws...

I finished Chapter Twelve of Kat by Moonlight today - hurray! I need to print it out this morning so I can carry the printed MS with me on our trip. I don't know why that feels so important - it's not as if it isn't saved on both of our computers and backed up as far as humanly possible - but having that solid, physical manuscript nearby feels wonderfully reassuring.

Just in time to catch us before we left, I finally got my specialist referral letter in the mail today, and I scheduled a first appointment with the CFS/ME specialist for the week after we get back from America. Whew. With excellent timing, Stephanie Gunn just posted a link to a really good 7-minute video about CFS/ME, the myths that surround it, and the politics of medical research right now. Definitely worth watching. (She also linked to Jodi Bassett's Hummingbird's Guide to ME website, which is angry and smart and seems to be pretty much spot-on-target.)

And I absolutely loved Kameron Hurley's blog entry Some Other Things That Aren't Cutting-Edge, which takes on the uses of gratuitous rape imagery in our culture. The single thing that makes me angriest about contemporary opera directors (most of them male) is the monotonous predictability with which they throw in rape scenes that aren't written or even implied in the libretti, just to be Gritty and Cutting-Edge (which they're so not!). Reading Kameron's entry made me cheer.

Now back to my packing lists and the all-important job of cuddling Maya before her trip!