There’s an October writing dare about to begin, and I’m bummed that I can’t participate. It would be _stupid_ for me to try, with a week at War starting the month. But I totally crashed and burned on my personal September dare (largely because of War prep—I’m so glad I found a Publicity deputy!), and I know better than to take on something new knowing my schedule.

That said, Ken’s going back up to Portland for two weeks after the War (yes, the company wants even more of his time, which is tasty money for us), and I’ll probably join him for awhile. I write well in hotel rooms, waiting for him to come home. Plus even when he’s gone and I’m home, I’ll have more time than last month. I can always set my own dare goals starting in mid-October.

First goal, by far, is to write the antho story. I think I’ve got something pretty damn good here, but it’s not worth anything if it’s not written. I’ve got several other stories that need to be written, too.

The rest of October and November are still up in the air. We were going to take a bike trip through the Southwest in mid/late October, but if Ken’s working in Portland, we’ll have to shunt that ahead (we once went to AR at T’giving, and it wasn’t too cold except late at night. Coming back via the Grand Canyon, though, that wasn’t the most intelligent of plans. But I’d never seen it…). But there’s also the potential of him going back to Korea. And in early/mid November, I’d like to visit Sarah, or go the OCW Short Story workshop that still has vacancies. But I can’t really do either of those if Ken’s away working, because he’ll need the laptop.

I hate not having at least rudimentary plans. Grr, argh.

<><><>

Two rejections, yesterday, one for WBG (and novel rejections hurt more, especially when the editor has seen only a query letter or that and a synopsis), and one from Alchemy for “The Sultan’s Sons”. Blah.

To balance that, the Sacred Exchange and “Return to Wildwood” got major positive comments in the Sensuous Sadie newsletter. If anyone would like me to forward it to them, let me know.

<><><>

So, yesterday. Ken loved his presents. “Under the Tuscan Sun” was a surprisingly good movie; I expected it to be a predictable, and it wasn’t. It was about growth, and being true to yourself, and finding your bliss. There were interesting and unique secondary characters. We _so_ did not recognise Valentine Pelka! We kept wondering if the actor was really Kevin Kline. Who normally doesn’t look like Valentine Pelka. So go figure. I think I want to read the book now, too.

Then we ran a couple of errands, came home, hastily changed, and headed out to the Macaroni Grill for birthday dinner. Despite its name, the restaurant proved to be very good indeed. Ken’s mom and bro Dennis joined us, and we shared an appetizer platter (fried mozzarella slabs—not sticks, slabs—to die for [buffalo moz, maybe?], friend calamari still in the shape of squid, fried stuffed olives [stuffed w/cheese, and they were good, but not as good as I’d hoped], and pepperoni bread stuff). I had limoncello chicken, which was extremely tasty, but didn’t taste like limoncello (an Italian liqueur To Do For). Ken had salmon crêpes with clams on top, Mom had pork chops, Dennis had lasagne, and we split a bottle of wine. Then they brought some sinful chocolate dessert with a candle out for Ken and we sang Happy Birthday and split the sinful dessert.

Then we rushed home (with a quick stop to drop off some GWW cheques) and dove into helping a mass of people frantically sew for GWW. Eilidh drove down to surprise Ken for his birthday (and gave him a gorgeous journal with a da Vinci cover), and she dove in and helped, too. We weren’t mean about kicking folks out, so the last ones didn’t leave until after 11 p.m. (Some are coming back today, and/or later in the week, by appointment.) We collapsed on various sofas, chatted, watched “Angel” special features from the Season 1 DVD, and then slept hard.

Today Ken and I got up (Eilidh left very early) and went to meet a guy about a camper for sale. It was in a parking lot and we’d stopped to look at it yesterday. In the end, we decided not to buy it. It wasn’t in _bad_ shape, but it needed more work than we have time to do before GWW. Ah well. We’re probably better off getting a truck or SUV at some point in the future—we’ll use it more often because it’ll go to local events as well.

I can’t remember if I mentioned, but I figured out a way to make labels to fix the Combat Booklet. All was well until I tried to print out a second page of labels last night; then they all went pear shaped. I ruined four sheets of labels before I realised it. So, must figure that out.