Hello, pets! I’m working at home today because I had a dentist appt (have to go back for a sonic deep cleaning and to get two small cavities filled, phooh) and a doctor appt (with my grocery list of minor complaints and questions; two things I have to go back to finish up, but otherwise I’m quite well).

It’s been a good few days, except for a startling and frustrating lack of writing.

Friday night I completely vegged in front of TV, drinking champagne and snuggling with my beloved. I guess I needed the non-thinking down-time.

Saturday and Sunday involved a fair amount of cleaning and organizing. Unpacked some boxes, filled up a huge box for Goodwill/Salvation Army. I finally put together Ken’s birthday party invitation (via Evite, which involved adding every single damn e-mail—if you didn’t get an invitation and think you should have, please let me know, because I’m sure people slipped through the cracks). I also did some research on the house’s history because someone’s coming by to write it up for the Historic Home Tour booklet. I got through a lot of e-mail and computer stuff—I tend to end up with lots of little notes about websites to check out, information to follow up on, blah blah blah. Every so often I need to take a few hours and just focus on that. It’s one of the minor curses of being a writer: every piece of information might be something useful. Plus I have to pay attention to the business side of things, which is abysmally boring but sometimes even more crucial than the writing itself.

I did have a major revelation about how DFL really ought to start, after printing it out and being bored by the first page. (Sad, really. The first line is “My stars! Is that a dildo?” and it immediately went downhill from there, when it should have gone uphill, sparkling wittily all the way.) Wrong pov character, essentially. The hero has more at stake in the first scene. Not just because it’s his own mother who says that first line. [VEG]

Saturday night we went up to Ojai for Caer Glas’s Full Moon ritual, which was preceded by a potluck. I was going to make lemon bars, but discovered too late that we were out of butter, so we picked up a lemon/cream cheese cake at the grocery store that turned out to be to die for. Darren & Janice (well, probably Darren) made chicken enchiladas with a molé sauce that was to die for, and Ismay made a salad of tiny tomatoes, fresh basil, tiny fresh balls of mozzarella, and marinated black olives, that was also to die for. Eventually more people wandered in and we built a fire and raised so much energy I buzzed for the next hour so. Whee! I love group rituals.

Sunday afternoon, Morgana had organized a Ladies’ Tea at Kathlean’s Yellow Tea House in Camarillo. A lovely afternoon of tea sandwiches and pastries (you guessed it: To die for). I was the lone person who went for the slightly less filling plan that didn’t include the savoury course, and was glad I did—the course consisted of two miniscule quiches (quarter-sized) and a sliced strawberry, given what I paid, it wasn’t nearly worth getting the “bigger” meal. Ah well. Everything was scrumptious, and in the end, when she accidentally charged me full price, I couldn’t bring myself to argue. (In part because two people who were supposed to come didn’t bother to let anybody know that they weren’t—after more than an hour, someone called them to discover this, obviously well after food had been prepared for them. I consider the extra I paid a donation against their rudeness.)

Afterwards, we went to the home of a friend who’s moving soon—to another house in the area, which is great, but she was giving away Stuff, so we descended like a Ravaging Horde. I contemplated some garb, but it was cold-weather garb, and we have so little cold weather here (and I have several wool tunics and a crocheted shawl and a cloak to get me through). It was pleasant to sit around and chat, though. Turns out that after that, Morgana & Brian had a small get-together, but I didn’t know about it, so we missed it. Ah well. No biggie.

Today I mostly focused on work stuff, which was what I was home to do. In the evening, we went to Borders so I could buy a bunch of presents and cards and such (I found only one of the three books I was looking for for myself: Gateways, ed. Martin H. Greenberg, featuring stories by Kris, Phae, and many other people I know!).

For those of you who’ve been asking if Cat Scratch Fever will be available in your local bookstore: Borders did have some Black Lace books, in, of all places, the reference section (Reference/Sexuality/Erotica). I will probably contact them closer to the release date and encourage them to stock CSF. I still need to check the local B&N, and after we get back from Wyoming I’m planning a field trip to The Pleasure Chest in LA (oh, darn) to see if they normally carry Black Lace books and, if they do, whether they’d be interested in a signing.

Teresa says she can probably make it out for my birthday, so I’m totally into the idea of doing a joint birthday party/book signing party. What fun!

That said, if you’re planning to buy the book, the best time to do so is in the first week it’s released (9 March 2006). First-week sales are closely watched.

So, right, where was I? After the bookstore, it was off to the pharmacy and grocery store. We couldn’t buy too much food, since we leave Friday evening for more than a week away, but we planned suppers for the next few nights and all that.

I’m fading fast; it’s way past my bedtime—at least, my “work” bedtime, as opposed to my natural biological rhythms. Either way, I’m off to bed, pets. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend yourselves!

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Currently Reading: Wild, Lori Foster; Time Management from the Inside Out, Julie Morgenstern; Queen of the Slayers, Nancy Holder
Lately Listened To: Celtic Nights, Enaid & Einalem
Recently Watched: Gene Simmons’ Rock School—very silly!; and many other things too numerous to list here