Words Written: “Are You Ready For Me?” edits
Exercise: ow!

Friday, Morgana and Brian and I got our realtor and friend, Patty, to show us two houses for sale (Ken, you’ll recall, was on his way to Nevada). M&B have friends who are interested in moving to the area, plus we like to see the insides of the other historic homes. I confess I fell head-over-heels, heart-thumpingly in love with the first house. It had all the features that solved the problems of this house (not on a main street, unpainted wood, a woodshop as well as a garage, a huge kitchen). I have to arrange a viewing so Ken can see it. My heart flutters at the thought. It’s a nice fantasy. But I’m never moving again. Anyway, Saturday we saw a Queen Anne for sale down the street from M&B. Very, very pretty, but needs a lot of love and care. (Oh, the second house on Friday was a charming little Tudor, which might actually be good for M&B’s friends.)

Back in the summer, Morgana and I had heard that some of the ladies in the Historic District (our houses are not in the HD, but within a street and a half) were going to start having teas, so we could get to know each other and see each other’s houses. We found out on Saturday that they’d already started, but they were dinners, and there was one that night. Oh, and the group is called the Hersterical Society. (Oy.) So off we went.

It was fun and silly, and very different from what we normally attend. On the way home, Morgana noted that our friends just aren’t as…shrill. I pointed out that everybody in the house had been drunk (with the exception of Morgana, because alcohol makes her very ill). Really, the pitch just kept rising and rising… The woman whose house we were in is a caterer, and she made amazing food, gorgeously presented.

Sunday came way too early, but for a good reason: The Getty Villa reopened this weekend, and Caterine had gotten us all tickets, and we were off to immerse ourselves in antiquities and gardens!

Ohhhhh…delicious. Glorious. Overwhelming and beautiful. I’m so glad it’s open again. The new Getty…meh. Okay, it has all the Medieval and Renaissance stuff, but the site itself is blocky and uninspiring. The Villa, though…so very perfect.

Ken met us there, so there were eight of us total, going in different directions, meeting back up, etc. We did the architecture and gardens tour, and I got as many pictures as I could. I spent too much time in the bookstore trying to find a picture of a pot fragment from one room. A very naughty pot fragment of a happy man, shall we say. I wanted it for my collection of erotic art through the ages (you know, to go with my 10th-C German penis pot and my 19th-C penis-shaped creamer and all the medieval pilgrim badges). Alas, no luck.

Unfortunately, I managed to completely screw up my lower back there. I guess it was all that walking around on marble floors in five-year-old sneakers that no longer have any cushioning. (I headed to the chiropractor’s this afternoon for an emergency visit, and I do feel better already, although it’ll be a couple days before I’m really well.)

We got home around five, and we were all starving, so five of us (Morgana and Brian, Ken and I, and Thomasina) all went over to the local Thai/Peruvian restaurant and chowed down. Afterwards, M&B came over to watch Battlestar Galactica, which they’d forgotten to record and we hadn’t watched yet.

After they left, I stuck a pillow and a heating pad under my back and lay on the sofa like a beached whale, and Ken and I watched Lost. We went to bed early, because we were both pretty wiped out. I felt like I slept for days.

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Ken got third place in the rally! Third place! Woohoo! He beat out guys were have a lot more experience in distance riding, and got quite a bit of attention. I’m very proud of him. beams

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Today we started the Great File Purging and Organizing. No, that sounds too grand. We basically need to clean out the damn filing cabinet (it should be done every six months or so, but we tend to wait a couple years between purges). I need a second drawer for writing stuff, and Ken needs more space as well, so we’re going through all the files and shredding large garbage bags full of unnecessary paperwork. We found an uncashed check from 2002 (it had gotten mixed up in a wrong file) and some flight coupons (unsure if they’re still usable). And lots of silly cartoons. :-)

Sarah returned the edits to our story for an upcoming anthology—it’s an excerpt from our novel, so we had to add some framing material to explain who these people are (which I did) and change all the keyboard stuff to guitar stuff (which she did, along with some mighty fine embellishments). I’ve made a few more changes and will send it on its way after a quick review tomorrow.

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What Have I Done Today to Make My Writing Dream Come True? writing, editing, submitting
Currently Reading: The Demon’s Daughter, Emma Holly
Lately Listened To: Damn Yankees and Don’t Tread, Damn Yankees; Internal Exile, Fish; In the Eye of the Storm, Roger Hodgson
Recently Watched: Lost; Monk