Oh, the hot hot heat. We're finally getting our strangely absent summertime... in late October. (Not that I'm complaining.)

My day off is so much better when my wife is home! I got most of my freelance work done before she even woke up. We went out to lunch at a Caribbean place we like, that we'd only ever been to before for dinner... and discovered they have sandwiches at lunch time! Delicious sandwiches! (Sandwiches are my favorite form of food.) Good lemonade, too. And what with the aforementioned lovely weather, we sat out on their nice funky patio (the walls of which are made largely of brightly-painted scavenged doors... I oughta set a scene in a story there sometime, if I ever write short fiction again). Then Heather browsed in assorted little shops while I sat on a bench and read more of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. We hit the overpriced grocery store because it was convenient, then came home, where I washed dishes and worked on Flytrap mailings. Everything's going out tomorrow -- subscription copies, single issues, contributor copies, random chapbook orders, all of it. (Oh, and if you're not already a subscriber, consider getting a sub, please? $20 gets you four issues. That's two years of Flytrappy goodness!)

It's been a full day. Tomorrow, back to work. Baby's due on Sunday, so it could come any time now. If I vanish for a few days, well, that's probably why.

This morning I called my mother, and she said "Is Heather in labor?"

I said, "No, no, nothing like that. Didn't Granny used to have a pet monkey?"

"Well, yes."

"What was it's name?"

"Gosh, I don't remember."

"Well, would you mind telling Heather that Granny had a monkey? She doesn't believe me."

Because, indeed, Heather did not believe me when I told her my Granny once had a pet monkey. Why would I lie about that? (Actually, in her defense, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd lie about.) I think maybe the monkey's name was Doc. It was a spider monkey. It wore diapers. But the details are hazy. The monkey was before my time (possibly before I was born), but I have a memory, possibly false, of seeing a picture of it... I like monkeys.