Adventures with Christopher Robin

Riding the Canals

Sometimes, an over the top tourist trap experience can still be emotionally authentic. CR and I rode the gondola at the Venice hotel in Las Vegas this weekend. It was a Disney sort of thing, a water ride through the shopping areas of the hotel. It turned out that our guide was an Italian [...]

South Island, New Zealand Trip Report, #1

January 10, 2013 Queenstown

(Having trouble adding images….will try to add more later today….)

It’s raining this morning, a very agreeable weather considering how many days in a row we’ve been moving, moving, moving. I was delighted at the moody weather when we drove in last night, heavy clouds in dark puffs around [...]

The Age of Aquarius–a time of balance

Happily, the end of the world has not yet arrived, and we’re all here to begin the long awaited Age of Aquarius, which some say begins this year. It is meant to be a time of spiritual growth for society, and to me, it does feel like the dawn of a new age. I’d like to think so.

I’m thinking about change and balance myself, and a few things have come together to insist that I begin to consider exactly what I want each day to contain, how I want to live, what changes I’d like to make. In October and November, I was pulling my usual deadline marathon, finishing the new book, Flavor of a Blue Moon, which will be out in early 2014. (Sorry, I know that will be a disappointment to some of you, but the truth is, it just took more time to research and write than some other books. I think you’re going to fall in love with Lavender and Ginny and all the adventures they have. In the meantime, I promise to have some novellas up this year, just for you.)

Back to the deadline marathon. It was exhausting. Way more exhausting than it ever has been. By the time I emailed it to my editor and agent, I felt like a zombie, and looked like one, too: my eyes were bloodshot constantly, and my skin was the color of wax, to compliment the smeared-cinders look of the circles under my eyes. The last week of the deadline, I realized that I had a sinus infection and dashed over to the local urgent care to get some antibiotics.

There I discovered that one reason I felt so crappy was that my blood pressure, which I’d been trying to control with diet and exercise, had gone way too high, and my heart was murmuring and all sorts of alarms went off and I was hustled to this doctor and that and had tests and Serious Conversations and–well, the bottom line is, Continue reading The Age of Aquarius–a time of balance

Upcoming New Zealand

I haven’t been on a long journey since the splendiferous trip to England and Spain in 2010, when I walked a part of the Camino de Santiago (which showed up emphatically in The Garden of Happy Endings). In a couple of weeks, Christopher Robin and I are headed off to New Zealand for a [...]

The Story of Neko, involving good luck, good Samaritans, and a good helping of cat charm

On Saturday night, Neko somehow escaped into the backyard when Jack when outside. We didn’t notice he was gone until Sunday morning, when he didn’t show up for breakfast (and believe me, breakfast is his favorite thing). I felt sick to my stomach when I realized he was gone. We went out to look for him, calling and calling, but nothing.

Not on Sunday, or Monday. Monday morning, I made a couple dozen posters with his picture and walked around taping them to the central mailboxes all over the neighborhood, along with taping them to the park signs (there are two parks–gotta love the suburbs). I tried to figure out line of sight for a cat–over fences, down sidewalks, and posted in those places.

CR went to the Humane Society. I signed up for a pet alert service.

I was not, this time, particularly worried about foxes. He’s a big cat, and fierce, and fast, and young. I WAS really, really, really fretting about the cold. It’s been below twenty most nights. He’s a very coddled cat.

I also worried that somebody would just like him so much they wouldn’t return him. He’s so adorable, and really pretty, and a total charmer.

Tuesday, nothing. Continue reading The Story of Neko, involving good luck, good Samaritans, and a good helping of cat charm

The Off-Season

I’m back in Breckenridge, this time for a Writing Away Retreat, which I agreed to do a couple of years ago. Funny.

It’s again the slow season. The gondola to the slopes is closed, and mostly the tourists are elderly, stopping to shoot a photo of the river. I walked five miles in the [...]

How One Writer Persisted

Here is the story of a novel.

It was written in the wee hours before dawn before the writer’s family awakened and needed to be herded off to school. Before the work of the day began, before the brain was sullied by the noise of news and commerce and obligations.

And when it was [...]

Rest

I spent a week in the mountains last week, planning to do some catch-up work, maybe read and start rewriting The Mirror Girl, figure out how to structure this complicated puzzle of a new WIP, and block out some other work. I arrived on a Saturday, alone with my collaging materials and iPad [...]

An organic farm…in my backyard!

Just before Christmas, CR surprised me by bringing in a landscape architect to make our yard over into a beautiful urban farm. Perhaps he wants more fresh potatoes like the ones I grew in a black bag last summer. Or maybe he is tired of me complaining about the price of organic produce. Whatever [...]

A Sunday with the aspens

CR and I went for a long Sunday drive in the mountains today. We took a picnic of sushi and pears and Izze, which a Stellar’s jay tried to enjoy with us. We looped up to Florissant, then into Cripple Creek. Maybe not exactly color as in the North East, but we have other [...]

A Writer Afoot

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