Monthly Archives: April 2019

The Adventure Begins

29 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Adventures, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

I started my Saturday feeling stressed: so many things to do, so much to organize, gotta get ready to go, go, go… Then I kicked myself and said, “Nope. Not doing this that way.” S and I were heading off on our Idaho adventure that night, but this vacation is not a scheduled, structured, must-do plan. There is no agenda, no planes to miss or clock to punch. This vacation is a wander-around, have-fun, enjoy-our-time together ramble. So instead of spending my Saturday feeling stressed, I wrote some words, enjoyed the sunshine, and along the way, baked granola, packed the van up, and got ready to go. A much nicer day, and probably no different in accomplishment but totally different in experience.

When S got home from work at 4:30, I was ready to go and by a little after 5, we were on the road. A winding drive along the coast and through the redwoods as the sun went down led to Panther Flat Campground, in the Smith River National Recreation Area. $15 for a nice-sized site, reasonable bathrooms (although I didn’t check out the showers), easily accessible water, and plenty of trash and recycling bins. I made blueberry pancakes for dinner, and it was so nice that Suzanne didn’t set up her tent, just set out her camping pad and sleeping bag and slept under the trees. As I went to sleep in the van, I thought, “I should really sleep outside sometime.” At about 2AM, I was awake, so I opened the windows and admired the distant stars — very bright but very hidden behind the redwoods — until I got chilled and thought how nice it was to have a heated, comfy van to stay in. I am probably not going to start sleeping outside any time soon.

Panther Flat is going to be one of those parks that I have no clear memory of. It was too much like too many other parks. Trees, campsites, a picnic table. At ground-level, it was pretty generic. Until you looked up. The trees went on forever. And I have a picture to post, but alas, the internet is so slow that I’m giving up. Someday maybe I’ll come back to this post and update it with pictures. But California trees grow big!

Sunday morning, we headed out early. The bad news about getting on the road by 8 on a Sunday morning is that the fun places to stop are basically closed. The good news is that you make progress toward your destination. But we stopped at a Fred Meyers in Grant’s Pass and picked up some groceries, including some sushi for lunch. Yep, sushi camping.

Around noon, S thought one of her dogs might be indicating a need for a rest break, so we pulled over at the next possible place for a quick dog walk, the Rogue Elk Park and Campground. It charged a $4 day use fee for parking. We had some momentary uncertainty about that — $4 for a quick dog pee? — but I said, eh, let’s just do it, it’s $4. So I paid the money and we drove in and it was such a good call. I don’t know whether the campground would be fun, because it’s right off the road, and there might be road noise all night long, but it’s also right off the river. We walked the dogs along the water, let them get their feet wet, and then ate our sushi lunch at the picnic tables in the sunshine, enjoying the weather and the water view. S liked the weather so much she changed into shorts. I considered that thought momentarily, but then I considered our next destination: Crater Lake. I knew almost nothing about Crater Lake, but my mental images definitely included snow-capped mountains. I did not change into shorts.

We drove to Crater Lake, and S promptly changed clothes again. The snow was so high! The mounds of snow were overhead — six feet? Eight feet? I don’t even know how high, but seriously, tons of snow. She and her dogs played in it for a while — rolling and romping. Z and I admired them from the parking lot, thinking, “Hmm, snow. That’s awfully cold, isn’t it?” (We did walk onto the snow, too, but Z indicated a strong preference for not staying in it and gave no indication that she wanted to play in it.)

After admiring the lake, we continued on. We checked out a campground along the way, but decided to pass on it (it was a parking lot, really, with tent sites) and wound up continuing to LaPine State Park. My first Oregon State Park, and an excellent deal — $29 for a full hook-up, pull-through spot. I dumped the black tanks and refilled the fresh water and settled in.

But wow, it was cold. I made salads for dinner with mixed greens, strawberries, avocado, fig goat cheese, carmelized onions and chicken-apple sausage, plus a fig balsamic vinaigrette, and by the time I finished eating my salad, the last bites of sausage were as cold as if they’d been refrigerated. It was so cold that it really wasn’t fun to sit outside, so we took the dogs for one last walk, and then settled in, S to her tent, me to my van.

In the night, the temps dropped into the 20s. Brrr! Even in the van, it was chilly (not helped by the fact that I forgot that I’d turned the fan on when I was cooking the sausages and it had been pouring my heat out all night long.) But that made for a pleasant cozy morning of coffee and blog-post writing under the covers. I wish the internet was faster, because I really do have some fun pictures to post. But I’m not going to fight with it today, because I have better things to do. We are headed off to Bend, Oregon and a carefully-selected brunch spot, and then after that, the John Day Fossil Beds. Tomorrow, Idaho! But first, I’ve got a dog that wants walking. She doesn’t care that it’s still only 31 degrees outside. Fingers crossed that Idaho is a little warmer!

Snippets and spoilers

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in A Precarious Magic, Food, Recipes, Seafood

≈ 6 Comments

I had grand intentions yesterday. I was going to do so many things, starting with writing 1000 words. I was going to do laundry, and take a shower, and walk the dogs, and go to a meditation class… Yep, just as soon as I wrote those 1000 words, I was going to do ALL the things.

Sigh.

When S got home from work, I was still mostly in my pajamas. No shower, no dog walks, no laundry, no meditation class. But darn close to 1000 words, each and every one of them a struggle.

I also hadn’t planned dinner or gone to the store, so it was time to make do with what we had. That included half a bag of seafood medley and some brown rice noodles. I was not inspired, but I knew that: a) if I didn’t use up the seafood medley, it would probably sit in S’s freezer forever and b) as long as I made it spicy enough, she’d eat it happily. So this recipe is mostly me thinking, “gotta use up the seafood, too lazy to do something serious with it, I’ll just cook it with red pepper flakes and it’ll be fine.” (Spoiler alert: It was more than fine.)

I started by boiling some water for the rice noodles, while letting the seafood medley defrost for a few minutes. When the water boiled, I took it off the heat and tossed the rice noodles in. While they cooked, I preheated a frying pan for a minute, then melted a chunk of butter, maybe two tbsps, in it. When the butter bubbled, I added two cloves of chopped up garlic, a generous tsp of red pepper flakes, and a little kosher salt, and swirled it around. When it seemed nicely done — garlic browned a little, red pepper flakes smelling sizzled — I added the seafood. I let it cook for just about five minutes, during which time I drained and plated my pasta. Then I zested a lemon onto the seafood, added some paprika, squeezed a lemon half into it, and topped the rice noddles with it. I finished it by sprinkling on some chopped-up cilantro.

I called S in from the garden, but I started eating without waiting. It was a good thing she came promptly, because by the time I was two bites into mine, I knew that if I finished eating mine before she came in, I would start eating hers. It was so, so, so good. I think it was the paprika or maybe it was the lemon zest. But it was spicy and smoky and tangy and buttery and absolutely delicious.

I feel like there ought to be a writing metaphor there: something about flavors mixing or finding balance or maybe just the serendipity of using what comes to hand? But if there is, I can’t find it.

And I was going to post a snippet, but we’re in spoilers galore territory — of all the words I wrote in the past couple days, I don’t think I can share any of them without giving things away that might be more fun as surprises. Hmm… well, maybe tiny spoilers…

Fen felt like she’d stepped inside Sleeping Beauty’s castle. All they needed were some serious brambles with killer thorns to make the whole place a scene out of a nightmare. 

She set her chin. “Come on, Luke. Give the ghost to Trevvi. I need your help.” 

“Ghost?” Trevvi took a step back, hands raising in protest. 

Luke lifted his hands away from his chest, pausing for a second with one finger moving as if gently disentangling tiny claws from his tunic. He extended his cupped hands to Trevvi. “Here.” 

Trevvi stepped farther away. “What?” 

“It’s a kitten,” Luke said. “An invisible kitten.” 

Trevvi scowled. “Nitrogen narcosis. Your dive pattern must have malfunctioned.” 

Nitrogen again. Fen really needed to learn more about chemistry. Or was it biology? Maybe it was both. 

“I’m not hallucinating,” Luke replied. “Take it.” 

“Miss?” Trevvi’s pleading look asked for her help. 

Instead a corner of Fen’s mouth lifted. She tilted her head in the direction of Luke’s seemingly empty hands and said, “Really, take it.” 

Reluctantly, as if unwillingly playing along with their delusions, Trevvi held out his right hand. Fen could see the exact moment when he felt the kitten as his eyes opened wider with shock before he hastily enclosed it in a nest of both hands. “What the hell,” he muttered, drawing it closer to his body. 

“Exactly.” Fen grabbed Luke’s empty hand and drew him into the courtyard. 

Had I mentioned the invisible kitten before? I almost — almost! — know what she’s doing now. In fact, I think I’m pretty close to knowing what the whole thing looks like now. I just need to find the words to share it. And I’m working hard on that, I swear. 43,000 words so I’m not quite at the end game, but I’m definitely in the murky middle.

Easter Sunday

22 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Randomness, Zelda

≈ 6 Comments

Zelda on the beach
It doesn’t get better than this.

Yesterday morning, I had just settled into a writing sprint with my friend L — timer set and everything — when S appeared outside my door and said, “Beach?”

I don’t think S should be going to the beach, because she has pneumonia and is the sickest I’ve ever seen her, but she swore beach air would be good for her. I remain unconvinced — she’s definitely no healthier from the experience — but it was an amazing day to be at the beach. So beautiful.

And so fun. Zelda tolerates other dogs, but she’s usually not particularly interested in them. She and Riley, however, seem to be becoming actual dog friends. It’s odd, because he’s peed on her head multiple times — she finds a good scent, he comes over to check it out, and she’s still sniffing when he lifts his leg and adds his scent to the original. I object loudly every time this happens, but Z doesn’t seem to care until I’m scrubbing her head when we get back to the house, and then she’s displeased. Personally, I would find being peed on to preclude friendship, but apparently dogs are more flexible. Anyway, S and I wound up finding some nice rocks to sit on and Riley and Z wandered off exploring together, while Buddy bounced around introducing himself to the other dogs on the beach. It was an excellent beach visit.

The day didn’t include any actual Easter festivities, except for the belated purchase of some terrible stale chocolate and some jelly beans. The chocolate was so bad I threw it away, but I enjoyed the jelly beans. Instead of ham, we had salmon salad made with artichoke lemon pesto on rosemary buns, warmed in the oven, with side salads of mixed greens, pea pods, cucumber, and avocado, for dinner. It felt very springlike somehow. Or maybe that was just because the sun was shining.

Appreciation

18 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in A Precarious Magic, Randomness, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

a fluffy calico cat, with narrowed golden eyes, looking annoyed at being interrupted in her sunbathing
Vivi’s narrow-eyed look. She appreciates the sun, too.

In yoga the other day, the instructor said that we were entering the season of the sun, that the rain was nearly over and we might not see it again for months. That sounded fantastic to me. Go, sun, go! Yay, sunshine! More, more, more!

But when I was walking home from class, reveling in the feeling of warmth on my face, I realized the rain is what makes me appreciate the sun. In Florida, I take the sunshine for granted. Once in a while I notice a particularly nice day, but most nice days blend together. In fact, I’m more likely to be critical of those nice days. Oh, sure, it’s pleasant enough but 78 is a little warm, isn’t it? 56 is positively frigid!

But in Arcata, 56 and sunny is charming and delightful. (So is 46 and sunny, for that matter.) I couldn’t tell you about 78 but I’m pretty sure if it came with sunny, I would find it glorious. And appreciation is — well, “good” seems far too bland, but that’s the word I want to use — appreciation is good. The act of appreciating makes life good. On a cold rainy day, appreciating the flowers brings pleasure into the day that I would have missed if I’d just walked on by those flowers. Hmm, now I want to post some flower pictures.

A pink flower, unknown variety
A random flower pic. One of the houses down the street has a fantastically overgrown garden. Right now, with multiple flowering plants almost obscuring the house and fence, it makes me think of fairy tales and portal stories.

Anyway, all that reminded me that I should appreciate the rain, too. But I’m really happy to have some sunny days. Yesterday, I was still staring at my computer at 7PM or so. I’d not come anywhere close to my Camp NaNo word count, but I also hadn’t even broken 1000 words and I was annoyed with myself. But I looked up and realized that it was a beautiful sunset and a full moon, so instead of continuing to stare at the computer, I took the dogs for a walk and breathed in the fresh air and was thankful for my life.

Ten more days to make real progress on Fen and then I’m going to Idaho. I know already that I can make all the promises in the world to myself about how I will write while I’m on the road and none of them will come true: traveling is simply not conducive to writing fiction for me. I can’t live in my imagination when the real world demands so much attention. But Val Kyr is shaping up to be an interesting place — if creepy — so I’m going to make the most of my time there for now.

A snippet:

Scattered lights didn’t penetrate the dark corners of the streets and the smoke hanging heavy in the air felt oppressive, but something about the city felt unreal, like a dream landscape. It wasn’t until they were walking alongside a canal and passed an empty flat boat gliding along the water that Fen realized it was the silence. There were no motors, of course — no cars, no trains, no trucks beeping as they backed up or electric hums from power lines — but there was also no music, none of the bells or splashing water or friendly cacophony of Syl Var. 

“Is it always like this?” Luke asked Kaio, his tone muted as if he were reluctant to break the hush. 

“Not always, no,” Kaio answered but he didn’t elucidate. 

Fen wished he would. Maybe this was the Val Kyr equivalent of a Sunday morning? Even downtown Chicago felt oddly empty when the 9-5 workers had gone home. Or maybe Val Kyr, unlike Syl Var, lived on the same type of circadian time as human beings and it really was the middle of the night. Maybe in a few hours, the city would wake up — there’d be pastries baking and chickens crowing and the Val Kyrian equivalent of a newspaper delivery boy tossing the daily paper on people’s doorsteps. 

The thought was encouraging, even though Fen was pretty sure Val Kyr wasn’t going to have any equivalent of a newspaper delivery boy. If they needed to distribute the news, they’d probably have little birds flying around warbling their messages. 

Rough draft, of course; not edited; going to change before the final version. Maybe even going to change in the next twenty minutes — those last couple paragraphs are rough. But that’s where I’m living today!

On being a unicorn

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Randomness, Self-publishing

≈ 3 Comments

David Gaughran is one of the few self-publishing experts I follow: I read his blog, I’m on his mailing list, and I’ve got at least a couple of his books on my Kindle. When I do decide to take the plunge into advertising my books,* I’m sure I’ll be using his advice.

* — Any day, now, really. Probably. Maybe.

Last week, he sent out an email updating self-pub authors on some changes with BookBub ads, notably that in their ad creation space, they’re now listing the number of “Readers” an author has, as opposed to the number of “Followers.” Readers are (probably) the people who clicked on an author’s book somewhere along the way, while Followers actually clicked on the link to follow an author and therefore get updates on their posts, reviews, ads and new books. Followers, obviously, are the people who are actually interested while Readers are the people who maybe took a chance on a free book and haven’t read it, didn’t like it, or at the very least, weren’t interested enough to try to remember the author’s name.

Unicorns are the authors who have lots of readers and many fewer followers. They may or may not be a good target for ad creation. I am very, very much a unicorn. An extreme unicorn, in fact. TBH, I find that depressing, but I mention it for the sake of any of my fellow self-publishing readers: if you’re advertising on BookBub, my name might (or might not, who knows?), be a good target for ads. If you give it a try, let me know your results, because I would be curious!

Moving on: I love Tosha Yoga, the yoga studio here in Arcata, so much that I’m already sad about leaving and I’m not planning on leaving for another month. But two days a week of yoga and I can feel myself getting stronger and more centered. And Suzanne, the teacher whose class we’ve sort of settled on (initially mostly out of convenience), is fantastic. We are not the only ones to have figured that out — we’re arriving earlier and earlier to get a spot, because the class gets crowded. Things I love about her classes: she takes the time to teach; she has some challenging sequences, but both encourages you to push and gives you permission to respect your body if pushing is not where you’re at; she has a sense of humor and makes the class fun; and she’s doing that spiritual thing where she offers words of wisdom and you’re like, “Um, was that directed at me?”

On our last class, as we were going in, I was telling S how much I hate writers. In fact I was saying I was going to write a blog post about how much I hate writers. I gave up being an editor in large part because I was so tired of dealing with writers: they’re needy and impractical and obsessive and narcissistic and generally just PITAs. I figured as a therapist, I could work on helping people get over those qualities. Instead I became a writer and now I’m needy and impractical and a PITA. (I was always obsessive; I’m pretty sure I’m still not a narcissist. Could be wrong on that, though, because I don’t think narcissists usually know what they are.) Practically the first thing S, the yoga teacher, said was something about how our culture teaches us to view things as extremes, good or bad, and that in our practice, we were going to try to find the space between acceptance and aversion, and try to simply be where we were instead of rejecting or accepting it. I’m pretty sure she was talking about those moments in yoga where you’re in pain or not in pain, but in that moment it sure felt like she was talking about my writer vs editor grumpiness.

Speaking of which, the writing continues. Not as fast as I’d like it to, and definitely not as coherently. I feel like I’m playing with the pieces of a big colorful jigsaw puzzle — very colorful, very big! But some of the pieces are starting to line up properly. And the characters are starting to take on lives of their own, which can be inconvenient, but can also be fun. A snippet:

“Maybe one of us should go, sir?” Trevvi said. “I—”  He cleared his throat. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’d rather not be the one to tell Lady Cyntha that we left you and Lady Gaelith here.”

Fen pressed her lips together to suppress her laugh. She agreed with Trevvi — she didn’t want to face Lady Cyntha either — but the sheepish expression on the big man’s face made him look like a kid who hadn’t done his homework. 

“Sadly, it must be done,” Kaio replied briskly. And then his face relaxed and he gave Trevvi a warm smile. Fen’s stomach fluttered. Damn it, even when she was most annoyed at Kaio, he pushed her buttons. 

Not edited, of course, and no guarantee it will show up in the final version, but while I’m trying to avoid developing a cast of thousands, Trevvi is starting to sneak his way into a speaking role. Without being ultra-spoiler-y, I think I found the ending of the story this weekend and Trevvi was there for it. I was pleased to find the ending, but also like, “Um, you? What are you doing here?” Not a bad thing to be happening, though!

Also in the works, my developing travel plans. I’ve got two more weeks in Arcata, then S and I are going on a road trip to Idaho. One more week in Arcata after that and then north to Washington. I had thoughts of spending some time in Oregon, but I think I’m probably going to make it fairly fast so that I can have more time with friends in Seattle. And then after Memorial Day, I’ll be heading east again. After discovering that I’m already too late to make reservations for the state park I wanted to stay at in Oregon, I am reluctantly realizing that I ought to make some definite arrangements. Flexibility is lovely, but I don’t want to spend the month of June camping in parking lots because I wasn’t organized enough to do better.

First, though, more words with Fen. Happy Monday!

Foggy weather, but spring-time green in the hills.

Persistence

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Writing

≈ 6 Comments

You might recall a post titled, “A Cat Conversation in Five Parts” from a few weeks back. An essential element of the character motivation in that dialogue was that Gina, the orange cat, was freaked out by the mere presence of a strange human being and a strange dog on her front porch.

Gina is no longer freaked out.

a cat in the front seat
Gina, exploring the front seat of the van.

I heard a sound and looked up from my computer to discover Gina exploring the van. I apologized to her, but I’m allergic to cats, so I escorted her out. Politely, of course.

Five minutes later, I heard another sound. I looked up to discover…

A cat tail entering the bathroom
Gina, exploring the bathroom.

… a tail, entering my bathroom. I laughed, but again, escorted Gina to the door. This time I gave her a small lecture: we have no food for cats, we have no cat toys, and you would be competing for napping space with a dog you don’t like in a place that belongs to her. So sorry, oh cat, but this is not your place.

I’m sure if you own a cat, you know how this story goes.

A cat, investigating the bed
Gina, again in the van.
A cat, making herself comfortable next to me.
Gina, making herself at home on the seat next to me.

I have several other pictures, too, but the internet is slow today and I should be writing a book. It turned out that Gina’s persistence in entering the van outweighed my persistence in removing her from the van. Fortunately for the sake of my allergies, I’m the one with the opposable thumbs and after the fifth time or so removing her, I closed the door and turned on the fan. Win for the human being. This morning Tank — the big black cat — entered the van and I knew that I wasn’t going to win. If Tank wants to take over my van, I’m probably just going to have to move out. Fortunately, he checked it out, then decided it was not satisfying and exited. Whew.

In writing news, Fen is being a little too clever, which I think is good news? But I was setting something up and she refused to play along, so now I’m needing to do some re-thinking. Fortunately, I’ve got options. It feels like the story has loads of possible directions in which to go, so I’m just seeing where the current takes me.

At the same time, I’m doing a thing that once upon a time I swore I would never do: I’m making major revisions to A Lonely Magic. I have very mixed feelings about this. Part of me believes — sorta strongly — that a book once published should exist as it is, that it isn’t fair to the reader to make dramatic changes. Minor edits, okay, but a book shouldn’t be in flux after it’s out in the world. But… well, I guess I’ve changed my mind? There are things I know I would do differently now and fixing them was an itch I just couldn’t stop myself from scratching. I started revising with the idea that I was just doing it for me, just to satisfy myself… and now I know that no, once I finish these edits, I’ll be re-publishing.

The overall story won’t change, of course, since that would be an entirely different book, but it’ll be tweaked some. A fun bit of serendipity is that I’ve been debating this for weeks now, got thoroughly into my revisions this week, but was still questioning myself. Last night, I got an email from ProWriting Aid that talked about writing lessons learned from Hamilton, one of which was, “Don’t be afraid to change.” All right, technically it was “Don’t be afraid to change at the last minute,” but I decided to take this as the universe granting me permission to do what I want to do. I love it when the universe does that.

The cover will change, too. But that’s a longer story and one I should save for another day, when I’m not trying to write a book and when I’m ready to start trying to sell a book instead. But… nope, longer story. I’m not going to start telling it now. I will just say that the new cover of A Lonely Magic gives me a little thrill of glee and the cover for the book now titled A Precarious Magic (part of that long story) makes me want to clap my hands and jump up and down with joy. I can’t wait to show them to you! Except I am going to wait, because first I have to finish writing and revising these books. Onward!

Disinclined

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Marketing and promotion, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 11 Comments

I woke up this morning feeling… disinclined to engage with the day.

The preceding sentence, both in structure and content, is what happens when you’re reading too much marketing advice. Bah. It’s not that I dislike marketing, actually — more than once in my previous job, I wondered whether I’d have more fun working for the marketing department. I liked selling books. I just don’t like selling my books.

I keep promising myself that I’m going to work on that piece of the self-publishing puzzle — really, truly, any day now — but it makes me want to go back to bed. The crawl under the covers and not re-emerge until summer going back to bed, not the snooze for an extra ten minutes going back to bed.

Anyway, despite my disinclination to engage with the day, a cute little furry face bouncing around at the end of the bed was persistent enough that I dragged myself up and took her for a walk in the rain. I’d thought it was just drizzle when we left the van, but it become clear quite quickly that it was rain-rain. The kind that’s going to sop through your shoes and soak your socks; force you to keep your head down or get water in your eyes; turn your blue jeans into deadweights with minutes. Bizarrely enough, it was very nice. It fit my mood so perfectly. I was grouchy to begin with and there I was, getting soaked and uncomfortable and cold — it was like the universe agreeing with me, it was a day to stay in bed.

The nicest thing about today’s rain is that it was supposed to be yesterday’s rain. The weather forecast for yesterday was bleak and it was both my birthday and S’s day off, which meant bleak was annoying. As it turned out, the weather didn’t reach us as scheduled, so we had an early morning opportunity to fulfill my birthday wish and take Z to the beach. The only thing better in life than taking a puppy to the beach is taking an old dog to the beach and watching her run around like a puppy.

zelda at the beach
My camera batteries died, so I didn’t get to take nearly as many photos as I would have liked. But Z ran and dug and sniffed and had fun, which meant I had fun, too.

After the beach, we stopped in Trinidad for coffee. I already had coffee and it had started to rain so I didn’t much want to go into the shop, but I kept S company anyway. It turned out they had gluten-free chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, so for my birthday breakfast, I had a chocolate cupcake. Yum. And then we went home and I made gluten-free blueberry pancakes and bacon for my second birthday breakfast. Yeah, it was a high-carb day. (Asparagus risotto with chicken-apple sausage for dinner, more carbs!)

Today’s plan: to write some words. And maybe bake some granola. And for dinner, cioppino over rice, possibly with some gluten-free garlic toast, and definitely with a side salad. Meanwhile, to sit and watch the rain turn the view into an impressionist painting while staying dry inside. I might even admit the truth — that despite the date, it feels like winter! — and turn the heat on.

Best of March 2019

04 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Best of

≈ 2 Comments

Um, right, so, yes… a new month happened and I missed it. Didn’t notice at all, in fact. The days just slipped into being a different month and this morning I woke up and thought, “Did I ever do a Best of March post?” Nope, I didn’t. The only regular post I do and I forgot it! Oops.

So, yes, March 2019. It started in Arcata and ended in Arcata. It included one driveway and a single camping trip, which held a national forest and a state park.

It was a lovely month. Although I didn’t go a lot of places, I did a lot of things: yoga and roller-skating and kayaking; visiting the farmer’s market and the beach; listening to live music at the coffee shop; walking through the community forest; soaking in the hot tub at the Finnish sauna place; meeting a potential new writer friend for coffee; playing with puppies at the neighbor’s house… Plenty of great meals, too, most of them cooked at home, but good sushi in Arcata and the fantastic Mayan Fusion in Fort Bragg. I told S it felt like we were living a vacation life in the midst of her real life and she laughed and agreed, but that is what it feels like — lots of activity, punctuated by laundry and cleaning out the storage shed and working in the kitchen and trying to write. It’s been great.

And it’s fun to experience a true spring. March started out gray and cold — I wore my plump eggplant coat everywhere, and barely even opened the door of the van if I didn’t have it at least clutched in my hand. Mornings began with frost on the ground and I had to abandon all hope of avoiding walking Z in the rain: it was always raining and we were just going to get wet. Last night, though, we went out to dinner and I left my eggplant coat at home. And the flowers are amazing! Flowering trees everywhere, tiny wildflowers scattered along the railroad tracks, yellow blooming weeds springing up in the cracks along the sidewalk. Florida, of course, has plenty of flowers, most of the year, but there’s definitely something about the sudden abundance of blossoms everywhere that makes the world feel fresh and beautiful.

pink flowers on a tree

I did realize while taking the above picture that I’d totally abandoned my New Year’s resolution of working on my photography skills and taking photographs every day. Oh, well. As with every resolution, I’m allowed to start over again. But I suspect that April is not going to turn into a major photography month, largely because my April plans involve writing many, many words, and I don’t want to get distracted from Fen’s adventures by pretty flowers and beautiful skies.

Back to the best of March, though — in a month with a lot of great moments, the one that is currently sticking out to me took place last weekend. The day before our river kayaking adventure, I took a beginning kayaking class on Humboldt Bay. I went by myself, because S had to work. It was a small class, just four students, and the instruction was very focused: we were given a stroke or technique to work on, worked on it for fifteen minutes or so, then had another few minutes of instruction and went back to work. By the end of the class, we were paddling our way around some big pylons, like an obstacle course for kayakers, and it was ridiculously satisfying. It was a gorgeous day, clear sky and sunny, and being out on the water, feeling in control of the kayak, feeling like I’d learned something and was improving at something… yes, it was awesome. Possibly not the best idea in the world to stretch a lot of typically unused muscles right before the river adventure but totally worth it. A highlight in a month of very good moments!

Adventure buddies

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Adventures, California

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Kayaking on the Mad River
Kayaking on the Mad River. The views were incredible, but there wasn’t a ton of time to admire them. My eyes were usually on the water!

I told S recently that thinking of her as my former co-worker felt wrong, like it was a story missing many pieces. Once upon a time, we had cubicles down the row from one another, but that doesn’t really explain how we got here, 25+ years later. Even back then, though, we were travel buddies. When our company sent us to Hawaii, we visited the rain forest and went snorkeling at a black sand beach. When our company sent us to Lake Tahoe, we went horseback riding. When our boss needed to find out some information that she couldn’t get any other way (pre-internet!), we rented a car and drove to Death Valley. And when I knew I was going to be staying in Arcata for a while, of course I went looking for an adventure for us. I sent her a link to a full day of river kayaking via the HSU Center Activities and then said, “Maybe that’s too much?”

I think S is constitutionally incapable of saying no to an adventure. She said yes, we registered, and on Wednesday, the day after we got back from camping, we went to the first part of the class: learning how to get out of a kayak after you’ve turned it over. That class was held in the Arcata swimming pool and was a nice intro to the idea that maybe this was going to be a scarier adventure than I’d envisioned. If you’ve read my blog regularly for a few years, you know that I like kayaking, but that I am a cautious kayaker (as, in fact, I am cautious about everything.) Kayaking on the St. Johns, the slowest river in the US, is about my speed.

This was not that kind of kayaking. This was the kind of kayaking where you wear a wet suit and a helmet and a PFD (personal flotation device) and the kayak has a sleeve over the seat opening to prevent your boat from filling with water as you splash your way down a fast-flowing river. This was the kind of kayaking where you find your way into a safe eddy and pull over to consider the risks of the next stretch of water. This was the kind of kayaking where the instructors shout “paddle harder, paddle harder, paddle, paddle,” to keep you from running smack into hazards in the water.

It was exceedingly fun.

Also, as Suzanne and I agreed at dinner, way outside our comfort zones. But next time it will be less outside our comfort zones. I actually already called this morning to register us for another class in two weeks, but they were closed to celebrate Caesar Chavez Day, another reminder that I’m not in Florida anymore.

Meanwhile, my plans for this week include writing lots of words. April is CampNaNoWriMo, which I didn’t know until I saw that the Humboldt Writer’s Group had set up a camp. I never made it back to another of their meetings, largely because they happen on Sunday afternoons, which is S’s only guaranteed day off and so typically a busy day. But I am going to join their camp and work on turning April into a month like last November was. I’d express my doubts, but I’m not even going there: it’s going to happen. Time to get to it!

Edited to add: After I hit Publish, I was still thinking about kayaking. While it was exceedingly fun, it was also a certain amount of scary and a fair amount of discomfort and a lot of uncertainty. The plusses outweighed the minuses, but I don’t want to rewrite my history to exclude the hard stuff or make it seem easier than it was. Worth doing, going to do again, but the moment halfway through when I thought, “I am so ready to be done with this,” was just as real as the moment when I got through some rough water and thought, “YES! Made it!” and gave an exultant grin.