The last time I did a “Best of the month” post was March. April & May… yes, apparently, they happened. Maybe it felt like the wrong time to be writing about what was good? Mostly the months passed in a pandemic blur, I think, so picking out one good day from a succession of similarly strange days just felt impossible.

In a way, the same is true for June 2020. I did have one overnight in the van, at a KOA in Willets, but it was a utilitarian trip in which the highlight was not being stranded on a mountain for the rest of my life. (Suzanne later put the odds at 40% that we were going to be walking down the hill and looking for help, which was actually way too high — I’ve been in worse situations, although none quite so scary. Getting stuck in the dirt involves more adrenaline when you’re on the side of a mountain. But it was definitely not Peak Fun.)

On the other hand, the month definitely included good moments (as did April and May, actually.) This was one of them:

The backstory to this is long and painful and hurts my heart, so I’m not going to share all of it. But in the past few weeks, there have been times when the only food Zelda has been willing to eat is food that I have pre-chewed for her and if you think that’s gross… well, at least I’m not the one who’s eating the food. It’s gross for her, but for me it’s just spitting food out into my hand. 🙂

Anyway, at the exact moment of this picture, the plate on the floor holds wild-caught sockeye salmon which Zelda is scorning, and the spoon holds fancy chicken dog food that Z loved a few months ago but will not deign to taste now. And Suzanne is pretending to eat so that Zelda might be willing to try a bite.

It so totally warms my heart. It is a seriously good friend who will both spoon-feed your dog and pretend to eat in order to encourage her to do the same.

But that is not what makes it the best of the month. No, what makes it a highlight is that about two minutes later, Zelda — being Zelda, being a dog — having said, “Ground beef? Eh, really just not in the mood. Chicken? That’s for dogs. I don’t eat that. Sockeye salmon? Well, a bite, maybe. No, no more, thank you.” — turned around, found a piece of dirt on the floor and said, “Oh, yum, delicious,” and gobbled it down.

WTH? Suzanne and I both laughed in disbelief. And then laughed some more, because WTH, Dog?!?

June 2020, a weird month. But one that I was fortunate enough to share with Zelda and Suzanne, which made it a very good month in so many ways.

Yesterday morning, I woke up in my extremely comfortable, extremely cozy bed, underneath my cotton quilt (which is precisely the type of blanket that I like), with sun shining through my skylight, and I thought, “I have a skylight. And a tiny house. And hot running water, and comfortable pillows, and a snoring dog and a garden… I think I might be a character in a fairy tale.”

And then I woke up all the rest of the way and thought, “Fairy tale? Which one?” I don’t know the answer to that, but not Hansel and Gretel. Maybe a Robin McKinley book.

I told Suzanne I wanted roses for the strip of garden plot that exists between the patio and Serendipity’s wall. In another odd moment of serendipity, a house down the street is being knocked down to be replaced by some ugly apartment building. It had a huge, beautiful rose bush that was going to be destroyed, so we wandered down there and asked the guys doing construction if we could take it. They said sure. Unfortunately, huge, beautiful rose bushes are rather hard to dig up. But Suzanne took a bunch of clippings and they’re now sprouting leaves in a glass on the kitchen sink. Someday my tiny house will also have roses.

Meanwhile, it has lavender.

I am trying to remember if I have ever hung artwork in my bathroom before. That’s fairly high-level nesting. This painting was on a shelf in Greg’s office, half buried under some other frames, quite dusty. I stumbled across it when I was organizing & promptly carried it off to Suzanne and asked if I could have it. It seriously looks like something I could have bought specifically to match the colors of Serendipity — shades of blue and teal — which is sort of surprising since those aren’t colors Suzanne has anywhere. I suppose that explains why it wasn’t hanging, but I like it very much.

And then there’s the shower curtain: Suzanne’s electric kettle died so we were in Target a few weeks ago and I walked by this shower curtain, then stopped and looked at it. It’s the exact colors of the paint in Serendipity, from the Edgewood Gray dots at the top to the Jamestown Blue and Wedgewood Gray. Irresistible, so yes, my bathroom now looks like an interior decorator got her hands on it. I didn’t buy the shampoo to match; it’s just a coincidence that my shampoo is lavender and blue.

Of course, it would be an interior decorator who lives in Humboldt. I hung a coat rack on the wall behind the door, and loaded it up with all my layers, plus my towel. I only turn on that heater when I’m taking or about to take a shower, but it is so nice to step out of the shower to a warm towel. So cozy!

Related: Suzanne told me I’d really want curtains for the front window, heavy ones, that would keep it warmer when it gets cold. I was not willing to spend money on curtains, so she offered me a pair that she was no longer using. I had my doubts, but once I hung them, I loved them.

I didn’t think the purple would look good with the blue, but I also have purple scarves & purple coats hung on the walls, plus the quilt has purple flowers to go with the blue, so yeah, purple curtains. Serendipitous.

What a domestic post. But yes, I’m in a very domestic mood. I’m still sad on a daily basis that my son grew up to be a person I don’t know, still struggling not to let the state of the world drag me into despair, still worrying and then trying to remember to breathe & let go. Practicing happiness has honestly never been harder. But I love my tiny house more every day. Roses and lavender and serendipity — I know how fortunate I am!

I didn’t make this image, so credit to whoever did, but I loved it and the idea behind it. It’s such a straightforward way to actually put a drop into the bucket of Striving For Change.

But I also found these two articles relevant:

When Black people are in pain, White people just join book clubs

I read a lot. Like, a lot. But my reading is probably 80% entertainment & relaxation, 18% useful non-fiction, and 2% “worthy.” (I’m now seriously tempted to go back through all the books I’ve read this year and see how close those percentages are to accurate, but that would take a lot of time, so assume that they’re approximations.)

And what defines “worthy?” Well, the commodification of Black pain, definitely. They’re, you know, medicinal books. The ones that are good for you, that you read because it’s somehow virtuous to read them, not necessarily fun to read them. Book club books. Books like “How to be an Antiracist,” which I am currently in the middle of.

But Black authors should not only be able to make a living when they’re educating White people about things we should already know.* If blackout publishing works, and I hope it does, the bestsellers next week will be those worthy books. I wanted my purchases to support authors with books that fell into my other two categories of reading: useful and entertaining.

So, first up, (hopefully both useful and entertaining): Banish Your Inner Critic, by Denise Jacobs. Would I write faster if I banished my inner critic? Probably, yes. Am I going to be able to do so? Well… we’ll see, I guess. But back when I was an editor, I worked with Denise on her first book, (now long out of date), so I know she’s got a great voice and I’m looking forward to reading this one soon.

And second, Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson, currently #1 in the category of African American Science Fiction on Amazon. I find that a little ironic, since the book is set in Toronto — but I guess African Canadian would be a seriously niche category.

I hope you will join me in supporting black authors this week. If you do or if you have recommendations for books, share them in the comments, please!

*I am capitalizing both Black and White, because of these articles: Recognizing Race in Language and The Case for Capitalizing the B in Black. I’m not exactly comfortable with it, so I expect that I will make errors, but it feels like the right choice.

As part of the ongoing work-in-progress of cleaning out Greg’s office and the shed, Suzanne had over a dozen boxes of books to donate to a research library down in the Bay Area. In better times, it would have made an excellent excuse to spend a weekend having fun in San Francisco or Oakland.

Alas, pandemic.

But we did want to deliver the books and Suzanne’s job means that her opportunities to do so are limited. (Postal workers deliver mail on Saturdays, so most of her weeks don’t include two days off in a row.)

Unfortunately, most campgrounds in the counties near the Bay are still closed. State parks are closed. County parks are closed. Army Corps of Engineer campgrounds are closed. Everything is closed. Except maybe the Bureau of Land Management sites?

The closest campground I could find to the city that might be open was a BLM campground with no online reviews near Ukiah. The no online reviews was a little worrying, but on Saturday S & I headed south, planning to check out the campground, maybe set up my tent to hold our site, then drive to Albany and drop off the books, then drive back to the campground.

Ha.

In almost four years of traveling, the road to Buckhorn Campground is the first road I’ve taken that I will declare officially impassable for a 20-foot van. I’m not sure how close we got — maybe halfway, so three miles? — but it was a dirt track up the mountains, one lane, hairpin turns, deep ruts, steep sides. Probably fun for those with off-road vehicles and maybe drivable for a truck with 4-wheel drive. But by the time I’d decided it was not possible, gotten Serenity out of trouble, found a place to safely turn around, and gotten back to the gravel expanse at the bottom of the mountain (see picture above), I believe my hair was grayer. Maybe literally, as I actually did notice the next day that I’ve finally started to go perceptibly gray.

With no campground, we stayed focused on immediate goals: a stop at Big John’s Market in Healdsburg for essentially needed treats and some lunch. We wound up spending an hour in the parking lot, eating grocery store sushi and sugar, while calling campgrounds. I’d already tried a bunch earlier in the week, but we called farther and farther away from the city and finally wound up with — maybe — a spot at a KOA in Willits. Then we drove into the city, found an excellent parking spot, unloaded the books, and got back on the road.

We didn’t get to the KOA until after 8PM. It’s a classic parking lot style KOA with loads of fun stuff to do if you had kids with you — swimming pool, petting zoo, water spray zone, train depot — but sites lined up in rows with bare patches of grass between gravel that Z hated walking on. Since for us it was just a way to avoid driving until midnight, it was fine.

On Sunday, we drove back to Arcata. Along the way, we stopped at a rest stop and had lunch, and it’s weird to say that was a highlight of the trip — woo-hoo, rest stop! — but Zelda was very interested in all the smells and actually wanted to wander around. She hasn’t been eating much lately, nor has she cared about going for walks, so I was happy that she was still interested in the rest stop. Art galleries for dogs, I swear.

Back in Arcata, we took it easy. But I wanted to save the below picture: potato chip nachos. We’d bought store brand potato chips at Big John’s Market to go with our roast beef, horseradish cheddar & angula roll-ups for dinner Saturday night, but the chips were so thick that I said they ought to be potato skins instead. When we got back to Arcata, I put that thought into practice, and topped the chips with melted cheddar (or possibly gruyere, I’m not sure which), bacon bits and green onion. I’d call it peak junk food — the unhealthiest thing I’ve eaten in months, possibly years — but it was delicious. Inspired, IMO.

I know I haven’t been posting much. Ten days, I think, since my last post, which is a long time for me. But the world feels like such a mess that posting about potato chip nachos and rest stops seems simultaneously like an absolute waste of anyone’s time, including my own, and yet also like exactly what I want to hold on to. I can read books and share insightful Facebook posts and do my personal best, but I can’t change the world or fix anyone’s problems, including my own. But if you can’t appreciate potato chip nachos, than really, what’s the point? So potato chip nachos it is.

Yesterday, Buddy Best Dog got to lick his person’s face for as long as he wanted to. No hands pushing his mouth away and only the mildest of complaints about liver-treat breath.

And then we said good-bye.

Buddy Best Dog was indomitable. Somewhere around the middle of his life, he lost his original home and a leg, maybe from a fall out of a moving pickup truck. He was rescued but the leg couldn’t be saved.

But losing a leg didn’t stop Buddy, and it didn’t change his spirit either. He was a typical Lab, all happy goof. He loved the beach, he loved hiking, he loved Frisbee. He loved other dogs — he was the most sociable dog I’ve ever met, always needing to say a friendly hello to any passing dog on the beach and willing to bounce as far as he had to to make that possible. Long after the point where walking was a challenge, he’d make the effort if there was another dog to sniff.

And he loved his people. Yesterday, as it became painfully clear that his failing body was becoming a prison for that indomitable spirit, we promised him that Greg was waiting for him and would be so, so happy to see him. I believe that with all my heart.

But, oh, he will be missed here.

Good-bye, Buddy Best Dog. May your next life be filled with treats and toys and all the love.

Yesterday, Suzanne and I were sitting in our rocking chairs, looking out at the abundantly glorious garden, eating a truly delicious dinner*, when Suzanne said, thoughtfully, “I think it’s going to be aliens next.”**

I glanced in her direction and she clarified, “Big spaceships, hovering over major cities. Or maybe an asteroid.”

I chuckled, as seemed appropriate, and then said, also thoughtfully (although nowhere near this coherently), “You know, stories — fiction, non-fiction — always take place in the center of the action. There’s never a story where the protagonists are sitting on the sidelines, watching in dismay, with nothing much to do, except…” I shook my head and shrugged. “…appreciate their rocking chairs, I guess?”

Humboldt County, where we are located, has had three deaths from Covid, at least two of which were at a nursing home. You can buy toilet paper in stores, and also meat, although prices are going up. And to the best of my knowledge, the police aren’t murdering people, or spraying tear gas on peaceful protestors so our elected officials can stage photo ops.

The other day I wrote to my aunt and said, “I feel so torn these days between the choices of living in contented oblivion or informed misery. It feels like there is some inherent virtue in informed misery, like knowing the terrible things going on in the world is bearing witness and that bearing witness is an action. But really it’s just passively sitting around being depressed. Bearing witness is a useless action (unless, of course, one is physically present while the cops are killing people with a camera phone running).”

I am very grateful that I have not been physically present while the police are killing people. I’m hoping to continue to avoid that. But I am firmly on the side of this Facebook post:

I’ve got two books on hold at the library: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism and How to Be an Antiracist. That doesn’t feel like it’s doing much, but it’s better than sitting in my rocking chair and completely closing my eyes to the world, tempting though that is.

* Dinner was so good that when contemplating two delicious dessert choices — ice cream or GF ginger cookies — I wished I could have seconds of our meal instead. So for future reference: In a cast iron frying pan, I sautéed an onion in a little butter, then added chopped up chicken apple sausage. I cooked it for long enough that everything was thoroughly browned and the pan needed deglazing, meanwhile also cooking GF pasta. I removed the onions and sausages, deglazed the pan with a little red wine, added halved cherry tomatoes and a generous dash of chili garlic sauce, sautéed them briefly until the tomatoes were softened but still cohesive, returned the onion and sausage to the pan, added the pasta, a generous scoop of goat cheese, & some finely chopped fresh parsley and cilantro, then mixed it all until the goat cheese was entirely melted into the pasta.

**I’m not quoting word for word, because my memory is not that perfect.

Edited to add: Actually, we could delete the word “innocent” from that graphic, too. I think the police should stop killing people entirely, innocent or not.

Long before I read my first romance — literally, years before I read my first romance — I’d read my first, second, third, and probably five hundredth fantasy or science fiction novel. My dad gave me Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern – Volume 1) when I was maybe seven or eight, and I never looked back. So when RWA (the Romance Writers of America) was going up in flames during the holidays, and Mary Robinette Kowal, the current president of SFWA (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), tweeted:

I was honestly thrilled. Joining RWA was practical, an attempt to get better at the business side of writing, and I didn’t bother to renew my membership after a year. Joining SFWA, on the other hand, was a dream come true for my twelve-year-old self.

Of course, once I’d joined, I didn’t exactly know what to do with my membership. I thought maybe I’d be active on their forums, but I actually felt too shy to comment there. I wanted to vote in the Nebula awards, but between the pandemic and my cross-country trip, I didn’t have time to read all the nominees. I thought about attending the annual conference, hoping to meet some fellow writers, but it moved online because of the pandemic and so… yeah, not gonna happen. But I read the newsletter when it arrives in my inbox, and when one of them mentioned that they were accepting submissions for a story bundle on fantastic beasts, I thought, “Well, Cici?”

I clicked the link, submitted Cici and the Curator, and then promptly forgot about it, because pandemic, heartbreak, life in turmoil, the usual. (Ha.) But I was delighted — really, so thrilled! — when I got an email a while later saying Cici had been accepted.

If you’re unfamiliar with Story Bundles, they’re collections of books, available for a limited time, at a somewhat set-your-own price. I say “somewhat” because the minimum price is $5 for five books, or $15 for 15 books, but that’s a great deal. If you’d like to support authors or the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, you’re invited to contribute more, but that’s up to you. The SFWA Fantastic Beasts bundle is a curated bundle, with titles selected by members of the SFWA, and I’m incredibly flattered that Cici is in the collection, along with titles by best-selling authors like Thea Harrison and Lindsay Buroker, award-winning authors like Susan Forest and Douglas Smith, and a whole bunch more.

I know if you’re reading this blog post, you’ve probably read Cici already — or at least decided that you’re completely uninterested in reading it. But if you like science fiction or fantasy at all, I hope you’ll consider giving the bundle a try. $15 is a really good price for fifteen books and now is a really fine time to support authors.

Still very much a work in progress, but it’s a start.

Also done today: laundry; home-made French onion soup with Gruyere on gluten-free bread; and taking the dogs to the beach.

Not done: all the things on my morning to-do list, sigh. I’ve been trying to write an email to my mailing list for the past hour and my brain just isn’t in it. It might have to wait for tomorrow, but if so, I’m not leaving Serendipity until it’s done. There, a resolution.

I’m a little sad that I neglected to take a true Before photo, but on Sunday morning, Suzanne’s storage shed (known as Dale’s house) was so stuffed with boxes and crates and buckets and miscellany that not only was there no way to get inside to find anything, there was no way to put anything more inside. Objects were piled on top of one another, and when we needed to stow some painting gear inside because it was going to rain, we had to lean against the door to close it. There’s still one box stored under the bed in Serendipity (aka my tiny house) because it was simply not possible to make room for it in the shed.

By Sunday afternoon, Dale’s house was empty, swept, and the wasp nest discovered in the corner was dead and gone.

By Monday afternoon, it was organized. In this case, a picture or two is worth a thousand words, I suspect.

All of the objects in the front of both images (that big open gray bin and the crates next to it) are going to eventually get listed on eBay and sent off to live in someone else’s storage area or closet. Meanwhile, I’m pretty darn satisfied with our work. I had the impulse this morning to go take another picture, just because those organized shelves are so gratifying to me. I didn’t quite alphabetize the paint cans, but I was tempted. In the crate of comics, all items are organized by name and number. Every remaining box could have a single label on it specifying exactly what it contains — no “miscellaneous desk” or “junk drawer” boxes left. Satisfaction!

Meanwhile Suzanne is resolved that today — which is her official day off — is going to include only fun things, so I’m also looking forward to a fun, and rather more relaxing day. Time to get started with it!

Sorry for the empty emails this morning, oh-email-readers! I was trying to post to the blog from my phone & the Kindle app: it’s one of those things that I’ve meant to learn how to do for a long time and was always too busy to get around to when I was traveling. Unfortunately, I obviously didn’t figure it out — as far as I could tell, I just managed to create some blank posts. One of them was supposed to be the above photo and the other was going to be a quote from a book I’m currently reading at a friend’s recommendation. So it goes. I will try to avoid sending out future experiments via email!

But the above photo is from yesterday’s morning walk. I woke up around 5:45 to a beautiful clear sky — an uncommon sight in the home of one of the world’s foggiest airports. (According to Wikipedia, the Army Corps of Engineers built the airport specifically to test fog dispersal techniques, none of which worked. I like the thought of the optimists saying, “Sure, we can figure out how to get rid of fog,” though. What do you suppose they had in mind?) But since it was such a gorgeous morning, I promptly hopped out of bed and took Zelda and Riley on a good walk, the mile to the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Center.

I should probably be walking them there every day. It’s certainly close enough. But there are actually enough good walks around here that I haven’t settled into a routine at all. Sometimes I do the short walk to the yoga studio and think wistfully of some future when people can exercise together again. Sometimes I do the uphill walk to the park and playground. Sometimes I walk along the abandoned railroad tracks, now turned into a bike path. I like having lots of options.

I also like Zelda’s enthusiasm, although I have to keep reminding myself not to yell at the senile dog who seems to be forgetting how leashes work. She keeps running ahead, then hitting the end of her leash with a jerk. I should dig out Bartleby’s harness, which is somewhere in the van, and start using it with her. Neither of us like it when she gets choked. But it is, of course, delightful to have her running with enthusiasm.

As for the quote, I posted it to Instagram. I am mentally arguing quite a bit with this book (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)) — it reminds me of the parenting books that never took hunger, tiredness, discomfort or overstimulation into account when considering behavior — but at the same time, I’ve highlighted a number of quotes. I never read Kindle books with the feature that shows other people’s highlights turned on, but I might reread this book when I’m done with highlights on. It would be interesting to see what other people took away from it. I don’t know whether what I’m taking away from it is what my friend thought I would, but I also highlighted:

Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.

The Four Agreements

It made me want to say, “Yes, exactly! Ha! Take that!” in my ongoing imaginary arguments, which somehow made me laugh. It’s so satisfying to thoroughly win an imaginary argument.