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Date: 10/06/05. Thursday. 20382. So many things to catch up on. I'm trying to get back to my work, but emergencies keep happening. And we're still suffering from that glycol encounter: that stuff gets absorbed into bodily tissues, I swear, because I'm still coughing and still have a gut ache. Jane's no better. On-ice, it went a bit better. Joan worked mostly with Jane today, who's close to nailing the backwards moves, and who needed extra time, but I did get a few minutes, reminded Joan that, no, I've still never taken the inside-3 'off the wall'---that's the inside-edge version of the 3-turn: it's a spooky one, because it's so easy to over-rotate and spill yourself onto your backside on the ice. So she gave me some pointers to stop that over-rotation: position, position, position. I could do that to 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Anyway, we're still trying to drop the weight: I'm succeeding: Jane isn't. This is tragic.

Date: 10/7/05. Friday. 20783. Hurrah. A little chance to work and get back with my outline. Things are going very well, in spite of continuing symptoms---had a fairly decent skate, all told, and ducked off with Sharon for a lunch at Tomato Street: we invited her over to the house, and sat and watched an anime, and were going to have dinner, but Sharon had to get home to do some work.

Date: 10/8/05. Saturday. 21288. Still making progress, and worked hard---every time you leave your work for a few days, it's a real bear to get re-settled. Writing isn't something you can just dive into occasionally and flip through and go with: I'm really good at recovering my place after an interruption---my early writing career was fraught with hospital stints for gravely ill parents, public school teaching and other jolts to the system, and I learned if I was going to survive on my advances, I had to learn to absolutely clear my mind of everything that was going on around me and about me and just recollect where I was, piece by piece, and moment by moment. I learned to set mental markers for where I'd been and what came next, and that stood me in very good stead when I started onto the convention circuit. But as good as I am, I still have to decompress for a few days after getting back off the road, and road travel is less disruptive than air travel, because at least there's a sense of continuity of time and place. Conventions, family visits, even a vacation (vacation? What's that?) is prone to wipe everything I was doing. I never outlined: I learned to do so in self defense, because there are too many things about this business that will totally screw up your memory of where you were. But even that can't replace the creative energy that drains out of you in a crisis, and any disruption, be it a convention or another kind of trip, means about four or five days spent recovering your place. You can batter yourself at the situation or you can relax, water the plants, take care of what piled up while you were gone, and still---four or five days later, the ideas will start to flow again. The depth of concentration this art takes is pretty well manic: I recall when Lynn Abbey was sharing our digs, and we set off a fire alarm by accident---yellow-slickered firemen in full kit were running down our home hallway past Lynn's open door: she was plugging away at her computer, and only eventually did she turn around to give them a glance and ask us, as we appeared to apologize, if there was a problem. No, we said, and she went back to work. That's the kind of concentration I'm talking about. When it's disrupted, it's like losing a piece of your body. //And I went out to do a bit more work on Jane's birthday present. She never reads this blog: I could probably say what it was herein, but I won't take the chance. Just about the time she establishes a pattern she violates it, so I intend to keep the surprise surprising. Suffice it to say I'm pretty smug.// I cooked dinner in the theory Sharon was coming over, but she was a bit under the weather---and dinner kind of went south, as cooking can, too, when I'm just in off the road, so she was smart to duck it. I'll try to do better tomorrow. We were going to do the accounting, but Jane's recovering her concentration, too, and I won't distract her with the bank accounts.

Date: 10/9/05. Sunday. 21831. Some days you just have to make an early entry: the bed exploded. Remember I'd just bought a mattress, which isn't delivered yet, and the Aerobed just deflated on me last night: I'd thought it was low because of the trip, and disuse. I added air. At 2 am it flattened, dumping me and Ysabel onto the platform of the platform bed. I reinflated it. By 6 am, it had flattened again, and I clambered out of bed disgusted. I first blamed Ysabel's claws, which are epic, but I'm not so sure now. The hole, which we found not where I thought it would be---at the edge, where Ysa-kitty might have clawed it getting into bed---but dead center, on a forming-seam that makes part of the tufting, in a spot deeply protected by a synthetic-feather-topper---inclines me to believe the bed is flawed, though I've used it for two years. Miraculously, we found a patch kit {Jane offered hers}, and I have accordingly patched it. We'll see how well this works, or if I have to spend another night on a rumpled pile of bedding and plastic on a hard board surface.//Outside of that, I've gotten some work done, attacked the accounts, paid the annual medical insurance, and think I'm going to sit down and play Solitaire for an hour. I deserve it after last night.//Sharon came over---she never had seen Harry Potter, so we remedied that.

Date: 10/10/05. Monday. Columbus Day: felicitations to my Italian-American readers. Re the native American protests of same---I think it's high time we had a major holiday that honors native Americans---a day to respect and appreciate these diverse and complex cultures, to hear their languages, their philosophies, and their histories, which are ongoing and important to collective human wisdom. I think I ought to write a congressman or two.//Manuscript? 22733. And the bed held up. Mail and all was shut down, but we weren't, of course. Really back in the swing on the Cyteen project, and going great guns. We skated---and I made some good progress. The back outside edge to a forward inside stepoff has sort of eluded me: it's a very basic move, but it requires really committing to that outside back edge, sort of like balancing on a cliff and being very accurate---but with Joan's minimal help, I actually did it in balance and found out what 'right' feels like: that's the biggest deal in any undertaking, be it writing or skating or hitting a baseball. Once that template of 'feels right,' or 'looks right' gets into the brain, then you can get back to that point. I'm anxious to practice again.

Date: 10/11/05. Tuesday. 23332 to 2938. Well, never get too smug in progress. I had a very positive phone call from my publisher, who, yes, quite reasonably, wants Cyteen, but wants the third Foreigner book before year's end. I don't know if I can do that, but thank goodness for outlines! I can set aside the 23332 words of the outline for the Cyteen project [also for DAW] and scrape together my notes for the 9th Foreigner book. Hence the big switchover. I went off to skate and didn't get the concentration I needed. I didn't fall, but it wasn't utterly good, either. Sharon's been under the weather, I'm still coughing, and while the air mattress is still holding, it keeps over-expanding and throwing its sheets and mattress-cover off. I have the vision of the thing blowing up like a round ball and then deflating in a puddle.

Date: 10/12/05. Wednesday. 9035. Scraped together more bits and notes, which is why the Foreigner 9 outline is going so fast. But it's feeling good: you just have to have a good attitude on these things, and I plan to enjoy this book: THEN I'll get back on the Cyteen book, which is well-outlined, and those readers waiting for it won't have too much longer a wait---sorry, sorry, sorry! I pedal as fast as I can. Meanwhile I had to call back to Dallas several times today: my brother David had surgery on his sinuses, and I wanted to be sure he's ok. He is. Uncomfortable, but perfectly ok. [If you have his number and have to communicate with him, cards would be nice: his phone is ringing off the wall, and he really shouldn't talk much for the next few days.] Meanwhile, more so-so skating: I'm doing a backward spiral exit from the waltz jump, and leaned too far forward, thus proving I can indeed put palms down on the ice, which equals doing the same on carpet plus 3 inches depth [height of the skates]. Shall we say, these joints haven't stretched that far in 20 years, or possibly ever? I don't think I could have done than bend when I was 10. Ice, ice, ice: remedy for overextension, not sports location. Caught the baseball game 2 between the White Sox and Angels: that was amazing, to say the least. Jane, who really knows the rules, is more definite than I am on the question, but it sure looked confusing to me.

Date: 10/13/05. Thursday. 10938. A bit of work: still pulling bits and pieces into the outline. And thinking. Any of you who happen to recall the names and duties of staff at Malguri could certainly save me some double-checking. How's that for a hint of what's going on? Meanwhile, a little scrap of a lesson on the ice, and I'm making progress, but not as fast as I'd like. And the bed continues to disintegrate, which isn't helping my sleep. Looking forward to Saturday. Mt. St. Helens is acting up a bit: the earthquakes look like a sine wave pattern, at least in magnitude and frequency, like the thing is breathing. Nothing threatening thus far, but if I were camping near there, I'd sure keep an ear to the radio and the USGS.

Date: 10/14/05. Friday. 10938. Friday. 10938. I didn't get a thing done: Sharon dropped in---she'd just had dental work done, and was in the neighborhood, so we drove to the rink more or less together. And Joan found 15 minutes for a lesson for me, after I was already so tired I couldn't think straight: I'm always joking with her, because I have a basic left-right confusion, from childhood, but today I was really bad, and Joan decided to launch into me about posture, which I think has improved to the point where she is dissatisfied with the remnant of my bad habits. No old-ladyish bending forward: I'm to have the backline of an Olympian, thank you, or die trying: Joan taught Olympians, and I'm now in her crosshairs for good and all until I mend my carriage and posture. No flipping of the trailing hand during maneuvers. I'm going to try wearing my half-pipe hand braces to stop that trick, and I'm going to order an upper-back brace and do my work with a child's ball between my back and the back cushion: that will get the shoulders working. And it's all to the good: I'll be much better on the ice when I'm standing properly. Had lunch at Tomato Street, and then went down and gathered up some spare memory for Jane's computer, and a copy of DungeonSeige II, which I had seen played, and which looked great. It black-screened on Jane's Qosmio, and my high-end Latitude. We're just so pleased. I tend to think it's hardware acceleration at fault, but a game that black-screens two different  new computers is not on my good list at the moment. Not only that, it left artifacts on my machine, and probably on Jane's. It messed with my display size parameters. I'm going to reinstall it and try the hardware accel slider, but if that doesn't fix it, it's going back. Suggestions are welcome. I'm not anxious to start playing with video drivers for a brand new computer: the last time I ran into this, it wanted to use a more primitive driver, not a more modern one, and I wasn't happy with that either.

Date: 10/15/05. Saturday. 14584. Up and at 'em, and trying to get the accounts straightened out---and lots of mail from people upset about the change of novels I'm working on. Have patience, have patience: this is going along very quickly, and I hope to keep everyone happy---there's an outside chance I can be finished by Christmas: I don't put absolute faith in it, because nothing ever goes that smoothly, but I hope so, anyway, and know I'll at least be well along by then, and I have no conventions to go to, which are a real detour off schedules. I'm hoping to get some sleep now---the mattress came. Of course one of the lads downstairs decided to move today, and parked a U-Haul right at the entry to the building, so I watched my delivery truck cruise the outer road back and forth in confusion for some few minutes before I got the expected phone call: it is a bit of a rabbit warren here, and no, there's no back way in. The truckers were quite happy to learn all they had to do was dump it at my third floor door: there's no mattress to take downstairs. Jane and I wrestled it down the hall. And it's very nice. A Serta PosturePedic Emerald II, which is just about what I need. And Jane is looking at it and considering what she wants to do about her mattress. I think the fact I'm working on posture has made me much more conscious what abuse I was taking from my sleeping habits. And I'm straighter and more muscled than I used to be. I did miss the Spokane River Cleanup day: the mattress arrived right when we should have been helping Sharon and the eco-clubs clean up the river recreation areas, and I would love to take home the prize for weirdest thing found (last year went to a giant Barney plush doll, while I thought Jane's leather bank deposit bag was pretty good) but alas, we were providentially detained, and I have a mattress! I'm cooking spareribs for dinner and the penalty is having to smell them baking from 10am on. But if they turn out like the last, I'll be happy. Consult The Science Fiction Diet for the recipe. Even someone who's never cooked at all can do this one.

Date: 10/16/05. Sunday. 16785. Well, Ysabel was a bit suspicious of the new mattress, but we both slept better---like hours and hours without waking up. My lower back feels great. The upper back---well, I pulled a kink in my left shoulder, which is gradually working itself out: I think maybe getting the lower back straight threw it off. Sigh. Penalties of age, I suppose. I also ordered a shoulder brace yesterday, one of those whole-upper-back affairs that may help get the roundness out of the shoulders for skating. Also I'm used to sleeping on cold air in that Aerobed mattress, and Jane, who was last up, didn't crack the patio door, so the place was warmer than usual: I'd have liked just a bit more chill, thank you, considering I have two comforters on. But over all, the new mattress is a success. It's great to be able to move without bouncing Ysabel and waking her up---a sleepy and irritated cat is not a pleasant companion.//And thank you all for the suggestions---a combination of maneuvers has fixed the game. 1) backing off the hardware acceleration slider, via Control Panel. 2) downloading the patch from the game site, 3) turning off Norton Internet Protection for the duration of game play. The last seemed to do the trick: the game simply will not run with Norton up. I plan to advance the slider again, and see if I can get away with that. Norton is a wonderful software, but sometimes it protects us too much, and it is like an octopus, with tentacles into everything. And what did I do with my day, but play games. I figure I'm due a day of that. We were very bad: we went off to The Mustard Seed, a really nice local chain of Chinese restaurants [hint: they will do filet into a stir-fry] and shared 3 entrees and a vegetable---but being Atkins, we ration the rice to a spoonful or so.

Date: 10/17/05. Monday. 5653. Stupid, stupid, stupid: I was really quite amazed myself at how very fast this was all going...I know that I'm capable of it: I wrote Cuckoo's Egg in two weeks from start to first draft, but that was after being bitten by a Brown Recluse spider and being hyped on the Medrol they gave me to counter the venom: I didn't sleep more than an hour at a time for those two weeks, and didn't leave the house or turn on the telly. 16000 words? Was I dreaming? Or shall I just say I mistook the character count for the word count? It says something about my addled state of mind after the switch in books: it's been one of those sets of days in which, when I've misplaced my coffee cup, I look in the refrigerator just in case... But, since I had the intelligence to realize that, I may assume I now have my wits about me, and I am quite content that, while it's going well, it's going at a human pace. Outside of that embarrassment, a really productive day---in spite of the video game. Worse, we discovered that we can both install the game, and as long as we have the disk in at start, we can remove it and the other person can start up. This is fair. If, say, Bill Gates...can lend one of my books to a family member to read without having to buy a second copy of the novel, we should be able to lend a disk within the household. On the other hand, it means Jane, who is devotedly learning Japanese---she always wanted a second language, and has discovered she loves Japanese popular music---has acquired another time sink. But it's a good game, with a good story in it...Dungeon Seige II. Skating went really well---one of those days when the ice was great and the boots were laced just right. I'm going all the way around the bottom O on the Waltz 8, sometimes the full 8, and I'm beginning to feel the rhythm in it; my crossover was working, which felt great: I'm getting contact with my edges and control of my speed---that's a maneuver in which you can gain far more speed than you know what to do with, at my stage, and learning to control speed is a good thing. We had a fairly rara avis show up, in that vein: a speed skater---older fellow, with absolutely beautiful form, and knowing as little as I do, I'd about bet he's competed seriously at some point in his life. He's a real joy to watch---gains great speed with the most graceful economy of motion: he was asking about our rink size and we had to say, alas, we're a few feet short of regulation hockey size on rink 2. Rink 1 is the larger of the two, but public skate doesn't use it during the winter. He has to come quite a way: from Coeur d'Alene ID---but I hope he does come in on occasion. With myself, I'm sure that Joan's advice about my shoulders was the key to a really good session: I'm consciously trying to get the shoulder girdle braced back and down, sort of like trying to extend imaginary wings, and get a curve in the back. That means overcoming the 'turtle' effect older folk get from too much sitting at keyboards, and that's a big one: completely realigning the way the neck meets the shoulders. I don't know of any other sport that makes you---not gently suggests---makes you evaluate how you stand and then goes on to correct that stance: this is a good example. If the shoulder girdle is correctly aligned, there are some one-footed turns you can make---and not otherwise. Not to mention coming down gracefully in a jump, etc. When I started this, I was in the X-sizes, and now I'm routinely a 14 and an M, aggressively headed for a 12, [due to my height, S will never be an option] and a major part of it is just straightening the back and getting muscles tuned to scarf up the fat that had gathered ---ahem---about the waist. I didn't pay a penalty for the Mustard Seed event: I should have, but didn't. Can't get away with that twice. Sharon came over. We watched Shall We Dance? and Strictly Ballroom, which are fun movies; and we borrowed jumper cables. If we don't get Jane's car going, she'll have to miss skating tomorrow, because I have a dental appointment. I have a bridge that's coming loose, and that has to get fixed---I sure don't want to have it go next week, when we're celebrating Jane's birthday.

Date: 10/18/05 Tuesday. 5656. One of those days. We're trying to get Jane's car going. Her door lock turns out to be broken. I did however have a really good skate: I'm really working on back posture and I've taken to using the halfpipe wrist guards, which remind me to keep my elbows straight and not to let my wrist turn. This is a major point, in doing turns and backward edges. We had lunch, then took out to do a little necessary shopping, so we have something to eat in the house. And Jane took to the highway, running to Coeur d'Alene and back to charge up the battery. She has gotten it to start on its own, which is hopeful for the battery. I took the chance to do a little last moment birthday preparation while Jane was out. She doesn't regularly read the blog, so I'm free to say that.

Date: 10/19/05. Wednesday. 5656. Jane went out to start her car---having to get to the rink, while I, alas, had to get to the dentist. She'd had an iffy lock yesterday: we wondered if weather could have cracked it. Wrong. She'd left the other door open so she wouldn't get locked out of her car, and the broken lock was no fluke: the thief came back and made off with her cd player-face, from the car, and her cd's, which are mostly new age and Japanese, not the sort of thing the average thief would enjoy. There was absolutely nothing else in the car. So Jane went off to the rink, and I went to the dentist to have that crown reseated. And I had the dental visit from hell. The dental assistant is a new one---new to me, at least; and she was still learning where things were, and she couldn't remember to keep suction going while she was trying to find things on the counter: that was the first problem. The worst: apparently the new dental painkiller incorporates epinephrine in the mix, probably as an accelerant. I can't take that drug: it sends me higher than a kite, and is actually dangerous to me. They didn't tell me, and when the painkiller began to take effect, I was experiencing a racing heartbeat, dizziness, and was shaking uncontrollably. I couldn't even hold my jaw steady: it took me, the assistant, and sometimes the dentist, to keep the jaw from tremor while they were working. It took an hour and a half to glue a bridge back in. I was shaking, on an emotional edge, and had bloody spots in my mouth from misplaced suction and jabs of the instruments. We now have that drug on my chart as a 'don't-do', and I didn't end up in the emergency room, though at one point I was considering aborting the appointment---after the bridge was removed, however, I no longer had that option; and more annoying, the personnel there still didn't seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. But by an hour and a half, I was down to hand-tremors, and I was able to drive. I still got home before Jane did: she'd been shopping. I'd dutifully put on dinner, but I couldn't eat it, nor had much appetite, and my mouth was swollen and full of sores. I was wretched all evening, still with tremor at bedtime.

Date: 10/20/05. Thursday. 5656. Again, no chance to get any work done: we had to get Jane's car to the mechanic before we skated, and I still had the tremor in my muscles when I took the ice---my knees were shaking, my hands were shaking, and I chilled badly. I managed to take my lesson, and got some good things accomplished with the back edges, but by the time we got off the ice, I announced I wasn't cooking, couldn't face food, except maybe pub food, and for some reason when I thought of the Irish pub we'd tried to go to, that was closed for a party, I thought of corned beef and cabbage, and that for some reason was the only thing in the universe that appealed to me. I was cold, and wretched. We went off to shop for stereo and car alarm, and then to the pub, O'Dougherty's, which turned out to be a find, and there was indeed corned beef and cabbage. It did hit the spot, and I finally got warm, but I still wasn't worth much for the rest of the evening. I'm really having second thoughts about that dental appointment I set up for next month.

Date: 10/21/05. Friday. 5039. Erased a duplication. When I'm moving scenes around, that sometimes happens. Progress is happening. I erased a lot. We went to the rink: I had another lesson: I'm wearing a slight back/shoulder brace I picked up, and it does help. That won't be permanent, just until I get my feet under me, and believe me, when you're doing backward edges, posture is so important. And I am beginning to get the backward insides to behave, at least on the left foot. //We had another scramble with Jane's car, this time picking it up and getting it to the alarm/stereo dealer so we could get that all put in. So Jane's car is now alarmed, and glows in the dark---glows so that she feared she'd left a light on that might run the battery down, but it's just a very bright LED. Which, pardon me, is a whole lot better than the sort that beeps and annoys the whole neighborhood. Meanwhile I've been following the news, and getting rather incensed: California has a 16-year-old murderer and a mother throwing her children into the ocean. What's wrong with this picture? We so value parental rights that we won't remove children from the care of a mother who's letting the voices in her head tell her what to do, and now pundits on the evening news wish they had the death penalty available for a 16-year old who at 13 lost a sister in an accident and has been on a destructive spiral ever since? Nobody wanted to mandate the kid get meaningful help before he snapped and murdered an innocent woman. The mother in the other case was apparently taken off her antipsychotics and sent home with kids in her care and voices in her head. The condition of mental health care in this country is abysmal. Yes, some patients need to be examined, even hospitalized against their will long term until they're safe to be in charge of themselves, let alone others. The US Constitution was never meant to prevent a person from getting medical care they aren't able (due to their illness) to know they need, and if you can't cure the problem, don't tell me it's a person's right to have more kids, or to get out and disappear onto the streets to self-medicate with alcohol and die in some alley some cold night. Talk about following a principle over a cliff---the Constitution should apply only to adults in full possession of their faculties. The Constitution and governing laws should indeed limit and regulate the appropriate behavior of persons [like mental health caregivers] acting in custodial capacity, and come down with full force on anyone abusing custodial responsibilities. Likewise civil liberties should not be used to turn the ill and mentally helpless out onto the streets to be a danger to themselves and others, and 'others' should definitely include their own children, present and future.

Date: 10/22/05. Saturday. 5778. Thank you all who answered my question about Malguri staff. A good number of my books are in storage, or at best highly disorganized, and it's very good of my readers to do that favor for me, or I'd be hunting through boxes instead of writing. I'm making progress, and meanwhile trying to clean up for Jane's birthday party Monday. I swear, stuff sits in the closets and multiplies, and trying to pack things into containers where you can still see what's in there is time-consuming and 'spensive: then those have to be ported down to storage, and put where they can be found...it's like fixing fence on some giant ranch: you get through and the part you started with needs fixing, and on it goes. We decided to get to the rink this evening, with Sharon: evening skates can be pretty chaotic, but it was better, and I'm better: now the hockey wannabees have to judge I can make sudden reversals and don't tootle round and round, so they do a better job staying out of my way. The real hockey players are in control of their stops and I don't worry about them: it's probably good practice for them to stay out of our way. But the ice still gets chewed to snow, which is really bad for us to skate on. We dropped by Tomato Street after, and then went home to collapse.

Date: 10/23/05. Sunday. 5882. Erasing and going forward. I'm still cleaning, and I had to go buy food for tomorrow's supper/birthday party. I'm keeping Jane pretty well on her diet, so birthday 'cake' consists of fresh strawberries and whipped cream, only mildly sinful, and better if I could have found blueberries, but not in this season. Work, work, work, and still trying to get the place tidied up: the new mattress of my bed and the new coverlet on Jane's produced more fluffy stacks of not-used-now linens, and finding a place to put them where they're safe is a pain. I'd like to keep using the pillow-topper, but the sheets aren't deep pocketed enough. The pillow-topper may end up in a duvet cover. Watching hurricane Wilma barrel down on Florida, and called Lynn to ask about the recipe for what Jane would like for her birthday dinner: she doesn't have it either, so I'll punt. Lynn says they expect to lose power. I hope she doesn't get a foot of rain on her roof.

Date: 10/24/05. Monday. 6237. I'm working on an atevi account of numbers 1-15. Amazing how many details never get included. But I should perhaps include it in an appendix.//But most of all, today is Jane's birthday, and we are so happy that the folk of website Shejidan got together to send her cards---delightful, delightful. I so enjoyed mine on my birthday, and she was so surprised and pleased. Thank you all. She received a book explaining Japanese kanji, a box with a tile top with her Stephen and Wesley illustration, which Sharon had had done---when I walked into her room this morning, I found she had slept with both book and box. And she got a contribution toward a saltwater aquarium: we have so missed our massive aquariums---and what I predicted has come to pass: coral culture no longer relies on destructively collected specimens. People learned enough to get even stony corals spawning and growing rapidly in aquaria, and hobbyists sell and trade 'frags,' or small snips off their growing specimens. It's my hope that in a period when wild reefs are endangered from various perils, including war and warming, hobbyists and major aquariums may help save and reintroduce threatened species, returning them to the wild---unlike mammals, corals once 'released' can pretty well fend for themselves, if they're in a good habitat. Around Florida, for instance, people are rebuilding reefs, and may their tribe increase throughout the world. Healthy reefs, healthy fish, healthy oceans, healthy planet. It's all connected. Our previous reef aquarium, even primitive as it was, had some successes: a leather coral which we propagated to another tank, coral that spawned, though the filter system of those days sucked up all the little coral-critters and nothing came of it. Various mushrooms: we were good at those. And button corals. We sold them or gave them away to our reef shop, and for all I know, they're still growing and healthy. So we have hopes that we can at least sell enough specimens to pay for the supplies that grow them. I actually succeeded in surprising Jane, who says she had a most extraordinary party [Sharon joined us] and a string of marvelous surprises, not least of them the cards from Shejidan.

Date: 10/25/05. Tuesday. 6610. Back to routine, and hard at work. We were going to go to supper with Joan---met her at the rink for a lesson---and I've begun to get a little notion what's wrong with my runout backward where the move requires me to keep my feet close: backward extension or spiral, no problem, but fully upright stance in a backward runout is just really scary. Turns out the skidding tail of my skate that happens when I attempt a step-off from a backward edge is due to not getting over on the edge. And not getting onto the edge has a lot to do with having my hands too far from my body and too high. A little work with that was a help. Jane's having similar troubles. She's about to try moving her skate blades a little inward to see if she can get a bit more rock to the outside edge. This is futzy, and there's a limited time you can mess with the screws on the blade plate without compromising the boot, so this is pretty major. Meanwhile Jane and Joan got together and decided Sharon [who's snowed under by work] should come too, so we were to do supper if we could get hold of Sharon, but Joan had an appointment and had accidentally left her cellphone at home, and Jane had left her phone at home, while mine didn't have either Sharon's office number or Joan's cell number; so we ran around getting those numbers, and meanwhile had decided to go to the aquarium store to pick out Jane's system. Well, we got hold of Sharon, who it turned out couldn't come, so we called Joan and left a voicemail saying 'let's just go,' and continued on to the store, which was closed on Tuesdays. Sigh. And then we heard from Joan, who'd gone ahead and had supper, in the utter confusion. At this point we decided to go to the nice little Irish pub for supper, nachos, which they promised they did well. Wrong. They didn't, and the 'taco' meat was really spiced for Irish shepherd's pie; they left off the jalapenos, and we made the mistake of eating it. Wrong again. By the time we got home we were looking for stomach aids, both of us had a gut ache, Jane's face was flushed, and I had a racing heartbeat that was shaking my whole body: my bangs were trembling in time to it, odd to say. MSG? we ask ourselves. No, wrong reaction.  'Meat tenderizer'? Jane asks. Bingo. I remember the reaction: I had it once upon a time ten, fifteen years ago in a restaurant after a steak. That stuff should be illegal, and ground beef that needs tenderizer must have started out mummified. We are shaking the dust of O'Dougherty's from our feet and not going back. The stuff is dangerous. Our malady lasted through the night, though thank goodness my pulse rate calmed down. So it was not the most productive day of our lives. We're going to try for dinner with Joan next week and try tomorrow for the aquarium shop. We still haven't heard from Lynn Abbey, who was on the edge of Wilma, and we are assuming she's ok, but that phone and/or electric is out. I hope it's just the phone: a writer in the modern age who's deprived of electricity is a most miserable and frustrated soul. We don't want to overload phone resources down there by calling, but after another day or so we will try.

Date: 10/26/05. Wednesday. 6678. We're trying to get cleaned up after the birthday party---boxes and paper proliferate if unwatched. I had a major success at the rink: I've begun to get that backward runout---I can do it, oddly enough, if I clench my fists as I do the 3-turn: it seems to stiffen the shoulders. Hopefully I'll get past that necessity before Joan sees my method...tensing the shoulders can be done without fists. Jane, however, is having a day: she's become convinced her blades are 'off', or at least that one is. We tried spotting them from behind, and indeed, the left blade seems skewed a bit, or her foot is, which means probably it's the blade. A close look proves that the heel of both her blades aims a little differently than mine, and that her left heel has a 1/16 to 1/4 inch skew in it. If you've only used rental skates, which are generally bradded-on blades, that can't be moved, you get luck of the draw. But our skates have screws in the blade-plate that hold them to the boot sole, and these were mounted at the factory, with several adjustment-slots that were supposed to be aimed properly before the rest of the screws went in. Either Jane's stance has changed or these blades never were right. We're investigating a blade remount.

Date: 10/27/05. Thursday. 7903. This time Jane's bed exploded, trying to become a beach ball: one of the interior baffles must have given way, with the result that you couldn't even deflate the thing more than 2/3s of the way. So we bundled it up, found the receipt [it's only from August] and took it back to Linens N Things, who were amused, and made no fuss about replacing it. Ice time was a disaster; the rink drain froze shut, which meant staff couldn't use the Zamboni, and we skated on warty ice {this happens when drip falls from the beams overhead and freezes] and in company with two non-communicative people who weren't the most observant of patterns...she says politely. We quit early, resolving that Jane's skates are going to need some revision, and that we can do it ourselves with a screwdriver, but we didn't have one, and that was going to have to wait. I was achy---we both were, from something in the air. We also reached personal-frazzle point with the clutter level in the place: a lot of things have found their way upstairs that should be in storage, and the kitchen is a disgrace. So after agreeing that this is approaching unacceptable, we set about cleaning and removing bric-a-brac that doesn't need to be taking shelf-space at this point. We're just starting in the dining area and working our way through the apartment, revising the storage choices that seemed logical when we moved in, and trying to use things more efficiently. The place already looks better, and we're determined to have it in apple-pie order before we start moving furniture to accommodate the new aquarium. Dinner at the Alpine, which is the new-management version of Panama Jack's, and half-raw fish and chips isn't my idea of an improvement. Not to mention a Caesar salad with candied lemon peel strewn over it. I don't care if I never go back. The flavor was indescribably bad. Jane, however, liked the fish {her piece was done} and thought the lemon strips were just lovely. We will have to discuss this.

Date: 10/28/05. Friday. 8384. Trying to clean up the place---beyond clean-up: certain things have to go back down to storage, and we're trying this time to put them not into cardboard boxes, but into clear Rubbermaid containers---I insist on that brand, having bought a number of others which last about one season before cracking. Rubbermaid costs more, but not in the long run. I've never had one of those break. And we want to be able to see the contents, or at least generalities of the contents. Our garage has bare rafters: I'm thinking about getting some plywood sheets to lay across, to enable use of that dead space. Friday skate was again a mess: the drain is still frozen and the hockey ruts are like canyons out there. It really hurts when you hit one, just wrenches your ankle sideways, and of course there's the usual couple recreational skaters on hockey blades who haven't a clue that they're creating problems by skating across the one patch of clear ice you've been working on...I do try not to think vile thoughts, but the result of their passage is just maddening. Jane's left her bad skate at the rink to have the holes filled, so she can reattach the blade, and what I saw when the blade was off [a warp in the sole] indicates to me that a key part of the problem may not be in where the blade was set, but in a defect in the way the upper of the boot was attached to the sole: that is a problem for Jackson Ultima [the skatemaker], and we are going to have to contact them. We were so tired at the end of the day we didn't go to any of the 3 Halloween events we could have gone to.

Date: 10/29/05. Saturday. 8827. Working and cleaning. I'm sorting all the random boxes of odds and ends. Our life seems to fit into a handful of categories: 1) Crafts and hobbies a) sewing b) art c) other. 2) Tools a) electrical b) mechanical c) deck storage. 3) Computer gear. 4) Video. 5) Clothes a) mine b) Jane's c) Goodwill. 6) Papers a) manuscript b) receipts and tax stuff c) correspondence. 7) Books a) reference b) pleasure c) our reserve copies. First the cut into 7 piles, and then boxing by sub-categories. I now have a stack of organized boxes instead of disorganized boxes. Next: labels. I intersperse boxing with writing with playing my current video game, in endless cycle.

Date: 10/30/05. Sunday. 10183. Xerox yesterday and you have today, except we decided to go out for nachos, a grave dietary sin. Jane's trying to get manuscript printed and mailed, and the printer always shows up glitches when this happens...or runs out of ink. We ate too much, and Monday I'm getting the makings for some better dietary choices. Too much sameness.

Date: 10/31/05. Monday. 10485.  Early work. And necessarily the preparation to get Jane's manuscripts out the door [DAW wanted fresh copies after revisions] and the preparation to drill new holes for Jane's skate both left garbage over all my freshly cleaned living room. Sigh. You clean it and there it goes again. But now there's one more thing to do, which is the letter to Jackson. Public ice was good, but immediately a school party showed up, with thirty kids, half of whom could skate well enough to be a nuisance and the other half of whom kept falling down and hurting themselves: very few helmets, several banged skulls. Jane meanwhile attached her own blade and reported that her balance is immediately improved---miraculously improved, but it can't be perfect, because it's important the blade go between the big toe and the next, and to achieve balance in that boot, it has to be aimed differently. Joan said it was very badly screwed up and offered her support in talking with Jackson to try to get redress for this problem. Jane is upset that she's worked so hard and thought it was all her fault all this time that she was having balance problems...and now is going to have to break in one more boot set. And Sharon is back from a trip west: we've missed her.

Date: 11/1/05. Tuesday. 10552. Lesson with Joan...Joan is really hitting me hard with posture corrections. Throwing your shoulders back while going backward on one outside edge is on the one hand counter-intuitive, until you realize that leaning backward while going backward is a lot like leaning forward while going forward, and you're more stable when you do. I am sore, really sore. I'm still trying to get the house organized: Jane's birthday present is forcing that. When you move in a large item of furniture, you have to move things, and when you move things, you can either shift them or organize them. In an apartment, the best answer is 'organize', which is why I love apartment living: no more letting useless clutter accumulate around us because we have room for it. We don't. So we get boxes and organize, and it feels so good. Someone wrote and asked me when Pretender would appear: answer: we've seen the cover proof. Those usually precede the galleys, for proofing, and publication is 2 to 6 months after the galleys, usually.

Date: 11/2/05. Wednesday. 10831. Progress on the outline is slow. But each word on the outline represents a lot more words when it expands. I've gotten to the end and am now filling in details. Jane's taking pictures of her skates to e-mail to Jackson Skates to see if she can get the company to stand behind its product: we have two pairs of skates, bought on exactly the same date. Mine are perfect. Hers are a mess---not broken down, but impossible to balance on the factory-set point, because both boots incline toward the inside of the ankle. And a coach who used to coach Olympians says it's one of the worst misshapes she's ever seen. Jane's spent the better part of two years trying to compensate for the lean, and now that she's on the level, she's beginning to fly. And we like the company---we take the view that this was a fluke, and the question is whether they will understand that a beginner who can't identify a defect should get some extended consideration for that fact: Jane figured it out when she got good enough to know how her feet ought to be. So if they do give Jane some redress, we'll stay with them for more skates, and I hope they do, because mine are great.

Date: 11/3/05. Thursday. 10985. More slight progress. And a new slight hobby. We're taking apart a tired old skating dress to get a pattern, and I begged to do it. My eyes are too bad close-up to allow me to stitch, but I can still wield a scissors, and there's a certain pleasure in sitting and snipping while watching telly. And when we got to the rink, we discovered adult hockey folk on 'our' ice. I go to Tim, the rink owner, asking where we're supposed to be, and discovered that our other Spokane rink has closed its doors, selling its space to some manufacturer, and we're absorbing the Chiefs and Flyers practice sessions. So the public skate will be on rink 1, the larger rink, today. I feel very badly for the Valley skaters---they're going to have 20 more miles to drive, besides just the sad fact that that rink wasn't making it, and a bunch of people probably will give up skating now that it's harder to get there. And it's such a wonderful thing to do for yourself: I can't recommend it enough. But we'll make the Valley skaters welcome when they come: we're Valley, ourselves, since the move, and there's a route that's a lot better than the more obvious one, [which, for any reader who is from Spokane, is Argonne to Bigelow Gulch Road which becomes Francis. That speeds the trip considerably, and avoids Division's lights.]  Meanwhile I'm working on the back edges. And consequently I'm lying to myself on the ice: to improve my balance on the aforesaid backward edges, I'm telling myself that Joan is standing there yanking my offhand shoulder back. Works wonders. I shrug one shoulder back, and what was a straight line becomes a big arc back toward the hockey line. On my pesky 3-turn backward exit, I tell myself I'm not heading into a 3-turn, I'm about to do a spin (moves are similar, but you have no inclination to lean on a spin) and that works: I stand straighter, tuck my tailbone as I should, and all of a sudden I'm staying on one foot for the exit instead of making the death-dive to the other foot for stability.//After skate, we went to the aquarium store to pick up our light [a really major piece of equipment if you're growing corals, with two huge ballasts, and fans to keep it cool, and so on, and so on. We got a lot of the peripheral equipment, and the sump, and ordered our aquarium tank. I'm leaning toward having someone maintain it at least through the set-up phase. I've done it myself for a reef tank, but equipment has changed so that I don't want what I do know contributing to an expensive mistake. Cheaper to learn from someone who knows how to set up and maintain this new kind of equipment. What's different since the 1990's? No tank cover, higher evaporation, metal halide lighting, which has to be 9 inches above the water and protected against splashes; no filter, but a protein skimmer and a sump full of seaweed; and growing and trading specimens to increase variety in the tank. Simpler, on the one hand: more complex, in that you're really working with a biological system instead of fussing with chemicals. Calcium. 'Live' rock, meaning rock with microorganisms. And patience. Stay tuned.//Oh, and did I say galleys follow cover proofs? Last night galleys arrived, with a return date of Nov. 16th, so that should give you a heads-up that publication is in the offing.

Date: 11/4/05. Friday. 10985. Everything is stalled on the current Bren book while I re-read the last one [well, to me, the last one] and correct errors. Since DAW has taken to using my computer files, at least we don't have to worry about typists whose first language isn't English making creative re-interpretations of my text. Now I'm only trying to track down significant copyediting changes---I don't like the system that doesn't show you the changes on paper before they set them, and they can be subtle and silly. I try to keep my bloodpressure down while doing this. At least this copyeditor doesn't try to muck with 'may' and 'might' and just accepts that I know what I'm doing with those---nine tenths of Discovery Channel and ninety-nine one hundredths of CNN don't know---Lord! And Ms. Rowlings, bless her for her books, hasn't helped thousands of schoolboys master who-whom...either that or her copyeditor is the same one they tried to foist off on me at another publisher, who tried to 'correct' my language. [FYI, He Who Must Not Be Named ought to flex with usage just like 'he' to 'him' and if the Who were not with a passive verb [Be Named] it would flex, too---independently of the He, be it noted, because 'He' is not, not, not part of the Who clause...howzzat for a quick grammar note? Think of a ( enclosing the 'who' bit and excluding the 'he.' All who-clauses are parenthetical and behave under their own grammatical conditions. As for 'may' and 'might', if you don't know the intricacies of the 'condition contrary to fact' rules, the simplest way to be right is never to use 'may' in a sentence about the past---and never use 'might' in a sentence about 'now.' {The man said he might go to Paris. The man says he may go to Paris. Both sentences are equivalent. And grammatically correct. The problem with may-might is that it not only flexes in time, it flexes in reality, as well. So you can say 'Sally might go to Paris' and 'Sally may go to Paris' and both are correct, but the second means the possibility is more real. If that boggles the mind, just stay to 'may' to match situations in the here and now, and 'might' in situations in the past, and you'll always be right. 'Nuff said.]//On the skating front, both of us being on fairly correctly aimed skate blades, we're having a great time, and my work on the back edges is suddenly paying off. The whole key was the shoulders. From absolute unsteady terror and the need to hang onto my coach's hand while arcing onto a backward edge, then to the imagination that Joan is back there jerking my leading shoulder back, and now to a rather pretty fantasy that, in order to use those all-my-life unused shoulder blades in the positive way they need to move for balance skating backward, I have to imagine wings, really big wings, oh, about eight feet of wings on a side. If I'm going backward to the left, the left shoulder has to flex as if I were opening a large feathery wing on that side and moderately stretching it: as I finish the arc, the other side takes over to complete the S, and the rather lovely wings, thank you, can do little twitches to keep me in perfect balance. A chain of S's is the pattern I'm doing, backward, one foot to the other across the hockey line, the bend being where I change feet. When I said early on in my study that figure skating is the closest thing to free flight you can achieve without jumping from a plane, I had no concept how true that is. I've found what shoulder blades are really good for, and the posture battle on the ice is paying off just in sitting in a chair: back muscles are active that never in my life have been routinely used, the middle is developing muscle, and the weight is taking a dive. Or it was until Sharon joined us at the Mustard Seed, a very nice Chinese restaurant---way too much food. We watched Harry Potter 2: Sharon hasn't seen many movies over the past number of years, and we're remedying that. She also helped us move furniture to accommodate the new tank, thank you, Sharon!

Date: 11/05/05. Saturday. 10985. Absolutely no writing getting done while I get the galleys proofed for Pretender. For some reason, a good many sentences are lacking spaces between the period and the next sentence. These all have to be marked. Two of my pages are missing: I'm sure they exist,  since the numbering accounts for them...I rip seams, proof manuscript, and blast goblins to keep my sanity. This goes on dawn to dark. Not much fun.

Date: 11/06/05. Sunday. 10985. And on we go. Galleys are not as much fun as reading a book. You have to focus down for minutiae and broad-focus for details and coherency, and if you make a correction, particularly if you want to make a last minute change, you have to count letters and make sure it doesn't mess up paragraphing or pagination. Pain, pain, pain.

Date: 11/07/05. Monday. 10985. And more galleys. I'm nearing the end, thank goodness. Went skating, the one break in the day---and nearly a break of another kind, thank goodness it wasn't. Sharon was on the ice, taking a lesson from Joan, I was helping another adult skater, Jane was trying to recuperate from mis-set blades, and we had a few other folk present. The ice was glorious, after a few days of not-so-great. So in spite of the fact I'd been working hard on drills, I stayed longer than I should have. And Jane fell down---just caught an edge on a simple move. Unhurt. Well, I was getting mortally tired, and on a 3-turn, on which I've never fallen, I went down hard and landed on my left hand. I was so shaken I didn't quite know what had hit me, but I knew it was a bad fall---and as I later reconstructed it, it amounts to a much higher-class accident than a simple oops. I was trying to get my shoulders back on the backward runout from the 3-turn, and of all things, being really tired, I didn't go as far as I wanted, due to exhaustion---and, due to exhaustion, I let my disgust prompt me to stand straight up. Bang. Because I was exiting a 3-turn and had my left hand back and my right hand forward to check all momentum on the spin [if you don't, you do spin] when I went down, I had my left hand still back, and not only back, there was no way for me to pull that arm forward, because my whole body was going backward, rear-first. Thanks to the crash-pads I didn't hurt my tailbone, but I really did a number on my hand, which I think broke my fall---it stressed the fascia that hold the wrist together. Ice and a halfpipe wrist guard I use for safety on some moves have rendered it immobile. And Sharon, our resident medic, looked it over closely, and is relatively sure it isn't broken---I'm sure she'd like me to get an x-ray, just to be sure, but I don't think I need it. And it was, may I say, a pretty high-class accident, a whole lot better than stubbing your toepick or letting your feet get ahead of you. I was still in pretty good shape when I got to Dr. Mike: I had a chiropractic appointment, and that was a good thing, as happened.  We picked up Sharon's skating stuff at a shop in Pullman, and Jane ended up buying a new outfit, too.We met Sharon back in Spokane for Chinese, delivered the purchases, and then I went home and caved in. One thing that does happen when you have a bone injury: you can't get warm. I remember this from when I broke that arm back when I was 7. And I've nearly frozen to death all the rest of the evening.

Date: 11/08/05. Tuesday. 10985. I spent a relatively comfortable night---slept in the wristguard, and the hand's swollen, but fingers are fine. It's mostly around the wrist. Just a sprain, I think. Ysabel was distressed about the wristguard, and kept waking me up worrying at it. But I'm pretty good: pain free until I challenge it. More wonderful galleys. More missing spaces. And I went back to the rink---had a lesson with Joan: she was determined not to let me fall on that wrist, which meant she held onto that hand, which hurt, but, hey, I didn't fall, although curiously enough I nearly did on the first 15 feet of skating today: and I'm cold, terribly cold, constantly. I'm not sore or stiff to speak of, thanks to the crash pads, just the unfortunate wrist. The lesson went pretty well, all considered, and I'm working on some new things. But I'll be wearing this wrist-guard for a while. I take it off to type, but the hand swells, so I can't leave it off too long at a stretch, or I'll have trouble getting it back on. And I'll wear it on the ice for maybe the rest of the month, to be sure it's totally well before I risk it without. Nice thing about the half-pipe guards is that if you do fall, your hand can't get trapped: you're going to skid on the hard plastic palm, and the wrist can't flex: if I'd had it on when I went down, I wouldn't have gotten hurt, but hey, I don't fall on my hands as a rule, and I don't intend to duplicate that one. I'm resolved to quit when I get stupid-tired. //We voted today---a lot of questions on the ballot. This was our first time to vote at the new place. But we were on the rolls, despite Jane's two fruitless requests for her voter card. The area round about is getting really pretty: we have a view of the mountains on two sides of us, and the trees on the higher mountains are frosted today, and we hope for more snow. It's a beautiful sight up there. And I know the ski lodges are going to be happy.

Date: 11/09/05. Wednesday. 11291. I'm essentially through with the galleys, although I haven't mailed them yet. I'm still making my mind up on a few issues. I'll be in time. I got a little work done on the outline, trying to recover my story for this book. Galleys always throw you: you have such deep concentration on what you're on, and then you need to completely recover concentration for the prior book, and now you're jerked back to another time and place---it's very upsetting. No wonder writers have the reputation of being emotional lunatics when it comes to galleys...["You thorough-going dastard! I meant that comma to be there! How dare you question my judgment?""What did you do with page 21?" "I never make mistakes! I've never been mistaken in my life!"] The wrist is ever so much better. I only remember it when I try to lean on the hand, and of course I wear the wrist brace while skating, just in case I fall. Skating was difficult today: ice was wretched. The only thing you can practice when it's like that is deep knees and staying on your feet. Jane is still battling blade position, and we are negotiating with Jackson to try to get them to stand behind their product. This is not going well. We still haven't heard from them.

Date: 11/10/05. Thursday. 11668. Slowly. And a very frustrating time on the ice: the bad fall shook out some of the things I'd most recently learned, which I have to recover, and Jane's beginning to realize that her boots are not only mis-made, they're not holding her foot the way they're supposed to: one of the problems with trying to fit boots on a beginning skater is that where a more experienced person would say, "No way that's supposed to let the heel slide sideways," a beginner doesn't know better. What you accept in a pair of shoes is far distant from what a pair of boots has to do, which is to hold your foot in a firm, all-over grip that doesn't hurt and that translates every tiny muscle twitch into a balance correction or an edge. Well, a call to Jackson proved they got the letter, but we're not getting much encouragement they'll do something about it---and 'something about it' has to translate into 'replace the boots.' It's not the money: it's the principle of the thing, because the fitter was following their manual, for starters, and it didn't discriminate between heat-moldable fitting and non-heat-moldable fitting, which is their fault---and believe me, Jane had rather do anything on earth besides break in yet one more pair of boots. Break-in, which can last months at our level, hurts, slows you down, throws you off your training, and generally delays taking the test we'd like to get out of the way before the rules change yet one more time. We're about a year away from needing stronger boots. If she gets new boots now, it's going to be a doubly-hard break-in problem, because Jane's not jumping yet, and can't, until she gets blades aligned; but it's particularly annoying to have to buy new boots that are going to be set aside a year from now, and back to---it's not the money. The next level of boots we're going to need is more expensive, particularly for Jane, who has some foot problems: she'd like to have one more year of wear out of boots that should be fit for our level and not have to overbuy at this point to avoid discarding perfectly good boots she just laid out money for and just broke in...it's a real pain. I'm sort of at the same level, beginning to think what boot comes next for me, but not ready to go there, and not anxious to break in new boots either. I really hope Jackson comes through.

Date: 11/11/05. Friday. 12039. Skating was pretty iffy. I didn't have any energy. But I'm alternating outlining with last-moment galley work, and that's done. I tried contacting DAW, but played phone tag with the person I need to talk to about the galleys, and it being Veterans' Day and a weekend, trying to get anything done is nearly impossible. I'll have to see to it Monday, and phone in the changes in the old way: "Page three, paragraph 6, third line from the bottom, where it says "Dark and smarmy night"---should be "stormy", etc." It's slow, and expensive on the phone bills, but not as undependable as the mails. Jane had a very unsatisfactory conversation with Jackson, who hadn't acknowledged her letter, and now the person involved is going to consult higher-ups, but we're now thinking that if she's going to have to break in new boots anyway, maybe she'd be better off breaking in the ones she's going to have long-term. I'm pushing going to Vancouver, to a shop called Cyclone Taylor's, after a famous Canadian hockey star, that has Harlick, Graf, SPTeri, Gam, Wifa, and Jackson, all in stock so you can try them on---and that's something I'm interested in, too. I'd like to know, when it comes down to me getting new boots, that I can ring up a shop and give them a size and have them shipped. Right now, I'm not sure I'm staying with Jackson: depends on how they perform with what we're sure is a defect. But when we looked at the weather, which earlier weather reports had said would stay clear, it isn't. Heavy snow will fall in the Cascades.

Date: 11/12/05. Saturday. 14832. I'm actually writing real text now on the new Bren book. Outlining may continue, but I'm about done with Chapter 1, so I'm officially started. Weather in the Cascades remains dicey, heavy snowfall, and I'm watching the pass reports. If you wonder what our passes look like, check out wsdot.gov on the web, and you can see the live-cams of our various passes, day and night.

Date: 11/13/05. Sunday. 15396. Work alternated with that pernicious game. We mostly stayed in and just plugged away at our various bits of work. But I began to think tomorrow might be a good weather-window to get to Vancouver, so I took the chance, late, to get our papers organized, and emailed DAW the galley corrections in a lengthy letter, so those would get there, got the tax deposit in order, and found out that the downtown second branch of our bank has a window open at 8, which would let us do our business there and get moving.

Date: 11/14/05. Monday. 15396. A wild day, and we wish we'd brought the camera. We decided this was the day to make the trip to Vancouver, and we took out at 8, ran by the bank to turn in the tax deposit, then onto I-90. We took that as far as the Wenatchee cutoff, took an amazingly scenic drive up to Hwy 2 [this valley should be on tourist charts: the basalt formations are truly beautiful, wavy columns rising hundreds of feet, beside the river] and so up through Wenatchee, Wa, and on toward Stevens Pass. Unfortunately, somewhere beyond Rock Island, we ran into a wreck, a bad one, on the curving two-lane, that stalled all traffic. A lot of people were turning around: we didn't know where else to go: our map showed no alternative. So I got out of the car, hiked back to the nearest big rig to ask the driver (a man with a CB) what had happened. Wreck, he said, but nobody knew what to do. So after a few more cars turned around and disappeared, and more police showed up, I hiked forward within view of the wreck---looked as if someone had head-on'ed with a rock hauler, and there were pieces of a smaller car scattered far and wide. I was able to ask a state trooper how to proceed, and received word of an alternate route to Leavenworth, where we could pick up Hwy 2 beyond the accident. So back I went, and we turned around. By this time, the local sheriff had shown up to direct traffic back at an intersection out of view of where we were sitting, and we went across the bridge and around a winding route to Levenworth, where other traffic was now being routed. One of the reasons we'd gone via 2 was that on I-90, Snowqualmie Pass was partially blocked by a rockfall [in September, two unfortunate women were killed when an earlier rockfall came onto the highway, and now there'd been another, raining refrigerator-sized rocks down onto the road, with more likely to follow---so we weren't the only people relying on Hwy 2, and it was bearing more traffic than usual]. So when Hwy 2 was blocked, that was pretty major for the state transportation system. But we did make it through to Leavenworth---and if you visit Washington and like the Swiss Alps, that is the place to go: the whole town has that theme, and the mountains above look the part, snowy and beautiful. We'd like to have stopped, but had no time: we ate a diet bar apiece and kept trucking. The snow had fallen in Stevens Pass, about 5-10 inches of it, and the road was still clear, but the roadsides and up to the mountain peaks were picture postcards, tens of miles of picture postcard at every turn, evergreens coated in snow, rocks showing their geometry under snow layers, deep ravines and misty peaks. We came down bound for Everett, Wa, now back into 40 degree weather and light rain, and managed to sort our way through the interchanges to get onto I-5 north, headed for the border, and about half an hour behind our itinerary. So I moved as fast as possible---all the trip, Jane was reading her latest Ring book, which is nearly finished. We crossed the border in a line of only 5 cars [at Blaine, this is good] and headed for Vancouver as the sun declined. The store, Cyclone Taylor's, was to close at 5, so we proceeded by the instructions we had, which were to take 91. Now, I-5 becomes Provincial 99 in Canada, but take 91, we were told---unfortunately, 91 has two branches, and we took the wrong one, and ended up where all signs were in, I think, Korean. We called the shop repeatedly, receiving directions that took our wildly flying car from there to the airport, down the wrong road, illegally U-turning onto a road that would let us turn back, onto another that the shop thought would get us there, as the sun declined further. We finally located Oak Street, followed it, and just at dusk located the shop in a tiny, space-challenged parking lot it shared with several other businesses. But the shop owner and his staff were marvelous. The owner, himself a figure skater who has competed among Canada's best, helped us personally, and Jane got fitted in some skates. They didn't have any big enough for me, but they stayed forty-five minutes past their closing to get us seen to---Jane's still need some additional rigging, but we agreed, and they'll ship them as soon as they're ready, so they'll arrive sometime next week. They're the new Graf hinged boot, which, unlike the Jackson, has no screws or other mechanical adjustments. It's like an oxford with a heavy-armored anklepiece sewn on, but able to flex toward it, the whole arrangement tensioned by traditional laces, but providing the forward flexibility that prevents knee injuries. They aren't cheap, but they'll be marvelous, and the depth of padding in those skates makes the Jacksons feel downright naked. Marvelously comfy for Jane. We left the shop, with instructions for reaching a Keg restaurant near the border---we'd planned to stay all night, if modifications could be done that way, but there proved no use in that, thanks to heat molding, and we took out toward the instructed restaurant, had dinner, and then discovered it had no "on" toward 99. Wandering the back roads on instructions from the restaurant, we finally got on track to the border, and headed for Jane's brother's place down in Seattle, a couple of hours away. Jane took over driving: I'd had two glasses of wine---and we made it down to Seattle, thank goodness on the opposite side of the road from bridge repairs that had traffic backed up for miles. We made it in, had a quiet sit-down with Chip, and then crashed.

Date: 11/15/05. Tuesday. 15396. Drove back home from Jane's brother's place, completing another 'reading' leg...Jane's reading lasting as long as her voice held out. We didn't get through: we're going to have to read at home over the next few days, but that's harder---the distractions don't give us the same concentration we can get while moving. We may have to find a destination. Sharon came over to welcome us home, and we had supper at Scotty's---I just wasn't up to cooking, and almost falling on my nose. And we had some sad news: a dear friend of ours had lost a pet of many, many years with her, and we called to offer condolences. She is doing the positive thing and will very soon get another companion, which is good for both the kitty who needs a home and the person who needs company. Ps. Correction on that wsdot URL. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov should do it.

Date: 11/16/05. Wednesday. 16842. Just too tired to skate today. Jane's skates won't get here until at least Friday, and her Jacksons are still, well, what they are. So we just stayed home and worked, and started cleaning up the place. It's amazing how the least project explodes Stuff all over the place, and the trip to Vancouver was no exception.

Date: 11/17/05. Thursday. 17381. A moderately good skate for me, but I'm baking my skates tonight---they're heat-moldable, and I've lost all spare padding in my feet: all bone and muscle, now, and re-heating them and letting them mold to my feet may help the slight wobble I've begun to detect in my own. Jane still hasn't gotten any satisfaction out of Jackson. We're still waiting. Their position is that their warranty is 6 months, and ours is that the defect was of such a nature that it couldn't be detected in six months of wear: our position is that, despite the legal justification of their warranty limit, they might replace these boots as a customer relations gesture. Thus far, we're still waiting. Jane's got a tracking number on her Graf boots, and they are shipped, and should be here tomorrow.

Date: 11/18/05. Friday. 17283. Erasing and writing. I'm still just exhausted. The weather has been unremitting fog just about since we got back, and it's actually more smog: we're better off, living on a height as we do, but the air is just bad, and that doesn't make anyone feel too energetic. But! Jane got her boots, and they're as wonderful as she remembers---except Joan wanted to examine them before we put the blades on, and Joan decrees that the old Ultima Mirage blades from the Jacksons are a quarter inch too short. Jane's just terribly frustrated. She called Cyclone Taylor and ordered the ribbon blades she saw up there: they're gorgeous, super-light, laser-cut, looking like Art Deco sculpture rather than skating blades, but they don't have the 10 1/4" blades in stock. They'll have to be ordered. Another two weeks until she can get on the ice in her new boots---read, new skates, now, since both boots and blades will be new. Sigh. I understand her frustration. We did get a call from Lindsay, our junior coach, who's back in town for Thanksgiving, and we hope to get to see her sometime next week. Meanwhile Jane has to put the blades back on the misshapen Jackson boots and tough it out with padding for another two weeks. Jane's bringing her Jacksons home to re-bake in hopes of some relief, but they're too far gone for that to help much.

Date: 11/19/05. Saturday. 18199. Cleanup. I finally got the stack of boxes cleared out from beside the kitchen door, just things we moved that need to have a place to go. Our new aquarium should arrive next week, so we have to get the place for it arranged. Amazing how much stuff we still have even after finding homes for so much of it.

Date: 11/20/05. Sunday. 17380. Erase and write, erase and write. I'm literally writing 'into' the outline, ie, the outline, under expansion, becomes part of the text, but a good deal of stuff has to be excised as I write forward. It's how I organize a life that is so far from a mountain cabin with complete isolation: I get phone calls, I have appointments, and things happen...I did go over to the aquarium shop, only to find that they forgot to call to be sure the tank is scheduled for delivery. Sigh.

Date: 11/21/05. Monday. 19121. I just didn't have the energy to take the ice today, but I did it anyway, and had a good time. The boot-baking helped, and I'm having a lot easier time finding my edges, which means I'm a lot more steady on my feet---I can find a hockey circle and practice chained 3-turns, which is a nice feeling of freedom and glide, where one turn used to be a scary proposition. Jane found out her blades are about 10 days away, and it's going to be a long ten days: she's very frustrated and can't wait. Sharon showed up at the rink, and we had lunch at Scotty's and watched the third Harry Potter movie, so Sharon will be caught up for the current one. Beyond that, there wasn't much life in us. The air is still bad---it just happens in fall: the next front through will scour all this out, and they're beginning to model that happening this weekend, which will be the end of it, after which we'll all feel better.

Date: 11/22/05. Tuesday. 19276. Well, our aquarium stand came in, but we have no tank. I love ordering things during holidays. I was supposed to have a skating lesson with Joan---Jane swears she's not taking another lesson on bad skates, and there is still no word from Jackson, who seem to hope we'll just go away. But Joan called the rink: she managed to throw her back out, and is pretty miserable, so no lesson for me. I just practiced 3-turns until I was dizzy. And holiday plans are revised: I'm going to cook Thanksgiving dinner, and I need to do a little shopping; but right now I'd do just about anything to avoid going into a supermarket---for my overseas readers, US Thanksgiving is a time for vast family banquets of traditional North American ingredients, many of which are not friendly to the Atkins diet. One eats to the point of pain, sprawls in front of the television watching football, and renews ties with relatives who have come in for the feast---the meal is usually prepared by the matriarch of the family, with the assistance of younger female relatives...and as families age, but still wish to retain ties in the loss or incapacity of the matriarch, the duty of the feast is often passed around among a circle of kinfolk. As a holiday, it has a great deal to recommend it---but we, being a very small household, isolated from relatives, tend to keep it modest, and we don't want a lot of food left over. So I intend to do a modest curry (not very North American) and Jane will add a traditional green bean casserole, with strawberries for dessert, no pumpkin pie.

Date: 11/23/05. Wednesday. 19183. More erasing and writing. We'd decided that skating was just going to be too crazy, so we laid off today. We spent the day just writing and working. They keep promising us snow, but it turns up only on the mountains around us.

Date: 11/24/05. Thursday. Thanksgiving. 20382. Up earlier than Jane, at least, to get the chicken on, which takes all day to cook. Jane got a call from Cyclone Taylor [it's not a holiday in Canada] saying they have her blades and are shipping. Hurrah! We spent the day in our separate rooms, working, playing a round or two of video games, and working again, until the aroma of chicken curry began to get expectant behavior even out of the cats, who became extraordinarily affectionate. For Thanksgiving celebration, we still ate too much, but not of bad things, watched telly, and acknowledge ourselves very glad for good friends, time to skate, and the fact we don't intend to attend the Friday official opening of Christmas shopping season, which will be the traditional madhouse. We're still hoping for snow. And the rink may be open tomorrow, but with Jane on bad skates and me practicing edges, it's not going to be pretty: every school is out, and there'll be a lot of beginning skaters.

Date: 11/25/05. Friday. No work got done. Early in the morning, the doorbell rang, and lo! Jane's skates showed up. We're amazed. They expressed them. And now we have to go to the rink, get the Grafs out of the locker, and take them and the blades to Joan, who has survived the holidays with a sore back, doing the matriarch thing, and who wants to see the boot/blade combination seated properly before we get them on to Larry, who'll attach them and sharpen the blades for the first time. This is a very important operation. Well, Joan was waiting for us with Thanksgiving leftover pie and wine, and we committed all the sins we avoided yesterday: we mated the boots and blades first, pre-wine. Then on to Larry's, to drop off the skates. My brief visit inside the rink getting the Graf boots out convinced me that, no, we didn't want to be on the ice today: it's half an inch deep in snow created by scurrying little blades.

Date: 11/26/05. Saturday. 22700. We worked, worked, worked. Jane's terribly anxious to lay hands on her new skates, but we're not anxious enough to risk a Saturday skate on public ice---not wanting to attempt new blades in a mob scene. So we worked all day---I tried to straighten out accounts: everyone knows how that's a favorite job---and in the evening, Sharon came over, hoping to admire the new boots. Well, they're not ready yet, and Larry's not at home. We decided to go to a restaurant near Larry's, hoping he'd call, but he was still out, and we had to give up. We watched a movie and gave up for the evening. Monday Jane will have at least a brief lesson, assuming we locate Larry and the boots, and I'm sure we will. I have every hope that our missing tank will show up, too, so we can get the aquarium started. And the snow we were promised for Friday has been successively promised for Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday. The neighborhood on the hill in the distance got snow-coated. We didn't. We're still waiting.

Date: 11/27/05. Sunday. 23122. More work, and trying to sort out the accounts...I'm a bit better about organization than just after the move, but I swear, the office breeds boxes and stacks of things. I'd love to just bundle things up unexamined and pitch them into the dumpster, but I have a feeling we'd be looking for whatever-it-was in a week. It's threatening snow. We love the snow. And we did get Jane's boots and blades mated up and sharpened. Thank you, Larry.

Date: 11/28/05. Monday. 24281. The whole city is a picture postcard---snow thick on everything. Our driveway and the downhill are a bit interesting, but our faithful Subaru is pretty surefooted. One momentary nervous moment at an intersection---but the automatic braking works: I'm still not convinced it replaces human skill, but Jane's tested it in a parking lot and swears it is actually better. We did get to the rink. Jane's taken to the ice on new boots and new blades...this is scary stuff. It means knowing enough to be out there doing things that the new balance makes risky. Meanwhile I've baked my boots again and tightened up laces as tight as reasonable to try to improve my edges. From Jackson? Still no word.

Date: 11/29/05. Tuesday. 23728. Snow, still: things are absolutely coated in it, and it's gorgeous. The hills around us are all snowy trees. Numerous roads are closed, but the view is wonderful. And my camera has just gone on the blink: I hope it's the batteries that are defunct and that I won't have a repair charge on it.  As for winter driving, we don't go out until the parking lot has had a few wheels over it, so we're being careful, but the Subaru is doing very nicely on the icy down-road. I had a lesson today: Jane's still iffy on her skates. I'm working hard on backward balance on the edges. And on the Waltz 8 pattern. I am gaining on it.

Date: 11/30/05. Wednesday. 24211. Making progress. Jane's still having troubles with one boot, but at least it's no worse than it was. Some skaters have to take painkillers while breaking in boots: it's a real test of moral fortitude, I'll tell you. Every step is a calculated pain. We did leave a little early: the ice was rotten: there was a stray skater on rentals, which must be the worst blades available: they chewed up the ice worse than a bevy of hockey players, and I nearly did a face plant during a left-side spiral---that's the one where you're on one foot for a long, long glide, with the trailing leg as high as you can lift it. I hit one of those ruts, dropped in a toe pick, and did quite a creative recovery for about ten more feet. And Jane's in some pain with the new boots, and we had to get some food in house, what with the snow being quite thick, and of course we've been waiting until the absolute worst day to do it and carry a dozen sacks up an icy rise and up three flights of stairs. Cat litter, however, is a must. Meanwhile our tank finally came in and we're making arrangements. We also, and finally, heard from Jackson Skates. They now assert that they will only work through a dealer.  You know---they could have mentioned this, oh, back when we first started communicating with them. We're annoyed. We will do things their way, which we could have done weeks ago.

Date: 12/1/05. Thursday. 25806. Up before daylight, and the writing's going well. And you know, this skating business is very strange: you start envisioning what you can do on a given day, and some days you turn out not to have the nerve to try it, and then...well, like today. I began to think about that spectacular pick-plant yesterday, then began to think, you know, that pick-down thing is what I do in the waltz jump. Then I began to think through the waltz jump, which I do only right along the wall, to enable an emergency grab. And while driving to the rink, I start telling myself I could do that jump much further out. I could turn loose of the wall totally, and trust my balance in mid-ice. Where it takes nerve is just telling yourself you're going to rise onto one toe-pick while moving forward: that's the big thing, trusting yourself to check that momentum and redirect it in a tip-toe turn. Your momentum spins you onto the other toe pick and down onto the blade, suddenly headed backward, smooth as silk, if your balance holds. And today felt like the day when I actually got out onto the rink: fair ice, not great ice, but good enough patches to be secure, and my head suddenly straight about what it needed to feel like. I tried it six inches from the wall, then a foot, then three feet, and I got it---my first 'jump' in mid-ice. I did it a lot, just to nail it down. Jane, however, is still suffering from a sore spot, and the ice got worse: I hit an ice lump in mid three-turn, fortunately in good balance, and didn't go down, but after that acrobatic recovery, began to decide that after my success with the waltz jump, I really didn't want to end my session by falling down, which can just mess up your confidence for a day or so. So I quit while I was ahead, and we just went on home, so that I can do the same tomorrow, given decent ice and no birthday party groups during public skate. Jane's baked the offending boot, and hopes that it will be better tomorrow. [Heat-moldable boot: put in the oven on a towel and cookie sheet, then insert foot and lace tight while it cools. I hope she gets some relief from it. But she loves her new skates, and the Jacksons have indeed gone off to the manufacturer, who may or may not come through with a replacement: stay tuned.] Meanwhile another winter storm is on us, and it's going to be exciting again in the morning, but this apartment complex is good: they had our maintenance out with a snow blade the first day, and today there was gravel laid down on the big slope---we're impressed. They provided a cannister of chemical and a snowshovel for our unit: at the old apartment, we always had to go beg one from the manager and ended up doing it ourselves [mostly Jane did it] because we were in a unit full of older folk who weren't able to. We approve of this attitude.

Date: 12/2/05. Friday. 26327. Again, up before daylight, and Jane and I held some little debate as to whether we'd skate. I wanted to: I want to practice the waltz jump before it gets hazy again. Jane has a scene she's trying to write: it's a hard call. But I promised we'd clean house tomorrow and get ready for the aquarium and the Christmas tree, so we went---fairly good ice, and a fairly decent skate. Jane's boots are doing better. And she is. And I was able to recall the jump, even taking a little further chance and putting a smidge of energy into it, for bit of loft. Fun! Afterward, Sharon declared she had to get the oil changed in her car, and we needed to, not to mention Rain-X'ing our car windows: let me tell you, it makes a big difference. We've got about half a foot of snow, and a little more sifting down. The truly timid and desperate are venturing out to drive at 45mph down I-90...on dry pavement. But I suppose if they're really not used to this...After we'd both gotten the oil changed, we went on to the mall for late lunch, it being by now pushing 2pm. We stopped by the cosmetics counter in Macy's to get some makeup, and on to Chili's for supper, and here's where we made our mistake. I ordered nachos. You know nachos: crisp chips smothered and rebaked with cheese, chili, jalapenos, tomato bits, and beans. Well, what came back were limp little tostadas done in a ring: tostada: a theoretically cheese-covered chip with various of the above. But these were limp, and late, and mostly cold. Jane's lime chicken had no spice, the potato was abysmal: I think Sharon's steak was all right, but the service moved at glacial speed, we had to get up and get our own water, while four and five 'greeters' hovered around the entry and while the bartender discussed the impending smoking laws with several patrons: did she notice we were out of chips, water, and etc.? No. We self-served. When the food did come, it was, well, as I describe above. And no bill. We served ourselves several more rounds of water and waited for my second drink. It didn't come. Jane gave up and went on to Nordstrom's. I stayed with Sharon to pay the bill. The bartender tried to give me the second drink: I declined, demanded the bill, and paid. The bartender claimed staff hadn't shown up for work. Well, it seems to us that 'greeters' could at least man a water pitcher. I declined their offer of some comp cards. I've no desire to subject myself to rotten service twice. We should have gone to the Mustard Seed, across the mall corridor. Next time we will. By the time we all got out of there it was full dark outside, and we were only starting our foray into Nordie's Rack. I did manage to get a pair of galoshes-like black boots which look much better than the Lil Abner style hiking boots I was having to wear with a fairly tasteful black outfit. That was such an improvement I put them on immediately. Sharon bought shoes. Jane bought shoes. They tried on clothes. I began to feel ill from the nasty supper. And at this point we all declared we'd had as much fun as we could bear and headed home our separate ways. I took some stomach remedy  and hope that will help. Neither of us is feeling too well.

Date: 12/3/05. Saturday. 28731. Well, writing, cleaning, and doing the accounts. It's still snowy, and very pretty out, but the parking lot is a sheet of ice, and going to the aquarium store doesn't look as attractive as the idea seemed yesterday. At least I'm not sick from last night's supper. We're just staying in, and getting some necessary work done---a friend called. I got in touch with my family in Texas. I'm just staying in and staying warm.

Date: 12/04/05. Sunday. 28928. Accounting. Cleaning. We did, however, get the tree up---it's one of those fiber optic affairs, very pretty, and it ran about, oh, ten minutes before blowing something. Sigh. We're going to have to get to the people that sold it to us and see if we can get this unit fixed. One of the bad things about malfunctioning Christmas ornaments: they're always out of warranty when they blow up, by the very nature of what they are. The place looks much nicer, however, and we've done a little rearrangement in the living room to give ourselves a bit more space. Our dining table is a round base with a glass top, and that means it's great for apartment living. We just lift off the top, roll it behind some large piece of furniture, and use the base as an occasional table, which means we do have a good place for a full length tree. If only it worked.

Date: 12/05/05. Monday. 29112. Doesn't seem that I'm making too much progress, but recall that I'm erasing outline as I go. So it is running right along. Cajeiri is involved. That means I just don't know what will happen, not predictibly. The lad often surprises me. And skating went quite well: a surprising number of people showed up despite the icy roads and cold, but they were well-behaved sorts, and we had a pretty good practice. More, Jane's skates didn't hurt today, so she's finally able to get down into her boots and use her edges without wincing. My own re-baked boots are getting laced tighter and tighter as I work on my small jump, and on that eternal waltz 8. Sharon was there, and we went out for lunch. She thought of coming over after her hair appointment, but it was just too late by the time she got free. We sat in and watched the Cup of Russia competition. We do like the new judging system: it means skaters paying more attention to the artistry and connecting moves, not just running from one end of the rink to the other and jumping as often as they can.

Date: 12/06/05. Tuesday. 30338. The tree is still waiting for lights, and the cold has settled in: it's going down below the teens during the night. Spokane held its recall election and recalled its mayor: that made the national news. And we had a skating lesson: Jane had her first on her new skates, and it went very well: she's elated. My own lesson---I tried to demonstrate the waltz jump for Joan, and naturally fluffed it several times. I finally got it right, when I was nearer the boards. Funny, I'm not a nervous sort when it comes to showing off---but having a witness just adds one more channel to my overloaded brain, just a little distraction, and I forget to do essential things, like swing the free foot, which means no lift. Don't know what I'll do when I have to test in front of judges: probably it will go better, because they're not right there on the ice with me and I'm not listening for instructions while I'm in motion. I say I'm not a nervous sort: I'm not, now, but I used to be such a nervous nellie when it came to any sort of performance I would agonize for weeks over a simple classroom memorization or oral book report. To all of you who suffer from the same, it can go away...given enough practice to make the bit routine, and the simple realization that the audience doesn't really care a tenth as much as you do and probably isn't paying attention anyway. Anyway, things went better today on the ice: I cranked the laces tight repeatedly---funny how even a tiny jump makes you really conscious of any slippage in the boot---and the edges behaved better in consequence. We really need to get to the hardware store and check on the tree, but Jane's on a critical scene, so home we go. We may end up with a New Year's tree, but writing comes first. Postscriptum: Well, the ice was so incredibly bad---it's below zero at night, and the ice, which was deeply rutted, also had pressure ridges from expansion, and I think the rink had rather thought no one would show up. It was so hard it wouldn't hold an edge, Jane's feet hurt, we were chilled to the bone from not being able to get up any speed, and just as we were leaving in despair, the lone speed skater (who comes in from Idaho) nearly wiped out and came by to ask what was the matter with the ice. He never falls, and if he couldn't hold his edge, it was bad. So off we went to try to get the rotating wheel and light of the fiber optic Christmas tree to work. We went to Lowe's and the very kind electrical salesman ran a tester on our stuff, proving the problem lay (we hope) in the power adapter---but they didn't have one of the right specs. So we went to Radio Shack. They didn't have anything but a 24/12 and we needed a 24/12.2. But they recommended a place called Radar Electronics, some distance away. I looked up the situation on the internet, and wondered if a computer laptop adapter might do it. We gave up at this point, and decided to check tomorrow.

Date: 12/07/05. Wednesday. 30552. I spent most of my morning trying to get my Christmas shopping done---online. It ended up on the phone, because the major chain in question had a shopping basket that kept losing items, doubling items, then claiming it didn't have any such in stock, anyway. After half an hour I decided I'd better get help. The trick is to call the help desk for the internet, which gets you better prices [by far] than the catalog ordering people. So that's done. But I had to scramble to get ready for the rink. It was -5 degrees last night (when it gets that cold we close the windows at night) and we knew the ice might be bad, but we bundled up in alpaca and microfiber, and off we went. The ice this time was beautiful: the rink had outdone itself, perhaps realizing there were people apt to show up despite the weather, and it would have been lovely except for my getting something in my eye, which I just could not shake. But we did have a fair skate: Jane's feet are still hurting---once that bone gets bruised, it takes a day off the ice for it to settle down---and we skated only for an hour and then left to try to get the electronics we need. The computer adapters proved to be a no-go, too low voltage. So we tracked down Radar Electronics, which took a visit to a car wash (we needed it, and they had a phone book) and indeed, they had an adapter that only needs us to wire it. We can snip the barrel connector and lead off the old unit and tie it onto the new one and we should have lights. We hope. Meanwhile the cook (me) was on strike and we went looking for a restaurant---our old favorite, Panama Jack's, has been taken over and turned into the Alpine, and I detest their menu. So we located Boston's, near the mall, a sports bar which proved to have really good food. We came home, and by this time, collapsed. We'll put the wiring together tomorrow. Here's hoping. We'd really like to have our tree work.

Date: 12/08/05. Thursday. 31381. We discussed taking a day off and getting things attended to while Jane's feet recover, but we went, and the ice was, again, lovely, and we actually had a pretty good day on the ice. We're trying to straighten things up in the house, but right now the front hall and main hall are absolutely lined with ornament boxes. For some reason the stack of Christmas boxes in the storeroom had totally fallen over. And to my total bemazement, I had forgotten that we still have one storeroom on the west side of Spokane: I thought we'd cleaned everything out, but, no, we hadn't. I begin to wonder if we could just dispense with everything in there, but no, they're business records and probably some of our missing ornaments, not to mention boxes and boxes of books. I just can't wait to move that mess. It's going to take a truck, no question. We found a new restaurant not far from us---really good food: Boston's, not to be confused with Boston Market. This is a good find, since they do have things on our diet.

Date: 12/09/05. Friday. 32811. Good skate, and have I mentioned the city is still under six inches of snow? It's so very cold in the rink I've been wearing a fuzzy scarf over my head and then the helmet, not to mention two pairs of gloves. If it gets any colder than this, I'm going to put on the ribbed fuzzy tights along with the other two pair. I'm lacing tighter and tighter, and spent the session doing very tight little arcs, outside edge into the wall, shove back on an outside back edge, skate forward on an inside arc---rebounce, repeat for an hour and a half. It is helping stability on that edge: boredom is replacing terror. This is actually good. It makes you relax, and relaxing on an edge is an improvement, since you can only do it when you are centered. One problem with learning this sport when you're adult is that precision matters from the get-go, because you're so tall---and I'm a tall adult: if I lean, it's not like a seedling leaning, it's like a redwood tilting: the chance of a fall increases. But you make small moves, you slice out segments of a routine and practice those six feet over and over til you're stable, and you don't fall. We have picked up more ornament boxes and Jane has borrowed an 8 foot ladder from the apartment service manager. Sharon came over after skating, and we went out to Boston's again, then came back to trim the tree...and wire up the transformer we got from Radar. We decorated. We plugged it in. It ran for, oh, about five minutes, then blew out. The main wiring is shorting out the transformer. So the tree is officially dead. We put violet lights on the bottom half and kept decorating. It's not going to be the tree it was, but hey, it's a tree and it has our ornaments on it.

Date: 12/10/05. Saturday. 32811. You'll notice there's no forward movement at all. Jane's battling a scene that's been eluding her for a week, so we talk in half phrases and only when necessary. I decided one of us had better get started on those huge stacks of boxes, so I traded out the spring sitabouts for the winter ones (we missed summer): we have too many sitabouts, so we have them grouped by seasons. And I got at the bills and receipts, and produced a fat stack of envelopes to go out. I got the ladder into the living room, no mean feat, and moved all the furniture about so we can reach the ledge we want to decorate. The stack of boxes by my bedroom door is head-high, but those are the ones going back down to storage, either empty or filled with storables. And we found out that the box that had tipped over during the summer and hit the floor is one with one of our most beloved ornaments, which broke. Jane spent the evening gluing him together. Sharon phoned to say she'd bought us two strands of purple lights to add, which will help our poor tree. Meanwhile I spent quite a while on the internet figuring out that last year's halogen fiber optics have been replaced everywhere (except one company) by LED fiber optics which claim to last and run cooler and quieter. Hmmn. But everyone on line is sold out of 6 foot trees, which tells you something, too. Oh, did I mention that when our halogen tech garland was ready to go up, the fall had broken the halogen bulb? We're just so thrilled. And it's a different size than the one we bought when we thought replacing a bulb might fix the tree. I think I'm ready to go over to a different technology on this fiber optic business. It's beautiful when it works, but works is the operative word. I'm exhausted, and so far everything is broken, inoperative, or half decorated. We refuse, however, to be bummed out on this: we have a lovely place, never mind the ladders and boxes, and our ornament is glued back together, and so is my family heirloom sugar bowl that got knocked off this summer, plus we've found a lot of one of our flower fairy ornaments that also broke: if we can find her other hand and half her foot, she'll be perfect. We need a strong light to search the storeroom floor. What a day! But it's gorgeous outside, thick snow still on the trees after a week, and more forecast.

Date: 12/11/05. Sunday. 32811. Still trying to get the decorations up. The day was freezing fog, but by 10am the roads were driveable and the trees were beautiful---one weeping, white-trunked birch was an absolute picture in frost. Postcards. We got the bulb replaced, had lunch at a little hole in the wall named Dave's Bar that turned out to be one of those rare places in Spokane where there's a long waiting line and the menu is posted on the wall...we finally got a table, and the food was good. The bulb worked, the garlands went up on this ledge we have along the side of the living room, along with two miniature trees, and we have decorations. Jane's very good at that sort of thing. My own first solo Christmas tree was a potted sprig of a Norfolk pine with four red balls and two strands of plastic beads left over from one of those bead curtain, one clear, one green. Jane's creations look like department store windows. Our tree is still half lit, but we're on the track of another tree, which will at least arrive in time for next year. I spent the day cleaning house, trying to put things up, and stacking the boxes Jane emptied. And, yes, friends, I do note that I need to archive the blog again and shorten this, but I'm not coordinated right now, and stand a chance of losing something. There are times when I'm skilled with files and times I have story taking up part of my brain and this is one of the latter, so I'd better get to work.

Date: 12/12/05. Monday. 31262. Erasing and going forward, I promise. When Cajeiri's in a scene, you just don't know what he's going to do. Outlines only work so far, and then improv takes over. Skating was cold---while searching up Christmas ornaments, I found our winter clothes, notably my leg-warmers, knit and quite snuggly. For those of you who do knit, it's a quick project and a result that can be used either as impromptu sleeves or leggings. Cast on 40 stitches [that's my size, and I'm tall and solidly built], knit and purl for the ribbing a distance of, oh, a little shy of two fingers' width, then straight knit for a distance about equal to the distance between anklebone and top of kneecap. About the time you enter ankle territory, lose a very few stitches, just enough to make the ankle somewhat tighter than the knee, and the last distance should be ribbed the same as the top. Bind off. Match sides and stitch up. It's real fast: you can probably do this at a sitting, and if you own a knitting machine, you can probably run them up for your whole Christmas list in one evening. You could probably also do this project on circular needles, but it's so small that's a bit of a pain. It's a good excuse to use up wild yarns, or to use wool that you're [in more intimate contact] allergic to, and for those of you who live in cold climes, it's a good way to get to the office without frostbite and then slip them off to reveal nice hose and put on your office shoes. They'll also go over jeans, or under them, and for anybody who has to be out in unpredictable cold, they're good for sleeves as well, then can be shed when you're inside. You can make hoods and collars the same. Suffice it to say, with these on over two layers of microfiber tights, I'm feeling no pain.

Date: 12/13/05. Tuesday. 33120. Erasing a bit and writing a bit. This is a critical section of the book. I don't think I'm going to make it to the end by Christmas...but it is going pretty fast, considering. We had a lesson today. We worked on back edges and back spirals, and I'm exhausted. Back spirals are actually less scary than forward ones, since if you fall, you'll go down gently forward and only have to avoid your knees, and also you can bend over. Forward ones require a high leg lift while keeping your torso upright and your arms balanced, and if you hit anything [like a frozen lump or a rut], you'll go down forward, too, but you'll be in a far more exposed fall. I worry about doing it when there are little kids on the ice: it looks like something they could try to imitate, and it's a sure dental bill if one of them goes down trying. But Joan wore me out. Sharon was there, and we had a chance to socialize---Sharon's just been doing herself in with work.

Date: 12/14/05. Wednesday. 33212. My brother's birthday. I gave him a call at his office, and he's doing well. And I decided finally to give Cyclone Taylor a call and find out if possibly they've shipped my skates: it was supposed to take two weeks, and there's been no word. They say they'll check. It remains quite cold, in the single digits at night. The drive to the rink goes through a high area of rime-frosted pines and rolling hills, and it's just gorgeous. Jane's still putting up Christmas decorations, and one of the garlands that is out of reach since we returned the apartment's ladder went out, just failed. We're so disgusted. We did order another Christmas tree, but it may or may not get here in time.

Date: 12/15/05. Thursday. 34332. A fair morning of work, and small progress. The air is quite cold, everything's frozen, and 18 degrees F is a heatwave. I'm wearing leg-warmers at the rink, it's so cold. Usually the microfiber and lycra is warm enough. And I had a bit of a lesson, and a good one. Jane was supposed to have one, but she took a chill and had to get off the ice. Sometimes if you stand too long, and get cold, that's the safest thing to do. We're still hauling boxes. But we did get our gifts mailed, and I got a call from Canada to say my skates are shipping: they came in the very day after I'd called to inquire. So out they go. I've ordered some Coronation Ace blades to go with them: I figure if I'm getting a fancy boot, I should upgrade the blade, too. And I'm just hoping they fit. Oh, I'm so looking forward to it.

Date: 12/16/05. Friday. 34332. We were supposed to be up at the crack of dawn to go skate, because the rink owner has graciously let us use rink 1 for a lesson while our usual, rink 2, is inundated with school parties. And I did go, but Jane's got a sore foot---she thinks from long sitting and working with her foot tucked, but in case it is from too many edge-runs, she's sitting today out. And Larry and Terry are both working on full-ice patterns, and a completely empty rink 1 (the larger) is just irresistible for their practice, but I'm working on cross-ice patterns, and I'm just too lazy to dodge. I decided to go home after my lesson---Sharon couldn't make it to the revised time: she'd agreed to work. Jane wasn't there. So I had nobody to talk to and no room to skate safely without disturbing one of the others, so I just left. And after that I didn't get much constructive done, either. I want to clean the house, but I haven't the energy. My skates have made it to Seattle. I'm really hoping UPS might be on their holiday schedule by now and just might deliver them anyway. I did, however, get a look at the cover sketch for the new Fortress book, and it's gorgeous. Tristen on Dys, and very beautiful. I'm very happy.

Date: 12/17/05. Saturday. 34332. Saturday, the house is absolutely a mess, and I haven't got the energy to get in there and move the boxes. It's quite cold outside, but we've had days of air stagnation, and I really feel it. Jane's car is dead---the battery, at least, and we need to get it started, and that means...well, my skates are in town, but I can't get at them. They're going to be delivered Monday while we're at the rink, and while we have a party afterward, and that means I may miss my window to get them until Tuesday---aaagh. It's going to be complicated---the shipping weight on UPS tracking is only listed as 5 pounds, which worries me...I hope it's more than just the boots. The blades are supposed to be coming, and I'd almost think the blades were that heavy. But there's not a thing I can do. I fear I've played more Solitaire today than gotten anything useful done. I just don't feel like moving.

Date: 12/18/05. Sunday. 34332. I'm just in no mood to do a thing, and when I'm in a funk like this is no time to try to work. I tried cleaning house, but in so many boxes, with no place to put them, I'm just baffled. The tree is going to come on Tuesday, so we may have to redecorate that, there are ornaments all over the place, and I'm just...well, facing change, I think. It's odd that the new boots issue has sort of crept up on me, but I'm kind of at a crossroads in my skating, on the verge of going off-wall on a lot of things, and here this chance at really good boots and blades came up before I was really ready for it---I know it's going to pose a risk of falling, possibly of having to re-learn balance, etc., and yet---what if they're really, really good, and they'd help? And I'm burning with curiosity to know what really good blades are like. I'm not exactly a youngster, and even in trying to get through the pre-bronze and bronze tests, there's the thought that at my age, if I don't do something this year, I'm not getting any younger. When I'm older and more brittle is no time to put myself in brand new, best-level boots and risk taking a crash---so maybe this is the right time to do it, and just fling myself out there and hope to stay on my feet. I just don't want to age out of all hope of getting through to a competitive (adult) level, and I want to establish a boot-blade level that can serve for years, and yet the time I tried these on in the shop they were both good (flexible) and painful...and they've made these off my pattern, a larger size than they usually have, with a narrow heel for my foot width, and if these don't work, I'm going to be really downhearted. So there's a lot of semi-depressing stuff going on in my head, including the chance of really hurting myself so I can't skate, if I'm a fool, and I really want to get this settled and done with before the holidays, when the rink shuts down and people scatter and I can't get the new blades seated and sharpened. Jane's car's still down, but I got jumper cables that should reach, and maybe that will give us the ability for her to go on to the rink and me to stay behind and wait for the boots. Joan's birthday is tomorrow and we're taking her to Anthony's restaurant for lunch, after skating, but I could stay for the delivery and then catch up.

Date: 12/19/05. Monday. 34332. I didn't get a thing done in the morning---I just kept hoping for that truck. But when I proposed to Jane that she go on in her car---she said she'd rather wait with me because she's on the tail end of her own book and wants to get it finished. So we waited, Jane getting productive work done and me stewing, and stewing. A knock at the door produced a certified letter---from the IRS, wanting about 45 dollars unspecified as to reason or explanation, nor even whether it's due on a 940, a 941, or the main return, so I don't even know where to log it? Frustrating beyond measure---and can you imagine how much the government spends on certified mail for 40 dollar returns they could have gotten by mailing out a simple letter asking for the money? And we got down to time to go to lunch, and still no skates. Sigh. So we went off to Anthony's to meet Sharon and Joan and had a lovely lunch: the falls beyond the big restaurant windows were snowy and beautiful. It turned out Sharon had given us the same figure-skate lights we had gotten her, for Christmas. We had a laugh out of that. We thought we'd been so clever. And when we got home the delivery still hadn't been there, so I settled in to wait some more. Finally, after dark, the skates came, and I put them on, cold as they were. Wonderful fit. I heated up the oven and did a little molding, and they feel good. The blades are Wilson Coronation Ace, and they're bright and shiny, and now I'm hoping Joan can mate them up with the boots (establish the line) tomorrow and we can find Larry and get them mounted---that would let me get a little skating on them before Christmas. Now I have no more excuses. I have to get to work. The book is at a critical turning point---another reason I haven't wanted to touch it when I'm in a funk: now I'm all bright-eyed and should get some useful work done tomorrow. I'm not usually like this, but this is a special case, and I'm so anxious to see if I break my neck or if they're wonderful. I'm inclining toward wonderful. Here's hoping.

Date: 12/20/05. Tuesday. 35181. It was just too crowded to get much skating done---public sessions when the kids are out of school are just a riot of small and mostly desperate people. Larry managed to get a lesson, staking out the center circle and doing finesse on very snowy ice, and Joan watching like a hawk for random missiles---but for my session I just snagged Joan to get the blades mated straight to the boots, and she pronounced the boots straight and set the blades in tape and pencil. Then I got them to Larry, who will take them home to his shop and do the work. We kited on home to get Jane to her keyboard so she could get finished, but the tree came. The tree itself isn't as pretty as the one we have up, but we decided to try the new tree's light kit on the old (and decorated) tree, which, using sports tape to bind the LED unit to the base, worked like a charm. We now think if we can get some more LED kits, we can resurrect the fiber optic garland. Any of my readers who have defunct fiberoptic trees or the like, that have a large fiber optic base, these kits can be had from the vendors of the new LED trees, and they're potent enough to light a six foot tree, but generate no heat, have no huge electrical unit, etc. They're quite the wonder, and they can resurrrect the trees that by now must be going out at a phenomenal rate, to judge by our household. It is now sparkly and beautiful. And we got a call from Larry, asking if we could do him a favor: we live about five miles from him, and he got called to work tonight, to get home at about 5AM. Could we pick up my skates and several other people's skates and get them to the rink. Sure. The catch? The other skates need to be there by ten AM. Well, we can do that.

Date: 12/21/05. Wednesday. 35181. Up at the crack of dawn to get organized and get to Larry's to get the skates to get to the rink, and we did indeed make it, freezing rain and all. Our only skid was atop Larry's street. But the rest of the streets weren't too bad. We reached the rink and I got my new skates on---just dying to try them and pretty well convinced that I'd likely fall, badly, due to unfamiliar footing. Well, we were there and it was an hour before public skate, so we took advantage of it---and I took to the ice in the new boots. Initially I kept to the wall, and found my left foot scraping a bit---but when I'd go onto it and glide, it would start to glide true, which encouraged me to believe that maybe I've had a little warp in my left boot in the old pair. So I persisted. Within about 20 minutes I was off the wall, going quite nicely, with no scrape, and starting basic moves like edges and turns, even a little walk-through waltz jump (not all the screws are in, on the blades) and the boots are marvelous. I'd ever so much wanted to know what it would be like to skate in really professional boots on really good blades, and thought I'd never know, because pro boots are generally so incredibly hard and stiff a skater of my skill and age would never get them broken in---so stiff they're downright dangerous for a pre-novice skater, but these Graf 4000's advertise no break-in time, and they're right. The difference between them and the Jackson Competitor is night and day---or as it seems to me, the difference between doing everything on a narrow balance beam and working on a broad, forgiving floor. The stability of the Grafs is just amazing---the one time I did go off balance, getting onto my heel, I could recover; the moves that require balance were just amazingly steady. And light---doing a crossover with these superlight boots means your under-foot just flies and you have to watch it. A spiral---easier, because you're only hefting a slight weight in that boot. And you can bend your knees immediately, with all laces laced. The only thing I do notice is more movement in the heel, since the inside of the boot is more like that of an Oxford with a high, armored collar stitched on, and the heel does move, but apparently without harm. I had a marvelous time, and edges---edges took hold with amazing force: the boot allows such sensitivity of the bottom of the foot as to where you're putting pressure, and yet grips the whole foot in such close contact that a little muscle move within the foot itself can shift you onto an edge---just amazingly more sensitive than what I've been using. I was absolutely delighted. When two busloads of school childred arrived somewhat around the normal public skate starting time, however, we quit the ice while we were ahead. We had lunch at The Mustard Seed (really good Chinese) and headed home, but Jane proposed a movie, before all the holiday fare leaves the theater, so we did. Lovely day.

Date: 12/22/05. Thursday. 35281. Our writing schedule is suffering a bit in the pre-Christmas rush, that, and the fact that our rink is absolutely crowded with skaters---this is very good for the rink and we don't mind a bit, but boy! are we spoiled! Tim, the rink owner, is very kind to his regulars, and has let us go on early, and has hunted around to find us bits of ice time between other sessions on smooth ice---we owe him for that, I'll tell you. So we've been going in early this week, and skating before public ice---with both of us learning new boots and blades, this is a good thing, I'll tell you. But it means leaving early in the morning, and that means getting up in the dark to get some work done beforehand. I learned one thing on these hinged boots---lace the top tight, or risk breaking something. Because they do flex, the last thing you want is being out there with less than a snug lace. Also, these new Wilson Coronation Ace blades are faster than my Jackson Ultima Mirages, no wonder, at four times the price---and they do tend to travel faster than I do if I don't watch what I'm doing. I haven't fallen, but I made two heroic recoveries, shall we say? And speaking of Jackson, we finally 'heard' from them re Jane's warped boots. Recall that after weeks of trying to contact them and going through various departments, some downright rude, we were requested to go through the dealer. The boots went in to the place they requested, and they paid absolutely no attention to the problem---which is with the upper portion of the boot. They simply noted the blades had been moved. They resoled the boots, reattached the blades, and sent them back, still visibly warped. Not only that, the persistent shooting pain in my hip, which had gotten so bad it would freeze me cold in the act of getting up from a chair, has notably all but stopped since I started skating in the Graf boots, and I'm not utterly sure my old Jackson Competitor boots, bought the same day as Jane bought hers, aren't a bit skewed, too---shall we say we're not pleased with Jackson's response to Jane's problem, and I'm now beginning to wonder if the switch to Graf boots, though expensive, may have saved me some serious, even sport-ending future problems. The Grafs are still comfortable on the second day of break-in, though I did get a blister and a worn spot today: it got started because I didn't get the lacing right, and now I need a Bandaid, but that's the limit of the break-in pain, which is a phenomenal degree of comfort for brand new boots. Note to any other older skaters: if you think you're too old now to break in new 'top of the line' boots because you don't do high-level jumps, give the Graf 4000's a look, and consider the physical cost of skating in boots that aren't as straight or supportive as they once were---like my sore hip. The Grafs are half to a third of the weight of traditional competitive boots, you can do any jump in them, and they sure make spirals easier. There is no break-in period: they're supportive, but they flex, they don't have the obvious look of other hinged boots, and if they don't fit, Graf is willing to accommodate individual customers: I have a narrow heel and broad ball of the foot, and they were able to create that combination in a version of their stock boot, for no extra charge. This company will get our return business.

Date: 12/23/05. Friday. 36848. Clearly I'm not going to be through this book by Christmas, but I'm past the hardest part. And we decided to go skating despite the fact it's the day before Christmas Eve and the rink was a madhouse---we did get our early time in, got off when it got crowded, and went over to Fred Myers' across the street---Jane's Christmas present didn't arrive, and I wanted to be sure she had enough things to open on Christmas---she told me no, forget it, it's ok, but it isn't, so we agreed on splitting up inside the store and I had fun just going about and nabbing a bunch of little things that she'd like but never buy while she declared that we're violating the diet on Christmas and she's baking cookies, so she got the makings while I was otherwise engaged. I've just realized this puts me in a bit of a bind for cooking the roast I bought, which takes all day, but I think I can cook it most of the way on Saturday and finish it on Christmas. We're now much more cheerful: we were really morose on Thursday, and conclude it's the melting of all our beautiful snow---it's a regular 40 degree heat wave out there---but we got boxes to the storeroom and all, and we're spiffing the place up to a much greater degree. We're spending the evenings watching "Dark Shadows" on DVD, which is a blast from the past, and a good yarn; and Jane is really determined to get her book finished before Christmas, even if I'm going to be far short of the mark. We're out of tape for packages---I made do, wrapping hers, with brown shipping tape rolled into dots to hold the paper from the inside---

Date: 12/24/05. Saturday. 37281. Well, a little progress, amid last-moment decoration and cleanup. We got a couple of last moment packages in the mail, went after one, and mostly stayed in and worked. I'm almost through the sticky spot. The furniture is back where it belongs and the floor is swept. This is good. We had a few family phone calls.

Date: 12/25/05. 37281. Sunday, Christmas. I was the first one up, and I cooked a big bacon and egg breakfast, turned on the Christmas carousel, and waved the smell of breakfast toward Jane's room. Sure enough, she was very soon vertical and cheerful, and after a large breakfast, we set to prezzies. We had such a lot of fun and nice things, thank you, our friends. Jane got lots of Japanese CDs and a jeweled box, and I got, among more sensible things, a Roboraptor, which occupies our kitchen and goes ferociously berserk while the dishwasher is running. I love it. We got Age of Empires special edition from my brother, and warm clothing---everyone south of us now envisions us freezing up here in the ice and snow, even if our snow is all melted, alas. Sharon and Steve dropped by and had more packages, and we sat and had Champagne---we knew we'd bought that bottle for a reason. It was a lovely Christmas, with the tree still working, the other lights that did work all going, friends dropping in and calling on the phone, and over all, a good time was had by all. Note: Ysabel and Efanor took initial alarm at the dinosaur, which growls and snaps and hisses and stomps about, but after a little observation, they decided it smelled like a vacuum cleaner, which does not scare them, so they just step around it on their way to the food bowl. They're convinced it cleans their floor, thank you, so it can stay.

Date: 12/26/05. Monday. 37281. An early-morning session at the rink, and I'm really fighting the lacings on my new Grafs. It's a precision operation, but when they're right, they feel good. We're neither one of us on the top of our form. I'm helping Jane at the moment: we serve as each other's first reader, and I'm going through her manuscript making notes. She'll return the favor on mine when I get this near the end of mine.

Date: 12/27/05. Tuesday. 37281. I'm not making much headway with my own manuscript, but I'm making progress on Jane's, so that counts as work. We had lessons today, and the skate went really well---I'm still iffy with the edges, and Joan won't turn me loose on the 3-turns, but she had some very helpful advice,