Nothing like a 2-hour time adjustment. Traveling as fast as we do, it amounts to jet lag, and the only thing we can say is—we’re sleepy half the day and awake half the night.
We’re getting stuff done, but we feel kind of done in. Some vitamins are in order, likely.
On the other hand, we’re getting some writing done. We’ve done a lot of snipping in the garden, to keep spring growth in check—one of those things about a well-regulated ‘low’ garden is that we do have to snip, or pretty soon we can’t see the pond. I just went out and removed a bushel of quince bush between my working chair and the pond. I’ve cleaned the filter and decided to put back the sponge bag (filter media) I took out of the waterfall yesterday: the pond suffered a bit, and I think I know what was the matter in the flow pattern, so I’m trying that. The water is still great, just a little clouded by muck stirred up; and I think I’ve got that fixed.
The cats do NOT understand time zones. They want their food on Texas time, thank you. Of course they always want food, so they’re starting complaining two hours before meals.
But we’re getting along. It’s going to sock in and storm, and I wanted to get that waterfall situation rectified before the rain, so I’ve done that. Jane’s working on her book, I’ve gotten the final edit on Yvgenie done, and am working on the Foreigner story again…so as aforesaid, we’re kind of muzzy, but we’re trying. Allergies aren’t helping; and we’re running the filters that we’d shut down while we were gone, but there’s catch-up to do. At least the outdoor temp is a gorgeous 71 degrees…going to fall into the 60’s with the rains…but the garden is absolutely glorious. We do clematis really well, and several vines are in bloom.
We need to take a drive down to the falls—midtown. They’re absolutely glorious, and will be on the rainy days. They’re dangerous…people fall in now and again (two this week) and it’s very sad; you stand the same chance in the Spokane Falls area that you do falling into the Colorado in the Grand Canyon: even experienced world-class kayakers have to respect these rapids, and you just do not want to take chances on the slippery rocks around the water edge. When you go out on the bridge that spans the falls, the whole bridge vibrates and hums to the impact of the water on the rocks that it’s tied to. The water comes out that glassy cold-water green that you see at, say, Niagara, because this is not only rainfall, this is snowmelt. Water shaped the Pacific Northwest, and though we’re the ‘dry’ side, we have creeks that would be called rivers in some states, and water here has a fierce gradient—we’re at 2000 feet in the city, and halfway across the state, beside the Columbia, you’ll be at 600 feet—then up to 3000 for the Cascades, and back to sea-level in Seattle. We have our ups and our downs, and the most of our ‘dry side’ water heads straight for Grand Coulee and the Columbia as fast as it can get there. The Columbia heads for the sea and comes out near Astoria WA with considerable impact as it hits the incoming Pacific—making that area the place they train the US Coast Guard for high-wave rescues.
I’ve been on my own long trip. I just got back from six weeks in Maryland and Fort Stewart, GA, working unholy night shifts. Between trying to go back on day shift and make up the three hour time-zone difference I’m one hurtin’ puppy. –Oh, no– that would be my dog is a hurtin puppy cause I kicked him in my sleep yesterday.. Getting used to sleeping in my own comfy bed, with adequate pillows, and a husband and dog taking their halves out of the middle, has been a trial. Anyway, three cheers for returning home!!!
I’ve been through the mouth of the Columbia in a 100ft boat… on a GOOD tide in clear weather it’s still vicious. Made the trip through clutching a coffee can in one hand and a bench rail in the other, struggling to keep from having to clean the wheelhouse later.
Off topic – but here is some stunning wallpaper of the Aurora Borealis seen from space.
http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/9278/
I’ll watch the falls on the Spokane River from the porch at Anthony’s, thank you. The kayak trip down the Little Spokane was a lot of fun, except for Neco-ji losing her glasses. People do not realize that falling water landing upon water below will create a vortex that dam engineers call a “hydraulic”, and kayakers call “a perfect killing machine”. I’ve seen what a hydraulic can do at a low-overhead dam, where there was a child’s plastic ball, about 10″ in diameter, caught in the falls. The water would not allow the ball to get away and float downstream, the backcurrent in front of the falls drew the ball back into the wall of water. Occasionally, the ball would pop up out of the water with enough energy to clear the overhead of the dam, and the process would start again. This was on the Great Miami River, in Sidney, OH, where the average depth of the river is around 2 feet or lower. That’s why my kayak instructor recommended a river class, except my kayak is far too long to go on the rivers – it’s designed for bays, inlets, and lakes, even though they call it a “sea kayak”. A true sea kayak that I would take out on the ocean would be about 5 months’ mortgage payments, not counting the accessories.
I thought cats worked on only two time zones, period. “Now!” and “Future Now!”, which are separated by less than a petasecond, depending on the cat’s mood and what it wants “now!”
I’ve seen something like that, on an old diversion dam for the Towpath Canal off of the Cuyahoga River in northern OH. Frequently there are several large logs rolling in the wash at the base of the dam with the bark worn off; eventually I presume they wear down into toothpicks and wash away. It makes me think of nothing so much as that old illustration from NatGeo of what the rings of Saturn might resemble, with millions of rock and ice cylinders rolling against each other. A kayaker once told me that if you have to go over a dam like that, it is actually safer to attempt it in high water than low because the volume at least partially disrupts the hydraulic.
The Astoria Bar is one of the most dangerous in the world. Forget the Coast Guard, how’d you like to be a bar pilot and go through it every day, sometimes more than once.
This is off topic, but I thought you’d like to know: Foreigner is listed in the
Kirkus Reviews blog post “5 SF/F Series At Least a Decade Old That Are Still Going Strong”
(found through a post on SF Signal, June 13, 2012)
PS…Thanks again for the Preview window! I never would have gotten that link posted otherwise!
Thanks–my publisher was real happy, too! she hadn’t seen it.
Astoria, where? You planning an invasion? 😉
I just figured she’s expecting Astoria to defect….
Lol—Astoria OR. I think it’s a neat place. It COULD defect…
HEY! Oregon was gracious enough to cede 3/4 of The Oregon Territory below 54-40 to Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. You want MORE?!
(Said the native-born Californian. 😉 )
Lol!