From the desk of the Script Doctor

My writing lately has been like blindly aimed buckshot. Shattered, unfocused, and only occasionally hitting any targets.

At work, despite my title being Principal Technical Writer, most of my projects lately have been heavily focused on the design and debugging side of Information Architecture. So very little writing is happening there, but apparently that kind of work wears out the same parts of my brain as heavy writing projects do. Thus the difficulty focusing on or producing good writing at home.

So, Christmas happened!

Anyone aware of the craziness surrounding the family Christmas (and always surrounding the family Christmas) will not be terribly surprised when I say that "Real Christmas" for me is the Tai-Pan Holiday Party. I spend the evening with people that have chosen to be there. We laugh. We tell stories. We laugh and someitmes cry. We sing songs. We laugh. We perform music, readings, or other silly entertainments for each other. We laugh and sometimes cry. We eat a lot of good food. We laugh. We exchange presents.

It is a wonderful event.

As usual I went bananas on both the food and the presents. But it was fun watching people's expressions when they opened the packages. I got some really neat things.

For the family Christmas, I once again went a bit overboard on both gifts and presents. The younger niece was very pleased with her Rarity's Carousel Playset, the separate Flutteryshy figure, the rocket an astronaut play set, and the Cherry Pie Jam. She wasn't excited about the fuzzy socks. When she opened the play set and freaked out a bit at her older sister, "How did you know it would be a cool toy?" Older niece replied, "Gene always gets the best toys."

Older niece was very happy with the the frog necklace, the Nintendo 3DS and accessories, and the fuzzy socks. Wasn't so sure about the Strawberry Rhubarb Jelly, but she really liked the Raspberry I had been urging everyone to try at breakfast, so was willing to hope it would be good.

I made Mom cry. I didn't mean to. Even when I told her that I hadn't violated her rule (earlier this year, after telling me that her doctor scolded her for moving her computer and desk by herself, and suggested she should get a laptop, she had emphatically forbade me to buy her a laptop), because it literally was a spare Macbook Michael had acquired for a friend who turned it down, she still cried. Turned out to be a good thing we brought the laptop. She hadn't mentioned the flickering her screen had developed. Michael says at least one capacitor is blown on the video card. We set her up with a new 23" monitor, a wired Apple keyboard and mouse, and a Henge Docking system, so she can slide the laptop into the dock and use it at her desk, or pull the laptop out and use it in the living room.

The one thing I didn't think of in advance was to get her a separate Magsafe power supply. The Henge system as you lock the original poper connector into place. She might want to be able to plug it in elsewhere. So I'll have to order her a second one and have it shipped direct.

Mom also was pleased with her small gifts: the candy I get her every year (the same candy that one year when I hit it inside a bigger package she got depressed because she thought I forgot it; she was so cute when, halfway through opening the last package, she heard the familiar rattle and realized what I had done), fuzzy socks, Raspberry Jelly. She just texted me a few minutes ago delighted when we realized that the jar I had opened at her place was in her fridge, so she has a jar and a half of the Raspberry Jelly.

Aunt Silly was happy with the socks and the hat I got her. She didn't get fuzzy socks like everyone else because when I had mentioned that fuzzy socks were on my list, she said she liked slightly more substantial socks. So I got her some purple "smart wool" socks, instead. She was pleased with the Cherry Pie Jelly, but was a little jealous that Mom had been given Raspberry.

Michael said I bought him too many otter plushies. Some years I never manage to find any river otter plushies that he doesn't already own, so the fact that this year I found three had me feeling very proud of myself! I didn't manage to find the big present I had wanted for him, so I wound up buying him a lot more small things than usual. A new folding box knife, a stocking hat with balaclava suitable for wearing under his bike helmet. Some other sorts of bike-compatible scarves, a calendar of photographs of river otters from Yellowstone, a card for a couple months worth of one of his on-line games, and one of those flash drives that can survive being run over by a truck or dropped in a pond. Oh, and a parody of "Good Night Moon" called "Good Night, iPad."

I got a lot of stuff. A scary amount. Michael was very bad and bought the scanner I had been thinking of buying. I got a bunch of books off my wishlist: The Orchid Affair, Everyday Life in the 1800s, How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe, Elements of Typographical Style, The Pickwick Papers, Lord Darcy, Six-Word Memoirs, How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One, Donald Duck Lost in the Andes. There were also some fuzzy socks (two pairs also stripey!), a framed family picture of my sister's family, a DVD containing hundreds of family photos, organized into family tree-type branches (my almost-twin cousin has been working on this project for a few years), a purple pairing knife (with a holder--it's really cool!), a Christmas album I didn't know existed, dark chocolate, various gift cards, a silly Santa and his Reindeer decoration, and a measuring tape.

The last two deserve to be mentioned prominently in their own ways. The silly Santa decoration had belonged to my maternal Great-grandma. I haven't seen in it ages, because it's been packed away in one of the hundreds of boxes crammed into closets at Grandma's house. Aunt Silly found it, and was going to put it on her tree, but then was worried her dog would do something to it (and it doesn't fit the blue and silver color scheme that she does all the time, anyway). She asked me if I would use it if she gave it to me, and I was thinking, "That would go perfect with the Christmas Ferris Wheel..."

This last fall, when I was ordering gloves for some people, I wanted to measure some hands to get an idea for glove sizes, and I discovered that the spring in my one and only retractable tape measure had died. So I pulled the tape out, and it won't reel back in. I made the discovery after the "buying things for myself" embargo had begun (Michael says I can't buy anything for myself between the period a few weeks before my birthday in September and the end of Christmas), so I dutifully put a couple different types of measuring tapes on my wish list.

Mom saw the measuring tapes on my wishlist, and she pulled out of the piles of stuff she still has from Grandma, my Grandma's yellow cloth measuring tape. She wrapped it up hidden inside a box inside a box inside the box with two books she bought me, packed with beads and glitter and an altoids box full of buttons and safety pins. Because I have shaken and guessed at presents since I was little, Grandma always used to put beads and buttons and occasionally a jingle bell or other things that would make a lot of noise in at least one Christmas gift each year. So Mom recreated Grandma's trick, and gave me something from my wishlist that happened to also have silly sentimental value.

I don't know how many times I have been measured with that tape by Grandma while she was working on some sewing project or another. I'm such a sentimental fool, I'm getting teary-eyed just typing about it.

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One very amusing thing Michael learned from a conversation with my Aunt Silly: it is the perception of Aunt Silly and at least a few other relatives down there, that Michael is the reason I come down and visit people more often than I used to. It is their understanding that if Michael didn't push me to spend time with them, I wouldn't be there.

It's funny how people edit memories to make themselves look good, eh? I didn't visit any family for six and a half years for the very specific reason that gay-me and my gay-late-husband were not welcome. I still have the 28 page (I'm not exaggerating) handwritten letter from Aunt Silly outlining the rules if I were to visit after I came out of the closet. My "friend" would be welcome to come with me, but we could not refer to each other as "honey" or "dear" or any other word that might imply we were anything other than acquantances. There was more than a page of words and topics of conversation that she forbade to be brought up, for heaven's sake!

And while her letter was the most egregious, it wasn't different in spirit from the communications I had received at the same time from Mom, Grandma, and a few other relatives down there.

So I told them all, point blank, that I was not going to visit again until they were willing to treat my husband as my HUSBAND and a member of the family just like the spouses of any other family member. I was consistent. I repeated it every time any of them asked why I wouldn't come visit. I also repeated that they were free to come visit me, but they needed to recognize that in my house, my husband was my HUSBAND, it was his house, too, and they would be, while visiting us, guests of the both of us.

Eventually, Mom, Grandma, and step-Grandpa did come to visit, and relations thawed relatively quickly. As I had suspected all along, once Grandma and Mom actually looked at Ray as a person, rather than the Living Proof That Gene is Going to Hell, that they would like him and get along with him really well.

Unfortunately, later that same year, Ray died. So there was only one time that Ray and I visited the family together after the period of estrangement.

They seem to have not noticed the several visits I made over the course of the next year alone. Because of the previous estrangement and reconciliation, when I brought Michael down the first time, everyone was much more welcoming. It didn't hurt that Michael was born and grew up in the parts of Oklahoma and Missouri where most of Mom's side of the family grew up. Grandma and Michael bonded remarkably fast.

On the one hand, I'm glad that they seem to all seem to hold him in such esteem that they feel he is the glue keeping me in the family. On the other, it's a little irritating that they seem to have forgotten the real cause of the original estrangement.

Oh, well. Not as if any purpose would be served by correcting the misapprehension.

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I still would like to get back into the habit of blogging. I like the chaotic and mostly succinct nature of Twitter, but I also like the longer form. Google+ lets me type longer things, but lacks a few things I used to love about posting to LJ and DW.

Not that they were perfect, by any means.

Not enough people are still at LJ or DW for it to serve as a reasonably reliable way to keep up with people and vice versa. Not enough of "my people" follow Google+ for it to work, either. And Facebook is just a writhing sea of wrong.

Anyway: extremely crazed month. The good bits are that the annual Tai-Pan holiday party was a great deal of fun. I had a new ghost story, and we had three other people with stories to read, plus seven others in both solo and group to perform music. Lots of good food, laughter, and and fun.

I'm mostly not panicking about the oral surgery tomorrow (from a situation that came to light just a few days ago). The panic is entirely from my usual dental phobia, not that the procedure is particularly hazardous.

I got the last of the shopping for family done today. Things aren't wrapped, but I should be able to pull that off this week. While picking up things from my sister and my nieces today, I was texting Mom pics to confirm that she thought they'd be good gifts. Didn't realize until afterward that one corner of part of Mom's gift was in each pic. There were no identifying marks visible, and I'm pretty sure she has no clue what's coming, but still thought it was funny that I sent unintentional teasers.

I should get back to working on those mailing labels. The new issue of Tai-Pan won't stuff, seal, and mail itself...

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Issue #49 of Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe has gone to press! We should have the issues in hand within a week, so we will be mailing the new issue to all subscribers soon!

Holiday Party

Our annual Holiday Party (and December Writers' Night) is barely a week away! Saturday, December 17, 7pm, at David, Kristin, and Ieva's house (e-mail Gene at editor {at} taipanproject {dot} org for address and directions). Celebrate the holidays with the people who bring you Writers' Night every month. Hear Gene’s annual Christmas ghost story. Take the Ghost Story Challenge (if you wish). Enjoy the vast menu of holiday goodies. Hear the stories, songs, or poems others have brought to share.

( Details... )

Happy Christmas! Merry Solstice! Good Yule! Happy Hannukah! Joyous Festivus! Happy Holidays!

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Today is World AIDS Day. I spend part of the day remembering people I have known who left this world too soon because of that disease.

So: Frank, Mike, Tim, David, Todd, Chet, Jim, Steve, Brian, Rick, Stacy, Phil, Mark, Michael, Jerry, Walt, Charles, Thomas, Mike, Richard, Bob, Mikey, James, Lisa, Todd, Kerry, Glen, and Jack. Some of you I didn't know for very long. One of you was a relative. One of you was one of my best friends in high school—and beyond. I miss you all. It was a privilege to know you.

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Happy Birthday, takaza!!!

I hope it's a great day!

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I don't know why it didn't occur to me until this morning, but probably one reason the neighbor's death has so bothered me is because this is the anniversary of Ray's death.

Every year I have this extended period of moodiness, et al, starting around the time of Ray's birthday (just two days after mine in September) until around this time in November (the 15th is the day we turned off the respirator). It's not all gloom and doom and me obsessing about it, it's just a pattern I've noticed. A lot of anniversaries of happy significant dates seem to be clustered in that part of the calendar. While I remember the good times, it's hard not to also feel the loss.

Last Thursday, in the early afternoon gout decided to flare up in my right ankle. I had a very unpleasant walk to the nearest bus stop and gimped around Thursday night. On the other hand, had a fun TV night with kehf and bluesmancd. Kept the heating pad on my gouty foot most of the night, and was only mildly limping Friday.

Met jeffreycornish for dinner at Mr Gyro's Friday night. Was not as productive over the weekend as I hoped. Kept having random bouts of crankiness.

See early post regarding neighbor dying, paramedics and cops next door, et cetera. Also, the gout came back pretty badly most of Sunday. Got laundry done, had nice long conversation with Mom. Figured out what we're getting her for Christmas.

One other odd/bad thing Sunday. When I first picked up my phone in the morning, it was giving the "No service" error in the status bar. When I poked at the settings, I got a "Sim Failed" error. The Sim is entirely internal in an iPhone, so it's not something I can just pop in and out. Powering off the phone and powering it back on seemed to fix the problem, and the phone seemed normal all day.

Realized in the evening that I'd only gotten three hours sleep thanks to the firetrucks, and conked out early. Woke up around midnight, realized I hadn't made my lunch or taken care of other things that I usually do on a work night. Moved the phone from living room charger to computer room to sync with desktop, and discovered that the power connector on my Morphie Juice Pack (a phone case and external battery) had broken. Argh! Took the phone out of the pack and connected it with a regular iPhone connector and headed to bed, figuring we'd find time to go to Verizon to see if they would replace the Juice Pack, since I bought it from them just two weeks ago.

This morning, I was running late and rushing around. Unplugged the phone and saw the Sim Failed error across the screen again. Power cycled the phone, didn't help. Power cycled it again, it connected to network. I ran out the door.

About halfway to the bus stop (which is nearly a mile way), worried that maybe I should have grabbed my cane, because my ankle wasn't exactly hurting, but it was tender. Decided to hope for the best and kept going.

Thought I saw a snowflake floating in midair in front of me at one point. No other signs of snow.

By the time I got to the office, "Sim Failed" was across my screen again. For the rest of the day, every time I looked at my phone, either to check for messages, to send a message, to change music, what have you, there was a "Sim Failed" error. I'd power it off and on, and connection would come back for a while.

Googling turned up several reports of people breaking the power connector on the Morphie Juice Pack. Seems to be the one flaw in its design. The Sim Failed thing seems to have been usually a software issue on the iPhone 4, though a small number of people experienced it often enough that Apple replaced their phones.

While checking this out, also learned that today was the drop dead date to buy AppleCare-plus for a 4S that had been preordered or bought within the first weeks of availability. I had thought I bought AppleCare Plus when I ordered the phone at Verizon, but they had instead signed me up for their own equipment replacement insurance (which, over the course of the two-year contract is more expensive than Apple's, and they charge you more for replacing a phone damaged in an accident).

And when the Sim Failed once more after 5pm, several power cycles of the phone did not restore connection. I called Michael from my desk phone to alert him that my phone was unreliable, so he shouldn't expect to get hold of me during the trip home. He asked if this meant we were going to a Verizon store tonight. "I guess so."

Now, this wasn't the only equipment issue I was having today. My work computer was much slower than usual to boot up and produced mysterious errors. I kept having strange software issues on it and with some of our server applications all day. There were a few other things at the office that increased my stress level.

I went to the nearest bus stop again, rather than walk all or most of the way home, because we were going to try to get to a store before closing. A bus showed up quickly, I found a seat, and went to fire up WriteRoom on the iPhone to get some writing in on the ride.

The phone had spontaneously managed to connect to the cell network. I figure that was just Finagle getting me again: of course the phone would fix itself before I got it to a technician!

By the time I reach home, though, it was displaying the Sim Failed error again.

The drive to the U Village (where there is both an Apple Store and a Verizon Store) was plagued with several blocking vehicles, a few angrily impatient drivers, one cop with flashing lights, and (just as we reached the parking lot) a small hail storm. More of a long flurry, really, but wow!

As I suspected, there were no Genius Bar appointment openings. Contrary to what I had read on the web, that folks at the Apple Store could not help with the AppleCare Plus--I had to call the 1-800-number, and do so before 9pm! The guy who talked with us said that he had been told that reseting the phone to factory settings seemed to fix the Sim Failed issue for a lot of people (it was on my list to try already, just hadn't had time).

We headed to the Verizon store and experiences the most painless equipment swap for the Juice Pack that I've ever done. Then we walked to Azteca, where I very rudely was on hold (on Michael's phone) with Apple for our entire dinner waiting to get the AppleCare issue fixed.

Got home, hooked up the phone to the computer and told it to reset. Last week there had been an upgrade to the iOS firmware. I'd used the Over the Air upgrade option, which went really fast because the over the air process downloaded only the parts of the OS that changed. Unfortunately, iTunes needed to download the upgrade in order to do a restore, and the over the wire process involves downloading the entire new OS, not just the delta.

It is still restoring.

Michael had a rotten day at work. After the third snag during the drive over tonight, he commented today seemed to be a payback for bad karma day for everyone.

So maybe it isn't just me.

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I was up very, very late last night, struggling with both a computer issue and trying to fix a writing problem. I finally went to sleep sometime after 3am.

Sometime shortly after 6am I became aware that something was wrong. There were too many voice outside. Once I got my eyes open and sort of working, I could see flashing red lights on the other side of the curtains.

Michael had awakened more quickly than I, and had already figured out that there were firemen and paramedics going in and out of the lower apartment in the building next door. There was no fire. I watched what was happening for a moment, went to the living room and looked out the window for a bit more information. Two fire trucks in the street. A third emergency vehicle (I couldn't see more than the lights through the trees) further down. A fireman was getting a stretcher off one of the trucks.

Once you realize that there is no active fire or other issue where you can help, and the professionals are handling whatever has happened, nosy neighbors coming out to ask what's going on will not be appreciated. So you lay down. Fret a little, yes. Send good thoughts/prayers/vibrations their way, and try to maybe get back to sleep.

Heard more vehicles arrive. Heard what was quite clearly a man speaking in Cop Voice say, "Keep your hands where I can see them." Not shouting, not exclaiming, not even threatening. Just a clear, authoritative tone of voice.

In reply, I heard the very familiar voice of the perpetually-drunk neighbor answer "I am not a threat to you, sir."

And I know that it is going to be a very, very sad day all around.

( A bit of background and what I know so far behind this link... )

It's sad all around.

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Michael had to work 12 hours on Thursday (because they did an evening party/open house/official grand opening at his place of work)--and this was after more than a week of being sick and run-down--so when he said, before going to bed, that we should aim to arrive at the SteamCon hotel at 3pm, official hotel check-in time, I thought he was serious. I expected him to sleep in to nearly noon.

So I spent the morning cleaning the kitchen. He got up a lot earlier than I expected, packed some clothes, and told me he was going to go read stuff on his computer.

Apparently I missed the subtle hint that I should quit cleaning and start packing.

So he was a little cranky while we were loading the car, and during the run through the grocery store, but didn't tell me why until I asked him what he was upset about. Of course, a little later, after we had both eaten and while we were crossing Lake Washington, he realized that much of his crankiness was because he hadn't eaten, yet.

He can be a silly man, sometimes.

Okay, all the time.

We found the hotel, found a parking spot in the garage, and came up the elevator into the confusing little mini building that is part of the complex, but not actually part of the hotel. The maps in the parking lot elevators are a little unclear. Once you realize that everything is numbered as if it were one building, even though it is actually three (or two or four, since the two towers are connected by a two story fourth segment...) you can sort of figure it out. There are at least four elevator clusters, only two of which get you into the parking garage -- and neither of those two will take you up to the hotel rooms.

Anyway, we got into our room, where we were delighted to find an ordinary-sized bathroom, unlike the bizzaro origami bathroom at the Hilton building two at RainFurrest. We had to do a second trip to get car unloaded, during which we ran into Ruben Avila in one of the elevator lobbies. I didn't realize he'd be at SteamCon. His reply was he didn't realize we would be, either. :)

The hotel room also has a mini fridge, but we set up the electrothermal cooler anyway. The mini fridge is so tiny...

We were both still feeling hungry, so we tried the restaurant across the driveway from the lobby. It's decor and menu pretty much met my expectations for a Bellevue restaurant: pretentious hipster decor, hotel-restaurant-priced food, which is delivered in overly artsy/hipster arrays. The steak tasted great, but it didn't need to be pre-sliced and laid out like an appetizer. The sushi that came with it was... well, if you'd told me it came out of a plastic box at a supermarket, I wouldn't have been surprised.

We cruised the dealer's den mostly to get the lay of the land. We bought a couple of pieces for our planned Halloween costume.

On our way to the elevators (I was going to the 3rd floor of our tower to go to a panel, Michael was going to the room), we ran into Tibo, totally rocking a top hat ("I bought a hat!" were the first words he said to us). We had a quick chat, including the "I didn't know you'd be here" exchange. We were introduced to Melissa. Then we all split up and went our ways.

I'd misread the time, and so instead of a panel on 19th Century Submarines, the panel room had a reading. I sat through the first person's reading but... well... I was thinking more and more snarky things about the actual writing, so decided I should go¹. Michael was just laying down to take a nap, which seemed like a great idea.

We woke up, and, in a sign of what the theme of the day was, headed the the mall across the street for dinner at Cheesecake Factory. The "Skinnylicious Grilled Turkey Burger" was excellent. I wound up with a double serving of Sweet Potato fries because they first brought me the Veggie Burger (where are apparently right next to each other on the computer menu. So the waiter had me take the order of fries while they made me another burger, and it came with a second set of fries.

The table next to us had a father and teen-age son, the son playing with his brand new iPhone 4S. The father didn't seem to understand that just because the outside was the same shape as the 4, that didn't mean it had the same processor, et al. The kid was happy.

They were replaced by a flaming 19-year-old gay college student and his 18-year-old fag hag⁴⁵. I mention them mainly because he was loud and impossible to ignore. They both ordered dessert, and he was very assertive with the waiter about how much he was dying for the strawberry cheesecake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but when it arrived, he ate only one bite of cheesecake, didn't touch the ice cream, and started declaiming how he shouldn't have ordered dessert since they had just stuffed themselves with sushi before dropping in.

When the waiter checked in to see if they needed anything, the kid declaimed (again) about why he couldn't finish his dessert. The waiter asked if he wanted a box to take it home, and he insisted not, and asked for their checks. As soon as the waiter left, the kid started complaining to his companion about how blatantly the waiter had been flirting with him.

Dude, that wasn't flirting. That was just the waiter doing his job.

Then when the checks arrived, he complained to his companion about how expensive his single bite of cheesecake was, how because he's in college he doesn't really have the money to indulge in that sort of thing anyway, so he was going to leave no tip. Besides, it was totally creepy how the waiter was flirting with him⁶. And since she was still in high school with mom and dad paying for everything, she couldn't really understand how tight his money was.

I was very happy to get away from them. Well, really, him.

It was amusing, and a little irritating, and may have been the reason I added a bit more to my tip since we had the same waiter, and he was doing a perfectly professional job.

And I want to emphasize, these two were not con-goers.

And now we've both slept in very late and haven't even gotten out to get breakfast, yet. But then, as Michael said, we are on vacation, this is a relaxicon for us, and besides, we have ponies in the room.

---

1. Seriously, one sentence: "Once it was gone, the only way he could remember was memory." What she meant was something on the lines of, "Once it was gone, the only parts of home he would have were memories."²

2. I realize it was a first draft, and I have certainly written clunkers at least that bad, myself. But it was six pages before the first line of dialogue. There were pages and pages of the narrator telling us why the character was packing up to leave his home against his will, and what the differences were between his people's culture and the dominant culture that was conscripting him, and so on.³

3. On the other hand, she's an author who has been published many times in much larger-circulation magazines than I have ever been. So obviously she has an audience.

4. Yes, stereotypes and potentially offensive, but since I am myself sometimes a flaming gay man, I can recognize members of the clan.

5. Seriously. How many times did he have to squeal "Oh my god!"?

6. Again I observe that the waiter was not flirting.

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Today is National Coming Out Day. If Ray were still alive, it would also be the day we'd be celebrating the eighteenth anniversary of our commitment ceremony (he promised to stay with me for the rest of his life, and he did).

Since I continue to be shocked to learn that someone I've worked with for months hadn't figured this out: my husband and I are both men, and we're very much in love with each other and happy together.

But while I'm (re-)stating what I think ought to be obvious, I would like to announce that I am:

A card-carrying liberal gay man who thinks that gun control means hitting what you aim at but people who irresponsibly allow guns to fall into kids' hands resulting in death or injury should face legal consequences; that the death penalty has a place in a well-run justice system but so does jury nullification; that a flag-burning amendment is as un-American as anything could possibly be, but people who fly a flag should learn the flag code and stop leaving their flags out at night and in the rain; that war and violence are terrible things we should alway work hard to avoid, but the people who risk their lives in service to their communities and nation deserve our respect and gratitude; that the right to assemble and petition our government absolutely allows people to march, protest, chant, and otherwise demonstrate in public places, but if you're not willing to pay the price of possibly being arrested for blocking your fellow citizens from going about your business, you deserve a slap up-side-the-head; that no one who is not going into a battle zone needs a Hummer, but people who blindly protest nuclear power plants can't do basic math about energy needs and energy sources; that proportional representation would greatly improve our country, but so would at least one of the major parties actually moving left-of-center; that the right to believe as you wish includes the right not to believe at all, but rabid atheists are missing something; that being polite costs nothing while reaping great rewards, but no one should have to put up with disrespectful behavior; that there isn't enough science education in our schools, but there isn't enough art, music, or history either; and that you get out of life what you put into it, but you also get a lot of both the good and the bad through no fault or merit of your own.

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It's already all starting to blur, so I better get this down.

When we originally reserved our hotel room, Michael's work week was Tuesday-Saturday, so staying at the hotel through Monday was a no-brainer.

We both forgot about this until just before the con, and now Michael works M-F. He'd requested Thursday & Friday as vacation days, but not asked for Monday. And a live TV broadcast had been scheduled from his place of work Monday, so there was no way he'd be able to take the extra day.

I hate the hassle of packing out the room Sunday mornings and trying to run to the table. It wasn't helped that I had a panel at 11am. So we didn't cancel our extra room night, but planned to check out after dinner. This left us a much more leisurely schedule for packing out of the room.

So I mosied down to the dealers' den, while Michael worked on packing, and Sky finished a commission sketch. I will refrain from pointing out that another episode of My Little Pony was playing when I left the room.

David was setting up a bit more of his display, since Sky had completely sold out of inventory the day before. Chuck showed up while I was setting the Tai-Pan stuff back up. We had light traffic for the first hour. Mark took over the table while I went to do my panel. Michael showed up just as I was leaving, and since Mark had the table, went to watch the panel.

I was the only panelist, so I got to drag more of the audience members into talking. The actual panel title was "Juggling Jobs: Tips for Beginning Writers" and we started out discussing how you balance a day job with writing or other artistic pursuits. I got most of the audience members to talk about their particular writing challenges. We had a good conversation about needing to try different things until you find something that works for you.

Then it was back to the den. I wandered around, looking at other tables, and chatting with some of the people I know. I bought some stuff. I sat down next to Sky to chat for a bit, and he asked me if I had a favorite My Little Pony character, yet.

I had, at that point, only seen I think one complete episode. I had heard several while I was writing, as Michael had been watching them on his computer much of the weekend. I had watched parts of several, as well.

I have been resisting MLP for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is simply this: I'm already following too many shows! I don't have time for another. So I had been cursing Sky off and on for showing them to Michael, because I could tell, just based on the diversity of my friends who were into it, that I would not be able to resist.

So I said something like, "Of course I don't have a favorite pony. You would never, ever get me to admit that, obviously, Applejack is the best of the bunch."

(Come on, it's obvious, right?)

So Sky hustled off, and came back with an Applejack badge. Which I agreed to wear. But it was totally because he gave it to me on my birthday, and not because I'm a big pony fan now.

Totally.

Oh, yeah, the last day at the convention was also my birthday.

There was an incredible surge in the noise level and the number of people in the den not long after the last regular panel of the convention ended.

We had a small trickle of sales the last day. Not a lot. A couple were people who had been looking over our stuff earlier, and said they'd be back. It was nice that they followed through.

We finally reached the end and started packing. We had one last round of the helper-badge fiasco, but we dealt.

Once we'd gotten everybody's stuff loaded into vehicles, we walked up to the Marriott for a final dinner together. They told the waiter, before we'd even sat down, that I wasn't allowed to pay the check, since it was my birthday. Which guaranteed that an unbelievably gigantic slice of dark chocolate cake showed up with a candle, later on.

We had a nice dinner and wind down chat.

Then most of the gang headed home. Michael and I went back to the room to grab the last couple bits of luggage and look through drawers and stuff to make sure we had everything. Then we checked out and headed home.

This entry was originally posted at http://typographer.dreamwidth.org/754798.html. You may comment here, or comment there using OpenID.

Happy Birthday kinkyturtle!!

Happy Birthday xianjaguar!!

Remember: September babies are superior to all others.

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RainFurrest Day Three

We got moving early enough to go eat a sit-down breakfast. One item on the menu was particularly frightening: cinnamon vanilla raisin french toast with toasted almonds. It's scary because the carbs would send my blood sugar through the roof. Plus I absolutely loathe the taste of raisins. Finally, I'm allergic to almonds. As Michael said, that dish had me coming, going, and in between.

Sales were slow but steady. My favorite comment from a customer: "Are you guys going to do any more of the 'for mature readers' editions? I know that yours have plot."

Yay!

Another person showed up with a list of issues wanted. It wasn't his list, it was a friend's list.

I survived my panel with Alan Dean Foster. The third panelist didn't show up, so it was a little hard to get a panel discussion going. And I was as interested as the audience was in hearing Alan talk about things, so he bore probably more than his fair share of the conversation. But the audience seemed to enjoy everything, we talked about a few topics. And since it was about anthropomorphic characters in non-fan writing, and I had brought a list of authors I wanted to mention, which included one he wanted to talk about--Joel Chandler Harris--I feel as if I did all right.

I finished a new scene for my second Trickster novel while writing behind the table. As I told Mark: "I finished the scene, in which Miko escapes from his daring escape."

That actually makes sense in the plot. At least I hope it does, when I read the finished chapter to others, later.

Sky sold out of the last of his sketchbooks today. I mean really, really sold out. Someone came to buy a sketchbook after all the others had sold, and she soooooo wanted one, that she was willing to buy the one he had drawn in, and thus had used up some of the sheets.

I think he has a winner.

Tai-Pan sales exceeded last year's sales as of the end of the day yesterday. So today, having sold about half of yesterday's total, was all gravy. Or something.

David is doing really well. He said yesterday's sales was a number he would consider good, and today he nearly tripled it.

Yay!

Last night, after I posted the con report, when I got up to put away the computer and get ready for bed, my back hurt so much, I had trouble standing up. I had felt a little sore at the end of the day in the den, but hadn't expected it to get worse.

The chairs in the dealer's den aren't the best, obviously. Sleeping all night in a good position didn't help the back much. I spent about an hour this morning with a pillow propped just so, then took a shower and let the hot water pound my back for a bit. I was much better by the time I headed in.

I made a point of stopping the writing at least once an hour and standing up behind the table. I timed my standup time with music. I was playing from various playlists of dance music on my ipod.

It encouraged me to stand up more often, since sometimes you just have to be up moving to the music.

I think my back is doing better today.

Tonight we had dinner in the con hotel restaurant. It's a bit spendier than the Marriot's restaurant (which is also want I would consider spendy). But the food is good. And when I ordered a cosmo, the cocktail was not made with a mix. I remembered, while sipping it, learning that last year.

Michael said I didn't need a fourth cocktail.

:(

But then we decided that, if we all went away and let me metabolize it some more, we could return to the bar before midnight, and any drinks I had then would be my birthday drinks, since this is the last day that I will be fifty. :)

Sky has infected my husband. He's now addicted to My Little Pony. I must admit my main objection is that, based on everyone I already know who loves the show, that if he keeps watching it in my earshot, I'm going to get sucked in. And I'm already following too many shows!!!

I was going to take pictures of the fursuit parade... and then I realized, before they got to the den, that with the iPad I could just as easily take a video of the whole parade. So I did. I will post it after I get it synced off the iPad.

Now Sky, David, and Michael are designing possible future products. I'm going to go do some more writing.

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RainFurrest Day Two... or maybe day 1.5?

It's only Friday, but I keep thinking it's Saturday. For the longest time most of the cons I went to were Fri-Sat-Sun. That was it. Yes, I know there were whackos who arrived at the con hotel on Thursday evening, so that could be there right at the very beginning, but they were Whackos.

I think NorWesCon 12 was the first con where I attended the Thursday evening events. There wasn't a lot of programming on Thursday. It was a much smaller crowd. But it was interesting. And when I arrived the next day, I could go straight to whatever morning event I was interested in, because I already had my badge.

It was some years later, perhaps NorWesCon 20, before I started actually checking into the hotel on Thursday. And that was 15 years ago. So you would think, by now, that I was used to cons beginning on Thursday.

I'm not. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, I just keep getting mixed up about what day it actually is.

RainFurrest is not a four-day con. Registration, Dealer's Den, and programming didn't begin until 5pm Thursday.

But that's enough about yesterday and my inability to adapt. What actually happened at the con today?

We got ready at a leisurely pace. Having bananas, granola bars, and such in a cooler in the room, we didn't have a strong motivation to get breakfast. It probably would have better if we had, but, oh well.

David arrived while we were still getting dressed. He'd found our tables in the den, and wondered if he should re-arrange things, since we (Sky, Chuck, and I) had spread out to fill the two tables last night. I suggested he squeeze the Tai-Pan stuff over, move Chuck's stuff to that table, and set up next to Sky's sketchbooks.

When we arrived, I much preferred the more compact layout David had done with the Tai-Pan stuff. I tweaked a few things and we were good to go.

It's fun to watch David work the folks who stop to browse his hand-turned wooden pencils and pens (plus his many other wooden craft items). He really does the schmooze-and-engage thing well.

I got a couple sales in. The cell signal in the dealer's den is pretty bad, so the transactions made with Square were very slow, with several retries on each transaction. Still, it's nice being able to take plastic. There are several features of the Square app for iPad (it has several features not available on the iPhone or Android phone version) that I really, really like.

I had one panel today. I was the only panelist. The title wasn't my favorite. As I said during the intro stage, overly focusing on eliminating bad writing isn't enough to make your writing good.

I was able to get every person in the audience engaged in the conversation. One thing I did was just point at each person and have them tell everyone what they wrote. I did that after we'd gone over the fundamentals of how to find imperfections in your own writing (set it aside and look at it much later, read it aloud to yourself in an empty room, read it aloud to someone else) and various ways to exercise your reading/writing muscles.

I enjoyed the panel. And several audience members stopped by the table to ask more questions or otherwise discuss the writing process, all of which is good.

We had some more sales. I finally got to meet Jackie's friend, Bobbi, who it turns out is also the programming person I'd been corresponding with in the run up to this con. During our conversation, Bobbi asked if we were the same Tai-Pan project she'd run into years ago at Dreamcon. Which we are. But while I was describing that, Jackie leaned over and said to Bobbi, "So you didn't realize this is the Tai-Pan project I've been involved with forever?" And pointed out that the cover of the issue #2 sitting right there had been drawn by Jackie.

It was amusing.

There were more of the usual incidents of people asking or saying odd things while standing at the table. I was particularly amused by this one (which actually happened last night, but since I haven't posted any of these...):

Two guys walking together, stop at the table, start looking at the issues of the 'zine, the t-shirts, and so forth. I offered to explain what the project is about. Fan A said, "I've chatted with you before. I was trying to remember... So it's a roleplaying thing, right?"

Me: "No, it's a shared universe writer's and artist's project. We collaborate to produce an illustrated literary 'zine."

Fan B: "What's little, uh, literary mean?"

Before I can answer, Fan A says, "It's a comic book, but political."

I tried to explain that, no, literary means literature, but I don't think they ever quite got it.

I was trying to recall one of the conversations this morning. I had explained what the project was, he had paged through some of the 'zines and asked some questions indicating he was mostly getting it. Then he noticed the copies of Tai-Pan: Contraband on one display rack.

Fan C: "Oooooo, Contraband!"

Me: "Yeah, that's--"

Fan C: "If I open it, will I see girls only, or is there other stuff in there?"

Me: "It's got lots of things, most of it not sexual at all."

Fan C: "Yeah, well," voice drops to almost a whisper "I'm straight, so..." And then he turned and walked away.

Sky's pile of sketchbooks for sale diminished very dramatically over the course of the day. He's been a sketching fiend the whole time.

David has had lots of people stop and play with the pens, pencils, and puzzles. I know he sold some things, but forgot to ask how brisk it was. It was quite fun watching him create and sell a lanyard dongle.

I've had a bit more success as the con moves along getting people to take badge ribbons. Furry fandom just doesn't have the badge ribbon tradition. But I love collecting ribbons, so I'm determined to infect uh convert recruit more people to the cause.

After the den closed and we dropped things off in our rooms, Sky, David, Michael, and I headed up to the Marriott again for dinner. I had the steak. And a martini or three.

I only got parts of a few scenes written while sitting at the table, today. But I did finally get through a good revision pass on "Flagstaff and the Frosted Nocturne" so I could finally send it to Chuck. Only took two years. :P

I should try working on the LaMonica Job, but I did leave Miko and Brother Ishmael in the middle of a daring escape, so maybe I should get to that...

Oh, I shared this elsewhere, but should post it here. Michael found me some more vintage Apple stickers, so I decided it was time to adorn one of my current Apple products.

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The latter half of the day felt frantic.

Frantic is a feeling, so I guess what I mean is it was frantic?

I slept in, because, hey! vacation. Besides the convention events didn't begin until 5pm, so what was the point of hurrying, right?

Except we hadn't gotten any packing done, and we were both moving a bit more leisurely than we ought to have been. So we left that house about an hour later than we meant to. We got through the local errands quickly (bank, post office, grocery store, gas) and hit the road.

Made decent time. Just as we were pulling off the freeway, Michael says, "I think we forgot to pack the hand truck."

Oops. Since there are seven or so plastic file bin-type boxes full of books we have to haul up to the dealer's den from where ever we park, that isn't an insignificant omission.

I also forgot any sketch pads, my bag of holding (which is much easier to maneuver around most con spaces than a backpack), and something else which I am now completely blanking on.

The lady at the front desk gave us directions to the elevator... which we have never found. Fortunately it's only one flight of stairs, but still, where the heck are those elevators?

We got the luggage and cooler into the room and quickly set some things up. We had a bit more than an hour before the dealer's den was supposed to open. And I got thinking: I kind of know this area, because way back before Ray died, his mother lived very near here. So I knew where a big automotive store that also was like half-hardware store was, and it occurred to me I could go find a small handtruck there.

But Michael was having trouble getting the computers to hook up to the hotel internet, and he wanted to go with me. I hung out for a while, but he didn't seem to be making progress, and time was running out.

Also, our car was still sitting in the 15-minute registration only lot. It had been way more than 15 minutes.

So I zoomed off. Good news: I found the store. Bad news: it had been replaced with a chain auto store. It definitely was the same building, but all it had was car stuff. All the hardware inventory was gone. I found four other stores that might have had something like what we wanted, but no luck.

So I headed back to the hotel.

I was nearly there when my phone started ringing. At a stop light, I pulled it out and saw that it was Chuck. I let it go to voice mail, not just because cell phoning while driving is illegal, but because I'm enough of a klutz that it's just a very bad idea. :P

It had barely gone to voice mail when the phone rang again. It was Sky. I let him go to voice mail.

I pulled into the parking garage and found an empty space. I got out of the car and was flipping open my phone, wondering who I should call first, when Sky pulled up next to me in his car.

I called Chuck while we went looking for the Dealer's Den. Chuck was stuck in the regular registration line, where the computers had gone down and nothing was moving.

We picked up our dealer badges, found our table, and began moving stuff in from the cars. (Somewhere in there we ran to the room to drop off Sky's luggage and get Michael, who I couldn't reach by phone because of cell signal weirdness.

Chuck was stuck in the reg line for a long time. I slowly set up the table. When we had been packing the car, I'd had a momentary panic when I wasn't sure we'd packed any copies of issue #48, the latest issue (even though I was trying to bring all the inventory). While setting up the table, discovered that we don't have any copies of issue #47 with us. Had vague recollection of shipping a copy out to a subscriber who renewed late and thinking we needed to order more. Oops.

I had a 7pm panel. Turned out I was the moderator. I'm not a good moderator at panels. I'm just not. But I think the panel mostly went well, anyway.

We sold the very last copy of issue #1 that will ever exist. The guy who bought it was also looking at the Omnibus, but decided on issue #1 because #1 is one of the few from the early years that he's missing. "Need to have a complete set," he said.

Had more people show interest in the Faust Shot First t-shirts. Lots of people commented that they didn't want to buy stuff this early in the con for various reasons. About half the dealer tables were empty, so it's not a bad idea to wait.

Had a very pleasant surprise. Sky's table is next to ours, as we requested, so we can all watch each other's stuff, et cetera. The table on the other side listed some business I'd never heard of. Turns out it's a friend of Jackie Duram-Nilsson, who couldn't attend the entire con, and didn't want to try to run her table by herself. So Jackie showed up and set up some things tonight, and will be our table neighbor for the rest of the convention.

Had a few interesting conversations, as always.

We're handing out badge ribbons. One is the maroon and gold one we handed out at NorWesCon. Just has the Tai-Pan logo, the name of the project, and the web address. The new one is a black ribbon with silver ink. Also has the Tai-Pan logo, but says "Faust shot first!" and then has the web address.

Had to explain to a log of people how badge ribbons work. Not every one. One person was pleased when I said, "I love collecting ribbons at general sci fi cons, and decided to try to introduce the tradition here."

After closing down the tables when the den finally closed at 9pm (thank the great spaghetti monster the closing time is much earlier the rest of the con!), Sky, Michael, and I walked up hill to the Marriott (the hotel where the con was last year) for dinner. The nice restaurant was closed, but the full menu was available in the bar.

And the place wasn't overrun with rowdy fans, since the Marriott is neither the con hotel nor the overflow hotel.

As I recalled, they make an excellent Manhattan. And another. I also wound up drinking half of Sky's because he decided it was too much alcohol to drink this late.

I had forgotten they also have real martinis. I think we're going to have to go back for another dinner there.

I meant to get some writing done tonight while Sky was drawing commissions. I don't think this should count. Though I did noodle a bit on a plot that's been stymied for a while.

I'm the only person awake in the room.

I should remedy that.

This entry was originally posted at http://typographer.dreamwidth.org/753900.html. You may comment here, or comment there using OpenID.

For the next four days I'll be at RainFurrest. Much of the time staffing the Tai-Pan/Chuck Melville table, or assisting in staffing the Tombstone Jig/Pandora House Crafts table.

I'm also a panelist, and my panels are:

Are You Really a Writer or an Artist? (Thursday, 7pm, San Juan)

When does a "writer" become a professional? What is the threshold by which one distinguishes a "pro" from a wannabe?

Bad Writing! BAD! BAD! (Friday, noon, San Juan)

There is writing, and then there is bad writing. Whether deliberate or not, recognizing bad writing and learning to correct it can be what seperates you from the pack, and get you picked for magazines and print.

Anthropomorphic characters (Saturday, 4pm, Emerald F)

The term dates back to the mid 1700s and there are many examples from history. What good examples do we have in today's literature and which writers do it best?

Juggling Jobs: Survival Tips for the Beginning Writer (Sunday, 11am, San Juan)

The delicate balance of job, family, and being a writer or artist. Assuming one has to have some income, is there a right kind of day job for writers?

This entry was originally posted at http://typographer.dreamwidth.org/753631.html. You may comment here, or comment there using OpenID.

I continue to post infrequently. There are many reasons for this. The fragmentation of my online presence being only one portion.

Things in my life are mostly going well. I'm employed at a job that I quite enjoy, working with people who are fun to work with and seem to enjoy working with me. Michael and I have been mostly healthy. I have enjoyed growing tomatoes this year, and definitely need to do more next year. My flowers are coming up well. Good things are happening with the Tai-Pan project. I'm looking forward to a nice long weekend at RainFurrest beginning the day after tomorrow.

There are some downsides. I was brought in to help out on a project at work last week. It was supposed to be just a little help at the end. Another co-worker is the lead writer, and while I'd been hearing from her about the project being a bit disorganized, I had not comprehended the full horror of the big, awful mess.

One upside, it really reminded me of how wonderful the two project managers I work with most of the time are. They really are great. Maybe we can clone them...

I'm very happy that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is finally, officially repealed. It is only another step in the overall process of maybe leaving our second class citizenship status, but I think it's an important one. For one thing, as all the gay, bi, and lesbian citizens who have been serving silently all these years are able to be open about who they are, it becomes just a little bit harder for bigots to claim that all of us are just "self-loving takers who give nothing to society, nor share in the sacrifice or investment of self necessary to keep society going."

My sweetie has given me two of my birthday presents early. One was a replacement glass front for my 23" Apple display. The other was the latest edition of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. This is the book with the huge pages, each of which contains 9 miniature reproductions of pages from the full Oxford English Dictionary. That's right, all TWENTY volumes of the dictionary to end all dictionaries, in a single volume. It comes with a very nice magnifier, of course.

I protested that it was too extravagant; that I don't really need another Unabridged Dictionary (this is my fourth, joining Merriam-Webster Third International, the Random House/Websters Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, and the Dorest and Baber Unabridged Dictionary of American English), and the more than two dozen other dictionaries in my collection...

He pointed out that I've talked about how cool it would be to someday own a copy of this of my own for as long as he's known me.

Which is true.

I've had fun looking things up, being a bit amazed and overwhelmed by how many different senses and variants they have documented for some words.

I shouldn't be, really. I mean, I have before argued that one of the benefits of my collection of dictionaries is the ability to compare and contrast the definitions in the different compilations. Still, it's a bit overwhelming.

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Every now and then one comes across a blog where every entry seems to be a rant or grumble. Never any good, or at least never any good news without some snarky or cynical remark about the good news.

I'm not talking about a long stretch of venting or sad posts, where if you scroll back you can see that the writer doesn't always do this but is just now going through a bad time. Those are different. There's also a difference between someone who is going through a depressing situation, or even suffering from severe depression, and a bitter cynic. It's the cynic part that gets me. The depressed person may or may not have hope, but they admit that hope exists. Whereas the cynic sneers at the notion of hope, and at those who have it.

So I don't want to come across as that guy when, today, I post for the first time in weeks and it's all going to be grumbles. But I'm afraid that's what I've got...

( Twitter abuse )

( Kettle, meet pot )

( Is someone forcing you to live here? )

Just had to get those off my chest...

This entry was originally posted at http://typographer.dreamwidth.org/752698.html. You may comment here, or comment there using OpenID.

One small cluster turned orange yesterday. Noticed it when we were on our way out, walking up to Mr Gyro's for dinner with geojlc and jefferycornish. Didn't take a picture. Sun was down by the time we got back, and I haven't been outside yet this morning.

But, they're ripening!

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My one tomato plant is getting incredibly tall. I've stopped trying to count all the tiny green tomatoes. I'm just happy that some of them are turning from dark leaf green to sort of a light-hints-at-yellow green. With our long-delayed warm weather, I'm going to feel lucky if we get one ripe tomato before they all turn to slim in the fall.

Every year we spend most of June (by "we" I mean general inhabitants of the city) either complaining about the "horrible, unusually cold weather" and the other half of us rolling our eyes. Last year the local professor of meteorology who's blog I sometimes link to pointed out that some of his undergraduate students did a little digging in the library's archives. Every June for more than fifty years running, local newspapers would run at least one headline complaining about the "unseasonal" or "unusual" cold/gloom what-have-you.

If it's that way every single year for at least fifty years then it isn't unusual, is it?

Our weather records go back longer and back up the same thing: EVERY June in western washington is cool with most days being overcast for at least part of the day. I think the only reason that papers more than 50 years back don't mention it as often (they found stories like that further back, just not every year) is because we had fewer whiners, or maybe it's temporary amnesiacs.

Anyway, I mention all that because this year the whiners finally had some justification, at least for the month of July. It was the coldest July on record for us. Strangely, it was also the driest. Ordinarily you expect extra cloudy days in Seattle to mean more rain, but not this year. The temperature seldom got into the upper seventies for most of July.

We made up for that a bit this last weekend. Upper seventies on Saturday, broke 80 pretty early in the day Sunday. So last night hours after the sun set, when the outside temp had cooled down to the low sixties, it was still mid-70s at bed time inside out brick house. *sigh*

Today we got rain. Yay. By next weekend they say we'll be back up into the upper seventies, but for the next few days, it'll be cooler.

It looks like my Blue Lady rose has not quite given up the ghost. I say "my" but it was Ray who bought and planted it back in the spring of '96, when we first moved in here. He only lived to see it bloom for two summers, and I've been caring for it, since.

It produces these ENORMOUS lavender colored blossoms that have a really sweet, strong scent. The problem is, that the branches those blooms on are seldom thick enough to support the blossom's weight. And the more years it grew, as I trimmed the rose back each year, well the new growth is always off-shoots of other branches, usually the ones that were new last year, so each year the limbs that actually have blossoms got thinner and thinner, while the blossoms stayed the same.

So three years ago I hacked it back viciously. Cut everything back to the original, thick cane.

The next spring, that cane stayed grey for a long time after the other roses bloomed. Then finally some of the bark turned green, and a some new branches sprang off the cane. But it was only a couple small ones, and they didn't grow long. I decided not to cut any of those back, hopping they would grow thicker if given a second year.

Most of them didn't turn green last year. What little growth I did get off it, was even more pathetic, and it looked quite dead and straggly by the fall.

For most of this spring, while the other roses were bushing out, the blue lady looked like a dead stick.

Then in late June, a new cane shot out from under the ground. I carefully dug around it. The new cane was coming right from that spot where the Blue Lady cane was grafted to the root stock (Quick lesson: most of the garden roses you see are hybrids of hybrids of hybrids. They produce beautiful blooms in gorgeous colors, but many of them aren't very disease resistant, or just not hardy. The solution that gardeners have been doing for a couple of centuries is to graft branches from the gorgeous hybrids onto the root stock of more rugged and hard, but usually less gorgeous, roses. The roots don't care that it isn't there original "body" above ground, those branches send nutrients down from the photosynthesis, so the roots keep doing their job. If, by chance all of the above ground growth dies, what frequently happens is that the roots, feeling no products of photosynthesis coming down, will sprout new canes. But the new canes have only the genes of the original species. The roses that will bloom from the new sprouts will be whatever variety the root stock was. They may be smaller, a completely different color, et cetera)

So, this new growth started late, and there weren't any buds for awhile. Two small ones forms, and they seemed to be pink. However, the blue lady's blooms often looked pink at first, then turned a very pale purple as they opened. So I still didn't know.

They both opened today. They are definitely pale purple. So it seems there was still some life in that grafted cane.

Another of my roses, a cheap one whose breed I don't know that I picked up on a whim the year I thought the Blue Lady had died, seems to have itself died this year. But there is new growth coming up from the roots. And the leaves are smaller and pricklier than the leaves of the grafted canes were when it was alive. So I am quite certain this new growth is coming up from the roots.

I wonder what color it will bloom?

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