She's so mean, but I don't care; I love her eyes and her wild wild hair

[rolanni]

We've got some catching up to do here, so let's get to it!

First!  Quicksliver Chapter Five is now on the web, for your perusal.  Here's your link.

Second! The Science Fiction Romance Brigade Summer Blog Hop is on!  Talk about your favorite Science Fiction Romance, get suggestions for lots of great reading, and maybe win an Amazon gift card.  Here's your link.

Third! AsyouknowBob, Steve and I are looking to move out of our house here in the country (which is harder to contemplate in this season than in, oh, Deep Winter), and Into Town. Which town is still up in the air.  We have to seriously consider Waterville which is, after all, where our doctors and the vets and most of the people we know are.  On the other hand, I'm still trying to finagle, if not a $400,000 condo oceanfront, at least a move that gets us closer to Old Orchard Beach, Portland, the train outta town &c.  So, it's being a dance.

We have been talking to a real estate agent, who kind of ran us through how this was going to go, from the buyer side and the seller side.  One of the things she went over was putting down earnest money, when we found the House of our Dreams (which, honestly, we're not likely to do, but give her a break; she's never been to Liad).  And she said something like, "So, you'll put down a couple hundred dollars in earnest. . ."  At which point I looked at Steve and Steve looked at me and we did not laugh, even though we were recalling that when we found this house, we put down two dollars in earnest money.  Steve put down his silver dollar that he always carried, and I put down mine.  Our agent at that time had been a social worker.  He took the coins, and wrote us out a receipt as it it were perfectly unexceptional.  Shame he's long retired.

One of the things this agent said to us, when she came out to look at our house was something to the effect of how much STUFF we had.  A couple weeks later, the contractor echoed that.  Now, I don't disagree that we have stuff -- books and papers, mostly -- but I didn't think we were out of line for writers, really.  I said something to the effect that creativity is messy, and kind of got a Look.  Today, however, Trulia search service sent me this house as possibly of interest.  It's in Rockland, which isn't actually near Portland, or OOB, or the train, but does abut the Atlantic Ocean, and is home to several museums, and has a robust summer music program.  Here's the link.

By golly, creativity is messy.

Let's see, what else?

Oh!  I bought some socks (don't judge me! I had a coupon), which have, so Socks Addict tells me, shipped.  They have shipped via the United States Post Office second-day priority, with insurance, and will require an adult's signature when they arrive.  I mean, I knew they were stripe-y socks, but I didn't know they were as racy as that.

. . .I think that may be all the news that's fit to print at the moment.  Which is good, because I need to get to work.

L8R.

Today's blog title is brought to you by Escape Club, "Wild, Wild West."  Here's your link.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
70,000/100,000 OR 70% complete

"Our Rys bids fair to become a poet."

He laughed again, feeling his cheeks warm.

"I fear I am eloquent only on subjects dear to me."

"Well, that's as should be, isn't it? But tell me now, Rys Silvertongue, are these grapes jam or are they supper?"

Comments

Re: where to move

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Er. No. Bangor doesn't have a passenger train service. I think.

Hang on.

Nope. No passenger train. I can catch a bus and take it to. . .looks like Portland, and grab the Downeaster there.

The problem is that there used to be passenger train service all over Maine. They were shut down for Reasons back. . .20 years ago, I guess, and the track beds made into trails. Then people noticed that maybe that had been Kind Of Stupid, and they've been slowly bringing passenger trains back into the state. Right now, the Downeaster berths in Portland. The northernmost year-round station is in Brunswick (the train leaves Portland, runs UP to Brunswick, picks up passengers, goes down to Portland, picks up passengers and proceeds downcoast. Terminus is Boston North Station, where the Downeaster is the only Amtrak train to berth. If you want to continue on from Boston, you need to take a (frequently harrowing) taxi ride to Boston SOUTH Station and go from there.

It's really kind of hard to get out of state. Mostly what Steve and I have been doing, when we need to travel, is drive to Albany-Rensselaer, and starting from there. Right now, we're 2.5 hours from the New Hampshire border. Moving to Bangor would add another hour, at least.

It's too bad; I like Bangor.