Eagles Over the Kennebec

So!  My new fountain pen arrived.  It's gorgeous, and! it writes sooooo smooth on the gritty old yellow so-called "legal pad" paper which is my preferred paper.  The pen came with a converter, which I hadn't realized, or I would've bought it a nice bottle of purple ink, instead of a box of black cartridges.  Maybe later.

What's that, you say?   Picture?  How about a link, instead?

I went shopping after doing the gym thing this morning.  Since I had been putting this off for a while, I had rather a Lengthy List and only accomplished about half.  I fear that I am no longer the Lean Mean Shopping Machine of yore. . .In any case, I'll try to finish up on Thursday.

One of the things I'll need is!  Bug repellent.  Bugs find me very tasty (it's like mosquitoes somehow know I have a lousy immune system) and I have it in my mind to be out in gardens and zoos and suchlike things, so bug repellent has moved to the top of the (remainder of) my list.  Can anyone recommend a good, not-hideously-poisonous-to-all-living-things-and-or-cancer-causing bug repellent that's easy to apply and doesn't smell bad? (not that I want the earth, or anything)

The other things I'll need on Thursday are replacement plants for the Cat Garden, which, under the combined efforts of the neighbor's chickens and the lawn guy's assistant, has mostly become a Weed Garden.  The dragon flowers are still doing well, but the bee balm was ruthlessly cut off last year by the LGA, and did not, as I had. . .kind of hoped. . .come back.  The garden is now well under the limbs of the red maple, so I'm thinking some hosta (called Jimmy here at the Cat Farm, because I can never remember what the damned thing is called, and Steve said that The Murdered Teamster sounded more like a rock band than a plant), or maybe some more bee balm, if the LGA can be educated not to cut off their heads, or some other shade-loving plants.  And there's one REALLY sunny corner where some day lilies might profit...

You see, I think, why I decided to Put Off Until Thursday what I did not finish today.

While I was shopping today, I must've seen about eight displays of those little three-sided spinner things, whatever they're called.  Not having kids, or grand-kids, either, I hadn't until recently realized that these were A Thing.  Back when I was a kid (and dinosaurs, &c), I used to have a continuous steel-link necklace that I used to spin while I was reading and/or studying, because -- though I couldn't've told you that at the time -- it helped me concentrate.  My mother took it away from me, of course, because back then such things were Weird and Not Normal and therefore Not Done.

What an age we live in.

I also learned, just today, that I live in a teensy-tiny-vanishingly-small-economically-unsupportable bubble with, like six other people (and Steve, and the coon cats.  And probably even Scrabble, who does not suffer fools, in case that's ever been in doubt) who believe in the social contract, the rule of law, repairing the infrastructure, and that a female Doctor Who is not the End of Civilization as we know it.  Who knew?

Anyway, home now to find that Steve had started the laundry, and is even now putting supper together.  After the meal, it's -- time to go to work, with a promise from the local weatherbeans of thunderstorms, maybe, this evening.

And on that note -- y'all have a fine afternoon, 'k?

Oh!  And here are Counting Crows, "Rain King."

So, yesterday was my birthday, the 63rd repetition of the event.  Many thanks to everyone who sent me natal day wishes, by email, mail, and facebook.  What an age we live in, to be sure.

Yesterday was a day of quiet celebration.  Mostly, Steve and I doodled around with certain technical arrangements in order to prepare for a Skype interview we'll be doing sometime in the next couple weeks.  As a result of this, I am now the proud owner of a webcam, which is not something I had ever imagined myself either owning or wanting to own.  What an age we live in, to be sure.

In the evening, we did go out, first to Ruby Tuesday, to have what we imagined would be a leisurely snack and a glass of wine before we went off to Railroad Square Cinema to view The Princess Bride on the Big Screen.  Sadly, our waitress at Ruby Tuesday was not on-board with the "leisurely" clause in our schedule.  I would have had some (not a lot, but some) sympathy for her, if the place had been packed, but there were empty tables even the in the section where we were seated.  Barely had our shared appetizers arrived then she was back at the table, asking if we would like a box -- she gave us, perhaps, five minutes, which, even though we had the small glass of wine, wasn't really enough time to properly dispose of it, much less the befores.

When we declined the box, she went away, to return five minutes later -- mind you, we're still munching, and talking, and sipping -- to ask if we would like dessert.  And maybe seven minutes after that, she arrived bearing the bill, delivered a smile and a chirpy, "I don't want you to be late for your movie, so you just pay when you're ready, 'k?"

Well.

The movie was splendid, as always. It was the first time Steve and I had seen it in a theater, and the big picture did add an unexpected depth.  I am all admiration for Mr. Goldman's iron hand with foreshadowing ("I said I would come back for you."  "But you were dead!"  Soft smile.  "Death cannot stop True Love.  All it can do is delay it for a while.").  I had half-expected that we would see the audience in costume, shouting out favorite lines with the actors, but it was a seemly and respectful audience.  The difference, I suppose, between the children of the 80s and the children of the 70s.

We somehow failed to have ice cream and cake yesterday, so that's on-board for the day, along with the usual Writerly Chores.

I hope everyone has a pleasant and productive weekend.

We buried Socks this afternoon...

It's a gorgeous, sunny, breezy day and all the things that grow in the ground are scrambling to get with the program, to be fruitful and multiply in Maine's brief slice of summer.  I need to go down to Agway in a couple minutes and pick up some stuff.  It had best be today; there'll be no getting near the place tomorrow.

This morning was the hearing test.  It is as I had feared, I've lost considerable amount of hearing at the high end of the scale, the same amount of loss in both ears, which, yes, does kind of point at all those dictating devices littering my misspent youth as the culprits.

We -- that being the medical "we" -- are not of the opinion that the loss is yet significant enough for us to be talking hearing aids.  The plan at the moment is to retest in a year and see where we are then.

This is the first time I've had a hearing test since elementary school, so I guess I subconsciously expected something like the test we took then, and, indeed, it was kind-of something like that.

First, I was locked into a soundproof room, headphones on, while the tech in the next room played a series of noises, first through the left headphone and then through the right.  I had a button in my hand and every time I heard a sound, I was to press the button.  The . . .interesting and terrifying thing about this was that I could tell when the tones had gone out of my range.  The tones I could hear came in a rapid, distinct, rhythm.  There I'd be, punching my button like a mad, button-punching woman, and suddenly?  I heard only silence, for a looooong time, before the next tone that I could hear sounded and I punched the button again.

I'm not sure I have words adequate to the task of explaining how eerie it is to know that sounds were being made which were completely beyond my ken.  Like watching television with the sound off, but much more disturbing.

The next test, with different earphones, was. . .even eerier. The tech in the next room would say a word -- again testing first the left ear, then the right -- and I would repeat the word as I heard it.  There, too, I hit a blank wall where I knew, by the elapsed time, that words were still being spoken in some place to which I no longer had access, but -- as the post-game wrap-up showed -- I also misheard a bunch of words with soft "th" "sh" sounds.  "POPCORN" was perfectly intelligible.  "Theft," not so much.

So, that.  Growing old is not for sissies.

As I believe mentioned elsewhere, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Our Stockholders Come First!) has kindly allowed us to know that they will be increasing our rate of protection (Nice liver you got there; be a shame if something happened to it) by just pennies under $140/month.  This brings our monthly payment to over $600 -- for an insurance policy that covers NOTHING.  We still have to pay all of our medical bills out of pocket; if we should ever hit the deductible, we would have already declared bankruptcy.  This is when you start thinking about playing Health Care Roulette -- dropping one individual's coverage in order to be sure the other's covered.  Can you hear the gods laughing?  Yeah, me, too.

But!  Thank ghod we don't have socialized medicine; that would be worse.

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I have been remiss in pointing out that Baen has been running a cover model contest, in which you can vote for your favorite Manly Man from among a field of twenty-three.  Here's the contest, with pictures.  The amusing thing is that the contest went over yesterday, according to the posted rule, and the winner appears to be!

Rys Lin pen'Chala.

Also, I have seen things, as I have gone up and down the intertubes.  Interesting things.

Like. . .

Rare baby lemur born at the Baltimore Zoo

The entire photographic archives of unknown photographer Vivien Maier have been purchased at auction, and will/are for the first time available for display.

Get a look at a Parisian apartment that has been left untouched for 70 years.

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Progress on Carousel Seas

43,713/100,000 OR 43.75% complete

"Nothin' the matter with your voice. If you feel like you gotta have an instrument, we just hand you a tambourine, and you shake it when the mood strikes."

A number of our readers (“our” being Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, the writers behind the stories, and this website) have written to tell us that their friend, or their brother-in-law, or their mom, or the barista at their favorite coffee shop are crazy to add stuff to their brand-new eReader/tablet/phone/netbook, but they don’t want to risk a lot of money buying unknown books.

Well! We’re all about making it easier for new readers to find us, and this is what we’ve decided to do.

From Right Now until January 2012, you, your friend, the BiL, Mom, and the barista can try out six! Pinbeam Books eChapbooks and! one novel at, as they say, Greatly Reduced Prices.

We’ve knocked two dollars off each of the following eBooks, just for you:

Chariot to the Stars by Steve Miller
Includes: “Rain Day,” “The Solution,” “The Inventoried,” “The Cat’s Job,” “Charioteer”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

TimeRags II by Steve Miller
Updates and expands Steve’s first volume of poetry, TimeRags, published in 1975.
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

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Variations Three by Sharon Lee
Includes: “Coffeecat,” “The AfterImage,” and “Passionato”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

Endeavors of Will by Sharon Lee
Includes: “Stolen Laughter,” “The Winter Consort,” “The Pretender,” “The Silver Pathway,” “Stormshelter,” “The Girl, The Cat, and Deviant,” “A Matter of Ceremony,” “The Handsome Prince,” and “Cards” (poem)
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

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Master Walk by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Contains the novelette “Master Walk”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

The Naming of Kinzel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Includes: “Kinzel the Foolish,” “Kinzel the Innocent,” and “Kinzel the Arbiter”
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

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The Tomorrow Log by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
A space opera novel detailing the adventures of master thief Gem ser Edreth
|Kindle| |Nook| |Smashwords|

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For those who want electronic editions of Lee-and-Miller, and Lee, novels, the entire oeuvre (barring Sharon’s mysteries, of which more in a moment) to date can be purchased directly in the format(s) of your choice from Baen Books.

Sharon’s mysteries set in Wimsy, Maine, are available in the electronic format of your choice from Fictionwise (and in paper, from Lulu)

And! all of the great stories, including Liaden story “Intelligent Design,” that have been published for free on Baen Books’ front page throughout 2011, are collected in this great electronic anthology, which is absolutely free.

Speaking of free stories, don’t forget to check out Splinter Universe which right now has four complete short stories and a number of “splinters” available to be read. Donations are gratefully accepted.

So, that’s what we’ve got! We hope you enjoy reading our stories as much as we enjoy writing them.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.