Hot Blooded

At least it feels as if my blood is boiling about two-thirds of the time.  Supposedly, these are menopausal hot flashes, but they sure don't flash.  I feel like I'm on fire, sweat pours from my pores, and my skin itches.  Sleeping with the ceiling fan on and just my feet covered seems to help.  I spend most of the night throwing covers off and pulling them back on.

A couple of weeks ago, everything hurt, so I downloaded an app to map my pain (I'm always amazed when I think of something I'd like to track, go looking for an app, and find one that does what I wanted).  Since then, my pain has receded to normal levels.  I'm lucky that the pain I complain about so much maxes out at around a 4 or 5 on a scale of ten and normally is around two or three.

Is that enough whining?  Too much? 

I sat down to assemble the deer feeder and discovered the legs were missing.  The angle pieces that connect the legs to the feeder were there.  The feet were there, but the legs are missing. I put everything back in the box and loaded the box in the truck to take back to San Antonio with me to exchange.

I had a reasonably productive writing week.  I tracked about eight hours of work, but I forgot to log in Timesheeter several times.  I have almost two thousand words on Kitty City.  I finished Lesson 19 of How To Revise Your Novel.  I'm preparing to begin Lesson 20, which is the final lesson before type in and, as Holly puts it, the last pass through the novel with a net.  I'll be working on scene beginnings and endings, pacing, and weeding out any step-by-step problems which remain (Johnny awoke with the alarm, got out of bed, brushed his teeth....).  I have a note to decide how to standardize depiction of Inuit's thoughts and ultra low frequency conversations.  I need to fix the timeline.

I finally found my ancient writings.  A lot of it was total dreck from high school, but my three poems from 1991 that I liked back then were in the stack as well, and I still liked them.  I typed them into electronic form and passed them along to Stephen who liked two of them for Blackbirds.  He liked the third, but it wasn't dark enough -- just miserably sad.  A big surprise was two poems from the mid-70s that seemed hopeful.  Stephen thought they could be combined into a single poem and would fit the needs of the anthology, so we worked to revise that and got it to a suitable state.  I even found the essence of a short story from 2003, but I think it will require more work than I'm interested in at this time to make it suitable. I may play with it over the next couple of weeks.  We'll see.

I accomplished about half the items noted I wanted to get done this week.  Analyzing the imagery captured by the game camera on the side porch has been interesting.  Big Gray has returned, so Sneaky no longer has midnight snacks left in the feeder.  Unfortunately, during the time food was remaining overnight in the feeder, a local skunk has taken to visiting.  I've captured it two nights in a row at around 2:00 - 2:30 am.  Sneaky and Big Gray check the feeder every couple of hours -- just to make sure nothing has dropped, I suppose.  Last night, the local black cat made a visit, too.  Besides Sneaky, there are three to four cats I see in the yard from time to time.  One cat belongs to our neighbors kitty corner across the street behind us.  I call him the Daddy Cat, because he's the spitting image of Rossie, and I suspect he's the daddy to our four ferals.  He doesn't eat here.  Big Gray showed up late last year only on the coldest of days.  Now that Moose is gone, I thought I might see more of him.  I've seen the black cat at various times but have never gotten a picture of him (it may not be a him).  He comes from up the street.  There's also a long-haired cat who has made an appearance or two.  That one comes from down the street and may belong to the people two houses down. I think Big Gray will replace Moose sharing the feeder with Sneaky.  He does not defer to her, but they don't seem to have problems sharing the feeder with one another.

The Week(s) Ahead:

• I'm heading to San Antonio for two weeks, so I may miss posting next weekend.
• Exchange the deer feeder for a complete kit (with legs this time).
• Take spare small fridge to a friend of ours who has a use for it.
• See what Mr. L needs help with around the house, so we can get a few things done down there
• Go to RWA Literacy signing on the 25th
• Accompany Mr. L to the Fredericksburg Swap Meet
• Attend at least one yoga class per week (the second class wasn't agreeing with me, I think)
• Water as allowed and do yard work
• Get Lady and Natasha outside time
• Finish Lesson 20 for How To Revise Your Novel; get Polar Bear on the Loose ready for type-in (When ready, are any of you interested in being alpha readers/critiquers for this?)
• I want the first draft of Kitty City (20k) done by the end of the month, so I need to get more words on this
• Give 129 Amselstrasse a critical look