Sunday, January 7, 2007
Waning Moon
Saturn Retrograde
Sunny and warm


I am pathetic. I’m worse than the cats, who are actually feeling much better. The full on cold has hit now, with the congestion, and everything else. Although, I guess the saying is “feed a cold” because it certainly has NOT interfered with my appetite.

The Christmas/Yule decorations are down, but it took most of the day yesterday, and I was too tired by the end of it to put the Mardi Gras decorations up. I don’t have as many as I thought I did – I may have to create some more between now and Shrove Tuesday.

Lots of hand washing, because the metallic fabrics aren’t happy in either the washer or the dryer, and there was no way I felt well enough to schlep everything up and down three flights of stairs and through the labyrinth of the basement to the laundry room.

Instead of stripping everything bare, as I usually do, I did a lot of fabric-switching – switched out the Yuletide fabric for more wintry stuff. So everything still looks warm and cheerful, just in an icier palette.

Of course, we broke records by hitting the 70 degree mark yesterday, but I can PRETEND it’s winter and shake the snow globes a lot, right?

Towards the end of the afternoon, I decided I HAD to have chocolate cake, and I wanted to break in the new mini-bundt pans I bought, so I baked chocolate cake – six mini ones, and one layer of an 8” round. Yummy. And I made lemon-garlic chicken for dinner.

Like I said, feed a cold.

Enjoyed the interviews with Molly Keane and, especially, Rosamond Lehmann in Looking Back. I’ve never read any of their work, and now I’m interested in hunting it down.

Tried to use one of my new yoga DVDs and what does the computer (where my DVD player lives) tell me? That I need to BUY, from Microsoft, a “decoder”. Huh? You mean I can’t get it in a box of Cracker Jacks? Hey, Microsoft – Bite me! I paid you enough money to put this frigging player in the computer in the first place – don’t try to extort more cash out of me.

No work on “Illuminated Nude” yesterday, though scenes are forming in my mind. I just hope they stay there until they get down on paper. I managed to get a bit done this morning.

And I did more work on Token and Affection. I think I’ve got two more chapters (about 16 pages), and then the draft is done. I’m so close!

The bulk of today will be spent on the Plum essay, which has to go out first thing tomorrow.

I’m supposed to go to a swanky shin-ding in the city tonight, but if I’m not feeling MUCH better, I’ll cancel out. Plus, I don’t want to make anyone else sick. I know cats and humans aren’t supposed to get the same viruses, but it’s a little weird that all of us had the sneezles over the same time period. They recovered pretty quickly, so I’m sure I will, too.

Thanks, EJ, for the photo cropping tip. Now, if I can just figure out what the heck the Geek Squad guy did with my photo editing programs when he “fixed” my computer . . .


Devon


Token and Affections – 41,146 words out of est. 35,000

41 / 35 (117.1%)

“Illuminated Nude” 2,750 words out of est. 5,000

2 / 5 (40.0%)