Well, I’m late today, so I’ll have to rush through this. The past couple of days I’ve been incredibly busy working on the novella, adding to it steadily. Already I’ve written two more scenes that should do a good job of adding to atmosphere of the ‘20s. We’ve got moonshine, bootlegging, pinstripe suits and wingtip shoes. *sigh* I’ve been surfing Wikipedia way too much. It took me hours before I resurfaced from the prohibition page and all the mighty interesting mobster bits and pieces. Way more information than I can ever add to the story, but fascinating nonetheless.
On the down side we got a message from another publisher who declined A.T.O.L. (the PNR story), which is a tad disappointing, but not too bad since right now we have to focus on this project and see where it brings us. Still, it would have been fascinating.
But okay, that’s it on the writing side. Let’s quickly get to the rest so I can go to bed on time.
Was a little late yesterday morning, which was a good thing considering Cousin Ed was late too, and our dogs would have had a head-on collision if I’d been five minutes earlier. Hah.
First thing to do was fetching the visiting dogs and walking them in the lower yard with Hairy. That was of course followed by a session of hanging laundry, going up to feed the dogs, and then having my own breakfast. Had to help tenant to bed after she sat in her chair for a few hours, and then, thankfully, could get to work on the book.
The afternoon was spent driving the visiting dogs to the vet. Their inoculations were almost expired so it had to be done prior to the new dog that was going to arrive. Mom went along to, seeing as Empera had to be checked as well. The whole thing took about an hour, at which time we loaded the dogs into the second car, so mom could drive them home, while big brother and I headed to town for a donation.
We were just passing the cemetery when big brother saw something from the corner of his eye, and slammed his foot on the break in the middle of the road. “Puppy,” he said.
“What? Where?”
“Back there by the cemetery gates.”
I looked back. “Where. I can’t see it.”
“Just around the corner.”
“Maybe I should go fetch it?!”
“Yeah. Maybe you should.”
I bit my lip, weighing the horrors of a puppy alone on the street, and us ending up with another dog in a time where we really can’t afford to. “Okay. I’m going.”
Got out and headed back, only in time to see the puppy totter around the corner and cross the street as though it wasn’t risking its very life on a busy (blissfully deserted at that particular time) road like that. It was responding to my cooing noises, but overshot its aim by sliding down the incline beyond the sidewalk.
“No, no, no,” I chanted, going in pursuit, clicking my tongue, and cooing some more until it was slowly making its way up the incline once more, staring up at me with big brown eyes. Some of the ground, regardless of its fearful screech. And boy could this little girl screech. *sigh*
Took me a full minute to wind her down, at which time I’d wrapped her wet and cold little body (rather skinny to boot) in an old towel and we were back on our way. I dubbed the little one Izzy. She’s black, and either a waterdog mix, or a poodle mix. Either way, she’s a sweetheart, and after some calls, a friend offered to find her a home. Such a relief, that. I was already worrying what the heck to do with her.
Once in town we went past a vet, who was kind enough to check if she was chipped (she wasn’t) and then headed off to do what had to be done in town before heading back home. In the end Sally agreed to take the little one during the night. She seemed a little reluctant at first, but then later, when I suggested she could spend the night in tenant’s kitchen if she was too much of a bother, she said she actually rather liked the idea of company for the night. Phew. Glad that that worked. The little one spent the night, and it went just fine.
I was up at eight to take the puppy of her hands and get to work on the revision. Got some decent work done today. 1700 words, or thereabouts. I had some serious “stuck” moments, but the fact that I dreamt about “the world” for the majority of the night did help me to get the setting in my head.
There was of course cooking to be done. For ourselves and for tenant. She’s still being picky, but as long as we feed her it is going down. Drinking is still pretty exasperating, but at least it is more than it used to be.
Caregiver has managed to get a nurse to come over twice a week to check on tenant’s intubated urine bag, meaning that we won’t have to drag the poor woman to the village health center anymore.
Another trip to town today. I tried to connect it with another meeting with Pedro, but regretfully he didn’t have time today. Neither did we have time for homework for that matter, darn it. We shouldn’t forget that we still have to construct several sentences before Wednesday.
From the way things are looking right now, we are most likely going to go to the Funny Beach market on Sunday. It’ll be a nice change again, after all this time. With a little luck, I might actually manage to fit in some writing in the afternoon. What I’m looking forward to the most, is definitely the sunshine that has been forecast. Hah.
Went to the yard and gathered some harvest. Cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and thinning out some of the broccoli plants in the big field. Everything is looking rather splendid at the moment, what with all the rain. Most of the fruit trees are in bloom, and despite the fact that there are still a million things to do in the yard, the weeding we did the other day did have some beneficial effects…we couldn’t actually walk over the terraces. Hah.
The owner of the visiting dogs came back today. She also took Hairy with her, and Izzy, whom she’s going to find a home for. I still wonder what kind of breed. I’ve got a better picture, somewhere, but this one will have to do for now.
Cute, huh?
Okay. I better go now. It’s already past midnight after all.
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