Faeries in Afghanistan!

My book is in Afghanistan! I love it when my book travels the world -- it feels so appropriate, since Magpie is such an adventurous lass. Here it sits on an old tank -- I can imagine Magpie perched there for real, her dragonfly wings twitching, as she thinks sad thoughts about mannies and their wars.

And here is Magpie with her world-traveling kindred spirit, "Frida":


Frida is a human rights worker in Ghor Province in central Afghanistan. She blogs about her work there, about the amazing people, the orphanages, the frustrations of bureaucracy, and her efforts to keep her spirits up through yoga practice, reading, writing, and frequent excursions to happier places, like Portugal and her native New Zealand. She was going to be coming to Portland this month but now maybe isn't (boo hoo!). She and Magpie really are kindred souls -- they're both doing what nobody else (or very few others) are willing to do, and traveling far beyond the comforts of home to do it. She even describes herself as "a gypsy who likes to feather her nest" and Magpie is a "gypsy on wing."

I hope you will go and see the amazing pictures on Frida's photoblog. She gives Afghanistan a face that we just never see -- look at these people, these children.

Ah, yes. My sister just reminded me that there is another copy of my book in Afghanistan. My brother-in-law's brother, who is a soldier, has one too! Go, Magpie!

Now, an update about Vlad the Installer. Boo hiss! He lumbered in here yesterday, a big, soft-spoken Russian dude with a home-'schooled' kid in the car waiting to assist him (can you say child labor?), took a look around our old house with its furnace in the wrong place, and just didn't want to do the job. So he lied about how impossible it was and left with a shrug and a "sorry." Uhhh! I mean, he was totally unwilling to send his son down into our crawl space. The NERVE! (Seriously though, is it not weird he home schools his son as a furnace apprentice?) All this, after we spent hours with the annoying sales guy last week. DANG. So we called someone else and he came out and agreed our house is weird, the furnace is in totally the wrong place (in a closet in the bathroom) and to get it up to code there needs to be much creative problem-solving. He has a plan, though, and our fingers are crossed. If he doesn't come through for us, I might be wearing my fantasy alpaca foot pajamas this winter after all!

Have a fabulous day, all! Luckily it's not cold yet! I do love me some winter, but er, not without a furnace! Ach, listen to me -- in the spirit of today's post, I can only think about the orphanages in Ghor and how cold the kids are there in the winter, which prompted a woolens drive last year to ship socks and mittens and sweaters over. I wonder if there will be another one this year?