What I've been doing lately

So what's been up around here lately? Oh, stuff.

-Non-stop rain, for one thing. What is this, the Pacific Northwest?

-I got my hair re-pinked yesterday, and was told afterward, while ordering plantain burritos, that I had "the most perfectly dyed hair" that the counter girl had ever seen. Why, thank you very much :-)

-I saw a movie on the weekend with one of my Portland writer friends, Bridget Zinn -- Letters From Juliet, which stays in your head for about as long as it takes gelato to melt on a hot day. Of the various romantic interests in the film, I thought the 70-year-old Italian, Franco Nero, was the hottest. Here he is at not-70:

-We've been chasing the "portable mess-maker" that is crawling Clementine. Wow! The world is made of things to grab. (Actually, right this MOMENT she is discovering the stairs for the first time. Yow! Don't worry - I'm not just sitting here watching her climb up stairs. Well, okay, I am, but Jim is with her!)
Doesn't she look totally fierce here? Like a little lion guarding her prey, ha ha!

-We had dinner last week with another Portland writer friend, Suzanne Young, at their totally cool new house, which is a geodesic dome in the woods.

-I've been reading Marie Rutkoski's The Celestial Globe, the sequel to The Cabinet of Wonders. Both are wonderful middle-grade adventures set in Bohemia, London, and other exotic locales. Reading is slow-going these days, since the reading-while-nursing days are over, sigh.

-I have collected a stack of library books on siege warfare, but haven't breached them yet. That's my *assignment* for the next little while. Wouldn't it be great to go back to college and take a bunch of awesome history classes? Well, you know: not for a grade. I wouldn't have to write the papers, I'd just sit in on the lectures, do the reading. Maybe some day I will. I didn't get to take enough history classes in college. I got churned out of there in four years -- that's just not enough time!

-I have eaten approximately 2-1/2 mango tango donuts from Voodoo :-), while sharing the other 1-1/2 with Jim, because that's the kind of wife I am. (Hm. I suppose a really good wife would have shared 50/50, wouldn't she? It's okay. Jim is a health nut. That's a lot of donut for him!)

-I got a wonderful fan letter yesterday from a 6th grader in Florida, who told me that as soon as she finished reading Blackbringer, she flipped to the beginning and began again. I LOVE that, because when I really love a book, I do the same thing. (*love*)

-Did I tell you? I found out [from the translator] that Lips Touch sold Indonesian rights. So cool! It will be my first Asian edition. Yippeeeee!

-I have been writing my new book, for which I am filled with love.

-And I have mostly been occupied with something else I will tell you about soon. Soon. (And no, I'm not pregnant -- funny how that's always the first thing people think! Speaking of, though, did you hear that Shannon Hale is going to have twins???)

Have a happy day!