I give up!

Here's how the past few days have gone:

Thursday, the sprinkler guy came to fix our ancient broken sprinkler system. He had to run new wires from the control panel out to the valve boxes. Fun! And the sprinklers still sucked because our water pressure's strangely low lately.

Friday, we discovered a ginormous black widow by the basement door (uh, the *broken* basement door, damn it; gotta fix that soon). It is the size of a Volvo. It is the size of Kentucky. I am pretty tolerant of bugs and such, but this monster was just wrong. It does not belong in my HOUSE.

Saturday, the nice exterminator came by and took care of it. Saturday night, as we were settling in to bed, an assassin bug bit my stomach. Argh! I know they're beneficial and chow down on lots of other bugs, but it does not belong in my BED. So that night we thought, hmm, perhaps our plan to go to Africa for a while is not going to work out so well. I hear there are bugs there.

Today, we learned that that ominous rumbling sound we'd been hearing for a few days is actually a ginormous leak in our water main. Oh, so that's why our water pressure has been low... Our water is currently shut off, and the plumber set up a temporary line to our neighbor's water. Still need to get some more opinions, but it looks like we're going to need to dig up the front yard and replace the main. Hmm, Africa is also not known for its fabulous plumbing.

So what we're going to do is just sell everything and move to Iceland. That is looking like a more and more reasonable option every day.

Skateboard update

Today Sean and I went to the big parking lot by the University stadium to get in some more skateboard practice. The parking lot behind our house is pretty uneven, lots of cracks and so on, but this one's in really good shape. I'm starting to get the hang of this.

Sean sort of trots along beside me so I can grab him if I get too wobbly. I am sure that increases the dorkiness factor by about 200% but whatever works. I need training wheels for now. But I've graduated from hanging on to him tightly to just having him within grabbing distance. It's progress.

Still fun.

It's harder than it looks!

Lately, I've been taking the train to work. It's actually a decent option: it's a fairly short walk, and I get to read.

But I don't like walking. It just seems so slow.... and every time I'm out walking somewhere, I see Kids These Days zipping by on their skateboards, and man, that looks like so much more fun than walking.

So Sean got me a skateboard, and I'm working on getting the hang of it. I have pretty decent balance and coordination (and good health insurance) so why not?

Because it's way harder than it looks, that's why not! Kids These Days make it look so easy! I make it look so dorky! And hard.

But it's fun; and it beats walking.

It's official...

The kitten's name seems to be Princess, which makes us official crazy cat people. God. I swear it was IRONIC when we started calling her that.

New kitteh!

So the other day, Sean tells me the feral cat at his school had kittens. "One has an orange face," he says. "We can call her Pumpkinface." So I knew we were getting a kitten.

In accordance with the Law of Kittens, she's adorable. She's settling in well, and has gone from being terrified (and hungry!) to being a fierce and curious little anklebiter.

I call her Pumpkinbutt.

She hasn't met the other critters yet; it'll be another week at least before we try that. The cats are pretty curious about what's going on in the spare bedroom.

Sorrowbird

Sean's story Sorrowbird is up at Fantasy. Go read! It's pretty terrific.

Another acceptance!

We've accepted "The Bride Price," by Richard S. Crawford. Richard was in our very first issue--I'm delighted to see him return for our 10th.

I've been ridiculously busy for the past few weeks. But now I'm as close to caught up as I've ever been, which feels great. But somehow my to-do list never gets smaller...