This is a test to see if a new piece of software works with the blog.

I added a new blog to the site, that is going to be a testgoround for some new tech-toys I'm trying out.

One of the new toys is a server side blog engine. If you know what this is, good for you. If you don't know, don't worry. It should be invisable to you.

Another new toy is a piece of software that wiil allow us to compose blogs off-line and then post them, without the crabbyness of going to a web site and logging in, etc.

Here's to hoping that it works.

Cheers!

Happy Kwanzaa, and a bit about wren safety

Happy first day of Kwanzaa a couple of days late. It was also St. Stephen's day, when once boys went around with rocks killing wrens, and going around asking for pennies in Britain, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland. Other than the fact that Stephen was stoned to death, I can't find anything to connect him to the annual avian slaughter. My guess after looking at some old folk tunes is that the wren represented a type of seasonal king. A type of Oak or Holly King, or Greenman. It was traditional that when the sun was reborn that the old "sun" had to die first. We have a remnant of that in America even today. Old father time and baby new year.

To celebrate St. Stephen's day what I've started doing is putting out extra bird food in the feeders, make sure the poor cold birds have fresh water in the new heated bird bath that was one of my Christmas presents. I also put out bird seed wreaths and bells on a special tree in our yard. Our libation tree. Every yard should have a special tree, or two. I feel like helping the birds live longer is sort of a nice way to celebrate what must have once been a grisly day for the poor wrens. Around here we have two species of wren. House wren and Bewick's wren. Feed the birds, save the wrens, everybody play nice.

I'm back to work.

Merry Christmas

Trinity has just left with her father to go out of town and see other family for a few days. She was very excited because where she's going has a very white Christmas. Funny how kids get excited about snow and most adults do not. Kids don't have to drive in it, I guess. Or shovel it, no if they're little enough. Our rule is that Trinity must be taller than the shovel to clear snow.

Jonathon and I did brunch with his parents, at their new house, which is only minutes away. Very cool. Then we got to come back and have a relaxing afternoon just the two of us. It was a very nice afternoon. Yes, the dogs were here, but they got to stay down in the livingroom and kitchen and play with all the toys that Santa brought them. We took pictures of all the stockings. Check the Dog's Pictures for the Dog's picture with Santa. Its a Four Dog Christmas. St. Stephen's day is tomorrow, the hunting of the wren.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, everyone be safe.

Christmas Eve

Well we've almost survived another season. A season of frantic shopping. We bought months ahead for Trinity because at that time she was very into Barbie Fairytopia. So we bought the dolls ahead of time. Finished, pretty much. Right? Wrong. All you parents out there see this coming, don't you? She's ten, you'd think I'd not do this again, but . . . By early December she wasn't into the Fairytopia, she wanted Groovy girls. But Gary, my ex, took her to Breakfast with Santa this year, so he was the one that knew what she wanted. But he had no idea that Jon and I had already bought stuff. In fairness, how could he have known. It's certainly not typical of me when I was married to him to be ahead of the game plan for Christmas. I've been a last minute shopper for years. I'm trying to get over that, but this year, Winter Solstice came, and Jon and I went, what, when, how? Just once I'd like to be done with my book deadline before the holidays get really serious.

So, we, including Grandma Mary, have frantically searched for Groovy girl stuff. Even on line there are no more Groovy unicorns to go with the carriage and princess. We have the throne. Trinity asked Santa for two new Groovy girls and a bunk bed. We have one bunk bed, and when Mary found it, purchased it, the man that came in seconds later for the same item, looked at the bed in her bag, and she told him, "It's mine." Groovy girls are cool. I like them. They don't wear thong underwear like some of the Bratz dolls. I'm sorry, my daughter is ten, I do not want her asking for clothes to match her doll, that includes lingerie. The Groovy girl stuff is really neat, but why on God's green earth, are they this popular this year. Last year I was able to buy stuff up until the last minute for my friend's child. But not this year. Sigh.

And may I complain that most of the dolls out there look like they ran away from a Nazi pre-school. You know, most of us aren't blond and blue-eyed. Honest. So why are most of the dolls? It has gotten better in the last ten years. The first year that Trinity was old enough for a doll, really old-enough, there was almost nothing in the local Toys-R-Us but blue-eyed blonds. It's much better now. We have some brunettes, some red-heads, some brown eyes, and some dolls that look like pale is not their natural color. Progress. And please don't think I'm picking on Toys-R-Us, they are far ahead of the curve here in the mid-west. I'm told it's a little more even on the coasts. But I don't live there, so I don't get to see it. Toys-R-Us are one of the few places where you can get good-quality toys all year long. A lot of the department stores, or big stores, stock stuff closer to Christmas, but their selection sucks compared to Toys-R-Us. My hats off to anyone working any toy store right now. Oh, heck, anyone who works retail should be up for a medal. Maybe the candy cane cross just for surviving this joyful time of year.

If you detect a note of Scrooge in me, well, yeah. Anyone who got the Christmas card from the fan club will know that I anticipated this mood. I'm wearing my new favorite shirt, black with red lettering that says, "If I wanted your opinion I'd read your entrails." My cup for the day is one I bought around Halloween. It's black with white letter that says, "Eat, Drink, and be Scary." I'm finally come to the point in the book where I'm listening to Christmas music. It's bad when I'm listening to Christmas music while I work. Even on Christmas Eve, it is not a good sign. What am I listening to? Dean Martin, MAKING SPIRITS BRIGHT.

Yeah, it's pretty sad when I've got Deano crooning on the player.

Keep your spirits bright, your anger down, and may you enjoy your holiday as much as you're able. No fist fights over toys, okay. You think I'm joking? I worked in a mall the year that Cabbage Patch dolls were at their hottest. I've worked retail. I've been in the trenches. Remember as you buy your stuff that the person across the counter, the person helping answer your questions has answered this question a million times already. They've checked out people who threw things at them. My assistant manager got hit in the face by a customer, and it wasn't even about Cabbage Patch dolls. So, everybody play nice, and remember that a smile and a kind word can go a long way this time of year, especially to those that are trying so hard to help us find that perfect Christmas gift. Ho, ho, ho.

Happy Winter Solstice

Today's the day; winter solstice. It's the first official day of winter. It is also the longest night of the year. The night when darkness reigns and the light seems faraway. For thousands of years, long before Christ was born in Bethlehem, people have huddled around their fires and prayed for the return of the light. There is this sense that if we do not pray it into being, that night will last forever, and winter will never end. Once the return of the light was called Mithras, or Apollo, now he is Christ. For all you Christians out there that didn't realize how old this celebration is, I hope it wasn't too big a shock. Some people use the idea that Christ is only the latest in a long list of children of promise to come to us, to sort of make fun of the fact that a lot of Christians do not seem to understand that Christ is not a new idea. The light has been reborn at this time of year for so very long. But I find that Christ being celebrated, the return of the son, or sun, no matter how you spell, the return of the light, after so many thousands of years to be comforting. Think how very much we human beings must need this idea. For us to keep repeating this concept again and again, for so long, must mean that we need this little baby. We need him to be reborn every year.

We need that journey in the cold winter's night, to seek a star, to seek a child, to seek joy in the dark. We need to find that hope is alive and well, and newly born and laid in swaddling clothes in a manger. We need the child to be born of a loving Mother of Heaven. We need for her to give birth to the light, and bring god into the world.

There is a longing in most of us to know that goodness is powerful, too. That evil may dress better, but the darkness cannot withstand the light, for the light comes and the darkness fades. Light does triumph. Good is powerful.

Sometimes it's hard to keep believing that. Just watching the news of an evening can make you feel overburdened with the pettiness, and the cruelty of the world. It is hard to hold onto the thought that God and Goddess love us. (Feel free to put Allah, or Buddha, or whatever face god shows to you, in that last sentence.)

The light will be reborn, and hope will come with it. Charity is something we do every day for those around us, and for strangers we will never meet, because that age old question, am I my brother's, sister's, keeper? Yes. I believe sincerely that Diety wants us to be happy, and one of the ways they do that is by putting kind and generous thoughts into the minds and hearts of us. We humans. We hands and heart of flesh, can be filled with spirit, and moved to make things better for those around us. It's one of the reasons we're here. So hope is reborn with the light. Charity is something we should keep all the year, what of faith. Faith is when you believe, but have no proof. Faith is what makes us believe that the darkness will not last, and the light will come. Faith is what helps us keep the fear and the cynicism at bay. Faith is what we hang onto like a well-worn rope, when all else has gone wrong. Faith is what makes us light that candle, and put that small flame up against the immensity of the dark. Faith is knowing that all over the world other people are lighting a candle, and that each small flame is part of a larger whole. We light the candle in the dark and know we are not alone.

The light is coming. The dark cannot stay. And that is not something we must take on faith, for tomorrow the night will literally be a little shorter. The nights will grow shorter and shorter until Summer Solstice, when the cycle will repeat itself. But it is a cycle, and the dark cannot hold. Solstice blessings on all of you, no matter what holiday you celebrate this time of year. Happy Yule, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, and if I've missed anyone, my apologies. Happy Holidays folks, keep the faith, whatever flavor that maybe.

Things we like Redux

more things we like:

PS238 One of the Funniest indy comics around. #9 is in stores now, as is the 1st collection.

Nodwick The other comic by Aaron Williams. Funny if you've ever played any of Fantasy RPG.

City of Heros An OMRPG where you get to be a superhero. How cool is that. This is more me than Laurell, but I had to plug a third item....

more later

Three days

Three days of only three pages a day. Three days of wondering what the hell was wrong. Had I lost my way again? Was I just getting tired, again? Actually, no. My subconscious was busy working and hadn't gotten around to telling my conscious mind about it, not yet. Last night it hit me.

Galen almost died on Merry. She truly thought she'd lost him. I don't know if he's the love of her life, or not, but he has been her favorite sidhe warrior since she was about fourteen. He loved her when none of the others cared about her at all. I'd set up a scene where we were sharing ourselves around, and Merry wanted it to just be her and Galen. If this is the last time they ever have sex on paper, then she didn't want to share. Sometimes I think that I, personally, am just too monogamous for this series. There are times when sharing just doesn't seem the way to go, yet we've got so many men in Merry's life, and so much plot still to cover that I find myself trying to consolidate scenes. But some scenes are just not meant to be consolidated. Sometimes, one on one really is the best way to go. Two or more together has it's place, but not always. Though when you read the scene you, the readers, may argue that we shared afterall. But as long as Merry and Galen see it as not sharing that's really all that counts.

HTML Errors

The Dogs pages were not working all the well, recently due to a error in case in some of the code.

its fixed now.

Enjoy!

Silence, friendship, and men

Our friend Richard has gone to Italy. We dropped him at the airport. We, and his mom, hugged him good-bye and sent him on his way. It's going to be really weird to not have him around for a few months. I don't think Jonathon, or I, realized how much we were going to miss him until the moment came to let him go off, off, and away.

Jonathon is the first of his close male friends to marry, and as often happens, that means that the ones that can make the adjustment to his being married, hang around a lot. The ones that still act as if he can drop everything and go off to a concert on a school night, or that being married means you don't still date your wife, well, those friends we've had to 'talk' to. But Richard wasn't one of them. Richard got it. He moved into our lives and quickly became as a good a friend to me, as he was to Jonathon. That's rare. I wish him well, but we miss him. I don't think it will really sink in until a couple of weeks are passed and he hasn't come over for dinner, or gone to a movie with us, or helped us explain Trinity's homework to her. There are nights when Richard, or Jonathon did dinner, I was still up writing, and whichever of one of them wasn't cooking helped Trinity with her homework. I think almost every couple I know that has school age children, and has both adults working outside the house, needs like a third adult some nights. We all seem so busy lately. I know families where the parents are so busy taking the kids from one event to another in the evening that they never really see eachother. The kids barely have time for homework. You know, I really don't believe that the kids are better off for being in soccer, field hockey, dance, and scouts, oh, and don't forget basketball, or baseball, or football, or sometimes almost all of it per child. That's insane. No adult would want that schedule. Sometimes I think we keep ourselves busy so we don't have time to decide whether we're really happy, or just spinning our wheels. We seem afraid of silence, and good conversation.

I add the silence for all you men out there, because I'll tell you what most men value more than good conversation. They value the ability to be in a room with people they care about, and are so comfortable with, that they don't have to talk. Jonathon and I do that some nights, either when Trinity is with her father, or after she's gone to bed. We sit in the livingroom and read, or just sit in companionable silence. One of our male friends, who is actually the husband of one of my best girlfriends, said a very profound thing once. His saying it was what gave me the clue to how much men value silence. My girlfriend and I were talking, of course, about how nice it was to get together with good friends, and talk. Her husband said, "Or not have to talk." I asked Jonathon about it later, and he confirmed that sometimes the highest compliment for a man is that he wants to sit with you in total silence, and feels comfortable doing it.

I know, I know, hard for most women. It's only this year that I realized just how much of our communicating is hardwired. Literally, as I've tried to cultivate silence, I find myself having to fight the urge to fill the silence. Fight the urge to talk. Sometimes I can't help myself, but more and more, I'm finding that the handful of friends that I can not only talk to, but also sit in silence with, are becoming more and more valued.

I'd had this idea before a saw a show called, DEFENDING THE CAVEMAN, it is traveling the country now. I urge any couple to see it. It talks, hilariously, about many of the differences between men and women. One part of the show talks about how women always want men to talk to them, and how men just don't get it. We've been forcing men to talk to us for decades, let's try to give them companionable silence sometimes. Not angry silence, not why won't you talk to me silence, but genuine happy to be in the same room with you silence. Try it, I know that Jonathon and I have found it lovely.

It is an interesting experience to be in a room with three adults, and having all of us reading, or making notes, in silence, but all of us being terribly content with that silence. Of the many things I learned from Joanthon's and Richard's friendship, that is one of the lessons I value most; the joy of shared silence. The other thing that I had to learn just to survive around Richard was being better at clever repartee. He is the master of the intelligent double entendre. Even our friend Greg has gotten better at it, out of sheer self-defense.

It's strange, I grew up in a house with no men. But married to Jonathon, we seem to have so many single male friends, that I've gotten sort of a crash course in the culture of maleness. And any woman who reads this and thinks, men, they have no culture . . . well, that woman just hasn't taken the time to pay attention to the men in her life.

It works both ways, of course, but I get tired of hearing women male bash, and say things that if a man said the exact same thing about a woman, they'd be painted as the blackest of villains. I strike a blow here for true sexual equality. Let us visit eachother's best qualities, not our worst.

Try a little silence. It may feel better than you think.

Things we like

House. Quirky Medical Drama show that we really like.


Cadfael. AKA CSI: Mideavil Shrewesbury. C'mon, its Derek Jacobi.


Coupling. The British Version. Not that horrible travisty that NBC did.

Enough for now.

Good signs

I did 21 pages yesterday, which is great, but I also did eight pages today. That's, in some ways, a better sign, because sometimes when you do some marathon page number the next day or two you're dried out. But I was eager to work once I sat down to it, again late in the day. But the eight pages has tired me out. I'm done for the day, but that's okay, because I've exceeded the five page goal. So I'm done, and I'm over quota. Very cool.

Yesterday I listened to the musical JEKYLL AND HYDE, original Broadway cast. Today it's been Breaking Benjamin's WE ARE NOT ALONE. I find that I'm changing music sometime half-way through the work day, but at the very least everyday, I change out. I've stopped fighting it, and complaining that with Anita I do the same music for days at a time. I've stopped complaining that this isn't the way I work, and accepting that, yea, actually, it is the way I work, when I'm working with Merry. Different isn't bad, it's just different.

Muse, too.

The muse is still with me. I got a very late start today, it being Saturday and a Trinity weekend. So I expected to get the five page count and nothing more today. At first, every page dragged out, then somewhere around page six or so, it just started flowing. Gotta love it when the writing flows like water from the proverbial cleft rock. By around seven-thirty tonight I had twenty-one pages. Twenty-one pages! Cool.

I'm going to bed now. Good-night.

Format Change

Ok, I've made some minor changes to the format of the blog. Minor to you, major for me.

I hope you all like the new look as well as I do.

The muse has struck

Today was one of those days that I wish everyday could be at the computer. I finished the days writing before lunch. Not just five pages, which is the goal, but sixteen pages. Sixteen pages written in a glorious rush. The demi-fey court was on stage, and to satisfy me about the moths, butterflies, insects, and such being accurate, I've used seven research books. Mostly identification books, so that I can pick insects that are native to Europe, and primarily England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. I found a wonderful book called, NIGHT VISIONS, which is this wonderfully coffee table book with fantastic close up pictures of moths. I've found it's much harder to find really good pictures of moths than of butterflies. We're at the Unseelie court, so we need more moths than butterflies. We have some butterflies among the Unseelie demi-fey, Sage for one, but I wanted more moths here. So NIGHT VISIONS was a great find. It's amazing how different the moths look up super close than from the normal pictures, where all you see is more surface and color. As a writer, I like the small details, and most insect photography just doesn't get up close enough for me. I'm allowing some of the demi-fey to be American fauna, because the fey have been here for over two hundred years. That's bound to have an effect on a type of fey that tries to blend in with the local flora and fauna.

Yes, my biology degree is showing. My bio background is one of the things that pushes me to get those realistic details that seems to make all the fantastic stuff so much more real.

Getting in the Mood

Getting in the Mood

It’s usally a good thing to wake up in the morning and know exactly what you’re going to be writing for the day, but not today. I’m supposed to do a sex scene today. Usually it’s not a problem, but today was one of those rare days when I’m just not in the mood. A lot of people across the country have asked me how do you write those scenes. Most of the time the biggest problem with writing a sex scene for me is the fact that with real sex you have the actually sensations, the immediacy of your own bodies reactions. In a book you have only words, black and white, only words to try and convey so many amazing experiences. Words seem so inadequate for it sometimes. But on one of the rare days when I get up and sex just isn’t the first thing on my mind, then a sex scene becomes a different kind of challenge. How do you get in the mood when you aren’t? How do you capture that mind set when what you’re doing in real life is refinacing your house, or walking the dog. How do you stay in the mood when the mundane world is so busy you aren’t even thinking about your own sex life let alone a fictional character’s love life?

When I worked alone at my house, and had only one small dog, Pugsley, I had put on lingere, lit candles around the computer, and tried to treat it almost like a romantic evening with a real person. It actuallly did help. There’s something about slipping on the thigh highs and black satin and lace, with some unhealthy but kick-ass shoes, that just does it for me. I enjoy dressing up, if I have the luxary of the privacy and the time. Those days are long past. There are days when we have close to thirty people in, out, and around the house and yard. I am not parading around in even a silk robe near windows where people can see me. Nope. Besides, now I have four dogs, and one of them is tall enough to look me in the eyes. You do not want to be wearing lingere when the big puppy decides to jump up on you. We’re working on the jumping up problem, but unless you’re absolutely consistent he falls back into bad habits. He is half boxer and they just love to be right up in your face. Besides, dog claws tend to catch in lace, and snag on silk. Nope, not dog safe. I’ve also got a ten-year-old daughter. I’m not sure what message I’d be sending if I paraded around the house in silk, and lingere. Think of the therepy bills when she grew up. Also, it tends to distract Jonathon, and when he gets distracted so do I. We might get a lot of ‘research’ done, but that doesn’t get pages made. Besides, Darla is here every day. Some days we have Darla, Mary, Sherry, and Lauretta. It’s just rude to keep disappearing up to the bedroom. Bear in mind that Mary, though an employee, is also Jonathon’s mother. Just think of the therepy bills.

So how do you get in the mood without bringing out the silk and candles? How do you get in the mood when the day is full of some very unsexy stuff? Well, I treat it like it’s not a sex scene. I treat it like it’s stage blocking. I break it down to the mechanicals. Where are we going to have the sex? What room you choose certainly effects how it’s going to happen. For today, bathroom, bath tub to be exact. I glanced back and discovered that Merry had never had a bathtub sex scene. An oversight on my part, Anita has had at least two. So the bathtub. First I need to decide how big the bathtub is. Most modern tubs don’t even hold one short person, let along two. I think that’s why we see so many shower scenes, because the tub just won’t work. So Merry’s tub is an over-sized one. It’s fiction, it makes it so much easier to change the props or set dressing. Not the orgy size tub that Jean-Claude has, or the gigantic one that I know the Queen of Air and Darkness has, but one that could hold two or three people with a little squeezing, and depending on the size of the people invovled. Okay, so we have our place. Now doing it in a bathtub limits some things. Missionary postiotion is out. That whole drowning thing. According to the sex therepaist from Canada there’s also a problem with having full intercourse in water, something about maybe getting infections from driving water into places it’s not supposed to go. The body is wonderfully protective, and unless you intrude in it, the body keeps water out of certain places. Intercourse changes that. So now I have to decide if I do my public service announcement, or pretend I didn’t know. Or just get carried away during the heat of the moment and thing, why not. It happens. If the scene starts working well enough that I’m no longer worried about logistics I won’t fight the scene. I’ll be happy that it’s working and let it find it’s own way. In fact, it would be ideal if the sex scene became like good sex itself, you get carried away sometimes. If you think this an awful lot of planning and it seems cold-blooded and not spontaneous enough, then all I have to say is spontaniety is for children. Good sex whether on paper or in real life takes planning. Especially if you want the sex to be good year after year, book after book. You got to put some thought into it.

Thought about who your character will be having sex with. Yes, the mechanics of love making are the same, but there are variations, and love making is like everything else it speaks to the personality, the intelligence, the creativity, of the people invovled. We’re doing Galen, and he is gentler energy than many of the men that Merry has in her life. So many people treat their character’s sex lives as if you always want the same intensity, same kind of sex. Not true, not for the most of the people I know. It would be like saying you always want to eat the same meal in exactly the same way every time. Sometimes a little gentle love making is exactly what the doctor ordered. One of the reasons that so many of the first times with the men has been rough, or lacked more foreplay sometimes, is, well, after a thousand years of celebacy I’m just not sure slow and gentle would be the way they’d want to go, or even be able to go. I went on the idea that the need would be so intense that it would have to be satisfied at least once before you could move away from that almost harsh need. Galen, as in so much else, is the exception. So, we have our man, and his personality. Now, in real life some very gentle people are not always the most gentle in the bedroom. Sometimes you get that reversal, but generally love making is an outgrowth of character. So, gentle. Gentle and poignant. We’ll also be including at least one other of the men. I haven’t decided who, yet. So many to choose from. But someone that compliments Galen’s personality. I’m not sure that any of the new men qualify. I just don’t know them that well yet.

So, I’ve got my physical location. My staging. By putting it in the bathroom, you know some of the props available, and some that are not. No nice roomy bed, no sheets. You get water, smaller spaces to use, so mostly none standard positions. You have soap, but you have to be careful on the soap, someo of it is simply not meant for internal use. Lubricant and soap are not always interchangeable. I know that we’re going to include a second man, and most of the men are on the tall side, so I think only two in the tub at the same time. Hmm. Okay. I think I’m ready to go make pages now.

This blog was written over a two to three day period. By day I finished the mood was better, and so was my mind set. I realize now that it wasn’t the sex that was making this one hard, but the emotional content. This next sentence is a spoiler, so if you don’t want it spoiled, stop reading now. You ready? You’ve been warned. Okay, spoiler coming. Galen almost died. Very near thing. Merry thought she’d lost him. Lost him for politics, and she’s beginning to realize what we all know, if we are thinking human beings. We may hold a political ideal, or a religious belief, or something we truly believe in, we truly believe it is worth going to war over, or defending with violence, but when we hold those we love in our arms; our children, our husbands, our wives, our fathers, our mothers. Nothing and no one seems worth loosing so much as a lock of hair from their heads, let alone their lives. Nothing is worth that, not really, not if you believe that it will cost that much. You may still pay the price. You may still run the risk. But in your heart, in the place where you live deep inside yourself, you know that the hand you hold, the body that falls asleep in your arms, is worth more than that. That letting them die for a cause, or a belief, or anything, is wrong. It is why it is so hard to win a war that has the people on the ground defending their homes and families. It doesn’t matter who is right, or who is wrong. People fight harder when their families are at stake, whether by the accident of a bomb hitting civillians, or by design. An invading force that does not truly feel that they are defending home, hearth, and family, is simply not going to fight as hard. We’re not wired to fight as hard for anything but the people we love. That we are hardwired to defend, to do anything to save. Merry is going to make love to Galen for the first time since she nearly lost him. And she has the knowledge now, not in the abstract, but in the blood he spilled, and that they are washing off of their bodies, that he almost died. That her bid for the throne almost cost him, his life, almost lost her, Galen. Powerful scene. Hard scene. Hard to pull off, and hard to write.

Finding Neverland (2004)

Finding Neverland (2004)

We just got back from seeing it, and we all (Myself, Laurell, and our friend Richard) thought it was a good movie. Richard also pointed out that it was a bit of a Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) reunion. At least two of the cast were in both movies.

All in all, it was a good Non-kiddo movie. Too emotionally charged for her, or even me on a bad day.

Well that's all I have to say for now. I'll post something more tomorrow, maybe even dog pictures to their galleries as I've been promising....

later

'Tis the season

Just got back from getting pictures with Santa for all four dogs. Yes, all four of them. We even have one picture with all of them in it at one time. They aren't all looking at the camera, but you can't expect miracles. The pictures were to benefit Impact for Animals. A local animal rescue group. They once talked us out of a puppy. I like a group that will tell you a rescue dog, or cat, is not for you.

Jimmy the Tyrant

Thanks to everyone who wrote in on suggestions about how to help Jimmy and Pip get along better. But, sorry to say, we already feed Jimmy first. We supported Jimmy in his attempt to retain alpha position. What happened was that Jimmy started growling and bitching at all the dogs, not just Pip. It was like with our backing, he became a little tyrant. So we then had to make him get along with the other dogs, too. Jimmy came to us hoarding toys, and has always been food aggressive enough that he is fed separtely and first from all the other dogs. Us backing him seems only to have turned Jimmy into a bully. Pip is more tolerant than he was, but eventually no self-respecting adolescent male dog of a dominant breed is going take being bossed around, or having toys stolen out of his mouth. He’d play with Jimmy in tug of war, but Jimmy doesn’t want to play. He simply wants to have the toy, and not let anyone else have it.

The Sixth time's the Charm

OK, we've been without reliable connectivity for the better part of a week now, and so a lot of the things we've been meening to put up on the Blog have not happened. In fact, I'm out at Bread Co. with Laurell, so that we can both have some kind of reliable connectivity to put things up. I'm going to paste in a blog Herself wrote the other day but never got posted.

Jonathon

Five times I tried yesterday to put up a blog. Five times. I had a nice big blog and the computer ate it. All blogger says, is that it’s not their fault that our connectivity isn’t stable. All I know is that unless the connection is perfect it will not let me save to draft, or post, or even try to cut and paste it out ot a word format. All these methods have ended badly. A very frustrating day for a technophobe like me. We had tons of rain yesterday, and everytime it rains the connectivity is up and down. We need a business cable run not a home cable. We have a business account, but not the hardware we should have, some technicality about the people who do the installation don’t have access to the right kind of cables. How stupid is that? But wait, it’s so they can charge you more to get a specilist in. Method to their maddness, but very irritating for me, and everyone at the house that tries to use the internet. Which is, all of us. Internet businesses need a stable internet connection. But I still think there must be some software change that blogger could make so that things automatically save in some way, so that I don’t keep putting up on the title of a blog, and nothing else. That’s why you guys got some line about, not light or pithy. I guess this one isn’t either. I’m writing this one in word format, so Jon can just keep trying until it loads.

Our friend Greg flew home yesterday. The visit went very fast. Jon and I spent Saturday night at the vet’s, with Jimmy. He’s okay, though not happy. He’s whining near me right now, because he hasn’t been fed. He won’t be allowed food until this evening, and if the symptoms return then we’ll be taking him back in to the vet. He’s on a very strick diet, not for weight loss, though he does need it for health, but for what amounts to gout of the pancreas. Too much rich food, too much weight, not enough exerscise, and being old. We’d been told no people food which we had adhered to, but the vet hadn’t explained how much richer different dog foods are, from what he’s on. Jon and I felt stupid for not realizing, that even a little bit of something else might hurt him. So no more getting treats from Sasquatch’s and Pippin’s food bowl. It was so quiet and calm while he was gone. There wasn’t a single dog fight. We never even had to use the squirt bottle a single time. Which let us know that Jimmy is starting most of the fights. The younger dogs will be playing and he esculates it to a real fight. He’s also got arthritis, and various other aches and pains. He’s just a grumpy old man, and he wants to be left the hell alone. Pip is still under two, so still a puppy, especially the larger dogs mature later. Pip maybe this happy and bouncy for years to come. Jimmy really hates all that bouncy energy. I used to think if Jimmy were younger he’d have put Pip in his place early and it would be settled by now. Now I believe that if Jimmy were younger the fights would have esculated to true violence by now. Jimmy won’t back down, and after he pushes so far, neither will Pip. And Pip is double his height, and nearly twenty pounds heavier, all of it lean muscle. We’ve planned to give Jim more alone time without the younger dogs bothering him so much. He gets mornings in my office just him and me usually, but we’ll try and give him some more alone time. Though the three younger dogs went to the groomers today, and when they all left without him, he howled so loud I heard it upstairs. So riddle me this Batman; why does he growl at them constantly, start fights, hoarde toys, not want to share anything anymore, but yet, howls like his heart is breaking when they leave? I don’t get it. The three younger dogs did not react badly to him being gone. They did not do what they do for eachother. They did not search the house for their missing pack member. They did not stare forlornly out the window. They did not whine, or howl, or otherwise act like they wondered what we’d done with him. They do this if any of the three of them is missing. Which let’s me know that they’ve about had it with the grumpy old man. Sigh.

OK, lets hope that this makes it to you guys.

I also hope to add some pictures of the dogs to their pages, and some of the construction as it progresses. but for now, this is the primary update.

Jonathon again

Testing, is anyone out there

This is a test to see if we are able to get anything up on blogger. We've been unable to post for four or five days. If this works Jon will try to post some of the blogs I did in word documents later today.