Oreo puck

I hit a prickly spot in the 'Sword & Scabbard' edit late this afternoon. The chapters weren't flowing right, so I changed the order, but it still wasn't right. (Thank goodness for Write It Now; moving chapters in Word is a pain in the butt.) When I went downstairs to start dinner, I thought of the solution. Sometimes it really helps to step away for a while.

After dinner I headed back to the salt mine with a mug of ice coffee and a couple of Oreo cookies. I put them on the table beside me and got back to work. Chloe heard me come back upstairs and naturally thought I'd come to pay attention to her. Poor thing--she got a little scritchy and nothing more, so of course she decided to investigate everything nearby. I was on a really good roll when I felt her bunch up against my side. Before I could turn to see what she was doing, she gave one of my cookies a good whack and sent it half-way across the room. She was heading after it when I fussed at her. I found her something else to play with, but for now she's opted to sit across the room and watch me. Goofy cat.

I do have to say that although this edit is threatening to consume my entire life, it feels good to be writing again. Alex goes to school in 11 days and has made me promise to turn his room into an office. The goal is to have this done by then so I'm not taking old baggage into my new space.

Hot!*

Summer is finally here. It's running a couple weeks late this year; usually we break 100 by the middle of July. I have a theory about the delay, though it's highly unscientific.

First, because of timing issues, we didn't make it to the Midwest Rendezvous like we usually do. You'll remember last year that we had three days of rain and five days of blazing, miserable heat, which is a little wetter than the norm but well within standards. Since we weren't there, the weather was lovely.

Second, the date for The Old Time Music Fete at the Cahokia Court House was moved from the last Sunday in July to the middle of September. State budget cuts forced the closure of several state parks and historic sites, and Cahokia was on the block, so they delayed the Fete until the budget could be straightened out. Dudley's Rush played there the last two years, and the heat was miserable. Although we're on hiatus and not playing this year, I'm sure the weather will hold for the benefit of those who do.

Today and tomorrow we're supposed to have thunderstorms on and off, but it's not going to help with the heat. In fact, it will probably make the heat worse by keeping the humidity up. That's OK. Rain means not watering, and I've got AC in the house and an edit to finish. My garden is happier with the current conditions, so I guess that's what really matters.

*This is me, trying to be cute. Val has a blog post titled "Honey!" and Jean posted the other day about "Deer!" I was going to put up something lame about baking friendship bread and call it "Sweetie" but a quick check of Thesaurus.com gave me other synonyms, so at least the post isn't deadly dull. Unfortunately, these days my witty is a pity, and I still have to bake the darn friendship bread.