Rachael

Really, there is very little more pleasant than having your ass handed to you in yoga class (neatly packaged in recycled paper, of course), and then napping in the afternoon. Something about yoga acts as a sleeping pill. I have a good few hours after class, during which I am completely, utterly productive, and then I go WHOOMP and fall down. A nap at the nadir of that cycle is a lovely, lovely thing.

Now I'm up again, and have twenty more pages to edit today before I can feel I'm done for the day. But I have a cup of coffee at my right hand and to my left…. wait, I'll show you.

I'm in the phase where I can't do this work anywhere else. My set-up is highly specific. The page I'm working on is in the holder on the pull-out desk tray, next to the wireless keyboard I prefer. The laptop is sitting on my old wooden writing desk that Mom used for years after I moved out of the house (I found it at a garage sale eons ago). It's at the perfect eye level. To the far left is the binder in which I place the finished pages. To my right is the Crotch Lake mug (thanks to Alison La Brainy) that I love so much. The kitchen timer to the right of that makes me work.

I'm going to wind it now. Work and then dinner. Lala's grilling steaks!

Radishes! We has them!

And they are BIG suckers. I've never known suicidal radishes — they've been hurling themselves out of the ground at a rate that I can barely keep up with. (Sad: I think I plucked a beet on accident yesterday, thinking it was a radish. Do their leaves look similar? No, wait, they don't, now that I think of what beet greens look like. Huh. In any case, I shoved it back in the ground, hoping for the best. I WANT A BEET.) (Also: see that funny purple one? It tastes like a radish all right, but looks funny.)

And Lala is mad busy in the garden, mulching. She is a mulching fool.

 

See? Free mulch, under the freeway in Oakland. We have a system, rake it into the tubs and then dump it into contractor bags. Works great and she has almost all of the backyard done! Foxtails, begone.

And just for fun, an Extremely Rare Sighting of Adah off the top of the fridge. She loves the Love Blanket, too (although that was the first time I'd allowed her on it — she matches so well, how could I deny her?).

 

Editing: Continues apace. I'm an editing fool. GOOD GOD I LOVE EDITING. (Really.)

If you follow my Twitter feed, you already know that sister Christy and I ran the Bay to Breakers (7.5 mi) yesterday. It was our second time doing it, and while it was fun, IT WAS TOO HOT. We were crushed by the heat, actually. We ran about 3.5 miles and walked/ran the rest of it (more walking than running). Everyone else was doing the same thing, too. Man, the reason you run in San Francisco is to run in cold fog, not to slog along in heat.

The best part were the photo spot areas: one we did like normal, running happily, smiling big. Then we decided, what the hell? We HAVE those kinds of photos. So for the next two photo spots, we Chariots of Fired it, putting our bodies into slow-motion, arms pumping, faces grimacing. Then at the finish we finally got the lead out and really raced each other the last 500 feet or so (the announcer yelled our names! I've always wanted that!). It felt like I was six again, dodging around people and things, with one goal in mind, TO CATCH CHRISTY (she's always had longer legs). We crashed into each other on the finish line and howled with laughter as we tried to catch our breath (the air at the ocean was blessedly cooler, too, which helped). That was the best part.

Neither of us were even inspired enough to go pick up our race shirts — we just walked down to Muni and got on the train which was packed and rather agonizing, in many ways. Here we are, the two smilers:

 

Now, for your Monday pick-me-up, you should go check out  a knitted English village. It's amazing.

I've been to Annie's blog before, but I was blog-hopping, as I am wont to do. But now, I'm seriously her biggest new fan.

She takes care of her mother, Josephine, who has Alzheimer's (and who is an artist in her own right – Oh, PLEASE click that link – it's amazing). She was part of the Memory Loss Tapes, the first of four documentaries in The Alzheimer's Project (you should TiVo it!).

The show is lovely, and difficult to watch, and necessary, and it's so good, in the middle of the heartbreak to see Annie carding fiber, her spinning wheel in the background, loving her mom SO HARD.  (It's an easy-to-miss line, but she says it was her spinning group that helped her put up the fence around the perimeter of her farm, the fence that protects her mother from the road. Of course it was. Bless the fiber-folk.)

Also, I can't be the only one who noticed Josephine hums everywhere she goes?

Annie also raises alpacas (as well as dogs, chickens, and llamas). Alpacas hum when they're happy.

When I retire, I'm moving in with Annie.

Yesterday, Lala and I made ourselves hysterical with laughter. I was literally out of my damn mind, tears rolling down my face. Funniest thing I've heard in years. It all started with the Best Joke You Can Play On A Writer.

Lala: I could sneak in here and change all the names of your characters! Find and replace! Suddenly your main character is named Evelyn! And you don't know why!

Rachael: [It takes me a minute to get on board.] I hope you saved my file as something else first.

Lala: Of course. And then, I could add adverbs! Lots of them!

Rachael: Silkily. Creepily. Scurrilously!

Lala: I could find and replace every "He said" with….

Rachael: "He whispered!"

Lala: And every "She said" could be "She shrieked!"

[We are by this point almost on the floor, slayed by our own wit.]

Rachael: "She shrieked, she shrieked!"  HAHAHAHAHA!

Lala: And then, oh my God…. Then, I could find and replace "He nodded" to….

Rachael: "He took off all his clothes!"

Lala (choking): I'm so sad I missed April Fool's!!!!

Rachael: What if I sent that version to my agent? Pay it forward! Then the next thing I send her would be so much better in comparison! Let's do it!

There you go. Now you know what to get the special writer in your life for their next birthday! Help them with their manuscript! They'll thank you in the long run. For sure.

Hullo, kids.

Just a drive-by post — I've been busy with editing Book Two along with working approximately eleventy-million hours at the J.O.B. I'm trying to get the book into good enough shape to send to my Amazing Agent, Susanna Einstein, by the beginning of June. I'm doing the hard-copy edits now, and then I'll input them into the computer next week (that takes SO long, and it's the most tedious part of writing, I think).

The best part is now. The book is written, and I'm playing around inside it, tinkering, moving things, seeing if they fit better over here or over there.

My favorite part of moving is after the furniture has been dumped inside the house. All the corners are clean, and you can put the couch here and see what you think about it. You can hang a picture there and then move it three times until you love it.

That's the stage I'm in right now. It won't last long, so I'm enjoying every minute of it. There will be many such minutes today — I'm an editing fool today.

At least I have help.

Off to the coffee shop now. Not even bringing the computer. I will get SO much done this way.