Category Archives: True Stories

Anecdotes from my past and present.

Magic fairy birthday princess

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I am a few weeks ahead of the Buffy rewatch, which is important for sanity reasons and nice for the Tor.com folks too. Anyway, it worked out that this week I wrote the column for “Surprise” and “Innocence,” which I called “A Very Unhappy Birthday.”

Anyway, by some peculiarity of timing, it’s now my birthday… whee! And it started at 12:30 a.m. when our downstairs neighbor started pounding nails right under our sleeping heads. They’re replacing the windows in our building, and just got to her suite, and I’m sure there are things needing remounting. She was very apologetic. She hadn’t realized it was so late. But Still!

My plans today are modest: running out to play a quick round of 1-800-I Gave You Life, you Give Me Tech Support! with Barb, a little teaching, a big late lunch at the home of cheesy goodness on Hastings, Au Petit Chavignol.

And, if I get lucky, maybe a nap. Meanwhile, here’s your gift: a visit to Youtube for my favorite birthday earworm.

Italy Adventures: Case of the Kooky Corkscrew

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Before I tell you all about Christmas in Modica, I want to let you know I’ve got another Buffy Rewatch up on Tor.com, this one about the Early Scoobies.

Kelly and I spent the morning of December 25th scampering up and down the town of Modica, which is built in a serious ravine. Our opulent and gorgeous bed and breakfast was on a long street at the bottom of the incline, just downhill from the biggest of the churches, Saint George.
See? Steep!
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We climbed up to the church and I shot pictures of a few songbirds; there’s a sort of garden around the Duomo, and a little lemon grove. Then we went higher, looking for the clock tower but never quite finding it.
We had a reservation at a restaurant for a big holiday brunch and turned up for that after our hike, along with a number of big Italian families. The food started with a big plate of appetizers and then piled on course after course: three pastas, two meats, two desserts, sweet wine.
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The plan had been to feast like queens for lunch, roll home and then just picnic for supper. We were prepared, because we’d spent much of the 24th acquiring fruit, bread, meat (a lot of meat, because the vendor was extra-cute and charming), more fruit, cheese, cookies and wine. We were trying out as much real Sicilian wine as we could, naturally, so Kelly could learn about it. But horrors! As we were headed back to the room, laden with grocery goodness, we realized we hadn’t managed to get our hands on a corkscrew.
If we hadn’t been carry-on only girls, we might have brought one from Canada, but it seemed a good prospect to get confiscated at the airport.
There was a random scattering of open stores, even though we’d picked a bad time, night before Christmas and all. Though, actually, we always found it rather hard to figure out what types of shops and services would be open in Italy at various times of day. We started going into one place after another, asking for a corkscrew. There was a gadget place that seemed especially promising, but the owner only sold batteries, shaving implements, lottery tickets, first and second-hand smoke… and not so much housewares. Finally we went into a wine bar and the owner told us we could hit up the store down the street (also owned by her) for one.
And they did have one for sale, but it was part of a set of expensive and useless wine accessories. We might have sucked it up, though. Because wine! At Christmas! In Modica! But the folks on duty there decided to lend us theirs. Bring it back on Boxing Day, they said, and so that’s exactly what we did.
(We found the Sicilians supernice in this way everywhere we went, whether or not we could communicate with them.)
It was a good picnic, and that afternoon was practically the only window of time that we spent loafing, rather than walking out to see some marvelous sight. Or walking half a block to make sure nobody had towed, ticketed, rammed or made off with our rental car. After the massive Christmas lunch, we couldn’t possibly have moved! We didn’t break into the stash o’ food for about six hours.
Here’s Saint George’s:
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A farewell to the blankie

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In 2001, before we left for Greece with Snuffy, I bought one of those fleece blankets they make from recycled pop bottles, and wedged it into my backpack with a bunch of other warm-weather gear that I thought might be superfluous.

It turned out it wasn’t a bad idea at all. We were there in April and May, on the cusp of summer, and there were some scorching days but also more than a few really chilly ones.

This year, to celebrate the blanket’s tenth birthday, I took it back to Europe… and left it there. Hopefully someone will give it a good home. Kelly and I decided to travel light, you see–in fact, we took carry on luggage only. Our wee bags were pretty crammed when we left, and part of the plan was to jettison some old clothes and other items if we acquired new items or souvenirs.

The blanket made it all the way back to Rome before it got the boot. It was an odd but nevertheless satisfying sacrifice. And before we let it go, I asked Kelly to pose for a good-bye shot.

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Blue Magic Cover Reveal

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Blue Magic will be out on April 10th, which is a mere 124 days from now, and I am excited and extremely proud to have the official go-ahead on showing you the cover art…

Lovely, mmm? This is a composite image–the portrait is by photographer Clayton Bastiani and the nebula (here’s the original) comes to us from NASA. The exquisite design is by Jamie Stafford Hill. All of this effort was pulled together by the Tor Books art department, and in particular the wonderful Irene Gallo. Thank you, team Tor! It’s a beautiful cover and really appropriate.

What I love about this cover–besides that it looks so at home with the original Indigo Springs art and that it’s gorgeous in its own right–is that the figure could be one of several of the characters from the novel… but that’s something I’ll talk about in a later post, after more of you have read it. I’m actually contemplating a Who is She? contest, to run after Blue Magic‘s available… when? Oh, April 10th, that’s right.

P.S. If you click on the image, it gets bigger.

Slave to the wee beasties

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A few weeks ago I decided that it would be good for all of us if Rumble got a bit of a run in every night before bedtime. What’s spilled from that decision is the following bedtime routine:

First, there’s a bit of hopeful chirping as the evening winds down. “Are you going to bed now? How about now? Now?” This is, in fact, an improvement over his snoozing all evening on the bed, resting up so he can wake me at three in the morning for a snuggle, get threatened with Squirty Bottle, and stampede in terror over Kelly’s sleeping form.

When bedtime finally comes, I have a little snack and get out of my clothes, all while Rum lurks about impatiently, with an air of “You’re not gonna forget, right?”

I then drag the peacock feather around our bed while he chases and pounces and tries to kill and kill again.

Playtime for Rumble

Meanwhile, Minnow, who’s realized that Fun is being Had, sits in the kitchen sending Big eye vibes of Hope through the wall.

Minnow in the Morning

Once Rumble’s wiped out, I leave him with a feather to gnaw and close him in the bedroom so he can’t beat the crap out of her for getting involved. This is necessary because a) he’s not dumb; b) Minnow playtime is a high-volume, impossible to miss scrabble of claws on the faux-hardwood floor. I take the other peacock feather and set Minnow on a mad, looping, acrobatic feather chase in the kitchen (I was using a laser pointer to run her around, but I dropped it and it died, and I haven’t replaced it yet.) Anyway, this goes on until…

Rumble starts crying piteously at the bedroom door and Kelly has her face washed and jammies on.

I am hoping to get video, but of course they tend to stiffen up when the camera comes, usually in an attitude of “Oh, did you want a close-up of what’s right under my tail?”