ants, jury duty, tea, blogs

Counters cleared, watching for ants... The first four pics are from today, 15 August 2009...

The first two are a pain in the butt. The second two are things of which I have too many.

But they overlap, because ants are also things of which I have too many, but they are bad. Tea and blogs are not bad. (In moderation, and then I suppose it's all a matter of opinion.)

Jury duty is something of which I was supposed to find out as early as 5 PM yesterday, but that status has been pushed to Monday after 5 PM. Thea's going back for university on Tuesday, and maybe I will take her, maybe Bob will. We won't known until after 5 PM on Monday.

Both sides of the sink had to evacuated, including the right window frame, where the nasty little buggers were entering!

Not as big of a pain as ants, but a drag, yet, I will have Monday, one last day with my lovely girl (to whom we owe the ants because she left out the sugar yesterday and yes, I do love her so!). Not sure what we'll do; today we were thinking of seeing The Time Traveler's Wife, but now, as Bob and his girls (who had a LOVELY time on their Midwestern holiday) have gone for a walk. A bit early for a film, and I need to write about that too.

Which brings me to blogs. Because this blog seems to not only be about writing. It's also about me. And my non fictional chronicles, which includes ants, jury duty, tea, blogs, kids, movies, snails, monster tomato plants, music, kids here and gone, sport (did I mention it's almost American football season?) laundry, driving, and so many other things that have very little to with writing.

Two drawers' worth of bits from the left of the stove, where poison was applied; things for Thea to sort later, bless her!

So, because of that, and a sudden realization that the writing is going to be something I hadn't planned at all, I'm splitting off some of the writing, the nitty gritty, to this blog:

A Year of Writing, Dangerously

A take-off of the title from a great film, The Year of Living Dangerously (one of which I cannot recommend highly enough, Linda Hunt so deserving of her Best Actress Oscar). And this is exactly WHY I'm starting another blog.

Linda Hunt playing a man has absolutely NOTHING to do with writing.

So, if you want to know about the work (and only the work) A Year of Writing, Dangerously is a place to check. (And flog me mercilessly when I starting discussing the lack of clotted cream in this country!)

Temporary tea station, for at least today; my mug awaiting me...

This blog will still be the primary source, the Mothership, as Gaelikka so aptly put it. What we in this household call Bob's work, but it fits perfectly with this blog.

Then there are the various book blogs (I sound like an addict; a bottle here at my computer, a quart jar beneath the sink, another fifth hidden under my bed.) plus Music for Various American Airports, which details my brother's death in 1997 and how that changed me completely.

1992; my late brother who LOVED using that mug for his coffee and would have pinched it if he thought he could have gotten away without me noticing...

Just in case you thought I'd lost my angsty edge. No, it'll be firmly attached until I'm either dead or too rattled to remember.

No guarantees on the duration of that blog, but A Year of Writing, Dangerously will be just that, one year. From when I started it (only yesterday, after sitting at the garage waiting for my car's oil change and realizing I'll be starting another story next week, jury duty be darned!) until the end of July, 2010. There is something coming, more stories than I can sort, and all I can do it write.

It's been a busy year already, maybe it could be deemed Eighteen Months of Writing Like There Is No Tomorrow. Either way, it's an exercise of sorts, not only in the words count.

But in faith, trust, letting something else be the guide, and I'm not talking ants or monster tomato plants.

Okay, so this is overlong as it is. I'll put this post up along the sidebar, as a explanation of sorts, but there you have it. Yet...

I'm drinking tea, fighting a backache as well as ants, but loving the sunshine and the return of my girls, knowing there is a challenge of sorts in the coming months, and that the San Francisco 49er's beat the Denver Broncos in a pre-season game last night 17-16. Yes, American football is right around the corner. More on The Time Traveler's Wife (the film, as I won't get the book, which I have not read, until someone takes Thea home, retrieving it from her bookshelf) in a day or so, depending on when we get around to seeing it. But there is Monday, one last day with my eldest daughter who will then head back to her life. Not banished because she left the sugar out, but off to live her life, which makes me realize how fleetingly it all is. At the write-in on Thursday, Sparky had his three-month-old daughter with him, he who spoke first about The Time Traveler's Wife. As Lisa and I could only stare at his adorable little girl, I told him that while Thea is twenty, it was really just yesterday she was three months old.

Thea at six months with her daddy, but really it was only yesterday...

Time; as it does for Henry and Clare, jumping all over, it does for me. My kids were small, now one will be legal to drink in a matter of months. Someone I loved died thirteen years ago, converging with what I'll write in the next eleven and half months as I sip yet another cup of tea...

Cups of tea, the thread binding it all together...

(And at 11 AM, ants seemed to have found another place in which to dwell, thank you Jesus!! Maybe we WILL go see that movie this afternoon...)