Week of June 13-19

[mrissa]

Two rejections, no acceptances, and several days off that were genuine days off and not days when I tried to work and failed. I'm looking forward to some work next week, though, maybe even this weekend while greykev is doing other stuff (he's very self-entertaining).

Yesterday, porphyrin got an unexpected husband -- her unexpected husband, I should probably say -- so we moved our plans to Monday so she could get some family time in before she went on call in the stupid hospital that's making her sad. (I get fierce about things that make porphyrin sad. GRRRR! Fear my fierceness, Fairview! Say that five times fast!) We're going to go down to Nina's, where we hauled poor dd_b without warning him that there would be a lounge singer with a heavy Russian accent, because Roo's Auntie Eleanor thought this would be good fun. But that's Monday. Yesterday greykev and I went to Como, the Zoo and the Park and especially the Conservatory, and then we and timprov and C.J. ate at Fat Lorenzo's.

Today I got a long-expected husband (mine), dropped him off home to sleep a bit, and took Kev to Byerly's and Lock And Dam No. One. Tonight we're cooking.

I had not been to Lock And Dam No. One (on the Mississippi). It is nifty. It makes me happy in ways I can't really explain. There are the gears and the walks and the River and the locks and...um...the dam...see, I know that isn't particularly edifying. But it's just good, is what. I came up with going when we got to the River from the Falls Thursday night -- I looked at the River and said, "Lock And Dam Number One!" in a flummoxed voice. Because I've read Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, is probably why. It hadn't occurred to me that JG&R was set in Mpls because Mpls is so much the archetype of what cities are like to me that all of the Mpls-specific stuff in it just seemed to be the way the world works, the first time I read it. But then it hit me that we, like Rosemary's Girl Scout troop, could go to Lock and Dam No. One. I'm glad we did.

Comments

[pameladean]

It's set in Minneapolis with a couple of pockets of Omaha, which is where I went to high school and which would not go home quietly when asked.

I love Lock and Dam Number One for a lot of reasons -- cliff swallows, technology, the river -- but partly because, well, look, it's NUMBER ONE. It's THE FIRST ONE. There's this whole river that starts in Itasca (cue the Indigo Girls now, please) and goes to New Orleans, and this is the first piece of this kind of technology on it. I feel ridiculously possessive about the Mississippi. We got it first, ha ha ha.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Mpls with pockets of Omaha -- no wonder it felt like "exactly how cities are" to me. I don't think someone could have planned that better for me as a reader, and I think I'd be alarmed if they did.

I've been singing that song all evening now, thanks to you. Only sometimes we have been known to sing, "I'm in love with your goats" when we're a bit overemotional to deal with the real version. Or when we're in a good mood and silly. (This is not the royal we. This is me and Timprov.) Sadly it's the former tonight.

I saw no swallows but many dragonflies. Of which I approve.

[pameladean]

It's scary when writers do that, isn't it?

I'm glad that, if I had to earworm you, it was with a song that you had already figured out how to deal with.

I'm glad to hear about the dragonflies. Raphael photographs them (www.chaparraltree.com, click on the obvious) and they are a bit late coming out this year because of the weather.

Pamela

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

K and I wrote a review of Nina's. I'll send it to you.

B

[timprov.livejournal.com]

We (at least I) did read it at the time, but didn't save it.