A couple of girlfriends are back in town for the holidays, so our little Lady Writers Group went out to dinner last night. I’d put on one of my 1950s style dresses (at home, obviously) and was looking at myself dubiously in the mirror when Young Indiana came in and says, “You look BEAUTIFUL, Mommy! Wear that! Wear that!” ♥ ♥ ♥ So I wore that. :) We ( Read more... )

In an unexpected WIKTORY, I got 3900 words written today and am now only a day behind on Nano. Indeed, had I not run out of battery I think I’d have caught up on it, but, well. No battery.

Fortunately, Chapters Books had gotten in GREEN EARTH, the revised, one-book edition of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Science in the Capital trilogy, so I had something ( Read more... )

Ireland isn’t doing very well at spring this year. There was a week of warm afternoons a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been clear a lot, but quite cold. Today it seems to have moved directly into November, with wind and rain and 6°-that-feels-like-0° temperatures.

On top of that, there’s a 48 hour bus strike going on in Dublin this weekend. However ( Read more... )

As several people have asked, I confess that the weather was utterly miserable last night and so I stayed home and watched two more episodes of s3 Continuum, which continues to be a show that makes me happy. (It has a female lead in a role that 10 years ago almost certainly would have been a guy. She’s a ‘strong’ character in that yes, she’s kick- ( Read more... )

Ridiculously beautiful day yesterday. We spent FAAAR more time at the zoo than expected, and saw Everything. Ev.Er.Ee.Thing. Attempted to go to the Botanic Gardens today. Well. Succeeded, actually, but got rained on so only went through the greenhouses and not all the grounds.

Tonight I made a strawberry rhubarb crumble. It was gorgeous.

I got some ( Read more... )

The weather has taken a sudden turn for the better, causing me to accidentally work on my sunburn a little yesterday. Gonna have to find the sunblock today. (Or not, as it’s all foggy-ish now.)

We spent over an hour at the park yesterday chasing a frisbee around, which was great fun. My nephew has this lightweight mostly-fabric frisbee that rises ( Read more... )

There is very little more entertaining in this world than having Sarah Rees Brennan relate the plot of one of her favourite books to you. It is, I’m fairly convinced, *much* better than actually reading the books, which I think cannot possibly match up to the dramatic and detailed retellings Sarah performs.

Last night during a post-dinner drink at ( Read more... )

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So my Walker Papers editor, Matrice, is in Ireland this week. With some crazy last minute planning, we managed to meet up for lunch today in Kilkenny, which is about halfway between where she was and where I am.

I hopped on the train and had a lovely ride down, and got off the train grinning like a five year old full of anticipation. Matrice was ( Read more... )

Last night Maura McHugh and Lynda Rucker launched the inaugural Laydeez Do* Comics event in Dublin. It was an enormously successful launch, with 3 excellent speakers (Sarah McIntyre, Alan Nolan and Maeve Clancy) and around 15-20 attendees. I saw people I knew, met new people, and met some people who knew me. :)

As always, going and talking to ( Read more... )