reel poast

Spouse is at her annual art-teacher conference, which this year is in Orange Beach. She texted me a view from her hotel balcony. It was all boring and blue and flat! Anyway, she left late Thursday morning and is planning to return early Sunday afternoon. I think she missed the Clematis in bloom, inappropriately late in the season, and colonizing my ramp in competition with muscadine and nameless unwanted vines. The Clematis is disturbingly invasive, but it's definitely my first choice for the side of the ramp. Our contractor is, supposedly, going to finish the roof and walls of the greenhouse, if not this weekend, very soon. We had a conversation about whether 44°F should be rounded to 40°F or 50°F. 40°F is, of course, the environmental limit for several of our tropical plants in large and heavy pots. He's carrying them into our house himself, and out to the greenhouse later too, if the greenhouse isn't ready by the time the National Weather Service predicts the dreaded 40. But he will probably make it.

To my seven simultaneous geological projects that I mentioned a few weeks ago one needs to add converting an old publication from out of print to free digital download. This is taking longer than I expected (partly my fault) but the bulk of my work on the project is done I think. Of the eight projects, one is completely finished, and only one is currently in my hands (and that's because I decided to add something to it). So I realized Friday afternoon that it was time to decide what to do next at work: a novel experience! There are some housekeeping things to catch up on, one of which will be a multi-day chore. I guess I'll start that Monday unless something with a deadline shows up first.

The weather has been very nice, but I have not spent a lot of time out in it. When it gets a little warmer, in a couple of hours, I will go out and stroll around the garden. I know we have three or four green peppers still pretending they're going to grow a little bigger and lots of flowers. Tomorrow afternoon our yard man is supposed to come and I will be out there with him pointing out all the six and 12 foot tall weeds as opposed to the highly desirable shrubs, etc.

I haven't been writing very much poetry or fiction because I have been writing nonfiction at work. National novel writing month starts in a couple of weeks. I toyed with the idea of trying to write a connected series of short stories, but I'm certain that I don't have time. D2 tells me she's going to write a novel and I'm sure that will be a good experience for her, whether or not she finishes it. I'm just trying to write one haiku a day!

We went to a reading, I think it was Wednesday night. A friend of ours who is a professional science fiction writer and used to live here was in town promoting his latest book. His name is Andy Duncan, and he has a very distinctive voice and fantastic ability to create characters and settings. The new book is called the Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories. Anyway, really enjoyed the reading, and chatting with them afterwards. I had lunch with him and his wife yesterday at a local blue-collar lunch spot I had never been to. Their sandwiches are good and so the prices, but the location is less than ideal (it is downtown, so it's a good location for them, just not for us). The day before I ate lunch with another friend of mine at a new Chinese restaurant called Mr. Chen's. D2 likes it and she has been there a time or two; I had never been there before. It has a Chinese grocery store attached, and they always look fascinating. I particularly noticed exotic junk food and snack food that would be fun to serve at a New Year's Eve party, for instance. There was more than one brand of wasabi peas, which is unusual. Alas, the food was bland. I ordered orange chicken, which I guess is supposed to be sweet, but this was sweet enough to be Southern iced tea! It is also supposed to be hot; at least there was a hot pepper symbol next to the item on the menu. It wasn't hot. It really didn't have any flavor besides sweetness. I would rate it 1 on a scale of one to five. One of the two people I ate with had something else that was supposed to be hot. Zero hotness was detected. The restaurant looks nice, and there are many items on the menu, but are any of them any good? The restaurant is conveniently located, but there is a small Japanese diner across the street and it is much better, based on my experience so far.