Tuesday, as noted, we did the Portland underground tour, then had a lovely late lunch and then spent some time at Powells, then went back home and crashed a while, eating leftovers instead of going out for yet another huge meal.

Wednesday, we drove to Seattle, where my folks finally got to see Mark’s apartment. We hung out a bit, went to Agua Verde for a drink, then Tilth for dinner. That was…an adventure. Tilth is still scrumptious, but the portion size seems to be creeping ever downward. Even so, we left with full bellies (and empty pockets).

This morning we had coffee and a bite at their hotel, before heading down to Seattle Center and lunch at the Space Needle.

From there, back on the monorail to Pike’s Market and surrounds (Fluevog!), for a bit of shopping, and ice cream…then, utterly exhausted, we’ve collapsed in our separate chambers till dinnertime…oh, very soon here.

Gee, I wonder why I can’t lose any of this weight.

Grasses and pollens are in the air, and though I don’t generally have a problem with that, I got something in my eyes when I was weeding last week, and the itchy burning puffiness is taking forever to go away. Bleh.

Other than that, everything going very well! Today we’re going to do an underground tour and probably hit Powells. Tomorrow, Seattle.

My folks are very taken with the fish. We all spent a long time watching the aquarium. Of course that might be because I don’t have a TV.

I had a good open house today.

The weather is hot and gorgeous.

Nothing more to report!

Earlier today, I made a stab at Cleaning All The Things (as one does before a parental visit), and also did some real estate stuff, exploring neighborhoods I hadn’t been through before.

And lo, now I am tired, and my eyes itch. Several days ago I was weeding and got some grassy seedy weedy stuff right in my eyes, and I’m still suffering an allergic reaction from it. I’m generally not prone to allergies–spring pollens and the like don’t do much to me–but apparently getting the stuff directly in the eye will do it. :/

And Mark arrives tomorrow! Yay! I know I just saw him in LA, but he hasn’t been here in several months, and I am very much looking forward to that.

The ones who get right up behind you in the lane going all I HAVE TO GET BY YOU I HAVE TO GO FASTER GO GO GO NOW MOVE OVER NOW NOW and then you do move over and they’re all, Oh what pretty trees there are out there, I don’t like the song playing on the radio I must change it, is that my phone ringing?

Just like the cat going OPEN THE DOOR I MUST GO OUTSIDE NOW NOW NOW OR I WILL SURELY DIE, and then you do open the door and they sit in the doorway.

They didn’t want to actually go out, or to pass you. They wanted the door open, or the lane free. It’s all about options. I get it now.

Anyway, despite all that, I’m home safe, and perfectly exhausted. I have smart and interesting larger thoughts about things discussed with Shelly Rae at breakfast, about Twitter vs. blogging, and the discipline of small creativity, but those thoughts will have to wait for another day. (It was her smartness, leading to my interesting thoughts–or at least I think they’re interesting!)

But! He will be home soon, he is in northern California as we speak, and will be in Portland on Sunday or Monday.

I had a very nice dinner with Scarlettina before the reading; and the reading itself was nicely attended. And people seemed to like my story excerpt. So, all good!

Breakfast with Shelly Rae tomorrow, then back home, jiggity-jig. Sleep now!

Then there will be cutting ahead, so this should still be a reasonably sized book.

Also spent another chunk of time in the yard today. I decided that some volunteers were really weeds, so out they went, and their little bulbs too. Hard work; I’d thought to go for a swim in the afternoon, but the yard work wore me out.

Tomorrow, Seattle. Come to our reading!

I’ll be reading from “A People Who Always Know,” from DAW’s The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity.

See you there!

Anyway, on and on like that.

Also I cleaned the aquarium filter, which isn’t hard, particularly, but it is a bit stressful, because if you don’t pay attention and do it right, you may suddenly find yourself with 20 gallons of water where they don’t belong, as you unplug hoses and whatnot…also there’s electricity involved. But, the fish are much happier now, or at least they would be happier if they understood, which of course they don’t–all they know is that I spent all kinds of time fiddling with their environment without actually feeding them, which is confusing indeed to their little fish brains.

And then I wrote about 2,500 words on Nightcraft Mother–again I wasn’t aiming for word count particularly, but rather there are only two more dreadful things that need to happen before I’m through adding stuff to the front part here, and I got to one of them, and the next one is on its way; so that was hard work too, though satisfying.

And before all that I woke up early and went into the office for the Tuesday sales meeting, and no wonder I’m tired!

Even the getting up early. Mostly.

I flew down Friday morning crazy-early, caught a cab to Gretchen’s, where Krissy S. was visiting. The three of us decided we needed coffee–them because they were just getting going for the day, me because I’d been up for EIGHT HOURS already by then.

We walked to the beach, then down to Venice.

I’m still in Pacific Northwest regalia, not quite grokking pleasant weather yet

It ended up being about an hour walk, gorgeous and well worth it.

Sun! Sand! Palm trees!

Eventually, we got our coffee, and eventually-eventually, Doselle joined us and we got a fabulous lunch.

Krissy had a beer

I might have had some wine too.

From there, it was back to the apartment, for some nice lazing about, until Mark got off work and could join us. Then, more hanging out; eventually Mark and I went off to sushi, leaving the others to all kinds of mischief I don’t even know what.

Saturday, we slept in (yay!) (my four hours of crappy sleep did catch up with me, yes), then had an outrageous breakfast at The Original Pancake House; then I got to see where Mark has been working all this time–fascinating! No pictures of this, because if I showed you, I’d have to kill you. Sorry.

After that, we went to see The Avengers, along with the rest of the western hemisphere. (And after quite a bit of mucking about trying to find a theater that wasn’t entirely sold out.) It was FABULOUS! Glancing around on the internet today, I see that we aren’t alone in this assessment. I would TOTALLY see it again. And I am TOTALLY not the audience for this–and it was still fabulous. Delightful–even in a theater full of squirming screaming talking whining kids, crammed in the second to last row–all that fell away when the movie started. Awesome.

From there, we rushed off to dinner with Mark’s brother and sister-in-law and niece, at a Mexican restaurant (on Cinco de Mayo!), and then we walked on the beach after that, looking at the enormous full moon and marveling at the crazy-high tide.

Sunday morning it was up early to meet Do and Gretchen for coffee (Krissy having flown back to her large lawn, alas).

Coffee and croissant

And then breakfast after that. Then we bid them a fond farewell and headed directly to lunch with Mark’s friend V. After that, it was almost time for me to head to the airport…we did have a couple of hours, so we went to the beach again, and saw porpoises jumping out of the water.

My flight out of LAX was on time, but my flight out of Reno was delayed, and you know that part.

Got home Very Late, but all is well here. Found a freelancer’s delight in the mailbox: checks! I took three checks to the bank today, such joy.

Also, on my walk home from yoga this morning, I found this:

People throw away the darnedest things here.

I just recently bought a red climbing rose; I think I will plant this one next to it, and they can be buddies.

So! A highly successful weekend, never a dull moment–exhausting but fun. And filling. I didn’t even step on the scale this morning, I don’t want to know. Today has been productive–wrote 1,000 words on Nightcraft Mother, and did more thinking on the plot; unpacked, groceried, inspected the garden; even managed a swim this afternoon.

And the weather, oh my goodness. I think I brought LA back with me.