a day at Bandelier National Monument
Jun. 9th, 2008 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sergebroomSue and I drove up north yesterday, past Los Alamos, to Bandelier National Monument. We have a favorite spot by a gurgling brook and, because we didn't want to find it already occupied by the time we'd get there, we left at 6:15am and arrived exactly 2 hours later. The spot was vacant. Ours! It was ours! Sue's knee being the way it is, I took care of setting things up: I unfolded the chairs, opened the big umbrella, and took out the cooler. Not long after we had sat down at the picnic table and started eating our breakfast's blueberry muffins, a gros-bec landed next to my wife and stole a few crumbs from her. A ground squirrel showed up later, but by then the meal was over so there was nothing for her so she went away. (She wasn't as bold as the squirrel who tried to get into my bag of junk food when we were there last month.)
We stayed there for over 6 hours. We did some reading. We fell asleep - but not because of the reading. We talked a bit about what the plot of Sue's next book should be. We did some more reading, and I finished that novel I'd started a few days before. (I don't seem to be as fast a reader as I used to be, but please no joke about why that could be, kids.)
Then we drove back home, let out our canine horde, which was quite happy to see mom & dad, and barked quite loudly to show it. I mowed the lawn, had supper, and read the latest issue of the SFWA Bulletin. The Resnick/Malzberg column was as entertaining as usual, this one being about the advice given by some writers at cons and how it may not reflect the way the world of publishing now is. Robert Metzger's article about the impending depletion of the world's oil supplies brought up flashbacks about the horrors of the 1970s. No, not disco. Before disco. In those days, I'd often find myself thinking that our world was going to choke on itself and that Soylent Green was what the future would be, whether or not we'd wind up eating our neighbors. Luckily I managed not to let myself get into a blue funk.
I was left happier earlier that day by Joshua Palmatier's fantasy novel The Skewed Throne, first book in a trilogy. Its climax may have been a bit longer than I'd have preferred, but it was a good resolution to the story of Varis who, orphaned at an early age in the city of Amenkor, grows up with a talent for killing, a role that doesn't please her.
We stayed there for over 6 hours. We did some reading. We fell asleep - but not because of the reading. We talked a bit about what the plot of Sue's next book should be. We did some more reading, and I finished that novel I'd started a few days before. (I don't seem to be as fast a reader as I used to be, but please no joke about why that could be, kids.)
Then we drove back home, let out our canine horde, which was quite happy to see mom & dad, and barked quite loudly to show it. I mowed the lawn, had supper, and read the latest issue of the SFWA Bulletin. The Resnick/Malzberg column was as entertaining as usual, this one being about the advice given by some writers at cons and how it may not reflect the way the world of publishing now is. Robert Metzger's article about the impending depletion of the world's oil supplies brought up flashbacks about the horrors of the 1970s. No, not disco. Before disco. In those days, I'd often find myself thinking that our world was going to choke on itself and that Soylent Green was what the future would be, whether or not we'd wind up eating our neighbors. Luckily I managed not to let myself get into a blue funk.
I was left happier earlier that day by Joshua Palmatier's fantasy novel The Skewed Throne, first book in a trilogy. Its climax may have been a bit longer than I'd have preferred, but it was a good resolution to the story of Varis who, orphaned at an early age in the city of Amenkor, grows up with a talent for killing, a role that doesn't please her.
The man gasped and lurched back, releasing my arm. He stared at me in shock, the hand he had used to stop me held out to stop me from a second attack. The other hand clutched his chest over the rent in his shirt.
I glared at him, saw that he was gray, harmless, and turned to leave.
"Don't!" he choked, stepping forward. "Just wait!"
I hesitated. Because even after I'd almost killed him, he'd stepped forward to halt me, not away. And because of the smell of oranges.
