It is 20 degrees cooler in Vermont than it is here.

Weirdly, it is 10 degrees hotter in North Carolina. Sorry, sister.

Mr. Dingo Jones is currently in the car, having fetched Wicked Stepchildren II and III from Dallas, and I’m taking II with me to Vermont on a plane tomorrow.

That is, I think he is in the car. My stalking app says his location at a standstill in Madisonville, TX. Must be a pit stop. I like that stalking app. When my mother and sissa were off on a gallivant and hadn’t called me, I was able to see that they were stuck at my grandfather’s house. When I want to call my friend Peter, I can look to see whether he is at work (and thus not call him).

So it’s 1.5 hours before I can leave work on the day before vacation, which means that I have tidied up all the current loose ends on my to-do list and am currently suffering misery and woe because I want to LEAVE NOW.  Too bad for me!

I met my overall write-a-thon goal, in that I have a complete draft of my giant story, though I have not met my word-count goal. The time just after finishing a story is often a fallow period for me. The well has been emptied and needs to fill back up. But I’ll be sad if I don’t meet my target, so I’m casting about, muttering “what’s next, what’s next” like Jed Bartlett on West Wing.

WSII and I should arrive at Innisfree around 6 pm tomorrow evening. The Olympics start at 7:30 pm. We shall learn something about me over the course of the next week. Which will I choose as more important: Fewer Screens or Olympics?

Fewer Screens or boy swimmers?

Fewer Screens or fencing?

Fewer Screens or archery?

Fewer Screens or modern pentathlon?

Oops, Olympics will probably win.

I’m happy to say that my poem “Lady Bird Johnson Built a Wall Between the Worlds” is now up at Chiaroscuro!

This poem went through so many permutations. ChiZine poetry editor Carolyn Clink made a few really helpful suggestions that prompted me to rearrange and, yes, lop the end off, and the result is a much better poem. Thanks, Carolyn!

What’s funny is that this version, draft 832ish, is the closest thing to the day that prompted it. Mr. Dingo Jones and I were driving back to Houston from Dallas after a weekend with the Wickeds. I don’t remember whether Dingo was sleepy because of too much child-erranding, yard football, or a bad hotel mattress, but he climbed in the passenger seat and zonked right out.

The minute we got south of Ennis, the road started being all weird. When I saw the ax murderer lurching up the old road, my brain got that old Pop Rocks feeling, and I spent the next 90 minutes of the trip trying to write in a notebook perched on my left leg while simultaneously doing 80 mph down the highway, trying to get all the words out before the sun set.

Don’t try that at home. But I do love the poem.

Apparently we own A Thing that, once I brave the swelter of our second floor and learn how to use it, will allow me to draw stick figures straight onto the internet.

At which point this may become a theme blog.

So I have been dutifully putting words up on my Clarion page. This thing is working out okay. I feel obligated to write (and not only that, but to write on the project I assigned to myself instead of anything else), but the timeframe is long enough that I don’t feel pressured.

If it continues to go well, I may have to try StickK.

We have also been painting our living room the nicest shade of dove grey. Sadly, our living room is enormous, and at one point the ceiling is 14 ft high. Fun times ahead.

Wicked Stepchild I went to Dallas last week and appears to have brought A Germ back with him. Summer colds are awful. And this AFTER I spent all last week miserable with 8 fire ant stings all on the same foot. Enough, I say!

Side note: a bucket of icy salt water is extremely helpful for fire ant stings.

Mr. Dingo Jones is having a week filled with the songs of angels. He has been a whirlwind brownie waffle factory. It seems that zero to brownie in under 5 minutes is a beautiful thing for people who love chocolate.

I’ve been joining in the celebrations by opening a vinho verde.

Under a month until I go to Vermont! Taking Wicked Stepchild II with me: should be great fun.