Another Venn Truth

 

Damage to the car is hopefully minor – I’ll find out when the adjuster looks at it on Friday. Maybe he’ll take the deer hair out of the smashed headlight for me.

What 2010 Taught Me

2010 is almost over. Time for everyone to reflect over the last 365 days and look ahead to the next.

Among the lessons I learned this year is not to let the blog drift into neglect. I want to better about keeping the site updated next year and get back to reviewing books. I kept track of things I learned that I thought would stick with me, and I’m pleased to report I know what everything on the list means. I’m still not sure what was up with weekends and Nazis.

This year’s lessons made me laugh and made me cry. A couple just made me shake my head at the bizarre nature of the universe. I’m sure I learned more than these 10 things. I certainly hope so, at least. If not, I feel I’ve let the bizarre universe down somehow. But here is what I know I learned. Presented in reverse chronological order because the first thing I learned in 2010 was sad.

Mexico: Tales from the Wet Side

I considered writing a day-by-day blog series about the Mexico vacation, but when I look back at last year’s Aruba series, it was pretty much “today, I sat on a beach and read.” And the London travelogue was me complaining about being sick.

Instead, you get (much-delayed) lists about our amigo to the south. First up … things involving water.

Legend:
The not-so-great*                           Things that were awesome

 

My Backyard Belongs to Disney

Yesterday was hot, and I was tired from a grand total of 8 hours sleep Friday and Saturday nights. I decided to skip BodyCombat because I had these convenient excuses.

My innate laziness paid off. Around 7, I saw movement in the backyard. A doe was standing a couple feet on my side of the property line. Behind her, in the neighbor’s yard, stood two other deer.

Do - a deer, a female deer

Luckily, Eckie didn’t spot them like the buck she spotted earlier in the year and barked to scare him off.

For about 15 minutes, I watched the three deer move between my yard and the neighbor’s. I had the impression they were lost, and the lead doe was trying to figure out where to lead the other two. They’d bound a couple yards, then stop to get their bearings before bounding another couple yards in a different direction.

Eventually, the lead doe headed for the field behind my house. The others followed and the game continued for a bit before they all took off down the hill.

Tonight, I got caught up in a book and, again, ended up not going to the gym. Laziness again yielded rewards. Tonight, I was visited by three rabbits. I’ve always seen one rabbit underneath the pine bush in the backyard and figured a burrow was there. That rabbit is big and fat.

Tonight’s trio were smaller. One rabbit just sat nibbling grass and warily watching the other two who were running in circles and playing leap frog.

The two playing rabbits would face each other before one ran at the other who would jump about three to four feet in the air to let the first rabbit pass underneath. They’d reset and then the second rabbit would run so the first rabbit would have to jump.

The game took them across my yard while the third rabbit just stayed on the other side watching.

No pictures of the bunnies. The sun had set and dusk was quickly darkening so that by the end of the game, I had trouble spotting the rabbits.

If I weren’t going out tomorrow for something I’m really looking forward to, I’d skip the gym for yet another night. I’m curious what the next trio of visitors will be.

Odds and Ends Part 2 (the picture edition)

My attention has been on the insanity of writing a novel in 30 days so I haven’t blogged lately. Word count updates for the novel can be seen in the widgets on the left of the main page, Facebook and Twitter (follow small_pond). The story of the novel won’t be wrapped up in 50,000 words so here’s hoping I churn out over 5K a day or keep writing through December and into the future.

In the meantime, here are some pics of what else has been going on. Notice no pictures of books appear. Despite my growing pile of review copies, the time isn’t there this month to read and review. Besides, one of them may require me to buy a fiddle

On to the photos …