The Girdle of Melian

Let me accomplish one thing by the end of this month. Five-day contest begins at midnight tonight; by December 1st I'd like to have a title for the Austin and Kedi story. The winner will have a ten dollar gift card from any store mailed to their home. Sure, why not, it's the first Sunday of Advent this weekend, and that means it's almost Christmas! So far I've been thinking along these lines, but not one captures the right spirit of the story: The Sea Rises Out of the Shadow of Artemis When Rome Was... (fill in the blank) Kedi's Tales: The Roman Invasion of Britain There and Back Again (thief! Bevan! We hates it forever!) Kedi's Tail: A Journey in Time The Rising Sea Austin in Ephesus How Austin Travelled to Ephesus and What He Did There "Light and shadow by turns, but always love" Walking Backward Through Time The Rising Sea series, Volume I: Kedi's Tales, Book I: The Cat, the Boy and the Lady

I've tagged myself off Pam's Blog, but I'm missing the letters G, H, J, L, Q, V, W, Y and Z. Even when I procrastinate I can't get it right! A) At a friend’s house, playing tag, ran smack into a glass door and bled profusely from the wrist – still have three scars. B) Burned a hole in a friend’s sweater with a Bunsen burner. C) Corners of desks. Chairs. Coffee Tables. Anything sharp aimed directly at my legs. D) Dentist horrors: Fillings back when they still used The Ring and, on the way to (not from!) having a root canal treatment, during a snowstorm, fell in the middle of the street and tore up nylons and legs. Still had to go to the appointment. E) Egged on boy who said “I can eat all the ice cream off my cone in one lick.” Called lunch monitor for assistance when he started choking. F) Flu caused me to spew from every orifice. ‘Nuff said. G) H) I) I was two years old... My mom was supposed to be cutting my nails but she was on the phone, so I thought I’d do it mysel...

A) Four jobs I have had in my lifetime: 1. Second Cup Conseillere en Cafe 2. Assistant to airline magazine Editor 3. Translator, etc. at security company 4. Administrative Assistant in aviation security section at ICAO (all my jobs seem to have melded into this one. But where does the coffee fit in?) B) Four movies I would watch over and over: 1. Waking Ned Devine 2. Solomon and Gaenor 3. Monty Python and the Holy Grail 4. Miracle on 34th Street (the original) C) Four places I have lived: 1. Istanbul, Turkey 2. London, Ontario, Canada 3. Montreal, Quebec, Canada 4. my head D) Four TV shows that I watch: 1. reruns of British comedy shows 2. Last of the Summer Wine 3. Doctor Who 4. Hockey Night in Canada E) Four places I have been: 1. Holmfirth, England 2. Edinburgh, Scotland 3. Aberdovey, Wales 4. Foca, Turkey F) Four people who e-mail me regularly: 1. Nina 2. my mom 3. Sim 4. Jenny G) Four of my favorite foods: 1. Turkish pide 2. my mom's/grandmother's puddings 3. lasagna 4. ec...

Yes I know I'm not supposed to be on the internet, but this started out as a research project, I swear! I found a photo of Austin in a magazine, so I went on the magazine's website to find out if they could tell me where they got the photo from, and while reading the editor's blog (http://yourwords.typepad.com/adventures_in_chaos/) I found out that Peg Bracken has died. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/arts/23bracken.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Unfortunately (having just learned that her books are mostly out of print), I own only the I Hate to Cook Almanac, and will have to scrounge Abebooks and Alibris for the others. I think these books are even funnier to me as someone who enjoys cooking, and even though I don't value much of anything that came out of the 60s, I do like the women authors of that decade (and the 50s as well): Peg Bracken, Jean Kerr, Bel Kaufmann, Joyce Kissock Lubold; they seem to have had such a gung-ho attitude about life - husbands, children, cookin...

I should have thousands of words to show for my silence, but I don't. Merely a few hundred words in the past week and tidbits of semi-weird semi-familiar information about life in the Roman Republic. Would you like a lamp in your house shaped like a sandalled foot? On the other hand I: have almost finished a scarf, done a third of my Christmas shopping, went for a drive in the country today and am eagerly anticipating writing my bit for the group novel!

November will be offline month. Jenny, Claire, Jen, I'm taking my tip from you guys. I had my computer screen at work turned around so that most of what I did (facebook, anyone?) was hidden. Well, I've turned it right around. And you know that voice in your head that tells you every fifteen minutes "check your email! check the forum! there's bound to be something new!"? Well, I'm trying my durndest to clamp down on him. From now on the only voices in my head should come from my characters. I'll go out on a limb if need be, pretend I'm at a house party and start writing whole scenes from Theseus' or Althea's point of view. Anything to shake things up and move closer to the end. Not that I'm all that eager to enter the revision nether regions, but... Of course, cold turkey won't work. For now I'll start with: check gmail, yahoo, facebook and the forum ONCE in the morning and ONCE at home at night. Actually, I think I'll start by c...