cold, dry winter so far - this is what they said about another la nina year, like last winter, cold and dry. maybe la nina is bringing rain and floods to whole parts of the country, or maybe another country. in these parts, it's cold and dry.

i've kind of run my string of read-for-reads - i've read as many fantasies as i can handle, and the choices before me are increasingly limited. more fantasy, or, worse, nothing, because i've read every single book up for offer. just about most people who are willing to try my books have already tried them, leaving me with only the ones who wonder if they can shill me by pretending to read, or blow me off altogether. i read some book, while they blow me off. that makes me mad and won't last forever.

one way of dealing with it is wait a while, then go get their book, and give it a two. don't even read it. a vengeful person might have done this already. as for me, i'll most likely wait.

i make fires in the older boy's wood stove. oh how gratifying, to get rid of so much of the wood hanging around the property. every night, just a little - a handful of sticks, a few logs. a little at a time, i get it out of here. that's what i want, and, on top of that, i turn it to heat, and that's good too. the old wood stove gets real hot and just radiates for hours. a gentle woodstove smell permeates.

so the good is mixed with the bad, and sometimes i do my zooms over in the cat trailer and the cat comes up to me and luxuriates on my lap - starved for attention, he lets me do the zoom, but most wants to be petted for maybe an hour at a time as he's gone a while without. his buddy avoids me at all costs. people, he wants nothing to do with, although he'll eat our food and let us clean his litter box. that second one is black, and like a zephyr - he disappears behind some furniture or something, and you just never see him. when you do, he's fast, and he's going the other direction.

the zooms are full of life - family turmoil in the first, quakers in the second. everyone living through their own dramas but at least getting together for an hour a week to check in.

then there are these blogs, of which this one of course is the champion. i let them slip sometimes. i just can't always keep up. i do my best but then i forget for long periods of time.

but this is my life, and i give it to you.