...an exceptionally warm winter.

I received my annual fuel oil budget statement in today's mail. ( Scary numbers behind the cut )

I'll have to figure out something. I'll simply have to.

I feel like I'm in an episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

And I feel like the rest of the country, and much of the world, is here with me.

It's just starting to rain here at Toad Woods. A big wind came through, starting about 10 minutes ago, quickly growing louder, more intense, and louder still.

A few rain drops, and now a heavy downpour. Yep, there's the thunder. Rumble. Rumble.

My quick check while the wind was growing stronger turned up the weather advisory and weather alarm in effect. "Thunderstorms, some severe." Yep, I'd say they got that right.

It's all very fast. The initial heavy downpour that started two short paragraphs ago has already lightened to a steady soaking.

Too bad the squash and pumpkin seeds are still in their packets, sitting on the dentist's cabinet. They would have liked this rain if they'd been in the ground for a month now as they should have been.

The news is spreading 'round: Jack Speer died earlier today. On the Virtual Corflu, I heard he was doing poorly and had been diagnosed as terminal; I'm glad he and Ruth were able to attend Corflu Silver and help it shine.

Joe Siclari and Edie Stern told me my very favorite Jack Speer story just few minutes after it happened. The last day of Intersection (the 1995 Worldcon in Glasgow), they had the joy of seeing Jack jumping up and down in the Bouncy Castle that was set up in the exhibit hall. I so wish I'd seen that for myself! We ran 3 photos of Jumpin' Jack next to the GoH tribute Joe and Edie wrote for the Noreascon 4 souvenir book, so I can at least look at those in delight and appreciation.

In 1996, Jack was typically one of the last visitors to stop by the L.A. Con III fan lounge late at night. And he stayed up later still -- I remember him standing, listening to the filkers in the lobby as I was making my way back to my room sometime around 3 am after both closing and cleaning up in the fan lounge one night.

More recently, I had the pleasure Jack and Ruth's company during the drive to the Dead Dog dinner at County Line BBQ at the end of last year's Corflu Quire in Austin. That was the last time I saw him, and I'm glad it included some real conversation.

Sigh.

Sympathy to Ruth and the rest of the family, including his fannish one.

Geri

Skater Doll is mine! Yes, it's a Twinzy Toy.

Skater Doll, photo from William H. Bunch auction catalog This Twinzy Toy was part of the inventory from the Yellow Brick Road Doll and Toy Museum sold at auction during the summer of 2008 after museum owners Dorothy and Steve Tancraitor retired. It is the second Twinzy Toy I've found thanks to the internet and the first Twinzy pull toy in my small collection.

You may be wondering just what heck a Twinzy Toy is. Well, unless you've been to my basement Toy Room or remember my past mentions of my great-aunts and the Twinzy Toy Company they ran in a corner of their father's tag factory in Battle Creek, Michigan, in which case your memory has already told you why I'm so delighted with this addition to my collection.

Blanche and Bernice Squier -- Auntie Blanche and Auntie Bun -- started the Twinzy Toy Company in 1918. Yes, they were identical twins. They started making dolls and selling them to friends just before they went to college. They completed their freshman year, then decided that there was enough demand for their dolls that they would start selling them commercially instead of returning to school. That was the end of their college education, and the beginning of business that ran for roughly 35 years. They had a trade show booth at the New York Toy Fair for years, and Twinzy Toys were sold in department and toy stores nationwide. Marshall Field's was one of their many customers.

( Today, Twinzy Toys are all but unknown. )

The adventure even has its own lagniappe. I called minnehaha K. for eBay bidding advice. The situation was complicated by this being a live auction, and I'm an eBay novice to boot. It turns out that her friend, the Queen of PEZland, lives near Chadds Ford, PA, where the auction was being held. K. and Amy have been antiquing there!

The auction house doesn't do their own shipping. If the timing works out, Amy will pick up Skater Doll from them and ship it my way. If not, I'll use the commercial shipper used by many other auction house customers. I hope Skater Doll visits Amy's PEZ collection on its way to me, but it's a win just to be back in touch with her.

The auction notice sent me searching. Much to my surprise, I found Laura Adams recent post about visiting Quaker Park in the Northside Irregular. The park includes the land where the tag and toy factory stood, and her report includes a photo of a Twinzy Toy Historical Marker I didn't know was there! Like most historical markers, it contains an error or two. "They lie like hell" was how my father put it when I read the text to him over the phone. But this post is already long, so I'll leave the details of that for another time.

...make that 63. The auctioneer is moving things quickly. That's a good thing, considering the 500 lots on the block today.

And now, 62. I'm going to stop reading LJ and keep a closer eye on the auction site.

61.

...to never, ever go to a toy auction in person. It's hard enough to resist pushing the "bid now" button on my computer screen while watching and waiting for the single item I'm there for to come up to bid.

I do love living in the future, though -- living in the future and having friends and loved ones who turn bad ideas into good ones.

I'll explain more in another 283 items. In the meanwhile, what were your favorite childhood toys? I never had a Barbie doll, not a single one, and I don't remember ever wanting one. But Pepper? Pepper was a great doll. I so envied her hair -- you could curl it up over your finger, or under around it -- every curl always held in place the way they never, ever did with my own hair. There are several genuine Pepper dolls out there. Ideal apparently kept changing her hair -- blonde, brunette, redhead, short, then shoulder-length. All in the pursuit of more sales, no doubt.

Pepper was Tammy's little sister, but I neither my older sister or I had a Tammy doll and I was never interested in Tammy. One doll was enough. You got one doll, then expanded out with clothes and accessories for her. That was the norm for the late 1950s and early '60s neighborhood that I grew up in.

Sue's doll was "Jill" doll, of Jan, Jill, and Jeff fame. I mostly remember the Jill and Jan wardrobe shown in the top image here. (Jan's name was on the other door.)

This palomino horse was quite likely the toy I played with the most. I had it for years and never tired of putting the bridle on, taking it off, attaching the stirrups, adjusting the cinch strap, and more. Whatever vinyl they used for all those little bits certainly had endurance. One of the connection points on the bridle eventually broke, but not until years after I'd stopped playing with it regularly.

Edited to add: My palomino couldn't have been Dallas, since he wasn't introduced until 15+ years after I played with mine. And further reflection recalls that my horse's main and tail were hard plastic, not hair. But the one-leg-raised pose is the same, and all the fiddly bits, too. I suspect a reworking of an earlier toy horse and accessories lead to the creation of Dallas. Darned if I can remember my horse's brand name, certain though I am that it had one.

What were your faves?

Oops -- that post about this weekend's Reno in 2011 activities was supposed to go on the Reno in 2011 community rather than here. My apologies to all who end up seeing it twice as a result.

In other news, the septic tank turned out to have only three covers rather than six -- there's one large center cover and two smaller covers at each edge. Work is underway to have risers installed on the two covers we can get to without cutting five feet into the concrete apron that's most likely been in place ever since the house was built. I could spend more money and have a third riser installed as well. That would be the safest approach, providing easy access to every point that the system might clog, but it's also the most expensive. And a snake out from the pipe in the basement or underneath the garage is likely to deal with that problem...if it ever arises.

So I'll take my chances, keep the cost as low as possible now, and do what most needs doing, which is pumping the tank out and making sure we have access to pump it out regularly in the future.

In other, other news, it's been a roller-coaster of a week -- lots of hard news, lots of fun and good news, all coming one after the other, back and forth and back again, loop de loop all week long. I'm a bit dizzy and exhilarated from the ride, and hope the weekend brings a few quiet joys my way. I have rather a lot that needs working on, as usual. But it's all rather fun stuff, so that's a win. In addition to the PROmote work, I'll also be turning more of my design attention to the Hugo program booklet for this year, the one given out at the ceremony that lists the nominees and such. Reminder to all that the Hugo Voting Deadline is just 10 days away -- midnight PDT, Monday, July 7th. For details, see the Denvention 3 Hugo page. Vote soon, rather than at the last moment, to minimize the risk of delivery failure.

Coming Soon to a Convention Near You Rennie, the official Reno in 2011 carpetbag created by Brad Foster made his/her/its debut on Memorial Day weekend as TR Renner and Mark Herrup launched the first of many (many!) Reno in 2011 bid parties.

Are you heading to ConRunner, Midwestcon, or ApolloCon this weekend? Reno in 2011 agents will be in England, Ohio, and Texas, listening, talking, and partying with fans. They'll gladly take your money, too. :-)

Look for our UK Agent, Steve Cooper, at ConRunner in Wolverhampton. It's the first non-US convention we'll be at, but it's far from the last! The vote is in Montréal, after all....

On Saturday night, Jim Mann, Laurie Mann, and Ben Yalow are hosting a Reno party at Midwestcon in Cincinnati. Look for flyers announcing the room number, or just ask -- last year, three different people I didn't know each told me where the Montréal and Australia parties were. Nice!

ApolloCon Fan GoH Anne KG Murphy is representing Reno in Houston-- we'll likely post a special report about our activities there sometime on Saturday. Maybe even with a picture or three....

If you're like me and spending the weekend at home, wishing you were at any or all of the above, please take a minute and swing by the Reno in 2011 website for a quick convention fix. We've updated it with links to pictures and mini-reports from Balticon, BayCon, ConQuesT, Marcon, WisCon, and Fourth Street Fantasy Convention. There are a few other new things, too -- where we'll be next, an updated supporter list, agents' names, and such. As always, we'll gladly take your money on the website, too.

Seriously -- many, many thanks for the active, positive support we've received this past month, the first month of the bid. The Reno in 2011 Worldcon bid already has over 160 Supporters, Friends, and Really Close Friends. Your contributions make the parties and other fun surprises possible. I'm looking forward to helping us all have a mountainous good time in Denver.

See you on the Funway!

Here at Toad Woods, I have propane gas, a septic tank, and a well. My childhood home had a cesspool until the city finally connected all of the houses on the street to the sewer system long after I moved away. Before moving here, I'd been on city sewer systems all of my adult life.

( The septic tank is something of a mystery to me. )

There's now one cleanly-cut hole in my driveway. Sure enough, there's the septic tank about 18 inches underneath it. There's even a cover, an access point to the tank, in the part that's now uncovered.

Only it's a "small cover," not one of the main ones.

I asked the obvious question: "How many covers does a septic tank have?"

The guy who'd just spent the previous hour cutting the pavement and digging the hole thought for a moment, then described the six covers in the top of the tank. Newer tanks apparently only have two big ones, but my tank? My tank has four little ones and two big ones.

I feel so special.

Note to self: when reading something that sets off my hair-trigger suicide alert radar at screaming "red alert" levels, stop and check for context in minimal impact ways before escalating to more direct reality checks. Especially when nothing that friend has ever posted or said before set off the radar or otherwise suggested they might be at increased risk.

More about the minimal impacts, triggers, and my reactions behind the cut. I name no names, though some will be obvious to those who have one or more chunks of context. ( Which is funny, really, given that missing context is what triggered today's false alarm. )

Bath now, I think. Lush bath. Then on to the work at hand. The work, and the amusements, too. Life's full of both. That's a darned good thing, especially given the hard times and tragedies it has such a nasty habit of bringing our way.

Tonight is Milo's last for this stay at Toad Woods; tomorrow he heads home. We took an extra long walk at Conant Brook Dam, though not quite deliberately. I meant to get back to Toad Woods before dark, back in time to mow the ultra shaggy part of the lawn I didn't get to 10 days ago. But a new path beckoned, and it said it was a connector path, so we followed along. And along, and along. Yes, it connected up with the path I thought it did, but only after looping up way farther than I expected it to, then dipping back down to rejoin the main path much farther along than I would have walked even it. Oops.

Good exercise, though. And it was blessedly cooler out, so the walk was a pleasant one even if my headband was more than a tad damp by the end of our exertions.

Our final walk back across the top of the dam was surprisingly lively. Two women were there with toddlers, young toddlers. Milo really, really, really, really wanted to check them out. Then the daily biker passed by, the third time our paths crossed tonight. Most days, we've seen him once and Milo has been reasonably well behaved. Tonight he wanted nothing more than to play chase the bike.

Last night's walk back was interesting in a completely different way. Milo and I were the only creatures in sight, so I followed my recently-developed habit of dropping the leash and letting him walk on his own, dragging it behind. We didn't do that down amongst the trees -- Milo was much too prone to taking off into the woods in a mad frenzy after a squirrel and there was no way he would respond to "Milo, Come!" under those conditions. Not for me, not for his owners, not for anyone. But up on the top of the dam, with nothing but gravel and rocks for hundreds of feet, the dropped leash routine worked fine. We did it on the way out, and again on the way back, for 4 or 5 visits, once we were both used to the place, and used to each other.

Last night we walked later than usual, giving every last moment possible for things to cool down to something tolerable. When we walked back up to the top of the dam, Milo looked up and froze, startled by what he saw in the sky, the clear sky.

The only thing there was the moon at half phase. The very only thing. Milo kept staring at it, then ran forward a bit, and stopped and stared again. He was fascinated. He started trotting, then running, trying to get closer to it. Not with the frenzy of a squirrel chase, just with deliberation, with intent. A casual run, as it were.

About halfway across the 1,050-foot dam, I called him back. He stopped, jumped back a few feet toward me, and stopped again, staring at the moon. We repeated this a dozen or more times, however many it took for him to come all the way to me. Each time it was a token "yes, I'm coming toward you, just like you told me to" followed by a stop. He wanted to be nearer to the moon, not moving away from it.

Even though there were no other creatures on the top of the dam, I held his leash for the rest of the walk across it. If I hadn't, Milo could have easily spent the night running for the moon.

And who could blame him?

The beaver was swimming too far away to hear it breathing, but I did have the pleasure of watching a Great Blue Heron standing mostly still for several minutes, then take flight across the pond where the beaver dam is and land in another grassy clump at the far side of the wetlands. Nice.

I was particularly pleased that neither I or Milo seem to have startled it or otherwise prompted its flight. Something over there caught its attention and it appeared to be going over for a closer look. Dinner, perhaps.

Yes, I'm okay. Pretty much so, anyway.

I was and am feeling hammered by the the fact that change happens. The contrast last night between the cool fog and knowing what the morrow would bring reminded me that said change happening is all around me, always. Then there's the gap between change happening and specific changes I would welcome not happening. Some of those changes are at least hypothetically within my control -- others, not so much.

There's a clear "grant me the serenity" component to my current needs as well as the importance of seeing and embracing the "joy of the day." Yes, it's hot outside. Today's enjoyment of that involves a walk up to the farmer's market right now, before it gets brutally hot.

Thanks for the care and concern.

Change happens.

Sometimes it's as swift as tonight's cool, soft fog burned away so soon by tomorrow's brutal heat wave.

Sometimes it's a slow erosion, the long weekends lovers once regularly carved out of time scarce and precious growing ever shorter, ever more apart.

Sometimes we see change coming and embrace it; sometimes we see it coming and battle against its every shadow, every step along the way. Sometimes it seemingly comes out of nowhere and knocks us flat. Sometimes it swoops in, bringing us wings or a magic carpet to fly on.

Sometimes it brings better, sometimes it brings worse. Usually, like the rest of life, it's a mix. We need the cool mist of the night's fog, we need the heat of the day. And, yes, we need the heat of the night, too.

At the core, forever true, change happens. We make it, we allow it, we cope with it, we are helpless against it...these are our choices. These are our choices, and more.

Change happens. That is not a choice; that is reality.

Change happens. The miracle is how much we each remain who we are all throughout the process, all throughout our lives. For better, for worse.

Change happens.

Life has been more stressful than I'm comfortable with these last few weeks. There's no one big reason, just too much, too much on too many of the little reasons. At least, that's how it feels on the inside. Up on the surface, all seems to be going in a relatively straightforward manner. My blessings are many, I'm getting a fair bit done, and if there's always way more to do than time and energy to do it in, well, that's one of the signs of an interesting, full life, isn't it?

( Okay, an interesting, full life that needs a bit of tweaking on the balance front.... )

Crane Beach. Conant Brook Dam. Sand, sun, ocean, birds...rocks, trees, birds, and the breath of a beaver.

Oh, yes, life is good.

Every month, I pay two phone bills. One is to Verizon, for my home service. The other is to Sprint, for my mobile service. And every month, these two bills leave me contemplating the psychology of form design both good and bad.

Both bills have boxes to fill in the amount paid. The Verizon bill has exactly the number of boxes needed. The bill is a 2-digit number followed by a decimal point and two more digits (for the cents). Surely some Verizon customers must have phone bills that at least occasionally exceed $99.99 -- my AT&T bill used to be over $100 frequently before I converted to an "all you can eat" long distance plan years ago in Minnesota. If I were making international calls, even my current bill could easily jump up.

I finally just pulled out my Agfa lupe magnifier and took a close look. Yep; it's a fuzzy-edged rule. Those boxes are custom printed the same was as all the other unique information on the bill. The program is no doubt sophisticated enough to print another box if the payment amount is $100.00-999.99. Good programming.

Which brings us to the Sprint bill. The boxes for the "Amount Enclosed" area are printed with every bill, just like on the Verizon bill, but here there are seven digits between the dollar sign and the decimal point, complete with commas separating the hundreds, thousands, and millions! Every single month, filling in my amount enclosed, I find myself recoiling in horror at the idea that any one's Sprint bill could be thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or one to nine million dollars. I never think "oh, see how small my bill is." All those extra boxes leave me fearing the day when I might suddenly have a bill that large. Psychologically, it's horrible form design -- for the effect on this customer, anyway.

Okay, back to the bills at hand....

Yes, it's true. For the first time, I'm a member of a bid committee for a real Worldcon: Reno in 2011.

We launched the bid tonight with announcements near and far, and a presence at five conventions: Balticon, BayCon, ConQuesT, Marcon, and WisCon. I've posted a bit of 4-part harmony about that on our brand new LiveJournal community.

Here's the bid announcement on ConCentral. It's popping up here and there around LiveJournal and elsewhere in the ether, too. Fun!

My own financial situation means I'm home this weekend rather than helping with any of our launch parties in person. It's times like this that I appreciate my friends all the more. Marcon Toastmaster skzb announced the bid during Opening Ceremonies there. netmouse is running a bid table for us there, and lsanderson has been keeping me entertained all week with his posts, email messages, and phone calls about preparations for the bid party he's hosting at WisCon tomorrow night. In the meanwhile, friends such as elaine_brennan, debgeisler, and other are keeping me updated with reports about the bid launch. I love living in the future. I love helping make stuff like this happen in real time.

I hope you'll take a look at our website and consider supporting Reno in 2011 at whatever level fits your budget and sensibilities. You can also download our bid flyer as a pdf in high-res print form or a low-res version for on-screen viewing only.

Home.

Zeppelin Hangar still standing and everything. That's always nice.

I'm impossibly behind on LiveJournal after a week of limited net connectivity and an increasing time deficit.

Good trip, if somewhat more stressful than I would have preferred. (See previous comment about pesky time deficits.)

Film at 11, I hope. In the meanwhile, it's good to be back.

So, I managed to lose a piece of the power cord for my CPAP equipment. I called the hotel I stayed in Thursday night -- I used it there, and it wasn't in my suitcase when I unpacked it at my dad's last night. The guy even went and checked the room -- no sign of it there.

They have my contact info and will both call and mail the cord if they find it. Meanwhile, King Home Medical Equipment came through as the heros of the revolution. I called this morning to see if they were open today; the phone was answered by their 24-hour emergency service. I described the problem and they said they'd have someone call me. Okay. I figured I'd go to the other place whose store was open until 1 and hope to luck out there, figuring that the emergency service would take until after I was gone to get the cord to me and that it would cost a fortune. But first, my dad was making breakfast for me.

The Respiratory Tech for King Home Medical called me back before Dad and I were out the door. He was sure he had a cord, and could meet me at the store in 40 minutes. The whole thing would cost me $25.

So good. So very, very good.

I'm looking forward to happy sleep tonight. Deep, real, happy sleep.

Yay, King Home Medical Equipment! Yay for your great Respiratory Guy!

May 12th was Louise Katheryne Sullivan's birthday. If I'm remembering the year correctly, she would have turned 49 today if all of the considerable efforts to treat her depression had yielded better results than they did. I'm pretty sure she was a '59 baby....

What I know for certain is that she was a wonderful human being and I was blessed to share friendship and family ties with her for what turned out to be far too short a number of years. Thanks to Louise, getting lost while driving rarely upsets me. Thanks to Louise, I marvel at the power of thunderstorms. Thanks to Louise, I know and am friends with Sandy Williams, who has also served as my attorney since I moved to Massachusetts.

Thanks to Louise, I knew...Louise. And that was treasure enough. The 27 years since she died have been a long strange trip, indeed. Strange and wondrous. I have carried her in memory and in my heart every step of the way and trust I will continue to do so through everything still ahead.