On Saturday, May 12, Jubilee had her first litter of pups. There were 3 boys and a girl who made it--two very big puppies were stillborn after too long in the birth canal. She did a great job for her first time and has been an excellent mother, surprisingly relaxed considering how intense she generally is. I had 3 girl pups sold to working homes--2 to experienced Search & Rescue handlers and another to a woman who has done SAR and cancer detection with her previous dogs. Unfortunately, Jubilee had 3 boys and a girl, so I have some people who are a bit up in the air. I hate disappointing people, but I have to remember that this is one thing I just can't control.


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It seemed fitting to see this avian family paddling in the algae-inhabited Toronto waterfront at Coronation Park on Mother's Day.

the silliest belief commonly held by readers?

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

Nothing gingers you up in the ever-onerous packing (for WisCon) like listening to WUMB's fabulous X-Stream Folk channel:  All Blues All the Time!  Hearing the 'plaints of those whose man done gone, or who cannot ride that last train home, makes trying to decide which shirts are too many seem a little less grave. A little.

And yes, I am burying the lead:  Delia won the Norton Award at the Nebulas this weekend in D.C.!!!  It was an amazing weekend, and I hope to do it justice here soon. Very happy, we are. 

Now to pack up the luggage, la la la....

The last couple of days have been dedicated to wrapping up loose ends. The first loose end: the husband's study. He's found a set of bookcases. They arrive sometime in the next day or two, so soon, we can unpack our books (thank God). The other loose end is the Perplexing Back Room, and this morning I snapped, making the executive decision that we would turn it into a guest bedroom.

Our initial plan - yank out the carpet, put in hardwood floors, and then think of something else to do with the space - sort of imploded on itself. Besides the fact that it was going to run in the thousands of dollars, we really didn't have a good idea of what "something else" was going to look like.

Game room? Dining room? Split the space with a Murphy bed and a dining set? No clue. And the space was likely to remain vacant until we decided. [The husband's demand for a ball pit was overruled. Somewhat reluctantly.]

And that was bullshit, pretty much. We have several rounds of visitors swinging through town within the next few months, and no good place to put them. It didn't make sense to let a perfectly good room sit empty and idle while we're shoving guests out onto the couch - just because we don't like the carpet.

So today I made the rounds, ordered a bed, picked up some linens and other sundries, and then grabbed some paint. The Berber I can live with. The baby-poo beige walls must go.

The husband and I taped up the room to prep for the makeover, and tomorrow morning we'll swap out the Bland Tan for a very light gray. The bed arrives on Thursday, and the last of our major loose ends will be sorted for the time being.

I'm tired - very tired - of working on this place. I want to just live in it, and let my Regular Life commence in whatever day-to-day pattern it eventually takes. I think this will be the last week of Working On It. This is definitely the last week of paper-chasing, at any rate. Yesterday I made myself a list, got myself directions, and started making the bureaucratic rounds.

First I went to the DMV, where I spent an hour listening to a vast assortment of ridiculous ringtones going off unchecked in Darwin's waiting room. I emerged with a Tennessee driver's license and a headache, which didn't stop me from darting off to the emissions place, where I successfully demonstrated that our car doesn't spew an excess of toxic fumes - and I got my little certificate saying I could totally get myself a Tennessee license plate.

However, I was thwarted at the tag/title office. I was aware that the car was in both my name and the husband's, so we'd both need to appear; but the husband grabbed the wrong title-esque document on the way out the door, and I neglected to bring a secondary proof of residence. So we struck out.

But to quote The Great Loaf: Two out of three ain't bad.

First thing this a.m. we went back to the tag/title office with the correct documents and got the car squared away, which has me properly sorted out within the state-designated legal time frame for the first time in ... ever, probably.

It feels good to be done with something, at any rate.

As for the space formerly known as the Perplexing Back room - I won't post any "before" shots like I did with the Unfortunate Master Bath, because it's not all that bad. The only truly objectionable bit is the paint choice. Like I said, the carpet isn't to my taste - but it's hardly the end of the world; but maybe once we're all moved in ... I mean really moved in ... I'll take a few glamour shots and share with the group, so to speak.

For now, I'm going to settle in, watch some TV, and call it a night.

Gacked from difrancis

I was born in Buffalo. Mom was pink collar all her life. When he worked at Bethlehem Steel, Dad was a member of the United Steelworkers. I guess it's in the blood somewhere.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/22/redshirts-coming-to-the-uk/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18655

We’re two weeks out from the US release of Redshirts, and I have some contracts in front of me, which means it’s a good time for some good news for those of you in the UK: There will be an official UK version of the book come November via Orion/Gollancz. Here’s the UK Amazon pre-order page; here’s the Waterstone’s page. It appears it will be available both in hardcover and paperback, so that’s excellent.

I’m very excited to have Redshirts natively in the UK, and with such an excellent publisher. Gollancz publishes some of my favorite writers, including Richard K. Morgan, Joe Abercrombie, Justina Robson and Patrick Rothfuss; it’s nice to join their club. Hopefully the wait for the book won’t be too long for you over there. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

Originally posted by kylecassidy at Get Roswell's DNA in your house!