Welcome to the new year everyone! Just spent a short (four day) week at work doing, I dunno, paperwork and research and stuff. Not a bad entry for the next 51 weeks.
I haven't decided yet if I'm going to be diligient about blog posts or not this year. I'm going to spend this weekend plotting my priorities, projects, and progress for this coming year. I've got fiction to (finally) finish editing; a novel I want to write (well, three or four, but I'll pick one); a ballroom dance guide to help create; ballroom dance to learn (this is a year to study and get good), and Taiji to learn (also will be a priority, since I go for my second degree black in December).
For the first time in... ever! Marla and I went on a real vacation this Christmas! It was keen! It was laid back but also nifty, and now we are going to have to do more recreational travelling.
On Saturday the 23rd we made the pilgrimage to Lafayette LA to spend Christmas proper with Marla's parents. And they bought crazy amounts of stuff for everyone, and it was all kind of relaxed and fun. I brought schoolwork with me and did two classes that Saturday.
On the 25th we drove home, because on the 26th we drove to Carlsbad New Mexico! Yayy! And, a side note, thank the deities for books on CD. Harry Potter Book 5 is 23 hours long and we heard the entire thing that week... and had to buy book 6 in Carlsbad to be sure to have listening fare on the way home too. These things make the drive so fast and simple and easy; far more distracting than music.
In Carlsbad, of course, we went into the Caverns! Duh! 750 feet under ground, enormous beautiful caverns. We walked all of the trail that could be walked without a guide, and had three more tours on top of that.
The Left Hand Tunnel tour was a jaunt through an unimproved (and in fact, rather beat up through use) side tunnel using nothing but candle lanterns. A nifty experience, and a nice warm up to the experience of the caves.
Then we did the Lower Cavern tour, which had us rapelling (hah! scrabbling, more like) down a 10' hill with a rope, and then climbing another 50' (or so, they didn't say) down these three slippery stainless steel ladders, into a beautiful and intimate unimproved (e.g. no path or railing) lower run of caverns. We even got to crawl a bit!
The last day we toured the Kings Palace, which is marvelously decorated, but had to be closed to unguided tours because the damned monkeys with poor impulse control (e.g. tourists) were destroying it, breaking off its bits. Something like 22,000 broken bits... and worsening.
And now of course, we have to do weekend trips to all of the many caves around Austin, and I expect we'll plan future long vacations to other interesting caves. It's a theme... a neat theme!
Oh, and for the surprise promised in the headline?
Drove home tonight just a bit ago, petted the spare cat (he's a good kitty; want a cat?) and then toodled into the garage to top off his food.
Coming through the laundry room I see him scamper in after me under the garage door. My mind is wandering, lalalala, dum-te-dumm, heyyy!
There's a HUGE GRAY FAT BLOB sitting on the stool, hunched over the catfood dish! Dang! Not another cat! Nope.
Raccoon.
Big, fat fat fat, raccoon.
The poor things legs could barely touch the ground after he launched himself over the trash can and splatted on the floor, scrabbling to escape.
Maybe it's time to make a skinny cat door in the garage... something he might have trouble squeezing through. It doesn't help, though, that Sparky himself is 13 lbs big.
Posted by Edwin at January 5, 2007 10:02 PM