Home to roost

Lovely cormorants. I also saw a heron and an egret,
as well as several brown pelicans, one of whom almost ate my face.

I just got home from a conference in Florida, where I went blissfully sockless for three days then somehow tripped while dancing in my vintage stilletos. Did I twist my ankle? No. I hurt the lowest toe joints -- the ball of my foot, but on top too, and inside. I don't know how exactly, but I am limpy.


The conference was good, but I am a ball of confusion.

Returned home to a house dark and messy and full of sleep. David promised Z that I would wake her and tell her I had returned, but she would not wake. Only one cat has roused itself to greet me. I too need to sleep.

Reading: Carol Anshaw's Carry the One is really deftly done. I appreciate how each chapter is a  bead on the thread with no messy webbing trying to tie them together too tightly. Also, she manages multiple POVs very well. And, also, the story and characters are compelling, and she has some really startlingly good turns of phrase. I'll try to dig something up to quote tomorrow.

Writing: A little this afternoon on the veranda of the marvelous hotel, but less in general over the weekend than I had hoped. Resisting the urge to want to recast my entire novel as an imitation of the Anshaw book, but also conscious that there are technical elements that I can perhaps be more aware of as a result of reading her.

Dinner: On the plane, leftover crushed chick pea and wild mushroom sandwich from lunch. Upon arriving home, a piece of shrimp and pineapple pizza (David and the kids kept up the Monday pizza tradition in my absence. Yay.)

Soundtrack: Fun fact. If you start playing London Calling as you pull onto 77N from the Akron-Canton Airport, you will be listening to "Train in Vain" by the time you are in Cleveland Heights.

Random thing: Many cormorants perching on the lightpoles along the causeway across Tampa Bay. The water was very choppy. Maybe they were avoiding it. Also, I saw what I assumed were two dolphin fins very close to the causeway. The driver suggested that they were perhaps sharks.