Slightly complicated day today — I have a slew of things I need to do, AND we have a plumber coming to deal with various broken things (one toilet out of commission, one kitchen faucet with a broken regulator that sprays wildly)…
…but also, it’s the last relatively hot day before Kavi starts school next week (Anand, Kevin, and I start the week after), and I haven’t taken the kids to the beach all summer, and we usually go at least once, so I’m hoping to take them today. We can, of course, go on the weekend even after school starts, but it’s much more crowded then, so I try to avoid it.
Plans for today:
• it’ll be hot, so water the garden, at least the parts most likely to suffer from heat (working on the front, haven’t started the back yet)
• get the plants recently purchased (to replace those destroyed by roofers, mostly) in the ground, where they’ll be happier and more likely to survive when it’s hot (I probably won’t get all of them in, but will go deal with some next)
• finish pruning the redbud tree (I did half so far, and it’s making me a little nuts having the giant ladder just sitting in my front yard, but given the rest of the list, this may get pushed to tomorrow, because it really can wait)
• I have some cookies baked for the Patreon boxes, and Kevin made me marshmallow fondant last night, so I need to ice and freeze them pretty darn soon
(I had a very sad realization that the peach & ginger scones I baked (and then froze) for the Patreon boxes, while absolutely delicious (and yes, I’m planning to post a recipe), are NOT a good choice for shipping, because the leftover ones we kept for eating ourselves only lasted two days at room temperature before they started to go off, so I’m definitely not going to ship those out to Patreon recipients — peach scones apparently MUST be eaten fresh)
• work on SLF stuff; I have at least 1-2 hours of e-mails I need to deal with:
a) re: Portolan Project teaching (we’re definitely offering a intro-to-screenwriting class this fall with Ted Schneider, which I’m going to be taking, yay!, and I need to review and approve the final registration page that Darius Vinesar set up for us and open it up to registration, which may mean shifting the dates forward a bit, so we can be sure we leave enough time for the class to fill)
b) re: the upcoming September membership drive and associated panels we’ll be running on Saturday and Sunday afternoons (we were originally just doing Saturdays, but someone pointed out that meant they always conflicted with Shabbos, thanks for reminding us of that!, so we’re now spreading them out a bit more, details soon
c) re: the podcast and scheduling (Benjamin Rosenbaum and I have recorded a few early episodes so far, including one from this Sunday where we talked about lesson planning for our week teaching Clarion next summer, yay!)
d) prepping (in a variety of ways) for ChiCon coming soon — I have e-mails, but I also have to figure out what sari I’m going to wear to the Hugos, and make sure I have a sari blouse that fits, which might entail a trip up to Devon tomorrow (Roshani, fyi) if I’m going to have a chance of getting it tailored in time…
e) and of course, Hugo voting closes tomorrow (Thurs) midnight, which means if I’m going to vote on Best Novel, I still have to read approximately 3.7 novels by then — I’d already read the Chambers and the Martine, and am working on the P. Djeli Clark one now, but this may be an unreachable goal (although lying on the beach with my Kindle for several hours would actually be quite conducive to making great progress)
…well, anyway, that’s my day. Maybe beach later than normal — we usually go from 10 – 3, to avoid hitting traffic coming home, but maybe I’ll just accept the traffic, work through the morning, and we can go later instead, 1-6 or some such.
Here’s a peacock bench; I realized that the baptisia behind it works almost perfectly (just need to shift the bench over a scooch) like a great cloud of peacock feathers. It’ll be even more dramatic when it’s in bloom next year. Fun!