cottage reflections

Yeehaw, it SNOWED at the cottage yesterday! My pair of shorts and t-shirt lay forgotten at the bottom of my bag; instead, I found myself pulling out my winter gear, including hat, mitts, scarf, fleece sweater, fleece vest, and Gortex jacket. A last blast from a retreating winter just before slinking away, I assume.

Our time at the cottage was brief but fun. Jeff brought his telescope and was happy because he found his last Messier object (and hoo, yes, I'm always SO tempted to make bad puns when I hear that phrase), M68. He also showed me the comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. I sometimes tease Jeff about his obsession with the night sky but y'know, when I look through his telescope and see these amazing objects that are incredible distances away, I can't help but get caught up in the wonder of it all. Sadly, I lack the nighttime stamina to ever hope to be a true astronomy buff; I'm too much of a morning person.

My favorite moment: Friday night, out on the deck under a clear night sky. A loon's cry echoed across the lake, and was answered immediately by the cries of other loons from all around, both near and distant. It's one of my favourite sounds in the world; you can hear samples here and here, from this loon site. Hollywood tends to like sticking loon calls in totally inappropriate settings...I remember once seeing a movie where there were background loon calls in the desert (!).



Above: Sunrise at the cottage, this morning.

Came home to a hugely entertaining phone message from Scott, Amanda, Zoë and Will. I will call you guys back soon. :-D

Many thanks to Ruth, Allison and Jeff for taking the time to read my manuscript and give feedback...it's MUCH appreciated, and I know you're all busy. Allison sent her comments each evening; it was fun and highly informative to see her impressions as she read through the book. A few times her comments spurred me to make some changes. E.g. Allison: "Oh, how cool that XXX happened. I bet this means YYY!", causing me to think, "Hey, I think YYY should be true, too, and I can do it pretty easily..."

Anyway, I plan to send the manuscript to my agent this week. Please do keep your fingers crossed for me.



To the right: A somewhat more complex experiment in Corel Painter 9.5 with layers and the Airbrush tool. I created each element in a separate layer, using the Preserve Transparency function to create masks.

My pre-trip language studies continue, with a focus on Italian. I recently rented La Dolce Vita and Vénus beauté (institut) to practice listening to Italian and French. I thought the latter was okay but found La Dolce Vita a bit too strange for my tastes. These days, though, I'm finding I'm doing less video-watching and much more reading. I can't wait until it gets warm enough so I can take my book(s) out on the back deck to read, under the crab apple tree.

Jeff and I got rid of cable tv over a year ago and haven't missed it. I enjoy watching videos, but sometimes I find that it's too easy to slip into couch potato mode, watching two or three videos in a row. Fun on occasion, but I inevitably feel restless and cranky afterward. Settling down and reading a book for the same length of time is a different experience, at least for me...relaxing, but ultimately more satisfying, though of course it also depends on the particular books and videos. :-)



I'm enjoying running in our neighbourhood as well as doing my stretches and abdominal crunches more regularly these days, and my winter flab is starting to disappear. I think I actually caught a glimpse of my abs the other day! :-D

My favourite Italian words so far, just because of how they sound:

1. spuntino ("spoon-TEE-no") - snack

2. cucchiaio ("koo-KYA-yo") - spoon

I've stopped researching Italian food because it makes me too hungry.

Reminder: The frequency of my Blatherings is likely to become more sporadic over the next while as I focus on pre-trip workstuff and other prep.

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