Thinking Ahead

One of D’s birthday gifts this year was an orchid (and chocolates and a balloon) from home. We shall strive to keep it as happy and healthy as T’s orchid. It’s a dendrobium, like T’s, and hers has already sent up new spikes, developed new blooms, grown new leaves … in short, T’s orchid has been everything an orchid is supposed to be, much to her continued surprise. D’s plant will have the advantage of all of T’s collected wisdom, plus the fertilizer it took her four months to find. Fingers crossed that both plants will survive the Stygian Days ahead.

We’re busy thinking about Christmas, and what to do while we’re back in California for the first time in nearly a year. We’ve been busily looking at advertisements for vacation rentals, along the coast somewhere, near Yosemite or Lake Tahoe … places we haven’t seen in awhile, which will let us recuperate a bit from the lives of diligent writing we lead here. Yes, it’s several months away, but we need something to occupy our spare thoughts, particularly as D is busily reading about things like “Research Methodologies.” (Bleh!) And T. has received another novel rejection (Boo!). Her agent assures her that she’ll be fine, but editors now are looking for the “wow” factor — and that wow seems to mean zombies and/or sparkly vampires. T. is holding out for non blood-sucking protagonists.

The sun is dwindling, here in Glasgow. It’s quite a dramatic thing, the coming dark. D points out that the rate of change is the most extreme near the equinox: we’re down to just under 11 hours of daylight already, and will have 5 fewer minutes of daylight tomorrow. Along with that comes the wearing of gloves, the caulking of windows (D got some clear silicone, and sealed everything up tight. He says that it’ll just peel off. We’ll see.), and much time spent in the 2 rooms with lots of full-spectrum lamps. Oddly, as the dark extends, T’s ability to sleep at night grows shorter and shorter. Usually someone early to bed and early to rise and a fan of the full eight hours per night, she’s already down to about six, and by midwinter, she’s only able to sleep five consecutive hours at a time — and becomes very cranky. Which is why, for the sanity of all, we’ll be in the U.S. for the midwinter Solstice!

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