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greygirlbeastThe snow stopped sometime this morning before we awoke. Now it's sunny, but cold as hell. Currently, the temperature is 20F, but only 8F when you factor in wind chill (that's 6.66C, and -13C, for those in Celsius countries). The sun is making diamonds of the snow. The sky is impossibly blue, with only a few stray wisps of cloud. I shall not be going Outside today.
The FREE surprise went out to Sirenia Digest subscribers yesterday afternoon. And, as expected, it bounced back from at least 50% of those to whom it was sent, though only a handful of people gave us instructions not to address to their usual email accounts. So, we're working on how to get it to everyone who hasn't gotten it. We may have to put it up somewhere on the website as a downloadable PDF, then send a password to subscribers.
Oh, and the moral of yesterday's entry is: If you want to get people talking on your blog, just impugn a popular social-networking service (in this case, Twitter). If only my fiction elicited such passionate reactions!
Now, I'll try to play "catch up."
Monday afternoon, we made our way from Federal Hill to downtown Providence. Sonya (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay) was arriving by train about 3:30 p.m. (CaST). The streets were all slush, and water dripped from everything as a month's worth of snow and ice melted away. There's new snow and ice now, but on Sunday, all of Providence seemed like a great salt- and dirt-flavoured Slushie. The capital building, across the street from the Amtrak station, was stunning in the bright sun and remaining snow. Once we'd rescued Sonya from the pigeon-haunted train station, the three if us headed south, having decided that a trip to Moonstone Beach was in order. We stopped in Wakefield, at the Wakefield Mall, because toilet facilities were needed. First, I discovered that my much-beloved Toy Vault has closed, and then I dropped my iPod in the restroom. It appeared, at the time, that I'd broken it. Only slightly daunted, we continued on to Moonstone.
All the fantastical growths of dog roses, green brier, poison ivy, and etc. were only brown ghosts of their former summer selves. Trustom Pond, set back behind the dunes, was still frozen over, and there was a great noisy flock of mallards scattered across the ice. This beach, as I have said before, has many moods, and on Monday it was covered with cobbles and pebbles. I'd only seen it like that once before, back in the summer. As all the piping plovers have flown south for the winter, the barriers that keep people out of the nesting areas were down, so we could stroll much farther to both the east and west than I'd ever done before. We picked up stones, shells, beach glass, the claws of crabs and lobsters. I found a small white toe bone, from a fox, I think, bleached white. Then, almost immediately, Spooky found the ulna of a very large bird (the bone measures 22 cm. along the mid-line). Back towards the dunes, I located a thin layer of black sand, no more than a couple of cm. thick, marking the January 19th, 1996 oil spill that devastated the beach. A geological fingerprint, so to speak. There were a few other people out, but it was bitterly cold, and we had the beach mostly to ourselves. After walking west a while, we turned and walked east, about a quarter mile, as far as the inlet where Card Pond connects to the sea at high tide (the tide was going out, so we could cross). Almost all the way to the place where Moonstone Beach becomes Browning Beach. We found innumerable mermaid purses of at least two species. Spooky found an enormous piece of driftwood, shot through with large rusted iron spikes. I guessed it had once been part of a pier's piling. It had evidently spent years, if not decades, at sea, and had snagged all manner of detritus——ropes (of all sorts and sizes), old gloves, a lobster pot, netting, etc. About 5:30 p.m. (CaST), clouds moved in from the west, and the sun abruptly vanished. The beach grew much colder at once, and we quickly, reluctantly, made our way back to the car. All told, we must have walked at least a mile, which seemed three times that far, given the cold wind and how stiff I've gotten sitting in this chair every damn day.
I should really wrap this up, as I have to get back to editing The Red Tree today. Much tedium awaits, as we return to the line edits. Also, I should be seeing actual copies of A is for Alien this week, so I'm pretty excited about that. If you've not yet ordered a copy, please do so today. Thanks.
And yes, I am extraordinarily amused to see Stephen King taking Stephanie Myer to task. Bravo! To quote King, "...Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." Which is, of course, a much more tactful choice of words than the ones I've tended to use when describing Myer's novels.
Oh, the iPod was working again on Tuesday morning. Lucky me. The thing's a bloody tank. This is a first or second generation iPod I got back in the spring of '05.
Photos from Monday, behind the cut:
Trustom Pond, frozen with mallards. View to the north and west.
Turstom Pond. View to the north.
Moonstone Beach. View to the southwest.
Egg case from a whelk (Family Melongenidae).
The black sand layer marking the 1996 oil spill.
Nothing green in sight.
The cobbled beach. View to the southeast.
Card Pond, frozen. View to the north and east.
A pier piling? I may post several more pictures of this later. There are so many wonderful textures and shapes, one image does not do it justice.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.
The FREE surprise went out to Sirenia Digest subscribers yesterday afternoon. And, as expected, it bounced back from at least 50% of those to whom it was sent, though only a handful of people gave us instructions not to address to their usual email accounts. So, we're working on how to get it to everyone who hasn't gotten it. We may have to put it up somewhere on the website as a downloadable PDF, then send a password to subscribers.
Oh, and the moral of yesterday's entry is: If you want to get people talking on your blog, just impugn a popular social-networking service (in this case, Twitter). If only my fiction elicited such passionate reactions!
Now, I'll try to play "catch up."
Monday afternoon, we made our way from Federal Hill to downtown Providence. Sonya (
sovay) was arriving by train about 3:30 p.m. (CaST). The streets were all slush, and water dripped from everything as a month's worth of snow and ice melted away. There's new snow and ice now, but on Sunday, all of Providence seemed like a great salt- and dirt-flavoured Slushie. The capital building, across the street from the Amtrak station, was stunning in the bright sun and remaining snow. Once we'd rescued Sonya from the pigeon-haunted train station, the three if us headed south, having decided that a trip to Moonstone Beach was in order. We stopped in Wakefield, at the Wakefield Mall, because toilet facilities were needed. First, I discovered that my much-beloved Toy Vault has closed, and then I dropped my iPod in the restroom. It appeared, at the time, that I'd broken it. Only slightly daunted, we continued on to Moonstone.All the fantastical growths of dog roses, green brier, poison ivy, and etc. were only brown ghosts of their former summer selves. Trustom Pond, set back behind the dunes, was still frozen over, and there was a great noisy flock of mallards scattered across the ice. This beach, as I have said before, has many moods, and on Monday it was covered with cobbles and pebbles. I'd only seen it like that once before, back in the summer. As all the piping plovers have flown south for the winter, the barriers that keep people out of the nesting areas were down, so we could stroll much farther to both the east and west than I'd ever done before. We picked up stones, shells, beach glass, the claws of crabs and lobsters. I found a small white toe bone, from a fox, I think, bleached white. Then, almost immediately, Spooky found the ulna of a very large bird (the bone measures 22 cm. along the mid-line). Back towards the dunes, I located a thin layer of black sand, no more than a couple of cm. thick, marking the January 19th, 1996 oil spill that devastated the beach. A geological fingerprint, so to speak. There were a few other people out, but it was bitterly cold, and we had the beach mostly to ourselves. After walking west a while, we turned and walked east, about a quarter mile, as far as the inlet where Card Pond connects to the sea at high tide (the tide was going out, so we could cross). Almost all the way to the place where Moonstone Beach becomes Browning Beach. We found innumerable mermaid purses of at least two species. Spooky found an enormous piece of driftwood, shot through with large rusted iron spikes. I guessed it had once been part of a pier's piling. It had evidently spent years, if not decades, at sea, and had snagged all manner of detritus——ropes (of all sorts and sizes), old gloves, a lobster pot, netting, etc. About 5:30 p.m. (CaST), clouds moved in from the west, and the sun abruptly vanished. The beach grew much colder at once, and we quickly, reluctantly, made our way back to the car. All told, we must have walked at least a mile, which seemed three times that far, given the cold wind and how stiff I've gotten sitting in this chair every damn day.
I should really wrap this up, as I have to get back to editing The Red Tree today. Much tedium awaits, as we return to the line edits. Also, I should be seeing actual copies of A is for Alien this week, so I'm pretty excited about that. If you've not yet ordered a copy, please do so today. Thanks.
And yes, I am extraordinarily amused to see Stephen King taking Stephanie Myer to task. Bravo! To quote King, "...Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." Which is, of course, a much more tactful choice of words than the ones I've tended to use when describing Myer's novels.
Oh, the iPod was working again on Tuesday morning. Lucky me. The thing's a bloody tank. This is a first or second generation iPod I got back in the spring of '05.
Photos from Monday, behind the cut:
Trustom Pond, frozen with mallards. View to the north and west.
Turstom Pond. View to the north.
Moonstone Beach. View to the southwest.
Egg case from a whelk (Family Melongenidae).
The black sand layer marking the 1996 oil spill.
Nothing green in sight.
The cobbled beach. View to the southeast.
Card Pond, frozen. View to the north and east.
A pier piling? I may post several more pictures of this later. There are so many wonderful textures and shapes, one image does not do it justice.
All photographs Copyright © 2009 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:04 pm (UTC)I love your beach pictures. Thanks for sharing, as always.
BTW, I finally got to see "Let the Right One in" on Monday night. I'm curious to know what your take was on the scene where Eli asks Oskar "To be me for awhile..." My hubby and I have been debating that greatly.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:27 pm (UTC)BTW, I finally got to see "Let the Right One in" on Monday night. I'm curious to know what your take was on the scene where Eli asks Oskar "To be me for awhile..." My hubby and I have been debating that greatly.
Hmmmmm. Let me think on this a bit.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:24 pm (UTC)My iPod is an '03 and still working, though mostly as the car stereo.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:26 pm (UTC)My iPod is an '03 and still working, though mostly as the car stereo.
Durable little beasts.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:51 pm (UTC)Beautiful pictures, as always. Card Pond feels like the northern equivalent to some of the lakes and marshes that speckle Threshold and Alabaster. I know some strange people prefer warm, sunny shores and sunbathing, but I've always enjoyed gray sands and gray skies.
If only my fiction elicited such passionate reactions!
I don't think I've ever had a passionless reaction to your fiction, if that says anything.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 05:58 pm (UTC)This morning I woke up to an e-mail from Amazon telling me that publication of A is for Alien had been delayed, and that they wouldn't be delivering until sometime in March (26th or 29th). Don't know if you knew this before, but there it is.
Odd. I know the book is coming back from the printer this week, and I've heard nothing of delays. This could be an Amazon thing. I'll check into this and post an answer ASAP.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 08:02 pm (UTC)I tried to pre-order from Amazon on Thursday or Friday of last week and after I had input all my shipping and billing info, it told me the book was "currently unavailable." No matter what I tried to do, including logging out and attempting the transaction again, it would not let me pre-order. I hate Amazon anyway, so I'll just buy it from Powell's.
Amazon is often frakked, but it's possible they're sold out. Or that the book is sold out. Though I've not been told either.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 09:03 pm (UTC)wood, nails, ropes
Date: 2009-02-04 06:01 pm (UTC)Re: wood, nails, ropes
Date: 2009-02-04 06:12 pm (UTC)Winter beaches so often offer up the most interesting things.
Re: wood, nails, ropes
Date: 2009-02-04 06:30 pm (UTC)Winter beaches so often offer up the most interesting things.
I am discovering.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 10:36 pm (UTC)'Kiddo,' said the agent, 'all this dread-filled dark fantasy stuff is nice for the cappuccino-sipping elitists. But in your next novel, make the heroine a zombie who Twitters while she eats someone's brains. You do that, I guarantee you big cardboard standees and displays in Barnes & Noble.'
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 11:36 pm (UTC)'Kiddo,' said the agent, 'all this dread-filled dark fantasy stuff is nice for the cappuccino-sipping elitists. But in your next novel, make the heroine a zombie who Twitters while she eats someone's brains. You do that, I guarantee you big cardboard standees and displays in Barnes & Noble.'
You're trying to kill me.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 02:44 am (UTC)And the sun has not shined the same way since...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-05 03:35 am (UTC)Free gift and beautiful beaches
Date: 2009-02-05 09:24 am (UTC)The photographs of the beach are incredible: the 22cm ulna intriguing. I found a defleshed, yet still articulated, northern gannet (Morus bassanus) skeleton last week. It was huge, but I think the ulna was probably less than 22cm - will have to measure it tonight.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-06 08:06 pm (UTC)Erratum
Date: 2009-02-06 08:07 pm (UTC)