Kayak, Casinos and Writing

The drive to Arizona felt incredibly long with our two new dogs. We left Mr. Mozie with the commune out here in CA since he's old and needs more care. Watson tried to play ball in the car. I think if we had the windows open, all the toys we brought would have been thrown out. 

We went to a baseball game. It was a children's game so it was a lot of base walking. I don't know baseball as well as I know soccer. My brother played baseball for a little bit, but I spent most of my time at the snack bar and I sat on the bleachers long enough to be super annoying. Now, the kids have their own "walk" song. My nephew's walk up song was "California Girls" which I asked why, and I guess it was a dare from my niece (his sister). He's such a freaking cutie. 

We went to Cottonwood to kayak. I was hoping we would have a shared kayak, so imagine Emory's relief when he realized he wasn't responsible for my lazy butt. Some of the little currents got a little scary, but they were so minute! Honestly, Emory got stuck on a rock and the stream kept carrying me away. He caught up. It was so fun. I was soaking wet.

Emory saw the tiny sign that marked the path we needed to go. It was a little scary because it was super tiny. It reminded me of the crossroads where one path is sunny and perfect and the other is dark and overgrown with brush and trees. Yep, that dark path was OUR road. So we went down it. We saw some really awesome birds. Does Arizona have exotic wetland birds? We couldn't name any of them, but I've seen birds like this in Florida.

Afterwards, we went to listen to live music while we tried a wine tasting. I went with all reds except one white called "Sex on the Beach" which tasted super fruity and perfect. 

Cliff Castle Casino was our hotel choice. We were right next to the pool and at first, we were the only two people in the vast pool area. Then others came in and we sat on a chair to dry off. Emory won back all the money he gambled with and actually had enough to tip the people that cash out the papers. He didn't win more than $3.00 more than what he spent.

Writing Update:

Editing/writing B.L. I still don't know what I want to do with this. 

Handmaid's Tale, Dread and Writing

Should we move back to Arizona? Not sure we really want to move back to a red state though. There are more communes out there than out here. There is only one that we travel between out here in California. The commune out here has two homes, so we sometimes go to both. 

We were invited to hang out at the commune in Oxnard, but we had way too much to do, which still didn't really get done, so now we have even more to do in so little time. We have to wash clothes, pack, I need to find EVERYTHING I bought for the different communes. I have things going to a lot of people. What can I say, I love shopping.

This should be good right? So why do I feel so sick? 

Every time I watch the news, I'm just full of dread. What can we keep doing? Nothing being done is really making a point. I'm waiting for the sign to jump in and protest again. I'm so upset with how America has turned out. Where did all these horrible people come from? 

Ann is reading The Handmaid's Tale. I told my favorite bartender and she said that book hits too close to home and she didn't think I'd like it. Ann said the book was originally published in the 80's. That's nuts! But Ann says it's pretty graphic so it's horror in its own right. She said she watched an interview with the writer and she has a pretty dark personality. I think most people think stoic is dark.

I have a lunch date with Sue. That should be pretty nice. I haven't really been out of the house since we got these little dudes. They have the biggest fit. 

Hey, stay safe peeps. I just got a scam call. Ann isn't too happy that I laughed at the people, but their scare tactics were just something I'd seen hundreds of times on YouTube so I really just wasn't falling for the urgency. They called me 7 times in three minutes when I kept hanging up on them. They left me such a funny voicemail and I kept it for Emory to listen too so we could laugh again. NEVER ever!!! Give personal information over the phone. It's a scam! 

Ann thinks I should get tickets to the Marvel Ass-semble show that came out from Europe. I really want those tickets, but I think I missed my chance out here in California and I don't think we'll have time in Arizona, because that's where they are playing next. 

Writing Update:

B.L. Not getting much done. I have so much to edit on this. I have 11 chapters written and each chapter is almost over 5000 words. I'm cutting that done so now it's roughly double the chapters with the smaller word count. I'm a little worried now that the word count per chapter is pretty low, but it was too long before. 

Book Club BBQ, Recluse and Writing

Sue has a book club BBQ so I haven't seen her all week as she's been busy preparing for it. I'm pretty sad about that. She's a really great friend. She brought me dinner when I was stuck at home with my new dogs. I love going to get her wines, but now that she cancelled everything, we haven't had that time to travel up to Solvang. I do want to bring my dogs up to Solvang and see how that goes. 

Ann bought me a different type backpack for Sherlock so I have a different way to carry him. I'm a little nervous bringing the dogs to the commune. I think Watson will be fine. He just want to play and chew on toys. Sherlock needs to be with someone and he gets under your feet. He already tripped me. Yeah, it kind of hurt when I went down because I tried catching myself and jolted my bad shoulder. I laughed through the pain because I was more worried about comforting Sherlock. He's okay. It just scared him. 

I really think Watson could be trained to be a service dog. I don't faint all the time. It's been a few months now, but I think he'd warn me or something because he's so incredibly observant. Such an incredible boy. 

I need to get everyone out of the house though. Just because I'm a recluse, doesn't mean that I want them to be scared leaving the house. We've done a good job taking them out. Watson is getting better at walking on a leash. He realizes that a walk means sniffing and time to mark. 

Goddess, my life has been dogs, dogs, dogs....

We're getting ready for Arizona. We still have a few more things to plan and then we're good to go. Emory wants to do this 4 hr hike that is good for beginners. I hope it is because I'm not super strong to pull myself across the river, but it does look like a lot of fun. 

We're also going to do a kayak tour in Cottonwood. I hope we have time, because we're really running from one point to the next.

Since this is my birthday season.... (yep!!! a whole season!) we're going to get some vegan/gluten free desserts to take to all the parties. That's going to be such a busy day, because my best friend's theater show is that day so we're going to that. I always send her flowers, so this time I can give them to her in person. 

Writing Update:

B.L. I'm now working on chapter 6. There is so much I'm having to delete on this chapter. I want it to not be as kinky as I originally wrote this. It had some major kinks that might need to be softened a little for actual publication. When I wrote this, I wrote this for a certain crowd. Now, I'm cleaning this sucker up. I think I'll have to go through this one more time. Also, I wonder how big the book is actually going to be. 

Puzzle Swap, Cat Lady and Writing

So the puzzle exchange in August is a little HOT. It started at 10am. Sue was smart. She brought a sun hat and sunglasses. I forgot my sunblock. I'm really taking a chance here, considering skin cancer is such an easy thing to get in this sunny weather. 

I found some kicking puzzles!! There was one puzzle up for grabs that I had on my wish list for three years now. It was part of a "Fund-Raiser" and now I guess it's in all the Target stores. I asked her if she would exchange for it. She said she was waiting for someone to exchange with, but they never showed up so she gave it to me. I asked if she wanted to exchange phone numbers and I could get it back to her when I was done. She said, "Nope! I'll see you again." And that was that. 

I found so many cat puzzles that I think pissed Sue off. She took them anyways, and a guitar puzzle because she thought it was super neat. I told her to take what she wanted and she said it was enough for her. She also said she only took like two of the cat puzzles when I found at least four or five. That's okay. She'll probably think about it and grab the others once she decompresses from the heat.

Well, everything is going good in this house. My older dog has not tried to shred the newer ones.... That's funny because he's grumpy but he's not horrid. Typo (bless her spirit) hated dogs. Mozart just tells them when they can play and they listen. 

It's so fun to walk out of the room and have three dogs following me. Sherlock has whacked into everything. I'm really nervous about taking him to the commune because that's a lot of people and pets. I think he'll be okay as long as he knows where I'm at. I'm going to start backpack training him so we can take Watson and Mozart and him to outdoor events with us. 

Nuts! I just locked myself out of Tubi by putting Tubi-Kids on play for the dogs. They are reactive to every sound in this complex so the cartoons keep them quiet. I put it on to go to the puzzle exchange and now I'm locked from regular Tubi! Tubi with all the movies I love watching!! I hope we know our password.

Writing Update

B.L. I'm still editing chapter 4. Most of these chapters are a mess because I wrote them in a flurry of inspiration, but now they need to be cleaned up. Naughty words need to be mostly edited out because one of my characters might have too much of a potty mouth. I think I might change their ages about four more years to make them older. Plus I feel like the story might be pretty gritty and dark. 

Area 51, Desert Mailbox and Writing

I've been watching a lot of conspiracy television. It reminds me so much of Jeffrey. I think I should tell him to check it out on Tubi which is free out here in USA. I'm not sure if its a free service anywhere else, but I freaking LOVE how many movies pop up on it. 

I would seriously set my vacation schedules to fit into some of these crazy sites mentioned in the docu-series. I do want to see Area 51. I also want to see that mailbox in the middle of nowhere.... literally this is a mailbox in the desert. Can I put a letter in it with a stamp? Will a stranger find it? Would I open myself up for Men in Black to come knocking on my door?

Why is our planet so awesome? So many questions! 

Why do I believe all this stuff? Because I was raised to believe it. 

I always caught my dad staring at the sky. I asked him why he did this every night and he said he was watching for UFOs. Once, he moved into the desert and said that's what he did at night, just waiting.....

There are all these tiny little dead bugs on our porch. I can't tell where they are coming from. They look like popcorn. We've been here for almost five years and never had all these little guys on our porch, so why now? What are they? Maybe it's the heat? Global warming?

My nieces and nephews have started school again.

We're still trying to plan our vacation to Arizona. We're going to check out the Grand Canyon and then we're doing a kayak wine tour. We have a concert in the middle of the week and then we're heading to to the other side of the state for more adventures. We just haven't planned everything yet. We need so much sunscreen. My best friend wants to do some hiking. We're going to need to find the camelback for our water. 

Speaking of hiking, we're going to get a doggie backpack for Sherlock. He's going to need something so I can take them out in public. Being blind, he's really freaked out when there are a lot of people walking around him or too much open space. I'll be the one wearing the backpack because he's my shadow. He's pretty much attached to my hip. 

I was editing videos and he actually went back to bed with Watson. That was pretty funny to find them sleeping in bed without me. 

Writing:

B.L. Working on chapter 4 now. So much to edit but at least I have the first draft pretty much done. I'm guessing this might be a long story. I don't know how popular it will be. Omega/Alpha possessive behavior. Talks about omega trafficking. Black market underground. So we'll see if this gets any hits. I'm excited for this one but it needs some work because I still need to fix some things.