Lazy Bear

I've been back from Bahrain for a few weeks now. She brought me a nice T-shirt from Latvia--too bad they don't make them big enough for me to wear. I think it was Her excuse to be able to "wear it" for me. If She's going to buy something for Herself, why doesn't She just admit it.

I haven't been doing much. I'm on hiatus until She begins editing PBOTL in January. I imagine She'll need some professional consultation then. Until then, I'm watching Her work. She's uncluttering the house, and this is a good thing, because there will be more room for ME.

The remnants of Hurricane Jeanne are passing to the west of us, but we have a tornado watch until 5 pm today. She took a few minutes to relocate some items of potential interest to the bathroom in the center of the house--just in case. We're supposed to have thunderstorms, but we haven't seen any yet. Of course, as I type this, a rainshower began outside, so we may not have long to wait. It's really strange the way the downspout outside the corner of this room gets very loud when rainwater is pouring through it. I can hear this rumbling sound, and that's usually my first indication it's raining outside.

I watched "Finding Forrester" today while She was uncluttering the dining room. Interesting movie.

Template Changes

I noticed on the old template my title blog was getting cut off. I believe this was a subtle (or perhaps unintended) hint from Blogger that I should choose a new template. I've been contemplating this for a long time, but none of the templates I liked offered a Links (or Navigation) section. I finally decided to edit a template that appealed to me to include a Links area. The editing process went ok. I also enabled the profile--I think I take a very nice photo, thank you. If you open it up to look further, you'll find that Her recent blog entries show up, too. I haven't figured out how to stop that short of kicking Her out of this blog account, but that seems petty, so I decided to not worry about it. Enjoy.

Oh, and I also enabled Blogger's comments section, which removed the Haloscan comments. I'll see how this works out. If need be, I'll switch back to Haloscan, but comments have not been a problem for me--I'm keeping my claws crossed, but all my commenters have been friendly so far. I hope they stay that way. Have you seen what big teeth I have, Little Red Riding Hood?

Back in the USA

I have returned. No more swimming pool. No more chilly, comfortable air conditioning. Just plain, old, Virginia Indian Summer weather. The inflatable kiddy pool for the back yard. A house air conditioned to 80 degrees (and She turned off the A/C and opened the windows today!). She's done with the first draft of PBOTL and is letting is sit on ice until after the first of the year (too bad She doesn't think to do that for me). In other words, I have some downtime--just like the Olympic swimmers' lifeguard. I'm not knitting any afghans, though. (Note: this is in reference to an American Forces Network commercial for the Olympics--it probably didn't play in the States, but it was funny.) I am, however, reading up on legal issues for writers as a way to advise Her on how the legal aspects of professional writing work. If you're reading this and wondering something similar, the book I'm reading is called The Writer's Legal Guide: An Authors Guild Desk Reference by Tad Crawford & Kay Murray, Third Edition. ISDN: 1-58115-230-2. I've been reading the tax part, and it passes the giggle test for accuracy, so the rest of the book may be credible as well. Please leave comments if you have an opinion either way.

Imminent Departure

She departs Bahrain next week, so I'll be getting stuffed into a carry-on bag soon to make the trip back to the United States. I know I complained when I found out She was bringing me here, but I've grown to love the air conditioning and the swimming pool. I spent a lot of time in the swimming pool the day the country lost power last week.

While I'll be glad to be back on North American soil, I will miss this swimming pool.

I was able to watch the Olympics in German, Italian, and Arabic. The programming was excellent, and the events broadcast were interesting. Who knew handball was so much more than a sport played by two people chasing a hard rubber ball around a racquetball court? In the Olympics, it's nothing like that! Of course, I'm partial to the Winter Olympics, but you knew that.