has become a full-fledged piece of the plot. I figured out, during my semi-normal 3am wake-up time, where I should actually incorporate it so that it doesn't come out of the blue and is organic to the character. Go, me?

We made it home yesterday, after some...interesting contretemps at the airport. The flight we were trying to get on, which had over 30 seats open when we checked that morning, slammed shut on us for no reason we could see at the time. And the next flight out looked really iffy. So we were casting about looking for alternatives, thinking about maybe taking the shuttle up to LAX and coming home from there, and about five minutes from making the call that would set that up...

When we hear our name called. Understand that the next flight out doesn't leave for another two hours or so, so hearing them call us was...unusual. The Hubby goes up to the podium and comes back with seat assignments. "Buh?" sez I.

"The flight going to Salt Lake before ours was massively delayed," he said. "We have seats, and they're even together. SCORE."

Apparently the plane coming to San Diego hit a hawk and sucked it into the engine on takeoff, and they had to do an emergency abort and turn back and land back at the originating airport. And then they were scrambling around for equipment and stuff, and a bunch of people who were supposed to be on that flight going out went out on the one that we'd wanted. But this opened up seats on the delayed flight, so we were shiny and now we're home, yay.

We got the last three seats on the plane and visited Sea World today. Got some fab pix. Ate at Oggi's. Only got lost once on the way back to the hotel, and easily found ourselves again, yay maps. Tomorrow we're going to the Wild Animal Park.

I figured out why not!Harry freaks so hard when someone comes at him with a needle and have incorporated it into the text of the story. I hate my brain. It's MEAN. Leave it to me to addict a character played by RDJ to drugs against his will, even if it is offscreen. Gawd. *headdesks repeatedly*

I also managed an edit job on about half the story on the plane, as Da Boy was seated in front of me next to an accomodating man who let him play video games on his iPhone, thus providing me a free baby sitter. Thank you, kind stranger!

And I think I want to do an Iron Man vid to "Stray Cat Strut." I'm pretty sure I can even pull it off.

Also, still quietly squeeing over the sale of the Werewolf Fic.

I've hit my "middle of the book" mini-climax.

Now I have to figure out how to wind it down (without being boring) before I wind it back up again.

I suppose the characters are going to have to deal with the interpersonal fallout of what's happened to them. Not!Harry and not!Harmony, especially, are going to have to come to terms with a new dynamic between them.

They'll just be relaxing when...WHAM. I'm going to hit them again. Because I'm mean like that.

In other news, I'm holding, in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, the new book "Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror," which just came out today and has a Harry Dresden story in it that had me dissolving in fits of giggles the entire way through. Complete and utter screwball comedy. It also boasts a story from the handsome and talented ericjamesstone, which you can read the beginning of here. But the Dresden story alone was worth the cover price.

I also stopped by Wally World and picked up a couple more Iron Man t-shirts, because, hey, you can never have too many of those, and at $7 apiece you can't beat the price with a stick. I think I might have one for every day of the week now...

Obsessed fangirl? Moi?

In other other news, we're heading out to San Diego tomorrow for a couple of days of fun in the sun. Seeing as we didn't actually do anything this summer except WorldCon, which wasn't exactly together, we thought maybe we should. Weather looks gorgeous. We're planning on coming back Saturday evening, so it's just a short trip. Should be fun, and getting away usually knocks something loose, writing-wise, for me.

Under the cut, we have ( meerkats, lizards, lots and lots o' baaaaaby panda pix, adult pandas, birds, spiders, an amazing flower, and a peccary. )

Under the cut, we have ( parrots, hornbills, lizards, hoofed stock, a frog, a green tree boa having just eaten, and a wombat )

Pictures! I have pictures!

I just uploaded 72 pictures from the San Diego Zoo to my Photobucket account. You can see the thumbnails here. We have, in the batch on this post, birds, lizards, hyenas, gazelles, and a little bit o' hoofed stock.

Or, I'll just start posting them ( under the bouncing LJ cut... )

We are back from San Diego! And I'm going to be paying for this trip, in a couple of ways, for days.

I gained six pounds. Woe.

All that walking around made my legs ache, y'all. I'm getting too old for this.

So, the first day, we checked the loads and decided that the earlier flight might be make-able, so we ran around like crazy creatures getting ready to go. And we actually made the earlier flight, so yay. Had pizza and mozzerella sticks at Oggi's. OMGYUM.

Tuesday, got up early to go to the zoo. Free breakfast at the hotel was a madhouse. There was nothing organized about that chaos. Hit the zoo right around opening time, bought our membership, and made a beeline for the panda exhibit.

Where I shot about 150 pictures just of the pandas. Have I mentioned lately how much I love my camera?

The trick, we discovered, is get there early on a weekday when school's in session. The baby was having a blast, running around, climbing on stuff, hassling his mom--and we could stand there for as long as we wanted, because the crowd hadn't gathered yet.

The rest of it is...kind of a blur, actually. We got to see the Hairy-Nosed Wombat out and about, which was the first time I'd ever seen one, so that was cool. The walk-through aviaries were neat, although the upper level of one of them was closed for repairs of the walkway, which appeared to be rusting. They have lots of hornbills, but they're sequestered behind wire, and this makes them hard to shoot, alas. No toucans, the echidna was sleeping, and the anteater was AWOL.

Oh! Honey Badgers! They were entertaining too. And the Green Tree Python had just been fed, so I got some shots of him with his mouth open and such. I'm sure I'll remember more as I go through the pictures (again). Ate at Sizzler and wandered through the Fry's Electronics, because we don't have a Fry's in SLC.

Wednesday, we visited the Emerald Forest Bird Garden, and Jerry showed us around his operation and answered our questions about the birds. And I shot NO PICTURES. He's got seventeen species of toucan, along with hornbills, finches, parrots, turacos, and at least one peacock (heard, not seen). It's a really impressive setup out there, and I think we're leaning towards a "YES" on the question of whether we're getting one, but it's contingent on finding out how much it's going to cost to feed it.

After that, we wandered down to Seaport Village and poked through the shops. Ate an indifferent meal at one of the small eateries there.

Thursday was our day for the Wild Animal Park. BABY PELICAN. It's like... a bird larva. Really really weird. And the Flamingos apparently decided, with much fanfare, that they'd all rather be there than here, and with much honking and wingflapping and swimming off, most of the flock swam away. And then five minutes later, they came back.

The lions were entertaining as well. They've got a Land Rover in the exhibit, and they spent a lot of time on top of it. I got a couple of fabulous cub shots, and a really nice head shot of the male. Ate at Outback, which is always always very good.

Friday, we visited the ICR Creation Museum, which entailed a lot of standing around reading signs. They had a really cool video of the Mt. St. Helens eruption, and the ark exhibit was neat, too, giving you an idea of the scale of the thing.

After that, we hit the beach. I got pix of terns and some sort of long-legged shorebird-thing.

And then we tried to come home. Apparently the length of the runway meant weight restrictions on the airplane. So, while they had empty seats, they didn't have any empty seats for us. JetBlue had a flight going out after that one, which was late. We hung around their gate for a bit, the Hubby made a phone call to $CompanyHeWorksFor to see if they could do anything for us (they couldn't), and then asked the gate agent if there was any way we could buy a ticket there to get home on. The gate agent basically blew him off, so we were going to just suck it up and stay in a hotel overnight (hoping to find one that could take us to the airport at five in the morning!), but I said, let's ask at the actual counter, where they're not slammed.

So, we did, and wound up buying tickets. Which we hate to do, because we're cheap that way, but we're home, so yay.

I have no idea if I'm going to be able to catch up with my flist. I've filtered the comms and feeds out, so I'm just reading journals, but I'm sure I'll be at skip=200 or something by the time I give up.

I have made hotel reservations. I have made sure a car is waiting for us when we get there--after trying to reserve a car at one place and finding out that they actually close the counter at the exact same time our plane hits the runway. That...could have been bad, had I not noticed it. The airline knows we're coming.

I've printed out maps from the hotel to the zoo, the wild animal park, Seaport Village, and the toucan place (Google Maps is my very good friend). I've printed out two different sheets of questions for the park and the zoo for Da Boy so we can count this as "field trips." I have a list of good places for birding, including one place that's known for owls, which I hardly ever see in the wild.

All I need to do, I think, is let the toucan guy know we're coming. I tried to find a city map (by phoning the local map shop) but they didn't have a map of San Diego. I might try a couple more places, but it's not a huge priority.

Oh, and pack. Packing would be good. We're leaving on Monday and coming back on Friday.

Yay!

We're back!

San Diego Diary

July 28, 2005( Read more... )

July 29, 2005( Read more... )

July 30, 2005( Read more... )

July 31, 2005( Read more... )

Aug. 1, 2005( Read more... )

Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2005( Read more... )

Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005( Read more... )

Thursday, Aug. 4, 2005( Read more... )

And here we are. The trip was a curious mixture of disastrous and wonderful. The pillow definitely helped, I think, because this is the first trip I've ever been on where I didn't wake up with a backache every morning. But, man, I will never complain about traffic in Salt Lake City ever again.

Dude. Sea World rocks like a big rocking thing.

In other news, I'm getting all sorts of very nice reviews for "Partners in Crime," my Kitten!Cuddler!JayneFic. And I'd love to write more Firefly fic. But alas, the only plot bunny I have is angsty!rape!fic (ugh, don't ask. Really)...which I would rather avoid writing, if it's all the same to everyone else.

So, anyone got any orphan Firefly plot bunnies in their hutches? I don't guarantee I'll actually do anything with them, but I'd love to write more Firefly fic, if I had a jumping-off point. Any characters, but I love Jayne and Kaylee best, and River too, because she reminds me of Dru. Only, you know, not evil.