Calypso is recovering nicely and I couldn’t be happier with how things are going. SO glad to have the surgery behind us now. Although Calypso is NOT liking the E-collar (Elizabethan collar. It looks like a lampshade and prevents her from licking the incision) that she has to wear at night. Fortunately I can keep an eye on her during the day and she doesn’t have to wear it then.

So I had a very interesting weekend. Early Saturday morning (after my patented Calypso Alarm Clock System DEMANDED I rise and shine at about 6:30. One of these mornings I’m going to get an audio recording of her morning wake-up call and make a million dollars selling it as haunted house sounds for Halloween) a chocolate lab/mix of about 5 or 6 months of age showed up at our house and proclaimed himself to be The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave! (SNL reference there). Of course this was the worst possible time for a stray to show up but I had to do something. We made calls, talked to neighbors, etc. Nobody knew where the little guy, whom I started calling Impy, had come from. And we weren’t in a position to keep him…

Fortunately one of the calls I had made was to our vet and they knew someone who was interested in adopting such a dog. So Impy is currently at the clinic, waiting for what will hopefully be his new family.

Bonnie, Susie, April and Willy are doing okay. The weather has been gross but it’s supposed to be cooler over the next few days, so that’s good. I can’t wait until we can start training again and I feel like going outside during the daytime.

In the meantime, I have been writing. But not North City. Translating a season of webisodes into a novel turned out to be more troublesome than I had anticipated. I worked on the first chapter but I was having less fun the further it went along. It just seemed flat.

So I put that project on the back burner and started on something different. Since I’ve been wanting to roadtrip out to Yellowstone again so badly right now (though I don’t think that’s going to happen this Fall, unfortunately) I decided to write something that took place in Yellowstone.

It’s actually a re-write of something I wrote when I was ten, then re-wrote when I was twelve, then totally revamped and tried to make overly complicated when I was sixteen, before finally giving up. I’ve scrapped most of the overblown third draft and gone back to writing an adaptation of the first and second drafts. Obviously there are many changes, and I’m writing it with a waaaaaaaay different perspective than I did when I was ten but the basic storyline is the same.

It’s a children’s book, but not a kiddie book. And I’m having SO MUCH FUN WRITING IT! I’m on chapter 3 right now and the characters are already taking over (something that just wasn’t happening with North City). No title yet for this one, so I’ll probably be referring to it as “The Yellowstone Story.” I’ll keep you informed.

Calypso had knee surgery yesterday and is now back home and resting beside the chair where I am sitting. We’re looking forward (not really) to six to eight more weeks of restricted exercise for her. Maybe it’ll be cooler by the time this is “over.” The heat here is unreal. This is why I always leave GA in August (well, one reason). Because there is nothing I like about this kind of weather…However I understand that it’s not just the Southeast that is being hit with a horrendous heat-wave. I talked to Jen the other day and she told me it was 91 degrees on the North Shore. And that’s usually one of the coolest places in MN so I shudder to think what temperatures were like elsewhere in the state.

It feels weird going into August with no plans to escape go anywhere. The past two years it was back up to Minnesota. In 2007 my parents and I went to Alaska for the first time. But this year…I want to go somewhere where I can step outside without wanting to curl up and melt. I keep thinking about the Rockies and my trip out there last Fall. Seems like Yellowstone is one of the few places with decent weather right now. In the 30s there at night, I understand. Sweet!

But in the meantime, I’ve got things to do here. And I don’t even want to talk about the run-around about trying to find somewhere that offers the GED test in months other than May or June. Seriously…I just want to get that done and OVER WITH so I can actually move forward instead of standing in the mud like I feel I’m doing right now.

But I said I wasn’t going to talk about that right now.

Other things are going smoothly. And Calypso, yes. I was going to talk about Calypso.

She is a bit out of it right now and content to sleep and not do anything, which I guess is better than having her wanting to be bouncing off the walls when she should be resting. She looks kind of funny with most of the fur shaved off her left leg. Poor thing.

The other dogs are okay. We had Bonnie and Susan dashing around the house yesterday and then they both went and hopped on my bed. I swear, all they had to do was sit there and they got more and more hyper without doing ANYTHING. I said something to them and it was like the Great Explosion Of Wagging Tails And Doggy Laughs.

In the meantime, I’ve been re-watching episodes of Due South. I LOVE that show. If you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favor and at least find a copy of the pilot movie.

Due South aired for four seasons stretched between 1994 and 1999 but only the first two seasons aired in the US. The show was extremely popular in Canada and the UK (so popular that there were - and still are - Due South conventions) but for a long time it was near-impossible to find on DVD in America.

I found out about it because one of the main characters is a wolf hybrid played by a Siberian husky (except in the movie where he is played by a more wolfy-looking dog). Now of course I have a great internal struggle because, as I was saying loudly a few posts back, it drives me insane when people think my Siberians are wolves. And here is a show that is furthering that misidentification yet I absolutely LOVE THE SHOW!

The premise of Due South is as follows: Benton Fraser of the RCMP, along with his deaf, lip-reading wolf hybrid, Diefenbaker, are transfered to the Chicago consulate. There they meet up with detective Ray Vecchio and join forces to fight crime. It’s a culture clash comedy mixed with police/crime drama. Not slapstick funny but more subtly amusing.

I think the first two seasons are my favorites. After that, Ray goes undercover and Fraser teams up with a different cop, Stanley Kowalski. It’s still good but it seems to get a little sillier and far-fetched (okay, I know the whole thing is far-fetched). Seasons 3 and 4 are just kind of a different animal…Definitely worth seeing but I prefer 1 and 2.

And there’s a Car. All great TV shows of this type have to have a Car. This one is a 1971 Buick Riviera owned by Ray…and did I mention that Due South has awesome car chases (and dogsled chases in the movie)?

So yeah, I hadn’t watched the show since I first got hold of the VHS tapes and DVDs when I was about 14. So I’m really enjoying it second time around!

Also, as some of you probably already know, today is Beargrease sign-up. Of course I’m not going to be up there this year so I won’t be running the 2011 BG150 but stay tuned because I’m going to post the list of mushers who are as soon as it becomes available.

Over and out until next entry.

A

Things here are going well and I finally feel as if I am progressing on some of my other projects. It’s just a matter of deciding which things to say ‘no’ to when.

The weather has actually improved a little bit, although it’s still blazing hot (my friends Elisabeth and Abi and I met up at a pizza place a couple of days ago and laughed at the sign out front which read ‘It’s So Hot We Saw The Devil Chasing An Ice Cream Truck’) but we’ve gone back to having rain every afternoon, which makes a HUGE difference. Granted, some of it has come alongside pretty intense thunderstorms and a power outage (never had to worry about power lines going out at MCK) but I’m not complaining.

Although this Summer has had its frustrations and tough times, I am so much more emotionally stable than I was last Summer. Don’t take that wrong and think I was a danger to myself or anyone else at the time - I wasn’t. I was just in turmoil, trying to figure out if I was on the right path and trying to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t a teenager or even a kid anymore, and neither were my childhood friends. This Summer I feel on solid ground, so to speak. Case in point: dreams. I had horrible dreams last Summer. I dreamed I had panic attacks, etc.

This afternoon I took a nap and had a very different dream. And it was a lucid dream, which hasn’t happened to me in quite a while. I’ve had lucid dreams before, where I know I am dreaming and I’ve been known to go around feeling things (walls, tables, wire, etc.) in my dreams to see if they actually feel “real” (they do). But one thing I’ve never before been able to do is to control my dreams. I also never have falling dreams (unlike most people).

Until this one. I dreamed I was going to fall from some great height…only I knew I was dreaming so I just focused on NOT falling and just stood on thin air and thought about something I was writing in real life. I’m not joking. The main reason I didn’t want to fall was that I knew it would be fast. Whenever I’ve dreamed about going fast, it’s always too fast and I pretty much can’t handle it and wake up. When I was little I was always annoyed because I LOVED merry-go-rounds but whenever I dreamed about riding a merry-go-round it always went too fast and the dream stopped. But this time I knew I was dreaming and I knew I was in control. It was cool just standing in the air but it was also kind of boring. So I thought, ‘hey, why not’ and fell. And this time, yes it was too fast…but I knew it wasn’t real and I was determined to enjoy it. It was seriously cool, because if felt real. I landed in a lake and somewhere along the line I lost the lucidity and my dream turned into something weird about pushing my friends’ car up a steep mountain road in Wal-Mart. Then the phone rang and woke me up.

In other news, Kippy-Calypso is going to have to have surgery on her knee. Despite my trying to keep her excercise very limited, she definitely has a torn cruciate. I talked to my vet down here and I talked to Jen on the phone and we have decided on a procedure. So Calypso will go in for that in about a week. It really sucks and the recovery is going to be *fun* (not!) but I’m looking forward to her not gimping around.

So I think that’s about it. I’ve started on the first chapter of North City and am still getting the hang of it. It will get easier to write as I go along and get to know the characters better.

Hope everyone is staying cool.

Cheers!

A

In other news, Bluebonnet “Bonnie” would like for me to make a public service announcement stating that she is in no way, shape or form, affiliated with Tropical Storm Bonnie - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100722/ap_on_re_us/tropical_weather

In the meantime, I have been thinking. My writing projects have not been going so well lately. I had several ideas floating around in my head for sci-fi, fantasy and kids’ stories. One in particular appealed to me a lot - it was expanding on a time-travel story that’s been in my head for years. Unfortunately I could not seem to make it work on paper. It just wouldn’t write. Urgh. I hate writer’s block.

In the meantime, the North City pilot was coming along but I was having doubts. Okay, it looked like I could do this but it was going to take a LOT of time and energy and seriously, getting a cast together would be a nightmare. And this is just for ONE PILOT. Never mind that I have enough material for TWO SEASONS. And even if we were somehow able to do it…To be honest, with the cast and crew I might be able to round up and my amature editing skills, it’d probably suck. No offense to anybody.

I just want this to be good.

So…what to do? Abandon the project. It was sounding kind of appealing. Wipe the slate clean and try to find a novel or SOMETHING that I could write.

Then I remembered. In Spring of 2008 I came up with what I thought was a great idea for a movie. I thought I’ve got to make that into a movie somehow. But what I wanted to do was waaaaaaaaaaay beyond my abilities, and I so badly didn’t want to tone it down. So I changed my plan and turned it into an approximately 600-page novel. It took me about four months to write it. No, I haven’t tried to get it published because there’s some things I want to fix first…

But that got me thinking. Duh. Instead of attempting doing a North City series that wouldn’t be able to live up to my expectations, turn it into a novel!

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Cheers!

A

“You, Susan, buckets of water from the wells!
You, Miss Unity, you follow her with the grease pails!”
“And what are you going to do?” said Susan, grabbing two buckets.
“I’m going to worry like hell and that’s not an easy job, believe me!”
-Terry Pratchett, ‘Thief Of Time’

So WE HAVE PRETTY MUCH FINISHED THE DOG SHED!!! Pictures of that coming soon. Just a couple of tweaks and the big Summer 2010 project will be complete! Next on the roster are the new doghouses and posts.

But my more immediate concern is whether Calypso is improving. I thought she was but then this morning she seemed to be favoring her leg as bad as ever. I really don’t want to have to deal with this - ugh! I want Calypso to be in perfect health. Just one stupid little thing like this and then…I’ll give it until at least Monday and see if there is improvement…I know it can take a while.

I’ve been able to hang out with a couple of my friends some and hope to be able to see them more next week, depending on what’s going on here…

I don’t know. I’m just feeling kind of low tonight and not sure why. I think I’m tired for one thing. I keep thinking of lots of little, medium-sized and big things I need to do and it seems the more things I actually GET done the more I feel like I’m NOT getting anything done. How weird is that?

Been going around about where to take the GED and worrying about how I will do…It’s a hassle trying to find somewhere to take it during Summer for some weird reason. And then, if you have to retake any of the sections, you have to wait months. Not that I plan to have to retake any. Quite the opposite, I plan NOT to, so if I DID have to retake any it would throw a huge wrench in my plans. Agh!

Got a chapter and a half left in my algebra book. So far so good on that.

I have several writing projects in my head but getting them out and onto some sort of media is a different story. Got to just sit down and ignore the five million distractions and just write them out.

And it’s too hot outside, even at night.

I have here the one and only picture of the one and only time we’ve gotten her out on a dogsled. That was in upstate New York, March 2002 - this was taken just after she drove that three-dog team for several miles through the snowy woods.

Tonight I believe my Mom and Dad and I will be going out to eat although I don’t know that we have decided exactly where. We’ll see where Mom decides to go - it’s her birthday after all!

Location: Armuchee, GA
Time - 9:34pm Eastern Daylight Time
Temperature: 87 degrees F (31C)
Conditions: Mostly clear, hot
Forecast: Clear tonight, chance of thunderstorms tomorrow. Highs in the 90s, lows in the 70s.

Image from http://www.cafepress.com/+before_you_ask_jr_baby_doll_double_sided,26160664

Hi everyone,

This is Alice White and I just want to clear a few things up. One of my big, big, big pet peeves (besides those monogram decals that people have on the back of their car windows) is when people make big assumptions.

First off, there is the usual question that every Siberian husky owner knows: “Is that a wolf?” We’re used to it and I really try not to let it get to me. July 4th this year I had three seperate people ask me if Bonnie was a wolf. I guess it must be the double coat, bushy tail and pointed ears. It just gets old after a while.

But that’s not what really got me wound up. The “dog has pointed ears=therefore dog is a wolf” assumption is more a case of mistaken identity. I’m talking about big assumptions.

Case in point, someone was talking to my Dad the other day - about fishing. My Dad enjoys fishing and so do I - I always skunk him. But I haven’t been fishing in a long time. My Dad and I mentioned this and the other person’s response was something along the lines of “Oh, she’s discovered boys.”

Um, no. I’ve just spent the better part of two years in Northern Minnesota which means there really wasn’t much opportunity to go fishing with my Dad who was back in GA. Plus I’ve been working part-time, writing, working with dogs, getting ready to take a test so I can work on getting my vet tech degree, and I hate the heat and we’ve had illness in the family, and I know what boys are thank you very much - some of my best friends have been boys, so saying I’ve “discovered” them is like saying I’ve “discovered” houses. Okay, so I know that’s not what you meant…

“No,” I said. “I discovered sled dogs.”

It wasn’t a big thing, really, but I found it insulting - the assumption that because I’m a 20-something year old girl (though this person may have assumed me to be a teenager) that I am obsessed with boys. No, that is SO not me.

Now my MN friends are laughing at me and I know why. And yes, I will readily admit that I have a crush on a certain rockstar. I think he’s really good-looking. So sue me. But (in my mind at least) that’s a far cry from what the fisherman was implying. So not that I am not interested in guys - but I have a life and identity that decidely does not revolve around them.

This is one reason why I haven’t been able to get into the Twilight craze. I’ll admit the books are interesting but I find myself constantly annoyed because the main character has no life/identity outside of boys (of course, they are romance novels so I guess that’s kind of the point). A lot of my friends LOVE this series though…and you’ll never find me telling anybody NOT to read a book. But I might reccomend some that I like a whole lot better…In fact, I’m compiling a list of much stronger female protagonists of science fiction and fantasy.

So anyway, this all boils down to getting stirred up by the fisherman’s random but very presumptive comment. And that long ramble is just my explanation of why it got to me so much.

And now, onto other things.

Calypso is doing okay. She may be doing a little better - it’s very hard to say. It’s hard to keep her from running around like a lunatic but it’s been easier than expected. Still, she’s a little sneak. I’ve kept the door to my bedroom shut so she won’t go leap onto the bed but this morning she discovered how to open said closed door. So now we have to especially watch it. Kippy is enjoying all the attention though - she’s such a ham! A very happy dog.

Aaaand, I have ideas running around my head faster than Calypso wants to be running around the house. It’s hard to focus on the projects I’m working on (ie. “North City”) when I get exciting *new* ideas.

For instance…a few weeks ago I was listening to a song and thinking about how its music video (more of a short film than a typical video) was unrelated to the actual topic of the song. I thought hey, I should get one of my friends together to do a spoof. Years ago, riding back from Chattanooga, we had come up with this elaborate (and very bizarre) story based on a dream I’d had. I thought why not base the music video around that song. My friend and I would film this short video, interspersed with lip-synching the song.

Or that was my glorious idea at least.

Then, last night, I was listening to a band I’d just discovered - the Arrogant Worms (that sounds like an Alice band, doesn’t it?). I’d already wanted to insert a scene into the non-existant music video that used part of a Weird Al song and now I was thinking that I had to have some Arrogant Worms stuff…

By the time I went to bed the idea was a full-fledged musical about two people on a roadtrip who keep running into fictional characters from different books and movies.

And it’s not something I even think I will seriously persue but I spent a LOT of time working it out in my head.

And that’s just one example.

Anyway, this evening I went out to eat at a nearby Chinese restaurant with one of my best friends. Elisabeth and I have known each other since we were about three and still have a great time whenever we meet up. So we had a very enjoyable dinner and caught up on relevent and irrelevent stuffs.

So that’s my long yadda-yadda for today. Catch you all later!

A

Image from http://www.cafepress.com/+before_you_ask_jr_baby_doll_double_sided,26160664

Although Calypso does have cause to be sad. Last week I saw that she was limping and it didn’t improve. I took her to the vet last Friday and she said she suspected a partially torn ACL in her left rear knee. This sucks, although we are hoping in will get better on its own. We kind of have Calypso under house arrest right now, which she is dealing with better than expected. She does seem miffed that we’re not letting her run and jump and she’s having limited contact with Bonnie and Susan because the three of them always like to romp around.

Kippy (Calypso) and Susie shared the same crate last night and I think they enjoyed that. Bonnie got to be the spoiled hog and slept on my bed.

Things are good, other than that. We just got great news this morning that means our off-topic issues are going as well as possible. Yay! Celebration here today, that’s for sure.

My Mom and I watched two movies recently. (500) Days Of Summer and Nell. Both were very, very good and I highly reccomend them.

In the meantime the dog shed looks great. We have a couple more strips to nail up and then all that’s left is the doors (and windows, if I decide to do that). It’s going to be great!

Next project: New doghouses and stakeout posts.

My family and I spent the 4th visiting the canyon, which was really crowded. Still, it was great to get out and about like we used to do! Good times. We saw another husky and about ten chihuahuas.

Bonnie observes a scenic overlook

This morning I didn’t have to work and it actually felt COOL outside. The humidity was down and there was even a cool breeze. When you get that kind of weather, at this time of year, in this part of the country, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of it.

So early this morning I took Susan over to James Floyd State Park (known locally as Sloppy Floyd Park) and we went for a hike. Sloppy Floyd is somewhere I have been going since I was very, very small - mainly the playground/picnic area. My best friends and I always went there.

Weirdly enough, for all the time I spent in the picnic area/playground, I never had really explored the park’s hiking trails (except for brief forays around the edge of the lake). So that was my goal today. Susan and I hiked up to an old marble mine cut into the side of the ridge. A boardwalk leads to the back and water drips off the ledge above and seeps out of the rocks within the mine itself. There must be some sort of spring there too because the pool is quite large and the water is very clear.

There are two holes into the rock behind the boardwalk. One of them I could see the back of but the other I could not. Wish I’d brought a flashlight…

After poking around there for a bit, Susan and I hiked up Taylor’s Ridge to the top where the paths from the park join up with the Pinhoti trail. It was a gloriously clear day with very little humidity and haze - meaning the view was spectacular. We followed the Pinhoti for a while and then cut back down on another trail that said something like “Floyd State Park This Way”.

Then there was a sign that warned “Steep Grade, Foot Travel Only.”

Next time I’m hiking UP that way, not down. Fortunately Susan walks really well on a leash and knows not to pull my arm out of its socket so we were fine.

Susan loved going hiking and I enjoyed the time with her. It’s always fun to be one-on-one with my dogs. And we both got good exercise. By the time we left the temperature had warmed up ten degrees but it was only in the 70s (geez, I hate saying “only in the 70s” as if that’s actually cold).

My aunt is visiting this weekend and she and my Mom and Dad and I just went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. Woo-hoo. Now we are going to watch a movie - Girl Most Likely To. I’ve never seen it so we’ll see how it is.

Over and out for now. I’ll close with a picture of the marble mine.