Finally -- Rain

This morning when I trudged out to water the surviving plants, I felt a bit of moisture -- then another. The fine mist that was falling was too weak to cause any sound, but within a few minutes, it was rustling on the dry leaves, darkening the pavement and steppingstones.

We needed rain, a good rain. Not only had we not had a drop for many, many days, but there is a forest fire about thirty miles away which has been burning for about four days, and the air has been full of smoke, not to mention the "particulate matter."

Unfortunately, we got only about a tenth of an inch, but there is hope that we'll get more through the night, the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay. I'll probably still have to haul water to my plants.

I discovered something rather interesting this evening, however, along the lines of "it's an ill wind that doesn't blow some good." I was walking around the yard, looking at this and that, and I noticed that the sassafrass tree is fuller than usual. The leaves are bigger and there are more of them than in a typical year. Maybe it likes this weather!

How Soon We Forget

Now, I'm in the throes of finishing a book. Generally, since I'm electronically published, I just zap the finished MS to my publisher and go on to my next book. This time, I want someone with more specialized knowledge than mine to check over the manuscript, tell me what is wrong and comment in general. It meant -- horrors! -- turning on the printer, loading it up with paper, and for economy's sake, printing on both sides of the paper.

I'd forgotten how to do it! I enlisted Son's help. We divided the chore into three segments and started off, more or less confident. Then -- of course -- we made an error in judgement and had to go back and figure out -- well, to err is human, as they say. But we did get it done -- and in less time than we thought it would take.

Three pages from the end -- the computer said we were running out of ink. Ah, well!

My first printer was a dot-matrix monster that was slow, almost unreadable -- and weighed a ton. It would take two days to print out a MS -- and then I had to tear the pages apart and be sure they were in order. Back before that, I had a Smith-Corona Office Selectric. Both heavy and noisey. When I finished my first book, it took a month to produce a presentable manuscript to submit to a publisher.

I much prefer sending the MS to the editor as an attachment to an email -- which reminds me -- I have to get back to work!

Memory Lane --Lunch Break

Son reminded me that I had not blogged since I got home from my class reunion. So much happened, we had so much fun, how can I focus on one thing to tell you about?

I guess I need to tell you one thing I may not have mentioned before. I met Husband working in his family's restaurant. We were the trial case -- his mom married off all four sons to waitresses. Not that I was any good at being a waitress.

Husband's brother 1 and brother 3 were in Titusville -- or its vicinity -- while we were there, so we all met to have lunch in what was the restaurant. It's much nicer now, and the food might be better. (Truth is, I never ate anything there when I was working. )

But the sils and I enlightened the waitress on the history of the place. She was very entertained.

And the Ruben was very good.