Friday Five

1. What is (or would be) your dream vacation?
Pony trekking in Ireland, the Galway area, with frequent stops to explore stone circles.

2. What's one thing no vacation can do without? Other people to cook for you.

3. What has been the best trip of your life so far? Going on a guided coach trip of the Rockies, Yellowstone, Black Hills, etc. with my English friend Margaret (even if I was ready to throttle her much of the time).

4. Who was with you on that trip and what is the role of that person in your life? Margaret, guess I partly answered that question in #3. We met at a riding centre in Wales, when I went there in 1986 to explore a past life. We are still in touch, all these years later. She came over here in 1988 and we went on our jaunt out west. She may come over here next year.

5. What's the worst thing that can happen during a vacation? Being in a great place with things do to and not having any money with which to do them. Especially if you are with your young child who doesn't understand *why* you can't go to the National Seashore yet again (because of the entry fee).

Esp. for Lurkitty and Miladycarol

QoTD:

"Her connecting flight from Chicago to Denver had been delayed by some unspeakable, or at any rate, untold, malfunction of the airplane.  . . . There was no one at the gate to answer questions. The lines at the desks were eight miles long, only slighter shorter than the lines at the toilets. Sita Duplip had eaten a nasty lunch standing up at a dirty plastic counter, since the few tables were all occupied by wretched, whimpering children with savagely punitive parents, or by huge, hairy youths wearing shorts, tank tops, and rubber thongs. . . . The airport bookstores did not sell books, only best-sellers, which Sita Dulip cannot read without risking a severe systemic reaction."

-- Ursula K. Le Guin, Changing Planes, Copyright 2003

Welcome back to your respective homes, ladies.

Yes! Third client in the bag!

I wrote some time ago about Bonnie, an account executive with a NY fundraising firm who is now at another firm, and who contacted me asking if I was interested in freelancing with her again.

She's sending me an assignment on Monday. I'll be writing fundraising letters for public television. So that makes three different fundraising firms that will be using me. Having only two made me nervous. This is good.

Meanwhile . . . I haven't bothered to mention that at one of the other firms, I not only had an account exec. I'd never heard of call me (she'd heard of me by word of mouth) -- this is the one I wrote the hospice letters for -- but Judi, my original AE there who dropped out of sight a year and a half ago, is back and asking me to write for humane societies. (I just did a letter for her this week.) She had "inherited" the humane society clients from another AE, and in the process, also inherited his freelance writers (that's how it goes in this business). But they are both male, and she decided she needed a "woman's touch."

So I've gone from two AEs at that firm, to four.

Nice.

Forty days and forty nights . . .

No, it only feels like that. But this has been the wettest past couple of weeks in memory in these here parts. Today was cloudy with an occasional drizzle, but the real rain did hold off long enough for me to get the plants I'd bought for the deck planters potted up. Now it is raining again. Hard. Ugh.

Last night Stella looked so totally bummed out by the rain that I had to laugh. I took a picture. It isn't as funny now as it seemed last night (my samurai said, "I want to make a user pic out of that, too!"), but here it is.