Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain

Murphy's got his eye on me today. Please pardon the shameless griping.

( Dawn & Murphy BFF )

Despite all this, the day was not a total wash, and so I will end on a positive note. Because I despise the thought of becoming one of those negative people who looks at life and only sees everything that is wrong.

Bobby picked me up at work, and we went to look at my car. He opened the hood, tinkered with a few cables, and it started. So that saved any expensive repairs or having to be towed, when I hope to be getting rid of the car in a few months anyway. He also showed me what he did; I will admit that I am a stereotypical "girl" when it comes to cars. I don't like cars, and I don't know the first thing about them. But now I know one thing to try if this ever happens again.

We may not be going to Bermuda in three weeks, but we will be going to see Jimmy Buffett in concert on 28 June! I "waited on line" for tickets online this morning and got them. Whee! Jimmy Buffett tickets are very hard to come by around here.

Alex behaved exceptionally well during the snafu today, much better than I would expect of a dog as young as he is. Also, several instances today proved to me that he knows all of his basic commands. No, he is not perfect yet, and we still have a lot of work to do, but it will happen. He is still testing the waters to see what he can get away with with me. He understands what I expect of him; now it is just a matter of shaping his behavior until he's perfect ... or as close to it as one can reasonably expect. :) And so we will begin to move on to much more fun training exercises now, which I suspect is a relief for both of us.

My short story "Cold Hands" was up for critique on Critters this week. I will admit: I was nervous, afraid that people would either 1) tell me to scrap the story or 2) no one would read it at all. But I have gotten two critiques back already, and both were fantastic! Both were very encouraging but also made excellent points about where I might focus during the final revisions. It really reminded me of the value of a good critique and the importance of learning to write better critiques, just as I work to write better stories.

Tonight, Bobby and I are going to Rocky Run for supper for Meryth's birthday. He is going to be twenty-six next week. We'd decided to go to Rocky Run first, and since Rocky Run is Meryth's favorite restaurant, I figured we might as well justify it as being for his birthday. Yes, Meryth is a muse, but almost everyone likes to be remembered on his or her birthday, and Meryth--though he may be "imaginary"--is no exception. I will draw the line at trying to explain Meryth to our server and getting a free dessert out of it, however.