Summer thoughts

It's been a good summer so far. I've gotten to take several little trips as well as just enjoying being at home and having a less hectic schedule than during the school year. I've cooked more and enjoyed the fresh vegetables from our CSA.I'm done with my critiques for TNEO, which I'm moderating this year. It feels great to be done ahead of time, because I know I'm going to have some last-minute things to deal with, and as always, I'm an obsessive packer so I start days in advance. Ok, I admit, we did laundry yesterday and I already left out a little pile of things I know I'll take with me, so there's no point in wasting energy putting them into a drawer, is there?It will be a longish trip, though, since Stephan is driving out to meet me at the end of TNEO and we're doing some northern New England travel between that and Worldcon in Montreal!This is actually one of the "cool things" I referred to in a post a while back here, but I didn't want to post it since it wasn't 100% official. The schedule hasn't come out yet, but I suppose it's official enough to post it here. Stephan and I have been asked to do a presentation at Worldcon on The Willow Maiden, the ballet for which I wrote the story, he served as Artistic Director, and Frank Felice composed the excellent orchestral score. It's not the first time I've done this--I spoke about it at DragonCon and at the C.S. Lewis and Friends Colloquium back before it was premiered, and gave a talk and showed footage at Mythcon in 2004. I'm honored to be asked and think it will be a great opportunity.In other news, I haven't gotten a lot of writing done, but am halfway through a new story I'm calling "The Sunken Village." The kittens turned 1 year old on Monday and we had a party with balloons. Pictures are up on Facebook. If you want to see them just drop me a friends request.