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I leave first thing tomorrow for London (where I will stay first with the Clutes, then with Rob Holdstock and his partner) and hang out a lot with Pat Cadigan (and other Londoners and visitors such as Michael Swanwick and Marianne Porter, and Liz Hand, who will be overlapping with me)

So now I'm packing, cleaning up for my house-and-cat sitter, who stays here, trying to finish up as much work as possible. I'll be taking lots of reading with me for Best Horror of the Year and will be working on my Naked City intro.


Charles Tan raved about Poe on his blog Bibliophile Stalker .

I'm sure I'll probably post while away as I'll have my laptop and the Clutes and Rob H have wireless!

Tomorrow we're going to drive to Camden so that I can (hopefully) photograph the giant rabbit I saw in the window of a shop on Sunday. Then, we'll be driving to Portland for my flight, which isn't until a little after 7pm.

We hope to have time to noodle around Portland for a few hours--and we think the weather--which was bitter cold today--will be warmer. It should be above freezing, which will balmy if the wind isn't blowing.

As always, although I love traveling and love visiting friends, I'm also eager to get home and snug in my own apartment with my own animals. Liz has a kind of dippy kitty originally called "Fluffy Savage" by the kids but now is just called "Kitty" --not much personality (sorry Liz, if you're reading this) but very sweet. She's reported to have become more active in the past few months, and she did enjoy chasing the catnip toy I bought her and today I saw her chase her tail, which amused us humans. But I want to see Dinah and Bella.

In the meantime, please be aware that the Help Vera auctions are still going on and that there are some wonderful newly posted items with no bids on them (and that would make lovely gifts for friends or family). Go check them out.

I'm home from a marvelous weekend in the country at my friend John's. This time my old roommate/friend Carol accompanied me and we had a ball. After John picked us up in Kingston and we checked out the Rondout --ie waterfront neighborhood of the city (disappointing as it looks like it's dying--with a lot of empty storefronts --but we did have decent mojitos outside a local bar), we stopped in Saugerties for a cookout with a mutual friend. John gave Carol a pre-tour of his property (it was getting dark) while I unpacked. We watched The Jane Austin Book Club which was fun.

Next day, breakfast in Margaretville and shopping for the afternoon party John planned for us. Despite the mid-afternoon thunderstorm we all were able to stay outside on the porch because there's a big awning along the side of the house. The guys from whom John bought the house and property were guests (they live in town now) and John was a little nervous around them (he worries that they disapprove of what he's done with their place --they lived there 23 years). There was a "surprise" guest that John knew was coming but one of our other guests did not--an ex from some 20+ years ago. No one killed anyone else so we counted it a success. Lots of great cheese that Carol brought from Murrays. Lots of wine wine wine flowing. The party started at 3pm and almost everyone left.

John, me, Carol, Ros, and Tom (two friends) stayed and watched Nanking the dramatized documentary about the Rape of Nanking, based on the book by Iris Chang. It's powerful and upsetting, with some very good actors reading the roles of the fifteen Americans and Europeans who tried to save the lives of thousands of civilians in late 1937-1938 by creating a "safe zone" within the occupied city. The Japanese didn't always "respect" the safe zone, but the foreign missionaries and businessmen who stayed did save most of those residing in the zone.

The Japanese authorities prevented anyone going in or out of the city during its occupation so the outside world had no idea what was going on until George Fitch smuggled footage of the atrocities out to the west. There was no information in the documentary about when/why it stopped.
For more information:
Rape of Nanking

George Fitch, a missionary, was my friend John's grandfather on his mother's side. John says that he and his siblings and his mother found many of the atrocity photographs in a trunk in their house. These were turned over to the documentary makers.
The movie interviews some survivors of the atrocity. One describes the murder of his mother and baby brother. It's very hard to watch. There are also interviews with a few of the Japanese soldiers who were stationed there. These old old men appear to show no remorse.

The movie sobered us all up.
Today we went over to John's friend Ros's for breakfast. Tom stayed there too. We all piled into John's car to head to Kingston to catch the 2:30 bus. But we were having too much fun looking at scenery and ended up taking the 3pm bus instead.