Check . . . check . . .

This was pointed to by oracne and matociquala, among others: The Urban Fantasy Writer's Checklist of Required Elements.

Hmm. I can't promise that I'll avoid all these cliches, but I hereby promise that there will be no scene set at Denny's in the ice palace book.

Fiona's back!

Fiona is back from camp! She is tan and happy and has a duffle bag full of dirty laundry. And she missed us all but had fun, too.

Of course, our loving greeting to her was "We need to immediately check you for lice."

She had so much sand and grit in her hair, however, that we sent her back to shower and shampoo three times. The conclusion: negative on the crawly critters. Phew.

A Friendship Ball

I just got the friendship ball back from kijjohnson, with a gift that made me laugh: a little guest towel folded up inside that reads: "You'll always be my best friend. You know too much."

Have I explained already about the friendship ball? This was one of the most scathingly brilliant gifts I ever hit upon. I gave it to Kij several years ago, for her birthday, I think, and we've been trading it back and forth ever since. It's a little silver-plated metal ball, round and three inches in diameter, with a hinge on it so that you can open it. Any small hinged container will do, like a little box. You put a small gift into it, and send it to your friend, and she puts a gift into it that she's found and sends it back, and you just keep trading it back and forth. The ball is so small that you can put tiny things into it that are inexpensive. The fun of it is finding the tiny perfect things to send. It's a terrific way to maintain a long distance friendship, and it's a lot of fun. I have sent Kij, among other things, a coyote shaped pin, glass beads shaped like monkey heads, a tiny cardboard pot sown with strawberry seeds. She has sent me little magnets with photographs that are stuck to the metal shelves in my office, a gorgeous silk scarf, and antique ribbons to sew on my ribbon coat.

Fiona has started exchanging letters with a little girl she met in daycare when she was two. They've been apart for years, but have always kept in touch. I'm going to suggest that we find a little hinged box, and they can start it as a friendship box.

Edited to add: See my later entry here, which includes pictures and ordering information if you'd like to get your own friendship ball.

Lice report

Not clean yet. I found one live teeny weeny baby louse on Delia today, during a forty minute head check.

Off to wash the bedding again. *Snarl*

LOTR Movie "analogies" ?

An "interpretation" of the Lord of the Rings movies which is, perhaps, not surprising, but intensely gag-producing. For me, at least.

Okay, why mince words? Probably the most incredibly offensive I've ever seen. I would hope it would have been for Tolkien, too, who loathed allegory.

*Choke*

Oh, and if you haven't guessed by now . . .

I'm not going to Worldcon.

I'm too busy killing lice.

Oh, this is cool!

Got this atlj_nifty from dabrooklyn: If you're not getting comments on your posts forwarded to your e-mail like you're supposed to be, here's a nifty little LJ link for you: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/recent_comments.bml

It lists the fifty most recent comments on your posts and replies to comments you've made at other journals.

*bookmarks it*

I found the friendship ball!

You can buy it, too, here. This, I think, is the one that Kij and I have:



Here is another lovely one:



My quick research on the Internet mentions that it's a custom that dates back to Victorian times.