What's that funny yellow disk in the sky?

So I spent 4 years in France, in the area of Nice to be precise. Gee, I know, it must be rough! They actually paid me to live on the Cote d'Azur. Anyway, the sun shines there a lot. Yeah, it rains, but the winters are usually no colder than about 30-40 F, while I lived there it only snowed on me 3 times, and there's a lot of sunshine. Then I moved up here to the Rhine region. It rains here!

I remember the first time I went to Frankfurt as an adult (I was there in 1984 in a group of high-school exchange students), and noticed how green it is. Provence/Cote d'Azur is not green. Dusty green, yes, but Frankfurt is an intense, leafy, vibrant, bursting GREEN! And the same here where I live. Well, now I know why.

Anyway, it rained pretty much solid from at least 6 am yesterday through about noon today. But when we left the canteen this afternoon to go back to the office building, there was this funny disk in the sky, and it was bright outside. Was that the sun? Wow!

The harp still sits in her corner looked desolate and deserted, and my NaNoNonsense (NNN) still sits on the corner of my desk asking me to work on it. I'm still stuck at the same word count as I was the last time I was here.

I recently read Elizabeth George's book on writing; don't remember the title, but it was an extremely good book. Very frustrating to read at the same time, because I was reading it and finding a whole list of things I need to work on in my own writing. Argh! Characterization through spoken language (dialects, word usage, etc. What a great idea; all my characters speak alike.), location and research on locations, everything. Guess I ought to make that trip up to Ireland, since my NNN is set in an idealized, agrarian, fantasy society/landscape loosely based on Ireland and since I've never actually been there.

I bought the EG book in the bookstore in the Cologne trainstation, which has a relatively good selection of English-language books, although their range usually runs to thrillers, romances, and the usual science fiction/fantasy. I really wonder how many of this book they're going to sell.

Ta for now...

Currently hearing: Midnight on the Water, King's River Band, off a compilation CD. Not bad.
Currently reading: False Memory, Dean Koontz. A really interesting book. I've avoided his stuff for years because I thought he was in the same genre as Stephen King; since about a year ago I've learned the error of my ways. But False Memory is a real departure for him. Yeah, it's still pretty out there, but I don't remember from my first read any aliens, ghosts, or other extradimensional stuff.
Current cat activity: Sophie, chasing a catnip mouse around the front hall. Charl, sitting somewhere in a huff.

Mmmmm, PopTarts!

I went down to Cologne last night looking for fabric, and didn't find anything worth buying. Serves me right for having exactly the yardage pictured in my head. And for not living within striking range of a decent fabric store! Anyway, I ended up "consoling" myself by going to the English foods store in downtown and stocking up. I must look like a horrible pig... Club Crackers, two things of Betty Crocker icing, a block of Mull of Kintyre mature cheddar, a few small packs of Reeses' Pieces, a can of Welch's Grape Soda, a can of A&W Cream Soda, and S'Mores PopTarts! Love those PopTarts, breakfast of champions.

Why is it that the English and the Americans have to establish food and book stores wherever they go, while other (European) nationalities don't do so anywhere nearly as often? How often do you see a French food store? Or German? At least, one intended to cater to that nationality, not to the local gourmets.

Anyway...it's Friday. Dinner is calling, along with the local subsitute for Guiness. Living in Germany and being hooked on a non-German beer is difficult. I'm not sure what the rules are, but certainly I have not found any normal supermarkets or stores that carry Guiness. Michelob Genuine Draft, yes, in WalMart, but Guiness? Nope. The German "equivalent" is Koestritzer, which isn't bad, but it just doesn't compare. Guess it's time for another trip to Belgium, where I can buy the real stuff. And it's only 60 miles or so away!

Currently reading: Greg Iles, "Blood Memory"; OK, the main character's grandfather just revealed what I thought he was about to reveal, but is it true? Or is he the guilty party? We'll just have to see.
Finished "Blind Side." Man oh man, the head-hopping made me dizzy! I almost regret having started trying to write, it's made me much more conscious (and much less tolerant!) of head-hopping, inconsistent viewpoints, and so on.
Currently listening to: Ronn McFarlane, "The Scottish Lute"; another excellent recording, of lute and mandora tunes from 16th-18th century Scotland.
Current feline activity: Charl, sleeping. Sophia, pouncing on a scrap of sewing pattern tissue and talking to it. Soon, they'll be five years old.

It's been HOW long???

A while, eh? Well, I'm still trapped in the NaNoWriMo. Even though the Mo is long since over, I'm still working on my mess that I started scrawling then. Hey, I've got it on line!

http://www.fictionpress.com/read.php?storyid=1754539

I've got a whole 24,847 words typed, but a couple thousand more written, and I've only been working on it since the first of November. Arg. If I could only learn how to do more than one thing at a time, or win the lottery (gotta play it to win it!), or something, I'd have more time to spend on my "novel." Gee, you don't think it would help if I quit getting into so many things, do you? Let's see, sewing, embroidery, lace-making, writing, trying to learn the wire-strung harp, reading anything that comes along, watching CSI, CSI Miami, one of the many Law&Order spinoffs, and Desperate Housewives, and oh yeah, working, maybe I've got too many plates in the air???

Now, if I could only train the cats to clean the house...or to type in what I write!

Actually, it's the writing that goes slowly, more than anything else. If I'm here at home, I've got too many distractions. I've actually done quite well going to a coffee house in Cologne, generally I can get 3-5000 words scrawled in a couple hours, but I can only do that on weekends. Pretty scary when the Starbucks employees start to recognize you... I've tried writing on the train to my harp lessons, since it's a 2-hour block of time each way, but that doesn't work as well. No discipline, I guess. Which is probably why I've let this blog go for so long.

The photo is my harp. Not actually my very harp, but the same construction/shape/etc. Oops, sorry, no photos. Well, if you know what the Guiness label looks like (you know...Guiness...the beer that eats like a meal...the nectar of the Gods) then you know what my harp looks like. Once I finish off the roll of film, I'll actually post a photo of my harp saying her first "words." I really feel sorry for my very dedicated harp teacher, he's got to be getting sick of me. But I am slowly making progress, which is I guess what counts. And I'm not learning to play the poor dear because I think I can be the next whoever, it's because I love the music genre and I want to be able to at least try to produce it.

Well, cats have been fed but I haven't, so I'm out of here. Maybe I'll update this again in another 6 months or so!

Currently reading: Catherine Coulter, "Blind Sided"
Currently listening to: Derek Bell (late Chieftains harpist), "Carolan's Receipt"