For if you want something dramatic, played by a chamber orchestra, and almost a little jazzy... The Wexford Carol as performed by City of London Sinfonia and sung by the King's Singers.



For if you want to pretend you're drinking mead with the lord of the manor... The King as performed by Loreena McKennitt and friends.



And for if you want to pretend it's the 80s... Pat-a-Pan as performed by David Archuleta.

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This post is about hunting, using trained birds of prey. If you'd rather not read it, I understand... maybe go look at baby goats in pajamas instead :).

So. Kevin and I are doing one new thing every month that neither of us has ever done before.

In April, we went to a wolf sanctuary. In May, we went indoor skydiving. In June, we floated in floating tanks. In July, we got a golf lesson from my dad. In August, we went deep see fishing. And in September, we did Boda Borg.

In November, we met Master Falconer Chris Davis of New England Falconry...

This guy was so light, and silent, and graceful.

Chris taught us all about Harris's hawks, which are native to Mexico and Central and South America. They're social birds that hunt cooperatively in groups. He taught us about falconry too, about the process of training raptors to hunt and return to his hand. And then we joined Chris and two female Harris's hawks for a hunt.

This was the first time I've ever done any sort of hunting. I'm a meat-eater, I grew up in the country, and my mother grew up on a farm, so I've been surrounded by hunters and hunting all my life, but never participated in the hunting. I've always felt a level of discomfort and even distress around the topic, probably because of the hunting subculture in which people do it for sport rather than for food. I also think we live in a society that is extremely judgmental about what people should and shouldn't eat (perhaps especially women), and a society in which a lot of our food, especially our meat, is produced in distressing and inhumane ways. Food is a really, really complicated topic for most Americans (whether they're conscious of it or not!), and for a lot of us, hunting is too. So I was having a lot of thoughts and feelings as we directed the hawks to hunt for rabbits and squirrels, which we (and the hawks) later ate (and enjoyed!). A wild red-tailed hawk actually joined our hunt for a while too, which added a whole new level of things to think about.

I have a thoughtful post about it somewhere inside me. But I'm afraid that my thoughtful writing energy is going to the new book I'm writing these days, so I'm just not going to get into it today. Instead, I'm going to share a few more pictures of these beautiful birds in action, and ask you to forgive me for how uninformative and un-introspective this post is. The new book I'm currently drafting is, in part, about relationships between animals and humans, so I'm guessing that a lot of my thoughts and feelings will end up manifesting there.

Kevin took these pictures.




Many many thanks to Chris Davis for an experience unlike any I've ever had. It was without a doubt our most interesting New Thing so far.

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For the last three weeks, I have mostly been listening. I've been listening to my friends talk to me and to each other. I've been listening to the reactions of smart writers and thinkers. I've been listening to podcasts and pundits. I've been listening to the sadness in my mother's voice and the faith in my father's voice. I've been listening to the comfort in Kevin's voice. I've been reading the texts and emails of my sisters, who are holding me up. At 2 AM the night of the election, the last thing I did before finally attempting sleep was to read a text from one of my heartbroken sisters. It said, "Love still trumps hate."

I've been listening to Georgette Heyer audiobooks and watching Jane the Virgin and Gilmore Girls, for comfort. I've been writing a new book, which is an amazing distraction and vast relief in the moments when a scene manages to suck me in. As is the case for many people, my mental health has taken a hit. So I've been dealing with that.

I haven't been blogging much, because I don't have anything new or fresh to contribute. Everyone else is saying everything better. Have you read Malinda Lo's lovely post?

I haven't figured out yet how I'll contribute. Of course I'll donate what money I can to what causes I can. Of course every book I write will be influenced by the realities of our world; they already are; I've already written three books with the backdrop of a narcissistic, cruel, selfish, power-hungry man who manipulates and traumatizes people with lies. I will keep telling stories – of the young people who throw their hearts and bodies into fighting that bullshit.

But I haven't figured out yet what else I will do. I'm slower than a lot of people who are currently bursting with passionate ideas left and right. But I'll figure it out. Each of us needs to find her purpose; forgive yourself if it's taking you longer than it seems to be taking other people. Forgive yourself if you're hearing ideas and thinking, "I'm not ready," or "That's not for me." Also, remember that small things matter as much as big things. Everything matters, and everything is connected.

Because I'm mostly listening and thinking, I'm not sure how much I'll be blogging about all of this. I'll keep blogging about writing; I'll keep blogging about the new things we're doing every month; certainly I'll be blogging about my new book. Beyond that, I'm still figuring out what to say here.

I wish I had something beautiful and inspiring to offer today. I don't. But, from my current place of deep processing, I wanted to reach out… and let people know that I don't have anything to say yet. If you find yourself trying to understand or articulate or express yourself right now, and you just can't yet – I feel for you. I get it. It's okay. We'll get there.

The one thing I'm sure of is that love does trump hate. Always.

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I have a new book coming out in Fall 2017, and I'm finally allowed to talk about it. :o)

It's called Jane, Unlimited. I won't say a lot for now—more will be forthcoming—but for today... Jane has led a small and mostly ordinary life, raised by her aunt Magnolia—an adjunct professor at a small college and a world-traveling deep sea photographer. But when Aunt Magnolia dies unexpectedly on one of her expeditions, Jane finds herself adrift, and when an invitation comes from an old acquaintance to accompany her to a gala at her family's island mansion called Tu Reviens, Jane leaps at the chance. There, her story takes a turn, or rather, five turns. What Jane doesn't know is that Tu Reviens will offer her choices that can ultimately determine the course of her untethered life. But at Tu Reviens, every choice comes with a reward, or a price.

This book has been years in the making, and has gone through more revisions than any of my previous books, probably because its structure was challenging and it took longer for me to figure out what the book was asking for. My editor, Kathy Dawson, is my freaking HERO. What else can I say about it? It's not the doorstopper Bitterblue was, though it's not exactly that elusive short book I keep trying to write, either. It's full of umbrellas. And adventure. And a big, weird, mysterious house. It's a little bit of an homage to duMaurier's Rebecca, and other "orphan visits a house of mystery" books. Mostly, I'm hoping it's a puzzle, but a puzzle that's full of heart. And I hope it will bring joy. And it'll be coming out in about a year! And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to offer it to you—and so relieved that I'm finally allowed to talk about it.

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My twin nieces live in Jacksonville, FL, an area that generally votes red, but only by a couple percentage points.

After the election, one of my nieces noticed that the neighbors had taken down their Hillary sign, and she worried that the neighbors were sad. So she wrote them a letter.

from: your neighbor [name redacted] I Loved your Hilary sine

We are glad you Love Hiorlory. We do too. I Loved your Clinton Sine. and we are Sad Trump won. He is soooooooooooo oooooooooooooo ooo mean. But were Glad Hilary tride. I hope you saw her speeches?

(Final version of the letter, edited to strike a more positive note:) We are glad you Love Hiorlory. We do too. I Loved your Clinton Sine. and we are Sad Trump won. We Hope He lernds to Be nise. But were Glad Hilary tride. I hope you saw her speeches?

go Hilray you are the Best you tryed Thank you for making us proud.

Hillary Clinton PO Box 5256 New York, NY 10185-5256

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In a week during which we lost both the election and Leonard Cohen, SNL's response was perfect. Press play. (And don't read the comments.)

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"Are you fighting the Black Thing?” Meg asked.

“Oh, yes,” Aunt Beast replied. “In doing that, we can never relax."

—Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

An article in the Huffington Post that helps: What Do We Tell the Children?

(Thanks to Jess and Catherine.)

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This American Life asked Sara Bareilles to imagine what President Obama might be thinking about the current election and that horrible person, but can’t say publicly. Leslie Odom, Jr., performs the song. (There's a lot of hatred and bitterness in the youtube comments. Skip them.)

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Leaf season this year has been (1) late and (2) more muted than average. My walk through the cemetery on Tuesday wasn't as spectacular as it is some years -- but it was still beautiful. Especially for those of you who don't get to experience a New England fall, here are some pictures :o)

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This summer I turned 40. This means that my life has become a model of solemnity and propriety.

I found the leggings and the wig online, slapped on some sparkly makeup, and that was it. Kevin wore his own suit, carried one of my umbrellas, and got his hat/ears and pocket watch online. We made him a matching bowtie, painted his hair white using face paint (works much better and is much less disgusting than colored hair spray), and painted him a nose and whiskers. Done!

Thanks to Tim Correira for the photo booth, and LuQ and Irina (Mad Hatter #2 and Edward Scissorhands) for joining us!

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For those of you who read my blog posts via Twitter, sorry if I've been flooding you with old posts. The feed I used to use (Twitterfeed) is shutting down soon, so I've had to start a new feed (dlvr.it). I'm pretty sure it re-posted a lot of stuff right away. Apologies, too, if new posts tweet twice for a few days. I want to make sure the new feed is 100% working before I cancel the old feed.

So, I knitted someone a blanket last Christmas. It was my first ever non-washcloth knitting project and it was a massive undertaking, not to mention a great success.

And after I gave the blanket to its intended recipient... I missed it. :o)

So I decided to make a blanket for myself, slowly. I'm knitting 63 individual squares, each lined in black crochet. Here's where I am so far...

Since I don't expect you to be able to tell, that's a hummingbird.

That's a turtle,

that's an umbrella,

and that's a Dalek.

I'm honestly not sure how much I like it. It's sort of like a book; until I finish it -- like, really finish it -- I can't quite see what it is and am mildly suspicious that it's dreadful.

Which is of course no reason not to proceed.

After that? I am dying -- DYING -- to get the world's fattest wool and knit one of these blankets, possibly using my arms as my knitting needles. I have no idea how to do this or what it costs (I can't imagine that yarn is cheap), and I don't have time to research it at the moment. But hopefully one of these is in my future.

More irrelevant randutiae when I get a chance :o).

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Japanese artist Chooo-San does the most incredible stuff with face- and body-paint, some of it creepy and scary, some of it just plain beautiful. Here's a representative collection of her stuff at My Modern Met.

Reminds me that I need to sort out the makeup for my (much less spectacular) Halloween costume, which I promise I'll post pictures of here, provided it all comes together :o). Here's a hint.

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At The Guardian, I love these gorgeous photos of the Parisian owners of indie shops standing in their own doorways. A chocolaterie, a patisserie, a pharmacie that makes me think of the TARDIS (sorry), a shop of homemade marionettes and toys, even a shop for pesticides and rodent traps (Destruction des Animaux Nuisibles). Photos taken by German photographer Sebastian Erras. Here at Snapshots: the shopfronts of independent Paris.

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I actually think the puppy is doing a remarkable job restraining his excitement and yearning. Considering he's a puppy :o)

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This is political and election-related, so I debated whether I was breaking my "Safe Zone" promise by posting it here. It's a speech First Lady Michelle Obama gave yesterday in Manchester, New Hampshire, so of course it refers to that person. But: it also brings rightness back; it's uplifting and hopeful; it made me feel seen, heard, cared about, and understood as a woman and as a decent human being during this horrific election season. And -- she never says his name, for which I am grateful.

Here's a link to video and transcript of Michelle Obama's speech yesterday in Manchester, NH.

(The speech is actually only 21 minutes long. The first ten minutes is the stuff that is SO GOOD TO HEAR, the next ten minutes is stuff about Hillary, and the last ten minutes is FLOTUS shaking hands while her Secret Service detail anxiously hovers.)

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From October 2007 to June 2009, a Japanese spacecraft called Kaguya orbited the moon. Kaguya had cameras, and the cameras recorded, among other things, views of the Earth rising and setting over the moon.

Here's Earth setting over (or under?) the south pole of the moon! (BTW, if you get my posts as emails and the videos don't work, just click through to my Blog Actual.)



For more photos and videos (all breath-taking), check out "New Gems from the Moon" at the blog of the Planetary Society.

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Let's start big: The magical unicorn umbrella promises to allow you to "Summon unicorns whilst staying dry." Disclaimer: "Unicorn sightings may vary depending on the strength of your imagination and the drugs you've consumed."

Whatever. Look at the handle. It obviously summons unicorns. Available at firebox.com.

Next up: This clear dome umbrella has an adorable street scene... and this one is a birdcage!

A Lulu Guinness umbrella, sadly out of stock at theumbrellashop.co.uk.

Next up, Bella Umbrella is a gorgeous umbrella store in Seattle. In addition to selling beautiful umbrellas, here are the vintage umbrellas they offer for rental (beautifully arranged by color!)... and here's an example of the umbrella wall they will help you build, should happen to require an umbrella wall, which is a completely normal human need.

One of the gorgeous vintage umbrellas at Bella Umbrella...

Next, check out the umbrellas and parasols at Parasolerie Heurtault in Paris. Functional umbrellas that are also pure art...

And, also in Paris, the Alexandra Sojfer collection. Alexandra's umbrellas are handmade in her in-house workshop, and they are SO ELEGANT. I know because I have one, and in fact, I may as well end this post with some pictures of a couple of my own umbrellas... randomly chosen, because they're the two I felt like photographing today.

This is my Alexandra Sojfer umbrella.

Inside detail.

My "Images d'Épinal" umbrella; paper dolls from Épinal, France.

Detail.

Come back to the blog tomorrow for comforting scenes of Earth, from the perspective of the moon.

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I promise, for the next month, to keep this blog a safe and comforting place. I don't know how often I'll be able to post, but when I do, I'll post fun and comforting things. If you want a place on the internets where you won't have to read about that person or be touched by his destructive toxicity, you can come here.

I probably won't post much political stuff at all, but just to start things off, here's a pantsuit flashmob in support of Hillary. Why? In the words of its creators,

Tomorrow I will come back and blog about the best umbrellas on the internets.

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I haven't been blogging stuff about the election, because I have no interest in subjecting myself or you to any additional acknowledgment of the waste of humanity Republicans have chosen as their representative. He would fit perfectly into one of my books as one of my vile kings. And yet there he is, a chosen one. Because this is our country. I've built a little wall around my heart, to protect myself from the infection.

The trouble is that he gets in everywhere. That's one of his disgusting superpowers.

One of my sisters just forwarded a link to this article by Susan Dominus in the New York Times: Donald Trump: King of the Old Boys’ Club, and Perhaps Its Destroyer. It quietly pulls apart some of the little threads about who this person is. It got through my wall and made me cry. You should read it.

And now I'm done with this topic on my blog.

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It's October.... so we did Boda Borg! Without a doubt, one of my favorite monthly new things so far. Oh my gourd, it was fun.

What's Boda Borg? I'll explain best I can, but first, for those readers who know what it is and are worried that this post will contain clues or cheats, I promise it doesn't. It does contain some photos from inside the Boda Borg rooms, but I'm confident the photos are vague enough that they don't give much away that isn't already obvious.

BTW, Swedish Graceling cover -----> Because Boda Borg comes from Sweden! Follow that link for locations and other good stuff. Here in Boston, we're lucky to have the only stateside Boda Borg facility.

So, first I'm going to share the official definition of Boda Borg, then I'll describe what it's actually like. Officially: Boda Borg is a real-world gaming environment. Teams of 3-5 people move through a series of "Quests," tackling a variety of mental and physical challenges. Success in the first challenge means entry into the next challenge and so on… Failure in any challenge means starting over or selecting another Quest.

What it's actually like: You form a team of 3 to 5 friends. You enter the facility, which is a series of corridors full of doors. You choose a door, enter a room... and once you're in the room, you have to figure out how to successfully "win" in that room. There's a time limit; every room contains some sort of puzzle or challenge; and it's rarely clear what the puzzle or challenge is. So, it isn't just a matter of performing the challenge in the allotted time; it's a matter of figuring out what the challenge is to begin with. Stepping in the wrong place by accident because you haven't figured out what the challenge is yet could make you fail the room. For example, there are some rooms that have to be crossed without anyone ever touching the floor, so the moment you step into the room, you fail. You quickly learn to peek your head in and take a good look around before stepping in!

Meet my Quest team.

Kevin, Irina, me, LuQ!

If you do successfully win in a room, you pass through another door (or hatch, or hard-to-get-to opening) that leads to another room... where again, you have to figure out the challenge, then execute it, in the allotted time. At Boda Borg Boston, there are about 13 separate Quests, and each Quest contains 2 to 4 rooms. You're never inside any Quest for very long, because each room has a two-minute time limit.

Each Quest has a theme. (Learn more about the individual Quests here.) I took these pictures out in the corridor, as we waited our turn to enter...

Spook House is one of the Quests...

as is Platoon (one of my favorites!)...

and Alcatraz.

The Quest doors in the corridor are green, red, or black. The green doors lead to mostly mental challenges; the red doors to a mix of mental and physical; and the black doors, to the most physical challenges. Here are some pictures from inside the Quests, though I'm not going to identify which Quests they are, for those of you concerned about clues.

So pastoral.

Waiting for a low door to open so we can enter the next room in this Quest.

Easy.

Yup.

You need at least three people, in different positions at different times, to win most of the rooms. And there were a number of rooms I couldn't even have gotten through without the helping hands of Irina, LuQ, and Kevin. Over the course of about five hours, we tried almost all the Quests and successfully completed a few. But more often than not, we were met with the glowing red eye of failure…


Superbanan was my favorite Quest. We only managed to complete the first room, but it was SO satisfying!


What made it so fun? For starters, the joy of crawling, sliding, and climbing; the warm fuzzies of teamwork with friends; the satisfaction of successfully achieving things I was initially certain I couldn't achieve; the delight of how smart my friends are; that feeling of, "We can figure out how to do this."

My adorable team.

I recommend the all-day pass (see you can stay for as long as you want), and most especially, kneepads.

That was our new thing for October! And stay tuned, because November is going to be awesome.

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It's September…

So we learned how to cut things with lasers!

That magnificent creature was cut by me using Asylasaur, the 100W CO2 laser cutter at Artisan's Asylum in Somerville, MA. Before you get too impressed, it it was NOT designed by me. The human designer and the carbon dioxide laser did a lot more work than I did; I basically pushed a piece of acrylic around, clicked on a few settings, and pressed a button.

Here's Asylasaur, the laser – or, the left side of it, anyway.


The reasons you should never operate a laser unattended include freak things like something going wrong with the laser so that it aims in the wrong direction, but really, much MUCH more likely, fire. A laser cuts through flammable things, like paper and wood, by vaporizing them. If you thought your dryer was a fire hazard, consider that at least you're not vaporizing your laundry.

Unfortunately, I was so focused on learning how to use the laser that I didn't get a lot of pictures. But basically, the top opens, and you place things you want to cut (wood, paper, leather, acrylic) inside it as if it were a very, very big scanner…

Kevin does the thing.

In back is the long, horizontal tube that creates the laser itself. A series of mirrors bounces the laser around the insides, directing it to the head, which then directs the laser to the object you have placed there to be cut. Please note, this is a completely inadequate description that skips many steps.


The crosshairs in that picture indicate where the laser will begin its next cut. You send commands to the laser using the computer console nearby. Once you've turned the laser on, there's a lot of noise, because it has an enormous exhaust system for removing the gaseous nastiness created by vaporizing things like acrylic, leather, paper, or wood. And indeed, the process was a bit stinky! Also, bright. After a while, I decided to STOP watching the laser while it was cutting :o)

Naturally, you have to close the protective door before the laser begins cutting, so my picture of the actual cutting process isn't so great…


But the glowing pink rod in the background is the working laser itself, which is visible while inside the tube, then invisible as it bounces from mirror to mirror and onto the thing you are cutting. Which, in the picture above, is the third in a line of unicorns.


We cut our unicorns out of acrylic, not glass, as it may seem. Apparently any laser strong enough to cut through glass will actually shatter the glass, though a laser can be used at a less-powerful setting to etch designs onto glass.

Artisan’s Asylum, Inc. is a non-profit community fabrication center located in Somerville, Massachusetts. Their mission is to support and promote the teaching, learning and practice of fabrication, and they teach an array of classes, including but not limited to bicycle-building, robotics and electronics, fiber arts, jewelry and metalsmithing, machining, screenprinting, and woodworking… They were super welcoming and friendly, too, so check it out if you live in the area.  #artisansasylum

So, this was our new thing for September! Thanks to our instructor, Brian C. Johnson, who mysteriously knew, before ever he met me, that if I could create any one thing with a laser, it would be a unicorn.

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I finished my revision!

My next responsibility is to start the next revision (draft 7) as soon as possible.

But before I do that, I'm taking just a few days off... from revising. Not from creating things.

Those of you who were around the blog in January might remember Basil, the common house zebra. Well, after I created Basil, a request came in for Sock Sunny and Sock Tanker.

Sunny the dog and Tanker the cat live in Florida with two seven-year-olds. Sunny LOVES Tanker. Tanker's feelings for Sunny are more complicated, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that months and months after acquiring the appropriate socks, I FINALLY got to work.

I started with Sock Sunny, because a sock dog requires less altering of a sock zebra pattern than a sock cat does. Socks animals made from this pattern generally turn into long-faced, thin animals, not wonderfully roly-poly cats with round heads. I really wasn't sure what I was going to do when it came time to make Sock Tanker, to be honest.

Anyway, I began cutting, sewing, and stuffing, modifying the pattern somewhat to give Sock Sunny a face that was less long and shaped a bit more like Sunny's actual face.




 

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In France, in order to protect women from being oppressed by Muslim men who tell them what to wear, white men with guns force women to take their clothes off. I have so much fury and contempt for this racism, Islamophobia, and misogyny disguised as "liberation" and "secular values" that I don't even have enough room in my head for it. By writer Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan at the Independent: Dear white people of France: being forced to undress wasn't exactly the liberation I was longing for. "It seems that oppression is only when brown men tell you how to dress; when white men do it it’s called liberation. But even French feminism has its roots in colonialism and imperialism."

At the Guardian: Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds. "As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period."

In nicer news, at Time: Scientists Discover Sharks That Can Live for 400 Years.

At Quartz:  The photos that remind us of why we love sports. Beautiful! There's an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

At The Telegraph: Call of the wild: photographer Anup Shah on capturing the perfect shot. Also beautiful, and astonishing. The author has a new book out.

I'd like to write more today, dear readers, but I can't, because I'm trying to get through this revision, so that I can go back to the beginning and start revising again.

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