NaNoWriMo 2019 OMG

WHAT HAVE I DONE

I wrote 40k words of a NEW NOVEL in one month. I did THE THING.

National Novel Writing Month has become quite a phenomenon among young writers. I do NOT say would-be writers, as all writing counts. I don't care if you only write fanfic for personal consumption, or share it on AO3. I don't care if you only write blog posts twice a year. I don't care if you have dozens of short stories that still haven't sold, or have sold only one story of those dozens. Writing is writing. Art and self-expression matter. If you're not a writer, maybe you draw or paint or knit or sew or bake cakes or sing karaoke or dance or weave or make your own soap or take pictures of birds or collect cat figurines. If you're not hurting anyone with your art -- including yourself -- then enjoy it.*

And even if I didn't already believe that with all my heart, meeting a lively group of fellow NaNoWriMo participants last month would convince anyone. These were terrific folks who love to read and want to write but need some extra incentive to sit and commit words strung together into stories. Some were doing NaNo for years already, and had never finished anything, or worked on their novels the other 11 months. That's ok. Others had finished novels of varying lengths but hadn't done the cleanup necessary to try and find an agent or publisher.

Some of these folks are incredibly busy working and raising kids and managing elder care and facing all sorts of other challenges. Some are just young and still finding their voice. Others are trying to find the right idiom for their expression and aren't thinking about being published.

All of it is good. NaNo is a great challenge to just SIT and WRITE and get a story told. I'm glad more and more people take the challenge. Now, I do hear that agents and publishers get absolutely inundated with barely-finished, sub-par 50k novels every December and January -- that a lot of NaNo folks feel their stream-of-consciousness masterpieces are DONE once the calendar ticks over to December 1. Well, those folks are unfortunately delusional, and are cluttering up the lives of publishing professionals with unprofessional work, and that's a shame.

Very few people who write ever get published. That's a fact. That's why there are millions of self-published stories and novels out in the world now (hey, including mine). Publishing is a very weird business and not everyone can stand the weirdness. Lots of writers have one published novel and then are never heard of again -- sometimes its the publisher's fault, sometimes the agent's, sometimes the writer just can't produce more good work, sometimes the next work gets rejected. It's disheartening to hear the stories writers can tell about this.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. Here's what I did: I took what I thought was a pretty good short story, took my writing group's advice on making it much much better, and then started looking at SFF genre short story markets. They are incredibly hard to sell to. There are thousands and thousands of really good writers selling short fiction and I've realized I'll never be one of them. I don't think in 1000 - 10,000 word bursts. I'm one of those elaborately wordy bitches who can't build a world or a story that short. The story I wrote, "The Rage of Caliban," takes place in the same world as Seven for a Secret, with many of the same characters (now about 10 years older). The group thought it was a great opening for another novel. NOOOOOOO. I was already working on three other novels in that story cycle!

But I thought about it for a few months, and ultimately gave in. So in September I started expanding the existing 8000 word story, and by November 1 I had 23k done. I plunged into NaNoWriMo with great enthusiasm. It seemed the ideal way to approach just getting the whole darned thing done.

And it worked! I fell short, I only achieved 39k on the scoreboard. Tacked onto that original 23k I ended up with 62k of a nearly-finished novel. I've kept going, I have no intention of NOT finishing this sucker. The Rage of Caliban will probably end up around 80k, a respectable length. I've started back-editing as a way of correcting some continuity issues, and shuffling characters around,

Seven for a Secret is about the angst of a young demon-bred witch boy born into an impossibly damaged family confronting an impossible situation. Gerry's not a "chosen one" among his people, he's the thing that allows someone else to do the thing a chosen one customarily does. And that's much worse, from his point of view.

The rest of his story cycle -- four more novels and novellas, if I'm dogged enough to finish them -- takes Gerry on his life journey towards adulthood. He's not nice. He's scarred, selfish and arrogant, thoroughly an asshole, though he tries to be better. He loves deeply and hates fiercely. He makes some terrible mistakes that ruin other people's lives. Everything good he tries to do goes wrong. The people around him try to forgive and forget -- he was born special, after all, and they can't quite shake that -- but eventually the mistakes pile up and force him to humility and responsibility. This arc covers 1955-1965, mostly in northern England. The cast of characters is bloody enormous, and I refuse to apologize for that. It's still smaller than that of Game of Thrones. I also really enjoy all the British Invasion blues and rock research I continue to do.

The Rage of Caliban takes place in 1966, with Gerry's older brother's wife as the focus. (Gerry doesn't appear in the story at all, except for a couple of mentions.) I adore Phoebe Starwood, I created her years ago but didn't do much with her--mainly, she stood by rather helplessly as Gerry and his girlfriend unintentionally wrecked her wedding. I knew she was an artist. She liked snapping pictures of family events and travel scenery, and made the best of having fallen in love with a member of the most notorious (and dangerous) coven in Britain. When a story idea popped into my head, I knew she would be the POV character, and would deal with the situation with stubborn intelligence. I knew I would really enjoy torturing her! It was also really fun to get myself out of Gerry's head, and into hers instead. Unlike her terrible brother-in-law, Phoebe is not an asshole. 😁

I really hope I can finish Rage by the end of December...I'll definitely do a new round of agent queries with this one. Wish me luck.


*"Harm" takes many forms. Endorsed bigotry and racism and misogyny in a story is harmful, as opposed to your narrative making it clear why those things are bad and have bad consequences. Harming yourself or people around you can happen if you begin to ignore the real world and its responsibilities, and possibilities -- you might start acting like a dick without even realizing it or getting therapy or other help. Don't be a dick.

Melodious Blend, the Bestest Blend!

HWAET! I come to inform you of the wonders of TJ Melodious Blend.

If you are a Trader Joe’s fan, or even an occasional shopper, you almost certainly have a wagon-load of favorite, staple items that you’ve come to love, depend on and feel bereft of when out of stock or out of season. I have a couple of dozen such favorites in my pantry and freezer.*

Melodious Blend is in the frozen foods, and like many TJ packaged goods it is a godsend when you don’t know what the f-word else to cook, want a leguminous meatless or nearly meatless meal that isn’t just opening a can of beans again. Not that I lack for recipes that include opening a can of beans of pretty much any variety. (Note: Spouse and I Do. Not. Like. Tofu. It is not part of our diet. It is not something we’ll ever heartily embrace unless every mammal, bird and fish on the planet goes extinct in our lifetimes—in which case soybeans and humans are probably doomed as well.) (Well, we are probably doomed, but it’s my fervent hope that enough vertebrates outlast us to kickstart evolutionary diversity again in a few hundred years.)

Anyway. Melodious Blend. As you see from the package, it’s pre-cooked and only needs heating to make it savory and delicious. You COULD choose to believe the TJ copywriters, or you could believe me instead. Without a bit of additional fuss, MB is tasty but bland. Not that some people don’t enjoy that. But it’s pretty easy to make it a bit more interesting. I will use today’s dinner as an example in several easy steps, as today was nasty and cold outside and I decided that cooking from the freezer and fridge veggie bin was better than going to the store. I mean, this is WHY I even have MB in the freezer.

First step: note that the ingredients of MB are primarily green lentils, red lentils and green chickpeas (which are just regular chickpeas cooked before being dried). It also includes olive oil and some tomato. This last part is technically accurate but honestly, a bit misleading. Cooked by itself, MB’s seasoning is barely barely detectable. Legumes are tasty but they do need significant seasoning--witness pretty much the entire world's cookery. So while I ordinarily go along with the vaguely Italian seasoning, you could in fact concoct Indian, Middle Eastern, French or pretty much any other flavoring you enjoy. Plan accordingly. 

Second step: decide which fresh or frozen veggies need to be used up. Canned are OK too if that’s what you have. Pretty much anything goes, at this step. Choose any two or up to six, at which point this becomes too much work and doesn’t get any tastier.

Possibilities: Bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, summer squash/zucchini, winter squash/butternut squash, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, bok choy, cabbage, kale, spinach or similar greens, carrot, turnip, parsnip, peas, potato, green beans, okra, leeks, fresh or sun-dried tomatoes, olives…you get the idea. The legumes in MB are bland enough to go with pretty much ANYTHING. Mix up whatever combo you like. Precook or parboil whatever you feel needs it, though my methodology includes that step and will work for most root veggies.

Third step: heat a large pan with a good glug of (olive) oil, and chop a medium-sized onion into coarse dice, and fling it into the pan. Add some smashed or minced garlic too. Add salt to get things started. Meanwhile, prep and chop your chosen veggies, and begin adding them in order of necessary cooking time. Tonight, I added the zucchini, butternut squash and eldritch (Romanesco) broccoli as the onions were starting to color a bit, along with some water, and covered the pan to get those veggies good and steamed. 

I also sometimes add diced sausage of one type or another. Picture above is a single link of (frozen) Aidell's Andouille. Pretty much anything goes. Crumbled Italian sausage is really good, as is BACON I mean, bacon, or ham. Any plant-based sausage you might prefer would also be good, or tofu, or tempeh. 

I have a  jar of Mystery Hotter than We Thought herb/spice seasoning (from an upstate NY supermarket no less) and it went great with the veggies and Andouille sausage. The vague ingredient mix has only the obvious items; someday I'll figure out what the heck else is in that mix. Hasn't killed us yet, though. 

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure MB would be a good coconut curry base. Use coconut oil for sauteing, use Indian (curry powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric, etc.) or Thai (lemongrass, cilantro, lime, fish sauce) seasonings and add coconut milk to make a nice gooey sauce. 

Fourth step: it is optional but conventional to prepare a starchy side and turn your effort towards the Rice and Beans spectrum. We always do this, but you needn't. Pretty much any grain or pasta you like will go, with whatever veggies you've chosen: rice of any kind, bulgur wheat, quinoa, couscous, etc. You could also incorporate your starch into the dish and turn it into a kind of pilaf. Your dinner, your choice. 

Fifth step: Once the veggies are nearly cooked, add the MB. DO NOT THAW IT FIRST. DO NOT RINSE IT FIRST. Just open the package and dump the contents into the pan. There will be ice crystals. Don't worry. Just break up the lumps, add a bit of water (depending on how much liquid is already in the pan with the veggies), stir it all a bit, and cover. Stir it again after about 3-4 minutes. Add another glug of oil if you want, maybe more liquid. (Doesn't have to be water, could be broth or even a bit of wine.) Cover and cook another couple of minutes. Done! 

We added more hot sauce anyway. Hot sauce is yummy with legumes; there's a REASON most cultures that have both always combine them. Anyway, a nice Gewurtztraminer was also a nice accompaniment. 

Hope you're feeling more inspired on your What Do I Cook days! 

*Dark Chocolate Covered Cherries, Dark Chocolate Covered Blueberries, Almond Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Chocolate Almond Spread, frozen Vegetable Masala burger patties, frozen Sweet Potato Gnocchi, frozen Palak Paneer and Vegetable Biryani, frozen Paratha bread, frozen Scallion Pancakes, various granola bars, Greek yogurt with almond butter, Greek yogurt with coconut, quick-cooking brown Basmati Rice, Inner Peas, Movie Popcorn, organic raisins...ETCETERA. 

2017: An okay year for birds, part 1

It would be hard to beat 2016 as a year for new life birds, without making extensive new travel plans, and that we did not do in 2017.

We returned to Boynton Beach, Florida in late January, and discovered that it wasn't nearly as birdy as late February 2016 had been. It was disappointing, but we still had a wonderful time and managed to scrape up a few more life birds apiece. Knowing more about the region this time, we were determined to visit all three of the local wetlands within easy driving distance. (Not that we were dong the driving. Our wonderful friend Adam Castro did the driving.)

Loxahatchee wetlands is a tiny slice of the Everglades, a National Wildlife Refuge with a lovely nature center, lots of alligators, and a chunk of nearly-extinct cypress forest, all alongside encroaching farms. Just driving there, I was extremely lucky to spot a Crested Caracara flying across the road in front of us. Alas, no picture. Alas, Ed did not also see it. But the bird was utterly unmistakable in flight, with its short wings with a big white flash, its black-and-white head. Mind you, I'd never seen one. But I had memorized the image from the bird books, and I had zero doubt what I saw and shouted out as soon as I saw it.

There were Loggerhead Shrikes on the wires. No photos from either of us, but there's no mistaking their silhouettes. Definitely birds we want to see more closely in the future. [Spoiler Alert: WE DID, but 2 years later.]

Another bird we came to see was not a disappointment. Our first ever Pileated Woodpecker! We heard him before we saw him, as we traveled on the cypress forest boardwalk. You better believe we RAN towards the sound -- it was like someone hitting a big tree with a smaller tree. And there he was, in his pileated glory! Of course he flew off after we got only a few shots...

I hadn't been feeling well, so I stayed behind while Ed and Adam went chasing after gators. There is a nice deck with shaded benches behind the nature center, facing into the cypress forest. I sat and found a few warblers and gnatcatchers, which made me happy.

Then this happened. One of Florida's ubiquitous Turkey Vultures landed on the railing only a few yards away from me.

Then a few more showed up. And performed an aerial ballet in the wide clearing in the cypress forest that was right in front of me. I had seen one up close before, but not so many. Not like this. 

They are BEAUTIFUL. They are made of bronze and sunshine. 

They spent a good fifteen minutes lazily circling and drifting about in the clearing. A couple of them drifted away, a couple others landed to enjoy the sun. If I hadn't been feeling unwell, I'd have missed the show. Turkey vultures. Damn.

After Spouse and friend failed to find alligators, we departed and visited Wakodahatchee. Like Green Cay, this is another "artificial" wetland created for purposes of water treatment, surrounded by developments and shopping centers. The birds don't seem to mind.

The special thing about Wakodahatchee is how close you can get to LARGE BIRDS and their extremely um, adorable babies. Great Blue Herons and Wood Storks really are extremely large, and it's extremely startling to realize their nests are sometimes just a few feet away from the boardwalk.

There was a system to the mixed flocks in the low, broad trees. Great Blue Herons had the top of each tree -- one or even three pairs. Then Storks and Great Egrets below. Then Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Anhingas and Gulls crowding into whatever branches happen to be left over. Cormorants seemed to have their own trees to themselves. Wood Storks mostly had their own trees too. Iguanas hung out on the lowest branches nearest the water, not doing much.

We'd never seen colony nests like these before.

I'd also never seen a Great Blue Heron try to swallow a duck before.

And I hope never to see that again, anytime soon.
(For the record, he gave up, a turtle made off with the carcass, and then he tried again...at which point we got on with our lives and departed.)

Cormorants were everywhere, flying and swimming and diving and hanging out. One of them was another lifer, a Neotropic Cormorant. Yay!

It pays to pay attention to even common looking birds. You never know.

Alas, there was only one Roseate Spoonbill. Dat spoon, dat spoon, dat spoonbill.

We visited Green Cay again the next day, to witness what we already thought of as The Usual Assortment of wetland waders and swimmers. Lots of Anhingas, Common Gallinules, Blue-winged Teals, Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Tricolor Herons, Pied-billed Grebes, Gray-necked Moorhens, Green Herons, various swallows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Boat-tailed Grackles, Limpkins, White Ibises, Glossy Ibises, etc.(Pretty much the same birds as Wakodahatchee, but in different blends.)

Any visit to Green Cay is a good one, though.

Lamb: it's what's for dinner

Having grown up eating lots and lots of lamb, I'm happy to keep figuring out new ways of incorporating it into dinners. I'm lucky that Spouse also enjoys lamb any number of ways.

Lamb shanks are a favorite winter stew. They take 3 hours to cook properly, but it's worth all the trouble. My base recipe is onions, garlic and a few cups of durable chopped vegetables--turnips, carrots, parsnips, mushrooms, winter squash, cauliflower--plus either beer or wine as the cooking liquid, and generous amounts of whatever seasoning suits our fancy of the evening. I'm particularly fond of Herbes de Provence, Kofte Kebab spice, or sorta-kinda Italian herbs.

If you're lucky enough to find breast of lamb riblets, as I frequently am in my local supermarket, they are a bit of trouble but are absolutely delicious. They need VERY long roasting for such small amounts of meat, but it's nearly impossible to mess up. Just cut up the breast section into smaller pieces -- 3 or 4 ribs per piece -- season with salt & pepper and any spice mix you fancy with lamb, and lay them on a bed of onion, celery and carrots in a deep roasting pan. Roast at 350F for between 2 and 3 hours, which will seem ridiculous but honestly, it's necessary. The meat just won't be tender otherwise. The result is tender (but still slightly chewy) meat that falls of the tiny bones, with richly browned fat. Don't bother trimming before cooking: just be resigned to eating and ejecting some gristle. If there's enough meat to use a knife and fork, yay! Otherwise just pick up and nibble, same as any other ribs.

Roasted breast of lamb ribs with a lot of roasted veggies. 

My parents ate a lot of lamb mostly because it was cheap when I was a kid. My dad bought my mom a hacksaw JUST so she could cut up whole legs of lamb we bought on sale. Each leg fed us for over a week: steaks to broil or saute, hunks for stew, shanks to freeze until we had enough for another stew. Just roasting that leg entire was a treat for Easter. I still make roast leg of lamb if we're having company, but I usually buy a butt-half leg partially boned, or have the butcher bone the whole thing so I can stuff it with garlic and herbs. 

If I buy a supermarket boned leg, it usually comes wrapped in a string net, and is a royal mess that needs cleanup with a good sharp boning knife. All that lamb fat needs to come off. And that thick membrane, the fell, that covers muscle groups...you can't eat that, and the seasoning won't penetrate it, so you gotta use that knife and gently peel it all off. 

If roasting or stewing lamb is too much effort and the grocery budget allows, loin lamb chops are amazing. Tiny T-bone steaks! Thin ones can be pan-sauteed. Thicker ones can be pan-roasted (started on the stovetop, moved to the oven to finish).

But ground lamb is our favorite thing these days. There is so much you can do with it! I get that not everyone can easily find it, but if you have any kind of access to it, try it. It's mostly made from lamb shoulder meat. It's a bit fatty, that's unavoidable, but i

There are tons of lamb burger recipes all over the internet. ALL OF THEM ARE GOOD. You can't go wrong. I have settled on a simplified Ur-Lamb Burger -- ground lamb plus salt, pepper, seasoning of choice, 1 beaten egg per pound, 1/2 cup bread crumbs (either dry or fresh). I'm not fond of burgers stuffed with cheese bits, but YMMV. Bulgur and yogurt are nearly always good sides. Note that pan-fried burgers will end up swimming in their own grease. All you have to do is put them aside to drain them. Grilled burgers have no such problem, of course.

On days when seasoning and mixing and forming and cooking burgers is too much trouble, which is most days nowadays, I do what I've come to call a Lamb Scramble. You can call it whatever you like, and use ANY lamb stew, tagine or curry recipe as a starting point. Here's a mock-Moroccan dish I made with ground lamb, onions, garlic, butternut squash, olives and peas. (Probably a few other things I've forgotten.) Side here is mashed golden potatoes and golden cauliflower.

This lamb & butternut squash stew (from Cooking Light) is a great guide for experimentation. (Don't use beef stock! Use wine! Or beer! I don't care for so much liquid in this recipe anyway.) Use carrots instead of squash, use spinach instead of kale. When I made it, I used Kalustyan's KOFTE KEBAB seasoning in addition to the recommended spices, and the result really honestly tasted like kofte kebab, or doner kebab! (Oh, I also didn't bother to use the oven, I did it all stovetop.)

Pretty much any lamb curry recipe is faster to make using ground lamb. I tend to make what I consider Fake Curries, flinging a bunch of things in a saute pan after glancing at a recipe book. I gave up using lamb shoulder chops ages ago. The results my way are quicker and tenderer.

Tonight, I started with a pound of ground lamb and a bunch of Greenmarket veggies that needed to be cooked. Started by sauteing the lamb in olive oil, with lots of kebab seasoning. Added chopped onion and red bell pepper (a banana pepper or poblano would be awesome too), a coarsely chopped zucchini, green beans (big ones, broken in thirds), some butternut squash noodles (which dissolved and disappeared), a chopped tomato and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach. I also had some freshly cooked fresh cranberry beans on the stove, so I added a few spoonfuls. It was a glorious, delicious mess. Served it with bulgur wheat. Forgot to serve some yogurt on the side.

Try lamb scrambles with: winter root veggie medleys, a meat-and-mushroom mix, springtime greens, summer tomato and peppers, or any combo thereof. Beans are a terrific addition, especially lentils and chickpeas if you want a Middle Eastern, North African or Indian vibe.

And, of course, the same goes for ground beef, ground turkey and ground pork.. for which there are no shortage of recipes out there.

How to Rescue Wrinkly Grape Tomatoes

We like tomatoes. We like tomatoes A LOT. We mostly do without in the winter, except for sales on pints of organic grape tomatoes. If they're not tossed into a salad, they're delicious with hummus and cucumbers as a snack.

In summer, unused tomatoes tend to rot. I buy mostly heirloom tomatoes, and even when kept out in the open, treated tenderly (just short of being coddled in cotton batting), a few will over-ripen and split and ugh, the smell is usually my first warning that the bottom tomato has given up.

In winter, in our house, unused grape tomatoes tend to dry out. Weird. Kept in their plastic pint container, in cool temperatures and fairly low humidity, they slowly turn wrinkly and slightly leathery. When I notice this happening, I usually slice them in half and add them to a stir-fry or saute -- nice juicy little nuggets of faux summer in my otherwise (mostly) seasonal dishes.

I had an entire pint go wrinkly not long ago, as I simply forgot about them. It happens. The wrinkly tomatoes were still juicy inside. I was in an experimenting mood, so I sliced the lot, put them in a baking dish, sluiced them with olive oil and a bit of salt, and roasted them. I was baking a pie that day, anyway.

I think the oven was set to 350F or 375F. I stirred the tomatoes every fifteen minutes so they wouldn't stick. Forty-five minutes later, I had a baking dish full of what tasted very like sun-dried tomatoes, but much squishier. Sweet, savory, chewy, with charred notes that were beyond delicious.

A few days later, these little flavor bombs became a homemade pizza topping, Mushrooms, anchovies, lots of shredded mozzarella, and fresh-made dough from my local gourmet shop, and behold. A thing of wonky well-meaning and very tasty beauty.

BTW sliced chorizo -- another wonderful product of the same gourmet shop -- is another revelation when roasted. The next time I made pizza it was chorizo, roasted tomatoes and "Mexican cheese mix" from Trader Joe's. There was space around the edges of the foil-lined baking sheet (yeah, no pizza stone in this house) so I laid out six spare slices to cook. SPICY BACON BEST EVER THING OMG.

Seriously, do the tomatoes thing and also the chorizo thing. Totally worth the trouble.

Catching Up, Part 1: Summer 2018

Been a long time since I made a blog post. Much has happened in our lives since I last nattered on about birds and orchids and cookery and books I like. I reckon I’ve felt distracted.

We recently went to Ireland for a week to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, and that seems to have knocked loose some inspiration, some renewed desire to natter on again outside of Facebook.

Spouse and I made two trips to new places back in 2018: San Jose, CA (again for Worldcon), and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (for a birdy vacation). (SEE NEXT POST for more about that trip.)

California is a delight to us because we know delightful people there. We stayed in Piedmont (part of the Bay Area) with a delightful family for a week, from Spouse’s group of amazing friends. They made us comfortable and fed us and entertained us and we did our best to be good guests. We love and adore these people and feel so lucky that they seem to like us too. The August weather was cool and bracing; we enjoyed the open windows in our guest room every night, and only once in that week did we catch whiff of the terrible wildfires destroying huge swathes of northern California that month. (The fires did come much closer in the next few weeks, but we were gone by then. Our friends were fortunate to suffer only from the choking smoke, though for asthmatics that is plenty terrible.) (See above for a sunset view from their home.)

One thing we did that was necessary was to visit the American Museum of Bookbinding in San Francisco. Our hospitable artist friend needed to see the place, and we wanted to see author and friend Madeleine Robins again, as she now works there. (Do please visit her page in Book View Café. We are fans of hers as well as friends.) I highly recommend this museum to anyone with a love of books, a geeky love of the history of technology, and a love of the arts of covers and type. Witness the efforts people have made over the centuries to make the written word not just more widely accessible but also attractive to have and hold.

What else was wonderful was our new appreciation for the bird life of the Bay Area. When last we visited it wasn’t quite one of our obsessions yet. But now? I paged through the guide to Western US birds on the plane, with emphasis on those creatures featured in the eBird lists Spouse had shared. One of my rewards was to stand on our host’s rear deck overlooking a forested canyon road lined with native scrub as well as hill gardens, and know INSTANTLY that the twittering cigar with wings swooping at eye level had to be a White-throated Swift. The backyard also yielded Anna’s Hummingbird, California Scrub Jay, Lesser Goldfinches and Hermit Warbler. Spouse later saw Bushtits, and I was sorely vexed to have missed those. They remain a target bird for me.

We visited Lake Merritt and we found an Oak Titmouse and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, California Towhees and Brewer’s Blackbird. California and Western Gulls were abundant, as were both White and Brown Pelicans. Black Phoebes were on the wires. No Bushtits. Argh.

San Jose was close by but oh so different. The sun felt so much hotter, for one thing. It’s a smaller city than San Francisco or Oakland, but has quite a distinct personality of its own. The public transit trams run frequently, there was bike and scooter sharing, and a lengthy pedestrian (and tram) street mall lined with shops and good restaurants. The Museum of Art was small but quite wonderfully inviting, with intriguing exhibits and good public space inside.

Our convention-block hotel, the Fairmont, faces Cesar Chavez Plaza. Spouse had learned from eBird and elsewhere that Acorn Woodpeckers, a normally shy and non-urban species, had established themselves in the palm trees of the park, and when we actually arrived at the hotel and saw the park we were skeptical, to say the least, that shy birds would enjoy living there. But lo! We exited the hotel after checking in, and FIRST THING we saw looking up was not one but two Acorn Woodpeckers flitting about above our heads. It turned out there were dozens of them. Magic. We soon got to know their favorite trees for acorn storage, and really enjoyed watching them going about their lawful woodpecker business every day. Furthermore, there were Black Phoebes casually perching on the backs of benches, something we’ve never seen Eastern Phoebes do in Central Park. Made more remarkable by the large numbers of people using the park every day.

Worldcon 2018 was quite enjoyable, shared with multiple friends also in attendance, and I might’ve bought a few books and um, some jewelry. The panels were good, except that towards the end the crowds did exceed many room capacities. I'll always have fond memories for attending.