Valentine’s Day Roses from Nathan!

On February 1, I started my birthday month right by attending the NEHW Happy Hour Write-In and using it to put the finishing touches on the short story I was writing for a blind call. I subbed it. Fingers crossed, I’ll keep you posted! I moved right on to the next story, which is also for a blind sub, so I can’t breathe a word about that, either. I’ve known about this call since November and, in fact, started a whole different take on it, but on 2/1 I woke up with a new and better idea, so it pays to let things cook—although, I DID write 2/3 of that other piece. Which is fine. I’ll just finish that one up later this year and that can be just a general horror story for something else. It really wasn’t a good fit for this particular call, so I’m glad I changed course.

Groundhog Day officially kicked off my birthday week! Danbury Fair Mall celebrates 40 this year—the mall has been a part of my birthday tradition since February 1987, and unlike so many malls in America, ours is absolutely thriving and busy on most days. So I spent the day there—haircut, brows done, a little bit of shopping, and ran into my friend Linda—whom I worked alongside at Wells for 25 years—on her very first day of retirement! We took a moment to honor our freedom. I’m hoping we can go birdwatching up at Bent of the River in the Spring.

I love this display they did at the Danbury Fair Mall. When I saw it, I felt the passage of time–but also, in a strange way, like no time had passed. I can’t believe I’ve been coming here forty years.

I celebrated my birthday with a quiet dinner at home (Nathan cooked me the yummiest steak and brown rice pasta dish!). For Nathan’s birthday, we went duckpin bowling (where I did better than last year!). For Valentine’s Day, I treated Nathan to a Bronx Zoo virtual encounter with a hissing cockroach and we also got to meet a cute tawny frogmouth named Groot! And, of course, that same weekend, we participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count.

This dish, prepared with asparagus, medium steak and brown rice pasta and green peppers, was phenomenal.

The Bronx Zoo’s Tawny Frogmouth. His name is Groot!

A hissing cockroach from Madagascar.

Nathan, Charles and I went duckpin bowling!

For the first time in many years, I enjoyed the daylights out of the Winter Olympics. I watched all my favorite sports: figure skating, luge, and bobsled. If you know me at all, you know I’m not a sports person. But my world stops for the Olympics. What was really cool was that my sister and I got to live stream most of the figure skating together while chatting on the phone.

I’ll admit I forget who this pair is, but they did an interpretation of Romeo & Juliet and I thought this final pose was absolutely stunning.

I started my shifts as a Gallery Ambassador at the aquarium. Even with my extensive experience, it’s an exciting new adventure—a lot’s changed in 25 years, so I’m treating this as though I’m a first-timer. As much as I love the animals and that magical aquarium smell, what makes this really special are small moments with guests: the boy who wanted his photo taken with a “celebrity fish! You didn’t tell me they had celebrity fish!” (He was referring to the oyster toadfish, who went to space in 1998 with former astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962). A little girl, disappointed at our lack of mermaids, thrilled to discover that we had plenty of mermaid’s purses (shark/skate eggs) she could find herself on the beaches this summer.

This isn’t the final cover; it’s a concept.

I’ve also decided to publish The Thing in Tank Seven, a short novel about a giant mantis shrimp loose in an aquarium. I’m hoping to have that polished up by the end of March, but I’ve got a lot else on my plate so we’ll see what happens. Here’s a mock-up of the cover!

On a more personal note, the crushing amount of snow and extreme cold caused a bit of an ice dam on our roof, which we arranged for someone to take care of. It took a week to resolve, but we got it done. It’s on the shady side of the property, so we’re probably going to have more trees removed some time this year.

I write this on the second seventy-degree day in a row. Already, the freeze-out of a winter seems like a different world… bring on the sun. I’m ready for it.