Paksworld

I was actually making progress on Book Three today when a friend emailed to tell me that a plane had flown into a building that I drive past regularly, in Austin Texas.  I tried to stay glued to Arvid (who had informed me plaintively that I hadn’t provided any food for him and during his earlier misfortunes he’d been starved for two days…) and did manage to offer some coarse-ground meal (spelt, I think),  onions, and raw redroots, but reality trumped the fiction writing.  Arvid has made it clear that he’s going to eat the sheep he was almost hung for, so to speak, and I’m having fun as he heads straight for a very different career than he ever expected.

Then I took our ranch friends their Christmas present (late, but they like it) and another present they liked even more.  They had two “new” couches from Craig’s List, nice caramel/butterscotch colored leather ones.   Then off to Austin to meet M-  at the ice rink and hand him his skates,  stop by the barbecue place to pick up food for the group at my fencing instructor’s house (but no fencing–back yard still a mudhole), then to Target for another two glass storage jars and a bowl I spotted that’s perfect for entertaining.  Then picked up M- and we headed for home–past the floodlit and still-smoking building.

Arvid will have to wait until morning.   He can eat more meal, flavored with onion.   To cook the redroots, he’s going to have to find a pot.   And a way to start a fire.    It’s being a miserable winter for him.