It's been a really long time since I posted anything here. A lot has happened since February.

In March, I was supposed to go to Spain for my long-awaited vacation to commemorate my 50th birthday. The day I was supposed to leave, my mother died. I ended up spending that week cleaning up Mom's house while waiting for the funeral.

I was able to go to Spain after all -- FINALLY -- in early April. Had a great time. Sevilla was fun; the Alhambra was as fabulous as advertised, but the Moorish bath was better; Madrid was cool. I got to see lots and lots of stuff that I'd been waiting 30 years to see. And the Washington Post published an account of my trip in their "Vacation in Lights" column in May. Imagine -- me, with a byline in the Washington Post! :)

In May, I moved the youngest home from college (the eldest chose to spend the summer in Roanoke, working on campus); then we drove to Indiana to get the stuff I wanted from Mom's house. We managed to get it all back here in the new Fit, whoo hoo!

June was the annual Kevinswatch fest. This year's was in Denver. I intended to take Amtrak all the way there, and fly home; alas, flooding in Iowa put the kibosh on that idea. I ended up taking the train to Chicago and flying the rest of the way. (The youngest came, too -- she flew separately both ways.) Had a lovely few hours in the Loop with my sister-in-law before heading to O'Hare. And the fest was fabulous, as always, and Denver was great, as always, and as always it was really hard to come home.

I think I stayed put in July. In August, I drove the youngest back to school, then spent a couple of days at Pipestem State Park in WV. Pipestem is one of my favorite places, period. I've been there several times over the years, both with the kids and by myself. There's a lodge at the bottom of a gorge that's only open in the warm months, that can only be reached by hiking down the mountain *or* riding an aerial tram in and out. A river runs through the gorge, past the lodge; deer meander through at dawn and dusk, nibbling windfall apples from the tree on the playground. One time we took my friend Kim with us; on our way into the park, we almost nailed a wild turkey as it ran across the road in front of our car. On this visit, I did a lot of hiking -- including the aforesaid hike down the mountain, which included fording the river -- and ate at the fancy restaurant twice.

So basically I've been traveling all year and now I'm broke. :) But that's okay; since the stock market tanked, *everybody's* broke... My current travels are pretty much relegated to driving back and forth to Baltimore most Saturdays for Czech class. Oh, and I'm making a run to Roanoke over Samhain weekend for the Family Weekend festivities at Hollins.

I'm supposed to be editing the KW anthology this fall, but we're still waiting for enough submissions to make a go of the project this year. If it doesn't happen, I guess I'll shop around the story I wrote for the anthology. I've also got an idea for a novella; in fact, I spent a good chunk of my Pipestem getaway brainstorming for that project, but haven't started writing it yet. I may sign up for NaNoWriMo just to force myself to put my butt in the chair and write the damn thing.

In the midst of all of this, of course, has been the presidential election. My favored candidate is out of the running, of course, but I've long since reconciled myself to throwing my support behind Obama. McCain is the best of a bad lot of Republicans, imho, but his running mate has no business being any closer to the White House than Wasilla, Alaska. It just seems to me that McCain has been focusing on making the bold, unlikely move, just so he can live up to his reputation as a maverick -- as if doing something, anything, is more important than doing the right thing. I've been very impressed with Obama throughout this financial crisis. He's been calm and thoughtful, seemingly careful to weigh the situation thoroughly before acting. I get the sense that he will make a great President -- that he's just the man we will need for the coming storm.

Altho why anybody would *want* to be President right now, considering the disaster he'll inherit from Dubya, is beyond me....

So that's what's been happening here lately. Hopefully, now that I've gotten over the hurdle of posting to explain why I haven't posted in so long, I'll be checking in here more often than every eight months (*eight months*?!?!!?).