THEY HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING

At least this is what I've been told. THE BOOKS HAVE LEFT THE PRINTERS. Last week, they were on the way to the distribution center. Next week, they should (note the word: SHOULD) be at the bookstores.

If you have ordered a book, whether directly from Juno, or from Amazon or any of the other stores, you ought to be getting it soon. Probably before I get my copies. A friend/fellow writer (Carole McDonnell) for Juno just got her copies of her book (Wind Follower), and I think hers was released before mine.

So. There is the latest book news. I'll get it up on the website today or tomorrow. You ought to be getting your hands on them soon.

In other news, I have finally been on the island for a full week without 1) boxes to be unpacked, 2) a conference to attend looming in front of me, 3) company. School has started at all levels from kindergarten to university, and it may finally be possible to get settled in. Maybe.

I'm going a little giddy, I think, from all the delights of living in a larger city. There are restaurants! And concerts! And--stuff!

We have "subscribed" to the local symphony orchestra. They had a BOGO (buy one, get one free) deal on season tickets for new subscribers, and since we just moved here 8 weeks ago, we couldn't be anything else. So we subscribed, and went to the first concert of the season last night--the annual Pops concert. It's a small orchestra, mostly volunteer, I think, because this is a small city. But I enjoyed it tremendously. Not only did they play the Ed Sullivan Show spinning-plates song (A. Katchaturian's Saber Dance), but they played Bugs Bunny cartoon music. Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, which was a lot more bubbly and fun than I remember from the cartoons.

They played in an improvised auditorium, since their regular venue--the (historic) Grand Opera House--had something else, so the marimba player was kind of down in a hole and I'm not sure he could see the conductor, but it was a symphony concert! And they played fun music! And we only had to drive 10 minutes to get there! That last is a MAJOR consideration, given that up until 8 weeks ago, we had to drive an hour to get to the nearest theater unless we wanted to watch the drive-in movies or the high school band. (The movie theater is about 15 minutes away, but we don't have to leave the island.)

The symphony concert was the same place we went to a concert on Friday night (the fella's birthday). That concert was a "rock and roll experience" concert--at least I think that's how they advertised it. Instead of Elvis impersonators, there were two bands, one impersonating the Beatles, the other impersonating the Rolling Stones. They were pretty good, all in all. The music was great, though you could see a few cracks around the edges of the impersonations. The guy from Louisiana impersonating Mick Jagger actually said "y'all" once. Has Jagger ever gone in for that southernism?? But it was fun. We got a kick out of it.

And this evening, after all the weekenders have (hopefully) gone home, if it's not raining/thundering, etc., we're going to the beach. To swim. Without little guys to watch. And then we're coming home to cook steaks. We had to leave the grill behind, so I guess we'll broil them in the oven, but these are some gorgeous steaks... Can't wait.