Sense of Adventure

So today Emma and I got an early start for a walk on Bear’s Ditch - before noon!  Yay!

It’s a beautiful autumn day. The trees have mostly turned gold. The grass in the RGNC field, which a giant noisy machine was mowing as we left, is still green.  The sky was clear and painfully pure blue. It was mostly calm, except for a breeze that was all too brief. Because it was cool at my house when we left I went with trousers instead of shorts, and rather regretted it.

I heard cranes almost as soon as I got Emma out of the car.  It took me a while of, well, craning around, but as we walked along the preserve’s southern fence to the ditch entrance I finally saw about a dozen, high up to the south of us, in small groups that joined and broke up again.

Trees line both sides of the ditch for maybe a quarter mile north from Candelaria.  Then they give way to a clear view of the RGNC fields to the west, and on the east a field between the ditch and RGB, for one or two hundred yards. As we neared the end of that I heard a crane cry and looked up to see a solo bird flying not very high overhead. He was evidently lonely, and calling up a storm in his attempts to find his flock.

I felt seriously sorry for him, up there feeling isolated and alone. Though they’re big, formidable birds they clearly rely heavily on the flock for survival, especially on migration. Just as the redoubtable Emma depends on her pack. But I assured him (not that he, or she, could hear me) that in that place and time it was unlikely he’d be alone for long. While they’re not out in the enormous numbers we’re likely to see in just a week or two there are plenty in the area now.

Still, I continued to feel bad, until I heard other voices answering the lone flyer. I looked up to see two more winging to join him. They all seemed relieved to find each other.

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Yes, the new one’s coming out, December 9. I may’ve been remiss (big surprise) mentioning it, inasmuch as last year I assiduously pimped a Wild Cards book in which I wasn’t, Inside Straight.

Well, I am in this one. Big time.

Click for larger image

It’s called, you guessed it, Busted Flush.

It’ll be mega-cool. But don’t take my word for it. (You probably wouldn’t. See how you are?) We got already reviews (scroll down or search.) Indeed, we already got several.

Most of the singling-out variety of praise goes, deservedly, to Melinda, for her interstitial material. Which is what we call the “stuff that holds all the rest of the stuff together.” That babe on the cover with the kindjal is one of her characters, Lilith. You may, uh, want to reserve judgement on her: she has issues.

This morning I slept later than I originally intended to because, hey, I felt as if I needed the extra sleep.

And I was jolted awake by what I believed to be the cry of a flying crane or Canada goose. That was enough to levitate me out of bed, into my robe, and out the front door for a look.

Didn’t see anything unusual that time.  I changed into my clothes to put Emma out back.  As I did I heard a distinct trill, confirming that I wasn’t imagining what I’d heard, and that I’d heard cranes.

Both the wild geese and the cranes have a special emotional resonance for me. The sounds of their migrating formations in flight serves for me as sign and symbol of the changing of seasons.  There is that about them which I find both haunting and untamed.

When I first moved into my house (on Jupiter) over 21 years ago it was the geese that overflew the house, autumn and spring. Then to my sorrow their flight path shifted and I didn’t hear or see them anymore. From my house, that is:  they’re certainly abundant throughout my usual North Valley haunts. I just didn’t get the special thrill of being awakened by them any more.

Then a few years ago the cranes started coming over. Even better.

This time I didn’t see them either. I did see crows flying pretty high; I associate them with the coming of winter, just over a month off. But I was certain I had heard the cranes flying.

Originally I’d intended to take Emma Dog to the Vineyard, just ’cause we haven’t been there much in too long. I decided now to go to Bear’s Ditch, which is closer to the river - runs right along the east edge of the Rio Grande Nature Center. It’s a good place to see migrating cranes, which tend to follow the river.

So this afternoon, when I needed a break to think about something in my new Rogue Angel yarn (my title for it is Skinwalker; we’ll see what comes out), I took the Em out to the ditch. And sure enough, just moments after getting out of the car, I heard the cry and then the trill.  They’re both very distinctive, very penetrating. Which makes sense; they’re how the birds formate on each other in flight, I presume. They need to carry.

When I got to a spot along the south fence of the RGNC preserve where no trees obscured my view I saw them:  a vee of maybe a dozen to the north, high up and circling. I got my Simmons on them enough to confirm, yep, they were cranes. They were far enough that even in the glass I couldn’t make out anything beyond that.  Indeed, when I looked again with my unaided eye they’d vanished against the blue sky.

ut it’s always good to see them.  And hear them, of course.

Yes, that’s really what it’s about.  Just a plea for help.

Yesterday, when I took Emma Dog for a walk in the Vineyard, the late-season field crickets were tuning up. And as the sun began to set and I got close to more wooded areas on the eastern edge of the field, I heard trilling that definitely seemed to me to come from tree frogs.

I’ve heard that kind of trilling before. I’ve even heard it from my house. Its rhythms suggest respiration rather than stridulation. And it resembles the calls of leopard frogs, which are common in New Mexico, although higher-pitched and what I would call more musical.

I seem to remember seeing tree frogs when we lived briefly in Santa Fe in the early 1960s.  Also I believe I’ve seen them in Albuquerque. But I’m not sure.

So I beg you, kind readers:  does anybody know if tree frogs really do reside here in the Duke City? Or am I just crazy? Again.

Afternote: According to Wikipedia, which believe it or not has a List of New Mexico amphibians (no, really), NM is home to a species of Barking Frogs. That’s just a euphemism for farting, right? Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?

Guess who just got back today?
Those big blue birds who had been away.
Hadn’t changed, hadn’t much to say,
But man, I still think them birds are great.
The cranes are back in town…

With a shout out to Thin Lizzy and the long-lost Phil Lynott.

Yes, it’s silly. And I’m not even sure they just got back today.  But when, on this glorious autumn afternoon, I took Emma for a walk in the Vineyard in Albuquerque’s North Valley by RGB, I did see them for the first time this season.

It’s my favorite time of year for a reason.  It was calm, the sky clear but for a few subtle brush-strokes of cloud, warm enough I wished I’d worn shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, but by no means hot.  The trees remain mostly green, but they’ve begun to show a lot of color. Down south by Montaño stood three small trees in a row: two gold, one red, the last gold. Pretty.

We didn’t exactly set a blistering pace. We haven’t been there in months - I know; it’s criminal - and Emma had to sniff everything. Which was fine. I walked briskly in between sniff stops.

At first I saw few birds of note, except for big flocks of Canada geese grazing and flying in vees off to the west toward the river, and some ducks in the ditch. The first leg of our walk ran along the west side of the Los Poblanos Fields Open Space (the Vineyard’s “official” name; I officially call it, “The Vineyard.”) About two thirds of the way down I noticed a suspiciously tall and bluish-grey bird standing out among the Canadas one or two hundred yards away in the stubble-field to my left. I hardly needed my ever-handy Simmons monocular to confirm my first impression:  Sandhill cranes don’t look like much else. Except, of course, dinosaurs.

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… to emcee the Archon 32 Masquerade, than my damn tuxedo pants began to fall down.

We had a packed house - standing room only, plus, I later learned, a boatload of people watching the show on big-screen TV in an overflow room (plus riffing on me and the contestants MST3K style, which is surely gilding the lily.) It would’ve been the Mother of Wardrobe Malfunctions, Fandom Edition.

The odd thing was, as I think I already mentioned, I already wore the damn drawers to play Toastmaster the night before.  And they never once threatened to perform an unauthorized descent.

I carried bravely on, and retreated behind my podium as fast as I could without making it obvious to perform some rapid, covert adjustments. I realized that the difference between then and Opening Ceremonies must be that the first time I wore the monkey suit, I’d used the elastic band of the cummerbund to hold up my drawers. So I did that.  And it seemed to work.

The Masquerade was another great one.  We sprang back from an unusually low number of entrants last year (although the NASFiC/Tuckercon Masquerade was personally cool for me because the con and Masquerade staff turned it into a birthday party for me and a thousand or so of my closest friends) to 35 or so. As always standards were high, with many out-and-out great costumes.

The folks behind one of the crowd favorites, which owing to having won big at this years Denver Worldcon could only enter in the Exhibition class (hence ineligible for prizes) must’ve thought I was stalking them.  Charles and Tauni Orndorff plus a third teammate (who I think was Michael Bruno) trotted out their extremely cool 16-foot long dinosaur costumes. The dinos and I had encountered one another before, when they brought them down for the Bubonicon masquerade, for which I’m also perennial MC.

Anyway, had a great time at the con. I may blog more about it later. Also I may not.

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Went off well. If I do say so myself, since I was Toastmaster.

Because they always rent me a tux for my gig as Masquerade MC (which I also am this year) I decided to wear it tonight for OCs. Which went over well enough. I don’t know if I was even the slickest-dressed dude on stage; Rich Zellich, who with his wife Michelle are Fan Guests of Honor, wore a tail coat, a top hat, goggles, and a cane with a brass head that unscrews and becomes a little 3 power spyglass. All of which is awesome.

Steampunk, for which I have a considerable affinity, seems to be all the rage this year. Lotsa cool steampunk hall costumes about. Including Rich’s.

Rich and Michelle are former serial Archon chairs. They’ve also been good friends of mine forever.

Artist and Gaming GoH (he’s also two things in one) John Kovalic seems like a pretty good guy. I met him for the first time today. He has a cool, idiosyncratic drawing style, as seen in his Dork Tower comic strip and his illos for the Munchkin game series, as well as Apples to Apples. Both of which ought be enough to elevate him to the Pantheon among some of my friends (you know who you are.)

Our Media GoHs are Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, and J. Elvis Weinstein, whom I hope you recognize as much of Mystery Science Theater 3000, hence gods (well, one goddess) among men.  They couldn’t make OCs, sadly, so I didn’t get to meet them.  Dang.

Author GoH is St. Louis’s own Laurell K. Hamilton, who was lookin’ good in a black leather skirt.

So anyway to open my turn as Toastmaster I said the following:

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