Current location:	Home Base
Current mood:	cheerful
Current music:	Summertime by Gershwin

Summertime
It's been a simultaneously busy and quiet summer. Much re-writing is being done. My daughter Katie is going off to a series of fun summer camps. Last week she went to a sailing/kayaking camp on South Lake Union, which she enjoyed immensely. I envied her the opportunity to muck about in boats. But I enjoyed it too, because it was only a hop, skip, and a jump from the Center for Wooden Boats. So I started dropping by either before or after I picked her up. There was a class on building a traditional eskimo baidarka in progress, and I started chatting with Cory Freeman, the teacher, about boats and Mongolian yurt-building. He very kindly let me show him some pictures of Mongolia, and I watched him help people put together these beautiful lightweight little boats. (They weigh about 60 pounds!) It has inspired serious Boat-Lust in me. Next winter, I'm going to sign up for the Family Boatbuilding session, where they help you build a lightweight little sailboat of your very own. Wheee!

And Saturday, in my guise as Evil Troop Leader, I forced a troop of Brownies to march a mile and a half in the HOT sun. The only drawback was that I was marching with them. *darn* Note to self: Next time have minions supervise the Forced March. Actually, it was the West Seattle Hi-Yu parade, and we all had a reasonably decent time passing out largesse in the form of green wristbands and candy to the crowd. For the next two weeks, Katie will be at Girl Scout Camp, which she loves.

And in other news, I'm going off to Throat Singing Camp at Harbin Hot Springs in mid-August. I should arrive at Worldcon fully equipped to make peculiar droning sounds and eerie inhuman whistles. If anyone's interested, go to Purenature Music. The group Chirgilchin is on tour in the area. I'll be going to their concert at Seattle Pacific University tomorrow. There's a link to their tour schedule on the site.