Blog Entry 89

Progress on the second novel of the Tessera Trilogy, Sooley Base, continues with struggles to piece together the various electronic notes into a coherent flow of characters, actions, dialogue. The current word count is hovering around 75 to 80 thousand words, but this is a very soft figure, as a great deal of work remains.

I missed yet another meeting of the writers’ group, and am recovering from last medical procedures, a sigmoidectomy.

I remain am out of shape, flabby, but poised to see classmates from half a century ago. Should be fun.

Another task which took time was removing and re-installing a trailer hitch from one car to another. This made the older one ready for donation to the gear heads at the County’s technical school. They were very appreciative and assured us the car will see years of further service as a training tool and as transportation.

I have several significant sightings in the habitats around the house to report.  Baby humming bird somehow flew into the garage, attracted perhaps by the reddish color of the sedan. We managed to help it out by holding a plastic rake up to it, letting it hop aboard, then moving it near the opening.  On one of the backyard bird baths a yellow finch and a sparrow shared the same water; it was good to see su8ch avian harmony.

I want to give an unsolicited endorsement of an ant repellant product. We get ants each summer, coming in by the kitchen window as the temperatures outside soar. We just tried Terro

Ant Killer drops and the hordes are gone.

Here, to the thrill of family, friends, and fans, is another segment from Golden Gate, the first novel of The Tessera Trilogy.

Whenever the Saudi government denied something, it was holy writ amongst ex-pats there to decree that something true. The existence of this effort was never, per se, denied. When there seemed a possibility that a leak about the nuclear waste would surface, Ambassador Van DerMeer astutely took the wind out of its sails. He offered that “if such a preposterous thing were even conceived, the real plan would have been to send all atomic waste to Tehran for injection into worthy fanatics.” That drew a hearty laugh in ex-pat social circles and defused further questions.

Stefano smelled a scoop. He circulated, gathering additional bits of Intel.  He pretended to drink and even slurred words for effect; the tactic worked. Four more of the crew verified the attack, spoke of the death of a Vietnamese, and of the roar of a terrible weapon spewing fire. He assured them of anonymity -

His assessment of Omar and of the burial detail to date was positive; all was as it should be. That assessment would prove later to be wrong; the US had just been snookered.