Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

My efforts to clear all the built-up comments on my LJ (going through my inbox, responding to the ones that want responding to, making sure things are generally tidy) has just been thwarted by my utter and complete exhaustion. It doesn't help that I'm facing a jam-packed weekend of thrilling goodness, including...

* The first pumpkin patch of the season! More, the first pumpkin patch of the season with a small child! Because nothing says 'it's October now, honey,' like forcing my friend Michelle to wrestle me and Kaia in a field of giant orange squash.

* Trying to pass the 75 page mark in the current end-to-end rewrite of Late Eclipses of the Sun! Because it is absolutely vital that the fourth Toby book be finished before the first one is available in stores, don't you know. Behold my crazy. It's definitely beholding you.

* Making progress on my Grant's Pass story! I swear, if I didn't think the editor would hunt me down with a chainsaw, I'd consider dropping out of this anthology, because my story is cursed. Seriously, seriously cursed. I work on it, I get Martian death plague. Finishing it may unleash the pandemic. If that happens, blame Jennifer.

* My monthly Firefly RPG session! This week, Cherry probably shoots something (or blows something up), Archer makes a snarky comment, Levi is vague and priestly, and Jerrika eats something humans were never meant to put in their faces. Bet you a dollar I'm right.

* A good friend's birthday party at some BBQ joint I've never heard of! Now, I am not a big eater of meat. Or vegetables. Or anything beyond candy corn, tomato sandwiches, and pumpkin products. This is going to be hysterical.

So yeah, I'm going to go and fall over now. I hope you all have jam-packed weekends filled with excitement and fun, and while I may not be around until Monday, I promise not to unleash my obedient dinosaur army without warning you.

Questions I'm sure jennifer_brozek probably wasn't expecting to answer today:

"Is your drug resistant bubonic plague actually yersinia pestis, or a mimicking virological agent?"

Because that's a totally reasonable thing for me to ask, right? I mean, bubonic plague is wiping out Texas, I want to know what its rate of spread is, how it's transmitted, whether the speed of spread is retarded by some animal infector (as in the original bubonic plague, where your spread is limited to the presence, health, and density of rat fleas available to spread the bacteria). You may all applaud Jennifer, because she had a quick and reasonable response, and did not threaten to smack me with the nearest available cat if I didn't stop being a geek.

(Jennifer is editing an anthology called Grant's Pass, set roughly fourteen months after a series of biologically engineered pathogens wiped out the bulk of the human race. Clearly, Jennifer loves me. Amusingly, Jennifer didn't know me when she came up with the idea for the anthology. So clearly, great minds think alike. Sadly for Jennifer, this means I have a totally valid reason to ask her questions about terrible diseases. I do so love it when people volunteer to be my cat toys.)

I've actually finished two lovely books on historical diseases in the last week -- The Speckled Monster (all about smallpox) and The American Plague (all about the yellow fever). Here's a handy tip: pandemics are scary. Here's another handy tip: try not to get stuck in the middle of one. I learned many things that I didn't know before, like 'smallpox dictated English succession several times' and 'yellow fever wiped out much of Memphis.' Also, the CDC views a single case of yellow fever as an epidemic. Pretty spiffy!

As I am flying to Seattle on Friday, no more plague books for me right now; I really don't feel the need to attract the attention of Homeland Security or the TSA just because I couldn't do without my daily dose of death. Also, after the premiere episode of Fringe -- which I loved blazingly -- I'd probably get myself lynched by my fellow passengers.

Yay, plague!