I just got an update from my airline that they’ve changed my itinerary. I will now not arrive until 2pm tomorrow which means that I will miss my autographing session. I believe that is the only thing affected by this change.

Besides my blood-pressure, of course.

I’m impressed that my travel karma is inserting pre-emptive scheduling chaos although this does give me the opportunity to plan ahead for it.  Makes me wonder what time I will actually arrive…

This will be my first Dragon*Con and I’m very much looking forward to it. Since it is a costume friendly con, I’m bringing the full Regency wardrobe for evening wear. I’ll also have the sandalwood handfans for folks who would like them. But where can you get one? Just find me at any one of these exciting activities.

Friday

Dragon*Autographs
01:00 pm Location: M301 – M304 – Marriott (Length: 1)
Edited to add: An airline itinerary change has me arriving AFTER my session. Sorry. Feel free to find me after any of the other panels/events.

Dragon*Reading
05:30 pm Location: Roswell – Hyatt (Length: 1)
I’ll be reading from Shades of Milk and Honey and performing The Broken Bridge, which is the shadow puppet play that occurs in Chapter 10.

Saturday

Broad Universe Reading!
11:30 am Location: Greenbriar – Hyatt (Length: 2.5)
Description: Discover new writers, rediscover ones you know! Up and coming women writers read from their own works and others. (I’ll be reading a new short story.)

Sunday

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
11:30 am Location: Hanover C – E – Hyatt (Length: 1)
Description: A roundtable discussion about science fiction and fantasy book covers by industry pros, discussing what’s good, bad and could be better.

Monday

Joining a Writer’s Group
11:30 am Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong – Hyatt (Length: 1)
Description: Whether it’s a national organization like SFWA, RWA,or HWA or a local group…What’s in it for you?

Clearly being gone for two weeks brought out the nesting impulse because I came home made a casserole, soup and cookies within the first four hours of being back. I’m moving on to laundry and am considering mopping the kitchen.

Rob is off at the vineyard and left his cell phone at home so I haven’t actually spoken to him yet. I’ll see him this evening.

It is really, really, really good to be home.

I’ll catch you up on what the readings were like but for the moment I just want to settle in an be quiet at home.

I’ve arrived in NYC where I will be until Thursday morning.  I’m reading from Shades of Milk and Honey at the KGB Fantastic Fiction series on Wednesday night with Laura Anne Gilman. You should come.

For those who have been following my travel adventures,  you will be pleased and baffled to know that I had no transit problems on this trip, at all. Bear in mind that I was travelling on Friday the 13th.

It confuses me too.

Upon my arrival, I went straight to the Puppet Kitchen where I got pulled into helping build a duplicate of one of the dog puppets we built when I lived here before.  It was fun and felt like I’d come home. I do miss building puppets and working there.

Afterwards, I went out for drinks and a light dinner with friends. My current plan for the evening is to go to bed and sleep.

Travel back from Raleigh was largely uneventful. On my second flight I had duplicate tickets with another passenger. Any annoyance I might have felt was quickly overcome by the reason behind the duplicates. I’d been upgraded to first class but they hadn’t issued a new ticket for me when I boarded.

While I was sorting that out the flight attendant told me not to feel rushed because we didn’t have pilots yet. Sigh. We wound up leaving about forty-five minutes late but they made up the time in the air and we were only twenty minutes late arriving in Portland.

Rob met me at the airport and helped me lug my copious luggage home. I’m so used to travelling light that all the gear I needed to drag along for the con changed my routines a bit. The next leg of the Shades of Milk and Honey booktour will be worse in some ways since I’ll be packing for NYC, San Fransisco and Eugene. Whee!

Speaking of which, don’t forget to come out to see me at the Cedar Hills Powell’s tomorrow night at 7pm.

I am waiting for the flight to NASFIC and am suspicious. The plane is here, it is not oversold and we are boarding on time. If you have been following my travels you understand why I find this confusing.

However, if things go as planned, I will change planes in Minneapolis and arrive in Raleigh around 10:30am tomorrow (Wednesday)

Ta-da! Here is my schedule for NasFic in Raleigh, NC. Who will I see there?

Thursday

3:00 PM – RCC 305B
Schmoozing: How to Network at a Con
Davey Beauchamp [m], Dan Kimmel, Mary Robinette Kowal

4:00 PM —  RCC 305A
Reading
I’ll be reading from Shades of Milk and Honey. Not surprisingly…

Friday

10:00 AM — RCC 306B
Longevity Panel
Mary Robinette Kowal, Henry Stratmann

2:00 PM – RCC 306B
Editing: The Necessary Evil of Publishing
John Hertz [m], Dan Hoyt, Chris A Jackson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stanley Schmidt, Lawrence M Schoen

3:00 PM — RCC 203
Revive Fandom’s Relevance to the 21st Century
Mary Robinette Kowal, Mur Lafferty, Amy H Sturgis

8:00PM –Raleigh Hospitality Suite
Shades of Milk and Honey Launch
This will be a gentle reception with Regency music, games and a shadow puppet play.

Saturday

10:00 AM — RCC 306A
Creative Insults
Dan Hoyt, Mary Robinette Kowal, James Daniel Ross, Alex Wilson

1:00 PM – MAR Alumn
Writers Workshop — Section 3
Mary Robinette Kowal, Lawrence M Schoen

5:00 PM — RCC Boardroom
Kaffee Klatch
Come chat!

9:00 PM — RCC 306C
Great First Lines
Mary Robinette Kowal, Lee Martindale, John Pierce, Matthew Rotundo

Sunday

RCC Exhibit Hall — 10:00 AM
Autographs
Carl Frederick, Chuck Gannon, Mary Robinette Kowal

I have arrived safely home, with my luggage and the contents of my luggage intact. And only twenty-four hours after I’d planned to get here.

The cats are frantic with loneliness and Marlowe is doing a great deal of chasing invisible demons to prove his affection for me.  Rob is still away at IPNC so I’m just going to go to bed and let the cats hog his side.

Lest you feel bad for me and my delayed flight yesterday, allow me to show you one of the views from my bedroom window at the lake cottage. The bedroom I was in had windows on three sides, all of which looked out on the lake. To say that it was relaxing doesn’t take into account the very kind generosity of Merrie Haskell‘s inlaws.  I got a lot of work done during my additional 24 hours with them.  I finished the first round of Glamour in Glass revisions and began revising a novella.

Dave Klecha gave me a ride to the airport and my flight is currently on time. I suspect that it will leave without problems because the alternative would be staying here another day and that would be very pleasant.

I’m at the airport in Grand Rapids and my flight is delayed by an hour and a half. This means that I’ll miss my connection in Minneapolis and there’s not another flight that will get me home tonight. Or rather, there is but it’s over-sold by seven people so they can’t book me on it. I’d have to go standby and hope that eight people didn’t show up so that I could get on.

I’m torn between going back to Merrie Haskell’s lake house to spend the night and getting on this plane to see if maybe I can get home.

Part of my dilemma is that the Oregon Regency Society is having a picnic tomorrow. I have managed to be out of town for every single event and was so excited that I’d finally get to go to one. I suspect that I will opt for staying here because that removes any uncertainty and the lake house is very nice.

Edited to add: Yes. I’m staying overnight here and flying home tomorrow.

In other news, it has been suggested that as a service to humanity I should post my flight itinerary so other people know what flights to avoid.

Last night I went out to dinner with T– from Brilliance to this amazing restaurant in Muskegon called Mia and Grace.  It’s a very small dining room that features organic, farm-to-table cooking, and pretty much everything made on site.  The food was nicely balanced and interesting without being “interesting” if you know what I mean.

I had a lavender-vanilla bean creme soda that was really lovely. We started with the local cheese plate, moved on to a beet carpacio salad that flirted with perfect, and I had their gnocchi with spinach. For dessert a true key lime pie.

Highly recommend the restaurant, if you are in the area.

Today we finished recording An Artificial Night around four-thirty. This pleases me because they had scheduled three and a half days and it only took three.  It really is funny how I can read smoothly for three pages and then hit a sentence that I can’t seem to get out.

After work C– drove me into Grand Rapids on his way home and dropped me at a coffee shop. Merrie Haskell came to fetch me and take me back to her lake cottage for a little bit of relaxation before heading back to Portland tomorrow.

All in all, it’s been a very good trip.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my travel adventures actually getting here, besides the whole lunch with Dave aspect, which was just fun.

I had a red eye out of Portland at 12:50 AM.  One of the benefits to all the ridiculous travel I’ve been doing lately is that I’m now a Gold Medallion member at Delta, which means that if there’s an upgrade available, I move up to first class. It is a different world up there.

It makes waiting much more tolerable. Waiting for things like, say, when the captain announces that the engine is leaking fuel and that we might need to sit on the ground for awhile.

Or when, oh, I dunno, he says that it might be a four hour wait and they might not be able to let us off the plane for security reasons. That’s easier to face with plenty of legroom.

Fortunately, they let us off the plane after only a half-hour and were able to get a new plane and us onto it pretty fast. We left an hour and a half late which, all things considered wasn’t bad.

And really, if they are going to notice fuel leaking from the engine, I’d rather have them spot it before take-off.

On this trip to Grand Haven, I’m trying something new. I rented a bike instead of a car. I had talked about it when I was out here in the winter, because Brilliance is les than two miles away. It always felt silly to drive aside from the fact that it was cold and often windy. Snow I can handle. Snow and wind? No, thank you.

This trip is a little jarring because the weather is so nice. I’m not used to seeing green while here. It’s pretty.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I had been talking about it last winter and would love to pretend that I planned ahead. But the truth is that as I was getting ready to leave last night we realized that I had no idea where my driver’s license was. In all likelihood it dropped out of my pocket while travelling and I didn’t notice it because I don’t drive.

A passport got me through security but would not allow me to rent a car. Fortunately, I remembered the bicycle conversation and arranged to rent one. After that it was just a matter of getting to Grand Haven. Lucky for me, David Klecha foolishly suggested that he might drive out to have lunch with me. Mwhahahaha! I offered to buy him lunch if he’d actually drive me out there.

He’s a lovely guy so I got the better end of the bargain by a long shot. He’s full of hilarious stories and it was good to catch up with him.

I now have a bicycle, a helmet, and am ready for the week.

Speaking of this week… If you are inclined to join me for writing, I’ll be at Jumpin Java Coffee tomorrow evening after I finish recording. Probably around 6:00 or 7:00.

I’m sitting at the Portland Airport (yay free wifi!) waiting for a redeye to Michigan where I will record An Artificial Night, the third book in (Campbell nominee) Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series.  (She’s written a weeper, I’ll tell you that right now. When you get a copy, have kleenex handy.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking that I’ll get home Saturday night and get to see Rob. Only I forgot that he’s going to IPNC this week and it will be Monday night, at the earliest, that I get to see him. Given how much I’ve been gone recently, this shouldn’t see like an unbearable separation but I am surprisingly melancholy right now.

Otherwise, all is well. I’m looking forward to sleeping on the plane.

Today’s travel was surprisingly pleasant, considering that it started at 4:30am.  Rob got up to drive me to the airport which he claimed was no big deal because it allowed him to get an early start at the winery.

I zipped through security and then ran into some puppeteer friends who were on their way to the SE Regional Puppetry Festival. That did give me a bit of a pang because I’d like to be on my way there too. Still it was nice to catch up and chat with them and I know I’ll have fun at Readercon.

No problems with the flight until we landed.

This wasn’t a problem so much as just funny.  We’re sitting there waiting to deplane and the attendent makes this announcement. “Folks, we apparently landed one minute before Queen Elizabeth and now they’ve locked down the airport.”

The delay getting off the plane was so negligible that I’m not sure there really was one.

I came into the city, hung out at the Puppet Kitchen for a bit then wandered over to NYRSF to hear Saladin Ahmed (one of the Campbell finalists this year) and Paolo Bacigalupi (up for a Hugo) read.  Both did really nice readings.

I’m now ensconced at Jodi and Sam’s and feeling the travel day catching up with me. Well, that and the humidity. Ugh. I do NOT miss that.

I wonder how the Queen is handling it?