If you have moved to the Pacific Northwest from some other area and find it necessary to constantly complain about the Pacific Northwest, maybe you should think about moving back where you came from.  I know that I am sick of hearing it.

Cascade Writers is already planning our 2012 event and we are delighted to announce that authors Jay Lake and Ken Scholes and editor Beth Meacham have agreed to be instructors.  The dates are July 26-29, 2012 and we're looking at a venue in Vancouver, WA, just outside Portland.

We are still taking registrations for the 2011 event which features Jay Lake, David Levine and Beth Meacham on July 21-24, 2011 at the Ocean Crest Resort in Moclips, WA.  You can see more about our event at www.CascadeWriters.com

Our dog, Miki, died this morning.  He was a gentle, generous and noble companion.  I am very sad.

So, I started a LJ account for the new Cascade Writers organization cascade_writers  and friended a few dozen known writerly types.  And lo!  We have been friended back by one of my favorite authors...

I also started a LJ community called cascadewriters --so anyone who wants to can go in there and post something about one of our events, writing in general or what have you.

This year's Writers' Weekend was a great success -- lots of good workshopping and fun conversations.  Many thanks to the wonderful davidlevine andjaylake for teaching again this year.

We had a meeting and formed a non-profit organization, which will be called Cascade Writers.  In the future, the Writers' Weekend events will be held under that name.  Many thanks also go to calendula-witch and criada (which LJ won't let me make links to) and the other folks who volunteered to be on the board and officers for the new corporation.

I'm already planning for next year!

Last Monday, I was driving on interstate 90, just entering the tunnel that goes under Seattle, when I was hit from behind by a car going much faster than me.  Both of us were moving, though. The sheer physics involved boggle the mind.

I'm okay, my car is in the shop and is repairable.  I'm going to go to a chiropractor for a few visits.

I feel incredibly lucky to be alive.

Does anyone know where we can rent or borrow a digital slide projector for this year's Writers' Weekend?  The dates are July 22-25.

Any recommendations for YA books for a 10 year old boy who's into Halo?

I'm having a fan girl moment.

I was randomly surfing the net today and wound up locating the Facebook page for one of my favorite writers, Patricia Kennealy Morrison.  She has some standards -- she doesn't friend just anyone who asks, you have to send her a note with your request.  So I did.  And she friended me back.

I feel a little stalkerish, since I did learn a great deal about Dame Patricia's private life while reading her autobiographical work, Strange Days.  But I also feel as if we could be friends, were we given the chance and were my intellect about a million times stronger.  We do have some things in common: 

 1) We've both been published (me by an epub, her by a major NY publisher) 
 2) We've both been married in small, pagan rites (me because the other person involved only agreed to it because Jim Morrison had done it).

So, last night our friend Rainbow came over and did a Reiki treatment on our dog, Miki.  The dog has developed severe arthritis and he's now on a lifetime prescription of doggie arthritis medicine, to the tune of over $150 per month.

I'm not sure I understand Reiki--and I should, since I was a professional massage therapist for over a decade.  It's one of the modalities I never learned.  But even though I don't understand it, I have been told by many people I trust that it works.  So we are giving it a shot.

This is in addition to, not in the place of, his regularly prescribed medication.

The strangest thing happened while Rainbow was doing Reiki on our dog.  I got those chills you sometimes get when the hairdresser is working on your hair--you know the ones where little ripples of energy seem to corruscate over your entire body?  And the funny thing was, she wasn't even paying any attention to me, just to the dog.  It must have been sympathetic magic.