A very fine day off yesterday. It doesn't usually go that way. But yesterday, Spooky made me get dressed and get out of the house. First we visited the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, mainly because the "Frogs" A Chorus of Color" exhibit is back (by popular demand, one supposes). This exhibit is pretty much what got me through winter before last. Despite the omnipresent reminders of the ongoing Anuran mass extinction (which the exhibit would be pretty pointless without), seeing all those frogs buoys my spirits. The tiny Golden Mantella Frog (Mantella aurantiaca) is still my favorite. Also, I visited with the Argentinosaurus and Giganotosaurus and the Louis Paul Jonas Stegosaurus model. Oh, and a marvelous photographic exhibit, "Nature's Jewels: Butterflies and Other Insects", all photos from the southeast and Mexico. That was wonderful, too. Afterwards, we got smoothies at Arden's Garden in Midtown (I had pineapple, mango, and ginger), then came home and read more of Dune. Then went out again for sushi. Then had a walk through Springdale and Virgilee parks along Ponce de Leon (and saw bats and the huge yellow-orange moon, just two nights from full). So, yes, a very good day off, and I slept an unbelievable eight and a half hours last night and feel much refreshed today.

Which is good, because now I have to go back to "Little Conversations" and expand it into "Salammbô Redux," which is going to be an odd, grim endeavor.

Also, I was under the impression (because it's what my editor at HarperCollins told me) that Beowulf was being released October 1st, but now Amazon says it was released on September 25th, yesterday. So, I really have no idea. I have yet to receive my author's copies (which comes as no sort of surprise whatsoever). Maybe it's already in bookstores. So, you can probably find a copy somewhere out there. It's only $7.99 from Amazon.

And I should remind you of the Threshold auction.

A note to all Sirenia Digest subscribers: this month's issue (#23) is running a little late, because Vince has been really weighted down with deadlines on other projects. But it will be along soon.

And I think that's it for me now. Where's the coffee?