The garden is doing well. The purple salvia is covered with fat, happy bees, and I caught a hummingbird on the red salvia the other day. (I can see why people start collecting salvias–I suspect that when I do the backyard, I may set up an all-salvia bed. They’re such cheerful, attactive, sturdy little plants.) The yarrow is blooming, as is the gaura and swamp milkweed, and this other thing I put in that I’ve forgotten the name of and have to dig out the tag, but which appears to be some kind of native veronica. (The plain ‘ol veronica is not terribly happy. I’m hoping they perk up in fall, because they’re not doing well.) There are buds on the coreopsis and the butterfly bush is on the thin edge of flowering. Life is generally good.

Indoors, Shrimp Bob has been in the tank for about three days now. I have spotted him once. He’s not a terribly visible critter, which is impressive, granted that he’s the biggest thing in the tank and has a fan of antennae nearly as big as my palm. However, the biggest of the Pest Bobs has vanished, and while it’s too early to know if it’s just hiding and traumatized, it seems like a good sign. (I’ve got my eye on the other Pest Bobs…) Crab Bob has definitely learned that the Chopstick From Heaven bears food, and now waves wildly whenever it pokes a flake of food in his direction. 

Book 4 & 5 are go–we’re finishing up the schedule negotiations. But it appears I have work for another year, which is good, because the economic slow-down is still killin’ art sales–I’m doing less than half the volume I did this time last year, and that’s actually up from the months before! I’m curious as to how the cons coming up this month are going to do–Heroes was awful last year, because of the gas prices, and I’m wondering if it’ll be equally bad this year, or if the lowered gas prices will have an impact. (If it doesn’t improve, I’m probably not doing it again, I fear.) Anthrocon is usually my best and biggest con, and it held up well last year, so we’ll see.