Did I mention getting a new back wheel for my bike? A whole new rim? That frickin' tire would misalign every year, and this year, I finally had a spoke break, so I was just through with it, told the bike guys to replace it. My whole life of biking, I've never had more trouble with a bike than with this one. Anyway, they put on a nice, tough back wheel on it, although I haven't had much opportunity to ride on it, because it's been raining all frickin' week. This is about the rainiest fall I've seen here in Chicagoland.
My boys love the Bond movie, "Goldfinger." They love James Bond in general. Cracks me up. B1 loves the gadgets and the spectacle, while B2 loves the bad guys and thinks Bond's tuxedo is tops -- I actually filmed him singing the "Goldfinger" theme, which was adorable. If B2 saw me in my tux, he'd love that, would want his own tuxedo! Thankfully, he doesn't know I have one!
While looking for some appropriate "Goldfinger" images, I stumbled across this, which cracks me up. Bahah!
I'm in a pretty good mood today, as I managed to come up with a proper ending to a book I'd had written years ago, but had never quite gotten the ending I liked for it. I think I've alluded to it before in here. It's a Young Adult story, I think. That's my nearest guess. Now that I have the ending I like for it, I'll edit it and see if I can get anybody to pick it up. A tough sell in this market, but I'll try to find a home for it. I'm just relieved I got the right ending for it. It's very rare for me to get stuck on a story like that, and this one was like another albatross hanging around my neck (Exene taking the original honor for that, of course, the Lifetime Albatross Achievement Award), but this story was in second place. But I think I got it. On yet another read-through, we'll see how it goes. I shouldn't feel bad -- Tolstoy wrote something like 12 drafts of "War and Peace" -- which would have me going squarely out of my mind if I'd been in that situation. This latest revision will be a cakewalk by comparison.
My folks are seriously eyeing property in Florida. I think they're looking to sell their place in Santa Barbara and settle down in Florida. I think they were missing seeing the rest of the family (since nobody else in our family is on the West Coast), and they were also realizing that they could sell their place for a fortune and buy something particularly fab elsewhere. I always thought their trek to SB was quixotic -- there's a reason why it's like the retirement community for Hollywood. I mean, yes, it's beautiful, but it's also crazy-expensive out there, and if you're not coasting through senescence on residuals, it's a daunting prospect for everybody else. We'll see how Florida goes for them. The boys won't mind that, since they love the ocean (although B1 loves mountains as much as I do -- my Dwarvish boy. He was talking about that the other day, how much he loved mountains and hills. Cuted me out).
