And on the 7th day, she recapped.

[darcydodo]

So Anselm left today, with the usual amount of confusion and hecticness that I should really be expecting by now. The week he spent here was great fun, and he seems to be at least a bit inspired for his next book, which is a good thing. He didn't seem to happy about it before, poor boy. While in Cambria, we went to Hearst Castle, and I went inside for the first time — at least, I haven't been inside before in my own recollection, and my mother doesn't think that we went inside the time they took me there as a baby. The furnishings are very impressive, and it's not quite like visiting a European castle, since those acquired their decorations and basic structure over quite a long period of time and through a succession of rulers, whereas this castle was built to the ever-changing specifications of one man, and all the lamps and paintings and whatnot were acquired and distributed by him alone. Some are actual antiques, while others are very clever copies. And I just adore the two pools. I hadn't remembered nearly how impressive they are; I have the strangest feeling that last time I saw them I was less than impressed, whereas in fact they are truly awe-inspiring and make you want to break all rules and go jump in them. I'll put up pictures at some point — I need to shrink the ones that I have, and all the inside ones we took on Anselm's camera because my batteries had just died. Sadly, we didn't get to see any zebras; there was a positive lack of any herds on the hills, which was rather unusual. My last two or three guests that I've taken up there have managed to see the zebras (after expressing strong doubt that there were such things roaming our hills), whereas Anselm, who believed me straight off, didn't see hide nor hair of one.

Yesterday we went to Santa Monica beach and went running in the waves and building sand castles. It was particularly brilliant because I haven't been able to do this with carefree abandon since I was about twelve. The reason? Contact lenses. However, I'm having that LASIK thing done tomorrow (*looks scared and hides, but I'll tell you about it afterwards*), so I've been having to wear my glasses for the past two weeks so that my eyes would go back to their natural shape. This means that I didn't have to worry about sand getting in my eyes when I got hit with a wave or went to rub my eye and had sand all over my hands, and that meant that I had more fun then at the beach than I have done in about half a lifetime. 'Cause sand and/or salt in eye + contact lens? Hurts like a motherfucker, and you don't even remotely understand the concept of this unless you have hard contacts and have felt the same.

I managed to show Anselm the first four episodes of Buffy, and "The Pack" — we skipped "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" for obvious reasons and I only had time to show him one final episode this morning. Besides which, "The Pack" is just fantastic. He's really enjoying them, I think, and when he's back in Oxford, midnightmelody can further his corruption (that'll be a first...). In return, Anselm's promised to introduce me to Babylon 5 next year when he's out on the west coast *fingers crossed*.

So now I'll go bury my head in a book, or something, or maybe shrink enough pictures that I can put them up on the web.

Comments

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

when he's back in Oxford, midnightmelody can further his corruption (that'll be a first...)

Yum, I look forward to it. The Buffy, of course, not the corruption. ;)

[liv]

Yay, it's good to have you back. Why couldn't you have worn glasses on previous occasions when you wanted to play at the beach?

Lots of positive thoughts regarding the surgery today. *hugs*