Right now the house is trembling and the windows are flexing. The wind is roaring like a distressed lion. Pete is by the sink, making dinner. I am sitting at the table, near the window. Earlier today I worked and watched the trees bend and sway in the wind. The smaller branches have busted off the larger branches. Pete thinks that the broken, weaker branches were the most dangerous.

The wind was blowing pretty hard last night. It let up this morning, and so it was not so bad when I was tending to the horses. The wind blows harder, or so it seems, up here at the cabin, which is on a hill. I keep telling myself that overall it isn’t that bad, but bad is a relative term.

I worked this morning on Shelf Life – I feel as though I have regained my momentum. The end part of Part III, the setting of which is the hotel, has to be rewritten. Having set the manuscript aside for a few months was a good thing because I am now able to see it anew.

I keep thinking that publication connections are just going to happen – that this will be a matter of luck. I worked on getting the email addresses that I have on hand ready to send to Pete who will send them to Kaitlin who is on our board. She’ll send out the attached newsletter. I am now thinking that I’ll include some publication sources.

Ryder is at the top of the stairs, now doing her leaky faucet bark – drip drip drip, bark bark bark. This is senility at its best. Senility at its worse would be incontinence. She barks in the middle of the night to be let outside, but I do not think that Pete will attempt to put her out because she won’t go out. She may be dumb, but she is not stupid.

The worse thing that could happen now, and it could happen, would be that we have a 8.0 earthquake. I think then that we’ll all be thinking that the end is near.

I am now realizing that there is no escaping climate change. No matter where you go, or where you live, you are going to have to deal with some form of weather related catastrophe.

I just don’t like watching the windows shudder.

Pete keeps talking about how this summer he is going to insulate the windward portion of the cabin, and how this will include putting in triple-pain windows. And every time he says this, I say, well, I guess we won’t go horse trekking next summer.

I’m going to work this evening on Shelf Life so that I don’t obsess about the wind and what might happen to us. I am prepared, should it let up and should I go the hotel tomorrow, to hear some amazing wind stories. I don’t have one and I hope not to have one. I am not a big one for hardship.

Next: 336. 12/15/25: Midway through the Month