Feeling Like Royalty...

Or should I say, royalties.

I got my first royalty payment today for my short story in the Firestorm of Dragons anthology. It's quite a heady feeling, though I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon. And considering Alex has been having some rough times today due to his ear infection--not to mention he's currently Resisting A Rest--it's good to have something good happen today.

Alex and Apples

Today we decided to go apple picking. Eugene and I have been doing this for several years, although we skipped last year since Alex was so young. This year we decided to try a new orchard. Although it's in Woodstock (same as our old place), it's a little closer to us than our usual place. Plus it also offers Honeycrisp apples and Asian pears. So we packed up Alex and the half-ton of supplies we need to leave the house with him, stocked up on gas and cash, and drove to All Seasons Orchard.

When Alex is in the car at certain times of the day, he tends to fall asleep. This drive was no exception:

But he soon woke up when he saw all of the new things. The general store was very busy; we had to go there first to buy a half-bushel bag. (They make you tell them what you want to pick and pay for the bag first.) We gave Alex his lunch and snacked on a couple of apple donuts while we waited for a wagon to take us to the orchard. The setting was very beautiful, and there were plenty of games for kids, though we thought Alex was a bit young for some of them.

We ate lunch next to this waterfall and pond. A bunch of bees wanted to join us, so I had to lure them away with peach juice.

Finally we rode out to the orchard on a hay wagon. We had to fold up the stroller, but Alex took the trip in stride. Then we picked Gala apples, Honeycrisp apples, and Asian pears. We had to pay extra for the Honeycrisp and pears, but they were worth it. Alex reached for some of the apples, so we gave him two small Galas. I thought he just wanted to hold them, but he actually bit into them and ate about half of each apple. I had no idea he could eat whole apples so well:

We were done picking in about half an hour, just in time to catch the next wagon back to the main farm. I tried buying some apple butter and honey, but the lines in the main store were so slow they were stuck. Someone said they had been having computer problems; someone else said the delay was due to a shortage of donuts (appaprently they could only make two dozen at a time, so people were paying for them and then waiting). I finally gave up so we could leave and let Alex take his delayed nap. Despite those problems, I think we'll be back next year.

Sympathy for a Squirrel

I hit a squirrel on the way to work this morning.

I was on a residential street headed toward the highway. Normally, when you see squirrels in the street, they're half a block away, and they're smart enough to look around before attempting to cross. This one just jumped right out in front of me, only a few feet away. I don't think there were parked cars blocking its view, but it all happened so fast. Maybe something was chasing it. I knew as soon as I saw it that I would hit it, and sure enough, I heard it hit my the underside of my car. Glancing back in the rearview mirror, I saw it curled up in the road.

I drove on--what else could I do?--but I felt a bit shaken up by the incident. At least there doesn't seem to be any damage to my car, and Alex and I were unhurt. I'd rather hit a squirrel than a deer. Still, I felt bad again when I came home and saw the squirrel still on the road. I know there are plenty of squirrels in the trees, and they can be pests, especially when you're feeding birds. But it never feels good to see something die so senselessly.

Back on the Blog Chain: Storyworld Creation

Time for another Blog Chain Post. This time, my friend Heather picked the topic: How do you as an author choose or create your story-world and give that setting authenticity? You can start with her blog if you wish to follow the entire blog chain link to link, or you can check out all the marked blogs in my Blog List.

The previous poster, Archetype, focused on the laws of fantasy and science fiction worlds. I'm going to continue discussing science fiction; specifically, I'm going to talk about creating future worlds. My novel Across Two Universes has three major worlds: the world of mid-21st century New York (about 60 years ahead of us), the world of the spaceship Sagan, and the world of 1980 Earth, where my hero, Paul, meets the man he was cloned from and attempts to change the fate of that world. Everything in ATU is set up to make that meeting possible.

When I came up with this story world, my initial idea was to send someone back in time to hear the Beatles play at the Cavern in Liverpool. I then had to figure out her motive for doing so, and it turned out to be to clone John Lennon. (The original versions of my novella "Move Over Ms. L." and the first few drafts of ATU did use John Lennon and other real people; there's no denying that. I'm currently changing them, though.) So I had to set up a world where time travel was possible and figure out how that worked. I started with a few Writer's Digest books devoted to time and space travel. I decided that the best time travel method for this story would be to have the time traveler pass through a wormhole into another, younger universe. She would need a spaceship to do so, not to mention a wormhole. I don't want to go into too much detail about the origins of the wormhole, but I will say it's not natural. But I also needed a society capable of making a spaceship, so in my future world, cold fusion is possible and used to power the ship (which still isn't capable of faster-than-light travel, so it travels relatively short distances). The ship itself is used to collect genetic samples and other treasures of the 1980 Earth and bring them back to the 21st century.

In designing the Sagan, I focused more on how people live in it than its technical specs. Although the ship is well-stocked and maintained every time it returns to the 21st century Earth, it has to be able to supply its residents with food independently. I therefore gave it a salmon tank and a hydroponic garden. It also has a psychiatrist to help people cope with space travel and little cubicles where people can seek privacy. Since passage through the wormhole is rough at best, passengers are required to strap themselves into their bunks.

To come up with other technological wonders of my world, I read Scientific American. My heroes wear "smart clothes" that can keep the wearer warm and spidersilk armor that can stop bullets--things already being discussed today. I also extrapolate uses of the technology; holographs aren't just used to replace TVs but to create costumes for actors. I also think about how current events would affect the future. In my world, global warming has caused severe flooding in New York City; the city was saved by building levees.

Research and imagination can help you create your world, but it's the way you use them that makes your world authentic. Instead of telling my readers about my world, I show it to them as Paul would see it. The story starts with Paul using his autoholoprojectors during a play. On the Sagan, he meets with his girlfriend in the hydroponic garden and in a private cubicle, interacting with the settings and experiencing them through several senses. I don't lecture the readers about flooding; instead, Paul mentions in bypassing how he was an extra in the documentary The Floods of New York.

It's time for me to pass the blogging baton to Kristal, but I'd like to sum up in three points: when creating a world, make it multifaceted. Think about the implications of your decisions on other aspects of the world. And don't forget to show it to the reader with sensory descriptions and telling details. No matter what world you write about, the details will make it real.

More Photos....

Lakes and Legos

This weekend was one of the rainiest I've seen. I'm not sure how many inches we got in our area, but nearby towns received over eight inches in the last two days. We had plans for a playdate, but our friends not only got water in their kitchen but also had several roads in their subdivision flood to the point of unusability. Luckily, our house stayed dry. I did take Alex out shopping yesterday; he got a raincoat and some new clothes for fall. Eugene's plans to do a photo get-together with some friends at a garden got washed out. Instead, we met another photography couple for lunch and went to Legoland at Woodfield Mall. Here are a few photos:

More to come later....

More Memes: Books I've Read

I just saw this meme on Sara's blog. My memory is hazy on some of them, but I thought I'd give this a whirl anyway.

This is a list of the top 106 books most often marked unread by LibraryThing users.

bold = ones I've actually completed.
italic = ones I've started and never finished
plain text = ones that I've never read
underline = ones you had to read for school.
CAPS = ones that I really really WANT to read. (what do I do for a maybe read?)


Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (might like to read)
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses (maybe read)
Madame Bovary (not sure if I finished it or not)
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel (great book!)
War and Peace (I read this over a week while I was sick)
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife (great book!)
The Iliad
Emma (can't remember if I read this one)
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway (I think I read this one, but I'm not sure)
Great Expectations
American Gods
ATLAS SHRUGGED
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I may have read this one)
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
THE FOUNTAINHEAD
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons (one I never want to read!)
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels (I wrote a term paper on the final section)
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere (I may have read this one)
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
DUBLINERS
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed (good book)
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
FREAKONOMICS
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values (one of my all-time favorites)
The Aeneid
Watership Down
GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Back on the Blog Chain: How Real Are Your Characters?

It's time once again for another entry in our ever-growing blog chain about writing. The current topic is, "How real are your characters, and how much do you know about them?" Please go here and here to read the previous and next entries in the chain. I also have links to all of the blogs in the sidebar.

Before I start discussing characters, I'd like to discuss briefly the relationship between fiction and reality, as this topic has inspired me to mull about that. We read fiction for various reasons; sometimes we want a mirror of our own reality, and sometimes we want to escape from it. (I've lived in Midwestern suburbs for most of my life, and although the Midwest is my home, there are times when it's so mundane I need to escape from it mentally. That's one of several reasons why I love science fiction and fantasy.) But when we read or watch movies or TV, we want to believe in them, at least as long as we're actively engaged in them. So perhaps it's more important to find out what makes readers believe in the reality of characters. Since writers generally start off as readers, and since both writer and reader are needed to bring a story to life, I'll talk first about the writing side of the equation before going into the readers' perspective.

As Heather pointed out in her own entry on this topic, writers almost always feel their characters are real to them; otherwise, the writers wouldn't feel inspired to write about the particular characters in the first place. I haven't tried to obtain Social Security numbers for my characters and claim them as dependents on my taxes, but they still feel like real people to me, perhaps citizens of the universe next door. My characters have strengths and weaknesses, like anyone you meet on the street. They have their own dreams and interests, even ones not relevant to the story. I also have a fairly good idea of what happens to them before and after the beginning of the book.

As for how much I know about my characters, it changes over time. Although I do get to know my characters in my head before I start writing, I generally don't write out a full-blown character sketch for them before my first draft. Even if I do try to create a mini-biography of the main character, it's often incomplete on paper, as I hold more details in my head. Other things come to me as I write. For instance, I have two incomplete trilogies, one fantasy and one science fiction. In both series, after I finished the first book, a secondary character who already had a love interest "told" me that he or she was bisexual and in love with the main character as well. Talk about a plot twist! I worked that into my fantasy series, but I'm still not sure how I want to handle it with the science fiction series.

Although at times my characters will rebel as described above, at other times, I'll come up with a plot twist that feels right for them. I can change the details from draft to draft, but the end result stays the same. In Across Two Universes, Paul's mother is murdered at the beginning of the story, though I've changed how and where it happens. But I could not start afresh and save her; that would be a different book. I do other cruel things to him in the sequel, enough for me to shed real tears over him. Paul may not be a real person, but he inspires real emotions in me.

This brings me to my final point: no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. (Edit: this line isn't from me; it's from Robert Frost. I should have Googled first before quoting.) How do we convince our readers that our characters are real? I think part of it has to do with the telling detail, using all of the senses to bring the world to life. Small details about the characters, like quirks or favorite things, can also make them seem real. But for me, what gets me involved with my characters is their emotional lives, and those need to be portrayed realistically as well. If you can convince your readers that yes, someone would really react a certain way in a given situation, then they too will start thinking of your characters as real.

More Links

I've added a few more links to the sidebar.

The first is for an online writing conference in October. The deadline to register is September 1, so if you're interested, better hurry!

Next is Fantasy Book Spot, a site for book reviews and more.

Finally, there's RallyStorm, a site where you can create your own forums to discuss any topic you like. Check it out!

A Day at the Zoo

Finally, for my non-writing friends, something they can relate to!


We took Alex on his first trip to the zoo today since the weather was fantastic. Alex's sleeping/meal schedule got messed up, but although he had a few fits, overall he did OK. We weren't able to see everything, though, and by the end of the day, he was too tired we skipped the carousel. There's always next time. We took him to the Farm in the Zoo, where he got to see various farm animals. (He's still too young to feed them.) Here are some of the pictures:



The swans with their cygnet.













A deer--I can't remember which one.















A flock of birds in a tree.
















A real tiger....
















and Alex with a stuffed tiger to take home as a souvenir.

Blog Chain: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

As I mentioned in my last post, I've joined a blog chain created by members of QueryTracker, a site devoted to helping writers keep tabs on their submissions to agents. (I'm a member too, but since Across Two Universes isn't ready for submission yet, I haven't used the tracking feature.) The current topic is, "Where do you get your ideas from?" You can follow the chain by going here and here. I've also linked to all of the chain members' blogs in the sidebar, so go ahead and check them out.


It's interesting that this is my first topic in the blog chain, since I wrote an essay about ideas for my website back in 2002. You can still read it here, if you'd like. In that essay, I talk about how the Beatles, particularly John Lennon, inspired the novels I was working on then. One of those novels got sent around to various agents (and to Tor) before being trunked; another has gone extensive revision and is currently titled Across Two Universes. Of course, I wrote that essay six years ago, and I've had other projects come into my life since then. I'll summarize briefly what inspired them.


Much of my inspiration comes from my daily life. My short story "A Reptile at the Reunion" came about from the combination of an invitation to my grad school reunion (which I skipped) and a writing challenge in a magazine. Other short stories (which I've started but not finished) came from a bout of insomina I had this winter or non-buyer's remorse I felt after passing on a beautiful silk blazer on sale up in Madison. These incidents made me think of ways to lure the "sheep of sleep" (the ones you're supposed to count) back into a person's life or what it would be like to discover a chest full of the things you once wanted but didn't get. Interests such as dealing with the conflict between evolution and science inspired me to create an alien race that has a unique way to handle this conflict--except that for one individual, it doesn't work. Yet another short story I need to finish.


Other times I get ideas from reading. Sometimes I get a little frustrated when I find too much of the same type of story on the bookshelves of my local B&N. There are stories that I think need to be told, even if they don't use "conventional" (i.e., commerically popular) types of heroines or themes. For instance, other than Julie Kenner's Demon series, I don't see too many mothers featured in stories. You could say my NaNoWriMo project from last year, about a working mother who gains the ability to turn into an owl, was inspired partly by a desire to find more stories with heroines I could relate to. Part of this idea also came from everyday life. I often see red-tailed hawks as I drive around, so I wondered what it would be like for one of them to be a human in disguise. I thought at first of a stay-at-home mother, but since the character I came up with is divorced, she has to work to support herself and her daughter. I also changed the bird to an owl so she could go around at night (and interact with werewolves), but I have plans to bring a hawk-person into that story as I re-think the plot.


I mentioned before that one of my short stories was inspired by a writing challenge in a magazine. After Firestorm of Dragons was published, I recieved an invitation from the editor to submit something for another themed anthology. (I don't know what the status of this project is, so I don't feel comfortable sharing the topic here.) This might be one of the hardest things for an author, to find an idea about a topic someone else picked. I did some research and thought about what kind of characters could bring a fresh perspective to this topic. Ultimately I did come up with an unusual take on a stock character, which then helped me determine the rest of the plot for the story. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the story before the deadline, but I may go back to it at some point.


I'll finish this post by repeating a point I made back in 2002; an idea alone isn't enough to make a story. Sometimes you need to combine several ideas before you can create the characters and plot necessary to make an idea come to life; other times, you need to interrogate the idea to generate the characters and plot. But when you learn authors such as Mercedes Lackey can write stories about paper bags (see "Roadkill"), you realize there are more ideas out there than you can ever write about.

OK, I think this finishes the blog chain for this topic. Tune in soon when I go Back on the Chain Gang!

Shadowing Scientists

I normally don't blog about work, but I thought I could share this with you. Today one of my co-workers brought in her niece to do a shadow study in the lab. I only found out about it this morning. In a way, it's too bad that the niece came in this particular day, since it was relatively quiet in the lab. My boss spent a good deal of time talking to her, and I did show her some of my work in the morning. She did say that she got a lot out of it, even if it's not quite what she's interested in (something to do with the polar regions). But it is good to see students who want to pursue science; there just aren't enough of them, IMO. Given how quickly science and technology advance, I think we need to increase scientific literacy in this country so voters can make informed choices.

In other news, I may be joining a writer's blog chain. One of the members is H.L. Dyer. It's already in progress, but apparently there's always room for more. Maybe I'll post some "catch-up" posts about the topics they've already discussed.

Quote of the Day

From Fred Allen:

"I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars."

Updates to Website

I finally updated my website. I didn't add a lot of material, but I updated my biography and the information about Firestorm of Dragons. It took me a while to get this done. First I had to do the edits in FrontPage, but when I tried to save the files on my computer, I ran into problems with the FrontPage extensions. Although I couldn't figure out how to fix this, some Googling helped me realize that I could edit the webpages another way. I haven't uploaded my latest notes from WisCon yet; that'll come later. Right now I'm too tired.

Alex had a rough night, waking up around 3:30 and not going back to sleep until about 7:00. He literally nodded off in his highchair after breakfast. Luckily I was working from home today, and I was able to get my project started while I waited for him to wake up. Then I brought him to daycare while I finished the job (and, I have to admit, rested/relaxed while I was waiting between steps). He was very upset at daycare, refusing to play outside and tugging his ears, so I brought him to the urgent care clinic after picking him up. For once, he doesn't have an ear infection; he apparently is just having some trouble teething (molars are coming in). I hope he sleeps better tonight; all three of us need sleep desperately!

It's Eugene's Birthday!

And I'm plastering the news all over the Internet. :grin:

We don't have much planned for the day. Given that Alex woke up between 5:00 and 5:30 this morning , perhaps that's just as well. We'll pick up dinner from a local restaurant (easier than eating there with a toddler). Maybe I'll make some ice cream--white chocolate. After that, who knows?

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and father!

Firestorm A-Brewing

Now that it's August (we're expected to reach the 90's today, but with all the storms we've had so far, I don't know if that will happen), it's time to start thinking about Christmas. At least, that's what my co-authors and editors have decided. They want to promote Firestorm of Dragons as a gift for the dragon-lover. (But why not go ahead and buy it now? It's always reading season in my universe!) So we're going to do a blog tour in November. I don't have many details yet, but I'll post them as they become available. One thing that I do know is that there's a Yahoo! group set up specificially for this book tour, and it's open to bloggers/podcasters as well as the authors. If you know anyone who might be interested, please tell them or pass me the contact information. In the meantime, I'll need to increase my presence in the blogging community to help promote this book. I figure by November, Alex should be past the point where he needs to grab Mommy's fingers to walk around the house. Instead, I'll only have to jump up every five seconds to prevent a walking/climbing/exploring accident. I'm sure I can accomplish a lot with the other four seconds....

ETA: Maria makes a good point; I should include the link to the Yahoo! group. Here it is:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/firestormofdragons/

And I can't believe I forgot this (though I've forgotten a couple of other things at work today too); it's the trailer for the book on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWgszslAEtM
As always, links to the official website for Firestorm of Dragons and the publisher's website are on the sidebar on the right.

Kristi's Wedding

My friend Kristi got married yesterday. She met her husband right before Eugene and I had our wedding; I remember asking her if she wanted to bring her then-boyfriend, but she didn't feel ready at that time. Every time I've seen Lyle with Kristi, he's been very supportive of her. So I was very happy when she announced her engagement. I was also honored when she asked me to read a passage from the Bible (part of the "Love Chapter" in I Corinthians) during the ceremony.





Normally, when Eugene and I have a special summer event, it's dreadfully hot that day. Even our wedding, which was in mid-September, was in the 90s. Naturally, we were expecting that pattern to hold for Kristi's wedding, since hot weather was predicted for that day, but our streak was broken. We were not disappointed by this turn of events. The wedding was held not far from the apple orchard where we pick apples, only instead of being on a farm, it was held outdoors in a gazebo overlooking a lake with a fountain. The view was gorgeous, and I'm sure Kristi and Lyle took a lot of pictures there.





The ceremony was probably about a half-hour long, much shorter than ours. Although I came to the rehearsal (with Alex) on Friday, I was late, so I wasn't sure exactly when my reading was. But several people told me afterward that I did a good job, so I guess it all worked out.





After the ceremony, Eugene and I went through the reception line and caught up with Susan and Tina, some friends of mine that I hadn't seen in a long time. We all sat at the same table, which was named for the Beatles. (Yes, Kristi is as much of a Beatles fan as I am; that's how we met.) Kristi did a great job of putting a personal touch on the table names, favors, and other decorations. The food was also good, though if I had to nitpick, I would have to say our table seemed to be one of the last to be served. But the cake was especially good, and they had other sweets as well.





Eugene and I shared a slow dance, and I danced solo when they played some of my favorite songs, but we couldn't stay for the full reception. We had to get back early to relieve my parents, who babysat Alex for us. (He did fine, though he got upset when I called to check in.)





It's time for me to call it a night too. Here are a couple of pictures, though:

Passings

Two people passed away this week. Although only one wrote a book, both of them can be inspirational to writers.

The first one is Estelle Getty, more famously known as Sophia on the Golden Girls. Although she started acting at a young age, it took her decades (about forty years, from the article I read the other day on CNN) to achieve breakthrough success. She also auditioned a couple of times for the Golden Girls, but initially they passed on her because she looked too young for the part. Only after she asked a makeup artist to make her look older did she land the part. Perseverance does pay off.

The other person who passed away was much younger. Professor Randy Pausch, who gave his famous "Last Lecture" after being diagnosed with an incurable cancer, was only 47. But he focused on achieving your childhood dreams and seeing the world as a Tigger instead of an Eeyore. I saw part of a TV special about him, but I haven't read his book yet. I think it might be time to pick it up. Who couldn't use a little inspiration?

New Links

I recently decided to change my template for this blog, which required me to update Blogger. This new version has some new features, such as allowing you to maintain a blog list with active links. So, taking my cue from Heather, I decided to add some links to some agent blogs. I've been following some of them (such as Nathan's) longer than others, but they offer helpful advice. Some agents also hold contests to help writers improve their skils. Go ahead, check them out!

Wild Weekend

I didn't have a traditonal bachelorette party--not that I wanted one. The most I did was stay overnight at the Fest for Beatles Fans with one of my friends. Even then, I was so tired I didn't even go to the late night events; I just stayed in bed and read. What a fitting end to my singledom, eh?

Anyway, that same friend of mine is getting married in a few weeks, and I was invited to her bachelorette party/birthday party. It actually started yesterday afternoon with a purse-making party, but I had to skip that part. After Eugene came home and was able to watch Alex, I was free to leave for the main event.

The party was at a house in Chicago. I have to admit, I haven't driven in Chicago before, and if the place wasn't so close to I-90, I probably would have chickened out and not gone. But although I did make a wrong turn, I managed to find the place in one piece.

Most of the people at the party were relatives of the bride. We ate some hot dogs and listened to 50s-60s rock until the main event--a Passion Party! Yes, they had a sales rep show us all sorts of stuff. Some of it was "mild," while some of it was "wild." I'm not going to go into detail here, since I don't want to attract the attention of spammers. But I will say the funniest part of the party was when the bride's mother was handed a product, and she didn't realize it was on.

After that part of the party, we stayed up until midnight for a balloon release and ice cream. I wound up spending the night, but I left early (before the scheduled brunch) so I could help Eugene with Alex. Alex has been clingy the last couple of days (I can't even put him down for his nap; he only sleeps as long as he's on me), so I knew Eugene wouldn't be able to shower until I came home. Besides, with the weather being so beautiful, we wanted to go visit the Chicago Botanic Garden. We spent a couple of hours there, letting Alex do "walkies" occasionally (he can walk if he holds onto our hands) and feeling some of the plants. Then we stopped for a late lunch on the way home.

I don't have any pictures; even though I brought my camera, I forgot my memory card. Ah well, at least I managed to stretch my boundaries a bit.