Editing Progress and Summertime Fun

I am finally starting to see the end of the tunnel as far as the rewrite on the Second Seal goes. I am currently reworking the climax and when I am finished with that, it’s just editing. It’s a good feeling to finally, finally have this thing looking and reading like a real novel. Hopefully the end is near.

Summer is nearly over and my oldest son heads back to school on Monday. He’s ready. I’m ready. The baby will be despondent because he’ll lose his buddy. The dog may also be a little blue because she’ll lose her buddy, too.

The dog of which I speak (Rommy) is a half-husky, half-cocker goof ball that we rescued from the dog pound in Fairbanks. She weighed 17 pounds when we got her and has since ballooned to 40. We’ve had to start feeding her diet dog food and she has slimmed down a bit. Texas has been an interesting experience in adaptation for her because she is a dog that loves to run and romp at -20. She also, without a doubt, belongs to my oldest son. They have a love/hate relationship. When we lived in Alaska and the two of the m played outside in the snow, she would wait stealthily until he was paying her no mind. Then she would blindside him, knocking him face-first into the snow. As a final insult, she’d steal his hat. It was great fun to watch.

The boy was outside today, squeezing the last few precious drops of freedom from his summer vacation. It was not long before he came bouncing into the house with a great smile on his face.

“What have you been up to?” I asked.

“Oh, I was swinging,” he replied. “Then I stopped and Rommy came over and pushed me down.”

I pretended to be shocked. “Why did she do that? You didn’t pull her tail, did you?”

“No, I didn’t pull her tail,” he said, playing along.

“Did you tweak her nose?”

“No, I didn’t tweak her nose.”

“Did you tug on her ears?”

“No, I didn’t tug on her ears,” he laughs.

“Oh, honey,” I said, really hamming it up. “You didn’t tell her she was fat, did you?”

“No, I didn’t do any of those things! She just did it because she felt like it.”

Scamps. Both of ‘em.