Prey

Yesterday evening, I took Buster and Gracie into the back yard for their daily romp. When I opened the door to the yard, both of them raced across to the northwest corner. (The door is to the southeast.) It was dark, and all I could see were two blurs, white and grey. Suddenly, grey exploded back towards the east. I thought it was Gracie again, but it turned and shot to and through the fence; in that instant of turning, I saw it clearly.

A rabbit. I've seen rabbits out there before, casually silflaying in the grass and such; this is the first time I've seen one when the dogs were out.

It escaped. The dogs clustered at its point of egress, barking, for a short while, then returned to their usual habits.

It's getting colder; I don't know how much longer I'll indulge them in this romp.

Amazon Raid

Today, spurred by numerous LMB-list gloats about the arrival of copies of Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, I took a trip up the Amazon. The haul included CVA, of course. I also bought: Mira Grant's Deadline, the sequel to Feed (I know the third volume is out, but one at a time, 'kay?); Anatole Lyovin's An Introduction to the Languages of the World (I don't expect anything really new, but it looks like a useful reference); Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, which I've been thinking about buying for some time; Betrayer, #12 in Cherryh's "Foreigner" sequence; N. K. Jemisin's The Broken Kingdoms (the second volume of that trilogy; I inadvertently bought the third already); and three CDs - Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion, the Beatles' Past Masters album, and 10cc, 10cc. (A chance-seen video of Benatar put her on my list; I need only two more Beatles albums for the more-or-less complete set; and somebody on my FL recommended 10cc a long time ago.)

I needed this. I've been doing a lot of rereading old fiction lately, for lack of new - all three of the fiction I'm currently reading are oldies. CVA, of course, is the prize of the bunch.