A friend just got back from two weeks in Scotland, and I want to go, too. In a few weeks, another friend is moving there for six months. Six months! Imagine all the weekend trips she can take, jaunts across the Channel to various cities in Europe, while we settle in for Oregon’s mild but soggy winter.

But my passport expired when I was ten, and besides, that would require how many hours on board a plane without my bottled water or moisturizers? So maybe a shorter trip, then.

Less than 1,000 miles away in California, they’re finishing up the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. The Black Pearl is clearly visible in the harbor at Redondo Beach, and a certain actor exhibited very un-pirate-like behavior this week, three nights in a row staying more than an hour to sign autographs well past dark, after a 6:30 a.m. call time.

They’ll be filming there until at least Tuesday. According to Mapquest, it’s only a 15 hour drive…

But with the cost of gas, maybe something closer. Oh, and there’s the fact I’m supposed to show up at the office on Monday, and they actually expect me to stay all day.

Camping, then. We have a four-wheel drive pickup, but because of various deadlines and commitments, we’ve only gone camping with it twice, and the most recent trip was last August. Something about sleeping out under the stars, the whisper of wind in the towering pines, the crackle of the campfire late into the night, really soothes my spirit. We couldn’t go last weekend because the kitties were still on twice-daily meds, and this coming weekend is Labor Day – you couldn’t pay us to fight the crowds.

And then as I was washing my hair Saturday night (all my best ideas come with the application of shampoo) I realized it’s not so much wanting to go to something, but getting away from something that’s so appealing right now. (Aside from the chance to go see you-know-who in person. I’m trying really hard not to be jealous of a certain 15-year-old girl in LA because Thursday night was her fourth meeting with him. Four! And not just seeing him from the distance in a crowd — I’m talking handshake, eye contact, exchange of small talk, “how do you spell your name,” the whole works. But I digress.)

The thing I want to get away from is a proposal. Mine. It was rejected several weeks ago, but would be fine with some revisions. Like adding a conflict. Katie and Nick have known each other their whole lives, and there just isn’t much keeping them from achieving their happily-ever-after fairly early on in the story. Nice in real life, but the kiss of death for a romance novel. If I weren’t so much in love with Nick and his ship, I’d think seriously about giving up on him and writing something simpler. Say, a sequel to War and Peace. The maddening thing is, I know this stuff would work itself out in the book. But I have to get it in the synopsis first. (And synopsis, as we all know, is a Greek curse word.)

Kitten update: Sneezy and Wheezy are both are over their URI and doing well. I knew Dakarai was feeling better Thursday when he hopped (yes, he hops when he’s feeling buoyant) down the hall and again initiated what my hubby calls the “tim-ber” attack: he rears up on his hind legs and just kind of crashes to one side, landing on Derby. Today we were in Home Depot, and saw a display of lambswool dusters on a shelf. Dakarai would blend right in. Derby, meanwhile, has been busy earning the nickname Spaz. He’s especially fond of attacking our toes through the blanket at night, or jumping up onto the kitchen counter. And I’m gradually getting used to having two pairs of eyes stare at me as I step out of the shower. We steamed both kittens twice a day while they were congested, and apparently they still associate the shower with extra cuddling and attention. Even if they’re sound asleep elsewhere in the house when I start, there they are when I finish. Waiting to be adored.