Monday, June 2, 2025

Daddy Long Legs and Eaglets!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1734:

Edgar Report: Evidently Edgar didn’t like the spot he chose yesterday morning, because in a couple of hours I found him back where he had been the day before, in the corner above the sink. However his friend stayed put, in the other corner. However this morning, when I first turned on the light, I found Edgar hot-footing across the ceiling along the back wall, and the friend in the sink, and later, after Yoga, I found Edgar down near the floor, having made a web from the magazine rack that is on the floor to the wall. Friend still in the sink. I will let her be for the morning, but then do what I did last time, which is convince her to connect to a piece of paper and put her under the sink. First photo is Edgar, second friend in sink.

Yesterday’s weather really felt like summer back east, especially Atlanta Georgia, where my husband was born and we often visited early on in our relationship. So humid! The air just felt heavy. Something that I was also familiar with from growing up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, just not as hot and humid for as long as to the South. In San Diego we can a marine layer…but most often the misty kind of clouds that, particularly when combined with a breeze from the west, keeps things cool. So we really notice (and complain) when it is this kind of weather.

I did a lot of cleaning, which made me hot, so I finally stripped down to a t-shirt (instead of turtleneck and long-sleeved shirt). Because of the heat, I had planned to make my first walk short. However, a friend called just as I started out, she needed to talk through a something that had upset her, and I find if I am talking on the phone while walking, I walk faster, and farther. Consequently, the short work turned into a 40 minute walk. So, all I had to do before dinner was 20 minutes. Yay.

Otherwise, a quiet, restful day, where I finished the second Gibson series and started the first, and again by the end of the day got caught up on my newsletter and newspaper reading.

I have also been doing a lot of checking in on the Big Bear Valley Eagle Nest, where the two chicks have gotten so big and are going to fledge (ie take off from the nest) any day. I’ve been watching the reports, with accompanying photo cam footage, for months, and it has been such fun watching them from tiny balls of fluff staggering around, to almost the size of their parents practicing being brave and going out on branches away from nest, and trying out their wings. And the parents are so attentive, but also doing what they need to do to encourage the eaglets to be independent! Really gives my spirit a lift every time I check in…which is several times a day.

Today, I need to post this, take my first walk, then Rio comes for doggie play date, and then maybe some writing on the novella.

For those of you who don’t like spider, here is a rose from yesterday!

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