Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Edgar's friends and more baby bird feeding!

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 1743:

Edgar’s Friends: No sighting of Edgar, but yesterday evening a very, very, very tiny Daddy Long Legs showed up in his familiar spot in bathroom (near floor between magazine rack and wall. He was still there this morning. A medium sized one was also climbing up the wall behind the toilet just as I was turning out the light to go up to bed, but I saw no sign of that one this morning. However, the most excitement came this morning, when I checked the shower before turning on water (having encountered a regular spider there a couple of weeks ago, and saw a Daddy Long Legs climbing up the wall towards the handle to turn on the shower. Pretty big, but not as big as Big Daddy, and I got him to cling onto something to transfer him to the floor by the toilet. However, when I came out of the shower he was climbing up the wall near the counter, but fell just as I was straightening the bath mat, and ended up under the counter—where there was a web with a caught bug! Right now I can’t see the actual spider, but since I last looked, the bug has been wrapped up, so maybe the Daddy Long Legs is out looking to build another web for another catch and will come back for lunch later.

Anyway, all this activity added to what was an unexpectedly busy day yesterday. Before I even had my walk, I had the beginning of series of texts from my daughter who was visiting a friend in Minnesota…and had gotten very ill. High fever, terrible sore throat. Was going to have to extend her trip—too sick to fly home—and with out of state insurance, couldn’t find anywhere to get medical help.

I, of course kept offering suggestions, none of which turned out to help, which meant she spent the day trying to figure out a way to get diagnosis without spending day at ER, with no success, when she would probably have been better off just staying in bed. She did get to ER around 5 this morning, no Covid, no strep, just a bad virus…which of course means no immediate method of relief. But at least she didn’t have to wait at ER. Don’t know when she will be ok to fly.

Meanwhile, I also got two unscheduled phone calls during the day—people in a bit of a dither, , in addition to the scheduled zoom call. And boom, there went the day. I did get in both walks, but that was about all.

I did get to see another lesser goldfinch baby being fed, once on the bougainvillea next to the feeder, and one on the feeder, and actually got a couple of photos that show this! Hope you can see baby and parent, which I can tell is male because of the black head.

Today, going to be busy as well. I’ve done yoga, texted with daughter, and I am off to the dentist. Will clean and walk and take another unplanned call when I get back, then a planned phone date after lunch. But first I am going to get this off before time to floss my teeth before going to get them cleaned!!

Everything I publish in this newsletter is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for what I am writing by clicking the button below to upgrade to paid, thereby providing me more resources so I can spend more time writing my fiction and less time marketing. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!