LOTR Love (and spiders)

First, don't forget to enter to win a copy of Karen Mahoney's fabulous debut THE IRON WITCH!

Last week, Ben and I re-watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He'd gotten them for me for xmas on Blu-Ray. (I already own the extended editions on DVD. Of course. Duh.)

Holy god, do I love those movies.

But one scene in particular grabbed my attention, because I realized I'd lived it when we were in Japan in October. It was this:

In the Kyoto area, there is this super amazingly wondrous Shinto shrine complex called Fushimi-Inari Taisha. It has this really cool hiking trail lined with hundreds? thousands? of torii gates (the red gates that adorn the entrance to Shinto shrines). Here's a couple of pictures from our visit:

Well. Let me tell you. Japan does NOT mess around when it comes to spiders. There were ENORMOUS spiders anyplace remotely gardenish, this place included. Huge webs spanning multiple feet. Between the gates. In the corners of the gates. Across the tops of the gates. ALL AROUND US.

We began to call it Shelob Row because I felt exactly like Frodo in that picture above, except maybe more terrified because I knew the dangers that awaited me. *shudders* So creepy. Interestingly enough, we were the only ones who seemed to be bothered by the spiders. All the Japanese tourists just sailed right by, practically brushing right through the webs, without a care in the world.

Time is like a river

Not a peaceful burbling brook. At least not this year. 2009 is more like this so far:



And I feel like I'm rushing along in its current, hoping my sticks-and-vines raft holds together. Yeesh. I have got to get things under control here at Casa Sweet or I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. Srsly (tm).

The shower was great fun! I have a few amusing pictures and stories to share, which I'll hopefully post within the next few days.

Now that I can check that off my to do list, I need to focus on getting Day Job work in order. I'm a bit behind right now and need to get that squared away in the coming week. Then I should be able to focus back on a more normal routine involving things like other people, laundry and--oh yeah--writing. I got my first crit back so I'm very excited to get the revisions underway. I'm really looking forward to getting it out to agents *flings silent prayer out to universe* and to focus on the new book, which is temporarily on hold (though still brewing in the back of my mind).

So, that's the State of the Union for me. I'll likely be scarce this week as I've got a lot of personal commitments in addition to above-mentioned work catch up to do. Hang tight and I'll be back with you soon! :)