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Screw it. I'm not sitting here any more. (928 words)
Best intentions and all that, but it's after one and I've been here since eight, eating too much and writing too little. But the chapter is more than half finished, I think, and I've almost finished setting the stage for meeting Candelario.
I think I have some anxiety over this next part, because it's the beginning of the heart of the book, or at least it's the scenes I started with.
So yesterday I had field training for First Flush. We tested conductivity, ph, transparency, and temperature on samples from two storm drains, and we collected samples for a lab to test for metals, nutrients, and coliform bacteria. One of them -- the one I will be doing the night of the first big rain -- is at the inland side of the culvert that runs under West Cliff Drive and opens out on to a sheer cliff lined with riprap. You can smell the ocean water right through it. The gully made by the creek that is the storm drain is lined with all the worst invasive plants, including an echium whose leaves are taller than me. There is a fine growth of beautiful water cress -- but knowing what I do, I would not eat it! The other spot is also a little creek running into a culvert under a road, but it is less visible (the first one is part of a park) and was full of trash, including a moplike thing (a duster?) and a bicycle helmet. It reeked of methane, and there were bubbles in the murky water. The stream bed leading up to the place where we collected the water was completely dry. The people I worked with were very very cool.
some more fluff:
Finally the Mustard Fairy said, "Horseradish! We're here!" and the horse stopped short, so abruptly that Katie lunged forward and almost fell out. They were sill very high, and Katie looked out. It was bright daylight in Condimentia, and Katie could see buildings and fields and forests, and very blue little waterways with brightly-colored boats sailing on them. It was like a toy world.
Suddenly the coconut shell carriage plunged towards the earth and Katie saw that the toy world was not quite as small as it looked from above, though the people and their things were still much smaller than those at home. And like the people she had found in her kitchen, the people moving along the roads and working in the fields were much smaller than the people at home, and each one was odd-looking in his or her own way.
When they dropped to the earth Katie was afraid she would bite her tongue, but the jolt was much more gentle than she thought it would be. Then they started racketing along towards a great yellow house, surrounded by many different kinds of yellow flowers growing in rows as if they were an orchard. The house had round, pointed roofs with bright brown shingles, topped by poles with pennants of different sizes and shapes, all in shades of gold and yellow.
I think I have some anxiety over this next part, because it's the beginning of the heart of the book, or at least it's the scenes I started with.
So yesterday I had field training for First Flush. We tested conductivity, ph, transparency, and temperature on samples from two storm drains, and we collected samples for a lab to test for metals, nutrients, and coliform bacteria. One of them -- the one I will be doing the night of the first big rain -- is at the inland side of the culvert that runs under West Cliff Drive and opens out on to a sheer cliff lined with riprap. You can smell the ocean water right through it. The gully made by the creek that is the storm drain is lined with all the worst invasive plants, including an echium whose leaves are taller than me. There is a fine growth of beautiful water cress -- but knowing what I do, I would not eat it! The other spot is also a little creek running into a culvert under a road, but it is less visible (the first one is part of a park) and was full of trash, including a moplike thing (a duster?) and a bicycle helmet. It reeked of methane, and there were bubbles in the murky water. The stream bed leading up to the place where we collected the water was completely dry. The people I worked with were very very cool.
some more fluff:
Finally the Mustard Fairy said, "Horseradish! We're here!" and the horse stopped short, so abruptly that Katie lunged forward and almost fell out. They were sill very high, and Katie looked out. It was bright daylight in Condimentia, and Katie could see buildings and fields and forests, and very blue little waterways with brightly-colored boats sailing on them. It was like a toy world.
Suddenly the coconut shell carriage plunged towards the earth and Katie saw that the toy world was not quite as small as it looked from above, though the people and their things were still much smaller than those at home. And like the people she had found in her kitchen, the people moving along the roads and working in the fields were much smaller than the people at home, and each one was odd-looking in his or her own way.
When they dropped to the earth Katie was afraid she would bite her tongue, but the jolt was much more gentle than she thought it would be. Then they started racketing along towards a great yellow house, surrounded by many different kinds of yellow flowers growing in rows as if they were an orchard. The house had round, pointed roofs with bright brown shingles, topped by poles with pennants of different sizes and shapes, all in shades of gold and yellow.