So, hey. Hello, world! I've been in the Land Of Little Internet for 11 days. On another cruise, of all things. When I was pondering plans for 2024 this time last year they did not include taking 2 cruises, enduring a fascist takeover of my government, my appendix turning traitor and requiring surgery, or the world’s inexorable slide into WW3, but hey. Here we are.

To be fair, I have been contemplating the political possibilities for, ya know, 30-odd years, but I was always hoping the World Breakdown scenarios stayed fictional. Ah, well. Insert Tolkien quote about wishing things need not have happened in my time.

ANYway. This is not another angry post. It’s a meander-y “what I’ve been up to” recording post.

The cruise was somewhat surreal, as all cruises are, and a grand time in many ways. Revisited two Caribbean ports we saw on our first-ever cruise, and went to 3 new ones. Good times were had.

We returned Mon PM, but I never feel *home* until all the post-vacay chores are sorted. (there was a point last night when Spouseman said reasonably, “You should sit down and rest for a minute,” to which I replied unreasonably but honestly, “I can’t stop until I have finished these tasks I’ve started, because as soon as I sit down, I will crash hard, and those things won’t get done for 6 months because I'll forget them.”

Because that’s how my brain works.

So anyway, it's been a busy 48 hours. A sampling:

✅ flew from FL to IL

✅ survived taxi ride

✅ unpacked All The Bags

✅ Sorted All The Things <mantra: never put it down, only put it away>

✅ opened access into the Newly Finished House Spaces

<crash occurs here>

✅ Did All The Laundry

✅ shopped for fresh foods

✅ scheduled movers to put furniture back into the Newly Finished Spaces

✅ charged hair clippers for overdue trim

✅ ordered a new bookcase

✅ talked w/doc about upcoming surgery

✅ paid bills

:flops over: DONE. Now I can finally relax n enjoy prepping my fave easy foods for Feast Thursday. Well. Tomorrow. Tomorrow after I cut my hair. And after the movers have come and gone.

I have been keeping up with my writing every day, which means there are a whole bunch of words about the cruise, in mainly stream-of-consciousness mode. And pictures. So, so very many pictures. But more on that later. I have come to the end of my time for this post.

Cat pics next time, I promise.

Or! OR! if you like your local library, you could request a purchase. Free for you, sale for me, everyone wins.

Most libraries need the following info for ordering print books:

• Title: Relics From A Traveling Show

• Author: K. M. Herkes

• ISBN: 9781945745201 (paperback)

  Every library system does things a little differently, but most want their collections to serve their communities, so most of them are very responsive to patron requests.

If you like novels more than short stories, I recommend my series The Rollover Files for hopepunk tales of about an alternate world where moms with midlife crisis superpowers have been saving the world and making the military nervous since 1943.

I also have a completed, quirky slow-burn science fiction thriller duology with a romance chaser: The Stories Of The Restoration.

All my titles are available from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Hoopla, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Overdrive and many other fine booksellers.

Support your favorite independent bookseller! Find a local shop via Indiebound