greetings from Pennsylvania

Readercon, how I loved thee!! I grieve thy passing.  But the leaves will fall, and grow green again, and I shall once again behold thee - and all the amazing folks who were there, old friends & new, expected and un-.  It was some weekend.

Details to follow.  Meanwhile - here's where I am now:
http://alpha.spellcaster.org/

Tomorrow night, I will be reading/signing at Greensburg (outside Pittsburgh) Barnes & Noble along with some of the Alphoids, and Tamora Pierce!  I think it's at 6:30.  I go where I'm told.  (No, really! Stop sniggering.)

god only knows where Delia gets this stuff

I just referenced a quote on Twitter ("I think I just figured out how to write one of the novels I've been ruminating (like a cow in the contiguous shade, yeah).") and nobody picked up on it.  So I looked it up.  It's from James Thomson's 1726 poem, "Winter, A Poem."  

No, me, neither.

Here's the relevant (to some degree of "relevant") passage:

FOR, see! where Winter comes, himself, confest,
Striding the gloomy Blast. First Rains obscure
Drive thro' the mingling Skies, with Tempest foul;
Beat on the Mountain's Brow, and shake the Woods, [115]
That, sounding, wave below. The dreary Plain
Lies overwhelm'd, and lost. The bellying Clouds
Combine, and deepening into Night, shut up
The Day's fair Face. The Wanderers of Heaven,
Each to his Home, retire; save those that love [120]
To take their Pastime in the troubled Air,
And, skimming, flutter round the dimply Flood.
The Cattle, from th'untasted Fields, return,
And ask, with Meaning low, their wonted Stalls;
Or ruminate in the contiguous Shade: [125]

Delia frequently refers to cows "ruminating in the contiguous shade," so I thought it was something well-known.  OK, she does have a PhD - but it's in Renaissance Studies!  I shall have to ask her about this when i get home (to some degree of "home" - headed back to Roanoke on Weds., to rejoin her at Hollins - but home is where the heart is).