If all goes as planned (which nothing ever has, so why should it start now), Mr. Giraffe and I are leaving Monday for a week's vacation at the beach with my family. (It was supposed to be tomorrow, but some things already didn't go as planned.) I'm bringing my laptop, and I think they have wireless internet at the place we're renting, so I'll be checking in, but probably not that often, because, you know, beach. :D
(And family. Family's important too. Obviously.)
(Beeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaach.)
Okay, now here's the next Argounov-era flashback story. I know some people are going to feel I've skipped a lot here. For some of what happens in the interval (and for more Jer), check the reminiscences
here and
here. I'm not currently planning on writing those stories again from first-person POV; I feel it would be redundant from a story standpoint.
Also, I'm still behind on replying to comments, and on reading stories that have been posted recently, and most egregiously on updating the story index. Many apologies. I'm really trying to catch up, but I've been busy in that lots-of-little-things-to-do way that plays merry hob with my ability to actually use my brain for anything language-related without sounding like I've been run through Babelfish into Japanese and German and then back into English. (True quote at the post office yesterday: "Sending of these, and also the..." [long unhappy pause, with gestures] "....envelopes, to pay for them, I need, still. Now.") And I've been prioritizing my actual story writing in my free computer time because I don't want to pause long enough to build up another writer's block made entirely out of space between the last chapter and the current one, if you see what I mean.
So, anyway, I'll shut up. Here's the story.
( You can't use a bulldozer/ To study orchids, he said, so... )