Yes, I am still alive.  I finished zine fic #1 for The Brotherhood and turned it in and was given this lovely wallpaper as a gift from Cathy (one of the editors and cover artist) for tribbing.  Now, isn't that super nice?  The title of the fic is Going Dutch and deals with the lengths Rodney will go to save John from a mysterious illness on an alien planet, but the entire team gets to play and its over 17,000 words.  I have another zine fic due in January, but that should give me time to finish up the details fic I'm working on now.  This one is for Whispers and, believe it or not, it's an AU in the western genre (honestly, Whispers was a huge let down for me and I went with a teeny tiny detail of John twirling his gun before reholstering it, so yeah, big stretch).   The working title is The Battle of Canaan's Bluff and it's going to be a full blown fic and not the little missing scene ficlets I've been doing lately so it's taking a little more time.

I've also managed to survive the Great Lizard Rebellion of Aught Eight and recaptured my son's house gecko that escaped it's cage for almost a week... during which time my son refused to sleep in his bedroom where we had said lizard trapped.  My husband really is an intelligent man in most regards, but why on Earth he thought it would be a good idea to leave the lid off the cage while he and son changed out the water bowl is beyond me.  When he called me at work to tell me what happened, the first thing I asked was "Why didn't you use the net I bought to avoid this exact thing from happening?"  At which point hubby asks, "What was I supposed to do with the net?"  "Trap the lizard in it and hold it against the side of the cage so it can't climb out.  It seems rather self evident to me how it should be used."  Fortunately the lizard eventually moved back in on his own and my son was able to move out of the living room and hubby now understands the concept of the net.

More than the lizard, I also survived my German in-laws.  I did get a wonderful day at the beach in San Diego (the water was the warmest it's ever been in 17 years I've been going down there to visit with hubby) and a trip to Ikia, which is usually the highlight of any trip to southern California.