So, does anyone remember Pilot Officer Arde Mayhew? A jump pilot whose implanted were designed for the now-obsolete RG freighter? Miles bought his ship for him in the beginning of his first galactic adventure as Admiral Naismith. Okay, so you remember him. Do you remember that fresh young pilot who took Cordelia off-planet in her slippers when she was running from Betan Security because they thought she was a plant from ImpSec? Well....yeah. Guess all the older men Miles knows were nice boys when Cordelia was running around solving problems before Aral got there. Although if it comes to that, as far as she and Aral are concerned, they're all nice boys, and Miles isn't seeing men that way until Mirror Dance or so....
But speaking of running from Betan Security, there's something else I've noticed. Every time a woman shows the slightest inclination to marry a Vorkosigan, her family immediately jumps to the conclusion that she's unstable and not to be trusted. Cordelia? Her mum authorizes her commitment to the psych ward. Kareen? Her parents hit the roof, detail a sister to tail her, and forbid all intercourse with Vorkosigan House. Ekaterin? Her cousin decides she's not to be trusted with her own son, and said son has to call the Emperor in to change the man's mind. Oh, and...sorry, Miles, but Mark got going first.
Lee's here this morning. She shows up in an assortment of cars; the one that seems to me to suit her best is the little red pickup. Today, however, she drove a silver convertible. A Mercedes convertible.
I'd really like to know if she owns all these cars. Ah. No. Apparently she mentioned to Grandma that it's borrowed.
Reading Barrayar now. So far it's something something of a mixture of Poor Cordelia (she didn't sign up for all these politics, and she hardly ever has time with Aral) and Good Old Cordelia (as when, for one example of many, she has that conversation with Vordarian that, to his chagrin, completely fails to even startle her until she realizes that it was supposed to shock her.)
I had a nap after lunch. It was interesting how the Williams theme of the radio fundraising influenced my dreams; when I woke up, I had been dreaming about a dense young man in a pilot's jumpsuit on the verge of being pulled off the tops of some lockers by a bunch of zombies. It made more sense when they had music going than when they were talking.
The new speech therapist, Diana, came while I was asleep. She's......actually, the jury's out until I've seen some of her during full consciousness. "Just woke up and sneezing all over the place" is not a state conducive to sound verdicts. She seems okay, though, even if I prefer our regular ladies so far.
We hit the road about three-forty, only to find that Lark's still limping. With this in mind, we turned back early, but I decided once we reached the creek bed to go up along our usual way back to a rise with a view of the land. It was at this point that we encountered a very handsome brace of extremely well-mannered German Shepherds. So well-mannered were they, in fact, that Lark dealt with them without any freaking out or requesting backup--although she did wriggle out from between them to stand on the outside, accessible to only one of them. Their master talked them into continuing, addressing a few remarks to Lark on his way, and we continued. Actually we went a little farther than planned, because Lark kept going a little past the dip there, where she stalled a middle-aged gentleman on a bike. We got out of his way so he could get up sufficient momentum to take the dip, and turned back after him. It was on the way down past the lookout point that I found a snake. It was about eight inches long, with no discernible rattle but a blackened tail tip. It looked very much like a rattler. It was lying very still and rather flat in the middle of the path, and I wondered if perhaps it had been run over and killed by the bike. By the time I found a dead yucca stalk to stir it, Lark had almost come to see what interested me; so that, when it stirred its head and flicked its tongue, I took off, calling Lark, to make sure that whatever it was, she didn't discover it was poisonous. It may have indeed been run over by the bicycle, and have been either knocked out or paralyzed; but when one is accompanied by a curious little dog who enjoys tormenting snakes, one does not investigate these things too closely.
Owen called again. Boy, I swear his greeting sounded exactly like B. Maybe I can blame the phone....
Boy, I'd forgotten how much of Angsty Cordelia there is in Barrayar. It's very different from Miles' view of her, for certain--although it's equally certain that she's rarely under such stress during his adventures, and when she is we don't see it, because we're watching Miles horse around scaring her half to death.
Well, back to my book. 'Night, all.
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