An anonymous drowning in a retention pond

So a significant part of today was spent watching the police drag a retention pond, looking for a dead body.

Central Florida has any number of crystal clear natural springs, rivers and lakes, where anyone can easily see straight down to the bottom and any assorted fish, birds, alligators, manatees and corpses that happen to be there. Retention ponds are a little different: they don't really have large drainage outlets, and since they are happily visited by birds, especially ducks, anhinga and cormorants, they soon fill up with what I shall politely describe as muck, making even a relatively shallow pond like this completely opaque.

I happen to like this particular pond -- it has a fountain that runs when we're not in a drought (which is most of the time) and usually has at least three or four anhingas sticking their little heads out of the water, and the occasional alligator deciding to take a quiet sun bath before heading on to a happier water spot. So when I saw a couple of cop cars, decidedly Management Type Lawyer People, and a few glum young men sitting on the side, I paused. Pretty clearly something was going on.

I should add, too, that this is not a very large or deep pond -- walking around it is not exactly going to take people out of their way.

And I should add that nobody was exactly in a hurry.

There's reason for this -- divers in this pond would not necessarily be of much use, given the opaqueness of the water -- and although nobody could see the little nostrils of an alligator popping up to the surface, since alligators sometimes stay underwater for several minutes, it's generally safe to watch for awhile before concluding that any opaque body of water in Florida is alligator free. (And it was absolutely safe to conclude that the bacterial levels in that pond would have made a number of you deeply unhappy.) Plus, I figured that someone had driven in -- not that I could see a car, but the water was just deep enough to hide one, especially if it had started to sink into the mud.

I headed off to do my errands. When I came back, it was clear that towing a car out of the pond was not the main goal.

The cops had brought a very shallow water, slow boat, marked with "ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF," intended pretty much only for things like this, ponds too shallow to handle larger boats, and was slowly covering every inch of the pond. Tedious work, watched by more cop cars and the same three depressed young men, who had the distinct look of people told not to leave, along with some people in suits who had the distinct look of property managers and attorneys wondering what the legal consequences of this would be.

I'm not sure why I paused to watch, although I had a drink (non alcoholic) in my hand and I was kinda tired. So I watched, before I realized I didn't really want to see what might get pulled up.

Edith Nesbit's Harding's Luck

In unrelated news my post about Harding's Luck just popped up at Tor.com.

I don't think this is one of my better analyses, largely because it took me awhile to pinpoint just why I was struggling to read through this book. Even the adult novels, which I've enjoyed less than the children's ones, were generally at the least readable and in the case of Daphne of Fitzroy Street even fascinating. And I've whipped through most of the children's books in an hour or so, tops.

But this book was a slog, and it was only after thinking about something generally unrelated that I realized why: the entire book had the air of "I am writing a literary production and examining morality here," from all of the stock characters -- the little lame boy who is so awfully good, the thief who can be converted to goodness through the love of a child, the inspiring women....not to mention the overly careful prose. It's a deliberate performance, not something enjoyed, something written for critics and reputation.

So I didn't like it. But Gore Vidal did. Read into that what you like.

In unrelated news, both Twitter and Tumbler want you to know that A Lannister always spays his pets. Read down to the fine print, although I do have to note that my thoroughly spayed Grey One has rarely achieved the status of "calm" and has been known to gaze thoughtfully at people's throats.

Warehouse 13, Season 3, Episode 9, Shadows

Hi, show! We need to have one of those serious talks.

( Spoilers for season 3, up through episode 9 )