The mason and his crew have arrived, a day early, and are already engaged in taking down the old chimney in order to build a new. The cats have. . .vanished into the safety of the basement. Trooper did come back upstairs briefly, to ask me if we needed reinforcements. I assured him that we had this, and he departed again for the depths.
In other news, the last piece has fallen into place and we’ll be taking a road trip to New Hampshire later this week in order to pick up Belle and bring her to Maine. Belle has just recently been retired, and spayed in April. She is Sprite’s mom, so we’ll have a whole little nuclear feline family with us.
For those interested, you can see Belle’s baby pictures here.
Yesterday, Steve celebrated the beginning of summer by hanging twinkle lights back up in the kitchen. This is a new set of lights; they’re purple, where the last string had been clear. It gives a nice glow of the evening, and I can’t begin to tell you how very, very glad I am to have twinkle lights in my kitchen again.
I was occupied for a little while yesterday answering a lengthy email from the cover artist for Alliance of Equals, who had finished reading the manuscript and had many interesting questions to ask.
For those who have been burning to know what I thought of The Martian and why I read “so many” books by CJ Cherryh, someone asked and I answered, here.
And! A local landmark has made the newspaper. A very interesting and in-depth article about the Bob In, a Waterville bar with a. . .checkered history, to say the least. Here’s your link.
All that said, I guess I’d better get something going for breakfast, as woman does not live by caffeine alone.
RE: the Martian vs. Cherryh books….I fully agree with you. I finally broke down and got/read the Martian. uh, ok. Not horrible. Not great. B- reading. CJ gets A to A+ in all her SF. Fantasy gets B. I buy every CJ book I can get my hands on.
CJ Cherryh does “anthropological” science fiction better than anybody else I can think of. She can suck you into one of her universes so completely that you can be well into a book before you realize the strange aliens faced by the protagonists are actually homo sapiens. See Cuckoo’s Egg or Pride of Chanur.
Excited for stories Belle’s addition to the household will engender. I’ve got possible clearance for #5 if it is a rag doll (my requirement) and a boy (his requirement.). Oh, and also a rescue. I’m not holding my breath. The 4 we have are quite enough.
This post sounds so happy – it makes me smile to read. I’m enjoying the thought of the twinkle lights.
I may “just” find a strand or two of my own twinkle lights and enjoy the summery glow into the darker seasons…and I totally agree with the CJ Cherryh remarks.. I read and re-read the Chanur series until the books fell apart..
I’ve never heard of a contractor showing up a day early. Clearly, you and Steve have The Luck.
Congratulations on your expanding feline family! I hope Belle will fit right in. I wonder if she and Sprite will recognize one another? I’m not sure how this works with cats–all of ours have had unknown origins, except for the Havana Brown we inherited from our neighbor.
Ah. And we don’t necessarily have The Luck. Or perhaps we do.
The contractors were supposed to be remortaring the existing chimney, but closer examination revealed structural problems, and large deposits of creosote. So! Yesterday, they removed the old chimney, and today — they’re putting in a new chimney.
OTOH, the chimney did not catch fire over the winter.
Always hard to tell, with The Luck.