Blog Without A Name

In which the author plays in the dirt

Today, I schlepped dirt.  Dirt is heavy.  After a while, even shovel-fulls of dirt are heavy.  However!  I have finished now with the dirt, and with broadcasting the seeds mixed with purple sand, and with the raking.  All that remains is for the seeds to grow.

Grow, little seeds, grow!

After playing in the dirt, I cleaned the cat boxes and took a shower; ate the lovely lunch Steve prepared for us, and wrote some words.  In a few minutes, I’ll write some more words, and then I’ll break for supper and perhaps read (Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance) for a bit before going to bed.

I know.  I know.  You’re asking yourselves, How does she do it? How does she continue at this brutal pace which is the price of her fame?

Years of practice, children.

Years and years of practice.

In other news, Mozart wants me to come into the living room and play chess with him.  Or something.  I know this because he’s marching up and down the hall declaiming at the top of his teensy, tiny little Maine Coon cat voice.  Despite this, I believe that there will be no chess this evening.

So, what did you do today?

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Progress on Carousel Seas

45,708/100,000 words OR 45.71% complete

“The elephants are definitely disquieting. In fact, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb if I say that they look downright drunk. Who wants to snuggle up with a bunch of inebriated flying elephants of a cold winter’s night? And it’s definitely not the kind of thing you want to put in the baby’s crib.”

“Never had much to do with elephants.”

“Me neither — and I’m here to tell you that blanket isn’t making me eager to seek them out.”

 

 

Books read in 2013

Hellspark, Janet Kagan (re-re-re-re-re-re-&c-read)
The Year of the Dog, Grace Lin
The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (e)
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir), Jenny Lawson
How Dark the World Becomes, Frank Chadwick (e)
Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
French Fried, Chris Dolley (e)
My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve)
Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e)
Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve)
Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e)
Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e)
Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e)
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e)
Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve)
Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio
Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)

I hear you knockin’

We buried Socks this afternoon…

It’s a gorgeous, sunny, breezy day and all the things that grow in the ground are scrambling to get with the program, to be fruitful and multiply in Maine’s brief slice of summer.  I need to go down to Agway in a couple minutes and pick up some stuff.  It had best be today; there’ll be no getting near the place tomorrow.

This morning was the hearing test.  It is as I had feared, I’ve lost considerable amount of hearing at the high end of the scale, the same amount of loss in both ears, which, yes, does kind of point at all those dictating devices littering my misspent youth as the culprits.

We — that being the medical “we” — are not of the opinion that the loss is yet significant enough for us to be talking hearing aids.  The plan at the moment is to retest in a year and see where we are then.

This is the first time I’ve had a hearing test since elementary school, so I guess I subconsciously expected something like the test we took then, and, indeed, it was kind-of something like that.

First, I was locked into a soundproof room, headphones on, while the tech in the next room played a series of noises, first through the left headphone and then through the right.  I had a button in my hand and every time I heard a sound, I was to press the button.  The . . .interesting and terrifying thing about this was that I could tell when the tones had gone out of my range.  The tones I could hear came in a rapid, distinct, rhythm.  There I’d be, punching my button like a mad, button-punching woman, and suddenly?  I heard only silence, for a looooong time, before the next tone that I could hear sounded and I punched the button again.

I’m not sure I have words adequate to the task of explaining how eerie it is to know that sounds were being made which were completely beyond  my ken.  Like watching television with the sound off, but much more disturbing.

The next test, with different earphones, was. . .even eerier. The tech in the next room would say a word — again testing first the left ear, then the right — and I would repeat the word as I heard it.  There, too, I hit a blank wall where I knew, by the elapsed time, that words were still being spoken in some place to which I no longer had access, but — as the post-game wrap-up showed — I also misheard a bunch of words with soft “th” “sh” sounds.  “POPCORN” was perfectly intelligible.  “Theft,” not so much.

So, that.  Growing old is not for sissies.

As I believe mentioned elsewhere, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Our Stockholders Come First!) has kindly allowed us to know that they will be increasing our rate of protection (Nice liver you got there; be a shame if something happened to it) by just pennies under $140/month.  This brings our monthly payment to over $600 — for an insurance policy that covers NOTHING.  We still have to pay all of our medical bills out of pocket; if we should ever hit the deductible, we would have already declared bankruptcy.  This is when you start thinking about playing Health Care Roulette — dropping one individual’s coverage in order to be sure the other’s covered.  Can you hear the gods laughing?  Yeah, me, too.

But!  Thank ghod we don’t have socialized medicine; that would be worse.

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I have been remiss in pointing out that Baen has been running a cover model contest, in which you can vote for your favorite Manly Man from among a field of twenty-three.  Here’s the contest, with pictures.  The amusing thing is that the contest went over yesterday, according to the posted rule, and the winner appears to be!

Rys Lin pen’Chala.

Also, I have seen things, as I have gone up and down the intertubes.  Interesting things.

Like. . .

Rare baby lemur born at the Baltimore Zoo

The entire photographic archives of unknown photographer Vivien Maier have been purchased at auction, and will/are for the first time available for display.

Get a look at a Parisian apartment that has been left untouched for 70 years.

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Progress on Carousel Seas

43,713/100,000 OR 43.75% complete

“Nothin’ the matter with your voice. If you feel like you gotta have an instrument, we just hand you a tambourine, and you shake it when the mood strikes.”


Give me the power of man’s red flower, so I can be like you

Thanks to those who shared their current reading.  My TBR pile is going to be getting taller, I see…

Yesterday, I visited with the physical therapist, and today I’m stiff; more fun on Thursday, and! a hearing test on Friday.

My father lost his hearing, but we all just figured it was because he worked in a noisy hell of a factory — he was a spot-welder at General Motors — before ear protection was mandatory.  Now, it looks like it might be a hereditary thing.  Or, yanno, I could blame all those tapes I transcribed as a secretary, with the earphones on three and four hours a day.  Or the hours wasted listening to rock ‘n roll music. . .

As some of you know, Steve and I will be at Book Expo America, as guests of Baen Books/Simon and Schuster.  We’ll be signing Necessity’s Child and the first half (heh-heh-heh) of Trade Secret at Table 10 in the Big Signing Arena on Saturday, June 1, from 11 a.m. to noon.  We’ll also likely be spending some time at Booth 2638, and!  Baen will be hosting a Meet and Greet for us on Friday, May 31, from 4-6 p.m.

Here’s the invitation:

BEA Invitation-2013-Lee and Miller

If you’re attending BEA, we hope you’ll join us.

EDITED TO ADD:  It has been brought to our attention that there are pirated Lee and Miller ebooks on an offshore site.  Each ebook downloaded from this site includes malware. Here’s a tip on keeping your computer free of malware — buy the books; don’t support pirates, because they surely don’t support you — or us.

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Progress on Carousel Seas

42,387/100,000 OR 42.39% complete

“No need at all. Best thing for you is to go home, deah. This is no good place for you to settle, and I’m not just talking about this piece of water. You know you’re in the Changing Land?”

 

The dance is sweeter than the song

Today is all about the errands, including a physical therapy session, a stop at the library to return books, at Staples to drop off used ink cartridges, and at Goodwill to drop off Various and Sundry.  Deliveries may happen; in particular, delivery of my replacement trackball.  There’s also a phone call to make, but that may wait.  I’m in phone-avoidance mode, and it’s not an emergency phone call, after all.

Also, somewhere in there I ought to do some writing.

The weather has reverted, slightly — down to 30F/-1C on the overnight, and slow to warm this morning, though it’s nice and sunny; should be a good day for running around.

For those who care about such details, I’m re-re-re-re-re-&c-reading Hellspark by Janet Kagan, because — comfort book.

What’re y’all reading?

Boring old Saturday

For those keeping score, You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack did arrive in this morning’s mail.  Its arrival was the most exciting thing that happened today.

Which, after the week that just was?  Is not a Bad Thing.

Mostly what I did today was sit on the couch and write, ably assisted by Mozart, who took up his post on the floofy blanket beside me, and never wavered in his duty.  The sacrifices one makes for Art.

Three thousand eighty-eight words were forged upon the day, which I think is pretty exciting, though I’d hoped to crack forty grand, total, today.  Perhaps tomorrow, for which I also foresee the excitement! of!

Cleaning the bathroom.

Hope everyone had a satisfying Saturday, without alarums or excursions.

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Progress on Carousel Seas

39,464/100,000 OR 39.46% complete

“The famous Archer wit. Well, I’ll tell you something – I ain’t laughing! As for even trying to talk to Jess Robald about anything sensible, I guess I know better’n that. Woman’s a fool, always been, an’ if there were still state sanitoriums, you’d’ve never had the chance to use her as a cat’s paw! Me, I know where the brains are in this. It’s you, just like it always was!“

Books read in 2013

The Year of the Dog, Grace Lin
The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (e)
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir), Jenny Lawson
How Dark the World Becomes, Frank Chadwick (e)
Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
French Fried, Chris Dolley (e)
My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve)
Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e)
Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve)
Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e)
Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e)
Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e)
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e)
Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve)
Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio
Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)

In which Monday was a holiday

. . .so the pleasure of setting the trash out is deferred until tomorrow.

Yesterday, I did a little more yard work — bagging leaves, raking mats out of the rosebush, sweeping the dirt and dead leaves off of the statue in the Cat Garden.  The ground’s thawing, but you hit the frozen stuff about four inches down.

In cat news, Scrabble appears to have decided that Socks has gone on to another of his fan clubs.  Mozart, however, is spending a worrisome amount of time in the cat circle with two of the stuffies Socks favored.  I don’t think he’s sick, just. . .sad.  Anybody know how to do grief therapy with an aging Coon cat?

In this morning’s inbox is notification from BN that You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld is shipping.  I think this is splendid, but. . .

I pre-ordered this book many, many months ago.  Three months ago, I got a note from BN that the book had been delayed, did I still want it?  I assured them that I did.  Two months ago, they again wrote to tell me that the book was delayed, did I still want it?  Yep, I did.  One month ago, they wrote in all sorrow to tell me that the book was never going to be available — and canceled my preorder.

Two days ago, I ordered it directly from the BN website, and today it’s shipping.

This wouldn’t worry me quite so much if I hadn’t also gotten a note from BN telling me that there were canceling my order for The Abandoned because they had not received, and had no expectation of receiving, the book from the publisher.  I received that note the day after the book arrived here at the Confusion Factory.

In other news. . .the news is horrifying.  I see that the explosion in West, Texas last night registered as a 2.1 seismic event.  That’s. . .quite an explosion.  I’ve been staying away from any place that offers me pictures of what’s left of the town — the narrative is quite enough.

Added to the attack on the Boston Marathon, and the rupturing of the crude oil lines in Arkansas. . .

Everybody stay as safe as you can, OK?

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Progress on Carousel Seas

34,897/100,000  OR 34.9% Complete