Category: life after the apocalypse

Weekend catch up

We here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory have been keeping our heads down and trying to get Useful Things Done. The jury’s still out on the question of whether we’ve succeeded, but one does what one can.

A kind friend gave me a lift to the hair salon on Monday, and was able to extend the trip to include the post office and the grocery.

I finished a read-through of the first half of Diviner’s Bow, and am now in the process of figuring out the second half.  Around that, I invoked Google Takeout on behalf of Steve’s accounts and transferred them to that portable hard drive I was never going to use.  Every time I think I’m going to cancel Steve’s phone, the two-step verification system produces another reason why I should wait a little longer.

Yesterday, we (quietly) celebrated Princess Jasmine Sprite’s 12th birthday.  There was napping in the sun, napping under tables, and napping on the couch, and a pouch of Delectables Bisque for happy hour, after which we all gathered into the living room to view the first episode of Renegade Nell.

Today, I have some chores to finish up.  This afternoon, a friend will be coming by to help me put together and position the puppy crate our neighbor donated to the Kitten Project, and I’ll be converting the second bathroom to Club Rook.

Tomorrow, another kind friend will be taking me to Book Club, then to pick up Rook — and I figure that’s all I’ll be accomplishing tomorrow.

Tuesday, I (finally) get to see my PCP — a kind friend is giving me a ride — and hopefully I’ll be given permission to drive myself to, oh, Rook’s meet ‘n greet with his vet on Wednesday.  That would be nice.

Otherwise, I’m looking at the list of home upkeep things that need to be done and trying to strategize.  I thought I’d been cleaning the rain gutters, but yanno?  Maybe not.  And I really need help with the front garden and the backyard, which I feel is probably too little for a full-blown landscaping enterprise, but too much for a woman with a hoe.

And, that, I think, catches us up.

I hope to update with Rook photos tomorrow, depending on how he feels about having his picture taken.

 

Life going on

Warning:  the following may be upsetting to some folks.  It’s always a judgement call, what to tell people, and when.  Steve and I have always been as open as possible with our readers, which means that you get the good, the bad, and the sad.

That said . . .

I was scheduled to spend some time with family this week — and in fact did spend some time with family this week, just not as much and not in the way we all would have preferred to see the thing done.

It started out pretty well on Monday.  The bunch of us met up at a glass studio in Belfast, spent a couple hours doing glass art, grabbed lunch at the Nautilus, and headed out to Bar Harbor, where family was staying.  I followed them in my car.  The plan was that I would stay until Friday, and they would stay until the Friday after that.

Once we made base, vacation things — TV, games, talk — commenced.  It was while we were all standing around the kitchen, shooting bulls, as one does, when, in the middle of Making a Point, I — folded up.  The next few minutes were exciting for everybody but me. From my perspective, one second I was talking, the next, I was looking at the floor tiles and asking, “What happened?”

That was when things got exciting for me.  My prize for beeping out in the middle of a sentence was a ride in the ambulance to the island hospital, an overnight in ER, many tests, including CAT scan, MRI, blood tests, cognitive and physical/balance tests.  When I was admitted to ER, the Operating Theory was that I had suffered a posterior stroke.  By the time I was returned to the wild, on Tuesday afternoon, the thinking was divided between soft “stroke” and hard “stress.”

I also won both the coveted “no driving” and “no alcohol” awards which are mine at least until I can see my regular doctor, on July 9.

Local friends have stepped up to offer rides to my various appointments, including the Great Rook Recovery Run, and the appointment with the PCP.

So, that happened, and things — THINGS — are more or less in-hand.  I have been motivated to update my power of attorney and my will, both of which still listed Steve as the Instrument of my Intent, should I be unable to accomplish my Fell Purposes personally.

Now we come to the sad part of this narrative.  Fans of Princess Jasmine Sprite, Mousebane, Overseer of the Daffodils, will wish to know that . . . Sprite has cancer.  It’s been very aggressive, and she has just started to take pain medication, which is sorta the beginning of the end.  For the moment, she still seeks out open windows, sunspots, and laps; is generous in sharing purrs and naps, and is Doing the Rounds.  When she lets me know it’s time, I’ll be with her.

. . . and I think that’s probably enough news for one post.

Here’s a picture of Sprite.

Diviner’s Bow available for preorder

Diviner’s Bow, the 27th novel set in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is now available for preorder, in hardcover, from the Usual Suspects. The preorder page includes a book description, for the curious.

Long-time readers will of course recall that Baen puts the ebook edition on preorder somewhat closer to the publication date.

I am still writing Diviner’s Bow — it currently weighs in at just a squeak under 72,000 words — so I guess I’d better hop to it.

Ribbon Dance a bestseller!

Bookscan SF Bestsellers, New Books released June 2-8, 2024

#1 Apostles of Mercy, Lindsey Ellis
#2 Mirrored Heavens, Rebecca Roanhorse
#3 The Dark Forest, Cixin Liu
#4 Ribbon Dance, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
#5 501st Star Wars Legend (Imperial Commando), Karen Traviss

Thanks to everyone who made this possible — give yourselves a hand!

While one lives, both stand

Grief puts funny ideas into your head.

For instance, for awhile back in March, I was convinced that Steve had left me — walked out of our partnership and left no forwarding address.  I couldn’t imagine why, and spent way too much time minutely reviewing our past, looking for my error.

Then I became convinced that we had gotten done at this house, and were moving on.  As has been the case in previous moves, Steve had gone on ahead, leaving me to clean up these last few things before I joined him.  This delusion is particularly pernicious because for those of us who speak Metaphor, it’s true.   Only it’s not.

Anyhow, it’s been my goal for some while now to find or create for myself a place of gratitude for having been privileged to share so much time, love, and magic; for having had Steve in my life.  While it’s certainly a very lonely, hard, and scary thing to no longer have him for back-up, for taking the lead, for producing surprising — and occasionally infuriating — insights — surely unrelenting misery was not the best lesson I could take from our life together.

So, I started looking for ways to achieve, at first, equilibrium.  I didn’t expect to leap from misery to gratitude.  I expected there to be a process, and backsliding, and all the things that attend the pursuit of any mighty goal.

Steve and I not only shared our mundane lives, but we shared an active and beguiling fantasy life.  The worlds we built, the people who live there, the lessons, the philosophies — those also fed the richness of our partnership and informed our mundane lives.

One of the things we said, between ourselves, is that we were lifemates — better together than apart, if not two halves of a wiser, more creative, and more patient being.

I got to thinking about that, about three weeks ago — lifemates.  In the Liaden Universe® that Steve and I had built together, lifemates — a true wizard’s match — meant that one spoke for both.  The trust in that is breathtaking, if you think about it, and yet — I trusted Steve to speak for me in matters, for instance, of health, if it came about that I could not speak for myself.  Steve had bestowed a similar trust on me.

Of lifemates it is said, While one is alive, both stand.  That struck me forcefully, especially as there is, in reality, still an Us to be tended, if only in terms of our work together, which isn’t finished yet.

I was still mulling this over as I was wandering through an arts festival a couple weeks ago.  I had visited one building, and talked briefly with a silversmith, passed on to buy cat toys, and was walking toward the next building when (Steve) said, very clearly,  “Maybe the silversmith could size my ring so it would fit you.”

And I thought — Yes. Maybe she could.  And then I would have visible proof, for comfort, and for those moments when the loss looms greater than the memory.

I walked back and asked the silversmith if she would size a silver ring for me.  She said yes, and I went home, got Steve’s ring and came back.

I picked up the resized ring today, and — I felt something click when I put it on my finger, and maybe I heard (Steve) laugh.

Below, our rings.  The ring on the left is mine; inscribed with Mette, the rune for courage. Made by Phil Jurus, oh-so-very-long-ago.  The ring on the right is Steve’s, and I sadly no longer remember the name of the rune for persistence. Also made by Phil Jurus.

PSA for those who downloaded Ribbon Dance from BN

There was a formatting error in the file, while resulted in forced tiny font that could not be changed by the reader*.

THIS ERROR HAS BEEN FIXED, and should be available by Monday, if not sooner, so you may redownload your book and read it in the font size of your desiring.

Though it was not mine, I apologize for the error and the consternation, not to say inconvenience, that it caused.

_________
*No, it’s no use asking me how it happened; I don’t know.

Are you prepared for Ribbon Dance?

Tomorrow, June 4, Ribbon Dance, the 26th novel set in the Liaden Universe® created by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, officially drops in hardcover and in ebook*.

For your optimum reading experience, you’ll want to lay in plenty of cake, not to mention pretty little cookies with pastel icing, tea, wine, nuts, and maybe a nice tray of cheese and crackers.

After all, nobody wants an incident.

_________________
*As previously reported, Audible has passed on the opportunity to produce a audio edition of Ribbon Dance. Those rights are being shopped elsewhere and as soon as I know more than that, be sure that I’ll share it.

 

Double Vision available to download

Double Vision, including twenty-nine early works by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, was originally published as a trade paperback in 2009 by SRM Publisher, Ltd. This is its first electronic edition.

Titles included are: Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court, Sharon Lee; The Cat’s Job, Steve Miller; A Matter of Ceremony, Sharon Lee; Coffee Cat, Sharon Lee; The Big Ice, Sharon Lee; Rain Day, Steve Miller; Master of The Winds, Sharon Lee; The Pretender, Sharon Lee; The Silver Pathway, Sharon Lee; The Year They Brought The Bears to Belfast, Sharon Lee; The Naming of Kinzel, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Innocent, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Arbiter, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; And Hawks for Heralds, Steve Miller; Charioteer, Steve Miller; Stormshelter, Sharon Lee; The Solution, Steve Miller; The Girl, the Cat, and Deviant, Sharon Lee; The Afterimage, Sharon Lee; Master Walk, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Choices, Steve Miller; Cards, Sharon Lee; The Handsome Prince, Sharon Lee; Stolen Laughter, Sharon Lee; The Winter Consort, Sharon Lee; The Inventoried, Steve Miller; Gonna Boogie With Granny Time, Sharon Lee; Passionato, Sharon Lee; Candlelight, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Double Vision is available from your favorite online bookstores.  There will not be a paper copy.  Links below provided as a courtesy.

Baen Books link

Amazon US link

Universal link

We interrupt this writing blog for a Very Important Announcement

We here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory have taken a very serious step, and decided to fill the fourth slot left empty by Belle’s crossing of the Bridge, last August.

Steve and I had been discussing this step before he passed on, and I shelved it in favor of getting through the next five minutes.

Recently, the matter came up again at a board meeting, and the reasons identified in February still held.  Trooper and Sprite are Elders; Firefly needs somebody to share her energy with.

We have therefore contracted to receive a Maine Coon kitten, photo below.  He will be coming aboard in July, and we’re all very excited.  Or at least I’m very excited.  The other cats are of the opinion that this “kitten” I keep talking to them about is a Plot Point in the WIPnovel.

The kitten’s name is Rook, and already there’s a Story about him.

As I was considering the issue of a name, I thought how unfair it is that black cats are so often named for their color.  I decided that I didn’t want to do that; I wanted a good, strong name that reflected sophistication and style.  I mulled names for quite some time until (Steve) suggested Rook.  For those who don’t know, a rook is a powerful and flexible chess piece, and of course Steve had been a chess player all his life.

Rook.

I liked it.

More, I liked that it came with the nickname “Rookie,” which he certainly will be.

So, there I was, armed with a name of something that could be either black or white, chosen for its inherent virtue.  Very proud of myself, was I.

I remained proud of myself right up until my talk with the breeder this afternoon, where I shared with her my choice of name.

She immediately said, “Oh!  I like that!  I know what a rook is — it’s an English crow!” — and I realized that I had been foiled.

Regardless, Rook he shall remain, and I hope to add many Stories to this, his first.