Category: Life with Coon Cats

When last we saw our Hmbl Narrator, she was about to interview a person to clean her house every other week, the previous occupant of that post having quit due to Pressures of Life.

The first bid was well beyond what I could afford, but the second was on the money, so to speak.  She came by and did her first clean on Thursday, and all went well.  She’ll come back Thursday after next.

No sooner had I solved the cleaning problem when the lawn/snowplow guy let me know that he’s getting out of the lawn/snowplowing biz.  He’ll finish mowing this year, but he won’t be doing Fall Cleanup or snowplowing.  Eek.  I made calls; two people answered, both came out to look.  One gave me a quote on the spot, the other promised a quote after thinking about it, but never called back, so — the first guy gets the job, starting with Fall Cleanup.

In-between all that, I finally tracked down and canceled the last account that needed to call Steve’s cellphone for two-factor identification.  This meant that I could take Steve’s phone off the account, which I tried to do online, but Verizon insisted that I had to cancel my phone, too, and — no.

On Wednesday I went to the Verizon store where Josh very efficiently and kindly made all the virtual paperwork disappear, including calling Corporate to tell them why we were doing what we were doing (“The account manager has passed on.”).

Josh also found that I was “eligible” for a new Pixel 9 (XL Pro, it says here), so I came home with a new phone, which is a mixed blessing.  On the one hand, my beautiful red Edge was living on borrowed time, and has run through its updates; and you can’t beat “free” for a new phone with 7 years of updates guaranteed.  On the other hand, the new phone is a little heavier and broader than the old one, and despite being an Android phone, Google does some things differently than Motorola, which is a little disorienting, but I expect I’ll get used to it.  I did order a sparkly case, so all the important details have been taken care of.

My next trick is selling Steve’s guitars.  There are only two of them, and I expect I’m stressing about it more than I should. Despite Josh’s help, cancelling Steve’s cell account was … kind of exhausting.  Maybe the guitars can wait until next week.

In Coon Cat News, Fans of Trooper will be pleased to learn that the lack of appetite and lethargy that had me taking him to the vet on Thursday morning is diagnosed (after an exam and a “perfect” blood test) as Kitten Exhaustion and allergies.  Fans of Rook will be happy to learn that he has been scheduled for The Operation on September 24.  And! Fans of Firefly will be pleased to know that she seems to have worked through her depression and is wrasslin’ the kitten, and playing tag.

In Writing News, Diviner’s Bow currently weighs in at 96,600 words, and I am frantically writing the scenes that I know so I can reach An End, and put out a call for beta readers while I take a breather.  I am at the point of being Very Tired of this book — which is a good sign; it means we’re on schedule.

And that’s the week that was at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.

Looking forward to next week, I see a Stoopid Number of medical appointments, and, at the end of the week! I’ll be (virtually) at AlbaCon, doing a reading and two panels.

Everybody stay safe.

So, suddenly, it’s been a busy week.

On Tuesday, I drove to Old Orchard Beach, then across to eat lunch on the causeway at Naples.  Total mileage was 282; about 8 hours away (not all on the road, but most).  Weather conditions were varied — rain, clouds, bright sun.  Really, I couldn’t have asked for a better day to practice driving.

It looks like my Practice Driving Day is going to be Tuesday, for the foreseeable.  I am going to have to remember to bring along a sandwich with my drinks; catching lunch on the road is more expensive than I can justify.

Driving/being away from the computer had an unexpected benefit:  I figured out the solution to something that had really been bothering me about the WIP.

Yesterday, I had to go to Augusta to renew my license.  I was able to make an appointment online, so the actual renewing license portion of the day was fairly stress-free.  What was stressful was that my phone stopped working.  By which I mean that the screen was unresponsive.  It really is too bad how much I depend on that device, not to mention that I really like this particular phone, for reasons both technical and sentimental.

Two Verizon stores later, the problem was fixed, and now I know how to turn off my phone when I don’t have access to the touchscreen, so — yay.  At the second store, where I found the person who could actually solve the problem, I was informed that I have “an old phone” — purchased in May 2020 — and that I can expect things to start failing.  She did try to sell me a new phone, which she was liege-bound to do, which I understand.  But I’m going with Fingers Crossed for now.

Steve’s day lilies finished blooming a couple weeks ago, which meant that it was time for me to get the severely overgrown gardens at the front, sides, and back of the house Dealt With, and the shrubbery that had grown up in front of the basement door knocked down.  I called a landscaper, who came by yesterday to look things over.  He made suggestions, provided an estimate that was, err, steep, but less than I had expected.  He arrived this morning with a crew of about twelve young people, wielding every gardening tool imaginable from shovel to backhoe, and they set to.

As of this writing, the old garden/overgrowth/weeds are gone.  I can get to the basement door again.  All of the opportunistic maple trees are gone.  A new garden of perennials will go in the front — I see a flat of orange coneflowers out resting under the maple trees planted on purpose.

I didn’t have time to take a picture of the situation, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it was not only overgrown, but becoming dangerous.  I’m unhappy that the rose bush Steve gave me when we moved in is gone, along with his beloved lilies.  Actually, the rose bush may have been strangled by vines; I didn’t see any news of it this summer at all.

The cats are pretty sure they didn’t sign off on all this excitement, and they have been watching it all Very Carefully from various windows around the house.

Just to round out the week, I called to make an appointment with a new cleaning person; my previous person having quit somewhat suddenly.  Hopefully, we can come to an agreement.

Absent the continuing work of the landscape crew, I’m in for the weekend, and looking forward to writing the scenes I’ve mapped out, and fitting them into the WIP.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday’s  adventure.

Been a while since I checked in.  My excuse is that writing is a very boring occupation, spectator-wise.

In the Before Time, Steve and I would have been doing some traveling around the state, possibly gone to the NASFiC (though not to Glasgow; we were never globe-trotters).  In These Times, I have a new kitten, and a book that I’m learning to write, not to mention the early summer health scare and an on-going bad back.

So, not only is writing boring, so, in this case, is the writer.

Diviner’s Bow, the book I’m learning to write, the sequel to Ribbon Dance, is, oh, let’s say 85,000ish words along, and earlier in the week I reached the point where, in those same Before Times, I would have said to Steve, “Would you please read this and tell me if it makes sense.”  And he would do that, and then we would talk, and eventually I would sit down at the keyboard, energized by both the couple days off and the creative high of brainstorming, and start in writing the last third of the book.

What with one thing and another, Steve wasn’t available to read the book-as-it-currently exists, so I’m doing that — about half-way through and hoping to finish the read-through tomorrow night.  So far, I’m encouraged — by which I mean that the story doesn’t suck.  I’m hoping that trend continues.

Fans of the coon cats will wish to know that Rook has adopted Trooper as his grandpa, and Trooper has risen to the role.  Firefly took Sprite’s passing very hard, but she’s beginning to show interest in household matters ago.  She and Rook have been seen playing together, and I even caught her cleaning his ears.

Rook has also been studying the work of the house, and has achieved the title of Editorial Assistant IT (ln Training).  Here —

Sorry.  Interrupted by Firefly coming into my office, voicing her “I caught something” — and I went to look.

In fact, she had caught something — a pad of yellow sticky notes — and those things are hard to catch.

As I was saying, here’s a picture of Rook, hard at work (and a Very Tired Writer):