So, it was a busy weekend, here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory. For those who were away, and/or celebrating the holiday of their people, if any, I shall sum up:
1. Madame the Editor has purchased two additional Liaden novels, to be completed after the Five Book Dash, of which Alliance of Equals (to be turned in at the end of May) is the second. Steve and I are calling these the Mask Books, to differentiate. No, we don’t know what, or who, they’ll be about, yet. Make sure y’all thank Madame for her care of your reading habit.
2. We have posted, on Splinter Universe, an introduction to, and two outtake chapters from, Shan and Priscilla Ride Again, a Liaden novel which was never finished, though it was written out to 15 chapters (about 22,000 words). Here are your links: IntroductionOuttake Chapters
2a. For the next 16 weeks (aka through August 3, with one week off (the week of June 8) because, Book Tour), we will be posting a chapter from Shan and Priscilla Ride Again on Splinter Universe. The reason it’s 16 weeks for 15 chapters is because there is a prologue, which we will post next Monday, April 13.
3. At the urging of many, Lee and Miller set up a Patreon account, with an experimental goal, in order to measure interest. The experimental goal was subscriptions totaling $500 per month. As I write this, 123 patrons have subscribed, for a total of $958.99. Which is. . .awesome. Thank you all.
Today in East Winslow, I am working on the short story commissioned for Baen.com, in support of Dragon in Exile. It doesn’t have a title yet, but I’m about 2,000 in and feeling good about the character. With luck and a lack of persons needing to view the house, I’ll have the rough draft done today. Hopefully, a title will also suggest itself.
Fans of Scrabble, Sprite, and Trooper will be glad to know that they haven’t let the events of the weekend throw them off stride. I provide photographic proof:
Sprite up in the high branchesTrooper continuing his study of the properties of the showerScrabble inspecting my work
It’s snowing here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory. I hold Steve and the plowguy equally at fault.
Steve for putting the roof rake away in the basement yesterday.
The plowguy for delivering his bill on Saturday, with the announcement that, even if it did snow again, he was done for this winter.
In other news, there was money in the mailbox this morning, which is a good thing, even when not viewed through the lens of the plowguy’s bill. (Which, let there be no mistake, he earned.) Hopefully, this small infusion of cash is But the Harbinger of many more, and larger, infusions of cash. Note to Self: Light a candle to Saint Expedite. Timing is Going to Be Everything with cash this year.
I will say these two things regarding the ACA: 1. It was. . .comforting to know that we had real health insurance last year, that actually paid for things. 2. Boy, does it not Play Nice with the way freelancers are paid.
Single payer. Single payer. Single payer.
Sigh.
In other news, work proceeds on Alliance of Equals — bet you thought I’d forgotten all about Alliance of Equals, hadn’t you? Work also proceeds on moving house before it snows again, two acts of Greater Imagination that aren’t necessarily compatible.
The cats remain endlessly fascinating. Trooper has been, cautiously — one might say, respectfully — moving to occupy those Spots that had been Identified as Good by Mozart. One of those is the cat hammock in the front window. Another is myMozart’sScrabble’s THE rocking chair in my office. The other — is interesting.
In the last couple years, Mozart had taken up a position under my desk, on the UPS, or against the wall (one of the coldest walls in my office, being the outside end wall, without a baseboard heater on it) on top of various wires. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant, so I finally admitted defeat and put a floofy blanket in the spot over the wires and kind of skooched up the wall, so he could lean his shoulder on something vaguely warm.
When Mozart left us, I took the (in my eyes, temporary) floofy blanket up, and didn’t replace it.
The other day, though, I (thoughtlessly, as you will soon see) put the blue file crate that contains the Working Papers for Alliance of Equals in that spot. Trooper, who, up until that moment, had ignored the former spot under the desk, immediately leapt down from the rocker, chattered at me, climbed behind the file crate, chattered some more and made shift to fit himself into the tiny, tiny space that was left there, just to show his willingness to Work With Me, but Really, Mom, this is pretty small, yanno. . .
Sprite came in to see what all the palaver was about, instantly recognized the problem and in a show of solidarity climbed onto the UPS.
So, I moved the file crate. And, in the days since my first thoughtless violation of Established Cat Space, every day, Trooper and Sprite have made it a point to spend some time in that space, even though there’s no floofy blanket there. Yet.
Yes, I do expect a letter from the Committee Cat regarding this incident, but by that time, I will have capitulated and put the blanket back.
Today did not start well. I woke up with a headache so bad sunlight felt like lances through my brain, and Steve sounded like he was shouting when he was speaking in a perfectly normal tone of voice. So, back to bed, with help from the feline nursing corps. Managed to sleep most of it off, and finally addressed my email at a Late Hour, to find a note from the ACA stating that they had not received documentation I had compiled and mailed in February, and therefore my health insurance would be cut off in May.
Phone call to the ACA, and the eventual verdict that the paperwork had been received, but hadn’t been processed, yet. Also treated to a mild lecture about how this affliction would not have come upon me if I had just uploaded my paperwork to the ACA website. I did not laugh hysterically, but told her that the reason I’d sent paper was because I couldn’t find where to upload my paperwork on the website. Got tour. Ghod bless them, they do hide it in the basement, don’t they? But, four screens in, yep — there it was. So now I know.
Which of course begs the question of what the manymanymany people in this country who do not have computers or access to a secure computer are supposed to do, if uploading is the New Black, but since I’m clearly not one of them, the question remains unasked.
Steve is making stirfry for dinner, which sounds lovely. Hoping to shake the rest of the headache with a hearty application of chicken and mushrooms, after which I will go to work.
Trooper’s fans will be pleased to know that he went to the vet yesterday for his 2-year distemper shot, wearing the cat harness and leash like, well…a Trooper. Note to self: teach Trooper to walk on the leash, because — While he was at the vet’s he was of course weighed. Ladies and Gentlebeings, we have ourselves seventeen-point-one pounds of Very Solid Coon Cat here.
Sprite weighed 15 pounds when she had her vaccine a couple months back, for a grand total of just over 32 pounds of Feline in two adorable packages.
And! In the I’ve-gotta-get-me-some-of-these front, on Facebook Mindy Hunter pointed out this TED talk on “Shiftables.” Clearly, someone’s been reading Lee and Miller.
Work is going forth, here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, which means that I’m even more boring than usual. For those who have been concerned — as who has not? — regarding the state of the deck roof: so far, so good. The wind blew some of the snow off, and I managed to slug some more off via the rake, by remembering that I was destined to be a basketball player. Possibly, I wasn’t as successful as I could have been, had I actually been willing to fall backwards off the steps to make the shot, but old age makes cowards of us all.
At the moment, and barring a blizzard that does not blow out to sea, I think the roof is safe.
Since I’m being boring, allow me to share some pictures of my assistants, who are never boring.
In case it was less than clear how very much Warrior Princess Jasmine Sprite adores getting her picture taken:
Warrior Princess Jasmine Sprite, the camera-shy…
We don’t keep Trooper around just because he’s so dern sexy. . .
Then, we went for a ride. Not a long ride; only to Augusta. We walked around Lowe’s and did our bit for morale by asking a passing Lowe-worker where the roof-rakes might be found. Not one to be had in the store, we were told, in-between gasps of laughter. Possibly not one to be had in greater New England.
After we had sowed our seeds of merriment, we went to Best Buy, where I finally succumbed and purchased the Shiny, the Canon PowerShot SX700HS 30X with the Bundled Goodies. It’s about half as thick as my venerable PowerShot 120IS 10X, and weighs just about the same. The challenge here is going to be remembering not to just stick it into a pocket and forget it’s there.
In theory, it does all kinds of sweet things, none of which I’ve figured out, yet, including sending pictures via wifi. What an age we live in.
Stopped at the grocery on the way home, because we are once again about to go under a — wait for it! — Winter Storm Watch. The theory is that we may received from 5-11 inches of snow from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday afternoon.
After that, we won’t have to deal with any more snow until Saturday night into Sunday.
My plan for the rest of the week is to take the laptop, and retire with it and Alliance of Equals to the couch and do nothing else — except shovel snow, of course (and tomorrow’s my turn to make dinner, but that’ll be meatballs (already made) and rotinis, with gravy. Easy-peasy.). The Kid Coons aren’t entirely sure that they Approve of the laptop, which takes up precious lap-space that could more fruitfully be occupied by a coon cat. Sprite, in particular, believes that she can too fit in the space between me and the keyboard.
Just for the record?
She can’t.
For those who were breathlessly awaiting my impression of Jupiter Ascending — I had a good time with it. Mind you, I don’t get to see many movies, so that probably pre-disposes me to being amused and pleased by those I do see, but to my way of thinking, I had three winners in a row: Guardians of the Galaxy, Big Hero6, and Jupiter Ascending.
Given that we here at the Confusion Factory are now laboring under a Blizzard Warning, we had one more go at trying to move the snow off the roof of the deck. This method involved affixing a plastic jug half-filled with water to 100 feet of rope, whaling the jug over the snow peak on the roof (it was gratifying to find that, after a couple a false starts, that I still have my throwing arm), and then dragging it back through, thereby breaking up the snow and allowing it to Fall. Off. The. Damn. Roof.
This actually worked. To a point. Not, alas, to a useful point, and there were those long minutes during which it looked like we were not going to be able to retrieve our instruments. We finally achieved that, and it must be said that some snow did come off the roof during the recovery process. A great deal of it fell down inside my Number Two Jacket (the one without the hood) and into my only pair of Real Winter Gloves. My blue sweater was roundly soaked, as well. On the other hand, the new boots kept my feet dry, and my purple striped Smartwool ski socks kept them warm.
During this frenzy of activity, we flushed a turkey out from beneath the deck. A rather skinny turkey, I’m sorry to say.
We did have a nice, sunny day to work in, though there was a sharp breeze that brought the balmy 9F/-13C down to -10F/-23C.
Well. It is winter, after all.
The blizzard, by the way — we’re under a Blizzard Warning, which is what started all this — is supposed to start tomorrow-Saturday, noon-ish and blow itself out by Monday morning, around 7 a.m., after having dumped 18-24 inches of snow on top of the 40 or so inches already covering the landscape.
At this point, we’re just going to have to hope that Todd built the deck roof out of titanium.
Trooper and Sprite showed moral support for our efforts against the weather by staying inside and making sure that the blue chair didn’t make a break for it while our attention was elsewhere.
Many thanks to everyone who expressed their condolences. Your kindness is much appreciated.
Today was about putting away the detritus of Doing Taxes, packing some books to mail, and trying to shovel snow off the roof of the deck, because there’s approximately five hundred and thirty-three tons of snow up there, and while Todd built it to withstand a Maine winter, I’m pretty sure we’re approaching its reasonable load-bearing capacity.
Now, the problem with raking the roof is. . .it’s ‘waaaaaay up there. Also, I can only rake the side that is directly over the steps. Mount Snowplow defends it from a frontal approach. And a large fall of snow in front of the basement door defends it from the back.
Possibly, yes, I could climb over the rail and stand on Mount Snowplow, but I deem that a tad risky. It may bear my weight. Or it may bear my weight for a while. If I break through, there’ll be no getting me out until autumn. If I miss my footing and slide down the wrong side, I’d either have to scale the Mount on its smooth side, or lay down on my belly and swim across the snow like an otter, alllllll the way around the base of the Mount until I came to a place where it’s possible to climb over the berm, to the driveway.
Also, I don’t do ladders. At all. Never mind ladders unsteadily braced on snow and ice.
Which leaves standing on the steps, heaving the rake repeatedly up to the roof and dragging buckets of snow down onto my own head. Yes, yes; it’s a comedy act.
It’s also relatively futile. I’ve raked off the snow I can reach, but there’s plenty too much up there, and no way for me to disturb it enough so it will start moving, say, down the slope of the roof, and off , adding to the consequence of our temporary mountain.
Gah.
In other news, Steve is still struggling with the disappearance of korval.com, and attempting to make it appear again. Very sorry for the continued bouncing mail, and other inconveniences. If you have written to either of us at a korval.com address, and have gotten a bounce message, best to send again, to our gmail addresses.
It remains eerily quiet in my office. I keep glancing over to the corner that Mozart frequented most during the last few months — and it’s empty, of course. The lack of his presence is almost a presence of itself.
Tomorrow, I am turning off All The Things, and Shutting All of the Doors so I can work. I’m starting to get very cranky with regard to not working. *glares at universe*
And, to make up, at least a little, for the tone of this post, I offer you two coon cats in a box too small for one — and good evening.
We let Mozart go today. He was just shy of his 18th birthday, and had shared 11 of those years with us. He was a good friend, gentle, and interested in all things, even That Reading Thing, which he had to learn to care about.
The house is very quiet tonight.
I will ask people not to post the Rainbow Bridge poem. We’ve read it many times, by now.
People frequently send us pictures of cats and ask, “Are your Maine Coon cats THIS big?”
The answer is that all cats are exactly as big as they need to be, and that size is at all times Bigger Than You, but we find that there are some who are more literal in their approach. They actually want to know how big our cats are.
So! Because we’re in the weather rocking chair between two winter storms, and it’s dark out already, and Steve happened to have a camera in his hand, and I happened to have a Maine Coon cat to paw, here are pictures demonstrating exactly how big our Maine Coon cats are.
Trooper is THIS bigOr maybe he’s THIS bigWhile Sprite, of course, is THIS big
Trooper and Sprite hope that this satisfies everyone’s curiosity regarding their Biggishness, and they would like to nap now.
Mozart was our first Maine coon cat, and he came to us courtesy of Kathy Robinson of Kennebec Cattery, which is not, as you might suppose, in Maine, but in Pittsburgh. He was born in March of 1998 and came to live with us in November of 2003, after his first situation proved less than ideal.
Kodi and Nicky had both died earlier in 2003, leaving us with Hypatia — a grey-and-white “barn cat” — and Max! — a cafe au lait masked wonder. Mozart came to us in early November, and two weeks later, we also brought Scrabble on-board direct from her temp placement at Animal House Pet Supply.
Mozart was the only Maine coon in the house, and he was Rather Shy. He and Scrabble buddied up for a while, being the new kids, but as Attrition Happened, Scrabble asserted herself, while Mozart remained somewhat reserved, though affectionate and interested in the projects of His People, assisting with the writing, and reading, of numerous books.
In mid-2005, we found ourselves running a household with only two cats. We thought we’d add a third, and we thought we’d get another Maine coon.
We brought Dulsey on-board, but she couldn’t find a place within the Mozart/Scrabble dynamic, and eventually moved on to her forever home.
In 2008, we brought Hexapuma into the team. He of course immediately fell under Scrabble’s spell, agreed that she was, indeed, The Most Qualified to Run Everything, and left her to it. He would sleep near and with Mozart, and occasionally invited him to play. Mozart seemed to ignore him, mostly, but obviously missed him terribly, as did we all, when he died.
When Socks came to us, in 2012, Mozart paid more overt attention to him, perhaps at first thinking that he might be Hex. He would occasionally cuddle up with Socks, and it might have been that they would have become big, sloppy, cat buddies, but Socks was barely with us a year before he succumbed to cancer.
Which brings us to the New Kids in Town. We adopted Trooper from Kelimcoons in New Hampshire in June, 2013, specifically as a companion to Mozart, who was clearly feeling the loss of Socks.
Predictably, I guess, Mozart ignored Trooper, who wasn’t grey, and who very much wasn’t Socks. Trooper, who had come from a house full of cats, and who had been on the show circuit, continued to make overtures, to sleep with the old guy — by now, Mozart was 15 years old — and to try to tempt him to play. We pretty quickly saw the difference between 15 and 4, and in November, 2013, we brought Trooper’s daughter, Sprite, up to Maine.
Sprite and Trooper bonded immediately; they shared a common vocabulary (do not laugh; Maine coons TALK, and while Sprite has a lot more to say about stuff than Trooper does, it’s perfectly obvious that they have conversations and consult with each other); they shared a common house culture, and an understanding about How We Cats Go On.
Maine coon females are billed as the shyer sex; however, there is a certain Mom Cat Foo that trumps. . .almost everything. Sprite immediately took Mozart in paw, cleaning his ears, snuggling next to him to nap, cleaning him up, and seeking him out to just check in several times a day. Mozart gradually came to the point where he’ll lick her cheek when they meet, and will occasionally bury his face in her fur, because apparently all that multi-colored fluff smells Really Nice.
He’s a little more conflicted regarding Trooper. I can see this. Mozart, who will be 17 on March 1, is a shadow of his former self, and even in his prime was a smaller cat then Trooper, who is tall and muscular — a working athlete. Trooper, however, puts up with the occasional swat in the face with patience, and insists that a guy needs another guy to snuggle against, and to watch things with, and occasionally to do his ears for him. And Mozart mostly accepts that.
It’s been really interesting, watching the two New Kids maneuver Mozart into their Coon Circle, insisting, gently, but consistently, that, no, we do not sleep on the blanket by ourself; we share the blanket — and the person reading under the blanket, if any. We stop and chat with each other when we meet in the hall; we eat together; we sleep on the humans at bedtime, all of us; there’s plenty of room.
So, in all, I think we did the right thing, bringing the New Kids in; and that Mozart is having as peaceful an old age as anyone can, surrounded by his grandcats.
