chop wood carry water – Page 10

It’s been a long week already

So, that was not how I was going to spend my morning.

In early March, I paid off the installation of the new French doors in Steve’s office. The check cleared. I foolishly thought that was that.

Until today, when I open a statement from the finance company which states that I owe them the full amount.

I call. The story at the finance company is that the check was “returned to maker” — IOW, it bounced.

I look at my account online. Nope; check cleared. However, there is a noted “returned” check for the same amount after the original check cleared.

I call the bank, which goes into their files, and says that it looks to them like the check cleared, THEN IT WAS SUBMITTED AGAIN — and the second submission bounced. As it should have done.

Call finance company back. Am told several times at length by the first line customer service person that the check bounced. Finally win a conversation with a “specialist,” with whom I go through the whole thing One! More! Time! including the fact that I have of copy of the cleared check with the finance company’s stamp on the back, and he creates a Ticket.

I’m to hear back from the Banking Experts in 48 to 72 hours. And I’m wondering if people can actually shake themselves into a decline.

Argh.

First cat fountain swapped. Guess I’d better go get on the second.
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And on the plus side of the ledger, dishwasher repair guy will be here “today.”

Guess I’d better rustle up some lunch.
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And Ray says the motor’s burned up. I have purchased on his advice, a Whirlpool which will hopefully be delivered sometime next week.

Argh.
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Home now from needlework, which I’m glad I just didn’t decide to stay home and brood.

Yanno what? I’m really looking forward to walking that alpaca tomorrow morning.

And on Tuesday…

Tuesday. Sunny and cold. Haven’t gotten the trash out yet, but I’ve got time.

There have been at least a dozen rescue vehicles going screaming down the road in the last ten minutes, all heading south, and now it’s quiet. Too quiet.

. . . yeah.

The book club met yesterday afternoon at Holy Cannoli and engaged in a wide-ranging discussion, some of it . . . and there goes another one, the second attack wagon I’ve seen . . . some of it, as I was saying, about Theo of Golden, which found a more appreciative audience among the other two-thirds of the gathered readers than it found with me. Next book: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.

I finished formatting the Fey Duology yesterday. This does not mean it’s ready for release, but that it’s formatted. Formatting is a looooonnnngggg job, but not the only job. I’ll be getting back to the tasks remaining on the road to publication, eh. Thursday-ish.

Today? Is chores. I have two numbers for folks who fix dishwashers, so I’ll be making phone calls, and washing dishes, and changing out cat fountains. Also need to sit with Googlemaps and make sure I have my directions for Northern Solstice Alpaca Farm, since I’m not just going out for a ride, and happen to go by the alpacas, which is a handy place to pull over and take in the view.

This evening is craft group. Tomorrow morning, as above, the Great Alpaca-ing.

But, first? Breakfast. There must be something in this house for breakfast…

What did you have for breakfast?

Saturday at home

Well. Saturday. Damp and cooler.

My dishwasher may either be broken, or it’s current state of semi-functionality is an artifact of the water main work going on down the street. I checked the circuit box this morning, and started another cycle was this morning, but it’s not sounding good. I’m not hearing water moving in that box, which — at least it’s not leaking, amirite? So! I’ll be doing a dishwasher full of dishes by hand some time today. That’ll be fun.

It will also prepare me for doing my dishes by hand going forward, because a new dishwasher is so not in the budget.

What else?

Not much, I’m thinking.

Breakfast, I do believe, will be oatmeal, then I’m hitting the manuscript until lunch time, then dealing the domestic mini-crisis, then The! Studio!

A plan.

What’s your plan for the day?
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Saturday evening.

I am half-way through formatting The Fey Duology — which means I’ve finished with Longeye. Duainfey will go slower, not because it needs more work, but because I have a busy patch coming up.

Tomorrow afternoon, I have an interview scheduled. Sean Hazlett and I will be chatting about A Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 6, soon to be arriving in bookstores everywhere. Monday is a meeting of the book club, after our winter hiatus, Tuesday is of course needlework, and Wednesday is my date with an alpaca. None of these are all-encompassing, but they do mean I can’t just sit down for a bunch of hours at a stretch to do my job.

In preparation for Wednesday, I found my hiking boots. I was . . . somewhat taken aback to find that these are Rather New hiking boots. Hardly used, in fact. When I went into the closet, I had in my mind my old hiking boots, which memory now reminds me had been retired when the soles got too smooth for safety.

I’ve also done some research about how I should comport myself, so as not to offend alpaca-kind, and I now know not to wear strong scent, or noisy things (which means my keys will stay in the car, with the exception of the car fob itself, which will go into my pocket, instead of the three of them riding on a belt loop as per usual), or very bright colors. Wednesday is supposed to be cooler than it has been for the last few days, and I’m eyeing my dull purple hoodie, as most likely not to be missed in case I am spat upon.

I’ve also been informed that alpacas prefer to take the initiative, so I should not rush my walking companion on Wednesday, and that I should in no case try to pat an alpaca on the head.

I finished grinding my glass pieces, and this evening I will consult my book to refresh myself on foiling.

I put out a call on the Waterville Facebook page, seeking someone competent to repair a dishwasher, in case there’s an easy fix.

I did, for the curious, wash the dishes that were in the dishwasher, which was oddly calming.

I think that catches us all up.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Ah. The second daffodil of spring. I note that the Weatherbeans are calling for snow tomorrow.

Proof of Spring

Friday. Cloudy, damp, temps forecast to rise into the mid-60sF.

A thunderstorm rolled into town at bedtime last night. I got up from the couch, moved to the comfy chair in my office, opened the curtains, cracked one of the windows, and watched the storm for an hour. We don’t get nearly enough thunderstorms at this location, so we need to celebrate those we do get.

House has been picked up and Sarah’s due in at 9ish. I’m about to retreat to Steve’s office and start working on getting the Fey Duology ready for prime time.

What’re you doing today?

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Out to the post office and back. Lunch prepared and et. I have done some research and it may be — that is may be — possible to offer a softcover edition of the Fey Duology through Draft2Digital that does not involve Amazon’s marketing arm. I’ve always found D2D … kinder than Amazon. I will continue exploring.

Perusing the reviews for Duainfey and Longeye (I’m looking for a — one — glowingish professional pull quote, and it’s being tough going — I’m again struck by things like the reviewer complaining about made-up words, and I’ve gotten the distinct feeling that some had decided what the books were going to be about, and then were thrown off by them being, err, different.

There are also the odd reviewers who remark — back to back — on the fact that the two books have different voices (yes? this would be why there were two books), and complaining that they were forced to buy two books when a “rigorous editing” could have pared the entire tale into one book.

And then there are the reviewers who found Our Heroine Useless and Too Stupid to Live because she managed to survive a completely alien situation, learn the workings of said alien situation, make her way through trauma and fear back to love and morality — a lengthy road that I believe rightly passes through Anger. Those folks remind me of the people who found it Unbelievable that a woman as brilliant as Aelliana Caylon was “supposed to be” would have allowed herself to be abused.

That said, I’ve been sitting for some time with the problem of how I’m going to survive, going forward, especially as a writer, because I can’t simply just bear down and do everything that both of us did (ref Useless and Too Stupid to Live, above) without becoming a Rolanni-sized ember. Sarah’s visit this morning illuminated my situation. When I needed help cleaning the house, I hired somebody to help me. When it became clear that I couldn’t cope with the website that Steve had maintained, I hired somebody to help me.

So, it will be no shame to hire somebody to help me with PR, and possibly other administrative tasks, so I can write, meet my deadlines, interact with my readers, and Have A Life. You wouldn’t have thought that coming to this realizaton would have taken this long, but here we are.

It’s a pretty day outside. I have all the windows that will open, opened, and now it’s time to go back to Steve’s office and format me some more manuscript.
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So! I’m a third of the way through the Easy Part of the job. Tomorrow I may not be so speedy, as I do fully intend to spend at least an hour in The! Studio! with my glasswork.

Fans of Rookie will be interested to know that he conned me out of a tidbit of hardboiled egg at lunchtime and snabbled it right down.

Tali, offered her own bit of egg was — confused.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Proof of spring:

The pain gonna make everything all right

Thursday?

. . . let’s go with Thursday. Damp and cool, but by no means cold.

Breakfast was rice crackers, cream cheese, and grapes. Lunch will probably be fried potatoes and onions and a protein to be named later. The to-do list is everything I didn’t do yesterday.

I am three-quarters of the way through Longeye and There. Is. Not. ONE. THING. Wrong. with these books. I’m actually quite angry with the people who made me ashamed of my own work and very nearly caused me to abandon my art. And while Steve said all the right things — one of Steve’s many talents lying in the direction of selling sno cones to penguins. At a profit. — I doubt he would have given up writing, and I’m not sure the partnership would have survived my withdrawal.

Side story: We had friends who were musicians, a duo, who played gigs in the neighborhood. One day, one of the duo called and asked to meet us for a drink; she had something she wanted to talk out. So, we met her, and it turned out that she had met another musician whose art ignited her own in a way that playing with the other half of the current duo, also her partner, did not. She really wanted to play with this other person, and expand her art. I can still hear the raw anguish in her voice when she said, “And the problem is, I never made a distinction between being with [partner], and playing with [partner].”

Sometime after that, the original duo vanished from the local scene, and we heard, eventually, that they had split and she had left the area.
The moral of this story being that the partnership Steve and I shared was fluid, and informed everything we did. I lost track of how many times we were asked: “You’re married? And you write together? How does that even work?” It worked because we were together.

*deep breath*

Going back to the Fey Duology — I will, indeed, be reissuing these books. Proudly reissuing these books. Under our names.

And now? I b’lieve it’s time to go to work.

How’s everybody doing?

Today’s blog post title comes courtesy of The Black Crowes, “She talks to angels“

Follow the compass that beats in your chest

Wednesday. Grey, damp, and warm.

Today is the day I was to have turned Kin Right in to Baen.

I have a bunch of clerical tasks to finish with today, so that’s what will be happening. I also need to chop and freeze onions, figure out if I can freeze lemons, and also sliced deli ham (I went a little nuts at the grocery and bought a fresh-deli pack of black forest ham and another, of baby Swiss, because damn, I miss ham sandwiches). My desire having been somewhat slaked, I realize that I had better freeze what’s left and parcel it out later.

Lunch will be a salad, on account I have lettuce, tomato, cooked potatoes, pickled beets, olives, cottage cheese, and I can have tuna, if the whim so takes me. Breakfast was ham and Swiss on whole wheat with mustard. Third mug of tea is brewing.

The cats have relocated themselves to the front of the house, which is where my office is located. No one is actually in my office with me at the moment, but all are within the sound of my keyboard.

I started reading Longeye last night, and have yet to encounter porn. I will backtrack to Duainfey briefly, reminded as I was by the audiobook company that sought out the Fey Books, signed a contract, and then pulled out, giving as their reason, and I quote: “Chapter Thirty-Seven!”

Now, Chapter Thirty-Seven is … hard. Even very hard. Or, one might say, effective. Not porn, and I contend that no one would have paled, had Our Heroine instead been multiply and terribly wounded in a gun fight, or tied to a post and whipped.

I further note that we apparently have always wanted to talk about Power’s drive to subsume and control Art/Soul/Love/Innocence.

What else?

Ah! A book came across my newsfeed — Falling Forward, which apparently discusses the Myth of Resilience. As someone who still finds herself saying at least once a day, “I can’t do this,” I’m interested in what this book has to say, and I wonder if anyone here has read it, and what you thought.

I think that’s it for the Morning Edition.

Today’s blog post title brought to you by Sail North, “Compass.”

Here, have a picture of Rookie before he jumped up into my chair in the dining room and went to sleep:

Vampyres and Technology

Tuesday. Suddenly, it’s Spring. Trash and recycling patiently awaiting pickup at the curb.

I have been to tithe the Vampyres, who have got New Technology. It had used to be that you entered the lab area, took a number and were, in the fullness of time, Called. Now! You enter your name into a tablet, and it appears on the Big Screen in the waiting area. Occasionally, the Big Screen pings brightly, and a name is shown, with directions underneath. I input my name and sat reading for some time before my name went up in lights and I was directed to Station Number Two for logging in, after which I was returned to the waiting area, this time to wait for a call-code to appear under my name on the screen. I sat down, verified that I had finish reading my book, of which more anon — and the screen went down.

I swear I had nothing to do with this. All I did was say, so that the receptionist on duty could hear, “Technology! Screen’s down.” Then, as I had finished my book, I pulled out my phone to check my mail (and the guy next to me, on the assumption that he knew all about my intentions, said, “That won’t do you any good.” Really?), the receptionist called for Olivia, who appeared to reset the screen, and my name was called to enter the lab.

Blood was drawn, the tech was interested in the symbol on my shirt (Tree-and-Dragon), I made answer, was favored with the information that the tech’s granddaughter loves science fiction and went to bookstores and belonged to a book club, and all. I offered a card so her granddaughter could look for our stuff; the asked for several to share with other book loving friends, and we parted on good terms.

I stopped at Washville on my way home and came home richer by a clean car and a subscription, so now I won’t have to hassle the card reader at the gate, which I use for an excuse to not wash the car when it’s needed. Hopefully, this circumstance, and the fact that Washville is slightly less horrifying in its methods than Golden Nozzle, may help me keep the car better.

So, Duainfey. Yep, there are a couple of tough scenes, but no porn, and the reflective arcs of story are perfectly fine. It is Dark, but, being as that’s As Advertised, this is a Feature not a Bug.

I have just finished eating a cookie with a mug of tea, and as soon as I post this missive to the internets, I’ll be making rice, which I neglected to do yesterday, and also washing the bedclothes, which likewise didn’t happen yesterday. On the bed itself, I think I need to change out the Deep Winter blanket for the waffle-weave, and! I need to write an email, do my duty the cats, find lunch, and eventually wander out to the library to get crafty.

What’ve you got going today?

Philosophizing with Firefly

Sunday. Sunny and going to be warmer than yesterday, say the ‘beans, but it ain’t there yet.

Firefly and I had a very serious conversation about reset keys and how, no, no one has found a reset key, though not, I imagine, for lack of trying. That means that, no, we can’t get Trooper, or Sprite, or Steve, or Belle back, but that we have Rook and Tali, and while that’s not the same, it’s not necessarily bad.

She’s thinking about it.

Breakfast was flat egg on toast with cheddar cheese slices, followed by a dried pineapple ring, because I was Weak when I was at the co-op the other day, and bought a bag of dried pineapple rings.

Lunch . . . I’m thinking fish — haven’t had fish in a while again — and whatever I’ve got in the freezer for veggies. Peas, maybe.

Today is mostly going to be chores. I’ve done the dishes, and now I need to go sort the laundry and get that started. Also, while I was cleaning off my desk, I found orders to visit the Vampyres, um, a couple weeks ago. So! Vamps tomorrow afternoon, or, yanno, Tuesday morning. They’ve waited this long, they can wait a day longer.

And that’s what I’ve got this early in the day.

How’re you doing?

Tali helped me write this blog post:

. . .that followed, followed after

What went before: Well. I finished Crystal Dragon last night. When it comes time, I’ll be talking about Soldier and Dragon as one work, which they are (much as The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia are one book, IMHO). I do remember thinking that we ought to have included “The Hound of Heaven” (Francis Thompson) previous to the text. Steve argued that it would confuse more than illuminate, though, in my head at least, Dragon has its (very deep and complex) root system there. He was probably right, though. Nobody reads the classics anymore.

In any case.

Saturday! Sunny; rained overnight, looks like. Not going to be nearly so warm as yesterday. I’ve got The! Studio! warming up, and will today remember to turn OFF the heaters before I turn ON the grinder.

My first cup of tea has just finished brewing and Firefly is stamping her tiny slippered foot — ahem. Her large, furry foot, wanting me to get into the chair so we can have our morning chat.

Later.
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End of Saturday report.

The day was partially taken up with This Old House stuff — circuit breakers that wouldn’t unbreak, toilet that wouldn’t behave. I fixed all of it, eventually, and spent a little time with my glass project, cut out pattern stars for another project, and shared some lying-on-the-bed time with Rook (who took over my stomach) and Tali (who found a corner of folded-over blanket (Tali prefers blanket, God She knows what we’ll do when summer finally arrives). Since the reason I was lying down in the bed was to do my PT exercises, this was, as you might imagine, Vastly Convenient. But very comforting. Apparently, I’m on the lists as needing comfort.

I’m having some doubts about stained glass as an art that I’ll want to be pursuing, it taking more dedication than I’m free to give it, given the press of my primary art. Also, I’m having some serious trouble (1) scoring a line and (2) making it straight. I’ll visit The! Studio! again tomorrow and do some more grinding; there’s no rush, after all.

I started reading Duainfey at lunch (taking a break from the Liaden re-read; it strikes me that Crystal Dragon is a good place to pause), since I’m looking to republish it and Longeye.

Is there any interest in me discussing those books after I read them?

Other than that, I am not bouncing back as quickly as I feel that I should from having finished the book. OTOH, the absence of Steve was acute after I turned in the manuscript, and then the news of eluki’s passing.

Oh, and genocidal maniacs who have access to the means to make their threats good. That, too.

Rough month, all of a sudden, and it’s only the 11th.

Well.

I hope everyone’s doing as well as possible. Stiff upper lip, and a stiff drink, too, if it will help.

Stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Today’s blog post title taken, in fact, from “The Hound of Heaven,” by Francis Thompson, which includes a very specific flight along shifting ley lines.

Friday and the adventures thereof

Friday. Sunny and warm. All of the windows and the new sliders in Steve’s office are open.

I was very sluggard rising from my nest this morning, ate a lettuce, cheese, and tomato sandwich on whole wheat bread for breakfast. Went down to The! Studio! set up my grinder and ground me some glass, though not, I note, ALL the glass. I was a grownup about this, and set a timer for an hour. Sadly, some of my time was used up by having to reset the fuse I blew when I turned the grinder on. Apparently the former workshop, where there was Honest to Ghu equipment still on the benches when we toured, pre-purchase, can’t handle two electric radiators, two lights and a grinder. This may be a problem if I need to grind in the winter. We shall see.

After glass, I changed out the cat boxes, vacuumed the basement, took a nice, relaxing shower, and came out to find that FedEx has delivered my tea — someplace else. The amusing thing about this is that when you got to FedEx and tell them that they misdelivered the package? The advice is to tell the seller. Because the seller had Nothing to do with putting the package on what looks to be a pallet on roller skates someplace that isn’t here.

I did write to Upton, in hopes of either my money back, which would be said, as I really actually wanted the tea, or if they can unbend enough to send by an alternate carrier — UPS and the post office can find this house just fine — another shipment. We shall see.

Lunch, which I will begin to reheat as soon as I finish this letter to the Internets, will be leftover stir-fry. After, I fully intend to find a chair in a window and finish reading Crystal Dragon. My goodness, does Rool Tiazan have a way with a ley line.

How’s everybody doing today?