Tag: chop wood carry water

Last night and this morning

Once More Into The Breach

Friday evening.

I had One. Last. Go. at the whole Patreon thing, and guess what?

I found it! And I also found that I’m already on “subscription billing,” so I can forget about this all over again.

For those who are as confused as I was, you need to go down the side of your home page — down, down down, no, even further down, below your subscriptions to other creators, to those stupid three dots. See them?

Good. Click on them. You’ll get an unpromising looking little box:
Appearance
Settings
Support
Log Out

Click Settings, which will open up a much more promising and larger box. Under Creator Settings, right above Account Settings, there you will find Billing and Payouts. Click. And right at the top of the new page will be Billing Schedule.

Sheeeeeesh

For my next trick, I have another damned email from the Anthropic legal team, allowing me to know that yet another of my titles is “disputed.” Man, I’m tired of this game. Can we play Boggle now?

Oh. Wait.

PSA:  This whole kerfuffle has nothing to do with Patreon subscribers aka Patrons.  Purely an administrative funtime for creators.

Errands Being the Order of the Day

Saturday. Sunny, cool; last night’s rain still lingering in the grass. Leftover (and rewarmed) macaroni and cheese custard for breakfast with a little hoarded can of pineapple juice on the side.

I slept a long, long time, and here you will see that I am Inconsistent. I worry when I sleep four hours, and I worry when I sleep nine. Especially I worry when I sleep nine and the toy on my wrist tells me that stress while I slept kept me from recharging sufficiently unto the day.

Today’s theory is that I’m Just Exhausted. Everything, it is finally Too Much.

Moving on.

Today, Errands Come First. I have already informed the cats, who have gone to their posts in Steve’s office. No one has ever said that coon cats are slackers.

It is, I’ll note, very quiet in the house. Apparently Tali took up a lot of room, and RookandTali was a whole ‘nother cat.

Finished listening to Chanur’s Homecoming last night. “I’m real fond of you, too, Skkukuk.” That being so, I really need to bear down on the book club book (The Burgess Boys), which I’m finding to be hard going. I did figure out that “Shirley Falls” is meant to be Lewiston — I was thrown off by the description of it being a “small town” — but I’ve yet to find a character I can connect with, even a little bit. Given that I identified with the Hani the first time I read them, and greeted them on this reread with the joy of reconnecting with old friends, this probably says terrible things about me as a human being.

What else? Oh. I need to make a video. Probably that’s for tomorrow. Also, I need to make an order with Upton Tea — I’m almost out of Russian Caravan.

All that being said, and my tea mug empty, I’d better get on the road. Errands ain’t gonna run themselves.

Whatcha got on for the weekend?

Trust in me, I’m with the High Command

Oh, Patreon.

So, Apple is bullying Patreon into changing how it does things again, this time insisting that everyone, everywhere, and solely for its own convenience adopt what Patreon is calling “subscription billing.” Creators must insure that they are on “subscription billing” by November 1 or Patreon will do it for them, and nobody wants that.

I am somewhat at fault, because I usually ignore Helpful Advice from Patreon, because I don’t partake of any of the fancy things that others of my colleagues delight in using.

However, I figured I could at least check what sort of billing I favor by following the directions given, to wit: “You can confirm your billing model at the top of your BILLING AND PAYOUT SETTINGS” under the heading ‘Billing Schedule.'”

You’re ahead of me, I know. Yep. No Billing Schedule. No Billing and Payout Settings. I have Payouts, certainly, which tells me how much money has been collected, deducted, and forwarded.

I further read that all creator pages launched on, or after September 27, 2022, are automatically on “subscription billing,” which is, yanno, good to know. However, our page went live sometime in 2015, so I guess I’m really going to have to talk to Patreon Support.

Argh.

* * *
In other news, it’s Friday, and going to be warmer rather than cooler. I’ve picked up the house so Sarah has a clear field in which to perform her miracles. I’ve shared a cup of tea and sunlight with Firefly, gotten Perry Wink on the road, looked at my mail queue, and at Patreon, and I’m thinking I’ll be having a scone for breakfast and another cup of tea before I write to Support.

There were deer in the Long Back Yard again this morning. They’re getting quite bold. Right up to the deck they were. I went out to introduce myself, and they ran off. Honestly.

So! How’s Friday looking from your window?

Thursday at the word farm

Thursday. Kinda glary and warmish, with an intermittent breeze.

No word from the lab, which I didn’t really expect, so I wasn’t disappointed.

Spent most of the day reading/editing the WIP. Still have about 60 pages to go, which I’ll likely finish up tomorrow.

Did some laundry, performed my duty the cats. For lunch I made macaroni and cheese custard from an old, old recipe — we used to eat this at least once a week. Still tastes good, and? I have leftovers. Breakfast was scones and the last orange. The scones still taste good — and the orange, too.

Sarah comes by tomorrow morning to make everything clean again. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m expecting to be called to pick up Tali’s ashes. I should also go to the grocery store. I had, until two minutes ago, thought I’d also stop by city hall to pay the excise tax on the car, which, actually, I can’t do, because city hall is closed on Fridays. So! Next week — possibly Monday, on my way home from the car’s annual inspection, and everything will be tidied away for another year.

Rookie wishes me to know that it’s time for Happy Hour. Rookie is regrettably in error.

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

#

I knew there was something else.

I will not (that’s NOT) be taking part in The Game this year.

Catching up Thursday with a dash of Friday, too

So, yesterday went a little pear-shaped. I had planned on an all-writing day, but Real Life intervened, which meant I got a couple hours of writing done, plus my duty to the cats, plus some little bit of embroidery while listening to Chanur’s Venture. I did chat a bit on Facebook, mostly about cats. To wit:

Answering the question that went past and now I can’t find it again: Is Tali the biggest Maine coon currently in house?

The contestants are:
Firefly, calico — 6 years, 11 lbs
Tali, orange tabby — 4 years, 13 lbs
Rook, black– 2 years, 13 lbs

Ladies and gentlebeings, we have a tie!

Biographical notations:
Firefly is petite, for a Maine Coon. She’s also an adult, by Maine Coon reckoning, and the most retiring of the present lot of supervisors. She’s affectionate, but easily overwhelmed, and can frequently be seen thinking. It is well to recall that Firefly has taken . . . many losses: Belle, Steve, Sprite, and Trooper.

Tali is the most compact of the three; when she lands on your lap, you know you’ve been landed on. She is the supervisor who demands the most lap-time. Very bossy, our Tali.

Rook is a growing boy; easily distracted, very affectionate, and scary smart. He and Tali have formed a partnership — he keeps time and she registers the complaint.

More about Maine Coon growth stages here.

The above led to the question of which was the largest Maine coon we had owned, to which I answered: You know? I’m not sure. Hex(apuma) was pretty big, but lanky. I thought Mozart–our first Maine Coon–was Ginormous when I first saw him. I think he might’ve clocked in at 14 or 15 pounds. Trooper was 17 pounds FORever, and in her heyday Belle had a pound on two on him. Sprite was right around 15 pounds. To put all of this into perspective, a Bichon Frise (aka “the little white dog everybody has”–I finally asked someone what breed her dog was) will weigh between 12 and 15 pounds.

This answer led to the evergreen But I thought Maine Coon cats were HUGE! To which I answered: Breed standard for Maine Coons is females 12-15 pounds, males 18-22. So, yeah, I guess I’ve had small Maine Coons. Given that domestic cats average from 8-12 pounds, that’s big enough.

Maine Coon breed standards here.
#
All of which leads us handily into today, which I believe to be Friday–sunny and going to be warm-but-not-hot.  Tomorrow, we’re looking for the rainy rags of the nor’easter that’s been plaguing downcoast to arrive.

I had flat egg and Swiss cheese on homemade bread for breakfast, I am updating my blogs while I drink my third cup of tea, and will shortly be moving back to Steve’s office to accomplish some work on the WIP. For lunch, I have my choice of warming up a pre-cooked pork chop with … I think there’s carrots left over, or warming up leftover chicken pot pie.

Not a particularly ambitious day, but mine own.

And hoping yours is enjoyable.

Reading the past

The coon cats were keeping a Very Close Eye this morning.  Photographic proof here

Wednesday. Sunny, clear, and cool.

The misdelivered box came home this morning. The heat pump situation has been rectified and a tutorial received. I’ve read 150 pages/24,000ish words of an incomplete Jethri novel which I think was being set up to explain why Jethri’s genes were all over Spadoni Station in “Revolutionists,” with a side of Shakespeare. Written in 2020.

The bit I remembered is part of the Spadoni Station/Shakespeare fragment (if you can call a quarter-book a “fragment”), and while it could be hammered into what I’m working on, I think it will better serve as what’s nowadays called a “short novel” (Remember when ALL novels were 50,000 words? Yeah, yeah, and cost 25 cents.). It won’t be canon, but we’ve done this before. So! This bit gets put aside for later finishing and publication through Pinbeam Books.

I still have 37,000ish words to read of yet another “failed” piece — this one recognizably coming off of Fair Trade, written in September 2022. Fair Trade was published in May 2022.

Just for fun, I also have 3700ish words of a short story, that I wrote in November 2001, passed to Steve, and it got set aside in the Press of Other Business. What in Ghu’s name were we even doing in November 2001? We were still with Meisha Merlin, and Balance of Trade wasn’t published until 2004. Why was Jethri even — oh, wait. “Balance of Trade,” the novella, would have already been published in Absolute Magnitude. That’s why Jethri was even, and makes more sense of the story, too. We were thinking ahead, as we tended to do. Anyhow, I’ve only glanced at it, not really read it. Might be able to be finished without too much trauma, if I get enough flex in the rest of life.

Pay copy comes first.

The rest of today is, alas, chores.

I finished reading The Glass-Cursed last night — it’s a cozy, I guess, because the decision was made to let the Group Handle It, rather than allow one of their number to take the whole cost of the thing onto herself, despite her part in having created the problem in the first place. “Many hands make the work light,” and also “Grace to those who fought.” I did finish it, but it was starting to wear on me after a bit, which I means that, for me, it could’ve been shorter. Also, there are serious timing problems at the end when the characters don’t seem to know if something took two days or seven months, and the Really Important Question of How a certain thing got produced, given that there’s no X, and also Y is completely ignored.

I started the book club book at lunch, The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout, partially set in Shirley Falls, Maine, which is big enough to have a hotel, so it can’t actually be set in Skowhegan, which was where my mind went.

And that? Is all my news.

What’s yours?

Collaboration

Tuesday. Sunny and cool.

Today’s writing was chasing down partials and half-remembered notes from Steve’s side of his computer. I had a couple of bad minutes when I thought I was going to have to drag out his old Windows machine and do a forced march through that hard-drive, but just when the night seemed darkest, I found the piece I was looking for.

Which, as it happens, is not, as Steve had insisted at the time, wrong; it was just in the wrong place. This happens a lot, especially in the writing of novels. Which is why you might take That Piece There out of the active file, but you never throw it away.

Having found the files, I have some reading to do, but that’s for tomorrow. For today, I’ve spent every available spoon going through Steve’s indexes, which was a reminder–yet again–that, no, we didn’t think alike–and that’s why we worked.

Ah–there will be some, I suppose, who will wonder why I’m ferreting out these bits and pieces–surely, it would be easier to “just” write on in a forwarder direction? And, yanno? Maybe it would be. But this was Steve’s book, and God She knows he broke not a few brain cells on the thing, and it’s my intention to tell the story he intended–he wanted–to tell. Insofar as I can, being as we didn’t think alike, but I’m the one left standing.

In so-called Real Life, the heat pump in my bedroom seems to be On Da Fritz, so I’ll be calling the heat pump company in a few to see what they can do for me.

This evening is needlework, which I really want to go to. I skipped last week because my back wasn’t up for the chairs.

And that would be the contents of my brain on this fine morning.

What’s filling up your brain today?

Wobbling into Monday

Monday. Cool and cloudy. Mixed night and slow morning. The cats piled in and did what they could, last night, and finally set their purrboxes on auto so at least they could get some sleep.

I perhaps forgot to mention that one of Hannah Pingree’s workers stopped by yesterday afternoon — Hannah Pingree being the Democrat running for Maine governor. Said worker asked what my outlook was, and kind of sighed and nodded when I said “pessimistic.” We talked very briefly about was I going to vote, and did I want any literature, or perhaps a lawn sign. I mentioned that my house is made of windows, and she nodded, and went on her way.

In-house news includes the fact that the light bulb went out in the refrigerator, and the one-size-fits-all-GE-fridges manual is not being very helpful. I think I’ve found the latch for the light cover, but I haven’t quite worked out how to get it off–it’s either lack of hand strength or lack of the correct latch, and it would be nice to know which. In the meantime, Steve did lay in quite a number of flashlights, so it’s not like I can’t function. On the freezer side, the light still comes on, but the ice maker has truly died the death, so I’ve been making ice by hand and using the handy bin to stockpile it. The cold-making equipment is still doing its thing, so that’s good.

Book club in a couple hours and! I need to make some phone calls, so I’d best do that.

How’s the week starting out at your place?

Sunday wrap-up

So, that was a little more harrowing than I thought it would be. I’ve deleted thousands of emails–which would feel like more of an accomplishment if there weren’t thousands more to sift through. I finally managed to stop automatic payments on the last two of Steve’s accounts that had automatic payments, and got caught up with various bits of bookkeeping that I had let slide because — I don’t know? Because everything’s pointless? Something like that. Though bookkeeping, of course, is never pointless.

I finished listening to The Paladin and have Pride of Chanur lined up in the audiobook library. Still reading The Glass Cursed, and starting to get a little grumpy with it, but the voice is still interesting enough to keep me reading.

The “spaghetti” was good for lunch. Rook is insisting that it IS TOO Coon Cat Happy Hour RIGHT NOW. Alas that Rook is incorrect.

Tomorrow is book club. I guess I should stop at the grocery while I’m out, since the milk went over today, and I seem to be out of fruit, not to mention running low on wine. Also, I need to check the state of the ice cream supply. Won’t do to run out of the essentials.

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

Sunday morning IRL

Important things first:  Proofs of life, with coon cats here

Sunday. Dim and cool enough that I switched station air to “heat.”

I also put another blanket on the bed, ably assisted by the girl cats, who are now resting atop their labors.

Breakfast was a couple slices of last night’s baking and a cup of cottage cheese. I’m thinking lunch will be left-over macaroni dressed with red sauce, served with meatballs, which I’ll be calling “spaghetti,” thank you.

Today–or at least this morning–I will be catching up with all the emails and other business I’ve been ignoring for the last two weeks, and cleaning out my inbox of Stuff, which just keeps accumulating.

I have Notions about my two problems with the current WIP, but they need some time to themselves, hence today’s curriculum of tidying up IRL.

Rook is currently on duty in my office, positioned so that the warm air from the heat pump is flowing down on him.

I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

What’s for lunch at your house today?

Anything Can Happen Day

Wednesday. Dim and coolish. I had the doors open in Steve’s office for a while, but somebody is setting off firecrackers across the river, while on this side of the river, they (THEY) are deconstructing the bridge, now that the other bridge is back in service, and between the noise of this and that, the cats asked me to close up, and I was pleased to oblige.

I slept for 10 hours and 16 minutes last night (according to the Garmin Watch), which is what happens when you take a muscle relaxant before going to bed. Sadly, the only muscle the meds seem to have relaxed has been the one that I scarcely use, in-between my ears.

When I did finally arise from my rosy bower, I made myself a sausage-and-cheese sandwich on a buttermilk biscuit. After breakfast, I hit the showers and then the keyboard, where I managed 1,275 new words, bringing the WIP to 59,580ish, in total.

The Plan, insomuch &c, is to do my duty to the cats, find something for lunch, then — maybe — take another muscle relaxant and/or, oh, I dunno, watch Murderbot, which is now available through Prime Video, by which I mean, I can pay extra for Apple TV through Prime, and so binge the first season of Murderbot, which may actually be a good idea. And, yanno, it being Anything Can Happen Day, maybe my back will cut me a break.

Tomorrow, I need to get up at OhmyGHOD in order to arrive at the hospital for the yearly mammogram at 7! A!M!. Who makes these appointments, and why haven’t they been fired?

Oh. Wait.

After said visit to the radiology department, I do believe I will eat breakfast out, for the second time in a week. Then I will either come home and go back to bed — not the way the smart money bets — or turn on the computer and get some more writing done.

And what’s happening for you on Anything Can Happen Day?