Tag: coon cat logic

Thursday and the errands thereto

Thursday. Sunny and cool so far.

Sigh. Have I said recently how very very tiresome it is to have worked for one’s whole life at something one loved, only to have it stolen, and simultaneously declared worthless?

I need to go out in a little while to take my CPAP machine to the sleep clinic for a Talking To. It’s decided all on its own to start blowing a gale, and I seem to no longer be allowed to set my preferred flow rate. What fun.

I’m a little … startled to see that our clocks Fall Back this weekend. Well. Another hour of Halloween. Why not?

The cats are asleep in Steve’s office. I fear that I may be a trifle boring. Or perhaps I’m just not taking the hint to Sleep Through It.

I have here a worrisome document from the US Department of Commerce/US Census Bureau, alerting Current Resident to the honor about to be done them in a visit from a Census Worker, who will need to speak with me for 45 minutes. It’s probably just me, but I would really not be forced to entertain anyone attached to the gummint in my home, whether or not they show me their badge. I’m not told when this happy event will occur, so maybe I’ll luck out and not be home when they call. Or, yanno, we can stand outside. Maybe it’ll be raining.

. . . I do believe that that? Is the morning news.

What’s happening at your place?

Oh.  I did undergo defluffling yesterday.  Below, the result, with bonus braids.

Monday catch up, with cat toll

Did some excavating of words in the WIP today, and did some … let’s call it “plotting.” I was up early and was early at the desk, so I need to grab a short lunch before I head out for book club. And, I do believe that I will drive down to Augusta to see “Wicker,” after.

I also need to call for an appointment to get my hair cut. I look like a dandelion fluff.

And that would be today’s installment in the Exciting Life of a Writer.

What’s happening that exciting in your life?

Cat toll:

Firefly: You awake yet?

Rookie:  I’ve been up for hours 

Errands to run and new shoes, too

Um. Thursday. Yes. Kind of a surly autumnal morning going on outside. Chilly, and the day’s projected high has been downgraded from the mid-60sF to the high-ish 50sF.

It turns out that I? Need to run some errands, and, that I have PT at 1:00. So, I’ll be going out after I finish this note to accomplish errands, swing back to the house to put the groceries away, and then go out again to PT.

I don’t think anything amazing, or even noteworthy, is going on here at the Confusion Factory. Well, Rookie wants me to throw his ball, but he won’t let it — well, there. He has let it go and knocked it under a bookshelf. How … catlike.

Oh. I should also see if Wicker will be playing anywhere … hang on. Pfui. Apparently we here in Central Maine will not be joining in the Limited Release and will need to wait until … November? Really. Ah, well. Something to look forward to.

Oh, and I have a new pair of shoes, or, actually, ankle boots. I decided that the nice, gooshy tenners the podiatrist thinks are the bee’s knees are an active danger to my balance, feeling, as they do, as if I have pillows strapped to my feet, and, yanno? Screw that. I have purchased a nice pair of flat-soled leather ankle boots, and already I feel more stable. Non-compliance are us. (Link to shoes, for those interested.)

And I really do think that’s all the news.

Who’s having an Exciting Thursday?

Monday evening

I am back from getting the COVID shot, and checking the post office box.

Came home and Cruelly Deprived™ Rookie of chocolate pudding, moved the windchimes into the garage, closed the Flying Fish Saloons, since I haven’t seen a hummingbird in weeks, and the liquor level has not fallen, and am letting the furnishings of said saloons soak before giving them a scrub and putting them away for the winter.

Took care of some correspondence, and should probably figure out this questionnaire I received from the Survivalist’s Office.

No ill effects from the shot yet, so — fingers crossed on that front.

Various delivery services give me to understand that I will be receiving packages tomorrow, including my DVD of “Hadestown,” which I didn’t expect until November.

Oh!  And — so far at least — my fix to the toilet architecture is holding.  Orientation is Key.

I’ll probably be shutting down early this evening, just by reason of the normal stresses of the day.

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

Damp Friday Thoughts

Friday. Rainy and chill. Sarah will be here in a few minutes to do her magic.

Rook wandered around this morning, calling for Tali to come chase springs with him. The Tali-come-play call is pretty distinctive, which is how I’m able to discern his intention. He was willing to chase springs without backup, so there is that.

I’m lately reading all kinds of things about how the information about Who We Are that’s given us by our parents/caregivers/peers as children stay with us all our lives. There are so many agreements to these posts and articles that I’m starting to wonder where are the popular children who excluded and taunted us now?

That aside. . . it comes to me that one can accept other roles, once one is free from the father who explained very patiently how very lazy you are, or the mother who tried to “beat sense” into you, and, yes, the other children who thought you were weird — and they probably weren’t wrong, given the rest of it.

I, for instance, lucked into friends who valued “weird thinking” as “creative.” Since several were themselves highly creative individuals, I had to believe that they knew what they were looking at. So, I began to take my own stories, and my attempts at writing them down, not as a waste of time, but something that had some value. Since being “weird” seemed to be attached to my art, I slowly began to try to work with my brain — an exercise that continues to this day. While we still do distrust each other, we’re no longer constantly at odds, though I’m aware that being weird when you’re old is a risky business all its own.

Back to the supposition that the lessons of childhood never leave us — even though I was learning to embrace my art, and had produced a professional persona that got me through the day job, I was staggering under the weight of the old lessons when I met Steve Miller.

I’d never met anybody like Steve Miller before. I may have said this a time or two. Steve had . . . let us say that Steve had a Powerful Vision of himself. He paid for this in other ways, but his Best Self was strong, resilient, affectionate, protective, intelligent, and creative. He projected that image — believed in that self — so strongly, other people were swept up into it, believing and supporting it.

Certainly, I was.

Steve treated me as if I were brilliant, creative, beautiful, and strong. And I believed him. It wasn’t just paint and wallpaper; I did believe him, and I began to behave as if I truly was brilliant, creative, beautiful, and strong. I was Steve Miller’s partner; I could conquer worlds.

. . . which we did, together.

This is not to say that I don’t occasionally yell at myself for being lazy, nor that I don’t occasionally feel, truly, worthless. But neither did I boomerang back to the All the Old Lessons when Steve left.

So.

My wandering thoughts for a rainy Friday morning.

What thoughts occupy you this morning?

It went Zip when it moved, and Bop when it stopped

Some of us are Livin’ the Life.

Rookie taking the sun:

Firefly almost awake

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Thursday, sunny, breezy, and cool. Breakfast was a cinnamon roll, which was probably a poor life choice, but I regret nothing.

One thousand sixty-five new words written this morning. I’m not sure that they’re particularly needed words, but that can be determined later. The WIP currently weighs in at 65,270ish words. I am currently at the part where I want to just Hurry Up And Get It Done, while simultaneously only vaguely understanding the fullness of Where It’s Going.

Last night — well. Early this morning, actually, was enlivened by the Dreaded BEEP of a smoke detector about to go over to the Dark Side. I mention here that I should no longer be harboring the susceptible, as all the new smoke detectors I installed a year or so ago have 10-year lifetimes. Including the one in the basement I just replaced this year.

Nonetheless, we had a BEEP, and nobody can sleep with that, especially not coon cats. So, I got up and went in search of the BEEP.

. . . Which happened to be coming from The Goblin Room, downstairs, where, as above, I only recently replaced the old smoke detector with a new 10-year smoke detector. The new smoke detector was not beeping. The old one, which I thought I had deactivated, was beeping.

One beep every lllllllllloooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg
interval, but still enough to make you crazy. I took it down, trying to find the switch, but — 2:30am is not my best time of day — and, long story short, I finally wound up wrapping the damned thing in a towel and putting it in My Studio, where for all I know it BEEPED for the rest of the night, but disturbed no one.

At some point today, I’ll need to figure out what to do with it.

I went back to bed, and eventually back to sleep, but the rest of the day is somewhat Put Back.

When I did manage to get out of bed and moving around, I realized that I needed to refill the Working Cat Food Canister, which led to the discovery that I’m going to have to take on some more dry food, since I’ve been working from stores. Another trip to the pantry, for tea, brought the discovery that I’m also going to have to order in that precious commodity, since I’ve apparently drunk a year’s worth of tea in, oh, about a year.

Well.

Everybody likes shopping, amirite?

Before I do any shopping or lobbing off of the heads of electronics, however, I need to each something for lunch that is not a cinnamon roll. I’m thinking hot chicken sandwich here, with, oh, asparagus? Yeah.

So! What’s for lunch at your house?

Today’s blog post title from Peter, Paul, and Mary, “The Marvelous Toy”

 

Second Sunday of the week

Second Sunday of the week. No mail, but FedEx delivered two packages correctly, in the garage. 

I may faint.

Wrote new words today — only 500ish; I had to go back to a previous scene and square it up with what’s going forward, now that I — cough — actually know what’s going forward.

Firefly and Rookie were both in the office with me, working hard from their separate sun puddles. Which is where they still are.

I? need to rustle up lunch, get my packages in, remake the bed now that the sheets have been washed and do a bunch of other chores that I’m not sure how they’re even here, given that I did chores two days ago.

Well.

How’s the beginning of the week beginning for you?
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So, I came into the bedroom to put the bed back together, only to find that Rookie was already on it: ‘#
For those who indulge, the hardcover edition of Liaden Universe® novel Kin Right, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, sequel to Salvage Right, may now be preordered at Amazon.  Here’s the link

. . . this may be the first time in my life I can say this without irony: Preorders count, as they form the basis for determining whether Book X is deemed, say, a NYTimes Bestseller.

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So, plans changed somewhat, since it looks like tomorrow, when I had planned to run errands, we will be having heavy rains, and I don’t like grocery shopping in the rain. Call me an effete dilettante at the game of life all you will.

So! Groceries have been taken on. I forgot to bring along the cat food I’m going to donate to the shelter, so that was a great deal of lecturing myself not to visit the cat room gone to naught. Well. I’ll be out and about again on Wednesday.

I fear I have been Careless. Yes. Careless. In the evening, as I’m setting up the bar for coon cat happy hour, I will take down a wine glass for mine own happy hour, and?

You’re ahead of me.

Rookie has learned the sound of that cabinet opening, which I discovered when I opened it earlier this afternoon to put a wine glass away.

And on that note, I do believe I’ll close down for the day.

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

In which the calendar is unruly

I have committed to a mini-vacation in November — an overnight in Salem, so I can tour  the Peabody-Essex Museum (which in fact is not the Emerson Museum, and nor is the hotel the Emerson, but is, instead, the Hawthorne Hotel — pay no attention to me) and take in a little of the town.

I’m looking forward to this and am glad that there was a less-epic solution available.
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For those who missed the Quip. Liaden Universe® novel Kin Right, sequel to Salvage Right, is now listed in Amazon’s catalog. It, I note, listed as “Currently Unavailable,” so it cannot be preordered, but for those who were looking for Proof of Life, here it is

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So, that’s enough Braining for one day. Sadly, I do not know All, but!

I know Some, and that’s enough to proceed in a forwarder direction with, so — yay.

Now, I do believe I have chores to finish and Next Week’s Activities to Scrutinize. Also? I need to find out when Wicker’s coming to local theaters. It was supposed to be right around Halloween, wasn’t it?

Fans of Rookie will wish to know that he was an Immense Help to the Plotting. First, he sprawled across my lap, meticulously avoiding the paper I was writing on, and went to sleep with his chin on my writing wrist. After about an hour of that, he relocated to the cat pillow below the table next to the comfy chair, and continued with the napping until Just Now, when I got to stirring about.
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Boy, October is being hard to pin down. COVID shot is not tomorrow, but next Monday, the 19th. Which is fine, and I’m glad I checked. So! Tomorrow is a writing day and need not be interrupted by RL. If only all days could be that way.

Otherwise, all chores done, all clean cloths put away with the exception of those Rookie is napping on, which gives rise to the question of if, indeed, they qualify as clean.

Everybody stay safe; I’ll check in tomorrow.

Long shift

This morning’s mood is flower drake. This morning’s taste test tea is Chocolate Orange Spice, which smells… unexuberant. Which could go either way.

Went to bed late so I could finish my book, got up same, but I fear — I very much fear that my other book will not have likewise been finished overnight.

Onward.
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And! The chocolate orange spice tea is!

A disappointment.

I even knuckled under and put milk in it. Ick.

I have one more sample tin — chocolate mint.

I’m just beginning to think that maybe chocolate tea is not for me.
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Today’s tshirt, the flower drake, came from Skylar and Belle on Etsy. They were having a sale, and I bought a sweatshirt. Then, they sent me a coupon, so I bought a long-sleeved tshirt. Now, ghod help me, I have another coupon, but the tshirt I want doesn’t come in long sleeves, leaving me wondering if the better part of valor is to write to the shop owner and ask if it can be made in long sleeves, or just shrug and say, Well, really. How many tshirts does one old writer need?
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So, I’ve written 900ish words, gave the cats a snack (Rook is so smug that he gets his snacks right from my fingers; he isn’t an Old Stoopy like Firefly, who wants her snacks set down by her nose), and did PT homework.

I should probably eat something, but I’m not hungry, particularly. Well. Maybe I’ll go back and set a time, get a few more words, and then eat something.

. . . it at least has the shape of a plan . . .
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Oh, hey, no wonder I’m tired.

That’ll be 2,300ish new words and the damned scene I’ve been avoiding is now written. Is it good? I doubt it. But it’s in the right direction and! Is it not written that “You can’t fix it if it ain’t written down.”

In other news, the (last, I swear it) tshirt I’m ordering for A. Long. Time. Now. (Bats. I really need a bat tshirt) is coming to me in the long-sleeved option, and all is at least OK in my world.

The cats have had Happy Hour and I need to finish filing today’s work, and go find a glass of wine and my new book, Serpent’s Reach, which I somehow missed reading.

Everybody stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.