life after the apocalypse – Page 2

Back to work

Business first: BIG SALE! The audiobook edition of Ribbon Dance, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, narrated by Alex Picard, is on sale for $7.80! Yes! That’s 70% off!

Share the word! Share the link!

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So, yesterday was a total wash, though I must say that the pillow-and-blanket fort on the couch is inspired, especially since a kind friend made sure I have heated fleece throws. Basically, I snugged in, feeling like I’d been run over by a train, while Firefly tucked against me, and Rookie stretched out on my hip, and we “listened” to Mouse and Dragon all day. I did rouse myself to order in from the local deli — butternut squash and apple soup is good! Who knew? — and I may order in again today, for no reason other than sheer self-indulgence.

Once again and truly — many many thanks to the folks who have kindly sent DoorDash cards.

This morning, the train has left the station, and really the only thing that hurts is my arm, which I can totally live with.

I wrote 1,090ish new words this morning, bringing the WIP to 65,935ish, and it’s starting to convincingly be A Book.

For some reason, I have a full inbox, which I’ll have to deal with after lunch. Which, yes, I will order in for I Am Weak and Hate to Cook.

How’s life going for you today?

Calling in sick

Tuesday. Dark and cold. The trash and the recycling can stay in the garage until next week.

Woke up at 2 am with a blinding headache, shivering so hard I could barely walk (not an exaggeration), all my joints aching, and also the arm into which the happy COVID vaccine was injected. May have been in an Altered State, but fell into one of those not-asleep, not-awake states that’s so unpleasant, and apparently fell back to sleep, because I just woke up.

I do have a small fever, but the headache is less ouchy, and I’m brewing a cup of tea before I find a breakfast bar or something like, so I can take Motrin/Tylenol and either go back to bed, or make a pillow fort on the couch.

And that was, for the record, Mister Pfizer’s little effort.

So! Calling in sick today.

Everybody stay safe.

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.

Monday morning early class

This morning’s lesson was Toilet Architecture, this while still wearing one’s bathrobe. The handle of the toilet in “my” bathroom had stopped producing the correct result. Since I rejoice in two toilets, I was able to take the lid off of both and examine said architecture.

Fine, the rod connecting the handle to the lift/seal mechanism had slipped its loop. Simple fix, I thought, more fool I, my excuses being — bathrobe and under-caffeinated.

I did fix the rod back into the loop, and tested my work. The flush initiated, but the rod slid out of the loop. Insert ‘prentice-level curses. Reoriented rod and loop, flushed — rod pops out of loop. Argh.

I think I have discovered the right orientation, but that may be optimism speaking. There doesn’t seem to be a piece missing, like say, a hook or other stop at the end of the rod that would prevent it from slipping out of the loop, so the whole Goldbergian piece of nonsense must, indeed, depend on on orientation.

I suppose I’ll find out.

In other news, I ought to get dressed.

And a cup of tea would not go amiss.

What lessons have you learned thus far this morning?
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So, that’s 1,030 new words written; WIP total words, 64,840ish. This feels much better. I may need to print a poster to hang over my screen that says:

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT JETHRI

In other news, I’m scheduled to receive a COVID shot in a couple hours. Since I can no longer Simply Assume that I will feel no effects save, perhaps, a sore arm, I had best do my duty to the cats now rather than later, and remember to eat something before I get shot, in case eating is not something I will wish to pursue later.

And that? Is the Exciting Life of a Writer, Monday edition.

Do Something Completely Different Day

Business first: For those interested: the ebook edition of Kin Right is now available for preorder from all of the usual suspects.

Amazon link provided as a courtesy.

No, I do not know when — or even if — an eARC will be available. Baen appears to be shifting things around. All questions regarding Baen Systems are properly directed to Baen. Thank you for your understanding.

Amazon link to Kin Right ebook preorder page

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Saturday. Today is Do Something Completely Different Day™. I’m really on the wrong track with what I’ve written the last couple of days. This means that the boys in the basement need to get in some more beer and stop slacking off — a process that historically goes much better if I’m not standing behind their shoulders.

I will therefore be sorting photographs today and either listening to music or to Saratoga Trunk, which I downloaded in a fit of nostalgia.

It is for the record a slightly glary morning with a vigorous breeze in the trees and there is a Coon cat making biscuits on my lap.

What’s the day like at your house?
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Rook

Firefly

Bat Shirt

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”

Off-roading

So, Wednesday has already gone sideways. I woke up at 5:30, decided I didn’t want to get up, turned over and had a very vivid dream concerning receipt of the letter giving Steve the date he was to Get Done, and the two of us having to make connections with friends who had also received their notifications and making sure all the correct paperwork was completed, the notices placed, and surveying the place where we were staying to establish if it was OK for me to remain there by myself, and what things needed to be moved out — sold, is what I’m thinking — to cover expenses. Very vivid and convincing, though I expect you had to have Been There.

In any case, woke at 7:30 because Rook was chewing my hair and I was crying. I have PT at 1:00 and expect the best thing to do, now that I’ve coped with breakfast, is to finish putting away the dishes, and other such normal, calming tasks until it’s time to move out.

I may or may not be around, later. Feel free to talk among yourselves. Old-timers, please show the new friends where the snacks and the drinks are. Sit anywhere. Except on a cat.

So, I’m walking in the rain, thumbing for a ride

Tuesday. Rainy and cold and grey and cold and did I say? Rainy. And cold. I b’lieve I may be in for the day.

Wrote 1,000ish new words this morning, brining the WIP to 64,205.

This afternoon, I have — *sigh* — phone calls to make, but before that I need to make lunch. I bought a surplus on-sale rotisserie chicken at the grocery yesterday, so some of that will be going into today’s stirfry. Then, I’ll be about freezing some of it, maybe making chicken salad, and — who knows? chicken soup. I’ll need to poke around and see what I have in the way of Stuff that Makes Soup Interesting.

I finished reading Serpent’s Reach last night, which — not a book to be finishing right before bed. Next up is a CS Harris Civil War novel — Good Time Coming.

The cats . . . the cats are sleeping a lot, though they are, after all, cats. They’re both pretty much sticking with me. Firefly’s trying to pick up Tali’s lap shifts, which, for anyone but a Truly Dedicated lapcat, is ambitious, and for somebody who was a sitter-with — it’s got to be a challenge. I appreciate the effort she’s making.

Firefly also is seeming to think that she “hears Tali” — I’m saying this because, when Tali was still with us, Firefly would come to sit with me in the evening while I was reading. Tali would be getting her last wee dram of cat food before coming into my lap. During that time, Firefly would wake up from a sound sleep, disturbed by the crunching, so one assumes, and do a series of Discover Moves, including ears pricked forward and the slow-get-up, and the deep concentration before she’d realize that, yeah, a tiny mouthful was probably a good idea, and go join Tali at the food bowls. It’s a distinctive bit of body language, and she’s still doing that — waking like she hears Tali eating.

Rook. . .I can’t tell if Rook is more pragmatic, or if his grief is subsumed in all those naps during the times that he and Tali would be playing.

And me — I have many beloved feline ghosts. I still occasionally think I see Archie out of the corner of my eye, thirty years gone that he is.

Well.

What’s doing at your house today?

Today’s blog post title brought to you by Mr. Elvis Presley, “Kentucky Rain.” Yes, my mind is a scary, scary place.

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.