Rita Arens's Blog, page 16

How, Cat?

Kizzy's been begging to be taken outside on his harness every day. He doesn't care that it's cold. He doesn't care that people keep asking if we got a dog when they see us from across the street. He doesn't care that he's a pussy (SEE WHAT I DID THERE) when it comes to loud noises.

Or maybe he does now.

Usually it's me that takes him outside, but the other day I went to pick up a prescription and some stuff for spaghetti and came home to this.

I stared at Beloved. "How?"

Him: "There was a lo...

Like Dragonflies Crossing the Ocean

Maldives dragonflies cross the Indian Ocean every year. They fly at 3,000-foot altitudes. They spend 3,500 km of that over the open ocean.

Dragonflies are less than four inches long.

The dragonflies can take four generations to make their migration, breeding in temporary pools of rain. Those pools might be there and might not when the dragonflies arrive.

I suppose they don't really know before they start, whether their children will make the crossing. Whether the rain will fall in time.

Eve...

Television Crisis

Ever since we cut the cord a few years ago, I've changed the way I do television. I can't just flip it on and watch. It has to be purposeful. We got Xfinity for the high-speed Internet, but I'm still struggling with TV.

I read a book a week, but sometimes, I just want to watch.

This said, I'm caught up.

I searched for best series of 2014 and started watching How to Get Away With Murder. I just binged The Newsroom and am caught up on Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Parenthood, Modern Family, Breaki...

Black Kittens

I am working, at the moment, with a big black cat who used to be an overly-long-yet-still-skinny black kitten asleep in my lap. He has utterly ruined me for the rest of the cat world.

I'm in love with black cats.

His fur is silky beyond compare and shines in lamplight. He has tiny tufts of white fur at the epicenter of his little ears. Even his nose is black, so when he closes his eyes and curls up on a black blanket, he disappears.

He has the power of invisibility.

We were at PetSmart buying...

Rebuilding the Idea

Well, Southwest Airlines has sent me three very nice emails telling me they are thurching and thurching for my writing notebook, but alas, I fear it's gone. Gone, gone, gone, along with all those lovely ideas for chapter beginnings for my new novel. I remember what the device was, just not the embodiments of the device. Going to have to go eavesdrop again.

Twenty years ago, this would've been my worst nightmare.

Twenty years ago. Before I'd lost entire computers and phones full of information...

On Robert Plant and Art

I was driving to meet a friend for dinner when I heard a Robert Plant interview on the radio. I've searched in vain to find a transcript; I think it's lost to the winds of change.

I grew up on Led Zeppelin, as classic rock lives on in southwest Iowa today as it did in its heydey. Middle America is where time stands still for old-school rock and roll, as it does for mall hair and some forms of acid-wash jeans. There are places deep in the heart of Nebraska where I assume people are still pegg...

The Unintentional Anti-NaBloPoMo

While a lot of my friends were killing it posting every day in November for NaBloPoMo (that's National Blog Posting Month for the uninitiated), I think I set a Surrender, Dorothy record for least amount of posts in a month, ever.

A series of events overlapped like a time-sucking eclipse of crazy this month. It won't get much better next week, as I'm leaving tomorrow on a jet plane to go to BlogHer PRO '14 in the Bay area to speak on a panel about book publishing with the awesome Laura Frasero...

And Again

Never give up.

That is my philophy. In writing and, it seems, in running.

I'm querying THE BIRTHRIGHT OF PARKER CLEAVES and BELLA EATS THE MONSTERS.

I just signed up for the Kansas City Marathon's Half-Marathon. It is in OCTOBER.

That should be warmer, right?

If I just keep trying, I will eventually succeed. Because that is how it works.

I'm Scared

The week after I got back from BlogHer '14, I started training for the Longview Half-Marathon. Which is tomorrow.

And tomorrow there is this:

JACKSON:

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM SATURDAY TO
MIDNIGHT CST SATURDAY NIGHT...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN KANSAS CITY/PLEASANT HILL HAS
ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR ACCUMULATING SNOW... WHICH IS
IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM SATURDAY TO MIDNIGHT CST SATURDAY NIGHT.

* LOCATION...ALL OF NORTH-CENTRAL MISSOURI AND NORTHEASTERN KANSAS.

* TIM...

Flayed

I've been reading. I just finished WE WERE LIARS. It caught me in between the belly scales.

I'm upset. I'm fascinated.

I wish I could write a book like that.

Hat off, E. Lockhart, my brim brushes the dust.