Robin McKinley's Blog, page 174

Author bashing

 

Okay, I've been on antibiotics for over twenty-four hours.  Where's my miraculous recovery? 

            Fortunately Maren sent me these lovely links to 'The 50 best author to author put downs of all time':  http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2010m4d16-The-50-best-author-vs-author-putdowns-of-all-time Part One

http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2010m4d16-The-50-best-author-vs-author-putdowns-of-all-time-Part-2

            It's nice to know that Evil Cowishness has a long...

It's spring*

 . . . And I have this toothache.  The gods wept.  Well, I wept.  Free range moaning.  Peter got back from hospital on Friday, and my tooth blew up on Saturday.  Saturday was bad, Saturday night was worse, Sunday was unspeakable.  Sunday night . . . well.  I just about dragged Nightingale Wood out of my rapidly deteriorating intellect last night but I ain't got nothing left.**  I am, however, now full of antibiotics—and ibuprofen and paracetamol—and things should improve.  Please.  For...

Nightingale Wood

 

I loved this book.  It is so much sheer, mischievous, witty, whimsical, retro—copyright 1938—fun.  

            Most of you have read Cold Comfort Farm, yes?  Classic.  If you haven't read it, I recommend you do so immediately—or at least read the first chapter standing up in the library/bookshop to find out that it is utterly not your sort of thing.  It's a free country* and 1930s English social comedy, however scintillating, is not everyone's cup of first flush flowery orange pekoe.**  ...

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MaD Owners (Many Dog Owners), part one

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Zombie Files, 4

 

He's hoooooome. 

            I rang up at about 11:15 and was told that he was speaking to the consultant, no he wasn't speaking to the consultant, he had spoken to the consultant, no he hadn't spoken to the consultant, he was going to speak to the consultant, no, maybe he was going to speak to the consultant, the consultant does not exist, and the Vogons are about to destroy us to make a galactic bypass anyway.

            Also there were eighty-six tests they still needed to take on his way ...

The Zombie Files, 3

 

I took my husband for a hurtle today.  A very small, careful hurtle.  Got a phone call from the ward shortly after noon saying brightly, bring Peter some day clothes and take him for a walk.  So I did.  Mind you, we had to walk around the auxiliary car park because there wasn't anywhere else.  Part of the Gormenghastiness of Gormenghast Hospital is the way there is no clear space, but the building has not been done in any sane, justified manner—more like they've tried to stuff all the donut ...

The Zombie Files, 2

 

I got to bed late last night even for me.  I went to bed the first time at an (almost) respectable hour and as soon as I turned the light off . . . a million tiny gibbering flame-tongued imps began dancing on my synapses and pouring nitroglycerine in my neurotransmitter tank.  So I got up again.  I went through this three times, I think, before some crucial wiring finally shorted out under this handling and I fell into a coma for a few hours.

            I didn't talk to Dr Tussock after...

The Zombie Files

 

Unh, what day is it?  I went back to the cottage last night, had a nice warm relaxing bath surrounded by candles which there always seem to be a lot of burning lately,* read a few pages of a very silly novel** and got to bed at what counts in my case as early.   Began blissfully drifting off . . . and jerked awake again to make mostly grim and absolutely totally useless plans about possible futures.  At the moment we have no idea how it's going to go with Peter.  He may recover completely.  ...

Hospital

 

Peter took a sudden dramatic turn for the worse at 1 a.m. this morning.*  It was on my watch, and I plunged downstairs for the phone and the out-of-office-doc service said, yep, we're sending an ambulance around now.  I bolted back to the cottage with hellhounds while the ambulance was doing its ambulance thing and then Superba and I followed it in.  All of you who've done A&E/emergency room know that barring severe arterial bleeding you hurry up and wait.  We were there four hours I...

Peter, continued continued

 

Sitting here tucking into a much needed glass of champagne-equivalent.*  Peter is better, but still terrifyingly feeble.  I'd been dithering about ringing the out-of-office doc service again all day.  He'd slid far enough toward decaying vegetable matter by evening that I decided I wanted the comfort of a professional voice on the other end of a phone line even though I had no symptoms to offer except extreme weakness . . . which could all be down to the fact that he's not eating. ...