Robin McKinley's Blog, page 76

Happy birthday to MEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

I HAVE TO GET UP AT INSANE PRE-DAWN O’CLOCK TO GO TO FRELLING TINTINNABULATION ABBEY WITH A FRELLING CURATE FOR MORNING MASS.  HOW DO I GET MYSELF INTO THESE THINGS.  YOU WILL EXCUSE ME IF I FLING A FEW PHOTOS AT YOU AND GO TO BED.

Details tomorrow.  LOTS of details tomorrow.  Like ringing my first wedding at the abbey AND THE BRIDE WAS THIRTY FIVE MINUTES LATE.

We start most mornings with a rousing game of How’s That Tummy.

 

I’ll get this on video some day. Before she grows up. Maybe.

 

Woosha woosha woosha. Etc.

 

She’s hoping there’s puppy food in that pocket. If she could find the pocket.

.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEEEE

 

THE GIFT PUPPY

 

Wearing her princess headband and being prevented by main force from eating her finery.

 

 

BIRTHDAY FLOWERS. There are other birthday flowers. But not tonight. (You’d rather have more puppy photos than more flower photos, right?) (THE RIGHT ANSWER IS YES.)

 

 

You need a little glam on your 60th birthday. The restaurant has good mirrors in its ladies’. So, how about that pink shrug?

 

I’m trying to get a photo of the necklace. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

GOOD NIGHT.  I’M OLD NOW.  DON’T TELL PAVLOVA.  (The hellhounds say, eh, does that mean MORE SOFA?)

KES comments. Many of a shrieking variety.

 

Jjmcgaffey

Poor Kes. She’s trying so hard to be _normal_… and the world just isn’t cooperating.

Snork.  Yes.  We can all relate to that, right?  Although most of us have to settle for the small spiders and stepping in gum, rather than the dragons.  Or the mysteriously-appearing solid-fuel stoves.  Has anyone tried to buy a big multi-oven multi-use solid-fuel stove lately?  Those frellers cost.  Kes couldn’t afford it.  And even if Sally or Hayley manages to twist another one out of the landlord, it won’t be nearly as fine as Caedmon.

B_twin_1

Eeeep.

Darn you and this growing addiction to cliffhangers!!!!

Mwa hahahahahaha.  I am channelling my inner Charles Dickens.  Actually I hope I am not channelling my inner Charles Dickens, Mr Dickens was a tick.  But I am certainly discovering the joys of torturing a live audience.

Ajlr

I love KES – but I also love what I imagine is your evil grin to yourself as you post yet another cliff-hanger to torment us.

Fair makes my face hurt, it does.  Another joy I would never have discovered if I hadn’t started the blog.

Rainycity1

Corellia wrote on Sat, 20 October 2012 05:04

How did he get the name of Mr Melmoth? Did I miss something?

This was one of my first questions, as well. Fortunately, Google is our friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melmoth_the_Wanderer

This fascinates me.  Someone my age with any pretensions to gothic or the history of genre or of fantasy or of horror would know MELMOTH like they’d know DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN . . . and THE MONK and THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO and THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLFO and probably several more that have fallen out of my crumbly middle-aged brain for the moment.  All you Jane Austen fans?  She was making fun in NORTHANGER ABBEY of the early flowering of this ridiculous but riveting genre—MELMOTH itself is slightly too late and DRACULA is a lot too late—DRACULA is High Victorian—but she’d’ve known the rest.  Not knowing MELMOTH forty years ago among those of us who had Tolkien memorised and had read all of Eddison and all of GORMENGHAST would be like not having heard of Edgar Allan Poe . . . or HP Lovecraft.  How the world changes.  Mind you, I won’t say all of us had read every word of all of them.  Ahem.  MELMOTH is pretty lurid going.

Catherine

. . . cliffhangers don’t really bother me. Clearly I have unnatural reserves of patience in this area.

Glinda

I think it helps . . . it’s not like the TV-season-ending cliffhangers. Or books. I think having to wait about a week for the library copy of The Return of the King, after staying up until never-mind-how-much-too-late-on-a-school night devouring The Two Towers, has rather scarred me for those.

Feh.  I had to wait a year and a half to read all three volumes of LOTR.  That was while my military father was stationed in Japan, and my best friend’s brother, back in college in the States and among that famous wave of American college students who first broke LOTR out of the box, was sending it to her one volume at a time for birthday, Christmas, birthday.  Speaking of scarring experiences.  Sorry you long-time blog readers, you get that story about once a year. . . .  BUT IT WAS VERY SCARRING.

Catherine

Oddly, those don’t bother me overmuch either. Even the ending of Pegasus only bothered me for about ten minutes (my first thought was that I had a faulty copy that was missing the last chapter) and once the future existence of the rest of the story was confirmed I was/am happy to be patient. See, unnatural reserves of patience!

No one would accuse me of having unnatural reserves of patience in any area (You!  Hellterror!  Shut up and go to sleep or DIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!) but cliffhangers don’t bother me much either.  It’s the way your brain’s wired.  Or unwired.

Mockorange

Woohoo! 50th episode. Congratulations and Happy Golden Kesiversay!

Yes, thank you.  I noticed that flying past too and thought, hmm.  I wonder if I should do something silly for the 60th in honour of, you know, me?  And if so, what?

Drummerwench

. . . I read Robin’s blog as a feed in my Live Journal, and have been following “Kes” from the start. Today, I realized a sad delinquency on my part–I haven’t commented as to how much I enjoy it. . . .

You’re welcome.  It’s more frelling work than I set out to have it be—but then even as I set out thinking that I wasn’t going to let it get to be a lot of work, I was also thinking, yeah, right, like PEGASUS is an AIR ELEMENTALS short story—but I’m also enjoying it.  Especially the torturing-the-live-audience, discovering-the-delights-of-cliffhangers part.  Not so much the I HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT part.  Well, I do have clues.  But there’s an awful lot I don’t know.  Eeep.

“You’ve caught the Phantom,” said Bridget.

 Hmmm.

 *wonders who, exactly, caught whom*

Indeed.  Dog leads have two ends.

Katsheare

Bridget sounds like such good people, aside from being the Mistress of Tea. Like you know that she’s bringing blankets (and am I the only one who can think of restaurants that have a stock of blankets for people who INSIST on sitting outside even when it is inadvisable?) because Eatsmobile food is better enjoyed from the right side of hypothermia. I bet her nephew runs the local microbrewery or something.

Someone somewhere mentioned patio heaters.  WE ARE MUCH TOO GREEN FOR PATIO HEATERS.  And yes, I imagine an enormous pile of tatty blankets by the door:  any good local café in an area with seasons should be obliged by town charter to supply these.  And there must be a microbrewery around somewhere—this is totally microbrewery topography.  And someone Kes has already met is surely related to the owner.

. . . landing on your feet is disorienting in a way that’s easy to forget. I think Kes is managing amazingly well, given that she arrived in town, what, two days ago?

Especially for those of us who assume we’re going to get everything wrong.  I’m on my FEET?  How did THAT happen?  And yes.  Two days ago.  Arrrrgh.  I started KES the middle of April.  Seven months and less than forty-eight hours later . . . I never was good at time. . . .

EMoon

Noooooo…..! I don’t want to hate you. Really I don’t. . . .

Katinseattle

“Callie,” said Jim, still quietly. “The Phantom is chipped. Will you take this and see what you can find out?”

I nearly burst into tears.

So did I.

You can’t do this to us, Robin. You can’t make us wait for days and days for the chip information. You just can’t.

Yes I can, yes I can, yes I caaaaaaaaan.  And it’s worse than that.  THE ENDING OF THE NEXT EP IS JUST AS APPALLING.  IF NOT MORE SO.   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Anne_d

[primal scream of NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!]

Robin, you are evil. Evil.

Thank you.  I do try.  As a hellgoddess I have certain standards I feel I must live up to.  I admit that 12/9/12 has confused the issue somewhat, but I’m sure I’ll work it out.

Vikkik

*wibble*

Oh, I like wibble!  Wibble is good!

LadyGrace

This is getting so heavy. It has this awful feeling to it, like real life intruding on a dream. (Come to think of it, Cold Valley is suspiciously perfect. What if Kes has been in a coma this whole time and her subconscious MADE IT ALL UP???)

No, I’m the one making it all up.  (I hope the Story Council is keeping an eye on us however.  See above about not knowing what’s happening next.  Eeep.)  And Kes has at least one real pain in the patootie neighbour, and the fellow who runs the old-books store is a . . . character.  Not to mention Mr Melmoth.  And the mysterious works by the lakeshore.

Mockorange

Aaaggghhhh!

Illumina

Gonna have to add another ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!’ to the list…

Thank you, thank you.  I am something of a connoisseur of screams, being an experienced practitioner of same, and I appreciate the effort a good scream takes.

Catherine

mintcitykitty wrote on Sat, 10 November 2012 07:32

I think Sid will be micro-chipped to Kes.

This was exactly my thought when I read that last bit. They’ve come so far already, even in so short a time, that it can’t be otherwise. And besides, a Silent Wonder Dog should be capable of altering the data on her microchip.

White_roses

. . . if I was Kes, I would hope anyone other than me would own her, even if it was the frightening Mr. Melmoth-who-may-or-may-not-be-a-hallucination. Had she been mine and neglected for several months, I would feel beyond terrible. It would be devastating.

Yes.  I’m with White_roses here.  It would be too appalling for poor Kes to find out that Sid has been her responsibility while she was busy flapdoodling around over a mere divorce.  I acknowledge that a SWD might be able to alter the data on her microchip, but then to save Kes’ feelings she’d have to be able to tell her and I’m not sure how even I would get this across successfully.  Fortunately I don’t have to.  Those eps are already written.  Have I said Mwa hahahahahaha in the last hundred words or so?  No?

Mwa hahahahahahahaha.

Frelling, ratbags and Stedman Triples

 

 

IT HAS BEEN AN ABSOLUTE FRELLING FRELLING FRELLING RATBAG OF A DAY.  FRELLING.*

It was sunny and gorgeous and around noon positively shirtsleeve weather, which is confusing the summer annuals—most of which are still flowering, and while the fuchsias and begonias are slowing down the snapdragons and geraniums seem to think it’s still August**—and Mortimer Sackler*** is rolling into what I think is her fourth flush.  I decided that sanity demanded hellhounds and I have a proper country walk, so we launched ourselves in a brave and forthright manner.

About fifty feet from the last house at the edge of Old Eden, as we set off gallantly along the footpath. . . . I saw a Moron with a Dog.  I was not absolutely sure he was a Moron, but the signs were there.  Especially the large off lead dog sign.  Hellhounds and I veered out into the field.  The large dog observed us.  The large dog became interested.  The large dog began to move in our direction in an interested manner.

Hellhounds and I veered farther out into the field.

The large dog adapted its course accordingly.

The Moron finally noticed and began calling the large dog in feeble and apathetic tones.  The large dog, of course, ignored him.  The large dog was getting quite close to us by now.  It was one of those fashionable Godzillas that was a Labrador a few generations back.  Its head was about the size of a V8 engine.  Arrrrrgh.  I could nearly feel its hot breath on my face.  The Moron, having signally failed to get his rotten dog UNDER CONTROL now shouts, He’s very friendly!  ARRRRRRGH.  His blasted frelling dog is not very friendly:  its body language didn’t say I am going to eat you for lunch, but it did say, I am the biggest, meanest SOB in the valley, and I’m going to make sure you acknowledge this fact.

I do not answer the Moron, whereupon the Moron starts shouting in this offended voice, Excuse me?  Excuse me?  —Excuse you?  May I excuse you from living?   I shouted back in a voice I did not try too hard to eliminate the fury from, MY DOGS ARE ON LEAD.  YOUR DOG IS OFF LEAD.

Oh all right, flounced the Moron, and went so far as to leave the footpath to pursue his wretched dog, and I hope the mud ruined his city shoes.  His dog allowed itself to be deflected—he hadn’t caught it by the time we turned through the gap in the hedgerow, but it was having more fun eluding him than it had been chasing us.  ARRRRRRRRRGH.

As it happens, on our way home we met up with two friends† who dogsit their daughter’s terrier.  They were walking it in Old Eden a few months ago and were attacked by two dogs hanging out unsupervised in their owner’s front garden . . . with the gate left open.  The terrier is now so nervous it doesn’t want to go for walks . . . and those two dogs still hang out in that garden with the gate open.  Have I mentioned that the police just shrug when you tell them stories like this?

We went home.  The washing machine poured water all over the floor of the kitchen.  Twice.  I wasted ten minutes trying to persuade the frelling hellterror to have her crap in the churchyard†† rather than waiting, with what I can see from behind is increasingly pressing urgency, to get back to Her Spot at the foot of the cottage steps.  I failed.  And when I finally gave up on the hellterror’s bowel function and we went to the cobbler . . . the cobbler had closed about five minutes before, while we were hanging around POINTLESSLY beside a tombstone.

I got beetroot juice on a favourite sweater.  †††

. . . And how badly was bell practise at the abbey going to go tonight?  It began with my having to park three towns over and hike because the Christmas Village is going up all over the close and the centre of town and every parking space for miles is occupied either by a chalet or by the car that usually parks where the chalet is.  The temperature has also dropped by about seventy-five degrees and I was underdressed.  There were ninety-seven or a hundred and twelve of us at practise, and two-thirds of us were at the lower end of ability, so while the comparatively few good ringers rang all night, the rest of us only got put in by ones and twos and spent a very frustrating time standing around a lot.‡

Eventually it was my turn.  What would you like to ring? said Scary Man.‡‡  Er um, I said.  Bob major?  Stedman triples?  Stedman triples, said Scary Man.  A touch?  —My little heart beat faster.  I know what’s supposed to happen, I said, I’ve read it up.  But I’ve never rung an affected touch and I doubt I can count that high.‡‡‡  Stedman triples! called Scary Man.  Albert, will you call a touch?

I did it.  I only did it because Scary Man stood at my shoulder and helped me count, but I knew what was happening (except for the counting) and once I escaped the multiplicity of dodges I slotted back into the line again, including seeing which bells I was striking over (the order changes when a call is made), and since ropesight (which is seeing what bells you’re striking over) is probably my worst nightmare at the abbey, this is very good.  Yaay me.  This is, sadly, undoubtedly beginner’s luck, and next time reality and terrible crashing noises will ensue, but today . . . I will take what I can get.  And maybe if I go to bed fast enough nothing else will go wrong. . . .

* * *

* Jack Kornfield, who is a Buddhist, has written a lot of books, most of which I’ve read at one time or another.  What I have always liked and been drawn to about a certain style or stream of Buddhism is the awareness of the practical side of life, including that what inevitably happens after a high is that you come down.^  The title of one of his books is AFTER THE ECSTACY, THE LAUNDRY.  http://www.jackkornfield.com/books/  Yes.  And a real ratbag day includes, speaking of laundry, getting beetroot juice on a favourite sweater.  Beetroot juice has been used as a red dye for thousands of frelling years.  . . . I do seem to have got it out again, but there was SCREAMING.

^ Making a little hole in the ground and a lot of dust optional.

** Yes, I know.  These are all tender perennials, not annuals.  But they’re mostly grown as annuals.  In my garden the frost will come and they will die.  With a hellterror sucking hours out of my anaemic days this winter not to mention a total lack of surface space above puppy-reach level^ it doesn’t look good for the indoor jungle.

^ And she keeps getting TALLER.  —You’re a mini, honey.  Don’t forget you’re a mini.

*** http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/showrose.asp?showr=4073

† He rings bells.  Ninety-five percent of my English acquaintances are bell ringers.^

^ The other five percent are Dickinsons.

†† INSERT STANDARD RANT HERE ABOUT THE MORE-THAN-MORONS THAT LET THEIR DOGS CRAP IN CHURCHYARDS.  In this particular case, the churchyard is the only piece of grass in downtown New Arcadia, and if the church admin loses its temper and gets the churchyard closed us with dogs are going to be very unhappy.  WHAT DESPICABLE MUTANT TOAD SLIME LETS ITS DOGS CRAP IN CHURCHYARDS???

††† See previous footnote.

‡ And, in some cases, knit.

‡‡ After I fell down laughing hearing someone else refer to Scary Man as Scary Man, someone posted that there were lots of other Scary Men in ringing.  Yes, of course.  What I hadn’t heard before was it being used as a name, as I use it:  Scary Man, rather than a scary man or the scary man, or Blistering tower’s Scary Man.

‡‡‡ There’s a lot of dodging in Stedman anyway:  in triples you double dodge on the way up and the way down as well as twice at the back.  If the conductor calls a bob while you’re at the back you have to dodge three more times.  This is a challenge to my maths skills, especially at the speed that method bells ring.

 

 

After Damascus

 

Whew.  Thank you all.  I knew there would be a reaction but . . . wow.  Thank you.

I also wasn’t going to write about this again tonight, but I do want to acknowledge all the good wishes (and the occasional mazel tov.  I’m still a many-ways-up-the-mountain person.  I doubt that will change).  And I admit that I have every intention of continuing to write about my journey, to the extent that it is funny or relevant or I am willing to hang it out here in public.  If I drop the tea-urn on the chief abbot of Tintinnabulation Abbey* next Saturday morning, you will read about it here.

But religion, like politics, is perilous ground, and I do not thrive on controversy and shouting.  Avoiding politics is mostly relatively easy because I’m not running polls or reading the political commentary in the GUARDIAN/ECONOMIST/FINANCIAL TIMES or subscribed to Reuters, although I do retweet a certain amount of stuff that other people have gone to the work of finding for me.**  Religion . . . as I said last night, I’ve always known there was Something out there, and I’ve had various perhaps somewhat non-standard experiences reinforcing that knowledge.  This is different.  I’ve never felt the need to describe, define or witness any of it before.  But it’s part of this package that you do what you’re told.***  I might not have had to come out last night, but I was going to have to do it.  God says.  I can’t remember if it was before or after I’d realised I was going to have to go public on the blog, and that furthermore I was going to try to do it at about the two-month mark, but I remember vividly a conversation with Oisin—who is one of my mentors and a, I think it’s called a lay reader?, and gets to wear a frock and everything, and is taking the service at St Radegund next Sunday, and I will be there—when he said, you know, God is going to tell you to do stuff, and you’ll have to do it.  Eeep.  Which is when I realised why I was going to have to put my conversion up on the blog.  And why I am now jumping at small noises. . . .

EMoon

I do understand the shock. Christmas Eve, 1970. Was not being Christian at all, at all, and hadn’t been for some years. But was lured into Washington Cathedral by gratitude for husband’s safe return from war and the promise of music I loved. (Talk about naive belief in one’s own impermeable shields…) And. WHAP the clue bat.

It definitely does change everything. (Also made me think those people who thought a religious experience was all warm fuzzy glowy feelings…hadn’t had theirs yet.) And…I’m glad for you. And admire you for letting us in on it, when you felt able to do so.

Thank you.  (Thank you, again, all of you.)  Music.  Yes.  Scary.  I’ve also always had a very intense relationship with the music I love—much of it written by Christians more or less for the glory of their God, whether officially for church services or not—and now it’s sometimes like WAIT A MINUTE I DON’T THINK I’M SUPPOSED TO DIE YET.  Another eeep thing.  But singing Purcell’s Evening Hymn now?  Well . . . God help me.

And I am so with you about people who think religion is all warm fuzzies.  Get real.  Is there anything deeply worthwhile that isn’t hard work, and the harder you work the more you get out of it?  (Okay.  Chocolate.  Anything else.)  Not that I’m always very good at this.†  But I’m aware of the principle.  Trying to be an even sort of good Christian is going to be . . . eeep.  But warm fuzzies aren’t in it.  The hard bits are hard and the joy is . . . scary.  And I’ve only just started.  Eeeep. 

Shalea

Is it appropriate to offer congratulations?

Yes.  Or at least I hope so.  Happy to have them.  Thank you.

They would be heartfelt — I find myself envious, in the past few years, of the comfort that faith and belonging to a religious community seems to bring to those who have found it and found a place in one.

I am so colossally awful at the human-group thing that trying to belong to a church community is actually going to be one of my more lurid challenges.  Sigh.  A friend pointed out that there’s a perfectly good tradition of solitary whatever in Christianity, and there is, but that’s not where I’m being led/dragged/shoved like a balky kid going to her first day of kindergarten NOOOOOOOOOOO.  Personally I don’t know how anyone does coming-to-belief without the whap up longside the head bit that is what brought me round, but I’ve been told that it may just creep up on you, like strengthening sunlight.  You might try going through the motions in a healthy religious community and see if the sunlight starts shining on you.

Mirkat

. . . I can’t believe you were so vulnerable as to share something of this magnitude (which might alienate legions of fans). Best of luck on your journey!

I feel a little bogus accepting praise for writing about this.  I am a writer, it’s what I do.  And God said.  At the same time . . . I am really, really, really REALLY exhausted, last night and today, because of the stress and anxiety about doing this thing I knew I had to do.  (And I give myself points for getting it done on the day.)  So thank (all of) you (again).  As for alienating legions of fans. . . .  Um, well, eeep.   I hope not.  I would have thought if I were going to alienate legions of fans I was much more likely to do it by my wet liberal knee jerk ranting apocalyptic feminism, which has been around for quite a while.  Hmmm.  Maybe that’s why I’m not a best-seller.

Dorotheia

I cannot stop smiling.

. . . what does Peter say? And you wouldn’t happen to have been reading CS Lewis at the time, would you?

Peter, bless him, is whole-heartedly supportive, which is a very good thing because I would find it very difficult if he weren’t.  He is himself not a Christian, but the Dickinson clan is riddled with Christians, so he’s used to the breed.  His brother-the-priest is one of my mentors.††

And . . . C S Lewis.  I think I’d better come clean about this sooner rather than later.  Lewis is one of the big strident reasons I knew Christianity was not for me.  I am allergic to C S Lewis.  That he brings some people to Christianity is great and wonderful and excellent and whatever works.  But that’s the end of it for me.  I know people feel passionately about Lewis—well, so do I, but not in a good way—so I’ll just say, please respect my feelings about this.

CathyR

anne_d wrote

I’m an atheist, but I just want to say this, for what it’s worth: You have not alienated this fan.

Nor this one.

I can’t deny it was somewhat of shock, and I had to read it all a few times before it sunk in. Along with everyone else here, though, all I have is respect and admiration for your courage in sharing this with us, and the best of wishes that you will find whoever and whatever is right for you on your so suddenly changed path through life.

Thank you.  I have been the most worried about the reaction of you long-time loyal forum regulars—I knew that some of you would turn out not to be Christians or some other committed faith, and might not swing with it—you ones I’d notice and really miss, if you went away.  THANK YOU.  Yaaaaaaay. . . .

There’s lots and lots more to say, of course, and I’ll certainly say some of it sooner or later.  But tomorrow I really am going to write about something else.  And right now I am going to bed, to sleep the sleep of the semi-just.

* * *

* No.  But it should have bells.

** http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-rachel-maddow-show/49736294 for example, about the election, which I tweeted a couple of days ago.  Thank you, Blogmom.

*** I am so not going to get into this.  But one of the things that put me off Christianity for nearly sixty years is the whole blind grovelling obedience thing.  Eh.  Here on the other side that’s not what it looks like.  But the language can be a little off-putting.

† Not that I’m even most of the time moderately good at this.

†† Speaking of the kind of wild coincidences that happen:  my road to Damascus moment happened in the afternoon.  That evening Peter’s brother the retired priest rang and I picked up the phone.  I literally hadn’t spoken to him in YEARS:  we emailed occasionally but he usually rings Peter at times that Peter is next to the phone and I’m not.  How nice to hear your voice, he said, sounding really pleased.  Oh, er, hi, I said.  Um. . . if you have a minute before I turn you over to Peter. . . .

The Road to Damascus

 

You all know the story, don’t you?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Paul_the_Apostle

The bare bones of it are that Paul was an enthusiastic persecutor of the early Christians, and then met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, went ‘oh, sorry, big oops’, and as Paul the Apostle became possibly the most important early Christian missionary.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle  ‘The road to Damascus’ has become a slang phrase for any sudden conversion, but it still sometimes refers to a non-believer becoming a believer as a result of meeting Jesus Christ face to face.

This happened to me two months ago—the twelfth of September, the day after the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.  WHAM.  ‘Yo, McKinley, you know Who I am, don’t you?  It’s time.  It’s over time.  Stop dithering and follow Me.’

Eeep.

Everything changes.  Everything.

I was raised by two self-styled Christians, was baptised Methodist, went to Sunday school, was confirmed Presbyterian, doodah doodah.  But my childhood experience of Christianity and the church was mostly about hypocrisy, and I left the church when I left home, without much of a backward glance.  And yet I’ve always known—not believed, known—that human beings are spiritual beings as well as mental and physical and emotional ones, and that there was Something out there.   But I haven’t known what it was, and it didn’t seem very likely that a religion headed by a Trinity that consists of two blokes and an it was going to have much to offer me, cranky old-fashioned feminist that I am.  Indeed the King James Bible, with its pleasant habit of referring to hell as ‘she’, and which was the one still in common use when I was a kiddie, helped crystalise my understanding that I was not a Christian.

And then you have your road to Damascus conversion and you’re now, helplessly, looking at everything from the other side, and feeling your bruises.  Okay, this is where you are.  Reasons not to be here are no longer relevant.  Now what?  Perhaps you start (this is where I started) by finding someone to talk to.  I have friends who are Christians—and who are amazingly willing to spend time answering questions, making suggestions and saying ‘there there dear you’ll get used to it.’  The other thing I did first was go out and buy a Bible that was not the King James Version.

So the other other reason the last two months have been UNNECESSARILY INTENSE, aside from novels, hellterrors, etc, is that I am scrambling for my new place in my new world.  I read a lot.  Well, duh.  I talk to people.   I write a lot of emails.*  And I’m trying to find a church.  I’m C of E—Church of England—if I’m anything;  I realise this isn’t sensible, but nothing about any of this has been sensible, and if I need an excuse, well, I ring C of E bells.**  You’re spoilt for choice in this area***;  there’s my abbey, to begin with, which is huge, and seems to have hundreds of clergy and dozens of services.  You can almost just pop in when you’re in the area and find something on.  There’s St Radegund in New Arcadia, which is still only two garden walls away from the cottage, even if I don’t ring its bells (much) any more.  There are all the other local churches I ring or have rung at.  And then there are all the churches that don’t have bells.

The front runner at present for the community it offers is a little (bell-less) church a few towns over from here, which has a vicar and a curate and an informal Sunday evening service.  The curate is starting a silent-prayer group at eight o’clock Saturday morning, and I don’t think even God can get me out of bed at 6:30 a.m. on a regular basis to hurtle critters before driving ten miles to sit still.  I’d have to sit on a tack to stay awake.  But I spoke to the curate, who said that there’s a real abbey nearby, with, you know, monks and everything,† and they have regular silent-prayer services, and the public is welcome.  Eeep, I said, which I am saying a lot lately, and he said that he goes to services there, and that I could come with him some time, and he would introduce me to some monks†† and thus prove they are friendly and rarely cook and eat ordinary members of the public.  So that will probably be my next adventure.  I used to sit with a community of Zen Buddhists in Maine, and I would like to try the Christian version.

I’m not going to proselytise—and, please note, I’m not going to allow proselytising.  But it seems to me important to declare that this is happening to me—‘witnessing’ seems to be one of the ways to, um, embody? your faith, however new, shiny and clueless that faith is†††.  And from a sheer practical perspective, given that nothing in my life is ever graceful or predictable or serene or straightforward, this journey is loaded with blog material.  Like taking the hobgoblin to evensong at the abbey tonight. . . . ‡

* * *

* You know who you are.  Now stop laughing.

** Note that bell ringing has taken on a whole new aspect.  An ‘eeep’ aspect.  I always did feel that the sound of the bells flies up, to the Something out there.  It’s a much more appalling prospect when you know who it is.

*** Although nationally the C of E is not doing at all well, and even in this densely populated and generally well-off area, more and more parishes/benefices/churches/Idon’tknowthelanguage are being combined, and fewer and fewer priests are expected to stretch themselves farther and farther.

† Forza, I believe, is run like any other church, and I think it’s only the architecture that would tell you, if you knew what you were looking at, that it began life as an abbey.  I didn’t know the C of E had real live abbeys, or real live monks.

†† Having first taught me how to find the place.  It’s a proper abbey, tucked the frell away from the hurly burly etc and also pretty much impenetrable to anyone who doesn’t have the Six Magic Words and the local earth spirits on their side.

††† CLUELESS.  VERY, VERY CLUELESS.  And I’m a slow learner.

‡ It seemed worth a try, while she’s still—barely—small enough to carry.  The poor priest at the gate was scandalised:  No dogs in the abbey!  Not even carried? I said and he said no but she was being quiet and adorable and maybe he has dogs at home, because he said he’d ask.  And rather to my surprise he came back and waved us in.  Which I thought was pretty nice of everyone involved—he could have fired me straight back out again, and whoever said okay could not have said okay.  I sat near the door away from the rest of the congregation, which is a good thing since the little ratbag spent the first fifteen or so minutes trying to have a religious experience that involved hucklebutting.  Fortunately she has been well indoctrinated by Holding, and I spent that fifteen minutes frelling crushing her motionless into my lap, and I don’t think anyone could have been disturbed.  She finally gave up and went to sleep and I sagged.  But the abbey space has always been glorious.  It’s that much more glorious post-conversion, even with an illegal suppressed hellterror in your lap.

But I bet that priest will remember me, the next time he sees me, even hellterror-free.

 

Wizand

 

There are Great Things Afoot about Peter’s work, and I should have an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT* to this effect some time before the end of the month.   Mwa hahahahaha.**

Meanwhile I promised another snippet or two from EARTH AND AIR.  Everybody out there has already bought it though, right?  http://smallbeerpress.com/  Well, maybe you need reminding to get it out of the TBR pile and into your hands.***  So here’s a snippet from WIZAND.

Apologies for the weird spacing of the extract.  I have no idea.  I thought I copied and pasted as I have done before. 

 

. . . As the first axe bit ringingly into the ash tree the wizand woke

and glided down into the base of the bole, just below ground level.

Next spring a ring of young shoots sprang from the still living

sapwood beneath the bark. They grew to wands, then poles. When

they were an inch or so thick the wizand slid back up into one and

waited again.

 

Seven times, at twenty year intervals, the wood was fresh

coppiced, but only for two or three years in each cycle were the

saplings right for the wizand’s needs, and no possible host came

near while that was so. By the time the timber was carted away it

was long poles, thicker than a man’s calf, and the wizand, safe in

the bole, waited without impatience for the next regrowth.

 

The economics of forestry changed again, and the coppicing

ceased. It was another hundred and ten years before the ash tree

was once more felled. This time it happened with the clamour of

an engine, and hooked teeth on a chain that clawed so fast into the

trunk that the wizand needed to wake almost fully from its torpor

and hurry past before it was trapped above the cut. More engines

dragged the timber away and the shattered wood was left in peace.

Next spring, as always, fresh shoots sprang up, ringing the severed

bole.

* * *

A man’s voice.

 

“These look about the right size. Which one do you want,

darling?”

 

Another voice, petulant with boredom.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

The second voice triggered the change. Instantly the wizand

was fully alert, waiting, knowing its own needs, just as a returning

salmon knows the stream that spawned it. It guided the reaching

arm. Through the young bark of the sapling it welcomed palm

and fingers. The hand was very small, a child’s, about seven years

old, but now that the wizand was properly awake it saw how time

was running out. There was little chance of another possible host

coming by, and none of the ash tree being coppiced again, before

the appointed hour.

 

“This one,” said the child’s voice, firmly.

 

A light saw bit sweetly in. The wizand stayed above the cut.

 

“I’ll carry it,” said the child.

 

“If you like. Just don’t get it between your legs. Or mine. Now

what we want next is a birch tree, and some good hemp cord. None

of your nasty nylon—not for a witch’s broom.”

 

When the children came in from their trick-or-treating the

several witches piled their brooms together. As they were leaving, a

child happened to pick out the wrong one. She let go and snatched

her hand back with a yelp.

 

“It bit me,” she said, and started to cry, more frightened than

hurt.

“Of course it did,” said Sophie Winner. “That’s my broom. It

won’t let anyone else touch it.”

 

They thought she was joking, of course, and later that evening

Simon and Joanne Winner found it gratifying that Sophie was so

pleased with her new broom that she took it up to bed with her,

and went upstairs without any of the usual sulkings and dallyings.

 

Sophie dreamed that night about flying. It was a dream she’d

had before, so often that she thought she’d been born with it.

 

The wizand was always cautious with a fresh symbiote. The

revelation, when it came, was likely to be a double shock, with the

discovery both of the wizand’s existence, and of the symbiote’s true

self. But hitherto the girl had always been around puberty. It had

never dealt with a child as young as Sophie, with her preconceptions

unhardened. If anything, it was she who surprised the wizand.

 

A fortnight after Halloween she took her broom into the back

garden, saying that she was going to sweep the leaves off the lawn.

 

“If you like,” said her father, laughing. “They’ll blow around a

bit in this wind, but give it a go.”

 

He went to fetch his video camera.

 

The wizand could have swept the lawn on its own, but with her

parents watching through the patio window Sophie kept firm hold

of it, following its movements like a dancing partner, while it used

the wind to gather the leaves into three neat piles in places where

they would no longer blow around.

 

“It’s wonderful what a kid can do by way of work, provided

she thinks she’s playing,” said her father. He was the sort of parent

that hides from himself the knowledge that his relationship with

his own child is not what it should be by theorising about the

behaviour of children in general.

 

When she’d finished, Sophie went up to her room and sat

cross-legged and straight-backed in the middle of the floor, with

the broom across her thighs and her hands grasping the stick at

either end. She waited.

“Yes?” said the wizand.

 

Sophie heard the toneless syllable as clearly as if it had been

spoken aloud, but knew that it hadn’t come to her through her

ears. She answered in the same manner, inside her head.

 

“I knew you were there. The moment I touched the tree. I felt

you.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What are you? A demon or something?”

 

“Wizand.”

 

Sophie accepted the unfamiliar word without query.

 

“Am I a witch?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I thought so. Can we fly?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“We’d need to be invisible.”

 

“No.”

 

“But . . . Oh, you mean you can’t do that? Couldn’t I?”

 

“Not yet.”

 

“You can fly, and you can sweep. Anything else?”

 

“Power.”

 

“Oh . . . ”

 

“Not yet.”

 

Sophie felt relieved. She didn’t know why.

 

“We’d better wait for a dark night,” she said.

 

Sophie chose a Friday, so that she could lie in on Saturday

morning. She went to bed early and waited for her parents to come

in and say goodnight. As soon as the door closed behind them she

fetched her broom from the corner beside the wardrobe.

 

“They won’t come back,” she told it. “Let’s go.”

 

“Sleep,” said the wizand.

 

“Oh. It won’t be just dreaming again? We’re really going to do

it?”

“Yes.”

Sophie climbed into bed with the broom on the duvet beside

her, closed her eyes and was instantly asleep. The wizand waited

until it sensed that the parents were also sleeping, then woke her

by sending a trembling warm sensation into her forearm where it

lay against the ash wood. She sat up, fully aware. . . .

* * *

* That’s IMPORTANT.  ANNOUNCEMENT.

** More mwa hahahahaha.  I will do a round-up of KES comments some day soon.

*** Or maybe I’m just lazy.  Hmm.  No, there are a lot of bad names you can call me–disorganised, procrastinating and easily distracted among them–but not lazy.

Bluuuuugh

 

 

Quick, what can I write a blog about that requires no functioning brain whatsoever?  Ummmmmmm. . . . Certainly not the hobgoblin, who is herself too clever by half, and obviously whiles away the hours in her crate NOT sleeping peacefully, the way desirable and well-behaved dogs do, but studying my weaknesses and contemplating the shortest route to anarchy.  She has learnt, for example, the sound of my GET UP YOU SLUG BEEP BEEP BEEP going off in the morning, and has taken it upon herself to become the snooze button my kitchen timer alarm does not have.  A rather erratic snooze button.  Even a six- or six-and-a-few-minutes hour night, which is what they usually are in this household, is a long time to a puppy WHO NEEDS TO EAT EVERY HOUR OR IS IN DANGER OF STARVATION and any sign of the hellgoddess stirring after such an unconscionable stretch of foodless desert is greeted with screams of . . . rapture.  Screams, anyway.*  She is aware to some extent that yelling and throwing herself around is or at least she suspects may be counterproductive, so especially wild effusions will usually be followed by extents of tense silence.**  You’d think all this drama would serve to wake me up quickly.  You’d be wrong.

But the chief reason my brains this evening bear a strong resemblance to nine-day-old pease porridge was the ringing seminar this afternoon.  At which I was NOT the worst ringer there.  Which is, I’m afraid, the standard by which I measure myself on these occasions.  And now that I’ve left the relative safety of New Arcadia and launched my inadequate self on a dubiously welcoming ringing world, I am a little more neurotic*** about this than I used to be.  The method under our fitful and inconsistent scrutiny today was plain bob major:  plain bob is a family of methods, and the ‘easy’ one at each level.  So your first method is (probably) plain bob doubles, on five bells plus tenor behind;  then bob minor will probably be your first minor method, six bells no tenor behind;  bob triples, seven plus tenor behind;  and then bob major, with all eight bells working.  The basic pattern remains exactly the same, which is part of why it’s such a good teaching method—you just keep adding bells, and with every bell you necessarily acquire an extra piece of ‘work’, so that the jiggly method line keeps jiggling in that same pattern established way back in bob doubles.

It was a trifle shambolic.  Seminars are almost always oversubscribed because people have lives and so it’s hard to get enough ringers who know what they’re doing to give up a perfectly good Saturday afternoon to drag a lot of learners through a method the helpers necessarily can ring in their sleep.†  The result is that too many learners get crammed into each attempt and the poor helpers have to wake up and try to figure out what on earth is going on:  it takes courage as well as skill to hold your line when a lot of the other bells are clustered at the wrong end of the method.  All us learners had individual minders.  But it was still a little exciting.††

Both the good and the bad thing about it is that I am really ready to be working on bob major, so when I wasn’t ringing I was standing behind one of the helpers who was, and paying rapt attention.  This meant that I was on my feet and concentrating for two and a half hours . . . and I can’t stand up or concentrate that long.  And then I had to go hurtle an assortment of hounds.

Tonight I may genuinely go to bed early.

* * *

* She has a remarkable range of noises.  Aside from the growl and the bark, with the little snuffy ‘hmmph’ that goes with the latter when she’s warning us that there are rhinoceroses in the area, few if any of them sound like they have anything to do with a dog.  I’m going to be interested to see how much of this she keeps into adulthood.  Maybe I could teach her to talk.^  Or sing Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW630zFA93Y

Or maybe we could learn Rossini’s Cat Duet together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tWr6ma5bQ0&feature=related

I get to play Felicity Lott.^^

^ Feeeeeeeed meeeeeeeee.

^^ Actually I don’t.  I’m the mezzo.+  She’s the lyric coloratura.

+ One of the additional reasons I’m thrilled to be working on Purcell’s Evening Hymn is that I’m looking forward to torturing Oisin with it.  Despite the cough cough limitations of my cough cough singing I like the whole collaboration thing as opposed to being ‘accompanied.’  Mind you, I can use all the help I can get, hence the ‘torture’.  But I nearly got to the point with Blondel of being able to sing my line while he did something else entirely on the piano.  Maybe I’ll get a little closer to the point this time.

I am carefully not telling Nadia that I’ve bailed on the Muddlehampton Choir—at least for the moment.  My stress level rose steadily all summer as I failed to finish SHADOWS, and now there’s this furry four-legged lyric coloratura getting underfoot and sucking up hours like a tiny warm-blooded time vampire.  And those two and a half hour WITH NO LOO Muddle rehearsals were always pressing pretty hard on my ME-raddled constitution (and my post-menopausal bladder).  But if I’m not trying to sing in a choir my voice lessons become EMBARRASSINGLY self-indulgent.  Okay.  I’ll live with embarrassingly self-indulgent . . . till the puppy gets a little older, which I’m saying kind of a lot lately, and would be a great excuse if it were a little less true.  Sigh.  But there has to be a choir around here somewhere that sings real stuff and doesn’t audition, has one hour and a half rehearsals and a loo.

Meanwhile . . . dear frelling heavenly angels Dido’s Lament is exposed.  There pretty much aren’t any notes in the entire aria that aren’t nakedly Out There.  Somehow I had managed to avoid noticing this till Nadia told me I could sing it for her.  When you’re just goofing around on the piano with music you love it’s all oh, whatever.  And when Janet Baker sings it you’re so ravished you aren’t really paying attention to the details like technique.  You do know she’s making it sound easy and it isn’t, but there’s still an abyssal gulf between that realisation and having a sober, voice-teacher-bound crack at it yourself.  AAAAAAUGH.  Maybe I should stick to When Daisies Pied.#

# Noooooo!  Don’t wannah!  If I’m going to be self-indulgent I MIGHT AS WELL BE SELF-INDULGENT.

I was moaning to Oisin about the way Nadia can make me sound about 150% better than I can ever reproduce at home, and he said, with viciously unerring music-teacher logic, that I should record my lessons.  EWWWWWW.  But . . . yeah.  Ugh.  Nadia mentioned this to me herself a while ago and I totally couldn’t face the idea, but I may be getting to somewhere that it would be more useful than it is repulsive, if you follow me.  Sigh.  So Peter may give me a recording thingy for Christmas.

** The trick from my end is to appear to be going about my business with no reference to hellterrors or hobgoblins, and then to swoop in and let her out of her crate and WHISK HER OUT TO THE BACK GARDEN BEFORE ANYTHING UNTOWARD THAT HASN’T HAPPENED YET HAPPENS IN THE EXCITEMENT OF THE MOMENT while there is enough silence to register in the buzzing hellterror brain as silence.  Yes.  She’s mostly getting through the nights.  We want this excellent trend to continue.

*** A LITTLE???

† Speaking of sleep.

†† We also had learner callers.  It’s not enough that us method learners were blundering around in unpredictable directions, the bob callers were calling the wrong bobs on the wrong strokes.  Mayhem.  No, not the small furry time-vampire kind.

KES, 52

FIFTY TWO

 

I had scrambled eggs and another muffin, raspberry this time.  Sid also had scrambled eggs.  “On the house,” said Bridget.

I drank the last of my tea and stood up, feeling my belly pressing against the beltless waist of my jeans.  It was okay, I was going to be carrying 1,000,000,000 books up a flight of stairs today, plus a rose-bush in an osmium-alloy pot (with granite boulders inside for improved drainage) and a small but sturdy two-seater sofa.  By dinner I would be thin again.  Meanwhile I could feel my face falling at the immediate prospect of the visit to the vet, however nice he was and however thrilled at the idea that the Phantom was off the streets.

Bridget came out to collect the tray, took one look at my face and said, “Don’t worry.  The Phantom’s been living rough for months.  If someone really wanted her back, they’d’ve been looking for her harder.  Both Jim and the warden put it out there that we had a tall black phantom in town and never got a single response.  You want to worry about something, you worry about what she’s going to cost in dog food by the time you get her back to a reasonable weight.”

I tried to smile.  I picked up the end of my muffler.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Bridget, fishing in a bulging apron pocket.  “The only lost and not found collars—you’d be amazed at what ends up on the floor of a diner by the end of the day—are too small, but here’s a perfectly good lead.”  She held out a handsome red leather lead.  It looked really good on a black dog.  My belt was going to let our fashion statement down a little though.  I managed to clip it into the buckle.

“Golly,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Bridget.  “But it’s been sitting in a box in a corner of the kitchen for months.  Go on, I’ll tell Jim you’re on your way.”

Thus adjured, we went heavily (but that could just be breakfast) down the little corridor to the street.  We crossed Bradbury, turned left on Sturgeon and right again on Brunner.  I was so busy stressing about the vet I almost didn’t notice how quietly Sid was trotting beside me.  Maple Tree Clinic.  Damn.  We were here already.  We went up the steps and through the doors, Sid behaving as if she did this every day.  That distinctive smell hit us:  cleanliness so scrupulous (and so frequently reinforced) that it made your eyes water, and the background aroma of critter.   Sid finally reacted:  she let me get the door closed behind her, but she wouldn’t come in any farther.  “I don’t like the doctor’s office much either,” I said to her, and sat down on the floor next to her.  She sat slowly and stiffly down beside me, but she wasn’t happy.  Which made two of us.

“I’m sure I heard the door,” said a female voice.  There was the noise of rubber soles on gratuitously clean vinyl.  “Oh!  Jim said someone had caught the Phantom!  I thought he was joking!”

I looked up.  There was a plump smiling woman probably about my age standing in a doorway.  “Hello, love,” she said to Sid.  “You stay where she’s comfortable,” she said to me.  “The clinic’s not open till later, so there shouldn’t be anyone coming through the door behind you.”  She disappeared.  Low voices.  Then a man appeared in the doorway.  He was also plump and smiling.  He looked like the sort of person who stocked only the finest lollipops.  I relaxed marginally.  “I’m Jim,” he said.  “You just met Callie.  We both know the Phantom.  You are?”

“Kes,” I said.  The lump in my throat was getting in the way.

“Well, Kes,” he said, “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see the Phantom off the street.  Usually a dog recognises who’s putting food out for her, and is glad enough to come indoors when the weather turns foul.  Not the Phantom.”  He took a step forward.  Sid watched him but didn’t move.  He took another step.  “How long have you had her?”

“Only since last night.  I’m staying at the Friendly Campfire—which probably doesn’t take dogs.  She was just there on my doorstep.  But I’m moving into my house in Cold Valley today.  I’d have room for a dog.  I meant to get a dog, just not till after I had a house.”  I was trying to keep my voice low and calm.  Sid stopped watching Jim long enough to look at me.  “Hey, cutie,” I said, and ran a hand gently down her throat.  Jim took another step.  He was now quite close.  But Sid had decided he was okay.  When he knelt down beside us she even gave her tail half a wag.

He raised his hands and let her sniff them.  He was carrying a funny fat wand thing in one of them.  “I thought we’d start,” he said quietly, “by checking for a microchip.  I don’t expect to find one, and I assume Bridget’s already told you that the Phantom has been in lurking in the New Iceland shadows for several months.  I’m sure she’s yours if you want her.”   He let her sniff the microchip scanner, and then held it over the base of her neck.

There was a soft beep.

“Callie,” said Jim, still quietly.  “The Phantom is chipped.  Will you take this and see what you can find out?”

I nearly burst into tears.

 

 

Tilda is a Wonderful Human Being, Con’t #2

 

Out of the corner of my eye, as one does with a puppy in the house*, I saw Pavlova chewing something.  I sprang to my feet and gave chase–yes, those jaws are grinding–OH GLORY IT’S LONG AND GREEN IT’S A RUBBER BAND SHE’S GOING TO SWALLOW IT AND DIIIIIIIIIIIIIE AND IT WILL ALL BE MY FAULT BECAUSE I AM CARELESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE**.

It was a piece of kale.  Black kale tends to come in long skinny plumes, and the little inner leaves, at a distance, dangling from your puppy’s jaws, look very like rubber bands.***  I looked at this one blankly and gave it back to her.

She ate it.

My puppy eats kale.

I include this one because this entire series is SO ADORABLE of Pavlova. I however have been trying to remember to get my hair cut since about . . . March.

 

ADOOOOOOOORABLE. . . . And I have GOT to get my hair cut.

 

If she has a truly characteristic pose, this is it. The tail is, of course, wagging frantically.

 

Pull harder, you human! You’re not TRYING!

 

Leaving the cottage for the tiny, puppy-sized morning hurtle.

 

 

Excitement is rife.

 

Extremely rife.

 

In which we pretend to be a nice reserved well-behaved puppy. GET THAT SHOT FAST.

 

. . . And waiting for the noise to start at the South Desuetude tower.

 

* * *

* Indeed most of the time you have both eyes fastened to the out-of-her-crate puppy.  None of this mere corner stuff.
** Note that the speed at which your average puppy can find the thing in the universe you most DO NOT WANT HER to find defies the laws of both physics and theology.  This includes finding things you thought were lost years ago.  Ancient keys.  The odd one of that pair of slippers you threw the other one out of.  Not-quite-broken secateurs that you still use occasionally, or did, till you lost them.  Hairy rolls of twine.  An old dishcloth with a knot in it that you’re pretty sure you haven’t seen since the hellhounds were puppies.  A hair clip that used to have rhinestones in it that you hope were already missing before she found it.
*** One of the many things Pavlova is unnaturally easy-going about is having things PRIED from between her jaws.  Mind you, her focus on FOOOOOOOOOD being what it is, she has had a lot of practise having things pried from between her jaws, but some puppies this makes testy.  She’s like oh, this again?  Whatever.

Re-election and hellcritters

 

HE WON.  HE WOOOOOOOOOON.  I don’t have to move to Chiron or Vesta.  I wasn’t looking forward to the difficulties of importing chocolate and champagne.  Not to mention oxygen.  And even if I converted to ebooks, does the signal reach far enough?

So I’m celebrating by taking a couple of nights off.*   And I have the perfect excuse to take a couple of nights off because look at the FABULOUS photos Tilda took.  COME BACK SOON, TILDA.**

Hellterror, cavorting

 

Hellterror, cavorting, and hellgoddess attempting not to TREAD on cavorting hellterror

 

Trust me, one spends most of one’s time being slightly la-la-la out of it when one is in charge of a hellterror.

 

Dangling puppy. She’s good at dangling. She thinks this is what life is, dangling from a nice supportive arm. Wriggling level negotiable but the default setting is ‘high’.

 

She’s about to drop that dangerous plush-covered bottley thing (it’s labelled ‘catsup’ but that doesn’t explain the nice crunchy noise when a puppy bites it) and attack the photographer.

 

The food-oriented puppy. No, the food OBSESSED puppy. HUUUUUUUNGRY. I HAVEN’T HAD ANYTHING TO EEEEEEEEEEEAT IN HOOOOOOOOOOURS.

 

She is not allowed to chew on shoes.

 

Never. Not ever. Especially not these shoes.  I could maybe spare an old pair of All Stars.  These cost MONEY.

 

And let us not forget my beautiful hellhounds.  Awwwwwwwww.

 

On our way to a hellterror-free hurtle. We’re safe for a few more months. . . .

 

* * *

* And working on SHADOWS, KES and . . . um . . .

** And I’ll try to see a little MORE of her next time.  I almost missed her entirely today.  The hobgoblin, instead of going about its secret hobgoblin chores silently as demanded by long folkloric tradition, decided to RIOT about half an hour after I got to bed last night.  You can’t let a hobgoblin (or a hellterror) believe that rioting will get it attention, so you have to lie there and listen to it.  Eventually I turned the light back on and read for a while.  Every time I thought the little ratbag had stopped for the night . . . she’d start up again.  Reasons to want a large house:  so that you can’t hear your frelling puppy shredding her newspaper.   ARRRRRRGH.  As she finally began to settle I turned the light off again and put a pillow over my head.  With the result that I slept through my alarm . . . and Tilda is an early riser and needed to get off promptly for the long drive home and I’m NOT an early riser even when I do hear my alarm. . . .

The good news is that while I expected the hellterror’s crate to be a vision of dread, despair and heavy cleaning, beyond the explosion in a confetti factory aspect, all was well.  I almost forgave her.  Almost.