C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 134

We talked with Lynn last night: changes coming…

No previews yet, no comment except to say, yes, there is another Rusalka book, and it's coming. And there will be other surprises. Target date is December 13th, our second CC Anniversary.

Nuff said!

happy news for OSG

She should never have asked Jane and me to go kitten-hunting with her.

OSG had her eye already on a foster-home candidate, a tortie girl, out in Otis Orchards, a small town near Spokane…the woman has a feral-cat feeding station which enables her to nab strays and get them altered and, if quite young, to get them forever-homes. She works with Petfinders.

We went out to the Spokane Animal Shelter, however, to check on a second candidate, who proved not to be there: but a beautiful brother-sister act was. They'd been moved in from another shelter, which was over-full, and they were the object of a lot of attention: very young kittens, kind of fog-colored longhaired tabby, probably cream-colored somewhere in their background; and high squee factor, ie—cute. Really cute. You just couldn't take away one of that brother-sister act: sleeping in each other's arms, the young lad acting as the pathfinder, sis as the faithful follower…the shelter has a great arrangement (actually donated by Comcast), two kitten/cat rooms, a sound-insulated area behind glass doors, where the cats live in their rather comfy, padded cages, where people can go and interact with the prospects on a nice tiled floor, take them out, hold them, and see how they act. Well, we told Sharon she'd better put a hold on these two before we left or they wouldn't be there another hour. And she did that.

So we went out to Otis Orchards, and yep, there was the tortie girl, about six to eight months, very wary, not trusting of strangers, cars, or life in general…but a sweet cat, mostly just wanting to hide and watch things. And yes, this was the little face that Sharon had found on line, the cat that speaks to you through the pictures: and this girl went home with Sharon…who'd already phoned OSGuy and asked if three was going to be a problem.

Back to the shelter, where by now the twins were collecting admirers, sound asleep, making a heart-shape of sleeping-kitteh hugs and with an 'adopted' sign on the cage. Filling out paperwork took a bit—but these kittehs come altered, with as many of their shots as age permits, and microchipped, so you do need to know which record belongs with whom.

By this time Jane and I were adamant that we were driving. OSG had been up all night with the pic of the tortie girl and just was meeting the wall that arrives when you've run on adrenaline all day: now she had her kittehs and we thought she should just sit in the back seat and let us get her home with them. So we got us back to our car, which we'd left in the Swinging Doors parking lot (we'd met for lunch and left from there,) and I drove Sharon's car back to her place and Jane followed us. OSGuy was home by then; and we had a chance to see the kittens come out and explore; but then we thought we should leave the happy family to their own devices and not have the distraction of too-many-people about while they all got acquainted.

So OSG, who started out after one, maybe two cats, now has three. But the twins really only count as one cat: they're going to stick close to each other; and they'll convince Miss Tortie that the food is good and the house is home. Kittens are good at that.

Bride texting while getting married…

…this one takes the (wedding) cake.

And the guy is ok with this because?

A star with spiral arms…

Yep. It could be forming planets. In fact—it's probably forming planets.

Ok, guys, need some help…

Everybody first search my books on B&N, and if you find Hephaestus Books with omnibuses of my work, go to customer service at B&N's corporate site and write them explaining these are ripoffs and not real books. Be nice, but be firm that these are ripoff collections of Wiki articles purporting to be a book by me and that these have been tossed off Amazon and are now victimizing customers of B&N and cluttering up the search list under my name. This is the e-mail form: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/help/cu...

Arrgh.

And the koi pond sprung a leak or something weird happened with its waterfall exit this morning. We're down about 1500 gallons, it's cold out there, and we don't know why.

There ARE no calm days around here…

and more progress…

This was a day. First, we decided to refi the house—if you're a homeowner with loans handled by Freddy Mac or Fannie Mae, with interest in the 5′s or higher, there are some special provisions that let you do some revision of your interest rate, ie, lower it, which can lower your monthly house payment; and if you are in the 5′s, it would be well to talk this over with your mortgage company and keep your eye on the rates. Basically they wave their hands over it, you get a couple of upfront charges which can be folded back into the loan, but because they've already got the mortgage, if you can accept their valuation, based on statistics, you and they can come to a new agreement and you don't pay a dime out of pocket. If we get what we're aiming at, it'll save us about 40.00 a month.

The catch came when they intended to run a credit check—remember when Oklahoma decided I'm an oil baron instead of a writer (only oil wells have royalties, right? Yeah.) Well, this has somewhat impacted my rating, because the mistaken lien was filed in May, but the letter from the state saying "Ooopsie, oopsie! our bad!" didn't get filed until August. So…any credit reporting done based on A, may not have gotten B yet. But we think we'll still squeak through, though it may cost us a bit. I hate mindless clerical screwups that just mess up records and take forever to mop up.

And Jane and I went to eat at our favorite Chinese place and it had mutated. Everything had onion in it and so far I'm on two drugs, dunno how Jane's doing on that score, and we had to cut our shopping trip short.

But…because I was under the weather from lunch, I went to bed for a while. Now Sei's sort of lived under the bureau. But after a little bribe of kibble in a dish in my room (oh, we have NO principles)—he decided after several tries that the middle of my bed was a good place for a nap. It was very nice, even if he did keep the center of the bed. What do you expect? He's a cat.

We're making progress…

Sei's just very careful about coming onto Herself's territory; but yesterday he spent most of the day under the chest of drawers in my room…rather a high legged chest, so I know he's there, and he can watch things.

He spent last night there, too, or at least was there this morning. This morning I called to him, and he came over, very cautiously got onto the bed. Then started head-butting and rolling over and doing tummy fur and got under the covers and purred. Didn't stay there long. I've been careful not to force him to do anything. I just call, and if he wants to come, he comes…but he's getting more willing to pay attention. [Ysabel would come when I called, infallibly, dear old girl.] But no comparisons are fair. Sei came to us as a young gentleman, a year old, and he's got his own ways, which are very fine. Patience is my part in this transaction; trust, in his. So we have at least the beginning of a partnership. No, I'm not fickle: I feel Ysabel's absence deeply, but I will do that for a long, long time. But Sei's at a crossroads, and I can't leave him there: I have to open the way for him to be him, and not ask him to be Ysabel, but to try to get those behaviors that are safety for a traveling kitteh, the willingness to be close to me, and to pay attention to my voice. He's caught in a moment of change, and wondering what happened and if there's now a room in the house that could be his, and he's interested; I have to meet that willingness fairly, and if I shed a tear or two in the process, well, kittehs don't understand that sort of thing half as well as they understand an offered lap and a cuddle.

The day after…

Yesterday afternoon Jane and I went for a walk to try to get new air into our lungs, and came back to find OSG had come over from work, being unable to raise us by phone. We went out to the Swinging Door and had supper, which was really all I can remember eating yesterday.

It was real hard sleeping. Ysabel was there every night of my life, even on the road, even at conventions, for 15 years with very few exceptions, from the time when, as a tiny kitten, she managed to brace her tiny kitten feet and shove me right out of bed, a feat she accomplished twice in her life: grab the sheets with the foreclaws and shove with the back feet…

Well, Seishi just is very wary of any place she claimed and he wasn't about to go near the bed.

I slept maybe 3-4 hours last night, and at about 3 am got up to get a drink of water. Seishi turned up in the kitchen, from wherever he's spent his nights; and I carried him into my room, but he wouldn't stay—not too suprised or upset about that. Around dawn Jane nudged him into my room and he and I settled for about five minutes. Hey, we're gaining on it.

He was willing to be brushed, sitting by the front window, where I do my first cup of coffee and think about story, every morning. So he's done his first job as a Writer's Official Cat.

There's no replacing Her Furry Grace. Like a force of nature, she remains unique among all cats, —though as I've said, if she had any spare lives, it was my fierce first cat, Tabby, no other name, who when she lost her litter of kittens to a dog that invaded our garage, rescued one black kitten. She showed up injured, and we took care of her; we had no idea she had a kitten left, but she'd drop out of sight a lot of the day, for weeks. And finally she showed up with her one little ink-black kitten. So black kittens were Tabby's thing, and certainly they were Ysabel's: she brought up two of them, Efanor and Shu, and knew lordly Elrond, Jane's magnificent fellow, when she was a kitten herself.

We had to get Sei to cope with Shu, who's just a live wire; and I couldn't take any time away from Ysabel's daily schedule, or neglect her in any wise. I just had to find extra time for Seishi. And it's going to be confusing for Sei for a while—it certainly is for me. He's very different, so much like my dear old Khym-kitty, and tall: you pick him up and he's all legs and tail; but he has a very good purr.

I miss Ysabel. I miss her so much. I miss her little tricks like grabbing my hand to tell me to brush the other side, now, please. I miss her plopping down on my arm to sleep—and staying there for hours; I miss her bright blue eyes, and her wonderful cooperative way in the car; or the fact she'd dog my heels every day, all day long—when I'd move, she'd move, and park on my lap if I had a moment, or close by, if I had to work. It takes a long time to build up that kind of relationship. Sei's got a lot to learn.

And he'll be his own cat. They all are. We'll find how we best work together, in special ways, and we will do that.

But in the history of very special cats I've had, what can I say? Ysabel was Her Furry Grace, unique, and wonderful.

We lost Ysabel today…

We none of us planned on it. But Ysabel, I think, had picked her moment. She always slept with me. And she was unusually 'with me' last night, but today, surprising both Jane and me, she woke up with serious problems. She stayed for Jane's birthday, catching, we think, the mood of anticipation and happiness in the house. She stayed for the party, she said her goodbyes last night. Today was the day. We took her to the vet in Efanor's blanket, by purest accident: we didn't know which one we'd taken, but she smelled it all over, and that made her happy. She walked into her cage on her own, as she did for every trip. She's in no more pain or distress now. And I'm just kind of at loose ends, and lost. She and Efanor knew all four of our parents, who now are gone; they knew all the places we've lived together, but one; they were there for the move north and there for every trip south. So now we're hurting, Jane and I, with a pain that's for both of them. Here's to two excellent kittehs, and so many, many good years. She's buried right next to Efanor, beside the pond, under the red Japanese maple, under a shared stone.

A little problem with pie #1, and I'm revising the recipe…go back and take notes.

They're giving the figure for a very thin crust, a very shallow 9″. Screw that. Crust #1 became breakfast, with cinnamon and sugar.

I have crust #2 chilling now. I'll bake later today. And bake again tomorrow. I'm going to get this.

It was good, though. Just too small, too thin.