Technical Difficulties

1. On the meat front:
( health stuff: interesting if you're fighting similar issues; otherwise, probably not )

My GP agreed with me that the next logical step may be a referral to the UW Sleep Clinic. If so, I will blog that for posterity, too.

2. I promised a report on Noodler's Old Dutch Sepia, ergo:
( ink geeks click through )

5. The awesome Simon Tofield has a new and seasonal Simon's Cat short: "Santa Claws."

My new keyboard has arrived, courtesy of the kindness of my parents. It is, happily, almost exactly like my old one, except with better action, and the right ALT key has been replaced by a Windows/Mac squiggle key (you know what I mean). We'll see if that bothers me or not--I think I actually tend to use the left ALT key anyway, so I may never notice except when I hit the damn thing by accident.

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When I went out just now to see if perhaps the FedEx ninjas had softly and silently delivered the keyboard, as the FedEx ninjas are wont to do, I found that indeed they had, placed tidily just to the right of the door. And tidily on top of it was El Marmelado, one of the current cast of feralistas.*

We think El Marmelado may have had a domestic mother, although he was clearly lost/abandoned/thrown out before he was old enough to neuter. (Jowlz. I has them, says El Marmelado.) He is noticeably less skittish than the other ferals. Over the past week, El Marmelado has gone from hissing at me when I inadvertantly got too close to giving me a silent meow when I came out with food. And this afternoon, he was totally King of the Box. I came out, and he was all, What do you want, thumb-monkey?

That's my box, I said.

Says who? said El Marmelado. I got dibs.

Since I don't actually want to encourage him to be afraid of me (the plan being eventually to trap and neuter him, and it would be very cool if he could be rehabilitated into a domestic kitty, although I'm not holding my breath), I said, Okay, went down to check the mail, and came back.

El Marmelado held his ground until I was actually opening the screen door again, and then he retreated a couple of feet. I took the box, but I offered a trade by fetching the food and water I put out for the feralistas daily.

My box was better, said El Marmelado grumpily and went to get a drink.

And when I came back inside with my new keyboard, I discovered Catzilla had somehow gotten himself shut in the pantry. Again.

Life with cats.


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*These days, I regularly see El Marmelado, the Shy Tabby, and the Lesser Mackenzie, and there's another, even lesser, fluffy red cat whom I have seen once or twice. The Lesser Mackenzie is the only one of the cats we trapped and had neutered whom I still see--Rigby and the Greater Mackenzie have both vanished, along with Eleanor and Hilary. I hope they've just found other territories to roam, but I suspect that isn't really the answer.

The only kitten I have ever seen was Eleanor's kitten, Brownkitten (well, and her sibling, who disappeared only a couple days after I first saw them). Brownkitten, I got into the local feral rescue program, and I hope she is living as happy and pampered a life as our Formerly Feral Ninjas are.**

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**A quick ninja story--fanservice for the cat-lovers, since this is already a cat-centric post: When the Second Ninja was small, she was the poster child for Short Attention Span Theater. (She's still that way a little, but maturity has brought a better ability to focus.) She was also an inveterate investigator of cups if they were left where she could reach them, always with the same, "Ooh, hey, cup! What's in here?" attitude. This morning, I had a cup of warm water on my desk from taking my herbal supplement, and the Second Ninja came to walk across my keyboard and get snuggles, like she does. And she noticed the cup.

I am charmed to report that at the serious and mature age of six, she is still an inveterate investigator of cups.

"Ooh, hey, cup!"

Catzilla just stole my quilting thimble and fled with it from the bedroom, through the dressing room and the hall, and into the TV room. Mercifully, he left it near the bookcase rather than stashing it under the futon, so I was able, only slightly precariously, to retrieve it.

I told him it's not nice to take advantage of the handicapped for one's own amusement, but he just crawled under the futon and laughed at me.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Werewolf story finished, 6,000 words, except that (a.) it's turned into the first chapter of a novel on me and (b.) it's drivel. Utter damnable drivel.

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My aquarium has a new inhabitant, who was sold as a blue mystery snail, but who I believe is actually an apple snail, specifically a Pomacea bridgesii. The snail's name is Louise. (No, don't ask me, I don't know either. I put the snail in the tank, it opened its trapdoor to start looking around, and I thought, You go, Louise! You now know as much as I do. The fish, on the other hand, still does not have a name. He doesn't seem to require one.) Louise is fascinating and weirdly beautiful in a tentacled Lovecraftian way.

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Tomorrow the ninjas go in for their annual check-up. They would dread it more than I do if they knew, but they don't know, so I'm dreading it for all three of us.

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Piccadilly notebooks, while obviously Moleskine knock-offs, are (a.) cheaper, especially if you get them on clearance at Borders and (b.) use thicker paper, so--if you are a fountain pen user--there's less bleed-through than with Moleskine. Thus far, I certainly do not like them less.

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There was probably something else, but I've forgotten what it is.

Another half hour last night with the Wii. Was completely thrown off by suddenly having the male trainer "filling in" for my female trainer on the first exercise of the evening. Mercifully, he went away after that, but it was the worst halfmoon pose I've done in quite some time. wtf, Nintendo?

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Thank you to everyone who has commented with support for and love of my books on the previous post. I appreciate it a great deal more than I can express.

Thank you also to casacorona, who stepped up to the plate to explain how things look from the publishers' apex of the triangle. A thankless task--for which I thank you!

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Also pursuant to the previous post, the April Locus has a review of Corambis by Faren Miller, which includes phrases like "Monette displays both wicked powers of invention and something like sly wit" and says the ending "should satisfy even the rare cynical reader who hasn't already been won over by Monette's gifts for character, voice, and great prose." So I'm feeling better.

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Catzilla got me up this morning by sitting on my pillow and draping his incredibly fluffy tail across my face. I hope that this was a mere accident and not actually, you know, planned. Because if it was planned, I am so doomed.

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I regularly tell Catzilla (he whom we rescued from the flower bed) that he doesn't know how lucky he is, and given the size and scope of his brain, it's true. One of the feralistas who hangs out on and around our porch is a long-haired brown tabby (named Hilary in honor of Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar, because I have yet to figure out what sex s/he is), and poor Hilary has, I noticed this morning, a mat large enough to be mistaken for a kitten on his/her right haunch. S/he also has dead leaves matted into his/her tail, and in general needs the kind of grooming help that s/he is much too skittish to allow.

It's hard to be a fluffy kitty. This is something even Catzilla knows.

TRUEPENNY, having taken a hot bath (The high today was like twelve. Fahrenheit.), is putting her clothes on. The bathroom door--which opens into the room--is shut to keep the heat in, but not latched. TRUEPENNY and MIRRORTHAW have both learned not to latch the door while taking baths, as both CATZILLA and the SECOND NINJA take exception to being unable to get the door open, and that's hard on the woodwork.

Somebody scrabbles at the bathroom door.

TRUEPENNY pulls on her shirt.

The door does not open, and the scrabbling continues.

TRUEPENNY opens the door and discovers CATZILLA in the hallway, poised in front of the door over by the hinges.

CATZILLA: Dude! About time!

CATZILLA sashays into the bathroom.

TRUEPENNY cracks up.

CATZILLA: Dude, what? You made the magic work. What's so funny?

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Some cats are smart enough to figure out doors, as heresluck and I both know. This cat is not one of them.

More often than not, this is the kind of thing matociquala and I talk about.

1. Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen reviews The Bone Key, which mrissa and stillsostrange have also recently confessed to liking. (Given mrissa and given stillsostrange, I consider this a very neat trick indeed.)

ETA: buymeaclue also likes it.

2. I have not abandoned the Due South episode analyses, but in the meantime I have a question for persons more knowledgeable about Canadian literature than myself. Is there a sub-genre of Mountie-lit, and does it replace or overlap with or otherwise have a relationship with the Western? Does Canada have an indigenous tradition of the Western (i.e., stories about cowboys and wild frontiers and lawmen and rustlers and robbers rather than stories about, say, Vancouver) or is that genre American?* I have a rather muddled idea about Due South and the Western, and it could use some grounding.

3. BPAL's Titus Andronicus (Dark musk and black amber with frankincense, red sandalwood, neroli and bergamot.) may be edging out Sin (Thoroughly corrupted: amber, sandalwood, black patchouli and cinnamon.) in my affections. Considering my unholy love for the play, this seems no more than appropriate.

4. Speaking of unholy love and Renaissance drama, if you're interested in revenge tragedy at all, I highly recommend Revengers Tragedy (2002). It's like the psychotic bastard child of Almereyda's Hamlet (2000, Ethan Hawke) and Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes), and like any self-respecting bastard in Jacobean tragedy, it takes down both its progenitors and does the Monster Mash on their faintly twitching corpses.

(N.b., our excellent local indie video store shelves Revengers Tragedy under Comedy. Be prepared.)

5. The Formerly Feral Ninjas are very odd little girls. I don't know if this is to do with being feral rescues, or to do with being warped in their childhood by me and mirrorthaw and heresluck, or if they would have turned out this way regardless. But definitely odd. They have Designated Petting Places. Outside a DPP, one does not touch the cat; inside a DPP, one MUST PET the CAT, biPED. The First Ninja will actually come fetch me and lead me with imperious mews to her DPP. Her sister, the Second Ninja, is more flexible about these things, and will designate temporary PPs as needed (You may pet me when I stand here as opposed to the true DPP: I am standing here! You must pet me!), although some places are simply Not Suitable and you will NOT touch the cat you icky biped. Neither of them approves of bipeds bending over them. The Second Ninja's DPP (the radiator cover in our bedroom) puts her at waist height, whereas to pet the First Ninja, even in her DPP (the front stairs), it is necessary to sprawl full length on the stairs and follow her as she weaves up them. Or down them, for that matter, although she's only persuaded me to do that once. What's interesting is that they have quite distinct and nontransferable DPPs. I've never seen the First Ninja in the Second Ninja's DPP at all, and while the Second Ninja perforce transverses--and often hangs out in--the First Ninja's DPP, she does not want to be petted there and attempting it will get you fled from as perfidious and untrustworthy and probably planning to eat cats.

Catzilla and the Elder Saucepan think the Ninjas are very weird.

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*Yes, it is embarrassing how little I, as an American, know about Canada. Also embarrassing that I am, in this, typical of my countrymen and -women. :P

It seems ages since last we talked.

( This is what Wednesday looked like. )
Will post this when I can. Hope you and all your little weblings are well.

Love and kisses,
truepenny

P.S. 1:15 P.M. Hallelujah! Intarwebs I love you! Never leave me again!