My last post was back in August, when I had a bit of a flood in the basement. That led in a roundabout way to the discovery that my water heater was failing. So now I have less money and a new water heater.

A couple of weeks ago, the temperature in the house dropped down to the mid-60s, so I turned on the heat. Nothing happened. (It turned out the ( Read more... )

This is an edited and expanded version of a reply to jenett's query about cats and names and such.

All my cat names have come from books. And all my cats but one were friend's-cat-had-kittens cats; that other one was from the Human Society.

Emily (named for Emily Dickinson, because she was celibate and a bit strange) was quite happy as a solitary cat ( Read more... )

From 1966 to 1973, most years I went to YWCA Camp Newaygo (in Newaygo, MI; thus the name) during the month of August. It was an all-girls camp, not at all fancy, but I learned camping and swimming and a bit of horseback riding there. It also had its own traditions and songs, and I loved going there. For complicated reasons, I never worked there as ( Read more... )

1. The Yuletide reveal has happened, and there are many fine stories. My story was written very much with the requester's prompt in mind, and is total crack. It's set in an alternate universe version of Valdemar, specifically during the Last Herald Mage era. The title is "Paying the Price2. I had planned to watch all four NFL wild card games, but ( Read more... )

What I've read lately:

Wizards, an anthology of wizard-related stories from the pile by the bedside. Lots of name authors, mostly enjoyable stories.

The Scalzi Subterranean Super Bundle, a collection of John Scalzi chapbooks in e-book format. Read on the iPad. Mostly short stories, plus book mostly about the business of writing, entitled You're ( Read more... )

I visited her yesterday, and she appeared to be glad to see me. She wasn't eating on her own (they force-fed her some), but was drinking (and peeing ( Read more... )

Dr. McMenomy called to say Morwen is out of surgery and waking up. Apparently it was indeed her fiber-eating habits that did her in -- she had a whole felted chunk that had made it past the small intestine and cecum, and come to rest in the large intestine, whence it tried to take up permanent residence ( Read more... )

The report from the U of M radiologist is that there's some kind of blockage in the small intestine. They recommend exploratory surgery. Sometimes I hate being right -- I suspected all along it was going to come to this ( Read more... )

She spent Tuesday hiding in a few different places, and refusing all food. I did manage to get the doses of medicine into her, but they didn't seem to do any good. She's not grooming at all, and her backside and tail are still stiff from when she peed in the cat carrier. Her current favorite hiding place is behind the waterbed, and that was a major ( Read more... )

I took Morwen to the vet at 5 pm. Usually it's a challenge to get her into the cat carrier. This time it wasn't; I closed the door of the office (to remove the potential escape route), hauled her out of her hiding place in the closet, and she went into the carrier with minimal fuss. Which was sad and unnatural ( Read more... )