First we have Snowdrop enjoying a big scritch one morning.
And Wisp exploring the table while I’m caged with the Plush One on the couch.
#SFWApro.
Tag Archives: snowdrop
I hear cat photos generate almost as much traffic as Taylor Swift posts, so …
Filed under Uncategorized
Wisp’s new comfy chair
We have a pile of sheets handy so our dogs don’t eat straight off the carpet. Wisp discovered them the other day.
Snowdrop, meanwhile, has been trying to befriend Trixie. She’s tentatively okay with it.
#SFWApro.
Filed under The Dog Ate My Homework
The return of the Snowdrop!
Wednesday night we were walking the dogs down the cul-de-sac to say hi to one of our neighbors. While we were chatting I heard an anxious meow from somewhere near that sounded like Snowdrop. But where was he? Was I misidentifying the cat? But the meowing continued and TYG spotted him pressed up to one of the grills in the crawlspace.
We went around back and inside and yes, he was there. Clearly scared — didn’t want to approach us, didn’t want to leave by the open door. After 20 minutes or so, he instead pushed through a hole in one of the grates and got out. We went home and he showed up on the deck, thirsty and hungry. And friendly — now that he was safe he was happy to accept petting.
Yay! We’re very happy our boy is not drowned or in coyote’s gullet. To celebrate, here are photos of cats on things.
Here’s Wisp on the stairs.
Wisp on a table.
And from a few weeks back, Snowdrop on a chair. 
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Filed under Personal
And (temporarily) there were two: a bad week for pets.
Snowdrop disappeared last weekend. Given he vanished after heavy rains, the possibility he was holed up somewhere low-lying and wound up drowning seems very real. He’s been coming into the house regularly lately and it seems hard to believe he’d give up his heated house on the back in freezing cold, plus his regular meals, plus snuggle time with TYG. Or with me.
Then Monday after we returned from physical rehab Plushie suddenly started making with his hurt whimper, apparently at random — that is, nobody was touching him or doing anything. Eventually it became clear it was his neck and it was hurting him a lot. TYG took him to the emergency vet and we decided to let him stay there, doped up on enough meds he wouldn’t hurt or be lonely.
That was the right decision — less chance of making things worse than if he came home — but man, we felt miserable. And it’s so weird being at two pets. One dog to walk. No “drop of snow” (as TYG has taken to calling him) showing up on the back deck for a meal.
Happily for all the whimpering Plushie’s no worse off than he’s been in the past — back thrown out but no surgery, just several weeks of cage rest (I’ll have more to say about that in this afternoon’s week-in-review post). At 14, there’s always the fear when something goes wrong this will be the fatal moment — put him to sleep or let him live in pain — but not this time.
Here’s a look at Plushie from a few days before. Wisp has decided that corner of the couch is her new sleeping place.
Wisp, thank goodness, is doing fine. So is Trixie.
We are wondering if we could have done things differently but I doubt we could have changed things with Snowdrop. He wouldn’t accept staying inside; all we could do was give him the best outdoor life for as long as we could.
Plushie? Maybe we got too confident in his improvement and didn’t stop him jumping as often as we could. Maybe he got too confident and over-exerted himself. It’s a tough call because as our vet once told us, you have to let ’em be dogs, not fragile ornaments. We’re working out ways to do a better job of balancing both poles when he finally comes out of the cage.
Still missing Snowdrop though.
#SFWApro
Filed under The Dog Ate My Homework
I almost forgot!
I’m taking today off and that includes not blogging about my week; next week I guess I’ll do two weeks’ worth. But here’s a close-up of Snowdrop that should make you glad you’re reading this.
#SFWApro
Filed under Personal
Cats staring through windows
Here’s Wisp, gazing at the outdoors. She does that a lot since she became an inside cat, but I understand that’s a common thing with cats.
And here’s Snowdrop demanding attention, and Trixie giving it to him.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal, The Dog Ate My Homework
Week in review: not the cat-astrophe I feared
Yesterday Wisp got out.
Snowdrop was at the backdoor for his food. TYG opened the door for him to come in, then went to make up his breakfast. I opened the door wide to see if he’d come further in (he’s very skittish of late). There didn’t seem any risk as Wisp was in another room. Suddenly, though, she came running in, nuzzled him — and then rushed out before I could stop her.
That settles the question of whether she’s completely happy as an indoor cat. I knew she missed Snowdrop — she’d peer through the blinds at him —
— but she hadn’t made much effort to resist when the door was open and I even lightly restrained her. But there she was, on the deck, refusing to come in, even when we offered food. She showed up again later, same result, then vanished most of the day. This left me pretty miserable: sure, she made it five years between when we first saw her and when we finally brought her in this summer, but it’s still a risky life to be an outdoor cat. Plus she’s still limping from her leg injury; what if she thought she still had her old speed and ended up in a coyote or hit by a car?
Thank goodness, she came in Thursday evening to eat, then we shut the door. The taste of freedom changed her, I’m afraid: she keeps going to the back door and meowing to get out. Hopefully that will pass. The whole thing shows that while caring for her is often inconvenient, it’s the right choice.
Fortunately I got some work done despite that and despite some weird chaos from coordinating a lunch date with a friend. I finished another story for The Local Reporter about a library exhibit on immigrant cooking. I reworked Oh the Places You’ll Go and I’m finally making progress on fixing it. The ending doesn’t completely work yet but I’ve eliminated most of the elements that made it feel like a sequel was necessary. I completed this months work on a rewrite of Savage Adventures. I also carved out enough time without pets to complete my full week’s worth of exercise. Go me!
Elsewhere online, I participated in a Con-Tinual panel on comic-book villains. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I posted about the landmark story “Spider-Man No More” and the debut of the Kingpin, then about a curious parody of the Marvel Method of making comics.
I didn’t get anything done on Let No Man Put Asunder but overall I’m pleased.
#SFWApro. Paperback cover by James Bama, Spider-Man art by John Romita, all rights remain with current holders.
Still working out the kinks of the inside-cat thing
Wisp attempted to run outside recently, killing our assumption she’s content to stay inside. Most of the time she seems happy but I think she misses Snowdrop. Every time he comes in, there’s nuzzling, butt-sniffing and she’ll periodically bat at his face (I think it’s affectionate).
Snowdrop still freaks out if we shut the door on him so we let them nuzzle as much as possible without Wisp getting too close to the open doorway. It’s worked so far.
This week, though, I’ve been visiting Florida (so no week in review post this afternoon) which means it’s all on TYG; she’ll be traveling in a couple of months which will make it my turn. I’ve managed handling both cats in early mornings when TYG and the dogs are asleep. When TYG’s away, the dogs will be with me when I go down. Four pets is a lot when I’m worried about one of them bolting. But we’ll make it work! At least I hope she’s been able to make it work — I wrote this piece before the trip (if anything went wrong you’ll hear about it next week).
In the meantime, Wisp is finally exploring shelves. 
Nothing knocked off so far.
She’s also fond of sitting and staring up at the bird feeder. 
A reminder why it’s better for other living things if she stays indoors.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
Did I fall short or set my sights too high?
I may have been premature in declaring Wisp a contented indoor cat. We got Snowdrop to come in a couple of times this week and it was adorable: they nuzzled, licked each other and she bopped him on the head like she used to. However, it also looked at times like she was ready to follow him back outside. We discouraged this: she’s still a little slow on one leg and it’s just better (for cats and for the wildlife outside) if she stays inside.
The downside is that she’s still restless when she’s on the bed with me, though not as bad as when her leg was in the cast and the cone of shame.
And I no longer get mornings to myself because she loves me and follows me down when I get up. The loss of privacy gnaws at me more than you might think. If that’s what it takes to keep her indoors, though, so be it. This morning was an exception and it felt great — until I discovered she wasn’t sleeping on the bed, she’d followed me into another room and been trapped inside when I closed the door. Oops.
While adjusting my schedule to fit our new indoor cat — write in the early morning, exercise later in the day — still feels awkward, I’m getting used to it, and managing my time a little better. The lack of sleep, however, still lowers my creative ability some. I was supposed to work on Let No Man Put Asunder this morning and I just couldn’t. That said, I did get quite a bit done.
I finished a Local Reporter article on Chapel Hill’s participation in Vision Zero, a program for eliminating road fatalities and serious injuries. However there’s a major development on the Chapel Hill town council agenda for the week after next and I wound up scrambling to prepare an article for next week. That sucked up a lot of time away from my own work.
I got another 4,000 words done on Asunder and I finally see where the action’s going after this current section of talk. That’s a relief. I got less relief working on Oh the Places You’ll Go — I still can’t fix the ending. But I did sell The Adventure of the Red Leech to a new Durham specfic magazine, Dimension Zero. No pay, but I’m still pleased.
I got more work done on Savage Adventures (that was the work I did instead of the creative stuff) and finished my press kit for future Behold the Book releases. I also did some other publisher-type work, not worthy of note yet. And I had a couple of Atomic Junk Shop posts, one on writers who think they have clever insights and musing again about the end of Netflix DVDs.
I also sold a copy of 19-Infinity and someone checked it out from a digital library service. Thanks, both of y’all, whoever you are.
And so the week ends. Have a good weekend everyone.
#SFWApro. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights to image are mine.
Filed under Nonfiction, Personal, Short Stories, Story Problems, Time management and goals, Writing
Wisp the indoor cat? Time will tell
I’m not placing any bets but Wisp seems remarkably content staying indoors all the time, even . now that she’s mostly healed. She’s not trying to rush out past us when we open the door, even when Snowdrop’s on the deck. While we come in from walkies to see her sitting near the door, it seems more like she’s worried we’re not coming back. Cool if so: safer for her, safer for local wildlife. But if she’s determined to go out, we’ll let her.
Here’s a photo of her nuzzling Snowdrop right before we trapped him last week. 
This week was taken up with a lot of non-writing stuff. Day off for Labor Day. Wednesday afternoon off to give blood. Two trips to the vet with Plushie because of heavy vomiting (seems to have passed, no underlying problems detected, just one of those dog things). A couple of contractors. Even so I got stuff done.
The biggest was sitting and rereading Southern Discomfort, the first step toward self-publishing it next year. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it holds up — no major changes needed. However I changed it quite a bit when I rewrote it last year to shift Maria’s POV scenes to first person and a lot of the changed scenes need polishing or tightening. But the manuscript is, over all, sound, and this should be slightly less work than anticipated.
I also began work on an appendix to go with the book. This will go chapter by chapter, identifying the various 1970s references I’ve worked into the manuscript. Hopefully I’ve done it so well, and written such a good book, nobody will worry about looking stuff up until they’ve finished, but still, I like including the information.
That consumed much of my writing time, plus I edited a short story for the collaborative anthology, Ceaseless Way, that I’m participating in. And I got a new story in The Local Reporter, a business profile. Over at Atomic Junk Shop I discuss the limits of the Marvel app and the time Professor X woke up in bondage gear.
I’m also in a Con-Tinual panel on time travel that just got posted to YouTube.
Oh, and someone checked a copy of 19-Infinity out on a digital library service. I got paid. Whoever you are out there, thanks for reading.
#SFWApro. X-Man page by John Romita Jr, 19-Infinity cover by Kemp Ward. All rights remain with current holders.
Filed under Southern Discomfort, Time management and goals, Writing
