I call this one Still Life With Cat.
Caught Snowdrop in the flower bed a couple of weeks back.
#SFWApro (Huh. Now that twitter’s so messed up, I wonder if using SFWA’s hashtag draws any attention at all).
Tag Archives: Wisp
This month of dread, this month of doom
Not really that bad, just me being melodramatic. Rereading Silver Age comics en masse can have that effect.
Not as bad as Sgt. Rock on the Joe Kubert cover above, either, though earlier in the week I did feel that exhausted.
First, Sunday night: TYG came home from a social event in the early morning. I would probably have gone back to sleep except she dragged me to see Wisp, thinking something was wrong. It probably was: she was reluctant to be touched, reluctant to move … but after 20 minutes examining her I couldn’t get back to sleep. Fortunately by Monday she’d recovered from whatever it was so we didn’t have to take her to the vet.
Then Monday night Plushie had a freakout over a thunderstorm and climbed on top of me. We’d doped him up earlier and it kicked in after around an hour of trying to comfort him. Wide-awake again, couldn’t get back to sleep. Same thing happened Tuesday night.
Oh, and I’d noticed some sensitivity to pressure on my upper-right molars so Tuesday I took time out to go to the dentist. Tooth under my filling had cracked so I came home with a temporary crown. Added to lack of sleep my productivity went down.
And to top it off, Snowdrop has some odd sores on his ears. We moved up his annual vet appointment to yesterday. He came in for breakfast, TYG shut the door and then it was three hours of repeated pleading to go out. After that he went in the cage and TYG took him to the vet. Good news: the sores are just mosquito bites and he’s otherwise healthy. And I did get some cute photos of him in the morning.
Needless to say, three hours of plaintive meows put me off my game the rest of the day, which I’d anticipated. But that didn’t make me like it any better.
And I took Plushie in today for a “just in case” checkup — looks like it’s nothing but TYG suspects a problem (not a major one, thank goodness) and her instincts are good.
Like last week, my output was sub-par. A Local Reporter article on a candidate for Carrboro city council. Atomic Junk Shop articles on some Marvel stories from ’68 and why the next couple of years are a blank spot in my comics-reading history. Various odds and ends, contractor appointments and so on.
On the plus side, I got some good work done on Southern Discomfort. First I went over the book and made sure all the streets I used made sense. A couple of times they didn’t — the Peachtree/Douglass intersection in one scene is the King Street intersection in another — but that’s now fixed. I did the same with the layout of Gwalchmai’s home. That was more complicated as I have to have Joan and Maria steal something from one of the rooms. The original location of the room didn’t work for that so I moved things around.
And then I ran it through Draft2Digital‘s bookmaking process, then took the PDF and ran it through Amazon’s hard-copy printing process. I don’t have a cover yet but as with past books, I simply snatched one off Amazon’s covers on offer. What I want is to have the finished book so I can give it one final edit.
Also I read a couple of key scenes from the book to the writing group Tuesday night. They gave them big thumbs up, which is good. I also got an invite for a final beta-reading which I accepted — I think I have time to make any last-minute changes if need be.
So that was good but between our pets’ issues, the dentist and exhaustion, I’ve underperformed as a writer this month. Better than a year ago when we were caring for Wisp after she tore her tendon.
Let’s hope August gets back in the swing of things.
#SFWApro. All rights to images remain with current holders.
Must-see TV!
According to Wisp anyway. She’s mesmerized by that squirrel.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal
Wisp on a table
Wisp has always been a “bush cat,” one who stays close to the ground. Apparently that’s changing.
This has forced us to be more careful about what we put on the table, like used up medicine containers we’re taking for disposal. Normally the table would be covered with stuff like that.
She’s also taken to sitting on this shelf, which would seem a lot less comfortable.
So far she hasn’t been knocking anything off. We have started keeping her out of the main bedroom because TYG has a large new computer monitor and we’re worried about Wisp knocking it over on herself (she does like to get up and sit on the keyboard). Otherwise, so far so good.
#SFWApro.
Filed under Personal, The Dog Ate My Homework
Two pets sitting, a third by the flowers
Some pet photos for your Friday.
The chair where we pile some of our blankets and sheets has become Wisp’s new nest.
Peak Plushie. In about a week he’ll be groomed down and look totally different.
#SFWApro
Filed under The Dog Ate My Homework
I hear cat photos generate almost as much traffic as Taylor Swift posts, so …
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.
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 other women in my life
TYG is the love of my life and it’s immeasurably better with her than without her. But she doesn’t want me posting photos of her online, so here are some photos of my other women instead.
Hope everyone else is having fun with their special someone or someones today, regardless of gender.
#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. 
#SFWApro
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
