From kittens to kitten.

FYI: Like Tiny Cat, these are feral kittens.

Last week Nixie went missing, on 25-July-18. After breakfast. This seems to be the time the kittens vanish, sometime after the kibble comes back out.

Can't leave the kibble out overnight, since local coons -- anywhere from 3-7 a night! -- come by, along with a couple skunks, and maybe a possum.

Nix is a dilute calico male. A timid cat. He and Jack had just started purring together at us...

Then Sunday (29-July) Cali went missing. She's a female calico. After I fed her and her brother Jack breakfast.

Spring update...

Tiny Cat went missing 13-April-18. Three days before his birthday.

I have a couple blog posts started about Gatito, our Smoky, who was almost a year old.  Short version, we're positive he was rescued by someone who figured he was a cute polite young cat, and that's why there's been no sign of him. He'd always come home before. * 

I hope that person has other cats for him to play with, and takes good care of my baby. I miss him terribly -- we all do.

A horrible and vicious tomcat had been attacking Smoky, and Vee, and pretty much every cat here who wasn't Shadow. The only cat who the Orange Monster could mate with; I call him that rather than constantly cuss, okay?

August 2016: Cat dramas.

~~ I wrote this 27-August-2016.  I should have posted it then, but I'll post it now.  Dates were added for clarity.


So Shadowcat seems to be expecting again.  I was basing it on how oddly she was acting, initially.

The current batch of kittens were weaned about two weeks ago.

Then suddenly all kittens (Oreo, 'Violet, DustBunny) were nursing again.  They shouldn't be.  They're three months old!

Cats, stairs, and family.

For years, I saw my aunt and Granny most weekends.

Thus I knew from a young age that people were different.  I could see it in my relatives, to start with.  Mom's parents lived together, Dad's parents did not.

My grandmother lived with her descendants instead:  Granny, her daughter, and her daughter's daughters, plus one of her grandsons.  Grandpa Zanoni had had many strokes, so by the time I knew him, he lived in a nursing home.

Dad's sister, who passed away a month ago, lived for much of my life in Granny's house.  At least that was how it appeared to me.  After Granny died [when I was almost sixteen], it became my aunt's house.

We all learn more layers as we grow up, eh?


I shall divert to two weeks ago, on Sunday, when I'd planned to attend the Readercon Skype.  Instead, there was Project Stairs.  My folks came over, we demolished the back steps, then assembled the new steps.

I'd made a list of ideal steps and current steps, and Dad went with the first.  This means we have 2/3 of the previous stairs, since I thought having steps just under the sliding door would be optimal.

Kittens, Cryoburn, death.

I've been rereading Cryoburn lately, my first reread of it.  It is far easier to read this time around.

The first time, I kept being afraid that the next moment, Miles would get the call.  About Aral.

As Allen pointed out to me last night, the way Miles does get the call is foreshadowed in the book that falls -- in the Vorkosigan Saga timeline -- directly before Cryoburn.

{ Warning:  sadness from death follows.  }

Another January death--STOP IT!!!

One of my editors died today (from Making Light and BoingBoing, respectively).

Astronomicon 12

Except I never edited with David Hartwell, at least not directly.  He was unfailing kind to me.  David knew I was part of NYRSF staff and was very enthusiastic about my work there -- so yes, in a way he was "my" editor.

Because books.

And it's a cool image, isn't it?

A few words from our sponsor--

The Internet.

Well, what did you THINK would sponsor an editor anyway?

Cat waxing for fun and profit and... urm.

This is actually to balance out Tuesday's sad news.  We lost Tanith Lee -- see Tor.com, help them keep hanging their poor overus'd site, why don't you.

She died this weekend.  I'll write more about her in the future.  Not today.  Already wrote up a short piece for NYRSF... a love letter to one of my very favorite authors.  Goodbye, Tan.  I wish I'd told you how much you meant to me and how you helped shape my life, mind, heart, soul.

But I didn't.  8(

Je Suis Charlie.

Charlie Hegbo: Je Suis Charlie.  France Will Shine Again at Technocrunch.

L’arc de Triomphe tonight http://t.co/AttvOYS99L #JeSuisCharlie pic.twitter.com/lOGgjyn1us
— Amanda Wills (@AmandaWills) January 9, 2015

Not right.

So I read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time yesterday.

At one point, I accidentally turned to the reader guide, which was in the middle of this edition.  And I found out what happened to her.

I was horrified. 

I keep thinking it was a Hans Christian Andersen ending. 

I like very few of his fairy tales, partly because he tends to break the contract with the reader.  Also, I honestly think he hated human beings and meant -- or expected -- that they should all suffer.  Yes, that could be due to his upbringing or religion; right now, that's just how her story's end strikes me.

No wonder I enjoy mysteries.  Lois Bujold calls them fantasies of justice.  Because in a mystery I expect fairness.  That suffering will be rewarded, prisoners will be freed...

Or as Oscar Wilde puts it:  "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily."

The bad are punished, not the good -- unless the story's a different sort of tragedy...  Remember that bit in Good Omens, when the authors suggest that perhaps your own belief about tropical fish, and that child growing up happy are preferable? 

I feel like that.  As if I should dream about how her story should have ended.  Getting prizes in school.  Being happy.  Except my mind keeps shying away, afraid that I'll not be able to block out what did happen.  Everyone deserves to be happy... everyone.  I have no words for how deeply wrong this is. 

Straight from my heart: goodbye, Arnie.

Today I found out a good friend of mine passed away Sunday.

Arnie, you are a brightness, and the world is lesser for losing you. Those words just don't seem enough, but words are all I have. 


In the SCA, you were Arnolde "Slyme" Fredrickson.  I have so many memories of you, my friend.  Little moments.  Life is all those little moments.

Arnie saying, with delight:  "Oh, you're a left-handed fencer!"

Not streamlined.

Wow... Google's mad dash to make everything "more streamlined" seems to be  a rush towards ugly.  I'm not sure what made them think that cold starkness was streamlined.

Depressing, though.  I had other things I was thinking about -- but having Blogger change along with Gmail [what an unsurprise!] is exceedingly depressing.

It does make me see why folks get into Wordpress.  Maybe they can make the interface less repellent.  I don't know.

"Our only hope."

What happens when bookstores close? What about when brick-and-mortar bookstores just don't choose to stock your book?

How do readers find books in those cases?

Jim Hines has a guest blog by fellow author Joshua Palmatier/Ben Tate on The Importance of Shelf Space.

Here's author J.F. Lewis on why you should support your favorite writers by buying their books... concluding:

But spread the word or the words you crave may stop flowing.

(Also from Jim Hines, his annual writing income post. Check 'em all out; Jim's 2007 money post has the link to Scalzi's writing advice post about finances.)


Remember, if you just figure that "lots of people buy books" or that you don't need to speak up about the books you love -- you lose. No more future books. Maybe you think that books cost too much or that electrons [and electronic books] should be free.

Air is free.

Every book is a chain of people working to make that manuscript into a book. Unseen. Many people assume a book came out of nothing. As if it's a direct route from author to editor, which goes kazam! And lo, a book.

Just as another process is taken for granted, how cars are made -- with a great deal of effort by many (unseen) people. Books have a long production process. The only human face the average reader knows is the author.

Don't forget your authors create the words you crave. Feed them. Buy their books.

Warning: dark & personal.

I started this out saying, "No one did anything bad to me today." That's true.

Then I was going to say, "No one did anything bad to me this weekend." But that's not true.

At a con in the past, someone did. Someone I didn't know tried to force me, to rape me.

And someone reminded me of that over this past weekend. So when I stopped and listened to myself -- to my inner self, to what my heart and mind was saying behind "No one did" then I heard that, that echo, that "No one yet had the chance to go further" because I know someone who probably would.

I realized it because even when you don't get forced, the attempt is a violation. Just as Scarleteen says. To anyone who has never been forced, never been raped, never found that "No" is ignored... that's a concept he -- or she -- doesn't get.

There is no words.

Years ago, I fled where I lived because I'd been raped. Again, it's something people who haven't been raped or forced or victimized DO NOT understand. I've listened to them trying to grasp it, when I explain, and saying, "But why didn't you...?" as if that would help.

When I found out my rapist planned to move to my new region, I fled again. Each time, my fleeing coincided with other things happening in my life. The second time, however, I was aware that the flight was motivated first by my rapist and second by the other things. I've never fled -- as in packed up everything and moved away -- like that again.

Except for that weekend a few years ago. At a con. I got help from friends and fled him.


Years ago, I didn't try to explain this to anyone, not the rapist, nor the flight. This isn't to make you think I expect bad things at cons. I don't.

(The boyfriend who stalked me was not from fandom, for example. He didn't try to rape me, but stalking is another victimization.)

This whole topic is just something dark that I've been thinking about. I talk about a lot of things in my life. The predators... take me time to recover from. Just like they do for anyone else who survives the predators.

I am not prey. I am a person. I know teaching people to NOT be rapists is the first and best solution. But there is a dark part of me that wishes to make them feel exactly what it's like -- something that Mercedes Lackey did to a rapist in one of her books. I've never forgotten that.

A loss... and a win.

My dad, much to my delight, discovered Lois McMaster Bujold. He read the first Chalion book and then the entire Sharing Knife series.

Last month I bought him a Nook as an early Xmas gift [since he'd had hand surgery].

Dad read The Warrior's Apprentice [and also The Mountains of Mourning] and wants to read all the Miles books. :D

So I'm re-reading a few myself. And Jo Walton's Tor.com posts about Miles, of course.

Edited to add: Look below the break to see my feelings on this day in history, as that was when the news of Anne McCaffrey's demise. :( 

Links: January

Locus Magazine is seeking interns.

Although I enjoyed being the runner and part-time law library clerk back in 1989... I realize now that I would have killed to be Locus' intern. Half my lifetime ago. :> They may not send you to a castle like my law firm did -- but you never know, they might.

Kid Goth: Neil Gaiman. :D 'Nuff said, right? Heh.

I agree that Coraline is creepier for adults, because I now have a serious phobia about button eyes, which I can honestly blame on Neil. I love him anyway; he's too nice a person for any other choice.

The WSNB needs YOUR help!

And I have somewhat of a personal interest, in that I have proofed two different ads for this book -- one ad's running in EV 20, and t'other ran in EV 19. Go forth and buy it! (I just did.) The cover art's lovely, BTW.

Charlie Stross on monetization, aka why Google is not my friend.
Cory Doctorow explains about new media in Close enough for rock 'n' roll.

Author Kage Baker is dying of cancer... and hasn't much longer. John posted about her in his miscellany, and Jeff VanderMeer has given contact info for reaching her. Please, if she matters to you, take a bit to write her. Today. Please.