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A Cat Who Knows What She Wants
Aug. 26th, 2013 01:44 pm
Stay fuzzy, my friends!
(Hayes, 8/24/13)
Stay fuzzy, my friends!
I've decided that worrying about kidney stone time bombs is silly. With one precaution I've started planning outings more distant than the nearest town, and it's a precaution I'd prefer to do anyway: Going somewhere with a companion or three. I like that better regardless of any other circumstances; I always enjoy outings more when they're shared.
With the hope that my newly-acquired reliable car will stay reliable (but getting AAA in case it doesn't), I've already started planning one such semi-distant outing: A trip with friends up to the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway for scenic photo-shooting and a hike to the top of Humpback Rocks. A couple of invitees have already accepted just so long as we can plan it around work schedules. At any rate, I'm shooting to do this sometime in late June or early July.
More immediately, I'm also gathering a small group to go watch Star Trek: Into Darkness on the 17th. Much less ambitious but anticipated just as much.
As has been the case many times in the past--especially at this time of year, when students leave campus and dump their animals--a cat is living just outside the library. Our building is ideal for small animals wanting to hide, as the facing is built in such a way that they can go up into the exterior wall and stay out of sight. This time, though, the cat was pregnant, and there are now several few-week-old kittens living with her. Food is being left for them most days. Sad and infuriating all at once...though I caught sight of one of the tiny fuzzball kittens out of the wall and playfully hopping around, which was a highlight of my day.
Writing: I'm back to a shift going in at noon, which guts most of my usual writing time. Unlike last year, though, this isn't going to last for months, just most of May. Then I'll spend the summer getting used to writing at night again. At any rate, my word counts are lower but the writing is still getting done.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 5/7-8/2013
New Words: 1800 on chapter 9 ("Copper Heart") of Arizona. Ulpian Shively--former U.S. officer, former Confederate officer, now pistoleer-for-hire--arrives in Copper Heart and has a fateful meeting with the 13-year-old Gus Beckett that will put the latter on the road to eventually being a soldier in the hunt for Geronimo, a sheriff, a marshall, and an Arizona Ranger hunting Pancho Villa.
Total Words: 276,550.
Reason For Stopping: End of scene and getting ready for work, both days.
Stimulants: Today, An ice cream sammich.
Mammalian Assistance: Yesterday, Vegas guarded my lap. Today, none.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood.
Today's Opening Passage:
Yesterday: Two years before, the slab of mountain on the west side of the Verde Valley had been devoid of any human presence—not even Indians had frequented it for a generation or more, and certainly no whites. Except one, Will Beckett, seeking copper. Now there was a sprawling town across the eastern face overlooking the tiny ribbon of the Verde River far below, all at once looking as boisterously young as it was, but its terraces lined with adobe and brick buildings already showing some weathering as if they had been there since time before memory. Wind sweeping across the mountainside carried voices down toward the valley; Copper Heart was a town that never slept.
Today: Most saloons looked the same to Shively, and the Queen of the Mountain was no different: Like the better class of such places he’d seen, it had a long bar—polished walnut from who knew how many hundreds of thousands of miles away—a mirror behind the bar—which Shively always found useful in case anyone tried sneaking up on him—and a piano, which was unattended at the moment. No doubt there were whores upstairs, busy servicing the men who’d come off the night shift. The place was half full, including some women Shively didn’t bother making guesses about.
What he wasn’t expecting was the boy.
Darling Du Jour: But Beckett was not why Ulpian Shively ascended the mountain to Copper Heart. Shively was a hired shootist looking for work, and he loved mining towns. Most were new and wild and frontier enough that the rules hadn’t quite been figured out yet, and enough men took things past the line that somebody sooner or later would want Shively’s gun.
And often, if there was some legal presence in the town, they turned the other cheek on him. He still carried his law books, the ones his father gave him what felt like a lifetime ago, and they were more than just horse ballast. Shively wouldn’t kill anyone he felt had done no wrong. True, the punishment might not fit the crime, but there was always a crime nevertheless.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Babylon Confidential by Claudia Christian; Paris by Edward Rutherfurd.
With the hope that my newly-acquired reliable car will stay reliable (but getting AAA in case it doesn't), I've already started planning one such semi-distant outing: A trip with friends up to the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway for scenic photo-shooting and a hike to the top of Humpback Rocks. A couple of invitees have already accepted just so long as we can plan it around work schedules. At any rate, I'm shooting to do this sometime in late June or early July.
More immediately, I'm also gathering a small group to go watch Star Trek: Into Darkness on the 17th. Much less ambitious but anticipated just as much.
As has been the case many times in the past--especially at this time of year, when students leave campus and dump their animals--a cat is living just outside the library. Our building is ideal for small animals wanting to hide, as the facing is built in such a way that they can go up into the exterior wall and stay out of sight. This time, though, the cat was pregnant, and there are now several few-week-old kittens living with her. Food is being left for them most days. Sad and infuriating all at once...though I caught sight of one of the tiny fuzzball kittens out of the wall and playfully hopping around, which was a highlight of my day.
Writing: I'm back to a shift going in at noon, which guts most of my usual writing time. Unlike last year, though, this isn't going to last for months, just most of May. Then I'll spend the summer getting used to writing at night again. At any rate, my word counts are lower but the writing is still getting done.
New Words: 1800 on chapter 9 ("Copper Heart") of Arizona. Ulpian Shively--former U.S. officer, former Confederate officer, now pistoleer-for-hire--arrives in Copper Heart and has a fateful meeting with the 13-year-old Gus Beckett that will put the latter on the road to eventually being a soldier in the hunt for Geronimo, a sheriff, a marshall, and an Arizona Ranger hunting Pancho Villa.
Total Words: 276,550.
Reason For Stopping: End of scene and getting ready for work, both days.
Stimulants: Today, An ice cream sammich.
Mammalian Assistance: Yesterday, Vegas guarded my lap. Today, none.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood.
Today's Opening Passage:
Yesterday: Two years before, the slab of mountain on the west side of the Verde Valley had been devoid of any human presence—not even Indians had frequented it for a generation or more, and certainly no whites. Except one, Will Beckett, seeking copper. Now there was a sprawling town across the eastern face overlooking the tiny ribbon of the Verde River far below, all at once looking as boisterously young as it was, but its terraces lined with adobe and brick buildings already showing some weathering as if they had been there since time before memory. Wind sweeping across the mountainside carried voices down toward the valley; Copper Heart was a town that never slept.
Today: Most saloons looked the same to Shively, and the Queen of the Mountain was no different: Like the better class of such places he’d seen, it had a long bar—polished walnut from who knew how many hundreds of thousands of miles away—a mirror behind the bar—which Shively always found useful in case anyone tried sneaking up on him—and a piano, which was unattended at the moment. No doubt there were whores upstairs, busy servicing the men who’d come off the night shift. The place was half full, including some women Shively didn’t bother making guesses about.
What he wasn’t expecting was the boy.
Darling Du Jour: But Beckett was not why Ulpian Shively ascended the mountain to Copper Heart. Shively was a hired shootist looking for work, and he loved mining towns. Most were new and wild and frontier enough that the rules hadn’t quite been figured out yet, and enough men took things past the line that somebody sooner or later would want Shively’s gun.
And often, if there was some legal presence in the town, they turned the other cheek on him. He still carried his law books, the ones his father gave him what felt like a lifetime ago, and they were more than just horse ballast. Shively wouldn’t kill anyone he felt had done no wrong. True, the punishment might not fit the crime, but there was always a crime nevertheless.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Babylon Confidential by Claudia Christian; Paris by Edward Rutherfurd.
For A Cat, Every Day Is Valentine's Day
Feb. 14th, 2013 05:09 pm
Friday and Velvet wish everyone a happy--or at least a non-stupid--Feast of St. Valentine!
A Cat And His Arrowhead
Oct. 26th, 2011 06:07 pmThree shots snapped today right before I started writing.
Vegas left shortly after I took these pictures instead of staying the whole time I was writing, as per his usual. I suspect it's because I took away the arrowhead. I didn't take it away because I was finished with the pictures, but because he kept snuggling it right off the top of the box and down to the floor four feet below.
( +2 )
Vegas left shortly after I took these pictures instead of staying the whole time I was writing, as per his usual. I suspect it's because I took away the arrowhead. I didn't take it away because I was finished with the pictures, but because he kept snuggling it right off the top of the box and down to the floor four feet below.
Noodle Cat Loves The Spirits
Oct. 24th, 2011 09:33 pmNot alcohol, that is, but the spirits of ancient toolmakers. Or one in particular.
Recently a friend who lives in the Southwestern U.S. and knows about my work on Arizona in some detail sent me an inspiration package filled with artifacts from their own land that included arrowheads and an axehead. These date to several centuries back, and as of last Friday are lined up across the top and base of my Writing Monitor.
Almost as soon as I did this my primary Writing Room Guardian, Vegas (aka Noodle Cat), suddenly took an interest in one particular arrowhead and HAD TO HAD TO HAD TO have it. I wouldn't let him, fearing that he'd break it. When I mentioned this to my friend, they told me that their cat likes to roll over the artifacts after they come out of the ground, so I figured it might not hurt to let Vegas have a bit of quality time with the arrowhead under controlled conditions.
Those conditions came today...but he didn't want to play with it. Instead he just wanted to hold it. When I extended it towards him he grabbed for it with both front paws and simply clasped it. When he wasn't holding it he placed a paw on it. I (and my friend) thought at first that this might be because of Friend Cat's smell, except that Vegas didn't pay any attention to the other artifacts at all.
I'm guessing that maybe there's something Vegas knows about this particular piece that I don't, or I'm not sensitive enough to detect. Whatever the story, he's perfectly welcome to visit with the arrowhead whenever we're working in the Writing Room together.
Recently a friend who lives in the Southwestern U.S. and knows about my work on Arizona in some detail sent me an inspiration package filled with artifacts from their own land that included arrowheads and an axehead. These date to several centuries back, and as of last Friday are lined up across the top and base of my Writing Monitor.
Almost as soon as I did this my primary Writing Room Guardian, Vegas (aka Noodle Cat), suddenly took an interest in one particular arrowhead and HAD TO HAD TO HAD TO have it. I wouldn't let him, fearing that he'd break it. When I mentioned this to my friend, they told me that their cat likes to roll over the artifacts after they come out of the ground, so I figured it might not hurt to let Vegas have a bit of quality time with the arrowhead under controlled conditions.
Those conditions came today...but he didn't want to play with it. Instead he just wanted to hold it. When I extended it towards him he grabbed for it with both front paws and simply clasped it. When he wasn't holding it he placed a paw on it. I (and my friend) thought at first that this might be because of Friend Cat's smell, except that Vegas didn't pay any attention to the other artifacts at all.
I'm guessing that maybe there's something Vegas knows about this particular piece that I don't, or I'm not sensitive enough to detect. Whatever the story, he's perfectly welcome to visit with the arrowhead whenever we're working in the Writing Room together.
(By the way, sorry for the improper use of "they" above, but I want to keep my friend anonymous so they don't get inundated with requests for artifacts.)
