kiya

The Despair Boxes are on the move.

I had Slick snuggling me obnoxiously (he is Opaque, and it is effortful to get him to lie down on my chest rather than stand on it, but I had managed it mostly).

He sat up on my breastbone.

He made a sort of quacking noise at my right eyeball (always mildly alarming because suddenly the formless, alarmed void has FANGS).

He took a lock of hair in his teeth and gave it a vigorous shake, like a terrier with a recently-murdered rag toy.

He quacked into my eye again.

And then he flopped back down to cuddle.

WTF, Slicky. WTF.

artan has made a cat tree.

I have taken pictures of a cat in this cat tree, since Dame Lily happened to come upstairs right when we were finished putting it in the window.

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Three things make a post.

1) We have been approved to adopt catlings. It's about six months since we lost Len, and we decided it was time to start looking. We will be bringing home a pair of black youngsters, and we are trying to decide if we are also going to adopt a Holstein cat as well.

2) I have made formal plans for next ink.

3) The BIG IMPORTANT THING:

My short story, "Delayed Exchange Deferred", will be appearing in the Zombies Need Brains, LLC anthology, The Death Of All Things. The TOC will be coming out real soon now, so I don't know who all I'm sharing pages with yet, but the company website says "It will include short stories by multi-award winning and NYT-bestselling authors Stephen Blackmore, Aliette de Boddard, Christie Golden, Jim C. Hines, Jason Hough, Faith Hunter, and Fran Wilde."

So, you know, if you're just dying to read my take on playing chess with Death (and yes, they are playing the Ruy Lopez opening, that is not a spoiler), that's where you can go to get you some of that stuff.

The book can be preordered here.

You guys, this is my first professional sale. (ZNB hits the payment benchmark for professional sale for SFWA though I don't think they're officially recognised as a qualifying market from a quick glance at the site.) Also: also. Also! I did the thing! rasfc folks, y'all know I've been wanting to do the thing! I did the thing!

Goodbye to the sweetest, most loving, stupid charming cat I've ever known.

I'll write more later.



artan_eter and KJ are going out to dig his grave.

Grave goods include catnip, a handful of kibble, and the red twisty off the top of a gallon of milk.

He shed on me one last time.

Vet called me at about quarter of nine to say the Arthing had eaten all the food they left him overnight. (He sounded a bit impressed.)

I'm going by the hospital in a bit to visit the invalid.


ETA Apparently they syringe-fed him a little this morning and his reaction was roughly "Well if you're going to be that way about it let me at my food dish, sheesh."

KJ: Myow.
Cat: Mew.
KJ: Myow.
Cat: Mew.
KJ: Meah, myeah, myow myow.
Cat: Mrrr.
KJ: Myoww.
Me: What are you and Arthur talking about?
KJ: Meow!

The funniest thing about the cat storage unit (containing the sheepskin kviri and staralshain gave us after it was rejected by their boys) is the way that Arthur grooms there.

He has white feet, you see, so he sort of drifts off to the side because the sheepskin is also white.

And then he grooms the sheep.

And then his tongue gets stuck.

So I have this tub of blue hair dye that my hair is too dark to hold (and bleaching my hair is an experiment that Will Not Be Repeated).

And for a long, long time I have contemplated the tub of blue hair dye and the bright white portions of the cat. And resisted this urge.

Just now ... a blue pen leaked mightily. I spent a while going, 'Wait, why is the tip of my finger nail blue?' then moved my hand and realised I was covered in blue ink.

And the cat rolled and went to sleep on it.

I have a blue-spotted cat.

I'm trying to figure out if this means that dyeing him blue is redundant or required, now.

Whitney unidles, laughs and laughs and laughs.
Otto [blacktarrant] ?
Brooks [brooksmoses] peers quizzically. Share?
Otto says, "Or are you laughing at the 'g2g, my mom's cancer is on fire'?"
Otto says, "I sporfled when I saw that someone had used 'BRB Tornado'."
Whitney says, "So [teinedreugan] came downstairs and petulantly explained that he was *not* going to sleep in the wet spot, and would I help him change the sheets?"
Otto giggles.
Otto says, "Wait, you mean, guys will sleep in the wet spot? Damnit! I've been getting shafted all these years."
Whitney says, "You see, last night as one of my minor tasks for proper minionage for [arawen], I got a mug of water, due to fluid loss from exertion. This was, amazingly enough, not all consumed; half of it was left on the bedside table."
Otto says, "Oh dear."
Whitney says, "Now, at some point in here Arthur stuck his face in it and tried to drown himself. On the third go he figured out how to stick his face in without submerging his nose ..."
Whitney says, "I thought no more of it."
Whitney says, "There was a mysterious upstairs thump a few hours back ..."
Otto repeats, "Oh dear."
Whitney says, "I'm not sure if this is 'life with cats' or 'fun jokes involving one's husband and boyfriend' or some strange amalgamation of both, but I am laughing my fucking ass off."
Otto giggles.
Whitney says, "And washing the sheets needed done anyway, and counts as my second useful task for the day, so I don't have to catalogue another fucking box of books when I'm done with this one."
Otto snickers more, decides to wander off to bed, where there is no wet spot, thank god.

*hits forward on iTunes until it comes up with something funny for music*