Reading, Writing, Lack Of Editing

    Amazon Prime Day. Wow. Great way to separate me from my money guys, thanks. I think. Among the things I purchased that I didn’t need was something that I probably should have done a long time ago: Kindle Unlimited.

Yeah. Let me tell you how it’s gone so far. On Saturday, I read four books. I didn’t do anything else, and my family didn’t seem to miss me. That should be a concern, but hey, the kids are teenagers and live in their own worlds and Hubby knows I check out from time to time and allows it to a certain extent.

On Sunday, I read two books, felt guilty for ignoring my family, and Netflixed an entire season of The Last Kingdom with The Girl as penance. That was not exactly quality time, but I listened to her chatter, responded when appropriate, and didn’t pull my hair out. I also felt jittery, like I’d had too much coffee. In retrospect, it might have been the Swedish Fish & Monster Java combo I used to get me through the last couple of episodes.

Somewhere around 2 am, while watching Richard Hammond’s Crash Course on Amazon Prime Video with Hubby (my long-time insomniac), I realized why I was bothered by reading so many books lately.

First, I’ve always said writer’s block isn’t a problem for me, and that’s true. If I sit down to write, I can. Not always on what I want to write, what I might need to make progress on or finish, but I can write something. It’s why I frequently have multiple works in progress at a time, and why any given book is almost always written out of order. In other words, I don’t write chapter 1,2,3,4, etc. It goes more along the lines of chapter 12,1,4,6,9,3,2, etc. I think I sat down and wrote two books beginning to end in order. Neither are published yet. (A’gust and it’s sequel if you’re wondering. Both are sequels, more or less, to Chrysanthemum.)

Anyway, while writer’s block may not be a problem, progress is. And I wanted to have Desperate Wishes finished and published by now. I should have. At the rate I usually write and where I was in the manuscript, there wasn’t any reason for that not to have happened. I forgot to factor in teenagers, and then the lasting impact of dealing with them. Or the spectacular crash of my computer and loss of quite a bit of material on two of three projects - didn’t count on that either. So taking time out to read, or work on the two other projects on my desktop, makes me feel a little guilty. Guilt isn’t exactly productive.

The other thing about reading those book was that, while the authors wrote good stories, one of them clearly didn’t hire a good editor. Another didn’t hire an editor at all and I suspect didn’t do well in high school English. I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she graduated, but my good will only goes that far.

Nimoy was snuggled up with me all day on Saturday and she noticed my displeasure at the editing dramas unfolding before me in digital black and white (stretch, yawn, baleful glare, shift away so her back was to me, then fall back asleep in clear disdain). See? Failing to have even a half-decent editor glance at your book affects a lot of people and felines. It’s hellish.

Second, while I appreciated the good books I came across, I’m going to ignore them. Sorry, they’re just not important for rant purposes, although I will review all of the books on Amazon and maybe Goodreads later. (I don’t use my name, you don’t get to see the trash I read.)

Where was I? Oh, the good story but bad writing - sigh. It wasn’t even bad writing. I’ll let style issues go nine times out of ten because style is a matter of personal preference and I realize - as an adult and a writer - that people prefer certain things. I can’t read Charlaine Harris’ books. I loved the True Blood series on HBO and people kept telling me to read the books, but I can’t. Her style makes me want to slit my wrists. Obviously she’s a successful writer and her style appeals to, or at least doesn’t bother, most people. My problem is just that - my problem.

If it’s not a matter of style, but poor grammar, editing, writing, and execution, where does that leave me? Leaving a bad review. Or a mediocre one, the story underneath was good.

Again with something that is clearly my problem, I don’t like leaving bad reviews on good stories. Particularly when the review ends up being actually more of a critique. The author can read the review, fix it, upload a new version of the book, and eventually my review will be buried and fall off per Amazon’s new policies. Assuming the author is willing to do that, and take my advice in the future.

It does remind me of where I came from, however, and that is Book Country. Once upon a time, a literary agent named Collen Lindsay went to work for Penguin (Random House) Books, and they launched an online service for potential authors. Writers could upload their manuscripts for other writers to read and critique, allowing them to improve and get useful feedback about plot, structure, grammar, style, voice, etc before submitting it to a literary agent or publishing it themselves. This isn’t a new idea, and it wasn’t new then either. There were, and are, several sites like this out there. I happened to be part of this one since the beta stage, along with a few other people who have also since published.

For me, it came to a point where I wasn’t getting anything new and useful in feedback. Also, I was stuck in a series where if you hadn’t read the previous books, the character development was missing. So I stopped posting, but I still continued to go back and critique, and I followed the discussion boards, and then...I faded away and got lost in my own things.

Apparently my account is still active. Hmm. So I’m thinking, there are authors out there publishing without editing and they need to be slapped. Amazon reviews will do that to a point, Goodreads too. But I can at least drop in on bookcountry.com and maybe give a nudge to the writers who are just starting out.

Apparently Nimoy approves, she just bit me softly then started purring.

My Writing Rode Off

I’m a writer. We’ve been over this before, it’s not news. For most of the last school year (August - June) my writing has been spotty. This can be attributed to having to hover over The Boy for him to get his schoolwork done. After doing that, I had little left in me for writing. Bits here and there, and that adds up, but generally unimpressive progress. Or so I thought.

My year-old Lenovo ultra thin laptop kicked it. That was unexpected. So unexpected I hadn’t been backing everything up in my typical paranoid-writer fashion like usual. I hadn’t uploaded copies of my Scrivener files to Dropbox in months. (Yes, I write in Scrivener. It’s a great program.)

Okay, fine, deep breath, hand it to Hubby and let him work on it. He’s already building a gaming computer with The Boy (from scratch, this is a learning experience for the kid and a father-son bonding thing), but hey, he can give my meltdown a once over. Then again. Yeah, it’s going to take some work and probably have to replace the hard drive.

Luckily I have my old computer, the reliable Dell, still at hand. It powered up, and sat on my lap like an old friend. And put my feet to sleep because it weighs a ton. Forgot about that. Not the Dell’s fault, this laptop is big on purpose. It has a full keyboard plus a number pad like the old desktop keyboards used to, a 17” screen, and two hard drives. Everything considered, it’s allowed to be a little bulky.

Unfortunately Mr. Reliable Dell hadn’t been turned on in a while and updates took all day because my power save settings were not prepared for doing updates. It kept going to sleep. Sigh. Solution? Take the laptop into the kitchen with me. Start making dinner, brush the mouse pad, get out a pan, brush the mouse pad, freezer, mouse pad, get milk, mouse pad, put away milk, mouse pad, etc… I watched update number 121 sit there for five hours. I’d love to know what that was, then bitch-slap Microsoft for it, whatever it is.

Yay, all updated! No. Restart computer, now Adobe wants to update everything, then Java. OMG, kill me. Restart again. Everything is peaceful. Go to Dropbox, get back up files - things quickly stopped being peaceful. Mommy turned psychotic.

I have two active works in progress that I’ve worked on depending on my mood. No, this is not the most efficient way to finish a book, but it works. It works really well if you’re having “I can’t think of what to write” issues because it gives you a broader range of options to try to find that Muse. (Mine plays hide-and-seek in future chapters of a book I’m trying to ignore in favor of finishing something else. Muses are like that.)

Anyway, neither book had been backed up recently, so I went to review what I’d lost. Quite a bit more than expected. A lot more than expected, on both of them. I didn’t think I’d been writing that much, but I was wrong. (Mystery solved two days ago when I sat down and wrote 5,600 words in three hours.) Months of a little here and there was tens of thousands of words. Sigh. And I’d completely rewritten the first two chapters of Desperate Wishes (which I’d hoped to have out by now) and that was gone too. My character list for the experimental sci-fi was gone, along with several chapters. Since I frequently don’t outline, or it’s incredibly general when I do, I don’t even really remember exactly what was in those chapters. I had a character dedicated to … something … and something else came up. Ah, hell.

The lesson here boys and girls: back up your writing regularly. Also, not on the same computer you’re writing on. That goes without saying. No help for those writing in a notebook like my brother. Nut.

So, I’m in a particularly bad mood, but I’m trying to catch up and recreating lost work isn’t necessarily bad, just annoying. The kids are largely avoiding me. Nimoy is my steady companion, napping beside me most of the day and wreaking havoc on the house at night. Jingles seems to understand there’s something ‘off’ about Mom, and she’s been inside a bit more and very lovey. It’s almost disconcerting. She’s also once again running up and down the stairs, making the one bell on her collar jingle wildly. I think it’s to remind us she’s there.

A reminder for anyone who doesn’t remember how Jingles got her name: As a kitten she jingled her bells about the house everywhere she went. It was cute in a way, but she’s a black cat and even as a kitten there seemed to be a sinister edge to it. Does anyone remember It’s a Wonderful Life? That old James Stewart movie? They douse us with it every Christmas. Anyway, one of the things from that movie that stands out is the line: Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. So Jingles was giving angels wings. Yeah, there can’t be that many wingless angels, however. Follow me on this. If she’s giving angels wings, but there aren’t enough angels that need wings, then that means she’s creating angels to wing them. Um...which means she’s wiping out small rural villages in third world countries every time she runs down the stairs. Jingle, jingle, jingle… Oh. Hence Darth Jingles. And she’s at it again.

Maybe she gave wings to the Lenovo.

The Bromeliad - Sock Debacle

It’s a hellish day and I’m getting little done. The Boy is off at a friend’s house playing marathon games of something and being virtually violent and mischievous. Good for him that it’s somewhere else. The Girl left this morning on her first adult adventure, aside from her first job which she now believes is the worst job on earth. Not really, there are lower paying jobs out there that expect you to do even worse things, but hers is menial with inconsistent hours, no benefits, minimum wage, and management sucks. It’s a good first job because she can only go up from there.

Anyway, The Girl soaked her tiny bromeliad before she left and put it in my bathroom window where it would get filtered sun and would dry slowly so it wouldn’t get root rot. She’s trying to be a good mommy to her little bromeliad. Except she hasn’t been a good mommy to Nimoy, who in a fit of jealousy as soon as The Girl left, absconded with her rival. I noticed quickly (thankfully) because the cat doesn’t normally run through the house carrying something green and spiny.

First, let me say I’m really too old to chase a cat. Cat herding is an idiom, not an actual occupation, and I would suck at it if it were real. Second, let me remind you that this particular cat is an idiot. Once she realized Grandma was chasing her, and unhappy, she doubled back and ran under The Girl’s bed. Okay, she’s cornered. Except I don’t have any kids in the house who can crawl under the bed and won’t for hours to days. I have no idea when The Boy will decide to come home, (It’s a weekend, in the summer.) and The Girl won’t be home until late Tuesday night. I have a responsibility to that bromeliad. Maybe the cat. I’m not sure how Nimoy will fare if she eats the bromeliad.

We have a supply of those stupid grabber sticks that my mother-in-law uses to pick up things that fall on the floor. In theory they’re supposed to be used to grab things that are out of reach on shelves, but they don’t really support any weight and are useless for that. Anyway, the grandkids always play with hers, and break them, so Hubby saw some and bought twenty so we always have one in the car when we go visit for family gatherings to replace the broken one. They can’t keep extras at their house or the grandkids would break them too. Personally, I vote break the grandkids, but Hubby tells me I don’t get a vote and his sisters agreed after hearing their precious babies might be disciplined for something. For once, I needed one of the gadgets.

So I lay on the floor for a half an hour pulling things out from under The Girl’s bed. Now in fairness I should say The Girl’s room is generally the tidiest in the house. Her OCD is phenomenal. Nimoy, however, prefers her bed to hide socks under, and I was discovering why The Boy seemed to be wearing the same socks for days on end. I thought it was my imagination, or that maybe he really did have more pairs with that odd pattern than I thought; but no, he’s apparently running low and didn’t feel the need to tell anyone. Nimoy likes The Boy’s socks best. I can sort of understand that, the cat has a thing for smells, and The Boy’s socks … you can see where I’m going with this. No excuses anymore, not that he offered any, The Boy will start changing his socks again!

That was the beginning of my Saturday morning.

Finished with the bromeliad-sock debacle (the bromeliad was finally retrieved, clinging to a sock, looking none the worse for wear, and placed in a slightly safer place to get a little filtered sunlight, don’t worry about it) I turned my attention to lunch. Except now Hubby was missing. Huh. I looked around, found two whiny cats – one pouting because she perceived she was in trouble (true) and one pouting because she wanted to go outside and no one would let her (sort of). Does a ‘not true’ and a ‘true’ balance out to zero or what? In cat terms it equates to whining.

Jingles wanted to go out: true from her point of view. No one would let her: true from everyone’s point of view. All her humans knew something Jingles didn’t: Rain. I suspect Jingles was at least somewhat aware of the concept because she’d been out for days and came home early yesterday afternoon. I thought it was because she sensed bad weather on the horizon and wanted to be in, but clearly not. Bad weather was here and she wanted to go out during the eye of the storm. But she was beggy, and whiny, and manipulative, and I caved and let her out because I’m a pushover. Then I stood at the door waiting for her to change her mind.

We had a little black kitty-loaf on the steps for a bit, not because the sidewalk was wet so much as the neighbor’s golden retriever was out playing ball. When Sookie plays ball, she uses the entire cul-de-sac. Since Sookie’s owner, Mr. Patient, offers to mow almost all of our yards in exchange for being able to keep the trimmings, we all let Sookie romp on our grass for her occasional ball games. She doesn’t leave any little presents and is on good relations with kids and cats, so why not?

Now I say Sookie is on good relations with the cats, but the cats are occasionally unaware of this. Darth Jingles is skittish about the large golden retriever. She has a very standoffish policy about dogs. Usually. Sookie was dyed purple briefly by the neighbor’s children last summer and Jingles found that entertaining enough to suspend her extreme personal space policy, but when the dye wore off her graciousness did as well. She also played a perverted sort of whack-a-mole with the Chihuahuas behind us and a couple doors down. They dug a hole under the fence and she sat on the other side and whapped them as they stuck their noses through. It was awesome, until the owners fixed the hole, damn it.

So Sookie was playing ball, and the ball occasionally landed in our front yard, and Jingles crouched and bristled whenever the dog came to retrieve it. No hissing or running home to Mommy though, and the dog didn’t notice the little shadow by the mint bushes. Eventually Jingles took an opportunity to slink through the mint and evergreens and away from the safety of the front porch so I closed the door. It was cool enough out that I threw open some windows and started lunch in anticipation of Hubby being home eventually. After a few quick texts, I discovered he was running errands. Then I discovered Jingles in our living room window, on the ledge outside, watching me. Huh. Apparently it was a safe place to watch the dog play ball. Also, I need to wash the screen. Add that to the to-do list. Click photo, on to lunch.

Hubby came home, had lunch, and left to help a neighbor. Then Jingles came in – furious at having been tricked into going outside in such miserable weather. She’s not talking to me now. I closed some windows because it’s now raining again, and broke up a cat fight because Jingles is in a mood. Yay – trapped inside with a bitchy cat and something for her to pick on. I shouldn’t have succumbed to her whining and let her out in the first place.

Text from The Boy: he outlasted his friends, they fell asleep, and now he’s bored. He wants me to come pick him up, also he wants coffee so he can stay up longer. I considered that. If I give him coffee, he will stay up now, but then he’ll probably crash hard in early evening and sleep all night so I might get something useful from him tomorrow. Hmm. I broke up another small cat fight on the way out the door. Of course The Boy couldn’t have come home a couple of hours ago when I was lying on the floor pulling his socks out from under his sister’s bed? At least I know he’ll claim Jingles and take her to his room for the rest of the day. No more cat fights. No more peaceful weekend without the kids either.  

A Tail Not Hers

We have dramas, again. First: rain. Now I like rain. Well, not freezing rain, but a nice downward mist or refreshing summer rain – even if it’s bordering on tropical storm variety – or a spring rain that brings the promise of a new season of gardening… yeah, I sort of like rain. I prefer not to be out in it too long, and the cats prefer not to be out in it at all. So, rain, this means Jingles was inside being all angsty. That’s the second problem: the angst of a cat trapped indoors by her mortal enemy: water.

I have a theory on why Jingles tolerates Nimoy. Sure, I know the plan was to get a kitten so there wouldn’t be any question about dominance. Well, there shouldn’t have been any question about dominance, but Nimoy is a little dim, as I’ve mentioned before. I don’t think it’s the “she’s a kitten, I’m dominant, therefore I can afford to be gracious” attitude that Jingles has so much as “there’s something clearly not quite right with this one.” It’s just not polite to pick on the mentally disabled; apparently that extends to felines.

Nimoy means well. She tries very hard to keep me from falling into the toilet – she knows from experience it’s unpleasant. And while Jingles likes to ‘play’ with me while I take a bath (I have to take bubble baths if she’s going to join me so she can bat at the bubbles), Nimoy seems genuinely concerned about my welfare sitting in all that water for so long. She paces along the edge, throwing worried looks my direction and peering into the depths to see if the tub really is full of water. Every now and then Nimoy reaches out to try to catch my shoulder or arm and pull me to safety. I really wish she’d stop  because she uses claws to hook me and reel me in. For that matter, I’d be fine taking a bath on my own, but I’m not trusted alone in the bathroom. It’s kind of like having a toddler again.

The problem that arose the other day when Jingles was inside because of the rain, and angsty, was this: Nimoy persisted in playing with a tail that was not her own. The owner of said tail quickly lost patience, then the beatings began. For the most part I sat back and watched Darth Jingles set Nimoy straight on tail-etiquette, but after an hour I decided to intervene. Yes, an hour. No, you don’t get to lecture me on my slow response time, focus instead on the persistence of this absurd kitten.

I mean technically she’s still a kitten, but she’s eight months old now; at a certain point they’re supposed to learn things. When the grumpy black cat reaches out a paw and whaps her on the nose, Nimoy could conclude she did something to earn the rebuke. Maybe pause to think – skip back on the 8-track in that thick skull of hers and review the data – what did she do that made Jingles feel the need to beat her? Don’t blame Jingles either. Occasionally it really is the victim’s fault. If I were beating her that’d be different, but this is cat on cat action here. Jingles has patience, but it can’t be endless or Nimoy would never learn. I will pamper and spoil my cats, but only to a point. No paws on the kitchen counters or table, or pantry or cabinets (remind me to tell you about how we learned that one from experience). Jingles made those concessions in kittenhood and everywhere else in the entire house seems to be fair game.

Darth Jingles can’t be held responsible for the other bits of drama, instead The Girl steps up to take her place in center stage. First, a reminder: I’ve mentioned our invisible spiders before. They’re small to medium sized arachnids that happen to be the exact same color as the carpet. On the wall, they stand out – not like a black spider on a white wall, but enough. It’s that time of year where spiders are once again on the move, and because the temperature keeps bouncing up and down, some are finding their merry way indoors.

The arachnid migration is causing a problem in a few ways: primarily in that The Girl is terrified of spiders and can’t bring herself to step on them even with shoes on. She’s eighteen now and we still have to save her regularly from being trapped forever in a room by a spider lingering a foot away from the only door. Worse is when she sees the spider, screams, scares it causing it to lose its footing, we come trudging to her rescue with a tissue only to find the source of all horror has disappeared. The Girl (now supervised with the promise of immediate intervention should the creature appear again) sprints from her room and refuses to enter it again until she’s found Jingles and confined the cat to her bedroom for two hours to make sure she’s had sufficient time to hunt, kill, and devour the spider. Then she’ll sleep on the sofa in the living room anyway just in case. I’d like her reasoning on why the living room is safer, but I’m honestly afraid to point out the hole in her theory.

A similar and related problem with the new influx of spiders is Nimoy. Now when I say influx, I should clarify, I see maybe one a week. We’re not talking infestation here, just more than mid-winter levels of legs in the house. Now, our darling kitten has taken on a new tendency that has much of the household on edge: staring. Not just staring, she stares, wide-eyed and startled, at a spot on the wall just above your head or over one shoulder. And keeps staring at that spot. Now however much I tell myself I’m being paranoid because I’ve fallen for this before, she won’t stop until I break down and look.

Nothing. Just wall.

Either Nimoy finds the texture of our walls absolutely fascinating, or she’s hallucinating. It’s possible she’s toying with us, much like Jingles does with the occasional mouse, but I doubt she has the intellect. Given The Girl has seen spiders recently, she’s completely freaked out by this new behavior in her kitten.

It gets worse.

The Girl isn’t the only one who’s discovered bugs, Nimoy has too. You guessed it, she discovered the invisible spiders. Now Jingles did this once upon a time – spent time seeming to play with an empty spot in the middle of the living room floor. Closer inspection might reveal something we didn’t want to find, so after the first discovery we all decided closer inspection wasn’t necessary – Jingles picks up her toys. Unfortunately Jingles is stealthier in her maturity and we don’t see her doing this anymore so we sort of forgot about it. Extra unfortunate is that while Nimoy isn’t known for picking up her toys in terms of tidiness, she does pick them up – to move them to a more convenient location. Her claws get caught in the carpet.

Invisible spiders become visible on tile.

Sigh. That’d be fine if Nimoy actually picked them up to move them, because I bet that’d be the end of it. I mean given the relative size of a cat and a spider, I can guess the final result. No. That’s no fun, she herds her new toy to a better playground where she can play with it easier – and The Girl can see it easier. The Girl shrieks, sending Nimoy scampering off to hide and leaving a frantically sprinting spider unattended. Not once have these spiders still been either findable or reachable by the time Hubby or I arrived for damage control.

The Girl is freaking out about all the spiders in the house. All? Hubby got clever. He floated the idea to our little bundle of anxiety that there’s only one, and it’s toying with Nimoy as much as Nimoy’s toying with it. Intellectually they’re probably evenly matched. She wanted to believe that, so she did.

Then the highly improbable happened: Nimoy actually made her first kill. Intentional kill. I suspect she learned not to bite spiders before because it puts a swift and premature end to play-time, and she’s never exhibited hunting behavior so she was never in it for the kill. Any spider mortality at Nimoy’s paws & jaws was purely accidental. This time though …. If The Girl was there it wouldn’t have happened, but she was busy and The Boy was happy to not only recognize Nimoy’s changed behavior, but leave her to it. Nimoy corralled and herded her toy spider for nearly an hour before cornering it and pouncing. The cat may be a little dim, but she’s dedicated. Then she sat by her prey and meowed to get our attention. Of course we fawned over her, rewarding the behavior and all, forgetting Hubby’s story that there was only one spider in the house and Nimoy had just killed it. Another apparently moving in a couple of days later didn’t settle well with The Girl. I haven’t seen the newcomer yet. It was gone by the time I answered my theoretically adult daughter’s high-pitched shriek of dismay.

Back to speaking of rain, two cats trapped inside - one now very grumpy in addition to angsty. Add a high-pitched shriek of dismay. I need to go rescue something from something. Reminder: we only have one invisible spider in the house. One. It lives in the living room and plays tag with the kitten. One spider. That should keep The Girl from sleeping on my couch.

I Don't Want Three Cats

I’m having a sort of cat-related breakdown. Let’s take a look at my feline assets here:

Indoor cats: 1

Outdoor cats: 1

Indoor/outdoor cats: 1

1+1+1=3. We have three cats. We’re not really supposed to, I only agreed to two. The second actually required some persuasion from Hubby and The Girl. By way of clarification: the indoor cat is Nimoy, the indoor/outdoor cat is Darth Jingles, and the outdoor cat is Celery – a stray the girl brought home and the homes in the cul-de-sac have been feeding for a couple of years now. She’s not technically ours, she’s a stray. She’s also skiddish as hell and allows only a handful of people to come with in striking/petting distance. Of that handful of people, three live in my house. Also, we’re the ones who provided a cozy covered box on our porch with a towel nest inside that she snuggle-slept in out of the wind, rain, and snow all winter. She gets cat food and leftovers. And pets. And helps me weed, although ‘help’ is subjective. Celery doesn’t know it, but she’s going to get catnip planted this summer. Jingles doesn’t like it, but she might so we’re planting it.

Setting aside our stray, I’m fascinated by the differences between Darth Jingles and Nimoy. Jingles is a really good cat. She’s well behaved and was easy to train as a kitten. She’s smart. Nimoy is a dimwit and has to be taught everything multiple times before it even begins to sink in to her tiny brain.

Jingles is afraid of vacuums but the blender doesn’t even warrant an ear-twitch, Nimoy is the opposite. Jingles goes outside day and night, Nimoy has only recently decided sitting in the window is safe. In fact, she lay on the window sill a couple of weeks ago, watching and sniffing all the new and interesting varieties of pollen floating in the air. A breeze kicked up, startled her, and she wouldn’t go near a window for days. Nimoy doesn’t like bags, paper or plastic, and only recently discovered boxes might be okay as forts. She’s still testing that theory. I can bring Jingles running from anywhere in the house by loudly shaking a plastic bag open.

On the subject of outdoors, Nimoy couldn’t go out if she wanted to because she hasn’t figured out how the front door works yet. Years ago, when Darth Jingles was little, Hubby hung bells on our front door. Okay, I did, but it was for Christmas and I took them down again. He put them back up. He taught Jingles to bat at the dangling bells to signal that she wanted to go outside. Jingles not only learned that lesson, but reinforcement taught her a more refined version. It isn’t a request, it’s how the door works. First, the door has to be unlocked by one of her humans standing ready. So she has to lead us there. Guests don’t count, although she’s learned to sneak in and out with them. Then she has to actually ring the bells, not just touch them. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t want her to go out, if it’s late or we know it’s going to rain for example, so we remove the bells. At this point, the door is broken. Meowing will not fix the door. The door will be broken until morning. Hubby thinks this is all very clever; no doubt Jingles thinks it’s annoying, but that’s the way the door works. It works against us too. If we don’t want her to necessarily go out, but we didn’t remove the bells and pass close enough to the front door for her to ring them, we have to let her out. It’s the rules. Nimoy doesn’t understand the bell system, although Celery seems to. She hears those bells ring from outside and is there waiting because the door will open and Jingles will launch herself out of the door. If the door unlocks without bells, she doesn’t have to step aside for Jingle’s inevitable catapult down the steps.

Anyway, Nimoy carries off socks and hides them under beds, sofas, chairs, the coffee table, or wherever else she favors to hide that week. Jingles chews on paper, preferably homework. True story: three years ago I had to write a note to The Girl’s Chinese teacher explaining why her carefully written out homework was mangled almost beyond recognition. Jingles was still a kitten at the time, but she still hasn’t outgrown the taste for homework. Also receipts. Last year I discovered her palate has expanded to include tax returns. Nothing in an envelope though, she doesn’t like the taste of the USPS.

Both cats have a phobia about me falling in the toilet and insist on lying on my feet to anchor me in my vulnerable state. Nimoy is significantly more dedicated to the task, whining to get into the bathroom every time I close the door with her on the other side. She comes from other rooms when she hears that bathroom door close, running in a panic to get to me and prevent a disaster. Unfortunately, Nimoy is more likely to cause a toilet-related disaster as she’s jumped into previously used toilets three times now. Never with me, I’m careful, but I’m clearly living with people who don’t pay attention to mentally deficient felines. Curiosity killed the cat, cat.

Nimoy might be occasionally problematic because she’s got ADD. The diagnosis is going around; there’s no reason kittens can’t have it. It’s either that or she’s chronically stupid and I’m trying to be fair about her condition. Also, I’m seriously reconsidering her name. It’s not that she doesn’t deserve the honor of being named after a Star Trek great, but it’s become almost a sick joke. Jumping in toilets (and getting baths in the sink), stealing socks, being afraid of wind, snuggling up next to Hubby’s butt to sleep with her nose practically right up his – you get the picture I’m sure. Nimoy loves smells. Any smells. Burp or break wind her direction and you’ve made a new friend. I’m not a fan of that sort of comedy and now I’m living with it. I’m sure it’s also why Jingles refuses to acknowledge her as cat enough to hang out with and why I hesitate before calling her by name. It just seems wrong. “I just farted in Nimoy’s face so she’s happy.” See what I mean?

Jingles watches our activities and projects, but only helps when asked. Nimoy helps us do everything. She’s constantly underfoot and Hubby stopped trying not to step on her. She helps us build Lego projects, she helped me sew The Girl’s prom dress (a whole other story), she helps prepare meals and do dishes, she helps do laundry and household chores. It’s tedious. Then she helps us sleep at night by walking over us, bouncing back and forth between beds and pillows, and putting her nose right in our faces to make sure we’re still breathing. Never hubby if he’s snoring, that’s apparently obvious and doesn’t require checking. Jingles helps me sleep at night every now and then by simply coming home. Otherwise I worry. Then she sometimes sleeps on the pillow beside me reserved just for her or the down comforter folded over to be extra fluffy over my feet. Or with The Boy, but he doesn’t appreciate it. Besides, there’s nothing like having a little black cat curled up next to your head when you fall asleep. It’s peaceful. Until 2 am when the extra-fluffy tabby wanders in during her bed hopping rounds and your pillow-mate sits up and starts hissing.

Yeah, two cats, yay. I need to find a permanent home for Celery before she becomes official, I won’t survive a third.

P.S.: Nimoy is deeply offended by zippers. Someone want to tell me how that works?

Let Me Tell You About My Family

Let me tell you about my extended family

Hubby has sisters to spare, but only has one brother. That brother is married, and his wife is super special. Really. Super special. Now to be fair, she’s nice. Nice in a really weird way, but nice. For example, I remember when she was worried the kids were hungry because they refused to eat their non-child approved lunch of shrimp cocktail and cucumber sandwiches (which were lovely by the way) so she gave them a package of Oreo cookies to tide them over until dinner. The Girl wasn’t on solids yet when this occurred but I made a note not to let this particular sister-in-law babysit.

Moving on, previously mentioned family member is a wee bit OCD about some things. In particular is an obsession with keeping her living room pristine. Seriously. Your stature in her eyes is obvious depending on whether she allows you to sit in her living room. Or walk in it. Most people (family especially) get hustled from the front door through the entry and directly to the family room opposite the kitchen. I’d also like to say her kitchen is always spotless, and I was a little jealous until I realized it’s because every meal comes from the microwave or a take-out bag.

Another thing she’s OCD about is pets. She doesn’t like them. It just about killed her when her daughter got a gerbil for her birthday two years ago. I believe children should have a pet. It teaches them responsibility and kindness to animals. If not children, teenagers will do. In any case, the gerbil stayed and everything went smoothly, mostly, for a year. Then the gerbil escaped. I thought she was going to have a stroke.

Okay, so OCD, insanely protective of her living room, doesn’t like pets, and has an escaped gerbil on the loose. You know where this is going, right? She tore the house apart, almost literally, looking for that damned gerbil and swearing she would find it before it did any damage. The gerbil had other ideas. We thought the gerbil won, after all, she didn’t find it and time went on.

Then she found it. I think you know that’s not a good thing, not at this point. The gerbil sort of won, at least it got the last word in on behalf of the entire family. Yes, it is now a dearly departed gerbil, and it chose her living room couch as its final resting place. Between the cushions. That no one ever went in there helped prolong the discovery.

Lesson: gerbils are evil. No, wait, that’s not it. Let people sit in the living room. Closer, but no. Life sucks sometimes is a fact, not a lesson. Oh, yeah: Foreshadowing – it isn’t just for entertainment anymore.

Cat Herders

The Girl once had so many interests she couldn’t decide on a career path. We told her it wasn’t a big deal, I mean a lot of college kids change their majors and she wasn’t even close to graduating from high school yet. Now she’s close, and she settled on Marine Biology. She wants to talk to whales. Oh, joy.

The unfortunate part about having a teenage girl with a newfound passion for whale calls, is that I have a teenage girl with a newfound passion for whale calls. Practicing them. At home. Out loud. Darth Jingles has come to grips with the oddity that her girl makes loud, strange noises while wandering around the house and yard, but Nimoy is still freaked out about it. The poor kitten just about jumps out of her skin when The Girl emulates a … I’m going to say blue whale … and she sprints to the safety of Grandma (me). Remember, if The Girl is her kitty-momma, then I’m kitty-grandma. Grandma is much safer to associate with than her mom, and I kind of see how this whole grandparent thing works now from a different perspective.

Before Marine Biology, The Girl had passions for paleontology and anthropology. She still does, in evidence is how many documentaries about mummies we watch. Yay, mummies – the well dressed zombies of the ancient world. I can say that here, but I can’t usually mentioned zombies and mummies in the same paragraph because, while The Girl likes mummies, she hates zombies and everything to do with them. That being said, we recently saw a thing about ancient Egypt and the things they put with mummies. Not just the royal ones everyone gushes over. Proper burial was a big thing back then. Do you know what they used to mummify and bury with people all the time? Not whales, thankfully. Actually no, that would be amusing. The next time Egypt goes on a mummy-making kick, someone suggest whales to ferry the dead to the afterlife, okay?

Cats. Sorry, I got a little sidetracked there. They mummified and buried cats with people. Mummified cats was such a booming business that apparently they raised cats for the purpose. Cat ranches. It stands to reason if there were cat ranches, then there were cat herders. Right?
The Girl and I just about fell on the floor laughing when the narrator mentioned cat ranches, both of us went immediately to cat herders.

For those who don’t know, ‘as difficult as herding cats’ is an idiom referring to how challenging it is to bring differently-minded people together to accomplish a goal. More to the point for the purposes of this tale is that EDS once did a commercial about cat herding. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/vTwJzTsb2QQ . It’s worth a look because this clip is why my daughter was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. I’m not sure where exactly the phrase comes from, but it doesn’t matter.

Literal cat herding - the Egyptians did it.