chez sweet chez

Monday’s Scorecard

haha, no

So the plumbers were out again yesterday. The problem appeared to be fixed. I walked the dogs, took a shower, made lunch, letting the fix sit and think about things.

Maybe that was my mistake.

Because as soon as I washed dishes after lunch I found the problem was, indeed, not fixed. I gather this happens a lot with plumbing, but dear gods and garters, I was unamused.

To put it mildly.

At least the appliance repairman who came out to deal with the dishwasher (an entirely separate problem) proved effective (so far). He listened carefully to my description of dishwasher events, nodding thoughtfully, and said, “I think I know what’s going on, based on that.”

I learned that my dishwasher isn’t plugged in but hard-wired through the floor, and in any case I wouldn’t have needed to take it out to look behind it in order to fix the damn thing. The problem appeared to be some shifting as the door was opened and closed, moving some padding, which put pressure on some wires, and is actually quite a common complaint. “Happens a lot, especially with these new types. Let me just run a few more tests to make sure there’s not another problem hanging out in there…”

Then, when he had run all the tests, he peered at the top of the frame and said, “The installers didn’t…huh.”

“The last guy to own this house was a Do-It-Yourselfer,” I offered, a bit faintly. I couldn’t believe things were going so well, and was braced for disaster. “They didn’t put those screws in because of the countertop, you see how it…”

“Oh yeah, I see,” he said, in a tone half wonder, half confirmed-suspicion. “Seen this before too. Let me just…”

He dug in a capacious assortment of screws, washers, nails, and other tiny bits (all neatly organized in a plastic container), found what he wanted, and badda-boom, had the metal tabs at the top screwed into the underside of the counter, with zero fuss. “Now it won’t tip, and that stuff below might not work loose again. But just in case…” He picked up his phone and started tapping. “I’m gonna add notes to your file, so if the problem isn’t just those wires getting pinched we can replace the whole circuit board under there. Sometimes the wire nuts heat up and things get iffy. Don’t you worry, ma’am. It’s going to be all right.”

Have you ever wanted to burst into tears when a stranger says that? Dearly beloveds, I longed to dissolve into sobs. However, I swallowed them, put on a professional face, and made the fellow some coffee, because as he said, “I love caffeine. Love it. Best thing that ever happened to the world.”

I sent off Jake the Appliance Repair Gumshoe with a quad-shot of espresso, cut with some heavy cream. He was most grateful, and gave me a cheery thumb’s-up before pulling out of the driveway, leaving me to my own devices with a (hopefully) fully repaired dishwasher, at least.

So the score for Monday was: Plumbers 0/2, third game next week; Appliance Repairman undefeated (so far); Yours Truly, don’t ask, I’m trying not to scream.

I know these are first-world problems and others are dealing with far, far more. There’s a load of numbing, crushing in guilt in this being the damn straw that breaks the camel’s back and sends me raving into the desert night. I am trying like hell to find the funny side of this, of anything, because once I start laughing it’ll be all right.

To that end I watched Deadpool again last night, and the cartoon-y violence was 100% what I needed. I feel bad for that being the thing that helped, in however small a dose, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

The dishwasher seems to be holding up. Each time I press the start button it’s with a whispered prayer. It drains below the leaky portion of the below-sink pipes, too, so that’s a tiny victory. Of course we have buckets to catch the drips, but that’s hardly the point.

Anyway, I’m still fighting. I’m trying to find the funny side in all this, or indeed in anything. At least I can escape a little today, burying myself in work since there will be no strangers visiting. Getting ready for polite social interaction is a burden I can well do without at this point. Just let me burrow into my hole.

So I’m off to get some brekkie and walk the dogs. No matter what else is going on, they need their walkies, dammit, and the rain means we probably won’t see anyone else as we amble. That will be nice.

Hang in there, everyone. Sooner or later things will get better. They have to. I’m not prepared to accept any other outcome.

Over and out.

Year Three Begins

The sound of shatter.

It’s a brand new year!

The dishwasher has stopped working, there’s a leak under the kitchen sink, and the tire pressure sensor light is on, but it’s a new year. Amazon has decided to start penalizing authors because e-thieves are pirating their books, but it’s a new year. The CDC has decided to sacrifice lives for the economy as if they’re Republicans, losing what little moral and scientific authority they had left, but it’s a new year.

December 25th rolled around with a new item here at the Chez. The Princess picked up some cheap crockery at the dollar store, and we began the day by shattering a plate apiece, by either deceleration or hammer, on the back walk. The kids are enchanted with this, and can’t wait to do it again next year.

Why would we do such a thing? Well, holidays are…problematic, for me. Every single “holiday” I endured growing up was a nightmare of mounting pressure until the inevitable raging explosion from one of my adult caretakers. At that point, the worst had happened and all I could do was endure.

There’s a certain relaxation in, “it’s happened, all I have to do now is hunker down.” So this year, as the pressure and tension of anticipating the worst on a “holiday” mounted, I decided to do something about it. And lo, it worked.

The sound of breakage triggered the release valve, and the rest of the day was actually pretty nice. It’s the first time I’ve enjoyed Christmas in decades, frankly, and the kids were absolutely thrilled. Everyone got a plate to break, we all pitched in with the cleanup, and then there were good things to eat and a cosy blaze in the fireplace all day. The kids are bound and determined to do the same thing next year, if the pandemic doesn’t end up getting us after all.

…yeah, you can tell even my agathism is taking a beating. We’re in Year 3 of the Pandemic, after all. If one goes historically, this is the year things will get sorted (the Spanish Flu basically took three, I’m going to cover my ears and scream if anyone says, “but the Black Plague…”), at least on the epidemiological front.

I also received some…let’s call it “news”, on Boxing Day. Not unexpected, and I was prepared and braced, but it was still deeply uncomfortable and called up a lot of complex feelings. I’m not surprised things started to go haywire just afterward.

So here we are in 2022. May this year be better than the last, however incrementally. I’ve got a load of work this morning, including making bloody phone calls to get the leak under the kitchen sink sorted and the car’s tires checked. Of course everyone will be doing everything they put off last week because of the holiday, so nothing will get done in a timely manner, but that’s to be expected under current conditions.

There’s nothing to do but keep going. I sent off yet another book–the second Ghost Squad novel, Klemp’s book–last week too, very early but that’s better than late. Now I can turn my entire engines to Hell’s Acre, and also spend some time on the second Sons of Ymre book. I intend to work until it becomes an impossibility; it seems the only way through.

Welcome to the New Year, my beloveds. If all else fails, try breaking a cheap plate or two. It worked wonders for us, I’ve gotta admit.

Excelsior, and all that.

Before the (Holiday) Plunge

Barn Owl
© Donfink | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Blogging will be kind of spotty between now and the New Year, my friends. I’m…tired.

In any case, it’s Christmas Adam (we call it that because it comes before Christmas Eve, har de har har, old joke, STILL FUNNY) and I’m taking a deep breath before one of the most stressful events of the year–and that’s saying something, given how 2020 and 2021 have both turned out.

There’s a lot to be grateful for, but I just want some rest. If I could sleep until January 1, I would not mind a single bit; for one thing, it seems like a great way to make a dent in ever-mounting pandemic exhaustion.

Alas, it’s not an option, either biologically (having to get up to wee rather destroys the plan, no matter how tight-knit said plan is otherwise) or practically (the kids, not to mention the dogs, would be Quite Unnerved). So we struggle on, boats against the current and all that.

I hope you have a lovely holiday, beloveds. I hope it is full of good things to eat, low to no stress, and all the things you want but nothing you don’t. I may be about before the year turns over, or I might not. I suppose I’m saying “don’t expect much”, and if that isn’t a bumper sticker for the past couple years, I don’t know what is.

See you around.

From Books to Mortality

Happy Monday, my dears. I greeted the day finishing Shaun Bythell’s Confessions of a Bookseller in bed, twelve out of ten, utterly delightful, can recommend. My writing partner (who owned a bookstore for many a year, an event for which I was indirectly responsible, long story) recommended it. “It’s like my old Tales of the Bookstore posts, a whole year of them.” And she was right.

Mr Bythell’s shop is The Bookshop, Wigtown, which sounds amazing as all hell. It takes the patience of a saint to run a place like that; I have never owned a bookstore, being content to merely offer my services as a buyer, shelver, and patient ringer-up. Which takes its own kind of fortitude, but one can always blame the boss when a customer becomes impertinent. “Sorry, I can’t do that, the boss won’t let me.”

Anyway, it was a lovely palate-cleanser, since I’ve been reading only true crime and depressing history for months now. Also, we had snow yesterday–fortunately, it only lasted about twenty-four hours and today there’s no sign that there was ever a slushpocalypse at all. The dogs were extremely vivacious during their walk yesterday morning, apparently determined to toss me headlong into a pile of wet ice at the first opportunity. Arriving home in one piece and relatively dry was a victory, one I celebrated with a feverish round of housecleaning, it being Sunday and all.

I am waiting for one last sales platform to get itself together, then I’ll have something special for you all. If everything goes well I can make the announcement tomorrow. It’s not huge, but it is extremely amusing, and I am on tenterhooks waiting for that one…last…platform. Ah well, it’s the holiday season; everything’s moving slowly.

This week I turn my engines fully toward Hell’s Acre. If I can get through the charity ball before knocking off for Yule I’ll be happy; I desperately need some more murder in this book.

I also need to brave the wilds for some further Yule supplies–just last-minute things, but getting them done will mean I can spend the upcoming holiday weekend cooking without worry. The kids voted a resounding “no” to decorations this year. (The actual vote was two and a half for “fuck no” and one-half abstaining, so no decorating. We’re just too tired.)

2021 has been a bit of a bear, what with the second year of pandemic and the slow-mo fascist coup still attempting to metastasize in the body politic. I alternate between nervous hope and complete despair, as I have since before 2016.

There was also a strange bit of ectoplasm near my loo door this morning. I have spent most of my life as a mother by this point, so I merely glanced at it as I staggered out of bed, returning to discern its source and true nature only once I had coffee in hand. It turned out to be a bit of bile from Miss B, who occasionally has a small amount of stomach upset, being the old lady she is. Brewer’s yeast tablets seem to have largely sorted her on that front, which is a blessing; still, I am facing the evidence of her upcoming mortality with quite a bit of pre-grief. She’s still got some time left, but I can see the end, and it will be a dark time indeed when she decides she’s ready to go.

Of course, I am dead sure she’ll return in some form or another, since I cannot be trusted to supervise myself and it is her self-chosen job to fill that role. The Princess is of the opinion that Miss B will choose to inhabit the body of a corgi next, which will be all kinds of fun for all concerned. But that’s still in the future, and for now I am making the most of the time remaining in this incarnation. Our elderly statesdog wants for nothing, and shall for as long as she deigns to remain in my care.

Using the time we have will not make the eventual grief lighter, but it will give me something to hold when it arrives.

And on that note, I shall be about my business. Miss B, unmindful of my mood, is pressing for walkies since I was lazy and lay abed for a half-hour finishing that book. The daily schedule is in danger, and she cannot abide that; routine and ritual are her watchwords. Boxnoggin, of course, is content to follow her lead, so he’s attempting to wriggle under my office chair as I type this. Since he’s a good sixty pounds of muscular, youngish doge, the chair is in danger of giving out completely, which is not a great deal of fun but would manage to pry me away from the glowing desktop box said dogs are completely mystified by. (“She just…stares at it, and taps with her little monkey paws. Humans are weird…”)

See you around.

Consumable Affection

Oh, fudge.

The Princess has made her first batch of fudge for the season. This year she’s experimenting with darker chocolate–the current batch is made with 70%, and I think we could stand to go a little further–and she will also, because she loves her mother, attempt part of a batch with walnuts.

Well, she knows she’s technically capable, but she’s a purist, and considers my yen for walnuts in fudge to be just short of unholy. Kind of like raisins in challah, which I am in total agreement with her about.

She does several challah loaves with raisins each year around the holidays for her bestie, though, who adores such things. We call it “the Loaf of Sin”, because it makes us all laugh like loons. Of such things are affections made and expressed.

Have a lovely weekend, dear ones.

Brain, Overrated

There are days when having a brain, let alone sentience, is overrated.

Yesterday was for administrivia and grocery shopping–the latter is always a joy since the pandemic arrived, isn’t it. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.) Thankfully the vast, overwhelming majority of people are now in masks, and the few covidiots who swan around with their face-holes open and breathing contagion everywhere are, one hopes, roundly shamed for their lack of empathy, common sense, and just-plain-kindness.

I ran across a Twitter thread the other day explaining Trumpists, maskholes, and covidiots from the standpoint of caste, and it explained a lot. (I don’t normally link to hellsite from here, but in this case, the thread’s so good I’m making an exception, as is my prerogative.) Particularly the bit about “the dominant caste being forced to go out of its way to protect people perceived as lower in caste is a supreme violation of caste rules.”

It’s sad. Among other words, but all I’m feeling nowadays is a great, deep sorrow.

Well, that’s not all I’m feeling, though it is the greatest component when I think about how the US refused to handle the first year of the pandemic, sinking us into a hole we still haven’t found a way out of. Hard to get out when some asshats just keep digging.

The rest of what I’m feeling is the usual post-revision slump. I got three whole manuscripts out the door last Friday, so the feeling is at least tripled, though I feel there’s a solid case for its strengthening exponentially with each book ushered through the gates of Editor’s Email. Consequently, I’m on a rollercoaster of emotional flailing. My brain keeps insisting its absolute inability to settle on anything means I’m broken or lazy, while the faint voice of sanity (or something like it) keeps insisting that I sent three goddamn books out in one day and it’s a miracle I’m still coherent, much less attempting to work.

I know this is just the usual post-revision stuff, dialed up to eleven as a function of scale. The cure is simple, though not easy; it consists of both getting all the stuff I said “I’ll get this done when I send these books in” actually done, and stuffing a great deal of fresh content into my head to refill the artistic well.

There has to be grist for the mill to do its job, after all.

Now it’s time to finish chewing on peanut-butter toast and walk the dogs. They won’t like me leaving to run other errands–lockdown was absolutely fantastic for them–but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Even in pre-plague times it was very rare for them to be left home alone, and they like that rarity reduced to zero. Alas, things aren’t quite so simple. They’ll endure.

Before I go, though–what are you watching/reading nowadays, my beloveds? I know what I’m pouring into my head, but I’m interested in what you’re doing. Tell me all about it.

Kind Optimism

Welcome to Monday, everyone! Whew.

Late last week (literally at closing time on Friday) I finished the revisions on The Black God’s Heart, and scheduled them to go back to the editor this very morning. I also got the first draft of a really exciting project to a separate editor, which means three full-size manuscripts went out the door.

No wonder I’m feeling a bit woozy. That’s a lot of parturition in a short while.

Never fear, though, I’m not at all at loose ends. There’s groceries to acquire for the next few weeks, and I can now crawl back into Hell’s Acre and get the charity ball sorted, not to mention a few other things. I’ve been aching to get back into New Rome, especially as Avery Black needs to be in far more trouble than he currently is.

There’s even more good news–everyone chez Saintcrow has their Covid booster appointment scheduled and confirmed, with bonus flu shot. I have rarely had the latter before and am not looking forward to possible side effects, but it’s far, far better than suffering (or passing along, gods forbid) either the plague or influenza. My only problem is that every single place offering boosters seems to be actively making it as difficult as possible to schedule, though I am attempting to take the route of kind optimism and telling myself it’s probably because so many people are now getting their shots. I’d rather have it be that than any malevolence, or even incompetence.

I’m not allowed to work today. Thankfully (for some value of thankful, I suppose?) I have a mountain of administrivia to work through, between year-end stuff and things I didn’t get done because I was pushing to get Black God’s out by deadline. The relief of crossing the latter off my master to-do list was intense, let me tell you.

And that’s about all the news that’s fit to print. The dogs are very eager for walkies; things like deadlines and paperwork mean less than nothing to them. I admire their focus on the truly important things, like breakfast and strolling around the block, not to mention skritches, snuggles, and treats.

We’re almost through another year. I plan on entering 2022 cautiously, using a very long stick to open the door. I will not make eye contact in case the new year considers it a sign of aggression, and will be speaking very softly to it, attempting to soothe. I think that’s best, don’t you?

I suppose I’d best get started. The paperwork won’t do itself, more’s the pity.

See you around.