Flood Watch

The Keepers

The snow is worn away by waves of rain, and yesterday I went looking through my old notes for avatar. I left Michael crucified in midair, and maybe he’s hung there enough. I really never liked him, but maybe I was a wee bit vengeful…

…nah, probably not. Maybe he needs to stay there a bit longer.

Anyway, I’ve got to get out and move. The snow was nice, but I’ve got to run, and Sir Boxnoggin needs his edges worn off. Today is all copyedits all the time the instant I settle to real work, and that’s going to quite make my mood. Of course I have to make a few changes to the map of a fictional country, and that will quite make my mood as well.

The dogs don’t care that it’s raining–yet. They care only that they haven’t been run and I managed to get my hair into a ponytail, which means WALKIES ARE ALMOST UPON US. I suppose nothing is really harmed by running them in the rain; it’ll just make the house smell like wet dog.

…just as I typed that, my phone beeped. There’s a flood watch–all the snow, now all the rain washing it away. Great.

Well, the water will only rise from here. Might as well get out while it’s still a trickle instead of a flood. That way when I come home, everyone can dry off, warm up, and be glad to be inside for the rest of the day.

And I’ll leave Constantius hanging for some while longer. I have to edge up onto this book, which means thinking about its habits and feeding while I’m neck-deep in six other projects, including Dolls. That one’s going to be fun.

Every once in a while, thinking about my own mortality, I say I can’t die yet, I have edits to finish. It’s my own personal wall against misfortune; I cannot be killed until I have finished my work, and plenty is left undone. I know, realistically, it doesn’t matter–Death does not play favorites, nor does she care for unfinished business–but it makes me feel better and more productive during the time I have, so I aim to continue.

Off we go into curtains of rain. Boxnoggin will be ecstatic for roughly the first four minutes, before it penetrates his thick skull that we’re not going back inside to shake off anytime soon. Miss B, of course, will only care about getting done so we can go inside to shake off. This is the great division between them, and instructive to watch.

Happy Monday, hoopy froods. May your toad-swallowing for the day be performed quickly, cleanly, and with a minimum of fuss, as I hope my own will be.

*laces shoes, nods, and takes off into the rain*

C Is For…

…when I surface from a post-dinner writing jag, blinking and disoriented, and the Princess hands me a freshly baked cookie and says, “I wanted dessert. Here.”

Yes. Like that.

It’s good to be loved, and to be given tasty things. May you know both this weekend, concurrently or consecutively, as it pleases you.

Chilly Days

I prefer the cold. Summer means sweat, sweat means rashes no matter how careful one is, and who needs that? Winter is my time, despite dry-cracking skin and the persistent shivers.

Even so, it was a bit ridiculous this morning. I had to leave the warm nest of the bed and engage on another shivery day, and I would have loved to roll out of the covers and into some proper layers, but Sir Boxnoggin decided he would be Helpful and Aid Me in My Dressing. The way he chose to do this, of course, was by…sitting on everything I reached for.

I love this dog. His idea of help, though, often treads the edge of “no help at all, thanks.”

The small birds have found the finch feeder; it seems to be the only type of seed the squirrels won’t steal, probably because they have the sunflower-seed holder to pillage pretty much at will. They’re stocking up for the snow supposedly coming down the pike. There is much singing, twittering, hopping, and expressions both of delight and of menace. (“STAY AWAY FROM MY SEEDS, PHIL, OR I SWEAR I WILL END YOU.”)

Miss B, of course, as an Elderly Gentlecanine, prefers to spend very chilly days sprawled on her Fancy Dog Bed in my office, conveniently located near the heater. Some days she will even nudge me with her snout and sigh until I get the idea and turn said heater on. Boxnoggin is on the loveseat in the living room, snuggling into several knitted lap robes and watching the street with much interest. The next time a car (or, God forbid, a person walking dogs) appears, he will ALERT THE WHOLE HOUSE AT HIGH VOLUME BORK BORK BORK.

In all of this I have to work, and also have to get French toast shopping (milk, bread, eggs, in case we’re snowed in) done today before the forecasted precipitation breaks and you can’t pay me to step outside. Plus there’s copyedits to turn around by the fifteenth.

Seven. Hundred. Fifty. Pages. Of copyedits. 8.5”X11” pages, too, not book pages. Gods have mercy upon me, for publishing has none.

…and there goes Boxnoggin, screaming that someone is upon his street and I am required to come witness whatever has his dog-knickers in a twist, not to mention tuck him back into all the lap robes when he is soothed. See you around, folks.

A Dusting to Halt

This is the amount of snow it takes to close down school for the day. Mostly because the buses have to get out before dawn and the roads were ice-coated; who needs parents breathing down their nape because a bus went a little wonky? Of course, there are lots of transplants screaming “this ain’t snow, why, back home we have to dig our way out of the garage on the regular,” as if the Pacific Northwest is somehow the same as Minnesota. *eyeroll*

It’s supposed to be subzero tonight, which means the road will be another icy hellscape early tomorrow. But for today, we have a lot of hot cocoa, a lot of reading, and a lot of chunky sweaters and lap-blankets, not to mention dogs who have suddenly rediscovered humans have body heat too.

Poor Boxnoggin; this appears to be the first time he’s seen this White Coat of Death on everything, and he keeps giving me looks like Mum, make this stop, why are you doing this? He picks up each paw EXTRA high and gives it a shake when he’s forced to walk outside, and outright refuses to get near the gate because that means walkies and walkies mean OMG COLD ON MY WIDDLE FEETSIES.

Miss B, of course, is built for all weathers, but she’s old now, and quite content to stay inside where it’s warm and soft. Just because she can doesn’t mean she will wander outside more than the bare necessary. Currently she has moved from behind my chair to the Big Spacious Fancy Dogge Bedde near the heater, and is likely to remain there for as long as possible.

I wish you warmth and relaxation today, my friends. Sadly, I cannot take a day off, for my office is just down the hall from my bedroom, and going into work does not require anything more dangerous than tripping over a few dog toys and my own pre-caffeinated feet. There’s a short story to revise and the initial go-through on CEs for The Maiden’s Blade to cross off my list today. No rest for the weary or the wicked, but if I get those things done I might settle on the couch with tea and both dogs, and just watch the hill freeze solid.

Over and out.

Weekend Fyre Viewing

They’re saying snow, but so far there’s nothing but a restless, half-frozen rain going on. I’m hopeful we’ll avoid a layer of ice on everything; since we live near the mouth of the Columbia Gorge the wind often gives us a final fillip of freezing that makes tires refuse to grip and shoes refuse to stick.

This weekend I watched both the Netflix and Hulu documentaries about the Fyre Festival. The Netflix one was structured like a morality play and had access to footage shot for what was going to be an adulatory documentary (if the thing came off); the Hulu one was structured like a true-crime documentary and had an interview with McFarland, the grifter who put the whole show on (and, incidentally, spent the money). I do recommend seeing both, for different reasons. McFarland, in the Hulu documentary, has pupils the size of saucers and a complete lack of remorse; if you want to see what a con man looks like when he’s high off his gourd and visibly remembering what his lawyers have told him not to comment on, there it is.

All during both shows, I just kept hearing my grandfather’s voice inside my head, saying “y’all can’t cheat an honest man.” My ex-husband used to say something similar–that grifts work because of people who want something for nothing or something too good to be true. I won’t deny a bit of schadenfreude watching “influencers” with more money than sense end up in a waterless, Lord of the Flies-esque FEMA-tent village, but the locals who weren’t paid–and the people working hard on the Fyre app whose paychecks stopped coming regularly but who were seduced into keeping on through a sick system using their best qualities against them–didn’t deserve this bullshit, and the Netflix app goes in much more detail about the effects McFarland’s con had on them.

For those who did watch the documentaries, there’s a “where are they now” article.

One of the things that struck me watching both documentaries was how images of scantily clad women were used to sell “the dream.” More than once, a man on either documentary says “on a drug island surrounded by beautiful women? Who wouldn’t want that?” The models used for the now-famous promotional video had no idea they were part of a con and were presumably paid for their work; after the reality set in, plenty of people got shirty with the models and the “influencers” instead of with McFarland, who stayed out of prison much longer than anyone non-white or non-male could ever believe possible.

Another strange thing: at least once during each documentary, someone who was being interviewed got a call from McFarland, and answered it on screen. There are still people who pick up the phone when that fellow calls.

Just…wow. Being a rich white boy–or even looking like one–is a helluva drug.

I’m also surprised that, with our “justice” system the way it is, Ja Rule didn’t get into more trouble. He must have clearly and unequivocally been innocent of wrongdoing and had super high-powered lawyers, since the usual thing in these cases is to harass the bit players (especially if they’re people of color) endlessly and let the head of the pyramid scheme go with a slap on the wrist.

Anyway, I spent the weekend watching that while a houseful of teenage boys pillaged my kitchen, since the Little Prince wanted a Smash Bros. sleepover. I put on a Burrito Night to end all Burrito Nights and, once they were full to the gills with beans, rice, chicken, and tortilla, promptly banished them downstairs with mountains of crisps and sodas. A few odd smells and bursts of deep, loud laughter drifted up the stairs, but other than that, it was a reasonably quiet event, and I remember feeling quite grateful. After all, I’d been watching event planning go horribly, terribly wrong all weekend.

That was my weekend. I hope yours was peaceful, dear Reader, and remember: never trust a blinking con artist, especially one who calls you “bro” all the time.

Too good to be true inevitably is.

Safety, Sudden Ice

The cherry tree down the street is still attempting to bloom, in dribs and drabs. I’ve noticed some volunteer nasturtiums, too. Plenty of crocuses have poked their heads up, their hoods swelling with color that will eventually be flowers.

I want to grab all of them and say, softly but with great force, “Don’t. You don’t know what could happen, it’s only January, please, keep yourself safe.”

They don’t listen to me, of course, their knowledge is deeper than my fear.

My children are sixteen and twenty now. They are beautiful, caring, empathetic human beings–and I worry about predators and sick systems who prey upon such. I hope I’ve given them enough tools to spot the douchewads and jerks, I hope I have loved them so deeply and flagrantly that they know, no matter what, that they are worthy of such love and the predators who would convince them otherwise won’t find a purchase.

I know I can’t protect them from everything, much less sudden frosts. Yet the desire to keep them safe turns my hands into fists and my eyes into lamps, searching the dark waves past the safe harbor I’ve painfully assembled during the course of living.

I don’t understand those who see the vulnerable, the beautiful, and only wish to mar. I don’t understand people who see an expanse of unbroken snow and can’t rest until there are footprints or stains. I know they exist–I saw them, even as children, stripping leaves from branches not even hanging in their way, kicking the helpless and breaking ice on puddles just to hear the shattering, growing up to maim all those in their orbit one way or another.

There is no understanding to be reached, I suppose, only defense.

I know the cherry tree will survive and the crocuses will rise triumphant even if the ice comes. My Princess and Little Prince will meet terrible things in their lifetimes despite all my best efforts to protect and insulate. I have to trust that the tree, the flower, the young ones I carried in my own body have at least a fighting chance.

Spring is coming. One year it will pass me by…but not this year. I’m still here, searching the waters, calling out when the storm edges close. I am still longing to wrap the cherry tree in enough love to keep the frost at bay, to whisper to the crocuses you’re doing so well, to hug my almost-grown-up children and repeat the truth under all truths.

I love you so much. Please be careful, please be safe.

Safety may be an illusion in a cold, uncaring universe. Still I maintain the harbor for my beloveds, as long as I endure.

If the cold comes, it will find me ready.

Breach, Gasp, Dive

So not only did the garbage disposal explode (relax, it’s fine, there will be no plumbers called today) and the Moka pot decide to cough the instant I lifted the lid (again, relax, I was standing far back and the stovetop is used to worse) but the dogs are entirely too energetic (an entire weekend off means they are incapable of relaxation until we run) and I decided, in a fit of pique, to wash my sheets this morning. (There were, alas, a number of squeaky toys dismembered upon my bed in the recent past.) So of course there were also many Canine Attempts to Help, of the sort that are Amusing but No Real Help At All.

I’ve two cover questionnaires to fill out, since I took the weekend entirely off, and a full day’s writing as well as Latin and piano practice. Dinner must be thought of too, but I’m already worn out, and having to wait for yet another phone update before we go running is rasping the dogs’ nerves as well as my own.

All that aside, though, I feel way better than I did before the weekend. I was plunged into a despair, the world on fire and no help in sight. I am still pessimistic about the survival of humanity as a whole (who could fail to be, at this point?) but my determination to do the best I can with what time I have left remains unshaken, and that’s the important thing.

Even if it’s not, I’m going to treat it as such. Of course it’s all hopeless, but it’s important to fight anyway. Just keep swimming, and all that.

So I’ve breached the surface of despair and taken a deep breath. It’s good to get some air after all the darkness. Friar Tuck and Prince John are on a space flagship, Maid Marian’s getting ready for a speeder race, and I’ve a couple of assassination-happy princes maneuvering for political advantage. As soon as coffee settles, the dogs need a good medium-length run, and I could do with some endorphins. I’ve taken all the Roadtrip Z books from KDP to Draft2Digital, so that’s done1, and I’ll think about if I want to do the same with the other self-published stuff that isn’t so recent.

May you likewise find a breath of deep relief today, dear Readers. Over and out.