Author Archives: Holly

a rough night

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So I have this weenie yet butt-kicking cold, and then my back starts to hurt. It’s one of those sleep-injury pains that you wake up with occasionally once you reach a certain age. Every morning for the last three mornings my back (or maybe it’s my hip) has been a little owier than the day before. Then last night it woke me up at 3 a.m. I got up to pee–middle age sleep deprivation multi-tasking at its finest–and almost fell. Pain shot through my right hip and down my leg, which almost buckled. I was finally able to straighten and hobbled toward the bathroom. Stepping over dogs was suddenly a huge obstacle. When I sat to do do my business the pain flared brighter. When I got up, another bolt. When I returned to bed, lying down brought some relief–for perhaps 40 seconds. Then the pain started to build again. Stabby and shooty.

I gave up sleeping and read a while. After some time I started to doze. Mr Moth’s alarm went off–it sounds like a rooster crowing. Instead of turning it off, he had some kind of convulsion, like a fish dying on the beach. It felt like I might genuinely be in danger of getting bounced out of bed. Finally, finally he turned off the damn alarm…and went back to sleep.

And started to snore.

Never let it be said I have no self control. He’s still alive, right?

I read some more. Finally Mr Moth got up and went to work. I tried to use the extra bed space to find a comfortable position, and each shift brought relief but only temporary. I got up and sat on the toilet for about an hour. The seat pressed on the backs of my thighs and kind of made things worse but also eased the pain. Don’t ask how that’s possible, because I don’t know. The relief was welcome, but not sufficient. Around six a.m. I got up and took four advil. They didn’t help the pain, but maybe they helped knock me out after about another hour.

At eight-thirty some little dog started clawing my arm and whining. Making myself look bad, I harped at her to “Knock it off, dog!” But she didn’t, because she has a teeny weeny bladder, and what can she do?

Transitions are the worst moments, the rising and settling. Then the pain escalates into agony, and it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to use that word. But, dogs. I want her to tell me when she needs out, don’t I? I hauled my agonized carcass off the mattress, stood gripping the edge of the long dresser, waiting for the spasms to ease. When they did, I hobbled to the door. Then came trial by baby gate. When I went to the kitchen for advil earlier, I’d stepped over it. I almost didn’t make it back over, either. Now I bent and grabbled the pressure bar that releases the gate.

There was a noise, like tearing. And a sensation, also like tearing, and also like rippling, across that place that might be the lower back or might qualify as upper hips. And then, pain. Blinding. It’s not just hyperbole. I yelled, and swore, and cried. And somehow, stood up. Since I still had hold of the baby gate, it pulled loose. Two dogs charged around me while I stood there with stupid tears leaking down my face. I saw them dimly through a haze of eyewater and excruciation, capering toward the back door.

I couldn’t put the gate down, because that would have required me to bend over again. Hell, it would have required me to move. I honestly don’t know how I put it down. But I must have, because I see it in it’s daytime storage slot. I followed the cavorting mutts and let them out.

Fabulous, I thought, leaning on the back of a kitchen chair. Now it hurts to stand. At least yesterday I could do that. And today Zor needs transported to her final final exam, and there’s grocery shopping to do among the throngs of people too busy and important to bother being considerate or polite, or heaven forfend, patient.

I made coffee. Instant, with microwaved water, vanilla creamer, and pumpkin pie spice, which I ‘ve been using in everything since long before it became the in thing.

I check to see if dogs have chow, and thank heaven one of their dishes is still full, because feeding dogs without bending over can be done, but I’m sure I’m not up to the challenge. I let them in. I take my empty-stomach pills and start for the office. At least I can walk upright now, I think, with only minor twinges. I remember Zor telling me, “Little victories, ma,” when I was in the hospital and had successfully brushed my hair.

I come in the office, push into the Cessna-like whir of five hamster wheels going all at once, creep to the table where I set drinks (none allowed on the desk with my laptop, nuh uh, Im a klutz and have a cat) and, bracing myself, bend to set the cup down.

It doesn’t hurt.

Praise the cosmos.

I sit, and that doesn’t hurt either. Well, a little. But more on the sitting than the transitioning, and only at manageable levels. I play some Sims Social, and I’m still feeling a little spasmy at the tailbone, but not too bad. I stand up, and that barely hurts either–mostly just achy and throbby, which I’ll take over stabby and shooty any day.

So, anyone want to guess what I’m thankful for today?

nothing important

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All but the last few straggly leaves have departed the tree in our front yard and lie on the ground in soggy unblowable clumps. It is now deer season in Ohio, where the deer cross the roads in herds, dying and dying and dying. Maybe it’s in memory of the fallen that my home state is deer colored now. By January or so we’ll have lost that and gone to plain brownish gray, and I’ll be starving for color of any kind. That’s when I’ll go to the dollar store and buy bunches of cheap fake flowers in primary and vivid secondary colors, and to the Goodwill for stray colored pillowcases.

No need to rush the season though. There’s still two blanking months of Xmas to get through.

I have a cold, but I made it through finals. It’s not even a bad cold, mostly a scratchy throat, mild congestion, and some coughing, yet I feel like crap in a cup. Which might be part of the reason why I’m having trouble figuring out what to do with myself. I went from having zero time to having all the time in the world and not knowing how to allocate it. So I sit on the sofa, undecided, and watch Fatal Attractions. Which is good, but I mean to accomplish more over winter break.

So here’s a condensed version of my to-do list:

Find X number of agents who accept queries in one of the genres godlight might be.
Write X queries.
Send X queries.
Read godlight again for typos. (I’ve created an epub file for this, so I can work on the Nook. We’ll see how it goes.)
Clean out my school bags.
Clean off my desk.
Do something to neaten the hamster pit my office has become.
Choose a writing project. I’m waffling between Seldom and an old NaNo project with the working title of Standing Outside the Fire that’s been haunting me for years.
Write something.
And…this will come as a shock…draw. In charcoal. I have an idea, and quite a lot of supplies left over.
Watch the Alien series with Zor.

nook

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I bought a Nook Color about two or three weeks ago. Now I see they’ve released the next version (the Nook Tablet) for the same price. I didn’t see anything about that in my extensive research, grr!

However, I really like this gizmo. I can finally read all the e-books that have accumulated on my hard drives over the lifetimes of three computers. Well, ok. I probably still won’t read them all; in light of all the free giveaways on various sites, I’ll never be caught up, not even if I never get past the third page of most of the freebies. All the old Bobbsey Twins books? Free. Five Little Peppers, too.

Of course, there are still plenty of hard copies to be read also. You still can’t go to Goodwill and play blind travel among the midlist on an e-reader.

However. The reason I decided to get an e-reader in the first place was because of all the time I spent out on the deck last summer, avoiding the oven that our house had become until T-Moth got the AC fixed. A lot of that time was in the dark. I played a lot of Harvest Moon on the old Nintendo DS, enough to burn myself out on it. And I thought a lot to myself, I wish I was reading. I considered taking my laptop out there, but a laptop battery only has so many charge cycles in its lifetime, and I didn’t want to use it up reading in the dark. Also, it was hot, and hot isn’t good for laptops either.

Then, in one of those bolts from the blue, a friend said, “I’ve been thinking of getting an e-reader, maybe I’d read more, but I wonder if I’d have time to use it at all.” Whereupon I thought to myself of my long hours in the dark on the deck with the dogs, and thought, “I would!”

It was the first time I’d ever seriously considered owning an e-reader, since I never saw any way one would serve a function that couldn’t be served as well or better by an actual book, and with paper books you don’t have to kill yourself if you lose it or it gets stolen. A little research quickly proved that a regular Nook (or Kindle) with an e-ink screen isn’t backlit anyway, so if you want to read in the dark, you have to buy a clip-on light like for a paper book, and hey…I could just buy one of those, right? Read paper books in the dark, no problem.

Then I started school and had zero time for sitting on the deck, never mind reading anything much besides Contemporary American Business, and a few pages before I passed out at night (usually around 9:30, am I old or what?)

Then two thoughts collided in my head. One, that someone told me you could get really cheap textbooks for the Nook. And two, that it would be a lot lighter to lug around than books and a laptop. So I bought a Nook Color.

And learned you can get cheap textbooks for Nook, but you have to read them on your PC?!

But I really like it. I can surf a little internet,or check my e-mail, and read a little too, in those slivers of time otherwise spent staring off into space. I can read on the couch with the lights off while Mr Moth watches Burn Notice. (Although lately I’ve been paying more attention to that show.) And once, on a warmish night, I was headed for bed when it suddenly occurred to me I could sit on the deck and read. So I took the dogs out…and did.

It was all I’d hoped…tablet be damned.

in which I come out looking bad

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I’ve never liked pancakes much. Oh, they’re not nasty or anything. I spent one memorable February snowed in with a toddler and when the bread ran out I made pancakes for those all-important peanut butter sandwiches. So it’s not that I hate pancakes. They’re too sweet and not filling. I’d rather have whatever goes with the pancakes, the sausage or eggs.

Mr Moth loves pancakes. Especially blueberry ones. Sometimes I buy–have bought, in the days before diabetes–him blueberry pancake mix, so he can make himself some pancakes of a Sunday morning.

Then came diabetes and the black hole of pancakes. Because suddenly, now that I couldn’t have any pancakes, everytime he makes pancakes, I hate him. Loathe. Despise. Resent.

I know this is unreasonable. I’m not angry when he eats ice cream, and I like ice cream. There are other things he has that I shouldn’t, and I’m not angry at him for those things.

(If I find out he had some pecan pie though, his days are numbered. Just saying.)

No, it’s not fair that he can’t have those things because I’m diabetic. You know what else isn’t fair? That I’m diabetic.

Anyhow. He ran out of syrup, and on the topic of purchasing more…well, we had a blow up. Over syrup. Yes we did. It was entirely my fault and I was completely unreasonable. Afterwards I was sorry–but still seething with resentment as black as charcoal and as cold as January on a doorknob. I tried to rise above it. We went to the store to get more syrup. And found sugar-free syrup.

Now I don’t want pancakes. I know I don’t like them. Maybe I could put a little of the syrup on oatmeal…but to be honest, I’m not sure where I put it.

sweets and books

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I apparently missed all the radical cloud action Tuesday while I was having an MRI, which time I spent trying to decide what symbols to put in my Drawing I project, and what I might take to a Thanksgiving thing, if I went. I try not to whine on about the diabetes, because I’m determined that it should only make me feel bad physically and not attitudinally. But autumn is my season, and Halloween and Thanksgiving are–maybe were–my holidays. Also Memorial Day, but that isn’t really screwed up in the same way as Halloween and Thanksgiving, not being so much about candy and food in general.

I’m not a big candy eater, apart from the occasional PMS chocolate, or taffy. And I found both in quite delicious sugar free versions. (Although the sugar free salt-water taffy can not compete with the Laffy variety, nuh uh. It is actually good though, and not just meh, it’ll do. But there aren’t any sugar-free peanut butter kisses, or air heads, or any of the silly crap I normally indulge in this time of year. The idea of passing out candy I must not touch myself just bums me on a collosal scale. As for Thanksgiving? Its approach has made me realize I have to cooking identity anymore. Sure I can whip out a ham that falls apart at the approach of a fork, but baking has always been my thing. Like with the candy, my heart is not in baking pies and cobblers and jelly rolls and upside down cakes and puddings that I can’t have any of.

My non-dessert specialties are lasagna and chili, neither of which are all that appropriate for a Thanksgiving thing.

On a Thankful Thursday note, I am grateful for sugar-free Hershey’s Special Dark, and that the MRI is over. I wish I had seen the clouds. Yeah, there’s some self-pity going on.

Let’s ignore it and see if it goes away.

I bought a Nook Color, and I’ve been browsing the free books on Barnes and Noble’s site. It seems I have an inner agent…an underdeveloped inner agent, but she’s there, nonetheless, and I would like to find treasure in the self-published trash heap. This means sifting through a lot of trash. Some things that lure me to click through to the book description: the word dog or wolf in the title. Zombies. Lots of ratings (say more than 20) of three or more stars. A completely unexpected word in the title, case in point: Wendigo.

Things that just tick me off: When the wolf in the title is a werewolf. Vampires, period. How much self-pubbed vampire dreck does the world need? (In fairness, I am thoroughly sick of vampire non-dreck, and have been since Lestat became a rock star, barf.) A description that tells me nothing about what the book is about. A description with really atrocious lack of writing skills, by which I mean tense problems, grammar issues, spelling errors. When the author’s name is huge and the book title is small and unreadable on the cover thumbnail; if your name is Stephen King this works. If you’re Ann Smith, no. Actually I find it off-putting if I can’t see the title on the cover for any reason. I get that self-published authors can’t afford top-end graphic design, but making sure the title looks good should be a no-brainer. You collect enough of these strikes together in one place and it won’t matter if your book is Zombie Dogs in Wendigoland. I’m only human.

More tick-offs include when all the reviews say the same thing, which to nothing, and thus scream SOCK PUPPET. A couple of less-than-perfect reviews/ratings make the whole deal seem more legitimate to me.

Lots of these tales are really quite very much bad, but that’s ok. The people that wrote them don’t know they’re bad, and maybe someone else will like them. Meanwhile I will hunt on…in between school projects, one of which I should be working on right this second. ‘Til next time.

best dog toy ever?

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I bought Cobie and Kelly this Kong Ballistic:

(I didn’t get mine from Amazon, I got it from Jack’s. I was in there buying the equipment to set up a new bin for the hamster males, which product has stalled due to my inability to tell the boys from the girls. Unless they’re all girls… But anyway.)

I’m so excited!

Ok, this boomerang-type toy made of cloth, and it’s big enough for the big dog to play with no risk of choking, and small enough for the small dog to manipulate it easily. It’s soft enough to play fetch in the house without destroying things or hurting a dog who gets in the way of it. It’s heavy enough to fly the entire length of the hall (and into the office.) There’s room for two dogs to hold on at once for tug purposes, or to carry it back to me, at which time there’s a third “handle” for me to take hold of with minimal risk of having my hand accidentally CHOMPED.

There’s a squeaker inside each pod. It also allegedly floats and is washable; I’m not sure how that combination works out, but I bet if I throw it in with a load of towels it’ll get clean. It does come in other patterns/colors, but I just like purple.

Now here’s the part I consider SERIOUSLY COOL: It’s made in three layers. Two of them are ballistic nylon, meaning it’s made with the same technology they use to make bulletproof vests.

Bulletproof or no, I’m not letting them chew on it, because I paid a good bit for it (about $15, as I recall) and I want it to last…and it seems like it will. Kelly tried a couple of times to pack it off and rip its squeakers out, and to no avail. I have high hopes, and I had a blast playing with them. They haven’t had any indoor toys in a while because of their tendency to destroy everything in two days max.

The only downside I’ve discovered so far is that after a few rounds of fetch/chase/CHOMP, it gets wet and kind of icky feeling, but hey. It’s a dog toy. When you have dogs, the occasional wet and icky is part of the package.

happiness is

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We took the last in-nest Spawn to Best Buy to pick out her new laptop. She’s been shopping online for months, and new exactly which one she wanted. Except when we got there, they were sold out. She carefully inspected every other offering in the store, most of which were also sold out. “I just don’t want to settle!” she cried in frustration.

And, since Mr Moth and I agreed she shouldn’t have to settle, we drove her to the next town, which has a bigger Best Buy (glorious, glorious geekery…provided you don’t actually expect their commission-based geeks to fix anything) and found her laptop. She was walking out with it clutched to her chest and a big goofy grin on her face, and she said, “Hey look!”

We looked. “What?”

“Pudding face.”

get your pudding face on 1get your pudding face on 2

Ok, so New Laptop Face isn’t as creepy as Pudding Face, but you get the idea.

thankful thursday

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I dreamed last night that Lita had more babies, and they escaped. I am thankful neither of those things is true, although I did come right in and wake them all up for a head count.

Still six.

I am thankful for Goodreads, because although I don’t use the social networking aspect of it, I’ve been keeping lists of books I’ve read since I was ten or so, and I love being able to keep track them in a place where I won’t lose the paper. I also love how simple it is to add the books I’d like to read. And if I get busy and ignore Goodreads for awhile, it’s still there waiting for me when I catch my breath.

Big Blue Berta, who just keeps zooming along.

T-Moth.

The opportunity to get a (mostly) free education. We normally don’t qualify for things, because we aren’t living at poverty level. But there’s no way I could afford to go back to school if not for help from the government, and neither could Zor.

Still on that same subject, today is Tolesday–Mr Toles being the instructor of my favorite class.

Fall. O, how I adore Fall, and we seem to actually be having one. The heat is over and the snow isn’t here yet. Yay!

And lastly, I’m thankful for an auxiliary character that popped into my head during Contemporary American Business. This guy suits Seldom’s story so much better than the cardboard guy I had planned for that job; he serves multiple functions. The Maasster would be proud.

it’s not thursday, but I’m still thankful

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Emphasis today on things:

1.) My printer.

2.) My three-hole punch. Thesefirst two have received a vigorous workout today.

3.) Big Blue Berta.

4.) MP3 player, which makes my less favorite tasks more tolerable.

5.) Sam-e.

Non-things: T-Moth, Zor, parents, friends, and critters.

hamcam

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This is Lita with two of her pups, who turned two weeks old early Friday, in the chow hall of their new tub house. That’s actually Oliver’s old cat dish. But I was thinking how hamsters like to sit in the dish while they eat, and I figured a big ol’ dish would keep that from being a problem in a mulitple rodent situation. Also, Lita’s not apt to get nervous about the food supply if she has a ton of it.

At last count, on Moving Day, there are six remaining pups, out of eight. Two are runty. One T-Moth has called Speedy, because it’s always zooming around, always on the wheel. The other I am calling Algernon, because honestly I believe it’s developmentally impaired. It can walk, and eat, and all that…but it rarely walks, and I rarely see it. I almost removed it from the cage a week ago because it was so lethargic, I thought it was dead. But when I petted it, it blinked. I hurried and put it back, sure it would die because I had touched it too soon, but when I moved them to the tub, Algernon was still with us.

If s/he lives, I’m keeping that one.

On hamster moving day, I sifted through the nursery bedding over and over and over and over. I didn’t want to risk missing anyone.

It feels wrong to have hamsters living in a tub, but I didn’t want the pups squeezing out through the bars, and I understand breeders often keep them in tubs. In fact, the woman from whom I got Zandy and Lita had them in a tub. I like the free-standing wheel, and that I can just reach in and remove it for cleaning. That’s only one day of hamster mess in the video!

The water tower is a combination of an idea I had, and T-Moth’s misunderstanding of that idea. I really like it, but the hole needs to be up about another ince to keep the bedding from wicking away water. I used one of those side-cut can openers, so there are no sharp edges.

I’m not wild about the brown bedding in combination with the brown-and-gray critters, but it came free with Zandy’s cage, so you know I’m not going to waste it.

They sure got big fast.