Category: The Non-Writing Life

Birdbrain

Ever had a bird in the house? Ever wondered how it got in? Ever considered that it might not be via the cat?

My family has lived in our current home for nineteen years. Sure, we’ve had birds in the house before, courtesy of cats, but those are easy to spot because they’re usually wounded. In fact, our first cat, Slink, once brought a baby owl (dead and frozen before he got to it) into a house we rented in a town about three hours drive from where we currently live. Our second cat, Seiki (a nasty, toothless Siamese I immortalized in BORROWING ALEX as Rusty), considered himself quite the Great White Hunter (one of his nicknames). He’d bring maimed birds into the house and then get much joy from watching them flap about trying to get away from him. Lucky for those birds, the family was usually on the ball and saved the bird before Seiki could further torment it. I can’t recall one single bird becoming the cat’s dinner.

Now, we’re on our third cat, Keisha. Otherwise known around the blog as The Evil Entity. She’s not actually evil. She is quite sweet. Behold, evidence:

keisha_head

Come on, admit it. She’s cute!

So, The Evil Entity has a cat door. Our cats have always had cat doors. I grew up with a cat jumping on my window screen in the middle of the night to get in the house. Not fun. Thus, the cat door. It’s accessible from the carport.

Last winter we had to close the cat door for several months, because, sweet as she is, The Evil Entity wasn’t guarding it very well. A big black cat in the neighborhood decided that sneaking into our house in the middle of the night to eat Keisha’s cat food was a fine idea.

Jump to the summer. We decided to open the cat door again. The big black cat seems to have forgotten about it. Good news. The bad news? We have a birdbrain!

Last weekend, while My Liege was busy helping Eldest Son put away his car for the winter, the kitchen door was left open. My Liege was walking by the cat door in the carport and noticed Keisha inspecting said cat door. He realized something was inside the house, pushing back on the cat door, but not strong enough to get out. Keisha wanted to get in, but was unnerved by the pushing on the door.

So. My Liege goes downstairs, and there’s a huge bird—quite healthy, totally unmaimed by a cat—pushing against the cat door in a vain effort to get out. M.L. and E.S. managed to get the bird to fly back out again (after removing a screen from a basement window), but not before the bird tried to dive-bomb E.S. the_birdsWhat, did he think we were casting for a remake of The Birds?

Okay, bird leaves the house, The Evil Entity, Not Very Evil, can now enter the house again. Everyone is happy. How did the bird enter the house, we wondered? I theorized that E.E. pushed it in through the cat door, but M.L. and E.S. maintained the bird was far too large for E.E. to catch, much less push through a cat door.

All right, I conceded, I guess the bird flew in through the open kitchen door and just happened to fly into the workshop and decide to try to get out again via a cat door.

Meanwhile, My Liege had moved a bunch of freshly chopped kindling into the carport beside the cat door, but no one, not even moi, considered that this wood might have had something to do with the birdbrained bird entering our house.

So. The other day, I take Allie McBeagle outside for a bathroom break. We pass the carport. A huge bird that at this point lives in my imagination as part crow/part magpie because I didn’t get a good look as a result of lowering my head so it wouldn’t Hitchcock me, swept up from near the cat door, wings fluttering madly, and attempted to dive-bomb my head before I screamed and scared it off. The Evil Entity was sitting at the other end of the carport, watching with interest.

That dagnabbed bird, I swear, was trying to get into our house via the cat door. What a birdbrain.

Why would it do such a thing? My guess is that it can smell the freshly cut kindling (can birds smell?), and, look, there’s an opening right next to this nice-smelling wood. Surely, the wood must be a weird tree and the opening a nice door for a bird house.

Except it’s my house, birdbrain! Get the heck out!

Bad Things

I’m taking a break from blogging this week. The universe decided to dump all over my family over the last few days, and I don’t have the wherewithal to draft posts. First, a member of My Liege’s immediate family was rushed to hospital for the second time in a week in very serious condition. She spent the weekend in the ICU, and although she’s back at home now the details of her condition remain a mystery. We hope to find out more by the end of the month.

The day after that happened, we learned a lightning strike had created a fire on our woodlot. My Liege had to deal with that (the fire’s contained now, as far as we know). No idea of the damage to the timber.

The same day, we finally got our new stove, only to discover an 18-inch long gouge in the side. Back to the store it went, and we’re waiting for another.

We thought that was Bad Thing #3, and we couldn’t possibly receive any more grungy news.

Pitiful humans. A gouge in a stove doesn’t even count as a Bad Thing, it appears.

Yesterday, just as Eldest Son was leaving on a four-day camping trip without cell access, we learned that the room in the private home he was to move into in two weeks for his last year at university was damaged in a fire that occurred while the owner was on vacation. The repairs won’t be finished until October, which leaves him a month without a place to live. We have fantastic friends in his university town, and they offered to let him stay with them while repairs were underway. But I’ve been in that position before—staying in one home for September before moving into the “permanent” spot in October, and it’s not the best situation in the world. It’s hard to dig into your studies when you don’t feel settled.

So…yesterday, I quickly gathered information for the remaining available housing. He and I went through them, and our friend in the university town checked out the only two of the seven or so that responded. The good news is Eldest Son has a new place to live, not quite as private as his former situation, but cheaper, so he’ll be happy when he comes home and learns that’s settled.

Then last night I awoke in the early hours of the morning with the worst sinus headache I’ve had in years. I’m still battling it.

Today is Youngest Son’s 19th birthday! That’s the best news I’ve heard all week. I’m doing nothing more strenuous than baking him a cake, reading, relaxing, walking the dog, fighting this cold, and maybe going over some notes for a manuscript revision that, at this point, I don’t even remember brainstorming with a writing friend yesterday afternoon over Skype. Good thing I was typing while she talked!

Tuesday, September 1st, romantic suspense author Kylie Brant is guest-blogging. Her promo post will go up on Monday. Unless I feel markedly better between now and Friday, that’s the next time you’ll hear from me. The universe had taken this round. I know when I’m beat. 🙂

Fire in the Sky

Refer to my Smoke on the Water post from last week.

This weekend, My Liege and I went away for some lake cottage R&R. Unfortunately, that fire I mentioned last week that filled our neighborhood sky with smoke? It came back with a vengeance. Just a few days ago, the people who’d been evacuated from their homes were allowed to move back in. On Saturday night, however, after a peaceful but very hot day on the lake, the fire blazed up anew. A second evacuation alert went into effect, and the road was closed. We weren’t in danger, but watched the following spectacle from the dock. These photos were taken over about an hour, two at the outside (I wasn’t counting, but as the night grew darker the shutter took longer and longer to click).

fire_1

fire_2

fire_3

fire_4

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 That’s all she wrote.

I Have a Well…

And it needs refilling!

I worked incredibly hard on My Liege’s website last week, all over last weekend, and into the beginning of this week. I worked until my shoulders ached and my eyes crossed. And then I worked some more. I love web design, but I seem to lack the capacity to REMEMBER how to go about it. What’s up with that? So every time I attempt a massive update, or, heaven forbid, a re-design of one of my sites, I suffer massive aggravation. Sooner or later, when I’m having problems, it dawns on me—check the code! Check the Freaking Code! So I go to check the code and realize I have no clue what I’m looking for, so I need to re-learn it. THEN check the code.

This is why when writing friends and acquaintances ask if I want to design their site or maintain their site, I have to turn them down. I think I could become very proficient at web design if I did it every day. But my writing would suffer. I know that from experience.

I plan on refilling my well in a major way this weekend. Wish me many Zzzzzzzzzs.

Allie McBeagle will do her part:

eager_beagle

“Walk! Walk, walk, walk! Take me on a walk!”

Healthy Writer

My fellow 007 GH finalist sister, Trish Milburn, has just opened Healthy Writer, a blog devoted to encouraging sedentary individuals to get in shape (you know, those of us who sit in front of a computer all day). What a great idea, Trish. Check it out!

I admit, I am pretty sedentary in nature. Look under Athlete in the dictionary and you won’t find a picture of moi, that’s for sure. I walk every day, sometimes twice a day, thanks to my dog, however. I don’t know if I’d adhere to my schedule without the dog… When you have a dog and you’ve trained them to expect two walks a day, unless one of your kids (like mine) is responsible for the afternoon walks, you’re going on two walks a day whether you like it or not. Dogs are personal trainers in a hair suit.

Every other day, the day we aren’t going on a short (15-20 minute) morning walk, the McBeag and I go for what I call a “run/walk.” It doesn’t qualify as a “run,” because we don’t run all the way. We run about 10-15 minutes to the dog park, then she gets to sniff or attempt to drown herself in the creek (depending on how hot it is), or play with other dogs, then we walk the rest of the way home (about another half hour). If I have to walk her again in the afternoon (every Monday while both kids are home, then two or three times a week once Eldest Son hies himself back to university), then she only gets the short 15-20 minute walk again.

As for the running, I’d try to extend the duration—but the dog park’s in the middle, what can I do? And I can only stand so much torture. I’m not a running fiend, never have been. It’s easier with the dog. Her attempts to sniff everything along the road keep my mind occupied. Without her, I Hate Running. It’s good for my heart, which is why I do it, but it makes my back ache. Oh, well, that’s what massage therapists are for. I could not run every other day without my twice-monthly massage.

How do you cope with the sedentary nature of a writer’s life?