...and it's totally ruining my lap time.

So today's content is basically just cough,cough,cough,cough,cough,cough,cough.

But I did get the fireplace tonight, so there's that.

Here's the thing when your protagonist is a cat: he's gonna get attention and affection from the other characters in the story, unless they're all giant gaping asterisks. Being the 3rd book in a series, the Woman and I have had a similar discussion many, many times.

This

"...while giving me head and chin skritches..."

is not an acceptable way to describe said attention and affection.

Worse, it takes her staring at the sentence for a good hour before it finally clicks and she understands why it looks so very, very wrong.

The first time was forgivable. The second was understandable. But now? HOLY HELL, WOMAN, WHERE DID YOU PUT YOUR SPARE BRAIN?

I mean, at least she's doing the editing necessary, but it's still hard to believe this krap makes it out of her brain and into even the vomit draft.

First, she wouldn't give me an extra snack this afternoon.
Then, she wouldn't let me walk across the new computer.
Then, she wouldn't let me have seconds at dinner tonight because snack was only 4 hours away.

I am shunning her.

I got to hear the Woman mumble ALL kinds of things on the Bad Word List while she surfed online with her iPad, looking at laptops and reviews and prices. She got 16 kinds of grumpy when she realized prices have shot up since last year--the same system she got for $800 13 months ago is $1300 now--but none of the backup thingies she already has will run the software she needs.

One thing she was blown away by...last November she bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon off a guy in a writing group for $50 because some keys fell off and he didn't like it. Same one right now runs $1400 and he got it when it was a new release and paid more than that. She got it and popped the keys back on and hooked it up to a monitor, and yeah, totally spiffy general use computer. The screen is too small for most of the things she does and the keyboard is space out weird so she runs words together, otherwise he would have limped by on it even though it doesn't have enough memory.

Anyway, she kept running into the same laptop in reviews and Best Buy had it for $400+ less than Amazon, so she went and got the last one they had in the local store.

So you know what she's doing right now?

SHE'S WHINING ABOUT SETTING UP A NEW COMPUTER.

Like, holy frijoles, dood, talk about spoiled and entitled. Worse, I think she used all my book money on it. If I bought the damn thing, I better get to use it.

It's super light so I should be able to handle it just fine. She's gonna give it a good whirl and it might even get to go to Starbucks with her since the old Mac Air needs a new battery. It might even persuade her to sell the old Mac Air. But then she keeps saying she wants to sell the old iMac but it's just sitting on the floor waiting for that to happen. And it has been for like 8 months, at least.

Once this new one is all set, work shall resume.

It's been weeks since I had any.
WEEKS.

Ok, well, not for real, but damn.

The Woman watched the Grammy Awards tonight, which is always a bad idea, because she hears all this spiffy music with awesome singers, and then tries to sing along.

I was on her lap, curled up and warm and happy, when all the sudden this NOISE starts.

Doods. I totally growled at her.

Then I jumped down onto the floor and she kept on with the wailing, so I started yelling at her...and she laughed at me! Like it was funny!

I showed her. I left the room and refused to sit in her lap after that.

It's too far away.


Bring it to me.

Ok, I now have 10 paperback copies of Ozoo (I can get more, that's just what I started with.) So if you were waiting for the paperback to get a pawtographed copy, you're in luck!

Paper or Hard back

Hardback - U.S. $21.95 USD Hardback - Int. $40.95 USD Hardback 2 copies U.S $43.90 USD Hardback 3 copies U.S. $65.85 USD Paperback - U.S. $15.95 USD Paperback - Int $34.95 USD Paperback 2 copies US $31.90 USD

(It's in the sidebar, too.)

With all the rain we've had lately the Woman has stayed home quite a bit so we got a TON of work done on the 3rd book in The Wick Chronicles, and the vomit draft is pretty well sewn up...but now the discussion (between me, her, and her editor) is whether or not the entire series can shift from YA to General SciFi, because the tone is definitely changing.

The 4th book will definitely depart from YA, but we'd already planned for it to be the start of its own series, Wick After Dark. Yeah, it will not be for kids. The bulk of the outline is done, but the actual writing won't start until Book 3 is at least in formatting. So no asking to read it yet, Mrs. Undr, it's only think-stuff on virtual paper.

In other news, the Woman has raised enough money for St. Baldrick's that she has to record herself on video singing, so I'm being tortured while she tries to remember how to play the guitar (it's been a while.) The guitar part isn't bad; she just does chords and she's not horrible at it, just kinda slow on going from one to another because it doesn't feel natural anymore. What hurts is the singing. You people are going to be so tortured.

My friend Diane sent me a really cool fridge magnet that looks like me!

This is it up close:


And the message is totally on point.
FEEEEEEED MEEEEEE.

No, really.

Feed me.

All right, tonight I wandered into the living room, and since there was no fire going, I tried to turn it on by myself. The switch is hard, though, and even after all these years I can't budge it. The Woman saw, though, and got up to turn it on for me.

"There ya go," she said as she sat back down.

My mission accomplished, I turned around and head to the back of the house for a nap. I heard a lot of bad words as I went down the hall.

I wonder what she was upset about.

There isn't a picture because it would look dang near identical to last night. This evening has been spent in front of the fire, which I got because after dinner I asked nicely. This resulted in the Woman taking her pants off, but I can't have everything, I suppose.

And dangit, I deserve the nice, warm fire tonight. All last night the wind blew so hard that the thingies outside the bedroom windows banged against the house, and it kept me awake all night. I didn't want the Woman to worry--she has this weird hearing thing where she hears music and stuff that isn't there and she's almost convinced that someone is living it the attic, but she's not mad since they're not too noisy and don't take things out of the garage refrigerator--so I woke her every 10 minutes to let her know what the noise was.

She did not appreciate my efforts, not one bit.

Oh, and in other news, I will have a few paperback copies of Ozoo on Thursday, for anyone who wants a pawtographed copy.

...but she still turned the fireplace on for me.


Once I've baked enough, I'll chill in my mancat cubby for a while, and then go back for more. This is one of the perks of being an old guy. I get the fireplace most of the time when I ask, and they aren't any complaints except on the day when the Woman sees the gas bill.

Yeah, it's been high the last couple of months. Like, she could make her car payment for 1.5 months on it. But it's only for the rest of this month most likely, and then it really will be too warm to turn it on.

Although...she'll be bald a month from now and might need the fire to make up for the loss of hair warms.

Oh, and I still haven't gotten to play with the toy I wanted. Every time I look for it, Buddah has his asterisk covering it up. I may never see it again.

Doesn't he?


He's snoozing away, jammed into the corner of the recliner, all warm and happy and HE'S HIDING THE TOY I WANTED! He saw me with it, snagged it, took it onto the chair, and laid down on it. He didn't want to play with it, he just didn't want ME to play with it.

'Cause I'm not.


See that thing in the background? The black thing? Well, inside that black thing is another thing, and it has strings on it and the Woman pulled it out of a closet today, for like the first time in 10 years. To "play" it.

Doods. That was not play. She tortured the poor thing. The sounds that came out of it were not unlike the wailing one might expect after a rousting bout of water boarding.

To add insult to injury...she tried singing.

Guys...every once in a while she sits here and sings, and I have to jump on her lap and put my paws over her mouth to stop her. With the THING there, I couldn't do that. So she sat there torturing that poor thing, and tortured me while she was at it.

Buddah went and hid in the back of the house. I can't really blame him.

When she was done, she put it back into the black thing, looked at her fingers, and said "Damn, that hurts."

WELL IT HURT US MORE THAN YOU, LADY!

Worse, it didn't go back into the closet.

I think she's gonna do it again tomorrow.

The stupid little Thumper doll that lives on top of the desk gets his own Doctor Who shirt.


What about me? Where's my cool shirt? Or even like a bed covering or something. Everyone else around here has cool Doctor Who things to wear but all I have is stuff to look at. AND THE WOMAN THINKS ALL OF IT IS HERS!

It's not fair.

When she's not looking, I'm totally going on Amazon and buying myself a TARDIS bed.

Doods, that funky giant rat like thing in Philadelphia saw his shadow! You know what that means, right?

A couple of weeks ago we got a bunch of rain and some pretty wicked wind, and it knocked down the fence between our yard and one of the neighbors.

That looks wonky because it's 2 pictures combined...badly

The people said that was expected at some point and had even talked to the neighbors once before about replacing it, but all they did was talk because it was still standing, so why the heck worry about it?

But then the wind came and this happened.

So Monday and Tuesday, some guys with giant saws and guns that shoot nails or screws or whatever came, made a lot of noise, and RUINED my naps. I'm not sure how they expected me to rest with all that racket going on, but the Woman assured me it would be worth it because they were using metal fence posts and actually cementing the posts into place. The old fence was just jammed into the ground.

I don't care. It disturbed my sleeping.

The people think the end result was worth it, even though the Woman was all, damn that's spendy for a fence.

Again, combined image wonkiness...

There are 2 other neighbors on that side and sooner or later the same thing will happen...the fence will fall over and need replacing, but they're pretty sure only 1 of those neighbors will be willing to pay for their half. The other one, maybe not. Hard to say since we don't really know them, but the last time the Man brought it up the dood was like, I'm a contractor, I'll just keep fixing it. And so far it hasn't fallen, so okay.

What REALLY disturbed me? I heard the Man say that now that the fence closer to our house is fixed, if for some reason That Damned Dog Butters and his sister Lady come over, they won't worry about them getting out of the back yard.

There in the corner.

I'd worry more about Buddah eating them, to be honest.