Okay, so most people know I have an issue remembering trivia.  Or even words.  The correct words to say.  Lots of things have popped out of my mouth over the years and sometimes, there’s this little beat and I think- did I just say that?

Steve’s Glitter Bombs.

So lately, I have had this series of thoughts going through my head.  A bit over a year, actually.  Sometimes, I find it’s instant calming.  Or embarrassing.  And yeah, this is about as much as I’m going to admit to anyone what those thoughts are, in specific detail.

The thing is, it comes with a music track.  In my head.  Weird, because most of my “meditations” over the years are completely silent.  This is where the trivia problem comes in.

When my ex and I split the first time, there was a song on the radio that used to make me cry all the time.  Rascall Flatts “Broken Road.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I love the song.  When I’m happy and it comes on the radio, I will sing it at the top of my lungs.

I was just getting into country music at the time.  Love stories.  Good feelin’ stuff, instead of focusing more on my horror books and war movies.    Not much is ever going to take the place of Kelly’s Heroes.  But hey, nothing says I can’t add to that, with other stuff.  Might love a good steak, but having that ploop of yummy mashed potatoes and butter right along with it is never a bad thing.  I heard this one song, Ticks, that makes me crack up laughing.  (And yes, I have used this song to inspire me for a scene in Hawthorne.)  This is how I got sucked into country music.  All these hysterically funny songs.  Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.  Sic ‘Em on a Chicken.  (Another one I used to inspire Cavenaugh’s chicken problem in the Ridge Lake series.)  Pray for You.  I hear music in my head all the time.  This is cool.  Just not to movies or meditations.

So this sound track to this thought series I’ve had lately.  I know my heart is better.  I don’t feel the sting and bitterness anywhere near what I used to.  And not what I want to focus on here at all.  It’s just a reference point, so you understand how I got to the end of a really emotionally satisfying book and… well.  You’ll see in a minute.  Damn glitter bombs…

This track starts in my head the other night.  I’m curled up in bed.  I’m warm and happy.  I’m putting the finishing polish on Ash, which is coming out in two weeks.  Making sure I’ve got all the references right, since I’m also working on book 8, Oak.  I’m really excited about all of it.  I put in a hard handful of hours and once again got sucked into my own story line.

The “movie” starts.  This song I’ve been hearing on the radio starts playing in my head and I think it’s Rascall Flatts.  Which is not a good thing.  The last thing I want to be thinking about is my ex in any way, especially with this movie I got going in my head.  (Yes, it’s about a person.  Real or fiction, since I do write romance, I’m never going to admit to.)

I start thinking “nononono!”  Cue a record scratching noise.  Ripping the needle off the vinyl, just to get the image of my ex out of my head, when in this movie, I’m curled up with someone I’m happy about and listening to this song I’ve heard on the radio.

This noise leads me into a funky beating song that I still can’t remember the name to, which turns into “Brickhouse” by the Commodores.   All while, in actuality, I’m in bed alone and this movie about a person I’m curled up with is playing.

Again, the funky beat doesn’t go, but here I am, car dancing in bed, lying on my side, to Brickhouse.  Come on, don’t judge.  I know you car dance.

Ice skating comes into my head.  Kurt Browning.  The footwork on ice.  Same reason I’m attracted to hockey.  Ice skating which I used to watch with Mom.

Sigh.  Great.   Happy memories, but still.  Mom.  And this ice performance was the year I met my ex.  1997.

Again, more people and thoughts and memories in with this romantic, feel good movie that started a year ago that basically came out of no where.  Especially since I don’t normally, believe it or not, fantasize about these sorts of things.  Not in “real life.”

It’s only been in the past, oh, two years that I have.  I don’t look at people that way.  I never have.  What I find attractive is so individual, to the person.  Sometimes it hands.  Sometimes, eyes.  The way someone laughs.  So this movie is even more startling to me that it comes so frequently.  Part of why I’m irritated that this song, the one I can’t bloody remember the name of is putting Rascall Flatts and dragging my ex, and now my mom and Brickhouse, into this imaginary bed of mine and I can’t turn it off.  Especially since I just went to see a hockey game.  And I’ve discovered that watching a goalie drop on the ice the way they do puts other images in my head, the ones I am also not used to.

When I sit down to write an intimate scene- sure, I can picture it in my head.  But I’m not the main character.  Not really.  I only wrote two books like that.  And I’m happy with both.  This little movie I get, I finally figure out where it came from after a couple of months, and to be honest, I’m astonished it keeps coming back and yes, I know I’m repeating myself here.

So I get out of bed.  Do more work on Ash.  Not a problem.  I love the story.  Love it.

Next day, I get up.  Do my thing.  Go to work.  This song that plays with the movie starts on the radio.  Great.  I have the movie playing now, with the right sound track, and I’m on my way to work.  Not drifting off to sleep, like how the movie actually ends.

It’s now three days later.  I had the movie go through my head a few times.  Okay.  I can deal with this.  I’m almost done with Ash.  I need to look up a reference, since I’m also working on Oak.  I start reading Hawthorne, making sure I have the backstory in Hawthorne right, since I’m about to put out Ash.  (Hawthorne is the book right before Oak, and I have both referenced in Ash.)  I got so sucked into Hawthorne.  I’ve read it twice now.  In three days.  And I am itching to get my hands into editing, with all my missed words and spelling errors.  And, yes, I’ve found a few places where I knew the word I meant to type but put in the wrong one.  Like I meant to write “bullet” thudded in the ground and I wound up writing “shot-put”.    Ah, well.  It was still a projectile.

So I get to the end.  Just around three this afternoon.  This is the best part for me.  My feel good movie moment.  The very last paragraph of Hawthorne.  I set down my reader copy.  I’m happy.  Got that emotional buzz going on as I’m warm and curled up.  And the movie starts.  With the soundtrack.  The right soundtrack.  Cue music… “You had my heart, a long long time ago…”  “Broken Road…”  Scratching record… Bum-bum. Ba-bum…  Flashing ice skates.

I have decided to end my suffering.  I don’t want to always think about the ending of Hawthorne, which is partially based on this movie I’ve had going through my head, with Brickhouse in the background and “Long, long time ago….”, with all the other stuff going along with it.  Even though, in some ways, it’s funnier.

The song?  In Case You Didn’t Know…  I will probably listen to this song over and over.  All those things I never did as a teenager.  But I have a strange feeling I am going to hear the Bump-bum-ba-bum-bum-bum of Brickhouse every time I get to the end, right when Den’s problems don’t matter anymore.

The Third Book in the Ridge Lake Series,

ASH

coming to KINDLE       April 21 2018

Other Titles By Katrin Greene:  BETH and ROWAN.

Ridge Lake Book 3, Ash, continues the saga of Ridge Lake, a country town riddled with corruption.  Ashley comes seeking her best friend, Elizabet, when she runs into trouble inside the City-State of Taliville.

  She is damaged, inside and out, never to be the same again.  All she knows is that her life, as she has known it, is over.   Ashley knows there is trouble in Ridge Lake.  But she knows nothing of the Daughter-Father Gibson Duo’s secret.

Only that a country cop, Elizabet’s boyfriend Jordan, could very well be her only protection.  Only that the two people she has ever been able to count on are somehow mixed in with the terrorist problems that began her own troubles…

More heads her way as neither of the Gibson’s have room for Ash, obscuring their own problems, and she is hidden away in Neil’s apartment, to be guarded by a Massachussett’s Sniper- the very one both the townsfolk of Ridge Lake and the mass public call insane and dangerous.

Whew.  ROLLER COASTER!

So my furry princess that I’ve talked about a lot has been diagnosed with diabetes.  She’s lost, ohhh, about 3.5-4 lbs. since Christmas.  Kind of scary.  Good thing she had it to loose, or right now, I’m guessing she’d be at death’s door.

Tonight was her first insulin injection, at the vet’s.  I usually have a 3 days stomping sulk to deal with after she comes home from an appointment.  And hey, who actually likes getting shots?  But tonight?  Wowza.   It’s been about an hour since and we just LOVE everything!  Enough that she’s pushed her sister out of the way many times and decided to sit on sister’s favorite toy.  (Hey what can you expect from your siblings, right?)

If she’s taken to the medicine this well, I have high hopes for a decent, effective treatment.  It’ll be 6-8 weeks before she stabilizes, but I was afraid of so many complications, since my princess has other, minor, health issues.  The first few injections of insulin are the most worrisome and I am so grateful that I have a cautious vet.  Better than her sugar levels stay a little higher for the first few weeks than running the risk of a comatose kitty.

And, oddly enough, (I am relieved at this, too) if her sugar levels do ever drop that low, all I need to do is rub honey on her gums.  How cool is that?

 

So this past Friday, I actually left the house and went to a hockey game.  I’ve been fighting with the plumbing again, which, after I’m done, I usually wind up screaming WOOOO-HOOOO through the house.  Well, I went WOOOO-HOOOO during my annual hockey game Friday.  So cool.  I was so engrossed my sister actually snuck up on me, with my hot cocoa, and pretended to dump it over my head.  I didn’t even see her or hear the people behind me crack up.  While I feel bad for the player, I saw someone get a stick caught up under his helmet visor right before it flipped off and the guy got kicked in the head.  Fortunately not with someone’s blade.

Excuse me a moment.  Princess has decided to flirt for a bit.

4 goals to 1, my “team” winning.  At the end of the 3rd period, the competition actually let their goalie off the ice so they had 6 offensive players.  I don’t often get to see this.  Way cool, though I did feel bad for them.  While I do have a home team, I enjoy the game, whoever is winning.  And I sometimes wish that, no matter who scores a goal, all the whistles and bells go off, because, in hockey, that’s a tough task to accomplish.  So I celebrate all of them.  Even though I do prefer my home team to win.  And you know something?  Even if they don’t?  I’m almost as happy.

What amazes me is the footwork.  Partially since I have little balance myself.  Hey, I’m proud that I can walk in heels.  I’m hitting my 9th birthday  in three days after the drop dead line one of my doctor’s said I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.  That’s definitely a freaking WOOOO-HOOOO, and I don’t care if I’m a bit wobbly in them sometimes.

So back to hockey and ice footwork.  Impressive, stupendous, striking, and fabulous.  And I don’t mean those who simply look like they are running on ice.  One of the players was riding the back of his blade, which would normally help slow someone down.  I don’t know how he did it or what the actual physics of this would be, but he sped up!  Looking as casual as he was simply gliding through a park.

I sort of lost my happy feeling when my washer decided to vomit again this weekend.  I spent Saturday and Sunday dealing with it.  But a definite WOOOO-HOOOO could be heard, outside, and startling my neighbors when I finally fixed it all.  It’s amazing how having a fresh, clean towel can make your day go much better.

What is the way most cool awesome thing this week, JANA FINISHED THE COVER FOR ASH!

I am drrrrrooooooling over her artwork.  As I’ve said recently, this was not a concept I came up with.  What she came up with made my original idea look drab and boring in my head.  All the elements of Ash right there on the cover.  I can not WAIT to go get this, even though with our mismatched schedules, I will have to wait for next week.  She sent me a textpic, and I have to say I screamed at the top of my lungs.  Waiting with crossed-toes in anticipation to get this out to all of you.

 

Have an awesome!

Okay, so my family is a lot Irish in it’s cultural history.  My tribute to that is that I drink whiskey.  I used to love St. Pattie’s Day.  One of the glitter holidays.

And it isn’t that I don’t still love St Pat Day.  I think its that my life gets moving so much or I’m sleeping so much that I kind of forget it’s coming until after the fact.

So today, I’m not as far behind as I normally get.  Jana posted a fun vid on FB- The Muppets singing Danny Boy.

Do you know how painful it is to almost shoot rice pudding out your nose?  And it completely sucks for having my shot of whiskey tonight.

Ah well.  I am programming my phone to remind me for next year.  And for the Celtic Fest coming up in September so I don’t miss that one again.  And again around Thanksgiving to bloody remember to BUY the celebratory whiskey in the first place, since I don’t drink that often anymore.

Have an awesome.

Love Is…

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 

I can tell you what “Love” is not.  More than I can tell you what love is.  More often, I can tell you what love is not, simply out of the survival of my life.  If I have survived anything, anything, it is the repeated rug-ripped-out from under me.  If I have forgiven anything in my life, which few would ever realize I have done as I give it without being asked, it is the daily rejection of simply the desire of spending time with someone who actually gives a damn and doesn’t give the emotional punch first.

It is not a checklist.  It is not asking someone repeatedly what they want.

It is not a check.  It is not giving someone so many things to hold on to because you are not around.  It is not a list of activities or items to pick through, as though that is the point.

It is not taking your child to a park and sitting all day in the sun reading a book while they play.

It is not fitting someone into your schedule.  It is not telling someone that there is a schedule open in your life.  It is not telling the person you supposedly love all the hoops they have to jump through.  It is not telling the person you care about- hey, we can do this and I made sure to leave the time free, even though I have all this other stuff going on.

It is not making a commitment to a person, then leaving them to be with your friends, night after night after night and telling the person you supposedly love that they will eventually get around to them; telling them in actions, deeds, and sometimes words.

It is not bringing someone dinner because they have to work late, to make yourself look better, because you need to show the world- “hey, I’m that guy.”

It is not setting up a schedule that someone else has to always work around.

 

I can tell you what love is, to me.

It is celebrating those moments: birthdays, promotions, new jobs, the car getting fixed.  It is celebrating those moments without the added zing-slap of all the other things that you pushed aside to be there and cramming it down someone’s throat.  It is being aware of someone else’s life enough to not have to find the time.  It is that you make the time without emotional guilt built in because that’s what you want to do.

I can tell you that love, in all its wondrous forms, is thinking of someone else and saying – “hey, you’re important enough to me that I think about you during the day.”  For those I love, they are never far from my thoughts and I do not hesitate to say it or act on it.

I can tell you that my love shines every time I walk in my front door.  It is waiting for me and I am waiting for it, coming home at the end of the day.  I can tell you it is there when I do chores and find the time to play with the cats or give them scritches.  I can tell you it is there when I write and have one of my four footed babes tap-tap-tap me on the leg or jump in my lap.  I can tell you it is there when I am in such pain, all I can do is crawl back into bed and my cats come to see me and comfort me, because of my distress.  I can tell you it is there when my toothless boy comes and nibbles on my fingers and barks at me until I giggle.  He gives comfort and licks my hands and face.  I can tell you it is there, when I have planned surprise parties, and Easter egg hunts, and written games for birthdays, and made cakes and favorite dinners.  And I rarely ever have to say: “what do you want?” or “gee, I have all these other things are going on in my life.”  I make the time to celebrate.  I make the time to say- “hey, your birthday is coming up, let’s do something fun” or “T-day is around the corner- why don’t we go try this new restaurant I’ve heard about?”

And you know?  I’m done pretending not getting that back in return doesn’t hurt like a mother f…..r.  It hurts.  And I’m not ashamed to say it.

I will go where the love and acceptance is:  Home.

I can say, for certain, that when I write, I write for this.  Each person has a different definition of home.  I have been slammed for almost my entire life for wanting too much or expecting too much, when all I have ever asked for is time without the emotional baggage train that most feel is necessary to make me feel- that I should be grateful that they “found” the time, sometimes after weeks of waiting, even though they do not ever see that is what they are doing and can not hear it when I try to speak.  Is it really too much to ask to have someone celebrate something good and positive in your life?

When I started writing LampLight, this was me dealing.  And I found a love of my characters.  When I started writing Novo, it was me trying to find a way to not kill off a character, and in the process of writing the Ridge Lake series, I took parts of my personality and put it into each character.

I can tell you it hurts when you meet a guy that you could have more with, but you know better.  Because you are available and they tell you all the times they can not see you.  I’ve had it happen more times than I can count.

I can tell you it hurts when the people closest to you don’t understand when they do the very things you’ve asked them not to, then call it a present, it rips into your heart.

I can tell you it can make you ill inside, enough that you do not wish to get out of bed.

There comes a point when you don’t have to accept being forced to feel grateful anymore.  Especially when they basically wind up saying- hey, I’m trying to prove to you that you’re wrong by once again doing the very thing that rips you apart.

This is why I take responsibility for staying in the relationship that I did.  Because I accepted less and less each time.  Forgave each time.  Put my marriage first, each time.

So now?  I seek a different path.

I’m in shut down mode now.  I am in extreme pain.  And I look around me and see the love I have built inside my home, for myself and my cats, and I know I am home.  In my space.  I will get through this again.  This is the love I built for myself.  For the good days, when I celebrate, and for the bad, like I am dealing with now.  It is wonderful that I have such blessings for me to reach out to and know that is the gift I gave myself.

Give yourself that gift.  Take that time.  Live and love yourself in all the ways possible.

 

My sister and I have been trading insults with each other for over 25 years.  This morning was the first joke she’s played on me in a long time, so I thought I would celebrate that.  It takes a bit of explaining.  But this is what I saw in the dim light of pre-dawn:

It says:                                     Cluk.

 

There’s been an ongoing debate in my house as to whether or not I can do the off-grid thing in the middle of the city where I live.  Most I can’t.  And I’m okay with that.

She wanted to buy a flame thrower to melt the snow off our sidewalk.  Notice I said sidewalk.  We don’t have a driveway.  And our staircase is wood.  I said no, because she said no to me turning a spare water heater left in our house from years ago into a still so I could learn the practicalities of making my own vodka.  If I can’t have flame, neither can she.  This is the reasoning anyway.  (If you haven’t figured out that we’re not really serious here, you should.)

The other debate is about chickens.  Chickens give eggs.  Wonderful, tasty eggs.  And I eat a lot of them.  Especially with my food allergies.  I live very close to downtown and the city says no chickens inside city limits.  I’m actually okay with this, with a lot of problems owning a chicken can cause.  My sister, on the other hand, I love to annoy.  So I constantly “complain” about this ordnance.  That I want a chicken.

She says- no, they smell.

My response: I have litter boxes anyway, so the smell wouldn’t bother me.

My sister: And make noise.

Me: I can deal with the noise.

My sister: And we don’t have any room.

Me: I can find the room.  And besides, I’d love to make a chicken sweater.  It would cut down on the noise.

So we have this debate over flame-throwers of one sort or another and about chickens.   You see where the cluk is coming from…  This is an ongoing thing that we’ve had for, oh… about 2 years.  I have yet to answer where the “room” would be.

Yesterday, she invited me to play outside in the snow.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling so well and I was dealing with some issues in the house that needed somewhat constant attention.  But I did go outside at one point.  I thought she was making a snow sculpture of a chicken.  Nope, she says.  I guessed again- rabbit?  Nope.  I haven’t figured out what yet, but that’s okay.  No one could figure out our snow dolphins a few years ago, either.   I called them drunk dolphins.  They were blurry around the edges.

So this is why at oh dark thirty this morning, I came out to find Cluk on my car.

HAVE AN AWESOME!

Honestly, I don’t exactly know what I’ve done differently lately.  I know the PTSD is still there and I still need to manage it.  I’ve got some major stress going on in my life at the moment, stresses that would drastically affect someone without PTSD.  You know- car repairs, cats sick, bills.  But I have to say?  Right now and for the past couple of months, even though Murphy has come to visit me quite a bit and I’ve had a few gut checks, I’m happy.

I think part of it has been seeing Survival:Heaps on the shelves at Play the Game, Read the Story, in Syracuse.  I know that some would see that as a product plug but that’s not why I’m putting this out there.  I’m very appreciative.  Having Chris, Jason, and Kevin take a chance on Murder By Six products and having them to talk to has made a world of difference for me.

Jason has been great.  He’s very knowledgeable in the game world.  Sometimes, I ask a question or make a comment, and he tells me a piece of information that helps me smooth the way for what I’d like to see happen.  And it backs up what I learned in my online publishing classes at LERN.

There’s times I wonder what I’m doing.  Am I wasting my life, like I did in that long-term relationship?  I see another product and I think to myself- “why do ___, when ___ has already done it?”

There’s other times when I think- “hey, I can do this” or “why can’t I do ____?  There’s nothing stopping me.”

The other day, after I came home from my long day of the Farm Show and running errands, I had stopped down at the game store to ask for some help finding a present, I sat down to take a break.  Turned on Netflix.  Some of my favorites are no longer in the line up and I was a little bummed.

“Leverage” is one of them.  And I don’t know of any other shows like this one.  Smart, funny, sassy, the bad guys are good guys who still have some serious drama going on and some major flaws.

What Jason had said to me, while I was at the store, sort of hit me.  I miss watching Leverage and there isn’t really another show out there, that I know of, like it.  That’s my take-away.  That my games and books ARE like others.  That there ARE people out there, like me, who want more.  Jason’s words- that I am niche marketing.  Not MASS-marketing.  I knew it.  But it was really nice to have someone in the game world say that.  To have that sort of casual support instead of the cut-down I’m used to.  Especially since I know Jason would say that sort of thing to anyone.

It’s one thing to feel that way, inside yourself.  I think it’s awesome that somewhere, out in the world, those thoughts get reflected back in a good way.   Yes, I can do this.  With mistakes and successes, in my slow-paced manner.  And you know what?  My accountants have done the same thing, even though there’s been groans a lot at some of my decisions.  The staff has been very helpful at keeping me out of trouble and making really, really stupid funding mistakes.  (Bless you, Tim!  Bless you, Mark!  You both have had a lot of patience with me…)

And I can’t mention any of this without mentioning Jana.  I really can’t.  Meeting this woman two years ago has really changed my life.

I am going to get back to Oak now, and get back to finishing up the tasks I’ve set for myself today.  I just want to say- even if you only take one step today, it’s a step.  Some days, you won’t.  Some days, you’ll run a marathon.  I look back, ten years, and I see so clearly what I should have been doing.  What I started twenty some odd years ago.  And, even though I see the sadness I used to live with, I can see ten years from now, when I couldn’t before.  I see happy.

What a whirlwind day!  I had a blast at the NY Farm Show today, on the NYS Fairgrounds.

First, I want to say, I left the house this morning at 09:30 with good intentions.  I made it to the fairgrounds without getting lost.  I intended to be back by 16:00.  We’ll get into that later.  I also intended to take pictures.  Sorry, but I was too consumed with all the coolness around me to actually get out my phone.

While I get that anything ag or environmentally concerned is a hot topic, with lots of opinions of what is, what should be done, what works, etc, this was a fun morning for me.  And anyone who is into monster trucks or off-roading should go to one of these shows.  Tractors as bid as a freaking house with tires taller than me.  I even saw an electric wheelchair fitted out with tri-treads and rubber belts that could have probably climbed a hill.  Treads!  Almost like on a tank.  How freakin’ cool is that?  This chair, for one of the vendors, could probably have been used as a roto-tiller on a small front of house garden bed.

The engineering on some of these bad boy harvesters is freakin’ amazing to me.  I’ve seen them before.  Even been in garages built for these suckers, to keep them nice.  I’d piss my pants to do it, but it must be like driving an ATV, a hummer, and a tank all at the same time.

I got some information on options I can take in my postage stamp yard, for my soil problem.  Both my soil problems.  Really cool thing, beneficial nematodes.  Which I’ve been using for a couple of years now and I don’t have half the bug or grub problems I used to.  I’m going after soil conditioning this year.  It’s been a lengthy process, getting rid of the bog at the bottom of my cliff in the backyard, and dealing with the poisonous insects, algae, moss, dead soil, and poison ivy and oak.  But I’m making headway with it and some of the mulching/composting bins I’ve got, it comes out nearly black, heavy with nutrients.  All those leaves that hit my yard every year are being turned into food, instead of leaching the soil.  I even bought a leaf muncher a couple of years ago to help and boy, thinking about how much fun (and how stress relieving,) the little one is to play with, after seeing all those big toys today…  Ah well.

I picked up some good research for my Novo series, too.  Always a plus.  Juliana Hawthorne is going to have some interesting problems for her brand new vet practice that I got to see today, up close and personal.

So I made it through the fairgrounds and parking lot with only getting turned around once.  Once.  Can you believe it?

Soon, though…  Soon, my road trip problem was going to get me.  I just didn’t know it yet.  One of my babes has recently been diagnosed with diabetes.  I’m trying to find food that she will eat, if she doesn’t like the diabetic stuff.  I’ve been able to get her sugar down, a little, with diet change.  She’s going to probably need insulin shots.  The first grain free food… Well.  I will share her reaction to it another time.  I’ve found 2 others that she will eat.  This is good but I wanted to do more research.

So, I’m in a bigger city than where I live.  More pet stores.  And I know where most of them are.  This is cool.  I went shopping.  I must also point out I decided to go shopping because I like lime Koolaid, but none of the stores around me sell it anymore.  Very annoying.  So I’m trying to find a different grain free cat food that isn’t on the shelves at my local pet feed place, but they might be able to order in for me.  I see salmon.  Crab.  Chicken.  Beef.  Turkey.  Even venison or duck.  And it hits me.  Cats are carnivores.  Predators.  Sure, we see them as sweet innocent cuddlers or aloof know-it-alls.  I will come back to this point.  My thought today, and, completely untalked about beforehand, my sister’s later on, was- there is no mouse flavored cat food.  All I can think of is that one cat food commercial where the indoor cat is dreaming of taking down a cow.  Mice are cats’ natural food source.  Rodentia.  Do you know, I went to three different stores today, and I only saw 1 that had rabbit?

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have seen a cat try to take down a turkey before.  My ex-neighbor had a cat that thought it was a tank, apparently, and had the balls to go after everything.  Dogs ran from this cat.  Dobermans.  Mel would go after anything.  And yes, a turkey who had hopped the fence from the cemetery and had gotten stuck in my yard.  Guess what?  The turkey won.

I don’t know why we don’t see rabbit meat in grocery stores.  Yes, I adore rabbits and have always wanted one (or more) for a pet, and no, I couldn’t eat it afterwards.  I know this is hypocritical of me, but there it is.  I don’t believe in abusing animals.  Nor killing something for it’s fur.  Ever.  If an animal is to be butchered, it’s life should have meaning and the whole animal should be used.  I also don’t want to hear about disease, because, let’s face it people, we eat pork and anyone who’s ever done the slightest bit of research on it knows the problems.  Rabbit that are handled properly are good nutrition.  Very lean in fat.  High in iron.  So why the heck isn’t CAT FOOD made out, even in part, of RABBIT?  I found one today.  Only one.  3 entire stores.  One kind.  Rabbits are livestock.  I know from 4H and I know from the judging contests I’ve seen at country fairs.  Rabbits are also natural food for our feline predators.  I will only state that I know this first hand from an outdoor cat we used to have.

Enough of that particular soap box.  Mostly because I really don’t want the memories that I do have about that to continue coming back.

So, in these stores, I’m also looking for cat toys.  As I have stated in other posts, I have an 18.5 pound Maine Coon.  He’s a big boy.  Very muscular.  I have another that is 17 pounds.  Most cat toys, electric or otherwise, are made for cats that are about 10 pounds.  Most electric cat toys are $15-50.  They break within a week of being in my house.  So I don’t invest in them very often.

I have found three before that both I and my cats were happy with.  Now, I have found a fourth.  This is a cool toy that I can leave on for my cats that I don’t have to worry about them getting hurt on, and they can play with it without supervision.  The first one I found like that is PetSafe’s Automatic Cheese Cat Toy.  It turns on, and left on, it will start itself automatically every eight hours.  Nice for those cats who need unprovoked movement.  There are no parts that their claws can get stuck on.

This one that I found today, instant hit.  Amazing Jackson’s Butterfly in a Ball.  It can be left on.  And, it’s in a hard plastic ball, so no matter how much my big boys hit it, they can’t get hurt and this toy can’t break.

And I don’t know about you, but the words “live fly” in my house are the equivalent of “human death trap.”  Cats are, for the most part, unbeknownst to many, pack animals.   Yes, just like dogs.  I had the unfortunate experience one day to be asleep on my bed.  I heard one thump on the stairs.  This was my only warning and what woke me.  There was a weight on the end of the mattress as I began to sit up.  One wriggling furry body cleared me, chasing the fly.  The next one did not.  Nor did the next.  I have gotten in the habit, since, of laying completely still for a moment when there is a noise in the middle of the night to prevent such unintended bruising and bloodshed.  Like I said.  Predators and pack animals.  I’m good with this knowledge.  They are being who they are and I can’t punish them for being what they are.  Completely cool with me.  Needing several sets of butterfly closures was the price for receiving more directly than normal this knowledge than I already had.  But in the summer?  I have no worries whatsoever of bees, which I am allergic to, wasps, flies, or any other harmful bug being inside my house.  I see this as a benefit.

This toy is a butterfly fluttering against the inside of the plastic.  (Yes, I fully realize I am teaching my cats to be better hunters.)  But it is also a toy that multiple cats can play with, including my mostly blind one.  They can play with it while I am at work.  And, while my hopes are in the clouds and completely unrealistic, perhaps this will mean that they will be more occupied than bored, between this butterfly in a ball and kitty tv’s in the mouse room, and not so inclined to run me over when I come in the door.

It was on this dreaming that I feel involved me in getting lost during my search for lime Koolaid.  Not a little lost.  20 miles out of my way where I had to call for help kind of lost.  Sighs.  Yes.  Another road trip.  Another side ways twist.  As I said, I left the house with good intentions of coming back home by 1600. I was only 2.5 hours late…

SUPER AWESOME NEWS!!!

Jana has sent me a copy of Ash’s cover, as I stated in my last post.  Not quite done yet.  I get all dancing happy when I see it.

I’ve had some really good news on Survival:Heaps, too.

It’s amazing, what happens when you have something to celebrate.  This little kick jolt has gotten me back into Oak, as I also said before.  Getting much happier with the storyline and how it’s progressing.  I’ve been picking at it- a piece here, piece there.  Same as picking at the housework.  I have clear floor space again.  Whoo-hoo!

I think Oak’s gonna work out like Rowan did, where I write and write and write and add in all sorts of stuff and it winds up being three books, then I scale it back.  This is cool for me.  From Hawthorne, I have a background character named Uncle Timo, and I’ve just pulled him back in for some follow up.  A lot of story threads are concluding in books 7 and 8, picking up others previously introduced.  I’ve also been picking at book 11, Ivy, again, to sort of know where I’m driving.

Seeing Jana’s interpretation of Ash…  I’m just awestruck.  Awestruck.  She’s got a way of pulling details right out of my head with how I picture them, putting her twist on it, and coming out with something where I’m like- “WHAT???  How’d you DO that?”  And it just inspires me to put more details in my scenes and bits of images that come out of no where, filling in all those cool background stuff like a really well designed movie set.  Love it.

Well, enough of my drooling.  Getting back to research on animal diseases, moss, blood spatter, and fungus.  I know, thrilling right?  When I get it all in, I know there’ll be some glitter bomb that goes off in my head again and come up with weirdness that works.  Already putting some interesting twists into Survival:Chili from all this, and that’s a card game!

Have fun, all!

Yippie Dance!

Jana sent me a copy of Ash’s cover last night.  And of her newbown.  Not sure which pic made me happier, but I was dancing around quite a bit.

I’ve had some other good news lately.  Trying like hell not to tempt Fate into taking it away.  But I can say that I’ve been working on Survival: Chili.  A few tweaks here and there, and the game will be done.  Very fast paced and very cut-throat.  Can’t wait to try out the cooperative version.

Working on Oak right now- Novo: Ridge Lake series, Book 7.  Back to figuring out what’s going on between Oak and Bryn, and working on bringing Looney Tunes into the light some more.  I’m having fun with the story lines again.  Poor Oak’s head is about to blow off.  Ah, well.  Mine has, too, this past weekend, so I’ve got a definite feel going on.  It’s really good to get back into my world and my story world.

Blessings, all!