random ramblings

I had a doctor's appointment earlier in the week.  If the screens both come back looking good, I won't have to go for that purpose again for another five years.  And that...makes me very happy.

The doctor's office's billing assistent got fed up with my health insurance messing her up and deleted it from her system.  I have it, and I have proof of it, but they're not in my network, and I'd rather get the self-pay discount.  I'd also rather keep the doctor's office (and people) that I like and trust--that's very, very important for a childhood abuse survivor.  

So.  We heard from the school, yesterday.  The imp...is in.  I don't have to live with a year of guilt from having to put him in public school to satisfy his need to socialize with others his age.  He needs to work on eye contact (I'm not sure if they meant maintaining it, or watching what he's doing), following instructions (does that well enough at home), and writing and drawing (which we've been working on for a month, now).  We've also enrolled him in two kindergarten prep day camps, one basic, one advanced.

Speaking of the imp, this past week we've had a bit of rain every afternoon.  It has soaked into the ground quite well, turning the layers the imp plays in into a muddy mess.  So, every day (except yesterday), I'd send him outside to play before it rained, and every day, he'd come in caked in mud and dirt.  Day before yesterday was particularly bad--brought to mind this:


The boy really was a ball of mud, and wet wipes (what I had been using on him) weren't going to cut it. So, he got dunked through a bath in the middle of the day before being permitted to come out and sit on the couch. 

The pixie is completely back to her normal little bright, fluttery self after her bout with pneumonia.  She was clingy and needy for a few days after her recovery, but she's back to her normal behavior, now. 

So, last week TinCan Assassin was over here, using Odysseus's laptop to look up troubleshooting problems for his laptop (which has stopped working).  He finally got tired of trying to figure out what the problem was, and decided to reload the operating system...and that didn't work, either.  So, he says, "Umm...whiskey tango foxtrot?"

I was in the kitchen, cutting up green bell peppers for freezing, when I heard him, then heard a piping, tiny girl's voice repeat, "Whiskey tango foxtrot?"

I'm just glad I was able to keep my giggles silent.  TinCan Assassin explained to her that those were grownup words that she shouldn't be saying.  And she's fine with that explanation, and I haven't heard that phrase from her since.

Cricket, the black and white cat, has demonstrated her complete lack of cat-like grace at least twice this week.  On Wednesday, I had a terrible headache that started in my right shoulder, went up the back of my neck, and up that side of the back of my head, so I laid down on the couch, kinda half propped up on the back of it.  There were perhaps ten inches of space between me and the edge of the couch.  

She lost her balance, and started to fall.  So, she reaches out with all ten front talons, and tries to grab me.  She missed, and ripped my keyboard cover.  And hit the ground faster, and with a headache to boot.  If that had gotten me, it would have hurt.

Yesterday, the pixie reached up to scratch her cheek as she was standing on the back of the couch.  Cricket leaned into it really hard...and fell off the back and onto the seat.

And no, this cat does not land on her feet.  Sometimes, she doesn't land on her feet even when she's in control of the fall. 

Shadow has been chasing bugs that get in the house, lately.  I'm going to have to figure something out to keep her from getting inside the lamp shades with the bugs.  Nothing I have tried up to this point has worked.  Maybe mosquito netting bunched around the lamp and tied off?  Nah--then, she'd just be throwing herself against the lamp and knocking it over.

The dog...has halved her food intake.  She doesn't eat one of two meals, and spends almost all of her time outside.  I guess she just doesn't need as many calories when it's warm to hot. 

I sincerely wish she was trainable.  It isn't that she isn't smart.  It's that she is, and stubborn, to boot.  She is rude in the house because it gets her what she wants: booted outside.  Which sucks for her, because she adores the kids (and gets overexcited and bounces all over them.  It wouldn't be quite so bad if she wasn't a 20 lb dog, with one kid weighing in at 31 lbs, and the other either just under or just right at 40 lbs.  And, with her being untrainable, I can't get that stopped, and the kids are as afraid of her as they are head over heels with love for her.

It's going to be a busy summer on the writing front.  And on the office hours in the fall front. 

Pendragon Resurgent has, in its first week, sold nine copies (and one person with Amazon Prime borrowed it--for which I still get paid).  I'm hoping that the people who downloaded The Last Pendragon when it was free reads it, and goes looking for the sequel in a couple of weeks. 

As for what else I've accomplished this week, I've finished the first draft of a short story, titled "Gremlins" that may or may not appear on one of the blogs in the next couple of weeks, and I'm working on a second, titled "Quetzl."  If "Quetzl" is within the maximum word limit, I'll probably enter it into this contest I've been told I should enter.  If it's not, I'll work on it until I'm happy with it, and post it for sale as a Kindle short story for $0.99.  I'm really enjoying it.

After that, I've got Fire and Forge outlined, and "Bar Tabs" is with the person who does my cover art.  I've also started the publication process on Lizzy's Tail, and am just waiting on the cover art for that. 

So, yeah: busy.  Hopefully productive.  Because I'd very much like to finish the first draft of Fire and Forge before classes start on August 12.