Sample from my upcoming...

 This is the first part of the first short story from a collection I'll be publishing soon.  I'm in the final stages of editing, now.  Hope you enjoy it!

A Friend, Indeed

 “Momma, there’s a dragon in my wagon.” 

Zoe blinked awake, rubbed her eyes, and blinked some more. “What did you say, baby?” she murmured, voice rough and scratchy with the nap she hadn’t intended to take when she’d laid down.

Zoe hadn’t been sleeping well. Neither had Tish, her daughter. Since Duane had deployed, she’d been waking up with nightmares every few hours. Zoe don’t know what he did tucking the little four-year-old girl in that was different from what she was doing, but she’d never had so many.

“I said there’s a dragon in my wagon. In the back yard. I was gonna go out and play, but it’s there.”  She popped a thumb in her mouth, frowning worriedly.

The exhausted woman closed her eyes and sighed. A dragon. In her wagon. Zoe supposed her daughter simply wanted her momma out in the back yard with her, since she was feeling her daddy’s absence. “Is it a friendly dragon, or an unfriendly one?” she asked, humoring her little girl. Her daughter was only four, and this was the first time her daddy had been gone longer than his two weeks a year training. She wasn’t taking it well.

Hell, neither was Zoe. Even without counting Tish’s nightmares, she had trouble falling and staying asleep without the warm, breathing hulk of her husband next to her. Her eyes were drifting closed again, against her will while Tish considered her question.

“I don’t know, Momma, it’s sleeping. I didn’t go near it. I didn’t even open the outside door—I saw it through the glass when I opened the inside door to go into the back yard. It looks like it’s only about the size of my floppy dog.” She blinked big brown eyes at her mother, while Zoe tried desperately to keep her own eyes from falling shut.

“Tish, can you hand me my shoes?” Zoe forced her eyes open wide, trying to wake up enough. “We can go investigate.” 

“I have them already, Momma,” she said, holding out the canvas slip-on shoes Zoe kicked into for grabbing the mail from the box down by the street.

She sighed and sat up, shoving her thick, black hair that had escaped from her braid out of her eyes with one hand, taking the shoes with the other to set on the floor so she could shove her bare feet into them. “You said it was in the back, right?  What color was the dragon?”

“It was the same green as my juice,” she replied, reaching up and wrapping her small hand around Zoe’s index and middle fingers. “It was really pretty in the yellow wagon, on the red leaves.”

Zoe smiled down at her. “I bet it was,” she said, thinking of that yellow Little People/Duplos plastic thing Tish insisted had to go into the back yard. Duane really would have preferred her to have a little red, metal wagon, like the one he’d grown up playing with, but this one was what they’d found, and what she’d loved.

Since it was November, it was full of dead leaves that she’d been using it to transport from one leaf pile to another around the yard. “I wonder if the dragon is in your wagon because it wants to sleep in your leaves,” Zoe mused.

She looked up at her mother, brow scrunched and brown eyes thoughtful. “I dunno,” she said. “Could be, if it doesn’t mind how scratchy leaves are. They are soft.”

The back yard had a really high privacy fence surrounding it. It was one of the things Zoe and Duane had liked about the house when they’d moved in: with the gate closed and locked, it was safe for a little girl to go out and play by herself. Usually. And their little girl was very independent. Usually.

Zoe opened the back door and looked out. And blinked.

Tish hadn’t been making things up to get her mother to go outside with her. There actually was a dragon in her wagon. It was about the size of a basset hound. Same general shape, too, with a long body. Just…there were also wings.

And it was looking at them, with golden eyes about as mournful as a basset’s.

“Momma…the dragon looks sad,” Tish observed.

“I noticed,” Zoe said absently. “Stay here.” 

“Okay,” she said softly.

She opened the back storm door and stepped out on the top step, closing the door carefully behind her. And really looked at the dragon, her arms crossed. She didn’t go any closer. It dropped its head and whined, wiggling in the wagon. The dragon was heavy enough to rock it on its wheels, plastic creaking ominously.

It sounded like the bassets Zoe had known—both the one she’d grown up with, and the one that they’d had until Tish had turned two—used to when they wanted scritches. That had to be why she went down and sat on the bottom step, about six feet from her daughter’s little plastic wagon full of dead maple leaves.

The dragon…the dragon hopped out of the wagon, and slunk over to her, creeping close to the ground even considering its short legs, and kind of sidling a little. As soon as it got close enough, it went belly down and crept the rest of the way before sitting up and laying its head on her knee. It looked up at her mournfully, then up at where Tish was standing, hands and face pressed to the glass of the door. And it whined again, and then nudged its head under her hand, just like a dog would, when it wanted to be stroked.

So, Zoe obliged, stroked its bright green snout, up to its brow ridges. The dragon’s jaw fell open, a bright red, forked tongue falling sideways out its mouth. Like a dog’s, just…forked. Its breath was hotter than she expected, considering she was currently petting and scratching a four-footed creature with scales. Not hot, like threatening fire, just hot like a mammal’s.

Even though it was clearly reptile-like, it was definitely not a reptile. Really lizard-like, low-slung with scales, just…warm-blooded. Maybe more like a bird?  But…birds had two legs and wings, not four. And feathers.

Zoe shook her head, trying to think past the exhausted fog as she looked at the creature begging for affection, and eyeing her daughter with longing. Not a bird. Not a lizard, either, despite the four legs and scales. And wings? So, six limbs, and warm blooded, but otherwise looking like a lizard. She really didn’t know what to make of it, but could tell it was happy with the attention.

“You like that, huh?” she said, rubbing around a weird, ragged-looking ear. Not like a dog’s, but not the exposed membrane of a reptile, nor the feather-covered membrane of a bird. Just…weird. Scaly and floppy. It leaned hard into the rubbing and…grumbled wasn’t quite the right word. One hind leg started thumping.

Zoe couldn’t help but smile. She glanced up to where Tish was dancing in impatience, but staying in the house like a good girl. “Come on out, honey, but go slow,” she said.

The dragon, after all, had very, very sharp predator’s teeth. And even if it was acting like a dog, it wasn’t one.

It whined again as the door came open, and closed very quietly. Trembled as she came slowly down the steps on the other side of Zoe from the dragon. And then, the dragon crawled across her lap to shove its head into her daughter’s arms, and try to cuddle with both of them at once.

And Zoe could tell why the plastic wagon had been creaking: the dragon weighed around half again more than her four year old.

Tish’s delighted giggle had the dragon jerking away to gallop around the back yard in sheer joy, which let Zoe get a better look at it. It was long and low, with short legs like a basset. It stretched its stubby wings out to help it keep its balance in the turns.

She wondered where it came from, and if it could fly.

It wound up crawling up under Tish’s arm and draping its front half over her lap, nudging against her cheek and chin with that smooth snout. And she cuddled the dragon, cooing happily as it blinked and smiled at her, bright red, forked tongue hanging from one side of its mouth. Zoe couldn’t help but smile, and reach down to scratch behind the dragon’s ear again. It grunted and started thumping the step with a hind leg, disarming Zoe further, the more it acted like a dog.

Tish smiled up at her, brown eyes bright, and dimples showing. “Momma, can we keep it?”

She hesitated. The dragon whined, climbing half over Tish’s lap to nuzzle Zoe’s arm and add hopeful eyes to Tish’s request. Zoe sighed. “I suppose,” she said hesitantly. “We can keep the dragon for as long as it will stay.” 

It licked her face. With raw meat-smelling breath. She sighed, wiping the rather slimy slobber off—there honestly wasn’t much—and pushed up to her feet. “I’m going to get a chair,” she said, “and a bowl for water.”

Both were just inside the back door. If either had been much further away, she’d not have gone for them. Because she’d been raised knowing you didn’t leave a child unsupervised with any animal for long at all.

They had the supplies to get a dog—they’d had a dog for a while, and then she’d passed. She’d been a great dog. Zoe wished, in a way, that Tish had been old enough to remember her, but in another, she was glad that Tish didn’t miss her dog for long. They’d either thrown away or donated most of the things they’d had for the dog, but not all of them. The things they still had would be about the right size for a basset-hound-sized dragon…she thought.

Zoe still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t hallucinating. Dragons weren’t real. Couldn’t be real. Because it was scaled like a lizard, but warm-blooded like a mammal. Or bird. Just with four legs. And a pair of wings, so six limbs, total. It acted like a dog, but she couldn’t quite get past the differences. The critter was strange.

The phone rang, while she was getting the bowl and the umbrella chair next to the back door. There was a handset and charger base just inside the kitchen, next to the stove, and she ducked in to grab it and answer. “Coffman’s residence, Zoe speaking,” she said, pinning the handset between her shoulder and ear.

“Zoe, it’s Mom.”  She hesitated. “I hate to ask you this, but has there been anything…strange…going on?”

She thought wryly of the dragon in the back yard. “Not much, no,” she said. “I do have a four-year-old with a vivid imagination who’s upset that her daddy’s been gone for a month, and has no idea when he’ll be back, and a bad case of prego-mush-brain, but other than that?  Nothing terribly strange.”

Just the dragon in the back yard that shouldn’t exist, she thought.

Her mom hummed. Then realized what Zoe had said. “Prego-mush-brain?  Are you pregnant?  Again?”

“You make it sound like I’m pregnant so often,” Zoe said drily. “This is only the second time.”

“But…but Duane isn’t there,” she said.

“He’s not been gone that long,” Zoe replied tartly, offended.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she lamented. “Does he know?”

Zoe carried the bowl and chair and phone out in the back yard. Set the bowl down, and filled it with water. “Mom. He’s been gone a month. I just started the second trimester. He was with me for the first appointment, and saw and heard the bean’s heartbeat, and saw it jumping around on the portable ultrasound screen they brought in when they couldn’t find it with the Doppler. I am not scheduled for the big sonogram for another two weeks.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she demanded.

Zoe sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “When did I tell you about my pregnancy with Tish?” Tish was bouncing around the back yard, giggling, and jumping into the piles of leaves she’d gathered. The green dragon bounced around behind her, moving like an extra-large ferret, and piling into the leaves after her, shoving its head down and flipping leaves into the air.

It was so cute it damn near gave her cavities. And it was one of the first times in the past two weeks Tish had played so happily and enthusiastically.

“Halfway through your second trimester, when you had started showing and couldn’t hide it anymore,” she replied acidly.

“No, Mom. Halfway through my second trimester, when the dangers of miscarriage dropped to nearly nothing,” Zoe pointed out. “You know. When you wouldn’t have your heart broken by losing another grandchild, like you did with Steve’s wife’s baby they lost right after they told you?”

She went silent for a moment. Then, “Oh. I see. Well. I guess that teaches me to make assumptions.”  Her voice was apologetic—Zoe knew that was probably all she’d get, since she wasn’t her mother’s darling youngest son who was perfect in every way. In her mother’s sight.

But only there. Everywhere else, Zoe’s little brother was a flaky twit, who should thank God every day he’d managed to marry so far above his worth.

“What kind of strangeness were you calling about, anyway?” she asked, after she’d let her mother brood a bit.

“Oh. Not much, really,” she said hesitantly. “Only…your brother called, and swore up, down, and sideways, he’d seen horse with a horn, running around with a herd of deer. I was wondering if he was on something, or if he’d actually seen something…unusual.”

“You mean mythological,” Zoe said flatly. “I’d say it was safer to assume he was on something until you get verification otherwise.”

“It’s one of the reasons I called you,” she explained, matter of fact. “You always have your head on straight, and you’d be more likely to know one way or the other.”

Zoe sighed. “Mom, Tish is in the back yard. I really need to go.” 

“Call me later, and tell me how you’re doing,” she demanded.

“Tired as hell, but the queasy is fading,” she said. “I’ll call sometime soon, when she’s gone down for a nap.”

Zoe found herself holding a phone giving her a fast beep as her mother hung up without saying goodbye, like she always did. She had this superstition that actually saying goodbye was bad luck, and would end with someone’s death.

She rolled her eyes, and leaned the umbrella chair against the house, thinking about what else they still had for a dog that might work for a dragon. Or what it might need. Shelter. A food dish. A collar?  Probably not that. Beds, bedding. Probably not a kennel for the house, either.

Shelter first. Zoe frowned, scratched her head while she tried to think, and then remembered where the dog house was: in someone else’s yard after they’d set it on the curb. She would have to either build or buy a new one, if the dragon decided to stay with them for long. And if the dragon spent much time outside.

The pillow, bedding, and toys would need to be replaced. They’d tossed the old stuff since it’d been old and worn when the dog had passed away. So Zoe would need to buy everything new.

The dragon galloped along after Tish, using its wings, now and then, to help it make a turn, or to keep it on its feet after a jump over a toy. Tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth, just like a dog.

Tish finally got tired, and went over to her favorite spot to sit, over in a small hollow beneath the spindly little maple tree, and flopped down. The dragon followed, curling around behind her with its head under her hand, and sighed as she started petting it. She scooched down to lay against the dragon, twisting over onto her side, murmuring to it. Zoe couldn’t hear what she was saying, but the dragon seemed to be listening intently.

Zoe got up, then paused and squinted toward the sun, thinking about the time. “Tish, it’s time to go in for a while,” she called.

“Can I bring Buddy?” she called back, climbing to her feet.

“Why did you call it Buddy?”

“Buddy isn’t an it,” she said firmly. “Buddy’s a boy. And it’s his name.”

Zoe looked down at the dragon. There wasn’t any visible cue of sex, so she had to ask. “How do you know that?”

“He told me. In my head.”

“Of course,” Zoe murmured to herself. “How stupid of me.” She eyed the dragon’s feet. The talons were blunt, and didn’t look like they’d damage the floors any more than the dog’s had, so she shrugged. “Why not. We’ll see if Buddy can be a house-friend.”

She squealed, hugged the dragon (apparently named Buddy, now) around its long, scaly neck, and scampered for the house, the dragon happily gallumphing behind her, pausing to look up at Zoe as she held open the door. “It’s okay,” she said, nodding toward the interior of the house. “You can go in. Just no crapping on the floor.”

Learn something all the time...

I have always hated beans.  Pintos, in particular.  

When I was growing up, my grandma made beans all the time.  Pinto beans, in water.  She added nothing but salt.  

I always HATED beans.  But I loved the days when she'd make beans.  Because she always made cornbread (and set out orange marmalade), and sides could include fried ham (sliced thick), pickled beets (home canned), mock apple rings (pickled cucumber rings, but done with apple cider vinegar, cinnamon, brown sugar, and a few other things you'd find in pie), and a lot of other things.  

Grandma's beans were...gross.  I'd choke them down first, then fill up on sides.

So I thought I hated beans.  Turned out, I hated how Grandma made beans.  

I don't make beans like that.  Ever.  Because they're absolutely nasty, plain.  So, I've started experimenting.  And thus far, I have discovered that they're decent when you add the right things: cumin, garlic, and onions, for a start. And salt.  Enough salt is an absolute must (I add it after a half an hour under pressure). Chili powder's pretty good in them, too, when the whim strikes.  And...a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar when the second cooking cycle's done in the instant pot.  Right before serving (or added to the beans before you dump them in the blender for refried beans to add to tacos).   

The instant pot just beeped.  Time to go add the vinegar to the beans before we turn them into tacos.  

(And I'll be making soft tacos for the other half to take for lunch for the week.)

What are you reading?

Here, let me make some recommendations.  All of these are available as Kindle Unlimited, so that if you're a subscriber (at $10/month), you can borrow and read these without risking something you don't enjoy.  

Dyce Dare--cozy mysteries.  Massive fun.

This one is one of my favorite comfort reads.  The book form of curling up in a blanket with a cup of something hot on a chilly, rainy day. 

This one was massive fun, but be aware that it's 1st person POV throughout, but switches which head you're in between two characters. 

LOTS of fun.  And yes, I do read Westerns with fair frequency.  Between J.L. Curtis and Peter Grant, the genre's really not dead. 

Sort of modern Western/law enforcement type story.  It's really interconnected shorter pieces that set up the characters and world that goes for several more books.

This is a pretty good variety of genres, I know, but I have read and enjoyed (or, in the case of the first, am reading and enjoying) each of the above books, and highly recommend them.

Been busy.

REALLY busy.  

As in: I finished a book (in second draft form) busy, and got it off to my less-busy beta readers (one is too busy, and has another one of my pieces he's working through).  I've also put new covers on my Kindle versions of my Legends series, and got them linked together.  

I think next year, I'm going to start pulling and revising my books, one at a time.  

I've also been busy with the kids--the imp has an extracurricular club at the library on some weekends (but not others), and the pixie has an anime/manga club she's been hovering around the edges of at the library. I need a good calendar because I'm having a hard time keeping up with who's doing what when.  No, I can't just use my phone, for a few different reasons: I don't know how to set it up, I hate it, and I tend to ignore it when I'm not picking up groceries.  I don't use the calendar on my laptop because I refuse to allow that much free data out there for other people.  

No, I just need to...get a calendar.  A good desk calendar.  Because what I tried doing last year ended up...well.  Mostly destroyed.  Because it didn't stand up well under getting something slid over the top of it.  And then it had something spilled on it, and I gave up.

Hmm.  Maybe a vinyl folder cover for a calendar would work...This takes some thought.  

 

Ugh, what hit me?

I spent a lot of last week in a fog.  It was a little better yesterday and today, but I could not get my brain to function on more than a minimal level while I was up and trying to do housework from about Wednesday through yesterday.  It was deeply unpleasant, as you can probably guess...

All I did was make two cups of coffee in the Keurig Wednesday morning.  Not even something I hadn't done before, but that was just...it.  Knocked me on my ass for the rest of the week.  

During that time, I did manage to get some things done, including a couple of blog posts that...honestly, were better than my brain could manage without help.  I'm pretty sure Someone took my brain fog and used it to transmit something that He wanted said.  

It's a good reminder that everything I have and am comes from Him, and that the gifts I have are from Him.  And that they need to be used.  

It was pretty clear, after all, in the parable of the talents: use what you've been given to better your life, don't just bury it.  

Now, I just have to figure out how to use what I've been given for the sake of my family a little better.  That's gonna take more than a little bit of thought: I am going to need to do some cataloguing of my abilities and looking for marketability. 

Might wanna rethink things, there, morons.

I'm gonna write this for the atheists out there.  The ones screeching about the "evils" permitted by the Judeo-Christian God.  

I want to draw to your attention, guys, how hard you've been working to destroy the culture of over a thousand years, one shaped by Christianity and based in the Mosaic laws laid out in the Bible.  It's been hard, and you've been working at it for over a hundred years, patting yourselves on the back that you're the smart ones...

You spent a hundred, hundred twenty years working to infiltrate the way we teach our children (lots of success, there), the way we socialize, the way we entertain ourselves during our leisure periods, everywhere.  You're in the stories, you run the stories.  You've taken over movies, TV, music, everything.  

You've infiltrated the churches.  I don't know how you managed that, given how much you profess to not believe in God in the first place, but you did it.  

Except.  You haven't succeeded.  Not really.  Not anywhere that culture had taken root and flourished.  

People have quit going to movies.  People have quit reading.  People have been quitting paying attention to your mouthpieces in the media.  People have been pulling their kids out of the schools and denying you access there.  

You...are flailing, trying harder to destroy things faster so that the Paradise of the Noble Savage can return to the face of the earth.  

What you fail to realize is that the savage is not, and never has been, noble.  Savages are just that: savage.  They live for the moment, and they destroy whatever they can't claim as theirs.  Savages enslave each other, savage each other.  

And they die young, of horrible things that modern medicine could have treated, if only modern medicine weren't in your sights to destroy (and, indeed, have succeeded in destroying a lot of levels of).  

And you've still failed.  Because we are working against you.  

We are those who still follow the way of The Book.  Because we know who is behind the destruction of everything God has led us to create.  

Thing is, He does create.  He reshapes things that are good into things better.  He found, four thousand years ago, a few who could still hear Him, and He led them out of a civilization built on and by savages.  He led them out, and He spent hundreds of years reshaping the culture they'd held onto.  He led them to reject the savagery, the banality, the evil of the culture of the Savage.  

It took a lot of really nasty hardship.  It took a slow, steady approach.  It took redefining cultural practices, bit by bit.  Little by little.  Incremental improvements.  Building good habits to replace the bad.  

It took a couple hundred years of slavery.  Generations of being slaves, then being freed slaves, before He could push improvements for slaves.  And honestly, redefine what slavery is, and how slaves are to be treated.  

The Mosaic laws--the laws that God handed directly to Moses on Mount Sinai--defined an entire culture.  It had to: the culture that the Israelites hung onto through generations of slavery was a foundation, but only that, and what those people had was enough for slaves, but not enough for a free nation.  The instant Moses turned his back, they fell into the idolatry and worship of the wickedness they'd been surrounded by, because they only had the foundation, not the walls, not the habits to be better.  

It took a full generation wandering in the desert for Him to build that culture in His people.  Forty years going in circles in a desert that could be walked straight across in a couple of months, because of how long it took for the new habits, new patterns of thought to be built in a people who barely had a foundation to build on.  

Before that, slavery was...well.  It made what we've been told the black slaves our Southern states held look benevolent.  The slave owner could do literally anything to his slave, including starve them to death, work them to death, or just kill them on a whim.  It never ended.  Slavery from birth to death, with death being the respite for most.  

The Mosaic laws redefined slavery: the masters were given a list of things they could not do.  The period of slavery was defined, and the masters had to offer their slaves freedom every set period of years, and had to take them in as a family pet, basically, if they refused their freedom, to ensure that they weren't thrown out as useless when they couldn't work any more.  

 Those laws set the foundation for an entire culture that rejects slavery in all its institutions.  Our culture--the Judeo-Christian American culture--has fully rejected slavery, hard.  To the point we often don't recognize chattel slavery practiced in secret in front of us. 

And that...that is the culture you atheists are denying exists, and what you aim to destroy. 

The shape of the thing

This nation is under attack.  Harsh, unrelenting attack.

Actually, that's wrong.  It's not the nation.  It's the culture.  And it's the assumptions and values that underlie the culture.  

It's not new.  It's been under fairly constant attack from the very beginning.  It's gotten more blatant, and the attacks are really, really obvious, now.  Unfortunately, I think most people are misidentifying the assailant.  

No, it's not the left, not Marxists, not feminists, not any of the other -ists, villainous though they may be in and of themselves.  They're just the tool.  The weapon.  

The antagonist we're looking at is...

Well.  Better to illustrate.  

Thousands of years ago, there was a tiny group that heard a still, small voice.  That voice led them away from a land where raping and sacrificing children and animals to bestial, evil ideals in the hopes that they'd leave humanity alone was the norm.  Sound familiar, yet?  No?  

The god of money demanded the sacrifice of infants; today, he calls for the sacrifice of the unborn.  

The god of fertility demanded unrestrained sexuality; today, he calls for the same, and insists that it's "normal." 

Judaism was founded on a rejection of those ideals; Christianity built on that rejection, and on the culture He shaped with His rejection.  We, the United States of America, are a Christian nation.

God Himself is a rejection of those ideals, and He calls for us to reject them.  To follow a better, healthier, more stable way.  We do not murder children.  We do not rape children.  We do not look at the things our neighbor has, get angry that he has them and we don't, and destroy his things; we work for our own.  We don't lie about each other to ruin each other's lives.  We don't murder each other for fun and profit (but we defend ourselves from those who do).  

The Bible is a guide, yes, but it's also an illustration of a deliberate, ongoing shaping of culture, and an illustration of what happens when people turn away from His ideals.  

The shape of the attack on the United States today is the same shape as the attacks humanity has undergone from day one, in the Garden.  Nihilism writ large.  It is lies, it is envy, it is destructive of all that is good and healthy.  

It is angry that we have that which it does not: a soul, and the freedom to choose, gifted to us by God.  With those things, we have creativity, we have the capacity for growth unparalleled in nature.  

And that which attacks us, attacks our culture...does not.  

And that which it cannot claim, cannot possess, it will attempt to destroy.  

Marxism imitates it, but is only a very, very pale shadow.  It's a handy tool, though, because it's not obviously the same as every other attack.  And it's had more success as a tool, a lever, a pry bar, in the last hundred years than anything else.  

But Marxism is only the tool.  It's not the antagonist.  

We the people, the nation, the culture need to recognize the antagonist.  And we need to reject it, its so-called culture, its "normal," and its ideology.  

Refuse to participate in what it wants.  

Turn your back on it, and turn to He who wants what's best for us all.  

Long *month*.

I have had something going on every week, so far this month.  Kids started back to school (and the school didn't put their schedules up until the day before...), then imp had a three-month followup for his focus pills (had grown an inch and a half since the previous one), and I had a dentist's appointment for a deep cleaning the same week (hygienist did half the job, and it took almost two hours).  Last week, I had a visit with my endocrinologist.  This week, I'll have the rest of the dental cleaning done.  

I also got Having a Pint put up for publication at the beginning of the month...first book out in almost three years.  I gotta do better than that, seriously.  I'm working on it, I promise. 

Honestly, I've finally been gaining some traction on the writing--I've got The Schrodinger Paradox almost finished (and the first two parts have been looked at by a couple of beta readers).  And Certified Public Assassin is about half done, I think.  

Right now, February looks a little lighter, but only on the outside-the-house commitments.  I have a lot of writing to do.  

And a lot of small projects on the house.  

In the meantime...have some entertainment: the first chapter of Having a Pint.  Remember, this is the second book in The Liquid Diet Chronicles.  It should make sense, even if you haven't read Bite Sized. 

What Gets Guido Out of Carpet?

I’d tried setting my alarm, on a whim, a bit before sunset.  I woke to music. 

At sunset. 

My alarm had been going off for half an hour, and it hadn’t worked to wake me up.  I sighed, sitting up in my bed—my actual, real bed, in my actual, real apartment built into the basement, rather than a mattress on a dresser in a closet—and scrubbed both hands over my face, then let them fall into my lap.  I guessed I’d just have to keep...aging...if I wanted to wake early.

My name is Meg.  I’ve been a vampire for a bit more than twenty years.    

My stomach gurgled, and I sighed.  Clearly, I’d be going hunting tonight, despite the sheer amount of work I had to do. 

My client list had...expanded.  And most of the new clients I had were paying me a lot, even by the small percentages I charged.  I’d already recouped the cost of remodeling the basement to create the apartment, the new storm shelter buried in the ground just steps from the back door, and part of the cost of repairs to the rest of the house.  So, yeah—I had a lot to do, and I was going to have to put it off to go hunt. 

I was just getting out of the shower when I was startled by a crash.  Sounded like somebody kicked the front door in.  Pounding steps running down the hall—those didn’t sound like Andi—a scream in the kitchen, and a gunshot (which came through the ceiling in my bedroom and killed my clock-radio).  Loud, angry, male voice cursing in a foreign language.  Sounded like Spanish, at first, but wasn’t. 

Two sets of footsteps, one heavy, the other lighter and stumbling, went from the kitchen to my office/library. 

I sighed, annoyed, then deliberately quit breathing.  I moved quickly and quietly up my steps and through my door, closing it behind me without a sound. 

That front door had a really cold breath, and the water on my bare skin damn near flash-froze.  Northern Kansas was really not the place to have the winter wind hitting your wet skin.  I kept moving, darting into my office to get out of the draft. 

There was a guy in a rumpled, cheap, brown suit rifling through my filing cabinet with one hand while pointing a small pistol in Andi’s general direction with the other.  Not a small gun, after all, I realized as I examined the situation—it was a full-sized double-stack something—his hands were just massive.  Wide.  He wasn’t a small man, I realized as I snuck up on him.  I wouldn’t be able to reach both his hand with the gun and the back of his head, I realized—I’d have to grab just above his elbow and just shove his arm up until I could get control of the rest of him.

His back was to me, so I took a quick breath and winked at Andi.  Her eyes widened as I vanished again, and she relaxed. 

“Where’s the money, you stupid bitch?” he snarled.  “I want the money.” 

“What money?” she said, exasperated. 

“This is the money-laundering place my ex-boss used—I want the money,” he snarled. 

This.  This is what I got for not being picky about my clients. 

Italian food delivered on a busy night. 

I stepped up, grabbed his gun arm and wrenched it up toward the ceiling as he fired.  I took a breath and grabbed the short little ponytail at the back of his head, and jumped, swarming up his back like a monkey until I could reach his neck.  And higher on his gun arm, but not his hand, yet—guy had gorilla arms, not just the shoulders.  Andi fled the room.

His suit was polyester.  His shirt was rough cotton.  He wasn’t wearing a tie.  Colors popped richer as I fed.  I let go of his back with my legs as he sagged to his knees, then carefully took him the rest of the way down to the floor.  I let his arm slide through my hand until I could crush his hand around the gun.  The bones popping as they broke were loud in my ears.  He was so warm.  And I was warming quickly, despite the cold air from outside rushing in through my broken front door.

Andi rushed back in with a robe.  “Don’t kill him,” she said quickly. 

I got the gun out of his mangled hand, and tossed it aside.  I disengaged from feeding, slapping my now-free hand over the bite over his carotid artery, pinching the holes shut, careful to keep him from bleeding out before I wanted him to.  I wasn’t quick enough, and it sprayed everywhere.  And left a puddle—a growing one, since it was still leaking—under his neck.  I rolled my eyes and sighed, licking the wound mostly closed until I could get back to him.

I really should have expected her to come back.  I mean, she came back when I rescued her from a would-be rapist in a dark alley, despite her inability to deal with violence.  It was one of the main reasons I’d invited her to be my housemate in the first place.  Why wouldn’t she come back in, in a place where she felt safe?  

I groaned and let her help me into the robe, one arm at a time. Even holding him down with only one arm and focusing on letting Andi help me into a robe, I didn’t have any trouble holding the guy still without any effort, despite his feeble attempts to get me off of his back.  Shock and terror did wonderful things to my food—made it harder for food to fight back, that’s for sure.  I sighed again and sealed the wound the rest of the way for as long as the conversation took.  And groaned in exasperation as he squirmed, smearing the mess on my rug.  “Why?”

“We can call the police,” she said.  “Get him hauled off to jail.”

I whined a bit, leaning my forehead against the back of his shoulders.  If I ate the guy, I wouldn’t have to stop working to eat for potentially the rest of the week.  He also wouldn’t be doing this again.  Ever.  But I needed a better reason than that for Andi.  “And then what?” I asked.  “Who’s your boss?” I asked the guy I’d been eating. 

“I ain’t telling you shit, you unnatural bitch,” he gasped weakly. 

“Yes, you will,” I said, exerting myself a little to overcome whatever willpower he might have.  It was easy.  He didn’t have much of a mind to overcome.

“Rizzoli,” he mumbled.  “Leo Rizzoli.”

“One of my first investments clients,” I said, looking back up at Andi for a moment.  “You know.  One of the ones that I was pretty sure was mafia when I accepted his business, because I didn’t have a choice.  After I was attacked and turned.”

“Oh,” she said weakly.  “One of those.”

I leaned in to whisper to my breakfast, “That money you were looking for?  Wasn’t ever here.  It’s all tied up in investments.  Electrons.  Ones and zeros.” 

I gave him a couple of seconds to absorb that information, then conked his head on the floor, knocking him out.  Then I looked up at Andi.  “I can’t call the cops on him for breaking and entering,” I said.  “I’d be arrested right along with his boss.” 

Andi huffed.  “Fine.  Go ahead and eat him, then.  What are we going to do with the body?  And the gun?  And the blood in the carpet?  And how are we going to explain the repairs?”

“Now, see, the blood in the rug is the only part I’m really mad about,” I said, looking down.  “I love this rug.  And it might be ruined.  The rest is easily handled.”

Andi huffed, throwing her hands in the air.  “I’m going back to my supper, then.  Call me if you need help moving the body.”

I snorted, hauling Guido to his feet and hefting him over my shoulders.  It wasn’t hard—he was more awkward than heavy, for me—and over-the-shoulder was easier than other ways to carry something like him.  I did end up with my robe twisted a bit.  “I’m going back to my breakfast, then,” I snarked in return.  I followed her out into the hall, intending to go out to the utility room and its cement floor.  The cold made me gasp, and got her attention.

She glared at me from the kitchen door.  “You are not eating him in the kitchen,” she said flatly.  “That’s nasty.  I don’t want to be cleaning up excrement from the floor.”

“No, I’m hauling my meal out on the back porch before I eat.  Then, I’ll set the leftovers out on the steps to freeze for easier transport,” I said.  “The reason I didn’t drag him out there in the first place was because I didn’t want holes in the ceiling the whole way there.”

She blinked.  “Okay.  Sensible.  Too bad you couldn’t have drug him off your rug first.”

I rolled my eyes.  “One, he’d have shot you if I’d tried.  Two, he did manage to shoot the ceiling, so he was prepared to shoot you.  Three, there wouldn’t be any blood on the rug if you hadn’t interrupted me, since you didn’t have a really good reason.”

The mook over my shoulder twitched and moaned, clapping his hand over where I’d bitten him.  He snapped awake, and struggled a little.   “Cut that out,” I said irritably.  “I only sealed your neck up a little.  If I drop you, it’ll come back open, you’ll bleed out in the hall, I’ll have a bigger mess to clean up in more places, and I won’t get to finish my breakfast.”

“Please, lady,” he whined as he made the connection, “I ain’t done nothing to hurt you—don’t...”

I snorted as I moved down the hall, into the utility room.  I’d move the rest of the way out onto the roofed-over but not walled-in part of the porch, but cold pulls blood toward the body’s core, and makes it harder for me to get all of it.  Besides, out on the porch, there were snow drifts nearly up to my hips, and I was still only in a robe.  “You kicked in my front door,” I said.  “You shot my clock in the basement, in the course of threatening my housemate, threatened my housemate, then shot my ceiling when I put a stop to it.”

“It wasn’t personal, I swear,” he wailed. 

I sighed, dumping him into the snow.  “Yes, it was,” I said, manhandling him around until I could resume my breakfast.  “If I hadn’t been dealing with your boss, you wouldn’t be here.  That means it was personal.  Just not against me.  And I’m going to bill your former boss for it, and make him come pick up your corpse.”

*

I did not feel like dressing up to work, tonight.  Not after the way my evening started.  Yeah, I was no longer hungry, but I did not like being attacked.  And this was the first time I’d actually been shot at. 

Well, shot towards, anyway.  He hadn’t been shooting at me.  Nor at Andi, if my guess was correct—the shot in the hall that took out my alarm clock in the basement was a threat, not a serious attempt.

I dug out a pair of flannel lined jeans, big, fluffy slipper socks, a cami-top and a very soft and thick flannel shirt and dressed quickly.  Guido was freezing into an easy-to-transport fetal wad; I was just freezing. 

I went back upstairs after getting dressed to find the front door propped shut.  I squatted down to look at the damage, and sighed.  The door was cracked, the door plate ripped out of the facing, and kicked to the side where nobody would step on it.  The door and door facing weren’t repairable.  Everything would have to be replaced altogether.

Andi called, “I’ll be calling the guy that did the work downstairs tomorrow; what do you want me to tell him?”

That...was a good question.  I sighed, rubbing both temples with my index and middle fingers, and padded into my office.  Andi was on her hands and knees around the blood-spot, dabbing at it with paper towels.  She had my lined office trash can right next to her, already full of bloody paper where she’d gotten the worst of the blood soaked up, and she had a spray bottle full of something clear next to her knees.  “Um...what?” I asked stupidly. 

“I wasn’t thinking when I told you to not kill him,” she said, glancing up at me.  “Kinda shook, ya know?  I really hate hurting people.  Even when they’re trying to hurt me.  It’s why I’m not a cop.  Anyway.  So, if I made you make the mess, it’s my mess, and I’ll clean it up.”

“Okay, tell me what you’re doing,” I said. 

“I looked up getting blood out of a wool rug online while I finished my supper,” she said, “and it looks pretty easy—spray water, and dab it up.  Well, it’s easier before it dries, at least,” she said, eyeing the rug dubiously.  “I think I’ll be able to get most of it like this.  There wasn’t a whole lot soaked in, there—it was still sort of sitting on top of the fibers.  You will probably need new curtains, though,” she pointed out, jerking her chin.

I turned.  And groaned. 

Yes, I would be needing new curtains.  The heavy drapes didn’t show it as bad, but they would after the blood dried brown and stained the burgundy.  Damn it, I’d liked those curtains.  They’d coordinated with the burgundy in the rug.  The translucent netting curtains...the spray had run.  They looked worse than the heavy burgundy drapes.  And they hadn’t stopped the spray from hitting the glass.

“Don’t worry—I’ll clean the windows tomorrow.  I’ve got the day scheduled off.”  Andi sprayed the rug, and blotted the spot.  It came up pinkish, rather than the arterial spray red that decorated the paper towels in the trash and the curtains. 

“Burn the paper towels and those curtains for me, please,” I said mildly.  “I’ve got a trash burn barrel outside.  It’s pretty obvious.”

“I’ve got some old records that are scanned into my system and need to be shredded or burned,” Andi said.  “Mind if I do those, too?”

“It’d be helpful,” I admitted. 

The night was just started, and I was already emotionally exhausted.  This.  This is why I don’t eat where I live.  Why I hunt elsewhere. 

Cleanup, when it’s necessary, is a nightmare. 

Freakin' lovely

 So.  I've had some issues, recently.  Tylenol's been making me kind of queasy (and since it causes liver damage in too much quantity/too long of a time taking it, and liver damage's first sign is queasy...) so I quit taking it.  I've been having some issues with heartburn, too.  So I also quit taking Aleve.  

Joint pain levels...increased a little.  Not much.  Maybe half a step.  It is, in short, nowhere near as bad as I was thinking it would be.

In other words, neither Tylenol, nor Aleve were helping much to begin with.  

So I went looking for why.  

I found out.  

For people who have Fibromyalgia or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the pain involved is not responsive to either straight analgesics or to NSAIDs.  It's not quite nerve pain, but not quite not, either.  

I guess I'll just save the Aleve for when I stand up, something goes snap somewhere, and a joint swells up like an angry toad.  

And use compression gloves for the joint pain in my knuckles.

Prior planning and priorities...

Went up to visit my mom with one kid yesterday.  Just the pixie--the imp had a lego club meeting thing in the city library.  

They've squeezed six cats and two humans into a 400 sq ft space that's been expanded by flooring and sheet-rocking half of the attic.  That is, by the way, the only way it can be defined as a two bedroom space, as well.  Even if there's not really a safe exit from that attic bedroom, in case of fire. 

I love my family very much, but I can't think about their situation very often.  I'd offered to help them get out of that place in the past--or even just my sister--and have been turned down.  "We're waiting on God's time."  Or "God will tell us when it's time to move."  

Okay.  Fine.  Never mind that you're sitting on the roof peak, the water's at your waist, and you just waved off the helicopter.  That's their choices, and I don't get a vote. Never mind that I think He has been telling them to move for almost a decade and a half, now.  Ever since Grandma passed. 

I love my family.  I do.  But they're also a spectacular example to my children of "this is how you fuck your own life up."  I spend a lot of time explaining to the kids exactly what choices Granny made to land her (and my sister) where they are, and what choices they'd need to make to get out.  And I lead them through why we, Odysseus and I, make the choices we do, even when another choice would be more fun.  

It's a difference of looking at short-term vs. long-term.  

It's also a difference of priorities.  

Mom was talking about needing this, that, or the other for the house--furniture, or small appliances.  I wasn't paying attention.  She doesn't need what she thinks she does, she only wants it.  What she needs, if she's going to stay there where she is, is a new air conditioner.  She doesn't think her old one will make it through another year (even though it seemed to be cooling and dehumidifying things just fine last summer).  

I have things I would like, too, but it's all going to have to wait.  I would like a recliner that isn't electric, isn't half-worn-out, isn't too big for my frame, and coordinates with my living room.  I'd like a bread machine capable of doing gluten free bread (my old one I let go didn't).  

I'm not doing any of that because first priority is get our savings back up.  We've got insurance coming up in April, and tuition toward the end of July.  

And since I am not my mother, I'm not going to buy the things I want to, then wonder why I don't have enough and panic when the bills come due. 

I'm working on teaching the kids to do likewise. Because I don't want them fucking their lives up like my family's elder generation did.  If they fuck their lives up, I want them to do it in a way weird enough I had no clue it was possible to do it that way. 

I...am taking a *break.*

So.  Last weekend, I took a deep breath and figured out exactly what I needed to do to get the finished book up.  And then I did it.  It wasn't exactly intuitive, but it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  

It's done, now, and that's a load off.  And yes, it's moving.  Thanks to an absolutely awesome lady. Sarah Hoyt.  Go read her stuff, if you haven't yet.  

So, yesterday, I did get some revising done.  Not a huge amount, since I was working on that and a whole lot of other stuff, but I managed.  I got a few chapters revised in my science fiction project*--like half of the first part.  I got more done today, but ran up against some mathing that needs to be done before I can continue.  

Can I just mention I hate math?  I'm not bad at your standard, everybody-uses-it-every-day type stuff (budgeting, figuring unit costs, balancing bank accounts, messing about with resizing recipes, etc).  I am NOT good at anything more complex than that.  Orbital mechanics?  Right out.  But I can handwave that away.  

I don't know, yet, about figuring out transmission lag from set distances...or what those distances might be, in the first place.  

So that's set aside until the kids go to bed tonight and I get a chance to do some research.  

I got some writing done on a new short story for my current, working collection.  Around 1200 words on it, with a solid idea of where it might go.  

And...I found the music that Molly the assassin likes.  Got 2K words written in about an hour and a half...and had to stop because I had to go get the kids from school (and because my hands were killing me).  

My hands are still killing me.   

*The Schrodinger Paradox--still strongly considering publishing in parts, Kindle only, then putting out a hardback...

It's Live!

 I got a lot done this past week, after I got the kids back to school.  Even with an autoimmune attack and brain fog.  

Wanna see?

Going forward

 It's a new year.  Couple days in.  It's weird...we've had a couple of utterly beautiful 60+ degree days (it's currently reading 71 on the wireless weather station readout).  In January.  In SW MO.  You know, spring weather. 

(It'll be back to winter weather by the time the kids start school again on Wednesday.  It is SW MO--we have four seasons, but never in any particular order, or for any set amount of time.)

We've gotten all of the major repairs the house needed done--the roof and the carport (which we knew about), and the patio roof (which we didn't, until it fell the fuck off the house).  In so doing, we've drained the savings down to the minimum level, but it's done.  

Christmas is done.  We're done with familial obligations we didn't choose to take on for a few months.  Done with the regularly-occurring expenses required of us by government fiat until...April, when we have insurance coming due for cars and house.  

The days are done getting shorter, and have started lengthening again.  Yeah, we've got another three months of random winter storms headed our way, but we can see the finish line from here.  

It's time to move forward.  

I'm not doing resolutions this year.  I'm setting goals and projects.  What's the difference?  Goals aren't necessarily concrete--projects are.  

I haven't fully decided on all of what I want to plan on this year, but I've got a few ideas.  

On goals...I am going to spend fifteen minutes, twice a day, every day I'm not actively sick, cleaning, straightening, and decluttering (no, that's not counting the cleaning, straightening, and decluttering I do in the kitchen while the microwave is running).  There's a lot of progress made doing just that much.  And then the house can be maintained with that. 

 I'm going to spend at least another fifteen minutes, twice a day, every day I'm not sick, at my sewing machine.  I've got a bunch of scrunchies cut out to make, and I need to make a few pairs of PJ pants for the kids and some for me.  

I am going to spend a couple hours a day working on edits, and a couple hours writing.  

As for finances...I am going to rebuild the savings account without losing ground further.  Than I have to.  Considering the stupid fuckers in charge have discovered that they can tax money by ramping up inflation, the three-to-six-months' expenses is...not what it was three years ago.  

Projects...I have some knitting projects currently on needles.  I have a mostly-finished lacy shawl made with baby yarn, another (which I'm not happy with, and will probably pull out) in sock yarn, and a vest in worsted weight wool-blend yarn.  That last...it's for Odysseus, and I have the back panel finished, and about a third of the front panel.  After that?  My sister's acquired yarn, and has asked me to make her a small afghan, and I have yarn to make a larger one for my living room (my loveseat needs something draped over the back of it).  

I'm planning some sewing projects...I have a bunch of fat quarters cut for scrunchies, and I need to cut some elastic lengths, and just...sit down and make them.  I need to figure out the cuts for sleep pants (I've got the fabric: polar fleece, sweats-type jersey, and flannel), and get those dealt with, now that I have a permanent station for cutting things out.  

The other big project--one that's probably going to take multiple months--is clearing all the stuff out of the garage and getting that set up for a wood-work type workshop.  

Writing projects...I have a finished post-beta reader first draft (and mostly-finished revision) of the second book in the Liquid Diet Chronicles.  I have a finished first draft of a science fiction book that I'm strongly tempted to publish in parts...and then re-publish in one BIG part with an epilogue (that would be The Shrodinger Paradox).  I need to finish a revision of that one, and then it'll be ready for beta readers.  

And then, there's a couple of WIPs.  There's CPA, and there's a couple of ideas for short story collections...one has about half the planned stories finished.  The other is still in the planning stages.  And is basically just a vague concept idea, at this point.  

I don't know how many of the projects I'll be able to complete in the coming year.  There really is no telling whatsoever.  I'll try to revisit this at the end of the year.  If I can remember.