Would you find me in the stars?
Tuesday, January 27th, 2026 07:15 pmBusiness First!
1 Today is the Book Day for the Diviner's Bow mass market edition! Those who prefer this format may purchase from their favorite vendor, and we here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory thank you very much!
2 eARC consumers! A Liaden Universe® Contellation Volume 6 is now available from Baen
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Yesterday's big event was the arrival of my socks, the culmination of a month-long tour of New England:
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Tuesday. Sunny and cold. Sitting in the comfy chair in my office with the happy light looking out over the long backyard, where Snow Devils are dancing in the Sun.
In my quest for rest, I've been going back to bed after I wake up at 5:00 or 6:00 instead of going to work, and sleeping for another hour or so. I did that this morning, so I'm late getting the day going.
Checking the mail, I see that B&H thinks my new tablet will be here tomorrow. That will be exciting.
Aside from the Gala Celebrations for the release of the mass-market edition of Diviner's Bow, I'll be cleaning up the piles as I've been swearing to do for 3 days and looking at the taxes. I'm probably calling the CPA.
An arduous day.
How's everybody doing today?
Firefly was helping me keep an eye on the Snow Devils.
Dictated to my phone
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Wow, it got late. I guess you'll either rest voluntarily or rest will come for you.
For those curious about the alpaca socks -- I'm never taking them off again. They are soft, they are warm, they are (bearing in mind that I am a Sock Person and not a Socks are the Devil's Work Person) -- comforting.
They are pricey at full-price, so yay! after-Christmas local shopping for the win.
I need to strip the bed and start a load of laundry -- any laundry at this point, and then I'll get with the piles (yes, yes, I keep saying this). Lunch will be canned salmon, veggie, and rice stirfry, Because I Can.
. . . I think I may need some rock 'n roll music to motivate me. And a glass of cold tea.
Onward.
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Aaand, I stoopidly corrected my email address with an organization where I was chief babysitter for a while, and now my inbox is ... annoying.
. . .
Let's go with annoying.
The SnowJoe is still charged, so the battery doesn't have to come out to be charged. Which means I have time to acquire a C-clamp, which I thought I had at least three, but I can't find them, and the crescent wrench won't open wide enough, nor the groove pliers, and as the problem is hand-strength, tongs is not my tool. I have to depress a button on each side of the battery while simultaneously pulling the battery off of its prongs. And Joe isn't heavy enough, even with my foot on him, to serve as a counterweight.
I did not, I'll note, have this difficulty last year.
Getting old sucks. You heard it here first.
I don't like to leave the battery in Joe, but I guess that's gonna hafta be how we go.
Lunch will be now, and I do believe it will include a rum 'n coke.
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Stirfry turned out great. I used some orange marmalade in my stirfry sauce. Also -- no rum 'n coke. A little while ago, a friend gave me a bottle of Barefoot Boy blueberry wine, which announces on the label that it! is! sweet! It's also very light -- 7.5% -- and? if you mix it into Sanpellegrino Limonata? makes a really nice drink.
And I? only have one more pile to bring under my dominion.
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Note to self: Do not listen to "Run away to Mars" ever again.
Still working on beating the last pile into submission.
In reviewing my email from B&H Photography, I note that my tablet is supposed to be reaching me tomorrow through the agency of FedEx, so I'm glad I didn't put any money on that proposition. The original prediction was that it would be here on Thursday, which is fine. The only thing that makes any of this tricky is that -- in B&H's worldview, anyway -- I have to sign for the package, and in order to do that, I need to be home.
I say the above with a certain amount of irony. The last time I remember us being told that someone would have to sign for a package was when we had ordered our Edge phones. I was due at radiation and Steve had been driving me, but I assured him that I could drive myself (which I did, so -- not forsworn, and we will skate lightly over the dicey bits) while he waited for the package.
Which! -- You're ahead of me, aren't you? -- The FedEx guy blithely left on the steps, and wandered away without even ringing the bell, which is where I found them when I came home.
. . . I wonder if there's a horror anthology in FedEx stories?
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In housekeeping news, helpful helpers are helping
Today's blog post title brought to you by the self-same "Run Away to Mars," from Talk


no subject
Date: 2026-01-28 02:26 am (UTC)FedEx flatly refuses to deliver to my front door. Instead, it drops packages at my mailbox, one of the cluster for our development--which sits on a state road, at least a half-mile away down a steep hill featuring sharp turns and dropoffs. And because such packages are not "mail," they drop them on the ground, come rain, snow, ice, or lovely sunny days which just invite traffic past said mailboxes.
I don't shop at Chewy any more because of this. I have prescription cat food delivered to my vet's office seven miles from here. And now Amazon is letting third-party. Suppliers use FedEx for deliveries.
I truly dislike FedEx.