Eagles Over the Kennebec

What went before ONE: Back from errands. I purchased many needful things, including 15 ozs of blueberries covered in dark chocolate separated into 15 (now 14 -- had to do a Quality Check) little bags, which are going to come in right handy on my upcoming road trip. TripS.

I also got the car washed, checked the po box, bought Trooper's Sort of catfood at the vet, and hit the grocery for milk, gooshy food, and succumbed to temptation, which is to say, I bought some deli ham so I can have ham-and cheese sandwiches, which I'm not supposed to eat, but! I have rye bread. That's it. That's my excuse.

I possibly should have bought one of the fancy new traveling lunch boxes, which would let the drinks stand up (both of those in-house you have to lay the water bottles on their side. However, I have time to consider this and return to the store if it's found I made an error.

And? It is now suddenly lunch time, and I still don't know what I'm going to eat. Oh. How about a ham and cheese sandwich?

What went before TWO: That . . . was not what I wanted to see today -- or any day, really.

I went outside to look at the front garden and think about weeding strategies and found -- a dead kitten.

I've committed her to Bast, but -- dammit...

What went before THREE: So ... no new words today. I have just a few moments ago been informed that I'm doing a podcast this evening at 9:00 my time.

So there's that.

I did get my tickets to the Corning Glass Museum and scheduled a time to make a blown glass ornament. The other place I want to make glass at -- a hot glass paperweight -- isn't open today and they require a phone call. I guess I'll register the washer and dryer and ... find my headphones.

Eep.

What went before THREE: Ready to go cast pods. As you can see, I found my headphones, and it doesn't matter that I need a haircut.

What went before FOUR: Aaaand back.

The podcast is Blasters and Blades and best guess is that it will air +/-May 30. They'll let me know when, and then I'll let you know when.

I had a good time. Trooper helped out on some of the hard questions, and now I'm going to go find a glass of wine.

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Tuesday. Sunny, breezy, and pleasant. Trooper insisted that I wake up at 5:00, but I overruled him, since I didn't get to bed until midnight. Still got up earlier than I wanted.

Breakfast was chicken salad and grapes. Drank my first mug of tea on the deck in the shade of my Awesome! New! Chair!, then cleaned up a pile of leaves that had accumulated in a corner of the deck near Steve's grill, which is another thing I've got to decide what to do about, 'cause I ain't grilling nothin'. OTOH, I do have extra propane cylinders, and I guess it might be useful in the coming apocalypse.

So, today, I need to make a plan regarding how to weed the garden and, err, do same. It looks like the morning, when the sun is falling thick and rich into my office would be the best time to hit the garden out front. I really need to keep on this so it doesn't get overgrown again.

NOTE TO SELF: HAT! No, really. HAT.

What else? Writing. Didn't get any writing done yesterday, which was disappointing. And also calling the other glass studio in Corning. And ASL homework. One's duty to the cats. The watch wants me to walk, but it's getting weeds pulled instead. That's looking like a full day, right there, not to mention I'll need to eat at least one more meal. Pfui.

What's everybody doing today that's fun?

Today's blog post title brought to you by Modern English, "I Melt with You"

Pics below of aforesaid Awesome chair, and also my breakfast visitor:

Wednesday. Anything Can Happen Day, but we took care of that last night.

This is a quick post before I go off to the Arts Center for a change-of-venue Deep Writing Session.

So, first! Thanks to everyone for your congratulations.

1. Yes, I will be attending BaltiCon.

2. Yes, I'll try to schedule a Friends of Liad breakfast, lunch, tea, something. I obviously don't have a schedule yet -- except that I'll be busy at Opening Ceremonies -- so I can't say when yet. It's good to recall here that BaltiCon is at the end of May and we are presently at the end of February.

3. Yes, I know there are typos and errors in the press release. It's BSFS's press release and Fair Play says that you use the press release as it comes in.

4. Nope, I don't know how I'm getting to Baltimore yet. The New! Improved! Plan! has me driving and hitting the Corning Glass Museum (remember that plan?) on my way home. This is probably the third or fourth plan I've had regarding travel since I knew I'd have to be in Baltimore.

5. No, the cats are Not Impressed. This is, after all, why so many writers have cats. They keep our egos in check.

That's the quick news from the Confusion Factory.

How's everybody doing this morning?

Couple of events of note, for those who like to listen to content:

On Friday, Part One of a far-ranging interview with Steve Miller was featured on the Baen Free Radio Hour.  Here's your link.

Over the weekend, Steve posted a new podcast on Patreon, for patrons only, in which he reads "Cutting Corners."  Here's your link.

Also!  "Block Party," a Liaden Universe® story by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, is still available to be read -- for free! -- at Baen.com.  Here's that link.

"Degrees of Separation," the prequel to "Block Party," will be published as Degrees  of Separation:  Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 27.  You may preoder the ebook now from Amazon , BN, iBooks, Kobo, and Tolino.

On January 15, you may also purchase the ebook edition from Baen.

Sometime RSN, you will either be able to pre-order or outright purchase the paper edition, from Amazon only.

Neogenesis, the 21st novel of the Liaden Universe® was published on January 2, and is available in hardcover, ebook, and audio editions.

If you read the novel and want to talk about it, there is a spoiler thread here.

Also! If you've read Neogenesis, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, Goodreads, or another site where readers read.  Thanks!

For those local(ish) to Waterville, Maine, Steve Miller and Sharon Lee will be signing books and talking trash at the Children's Book Cellar, 52 Main Street, in Waterville, on Saturday, January 13, from 1-3:30 pm.  If you missed your shot at getting a personalized copy from Uncle Hugo, this is your Second Chance.  Call the store ((207) 872-4543) before our signing, or during it, and we will personalize a book for you.

Peripheral to this, Uncle Hugo does still have some signed copies of Neogenesis in stock.  Here's the link.

In convention news:  Sadly, we will not be attending Boskone this year.  We will, however, be Author Guests of Honor at MidSouthCon, in March.

In writing news:  Yep, still working on Fifth of Five, which refuses all titles suggested to it, and shrugs off any attempt to title-shame it.  I told you it was being a tough book.

I think that catches us all up on the business side of things.

Everybody stay healthy.

We buried Socks this afternoon...

It's a gorgeous, sunny, breezy day and all the things that grow in the ground are scrambling to get with the program, to be fruitful and multiply in Maine's brief slice of summer.  I need to go down to Agway in a couple minutes and pick up some stuff.  It had best be today; there'll be no getting near the place tomorrow.

This morning was the hearing test.  It is as I had feared, I've lost considerable amount of hearing at the high end of the scale, the same amount of loss in both ears, which, yes, does kind of point at all those dictating devices littering my misspent youth as the culprits.

We -- that being the medical "we" -- are not of the opinion that the loss is yet significant enough for us to be talking hearing aids.  The plan at the moment is to retest in a year and see where we are then.

This is the first time I've had a hearing test since elementary school, so I guess I subconsciously expected something like the test we took then, and, indeed, it was kind-of something like that.

First, I was locked into a soundproof room, headphones on, while the tech in the next room played a series of noises, first through the left headphone and then through the right.  I had a button in my hand and every time I heard a sound, I was to press the button.  The . . .interesting and terrifying thing about this was that I could tell when the tones had gone out of my range.  The tones I could hear came in a rapid, distinct, rhythm.  There I'd be, punching my button like a mad, button-punching woman, and suddenly?  I heard only silence, for a looooong time, before the next tone that I could hear sounded and I punched the button again.

I'm not sure I have words adequate to the task of explaining how eerie it is to know that sounds were being made which were completely beyond my ken.  Like watching television with the sound off, but much more disturbing.

The next test, with different earphones, was. . .even eerier. The tech in the next room would say a word -- again testing first the left ear, then the right -- and I would repeat the word as I heard it.  There, too, I hit a blank wall where I knew, by the elapsed time, that words were still being spoken in some place to which I no longer had access, but -- as the post-game wrap-up showed -- I also misheard a bunch of words with soft "th" "sh" sounds.  "POPCORN" was perfectly intelligible.  "Theft," not so much.

So, that.  Growing old is not for sissies.

As I believe mentioned elsewhere, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Our Stockholders Come First!) has kindly allowed us to know that they will be increasing our rate of protection (Nice liver you got there; be a shame if something happened to it) by just pennies under $140/month.  This brings our monthly payment to over $600 -- for an insurance policy that covers NOTHING.  We still have to pay all of our medical bills out of pocket; if we should ever hit the deductible, we would have already declared bankruptcy.  This is when you start thinking about playing Health Care Roulette -- dropping one individual's coverage in order to be sure the other's covered.  Can you hear the gods laughing?  Yeah, me, too.

But!  Thank ghod we don't have socialized medicine; that would be worse.

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I have been remiss in pointing out that Baen has been running a cover model contest, in which you can vote for your favorite Manly Man from among a field of twenty-three.  Here's the contest, with pictures.  The amusing thing is that the contest went over yesterday, according to the posted rule, and the winner appears to be!

Rys Lin pen'Chala.

Also, I have seen things, as I have gone up and down the intertubes.  Interesting things.

Like. . .

Rare baby lemur born at the Baltimore Zoo

The entire photographic archives of unknown photographer Vivien Maier have been purchased at auction, and will/are for the first time available for display.

Get a look at a Parisian apartment that has been left untouched for 70 years.

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Progress on Carousel Seas

43,713/100,000 OR 43.75% complete

"Nothin' the matter with your voice. If you feel like you gotta have an instrument, we just hand you a tambourine, and you shake it when the mood strikes."