Eagles Over the Kennebec

 So, here we are at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, having been ably shifted by the efficient and good-natured crew from J. Goodwin Enterprises, who exclaimed over and over again about what a pretty house and yellow!  Yellow looked so nice, and bright (does no one have yellow rooms in Maine?)  The crew having got us out of the old digs and into the new in record time, we were in good time to pick the cats up from their day at the spa.

We got all four carriers into the living room at the same time, and opened the gates so that the cats could emerge together and commence exploring their exciting! new! environs!

Belle and Sprite immediately dove under the sofa.  Trooper made a run for the cellar door, which is in approximately the same location in this house as the last.  Scrabble. . .Scrabble glanced about her, muttered something and proceeded to  take the Grand Tour -- over and over again, as if memorizing the Location of Everything  (which is going to keep her busy for a while, as the Location of Everything is in a state so fluid it puts fluids to the blush).

A little later in the evening, Belle joined Scrabble in her walking about (this house is in the shape of a lopsided U, with Steve's office at the upper end of the tall arm, and my office at the upper end of the shorter arm, so there's plenty of hallway to cover, not to mention the rooms themselves).

Later in the evening, as we were sharing our first glass of wine in the New Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, Princess Jasmine Sprite joined us and mounted the Cat Castle, from whence she frowningly surveyed her new domain.

Trooper did not join us.  A short trip down to the basement discovered him under the stair, which didn't seem alarming, so we left him to it, and retired.

He and Belle both joined us in bed sometime during the night, and Scrabble checked in a couple times.  Sprite was not in evidence.  This morning, we found out why.

Short form is that she had found an ingress from the Goblin Kingdom in! our! basement!  Behind! the! chimney! And! the! water! heater! And. . .AND?

She'd gotten stuck.

Steve and I (by which I of course mean Steve) took down a plywood wall in the new house today instead of unpacking, and then we gave the valiant princess a bath to get (some) of the ashes out of her fur.  She is now resting in what has become known as The Boy's Bathroom, and we hope she'll be feeling more the thing tomorrow.

In the meantime, we placed a call to our former neighbor, a contractor, and he will be walling off the road to the Goblin Kingdom, and also the chimney and the water heater.  A paw-proof door will be involved.

Promoting home improvements already.  What workers these cats are!

I managed, for the first time since last Monday, to get out of the house for my morning writing shift.  Today, I sampled the Waterville Library, which may be up for some award for the Noisiest Library in the State of Maine.  Initially, I went upstairs to the Maine History Room, where I had been as alone as a writer could wish to be on a previous occasion.  Today, the History Room was empty, but there was an Intervention of some sort going on in the room directly across the hall, and both of the women involved sport Hearty Farm Girl lungs.

I really didn't want to hear the personal business of the woman being counseled, so I went down one flight, to Non-fiction, and set up on a table by an air shaft/skylight.  This seemed ideal, except that the air shaft went right down into the librarians' office, and they were having a gossipfest.

I finally wound up writing on one of the low pillowed window seats between Maps and Non-fiction.

The bitter irony here is that I knew I didn't want to go to Winslow today, because they have a morning story hour, and Winslow is one, big, open concept library.  Waterville, I reasoned, would be quieter, because it's split up among four floors.

Hah.

Note to self:  put earplugs into work bag.

Despite it all, I did get some work done -- 2,174 by the time the dust settled during evening revisions.

My plan had been to hit a library again early tomorrow, but on the way home (cue sinister music) the muffler went kaplooie (or, more accurately, it went brumrumRUMrumrum).  I arrived home and asked Steve if he would follow me back into town, to the garage.  He said he would, but he had some things to take care of first, so while he was taking care of things, I decided to upgrade the LibreOffice on my desktop.

This is a relatively simple operation, but it became fraught, because of Chrome misnaming a file with a .torrent at the end, which, as you may imagine threw Windows into a screaming tizzy.  It wouldn't let me install the file, the LibreOffice site does not make it easy to find 3.6.5 now that 4.0 has been released, and it was all just Much Harder than it needed to be.

Then someone was wrong on the internet.  Sigh.

So, Steve and I ate lunch, and motored out to the garage, dropped Binjali off, hit Staples for a laptop mouse to replace mine that had died months ago, but I just remembered it today at the library, and then picked up a couple of vanilla milkshakes, because it had suddenly become That Kind of Day.

We returned home to questions from the accountant in re our tax information; someone was still wrong on the internet; and I finally got my editing done.  I have notes for the next scene, so that's ready for expansion tomorrow, which I will do, if I have to sit on the damn porch in the rain.


I'm not if this will work, but David Mattingly posted a video of Times Square on Saturday night.  Here's the link which may or may not work

Also, Waterville and nearby Maine folk take note!  There will be a Steampunk Tea, sponsored by the Waterville Public Library and Cirque du Geek cordially invite you to attend a Steampunk Tea Party at Selah Tea Cafe on Maine Street in Waterville. The festivities will include a costume contest, Steampunk games, and more!

Join us for tea, cookies, and some Steampunk fun! Attending in costume is encouraged, but not required.

Another link that may or may not work, to Cirque du Geek's facebook page

And here's Selah Tea's webpage

Sigh.

I'd blocked out all day to work with Carousel Tides, except for drafting an InfoDump first thing.

Unfortunately, in the process of drafting the InfoDump, it came to light that something I had thought kinzel had done and he had thought I had done -- um, hadn't gotten done at all.

So, eight hours of intensive keyboarding later, it's done. This would have been sooooo much easier on the physical plant had it been spread out over a couple of days.

For those who have been following the Saga of the Stained Glass Dragon -- it is currently with the good folks at the stained glass studio, who are optimistic regarding the possibility of repair.

Going to go rest my hands, now...