I had the medical proceedure I have been dreading. Just about to go through the door to the room, my dh comes back from wherever he disappeared to say kid three was in the Grey Nuns Hospital and wanted me. So I asked them to make it snappy. Bite my tongue off the next time some stupid remark like that comes out of my mouth. Part of the apparatus broke off inside me as they were in the process. After goodly searching, they did not have a spare bit so had to cobble together what they had with surgical scissors. We will not discuss the rest of this mess. The thing got done.

Now feeling half dead, we fly up to the city to see the poor kid. Yes, today was the day my grandbaby died. She wasn't far along and didn't know she was pregnant, but this is the kid who has always wanted children. She was devastated, as was her guy. I had a quite word with him about making her get a new doctor, as this was his fault. He told her she had a grumbling apendix and booked her in for an ultrasound next week. I don't think being quicker would have saved the baby, but it would have spared my kid a night of agony with heartbreak to follow.

She wanted her mom to hold her while she cried. I have never felt so sad before. This is one thing I can't make better. We had a talk after about losing first babies, which is more frequent than people think, because it is not something a person will talk about. I never did, not to the kids before now. Like her, I was not far along and didn't know until it happened. It was the night before my aunt's 70th birthday party and we eventually turned up when I had gotten the pain under control. My parents told us off for being late, despite the circumstances. We should have been more considerate. I didn't share this with my kid, just the part about the baby. I think the kid feels a tad less devastated. Like me, she has a caring partner.

Apparently, someone has said something to tick someone off enough to do this. OMG, I am not sure if this place even HAS a hotel. If they do, an igloo might be preferable. And I wouldn't be bragging too much about the scenic views, because this is Baffin Island in WINTER and it is in the land of the midnight sun, which in turn means daylight is a scarce commodity in the longest part of the year.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100202/canada/canada_us_g7_iqaluit

ROTFL. I would love to be a fly on the wall when these guys turn up without snowsuits, healy-hansens, mits, snowboots...

Today has not all been shitty. We had an amusing moment with Frank the Thieving Cat. I must have left my office door open last night as I was greeted by chaos this morning. One of the cats had gotten in, routed through a grocery bag, where I have a few odds and ends stored from the kitchen reno that I haven't yet found a home for. And in the bag was cat nip in a sealed bag.

Well it was once sealed. The culprit had done a good job of biting through the plastic and had liberally spread the contents, but a goodly bit did remain in the bag. So I decided to leave it to see who would think he could come in for a second sniffing high.

Went down to get lunch, leaving the door open and returned to find Frank the Cat, on his back with his feet waving in the air and his head lying on the opened baggie. Was we high? Oh yes we was. As high as a kite. I took the bag away and then he rolled and luxuriated on the bits on the rug. Guilty as charged.

Post script: The dh has just looked up cat nip and come up with this definition. A recreational substance for feline enjoyment. LOL

The dh has been on a mission to convert me to this horrible no salt product that tastes like salt. Ugh. I remember way back when that his mother also went on this kick for a product that turned out to be quite detrimental to health. Anyhow, he was going on and on about how 'we' should stop buying salt and get this expensive substitute.

As it happened, this was one of the rare occasions when I was wearing my glasses and I could see the label on this product he was extolling. Okay, so the contents read potassium, which is K in the periodic table and that is one up from Na, which is sodium,(salt) and in the same family. For any non chemists, this is the product that burns with a violet flame when water is added. Fine, so it is stronger than salt, yet in the same group. And if salt is bad for a person for a particular reason.......?

I did a bit of research and found that although potassium is an essential element to life, it is also responsible for causing kidney failure if taken in abundance, probably as in using it to be a salt substitute in all things. The very next time the dh suggested we ditch all salt in favor of his pet product I enlightened him.

Strangely, the salt substitute seems to have vanished entirely.

So what does it for you? Where is the point you would cease to read something you had bought? Cardbord characters, lack of setting, plot holes, lack of tension, zero emotion? What is the biggie here? Why would you stop reading?

Update on kid 2. Her car was written off. Not surprising, since she side-swiped a truck, which tend to be a tad solid. Yes, her insurance would have covered for a rental, but she has stolen my van before and feels comfortable driving it. No, we don't know how much she will be dinged for her claim.

Ironically, this is the kid claiming I am a bad driver. I have never dinged anything. I have never gotten a ticket for anything. In addition to this, I was required to take, and passed, effortlessly, an advanced driver's course to drive fleet vehicles. Who has two speeding tickets and one major ding in the space of three months? Not me. Grins.

My primary reasons for changing vehicles? They died as a result of kid abuse, either while learning to drive, or subsequent borrowing. I am hoping my new van has finished kid duty. I kinda like it.

I posted about three paras on Webooks for their competition and just out of interest, showed the dh this extract, on site, without my name attached. It was the opening of Angelus, which some of you have read. It also did very well on Deep Genre.

His take? Absolute, disjointed crap. Grins. No. I will not tell him. He doesn't read sci fi from choice, could never get into Dune and only briefly dallied with small books fantasy written by Moorcock. One man's meat is another man's poison.

I have downloaded Corel Word Perfect in an attempt to open the files where I think my lost chapters are hiding. It was a free, thirty day trial and I subsequently found it doesn't support the older format the files were saved with. Which means I can't open them. Which means I have laid myself open to be spammed to death for nothing.

Well I suppose I may as well go take the program off my pc, since it is of no use to me. Yes, I see it advertises a file fixes, which is shareware and not from Corel. Not interested. Not since the dh downloaded Billy Bob's registry cleaner last year and wiped his memory. He had to reboot the thing from scratch and was not a happy camper.

So I guess my next option is to actually rewrite the chapters. I suppose I had better find the various synopsis for this story, assuming they aren't Corel files, which I can't open. Yes, I am a trifle irritated.

So what is it? I write in the sci fi/fantasy genre and what is the word length for that sort of book? From my investigation, I have found it is in the region of 70k to 120k, but not over. 120k is on the very top end and anything less is better.

I have had an interesting conversation with someone who has read a post on query shark, to the effect that 130k is ok for fantasy. Given the state of the economy and how it impacts on the publishing industry, is this the case? Am I wrong here? Are two thick novels as good as a proporsition on a bookshelf as five small ones?

My dh maintains that a thick novel would put him off just by looking at it, on the basis that it would be full of fluff. Note that this is the guy who could not read LOTR or Dune. He got overwhelmed with the peripheries. He also has devoured short sci fi and fantasy books as if they had gone out of fashion. He likes the genres, but comes to a wall when faced with a big book.

So my question to the published and unpublished friend is how big is too big? What is an acceptable length for a break out novel?

We have three inside cats, who are pampered, and one poor outside cat that we cannot catch to bring inside. He appeared in a dilapidated state last spring and we have been feeding him ever since. We see him there, at the window, and then get our cue to put out food. He is now living under our front doorstep and peeks in through the window when he hears us, but runs away when we open the door to put out his food.

The choices some people make really bothers me. This sweet boy has been declawed. He should never be outside because he cannot defend himself, and yet there he is. The factoid that he is so shy of people tells me a lot about the sort of life he must now live.

Cat, our outside boy, for want of a better name and because he answers to it, is now coming out of his shell and exhibiting individual tastes, since he now has the luxury of not starving. He likes xmas turkey a lot, but he is not so keen on Whisker's biscuits. He prefers Friskies. He does not, however, like the bits in Friskies wet food and picks that out to scatter on my doorstep. The gravy is a dim and distant memory.

One day I hope I can convince Cat that we are not bad people and that he can have a loving indoor home, where he will be protected and cared for. I wouldn't even mind if he wanted to live outdoors in the summer, but our climate is not such that he should be forced to endure this in winter. Why, oh why do people have to be like this to their helpless pets? We have a no kill humane society to take in pets people can no longer house. Why chuck a helpless little guy out? It makes me so mad. At least he is beginning to reassert his own wants, wishes and needs. It is a first step.

Air Canada is well known for its appalling service, whether this be failed connections, inedible food or lost luggage. Lost luggage is such a common occurence that I now travel with a change of underwear, bathroom products and anything else I would not be able to do without in my carry-on bag. I do have to concede that they will give a victim up to $300 if the missing bags are not produced within a certain time. The key words here are up to, as the full miserable amount needs vitriolic argument to acquire. The amount is a joke considering the cost of clothes, unless one is willing to shop at a thrift store for replacements.

It was with some amusement that I read in the news that they have managed to surpass themselves and had lost the Stanley Cup en route. While they did explain to the official traveling, (he thought), with the cup, that they hadn't really lost it, this doesn't alter the fact that it was not present to deplane with the rest of the luggage. The cup is about half the size of a grown man and is enormous, and they lost it. Lost is the definition of being unable to produce something at its designated destination. The cup and its keeper were supposed to make an appearance at a charity venue in Vancouver. He made it but the cup did not.

Apparently, it was rerouted back to Toronto because that is where the Stanley Cup lives, irrespective of its travel tag. It was not 'really lost' according to Air Canada, because it was an over-sized item and therefore specially tagged, so they knew where it was at all times. It is nice that they know this, but it beggars the question of why it didn't arrive where it was supposed to arrive if this was the case.

I see no hope for my normal-sized luggage if these guys can lose something the size of the cup. Mmm, wonders if the $300 would have covered the base?

Ok, so I made a cat post today and I got one comment fairly soon after I posted. It arrived in my inbox from helloyou02, who I do not know. What I got from this phoney user was a list of products that this company would like to sell me over the internet.

I followed the thread back and note this user says they are from China. Maybe they are. I could say I was from the spiral nebular and only a few people would know different for sure.

So, I put this user on screen and then I pressed the spam button. I am hoping I will not hear from this user again.

Note to helloyou02 if you are still watching my lj. Force something in front of my face and it will ensure I will never buy those articles, either from you, or anyone else. You have invaded my privacy and I will now have come to detest the items you wished to sell. And just for you, there is a suitable acronym. FOAD.

I was deeply engrossed, writing a short last night when R decided to go to bed. I didn't notice that he hadn't put Puss Puss in the basement until I had finished and was about to follow him. Grrrs.

I should explain that Frank the Cat and Puss Puss are both alpha males. This does not make for a happy mix and they cannot be left unsupervised or yowling, posturing, swearing, and substantial fur loss over my house will occur.

Choice one: Do five laps around the house chasing Puss Puss to put him in the basement, where he does NOT want to go. (I don't sleep well and have a big problem getting off in the first place. Choice one is a great way to get all night insomnia.)

Choice two: Frank the Cat is lurking under the coffee table, waiting for an opportunity to ambush Puss Puss, who is under an occasional table. Frank is remarkably untidy and has left his tail sticking out right by my foot. Now this has become a no brainer. Grins. Grabs tail and extracts Frant the pissed-off Cat.

I now have only one option and that is to break my own rules. I cannot put Frank in the basement as that is Puss Puss' domain and there would be even more ill-feelings. So, I take Frank up and dump him on our Princess and Pea bed.

Frank: I is not allowed on here. She who must be obeyed yells at me. She put me here. Maybe I should purr, just a bit to let her know I is here? (Small purr)

Frank: She has settled down. He is asleep. Can I sleep here? Cats aren't allowed on this beds. But I is here. (Paddles about finding multiple comfy spots). She knows I am here. I just walked on her and she didn't yell. Oh, I can STAY. (Revs up purr engine to full capacity). PURRR PURRRRR PURRRRRRRR.

The whole bed is now vibrating with fluffy happiness. Frank is seriously competing with R, who is trying to lift the roof off the rafters with his snores. I get to sleep around three-thirty. LOL.

Over the course of a wonderful weekend, a topic came up in conversation, and that was the cyclical nature of time. An aftershock of that just hit me this morning with a memory of lost treasures.

What is valuable and what is not? When does asset become liability? When tastes change. I was very young when my grandmother died and don't remember much about it, except the crying. I don't remember my father and my very much older cousin Peter clearing out her house, but I heard about it later. This was around and about the time my father set up his interior design business and sold a few antiques on the side, since he had room in the shop and they were all the rage then.

Everyone had gone crazy for antiques and not for the look, necessarily, but for the 'value', which had to increase, because, you know, they are antiques and they will get more valuable as they are getting older. Ok, so this was the feel of the era and that is when I learned that my father and cousin had taken a wonderful Victorian chaise lounge into the back yard and torched it after grandma died. It was, apparently, a full size one and neither of them wanted it or wanted the bother of disposing of it as it wasn't 'worth' anything. Now he was crying because he could have sold that for thousands had he held on to it.

Recently, clearing out my dad's appartment, I had a similiar decision to his. He had two pieces of antique furniture and I found to my astonishment, the market had fallen like a lead ballon. He had other, smaller antiques, but those were the major ones. When I had the assessor around, which was necessary for probate, the consequent figures were quite astonishing. In effect, I was sitting on a pile of junk that no one wanted. I found this hard to believe, so took some pictures of the furniture and hired a cab to antiques central, a town that used to ooze with such shops, only to find a single one was left. Ok, so this is this era and people doen't like antiques, so they have no value. I do, however.

I had these two pieces shipped and let go the rest to the house clearer, who did the clearing for the contents alone, so he must have thought he found something. It wasn't much, that I know as I had the assessor's report. Maybe the guy thought along with me, that he would sit on the antique vase he spied until it went up in money? I don't know because I am hanging on to my beaureau and chest because I like them and always have.

See my point about time in cycles? Perhaps when my girls come to clear out my home they will find the antiques are back in fashion. I hope they will keep them just because.

This can not be regarded as cooking as I do not cook for fun. I cook because we occassionally need to eat. Bread making is my kind of cooking. Measure out ingredients and throw them in the breadmaker, select program and go away until it squeaks to tell me it is done.

This time, I made my version of onion bread, which R likes a lot. It is a standard white bread recipe, programed to rapid cook, since I have no patience. To the ingredients, I chuck in a couple of handfulls of dried onion flacks. Are these measured? Um no. That would require extra effort. It tastes good and it doesn't have any nasty muck in it, like preservatives, etc.

I haven't costed it out, being lazy, but I will do, as I am about to start my second large bag of white bread flour. That was just over ten bucks and we got the breadmaker before xmas. Given that we would normally buy speciality bread for around $1.78, I think it might be about even. Anyhow, I will make a note out of how many I get out of this next bag.

I sold a short. Does happy dance. Dies and goes to heaven. And it is a paying market. 'Faints'. It was 'The Hurdy Gurdy Man' and they are going to do both electronic and print.

Swoon, swoon, swoon. I is soooo happy.

I need a haircut, as in NEED a haircut. I have been growing the current mess out since October so I thought I would just drop in for a cut today.(They doen't take appointments.) This was just after two and then next slot was for four thirty. Nah, too long. So sneaky me asks when the individual that made a mess of my hair the last time would be in next week. Groan. Nine to five all week until Thursday, when it is twelve to eight.

I don't like going out in the morning. I like to get up around six and start in on writing. Taking a break is fine around two. I suppose I will have to bite the bullet as I am not going to end up looking like something escaped from Sesame Street again. Fortunately, I did have a picture taken for my driver's license after a really good cut, so I can use this for a template with one of the younger girls, who are brilliant and listen. The young girls also do not try to pull my hair out by the roots when they are cutting and styling. Imagine that?

I have an idea that the crabby individual has the hots for my dh and this is why she gives me bad cuts. Whatever. I will probably swap locations after this time, as I am up to having a free haircut on their frequent customer plan.

In the course of my search for my lost chapters, I came across the complete manuscript, in notepad form, of my first book. I am now looking forward to spring for more than a return to heat and flowers. I am looking forward to having a bonfire.

Yes, I am quite serious. This dreadful 'thing' must be obliterated from the face of the Earth. It is not enough to send it to a landfill. Some of it might escape and contaminate some innocent person's mind. It must be charred beyond ash, and then I will dig it into my veggie patch, where it will serve a more useful purpose of providing nutrients for my plants.