Eanna

Cousteau, aka Smudge.
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Hissypalooza continues at my house, but no-one has killed anyone else yet. I'm thinking I'll rename Smudge "Cousteau", because he likes to play in water. I discovered this last night when he tried to pull my swimsuit out of the basin where it was soaking. He especially likes little drips and trickles of water, but he'll splash around in a partly-filled sink too.
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Stardust County being on indefinite hold, I'm beginning to think about projects beyond, or maybe in the meantime. I've got a bunch of songs, like "Fate", that have never been recorded, but audiences frequently ask if I have on CD. At the very least I should get out to some local studio and record scratch tracks so I have some kind of record. I've also been writing bits of poetry - mostly floating around the house unfinished on scraps of paper. But yesterday I mostly spent the day reading and playing the piano, which isn't accomplishing much but wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday.
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My DSL connection has been slow as molasses for about 2-3 weeks now. It's because it runs over the phone lines. The phone reception in this house has always been borderline, and it gets worse when the monsoons start. Qwest has repeatedly told me that can't do anything about it; I even had a workman out here who tried to reduce the interference on the line but said basically that the switchbox for the neighborhood only had so many high-quality connectors in it, and I didn't have one of them. This would be understandable if I lived in some remote rural area, but this is the middle of one of the largest cities in America, so the media keep trumpeting! My phone shouldn't sound like the signal's being run along a cow fence! It's looking like the only fix for the DSL problem is to switch to cable, and that means switching ISPs, updating all my contact info... blech. Stay tuned.
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If you missed it yesterday, you can catch an encore performance of my Radio Freedom show at 3:00 MST on Radio Free Phoenix. (Remember, AZ doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, so we're the same time as California.)
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Smudge is cloistered in the spare room. He seems to have forgotten what a litterbox is for. He and Peaseblossom have exchanged preliminary hisses. I think I'll wait until tomorrow to let him out into the rest of the house.
Blogger's photo upload isn't working, so no cute pictures until tomorrow either.
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When I said I was OK before I really wasn't, but now I think I finally am. Saturday I picked up Omega's ashes at the vet's, and drove down to Friends for Life to drop off his unused medicine and dry food. I still miss him horribly, especially first thing in the morning, when he used to dance on my pillow and burble loudly about how happy he was. (It would help if things would pick up a bit at work, so I didn't have time to brood. And let me add as a footnote, scheduling a home rennovation project in the middle of this was a spectacularly bad idea.) Peaseblossom, who spent about a week of nothing but lying on the bed and crying for me to pet her, is back to her normal activity level, hunting bugs and staring out the window at birds and the neighborhood cats, but still gets quite lonely during the day judging by the decibels when I get home.

Keith and Carrie have had an abandoned cat hanging out in their yard for a couple months; he seems good-tempered and friendly and if he checks out at the vet I'll be bringing him home tomorrow to see how well he gets along with Peasie.
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Caffeine Blues

Today, since I was working from home and didn't have to drive anywhere, I decided to have my monthly coffee. Since I've been down lately, I decided to have a few cups of coffee. By the time I was halfway through my second cup I could feel my nerves jangling, my vocal chords clemching and my jaw muscles tightening. I also felt more focused on my work, more alert, and basically more like myself than I have in a long time.

Need I point out how pathetic this is?
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Brief moment of fangirliness as I must say how mad excellent the last scene of tonight's Battlestar Galactica was. It's criminal that skiffy shows are automatically passed over Emmies for their scriptwriting.
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The living room is now painted. "Pumpkin Butter". You know, whever you choose a bold color for a room, there's always an "oh my god" moment when you first see the color on the walls. Well, maybe not you, but me anyway. PB turned out to be more... orange in person than it looked as a small swatch. My first thought was: the living room is made of.... cheese.
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Grrrrrrrrrrrr, trying to get through to Earthlink Tech Support is like something very bad that I don't have the brain cells left to describe after having gone through it. I finally managed to get through and spent an hour with someone in India who seemed to know just a little bit more than your average read-it-off-the-script cubeslave and my DSL is now running like it should be, though I still don't know how it got hosed up in the first place.

However, this meant I was still at the house this morning when the painters called and said they'd had a bunch of cancellations and could they come paint the livingroom on Thursday and Friday? Yes, this Thursday and Friday.

So I'm going to be off pulling books out of bookcases and stuffing them in boxes.
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What does a songwriter do when she's good and depressed? Writes a song, of course! It's called "All Good Things", and it's no "Tears in Heaven", but I should be able to polish it and sing it in public without too much embarrassment.
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Drove out to the Radio Free Phoenix studios this afternoon to record my patter for the Radio Freedom show. Guest DJs get to spin 15 tracks of their choosing, and I chose to do a show of mostly filk, with a few near-filk tracks thrown in for good measure. It was tough coming up with a set list that had a good variety, represented artists from around the country (and world) well, and worked as a coherant show. So I had to leave some of my favorites out. So sue me. (Or better yet, get your own guest spot - Andy is always looking for new people for Radio Freedom.) I think I got a good mix though. My show will air Saturday July 30 at 5:00 PM and Sunday July 31 at 3:00 PM.
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Yesterday Pete & Donna hosted another pool party, but we pretty much wound up huddled inside with the A/C, talking about places we'd really rather live than Phoenix. Maybe it's age; I remember living through worse summers than this, even walking around the ASU campus that year we hit 122, and the heat didn't bother me as much as it does now. Plus, after 22 years I've developed all the requisite allergies. I don't know, I'm just tired of watching xeric plants die in my yard. Southwest Yard and Garden on channel 8 always seems to profile places 10-20 degrees cooler than the Valley, and it seems like such a nice concept, planting something and just expecting it to grow.
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If reading someone else's maudlin ramblings about their cat is not your cup of tea, then you should skip today's post.

Actually, I'm doing OK now, considering, and Peaseblossom seems to be doing OK, though she's more affectionate than usual and gets rather wound up in the evening without another cat to bounce off of. What made the past six weeks so difficult was that Omega rallied several times, and his last rally seemed like it was the real deal.

On Sunday I went through my old photos and used KodakGallery to put together a book of reminiscenses. Of course the day after I sent the order in, I started remembering anecdotes that I'd left out. Like the time Omega got flypaper stuck to his butt, and I had to coat him in margarine to get the goo out of his fur. Or how he used to drape himself over the monitor of my first computer and try to catch the bouncing ball when I played Arkanoid. Or his running-through-wet-cement stunt when I was getting the floor redone in the spare room. Come to think of it, it's amazing he managed to live for almost 17 years.

It's a little too soon to be thinking about adopting another cat, but if I do decide to, it'll have to be well before my Australia trip in December. Preferably before the convention-and-festival season starts in the fall. But after I get the living room painted, so I'm trying to get that scheduled up tonight.

Thanks to to folks who sent cards or otherwise expressed their sympathies.
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Isn't it convenient that religious extremists always find a way to excuse themselves for violating their own religious tenets?

I'm seriously considering going to London for the Olympics now.
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Here's what I'm talking about. Some sixty-odd years ago, my mother discovered that, due to an error in adoption papers drawn up when she was two years old, she wasn't an American citizen after all. At the time this was easily fixed; she and her sister took the citizenship exam and got sworn in.

Under today's draconian laws, both my mother and my aunt would have been deported.

Just like these kids. Tell me, what greater good does it serve to exile these star pupils who have never known any country other than the USA to a foreign country? What really steams me is that they've been begging Congress to step in and make an exception, but Congress has been far too busy with more important matters. Like passing a symbolic amemdment to ban a symbolic length of fabric from being desecrated by a symbolic act that usually takes place outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Nice to know that Congress has its priorities in the right place. For me to poop on!*

*Apologies to Triumph the insult comic dog. On second thought, after appearing in that godsawful rap video Triumph the insult comic dog should apologize to me.
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Here's a thoughtful piece from the Toronto Globe & Mail on charity, benefit concerts, and what makes a real difference in the world: The Education of Bob Geldof
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For some reason, I thought Penn & Teller were Canadian. Apparantly not. Penn Jillette's latest quote leads me to believe he's never been outside the U.S., nor taken a good look at Batman's costume. I'm not aware of any country that forces women to wear skin-tight grey leotards and utility belts.
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This weekend I drove up to the Canyon and spent a couple nights at the Yavapai Lodge. Man was the park packed. Fortunately the crowd thinned out considerably a short distance below the rim. I hiked down Bright Angel to Indian Gardens, then out to Plateau Point for a nice breeze (ravens playing on the thermals) and a great view of the River. I've wanted to hike out to that point ever since I first laid eyes on the trail from the Rim. Of course, that was mublety-something years ago and I wasn't in any shape to do it at the time. Apart from the ravens I saw condors, numerous other birds, some kind of goat or antelope, and the ubiquitous thieving squirrels. Met a National Guardsman on the way down, who shared his MRE with me at the Indian Gardens stop. It was meatloaf, but I thought it would be rude to refuse, especially since I'd asked if it was any good. On the way back up the hikers clustered into little knots moving from one scrap of shade to the next. "Heartbreak Hill" wasn't even all that bad, because the sun had moved far enough down the sky that it was all in shade! One gal on the trail started calling me Wonder Woman because I was doing this hike on my own; ya know, "hiking alone" on a trail that 200-300 people take each day is kind of an oxymoron.

Having done it, I can now say with authority that July is not the best time of year to do this hike. The toughest parts were below Three Mile Resthouse and out on the plateau, despite having the least grade; it was freaking HOT down there and not a stick of shade outside the immediate vicinity of the Indian Gardens oasis. I got back top in time for dinner, but a few minutes after sitting down to dinner my guts knotted and I had to beat a not-too-hasty retreat back to my room via the park tram.
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Saw some fire activity on my way up to the canyon; there were about 6 planes or so that banked over I-17 and turned back east, presumably fighting the Cave Creek Complex fire. From Sunset Point rest area there was a lot of visible smoke to the south, and also a plume off to the northeast that might have been the Lousy fire. I didn't see any smoke on the way back down to Phoenix, but just south of Anthem there were two guys trying to put out a small fire in the median, and of course everyone had to slow down to rubberneck.
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Omega is eating and drinking now, halelujiah! OK, so it's Peaseblossom's food he's eating, not his own special diet, but it's a step forward towards getting some flesh back on his bones and that's all I'm concerned about at the moment.
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