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I've some gifts that make me happy and a few that make me sad
So the first part of today was terrible. I made my way back to Somerville and collapsed with my cats. Autolycus burrowed under the quilt with me and curled against my chest, washing my face with his delicate rough tongue, making my ribs vibrate with his earthshaking purr. Not once did he bite my wrist, though he would make little remonstrating mrrp!s when I sleepily slowed my petting of his soft, soft fur. Eventually he fell asleep under my arm and I fell asleep, too. I woke when Hestia, discovering her brother not immediately apparent to the eye, correctly diagnosed his presence under the quilt and pounced, whereupon Autolycus shot out from under the quilt like a grapefruit seed and Hestia settled contentedly into the vacant patch for just long enough to prove that she could take it or leave it. Her winter coat has grown in much thicker and coarser than her summer fur. She looks like she's put a fur coat on; all of a sudden she enters a room with swagger. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel has started calling her "little black bear," sometimes in Russian. Autolycus is just even silkier than usual.
I just got an e-mail from my editor at Aqueduct Press: Rich Horton reviewed Ghost Signs in the January 2016 issue of Locus.
It took me even longer to get around to Sonya Taaffe's collection Ghost Signs, but it's not to be missed. Taaffe is probably my favorite poet in the genre, and the book collects a great many of her recent poems, but also includes one wonderful long story, "The Boatman's Cure". The prose is particularly wonderful—full of striking metaphor, with a driving, nearly desperate rhythm, and the story is original and powerful, about a woman who can see and perhaps free ghosts. She seeks out an apparently quite ancient ghost, for obscure reasons that are slowly revealed to lie in her difficult past, especially her relationship with her dead sister—and of course her sister's ghost.
That really makes me happy.
derspatchel has started calling her "little black bear," sometimes in Russian. Autolycus is just even silkier than usual.I just got an e-mail from my editor at Aqueduct Press: Rich Horton reviewed Ghost Signs in the January 2016 issue of Locus.
It took me even longer to get around to Sonya Taaffe's collection Ghost Signs, but it's not to be missed. Taaffe is probably my favorite poet in the genre, and the book collects a great many of her recent poems, but also includes one wonderful long story, "The Boatman's Cure". The prose is particularly wonderful—full of striking metaphor, with a driving, nearly desperate rhythm, and the story is original and powerful, about a woman who can see and perhaps free ghosts. She seeks out an apparently quite ancient ghost, for obscure reasons that are slowly revealed to lie in her difficult past, especially her relationship with her dead sister—and of course her sister's ghost.
That really makes me happy.
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
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Do you want anything small and distracting, like photos of other cats which are also cute, or short interesting pieces to read online?
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Sure! I like interesting things. Thank you for asking.
I really like my cats.
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Also, hooray for cats.
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Thank you! I was halfway through what was going to be a much more equivocal post when the e-mail arrived.
I need to get pictures of Hestia the Bear Cat.
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Loved hearing about your cat time. A cat's tender ministrations are extra special because cats seem so insouciant most of the time. Also a cat putting on a thick fur coat: very cute.
There was a tiny girl-child in the post office, with very fine, scant blond hair pulled tight into two very tiny pony tails, and wearing a tiny-mini pea coat, that she kept on wanting to shed, and which her young mom (turned out to be a high school classmate of Little Springtime) kept on telling her to keep on. Hestia is in no way fine and blond, and I doubt she shows signs of wanting to take off her winter coat, but the way you describe her, I can imagine her doing it, when she feels like it. But I think it was swagger that made me recall this toddler. She didn't exactly swagger, but she had lots of confidence.
Here's to a day in which no parts are terrible: maybe Tuesday will be that day.
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Thank you!
Here's to a day in which no parts are terrible: maybe Tuesday will be that day.
Today was not at all that day, unfortunately, but it did contain some very nice parts, so that is what I am trying to hold on to.
I like your description of the Hestia-like toddler.
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Excellent, excellent review. May it inspire new readers.
Nine
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Thank you.