A Visit with Luna

I have been visiting little Miss Luna every couple of weeks in her new home. Her new mama, Kate, is as sweet as can be, and lets me come visit as often as I want to. I'm happy to report that Luna is absolutely blissed out her new home where she gets to be the only cat; she and Kate get along really well, and Luna hardly shows any of the behaviors that she had at my house. (Although she did get on the counter when Kate was away last week, and knock off a piece of pottery.)

When I got there today, I called for Luna and she came running right away. We did her "jump up on the stool and sit for treats" trick, and then just hung out. It is still tough to have to walk away, but seeing her so content reminds me of why I gave her up to a new home in the first place.

Here are a few pictures from today's visit.

under the table

WHAT?

Look at that face

Don't bother me with that camera, I'm killing this toy!

In other news, all of Mystic's recent blood tests came back looking good, and his x-rays didn't show the weird bump on his liver we saw the first time, so my vet is cautiously optimistic that it was just a fluke bacterial infection of the liver (which would still have killed him if we hadn't caught it). So I'm feeling *marginally* less paranoid than I was...

It still seems strange to only have three cats after having five for so long. I just redid the instructions for the cat sitters, and taking Minerva and Luna's names off the list made me kind of blue... On the other hand, it will be a much easier job for them, and that's something!

Feline Friday: A Luna and Angus Update

Happy Feline Friday all!

I figured I'd give y'all a quick update on Angus and Luna.

Angus's icky eye is *finally* much better, after four months and three vets. It was probably caused by a virus like the herpes virus that causes cold sores in people, so it may well come back at some point, and I'll still be putting ointment in his eye for a bit, but he is looking (and clearly feeling) much, much better.

The right eye (on the left in this picture) was swollen and inflamed.

I have mixed feelings about my Luna news. I found someone who is going to try adopting her--a lovely woman who is the friend of a friend, and who lost her own tortie two years ago and has no other cats. She's picking Luna up tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

If it works out, it will be a great thing for Luna, who at less than 2 and very active, shouldn't have to spend most of her days shut upstairs because she can't get along with Magic and Mystic. (Not to mention that getting up and down has been tough with my twisted knee, and I'm going to have guests upstairs for most of July and part of August.)

But I have to admit, it is breaking my heart to give her up. I've had her for 15 months, and I am very attached, of course. And when she's not being a holy terror, she is sweet and adorable. But I have to do what is best for her, and having the run of a house and someone to love her all day long will probably make her very happy. We'll see. I've told the woman that if Luna isn't happy, or if the cat drives her nuts, I will take Luna back. At least then I will know that I did everything I could. But I still haz a sad.

Luna on "her" stool. You can see the jar of treats where she got on the counter and knocked them onto the floor.

In non-cat news, look what I got from Berkley today!

ARCs fo Dangerously Charming!

Yes, that's a box of ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of DANGEROUSLY CHARMING! I didn't know if they were going to do ARCs for this book or not (they tend to do them at the beginning of a new series, and I wasn't sure if they considered this a new series or a continuation of the Baba Yaga series). I was really pleased to see that they had the cover photo too, since a lot of ARCs are just a white cover with the title printed on it. And let's face it, the cover photo is pretty cool :-)

I guess I'm going to have to do another giveaway now, huh?

Who wants one?

A Belated Weekend Report with Pictures

I meant to post this on Monday, but, well, MONDAY.

This was my weekend:
SATURDAY

I did some spring cleaning, including moving the Minerva altar from the living room to the bedroom (I have altar shelves in both rooms, and the living room one tends to be focused on whatever is going on right now--often whichever book I'm working on--and I thought that since Minerva spent most of her time in the bedroom, she'd rather be there) and changing the comforter cover from the winter one to the spring one. This was actually a pretty emotional endeavor, because it meant washing the last of Minerva's fur and smell off of the other comforter cover. On the other hand, it really needed washing, because the last weeks of her life she had been spitting medicine all over it. (She was NOT happy about taking meds.)
Here's the altar now--that little wooden box with her picture on top of it has her ashes in it. A lovely sympathy card from my friend Karen Rose Smith is to the left.

Here is the gorgeous spring comforter (which was made especially for me, along with the wall hanging above it, by one of the artists at The Artisans' Guild)

The same bed, with cats a few hours later. If you look closely at Angus, the yellow cat, you can see that he is holding his right eye partially closed. He has something going on with it--probably viral, and returned from an occurrence a month ago--and I have to put antibiotic ointment in it twice a day. You can imagine how well THAT'S going.

Lest you think these guys are the only ones getting attention, I also spent some time playing with Luna. I need to do a post about her soon--did you realize I've had her for over a year?

I know the pictures are a little blurry...she rarely stops moving!






SUNDAY

On Sunday, my friends Ellen and Chris and I had a small birthday celebration for Jo, my step-daughter's mom. Some of you may be aware that Jo, as well as being sort-of family, came to Blue Moon Circle rituals for a couple of years before she had a massive heart attack a little more than a year ago. To be honest, no one expected her to be celebrating this birthday (she's since had another smaller heart attack, open-heart bypass surgery, and is in her 11th year of dialysis), but she's tougher than she looks. Or more stubborn. Either way, we broke her out of the nursing home for a few hours so we could celebrate her turning 54. She had a great time.

Chris made these great cupcakes

Jo asked for pizza, so that's what we had.

Blowing out the candle

Opening gifts

Of course, in with all of the cleaning and partying, I also did a lot of writing. Here's a picture from Saturday evening of Magic helping me.

The Red Writing Chair

So tell me, what did you do last weekend? Anything interesting planned for the one ahead?

It's Fall, and That Means...

It's fall, and that means...

Mother Nature is putting on a beautiful show.

The hills behind my house. The view from my house is actually blocked by pine trees, so I have to walk next door to see it.

I'm getting the last of the harvest in and putting up pesto (before the basil gets frosted, since it is the most delicate thing in the garden) and applesauce (since my trees are loaded with apples this year).

Pesto ingredients and one small cat who is not allowed on the counter. Yes, that's Luna. Yes, she's still here. That's a discussion for another blog post. The lemon is my secret ingredient.

Finished pesto. Most of it will go into the freezer to bring a spark of summer glory in the midst of winter.

The apples on the right are Golden Delicious. The apples on the left are a mystery apple. The trees long predate my buying the house--14 years ago--and this tree never gave me apples until this year. Go figure.

And tearing down the garden. That means dismantling the pond fountain and filter (a slimy, wet, and unpleasant job), planting next year's garlic with the help of pal Ellen, and clearing and covering the beds.

Dying tomato plants on the left. They'll come out soon. Brussels Sprouts. More tomatoes to the right mixed in with the asparagus ferns which still have to be clipped back.

The pond

This guy was supervising.

Fall also means that it is time for another newsletter! If you haven't signed up yet, you should do it right away, since I'm hoping it will go out at the beginning of the week. There is going to be all sorts of fun news that my newsletter readers get to hear first. You can use the form at the top left of the blog, or this link: NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

I usually only send out about four newsletters a year (seasonally, more or less), although there may be a few extra in the coming months as the new books come out. Did you realize that it is only five weeks until VEILED MAGIC comes out on November 17th? Eek! If you want, you can preorder and it will be automatically delivered to you on the day! (It is an ebook only, but if you don't have an ereader, you can download a free app and read it on your computer.)

Also, be sure to check back here often in the next five weeks (or, you know, sign up to get email notifications when there is a new blog post) because I am about to go into SUPER GIVEAWAY MODE. And you don't want to miss what's coming up...

Happy fall! What's it like where you are?

Feline Friday: This Week in Pictures

We're still having issues trying to integrate Luna into the household. Some days things seem a lot better, and then there are days like yesterday, when she suddenly attacked Magic (who has actually been great and mostly just ignoring Luna) and chased her through two rooms. Argh.

I'm working on what Jackson Galaxy, who is a cat behaviorist with a show on Animal Planet called My Cat from Hell calls "catification" of the household. (This means giving Luna a bunch of higher places to escape to so she doesn't feel trapped, although since she doesn't use some of the ones I have already and often just jumps down into the middle of things anyway, I'm not sure if it will help.) And some other changes. But mostly I'm just enjoying the rare moments when everyone is calm.

Angus being calm and adorable

Magic and Minerva hanging out

Luna on her perch in the kitchen, in a rare moment of calm

Not calm. Mystic actually chased Luna up *into* the window. Sigh.

 Happy Feline Friday and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend (those of us in the USA mostly have a 3-day weekend for Memorial Day--huzzah!). What do you all have planned?

A Luna Update: Twins from Different Mothers

Don't let that innocent face fool you. I guarantee she is plotting something...

I figured it was time for an update on Luna, the kitty I adopted back in March. The short version is this: she’s happy, healthy…and driving me crazy. The long version is a bit more complicated, but mostly she is doing well. Mystic the gigantic gray boy is still going after her, alas, but she is figuring out some high spots where he can’t reach her, and has made friends with yellow boy Angus, who at eight years old is the next youngest and still very much a kitten at heart.

Angus and Luna playing.

I've had to buy a lot of new cat toys.

The vet finally decided, back in March, that she was about six months old, which would mean she is about seven months and a half months old now. Still very kittenish and full of beans. Just like my author friend’s cat Miss Paddington, also known as Paddy.

In fact, the two kitties look so much alike, they might be twins. (And yes, they’re BOTH still wide-eyed and full of mischief.)

That's Paddy on the left and Luna on the right. See what I mean!

Karen Rose Smith and I actually “met” through our mutual love of cats. I commented on a blog post she wrote about one of her rescue cats, and talked about how all mine were rescues too. She invited me to write a guest post about my cats, and so a beautiful friendship was born. We live in different states, so we haven’t met in person, but we’ve been there for each other when dealing with cat issues—she called me when she was worried about Halo, Paddy’s mom (Karen had never been present at a kitty delivery before, and I’d been a cat midwife a number of times), and I called her when I was bereft at the loss of Samhain right after Christmas (since she’d been through the same thing not that long before with one of her favorites).

Karen Rose Smith and Paddy

So it is kind of ironic that Paddy, the child of the cat she rescued last summer, and Luna, who I rescued this winter after she was found in a snow bank and put up for adoption by the vet who saved her life, look like mirror images of each other.

In fact, we’ve had so much fun with all our cat chat on Facebook, we ended up starting a Cat-Crazy Book-Lovers page HERE with two other cat-loving authors. The page is dedicated to people who love both cats and books, and apparently there are a lot of us out there! Every week one of the authors takes a turn doing a kitty (and sometimes book) related giveaway, and we are having a blast. If you're on Facebook, drop by and see us.

In the meanwhile, Luna is growing fast. She was tiny when I got her, only four and a half pounds. I haven’t taken her back to get weighed, but I’m pretty sure she’s gained weight. She has a long body and long legs, and even so is still much smaller than the other cats. It’s hard to say how big she is going to be when she finally stops growing, but I can say for certain that she gets prettier every day. Just like her twin, Miss Paddy.

Karen was talking about us on her blog today too. Go check it out if you have a minute. Karen's blog

So, anyone else have a cat who has a twin?

Cute Kitty in the Midst of A Horrid Week

Those of you who follow me on Facebook may already know that it has been a tough week here. Last Sunday night at 11:15 I got a call from my beloved step-daughter Jenn to tell me that her mom Jo had suffered a massive heart attack and gone into cardiac arrest at the local hospital. After seven minutes of CPR, they managed to stabilize her and send her to the Bassett Hospital in nearby Cooperstown, which is set up for cardiac patients. Jo has been in the ICU there ever since. Jenn flew out from San Jose late on Tuesday and we have been spending most of our days there since she got here. (Hence the radio silence here.)

Jo is also a friend of mine and a frequent guest at Blue Moon Circle events, as well as being my best friend Ellen's other best friend. (Basically, we are a strange modern family.) And of course, this has been especially rough for Jenn. Jo is slowly improving every day and we are hoping for the best, although it will be a long road to recovery.

But in the meanwhile...I decided I needed to do something to cheer Jenn up.

Again, if you follow me on Facebook (and clearly if you don't, you are missing out on all the News), you will know that as I was returning from my visit to San Jose in mid-February, my friend Ellen, who works as a dog groomer at our vets' office, called to tell me about a little cat someone brought in who reminded her of my recently lost Samhain.

This little cat, who they think is about six months old and only weighs 4 1/2 lbs, was found in a snowbank, almost dead. She's apparently pretty tough though, since she made a full recovery. They were looking for someone to adopt her. I fought it...I swear I did! But it kept feeling like Samhain had her paw in this, and eventually I caved and said I'd take her. But I had to wait for her to be spayed, and for a second feline leukemia test to come back negative.

When I called on Friday to see what they thought about me bringing her home temporarily, I was told that the second test had been done, she'd been given her booster shots, and was ready to go! So I brought her back home (I'd had to skip the hospital for the day to catch up with things at work, so Jenn was coming in later with a friend) and surprised Jenn with a buddy to hang out with in the upstairs bedroom at night. There may have been happy squealing :-)

Here's the newest member of the family: Luna (so called because it looks to me like she has a partial lunar eclipse on her face, and when I was trying to decide whether or not to take her, I pulled The Moon tarot card)

What do you think?

For the moment I am trying to keep her upstairs with the intention of introducing her to the other cats slowly. But she is affectionate and full of beans and has already made a break for it once, so something tells me that isn't going to work. I'll keep you posted.

In the meanwhile, I'd intended to do an overdue giveaway to celebrate the four book deal from Berkley, but it is going to have to be a little more overdue, since I'm pretty much on hospital duty until Jenn goes home on Thursday. (And then I'm going to be madly playing catch-up.) But don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it, and soon enough, there will be another fun batch of goodies up for grabs.

Did I mention I also had to replace my furnace unexpectedly? Oh, the joy.

Here is a fun picture from the wonderful Christmas Day we all had together in December.

Jo, Ellen in the back, Jenn, and me on a much happier day

So, that's life, really. Some good stuff, some bad stuff, and always, cats. Thanks to all those who sent their good wishes on Facebook--they were all much appreciated.