I didn't get a story update in yesterday because yesterday was kind of teh suck.  I woke in the middle of the night with a stomach in revolt, dealt with that all night and through the morning, then spent the afternoon in a puddle.  There was no exercising yesterday of any kind unless you could the myriad trips to the bathroom.

HOWEVER, I did get writing done, of a kind.  I actually advanced 10k in word count yesterday, but a lot of that was pasting in old draft.  Almost assuredly these will be the bits later which hang me up all to hell, but I am now at the point where I might as well plunk down whatever is handy because, as my internal editor keeps shrieking, IT IS ALL WRONG!  Well, she's incorrect, because it's not ALL wrong.  The pacing is, and the arc is screwy.  I'm just about done with the first act, and it's not right.  But as I have discussed with this whip-wielding bitch before, there is no way to know what IS right until the whole thing is done.  So only thing to do now, distasteful as it may be, is let it be wrong until the whole thing is done and I'm more able to see what it would take to make it right.  Otherwise I'm going to end up building a room for the house which, while it might end up pretty, will probably be held up by a solitary 2x4 or worse, nothing at all.

I did give the first 12k to Dan to read, though.  My favorite part is that he liked the pizza boxes.  I do, too.

Yesterday had drama of other sorts, more than my digestive system on strike and recalcitrant plot.  At about 8:30 last night, Anna and I were in my office when I heard the front screen door open, then close.  Since Dan was at work and if our friends & neighbors walk in, they shout, "hello!" I knew we likely had trouble, and we did.  Sidney, cat #5 at Chez Cullinan, had noticed the door was not quite shut and let himself out for an evening stroll.  By the time I got my shoes on and rounded up Anna, he had taken off, and the shadows were growing quickly enough that he was too hard to see to chase.  This led to many tears on Anna's part, and a lot of cursing from me as I constantly went out to look for him.  Bingley (cat #3) kept crying on the screened-in porch, making us think he was Sidney, and I figured he was just mad that Sidney got out.  But no: it turns out he was trying to tell me there was a FRIGGING POSSUM out by the front steps.  I worried that it was rabid, and tried to remember if we actually got Sid to the vet this year (we did).  The thing hung out for hours, probably not letting Sidney back to the house, and generally freaking me out (and keeping me well away from the bushes when I went on Sidney searches).  

When Dan got home from work at 11, he nobly took up the cause and a flashlight, venturing a bit deeper into the brush (brave knight!), but to no avail.  He went out several more times, but had no more luck than me, and we were just getting ready to give up and go to bed when we heard the Holy Scream From Hell, which meant Sidney was fighting with something in the back yard.  We went out (this time in pajamas), found him, but could not catch him as he ran off.  I'd had it and went inside, but Dan, unwilling to give up his quest, continued to search.  He was just coming around to the front of the house to surrender when, lo and behold, there was Sidney, waiting to be let in.  To our credit, we did not string him up on a ceiling fan.

Today I am taking Anna to Dan's parents to see his SIL & our soon to be BIL, and we'll join them later this evening.  I'll try to use the afternoon to do an honest 5k, some exercises (though I'm going to take it easy), and a bit of housecleaning because jeffreyjingles  is coming to watch Queer As Folk with us on Saturday.  We're also apparently getting the proper Iowa August weather back today: first rain and thunderstorms, which will turn into high mugginess and then bonkers air temperatures, the two combining to make unbearable and oppressive conditions no sane person would go out in voluntarily.  

Just in time for the Iowa State Fair.

Walter decided to eat: EVERYTHING.

Evidence:

And sad.  And I feel horribly guilty.  If we hadn't been so deliquent on taking him in, if we had taken him in sooner--I know you're not supposed to play the "if" game, but I can't help it.

He looks so listless. 

He has an appointment at 2.

Oh, Walt, come on.  You once bullied a rottweiler onto the porch and kept him in the corner.  You can fight through whatever this is.  Just eat, baby.  Eat something.

So, we tried pureed ham again this morning (many thanks for the kind service, chsck83), which he refused.  He's also a lot more listless than he was even last night.  I called the vet, who wants to see him this afternoon if he's still not eating or drinking, and in the meantime wanted me to try some "stinky food" from their office to try to entice him, and to heat it up to make it REALLY stinky good.  It brought every cat in the house into the living room, baying for a taste.  I rubbed it on Walter's nose and he only barely licked it off, but even then he didn't want any.

This is not good.

I'm concerned because I"m set to be gone this weekend; Dan will be here, but what if we end up having to give him penicilin?  How will Dan administer it alone?  Shelly will be devastated if I cancel, because it took us almost a year to reschedule after weather forced us to bail the last time, but I will never forgive myself if he dies while I am gone because I didn't help.

Hoping something breaks here soon.  Wish I had better news to report.

And my empathy to those of you reading this on feeds or hoping for more writing talk but all you get is Walter.  Trust me, even cat-haters like Walter (well, except for Wendy). 

I don't want him to go.  I want him to bother me for years to come and wake Anna up too early, and get in my face, and put his nose in the freezer for Mary . . . .

Dan says Walter is fine, and I think he's right, but he is not eating anymore, and there isn't much water drinking, either.  Of course, he's using the litterbox, so that's a good sign, and his eyes aren't glazed.  He does heave every now and again, and he makes weird noises in his throat, and he's pretty limp.  But if you take him out of the pen, he "runs," after a fashion.  Dan gave him a second pain killer injection; we'll see how that does him.  He won't eat soft chicken cat food or salmon minced.  I may be out getting some ham to puree again later tonight, or early tomorrow morning.

In other news, Anna begins school tomorrow, and Friday I am off for a weekend with a friend.  In other other news, today I started reading the ACLU's blog.  Goddamn, I love those people.  My goal is to donate to them by the end of the year.

My greatest concern all evening was that Walter wasn't eating, or rather that he couldn't eat.  Dan insisted he could go days without food, that it was water he needed, and I knew this, but it bugged me that he wanted to eat but couldn't.  I'd seen him lap at the water, so I was good with that.  But the food bothered me a lot.

He had a chicken soft food thing, but he had a hard time.  I had some hummus today and all the cats attacked me every time I ate it, and they have all had portions, so I thought, what the hell, and put some on a spoon for him.  He tried, but same problem. 

"I wish I could give him ham," I said to Dan. "He'd eat ham."  (It's his dead favorite food.  He can smell it four rooms away.)

"He can't chew that!" Dan said.

Dan was, again, right.  But I am difficult to dissuade.  I knew he'd eat it if I could make it edible, and I thought of people putting food in blenders for babies, etc.  So I got some shaved ham, put it in the blender, and added enough water to make ham slurry.  It was basically ham water.

I couldn't even put it on the floor of his cage before he was lapping at it. 

Walter has eaten.  Walter is looking a lot, lot better, and he purred while I petted him just half an hour ago--and that was pre ham. 

I think we're going to be okay.

Walter is home.  His temp was normal (which, for a cat, is 101.5F) when he left, and he did seem a lot more responsive and better all around.  He has improved sharply as he's been home.  He went straight for the litter box in his pen, then tried to eat (couldn't; hurt too much), then had a drink.  Then began to try to get out.

He seemed like he was going to hurt himself trying to get out, so I let him out for a minute.  He ran.  He was a bit drunk, but he could move, and he headed straight for the food dishes, then did a quick tour, then wanted some petting.  Walter-style, so I knew he was doing a lot better.  Then Blair got mad at him and batted at him, and he decided it might be better to be in the cage after all. 

He looks 200% better than this morning, and the vet was absolutely great.  Still.  Poor baby.

Here are some photos.

This is going to be short because I'm going to get him in an hour, and I have a lot of prep to do.  Keep the white light coming, though.

The issue is entirely the anesthestic (can't spell it, no time to look up).  It is not wearing off well, but it is coming slowly.  He has visual contact and he is conscious and not stumbling drunk like he was, but he's not 100%, not by a long shot.  His tongue, apparently, is constantly hanging out of his mouth.

I have to bring him home because there is no overnight at the vet and no doctor there tomorrow (i am questioning their title of "hospital"); the good news is that if things go south, I live in the town with the vet college, which means two hours away there is best-in-the-state vet care 24/7.  So I have to go now and set up his isolation cage in the middle of the living room (Tom, your cat hutch is coming in handy yet again), go buy a new heating pad, and then go get the poor boy himself.  I'll post some pictures, unless he looks so bad that it will make Mary cry again, because we don't want that.

Poor baby.  I'll keep updating, once more again this evening once he's home.  Thanks for your concern.

Here are some of his greatest hits.  (Well, and the avatar.)

Walter just came back from the vet.  He was out of the carrier for half a minute before we were hastily shuttling him back inside and calling the animal hospital.  He's drooling blood, moaning, and walking in circles, dragging his back leg.  The last time I saw a cat dragging his back leg, he was dead within days, so I'm pretty anxious.

So, Walter Fan Club.  Start praying to the Great Kitty In The Sky.

Actually, in all serious, I wish there were a statue of Bast around here.  It's well past time.

Can't leave out any children . . . .

"Gemini Babies" alternately titled, "Too Cute For Words."

Okay, I have to have a little meta-moment here on the whole blog thing.

I started blogging because I wanted to check it out and see how I liked it.  I continued because I felt like I needed to practice being exposed--more, though, that I needed to suss out the line between "too much" and "not enough" or "this way" not "that way."  That, I think, will go on for the rest of my life, but more than anything else I blog now for two reasons: to sort things out in my head and offer them up to the universal energy, and to entertain my friends & family whom I know read the blog.  Sometimes it's more one than the other, but it's almost always me enjoying talking to myself, tailored to my best comprehension of the etiquette of "someone might be listening."  I admit that most of the time I assume about twenty people maybe are reading, most of them spread way out over the space of a week. most not reading everything, most not saying anything, and that's all fine.  And then every now and again all kinds of people come out of the woodwork and say stuff, and I'm just sort of gobsmacked, and then I get all soft and funny because I really didn't think anybody was really listening, not that closely, because it all just feels like so much nonsense when I write it.  Comforting, therapeutic nonsense, but still . . . .

I guess that's a long and rambly way of saying, "Aw-shucks.  I didn't know so many people cared."  And, also, "Thank you very much." 

Anyway.  Back to the blog proper, no longer looking directly at the audience . . . .

So, back to talking incessantly about the book.

I have not really announced it anywhere but here, largely because I know that "done" is a relative term.  Yesterday completed getting everything on paper, which is not at all the easy part, but now starts editing and revising, which is not the easy part either, but is radically, radically different.  I have been here before, too, but I have to admit I have never really successfully first finished a rough draft and then successfully edited and revised it.  I have stopped midway through a story and revised, I have plotted and planned and made myself what felt a lovely map that made everything make sense map, only to not be able to follow it all, and I have attempted to revise at the end of a rough draft, burnt out my brain and either bailed, rewrote it entirely, or just sort of sent it out and prayed it magically made sense on the way over the transom.  (By the way, the latter method netted me two requests for fulls, one which I acted on and one which I did not.  The agent who saw the whole thing passed with really, really good suggestions which lead to this revision, and she wanted to see the next thing I wrote.)

I don't, this time, feel brain dead, which I am really liking.  Yesterday I felt just smashed, and I kept seeing really weird images when I shut my eyes.  I don't remember my dreams, but I remember waking up in the middle of the night thinking of them, that they were significant, but I didn't write them down, so who knows if that was sleep-madness or truth.  I vowed to make no decisions yesterday, but I quietly suspected that I would not be taking the week or so off to "do whatever" that I had been thinking of.  The first clue to that was that I dragged my father-in-law to Lowes to help me find and plan out making a markerboard in my office.  The clincher that I will not be waiting was that this morning, the second it stopped raining I was out with Dan's truck picking up the supplies Tom had helped me find and making a side trip to Staples to get dry erase markers and post-its. 

It is hard to remain too stressed out when a cat is snoring in your office.  Little Mia, tucked in a box, sounding like a wheezy toy.

Cute as hell.  And blissfully distracting.

More soon.  Writing going well.  Stressed, but I have a snoring cat, so it's all good.

This will mean more to those who have witnessed Sidney (grey striped tabby) and Blair (black behemoth) in fur-flying smackdown, but the backstory for the rest of you is that Sidney and Blair CANNOT STAND each other.  Usually when they are in the same room there is a howl of death and pain.  However, not so last night.

If you pile dirty towels on the sofa and leave them there for several days, I'm going to make a nest on them.