Holy freaking adrenaline rush, Batman!

So I'm in my home office with the window open slightly for fresh air, tapping away at my laptop, in my mismatched teal sweat pants and red Deadpool t-shirt, when I catch the faintest whiff of smoke. At first, okay, someone's probably barbecuing on their patio, which is against the lease rules, but people do. But it's midday on a Monday.

The smell gets stronger. I look to my left, at the office window, and see a billow of gray smoke. Seriously real smoke. I get up so fast that shit falls off my desk and scares Jinx out of the room. I don't have a wide view of the building from that window, but I could trail the smoke to the ground. The mulch around a group of air conditioning units is on fire.

On. Fire.

Flames. Smoke. More flames.

Don't tell anyone, but my apartment burning down is one of my few very real fears.

And my apartment reeks of smoke. I dash into the kitchen, thinking water! I need to get water down there! So I grab my watering can and set it to fill in the kitchen sink. Then I shut the living room window, because smoke!, terrifying Puck in the process. All kitties have fled to my room, because Momma's acting psycho.

Once the watering can is full, I put a plastic pitcher under the faucet,and flee for a pair of shoes and a sweater. A gray and white striped sweater, to complete the hobo look. With both containers full, I somehow managed to get out of my door and down two flights of steps to the ground.

A gentleman is already there stomping at the fire with his sneakers, so I immediately feel dumb for wearing sandals, but hey. Water! I brought water! I pour the water around the flames, which have made a circle about three feet wide and have half-torched some kind of grass plant.

Between my water and his feet, we've got it under control. He starts wondering what could have started it. He's found a few cigarette butts, but none of them are hot. I tell him about how one spring, the mulch outside a store I worked at spontaneously burst into flames. Something to do with moisture, trapped heat, and the chemicals in the mulch, so it was likely the cause of the fire.

He stomps at it a bit more, and another lady neighbor brings more water. Once it's finally under control, he volunteers to call the office and let them know. I come upstairs, fling my windows back open, and turn fans on because it reeks in here.

The cats are watching me with distrust in their eyes.

And my hair smells like smoke.

Meet Anya

It's a little blurry, because I took this on my cell phone. But I couldn't resist a little vid of Anya playing. I grin like an idiot every time she plays with a toy or acts this adorable.

The voices in the background are from an episode of "Hoarders."

An Apology and a Celebration

Spring has sprung, and along with a sunny and sixty-degree day, March has also brought me news I've waited to hear since December 7th--my kitty, Anya, is finally getting her feeding tube removed!

WOOHOO!



For a while there, I had given up hope that I'd ever see this day come (or technically, tomorrow, since her removal appointment is Friday). She was so sick for so long, and then boom! She starts getting better. I still don't understand fully why she got sick, or even how she got better, but I'm grateful. So, so grateful.

And I feel like I need to offer an apology. My blogging and tweeting have been very sparse this year, and I know it's been partly because of this kitty crisis. My entire life felt like it had been put on hold, while I waited to hear if Anya would live or die. To someone who isn't a pet lover, I know that sounds crazy. But Anya is my baby girl, and I love her.

She started getting sick a week after THREE DAYS TO DEAD came out, and I know I let myself think it was some sort of dirty, universal joke. In the summer of '08, my other cat Hannah died just a few weeks before I got my book deal. It felt like the universe was telling me now that my book was out in the world, my other cat had to go.

Silly, huh?

So I didn't blog much, and I didn't really interact with you guys, my readers, and for that, I do apologize. But now, with the tube coming out and Anya back to her old self, I feel as if this gigantic weight has been lifted off my chest. I can breathe again. I can take my life off pause and be happy again.

Thank you for being patient with me, and I hope y'all feel like celebrating. Because I feel like celebrating. So stay tuned this weekend, because I'll be doing some giveaways, starting tomorrow!

*hugs*

In Which I Take Something Very Personally and Have A Good Vent

Warning: I don't usually do this, but a rant is coming. A very long rant. I will use bad words. I may say controversial things.

You have been warned.

So 2010 hasn't been a banner year for me. It pretty much sucked from the stroke of midnight for a variety of reasons. Y'all know my kitty, Anya, has been sick, and I've recently gotten some bad health news about a close family member, plus there's an echoing silence on the book front. I don't know anyone who isn't stressed about money, myself included. I kept hoping March would bring with it both warmer weather (check) and some good news (ha!).

January was, without a doubt, Anya's very worst month—weight loss, vomiting, peeing everywhere except the litter box (including my bed), constant fear I'd come home from work one day and find her dead. My stress levels were through the roof from it and a serious lack of sleep wasn't helping. Then one day while trying to decompress on Twitter, I clicked on a vid link because it promised "hotness." Male hotness, to be precise. I needed eye-candy, so I clicked. And it delivered.

It also alerted me to something I didn't know existed: an emotional, realistic, beautifully-written and honestly-acted love story on a soap opera. It touched on themes of unrequited love, longing, and the need to truly accept yourself as you are before you can give someone else your heart.

I know, right?

Did I mention this heartwarming story is about two men?

If that offends you, catch you on my next post.

If not, please keep reading.

Through the power of YouTube and some dedicated fans, I was able to discover a story line that's been running on the ABC soap "One Life to Live" since around June 2009. Brilliantly brought to life by actors Scott Evans and Brett Claywell, the story of Oliver Fish and Kyle Lewis is a gem in the world of daytime television, and it was groundbreaking in many ways. It was also expectedly controversial.

I mean, really, how could an honestly-told love story not be controversial? (<--yes, that was sarcasm)



So I dove into the Kish story line via YouTube and during a month of my life where I cried almost every single day, this little break from reality was a wonderful treat. It opened my heart and my mind a little bit more, and in February, I started watching OLTL every day on television. I've heard from other folks that OLTL is one of the best-written soaps, with one of the most diverse casts, and I admit I was surprised by the quality of writing I saw. I was never a soap watcher, but I've seen bits and pieces over the years (my grandparents were big soap watchers when I was a kid), so I was expecting overblown melodrama and barely-passable acting. The show actually has some very witty dialogue, (mostly) believable story lines, and a very (with a few exceptions) talented cast.

I let myself immerse in the other characters outside of Kish, follow the story lines, and by the end of February, I was hooked. I was prepared to become a long-time viewer—which is big for me, because my television viewing has dwindled to nearly nothing this year. Even long-time favorites (I'm looking at you, "24") have failed to capture my attention like they used to.

Does this make me feel a little possessive of the show? Maybe a tad. Does this mean I take the Kish story line a little personally, because it helped me through a very tough period of time? Definitely. I was just settling in to the idea of seeing these guys on TV for a while, and loved the fact that OLTL had a pretty good cast of characters in my 25-30 age group. Then the cast started dwindling. One actress left on her own. One actress was fired. Another actor, Scott Clifton (who has been doing amazing work these last few weeks, and who I was looking forward to seeing more of) was fired.

Ugh. The age group was dwindling. Okay, well, at least Kish was still around, and there's still some decent actors in that age group. I wasn't happy, but I could live with it.

So I got online last evening to find an article on TVGuide Magazine.com saying that the characters of Oliver and Kyle will be written off the show and gone by mid-April. Next month!

*facepalm*



In the middle of a week that began with some blah news, this did not help my mood. Reading the rest of the article, and the apparent reasoning behind letting the actors go, incensed me further.

Why?

And I quote:

But sources at the network say the duo failed to resonate with the mainstream audience.

WTH? The mainstream audience? Don't they mean Focus Groups made up of people who are rarely habitual watchers, who are given select scenes and made to judge a character based solely on those scenes rather than a larger body of work? I hate the word mainstream, anyway.

Okay, so I've learned a little about "One Life to Live" and its landscape of characters in the last six weeks or so, so let me get this straight. A committed couple with a healthy relationship (ie, they don't keep secrets and they friggin' TALK to each other) isn't resonating with the mainstream audience. Um…okay.

I admit, as a shy bookworm with a penchant for SF, fantasy and horror, and a deep love of geekery, I've never been terribly mainstream. But this "mainstream audience" who objects to Kyle and Oliver apparently have no problems with:

A leading man who is a convicted rapist. Who was planning to steal his teenage daughter's baby and raise it with the woman he raped. Who is a narcissist. Who uses money to buy whatever the hell he wants—his daughter's affection, most recently. (even worse, the actor has one expression and it telegraphs constipation)

A leading lady whose husband just died, but who is already entertaining thoughts of (and smooching it up with) an old flame, and said old flame is in a relationship with another woman who just found out she's pregnant. Homewrecking is a theme on this show, I've noticed, that is quite the valued trait in its female characters.* (oh, and "old flame" is another unfortunate with only one facial expression)

An absolute whack-job religious zealot who storms into town, blackmails the mayor, kidnaps a pregnant woman so he can raise her baby as the "chosen one," kidnaps his own daughter and gives her electro-shock and then tries to rape her, and is now planning something else (that likely involves kidnapping small children) from jail with the help of his baby-stealing accomplice. **

*Now, I realize things like infidelity and homewrecking are staples of soap operas, but come on! This is more acceptable to the "mainstream audience" than a gay couple?

**This guy's story line had way more air time since it began last November than the combination of all of the Kyle/Oliver scenes aired since last June, and yet "the gays" are being blamed for bad ratings this past winter?



Yes, I just said that. According to several sources, ABC received some flak for some of OLTL's gay-centered story lines last fall. Never mind that ratings continued to be somewhat low even after those story lines got the kibosh. Never mind that as I just said above, the Kyle/Oliver scenes were maybe 1/20 of the overall storytelling landscape during that time frame. Never mind that K/O drew brand new viewers to the show because of their story(and I wasn't the only one), and that ratings were on the upswing in February.

They became the scapegoats for what is a much larger lack of good story telling over the last few months. And it sucks that The Powers That Be at ABC Daytime aren't spreading the blame around or taking responsibility for stories that are (according to some people more familiar with the show's history than I) rehashes of the same old stories that have been told and re-told for the last five years. Oh no, let's blame bad ratings on something NEW and DIFFERENT that actually drew in new viewers and brought INTERNATIONAL attention to OLTL.

I get that some of the gay-themed stories have seemed in-your-face to some viewers. There will always be people who don't want to see an accurate portrayal of American life on their TV screens, on film, or in the books they read. Fine. But others do. And for ABC-D execs to bend over to the will of the naysayers?

Do they compromise by scaling back the more heavy-handed stories? Do they step back a little with the characters until the hotheads cool off? Nope. They listen to uninformed Focus Groups and put the characters on the chopping block.

And now Scott Evans and Brett Claywell, two very talented actors, are losing their jobs. And the absolute suckiest part of this entire suck-fest? According to his Twitter feed, Scott found out via that damned TVGuide article. How much does it suck to find out that a character you've put so much time and effort into for over a year is being written off—from a website?! The entire OLTL cast has been, so far, silent about the news, but it's probably safe to assume Brett found out in a similar way.

Just…ugh. MAJOR FAIL, ABC AND OLTL.

The 20/30-something age group is being whittled down—my age group, damn it. But I guess I'm not the mainstream audience that soaps want watching. At this rate, all the show will have left is teenagers (with their "High School Musical" May sweeps nonsense) and 40+ characters who rotate beds, push each other out windows (no, I'm not kidding), and mope around pining for people they can't have.

Maybe it's a good thing these talented young actors (Scott Evans, Brett Claywell, Scott Clifton, Amanda Setton, Crystal Hunt, Daphnee Duplaix) are getting out while the getting's good. Maybe I'm taking this more personally than I normally would, because the K/O story helped keep me sane during a really rough month and a half. Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow and regret posting this at all (nope, I edited and added to it, because yeah, I wrote most of this last night while pissed). Maybe.

All I know for sure is that after April, OLTL has lost this brand new viewer. I also know from a message board I frequent that quite a few long-time viewers (and by this I mean people who've watched the show for upwards of 23 years) will quit watching.

I've never been so proud to not be "mainstream." And by that, I mean I'm not someone with my head stuck so far up my own ass that I can't see a good thing on my television screen that hasn't been told and retold eighty-five times in the last sixty years. It means I don't have time for a show or a network that lays blame for its own failings on the heads of actors who've done everything asked of them in order to breathe life into two characters that have trail-blazed daytime television.

It means I can see a good story in something—fuck that, a good LOVE story in something—no matter if it's a man and a woman, or a man and a man.

Guh.

Shame on you, "One Life to Live." Shame on you.

Possessed Cat?

Thanks to Katiebabs at Babbling About Books, and More and her weekly WTFckery post for this video clip.

The Good, the Best and the Icky - 2010 So Far

Happy Near Year, all! Can't believe it's hear already. Wow.

2010 is only twelve hours old, and so far I can't figure out if it's been a Good New Year or a Bad One.

The Good: Sam Adams Cherry Wheat Ale gives me very interesting dreams, and one of those is getting written down for future use. My kitty came downstairs at some point during the night to eat a little on her own, and then snuggled up with me for the rest of the night

The Best: Thanks to the super-cool Nicole Peeler, I discovered that Charlaine Harris read THREE DAYS TO DEAD and blogged about it! Check it out! She called it "...a fast-paced adventure that rocks along to a very tense climax." Woot!

The Icky: Anya peed in my bed. While we were both sleeping in it. So yes, I have been doing laundry all morning. I'm not sure if the peeing is behavioral, or if it's because of her medications and she just goes before she can rouse herself and get to the litter box. Either way, eww.

I'm pretty sure I posted some 2009 goals at some point last January. I'll have to rustle them up and see how I did.

Cats are Carnivores

It's amazing how easily one can adapt to a new schedule. In my last post, I mentioned Anya and her feeding tube. Well, she needs to be fed about every 6-8 hours, which is how my brain has been dividing up my time for the last week and a half. Fortunately my shifts at work are somewhat short, so I'm able to manage the feeding schedule. First thing I do in the morning is fix her food; first thing I do when I get home and last thing at night is food. It feels a little surreal, but I don't mind.

She's getting stronger from the nutrition, and at her checkup yesterday I was told she hadn't lost any weight (yay!). They also have a diagnosis for her: inflammatory bowel disease. It can be caused by several things, but not least of which is a diet of all dry food--which she had.

Thanks to the awesome Larissa Ione, I had few research links at my disposal, and I definitely plan to shift Anya away from her all dry diet. I'd never given serious consideration to feline diet and nutrition before (always relying on my vet and/or bagged food labels to tell me things), but seeing things like "cats are carnivores" and "corn is cheap" spelled out for me really opened my eyes.

For anyone interested in the links, here they are:

http://larissaione.com/blog/extras/bestiary/diabetes/#Information2

http://catinfo.org/#Common_Feline_Health_Problems_and_Their_Ties_to_Diet_

I hope to post my Favorite Reads of 2009 post tomorrow at some point. I know I haven't blogged much this week, but between Anya and Christmas insanity...well, you know how it is.

Right now, Anya is staring at me. I'd better go pet her. :)

The Good, the Bad, and the Awesome

Every great once in a while, awesome news comes along that helps take the edge off the bad stuff happening in life. Case in point:

The bad: We still don't know what's wrong with Anya. Her blood work came back on Sunday, and it was clean except for a slightly elevated white blood cell count. So she went back to the animal hospital yesterday for a scope procedure and biopsy of her stomach and intestines. Scope showed everything looked okay, except for what the Doc called a slight "pebbling" of her small intestines (which are normally smooth). We still have symptoms. Biopsy results should be in tomorrow or Thursday (hopefully Santa brings good, curable news).

Poor kitty also had a feeding tube inserted into her belly, since she hasn't eaten anything solid in two weeks.



The blue sock thing is to keep the tube in place and prevent it from snagging. It also shrinks her waist and accentuates the fur around her arms, so she looks like like a poodle when she stands up. But she's getting food, antibiotics, and nutrients, and so far (*fingers crossed*) she hasn't thrown anything up. (hasn't come out the back end yet, either, but we're waiting...)

Needless to stay, I didn't sleep much last night. Every time she moved, I woke up. But sleep's overrated, yes?

So what's the good?

The lovely Jackie Kessler passed along the heads-up that THREE DAYS TO DEAD is reviewed in the Feb. '10 issue of Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine. 4.5 stars, baby!!!!

Here's what they had to say (and there is a minor spoiler in the review, so if you hate spoilers, only read the first two sentences).

Meding delivers a thrilling urban fantasy full of desperate humans and menacing evil. Especially impressive are her worldbuilding skills, which she uses to deftly paint a portrait of a city on the edge of disaster. Readers will also be impressed by her strong depiction of Evy as a survivor who realistically handles not only the shock of being reawakened, but the trauma of a past rape and the barrage of new threats from all sides. (4.5 stars)

*bounces*

Oh yes, the other good news--I have seen a not-final version of the cover for AS LIE THE DEAD, and it is amazing. Once again, it's exactly what I was hoping for in terms of who and what. I think I love it more than the THREE DAYS cover.

Alas, I can't share it yet. But I just couldn't resist teasing!

Kitty Valium

Countdown to the big move: 10 Days

*

I had something in mind to blog about today, but it's completely flown from the reaches of my brains. Oh wait...I remember. I was going to brag about the cool cache of graphic novels/comics I'd just won off an eBay auction. Only I didn't win. It ended while I was at work, and some yahoo outbid me. *best Jack Bauer voice* "Damn it!" I hate that. Oh well. At least it saves me deciding where the seller should send it (here and hope it arrives before next Thursday, or the new address in MD).

I think my other cat, Anya is stressed out. She's been grooming a lot lately, losing small tufts of fur, and getting little scabs on her neck. The flea comb didn't find anything, so it has to be stress. Between losing Hannah last month, and all of the packing activity around the apartment, it's no wonder. I just wish I had some Kitty Valium for her.

I also wish she'd stop vomiting up hairballs in the middle of the night...on my bed....yuck.

Pitch Day

It's quite odd, really, how things right now are so bittersweet.

A week ago today, Hannah died. Only a few hours after, I got the editor list and final draft notes from my agent. Bittersweet.

Today, a week after Hannah left us, my agent will begin pitching my novel to editors. Bittersweet.

But I suppose a lot of things will be that way. At least, until we finally move out of this damned apartment. She's everywhere. On my bed, in the closet, on the back of the sofa, scratching at the bathroom door. Moving Days are tentatively August 14 and 15, which is one month from now. So much to do, so little time.

I'm someone who doesn't handle big changes well, at first. All of these crazy things happening at once (Hannah, my book, moving, changing jobs) is driving me nuts. Adding on the stress. Making me freak out.

Chocolate. Need chocolate....

Death in the Family

My baby girl passed away this morning. They couldn't keep her BP up, her red blood cells stayed too low. They had to go in and drain fluid from the surgical site (enough from one side to be notably bad). The seizures were lessened by Valium, but they couldn't be sure there was no underlying neurological problem. Even if they continued transfusing her, kept her on the BP meds, and started new therapies, there was no guarantee she'd had a full recovery.

We sat with her when she passed at 9:30 am, so quietly. So unlike her. But with her trademark scowl on her pretty face.

I stayed with her for nearly an hour after as we finished the paperwork and made "burial" decisions. Her ashes will be spread in an apple orchard in Maryland, and I love that idea. It sounds peaceful. Serene. A nice place to rest.

It was so hard to walk out that door. To kiss her ears for the last time. To pat her back and touch her paws. But I did.

It seems so unfair. So much money, so much effort, and my baby died anyway.

An Unhappy Holiday Weekend

So the actual 4th of July was fine. I worked all day (time and a half, so no biggie), came home to yummy chicken kabobs, and watched a movie. No, it started Saturday afternoon, and it hasn't stopped.

I got the call that anyone who's ever been owned by a cat fears: "There's something wrong with Hannah."

This is Hannah:

My roommate had rushed her to the Emergency Animal Clinic down the street after Hannah walked into the kitchen, flopped down panting, and mewled in a way she never wants to hear again. The vet was with her, but she didn't know anything else. Being at work when I got the call, I naturally rushed off the sales floor and started to cry

The second call came maybe fifteen minutes later. Hannah had a hernia in her lower abdomen, which was smooshing her kidneys, liver and intestines up into her chest, thereby compressing her lungs and heart. She was using about 20% of one lung. The injury, the vet said, was consistent with animals hit by cars, but Hannah's an indoor cat. The only explanation was that she had jumped from a great height and lost her balance. She needed major surgery to repair the damage done and put her organs back into place.

Then the really bad news fell: it would cost between five and eight thousand dollars, and her chances of survival were 50/50. One thought ran through my mind and fled from my mouth: "We can't afford that." Without it, though, she was going to die. Good thing I was in the back office, because I lost it. Completely. I was convinced I'd just lost my baby.

Once I got to the ER, I was able to talk to the vet. They had credit plans. We were shown her X-rays (which were scary). With moving in August, the added expense was daunting. It made me hate rich people, who never had to let a pet's life come down to money. But in the end, we had to give that little girl a chance. We applied and were approved for the credit, so we agreed on the surgery. We saw her for a few minutes, and then went home to wait.

The surgeon called us around 8:30pm and told us she was going in. Called back a little after 11pm when they were done. Seems Hannah had two hernias. One was older, maybe from an injury as a kitten (she's six now). The new one was what was causing her problems. They fixed a broken blood vessel in her spleen, put her organs back in the proper places. Turned out she hadn't been using her left lung at all, so it was miniscule and they worried about profusion injuries as it re-expanded. But she survived surgery, which was a major hurdle. The surgeon was very friendly, answered every question in great detail, and even said we could feel free to call the clinic for updates at any hour (they're open 24 hours a day).

Which roommate did at 4 am. We visited her around 9:30 Sunday morning. She was awake, but not moving (and very, very stoned on pain meds). By mid-afternoon, they had weaned her down to about fifty percent of her blood pressure medication. She was still on potassium and fluids to get her electrolytes back to normal. She was raising her head.

We saw her again this afternoon around lunchtime. Not good news. While they had successfully removed her chest tube, she was back on her BP meds. Her calcium was low. She'd had another transfusion to keep her red blood cells up. She was oozing from the incision site. She had developed a jerky twitch, which the vet said could have been the result of a mini-stroke (though she had no other symptoms of one). Her potassium still wasn't up. She wasn't where she should have been. We agreed to an EKG of her heart, to check for problems there. Specifically undiagnosed cardio-myopathy--a complication she did not need.

Needless to say, it was a long afternoon spent crying and wandering aimlessly. We called for an update at 6pm. Her heart was fine (yay!). Her potassium and electrolytes were finally normal (yay!). Dr. Barnes had asked a neurologist to stop by for an unofficial consult, but that doc didn't think the jerking was indicative of a stroke. It could have been her way of dealing with the pain, or reaction to the noisy, unfamiliar environment (another yay!). Dr. Barnes had a plan for adjusting her pain management meds, and was also going to try another combination of blood pressure meds, to see if her BP would stabilize.

Unless there's a problem overnight, we were told to call again between 6-7 am for another update. So here's hoping the phone stays quiet, and there's more yay-ness in the morning.

She's a stubborn kitty. I have to believe she'll pull through this.