Good News for Tuffy (and Us); Sleep Experiment

Pepper and Tuffy tonight. Yes, I filled in Tuffy's pupils.

Good grief, but Tuffy's hard to photograph well after dark! I hate flashing out her eyes, and without flash everything is a grainy orange. But I need to illustrate the news: I heard back from Tuffy's oncologist this evening, and the news is mostly good. No bone cancer, no breaks, no valley fever. She apparently has an ulcerated stomach and something else that was all initials and incomprehensibility, both of which are side effects of the prednisone. The slipped disc is still a strong possibility, but the vet admitted that this can heal over time with anti-inflammatory drugs, which is what's she's on. I was able to report that Tuffy actually seems better every day. She's approaching us for food and affection instead of avoiding us as she was doing before, her head is a bit higher and her appetite is good. The vet said to gradually reduce her dose of the steroid, as it's not good for her in the long run; and to give her the lower over the counter dose of Pepcid AC for humans. So it looks as though we lucked out, and we'll have Tuffy for a while yet.

Tomorrow we leave the house at 7 AM for our two jobs at the other end of town - actually, out of town in my case. Obviously that means I have to wrench my sleep and posting schedule back much further than I've managed so far. Last night I got to bed at three, lay awake, got up again, took Benedryl, did stuff, went back to bed, and lay awake until just after John's alarm went off at 4 AM. It's 11:38 PM now, so I plan to post this, take the Benedryl, take my bath, wash my hair and go to bed. Frankly, I don't expect to do any better than to doze through four hours of new job anxiety dreams, but I've got to try.

Good night!

Karen

Counting Down

The Eagle passed its ADEQ test with flying colors.

Two days out from my new job, I accomplished several things, and am temporarily confounded by another looming task. First the accomplishments: I did dishes, got the emissions testing done on my Eagle Vision, and finished the car registration online. ADOT doesn't appear to have sent a registration renewal form at all, but it doesn't matter because I got a notice by email. The environmental quality folks don't need a form except the one they issue, saying whether the vehicle passed - which it did.

Thick, aren't they? And these are ultralights.

The anti-glare coating is great stuff, but shows every smudge

I also picked up my new glasses, despite the fact that nobody called to say they were in. With my high prescription and the extras that requires (thick polycarbonate no-line progressive lenses with a couple different coatings), it was expected to take two weeks to get them, and that's exactly what it took. Nobody said so, but from the running around in the lab I observed and snippets of conversation I almost overheard, I suspect the tray with my glasses had been temporarily misfiled. Still, I got 'em without too much of a wait (they were very busy, but efficient), and took them back a few minutes later to be tightened some more. They are much stronger than either of the old pairs I've made do with the past two weeks, and I'm having no trouble at all adjusting to the bifocal or trifocal effect, whichever it is.

So much for paperless DES filing

So that all worked out great, but my unemployment stuff is being a little less user-friendly. True, I filed my application online last week (that's the only way the Arizona Department of Economic Security will register anyone anymore), and filed my first week's claim tonight. (No claim is allowed for the first week of joblessness.) But I also got two pieces of snail mail from DES. One requires me to sign a form acknowledging my receipt and reading of their little yellow info booklet, and mail the form to Phoenix in the next couple of days. They don't even provide an envelope. The other is a confirmation that I made X, Y, and Z dollars from various employers over the last year, which entitles me to $240 a week. Enclosed with that is a form asking me to list all my contacts with potential employers since I put in for unemployment. That's easy. I had one job interview, a couple phone calls with my recruiter, and a trip to the recruiter's office after I got the placement, to fill out a fresh W4, A4 and I-9. Ta-dah!

So tomorrow I fill out these silly forms and mail them off, do laundry and stuff like that. I also want to find the third and final volume of the Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevemer Kate and Cecelia trilogy, having finished the second book tonight. Then on Wednesday, the new job begins! But for now I must go to bed. I'm working on going to bed earlier every night, and according to my schedule, I'm 20 minutes overdue.

Karen

New Monday Shoot #24: Plastics!

Having gotten the Blue Screen of Death again earlier this evening, I was tempted to do a topic for the Monday Photo Shoot that incorporated that depressing image. Instead let's take our cue from a famous word of advice to Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film The Graduate: "Plastics!"

New Monday Shoot #24: Show us something made of plastic. If it's unusual in some way, so much the better.


First off, everything visible to the left of my laptop at the moment is plastic, more or less. There may be some metal in my old glasses, but that's about it. Even the labels are plastic, I think.

A view through my old lens.


The dogs' water cup (for filling the water dish) dates back to the previous Hulk movie, which by the way I didn't like.



Can you guess what this is? Hint: it probably dates back to the 1960s, give or take a decade.


Open it up and it turns out to be a picnic set.

And in a way, I suppose, this is the modern equivalent: plastic dishes from Target, circa 2000.

Your turn! Photograph something made of plastic, post it to your blog, and include a link back here (please!). Then leave a link to your blog entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to showcase your responses. Have fun!

Karen

Monday Photo Shoot Results: Opened Up

It's Tuffy!

Last week for the Monday Photo Shoot I asked people to open something and show us the treasures thus revealed. This gave folks the opening to photograph the following:

Jama Hameed opens a mouse, some drawers and her husband's toolbox.

Pat (DesLily) shows us drawers of videos, many of them featuring certain favorite actors. Also posted here and here.

Kiva gives us a tour of her junk drawer, organizing as she goes.

Thanks, you three! The new topic will be posted shortly...I hope!

Karen

The Naming of Rani Fost

This is about a difficult decision I need to make about my favorite Mâvarin character. I originally hoped to wander into more universal musings about the nature of repetition in fiction, but that will have to wait for another night.

When I was in high school, a million years ago, I sat down at my mother's manual typewriter one day and typed a page or two to replace my stalled novel idea with a new and better one. In that initial effort, a teenage boy in a tree came face to face with a monster. When other people came along, they saw a monster and assumed it had killed the boy. In reality, the monster was the boy. He had killed the monster and become one himself.

34 years have passed, but the core idea of that opening scene has not. Rani Fost is still the embodiment of teenage alienation, a misunderstood monster, a damaged person, the outsider-hero. It's easy to look at the provenance of the character and scoff: if the novel hasn't been published by now, it probably won't be, it must not be any good, she's deluding herself, etc. In fact, I was subjected to this entirely understandable reaction just a couple of days ago, and it stung. But in truth I know better. This isn't some poorly-written piece of garbage, derivative drivel, the same manuscript carried around for 30 years looking for someone to appreciate words mistakenly believed to be golden. This is a story that was shelved for years at a time until I was finally able to tell it at all, which has improved and deepened with each subsequent edit. I've been sidetracked by life lots of times, and failed to keep up the discipline of daily fiction writing, but the stories and the characters have always still be there in the background of my mind. I'm as defensive as hell about them, and probably will be, even if and when the Mâvarin books finally make it into bookstores. But they're good. They really are. And someday, I will overcome market realities and my own insecurities and get the final versions of Rani's adventures into the right hands.

Except that, as I've reluctantly decided this week, he probably won't be called Rani anymore.

Back in 1974, before college, the Internet and globalization, the name Rani held no associations for me except the ones I'd made myself. I didn't know it was a real name for anyone, anywhere. Rani was named after my boyfriend Dan Cheney, with the D replaced by an R, the long e sound from the end of Cheney tacked on the end, and the spelling changed to fit the fictional language I was coming up with for my fictional world. My Rani rhymes with Danny, and has no real world translation beyond that.

But as of 2008, there's a major star in India named Rani, and probably lots of people know the name and its meaning (queen), even in the west. Back in the 1990s there was a Doctor Who villainess named the Rani, and in 2008 the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures is adding a girl character named Rani to the cast. And when I was last at Disneyland at the end of 2005, our parking pass on the last day came with a little comic book introducing Tinker Bell's fairy friends, one of whom was named Rani.

The name is out there. And it's clearly, irrevocably, a girl's name.

Over the years, I've had to change the names of many of the Mâvarin characters, either to even things out alphabetically, to avoid unwanted associations with other people's characters or just to make them sound better. But I've never touched Rani's name. I never wanted to. He's not the main protagonist in the first novel, but he was there on the very first page, in the initial idea that started things off all those years ago. Whenever I set out to think about the Mâvarin books and Mâvarin characters, I always start with Rani. He is the core character for me, the one I love the most. He's been wandering through my head with that name for 34 years. If now he loses that name, will I lose something of the character himself?

So here's the deal. I've thought of two alternate names, Dani and Randi, and Sara came up with a third, Rami. Any of them would be pronounced with a short a, as in ran, can, Dan, Spam. I don't want to go too far afield from the name Rani, and I want something that's relatively clean of unhelpful associations. Dani, for example, may still seem too feminine, although the final i is a male signifier in the language of Mâvarin. Randi is the name of a famous stage magician and skeptic who debunks paranormal claims, but that association rather amuses me as the name of a character whose magical talents include mindreading. Rami reminds me of Rama, and also of Sam Raimi the director. But at least it isn't spelled the same as either.

As soon as I publish this entry I'll be adding a poll to the sidebar. If you have an opinion about my character's name, please click your choice. Should he be a Rami now, or a Randi? Have you a better name for him? Or should I let him keep his name, justifying it with the fact that it's from a fictional language? Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Karen (thought of changing that name, too, once upon a time, but didn't)

Meanwhile...

As I compiled the two Weekend Assignment entries last night, I considered the possibilities for also reporting the news of the day - my day, that is. I could have added an aside at the end of one of the existing entries, or written a third entry in one day, or put it off until tonight. Guess which option I chose.

Meanwhile...

Blogger was up and down, delaying my collection of quotes from people's Weekend Assignment entries. So I watched a little Doctor Who as I waited. It didn't take long, and soon I was able to resume writing the entry.

Meanwhile...

I worked on Chapter Two of Heirs, and managed to cut about 100 words from the first half of it (which is as far as I got). I have a major decision to make about my lead character Rani, but I'll save that rant for Saturday night.

As I edited and watched Doctor Who and compiled the wrap-up entry, I was also refining my idea for the new Weekend Assignment. When the wrap-up entry was done, I dug through my photo archives for an appropriate photo.

Meanwhile...

my computer was busy downloading something else, but I didn't know that yet.

I finished the entries, washed dishes and went to bed without telling you about my day yesterday (Thursday). But now it can be told. I had my job interview in Oro Valley on Thursday afternoon. I arrived early, which was a good thing, because the address I was looking for did not seem to exist. As I drove up and down the block, I repeatedly passed what looked like a trailhead for Pusch Ridge, and a building with the wrong address. But the name of the company I wanted was on a door of the "wrong" building. When I asked for directions, I was told that the building I had been seeking no longer existed. I was in the right place after all.

I had the job interview, and it seemed to go well. The person who interviewed me even looked up the address of John's nearby place of business, so I could drop in on him there for the first time in the five years or so he's worked for them. What can I say? It's not my part of town. Heck, I'm not sure it's even technically in Tucson.

So I drove over to see John. Had a little trouble finding it, but that's all right. After a brief visit, I decided to treat myself to lunch at a place on Oracle Rd.

Meanwhile...

I was waiting to hear from my recruiter whether the prospective employer - let's call them Interesting Manufacturer (IM) - had called her yet, and if so, what they said. I ordered some food and called the recruiter. She was on the phone, so I left a voicemail.

When she called me back, she had not yet heard anything. I gave her my impression of how it went, and told her where I was eating. She joked about how she'd like to join me there. (Hint: this was not McDonald's.) I told her that if I didn't get the job, the meal was by way of consolation. If I did, it was a celebration. She laughed and hung up, with a promise to call back when she heard.

Meanwhile...

The food arrived. It was very good, except for the vegetables, which were both charred and undercooked.

As I was eating, my recruiter called back. "I suppose you want to know what kind of meal you're eating," she said.

"Yes, please."

"It's a celebration! You got it!"

I don't start until Wednesday, so I will have been out of work nearly 2 1/2 weeks. But that's okay. I needed the time off.

As I drove home, two different people called from the recruiter's office, asking me to stop by about some paperwork, and to get the correct address for IM from me. So I headed over to see them, filled out a new I-9 with my expired passport for ID, and accepted congratulations for several people. There.

It was a good day.

So today I slept in, to make up for the late night. Around 1 PM, which is when I planned to get up anyway, Tuffy started barking at the front door. I looked out the window by the front door, and what I saw led me to grab my camera and go out to the driveway.


For the second time in two years, a neighbor was getting a tree hauled away. The previous time, back in August 2006, it was because a tree had fallen over, and put a big hole in someone's roof. But I initially saw no evidence that that was the case this time.

Meanwhile...


The flatbed truck that was going to do the actual hauling was parked in front of out house. Hence the barking.


I got properly dressed and took pictures intermittently through most of the afternoon. (I also took a number of video clips, but I don't feel like dealing with them tonight/this morning.) At first they were trimming excess fronds off the palm tree.

Then they moved it out of the street.

The truck that had been in front of our house pulled up beside the tree. But before putting the tree onto it, they offloaded four large what bags of something-or-other. Dirt, maybe?

Meanwhile...

Once the tree was moved, the roof of the house behind it became more visible. I didn't notice it until I edited the photos (much) later, but if you doubleclick and look at them, you'll see definite roof damage.


Once the white bags were off the truck, they lifted the tree, maneuvered it around to face the other way, and gently lowered it. By that time, they had tied the palm's remaining fronds together, presumably to keep them from blowing around or falling off when the tree was hauled away. If the neighborhood had to lose a tree, it was good that they were taking good care of it, and not just sawing it to bits. That presumably means it will be replanted somewhere.

The last step was to strap it down. But wait...where was the crane going now? I had a bad feeling about this.


Uh-oh. They were pulling the other, shorter palm out of the ground. I briefly had hopes that it would merely be replanted, perhaps more securely or farther from the houses...

...but soon my fears were confirmed. A second tree, one of my favorites, was also leaving Calle Mumble. It's been featured on my sunset photos for the last time.

I didn't bother filming the tree removal process a second time.

Meanwhile...


Sometime during the tree hauling process, a little notice in the corner of my computer screen told me that Windows wanted to install something it downloaded last night. Windows Vista Service Pack #1 took over an hour to install, and I couldn't use the computer during that time. But that was okay, because (one last time!)

Meanwhile...

I watched Doctor Who, of course!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #219: Preferred Transportation

A partially gutted building in Magdalena, NM, and my car

This week's Weekend Assignment is a fairly simple and straightforward one, inspired by Kiva's most likely answer. (Apologies to Kiva for asking you to tread familiar ground!)

Weekend Assignment #219: What is your favorite form of transportation, and why? You can choose any means of traveling by land, sea or air, with just one catch: it has to currently exist in the real world, or have existed in the past. No TARDIS, no Star Trek transporter, no flying DeLoreans, all right?

Extra Credit: What's the most unusual form of transportation you've ever taken?

I fully expect to have the most boring answer of anyone, because you see, I like a car. You can take a car to the McDonald's on the corner, or to the major amusement part at the other end of the country. You can leave when it's convenient for you, rather than conform to someone else's schedule. You can decide, in the spur of the moment, to change course and stop for an ice cream, or photograph a sunset, or explore an historic fishing village. You can travel up and down all but the worst roads, or ride a ferry to a nearby island. You don't get blisters on your heels, or bugs in your teeth. You ride in comfort and relative privacy, and in a pinch you can even pull up at a rest area and sleep. Can your form of transportation do all this?

Last week I mentioned that I like to explore. Over the years, some of those explorations have been by motorscooter, others by car. And while the scooter trips to Patagonia AZ, Niagara Falls, Syracuse and a castle outside Cincinnati were definitely fun, they had their drawbacks. I had to get a rancher to haul my scooter away from a steep and rocky back road at dusk on one occasion, and another time I ended up terribly sore after many hours on I-90 in 90 degree weather, with most of its lanes closed for construction. On the whole, my explorations by car have been more successful. I've climbed mountains and crossed deserts by car, found my way to obscure ghost towns, slept on a beach, and driven to a shooting location for a favorite tv show. And just writing this, I find myself longing to throw some clothes in my old suitcase, and take off again tomorrow morning. I won't, but oh, boy, I sure want to do it!

As for the extra credit, which is better, a schooner in San Diego Bay or a tram ride up an Alp? I think I have to go with our whale-watching tour on the schooner Invader. I've taken trams up a few mountains over the years, but only one Alp, I think, overlooking Lucerne, Switzerland. Beautiful place, very.

Anybody know how to fly this thing?

Your turn! Do you like to fly? Drive? Cycle? Sail? Hike? Feet are a form of transportation, too. Whatever your favorite means of getting around may be, make the case for it in your scooter or blog, and be sure to link back here in your entry. Then leave a link to your entry in the comments below. As usual, I'll be back in a week with a roundup of your entries. Avanti!

Karen