For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
Allysen’s back from Puerto Rico, and here’s how she looked soon after her arrival. The little fellow is Crunch, who hung out with us for a few hours before going to her home. The big guy, of course, is Captain Jack. They look like they could be related. But they’re not.
I’ve been back home for about a week now, but Allysen and Julia are still in Ponce, packing and seeing to the adoption of puppies. It turns out all the reliable rescue groups in Puerto Rico were already overwhelmed with abandoned dogs, and the shelter in Ponce was having an outbreak of parvovirus. So we got the puppies vaccinated ourselves, and a friend of Allysen’s mom helped us find some new homes. Three of the seven have been placed, and homes lined up for at least three more. The puppies are wonderful, but what a job!
Here’s the one we call Foremost. (Hindmost was the last to leave the crate; Foremost was first.)
Meanwhile, the labor of packing continues. Allysen’s mom has a lot of books, and a lot of art, and a lot of fine things like shells and geodes and brass pieces of various kinds. Somewhere around thirty cartons of books, home movies, DVDs, CDs, etc., have been making their way to our house via media mail, and now that I’m home I need to get back to work building additional shelves in the basement. (Mind you, this is after giving away or selling a huge amount there in Ponce.) Some of this stuff will go to Fay’s new place, of course. But I have a feeling at least half is going to be here for the long haul. So I guess I’d better hook up that dehumidifier that’s sitting down there doing nothing.
I got back just in time a) for a foot of snow to land on us, and b) to attend Arlington Robbins Library’s “Books in Bloom” event, an annual fundraiser that combines having a small army of local authors sitting at tables with their books, with a series of amazing book-themed floral arrangements. It was an enjoyable event, though it drove home to me what a small proportion of the overall reading audience actually reads science fiction. Or at least the audience that attends events like that. I did get to chat with the new library director, and talk to him some about ebooks and libraries, and how groups like Book View Café are trying to break down the barriers to easy access to ebooks for libraries.
Toward the end of the event, I was mumbling that I hoped I’d sell at least one book, to pay for the glass of wine I’d bought. Less than two minutes later, someone came along and bought a paperback—just enough to pay for the glass of wine! Perfect.
I’ve been in Puerto Rico for the last week, working away at the Herculean task of packing up Allysen’s mother’s house for her move to the Boston area. A couple of evenings ago, her dogs Diego and Sixta ran howling up to the gate to see what insidious deed was afoot. It turns out their instincts were spot on. A family of—I can only call them lowlifes—had just dropped a litter of seven puppies in front of our house and hightailed it down the hill. (Allysen got there in time to see them and ran after them yelling, but they fled. We are the last house at the top of a hillside road, and for years, people have been abandoning animals at our gate.)
We really needed this, while trying to pack up a lifetime of books, papers, artwork, and other possessions. But like it or not, the puppies were suddenly in our hands. And so now, we have fed them and bathed them (they were crawling with fleas), and have been trying to find a local rescue group who can take them. If we don’t hear from Save a Sato or one of the other groups by tomorrow, we’ll take them to the Ponce Animal Rescue and hope for the best. We could bring a couple of them back to the States, if we knew there were homes waiting for them. So how about it? Would you like to take in a heartstoppingly lovable puppy?
You can see six of the seven in this picture. In back is an adorable one I immediately named the Hindmost, a reference that any reader of Larry Niven’s stories will recognize.
Is just as rusty. That was how it seemed for a while, as we were searching for a replacement vehicle for our beloved but aging Mazda, Thoth. (Named after an Egyptian god associated with writing and philosophy.) And then, last week, our fortunes turned, when I found a gray 2006 Ford Ranger (small pickup) in very good condition, at a good price. With a cap, no less. (Which will have to come off for some of the furniture moving ahead of us, but for routine use seems like a great feature.) Last week, our mechanic checked it over, and yesterday I picked it up from the dealer, Auto Country of Abington, MA. Good-bye, Thoth! You were faithful and a great car to drive. Not your fault you got old and started falling apart.
Hello, Star Rigger Land Shark! Welcome to the family!
After about four hours with the snow blower, shovels, and help from our downstairs neighbor Jill and the youths, we finally ended up with this.
And after that, I came in and ate breakfast, then napped. All is now very quiet.
Winter Storm Nemo, they’re calling it. I think of Nemo as a cute little clownfish, but Jules Verne’s Nemo is probably a more apt referent. I’m writing this at about 1 a.m. Saturday morning, which should put us a third or halfway through the snowy Nor’easter. They’re already calling it the Blizzard of 2013, and snow accumulation for the Boston area could break previous records. Looked like about a foot so far, the last time I was out, which was a few hours ago. Hard to tell, with all the drifting. I can hear the wind gusting out my office window right now. Oddly, the weather bug on my computer desktop says “Fog” for current conditions in my area!
We lost power at around 10 p.m., and I was just starting to wonder how cold the house would get without heat (or how fast it would get cold), when I saw utility truck lights out in the street. They had us back up in about half an hour. (They were on site so fast I’m guessing maybe they shut us off while they corrected some hazardous condition, maybe a tree branch on a line or something.) Hats off to those guys out there working on lines in these conditions! I had to take Captain Jack out, so I walked over and asked the nearest worker if I could bring him anything. Nope, he said. A neighbor had already brought him hot chocolate.
A glance at the power outages chart for Nstar in Massachusetts shows a lot of people hurting, especially down on the south shore and Cape Cod. Here’s hoping they get taken care of fast.
It’s supposed to end late this morning, so I’ll try to remember to take some pictures before I fire up the snow blower to tunnel us out.
If you don’t hear from me again in the next day, that’ll probably mean the power went out again. Either that, or I’m too sore from shoveling to sit down and write another post.
Yes we do, here at the Starrigger Ranch. Good thing, too. I wrote earlier, in brief, about what the first quarter of 2013 looks like for the Carver family. Allysen’s mom, Fay, is moving from her long-time residence in Puerto Rico to live closer to us—not with us, but in a continuing care community not too far away. This is sad, because she loves it where she is. But it’s necessary. She’s in her 80s, and at several thousand miles distance, we have been her closest family since Allysen’s dad passed away two years ago. This means not just moving, but closing down, fixing up, and preparing for sale two separate properties—and finding suitable disposition for a lifetime’s worth of stuff, much of it very nice stuff gathered from work and travel all over the world.
To this end, Allysen has taken a leave of absence from her job, and she’s already down there working on the Puerto Rico end. The rest of us will be going down at various times to contribute to the effort. Meanwhile, at this end, we’re still finishing the job of getting her charming little condo here near us ready to put on the market. (To a large degree, that means boxing everything up and moving it into our basement for interim storage.) I’ve been putting up a lot of shelves in our basement.
Just to keep it interesting, at the same time, we’ve been looking to replace our aging ’98 Mazda. We decided a while back that a small pickup truck would make a handy replacement, because even before all this started, we always seemed to be facing situations where we wished we had one, but something smallish, like a Ranger. So we’ve been looking. It’s amazing how much time and energy you can put into shopping for a used truck. Especially when all the dealers who sell them seem to be an hour’s drive away. I believe, hope, and pray that I have now found one. Tomorrow it’s to be checked over by our trusty mechanic. If all goes well, we’ll have our new (to us) truck by next week.
Meanwhile, just to keep it more interesting, I was in the basement knocking together shelves when I turned around and saw water leaking out of our hot water tank, a tank which had just passed out of its ten-year warranty. Thank God for good plumbers who come when you need them. (Thanks, Pat!) Then, the day our hot water heater was replaced, our brand-new washer went on the fritz! What is this, a conspiracy?
Making that sequence even weirder, I called Allysen down in PR to tell her the news. Her reply? “The hot water heater here just quit, too.” And the next day, the new washer there broke, locking their wet clothes inside.
It’s really got to make you wonder.
But as I say, we eat problems for breakfast. Nutritious and full of fiber!
Yes, we’ve made another turn around Sol, and congratulations to all of us! I hope you have all had a terrific holiday season, and are in good form for the start of another circle. Here in the Carver household, we had a great Christmas with my brother and his wife visiting from Florida, and several other good friends on hand. My sister-in-law Youngmee didn’t exactly get her wish for snow while visiting, though. Oh, we had a little dusting, but the real snow waited until a day after they’d left. Next year!
As I look back on 2012, I see a time of transitions for the family. Allysen, ever looking for adventure, started rowing with a local community boat club last May, and turned overnight into a crew enthusiast (despite having to get up at 4 a.m.). My sister Nancy got married, out in Ohio, and we all traveled out for that happy event. My daughter Lexi went from a Masters program in mechanical engineering to a PhD program, and back to Masters (due partly to will o’ the wisp promises of funding from the university). Her sister Julia finished her homeschooling with a GED, spent some time in the summer as an editorial intern, and pondered her future direction. And I…well, I made good progress on the new book. 2012 was a good year for ebooks, and saw exciting growth in my audience to the UK. When sales in the U.S. slumped a bit, my friends in Britain came through and turned it around for me! 2012 also saw four of my books become audiobooks, with more on the way.
I look ahead to the new year with excitement and more than a little apprehension. Last year was just a warmup. In the coming months, we’re helping Allysen’s mother move from her longtime home in Puerto Rico to a really good continuing care community in a town near us. That’s a huge undertaking that will involve all of us. We also have to gear up for work on our house. It needs a new roof, and we’d like to add a modest dormer for more room while we’re at it. Once that’s all done, we’re having a solar-electric array installed on the roof (more on that later). Among other things, this means moving everything out of our attic, and probably out of my office. All while I’m trying to finish The Reefs of Time! Pray for me.
All that said, life is good. And I hope it is for you, too. Happy New Year!
Before this gets away from me and I forget to promote it (What good are specials if you keep them to yourself?), I have a few book specials lined up for the holiday season.
Ebooks first. At Book View Café, you can pick up my two short story collections, Going Alien and Reality and Other Fictions, for just $1.99 each through December 31. (That’s a dollar off the regular low, low price of $2.99!) Epub or mobi (Kindle) format, your choice, DRM-free.
In the Kindle store, the price of my spaceship-racing thriller, Clypsis (Book One of the Roger Zelazny’s Alien Speedway trilogy) has been marked down by the publisher, at my request, from $9.99 to $5.97. That’s a 40% markdown! Gentlebeings, start your engines! A rousing collaboration with the late, great Roger Zelazny, for young adults of all ages! (Plus, when you compare the ebook price to $89.56 for a new, vintage paperback, it’s a no-brainer. Never mind the $.01 used paperbacks. I’m sure they’re not as good.)
Finally, for lovers of tree-books, I remind you all that personalized, autographed paper books make fine gifts for the discerning gift giver. Why not visit my virtual bookstore at http://www.starrigger.net/order.htm? Take 10% off the book total (not off the postage, please) for any order you send me in the month of December. This sale is not listed on the website. Just take the discount and mention you read it on my blog or Facebook page.
The book is dead? I don’t think so. Long live the book!
Here’s hoping that you all have a wonderful day, and that you have much to be grateful for. If you’re outside the U.S., you might not have the day off, but I hope you’ll join us in spirit. Think of something to be thankful for, and share it with someone you love!
Oh, and if you happen to run a large retail corporation, and you’re thinking of starting “Black Friday” on Thanksgiving Day, how about thinking again? Why not treat your employees (and your customers) with dignity and respect, and let everyone enjoy their holiday before you throw open the doors with your sales? We can wait. Really, we can.
