Rode the motorcycle for the first time today (new helmet and all) and had coffee with Andi Schechter. Then had to rush home to medicate Taz the ferret. Since he was being lazy, he decided to take his spoonful of medicine while hiding in the orange blanket (big favorite textile). Below the cut are pics of too-cute ferret....

( See ferret pics )

Time for bathing beauty! Taz haz taken a bath (see pix under cut):
( Read more... )

It appears I should blog substantively more often: my views and linkage have sky rocketed since I started actually saying something.

Huh. Imagine that.

And that brings up a thought not unconnected to recent web discussions about blogging and promotion and such: what makes a good blog? or a good blog post? Personally I'm not interested in writing metrics--neither reading nor posting them--most of the time. And John Scalzi has already said everything really interesting about writing--Damn you Scalzi! Personal blither? Nah, most of the time, people's journals are... well... boring. If you happen to be an interesting person doing interesting things, then your web journal may be fascinating, but, really... most of us are posting about our kids, pets, illnesses, and jobs. And most people already have experience with those, so there's only so much that's going to hold their attention.

You know what I think makes good blogging? Lies and exaggerations. Poking things with sticks. Photos (even lolcats). Humor, horror, nudity... and the occasional roasting and eating of sacred cows (not literal cows, of course--who really cares if you eat meat? Not me, unless it's that particular cow that scared me when I was three, in which case I say "eat the whole thing!") And talking about things most people don't do or don't experience but would like to (or think they would like to.)

I suppose that last is part of the reason so many people read blogs by writers blogging about writing. But I think I'd rather blog about... boats, ferrets, getting lost in my hometown, finding neat stuff, going neat places, and meeting neat people. Because other than that, my life is pretty much like anyone else's: get up, put on clothes, work, eat, shower, sleep, repeat. Booooooring!

Yes, I know... "where's the nudity?" Well I won't be showing you mine, but will you settle for a ferret?

All right, who made me ferret-slave?

Not only does the ferret's medication and feeding schedule rule my life at the moment, but he's now decided that the only way he'll eat the perfectly nummy ferret kibbles he used to gobble with alacrity is if I carefully hand-feed him the kibbles one piece at a time. Health-wise he really needs this food--it has vitamins, minerals, and other good stuff that his recent I'm-sick-with-the-touchy-tummy diet of chicken baby food lacks. So I have a vested interest in getting him to eat the "crunchies".

After much cajoling and trying to sneak them into him, I've finally discovered that Taz-the-Picky will eat the kibbles if:

1. He is comfortably lying on the settee in his red fleece sweatshirt where he can loll onto his back so that...


2. I hold one piece at a time in front of his mouth, up against his non-existent lips and directly beneath his cute little freckled nose, and wait for him to deign to open his mouth, curl his tongue around the kibble chunk and then masticate it vigorously--resulting in scattered bits of kibble in the red blankie and all over the settee.


3. I clean up the spilled kibbles so he won't have to lie on them--likes peas under mattresses are to princesses, so are kibbles in bed to Taz.

I hope he's not expecting any turkey for thanksgiving, because with this precedent, he'd probably expect me to catch and cook it myself to his exacting recipe and then offer it to him in precise 1" square slabs not to exceed 6mm in thickness or some such thing.

Although at this point I'd probably do it just to get him to eat something!

Sigh I am but a slave to my ferret overlord.

I really appreciate the warm wishes and condolences from all of you.  I'm feeling less horrible now, but I have to concentrate on finishing the book--which is due Friday and is hard to work on due to all the icky nasty things that happen near the end.  I'll come back up for air when I'm done.

Thanks again; your best wishes are appreciated.

Dexter, our dear old ferret, is no more. We went to the vet this morning for his usual shot, but his condition had so badly deteriorated that it was pointless. Lots of medical discussion later, I had to decide if I was going to try to keep him going for a few more weeks with three additional meds up to three times a day, plus pain pills. It just didn't seem right to torment him with meds he didn't want to take just to keep him around a bit longer. And thus the end, at which I held him and watched that little light extinguish, one last jolt of discomfort and then no more.

Good-bye Dexter, Handsome Lad, the diplomat of the ferret world. Good night little guy.


Dexter in a paper bag.


Dexter in front... Taz bringing up the rear--That's one LOOONG ferret.

Taz the ferret has not been a happy camper lately. He has a fun disease, insulinoma, which basically boils down to severe hypoglycemia because he has too much insulin--the opposite of diabetes essentially, but in this case caused by a cancer of the pancreas. Friday he had his first (and we hope only) full-bore seizure and scared me near to death. Up until today we'd been managing his low blood sugar by diet, but that's now changing. Today both ferrets went to the vet. Dexter for his usual hormone shot against his fun little cancer--adrenaloma--and Taz for a look-see by Dr. Kamaka. Result: Taz will now be taking oral steroids twice a day for life. But he is already responding very well with a lot more energy than he's had in a month.

So I thought he deserved a new toy.

Unfortunately, when I got the rubber chicken home, I discovered it was no ordinary latex fowl. It's Count Chickula, the Vampire Chicken!

Poor Taz doesn't suspect at thing.


Until Count Chickula attacks!


But after a valiant battle, Taz is triumphant and drags the vanquished Vampire Chicken off to the lair of the Octoplay.

O, pity for Count Chickula! Woe is he!

And laughing is me. Looks like Taz is feeling a bit better already. Kudos to Dr. Kamaka and the staff at the Eastside Avian and Exotic Animal Medical Clinic.

So this being one of my free days at home before I go off to Minnesota, I had a lot of things to do. First a trip to the vet for annual Ferret exams which were... mixed.

Dexter, the nine-year-old ferret with adrenal disease, is losing his fur because we're heading for the long, drawn-out end. Guesstimate: six months or so, but he's a hell of a happy fella in the meantime. How can you complain about that? (Aside from the complications of missing his litter box constantly.) Sadly his companion, Taz, has gone quietly blind and, while he's only six this December, he has the condition of an eight-year-old ferret. A pretty healthy eight-year-old ferret, but an old ferret nonetheless. Considering that they only live to be ten or so, this is bad. We love them both very much, but the unvarnished truth is they probably won't be with us another year. Sad as it is and heartless as it sounds, I've put my upset over it aside for the time being since there's nothing I can do and a lot of other things I need to do right now.

So there's the bad news and I had to rush home to catch a call from a radio interviewer from the Minn/St.Paul area. Good interview after a few technical problems and it'll be airing on KFAI in the Minn/St. Paul area on Thursday sometime between 11 am and 1 pm. About 6-8 hours before my appearance at the Roseville B&N.

And after that a quick Happy Hour with a friend, catching up on the gossip, phone calls to other friends, settling contracts for an MWA event in October here in Seattle, then swooping home again to rustle up dinner for Jim--pizza and salad, sorry. Meanwhile, I've had to ask for a deadline extension on the novel to the end of October, since the tour and all have kind of knocked my productivity down, but it'll get done--it always does.

Then it began to rain and I had to fetch said pizza with a plastic bag over it to protect it on the 800' walk from the gate back to the boat. When I sat back down to work, something went "plop." Not only was it raining outside, it was raining inside. But only right next to me.

It seems that while I was in Denver, Mr. Kat got the bug to install a new vent in the main cabin roof. He carefully removed the old, tiny vent... but got no further due to a lack of tools. So the hole--a mere two inches in diameter and surrounded by four smaller bolt holes--happily vented to the free air. Or in this case, the free water. Which was dribbling down it from the boom above the hole. And splashing me. I tried to cover it with some aluminum foil and tape, but the tape wasn't sticking and I couldn't find the duct tape.

Eventually Mr. Kat found said tape and has now fixed the hole for the time being. If the weather dries up over the weekend, I suspect we'll find some tools and finish the job but in the meantime, I'm hoping the tape holds.

And the ferrets hold on.

Strange day, eh?

Just two days until the release! OMG!

Meanwhile, the folks at Ferrets Anonymous in California have redesigned and relaunched their website after several years of neglect--here's hoping it's a sign of coming positive change for ferrets in California.

As you guys know, I'm an advocate of legalizing ferrets in California. I used to live there and as someone who travels a lot these days, I'd like to be able to take my pets with me on some of my trips, but if the trip is to Cali, no go. California's Department of Fish and Game waxes and wanes on their enforcement, but since the LegalizeFerrets.org movement started kicking up the dust, they've become more draconian and ferrets have been seized at the borders and from private homes. I find that pretty wretched when you consider that ferrets are recognized as domestic pets everywhere in the world and in 48 of the 50 states of the US (Hawaii is the only other state with an all-out ferret ban--but c'mon: it's an island! Closed ecosystem and all that. California is not.)

Anyhow, so the folks at LegalizeFerrets.org are running a contest for the best pro-legalization ferret video. Voting ends tomorrow and you have to subscribe to their newsletter to vote, but it's really not a bad thing--especially if you like furry critters.

Voting ends tomorrow, and I just can't decide which video I like best:
Looking for My Ferret is clever
Buddha Speaks is also cleverly done
By far the funniest is Ferret Fits of Fury that's embedded at the top of this post
or maybe I really like
Legalize Ferrets to the tune of I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones--gotta love that!

Am I A Pet?
and
Change the Future are well done, but they don't quite make me cheer like the ones on top of this list.

if you want to see the complete list, go to the Legalize Ferret Video page. If they persuade you to vote then you can sign up for the newsletter--it's free!--and cast your vote!

Go Ferrets!

It's been so hot in Seattle that giant red octopi are crawling onto boats looking for food!!


*Dexter's tail is a little hairless due to adrenaloma--normally ferret's tails are furry.

I'm so pleased to discover that the cause of California Ferret Legalization now has a non-profit-status education group ready to go do the sort of work LegalizeFerrets.org and Ferrets Anonymous have been trying to get rolling for a while now. Now I can give them money without having to argue with the tax-monster about whether it's a legit donation or not....

Yes, I'm a bad person and I love ferrets so when I ran across WeaselTrek and found this I had to laugh and inflict it on the rest of you:

Check out the rest of the Ron Weasling stories in the side bar at You Tube