Posts

Bath is a 4-letter Word

It’s been 11 days since “the Incident”. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it before because 1) I couldn’t get the laptop away from Mom undetected and 2) my attorney, Frank T. Pug advised me not to say anything until the settlement came through. Well, the settlement came through. I’ll be dining on the finest cuts of chicken and steak for the foreseeable future. And the choicest of vegetables. Basically, no more dog food… ever. You’re probably wondering what Mom did that required Frank T. Pug to file a dogsuit on my behalf. (That’s like a lawsuit, but filed by dogs. It can happen, so you better make sure your dog well taken care of!) It all started a week ago Friday night. The parents were out, again, leaving me home to babysit their stupid puppy because Bella refuses to babysit him. And there was a storm and the puppy is afraid of his own shadow (haha, see what I did there?).  So he’s crying “Where’s Mom? Is Mom coming back? I want Mom” and I’m like, shut up or I’ll make you watch
Post a Comment
Read more

Imaginary Penguin Pills

A Memo from the desk of Shadowpup: I’m tired of the human taking over my posts. I’m a dog with limited time left and a LOT to say about my almost 15 years of doghood. So I’m just going to start posting stuff to her blog and see how long it takes her to figure it out. Hehehe… I’m such a smart dog! I suspect the human has been spiking my food with drugs. Now, I know I’m on medicine to help me breathe, and whatever it is that’s in the needle she pokes me with twice a day. But the past week or so, I can’t help but feel like there’s drugs in my food. And I like ‘em. Kids, never take drugs. They’re bad for you. But I’m a dog with a prescription, apparently. I confronted the human about this after my walk this morning. Me: HUMAN! What was in that handful of treats you gave me this morning? Mom: Your meds. You have a few new ones since we saw the doctor a week and a half ago. We’ve talked about this. Me: Yeah, I know, but what’s IN the meds? Something’s weird. Mom: You have tr
Post a Comment
Read more

Conversations With Shadowpup, Part 1

I’ve mentioned my dogs before. In fact, if you know me at all, you know I never really stop talking about my dogs, the way the parents of human children never really stop talking about their kids. Our special needs dog, Lucky, passed away from heart failure in June, 2014. We miss him every day. We weren’t going to get another dog after we lost him. I just wasn’t ready. But 10 months after Lucky died, we found a little boxer/pit mix who desperately needed a home. He was being discriminated against because of his face shape. He was labeled a dangerous breed and his family’s HOA gave them 10 days to rehome him or they would send Animal Control to arrest him. I couldn’t let that happen. We decided to arrange a meet & greet between this pup and our two living children, Shadow and Bella. If all went well, the pup was coming home with us and we would be his forever family. The dogs got along, we fell in love with the pup, whose name is Captain, and we brought him home. Shortly afte
Post a Comment
Read more

The Joys of Moving

The joys of moving. First of all, whoever coined that phrase was a master of sarcasm. There is no joy in moving. There's packing, cleaning, and more packing. By the time you've filled up the 10th box of nothing but books, you begin to question the wisdom of relocating in the first place. Then there's the massive purge of half your belongings because, let's face it, they aren't valuable enough for you to schlep them across the state lines. Again.  So, as you can tell, I moved. To the desert. I never thought I'd live in a place like this. It's hot, dry and absolutely beautiful. It's like I was transported to an alien world. I've never seen landscape like this.  The total dork in me described moving from Seattle to Texas to Arizona as going from Caladan to Arrakis in stages. I'm just waiting to see when they'll start distributing Stillsuits in the greater Phoenix area.  As hot as it has been since I arrived, I've still made th
Post a Comment
Read more

And the winner is...

Hello, all! The insanity that is National Novel Writing Month has come to a close and I am very pleased to report that I WON!! I set out to write FIFTY THOUSAND words in 30 days and I did it. Final word count at the end was 50, 478 words. I now have a complete first draft of a story that has been lurking in my head since 1997. It feels good to finally have it out.  It is, by no means, a complete story. There are holes in the plot you could drive a truck through, but it's only a first draft. Edits and rewrites will make the story complete, polished and publishable. Someday. In the meantime, I'm still riding the high of setting a very ambitious goal and achieving it on the first try. This exercise (NaNoWriMo) has been the kick in the pants I needed to get back on track with my writing. My next project will be finishing the Urban Fantasy piece I've been working on since 2009. The first draft of that story took 10 weeks to complete. And, like every first draft I've ever w
Post a Comment
Read more

NaNoWriMo- Let the Crazy begin...

I know, I promised to wrap up the Ouija Board story. And I will. Eventually. It's a spine-tingling ending. I meant to have it all done for Halloween, but illness reared its ugly head yet again. More on that next month. November is National Novel Writing Month ( NaNoWriMo ) The object of the exercise is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. And guess who decided to give it a try. Yup. You guessed it. So for the next month, I will be banging away on the keyboard, trying to get the story out of my head and into Google Docs for eventual editing and someday, publication. Hopefully by that time, Stephenie Meyer will not have ruined the Ghost Story genre. Updates to follow, as the insanity waxes and wanes. Happy reading, everyone.
1 comment
Read more

The Ouija Board, Part 2

 Marissa was on her way back to her dorm room after an evening tutoring remedial biology students. Science was Marissa's passion. She scoffed at superstition. Her roommate, Nikki, believed in everything from aliens building the Pyramids to the boogeyman. Marissa made a hobby out of proving to Nikki why such beliefs were a waste of energy. Just off the walkway leading from the library to her dorm, was a piece of cardboard with handwritten letters and numbers on it. A shot glass was next to it. Marissa saw an opportunity to prove another of Nikki's myths to be false. She picked up the makeshift Ouija board, stuffed the shot glass in her backpack and walked home. The room was empty. Nikki was probably at one of her ghost hunter meetings, Marissa mused. She put the board and the shot glass on the shelf in her closet. A few days later, Nikki asked if she could borrow one of Marissa's shirts. When Nikki opened the closet door, the Board slipped off the shelf and into her han
2 comments
Read more