Black Doggerel

So last night I set aside half a pound of chicken-and-tripe mince in a plastic tub for the dogs' breakfast. So far so normal; except this morning I couldn't find it anywhere. It should have been in the fridge - it's not, nor is it anywhere in the utility room, the kitchen, the cat room or even the bathroom.

The dogs couldn't find it either, but I think Squish may know more than he's telling. I hope so, because I'd really hate to find the damn thing days, weeks or months from now. I have no idea how I came to leave it in his reach or anywhere but the fridge - and no, I was not stoned. My current working theory: eddies in the Vortex causing small localised instabilities in the fabric of reality. Probably accounts for the computer issues as well.

In other news, I started reading The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, which I picked up for 99p in a charity shop a little while back. I can't say much about it yet, except I'm hooked on the strength of the first three pages. They can be read via that Amazon link - have a look. I think this one's a keeper.

Went out to get Throne Of Jade - and I forgot that our shopping mall does this Farmer's Market thing on Sundays, where local farm shops come and set up stalls in the car park. I resisted Dorset honey and handmade Dorset Blue Vinney and leek pasties, but several of the meat stalls had little grills and were handing out free tastes of freshly-cooked local sausage. I couldn't resist that, and the Cumberlands in particular gave me a When Harry Met Sally moment right there.

So I have a lot of sausages: chicken and mushroom, minted venison, Cumberland, pork and apple, pork and stilton. And Dorset apple cake. And now I have no monies left. But sausages, dragons and cake, OH MY!

The triumph of hope over experience: me, walking into a bookshop simply to savour the mingled scents of new books, thick carpet and coffee, and imagining I could come out without buying a book.

The book was naominovik's Temeraire, which has been on my "must get round to reading sometime" list for ages. The blurb on the back made it sound like Anne McCaffrey and Patrick O'Brian's love child - and if it had only been that, I still would have had fun reading it. But it was a lot more interesting and original than that, and with much better dragons, and it made me cry twice. It was really bloody good.

I am now deciding if I need groceries more than I need to walk down to Waterstone's and buy the next one tomorrow. I suspect the book will win. I've got enough coffee and pet food to last the fortnight, anyway.

Every year I try to subtly discourage people from remembering my birthday; and every year there's a bunch of you who don't let me. I love you. Thank you so much!

This year I had fortuitously arranged to have Naamah Cat spayed on the day, so that I had to stay home to make sure she wasn't unstitching herself or having bad aftereffects from the anaesthetic. She came home, keeled over in the wardrobe and slept peacefully till the next morning, and the wound is looking good, two days later; a nice healthy pale pink with no swelling or bad shit. I don't imagine that spayedness will stop her from being the noisiest, most annoying cat I've ever met, but at least I won't be hearing that particular nerve-shredding caterwauling that was Naamah-in-heat again. I've never had to work so hard to suppress the urge to smother one of my own pets before.

And I has presents! Since my mother became a grandmother, she repossessed her camera that I'd had here on more or less permanent loan, so she could take endless baby pictures. I missed it like hell, so I persuaded my family to pool their resources this year and get me one of my own. It's a different model than the one I was used to and it came with a manual in French, so I haven't yet worked out how to get it to take pictures I'm not ashamed to show people. But it's mine, all mine, and I will work it out in time. I also got a new pair of sensible dog-walking shoes (just in time for autumn squirrel season, yay!) and two cases of imaginary evil vodka - this is, I've found, the best kind for serious drinking binges at my advanced age, and was appreciated more than you'll ever know.

Finally got my hands on Making Money, too. I'm inclined to agree with huntingdon to some extent. I did enjoy it, and wasn't exactly disappointed, because hey! Pratchett! But it did feel a bit like he'd given it less than his full attention; it was rather a disjointed read, and I do think he could have done it better.

And I got an email from Amazon this morning: the subject line was was Your Amazon.co.uk Order, and I bounced a little in my chair when I saw it - joy! It can be Red Seas Under Red Skies tiem nao??!!

The text of the email: We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed:

Scott Lynch (Author) "Red Seas Under Red Skies (Gollancz S.F.)"
[Hardcover]
Estimated arrival date: 26/10/07 - 10/11/07

ARGH FUCKBASTARD TOSSPOT WANKMONKEYS. SEND ME MY FUCKING BOOK BEFORE I DIE OF OLD AGE.

Grrr. I ordered Red Seas Under Red Skies more than six fucking weeks ago. The copy I impulse-bought on the same day for a pair of friends was in their hands within four fucking days. They've both sodding well finished it, and I can't even have a conversation with them about it because those pissant titwanking arsewipes at Amazon haven't even fucking DISPATCHED mine.

As anyone who's been in the same room as me for five minutes knows, I am very much an instant-gratification sort of girl. I don't deal well with being made to wait for stuff I want. So right now I want to kick someone to death over this, or at least kick them till they run to the fucking warehouse and get me my damn fucking BOOK that I fucking bloody well PAID FOR ARGHHHHBASTARDS.

So tonight, sick to death of repeatedly clicking on the "Track my Packages" link and finding no news, I decided to cheer myself up by walking down to Asda to get a copy of Making Money. I won't say "instead" because I won't be happy till I have both, but since even I can only read one hardback at once, a shiny lovesome new Pratchett would have stopped me fretting after the other one for at least twelve hours.

You know what's coming, don't you? NO COPIES LEFT.

So I bought strawberry and white chocolate muffins instead. But it's not much consolation, I can tell you.

*grumpsulk*

Incidentally, this entry's soundtrack rocks my world. Listen to it.

Listening to Thud! last night/this morning, and woke up realising that one of my RP characters is so very nearly (pre-Sybil) Sam Vimes that it's - totally not funny.

She doesn't much resemble him either physically (except for a certain, er, stonefacedness) or professionally; in fact she runs a pub (though she doesn't drink either). I think the differences are sufficient that I can avoid feeling like a plagiarist, and the other player isn't familiar with Pratchett's writing yet, though I've recommended it. Still, it's unsettling to have done that without realising it. Right down to the bloody cigars.

cottonmanifesto - We has melatonin! And pretty, pretty moo cards! Spike is very grateful, or at least he will be next time there's thunder or fireworks, and I am grateful already. Thank you so much!

ambersaigh - thank you for the conversation that made me search out my copy of Gaudy Night. I wasn't sure I even currently owned one, but I wanted it so badly I cleared some of the pile of crap in the kitchen that's been sitting there depressing me for months, and found it there. I might even tackle the rest of it now. And - I hadn't forgotten how much I love Dorothy L. Sayers, or I wouldn't have been fangirling her at you, but I had forgotten how densely her writing is packed with both description and distraction. I have a feeling you'll love it.

There's a series of detective novels, featuring a character called Nick *something*. They're rather noir, published in the late eighties to early nineties. The author's male and English and they're set in London. The protagonist is a private detective who (I think) is an ex-copper who was fired for corruption - or something. He has a girlfriend in the early books who gets killed at some point in the series, and a preteen/teenaged daughter. Either his ex-wife or his daughter is named Hazel (I think). The books' titles are rock music references - I can't recall if they're actual song titles or just clear allusions to song titles. I'm fairly sure one of them is an Elvis Costello reference. The plots feature a lot of gangsters, guns, cocaine, nastiness, fast cars, adrenaline and angst for the protagonist.

Anyone out there know who I'm talking about? I've tried typing all the references I can remember into Google and come up with nothing, I spent an hour looking at Wikipedia's crime fiction section last night, and I also trawled through Amazon clicking on all the vaguely similar-themed crime books I could remember to see if the name came up on the "customers who bought this book also bought..." thing. No joy anywhere and I am now officially being driven out of my mind.

Help?

EDIT: I hate my brain. This has been driving me batshit for 24 hours. It magically popped into my brain five minutes after I posted this.

From the "you learn something new every day" files: I never knew until today that the woman who wrote this and the man who wrote this were married to each other!

They were both a huge influence in my childhood and I love both still. Does that make them my word-parents or something?

They even live in the South of England. How cool is that??

Spike's been... fun these last few days. The kittens are all over the bedroom and come to the crack in the door to touch noses with him. He's even been allowed in the room with them a couple of times. Shona did the most perfect miniature fluffed-up fury at him before deciding to be his friend - the other three just treat him as part of the furniture. He's as careful around them as if they were soap bubbles that his life depended on not bursting, but their existence excites him almost beyond endurance, so as soon as I drag him away from them to take him out, all that pent-up psycho hosebeast comes fizzing and boiling out. It's fun. And a little scary.

Oh look, I did an entire entry without bitching about the heat. That's just because it's too fucking hot to repeat myself again. It's killing me. It's also why I'm not internetting much. I can't sit in this chair in the daytime without being glued down by sweat and my brain's too boiled to read or write much anyway.

Okay, it was almost an entire entry.

Bones Would Rain From The Sky arrived this morning. I've been meaning to read this forever and I wasn't disappointed.

It felt as though there was nothing in it that I didn't already know. None of it came like a thunderclap of revelation. It was more like the recurring dream I have sometimes, when I walk through a familiar door and find a landscape behind it, green hills, the old walled garden, heathland, rabbit holes and hedges, that I know like the back of my hand although none of it has ever existed in my physical reality.

The key to the dream, though, the big reason why it's the one that makes me happy all day when I wake up, is that in the dream I've always forgotten that the beautiful place exists till I walk through the door and see it laid out before me.

That's what reading this book was like. And now, Spike and Squish and I are going out to play.

May your lives be blessed by the beauty that has touched mine.