Every word of it is completely true.

John Scalzi, Campbell-award winning author, has been thrilling fans with his writing since he began as is evidenced by his Hugo award for fan writing. This amazing victory can best be summed up in the reaction of his mother-in-law, who often weeps at the thought of his writing and what it means to her daughter.

But where did this phenomenal talent come from? Born in California on May 10, 1869, Professor Scalzi’s life followed normal patterns for a child of his time. Although he demonstrated an early facility for language in the forged notes he created to get out of the entirety of third year, his true skills did not become apparent until his parents sent him to an exclusive boarding school in the Catskills. This location would become ironically apt later in his life.

Brother Francis Gerard later commented in his memoirs that “Young Scalzi had the worst hand-writing we had ever seen. It was impossible to test him because no one could read his writing, and yet curiously, his forgeries were impeccable. So we set him to copying, hoping that he would learn to write his own words as well as he could write other’s.”

Taking the command to “copy the good book” rather more liberally than his instructors intended, Scalzi picked out what he called, “the only good book in the school library,” Starship Troopers. Not content with merely copying the original text, Scalzi began the project that led to his receiving the 1985 Hugo for Best Fan Art — The Complete Illuminated Works of Robert A. Heinlein. Rendered on vellum with ink ground from a mixture of boa-boa berry and dark coffee, these lovingly drawn works represent nearly a lifetime of work. The sheets of vellum measure on average 24″ by 17″ inches and have an estimated $5000 worth of gold leaf and powdered cobalt spanning the collection.  Exhibited at the Smithsonian, MOMA and the Vatican, they have brought universal acclaim from old fans and new alike.

In 2004, Scalzi was awarded a fellowship at Yale for his work on the Illuminated Manuscripts.  The pressure of teaching interfered with his continuing efforts so he moved with his wife Krissy, to rural Ohio.  There he began working with private students on the fine art of illumination.

While taking a break from his students, Professor Scalzi happened to witness one of his neighbors working on the neighboring ranch, herding his flock of cats. The job was overwhelming the man, so Scalzi stepped in and discovered that these highly trained animals were bored with their role.  He introduced them to the notion of illuminating manuscripts which they took to, as if they were born to it. He’s since begun work on a new illuminated manuscript collaborating with the cat, Ghlaghghee .  They selected the material together by the simple means of Professor Scalzi spreading his books around until Ghlaghghee chose one to sit on — The Collected Works of Francis Bacon.

I got home and she was basically a skeleton with fur and just hiding in the closet.  I called the vet, explaining that she wasn’t eating or drinking.  We discussed humane euthanasia, but decided that as long as she was still happy sitting in someone’s lap that we’d let nature take its course.

I was struck by the fact that she kept trying to go to the litter box with no success.

Now, this serves as a warning to everyone that I’m going to be talking about the tail end of a cat’s digestive system.

Seriously, read no further if you don’t want to know about a kitty enema.  I’ll let you know right now that she’s much better, but it does involve an enema and a cat.

I mean it.

You’ve been warned.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

Right… so, I researched “constipated cat” on the internet and found several different sources that talked about how this was fairly common in older cats, particularly ones on a high meat protein diet. Now the only thing she’d really been eating last week was tuna, so this seemed to qualify.  Several of the sites had people commenting that their vets had told them to adminster a glycerin enema for infants.

It was fairly late, but Rob and I talked about it and decided it couldn’t hurt at this point.  I trotted off to the pharmacy and came home with a box of them, guaranteed to invoke a bowel movement in 15 minutes to one hour.

The results, shall we say, were astonishing.

I’d read that what would happen to a cat would be that water would leach out of the colon and turn the stool into a “hard, concrete-like object.”  Yes.  What nothing prepared me for was that the gylcerin greases the system enough so that these hard pellets come out of the cat like projectiles.  Thankfully, Rob had the foresight to do this in the bathtub.

Basically, he laid her on her back in his lap on a towel. My job was to scritch her ears. We alternated between saline enemas and glycerine three times. The tube for the actual infant enema seemed awfuly large for a kitty, so Rob inserted it into a narrower tube from the bottle that I use when dying my hair. It’s totally clean enough for use with her, but I’ll be buying a new one for me, thank you very much.

There was nothing wrong with her vocal cords, but she was weak enough that she just let us do this unpleasant thing to her.  So, we cleaned out her, um, system and washed her off. She hated us but seemed to be moving better.

Then this morning, a miracle occurred. She jumped onto the bed and demanded to be fed.  She’s been eating and drinking normally all day. Now, she’s still feeble and not back to her old self, but the turnaround is so astonishing. I mean we both really thought she was dying.

She might still be, but we’re hoping that we’ve got a reprieve.

• 12:49 Worried about Maggie. Rob and I realized that neither of us saw her eat yesterday. She has no interest in food today. Not even the treats. #
• 13:22 Just loaded an unprotesting Maggie into the cat carrier. The vet has an opening today. She’s drinking water at least, so that’s good. #
• 13:33 We’re in the cab and there’s NOTHING wrong with her vocal cords. Man, that’s a lot of volume from such a small cat #
• 14:35 Maggie and I are on the way home. She weighs 5 lbs 10 oz, which is way too light. They are doing bloodwork. #

The vet gave Maggie an appetite stimulant and pumped her full of fluids.  The suspicion is that it’s kidney trouble which isn’t uncommon in older cats.

About an hour after I got home, she nibbled on some tuna which was an enormous relief.

An enormous and short-lived relief.  When I got home tonight, Rob told me that Maggie has developed diarrhea in addition to vomiting.  The poor thing is curled up on a heating pad and looks just miserable.

I mean, you don’t even get a sense of the height of the mound in this photo. Why isn’t he bald?

So today, I went out and bought a furminator. My heavens. The thing works exactly as promised. Plus you get the added bonus of getting to say, “Careful, or I’ll furminate you,” or “I furminated Marlowe earlier,” or “Not just now, I’m furminating.”

I mean… really. How can you not love that.

One of the interesting things about moving is that one finds all sorts of things, like, say, a short story from 1978. I was nine years old. Here is an excerpt with the original spelling and punctuation. It’s part of a collection I wrote called Cats and their Adventures.

Tiger Cat

Once upon a time there was a young mother tiger. She had three cubs, named Tiger Cat, Lilybug, and Strips. Tiger, (as everyone called him,) grew and grew. He was the oldest and the strongest. Tiger loved to help his mother. One day his mother told him to watch Lilybug and Strips. While his mother was gone a fox tried to capture Lilybug. He was about to carry Lilybug away when Tiger pounced on him, then sank his teeth into the fox’s neck. They fell to the ground. When hi mother came back she said, “Where did you get that?”

Lilybug said, “Tiger killed it.”

“Tiger, was it around the den?” said his mother.

“Yes.” said Tiger, “it was trying to capture Lilybug.” They ate 1/4 of it.

One day Tiger met a tigeress that he liked. That was when Tiger was three. Her name was Tawny. Tawny and Tiger liked each other. One night Tiger invited Tawny to eat supper with him.

Wow… I was writing about tigers dating. Does that count as a romance?

Despite my fond hopes, Maggie never glowed in the dark. But, thanks to modern science, there are glow in the dark cats in the world. That would be the end to tripping over the infernal beast at night.

I really want one.

Really.

I CAN HAZ GLOW-IN-THE-DARK?

On the whole, I think the layout worked well for the dining portion, but the mingling portion beforehand still has some kinks to be worked out. We had the cats locked up in the bedroom, but next time, I think we’ll have to have that room open just for more milling about space.

I really, really love throwing dinner parties. Especially this one because it’s my formal dress party. I’ve got a bit of a thing for evening dress and I throw this party as “black tie optional.” Now, technically, that means that it’s a white tie party and the gentlemen can dress down to black tie, but in this day and age, it just means you can dress up if you feel like it. And everyone looked stunning, I must say.

Sorry. Like an idiot, I forgot to take pictures with the tables set. You’ll have to trust me that there was much china and crystal, with placecards and party favors.

Ah me… I need to throw more parties.

The palm is in the window. Marlowe spent a little while happily gnawing on it. I asked the florist for something that wouldn’t poison my cat. He said this was popular with cat owners. It’s hardy and can stand up to some punctured leaves. It’s nice to have green things in the apartment.

• Ungi maðurinn þekkir reglurnar, en gamli maðurinn þekkir undantekningarnar.
  “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”
• Nú duga engin vettlingatök.
  “No more mitten-takes.” — used for: Do it right this time.
• Ég kem alveg af fjöllum.
  “I come completely from mountains” — used for: I have no idea what is going on
• Ég mun finna þig í fjöru
  “I will find you on a beach” — used for: Don’t make me hurt you. Sort of.
• Að koma einhverjum fyrir kattarnef
  “To put someone before a cats nose.” — used for: Putting someone in the spotlight, but slightly more dangerous.
• Ég borga bara með reiðufé
  “I only pay with an angry sheep” — used for: Okay, but I don’t have to like it.

Edited to add: I put in rough ideas of how one would use these phrases

I was, to be honest, anticipating some fireworks. When I got Marlowe as a kitten, Maggie hated him so much that if I petted Marlowe and then tried to touch her without washing my hands, she would hiss at me. I’m not making that up. She tolerates him now, more so after the cross-country drive than before.

And Marlowe has never seen another cat, except ones outside the window. His only other experience with other animals have been with dogs that we’ve dogsat. (Boy, that word looks wrong.) Oh, and the mice. Anyway, I had no idea how he would react.

Zoe came right out of her carrier and went up to Marlowe to sniff his nose. He was totally freaked. He had no idea what to do. He only knows this one other cat who beat him up as a kitten–in fact, it’s only in the last year or two that he’s realized that he’s bigger than she is and that she’s old. So, despite the fact that he looks like a giant hulk next to Zoe (also a black cat) he was afraid of her.

Maggie stretched, walked up to Zoe. They sniffed. Then Maggie went to take a nap on the futon. She was so not interested. I think she was just pleased that I hadn’t brought home another dog.

We spent most of dinner watching the cats watch each other. The best moment came after dinner. I wanted to show Jenny and Chris the thing that Marlowe does with the basket. I didn’t think he’d do it, because there was so much strangeness. Man, he saw the basket and beelined across the room to sink his face into it. He immediately sank into his “I’m invisible” posture and seemed so much more at ease.

Zoe. Zoe clearly thought he was insane.

She crept out from under the bookcase where she had been hiding and stretched out to sniff the basket. Marlowe made one “meep” and she levitated backwards, kindof like, “My god! There really is a cat in that thing!”

After that everyone settled into a good routine of ignoring each other. I saw her this morning when I put her food down, but she’s hiding now. I think she’s in my closet, but I’m not going to fish her out. Jenny and Chris come back to pick her up tonight.

I think Maggie heard it first, but Marlowe was very persistent and caught it. We let him play with it for a little, hoping for a quick kill. Silly us. He was the gentleman and let Maggie play with the mouse first. It astonished me how gentle she was with it, reaching out with velveted paws to tap it. This phase did not last long, of course.

In all, I don’t think the mouse was in the cats’ possession for much more than a minute. I kept trying to tell myself that this was nature and that I should stop being squeamish. Yeah… that would have been fine if they hadn’t just been toying with the thing. I mean, watching it try to get away with a broken leg was horrible.

So, Rob scooped it up in a tupperware and we discussed the most humane way to kill it. The cats, meanwhile are looking for another mouse.

My suggestion was to wrap it in newspaper and smack it on the head with a hammer. Rob concurred. In her youth, Maggie just presented me with a dead mouse so I’ve never had to make this decision before.

On the whole though, it’s nice that the cats are earning their keep. Right?

See, this is why I didn’t buy any books at Readercon this weekend. I’d told him that I wouldn’t bring any new books home, because we don’t know if we have enough space for the ones we brought. I was sort of amazed at the number of people who told me that I should buy books anyway–and not just dealers–as if they were unaware that it meant that I would be breaking a promise and then lying about it. The boy didn’t squawk when I announced I was going to a convention the weekend after we moved in, so the request that I not bring home any new books seemed pretty easy to honor.

It’s nice to be home, although it is hot. We are trying to do without airconditioning. It wasn’t bad last night or this morning, but at the moment it is very sticky. The cats are totally flat on the floor. If I give in on the air conditioning thing, it’ll be because of them. I mean, they can’t take their fur coats off.

I now have three people who want me to mod their laptop for them and I’ve got a volunteer to be a test subject on my next trial run. I’ve figured out how to make an easily customizable template, so now I just need to try it to see if it really works. I also have to time how long it takes me to do it, since I did this one in and around the process of moving. I will, naturally, keep you posted.

We’re going shopping today so Rob can pick up the things he needs to finish the oven–which has a broken door–and so we can get some other household things. My project is to give all the doors functioning doorknobs and latches. At the moment, we have to put a chair against the bedroom door to keep the cats out at night. I’ve also got some shelving to build.

Here’s today’s batch of photos. Some of them are blurry because in order to get the camera far enough away I frequently have to hold it against the wall and can’t see what I’m shooting.

Slightly more unpacked

Rob and Kevin pulled our bikes out of the truck today (they were on top) and we biked along the Lake Wobegon Trail. Man, it was nice to stretch my legs. The ride is beautiful. There was a giant patch of ladyslippers by the side of the road which my mom would have been gaga over. I wish I’d had the camera on the bike ride with me.

The cats seem fine here. In fact, all guilt that I have felt about keeping them cooped up in the truck has vanished. Maggie has spent the entire day sleeping in one spot. And Marlowe? He found a spot on an empty shelf which is smaller than the carrier he’s been riding in. He’s spent today sleeping in there. He had a brief nose-sniff with Roo, their golden lab, but has otherwise been content to stay in his cave.

We’re planning on hitting the road about 8:00 tomorrow morning and head for Racine.

The cats are ensconced in our room. They seem have settled into the routine nicely. Maggie tends to stay in the “upstairs apartment” which is the open carrier on top. Marlowe alternates between the downstairs and “the cave,” which is the area under our seats. I moved a bunch of stuff to the rear of the truck, since we weren’t using any of it, so that he had more room to hang out. He still gets freaked out by being outside during the day, but last night was hankering to go out. We had them both tied to our luggage inside the tent until we got settled.

Today, I even got them both to play a little bit with string. I don’t know what they make of the whole trip, but they are being remarkably adaptable.

We’ll see how well they let us sleep tonight. I am dragging and looking forward to a day of being stationary. We’ll stay here in Avon until Monday, when it is off to Wisconsin.

I promised to tell you about our misadventures from yesterday, so this is what I wrote up while we were driving.

It was dark when we crossed into South Dakota. One of the interesting things about crossing a state line is that the quality of the road one is traveling on changes dramatically. So, as we crossed into South Dakota all the reflectors disappeared, the white line showing the edge of the road disappeared and the color of the road became almost exactly the same as the shoulder. Without my brights on, it was very hard to see the road. I did not feel comfortable traveling more that forty-five mph.

Everytime another car approached, the road beyond them completely vanished. I learned to watch the angle at which they approached to get a guess about what the road would do when I got to it. Occasionally, there would be reflectors by the road, but not where you would expect them. There might be a curve and then three reflectors on the straightaway.

At one point, as a semi approached and the road vanished again, I saw a quick reflection in his lane. I had time to think, “My god, is there a cyclist on this road?”

And then I hit a deer.

A herd of them was standing on the road. What I had seen was the reflection of one of the other deer’s eyes. The one I hit materialized in my headlights as if it had beamed into place. I can only assume that the semi also hit one.

We stopped, confirmed that there was no serious damage to the truck. There wasn’t–one of the advantages of driving something so large, I guess. After this, I slowed down still more as the road got twistier.

We kept trying to call the campground to cancel the reservation, but could get no cell signal. Though it meant that we didn’t get to the campground until after 11:00, we still went for it knowing that if we got behind, that today would be even longer.

Unfortunately, they stop registration at 11:00. So, though we had reservations, we had no idea where we were supposed to be. I finally found a bag with our name on it that contained a map to our site. It was hard to see the site numbers, so we decided that I would sit in the truck while Rob looked for the campsite.

While I was sitting there, someone came out to complain about the noise of the diesel, so I shut it down. Someone else then came up to demand to know what was going on. Though I was now quiet, he wanted me to move the truck away. I figured the smart thing to do would be to take it back to the main parking area and just pack the tent and cats to the campsite. He assured me that the road went straight through.

He was quite wrong. So, while Rob was looking for the campsite, I got stuck at the end of a deadend road. I tried turning the truck around, and hit a rock–no damage, since I was going extremely slowly, but enough to convince me to stop the truck where I was.

We were next to a cabin which had no cars in front of it. There was a large grassy area. At this point I decided to screw finding “our” site and to just camp in the grassy area. I walked back to get Rob and we set up the tent. Of course, since we were at the end of a dead-end road, it was completely dark. The truck was facing away from the grassy area, so there was no way to use the headlights to set up. We worked with the glow cast by the overhead light in the back of the truck. Our nightlight, once we set up the tent, was supplied by the screen of my laptop. Ah, technology.

We got up at five this morning and hit the road. Mt. Rushmore wasn’t open yet, but is clearly visible from the road. I’ve got to say that it’s more impressive from the side than from the front, but there’s no safe way to pull off and take a photo there.

The road since then has been unbelievably straight.

A hearty, hearty thank you to the Chelsea household, Mick Daugherty and Rick Lovett for their help carting everything across. They totally saved our hiney.

The house is totally empty except for the cats and their acoutrements. We pick them up in the morning and hit the road. The plan is to leave at dawn and go straight to Salt Lake City instead of doing an overnight stay in Boise. Whee! At least the solstice will give us lots of daylight driving time.

It’s 10:00 now and we are about to leave the house. We decided to hire a cleaning service to do the cleaning, but it took us awhile to sort and organize the remaining items. The truck wasn’t quite big enough.

A hearty thank you to our helpers: The Chelsea family, Aimee, Merilee, Kate, Mick, Yani, David, Sam and Cindy. We couldn’t have done this without you guys.

Next on my agenda–a shower.

Tomorrow we’ll take some things to the storage locker, load the ice chest, put the cats in their carriers and hit the road.

Aimee came up so I could take her to the yarn store on Alberta today. Everytime I’m in a yarn store I want to knit something and then when I try knitting I get bored out of my mind. I know other people love it, but it just makes me restless.

Rob and I went out to dinner tonight at Bernie’s Southern Bistro. We got a gift certificate from my realtor for recommending him to Christina. I’d gone to Bernie’s once before and been underwhelmed. Alas, tonight my experience was repeated. Part of it, of course, is that I grew up with really good Southern food–allow me to introduce you to my mother and you will understand why I am hard to impress–but the rest of it was just that it wasn’t all that well balanced. Rob was not impressed either. It’s not bad, mind you, just not what the ambiance wants you to think it will be. Still it was nice to get out of the house.

And now, I return to packing and labeling things for the yard sale. I am looking forward to the road trip. It’ll be so peaceful with the open road, Rob, and two cats–wait.

• Dogs and cats: Symptoms of overdose of metronidazole include the gastrointestinal signs (anorexia, vomiting) and neurologic signs including depression, ataxia, disorientation, head-tilt, tremors, bradycardia, rigidity, stiffness, and seizures. Neurologic signs may occur due to acute overdose although they are more commonly seen in animals that are on long-term moderate or high doses (oral doses greater than 66 mg/kg/day). Signs of chronic toxicity often begin 7-12 days following the start of treatment. After the drug is discontinued, it may be several days to two weeks before these neurologic signs begin to diminish.

Sigh…

The vet nodded, “If she’s not eating; then you may need to bring her back in.”

“I don’t think she’s getting sicker; I think she’s depressed.”

Across the waiting room a black cat yowled as if someone were killing him right there. His owner tried to reassure him, but the cat didn’t speak English. Neither does Maggie, so I can’t tell her what the vet said–that if she doesn’t finish the antibiotics, she could develop a super-resistant strain of stomach bug.

“I know.” I nodded. Years ago, I’d wanted to be a vet; I hated being the neurotic pet owner now. “It’s just that I feel like I’m making things worse.”

“Well, if the half-tablets are too large, try cutting them into quarters and see if she’ll take it with some soft food.”

I blinked. “Half-tablets? We’ve been giving her whole tablets.”

Looking down at her chart, the vet said, “Half tablet every twelve hours. Fortunately it’s a very mild medicine, so it’s not dangerous.”

It still made me feel ill. I mean, misreading medication like that could have been fatal. “So, instead of having three more days, I have six more days?”

“Right. But if we can get at least seven days of antibiotics and if the symptoms have stopped, then it’s probably safe to stop the pills. It’s better to finish the round, but if it’s making her miserable you can stop after seven days.”

I thanked her and biked home with my handy syringe. Rob was waiting for me, so we could do her morning pilling. I told him what the vet said and then I grabbed the bottle of pills.

The label said, “One pill every twelve hours.”

One. Not half. I called the vet’s office, related my story and learned that the label was wrong. So, on the one hand, there’s a measure of relief, because I didn’t misread the instructions. On the other hand, I’m ticked. I mean, hello? It’s lucky that it was a “mild” medication because I could have hurt my cat.

The half-pill is, surprise, easier to get down Maggie’s throat. The routine goes like this. I butter the pill and then we stick it in the freezer (thanks, Christina), which helps keep the coating from melting. I grab Maggie and swaddle her in a towel, sitting on the kitchen floor. Holding her on her back, I brace her while Rob pries her mouth open and shoves the pill back as far as he can. She cries. He squirts water down her throat, which forces her to swallow. It does seem to help.

Both pilling sessions went well today. But–but we have to do it for twice as long as we thought we did. Or…or we quit after seven days. And poor Maggie has no idea why we decided to start torturing her.

Poor kitty.

After lunch I headed down to the Portland Spirit to do a little web stuff, which fortunately did not take long. It was so lovely that I biked around on the waterfront when I got out of there. I also stopped at a gelato place on the way home. Mmm… sweet cream gelato.

And then the best thing of all. Rob grabbed a mirror and reflected a sunbeam on the floor for our cats. Witness the hilarity.

To celebrate the good weather, we had dinner on the front porch. Not surprisingly, I am sunburned. This is makes me strangely happy.

But besides that bit of oddness, it turns out the rules have changed since I last looked. It is now four weeks of isolation, instead of six, and they have a facility in Reykjavik. When we looked into it before, the only facility was on an island in a fjörd in northern Iceland. This seems doable.

I’m sure you are wondering if this means we are moving to Iceland instead of NYC. Nothing has changed, we’re just looking at all our options.

Or not. It’s also possible that we won’t go to Iceland at all.

Or that he’ll go and I will stay in NYC the whole time.

Or that we’ll both go on the May 1 and someone else will move us into the apartment.

Then there’s the question of where to put our cats if Iceland happens.

The short form of this is that although I’ve got plenty of material to write about, it almost all makes me feel stressed and reminds me that I should be packing instead of writing about packing. Sigh.

I did have a lovely, lovely time at Norwescon. I loved hanging out with Stephen Segal, Lisa Mantchev, Cat Rambo, Jennifer, Gordon Gross, Spencer and Chrissy Ellsworth, Patrick Swenson, Cherie Priest, M.K. Hobson, John Pitts, Ken and Jen Scholes (though not enough), Jay Lake…. the list goes on and on. I’d link to you all, but I should be packing.

Highlights of the convention: the Sesame Street monsters, meeting Kathy Watts, the Liars’ Panel, breakfast with Cherie Priest, Talebones Live, seeing the Earthling mockup, everyday at the Ellsworths’ and Easter dinner at the Pitts’ residence.

When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.

My favorite quote from the website, “Most cats dislike the harmonica.”

We’ve been bringing Maggie downstairs and praising Zamboni is she doesn’t lunge or bark. Today I carried Maggie down, and Zamboni only whined and sniffed, then wandered off and lost interest. That’s great progress, so Maggie can sit in my lap while I work again.

Our cats have taken to living upstairs; we’ve moved the litter box and their food up there. Zamboni, Christina’s dog, is afraid of stairs, so is living on the first floor. Everyone seems to be okay with this arrangement so far.

Our neighbor, Mark, invited us all over to his house for lunch, which was so very, very nice. He knew our kitchen would be in disarray.

Then it was back home for more packing or unpacking. In the evening, Rob and I went down to -e-’s house for birthday party for Yanni. Walking down the quiet streets in the snow was wonderful. And there’s still snow on the ground today. Hurrah.

Marlowe would love it.

Edited to add: I found this in Mr. De Boer’s FAQ.

Q. Have you ever put a mouse into a suit of armour?

A. If there was one question that I have been asked the most, this is the one. I have not put a mouse into a suit of armour. I have, however, tried it with one of my cats, and have the scars to prove it.

When he was a kitten I gave him one of those string ornaments to play with. He used to bite the edge of it, and it would flip, almost going over his head. One evening, as I was hosting a dinner party, one of my guest said, “Kitten! What have you done?”

I had nightmarish images of the kitten dipped in paint and looked under the table, to see this tiny black kitten with a giant white bubble on his head. After dying with laughter, I pulled it off the poor thing. Five minutes later he had it back on. Our best guess is that looking through it makes him think of tall grass. When it still fit over his entire head, I painted it like a jack-o-lantern for halloween. None of my guests believed me that he liked it.

He’ll greet me at the front door with it on, occasionally falls asleep wearing it, and will run from one end of the house to the other with it on. I bought a twelve-pack of the balls, because he does wear them out. And yes, he can take it off on his own. He’s an odd, odd cat.

If it weren’t for the fact that so many editors have a strong aversion to cat stories, I would totally write one about Marlowe and his helmet of invisibility.

The trees still have fall foliage here. Reds and yellow are everywhere, and the weather is clear. In Portland. In November. It’s like a welcome home present. Our cats, Maggie and Marlowe, seem to remember me. I honestly wasn’t sure if they would or if they would care that I’ve come back. They were very affectionate and clingy last night.

I woke up around 4:30, but was able to get back to sleep until a more reasonable hour. I got up around 7:45, which is not bad for jetlag. Now, I’m sitting in Fuel, my favorite coffee shop. I had an egg and cheese bagel for breakfast with a decaf mocha. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to order a decaf anything without wondering if they would have decaf?

They have a self-feeder and waterer, but we need someone to come over and give them some laptime. So, if you know me well enough to know where I live when I’m not in Iceland and would be willing to go on the cat attendent rotation schedule, will you drop me a line?

That’s all, folks.

I am now going downstairs to remove the cats’ food bowls because Maggie goes in for surgery tomorrow morning. She’s not allowed to have food after 8pm tonight.