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Camp NaNo Prep, Story Soundtracks, and Other Stories

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In about a day and a half, I will start my first historical romance project in…a while. Can a thing feel scary and like coming home at the same time? Apparently, yes. I don’t know very much about the story I have given a working title of Love in a Northern Town, (will definitely change that title. Stories usually tell me their names when they are ready.) because one of the very first things I knew about it was that it would take place in the Noth of England, a setting I haven’t written in yet. Why? Well, why not? It’s not like I haven’t done that before.

Once upon a time, I sat in the kitchen of a pair of dear friends, both musicians, who were off tuning their tunes, while I dog/apartment sat and figured I could use the time to double as a writing retreat. I wrote the start of what would eventually become Orphans in the Storm, which I hope to rerelease in the near future. I knew exactly nothing about the Isle of Man, but that wasn’t the setting I picked; it was the setting. Writer friends, you know what that means. Research. It means research.

“Whithersoever you throw it, it will stand.”

Manx flag and motto right there. Translated from the Manx (because they have their own language and if you think that meant I had to figure out what kind of grammar a native Manx speaker would use if English was their second language, you are right.) in the modern vernacular, whichever way you throw me, I stand. If you are guessing that such a translation slammed into me with a physical force, you are also right. Yes. There she was, my Manx-raised British heroine, Jonnet, torn from the only home she knew and summoned to the faraway Court in Exile of Charles II at the end of the English Civil War. Torn off every mooring she’d ever thought she had, she found her own footing, and most unexpectedly of all, love.

The motto applies as well to her hero, Simon, a king’s man if there ever was one, determined to do whatever it took to do his part in restoring the rightful king to his throne. Simon wasn’t only patriotic, but also wanted to do his beloved father proud, which meant that I listened to a lot of Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” because that was Simon’s dad’s song, full stop. I’m not in charge of these things.

I only discovered this children’s choir version today, but it was one of those very good gut punches, so that’s what I’m sharing here.

For Simon, the theme song was “Superman,” by Five For Fighting. Oh Simon, Simon, Simon, always wanting to do the right thing, even if it hurts. Maybe especially then. Simon has issues.

I have loved this song from the first time I heard it, but never saw the video before today.

As for Jonnet, I didn’t know at first that I had a song for her, but as soon as I decided I needed to know, boom, there it was. “Time After Time,” by Cyndi Lauper. I picked the isolated vocals version because that suited Jonnet best, raised in isolation, where she developed bone-deep loyalty and resilience that served her well.

I remember watching the video when it was new. Still holds up. Well done, madam.

I loved writing this book. Loved less learning that I had actually sold it during caregiver brain fog and had less than a month to submit my final-final copy, when the computer I had at the time munched all of my files. Thankfully, I had backups, in my longstanding writing gtoup, so I called in every scrap of paper I gave them, and spent hours on the office floor, piecing together the whole book from scratch. My dear sister-friend, Kathleen Underwood, who was a fabulously talented graphic artist turned my babblings and a handful of separate images into the exact moment when Jonnet first spots the ship that has come to take her from her home and into her destiny, with that same gut punch of “yes, that’s it!” as mentioned about above songs. Kathleen, whom friends called Kady, is no longer with us, but I will forever treasure this straight out of my brain to her screen piece of art.

One hundred percent, if she were still with us, I would have her mockup of a cover for this new story on my desk, to draw inspiration. I don’t have anything like that on hand, and I want it, so I will have to see what my limited collage skills can do. What I can do, though, is start a playlist, I have a playlist for all of my stories. Well, each. They all get their own. It doesn’t matter that this new story (not sure I even want to refer to it as LIAT until I know its name, but one has to call the new baby something) takes place in the first half of the eighteenth century (the Augustan era, a term I was last week years old when I discovered, and mainly refers to literature, but I felt the gut punch of reognition, so that’s the setting, yep) so nobody in this story would know about Frank Sinatra, trains, or even lemonade, but the phrase, “life in a northern town” and the heartbeat-like vocalization that’s just sounds and not words (music people, help- I know this isn’t scat, but what’s the hey hey ahh ma ma ma part called?)

once again, I am an 80s kiddo, so I know and love the original, but trust me, Davy (LIAT’s hero) will pull for a pub full of boisterous if not fully sober locals any day.

As for Davy’s heroine, Julia, she hasn’t told me her song yet. She’s trying to keep a low profile, so I don’t blame her. Gently reared London gal, taking a job so far up north it’s basically the other side of the border, to avoid the repercussions of some bad family decisions (but piece of cake compared to the bad family decisions she lands smack in the middle of, oopsie.) Maybe something by Mary Chapin Carpenter? My heroines generally like Mary Chapin Carpenter. I’ll get back to you on that. In the meantime, if you’re a writer are you doing Camp NaNo? If you’re a reader, what’s the best gut punch of a book you ever read?

as always Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Marching Toward Spring Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Right now, there is a sunbeam that lands exactly on the printer, and yet I am here talking to you, so take that with the honor it deserves.

Things have been all right around here. This is the first day in five days Mama Anna has had the apartment to herself (and me) which has her admittedly giddy. She is going through her to-do list for the day, which includes fun things like putting away laundry and getting trash ready for trash day (and getting me to leave said trash alone, which is not an easy task. They have really interesting trash in this family.) She is also blocking out stuff for her Camp NaNo story in a junky old notebook. She is having a fine time doing that. I have a fine time sitting on it if she leaves it unattended. The very picture of an attractive nuisance.

Speaking of me, Mama Anna insisted that I share this image:

My bowl, with crunchies and washi roll

Aunt Linda noticed that there was a special guest star in my crunchies bowl. She wondered how that got there. It is not that complicated, really. There are a few reasons. First, I might have put it there because it is a safe space for me to find it when I want to play with it later. Second I might have been playing and have cat-specific reasons you hoomans would not understand. Third, and maybe most likely, I probably got excited about the food and forgot I had one of the best toys ever (seriously. They are SUPER fun. You should try one.) in my mouth and started eating and it fell into the crunchies and then I did something else and that’s why the awesome ring of cardboard was still in my dish.

Also, I know absolutely nothing about the crack on the casing of Mama Anna’s laptop. It definitely doesn’t come from me walking across the keyboard or sitting on it. Or laying on it. Or any other activities that a cat not unlike myself might do when upon a keyboard. Like standing. She only noticed it today, and will point it out to Papa when he gets home. They have been talking about a gaming computer, so maybe this is even a step in that direction. Either that or Mama Anna will slap some pink Duck tape on it (yes, she has some) and call it a day.

What’s on your agenda? Is it a cat?

How Is It March Already?

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Seriously. I did not sign off on that. Anyway, hi. Storm should be back blogging at the end of this week. She has been occupied with some premium sunbeams, and an array of boxes. Important cat stuff. Also, she thinks it’s good for me to take a post every now and again.

Photo by Alina Vilchenko on Pexels.com

Stock photo for today, as I am clipping along on my list of tasks and refuse to cede any momentum. That means stream of consciousness, so let’s go. :cracks knuckles: I am currently out of cough drops, and trust me, this is everybody’s problem. I only live a few blocks from a CVS, so will venture out tomorrow. Today has been my day to attack my environment (aka the aftereffects of two full house days in a row) with an eye to making it more conducive to creativity/writing. Which does mean reducing clutter.

Part of that is refining/curating my art stuff. That means keep the favorites, share the love on the rest. Things look slightly less chaotic, and I absolutely do need to upgrade from the TV tray type desk I have been using. If I could get my secretary desk out of storage, that would be ideal. If not, well, that might be more Ikea (ish.) Sleep was not awesome for the last couple of nights, but on the bright side, I did listen to two audiobooks. Apparently, I have a thing for dual timelines. That’s something to keep in mind as I meander my way to whatever form my Camp NaNo participation takes. Not going for 50k, more like baby steps, and by that I mean enthusiastic lurches into the unknown, likely resulting in falling upon my own posterior and the like. Fun fact: I studied early childhood development/education in college. The most important thing I learned was that I was not meant for that field.

That’s an important thing to learn. I like writing much better. I am looking forward to Camp, though I haven’t registered yet. I should. Okay. There is an assignment. Register for Camp. Camp means cabins, means other people diving in the same way I am. Or close to it. Definitely a rebel. Always a rebel. Unless I get to the point where the most rebellious thing I can do with this sort of thing is to go by the standard. Stranger things have happened.

Right now, I am one-fifth of the way through an epic standalone historical romance (in the reading department) and have another YA thriller audiobook waiting for the evening’s entertainment. It’s this one:

yep, double timeline, and an abandoned apartment. Must read.

TV/streaming is promising at the moment. The Ones Who Live (which I abbreviate to “TOWL” in my journal, pronounced, “towel” and the new So You Think You Can Dance are both waiting for me. Zombies, dancing, but not dancing zombies. One hopes. I am also eyeing some nonfiction history books which may or may not have influence on my Camp project. I may even go buck wild and grab a composition book and a ballpoint and noodle therein while ostensibly watching TV. It’s bene known to work before, and writing like a fifteen-year-old actually does sound like fun.

That’s enough for right now, and it’s time for me to run trash and do some recon on some happy mail that should be showing up here any time now, so talk amongst yourselves. I’ll be back soon.

as always, Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: No Closed Doors Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We have a very important topic this week, and that is that Mama Anna cannot close doors when I am on the wrong side of them.

In case you are wondering, the wrong side means that I would not be on the same side of the door as Mama Anna. I am her girl. She is my mama. That means I need to be with her. Preferably on her, but near is still good. That did not happen this week, on Wednesday.

I will say up front that I am semi-okay with Mama Anna having to take her calls with Aunt Melva on the landing if the other hoomans are home and there is really no other place to have a private conversation. I don’t like it like it, but I can deal, and they usually keep it to about an hour. That was not the case this Wednesday.

Wednesdays are the days Mama Anna talks with Aunt Mary. I should say Mama Anna and I talk to Aunt Mary. They do that on Mama Anna’s tablet, usually, and Mama Anna turns the tablet so Aunt Mary can see me. When the camera is on me, Aunt Mary talks directly to me, and Mama Anna translates for me into hooman talk to Aunt Mary. It is a system that works. It does not work, however, when Mama Anna is on the other side of the door and I cannot be there. I can hear Aunt Mary but I am not near Mama Anna or the camera, and I made my opinions on that known.

By that, I mean crying. I mean scratching at the door. I mean swiping a long white cat arm under the door crack and shoving my face in the door when Mama Anna opened it a tiny smidge so that I could see she was okay. By my estimation, about thirty percent of that call was Mama Anna trying to calm me. All the other hoomans were home and so the landing was the only place Mama Anna could go in order to have a semiprivate conversation. Next time, she will remember that semi part, because it includes me.

Current plan is that the next time this happens, (this is Aunt Linda’s idea) Mama Anna should close the air lock (stairway door) and let me come on the landing with her. Mama Anna is concerned about me learning what stairs are (I have never been on stairs before) but Aunt Linda says that I will probably be too concerned with staying with Mama Anna to care about stairs. Especially if Mama Anna brings my fleecy cave out there with us. There may also be a baby gate involved, even though I can 100% jump higher than baby gates are. Maybe she should bring treats or toys. What do you think?

Typing With Wet Paws: Second Week of January Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. You would not believe the stuff that is going on around here. Mama Anna is serious about this getting back to business stuff. The good part about that is that I get to snooze in my favorite bed; Mama Anna’s sock drawer. It is right next to her desk when she is working on the computer. I find he clickety clack of keys relaxing. Sometimes, she does the writing by hand stuff at the desk, but usually that is for the people bed. There are seriously a lot of pillows on the people bed. In any event, I am Not Allowed to have anything to do with the leather notebooks. I don’t see the need for a rule like that. I only scratched one cover. With the leather treatment, you can hardly tell. Anyway, let’s get on with the week that was.

There is a rumor, and I can neither confirm nor deny that a decision has been made, that Mama Anna may be switching out the fairy lights around her desk. The ones that are there right now have green wires, and the ones on the tree that they are really seriously putting away this week, they mean it, are white. That goes better with whatever it is that Mama Anna has planned for sprucing up (see what I did there?) her desk area. As long as I still get the sock drawer, I have no strong opinions on the matter. Whether or not she can actually put or get at any socks in that drawer does not matter. Also, I know nothing about how certain items from her traveler’s notebook charm-making stash ended up on the floor up to and including next to my bowls.

One way I can tell for sure that Mama Anna is into the whole writing thing is that today, while she was researching the inheritance rights of Russian women in the eighteenth century (answer: it matters which part) she actually ate part of a handful of my crunchies. She’d managed to function well enough to follow me from her desk to where the crunchies are (only hoomans can open it) but totally spaced on actually putting them in my dish. She assumed the stuff in her hand was dry roasted peanuts (a favorite writing snack) and stuffed some in her mouth. Then right back out of her mouth because dry cat food does not taste like dry roasted peanuts, and they have a very different texture. I won’t say how many bites it took for her to figure this out, but please understand this is the extent to which her brain is back in story land.

Anyway, that’s about it for this week. What’s going on over on your end?

Dressing Gown Days

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Yes, I am American, and I call them dressing gowns. Real Life Romance Hero calls them “enchanted robes of comfort.” His is a lovely smokey grey. Mine is burgundy or oxblood, depending on my whim. They are both fuzzy and warm and perfect for today. We are both having rest days, which for me means I finally get to sneak a blog in for this week. I’ve missed blogging and plan to be more regular in the coming year. Our tree is green this year, with white lights and minimal ornaments, because the rose gold tree is inaccessible at the moment, and I Had To Have A Tree. Worked out pretty well.

My most-played Christmas song this year is “Fairy Tale of New York,” in several different versions, including one all in Gaelic. Yeah, there is some kind of story brewing. I am more than okay with that. .;ppppppppppppppppp (that last bit is from Storm, even though she will get her own blog post tomorrow. She has to be in on everything. Only fair, as it *is* her home.)               b She is in the mood today to remind me that this is a dressing gown day, and that means I have things on my list like “read,” and “watch TV” and “do journal things.” I am trying to tell her that blogging is like journaling, but I don’t think she’s accepting my argument. Ah well.

Housemate purchased this year’s tree at her place of employment, and far overbought both lights and ornaments, which are both tiny and glass, but this is fine for a couple of reasons:

  1. there are no such things as too many ornaments; if we aren’t using them now, we will be using them later, perhaps when we have a house and multiple trees.
  2. Storm can’t get to the tree anyway. If she could, she would have by now.
  3. It goes really well with the fun family stories we already have, like the time I blindly picked out a far too tall for our apartment tree because it was dark and raining and it ended up being Christmas trees, plural, as Real Life Romance Hero sawed it in half and gave the other half to our neighbor.

For those keeping track from last year, that brings our tree count to five. We have the green tree above, the rose gold tree in storage, my pink bottle brush tree, and my pink ceramic tree. Tree number five, I am calling our foster tree, as we are holding onto it for a friend in transit.

I love last year’s A5 rings so much, I am keeping the same setup, only changing the pages for this year’s

The current planner lineup for 2024 is approaching its final form and looks quite different than what I had expected. That seems to be a theme around here these days. I am even going out of town for what is shaping up to be an annual trip to the two coolest places in CT, namely The Book Barn and my friends, Mary and Brian’s house. Obviously, The Book Barn is the number two coolest place. Yes, it has a seemingly endless array of books to buy, but my friends are there only some of the time but they are in their home every day, so that makes it the #1 coolest place. Plus there is a dog.

This year’s Book Barn jaunt is going to be different, because I will be using either crutches or walker (looks like a torn meniscus but healing well) and that will be an adventure. I acquired a backpack to make toting stuff easier, but Storm seems to think I brought home a(nother) cat bed. She is in love with it, to the point of abandoning Real Life Romance Hero feeding her to settle on it. She has priorities. Everything is a cat bed if the cat is comfy enough.

No real point to this post other than the above, which is exactly what one needs on a dressing gown day. How is your day going?

as always, Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Welcome, December Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. Mama Anna says it is also proof of life. That means that we are here and we are okay. Kind of like purring. I am very good at purring.

Apart from the fact that I did not get any people food (unless we count the times I stuck my ace into servings of baked potato soup or macaroni and cheese; Mama Anna tells me to get my face right out of those. They are not for kitties.) Thanksgiving was pretty good. Papa made a pork tenderloin, and Mama Anna stayed up to hit some super doorbusters on Black, White and Orange Friday. Surprising nobody, those super doorbusters were mostly about stationery.

This was not one of them, but I am including it because A) it is now time to turn over the autumn planner/journal decorations to Christmas and winter, and B) you are looking at her new blogging notebook. Notebooks, actually, because there is one for her blogs and one for my blogs, and then there is another for her media consumption journal. I should remind her to make a spread for her Spotify Wrapped this year. She did not listen to a lot of music overall which was one of her “hmm, smells like depression” flags. I am happy to say that she is over that no music thing now and discovering lots of new stuff. Apparently, her top genre of the year was something called “Neo Mellow.” Neither one of us knew that was a thing, but apparently so.

If you think another one of the super doorbusters she attacked was Sims 4 related, you are right. She is super into Sims. Reading and TV are still getting there, but music and gaming are good, and yes, there is some writing. Mama Anna is giving serious consideration to how she might get My Outcast Heart and Orphans in the Storm back out there in 2024, as well as what she and Aunt Melva have planned for the second two books of the Love by the Book series. If you loved Meg and Dominic from Chasing Prince Charming, and wondering what their friends and family are up to, 2024 should be your year.

She has also dusted off A Heart Most Errant (if you like both medieval romance and postapocalyptic romance, this one is for you.) and is looking at expanding it so that it can be longer than novella length and ready to go back out on submission rounds when it is bigger and better. Maybe then she will be able to figure out what that guy named Guy should be doing if he gets to be the hero in a second book.

Also important is that I have discovered how to use a heating pad. I don’t only know how to sit on it when it is already on. I figured out that there is a way I can smack the controls with my paw to make it go from off to warm. I say it’s perfect time for that now that we are in this particular season. We have had dustings of snow. Nothing has stuck so far, but that is not far off. Mama Anna has set up her reading nook with soft pillows, fuzzy blankets, space for a hot drink and easy access to journal stuff. As long as I have access to her lap, she will be warm whether the heating pad is on or not.

How is December treating you so far?

Typing With Wet Paws: Adventures in Leatherwork Edition

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Tails Up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. I have been very active this week. Always one hundred percent chance of Storm activity around here. Today, for instance, I sat on Mama Anna’s phone and tail-dialed Papa at work.

the picture of innocence

That’s not the only spicy thing I have done this week. Of course there is the daily help with making the bed and weekly changing of the sheets, but the superpowers are back, so I have to sep up my game as well. If you have been around here any length of time, you know how much Mama Anna loves her notebooks and planners. I love them, too, mostly lying on the bed. Open, closed, doesn’t matter. She has it, I am on it.

Usually, that is okay. Then there was this time. Mama Anna was feeling productive, and gave both of her leather traveler’s notebook covers a leather treatment. She even gave the B6 size, Christine (the name came on the notebook, so that is the notebook’s name and I will be calling her that) two treatments, because Christine was looking kind of dry. Christine had been taking a rest, but Mama Anna wants to get her back into use, and thus sprucing up is in order.

Well. The thing that they don’t mention on the bottle of the leather treatment stuff is that it smells really good. I mean really, really good. Tantalizing. Tempting. Irresistible. So irresistible, in fact, that I did not resist. Mama Anna had put the two notebooks on the bed just for a minute while she got the box that had inserts that fit Christine out of where she keeps it, and I, well, I had a moment. If you want to make Mama Anna’s head spin around super super fast, do the pricky pricky pricky thing with kitty claws on just-treated-twice leather. Uh huh. Mama Anna was Not Pleased. Apparently this kind of notebook is something called “expensive.”

One would think that Mama Anna would be happy that I took an interest in one of her hobbies, and tried my hand, well, paws, at it myself. She was not. She was also not too mad, because A) I am a cat, B) she is the one who left the notebook on the bed and turned away, and C) I am cute. There is also D) this really does make the cover more one of a kind and gives Mama Anna a reason to say she needs another cover in this size, and her birthday is coming in a couple of weeks, so there is really not a lot of harm done. I no longer get to be alone with leather goods, but that is a small price to pay.

What do you think of my adventures in leatherwork? What should I try next?

Therapy Homework and Other Stories

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

The weather is cool and cloudy today. I have a tall tumbler, filled with vanilla chai tea, too hot yet to drink, which gives me time to start this blog. My blogging goal for this week is to blog twice. Once, to help Storm with her blog, and one that is entirely Anna. The tumbler is a plain silvery finish right now. I will probably find some vinyl stickers for personalization. I plan on taking it out in the wild with me. I want to get some foliage shots while the leaves are with us. I miss taking pictures and posting them. The only way to do that is to do it. Baby steps count.

That is some of my therapy homework for this week and the next. I also need to finish reading Lisbon, by Valerie Sherwood. I’m over three hundred and fifty pages into the five hundred and fifty page plus book, so I think I should be able to do this. I have only read this book once, when it first came out, the same year Real Life Romance Hero and I were first married. It’s like reading it for the first time again, but with enough familiarity to know this is the right sort of story to keep my attention. I also get to make notes as to why that is. what does make this book work for me?

Right now, Storm has parked herself between me and my keyboard. She would prefer to be on it, but I have work to do. After I publish this post, I will make popcorn and check out the Frasier revival. Possibly some Yellowjackets, either diving into season two, or going back to season one and binge. I am listening to creepypastas as I write this and will probably do some journal stuff while watching abovementioned shows. TV and journaling seem to go well together around here.

Journal prep will be extra special this time, as I am getting ready for my own loosey-goosey version of Preptober/NaNo-ish doings. Updates to come as I progress. From my chat with Melva this week, I have to read through what I have on Her Last First Kiss so far and report on my own books. Not only read it, but spot what’s working, what I like. On my own book. This should be interesting. I have an audiobook to finish listening to as I take care of some household chores, and then another one lined up to take its place when I am done with the first. If it’s been difficult to stick with an audiobook the way I normally listen, how about I try listening to them the way I do the creepypastas I have been inhaling like nobody’s business? More sessions of shorter duration and remember there will be no quiz on the material at any point. I don’t know why I have felt like there would be, but there isn’t. There is no wrong way to read for pleasure.

That’s about it for right now. There is reading and there is writing and at some point it will resume making sense. Specific assignments and accountability work well for me, so I will be going with that. Odds are high that I will be making some sort of trackers for my personal and writing journals. I know myself.

What’s going on with you guys?

as always, Anna

Typing With Wet Paws: Finally Fall Edition

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Tails up, Storm Troopers! I’m Storm, you’re awesome, and this is Typing With Wet Paws. We are now officially over the line for the beginning of autumn, aka the age of Mama Anna’s superpowers. We have observed our third moving-in-iversary to this apartment, which we continue to celebrate by, well making ourselves at home. This means Mama Anna gets to organize, refine, and decorate, which are all things she does super duper well, especially when the weather is like it is today. That means cool and rainy. Think of what most people would do when it’s a warm sunny day, and then that’s pretty much how Mama Anna is on days like this. , She is happy and wants to do All of the Things.

Thankfully, one of those things she likes to do is take pictures of me. I think this houndstooth purse makes a lovely complement to two of my colors, Now all she needs is an orange accent. No worries. I’ll shed some orange hair on it, and she will be good to go. Except she should never go. Ever. Anywhere. Only if she takes me with her. Other than that, she needs to stay here and write stuff. I like watching her write stuff.

Aunt Linda says that even though it is cooler now, it is not yet time to put on the heater until she gets rid of the, um, surprise I left her in proximity to one of the baseboards. I think it will probably happen soon though because Papa is from California, and people from California often have a lower threshold for this kind of thing. Soon, it will be time for the Big Laundry (today is a regular laundry) where all of the bedding and towels get washed at the same time (by some hired humans, not my regular ones) and then that stuff will be ready for the upcoming winter. I have a feeling that having ALL of the blankets warm and clean and smelling good can only mean good things for Mama Anna, which means good things for me.

Mama Anna and Aunt Linda did go to the special candle store. They got two autumn-y candles, a room spray (for the bathroom; flames are not good in a room where humans use spray cans, because kaboom) and even some wax melts for Mama Anna to make her own candles. Today, she has been listening to her special story-making music while she does some organizing of the big bedroom, because it is also her office and Papa’s office. It’s a big room, but then I don’t know a lot of rooms, and I am cat-sized. Anyway, the only thing missing from the whole feel of the day is that she did not have any tea. That is not because there is no tea in the house. There are several kinds of tea in the house. There are also bags of things for recycling in front of the place for making tea (That will all go away when Aunt Linda can help her take it where it needs to go.) Also because there is not milk in the house. I have nothing to do with that; it’s only the day before grocery day. Before you ask, yes, I did put crunchies on the list. Crunchies are delicious, and they are all mine.

The best part about the return of Mama Anna’s superpower is that I have figured out the very best perk. I mean, yes, she will be happy, and there will be new stories for people to read and buy and publish, but we are talking about me here. Let’s keep our priorities straight. Anyway, that priority is that I have figured out how to sit on the corner of Mama Anna’s desk while she is writing on the computer, and I can watch the words as they appear on the screen. This is very similar to when Mama Anna first started writing for real, and some of her college dormmates would stand behind her while she typed so they could read in real time.

I think this season is going well. What about you?