Hello, all. Skye here, for a slightly later than usual Feline Friday.  Most of this week, Anty was at the People Vet with Uncle. He is home now, and doing better, but still has to see more people vets to make sure that he stays that way. Anty is very tired and hopes to get back to her regular schedule next week. In the meantime, I will take over.

Anty did not get a chance to tell people yesterday about her post that went live on Heroes and Heartbreakers, so I will do that. It is here. I would show you a picture of what it looks like, but Anty is having computer trouble, but more about that later. I will fix it later if I can.

Anty likes Viking books very much and thinks she would like to read more of them in the near future. If you have any suggestions about books like this, please let her know. I think that would be a very good idea. Vikings come from places like Norway, the home of Norwegian Forest Cats, which are the ancestors of Maine Coon Cats. That is the kind of cat that I am, so she will think of me a lot while she reads her books. If Anty ever wrote a Viking book, she should put Norwegian Forest Cats in it. I would read that kind of book to get in touch with my ancestors. I hear they ate a lot of fish. I like that.

UPDATE: Any fixed her internet, so I can fix the picture. Her post looks like this:

Now she wants Spotify to play different songs on her laptop than on her tablet, but can’t figure out how to do that, and it is making her grumpy.

We now return to the regular blog post.

When Anty is not writing, sometimes, she is helping Uncle, especially when he has been to the people vet. She also helped my Grate-Uncle Roody (Anty’s father) and Grate-Anty Lola (Anty’s Anty) when they were very sick. They are at Rainbow Bridge now. That is not Anty’s fault. They were very old and very sick. Anty talked about helping other humans who need lots of people vet attention in an article on Buzzfeed earlier this week, along with other people who have done the same thing. Her part begins with

“There is no way to prepare, but the learning curve is quick.”

and the first graphic with words on it, about Schroedinger’s Schedule, is from her part of the article. She is very happy to be able to share her experience with others, and to read about what caring for other humans is like for different people.

This week, she also started work in earnest with Anty Melva on the story they are writing together. She is both excited and nervous to actually plunge in and tell this story along with Anty Melva.

It is a bit of a stretch for both of them, but also has one foot in each of their comfort zones. For those of you who are wondering how many comfort zones that is, it is two, because Anty and Anty Melva are humans and have two feet, not four, like kitties do. Anty will not say if there are any kitties in this book, because she does not know yet. She may have to ask Anty Melva about that. Maybe she knows.

Now that Uncle is back home, Anty can give writing more attention. This would probably be easier if she were not having yet more computer issues. Today, the left shift key of her external keyboard came off, and she is not sure where it went. This means either she has to use the right shift key only, or poke the rubbery button in the hole where the key used to be with the tip of her pen. She tried using the tip of her finger, but that was not very comfortable, judging from the sounds she made when she tried to use it that way.

Maybe the external keyboard is fighting back. It has been shutting off the internet at random intervals, as it wobbles when she has it on top of the regular keyboard (the one without the H) and those wobbles push the button that does that. Then she says words I am not allowed to use. It also likes to taunt her by telling her it does not have bluetooth, again at random intervals. She says it is because of the wobbles again, but I don’t know. I think it may be making demands.

Anty says she may give up on the laptop entirely if things continue to go in this direction and try to cobble together some interim solution with her old desktop and her tablet. The old desktop is too old to handle the Internet, and the CD drive spits out any CD she tries to put in it (and once bit her on the knee) and her tablet’s external keyboard does not work, but it does have internet. Hm. That is two external keyboards that do not like her. Three keyboards, total, if we count the laptop keyboard with no H. Does Uncle’s laptop that does not like him count? That laptop was Anty’s before it was his, so I think it might. This may be one of the reasons Anty writes historicals. I have never heard of pens and papers turning against their writers, but one never knows.

That is about it for this week, so until then, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling

(the kitty, not the book)

Hello, all. Skye here, for another Feline Friday.

This has been a very full week for all the humans in my house. They say they do not always know what day it is, which I find hard to believe, with all the calendars we have, but humans are complicated creatures. I am glad I am a kitty.

I am also glad that my readers are interested in how I am doing. It is true that it has been very cold outside this week, but I am an indoor kitty, and we have heaters built into the walls in every room. Plus I have a full length fur coat that I wear all the time (I was born with it) so I am not cold at all.  If anybody has questions for me, put them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them. Anty may have to help me with some of the big words, but I will do the best I can.

Anty is still in her magpie phase, which means lots of pens and notebooks, and movies. She is watching a lot of movies now. There are not a lot of cats in them, so I do not know what the appeal is. She says it is things like plots and character arcs and actors and cinematography. Story stuff. I still think cats would make everything better, but only if nothing bad happens to the cats in the movies. I would not like movies where bad things happen to cats. So no cats is better than that.  But I digress.

Watching movies with a writer is different than watching movies with regular people. Regular people watch the movie, and that is it. Writers, at least writers like Anty, don’t only watch the movie, they analyze it. Anty likes to watch the bar at the bottom of the screen move forward, so she can tell how far into the story the movie is. When the bar reaches the halfway point, she says that is always when the big problem that changes everything happens. She seems to really like watching for that part. I do not know why that part makes her so happy, no matter the movie, but it does. She says it helps her learn how to tell stories better, so I guess that is a good thing.

I have stopped trying to figure out what makes Anty pick a particular movie. This week, she saw Starship Troopers, The Spectacular Now, What If and Delivery Man.  That last one, she found out, is an American remake of a Canadian movie called Starbuck, and she wants to see that one, too. It is in French, and though she does not speak French, there are subtitles, and she can figure things out from a few words that she knows. She is pretty good with languages, I think, because she knows what all my sounds mean.  Eck-eck, for example, means “Please put that cat food in my dish. I am hungry.”

The Christmas decorations are finally all down, but Anty is not sure what she wants to put up in their place. She has mentioned maybe getting a catnip plant. I have not been interested in catnip so far, but Anty reminded me that I have only been given dried catnip and the live plant may be a whole different story. Anty is usually pretty good with stories, so I guess we will see if she is right once she actually gets the plant.

That is about it for this week, so, until next time, I remain very truly yours,

Skye O’Malley Hart-Bowling
(the kitty, not the book)