Kathleen, Kage and the Company

Kage Baker regarded the week between Christmas and New Year’s as pretty much wasted time. Un-real time, imaginary and basically inaccessible, only there to make the calendar pages come out more or less even.

Some of the Meso-Americans, she liked to point out –  specifically the Aztecs, who engineered much better calendars than their European contemporaries – actually built a 5-day period into their solar calendar, that was officially not part of the year. It was the big Time Out before the New Year started, and the time it encompassed didn’t officially exist: but it made things come out tidily.

It was regarded as a time when bad luck was likelier to get you, and you had to be very careful about spiritual observances: time was literally out of joint. The best thing to do was sit quietly, eat at home, spend time with your family and try not to attract attention from the gods. Kage thought that was an extremely sensible tack to take for the week between our own modern winter festivals. And it’s what she always endeavored to do.

This is pretty much a week to do nothing. As far as possible, anyway. I’m spending it dozing, reading, writing, and waiting for the phone to ring. Nothing yet, but it’s cheering to know that when it does ring, it’ll probably be good news. Except for the unending string of boiler-room employees, desperately trying to sell aluminum siding to people who’ve just spent all their spare money on IPads …

Or even to us, who haven’t bought IPads but also don’t want their damned siding … I mean, who does? One house in this neighborhood has aluminum siding – I remember when Bob and Mimi bought it, when I was a grade schooler: it was a nine day’s wonder and all the kids used to ride their bikes past and throw baseballs at it, to hear the weird metallic Clunk! it made. One house, in all the half-century of my life … and you know what? Aluminim siding does last forever, and so not even Bob and Mimi ever bought any more.

There’s a moral there, a good one for the end of the year. Sometimes it’s best not to innovate unnecessarily. Sometimes the status quo is unchangeable. Sometimes it’s just better to lie low and be quiet, rather than stand up and make a spectacle of yourself. Spring is coming but for now it’s still Winter, and things sleep then for some very good reasons.

So I’m going to go take another nap.

Kage Baker was a firm believer in the power of nagging. It was like social erosion, in her opinion: keep up a slow, low-key but constant reminder to some obstruction that it was in her way, and eventually the bugger would crumble. “My vegetable wrath shall grow/Vaster than empires and more slow,” as she was fond of mis-quoting Andrew Marvell. (To His Coy Mistress  http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm)

And as Kage never gave up on something she wanted, but was severely allergic to confrontation, nagging was her metier. She was good at it; had ambush timing down like a prima ballerina in a pas de deux – always in the right place after a decorative swoon or a delicate retreat. Parents, siblings, mail order catalog clerks, editors … all learned she would not be denied. In a subtle, lady-like way, she was remorseless.

So I learned from a mistress of the art. That has been especially useful the last week or so, as I have battled the rusting and mismatched gears of Medi-Cal and Social Security. I have called every day: on days when no one answered, I left messages. I’m not entirely sure how effective it was – as I never got the same agent twice – but the file with my name on it must have gotten thicker and thicker …

If you keep this up long enough, desperate operators start giving you secret information. Like, there is a way to get out of the automatic robot messaging system and into the queue for a live operator. It takes a while – your hand and your ear will go to sleep – but it works from anywhere in the tiers of the robot system, he he he. Also, there is an ombudsman’s office, where they are dedicated to getting rid of naggers as quickly as possible without actually saying NO.

So, I spent about 3 hours on the phone today, going from office to office. I managed to confirm many essential details and processes, and I know that my appeal to be restored to a version of Medi-Cal that actually works is right where it ought to be now. But! I also got a two-week temporary waiver! I am restored to straight Medi-Cal! And by the time it lapses, either the permanent waiver will come through or I will get another fortnight’s grace. They were really eager not to have to talk to me every day …

The most important thing it means is that my surgery can now, yes, be scheduled. My doctor’s office and angelic secretary Pat have confirmed the information, and should have a date for me within days. I may spend New Year’s in hospital, but at this point – I am almost looking forward to it.

So far, I win. Phase 2 is nearly complete, and Phase 3 is heaving on the horizon.

Details as they continue to occur, Dear Readers. And thank you for all your prayers and energy. Invictus!

Kage Baker referred to the day after Christmas as “Leftover Day.” By mutual consent, we did nothing on this day – no visiting, no shopping, no returns. The goal was to stay in our jammies all day, playing games and music and reading books, eating leftovers as the fit took us.

There are lots of traditions associated with the day after Christmas.  We knew lots, especially if they were peculiar and largely forgotten. It is, of course, the second day of Christmas. In the UK, this is Boxing Day. No one seems to be quite sure of just what the heck that means, but it seems to have something to do with giving presents and leftovers to your servants. That’s what was in the boxes, apparently. Servants brought boxes to work, too, expecting they’d get filled up in a sort of mid-winter trick or treating.

It was once also the day the official pugilism season began in England. And older still , it’s St. Stephen’s Day, when the wren is lauded as the King of the Birds. And then hunted down and killed, and the tiny corpse paraded from door to door in the snowbound village, soliciting pennies and beer and snacks from your neighbors. It’s one of those odd winter rituals intended to remind the sun he’s supposed to come back eventually, get up off his deathbed and come thaw out the rivers in time for the spring planting, thankee very much.

As Sir Terry Pratchett says, it all comes down to blood on the snow. Red blood, white snow, the frozen sun re-igniting. The Light has come again, and we will all survive.

It’s a day to  survive on the contents of your Christmas boxes. The way Kage packed a stocking, it was usually possible for me to live at least one full day on what she had given me. All major food groups were usually represented; maybe by their most evil and delicious members, but hey – a protein is a protein, right? And shortbread is still a kind of bread …

I’ve actually been asleep for most of today; maybe three hours conscious, all in all. I can’t really pinpoint why, and to be honest – I’ve given up trying. I’m always tired these days, I fall asleep with no reason or warning, and I’m learning finally to just go with the flow. It’s easier on the day after Christmas, though, when I’m already inclined to just drift and eat goodies in my sleep. Sort of like a lightly hibernating marmot.

Fudge. Pumpkin bread (with cranberries; huzzah, vitamins!). There’s bagels beckoning from the kitchen, with good lox and delicatessen creamed cheese – none of your supermarket dairy case schlock. There’s cold roast beef, which in my opinion needs no garnish or side dish anyway. Licorice allsorts, See’s chocolates, sugar cookies with sprinkles, steamed pudding – which can, if you remember your nursery rhymes, be heated up with no harm and happily consumed. Though I’d eat it cold, to be honest.

This is how Kage liked to spend the day after Christmas,  just grazing in our safe winter refuge. When our intellects finally failed, there was always a movie someone had gotten. Or wonderful weird television, as stations ran marathons so their own staff could kick back, too.

And I can always go back to sleep. My body is trying – with some success  – to make up for an entire lifetime’s insomnia. I’m kind of getting to like it, even.

May your own Boxing Days, Leftover Days, St. Stephen’s Days or whatever be as warm and cozy and filled with goodies as mine, Dear Readers. May all your presents be a mere arm’s reach away, may the food in your kitchens be plentiful and easy to nibble, may your loved ones be amenable to cuddling. May your neighbors be satisfied with the wren and not decide to sacrifice you.

We should all be grateful for the comforts we get, right?

Kage Baker always swore she was going to find a quiet corner on Christmas Day, and just sit and write. She never managed it. To be honest, she never even really tried.

This was partly because most of her life’s Christmases were spent at Momma’s house, where there was no such thing as a quiet anywhere. But it was mostly because, even after Momma was gone and we went to sisters’ houses, Kage just completely relaxed. She had a few drinks, she nibbled on holiday dainties, she admired all the kids’ presents (and played with a lot of them); and gradually just became a happy boneless person.

At some point in the festivities, she’d admit there was no use in even pretending,  put her notebook back in my purse (I always had a big purse) and go make herself some drink that looked like a winter sunset and had half a dozen maraschino cherries in it. And for the rest of the festal day she’d tell stories rather than write them. I remember lots and lots of Christmas evenings, sitting around the dining room table by candlelight and laughing. Just … laughing, all of us girls sitting there and giggling helplessly.

I am in complete agreement with this. I’ve sent off greetings to as many folks as I could easily remember, I’ve conferred on how long to cook the dinner prime rib, I’ve watched my family open their presents and register delight. Now it’s my turn to sit and play.

And I got toys for Christmas – a Bloomberg bag and a blue and silver fountain pen from Levenger’s (!!!) and three sizes of notebooks. I’m gonna go, if not actually write, then at least play with my writer toys and gloat. Something may come of it, story-wise, or I may just have a great time with crossword puzzles.

Or I may lovingly pack my new bag with all my daily necessities, in readiness for it’s being my new everything purse … it’s ever so chic and sleek, despite having useful pockets everywhere. Kimberly loaded it with useful things – paperclips, bulldog clips (all enamelled blue!) a hole punch, Post-it flags, bookmarks: I can now carry just about anything, read anything, edit anything, collate anything …

And along the way to playing, eating and drinking myself into a coma, I will bear loving thoughts toward all my friends – especially you, Dear Readers. Though I hope none of you check this out until tomorrow, because you should all be off eating, drinking and playing too. It’s a day for the softer duties, of love and laughter and celebration.

Wear a bow (my nephew Mike has one on each side of his new head-strap mounted light, with the aid of which he is assembling models while Skyrim loads) or stick ’em on your pets. Eat a lot of sugar. Drink cool and slightly dangerous things while you watch the Dr. Who lead-up to the new Christmas episode. Read Dickens or Pratchett or Dylan Thomas – they have the best Christmas stories.

Hug every one of your loved ones, while you can. Even if it’s only one day a year, it’s nothing to ever, ever, ever miss.

Merry Christmas!

Kage Baker loved Christmas Eve. Things were mostly all ready by then, and anything that wasn’t was under the Blessed Inevitability Spell: no matter what, the next day was Showtime! So it was, by definition and happy default, DONE.

Usually, by the time it was dark and all the lights were lit, each of us took turns sneaking into our rooms and stuffing the other’s stocking.  Those would be hung on the mantle with bits and bobs sticking tantalizingly out the top – just to drive the recipient nuts when she had to wait to open it. Kage was very satisfyingly crazed about it, too. leaping around and examining the goodies from every side, moaning with impatience – she was scrupulously honest, though, and would never peek. But her carrying on was hilarious, as was her gloating when I was peering and moaning at my stocking.

I know, I know, two grown women whose shared childhood was long gone – but we kept the tradition, mostly because I couldn’t bear to give up my Christmas stocking when I first left home. I was the first to fly the nest – Kage joined me later, and by that time I was set in a few ways … but Kimberly kept it, too, and her family still fills stockings. Everybody takes different pieces of childhood along with them, don’t they?

Kage and I opened presents at Midnight on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, it was off to the family celebration – but the night before was our private party. It made Christmas last twice as long!

I was up not long after dawn this morning, and Kimberly and I went off to secure bagels and trimmings for Christmas breakfast – a newer, but delicious tradition. (One of the best things about moving back to L.A. has been having access to decent bagels again; but if you want them for Christmas morning, you’ve got to buy them early on Christmas Eve.)  It was freezing in Los Angeles last night: literally. Ice on the car roofs, the grass white and stiff on the lawn, the air new-minted and imported from the deeps of interstellar space; cold Cold  COLD. There were frost ferns on the windows.

To Kimberly, this might as well be an advancing glacier coming down from Griffith Park – it’s unnatural. But to me, who has spent half my life now well North of Point Conception, it’s wonderful. This is what winter should be like! And once the car had warmed up and her ears thawed, Kimberly admitted it was pretty neat. It was worth braving the frost, because we got our fresh bagels and lox and cream cheese, and have them stashed for the morning.

Now it’s getting dark. I’ve lolled about and wrapped presents and read Hogfather  (my personal favourite Yuletide story) and things are coming along well. Tonight we’ll have fish for dinner, just to make tomorrow’s ginormous classic beef roast taste all the richer.

The lights are all lit, from the tiny weird plastic tree plugged into my UCB hub to the long strands of blue and white lights simulating frost outside in the mulberry tree. The folks across the street have lit some sort of fantastic wheel-shaped lights they brought from the Philippines: they whirl and change colour and practically hiss. I think they’re intended to keep off demons or induce epilepsy. Presents are piling up on the bed, wrapped and ribboned – Harry is guarding the pile of unwrapped ones hidden under the pillows, and watching the ribbons dance with wise pirate-gold eyes …

It’s a pretty good Christmas Eve. Gonna be a good Christmas, too. None but happy memories are welcome tonight … I hope all  of you, Dear Readers, likewise have a warm, good, loving holiday. Hug your loved ones close, with arms or with memory.  Leave all the lights on tonight, and guide the sun home in the morning.

Kage Baker would have told me today: “Brace up, kiddo! You’ve got things to do and it’s almost Christmas and there’s no profit in lying around feeling sorry for yourself. Get up and do something while you can!”

And she’d be right. Okay, so I spent yestreday in a total funk, wading hopelessly through the Slough of Despond, wailing and carrying on. All that accomplished was to scare all my good friends and Dear Readers, and several of you are probably guilty of Venial Sins of Intent and Athene’s head is about to blow up. Kimberly is muttering murder, and I think even the cats are upset – someone shredded a lot of Medi-Cal papers on my desk today, and there is evidence of tiny feet having danced triumphantly in the rubble …

That brought me to my senses. There is no use sinking further and further into despair. Yes, there’s a delay and it’s upsetting – but a little delay, while infuriating and full of bad memories of Kage’s doomed fight, will not actually hurt me. I have my doctor’s word on that. A week won’t hurt, she said. Maybe not even a month. And we’ll you have in in surgery before that.

So I will fight on, and when I have to wait a day or two for an answer: well, I can do that, too. I talked to a remarkably intelligent (and intelligible) young woman today, who told me exactly who to call on Tuesday next, and where my paperwork is in the system. I even got her name – Anahid, which means the moon goddess – Diana the huntress. Gotta be a good omen.

So, I apologize to everyone for being in such a black pit yestreday. There are bound to be some walls in this business, just waiting for the easily-distracted runner to hit them. I hit several this week. The delays, the season, my diagnosis – all too much, for a little while there. I’m better now. I hope you will all forgive me.

There is such a lot of good stuff around me! I have 2 pounds of See’s chocolate, thanks to Kimberly who started her own day with a daring dawn run to the Glendale Galleria. I have all my shopping done, which is simply amazing; still gotta wrap, but that’s easy. Even with the little black cat helping … we have completed our dinner shopping and come home with a 10-pound prime rib roast: gonna be all the roast beef of Olde England around here on Christmas Day! I shall make Yorkshire puddings, the little gorgeous individual ones everybody likes best, like golden flying saucers; Kimberly, who shares with Kage a talent for steamed puddings, will make one of her deadly good chocolate ones for dessert.

The weather is beautiful. The lights are all lit. The world is turning back into the light, and I am coming with it, by whatever god you care to honour at this midwinter feast.

Now I’m off to eat marzipan and bread pudding, and watch the fire leap in the fireplace. Life goes on. Me, too.

Kage Baker would say, as an indication of her energy hitting E: “It’s tired, and I’m getting late.”

It meant her brain had shut down and her speech centers were not far behind. I know, I know – it’s customary to do it the other way around, but writers are different. So are actors. And so are those of Celtic blood. Being all three, Kage essentially never shut down the talking parts of her mind.

Neither do I. But coherency sometimes goes catatonic, leaving free association and the training in improvisation to root through the over-inflated vocabulary and make things up as they go along. The heights of creativity and the depths of stupidity are reached during these moments – sometimes simultaneously. Many interesting moments at Faire happened due to this phenomenon; gems like explaining to our horrified producer why my friends and I were sawing off a fellow performer’s leg. Or my persuading a crowd of customers to sing in praise of St. Ermenwyr, patron of impecunious younger sons and double-agent diplomats, whose sacred animal is the weasel …

Today, though, the nonsense was none of my own doing, and nowhere near as fun.

I’ve spent the day between phone calls, arguing with Medi-Cal clerks. They insist my doctor filled out part of the exception waiver form incorrectly. They also refuse to send another – as far as I can tell, from the heavily-accented lady with whom I spoke today, the original form is somehow supposed to tell the doctor what to do. “She looks at form, it tells her what we need!” insisted Livia, whose accent sang of the Volga and the scarlet domes of Moscow.

No amount of argument could get a more sensible answer out of her. I insisted that the original form – which they claim to have returned to the doctor for correction – cannot tell her what they need: same answer. I think she thinks the forms can talk. Finally, she told me to tell the doctor what they need, which I guess makes some sense when you figure it’s my own problem I’m trying to solve  …

So I called the doctor and spoke to her excellent secretary. The form has not been received by their office, despite the claims of Medi-Cal, but she has a copy, of course. I told her which item was reportedly wrong, and how: she will FAX a correction. And tomorrow, I will call again and see what the new situation is.

Though it’s definitely tired, I am working very hard not to be late.

Kage Baker, as I have often explained (ie, whined outrageously) left all computer maintenance to me. This was due to the theory that if she didn’t get involved, there would be less maintenance required; which was usually a pretty good analysis.

But we all make mistakes.

Last night I inadvertently shut down my hard drive by stepping on the power strip control. It was probably complicated by my trying to evict the little black cat from under my desk at the time, while simultaneously trying to clean up the scattered Good ‘N Plenties down there.  (The Corgi won’t eat them.) Anyway, I killed the computer; and when it came up again it was in safe mode; and now it’s freezing at every opportunity and claiming the security login is not loading …

So after attempting to struggle along and work around it, I’m gonna do what I should have done originally and shut down for some diagnostic testing. I’ve tried all 3 of the browsers I have installed, to no avail. The icon for SETI At Home keeps blinking on and off – which might mean we’ve contacted aliens just in time for Christmas, but probably is one of the secure passwords that isn’t loading properly. Weatherbug reports that there is no weather at all in Los Angeles. I know a lot of East Coasters think that’s true, but really – it doesn’t happen very often. More password aphasia, I suspect.

One of the problems is that the little black cat is sitting in front of the screen and licking my fingers as I type, which is not helping me in trying to type in passwords … though at least she’s purring. She’s a very affectionate disaster. An enigma wrapped in a sock. A velvet sock.

I leave you with a festive and yet disturbing image for your amusement. Imagine these running around on the roof:

Kage Baker was a great believer in lists. Whenever we travelled, she made out several lists – Things To Do, yes, before we hit the road but also specialized lists: Things To Take. Things For Meetings. The Toiletries List.

Because of her habit, we almost never left anything behind. At least not in the last 20 or so years – there were some incidents in our teens and 20’s, where utterly vital objects were left behind and necessitated all sorts of scrambling to fix. That’s undoubtedly why we didn’t forget anything later on. Kage devised a method to prevent it.

After all, getting 200 miles from home and halfway up the sea-facing cliffs above Highway 1 before you discover you forgot the tent poles … is nothing you want to do twice. Or finding out you’ve left the air mattress (Kage could not sleep on the ground. Very loudly, she couldn’t.) in Los Angeles. Socks and panties can be arranged, and one can usually find a spare skirt at a costume event; but some things simply cannot be lived without. I have driven into Northern Faire at midnight, flashing Kage’s passes while she was disguised as a  sleeping bag  in a duffle in the back of the truck – it had to be me with her passes, because she couldn’t drive …

I’ve spent most of today making tentative lists. When I’ve been awake. It’s cold and grey here, more rain expected by tonight – probably not a lot, not even enough to make a pleasant sound through the branches of the wintergreen and camphor trees: but the streets will begin to glisten mysteriously, and when you step outdoors – if you do – the air is wet and settles on your cheekbones and hair like gauze. Not so much rain as the lowest edges of the clouds, skimming along 6 feet above the ground and dripping down every surface they encounter. The marine layer, is what it is. Kage always said, the marine layer is not the bottom of the air – it’s the top of the ocean. We are living in the topmost froth of the waves, beaten inland to fill the Basin in a barely-tangible flood.

Anyway: it’s made me stay indoors and drowse. I am so very tired; in several important ways I do feel better, but the creeping fatigue of hosting the traitor in my body is wearing me out. Still, making lists helps. It helps me focus on being productive and surviving. It helps me make plans. And it helps me remember to do a few vital things before I end up  post-operative and half-witted.

I have slippers, of course. Not only my lovely blue slipper socks with the smiley face tread, but some beautiful white wool boots that keep my ankles warm as well. They do come equipped with bobbles, unfortunately, but I can’t actually see them so my fashion sense remains unoffended.  The cats can, though, and I have to detach our pocket panther from time to time. Luckily, she is small and slides pretty well on the rug.

I’ll need to pack some underwear and standard tioletries. My doctor says I’ll only be in a day or three, but things can and do happen. I know I will have little use for actual clothes or my own washcloth until they release me – unless I don’t bring any along. Then, it will turn out that all the new patient kits were inadvertently sent to Rancho Cucamunga and the only toothpaste to be had is the stuff in my overnight kit.It’s cool, anyway. It has sparkles in it.

Won’t need a nightgown until I get home. Hospitals provide those horrid gowns: on the plus side, they are cotton and feel nice. On the negative side, they all have the most ghastly patterns imaginable. Why on earth do they weave these things with mauve paisleys and weird geometric shapes? It’s a mystery.

I need to bring something to read (yay, my Kindle!) and something to knit, and a book of crossword puzzles. I will undoubtedly be a happy fungus, post op: again, unless I don’t bring some form of entertainment. So I’ll pack as if I think I will wake up as sharp and aware as Mr. Spock, thus insuring that my actual state of giggling semi-coma will be peaceful and uninterrupted. It’s not easy to be actually bored right after major surgery, but errors in packing and planning can do it to you. I have learned that.

I’ll need Mentos, and a pad and a good black pen: I might write. Really. And a battery-operated tea light in a candle cup. Some chocolate carefully hidden from potentially disapproving health care providers. A comb and hair clips. My Buke, so I can send some incoherent messages to you, Dear Readers. Just remember that I will not be in my right mind for a bit, and when I ask you to come rescue me from the Altarian pirates,  just agree soothingly and stay home. It’ll all be in my opiate-echoing head.

But please be assured, Dear Readers, that keeping you all informed of whatever I think is happening will be my first priority. At least notes, some comic observations, a description of what I imagined my anesthesiologist has turned into (I got a raccoon for my first stent installation, and  Captain Nemo last year.)

Today, tonight, I am obviously full of the conviction that surgery will happen soon. And yes, I really do think it will. I have the office staff of my gynecologist pulling for me, and I know how to get hold of the hive-mind at Medi-Cal, and I have Kimberly willing to assist. And having a sister by your side is worth a dozen or more ordinary assistants.

I think I’ll dictate all my To Do, Pack, Bring and Smuggle lists to her. Her printing, like Kage’s, is so much neater than mine.

Kage Baker considered any temperature under 70 degrees as cold. For her, every winter was a hard one. Northern California, with its frosts and fogs and occasional snow up high, was as close to an Arctic climate as she could ever stand.

Heater control in our house was a serious war. Kage would habitually turn the thermostat up as far as it would go, while covered in two layers of clothes, socks, shoes and a lap robe. She was always cold, from October to May; especially her hands and feet. I’d endure the heat until I was dripping sweat and considering stripping completely, then turn it down in self-defense. Only temporarily, though – not even showing Kage our outrageous gas bills slowed down her attempt to create the Door Into Summer in our living room.It was like she felt endothermy was too expensive for everyday use, and preferred not to temperature-regulate on her own.

And I was outvoted, you see, because Harry felt the same way Kage did. He spent winters snuggled on her shoulder, hiding under her braid and glaring at me. On really cold nights, we’d put a hot water bottle in his cage to warm it up under the night-time blanket. The fact that he never chewed a hole in it was, we always thought, proof that the little bugger knew it was for his own good.

I like the cold. I hate sweating, I loathe heat, I go barefoot and short-sleeved through most of the year; I made socks for Kage, who was a  connoisseuse of stockings, but I rarely wore them.  Every few years someone gives me slippers, which I usually lose under my bed because I never have them on my feet.

Here at Kimberly’s, the cats play with them. The cats consider all my foot gear as cat toys which are occasionally loaned out to me to wear out of doors. I have no idea why … but since I never do wear shoes except to go outside, it’s no bother. I sometimes have to remove a cat from a shoe, or hunt up the mate to my huaraches in the little black cat’s nest, but I don’t mind. Except when they steal and shred my innersoles. Dr. Scholl’s is second only to catnip as a recreational cat-drug.

And despite what Kage told me when we were teenagers, it is not illegal to drive barefoot in California … it can be freaking stupid, if you break down, but it’s not against the law. I felt very self righteous when my research confirmed that, but it did remove a certain interesting frisson of naughtiness from otherwise boring drives. Oh, well.

So, why am I maundering on about cold feet? Especially as I now live in Southern California again, in a house with a perfectly normal central heating system … no more eccentric cottages with only a fireplace for warmth, or weird back houses with jury-rigged gas heaters that frighten the Gas Company guy … and Kimberly, like Kage, is only a nominal mammal, and would prefer nor to have to expend her personal energies on exothermic labour.

It’s because one of the side effects of my illness seems to be a sudden sensitivity to cold. Which is a real drag, and absurd besides – I’ve lost a few pounds, true, but I have lots to spare and am in fact about as well-insulated as a seal. And it’s not really that cold in the Los Angeles Basin; it hasn’t hit 60 in a few days, but that’s not cold. Not really cold. And anyways, that’s outdoors; it’s in the sub-desert 70’s here at my desk.

If it turns out cold feet are a side effect of cancer, I shall be extremely displeased. But in the meantime, there is just no denying that they are cold, and the power strip under my desk doesn’t generate enough heat to make a difference. And I keep kicking off the power switch, too, and my computer dies … so it’s time to go shake the cat out of my slippers, and put them on. I am sure Kage is laughing at me from Wherever.

Keep your feet warm, Dear Readers.