Beth Winter

Thank you everyone for the kind comments on my last post. Mourning is never easy, but we're managing. I'm afraid I'm not yet at the stage when I can answer them without crying.

It helps that there's still Lestat, the kindest, most golden-hearted feline vampire ever to walk the earth. He follows us around the flat, cuddles up with me at night, and each time we mention Tonio's name he looks around in frightened puzzlement. "Where is he? When is he coming back?"

(And there are other things. fyrie sent an amazing Elisabeth gift. I had tickets, bought back in September, for a Disney concert with certain someones, and yesterday I both teared up at the wonderful orchestrations - Disney tugs on heart-strings like no other - and melted a little at having Krolock, in full Krolock mode if not in the costume, sing If I can't love her with thunder and lightning and swirling an invisible cloak. Tomorrow, I'm going to be seeing our Herbert sing Spamalot duets at himself. It all helps.)

We'll be going to the seaside for Christmas after all, leaving on Tuesday evening so that we can bury my darling at the lakeside cottage on Wednesday. I'll be back on Sunday evening, but since the grandparents have a net connection, I won't be fully absent.

It's a month to Christmas, and most other December holidays. With Tonio's condition and twice-daily medication, it'll probably be the first Christmas in over twenty years that we spend at home. All this means that in addition to the usual gift shopping (all gifts from me for family members, and all their gifts for me, since they cannot possibly fathom what I would like to get), I have to look into acquiring Christmas decorations.

To help others with the gift-shopping task:

• If you want to give someone a book, give Black Ships by Jo Graham. It's a wonderful tale with history, magic, religion, and volcanoes! Of note to people who want to support non-fail literature - name any test you want and Jo's characters pass it with flying colours.
  
  
  • The new US paperback on Amazon.com
  • The oh-so-pretty UK paperback on Amazon.co.uk
  • And lookit! It's 30% off on Bookdepository.co.uk with free global shipping!


• In the jewelry department, Astarise Designs just opened and offers extremely original jewelry:
  
  
  • Something a steampunk Phantom might wear
  • Flowers and romance that isn't cloying
  • And slightly grimmer fare

(Obligatory disclosure: I've known astarise for over half a decade, and jo_graham for a little less. The former bribes me with coffee, the latter with sneak peeks of her prose. The above is still meant with complete earnestness.)

My elder cat, Tonio, is six years old. He's never been the healthiest of cats, ever since we got him at five months old, so thin and wasted that the first vet mis-diagnosed his sex. He's also very traumatised and neurotic towards strangers, sudden noises etc, which doesn't stop him from being an absolute darling evil feline mastermind who demands cuddles and thinks way too much.



Coming back from my trip, I noticed he'd suddenly lost weight. I was also told he hadn't been eating dry food, and it was unlike him to go to sleep so soon after greeting us.

I had him at the vet's this morning for a blood test. By this afternoon, he's been seen by one of the best feline nephrologists in town, and he's had an ultrasound test.

Tonio has chronic renal failure. His kidney function is at 25%. He's apparently one of the cats that are just born with it: his kidneys have been quietly deteriorating all his life, it's just that this week, he tipped over the threshold and became symptomatic.

He's on twice-daily IVs, special food and special treatment. We won't know the prognosis until much later, depending on how he takes to treatment. But he's not going to be around for the decade or more I thought I had left with him.

It's been four and a half years since losing Lady P, and I still think about her. I want my cats to live until they're twenty-five.

(People I owe stuff to, especially packages: it'll be a few days.)

Found a kitten on my doormat. Fluffy brown thing, six weeks old. Hellion on paws.

*eyes Tanz der Vampire collection* Can I call him Sanyi?

(Three cats. Argh. Gonna have to get a car.)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - meh. It felt like a series of disjointed illustrations. Good ones, mind you, but there was absolutely no plot to it. ( Details )

In other news, my older cat managed to scratch my younger cat in a way that left poor Lestat with a forming boil on his front paw and fever upwards of 40 C. Guess who'll have to get him to the vet's for antibiotic injections each morning through the next week :/

Five weeks ago, I brought a small furball home.

Now the furball is bigger. Very much so.

( Lestat the Teenage Vampire )

I'm back, obviously.

I also have just under four pounds of fawn/tabby kitten.

The name is Lestat de Panthercourt, and it fits him to a T. If Lestat were reincarnated as a cat, this would be it.

Off to watch him bond with Tonio ^_^

Yo. General enquiry here:

Female Parental Unit is going to be in San Francisco in two weeks, with a day or two free. She doesn't drive, though cabs are a possibility, and her interests mostly mirror mine apart from manga/anime. What's there for her to see, visit and/or shop at?

(And if anyone can point out good comic stores there, I would very much like to prepare a shopping list for her ^_^)

Also, I may possibly have a kitten. 300 km away, stripey, undertermined sex, apparently very cute. Lestat for a boy, Esme for a girl?

This is long overdue: an exhibition of what a cute cat Tonio is:

( kitty terror, in 7 pictures )

No, not me this time. I got a lovely shot of my ickle feline vampire :D

( Tonio in his lair of EVAL, aka under the duvet )