2020 was a year.
I had cancer. Jane had to take care of me, when she was due for a hip replacement, so that had to wait, since I had the prize of the year. I came out of it all pretty well except the chemo—which took all summer. Fall, she was finally going to get that hip taken care of (she was in mortal pain) and I was finally able to drive again—good thing, because in the middle of a snowstorm at 3 am, she came down with acute gut pain and I had to get her to the 24 hour clinic. They sent me home finally and sent her off in an ambulance to be operated on at dawn—gallbladder removal. I went to wait for her and take her home (all this mid-Covid, mind, so I’m masked and trying to stay far away from anyone—chemo flattens your immune system)—we did get every shot offered— Well, she had incisions, but they were able to go for the new hip anyway. Which is kind of neat: the gallbladder and the hip replacement were both fairly well—in at dawn, and out by three, go home, bye! But you don’t walk well for about 6 weeks. We got through all that, but between chemo and all, I was not able to write, she was not able to write, and that was 2021—we got Alliance ready to go, but were unable to do the final edit on it, so IT fell out of time—and then she had her second replacement. And became my job to take care of her for a while. No energy. We finally, in 2022 felt well enough to go to a con and try to get back in the swing of things—and caught the crud (not Covid) which knocked us flat for a month, missed the Alliance book deadline, and recovered, in time to work on the next Foreigner book—so THAT has come off on time, and now we are working on Alliance again. But meanwhile I went in for hip replacement, having a similar problem—that went well, and I was able to keep working. Am now headed for the second one in a few weeks. But I am able to work—as is Jane—we are finally out from under the cloud that descended on us both in 2020, and are getting books done. Alliance will come. First time I’ve ever failed a deadline, but it will come. Defiance, the new Bren book, is ready. So it’s been a long couple of years, but we are emerging in good shape. My oncologist is happy—doesn’t want to see me this quarter, putting it off until fall, and I’m finding out what pain-free is like on the hip they fixed. All in all good news and I am so sorry to have left you all in the lurch. I just didn’t have the brain or the heart for too much correspondence for a while, because I was soooooooooo behind. But that’s the story! Hope you all are ok—I’ve been living in a cave for so long I have lost touch totally. We are thinking of going to Miscon in Missoula this spring. I’ll be walking again by then. And that’s what I know.
Well, I for one am glad the two of you are in much better shape after all that!
So happy to hear that you two are doing well and took time off to rest and recover from all the things. I miss your koi pond updates too đ
And very excited to hear about new book in the Foreigner series!
I’m still hoping you’ll get books Resurgance #20, and others onto Audible. Love the series and Daniel Thomas May as narrator. You’d mentioned signing with audible, but a technical glitch getting Resurgance to Audible back in 2020.
Book 19: Emergence (Listened on Audible)
Book 20: Resurgence (Bought the book 4/2020, but am so used to Audible for this series I didn’t finish yet.)
Book 21: Divergence (Came out 8/2020 – I didn’t know, oops, need to purchase too!)
Book 22: Defiance (Coming 10/17/2023 per Amazon I see)
Good to see you here again. I expect there are few people who will miss the “pandemic years”! I got Covid in early December, but was put on Paxlovid immediately. It was amazing!
For the most part though I am most distressed by these past two La Niña winters, this one especially. We transitioned from Hot & Dry Summer through October 15th, to continuous Wet & Rainy Winter, literally overnight!
I never got a chance to turnover and plant my garlic bed.
I was delayed potting the seed of my native Iris tenax hybridizings by several months. The seeds have an emergence suppressor in their coat that must be washed away prior to germination. A good trick on Mother Nature’s part, causing germination to be delayed if it’s not wet enough, but I really wanted them planted and out in the rain at the start of Fall.
My six semi-dwarfed apple trees in the backyard and sixteen roses should’ve been pruned on the officially auspicious President’s Day, and haven’t been touched. I can still see spots of white on the ground from last week’s snow storm–a Pineapple Express would’ve washed it all away, but we got a freezing cold, dry, Gorge Wind. Everything has been dropping down from the Gulf of Alaska, not a single Pineapple Express all winter!
We got our two semi-dwarf apple trees 3/4s & most of the roses pruned a couple weeks ago in the unseasonably warm Boston weather⊠then winter hit again (mind you, Iâm not unhappy as I love snow) and one of our apple trees looks half-scalped. When it warms up and ground dries off soon, weâll hail out the ladder to finish it.
Do tell more on what your native iris looks like; I donât think of heard of that type.
As you wish — too bad I can’t post an image. But since I can’t, I’ll refer you to the Society for Pacific Coast Native Iris website, https://www.pacificcoastiris.org/. Tenax is one of the species of PCIs. In particular these pages:
https://www.pacificcoastiris.org/wildiris_iristenax.php
https://www.pacificcoastiris.org/spcni_photojournals/pj_tenax_color_gamut.html
I have collected several colors along roadsides, in purples, rose-pink, white, & yellow, even a tan yellow/lavender blend. Last spring I did a lot of “selfing”, and crosses, collecting 18 different groups of seed I’ve now potted, at least 18 of each. What I want is a true blue, sky, royal, or even indigo, but have only “violet-blue”. Ther are already excellent blue hybrid PCIs, but I’m staying within the straight tenax species. It’ll be 3-4 years before I see the results, and a few to several rounds before I’m likely to get even close, (In a few months I’ll be on the slippery slope to 80, so don’t have that much time!)
OTOH, today I found I have unheard-of true purple in one of my Cyclamen coum!
Ah, I love irises. In Montana the wild ones are considered a weed, so I have a few of the domestic cousins…
An odd rule of the Iris Society is that if you breed a new color set, you get to name it. In the SoCal desert we had scruffy feral irises that did their own thing, and at one point produced a very unlikely and hideous yellowish-and-brownish flower which unfortunately bred true. We called it “Blood and Vomit”.
Thanks very much, Paul, for posting those links to the Iris tenax, I had not realized that there were Native, woodland irises⊠and the varying shades in the photos are gorgeous!
Do give more details on your cyclamen as you and it go forward together.
Be prepared to wait then. Cyclamen a smart; their corms are vulnerably JUST below the suface, so to hide their location, the stems of leaves and blossoms come out horizontally and run to the side for an inch or more before turning UP.
I thought there was only one corm in this pot, but I have “jacaranda” purple blossoms coming up at the edge of the pot in a couple places, unterspersed with pinks. I don’t know what’s going on under the surface! I’ll have to wait for dormancy this summer to tip the pot out and see what’s there.
If I have several corms, I’ll need to repot them individually, then wait until next February to see what’s what. If there is just one corm, and it is “sporting” in several places, I’ll have to rely on the seed I’ll try to collect from these purple blossoms, meaning another 3-4 years wait! 8-(
BTW, I haven’t a bit of shame in roadside collections. County road maintenace includes running (ruining, if you prefer) the roadsides with a flail cutter, q.v., when they’re not spraying herbicide. I consider my collecting “rescue”.
I am very happy that you have been able to return to some normalcy. Looking forward to the new Bren book. Like cricket99, I hope to see the Bren books on Audible soon.
Hip, hip, hip hooray for modern science and for new Science Fiction on the way. Can’t wait to see what Fallon has up his sleeve.
Best wishes and stay well.
So good to hear & see you again on your blog! Some of us have kept up a desultory conversation⊠and Iâve been cross posting recently your hip replacement posts from Facebook.
That sounds like a hell+ year and more for the two of you and I am very glad to hear that you have come through the worst of it and things are improving.
Sooooo glad to finally hear from you! Was frankly very worried, but didn’t know how to find out what was going on. I was worried about your (plural) health, but also worried about changes in management having affected you also. Hopefully, you both will have some smooth sailing for a while. Aren’t joint replacements great? Being able to walk without pain is such a gift.
We both got through COVID unscathed. In June of 2021, we discovered that my mom’s sciatica was being caused by severe “S” scoliosis. Then we found her down/unconscious in August 2021 (turned out to be severe dehydration). She was no longer (at 97!) able to live independently. Within two months, got us into this really nice retirement community, had two estate sales, got her house sold, and moved both of us into our new home. She ended up in their skilled nursing facility (still marginally mobile with a walker), where she is doing well (99 this year!). I’m living in an apartment in their independent facility a short hike away. They also have an assisted living facility, so I can age in place.
I spent the first 10 months of 2021 on round 2 of chemotherapy for small cell lymphoma. Had a severe skin reaction (again) to one of the chemo drugs, and was starting to get numbness and tingling from one of the other ones (which he stopped), but was able to get in six full cycles of Rituxan. (I was able to drive myself to all my chemo sessions, though!) Now my left knee replacement is acting up. (Right knee is fine, touch wood!)
Yay about the new Bren book. I’ll want to read up onto it, which is to say rereading the whole shebang. Lately, I’ve been thinking about going back to that world. Goals! I haz em.
How nice to hear from you too, WOL. Glad to hear that your health is improving and that youâve graduated from Chemo Hell. Also glad to hear that you have your Mom well housed⊠and not with you. The arrangement, services and spacing sound good all around.
So happy to see that, WOL!
Ah, that’s a lousy two years. Having had a few lousy years I know how good it feels to leave ’em for better times. Hope the better times continue.
Welcome back to your own blog! Without Raesean cross-posting from FB and your other places, those of us who don’t ‘social media’ would have not a clue about your comings and goings. The last couple of years (shoots, since COVID) have been a pretty sorry sack on many fronts, and I don’t think anyone will be sorry to see the plague years be over.
You aren’t kidding.
We are pushing to get the books out before the next round of surgery.
We’ve also begun (shyly) to get back in the convention circuit—looking maybe at Miscon. (Missoula, MT).
After the big push in chemo, and you recover from surgery, it’s pretty much quarterly. (I say, as I’m in my fifth year of treatment, and looking forward to eventually getting off the estrogen blocker.)
PJ, I am nine years post diagnosis of an estrogen positive cancer, 8.5 years post surgery and nearly 8 years chemo/herceptin. I am still on the estrogen blocker and I think my oncologist wants me to stay on it indefinitely, although he originally said 5 years, then 20. I remember when I started it there were some side effects but at this point I am no longer aware of any. Good luck with yours!
ReadyGuy has started calling himself a 3-time loser: melanoma, ductal adenocarcinoma, and Hodgkins lymphoma simultaneously. We’re still trying to set up a treatment plan. To make matters worse I fractured my ankle last week. Oh, we’re a sorry team. I really am waiting for Defiance and Alliance.
Sorry to hear that life has been so rough for the two of you Readies.
Sorry to hear the bad news. I hope you both recover.
I hope for a speedy and complete recovery. I’m still healing from the 6th surgery on my right elbow. Finally back in occupational therapy.
PT in the morning, working on the book all afternoon—Jane and I are co-authoring both: it’s only fair. She’s done a lot of work on previous ones, but it’s really equal shares on these, each of us making passes through and doing additional writing and editing. A peculiar method of working, but it eases the work on both of us. Really in the last stages on the Bren book and halfway through the Alliance edit…that one got stalled in crazy circumstances as DAW itself was moving, and we are taking the opportunity to run some changes we want to make, just fine tuning stuff and keeping up with the science—since that one uses very real astronomical locales, we do a lot of technical reading. And I am now through the part that uses so much research and moving right along.
I am excited for your new books, CJ. Keep it up.
Big ol’ storms moving through my area. We had a power outage this morning that wrecked (despite a UPS) our server farm, so my one e-mail address is offline until the server can be replaced. Our cat, Zorro, has stopped her ating and is likely to join the Choir Invisible soon đ because of kidney failure. I’m kind of hoping we lose power again so I have an excuse to go home early!
So sorry for your impending loss. Losing a furr kid is so much harder because you know they don’t fully understand what’s going on and you can’t make it better for them.
hope your server farm is salvageable.
So sorry to hear that Zorro is at this late stage. It is wrenching to go through. I think it is less wrenching for the cat, who doesnât (we hope) comprehend what the outcome is. We lost our cat, Whiskey Foxtrot, to kidney disease the first week of COVID lockdown in March, 2020. It was excruciating to “live” through⊠but I donât think that Whiskey was in much pain as he slipped away. We fed him a bit, by the way, with squirts of the purĂ©ed meat cat treats called/produced by Churroâaka “kitty crack” because cats really love it. Weâve had friends who have stimulated their (yes, dying) catâs appetite for a while with Churro too⊠and it gets some liquid in them. We also gave Whiskey squirts of water from a water dropper to his lips.
Rough times; you have my sympathies.
Churu is about the only thing Zorro eats any more, maybe 1 tube a day. She still drinks a little, but she has trouble getting around, and litterboxes are her nemesis. One of DH’s clients is a vet, and knows about Zorro’s travails. They have offered to do a home visit when it comes time for Zorro to go.
Well, nuts. DH’s vet client just left on a vacation (DH thought they were returning this week, not leaving) so DH was scrabbling around trying to find an alternate vet who could do in-home euthanasia. The vet clinic had some suggestions, so we are having a house call tonight for Zorro with one of them đ We will bury her in the yard along with our other cats.
Oh, Iâm so sorry this time has come. My sympathies.
We lost both of our old cats last year- one was in slow decline so we were able to have the in home euthanasia for him, which was a great benefit for us all. The other guy had a horrible emergency death-we knew he was slowing down but werenât ready for him to go at all. He woke us up one morning screaming in pain, and we rushed him the the emergency vet who said he lad a large mass in his abdomen and his temperature was falling and his blood pressure was dropping. So we did what we thought was best for him. But we miss him dreadfully.
Sending light to all of you!
Neither option is good. We have had exactly 2 cats die without our having to intervene; one died over a weekend when we were away overnight, and another was found in our back yard. Both apparently went to sleep and didn’t wake up, from unknown causes. The rest have had to be euthanized. It’s always hard to determine when the quality of life is bad enough that it would be a blessing for them to die, and that horrible line of too soon vs. too late. We are now down to 2 outside cats, and I think we aren’t having any more for a long while, although we will consider feeding any random friendly ones.
I made arrangements for mine when she would greet me and go into that hunched-up loaf that says “I hurt, make it better”. She was down to 4 pounds, just skin and bones, but the vet couldn’t find any obvious causes, so it might have been age (she was about 16). I scritched her head the whole time, even after the sedative took effect and she fell onto my hand.
Lost Sydney, my oldest to lymphoma on Dec 9, she was 14-1/2. I waited 3 months and got a senior cat from the shelter. His name is Freddy. He’s 10+ years old and was declawed (grrr). He’s very friendly, but not sure about going out to meet the other cats. Cindy, my 7 year old, will stay in the bedroom with him, and only a little bickering.
I am SOOOOO glad both you and Jane are on the mend and I hope your 2nd hip replacement goes as well as your 1st.
Yes, it’s been a while. Deathly quiet again.
Agreed
“For decades the huge monolithic block of granite in the middle of the cemetery in the Swiss town of Chur was ignored by passers-by; no one seemed to know quite what it was.
But the 13-tonne stone monument that dwarfs the nearby gravestones is now causing controversy – and embarrassment.”
Spoilers — stealth Nazi monument under the guise of honoring fallen soldiers, and local officials, having realized this, are debating what to do with/about it.
Ah, this is what the two, cryptic comments above refer to:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65099516
Um, not mine. Who knew “Chur” was a Swiss city? I knew the name as a hani who walked thru hyperspace.
From NPR:
“… Once upon a time, women authored less than 10 percent of the new books published in the US each year. They now publish more than 50 percent of them. Not only that, the average female author sells more books than the average male author. …”
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2023/04/04/1164109676/women-now-dominate-the-book-business-why-there-and-not-other-creative-industries