I’ve been under the weather since Dec 6, really bad coughing fits, congestion, nastiness, at times too weak to do more than lie abed. Sinus infection, they say. Well, funny thing, now Jane is coughing. I’m slowly recovering, but since the first doctor’s appointment I can get is a week away, I will either be dead of the plague or recovered on my own. It is getting better.
Sorry for the long silence…
by CJ | Jan 4, 2020 | Journal | 75 comments
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Sorry to hear you’ve been under the weather. I was getting seriously worried to the point of scouring the web to see if anybody else was posting your obit or anything. This is a bad time to be sick, what with holidays and flu season. Take care and I hope the infection isn’t tag-teaming between you and Jane.
Bummer! Hope you both get well soon.
Yes, I have been worrying too and checking pretty frequently… and was thinking of checking your FaceBook page to see if you were posting there. Glad you are on the (sloooooo…ow) mend but sorry to hear that Jane may be succumbing now.
Yikes. Very sorry you are both feeling bad, and please get well soon. We fans, not to mention the cats, surely prefer you both in your non-zombified, regular human incarnations.
(….For another reason, zombie dialogue and plot lines and character arcs do seem rather more limited….)
I believe Chondrite was considering a flamethrower for the affected bed linens (etc.) in her case. I suppose you could borrow hers. I believe it was a virtual flamethrower; therefore shipping fees would be zero, sent back and forth via cyberspace transport. (Hmmm, cyberspace ships? OK, I thought I was onto something until I thought of TRON. Oh well.)
I believe it is Tuesday (Jan. 7th) that the next Foreigner book is due to be released. My ebook copy should get delivered then. Yay!
—–
Side-Topic: I need advice, please. I’ve discovered the condition of the base unit for my mattress is now in, ah, untenable condition, due to age and various cats and kittens over the past many years. This is the bottom unit, separate from the top, the mattress itself, which appears fine. I’m stumped for keywords to search for the bottom section. What I turn up is either a bed frame made of metal, wood, or plastic, or else a mattress top of various thicknesses, from what I can tell. When I had to purchase a mattress, when I was first on my own and moving and this was semi-affordable paying by installments, this was pricey. But now more places do direct sales, either local stores or online shipments. So what should I be looking for? Can I get only the bottom unit, or should I bite the bullet and get both? And if so, what price range am I really looking at? — A brief search for mattresses themselves seemed way off the mark, price-wise. If it’s really that price, then I can do this. If it’s more pricey, then I can probably do it in installment payments. But while I have been living with it like this unawares, it is, ah, not really a tenable solution.
Hmm…. If I go the futon route as I had thought of back in Oct./Nov., that would be affordable too, but I really don’t want that for my main bed. I want that for a sofa-bed option, to replace the current gawd-awful, need-to-get-rid-of-it used couch.
But I’d appreciate advice before I do anything, and while I look further. Thanks in advance.
—–
Walt had mentioned using small rowboats and sailboats as a young kid, along with some good advice on human social patterns relating to seafaring or riverboat life. That’s very helpful. Heh, though now that tends to put Huck Finn and Flipper and a few others into the spacefaring bin. 😀 Which could work. Anyway, it’s good food for thought.
A couple of recent SF series, including Lost in Space, had me thinking again of, how would ordinary people or youth live in space? Youth-size spacesuits and at least shuttles that youth could fly or the average adult could fly without too much training, would have to be a thing. I suppose shuttle piloting might be a thing like driving and flying lessons are now for people to drive or fly. I don’t know that that would need much detail in backstory or world building, but since it came up in two recent stories, of how would an ordinary person or a kid or teen fly a spaceship or small spacecraft or ground-to-orbit spacecraft, well, it seems like something that would need at least a little consideration.
Plus, we have currently all the physical fitness requirements for astro/cosmonauts, yet real-world, civilian usage, old folks and little kids and folks with various physical conditions or disabilities are going to have to be able to live and work in space, so…that’s a thing.
“Box spring”?
Yes, it sounds as if your box spring (the lower unit of a traditional, American bed which supports the mattress and provides much of the bounce”) is caput… which, if this is what you have, is mildly odd. Box springs generally consist of metal springs in a metal or wood frame, often covered by decorative-only cloth. Technically, it is harder for the functional components of a box spring to rot out than for those of a mattress.
Many people —those who like or tolerate firm beds — have dispensed with box springs and simply put the mattress on a wood platform=much cheaper although old-fashioned bed frames may be sized for having the box spring under a regular mattress and come up short/too low visually without a box spring.
You can buy box springs separately from mattresses, but you may need to hunt around. You may also be able to buy a used box spring (Craig’s List?) but I don’t know current law on this. At least in Massachusetts, selling used mattresses themselves is now illegal due to bed bugs and other potential vermin infestations.
You might look at Craigslist; maybe someone is selling a bed base like that. Incidentally, the base with drawers is sometimes called a Captain’s bed.
@bcs-
You might try getting a replacement bed base foundation such as the following: https://smile.amazon.com/Zinus-SmartBase-Foundation-Replacement-Noise-Free/dp/B006MIUM20/ref=sr_1_19?crid=1TT3QGTRZJ2HY&keywords=box+spring+queen&qid=1578200104&sprefix=box+spring+q%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-19 This foundation will give you extra storage without the additional hiding places that a box spring might provide.
CJ, it’s good to hear you are getting better, but I’m sorry to hear you were so sick, and that now Jane is getting it. My best wishes for your speedy recovery, for both of you.
I too had missed you here, and Jane in the game; I hoped you were having a nice and busy holiday season, but worried a bit anyway.
Thank you for the reassurance.
@BCS, it sounds as if what you’ve got is a boxspring (often called a hotel bed in Europe) – its surface is quite springy as it’s an empty box filled with springs and covered by cloth, giving cats lots of hiding space underneath.
Over here a bedframe (like this) is more common. It’s easy to clean the frame and underneath, no chance of bedmites hiding in there, or dust accumulation. Or it gives more storage space underneath: there are plastic boxes on wheels one can buy to slide under there (half mattress sized), and some bedframes have storage drawers built in underneath.
On USA Amazon it looks like bedframes with built-in storage drawers underneath are called a platform bed, and cost at least $350 instead of $75 or $125 – but it does give that additional storage. Might be worth looking for secondhand.
The mattress support in a bedframe can be firm or slightly springy, woven metal or metal or wooden slats, but in the USA on Amazon I only see the firm metal or wooden supports, not the adjustable springy slats mostly used in Europe. That means all the bounce/springyness needs to come from the mattress itself, so putting a boxspring-mattress on a bedframe support will mean it suddenly sleeps much firmer, with less sagging but also less springy adjustableness.
Thanks, everyone! So glad I asked! — Yes, it’s the box spring, and the suggestions for a bed Frame with storage sound good, if that would work for my bed.
The reason I was confused about my current box spring is — Underneath, this had been covered by fabric, something like a thick mesh, maybe similar to what’s used for needlework, I’m not sure. Inside that was cotton batting / quilting / stuffing of some kind, at least along the edges and possibly the bottom. Sometime in the course of owning various cats over the years, that fabric had been, ah, torn open by them, or tore itself, and the not-large amount of padding came out over the years. It was in something like that state when I moved in here, and since then, of course, got worse. So when I had to get items that fell under the bed from the headboard last night, I discovered the condition under there. Thus the questions. (I’d cleaned up before, I just hadn’t realized it was “empty” except for a minimal amount of cotton / stuffing still clinging along one lip or edge of the interior. Yes, it appears to be a metal structure with springs, covered over with quilted fabric on the top and sides (and formerly the cloth on the bottom), to match the mattress on top.
The bed itself and the bedroom suit date from the mid 1950’s, when my mom and my grandmother bought them from one of the department stores. However, with wear and tear over the past 10 years or so, I may want to strip the existing finish and refinish them. I would if I could do it myself with drop cloths, enough ventilation, and so on. But for now, that will need to wait. (I presume it would need to be stripped also if I were to paint it and then seal it, rather than refinishing it.) The finish was originally a “pickled” or blond treatment, which was apparently painted and stained, rather than natural. But because of wear in places, it no longer looks as good, so doing something with it would be a nice improvement.
So it is very “old-fashioned” and traditional in terms of space / construction for a deep space with L-shaped metal beams at the bottom and wooden slats, onto which the box spring and mattress rest. The style is not a “Parson’s” style, but is very minimal and spare, fitting the 50’s era.
Hmm, so if a bed frame with storage would work, or some sealed form to prevent feline or other possible critters doing a repeat performance, as well as preventing insect infestations as a possibility, that would be most welcome.
The remaining strips of cotton batting, I need to remove as those are too prone to dust, insects, and creating lint, or might be tempting if a cat got under there and got curious, playful, etc. (Goober has not been under the bed in quite some time, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying it again, and any other future cat surely would too.)
I will be looking over options and I’m likely to do something toward that, for cleanliness, neatness, less fuss, and hopefully comfort. I hadn’t really noticed a problem, since the mattress on top is fine.
BTW, today and tomorrow, our high is expected to reach 73°F, but with lows still in the mid-40’s. Then the rest of the week, it’s supposed to go down into the 60’s. This is not unheard of in January here, but 73 feels high to me. I’ll have to switch from heat to A/C and back for a couple of days, or just stay on A/C until it gets colder again, since that high will keep the apt. heated through the nights.
The past two nights, I have heard caterwauling and one traveling, running spat for the length of the complex, heh, which was possibly Curry and the tabby and white female, or another, but could have been some other male. Unknown. I did check a while Ofer hearing those, but no cats appeared. So it’s been half a week since I last saw Curry.
Cats love to get into box springs. There’s not much you can do to prevent that. But if you can get a platform bed frame, that would help.
(Cats love places to sleep where they’re out of sight. The lower bed in a trundle-bed pair is another cat favorite, speaking from experience with both kinds of bed.)
Sorry to read you have been ill. I hope Jane does not have what you had. No fun with linear family sickness.
But have a good New Year for you and yours.
And a recommendation to all – the Morgaine Saga – 4 of Ms. Cherryh’s difficult but worthy reads.
Jonathan up here in cold New Hampshire
The 4 Morgaine books are also available as audiobooks in individual volumes, via Audible.com. This reminds me I’m in the mood to reread them. Thanks, Jonathan.
Another worried reader. Sorry to hear of all the illness, it seems to be prevalent everywhere this holiday season. Best wishes for better days ahead for both of you.
I think I would prefer the option of you getting better please!
Oh dear. I am very sorry to hear that you and Jane both came down with the creeping crud, one going, one coming. You have my complete understanding and sympathy! and a virtual flammenwerfer, should you wish 😀
I always get my flu shot, now the super-duper 4X load, whenthey show up in October. It’s no guarantee, of course, but I haven’t gotten the flu, nor a very severe cold. It’s a fact the antivaxers ignore, diseases they dismiss are killers! 79 deaths from MEASLES (14 per 1,000) in American Samoa! At my age it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
And no, I inherited my Asperger’s from my father, not from a vaccine.
It’s good to hear from you CJ, although I’m sorry to hear you’ve been under the weather. I do hope you continue to feel better, and that your dear Jane doesn’t suffer too much!
We’ve escaped the worst of the traveling cruds, and a long stretch of soul depleting grey, dim and dreary weather with no exciting sun or snow to break that grey. We managed to get a bit of family holiday cheer mixed in though, and a LOT of reading. Our boy is temporarily sidetracked from piles of books, thanks to the Lego Mindstorm robotics sets I gave him for Christmas. When last seen he was busy plotting the build of a robotic elephant with the ability to pick up wet towels from the bathroom floor after showers. He loses several dollars a week in penalty allowance deductions for each towel. He did leave the house for a few days vacation, carrying 4 or 5 volumes, Neil Geiman and C. J. Cherryh among them 🙂 Stay safe and well everyone!
Hahaha, I love that it’s a robotic elephant doing that! Very funny that he wants to invent something because he’s so annoyed about picking things up. Heheh. (I’m fortunate not to be bad about that, however, I am still de-cluttering, so I don’t think I have any room to criticize. Hah.)
This reminded me of a story from when I was an older teen. My mom gave art lessons, and one of her students’ kids got a big Lego set for one of the Star Wars ships, I think it was. This was the first 3 movies, the others were not yet made. Oh, he was very, very proud of this, and my mom must have said I was a science fiction fan. The boy was somewhere under 12 and I didn’t know him, but his mom brought him to the shop to show off his (completed) Lego set and the box. I was duly impressed. We visited for a little while and he and his mom went home. I’m sure a lot of work and imagination and fun went into putting that together. I’d had Tinker Toys as a little kid and I think I’d had a couple of Lego-like toys, but not one of the big sets, which started becoming popular about when I was starting to outgrow toys as a teen. — However, now I don’t know why I didn’t offer to show him my science fiction toys, which I still had at the time. Maybe it was because they weren’t staying long. — I don’t remember who the boy or his mom were, but from one of my mom’s painting classes. But this little guy showing off this big Lego set that was about half his height, haha, and how much he liked it and wanted to show all the details, stuck with me. (Wow, he must be in his 40’s by now. Time passes!)
I remember thinking a model kit, for the realistic detail like the film’s ships, was good, and the Lego bumps (connectors) seemed to get in the way of that to me. I’m not sure if that shows a personality preference or a teen mindset outgrowing kids’ toys. — Luckily, I think I’ve outgrown that mindset.
It’s a funny thing that we do that, outgrowing our toys and part of our childhood, thinking we’re too old, too grown-up, too much of a big teenager for that; and then as adults, hopefully, we realize that was silly, that playing is a good thing, and that we’ve lost some undefinable something, at least for a while, or in our work lives, as adults, before we get that back again.
As a young adult, I one day realized that was one of the neat things about my grandmother: She had kept a sense of whimsy in some things, like some of her knick-knacks, or occasional decorating, and she liked cheerful colors, and somehow this connected in with her love of gardening and cooking and housekeeping, or entertaining friends and caring for them. I decided I liked that a lot and wanted to keep that.
I’ve noticed today’s kids and teens seem to hang onto games and toys a little longer and may retain that into young adulthood, along with cartoons and so on. I think that might be healthier in a way.
Hm, now if he grows up to build real robotic elephants, that will be something! 😀 Good for him. Although, hey, kid, pick up the towels, they get funky and gross like that. 😀
That is the other great thing about kids growing up. You never know quite where their interests and personalities are going to take them as adults. Seeing that unfolding must be a real joy for parents and grandparents. OK, well, when it’s not an annoyance, hahah.
Hmm, and 5 and 10 years from now, when he’s nearly starting college and nearly finishing, it should be interesting to see what he gets into. Of course, if he gets into multiple things or has a little trouble figuring out what he really wants to do, OK, that can tend to produce some of the most interesting people. And I’m of the opinion that we underestimate “kids” and “teens,” when they already are showing tremendous ability and talent, thoughtfulness and some emotional maturity, right along with all the kid-logic or what-were-you-thinking mistakes.
Waiting with bated breath for the Resurgence Kindle edition release tonight. I left a tip in the closed-circle.net donations jar in order to defray costs for tithing the bannik.
That moment when you realize that background noise isn’t from the science fiction episode, it’s two cats, ah, courting, singing before, hmm, more interpersonal activities.
That moment following, when you think, well, no, I probably don’t want to open the door and call, because either I don’t want to invite in a fight or courtship, or else, it might not have any effect, as they are more interested in each other than in coming in.
One of those might be Curry. The other might be the tabby and white jejune(?)-fille. Or one or two other strays.
Notably, Goober was only slightly interested, but not enough to look out the window or clamor for his (maybe) friends. I suspect he only puts up with Curry when Curry is here, but doesn’t actively dislike him; but he (Goober) seemed more curious about or friendly to, the young lady kitty.
I will get the new novel downloadsd when next I open the Kicle on the 7th, tomorrow morning.
Hope you both feel better soon. That sinus drip cough is so nasty.
Got Resurgence from Amazon tiday! Spouse waiting for audible, but there is no sign if it yet.
I just got my ecopy of Resurgence. I’ll be starting it right away.
Mine was waiting when I got up. (I tend to crash early and then lie awake for a couple of hours as my brain refuses to shut down.)
But it gave me a fine morning of reading. (I was getting antsy while reading, waiting for escalation to happen.)
Got mine as well. Having just finish a re-read of Emergence, the current in-progress book will be suspended in favor of Resurgence. I do love the traditional new year treat!
Resurgence is also on my library’s order list 🙂 Nice being able to throw a bit towards authors I appreciate!
I would love to be able to order and read the ebook version of Resurgence, but yet again the publishers will not allow me to do so because I live in England.
@Naomi, it is available in continental Europe, I just bought and downloaded mine from Kobo.
Could you register a new account, maybe on your phone or laptop, setting your location as the Netherlands or Belgium? Those are the same timezone as the UK, more or less (depending on summer/wintertime). On Google maps you could pick an address, and look up the postcode on the internet – if it’s only used for digital books the address you enter shouldn’t really matter?
If you want ebooks from Amazon in the Netherlands, you have to get them from Amazon.com, not co.uk, so you’d have to make a new ‘Dutch’ account there. They have a Kindle app for phones that you can read it on, in that case.
If you instead set up a ‘Dutch’ account with Kobo.com, you can download the books to Calibre, and read them on your laptop. Or I’ve been told that Calibre can then convert the epubs to Amazon’s kind of mobi files and send them to your Kindle email address, to read on your Kindle – as I have an epub reader I haven’t done that myself.
There’s a Calibre plug-in called OBOK De-DRM, which converts from Kobo to conventional e-pub. All the instructions (and links) can be found here:
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/
(I jail-break all the ebooks when I get them, and back them up to a thumbdrive. It’s a big thumbdrive…)
I also jail-break all my books!
Thank you for your ideas Hanneke, but from trying to download today (unsuccessfully) from Google, Kobo, Nook, and Amazon in both the USA and Canada, it appears that all the sites recognise that my ISP is in the UK, so unfortunately I don’t think that having a ‘foreign’ account would work unless I also had a foreign ISP.
What I do find very sad about this is that it’s relatively easy to find pirated copies of CJ’s ebooks to read online or to download, and consequently people for whom it is ‘illegal’ to buy a legal copy may well be tempted to obtain an illegal copy or read online without downloading.
I’ve used Calibre for quite a few years, and it really it is such a useful program, both as my library bookshelf and for its ability to covert books or documents to any format. When a few years ago it became quite difficult due to arthritis to hold a hardback or large paperback, I decide to replace my quite substantial library with ebooks. I’ve been able to do this very successfully and I now have 500 books on Calibre. It’s also helped a lot with space, as most of the replaced books have gone to charity shops. Sadly CJ is the only author currently writing for whom I’ve been unable to do this for almost all her books.
@Naomi, I think this location marker is based on where you set up your email and ebookstore account from. I’ve downloaded hn books while on holiday in other European countries, so I don’t think it keeps on tracking where you are. So maybe I could set up an extra te mailaccount for you and make a Kobo-account based on that, and then hand over the hh keys to you. I’ve scattered four two-letter scraps through this text that should w@ allow you to deduce my rarely-used address on the large search engine mail, if you want to contact me to try this.
There, that should be confusing enough that no spambots can pick it up.
@Hanneke Thank you so much. Not sure I’ve got the code right yet, but hope to contact you by the end of the week.
@naomi, I meant gmail, which ends on com, and the code starts with h and does not incorporate any normal English two-letter words.
Sorry for being cryptic 😉
There is also a Kindle app available for PC (Windows) and for Mac and for Linux, so for a laptop or desktop, you have options there. Amazon also has you set up a Kindle email address with them, so that you can send non-Kindle or 3rd-Party Kindle or non-Kindle ebooks (.EPUB, .PDF) to that email address, Amazon then passes the file, transformed if need be, to your Kindle account, so that you can download it to any of your Kindle devices or apps. That is, it then shows up in your Kindle books alongside ebooks purchased from Amazon.
Thus, you have some other alternatives, if/when you can get ebooks of CJ’s books.
Can you get Audible.com audiobooks from US authors in the UK? If so, there are something like 20 of CJ’s books available in audiobook format. They’re quite enjoyable. You may need to try Audible.co.uk, if the .com US domain doesn’t work for you.
Please also let us know, as surely other fans want to know about availability for UK readers.