Making progress on the book finally. Not as if we haven’t been trying, but a year and all that surgery and anaesthetic has kind of a scrambling effect, and getting back up to speed, and getting my hands typing again is a biggie!
Thank you for the offer of a hand warmer. That’s very kind. I do have one and it is a help, or was before we had furnace heat right at our doorstep.
Another person who has helped is Patricia Briggs, our distant neighbor and real good friend, who is a doll. We went out to a couple of horse shows (she breeds Arabians) and got out of the house—great fun. Patty writes the Mercy Thompson books, and if you’ve not read her stuff, either the regular fantasy or the Mercy books, you might give them a try. She blessed me with a cold laser, a veterinary thing they use on horses, and you have to know lasers even of this mild grade can be seriously dangerous, but I do know, can use it, and find it helps the neuropathy. So that is a real positive.
This is Jane’s week and mine for doctor appointments, things postponed during 2020, and my followup with my doc, and the endocrinologist (thank you, Grant) who is trying to get me medicated for osteoporosis without screwing up the neuropathy. I think we may be on the right track. I hope so.
Anyway, enough med stuff. The heat wave is past and work is proceeding. We now have 90,000 words of 120,000 word typical length on the Alliance book, and are making steady progress.
WOL, thank you for the update on what is happening with you. Such a lot!
At 96 health-things like that can change life very fast and irreversibly, whether from a fall, a slipped disk, dehydration from not drinking enough because they don’t want to have to get up so often in the night – one of my grandmas had a similar episode as you describe.
I think it is very kind of you to move into a shared senior housing with your mom, so she’ll have your support all the time. A very big adjustment for you both, I hope it works out well!
Good to hear from you WOL. Hopefully your move will be easy and your new residence will be perfect for you and your mom.
Thanks for all the kind comments. Will let you know how things go. Will be so glad to get through this and get settled in at the new digs.
Who haven’t we heard from in quite some time?
Our hostess, and Jane. I hope all is well with them!
They both post frequently on FB, so one hope all is well
Facebook is evil! Zuck is criminally naive to believe open communication without restraint, enforced if your people have no self-restraint, is all good. I won’t have ANYTHING to do with it!
I’m in a bunch of small press and other book sites on FB, plus various sci-fi. It’s the only place to really keep up with things, and is the best place to find older books (rather, best place to start, and usually much better deals from other fans).
Paul, I understand your anger at FB, but, it helps me to remember to “scroll on by” when I see something aggravating there.
I do have some self-restraint. 😉
Along with swearing mighty oaths about not trying to travel during the holidays, I am also agin’ FB and Twitter and most of the other social media. It has no discretion and will try to subtly manipulate you, all in the name of making money.
well don’t use Google search then
You could take a look at Duckduckgo dot com, or Ecosia, as alternative search engines, if you do not want to feed the manipulative monopolists or do something positive while searching.
Quack! I switched some time ago for search. I still use Google News, though it now often gets half-way through and gets stuck.
Can’t wait for the end of the month! Legionaires’ uniforms are drafty and uncomfortable, no matter how great Caesar is.
Yes, this is so, but I’m locked into the Google ecosystem at work; a lot of our software doesn’t play nicely with other search engines or browsers. I vary at home (nd use a VPN occasionally).
And the Microsoft monopoly no doubt. Once upon a time this country saw monopolies as bad things. Since then “international competition” is regularly trotted out as the big bad boogeyman.
One great thing about retirement, I’m Microsoft free for 7 years (except occasional bing-ing)
Anyone in Louisiana? Or anywhere in the Hurricane Ida path? My New Orleans friends have all evacuated, as far as I know, but I’m still watching the news (safely at home in Iowa) in fear and trembling.
We are in Pearl River, north of Lake Pontchartrain. Nothing much but rain is predicted for here.
Glad to hear it doesn’t look to worrisome for you and your family, Tommie. Take care of yourself still!
I’m listening to the coverage from a NOLA station.
“Torn-attic” conditions.
It may be some time before we hear from her. Maybe she has a generator. But it’ll take the communications infrastructure to be repowered first.
To any member of the Wavy Navy wondering what’s up with BCS, I’ve gotten a couple of letters from him. Right now he is very isolated. His power got turned off about a week and a half ago, and once his batteries died, he has been incommunicado. None of the people who had been helping him locally have been back in contact.
Myself, that would spur me to go outside my comfort zone and brave the street to at least talk with the condo office. It’s in their interests to help him get up to date with his payments, otherwise they will have to go through the nuisance of eviction proceedings, if that even can be done right now (I wonder if they let his power be turned off as a backhanded way of ‘encouraging’ him to move out.) Several of us have tried to assist from afar, but he also needs to bestir himself and do some things on his own behalf.
Myself, I’d leave Texas! It’s not a state for one to lack independence therein. It assumes everyone is independent. I’d head up to Colorado, if not farther.
Damn! I wish BCS has said something. It’s very hard to persuade a utility to turn electricity back on without making a 50% down payment on the back arrearages. My non-academic, day job is in Fuel Assistance at Boston’s Community Action Agency. I’ve spent the past 4 weeks helping people try to keep their power on and … in a few, egregious cases, getting it turned back on the day it was shut off. Unfortunately, the utility rights laws are very state by state. Massachusetts has some of the best protections for consumers… my suspicion is that Texas has some of the least. Let me see what I can find, but it’s going to be hard to get anything retroactively done.
Yes, Texas has a less protective, stricter version of what we in Massachusetts call the “Serious Illness Shut-off Protection” right (bullet about halfway down the page: https://www.puc.texas.gov/consumer/complaint/Rights.aspx). If BCS’s doctor felt that the shut-off would exacerbate his “illness” (in MA, blindness would count), the doctor could write a letter to the utility & the person enter into a payment plan.
What city does BCS live in? I wonder if I could get him hooked up with the Community Action Agency in the area? But, yes, he has to take some action himself.
Houston, or thereabouts, IIRC.
Raesean, he’s in Houston. He couldn’t access his mailbox for almost 6 weeks after some refurbishments were done – the apartment management wouldn’t help him, and the post office said the apartment management were the ones responsible. Probably the bills and reminders were stuck in there. After 6 weeks a postman came to his door because his box was overflowing, and allowed him to empty it, but referred him back to the apartment management for a new key. I’ve not heard if he managed to get them to bring him one…
Meanwhile a phone OS update had caused his phone to freeze, so he became unable to call out or receive calls, to contact the appartment management or his one local friend to come help.
He’d been trying to do so by email, but when the electricity was cut off, that option disappeared too.
He can’t walk to the management office as it’s across a busy street without a signalised crossing, and he can’t see the gaps in traffic.
He sent out a letter to one of us who were trying to help him, but I have no idea of how to contact him or help him now.
If you want to help you can email me at h dot nieuwenhuijzen at heerhugowaard dot nl and I can put you in contact by email with Tracy, the one BCS sent the letter to. Together I hope we can come up with something!
@Raesean, we really need some advice on how to get him some help – he’s still unreachable and shut off. Could you email me?
h dot nieuwenhuijzen at heerhugowaard dot nl
Personally, I think the best help you could give him is to persuade him to get out of Texas.
Again, like many of BCS’ other problems, that is best and easiest handled in person. None of us live close enough to him to give him any personal assistance in any of his issues. Some of us have mulled over finding a temporary assistant to help him navigate the morass of bills and contacts he needs to negotiate, but that is chancy. We’ve also tried to put him in contact with some of the community based aid centers, but unless someone comes and knocks on his door, very little seems to happen 🙁
And especially so in Texas! Sure, he’s trapped, but he’s got long-term problems. Getting him help for these short-term issues isn’t a solution.
Hanneke, I just emailed you from my work email. There’s no helpful info in my email but it will start me thinking on potential solutions for BCS outside of when I log into CJ’s blog.
I admire those of you who are trying to help BCS. But, as an elderly woman who is apparently financially secure, I’m besieged by scammers and others who would like to take advantage of my charitable leanings. Does anyone actually know that this person is who he claims to be? And why he doesn’t seek help from those who could verify his identity? I’d like to think that his posts are genuine, but I have experienced some very plausible scammers.
Several of us have known BCS for more than two years on-line, but you raise a good point…
BCS is BlueCatShip. He has displayed detailed knowledge of CJ’s books, and has been on here for over a decade–I got tired of searching after 2011, but feel free:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22BlueCatShip+on%22+2011+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.cherryh.com%2FWaveWithoutAShore%2F&lr=&safe=images&hl=en&as_qdr=all&ei=WY9JYc560KnQ8Q-Uppz4Bw&oq=%22BlueCatShip+on%22+2011+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.cherryh.com%2FWaveWithoutAShore%2F
BCS’s posts are hardly classic scam posts. He’s displayed plenty of unattractive, human flaws… and both the situations he has described and the personal challenges he wrestles with are ones that are familiar to me from my day job. I’ve been reaching out to the Houston Center for Independent Living (a cousin to the Boston Center for Independant Living with whom I’ve done advocacy & public benefits programming in the past), and sharing that info with Hanneke and a couple others active on the blog. I’m hoping the HCIL has ways of connecting with… and visiting BCS. Certainly at this point I will err on the side of regarding BCS as a genuine human being caught in a very difficult set of circumstances and deserving of compassion.
BCS is a very real person, I have known him for a very long time. He has several physical issues and is very isolated. A move to another city with a more progressive government might help him.
Walt and Spence, Thanks for standing up for BCS. I didn’t have the ammunition to do so. I guess I’m just suffering from charitable burnout.
I’m glad to hear that he is a “real person,” and that the efforts to help him are not wasted. Thanks for the information; it’s unfortunate that so many bad actors make it more difficult to recognize genuine need.
A more progressive state! Best closest would be Colorado, AND extra plus, it’s away from hurricanes, flooding on heavy rains!
Just for the record, Happy Birthday, CJ.
Happy Birthday, CJ! Thanks for all the Books.
Thanks for all the fish, too! Our power is back on and we are well.
Good, do tell!
Many more happy revolutions around the system primary CJ!
A very happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday!
(I see from the birthday honors at File770 that you’re in illustrious company: ER Burroughs, Filthy Pierre, Timothy Zahn…)
Happy Belated Birthday!
Greet the Wind folks. And a Happy Autumn Equinox to you all. I Realize I’ve been absent from here for a little while now, I’ve been getting further and further behind in my reading material. Hope you are all well.
And now the purpose of this particular Visitation.
I vaguely remember a Film Song that’s satarizing Capt Kirk. In this particular song there’s some ladies out in space needing help. Turns out there’s a whole load of women and children in distress with an uncanny resemblance to a certain ( Someone ) Anyway as the crew are sniggering and the captain is getting more and more uncomfortable, the song ends with him snapping “get back to work ” . My Question? I can’t remember the Name of the Song. Can anyone help?
Comment Jest wanted to say that I already found the answer I was looking for, Sorry to Trouble you all.
I tried to say this a moment back, but I don’t think the message delivered properly
Comment While I’m still here, have any of you been following the TV Mini Series Vigil ? It’s a six part drama on BBC, with only one more episode to go. if you haven’t came across it yet, then I suggest you check out the BBC i Player. The Premise is Detective investigating a Death on board The Royal Navy Nuclear Submarine Vigil. A whole lot of chicanery and dirty deeds are starting to be uncovered, but can she Survive to tell the tale. I wasn’t sure about this program at first, but it’s really grown on me. Can’t Recommend it Enough, lol.
I found CJ’s Facebook site here: https://m.facebook.com/pg/CJ-Cherryhs-Books-Questions-106696991055059/posts/
She appears to post something there every few months, or a few posts close together then a month or two of no posts, from what I can see on her front page.
Without an account I can’t click on to see more.
The latest posts I see up there are from the beginning of August, about their AC conking out in the middle of a heatwave, and how they are making do with a couple of electric fans. Has anyone seen any newer updates?
There are other CJ Cherryh sites on Facebook, but those are even older and have been inactive for much longer.
CommentI went to her facebook page, it is extremely active these days. She has posted a lot about how the covid 19 vaccination is safe, and enters into some of the lengthy conversations that her members engage in following her posts. I do have a facebook account but i only use it to see pictures my family post 🙂
CJ is quite active on FB. Jane is there too, not quite as active. Many very wide ranging conversations, although not a lot about her writing, sadly
So did I get the wrong page (again)? Or is most of the content just locked away so only members can see it?
I think the most recent FB is https://www.facebook.com/cj.cherryh?fref=ts as there is also a FB link embedded to this address at bottom right of the wave without a shore pages…
That one leads to a facebook login page, hence not accessible to me.
Ditto. She may have set her current account to private
Hi hanneke. I don’t really do much with FB or understand how it is set up but I was able to see updates from cj on that site a couple of days ago and I’m not a FB friend with CJf that helps. But I was logged into FB already before I suited her site. Just sharing in case that info helps at all.
That’s the thing: You need to be logged into an FB account to read that page. Which I don’t have and won’t get. Thanks, but no thanks.
I’ve had that problem also. I explicitly set a Facebook post to “Public” which is supposedly available to everyone, but it still sends people not logged into Facebook to a login page.
So it isn’t a CJC specific problem.
(Ie on the black banner at the bottom)
An update on Blue Cat Ship (aka Ben) — upon the advise (confirmation, actually that it would be a good idea) of the Houston Center for Independant Living, I asked the Houston Police to do a “Wellness Check” visit to him. Yes, he is alive and “well,” according to the officer who visited and then called me back. Sounds like the officer chatted with him for a while (and that Ben was up and about when the officer knocked around 11:30am). Ben is still without electricity although apparently he had his mail with him when the officer called. It doesn’t sound as if any local friends or relatives have been recently in touch. I’m certainly presuming that his phone continues not to work too (I tried it early in the week, it went straight to “voicemail box not set up.)
Hanneke and a few others on this blog of CJ’s have been sending him some food and cat supply orders. I’m going to continue to try to figure out Texas social services options, but the COVID situation is making it even more difficult to get any agency to do a house visit, which is what he needs. I think I will also send him envelopes and stamps, so that he can do snail mail should he want to communicate that way.
I’m here, my login works, hopefully I see some of the lively current events commentary here that I was reading on fb.