And it’s Monday again. My adventure in seeing clearly continues. Except that I can’t see the texts on my phone with the eye that was operated on. This caused some concern, so I bought reading glasses, although today I was able to read a text, kind of.

My biggest issue is remembering eye drops. I have alarms on my phone, but I think sometimes I put extra drops in, because I do that thing where the alarm goes off, but I am in the middle of an email or writing, and then I don’t remember whether I put drops in, so I put one in just in case.

Also, not bending over and not picking things up is annoying, especially because I didn’t realize how often I pick up cats and dogs. Also, workouts are my stress relief and I can’t do them, so I am slowly building up stress. Gordon has been taking great care of me, but I would love to be back to my normal.

The Mug and the Tyger

I have this wonderful friend. Her name is Jean Kwok. She is amazing, and we text each other pictures of our orange cats. Before the surgery, we were texting, and I told her I was nervous.

Jean: I had this surgery. Let me call you.

::calls::

Jean (paraphrasing): So yes, I had this surgery, because my eyesight is terrible, but I was in Netherlands at the the time, and they are such tough people. They don’t use strong anesthesia for this surgery and I was begging for anesthesia, and yes. This was rough.

Me: …

Jean: But you will be okay.

She was right, I was okay, and she sent me that cool red mug as a recovery gift. Like me, she is convinced that tea helps with everything. I love it to pieces.

By the way, Jean has a romantasy coming out.

It’s called DOMINION. It draws on Chinese mythology, and it is both visually stunning and romantically complicated. I called her after I read it.

Me: What do you mean with this romantic twist?

Jean: Gentle, slightly evil laugh.

There is a group of warriors who ride mystic animals that are magic tigers. I didn’t know I needed a mystic rideable tyger in my life, but after reading this book, I totally do. I’m not sure how much I am allowed to say about the book, especially because it takes really wild turns, but I linked the description above.

Surprise Appearance

We have a surprise appearance coming up. We will be at Jasmine Mas signing, which will be held at 7:00 pm at B&N Arboretum this upcoming Wednesday, 10/29. This is Jasmine’s event, and we are there to ask her fun questions. I think the tickets are sold out already, but if you are going, we will be there.

Fun Work Stuff

State of life: working. OMG. All the working. We are digging deeper into This Kingdom #2 first draft and working on Augustine’s short on the weekends.

For reasons I cannot tell you, we are commissioning some art and it is with Candice Slater. I’m unreasonably excited about this. Candice, however, will likely regret this contract.

Candice: Beautiful sketch of the tower with petals at the top enclosing an observation deck.

Me: This is lovely, but it will not work because of proportions. Assuming a tower with two rings of rooms inside, we get a hollow space diameter of 75 feet and the overall tower diameter of 204 feet. Let’s approximate 1,000 feet of height – she says it’s the size of the Washington monument, but she is ballparking it from a distance. Assuming deck diameter of 120 feet around 75 foot hole, we have 9 petals, which would be about 42 feet wide at the base and have the length of 60-70 feet…

Math. Woo!

And now a tiny bribe for sitting through the updates:

Diana Snippet

They crossed the parking lot aiming for the entrance. All of her senses were up, keyed on him. She noted everything in detail, the way he moved, the way he placed his feet and shifted his weight, his breathing, his scent… Things made more sense now.  She didn’t have to do anything about it, she reminded herself. Acknowledging it was enough.

“Who will I look like this time?” She’d managed to keep her voice light.

“Yourself.”

“No disguise?”

The blond demi-god next to her shook his head. “There will be no need. Sutton understands the way the game is played. He’s a professional.”

“Augustine?”

“Yes?”

“If I wasn’t there, would you have killed all of them?”

There was a tiny pause before he answered. “It would’ve been bad for business.”

Lila let out a tiny woof. Diana sent a reassuring flood of calm down the link. Yes.  Spectacular, isn’t he?

Why yes, Pancakes is spectacular. Hehehehe.

The post A Mug, Appearance, Math, and a Snippet first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Tuna, predictably, was lovely to the vet, let his blood be taken, sat like a rock for vaccines, and has normal bloodwork.

I would take a pic of Oliver for you but I have no clue where he is. He is hiding. Oliver is allergic to life. He is allergic to cedar, he is allergic to Texas, he is allergic to food additives commonly found in cat food. He has constant nasal discharge, which means he sneezes a lot, he rips his hair out, which I clean daily, and he can only eat Royal Canin Sensitive Stomach food, because everything else he throws up.

Oliver will not eat special cat treats, tuna out of the can, or vet cat bribe treats. Only Royal Canin. That’s it. Also, he loves Meow Mix kibble, which he cannot have, because he regurgitates it right back out.

Oliver is also the reason why I have furniture covers on everything. Not only that, I have doubles, so I can swap them when company is coming. I cannot stand pet hair on furniture. It drives me up the wall so I religiously clean it with a special tool.

Oliver hid in the carrier at the vet, had to be forcibly removed, and they could not draw blood even after putting him into the kitty bag. We had to leave him at the vet so they could sedate him with gabapentin. Finally, blood was drawn and the results have come back. He has IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disorder, which we already suspected. He also has a UTI. We picked up an antibiotic for him, which we have to squirt into his mouth twice a day.

Oliver fights for his life every time we wrap him in a blanket to give him medicine. Every time that happens, he truly believes that we will murder him. Given a chance, he will claw you bloody and bite, and I just wish there was some way to make it less alarming for him, but there is not. So now, when he sees either of us, he runs and hides.

::exhales:: Oliver is a lot. He is now classified as elderly and he doesn’t react well to change. He is a sweet, clingy kitty, and I was the one who took him out of a cage in PetSmart, so he will have a home with us for the rest of his days.

Also a lizard got inside two days ago. Charlie killed it – we know this because he brought us the still twitching tail – which we confiscated. We looked for it at the time but couldn’t find it.

We found it this morning, safely tucked under a large dog pillow. It had begun to rot and it stank. I’m washing the pillow cover and contemplating if I should give up and throw the whole pillow out.

I’m supposed to be writing today, and I’m not feeling it. But I really want to get this novella done before the end of the month.

::pretends to gird loins::

Don’t write, don’t eat. Onward! To cleaning cat hair, putting pillow cover in the dryer, and then writing like the wind.

The post The Struggle Is Real first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.