It is about 100 degrees where I live, and big chunks of Southern California is burning.  It's not so great for my asthma, though it's not nearly so bad as it is near the fires, where the air quality has actually been listed as Hazardous.  Marina, if you are ok, please let us know, ok?  I've been trying to restrict exercise, but I will have to get back to it because they say this fire might go on for two weeks.  

Last week I was at the grocery store and noticed a man in uniform behind me.  I asked "police or fire?"  and he said "fire,"  and I saw the LA County Fire Dept. badge.  I gave him a thumbs-up and said "I really, really appreciate everything you do."  I'm so happy I said that now.  I would never have the courage that these men and women do and I'm so grateful for them. 

I'm also worried sick about the big cats at the Shambala Preserve.  These are all lions and tigers and panthers, mainly who have been abandoned by stupid pet owners, or who were abused.  There are over 70 of them, and it's nearly impossible to evacuate them.  (Get 70 lions out on a two lane mountain road?  Um, no?)  So the staff has dug in.  They do a fire drill every six weeks, and they have a big fire break and a 22,000 gallon water tank and a lake and water hoses, and I hope to heaven it's enough.  I love every kind of cat, as you probably have figured by now, and I have a special kind of anger for people who decide that oh, hey, it would be cool to own a tiger, and then get rid of it.  

I'm trying not to think about it, because I'll be really sad if things go badly, but I can't.  And of course I'm worried about the people, too, though I do wonder why anyone would think they could "ride out" a Southern California wildfire by sitting in a hot tub.  Regular animals are being sheltered at the Pasadena Humane Society.  I just sent them a donation.

Also, anyone who feels like saying something like "well, it's their *fault* for living in a fire zone" :  I give you the back of my hand.  People like that have NO CONCEPTION of how big these fires get.  You don't have to be a millionaire living in a fancy home in a brushy canyon.  You could be some ordinary family living in a regular suburb.  I don't have a lot of patience with people who talk a lot of stuff about how the victims probably should have been living somewhere else.  When bad stuff happens, you pitch in and donate to the Red Cross, and send messages of support.  You save your criticism for later.

ETA:  GREAT.  Yosemite is on fire, too, and my parents are supposed to go there on vacation on Wednesday.  I'll call them tomorrow and check in with them.  I doubt they'd be in any specific danger, but my Dad has asthma too and a lot of crud in the air would not be good for him.

ETA 2:  My parents are going to Yellowstone, not Yosemite, duh.  And whew.

Via the fine folks at Sparklefield:

Wuthering Heights reprinted with *Twiight* style cover.  Twifans express disappointment.

Actual quote:  The novel might be flying off the shelves, but readers posting reviews on Waterstone's website weren't entirely impressed by Brontë's writing. Giving it just one star, Hayley Mears wrote that "I was really disappointed when reading this book, it's made to believe to be one of the greatest love stories ever told and I found only five pages out of the whole book about there love and the rest filled with bitterness and pain and other peoples stories".

This is really too bad.  Personally, I think Meyer's understanding of Great English literature is kind of reductionist.  Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Merchant of Venice are all about the love stories for her.  That's a pet peeve of mine, especially with books like Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre:  yes, they are love stories, and they are ALSO about other stuff.  Jane Eyre in particular gets big points from me when she has to decide if she is going to stay with Edward Rochester, because she knows he will do something desperate, and she should save him from himself, and after all he's the only one who cares for her:  "Who cares for you?"  and she responds to herself:  "I care for myself."  I can never think of that moment without a huge mental BOO-YAH.  

Incidentally, I was on another site where someone suggested that people who liked Twilight had never read anything else, and I shot back that that was definitely, demonstrably, not true.  It ain't my cup of cougar squeezins but that doesn't mean that no literate, intelligent people like it.  I think some of the argument that people make fun of it because it's a romance novel with a mostly feminine audience has some merit.  

I did a tiny bit of playing yesterday.  Not a lot.  Having work sitting around makes me feel guilty.  But I'm nearly done with drafting my theater business essay.  Now I need to add in the actual footnotes, which is a PITA and why so few people want to be theater historians.  Also, a super-sekrit crocheting project is nearly done! 

A couple of people have asked what happened to Flavius and his Legacy Sim legislation.  Nothing really.  It's just that I ran out of space and time, and also sometime last year, politics stopped being funny and started being srs bzns.  Flavius wants y'all to know that even though he is a Senator right now, and he is a doof, he is not THAT big of a doof and he finds almost all of them embarrassing to be around.  I suspect his energies are going into other projects at the moment, which is always worrisome.  My simself isn't doing too much, but Jeeves bought the local cemetary and has been collecting the neighborhood tombstones and putting them down.  Then we wait for nightfall, wake up the ghosts with InSim, and have a gay old time.  Denise's ghost scared the pee out of poor Kaylynn Langerak three times running and I had to have Jeeves Say Goodbye before she died, but he's about as happy as a mean Scorpio Knowledge Servo can be.

Just really tired.  I went to the doctor yesterday, and the good news is that I just have "what's going around," but what's going around really sucks.  Evidently whatever it is lingers forever and takes a long time to shake off, weeks, and wipes you out.  I'm on antibiotics now, but I suspect they won't help.  My gut sense is that it's a virus, and what it needs is lots of rest and patience and eventually it will go away on its own.

( demons and work. . .  )

Marko has a really drippy eye, so I had to take him to the vet. ( Cat stuff. )

I'm working on the next chapter.  It's the usual "is it going to be one chapter or two and what is it going to cover" kind of thing.  I've got a fair amount of intense stuff and a fair amount of fluffy love stuff, and I can't quite decide if I'm going to jam it all into one chapter, spread it out over two, or put the intense stuff in one and the fluffy love stuff in the other.  If I jam everything in one chapter, I'll probably have to drop some basic documentation that is also fun, like Carmilla's dates and who Victoria has met and a lot of engagements.  And of course I want to cover those.

Also, while simsecret  often tires me out, I loved #118 this time.  Just think of it:  a Valentine's Sim Secret, on, uh, SimSecret on, um, Valentine's Day.  Because most of them don't seem to be about the Sims, OR secret, but I liked that one.

I think I will go to bed early today so I can grade midterms and work on my paper over the weekend and make a stab at working on my next chapter.  That, or I may just futz about reading other people's stuff and playing my sims. 

I don't have a lot of graphic skills, but I did want to wish both orikes13 and legionary27  a happy birthday!  I'd hoped to have a chapter out in time, but happy birthday anyhow.  

PB

OK, maybe not, but I've never seen this before.

Marko was looking at himself in a full-length mirror.  I was having Tertius propose to Orikes' simself at the time so I didn't notice right away, and then I glanced over and saw he was staring.  And then he lifted one leg, sloooowly and followed it with his eyes.  Then the other leg, slooowly.  And then he sniffed the glass and followed his head around.  Then he checked out the side view.  Then he went back to lifting one leg.  Then another.

He did this for several minutes.  It really looked obvious to me that he was having some kind of Cat Thought.  I wouldn't say he actually thought anything as coherent as "hey, that's me," but it definitely looked as though he was carefully working out that the other cat was moving exactly the way he was. 

As I said, I've never seen any cat do this, and I've had cats as long as I've been alive, usually several at a time.  I thought it was pretty smart.

I'm going to go back into my game and play Orikes' and Tertius' wedding tonight.  Got distracted by breaking news/rumor over Teh Intarwebz; decided it was probably nonsense.  Also had to clean the house.  It's ant season around here and they go after cat kibble.  Blech.

PB

TWO new cats!  At least I think I have two.  One is hiding.

I went to Petco where the local place, Cats in Need, has an adoption day.  I guess it's hard for them to place black cats, and it's hard for them to place tortoiseshells, and it's hard to place bonded pairs, cats that are two for one deals.

So I got a black and tortie bonded pair.  :)  Their names are Marbles and Marko--for now.  I always thought TS Eliot was right about letting cats name themselves, so no doubt they'll tell me later.

My tortie girl is sooo sweet and affectionate.  She was a bit scared but she's been home for about four hours, and not only is she out from behind the sofa and getting lots of cuddles, she has the rips now.  She's actually doing that Pounce thing Sim cats do.  So in less than twenty four hours, I predict that everything in the house will be hers and she'll just be letting me use it.  I can't see her with a name like Marbles permanently.  She'll probably wind up with a name like Bathilde.

Marko is hiding.  He's a lovely black boy with big yellowy orange, almost copper, eyes.

Anyway, this will probably slow down the next update, but I figure you guys won't mind.

PB