A Twist of Things to Come

Jack Schrodinger Fowler, Lord Fluffington the Third (2006-2012)




I found him by the smell. He seems to have been dead since around the time we discovered he was missing. I had been through the crawlspace last week, shining a flash light and calling to him, but he had to have been gone already. I found him in a hollow near a brick house support. He was under our living room, so i like to think he could hear us when he passed.

He was a terrible chewer of plants, and I'm certain he got out and ate something poisonous, then crawled under the house and died. It has been unseasonably temperate the past week or so, and rainy part of the time. The space under the house was quite cool, so it took a while for there to be a smell, but he had obviously been gone some time. We buried him in the back yard.

My BIL and girlfriend Wendy are over with adult beverages, and we're having a sort of wake for him. I had forgotten how much this hurts.

My vehicle blew a hose on the trip, before we had even made it out of Louisiana. Seriously, the border with Mississippi is less than an hour away from New Orleans, and it broke down before I got there. Popped hose, lost water, overheated. BUT I pulled over right away so no major damage was done.( Cut for the disinterested. May include details of the move, plans for the weekend and my putting-the-kids-in-new-schools angst. )

In other news, my friend Andrina had convinced me to join youwriteon.com and enter an opening chapters contest, so I I did. Your piece has to have 8 reviews to qualify for the contest. You earn reviews by reviewing other people's stuff. I've done six or seven so far, and gotten two reviews in return. (So far they are quite positive.) It's a spot of work, and I'm somewhat pressed for time at the moment, but I'm going to get 8 reviews by the end of the month if it kills me.

So, if anybody would like to read the first two chapters of my second draft, you can find them here:

http://www.youwriteon.com/books/samplechapters.aspx?bookguid=e9d5c639-1dd3-40b8-ac67-b77b426011de

The site makes you register, but it is free. If the direct link doesn't work, you can find it by a title search for "Form and Void." If you see fit to review it, I would appreciate it a lot. :)

You guys remember Angry Cat?

( Kitty Picture under the cut )

He's my cat. The family went around with names for a while. "Shadow" "Shrodinger" "Trip" (in the family tradition of naming pets after what they do to you, a la our dog "Bitey" may she rest in peace).

The kids finally took to calling him Stupid, which was slightly amusing, though I disapproved.

Meanwhile, my sister called him "Jack" which was short for "Varjak Paw" a favorite book of both my niece and my sons. Only Varjak is a Prussian Blue (though illustrations by the awesome Dave McKean are single color, and he looks black). My sister hadn't read the book, and the cover illustration looks like a black cat.

But I like "Jack" and think it suits him. "Jack of all Trades" maybe, after the Neil Gaiman characters (not nice people, true, but he's not a nice cat), or maybe the simple "Black Jack" because he's lightness-challenged.

And thus begins my quest to have the cat called "Jack" because he really doesn't deserve "Stupid" and I'm at a loss for anything better.