Summertime... and it's frickin' hot

Leland tells me that I have too many posts about kittens. That my adoring public doesn't want pictures of kittens.

So I'm going to start this blog with pictures of other things, and then we'll move on to kittens once Leland's attention has drifted away.

Part I: Other Things:

So it turns out that we do actually do things besides playing with kittens. Though it's difficult to tear ourselves away.

For example, last month we took a trip to the highly non-photogenic Myrtle Beach! We were there for the weekend and had a lovely time lying around in the sand and looking at the gorgeous scenery...


Ok, maybe just lying in the sand.



Plus, we got to hang out with Totally Awesome People (and soon to be Totally Awesome Parents) Sarah and Adam. Here we are sharing a single Pina Colada, because it cost about 8$, and we are all just rich enough to get to Myrtle Beach, but not rich enough to each have our own overpriced adult slushie! And we also got to see two of the original Beach Boys. Rock on.

Also last month, I finished the baby quilt I'm making for our nephew due in August. It's my second quilt and it came out very nice, I think.

All the little animals are hand quilted, and the orange is the back of the quilt. I'm very excited about my next project, which is huge and awesome. I won't reveal too much, but check out my GORGEOUS fabric:


I think we bored Leland away with the fabric, so let's get back to kittens!

Part II: Kittens

It's high kitten season right now and the Humane Society has been inundated with calls about people finding litters. We took in a Mama and five babies, probably about 6-7 weeks old. When we went to pick up the kitties from the shelter, Mama had kind of an incident. In which she got out of her crate and hid under a row of cages, and then four adults spent twenty minutes chasing her around the cat room. Cats get out of their cages - not all the time, but it's not an entirely uncommon event - but Mama isn't very friendly. In fact, I'm betting that she's semi-feral. So to get her back required catch poles and brooms and leather gloves that go up to the elbow, and not sexy elbow-length leather gloves either.

Let's just say that Mama was traumatized, but not hurt. Still, she was NOT happy about being in our spare bedroom. When I come in, she hides as best she can. She can move so quickly and quietly, I named her Ghost.

We have made progress, though. If I am very still for a long time, Ghost will eventually slip out of her hiding place and sneak around the room. But most of the time, she looks like this:

Please don't eat me.

Her kittens have picked up on her fear and are also wary of me, but to be honest, they are kittens and that means they're stupid. I.e. easily lured out with food and toys. They've already lost much of their fear, but they do not like to be picked up, and if cornered, they will make tiny little hisses at you. However, they don't bite or scratch, and I'm confident that they'll be comfortable with humans in no time.

The herd of mighty kittens covers the plains from horizon to horizon

Plus most of them are big fat fatties. Did I mention that? It's comical when Ghost feeds them, they scramble all over her getting into fights with each other.

I went in a different direction when I started naming kittens. The trend started because I began to call one of them Bug.

O hai, I'm Bug

Bug is trouble.

Trouble.

Trouble.

So naturally, she's my favorite. She's the smallest of the litter (though too big and healthy to really be the "runt"), but the bravest and the most curious. She is the only kitten who will come up to me, but she also hisses the most enthusiastically when I pick her up.

The first night the kittens were in the house, we heard them crashing around all night. That's pretty normal. What wasn't normal was they they totally destroyed the plastic blinds in the window. As in, from floor to ceiling. To the ceiling. I don't know who did it, but I know who I'm looking at.

I feel a little sorry for Bug's future owners, to be honest with you. She's going to be very naughty.

The next one to acquire a name was Cricket.

No pictures, please.

Poor Cricket. This little girl (calicos are almost always girls), who is actually one of the larger kittens, had a bite wound on her neck. We think that Ghost, in panic, accidentally grabbed on to Cricket a little too hard. But no biggie, it seemed like it was healing.

I'm going to stop here and warn you that if you're eating, you should probably skip straight on ahead to the next picture. But don't worry, Cricket is fine.

And then... I went in yesterday afternoon to check on them, and Cricket's wound was quite swollen, red, and full of pus. I poked at it a bit and saw what I thought was a scab that was holding back the gooey insides. Well, I thought, they can drain it at the facility. I brought Cricket to the Humane Society to get cleaned up and get some antibiotics. My friend Katie, one of the employees, started working on Cricket's wound.

She squeezed it a bit.

And something poked its head out.

Remarkably, everyone stayed pretty calm while Katie squeezed a live, wriggling maggot from Cricket's wound.

It was disgusting, and I am not a squeamish woman. It was like a freaking episode of Animal Cops.

But Cricket's doing fine! She's playing and eating and doesn't seem to be in pain. In fact, she seems quite relieved. As you would be. And best of all, the wound is healing and the kitten is now maggot free.

Don't hold it against me! I am so cute!

Next to be differentiated from the general kitten herd was Bumblebee.

I'm camera-shy!

And full of lovely fat and fluff

This (relatively) little boy is the largest of the kittens, and he's fat and fuzzy. Like a bumblebee! It's hard to see here, but he has orange spots on his back.

I did have some trouble with the last two, both orange tabbies, both males.

The orange tabby patrol, Bug in the middle. Because she's trouble.

But finally, I identified the teeny tiny difference between them.

I has... an idea...

Firefly has little white booties on. Like little light flashes from a firefly. Here he is watching his sister Bug climb the screen. Trouble!

O hai, I'm in a box.

And Skeeter has taller white socks on, though they seem to be slipping some on each foot.

But when you can't see the feet, then it's anyone's guess.

?

The kittens love to hang out in one of Fletcher's abandoned sleeping places, a squishy hidey box thing.

Cricket and (who else?) Bug

It's like the secret kitten clubhouse.

Do you want to come into the secret kitten clubhouse?

Bug is the gatekeeper.

Too bad! We're full!

Full of trouble.

Pictures of Kittens - You're Welcome

Good news - Prince was adopted last Saturday! His new family has two little kids and I'm sure he is getting a lot of affection and love.

More good news - we have new foster kittens! I had other posts planned about interesting things we've done and grown and eaten, but I'm going to be lazy and just post pictures of Bunny and her two 5-week-old kittens, Sprout and Jellybean.

You're welcome.

This is Sprout...

...and this is his sister, Jellybean.

And, like most siblings, they love each other...

Most of the time.

Hi, Trust. Sorry, buddy, we aren't talking about you today. It's a kitten cuteness festival. You understand.

Trust is pretty cute, but he's no match for Sir Enormous Head and Tiny Body.

Oooh, what's that thing? Can I eat it? No? Well, can I play with it?

Bunny, this post is about the kittens! But I guess you can stay. You did birth them and feed them and lick their bottoms, after all.

Sorry for the interruption. Moving forward.

Nova, what are you doing in here? Nobody except the kittens! Get out!

The kittens love to play with their green toy. Sometimes they play together.

Sometimes they play alone.

Sometimes the effort of being a kitten is too much, and you need to take a nap. Jellybean demonstrates the correct technique for taking a nap inside the green toy. Yes, she is sleeping.

Fletcher demonstrates the correct technique for taking a nap outside, and looking like you are dead.

Hey, we thought this was a post about the kittens!

You two are not even animals. We're losing focus, people. Let's pull it together for the big finish.

Sleeping in the cat bed! Oh, the cuteness!

This last one is a doozy, so I'm just going to prepare you for it now. Ready to be ASSAULTED BY THE CUTENESS?








Well, are you?









Ok then. But I warned you.

Aw.

Adventures in Publishing

Ever since I announced that I was seeking representation for my novel, my wonderful, caring, well-meaning friends have been asking when the movie version of the book will be coming out.

Whoa there.

Partly to keep everyone on the same page, and partly as an exercise in writing out what I've learned about the publishing world in the past six months, I'm going to talk today about how publishing works. I also know that several readers of this blog are also amateur writers, and if you've ever kicked around the idea of trying to get published, you can benefit from all the work I've done learning about the field. Leeches.

Step 1, before we get into this, is that your novel must be completed before you try to have it published. Non-fiction works a bit differently, in that you can have just part of the manuscript done, submit a proposal, and if that proposal is accepted, you use the advance to write the rest of the book. (I've read that memoirs tend to work like fiction - they have to be done before you look for a book contract). If you're hung up on step 1, here's how to do it.

And I mean the book had better be done, done. Not first draft done. Polished, edited, ready to go. If the book is accepted by a publisher, it will still go through revisions. But agents and editors expect manuscripts to be already of publishable quality before they get to them. Fix your homophones and format your dialog. Delete most of your adverbs and change most of your weird dialog tags to 'said'. That's right, I said change "he expostulated daringly" to "he said".

Once that's done, we're on to step 2: find an agent.

I am currently on step 2. A good agent helps you make your manuscript better and submits it to publishers for you, works to keep you safe through all the legalities of the contract negotiations, and then takes 15% of your pay. I'd say that 15% is an acceptable fee for doing all those things that I have no idea how to do.

Question: can you bypass the agent and submit manuscripts directly to publishers?

Answer: sometimes, but once you submit your manuscript to any publisher within a company, and it gets rejected (most of the time that's when, not if), you are not allowed to re-submit the manuscript to a different editor within the same company. Even if you later get an agent, and she thinks that your manuscript would be perfect for editor X in company Y, if you've already sent the manuscript to editor Q in company Y, your agent can't resubmit to X. You can really shoot yourself in the foot this way.

Lesson: some authors are published by sending their manuscript directly to publishers, but it is more likely that you will be published through an agent.

There are literally hundreds of literary agents (ha! sort-of-pun). Wanna be authors like me have several internet tools at our disposal in order to figure out which ones might be interested in our work. See, every agent doesn't represent every type of novel. Sites like AgentQuery have listings of agents along with what they're looking for. I've combed through this site and others and am working my way through the list of agents that represent the kind of book I've written. In addition to looking on AgentQuery, I check out the agency website as well as the agent's personal website or blog (if they have them). This helps me further ensure that the agent represents authors like me, that they're accepting queries, and often gives me tips about what kind of communication to send to them. I do my research.

When contacting an agent, there is a specific format the communication should take: the dreaded query letter (dum dum duuummm). A query letter is about 250 words long and sounds very much like the text on the back of a paperback novel. It is the "hook" - a brief summary of the novel's contents that will make someone want to read the whole thing. It's no secret that these are hard to write. The trick is that the query isn't about the whole book, it's just about the first 30 pages or so - the "exciting incident" that kicks off the rest of the plot.

Examples online are plentiful. Several agents have written about what kind of queries they are looking for, and some even host query workshops. The indomitable Query Shark is the best place to start. Queries have lots of dos (do write in the same tone as the rest of the novel, do put the name of the novel IN CAPS) and don'ts (don't use 1st person, don't include dialog from the book, don't end the query with a question).

Now, this should come without saying, but apparently it needs to be said. When you send a query, don't be rude. Duh. You want to work with these people, don't you? It's not a huge industry, and even if you get rejected, an agent may be interested in your second novel.

Which leads me to that unpleasant topic... rejections. Often, during the querying process, rejections are silent. Many agents just don't respond to queries they aren't interested in pursuing. At first glance, that might sound rude, but how many seconds does it take for a writer to fire off an email? An agent receives 50-100 new queries every day. They can't take the time to send a detailed response to each one, because they have to take care of the clients they already have.

Out of those 10,000 queries, an agent might sign a handful of new clients every year. Those are not great odds, and remember that many agents acquire clients through references from other agents, meetings at literary conferences, and the like. I have already been through one round of queries, and just sent off a second round. Yes, I've had rejections. They hurt. But honestly, everyone who wants to be a writer has to learn to deal with rejections, bad reviews, and people who just don't like your work. That's life.

As I've dealt with rejections, I've continued to write. I've changed my query letter - if agents aren't interested, it may be because the query letter isn't selling the project.

Thousands of people want to be writers, and most of them will never realize this dream. That isn't because they all suck (only some of them suck). Most of them will just give up. If an exquisitely talented writer queries 10 agents and then gives up, they will never be published. If a mediocre writer matches the right query to the right agent, and then that agent sends the manuscript to the right publisher - that's all it takes. Talent is important. Luck is important. But persistence is probably the most important.

As Nathan Bradsford says, "Didn't find an agent? Keep writing. Book didn't sell? Keep writing. Book sold? Keep writing. OMG an asteroid is going to crash into Earth and enshroud the planet in ten feet of ash? Keep writing. People will need something to read in the resulting permanent winter."

After my first round of rejections, I did get a nice little boost when I found out that I was a finalist in All Things Considered's Three Minute Fiction contest. I didn't win, but it was neat to have an audience of strangers for basically the first time ever. It was fun to see people analyze the story (especially when they went off into realms I had never even considered). I also got some great constructive comments, including a kick in the pants about my lamentable habit of using passive voice.

The novel that I'm querying is about a woman with magic powers on a quest to stop the genocide of her people (hook!). It's fantasy - specifically high fantasy with some elements of sword and sorcery. This is a niche market with a lot of competition, and I'm thinking that the query I have now makes the story sound too formulaic. Honestly, I'm not sure how to change that. I think that the richness and uniqueness in my story is because of the characters and the cultures they live in. That's hard to get across in a short query, but I will continue to work on it.

I may make it through my entire list of agents and not get a single bite on the hook, no matter how I change the query. That's why I'm writing the next book. My new novel is urban fantasy, which is HUGE right now (thanks, Twilight, though honestly the genre was growing in popularity even before Twilight hit). Plus I think the plot is pretty cool. The new book is about a woman who smuggles contraband through a demon-infested universe parallel to the real world (hook!), and I'm having a lot of fun writing it. And IF I get an agent based on the strength of the new book, I'll have the old book to whip out as well. Look, another manuscript already completed! Can't hurt.

Question: why don't you work on the sequel to the book you're currently querying?

Answer: actually, I've got a very rough first draft of the sequel already done. I did it while I was waiting for my beta readers to finish the manuscript of the finished book. However, I'm not going any further down that road for now, because if you can't sell the first book in the series, you sure can't sell the second.

Lesson: your best bet is to work on something that you can query when it's completed.

We have to take a brief moment here at the end to mention self publishing. As in, why don't you self publish? 15 years ago the answer to that question would be: "because self-publishing is a vanity project that will cost more than it makes, and isn't taken seriously by anyone in the business". The internet has changed that answer dramatically. Print sales are declining and the e-book business is beginning to soar. With the popularity of Kindles and similar e-readers, self publishing is becoming more and more of a viable option for writers.

Still, becoming a rich and successful self-published author is difficult. You have to do everything yourself - or pay other people to do things for you. Editing your manuscript, creating cover art, printing physical copies of the book, these all usually cost money. You also have to pay to have the book formatted into a version that Amazon and others will recognize, and you often have to pay to have your book reviewed. Not to mention, you need to spend a lot of time and effort self-promoting your work.

The big news over the past couple of week was that popular thriller writer Barry Eisler turned down an offer of $500,000 for two books, and is instead self-publishing them. He has a ready fan base who will buy these books. Conversely, internet self-publishing phenom Amanda Hocking has just accepted a $2 million dollar book contract with St. Martin's Press. Amanda recently became the poster child for self-publishing when her series sold 450,000 copies in January alone. According to people who've run the numbers, an author can make more money from self publishing. Yet, there's something to be said for traditional publishing as well.

So will I self publish? It's something that I will consider. Part of me feels like I need the feedback from folks in the industry before considering self-publishing as an option. If my book can't make it the traditional way, perhaps that says something about what the public wants to read.

I love to write. I have hundreds of stories competing for attention in my head, and after I finish my dark fantasy, I know which book I'll write next. And which after that. And which after that. I have to believe that with persistence and patience, I will become published eventually. Just don't look for that movie to come out any time real soon.

Meet Prince, and then I make fun of novice DJs.

We have a new foster dog! His name is Prince and he's some kind of a little Terrier mix - chihuahua and Boston terrier, maybe? He is 15 lbs of energy. He's three years old, and was given up by his owner because she was having a baby. We're taking care of him because he was not cool with being in the shelter. He hid in the back of his run the entire time, you couldn't even tell there was a dog in there.

Staring at bees... those sneaky bees.

Prince was shy with me for five minutes, and then he became permanently attached to my leg. He still growls at Leland. Leland has decided that he's really a cat person.

In addition to his shyness, Prince also has separation anxiety. At first, he would whine pitifully if I was in a different room of the house than he was, and he cried for an hour in his crate on the first night until we moved the crate into our bedroom. He's slowly getting better with this, but really, I might have some separation anxiety too if I was left at the shelter.

Look how cute I am with my enormous bat-like ears!

You can watch Prince chase bees on our back porch here (he's a bit obsessed), and see his dinner time dance here. Dinner is his favorite time of the day. I'm beginning to think we aren't feeding him enough, or something. Trust and Nova have both lost weight since coming to our house (though to be frank, I don't think it's hurting Nova any). Hmmm. Perhaps it's time to up everyone's meal allotment?

And now for something completely different.

Living in a college town always has the advantage of the college radio station. In Columbus I listened to OHIO.FM, and nothing can surpass the incredible Radio K out of Minneapolis, run by students from OSU and the U of M, respectively. Campus stations provide a wider array of music than the standard stations, and keep you updated on what's going on in town. And WZMB Greenville is no different.

Well, it's a little different.

I usually listen to NPR, but when I'm bored of learning things, I switch over to WZMB for my daily dose of awkward novice DJ. You see, at larger schools the radio stations have a big pool of talent to choose from, especially if the school has a strong media department. And at a larger school, new DJs would be relegated to the shifts that no one listens to, like 6-8am on Saturday mornings. That's how you get experience.

Apparently WZMB is hurting for experienced DJs. But I don't mind, because I love to listen to the ridiculous things that the DJs at WZMB say on air. All examples below are really things I've heard on air. The ridiculosity comes in several varieties:

1. Mistakes

Ah, mistakes. Mispronunciations, attributing something to the wrong person, long seconds of dead air, all of these things happen to even the most experienced on-air personalities. My favorite mistakes, however, spring from clear ignorance.

Example: "The blood drive is sponsored by the Pa... Pal..." (by this time I'm shouting, "sound it out honey, you can do it!") "Pam-il-i-co County Chamber of Commerce."

Oooh. So close. I'm gonna ignore the fact that the word Pamlico is about as straightforward as you can get, no tricky pronunciations or silent letters. The Pamlico river is a major river that begins a half hour's drive from Greenville. Also a neighboring county. Lesson for new DJs - learn the local geography.

2. Bizarre Shout-Outs

I can imagine what's going through the young DJ's mind. I have to say something! Anything! I've already stretched a 15 second anecdote out for five minutes! Oh God, what can I say? What can I say? And then it comes to them... shout-outs. Everyone likes a shout-out, right? Everyone likes to feel included. But what if you don't have anyone to shout-out to?

Examples:

"I wanna give a shout-out to everyone who's in a relationship. And everyone who isn't in a relationship. ...So that's everyone, I guess."

(after reading the weather report) "Shout-out to everyone who dressed appropriately for the weather today!"

Um - thanks? That's sweet, but really, you can just go back to playing music.

3. Wet Behind the Ears

I suppose at some point I'll stop feeling smug about making fun of kids these days and start feeling old, instead, but from the lofty perspective of 26, college students seem so adorably young. This sometimes comes out in a DJ's innocent patter.

Example: "this next group I didn't really know about until I came to college two years ago. I think they're bigger in the south than they are in the north. They're called Coldplay."

4. Stoned Out of Mind

This one's fairly obvious. The best example comes from the gentleman who runs the "World Music" show. (Apropos of nothing, WZMB also has a reggae show that runs for two hours every day. Only on a college station, dude.)

Example: "what is world music, anyway? I mean, we're all on the world. So, like, any music could be world music. Did I just blow your mind?"

The DJ then proceeded to play a French rap song, a choral piece from the Red Army Choir, and a 13 minute long piano piece with lots of bells ringing in the background.

Dude, you just blew my mind.

My Trust Man!

Aww, my little Trust.



When I was playing the video back on the computer, Trust came running over. I think he knows his name now!

The Thing That Nova Is Most Scared Of, Ever, In The World

*Adoption update* Meadow's last kitten, Chicory, was adopted the other day. This just leaves Mama Meadow at the facility. She is a beautiful, loving, fearless cat, and I know that whoever adopts her will be lucky to have her.

We had some exciting news last week. If all goes according to plan, we will be welcoming another foster dog into the house. His name is Prince and he's an all-black Boston Terrier mix. According to Wikipedia, Boston Terriers have awesome personalities and aren't true terriers, having "lost most of its ruthless desire for mayhem". Having known several Jack Russells, I can indeed attest that "ruthless desire for mayhem" is an appropriate description of the breed, so it's nice that Bostons aren't like that. Nothing is 100% yet, but we're excited.

I was thinking recently about the things our animals are afraid of, as an enormous thunderclap sent Nova and Fletcher under the bed while Trust dashed about the yard in terror. Fear is such a motivating emotion for animals and can cause many of their behavioral quirks. Nova has proven to be unexpectedly fearful, and we suspect she wasn't socialized very well. In this post we'll examine the root of fearful behaviors and - no, just kidding. Maybe we'll do that another time. In this post, we'll mostly make fun of my pets.

Fletcher is pretty difficult to scare, mostly because he's been living with Leland since he was two months old.

Exhibits A, B, and C

Anomalous thunder aside, there is only one thing that really scares Fletcher:

Plastic bags.

Scary!

You can dangle Fletcher upside down, jump out at him from behind corners, or even bring out the dreaded cat carrier, but the only thing guaranteed to send him flying in panic from the room is the rustle of a plastic bag. Most effective when shaken right in his face. I have no idea where this fear originates - perhaps the sight of all that cat poo carried out in plastic bags has somehow scarred him.

(Fletcher is also afraid of vacuum cleaners and big scary neighborhood cats, but hey, he's not a superhero.)

Trust - well, it's easier to list things that Trust isn't afraid of. Trust is NOT afraid of

- the safety corner

Safety!

- the ducky toy

These are my ducky toys

- socks.

Mmm, tasty and non-threatening socks

The safety corner is the second location in the house where Trust felt relatively safe, after his crate. It's well guarded by the bookshelf and the trunk. When he was first with us, Trust would stand in the safety corner until he couldn't keep his eyes open, and then he would slowly slide down the wall as he fell asleep. It was tragically hilarious. He has now branched out to sleeping in many places throughout the house, but he still returns to the safety corner so often that he created a black smudge against the white paint. (Which I totally cleaned off, Mr. Landlord.)

The ducky toy is pretty self explanatory, and also a triumph considering that when he got here, he wouldn't look twice at a toy. Now he and Nova are engaged in a passive-aggressive cold war over the two ducky toys, which involves one of them stealing both duckies when the other one isn't looking, and hoarding the duckies in their crates until a human re-distributes the wealth.

Socks - ah, socks. Now, I'm not exactly the neatest of girls (shocker), and I seem to end up with piles of clothes about the bedroom no matter how many earnest resolutions I make to keep things neat. Well, now I have an extra incentive, because Trust loves to steal socks and underwear and chew holes in them. Or leave them festively draped around the house. Just the other day the landlord was here (full story below). Our landlord is a very nice old man with a nearly impenetrable southern accent. Just after he left I discovered that Trust had deposited a pair of my underwear in the middle of the hall, right where the landlord was working.

Thanks, buddy.

All other animals, Leland, and everything in the house right down to the linoleum floor, is capable of giving Trust quite the scare. Especially Leland. For whatever reason, Trust is still not warming up to Leland. Trust continues to make progress with me - he put his front paws up on the bed to give me kisses the other day! - but Leland is too big, loud, and scary so far.

(Leland? Big, loud and scary? How unbelievable!)

Even I still scare Trust about 10,000 times a day. He wants to come over and get affection, but something is getting in the way. He's torn between his fear and his desire for affection. Don't get me wrong, he has made HUGE strides since he's been with us, every one a rewarding triumph. Eventually he'll be a fairly normal pet, but it will be difficult for him to make up the ground that he's lost.

And then there's just Nova. Like I said, I don't think Nova was socialized very well as a puppy, because she's quite unsure or scared of new things. Nova is scared of the vet. Nova is scared of new people (though she's getting over that one). Nova was scared of the grill. Nova is scared when you come towards her with something in your hand (hmmm...). But nothing could prepare us for the Thing That Nova Is Most Scared Of, Ever, In The World.

And we inadvertently brought this thing into her lives. How young we were back then (Sunday), and how foolish.

The story begins on a quiet Sunday morning. Leland and I are sitting quietly on the couch watching TV and doing work. Nova is sleeping quietly on the floor.

And then one of the windows quietly loses its battle with gravity, and plunges inward to shatter on the ground.

Whoops.

On closer inspection, we discovered that this window had those little tabs you can slide in if you want to tilt the window inwards in order to clean the outside pane of glass. These little tabs were insufficiently broad to hold the window into the frame, and it had finally given up.

Nova was terrified. Now, this is not The Thing That Nova Is Most Scared Of, Ever, In The World. Also, it isn't irrational to be scared of a window (especially one that you often like to lie beneath in a cozy patch of sun) plummeting inwards and then shattering dramatically. We were only grateful that Trust hadn't been in the room, he might have exploded into many tiny fear-pieces. We barred the animals from the area, cleaned up, called the landlord (hence, why he was in the house the next day and witnessed my undies lying all over the place), and moved on.

It was then that we decided to go get Nova a treat to help her recover from her challenging morning. HAD WE BUT KNOWN.

Brief story interlude here, before I get to the Thing that you have been waiting so patiently for. Nova always goes into her crate to eat dinner. We recently moved her crate to another part of the kitchen. The crate has her blanket, with her smell on it, and we patiently showed her the new crate location (all of ten feet from the old location), walked her inside, gave her lots of treats, and so on. We thought we were solid on the whole crate moving issue. But then, for the next several days, when we yelled "crate time!" in preparation for handing out dinner, Nova went to the spot where the crate used to be.

What elevates this to hilarity is that she not only went to the old spot, she actually went to it as if she was still walking through the place where the door of the crate would have been. She didn't just go stand in the spot. She walked through an invisible door.

Clearly we are not dealing with a genius here.

Anyway, back to the Thing (you've been very patient). Our vet thinks Nova might be a chocolate lab / Australian shepherd mix. We knew about the lab, obviously, but didn't have any idea bout the shepherd. Something about her eyes, her fur, her tail, her size, her play behavior - seems likely. So we decided that we would see if Nova was interested in herding toys. Shepherds were bred for herding and have lots of energy, and they will often herd other pets, small children, toys, or even rocks into piles.

Doesn't that look like fun?

But we didn't want to spend tons of money on a herding toy we didn't know if she would like (wise choice, as it turned out). We decided instead to go buy something that was similar but cheaper - big plastic bouncy balls from Target.

I think you can see where I'm going with this.

We brought home three big balls, and set them out in the yard. We then opened the door, full of glee and anticipation that Nova would like her new toy.

Nope.

Turns out, you see, that big plastic bouncy balls from Target are The Thing That Nova Is Most Scared Of, Ever, In the World.

Careful! It'll eat you!

She ran out, took one look at the balls innocently sitting there, and came tearing right back in the house. Then she refused to go outside again. Not while those things were out there. We got her outside eventually and she would not go near them. Tail tucked, cringing stance, lip licking, all the classic signs of fear. We then let Trust out with her. The funny thing is that Trust wasn't scared of the balls. I mean, he was scared of them, but at the same level that he's scared of everything. He actually made Nova less afraid to be around them.

Ironic.

We tried some desensitizing stuff, having someone hold the balls while giving the dogs treats, etc. It was going fairly well - I actually had Nova licking peanut butter off one of the balls - but then Fletcher sealed everyone's fate. Fletcher has been discovering that it's fun and easy to get the dogs riled up. He now jumps out of bushes at them, scares them, chases them across the yard, and then flees up a tree once the dogs realize that the thing that is chasing them is a cat 1/4 of their size.

As Nova was relaxing with the peanut-butter smeared ball, Fletcher snuck across the yard and then jumped out at her from behind the ball.

Mass chaos.

Ok, that's it. I bought these toys to make my life easier, and clearly it's going to take a lot of work for the dogs to even want to be in the same room as the balls, much less play with them. And once back in the house, Nova was refusing to go outside to pee. Not worth it. I carried the balls inside the house and secured them in Leland's office. I showed Nova where the balls were and then shut the door.

Nova spent the next two days skulking around the house. She cautiously poked her nose out of the door to survey for possible ball attack before going outside. She slunk nervously in front of the door to the room where the balls were clearly just biding their time before unleashing their dog-killing powers. I have to say, the temptation to jump out from behind a corner and just whip the balls at her head was almost irresistible. I mean, they're plastic balls. They were not going to hurt her. Maybe the forceful application of the balls to her skull would convince her of that fact.

No, we did not DO that. We are good people. We even washed the balls before we returned them to Target.

And that is the tale of how some innocuous looking bouncy balls almost KILLED OUR DOG.