How to Outsmart a Cat

August 31, 2026 / Lisa / 4 Comments

Invader Zim, Ruler of the Universe (Zim for short) came to us as a tiny kitten found in the woods with his mother and promptly named by our son after a cartoon character. He is now around fifteen or so, and refuses to live in comfort in the house. He will come inside, but only if the door is left open. Because we live where it snows, my husband built him a box on the porch that has a heat lamp, bed, and even a small window.

He also has a cat perch where he loves to sit and look in our living room window. My husband says we are his fishbowl and he likes to sit there and watch our activities. I think it allows him to be part of the family without being inside.

The thing is, he has my husband trained and unfortunately, my husband’s recliner is right next to the window and the perch. Zim waits patiently until he sits down and finally gets comfortable, and then bangs his head on the window. Not gently, not a polite knock, but a bang that you can’t ignore. I don’t know how he hasn’t ended up with brain damage. Zim, not the husband. Although, who knows. Because it drives my husband nuts.

Zim bangs when he wants food. When he wants cream. When he wants my husband to come outside and sit with him. And my husband is very well trained. Plus he has a finely developed sense of guilt so he can’t just sit there reading while Zim whacks his head on the glass.

So this weekend we moved all the furniture in the living room. Completely swapped the whole thing so that the recliner is now next to a window that does not have a porch or a cat perch and is not where Zim can see the husband. I wondered how many people rearrange their whole house to accommodate a cat that doesn’t even live inside. But it gave my husband peace of mind and allowed me to deep clean before winter.

So we outsmarted the cat.

For one evening.

Zim can no longer see us so he has started yowling. Loudly. For me, it’s no big deal as I can just take out the hearing aides. For my husband, with acute hearing and that guilt complex, he’s back to jumping up to get cat food.

Zim, ruler of our universe, has prevailed.

Creativity in Driftwood

June 21, 2026 / Lisa / 2 Comments

Last week my husband and I took a vacation to the Oregon coast. We like to go there during low tides or after storms to look for agates and rocks of all sorts. We hadn’t been in a long time and we both were very in need of a break. Plus, this was our dog’s first road trip to the ocean.

On one of our walks we saw a young man building a structure out of driftwood. He was busy digging a large hole in front of the structure, tossing out sand and oblivious to our passing.

We see people doing things like this with driftwood, typically building a simple pile of sticks for kids to play in, or to sit in while they have a small fire. But the things this young man built were different. For one thing, there were several of them along the beach. For another, they were complicated. Good sized, intricate, wood woven into arcs and organic shapes, and clearly more like artwork than just playing around building a camp.

On top of that, we noticed other things as we walked in the vicinity. Closer to the waves there was a simple circle of stones, already getting covered in sand. There was a slender piece of driftwood upright in the sand, decorated. I took a photo, which is below, but you can’t really see the details. There were feathers, shells, pieces of beach grass, and stones decorating the wood. I felt uncomfortable after I took the photo, as if I’d gone into someone’s church during service and started snapping pictures.

My husband spotted a ring of sand. It may have been a hole originally, like the one we saw the young man digging. But the tides and waves left only a hint of what had been, and left patterns of movement in the sand that showed what change looked like. It was like a subtle reminder that nothing remains constant.

I’ve been thinking about those structures since we got back. Why was the young man building so many? Why did he build them at all? Did he see them as transitory art, or were they just something to do with the things he found on the beach? Did he want people to use them? Did he sit back later and watch the afternoon crowds and how they interacted with his creations? Or was he, too, transitory, and moved on without looking back?

That led to more questions. I wondered if people saw the creativity, or just saw camps. I wondered if people respected them, or destroyed them. Did kids play in them and dream adventures? Did homeless people sleep in them at night?

So many possibilities. So many stories.

I wonder if that young man knew he would make imaginations soar? I hope so.

Oh, and Corbie loved the beach. The picture below is him with the wind blowing his ears up. He was the most well-behaved dog we have ever traveled with and we made sure to pay attention to what sticks he played with.

‘Otherkin’ is Here, For Some…

May 4, 2026 / Lisa / Leave a comment

But not for my husband.

Typically when writing, he is involved in the process and gives me opinions on the many drafts. This time, he wanted to be able to read the new book as a reader, with no idea what was going to happen. I was able to keep him out of the process for the most part, although I had to ask his opinion on the best way to blow things up.

This book, the sequel to This Deep Panic, took so very long to write. I’ve shared some of that here. Through all the hours of questioning scenes, questioning the story, questioning my ability, I managed to keep him on the periphery.

My goal was to hand him the actual book, for him to be the very first person to hold it and read it.

I ordered a few advance copies when Otherkin was published a couple weeks ago. And then I gave them away. Oh, I kept one, for my husband, and even handed it to him when I unpacked the box. And then I gave that one away, too. Oops.

So I’ve delayed making the announcement that the book is here until I ordered one more copy, waited for the very slow snail mail, and then waited until I could hand it to him.

After, I think, three years, it’s done. Has he read it yet?

He hasn’t even cracked the spine, I don’t think. He’s being very responsible and finishing the book he’s in the middle of first. I don’t think he’s aware of me nervously hovering, because obviously, his opinion matters.

What if he doesn’t like it?

In the meantime, while he is so-very-very-slowly reading an Agatha Christie mystery, Otherkin is now out in the world.

What if you don’t like it? If you liked the first book, hopefully you’ll like what the characters are up to in this one. There was one weird scene with a character going for a swim. I cut that scene, put it back, cut it again. I couldn’t see how it fit the plot, how it moved the story forward, how it even impacted the characters. But it kept nagging me. I finally decided I wasn’t letting go of it for a reason and left it, thinking the characters might tell me later why it had to be there. And they did. That one odd little scene ended up having a huge impact on other characters and conflicts. Strange how that works out.

For now I just took a sneak peak at the husband’s copy to see if it is still pristine. Well, the book is.