Tag Archives: update

The Mind Roastingly Strange, But Still Very Cute, Story Of Mostly Purple Patty And The Cat Who Could Hum the Blues

…featuring her new kitty cat, Bessie

Yes, I know, I suck at doing new posts here lately. I hang my head in shame and blame it on my sucky new work schedule.

HOWEVER, I have finally started my new storyblog here: https://doccross.wordpress.com/

Those of you who have read my DogCon/CatCon reports or my Facebook or Twitter posts OR the post on either of those sites by the Critter Avengers, will find the new stories familiar, yet different. It’s the tale told from a different reality starting in 2009.

So check it out. My current plan is to update it three times a week, Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

This blog may go on an official hiatus for a month or so as I build up a bunch of Doclopedia entries to post here. And yes, I WILL continue to post DogCon/CatCon reports, at least for a couple more years.

Bog Water On The Rocks

…with a side of snake squeezins!

 

I’m Not Dead Yet!

This is just a wee bit of a post to let y’all know that I’m still here, even though I haven’t posted  in 12 days.  I took a few days off from most writing and am now using my limited writing time to work on the fiction that I promised to put up on here. Should have the first piece ready in about a week.

In the inevitable other news, everyone here is pretty healthy, except our Basset Hound, Sasha, who got bit by a pitbull last night on a walk. Grace took her to the vet this morning. The bites weren’t too severe and she is feeling better tonight, thanks to antibiotics & pain pills.

OK, I’m done here and getting back to writing. I’ll try to post again soon.

 

 

When The Bus Rolled In At Midnight, Billy The Shark Was On It

…they called him “The Shark” because he liked to bite people

Subject Line: Promotions, Retirements and Vacations

Since I’ve decided to go all balls out with the blogging and tweeting and facebooking and stuff starting on my 58th birthday and going until my 59th, I figured I’d try to add a bit of freshness to my subject lines, too.

Those of you who have been reading my blogs since early 2004 know that I try to never have my subject lines have anything to do with what I’m writing about. In fact, I’d say only 25 or 30 out of the near 2,000 posts have anything to do with the content. The rest are shit that just pops into my head about 30 seconds before I hit “publish”. I’m 99.9999% certain that I’ve never exactly repeated a subject line.

Still, over the years I have created some subject lines and styles of subject lines that appear on a regular basis. Starting on my birthday, some of these old friends will go on hiatus while others will be retired (possibly forever, possibly not) and the remainder will get promoted to regular usage. Details follow…

Mostly Purple Patty: I have started most months with an MPP subject line since October 25, 2006 and I see no reason to stop now. Patty, you are like the bizarre children’s book daughter I never had.

Bucky & Squint: You guys have been with me since the beginning, but it’s time to retire you. Go back to Fargo and enjoy yourselves. Oh, and your cut from that cathouse in Juarez will arrive by courier every month.

The Ten Blue Budgies: I’m shipping you lot back to Australia with a lifetime supply of budgie chow and mirrors to fight with. You did good work, mates!

Doc Tempest: Of course, your work is never done, Doc, so you’ll be sticking around and taking up a position at the start of the first week of each month, unless Patty has dibs on.

Mrs. Wangdoodle: Retirement…and the many gentlemen at the East Wixby Senior Living Village…calls to you, my dear. Please, no tears. We’ll always have Flatbush.

Handsome Joe: It’s a promotion for you, my little fictional children’s book Basset Hound! I will try to use you a lot more that I have in the past.

Potawango Island: No way am I done with you! So many wonderful species of flora & fauna still left to introduce to the world.

Dr. Silkmelon and Mr. Porkwaffle: If I cannot give up Potawango Island, how then can I turn my back on the hearty men who discovered it? Onward, gentlemen, ever onward!

The Chapters: I am not yet done with you, but I think we shall give Our Hero (if not the French and the wicked and corrupt Church) a few months off. However, we shall await your eventual return with bated breath.

The Flying Spanaducci Sisters: Go, ladies, and tour with Billy Rose’s Big Show. You knocked ’em dead here, girls.

It’s All Fun & Games: Not done with you by a long shot.

Harry Potter: You get a nice long break, Harry. Give Ginnie my love.

Ok, that’s it for now. I might have missed a couple, but I’ll deal with them as they pop up. Now I’m off to work. Y’all stay out of trouble.

After The Change Came: Series 2

Sin And The Fishing Trip

I am just a couple of hours back from a short camping and fishing trip with Doc, his dad Bill, his uncle Carl and Roscoe. At first, Doc and I were just going to fish here locally, but his mom, his aunt, his sisters, Grace, Lily, Babe and GiGi told us all that they wanted some woman (or, in Babe and GiGi’s case, doe and bitch) time, so we were cast out into the wild. Doc’s gnomish brothers were sent off on some sort of Gnome Scout function. Nick, being just a puppy, stayed home with GiGi.

So of we went into the chilly, but sunny and dry wilds of the Placerville area where we set up camp and spent a couple of days fishing, drinking, eating camp food, swapping lies and generally being guys. It was totally fun and at night, Bill and Carl would get out the guitar and fiddle and serenade us. Sometimes we’d join in, although my singing voice will sour milk and Doc’s is barely passable. Roscoe, on the other hand, has a great voice that is not unlike that of George Jones.

We caught a fair number of fish, including a bunch of Golden Trout. We ate some and salted the rest down to take home. At one point, I hooked something big way out in the middle of the American River, but whatever it was, it snapped my line like it was sewing thread. Bill thought it might have been a Giant Carp.

About halfway along the trip home, Doc got a Wizard Summons and was teleported away. Knowing how much he hates both of those things, I expect he will be in a pretty foul mood when he finally gets home. On the plus side, he will no doubt have invented several new curse words.

Well, friends, I’m off to take a bit of a nap before I do the domestic thing. This apartment looks like a gang of teenagers lives here. After that, it’s QuestWorld for me while Babe catches up on some episodes of the third season of Firefly. I’ll blog at y’all later.

Dastardly Bandicoots Trampled My Gooseberries

…no pie for me

A Message Dealing With Things To Come

Changes are afoot here on the Dociverse Blog, Gentle Readers. First off, starting on my birthday (Jan. 29) I’ll be doing more Doclopedia posts. how many more? Well, this year’s theme is 365 Days, 500 Entries. Yeah, I didn’t learn my lesson with 365/365.

Not all of the entries will be long ones. Many will be quite short, and not all will be part of a multi-day theme, although I will be tackling the alphabet again. As before, I will ask for reader submitted theme ideas every once in awhile on Facebook and/or Twitter.

I am also vowing to do at least one non-Doclopedia post per week and I hope to hell y’all will comment on them.

Finally, there may also be the odd bit of collaborative world building, which will benefit from, you know, your collaboration.

I hope y’all enjoy what will, no doubt, be a mind roasting 365 days for me. I can already predict that January 29, 2013 will find me partaking of strong drink and cackling with laughter.

PS: There will be some slight changes at the Fiction Blog, too. More on that later.

 

After The Change Came: Series 2

Sin In The City By The Bay

As you can see by the title of this entry, I’m in San Francisco. I’ve only just arrived a couple of hours ago after yet another day of painting butterflies and flowers for Mage Daphne. About noon, I had made up my mind that I needed some mental health time, so after knocking off work at 3:00, I went home to clean up, pack a few things and gather up Babe for a little jaunt to the Greatest City On Earth! A quick trip on the Sacramento to San Francisco Express and here we were.

Now, although The City is way different looking than it was back before The Change and my untimely death, it’s still a vibrant and exciting place…only greener and more like a bunch of small villages collected in the place where a big city used to be. All of the various neighborhoods are still here (Noe Valley, The Castro, Nob Hill, The Marina, Chinatown, etc) but they’re separated by greenbelts and woods and streams and such. You can still take public transportation just about anywhere 24/7, so you won’t see many cars.

And of course, there are still a zillion great places to eat, drink and meet up with people of your preferred sex. In my case, that person this visit would be Gina Torrance, fellow artist and QuestWorld teammate. Gina works primarily in watercolors and does some of the most beautiful landscapes you’ll ever see.

I’m ending this post because now that we’ve finished eating some fantastic Thai takeout and have Babe and Newton (Gina’s Smart Dog) set up with movies and snacks, we are getting dolled up and going out for dancing and drinks. I’ll be wearing pre-Change Vera Wang and looking good doing it.

More bloggage sometime tomorrow after sleeping in and then shoe shopping!

Now We Are Five

…because Sasha has come to stay

Doc, Grace, Lucy & Winker Cross are happy to announce the adoption of Miss Sasha Jane Cross as of 12:30 pm, Jan. 2nd, 2012.

Sasha is 3 year old, red and white Basset Hound. Her previous mom & dad both work and have a 10 month old son, so they were unable to give her the attention she deserved. She is very healthy, although a tad on the skinny side. She is a very sweet girl, who seems to have no problems with her new sisters. She is whining a bit right now, because Grace left to get her a new collar and an ID tag.

Winker, and especially Lucy (our sweet little bag of neuroses), seem to be taking this new sister adoption pretty well. We have no doubt that they will soon be plotting mischief together.

Pictures of Sasha will go online soon, as will her Dogbook page.

Added note: Oddly, this is the second time we have adopted a new dog on the anniversary of the death of an old dog. Daisy left us three years ago today.

And now, your daily (we hope) does of fiction!

 

After The Change Came: Series 2

Sin And Filling You In

Hello there! Man, I’ve been a busy bee since my last post. As I mentioned, I’m an artist and most of what I’m doing lately involves painting murals on the inner and outer walls of the homes of Mages. My latest client is Mage Daphne out in Davis, California. Her thing (and all mages have a “thing”) is butterflies and flowers and her house is shaped like a vase full of assorted flowers with butterflies on them. It’s a big place, with 11 rooms in it, many of them with more than four walls. So far, I’m up to room #7 and when I’m done, I may never paint another damned butterfly as long as I live.

I got a few e-mails and v-mails asking for updates on various folks that Doc wrote about, so here you go.

Doc, as I stated last time, has a lot on his plate and he’s getting pretty twitchy. Every so often, I haul him off to go fishing and sampling various alcoholic beverages, which calms him down for a few days. Later this month, I’m going up north to Arcata with him on a combined Diplomatic mission/crab trapping trip.

Grace, bless her Gaia representing heart, is both the most beautiful and the healthiest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen. And that glow that Green Women give off is something to see. I was visiting one night and she went walking in the garden and she looked like some chlorophyll laced ghost. She has told us that the babies will be born on February, 14th, thus allowing the happy family to be at Dundracon on the 18th and proving that even Green Ladies can be big ol’ gaming geeks.

Lily has had her 13th birthday and has started high school. It’s a big indication of how much the Change really changed things when you find out that she loves it. When I was her age, I went to the coolest school on Earth…so cool it was the basis for a certain fictional school for Wizards & Witches…and it still sucked swamp water. But then again, I was just a boy, not a totally cute catgirl with a gaggle of friends, most of whom aren’t human.

Roscoe got married to Gigi in a very nice little ceremony attended by about 30 humanoids and 250 dogs, cats and other assorted Smart Animals (including four elephants). The house Doc had built for them is about a hundred yards behind Chez Cross and is very cute. Gigi had the puppies (April, May, June and Nick) 16 weeks ago and they are at about the same stage of mental development that 6 month old human would be at. They are also too cute for words.

Avis and Daniel had not planned a really huge wedding, but it’s working out that way. I really don’t know what they expected, since both of them have friends and business clients all over the world and up in space. The wedding will take place in the early spring in Hawaii and Doc has told them that he will foot the bill for the reception. Details of said reception to remain secret, save to say that I’m helping him plan it.

So there y’all go, an update on the major players hereabouts. I’ll blog more later after I go paint some more damned butterflies.