Getting plenty of practice "going with the flow" this week.
One, a large convention, for which me and several family members and friends have planned to work and attend, was abruptly cancelled yesterday, just ten days before the event, leaving other con participants shocked and upset.
My family and I have spent nine months in preparation for this event: making sure we had enough stock, costumes, work schedule rearranged, vacation time, etc., but also the opportunity to immerse ourselves in all things vampire (Victorian vampire ball, panels, photos ops, film festival, etc.).
It's a huge blow, but since I've officially written about, I'll be reaching out to organizers today and see if anyone will provide insight.
However, two very pleasant things happened immediately after, which I'll share here.
One, after a day of dodging "pebbles," I accomplished a good portion of my "to-do" list and left for a meeting with Alby Odum at Book and Bean Cafe in Joliet for a light supper, coffee, and to talk about the Bryony audio book.
He had never been at the cafe until we first met there two weeks ago and actually got there early to work on some other projects and soak up the ambiance. After discussing technical things, we shared resources and just had a long talk about all things creative, etc.
It appears we'll meet every couple weeks just to keep the project moving until it's done. The goal is not to rush it (which is funny, considering we recorded the files in 2012), but to not stall again either.
In the meantime, we're gaining a slow, but solid, education about the audio book industry, similar to the steps I took to learn about self-publishing about ten years ago.
Onto the second pleasant occurrence.
For one reason or another, I have not been in a pool all summer (I LOVE the water, so this is hugely disappointing). But with this lovely hot and humid weather (so far) this week, surely ONE NIGHT will happen before the pool shuts down.
Well, last night was not the night.
After the meeting, and after some "con" stuff was addressed, it was too late for the pool. So Rebekah and I decided to walk the track behind a local school building.
As we came up the other side, we saw an object off the road. That object turned out to be a cat.
It was now getting dark, and here was this very thirsty, very domestic cat out in the middle of the field by itself. Had it run off from the neighborhood? Or worse, was it dumped off?
We brainstormed a planned.
We would ask the boys to bring the cat carrier. Then we would go around to all the houses in the surrounding neighborhood to see if someone had lost a cat.
If not, we would bring it home for the night, isolate it from our cats, and then take it to the vet first thing in the morning to scan for the microchip.
In the meantime, we took a picture of the cat and posted it on social media with a short description) hoping someone would recognize it.
The boys were at the fitness center, so they didn't arrive with the box for thirty minutes (at this point, they met us on the sidewalk when we were walking home with the cat to get it ourselves).
As Rebekah started to put the cat in the box, Timothy cried out, "That's Decklin!"
Immediately, I recognized the cat. He did live in one of the surrounding neighborhoods. Well, this was easy. We'd just take Decklin home.
It wasn't that easy.
As Rebekah placed Decklin into the cat carrier, the bottom broke, and the Decklin bounded away!
For the next twenty minutes, we chased after him, steering him in the direction of home and not farther away from where he needed to be.
His family was very happy to see him, and we stood outside chatting for about fifteen minutes or so. In fact, his family lives behind another set of neighbors who had given us information when Rebekah rescued a hawk a couple years ago.
So all's well that almost ended well.
Because I still had a list of work-related stuff to do AFTER the meeting last night. I haven't even peeked at it yet this morning (gonna finish this cup of coffee first).
I'm sure it will all get done eventually (the work, not the coffee. The coffee I absolutely plan on finishing).
The only upswing about missing the con (which, so far, organizers are promising a vague "spring date" for the rescheduling) is that, as one of my kids pointed out, I now have a long weekend for getting some serious creative writing done, something that's eluded me for over a month.
I am not consoled.
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