Hobkin’s Not-so-big Adventure and Nov-Dec Cricket

It’s that time of the year again for flu shots, so yesterday on my day off, fosteronfilm and I bopped down to the K-P clinic. While there, I also had my bimonthly test tubes of blood extracted*. The phlebotomist was competent, but I still ended up bruising, and I’m also achy from the flu shot. Meh. I don’t have a problem with needles, but it was a bit of a pincushiony sort of day.

But, for the first time ever, we accidentally left the gate to Hobkin’s area open when we went out. When one of us is home to supervise—which is most of the time—he gets free run, but when we’re out, we lock him in his rover gated area.

We came home to discover that not only had we forgotten to lock the gate, we’d also left the doors to the master bathroom+walk-in closet open—two places where he’s not allowed to go ’cause of the various high potential skunk-induced mischief/danger items therein.

After confirming Hobkin’s whereabouts (napping peacefully in his usual place) and that he wasn’t in any distress, I began a mad-thorough search, checking to see if he’d gotten into anything scary: the sundry meds or first-aid supplies in the cabinet under the sink, the “do not injest” packets of desiccant in shoe boxes, the dental floss in the trash can, etc. And it seems that while he did indeed tip the trash can over, which fortunately had nothing more hazardous in it than a couple tissues, he didn’t riffle through anything else. He didn’t open any of the cabinets or de-box any shoes or anything. Huh. What a good boy! I mean he knows he’s not allowed in those rooms, and it’s obvious he did check them out, but he didn’t get into any of the Eugie-heart-attack-causing mayhem that he could have.

Relief-amazement-relief-amusement-relief.

*I take the immunosuppressant Imuran to keep my lupus/MCTD at bay, and it can cause a drop in white blood count as well as liver toxicity, so I have regular blood tests done to monitor those.

Writing Stuff

New Words:
• around 1.7K on The Stupid Novel. Momentum? What momentum?

Received:
• Payment from Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Mangazine for “The Better To…”

Seems that the world’s economy is catching up to the badness of the U.S.’s. When I first made the sale, the same payment amount (in AUD) would’ve netted me about $10 USD more than it did yesterday. But that was when the U.S. dollar was tanking and other currencies were still holding steady. It seems the currency exchange rates between AUD and USD have now equalized out to close to their usual rates. Drat.

I suspect that will also be the case for whenever I get payment from Interzone (paid in GBP) for “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” Double drat. Although I’m gun-jumping there, as the story hasn’t even come out yet.
• Shiny contrib. copies of the Nov-Dec ’08 issue of Cricket:

There was much squeeage when I discovered that “Cuhiya’s Husband” is the lead story! As always, the Cricket folks put together a gorgeous product. Absolutely lovely.