Under and Over with Denise Rossetti

If you thought the “koala in the tub” photos were amazing, take a look at this piece of film of a koala drinking from a firefighter’s water bottle!

And there really is a happy ending to this one. I’ve seen a subsequent photo of the poor koala with her paws all bandaged. (It’s a female, BTW) She’s in a wildlife centre, being cared for - and a handsome male koala is very interested in our furry heroine. One of the nicest things, to my mind, is the delight in the voice of the CFA volunteer. He and his crew were obviously buoyed by being able to help the animal. Just as well, as they had to go fight another fire right after this film was taken.

But sadly, while there have been heartwarming stories of courage and miraculous escapes, the death toll stands at over 180, with more to come. The cost in despair and grief, not to mention the rebuilding, is pretty well incalculable. And it’s not over yet… The fires still burn.

If you would like to donate -

Go to either of these for humans:-

https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp or http://www.salvos.org.au/

For animals, go here - http://www.rspcavic.org/campaigns_news/news_bushfires.htm

You may know it’s been incredibly hot all through eastern Australia - as in INCREDIBLY hot! Temperatures of over 90F every single day. Blech!

These amazing photos have been doing the email rounds lately. The story goes that this little koala (it’s certainly not fully grown) wandered onto a back porch in South Australia looking for some heat relief. The householder filled up a bucket and this is what happened!

I must admit, I’m not very knowledgeable about koalas, so I’m happy to be corrected about any of this. They’re not bears, of course, they’re marsupials - the females nurture the young in a pouch. I’ve never heard of one drinking water like this. Normally, they get the moisture they need from the gum leaves they eat. This one must have been desperate, especially with humans so dangerously close.

They’re cute, all right, but you wouldn’t want to tangle with a mature koala - look at this little guy’s claws! And they make the most extraordinary, spine-chilling noises. Years ago, My Beloved and I were walking through bushland in country Victoria when we heard this long, drawn-out, banshee howl. I was convinced it was the legendary bunyip, coming to devour us. But no, high up in a gum tree was a big boy koala, head thrown back, mouth wide-open, bellowing his mating cry. He was so totally ready for lurve. I hope he found it!

And I’ve just remembered - years ago, when I was first writing, my daughter and I mucked around with an idea for a YA fun novel about vampire koalas. And it was all based on that terrifying cry out in the lonely Bush. Hmm, maybe I should write it. I have the first draft somewhere…

Got a good story about animals cooling down? Or just a koala comment? I’d love to hear it!

Once more with feeling… Tell me if it works this time.

This is just gorgeous.

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth. 

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused 

the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve. 

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only “orphans” that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger. Would they become cubs or pork chops?

Take a look … you won’t believe your eyes!

I love tigers. They’re one of my favourite animals. I think they’re magnificent, much more so than a lion. Those paws the size of dinner plates, the claws like scimitars. And their colouring is glorious. There’s a touch of the hereditary guilts to it as well - my grandfather used to shoot tigers in India. Ah, it was a different world then…

I’ve been meaning for ages to write a random post about cats. I love cats, I always have done. Don’t get me wrong, I really like dogs too, but there’s something about cats… Perhaps it’s the extraordinarily supple way they move, or their brilliant gem-like eyes, blinking so inscrutably. Of course, it’s not completely impossible to work out what a cat’s thinking, their body language can be perfectly clear.

I always feel that when the cat settles in my lap, or drapes his boneless little self over my ankles that I’ve been blessed and flattered by his friendship. It’s as if he’s made the considered choice to be with me, not quite the same as a dog’s faithful devotion.

I can’t imagine life without a feline companion.  Little Merlin (so named because he’s a great enchanter) keeps me company as I write. He never gets bored. It’s funny, we had dogs when I was a kid - a dachshund, then a cocker spaniel - but once I had a place of my own, it was Burmese cats. Burmese are worth a whole post of their own. I’ll save that one for another time!

There’s something still wild about even the most domesticated puss.  He walks on his wild lone.  No wonder cats were so revered by the ancient Egyptians. I think that’s part of the attraction for me. Remember Rudyard Kipling’s story, The Cat Who Walked By Himself?

 This is the picture of the Cat that Walked by Himself, walking by his wild lone through the Wet Wild Woods and waving his wild tail.

And yes, I have friends who simply cannot bear cats. That’s not a problem, except that whenever they come over, the dratted felines head straight for them! Apparently, cat etiquette requires that you don’t meet a stranger’s eyes. Clicking your fingers and calling, “Here, kitty, kitty!” is simply beyond the pale! People who don’t like cats avoid looking at them directly, thereby demonstrating their beautiful manners. Worth a friendly greeting. Oh dear…

These pictures, BTW, are from the LOLCATS site, greatly beloved of my DD.  I find the cute spelling a bit twee, but then I’m a grumpy old pedant, so I’ll let it ride. But some of the captions are really funny. If you haven’t read the classic Dune by Frank Herbert, you may not “get” this one,  but I did laugh out loud when I saw it.

The only other thing I will say how much I dearly wish people would neuter their cats. Just this week, there was a story in the local paper saying that 80% of cats and kittens in shelters here are destroyed.  And keep them in at night too - preserves wildlife and saves on dead cats on the road.

I’ll leave you with this Youtube video. Do you think this cat’s human might be a crap writer? Everyone’s a critic! *chuckle*

Are cats an important part of your life? Do you truly think having a pet helps your health? I do! Just stroking Merlin calms me down. He shows me how to live in the moment.

Or do you prefer dogs? Do you think gender has anything to do with it, with more men than women preferring dogs and vice versa? Perhaps cats give you the screaming habdabs. That’s okay, tell us about it!

What would you do if you had more money than God? More money than you could ever spend, no matter what you did with it? So much money that it just kept making more of itself?

What William Randolph Hearst did (among other things) was to build the house to end all houses, with every luxury imaginable (and more!). He then invited everyone entertaining, beautiful or important - Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Winston Churchill, Charles Lindbergh, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn. Even George Bernard Shaw. And lots of others.

Hearst Castle is at San Simeon, near Cambria, overlooking the Big Sur coast of California. Hearst was one of the first great media moguls, but he also inherited a mining fortune. The film Citizen Kane, starring Orson Welles, was loosely based on his life.

First thing to say is - I’m not posting any pictures. Why? you may ask. It’s not permitted, that’s why. *sigh* But I found this short film on Youtube. Just spend a few moments with it. The weather we had was very similar. Or go to the official website for Hearst Castle. The Wikipedia entry is also excellent and it has a great photo gallery. (Scroll down.)

But just to give you some idea. The house/s took almost 30 years to build. Architect Julia Morgan (that’s right, a woman) travelled by train and car down to the site from San Francisco every weekend from the beginning. Casa Grande, the main house, was modelled on a Spanish cathedral. It has 38 bedrooms and 30 fireplaces. The whole concept (there are two guest houses as well) was intended to be Mediterranean Renaissance in feel. To this end, Hearst purchased antiquities like there was no tomorrow - there are coffered ceilings, medieval tapestries, paintings and statues ranging from classical Greek and Roman to Renaissance and Egyptian. Where you see gold gilding, it’s real gold. The gardens are exquisite and impeccably maintained.

I didn’t much care for the bedrooms, too heavy and dark for my taste. But I loved the two pools - the outdoor Neptune Pool and the indoor Roman Pool. Johnny Weissmuller (probably the most famous Tarzan) is supposed to have swum laps there.

What my writerly mind found most intriguing was the insights into the character of William Randolph Hearst. He was a workaholic, a man of tremendous energy, vision and focus. He was involved in every facet of the building project, right down to the design of teeny-tiny tiles and his word was law. He also changed his mind a lot. Projects were continually modified and some abandoned.

He had very definite ideas of how he wanted his guests to behave. No drunkenness - and no bed-hopping either! Everyone was to be bright, happy and energetic - horse-riding, playing tennis, swimming etc. In the big dining room or refectory, where guests gathered for meals, was a long table. As you fell further from favour, or new guests arrived, your place card was moved further and further away from the centre of the table, where Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies, sat. After a while, you realised it was time to go!

Immediately, I could see a character like that in a book, a strong, driving personality blessed with both money and power. Don’t you think someone like that would end up with an “emperor complex”? Imagine where that could take a character! Oooh, from good guy to villain, one slip at a time. A villain we could understand. Not psychotic, not a serial killer or a sociopath, but spoiled in a particular kind of way. Like Orson Welles, I’m inspired by the whole concept of a “Hearst” character.

In complete contrast, we visited the beach that afternoon and watched the adolescent elephant seals snoozing on the beach. Huge piles of mouldy blubber - they come at this time of year to moult and to practise their huffing and puffing.

You can see that this one hasn’t grown his nose properly yet. But they were already ginormous! And these were just the teenage boys! I couldn’t imagine the size of a full grown male. Sheesh! A dose of reality from Mother Nature.

So - what would you do if you had as much money as William Randolph Hearst? Build? Donate? Travel? Buy?

I know I’d love to travel and to have homes in several different places. Somewhere near Florence, in London, maybe Vancouver Island, here in Oz, of course. And I’d love to be able to donate to support the arts. I love glass and textile arts and I adore opera, but it’s such an expensive art form. Then there are literacy programs and libraries and education programs. Oh yes, and archaeological digs. And goddess, what about animals? And medical research? It would be totally involving. Plus, I admit I’d love to be able to afford handmade underwear and shoes. Ah…

What about you?

I’m baaaaack! Dammit.

My Beloved and I had so much fun, so many new experiences I’m still processing them all. I’m almost certain I could spend huge chunks of my life just travelling, meanwhile spending money like water. It’s a helluva lot of fun - interspersed with moments of sheer terror - generally associated with making connections with planes, trains and buses.

The last few highlights? Taking a helicopter trip up to Mendenhall Glacier (near Juneau) and going out on a dog sled with real dog mushers. I know the photo isn’t easy to decipher, but do try. It really is like that - all white. So impressive to sub-tropical me and my thin blood! Those little dots are the tents for the humans and the smaller dots are the dog kennels. The big lumps in the background are mountains with snow on them. The dog trainers arrive in April and stay til mid-Sept and the they LIVE there in tents, the lunatics, training for races like the Iditarod. You can see the landscape is just like stepping into a humongous freezer.

We got so brave we even stood up on the back of the sled and pretended to be the real thing! The dogs themselves are amazing, nowhere near as big as I expected and not especially husky-like at all. In the photo some are actually howling because they’re ready to run and they want to go, go, GO! They were perfectly friendly too and really appreciated a nice scratch behind the ears. They have great names like Krypton and Mike and Hotfoot (the lead dog) and Hasty, who stood on top of his kennel and yelled so loud, the trainer finally relented and let him come along.

Then there was the trip on the Bering Strait crab boat. The crew were all former professional fishermen and the boat had been on the reality show, The Deadliest Catch. Needless to say, everyone on board had seen it, except us. The stories they told curled my hair and I believed every word - they had the scars to prove it. Here I am with some huge horrible spiny wiggly Alaskan crabs. Erk! As you see, I’m doing my best to avoid the beasties and cuddle up to the nice captain. *grin* And the less said about the octopus the better. It was huge too, a dark maroon colour! Apart from humans, it’s the only predator for the Alaskan crabs.

It seems incredible, but it was only a few days ago we spent our last morning at Vancouver’s Granville Markets, overlooking the rainy, but beautiful (and busy) harbour. We marvelled at the extraordinary range of food stuffs and ate big fat black cherries, meanwhile avoiding the salmon pepperoni and the salmon candy. Good heavens, there are limits!

What next?

Now I’m back in the swing, you can expect regular posts again. So watch for them and come talk to me - I’ve missed you!

And a heads-up - I got some nifty bits and pieces for contest prizes while I was away. Speaking of which… Guess what was waiting for me when I got home? The ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) for THE FLAME AND THE SHADOW.  So think about that for a while. *chuckle*

In the very near future (as in NOW!) I have a book to write. Not my best thing, being creative under pressure. Luckily, I adore the characters. One big stubborn man and one small stubborn woman and - boom, fireworks! But more about Erik and Prue later.

Next week, I have to go back to work. I’m very determined not to think about that. *sigh* I’m definitely feeling flat, quite a let-down after so many weeks of excitement and indulgence.

So come and cheer me up. What’s the best, most exciting place you’ve been? My Beloved and I have rather been bitten by the travel bug, so I’d love to hear your recommendations. And do you get the “blahs” after it’s over, or are you just glad to be home? I must say, a real cup of tea (in a pot, with tea leaves) was simply wonderful!

I saw a bear! I saw a bear!

It may seem silly, but I got so excited I actually danced up and down on the spot. Those who know me are rolling their eyes and saying yeah, yeah, so what’s new? But somehow spotting a bear (we saw three in total, all black) is a Great Big Hairy Deal. (Well, of course it’s hairy.) It makes the whole trip real and important. We were on the Rocky Mountaineer, a train that travels through the Rockies. (Duh!) Looking back, I truly believe it was one of the most special days of my life. But more about that in another post.

I was very very proud, because I was the first to see the bear checking out the railway tracks for grain dropped from freight trains. Unfortunately, it’s not such a clever thing for a bear to do, especially if the grain swells with rain and ferments. Drunk bears and big trains are not a good combination, sadly.

I don’t have a photo - I was too busy leaping about and squealing, and anyway, my little camera isn’t up to bear-size objects a looong way away. And My Beloved had the wrong lens on his big boy’s camera. Huh!

So here are some other photos. This morning I was sitting on the patio of a winery overlooking the magnificent Okanagan Lake and it was baking hot and generally gorgeous. All the locals are falling about fanning themselves or hastening into the lake, where they dive in and just keep going.

Half an hour down the road, we drove into a hail storm, accompanied by heavy rain and much cursing from My Beloved. You see, he insists on doing all the driving. I’d like to think it’s because he’s a Hero, but it’s really because he’s terrified of me getting behind the wheel, especially in the wrong side of the road.

However, I digress. We drove back to Vancouver (where I am now, and on the world’s slowest Net connection) through what I’ve come to believe is the real Canada - the one that’s hidden her face from us in the freakishly beautiful weather. I was almost grateful to have a taste of the real thing. I was beginning to believe it was Paradise!

You see? These are the clothes the mountains must wear most of the time.

Tomorrow we’re off to Alaska. Three flights, which is going to stretch my nerves more than somewhat. Fingers crossed!

I’m sure there’s a place in Nature for ants. Of course, there is. But NOT in my damn bed, on my leg. BITING.

In the last year or so, since the drought really began to bite here, we’ve been plagued by ants. And it’s not just us, I hasten to add. I know I’m a terrible housekeeper, but everyone has the ant problem - even my mother, who is squeaky clean!

First there are the medium size black ones, swarming all over the bathroom sink, only slightly discomfited when I splutter toothpaste over them. You have to brush them out of the way to be able to wash your face without a formic acid surprise.

Then there’s the teensy weeny little black guys. I swear they’re lurking in the cracks in the kitchen wall, waiting for me to put down the knife and turn away from the chopping board. And then - swooop! The minute my back’s turned, the little buggers are all over. And lord, they’re strong! You can almost hear them singing, “heave-ho, heave-ho!” as they tug at some big crumb. Like tiny Volga boatmen. Sometimes, just for a change of pace, the microscopic red ones turn up. They look like moving dust particles.

I was sitting on my bed this afternoon fiddling with this blog and my STRONGMAN epilogue (more about that later). BTW, I write in bed a lot, with the laptop on one of those tray-tables. I was pretty well distracted, concentrating on hot man lurve, when a piece of my thigh went OW-W-W-W!!! Not only was it an ant, it was a big guy. What we call a green ant (though they’re really black). They generally terrorise the garden, being really aggressive, about a quarter inch long. Not only had he wandered indoors and sashayed across my bed, he’d chosen to climb up and bite me, while I was peacefully minding my own business. The bloody nerve!

So I hauled off and thumped him with my thesaurus. Not a pretty (lovely, beautiful, gorgeous, attractive, pulchritudinous) way to go. Do you know, he curled into the softness of the mattress and sneered at me?

I was so incensed, I brushed him to the floor, seized a shoe and beat him to a pulp, meanwhile yelling like kung-fu fiend. Then I went to the bathroom for the anti-sting cream. Had to send another squillion of the medium size guys to a watery grave so I could reach the cupboard without that crawling feeling. *sigh*

My karma is toast. Hope I don’t come back as an ant.

What’s your least favourite biteme? That’s what I made up as an all-purpose word for all manner of insects in my fantasy worlds. I thought I was pretty clever ’til Joey told me they call bugs biteums in the Deep South.

Or even your least favourite creepy-crawly? Where I live it’s sub-tropical, which is just lovely - except for the warm weather critters. We have ants, flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes, spiders - you name it. And they all want to live in the house, cheek by jowl with the humans. I’ll never forget the time I found a red back spider (related to the American black widow) abseiling down the wall towards my baby’s pillow. Squish!

And you can thank me. I found all these great colour photos of the above-mentioned little horrors. But I spared you. Aren’t I considerate? heh heh

One lucky commenter in June will win an autographed copy of A Red Hot New Year, four sizzling stories to ring in the New Year, including my contribution, Coming on Strong!

I’m a watering pot, I admit it. It’s really, really weird and often embarrassing. I tear up over all kinds of things, some of them completely stupid. My eyes actually well up and I sniffle. Okay, sad movies - well, that’s all right, only to be expected.

But happy endings? Duh! I feel like such a twit.

Then there’s books. What is this? With a movie, yep, I’m getting the visual, the violins on the sound track, the broken voices, the whole acting gig. Pretty powerful stuff, emotionally, so I can see how I’m affected. Movie directors are clever people and manipulating emotions is their business.

But the printed page? Come on!

These are paper people, after all. They aren’t real. How can they make me cry? But they do. Every damned time. Somehow, I’ve developed a relationship with people who don’t exist.

Then there’s animals. Serial murders, done in various grisly ways? No problem. But bring on a big-eyed kitty-cat or a dog with droopy ears and I’m a goner. Have them die and I’m in floods. I only have to think of my dear old Burmese boy who died peacefully in my lap at the grand old age of nineteen and I’m all teary. (Hang on, have to blow my nose.)

For example, there’s a section in Joey W. Hill’s The Vampire Queen’s Servant, about a horse. The horse is perfectly okay, BTW, it’s a lovely horse and very happy. But the scene is beautifully written and incredibly touching. I sniveled my way through the critique. Joey was delighted, of course. Cos she’s a writer and she’d “got” me. Wicked woman.

I have a quote on my website, Fledge’s words ~

Stories have a power, a magic all their own. Consider the fact that the actions, thoughts and feelings of people who have no existence in reality can make you laugh, make you weep. That’s the art and that’s the magic.
[Extract from the Prologue, Collected Tales of the Fair by Fledge, Story Witch of the Ten Nations Fair, edited by Miriliel the Burnished, 10,362 ATF]

Fledge is a story witch, a professional teller of tales - and she’s speaking for me. It is magic, in my opinion. A kind of amazing telepathy.

We writers are evil creatures. We love to know we made you care enough to shed a tear.

Perhaps you’re a watering pot too. Do you enjoy a bit of a weep or will you avoid a book (or movie) if you think it’s going to put you through the emotional wringer? I won’t see those three tissue-box movies, because I know I’ll be too upset.

Do you close a book with a satisfied sigh because you’ve had your “fix”? I can handle the ole heartstrings getting tugged, but there has to be an HEA, or I’m very VERY upset!

One lucky commenter in June will win an autographed copy of A Red Hot New Year, four sizzling stories to ring in the New Year, including my contribution, Coming on Strong!