I hate being sick. It steals my motivation to do anything.
I have, though, managed to keep up with the laundry.
Yippee.
So, rather than leave you with nothing, I share this shot I took at our annual writers retreat in Utah, USA, this past September. The vistas were truly stunning.
So, when you’re planning a writing retreat, don’t invite the pissed off, territorial racoon.
Jus’ sayin’.
This particular one snuck up on us. My buddy and I were walking back up to our cabin and we both froze.
He’s staring at us, Ray…
Here’s a couple other travel tips:
Image ©2015, A. Catherine Noon; All Rights Reserved
Tik-tik shivered and ruffled his fur in a wave from his whiskers to his tail. He sneezed. Rain again. Four suns of the stuff! He started forward again and stepped through a patch of dead leaves into yet another puddle, burying his paw up to the first joint. He hissed involuntarily.
Kao turned his head and clicked his teeth, black tail lashing. “Quiet!”
Tik-tik glared at him and heaved himself out of the indentation. “Knock it off, Kao. You’re not the boss of me.”
Kao whirled on one hind paw and swiped his claws past Tik-tik’s nose, making his whiskers wave in the wind of their passing. “Not yet, maybe,” he purred. The white fluff on the end of his foot was spattered with mud.
“Your feet are dirty,” Tik-tik noted.
“Pheh!” Kao spat and turned back to the path.
Tik-tik licked his chops and started after Kao again. The rain continued relentlessly.
“Tik-tik!” Mai-mai squealed, loping out of the cave to meet them. “You’re back!” She whizzed past Kao without acknowledging him and pressed her nose into Tik-tik’s shoulder. “It’s raining!”
“You only realized that now?”
“Hi, Mai-mai,” Kao greeted.
“Hi, Kao,” Mai-mai said without looking. “Tik-tik. Paw-paw is here.”
Tik-tik’s ears lowered. “When did he arrive?”
“Start of sun. He’s not well.”
Tik-tik, looking right at Kao, saw the flash of hunger in his eyes. Kao said nothing, just turned and went into the cave. Mai-mai watched him go.
“Tik-tik. Kao–”
“No, Mai-mai. Hush.”
“But…” She trailed off, worried.
“Come,” Tik-tik said. “I’m hungry and dirty. Let’s go in, see the others.”
Mai-mai clearly wanted to argue but followed him docilely enough.
Kao had walked over to the circle where Paw-paw lay and touched noses. Paw-paw barely responded.
Kao turned and saw Tik-tik. His lips were curled up in a smile. He looked to his left, past Tik-tik, to where Bo sat with his two females.
“Kao,” Bo greeted, his voice carrying in the small space.
“Bo.” His tongue curled out insolently and licked his chops. “Paw-paw isn’t doing well.”
Bo blinked and stood up, tail lashing. “Show respect, Kao.”
Kao glanced at the ailing form behind him. “He can’t hear me, Bo. He’s nearly gone.”
Bo stepped forward and growled. “You are out of order!”
“Tik-tik!” Mai-mai whispered urgently.
“Shh.” He stepped between her and the impending fight.
Kao saw him move. “You can’t protect her anymore, Tik-tik!”
Tik-tik blinked as Mai-mai’s tail lashed angrily. “Why do I need to protect her, Kao?”
Kao snorted. “Coward.”
Tik-tik roared. It came out of him almost from his claws and felt good, powerful. The sound filled the cave and Bo laid his ears back. Kao, on the other hand, looked satisfied. “I can’t fight Bo until I challenge you, Tik-tik. You’re his second.”
“Paw-paw is not dead!” Bo shouted.
Kao whirled and one paw shot out, his claws extended. The spray of blood flew all the way to the cave wall and Paw-paw collapsed in the gravel, his throat a bloody ruin.
“He is now,” Kao spat.
Bo stepped forward, his fur on end and his hackles bristling. “You should not have done that!”
“Why?” Kao sneered.
“Because now I can help Tik-tik, Kao! You are out of order!”
A brief flicker of uncertainty went through Kao’s eyes, but Bo didn’t give him a chance to react. He sprang forward with a deep, coughing roar. Tik-tik leaped with him.
The fight was unlike anything Tik-tik had fought to that sun. Kao seemed half mad with a wild insolence. Bo moved next to Tik-tik like they’d rehearsed it, but Kao was faster than both of them. His claws were everywhere and he nearly snapped Tik-tik’s foreleg with his jaws, missing by a whisker-length.
Tik-tik crouched, preparing to leap onto Kao’s back so Bo could take his throat. Some sound or movement made his eye dart to the side. “Mai-mai!”
Mai-mai, ears flat to her head and fangs clearly visible as she growled, stalked forward, front low to the ground. She hissed, a low and angry sound unlike any Tik-tik had heard from her. Kao paused, startled.
Bo jumped forward and his jaws fastened on Kao’s throat. He bound Kao’s forelegs in his own and curled onto his back, his back claws tearing bloody rents in Kao’s side and stomach. Mai-mai darted forward and swiped her front paw, all five claws out, across Kao’s muzzle.
“You will never have me!” she screamed.
Bo growled and tightened his grip. Kao’s struggles became wilder as he fought now for air. Bo strained, and Kao’s breath exhaled on a gurgle. He collapsed, dead.
Bo stood and shook himself. Glancing at Paw-paw’s body, his ears flattened momentarily. He met Tik-tik’s gaze and Tik-tik bent forward in a bow.
After a moment he heard the others do the same. When they all were bowing, Bo stood up to his full height and roared, deafening Tik-tik. Tik-tik straightened.
“Bo. You are leader,” Tik-tik said, his voice loud in the silence that followed Bo’s roar.
Bo looked at him, whiskers forward. “I…”
Tik-tik took a step toward him. “Bo. Paw-paw was old and his time was close. It would have happened anyway.”
Bo licked his chops and sat, his tail curling around his paws. “Tik-tik. I choose you as second.”
Tik-tik’s ears perked forward. “Thank you.”
“Mai-mai. Will you take Tik-tik?” Bo asked then.
Mai-mai blinked and stepped forward. She sat next to Tik-tik, her tail brushing his side. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Tik-tik blurted.
Mai-mai looked at him, her pupils dilated. “What did you expect?”
“I…” Tik-tik didn’t know what to say.
“Go, my friend,” Bo coaxed. “We will clean up the home. You chase your mate. You’ve earned it.”
Mai-mai was purring. She glanced at Bo and then swiped a paw across Tik-tik’s flank. “Catch me, if you can.” She whirled and was gone.
Tik-tik took off after her. The rain didn’t seem so bad, anymore. His tongue lolled out briefly and he sped up.
This post originally appeared on Explore the Worlds of A. Catherine Noon, 03/13/2008, as part of the March FADness (flash-a-day) competition.
Hello, phone company? You sent me a cat in my bill. I’m not sure that’s part of my calling plan.
Today’s Writer Wednesday is about the joys, and the whys, of snail mail. Without further ado…
I’ve met some of my closest friends online. (I’ve also met some nutballs, but I’m choosing to ignore that.) Way back when we met, in 2008, (which is the dark ages as far as the internet is concerned, lol), I knew that I wanted to meet in person. I thought the idea of having a retreat together would be buckets of fun.
That dream became a reality and we’ve been meeting ever since on an annual basis. It reminds me, to be honest, of my friend’s family reunions – when she started, it was just a few people, but she’s grown it to a huge affair with over a hundred people. Now, I don’t intend to have such large gatherings for our modest little writing retreat, but here are some travel tips I’ve put together for people who’d like to meet in real life, and not just virtual.
It’s getting up on that time of year when people set resolutions. It’s all over the place – what resolutions do you want to set, what goals do you have, all that stuff. That’s not the kind of challenge that I’m talking about.
I recently participated in a challenge at my gym. The objective was simple: show up, every day, for twenty-five days in a row.
C’est fini. That’s all. K.I.S.S. – Keep it simple, sweetie.
To my shock, it worked. I showed up, and I learned something.
Just being there counts. Even if you go in with your razor and shaving cream, and spend an hour in the shower, it counts.
Why?
Because when we show up, we’re more likely to actually work out, even a little. For example, one day I just got on the treadmill for an hour and watched an episode of my favorite show on Netflix. The gym has free wifi, or it’s got television on broadcast on several machines. You just bring your earphones, and they’ll tell you what channels you can connect with. (This can sometimes backfire if you’re next to a Fox news fan, but that’s a different problem.)
Welcome to the world of Noon and Wilder. On our blog, we like to talk about writing, reading, crafts, travel, cooking, and pretty much anything else that catches our fancy. Oh, and we’re both Tauruses.
We hope you enjoy your time here. Poke around, see what interests you, and feel free to interact with us in the comments or on social media. We’re glad you’re here!
It’s not that I don’t like canids. I adore them. But I write a lot about cats because we decided our first series featured Siberian tiger shifters, so I’ve spent the last five and a half years researching big cats. That, and the zoo has a world-class wolf habitat that is large and allows the wolves to roam.
And, well, hide.
We live with three cats and a dog, but what the dog lacks in numbers she makes up for in size and personality. That leaves the zoo for me to study large cats.
This lovely boy is the Amur leopard. I must have stood there for ten minutes as he paced back and forth, always missing him when he was coming straight at me and getting his side or his back.
Lovely pelt, nu?
The shot at the top is when he paused suddenly, turned, and looked right at my husband. I only had time to snap the one shot; when I backed up to get both of them, the leopard moved again.
So here’s what I’ve learned in trying to photograph a shy Amur leopard:
Here are a few more of the leopard:
I was so close! I just couldn’t get him coming straight at me; my camera went into conniptions. But it felt like he was close enough to touch.
Of course, the glass is like five inches thick. And there’s mesh over the TOP of his enclosure.
Yeah. Here, Kitty, Kitty. NOT.
Look at that muzzle. This is a big son of a buck.
He heard something; we weren’t sure if it was my husband or a passerby, but he paused and looked right out the glass. I love how his closest ear is pointing right at me.
He’s looking at me, Ray.
Seattle has been at peace since before it was founded on the banks of the Puget Sound. The war between the witches and the snake shifters ended and they now live separate lives. Generations of distrust have kept them separated, until Ari Fitzgerald meets sexy Zachary Bennett, a young witch from the Queen City Coven.
Ari is the son of the lamia king. He needs to find the source of the black market trading in lamia venom before any other snake shifters are hurt, or worse. The young ones are most at risk, because their venom is more potent. Ari discovers the source is a witch and suspicion falls on Zac and his coven. Ari doesn’t want to believe it.
Zac works for his brother-in-law, a powerful bear shifter who doesn’t care about shifter politics. When three coyote shifters come to town, looking for black-market lamia venom and a witch to kidnap, Zac gets caught in the middle between the bears, the lamiae, and the power-hungry coyotes. He’s going to need all the help from Ari that he can get.
Ari and Zac must find the source of the venom before the city erupts into a dangerous war, with the two of them on opposite sides.
