May 16th, 2008

20111112, Marilee

Solicitor, Shiva, Strange Dream

A guy came to the door last night selling alarm systems and when I told him I didn't need that, he said I should have Life Alert and when I told him I didn't need that, he implied that I was an idiot to say no. So I shut the door in his face.

Shiva still isn't relating the pain meds to less pain, so I had to actually tip the safe haven cage and slide him out to give him pain meds. He wouldn't eat plain AD so I put some water in and he had some. Now they're both on the heating pad.

Last night, I woke up and he was under the covers with me, on a bare little bit next to the edge. I woke up because I needed to pee, so I sort of bridged my knees over him and turned carefully and when I got back, he was stretched out in the middle of the bed, under the covers. I ended up sleeping diagonally.

I had a weird dream before waking up today -- it was back when Rick and I were teenagers and I was his guardian. I was in our apartment when I heard our stepmother's voice outside on the landing. When I opened the door, the landing suddenly became a big fancy hall, all decorated in white, and she was talking to a lot of other women and she was saying she was leaving. I asked why she was leaving and she said she had to have Crab Louie and she got into a tiny car with her daughter in it, and flew out an open window. I watched it go into the distance and then when I turned back to the hall, it was decorated in black.

Now, when I had that phone call with her after Dad died, and I mentioned how she'd taken the kids and gone to a hotel when he wanted any of them to do something they didn't want to do, she called it "running away." So I suppose it might have something to do with that. But I dunno, I don't remember her ever mentioning Crab Louie, and why wasn't her son with her? Dreams are strange.
20111112, Marilee

Asimov's July 2008

This was a strange issue. A lot of the stories seemed less SF and more absurdist. I admit that I didn't read the Brian Stableford novella The Philosopher's Stone because the lead-in said it was the third story about an alternate universe and I had to plow through the first two and didn't feel like plowing through this one. The only story I really liked:

The Woman Under the World by Steven Utley - what happens when a transdimensional portal has a little blip and something that thinks it's the transported person shows up?