Craig's List: The anthology

You know the great anthology Discount Noir, where all the stories take place in a big box store? I think you could put together a dandy noir anthology inspired by Craig's List. My favorite ad of the night, "I need someone to sex my ball python."  Yeah, I know what it means but if you're in just the right mood, a story suggests itself. Then there are the out and out creepy ads where someone wants to hire an assistant and is asking for a picture and wondering if they'd be interested in getting room and board as part of their compensation.  Craig's List the Anthology--you heard it here first.

Feminist Fiction Friday--the Freebie

As a promotion for the upcoming release of my latest short story collection (The Poisoned Teat), you can snag my first collection, Just Another Day in Paradise absolutely free at Smashwords. (Amazon still hasn't lowered the price.) Go here to claim your copy in whatever format you choose.

The Last Cat Standing

Photo by Orlovic, modified by Tony Wild

The Last Cat Standing

by Katherine Tomlinson

Moo had been the sweetest cat Lois had ever known. An ordinary black and white “cow” cat, she’d been the runt of a litter of kittens born to a feral cat occupying the parking garage of the office building where she worked. A young woman from the sixth floor, a receptionist at the insurance company that sprawled across half a dozen office suites, had rescued the kittens and then littered the building with photocopied flyers offering them up for adoption.

Building maintenance kept taking the flyers down, but every morning there was a fresh batch taped to the mirrors in all the ladies’ rooms and on the stairwell sides of all the exit doors.

Lois had successfully staved off such appeals before—in the days before email it seemed like once a week every local newscast included a pet adoption segment and the critters on offer were always super cute.

Separated at Birth? Bette Davis and ... my mother!

My mother had Bette Davis eyes and in this picture, I think the resemblance to Ms. Davis is striking.  That's Bette in a still from Jezebel, the movie she made when she wasn't selected to play Scarlett in Gone with the Wind.  I think my mother had better eyebrows. (And she could raise just one of them--a talent I lack and envy.)

But what about Shakespeare and dogs?

Just in case you're wondering if I have something against dogs...there is some persuasive evidence that William Shakespeare really didn't like them very much. Here's a really interesting blogpost on the subject from Dr, Metablog back in 2006.

Shakespeare and Cats

Painting by Susan Herbert

On the website PandEcats (an online magazine devoted to Persian and exotic short-haired cats), I found this article about Shakespeare and cats. Seems he mentions cats 44 times in his plays. check out what PandEcats has to say here.
You might also be amused by the paintings of Susan Herbert, who re-imagined famous scenes from Shakespeare with cats. Check out her other work in a playful YouTube video or The Cat's Gallery of Western Art.

There's probably a story in here somewhere

The household has been unsettled for a few weeks now--earthquakes, illness in man and beast, and a singular slowness of cash flow.
Today it all came together in a sort of crescendo of misery.  I've been up since three this morning with the corpse of my cat, waiting for the local pet crematory to open. In the past my best friend has attended to the "arrangements" for me but he is sick as a dog and hasn't slept for two days, so this one is on me.
To distract myself, I caught up on the latest episode of Drop Dead Diva. The storyline was about a bereaved fiancee named Kathy fighting with her soon-to-be mother-in-law over her fiance's ashes. what were the chances?
Sigh.
And it's August 9, which would have been my mother's 84th birthday and I was already missing her.  (My mother loved cats and when I came home to take care of her in her final illness, I brought my gray tabby Kichi,who adopted her and spent hours on her bed, available for petting or just companionship.)
Life sucks sometimes.
At least my pet wasn't a horse. Cremating a horse costs $1200.... except for something called a "mini."  I'm not sure I want to know what that is, but I'm going to ask anyway.
Sigh.