Tuesday, November 18, 2014

EarlyWord Gets The Cat

On Wednesday I'm doing a Live Chat on EarlyWord.com, which is a website that connects librarians and publishers. I'd never heard of it before I was asked to be on it, but then, I've never heard of a lot of things. It looks very very cool, the sort of site I'd be drawn to by myself: it includes a button where bloggers can request free advance review copies. Oh, my. Because I AM a blogger! (If you could see my office right now you would not think I need more books. On the contrary. One always needs more books.)

Yesterday afternoon I had a practice Live Chat with the three coordinators of the program. We went through how the technology works and ran through some practice questions. One of them was "How many cats do you have?"

I replied honestly: "I have one three-legged cat and one evil cat. I don't really like cats." Then, to demonstrate that I understood how the private message button worked (that means the comments won't air live on the web but can only be seen by the producers), I added a private slur about cats.

One producer told me primly, "Remember, librarians love cats." Then all three posted photos of their cats.

I posted back a photo of my horse Sarah, but was told that for Wednesday I was expected to produce photos of both of my cats.

That might be interesting. Hazel, the evil cat, shows up for food but regards me with extreme skepticism and a healthy dose of aggressive self-defense. (Scout, the three-legged cat, is snuggly. But she sheds like a banshee and I'm allergic to her.)

Please do not bombard me with criticisms about my poor cats. My children love them, so they get plenty of affection. (Ok, so Hazel gets her affection from afar. Trust me, Hazel does not want actual physical affection. This is the cat that when I told the vet I would no longer be bringing her in for vaccinations because it was not worth the injuries I received when trying to stuff her in a cat carry was told by the vet, "Good.") The cats are well cared for, and Hazel is pushing 13 years old, which is pretty good for a barn cat found as a kitten abandoned in a dumpster.

Scout was found in our bushes. My daughter, then around 6 years old, came inside and said, "Mom, Dad, one of the bushes is meowing. What do you think it is?" Scout was born three-legged, and gets around very well.

If you have a question you'd like me to answer on Wednesday's Live Chat, do join in, or ask me now. I'll do my best to answer it, and I promise not to further slander cats.

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