Kitties by Kate Gallison

Kate Gallison is a writer, a joker, and the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of a convicted Salem witch.  As Irene Fleming, she writes about a plucky movie director in the early days of film. The Edge of Ruin appeared last spring. The sequel, The Brink of Fame, comes out in August of this year. See more about her and her work at http://www.kategallison.com

Kitties 

by Kate Gallison

I thought I'd write about some of my kitties today. Here's a picture Harold took of me about thirty years ago with the first cat we owned together, the lovely Persephone, our furry little child substitute before John was born. (She never completely got over him, but that's a story for another time.) 

We were visiting friends in the country. Someone said there was a catbird meowing in a tree outside. On closer inspection the bird proved to be a kitten that some heartless wretch had abandoned in the woods. Her poor little tail had been bitten off. Our household was catless at the time, and so we brought her home. I never feel that it's a real home without a cat. She lived long and prospered, surviving the birth of John, the move to Lambertville, and even the coming of Rex.

Rex was given as a kitten to our bachelor neighbor in the row house next door. The neighbor was not totally committed to him, and so Rex found his way between the joists and over the wall until he came to the top of our cellar stairs. John, then four years old, opened the door and let him in. A bowl of cat food! He was in cat heaven.

My feeling was that one cat is plenty, and so I took him back to the neighbor. Again and again. When I saw the neighbor moving out I offered him a carrier I had lying around, just to be sure he took the kitten with him.

"No, he'll be fine," the guy said. He got in the car, and, oops! the kitten slipped out of his hands. He drove away.

 

"What do you want to call the cat?" I said to John.

"Rex," he said. And so he became John's cat, to be immortalized in many a grade-school drawing. Persephone didn't like him much, especially as he grew big and bullied her.  One year he disappeared for a month, only to be discovered in the duct work of the house-in-progress across the street. The builder fed and watered him but couldn't catch him until he set a have-a-heart trap. We were happy to see him again; I thought sure he was dead.

In time Persephone grew old and actually did die. My grown son Charles, a passionate rescuer of kittens, came upon a litter of black ones that some motorcycle dame was giving away and took a few to distribute to good homes.

"I don't need any more cats," I said. "One is plenty."

"Yes, you do. Here."

That was Shadow. She's still with us. She bullied Rex, who died of old age, and was in turn bullied by Butterball, a delicate little white kitten John found wandering in the park (he called him "Princess") who grew to be a big fat flame-point Siamese. He died young. I miss him. See how relaxed he looks. I do like the kitties, even though they make me cough and sneeze. But one is plenty.

My Desk and Its Surroundings by Kate Gallison/Irene Fleming

Irene Fleming writes the Emily Daggett Weiss series for Minotaur. The first one, THE EDGE OF RUIN, came out in April of this year. The second, THE BRINK OF FAME, will be published in August of 2011. 

My Desk and Its Surroundings

by Kate Gallison/Irene Fleming

Here's a picture of my desk, as promised. I confess to having straightened it up a bit for the picture, bleaching the coffee-rings, sweeping up the mouse dung.

Sitting on the desk is the next piece of work I have to do. It seems mountainous. It's the manuscript of The Brink of Fame, copy-edited by the same literate, elegant, sensitive soul who copy-edited The Edge of Ruin. Thank you, Sabrina. A good copy editor is above rubies. I guess I have to say, more valuable than rubies, for no one reads the King James Bible anymore.

I see by her cover letter that this excellent woman has discovered that Billie Burke and Florenz Ziegfeld were not yet married in March of 1913, a fact which had escaped my attention. I now have two options: change Billie to Ziegfeld's intended, rather than his wife, or move the action to 1914. In the first case I would have to have them sleeping together without being married. Unthinkable. What would her mother have said? In the second, I have to take into account the outbreak of WWI in Europe. And a bunch of other stuff. But I think that's what I'll do, in the interest of saving Billie Burke's reputation.

You may have noticed that the computer is running, even though the task at hand is to examine and hand-correct the proofs. That's so I can listen to grand opera while I work. It soothes my nerves to hear people effortlessly (as it seems) hitting high notes. Go figure.

What you see on the computer screen is not, alas, a reflection of the rest of my office.  Instead of that it's a picture of Ernest Hemingway's writing studio in his place in Key West. I use it for wallpaper on the computer screen in hopes that it will inspire me, if only to keep my office in better trim. That's Harold in the red shirt peeping out from behind the screen. His sister Lanelle took that picture. She is a better photographer than I am.

The handsome young boy in the frame is our son John. That picture was taken maybe twenty years ago in grade school. He's still a good-looking fellow.

As you see, my writing space is surrounded by pictures of people I love, which keeps the positive energy going. Speaking of handsome children, here's a picture of my little sister Liz and me taken in a photographer's studio in Saint Stephen, New Brunswick, in the year (mumble). She is a gifted fine artist. See some of her work on her website-- http://www.lizdonovan.com/. The picture over it was taken a couple of Christmases ago, when we were trying on funny hats.

And that's about it. If I go on, I'll have to tell you how sick my sister is, and how it breaks my heart, and there goes all the positive energy. Instead I'll talk about how I'm having my son Charles and his family over for Thanksgiving. The grocery store is giving me a free turkey. That's pretty positive. I'll end on that note.

Happy holidays,

Irene Fleming/Kate Gallison