Take this advice from me…if you’re planning on moving cross country and you think that immediately following this giant event you will be ready to attend a huge writer’s conference, I can pretty much guarantee that you’re not going to be able to make it. At least, I wasn’t. This past weekend was the Surrey International Writer’s Conference (B.C. Canada). I was going to go now that I live near there…sort of near there…close enough to get to it…and my friend, Eileen Cook does live near there and we were going to hang out…but alas, I spent my weekend in front of the fire reading (see Need To Read to find out what). I shouldn’t say alas because it was a fabulous weekend and boy, did I need the sheer do-nothingness of it.

Aside from the fire and the reading, the very best thing happened that probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been away. We found our knucklehead cat who had been missing since 2 October when he escaped. One of our new neighbors had the whole community searching for him. We got a hot tip on Thursday night that he’d been seen at the pub. Granted, he does have opposable thumbs, and probably can hold a beer or play darts, but when we got to the pub the next morning, no one had seen him. However, the second part of the hot tip was that he’d escaped down a rocky embankment from his would-be rescuers. It was pouring down buckets of rain, so we weren’t surprised when we went to the rocky outcrop and called and he didn’t come, but we went back later when it had stopped raining and I only had to call him twice before I heard a giant MEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWW!!! below me. I called again…again with the MEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWW!!! and before I could start to scramble (okay, probably fall) down the bank, his little orange head popped up under the rocks at my feet and I scooped his skinny little butt up into my arms. He was purring before he was off the ground.

The reason I say we might not have found him if I hadn’t been there is because I come from a long line of cat lovers who can do that KITTY-KITTY-KITTY-KITTY-KITTY call unmercifully loudly. My husband is more of a “Hey, Knucklehead? Where are you?” type of caller and cats don’t always notice that he’s talking to them.

Once we got him home, we thought we’d have to lock him in, but you know what? I think we’d have to throw him out to get him to go outside now! He’s deliriously happy to be home.

Finding him beats any writing conference any day. However, if you went, I’d love to hear any comments about it here. Do tell…