Kage Baker

A few months ago I did a reading/interview at SF in SF with Kage. While our material probably couldn't have been any more different (I read from a Sarah Tolerance WIP; she read from her newly published children's novel The Hotel in the Sand) they struck some resonances each with each. So did our comments about writing and life and history and research. I'd never met Kage before, and, having done so, hoped to meet her again and talk (maybe without a couple of dozen people watching...)

And then came the news that she was direly ill; had probably been ill when I met her, although I had no idea of it at the time.

And now she's gone, peacefully. I am sorry I did not read more of her work and get to talk more with her. I'm sorry such a light is gone from the world. My heart goes out to her sister Kathleen and her nieces and all the people who were her friends and fans for so many years. She is out of pain and out of suspense and resting; it's all of us who will have to miss her.

Score!

Today we went out to Martinez to have a pow-wow with Sarcasm Girl about life, the next semester, and everything. We also walked around Martinez (which is kind of a cute little town) and wandered out into the wildlife sanctuary on the bay, and then went to SG's favorite antique store (and permit me a moment to enjoy the fact that my 19-year-old daughter has a favorite antique store). And there, among all the other astonishingly odd and cool things (this was not your high-end antique store: it was full of oddities, old games and toys, books, clothes...you name it) was a 1945 copy of Emily Post's Etiquette. Already I have discovered how to comport myself in a lady-like fashion if I am invited to a wedding at which I know no one; that a puppy is invaluable in making friends in a new town; and the proper way to respond to (or hold) a shower party.

My mother would be proud.