Category Archives: Personal

Post-con Email

August 11, 2014 R. Parrish Leave a comment

One of the crazy things about going on vacation or to a convention is seeing my inboxes when I return. It never fails to shock and impress me. I just got back from When Words Collide (oh my gawd! Several blog posts will be coming about that! So much yay!) and though I’d checked my mail a little bit, the hotel’s wireless was less than awesome and the laptop I took meant I had to use Webmail (which I hate) so I came home to–

Jofigure account: 834 new messages
Niteblade account: 383 new messages
*mumble* account: 152 new messages
WWP account: 9 new messages

I bet other people had even crazier numbers but I thought it might be fun to share mine… and also keep a record so I can compare it with my World Fantasy numbers 😉

Books, Fae, Pictures

…and then THIS happened!

July 16, 2014 R. Parrish 3 Comments

I was having a crappy day.

It’s hot here. Way too hot. I live in Edmonton where it’s a sport to both complain about the weather and brag about how horrible the weather is… and mostly people complain about the cold, but I deal with cold WAY better than I deal with hot. C’mon. When it’s cold outside I can mostly stay in the house, or add another layer of clothes, but when it’s hot? There are only so many layers you can take off before you’re risking arrest… or scarring someone for life. (And also, not only do we not have AC, our furnace doesn’t even have a summer fan. Seriously. What kind of furnace doesn’t have a summer fan?!)

…I’m getting off-topic.

So, it’s hot. And our chronically ill dog hasn’t been feeling well (and the chronic illnesses mean you get to play the ‘Is this a symptom of one of his diseases that means I should walk him to the vent [in the HOT] or, does he just have an upset tummy’ guessing game. Which is so much fun.*).

And Jo left today to go on a trip.

And I’m really kind of swamped with work right now and suffering from imposter syndrome coupled with ‘not enough writing time’.

And did I mention it’s hot?

So.. yeah. Having a less than awesome day.

Then the DHL dude knocked on my door and gave me this:

Hello there awesome box of mystery! What could you possibly contain? (Okay, so I had a good idea, but shh… just go with it for the sake of the story LoL)

Oh. Someone was a clever little box packer, weren’t they? C’mon! What’s inside the box?!

Continue reading …and then THIS happened! →

Just Stuff, Personal

Last Night

July 7, 2014 R. Parrish 1 Comment

Last night I couldn’t sleep. This isn’t a rare occurrence, but it was one of the few times that I couldn’t sleep even after taking my prescription sleeping pill (and the melatonin I take each night). Laying in bed wide awake drives me up the wall, so I slipped out and went downstairs to work for a while. I didn’t turn on any lights because I didn’t want to risk waking Jo or Dani, and I know the house well enough to creep around in the dark just fine.

I poked around on Facebook and Twitter and answered emails until I felt like I could sleep. Also, I heard what I thought might be Jo moving around upstairs and thought, “Aww, he woke up because he missed me in bed with him.” but then as I was heading up the stairs our cats were acting so crazy I figured that actually, it must have been them I heard trollumping around up there like a herd of elephants. None of the lights were on either, so seemed like I must be the only one up.

Walking carefully (I didn’t want to step on a cat’s tail) and quietly so as not to wake anyone, I crept through the darkened living room and turned the corner into the pitch black inside hallway that leads to our bedrooms and bathroom. That’s when a deep voice grumbled at me from the shadows.

I made some sort of strangled squeaking noise and jumped back into the living room. One hand fluttered up to my chest, ready to push my heart back into the cavity if it managed to break free (it was pounding so hard that it felt possible), the other fumbling for the nearest light switch. Turning it on I was relieved to see a very sleepy-looking Jo blinking at me from the darkness. “I was trying to avoid that reaction,” he said, his voice thick from sleep.

I sort of tripped into the bedroom and sat my butt down on the edge of the bed. I was certain of a few things, one of them was that after that jolt of adrenaline sleep wasn’t going to come easy, another that my knees were threatening to turn to jelly so it was best I not rely on them to hold me up. When, eventually, my body calmed down and I felt capable of putting a sentence together, I said. “What did you say?”

Jo answered, “I said, don’t be alarmed.”

#truestory

Flash, Personal, Pictures

Happy Father’s Day

June 15, 2014 R. Parrish 2 Comments

I wrote this a long-ass time ago. I’m not even sure when anymore. It was first published like 8 years ago though… so yeah, it’s been a while. Originally it was a drabble but when I opened the file up to copy it into this entry I couldn’t stop myself from cutting a few especially purple descriptions out 😉

FATHERHOOD

Katya hung her blonde head while tears coursed down her sunken cheeks. “I know I’ve given you a hard time – I’ve been an ungrateful brat and always made things difficult.”

A solitary tear trickled out of her eye and captured a sunbeam which made it sparkle like a liquid diamond. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t take DNA to make a father, it takes love. You gave me that.” She sniffed, and looked down at the freshly dug earth. “I love you too, I just wish I’d told you before it was too late.”

***

Cheerful, no? LOL Sorry, but it’s still the most father-themed piece I have…

Happy father’s day to all the dads out there. I’ve been lucky enough to have two fathers, one I shared DNA with and one I shared a life with. I love them both.

Books, Personal, Pictures, Thoughts, Waste Not (And Other Funny...)

About My Cover

June 11, 2014 R. Parrish 10 Comments

This is me and my beautiful daughter, Danica:

Photograph by Cindy Gannon

And this is the cover for my latest title, Waste Not (And Other Funny Zombie Stories):

It’s not exactly a typical zombie cover, is it? You can’t even tell if there are any zombies on it. Well, since the stories inside aren’t of the scary/gorey type of zombie tales I didn’t want the cover to be like that either. Also, it just so happens that Danica is an artist. A pretty talented artist (even if I am biased to think so :-p):

One day, on Facebook I logged in and saw this:

In case you can’t read that it says, “Plz buy me this program Mom”. She’d found a drawing program that was compatible with her tablet and she wanted me to buy it for her. Now, Danica doesn’t lack for anything she needs but we do try not to just hand her everything she wants, so I told her that if she drew art work for the cover for Waste Not (And Other Funny Zombie Stories) I would pay her the exact amount of money she needed to buy that program.

I asked her for a cover with a cat, a scarecrow and a yellow brick road.

After several different mock-ups, including this one when I asked her to make something “a bit more cartoony” (my daughter is nothing if not a smart ass):

We ended up with this as the final product:

I passed that on to Jo (my husband) and he played around with it, eventually turning it into the final cover for Waste Not that you see up top there.

Even though we didn’t go with the full colour version in the end, I did want to be sure and show it off because I think it’s wonderful, especially the glow from the Emerald City you can see on the horizon 🙂

The cover then was an undertaking for the whole family, which makes it pretty damn special to me, and probably pretty unique in the zombie fiction world in more ways than one LOL Not many families can say they’ve created a zombie book together, I wouldn’t think 😉

Just Stuff, Personal

The Doge

June 4, 2014 R. Parrish 6 Comments

This story has nothing to do with zombies or writing or any of that, but I’m sharing it anyway, because I want to 🙂 This post is about my dog, Atreyu. We call him Tre for short, and Danica often refers to him as The Doge (hence the title for this post).

Tre is eleven years old, and his favourite thing in the whole wide world is going for walks. His second favourite thing used to be when I would eat baby carrots. Anytime I had carrots out he would hang out with me and I’d share them with him. I thought it was pretty cute, eating carrots with my pooch (probably because it was) 🙂

A few months ago Tre was diagnosed with the early stages of kidney disease (to go along with his Cushings *sigh*). That meant special food to decrease his protein consumption, which also meant no more dog treats.

Tre is a stubborn little booger sometimes and one of the ways that manifests is when he’s outside. Occasionally he wouldn’t want to come in when he was called and he would totally ignore me whenever he felt like it — sometimes until I would go outside to get him myself (and when it’s -40 out, that doesn’t make me happy). Other times he’ll decide he wants in now. And by now, I mean now. He’d bark at the door incessantly for however long it took for me to get there and let him in.

I’d started giving him a treat (half of one actually LoL) every time he came in the first time I called or only barked once and then waited for me to open the door to let him in. It is a system that worked quite well for us and he was consistently listening when I called and not turning into a barking machine on the back step, but now, with his special diet, the Milkbones are no longer an option.

So I started giving him a baby carrot instead.*

Tre doesn’t even miss the Milkbones but now we have a new problem. He really likes carrots. I mean, he really likes them. He’s started coming in to get his baby carrot, eating it and then asking to go out again right away. Once he’s out, he wants to come back in to, you guessed it, get another carrot.

#facepalm

So… now we’re going to have to work out some new guidelines LOL What a brat!

*His vet says this is fine

A to Z Challenge, Pictures

Z is for Zoo

April 30, 2014 R. Parrish 22 Comments

This year I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge again. I thought it might be fun to share some of my photography instead of always my words. They say a picture is worth–well, you know what they say 😉

I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:

~ What Is The Blogging from A to Z Challenge? ~ Participants ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2013): All About Niteblade ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2012): Unthemed ~

Z is for Zoo.

When I was a kid I used to love the zoo, but as an adult, every time I go I just find them more and more depressing. I understand that zoos play a vital role in conservation and that entertaining the public is how they fund that but seeing those animals in captivity (and in some cases very obviously distressed about it) breaks my heart.

I think I’ve shared this photograph previously this month, but I really like it, so I’m going to share again. I call this one ‘Fascination’.

This emu didn’t seem to me (in my ignorance of emu psychology) to be upset about being in the zoo. Also, it was a lovely photographic subject:

This arctic fox nearly broke my heart. He was frenetically running around his enclosure. It looked like he was desperately looking for a way out.

I’ll end with this photograph of a wolf. Every time we walked by its enclosure this is what it was doing. Every. Time.

As this year’s A to Z Challenge comes to an end, I want to thank every one of you who stopped by, but especially those of you who came day after day. Thank you SO much. Your comments, encouragement and flattering words about my work really meant the world to me. Thank you, thank you. I hope we continue to visit one another long after this blogging challenge comes to an end. You’re awesome.

Some of you have asked about prints of my photos (OMG I can’t even begin to tell you how flattering that is!). It’s not something I’d ever considered but now that I know people might be interested I will absolutely look into that as an option. If you know of a place online that will help me provide prints I’d appreciate it if you let me know. I’m not looking to make a mint, just find an easy way to get my photos in the hands of people who want them which means I can’t really afford any of those places that charge an ongoing fee.

A to Z Challenge, Pictures

Y is for Yellow

April 29, 2014 R. Parrish 25 Comments

I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:

~ What Is The Blogging from A to Z Challenge? ~ Participants ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2013): All About Niteblade ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2012): Unthemed ~

Y is for Yellow

I’m pretty sure this shot was just taken in my yard and then processed using Camerabag (as pretty much all my shots are nowadays):

This little guy was also in my yard 🙂

I took this shot when I went back to Southern Alberta for Thanksgiving a couple years back:

And I really like this shot of lichen I took in Nova Scotia. I think it’s the depth of focus that makes it…

A Month of Letters, Hollow, Pictures

X is for… X?

April 28, 2014 R. Parrish 19 Comments

I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:

~ What Is The Blogging from A to Z Challenge? ~ Participants ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2013): All About Niteblade ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2012): Unthemed ~

X is for… X?

I literally couldn’t find anything in my photographs that would work well for X… but I do have these photographs which have Xs in them. Sorta.

Like these two of the High Level Bridge:

This shot of the reflections on the BDC building in downtown Edmonton:

And this shot of the Camsell Hospital. A re-imagined version of the hospital plays a pivotal role in the novel I’m revising 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Pictures

W is for Water

April 26, 2014 R. Parrish 25 Comments

I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:

~ What Is The Blogging from A to Z Challenge? ~ Participants ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2013): All About Niteblade ~ My Blogging from A to Z Challenge (2012): Unthemed ~

W is for Water.

Let’s start with this shot of the river valley here in Edmonton 🙂

Also, did you know that I totally adore ducks? I do. And ducks love water so…

I took this shot at the Muttart Conservatory here in Edmonton. It could have used a tripod and a neutral density filter, but it was my first attempt at long(ish) exposures so I like it anyway 😉

Finally, how can you not love dew drops on a flower? Though… if I remember correctly these might be rain drops. Either way. Drops. How can you not love water droplets on a flower? 🙂