Cats and dogs

This will come as no surprise to anyone, let alone me, but cats are finicky. I have a wonderful new petsitter, a big gentle man nicknamed Moksha. He comes twice a day and emails me after each visit. When he's here, he brings Scooby into the house (something I would never do until evening for fear I'd never get him out again), and the three of them--Moksha, Scooby, and Wywy sit on the couch while he loves on them and talks to them. My neighbor even commented that she heard him talking to Wywy through the door, and he was so kind and gentle. I love on my animals, but in passing--Moksha does it deliberately. Scooby loves the attention, and I swear his face fell when he saw it was me Sunday night. But other than being a little extra demanding and in a hurry to go to his bed, you'd never know he missed me. Wywy, on the other hand, decided to punish me. He sits endlessly at my elbow on my desk--annoying if I'm trying to work on papers, and he knows it well. And he decided not to eat wet food. I put it out, he ignored it, it got stale, and I threw it away. Today, after two days, he has deigned to begin to eat again. But his look is still reproachful--and he still ignores me when I'm right in his face. Today I reached over to pet him and he bit at me--not enough to break the skin but enough for me to bat him away.
The book world is in turmoil over the Google Print Settlement--Google scanned a lot of books in public libraries, without permission; a class action suit was filed, and google lost. But administering the settlement is a nightmare, and we at TCU have put off dealing with it too long. Today we finally moved ahead, which means an intense couple of days getting a mailing out, but I am glad we're doing something. The press also has a big event this Sunday--but not as big as I'd like. Last year we had 225 people for Books & Music in the Garden; this year, we have only 64 reservations. I'm sure they'll pick up toward the end of the week, but not enough. Something to rethink.
I read a blog today about whether or not it is better for writers to slog away and write crap when they're not feeling inspired or to just wait; general opinion, better to write. Most books are rewritten, not written. So I'm in the process of getting the end of my novel down on paper, no matter how worthless the prose seems to me. I'll go back and carve it into scenes.
And my cookbook is almost here--at the bindery. They might try to drop ship some to me for Books & Music in the Garden, and I will for sure have them for my April 29 talk to the TCU staff book luncheon. I need to start working on mailing lists, etc. but rest assured, I'll post a huge notice on the blog when the book is available. In some ways, I have more of myself invested in that book than any other I've done. I guess the one that comes closest is my short story collection, because no one publishes short stories any more and I was so determined to see mine in print. New York publishers? Who needs them?