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My little friend likes to weird me out at times. More than once she’s stared at a blank wall or at an empty spot on the floor, or attacked the remains of a houseplant that was giving her the evil eye.

Sydney did it again this morning. She stared out through the screen door into the backyard. The first time I humored her and went outside. Maybe one of those freeloading cats was out there. Nope, nothing.

She settled down when I came back in, but then a while later she had to jump down from my lap and go stare out the door again. What a neurotic animal.

Then my husband comes back in the house after feeding the birds and got out the binoculars. “There’s a raccoon in the second oak.”

It was sitting on a branch cleaning itself. If I were Sydney I’d be upset, too; the raccoon was at least three times her size. But, geez, she’s got the spastic act down so well it’s hard to know when to take her seriously.

Updated: Here’s a photo of the tracks we found under the tree.

A few weeks ago Dear Abby ran a letter about a boy who had a severe allergic reaction after eating pancakes made from moldy mix.

We have lots of old boxes of muffin mix and pancake mix. Those boxes have been sitting in the cupboard since the kids moved out — oh, about six years now.

I haven’t baked much since that time weevils infested the Bisquick. (Not that I did much baking before, either.) The Bisquick lived in a clear plastic container, so I didn’t even have to open the box to see weevils lived there too. Ugh. Turns my stomach remembering how they crawled around inside that container. It looked like an ant farm, but less appetizing. I couldn’t stand to have that container back in the house even after the weevils were gone and the container scrubbed.

But… Muffins. I had to have some muffins after reading about those pancakes.

The muffins tasted pretty good. No weevils, no mold.

I’ve been working on the rest of the mix boxes since then. Haven’t found any toxic mold yet, but I’ll keep looking.

At my local library, people who check out books get a printed receipt listing the books. Sometimes they return the books with the receipt tucked inside.

It’s kind of fun to see what books other people check out. How’s this combination?

• The writer’s market
• Generation me: why today’s young
• Evidence of harm: mercury in vac
• Objection!: how high-priced defe
• The forest for the trees: an edi

Too bad there isn’t room on the receipt for the whole title.

Why do the young do what?

Mercury in vacation spots? Mercury in vacuum tubes?

High-priced defense lawyers, probably, but the book could be about defecators. I’d object to that one.

The last one is easy: that’s the book I checked out, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers.

Or your first, at least, isn’t.

I finished the first draft of a major chapter, one that tied up a situation that had been brewing since the middle of the first book (this is the middle book). Reboot. Start over.

Those of you who are first readers, I strongly suggest you do not, after reading draft work and providing little or no positive comment, say, “That was well-written!” when the above-referenced writer reads you a fight scene from a mediocre published book (especially when the fighters, who could have been quite reasonably presumed to be dead, are magically healed in the next chapter).

You may go “Wow!” if China Miéville wrote the scene. His dead remain dead. If they do come back, you will probably wish they hadn’t.

Edited so the first sentence makes sense. (It had read “Or your first, at least.”)

Another plagiarism incident. It seems pretty clear this one was no accident.

Sometimes text does get repeated unintentionally. One of my characters says, “You must trust me as I have trusted you.” I wrote this a couple of years ago. Wouldn’t you know it, I read The Tombs of Atuan, and that darn Le Guin woman wrote something almost exactly the same. I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe she wrote it by accident. Great minds, so on.

I considered changing the text in my story, but that character would say that in just those words. Fukafukafuka. For later worry.