A dozen or so years ago I got my first home computer. After figuring out AOL was for wussies and Yahoo was a meat market I went on to search for one of my favorite authors. Back then she had a huge website with her own forums (Kitchen Table) and chat room (KT Live). I didn’t know crap about forums so I tended to hang out in the chat room more. There were people who spent a lot of time in there with me that I still consider my closest friends. Anyway, one morning she came in. Anne McCaffrey! Seriously! I never gushed over anyone and I didn’t start then, but wow. Turns out, she’d show up around the same time every day and spend about an hour chatting with her people.


I got to know the woman behind the name and I really liked her! She’s witty and bawdy, tolerant of the newbs but she doesn’t suffer fanatics well. We’d all chat about food and chocolate, living in Ireland and horses, food and writing, sex and the lack thereof, family, food, etc. The question of what she missed about the US led to many things though mainly certain foods. I mentioned one day that I was to be the Cookie Mom for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop and we spent that entire morning discussing in depth the merits of the various cookie choices available that year.

A couple of weeks later after the cookie rush I remembered Anne’s birthday and decided to send her a case of the variety of what I had left. I tracked down her shipping address through a friend so she’d be surprised. Shortly thereafter I received a very nice thank you note . . . and on went life.

Cut to my first Dragon*Con (’03 if I remember correctly). My first chance to actually meet some of the people I’d been chatting online with and to meet Anne. There were panels where we didn’t get too close but then there was a special party in the weyrfest room for her Kitchen Table gang. She wheeled in on her little electric cart and made a speech and then we lined up for autographs and one-on-one conversation. Some fanatics were singing Harper songs in the corner and the atmosphere was pretty loud and festive. When it was my turn Anne took one look at the name on my badge (Debbiedamoodymom) and gripped my hand and shushed everyone around so she could tell a story.

Apparently her sister-in-law(?) had been living with her and was terminally ill and had stopped eating. For days she refused to eat anything until my box of Girl Scout cookies arrived. She and Anne shared the cookies and the SIL had a chance to really enjoy the old-fashioned treat before she died. By the time Anne was done with her story, everyone in the room had tears in their eyes, even curmudgeony old me. Plus I had no feeling left in my hand. But how do you respond to that? I hugged her gently and silently berated myself for not bringing my camera.

After that trip – where I think she fell and injured herself, she didn’t come into the chat room as often or at the usual time. The following year she came back to D*C and we talked again. Over the years age and some crap between one of her sons and a group of my friends flared up and the KT and KTL were given over to the fans. It wasn’t the same without her. The fanatics have pretty much taken over the asylum and except for a select few, many of us who actually knew her have drifted away. . . to LiveJournal!

No matter what you think of her writing – and if you’ve only read the Pern stuff you really should seek out the Freedom series and the Talent and Hive books – the woman is a brilliant person. I really miss talking to her. I know she’s still writing and collaborating with others but the average person communication is gone. If I ever get to Wicklow County . . .

I don’t know what made me remember this today. I woke up thinking about it and had an uncontrollable urge to log in and make sure it wasn’t one of those premonition things odd people are always talking about. As far as I can tell, that was a stupid urge and she’s fine. Maybe it was the call last night from my son that he’d bought me two boxes of Thin Mints cuz he wuvs me. Who knows. I couldn’t stop thinking about it so here it is.