12/15/2009 - Elise Wins an Award, The Credit Card Companies Attempt Inroads Upon My Mailbox, and Some Other Stuff

As I was going through Elise's backpack last night, I came across a slip of paper informing me that my daughter had won an award for honesty, and that I could come to the presentation on Friday, 12/11.

I took some video of the presentation, but the teacher moved on before Elise even got to the stage, which was kind of uncool, but oh well, as long as Elise didn't notice (and she didn't). So now we have a cool certificate, as well as a "pencil of honor", that she received for being honest.

Here's my little Honesty Awardee!

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For a number of years, we were receiving a lot of credit card offers. I know you've gotten them too, so I don't need to tell you how annoying they are, not to mention the risk they pose for identity theft - an identity thief can take these things out of your trash and apply for credit in your name.

Tip #1 - Always shred these things when you get them in the mail. Don't leave them intact for someone to use.

Tip #2 - and this is really the more fun, evil option: take the application and write, in large letters, please do not send me any more applications, and take me off your list (or something to this effect). Then take the postage-paid envelope they always include, and stuff it full of the heaviest stuff you can find, including of course the application. I often include cardboard, and whatever else comes reasonably to mind. Don't stuff it so full it looks like a letter bomb or an anthrax letter or something, because it won't get through. The point here is to cost them as much money as possible while making your point that you want them to stop trying to sell you credit cards.

I went through this for about a year back when we lived in Fremont, and miraculously, I stopped receiving these stupid offers. Now they're attempting to invade my mailbox again. Oh well. Sucks for them...

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Found this on a friend's Facebook page this morning:

Gotta show this to Elise - every time she eats meat, she says "thanks, animal, for letting me chew on your corpse." No shit. I tell her she scares me, but deep down there's a part of me that's proud ;}~

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Hulu has Lexx! No kidding, really... 



Sing it with me...

(Click HERE for the song...)

Vaiyo A-O 
(Fighters of the Fight) 

A Home Va Ya Ray 
(For their home and their heart) 

Vaiyo A-Rah 
(We fighters will win or die) 

Jerhume Brunnen G 
(Forever we are Brunnen G)

Xev

Stanley

Kai

Robot Head 790

So far they only have four episodes, but I'm hoping they include the whole thing before too long. I only ever got to see the last couple of episodes when it was on TV, so the early days are a bit of a mystery to me.

And yes, I understand there are some of you out there who have no freakin' idea what I'm talking about. Go find out. You'll either love it or hate it. Trust me. It's like coconut that way.

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Sharing one of my favorite Christmas cookies here: "Russian Tea Cakes". Click on the title for the recipe from AllRecipes.com.
 

 Are they Russian? I have no freakin' idea. I've heard them called "Mexican Wedding Cookies", though I believe Mexican wedding cookies are made with cocoa. I've heard people say their grandmother brought the recipe from Lithuania.

Whatever they are, wherever they come from, they are freakin' awesome! Light, not terribly sweet, they do indeed make brilliant companions with tea.

There. Never say I didn't give you nuthin...


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Found on Plaid Stallions: The Dr. Who catalog page !!!

And not just ANY Dr. Who, but TOM BAKER Dr. Who!

I can remember rushing home from highschool (yes, this WAS back in the Dark Ages, thank you VERY much for asking) to catch Dr. Who on Public Television. Tom Baker was the Dude! (Check out his official web site.) I even bought three purple and yellow knitted mufflers and sewed them together! Hey, it occurs to me that I should knit myself a muffler in the actual colors.

(T-shirt courtesy of Think Geeks... Click HERE)



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Sick today. Elise has been home Monday and today, Tuesday, with a fever. I woke up this morning with a splitting headache, and actually went back to bed. Heading back now.

On the writing front, I've made huge progress on my world-building. I've decided on a model for Findias - seeing it as a cross between Mont. St. Michel and Gondor. Built on Dagda's character and even came up with a few scenes for him. Things are going well, and I've got a better direction now, a bit more surety in the voice and the happenings.

Okay, off to bed I stagger. Benedictions, all...

12/04/2009 - Budweiser does 9/11

How many of you remember this commercial?



I freely admit, I'm one of THOSE sorts of people; I cry at commercials. The degree of tearage and intensity of wailing varies depending on my hormonal condition. Generally, I cry at parades, at anything featuring horses, at nobility wherever it can be found... This commercial just made me bust out in tears, but then I'm a horsewoman, so there's that. Big huge horses filled with nobility are always going to make me bust out in tears.

Still, Budweiser does a great horse commercial - or maybe did, I dunno. Are they still filming these? There were the "horses playing football" and the "baby horse dreams of drawing the big wagon and gets help from the big horses", and the "young horses challenge the older horses to a snowball fight", etc etc. The following are a few of my favorites.

Here's the "Rocky" tribute...



Here's the "donkey" ad...



And the "donkey" ad rebuttal...



And the "dog envy" commercial...



I could keep on like this forever. Really. So I'll just leave it to you - click HERE for a listing of the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials on YouTube.

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Sophie, Puppy of Terror, just decided she needed a snuggle from me. She announces her need by trying to climb on my lap from under the table. This involves her kind of insinuating herself up via her claws, somewhere in the region of my crotch.

And yes, that's every bit as bad as you might imagine it would be, especially when one is writing one's heart out, deep in the Elven kingdom of Otherworld.

Sophie and I, We often have Words about this, but I have yet, apparently, to hit upon the right Words to convince her of my sincere dislike of this behavior on her part. Luckily, Shar is too big to fit under the table.

Right now, Shar is busy in the living room with her tugging rope, playing the "Mine" game with Elise. The format of this game is as follows: Shar grabs the rope in her jaws, shakes her head around wildly so the rope knows she means business, and then proceeds to bump her muzzle, and the rope, into the arms, legs, ribs and/or face of anyone within reasonable playing distance. Right now that's Elise. Hy-larious... Two puppies playing and laughing together, although it occurs to me, just now, that Shar outweighs Elise by maybe as much as 20 pounds. I had to add back the three links I removed from Shar's prong collar last night because her neck has filled out by several inches since I got her in June, I think it was.

Wow, I wish I had a camera! Shar is bounding around the living room, her tail whipping back and forth, her jaws hanging open in an ear-to-ear grin, playing with Elise, who's laughing so hard she's having a hard time breathing. Shar is controlling herself well - Elise is in no danger, even from accidental biting as Shar goes for the rope. Shar's time with Holly has taught her good bite inhibition.

Just now I got up and showed Elise how to "talk dog". I showed Elise the difference in my posture when Shar and I are playing (open front, very relaxed, lost of energy and movement), and when I'm taking control of the situation and asking Shar to drop the rope and stop playing (stiff and still, closed posture, arms close to my sides, left hand held up and palm towards her, staring directly at her). Shar dropped the rope, no matter how wild she was playing, withing ten seconds of me doing that, and in most instances she sat down, waiting for me to tell her what should happen next.

Really seriously, Shar is the smartest, most adaptable dog I have ever had the honor of calling my companion. I've dearly loved all my dogs, but she really takes the cake; she has earned a special place in my heart.

Okay, busy day tomorrow. I'm going to Morgan Hill, and Doris, John and I are going to drive together to Ellen's housewarming party. Elise is staying here because she's going to her friend Acacia's house tomorrow for a birthday party and her first ever sleepover! I am so proud of her for doing something that's a little bit scary! I think she's going to do fine.

Off to bed, Bambinos! Ciao!

Turkey Letdown, Black Friday, Creepy Automatons, Bhopal and a Schweppes Moment...

Sorry... Not in that EXACT order...

Obligatory Post-Thanksgiving blog to commence now:

We live in a very small, very ugly single-wide mobile home. Yes, I hang my head in shame. I am... *sniff*... TRAILER TRASH!

There. I've said it. I'm a cringing puddle of shame.

Actually, I lied. Sorry. I do that. I'm not a cringing puddle of shame. I'm actually rather proud of the fact that we own a detached house of sorts, with something of a backyard where we can actually plant veggies, where we can have the three dogs we currently have, two cats, and one rather lonely parakeet, where if something breaks, it may not get fixed but that's our fault...

This is California, y'all. Silicon Valley, to be precise. I know people paying $2200 rent for as much space as I own. Their place is pristine (probably) and mine's old and gross, but you know what? I can live with old and gross when it costs me $1000 less than pristine. I really can.

Okay, sorry, got off on a tangent. Point being, our house is 900+ square feet when you count the walled-in porch where Jeff works his magic. We famously do not host Thanksgiving dinner. Ever.

This means that we always come home from Thanksgiving dinner with a small plate of leftovers, which are usually gone the next day.

Not sure what my point was there. A general wailing against the cruel injustices consequent upon the possession of inadequate living space?

A neighbor gave us a frozen turkey - apparently he got several - and I will be doing a dinner of our own this year, probably next weekend. I WILL have my succulent Turkey of Justice, my gravy, my stuffing-and-cranberry-sauced vengeance. I WILL!!

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A thought:

If you're a human of American extraction and you watch TV at ALL, you know that Black Friday is everywhere. We're obsessing on it, this year especially because of our economic woes.

Okay, yes, I get it... Where have I been hiding forEVER, that this shocks me? Still, doesn't it horrify you, even a little, that while Thanksgiving dinner is on the table, there are commercials out there showing a woman hurrying her family through Thanksgiving dinner, even to the point of pulling the tablecloth off the table and scattering the entire meal across the floor, just so she can grab her purse and her coat and rush out the door to go shopping?

Come on, 'fess up. That doesn't horrify you even a little?

Black Friday was almost a week ago, but still, I have yet to shake off the miasma of capitalistic evil that has engulfed me.

I've studied Dante's iconic cycle, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Dante, had he seen this picture, would have nodded his head, his lips pursed, and then asked, in a knowing tone, what these men had done wrong in life.

I'd never have had the heart to tell him they hadn't died yet.

I'm probably wrong, but I swear this looks like the new Target out by Cochrane road in Morgah Hill.

Here's the worst of all. This picture was taken from someone's cell phone camera, November 28th of 2008, in Long Island, NY. Exactly as this picture was being taken, a Walmart employee by the name of Jdimytai Damour was being trampled by this rampaging mob of shoppers, who rushed the doors, taking them off their hinges, and charged into the store. He suffered a heart attack as several hundred people literally walked over him in pursuit of a bargain. He died shortly afterward.

Is there any rational comment to be made here? Can ANYTHING I say have a greater impact than the senseless death of somebody's son at the hands of a mob? I mean, they weren't even trying to lynch the poor guy - which would have implied some moral outrage on their part, even if completely unjustified. These people didn't even know they were killing someone.

When I thought about it, I realized recently that every decision made at every level of government and in every level of business, and even in most levels of private life, is governed by the considerations of money... Not just influenced by, but entirely governed.

Ideally, that's backwards, isn't it? Shouldn't money be the last thing you take into consideration when deciding what healthcare options you want, what school your child should attend, whether or not you should move, even what you should have for dinner?

It should be, but it won't. I can't even think how we're going to get from our capitalist point A, to a more humanitarian point B.


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Speaking of humanitarian considerations, I just read that today, Dec 3rd, is the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Early in the morning in 1984, the people of Bhopal woke because their lungs were burning. Many thousands died that morning. Many more thousands died over the days, weeks and years to follow, due to exposure to Methyl Isocyanate.

This disaster was caused by a complex chain of events, but the bottom line, as always, is punctuated by a dollar sign: Union Carbide wanted to cut corners, the regional government wanted to cut corners, the workers' complaints were ignored, and the workers were even fined when they refused to ignore safety regulations. To date, neither the Indian government nor Dow Chemical (who bought Union Carbide) have come anywhere near satisfying the needs of the people involved, or the clean-up needs of their environment - both of which still suffer from the long-term affects of the tragedy. The large portion of Union Carbide's lawsuit settlement is still sitting in the coffers of the Indian govt, awaiting distribution. Several thousands tonnes of abandoned hazardous chemicals remain to be cleaned up from the now-defunct factory.

Merry Fucking Christmas, right? Where's the Turkey of Justice when you need him?

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And now for something completely different, before I tackle my last topic:



Based on actual, vintage Schweppes advertising... it has just enough WTF-itude to make it oddly compelling and train-wreck-ish.

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Okay, last but not least, TA-DAH!

I'll take "Creepy Automatons" for $400, Alex...


There are the harmless ones...



And the actually rather graceful ones...



(... although that little creak she gives somewhere around the middle of the video does give me something of a chill, don't know why.)

There was this one, called La Joyeuse de Tympanon, built for Marie Antoinette, and every bit as lovely and enchanting now as she must have been when her creators unveiled her before the queen, if a bit sad somehow, a bit poignant. You have to wonder, was Marie herself just such a fragile pearl as this little doll?



Here are the creations of Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a Swiss "mechanist"...



(...and if you watch at 6:15, you'll see an example of a "decapitation" automaton. A bit further down I've included a video of a modern version of this kind of automaton.)

For the most part, however, these things are 100% pure creepaliciousness, like this harpist...



(...and in all fairness, this is probably what the piano-playing lady looked like before her complete restoration from the damages done her by the French Revolution.)

The making of artistic automatons is apparently alive and well, although, so far, I've only ever seen examples of gothic horrors.

As mentioned above, here's a modern rendition of the "decapitation" automaton...



Okay, that's it, stick a fork in me, I'm done... Off to bed, bambinos. Ciao!

11/24/2009 - It (Almost) Never Rains in California. Much.

Everybody knows about the weather in California: it never rains, right? Well, it's pretty nice right here, right now. We had some rain and a few days of cold, but now it seems like we're on track for a brilliantly clear, 70-degree Thanksgiving. Neener.

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Care for a California Fiesta? Me too. Mine has significantly less peaches and Miracle Whip, and significantly more cerveza, but then I own Weird.

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Some quick business:  as posted on the 15th, Shar's BFF Holly got very sick very fast. The consensus by the vets involved is that she would have died, had she not been brought to the doggie ER. Today, I'm happy to report, she's back in action, and every bit as bouncy and ill-behaved as she ever was. The verdict was anaphlylactic shock from a Black Widow bite (the Black Widow part is not 100%, but the only suspect going.) This is probably what killed my in-laws' big Rottie boy Samson. We still miss Samson - please, if your dog is sick, don't wait. Most dogs will not show how sick they are until it's almost too late. This is a pack defense. The weak dog gets left behind. Don't appear weak.

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Okay. Now for something completely different: Is your day too normal? My condolences. Allow me to be of some assistance:




Russian dolls? I mean, come on... RUSSIAN DOLLS? It's like oysters (I heard this from a comedian, can't remember who). Somebody had to pick up an oyster once, thousands upon thousands of years ago, examine the creature inside the shell (which has an awful resemblance to a wad of aging snot) and say "Mmmmm! I gotta put this in my MOUTH!"

Someone picked up a Theremin (?? A strange enough device on its own) in one hand, and a Russian doll in the other, and had one of those "you got chocolate in my peanut butter" moments.

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Reposting from Neil Gaiman's blog - just about the cutest children's story I've seen in a very long time: "Eric" by Shaun Tan. Proof positive that writing for children can be more elegantly constructed and illustrated than most of what hits the shelves for grown-ups in any given decade. The genre is not for the faint of heart, is all I have to say.

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Seriously. Ugliest. Dress. Ever. From one of my happier blog discoveries, Found in Mom's Basement.

Set your mind at ease. This is a fashion of the not-terribly-lamented 80's; I think "The Room" mentioned may have had padding on the walls. The dress will (in all probability) not show up again.

The site is definitely worth a peruse or two, if you're into vintage ephemera (ie, antique paper advertising).



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Here's another one, because I can't seem to make myself stop. I knew there was a reason I never went to any of the proms or dances.

My eyes. They bleed.







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Writing Aedahn today - third book of the Sidhe Trilogy I'm working on. Honestly, I should stop calling it a trilogy. I just started a "book" (more a collection of notes, at this point) for two more characters, not necessarily because they're going to get their own, but I needed some place to put their crap. Still, this all smells like it's going to stretch beyond three books, is all I'm saying.

Aedahn is the violent one, bless his little cotton socks. I always have to be heading towards or in a certain time of month, I kid you not, before I can write him.

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We're off to Thanksgiving at Jeff's mom and stepdad's house tomorrow. Today, for some complex reason, they decided it would be a good time to remodel the kitchen. Carol is a gourmet chef, so the kitchen is a huge place vis-a-vis Thanksgiving, for her. One has to wonder. Anyway, Jeff's going over to help them work on the kitchen today, and he's going back on Saturday to help them install windows. No. Not MS. Anderson.

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Ok, off now. Otherworld beckons.

11/15/2009 - Shar Update and Other Things on a Lovely Sunday Morning

Most of the music I listen to is evocative of moods. To translate, I like hard angry rock and introspective classical and dangerous/powerful movie themes and anything else I can use to write in my head.

For blog writing, I dip into my funky old jazz - anime themes from just about anywhere in the 70's, Vince Guaraldi - click here for a sampling of his music...

Vince Guaraldi. Oh yah. Vince is for when it's rainy out, or for when it's cold and I'm taking the light rail... the point being, anytime my soul needs warming, that's when I go to old Vince. Yup. Vince is my Go-To Soul Warmer.

Um... Things going on. Let's see:

Update on Shar: Shar is becoming a teenager, and that is not without its hazards. Point in case: Friday, while on my way to pick up my niece and head to Morgan Hill, Shar had something of an accident in the back of the truck, of the Number 1 variety.

Now, Shar is a big dog. She eats four cups of dog food at a sitting - that's EIGHT CUPS per day, campers. When she poops, it's like finding logs all over the back yard. When she pees...

Gallons. I got mad and yelled, but she was so horrified, I don't know, maybe from the smell, or because she wasn't going to sit in her own pee, that she launched herself into the front seat of the truck and tried to crowd herself through the window.

My truck weighs almost 4 tons - 7400 lbs or something like that. I had to have it weighed to register it. Losing control and crashing into somebody's Hyundai is NOT an option... Well, not for THEM in any case.

I have to give myself some credit here. It took no small degree of proficiency in Mommy Emergency training to accept that gallons of pee had just happened all over the back seat, that my 90lb dog was trying to climb into my lap, and that the truck was going to have to come to an orderly stop at some point in the extremely immediate future.

Which it did. I couldn't clean anything out, of course, and I have to admit to being thankful that I keep a ton of crap in the truck, because as it turns out, I had not one, not two, but THREE blankets handy. One went on the bottom, to soak up the offending substance, one went in the middle as a buffer, and the third was for Shar to lay on.

We made it down to Morgan Hill with all our stuff crammed in the front, and with the windows wide open. It was nasty cold.

I have to admit to some blame in this. No, I tell an untruth - I have to admit to all the blame. Shar, of EVERY dog I've ever rescued or owned, will NOT whine, no matter what, no matter how bad she needs to go pee. It was my fault because I got to talking with my mother-in-law and her best friend before we left, and forgot to take Shar out to go poddy. Shar waited as long as she could, but she just couldn't stand it anymore.

We got to Morgan Hill after dark, and Shar got to play with her Rottie BFF Holly. I know for a fact they were playing on Friday night just like they always do because when I called Shar into the trailer for bedtime, all the hair around her face was wet and stringy. Both Holly and Shar chew on each other's head as they play, with the result that their heads get slimy.

(Okay, reason #167 why you should NOT get a dog unless you're completely insane: Jeff just walked past the bathroom, which is where we keep the kitty litter pan. He shouted out, "Oh boy, looks like SOMEONE has been playing in the kitty litter pan again!"

GAG!!! Shar was standing about a foot away from me, looking at me when Jeff said this. She gave me her best "huh?" stare, and then calmly licked her lips. EYEEEWWWWW!!! )

So, on with my Holly/Shar story. Saturday mornings I can always tell when Holly's owners let her out of their apartment, because she immediately comes to my trailer door, bounces on the step so that the whole trailer shakes, and "talks" for a while. (Rotties are very vocal - they growl and whine and "talk" all the time. If you've never been around a Rottie, don't be scared to death if you meet one and it growls at you while madly wagging the stump of its tail - it's just saying 'howdyplayplayplayplay?!'). It's hilarious - it's just like when Elise's friend Wynter comes over, knocks on our door and asks if Elise can play.

Shar will climb out of the lower bunk, which is her "crate" when she's in the trailer, and go stand at the door. I'll climb out of bed, let her out to play, at which point Holly will take the opportunity to bounce multiple times with renewed vigor upon the step, and to slime me as completely as possible, just so I know for sure she loves me. I'll then have to clean myself off and climb back in bed because, usually, I went to bed around 2am and have only got 3-4 hours of sleep. Frequently, I don't succeed in getting back to sleep, but that's another story.

This last Saturday, I let Shar out before Holly came, so I never so Holly. When I did, finally, her head was drooping, she could hardly move, and she looked like she was in incredible pain.

Long story short, after many hours and $1200 bucks at the emergency vet in SJ, Holly's owners found out she had gone into anaphylactic shock, possibly from a spider bite or from chewing on an oleander stick. Holly chews on everything: rocks, sticks, oak galls, my door mat, everything.

John and Doris do have a huge woodpile in the back shed, and they do have a ton of Black Widow spiders all around the barn and the back yard, and it IS the country, so no surprise there. Poor Holly - everybody was really worried about her and fussing over her, and I think Shar was really upset. She kept charging into everyone's face, trying to get attention, and not understanding why they pushed her away, or why her best friend wouldn't get up and play with her. It strikes me she was very like a three-year-old human kid, faced with a crisis they didn't understand, desperately trying to get the grown-ups to reassure her. I kept calling her back to my side and getting her to sit, and I would just stroke her head and try to talk calmly to her to reassure her. That seemed to help.

Shar was really bummed the rest of the day. She slept on the piece of foam Holly had been laying on, and wouldn't be budged off it, and then when it got dark, she wouldn't go outside but staying in her bunk in the trailer, her head on her paws, every so often giving a mournful sigh.

Today, like most young kids, she's (mostly) bounced back. I've promised her a really long walk since she didn't get to exhaust herself with Holly the way she's used to doing.

Oh, this is so sad! She keeps finding her toys - the "armadodo", the "hippopototomus", the red "Clifford" slipper that doesn't fit Elise anymore, her rope dolly - and bringing them to me to play with her. I play for a bit, but I'm trying to finish the blog entry, and I just can't play as wildly as Holly does. Well, we're going for a walk as soon as the iPod is charged up. That should help.

I was going to add a few more things today, but this has gotten wordy enough as it is. I'll try to take some Shar pictures later and add them.

11/13/2009 - Sitting Around the House Eating Bon Bons...

Or not. Having just said, "wow, I found all kinds of cool things for my blog", I'm now OUT of cool things... but decided to blog anyway.

Amanda Fucking Palmer. Okay, I lied. I did find something cool to share with y'all. I think I enjoy Amanda's whole being as much as I enjoy her music. She has a video posted on her site of her goofing off with her feet. What an enlightened personage. I love how she tattooed her eyebrows. When she gets older, she can let her eyebrows grow back and no one will know she had a tattoo. Not that I can imagine her ever being the kind of person who would deny her tattoo-ed-ness. She'd just be Amanda Palmer, not Amanda FUCKING Palmer. Check out her blog. Even better. I want to grow up to be like her, although I don't believe anyone will thank me for shaving off and tattooing on new eyebrows. The effect would JUST not be the same.

Elise is sick today - hacking cough, fever, lots of snot. She's so wonderfully matter-of-fact about it; she just came into the kitchen, saw that Shar the Gargantupuppy had cat litter on her muzzle (which can mean only one, very repugnant thing - that I don't need to bother scooping the cat box today) and promptly threw up. No fuss, no screaming and yelling, just barfed, then took herself off to the bathroom to clean up and brush her teeth. In response to my shouted "You okay?", she just said "Yup" with a bit of a laugh, and that was it. Eight years old. Already has shit under control. Now she's in the bedroom, having a careful lunch and watching Godzilla. She's laughing her head off about something, screaming at Godzilla to be careful.

I only mention this because my daughter is a blessing of contradictions, all of them unashamed, and because it's a dang hoot, sitting in the kitchen while the sixties music and Godzilla sound effects and really weird dialogue come rumbling down the hall, along with Elise occasionally shouting out "look OUT, Godzilla!!" I look up, and the Gargantupuppy is sacked out on the living room floor, her huge long legs sticking out like tree roots. Godzilla means nothing to her; his safety is not her concern. She dreams only of tonight, when she will get to see her Rottie friend Holly and play until she too is ready to barf.

Posting what I have of the three elf stories I've been writing, I think to Google Docs. In fact, I'm sure of it. Let me know if you're family/friends and want to read it, or any of my work. I think I'll put all my work up on Google Docs.

Dying my roots - my hair roots. On my head! Get a grip, people, sheesh! Chose a REALLY red color, and I'll have to reapply my blonde streaks. It's been, wow... 15 years since I was this red - and now there are not one but many shades of red to confuse and delight. The big four-six is a month away, give or take a smidgeon. How else is one to respond? I'm also thinking tattoo...

On that note, I hadn't realized how much the black hair had been depressing me, but it had. I felt old. I felt grayed and careworn and utterly unlovely. Okay, I weight 245 lbs, it's hard to feel lovely at the best of times, but the black hair WAS NOT doing all it could to be of assistance in this area.

The day I used the paint-stripper and removed it to reveal the shocking tri-color red, a million years and a thousand pounds lifted off my soul. I felt silly again, immature and goofy and is there really any other way to feel when one is staring down the business end of 50?

Okay, anyway, putting stuff up on Google docs now, and then I'm going to take off for errands and Morgan Hill. Ciao.

11/06/2009 - Some Odd Thoughts for Today

Ever notice, oh ye who blog, that right after you finish one blog, you find all kinds of cool shit for your next blog? Yesterday I found three or four things, almost immediately after I finished the entry for yesterday.

The first item of interest (and wow, it's a doozy!):

Don't ask me what prompted me to want to get directions from my house to Xinjiang Uygur, China... Please. I mean it. I'll have to actually go looking for a reason, and that will involve all kinds of psychic trauma, and we're all better off not going there. Suffice it, gentle readers, to say I did.

What I found was certainly quite eye-catching. To duplicate, do the following.

1) Go to Google Maps
2) Enter in San Jose as your starting point, and Xinjiang Uygur, China as your destination
3) Get driving directions

You get the following. Note carefully, the journey takes one, apparently, from San Jose, CA to Seattle, WA by car. One is then directed to KAYAK ACROSS THE OCEAN to Hawaii, navigate across the island before re-embarking in one's kayak to Japan, and thence, finally, to China.


View Larger Map


The humorous bit is contained in this part of the text directions:



Notice, I've been directed to kayak across the ocean. Next comes this bit:



Where I arrive in Hawaii, trek across the island, and then on again in my trusty kayak across the bosom of the Pacific Ocean once more:



Until I reach Japan! At this point, I'm instructed across the country to once more attack the challenges of the Pacific (at which point I think Google is either getting cocky, or its faith in my ocean-faring prowess is gaining ground). This time it directs me to use a Jet Ski! Of course, the planning is left up to me - I'm going to have to figure out a way to cart all that fuel, for one, but at least this time I can spare my arms, no?

Think I'm making this up? Really? Click on the map to get the text directions, if you don't believe me. Go on. I'll wait...

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Item of Interest #2:

As must be glaringly obvious, I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman's work. His book, American Gods, will probably remain my favorite book for the rest of my life. Well, okay, that's a bit of an ambitious and possibly rather shortsighted statement to be made on my part, especially seeing as he keeps getting better and better with each new work he publishes, and seeing as I have not (yet) read the work of every author out there, but still...

In American Gods, there is a scene, and since I can't find my copy of the book, I can't tell you exactly where, in which Shadow, the main protagonist, puts a quarter into the slot of an old-fashioned automated diorama. This diorama portrays a drunk in a graveyard - as the scene unfolds, the drunk drinks from his bottle, and various ghosts and ghouls pop out around the diorama.

In traipsing around the web this morning, I've come across the website for the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco. The "Drunk In A Graveyard" Automaton is apparently located there... I say apparently because I've been watching YouTube videos from this place all morning, and no one has taken any video of it.

*Sigh*. I'm going to have to go there, aren't I? Just to get down to the truth of it all. Well, I stand firm. I will not be denied in my quest for this essentially useless but ever so cool bit of information. This is the same slightly masochistic set of instincts that's someday going to require me to visit the House on the Rock...

Seriously, go check out the link for this place. Play this music:



...while you watch the compilation of their favorite YouTube videos. You'll have nightmares for weeks - well, I will, anyway... The yummy kind that make for great stories.

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Item of Interest #3:

Neither here nor there, but it looked cool enough to mention: There's a zoo in Germany that houses a handful of Spectacled Bears. These bears have apparently lost all their fur as winter approaches, exactly when they should be growing a really thick coat. That's not the interesting part.







The interesting part is this: naked bears look like something out of the Pleistocene, almost sloth-like.

These kinds of things pique my interest; they're ways to think about something you see everyday, in a new, maybe almost alien light.


Okay, all. I'm off to pick up the Hiatt family scion from school, taking the Gargantupuppy with me for a bit of breeze up her might snoot.

Ciao, 'n shit...

11/05/2009 - Baby Steps

Oh, the horror...




Actually, I found Paul Mounet's NY Times Obit. He died in his "domicile" at 75 of a heart attack, hardly to be considered an "unusual circumstance". As he was 75 years old, and the authorities knew he was dead in his apartment, one has to make the assumption that someone got concerned and went to check on him, which means they had to find his dead body and then go tell the police about it. So, Q.E.D, he died of KNOWN circumstances and his body WAS indeed found.

People will believe anything, and they'll believe it from anyone who cares to open their mouth and say the anything. Sheesh.

Let's see, what other interesting things are going on today?

Elise is undergoing a paradigm shift in her thinking. She said to me the other day, "I told myself I wasn't going to get up from my chair until I'd finished this page of my homework." She didn't say this to impress me, or because she thought it was what I wanted to hear. She just said it, matter-of-factly, whilst sitting in her "tv" chair with her spelling list in her lap.

Wow... And last night she was excited for me to test her on her spelling words. She's happy to go to school again, and even enjoys going to her tutoring classes an hour before regular school starts! This is compared to last year at this time, when someone was mean to her every single day, and she'd come home every afternoon to recite the litany of who stole and crumpled her paper, who tripped her, who yelled at her, who told her she was ugly, etc etc. Freakin' nightmare!

This shift in thinking tells me one very important thing: she's beginning to take ownership of her homework, and she's enjoying the sense of accomplishment she gets from doing it right. We have a mantra that we repeat, as a joke, whenever she does something really well: "Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley... Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley". Now I'm starting to weigh the crucial questions in my mind: Who do I root for, come football season? Harvard Crimson, Yale Bulldogs, Stanford Cardinal or Berkeley Bears?


Jeff is rooting for Annapolis. I dunno 'bout that one. Their mascot is a funky goat...

And before you get that look, no, I am NOT one of those weird moms that pushes their kid to achieve grand things as a reflection of the parent's worth...

I'm one of those weird moms that wants their kid to grow up rich enough to support them when they get old.

Priorities, people!


---------------------------------------------

And now for something completely different. I found the following when, for some obscure reason or other I went through my YouTube saved videos.



Monrose. (I keep wanting to call them Montrose. Silly me. Ronnie is going to be upset when he hears.)

"What You Don't Know": I love this song, for all it falls in that category of "Unrequited Love", a subject that should give any intelligent adult the heebie jeebies. When you have an unrequited love and you finally break down and tell them how you feel about them, this song does NOT accurately describe the results. On top of that, the video they did is such a complete "Sixth Sense" rip-off, and does not jive even slightly with the subject of the song, that I find it completely off-putting.

Which is a shame because it's actually an incredibly cool song and really hit my "unrequited love" buttons, hence my initial "heebie jeebie" reaction. Unrequited love BAD. Requited love not much better. Nobody can live up to the towering set of expectations generated by UL.

And BTW, I've experienced UL twice in my life, both times many years ago, and all I can say is thank GOD it's (probably) never going to happen again, because it sucks just about as much as anything can.

-------------------------------------------

Okay, now I'm gettin' maudlin. Time to continue my search for magazine markets for some of my short stories. So there.

Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. Whadya think? Beezy might find a home there. And Cat Fancy? That would be a good home for Agnus Dei.

Fantasy & Science Fiction... Wow, that would really be something, to get published there. We're talking Isaac freakin' "Holy of Holies" Asimov, Harlan Ellison... If you're going to dream, dream stupidly big, is what I always say.

-------------------------------

Another off-the-wall thought: Am I the only person who had never before heard the term WOACA (Women Of A Certain Age)?

To quote the nicely-rounded definition by Adrienne Martini :

"WOACA means those who are past the knitty-gritty of childbearing (yet may still have children under age 18) but not yet old enough to qualify as a crone."

I didn't realize there was an age bracket to fit me. I knew there had to be one that I fit into better than "Soccer Mom" at any rate, which is how I've usually described myself. WOACA. "Whoa-kah". There's even fashion for us WOACA's.

Found a nasty reference - Asswipe person from a blog, now defunct, entitled "Twenty-One Minutes":

"Two old WOACAs just came in and perched on the only two vacant chairs left in the Starbucks – said chairs which happen to be far too close to the bratty kids for these over-dressed and under-sexed ladies’s tastes. These old birds are giving the teen-agers some nasty looks. Think “I found six and a half roaches in my sandwich” nasty looks. That kind of nasty."

Wow. They just can't keep their derision to themselves, can they?And it kind of ALL runs to the tragedy displayed above; snide, hackneyed, and small-minded dialogue about completely unengaging happenings at Starbuck's. Worse yet, I think this dubious poet is hanging out at the Starbucks that's actually quite close to our house, on North First. Oh well. Probably just as well they stopped writing after a few months.

Anyway, Woacas. New word of the day. I guess it'll have to do till something better comes along.

Tuesday Morning At The Kitchen Table

Tuesday Nov 3rd... Dias de los Muertos are over for one more year, and yet again, I have failed in my intention to produce an ofrenda for my deceased family members. I wonder if they're hanging on the other side, arms crossed, tapping of feet, much exasperated sighing directed overhead?

The picture to the right came from a Flickr group called, appropriately enough, "Ofrendas". It's from the site I linked to above...

I love the art of Dias de los Muertos. I've even dabbled in a polymer clay skeleton or two, thinking that it would be kind of fun to come up with a mold so I could make hanging ornaments out of them. Now that's making me wonder where he's got to, my little skeleton man, and if I can complete the mold. Idea: what if I made a yearly ornament for family members? This year it could be a Dias de los Muertos skeleton. What about next year?

Wow, that's a good idea. I think I'll have to look into that, especially as we're dirt poor this year so actually BUYING things for people is going to be out of the question. Tra la la...

I've begun, and almost completed, a re-write of my Loki story - he's changed a bit, deepened as it were. Still a lot of work to go, and the big question remains, is he broad enough to carry a book on his shoulders, or is he going to stay a rather lengthy short story. Dunno. Again.

The Rhav story is pretty much ready. I have a few short stories I could be sending out. The Beezy story still needs a home, and is completely ready. I think I'll make Beezy my mission today, after I've done some writing. Yah. That sounds good. Dye hair, write blog, find Beezy a home.

Yah know, I can't find a decent cat demon picture anywhere. The picture to the right... nope, sorry, I mean the OTHER right... Anyway, this is a nice piece of graffiti - teeth-grinding public menace or legitimate art form, you be the judge - from the Flickr page of gbalogh, taken in Toronto Canada.

I don't really conceive of Beezy as having huge bushy eyebrows, but beggars can't be choosers, and I don't want, at this particular time, to spend most of my day with my tongue in the corner of my lips, pencil firmly in paw, desperately trying to get the Beezmeister out of my brains and onto to paper. You're just going to have live with this until I do...

While trying to come up with a title for today's offering, I happened to recall my favorite book title of all time: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick. The book itself was not one of my favorites of all time - the basis for the movie "Blade Runner", it was, if anything, more bleak, and sans Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer, but there you go, nobody gets everything, do they? Still, the title rocks, and labels are everything, aren't they?

Wow, okay, I did not know this, but:

"In addition to thirty-six novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, many of which appeared in science fiction magazines. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, nine of his stories have been adapted into popular films since his death, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report. In 2005, TimeUbik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923"

Figures. Yet another in a long line of brilliant artists who had to descend into a state of physical decay before his work could be monetarily appreciated. Not that money is everything, but it's nice to pay the rent every now and again. Oh, and eat. That's one of my personal favorites, is eating.

And now for something completely different: here's a silly thing I found while perusing through Neil Gaiman's blog this morning: for your auditory enjoyment, I share with you - ta-DAH! - the Instant Rimshot. Wanna make a joke? Need a rimshot? Here you go then.

You're welcome.

Because What Else Is 5:30am For?

I think I fell asleep sometime around 1am, and here I am, four and a half hours later, staring at my laptop screen wondering what the hell I ate. Sleep has been one bad dream after another tonight, something that usually doesn't happen to me. I dreamt sad, lonely things - a cavernous building in which I and my daughter were stuck, while water gushed in from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. The rest I can't remember, but you know how you wake up with a feeling of desolation that you just can't shake all day long?

In other, better news, Elise is finally attending Don Callejon School.




(With all due apologies to Margaret Hamilton, whom I've long admired. She was, by all accounts, a wonderful woman who dedicated herself to bettering the lives of kids and animals, two of my favorite categories of person...)

Within her first week, her teacher had several suggestions to make to help get her back on track, after her tenure at George Mayne Elementary, including counseling to help address her levels of anxiety, a before-school tutoring program, analysis for potential learning disabilities, and a study group.

This is more help than she got all last year at her old school. She's once again happy to go to school each morning, she's thriving in a welcoming, bully-free environment, she's made friends, and she even enjoys the 6:55am tutoring sessions.

In other news... Well, there isn't too much. Had lunch with a wonderful lady, a friend of Jeff's from middle school named Julie Andrijeski. She was here for the World Fantasy Convention, and managed to find time on Friday to meet us. She's looking for an agent for her manuscript, which has shown me the next steps I need to take. Oddly, it seems a lot like looking for a job (well, duh, Ericka). Julie describes her process as sending out one new query every day.

Anyway, got a direction, yay, got deadlines, double yay... I'll keep you posted.

Oh yah, happy Dias De Los Muertos!



Ciao

Monday, and a Renewal of Hostilities with the Santa Clara Unified School District

And other things generally...

What have I accomplished so far today? Let's see...

1) Woke up at 8am. Jeff came in to give me a shake, but I'd also set my alarm. I'm tired of going to bed at 4am and then sleeping until 12pm. You feel like you've missed 99% of the day, and since most people have been awake for hours and hours before you, it turns out, you really HAVE.

2) Made coffee. I'm now blissfully over-caffeinated.



It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.

(author unknown - with thanks and apologies to Frank Herbert original masterpiece, and picture courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger, of course.)

3) Did dishes. Yup, that's right, you can all pick yourselves up off the floor now. Dishes have been done. The world has not ended. (Did I say I'd finished all of them? Did I? Pu-LEEZE!)

4) Played with Shar. We've had about five or six bouts with Rope Dolly, who's starting to show her age. Poor thing. I don't think a facelift is going to be any help at this stage.



5) Well, there isn't a five yet. Five is still to come. The big mission today is to go back to the Santa Clara Unified School District Offices and talk to them, yet again, about getting Elise back in school.

The score so far - last week I went to the SCUSD office and put my case before them, which was that Elise needed a spot in school, but she couldn't go back to George Mayne. They spent about ten minutes conferring between themselves, and then the receptionist lady came out and said, "Good news, they have room at Don Callejon".

WTF??

These are the same people who DENIED my intradistrict transfer not two weeks ago! I put this (gently) to the receptionist lady. She went back for more conferring. She came out with Brad Syth, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources, who said he'd just called Lisa Farmer at Don Callejon and confirmed there was space available in the third grade.

WTF some more... but okay. I'm not one to look a gift classroom in the mouth. We dutifully trotted off to George Mayne, got the paperwork signed, and took it Don Callejon.

Which was closed. Whatever. We came back the next day. Closed again.

*Sigh*. Are you seeing something of a pattern here? What exactly are my tax dollars paying for, EXACTLY?

We went back again the next day, and this time the office was open, BUT Lisa Farmer, secretary for the elementary school, was out. I handed the transfer paperwork to Aracelli Arreola, middle school secretary, who told me that Hans Barber was the only person who could sign the paperwork, and he was out for a week and a half.

WTF!?!?!?

The last intradistrict transfer, the one that was denied, was not signed by Hans Barber. I don't know who it was signed by, but the signature was not Hans Barber's.

So today I'm off to the district office yet again, this time to ask, politely of course, what I should do next, because let's not be blind here - we all know, I'm going to get that intradistrict transfer back and it's going to be denied, and then Elise will have missed ANOTHER month of school while asses are scratched and bureaucracy is nurtured.

Okay, time to put some food in my body, and then maybe take a shower. Elise got up with me, but fell back asleep again after breakfast. I think she's caught Grandma Doris's cold, so I'm letting her sleep for a while.

I'll try to update this later to let y'all know what happened at the district offices.

Toodles!

--------------------------------------------

Okay, update...

5-A) Stopped by the SCUSD offices, saw Sarah Herrara, the receptionist lady I had talked to last week. Told her my concerns, and she got me the business card of the Associate Superintendent guy, and told me if I had any problems, to have them call him directly.

*Phew*. Relief. 'Nuff said.

4-A) Stopped by Petsmart on the way back to see if the Banfield Vets office might weigh Shar. As it turns out, they would and they did. She was 69.9 the day Eden gave her to me, and 83.3 today. She's gotten a bit taller since July, but mostly now I think she's going to fill out. I'm projecting 120 pounds by the time she's a grownup, but we'll see. She is quite huge.

Okay, on to making dinner. Boring old chicken, rice and veggies. I'm so middle America sometimes, it hurts.

Boulder Creek, CA

I know I just posted yesterday, and it usually takes me a few days to write up something new, but Elise and I went to Boulder Creek today, and I had to share.

Quick note: we've decided to move, and as part of that, Elise and I have decided to explore around the Bay Area to decide where we want to move to. Boulder Creek was our first stop.

We packed up the truck and took off, actually a bit late, around 2:30pm today, which is Tuesday, Sept. 15th, 2009.

In the above picture, we've stopped at the corner market before leaving, to get some water and some snacks. I decided to take Shar with us at the last minute, because she's just been so antsy and puppy-esque, and I thought it would do her some good to get out of the house for a bit of a trip.

Boulder Creek is a small town in the Santa Cruz mountains, more specifically in the San Lorenzo Valley (for local news, click here for the Press-Banner).

Boulder Creek is a nice little town, and if I'd been thinking, I'd have taken more pictures, just so I could show you some of the places we stopped to look. We parked at the New Leaf Market (think Whole Foods Market, only local and independent) and took Shar for a walk up one side of the main street and back down the other. Well, actually, we didn't quite go all the way - the main street stretches for a bit - but we went far enough to get a decent look at the businesses. There was a gas station, a regular market - Johnny's, which I'd intended to go in, but forgot - the organic market, a dry cleaners, a wash-your-own-dog place, three or four art boutiques, including the one art/antiques place we walked through (more about that in a moment), the water district office, a Fosters Freeze that, I think, gave me mild food poisoning from the hamburger I ordered, the Odd Fellows Lodge, one hardware store, one lumber yard, an auto parts store, and an old-fashioned "pharmacy" of the type that also sells knick-knacks, cards, perfume, soaps, etc etc as well (and didn't you used to love the one your mom used to visit when you were young? I did...). There was also a Round Table's, a chinese food place that was open but completely empty, a mom-and-pop-looking diner (The Mountain Inn? Something like that...) that was closed on Tuesdays, a brewery cafe, one other cafe that specialized in desserts, that was also closed... and probably a few other places I've forgotten. Point is, it was a pretty well-rounded downtown, for such a small place.

Now for the art/antiques place, which was really wonderful - the building said "Mac's 100-yr-old place" or something like that.

Here's the only picture I could find on the official website, and this isn't what it looked like when we were there today, so I did a bit more digging...







...and came up with THIS picture - no, we didn't get to see the cute Rottie - which is what the place looks like right now. (This picture was taken off of Flickr, from Lynna62).

Anyway, this was more "antiques" than "art gallery", but it was exactly my favorite kind of antiques place - the kind where you have to go carefully over every inch, because there are wonderful little hidden things in every corner. They have a strange outdoor-kinda-flea-market-everything-under-awnings-kinda-place out in the back, so not only do you have a million little hidey places for cool stuff inside, but there's a million more out the back door as well. I bought Elise a little Elise-sized parasol, which they let me have for $3 instead of the $5 it was marked, and I wanted to buy half a million other things, most not more than$5-$10, like the cool giant enamelware pot I could have used for a huge-ass canning bath, or the various pots and pans and copper molds I could have put on my kitchen walls, or the funky chicken porcelain thingy that would have just collected dust on a shelf, but would have looked bitchin' cool doing it. Oh well. It's not like all the good junk will spoil. I can always go back when we're a bit more flush.

The one thing I did get from their funky backyard weird fleamarkety area was the following: a series of eerily cool pictures, more chiaroscuro with which to leave a nice taste on the grey matter. I GOTTA ask for a good camera for Christmas! Please forgive these - they were taken with my cell phone camera...















So, anyway... We went back to the truck and drove down the road to the Fosters Freeze, where I got a hamburger and Elise got a hotdog and we both got rootbeer floats (too much softserve vanilla ice cream, and the rootbeer was flat), the consumption of which left me with a slightly-more-nasty-than-usual case of stomach unhappiness. At the writing of this, it's now nearly midnight and my stomach has finally settled back to a feeling of normalcy.

Before we left, I took Shar out to go poddy, which she did, in her own massive, inimitable fashion. I was caught unprepared, and yelled for Elise to bring me a plastic bag from the truck. There was a very nice lady taking out her garbage bins just down the street, who overheard and laughingly offered me a bag out of her trash, which I happily accepted. Shar had to introduce herself, as she usually does, head down and tail thrashing madly, leaning her full weight against the lady's legs for a good petting. We struck up the usual "OMG-she's-just-a-puppy?!" conversation, after which Elise, Shar and I climbed back into the truck and went on our way. It was sometime after 6pm at this point, and we decided to take Big Basin Way out of town.

I was originally going to follow it for only a mile or so, but we got kind of wrapped up in how cool it was, and after several miles had passed, I turned on Trevor (my gps - surely I've mentioned him before?) to "consult the oracle" and find out where we were. Turns out Big Basin Way empties back onto Hwy 9, which is how we got to Boulder Creek in the first place, so we just kept going straight.

It was an incredible drive, very lonely, and I have to be honest, it would have been scary without having Inny to depend on. There's just something about a 3/4 ton heavy-duty diesel that gives one a feeling of security, like wrapping yourself in several inches of solid steel, all driven by an engine that just about never breaks down... We went through Big Basin Redwoods State Park, agreeing as we did so that it would be a wonderful place to bring the trailer to, for a quickie camping trip once we actually get the trailer registered and are able to tow it again.





The road kept going, following a ridgeline for some ways. I stopped to take this picture...




... And then turned around and took this one of Elise and Shar.

After that, the light faded, and it was a pretty standard drive home. We got home about 9pm, and Jeff got home from class a few minutes after that.

The consensus between Elise and myself, after our expedition was complete, was that, while Daddy could get to work in Saratoga without too much trouble, he couldn't get to Game Kastle without a significant amount of difficulty, which has to be taken into consideration.

One thing we came to an agreement about - both Elise and I love the mountains, and the redwood forest, and the smells on the air, of woodsmoke when we were near campgrounds and smoke from fireplaces when we were near houses, of bay laurel trees and eucalyptus trees and cool mossy forest, of sea fog when we got closer to the ocean, and dry manzanita when we got farther away.

I'll have to keep you updated on our next trip out. We're not sure where to try next, but we might explore out on the coast, just for the heck and giggles of it... Maybe out by Half Moon Bay, and San Gregorio, a place I've been to a few times but not since I was much younger.

Okay, toodles for now.