Robin McKinley's Blog, page 122

Ringing and knitting

 

Despite Montezuma and the latest core dump from Book Depository* I managed to get to bed early enough last night to hurtle slightly confused hounds this morning before going off to ring up the gargoyles at Old Eden that have bent themselves into hollow cup shapes so as to be mistaken for bells.  Niall was there before me.  Still grinning.  STOP GRINNING.  He'd already had a call-out.  What happened? I said.

            Oh, the hammerslammer had come loose from the dorpling feed, so they had to grazumle up the glorfrex valve and let all the bracksumpnidge down.  Common sense really, he said.

            Oh, of course, I said, taking two or three tries to get the gigantic old-fashioned key** into the bell tower lock and turned.  I didn't seriously think I had the wrong key:  Vicky had given it to me.  Vicky, unlike certain Deputy Ringing Masters I could name, does not do things like give people the wrong keys.

            Fortunately, since Niall is a bloke, I could make him ring up the five and the six.  If it had been another girl, as Person in Charge, I would probably have had to do it.***  So I had to be nice to him in spite of the grin.  And in spite of the fact that I'm the one that always gets stuck doing the phoning when Vicky can't—in this case for the wedding at New Arcadia we only just found out wants bells next Saturday.  ARRRRRGH.  And it's frelling August, and everyone is on holiday.  If anyone knows any bell ringers in Yorkshire or Vermont who are free next Saturday afternoon at 2:30 GMT, ask them to get in touch. 

            The wedding itself went okay from a bell ringer's point of view, except for the inevitable half-hour delay because the bride was late and the service ran longer than expected.†  I knitted. ††  The other ringers kept asking me what I wanted them to do and I kept thinking, why are they asking me?  The answer being, of course, that I'm supposed to be in charge.  I can see people like Amy, an extremely experienced and kind tower captain, deferring to me in what you might call an educational manner:  the way you raise up new tower captains is by making clueless and resistant deputy ringing masters fulfil accidental occasions of being in charge, and make their own decisions.  Gah. 

            Nobody died.  Everybody got paid.  I am trying not to lose the key before Vicky comes home and I can give it back to her.††† 

* * *

* No, the sort that come through the mail-slot in your door, THUMP!  CRASH!   I'm still brooding intensely over the question of what to Kindle-ify on Astarte.^  My latest working theory, although I haven't started putting it into practise yet, is to begin with the books on the NPR list that I want to read.  That'll keep me busy at least until next year and next year's list. 

^ Yes.  Astarte.  Sex and war, as I told you.  SIIIIIGH.  However, one does not argue with things about their names.  Perhaps especially techno-things, which are only barely holding their line in this world against being taken over permanently by fanged, flaming creatures from the demonic realm.  Maybe techno-things need names like Apocalypse and Astarte.  It could be I got off on totally the wrong track by naming my first computer Serena.  

KaelinDesign wrote:

This one isn't a bat goddess per se, but empress of heaven Tien Hou Sheng, the calmer of storms, surrounded by bat as a symbol of good luck seems very auspicious. She also saves people from drowning and brings droughts to an end. Probably for her celestial roses.

http://chinarhyming.blogspot.com/2008/12/chinese-pirate-flag s-goddesses-and-bats.html

This is brilliant.  Thank you.  It's too late for Astarte who arrived saying 'My name is Astarte.  Listen up.  Are you listening?  My name is Astarte.'  But something will walk or otherwise ambulate through the door one of these days that still needs a name, or is willing to negotiate. 

            I don't suppose you have any idea how to pronounce it? 

Those of you who reminded me of the Egyptian goddess Bat:  yes, I know her.  But she was about cows.  I do not have cows in my roof.  I hope.  Wiki says of Bat: 

The epithet Bat may be linked to the word ba with the feminine suffix 't'. Ba means something like personality or emanation and is often translated as 'soul' . The word can also be read as 'power' or 'god'. . . . 'I am Praise; I am Majesty; I am Bat with Her Two Faces; I am the One Who Is Saved, and I have saved myself from all things evil.'

Which would be excellent chi, to mix my religious/philosophical systems in a reprehensible manner, for some techno-thing or other.

** The kind that weighs as much as your iPhone and your pocketknife together, so when you're carrying it in your tiny pink hellhound-hurtling bag you feel that you're wearing a third hellhound around your neck.

*** Vicky, who comes to my shoulder if she stands on tiptoe, rings up our two-ton tenor if there are no blokes around, although she would prefer not to.  Fortunately there usually are blokes around.

            I hate being in charge.  Although if I were in charge I could have sung out the names of four other ringers—plus Roger and Monty—for the frelling quarter next frelling week, and adjured them to fill in.  Last night Niall was in charge and he just stood there grinning.  He's in the quarter.  He likes ringing quarters. 

† INSERT FAMILIAR RANT HERE.  I don't know why it's not in our contract-equivalent that (a) we're told if it's a long or a short service and (b) we in our turn declare that our clock starts running at the agreed time that the wedding is due to end, and that an hour from that time we leave.  If the frelling bride was forty-five minutes late and the service runs over another twenty minutes . . . there are no bells.^  As it is, agreeing to ring a wedding is writing off your afternoon.  Which is a little additional hurdle to finding people to ring weddings.

^ One of the reasons this doesn't happen, I imagine, is because we'd all feel sad and guilty if we didn't ring.  I don't know about everybody else but I get a thrill every time I pull off for a wedding:  making that glorious noise as the new husband and wife come back down the aisle they went up three or seventy-six hours ago as two random+ single people.  

+ Okay, not random exactly. 

†† Maren tweeted me this a few days ago:  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/miss-manners-not-every-rite-of-passage-is-supposed-to-be-fun/2011/07/14/gIQAcUOvjI_story.html 

You want the second item.  Yes.  I've always been pretty shameless about whipping out a book, but knitting is more adaptable for a lot of occasions^:  it takes less light, and it's less anti-social—and you can do other things at the same time.  You can keep chatting in the desultory way of ringers waiting to ring a frelling late wedding, for example, which without additional stimulation/distraction MAKES ME CRAZY.  It's kind of an interesting collision of priorities and circumstances:  I don't mind being anti-social at the opera, I don't know any of these extremely well-tailored people anyway, but the light is seriously inadequate for reading.  Most of the ringers I ring with regularly are friends, or at least the kind of acquaintances you want to know if their daughter had her baby yet or they've seen the diplodocus at the bottom of the garden again.  You can perfectly well make these inquiries whilst knitting.  If I had a not-line-of-sight seat at a concert some day I'd get out my knitting.  And I use wooden needles^^ which make no noise.  I'm still awaiting the day when someone objects to my knitting:   thus far my experience continues to be that people are interested and curious, and will often tell you stories about their grandmothers who used to knit sleeping bags for polar expeditions.   And in these days of multi-tasking everyone should be au fait with the idea that you can knit and still pay attention to what's going on around you.^^^

^ Except when you get out your Travelling Square and find that you didn't put it away carefully enough last time and it's come off one of its sticks.  This is how you learn to solve problems.  This is also how you learn not to swear loudly in public. 

^^ I've just ordered another fabulous pink pair on Etsy.+ 

+ And by the way, where is it written that all knitting needle cases must be alarmingly retro?  I don't want a Mary Quant or Peter Maxx case, thank you very much.

^^^ Except when you're trying to figure out which of those dratted little loops you should be feeding back on to your empty needle again.  Snarl. 

†† †† And, speaking of knitting and of bats, Ajlr wrote: 

But I need mosquito netting by next May.

I'm sure that Jodi, or Blondviolinist, will know of a knitting pattern for a large (and probably stripey) net.

 No.  They'll probably try to make me learn to crochet. 

 

 

Hot and Thick

 

It's only moderately hot, but it's that head-kickingly, brain-crushingly thick humid that makes you feel, gaspingly, that you have to hack a chunk out of the air and put it through a food processor before you can breathe it.  The ME is still hanging around, but I've never been good with heavy weather, so it gets difficult (and pointless) to try and figure out what exactly is making me feel like a mashed potato. 

            So we're operating from a basic ground line of yuck. 

            Hellhounds are eating what might politely be termed sporadically.

            PEG II couldn't be going worse if it tried.  Maybe it is trying.  That could explain a lot.

            . . . And, not surprisingly, I rang like a disintegrating zombie at tower practise tonight.*  But this may partly be due to finding out that . . . Vicky is going away again;  she's busy saving a small part of the universe that happens to be located inconveniently far away from New Arcadia.  Niall is on call this weekend:  frelling engineers.  Why couldn't he have been something sensible, like a librarian?  And this means . . .

             I'm in charge of the dranglefabbing wedding ring tomorrow.  'In charge' means that when it turns out you may not have all the ringers you thought you did ** you're the one with the problem.   Which, in this case, I have less than twenty-four hours to solve.  It also means that I'm the one responsible for getting the frelling bells rung up tomorrow morning—before the wedding in the afternoon.  Furthermore this is at Old Eden where the bells are temperamental—although while I was still in shock about the whole situation, Niall, giggling in a highly unattractive way, said he'd come help ring up—whereupon Vicky thoughtfully pointed out that if he got a call I'd be back to doing the lot myself.***  In which case I will phone Roger.

             Because Bloody/Jolly Roger seems to have bullied me into agreeing to ring in a quarter peal Sunday week—next Sunday, the 21st.  I don't ring service quarters.  I'm too sodding unreliable, thanks to the ME—and the worst of this one is it's going to be Monty's first quarter, and you want a beginner to get his first quarter, so he'll be all thrilled and excited and unable to contain his freshly successful-quarter-peal-augmented enthusiasm for ringing. 

             I don't ring service quarters, I said.

             You'll be fine, said Roger.

              I don't ring service quarters, I said.

              You'll be fine, said Roger.

              And I'm in no condition to resist Roger in full ahoy-me-hearties disposition.  ARRRRGGGH.

              So, hey, at least SUNSHINE got on the NPR list.

 

Now, about that list.   I'll be thinking, wait, what about—? for some time.  But I have gone through it more slowly, and my first semi-thoughtful reaction is:

            Most shocking omission:  Octavia Butler.  No Octavia Butler?  She's one of the great ones, for pity's sake.  I personally think that this list is mostly about good, fun, engrossing, page-turning reads, and the thought-provoking stuff is a little thin on the ground.  Maybe a little too thin on the ground.  And Octavia Butler—!  She's mostly not an easy read, and her insight into human nature tends to be pretty bleak—she's way too good on the capacity of love to twist and wound, which then brings up interesting questions about what love is.  But she's brilliant.  She's enormously worth reading.  I guess what may have happened here—although there are plenty of other authors who are represented by more than one book—is that there were four (?) of her titles on the long list and the votes that should have got her on the short list got split up.  I voted for her—I voted for Wild Seed as possibly her most approachable.  But, listen to me, if you haven't read her, never mind that she won't make you laugh.  Think of her as . . . oh, as the black female fantasy-writing William Faulkner or Fyodor Dostoevsky or something.†  Read her. 

            Most immediately personally disappointing and sad-making omissions†† (in alphabetical order):  The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers;  Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart;  Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre;  The Deed of Paksennarion, Elizabeth Moon;  Song for the Basilisk, Patricia A McKillip . . . but I'm also still muttering, did Frankenstein really not get on?  No Gormenghast? No Worm Ouroboros?  No Frederick Pohl, Theodore Sturgeon, Clifford Simak?  No Female Man?  And and and and and and and and—I'm probably also remembering a few that weren't on the long list but should have been.  Give me a minute, I can think of a dozen that I'm pretty sure weren't on but should have been.†††

RidingWestward wrote:

First off–YAYAYAYAY! As a librarian, I'm consistently pushing Sunshine on people. "You like vampires? Try Sunshine! You like fantasy? Try Sunshine! You like strong female characters? Try Sunshine! You like good books? Sunshine! You read? Even a little? SUNSHINE!" . . .

Love love love love love.  Also, this makes me laugh.  Extra points.‡

Second–Help??

            I've been collecting versions of Sunshine for several years now (my mission is to eventually find all of them)–I've got all theUS editions, all theUK editions except for one, and I just ordered a (the?) Italian translation.

There are a few more.  I know there's a German one.  And a Russian.  I forget.  And the Japanese of course.  I don't generally keep my foreign-language editions.  Except when the cover art  is particularly worthwhile.

I've been trying to find the grey-house-with-tree-shadows cover for a while now. I've struck out on AmazonUK, AbeBooks, and our local rare books person (she apparently called a dealer in theUKand he wasn't able to get one). Does anyone on that side of the pond know where I could find a copy? Seriously! Anyone who can help me out will have my undying gratitude and possibly cookies and hand-crocheted items.

News update:  I've sent the revised auction/sale master list to Blogmom.  She, of course, had been planning to do the fixing it up to work on line part something like weeks ago and her schedule tends to be both full and deranged, so she's having to fit me in now when she can.  But it's coming.  The auction is on its way.  We could probably even see the whites of its eyes if we knew where to look.

            Which leads me to the question, what's the old UK SUNSHINE worth to you?  Shall I put a copy‡‡ on the auction list?

            Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.  But our bells have just been upgraded not in a good way to needing £12,000 rather than £10,000.  Which is a lot of jars of marmalade and cups of tea on church social afternoons.  So.  Ahem.

 

And with that thought I will leave you, because I have to go to bed early because I have to get up early and ring several tons of metal 180° against gravity.  Joy.   

* * *

* Speaking of disintegrating, I'm really tired of this sprained finger. 

** This is serious life stuff out of anyone's control, by the way, so it's not just the herding-cats aspect of getting any group of volunteers to behave themselves.  There's also the fact that as I've mentioned before, we're short-ringer-handed around here, so there's always a juggle of priorities when you have to ask outside your own band—and you pretty much always do have to ask out of your own band. 

 *** Whimper.  All those wretched bells get stuck about halfway and say 'can't make me' while you yank on the rope and turn purple.

† She was given a MacArthur Foundation grant.  What more do you need to know? 

†† I'm not going to try to list all the books I think should have been on at least the long list.  Not.  Not. 

††† I'm not trying!  Just, you know, off the top of my head!

‡ And only a tiny little scream here about the astonishing things people give themselves permission to say:  I've had several emails and one or two tweets from people saying, Hey, great you got on the list . . . but it shouldn't have been SUNSHINE, Damar/BEAUTY/SPINDLE are better books.^  —What?  You're telling me this why?  One woman said 'I don't like vampire books, even yours'.  One also said, great you got on the final list, but [other books on the long list that didn't] are better books you know, ha ha ha ha ha.  ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH.  

^ And note that while I always like to hear from someone about OUTLAWS which is one of my undervalued titles, ahem, which is to say it has never sold tremendously well, it isn't fantasy.  Well, it's probably fantasy to a historian.  Maybe the person who wrote me about OUTLAWS, aside from being seriously not of this planet, is a historian.

‡‡ Supposing I can find one.  I should have at least half a dozen left.  Somewhere.

SUNSHINE

 

So, anyone who maybe has a life, or some remnants of old-fashioned focus, and who doesn't obsessively check their Twitter feed every [ ] minutes, may not be aware that 

***SUNSHINE MADE NPR'S FINAL TOP 100 BEST SF&F BOOKS***

It's # 92 but, as I said in my original tweet, ask me if I care.  It's in the top hundred!  IT'S ON THE FINAL LIST!

Squee squee squee squee squee squee etc, in a manner highly unbecoming to a cranky (pink-addicted) 59-year-old hellgoddess.  I'm sure if Tolkien were still alive he'd be saying, oh, number one again?  YAAAAWN.  Pass me the teapot/chocolate biscuits/single malt Scotch/knitting needles.*

            But I don't get on this kind of list.  Aside from the fact that I'm in that vanishing minority of writers who do manage to make a living** at this story-telling lark***, I'm a fairly small deal.  Yes, I've been on the NYT best seller list just often enough that my publisher gets to plaster it on all of my books, but the NYT best seller list doesn't necessarily mean as much as you probably think it means.  Uncle George and the Lawn Mower of Doom could get on the NYT best seller list on a slow week.  I was amazed and delighted enough to be visible (as well as popular) enough to have got on NPR's long list and while sure, I was out flogging everyone who reads me anywhere on line to go vote for SUNSHINE, after the flurry was over I'd put the whole thing firmly out of my mind because I wasn't going to make the final list.  When it was so long ago that I wasn't going to be disappointed any more I'd go have a look at what/who did.

            And then I signed on this afternoon—and the ME is not in a good mood, so it was pretty well taking me both hands and a hellhound or two to press the necessary buttons—and found a sheaf of congratulations in my Twitter feed.  WHAT?!?

            Beam beam beam beam beam beam beam. 

So I thought, what better excuse for a tiny restrospective?   SUNSHINE through the ages.  Er.  Through the last almost-decade anyway.†   Some of these you've seen before.  But hey.  I'm in a laurel-resting mood. 

And yes, those probably are bats flying around. Sssssh.

The original US cover illustration is still my favourite.  (The original mass market paperback used the same art.)

 

Tag lines. Gah.

Have I shown you the ARC before?  'A mesmerizing novel of supernatural desire'?  What?  I like the I-stake though.

That's my chair, and if you think you see a pink iPhone bag hanging off one side and a pink iPad bag hanging off the other . . . you'd be right.

The British went all architectural.  The one on the right was the original art—and has to be one of the ugliest jackets ever designed.  The first try at the house looked like the little house on the prairie gone horribly wrong.  This one looks like it's going to be about a suicidal housewife.  They finally decided not to use it, and we ended up with the one on the left.  I liked this one—I thought it was atmospheric—but Merrilee felt it didn't have that pick-me-up! quality—and evidently she was right, because it sold three copies and died.  At least it was a dignified death.  The one on the right would not have been a dignified death.

 

. . . I like the wall.

Then we got to the girl in chains.  Siiiiiiiiigh.  Berkley had tried for a girl in chains for the first edition—the one that became the dark red with chandelier that is my favourite—and while they were futzing around with girls and chains some inspired designer came up with the chandelier just as a sort of throw-off, I think, my editor nailed it, I said YES!, and we were all happy.  But reissues are one of the ways your publisher tries to keep your backlist alive . . . so we came back to the girl in chains.  This one, I'm afraid, is becoming standard:  most of my foreign editions are some version of girl in red dress with chains.  I did at least keep her face out of it—one of my bugbears.  Readers are supposed to be allowed to use their imaginations about what characters look like.  And I did ask them to take the gigantic gravity-defying breasts and gym-bunny arms off the first artwork.  Gah. 

            The right's the American jacket.  Left is the British.

 

Hee hee hee hee hee hee

And now . . . and now . . . I've been saving this for a special occasion.  The Japanese edition of SUNSHINE.  I love this so much.  As I've said (often) I hate having characters illustrated on the covers—but the Japanese comic-art fashion (this isn't genuine manga, I wouldn't have said, unless all Japanese cartooning counts as manga by definition;  this is just fooling around) is kind of a law unto itself.  Sunshine is kind of a snore—what is that weird padded shirt she's wearing, with the round cushions sewn in over the chest—but Con—!  Every time I see this I fall down laughing again.  Con!  My dear!  I'm sure he's rolling over in his, er, grave. . . . 

* * *

*No, actually, I doubt if Tolkien was a knitter.  Or anyway I don't remember any mention of it in Humphrey Carpenter's biography.  But then I wasn't knitting yet myself then, so I might not have registered.  I have no idea if he liked single malt Scotch or chocolate biscuits either. 

** Some years better than other years 

*** And anyone out there who doubts it . . . although I doubt very many of them read this blog . . . yes it is a real job.  Some years better than other years. 

† It does amuse me a trifle that the new sparkly gold edition that was produced specifically to try to grab the YA market is the one that shows up as the cover illustration.  The NPR intro specifically states no horror and no YA:  that those are going to be lists for other summers.  Although this means that I'm even more pleased to be on this list.  SUNSHINE was published as adult, although that lots of teenagers read it is just fine^;  and it is emphatically not horror—I do hate it when it gets shelved in horror, because I feel that the majority of its audience won't find it there.  I still haven't gone thoughtfully through the rest of the list but I've noticed at least one other vampire book, so these list makers do know that vampires don't automatically mean horror:  and good for them.  But I agree with those of you who say yeep, who came up with the blurb?  Did they read the book?  Yes, the blurb is cringe-makingly bad.  But SUNSHINE is on the list.^^  YAAAAAAAY.   

^ And that we should try and sell them a few copies is also fine.

^^ http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books 

 

She's heeeeeeere

 

It's been a somewhat relentlessly exciting day, only some of it in a good way.  Got up in time* to give hellhounds brief hurtle before arrival of Archangel Raphael, bearing . . .

Pink. There's an iPad 2 underneath.

 

 

See? The pink cover folds up into a book/back stand thing. Yes, that would be a rose as wallpaper.

 

Which is the good part of the way of today.  And then everything roared to a halt, because broadband in New Arcadia is a bad joke.  Also because the new pink lovely has already lost her heart to the shiny flash boys at the archangel shop and was less than impressed by my spotty** several-year-old laptop.  I'm supposed to link with THAT? she said. 

            But it was not her fault that I kept queuing up things to download and then the frelling connection would fail and we'd have to start all over again, first reassuring all the various weeping, motherboard-wringing electronic creatures that we still loved them, it was just frelling BT playing silly buggers.  ARRRRRGH.   Most of the Apple-ap stuff eventually got funnelled in*** to my new goddess† but I believe Raphael had been planning to get one or two more things done today than painting himself blue, lighting sage smudges, blowing the smoke and chanting over the BT jack.††

            When we finally got down to the mews at about 3:30 in the afternoon, hellhounds and I both wanting our lunch†††, we found the kitchen full of Oven Door Man replacing the oven door.  There were ovens, doors, tools and men scattered as far as the eye could see.  So I played a little Montezuma. . . .  ‡

      * * *    

* !!!!!!! 

** Why on earth would I want to stop for meals? 

*** I think.  I acknowledge I have not tried to open all of them yet.

            Of the ones that I have opened, allow me to say that Fingerzilla is awesome on the iPad.   Awesome.

Awesome. You can get your whole hand on the screen, thus taking the strain off your wounded forefinger.

            The Treasures of Montezuma . . . well, I'm in the Early Drooling Addict stage, so there was no way I wasn't going to have it on the iPad.  But I loaded the iPhone version—as I might add I had done with Fingerzilla and it was, as previously observed, awesome—and it looked really little and tacky.  So I had a look on Apple aps and discovered there's an iPhone and an iPad version . . . and if you want the iPad version you have to buy it all over again.  I was not amused.  I bought it—and yes, it's awesome—but unless there's something here I'm missing, which is very possible, I think the T of M guys are evil greedy ratbags.  I forgive them if they're turning all their profits over to the World Wildlife Fund.

Also awesome. But expensive.

            I also took a screen shot of Mobel but . . . it's boring.  It's really, really boring.  All you non-ringers out there already think I'm mad.  I'm not going to encourage you. 

† She's been telling me emphatically all day what her name is, and I'm still resisting a little.  Another frelling goddess of sex and war.  Great.  Just what I need.  Thanks so much.  Why can't I have a goddess of lying around reading^ and eating chocolate?^^ 

^ The ritual first Kindle purchase of . . . LOTR. 

I suppose the deep twilight is supposed to emphasise the wonders of a backlit computer screen to read on.

Of course.  Now, anybody out there who uses an ereader as a travelling and back-up plan while still clinging to the space-devouring dead-tree version as the true road to joy and eyestrain, do you have any advice about how to approach the ereader?  How do you decide what to put on it, once you've downloaded half a dozen of your basic comfort reads?  It's all very well loading it up for your holiday, but you've now got a lot of ebooks.  Which if you hadn't bought the weightless+ version you would know what to do with them.   Having read them, how do you store the keepers?  What's the equivalent of putting them back on the shelf?  I don't guess there is a donating-to-the-local-library version, is there?  Which is another long dark shadow on ereader perspective. 

+ Although the iPad is not weightless.  It's—she's—a lovely sleek slender thing, discernably slenderer than the iPad 1—having just been fondling Alicia's a few days ago I know this—but she is still not tissue paper and moonbeams.  She is fabulously lighter than an entire satchel full of holiday reading, but she is not something you are automatically going to toss into your knapsack every morning.

          Also at the moment there is the matter of her cover.  Raphael has warned me that I need something for her glossy silver back end as well as the pink cover for her screen, or the glossy will not stay glossy.  At the same time . . . there's no point to having a motto permanently obscured by a protective layer.

Tea. Hope. Apple. Shiny.

  The only answer is a knitted iPad bag.  I'm sure Ravelry has a pattern.  Meanwhile I am using Mrs Redboots' excellent pink carryall as presented to me at the London signing a few weeks ago, which, I have to say, has a slight whiff of the 'made for nought else' about it, except in the matter of bulk.  She's really not going to fit in my knapsack like that—but I feel I do not have to rush to knit an iPad bag with this handsome alternative available.

 

Also pink. Made for each other.

^^ In my struggle to offer her an alternative she might not despise, I tried to look up goddesses with bats as a totem animal and couldn't find any.  I think it's too late for the iPad, who is lying there giggling, but I'll have something else that needs a name some day, and if anyone has better Google fu than I do+ any discoveries would be welcome. 

+ that would be most of you.  

†† ::mythological perplexity alert:: 

††† 'Wanting' lunch is of course relative in the hellhounds' case.

‡ Drat.  I thought I might be getting over the Early Drooling Addict phase—my great saviour, as I've told you, about games, is that I'm so terrible at them.  It's easy to lose interest when you aren't getting anywhere.  I'd been stuck for several days on Pooka . . . and on the iPad I suddenly shot up three more levels.  Oh, frell . . . .

 

A night semi-off

 

I need a night off.*  Which is also to say I've been working late.**  So I thought I'd leave you with two really excellent articles . . . and four books recommended for reading while lying on the sofa with hellhounds.  Or equivalent.  A hammock in the garden on a day like today was here would also be good.  Supposing you have a large enough garden to hang a hammock in.

            I keep thinking, as I have my regular fits of I-spend-too-much-time-on-the-blog anguish and head-clutching***, that one of the things I should do is instate round-up blogs of my favourite links/titles/sillinesses of the week.  The main drawback to this is that it requires prior planning.  I tend to fall into the blog head-first, last-thing†, and have to clutch at any straw immediately available.  As it happens in my hastily-hitting-a-few-high-spots belt through Twitter today I not only clicked through to but read two equally fascinating but otherwise utterly dissimilar articles.   Anyone who didn't catch them on my retweets—either because you are wise enough not to be on Twitter, or because in your hurrahing through your own feed you decided you didn't have time—I recommend them now.  The first is on the friendship between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas, which I knew nothing about—certainly not that it had been this important, crucially important to both of them.  But as I also said on Twitter, while I realise this is an excerpt from an entire book, and it must have been a complete ratbag for the poor author to try and decide which sliver of his book to use for the article. . . .  I would have liked a line about Frost's wife, and possibly their children, and what they made of Frost's executive decision to move to England—it's a major undertaking, as I have cause to know.  The only thing we hear is that she was doing the ironing while Frost flipped the coin that was to choose their future.  Yeek.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/29/robert-frost-edward-thomas-poetry

The second one . . . I assume all of you know about the riots inLondon, and that they've spread to other cities.  Here's a link about it: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499

I've been listening to and reading the news with distress—and fear—and disbelief—this is England.  Oh, I know the UK has a long history of social unrest, plenty of it violent—but the caricature of the reserved, self-deprecating 'mustn't complain,' 'keep calm and drink tea,' Brit is also based on truth, and it's the truth I'm more acquainted with.   Most of the usual-suspect commentators and the media interviewers and so on are going with the 'mindless violence' and 'criminal youth' line.  Here's another view:

 http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html?spref=fb 

* * *

And now in the fine tradition of fiddling while other people burn, four cheerful page-turners: 

MAGIC BELOW STAIRS by Caroline Stevermer is a younger-reader spin-off from the SORCERY AND CECELIA books.  From the back flap:  'This book takes place after events in THE GRAND TOUR and before THE MISLAID MAGICIAN.'  (Hint:  Lady Schofield is pregnant.)   And here's a link to Stevermer's web site, where you can read more about it:  http://members2.authorsguild.net/carolinestev/   It's just out in paper, but I'm not seeing any flags for a sequel.  Everybody writes sequels these days. †† 

PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White.  I knew I had to read this one when Jodi told me—a long time ago now:  you know by now I'm slow—about the heroine's pink rhinestone-studded taser:  'Tasers are a one-size fits-all paranormal butt-kicking option.  Mine's pink with rhinestones.  Tasey and I have had a lot of good times together.'  You can read about the series here—the second one, SUPERNATURALLY, is out now, and the third one comes out next year:  http://kierstenwhite.com/paranormalcy_series 

KNIFE by R J Anderson.  You can read an excerpt here:  http://browseinside.harpercollins.ca/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061554742    From the front flap:  'Deep inside the great Oak lies a dying faery realm, bursting with secrets instead of magic . . .'  And a few pages in:  ' . . . The full-length mirror on its carved stand was the one lovely object in the room, a relic from the Days of Magic.  It had belonged to the previous Seamstress, who was Bryony's own egg-mother and namesake, and Bryony had spent many hours in front of it, whispering secrets to her own reflection.  There were no other children in the Oak, so the white-haired girl in the mirror was the closest thing to a playmate she knew.'  I believe three of these are out, and a fourth one to come next year. 

A MOST IMPROPER MAGICK, subtitled:  The unLadylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, by Stephanie Burgis, which is Regency England with magic, and a hoot.  Here's her web site:  http://www.stephanieburgis.com/  The second one, advertised as out the first of this month, is, according to Book Depository, available, and you've got the first three chapters of both books plus a free short story on her web site. 

So, what are you waiting for?  Go slack off.  

* * *

* My iPAD 2 ARRIVES TOMORROW.   You don't seriously expect me to be able to think about anything else, do you?

** Hint:  this is good.   

***I finish the blog and think, hey, where did my evening go?  Oh, never mind, I'll just have it now.  Don't look at the clock. 

† Last theoretical application of brain thing.  I can still cruise yarn and 'read an excerpt of this new exciting novel about zombie roses^/demonic computers^^/flame-eyed hellhounds^^^!' sites.  And I do. ^^^^

^ I have several of these. 

^^ I have several of these too

^^^ Er . . .

^^^^ Plus Montezuma. 

†† Groan

 

Good and bad. And good and bad.

 

I had a totally out of the blue kick in the head business letter about crap I had entirely forgotten about this morning and it's made the whole day look like one of those dystopias where you can't go outdoors any more because of the zombies and the poisoned air and the radioactive swamps.  The kind of business, furthermore, that you can't do anything about—the letter was from a nice honest bureaucrat saying 'I thought you'd want to know this is what happened.'  Well.  I'm not sure I did.  I invested a lot of energy into forgetting.*

            Since I couldn't concentrate on work, and my voice had totally seized up so practising for my voice lesson was less than worthwhile**, I left for said voice lesson early*** so I could stop at WH Smith's on the way and clean out their A6 itty-bitty sketchpad supply.  And they had . . . two.  Two.  They had stacks of gigantic A3 and A2 watercolour pads, but TWO itty bitty drawing pads.  So I went to the nice young man behind the till and asked if there were any more, and the Very Nice Young Man said he'd check the stockroom.  I glanced nervously at my watch, but I should still be okay.  He was gone long enough . . . I should have got out my knitting.  He came back with one more pad and said he'd doublecheck on the computer . . . and the computer crashed.  At this point I could hardly say 'oh never mind I'll come back in February' so I . . . pulled out Pooka and proceeded to text Nadia that I was trapped by a crashed computer at WH Smith and would be there soon.  Another tiny paradigm of the good and bad of technology.  And Nadia even got me singing.  Once I got there.

            Meanwhile, Old Eden practise tonight was on to be a bust.  It's August, everybody's on holiday, and I get tired of phoning round for the same old excuses and/or leaving messages on robot-voice machines so I never know if I'm leaving them in the right place or not.   I was thinking about cancelling but Roger went all gung-ho on me and said we had to get those bells rung, and he's right:  Old Eden's bells are as cranky as they are at least partly because they aren't rung enough.  So I had clawed two more people from the shadows to make five with Niall and Roger and me, and girded myself for going when I would much rather have stayed home†.  We'd just made a mess of ringing up, and ground our way through a touch or two of nothing in particular when Felix showed up.  Felix?  I'd even—madly—asked him yesterday at service ring, when he put in one of his semi-annual appearances, if he could come to Old Eden tonight, and of course he said no.  But with Felix we suddenly had six, and four of them really good ringers, and suddenly the evening improved.††

            Not so terrible a day, then.  And now there is chocolate.††† 

* * *

* Another jolly, uplifting encounter:  Hurtling down Market Street toward the beginning of the footpath.  A woman and her ratbagging Lab have just turned onto it.  The woman leans down, without looking to right or left—if she had, she'd've seen us, but then I suppose she wouldn't have cared—and takes its lead off.  It shoots off, full tilt.  The woman saunters after it, no doubt brimming with the joys of a beautiful summer day in a small Hampshire town.  As we're about to catch her up she meets two friends and they stand chatting.  She has absolutely no idea where the dog is, or what it might be, you know, doing.  Now, what do most dogs do relatively soon after they get out for their walk?  Which is what this one's exuberance was certainly suggesting was the case here.  They have a crap, right?  I passed the idiot woman and her friends, rounded the corner and there was the dog . . . having a crap.  I nearly went back and shouted at the woman, but I didn't.  We rounded the next corner . . . and I was busy picking up an offering from Darkness when Idiot Woman and her dog came round it after us, the dog prancing gaily, and of course Chaos shot over to talk to her, hit the end of his providentially-and-foresightfully-cranked-in-to-halfway lead and . . . I haven't yet fallen in the crap I'm trying to pick up, but it could happen some day.  I yelled, Chaos subsided^, and the woman, looking supercilious, prepared to walk past us vulgar peasants.  I said, loudly and clearly, Your dog sh*t in the path back there, by the stream.  She said, What?  At the time I thought she was just being a jerk, but in hindsight I think she was reacting to my language.  Ha.  Granted I am extremely foul-mouthed anyway, but I use the word 'sh*t' for, uh, sh*t.^^  I say 'crap' when I remember to, and I usually do remember to, but I was not in a good temper, and . . . I carefully repeated exactly what I had said before, a little louder, since she seemed to be having trouble hearing me, and gave her more exact details as to where she could find that which she was responsible for.  Then we'd better go have a look, she said, grandly, and swept away.  —Sure thing, honey, we both know you're going to wait till I'm out of sight and then proceed as before.  Grrrrr. 

^ Mrs Redboots wrote:  It's not so much that they [the hellhounds] are magnificently well-behaved – they are, of course, but – it's that they have been magnificently well-trained! They are Very Good Dogs because they have a Very Good Owner, and that's not something you can say about every dog by any manner of means!

Snork.  You're seriously deluded, but you're sweet.  I do really well in the 'making my dogs a part of my life' and 'besottedness' categories.  Not so well in the 'training' category.  Our greatest virtues are that they are very good natured, and I'm rather skilled in suppression.  Your family's gundogs would laugh themselves silly if they ever met the hellhounds.  I think these guys are the worst trained dogs I've ever had and that's a combination of their—most especially Chaos'—cluelessness+, and my lack of grind.  I do enough grinding on bell ringing and singing and story telling and so on, and . . . I was very interested in Diana in MN's comment a while back about champion obedience dogs whose owner still had to keep a sharp eye on them because there were temptations they could not resist—down here at basic damage-control dog-owner level, that's pretty much how I look at it.  I need to see what they're going to react to before they do.  And your best defence is still your relationship with your critters.  In terms of what's penetrated his brain++, Chaos remains almost frelling entirely unfrellingtrained.  But he's extremely attached to me.+++  

+ Oh?  Were you talking to me?  Do your words have meaning?  No, no, tell me after I chase this leaf.  

++ Brain.  Well.  Whatever. 

+++ And apologies also to Diane in MN, who did suggest 'On the internet no one knows you're a dog' as the motto on my iPad.  I thought about it.  It was on the short list. 

^^ I also punctiliously use the appropriate verb tense.  Punctiliously.  

** The your-voice-is-a-part-of-you is such a ratbag.  I know I've grumped about this before and I undoubtedly will again.  A piano is a piano.  You may play it like a giant anaconda^ with a hangover, but it will still be a piano.  When it's your frelling voice, not only your playing ability goes paralytic under stress, so does your instrument.^^  

^ It's much harder without fingers.  Pity the poor musical anaconda.  

^^ I wonder if anacondas sing?  You don't need fingers. 

*** Nadia has seen/heard it all before.  And it did give me an excuse to be useless at Italian.  Siiiiiiiiiiigh.   

† Sulking optional.  But I'm still not sleeping.  Tired sullen crabby person. 

†† The bells didn't.  But the evening did.  I have now rung Antelope.  I have no idea why a bell method has been named Antelope.  Generally speaking gazelle-like leaps from place to place on the method line are an indication of going horribly wrong. 

††† And possibly . . . Montezuma.  I tell myself that my game crazes wear off pretty fast.  Possibly because I'm so terrible at playing games.^ 

^ Whatever works.

I don't do nearly enough ringing. So I did some extra today.

 

Neither hellhound ate so much as A CRUMB last night at bedtime so—yet again—I went to bed streaming with adrenaline.  I can do the bad dreams.  I don't need to be asleep to have bad dreams.  But actual sleep?  In my . . . er . . . dreams.*

            I finally fell properly asleep seven and two-thirds minutes before the alarm went off, merely to have the joy of being brutally reawakened again.  Tea.  Must have tea.**  Clothing.  Must have clothing.***  Will someone please shut those frelling birds up.  Tottered down road to tower.†  Rang.

            This Sunday I got through Grandsire doubles.  Phew.  Grandsire doubles, for pity's sake, ought to be one of those methods now so driven into my neurons that I could ring it with perfect accuracy while simultaneously dictating rewrites to PEG II.††  That we haven't rung it at practise in some time shouldn't matter.  But I went up there today hyperventilating about the likelihood that (a) we would ring Grandsire doubles (b) I would go horribly wrong again††† (c) I Will Never Ring an Accurate Touch of Grandsire doubles ever again.  Ever.  And then Felix showed up.  Felix and Edward are probably our best ringers.  Edward is coming to practise a little oftener again since his kids are a wee bit older.  Felix we barely see from year's end to year's end, and this makes me want to tear his face off when he does come, because we need him so badly.  He's also Rather Intimidating.  Especially on a Sunday morning.  Especially when, as we're about to pull off, he says things like, mind everyone keep their backstrokes in, especially when the mrgumple frangledammit gzops, and the call takes the five off the back and makes it dance the fandango with the two.  What?  And we're ringing the back six, and I'm on a big enough bell that I can't gaily yank it back into place if I get it wrong, which I will.  AAAAAUGH.

            I don't guarantee my mrgumple frangledammit gzops, but I didn't make any of the kind of errors that make people yell at you.  Automatic pilot is a wonderful thing.  Mine was plugged in today.  Thank you, bell gods.

            Niall, who is mad, but we knew that, rang service, then rang a quarter peal, then went home and had lunch and a nap, and then came round the mews and picked me up to go ring handbells with Titus.  I'd been working.  On no sleep, Grandsire doubles, Felix, and working, I had no discernable brain activity left.  Mrgumple? I said.  Get in, said Niall.  It's okay, I'm driving.

            Niall had told me that Titus is trying to learn Cambridge on handbells.‡  But because of being one-handed, he specialises in the trebles, because they're the smallest and lightest—and it's the trebles that I am learning, to the extent that I am learning, Cambridge.  So, because I was ringing the tenors tonight, I got to ring off a piece of paper.  Yaaaaay.  And it was still hard.  I'm beginning to comprehend, a little, why people like Titus and Esme look at me in astonishment and consternation when I unfold a bit of paper, lay it across my knees, and prepare to ring by what it tells me.  It's happening with glacial‡‡ slowness, but I am beginning to learn handbell patterns by the structure,‡‡‡ and when you're holding the whole wretched thing in your head, trying to look at the lines on a piece of paper is going to make your ringing worse, not better.  However, I have not attained that lofty pinnacle of grasp and discernment yet, and we rang a lot of Cambridge.§  And then Niall had this really helpful idea of ringing not merely St Clements, which is another plain bob family variant, so you're already having to think carefully about which bits are the same and which bits are different, but also to ring College Bob, which is a variant on St Clements and I'm now so confused . . .

            I came home and doodled.

Studies for a doodle of Fast and a dja vine. And a baby dragon.

 

I had a technology failure with my first pink pen, so the colouring is a bit variable.

* I played some more Montezuma.  Hey, I've acquired my first fire totem.  I haven't figured out how to use him yet, but I have him.  I eventually had to go back and read the rules because just blowing stuff up and never winning anything or having new stuff to blow up or anything was getting old.  I admit this doesn't do a whole lot for the adrenaline situation.  Here I'd been thinking maybe I should give up the kick-ass urban fantasy chicklit as too exciting for bedtime reading.

** Where there is tea there is hope.

*** Where there is clothing there is a good chance of not being arrested. 

† Thinking evil thoughts about Bad Frederick.  Thinking that on a Very Low Sleep night half an hour more or less doesn't make much difference, and I could get up half an hour early and go round to Bad Frederick's and pull him out of bed by his hair.  I suppose his mother might try and stop me.^ 

^ And then again she might not. 

†† With the special bell-noise-filtering software that that famous bell ringer Edward Bulwer-Lytton commissioned a while back.  They've been very slow fulfilling the contract.  I've still only got the beta version. 

††† See last Sunday 

‡ I know I've told you that Titus is the one who rings one-handed, but I don't know if I've sufficiently impressed upon you that as these can/could-ring-anything-in-the-tower ratbags go, he's in the upper echelons.  It is rather heartening that he's having a struggle to learn mere Cambridge on handbells.  Note he doesn't like the plain bob family of methods because they're too easy.  Frell me. 

‡‡ Or perhaps, in these globally warmed days, with continental-drift slowness. 

‡‡‡ I call it the story.  Niall stared at me blankly for a minute and then said, oh.  Yes.  It is kind of like a story.  —He might have been humouring me but I actually think he wasn't. 

§ And if I now find that focussing on the lines for the tenors all evening has messed up my half-learnt story of the trebles, I am going to be cross.

Aspects of the Magnificence of Hellhounds

 

Hellhounds are such ridiculous creatures.  But cute.  Fortunately.  When we were out on our morning hurtle today we met Penelope walking home with her Saturday shopping.*   We began to discuss bell ringing personalities** and what it is to be a bell ringer and have a life.  Penelope is better about the having-a-life than I am:  she's not an obsessive.  She has perspective.***  She even made the shocking remark that while she likes ringing some of what she does is only to Support Niall.†  She does not lie awake nights wondering why she can't ring Stedman Triples yet.†† 

            Anyway.  There was so much to say about ringing and personalities that hellhounds and I accompanied her the rest of the way, and she invited us in for a cup of tea.  Well, the hellhounds got water.  I got tea.†††  Niall was home so we all sat round drinking tea.  I sat on the floor, the better to suppress hellhounds, who are not accustomed to the excitement of visiting other people's houses, but they're reasonably willing to collapse in heaps as long as I'm there too.  And in fact I often do sit on the floor:  as long as there's a carpet between me and the cruel reality of floorboards or tile I may very well prefer sitting on the floor.  It gives you a better excuse to fidget, and I'm a fidget.‡ 

            But after we'd discussed ringing, books, film‡‡, opera, food, gardening, the state of the global economy and chickens‡‡‡, I needed a pee before hellhounds and I started home.  This meant hellhounds had to stay where they were for the sixty seconds or so it would take me to bolt to the loo and back again.

            They stayed.  Although they were in their best Ancient Hellhound God Lying Down Posture when I reappeared, where nothing on this mere mortal earth can maintain the curve of their bellies, their long straight necks have disappeared into the sky, and their bright beaming eyes are in danger of making holes in the walls.  They are so cute.§  Of course when I said what good dogs, they broke and threw themselves at me.  But that's okay.  They're my hellhounds. 

* * *

* Er, wow.  I'm willing to lug a certain amount in a backpack, but even aside from the fact that if I'm on foot I probably have leads in both hands I hate carrying shopping bags farther than to a nice, nearby car park. 

** MMMPHRRRGGGLMMMMPH.   The stories I could tell. . . .  But I won't.^ 

^ No.  I'm going to tell one story because it presses my buttons.  One of our teenage learners pretty much only shows up when he doesn't have a better offer.  This is disappointing but fairly standard, and kids are worth putting the time in on because if they come back to it later, when their kids are half grown and they start having the occasional free evening, they pick it up so much faster^—also, simply having ringing registered in their minds as something that is out there to do, so they might come back to it, is worth some effort. 

            Last night our, um, Bad Frederick appeared for the first time in months.  He rang some perfectly respectable call changes and we were all telling him how glad we were to see him and how if he'd just keep coming we'd get him started again on plain hunt . . . and then he pulled out some papers he wanted Niall to fill out and sign for him.  I didn't register if it was school or scouting or the Duke of Edinburgh or what, but the point was that he'd shown up merely to get his certification from the ringing master that he does, in fact, ring bells.  We all blinked a bit at the blatancy of it and Vicky said encouragingly, you should come on Sunday mornings, you'll get more time on a rope because we always need ringers on Sunday mornings and it's time on a rope you need to consolidate what you can do.  (Bad Frederick is a walking-distance local, like Niall and Penelope and Vicky and me—and Monty, who is Bad Frederick's age, but still manages to show up most Friday nights and Sunday mornings.).

            Oh, I'm never awake that early, said Bad Frederick, and disappeared down the ladder.

            Vicky knows Bad Frederick's dad.  In this particular case I jolly well hope the brat catches some heat. 

^ Insert the grinding of teeth here of a 59-year-old woman whose early experience of ringing when she started again six years ago was from when she was 48.  

*** You'll notice that even my doodles are low on perspective. 

† Penelope is also Niall's not-so-secret weapon when he's so desperate to scrape together another handbell evening at his house that he tries to put the persuaders on me.  Penelope is making a cake, he says.  I'll be there, I reply.  

†† Because we haven't got the band.  Next question. 

††† And the winner of the free doodle is . . . blondviolinist, who clearly knows me better than I realised, for 'where there is tea there is hope'.  The funny thing is that Annagail's guess, which is the very next one on the forum thread, was the followup:  'Ever try. Ever fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'  Annagail said:  I've never been able to decide if that quote is depressing or inspiring. Or both. But it's a good one for days when it just Ain't Workin.  Yes.  Agree.  Which is probably why 'where there is tea' won.^  But as words I do live by, 'fail better' are probably nearer the mark, I'm just not sure I want my iPad reminding me every time I pick it up to play Montezuma or Fingerzilla.  Which is also why 'I love deadlines, I love the whooshing sound . . .' didn't get chosen:  I really don't need that one reinforced every time I pick it^^  up to play Montezuma or Fingerzilla.

            It's funny about 'fit' because all your guesses were good ones.^^^   But I have an anxious enough relationship with my ability to write my stories down, I don't want to bring going after things with clubs into it, although he's right.  And 'people say life is the thing, but I prefer reading' has been true all my, er, life, and is the personal entropy I have to resist.^^^^  Of course I wouldn't put any quotes up that I don't like, but you lot seem to have figured out which ones are close to my bone.  Hmmmm.  I wonder if I should worry . . .

            Now then, blondviolinist, if you would be so kind as to tell me what doodle you would prefer?  A knitting violin?^^^^^

^ Also, Raphael voted for 'tea'.  I was holding up ORDERING MY iPAD by my indecisiveness. 

^^ She'll need a name.  But I'll wait till she arrives. 

^^^ I'm a little surprised no one suggested 'On the internet no one knows you're a dog.' 

^^^^ There are weeks when entropy wins.  Herein lies the magnificence of hellhounds.  Peter understands the need to disappear out of reality.  Hellhounds don't.  Hellhounds think that a few hours on the sofa are excellent and should happen more often.  But they then want to get up and do something.  Hurtle.  Interact.+  Stare at the food in their bowls.  Enough with the reading, say hellhounds. 

++ An interaction:  Seen coming toward us a black-and-white streak of border collie, head low and ready for business.  I hate low-headed streaking border collies:  they bite.  They don't bite hard, but they can nip hell out of your ankles and cause distress and consternation among hellhounds.  FRELL, I said, and left the path, hoping she would decide that honour is satisfied and streak past.  Forlorn hope:  border collies are all about herding.  Sheep substitutes that leave the path are all part of the day's work.  She shot up to us . . . and flung herself at the hellhounds' feet, tail wagging furiously.  Oh, her owner did eventually show up.  Gah.  

^^^^^ Caveat.  If you want something outré, you have to let me post it first.  Always Looking for Blog Material. 

‡ This may be one of the reasons I like handbells.  Organised fidgeting.   I can sit in a chair if my hands get to twitch and wriggle.  Handbell tea breaks at Niall's house . . . I sit on the floor.  Very nice carpet they have. 

‡‡ Including Penelope's new film society, which starts up this autumn.  Stay tuned.  She's another one who has a little trouble with the 'copious free time' concept.  

‡‡‡ Penelope has chickens.  And one of them is sitting on eggs that are due to hatch in about a fortnight.  Little cute fluffy yellow cheeping things with wings!^  Yaaaay! 

^ Except for the yellow part, you might mistake them for bats. 

§ Speaking of little, way too cute, and bats, abigailmm posted this:  http://daannniix.tumblr.com/post/3466796413/baby-pipistrelle-bat   Is it possible to be any cuter?  Awwwwwww.

 

Aaaugh, chirp, clank, etc

 

Sooooooo . . . last night we went back to the cottage with me humming a little tune* and thinking no harm, like the lady going downstairs with Long Lankin standing behind the door.**  And then Chaos wouldn't eat his final meal.***  Would.  Not.  He's missed so many meals this last hot week that he's visibly lost weight, and yeah, I'm hyper, but I have reason to be hyper, you know?  And this wasn't anything about the weather, which has eased, and was equally visibly all about that cheese strudel† he calls a brain.  Which is when his not-eating gets dangerous.  AAAAAAUGH.  Adrenaline spike. 

            He did eat.  Finally.  It took about an hour.  By which time—since we started kind of late—there was quite a lot of light coming through the curtains†† and the blasted birdies were out there chirping away.  OH SHUT UP.  And I was so turbo-charged I couldn't sleep.  Of course.  So I lay in bed staring at the canopy††† and thinking cranky thoughts . . . and then I sat up in bed, reached for Pooka, and downloaded The Treasures of Montezuma‡ from the frelling ap store and started blowing things up.‡‡  This is all Alicia's fault.‡‡‡  She has an iPad, and I requested a tour.  It's lovely.  I want one.  I knew that.  I have to say they do kind of weigh, and my knapsack is already violating the Geneva Convention on how much a 59-year-old hellgoddess with bad knees can be expected to carry around on a daily basis . . . but I want one anyway.  She has Treasures of Montezuma.§  It looks better on the big screen.  And . . . this just in.  Raphael rang me this afternoon, and: 

MY IPAD 2 IS ARRIVING NEXT WEEK.

 

With a pink fold-back cover.  And a motto to live by,§§ which is one of the sillier extras available on the 2s.  And I will finally have an ereader.  And we'll see if I use it, and what for.  I think I probably will use Montezuma.§§§

            And then, at tower practise tonight# 

I GOT THROUGH A COMPLETE COURSE OF CAMBRIDGE MINOR WITHOUT BEING YELLED AT.  I EVEN DID THE FRELLING PLACES!  I EVEN DID THE FRELLING PLACES WITHOUT GOING TO PIECES IN RELIEF AFTERWARD!##

            Unfortunately I can see the light in Niall's eye from here.  He's going to expect me to do it on handbells.  

* * *

* Not in Italian.  Sigh.  I'm pretty good on Sebben Ratbag so long as I don't have to sing the words.  Can't I go back to Vaughan Williams—?  No, no, I want Italian.   I can stop here^ but I want Italian.   

^ I can certainly stop here 

** http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/steeleyespan9934/longlankin430075.html

. . . There was blood all in the kitchen

There was blood all in the hall

There was blood all in the parlour. . . . tra la la la la

***  I've told you this, right?  Sighthound digestion is peculiar anyway because of that aerodynamic body which doesn't leave a lot of room for guts, and of course my guys are on the extreme end of digestive mayhem anyway.  I feed them three times a day because small and often is better than one or two big meals—and also because I feel, somewhat hysterically, that it gives me a better chance to help them maintain a habit of eating.  Breakfast is not worth the struggle—I still wish to have some life of my own—so they get lunch, dinner and supper, or lunch, supper and a final snack, the last some time in the wee hours. 

† You know that 'strudel' comes from the German word for 'whirlpool'?  The Dog with the Wet Spinning Brain. 

†† Very early morning light is weird.  I love that long golden afternoon light, but dawn has an end-of-the-world-as-you-know-it, this-is-not-the-world-it-was-at-sunset-yesterday quality to it.  Maybe that's just the effect of coming at it from the wrong end.  Many, many years ago when I lived on the horse farm I used to like summer dawn.  

††† And not listening to the miniature pegasi^ colony that lives in my walls.  I think—I think—they may have broken up early this year, and gone their various ways.^^  But I need mosquito netting by next May. 

^ One of the tangential things I love so much about that NPR story I posted last night is the oddness of the 'group' of moles, cows and horses.  And bats.  I keep saying pegasi are not flying horses.  But they may be cousins to bats.  Like we're cousins to chimpanzees.+ 

+ Apparently bats and primates have a common ancestor near enough to, you know, count.  After the we-all-crawled-out-of-the-primeval-ooze stage where we're all related to everything. 

^^ Which may explain why I'm seeing my first blackfly of the year.  Which seems to me rather ungrateful.  They could have left a squad to keep my garden patrolled. 

‡ http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/1323/treasures-of-montezu/index.html 

‡‡ What? you say.  Has Fingerzilla been supplanted?  Well, aside from the endless stream of updates that refuse to download, my city-razing finger is out of action and it's just not the same with a different finger. 

Mrs Redboots wrote: 

I don't think I knew you'd damaged your finger, did I? Poor you, fingers hurt worse than most things. Hope it heals fast. 

            This is from last Sunday when I Fell Down and lacerated the landscape with language, of which Ajlr wrote: 

"I was in no mood to appreciate it at the time, but when we got to the top of the hill there was a woman with three small children attempting to hide in the shrubbery. I think she heard me. . . ."

O.O Seeing/hearing a hellgoddess manifesting only 100 metres or so away would alarm most of us.

I keep forgetting that when my true avatar emerges the forked pink lightning tends to frighten the natives.  But the really annoying thing is that having had precious little to show for my adventures^, today my ex-eggplant knee turned bright daffodil yellow.   I knew there was something still going on because I still can't kneel^^ but really the arnica may have done too good a job:  the eggplant stage lasted less than a day.  How am I supposed to wring pity from bystanders like this? 

            Meanwhile, I have no idea what the Treasures of Montezuma is supposed to, you know, be about.  There's a female archaeologist and a mystery.  I don't care.  I just want to line up the artefacts and watch them explode.  Mmmmmm.

^ Fiona was ill-considered enough to remark that she was expecting something more spectacular.  I forgave her because of the New Project Bag.  

^^ . . . without screaming 

‡‡‡ MomPaula wrote:

I think Alicia should give us a guest blog on disastrous handbells evenings! I think I would have loved to be a bat peering through a crack that night!

 Alicia replied:

Mwahahaha.

YESSSSSSSSSSS.  I will put up with (almost) any indignity for a guest post!^ 

^ I am forwarding a list under separate cover of all the things you are not allowed to mention.  You didn't get down on your hands and knees and look under the furniture, did you?  Or measure the depth of the heaps on/around my desk?  And you're really not going to sue me for acts of violence perpetrated by certain rosebushes? 

§ She also has Cut the Rope http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1gf5UdYHwg but I have enough guilt.  I can't deal with it when I miss, and the monster doesn't get his candy and goes all sad.^  Besides, I'm sure it's really bad for his teeth.^^ 

^ And I usually miss.  I'm a really hopeless gamesplayer.  

^^ Yes.  I think it's a boy.  

§§ Hee hee hee hee.  It's one of the quotes that circulate through the blog's quote box.  Free doodle to the first person who guesses which one.  Hee hee hee hee hee.  

§§§ And Fingerzilla on the big screen??!  Be still my heart. 

# Which generally speaking was not one of the great ones in recent memory.  It's still way too hot to be wedged into a small ringing chamber with too many other people—and we were heaving tonight—and I haven't had any sleep to speak of in most of a week and it shows. 

## For the sake of full veracity let me add that it was not a beautiful full course.  I can follow the blasted line and count my places accurately, but that doesn't mean I can ring my accurately counted places accurately.  If you follow me.  Clank.

Thursday night is handbells

 

I have just put Alicia in a taxi.*  It has been an eventful day.**  You know about how I slept badly and thus overslept and have been rushing around to catch up, right?  We can take that as read.  As part of the rushing I was sweeping the kitchen floor again this morning and muttering.  I sweep the kitchen floor at least once a day*** on account of all the creatures that live with me, which include not merely my exuberant brace of four-legged hair factories, but a lot of geraniums.†  I love geraniums, they're such triers, but crumbs are they messy.††  Whose stupid idea was it to have handbells at the cottage?†††

            It has cooled off again so we had a more hurtle-like hurtle this morning, acknowledging the fact that it was also raining, so hellhounds were motivated to keep moving—the end of the rain must be just right up there—yes—no—okay, not quite here after all, then there . . . .

            And then I was so dazzled by hellhounds eating their lunch as if there was no problem and had never been a problem‡ that we left a little late to pick Alicia up at her hotel‡‡ and had barely got back through the door of the cottage again when Niall showed up, eyes and teeth gleaming, with a large bag of handbells over his shoulder.

Alicia had posted to the forum:

Alicia, gods help me, is coming to visit this week . .

This is known as being between a rock and a hard place: if she doesn't pick up those handbells, I'll eat her.

Wow! There's nothing like knowing that a friend a) is looking forward to one's visit and b) has prepared a gentle and enjoyable addition to the visit, is there?!

. . . and I had carelessly not got round to answering:  But Alicia, I'm so looking forward to torturing you with handbells!!

           —And then we were a disaster.‡‡‡  Gemma's only a beginner herself, and she arrived late, by which time Colin and Niall and I had proved that there was no hope for any of us, and Alicia is no doubt doing a general email right now to all of you saying, Pssst:  it's all a big hoax.  These people can't ring handbells at all. 

           We couldn't, tonight.§  When the others left and I prepared to creep out in a humiliated sort of way to re-hurtle hounds, Alicia, having (for some inexplicable reason) declined to accompany us, declared her intention to explore my garden.

           No, I said.  Forbidden.  You can pretend the glass has been blacked out, and a handbell-ringer-eating monster§§ lives out there.

           Alicia looked at me.  Give me some secateurs, and I'll do some deadheading, she said.

           DONE! I said, leaping to throw open the door.

           It's okay though.  (I think.)  Peter had roasted a very nice chicken for supper.  And I did point out to her that she needs to tell her company to stop having meetings in Hampshire on Thursdays.  Thursdays are handbells. 

           I'll keep it in mind, said Alicia. 

* * *

* I offered to stay sober and drive her back to her hotel!   I did offer!^

^ Ah, what it is to have an expense account.

** Especially the part about the hellhounds eating.  Especially especially the part about Chaos eating.

*** Not very well.  But I do sweep it.

† Also begonias, although they are generally not quite so fiendish.  But I do have a trailing one up at Third House which DESPITE weighing her pot down with several medium-sized boulders—there's barely room for the begonia any more—will keep leaping off the porch shelf and prostrating herself on the floor.  You know, trailing plants are supposed to trail.  What exactly are garden-plant breeders thinking of when they breed a modest little something whose trailing flowers are the size and weight of watermelons?  They're like bulldogs that can't breathe or basset hounds that keep treading on their own ears.  Plants like this should at least come with a warning label 'only put in a container you can nail down.'  And while you're at it, you need to tie the frelling plant in place.  I stopped having trailing begonias in hanging baskets when they started ripping themselves out of the compost to plunge to their doom.  I have now roped the runaway begonia at Third House to the window latch, which usefully has a little hole to thread twine through.^

^ Remind me to tell you the adventures of my latest stephanotis.  I sometimes think houseplants are as mad as hellhounds.  It's like bringing them indoors is the step of domestication too far.  Not that my garden plants aren't mostly possessed by demons.

†† One of their least appealing aspects is that all those tiny individual petals weigh nothing and therefore get caught up in all the spider webs^ so I have these eye-catching cascades of pink-embellished gossamer flowing down the corners and under the furniture.^^

            And when I have both spiders and bug-eating bats, why do I still have clothes moths??  I haven't found someone yet who speaks spider fluently enough, but I did think it was in the final contract with the bats.^^^

^ I told you I didn't sweep well. 

^^ Although if you're down on your hands and knees peering under my furniture, you have a more serious problem than my housekeeping.

^^^ Speaking of bats, Diane in MN sent me this link:  http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=138953002&m=138962547

It's about vampire bats.  It's only three and a half minutes long and it's pretty interesting, so do listen to it.  You want to make it through to the end, where they're talking about bat DNA.  You remember, right?, because you read it right here, that bats are not flying rodents.  They're their own order, Chiroptera+.  Well apparently they're not even closely related to rodents:  they're nearer moles, cows and horses++, and so rather than flying mice you want to think of them as tiny flying horses. . . .

            ::falls down laughing::

+ A word that, six months ago, I could only half-remember and certainly couldn't spell without looking up.

++ Moles, cows and horses seem to me a trifle strange as a group, but what do I know?

††† . . . Niall's.  Penelope is a little handbell-resistant.  The unexpected drawbacks of having your own house separate from your husband's. 

‡ 'Please sir/madam, I want some more.'

‡‡ Alicia looked perfectly calm and unperturbed as I pulled up, although she would be forgiven for a certain moderate anxiety.  She'd sent me the details of her hotel, let's call it Chatsworth, and I thought, what?   I thought I knew all the hotels around here but I've never heard of that one.   So I looked it up and discovered it was what I know as Chartwell, and they'd renamed it.  So when I helpfully texted Alicia that I'd be at Chartwell at the arranged hour, she texted back . . . Chartwell—?

‡‡‡ Possibly very slightly in my defense my Damaged Forefinger started throbbing aggrievedly and I had to figure out a Strange Weird and Distracting way to hold the bell in that hand.  And this typing with seven instead of eight fingers has got old. 

§ Although the chocolate biscuits were rather good.

§§ Who would have been perfectly justified in eating us tonight, and thus keeping the handbell bloodlines pure.