C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 42
July 13, 2015
Well, I thought I was going to paint the bridges…
It’s clouded up and rainy. Second rainy day this summer, and it’s on the day I intend to do a job postponed from last year. All dressed up in paint clothes, but no go.
Tomorrow.
July 12, 2015
With the energy saved from the door installation…
…and because I’m now officially sorta almost between books for a few hours…I am painting the two bridges, which have weathered a bit. Got to protect the wood. Got the paint while I was ordering the door, but I’m not painting til tomorrow. I went out with hose and towel and scrubbed the dirt off the 12′ bridge so it will take paint well, and dear me, since it rained yesterday, even at 74 degrees—it feels like a tropic jungle. Can’t take that humidity. I’m waiting until tomorrow morning to tackle the painting!
New storm door…overdue
We tried fixing it—put a lot of work into it. But the thing just wouldn’t hold square. We can haul it into place and lock it, but the effort sometimes requires a lever to push it into place.
So…we decided this is a non-fixable. We’re getting a nice new door with a screen insert that works, and we’re having the dang thing put in for us, which means no muss, no fuss. We may have to build the door out a bit to accommodate the modern pre-hung frame, but, y’know, that’ll just increase the distance to the house door and maybe make it less of a knuckle buster.
We’re real good at fixing things, but we decided that door-hanging a heavy weight of glass and metal is just way more fun than we like.
July 11, 2015
Well, I tried a fish taco…
Atiliano’s, advertising themselves as the best fish tacos in San Diego, showed up in our local shopping center-lette. So being in a rare mood, having just finished book, I decided to give one a try—I took it back to the car to eat, in case it was super-awful: I didn’t want to insult their food by tossing it uneaten and walking out.
Wasn’t at all a bad thing: cod, breaded in bits, with coleslaw and salsa and a sort of sauce, on an open roll-it-yourself mini-tortilla. Unfortunately it came graced with a lot of onion, so it did have to go mostly uneaten, though the three bits I could eat were tasty. But they have a lot of other offerings in the place…if there’s a way to say hold the onions. No cebollas por favor!
It’s been a slow rain all day—exactly what we need!
This will definitely prevent forest fires! Smoky Bear is smiling.
Why is Roman concrete so durable? We may have a clue.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/...new discovery about Roman Concrete
Lake Avernus, the Phlegraean Fields, are something you might remember from history books—or Roman studies: the lake no bird could fly over, the Fields of Fire that figure in Virgil’s Aeneid and the contact with the Cumaean Sibyl, or prophet…
Well, the Campi Flegrei are still active, and it is a European supervolcano, a little removed from Vesuvius, itself a very dangerous volcano.
Woke up to rain…finally!
After the nasty heat—we have a nice little shower this morning, enough to make water run in the street.
Great relief on several fronts: 26% humidity and 107 degree temperatures are a bad combination with evergreen forests. A nice overcast and slow showers rather than a pounding rain that moves fast with lightning strikes and hammers powdery soil are a good change.
July 9, 2015
July 7, 2015
The book is finished!
Now it has to be read for things like hte and wehn…but also for places that really don’t make sense.
Jane has not seen the ending. We are headed out to gather a bit of garden rock from a place we know—and to read while we drive.
