C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 59
August 10, 2014
August 9, 2014
Watching an analysis of the Mary Celeste mystery…
This is the one where a laden two-masted ship turns up floating intact with belongings of captain, wife, and crew left aboard and everybody missing: cargo of alcohol, 9 barrels drained (red oak barrels drained; white oak held intact) and one of two bilge pumps disassembled on deck. Ship had been newly refitted to carry more cargo,given 5 feet more height, loaded to gills with barrels. Cargo intact and stable, hatch covers intact, ship seaworthy.
The finders were accused of piracy and acquitted and given partial salvage rights.
The crew were hire-ons, but average. Two were brothers.
Ship’s boat was missing. Captain, wife, crew, all missing. So was wife’s treasured photo album. Little else.
An island 2 hours’ sailing onward gave an indication of safety they might have wanted to reach.
They never got there.
My question is—if they were so spooked the ship was going to sink, that they would commit themselves to a small boat—they’re going to lose the ship, right? So why not stay ON the ship, which was not riding low, and steer for the island? How bad could it be to rig everybody with flotation, steer deliberately for the shallows on an inflowing tide, and wreck the ship. It had everything they would have needed for survival. Would the crash have been that violent, granted it would be a serious bump, that they couldn’t then head for shore and hope the ship would continue to supply them?
August 6, 2014
Rosetta has caught us a comet!
Well, at least photos of one closeup.
Let’s hear it for good navigation…time was we were just puzzling out how to rendezvous with the moon and get back.
Now we play tag with comets.
August 3, 2014
Continued hot, but we have AC. :)
I am FINALLY through the big difficult scene in the current book, the one that has had me hung up for a month. I must have ten versions of that transition. I like the one I have now.
We had rain twice yesterday, tropic-type rain, not misty, easy Pacific Northwest rain.
But we are getting along.
I’m starting a new Guild Wars character—I’m vastly amused to hear he looks like Hiddleston as Loki. I may not be able to change his clothes for quite a while. He does, with that outfit, and it’s funny.
My eyes are resisting these over-the-counter glasses and they’re giving me headaches every evening. I’ve GOT to make an appointment early next week to get back to the optometrist. Someone remind me, come Monday! I keep forgetting.
Meanwhile the new sandals are splendid. From gimping around hurting all the time, and losing a lot of leg muscle I’d built up skating, I’m not hurting, I’m recovering muscle tone, and yesterday evening I thoughtlessly got up out of the recliner I use in the evenings with both hands full, not using the chair arms at all and with only a little twinge of leg pain. This is epic.
I got a pair of street shoes (blue leather loafers) by the same people, and look forward to winter being able to have actual shoes that don’t hurt.
I also am not as likely to take a fall as I have been. I swear, such a tiny change, and so much difference in my whole bodily balance and equilibrium, and the proper leverage for basic movement.
August 2, 2014
We had a cool night—
Went out to eat last night just after the ac was fixed—to let the place cool down.
Swinging Door has a nice addition to the menu: monster baseball hot dogs, and the Mariner Dog is a chili dog, which is very good.
It was real good to wake to cold air this morning.
Cost us about 300.00 instead of the mammoth bill it could have been. The compressor is fine, and the good news is the system is one of the intermediate-modern ones, so if it does have to be replaced, it will be easier than if it were one of the old freon sort. Even so, they’ve now gone over to something else. And the refrigerant is still evolving.
LINK TO ARTICLE ON UPCOMING AC CHANGES
I think we will wait, hope this repair holds until 2020, and, because an AC replacement DURING summer heat is a pita involving many delays and a lot of sweating, maybe figure that in 6 more years our ac system will have reached a reasonable retirement and just schedule a replacement we can save up for.
As it was, the compressor seems fine and the new fan and capacitor should last a bit, even if it wasn’t the TempStar brand, which no longer has a dealer in the area.
And kudos to our ac repair person.
August 1, 2014
The AC went out. :(
Woke up this morning, and the thermostat was saying 78, the outdoor compressor installation was hot and its fan wasn’t going; the vents were blowing warm air…
And it’s a Friday.
And it’s August. Temperature forecast for today, 98 degrees, much the same over the weekend. I don’t function well above 72.
Not happy campers here.
We have called the excellent company which did our heater installation. They are going to get somebody out here today.
I have a small hope this can be fixed with a compressor fan instead of a compressor replacement. But on a Friday?
July 30, 2014
Arrrgh! Tax report deadline….
…we squeaked in. Or will, when I figure out the state business tax.
Our tax stuff is on a different computer, not the laptops; and we don’t get money in some quarters, so we can forget the date, and we’re always having to count on our fingers (literally—is it January February March April or is it January February March?) to figure when the quarter is (quick, HOW many months in the year? And is the deadline the 15th for the state or the 30th of the month following the quarter or is it the reverse?)
We are not accountants. We are not normally aware what day of the week it is unless it’s trash day; and we don’t know if it’s a weekend, and we don’t know what the date is, and we’re not always sure what month it is; we don’t have a visible clock, for that matter, except on the kitchen appliances, which may or may not be right, and our computers. So when we’re working hard, time gets away from us. And the quarterly reporting cycles—we try to be careful and we try to be on time, but sometimes the notices we sign up for with the state get buried in all the offers for viagra and I don’t always check my e-mail except to weed the junk before it gets epic. We can’t even find the desk surface, at the moment—things we need to file come in, and things we need to create get laid on top of them, and it ends up a multilevel sandwich that has to be sorted, but I’m behind turn-in time on this book and that’s kinda important…
July 28, 2014
Writing, writing, writing…
This book has been a bear. So much is going on.
New low-carb source: Safeway…
…has their own line. Shepherd’s Pie, good; Cashew chicken: needs spice…etc, and we were both hungry after having same, which is not good. But—there’s also an orange chicken sort of thing. The line has promise.
