C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 60

Raccoons. My neighbor sees ‘em…

It’s possible. I didn’t see any tracks. We also have a new black Persian-type kitteh out and about, so I’m not 100% sure. Jane went out and heard a furious scramble of something large or at least noisy getting over the back fence, where the garage hides it.

I went out and took a cannister of black pepper out and about the pond. We don’t have any coyote urine in stock. Hope this solves it. Meanwhile the pump had blown its hose out again, and I put it back, which requires some gymnastics.

And the new sandals just paid for themselves: while applying the pepper to the pond rim, I reached too far, put my foot wrong at the top of the berm, caught-balance, turned, and had to take a few downhill running steps over the basalt rock rim and onto the concrete, where I fetched up against a patio chair, still standing. My balance has been critically, dangerously lousy for a couple of years, one reason I’m not on the ice, and by golly, with these sandals, I’m rusty at a run like that, but I didn’t fall on the soft dirt or the jagged basalt or face-plant down on the concrete patio. I was surprised all the way down that I was still on my feet.

Yesterday…

…was a bit of a haze.

The night before, Jane and I and Lynn blasted numerous waves of undead (Guild Wars 2) and then Lynn, on the East Coast, went off sensibly to bed, while we, on the West, decided to watch a little TV.

Jane and I discovered, on Tivo, the Hell’s Kitchen finale and 2 hours of the Project Runway beginning, plus a new opener of Who Do You Think You Are and a Nova Special on the Australian Silurian.

Well, thank goodness we only watched Hell’s Kitchen and Project Runway, and checked the clock.

I stayed awake way past my witching hour, and once that happened—well, I think I measured my actual sleep Thursday night in 15 minute bursts, about three of them. I did not so much as wake up Friday morning as give up and get up.

I didn’t sleep during the day. I just kept going, but I’m certainly going to re-read everything I wrote during Friday.

That very rarely happens. Thank goodness. I felt like a ton of bricks had landed on me. All day. Come evening, I decided to hold out until actual dark, because I didn’t want to get my hours skewed around.

I am glad to report I slept Friday night.

Big, rough storm just to our north, headed for Idaho.

We’re just getting poured upon, uncommonly heavy rain. Usually here, it just mists.

Jane has some hope of straightening out her computer: software guys are suggesting a power management adjustment. Crossing fingers.

The sandals work.

http://www.amazon.com/Orthaheel-Women...

Arrived yesterday. I’d ordered a size 10, which I wear in some Asian-made shoes; but the 10 was too large. I reordered, to get a size 9. The 9 itself is perhaps a little largish. But it’s comfy. It supports. It casts your weight off the inside edge and doesn’t let your ankles collapse inward.

Last night, after wearing these from 3pm until about 6pm, I found the outsides of my legs were working harder than usual, so much so I decided to take Advil as a precaution against sore muscles.

And by evening I’d have sciatic (leg, hip, lower back) pain so severe I’d have to get up and walk around to make it ease off. At night, I’d frequently have it so bad it was hard to get to sleep.

Last night, no sciatic pain. Today, getting up, no pain.

Sandals cost 60 dollars. Jane’s going to try a pair.

They’re sold by Amazon and Zappos, and they come in women’s, men’s, sandals, heels, and tennies.

I don’t know if the relief will last, but it’s sure good right now.

To check if you have a ‘pronation’ issue, just stand with your feet together and look in a mirror. If your ankles are touching, that’s pronation. That means the arch may be holding up, (my arch is just fine and as high as it ever was) but the whole foot structure is tipping toward the inside, throwing your knees and hips likewise into a bad weight distribution, and causing ‘issues.’

Rain. Thank goodness.

It is drizzling rain, which is the best kind. It’s due to rain most of the week. This is real help for the firefighters.

Jane just spent 3 weeks with her laptop in the shop. HP rebuilt it, sent it back, and now it glitches on some software. An attempt at an AMD driver update brought a black screen (literally) and a host of internet info about people with HP Pavilions of that ilk having exactly this problem with the AMD driver update and no fix for it. So now we have a computer with a problem and the suggested fix (a driver update) gave it a new problem atop the other one, as in, the screen goes black and stays black.

AMD turned out to have a fix, involving apparently not tacking some other piece of software onto the driver update, imagine that! but it isn’t a good fix and doesn’t solve the basic problem with the hardware. At one point she cured the black screen problem, got the regular display back, but after about a minute running, it turned brilliant red, unreadable.

I think she got it back to prior state, but damn! this is maddening.

This is a high-powered machine with a solid state drive and a regular, state of the art stuff, and it’s come back from an overheating issue, and what I suspect was a wonky heatsink, which they replaced—with problems it didn’t have before it was sent in.

It was also sent back wiped, which means endless updating of Windows, and a reinstall of programs and data, which takes forever. A reinstall of the afflicted program gave no joy.

It may go back to HP one more time, because it is not behaving as well as it did before the wonky build nearly killed it, and it is under service policy.

We are not happy with this. They replaced everything but the motherboard and the video, and I think maybe they should have just bitten the bullet and said that overheating had also afflicted those, too.

Blue sky again. A little tinged with smoke, but nothing like the orange…

I’m working on the ending of this book.

I need a clear head.

Pul-eeze. Air. Air would be good.

Yesterday I got some work done with a Benedryl and 2 Sudafed.

I think I am going to have to do the same today. I hate to do it. My stomach hates it.

But breathing brings oxygen to the brain.

I am sooooo allergic to wood smoke.

The air is better, but even the cats are cross…

I’m trying hard to work on the ending of this book. I’m ready to write it. But I have no neurons that aren’t affected by this stuff.

The cats are cranky. Impatient. And stupid. Shu nearly killed us both by throwing a body block on my feet as I headed down the hall. He wanted me to go to the kitchen and feed him. Now.

He ended up 3 feet down the hall.

I survived.

We hissed at each other and went our separate ways.

Ode to de Feet…or, well, better shoes.

For good joint health, a little tip—I’ve begun to realize, some time after I’ve ceased skating and gotten a little too sedentary, that my feet aren’t maintaining the stance they had, and they’re causing lower back problems that stop if I pay attention to my foot stance. I tend to wear flipflops during the summer—but—

Your knee SHOULD, as you flex during a kneebend, have the patella (kneecap) go right over the split between big toe and second. As you walk, your ankle should NOT sink inward (particularly true if you have a high arch), but should remain stable, having your weight nicely distributed clear to the outside edge of your foot.

In short, hauling everything back where it belongs can help leg, hip and lower back. The same way a horse has to be well-shod to avoid problems, I hate to say it, people, we as a species are kinda in the same boat.

I’m ordering some flipflops that have a high arch support to the inside, which I hope will correct that. If they won’t, I’ll be looking to wear (shudder) actual shoes.

It’s on one level a silly thing to mention, but a lot of people haven’t had the bennie of a balance sport like figure skating to make you aware how important your feet are, and seeing what a little laxity in stance is doing to MY back, I think it worthwhile to make the suggestion: check the posture and check the ankles. I’m hoping a better shoe will cure some discomfort.

The overflowing catbox blues…

…got sung at us before I started work this morning.

We have very patient kitties.

That got handled.

Editing is reaching uncharted territory and into unwritten territory. That means things go more slowly, with pauses for thought. I wish I could go out and sit by the pond, but it’s still too hot. We have the pink sky that says a forest is burning somewhere…I don’t know where.

Summer in Washington. I hate forest fires season. It’s the forest renewing itself: that’s the way it is. But it makes everything look odd-colored and it makes people wheeze. If we could get a little rain right now it would go a long way toward helping firefighters calm it down.

It was 99 here yesterday, breaking a record for a 3-day stint of high heat. It should cool down this weekend, but they’re also forecasting winds, and that won’t help the firefighters.

Forest fires are why I’m real glad not to live next to the woods up here. We have several towering hemlocks and a lot of trees, but if you’ve got this lovely wooded view on the edge of a town—you can lose it to fire and be staring at bare black sticks for a decade until it recovers. Not mentioning the scariness of wondering if the wind is going to shift and move the firefront in a way that the firefighters can’t fix.

The cost of living up here.

A little heads up re travel within Yellowstone and which ‘gateway’ you might want.

melting roadway in Yellowstone

Not that alarming: they replace walkway now and again, but this one is in the path of car traffic.