C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 69
February 20, 2014
Frosted-sugar morning…snow again
Even the quince branches were covered at dawn.
Now they’ve melted.
But the snow is starting up again.
It’s going to be this way for several days.
I went to the store and got food for several days yesterday. There is a warm fuzzy feeling about having food in the fridge and no reason to take to the roads. I enjoy driving in the snow, but today I want to just stay warm.
Jane says catch Yu Na Kim’s performance on the Ladies’ Skate. Says it’s very special.
I like Gracie Gold’s little commercial about taking the impact of a rodeo performer and the g’s of a fighter pilot. Do not stand near a figure skater starting a spin if they have a bad cold. 
It’s true that you train the ability not to get dizzy. Something about teaching your brain not to be confused.
Our current game has had an Event—unlike games on a disc, the online ones can revise the play map, and disaster has come to Lion’s Arch. [Guild Wars II]. The confusion is so massive Lynn and Jane and I can’t get together on the map and play in our usual way; we just independently charge and bash and fire; and meet afterward in the triage spot. But the loot is interesting. We don’t know what to do with half of it. We all have over-40-level fighters, so we can get access to the fight. The under-40′s don’t want to go there, and poke about the landscape that’s still normal. It’s just a different way of gaming. What I DO like most—no charges for this, no ads, no tricks. I don’t know when the ‘new’ will wear off this, but Jane and I have so needed a mental challenge that also got the adrenaline up.
And otherwise, I’m now headed toward the end of this book.
February 19, 2014
Curtains: it’s curtains…
Actually it’s really curtains.
My room is a wasteland in the decor department. I absolutely refuse to obscure the view from my window with curtains.
But I had an inspiration. I’m getting a double rod for each window, the one I use and the one above my bed that shares a lovely view of the neighbor’s bedroom window (brilliant, builders!) and which has to be kept shaded. A double rod, you may know, has two rods, one for hanging a drape and the other for hanging a sheer.
I’ve ordered two pretty 72″ table runners, the sort that have a nice point and tassel.
I’m going to get some (probably) white sheers at Lowes and cut them fairly short. The window with the blinds gets a full sheer. The other gets only decorative short token fluff at the sides.
I’m cutting the two table runners in two halves. I’m seaming the top so it won’t ravel, and I’m hanging those flat, straight hangings over the sheers as the official drape. It’s a rich alien brocadelike wandering pattern, in pale brown and gold…just sort of like silly string in shiny fabric. And that will give me the finished look, along with the new cabinet that will hold all my working items, from screen-cleaner to notebook and keep my kitty guests (who get over-excited by our garden kitty visitors) from knocking everything down and throwing things in the floor.
I’ll let you know how this works. But 18.99 for a table runner beats what they want for drapes. And may look good, too.
February 18, 2014
As per usual, spammers abound…
Tossed 36 on logon.
As if I’m going to approve-through a guy whose addy is angrybob at sitebomb dot com.
February 17, 2014
Spam detector has run amok and locked out people…
If you are one of them, please let me know via e-mail.
Sheesh, I don’t know what changed, but I’ve, I think chained the thing behind bars.
Please try again.
The pond is melting…
Warm snap. With more snow possibly starting today.
It’s too warm for my liking.
I wish I could ship the weather to you guys who are tired of snow.
We need to apply Preen to the garden paths…but maybe the snow gives us another week or so. It has to be redone several times during the season so we don’t want to be too early.
Can’t see any fishes yet. They’re snug asleep in the dark depths.
Jane’s left the side garage door open for the neighborhood cats—we have a serious mouse problem in the garage, and Frick and Frack were certainly interested in something in there this morning. I hate to be unkind to the mice, but we’ve had a heckuva lot of work and damage occasioned by those fellows, and we sure don’t want them nesting in one of the cars. We had a mattress stored in there a couple of years ago, and they really hollowed it out. The smell would knock a troll over.
Meanwhile Jane’s on track to get her page fixed. I feel badly for that: the crash was my fault, entirely. Her software took serious exception to my effort to get the spammers out of her reg list.
Anyway, it’s too balmy out there.
But it’ll change.
We’re playing GW2 in the evenings, which is great relaxation and a chance to get together with Lynn. We need that social contact.
I have now dieted off all but the last regained pound. Corn, I tell you, is not our friend.
February 16, 2014
Kitteh terrorism…
Shu, the rat, has a habit of hopping up onto the little chest of drawers that sits under my (thank God wall-mounted) flatscreen tv. He’s eyed the narrow 2″ shelf I have on the wall above, with a couple of cheap model sailing ships, since he was a kitten.
Well, yesterday he made the move and jumped to the top of the flatscreen tv, an inch or less wide—before I chased him out.
Today he did the jump for the shelf above before I could stop him and he knocked one of the already battered sailing ships off and behind the bureau.
His name is Mud. Not Mudd. Mud.
We are going to have to re-arrange my room, and Jane and I have consulted and I’m getting an apothecary chest for all knicknacks, small notebooks, pens, pencils, glasses, screen cleaners, glasses case, kitty claw trimmers, DVDs, program discs, screen cleaning implements, keyboard cleaning implements, and random scraps of paper and notes I have around my work chair…So there, Mr. Mud. The bureau under the telly is going to become a rarely accessed storage behind my chair, where I can put stuff I really don’t want to toss but can’t find a use for…and there will be NO route to the tv top and my storm-tossed model tall ships.
February 15, 2014
Ah, me! Up five pounds from 1/4 plate of nachos (with cheese, refritos, and beef and such) and 2 chocolate dipped strawberries each. Wine. Yes. but not that much.
This is where the determined get going and start taking that weight off.
We’re prepared. I have half a salmon in the fridge.
We have blueberries.
We’re going on the ‘grizzly bear diet’. We always lose weight fast on that: big serving of salmon, nice serving of green veggies, blueberry dessert with a little low-carb ice cream. Oddly enough it doesn’t to give the bears a great figure. but we lose on it.
Particularly we try not to ignore temporary weight gain after an Indulgence. We weigh, find out our problem, and do something Else for meals until we’ve shed whatever we gained. This is HOW we don’t regain the weight we lose.
Wuz fun, though!
The somewhat sad thing is that I’m losing my taste for chocolate. It often upsets my stomach and doesn’t taste all that good, even the better chocolate.
WE ended up with the strawberries because we toured Costco the day before Valentine’s. They were good quality. But we went through beset with offers of chocolate on every hand.
The last poor soul assigned to hand out goodies had—wait for it—sections of sardines.
No. We didn’t think so, either.
February 14, 2014
And a happy Valentine’s Day to you all!
Love you guys!
Really do!
February 13, 2014
New photostory—the resin kids…
Pooki and Wiishu go sleddingon Jane’s site. She still can’t take comments, but we’ll get there. You can comment here for her.
Mathematical beauty and art…
There is a REASON why art and music and math all belong in an education, and I would add, the zen of solo sport. Team sports have social uses. But solo sport and these things all together will do things for the brain. Language skills likewise create pathways in the neurons that can also be used for the fusion of disparate ideas we call ‘imagination’ and ‘creation.’
Tell me—when you create, when you see the ocean or a snowy mountain or a flower, or hear a melody or accomplish something physical or imagine a scene in a book or sketch or stitch a pattern or find the balance in something mechanical—doesn’t it kick off a flurry of happy neurons? Does for me!
