C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 70
February 12, 2014
Pooki salutes the Flying Tomato
On Jane’s blog.the post!
Burgess Shale bed: new find
New Burgess Shale site not far from the other…and they have better preservation on some specimens. The people who deal with this Cambrian site are excited.
Oh, me, we ‘ave sinned…
We met Joan, had a bottle of wine, they were handing out free pizza slices, and we had a cup of the deadly tomato-basil soup with the even deadlier garlic bread.
We had a good time. They’ve really revised Tomato Street—enlarged the dining area, but they haven’t touched the bar: instead of the bottomless carafe, they’re now offering cheap bottles of blended dinner wine. The 8 foot long tables where perfect strangers may end up joining you at the other end have remained…usually very nice folk, with whom you exchange a few words, then everybody pretends the other isn’t there. It’s noisy—soundproofing is non-existent. But a good time…
We shared a bottle —3 people. And managed to have a not-dinner. And then…somebody ordered a birthday dessert, which is chocolate cake with ice cream and poofy stuff, and a footlong candle in a holder. They couldn’t find the recipient, we were the last table before the kitchen—so the waiter left it on our table.
Oh, my.
This morning we are both muscle-sore: the tomato soup and the onion; and 3 pounds up (butter and garlic and onion). So we won’t do that again any time soon. But it was still fun.
This morning we’re moving slowly, looking forward to getting back on the diet, and the Pineapple Express has moved in with a vengeance, a strong wind out of the southwest that is blowing all the trees clear of snow and warming us to about 38 degrees. So all our nice snow is going to hit the streams and rivers at once, which is not the situation we’d like, but it’s what we’ve got, and at least we got our snow.
I hope it snows heavily at least one more time before March, but we may have seen the end of our winter—usually the last of the winter snow piles melts by St Patrick’s Day. And it may be earlier than that this year.
February 11, 2014
I’m getting very weary of internet kerfluffles.
If you haven’t got something nice or intelligent to say…
Honestly, I so enjoy you guys’ comments and doings. I take breaks from work to relax.
Have I mentioned mahjong is fun?
Our weather, meanwhile, is warming disgustingly. We got six inches of snow and we’re about to lose it all as it turns to rain. Sigh.
We likely will go out this evening with our skating coach Joan if we can get the car out of the drive—the frantic snowplows yesterday and through the night have probably created a heckuva berm out there, which we haven’t yet investigated, and which is probably melting into an ice ridge even a pickaxe can’t breach. We may have to ask Joan to come after us…
The book has taken a turn I didn’t expect. Sometimes the people just go off in their own direction and the writer just takes notes.
February 10, 2014
Bent over to get a scrap of paper on the kitchen floor…
And like a fool hit the dark counter.
I now have a nice lump and not-quite-cut, but abrasion on my forehead. It looks so classy.
I don’t think I’ve ever hit my head hard enough to draw blood and that includes having a badly-nailed 2×6 fall on my head and hit nearly the same spot.
Brilliant, eh?
BTW, I put that new tab up with the Shejicon plans.
February 8, 2014
Seishi caught a prowler last night…big ‘un.
Had a thief try to make off with our snowblower which we had fastened to the front porch rail. It was about 10:30 and dark out there.
Seishi alerted to him, which alerted me to something his ears had heard outside, and I scared the malefactor off by a sudden bang on the window: he went running off across the intersection down the street with an alacrity and body language that says to this former teacher of teens: ‘about 5’7″, about 140 lbs, between 16 and 20, and plays sports.’ My greatest regret is that he didn’t hit a patch of ice on the exit.
He’d done it with forethought, but the cable lock we had on it was tough: he’d cut most of the way through it, but we brought the snowblower in and called the cops, who took the description. It’ll go into the shiny new police computer and factor into where they assign assets.
February 5, 2014
If you are new here…don’t think that the previous is a private party…
…in the sense that there’s an in-group from which you are excluded. All our Wave, Harmonies, and Chaos members are welcome and more. If you get the idea that there is a core group which has done this before, yes, yes, we have done this three times; but we are doing it differently this time—we’ll be hotel-based, centrally located, and we’ll be kind of like a glorified traveling carousel-riding duck-feeding room party, with one barbecue at my place, which is kind of a real small (pray for clear skies) 1954 shotgun Rancher with a (we think) nice back yard with a 5000 gallon koi pond and no grass. You’re very welcome to come. Just join the conversation and let us know, so if we get to planning people-moving, we’re taking everybody into account.
February 4, 2014
The Get-together: the official word
September 5th-8th is the date.
I’ve investigated hotels and deals.
Here’s the plan.
The Doubletree hotel downtown is the big convention hotel in Spokane. It also does a room rate that can be 149.00 for four people, two queen beds.
IF just one person shows up for those 3 days, Jane and I can be nice city hosts.
If a dozen or two dozen show up we have, around that hotel: the Loof Carousel. Duck feeding: bring your own bread. Numerous restaurants within walking distance. Numerous pubs within walking distance. The gondola over the falls. The bridge across the falls. Riverfront park. Wonders of the World inside the Old Flour Mill, which is a gew-gaw shop ranging from the extravagantly expensive to the whimsical and cheap. And various places where, in that season, we can watch the water, feed the ducks, ride the Carousel, and otherwise just sit in the hotel bar or restaurant or somebody’s room and have a good time. You will also be next to the INB, which is Spokane’s live theater: sometimes they have shows. You’re pretty well on your own for booking that, because they’re sometimes Broadway Show prices and we’re not going to try to organize anything.
We’re not doing the kayak and lake cruise this year: that’s also organization and handling money and we don’t propose to do that: we have to write. BUT we will be able to entertain you (everybody on their own ticket! We can’t afford to pay for it), talk, shoot the bull, and if we have enough people with cars or can make multiple 3-passenger trips in the Prius—we can get you to our house for a backyard barbecue in pretty temperate weather, at that time in Spokane, and that won’t cost you anything. We can come and get you at the airport [we also suspect the Doubletree has a bus], meet you at the train station/bus station, and generally use the blog to help everybody coordinate: you can put the discussion in this thread.
We’re hoping to get everyone housed for as little as 38.00 each a night—if you pair up in fours and share…or 50.00 a night if you pair up in twos for the 109.00 room. Food is, well, you can hike all over that area (including a Chili’s and an Azteca next door) and eat either more expensively or far cheaper than there. There’s a very nice sports bar about a 4 block hike away.
Nothing that I can think of will be further than a 4-5 block walk, and if that’s a trial for you, we can figure some way to get you there.
So what we’re proposing is this:
If you group up and reserve rooms now, you’ve got the option to cancel them if your plans change.
We’re setting aside those 3 days. It’s the best choice we can make for our schedule. If one person shows up, we’ll still have a good time, but we really hope a lot of you can show up. If 5000 of you show up, we’re in trouble, and we’ll be contacting the local convention-throwers for helicopter assistance…
Our focus in this is getting together with you guys, as many as can make it. We want to keep it affordable for everybody if you can just get here, we want to be in a period when we can hope for comfortable weather, we want you to have plenty available to do in the area, and we’ll be there to talk, sit about, and generally have a 3-day party.
February 3, 2014
Lynn A informs us Amazon has Hammerfall on at sale price…
…if anybody here needs a copy.
