C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 72

Supernova, second star to the right and straight on to morning…

http://www.iflscience.com/space/star-...

Follow the 2 pointer stars of the bowl of the little dipper, between the little and big dippers about midway…for those of you who WON’T be clouded over until March!

Finally down a pound on the diet…that is…

Down a pound from the lowest I’ve been, period. So all the holiday weight is off, plus one. Jane’s aggravated because she’s not losing at the moment, and we have indulged a bit in low-carb (but not carb-free) ice cream—which, let me tell you, is a new product that tastes better than some real-carb ice cream. The buttered pecan is to die for!) but she’s working on the end of a book, and the rule is that the writer who’s on the end of a book doesn’t worry about diets…so yes, she’ll lose it, just not this week or so.

I found that coffee interferes with my thyroid pills—a new study—and while I don’t pay attention to most such if-you-eat-this-you’ll-die-in-a-ditch reports, my thyroid meds are serious. Well, like most people, I do wake up midway through the night pretty predictably, so I just take my pill then, and still get my precious morning coffee on time.

It’s also teasing us with snow this morning. We want a real snowfall.

And we may, depending on where Jane is in her work and what the weather’s doing, go to Home Depot and get someone to come out and measure our fence for a replacement: it’s being held up by board patches in one corner, and the paint is peeling. We’re not fond of this fence, which is rickety, with the posts rotten here and there; and I don’t know its vintage—it’s younger than the house, which is sixty years old; but it’s got some years on it. Every time you open the big gate, you have to get a shovel to lever the right side back so it’ll close. And that whole wall wobbles, not to mention the one in the far back which is now being held by boards I screwed on. It’s not likely they can do this in winter, but we can at least get first dibs on fence replacement in the spring.

Trying Dragon speech recognition.

I debated for a long time whether or not I could use Dragon speech recognition. I tried it once back in the 70s or 80s and it was awful. You had to talk like a robot to make it understand you. I also hate their run-on commercials.

But I also know that using your hands as I do 24 seven and having a family history of arthritis, especially rheumatoid arthritis, it would be a really good thing not to stress my hands any worse than I need to. S I decided to bite the bullet now that the software has come down in price and get myself a copy.

I read the reviews. I determined that very likely I would be happier with version 11 and 12, explanation being that version 12 gets too helpful.

So I got it and a real nice USB mike. and indeed it is a vastly improved software from the 1980 version. I managed to screw up the USB mic within about 30 minutes of use. Jane tells me it’ll work just fine if I just reboot my computer. I don’t know what I did.

The software is particularly useful for editing. I can send send the cursor through a patch of text and add and subtract words. Unfortunately it doesn’t understand commands like back up and italicize, or even just italicize. Still, it has some virtues.

I’m not sure I’m ready to let it help me voice control my computer. The problems that could generate are too scary. But a day off from typing is not a bad thing.

When editing I use my hands to position the cursor. I highlight what I want taken out. I insert what I want put in. And I handle the bolds and italics.

You control the mic on off by saying or go to sleep. I might want to change that since I write fiction. Also WordPerfect has helps for straightening out spaces between words and capitalizations at beginnings of sentences that make the program work a lot more efficiently.

Anyway, the first trial is a moderate success. Last time, I trained the program for a week and it still couldn’t work adequately for fiction and wouldn’t let me think ‘story’ because I was too busy trying to communicate with the software. It is important to have a microphone that is intended for voice recognition–fewer mistakes.

It’s not quite like having Robbie the robot at your elbow to understand what you meant rather than what you said, but this sure is an improvement on 1980.

The dreaded closet cleanout.

Two shirts from the 70′s that I’m determined to wear again.

Belts from the 70′s that are still cool.

Enough black con tees to equip a regiment.

A pirate coat and shirt and boots…

A 1960′s velvet shirt that—oh, dear, I’m not sure I have the nerve to wear.

Now, mind, we moved up here in 2000, and moved to this house in 2007, so these have survived several culls.

Mostly—a lot of shortsleeved tees that don’t do well in snow…but are good for intervening in the fish tank. I can do with fewer of them on hangers.

Sweatshirts: those that say ‘halloween’ and that come with poinsettias are going into storage for a bit.

This goes into a giant Rubbermaid fliptop that will get revisited in early spring, when tees become the mode of dress. And the sweatshirts will go in, the tees will come out.

I love my room. But it is only about 13′x 14′, and with a queen bed and an armchair, two small drawer-chests and a trunk—it’s small. My closet is about 64″ wide, and there are just limits. I do have a window with a lovely view of the pond—it’s where I sit in my mini-armchair recliner and work. But there are some aspects my room shares with a space capsule—and storage is huge—well, a huge *problem,* that is. Both chests are stuffed. The trunk is stuffed. I have an AC register and an AC return that can’t have furniture up against them. I’ve measured every which way, and I don’t think I can do better than the arrangement I have, which means I have 1 foot between my bed and my chair and 2.3 feet on the other side, where chest #1 is. Furniture? Not so much. Everything in here is modular: baskets in wooden shelves; a bed that breaks down to an inflatable bag inside foam and a cover, and a base that breaks into 4 pieces held together by a quilted cover. So it’s not what you’d call high decor. And it’s real easy to move—if there were any other possible arrangement. It’s sort of like a Rubick’s Cube, however: there’s only one right answer…and that’s pretty well where things are, unless I want to give up my seat by the window, and that’s a no-go.

But I have a mantra: I am not a teenager living in one room…I have a house with a basement. I have other storage. I think the next thing that gets consigned to a Rubbermaid box is most of the contents of these drawers.

The good news is, I now have empty hangers.

Frost from fog…a lot of it. It’s pretty, but I’m not tempted to go to the store.

Kind of slick out there, I suspect, especially in spots.

We’re de-decorating.

I’m doing cold-weather comfort food for supper.

Jane got the scene done.

I’m down to the last on the contract-scanning.

Still fighting the weight a little. Don’t know where that pound came back from — but it’s gotta go.

Doing all right the 3rd day after the header I took…pretty stiff, but Ibuprofen handles that. Something about the life we live means we have good bones. Used to stress and falls. My doc lectures me about Vitamin D. I need to be better about that.

I’ve decided the only way we get our vitamins on schedule is if I serve them up at dinner. And I usually put them in sake cups. But those never get turned back to the dishwasher, so they stay lost when I need them. I’m going to get a gross of those tiny paper cuplets, about the side of a quarter, that you serve such things in. And if we lose them, la! no problem. That’s what paper cups are for.

Jane lost, we think, a sector pointer…

She’s finishing a novel—a critical scene—and we usually leave the word processors up when playing games. We were playing Guild Wars last evening.

So…well, likely that has nothing to do with it. Word Perfect has its screwy notions.

At any rate, about the time I went to bed last night—she discovered her day’s work was blitzed, and not just any day’s work. The file had lost its end-of-file EOF pointer. And the back end is out there somewhere, likely, but not appearing in WP.

She’s been a little short of sleep lately—you get that way on end-of-book crunch, when all the ideas have to be woven in…and needless to say, when I got up (it was still pre-dawn) –she was out there at her work station, trying to reconstruct. She’s got the front end: it survived. I fed her breakfast. She says she thinks Wesley did it.

Thank God for sense of humor. It’s better than jumping off a cliff, by far.

Jane’s going to be reconstructing yesterday’s work…which is by no means easy. I plan to hand her food at appropriate times and try to keep the house quiet.

One of those days…the fence blew down at the corner…again.

I’d patched it for a south wind. Lucky us, the prevailing flavor is north. It broke the corner again.

So I went looking for a patch: nail/screw a board so the boards from the front-of-you fence can’t slide past the beside-you fence or [patch #2] fall backward.

Found it in that luxury of home ownership, the bits of construction pieces pile in the garage corner. I get the drill, choose a couple of long screws (thank GOD for no-cord drills!) to get Jane, tripped over the extended foot of the exercise equipment, and took a fall—hit one knee, both hands and rolled. [Old skater’s maxim: if you’re going down, don’t fight it, just fall smart, and the only unsmart part of that fall was the knee, but, hey, it was padded carpet, and I had the telly cabinet on one side and furniture on the left.

And apparently Shu…but more on that later.

So Jane and I got the pieces and went out in the alley and patched it. It’s screwed—the fence, that is: the holding braces are bent and trashed, the paint is peeling, and we are due a new fence…this spring.

I go back in and Shu attacks me. I mean a flailing, squalling all out swatting attack about knee high, which proves that he can fly. It took some soft words, several more hiss-slap fits, and some kitty treats to get him calmed down. I don’t feel at any point that I actually hit him as I fell, though we’re watching him for any sign of injury. I think he was in front of me when I came down like the biggest meanest cave bear ever to attack a kitty, and he was spooked. I shook the floor right solidly when I hit (boards under carpet) and I think I just scared the whey out of him.

He is still suspicious I’ll become a were-bear again but he let me give him treats and pet him. He may remember this sporadically and have more hiss-fits, but we think he’s ok.

Meanwhile we’re going to have a bill on that fence, no question; but we can do it, thanks to no-interest on that car: we still have the car fund. And I’m ok. I think even the knee is. The wind, she still blows, but the fence, he stands.

About time to start de-decorating, before we run into Valentine’s…

I love the sparkly lights. And our oil lamps, which we have in number—7 such. We just bought 4 gallons more lamp oil. (Did you know you can get it from restaurant supply far, far cheaper than you can buy it from other sources?) We’re ablaze with such lamps, and the cats in our house have to learn about live flame. They do. Pretty fast. Instinct says ‘hot, no touch.’ Never had one get burned, though Ysabel once lost a few tail hairs. (“Watch it, silly kitty! Look behind you!”)

We’re going to de-decorate the living room first. Then use the gained clear space to bring out the ornament boxes for the tree.

The house-cleaning is holding up nicely: we’re still not cluttered.

The scanning of old records proceeds apace.

And our snow is vanishing in ‘striped’ weather: it snows, then rains, snows, then rains…

I had one worrisome thing to straighten out: the insurance company we used to use for the house sent us a second bill. Wak! We’d switched to another company last year. I called up these people with whom I have canceled FOUR times, both house and car, and they haven’t been able to get the notion…I finally got it through to them, and they still asked, “Are you SURE you want to cancel?” Me: “Since I’ve been insured by another company all year, yes, I want to cancel!” So they send me a check for the year’s insurance, but knowing how they’ve goofed up, front to back, not paying off when we had a flood in the kitchen (the floor was ruined and we haven’t managed to replace it,just kind of get it sort of flat again) and being very upfront to charge us money—I was not going to give them a chance to screw this up. So I had to call the bank (our mortgage holder). The bank was perplexed. But at least the old insurance company, who had collected money from OUR account, admitted their error and refunded us what they took (we were paying the other guys via the mortgage payments) we were glad to have it clarified what to do, and that, yes, the right guys are providing our insurance. The company that screwed up was Met Life. I’d have thought they were a good company. Our kitchen floor says otherwise.

Now and again I surprise myself…[recipe.]

I’m one of those cooks who looks at cookbooks to get an inspiration, but who never FOLLOWS a recipe — haven’t since I was 10. Gran cooked measuring by ‘handfuls’ and ‘pinches’ and so do I. So, generally, did Mom. But—I can convert.

I cook by smell. I start something like meat cooking, think of what might taste good tonight and add a bit. THen if I think it needs more, I take a whiff of what’s cooking alternated with bottles of spices and add what smells good and tasty with whatever’s going. [The trick is to smell with your mouth open: that lets your whole taste-smell sense operate.]

Or I cook by generalities: I know there are two items in Chinese Five Spice that I can easily live without (anise and licorice root) but I like the general smell. So I look at the label and find out what’s in it and make my own on the fly: I don’t own anise or licorice root…

well, I was hungry for Chinese pork. The red-edged sort, with Chinese mustard. But the allowable serving of that doth not a meal make, and rice is right off our diet because of carb content. So what’s a veggie that goes well with pork? Cabbage.

The recipe, as it evolved—1 medium cabbage sliced thin; a 1/8 cup of olive oil to prevent a burn; 1/4 cup of water to steam with; lidded pan. To this add a teaspoon each of [powdered]: cinnamon, clove, allspice, Chinese ginger; red chili flake [the sort you shake onto pizza]—-and cook until done. It will be hot and bitter. Now! Stir in 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/2 cup Splenda, and stir; serve beside half a dozen slices of Chinese pork bbq, with sesame seeds and Chinese mustard.

The cabbage tastes like cinnamon and cloves and is quite sweet, a lot like a dessert; the pork, well, either you like it or not. And you can cut back on the hot in this recipe if you’re careful of hot: the cinnamon, chili, and the ginger are all heat-sources.

Anyway, it’s quite tasty, ranked as a do-again in this household.