C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 86

OMG, Jane’s got some Vanye pix up—she hand-made the costume. But clearly…

…this is an undocumented adventure. Vanye, as a Musketeer

Jane and I are beginning to think about another gathering at our place…next summer.

We’d be doing it differently than in the past. Our notion: find a cheap motel where people can stay, within striking distance of the heart of Spokane, go for some good but not ferociously pricey eateries for the duration, go ride the carousel in the park, ride the gondolas across the falls, and otherwise hang out and have a good time. We’d be joining the party over in the motel venue, like any con, for hanging out and having refreshments from a cooler in some lucky person’s room; and then have a finish-up barbecue over at our place beside the pond, granted the number of attendees isn’t crazy. We’re not up to arranging kayaking, and some of our folk don’t like the water, but there are still some nice things to do. Any interest out there? Spokane, for those of you who’ve never been here, is easily accessible from its airport, or from I-90, which runs through town. We know the I-90, I-40 and I-25 routes, and we somewhat know I-80. It’s 2 nights on the road, Dallas to Spokane; pretty well the same from OKC, though some crazy people do it in one: the leg from Buffalo WY to Spokane is a very long drive.

The whole I-90/I-25 route is very scenic, passing Yellowstone by two separate entrances; and it’s generally beautiful, through several very tame mountain passes and piney woods. What we call an inexpensive motel is Motel 6, or its equivalent.

The sky has turned this gloomy dust color…the sun appears in a general haze

Smoke. We’ve not had as bad fire seasons as in 2000-2007. But it’s been dry, as aforementioned, and the fires are what you get in the PNW the way you get tornadoes to cope with in the south. Unlike tornadoes, however, you do get to choose whether to live in the piney woods or not…and not is best, really, because if fire gets started in a canyon, it can be up the slope incredibly fast. We’ve seen the choppers working fires, scooping up water and dumping it, right beside I-90. And you always feel sad for the wildlife, though by this season most of the babies are flying or running as fast as the adults. And for the people who’ve been unlucky. Unlike tornadoes, which have a lot of unpeopled land to spread out their statistics—so that a strike in populated areas is rarer than tornadoes themselves are—with fires, they happen along highways where people are thoughtless with cigarettes, and around scenic areas, where there are people careless with cigarettes, and of course if you think you’re going to get rain—you may instead get lightning, which is the OTHER really frequent cause.

So here we go. We keep the windows shut and rely on our air purifiers and hope that the promised rain is really rain and not a lightning storm with no rain at all.

We’re going to be rained on, they say…

It’s been a dry July. But a system is on its way.

What it HAS been is a very cool July, and weeds are growing like mad. The ones in the gravel paths, however, can be dealt with via the ‘hula hoe’ as it used to be advertised. It’s a loop hoe, or a squared metal loop that can get under roots if you get the plant young. It’s heavy work, but it goes pretty fast. I’d like to get the front done, but today is just muggy with that incoming moisture.

I’m glad to say the book is moving along. I’m beginning to get the ‘feel’ of its rhythm—every book has one, and until you get the ‘feeling’ of how the information needs to flow, it ‘feels’ wrong—or loosely jointed. It’s coming.

The tide of spammers has slowed to a trickle. If you want to sign up now, you could make a try at it.

And what else? Jane has decided to put Vanye [the bjd] into a Musketeers outfit. Stay tuned. It’s looking pretty good.

Tomorrow we have to take the car in to get the electronics guys to defuse the backup beeper: Jane reacts to sounds like that the way most people react to fingernails on a blackboard, so getting rid of the beeps for having a door open or for backing up are a safety thing. I thought about leaving the backup beep, but guess what? It’s not audible except INSIDE the car. It exists solely to notify US that we’re backing up, and if we’re far enough gone to need THAT news flash, we have no business behind the wheel. If outside doesn’t get the bennie, it goes.

Loving the Soda Stream…

I’m a lazy sod. If Jane wants 10 liters of Mountain Dew from the grocery, I’ll buy it, I’ll lug it, but drink one bottle of that stuff that has to be carried, heck, no—it’s stuff that has to be carried and she doesn’t run out as soon if I abstain.

Then we got a Soda Stream. I love going outside, working up a sweat, and then coming back inside to a choice of Root Beer, Cola, you name it…and I’m a big Root Beer fan. I haven’t drunk Coke hardly at all, even with fast food, since we did away with soda fountains and you could no longer say to Charlie the soda jerk “light on the fizz, Charlie.” I mean, this is the old fashioned stuff: you can make it so fizzy it tastes like Alka Seltzer, but you don’t have to. You can make root beer that tastes like soda fountain root beer with Charlie in charge.

Just now—out to shovel a few wheelbarrows full of basalt chips, and pour them where they’re needed—then inside to make a nice half-liter of root beer, which is just fizzy enough.

And no more carrying liter bottles from the grocery. Except for Mountain Dew. Soda Stream doesn’t have a good sub for that, and Jane does like it. But Soda Stream cola is real good.

Way it works, you chill one of its special bottles, full of water, in the fridge: we keep about 6 standing in there. You take it to the Soda Stream unit, which has no electricity, just a fizzer button that shoots gas into the water. You screw the bottle onto the nozzle, press the button for fizz till it buzzes, once, twice, three times. You unscrew the bottle of fizzed water, and pour in one measure (you can adjust that, too) of syrup, diet or not. You now have the equal of bottled soda.

Because no electricity is involved, you can pack this little unit and take it on the road with you: want a coke? Unpack the unit, get some water, get some ice from the hotel icemaker, and you’ve got a soda, much as you want, no cans, no fuss. You can make a bottle or two to take on the road tomorrow, and just keep getting ice at the service stations.

I love this unit. And I get root beer.

The weedwhacker claims the drive…

…which had gotten really weedy on the alley edge. I remembered my goggles — a session at the doc’s getting my cornea perforated (like a lawn aeration) so it would re-adhere (a flying rock had created a bubble or loose spot) —persuades me that I don’t want to go through that again. It was under a local. Those who are antsy about contact lenses need not contemplate the event.

I did however forget to change out of my sandals, and had my feet peppered with highspeed gravel: no glass, however. Which was good. If I weren’t so lazy in the day’s heat I’d have trekked 30 feet back to the house and gotten the toed shoes, but hey, pain is nicer than walking in the heat.

I got to the bottom of the weedpatch that surrounds the forsythia. At least.

Now I should take the wheelbarrow out there and start digging away at that chest-high stack of basalt chips, but the heat, the heat…ugh. We’re building up humidity: it’s on a two-day buildup toward several days of rain.

Cool weather for late July…I’d be stupid not to take the chance.

So I got out the leaf blower and cleared the patio, and took the weedwhacker to the evergreen beds on the side of the house: next is going to be the driveway area. I so want to do something with that. But first is going to be taking the mattock to a forsythia bush I’ve already cut back. It lies alongside an alley, it’s not a lovely sight, but our whole place would look so much nicer if I could fix that area.

I may be inspired to go out and attack it.

I am getting writing done, btw. It’s just slow at this stage, because I have to think my way through it, and whacking weeds is a good circuit-clearer.

Finally! headway with pond clarity!

The breed of algae that came in with spring rains is real tough. It’s so fine it doesn’t get caught in regular filters. WE’ve tried every algae killer in existence.

I finally ordered, from Foster & Smith, some real fine (lime green) filter pads, and they made a little headway.

I decided to use the trim from one to put in the bottom of the pre-filter basket, effectively doubling the filtration in every cycle through the system, and bingo! we can see the rocks in the bottom this morning.

I think I have finally found the answer. I may get some filter felt sheets to sit atop that pad, in the 1 micron variety, and that may get it.

Garbage Day…

Hauling myself out of bed at 6:45, and knowing our street gets real early pickup—I pull on work clothes and head for the kitchen to get the gar-bahjge and recyclables.

No sweat. I stagger about, pre coffee, and haul out the sacks…down the front steps, down the side path, to the side of the house where the cans live.

I pour the recyclables into the bin—oops. Wrong sack. Garbage, eggshells and coffee grounds went into the recyclables bin. The damn recyclables bin is huge. I can’t lift it to pour it into the little regular garbage bin. I tilt it and excavate bare-handed as far as I can reach, pour in the actual recyclables (they insist on no sacks) and put the rest of the garbage in the right can. By now I am all over garbage. I start hauling the monster recyclables bin to the curb…and the sprinkling system cuts on.

I head back after the garbage, and Jane joins the fray, coming onto the porch with a load of cardboard (recyclable) that I missed. I head up to get it, and my contact lens folds, I am all over garbage and can’t deal with it. I take the cardboard and carry it out, and, distracted by the folded contact, I get hit full on in the head by one of the sprinklers as it sweeps.

Dripping wet, I take the little non-cyclable bin to the street, head back up the slope, and by now Jane is out there (neatly avoiding the sprinkler sweeps) loading hollyhock stems into the compostables bin. We go at that. I am now soaking wet, all over coffee grounds, with a folded contact, and well, not my sparkling self. It is, however, approaching funny, and I have slashed my arm on something and am bleeding a stream down my arm, my brand new sandals are wet, and I could be in a better mood if that contact weren’t still squishing around in my eye.

Jane stayed after the compostables, adding more weeds, I headed in to wash off the blood and the coffee grounds, feed the importunate cats, and to fix my contact, which finally wandered back where it belongs—I think—and it’s time to fix breakfast. There’s still the pond filter to wash, but I am changing sandals to the grungy ones and drying out before I attack that.

Welcome to Friday morning at chaos central.

The car

The car

the roof

cute side window and one of 2 glove compartments

a cute little storage platform that is just too convenient for kittehs wanting to interfere with driver: water pistol likely

back seat with seats in up position

cargo area, one seat up: we flipped the mat until we get a protector

dashboard, centrally located

and the car again…we’re fixing that ratty driveway. Soon.