Aaaugh, chirp, clank, etc

 

Sooooooo . . . last night we went back to the cottage with me humming a little tune* and thinking no harm, like the lady going downstairs with Long Lankin standing behind the door.**  And then Chaos wouldn't eat his final meal.***  Would.  Not.  He's missed so many meals this last hot week that he's visibly lost weight, and yeah, I'm hyper, but I have reason to be hyper, you know?  And this wasn't anything about the weather, which has eased, and was equally visibly all about that cheese strudel† he calls a brain.  Which is when his not-eating gets dangerous.  AAAAAAUGH.  Adrenaline spike. 

            He did eat.  Finally.  It took about an hour.  By which time—since we started kind of late—there was quite a lot of light coming through the curtains†† and the blasted birdies were out there chirping away.  OH SHUT UP.  And I was so turbo-charged I couldn't sleep.  Of course.  So I lay in bed staring at the canopy††† and thinking cranky thoughts . . . and then I sat up in bed, reached for Pooka, and downloaded The Treasures of Montezuma‡ from the frelling ap store and started blowing things up.‡‡  This is all Alicia's fault.‡‡‡  She has an iPad, and I requested a tour.  It's lovely.  I want one.  I knew that.  I have to say they do kind of weigh, and my knapsack is already violating the Geneva Convention on how much a 59-year-old hellgoddess with bad knees can be expected to carry around on a daily basis . . . but I want one anyway.  She has Treasures of Montezuma.§  It looks better on the big screen.  And . . . this just in.  Raphael rang me this afternoon, and: 

MY IPAD 2 IS ARRIVING NEXT WEEK.

 

With a pink fold-back cover.  And a motto to live by,§§ which is one of the sillier extras available on the 2s.  And I will finally have an ereader.  And we'll see if I use it, and what for.  I think I probably will use Montezuma.§§§

            And then, at tower practise tonight# 

I GOT THROUGH A COMPLETE COURSE OF CAMBRIDGE MINOR WITHOUT BEING YELLED AT.  I EVEN DID THE FRELLING PLACES!  I EVEN DID THE FRELLING PLACES WITHOUT GOING TO PIECES IN RELIEF AFTERWARD!##

            Unfortunately I can see the light in Niall's eye from here.  He's going to expect me to do it on handbells.  

* * *

* Not in Italian.  Sigh.  I'm pretty good on Sebben Ratbag so long as I don't have to sing the words.  Can't I go back to Vaughan Williams—?  No, no, I want Italian.   I can stop here^ but I want Italian.   

^ I can certainly stop here 

** http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/s/steeleyespan9934/longlankin430075.html

. . . There was blood all in the kitchen

There was blood all in the hall

There was blood all in the parlour. . . . tra la la la la

***  I've told you this, right?  Sighthound digestion is peculiar anyway because of that aerodynamic body which doesn't leave a lot of room for guts, and of course my guys are on the extreme end of digestive mayhem anyway.  I feed them three times a day because small and often is better than one or two big meals—and also because I feel, somewhat hysterically, that it gives me a better chance to help them maintain a habit of eating.  Breakfast is not worth the struggle—I still wish to have some life of my own—so they get lunch, dinner and supper, or lunch, supper and a final snack, the last some time in the wee hours. 

† You know that 'strudel' comes from the German word for 'whirlpool'?  The Dog with the Wet Spinning Brain. 

†† Very early morning light is weird.  I love that long golden afternoon light, but dawn has an end-of-the-world-as-you-know-it, this-is-not-the-world-it-was-at-sunset-yesterday quality to it.  Maybe that's just the effect of coming at it from the wrong end.  Many, many years ago when I lived on the horse farm I used to like summer dawn.  

††† And not listening to the miniature pegasi^ colony that lives in my walls.  I think—I think—they may have broken up early this year, and gone their various ways.^^  But I need mosquito netting by next May. 

^ One of the tangential things I love so much about that NPR story I posted last night is the oddness of the 'group' of moles, cows and horses.  And bats.  I keep saying pegasi are not flying horses.  But they may be cousins to bats.  Like we're cousins to chimpanzees.+ 

+ Apparently bats and primates have a common ancestor near enough to, you know, count.  After the we-all-crawled-out-of-the-primeval-ooze stage where we're all related to everything. 

^^ Which may explain why I'm seeing my first blackfly of the year.  Which seems to me rather ungrateful.  They could have left a squad to keep my garden patrolled. 

‡ http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/1323/treasures-of-montezu/index.html 

‡‡ What? you say.  Has Fingerzilla been supplanted?  Well, aside from the endless stream of updates that refuse to download, my city-razing finger is out of action and it's just not the same with a different finger. 

Mrs Redboots wrote: 

I don't think I knew you'd damaged your finger, did I? Poor you, fingers hurt worse than most things. Hope it heals fast. 

            This is from last Sunday when I Fell Down and lacerated the landscape with language, of which Ajlr wrote: 

"I was in no mood to appreciate it at the time, but when we got to the top of the hill there was a woman with three small children attempting to hide in the shrubbery. I think she heard me. . . ."

O.O Seeing/hearing a hellgoddess manifesting only 100 metres or so away would alarm most of us.

I keep forgetting that when my true avatar emerges the forked pink lightning tends to frighten the natives.  But the really annoying thing is that having had precious little to show for my adventures^, today my ex-eggplant knee turned bright daffodil yellow.   I knew there was something still going on because I still can't kneel^^ but really the arnica may have done too good a job:  the eggplant stage lasted less than a day.  How am I supposed to wring pity from bystanders like this? 

            Meanwhile, I have no idea what the Treasures of Montezuma is supposed to, you know, be about.  There's a female archaeologist and a mystery.  I don't care.  I just want to line up the artefacts and watch them explode.  Mmmmmm.

^ Fiona was ill-considered enough to remark that she was expecting something more spectacular.  I forgave her because of the New Project Bag.  

^^ . . . without screaming 

‡‡‡ MomPaula wrote:

I think Alicia should give us a guest blog on disastrous handbells evenings! I think I would have loved to be a bat peering through a crack that night!

 Alicia replied:

Mwahahaha.

YESSSSSSSSSSS.  I will put up with (almost) any indignity for a guest post!^ 

^ I am forwarding a list under separate cover of all the things you are not allowed to mention.  You didn't get down on your hands and knees and look under the furniture, did you?  Or measure the depth of the heaps on/around my desk?  And you're really not going to sue me for acts of violence perpetrated by certain rosebushes? 

§ She also has Cut the Rope http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1gf5UdYHwg but I have enough guilt.  I can't deal with it when I miss, and the monster doesn't get his candy and goes all sad.^  Besides, I'm sure it's really bad for his teeth.^^ 

^ And I usually miss.  I'm a really hopeless gamesplayer.  

^^ Yes.  I think it's a boy.  

§§ Hee hee hee hee.  It's one of the quotes that circulate through the blog's quote box.  Free doodle to the first person who guesses which one.  Hee hee hee hee hee.  

§§§ And Fingerzilla on the big screen??!  Be still my heart. 

# Which generally speaking was not one of the great ones in recent memory.  It's still way too hot to be wedged into a small ringing chamber with too many other people—and we were heaving tonight—and I haven't had any sleep to speak of in most of a week and it shows. 

## For the sake of full veracity let me add that it was not a beautiful full course.  I can follow the blasted line and count my places accurately, but that doesn't mean I can ring my accurately counted places accurately.  If you follow me.  Clank.