Author Archives: Autumn

Scratch Pad April 18

Just as a reminder: these are more for my benefit than anyone’s entertainment, although what you’re entitled to whatever amusement you derive from reading these records of my stream of consciousness.

10:23:

I started my day with news of a secondhand electric cello being sold nearby, courtesy of the Tough Love Muse. Have just communicated with vendor for info and to negotiate a test-time, cause no way will I seriously buy an instrument without hearing it and testing out the feel of it first. It’s a staggering steal of a deal, and I am almost certain that if I pass it up I will kick myself in a few weeks. We will see what happens.

10:26:

Oh my gods, these croissants that the producer brings in every Wednesday are divine.

11:09:

I can’t get comfortable. I don’t feel quite here; I just can’t settle into my body or into day properly. I feel almost caffeine-jumpy, which is odd because I haven’t had any for days.

11:14:

What a dreadful position this cello vendor is in. She made some major life decisions a decade ago and has come up against dead end after dead end. The cello was to be her joy and solace; no time, no money, and now injury have taken that away from her. She’s had it for seven years and hasn’t done anything with it. I feel for her. She isn’t sure if she’s going to sell it or not, and I completely understand; selling an instrument when it was meant to be your personal creative expression and place of soul-refuge can feel like giving up the possibility of attaining success or happiness. In fact, I told her that I felt she wasn’t ready to sell it, and that I wouldn’t be disappointed if she changed her mind at any point as we both decide if this is right. On the other hand, if she decides that she is ready and if I think it sounds good and feels good in my hands, I will buy it from her with pleasure, knowing that the money will help her and that she may be somewhat comforted knowing that it’s gone to a good home and someone who will love it and use it.

13:45:

Lovely lunch with HRH, Fearsclave, Mellanmouse, and Mousme.

14:21:

A real definition: “Potholing: a sport which involves climbing into and around underground caves”. One is tempted to add “An extreme sport originating in Montreal.” (Can’t claim credit for all of that one; the extreme bit was contributed by t!.)

14:40:

In an IM, t! misreads “potholing” as “plotholing”. A: “Burrows made by plot bunnies?” t!: “You could feed them plot carrots.”

15:02:

Just finished the sixteenth level of the dictionary. That’s 1300+ today alone so far. Go me.

15:04:

Oi. Level 17 has 1600+ words to get through. *headdesk*

16:02:

The air conditioning keeps going on and off. When it goes off it’s remarkably quiet. One doesn’t notice how much noise it’s making until it’s gone. Warmer now, too. No, it’s back on again.

16:05:

Never ceases to amaze me how many words in the English language are actually stolen wholecloth from other languages.

16:20:

The other problem with the higher levels is that there is a denser population of longer words. I have to limit the words I use to twelve characters long. Some really great words are being cut simply due to length.

New words today: photovoltaic, graticule.

Rockin’ Out With Accordions And Ouds

Quick notes on the Loreena McKennitt concert last night:

A huge thank you to ADZO and his lovely wife for gifting us with tickets to this concert as a gift for HRH’s birthday and Jen’s birthday, too. We had a wonderful time with them.

The best line I uttered during the concert: “LUTE SOLO!” And I meant it with great enthusiasm, too.

Ironic that the live version of Bonny Swans rocks hard (nothing like two electric guitar solos!) while the version Random Colour is doing is the quietest folksy-est song of our set. (ADZO — I remembered on the way home that I did try listening to the live recording on the Live From Paris & Toronto recording, and it was useless because it was in a different key. No wonder I’d blocked that particular irritation from my mind.)

I had the good fortune to not be disturbed any any of the audience members around me. That’s rare. Usually there’s at least one person who persists in ruing the experience for me, either by singing off-key or talking through it all or jiggling the seat. Everyone was well-behaved and made the experience that much more pleasant.

It was daring to open with what was essentially a harp solo of She Moved Through The Fair, before launching into the first song from her new album.

FOUR percussionists. I counted. They were all excellent.

Yes, there was a cello, there is always a cello, and she was set up at the front on stage left so I could see everything. But there were also electric guitars and bass and an oud and accordion aside from the piano and harp. It was a crowded stage, in a good way.

An excellent, excellent evening.

Scratch Pad April 17

9:36 AM:

Okay — now I’m finding deliberate misspellings that are defined as “a popular misspelling of [correct spelling].” Hold me back…

11:20:

I’ve been driving through a thousand words this morning at an impressive speed, and have suddenly crashed into level 15. Hereonin things will crawl, mainly because there are three times as many words in a level thanks to the supplementary dictionary I vetted two weeks ago. Now I have to pay attention to all my markings and code them appropriately, as well as addressing the nine hundred-odd words that were in this level of the main file which I haven’t yet seen.

12:38:

It just took me five minutes to figure out where the scroll lock key was on this French keyboard. How I originally hit it, I do not know. Maybe I used a keyboard shortcut combo unknowingly. But my Excel sheet mysteriously wouldn’t move the way I needed it to move for a half hour until “scroll lock?” occured to me.

13:24:

“Caliph: a Muslim ruler” is right after “callipers”. Because I see them at the same time, for a moment I think, “Why do Muslims have their own measuring sticks?”

14:07:

GERMANIUM! Everyone grab your zone purifiers!

14:34:

Cross-eyed. Officially cross-eyed. DL 15 is wearing me down, because I’m doing three different things simultaneously.

14:40:

Overheard: “No! Fun first, learning second! We want them to learn words by accident, because they’re having fun!”

14:42:

This one’s for Liam — “Noddle: the head of a person, or their ability to think.”

14:48:

Uh-oh. Crashing.

16:46:

Almost three thousand words today. Gah. No wonder the brain is leaking out my ears.

New word(s): adumbrate, massif, meretricious, stochastic. (The higher the level of dictionary, the rarer the word, you see. So theoretically I should be learning more the higher I go.)

Scratch Pad, April 16

More stream of consciousness joy:

10:45 AM:

I am going to reward myself with the two-volume shorter Oxford dictionary after this contract, to help take the bad taste of poorly constructed reference books out of my mouth.

11:12:

I am convinced that this dictionary was written by people who thought they knew the definitions and didn’t actually look them up, because the ones that aren’t dead-on are kind of but not really right. Or they’re defined as the general populace understands them, which is not the textbook definition. I am appalled that this thing got published.

11:17:

I am also tired of correcting figurative use when the literal definition should be there first.

11:28:

No, I’ve got it: it reads as if it was assembled by schoolchildren who inferred the meaning of a word by its use in a piece of text. Therefore, someone reading the phrase “sunnier climes” might infer that “climes” means different or variable weather, as this dictionary says. Except it actually means climate.

11:33:

Does one “believe in a religion”? Doesn’t one believe in the doctrines, and follow the religion?

12:47 PM:

Looking up “pacemaker” to see if the definition requires finessing, I discover that “An external pacemaker was designed and built by the Canadian electrical engineer John Hopps in 1950 based upon observations by cardio-thoracic surgeon Wilfred Bigelow at Toronto General Hospital. A substantial external device using vacuum tube technology to provide transcutaneous pacing, it was somewhat crude and painful to the patient in use and, being powered from an AC wall socket, carried a potential hazard of electrocution of the patient by inducing ventricular fibrillation.” I’ll bet. (Thanks, Wiki.)

13:17:

Continuing the thought of 11:28 and 11:17, above — “Tether”: “having no strength or patience left”. Obviously inferred from “at the end of one’s tether”. Argh!

13:41:

From HRH, on the subject of me being too shy and lame to ask someone I don’t know to escort me in and out of the office while my keycard is non-functional: “You’re not lame, remember you’re a hot lady in an office of guys. Ask and they will comply, Ph34r t3h cut3, resistance is futile and all that.” Me: “Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?”

15:05:

Mellanmouse takes good, good care of me. I have hot chocolate and a reactivated keycard. I am no longer a prisoner. Now I can listen to Evanescence instead of the soothing Loreena McKennitt I was relying upon to keep me balanced earlier. I love her with much love.

15:24:

Looking up “exponent”, I found this example: “Jaqueline du Pré was a leading exponent of cello-playing”. I like it when my world and the world of this imaginary dictionary intersect.

15:28:

The serial comma is your friend. Do not fear the serial comma!

15:53:

Every once in a while we hear howlers from some part of the room as the team members test code to see if it functions. Some of the definitions that are pulled up are insanely incorrect. Some of them I’ve found so far; others are yet to come.

14:22:

I think what frustates me most is how *close* some of these definitions are, and yet how they still miss the mark. For example, to admonish is kind of like “to advise someone to do something”, but it lacks the implication of warning. If someone learned this word in the context for which I’m refining these definitions, they’d use it incorrectly. And I refuse to let that happen.

16:24:

I AM FINDING WORDS THAT DO NOT EXIST!

New word(s) today: pelmet.

Also? Yay me for remembering my grandmother’s birthday.

Friday

Well, the second week of work has drawn to a close. I’m not as exhausted as I was last Friday, but then, I’ve learned how to pace myself a bit better.

Today’s new luncheon location: Soy, where I had delicious plate of shrimp in a pepper/salt tempura. Excellent. Now we get to revisit these choice places, because my contract has been officially extended for an entire month.

Yes, you may cheer. We all did.

Today I began keeping a scratch pad of running commentary during the day to entertain myself and clear my brain of some of what was piling up there while I worked. For posterity (noun: “people in the future”; or really, in this case, just myself in the future), then, here are those notes:

10:30 AM:

I am currently editing the highest level of the dictionary while waiting for a spreadsheet merge. Some of the definitions are too long and won’t fit in the display field properly, so these are the ones I’m fixing now. It’s like a puzzle or challenge: how can I rewrite the definition, keeping it as clear and as unchanged as possible, and still get it under the specified length? Sometimes I can do it right away, other times it takes two or more attempts. When I do succeed, there’s a little “Yes!” that escapes me, and sometimes a small sedate victorious punch of the air above my keyboard. (“Gerrymandering” just took me six goes, the longest yet. But I conquered it in the end.)

11:16 AM:

I talk to myself a lot now. I read definitions out loud. The guys around me are politely ignoring me, or maybe they’re just too involved in whatever they’re working on to notice me mumbling under my breath. Everyone else does it, after all, and some not so quietly.

11:24 AM:

Hojicha green tea is a lousy substitute for the chocolate I’m craving.

3:00 PM:

Part of my problem about working with these definitions is that abbreviations or variants have come to popularly mean something unrelated to the original. I want to include the origin or related info, and can’t, so people will never know that “bedlam” (“a noisy lack of order”) has come to mean this because it originally referred to the chaotic noise made by the residents of Bedlam, a mental institution in London, which in its turn is an abbreviation of Bethlem Hospital, which is in its own turn a mangling of the original St Mary of Bethlehem.

3:36 PM:

… Or “eureka”, which now is used as an exclamation of success, but which actually means “I have discovered it” in Greek. Not the same thing at all.

3:43 PM:

Proofreading “gerbil” reminds me of the little brown mouse Blade and I saw making a mad dash across the lobby of the metro station the other morning. It looked like a brave mousy dare — although if so, it lost points for trying to cut a corner too closely and scurrying into the shiny turnstile column, but regained them by bouncing, shaking itself off, and then carrying on.

Today’s new words: invidious, reticulation.

Cue the Carols

To quote t!: “I’m… dreaming… of a white… Victoria Day Weekend…”

This post-Easter snowstorm made my commute home absolute misery, starting with the hour and ten minutes I stood outside waiting for a lift that only arrived (of course) after I resorted to public transit. While I was cold and wet and miserable, the worst thing was not knowing where HRH and Liam were and if they were okay. Both parties got home within five minutes of one another, and Liam was surprisingly not insane from being cooped up for two and a half hours in the car. He even ate some dinner before bed. HRH was mildly spare, however, and I was completely unhinged of course, imagining horrible things. This weekend, I am buying HRH a cellular phone.

Work proceeds apace. True to Meallanmouse‘s prediction today, I was asked how much longer I thought the project would take me should my contract be extended. As I’ve already been separately spoken to by the two heads who hired me about the near certainty of said extension, we shall see what happens tomorrow. Apparently it would be all right if I worked at home two days a week, which makes life much easier because HRH is working out on the West Island Mondays and Tuesdays, and needs to be on-site by the time Liam’s caregiver opens shop, as well as requiring the car to get there (otherwise it’s something like a two-hour commute). This way I can drop HRH off, then Liam, come home and work, then pick them up. If I had to go in to work on-site I’d lose an hour and a half of work time, assuming I took the car. Working at home on those two days is simply more efficient.

I learn at least one new word a day on this project. And it turns out I have been misusing “pursuant” all these years.

On today’s lunch adventure, Mellanmouse introduced me to the best fries I’ve had since the Frite Pit changed ownership over twenty years ago. Yesterday, it was an awesome Greek pita in the company of HRH and Fearsclave. Who knows what tomorrow will be?

I read A Long Shadow earlier this week, and am now over halfway through Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III (astute and obsessive readers may remember this as one of the topics that popped into my brain last fall and began scratching at the windows, whining for attention, pining to be a YA historical).

There is more; I keep a scratch pad with ideas that occur to me as the day goes along, but I’m really tired and still cold from the damp, no matter how many socks and sweaters I put on. To bed.