Category Archives: Links

Home Again

We’re home, we’re alive, the cats are alive, all must be well.

It wasn’t exactly a relaxing weekend, but it was an important one. Liam slept dreadfully over the weekend, as did we. The drive home was awful thanks to that lack of sleep and the unyielding sun and humidity. We took Liam to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum on Father’s Day to see the planes fly and taxi around (who are we kidding, it was so we could see the Avro Lanc flying again — and fly it did without incident, unlike the last time I saw it out) which he absolutely adored; much more exciting than walking through the hangar looking at the parked aircraft. He caught ten minutes of sleep in the car then refused lunch and a real nap. Then his fifteen-month-old cousin (a useful catch-all term for the daughter of my own cousin) came over and they played together, providing several opportunities for laughter and photos. It was such a great afternoon, the lack of sleep and food aside. And it meant a lot to all of us for him to finally meet his great-grandmother.

As soon as we got home he was completely back on schedule — food, naps, bedtimes and wake-up times. Yesterday was a quiet snuggly day with books and movies, and today he’s off at daycare so I can get some more writing done before the next contract lands on my desk, as it’s scheduled to sometime before the end of the week.

I’m not feeling terribly communicative these days; it might have something to do with the huge pile of stuff that needs to get done and the lack of time in which to do it (or the computer programs that keep unhelpfully crashing, which are delaying some of the tasks). Nor did the Bell technician accidentally terminating my phone line this morning while fixing the downstairs tenant’s line help (then leaving for another job before coming back to fix it), or the refusal of my computer/modem/router/ISP to get back in harness when the line was restored. It made my scheduled research difficult, to say the least. So I did laundry instead.

Other than that, life in general and things are kind of there. And it’s orchestra tonight; only a week and a half till the concert on July 1.

(And Does It Matter?)

There’s an interesting essay on the reading order of the Chronicles of Narnia here. I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardobe first when I was eight or nine, then I realised there was a whole series so I went back and read them all in chronological order (because, like Mousme, I am mildly OCD about that sort of thing although I am slightly better now that I am a few decades older). But the points the essay makes about the reading experience if the books are read in publication order are interesting. After the first couple of times I read them singly and out of order according to my whim of the moment, although two summers ago I did read the entire series chronologically again. Both experiences are valid, simply different, as the author points out.

Monday Miscellania

The aqueduc truck just went by sounding the water-off alarm. There’s roadwork happening the next street over. I wonder how often this will happen; it’s the second time in two weeks.

The interview I did last week is up. Gwinevere says of me that “She is totally wise to the Wiccan ways, and I loved reading her books!”, which is very sweet of her and made me feel all warm inside.

I’m back to sequential nights of poor sleep. Last night HRH woke me up by saying “What was that?” after a loud sound on the back steps around twelve-thirty, and that was it; I was up for the next four hours. I reread most of the first Harry Dresden book while awake in the wee smas of Saturday night, and last night I got a third of Busman’s Honeymoon read. (How on earth was this book ever done as a play?). I read Shannon Hale’s latest paperback Princess Academy last Friday and was mildly disappointed that it wasn’t as rich as her Bayern books; it felt less deep, and I wasn’t as drawn into the characters or the style of the storytelling. I’m less intrigued now about her newest books Book of a Thousand Days and Austenland.

We had a lovely visit with the ADZO household Saturday afternoon where Liam had his first experience with a wagon and adored it enthusiastically, as I suspected he would: he pushed it, pulled it, and talked about riding in it the whole time we pulled him along. Thumbs up, Self, for the suggestion of a wagon as birthday gift to the grandparent contingent. (Pats self on the back.) Sunday afternoon was coven, and we roughly outlined stuff we’d like to do over the next few months and how we’d like to approach it, as well as roughing out the Midsummer ritual at the end of the month. Unfortunately HRH scheduled the meeting to begin right at the end of Liam’s nap time, so he spent most of his time chasing after the boy. This is what frustrates me about daytime coven meets: we constantly lose one person to childcare. Fortunately as it is now summer we are shifting to Monday evening meetings, because so much happens over the weekends that it gets nigh-impossible to schedule everyone on a weekend afternoon, so the boy will be in bed. Much easier to have everyone participate when one of us isn’t fielding/entertaining a toddler.

I made brownies Saturday morning from a new UK recipe (Nigella, natch), which meant I got to use my little scale as well as my funky measuring glass with the different weight measurements for various ingredients on the side. I used dark Tolberone for the chocolate. Divine. Very buttery, though. Liam called them “magic”, which was hugely amusing.

Three-word sentences are becoming the norm where Sparky is concerned. It’s mildly astonishing every time he produces one.

The Jam Sessions release date seems to have been pushed back to September. I am irked. I played through the first chapter of Phoenix Wright last evening and enjoyed it immensely.

And now, I go to clean my office window. On grey days such as this, one needs to maximise the amount of light coming in at all costs. Also, where is the rain? We were promised a downpour. Perhaps HRH jinxed it by saying, “See you in a couple of hours!” as he pulled out of the driveway this morning. I was kind of looking forward to going to the party store later with him to look at candles and such for a certain birthday cake, and maybe a new large sheet cake tin and a cake board. (Things I will never do: make a 3D owl cake. Yikes. How do you serve something like that?)

Meer, Meer, Meer

I just spent half an hour moaning for various reasons at Ceri, who gave me pats and made me laugh. She also gave me the thumbs-up for my interview when I asked her to read it, having reached the unrewarding poking-at-it-with-a-sharp-stick stage where I couldn’t see if it was making sense or not. So now it’s off to the editor of the e-zine.

And Ceri just logged back in on her way out to lunch (which I am missing, meer meer meer) to send me over to this LOLcatz poetry thread over at Making Light. Do not miss the Pride & Prejudice summary, or the Iliad, or the text-based Inferno (and the sequel).

Working Hard…

(… as you can see:)

I Can Has Cheezburger now has an lolwl!

Also:

Literecy Cat amuseth me.

And my newest installation of Firefox has a nifty dotted red line underlining words that it doesn’t recognise, which means it catches the letter juxtapositions that occur when I type too fast and never seem to see when I skim the text before posting. Of course it also underlines every UK spelling, which is mildly sigh-inducing.

Right. Back to finishing the interview. (It’s been a long day, okay? I needed some LOLcats.)