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Good Morning
07.10.04 (9:26 am)   [edit]
A light rain patting the window. Steve was up at 4am to make the early shift; he doesn't do a lot of Saturday work, just to cover for someone who's sick or on vacation. I got up with him because there's no point pretending to sleep.

I don't have much to say for myself this early in the day. Meal plan - minestrone soup for lunch, make a cauliflower/bacon quiche for dinner. In between -- write. I can't even promise better blogging next week; the Sales Ledger dept need some help with their invoice run and I volunteered (the overtime is nice).

Hope things go better for you soon, Ratty.
 
Owl, Lark or Robin?
07.09.04 (10:54 am)   [edit]
Reading my April/May/June issue of Mslexia (British magazine for women who write), the article about listening to your body clock. It appears psychologists are finding that we each have 'best' times for doing creative work.

"Larks" do their best writing before 10am
"Owls" after 10pm
"Robins" in short periods roughly corresponding to office hours.

For all the writers out there, which one do you think corresponds to you?
 
Now Where Was I?
07.08.04 (11:00 am)   [edit]
I've finished another chapter! I love the ecstasy that accompanies that final click of the "Save" icon. It took six weeks to write. :o Yes, six weeks.

But I think I've found my rhythm. Since I was alone in the apartment I read the chapter aloud. I've tried this before and not liked the sound; this time it worked and the words were just right. All that deleting and rewriting, all that blank-faced staring at my screen, all those trips to the kitchen or the bathroom when I got stuck...they must be part of the process. I was feeling a bit guilty. So much time and so few words produced. But by the time I'm finished with those words they are [i]finished [/i]indeed.

Eat your heart out, Stephen King. Writing can be Zen; it's cool too.
 
George Harrison
07.08.04 (10:26 am)   [edit]
I'm playing his Greatest Hits CD when I'm in the car. My favourite track is "My Sweet Lord", the one that got him sued by that girl group (see how famous they were...I can't remember their name).

I may have to cut this blog short and start again because Steve's mom might call in a few minutes. She just got back from a three week holiday with her new man. It's weird to see a seventy-five year old all flushed and excited like a teenager, weird but nice. Anyway, we haven't seen her for ages now so it's just to put a date in her busy social diary (I'm not joking; she doesn't stop that lady)

Yep, there it goes. Must leave you for a short while.
 
Where Has the Time Gone?
07.06.04 (11:45 am)   [edit]
Was it really Saturday, my last blog?

It's not like I was busy. Not really, really busy; I try not to get really, really busy because my body turns terrorist on me and tries to bring about the revolution.

Let's see. Sunday we saw sister, brother-in-law, two neices, one nephew and six rats. We meant to go Saturday but my nephew cut his foot falling off his bike and it needed stitches. He was very anxious to show us these :x when we arrived!

I mentioned to Ratty that the two male rats are never let out of their cages together. Maybe Scabbers and Louis won't be that bad because they don't have females around. Apparently that's not the only 'rat rule' in the house. Snowy and Avril cannot be civil to each other and must be kept apart. Snowy is a bully really, the biggest rat of them all but with terrible insecurities. She shares a cage with Bakura because that lady doesn't tolerate any nonsense.

Bakura is pregnant (the result of another rat rule that got forgotten). My sister says she doesn't know what to do about the babies; she's going to put an advert in the Free Pets section of the Buy n' Sell paper and see what happens.

Monday - intended to blog. Didn't because the erratic behaviour of my browser was getting worse. Fewer and fewer graphics were downloading. I cleared out my Temp Internet Files folder and that problem seems solved. But I still have other strange things happening; when I close my internet connection the PC still thinks Internet Explorer is open and tells me this when I try to Shut Down. On bootup my Active Desktop consistently needs to be reactivated.

I think I need a firewall. All you people who already have firewalls are welcome to post "Well, DUH!" comments because I deserve them.
 
Cold as Spock
07.03.04 (11:07 am)   [edit]




I'm from Ravenclaw!

Hogwart's Sorting Hat Quiz

made by The Genki Gang



You are smart, calm and calculating in a situation or problem you're faced with.
You base your decisions more of logic than a standard of morals.
But be careful, sometimes in your search for knowledge you come across as cold as Spock.

No surprises there, then.
 
Hufflepuff
07.03.04 (10:22 am)   [edit]
Hufflepuff House!


Sorting Hat
brought to you by Quizilla

So what does that mean? I chose all the bookish, nerdy, wimpy answers -- that's what!
 
Land of Nod
07.03.04 (6:24 am)   [edit]
Never say when you are tired, "I'll just get comfy on the couch and read this book."

You will wake in total darkness to find the book is trying to smother you. Your husband will say he didn't have the heart to disturb you as you looked so adorable (?) and your feet will have frozen solid. One of the cats will have curled up where your legs bend; this is probably what your husband really meant was adorable.

So those of you who received comments from me in the dead of night Pacific time will now understand. I needed to wind down again.

Now is it me, or has Photobucket lost its mind? In the last few days I haven't been able to upload a lot of headers and pics, and when I write my blogs I only get a choice of five emoticons. Is it because I'm a cheapskate dial-up account holder? Is it because I don't have Flash? Is it because my great grandmother was Welsh?

This week my box scheme contained:-
18 potatoes
A paper bag of broad beans
A head of lettuce with maroon tipped leaves
Some swiss chard
3 kohl rabi (small ones)
3 globe artichokes
6 onions
2 heads of broccoli
A paper bag of peas in the pod
8 carrots
4 bananas
2 kiwi fruit
6 apples
3 oranges

I haven't bought fresh produce from the grocery store for over a year now. It has made a difference to the amount of fruit and vegetables we eat; because the contents of the box are a mystery until it arrives it forces me to plan my meals around the contents. Before that I would have planned my meals around meat. We now eat more meatless or nearly meatless meals, and a heck of a lot more soup. The vegetables keep much longer too.

I can identify with Librarianguish and her desire to have a homestead. Part of me would like to move out of the apartment and buy a piece of ground where I can plant things. But then I also fear the extra work would eat up all my time and stop me writing. The apartment is just right. I can quick clean it back to front in two hours; if I want to scour the living daylights out it that only takes an afternoon. Someone else does the garden, washes the outside windows and does all the maintenance.

We're going to drop in on my sister this afternoon. Actually, she has rats--six of them. They share four cages in her living room and their names are:-

1. Snowy (yes the white one with pink eyes)
2. Sausage (don't ask)
3. Spike (named by my nephew after that blond guy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though why I don't know because the rat is white with patches of grey)
4. Brad (after Mr. Pitt)
5. Avril (after Ms. Lavigne)
6. Bakura (as in Ryou from Yu-Gi-Oh)

It's strange I hadn't thought to say that earlier. How long have I been blogging? Not quite two months, so maybe that's not so bad.
 
The Headers Have Disappeared
07.02.04 (11:23 am)   [edit]
Or at least I can't view them.

The Accounts dinner was on the enjoyable side of tolerable, so I can feel I've done my duty. A lot of sore heads in the office this morning (not me, I might add. I am so prone to headaches and fatigue as it is; God only knows what would happen if I went asking for it).

As I'm very tired I'm going to paste a poem in this space and hope it will suffice. See you tomorrow.

PINK AND GREY

Pink and grey
are adjectives used to describe the decor
behind many corporate Ladies’ Room doors
chosen to divert, not call attention to the function of the place
Replace them
with shades duly deemed to remind the interred
of the colour of issues we witness occur
they would be diverse, not decoration but admission of the facts

Black and puce
would symbolise all the forbidden display
of the bleeding inside and the wiping away
of the honest self, no disruption of production with our pain

Red and green
would picture obsession with body and fat
A mirror adjudicates when we retract
or let loose our life, not claim existence beyond the context of our shape

Baby blue
Agony, joy -- thin walls separate twain
who grasp the same destiny holding their stained
indicator strips, reproduction adding friction to our lives
loved and not

Secrets we share with the fixtures and tiles
would colour translate in a lunatic style
honest but unkind. For consolation in affliction we would choose
pink and grey
 
When I Was Twenty-Seven...
07.01.04 (2:57 pm)   [edit]
We'll blog now before we have to go to the Accounts dinner.

Ratty having a birthday got me thinking back...back...through the mists of time to 1991 when I turned twenty-seven. Is there something about that first adult decade of life, or were RatMagick and I the only ones who didn't know what we wanted to do? I'd already been in and out of five different jobs. Friends and relatives, in their concern, thought maybe I was getting broody but I tell you the thought of getting pregnant terrified me more than the jobs. :shock:

And I remember I got this 18 month contract as secretary for a building site manager. He didn't really have enough work for me but his budget allowed for a secretary so he hired one. He said he didn't care what I did as long as I stayed in the cabin, answered the phone, made him coffee and looked busy whenever he had visitors.

Lots of times I'd spend the entire working day alone with nothing to do. Naturally in such circumstances one reads (I didn't have a PC--before civilisation). That was the summer I read "Gone with the Wind" and other fat, intimidating volumes.

And in the autumn the strangest, strangest thing happened; I had never experienced anything like it before or since. The best way to describe it is to say I was taken hostage by a dream. A story started to play out in my head as vivid as a film, except I wasn't in control of the projection. It took a couple of months for the saga to exhaust itself. It spanned several generations of characters, and while it was imposing itself on my consciousness I could hardly sleep and a lot of my days were long, foggy episodes (thank God I wasn't working in air traffic control).

But the most bizarre and scary thing was that when this dream story ended, it went back to the beginning and started to run again. And I thought, 'my God, how will I stop this?' And the notion came to me that my mind was trying to tell me to write down the story. So I wrote it as a screenplay (a very BAD screenplay, but complete) and once that was done my dreamworld reverted to my control.

And that's what started me writing after more than ten years of trying to do all manner of other things. Life is so weird. I probably could have saved myself the schizoid episode by recognising my true calling from the beginning (you always know, don't you? Don't you? I mean I always knew in my heart of hearts but you block that out, you function in denial for so many reasons: other people's expectations, money, fear of rejection, yadda yadda yadda...)

Maybe the twenties is the time for shuffling the deck before you get down to dealing the cards?
 
Technical Difficulties
06.30.04 (10:59 am)   [edit]
Missed my regular blog last night because I could not get a decent connection from my ISP. Sites would partially download but never finish.

New accountant started at our place. She's already announced that she doesn't approve of swearing in the office, so how long she'll be able to share the same room with the payroll and purchase ledger girl I don't know, since the f word is their favourite adjective.

I've given up my desk for the new person and moved across the hall to Sales Ledger. It's cool--one of the women brings homemade cake every Monday!

Tomorrow night is the regular summer social event for the whole of Accounts. I've said I'll go because the girl who organises it gets so cheesed off if you say no (that social pressure again, Ratty, it's terrible). It won't be unbearable or anything, but I would rather stay home and blog. When the working day is over coming home is like taking refuge. I don't think a lot of other people see it that way.

But I'm definitely saying no to the Xmas party, no matter what. We always choose places where the food is mediocre and the music so loud you can't even shout over it. The younger girls like it because they don't want conversation or food; they just come to get tanked up and show off their nightclub fashions. By 9pm I'm so bored I start trying to have out of body experiences. By 10pm the noise has exhausted me.

Well, that was a bit bitchy, wasn't it? Must be that time of the month.
 
Nanaimo - Retirement City
06.28.04 (11:07 am)   [edit]
Am I too late to join the Poetry Fest? This is what happens when you go away; you miss the good stuff.

As the title suggests, Steve and I took the ferry to Vancouver Island and drove up the coast to Nanaimo to catch up with some friends we haven't seen since they retired and decided to pitch their tent elsewhere. He is a retired minister (Episcopal) and she is one of those natural gardeners.

We had some interesting conversation. The Rev. has always been extremely open minded, more than most Christians I've met. We got to know him in the early 90s when he was trying to organise speakers from other faiths to come teach his congregation. Bless him, he invited members of a local coven to a Halloween social and couldn't understand why they all declined! I had to give him a quick review of the Sabbats.

ANYWAY... we were discussing the new book by Tom Harpur that is currently the No. 2 nonfiction bestseller in Canada. It's called "Pagan Christ" and the author's thesis is that Christianity needs to abandon its literal view of the Bible and realise what historians already know, that the story of Jesus is just one of numerous retellings of ancient myths. Then, in a brave move, Harpur suggests a new spirituality, based on a more pagan approach to mythology and belief.

I hope no one minds that Mrs. Rev and I went online and I let her read your blogs (she very much liked 'White Noise', Ratty. She said she could really relate to that metaphor where you brain feels like a channel that's stopped transmitting for the night. Oh, and I'm relieved to hear that Scabbers and M got the all clear).

It's your Monday poem that really hits me. Here's one of mine, inspired by an unnamed person who once said to me, 'This writing idea is all very well, but you'd be so much happier if you got yourself a real job.'

SMALL FASCISMS

You are strictly forbidden to dream
Constituted, dreams
are crimes against the state of being subversive to the status
quota

You are permitted to pick apples
Where they fall, apples
from branches you can reach from standing by no means may you climb
the tree

And see the stars

You will get ideas above your station
complain about
subsistence joy as it is rationed
by clocking in and clocking out
and being USEDful.
 
The Saturday Afternoon Trivia Show
06.26.04 (10:57 am)   [edit]
With your hostess--ZenCat!
(Theme tune - Oh, the Rat and the ZenCat went to sea
In what would have been a beautiful pea-green boat
If it hadn't been ZenCat's job to decorate it...)

A random inventory of items in and around my desk.

1. Bottle of Olay Classic Beauty Fluid (Sensitive) half full.
2. Roget's Thesaurus
3. Newsletter from the Lighthouse Spiritualist Centre (my dad is Director and Editor)
4. Magnetic oven timer (on the side of my filing cabinet)
5. Recipe for Apple & Blueberry Slump
6. Business card from Dr. Till Geiger, lecturer at the Queen's University of Belfast, whom we met on a hiking trip across Vancouver Island in 1999.
7. Bottle of water, 500ml
8. Wedding photo in pewter frame
9. Handmade applewood pendulum from my dad
10. Fridge magnet (on filing cabinet) with the words, 'Dull women have immaculate houses'.

I pause to put some Olay Beauty Fluid on my dishwashing hands...

I am currently reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. I am an eclectic reader, the sort who jumps about flea style from this author to that one. Not known for exhausting the work of one author before moving on, but I can't resist Bryson books. Learning and laughing, that's what I get and they are my two favourite activities.

Dinner tonight - will be enchiladas with sour cream, guacamole, tortilla chips and corn with red peppers.

Hershee is asleep on our bed. Aurora is outside, probably engaged in the the feline version of ethnic cleansing (any cat who isn't tortoiseshell, sixteen months old and called Aurora).

Husband Steve has downloaded game software with sixty versions of Spider Solitaire, so no need to entertain him! Steve is a compulsive FreeCell player who has worked his way from game No 1 to No 18250. ZenCat cannot get excited about cards; she prefers Mahjongg and Pinball. Once in a while she goes back to good ol' Tetris.

DID YOU KNOW?
That under Sumerian law (Mesopotamia circa 2500 BC) woman had full citizenship, could own property and businesses. If they ran their husband's business in his absence they could skim off 30% of the profits.

In Sumerian myth, the goddess Inanna was said to have journeyed to the underworld to plead with her sister Ereshkigal for the life of her lover. Instead, Ereshkigal killed Inanna and hung her on a stake for three days and three nights before the gods intervened to raise her from the dead (hmm...echoes of a later myth here?)

Top Ten Things to see when in Vancouver:-

1. Stanley Park
2. Lynn Canyon National Park
3. Gondola to the top of Grouse Mountain
4. Science Centre
5. Granville Island Market
6. The Planetarium
7. Gastown
8. Museum of Anthropology
9. Metrotown Mall
10. White Rock Seafront

Thank you so much for joining me on this do-nothing Saturday afternoon. Hope it's been as enjoyable for you as it has been for me.

- Z
 
Inner Child
06.26.04 (5:30 am)   [edit]
My inner child is ten years old today

My inner child is ten years old!


The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hey! I did it! I did it!

Except I'm not supposed to get excited by adult things. Did anyone else say a unicorn was their favourite pet? I really wanted to say Pegasus but that wasn't an option.
 
Still Rejected
06.25.04 (10:49 am)   [edit]
Yes, the company firewall doesn't care what I do with my profile. As far as they're concerned, I'm still a menace to society.

Favourite films. My top ten (that's optimism -- I'm not even sure I could think of ten).

1. The Elephant Man
2. The Star Wars movies that WEREN'T written by Lucas
3. American Beauty
4. As Good as it Gets
5. Shakespeare in Love
6. Sixth Sense
7. Galaxy Quest
8. Chicago
9. Dick Tracy
10. Pay Check

It's an eclectic mix, yes. It would probably look less strange if I watched more films.

Okay, now I've sat in front of this screen for thirty minutes and haven't thought of a thing to say. It must be Friday. Ratmagick, I will join you in that cup of tea.
 
Altered Profile
06.24.04 (11:27 am)   [edit]
I've taken the 'p' word out of my profile, that's P-a-g-a-n for the uncertain. I wanted to blog from work but our company firewall has designated me an 'o-c-c-u-l-t' site.

So unreasonable. Just because I eat raw babies and sleep in coffins. :twisted:

Things I read in the paper today:-

1. Nabokov's "Lolita" may have been plagarized from an obscure German novella published forty years earlier.

2. Some teachers are concerned that while school investment in their computer software/hardware is healthy, school libraries are being left to languish. They feel online learning is okay but should not be allowed to replace book learning. I'd love to hear Librarianguish's take on this.

3. I must try that recipe for Lime Marmalade. I wonder if I can add raw baby to that? :wink:

4. Funny Poem - "Engineer's Corner" by Wendy Cope

(Why isn't there an Engineers' Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we've always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint...How many school children dream of becoming great engineers? -- Advertisement placed the The Times by the Engineering Council)

We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints--
That's why so many poets end up rich
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?

Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It's always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.

Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering--
You're sure to need another job as well;
You'll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. It must be hell.

While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers
You'll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust
with no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.

No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.
There's far too much encouragement for poets--
That's why this country's going down the drain.
 
I Accept My Header
06.23.04 (12:50 pm)   [edit]
That's not to say I didn't come [b]so[/b] close to upgrading my account. Pay Pal was malfunctioning yesterday when I tried, and I guess I must have been feeling superstitious because I took that as justification for leaving things the way they were.

I had a tough writing session today. I take a long time to 'warm up', to get to that state of mind where the words come a little easier (I must stress the 'little' part. Today I sat at my PC for two hours and produced 200 words).

During the warm up I was restless. Today I got up from my chair to make a cup of tea. After that was done I felt cold and turned up the heating. Then I got too warm and turned it down. Aurora was sleeping on our bed so I stopped and gave her a long massage between the ears.

I must have wasted an hour, or the better part of one. Then suddenly the switch went in my head. I didn't decide it; it just happened. I stayed sitting. I forgot I was in a room staring at a monitor. Words surfaced like bubbles, not a boil but a slow simmer.

It reminds me of this quote from a favourite book that somehow didn't get onto my lists:-

"But I was talking about productivity, and the abundance that rolls from some creators and the controlled and restrictive anorexia of others; and it might be mentioned that some writers have balance in their lives. Not all writers work at fever pitch, damaging their bodies with drugs and overwork; and neither should we confuse quantity with quality of work. Franz Kafka, who worked as an official in an insurance agency and wrote when he could, agonized over every word."

"Donald Hall, one of the country's most extensively published poets, a former Guggenheim fellow and past poetry editor of the Paris Review, explained in one newspaper interview that his customary turnaround time--the interval between conception of an idea and publication of the poem--is three to five years. The late Philip Larkin, former Poet Laureate, wrote at his own estimation three poems a year."

"Forcing oneself into producing certain kinds of work can dry up productivity almost completely. The short story writer Katherine Anne Porter, at the prodding of her editor to undertake the longer form, took twenty years to write the novel Ship of Fools."

"John Updike does his three pages a day, slow and steady."

"Hemingway kept a chart of his progress on a huge piece of cardboard 'so as not to kid myself'. He wrote five hundred and fifty to six hundred words a day--less than two pages, not much more than three--working assiduously, I'm told, four hours a day. I don't know if this was before his talents were destroyed by alcohol or whether his output grew smaller once he started in to full-time drink."

"Judith Viorst set herself the task of writing one publishable page a day, two hundred and eighty words, slow and steady, one chapter a month. She could get ahead but never fall behind. If she got ahead, she could take a day off. And this she did, writing some months on and some months off until the book was done."

-taken from "For Writers Only" by Sophy Burnham

Yeah, I know, long quote. Every time I decided to stop the next paragraph looked better than the last. I'd forgotten just how good this book is; I should really have added it to the list of those that changed my life. She writes in sound bytes, paragraphs that can be taken on their own, and her chapters are short. She seemed to get her material from everywhere, but it's her personal anecdotes that used to reach out from the book and take me by the throat. Like this one:-

"Once, driving in a car, the poet Anne Hobson Freeman asked me what I was most afraid of in life.
"Of not taking the dare!" I answered passionately.
"What dare?" she asked.
"I don't know! Whatever!" I cried, and tears of passion pricked my eyes. "Of getting to the end of my life and looking back and realizing I could have done it, and I didn't dare to risk."
The car moved on, past the pine trees, a dark gleaming green against a faultless sky. We blinked in the hard glittering autumn light. "What are you most afraid of?" I asked Anne in return.
"Of being drowned in the minutiae of life," she answered quietly. "Of never having time to write."
"It's the same thing," I told her.

Just reading that again makes me cry. And heck, I've bored you all enough. Sorry about that.
 
I Wish I Hadn't Bought This Header Now
06.21.04 (12:31 pm)   [edit]
Well, I had accumulated so many tbucks, and I thought I could change 'Weblog' to 'ZenCat' just by asking to View the Source and editing the HTML.

Phooey. Is there anyway I can go back to my old header?
 
You Know It's Monday When...
06.21.04 (10:29 am)   [edit]
...the CEO turns 65. The champagne picnic his secretaries want to organise becomes such a logistic nightmare that the personnel from several departments are called away from their real work to set up tables and polish the rented glasses. By the time the event starts everyone except the CEO is in a black dog mood; they stand around in their usual cliques drinking their champagne far too quickly...

That was our place today. Thank God I left at noon and missed it. Wouldn't it be nice if we dispensed with office hypocrisy? Bosses could admit they weren't the least bit interested in their employees, and in return the employees could tell the bosses they only work for the money. No pretending to like each other.

I forgot to say that we did go to the Dragon Boats on Saturday. Perfect Factor 30 afternoon. I cheered on the Price Waterhouse Cooper team (or, as they called themselves, the Powerful Wet Chickens) because my cousin used to work for them. Lunch: - falafel in pita bread with dolmades and Greek salad on the side and COOKED BY SOMEONE ELSE. I may like cooking, but not so much that I won't let myself be cooked for.

Sunday did nothing apart from blog, went to an okay BBQ (only one couple there that were worth talking to, but I got to hold the chihuahua puppy again).

In fact, Sunday was so slow I actually used my own link to the Highly Sensitive Person site and took the test again. Sad, terribly sad. I scored 20. Anyone else take it?

Oh, and I found this cool site that will translate your name into Elvish & Hobbit!

http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/" title="http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/" target="_blank"http://www.chriswetherell.com...
and
http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/" title="http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/" target="_blank"http://www.chriswetherell.com...

So from now on, you may call me Isilwen Cuthalion or Prisca Bolger of Newbury.

Did a little writing. Just a little. Wouldn't want to strain anything!
 
Watching the Sunrise
06.20.04 (5:53 am)   [edit]
Yes, it's early. This isn't my normal waking time on a Sunday; I want to assure everyone of that. Just now and again, when the sun starts shining so early, I like to creep out of our bedroom, slip on my house coat, quietly make a cup of tea and take it out on our balcony.

I saw a jogger go by just after six. That's dedication. I watched birds on the lawn. I saw two starlings, a robin, a chickadee and a sparrow. I saw a spaniel that had to take itself for a walk.

By then my tea was cold so I thought I'd come inside and talk to everyone here. Did you get through the BBQ all right, gbc? I'm going to one today, though thankfully I do know a couple of people there who can manage the kind of conversations you actually remember later. Do you know what I mean?

Librarianguish - I like the idea of all time favourite books. A number of these happened to be on the bookshelf I detailed some days back. But there are a couple of others:-

1. Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé. While it didn't turn me into a vegetarian, it did make me more aware of my own diet and I think it started my interest in food, food politics, nutrition and cooking.

2. Fat is a Feminist Issue - Suzie Orbach. Read in my teens when I was hiding in closets to binge on tubs of Rocky Road ice cream and then fasting to try and lose the weight. Orbach screwed my head back on straight.

3. The Highly Sensitive Person - Elaine Aron. Psychologist with a theory that 15-20% of babies are born with a hightened sensitivity to everyday stimuli, which are dismissed by current child development theorists as 'introverted'. Aron thinks this isn't giving the whole picture and puts forward her own theory which she has also published in psychiatric journals.

She has a website:-

http://www.hsperson.com/" title="http://www.hsperson.com/" target="_blank"http://www.hsperson.com/

which explains the theory better than I can and has a self-testing section.

4. The Tarot Handbook - Angeles Arrian. This is the book I happened to buy with my first tarot deck. I'm not saying it's better than others, because I've only read a couple of others. But if you use the Thoth deck I think it's better than Aleister Crowley's dreary interpretations included with the cards!

5. Status Anxiety - Alain de Botton. I have this on loan from an e-friend of an e-friend who lives in Chester, England. I've only just noticed how recent it is -- 2004. They told me there was a TV series in England as well, which I hope will come to PBS or Discovery Channel. Basically the book is about how it's no longer acceptable to be low status, i.e. to have only a mediocre job, house or possessions. I think my e-friends thought it would make me feel better in my tiny apartment with my part time filing job!

 
Dragon Boats
06.18.04 (11:03 am)   [edit]
My husband (I must name him, if only because I don't like the sound of 'my husband' as if I can hardly stand him) Steve rang from work to suggest that, instead of sand castles, we should catch the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. Every year we say 'we must go' but like all locals, we always end up missing it.

http://www.adbf.com/" title="http://www.adbf.com/" target="_blank"http://www.adbf.com/ if you want to see what it's about.

Have about 500 words of Chapter 7 down. Have been trying to work on two chapters at once, the idea being if I feel I can't think of a way forward with one I can switch windows and be productive elsewhere.

I write soooooooo slowly. Maybe 200 words in an hour, not that I'm setting a stopwatch.

Aurora has just sneezed four times. It's not like a cat to sneeze that much. I'll just go check she's okay...

...she looks surprised that I'm so interested. That's when you wish they could talk. I had a dream the other night where an RCSPA officer came to the door and said there had been reports of a cruelly treated cat at this address. Well, I panicked. I let him in and took him straight to the living room where both cats were sleeping on the couch in this zebra striped dog bed that we don't actually own. Then I got out their vet records to show him, plus the address of a couple of neighbours that look after them when we go away. I even said I would let him take them away a couple of days, though I knew it would distress poor Hershee. I just wanted to clear my name.

I think the dream was a reaction to all those well-intentioned but awful commercials the RCSPA put on television. Do you have them in England, gbc? Where they re-enact animals being tormented or abandoned. I cannot watch them; I have to change channels. If I'm made to watch them I feel cramping in my stomach and I cry. I wish I could filter them out with some TV equivalent of a firewall.

Okay, gotta sign off. Tonight is pizza night; I gotta get some dough on the go.
 
Blog will be Brief Today
06.17.04 (10:57 am)   [edit]
Because I want to write my novel instead. The forecast for greater Vancouver is for wall to wall sunshine and we have another BBQ invite for Sunday. Might drive to White Rock beach and build a sand castle.

Dinner tonight will be cauliflower & bacon quiche (recipe snipped from a magazine) with lemon-pepper coleslaw and new potatoes. Will serve just warm. Thinking of making Orange and Chocolate Chip cookies for BBQ...now imagining biting into freshly baked cookie....

Wooh! Gives you shivers.
 
You're Absolutely Right
06.16.04 (12:16 pm)   [edit]
I did say I wouldn't spend time changing the appearance of my blog. The truth is that green was getting on my nerves. Not my colour.
 
BBQ
06.16.04 (11:55 am)   [edit]
That's why I haven't blogged in 24 hours. My hubby belongs to the Maintenance Committee for our apartment block. They decided to combine their regular meeting with some food eaten outside.

We went to the home of one of the landlords (our block is a mixed bag. We own our place but most rent, and not from the same landlord). Anyway, it was one of those magazine feature places; kitchen the size of Texas and carpets you sink into and the garden had this huge pond with Japanese carp.

They had a twelve week old chihuahua puppy. I like dogs the way I like children--happy as long as someone else owns them. But this little guy really stole my heart because he liked to bury his nose in the folds of my shirt and sleep.

Why ain't it always summer? 8)
 
What Does it Mean?
06.14.04 (11:07 am)   [edit]
What does it mean when they say 'Bot This Blog'?