The Cold Cold Ground: Book One of The Troubles Trilogy by Adrian McKinty

From September 2014

The riot had taken on a beauty of its own now.  Arcs of gasoline under a crescent moon.  Crimson tracer in mystical parabolas.  Phosphorescence from the barrels of plastic bullet guns.  A distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship.  The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces.  Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife.

Beautiful start but these prose don't extend beyond the first paragraph.  I was hoping to find my next James Lee Burke or Ray Bradbury.  My search continues.

Breaking my cycle of bad luck

For years I've been not going to concerts.  If someone was coming that I wanted to see - Prince, Laurie Anderson, Joan Armatrading - we'd be out of town.  Or, we'd have the tickets - front row tickets - like to The Pretenders and Blondie - only to have the concert rained out.  But, I've got my ticket for December.  I'm going to make it.  It is going to be good - from this point on....



Well, that didn't last long.  Laurie Anderson is performing at OSU Oct 12 - while I'm away in NC becoming educated.

Rehabilitating October

From September 2014

Planning a short trip back to Ohio in October.  I am going to watch leaves turn, rake them in big piles, jump in them with Zupe.  I'm going to drink apple cider.  I am going to a pumpkin patch.  I am going to decorate for halloween and make a costume and party with my people.  I am going to study the clear blue sky.  I am going to love my family.

Odd Spots

#3 Starfish do not have brains. (That hardly makes them unique.)
#49 Giraffes cannot swim. (But, can they ice skate?)
#?? Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree. (Note: should oak trees need to stop playing golf during storms!)
#19 Birds have the right of way on all Utah highways. (Yeah. Right.)
#23 There are around 61 trees per person in the world.  (Probably better than there are 61 trees around each person in the world.)

From 6/6/14 : Words to live by....

From September 2014

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Sincerely,

E. B. White

Thoughts in my head

From September 2014

Are their words or phrases or questions that pop into your head repeatedly?  I hope so.  It happens to me all the time.

For the last couple of years its been either

"I don't know what to do"
or
"I've got to stop crying".

Can't say there is much mystery to why these might haunt me - though for the record, the latter never occurred while I was actually crying.  I just figure I was pretty much crying constantly inside.

Now, my inner voice asks,

"What am I going to do".

I think it is an improvement.

Work survey

From September 2014

Photo by my brother-in-law, Sam.  Thanks, Sam.

I'm guessing it is a project for The Office Facebook Page - a survey asking us to introduce ourselves, so to speak, by answering a series of questions.

What are your qualifications?

"I went to school for a long, long time and then went to school, again."   

This got shortened to DVM from The (of course) Ohio State University and PhD in Biopsychology from Duke University.  I left out the MA and the BS.... 

What is your background?

Fortunately, I had the advantage of seeing other people's answers to know that this meant, "Where are you from?"  On my own, I would think it was asking what I had done in the past.  Not all that different.  But now no one will know I was a corn detassler, a documenter of dragonfly behavior, a castrator of doves, or a catcher of radioactive horse pee.  You, dear friend, already knew all of this... so I guess I overstepped with the use of "no one".  

I am from the Poultry and Egg Hub of the Midwest.... or what at one time was the Poultry and Egg Hub of the Midwest ... like at the time I was actually becoming from there. 

 The questions got harder.

Your pets.

Hmmmm.  There is this gecko that lives behind the a/c unit in the bedroom.  Would he (please be a he an not a highly fecund female!) count?  

It seems sad, and possibly suspicious, for a vet to say "I have no pets" or "My pets are all dead."   

In the end, I went with sad.  "Still missing our bad girl, Zelda."

What animal would you like to be?

Sigh.  I don't want to be anything that has to run really fast to get her dinner.  I don't want to be an animal that has to run really fast to not be someone else's dinner.  I don't want to eat rotting animals.  I don't want to bite into a live animal and have my mouth filled with gushing blood.  I don't want to be a cow and constantly vomiting - even just a little - into my mouth.
I went with jelly fish.  They look so beautiful and so relaxed.

Feel free to comment with your own answers....

The Year of the Flood

From July / August  2014

Farewell is the song Time sings...

from 2/17/2013

"The Big Over-Easy: A Nursery Crime" - from May 2013

From July / August  2014

Oh my goodness!  What fun! I had grown tired of Thursday Next - though never of her name - but loved both this and "Shades of Grey: A Novel".  Pick up a copy.  You deserve it.  Meanwhile, off to order "The Fourth Bear" from Amazon.

"..Well, there's usually a rule of three somewhere.  Either quantitative, as in bears, billy goats, blind mice, little pigs, fiddlers, bags of wool or what-have-you, or qualitative, such as small, medium, large, stupid, stupider, stupidest.  If you come across any stepmothers, they're usually evil, woodcutters always come into fame and fortune, orphans are ten a penny, and pigs, cats, bears, and wolves frequently anthropomorphize."

...

"Do they know?"
"Do they know what?"
"Do they know they're nursery characters?"
"I think sometimes they suspect, but for the most part they have no idea at all.  To the Billy Goats, Jack and Jill and the Gingerbreadman, it's all business as normal.  Don't worry-- you'll get into the swing of it."

...

"What happened to your last DS?"
"His name was Alan Butcher.  A good man.  He died in a car accident."
"I'm sorry."
"Not as sorry as I was; I was the one that ran over him in my wife's Volvo.  But it wasn't my fault--he stepped out in front of me."
"Was he...tall?" asked Mary a bit recklessly.
Jack shook his head sadly.  "You've heard about the giant killing already?  Sometimes I think the station talks of almost nothing else.  Well, hear it from the horse's mouth: Aside from Butcher, they were all self-defense.  When someone that big comes at you with a knife, you don't stop to worry about using lethal force.  It was him or me.  Same as the other two.  Mind you, only one of them was technically a giant--the rest were just tall. .."

...

"...By the way, how many giants have you killed?  I ask only by way of curiosity and self-preservation, you understand."
"Technically speaking, only one," replied Jack with a sigh.  "The other three were just tall."
"To kill one giant might be regarded as a misfortune," said Brown-Horrocks slowly.  "To kill four looks very much like carelessness."

Look what is new at our house!

From July / August 2014

He started last week Wednesday. I think it is because I dressed him in shorts and his little knees were tender after being covered all winter. (I'd insert evil laughter here if it had been even marginally foreseen.)

Go, Zupe!  Go!

Oh, and it is MOSTLY just a function of the video - that Zombie gait that he's displaying.  He is, however, our son.

Just don't do it.....

From July / August  2014

Am I the only one who puts the accent on the second syllable?

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell

…and I will dance this dance alone and it will be a dance I've danced before….

I'm cleaning house

From January 2, 2013

Well, so to speak.  You couldn't tell by actually visiting my house.  Of course, Kevin would tell you that cleaning is recognised by - damn this autocorrect - it refuses to allow me to use American spellings - an increase in mess.  There are piles of things where there once were none and paper spread over every flat surface.  The dead give-away, however, is that the vacuum is lying about.  Well, that used to be the dead give-away before Zupe.  Now, it might mean that he wanted to play with the vacuum and I was powerless to object.

But, while I am making a attack on the box of papers that need to be filed or followed-up-on or discarded (because the follow-up period has long since passed or my passion for them has waned below the file level), what I'm making an effort at lately has been to clear the draft folder in my blog.  I have an amazing number of draft entries - some of which are only titles many of which no longer stimulate me to remember the event I intended to chronicle.  I'm starting with the oldest.  Sometimes I post them "on" the date that I wrote the beginning of the blog and sometimes, not always on purpose, I am publishing them on the current date.  That's why I'm wishing my friend Diane a happy birthday in June for her January birthday….in 2008.  Yay for me.

Be Mine

If I should I live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you.

Happy Birthday, Diane!

From June 2014

Diane, you are another sister. I can't believe my good fortune to find you my roommate that first year at Ohio State. Such a big place to find a familiar and dear face. I treasure those years with you- and hope that this birthday was outrageously special. Maybe sometime we should get together again?

Originally written, and languishing since, January 2008.  Please tell Diane, if you see her, that I love her.

You can't get better than this!

The music! The costumes! The whistle!!

Wow, this was originally written in 2010.  I cannot figure out why it was still a draft.  I am feeling sad, however, that I don't think the link works and I am dying to know about the whistle!

Australian True Crime - draft from 2009

In the last week Kevin and I have finished "Underbelly" (the 13 part series about the Melbourne gangland murders of the 1990's and early 2000's) and "Chopper" (a movie about another Australian bad guy, Mark "Chopper" Reed.) We enjoyed both: "Underbelly" was both an excursion into Australian television (which, despite having lived here for over 2 years (over 3 for Kevin) we've never watched) and an OK story. "Chopper" was an excellent movie about a very unusual and disturbingly amusing character. You know. The kind of amusement you only feel when you are very far removed from the actual events and people.

So, Australian TV. I'm not sure I can put my finger on the exact difference(s), but (on the basis of watching a single progam series, mind you) there is a palpably obvious dinstiction between American and Australian TV. You can definately turn off the audio and still recognize that this is not a product of NBC or HBO. People are doing Australian things- like eating and DRINKING outdoors- around the barbie, hanging clothes out to dry and driving on the left side of the street. There is, also, something different about the editing - particularly scenes involving cars and car chases. And, in "Underbelly", at least, it takes lots and lots of bullets to kill a person. This may be historically accurate or it may be an artistic decision- or both. Maybe Australians are just really poor shots.

This one goes out to the ones I love

Happy Valentine's Day! to all my friends and family. I dearly love you and look forward to spending time with you.



This post was in draft form from 2008.  I am not sure why I never finalized it!  None-the-less, enjoy!

In my inbox today....

From June 2014

Send a Greeting Card for Queen's Birthday (not Western Australia) on Monday June 9th‏!

Who could resist?? But, where, exactly do you find a greeting card for the Queen's Birthday (not Western Australia)? Though, I suppose, there is a clue there - don't look in Western Australia. AND, once I have the card, to whom would I send it? To the Queen? But, it is a holiday for all of us - not Western Australia....

Since I don't know what to do and a search of Birthday Alarm cards fails to yield a "Queen's Birthday (not Western Australia)" card, I have decided that a short blog post- sending out to everyone -except you-know-who ...what? you don't like a party? - will have to suffice.

And, we will need JUST the RIGHT photo.

PS on the watch-thing

You probably don't want to be the one to buy me my next watch, because even though the watches have only lasted a few years, each watch has outlived the giver. Isn't that sad….

Postscripts are awkward on the blog, as they appear before the original post… Hmmmm.