I'm reading White Horses, one of the few Alice Hoffman novels I have not yet read. So far I am finding it depressing, but am holding out hope that it will get better. Even when her subject matter is sad, that woman writes beautifully.
I'm also re-reading Laurie J. Marks first three Shaftal books. I sure wish her last book in the series - Air Logic - would come out! Laurie J. Marks and Rosemary Kirstein are both making me wait for YEARS for their latest. Darn it! If you want to read some thinking person's fantasies, I recommend both of these writers.
24 April, 2012
21 April, 2012
Listen to the music of the pouring rain
Yesterday after work and dog walking, I went to my second yoga nidra evening. Toni went along for her second round of yoga nidra in one day. She's working on getting extra meditative!
At this studio, the way the teacher, Vicki, handles yoga nidra is that first she has you do a round of gentle yoga, and then you settle down on a stack of mats and blankets, with whatever props you need, and you do aobut 40-45 minutes of the meditation. Well, last night our gentle yoga turned into something a little more strenuous than I was expecting. She threw something called a Moon Salutation there at the end which I just could not do. At one point I lost my balance and tumped over. Luckily, I fell from sort of a crouching position and directly onto my bolster! Lucky that, because injuring yourself at a mediation evening would not be in the spirit of the thing!
Today I mailed two quilts off to the long arm quilter. I also washed some dishes, took a long nap, helped Thomas clean up in the yard some, clipped Dru a little, ate a hamburger, and spent an hour at the bookstore. Now I am home, wishing my ear would clear up, and listening to the rain outside in my muffled way. The earth needs this rain very badly. I heard on the radio that our area gets an average of 20 inches of rain per winter and we've gotten 2 this year. Not a good thing, so all moisture welcomed and appreciated!
At this studio, the way the teacher, Vicki, handles yoga nidra is that first she has you do a round of gentle yoga, and then you settle down on a stack of mats and blankets, with whatever props you need, and you do aobut 40-45 minutes of the meditation. Well, last night our gentle yoga turned into something a little more strenuous than I was expecting. She threw something called a Moon Salutation there at the end which I just could not do. At one point I lost my balance and tumped over. Luckily, I fell from sort of a crouching position and directly onto my bolster! Lucky that, because injuring yourself at a mediation evening would not be in the spirit of the thing!
Today I mailed two quilts off to the long arm quilter. I also washed some dishes, took a long nap, helped Thomas clean up in the yard some, clipped Dru a little, ate a hamburger, and spent an hour at the bookstore. Now I am home, wishing my ear would clear up, and listening to the rain outside in my muffled way. The earth needs this rain very badly. I heard on the radio that our area gets an average of 20 inches of rain per winter and we've gotten 2 this year. Not a good thing, so all moisture welcomed and appreciated!
18 April, 2012
Somewhere under all this fat I have a muscle!
I had a teeny tiny little bit of realization (a Revalation-ette?) at yoga today. While still very much a Large Fat Person, I have increased my fitness level noticably in the past 4.5 months. Things that I was Not Able to do in January are Do-able now. Yoga positions that left me trembling and weak-kneed in February are still challenging, but no longer wipe me out.
There is a bit less of me these days, and that's gotta help, but also (please picture me running up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum while a cheesy 80s band wails "Gotta Fly Now") I am stronger! A reasonably fit high school kid could still kick my ass, but I could probably take your 80 year old grandma. Not that I would though, because, duh, I'm doing YOGA...and I don't want to mess my chakras up or ruin my karma or anything like that. I'm sure violence against old ladies would be anti-the-spirit-of-yoga.
In other news, I just re-read Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven and Ice Queen. I am in a Hoffman-esque mood. I still have White Horses to get through too. I also read Sandra Dallas' latest, Whiter Than Snow. It was good, but dang, also sad. It tells the story of a bunch of people in a small mining town in CO in about 1920. Each chapter covers the sad lives and history of a bunch of people whose kids have been swept up in an avalanche. You know nine kids are missing and only four of them are going to be found. So from the git-go you are trying to figure out which sad people are going to have even MORE sadness added to their already full plate of sadness. I like Sandra Dallas, but think that if you haven't read something by her, start with The Persian Pickle Club or Prayers for Sale for a less wrenching introduction to a fine Western writer.
Monday it was 90 degrees here in Maryland, and Thomas and I slept with the ceiling fan going. Today it is about 50 and rainy and my feet are cold to the bone and I'm ready for the weather to settle into something warm and balmy. I want my month of perfect spring before the humidity shows up.
There is a bit less of me these days, and that's gotta help, but also (please picture me running up the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum while a cheesy 80s band wails "Gotta Fly Now") I am stronger! A reasonably fit high school kid could still kick my ass, but I could probably take your 80 year old grandma. Not that I would though, because, duh, I'm doing YOGA...and I don't want to mess my chakras up or ruin my karma or anything like that. I'm sure violence against old ladies would be anti-the-spirit-of-yoga.
In other news, I just re-read Alice Hoffman's Seventh Heaven and Ice Queen. I am in a Hoffman-esque mood. I still have White Horses to get through too. I also read Sandra Dallas' latest, Whiter Than Snow. It was good, but dang, also sad. It tells the story of a bunch of people in a small mining town in CO in about 1920. Each chapter covers the sad lives and history of a bunch of people whose kids have been swept up in an avalanche. You know nine kids are missing and only four of them are going to be found. So from the git-go you are trying to figure out which sad people are going to have even MORE sadness added to their already full plate of sadness. I like Sandra Dallas, but think that if you haven't read something by her, start with The Persian Pickle Club or Prayers for Sale for a less wrenching introduction to a fine Western writer.
Monday it was 90 degrees here in Maryland, and Thomas and I slept with the ceiling fan going. Today it is about 50 and rainy and my feet are cold to the bone and I'm ready for the weather to settle into something warm and balmy. I want my month of perfect spring before the humidity shows up.
17 April, 2012
Spirit of 1812
This year is the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which may be American's least known war. Maybe it ties with the Spanish American War, 'cause who even knows what that was about? I am assuming that we were fighting the Spanish, but I don't know why or where.
This is a picture of the group project I worked on with three other women. I made the hourglass blocks.
The center and the four corners are Broderie Perse and then the other blocks are machine pieced. One of the members of our group hand quilted the whole thing. It looks very nice, and I'm proud to have been part of the effort.
This is a picture of the group project I worked on with three other women. I made the hourglass blocks.
It's not that I'm not listening, it's just that I can't hear you
I finally saw the doctor today over this ear of mine.
A week ago I was watching television and my ear started hurting. By the time I went to bed I had a throbbing earache and could not hear out of my ear. Tuesday I stayed home and slept most of the day. Wednesday I was feeling better, but my hearing was still off and my ear just didn't feel "right".
Since then I've felt like my left ear was stuffed full of cotton. No, that's not quite right. It feels like first someone poured wax in my ear, THEN stuffed it full of damp cotton, and finished it off with a plug of cement. Not to get all Classical on you, but I am hearing "through a glass, darkly." I might as well be underwater considering how indistinct everything sounds.
A week of Afrin and decongestents didn't do a bit of good so I saw the doc today. I have Antibiotics to take in pill form and antibiotics to drip in my ear. I don't like to take unneccesary antibiotics, but when I need them, I am so thankful for them. I do believe in better living through chemistry.
A week ago I was watching television and my ear started hurting. By the time I went to bed I had a throbbing earache and could not hear out of my ear. Tuesday I stayed home and slept most of the day. Wednesday I was feeling better, but my hearing was still off and my ear just didn't feel "right".
Since then I've felt like my left ear was stuffed full of cotton. No, that's not quite right. It feels like first someone poured wax in my ear, THEN stuffed it full of damp cotton, and finished it off with a plug of cement. Not to get all Classical on you, but I am hearing "through a glass, darkly." I might as well be underwater considering how indistinct everything sounds.
A week of Afrin and decongestents didn't do a bit of good so I saw the doc today. I have Antibiotics to take in pill form and antibiotics to drip in my ear. I don't like to take unneccesary antibiotics, but when I need them, I am so thankful for them. I do believe in better living through chemistry.
16 April, 2012
Monday is a terrible way to spend 1/7th of your life
Back to Work today. We got along okay today, Work and I, though there is still this low key tension between us. I think Work knows that even when I am there I am not really there, that I am looking at other Works and thinking about them even when I am with Work. I'm not proud of that, but I am the kind of woman who doesn't have it in her to remain faithful to one Work. I like variety.
Does anyone know a private detective who wants a secretary? I've decided I might make a good Effie Perrine. I see myself wearing smart gray suits with pumps, and having a small black bird statuette on the corner of my desk. I'd keep a large glass ashtray in the office and crack wise with the customers.
Or perhaps I may take up dog walking. I like dogs! I like walking. Being a professional stroller might help me drop more of my avoirdupois as well. I could wear jeans all the time, which sounds good.
Other careers that appeal are baker (love baking!) or working for a wine distributor. Probably neither of those is a great idea, I don't need to hang around too many baked goods and I'm more interested in drinking vino than distributing it.
Does anyone know a private detective who wants a secretary? I've decided I might make a good Effie Perrine. I see myself wearing smart gray suits with pumps, and having a small black bird statuette on the corner of my desk. I'd keep a large glass ashtray in the office and crack wise with the customers.
Or perhaps I may take up dog walking. I like dogs! I like walking. Being a professional stroller might help me drop more of my avoirdupois as well. I could wear jeans all the time, which sounds good.
Other careers that appeal are baker (love baking!) or working for a wine distributor. Probably neither of those is a great idea, I don't need to hang around too many baked goods and I'm more interested in drinking vino than distributing it.
15 April, 2012
The Soup Diet
Today was a supremely lazy day. We didn't leave home. We sat in the back yard reading books and taking naps and hanging out. We also wrote a large check to the guy who is going to be doing our landscaping work in a few weeks. Wooh, writing those big checks is traumatic. Unlike things which are easy come-easy go, money is so hard to come by, but goes out so quickly!
Yesterday a Good Elf brought my poor sick husband some soup! Thanks Toni, he needs someone to be nice to him, which I haven't been doing a very good job of lately. He said it was good soup!
Speaking of soup, Crystal Thai, up the road, makes the best Tom Yung Gai. I have started to crave it once a week. Maybe in the summer I will quit cooking entirely and only eat the tom yung gai from there and the gazpacho from Mari Luna. Just those two soups would give me everything I need: chicken, vegetables, delicious spiciness, yummy limey goodness. Darn, my mouth is watering!
Yesterday a Good Elf brought my poor sick husband some soup! Thanks Toni, he needs someone to be nice to him, which I haven't been doing a very good job of lately. He said it was good soup!
Speaking of soup, Crystal Thai, up the road, makes the best Tom Yung Gai. I have started to crave it once a week. Maybe in the summer I will quit cooking entirely and only eat the tom yung gai from there and the gazpacho from Mari Luna. Just those two soups would give me everything I need: chicken, vegetables, delicious spiciness, yummy limey goodness. Darn, my mouth is watering!
14 April, 2012
WAR!
Today I ran away.
First, I emptied out the area under the kitchen sink where mouse poop had been sighted and scrubbed and bleached and threw away things that had teeny tiny mouse tooth marks. Then, taking advantage of my rage-induced energy I dragged the fridge out of its bay and changed the water filter and vacuumed and cleaned everything. Whoa damn, it felt good to get those nasty chores out of the way.
The rage came from the fact that I was pissy about the taxes, and you know how once you are mad, you can be mad about everything someone has done since the Year Dot? Well, last week I was in bed and Thomas came in, turned on the light, and informed me, in a voice full of Portent and Doom, that he thought we had mice in the kitchen because he thought he saw mouse poop. To which I said, basically, "Yuk. Well, clean it up."
But no cleaning up was done and when I had a peek today to find indeed, mouse turds under the sink, I thought about having a hissy and screaming and stuff. But really, what good does it do? WAR! Whu-ut is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again! WAR!
War doesn't help. Getting all Valkyrie on his ass about the kitchen when what I am really angry about is the taxes is immature and pointless (not that I can't do immature and pointless with the best of them). But I am TRYING to be a grownup and Use My Words and remember to breathe like we learn at YOGA. So, I asked him to go upstairs and finish the taxes and I tackled the Problem Areas.
And then I ran away. I took myself out to lunch, went to the library, read for a couple of hours sitting in my car. It was all very lazy and calming and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I came back with a much improved attitude to a clean kitchen and taxes that had been submitted.
Win!
First, I emptied out the area under the kitchen sink where mouse poop had been sighted and scrubbed and bleached and threw away things that had teeny tiny mouse tooth marks. Then, taking advantage of my rage-induced energy I dragged the fridge out of its bay and changed the water filter and vacuumed and cleaned everything. Whoa damn, it felt good to get those nasty chores out of the way.
The rage came from the fact that I was pissy about the taxes, and you know how once you are mad, you can be mad about everything someone has done since the Year Dot? Well, last week I was in bed and Thomas came in, turned on the light, and informed me, in a voice full of Portent and Doom, that he thought we had mice in the kitchen because he thought he saw mouse poop. To which I said, basically, "Yuk. Well, clean it up."
But no cleaning up was done and when I had a peek today to find indeed, mouse turds under the sink, I thought about having a hissy and screaming and stuff. But really, what good does it do? WAR! Whu-ut is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again! WAR!
War doesn't help. Getting all Valkyrie on his ass about the kitchen when what I am really angry about is the taxes is immature and pointless (not that I can't do immature and pointless with the best of them). But I am TRYING to be a grownup and Use My Words and remember to breathe like we learn at YOGA. So, I asked him to go upstairs and finish the taxes and I tackled the Problem Areas.
And then I ran away. I took myself out to lunch, went to the library, read for a couple of hours sitting in my car. It was all very lazy and calming and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I came back with a much improved attitude to a clean kitchen and taxes that had been submitted.
Win!
13 April, 2012
Guess who is married to The Sickest Man?
Tonight I read John Green's new book, The Fault In Our Stars. For the final half hour it took me to complete it I had tears streaming down my face and soaking into my shirt. It was so good, funny, and sad, and full of all kinds of wisdom about death and living, and I enjoyed it. Not as much as I loved An Abundance of Katherines, but very, very much. With TFIOS, John Green goes back to the tragicomic style he used in his first novel, Looking For Alaska, with teenagers struggling with the big questions:
Why are we here?
What is the meaning of life and death?
Why do we suffer?
What will I leave behind me when I go?
I am all dehydrated from the crying, but I actually feel better than I did when I came home from work with a huge case of the grumpies. I got home to find the dogs hungry and dying for a pee while Thomas was upstairs watching tv and having his cold *cof, cof*
I sympathize with his not feeling well and not wanting to give them a proper walk, but he couldn't even be arsed to go downstairs, feed them and put them in the yard?
There is also the fact that although it is the Ides of April and our taxes are NOT filed. They are done in the computer and it would only take a little to file them but Thomas isn't ready to let them go. I truly do not understand where his mind is when it comes to the taxes...we finished them a month ago but he wanted "to look them over again," and now it is almost tax day and they aren't filed. And now he is the Sickest Man on Earth and was Too Tired and Sick to punch the keys it would have taken to file them today.
Right now, I am thinking about spitting in his next cup of peppermint tea.
Why are we here?
What is the meaning of life and death?
Why do we suffer?
What will I leave behind me when I go?
I am all dehydrated from the crying, but I actually feel better than I did when I came home from work with a huge case of the grumpies. I got home to find the dogs hungry and dying for a pee while Thomas was upstairs watching tv and having his cold *cof, cof*
I sympathize with his not feeling well and not wanting to give them a proper walk, but he couldn't even be arsed to go downstairs, feed them and put them in the yard?
There is also the fact that although it is the Ides of April and our taxes are NOT filed. They are done in the computer and it would only take a little to file them but Thomas isn't ready to let them go. I truly do not understand where his mind is when it comes to the taxes...we finished them a month ago but he wanted "to look them over again," and now it is almost tax day and they aren't filed. And now he is the Sickest Man on Earth and was Too Tired and Sick to punch the keys it would have taken to file them today.
Right now, I am thinking about spitting in his next cup of peppermint tea.
12 April, 2012
First Him Then Me Still Me Now Him Again
All last week Thomas had a tickly sort of feeling he was getting a cold, but nothing much materialized. Then I got a for real cold, followed by an ear that is completely blocked up and painful. It is feeling better, but I am still poorly, and now Thomas has a full-blown case of "the lurgie" (as my friend Sam calls it).
Welcome to Plague House!
In the past week I have been watching all kinds of series on Netflix. We watched Life with D. Lewis. I watched all of Father Brown from back in the 70s and a series of Tommy and Tuppence from back when Francesca Annis was just a Young Thing.
Now we are back to season 3 of Murdoch. I love this show. Yannick Bisson is the handsome, Crabtree is sweetly appealing, and I've always had a thing for red-headed Englishmen, so I like the Captain too. But really, I think the prettiest thing about the show is the beautiful Helene Joy, who plays the Doctor, William's coroner inamorata. She's red headed and freckled, and I swear, when she appears on screen you can hear angelic choirs singing "AAAAAAAaaaaaah," while faeries drop pixie dust on her beautiful skin and hair.
Anyway, the show is also very funny.
Welcome to Plague House!
In the past week I have been watching all kinds of series on Netflix. We watched Life with D. Lewis. I watched all of Father Brown from back in the 70s and a series of Tommy and Tuppence from back when Francesca Annis was just a Young Thing.
Now we are back to season 3 of Murdoch. I love this show. Yannick Bisson is the handsome, Crabtree is sweetly appealing, and I've always had a thing for red-headed Englishmen, so I like the Captain too. But really, I think the prettiest thing about the show is the beautiful Helene Joy, who plays the Doctor, William's coroner inamorata. She's red headed and freckled, and I swear, when she appears on screen you can hear angelic choirs singing "AAAAAAAaaaaaah," while faeries drop pixie dust on her beautiful skin and hair.
Anyway, the show is also very funny.
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