modest proposal

So yesterday, I got up (sort of) and there out the window was a doe eating a)molecules, because that's what seemed to be on offer on the muddy, newly-deprived-of-glacier soil at the edge of the woods. There is still PLENTY of glacier. In town, the glaciers are quite dirty and will probably melt faster as a result of losing their natural coloration. Not here in the thinterlands.
The doe, who was not one of your small deer, appearing to be the size of a small SUV like a RAV or that one two of my friends have (but I am apparently not having a good morning for brain cells) or a post-modern refrigerator, did not greatly care that I was looking at her, even though she or her ilk (or elk?) were likely responsible for making my poor little pitchpine into a troffula tree.

I feel sorry for the deer, they are hungry. I do not feed them because they need to eat twigs and bark this time of year, not hay or chicken food, and because they should not associate this place with food in case I ever terraform it and garden.

They don't look starving (assuming I would recognize it), they look truculent.

She left and the tom turkey came and did the whole 'gobblegobblegobble' fluff display, which is pretty cool.[By the way, the soundtrack here is stupid. The sounds on this one are much more like it. The thing to notice, by the way, is that generally, the hens could care less only with great difficulty.] I am not a turkey hen nor that way inclined, but the American peacock thing is simply fine.

And it was sunny and you would have thought it might, possibly, be spring.

This weekend is the Smith science fiction convention and I am teaching spinning and needlefelting, traditional science fiction and fantasy crafts. So I worked an extra 3 hours and got the thing for Friday done yesterday afternoon, I could pack today and leave perhaps around noon. Leisurely travel, little streams, melting glaciers. WEBS. You know.

Only it's snowing really a lot and will get worse until tapering off about 4pm. When I will leave.

I think perhaps the Jews were right this year and we might have just put in an extra February and lowered our expectations.

The Spellman Files is really funny.

It was Easter.

And it didn't actually snow, so just because it's still going to be in the 30's most days this week.... ahhhggg. I know, Easter is early this year.

I spend Good Friday, a day off, reading supernatural urban fantasy, of which there is an awful lot available these days.

Saturday morning was the first day Doug was home later than 10 am at the same times as I was in a what seems like a long time. Supported by the presence of a fellow-human I actually tidied house until about 1 pm. The house is now only very messy instead of alarming. Then I did bills. Then I went to the bank, and eventually Bruce and Sue's, where Drew and Mary Ann and Donna were as well. I had not been to see Bruce and Sue in about three years, because their house is 91 miles away and I am basically no good. But I had such a good time (including beef not-unlike Bourguignon and newly legal absinthe -- this was Lucid, it tasted MUCH better diluted and louche, and it is very strong) and friendly people I hope I will do that again. There were three reflective non-practicing Catholics and a secular Jew, whom I persuaded to tell the story of Esther (it was Purim on Friday. We think they stuck another month in the Hebrew calendar this year. I always think of Purim as part of February). Everyone learned to make noise when Haman's name was mentioned, which Drew pronounced "Cheney" more than once.

Then I went to my parents'. They had been at the Easter Vigil. I had to beg them to let me go to sleep, because they are made of sterner stuff than I am. We had an informal Easter morning and went to Legal Seafood for Easter dinner (no garlic shrimp. I was sad. The mini-quiche was good, though), and then we went to Logan to pick up the Daughter and the Ex, who had spent the Daughter's spring break touring obscure Roman sites and their relatives in Southern England.



Daughter in Bath.

They had a good time. I am wistful. Boy, were they tired. Daughter had considered drivbing herself back to college and then to New Jersey for grad school interview on Wednesday, but fortunately the car in her father's driveway had a flat tire, forcing her to rethink and possibly saving several lives. After some discussion I drove her to Northampton, and then drove home. My accelerator foot wants to learn to use the cruise control.

And the archaeological unit I and the ex met working for in 1978has found a real goodie. More power to them.

Warm idea

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=233971.0

Meanwhile, in the land of Beer Labels, on the back of my shirt I started building a house. I am making a Good Times at Gault shirt. I am not looking forward to the Clovis points, many many curves. Stem stitch, I guess (stemmed point stitch? would never do for fluted!).

The beer label, by the way, started off canted like the original, but the tracing paper warped and shifted as I sewed through it. I was glad to have it at the end of the bed, wrapped around a pair of new trousers, when I realized I could not freehand the alleged goat (You think that's a goat? ('bock' beer is named after goats)(perhaps the capering that ensues) Sarah and I think it's a perfectly nice Dall sheep), but after this experience, next time I will stagger downstairs and try the Sulky stabilizer.

Could have been a tattoo

Comes a time in one's life when one, or you, or I realize I may have become what my grandmothers most feared: Trashy. My mom is not keen on Trashy, either, but she has rather different ideas what constitutes it and also a sense of humor that my grandmothers perhaps never had the comforting feeling of distance from Trashiness to acquire. They would have been more comfortable with something like this.

I realized I had sunk into the gutter when I looked at the deathless piece of fiberart I was concocting and realized that I was indeed embroidering a beer label.


Shiner, if you have read the blog over at NH Underground is a nectar, a proof that God wants us to be happy, an anodyne for the pain of the world (and knees). It's also not available north of Virginia, so we don't get it often, like only on archaeology gigs in Texas, and it is possible that I am affected by the context I find it in. A Shiner Bock and Salt Lick barbecue constitute a SERIOUS candidate for the Best Meal in the World, particularly when you have a hangover.
The lady at the quilt store said "I hope it's not Bud Lite." At least, by local standards, I am yuppie Trash.

Meanwhile, it's sneeting outside. We see deer daily, eating wild rosebushes and my pussywillow, poor things, and the squirrels I usually don't see that often, who don't wreck my birdfeeders, are frequent visitors. Some people talk about daffodil sprouts; here, you'd need an auger and a laparoscope to see them through the snow.

At last

I have finally got my Week in Texas Supposedly Getting Warm blog up, with pictures (rather smaller than I had in mind, but I am tired of feeling the weight of getting the thing done). You can find it here. If you look hard, there will be cows.

Now I can go back to feeling guilty about not knit-blogging. I have been reading C.E. Murphy the last few days and she is pretty rivetting, so that's my excuse.

I am back

I like it here. I liked it there. My feet are not so good, as I M@US@T get Wellington boots with no heel and some arch support. Let me tell you about water-screening when it's under 40 and windy.

Better yet, wait till I upload some photos and get the text up. I remembered the secret word fine, but tried to send it to 'blogspot' instead of 'blogger' so it didn't post.

I come home and there is potting soil and birdseed in the bath tub and laundry all over the bed. The bathtub is not really much worse than I left it; Doug kept my plants alive when the cats played either Tarzan or "those-Motorcycle-things-that-fly-in -the-woods-in-The Return of the Jedi" with my plants. My amaryllis are in full bloom. The birdseed was from his keeping the birdfeeders going through the wind storms and the raccoon invasions. The laundry on my bed is clean and folded and stacked neatly at the end, lot of room to sleep.
I have the Best HouseMate EvAr.

I still like archaeology and may have learned some stuff about lithics. Unfortunately, this is really neat and exciting.

I almost finished a pair of socks in Lorna's Laces Tuscany.

more soon, I hope.