Wednesday, September 18th, 2019 08:52 am
Tuesday i was weepy. I don't know exactly what it was about. Family, mortality, surely was a pert. Reading the NYTimes "partial" obituary of Cokie Roberts and it's linked 2017 interview with her and her husband about their 50 year marriage teared me up. I could shoot the Adobe Illustrator developers who have inconsistently implemented color changing from swatches (what works for fills fails for strokes) and the swatch system! Geeze, louise. Work stresses me (due to my procrastination expectations of self etc, and my belief that they will all soon find out it is all a facade.)

I took the afternoon and poked at county history, will take Friday and will go play in the woods with my niece. Hopefully that will help.

I used a UV flashlight outside in the moonlight on Tuesday morning - absolutely fascinating to see occasional fluorescence and color shifts. Violet leaves are a dark dark magenta-burgundy, brassica leaves' dusty bloom fluoresces blue, and there's something on the dying stems of miniature roses that fluoresces orange.

I went out in the evening and tried to take photos with my phone. Unsurprisingly it responds a little differently than my eye-brain system and overwhelmingly just recorded purple.

This morning when i went out i was quite startled by the hoot of an owl. Single loud hoots -- not the familiar who-cooks-for-you-ish rhythm. I didn't let the cats out; Carrie barked once in her startlement.

I made a natural deodorant yesterday: baking soda and my mint glycerate. The glycerate is OK to add to water as a flavor and sweetener, but i think the ice cubes with mint seem a more agreeable delivery. It didn't take much glycerine to mix in with the baking soda to make a paste with the consistency of the average deodorant. So, no big chunk of plastic -- but, boy, do i miss the delivery system of that big chunk of plastic. It looks like cardboard tubes are available to fill and use as a push-from-the-bottom delivery system. I have established its reasonably effective for me, so i think i will buy the tubes and see how well it works over time.

Regarding my speculations from public records: i've become interested with the idea of a "novel" from fictionalized public records. Whether the records would be in facsimile (and art book, like Griffin and Sabine?) or it would be simply text, i don't know. I did come up with a fictional county & county seat -- Beauford, Norfield County named for Earl of Norfield, of the County ---, George Beauford. I don't know what County in Great Britain he should live in. The Earl of Chatham was from Kent. I decided my fictional county seat would be at the fall line of the Cape Fear, where Moncure is now, but fictionalize the confluence. The "port" might make for a more interesting alternative-history with a bit more records about early arrivals and departures.

The plot line -- it's harder to come up with something other than the usual two family lines and how they shift politically through history. A Quaker family from the Revolution and Civil War whose scion is now an adamant "[Confederate] Flagger," a wealthy aristocratic settler whose scion is a progressive community leader, an enslaved person whose descendants have become local politicians. This is why an artbook with reproductions could be more interesting than a novel.....
Wednesday, September 18th, 2019 07:08 pm (UTC)
I usually listen to NPR every day and they had quite a bit about Cokie yesterday. It was quite a life and career. I was surprised to hear about her death because I heard her offer some comments on a story only a few weeks ago. At the time she didn't sound well but I didn't realize she was gravely ill.
Saturday, September 21st, 2019 11:58 am (UTC)
The Beauford automobile was invented in Staffordshire, near Stoke-on-Trent. The Society of Friends established itself, amid persecution, around 1650 in that region, per a genealogy post i saw. So I nominate Staffordshire.

The great racehorse Beauford was from New Zealand,so perhaps you could have a New Zealand angle somewhere. Its name was a contraction of its parents' names.
Saturday, September 21st, 2019 08:15 pm (UTC)
Shooting software developers for irregular, irrational, and inconsistent updates. Such a marvellous idea. Don't get caught.
Monday, September 23rd, 2019 05:01 am (UTC)
I am seeing this days later but hope you are feeling better.