elainegrey

Yay antibiotics! Feeling better. Not back yet.

Brother's family is heading back to Singapore. My sister and i continue to worry about my brother, although i admitted to Christine that one of our significant worries has no basis in anything my brother has said. Christine, instead of taking that as evidence we are looking for trouble added on by suggesting my brother might be oblivious. Which... yeah. So we worry about our brother.

I have been resting as best i can. Thus reading.

Czerneda, Julie E. A Thousand Words for Stranger: 10th Anniversary Edition. Reissue edition. DAW, 2007.

I can't remember why Czerneda ended up on my reading list; the hat tip is to "sapience 2011-12-04" which does not ring a bell. This wasn't in the books listed in that note, either. This book reminded me a little of some of Miller and Lee's writing: romance between a human and humanoid from a xenophobic culture, space trading context. I'm not sure the resonance does the book any favors in my reading since i am so invested in the Liadian universe. The humanoid culture's eugenic background and some of the gendered power dynamics that resulted might have been more interesting to me in 1997 than now.

Short Fiction, by Robert Sheckley - Free Ebook Download. Accessed January 13, 2023. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/robert-sheckley/short-fiction.

I enjoyed these, with a classic Science Fiction energy and rhythm to the story telling. They hold up well with the nostalgic media of recording things on tape and innocent modeling of AI development. Sheckley was born in the mid 20s and, while i am sure there are racial subtext "of the times," none slapped me in the face (see Smith, Sayers). Maybe one description's reference to ancestry? Unquestioned gendered roles, but -- shrug.

The Skylark of Space, by E. E. Smith - Free Ebook Download. Accessed January 13, 2023. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/e-e-smith/the-skylark-of-space.

Noped out. The writing was just a little too ... wooden? The bad guy set-up a little to melodramatic? Mustache twirling would have occurred in another genera. Very early in the description of an assistant to a main character slapped me in the face with a racial term that made me grit my teeth. No woman showed up or was referred to, but i was prepared to cringe around it.

Sayers, Dorothy. Whose Body? Lord Peter Wimsey 1. Accessed January 13, 2023. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/dorothy-l-sayers/whose-body.

I apparently read the Dorthy Sayers in 2009 but have no memory of it. The antisemitism seemed to me to be observed and not condoned, that is, the reader was not put in a place of being complicit with the attitudes of the time in my non critical reading. I have grown a high tolerance for genera British mysteries and the attitudes that include not only the North American biases but also biases against Welsh (which feels like the biases against Southerners and Appalachian folks in the US), any one not from Britain (constantly skewered in episodes of Poirot), particularly Italian and Spanish characters (so frequently the red herring suspects) and Catholics (offset by Father Brown, etc). I suppose growing up in the South of the 70s, the racial landscape was so Black and white that other biases and prejudices have a somewhat anthropological curiosity.

Finch. Amblin Partners, Apple Original Films, Dutch Angle, 2021.

Not a book! We signed up for the proffered free trial of Apple's streaming to watch. I was not excited at the prospect of Tom Hanks reprising Castaway with a robot instead of a beach ball. But the robot was wonderful in its fanatastical channeling of a teenage boy. Such a sweet performance. I enjoyed the robot's journey. I did have to slap the suspension of disbelief over my reaction to the robot learning. Very hard. And i sat on it. I have not seen Tom Hanks in Pinocchio so i can't compare there. The robot is far far more fantasy than science fiction, the story a fable or fairy tale. One could make a surface comparison to The Martian, but while the Martian underscored its believably, ... i ... again, fairy tale, sitting on the box of reactions sealed up with a suspension of disbelief.

The fall leaves have been lovely last week. After my early season whining, i'm appreciating the glow in the woods. I am planning on cutting down some trees that are shading some of the prettier trees including the red maples. I think we've peaked and last nights rain stripped out lots of leave. Still, there's color to enjoy.

Friday night and much of Saturday i read Tad Williams'The Dragonbone Chair: Book One of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. I was wrestling a little with my internal "shoulds" but finally settled with myself that i wanted to read all day, it didn't mean i to be tortured about it. When i bought the second book in the series, i got the audio book as well. This means i can ride the bike listening as well as read, which i did on Sunday night, for 40 minutes.

Saturday night we went to my sister's for a Halloween party. I burst into tears as we pulled out of the driveway: the past four years -- mom's stroke, pandemic -- have been so hard. My niblings had lots of their friends over, parent-friends were there, my dad, her husband's sister and her family... I'm not a party person, but it was so lovely to see the niblings with their friends. One of my drama nibling's friends came dressed as Elton John with the white jacked with feathers on the shoulder, and that sort of overwhelmed my impression of all the other costumes -- which were all full out.

Work has been hard, but going well. I am very drained today. Everything is at full throttle.

Dad has been out on a coffee date and is meeting women. My sister is discomfited by Dad's talking about what he's experiencing, but i'm so far i don't consider anything TMI. I am gently amused.

Christine has been enjoying baseball playoffs, and i have been entertained to some extent. I am very happy to be watching the Phillies do so well tonight.

I had lunch with my sister at the community college's student classroom cafe today. A glorious salad with squash from the community college's farm classroom decorated with almond and pomegranate and dressed with a tahini vinaigrette was $4, and a eggy custard in a puff pastry cup another $3 seems a bargain. We sat out on a bench and caught up.

I showed her Woebot, the cognitive behavioral therapy AI. I can imagine that Woebot isn't right for everyone -- it's a really really perky robot, wow. But it doesn't hurt to have little refreshers in recognizing distorted thinking, and i've actually invited Woebot to walk me through the naming my distorted thoughts and noting the distortions and restating them. The app coaching me through good practice, in the moment i am feeling down, is helpful. The interaction and pacing helps me actually experience the practice instead of knowing i have distorted thoughts but continuing to persist in thinking them. I'm not sure i can be as enthusiastic as the NYTimes reporter was in their article, but it's helping.

The human coach for physical fitness is sort of helping, but for some reason October was really hard to follow up on all the practices day in, day out. I think i am headed to bed and not completing my routines tonight.

Written mainly on Saturday

"Summit" went well at the office and other meetings went well. Drove home through the lovely June blooms. Mostly there were mounds of some soft rose pink flower, not the purple pink of "red" clover, but a soft rose. Maybe some cases were some blushing rose, but i think most were a clover unfamiliar to me. Blue spikes of lupin and orange punctuation of day lilies and perhaps native lilies delighted me. It didn't look planted, and i suspect i was driving at just the right June week to have the delight.

I listened to audiobooks and the hours flew by. North bound was a "Disney Canon" book Last Shot, with adventure plus

* Han Solo wrestling with feeling like he didn't know how to be a father
* Lando Calrissian struggling with wanting an adult relationship instead of being a player
* a nonbinary pilot
* a female Ewok intern brilliant hacker being mistaken as a receptionist
* a Gungan stopping Han from "me'sa-ing" him and giving a lesson in cultural awareness

Also, droid L3 and all sorts of droid lore that leaves me more curious about canon understanding of droids in the Star Wars universe.

Southbound i listened to the 11th Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear, A Dangerous Place. Descriptions of the Spanish Civil war seemed transplanted from Ukraine's war.

I worry about Spain as a vision of the United State's future. Spain's multicultural citizenry and its status as an intellectual and military superpower, followed by decline, makes me wonder. In the few English language histories of Spain i could find in the early aughts i sensed a bias against the Spanish. I wonder about whether lessons are missed.

( links )

Thursday i was utterly wiped out. Tried to work, called it off, took comp & sick time, had a meltdown, boiled cubed potato in acidified water for salads, rallied before our power went out (prepping some water storage), walked with Christine and Carrie between waves of rain, and did the grocery shopping putting my faith in Duke Power's promise to have the power on when we got home. It was.

Friday was busy with me poking at some other team's gap in understanding: ah, the joy of overloaded terms and provincial frames. For lunch, I tried smashing cucumbers. I'm not sure i perceive a huge difference but Christine definitely approved when offered some mixed in with potatoes to make a salad. As the day progressed i developed a horrid sore throat and felt a certain malaise. I stopped at 5 pm and flopped on the couch. At just before 6 a noticed the wind outside, stepped out just in time to rescue the porch umbrella, and then marveled at the near gale winds twisting the over 50' trees around and driving the 90' pines to bend. I turned to go in just as the lights blinked twice and then went out. Our wifi UPS lasted to around 11 pm, and Christine's CPAP lost power about the same time, drained by our "Sleep Number" bed. We have solar lights that kept us out of the dark, and generally it was OK. Christine did not do well without her CPAP and with the uncertainty of how much we would swelter.

This (Saturday) morning i've smashed more cucumbers and gone out and collected herbs - spearmint, lemon balm, parsley/lovage, dill, salad burnet, walking onion. From those have created a chimichurri inspired dressing for the cucumber and potatoes (as well as putting some parsley and mint in the dehydrator).

I forget if i've mentioned the blackberries are producing well and the blueberries are beginning. Last weekend i folded some stewed berries in a Pillsbury crescent roll sheet. I have played with the crescent rolls to make little tarts in the past: the sheets are FUN. So today i cut a square off the sheet to make a baked shell, poured more stewed berries in the shell and put a lattice-ish layer on top with the remainder of the sheet. It's turned out well. The bread is not the same as pie crust or pastry crust, but it's still yum.

Mulberries are just beginning to ripen. The first one was insipid, but the next few have been delicious. Not many yet, and very small. I hope the size increases next year. And maybe quantity? I'm sure birds are taking some now - and i hope these are fertile fruit. My dream is to have native fruits replace the bird sown Elaeagnus umbellata, and ideally it's not just all blackberry.

One thing the past few days has demonstrated to me was that i really did care that my siblings and i would all be together a little at Christmas. I have believed i didn't care, but my grief at the failing of plans illustrated to me i did.

On the other hand, my brother's plans for us all were -- irritating -- to my sister and i, so there's probably some good in not spending time miffed.

I am feeling a little less malaise today. Throat is still killing me, but i am better. (At least now, in the morning hours.) I wrote my doctor asking when to get tested. The "five to seven days after the contact's test results" seems slightly off- it seems it should be after having the contact? When i told Christine i'd written my doctor she burst into tears, saying she didn't want to think about it. She may be hiding her worries because she's being strong for me. She was clear though, that she didn't want to think about it.

I read Becky Chambers' The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (2021) yesterday. It's a shelter-in-place story that has some resonance with our COVID confinements and explores difference in a compassionate and authentic way. I am so delighted with science fiction that shows us futures of people getting along and making lives better in a way that seems like we could also have that better life on earth.
There's lots of food in the story, though, which may encourage lots of nibbling.

I ponder a creative daily effort. Or some practice.

In WTF news, my question to the doctor received a reply from the nurse that didn't really answer the question. And she's prescribing something i don't need, and the message won't admit a reply. Then i went ahead to try scheduling a COVID test. First open appointment was Monday April 4, 2022.

Really?

Anyhow, will ride around with Christine as she takes care of some errands.

Happy belated birthday to Oursin, whose daily wishes to others are a kind and joyful post many days.

And congratulations to Oracne, whose new novella Finding Refuge gave me a delightful break Monday evening. Oracne’s tale of after the adventure is over is the journey, and adventure, of healing. I appreciated the depiction of the work it takes to accept safety.

Meanwhile, I am supercranky and technology is annoying me. Not using my preferred input today.

Monday had challenges getting to email without opening my usual client (because it would remove mail from the cloud, just before sending the machine for repair, and not in the backup from the evening). I need to straighten out some passwords. I do have the iPad set up to access my main mailboxes, but I hate writing on this thing.

The machine is now getting a new battery and won't be back... until this weekend? I know I am whining about privileged problems here, and that all will be easier soon, and the slow boat my new laptop for work is taking will arrive sometime, too, and maybe I will have more ease during the workday, too.

The good news is one project I have been involved with is now out for community review, and my 3.5 minutes of presentation is over. (Public speaking, on zoom or in person, is not comfortable for me. Asking questions is just fine, but speaking….) I don’t know what the response will be (“we can’t do more” was the hint of a response in the questions) but I don’t know that comments will lead us to change much. Anyhow, a month during whic I am free of feeling like I should be doing more.

I, I , I. Auto correct is out of my control here. Thanks standardization.

South Carolina, where you need to be warned about setting fireworks off near propane.

( No photo from Sat, so here's one from Thursday )

Because the gas station sells both.

--== ∞ ==--

I finished Hail Mary Project last night because i had a beer at dinner and my self control was just that much reduced. I didn't wanna go for a walk in low 90°F with high humidity. I enjoyed it, but Christine and i had a nice chat critiquing various plot and characterization aspects. I look forward to finding out why KT gave a side eye at one point (but she enjoyed it as well).

Mushroom stew turned out well, and Grandmámá liked the tiny conchigliette pasta. The small container of thyme in the cabinet had never been opened and was "best by" 31 Jan 2017. I used lots. I think the new seasoning stood out for her. I didn't have rice flour and used double wheat flour -- i don't think i needed to double it, but it was still lovely. No veggie stock, so i used Goya sofrito as a veggie base.

It's the first Friday in the month, so time for #archiveshashtagparty on Twitter. It's about wheeled things. If i have time to amuse myself i am more likely to look for a chicken tractor than dive into the archive sharing. I still think the cons of chicken ownership out weigh the pros, but if i found a very predator secure chicken tractor i'd be more comfortable being responsible for a few hens.

I'm trying to get up the gumption to commit to attending this multilingual reading celebrating queer authors and literature.

https://secure.givelively.org/event/words-without-borders/support-foglifter/words-without-borders-x-foglifter-an-evening-of-international-queer-writing

Maybe the first step is reading the back issues of Foglifter instead of reading back issues of web comics.

I assume i will get used to the cooler house temperature sooner or later. Sooner, because the oscillations between freezing then putting on a sweater or scarf or lap blanket and then -- aieee! -- i'm boiling! Is getting tedious. I wonder if all the older women i remember as being more bundled than others were actually sweating to death.

--== ∞ ==--

I had a pretty significant breakthrough (i think) in therapy on Tuesday. We were going to talk about prioritization and procrastination, and i shared a little about graduate school. Another person and i were, in theory, supporting one another in each finishing up, but when the other finished they were not very supportive of me. Moving on and away is fine, but when they were back in town and i didn't want to stop working because i was making progress, they pitched a fit. That led me to reflect on some other people where i've had to set boundaries, and not really connecting to anyone at meeting, and i was teary. For a while, my therapist steered a path under the assumption that the tears were because i was lonely. But i'm not, and when she asked why the tears i realized i still have the deep deep messages from Mom, where she told me i didn't know how to care or love etc.

I think i have been carrying a weight, a Martha Stewart image of what friendships should be, or a TV show image, that i feel i should be performing along with great shame from all Mom's messages. I'm not sure what it's going to look like to set that down, but my Quaker relationships are getting a big side-eye.

There's these threads of desire to care for and be cared for, twining vines, but some are rooted in should and shame while others in authenticity. The shame is, i think, what makes it hard to distinguish between authentic wants and the shoulds. I don't want to be ashamed. And it's not like the shoulds are driving me towards anything that independently seems problematic. It's more that the shoulds are draining my energy from attending to the true heart callings. I haven't done photography in ages....

--== ∞ ==--

Anyhow, in the ache from that session on Tuesday, i found myself avoiding EVERYTHING and picking up The Fellowship of the Ring to read. We'd watched all three extended edition movies over the holiday weekend and i realized i didn't know what was movie and what was original any more.

And, WOW, did the tone of some of the characters change! Jackson's portrayal of the Hobbits really starts Merry and Pippin off as far less responsible and mature than they were. I imagine this is give room for more obvious character development, but - meh. I can see the "dramatization" argument, the "show not tell," -- for the conspiracy of Frodo's friends to keep him from going off into exile alone is something that the reader finds out when Frodo is told about it. Anyhow, i'm glad i'm rereading to tweak cannon back into alignmnet

I dreamed last night that i couldn't write. The dream was set in this time of pandemic, in some unrecognizable locale, and i was checking into a hotel or inn near a lake. I seemed to know the innkeeper, and we chatted as she passed me a spiral bound notebook in which i was to record my name, address, etc. I don't recall a worry about masks (absence, presence) in the dream, nor a worry about touching a shared pen. But when i went to write, my handwriting was not my familiar writing, words were spaced out oddly, there was some gibberish. A sort of aphasia of the hand.

I did go through a period a few weeks ago where i seemed to be making far more typos than usual, but that has subsided to just the usual typo-rich compositions.

--== ∞ ==--

The week since the election has been stress filled, more than i would have expected. I took a half day on Wednesday to work in the yard, and enjoy some quiet companionship sitting on the deck with Christine. That helped.

Thursday i visited my parents, urged them not to watch election news -- until the end of the day when a colleague texted me that Georgia was flipping. My dad's father's family have deep roots in south west Georgia, and when i mentioned to Dad that Georgia was flipping for Biden he exploded in a happiness i don't think i've seen since Trump became president.

Yesterday was a full work day, and it went fairly well, although i was exhausted at the end. (I guess i did work late.)

--== ∞ ==--

Our woods this morning are full of gentle morning light. The hardwood canopy -- only a few hardwoods reach the heights of the pines -- is shifting green to a soft yellow where leaves remain. The tylip poplars, many elms, and the cherries are bare.

--== ∞ ==--

Our county has been a victim of some cyber attack -- no answer as to whether the FBI has been involved in the ongoing investigations or whether there was a ransom demand -- and the library's catalogue -- and it's ability to authenticate one -- has been absent. Hence my purchase of books last weekend -- including a duplicate purchase.

I do enjoy the Liaden universe books, partly because the breadth of characters in the stories. I find i can reread without too much frustration in knowing how the future unfolds from future books. Are there any similar universes out there? I did enjoy Honor Harrington novels but my memory is that in general the arc of story telling followed just Honor, and i don't feel an interest in rereading. The Vorkosigan Saga has enough variation in main characters -- maybe i should try rereading some of those....

I spent six hours yesterday trying to sort out how to share management of Zoom meetings without paying $190 a month. It was hard because the user interface shows the controls for the business style set-up even while they are not functional. And the error messages and direction are just fuzzy enough that the difference of control based on license is not clear.

Oh, and Zoom is making security changes today so who knows how that will play out.

Anyhow, that was exhausting, and some part of my mind was all, "when is the meeeee time?" When The Secret Chapter came free for me to read midday, i snapped it up and plopped myself down, and read the whole thing. I spent a little time in the yard -- finally planting the magnolia and a mystery tree that have been in pots for a year. I should have planted them in the fall. The mystery tree is NOT a persimmon. That's what i was told when i bought it as a bare root in the 2018-19 winter Mellow Marsh farm sale at Country Farm and Home. I think, also, the arrow wood i bought was mislabeled. It's leaves this spring look more like the witch hazel from this year's order. Fortunately the arrow wood i bought from another source is doing well (i'd given up on it last fall).

I'm not sure what to do today with not-Meeting time. So much backlog of so many sorts. We're looking at ten days of no rain, so making a soaker hose comes to mind.

Meanwhile we are having network issues again. ... Ah, reboot resolves.

Work has been intense, parents are coping, sister and her family seem to be doing fine.