Tomorrow, I take flight

Fluttering off to Tigerland...

Though I hear he has lately acquired the ability to be more than one kind of cat, and also a boy.


Today's earrings: owls, crows

Bedtime reading: The Daffodil Affair, Michael Innes

Chocolate Daisies

The chocolate daisy attracts butterflies.


Today's earrings: flowers, chocolate molecules

Bedtime reading: The Daffodil Affair, Michael Innes

Festina Lente

"Hasten slowly," or, "More haste, less speed." Traditionally emblematized with dolphin and anchor, thus:

Fun fact: the dolphin & anchor above were the trademark of the Aldine Press, founded in Venice in 1494. Doubleday is still using a similar image as its colophon.


Today's earrings: coffee cups, turtles

Bedtime reading: Slow Dollar, Margaret Maron

A village is missing its idiot

Tonight on Survivor: someone makes a tactical error and has to go to a fair amount of trouble to fix it. She gets a lot of camera time gloating about how great she is for cleaning up her own mess. Since part of what she's impressing herself with is the successful conning of the dumbest person ever to play the game, I'm thinking she ought to dial back the self-congratulation a little.


Today's earrings: skeletal fish

Bedtime reading: Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore

how things get from point A to point B

and sometimes F = GMm/R²


Today's earrings: hands, liberty dimes

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

Nevertheless

you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,

a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food

than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin

hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't

harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -

leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;

as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come

to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till

knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.

The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there

like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!

- - Marianne Moore


Today's earrings: flowers, amber drops

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

*sniffle*

Did I mention I have a cold? Between the nose-blowing and the self-pity, I'm fairly repellent at the moment.


Today's earrings: compasses

Bedtime reading: Going Postal, Terry Pratchett

Good news/bad news

CC was right. It turned into a cold. I've been swilling chicken soup all day.
I blame the Cricket.

In happier news, Ozzy was voted out of Survivor, and he didn't see it coming at all. I laughed and laughed...
This may turn out to be the season I've been hoping for.


Today's earrings: frogs, alligators

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

Leaf

Leaf Fertility; growth; renewal. Green leaves depict hope; revival; renewal. Dead leaves are sadness; Autumn; decay. Crowns of leaves symbolize divinity or triumph and victory. In Chinese symbolism the leaves of the Cosmic Tree represent all beings in the universe -- the Ten Thousand Things.

- - An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, J.C. Cooper


Today's earrings: leaves, other leaves

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

Lyman

It struck me as I picked up tonight's reading material that there used to be a lot more people named Lyman. I checked the Baby Name Voyager for confirmation - Lyman was the 344th most popular name for boys in the 1880s and has been dropping ever since. Who were those kids named for, I wonder? The Lymans in Wikipedia either post-date the name's popularity or don't seem all that impressive.

It's a mystery.


Today's earrings: tree frogs, swirly aqua beads

Bedtime reading: L. Frank Baum, Katharine M. Rogers

No Picnic

Just a touch of food poisoning. I hate food poisoning...


Today's earrings: ants, peas

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

I got very little done today

Ever had the kind of day where you're rolling the rock up the hill, not making a lot of progress, but the end is in sight... and a stack of paper falls on the rock, knocks it away from you and rolls it halfway back down the hill? And then you meet a friend and have a couple glasses of wine al fresco?

That was my day.


Today's earrings: owls, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: The Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Certainties

Put my 1040 in the mail this morning.


Today's earrings: scarabs

Bedtime reading: Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Dined out

I had a lovely Boston lettuce salad and a nice piece of fish, followed by chocolate-date bread pudding. Mmmm, salad.

The bartender and I got to talking - he asked what I was reading (Pratchett), I asked what he was reading (A Thousand Splendid Suns) and what it's about (an Afghani girl sold into marriage at 14). We agreed we'd both drawn pretty good tickets in the Privilege Lottery. Life is not exactly a glorious cycle of song, but still. It's good to stop periodically and notice our blessings, and if at all possible, rejoice in them.

Mmmm, salad.


Today's earrings: turtles, other turtles

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Swinishness

A word sadly little-used, swinishness. Even spell check rejects it.

My morale was high. I needed a job, but that, which should have been a depressing factor when viewed in cold blood, in fact simply was not. Neither was the swinishness of my landlord, a Mr Alexander, short of stature. I was reluctant to go home lest he should waylay me. I owed him no rent but he kept insisting that I should take a larger and more expensive room in his house, seeing that I had overcrowded the small single room with my books, my papers, my boxes and bags, my food stores and the evidence of constant visitors who stayed to tea or came late.

So far I had stood up to the landlord’s claim that I was virtually living a double-room life for single-room pay. At the same time I was fascinated by his swinishness...

- - Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent


Today's earrings: pigs, citrine teardrops

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Full Day

Sudden staff meeting called to announce that one of the outside salesguys had a heart attack last week and died on Saturday. Poor guy. I barely knew him. Still put a pall over the rest of the day.

Showed the new hire the supply closet.

Turkey 2008 in English showed up, and I took the opportunity to hand off it all off. The recipient was a picture of ingratitude until I told him that I got the big update done two months ago, and mostly he just ought to proofread it all, which put him in a much better mood.

Soup for lunch.

Forgot to copy & mail tax return before leaving work.

Between the bus stop and my front door, I had a chat with the rug guy. He's looking to spend less time in the shop, he says, so he wants to shift to less high-end stuff that an assistant can sell. So, excellent deals on the good stuff, he says. He showed me some rugs.

In my mailbox was a note from Tiger, as dictated to his dad. I gather he likes his birthday present. And the number "3." I feel all warm and glowy. :)

S/W the Angry Lemming, partly to plot brunch, but mostly about the Bandicoot.

Watched Medium, blogged, off to bed.


Today's earrings: moose, chocolate

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Truth

Truth, poor girl, was nobody's daughter
She took off her clothes and jumped in the water.

Why would she do that? I've never known, or even had a theory.


Today's earrings: eyes, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Truth, Terry Pratchett

It took until lunch the next day

but I finally came up with a response to the prompt, "base a dish on your favorite movie."

Representing The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Meat Loaf. Carved tableside with an electric knife.
(It's not really my favorite movie any more, but I can still quote extended passages if challenged by the judges.)


Today's earrings: flies, amber

Bedtime reading: Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

The secret of life.

http://xkcd.com/365/


Today's earrings: frogs, fish

Bedtime reading: Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain

Welcome to the Data Base

New hire at work today. First impression: she'll be great.


Today's earrings: pineapples, typewriter keys

Bedtime reading: Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain