Periodic table

- - Andrew Plotkin

Today's earrings: moose, theobromine molecules

Bedtime reading: Reflex, Dick Francis

Camera

16c., in Mod.L. camera obscura "dark chamber" (a black box with a lens that could project images of external objects), from L. camera "vaulted room," from Gk. kamara "vaulted chamber," from PIE base *kam- "to arch." Contrasted with camera lucida (L., "light chamber"), which uses prisms to produce an image on paper beneath the instrument, which can be traced. Shortened to camera when modern photography began, 1840 (extended to television filming devices 1928).
Camera-shy is from 1922.
- - Etymonline.com

Today's earrings: eyes, cameras

Bedtime reading: Reflex, Dick Francis

The gazebo is no more

We had a lovely brunch, then M won at Scrabble, then we ripped that thing down. Confused Cricket won the post-gazebo Risk game.


Today's earrings: coffee cups, tools

Bedtime reading: Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

Oh, Canada

I chose my earrings this morning hoping to charm the Canadian government into publishing the schedules they promied weeks ago.

I should have known better. My charms always boomerang.
Hey! Maybe if I got some boomerang earrings, they would create a double-reverse function that would allow me to do some effective magical thinking! Oh, wait...


Today's earrings: bears, suns

Bedtime reading: Annals of Klepsis, R.A. Lafferty

Eventful week, huh?

So we've seen a disputed election in Iran, Solstice, R&J's wedding, Tiger getting his first stitches and a new second cousin, the governor of South Carolina going walkabout (and his aides doing their best to turn "hiking the Appalachian Trail" into a euphemism), Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson dying on the same day. This weekend, brunch and gazebo demolition at the now less-electric Dancing Square, and also Pride. Lots of stuff going on all over the place.

I spent the afternoon with Section 148 of the Pakistani Income Tax Ordinance of 2001 and compiling a list of goods zero-rated for sales tax.


Today's earrings: roses, brass triangles

Bedtime reading: Annals of Klepsis, R.A. Lafferty

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Little Bunny Foo Foo hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head

Down came the Good Fairy, and she said:
"Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice and bopping them on the head."

What does it mean?

Wikipedia tells us, "Little Bunny Foo Foo is a children's rhyme, involving a rabbit harassing a population of field mice. The rabbit is scolded and eventually punished by a fairy."

But why would a rabbit be molesting the mice? It makes little sense. Perhaps it's a political allegory to which we no longer see the key, like the Mother Goose rhymes. Or, if not, maybe we could make one up? (A political allegory, I mean.) That would be more fun than "origin unknown."

Today's earrings: mice, rabbits

Bedtime reading: Annals of Klepsis, R.A. Lafferty

Been staying up too late, reading

Elgin's Ozark Trilogy.

I got halfway through the third book before I put into words that Responsible of Brightwater is the horseshoe nail on which the world (as well as the story) depends. I got the horseshoe nail concept from Lafferty's Annals of Klepsis:

The humanly inhabited universe, according to the best — or at least the newest — mathematical theory, does have a tertiary focus, and it is there that it is vulnerable. The humanly inhabited universe, with its four suns and its seventeen planets, is an unstable closed system of human orientation and precarious balance, a kinetic three-dimensional ellipse in form, with its third focus always approaching extinction. As with any similar unstable premise-system, the entire construct must follow its third focus into extinction. This is known as the ‘Doomsday Equation’. [. . . ] The third focus of the humanly inhabited universe has been determined to be both a point and a person on the Planet Klepsis, on the surface of the planet, which is extraordinary in itself. Of the person, the human element of the anthropo-mathematical function, little is known except the code name the ‘Horseshoe Nail’, and the fact that the person is more than two hundred years old. This is an added precarious element. Actuary figures show that only one in a hundred billion humans will reach the age of two hundred years, and none will go far beyond it.

Turns out that The Ozark Trilogy (1981) predates Annals of Klepsis (1983), which dashes my initial presumptions. Just because I read the Lafferty first doesn't mean he wrote it first; I roll my eyes at myself.
I wonder if they knew each other. I should go ask her, while I still can.

Also in The Ozark Trilogy: into each generation is born one girl who is Responsible, and the world is on her shoulders. Sound familiar?


So I went looking for horseshoe nail earrings. The results were disappointing. Seems no one can bring themselves to just hang a pair of horseshoe nails from French hooks and be done with it. No, they've got to electroplate them or twist them into patterns or gussy them up with beads. I suppose that's more fun for the jeweler, but not what I was looking for.


Today's earrings: racing camels, peppers

Bedtime reading: And Then There'll Be Fireworks, Suzette Haden Elgin

Happy Summer

Today's earrings: sapphires, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Grand Jubilee, Suzette Haden Elgin

Jupiter in Retrograde 6/15 - 10/13

...As the planet of the future, retrograde Jupiter will prompt you to examine your goals and how you'll get there. Heeding your intuition can keep your goals on track - or help you find a new path altogether. Be open to receiving messages from unexpected (unseen?) sources that can guide your direction - signs from the universe, if you will. A sign may come from meeting a long-lost friend who works in a field you've been considering, which propels you toward a new job. Or perhaps you'll suddenly hear a song on the radio that offers a clue about what you need to do.

During this time, be introspective and let the Universe guide you. Then you'll have a clearer perspective about your life, both spiritually and materially, after Jupiter turns direct.

- - Cortney Litwin, California Astrologers

Today's earrings: ants, planets

Bedtime reading: Twelve Fair Kingdoms, Suzette Haden Elgin

Two things

My boss's boss was in the office today celebrating the new fiscal year. He bought us all pizza, told us how we'd done this year, what's in the works for next year, that sort of thing. What's in the works for next year is huge. As in, someone figured out how to sell our stuff to everyone on the planet... and it's supposed to go live in August. At first I was all, "Profit!" and then I was like, "Wait, how many people will be calling to complain if I mess up?"
Scary. In a good way.

I got home to find a loan approval letter in my mailbox, with an interest rate on it and everything. A pretty good interest rate, too. So if the person who currently has my dream apartment under contract wanders off, I can actually for real buy the place. And if they don't, well, this suggests I can get a loan for another place, and it's time to get serious about looking.
Scary. In a good way.


Today's earrings: spiders, webs

Bedtime reading: Notes from the Fat-O-Sphere, Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby

Experience

Google can't find the lyrics to "Experience" (written by Burke & Van Heusen, sung by Dorothy L'Amour in The Road to Rio). The clip doesn't seem to be on the web, either. It seems an odd omission.

I found "Road to Morocco," though.


Today's earrings: flowers, olive shells

Bedtime reading: Notes from the Fat-O-Sphere, Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby

Saving Grace

The new season permiered tonight. I've gotten to like the show, despite TNT's lousy advertising. (Seriously, when the ads run in the middle of the show, I change the channel, they're so bad.) Anyway - what I like are the little things, like the collection jar perched on a counter near the office door. It wasn't mentioned in the dialogue at all. The characters talked about the guy for whom the collection was being taken, and they slipped cash into the jar in passing, but the scriptwriters restrained themselves from having the characters explain it to the dim-witted in the audience. I like that.


Today's earrings: eyes, liberty dimes

Bedtime reading: Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere, Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby

Critique

I've been reading Elgin's Native Tongue trilogy. The first book was depressing - it's set in a near-future distopia where women are legally minors - but pretty darn good, I thought. The second book was longer, more scattered. It felt like the middle book of a trilogy. Then I got to the third book, in which the author loses her mind. Books one and two are about women fighting the power as best they can in a world almost like our own. The third book opens with a new character having a visionquest vision of the now-dead lead character of book one, followed by the revelation that human beings don't need food, but can live on music. No, seriously. There's a middle section that goes skipping about through the next few centuries, and reads like sketches for a bunch of short stories that don't quite all belong in the same universe. Then a denoument in which it is finally brought to the attention of the men "in charge" that a significant portion of the population has stopped consuming food. I am strongly reminded of Margaret Murray's theory that many if not most people in medieval Europe weren't actually Catholics. If there were that many not-Catholics, why did they let the Church run everything? Makes no sense.

It's like she couldn't figure out how to end the trilogy she'd started, so she swapped in the end of some other saga and hoped readers wouldn't notice.


Today's earrings: flies, crows

Bedtime reading: Earthsong, Suzette Haden Elgin

Bunny

1690, dim. of Scottish dialectal bun, pet name for "rabbit," previously (1587) for "squirrel," and also a term of endearment for a young attractive woman or child (1606). Ultimately could be from Scottish bun "tail of a hare" (1538), or from Fr. bon, or from a Scand. source. The Playboy Club hostess sense is from 1960. The Bunny Hug (1912), along with the foxtrot and the Wilson glide, were among the popular/scandalous dances of the ragtime era.
- - http://www.etymonline.com/

Today's earrings: rabbits, other rabbits

Bedtime reading: Earth Song, Suzette Haden Elgin

One fish, two fish

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.
Black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish.
This one has a little star.
This one has a little car.
Say! What a lot of fish there are.
Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.
Some are old. And some are new.
Some are sad. And some are glad.
And some are very, very bad.
Why are they sad and glad and bad?
I do not know. Go ask your dad.
Some are thin. And some are fat.
The fat one has a yellow hat.
From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.

- - Theodore Geisel

Today's earrings: fish, other fish

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

France has won!

July 3rd, 2006, I was at the meat counter at Whole Foods and realized that Hubert Keller(!) was standing next to me. He caught me gawping at him. I told him he was wonderful on camera. He thanked me and went back to choosing sausages. Such a gracious man.

I'm glad he won the first round.


Today's earrings: suns, other suns

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

Flowering Judas

Today's earrings: flowers, other flowers

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

Ephemera

http://iparrizar.mnstate.edu/~juan/fm_astronomy.php


Today's earrings: dragonflies, other dragonflies

Bedtime reading: Death's Half Acre, Margaret Maron

Nice day

A pleasant brunch, then M went with to an open house. Those bedrooms were tiny. Also, poor bathroom placement on one of the models. Locations's still good, though.

Then I went home.


Today's earrings: turtles, other turtles

Bedtime reading: Death's Half Acre, Margaret Maron

It's a sign

Today's earrings: llamas, rocks

Bedtime reading: Death's Half Acre, Margaret Maron

I'm pre-approved

I have a letter from the bank saying so. Of course, it was attached to an email saying my file is still with the underwriter, so, y'know. We'll see.


Today's earrings: hands, citrine drops

Bedtime reading: Death's Half Acre, Margaret Maron

Uncle John's Band

It's the same story the crow told me;
It's the only one he knows.
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go.
Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait,
Woh - oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

I live in a silver mine and I call it Beggar's Tomb;
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune
Anybody's choice, I can hear your voice.
Woh - oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?

Come hear the Uncle John's Band by the riverside
Got some things to talk about, here beside the risin' tide
Come hear Uncle John's Band playing to the tide,
Come on along, or go alone,
He's come to take his children home.
Woh - oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?

Come hear Uncle John's Band by the riverside,
Got some things to talk about here beside the risin' tide.
Come hear Uncle John's Band playing to the tide, come on
Along or go alone, he's come to take his children home.

- - Robert Hunter

Today's earrings: turtles, coins

Bedtime reading: Reflex, Dick francis

Not so fast, there

Today's earrings: rockets, rabbits

Bedtime reading: Reflex, Dick Francis

More dentistry

I've never had so much novocaine, and this was just a cleaning. Now the left side of my mouth is throbbing gently.


Today's earrings: amethysts

Bedtime reading: The Xanadu Talisman, Peter O'Donnell