Updated passwords

Weekend agenda

Hang clothesline
Pack away some of the china
Move books upstairs to make room in the basement for the china
Deal with accumulated correspondence
Bask.



Today's earrings: diamonds, dinosaurs

Bedtime reading: Rituals of the Season, Margaret Maron

Happy Halloween!

I was the Devil With the Blue Dress On again. And when I took off the horns, I was the Devil in Disguise.

Love that costume.


Today's earrings: diamonds, brooms

Bedtime reading: Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

The Object-Lesson

At twilight, however, no message had come from the asylum,
so the others retired to the kiosk,
only to discover the cakes iced a peculiar shade of green
and the tea-urn empty
save for a card on which was written the single word:
Farewell.
- - Edward Gorey

Did anyone see a psychiatric explanation of why House's hallucinations were of Amber and Kuttner? Because I didn't. Rendered the whole enterprise fairly pointless.



Today's earrings: diamonds, suns

Bedtime reading: Night of the Morning Star, Peter O'Donnell

Dali

Google has brought me new knowlege tonight.

I knew that Dali had drawn a tarot deck, based on Rider/Waite. It's available for general sale. There's also a 54-card stripped version with French suit marks printed in the corners, suitable for playing bridge or poker. (For some reason, I have two copies of the latter. Why? Why?)

I've also seen a tarot deck someone cobbled together out of details of Dali paintings. It's very pretty, but of little use for telling fortunes or for playing games.

What I hadn't known was that in 1967 Dali drew a set of court cards and aces with French suit marks. It was published in a limited run, and for some reason no one's reprinted them. Too bad; I would have liked to have a copy.

The ace of diamonds looks like this:

Today's earrings: diamonds, aces

Bedtime reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Eye Appointment

- Hello, [lengthy place-of business ID and greeting], how may I help you?
- - Hi, I'd like to schedule an eye exam. When can I come in?
- When would you like to come in?
- - When's the next available appointment?
- When would you like it to be?
- - Do you always answer a question with a question?
- Do you... um... Darn it.
- - I win! Hooray!
- I just couldn't get it turned around in time. *sigh* But really, when do you want to come in? I don't think we can see you today.
- - How's Tuesday?
Appointment-making nitty-gritty ensued.

It wasn't until he read back the date that I realized I'd chosen St. Patrick's Day to get my eyes checked.


Today's earrings: diamonds, garnets

Bedtime Reading: Fool, Christopher Moore

3 x 3 = 9

Today has a square date.

I wasn't really all that awake this morning when I was choosing my earrings, so I went with more of a cubic theme. 's ok. Cubes have squares.


Today's earrings: diamonds, dice

Bedtime reading: Spaceland, Rudy Rucker

Release the minions!

It wasn't all that dramatic, but I did get my big project done in good time today. Hooray!

Went out after with b2 & her school friend L. We had wine at the usual spot and then dinner on Grant Street. After dinner, being as we were on Grant Street and all, I bought some shoes and L got some Alcatraz-themed tchotchkes to decorate the worst cube in her office back home. The big score was an Alcatraz mousepad.

When we got to Sutter I ran for the bus and didn't get a chance to say: Bye, L! It was really fun and I hope to see you again soon!


Today's earrings: diamonds, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: "Bright Coins in a Never-Ending Stream," R.A. Lafferty

Happy New Year

Tonight we subdued the Fondue with skewers and extensible forks, and K & S won at Scrabble. It was a most excellent party.


Today's earrings: diamonds, dice

Bedtime reading: Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett

Anxiety, not seasonal

As most of you have heard, ad nauseam, I got to the bus stop this morning and realized that I didn't have my wallet. I went home and searched, and did not find it. There was panic. I spent the morning all worried, making lists of things I'd have to replace and errands I had planned to run this afternoon and now couldn't because my wallet was gone. My boss pointed out that I could get money from my accounts by the quaint stratagem of entering a bank branch with my checkbook and writing a check to "cash." That was most comforting, and had not occurred to me.

We were freed after four hours' labor, and I sped to the burger joint where I'd gotten dinner last night. Wonder of wonders, they had my wallet, completely intact, behind the register. I <3 my local burger joint.

I went to run my errands, then popped over to M's for dinner with the family: S&D most charmingly met me at the station with umbrellas; K made yummy crepes for dinner; M won two games of rummy tiles; AL&CC obligingly ran me to my doorstep.


Today's earrings: diamonds, aquamarines

Bedtime reading: Six Geese A-Slaying, Donna Andrews

Happy news

I have the Barenaked Ladies Christmas album.

:)


Today's earrings: diamonds, liberty dimes

Bedtime reading: Too Many Blondes, Lauren Hendersen

Devil with a Blue Dress

I had this totally awesome costume my sister made me. :)

Who were you today?


Today's earrings: diamonds, rabbits

Bedtime reading: Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Oracles

So... Oracle sells Crystal Ball, and that's nice and all... but what about Haruspexes or Stercomancy? What's up with only doing the sorts of divination that don't make work for the janitors? The modern world has gotten so sterile...


Today's earrings: diamonds, anchors

Bedtime reading: Jingo, Terry Pratchett

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry

My boss really needs to start closing her office door - I am overhearing way too many juicy tidbits that are none of my business. If I were a better person, I'd keep my headphones on...


Today's earrings: diamonds, garnets

Bedtime reading: Stardust, Neil Gaiman

Leaves of Glass

M & I went to see the Chihuly. While there, we started designing the house that goes around the installations we'd commission from him if we ever had the money. Then we visited the statue of Yoda.
_________________________________
eta: As M points out in comments, I failed to mention our paying our respects to the Mantelpiece of Horror. We named the dogs Fluffy and Thurlow, and the dying boar Camilla. We did not name the pissed-off looking deer on top.

We have no visio.


Today's earrings: diamonds, brown glass beads

Bedtime reading: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Crisis

Diamonds and garnets are therapeutic in crisis situations.


Today's earrings: diamonds, garnets

Bedtime reading: The Danger, Dick Francis

Glass squid (National Geographic)

Today's earrings: diamonds, fish

Bedtime reading: The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey

Another low-concentration day

Having trouble thinking of things to say.


Today's earrings: diamonds, pebbles

Bedtime reading: The Daffodil Affair, Michael Innes

Happy Birthday, Tiger!

Tiger is three today. WooHoo!


Today's earrings: diamonds, dice

Bedtime reading: Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain

Now I'm having trouble seeing the forest

To answer my esteemed commentariat:

• If an oak tree fell in the forest, and in doing so crossed an international border into the customs territory of a country which uses the World Customs Organization's Harmonized System, it would fall under subheading 4403 (WOOD IN THE ROUGH, WHETHER OR NOT STRIPPED OF BARK OR SAPWOOD, OR ROUGHLY SQUARED).
• If a wooden shoe tree fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under subheading 4421 (OTHER ARTICLES OF WOOD).
• If a live lemon tree, suitable for planting, fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under subheading 0602 (OTHER LIVE PLANTS (INCLUDING THEIR ROOTS), CUTTINGS AND SLIPS; MUSHROOM SPAWN).
• If poultry fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under either 0105 (LIVE POULTRY, THAT IS TO SAY, FOWLS OF THE SPECIES GALLUS DOMESTICUS, DUCKS, GEESE, TURKEYS AND GUINEA FOWLS) or 0207 (MEAT, AND EDIBLE OFFAL, OF THE POULTRY OF HEADING 0105, FRESH, CHILLED OR FROZEN), or possibly 9705 (COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS' PIECES OF ZOOLOGICAL, BOTANICAL, MINERALOGICAL, ANATOMICAL, HISTORICAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, PALAEONTOLOGICAL, ETHNOGRAPHIC OR NUMISMATIC INTEREST).
  
• If a decision tree inscribed on a CD fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under subheading 8523 (DISCS, TAPES, SOLID-STATE NON-VOLATILE STORAGE DEVICES, "SMART CARDS" AND OTHER MEDIA FOR THE RECORDING OF SOUND OR OF OTHER PHENOMENA, WHETHER OR NOT RECORDED, INCLUDING MATRICES AND MASTERS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF DISCS, BUT EXCLUDING PRODUCTS OF CHAPTER 37).
• If a Lego tree fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under subheading 9503 (TRICYCLES, SCOOTERS, PEDAL CARS AND SIMILAR WHEELED TOYS; DOLLS' CARRIAGES; DOLLS; OTHER TOYS; REDUCED-SIZE ("SCALE") MODELS AND SIMILAR RECREATIONAL MODELS, WORKING OR NOT; PUZZLES OF ALL KINDS)
• If the Stanford Tree fell in the forest under the aforementioned conditions, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the local immigration authority.

I don't really know why the Malaysian government is so interested in the subject. But how I know is that their chapter on wood is about 3000 lines long. (For comparison, the US chapter is about 500 lines, and the India chapter is about 200 lines.) Malaysia specifies 93 different kinds of wood by name under each size and grade of timber. It's obsessive. It's almost as bad as Pakistan on car parts or Argentina on beef.


Today's earrings: diamonds, dice

Bedtime reading: Devil-May-Care, Elizabeth Peters