Baking

I had a banana to use up, so I mashed it, added some peanut butter, milk, sour cream and an egg and baked it. Tasted pretty good, but the texture was odd.


Today's earrings: strawberries, peppers

Bedtiem reading: Above Suspicion, Helen MacInnes

Went to the mall

Found the earrings store. Now I have octopi. :)


Today's earrings: snowflakes, peppers

Bedtime reading: Hard Row, Margaret Maron

Links du jour

Where the hell is Matt?

Overton window


Today's earrings: turtles, peppers

Bedtiem reading: Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

Hot hot hot

I suppose watching a Top Chef episode that was filmed in the desert heat should be bringing me some kind of perspective, but no. It was too hot to sleep here last night, and tonight is shaping up the same.

I need to get some rest. And maybe a fan.


Today's earrings: fire extinguishers, peppers

Bedtime reading: Dead Heat, Felix Francis

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

Committee meeting

I came in, sat down. The office troll came in and sat down directly across from me, and spent the next hour trying to catch my eye while I did my best to only look at him when there was a reason.

Y'know, it's funny... I've heard various women say that as they got older, men ignored them more. For me, as I get older and more apt to ignore people I don't want to deal with, I've found that (some) men get all affronted if I ignore them. They don't want to talk to me, as far as I can tell. They just expect me to acknowledge them. Make eye contact, something. And if I don't - if I sit in the laundromat with my eyes glued to my book and don't look up as they walk by - they act out. They intrude on my peripheral vision. They make noise, and get progressively louder if I don't look up right away. Some have intruded on my space. They let me know that they are ENTITLED to my attention. Funny, huh?


Today's earrings: hands, peppers

Bedtime reading: Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy L. Sayers

Bay to Breakers starts too early in the morning.

It's not like I'd run if it started later, or anything like that, but I might watch it on tv. As it was, all the B2B fun I got today was sharing the platform at Montgomery station with a guy in running gear, complete with race number. Not much of a contact high.


Today's earrings: pineapples, peppers

Bedtime reading: The Daffodil Affair, Michael Innes

Festival

Does anyone want to go to the Clam Chowder Cook Off weekend after next? There'll be clams...


Today's earrings: pineapples, peppers

Bedtime reading: The Danger, Dick Francis

Nice out

Had lunch al fresco today. It was tasty, except for the vast pile of mushrooms that I had to pick off my salad.*


Today's earrings: fire extinguishers, red peppers

Bedtime reading: Hard Row, Margaret Maron
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*With this post I officially join the list of "all-about-me-and-what-I-had-for-lunch" bloggers. Mark your calendars.

Hot hot hot

Caught a PBS thingy on Chihuly tonight. It takes like eight people at once to make one vase. At least two of them are doing nothing but wielding the blowtorches.

And now, somewhere in America, some kid is dreaming of growing up to carry a torch for a one-eyed glassmaker.


Today's earrings: flatirons, peppers

Bedtime reading: Shattered, Dick Francis

Seasoning

must shop for
Basil
Oregano
Peppercorns
Parsley
Curry
something new.


Today's earrings: bunnies, peppers

Bedtime reading: Logorrhea, John Klima, ed.