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Point of view

The one really silly thing from today was at dinner, when Oz was arguing that our dinner was in fact healthy and referred to the French fries as "sautéed vegetables."

I said, "Who do you think you are? Captain Vimes?"

"Huh? How is that Vimesy?"

"You didn't read that book yet."

"Oh. Thud!"

You had to be there.

This afternoon I opened up that web cam, but didn't set it up yet. I didn't crack open the software yet, so I could still return it. Yeah, okay, I'm not going to return it. I'm going to point it at the cats' food dishes or something dull and it'll be secured so you people can't watch my cats eat (one of them doesn't like to be watched eating and I should respect his neurosis) or, more importantly, see how often we access the refrigerator, which is right in the line of sight there.

Bonus day

I can enjoy a day of no work when I know there's work on the way.

I didn't have anything today, so I … went shopping.

For soap! and other useful things, though I did make a detour to the mall to look at crystal. Oz recently discovered port and I thought it would be nice to have a sherry glass in the house. I only found one such glass, however, and I didn't buy it. The impulse buy of the day ended up being a Swiffer Sweep+Vac because I have lately been thinking that a dustbuster on a stick would be darned useful. The cashier said, "Hey, I've been seeing the advertised on TV. You'll have to tell me if it actually works." I will too, but if she changes her highly sculpted hairdo I might not recognize her. There were … funnel-type shapes held in place by thread …

I also did the phoning while shopping thing to ask Oz if he wanted a set of yoga balls. (We've had a lot of balls-related, juvenile humor this evening, especially after he found the set included a little bag for the balls.)

And then, because it was a lovely day, I relaxed and read an engineering magazine.

Paranoia Parade

To web cam or not to web cam?

But first, the infamous Dead Man's Tulips:

Would anyone happen to know what these are called really?

But back to the web cam. I was thinking about surveilling my kitchen because the recent rash of burglaries featured kitchen ransacking. I thought that would be a good way to catch the burglar sort of red-handed, or at least make up for the lack of witnesses.

I did a little research, found a wireless web cam with good customer reviews (most have reviews to the effect that "This piece o' shit doesn't work!"), and procrastinated on ordering it because we got an alarm system and the web cam was kind of expensive. Then I ordered it anyway, because we were going out of town, and I even paid for shipping, as opposed to the free super-saver shipping option, so I could be sure to get it in plenty of time before we left.

Then I waited. And waited.

The stupid web cam got here a couple days ago. Three days after we came back from vacation and twenty days after I placed the order. So. I am not surveilling my kitchen. The web cam is sitting in its box on the couch and getting glared at. It cost just a little too much for a toy. Now that one burglar has been caught and the crime wave is slowing down, it doesn't seem likely that I'll be catching a thief with it.

I'm thinking about returning it. On the other hand, I could surveille my cats. But it's not like I have a monkey hot spring to point it at.

Impulse buy: The Food Lover's Companion

Not really an impulse, considering that it's been sitting on my Amazon wish list since May 31, 2002.

We went to the hippie food store before our trip to pick up fancy chocolate (which ended up getting left behind by accident, but that means we have plenty of fancy chocolate around the house now), fancy toothpaste (not forgotten, oddly enough), and so on. When we passed by the book section on our way to the cash register, this book just jumped out at me. Literally! Well, no, but I picked it up, flipped it open, and was instantly hooked at the definition for Fluffernutter. Why did I wait so long?

If you love food and you love reading dictionaries, you must get this fat little book of food terminology. It's also handy to have someone else around to read aloud to (because you will).

I don't think I'll be able to write anymore tonight. I can't stop picking up this book.

Impulse buy: Moon Pie

I've never had a Moon Pie, but I saw them mentioned in books I read, mainly as a kid. I never saw Moon Pies in the store either, till last night. They're supposed to be a Southern thing, but I guess that's further south than here.

The grocery store had a rack of them by the checkout. Plain and chocolate-covered, with a moon on the wrapper. Chocolate-covered double decker! That means three cookies and two layers of marshmallow. Oh, I'm there. I have a hunch they're kind of gross, but it's worth a shot. I try to find one that's not squashed, give up, and throw a sort of squashed one on the belt.

Out in the car I tell Oz I got a Moon Pie. He says, "You need an RC Cola too. You gotta have an RC Cola with a Moon Pie. You can get a real sugar rush. I'm a Pepsi man myself …"

We digress and talk about colas.

After we get home and I put away the groceries, I break out the Moon Pie. The only flavor I can detect is sweet. After my cheeks stop hurting, I take another bite, and another. It's sort of graham tasting. Not really chocolatey. Another bite.

I could eat this, but I feel like I shouldn't. I carry it into the office where Oz is rooting around among his Amazing Bin of Cables.

"Here, try the Moon Pie. It's chocolate-covered."

"Chocolate? Fancy. Okay." He takes a big bite.

"You want a cola with that?"

"Hah." He takes another bite.

"It's double decker," I tell him and point out the layers when he doesn't believe me.

He takes another bite.

I say, "Are you gonna give that back? Or do I have to pry that Moon Pie from your cold dead hands?"

I get the Moon Pie back. I take another bite.

Ooh. Marshmallow.

Linguistics, ladies' underwear, and the geek mind

Linguists use the term "back formation" to describe the development of new terminology for existing concepts when some new, similar concept comes along and differentiation becomes required. For example, once there were books. After paperback books were developed, what we used to call books were then called hardback books. "Hardback book" is a back formation.

Once upon a time, one could go to the lingerie department and find bras, padded bras, and pushup bras. Then, over the 1990s underwires crept into all but a very few bras, making life difficult for those of us who do not want red smiley shapes pressed into the flesh below our bosoms. (Did someone decree that red smiley shapes are the new sexy? I bet they didn't take a vote.) Since the turn of the millennium, pads have joined underwires and occupied all but a very few bras, making life difficult for those of us who do not want bras with bosoms already in them. (Did someone decree that we must all have Super! Huge! Breasts? With red smiley shapes underneath? If they took a vote, they used Diebold machines.) Of late, however, I've noticed a new lingerie trend, just barely budding out, to accommodate the consumer whose elderly non-wired and enhancement-free bras are disintegrating and who would happily spend money on new lingerie if she could find some that wouldn't set off metal detectors and violate the new ban on taking gels on airplanes. This new development in lingerie is being heralded with special signs and displays of …

Wireless bras.

Yes! A new back formation! Linguistics in action. The only problem is that in these days of packetized communications, the word "wireless" brings to mind certain, non-underwear-related associations.

When we walked by one of these signs, my poor brain was bouncing around between "Woo! Linguistics!" and "Internet! What's the power source?" The thought of buying lingerie was way down the queue.

And Oz turned to me and said, "You know, I saw that sign and I thought, I wonder how fast they are? What kind of data rates do they get? Are they 802.11g?"

We are on vacation

Our hotel is hosting an Elder Hostel this week. My grandparents did lots of Elder Hostel back in the day and loved it.

I told Oz, "Ooh! All those people are here for Elder Hostel!"

He said, "Elder Hostile?"

"Yeah, Elder Hostile. It's like Fight Club for old people. You know, the first rule of Elder Hostile is 'You don't talk about Elder Hostile.'"

All the Elders break this rule.

By odd coincidence, it is also the tail end of DelMarVa bike week and flocks of Harleys are roaring down the quiet streets. One can look down a row of hotels and restaurants and see signs saying "Welcome Bikers" right next to signs saying "Welcome Elders."

Our hotel looks out over the channel between Chincoteague (yes, we came back). This morning I stepped out onto the balcony and saw not the mainland. It's misty, as it should be, and the sky blended seamlessly with the water. The clouds were still pinkish with dawn and the water of the channel was smooth and cast up silky reflections. Then a school of dolphins swam up the channel in their photogenically synchronized way. Ah! Pretty.

Now the hotel is being buzzed by vintage aircraft.

The mosquitoes are awful, worse than what we remembered from last year. We didn't come prepared and paid for it by missing a perfect pony photography opportunity. At sunset on our first evening here, the wild ponies were right up by the road, prettily backlight with white herons perched on their backs. We only got a couple shots before the bugs drove us away. We had to enjoy the nature refuge from the car. "Oh, nature is so nice to drive through with the windows down."

Another day passes.

We still run into flocks of Elders about town. They travel in a chartered school bus, so we know they're there before we see them.

Monday: We went to the lighthouse, after running to the supermarket to get the magic of Deep Woods OFF and some handy DEET wipes. We saw the ElderBus in the lot, but we were alone on the trail, except for a million frustrated mosquitoes who would fly up to us, retch, and fly away. Then they'd come back because they're bugs and they don't have much in the way of long term memory. The lighthouse came into sight, then we stepped out of the woods and into a flock of Elders spraying each other with DEET.

In the evening we went back out to the wildlife refuge, applied more OFF, and took a short walk on the wooden walkways around the Toms Cove Nature Center. Down on the sand, two brown rabbits nibbled on salty grass and kept one eye on us. A woman with two little boys walked up and after an initial cry of "Bunnies!" the boys piped down and watched, with only occasional whispers of "They're so cute!" They found another bunny further along the walkway.

Today is Tuesday. We waited all day for the rain, we drove around and looked at things. We found the giant Viking and Beebe Ranch, where they have stuffed Misty on display. I had been planning to check out stuffed Misty (grossed out by the whole concept, Oz had been planning to wait in the car), but I missed my chance this year. They closed for the season the day before we arrived.

Toad massacre! In the evening the toads hop onto the road through the wildlife refuge. We can see them by the light of the headlights. They mostly look like pale little lumps, almost like pieces of gravel, except when they hop (sometimes under the wheels). The rain brought out extra toads who fling themselves into the path of the car. I'm hoping we're missing them, but I actually hear when the wheels run over a big one. Euw! Oz says, "Don't worry, the rain will wash the toad guts off the car." I say, "I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about the toads."

Wednesday: Cold pushy Canadian air followed the rain and brought in perfect autumn days. Evidence of the toad massacre has been washed away by the rain. But the toads know the real story. Thanks to the sudden temperature drop we are safe from toad revenge. For now. A couple days later I found a squashed baby turtle by the road, but we are totally not responsible for the turtle.

There are Mennonites in town. (Not that I could recognize Mennonites specifically, but I assume they are. These folks are members of one of those German religious sects which have clothing rules where the guys can dress like regular guys, but the women have to wear odd-shaped homemade dresses, specific hairstyles, and little white caps or veils.) We saw some of the women, in their billowing pastel dresses and little caps, on a bicycle built for four ride up to the causeway to the wildlife refuge. They pulled out fishing rods and a net and proceeded to lay waste to the water creatures while talking on their cell phones.

We took sunset pictures. A great blue heron hangs out near the Toms Cove nature center and I took lots of poorly exposed pictures of it. I then mucked around with metering settings and got a few pictures that might do. I did catch a glimpse of the bunnies again. And this time I had the big lens on the camera and the tripod. The ponies are not so forthcoming as the bunnies and waterfowl. The ponies, they mock us.

At night we went out to the beach on the wildlife refuge to look at the stars. We could see the Milky Way (which never fails to amaze me) and lots of Dippers (all constellations look like dippers). We saw a total of three shooting stars and lots of planes tooling up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

[Each day is broken up into interludes of napping, eating fried foods, reading books, and tourist stuff. The hotel's internet access isn't working and I am not motivated enough to take the laptop out on a quest for wireless.]

Thursday: We got up insanely early to do a light hike before the sun got too high. The view from the pony overlook did not have much in the way of ponies. Damn the ponies! In the woods we saw deer and birds and interesting fungi, or at least fungus-looking things. Oz called one type "Dead Man's Tulips" ("Dead Man's Tulips! You didn't touch it, did you? Better get to the emergency room so they can amputate your finger. Might save your life.") The landscapes on Assateague appeal to my monkey brain, that layer of cortex laid down as our ancestors stepped down from the treetops and walked out onto the savannahs. Broad expanses of grasslands and scrubby shrubs, tall stands of pine trees in the hazy air, and ponies in the distance. Birds and deer walk around and pose. Bunnies sit up and look at you when you say, "Bunny!" A raccoon bustles by on his raccoon business. Admittedly, our ancestors saw a lot more in the way of large carnivores and considerably less in the way of cute furry creatures.

Friday: We climbed to the top of the Assateague Lighthouse this morning. The volunteer at the top gave us stickers to prove it. Unlike other lighthouses I've climbed, this lighthouse is very airy. The double-walled structure provides room for airshafts in the walls which keep the inside cool and breezy, except for the glassed in bit at the top. We could see across Chincoteague to the mainland and all over this end of the refuge. If we wanted to spend three hours sweating under the giant lenses, we could sit up there tomorrow and watch for a rocket launch from Wallops. And that's about all we did today. We photographed ponies eating grass. Ate lunch. Read. I've almost run out of books, so it's just as well that we're heading home tomorrow.

In order, I've read Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, Stolen by Annette Lapointe, Thud! by Terry Pratchett, and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. That's about a book a day, a normal rate for me when I have neither work nor internet access.

Various things, because I'm too distracted to write a proper entry

Happy news: My university's computer engineering program got its ABET accreditation, at last. Yay for we who were the class of record! Our degrees, in fact, are worth the paper they're printed on.

Burglar news: Since the arrest of a burglar (caught in the act of actual burgling) a few weeks ago, the rate of break-ins seems to have dropped off dramatically. We are still assiduous about setting the alarm. I still wrote down all the serial numbers of all the electronics we've acquired since the last time I wrote down serial numbers. I'm still planning to take "before" pictures of every room in the house before we go on vacation, so I'll have a reference if there's a break-in.

Burglar thoughts: Also since the arrest of the burglar, I have not seen the guy who has been walking up and down the street rather a lot this summer. They told us to be on the lookout for people behaving in a suspicious manner, and I thought it was odd that this guy was walking by so much. But. He looked like one of my neighbors. And many people in the neighborhood get around on foot. There are bus lines and stores for people to walk to. And you can't report someone to the police for walking down the street empty-handed, though if they're pushing a gas grill or a supercan filled with loot, you probably should. Anyway, seeing as how I haven't seen this guy since the arrest, maybe my suspicions were well-founded.

MS news: I finished my first hardcopy read-through of the novel. Now I have to read it again. And figure out the infill writing. I have to knuckle down and do some serious daydreaming. Staring out the window (constructively) is not quite as easy as staring out the window.

Ancient news: We're watching a Japanese variety show which is highlighting various nifty arts & such of the Edo period. Those Edo people must have had a lot of time on their hands. They carved daikon into chains and they made hard-cooked eggs with the yolk outside the white. They showed how to do the egg thing, though I wasn't paying close attention, so I might have missed a step. I may give it a shot one of these days if I need an excuse not to get things done.

How psycho is my cat?

I was lounging on the couch today and I glanced over at the red leatherette hassock (it's an heirloom, okay?), where my manuscript was lying open, mocking me. The light filtered lazily in through the window and hit everything just right.

Perfectly highlighting the fang marks on the corner of the hassock.

The fang marks, I should add, exactly match the fang scars on my leg. I looked over the hassock a little more carefully and found four more sets of fang marks. By "marks" I actually mean "holes that go all the way to the cushy filling."

There's no telling when he viciously bit the hassock, though I suspect the fang marks on the corner were fresh. It's a good thing the hassock doesn't bleed or need antibiotics. Or have a lawyer.

Sparky has seemed much calmer since I put him on the psychoactive meds, but still. I'm glad I'm not a piece of furniture.

And about that MS! That's what my little red pen and I have been working on instead of blogging. I'm mostly copyediting and tightening up the writing to eliminate the verbosity which is a direct result of NaNoWriMo. Thanks to the 1700 words/day requirement I ended up using way more words than necessary. This was a good thing when I pulled out nifty words that I didn't know were there, but not so good when I just used too many words. Still, crossing things out with the red pen is easier than writing them in. Another thing I'm finding is that, thanks to plenty of preliminary plot obsession, I'm not having to do much revision. I will have to do some infill writing, however, to improve my villains.

Enough. I need to go cross out some words.

Red ink

September is the time to start new things, even if you're not going back to school. So I printed out a Work in Progress and put it in a spanking new red binder. I have a nice fresh red pen. Now I just have to start reading and marking.

I guess that's not exactly a new thing, but I've had a four month break from it. I hadn't meant to wait so long, except that I was waiting on feedback which is apparently only going to happen on a geological time scale (and I want to be done with this by November).

I'm kind of dreading the revision process and looking forward to it at the same time. The binder is sitting right in front of me, mocking me, saying, "Go ahead, open me up. Start reading."

As if the agony of my own prose stylings weren't enough, tomorrow I have to finish translating The Article That Saps My Will to Exist. And then hit that with the red pen too.

Road kill café

We saw a huge buzzard down on Government Road this morning. He (or she?) was snacking on a smushed varmint, possibly a possum, judging by the size of the, er, chunks. The buzzard was about the size of two chickens and really blasé about the oncoming traffic. "Hey, y'all've got a whole lane, just let me work on the possum here."

Today I goofed off, proofing pictures and looking around online for camera gear. The lens I want is $760, but since it's also not available anywhere, it's kind of a non-issue. It's just as well. It would be more sensible for me to put that money towards redoing the bathrooms. Or replacing the porch flooring. Or getting the Handyman of Choice back to look at the gutters again. Or …

The neighborhood is almost back to normal after Tropical Depression Ernesto. The tree that was blocking 28th Street was cleared today and more (though not all) houses have power again. Yesterday evening when I walked through the park, there were lots of people out on their porches, or heading out to dinner, and the air was filled with the sounds of generators and the smell of charcoal grill cookouts. Tonight a few houses were still dark, but there was no one out on the porches and the generators were quiet.

In my not doing much today, I did finally put up pictures from the Back-to-School Parade. Click along through the set to see all five. The parade was tiny, probably because of the city canceling it two days before it was to be held, then un-canceling it the following week, so what you see here is pretty much what there was. I didn't put up pictures of all the classic cars, the local politicians, and the police van, but I did put up about all the pictures with cute children.

Beautiful day

As always, the day after the storm is lovely. It's even lovelier if you have electricity and can begin the day with the usual coffee ritual, as opposed to trying to locate a coffee source with power. This is even harder when the phone is out, I should add.

The morning after Hurricane Isabel knocked out power to most of the city, I went down the hill to the supermarket where they had power to part of the store. I had the choice of waiting in a long line for a free cup of coffee from a little ten cup coffee maker (which is not so little, but damn dinky when you've got a line of twenty hollow-eyed people clutching Styrofoam cups) or buying a not so cold six pack of Pepsi. I chose the Pepsi and wandered around the neighborhood taking pictures of storm damage, including my telephone pole which was snapped off about ten feet up and lying on the ground, hence my inability to locate an effective source of coffee.

Today, however, we had coffee and got on the handy Internet and ordered more coffee. Ha! Take that, weather gods! But, weather gods, we really appreciated the soft cloudy skies, the bell-like clarity of the air, and the beautiful poofy clouds. We drove to scenic spots along the river and admired the fast water. I took pictures of the railroad bridge, kayakers, and a blue tailed skink basking in the sun. I grumbled about not having my zoom lens, because the really cool shots were somewhat out of reach. I think the railroad bridge is my new obsession.

I haven't pulled the pictures off the camera yet, but anyway. I had fun taking them.

We also ran errands. I have new socks, but am confounded that Target was almost completely sold out of underwear in my size. Oz thinks it was all the back to school shoppers.

Storm day

Tropical Depression Ernesto takes out a tree (or ten) in the neighborhood

It's just a lot of rain and wind. You wouldn't think it would cause such a stir. The rain didn't really seem to be coming down all that hard, either, probably because it had been whipped to mist by the winds on high.

Well, actually, the rain seemed pretty heavy when I was out driving in it all morning. Then when I came home, the power sags and the wind blowing stuff around (sticks make a bonging sound when they hit the bars on the windows) were distracting enough that I bailed on translating The Article That Saps My Will to Exist and hung out upstairs reading. I kept hearing this banging sound. I assumed it was something related to the work being done on a neighbor's house, like Tyvek flapping around, but no. It was the sound of buckling metal from where the wind was attempting to peel the roof off a house across the street.

Eventually I got tired of that and went downstairs to try and work. After about twenty minutes of ["You think, therefore you are." Oh, god, no. Do I have to?], the power went out and didn't come back on again. Fun. The phone kept chirping and sometimes had a dial tone and sometimes did not. I finally decided to go for a walk with my decrepit umbrella and my weatherproof camera. I found trees down and I could hear the sounds of generators, house alarms (which go off when their backup batteries run down), and sirens from all over the neighborhood. I also found lots of other people walking around. We compared notes on the power outage and the contents of our freezers.

Back home I peeled out of my wet clothes and did the chores which would be difficult to do after darkness fell, like throwing the pill down Sparky's gullet. Oz got back from work and we hung out on the front steps to watch the storm. A power company truck drove by, the guys were staring intently up at the power lines and asked us what time we lost power. They drove back and forth a few times. We chatted with some neighbors about the burglar being captured.

This hanging out on the front steps and saying hey to people passing by is really nice. We'd do it more often if it weren't that for most of the summer it's the equivalent of sitting in a frying pan.

The telephone pole emitted a pfft! sound around six o'clock and we had power! Then it emitted a shower of sparks and we still had power, but we also moved our cars out from under it.

And now I think the excitement is about over. I'll check the river for flooding tomorrow.