pebblerocker

I should be going to sleep. But the internet is full of fascinating things.

I found out I almost have a Syndrome: Hypermobility Syndrome! (It's amazing how many syndromes I nearly have.) I have all the symptoms needed for a diagnosis except for the pain. Got all the bendy joints except backwards knees. My brother's the same except he has a shoulder joint he can pop out at will.

And I love thinking about what would happen if there were no more humans.

And I'm sure everyone knows this, everyone HAS to know this, but I'm telling you anyway: Diana Rigg is extremely attractive. I found a website about her with photos to prove it. I would post photos if I could, but that's too taxing on my brain so links will have to do. She was in The Avengers, of course, and she was in the Mrs Bradley Mysteries and was gorgeous in that too. Like Hetty Wainthrop but more glamorous.

I'm putting EVERY book I read on the book list, not just ones that make me look cool. Up until now it hasn't been hard to keep to that plan, but it's tempting to leave a couple out of this lot.

I See Red: the shocking story of a battle against The Warehouse by Judith Bell
Bell's gas cylinder company was bankrupted by The Warehouse pulling out of a contract and engaging in some shady dealings against her. Turns out their commitment to NZ-made products is mainly hot air. It was an interesting read and explained a few concepts I hadn't managed to pick up by osmosis (economics is not on my exciting subjects radar). Also I now have an idea of what people are talking about in all those discussions about Wal-Mart: that's what The Warehouse is imitating.

Tapestry of the Boar by Nigel Tranter
I read every Tranter book I can get my hands on. He's written about ninety of them, all set in Scotland at various historical periods. This one was set in the twelfth century, a nice change after reading several about Mary, Queen of Scots and James I. The monarch of the time was Malcolm IV, who comes across as a bit of a soft king, not a good leader and in poor health for much of his reign, but a nice young chap anyway and good at founding hospitals and monasteries.

Daja's Book and Briar's Book by Tamora Pierce
The Circle of Magic series is really enjoyable. I think the quality of writing has improved since the Alanna books. Now I've finished these I can carry on with the same characters, whom I rather like, in The Circle Opens.

Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm by Enid Blyton
My mother was getting rid of a pile of books and I wanted to go through them before they were biffed. All the Enid Blytons were in the pile, so I rescued them. Can't get rid of all the Famous Fives! I did pass on the Secret Sevens, I never enjoyed them as much--too many characters in such short books, couldn't remember who was who and most of them didn't get a chance to develop personalities. There were assorted other Blytons in there too, including Six Cousins--plenty of character development in this one, despite the six major characters. Jolly good!

Six Cousins Again by Enid Blyton
The cover pictures for these two are in a very different style to the illustrations inside; they must have been done for the 1987 reissue. This one's cover shows a smashing Christmas dinner scene with silly hats, crackers, nuts in the shell and a big flaming Christmas pudding, and on the table is a little toy car, obviously from one of the crackers. Looking closely I saw that it was Noddy in his yellow car!

Learning the Ropes by Eric Newby (Author's name apt for the title?)
In 1938 Newby sailed around the world in one of the last commercial sailing ships, a steel four-master on the grain trade between South Australia and the British Isles, at the time the largest sailing vessel in the world. He was on board as an apprentice seaman, and found time to take wonderful photos when it wasn't his watch. The book is full of black and white photos of sails and rigging, decks and high seas, crewmen relaxing and crewmen working two hundred feet up the mast.

Invader by C J Cherryh
I used to think books with overly politicky plots were too much hard work for entertainment. Too many characters to memorise, each with their factions and affiliations and reasons for plotting against each other. I still have to be in the right mood for it, but Cherryh does the political story so well. And with aliens and spaceships and linguistic interestingness! I really enjoy a well-written alien society.

The Woman who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness book 3) by Tamora Pierce
I might have read this book before. Just once or twice, maybe a little more. It was on the library's withdrawn books trolley for a dollar, can't say no to that. Probably enjoyed these books more when I was eleven, but they're still good now, and it's interesting to re-read them now and see how my interpretation of them changes.

I had the first tomatoes from my garden today. I'd forgotten how much better they are than bought ones. They were cherry tomatoes, perfect for eating straight off the bush; my other tomatoes are transplanted and provided with stakes - better stakes than last year's, which snapped off in the hurricanes - and looking pretty happy. And I have a pumpkin the size of a cricket ball, as well as a lot of pumpkin flowers attracting the bumblebees. And my gardening book says to carry on planting more beetroot seeds. Time for another garden expansion!

First the story, then the pictures!

My father found her under the trampoline in their back yard, near the end of November.  Actually he wouldn't have spotted her if it wasn't for one of my brother's cats, who had been sitting and staring intently at the grass where she was hidden.  When my father investigated he found two little kittens, one alive and one dead and stiff.  He brought the live one inside and tried to give her some milk, but she couldn't figure out how to lap; she was only three or four weeks old and was going to need four-hourly dropper feeding.  Since I'm not working and I've looked after a few kittens before, my house was the best place for her to stay.  I drove home with her on my knee and dug out the eyedropper.

My man loved her the moment he saw her.  My cat Cliff (a privileged only cat, not yet two) was horrified at the sight of her and ran to hide under the bed.  The little orphan spent the first few nights sleeping on top of a hot water bottle inside a shoebox, shut away in the bathroom to prevent unsupervised encounters, and Cliff growled and ran away whenever he heard her squeaking.  In the daytime she mainly stayed close to me, and Cliff took to spending a lot of time away from home where the sight of the fluffy invader wouldn't assault his eyeballs, returning only at mealtimes.  But eventually he became curious and approached her making friendly chirps, and once she stopped trying to make herself big and scary whenever she saw him they gradually became friends.  (Cliff is pretty nervous, so a tiny scowling kitten with a bushy tail made him rather wary, and when she took a stiff-legged sideways step towards him he jumped back!)   He did play a bit rough with her at first, pinning her down and biting until she squealed, but he learnt how to play nicely and now I'm not at all worried about leaving them unsupervised.

We don't know which of the many shifty-eyed stray cats in the area was the little girl's mother, or what happened to her; the mother wouldn't have been the sort to allow humans anywhere near her, but she didn't get the chance to pass that on to her kittens.  She did give her surviving baby as good a start on life as was possible in the circumstances as well as passing down a stray's supreme adaptability.  Nothing worries this little cat.  On the second day she told me, "Enough of the dropper, I can do it myself," and a few hours later, "How about some of that meat stuff while you're at it?"  I can tell she'll be very different to Cliff.

She went nameless for quite some time while I waited for the right name to strike me.  My father said that she looked like a Borg with her half-and-half face, so the strongest contender was Annika, after Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager, but that never quite fitted her... I'd almost made up my mind that she'd have to be Annika rather than being called Little Squeak for the rest of her life, but the next day someone suggested Cilla and I liked that!  I hadn't planned on having a naming theme, but Cilla does go well with Cliff too.

Now the pictures... these ones all from the early days.  More recent ones to come, eventually.
( Read more... )

thanks to indefatigable42

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? - It'll be paper again this year, but I'm scheming for reusable fabric bags one day. Probably made from nice-looking bits from the remnant bin, and not Christmas themed, that way they'll do for birthdays as well.

2. Real or Artificial tree? - Nana's artificial tree, which is starting to get a bit wobbly where the wire branches get bent in and out every year for storage.

3. When do you put up the tree? - First weekend in December.

4. When do you take the tree down? - Before the hobgoblins get me! Usually after New Year though.

5. Do you like Eggnog? - Never seen it, never heard of anyone who'd had it, and the name makes it sound extremely unappealing.

6. Favorite Gift you received as a child? - The motorbike was a good one. And I always loved getting books.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? - No. My grandmother is religious and has a pretty neat knitted one, with knitted wise men and knitted sheep.

8. Hardest person to buy for? - My father. He has everything he wants, except for things that are way too expensive.

9. Easiest person to buy for? - My mother likes a lot of the same things I do. Actually all the women in my family are very easy to please, because we're all delighted by stationery.

10. Worst Christmas gift ever received? - I think one of my brothers gave me some lurid squishy putty stuff, or one of those jellyish sticky balls that slither down a window. Something that feels disgusting and leaves hands smelling of petrol. Not a present I enjoyed, but after he gave it to me he could play with it himself as much as he liked, and that was fine by me.

11. Christmas Cards - Still haven't sent any... got together with the family a while ago and thought up a design and made a stencil and bought some cardboard, but that's as far as it got.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? - I don't think I've ever seen one.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? - Um... next week?

14. Have you ever "recycled" a Christmas present? - Not that I can recall, but I did pass on some earrings for pierced ears that I was given for my birthday.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? - Ooof. So much. All the roast potatoes and pumpkin and kumara and onions, with mountains of peas, and shepherd's pie with gravy, and Christmas pud, all those traditional things that are completely unsuitable to eat on a hot day. And Christmas nuts in the shell, with bits of Brazil nut shell sproinging from the nutcrackers in every direction and getting stuck in the carpet. And pulling the crackers makes it all even better. But I also quite like having a less traditional and more seasonally-appropriate Christmas dinner of several different leafy salads and potato salad and slices of beetroot and things.

16. Clear lights or coloured or both on the tree? - Do they even sell clear lights? And wouldn't that look a bit boring? I have the very cheapest sort of lights with the sharp spiky coloured plastic bits that hurt your hands as you try to untangle them. These days it appears that even the cheapest lights from the Warehouse are wired in parallel, so that one blown bulb won't break the circuit and stop the whole set working.

17. Favorite Christmas Song? - Snoopy's Christmas. Mary's Boy Child, when done by Boney M. I... quite like Cliff Richard at Christmas *blush* singing O Little Town and Mistletoe and Wine.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? - We usually go to my grandmother's place to load up on roast veges and Christmas nuts, but not always on the day.

19. Can you name Santa's Reindeer? - 'Course yes. We always read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, and it is traditional to laugh at the bit where Saint Nick "turns with a jerk". Hey Santa, who's the jerk?

20. Do you have an Angel or a Star on top of your tree? - An orange and purple origami star. I could only manage four points; maybe I'll make a more sophisticated star for next year.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? - Morning. If you opened them early, what would there be to look forward to on the day apart from eating too much pudding?

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? - Everything happens all at once.

23. Favorite Christmas tradition - I don't really know. Eating too much and wading through discarded wrapping paper all day? Seeing what the Queen has to say this year? I like playing with my new toys and being with my immediate family.

24. Family member you always try to stay away from during the holidays? - To the extent of ringing my grandmother to find out what day he'll be there, so I can arrange to come at another time. And not just at holidays either, I would hate to run into him at any time.

25. Do you attend any actual religious services in celebration? - Once I went to see Handel's Messiah with aforementioned religious grandma, if that counts.

The "of necessity, virtue" school of giftwrapping: brown paper and hairy brown macramé string. Do it with enough conviction and people will think you're too artistic and creative to want to use shiny paper and curling ribbon.

In the library today, on the trolley of withdrawn books for sale, two adjacent titles caught my eye:

Unplanned Pregnancy
Barbados with PULL-OUT Map

I had to look twice at that.

I've just returned from a most enjoyable excursion into the roof to investigate some dusty boxes.   I was sent up the ladder because the boy couldn't move himself around up there and was scared he'd put his foot through the plaster; it's a job for someone lightweight, flexible and agile with good balance.  The translation into RPG terms is irresistible: I'm a low-Strength, high-Dexterity character class and should probably take up archery, martial arts and tumbling.  It's a pity that there are so many more occasions for fridge-lifting and furniture removals than for roofspace investigations, so the clumsy musclebound types get the glory.  Can I complain that real life is imbalanced?

 I'm in Australia!

It is still dry and flat and full of gum trees.

And I'm now down in the Australian customs records as a Bad Person.  I put down on my customs form that I had no food or plant matter in my bags, and the X-ray machine found the apple that my man had forgotten to eat when we were waiting for the plane in Auckland.  I got a very stern talking to from the official, but she let me off the A$220 fine this time.  No second chances though, if I'm caught smuggling again I think they're going to lock me up and throw away the key.