We’re headed back to the rink soon: we could have skated through the summer, but there was so much work we needed to do, and of course personal events intervened—so we hope to get back onto the ice without cracking our skulls or anything else essential.
We’re still working on Closed Circle, and hope to have that going very, very, very soon.
And we are actually making progress with the house organization, which has every room but the living room and the basement in good shape…those are next on our list. And it’s our earnest desire to get at the models this winter: we love to do models. Who knows: maybe I’ll try to reconsitute my calluses and remember my guitar chords. So between work, skating, reorganizing and modeling, we’re going to have a full slate.
One of the things we’ve discovered is a source of shelves: Collections, Etc. is a marvelous little company that sells really inexpensive (under 20.00) shelves, some as cheap as under 10.00. They’re really fragile wood, but if you pick carefully and use a little carpentry to improve on them, they’re great. Jane’s room theme is Chinese, so she’s been able to bric-a-brac to her heart’s content. Mine is nautical—arrrh!—and tropical, so I’ve been a little less committed to shelves, but by golly, we’re organized.
We’ll be skating, feeding the birds, shoveling snow, and building miniature ships if things go as planned.
So what do you do when the weather turns?
got it: (edit: CJ)—I wish I could give you guys editing ability, but if there’s a plug-in for that, I can’t find it.
Ok, sorry about the double post. An experiment.
After I posted I noticed an “I” missing. Noting that the original text still existed in the COMMENT box, I wondered if I could make the correction and hit SUBMIT again, correcting the original post.
Guess not.
Sorry.
At least today, having it off from both teaching and my day job of doing community organizing and public policy, I was going to work on my novel. I haven’t touched it except mentally since last winter. Why? Early last March, I happened to glance over at a lion-researcher colleague’s computer screen and see her halting attempt at a press release: “Kenyan police fire from helicopter on Samburu people, steal cattle.” I demanded to know what was going on as soon as she came back into the faculty room. I knew that much of the year, she lived with these people as she studied lions in the nearby parks.
Since then I have been spending much of my spare time with her trying to stop a covert, Kenyan government genocide against its own people, the Samburu cattle-herders of the northern borders of Kenya, in the Rift Valley smack up against the Somali border. Increasingly this past summer, cattle thefts and massacres have joined with drought and cholera to decimate the Samburu. And today our suspicions were confirmed. Kenya’s Daily Nation trumpeted “Kenya begins drilling for oil in two weeks,” right in the middle of the Samburu’s lands. And guess who’s helping them? The China Offshore Oil Corporation. Can you see where this is going? This isn’t the inter-tribal cattle raids that the government keeps on saying it is.
Since this summer, I’ve found myself blogging on the Kenya Aid and Relief Effort’s website (an organization my colleague had started up several years ago to promote well-being of the Samburu so that they could help rather than compete with wildlife conservation efforts), as well as talking to groups, doing fund-raisers… What I’m proudest of is getting Samburu voices up on the blog. But, I’d much rather be working on my novel.
Nasty business. This is where you hope diplomats able to observe this are reporting to various governments.
We got the American Embassy in Kenya to take a serious look at it this past April but apparently the final report was written by a holdover from the prior administration and, according to my colleague, it isn’t worth pushing for its release. Still, I suspect that Obama’s decision not to visit Kenya when he was in Africa this past summer because of corruption was partly based on the Embassy knowing of the Samburu and other incidents. Still, the presence of oil contorts everything, including the US government’s interests.
Winter projects? Trying to get the music project’s second CD out by the holidays, mostly. Now that personnel has stabilized (that is to say, it’s just me for the studio stuff again!), I’m making real progress.
I’m getting everything in order for winter bicycle commuting, too. My rain gear is really pretty sketchy…not a good thing in Portland. I’ve been researching what’s out there and naturally the stuff I really like costs the earth. Everything else is ready, though: fenders installed, second wheelset (with cyclocross tires) good-to-go, new and truly obnoxious blinky lights purchased. The works.
Oh, and winter means I get to wear clothes I actually like and more effectively rationalize my consumption of things like hot toddies and Irish Coffee.
Like a lot of others I’ll be rewriting a bit, pluggin away on the genealogy, and working with the newest canine to improve his manners. I want to do a bit of sewing. It’s been 20 years since I’ve done much of that, but I have very little “piraty goodness” (borrowing the expression from Kato-ji) in my closet. One anticipates a future need. About New Years I’ll comb through garden catalogues and overcommit to the number and types of veggies I will grow next year.
I’ve heard that the Chinese have a hand in exacerbating the Sudan/Darfur situation(s) with much the same motives. Sudan is not far.
Situation makes you want to throw up one’s hands in despair. Apparently, protesting against early versions of such corruption keyed on tribalist shenanigans got Obama’s father in big trouble with (founding father) Kenyatta in the early days of independence. Led to isolation and penury until Kenyatta finally died of old age. Then Obama Sr died in a car accident.
I admire those that are still fighting the good fight against such terrible odds, especially with the cycles of violence growing worse with each eruption, and Kenya becoming more and more destabilized as a result.
I’m hoping to get to work on the front landscaping in the very near future. (Yes, October is like the perfect month to plant things in So Cal. It’s close to spring temps, and there’s more free water in the winter. Gives the plants a head start for spring, before hitting them with the summer temps.) Keeping on with the singing. Have a few home improvement projects I may get done if I can scrape up the cash. Which reminds me… who do you talk to about fixing a chimney flue? It’s nothing major, just that the flue damper appears to be a huge piece of metal with a sort-of-z-shaped handle mechanism that I think is supposed to be adjustable, but is instead stuck in wide-open mode. And I’m silly enough to want to stop the cold breeze pouring down the chimney! I figure there are enough people with wood stoves that read this that they can tell me what kind of fixer-person I need. Then it’s baking and cooking, and this is the time of the year that I think of having actual dinner parties.
And my latest project… physical therapy on the dog. Trying to increase the strength and range of motion in her back legs, and decrease the discomfort that she is currently in. We’ll see how it goes.
I’d think a chimney-sweep ought to be able to get that: possibly its chain has come loose, or dirt has stuck it in open position.
And finally… I got the needed permission from the HOA to do the landscaping! And they didn’t say that I could NOT do the myoporum, so I am taking that as permission to do it. Just finished pricing out the plants… thankfully there’s not a lot of exotics going in, just lots of small common plants (salvia, buddelia, lantana, etc.). The most expensive is going to be the new crepe myrtle: Dynamite, 36-inch box. http://www.fast-growing-trees.com/Dynamite.htm
Just to be clear, I’m not getting the tree from that site, it just has really nice pictures of it. It’s going to be the beacon to draw in the hummers.
Got off to a relatively painful start riding again now that the haematoma has been drained and stable after 4 month layoff. Our new instructor has just got his qualifications and we have our lessons at 17:30 instead of 10am. He has persuaded all the adults (including us really really seniors) to do a carrousel for our Poney Club spectacle de nöel. Have no idea yet what he has in mind.
Other projects are: repairing holes in ceiling from water damage two years ago, the insurance will be round early next year to see that it’s done; making a playplan and bird cushion for Christmas gifts for my grandchildren in Australia, and getting Cassie speyed (sigh).
Make sure my field fences are in good order.Trim a few trees and cut back some underbrush.Then spend a little more time reading and preparing for the holidays.Good luck with the knee Joe.
Trying to finish chapters and outline proposal on a novel, which I actually hope to ship off in the next couple of days. I have a non-fiction project that is screaming to be done before the end of the month. Then another novel and some short stories. Of course mixed in with all this is remodeling stuff on the house and looking for a new day job, I got laid off a couple of months ago. This month I do have a part time job working weekends at an outdoor haunted house (I’m supposed to go around and scare the people in line to go on the ride). Spare time? Spare time? What is that concept?
This is the Season of Home Improvement; over the last couple of weeks I’ve replaced leaky valves under the kitchen sink (along with the equally vintaged and leaky faucet) and installed a ceiling fan in the bedroom. I’ve started putting in a strip garden along the back of the carport; I can only dig for about an hour or so before needing to knock off for iced tea and Advil. Last month I replaced our electric mower with a push/reel mower when the battery stopped holding a charge. I’ve used the new mower a couple of times, and find it as good as, if not better than, powered mowers for our small lawn.
Still plotting the Great Remodeling: enclosing our back lanai and converting it to a kitchen, then knocking out the old kitchen wall (non load bearing) and doubling the size of the living room.
Winter: 1.) Finish digging the new fish pond and and at least partially filling it. (Thank you, CJ and Jane, for giving us the final shove to get going on it!) 2.) Take a workshop in November on working with precious metal clay. 3.) Prepare for the one small Christmas show I still do…scary how many established shows have gone under in this economy….and the places I wholesale to. 4.) Finish cleaning all the trash left from selling my other house….this is going to wait until January. And try like blazes to fight off SAD. Retreat to my studio!
Get some plants and a grow-light. That will provide you full-spectrum, and should make winter easier.
And good luck on the pond!
No big projects for winter, just enjoy the fall season (my favorite) then we will start getting ready for Christmas. I hope to do lots of writing.
I’m knitting socks for my sister (she’s going to get more than she thinks). Sometime I’ll finish the shawl I have *almost* done. There’s a quarter of a baby blanket started for a baby who’s now nearly three months old (when the weather turned hot, and the yarn was sticking to my fingers and the needles too, I put it aside). And the genealogy – well, that’s a permanent floating project, so it’s always there.
Try to finish weaving that *ahem* log cabin scarf. Put up the insolated drapes and explain to the kitten that the drapes are not for climbing. Force myself to put things in a charity box and get them out of the house. Try to figure out a way to make the basement brighter. The ceiling tiles have been falling down and I’m thinking of stapling some large sheets of paper up on the ceiling till I have the basement refinished. I can raid the print shop at work for paper they can’t use. Misprints, etc. Maybe put down some press and stick tiles to cover the areas I’ve taken up the old floor tiles. And the ever ongoing projects: SORT YARN! Sort papers. Get rid of books that I have no intent of re-reading. A large library is of little use if a book doesn’t have a purpose or give you a warm fuzzy feeling.
Fantastic 🙂 this is as good as a forum but the gods reply in person lol
I’m trying to get back into guitar playing too. a friend has come back from spain and is quite good so he might pass some skill on to me, mostly in winter we stay indoors.
we moved this year so no more getting snowed in while a mile up the road is snow free
and……… when are the books coming out as ebooks? I read off my pda (and phone now) so it’s getting a bind scanning a whole book lol I’ve done all nine of the foreigner ones and nivens ringworld ones.