Sparky! And a hawk!

It is my great pleasure (and surprise!) to announce the addition of Sparky to our family. I really have no idea how we went from me looking at cute pictures of kitties at Petfinder.com to filling out an adoption form at the Animal Humane Society. It just happened (like some pregnancies -- LOL!) Doug and the 9-month-old Sparky took to each other right away, and I thought he was a nice kitty, so home he came. Sparky's been living mostly in my office until Bootsie gets used to the idea, and I adore him. Starting about Day 3, couldn't imagine life without him. Today is Day 8. He loves to sleep on my book or keyboard with his head on my hand. Or slung over my shoulder with my hand supporting his bottom. How can I possibly push him aside to work? Cuddling him is a much higher calling.

Need to give equal visibility to Bootsie. Here's a picture Doug shot a couple of years ago, I think. She loves the back windows in summer when the ivy grows over them, giving her a "jungle screen" to lurk behind as she watches the birds and furry critters that visit our backyard. She is sort of OK with Sparky as long as he doesn't try to play with her or enter her domain upstairs. Unfortunately, he wants to do both those things very much. So they're going to be separate for a while.



AJ is very interested in the new cat, and Cubby Bear is absolutely over the moon at having another kitty friend. Sparky was wary at first, but now he has discovered that Cubby's huge brush of a tail makes a great toy.

This summer, we were visited for about a week by a juvenile Cooper's hawk. He perched right outside my office window for hours! I've always joked that my utter lack of care of the backyard and its subsequent run to weeds was an effort to create an ecosystem. Well, I guess it worked! The hawk eventually caught a baby rabbit! Then s/he took off. They like to nest in Douglas firs, apparently, and our next-door neighbor has a beautiful one, so fingers crossed that s/he remembers that tasty bunny and the nice tree and maybe comes back someday to raise baby hawks. Photo below by Gerry Dewaghe.



Otherwise, life has been about working . . . and working . . . and working . . . and . . . Did I mention I've been working a lot? I'm guessing about 70-80 hours/week. So much housework and yardwork isn't getting done, it's not funny. But with the economy the way it is, and the way it's likely to be for a while, I'm not complaining. One of my clients sent me a chilled box of See's Candy for working on a series of challenging projects -- how sweet! Do you know that See's Candy comes with a nutritional leaflet? That's just wrong! It went into recycling unread.

Wrapped up my GRE class for Kaplan Test Prep. Enjoyed teaching very, very much. It definitely got me the interpersonal contact I needed and used the presentation skills that would otherwise atrophy. Plus I met remarkable people and got to know their dreams and goals and maybe help them a little toward them. I hope they all do great on the test!!! Now I am tutoring a wonderful guy, also on the GRE. I hope to teach a class again in November, but that will depend on enrollment. I'm looking forward to fine-tuning my teaching and continuing to improve in my next class.

It hasn't all been work. At the end of August, we did go on a sort of vacation to Kansas City, where we met Doug's parents for a couple of days. Visited some museums, ate some barbeque. I alternately worked and crashed, worked and crashed. Afraid I wasn't exactly the life of the party. I'd lost 5 pounds since May, but I gained 3 of it back over that vacation -- bleh. How discouraging.

Also carved out some time to watch the U.S. Open. Men's champion Juan del Potro seems like a really nice guy with a great game, so glad he won. And Kim Clijsters -- good grief, just her third tournament back from "maternity leave," and she wins a Grand Slam! I remember her as being mentally fragile, but she was incredibly focused here. And now Justine Henin is planning a return. Hurray for women's tennis!

Garden update: Bunny ate most of what would have been a great crop of broccoli, but tomatoes are producing like crazy, despite the drought. (We've had only 0.01 inch of rain so far in September!) Without time to cook, I've been just slicing them up on a plate and sprinkling salt over them.

Birds, Butterflies, and Books

Stepped out onto my front porch yesterday and saw four gorgeous little yellow birds, two a bright, bright yellow, clinging to my Pincushion Flowers (Scabiosa) and delighting themselves with the seeds. American Goldfinches! Two males, two females. As I've been relandscaping, I've been trying to use a lot of bird- and butterfly-friendly plants -- how cool that it works!

Also, about a week ago, saw a beautiful little butterfly on my bed of native yarrow. The undersides/outsides of its wings were slate gray; the topsides/insides were an intense lilac blue. When it fluttered about, it looked like a flower in flight.

Am sick as a dog: Doug went to Origins in Columbus, Ohio, to sell games and brought back a virus with him. He's been sick, too. Bleh. That's really a pain because . . .

I'm currently working on six books with another arriving Monday and more in the pipeline after that. Not a good time to be sick! Just finished editing a book with a lot of organic chemistry in it. I don't know the first thing about organic chemistry, so it was very challenging, but I think that with the help of Google, I ended up doing a good job.

Sarah Palin is an utter flake. Here's just one of the analyses with which I agree; this one is by Ruth Marcus.

When not working, have been enjoying Wimbledon. Amazing women's semifinal between Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva. Amazing quarterfinal and semifinal between Andy Roddick and a resurgent Lleyton Hewitt and co-favorite Andy Roddick, respectively, and then yet another classic Wimbledon final, this time between Andy Roddick and Roger Federer. Being sick, I dozed off early in the fourth set. Woke up quite a while later, saw the score line, and went WTF!?!? and was wide awake. Federer finally won 16–14 in the fifth set. This is his 15th Grand Slam title, and he's now one of a handful of men who have won the French Open (on clay) and Wimbledon (a few weeks later on grass) in the same year.

Funny dog stuff: AJ is perfectly capable of pushing through the swinging kitchen door. She does it from the kitchen side all the time, and she'll do it from the dining room side if I'm standing right there with her. Nonetheless, when Doug is making a snack and she wants to follow him (or rather his food), she never fails to charge into my office, make it very clear that I am to follow her, and lead me to the door, which she makes very clear I am to open for her. Sometimes even when the door is propped wide open, she insists I escort her through it. Funny!

Fun:

• You must view this slideshow at the public radio show Speaking of Faith Web site. A male polar bear encounters chained huskies in northern Canada. The animals proceed to play with each other. The bear came back every day for a week to play with the dogs. Other researchers have observed the same behavior between grizzly bears and wolves in the wild.
• There is a World Worm Charming Championships. It is held each year in Willaston, Cheshire, England. The record now stands at 567 worms. Something to aspire to?
• Therapy chickens! Like therapy dogs, but poultry. This brief article will make you say, "Awwww."
• "Male hummingbirds, swooping in an effort to impress females, achieve speeds 'faster than fighter jets,' [as measured in body lengths] according to a study." Photo below by C. Clark.
  
  
  
  
• Stickleback fish have been determined to use a "hill-climbing" learning strategy. Individual fish learn to find food faster from the failures and successes of their peers. Geez, I could have told them fish do this.

Ghost in the Machine, Pain in My Arm, and Bunnies in the Yard

So one day, the TV starts displaying closed captioning. There's a button on the universal remote with both words and symbols indicating that it's for closed captioning, so we try pushing it. Nothing happens. We try lots and lots and lots of things. Nothing. So how did it get turned on in the first place? Presumbly one of the dogs had something to do with it, but damned if we can figure out what they did. Both cable TV and DVDs give us printed words as well as sound, and neither of us is hard of hearing. During Australian Open tennis, the printing covered up the score line. This is apparently not a unique problem: when I searched for an answer, I found this person.

For me, the situation has an additional wrinkle, in that I tend to mentally copyedit everything I read and the captions have an awful lot of typos. Aargh!

I've been working out for a couple of months now, gradually building up the intensity. I've tried this many times over the past few years. Usually an injury or illness stops me, and then I don't get going again. But this time it's going pretty well. I started on the exercise bike in front of the TV. Then when I could do five days in a row at a decent intensity without feeling much soreness, I moved up to step aerobics. I've been gradually increasing the length and intensity of those workouts, and just last week I added my homebaked version of BodyPump (a weightlifting routine set to music, with ~5-minute sets for each muscle group). I think I had a mild hamstring pull in December, and then I got the stupid ankle-nerve thingie last week (see last post), but I've kept it up. It feels really good.

Then yesterday, I guess I overdid it on the tricep extensions, because I woke up to agonizing pain in those muscles. I couldly hardly push myself to a seated position to get out of bed. (The Rottweiler snuggled up against me like glue didn't help.) It took a few hours, but I finally sorted out the pain enough to figure out that, instead of being muscle soreness (of which I have none, I'm happy to say), it was injury. The left arm has pretty much cleared up, but the right tricep doesn't want to extend. It contracts just fine, which makes me think the problem is a tendon/ligament thingie rather than a muscle thingie. Yes, I'm right-handed. Dressing myself and feeding myself present real challenges. Fortunately, there's no problem working at the keyboard. Unfortunately, I was going to do housework today and really can't. So I'm writing this.

I won't be doing upper body weights again for a while, but I should be able to do step as long as I'm careful to keep my arms straight-ish as I move them.

Rabbits have always been attracted to the spilled seed under the birdfeeder (birds are messy). After we put up the privacy fence around the backyard about five years ago, we got a lot fewer rabbits in the backyard. One night this winter, though, we spotted a bunny under the feeder. I started filling the feeder at dusk every day and intentionally spilling a tablespoon or two of seed on the ground. Bunny came back, started coming back more often, and now comes every night. In fact, there may be more than one bunny -- I think I'm seeing at least two, one larger than the other, but only one shows up at a time so it's hard to tell. I've never had a steady "relationship" with a bunny before, so this is fun. I'm looking forward to baby bunnies in the spring.

Fun:

• I haven't yet acquired this book, but I must: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. This novel "features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. . . . [It is] a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead."
• This new study published in the journal Science may explain why copy editors and proofreaders (and many English teachers) use red pens (or the electronic equivalent). Apparently, the color red may help people focus on detail, while the color blue may help us be more creative. Although I can't help wonder, given the tasks the study used, if the connection has more to do with red = verbal and blue = spatial. Anyway, interesting stuff. I had my office walls painted peach (a mild red tone) and the ceiling an intense blue-green, so I think I've got some inspiration for whatever kind of thinking I want to do, depending on where I look. :-)
• If the zombies invading Regency England don't give you nightmares, this might: Titanoboa cerrejonensis was probably about 45 feet long, snacked on crocodiles, and was the biggest land animal on earth for about 10 million years. It was named for its size (genus) and the Cerrejón coal mine (species) in northern Colombia where at least 28 skeletons were found.

Diversicon, Drought, and Depression

First things first: Jusqu’au Dernier Mot is translating a bunch of my Writing World articles into the French. They have five of them up now. And I wrote two haiku! Wowza!!! It felt ridiculously good. AJ the Rottie caught a baby bunny in the backyard and killed it a few feet away from me. First time in 15 years of big dogs chasing bunnies that anyone’s died. [shrug] That is the natural outcome for a baby bunny. Very few survive to adulthood and get to make more baby bunnies. If they did, we’d be overrun with bunnies. AJ seemed mystified as to why the bunny didn’t get back up and play. I gave it a burial and wrote a haiku about it. Then I wrote a haiku about my very dry garden soil. Which takes us to . . .

. . . the weather report: Not nearly enough rain. Doug went out and bought me a sprinkler. It’s not nearly as efficient as directing water at each plant’s roots with the hose -- you lose more to evaporation, and you water ground where no plants are -- but it sure is nice to set it up and be able to walk away. Effortless! Like magic! (Yes, I take pleasure in simple tool use. You should see me when I’m reading something in dim light and Doug turns on a lamp. Wow! The words leap from the page. Like magic!) One good thing about drought: hardly any mosquitoes!

Diversicon went well this year. We got mostly positive feedback from the attendees. Guest of Honor Anne Frasier’s suggestion of a Flash Fiction Contest attracted some great entries, and the awards ceremony was fun. The vibe was awesome: intelligent and thoughtful and warm and friendly. The location, with a variety of affordable, healthy eating options within five minutes’ walk, was great. One downside was that the hotel dropped the ball at numerous points (e.g., telling people the room block was closed when it wasn’t, not being able to direct people to the con when they showed -- indeed, not being aware the event was at the hotel, losing our catering order for the Auction, “checking out” our suite space a day early, charging our Guests’ rooms to their cards instead of mine, not having the expanded suite available that they said would be built in time for our event and then charging us the wrong amount for the space they did give us). Each individual hotel employee seemed dedicated to giving great customer service; however, the communication didn’t seem to be in place to allow them to do so. Another downside was that attendance dropped. It’s a real little gem of a convention, and we simply have to get better at attracting people to it.

Had a thoroughly icky major depressive episode for about eight days starting during the con. I guess technically eight days isn’t long enough for something to be classified as a major depressive episode, but I know one when I feel it. I’m worthless, never done anything right, everyone hates and despises me, want to slash myself all over to let the pain out, can’t see the point of doing anything, no appetite, crying for no reason, can’t focus on anything -- that last bit was really pronounced this time and made working hard. The good news: This lapse of brain chemistry had a specific trigger -- I knew I was being triggered as the triggering event happened -- I could literally feel the brain chemistry starting to cascade out of balance, like a chain of dominoes falling -- and I figured that if I gutted it out, my serotonin levels would climb back to normal eventually. And they did. I’m still kind of tired, but I’m feeling good about myself and hopeful about the future, and I’m enjoying my work and gardening, etc.

Politics: I’m delighted with Senator Obama’s choice of Senator Biden for vice president. Biden was my top choice when the Democratic primaries began, so I’m thrilled to see him on the ticket. On the other hand, I’m disgusted with our stance with regard to Russia -- we haven’t seen this coming for, like, at least six years? I’m sitting here in Minneapolis with no information except from TV and newspapers and MPR/NPR, and I could see that Putin, the former KGB head, is taking the country back to its imperialistic, autocratic past. Why couldn’t the Bush administration?

Workwise, I’ve got a bunch of live projects, but with all of them, I’m waiting for something from the editor or from the author. Which means there’s absolutely nothing I can work on this weekend! Whee!!! Although living without pressing deadlines takes a bit of getting used to. I have to structure my own day? I can do anything I want? How do I do that? LOL!

Very entertaining book: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. There’s lots of history in it, but it’s her asides and ramblings that bring it to life in a deliciously funny, ironic, truth-telling way.

Summer Olympics: I’m too wary of doping scandals to let myself get excited about most of the sports, and being decidedly not thrilled about China’s human rights record takes away a lot of the luster for me, too. I did enjoy the tennis, oddly enough. I used to think tennis shouldn't be an Olympic sport -- they've got pro tours and four Grand Slam tournaments each year, so what do they need the Olympics for? But a lot of the players clearly brought a lot of passion to it and it was really meaningful for them, and there were a lot of good matches. I loved that Roger Federer got a gold medal in doubles. I feel terrible for the female Chinese gymnasts -- I'm sure those girls had zero say in being put on the team despite being too young, and they've clearly worked like crazy and sacrificed a lot and are outstanding gymnasts. If they'd been allowed to wait until 2012, they could probably have won Olympic medals legitimately. As it is, even if the results are allowed to stand, they'll always have an "asterisk" next to them.

Fun:

Arienne Cohen writes in the NYTimes about a woman, with the stature of a superhero and the personality of a nice person, and a remaining barrier of difference in our society.

Check out the Cornell University Library Witchcraft Collection, “an online selecton of titles from the Cornell University Library's extensive collection of materials on Witchcraft. The Witchcraft Collection is a rich source for students and scholars of the history of superstition and witchcraft persecution in Europe. It documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. Most importantly, the collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.”

For when you desperately need a way to procrastinate, there is the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. Try typing in your last name and finding out what sequences other people with your last name have discovered. Or type in a series of numbers and find out all the sequences they might be part of. It’s fascinating in a thoroughly geeky way.

A fishie pedicure sounds like fun! I love sticking my fingers in my tanks and feeling the fish nibble-nibble looking for food. It feels really good.

Whatever the NYTimes’s problems, its health reporting remains top-notch. I found this multimedia presentation on bipolar disorder, featuring the voices of people with the illness, gripping and helpful in understanding the effects that chemical imbalance in the brain can have.

I slept in Vegas. I worked at WisCon.

It is spring—I’m happy to at least have that question answered so I can stop asking it. Soon I can begin complaining about how hot it is.

I accompanied Doug to Vegas while he attended GAMA. Stayed at Caesars Palace: we got used to the over-the-top décor in no time (the various Romanesque statues were helpful landmarks) and stopped finding it weird, and the service was absolutely first-class. Could not ask for friendlier, more helpful cleaning people, bellhops, front desk staff, cocktail servers, wagering attendants . . . Really nice. Unlike at Bally’s last year, there were lots of good channels on the TV. There was, however, no door on our room’s bathroom, and it was clearly designed to be that way. It was no big thing since it was just Doug and me, but it was unusual. We were there for about three days from arrival to departure, and I’d say I slept for about two days of it. I arrived nearly walking into walls after working I don’t know how long. Sleeping on the plane -- in the freaking 17” wide seats that recline only 3” and when the person in front of you reclines you get your tray table in your lap -- was nearly impossible, though I did sprawl across Doug and drool on his shoulder a bit. So then I slept, and slept, and slept. Sleeping in Vegas is the most expensive sleeping I’ve ever done, but it that’s what it took to go down for a nap and I needed it that badly, then it was worth it.

Weekend before this last one, I went to WisCon. I was probably at the con for all of ten hours all weekend. The rest of the time, I was in the hotel room either crashed out or working my butt off (except my butt never gets any smaller -- go figure). But I did have a good time whenever I was awake and not working. Most of the artwork I voted for won in the categories I thought it should win. Met any number of cool people and had cool conversations. Was on three panels, including two on class, which tends to bring out the ranting and raving in people, but they all went reasonably well. Someone whose opinion I value complimented me on how I did on panels, so that was a warm fuzzy. Another warm fuzzy: Someone came up and introduced herself and said she’d found my article online, “Finessing the Infodump,” and it had saved her writers’ group. Cool! Found the Land’s End outlet store on State Street and picked up the most comfortable jeans ever for $10, plus some other stuff. Plus a totebag to carry it all in, which Bootsie loves to use to sharpen her claws (it’s canvas, and I guess that’s good).

A while ago, I wrote about setting aside one day a week for writing fiction. Hmm. How about setting aside one day a week for sleep? I keep thinking I’ll hit a dry spot (and begin worrying about money, but what can you do) and then get my schedule organized with some set-aside times for exercise and writing and such. But I’ll probably just keep thinking that.

Now working on a travel guide for people who like antiques, a college guide, a book about Internet bullying, a book about writing teachers’ performance evaluations, a math book for parents so they can help their kids (great idea!), and database records. That seems like a lot, but I’m actually mostly done with most of them and just waiting for other people to do their bit before wrapping things up. I’m entering the week in pretty good shape! Go me! (And I love the variety and the cool books. I’m really very happy with my lot in life—it’s just getting a little out of hand, and I need to get the “success” part figured out.)

Cubby Bear developed some big lumps in his mouth that needed to be taken out. He needed his teeth cleaned badly anyway, so we just had everything done at once. They turned out to be benign, caused by the papilloma virus. Cubby recovered great from the surgery and is more beautiful than ever. AJ keeps injuring her hip with her whirling-dervish-I-need-to-kill-it routine at the front window. She’s either placid and sweet or 110 percent killing machine, and her anger management issue is going to cause her problems as she gets older if she doesn’t tone it down. Hard to believe she’s 7(?) now—6 or 7. New betta’s still alive. New loach is still alive. Yay!

I’m going to pass on putting in a veggie garden this year, because I probably won’t have time to keep it weeded and watered or cook what comes out of it. I did put in a couple of flats of annuals in the boulevard garden, and I added a whole bunch of day lilies and a handful of other perennials and shrubs to the front yard to fill in a few spots. Fingers crossed that everything lives.

The stomach problem turned out just to be a bad batch of eggs, so I can keep eating them. Yay!
And I just looked at my Things to Do List and realized . . . I’m waiting for things from other people on every single one of my projects. THERE IS NO WORK I CAN CURRENTLY DO!!! The sun has just come up (Bootsie is stalking the morning birds in one window after another), and I am going to clear some grass out of my flowerbeds. Go me!

Roland Garros, site of the French Open Grand Slam tennis event, has a pretty neat tennis video game up at the Web site: http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/multimedia/index.html.

Some people really need to work out with less brio. (I’m reminded of a guy in an aerobics class who seemed to think we were slam-dancing.) And others need to learn to ignore those who grunt. CBC’s As It Happens: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20080529.shtml.