..and Lysol it. These artificial trees aren’t necessarily allergy-free after a few years of use, and this one is, well, one of our earlier purchases in Spokane, which could put its date of birth somewhere in the first decade of the century. So we got by with it for a while, but in time, the allergies kicked in. When my eyes were watering too much to see my work yesterday, I consulted with Jane and offered to do the put-away of the ornaments. The woodland tree is a nice, plain little tree with pine cones, and we concentrate our ‘animal’ and woodsy ornaments on that one, lots of deer and stags and my much-loved little ships and pirates. I have four drunken pirates that I love, right down with the snow fairies for the other tree. 😉
Well that is done, and I flung open the window last night on teens-weather cold, and waked this morning after a wonderful sleep for the first time in days.
Jane and I are both working on the Alliance Rising book, and making good progress. It’s kind of a rolling sort of write: we’re composing it in agreed-upon scenes, and fitting them together in the rewrite, which both of us will do until we’re both satisfied. You really have to have a good working partnership and ego well in check to do this sort of thing, and we can do it.
I’m snickering about the pirates and such. Also like the deer and other critters. — And news that Alliance Rising is progressing is just great.
A while back, I was thinking over “animal words,” names of animals, and I wonder if anyone’s ever written much about what we know of the word origins on these things. English mixes both Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French words for various animals, for things like food and hunting and livestock, and for wildlife. So we’ve ended up with a lot of specialized words and some general terms, and I’d imagine there are archaic obsolete terms besides. I got to wondering about this, because I know little about horses, yet we have lots of specific words for various kinds of horse-related terms about horses…oh, that sentence was a mess. Sorry. (Laughs.) I also wondered, for instance, about deer-related words.
So, for example, we have “deer,” which is native and old, and then we have “stag” and “hart” and “hind” and “doe” and “fawn,” all of which are from around the Middle English or Old English periods. These refer to male and female deer, but are they specific about antlers for the males? I haven’t looked it up to see why we have two or three pairs of male and female deer words, and then just the one unisex, “fawn,” though that one may have dropped the gender endings from earlier in the language. Both Hart and Hind strike me as older, more poetic terms, names for inns and ships and such, e.g., the Golden Hind, the Hart and the Hind(e), etc. A deer is the generic, unisex term, then you have a stag (male, mature, capable of breeding) and a doe, (female, presumably also mature and of breeding capability). And I might be missing a term or two there. Then words for kinds of horses are so numerous, it’d take paragraphs to cover. But apparently, we specify colts as male before they’re mature and fillies as female before they’re mature, and ponies are small, either adult or younger, two different classes of meaning there.
We made (in English and most European languages) distinctions between male and female large animals and some small animals, but not about others, which get unisex / generic words. And the words are often completely different for the male versus female forms, and can vary by language, but still are, well, separate. It’s a curious thing that our ancestors thought this was so important (or taboo or sacred or just useful) that they did it that way. And in most other European languages, and in Old and Middle English before dropping the endings, we had endings for male and female to keep things…orderly? separate? just to be able to specify it by a handy, quick way? It was deemed important to specify a physical, natural gender, or else a grammatical, artificial gender. Hmm, and if some person or animal or other lifeforms or some thing or idea did not conveniently fit that, if they were difficult or impossible to tell apart, or if they fell in between sexes (intersex, transgender, anything not fitting the paradigm of male and female) then they got a generic word or some artificial construct, grammatically and conceptually. … And gee, I didn’t know I was going to wander into gender issues. Hmm.
Anyway, it struck me as an interesting thing that we do in language, specifically in European languages. But other languages do things differently, apparently, classifying things in other ways (animate, inanimate, big, small, edible, and so on). It’s a thing we humans d, to put things into categories, and when they don’t fit the categories neatly, it gets complicated.
Hmm, and English really still needs a plural you and a gender-neutral he-or-she-person-but-not-it form, besides “one” or “they” used for the singular. “One” and “they” are perfectly good pronouns, but “one” tends to sound formal and “they” tends to sound too informal or too plural for a singular…even though I use both. I’m Texan, but big-city Texan, so I use “y’all” by default and “you guys” by frequent habit.
An odd quirk re Christmas: For the past few years, I haven’t decorated or been much in the mood for Christmas celebrations, other than occasional songs or a few things here and there. This Christmas just passed, I bought a couple of drum and fife ornaments for the BJD crew (Augie and Zeke) but didn’t get pictures done. So maybe I’m nearing the end of the mourning / pouting slump. I am expecting, though, to get rid of the big and small Christmas trees (artificial) unused for a while, since I’m prepping to move. And I expect to donate or sell most of the ornaments and decorations, or throw them out if they’ve become too damaged, which is likely. I’ll keep some which are very sentimental, such as a little metal purple bell, which for some reason has been special and “mine” since childhood. (I sort of appropriated, commandeered t when I was still a kid as “my” ornament, though it wasn’t originally, it was our family’s). Or a few things also from my childhood or adult years will likely be saved. By next Christmas, when I am (heavens, I hope so) settled in a new place, I’ll maybe want to add things again, and maybe will put up a small tree. Since I’ve always had cats, there are, you know, “concerns” regarding this. (Kitty knocking over or climbing or playing in and around said tree, hahaha, but a safety issue.)
I had this odd urge to sing “The Little Drummer Boy,” and did, around Christmas, but missed the old stop-motion animated classic, which is nearly my age or older. So there’s still some urge toward the Christmas spirit there. I’ll always be more in the “Tiny Tim” camp than the “Scrooge” camp, haha.
Oh, and — It’s the middle of winter here. Today’s high is supposed to be about 80*F. Yes, really. Though we had one night down to 27*F this past weekend, one of very few times this season it’s gone down to or below freezing. Overall, it’s been a strange, too-warm season, I think, though the averages may not support that impression, I don’t know. But 80? In January? Even here? Wow. Weird. This has me concerned for how hot it will be this summer. I had better be in a new place (apartment) by then!
Deer hunting was a big deal in Britain for many centuries, especially for the upper classes. The terminology for male, female, and young was different for different species of deer. Red deer were considered the most prestigious to hunt.
Red deer: hart/stag, hind, calf
Fallow and roe deer : buck, doe, fawn
There were many more technical hunting terms, which classified deer according to age, and male deer according to their horns, and the terms differed to some extent in different times and places.
Also snickering at the ‘drunken pirates’. Any chance you could get Jane to post a picture of them, sometime?
I fear they’re in the box, now, but when we’re putting the boxes away maybe I can persuade her. They’re cute drunken pirates.
The solution to shoveling snow – lift your house up on stilts.
A nice article about Antarctic bases:
How Antarctic bases went from wooden huts to sci-fi chic
Way off topic but a while ago, somebody in the salad bar was asking for recommendations on computer keyboards because of having to get a new one, and I just discovered that Amazon is selling mine again, which is a Logitech Illuminated keyboard K740, that is dearly beloved. I may have to get another one to keep as a spare. I love that it has an ultra slim profile and a “gamer” action to the keys which gives it a fast and light touch. The price is nice, too. You can turn the illumination on or off at a keytouch. It is a corded keyboard, though, so there’s that.
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Illuminated-Thin-Keyboard-K740/dp/B001F51G16
One should note, it’s not for “legacy” boxes. The connector is USB, not PS2.
There are ps2 to usb adapters, but it might slow response a tiny electronic bit.
My experience is that you won’t notice it at all. (Most keyboards are USB. My problem is that I prefer an old-style board, without all the special Windows keys.)
I’ll second that! And I like the big L shaped Enter key. But I don’t have any USB keybpards. Use a dongle on my i7 boards.
No, wait, I may be lying–I may have one USB keyboard I was given when a friend replaced a Dell, with a little ASUS system that looks more like a coffee cup warmer! 😮
I’m currently using a Kensington “Keyboard for Life” – it doesn’t have the big “enter” key, which I like, and it does have the Windows keys (which I hate), but it works pretty well. I’ve worn off most of the “N” label, and the “M” is disappearing, too, but the keys function fine. And it’s survived small liquid spills fine.
(I have a Logitech keyboard. It doesn’t have the lights for num lock and caps lock. That makes it a not-very-good keyboard IMO.)
Thanks, WOL; I’ve saved that to cart as a future item. USB is fine.
Convergence (Foreigner 18) is up for pre-order on Amazon.com (US) and Kobo, I’m told. They now show the cover art and a blurb (teaser précis) about the book. Amazon now says it’s due for release on May 2nd.
Kobo has a precis. Amazon, as of yesterday, didn’t have one at all.
Amazon USA had the Convergence blurb up when I posted. 🙂 Same ad copy as the Kobo blurb.
I can attest to the Logitech keyboard. It is a very nice size, typing feel, and illumination. I had to replace my keyboard and got one of these. They are exactly what I was looking for and reasonably priced for a high-end (in quality) keyboard.
When I went to preorder my copy of Convergence, Amazon says it will be available on 4 April (Oh, happy day!) for both hard cover and Kindle.
Biopsy results are in. Good news: I don’t have breast cancer. Bad news: I have low grade B-cell lymphoma. Which of the many types of B-cell lymphoma has yet to be determined. I am supposed to take heart from the fact that lymphoma is very treatable. To royally complicate the whole shebang is that in order to get treatment I will have to deal with a massive government bureaucracy called the VA, and the nearest VA hospital is 126 miles away. Of course, that’s where they want to do everything. It makes so much sense to drive 300 miles to spend 10 minutes in their CT scanner. . . . Knitting is keeping me sane at the moment (barely).
I have an over-supply of fingering-weight yarn, if you do stuff with that.
Well,it’s not great but not horrid, either. It is not only treatable but beatable—my mum did. Positive attitude is huge medicine, and while the trips are a huge pain, see if you can get a friend to go with you and just try to make the drive a nice one: you might also get some Audible books to shorten the trips. And maybe, for some of it, they can set you up locally.
Take heart! This is indeed beatable.
Also take yarn: indulge in those coveted yarns. Figure out what patterns and projects you want to work on while doing treatment. See the treatment as a chance to get some more knitting time in while working on fun projects (or yarns) you have been wanting to do for ages.
I use work meetings and conferences as a place to knit, so that sometimes I don’t want the meeting to end quite yet because I haven’t gotten to the end of the row and need another few minutes.
Good luck to you, WOL!
WOL — Wishing you the best possible treatment and recovery. It may be rough, but it is doable.
Take good care of yourself. If you can have a friend or loved one with you for moral support and assistance, do. — Also fill up a Kindle or iPad or other reader and music and video and podcasts if you like ’em. (Or heck, try them. There’s good stuff out there for any interests, certainly for SF&F fans, book lovers, knitters and crafters, and whatever other interests you have. Things for continuing education too.) Really, there’s good stuff. Oh, audiobooks are another very good idea. — It helped me stay as entertained / distracted / sane as was feasible when there was waiting or down time with my grandmother’s care. It was truly a blessing sometimes to be able to immerse in those things and set aside what was so intolerable in real life.)
Big News: While I am still waiting (and waiting) on any progress from the various agencies towards disability assistance / income, and anything towards further eye appointments or needed cataract surgery and dental work — some other big news.
With things getting more and more tenuous, dire, in my situation —
For some time now, a pair of house-flippers have been hoping to get me to agree for them to buy my home. After one recommended realtor did not call me (they were supposed to) and only sent a form mailing to “Ms.” BlueCatShip (because my first name is usually female, while my middle name is what I use, via nickname) I was not impressed. The other recommended realtor also hasn’t responded.
I’ve been updating the pair of house-flippers, basically putting things off, because I didn’t have any progress and felt I couldn’t do anything until that was more settled.
Today, I updated again and postponed again. They called back and wanted to meet after all and talk. OK, what the heck, might as well. My situation’s bad. This could help a lot.
We went over things, halved the difference between realtor’s association value and appraised value, went over what I knew and was expecting to discount for needed repairs so the home could be sold to buyers afterward, and what they expected would be needed to get the home repaired and updated and ready to be sold, inspected, and so on. We agreed on a price. While this is less than I was hoping for, its also not unreasonable, and I am too near the point of no choice anyway. I can’t afford to buy / lease a new place without selling the home, and need to pay off back taxes and a few other debts. I also need to be able to pay for eye care and dental work, which I can’t until any assistance becomes available, months from now. So — We agreed on a price and they’ve sent in paperwork to start the search with the title company, and we have an expected closing date at the end of February.
Meanwhile, I’ll have assistance through them to get an apartment I’ve seen, get moved, put anything in storage until I can get to it, and so on.
Sale of my home will take care of most or all outstanding taxes and debts, and what else there is, I can take care of after that. It will give me long-term savings and short-term savings again, allow me to pay ahead on a lease for an apartment, and do necessary things to get my life back in order (eye surgery and dental work especially). This should give me enough cushion to live before any govt. agencies’ assistance starts, and rebuild my life along the way.
Now then, I’ll be packing like mad. Meanwhile, I’d promised myself to give time each day to font production and writing and anything else (audio work?) that might lead to steady income to live on, to rebuild. — Because I know better than to count on government help doing anything like near enough. In less than a month and a half, I will be 51. I have zero savings left. Therefore, there must be a source of steady income besides what has decreased from monthly payments.
So… This is still soaking in. I am sure hoping it all continues to go well and improve from here. I think I wlll have a good contact with these guys in future. (As best I can tell, they are legit.) They have thus far really helped toward apartment hunting and a few minor things, but now almost more than the friendly constable and food pantry fellow.
They know my situation is really untenable, and so — Their retired mom has been thinking of starting a business. She’s going to test out on friends and family, and, do I like Mexican food? (Hah, of course I like Mexican food!) (Though I said please go easy on the various chili peppers.) This will help in the interim to save on grocery bills. She’ll provide a meal each weekday evening, brought over. I’ll give feedback. — This was completely unexpected and beyond the call of duty or simple courtesy or anything else. — And I’m very appreciative. I’ve cut back as far as I can, and am on food stamp money, all of $71 for a single person per month. Yes, that’s all you get per month if you’re single and not supporting anyone. So this help is really a big help. (And ow, it stings my pride to need that help, but yes, thank you.) I’m waiting on my monthly income to arrive at the end of this month to cover overage this month and buy groceries and make payments towards next month. So yes, this will help. No, I am thankfully not out of food, though I’m low on several things and out of milk entirely, nearly out of bread.
So… Hoping that things continue to improve. This will help, ad I’m trusting I’ve made the right decision. It feels right. I’ve been delaying on it since Thanksgiving, hoping for better options, but now I *need* a good option, and this is it, as best as I can tell.
I think this is the right thing. Sure hope so.
Hmm, I may tell them / their mom, my mom and her best friend ate at a very popular place called Felix’s from college on. As a little boy, I ate there too. I still remember the very old waiter who’d count up the bill in Spanish and kept everything in his head. Felix’s family owners were important pioneers (among many others) in Latino and Anglo and others’ business and community ties, in integration and good will and trade. Felix’s was a breakout hit with all customers, and remained a Houston institution for years. I miss them.
Best Wishes to all. It is very good to have some good news, finally, something going right for a change.
I’m going to celebrate with reading some CJC and watching a movie or a couple of TV episodes. Rereads and rewatches, but that’s fine. Good stuff! I’ll be having a Dr. Pepper with tonight’s supper. Ironically, I’d made spaghetti this morning.
It’s been a good while since I’ve had Mexican food besides any I’ve fixed myself or store-bought. Restaurant or homemade has not happened in way too long. I am really looking forward to whatever their mom cooks. I doubt they realize how much. Many thanks!
Yeow! Had my surgery today. They took a chunk out of the edge of my ear, 18mm long by 5mm deep, 3/4″ x 3/16″ more or less, by the time they got it all. That’s a chunk! I guess she kinda “hitched up” my earlobe to close it. One favor they did me is using self-dissolving sutures to close, so I don’t have to go back and have them try to get under tight stiches with their gigantic hook-end scissors.
I was OK until the “long term” anesthetic wore off this evening. I’m to take acetominophen for pain, but that’s not doing it! Tonight’s going to be something–I normally sleep on my side(s). I doubt that’ll be possible tonight.
And others are not unlikely, having had one. Blonde, blue-eyed kids,,,
Ow!
Basal cell carcinoma isn’t the worst of the sun-damaged skin cancers, but it’s not something I want to ignore. But, yes, ow! Sleeping last night was not “sound”. (What a strange adjective/adverb!)
Got favorable news: biopsy showed no cancer although there were calcifications that are “worrisome.” my doctor and I will be following this watchfully.
Esteemed Ready, best wishes for continued favorable diagnoses. One is quite distressed on your behalf.
They did a biopsy on my wife (when we were still married) and found that it was a calcified lymph node. They didn’t seem to be very concerned about it after that…..one hopes that your situation is similar.
Good for that!
Try hanging your tree upside down and giving it a shower you can use a spray cleaner like scrubbing bubbles to loosen any sticky dust particles. A problem is that it may take several days to dry.