A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Today, I washed the kitchen floor and the bathroom floor.  Yeah, me.  I also cleared off nearly one third of the dining room table.  Got rid of a lot of minor email  tasks that had been building up in my inbox.  Made a loaf of bread (Italian but it didn’t rise quite right so that’s going to need a few more tries before it becomes a keeper recipe or I give up).   I also wrote out the steps (pseudo-code) to programming a display page for a website I’m working on — now I just have to program it (pseudo-code is the way to go on shiny days.)

Then I managed to watch some movies and spin and spin and spin.  We bought one of those family pack DVD movies — you know the really cheap kind in the sale bin.  I watched  Africa Screams, an Abbott and Costello movie, Captain Kidd (Charles Laughton, Randolph Scott, Barbara Britton, and John Carradine), and started Christmas without Snow (Michael Learned, John Houseman, Ramon Bieri, and James Cromwell) — maybe I’ll finish that one tomorrow.

Remember, the spinning is of lace weight.  I’m over spinning it and now believe that I’ll Navajo ply it for 3-ply when I get the first spool filled.  Hopefully that will be at the end of this weekend.  It looks like I might make the goal of spinning every day during the Tour de Fleece but I really doubt that I’ll get the full pound of green spun by the 27th.  But hope springing eternal and all that jazz — I’ll just keep going on it.

There is a slight snag in that I’m going to Readercon in Massachusetts from July 17th to the  20th.  The car is going to be too full to bring the wheel so it will be a drop spindle for those days — I’m wondering if I can keep the thread consistent from spinning wheel to spindle.  I might just decide to keep going on the sock yarn I’ve got started on a spindle now so I do the “every day” even though it doesn’t help with the pound of green fiber.

So, tomorrow is another day and I’m beat from all the stuff I did today.  I know it doesn’t look like much in a list but it took just about all my spoons today.  I’m just hoping I don’t pay for it tomorrow.

Twas a busy day.  Well it would have been if I’d managed to stop shiny-thinging all over the place.  Got a lot done, but not all of anything; if you know what I mean.  I’d get started on something and the next thing I’d know I’d be off and onto another something and then off that and so on and so on.  But I can see the top of the dining room table in places.  Some of the floor is now open for cleaning.  The kitchen cupboard are all set for me to scrub them tomorrow.  So, guess I’ll look on today as a set up for housework…I hate housework…just when are those robots going to be ready for this.  Our little roomba is having problems and so I’m stuck with the floors.

On a high note, I managed to spin for about forty-five minutes tonight.  The wooden spool is just about all covered with the thread now.  Remember it’s lace weight spun and I’m planning to do either 2-ply or 3-ply when I’m done with the singles.

I’ve now spun enough that I have to oil/grease the wheel.  So, it was another trip to the basement to find some books on spinning wheel maintenance.  I can’t believe how rusty I’ve gotten.  Of course my main wheel is a Majacraft Rose (no oiling necessary) so using the Schacht is a bit of a re-learning curve.  I found several books that would be useful that I put aside half-read or less.  That’s sort of embarrassing to admit but often with reference books, I look up what I need when I need it and put it aside so I can find it again for the next problem.

This book looked like the one that would give me the info I needed in the quickest manner so I can get on with the Tour de Fleece — the equivalent of changing out my flat or adjusting the gears and getting back in the race.  However, remember the shiny-thing problem.  I spent quite a while going through looking at the pictures and reading headers in several of the books.  I think I’m going to have to slide these books into my reading piles and then review them.  Mostly because it will give some massive background material to build on or make educated guesses from when I run into problems.  So, don’t be surprised if you see a review or two on spinning reference books in this blog at some future time.

Rose: The photo is of Paul’s chocolate rose. We’ve come to really like roses and this was one Paul wanted mostly for the name — it doesn’t have much scent. But the first year we had it, it didn’t really do much. The second year, we dug it up and put it in a fancy garden planter and moved it to the garden area near the herb garden. It now gets the required 6 hours of sun per day and is much happier. Last year it had two blooms. So far, this years we’ve had about six roses on it. This picture shows two of them.

Car: Not much going on. Getting right back into the swing of work. Paul had to take some time today to go check out tires — we’ve had three flats in two months. I think we’re now back on track.

Poison Ivy: The consensus seems to be that pictures B & C are poison ivy. Picture A seems right out of the fray. So, I’ll be particularly careful when around the vines in B & C from now on. Poison ivy is getting better now that we’re on steroids (Prednisone). Hopefully, it will be all gone by the end of the pills — but right now half way through it doesn’t look like it.

Garden matters: It’s been rainy so haven’t been out to do much in the yard. We got the buckets to plant the rest of the tomatoes in. The lettuce is starting to come up. Our blueberry bushes on the deck have given enough berries for blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes and some for just nibbling. Those are pretty much over. The strawberries are still blooming and making fruit but we can’t seem to beat the critters to it. Guess were not fast enough.

Tour de Fleece: So, far I’ve managed to spin for at least an hour each evening. That’s better than I expected but then that includes the time I’ve spend fussing with the spool and the tension. I’ve now got it so that I feed the thread in and it doesn’t get yanked out of my hand. So, I’m at bit more at peace. I’ll post another photo of progress on Friday.

Reading: Been reading books for review in the August issue of SFRevu and Gumshoe Review. So far, I’ve read Exodus by Julie Bertagna, Written in Blood by Sheila Lowe, and Dead over Heels by Charlaine Harris. I’m about half-way through Underground by Kat Richardson. It’s certainly a good month so far in my reading pile. Except for Exodus by Julie Bertagna, they’re all series that I’ve been following, so it’s a really nice break after getting the issues up on line on the 1st, the holiday buzz, and the car problems, and the migraines.

So, that’s a quick update. I’m hoping to follow through on the spinning and get the rest of the gardening in this week. Along with the contract job and the usual stuff. Life is pretty good today in spite of the headache.

It’s me, the cat.  Just thought I’d add my own 8.5 cents in (due to inflation you know).  Getting the car taken care of was pretty easy this time.  The first time was about a month ago.  I came out on my way to work, got in the car, drove the quarter of a mile down the dirt road, and as soon as I turned out onto the pavement, I could feel something was wrong.  So I pulled into a neighbors driveway (also a quarter mile long, so it’s not like they’re ever going to know I was there) and took a look.  The right rear tire was totally flat.  I guess I couldn’t feel it when bumping along dirt and stones at low speeds.  Anyway, it’s annoying, but it’s been a few years since I had a flat, so I figure it’s about time.  I pull the spare off, replace the tire, and find that the spare is only about half full.  Remember it had been a couple of years?  Well apparently, you need to check your spare tire’s pressure when you check the others.  Doh!  So I get some air at the first gas station (costs $1.50 for freaking air!  What is the world coming too?).  I go to work, head over to the tire place and sit in their waiting room for 3 hours while the car slowly moves through their queue of work.  Again, annoying, but these things happen.   Finally get the car back with the tire patched (and at no cost too!) and I figure that’s that.  The next day, the same tire is flat again.  Back on goes the spare and I sit for three more hours after work.  This time they tell me they can’t fix it and I need a new one.  $80 for a tire.  Holy Moly!  Well, again, it’s been a couple of years since I had to buy one, and apparently the cost of rubber has gone up too.  Anyway, now I’m done.  Brand new tire, and all should be right with the world.

Nope!

Last Thursday, I’m on my way to the doctors (where they’re squeezing me in before the holidays) to get my own poison ivy checked out.  I’m in bumper to bumper traffic when a woman in the next car starts waving at me.  I roll down the window (why do we keep using that phrase?  There’s no handled to roll!  Anyway …) and the lady informs me that my front-right tire is flat.  Grrrrr!  So, after finding a flat space to pull over into and putting the spare back to to play, I’m now twenty minutes late getting the the appointment that they were doing me the favor of squeezing in the first place.  Lucky me, they take me anyway and my poison ivy is on the mend.  Afterward … it’s back to the tire place (visit #3) where it takes 4 hours to get the tire patched.  Grumble grumble, but yeah, that’s got to be the end, right!

Nope!

The very next day, we head off to the 4th of July barbecue.  We have a very nice time, head back to the car, and find the front-left tire is flat.  This is the third different tire now.  Back goes the spare again and we have to hope for the best until today, since it’s a holiday weekend and all that.  So this morning, I e-mail into work that I’m going to be out since I have to sit and wait for the car.  I drive up to the car place, hand over the keys, and get them handed back 15 minutes later.  What?  How can that be?  Looks like my luck finally changed and I was first in line in the queue.  Turns out to have been a rotted valve stem, so the repair was free of charge and I’m out and about, wild and free.  So, being the wild and crazy guy that I am … I go to work.

Where I find out my corporate manager has been replaced (I can’t pronounce the name of the new guy, and he doesn’t speak English very well either).  And my government boss has also changed (can’t pronounce his name either). As you might expect, it went rapidly down hill from there, but as I’d prefer to keep my job, I think the fewer details there, the better.  Besides, I’ve bored you long enough.  But I bet it makes you look forward to Gayle taking back over again.

Well, the Tour de Fleece starts today. I signed up because you set your own goal to achieve between the start and end of the Tour de France (site is in French). So, you have from July 5th to 27th. Sometimes I need a challenge and/or a goal to get me going on things that I want or need to do. So, I contacted Katherine at the website and signed up. Notice the Tour de Fleece logo on the right — that means I’ve declared my goal and I’m going for it.

Goal: Spin a bit every day with the object being to spin up the one pound ball of variegated green roving that I purchased at Maryland Sheep& Wool a few years back. A secondary goal is to get used to my Schacht wheel again. The goal is to spin the entire one pound ball up into two-ply yarn by the end of the Tour de Fleece.

Now, to the actual start of my Tour de Fleece. I was off in a cloud of dust. I found the green ball of fiber in the basement basket. Got it out of storage and brought it up stairs. I then had to get the Schacht out. I found that the drive band had come off. I needed to change out the bobbin anyway so I thought that was no problem. Swapped the old bobbin (partially full of angora singles) and put in an empty one, reconnected the drive band and voila — ready to go.

Except, it wouldn’t draw the yarn into the orifice and up to the spool. Okay, I obviously forgot how to do something. Down to the basement to find a book on spinning wheels, found it, but no joy in the how-to department. I want a manual that has the answers to MY questions, which tend to be much more basic than even beginner books. But, aha, I remember I have a Schacht brochure with pictures of wheels ready to spin — found it, but no image showed the drive band or area behind the spool. Now, I’m starting to panic. I know this wheel works — nothing has changed since I last spun on it except the drive band was loosened. So, when in doubt, google. I found the Schact site and their manuals for wheels. Didn’t find the one for my wheel but did find one that had a photo where you could see the drive band and the drive band at the top of the wheel looked like it had one thread around the spool and another around the whorl. Quick change and the thread was being drawn into the orifice and onto the spool.

Okay, finally, now I’m ready to spin. I pulled off about 12 inches and then pulled off a strip, pre-drafted, and started. It took a while to find a rhythm but finally I was actually spinning and it was … well, as you can see my singles are really, really small. I let it double back on itself and I’ve got lace weight in the making here. Might be able to use it for socks if I three or four ply. The intended goal was two ply. But now I’m dreaming of a floaty shawl. Guess I’ll dream along with the singles and decide on ply later.

I’m fine with changing the ply goal because the real goal is to spin a bit every day. As you can see I didn’t get very far and that’s after an hour and a half which includes the panic of searching for the manuals and fixing the drive band, lots of broken thread as I played with tension and it’s still not at a point that makes me happy but I’m getting there.

You know what? In spite of everything, I feel like I really accomplished something tonight. I’m happy with what I did and I’m feeling like I’m beginning to get the hang of this again. I’ll, of course, post off and on during the Tour de Fleece time period and go and check out the Tour de Fleece blog to see how others are doing.

A young girl is left behind when her family takes a trip and, in her anger and hurt, she makes the kind of wishes for badness of one type or another to happen to them. Unfortunately, they are killed in an accident and Jin Ryu is convinced it is her fault.

She hears of the wizard K who can grant wishes. The price of one and only one wish granted it to have K take from you that which you value the most. However, he refuses to bring her family back from the dead — and she must either become his apprentice or be killed because she has seen him.

I mean with a choice like that, you know she’s going to be A-one apprentice material. There are several stories about people who come to K to have their wishes granted. Apprentice Jin Ryu, in each case, can not understand K’s apparent lack of concern for the people who come to him. She goes out of her way to try to help them. Misunderstanding occur and Jin Ryu and K are in a kind of ballet of learning, understanding, misunderstanding, like, and dislike.

The images illustrating the text are clean, sharp, large eyes, beautiful people in an androgynous sort of way. The women and girls are feminine but often so are the men. I often got confused by K and Jin Ryu when they were in the same panel (then once I realized K is prettier it was no problem — but, hey, that’s just me). What I did love about the presentation is that the dialogue and written descriptions were large enough to read without straining. Some manga have very small typefaces that make reading (even with glasses) difficult, but this one is a treat to read so you can bustle through with the pace of the story. This is also manga that’s presented in the form most American readers are familiar with from front to back and left to right (usually manga is back to front and right to left).

This is volume one of what I assume will be a continuing series of stories. I think what drew me in was the fact that K is aware that wishes have consequences and dangers. He takes what someone values most in exchange for granting a wish. Think about that for a moment. That’s horrific. Pure evil actually.

Think of all the times in a year that you wish for something. Not the times that you wish someone a good day or a Happy Birthday or a top of the morning, but those times you wish someone had never been born, or would get hit by a car, or whatever evil. We don’t really mean those wishes. In fact, they’re just a way to blow off steam when we’re angry and upset. But what if in that heat of the moment you could go to someone who could make it come true and all it would cost is the thing your value most.

Now on the flip side, someone you love is in pain, hurting, or ill. A simple wish could be the means to helping someone you love life a full and rich life. But how do you frame such a wish — do you really know what’s best for someone else? If they’re dying of cancer maybe wishing for a cure will fix the disease but will it truly make them happy or just give them more years of a life they don’t like — it truly depends on the person. But such a good wish also only costs you what you value most.

Remember, you can only have one wish granted in your lifetime. So, it has to be a good wish that will do the most for you or someone you love or someone you hate.

Now, what about the price. Do you know what you value most in life? I don’t know what I value most in my life. After reading I Wish…, I tried to think what it might be. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, I doubt anyone really knows what they value most. Someone might say they value their children most in life. But do they really value the children or the joy the children give them or even the power they have over them. Flip sides to everything. Nuances in feeling — hidden unconscious desires and beliefs. K doesn’t take as the price what you say you value most. No, he takes what you actually value most and he doesn’t even know what that is until he has it in his possession.

Wishes aren’t the simple things we think they are. They can be dangerous — especially if they are granted. I Wish… may seem like simple tales of people with problems and a wizard who can grant a wish, but like life, nothing is that simple.

This month I have a lovely blue coffee cup. The picture doesn’t show it very well but it’s a deeper blue on the bottom and shades to a very pale blue at the top. It also has sea shells and rope and is a bit nautical. I figure if I can’t get to a beach or pool this month — well then I’ll have my coffee in a cup that makes me think of ocean breezes and the surf washing up and down. Ah, minute vacations.

On the home front things are a bit under the weather here at Chez Haggerty/Surrette. I’ve had migraine almost constantly for a week — about the time I’ve had the poison ivy. And,… What’s that? How am I doing? I’m so glad you asked. At first it looked like the extra antihistamine and the steroid cream would take care of it. It didn’t spread. Then on Saturday, I noticed a few more spots and on Monday it was weeping. So, it’s prednisone again. Started on Monday evening and today the weeping stopped.

Now I mentioned before that I can’t seem to identify poison ivy here in Maryland. None of the plants we were pulling up looked what I thought it looked like. So, trusty camera in hand, I went out and took pictures of the viney things out there.

So, that’s what was there. I’ve labeled them A, B, and C. If you recognize one of these as poison ivy could you drop me a comment and let me know which one it is? If it’s none of them, well pick D. If none of these are poison ivy, I’m going to have to get a book and get out there to figure out what it is.

Last summer I had two cases of poison ivy and I’m already on my first one this year. I’m done now — if only the poison ivy was done with me. What does this sucker look like? Inquiring minds want to know. And before you ask, I’ve googled my little heart out and seen pictures that look just like these and about 20 other variety of leafy greens but not look exactly like these and none look like anything else we’ve got out there in the back of beyond. But this time we were weeding the fruit orchard where the vines have for some reason decided to grow all along the ground so we’ve got to get it out of there.

Life…I feel like Marvin the chronically depressed robot today…

The marathon effort to get the zines up and live for the 1st of the month is now done. Gumshoe Review, SFRevu, and TechRevu are now all up online with new content.  As you can probably guess by the names, Gumshoe Review covers the mystery scene with reviews, author interviews, news items relevant to the field, media, and books coming out this month (that we know about and have a copy of).  We’d also like to do reviews of monthly mystery magazines but alas no one has seen fit to contact us about their magazine or send review copies.  SFRevu is our big sister publication and covers all the same areas as does Gumshoe Review, but in this case it’s all things speculative fiction based (SF, Fantasy, Horror, and the subgenres). Only on SFRevu, Sam Tomaino covers the magazines and short fiction and usually has review of 8-10 magazines a month.  We also tend to have more media reviews (as we have two dedicated movie reviewers — though one is off for health problems).

TechRevu is our technology zine.  The news items are updated daily and there new usually indepth reviews or commentary on technology weekly.  We’ve been working very diligently to make this online magazine your source for information on technology you can use to better your quality of life, or manage your life,  or because it’s just plain neat and we like it.

Take a look and see what I and Ernest Lilley and the other staff of these zines are doing with our time.  We’d really like to share our excitement about our mystery, science fiction, and technology magazines.

PS: Tomorrow — July’s cup.  I can hardly wait to share.

For some reason this has been a bad week for me — migraines, bad fibro days, and let us not forget the poison ivy. Luckily, the poison ivy (cross every set of fingers within ten miles) looks like it’s not going to go systemic on me this time. My right arm has pretty much cleared up. The left is taking longer for some reason but it’s not weeping and not spreading, so that’s a win.

We’re coming up on the publishing date for SFRevu and Gumshoe Review and things are a bit hectic. Most of the content is in as far as the book reviews go. I’ve got the interview for Gumshoe Review in and formatted and just need to write an introduction (I’m doing that interview). For SFRevu one of our regular contributors is doing the interview and I’m on pins and needles waiting for it.

For the next few days, I have to write up my reviews. Every month I say next month I’ll read the book and write the review in that order before reading a second book. But, somehow each month I find myself with a pile of read books filled with notes, sticky notes, highlighted passages, and no reviews in evidence. Then it comes down to lots and lots of coffee and writing, writing, writing (interspersed with coffee, coffee, coffee). It usually comes out okay in the end but it makes for some tense time just at the end of the month when the crunch comes.

Of course, having the unexpected come up during the same time period — we’ve been having a lot of severe storm warnings and have lost power for seconds and minutes at a time (no long outages thankfully). However, the worse unexpected occurrence is increased migraines with stormy weather. (I know it’s not just me because my husband gave me a reality check — our friends with migraines have also been afflicted.)

The creativity of the title is that, I’ve been jotting down notes and sentences for a short story idea I have. Just when I think I’m all focused on a project or reading or something — I’m shiny thinged. For those of you who don’t know, it often happens that people with migraines and fibro have trouble focusing and staying focused. Once I’m interrupted by something, I find myself shooting off in some other direction and working on things other than what I planned. If you’ve every read that joke going around on the internet about going to the store — first they have to find the car keys, then they see the bills need to be paid, then they go to find the checkbook, but notice the floor needs to be swept…and on and on. That’s being shiny thinged.

I just feel like of all the billion of things I want to do in a day, there just isn’t the time to do them all and I have a terrible time trying to focus on the list, choosing the things that can be done in the time period because I want to do them all. Or most of them. Or at least some of them. Today was a really bad day. It took almost all my spoons to get dressed, treat the poison ivy, get downstairs, pick up the dining room table, start the laptop, download mail, get breakfast, and read email, answer same, and start proofing and formatting reviews. Now it’s evening and I’m all caught up on everyone’s stuff but my own. So, I guess with 3 days left to go that’s a good thing — but it still feels like there so much left to do. And did I mention I have a sweater almost done that I need to write the pattern up for? Never enough time.