The Springy Goddess

NaNo with Cat

2009-11-14T01:36:00.011-06:00

I'm sitting here on this fine Friday night in mid-November, My colleague RJ-45 lounging on My desk as I work on this year's NaNoWriMo project:

The Department of Stuff

For starters, I gathered three main characters from three other novels.

And then I set them against each other. At this time of year, conflict is your friend:

"Okay, Bri: You're set up for the colour printer on five. You'll have to log out and log back in again, but then it should show up in your Printers folder. Call me right back if you can't see it. No problem. Bye."

She put down the phone in a slow, deliberate motion and stood over her desk, her knuckles turning white as she clenched the receiver in her fist. "Mel... What the hell is this?"

"What the hell is what?"

"This!" Janet jabbed her finger at the background picture on her monitor. It showed a dark-robed cyber-man on a red background, and a caption below:

CATS: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

Melissa burst out laughing.

"It's not funny!" Janet snarled.

Melissa laughed even harder.

"Make... it... stop!"

"I didn't put it there! I don't even have your password. You're the one who has 'god-like powers on the system.'," she sneered. "You figure it out." Melissa harrumphed and stomped across the room to her desk.

-From The Department of Stuff (c) A.K. Odinsdóttir, 2009

More to come...

A tiefling, a valkyrie, and a black-robed mage walk into a bar...

2009-10-31T21:49:00.003-05:00

Well, we did...

...Or, at least, we walked into the restaurant next door to the bar.

Yes, it's Halloween at Astrejurhof. This means two things:

The entire human population of My household is hopped up on chocolate.
NaNoWriMo is just hours away.

Be afraid.

Be *very* afraid.

Back to the tootling board.

2009-10-25T22:36:00.002-05:00

Subsequent to last week's experimentation, I have returned to My #3 Vandoren reeds. My clarinet teacher was able to discern some things that I had not noticed when I switched to a stiffer reed, including increased upper lip tension that was wreaking havoc with the sound.

So the #3½'s are on the shelf for another time.

But subsequent to this Amazing Escape from clarinet Purgatory, I did get to feel My own technique with greater acuity, and have retained the ability to flow more easily between the chalumeau and clarinet registers.

I'd say that's worth the price of a box of reeds.

All your garlic are belong to Us.

2009-10-23T21:33:00.004-05:00

Or, "Is this an allium sativum I see before Me?"

I seem to have acquired a new, and hopefully short-lived, hobby: Since I got home this evening, I have masticated and consumed several cloves of raw garlic.

On purpose.

You see, about an hour before I left work this afternoon, I developed an acute case of the sneezles. It was all I could do not to bowl over various co-workers as I rushed to wash My hands.

Things got even wilder as I waited for the bus home. I sneezed so hard and so often that I started wondering if the bus driver would actually let Me on board. Things calmed down for a while, only to start up again just after Red and I got to the grocery store.

About that time, Red reminded Me of a piece of sage advice we had obtained from My brother on his most recent visit: When you start to feel a cold coming on, chew and swallow a few cloves of garlic.

So here I am with My mouth and stomach sizzling away, and it almost certainly wasn't the lone jalapeño pepper that we put in the Friday night nachos. That garlic was a lot hotter.

But it's still better than another case of the Mesopotamian Death Flu.

Making things easier by making them harder...

2009-10-17T00:57:00.007-05:00

...Specifically, clarinet reeds.

Acting on a Reality-Based Hunch subsequent to last night's clarinet practice, I went out and bought Myself a box of #3½ Vandoren reeds. I was previously playing on Vandoren #3's, but they just didn't feel right any more.

This is a unilateral move on My part, having not had the opportunity to consult with My instructor beforehand. It does seem to be the right move, as the stiffer reeds are forcing Me to keep a more solid airflow. The bottom B in the clarinet¹ register sounds remarkably better, and I can actually get over the break² smoothly.

This promises to be fun, and musically profitable as well.

1. The clarinet register is the higher-pitched register of the clarinet, a twelfth above the lower notes. (Low E becomes B an octave and a half above; F becomes C, and so on.)

2. The 'break' is the transition point between the chalumeau (lower) register and the clarinet register. After gradually removing one finger after another, and using less and less of the clarinet barrel, suddenly one puts down all the fingers and uses the entire barrel to get the second-octave B natural. In My experience, this was previously extraordinarily hard to do without (a) changing the breath flow; (b) tightening up the throat; (c) flailing around and missing the "B" key; or (d) just plain panicking. ("Oh nooo! It's the breeeeeeak!" *squee* *thud* *tinkletinkletinkle*)

You don't have to do it all. Really.

2009-10-15T23:06:00.004-05:00

I just had an epiphany akin to hitting Myself with My own Clue-By-Four™ -- Specifically, the musical version of that particular device.

Sometimes when I ponder the subject of practicing a musical instrument, it's just too much: The day's too short, and the to-do list has too many to-do's on it.

So tonight I tried something different: Rather than running through the list entitled "Absolutely Everything I'm Supposed to Know for My Clarinet Exam", just so I can check off everything on the list, I decided to just play, and listen, and tinker.

I deliberately picked a reed that's just a smidgen too hard, and used it as a springboard for working on My staccato. It actually got to the point where I could deliberately cause My horn to squawk, by hitting the reed too hard on purpose. I also had a mini-epiphany regarding the timing of the staccato tonguing. (Think "anticipatory grace note" and you'll be in the ballpark.)

Better yet, at the end of a mere half-hour, I had gone through a couple of scales with a slur-two, tongue-two articulation pattern, worked some more on the Langenus Page 22 staccato exercise, and played all the way through one of the exam studies.

The moral of this episode: There's always time to fix something, and that means one less thing to fix later.

Clean your tank with Pleco!

2009-10-14T23:26:00.005-05:00

I have a new housemate, and she's cute.

Tidy, too. My aquarium has 20% less algae than it did last night. Oh, and she's a fish. A plecostomus, to be precise.

I wonder if she does windows...

(Photo by Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man); licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Original at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plecostomus_700.jpg)

Slogging through the wilds of October...

2009-10-06T23:51:00.007-05:00

There is something about chilly weather that brings out My grumbly side. Specifically, I don't do "windy and damp" very well.

It's been a bit too cold for My tastes lately, and also too dark. The sun is currently setting around 7:30, which means less time to finish outdoor projects like the new crawlspace skirting and the roof of the Cat Gazebo. I suppose I *could* go into the garage and rig up a trouble light to illuminate the side of the house; but there's no way in Niflheim that I'm going up on a razzafracking roof in the dark.

Unless I absolutely have to, of course. I've done stranger things: Painted the fascia trim on a friend's house while holding a flashlight in My teeth; climbed the northwest face of Mont Saint-Hilaire without proper safety gear, and made the mistake of looking back over My shoulder at the highway 1300 feet below; dressed up like a five-headed dragon...

...Mm. I think I will wait till the weekend to finish that roof. Can't be too careful, y'know.

Hail Eris! I have a NaNo plot for 2009.

2009-10-02T23:08:00.003-05:00

I have now registered My intention to do NaNoWriMo for the fifth consecutive year, and updated My profile accordingly.

It gives Me great pleasure to introduce The Department of Stuff, a dark comedy about three women waging war against a computer system named Kallista. Justice, and apple cider, will be served somewhere around the 50,000-word mark.

Best of three falls?

2009-09-25T23:08:00.003-05:00

*OOF* *THUD* *clatterclatterclatter*

There, I've done it. The two largest unwanted items in Astrejurhof -- The five-foot-long worktable from My study, and the weight bench in the basement -- Have now duly been dragged to the curb in preparation for the grand Give Your Stuff Away weekend.

I still have a handful of smaller items to put out, including an extremely lightweight 6' extension ladder. I just didn't feel like rifling through My own garage at 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night.

Especially not after dealing with the weight bench.

The table was relatively straightforward. I cleared it off, washed the top, and set it up on one end; then I wiggled it out through the doorway and eased it down the stairs, whereupon Red helped Me carry it the rest of the way.

The bench, on the other hand, was right nasty. All those gazillions of articulating parts and knobs and hooks made it somewhat akin to carrying a garbage bag full of water.

Speaking of water, the leg press attachment somehow managed to pick up an empty 18-litre water jug on the way up the basement stairs. One of the plate-holding rods wedged itself into the handle, and when I arrived at the first floor it was still there.

On the way out the front door, one of the bench's feet hooked under the door jamb for the screen door, and ripped it right off the porch floor. (writes "new sill plate" on Her shopping list for Saturday)

Amidst all the bangs and crashes and swearing, the support bar for the bench pad kept falling off and getting lost. The last time this happened was on the final stretch from the house to the curb. I had to go back into the house, get our emergency lantern, and search the garden. The bar finally surfaced halfway between a bittersweet nightshade bush and the Nanking cherry tree.

So I'm done for tonight. If I haven't gone completely insane by the time morning rolls around, I'll go get that ladder out of the garage and start ridding Myself of the smaller stuff.

And hope that the bench is already gone, so I don't have to look at it again.

Still a bit wobbly on that 'neat and tidy' concept.

2009-09-24T21:29:00.005-05:00

This weekend marks the inaugural session of Winnipeg's "give away stuff you don't need" event. (Think "garage sale without a cash box" and you'll get the general idea.)

I have a number of projects on the go, but precious little free space in which to do the actual work. For instance, about ten feet away from Me is a long, thin commercial-grade table which at one time served as My computer desk. Currently it's piled high with boxes of old diskettes and sundry tools and materials, and taking up Entirely Too Much Room. In fact, it's standing on a section of floor that I would like to work on; and that only because I moved it off a different section of floor that I recently completed. Just the other night, in fact, I had to nudge the table a couple of inches to the north to make room for a shelf that I was assembling.

And yet, giving away the table is not going to be painless. In a previous version of Astrejurhof, the table held a place of honour as the computer station in My workroom. I fixed computers there, played multi-player StarCraft there, even used it as My base (are belong to Us) when teaching Windows NT and A+ Service Technician over the Internet.

Nonetheless... Out it goes.

Along with anything else I happen to stub My toe upon in the next 36 hours.

(carefully puts away nearly-full bottle of Glenfiddich so that She doesn't accidentally stub Her toe on it)

I should buy 'Happy belated spring' cards by the truckload.

2009-09-23T23:19:00.003-05:00

(comes jogging across the Australian outback with a one-litre carton of Canadian Cabernet-Merlot tucked under Her arm)

*pant* *wheeze* *ACHOO*

Sorry I'm late, folks... I took a couple of wrong turns out there somewhere in this razzafracking dust storm. Best of the Vernal Equinox to everyone south of the equator.

(hands over the wine, scarfs down a Tim-Tam and a couple of canapés, then grabs a broom to help clean up all the dust)

Whatever you do, don't blame the equipment.

2009-09-21T22:58:00.003-05:00

As I sit here trying to get some consistent sounds out of My clarinet, I am reminded that music-making is My responsibility, *not* the responsibility of the instrument. It does help to have a good-quality piece of musical gear; but ultimately, I'm the one who has to place My fingers and blow into the horn in just the right way.

This all came to mind this evening as I was working on a Mozart piece still fairly new to Me, while struggling with a fresh #3 Vandoren reed. Obviously (I thought to Myself), there are people out there who use much harder reeds, right out of the box. At some point in their practice, they build up the muscle memory and embouchure strength, and the notes just flow out.

I'm not quite there yet.

But I'm closer than I've ever been. Just the other night, I started to feel what 'breath support' actually means when playing a piece. I really have to concentrate on keeping the airflow going in some passages, but when I do the pitch rings true and, ironically, I don't run out of breath as soon.

I'm still trying to negotiate the release of My tongue, however. It's been taken hostage by the infamous Langenus Page 22. (picks a few splinters out of Her tongue and starts working on that infamous, galloping staccato exercise)

Once a geek, always a geek.

2009-09-20T02:31:00.007-05:00

It's been a mostly-typical Saturday night at Astrejurhof, except for something that I rarely do nowadays: I cleaned up and optimized a friend's laptop computer.

Although I've been playing with computers since that FORTRAN program I coded in 1968, and although My first computer was one of these*...

...I still hearken to the words of B.J., My first professional IT instructor: "Everyone has holes in their knowledge."

And I keep thinking that I'm going to spring a leak, and all those obscure bits of computer trivia will leak out. (This, despite the fact that I know My age in hexadecimal, can tell My ASCII from My elbow, and still clearly remember what the command -G=C800:5 does.)

In 2005, in My last months as an IT professional, the doubts did get the better of Me. It became a chore to go to work in the morning, partially because I was working in a mould-contaminated building, but also because a massive and thoroughly demented bureaucracy had insinuated itself between Me and work that I love to do. The combination left Me both depressed and physically ill, and in the end I gave notice and got out of there. Six months later, with My health mostly back online, I started My new career as a Typist of Terrifyingly Complicated Medical Terminology.

I would not go back to being a professional geek, mainly because I enjoy medical transcription so much. The lesson I would take home from this is to distinguish between the work you do and the environment in which you do it. Be prepared to walk away from bad gigs so that you can continue to do that work in a better place. Life is much too short for anything less.

* Digi-Comp I computer, distributed by Edmund Scientific. It could only count to 111 in binary, and was programmed with little plastic tubes. I discovered today that a new version of this cute little computer has been produced. (writes 'Digi-Comp kit' at the very top of Her 2009 Jól list)

Arrr. Pass the cognac, matey!

2009-09-19T00:21:00.002-05:00

Avast, ye scurvy dogs! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I raise a glass of grog to ye.

Oh no, not another fad diet!

2009-09-15T23:31:00.007-05:00

Yup. But this time, it's My very own fad diet.

At coffee break this afternoon, as I sat drinking a small decaf and nibbling on a piece of cheddar, it occurred to Me that diets would be a whole lot more effective if they tasted better.

So, this is what I'm going to try:

Cut back on fat, but not too much.
Cut back on sugar, as much as you can stand to cut.
Likewise for salt. Ixnay on the odium-say oride-chlay.
Ease off on the starch, particularly the heavily processed ones.
Lots of whole grains.
All The Vegetables There Are.
Count calories if it helps.

But...

For snacks, go for small amounts of really, really strong-tasting things. Garlic hummus. Five-year-old white cheddar. A square of 99% cocoa dark chocolate. The strongest triple espresso they've got in the coffee bar.

That's it: The Springy G Intense Flavour diet. Low (but not *that* low) carb, fat, and calories. With chocolate as an essential ingredient.

And if it actually works... Bonus.

Awright, summer vacation is officially over.

2009-09-14T18:05:00.002-05:00

Today marks the start of another year of clarinet lessons, and the run-up to My Grade VI Royal Conservatory clarinet exam.

On this fine September day, I thought I would take a moment to outline a few goals for the next nine months or so.

Improve finger rhythm.
Get breathing deeper, faster, and more consistent.
Continue to make improvements on tempo and rhythm.
Work on sight-reading dynamics and articulations.

Ah, articulations! I think I'm finally starting to get the idea. I'm still experimenting a bit with tongue positions and syllables, trying to get a smaller and more elegant movement that allows Me to play faster, cleaner notes.

But the #1 goal for the 2009-2010 melodious tootling season is... Wait for it...

...Practice, practice, and yet more practice.

At least 500% more than I did last summer.

(starts clearing Her music stand to make room for all those new pieces and studies)

The perfect toy for tomboys like Me.

2009-09-12T22:45:00.005-05:00

Last night, I finally got curious about a little icon in the upper righthand corner of My computer screen. It's a note-taking program called Tomboy, and it came with My Fedora 10 system.

To see how it worked, I transcribed the various little scraps of paper that have been cluttering My desk since time immemorial. So far, so good.

Then I started to produce notes about the various characters in My stories, and made an astounding discovery: If you type text that matches the name of another Tomboy note, the program will automatically insert a hyperlink to that note.

Imagine how useful this can be when trying to achieve continuity across four different novels, with at least fifty characters on the loose... Some of whom wander into other stories, just for the heck of it. Now, when I ask questions such as "What is Diane's middle name?" or "What colour is Bruce's hair?" the answer is only a click or two away.

As an added bonus, one can export the notes as HTML. Oh, and it auto-saves, too.

(cackles Evil Genius laugh while rubbing Her hands together in glee) This promises to be fun.

Blue pencil mania

2009-09-08T20:25:00.006-05:00

*sharpen sharpen sharpen*

Okay, I'm ready for some serious literary fun here. I have My trusty blue pencil crayon, and something like six-friggin'-hundred pages of manuscript to tidy up.

The manuscripts in question are three of My four NaNoWriMo novels:

The Week of Alibis. Murder mystery, 2005.
The Passion of Marty-Sue. SF/Fantasy, 2006.
The Misuse of Things. Road trip adventure, 2007.

Marty-Sue is only about 85-90% complete, but I'm already working on the second draft and rolling in the changes suggested by members of My writers' group.

Ice Cream for Lakshmi is about 95% finished, but not yet critiqued. I'm going to let it lie fallow for a few more months.

I've tried editing directly on the computer, but there's something about that kind of editing that makes Me dizzy. Part of it is the bright white background; but even if I switch the display to white-on-blue, I simply can't see as much of a page as I would like to see. This results in a lot of jumping back and forth as I try to see the context of a sentence of paragraph. After a few minutes of this, I quickly find something else to do... Go downstairs for a snack; read the latest news from the National Hurricane Center; rearrange My penguin collection.*

I have no problem composing on the computer, fortunately. Entire paragraphs flow out, one after another.

Speaking of which... NaNoWriMo 2009 is slightly more than a month and a half away... (wanders off in search of a plot, a theme, and characters who are free for the month of November)

* Yes, I realize that Beaker, Miss Piggy, Woodstock, and Dust Puppy are not, in fact, penguins.

Hepl! Hepl!

2009-09-07T22:32:00.004-05:00

Well, the skeleton of My new stairway railing is now up, constructed of the finest #2-or-better construction spruce 2x4's and a few 3/8" lag bolts. I decided to build something strong and functional and immediate, rather than mess about with $95.00 pieces of oak banister.

Good thing I didn't buy that ten-foot piece of oak, too... The railing is more like eleven feet long.

The next step will involve carefully disguising the aforementioned 2x4's so that they don't look quite so much like, um, 2x4's. After I finish painting the section of wall that lies below the new railing (and which was concealed by the old one), I'm going to create esthetically pleasing stairway sections by adding some nicer wood to the top of the railing. At this point, a half-round piece of varnished hickory sounds like just the thing.

As for the rest of the staircase, I'm currently scraping away many layers of ancient paint on the stairway stringers, so that they can be primed and painted.

And that brings Me to the title of today's blog.

In Chronologically Challenged Evil Twins household vernacular, the process of peeling something off something else is known as "hepling". This is derived from the CCET term "hepl", which is a variation on the word "help".

You see, if I find a loose piece of tape, or a sticker with a corner pried up, or a bubble in a painted surface... I can't help Myself. I want to physically remove the offending substance so that I can create a clean, shiny new surface.

Even if it takes a lifetime.

Hepl!

Up on the roooof...

2009-08-30T23:11:00.007-05:00

This is Me with My trusty Grade 1 extension ladder and a piece of 2x10 construction spruce. If you look closely in the bottom right-hand corner you can see some of the shingles I installed.

I spent nearly six hours working on the north side of the Cat Gazebo, using up all the shingles I had, and finally calling it quits at about 8:30 p.m. It's reassuring to know that a cranky fiftysomething goddess like Moi still has the physical ability to climb tall ladders, and the mental ability to do so without freaking out.

But, alas, not the wherewithal to keep old Drifters songs out of My brain.

(goes running down cerebral hallway to right temporal lobe, where a group of giggling earworms are having a sleepover, and bangs on closed door with Her fist) Hey! Tone it down in there, or I'll be back with an .mp3 of Fifty Bagpipe Classics.

Back off, man. I have roofing jacks!

2009-08-29T23:51:00.005-05:00

Tonight I began to attach actual shingles to the roof of the fabled Cat Gazebo. I managed to install a starter strip (essentially, pieces of regular shingle with the tabbed part cut off), plus two full rows of nice grey shingles, before it got too dark to see what the Niflheimr I was hitting with the hammer.

And tomorrow promises to be even more productive, because I have... Roofing jacks! Yes, actual brackets suitable for erecting a temporary scaffold on the roof. I also have a nice piece of 2x10 construction spruce to use with the jacks. The roof that I'm working on isn't all that high off the ground, but it's high enough. It's also steep, much too steep for Me to stand on it and work while reaching for nails and shingles and various tools.

If the nice weather holds (and the long-range forecast suggests that it shall), I might get one side of the roof finished tomorrow afternoon.

As for the other side, it all depends on how many shingles I have left over. Enough to get started; but I anticipate picking up at least one more bundle before this project is officially finished.

Já, you heard that correctly: I am actually completing My projects in an orderly fashion. It's only a matter of time before somebody comes up to Me and says, "All right, who are you and what have you done with Astreja?"

Well, whoever you are, you're welcome to stay at least till the end of the weekend. And I hope you're not scared of heights.

The things I do for a Queen-sized bed...

2009-08-23T00:57:00.012-05:00

Or, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. And power tools."

Our new and improved mattress set arrived bright and early Saturday morning delivered by two young men who had furniture-moving skill, patience, and pretty darned good senses of humour.

It all started when I discovered that we had Queen-sized ambitions, but a much smaller work path. Even after we took the front door off its hinges, the box spring still wouldn't fit into the stairwell.

That's when I went for the heavy artillery: A hammer, a crowbar, and an electric jigsaw fitted with a large and aggressive blade.

First we knocked off some of the finish carpentry on the ceiling.

Then I sawed the cap off the post at the bottom of the stairway.

Then we got serious, Me and the two delivery guys, and dismantled the whole damn railing.

Red and Chala, who were observing this from the relative safety of the dining room, both started laughing hysterically as a whole section of railing came strolling by. They were still laughing as a one-foot crack appeared on the kitchen wall, the result of three determined people beating the living excrement out of the newel post at the top of the stairwell.

And when I walked by doing My best Basil Fawlty "Just going to see Mr. O'Riley, dear..." impersonation, with the post tucked under My arm, they lost it altogether.

Amazingly, the staircase is still quite usable. And we now have a much larger bed.

Now, if I can only get the cats off it so I can go to sleep...

Mindful munching

2009-08-19T23:09:00.005-05:00

All right, that's it. Really. I am fed up to *here* (raises goddessly hand) with aches and pains and sleepless nights, sneezes and wheezes and coughs and other unpleasant noises.

As much as I revere Raistlin Majere as a friend and role model, I am reasonably certain at this point that the archmage Fistandantilus is not using My body as a vacation timeshare.

So what does that leave?

Food.

*waaah* *sob* *sniffle*

In the name of all that is Springy, if it should come to pass that an allergy to chocolate is one of the culprits, I may be forced to auction off the Goddess of Chocolate magisterium on EBay. But in the meantime, I have some serious experimentation to do with My diet.

The Suspects:

Gluten. Fairly unlikely, as I went gluten-free for some months and didn't feel a whole lot different.
Chocolate. Actually, this is rather unlikely... One would think that I would have long ago keeled over from all those Mini-Eggs I eat in the spring. And then there's time I made a Jól wish for World Peace and Five Pounds of Turtles. Guess which one I got.
Sugar. Unlikely that there's an allergy or intolerance, but I could stand to cut back a bit. Okay, a lot.
Milk products. Possible, and definitely worth testing.
Eggs. Never actually tested for this.
Caffeine (Nooo! Not caffeine!)
All of the above.

Or, perhaps, just Too Much of All of the Above.

Rather than going all drastic and doing something I'll regret not doing later, I've decided to work closely with the Gods of Small Changes and, in effect, sneak up on Myself. So, this is where I start:

Decaf coffee as the default version.
No more butter with My muffins, unless the muffin really needs it.
No more 16-ounce frosty mugs full of pop.
And going to bed at least seven hours before I have to get up again.

That's it. That's all.

Eminently doable.

And re-doable, which is what really counts.

Of Alternate Universes and Seagulls

2009-08-18T23:05:00.005-05:00

Or, "How many things can I get done on My day off without falling asleep and/or hallucinating and/or doing someone an injury?"

As I sit down to compose this episode of TSG, it's just after 11:15 in the evening. My day finally got underway at 8:50 a.m., with decaf coffee and French bread, just before a HVAC estimator showed up to analyze the heating system in Astrejurhof. Definitely not the usual thing I'd expect to do on a Tuesday morning in August.

After that, things got even stranger. I ran off to do some family business, and took the long way home... Through a music store, an Italian delicatessen, and a pet store. Returned home with piano accompaniment for one of My Grade VI exam pieces; a box of amaretti cookies, and a bottle of fishtank water conditioner.

So when I got home, the first thing I did was race into the house with the cookies and open up the thermos of leftover coffee, right?

Dear, sweet uncle Loki... Not a chance. What I actually did was put the car in the garage backwards; dropped My purse and My purchases inside the house; changed to My steel-toed running shoes; and came right back out again to load concrete and rotten wood into the trunk. Red joined in a couple of minutes later, and then we took a nice, leisurely drive down to the Brady Road landfill.

Where we discovered that the city had hired some non-Union labour...

"Put 'er right over there, bud."

(This is when I began to suspect that I hadn't had quite enough sleep the night before.)

So we flung prodigious amounts of concrete and wood out of the Cavalier, then drove home so I could have a nice lie-down?

Well, not quite.

First we stopped for coffee.
Then we drove over to My favourite supplier of honeybee products, where I procured a 7-kilogram tub of liquid honey for an upcoming double batch of champagne mead.
Of course, then we also had to stop at the place where I buy the yeast (Lalvin EC-1118, please) and also picked up some replacement washers for the swing-top beer bottles I use. On returning to the car, it occurred to Me that I didn't need the washers until the second week of December, as I'm not doing any actual bottling till then. This was My second clue that sleep might be a good idea.
But not yet. Our next stop was one of Red's favourite suppliers of cameras and accessories, where we bought some film, and drooled over lenses and cameras.

And then we did get home; and I did, in fact, lie down for about an hour.

Until it was time to go out mattress shopping. We're upgrading to queen-size because the cats keep pushing Me out of bed. This might, in fact, be the at the root of My sleep deprivation problem.

Finally (after one last detour for beer), we're home. We eat leftover pizza and homemade dill-and-cottage-cheese buns, and I break into the amaretti, annihilating nearly half the package.

I'm going to bed now.

Really.

I can quit any time I wa... *thud* ...Zzzzz...