Dye Jobs (and a cat)

 As part of my "stop the burnout" summer*, I've been dyeing, and experimenting with how the colors play together. I'm using Greener Shades acid dyes, with fairly imprecise measurements (I don't have a dedicated dye powder scale, so I just scoop and eyeball it).  These are all on Knit Picks Bare Hawthorne skeins. No handspun in this lot.

"Rabid Peony" 

I dyed this before seeing Barbie, or it might have survived. Instead, I tried an overdye with my trusty Amethyst at 2% and a shot of Ruby, and got "Mixed Berry." I think it's an improvement.

"Mixed Berry"

Trust River Blue and Amethyst, for the win. 

"Be Cool"

This is the same hank from two sides. I was trying to see if blue and red dye made purple easily. I know my color wheel, red and blue make purple, but in practice--in acrylic paints, at least--that theory does not translate well. The interwebz assured me that the dyes mixed well and true, and they do! I was trying to achieve a version of one of those rocket red-white-blue popsicles you see around in ice cream trucks or wherever. The purple is faint, but this gives me hope that should I mix the last of my Ruby and my River Blue, I will get an interesting colorway in actual purples.

"Rocket Pop" 

"Rocket Pop"

And if you've gotten this far: one melted Patchwork Terror. It hasn't been that hot here (we've been lucky!), but it has been humid, and despite shedding another cat every time he touches carpet or upholstery, he's still wearing a fur coat.

I'm melting...

* I've been writing, too. 80K and climbing.

The Patchwork Terror Turns Four

We acquired PT because Murdercat was becoming too much for poor Tinycat. He wanted to play. She did not. He wanted to jump on her. She did not want that. And he is twice her size, there was not much she could do. We saw a post on the neighborhood list-serve for a kitten...twice...because the first home would not keep his rowdy little self and no one wanted him.

He needed us, Murdercat needed a kitten (this was my pitch: we're getting a kitten for the cat!) and so he arrived in October of 2019, sassy and fearless and very interested in when dinner was happening. 

He remains sassy, opinionated, assertive, and social without being a cuddler or a lap cat in anyway. He's Murdercat's bane and best friend, and he actually respects Tinycat's authority and space. 

 He wants your butter. Or your whipped cream. Maybe both.

His usual hangout. 

BFFs. Though now they cannot both fit on a single cushion.

Look at that little face. 

consider this your holiday letter

Happy December! If I seem enthusiastic, it is because the quarter ended last week--the teaching in the classroom part, anyway--and while I am not done with work (grading final projects, setting up next quarter's class webpage), I am at least done with the part that requires me to wear shoes for the next month.

Unfortunately I am not able to grade without typing, because that isn't much fun at the moment. Took a dive on a run the Monday before Thanksgiving--there was an oncoming bike, and I was busy watching him when I stepped into the dirt and sidewalk adjacent ground cover, rather than where I was stepping. I thought I had clear dirt. I found a pernicious root. I had time, as it tightened across my foot, to think oh fuck and then splat. A very stretched out, fully extended, but at least running uphill at the time splat.

Half of me hit the dirt, literally, and that half--except for a few neat scratches on my ribs--was fine. The half that hit the sidewalk was less fortunate. I got myself up before the poor cyclist could even dismount to assist, and toddled off toward home. At the time, I thought the scraped up knee was the issue. (Running tights are tough. Not a scuff on them, but the skin underneath was shredded.) I'd caught myself on the palm on that side, elbow flexed at about 90 degrees, wrist mostly flat, and everything straightened and moved. I feared for the wrist, but it seemed fine, and it was.

The elbow, however, having absorbed a great deal of force and shock, was sprained, which I discovered about the time I got home and tried to flex is beyond that 90 degrees in either direction. Oh ho ho, that wasn't happening. 

Since then, I have learned how very many things elbows are involved in besides bending, and how very unpleasant--or impossible--some of those things become. I have also learned how much of my yoga practice relies on straight elbows. 

I have not learned that I am bad at convalescing because I already knew that, and merely confirmed the continuation of that particular quality.

I could, and can, still knit, which is good! Because I have things* to finish by Christmas Eve. 

*Like that orange octopus D&D dice-bag beside Tinycat, except that one is mine.

On the Bones of Gods

 The On the Bones of Gods reissue is here! 

Almost. The e-books will be out on July 12. The print versions, and the audio books, will take a little longer: February 14, 2023, because everyone wants a little revolution for Valentine's Day. 

The covers, though, are definitely here, and...here they are! The (original, just for this project) artwork is by Deborah L. Wright and the graphic design is by The Rat, Tan Grimes-Sackett. It is a grand thing to know artists and designers, and to be able to work with them on your projects. 

The Golden Cowbell

Back in June I received notice from a librarian at the K. Weldon Library (International School of Geneva, La Châtaigneraie Campus) that How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse was the winner of a Golden Cowbell award. Which--cool! I am delighted to win awards, and delighted that Rory is a hit with a) kids at all and b) kids who don't necessarily speak English as a first language. So yay! 

After a very long journey, with a stop off at JABberwocky, it arrived. 

I was expecting a cute little tourist-sized cowbell, the kind my mother has hanging on her wall from the trip we took to Switzerland was I was...10? I think. This, however, is not that cowbell. 

On that trip to Switzerland, I remember waking up in the hotel to the sound of cows being driven up the actual street outside to their mountain pastures. They wore bells, and those bells were very loud and distinctive. Functional bells

This is one of those bells. It is also quite lovely. I smelled the leather strap when I opened the box. The bell itself is heavy and shiny. The brass fittings on the strap are very shiny (the astute observer may see me reflected in the cow as I took this photo). I was delighted to receive the award and now I am doubly, triply, extremely delighted to receive the bell itself. 

Thank you, students who voted for Rory!

belated

( ...originally typo-titled "bleated," which might be kinda appropriate too)

I was going to write about getting the vaccine when I got the second dose two weeks ago (Pfizer). I had imagined--based on my unexpected emotional reaction to the first dose--that I would have Feelings. First shot, we'd gotten a spot unexpectedly, because a coworker posted on Facebook that a nearby vaccine site was accepting appointments right now for educators and we jumped on that. After that jab, I realized how much stress I'd been under, and how even one shot made me feel like...not that things would return to normal, not that everything was okay now, but...like there had been a pressure, a discomfort to which I had become so accustomed I no longer noticed it, and now it was gone. I noticed the negative space of it, the place it had carved out in my psyche. I thought that the second shot would herald a return of that feeling, but it didn't. I was just relieved. 

That was two weeks ago. If there is such a thing as officially vaccinated, all the immunities as in place as they will be... we're there. Our region is coming out of restrictions, things are reopening, and great! But I am in no real hurry to go back to the restaurants I haven't been to in over a year. I've grown accustomed to the take-out sandwiches on Friday "date night." It feels weird to think about removing a mask in public. And eat in public? Egad. Visiting a zoo might be nice. Or a museum. Or a store that isn't faithful Trader Joe's. But be around people? No, thank you. My latent agoraphobia has taken root this last year, hard.

(I better get over that before classes start in the fall. Because barring a new pandemic, they will. We've been super lucky here--the UCs have shut the fuck down and stayed that way for in-person instruction. How delightful to have official policy dictated by science and public health, instead of political toadshit.)

And I wasn't going to write about any of this, sweartogod. I was going to write about The Patchwork Terror and how, in his quest to eat all of Tinycat's scarfed-and-barfed breakfast, he chewed a big chunk out of the first clapotis I ever knitted. And how I did not quite freak out because he's not Idris: he shreds and gnaws whatever he eats to tiny pieces, even wee bits of kibble-treats, so I was pretty sure he hadn't swallowed long strands. (He never did throw up a damn bit of it. Where has it gone? The obvious answer--through him--has not manifested. He either reduced that wool to tiny pieces and digested it along with his food or it's still sitting in his gut, making itself into the grandmother of hairballs.) 

But also, ferfuckssake, I was upset, too, at the destruction. The loss. That clapotis--hours and hours of knitting, out of a indie-dyed colorway--is irreparable and irreplaceable. Of course PT was, is, more important, and I would set fire to the clapotis myself to keep him safe, but he's also fine, and fortunately not inclined to chew on textiles unless someone has thrown up on them first. This is a one-time catastrophe. 

But then, as I began writing, I realized--the worry, the fear, the anger, the guilt about being angry over a ruined thing on which much work had been spent, the grief over what was destroyed--felt familiar. This was a fresh wave of it, sure, but that's why I noticed it, after so long being numb to it. It's what I felt last spring. 

Anger. Fear. Guilt. That sinking, sick feeling of knowing something is irreparably mangled, and there is nothing to be done for it except figure out a way to salvage what's left: make it, if not beautiful, at least defiantly functional. Somehow. Wabi sabi. (And even if it's not beautiful again, ever--the clapotis will be warm. It will be of use. And it will be a story). 

I wish I could say that I think the world, post-pandemic, post the 45th president, will be like this clapotis. I don't think it will, though. We can't wabi sabi what's happened. We won't be past BLM because we're not past white supremacy. We can't get past anti-science insurrectionists because they're still crawling all over the Capitol. We can't even get people to take the fucking vaccines. I don't know how that sort of damage becomes functional again, that it can be patched. I hope I'm wrong. I don't know what happens if I'm not.

In the meantime, I have a clapotis to mend. 

happy slightly belated birthday, tinycat

Tinycat on the eve of her 13th birthday

Technically, her birthday was yesterday (we think. One does not know with rescues, but why not choose Valentine's Day when the date is "sometime in the middle of February"?). She resembles here a small, disgruntled owl for two reasons: one, she hates to be photographed, and she always knows when that is happening, and two, because Murdercat is closer to the food dishes than she is, and even though no one will be fed while I am playing paparazzi, she resents even the possibility that he might eat first. The Patchwork Terror is out of frame, which is why that ear is cocked, but she's not mad at him. 

I note here that typically before dinner, it's PT who will straddle her body--while they are both standing, because she is that small--and tug her ears while they're waiting for me to put down their bowls. (She forgives him for it, and goes to hit Murdercat in the face. Things are not fair among cats.)

She is very sweet to people, however--guaranteed purring, all about laps, responsive and alarmingly clever. She is also demanding and particular and stubborn and we love her. 

I leave you with Tinycat, still annoyed by the paparazzi, but in possession of her pillow, and so not about to be moved.

like a duck...

...all serene and floating on the surface of the water
everything's just fine

while under the water

oh shit oh shit oh shit

it's total, churning chaos.

The university went all online for spring quarter early last week.

On Saturday, the high school went all online until mid-April. Fortunately in the latter case, we are in the group-project stage, and the groups can, in theory, collaborate on Google docs together. (Whether or not they do is not up to me. Online learning is bloody difficult, particularly if it is asynchronous).

The uni classes, though. Fuck me running. I had them built for face-to-face. Now I must rebuild and recast. I am not especially afraid of teaching with technology, and I can self-teach pretty quick (which is good, because besides two truly amazing colleagues, the university is largely expecting us to watch training videos and be autodidacts). But the conversion is time-consuming, and I had been rather counting on almost 2 weeks of break to revise the RORY manuscript coming out in October. Now I will be lucky to get one week of break.

(The manuscript is currently sitting in my word processor. I looked at it. I am having extreme anxiety actually doing anything with it, because I have half a class to finish converting (and two weeks to do it, which is FINE for fuckssake, because I converted four weeks of the course in two goddamned days already, except for pre-recorded videos, if I even do those). Anxiety is not rational. I should apply some donuts.)

So the conundrum is--synchronous teaching, which plays to my strengths, or asynchronous teaching, which is a lot more work on the front end but may free up some time later on?

And we had a leak in the bathroom wall this morning. Big old bulging drip in the paint, spreading like some bizarre D&D monster. Amazing how fast the weekend maintenance guys show up when you say "water leak." It was the upstair's neighbors' shower, and easily fixed. Evidently there's no drywall damage, so...good?

And in other positive news, today's Trader Joe's run (after yesterday's abortive attempt, which did net us donuts and cheese, not insignificant) yielded bacon, some sausages, eggs, and frozen peppers (no other frozen veg). I ordered another box from our CSA this week, too, partly b/c they can't do their usual farmers markets and partly because they have stuff in stock. So we're good on healthy stuff. We won't starve. We'll be fine. (The cats won't starve either. Or run out of litter.)

But there is good news. One of my students from fall quarter came dashing into the gap between my last two face-to-face classes this school year, damp from the downpour, to give me a stuffed bunny. She gives stuffed bunnies to her favorite teachers, but she thought I hated cute things (because my desk at work is populated with small rubber and stuffed lizards, frogs, snakes, an a small, plastic Godzilla), so she got me some lovely handlotion from Origins at the end of fall quarter. When she discovered that I do like cute fuzzy things, she promised me a bunny. And when they announced spring distance learning, she made sure to get the bunny to me so I would "have something cute on my desk."

("I did not get you a pink bunny, though, because I know you hate pink."
"I do not hate pink."
"...Oh. Well. I didn't get you a pink bunny anyway.")

And she did not. The bunny's name is Buttermilk, because that is what color she is, and she's currently on my desk at home, surrounded by the stuffed things (I have, among other critters, a krogan and Bill the Cat).

But here she is under my desk with The Patchwork Terror (formerly known as the Kaiju-kitten, but really, PT is more apt) because they both have little pink noses and are stupidly photogenic and maybe I'll just use them as my stunt doubles for live-streaming classes this spring.

Anyway, that bunny and that student were possibly the best thing that happened all year, y'all.

Stay healthy.

an Orion report, and other news

Fifteen weeks, 5.75 lbs.

The average, says the vet, is a pound a month.

Murdercat at 14 weeks was about a pound lighter, and he turned out big. He was also, at that age, in his lanky phase, all knobby limbs and tail and ears.

Orion still looks like a young kitten, proportionally. He looks small until you get up next to him, or see him next to Tinycat. Look at those feet. Look at those legs. He's going to be big, I (and Nous, and the vet, and everyone else who's seen him) think.

so we got a kitten for Murdercat

...this is a thing I've been threatening, cajoling, and advocating for, oh, two years, when it became obvious that Murdercat is twice Tinycat's size and not inclined to self-amusement. He wants to play with someone. Particularly another cat. And Tinycat, Witch-Queen though she is, cannot keep up.

When we moved to the new, large apartment last year, I stepped up my appeal (as Murdercat made a habit of thundering through the hallway, literally draped over Tinycat, so that it looked like Sleipnir the two-headed cat lived among us). Nous relented only so far as to say--when we find a kitten who needs us, he was open to it.

Where we live now we have a neighborhood list-serve, generally given to "free-cycling" and community announcements. Every now and then, kittens pop up, because people seem to think dumping cats in our neighborhood's a good idea (which, you know, not a bad strategy... a bunch of uni faculty aren't going to just leave kittens to die in the bushes), and because we've got some cat-fosterers living nearby.

He came to my attention twice--the first time, when there was a plea to foster him, maybe adopt, because he was too much for her current foster to deal with (two dogs, three kids, chemotherapy). Cute kitten, I thought, but he's got the sort of markings people like and someone will totally take him.

Then last week, he showed up again on the list, with another plea for someone to adopt him, saying he was 4 months old and a totally awesome kitten. Weird, I thought. Something's up. 16 weeks is a little older than I wanted, but I messaged the fosterer anyway (Nous pretended not to notice, knowing already that this meant we were getting a kitten. He knows me sometimes better than I do). I got photos of a kitten that looked younger than 16 weeks, which was great.  "He looks like a Rupert!" I told Nous. "We can definitely name him Rupert."

We set up a time to meet him. Long story made shorter: we met him in the living room of the email-posting fosterer, who was not actually his fosterer, because he'd been through three, four? fosters in the last week. "He's a lot," she said, somewhat apologetically. "Two people have already returned him."

We are there, on the floor, watching this kitten (I put him at maybe 13 weeks, give or take: big boned, solid kitten, past the attack-everything phase but not as coordinated as I'd expect from 4 months). He's walking around this woman's place that he's been in for 15 minutes, sniffing things, bright-eyed, curious. He checks us out. Eats a bit of food. Sits between us to clean (because one must wash one's paws after eating, always). Loud noise outside? He sits up and looks. Not climbing all over us, but he's not a puppy, so I don't expect that. Fur is shiny, eyes are bright, no fleas, ears are clean, he looks great.

The fosterer is talking, talking. He was the last of a litter from a situation in Riverside, where the family had given away the rest of the kittens and planned to take him to a high-kill shelter at week's end. The foster organization scrambled and got him. He passed through to the woman with two dogs and chemo, and he was "too much" for her which--okay, that's fair. Kittens are work, especially if they are really young. He'd been shuffled through various fosters since, one day here, two days there. Adopted twice, returned twice, because he was, again, "too much." Not a cuddler or a snuggler. Always running around. High energy.

Well shit, he's a kitten, we said, and took him home.

The first discovery: he is not a Rupert. This is not a thoughtful, cautious kitten. This is a grab-the-toy-mouse-and-shake-it kitten. He likes us and wants to be where we are; my sense is his various fosters kept him confined in small rooms (which, you know, fair) and relatively isolated, and his home-family just ignored him. Even so, it took 7 days to get him to climb into a chair with me, where we shared the seat, companionably leaning on each other; he won't climb into a lap.


He loves Murdercat, who, after 24 appalled hours, loves him back.  We have yet to get him to the vet for a formal weighing; I estimate he's between 4.5-5 lbs, and built like a fucking tank. If he grows into those paws and legs, he will be bigger than Murdercat. I put him into a harness this week and he was unfazed. Not trying the leash yet, though. I'd like him to see a vet first, get some shots, and learn to pull his claws before we go meet people. 

So please welcome Orion Alexander Odysseus Khan to the family.

murdercat

Don't worry: as of the writing, he's alive and well. But he scared the shit out of me last weekend because on Friday, he stopped eating, and this cat is all about the food.

I will spare you the drama of the weekend, calling the vet, getting the Monday AM appointment, watching him sniff his food and then "bury" it and then come back five seconds later, repeat, repeat, or sitting on the floor with him feeding him crunchy treats because that was the only thing he'd eat. He wasn't feverish, bleeding, his teeth were okay... it was something, clearly, but what I didn't know. And I do not do well with uncertainty.

Anyway. The point is that he is a very good boy, and today he is down to one medication from two, and eating solid food again.

Turns out he had thrown up a hairball with such force and acid--and it was an epic hairball, y'all, it was half the size of that circular pink wool rug and not a ball so much as a mat--that he burned his throat and gave himself esophagitis. No, I didn't know what that was, either, until Monday. 23 years owning cats, and never this.

So here are the other things I have learned this week:

1. Meat baby food is gross. It looks like puke. It smells like--well. Anyway. Gross.
2. Gerber and Beechnut make meat baby foods. The vet said anecdotally, the cats prefer Gerber and of the three choices, some prefer the ham over chicken or turkey. 
3. Since Murdercat is a poultry lover, I got him the chicken and the turkey, which was fine. It was in fact the reason he came out from under the bed after the vet-visit. 
4. The vet-tech who tried to give liquid antacid to him did not teach me anything about medicating a cat that I did not know, and did teach me how not to approach him. I have never seen an animal foam up like that. He even hissed, though with more bewilderment (WTF, lady-I-just-met?) than malice.
5. He will eat pill-pockets until he discovers a pill, at which point he will distrust pill pockets forever, amen, find a new trick.
6. Don't think about the pill gun, either. The vet tech did that to him, too. 
7. It takes two people to get liquid carafate down his throat with a syringe, and that is without any fighting back except to escape. It takes an entire human folded over him like an origami coat to hold him down.
8. BUT. He will take pills and syringes of medicine if you come at him from the front, one-on-one, give him a treat, show him one (or two or three) more on the floor, and then administer the medication. He will volunteer for this, and come to the kitchen when summoned. He will eye the syringe (or the pill) with resignation, and then permit the whole process. He will not run away. He will not hide. He will allow either of us to do this, and there will be no biting, hissing, scratching, or any resistance besides the reflexive paw-splaying when he's been scruffed. 
9. He is a big, gentle, dorky boy. 

The manner of approach signaled to him the degree of response. We acted like it was a Big Deal, so it was. When it was just me on the floor with him, face to face and within range of those claws, no problem (other than the vice that is a closed cat-jaw).

So the biggest learning point for dealing with him is--ask, don't compel. He holds no grudges. Bribes of food accepted. 

(The first and third apply to me, too. As for grudges... well. Murdercat is a better person than I, in that regard.)

Summer ends. I grimly face my wyrd.

So.

Murdercat found the sun

The summer of time measured in "X Days Since Last Time I Went Among People" (X=2, but this was a social week) is drawing to a close. The HS starts tomorrow. The uni classes hold off another month, but really, if I am back in front of any classroom, summer's over. I'm having those little surges of panic, like I'm forgetting something, or I've squandered my time.

I translate this feeling to myself as "did not write most of a novel this summer." I'll probably be doing that next year, assuming the apocalypse spares us. I have ideas. They will possibly require research. So I counsel myself to patience.

I did write other things. Two syllabi, two websites for those classes, and I have been listening to Critical Role S2 in prep for the third syllabus (HS S2020) because seeing a rules-oriented D&D 5e game is actually research. I even, gasp, playtested a module. Unheard of in this group of home-brew plots and epics, but it worked out. I am still wrangling with how in five hells I am going to teach a thing I have been doing for 30 years (mostly in AD&D 2e, house-ruled to our eyes) to teenagers who may, or may not, have played before. Or run a game. Or faced the rules. But that's a challenge for which I have a couple months left to prepare.


I also wrote several things for the release of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, which is coming out in October and of which I am so damned proud I can't even. There will be a lot more about that coming up.

I've also spun a lot of wool. This batch is made of unrelated bundles of fiber in complementary colors, mixed together and spun at random. There's camel in there, various sheep wools, who knows. It's becoming a rug as we speak.

I have knit several socks in prep for the holidays. The godson is getting 4, none of which will match, at his request. They are also glittery yarn, also at his request. He is almost 5.

 I have rediscovered longsword training, and am pleased that I haven't forgotten my drills and that I've gotten so much stronger since I first learned them twenty-odd years ago. It is also a sadness, because the friend who was my first teacher died from a massive, surprise heart attack a few years ago, just north of 40, and that knowledge still shocks me whenever I recall it.

I have failed to convince my husband that we need another kitten. As Murdercat, almost 4, tries to coerce Tinycat, almost 12, to play with him, resulting in chunks of hair everywhere and a lot of feline yelling, I feel like the argument just sort of makes itself, but... the husband remains unmoved.

sew what?

My parents came out for a visit, and with them they brought antiques for which they no longer have room but we do, and so... I have this 1926 Singer treadle sewing machine now. My parents picked it up at an antique show and held onto it until I had room, because who doesn't want a treadle sewing machine in case of a zombie apocalypse? I am no seamstress on a good day, but that's fine. This is a beautiful thing. It came with an owner's manual for a different model of sewing machine. I discovered this when I went to start trying to figure out what parts were which and the first diagram identified things that simply are not on this machine. The internet is mighty, however, and I soon found and downloaded the correct owner's manual. Now I just need to get the belt on it--a leather belt, mind you--and order some needles and oil we're all set to... I have no idea. Sew the occasional seam, I guess, in quicker order than setting up the little crappy Kenmore electric I have. Dad says with the right needles, it can sew leather. I don't see myself making a bodice or anything, though.


But look at this thing. How pretty is that? The I-don't-even-know-what-that-part-is-called is decorated for no reason other than it can be, so why not? I wish we still did that. Decorated things for no reason. Why can't a utilitarian object also be beautiful? And also why can't it be made to last for a hundred years?

Dad also brought out this guy, which is the only toy truck I ever played with. I guess it's missing a couple of ladders, and this is not the original paint job, but whatever. The steering wheel works, y'all. The front wheels turn. And it has a bell, an actual bell. I recall in the dim and distant past it had, what, paracord or something wound up and playing the part of the hose? I'd unspool it, then rewind it again, repeat, repeat, repeat. I don't know why this truck fascinated me as a kid, but it did.

It's awesome. It's all metal parts and heavy...like the Kitchenaid of toy fire trucks.

the cat days of summer

For what is there to do in summer other than lie about in the garden? Tinycat favors lounging tomato-side, on eight inches of weathered table. Murdercat prefers the cool dirt of the Norfolk pine pot. The pots are the same size, for reference. 
Of course these photos are terrible, because the moment Tinycat realizes she's about to be photographed, she'll move. A woman's gotta move fast around here. 

in the garden of the gods

No, really. That's the name of the park: Garden of the Gods. I wasn't being all writerly. I'm not sure which gods had this garden, but they sure like red sandstone. Possibly they tried and failed to raise tomatoes? I don't know. Not much grows willingly in that climate except scrub oak, scrub pine, and sage.

So we made our annual pilgrimage back to see parents, and while we were there, we got an unexpected opportunity to go hiking, and we leapt upon it. If I had my way, that is all we would do in Colorado: stay in the mountains and hike around. But his parents cannot travel into that kind of altitude, and at the moment, neither can mine, so we spend much of our visit sitting or walking slowly through Manitou Springs or Old Colorado City (read: tourist trap shops). And this trip, given all the toadshit of spring, we didn't feel like we could take time to stay in the mountains, even for a day. I told Nous not to stop the car as we drove over Vail Pass, or I'd jump out and disappear into the trees and that'd be that. Woman goes feral in forest. 

Anyway, the Garden of the Gods is basically a park full of big-ass red sandstone rocks that people climb in contravention of safety regs, and sometimes fall off of. It gets mostly road traffic, or people hiking on the paved bits around the biggest rocks (that, see above, people like to climb on in contravention of safety regulations). Locals use the trails, but it's not the kind of hiking that's strenuous enough to attract hardcores, and yet takes enough time/requires enough effort that the casual tourist wouldn't make it. And, you know, it's at 6400 feet, so that's enough altitude that people unused to it feel it. And it can get hot down there, and the trees in the park are mostly scrub. The yellow orb of death is brutal. (You see how I say down. My ideal is up there over 7K, closer to 8-10k. Tall trees, cold air, not much of it.)

We got lucky: clouds and abnormally cool.  The hike itself wasn't hard--maybe 250 feet of elevation change, no glacial rivers, maybe 3-4 miles. We'd had rain the night before, too, so the dust was minimal, but not enough to make mud. Which, you know--fortunate. I hadn't brought hiking boots. I had to do this hike in little Merrell trail/water shoes with basically mesh sides. It was five kinds of awesome and despite the altitude-induced headache (stubborn! we hiked at the same speed we would've at sea level, and paid for it) it was totally worth it. Next time, though, I am just bringing the damn boots.

And here, we see Nous in his guise as two-legged bighorn sheep. He cannot resist climbing out onto ledges. In his youth he might've tried scrambling up the big rocks and been one of those unfortunate, smashed-flat people. Fortunately he has aged into wisdom.

Now we're home again, and it's back to work on WIP. Which...well, here is a blog post! You can guess how that WIP is coming along. Tomorrow, back to work.

blue (balls) and fiber therapy

Grades are done (ish. Still to be submitted, after someone in admin fixes the fuck up so that I actually can submit them.) These fine blue balls are waiting for me. The amazing M, she who has so much fiber her husband does this little cheer when she gives it away to me (she's an indie-dyer, among her many talents, and she's always trying stuff out), gave them to me. Each of those balls is about 8 oz, or half a pound, and Arachne knows how much it'll spin out, but I bet it'll be enough to get me through season 3 Poldark for sure.  And then there's the 4-5 pairs of socks to be done by Christmas. So much knitting. But knitting is therapy. Knitting is "oh look, I am done with a thing, and the thing is objectively A Thing That Is Good."

Which is good, because oh, my various gods, this everything-since-January has sucked for so many reasons. A friend of mine, former officemate for years, died unexpectedly at the end of March. That was total toadshit. She'd just retired last year and while I missed her like hell at work, I knew she was out there being nona to her grandkids and adopting dogs and just, like, having fun and stuff.

Then, fuck you, April, we had two parental surgeries. First: Nous's dad, unexpected brain surgery (he fell. There was bleeding. They figured it out when he kept falling and having trouble walking). Second and third: My mom, knee surgery, the first for the actual fixing the joint, and second because it infected and they had to go back in and scrape things out. We didn't go back because, well, we're adjuncts and however good the benefits (we have them. That's something) and the union (until something crap comes from Janus, it's strong), we don't get actual sick time or vacation, so... anyway.  Nous's dad recovered nicely. He liked his time in rehab; he had a new audience for his jokes (he's the only extrovert in the family, poor guy). My mom is recovering, but her attitude is far wobblier.

The HS students give teacher awards. But I was provoked.

So...  I didn't have much left for students at the HS who were dealing with murdered friends and school shootings all over and general teenageriness. I had even less left for the ostensible adults in uni who sit in my office and explain that they just can't write this boring essay, they just don't do well on things they don't like, it's who they are. (While assuring me it's the class, not me, that they hate. I assured them back: I don't hate you either, okay? But your grade is sinking like a sinking thing, kid, so you better find it in yourself to adult and write the fucking essay. I didn't say fucking. That time.) There are moments when I feel like a crap teacher, which I know is, well, crap, because I'm good at this job and they have to meet me partway or it doesn't work. And there have been amazing students, too, just stellar. They are the reason I keep doing this job, right there.

And, and, I wanted to be done with the draft of the WIP by now, but HA. No. Even making wordcount on the days I scheduled for writing, no. I am at the stage where I am convinced it's totally awful, which, haha, is incidentally the place where I did trash a whole manuscript a couple years ago because it was total shit, so... this feeling is not without precedent or merit, though I don't think it will apply to WIP. I just have a much harder time dismissing feelings of failure with the writing than I do with the teaching.

So yeah. Looking forward to spinning my balls.

The Hummingbird Chronicles

Or: What happened in the Eason household last week/end.

Karma, the Anna's hummingbird

We begin on the previous Sunday with Murdercat catching and eating a hummingbird, midflight. OK, fine. Let me be more precise: he caught it midflight. He ate it after everyone was on the ground again, and after he'd played with the sad little feathery corpse for a good half an hour. It's gross, y'all, but it's also him being a cat, and he's so damned happy and proud of himself it's hard to be mad or grossed out for too long.

For those keeping score: hummingbirds caught: 4. Hummingbirds killed: 3. Hummingbirds eaten: 2.

I moved the feeding station again, back to its formerly Very High Point on the wall, behind a hedge of angry agave (agave are always angry) and a tomato cage (with a tomato plant in it, not just a random tomato cage). I had moved it off the wall because management, may they choke on their own stupidity, had directed me to "get all the plants off the wall" in contravention of their own policies because there were Muckity Mucks coming to visit the complex and since our apartment backs on to the pool area, Muckities would be able to see...us in compliance with the rules about plants on the walls? I don't know. (This is the same site manager who tried to tell me they did not need to reassemble the bedroom closet after the HVAC work because workmen were returning the next day, and that we could store all our clothes in the main office overnight. I lost my shit, folks. Utterly. Anyway. Not an individual one looks to for consistent or logical policy decisions.)

ANYWAY.

light is the left hand of darkness

There will be big news coming soon, but Ursula K. Le Guin just died and I am sad.

The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, two of my...favorites? I don't think that's the right word. Two very important books for me. I didn't come to Le Guin through Earthsea; I came by accident, browsing shelves as an adolescent, and The Left Hand of Darkness sounded cool. (It was cool. It was hard. It made me think about things I hadn't before.) I don't think I understood it entirely--I mean, I was like 12--but it lingered. When I reread it, and found The Dispossessed on the library shelf beside it, and read it, I began to understand why Le Guin's name kept popping up with all the other famous SFF authors.

I was at an SFRA conference in Las Vegas in 2005 and Le Guin was a guest. I had to date published one short story. I was working on a novel, and feeling entirely inadequate to the task. I didn't actually meet her, although it was a tiny conference and I totally could have walked up and done so. I didn't even bring my books. I mean...it seemed disrespectful, somehow, to attend a conference on SFF scholarship and research and then fangirl. But I remember she told us the rejection letter story about Left Hand of Darkness  and I remember thinking, "but that's why it was awesome!" and also, "okay, if that book can be rejected, oh god."

I don't really remember Earthsea. I need to remedy that.

black sand, dancing skies

The Lyft driver was horrified.

"You're going where?" she said. "To do...what?"

Iceland, we said. To climb a waterfall and walk the black beach at Reynisfjara and hike Thingvellir

Thingvellir, site of the Althing

and ride horses. No tour buses, no sitting in hot springs, no fancy dinners. Rain gear, good boots, lots of layers, wool socks. Maybe the aurora borealis, if we were lucky. Probably not a lot of beer. Certainly not a lot of people. 340K on the whole island! Long stretches of nothing and no one. Lots of sheep and horses. Silence, I said wistfully. Maybe somewhere I can't hear any cars.

"Have fun," the Lyft driver wished us. But she sounded doubtful. (Her upcoming vacation, a weekend in Denver, was to be spent drinking and partying and otherwise not exerting herself one more iota than necessary. I do not judge this, but I also do not want it.)

Maybe it's that Nous and I are not good at vacations. We haven't been on one that lasted more than a day (visiting family does not count) for 15 years. Perhaps we could've offered that as excuse to the Lyft driver--we don't know how to relax in long stretches. And also, to us, hiking is relaxing. Seeing new landscapes is relaxing. Nous getting some quality time with his camera is relaxing.

We got our wishes. All of them.

I mean: we went to Iceland in September and did not need our rain pants. It rained exactly twice: the afternoon we arrived, and on the return from Reynisfjara.

Glymur, in Hvalfjordur

Which meant, when we went up the Glymur waterfall trail, it was sunny, and our (very enthusiastic) guide decided to take the long way, which involved crossing a glacial river twice, barefoot. No tour buses. You can't see Glymur from the road. You have to earn it.

No lie: I felt pretty badass, afterwards. And I was also very glad of my wool socks (one of my earliest pairs) which prevented blisters from lingering damp and sandy bits that stuck to me after the river crossings.

We saw the aurora borealis that night, of which I have no pictures, because I was too busy watching them. They looked like  bands of silver and the faintest hints of green. Like ghosts moving on the vaults of the sky.

And then, finally, Reynisfjara, which was my Must See from the very first time I saw a photo. We drove out of Reykjavik, past farms of sheep and Icelandic horses, past Eyjafjallajökull (capped in clouds, quiet, brooding), past a parade of waterfalls fed by the glaciers.

There is something about this long stretch of black sand, studded with rocks, ringed with basalt columns on one side and crashing grey sea on the other. Just listen to it. I wish I could share the rest: the wind, the cold salty tang of the sea, the grit of the sand. But this will have to do.

to be Faire

I need someone to explain to me why it is that I cannot go to a Renaissance Festival now, in my 40s, without getting eyed and oogled, when I was invisible as a 20-something. Maybe the sun? The heat? Too much alcohol on the part of the hitter? A couple of years ago, I think that's what happened. Drunk dude weaving all over the food court, decided he wanted to drape himself on me and babble about my beauty. I do not have a black belt in martial arts just to hold up my pants, and I deflected him (gently). When he came back around for another go, the Rat, who has many more degrees of black belt, and who is substantially taller, interposed herself, looking stern, and he toddled off.

Anyway, I don't think he was aware of much except there is a female over there and she is smaller than me and oh, I am about to fall down.

And he was an anomaly. One is not generally accosted by strangers, which puts Ren Faire on a slightly different plane than, say, everyday walking down the street in which accosting has always and ever been by strangers: hey baby, wolf whistle, little-girl-let-me-show-you-my-penis (truth).

But Faire, see. (Or Fair; much like the spelling of fairy, there is variation.) There's this thing about Faire, in case you've never been, this element of carnivale, of boundaries strained to breaking. There're some folks who try to be period, and then there are the people who are there to cosplay pirates or Doctor Who or their current D&D campaign or whatever. Mostly the cast is the former, and the dressing-up-public is the second. But point is, there's a lot of skin on display. Boobies, mostly, to the limits of legal. And, you know, great! Yay boobies (and whatever else).

Because of the high flesh factor of a ren faire , there is a corresponding bawdy factor. The sexual innuendo content of your average interaction with performers and cast (and even vendors) is pretty high. This is a ...feature, I guess, of Faire. Which is to say, I don't actually like that aspect overmuch, but without it (or when organizers attempt to suppress it) makes Faire seem childish instead of subversive.

I also realize I started off this post complaining about this very thing. Maybe I don't mind it happening, I mind it happening to me? Or I find it just... weird. Like, come on now. I mean look. Here.  This is a photo from 2015. I have a lot more ink on my right arm now, and less hair, but this is what we look like every year.  

I realize this is a strange, fine line I'm treading. Shit gets said in a Faire that I'd never think was okay in any other setting, ever. It's like we leave the norms at the door: this is how polite people behave. We don't wear corsets. We don't have shelves of cleavage, or people dressed as wenches, or belly dancers, or shirtless men in leather pants, in a general public setting.

Maybe it's consent. (I'm working through this as I write). You go to Faire, you know this sort of behavior's out there, you're...okay with it? Or at least, okay with it being around you. I definitely don't think you should have to interact with anyone's toadshit if you don't want to, and no one should touch you, like, ever. So not consent. Forewarning.

And maybe I, me, the 40-something woman, just want to be able to look at the hand-forged knives without having the shop owner, who is older than my father, trying to flatter me by telling me how sexy I am.  It's weird. Like, dude. Seriously. Stop.

I think maybe it's not about me at all. It's about Nous, and they assume he's the dude and so he's the one who's into weapons and so by complimenting his wife they are complimenting him...? I don't know.

When we go with the Rat and Shan, people stop Shan to take pictures of her--because she has this crazy hat covered with ostrich feathers, yes, but also because she's all curves and you can rest a dinner plate on the shelf of her cleavage. And I get that, but also just gods knock it off. And it is always, always the cis-het guys who do this. You don't see the dykes coming over and going oh, lady I do not know, can we photograph you and your boobies. The straight women and gay men don't swoop down on Nous and make admiring comments or ask for photographs.

Ugh. I don't know. I have loved Renaissance Festivals since I was a teenager. The Rat and I worked at the one in Colorado in college as street entertainment. It was cosplay before cosplay was much of a thing. It was this place where the Rat and I weren't the weirdest people in the room, hell, we weren't even in the top five. It was weirdly safe in a way a lot of our lives weren't at the time.

So maybe my willingness to tolerate and excuse the atmosphere is based in a romantic nostalgia. But even now--there's a certain defiance to the anything-goes attitude. No one apologizes for who they are, or what they look like, or any of the usual shaming weirdnesses. That's great! Let's keep that! The problem, though, is that the cis-het normative harassing bullshit falls into the same category of no shame, and I want it to. Like--y'all have had your time, okay? You still have it, outside the gate, every day. This is the place for the rest of us. Because you can't live out your fantasies and let the rest of us be safe to live ours at the same time.