Category: Goofing Off

Things I learned today.

Having your tits smashed in a vise hurts.  Oh, wait.  I knew that.

There is a thing called “pink silver.”  Pink silver is (to my eye anyway) brown.  A lot like Joyita’s rings, in fact.  *pout* And here I thought we’d made that up.

That there are things called “worry rings,” and I bought one.  No, I don’t need another ring.  But I like it.

Dorothy Sayers actually breaks the fourth wall a number of times in Strong Poison, which I’m kind of accidentally re-reading.  I had never noticed this before.

Toast Express *is* open on Mondays, even though the sign wasn’t lit.  Also, Steve and I will apparently be in an “internet commercial”, whatever that means, for Toast Express.

At Day’s Jewelers it costs as much for a clasp to replace the clasp that was broken than the entire necklace cost — OK, Some Years Back.

This week needs more hours in it.  Just sayin’.

We got our schedules for RavenCon.  I’ll post that realsoonow.

Today’s blog title comes to you from Jame McMurtry, “Chocktaw Bingo.”

Yesterday, it was sunny and warm (for values of warm that include 38F/3C and a sharp wind off the harbor), so we got in Kineo and I drove us to Camden, where we walked around downtown, shopped (I bought a pair of earrings!  They’re pretty!), and ate a spur-of-the-moment lunch of spinach-and-feta quiche chased with hibiscus-and-ginger iced tea at Zoot, which is, as the name of course implies, a coffee shop.

On our way out from lunch, we met a dog from the local animal shelter, who was being walked by a volunteer.  The dog — a very tall beagle-ish looking fellow — was wearing a bright orange dog coat with ADOPT ME on it.

What a great idea!  He was getting quite a bit of attention from the various walkers-about-town,  which was only to be expected, of course, because he was a very handsome dog who was interested in sharing.  For instance, he immediately identified the bag Steve was carrying (containing a piece of pumpkin-orange cake, which we intended for a snack, later in the day) as something that he would be pleased to share.  He managed to be interested without being rude, and when it was made clear that Steve was not as interested in sharing as dog was, dog gave it up with good grace.

From Camden, we should have gone home, but we’d got out into the sunshine and were reluctant to go back.  So!  We went to Belfast, up Route 1, where we visited the justly famous Belfast Co-op.  Steve bought sesame crisps.  I bought dark chocolate covered cranberries and dark chocolate covered ginger (and I poured them out of their bags into the same jar when we got home, because that’s just how Wild and Crazy I am); Steve bought a piece of bundt cake, and I bought a four-pack of eight-grain bagels.

After the co-op, we should have gone home, but. . .I drove us across the bay, through Searsport and Stockton Springs, and took the left so we wound up in Bangor.  From Bangor, we went right, across the river (after almost getting rear-ended by a young lady who was going 40 in a 25-mile zone, around a blind corner, where, immediately on the other side, I was stopped while someone backed out of their parking place), and drove almost into Ellsworth, before taking the right again, on to route 32? 37? to Bucksport, went over the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory, and so back to Belfast and, finally, with the sun going down, to home.

It was a fine day.

Today, it snowed about six inches, big, wet, sloppy flakes that will likely melt tomorrow.  It has also been a fine day; writing has been accomplished and several pieces of business are being addressed.  But now it’s time to call it a day and have some lunch with my lovely and talented co-conspirator.

Here, have a picture of said co-conspirator, caught as he is about to dart off to take a picture of Camden Harbor.

Well…Steve and I had tickets for the 4:00 Viewing of the Lights at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine.  However, being the grasshoppers that we are, and prompted by the fact that we have never Properly Done the Boothbay region, we decided to Make a Day of It.

So! after a leisurely breakfast at home, we set off in Kineo the Wonder Subaru, out Route 27 to Augusta, arriving finally in Boothbay Harbor, where we drove about the village before stopping at Eventide, which promised us fresh bread and wondrous other goodies.  We had a lovely time talking about purple hair with the mother of the baker, who was helping out, who had been the owner of a beauty salon, and who was very interested in how I had achieved such a “natural” color.  Then I talked bread with the baker, and Steve bought vinegar and oil, and I bought peach butter, and apple butter, and pumpkin butter, and — oh! — some crackers, and. . .I’m sure there was something else.  Really, we shouldn’t be allowed in stores, unsupervised.

In addition to all the Retail Excitement, we saw, but were not introduced to, Schooner, who had come to visit his good friends at Eventide — Schooner being a not-quite-full-grown St. Bernard, with excellent manners.

After pillaging Eventide, we went across the street to Enchantments Metaphysical Gallery, which is three stories of. . .the most incredible mishmash of new age, Wiccan, fantasy, world religion, cosplay. . .STUFF I have seen in a lifetime of touring head shops, Wiccan and New Age enterprises.  You could spend a day in the tarot section alone.  There were Buddhist prayer flags, Thai fairy houses, beaded curtains, witch balls, sparkly unicorn sculptures, hookahs, and Cards Against Humanity.  There were Grateful Dead t-shirts and Renfaire clothing, Genuine Thousand Year Old Turkey Carpets(tm), and crystals, crystal balls — one as big as my head — and jewelry, and windchimes, and — ohmighod, I had such a good time!  Steve found some CDs suitable to meditate to; we contemplated, but did not purchase, a bag of Wake the F*ck Up extra strong coffee — oh, and they had incense.

We smelled of incense for hours, even after taking a drive along the ocean with the windows down, which we did after leaving the shop, following the scarily thin road along the rocky, rocky shore, pushing our explorations further afield, over to East Boothbay, and the other side of Linekin Bay, before returning to Boothbay Harbor in search of lunch, which we hunted and gathered at the Boathouse Bistro.  Steve had what looked to be an Epic grilled cheese, bacon and tomato on sourdough, and I had a half-portion of the chef’s risotto of the day (note to self: learn how to make risotto, why not?).  The food was good, the company easy — mostly townfolk taking a break from shopping and such.

After lunch, we took a little walking tour of downtown, then motored on out to the Gardens around 3:30.  We figured we’d be Super Early. Silly us.  And now we know why they sell tickets in advance (which I had been prone to complain about, before I understood how popular the Gardens Aglow event is).  We were directed through three parking areas to an Unimproved Zone high up on the hill, then walked down into the garden proper.

My, my.

I had also been a little miffed that the only tickets we could get had been for the 4 pm Viewing.  I’d wanted to see the lights in Full Darkness.

Boy, am I glad we had the early tickets.  Mind you, by the standards of a December evening in Maine, it wasn’t cold; a balmy 28F/-2C, damp, as one expects with the Atlantic Ocean just over the hill.  We were dressed warmly — for me, long-sleeved turtleneck under long-sleeved shirt, then fleece sweater, winter jacket, heavy gloves and fleece-lined hat with ear-flaps; ski socks, and sturdy shoes. Steve was similarly attired.

But, as the sun went down, so did the temps, and the wind came up.  We failed to find the kiosk that was selling hot cocoa (because it was inside of a building, not in the gardens), but despite that — boy! it was fun.  Beautiful, gaudy, crowded with people who were in a mood to be pleased, and the passing remarks all on the subject of, “Oh, look over there!  Isn’t that–”

I’m so very glad we went, and I’m already making plans to buy us a membership for the Gardens, so Steve and I can visit in more clement weather — and so we can go the festival of lights again, next year.

I took a ton of pictures, though far fewer than that turned out.  The camera was having some conflicts at the beginning, not being sure which light it should pay most attention to.  Later, after it got dark, things clarified, but by then I was really reluctant to take my gloves off for safe camera handling.

This one ALMOST turned out, surprise! The thing in front of the tree is a sculpture that moves and flutters in the breeze, and looks like a flight of birds.

I adored the cat fence, and now I want one — maybe around the cat garden?  Hmmmm.

After it got seriously dark, the lights just flowered. This was taken looking down into the Children’s Garden.  The cat fence, above, was also in the Children’s Garden.

So, today.

Appointments were kept, groceries were taken on, wreathes also; vegetables were chopped and put into the freezer; cats were beguiled with the flying mouse; bills were paid, and banking was done.

Had a dash of Incredible Luck at the grocery store’s book bin.  Somebody had thrown in six brand-new Peter Wimsey novels (Clouds of Witnesses, Unnatural Death, the Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Strong Poison, Five Red Herrings, Gaudy Night, for those keeping score at home), which I snatched up for a buck-a-book donation.  These will replace the Wimsey books winnowed from Baltimore-area used bookstores back in the mid-and-late-1980s, which are pretty much falling apart.  In fact, I believe that one title — Have His Carcasse — may have already met that fate, falling apart in a time where Sayers was out of print.

Now, of course, I have a Problem Before Me.  Do I buy brand-new replacement copies of the other books in the set (and replace …Carcasse)?  Or is that just too. . .too?

First World Problems.

In other news, we receive advance word that OVO will be at the Bangor Cross Center June 2-5, 2016.  I was rushing off to buy tickets when Steve mentioned that we not be home from BaltiCon yet.  Right.  Next year, we have some traveling inked in.  Must remember that.

No words today, what with one thing and another thing.  Tomorrow, I have an early appointment with the HR Nurse for the hospital, and possibly a visit to the vampyres, after which I have nothing but writing on the calendar for the rest of the week.

Hope everyone has had a pleasant beginning to the week.

Writer at work, with attendant muses:

So, last night Steve and I went to the Waterville Opera House to view for our very first time, the Rocky Horror Show. This was, I’ll stress, the play, not the film.  Since we were Rocky Horror virgins — to an extent; I don’t think anyone could have existed in SF Fandom since the 1970’s and remained Entirely Ignorant of the plot.  Which actually served us well, otherwise, my enjoyment would have been. . . much less.

Since we had never seen the show before, we deliberately bought tickets to a show where the Opera House stated in its literature that props were not to be brought in.  It turns out that many of the theater-going public in Waterville cannot read, or reasoned that there are no Opera House Cops and so they could safely ignore this plea for courtesy.

Steve had the worst of it; he was sitting next to a guy who apologized ahead of time for that fact that he was going to be Very Loud in his call-backs, this despite the rules, and he proceeded to enjoy himself hugely at the expense of our being able to, oh, actually hear what was going on.  If I’d been sitting next to him, I’d’ve slugged him, reasoning that there are, after all, no Opera House Cops, and so I could do whatevertheheck I wanted to do in protection of my own experience of the play.

I’m told that we should have watched the movie first, rather than going to the play, but since we had, indeed, purchased tickets for the Rocky Virgin Show, I think we did due diligence.

In any case, because of prior exposure, I did, indeed enjoy myself, and very much pity the actors who have to put up with having things thrown at them, and call-backs and all the other. . .stupidities we observed (yes, yes, I know it’s “fun”; I’m an old fuddy-duddy, is all).  Had I known that the no-props rule would be so completely violated, however, I would have stayed home.

EDITED TO ADD:  Steve reminds me that I have forgotten to report that he won a door prize at the show last night, which was sponsored in part by local radio station MIX (107.9) and adult emporium, Treasure Chest II.

Let me let Steve himself tell you about his prize basket:  So, since Rocky Horror is a Halloween thing, and 13 is a Halloween number (It is?) I think they gave away 13 prizes all together. Our little package was a purple mini-milk-crate, brimming with stuff. Whips (very vanilla whips, really)…, no chains, Motion Lotion, Swiss Navy gels, a power stroker, yes, and enough vibrating power to open a paint-mixing shop. But you know how it is — we really were front row center in the balcony … I left the lid on the treasure chest we won and didn;t do more than peek at it. The next closest winner appeared to have a glow-in-the-dark rendintion of Dr. Frankenfurter’s equipment, which she de-packaged and handed around to be handled by her friends …

So, that.

Someone over on LiveJournal (my blog posts first on Blog Without a Name on sharonleewriter.com and is mirrored at Eagles Over the Kennebec on LiveJournal) wanted to know The Rest of The Story, after we had moved to Maine and found all of our arrangements in shambles (for those who missed that post, here’s your link).

The answer to that is. . .there was a Period of Confusion, in which we learned a lot in a very short time, and were helped out by some kind people.

First off, we pulled into the now-disappeared (there’s a Wal*Mart on the site) Skowhegan Motor Lodge, where we rented a cabin for us and three cats.  We unloaded the rental truck into a storage unit (happily, we had only just been managers of a storage unit facility, so had some expertise in packing the space efficiently), and returned it (the truck, not the storage unit) to Augusta, which was much further away than we had imagined.  When we returned to the Motor Lodge, the live-in managers told us that they were starting to shut down for the winter — which meant putting each cabin into mothballs, draining the pipes, and whatnot — but that they would leave our cabin ’til last, to give us time to regroup.

This was fortunate, because I was nursing the Cold From Hell, and probably should have — in retrospect — gone to the hospital, but — we had no money.  We also walked All Over Skowhegan, Maine, looking for a place to live, and, as a by-product of that, introducing ourselves to the neighbors.  It turned out that somebody knew somebody else, who knew that the accountant had just finished renovating a farmhouse-and-attached-barn (called in Maine, “a regular house”) on Busy Route 2 into teensy, tiny little apartments, like Mainers like to do, and we went and talked to him, and we were personable and “older” (i.e. not 18), and so we found an apartment.  Then Steve got a job at the local Cumberland Farms Store on the midnight shift, and somebody else had heard about a temp opening in the Number Two Paper Machine for day-work, and I got hired on there.  And then the revisions came in for Carpe Diem, and a guy I had worked with at a game company in Maryland, who had moved on to a start-up in New Hampshire, remembered that I had been a science fiction writer, and we got a gig writing a narrative for a computer game, and eventually — I don’t quite remember how — I got a job as a clerk at the daily newspaper in Waterville, and we eventually rented a house just a couple blocks away from that job, so I didn’t have to drive 20 miles after midnight in the treacherous Maine winter, Steve got a job as the children’s librarian at the Oakland Library, Del Rey turned down our option novel, we taught writing by mail with the British-American School of Writing. . .

. . .in other words, Life Happened.

As it still is.

Today!  Bread is rising.  I need to get with the manuscript and do some serious work, having goofed off so well these last couple days, and!

. . .that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Here’s a picture from this morning (a repeat for the FB peeps, but still better than big G+ graphic):  Trooper and Sprite having a Saturday morning cuddle in the comfy, unmade bed: