Tag: for your viewing pleasure

Oh Monday mornin’ you gave me no warnin’ of what was to be

Monday. Sunny and cold.

Breakfast was two scrambled eggs with cheese, onion, and rice inclusions, toast with strawberry jam. Finishing up the first mug of tea.

I have a long list of phone calls to make today, and have already made one. I also need to go outside and make sure the dryer vent is clear. Oh. And hardboil some eggs. I have a lot of eggs, for some reason. Good thing I like hardboiled egg sandwiches.

I also have an appointment with the chiropractor, and I need to stop at the pharmacy/grocery, to pick up meds and the classic A Couple of Things.

I quit just in time yesterday, folded up on the couch under a blanket, with tea and graham crackers to hand. Read some more of Magpie Murders, shifted ahead, and saw that Mr. Horowitz was going to make me read Alan’s WHOLE DAMN BOOK (absent the last chapter) before we got back to Susan, and decided, as I once similarly decided for Harlan Ellison, that Mr. Horowitz was not going to make me do that, and put the book away. I then thought I’d read the Rivers of London novella that I’d been holding in reserve.

Except, I fell asleep. This was *not* Peter’s fault; I hadn’t even opened the book.

Woke a little while later and decided to explore Roku, since I had found the lighthouse show I’ve been trying to track down on Maine Public TV in the December guide, which meant that I had to find if Roku would show me, well, television.

In fact, it will. I watched a short documentary on Sequin Light Station in Phippsburg (not the new show I want to see), which was very interesting, indeed. Especially that tram system up the sheer cliff from sea level to Light level, all in the service of delivering the vast quantities of wood required by the fog-horn, which was steam-powered.

Having proved that I could, indeed, watch Maine Public on Roku, I doodled around on my tablet and somehow came up with the Muppet Show featuring Harry Belafonte, which I was pleased to watch.

Then, I opened up Masquerades of Spring, to get in some reading — only to find that I couldn’t focus my eyes sufficiently to do so. Yeah, well, I’d known I was tired, now didn’t I?

I made a couple notes for that short story my brain thinks it would like to write, and about 9:30 threw in the towel and went to bed.

I occurs to me that I may need to lay in some audiobooks, so I’m not staring at screens 24/7. Ack.

interrupted here by an incoming phone call from the local hospital. “Hello! May I speak to Steven?” / “You may not. Steven died in February.” / “I’m so sorry. Good-bye.”

That’s about it on the Cat Farm News Channel.

How’s everybody doing today?

Today’s blog title brought to you by the Mamas and the Papas, “Monday, Monday.”

Six for Gold

Saturday. Sunny and cold.

Breakfast was rice cakes and cream cheese with the last of the grapes. Kettle on for second cup of tea. Lunch with be Leftover Feast. Except for the apple pie. The apple pie is long gone.

Stayed up late last night to watch the last three episodes of Magpie Murders. For some reason, I had thought that there were only five episodes, and I had made a commitment to the cats that we would learn whodunit before we went to bed.

In the end — well done, all! I liked Mr. Horowitz’ commentary, and his description of, having written what must be a very tight book, needing to unravel and re-knit it into another sort of sweater entirely.

I did sort of blink at Mr. Horowitz’ comment, which I may have read, not heard, that when he started writing books, there was no Amazon, no internet, no computers.

Well . . . yeah. I wrote my first (second, third, fourth …) short story on a manual typewriter; we wrote Agent of Change on an electric typewriter. There were, of course, computers in existence at that time, but they were behemoths that were housed in their own substantial wing and bathed in freezing cold air. There was also an internet — Steve used to do card creation on the proto-internet, back in his curation days (note the juxtaposition: he was creating cards to go into a physical card catalog on the internet).

Anyhow, I’ve had Magpie Murders in my TBR pile for a while, so that’s queued up for next read, now that I’ve finished Salvage Right. I don’t usually see the movie first and then read the book, so this will be interesting.

My next door neighbor dropped me a note this morning, offering snow removal assistance, which I’ve accepted. I s’pose I’ll call the guy I thought I hired on Monday and ask if he’s still on.

I really don’t understand the people who say, “Yes! I will do this thing, for which you will pay me!” who then never show up, never phone, just — poof! Why on earth would you say yes if you have no intention of doing the thing? Surely, it’s much less hassle to just say, “Nope, sorry. Can’t do it.” Then everybody’s on the same square, no one’s aggrieved, and your karmic load isn’t disbalanced.

So! Today, is Change Out Computers Day! Always an exciting event. This also means that I may be scarce for a bit. Please talk among yourselves.

What’re you doing that’s exciting today?