Sunday, December 28
Well, I'm on my way - off to Toronto for two weeks. I remembered what I forgot, too; it was my email database. If any of you have sent me mail and are wondering why I haven't answered, send me another message so I have your address. I will then fail to answer *two* messages, not because I don't have your address, but because I'm a dork, and you will be able to feel morally superior and stuff.
At the moment I'm in DC visiting my uncle and his girlfriend, who took me to a hockey game. They seemed to think this would give me a vital survival skill for Canada. The game was probably pretty cool, if you're a sports sort of person, which I'm not, but the interruptions were a right bitch. The penalties were bad enough - they played this godawful music at you, either snatches of songs or the "Washington Caps theme song", which was sort of a cross between "Take me Out to the Ball Game" and Queen's "We Will Rock You" (Yes. I know. I wanted to take whoever thought of this by the shoulders and shake them, too.) But they actually stopped the live game for the commercial breaks being played on the televised version. Excuse me, what? Gah!
And there were people and stuff. Crowds are not something I'm good at.
Today we shopped used bookstores, which was a lot more fun. Tomorrow I get up at around 2 am to catch a cab and catch my train at 3 am, and then I'll be travelling pretty much straight through until 10:30 pm. Good job I mostly got books for Christmas, eh?
At the moment I'm in DC visiting my uncle and his girlfriend, who took me to a hockey game. They seemed to think this would give me a vital survival skill for Canada. The game was probably pretty cool, if you're a sports sort of person, which I'm not, but the interruptions were a right bitch. The penalties were bad enough - they played this godawful music at you, either snatches of songs or the "Washington Caps theme song", which was sort of a cross between "Take me Out to the Ball Game" and Queen's "We Will Rock You" (Yes. I know. I wanted to take whoever thought of this by the shoulders and shake them, too.) But they actually stopped the live game for the commercial breaks being played on the televised version. Excuse me, what? Gah!
And there were people and stuff. Crowds are not something I'm good at.
Today we shopped used bookstores, which was a lot more fun. Tomorrow I get up at around 2 am to catch a cab and catch my train at 3 am, and then I'll be travelling pretty much straight through until 10:30 pm. Good job I mostly got books for Christmas, eh?
Wednesday, December 24
I'm a taste cook. I follow the recipe in general, but I spend a lot of time sampling and adding whatever I think it needs and sampling again, keeping tabs on the product through every stage of cooking.
This is extra interesting when you're making eggnog.
This is extra interesting when you're making eggnog.
Thoughts on Return of the King:
(Spoilers ensue. If you've not read the books, don't read this. If you've read the books but not seen the movie, use your own judgement.)
It was damned good. There were, of course, a couple of things I missed. I'll get the complaints out of the way first thing:
The conversation with a trapped Saruman, where he bandies words with the rescuers. It's a very subtley frightening scene, in the book, and one that made a major impression on me.
The romance of Eowyn and Faramir. Actually, the plotlines of Eowyn and Faramir, both of whom were made much of and followed religiously through the early half of the movie and then dropped, leaving the audience to go, "Okay, so his father told him he loved his dead brother more and sent him out to die and then lit him on fire, and? She rode in a battle she wasn't supposed to be in and cut off the head of a great ugly thing and killed the unkilliable Nazgul and lost her uncle and is lying half-dead on the battlefield... and?" This is really the only bit I'm seriously annoyed with the movie folks with. Oh, sure, they get a cameo in the crowning scene, but it's not the same. Extended version, where are you?
The razing of the Shire. The end of the movie was a bit too much sweetness and light for me; Tolkien's version, where the point was made that evil had not been eradicated from the world, was much more palatable.
Of course, these are pet peeves, and I don't blame the movie folks for them; they were trying to fit a monsterous epic into three-hour blocks, and there was no way they were going to get everything in there, and in general their choices were excellent. The dynamic between Faramir and his father was brilliantly and subtley done. The hobbits were excellently handled. Even the annoying "Gimli as clown" thing was far more in the background than it was in Two Towers, irritating me less. And in some areas the movies added an extra dimension to the books. There is no way, no matter how brilliantly it was described, that I, the reader, could properly visualize the terror and scope of the final battle at Minas Tirith. Jackson has given me that. There is no way I could visualize what Frodo and Sam, half-beaten, exhausted, and starving, were facing when they looked out across Mordor and prepared themselves for that final crossing, or when they struggled up the side of Mount Doom. Jackson has given me that. There is no way I could see and really understand what "outnumbered" means, or how terribly, insanely brave the survivors of the battle at Minas Tirith had to be to go and knock on the Black Gates and create the distraction that let Frodo cross Mordor when they didn't even know he was alive. You have to see this stuff. Jackson let me see it. The next time I read the books, I'll know.
I will forgive a lot of blunders for that.
I came away from the movie with a few more generalized thoughts, as well, which I will share:
I first read these books when I was eight, and have read them many times since, but in all that time I never really understood why people insisted that Tolkien was drawing a parellel between the World Wars and his epic battle against evil. Now I do. I don't know, I think it was the battle scenes that did it for me; the amount of death and devistation and hopelessness was... disturbing. And suddenly I started to see it. The brave soldiers of Minas Tirith, throwing the stones of their own city back at their enemies, praying for allies they didn't know would come to come... the Bombing of Britain popped into my mind. And the fields of Mordor looked strangely like pictures I've seen of the trenches, and Frodo and Sam a lot like lost, frightened soldiers lost in a nightmare of war. And Frodo couldn't go home. He'd been too deeply scarred. The World Wars were the first time we had to deal with shellshock, the first time we had soldiers coming home physically sound but staring, blind-eyed, home but somehow still in the trenches, somehow unable to get back from the war. It made me feel ill.
The battle scenes, once again, have made me think of feudal societies. It's PC just now to think of them as backwards societies, and of kinds like Theoden who were kind and good as the exception, not the rule. And I think, in general, that this is true. But I suspect that it's only peace and safety that's made our "advanced" societies possible. When danger threatens from all sides, and constantly, you need a leader to hold you together. And a strong leader. That was really the thing that hit home watching the movie. We're used to thinking that the kings enforced their rule by killing everyone who crossed them, which was in general true, but if that was the only reason they stayed in power then who was protecting them from the killers? From their own army? It takes a certain brute power of personality, a charisma, to keep a warband under control.
Okay, obvious stuff. But still, for some reason, it had never really hit home to me that it takes a certain kind of man to be able to point at a twenty-foot tall elephant with spikes on and shout "Charge!" and have people do it, instead of, say, sodding off to the nearest pub. It takes a certain kind of man to sit on a hilltop and say, "We're going to die. We haven't got a chance in hell. Let's go," and have people still following him. He doesn't have to be a nice man; in fact, he probably isn't. But he's got to have something. Otherwise he's going to look back halfway down the hill and see his army vanishing over the opposite horizon.
Theoden never even had to look back.
That's pretty scary, really. I think I'll stick with democracy.
(Spoilers ensue. If you've not read the books, don't read this. If you've read the books but not seen the movie, use your own judgement.)
It was damned good. There were, of course, a couple of things I missed. I'll get the complaints out of the way first thing:
Of course, these are pet peeves, and I don't blame the movie folks for them; they were trying to fit a monsterous epic into three-hour blocks, and there was no way they were going to get everything in there, and in general their choices were excellent. The dynamic between Faramir and his father was brilliantly and subtley done. The hobbits were excellently handled. Even the annoying "Gimli as clown" thing was far more in the background than it was in Two Towers, irritating me less. And in some areas the movies added an extra dimension to the books. There is no way, no matter how brilliantly it was described, that I, the reader, could properly visualize the terror and scope of the final battle at Minas Tirith. Jackson has given me that. There is no way I could visualize what Frodo and Sam, half-beaten, exhausted, and starving, were facing when they looked out across Mordor and prepared themselves for that final crossing, or when they struggled up the side of Mount Doom. Jackson has given me that. There is no way I could see and really understand what "outnumbered" means, or how terribly, insanely brave the survivors of the battle at Minas Tirith had to be to go and knock on the Black Gates and create the distraction that let Frodo cross Mordor when they didn't even know he was alive. You have to see this stuff. Jackson let me see it. The next time I read the books, I'll know.
I will forgive a lot of blunders for that.
I came away from the movie with a few more generalized thoughts, as well, which I will share:
Okay, obvious stuff. But still, for some reason, it had never really hit home to me that it takes a certain kind of man to be able to point at a twenty-foot tall elephant with spikes on and shout "Charge!" and have people do it, instead of, say, sodding off to the nearest pub. It takes a certain kind of man to sit on a hilltop and say, "We're going to die. We haven't got a chance in hell. Let's go," and have people still following him. He doesn't have to be a nice man; in fact, he probably isn't. But he's got to have something. Otherwise he's going to look back halfway down the hill and see his army vanishing over the opposite horizon.
Theoden never even had to look back.
That's pretty scary, really. I think I'll stick with democracy.
Monday, December 22
It's been a busy weekend. Saturday we finally dried off the cows. It was hellish, of course; coldest day we'd had yet, and all the things that had been freezing separately - the washdown hose, the milkers, the vaccuum lines, the platform, the hoses - all froze at once, so we had to spend about an hour running around with heat guns and buckets of hot water to even be able to milk. The dry-off tubes had to be kept in buckets of hot water to keep them from freezing. Ditto the teat dip. And then there was the dry-off itself, which is immensely labor intensive. First we had to go down the line of cows with the CMT (California mastitis test) and look for subclinical bacteria infections. Then we milked them, and then we used the dry-off tubes. These are, for the uninitiated (aka everybody who reads this but me) hypodermics which have to actually be stuck up the cow's teat canal. Needless to say, they do not like this particularly, and tend to object, which makes getting the whole tube into the teat and not, say, all over yourself and the milking parlour very challenging. And you have to do this four times for each cow, once for each teat. Unless they tested positive on the CMT, of course. Then they get a dose of antibiotics up the teat and a tube of dry-off on top of it.
We've got seventy-eight cows. You do the math.
Anyway, it wasn't too bad, really - with my brother and my dad helping it only took two hours, although by the end of that none of us could feel our fingers, toes, noses, et cetera. It took me several hours to get full feeling back in my hands, and I was dead exhausted for the rest of the day. But you know what? That was it. No more milking until March. I'm free!
Then my brother's best friend came to visit and got his car completely stuck in our driveway. Not that he told me that, of course. He said he was just outside and had slid a bit sideways and needed a little push, which was why I just grabbed my jacket and walked out the door instead of ringing the calvary.
Reality occurred in stages. First I realized that the car was not just outside. "Oh, it's a bit past the schoolhouse," he said vaguely, naming a bit of our driveway a quarter-mile away. (Note for city people: we have a three-quarter mile dirt road as a driveway, with a lot of curves and hills and bumps. It ices in the winter and turns to mud in the summer and has ruts you could loose a medium-sized dinosaur in. So if you were wondering "How the hell does someone get stuck in a driveway?", that's how.)
Luckily my mother was just pulling up, so we hopped in her car and drove up to the last place she thought she could turn around, just before the schoolhouse. Then we walked. As it turned out, the car wasn't just past the schoolhouse either; it was another quarter-mile on from there. I was beginning to have feelings of foreboding about the stucked-ness of the car as well, and sure enough, when we finally got there (did I mention it was dark out?) the car hadn't slid a little; it had turned completely sideways and, this being our driveway, had its bumper up against a high bank and its front end hanging out over a cliff.
We explained to my brother's friend, as kindly as possible, that one did not fetch two spatially challenged women for tasks such as these, and walked back, and got my dad instead. He collected a few more males and they all went up there and, I don't know, did male things, but in the end the car got unstuck. I did my part: I stayed away.
Sunday I helped my mother do Christmas decorating, namely hanging pine roping around our window, since we're not going for a tree this year. My mother was supposed to buy ten feet of roping but came home with fifty, so we had to get a bit creative.
And Sunday night I finally, finally got to see The Return of the King. It was, of course, fabulous... and as any good movie should do, it's made me think. I'll post some of my thinkings a bit later, perhaps, when I've done mulling them over. But if you haven't seen this one yet, do so.
Now I must go help my mother. She's got ten or twelve last-minute packages to ship out from the cheese business and is in full-scale Christmas panic, and if we can't think up a present for my dad soon I don't know what we're going to do with her. Tranquilizers, maybe. (Addendum to self: Never become one of those people it's impossible to shop for; would be rude, and would give mother an aneurysm.)
We've got seventy-eight cows. You do the math.
Anyway, it wasn't too bad, really - with my brother and my dad helping it only took two hours, although by the end of that none of us could feel our fingers, toes, noses, et cetera. It took me several hours to get full feeling back in my hands, and I was dead exhausted for the rest of the day. But you know what? That was it. No more milking until March. I'm free!
Then my brother's best friend came to visit and got his car completely stuck in our driveway. Not that he told me that, of course. He said he was just outside and had slid a bit sideways and needed a little push, which was why I just grabbed my jacket and walked out the door instead of ringing the calvary.
Reality occurred in stages. First I realized that the car was not just outside. "Oh, it's a bit past the schoolhouse," he said vaguely, naming a bit of our driveway a quarter-mile away. (Note for city people: we have a three-quarter mile dirt road as a driveway, with a lot of curves and hills and bumps. It ices in the winter and turns to mud in the summer and has ruts you could loose a medium-sized dinosaur in. So if you were wondering "How the hell does someone get stuck in a driveway?", that's how.)
Luckily my mother was just pulling up, so we hopped in her car and drove up to the last place she thought she could turn around, just before the schoolhouse. Then we walked. As it turned out, the car wasn't just past the schoolhouse either; it was another quarter-mile on from there. I was beginning to have feelings of foreboding about the stucked-ness of the car as well, and sure enough, when we finally got there (did I mention it was dark out?) the car hadn't slid a little; it had turned completely sideways and, this being our driveway, had its bumper up against a high bank and its front end hanging out over a cliff.
We explained to my brother's friend, as kindly as possible, that one did not fetch two spatially challenged women for tasks such as these, and walked back, and got my dad instead. He collected a few more males and they all went up there and, I don't know, did male things, but in the end the car got unstuck. I did my part: I stayed away.
Sunday I helped my mother do Christmas decorating, namely hanging pine roping around our window, since we're not going for a tree this year. My mother was supposed to buy ten feet of roping but came home with fifty, so we had to get a bit creative.
And Sunday night I finally, finally got to see The Return of the King. It was, of course, fabulous... and as any good movie should do, it's made me think. I'll post some of my thinkings a bit later, perhaps, when I've done mulling them over. But if you haven't seen this one yet, do so.
Now I must go help my mother. She's got ten or twelve last-minute packages to ship out from the cheese business and is in full-scale Christmas panic, and if we can't think up a present for my dad soon I don't know what we're going to do with her. Tranquilizers, maybe. (Addendum to self: Never become one of those people it's impossible to shop for; would be rude, and would give mother an aneurysm.)
Saturday, December 20
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test
Pretty well spot-on, actually.
*is amused*
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Moderate |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Low |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Low |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test
Pretty well spot-on, actually.
*is amused*
Thursday, December 18
Lord of the Rings linkage today, because a) I am obsessed with the thought of seeing the movie in a few days, b) I'm too lazy to do a real post, and c) they really are good.
First go here and read about the computer program built to simulate a real battle, with real enemy soldiers, each with their own computer-generated "intelligence", that was used to simulate the big final battle in Return of the King. The only problem was, these soldiers took one look at the battlefield, assessed it, and, as a man, turned into Sir Robin. As the special effects designer put it, "We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away."
Well, that's one way to know you've designed a *really scary* final battle. This link courtesy Dan.
And then go over to The Electric Smack Shack and read the various installments of "LOTR: What Really Happens." It's hysterical. If you've got a particularly sick sense of humor, anyway....
First go here and read about the computer program built to simulate a real battle, with real enemy soldiers, each with their own computer-generated "intelligence", that was used to simulate the big final battle in Return of the King. The only problem was, these soldiers took one look at the battlefield, assessed it, and, as a man, turned into Sir Robin. As the special effects designer put it, "We could not make their computers stupid enough to not run away."
Well, that's one way to know you've designed a *really scary* final battle. This link courtesy Dan.
And then go over to The Electric Smack Shack and read the various installments of "LOTR: What Really Happens." It's hysterical. If you've got a particularly sick sense of humor, anyway....
Sunday, December 14
I know I've taken this before, but it's been a few years, I've changed, the test has changed. And it's a good thing to check with elections coming up....
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.62
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21
This puts me in the lower left-hand quadrant of the graph, somewhere near the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela - oddly enough, not people I have much respect for, as they tended to go back on their own stated morality with great regularity. Still, there's worse people to be near. I seem to be diametrically opposed to Bushie - no big surprise there.
What's really scary is this graph from the site depicting the primary candidates in this year's presidential election:
Now is it just me, or is this a little frightening? I mean, aside from the fact that there's only two people on the list remotely near my own political position and I've never heard of either one. But I thought that we were supposed to have a two-party system around here!
There is no candidate - save for those two - whose politics differ in a significant way from those of Bush.
Oh, they're better, no doubt about it. But it's the same. Goddamn. Politics. Bushie's a bit more extreme than most, it's true. But every single candidate is an authoritarian right-winger.
Leave off whether you agree or disagree with their politics for a minute - just forget that. It's not the point. The point is that this is America. We are supposed to have a choice. We are supposed to be holding an election to choose what kind of politics we like or dislike. Now how in the hell can we do that when we're not being offered a choice in the first place? I mean, "Okay, how do you like your authoritarian right-wingism - hardboiled or soft in the middle?" Does that sound like a real choice to you?
Does that sound like democracy?
And, of course, if you're not right-wing, it means you'll be stuck voting for the lesser of two evils. Again.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bash my head against the wall for a while. If I do it for the next eleven months I may have sufficiently prepared myself for the election.
Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -5.62
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.21
This puts me in the lower left-hand quadrant of the graph, somewhere near the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela - oddly enough, not people I have much respect for, as they tended to go back on their own stated morality with great regularity. Still, there's worse people to be near. I seem to be diametrically opposed to Bushie - no big surprise there.
What's really scary is this graph from the site depicting the primary candidates in this year's presidential election:
Now is it just me, or is this a little frightening? I mean, aside from the fact that there's only two people on the list remotely near my own political position and I've never heard of either one. But I thought that we were supposed to have a two-party system around here!
There is no candidate - save for those two - whose politics differ in a significant way from those of Bush.
Oh, they're better, no doubt about it. But it's the same. Goddamn. Politics. Bushie's a bit more extreme than most, it's true. But every single candidate is an authoritarian right-winger.
Leave off whether you agree or disagree with their politics for a minute - just forget that. It's not the point. The point is that this is America. We are supposed to have a choice. We are supposed to be holding an election to choose what kind of politics we like or dislike. Now how in the hell can we do that when we're not being offered a choice in the first place? I mean, "Okay, how do you like your authoritarian right-wingism - hardboiled or soft in the middle?" Does that sound like a real choice to you?
Does that sound like democracy?
And, of course, if you're not right-wing, it means you'll be stuck voting for the lesser of two evils. Again.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bash my head against the wall for a while. If I do it for the next eleven months I may have sufficiently prepared myself for the election.
Saturday, December 13
My phone just beeped to tell me that I had two text messages, which surprised me mildly as no one I know texts. These turned out to be from someone or another (name unknown, phone number faked) to inform me that "Chris Anderson is my man u are a fucking scag u stay away from him", or something along those lines - as I've never met anyone named Chris Anderson and am not currently involved in any love triangles, I didn't read too closely.
Either someone is really, really bored and sending texts to random phone numbers, or this is an exceptionally embarrassing example of, "oops, wrong number". I mean, it's bad enough to pull some complete stranger out of the shower. Think of having the slow realization creep up on you that you've just mortally insulted someone you don't even know.
On the other hand, this woman abbreviates "you" as "u". A little mortification is probably good for her.
Either someone is really, really bored and sending texts to random phone numbers, or this is an exceptionally embarrassing example of, "oops, wrong number". I mean, it's bad enough to pull some complete stranger out of the shower. Think of having the slow realization creep up on you that you've just mortally insulted someone you don't even know.
On the other hand, this woman abbreviates "you" as "u". A little mortification is probably good for her.
Spent much of the day Christmas shopping - online, of course. What, you think I'd subject my tender self to shopping centers?
The Monster Amazon Order had dealt with most of my friends and relations; today was mop-up from Bas Bleu and The Chocolate Fetish, a little shop I'd become familiar with when I lived in Asheville and which, thank God, does internet orders. Yes, that means that two out of the three places I've shopped have been bookstores. No, this doesn't disturb me particularly. Yes, I am a sick person.
Everyone likes books. Right?
The rest of the day, ironically enough, was spent prepping other people's Christmas presents. A surprising amount of people see cheese as an economical and pleasant gift that they can keep giving every year, and we usually ship out a hundred fifty orders, minimum... we're up to sixty for the coming week, I think. Mom's running in circles waving her hands in the air. I spent a lot of time arguing with the UPS site about how it was, in fact, supposed to let us ship things.
Did you know there's a town named Tarzana? Probably where Johhny Wiessmuller lived or something. Only in California.
The Monster Amazon Order had dealt with most of my friends and relations; today was mop-up from Bas Bleu and The Chocolate Fetish, a little shop I'd become familiar with when I lived in Asheville and which, thank God, does internet orders. Yes, that means that two out of the three places I've shopped have been bookstores. No, this doesn't disturb me particularly. Yes, I am a sick person.
Everyone likes books. Right?
The rest of the day, ironically enough, was spent prepping other people's Christmas presents. A surprising amount of people see cheese as an economical and pleasant gift that they can keep giving every year, and we usually ship out a hundred fifty orders, minimum... we're up to sixty for the coming week, I think. Mom's running in circles waving her hands in the air. I spent a lot of time arguing with the UPS site about how it was, in fact, supposed to let us ship things.
Did you know there's a town named Tarzana? Probably where Johhny Wiessmuller lived or something. Only in California.
Friday, December 12
The milk truck driver dropped off our annual Christmas present from the milk company - a box of presliced Kraft Singles. It's supposed to be some sort of morale boost, you know, "See? This is what we're doing with your milk!" and so on. We know that's what they're doing with our milk. That's why Dad gets so morbid thinking about farming.
They even sent along a little flyer with gift baskets of Kraft Singles, in case we were so thrilled about this that we wanted to share the love. We laughed hollowly about this for a bit, then threw the flyer away and gave the cheese to the pigs. We used to try and feed it to the dogs, but they won't eat it any more. The pigs weren't thrilled about it either, but they'll get to it sooner or later. Pigs eat anything.
They even sent along a little flyer with gift baskets of Kraft Singles, in case we were so thrilled about this that we wanted to share the love. We laughed hollowly about this for a bit, then threw the flyer away and gave the cheese to the pigs. We used to try and feed it to the dogs, but they won't eat it any more. The pigs weren't thrilled about it either, but they'll get to it sooner or later. Pigs eat anything.
I swore I wasn't going to do more snippets - I tend to realize that everything I write is crap a disconcertingly short time after I've posted it, and seeing it sitting on my blog for everyone to read for *days* afterwards is agony - but this one goes up, just because I don't think it'll make the final version. It bears all the earmarks of my subconcious telling or reminding me of something (in this case "Joey is a stone bitch"), meaning that it had to be written, but now that I've remembered I'll work it in more subtly, and more concisely, at various points and this conversation will end up getting cut. It's got no real place in the storyline.
But I kind of like it anyway.
Oh, btw, Joey's female. I just realized that isn't particularly clear from this passage.
-----
"Ser?" the sergeant to Joey's left said nervously. Joey pretended to notice her for the first time.
"Still here, sergeant? I thought you'd left already."
The sergeant cleared her throat. "Well, no, ser. I was -"
"Funny thing, that," Joey said with deceptive mildness. "I could have sworn I heard myself giving you an order a minute or so ago."
"You did, ser, and I asked -"
"But of course, if I'd given you an order, you'd already be gone, wouldn't you?"
"Ser, I was just wondering if doing another sweep was necessary, ser!"
Joey allowed a strategic silence. The sergeant was very young, and hadn't yet mastered the fine art of getting around officers as practiced by every sergeant in known history; she swallowed a bit and shifted from foot to foot under Joey's withering glare.
"Now why might you wonder that?" Joey said at last.
"The computer scan says the area is clean, ser! Seems like a waste of time and energy to check it again, ser!" Joey stared fixedly at the younger woman and allowed another gulf of silence to emerge, and, sure enough, the sergeant fell into it. "My squad's about to go off-shift, ser, and they're very tired, and I thought -"
"Ah," said Joey, nodding. "You're slackers -"
"No, ser, I didn't say that -"
"- and you want me to let you off shift early -"
"No, ser! Not at all, ser!"
"- but the thing is, sergeant, I don't particularly care about your squad's comfort, I don't care if the computer scans came up clean, and I sure as shit don't care what you want. I want that area checked by hand, even if you have to go overtime to do it, am I making myself clear yet?"
"But they're tired! They worked through their lunch break! We've been working for twelve hours straight, we -"
"Do I look happy, sergeant? No. And when I'm not happy, nobody's happy. For what it's worth nobody here's getting lunch break," she ignored the chorus of groans, "including me, and we'll probably all be working overtime. And any of you cat-lovers cites overtime regs at me will regret it, you got that!" Joey glowered around the room for a moment, then focused back on the young sergeant. "We're understaffed and up to our necks in shit and hard vacuum, sergeant, and somebody's got to shovel. It's the military. Get used to it. Now," Joey abruptly dropped her voice to a more conversational tone, "You are..."
The sergeant tried to meet Joey's eyes, but gave up and settled for glaring at the floor. "Taking my squad to Beta One."
"And...?"
"Rechecking the area that turned up an anomaly on the first computer scan. Even though the second and third and fourth scans showed the area was clean and it's probably just a glitch and we'll be wasting our time."
Joey, ignoring the editorial, crooked one finger encouragingly. "And if you slack off and don't check the area, or cut corners, or rush the job...."
"You'll find out and skin me alive and nail my hide to your office wall," the sergeant parroted gloomily.
"That's right. Now burn orbit, I've got work to do." Joey turned her back on the girl, watching her reflection in the observation window. The young sergeant slumped, muttered something that was probably "yes, ser," and turned towards the door. By her posture she was wondering how Joey'd gotten around her so fast, wondering where things had gone wrong and how it'd gone wrong so fast.
She'll learn. I did.
----
Note for military buffs: in this particular military, you can't enlist as an officer except under certain very special circumstances, but are required to work your way up from their equivelent of private to officer's status. So Joey's comment in the last line makes perfect sense. Please don't write me saying how our military doesn't work that way. I know ours doesn't. Hers does.
But I kind of like it anyway.
Oh, btw, Joey's female. I just realized that isn't particularly clear from this passage.
-----
"Ser?" the sergeant to Joey's left said nervously. Joey pretended to notice her for the first time.
"Still here, sergeant? I thought you'd left already."
The sergeant cleared her throat. "Well, no, ser. I was -"
"Funny thing, that," Joey said with deceptive mildness. "I could have sworn I heard myself giving you an order a minute or so ago."
"You did, ser, and I asked -"
"But of course, if I'd given you an order, you'd already be gone, wouldn't you?"
"Ser, I was just wondering if doing another sweep was necessary, ser!"
Joey allowed a strategic silence. The sergeant was very young, and hadn't yet mastered the fine art of getting around officers as practiced by every sergeant in known history; she swallowed a bit and shifted from foot to foot under Joey's withering glare.
"Now why might you wonder that?" Joey said at last.
"The computer scan says the area is clean, ser! Seems like a waste of time and energy to check it again, ser!" Joey stared fixedly at the younger woman and allowed another gulf of silence to emerge, and, sure enough, the sergeant fell into it. "My squad's about to go off-shift, ser, and they're very tired, and I thought -"
"Ah," said Joey, nodding. "You're slackers -"
"No, ser, I didn't say that -"
"- and you want me to let you off shift early -"
"No, ser! Not at all, ser!"
"- but the thing is, sergeant, I don't particularly care about your squad's comfort, I don't care if the computer scans came up clean, and I sure as shit don't care what you want. I want that area checked by hand, even if you have to go overtime to do it, am I making myself clear yet?"
"But they're tired! They worked through their lunch break! We've been working for twelve hours straight, we -"
"Do I look happy, sergeant? No. And when I'm not happy, nobody's happy. For what it's worth nobody here's getting lunch break," she ignored the chorus of groans, "including me, and we'll probably all be working overtime. And any of you cat-lovers cites overtime regs at me will regret it, you got that!" Joey glowered around the room for a moment, then focused back on the young sergeant. "We're understaffed and up to our necks in shit and hard vacuum, sergeant, and somebody's got to shovel. It's the military. Get used to it. Now," Joey abruptly dropped her voice to a more conversational tone, "You are..."
The sergeant tried to meet Joey's eyes, but gave up and settled for glaring at the floor. "Taking my squad to Beta One."
"And...?"
"Rechecking the area that turned up an anomaly on the first computer scan. Even though the second and third and fourth scans showed the area was clean and it's probably just a glitch and we'll be wasting our time."
Joey, ignoring the editorial, crooked one finger encouragingly. "And if you slack off and don't check the area, or cut corners, or rush the job...."
"You'll find out and skin me alive and nail my hide to your office wall," the sergeant parroted gloomily.
"That's right. Now burn orbit, I've got work to do." Joey turned her back on the girl, watching her reflection in the observation window. The young sergeant slumped, muttered something that was probably "yes, ser," and turned towards the door. By her posture she was wondering how Joey'd gotten around her so fast, wondering where things had gone wrong and how it'd gone wrong so fast.
She'll learn. I did.
----
Note for military buffs: in this particular military, you can't enlist as an officer except under certain very special circumstances, but are required to work your way up from their equivelent of private to officer's status. So Joey's comment in the last line makes perfect sense. Please don't write me saying how our military doesn't work that way. I know ours doesn't. Hers does.
Monday, December 08
I was wandering around my room this morning, trying to find clean clothes, looking out the window, and performing various riffs on the theme of "fuck me, it looks cold out there", when my dad rang me on the phone.
"Yeah?" I said, in a guilty panic (I was actually supposed to have been at work ten minutes before).
"The parlour's frozen," my father announced. "It's incredibly cold out here. Fuck it, we're going to once a day."
And I got to go back to bed for another hour. Not the best phone call I'd ever received, perhaps, but definately in the top ten.
Milking is much more pleasant now. By 3 pm it had warmed up from 21ºF (the temperature it was when I woke) to a balmy 40º, water wasn't freezing when it hit the concrete, everything in the parlour had pretty well thawed out, and I finished before I ran out of daylight - and I couldn't see my breath. And in less than two weeks now, December 20th, we'll stop milking entirely.
Heaven.
Something I'd intended to post yesterday but didn't because Blogger was down: The Twelve Days of Kitschmas. I picked this up from Making Light, and it really must be read to be believed - the twelve, well, kitschiest religious Christmas gifts of the year. And boy, are they kitschy - with commentary on each that only adds to the fun. Personal faves are the Frisbees of Faith ("So next time you are relaxing on the beach – and an overly-cheerful tourist clutching a dozen, innocent-looking plastic discs approaches you – flee at once to the sand dunes"), the remember-Jesus-died Nail Ornament ("COMING SOON! A 7-inch screw in a cardboard box, to remind you of what George Bush and Tony Blair are doing to the Middle East!"), and, best of all, the Glow Grave ("Give your loved ones a space-age resting place, all stainless steel, microchips and light pollution, and prevent satanists scraping their shins as they cavort in midnight cemeteries.") Seriously. These are REAL PRODUCTS.
The world is either very frightening or very funny, or maybe it's the first and we try and convince ourselves it's the second to avoid mass suicides.
"Yeah?" I said, in a guilty panic (I was actually supposed to have been at work ten minutes before).
"The parlour's frozen," my father announced. "It's incredibly cold out here. Fuck it, we're going to once a day."
And I got to go back to bed for another hour. Not the best phone call I'd ever received, perhaps, but definately in the top ten.
Milking is much more pleasant now. By 3 pm it had warmed up from 21ºF (the temperature it was when I woke) to a balmy 40º, water wasn't freezing when it hit the concrete, everything in the parlour had pretty well thawed out, and I finished before I ran out of daylight - and I couldn't see my breath. And in less than two weeks now, December 20th, we'll stop milking entirely.
Heaven.
Something I'd intended to post yesterday but didn't because Blogger was down: The Twelve Days of Kitschmas. I picked this up from Making Light, and it really must be read to be believed - the twelve, well, kitschiest religious Christmas gifts of the year. And boy, are they kitschy - with commentary on each that only adds to the fun. Personal faves are the Frisbees of Faith ("So next time you are relaxing on the beach – and an overly-cheerful tourist clutching a dozen, innocent-looking plastic discs approaches you – flee at once to the sand dunes"), the remember-Jesus-died Nail Ornament ("COMING SOON! A 7-inch screw in a cardboard box, to remind you of what George Bush and Tony Blair are doing to the Middle East!"), and, best of all, the Glow Grave ("Give your loved ones a space-age resting place, all stainless steel, microchips and light pollution, and prevent satanists scraping their shins as they cavort in midnight cemeteries.") Seriously. These are REAL PRODUCTS.
The world is either very frightening or very funny, or maybe it's the first and we try and convince ourselves it's the second to avoid mass suicides.
Friday, December 05
Yesterday was my brother's twenty-first birthday, and we were supposed to take him in to the local bar for a drink and a bit of a party last night after milking. I was going to be the designated driver (since I never drink much) and get us all home safely. It was going to be a lot of fun.
Well, needless to say....
To make a long story short, I failed to realize that there was ice on one side of the milking parlour and ended up with a cow falling down and getting herself stuck under the kickbar. With, needless to say, ten other cows stacked up behind her and ready to trample her head into mush to get out. Or get to the feed. Whichever.
This is when it's good to have Jersey cattle. A Holstein would have battered herself to death on the concrete, panicking. Carly - the downed cow - struggled a bit, but when she realized she was truly stuck she went calm and quiet. I got up there and managed to get the the other cows out of the way. It was perfectly clear that Carly wasn't coming back up; the whole of her rear end was down in the pit by now (I should explain that the milking parlour is two raised platforms on either side of a four-foot deep pit, the pit being where I work.) The only thing to do was to push her backwards, down into the pit. Carly wasn't crazy about this idea but after only ten or fifteen minutes of coaxing I managed to get her unstuck.
Now there was just the problem of getting her out of the pit. My parents had shown up by this time, and we cleared the rest of the cows out of the parlour and started trying to coax Carly up the ramp in back. We weren't too desperately worried at this point. We'd had cows in the pit before - that was why the ramp was there in the first place - and as long as nothing went wrong, it was all going to be fine.
Right. Carly slipped and fell going up the ramp, fell badly, and that was enough for her. She was already unhappy about the whole thing, and feeling unsteady and insecure, and one fall was enough to convince her that Cows Do Not Climb Ramps. And this is when having Jersey cattle really sucks. Holstiens are pretty stupid; if at first they don't succeed, they try, try again, no matter what the odds. Jerseys are, unfortunately, smart. And what was wonderful before, when Carly realized that struggling was doing her no good and stopped, where a Holstein would have killed herself trying, was a real bitch now. We coaxed her with feed. We beat her. We haltered her and tried to pull her up the ramp. We strung rope behind her and tried to lever her up the ramp. We attached a come-along to her and tried to crank her up the ramp. None of it did a damn bit of good. Cows Do Not Climb Ramps. She wasn't fighting us, wasn't kicking us or trying to hurt us - all she did was roll her eyes back in her head and go limp, which when you weigh upwards of eight hundred pounds is a pretty effective strategy.
After two hours we gave up, and Dad and the bro brought out the power tools and started taking the ramp down. I asked Dad what I should do with the rest of the cows, who were still waiting to be milked.
"Fuck it," he said. "Let them go and wash down the system. We're not milking tonight."
Yay. It was already eight o'clock by then, with at least an hour to go, and if I'd had to milk I wouldn't have made it to the house before eleven o'clock - and I was tired and cold already. But this late in the season we can get away with skipping a milking. Thank God for small mercies.
So I washed down the system while the boys ripped out the old ramp and Carly stood calmly in the pit, pushing the milking machines with her nose, playing with the dogs, and watching us with extreme interest - now that we weren't trying to force her up a ramp she was quite happy there. She wasn't particularly pleased about the other cows being gone, and undoubtably eating the best of the feed - she kept going back to the spot where she'd fallen in and sniffing around, doing nervous little hops, apparently convinced that since this was how she'd gotten in it was the only way for her to get out, even if she couldn't quite see how just at the moment. But in general she was quite content to hang out in the pit. For those of us who'd just spent exhausting hours trying to get her out, this was quite infuriating.
After another hour or so the boys had built a step where the ramp used to be, and we got Carly turned around and started her up it. She took the first step and then stopped, looking at us suspiciously - apparently the conviction that this was really just The Ramp again in disguise was stealing over her. I grabbed for the feed bucket to try and coax her out, threw a plastic scoop out of it - and Carly, hearing the clatter of the scoop behind her, did an impulsive panicked lunge forward, up the steps. By the time she clued in it was too late - she'd climbed the steps and was out. And we could all go to bed, amen. It only took four hours all told.
Then I woke up this morning and it was snowing. The milkers were all frozen, the cows were all pissed, and at least one has aborted her calf, which Dad is pretty worried Carly will do too, considering the amount of stress we've put on her. The vaccuum was frozen again, too, and I nearly got the bike stuck trying to get it up the hill to feed my yearling heifers, and we've got at least three or four more inches of snow coming, not to mention a strong possibility of freezing rain.
I. hate. WINTER.
Well, needless to say....
To make a long story short, I failed to realize that there was ice on one side of the milking parlour and ended up with a cow falling down and getting herself stuck under the kickbar. With, needless to say, ten other cows stacked up behind her and ready to trample her head into mush to get out. Or get to the feed. Whichever.
This is when it's good to have Jersey cattle. A Holstein would have battered herself to death on the concrete, panicking. Carly - the downed cow - struggled a bit, but when she realized she was truly stuck she went calm and quiet. I got up there and managed to get the the other cows out of the way. It was perfectly clear that Carly wasn't coming back up; the whole of her rear end was down in the pit by now (I should explain that the milking parlour is two raised platforms on either side of a four-foot deep pit, the pit being where I work.) The only thing to do was to push her backwards, down into the pit. Carly wasn't crazy about this idea but after only ten or fifteen minutes of coaxing I managed to get her unstuck.
Now there was just the problem of getting her out of the pit. My parents had shown up by this time, and we cleared the rest of the cows out of the parlour and started trying to coax Carly up the ramp in back. We weren't too desperately worried at this point. We'd had cows in the pit before - that was why the ramp was there in the first place - and as long as nothing went wrong, it was all going to be fine.
Right. Carly slipped and fell going up the ramp, fell badly, and that was enough for her. She was already unhappy about the whole thing, and feeling unsteady and insecure, and one fall was enough to convince her that Cows Do Not Climb Ramps. And this is when having Jersey cattle really sucks. Holstiens are pretty stupid; if at first they don't succeed, they try, try again, no matter what the odds. Jerseys are, unfortunately, smart. And what was wonderful before, when Carly realized that struggling was doing her no good and stopped, where a Holstein would have killed herself trying, was a real bitch now. We coaxed her with feed. We beat her. We haltered her and tried to pull her up the ramp. We strung rope behind her and tried to lever her up the ramp. We attached a come-along to her and tried to crank her up the ramp. None of it did a damn bit of good. Cows Do Not Climb Ramps. She wasn't fighting us, wasn't kicking us or trying to hurt us - all she did was roll her eyes back in her head and go limp, which when you weigh upwards of eight hundred pounds is a pretty effective strategy.
After two hours we gave up, and Dad and the bro brought out the power tools and started taking the ramp down. I asked Dad what I should do with the rest of the cows, who were still waiting to be milked.
"Fuck it," he said. "Let them go and wash down the system. We're not milking tonight."
Yay. It was already eight o'clock by then, with at least an hour to go, and if I'd had to milk I wouldn't have made it to the house before eleven o'clock - and I was tired and cold already. But this late in the season we can get away with skipping a milking. Thank God for small mercies.
So I washed down the system while the boys ripped out the old ramp and Carly stood calmly in the pit, pushing the milking machines with her nose, playing with the dogs, and watching us with extreme interest - now that we weren't trying to force her up a ramp she was quite happy there. She wasn't particularly pleased about the other cows being gone, and undoubtably eating the best of the feed - she kept going back to the spot where she'd fallen in and sniffing around, doing nervous little hops, apparently convinced that since this was how she'd gotten in it was the only way for her to get out, even if she couldn't quite see how just at the moment. But in general she was quite content to hang out in the pit. For those of us who'd just spent exhausting hours trying to get her out, this was quite infuriating.
After another hour or so the boys had built a step where the ramp used to be, and we got Carly turned around and started her up it. She took the first step and then stopped, looking at us suspiciously - apparently the conviction that this was really just The Ramp again in disguise was stealing over her. I grabbed for the feed bucket to try and coax her out, threw a plastic scoop out of it - and Carly, hearing the clatter of the scoop behind her, did an impulsive panicked lunge forward, up the steps. By the time she clued in it was too late - she'd climbed the steps and was out. And we could all go to bed, amen. It only took four hours all told.
Then I woke up this morning and it was snowing. The milkers were all frozen, the cows were all pissed, and at least one has aborted her calf, which Dad is pretty worried Carly will do too, considering the amount of stress we've put on her. The vaccuum was frozen again, too, and I nearly got the bike stuck trying to get it up the hill to feed my yearling heifers, and we've got at least three or four more inches of snow coming, not to mention a strong possibility of freezing rain.
I. hate. WINTER.
Tuesday, December 02
You are Gambit!
You are a fierce fighter and a good friend to have.
Your preference for solitude and your
attractiveness make you very intriguing to
those you meet. Unfortunately, close
relationships are few and far between for you
because you often have trouble opening up to
others.
Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla
Of course, I've never read the comic books and this guy hasn't shown up in the movies yet, so I've no clue who he is. Kinda cute though.
You believe in doing the right thing, but aren't
always sure what that is.
What is Your Shakespearian Tragic Flaw?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm not sure whether to be pleased about this one or not...
Erm, I really haven't been sitting around all day doing stupid quizzes. No, really! 750 words on Harmony. See? I accomplished something!
Monday, December 01
After two days serious work, the plot of Harmony now looks like this:
This is why I love Inspiration. Prior to this, I'd had a hell of a time with plot outlines, largely because people seemed to do them in a purely linear fashion, aka:
I. Opening scene
A. Something happens
B. Which causes this to happen
C. Which causes this to happen
II. Finale
Whereas I tend to start out with A and C and maybe a bit of II, but no clear idea how to get between the two, and, in fact, I'm never really even sure that C is C, and not, say, F, or maybe J, or even really A, when you get right down to it - in other words, I have a few disconnected scenes and a sense of space between them, but nothing remotely resembling a linear plot. Plot did occur eventually, if I wrote long enough, but it took a long, long time.
I bumbled my way through my first novel like this, and it turned out okay - but I did at least seven major revisions, and countless minor ones. I wasn't painting a masterpiece, I was conducting an archeological expedition through my own turgid prose.
When I started writing the current novel, I tried using Holly Lisle's Index Card Method, and this worked pretty well, except that I kept loosing the index cards. Or running out of places to hang them up. Or running out of cards, period. And I kept having to reshuffle, which was a pain in the butt, and I could never see all the connections, and...
And then there was Inspiration.
Inspiration is wonderful. You sit there and brainstorm for a while, and then you can sort all those ideas out and draw connections between them, and add or subtract or rearrange at will. My kind of plotting. I've spent the past two days mostly just looking at the diagram and tweaking it, getting more and more ideas as I do.
Which eventually leads to something that looks like this:
A timeline of scenes, in other words. A game plan. A plot.
Of course, I'm only about three-quarters done with the plot as it stands, and there's still a whole bunch of loose ends dangling that I haven't quite figured how to tie up in that last quarter, and whether or not it gets done tomorrow is really going to depend on how impatient I'm feeling. But still. Progress Has Occurred.
This is why I love Inspiration. Prior to this, I'd had a hell of a time with plot outlines, largely because people seemed to do them in a purely linear fashion, aka:
I. Opening scene
A. Something happens
B. Which causes this to happen
C. Which causes this to happen
II. Finale
Whereas I tend to start out with A and C and maybe a bit of II, but no clear idea how to get between the two, and, in fact, I'm never really even sure that C is C, and not, say, F, or maybe J, or even really A, when you get right down to it - in other words, I have a few disconnected scenes and a sense of space between them, but nothing remotely resembling a linear plot. Plot did occur eventually, if I wrote long enough, but it took a long, long time.
I bumbled my way through my first novel like this, and it turned out okay - but I did at least seven major revisions, and countless minor ones. I wasn't painting a masterpiece, I was conducting an archeological expedition through my own turgid prose.
When I started writing the current novel, I tried using Holly Lisle's Index Card Method, and this worked pretty well, except that I kept loosing the index cards. Or running out of places to hang them up. Or running out of cards, period. And I kept having to reshuffle, which was a pain in the butt, and I could never see all the connections, and...
And then there was Inspiration.
Inspiration is wonderful. You sit there and brainstorm for a while, and then you can sort all those ideas out and draw connections between them, and add or subtract or rearrange at will. My kind of plotting. I've spent the past two days mostly just looking at the diagram and tweaking it, getting more and more ideas as I do.
Which eventually leads to something that looks like this:
A timeline of scenes, in other words. A game plan. A plot.
Of course, I'm only about three-quarters done with the plot as it stands, and there's still a whole bunch of loose ends dangling that I haven't quite figured how to tie up in that last quarter, and whether or not it gets done tomorrow is really going to depend on how impatient I'm feeling. But still. Progress Has Occurred.
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