err... I guess this would have been a hiatus?

     I kept telling myself I should write but the next thing I know is it has been six months.  Tad was gone and back and gone and back since then, having completed the Hong Kong trip and also having completed a semester.  I've missed at least three major holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas) and have read a good number of books and overfilling another bookshelf.  I've been using the Project Gutenberg library for access to some of the more well known texts and have added to my belt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hounds of the Baskervilles and working through A Thousand and One Nights slowly.  I may even join up with LibriVox and read some aloud.  We'll see.
     Over the Christmas hols I gave myself bronchitis and spent a good day reading the Seventies sci-fi To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer.  If you don't mind some trippy counter-culture meta stuff this is good.  It's the first of the Riverworld series and won a Hugo in 1972.  Aliens landed on Earth in 2002? and most all humans were killed in 2008 for defense reasons.  Everyone is resurrected in a "Riverworld" that stretches across the planet and is some sort of experiment/social melange.  Our protagonist is Sir Richard Francis Burton and although not a 'good' guy he is a man who is trying to get out of this bizarre place.  I suggest reading it if you don't mind Phillip K. Dick and the like.  I hope to get the second of the series soon.
     Speaking of Phillip K. Dick I tried to get an anthology for Tad for Christmas just to discover they have never made such a thing!  I mean, how dare they!  I have anthologies for Harlan Ellison and have read parts of Roger Zelazny's short story collections but this well known prolific author is a no show.  How sad. 

     501 books count: 54

The Thrilling Conclusion of The Crystal World

     So, with all the foreshadow the world around, with all the delightful plot developments (none of which really seem to draw you in or even really concern you), how possibly could this amazing book end?  By a general discussion about how the world is changing, like hiding the fact that Florida has been crystallized or how it was slowly going to overtake us all.  There had been blatant signs pointing out that being crystallized was amazing and a communing with God or something along that lines, like it doesn't kill you but unifies you.  Well, our main character with his weak personality becomes partially crystallized and nope, nothing except that rubies and gems hold in themselves light which seems to be time and melts the crystals for a short period of time.  Good to know but nothing amazing.  I don't understand why this one was considered an amazing book but I suppose I'm not on the board of 501 Books to Read because I certainly would not have picked it. 

     In the end, I was more disappointed than not, that's for sure.  It was hard to get through because the main character was petty and fickle with his love choices and then he leaves both of them to go wandering and keeps bumbling into situations and never are explained or even resolved.  So be it.  Good bye boring book, I've read you and am already trying to forget having done so.

      Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles are short, maybe 5-10 page stories time-lining our colonization of Mars and the effects of Martians and being interplanetary colonists have on both sides of the water.  It was started as random short stories in the 1940's and 1950's.  They were then compiled from their various magazines into a single short book with added original compositions to flesh out and complete them all.  It is a classic and in the sense of being an original and in the sense of being antiquated.  For example: in the year 2010 there is a census that put 10,000 people on Venus let alone Mars, if I remember correctly.  Tada.  It's the classic belief in space travel being the shaping drive of science for the next 50 years and a swift exponential increase of technology to match our ambitions to breach outwards into the last place we can look, beyond this planet.  If you enjoy sci-fi this is the most basic need and dream of the sci-fi.  It has more than just a classic that simply has plot.  This follows the rule of Nietzsche and the abyss of space and aliens looks back onto the human race.  This interacting relationship between man, the dream, and the Other makes even the oddest stories the best.  If I were to vote on this I say two thumbs up and a Irish jig.

Summer fun

     I need an impetus.  A goad, a driving force, an actuator for my morale and will.  It seems that an overwhelming fugue is easy to stumble into but tougher than molasses to completely lose.  Aarrg, existence, how I loath thee.  In this last lonely spiral of mine I quickly derailed the whole thing by following my one constant obsession: books.  I just read, in the last few hours, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert E. Heinlein also famous for another novel, Starship Troopers.  It was a cult novel, which I did a commentary about as one of my first blogs and it stands for good reason.  The main character, Valentine Michael Smith, is deliberately made into a messiah (actually commented that he is the incarnated Archangel Michael of biblical lore) who promotes sexual polyamory.  Of course, he has a superhuman POV and everything he does just proves his perfection beyond any human comprehension.  Randomly throughout the book Heinlein goes on rants expressing the views he really wishes you to hold and they slowly change throughout to inoculate you slowly into holding what seem as moral-shattering mores into acceptable if not quaint or sophisticated (depending how you internalize the whole situation I feel) cultural ideas.

     The basic plot is we tried to go to Mars, went a second time and found a human baby born from the first expedition who had been raised by Martians.  He returns to Earth naive yet more intelligent than us all.  He also is super rich and then he gets an ornery Yanky on his side and he starts a religion and is martyred.  Basic synopsis, sorry if you wanted to read it but it there wasn't anything even remotely resembling a plot twist nor was there any actual drama it's all smoothed over and then it asks calmly why you weren't panicking.  Even his gory death wasn't at all emotionally captivating so I really hope it wasn't meant to be.

     It was a good read, from a literature standpoint and not just as a soap box for these morally degenerate beliefs.  Oh, did I mention cannibalism?  Yea, they also hold cannibalism as awesome and it's how you 'grok' a person completely.  Yea, that's right, "grok," some mystic term that is so complicated that there's no even vague description comprehensible in English.  In the end I can only offer up my enthusiasm that this book wasn't a bad read but was very bad at pushing its religious beliefs since it mostly focused on deriding mostly Western religion and I kept poking in with the Buddhist teachings and valuing them against that.   It just didn't hold water, I'm sorry, it was nothing but a huge excuse to indulge in your own saturnalia.

     I also read a few other books in the last month and I will get myself through those, including next time commenting on the end of The Crystal World, which as a preview, did exactly what it promised, nothing.  I'll give some more details and all that since for now I'm out of my funk.  Let's hope it holds.

Apology

     Well that book a week deal isn't going to work how I planned.  I'm still elbows deep into The Crystal World although it has yet to distinguish itself as either a modern novel or a sci-fi.  In fact it has, a good 120 pages into the 210 page book, yet to do anything but foreshadow itself directly.  While the ambiance has yet to inspire anything beyond a vague stirring of mysticism and unease the book shatters any real tension by stating the tension and literary devices.  If I was an English major I would write an essay just based on the direct quotes from the book.  'The weather foreshadows' blah blah blah, 'the light reflects' more blah blah blah.  Geez, there's nothing for the reader to do except read, no thinking necessary. 

     I'll finish up this week I hope and give a full report on the matter.  Let's hope the quality picks up quickly because it's a chore to work through.

     Went river tubing yesterday.  Unlike any other day in the last two weeks it was rainy and cool.  Of course it was.  It was chilly but tons of fun even if the route was less than a mile.  Kelly Springs has a nice swimming hole and the water was crisp and clear.  I'm glad I didn't bring my camera though, it would have been soaked.  Next time I will though.  We need pictures of that glorious day.

Revenge of the Slow Days

     Well Tad's back and summer has officially hit Florida.  You can tell because last night as I was driving to the airport to pick up my adorable husband it was drenching everything around in that strong, Florida rain we get.  Not two miles west of me it was dry as a bone.  Turns out while I was dancing to music in the cell phone lot near the International Airport back at the apartment there was a tornado watch from the fury of the storm.  Ah Florida, how I missed your fickle weather patterns.

    Why is this the 'slow days' you might well ask.  Truth is now that Tad's here waking up is set nearer to noon than dawn and it involves a lot of silly videos rather than adventuring.  Not that I am complaining at all.  I only dawdle in bed when I have a giant cuddle-Tad pillow anyways.  I made banana bread although it didn't rise quite as nicely as I had hoped.  Oh well.  I have to stop off for blueberries (on sale finally) and prepare a classic Tad dish: coffee cake.  We don't even drink coffee but it's the only thing I put blueberries in, so there it is.  Blueberries for Tad.

     At the lab we have determined the graduate students don't hear us unworthy undergrads.  We say 'don't use the new copper tubing we have plenty in the other lab' and they hear 'please, cut and fit the new copper tubing so we don't have to worry about having spent 50 bucks on it, haha!'  I'll show off my awesome powerpoint skills next time we have a group meeting again, it's absolutely awesome, bullet points and test!  Let me tell you...

     Despite the inebriation of the declaration, I am planning to read one book a week, from my list if possible.  I am currently working on a sixties sci-fi the Crystal World by J.G. Ballard.  It seems to be set in Africa and has the feel so far of a turn-of-the-century novel rather than the existential and questing sixties sci-fi feel.  I am only 35 pages in though.  We shall see.

Liquor

     I have decided to read a book every week until I have finished off at least some of the 501 list.  Isn't that awesome.  Also, I have drunk wayyyyy too much tonight.  I feel very open and refreshed.  Also numb, feeling that is, not like emotional and all.  I have read Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles which was taken from a series of short stories in 1949 and 1950 into a series of perceptions staring from 1999 to 2026.  I suppose most people don't care about the science of it all but I do.  I see the canals of Mars made their impact felt since there is a dying Martian race.  The impact of humanity of a foreign race and the impact of that race on us, that was the main focus of this book.  I love it; it has this dream-like quality built into itself that I thrive on.  I feel like I'm reading the Redwall series again in middle school and Dad and Sis are playing Donkey Kong Country just in the other room.  This is the nostalgia I feel.  I feel that nostalgia a lot though, reading to music that embodies the novel/author in my head by the music played.

     Also, Tad comes home Tuesday!  This will be the first time I will see him in  months or so.  Oh how I miss him.  Come home soon, Tad, I dream of you.

     I also noticed a lack of females in this sci-fi again!  I should start noting that so I can keep track and maybe write a paper on it some day.  I bet no one reads sci-fi like I do!!!  I miss Tad.  He'll be home soon, right? Tuesday is too far away.  That's right!  Tuesday Tad comes home.  What a good job that is.  I like Tuesdays, or should I say  Tadsdays?  I dunno.  Feeling a little odder, so might get some more hard liquor to succor this detachment and displacement.  Maybe a better analysis tomorrow, after the schnapps has worn off...

501 books count: 48

Iron Man 2: Tony Stark is an amazing jerk, part 2

     Name changing is hard work.  It's not like you just change your Social Securtity number or license and voila, everything is there.  There's the bank, the credit cards, car information and insurance, your job, any organizations you are a part of, blah blah blah.  Some of it just takes a phone call but my license was a journey in itself.  I needed my passport (or birth certificate), my social security card, my marriage license and two forms of residential identification.  Arrrg.  Because of the annoying living situation I am in I had to drag in my roommate and wait forever, as always at the government buildings. 

     I did see Iron man 2 last night.  That was amazing.  Since two-thirds of the movie has little to do with Iron man and robot battles I believe it would not be wrong to say that we watch the Iron man movies to see Tony Stark be a mad, drunken genius of an asshole.  Robert Downey Jr. pulls it off so well too.  He builds a particle accelerator in his basement.  Yea, that thing CERN built that was 12 km long? He did that in his basement using books and the freaking Captain America shield to steady it.  After accelerating the particle beam he shot it through a crystal matrix of some sort (a not-glass prism) and his a freaking triangle with the beam to create a new element!!!  That is the reason I got into science.  To make crazy tech that should break the laws of physics.  ::sigh::  If only I could do that.  You are my hero Tony Stark.

Life is better in the turn lane (yea, I made it up)

     Smoothed out a lot of ruffled feathers today and straightened up my mental to-do lists.  Finally heard back from the professor, got lab keys and the information I actually need to do my job.  It was a bit unexpected, that.  I only expected the keys really.  Sent mom a Mom's Day card and bought an umbrella.  Rainy season here in FL started.  Also, it is going to take 5 separate forms of ID to change my driver's license.  That is so absurd.  Aarrg.  Oh well, I'm going to change it Monday since it took me five hours to determine that I do have a second form of acceptable ID that puts me at my parents house.  Yea. 

     This is for Brickney who graduate tomorrow morning: I love you guys and I'm so glad I can be there to watch you wear gigantic robes and silly hats.  Man, you don't even get to keep them, sucks to be you.  You put a lot of effort into a degree people will always be surprised to hear.  To you, my friends.  Hurrah.

Mostly ranting

     So I felt good for a while today.  I went and got a cute dress, shoes and a purse.  For the first time probably since my wedding I felt feminine and strong.  Now I'm looking at our accounts for everything and we are running on empty.  This is not good.  We've just taken out money from bonds and we still have no money.  Heck, we seem to have less money than before we took everything out.  I have the research job but that will cover barely anything.  Should I try and make more money?  But I'm doing a lot here.  Tad and I are looking into loans for summer so he can go to Hong Kong but how much do we want to take out?  Just enough to cover or enough to have some money ourselves?  That's not greedy, right? Right?  I hope not because we don't have enough for car insurance and him eating and all.  I hate looking at these things.  We were OK for a while but his school is expensive and I keep regretting that we have to use this money every. single. month. for his schooling when we could just feel comfortable about ourselves with it.
     I'd rather he get this degree though, I think he needs it.  Arg.  Hopefully he'll get the scholarship from his school and we can just take out the same amount of money and actually get some.  It's bad when you max out loans and still have to pay for tuition from your own pockets.  Just some venting.  I'm worried about going to the lab tomorrow and it failing to work out again.  Also going to get my pesky driver's license changed, I suppose.  I'm in this odd transition between names and should I go everywhere and change it or do it slowly?  I dunno.

     In summary, ignore this.  Please.

Lab Day 1

I showed up for my new research job to find that I can't get in the lab.  Chow was proctoring some exam that lasted at least 5 hrs.  I know this since I arrived at 9ish and gave up waiting around at 2.  ::sigh::  There's day 1. 

In better news, I have read A Handmaid's Tale and might talk about that soon.  I bought a cute dress to go to lunch with a friend's family in, new shoes to match.  I now own three pairs of shoes.  I'm proud of this third pair as they are trendy and cute.  Tired.  Might talk tomorrow?  Maybe soon enough.

Florida Haiku

Cicadas' soft call

I dream jasmine's sweet scent yet

My touch goes through you

Life happens

So my in-laws are stuck in England until that damn volcano stops spewing ash all over the world.  I am currently trying to get a group of people who are in multiple continents to coordinate for a vacation.  I pinched a nerve in my back and exams are sneaking up.  Despite all that things are going well.  Even better, I've gotten back into real reading as I haven't really been for the last month or so.  I've been reading Zelazny's books, including This Immortal and Eye of Cat, which I will finish this afternoon.  ::deep breath::  I've also been doing a lot of thinking and will probably cut my hair, you know, lop the whole damn thing off.  I'm thinking about getting something at least 15 inches shorter, so I mean maybe a few inches past my shoulders.  I've been debating it a lot but I'm feeling held back and frustrated by my hair.  I just want something a bit more modern and maybe something not so defining.  I'll try writing more but we'll see how it goes.  No more knitting recently just getting through life like the dream it is.

Spring Break in the Big Apple

     Well first off, for the scarf: it is done and complete. Gara now has it and if she wishes there will be pictures with her. I was trying to start the hat using purl stitches but when I do them they end up so very very tight! Not a good thing. So I have to take some time and get that figured out. Oh well, not quite yet.

     I just finished visiting my sister up near the Canadian border and that was wonderful. It's been almost a year since I saw her so even our little time together was great. Although I saw more movies in the last four days than in the last year I think. District 9, Princess and the Frog, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Zombieland, most of the Accused, some of Silence of the Lambs, hmm... missing one.. oh! and the Hurt Locker. I had already seen two of those but still, that is a lot of movies. Also I finally saw the amazing Wegmann's and it is worth its glory. That is definitely the largest grocery store I have ever seen. Great prices too. I'll actually check NYC doesn't have one sitting around here because that was a great deal.

     Now, however, I am in the cultural capital of America, New York New York. The only thing I know we have planned is a vegetarian Dim Sum this Saturday. I can't wait! Today I think we are going to the Met for some artsyness.

     I will be updating for the next couple of days because to get here I took a 7 and a half hour train ride across New York state. Which was horrible and I was surrounded by drunk businessmen. When did I enter Japan?!?! I lives through that with only a tiny half bottle of water and three granola bars. Which I want more of, btw, for the flight home. I finished off another book though, while I was stalled in random parts of upper New York. So tomorrow I give a synopsis of The Inverted World and maybe in a few days, when I finish it I will talk about the Foundation Trilogy by Assimov. Or just about NYC.

Quick Update for Vday

     I am horribly busy these days.  Work most nights and the others I am driving myself bonkers with homework problems.  Test tomorrow but I have a good two hours of studying done and another three hours to keep going.  The scarf is almost done!  Hurrah!  I have one more stripe and then the end and that will be it.  I hope to finish it tonight after work while listening to some amazing podcasts.  Tad should be getting a Valentine's Day box with his present and lots of baked goods tomorrow or the subsequent day.  I have started three separate books but none of which are close to being finished. 

     I did listen to a BBC audio drama of The Laxian Key one of the many books to be read on the 501 list.  It was done in a Hitchhiker's Guide style though so since the story was only produced in the Sci-Fi 'zines of the 50's and 60's I don't know if I will ever be able to read it.  Alas.  ::sigh::  That's really all that's going on.  In a day or so I will update the scarf pics and maybe I'll have finished a book.  You know, maybe.  Until then enjoy the cold weather!

The oldest Sci-fi I have read yet

     Well, I don't really count anything that doesn't use actual science as a sci-fi but since Journey to the Center of the Earth counts, I guess this one does too.  I have finished A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, which was written in 1881.  This is even before Mars was a big place to journey to.  The plot was simple, English pleasure-seekers find a manuscript out at sea and it tells the story of a man who goes to the South Pole and the "lost world" he finds there.  The best part about the book is that it analyzes itself.  The English gentlemen are learned and discuss the people the main character encounters, the flora and fauna and how factual this book is based on contemporary science.  It's hilarious to read how they prove all these creatures that Adam Moore (the shipwrecked explorer) are dinosaurs and lost avian species like the moa or even larger.

     Included in the book are illustrations that don't look like what I imagine them at all.  Also it seems that the dinosaur ages such as the Cretaceous etc are not created yet.  I'd give the example but I will have to recheck the book, which I already returned.  One drawback is that the people Moore meets are coarse and perverse in ways that offend the dignity of everyone (cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc) and then are named a split-off of the Semites.  A little unnecessary I think, but I didn't write it.

     The scarf, on the other hand, is currently past the halfway point and I'm very proud of it.  You could wrap it around your head about one-and-a-half times.  I just wanted to use the hyphens, sorry.  No picture though because I want to get this up but next time I will update a little more about me and a little less about a book no one reads anymore....  Ja!

     501 books count: 43

scarf 2: Revenge of the Knitted

((This is actually being updated three days after having written it.))

     Well, I've been enjoying my time with Tad rather than updating and spending time on the computer these last days (weekish really).  I read and digested The Fig Eater which was a good read but not something I'd pick up at full price.  Pretty much it was a murder mystery from multiple viewpoints that one side solved with logic and another with superstition.  Because women are superstitious.  Also, gypsies get screwed over in Austria-Hungary and actually just about everywhere and everywhen.  Sorry for that Romani, it's not you're fault and you deserve to be treated as everyone else. 

     With Haiti utterly ruined Tad and I wanted to help out with donations but I'm very skeptical after United Way uses some absurd percentage does not get directly used for disaster relief.  Tad found a site (look at my links) that evaluates known, established charities and give their exact services in Haiti and across the world.  We donated to Doctors without Borders which I think is an amazing charity that was already established there.  I hope you will do the same and help not only these people but all unfortunate people by supporting the organizations that already have the confidences of the people they work with.

     On to the main event!  My second scarf is getting longer and longer all the time!  Also, it is striped!  So without anymore introductions here it is:

    Tadaaaa!!!!  And I will be making a hat to match it as soon as I learn to purl.  Yay!

The awaited Ringworld review

     School starts tomorrow and I finally got some stuff for classes.  Took my sweet time, geez.  Raided the Good Will and found some great deals.   For 40 dollars we got a new book The Fig Eater which I vaguely remember at some point getting praise or not.  Tad got three new pairs of pants, two dress shirts, a casual shirt, plus a new suit jacket.  I got two fashionable jackets a new pair of work pants, a nice pair of slacks, a skirt and a nice shirt.  I need a new pair of shoes to match some of my nice clothes.  I'll probably go back and get another nice slacks and dig through their blouses.  It was a great haul though.

     Finished Ringworld finally.  Turns out that I only had about another five minutes left in the recording so it was a bit of a downer.  Good book, most definitely.  None of the characters really draw you in but you can identify both good and bad points of most of them.  They all have at least one point uncovered about them that opens their characters up except the main one, Louis Wu.  He doesn't change at all but you still like him so that's good.  The plot has a great twist in it and it fits drama rules: everything later used in the story is there to begin with.  It definitely twists things to let them be seen in a different light so it kept the story interesting.

     I'm trying to unravel a twisted yarn ball that is mohair and some crinkle thread.  I want to make a scarf Amy made on Ravelry with it for Sibly but it's a mess.  I will have to spend hours on it but nothing good is ever easy.  I hope to have it done for her birthday in March.  We'll see.  We'll see.

Til the morning comes...

Er, that was actually the lyrics to a Smashmouth song in my head, not a vague omen or such.  I ordered Stitch 'n' Bitch a few days ago and it should be coming in on Tuesday, thanks Amazon.  I was trying to get it used but when they have super-saver shipping it isn't worth the two dollar difference between new and reused.  Also, joined the Target book club (on Facepage) with other peoples from work and am hoping we will start it up soon.  I've been a bit of a busy bee this week between long walks with Tad around the area (just over seven miles on Wednesday) and going to the movie store in the mall for 50% off clearing out prices I've got us dental appointments and the car is going in and arrrgg!!! School still starts Monday.  ::sob::  ::sigh::

     Enough on the personal fronts, as for my awesome cooking skills: bourbon chicken.  Just like the mall, except better because it takes about 40 minutes to make.  See?  Much better.  I actually got a picture because some friends came over to eat it.  So I present to you my dinner (that I didn't eat).

And yes, that is good short grained rice that is sticky and delicious.  The recipe was a mishmash of about 5 others on the web but it does involve a cup of bourbon whiskey so be prepared to drink the rest of your whiskey afterward. Last night I came home to a sick, stuffed-up Tad so I made from scratch matzo ball soup with the left over chicken.  I added a little lemon and ginger to it to make it a more invalid meal but he said it was delicious.  It looks amazing, I must say.  I also finally bought Tad's charger just yesterday for his phone.  Took me a while I must admit but there it is, done.

     Here's the recipe for my bourbon chicken:

• 2 lbs chicken breast, skinless, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 cup bourbon whiskey
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
  
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/8 cup rice vinegar
• 1/8 cup red wine vinegar (I might go balsamic next time)
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 smashed cloves garlic

      Add to taste: ginger, ketchup, lemon juice, dry mustard, salt, pepper. Mix everything but chicken in a bowl and let the chicken marinate for a few hours to a day to make it taste good.  Sear the chicken with oil in a larger skillet til brown and mostly cooked.  Remove chicken and add sauce and bring to a hard boil.  Replace chicken in the skillet and bring down to a simmer and let simmer  for 20 minutes.  This is not a sauce like a brown sauce so it won't thicken but you can pour the left over onto the rice you serve it on.

     I have also been knitting more.  Somehow, and I hope my book tells me, I have been picking up stitches as I go.  I started with 40, not a hard number but enough to make a decent sized scarf, and at the largest point counted 59.  I don't know how I do that.  I am almost through the first skein and am sometime today I feel will  be forced into the yellow and a new stitch.  If I follow what has been suggested to me it is seed, knit one, purl one.  I still don't know what purl is but there's a video just waiting to be watched!  Oh well, back to the cold dreary winter of my discontent.  And knitting.  The winter of my knitting.

Sherlock Holmes

     Saw the new Holmes movie today and I must say it was great.  Not blockbuster explosive action or sappy love drama shite but just plain deductive, quirky fun.  Definitely worth the matinee price, scratch that, worth a full movie ticket price.  If you like the books go watch, if you don't it's worth it to watch the bad jokes and the Holmseian logic go.  Also, kinda a gay vibe in there.  It's not obvious but it's there.  Tad and I were arguing about whether certain famous peoples had Aspberger's Syndrome, the very slight autistic disorder.  Generally for those who are geniuses (genii if you want) who are pretty much complete social 'dicks' as Tad calls them.  They cannot discern social norms like a normal person can, no cues and no understanding.  Also they have the idiosyncratic gestures of autism and the monomania.  So Holmes, Einstein, etc.  Ok, those are the two we were talking about specifically.

Edit: Hehe, I just noticed it looks like a smiley face!!

     Here's the scarf at the moment.  Also the second color of it.  Not very feminine but I'll try and make the yellow more decorative.  I joined Ravelry here to try and look up patterns and give me some focus on my projects.  I have no idea how long they are supposed to take me though.  Friends are over at the moment so I'm going to leave and update another time.

New year means resolutions, right?

     Well, it is now the new year and so far my resolution of writing on the blog has failed.  It's not the blog's fault, I just haven't been reading in the last few days.  Also, the car ride did not quite end Ringworld for me so I have about an hour? less? of the book to listen to.  I did hear a nice H. G. Wells horror short story but that was when we were driving around in Clearwater.  Tad lost his charger for his phone ::sigh:: so I have to remember to buy one today, which I won't. 

     Weather is cold finally, I mean, NYC is in the 20s but here it's currently 47F.  Why isn't the degree symbol on a number somewhere in the modern keyboard?  It's usable, especially when in the science areas.  Cold, cold, cold. 

     With winter finally setting in on Florida I make my resolutions: lose weight, organize the apartment, learn a new skill set, etc, etc.  Just all the basic ones.  OK, I do plan on losing some weight here, I have to get into better shape.  I saw something in one of Anna's Allure magazines (nothing else in the bathroom) about two women who were career women who lost 20ish pounds each.  I think it was definitely inspiring as they can do it I can too.  I just have to stop snacking at work and getting out more.  I might end up blogging more about that, we'll see.

     Lastly, but not leastly, I am knitting.  There's always been more patterns for knitting than crocheting but I had no one to show me.  Look in my links, there is now youtube.  Thank you youtube for being full of literally everything usefull and useless on the internet.  Cyberseams has a simple, non-vocal video on the basic garter stitch, which is what I'm making this scarf for Gara out of.  Then I will get fancy.  One step at a time. 

     Goal: knit a hat and socks for Tad that he doesn't hate. 
     Progress: Trial period for Gara's scarf, presently at the level seen below.