The Springy Goddess

"Put down the yoga mat and back away slowly..."

2012-01-06T22:37:00.000-06:00

I dodged a metaphorical bullet tonight, thanks to a cup of coffee and a plate of chicken wings. Allow Me to explain...

One of My not-so-deep, not-so-dark secrets is that I like to start projects. Unfortunately, I like to do that so much that sometimes -- Often -- Okay, most of the time -- those projects go unfinished.

This is something I've been trying to fix, and overall it's been working. Looking back on 2011, I finished the subfloor in My study; painted the dining room ceiling; painted the living room and most of the main hall (currently repairing plaster cracks in the 4th wall); got a new garage constructed; and did an amazing uncluttering of My abode by giving away mass quantities of stuff I wasn't using.

So how did I develop a fixation on yoga mats? More specifically, why did I come home from work this afternoon with the express intent of going out later in the evening to buy one?

Well, a couple of days ago I had been considering going out to a few hot yoga classes to ease various wintry aches and pains. That, however, would mean buying Myself one of those roll-up sticky mats and possibly also a pair of shorts.* There's perverse humour in this, considering that last year I gave away an exercise mat (not the yoga type, though) and a pair of shorts as well.

Fortunately, I came to My senses sometime between feeding the cats, shovelling a bit of snow and sitting down to enjoy an early supper of chicken wings and coffee so I wouldn't grab something at the mall and call that supper. I realized that there's already enough going on without opening up another battlefront, and asked Myself if I really, really needed another demand on My time.

Or a yoga mat.

Or shorts. *shudder*

It felt good to say no for a change, and just relax at home and play My clarinet rather than going shopping for more Stuff.

This doesn't mean yoga is forever off the agenda. What it does mean is that I'm starting to recognize the mental triggers and motivations that prompt Me to rush into new projects before I'm ready to take them seriously.

Because it's the serious projects that get done properly. 'Nuff said.

* Shorts are My way of staring into the Abyss and having it stare back.

The shifting tide of passion

2012-01-01T00:11:00.012-06:00

First of all, a belated happy birthday to Burton Cummings, who turned 64 on 12/31/2011. Somewhere in the middle of Saturday afternoon, when My alphanumerically-inclined brain actually twigged on the date, I thought back to My days as a devoted fan of The Guess Who. I have a confession to make tonight: Springy G has a long history of serial fannishness, dating back to around 1963 when I fell head-over-heels in like with Ringo Starr.

The trend has only *slightly* abated since the days of playing the album Twist and Shout on a monophonic RCA radio/turntable combo unit in a kitchen in Otterburn, Quebec. Come to think about it, the trend predates even the Beatles: I have vague memories of being a diminutive fangrrl of the Project Mercury astronauts, John Glenn in particular. Before them, I apparently liked Canadian entertainer Gordie Tapp (although I have no memory of what, exactly, I liked about the chap).

I find it interesting that, with the exception of Suzie Mouse (of Chez Hélène fame), My role models have tended to be male. I'm not even going to try to explain that one, but I will attempt to enumerate them. In addition to Messrs. Cummings, Tapp, Starr and Glenn, as well as drag racer Don Garlits and Montréal Canadiens stars Gump Worsley, Jean Beliveau and Ken Dryden, I've also developed emotional attachments to various fictional luminaries including Batman, Illya Kuryakin and Raistlin Majere.

So what *am* I trying to say here? I'm not getting mushy and nostalgic about all this, but I am seeing a pattern that I can't quite explain even to Myself. Part of it is that all these gentlemen (and Suzie Mouse) have inspired Me to explore parts of reality that I might otherwise not have examined. I've studied drums and piano, and a few other instruments as well; I've learned to drive and quite enjoy it (although I feel no overpowering urge to travel a quarter of a mile in 6 seconds or less); and know enough about hockey, comic books, espionage, Krynnish magic and space travel to hold My own in a conversation.

Although I have no idea what kind of conversation would involve hockey, comic books, espionage, Krynnish magic and space travel. Why do I never get invited to parties like that?

Happy 2012, everyone! If you run into Suzie Mouse, tell her the first round of fromage is on Me.

Of Donair and Double-Digit Deflation

2011-12-23T12:24:00.006-06:00

I've been putting off this particular post for several months now because I wanted to be Absolutely, Positively Sure it was for real.

It's official: I am under 100 kg for the first time in approximately 10 years, and it feels good. The only downside, and one I can *quite* live with, is that I have to keep buying new pants. Smaller ones. And that feels good, too.

Oddly enough, the reason for this is that I've been doing more gourmet cooking over the past few months. I've been cobbling together small batches of egregiously scrumptious food and grazing on the leftovers. If I have something edible in the fridge, frequently I don't bother to cook another meal just because it happens to be suppertime.

For that matter, if I'm not all that hungry I may just make a cup of tea and butter a slice of French bread rather than dragging out half a dozen ingredients and fussing over stove or oven for half an hour.

My grocery bills have lost weight, too. One loaf of French bread generally lasts Me a whole week, and sometimes I have to chuck the end of the loaf because it's gone hard as a rock and I'm not in a French Toast mood that day. A 1 Litre carton of milk lasts about a week, too.

I made up for it yesterday, though, at the Astrejurhof Yule party. Chala was uncertain whether or not the table would be able to hold all the stuff we had made: Honey garlic chicken wings; BBQ pork ribs; Donair meatballs (half-and-half beef and lamb, plus spices); orange cake; baklava; a well-stocked cheese board; brownies, crudités; and cookies, cookies, cookies!

The punchbowl and the coffeepot ended up sitting on the fishtank cabinet. Chala and I completely forgot about the mushroom and leek tarts in the freezer. And when I get home, there's Red's Rootin' Tootin' Crisp (apple crisp with raisins and cherries) in the fridge.

Oof.

But when I stepped on the scale this morning, My weight had gone down to 95.2 kg. I do believe I'm onto something here.

Gleðileg Jól to all! Expect the best... In fact, demand it. It never hurts to ask for what you want.

Confessions of a Slightly Wobbly Goddess

2011-11-27T01:09:00.006-06:00

November has been... interesting. For the first time in 7 years I'm not going to finish NaNoWriMo with 50,000+ words. In fact, at this moment I'm sitting at less than 5,000 words.

It might be that tumble I took off My back stairs, which resulted in a hairline fracture of a leg bone. I just got out of the boot brace this past Tuesday, after the latest set of X-rays checked out okay, and am now in a much smaller ankle brace.

Then again, it might be the fact that I had to spend more than a few November evenings shopping for a new car, after My sweet little lumber-hauling Cavalier got rear-ended by a large pick-up truck.

Or it could have been that nasty cold that was going around -- Not the Mesopotamian Death Flu, but sufficiently potent a virus that I went to Defcon 2 and even switched to almond milk for a couple of days so that dairy products wouldn't trigger a relapse.

My ankle's healing up nicely, My cold is gone, and I have a lovely new second-hand car that speaks fluent Japanese. I'm still not writing, though.

But I shall.

Just not this November.

Sometimes You just have to kick back, make a cup of tea and give Yourself a break... The kind of break that doesn't require X-rays and splints to put it right.

Cheese Station.... Whaaat?

2011-10-31T23:32:00.005-05:00

Cheese Station Alpha. I have no idea what it means, because I don't start to write it for another half-hour.

Yes, CSA is My 2011 NaNoWriMo project. All I know so far is that it involves Gerald Macauley (previously seen as a minor character in A Week of Alibis and The Passion of Marty-Sue), a parade of ex- (and soon-to-be-ex-) girlfriends, and three time travellers.

And here is this year's list of NaNoWords, provided by Red:

academy Vulcan faun sculptor clarity parachute ministry revolutionary loveliness heck glassware bordello Proserpina allusion hunter cornucopia imitate monumental Hydra papyrus career dominant survey encyclopedia craftsmen skeptical exquisite monument 78 surprise

...with "dictator" as a bonus word.

Mm... Has a somewhat classical feel to it, doesn't it?

(Springy G waves Her hand in the air) Waiter! One order of Bulfinch's Mythology to go, with a half-order of Greek comedy and a side of Star Trek.

Well, I *did* say 'time travellers,' didn't I?

The end of the world again? Oh, goody.

2011-10-20T21:24:00.006-05:00

Ah, October 21 (and another bogus End of the World prediction) is nearly upon us. Time for another round of cynical calisthenics.

*sighs heavily*
*rolls eyes*
*makes pleading gesture with Her hands*
*shakes head in exasperation and disbelief*
*facepalm*

Ow, that facepalm stings! Now I'm angry. *pace pace pace* Very angry indeed.

Angry enough to make a prophesy of My own:

Harold Camping, you shall never see the rapture or the end of the world. You'll reach the end of your natural life and just keel over like everybody else. No angels. No trumpets. No nuthin'.

In 30 hours or so it should become apparent to the world that Camping's prophesy has failed just as pathetically as all his other prophesies. It may take a wee bit longer before My prophesy is fulfilled, but I'm reasonably sure that I'm on the right track.

In the meantime, I think I'll pop out to the store for some beer.

Pumpkin Maintenance

2011-10-04T22:35:00.005-05:00

Tonight's theme is "How much stuff is there inside a pumpkin?"

The answer: A lot.

A large orange sphere, acquired for $6.00 last Saturday at the Pumpkin Fair in Roland, Manitoba, has been sitting on My kitchen counter since... Well, since Saturday night.

Pumpkins, even small ones, take up a lot of counter space. They also tend to bring out the jealous streak in cats: How come that Big Orange Thing gets to sit on the counter and I don't?

It was also getting a bit crowded up there. Something needed to be done, and fast.

So when I got home tonight, I did a bit of research. 'Pumpkin muffins' required a recipe for 'pumpkin purée,' which turned out to be fairly simple: Cut pumpkin in half; cover cut ends with foil; bake for an hour.

Unfortunately, My oven can only hold half a pumpkin at a time. While Part 1 baked quietly away, I decided to diversify and make pumpkin chunks from Part 2. Peeling, cutting and parboiling gave Me a large container of cubed vegetable suitable for freezing.

That left the seeds and the pulp, and this is where I ran into an even stickier problem, as the two just didn't want to be separated. After washing, straining and pulling stuff apart, I just tossed the remaining fibrous stuff, seeds and all, into a pot with some onions, garlic, butter and leftover white beans.

By the time I had finished supper, the pumpkin in the oven was cool enough to handle and I started mashing. And mashing. And mashing.

Final score:

About 11 cups of pumpkin purée, suitable for making muffins and pies;
A couple of pounds of cubed pumpkin for adding to stews and the like;
A whole bunch of pumpkin seeds, currently drying on a cookie sheet and slated to be roasted sometime tomorrow;
Tonight's supper, tomorrow's lunch, and a few more servings of pumpkin and bean stew;
And about 1.5 square feet of counter space.

It's a good thing I didn't buy the $7.00 pumpkin...

How to Declutter an Equinox

2011-09-24T00:29:00.004-05:00

(Raises a glass of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon; realizes it's empty; reaches for a can of diet root beer) Happy Spring to everyone south of the equator, and Happy Autumn to all of you on the north side!

In My capacity as the Goddess of Punctuation, may you also have a joyous National Punctuation Day as well.

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Discardia (waves across the Internet to Dinah Sanders).

Decluttering has become very near and dear to My heart this year; in addition to hanging out with the good folks in the forums at Unclutterer, I've also become a fangirl of clutter-busting expert Brooks Palmer. I do like the chap's style: Gentle mindfulness that evicts mass quantities of crap from people's living spaces.

Works for Me... I actually had a *house* under all My stuff. Who knew?

Oh, and a belated Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, too. Arrrr.

Never, ever let a Goddess work behind the bar.

2011-09-06T00:41:00.000-05:00

This isn't so much a recipe for disaster as a recipe for a diplomatic incident. I call this drink the Cuban Missile Crisis, because it starts with a basic Havana (rum, lemon, pineapple juice) and ends up at Defcon 2 in rather short order.

Here are the ingredients. Yes, that's Green Chartreuse on the right. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Put a little bit of lemon juice in the bottom of a glass.
Add rum. (White rum also works, but don't used spiced or dark rum for this.)
Add pineapple juice, and more rum if necessary to balance the taste. Ideally you should get a synergy where the pineapple juice just cancels out the tartness of the lemon, but you can taste both rum and pineapple.

You now have a Havana, but don't stop just yet.

Drop a maraschino cherry into the glass and then gently pour in some of the sweet red syrup from the jar. It should settle on the bottom.
Finally, top off the drink with a few spoonfuls of Green Chartreuse, layered onto the top.

(sips drink) Not bad. I do wonder how it would taste if I set fire to it, though...

I miss you already, Jack.

2011-08-22T14:15:00.000-05:00

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

Jack Layton (July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011)

Make it so.

In accordance with the prophesy...

2011-08-14T21:50:00.004-05:00

Earlier this year, I was trying to explain to someone online that prophesy isn't particularly good evidence for deities or for the supernatural. My reasoning went something like this:

If I were to say "On Sunday, August 14, 2011 the goddess Astreja shall go to the Starbucks in Osborne Village and order Herself a tall dark roast," it would be trivial to make it happen. All I would have to do is drive down there (or get there on foot, by bike, bus or cab), walk into the coffee shop, and place the order.

So guess what I did today?

That's right: I went to the Starbucks in Osborne Village and ordered Myself a tall dark roast (and a trail mix cookie and something for Red, too). And I have the receipt to prove it:

The bottom line is this: If you can "fulfill a prophesy" through mundane actions such as jumping in a car and plunking down $7.67 CDN, it ain't a prophesy and it ain't divine. I remain agnostic of My own divinity.

Photos by Red.

Think Like a God Day 2011: Weirding the World

2011-07-13T23:59:00.006-05:00

(Springy G jumps out of a bright blue telephone box and waves to the nice Gallifreyan fellow who gave Her a lift back to July 13) Thanks, Doctor!

(rushes upstairs and fires up Her computer, wheezing slightly and smelling distinctly of jelly babies)

Welcome to the 2011 edition of Think Like a God Day! This year's theme is "If I were a god, how strange could I make the world?"

Quantum physics has done some fascinating experiments which support the idea that observation alters reality at a subatomic level.

I propose that we conduct an experiment: Can gods alter reality at a bigger level by just using bigger quanta (e.g. entire planets)?

Mind you, this is just a hypothesis. To do a proper double-blind study we need a statistically significant number of deities* and enough duplicates of the Earth to go around.

And somewhere to put them.

And I volunteer to be in the control group.

Just as soon as I can figure out how *not* to look at the world...

* And fiction authors. Sir Pterry invented the Luggage; DNA invented Vogons; I invented instant lutefisk. 'Nuff said.

It's still green.

2011-07-01T23:20:00.005-05:00

However, it's a lot less green than it was this morning.

In the Springy G tradition of practising Xtreme Renovations any time I get a 3-day weekend, I spent a good portion of Canada Day bringing down the plaster ceiling in My study.

As predicted in this post, I am making much better time on ceiling demolition than on subfloor construction. Gravity, and the presence of a good, solid place to stand while I work, seem to be making a difference.

Mass quantities of water, regular rest breaks and a huge supply of garbage bags doesn't hurt, either.

Happy Canada Day, and remember: If *you* have a green {purple, orange, sky-blue pink} ceiling that needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice, don't forget to wear your protective gear.

Springy Goddess, on a mission

2011-06-22T22:42:00.008-05:00

Well, we're now one whole day into the summer of 2011 (or the winter, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere), and I now have 9 months to recover from spring.

This past season was a lot like work... Except when I was having a jolly good time. For instance, I played several gigs in the clarinet section of the Northwinds Community Band, including this one at The Forks in early June:

That's Me with the shiny sunglasses and the big smile, gearing up to play The Blues Brothers Revue (arrangement by Jay Bocook). It's particularly poignant in that I actually met Dan Aykroyd last year at an autograph signing. Really nice guy, BTW.

When I wasn't tootling melodiously (or staring in horror at a page of 32nd notes with My lip demisemiquavering), I was either building or destroying stuff.

As of last Sunday, I now have a lovely new sidewalk in front of Astrejurhof.

However, as of Right Now, the ceiling in My study is still green. I really must do something about that.

But not tonight... There's bigger game afoot. (Picks up clarinet and starts practising the Merrie Melodies theme)

Photos by Red.

This is why we can't have nice things.

2011-05-22T01:09:00.001-05:00

It's 1:09 a.m. CDT on Sunday, May 22, 2011. The purported Rapture has come and gone, and I'm still here. So is...

...Excuse Me for just a second.

*knock knock knock* Chala!
*knock knock knock* Chala!
*knock knock kno--

(Chala stops playing World of Warcrack and yells "Whaaat?" through closed bedroom door)

Já, we're still here.

We were shopping at one of the larger supermarkets in Winnipeg at about 8:00 this evening (a good two hours after the Rapture deadline), and not one of the hundreds of people in the store appeared the least bit upset. No one was wailing or gnashing their teeth in the produce aisle, telling bystanders that a particularly devout family member had Mysteriously Vanished at the stroke of 6:00 p.m.

No noticeable earthquakes here, either, and at last report all the graveyards in the city were still intact.

However, I did take the time to Google +"Harold Camping" +"epic fail" and got over 5,000 hits. (opens a second browser window) Nearly 6,000 hits now.

To all you people out there who actively supported this insanity, wasting time and money and terrifying small children with nonsensical tales of divine wrath: I hereby sentence the lot of you to 120 years community service. All of you. No exceptions.

And, as for the End of the World...

... Drink up, mate. I don't think we have to worry about the cab driver disappearing on us.

Photo editing by Darchala Chaoswind, who also helped Me make a lovely post-PseudoRapture supper of Caesar salad and marinated garlic chicken breast in a white wine reduction.

It's green.

2011-05-19T23:16:00.004-05:00

We're coming up on that Canadian tradition known as Victoria Day, a.k.a. The May Long Weekend.

That means it's time for Springy G's favourite extreme sport: Demolition!

Specifically, this is the weekend that I intend to do Serious Damage to the old ceiling in My study. As it turns out, however, I don't think I can do much more damage...

Já, that's what I found when I took down the first of the 4x4 ceiling panels. Someone had painted that razzafracking ceiling green!

I couldn't believe My eyes, so I took down another panel.

Then I shook My head, giggled nervously, and had a nice lie-down.

To be continued Real Soon Now, because I don't want to stare at 140 square feet of green plaster any longer than absolutely necessary.

Floored! (Part the Ninth)

2011-04-25T22:50:00.004-05:00

Recipe for happy Goddess:

Take promising 10x12 room on the second floor of a ninetysomething-year-old house.
Rip out unpromising, paint-stained wall-to-wall carpet and discover even less promising tongue-and-groove fir and structural repairs of uncertain providence.
Sigh heavily and take a couple of measurements.
Over a period of four years, dismantle subfloor in sections; reinforce and level joists; create new subfloor with ¾" plywood, one 2'x4' section at a time.
Paint the plywood.

Pop open a bottle of mead and sigh heavily... This time in satisfaction.

Stay tuned for Season Five of Springy G's Study! I don't expect it to take another four years to install the drop ceiling, track lighting, panelling and bookcases...

...Because I now have somewhere solid to stand while I'm doing those renovations.

Photo by Red.

Have clarinet, will travel

2011-04-10T23:32:00.007-05:00

Today I went on a little jaunt to Pinawa, Manitoba. The occasion was the biannual Manitoba Community Band Festival, sponsored by the Manitoba Band Association.

I didn't get any good action shots of the participating bands (Eastman, Assiniboia, Westwood, Royal Winnipeg Rifles or Northwinds, the band I play with) as My hands were, um, kind of full. We collectively tootled melodiously and had a wonderful time.

I did get some lovely shots from the bus from Winnipeg to Pinawa and back again, though. This is the Winnipeg River, which is actually not all that close to Winnipeg:

As you can see, it's also rather full at the moment.

And I got this snapshot of a cute little Class G star when it peeked out through the clouds on our way home:

Ooh, shiny.

Floored! (Part the Eighth)

2011-04-10T01:07:00.001-05:00

This post is coming about a week late due to an outbreak of Extreme Busyness at Astrejurhof, but suffice it to say that The Dreaded Floor is well on its way to being finished.

This is no mean feat, considering that the floor looked like this at about 2:00 p.m. last Sunday:

Já, that's really what it looks like underneath the plywood. Já, that's wood chip insulation spilling out from under the north wall. Já, the closet door is indeed maroon and white. See what I have to work with?

But we can fix that. Especially if one has access to one of these:

Calipers FTW! All that grubbing around, balancing on top of joists as I tried to read measuring tapes upside-down, and all I had to do was look a bit deeper in the toolbox. I levelled a piece of 2x3 with a few shims, then took some very accurate measurements at 1-foot intervals and custom-cut some wood to support the rail. Like so:

So, as of last Sunday, all of the floor-levelling infrastructure is in place. All that remains is to trim the bottom of the closet door, trim a few pieces of plywood, and start fastening it all down.

But not *this* Sunday... I have a clarinet gig later today. Film at 11.

Floored! (Part the Seventh)

2011-03-27T22:49:00.006-05:00

I did something completely amazing today: I did serious work on the study floor for the first time in over a year. In fact, I did so much work on it today that it may actually be finished in 2011.

In the above picture, the new floor is on the left; the old floor is on the right (with a bit more in in the top centre of the picture); and that bare lath peeking through is the top of the living room ceiling. If you look closely at the exposed joist in the foreground, you can see some rather interesting repairs done by an unknown party at some indeterminate point in the past.

We'll have none of that, thankyouverymuch.

The rectangular slots on the right were cut by Me this afternoon. They're access panels to permit the installation of stove bolts on a neighbouring floorboard:

Cutting the holes enabled Me to reach under the floor to thread washers and nuts onto the bottom end of the bolts, thereby anchoring fresh 2x4's to the top of the floor. Mass quantities of construction adhesive were also employed, although at least half of it squirted right back out again when I tightened down the new rails.

And I had helpers, of course:

I also bought the last 3 floorboards, and installed a support rail along the top of the penultimate joist, the entire length of the floor. There are some previously-installed boards that need to be cleaned and primed, and a few more feet to shim on one of the joists, but things are looking pretty good.

Finally.

Stay tuned...

Spring springs into action

2011-03-20T23:40:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Spring 2011 (and for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, Autumn 2011)!

Here in Winnipeg we don't have flowers and bunny rabbits just yet, but I'm expecting them Any Day Now. In the meantime...

(pours glasses of mead for Her blog guests and holds out a tin of chocolate chip cookies) Best of the season to all.

To the dump, to the dump...

2011-03-06T23:44:00.008-06:00

...To the dump dump dump! (Rossini's William Tell Overture swells to a crescendo) Hi ho Silver Cavalier! Awaaaay!

It was one of those days: Get up fashionably late; make coffee; beat up on unsuspecting furniture with hammers and wrenches, and toss it in the back of a car...

There has been a decidedly odd mood at Astrejurhof lately. Some of this can be attributed to hibernal fatigue in the closing weeks of the 2010-2011 winter season, but on the whole I think it's because both Red and I have been madly decluttering the house. As I sit at My desk, there's a distinct lack of stuff on the floor around Me. Aside from a few rogue bits of paper from the last time I emptied the shredder, the floor is clear. Not particularly clean (pauses to sweep up paper), but astoundingly better than it's been for years. It's still too early to call it a habit, but I'm starting to actually like the way this room looks.

Why the sudden upsurge in Neat and Tidy? I think it's the fact that we both got tired of not being able to move, lay out pieces of work or even find things, and started carting stuff out of the house in mass quantities. The good stuff goes to a local thrift store or, in the case of books, to the Children's Hospital Book Market. Everything we don't want and can't give away goes in the trash.

We did have a rather productive trip to the Brady Road landfill today, getting rid of a few items that were clogging up the front porch. I also tossed the pieces of kitchen ceiling that came down two weeks ago. There was a stiff northerly breeze up on the top of the hill at the dump, so we had to be careful when launching those hardboard panels -- The wind caught a couple of them and they came flying right back at us.

I just hope the thrift shop doesn't get tired of taking our gently-used stuff, because we've got lots more to give them. We're nowhere near done with this cleanup.

Garçon! Another round of empty boxes for the house, s'il vous plaît.

Long weekends always see Me coming...

2011-02-21T23:35:00.010-06:00

It's been a busy few days for your Friendly Neighbourhood Goddess of Random Equipment Malfunctions.

It all started on Thursday night, when Chala informed Me that there was a bit of water in the upstairs hallway. A recently installed toilet fill valve had taken it upon itself to commit valvicide, and the denizens of Astrejurhof charged to the rescue with towels, buckets and such. Within 15 minutes of discovering the flood we had the water mopped up, and a good portion of the kitchen moved into the dining room and living room. We also turned off the kitchen light, just in case.

Not knowing exactly what we were up against (the worst case scenario being a malfunctioning valve and a broken drainpipe), a decision was made to take down part of the kitchen ceiling and have a look. Fortunately, previous owners had already taken down the old plaster-and-lath ceiling and replaced it with 4x4 panels. On Sunday afternoon I got out My trusty work shoes and hauled a ladder up from the basement, and set to work.

That's how I discovered there was Something Terribly Wrong with the overhead lighting in the kitchen. Not water damage (fortunately, the H₂O from the flood hadn't come anywhere near it), but less-than-optimal installation of a very cheap surface-mount fixture that has burned out mass quantities of bulbs over the years. To be precise, the light fixture wasn't attached very well at all to the electrical feed. I had taken down the penultimate section of ceiling panel and unscrewed the fixture to get it out of the way of the last board, and when I pulled it down, the "hot" wire simply broke.

(Intermission as Springy G rushes back to the basement for Her toolbox of electrical supplies, and caps off the loose wires)

So Red and I went shopping.

We found a nice fixture in keeping with the eventual '50s retro theme of the equally eventual kitchen renovation (tentatively scheduled for after the end of the Mayan calendar but before the heat death of the universe). Along the way we also grabbed other essentials including an octagon box, wire clamps, light bulbs, potato chips, and a case of diet soda.

After we stopped for coffee, that is.

And then I set to work...

As you can see, My kitchen is already pretty retro as it is: Dig that crazy tube-and-post wiring, man. When the other half of the kitchen ceiling finally comes down I should be able to get the wiring upgraded, but for the moment I had to work with what was there. I installed the new electrical box on a nice, solid crossbeam and carefully brought all the necessary wires into the box, then unpacked the new fixture. I also added a couple of boards to serve as a temporary ceiling and stabilize the light fixture until a replacement ceiling goes up.

While the circuit was turned off it seemed like an opportune time to replace the light switch and a painted-over receptacle in the area, so I did that too. I also got a chance to investigate the Mystery Switch behind the microwave cart: It turns out that the Mystery Switch wasn't connected to anything; the only reason it was there was to secure a cover plate over some wires that had been capped off years ago.

Finally, everything electrical had been put right (or as right as it was going to get without Me taking a sledgehammer to the walls and a crowbar to the ceiling, and completely stripping out every last trace of old wiring). I went down to the basement, asked My brother Thor for a quick inspection, and turned the breaker back on.

Shirak, and all that.

(Oh, and I fixed the toilet, too... In the morning. Only took Me 1/10 of the time. )

Photos by Red.

Never bet on the hardware.

2011-02-13T23:12:00.003-06:00

One of the perks of being the Goddess of Random Equipment Malfunctions is that I occasionally get to vent My wrath on a piece of equipment.

This is Red's old hard drive after I got through with it. The objective: Open up the drive; make the data unreadable; rescue the cute little magnet within, and to Niflheim with the rest of the apparatus.

The hard drive had been assembled with small proprietary hex screws in a vain attempt to enforce the rule "No User Serviceable Parts Inside." Since I was more interested in destroying the drive than servicing it, this merely slowed Me down. After trying My jeweller's screwdrivers, a smallish Phillips screwdriver and the somewhat obscure #0 Robertson screwdriver, none of which quite fit, I headed to the basement of Astrejurhof.

Clamping the intractable drive in the bench vise, I hauled out a power drill and drilled out the heads of the razzafracking screws. Prying out the platter with the data on it, I clamped it in the vise and pummelled it with a 23-ounce framing hammer until it was bent at a rather interesting angle and the 1's and 0's had been duly rearranged. A bit more drilling detached the mechanism that held the magnet in place, and then everything else went into the trash.

(Springy G walks into kitchen and opens Her hand)

(Cute little magnet sticks itself to refrigerator door)

Done deal.

Springy G and the Enchanted Bobsled Run

2011-02-02T22:45:00.007-06:00

(slings Her clarinet knapsack over the back of the chair and sits down) Hei! I'm back from rehearsal. I joined a community band last week, so this was practice #2. My brain is full of new tunes, and My lower lip is ever so slightly numb.

The rehearsals are in North Kildonan, one of the more boreal areas of Winnipeg. To get there, I have to go "over the Disraeli" -- A short stretch of freeway followed by a longer series of bridge spans that go over the Red River and a lot of buildings.

When I come home after practice, it's later at night so the traffic has eased off, and the view from the bridge is quite spectacular. Tonight I had the Joe Jackson song "Steppin' Out" (one of My all-time favourite tunes) playing in My head as I came over the first rise and saw the city lights. It's a living postcard, Everycity, twinkling on the horizon like an Oz that had been desaturated in Photoshop.

Not that that's a bad thing, mind you: I think Winnipeg looks much better in late-evening greyscale than in emerald green. But I digress.

The fun comes at the downtown end of the bridge, where the Disraeli swoops down at an alarmingly steep angle and takes a 30° turn to the right. These two distortions of 3D space, compounded with residual ice from last week's snowstorm, put this little stretch of road in Xtreme Sports territory.

I don't think I'll be joining the Canadian bobsled team any time soon, though.

Or the Jamaican one, either.

Tootling melodiously, harmonically and honourably

2011-01-21T23:03:00.003-06:00

It's official: My exam marks are in, and I have passed Grade 6 Clarinet. I achieved Honours status (between 70-80%), which is just fine with Me. And so it begins: The long, hard trek to *gulp* Grade 8 Clarinet. I'm going to aim for the Spring 2013 exam session, which gives me nearly 2½ years to prepare.

First things first: Get a copy of the technical requirements, and start working on the scales and arpeggios...

...No, that's the second thing. (sips some lager) That was the first thing.

Come to think of it, I can't get a copy of the Grade 8 syllabus till Monday. In the meantime, there's lots of things to do this weekend:

Research cross-country ski bindings to find out what the heck I've got on My skis (and what the heck I should replace them with so that they actually match the boots);
Clean up My office.
Research reading Best Practices so that I can get through the average 300-page book in something less than Geologic Time.
Clean up My study so that I have room to work on The Dreaded Floor again.
Restore the .jpeg scan that I made of the torn and faded dial plate of an old Viking table radio, a very nice-looking piece of cabinetry but completely devoid of circuitry.
Clean up My workshop.
Schlep a bunch of stuff to the local thrift store, including (but not limited to) books, picture frames, stuffed penguins, surplus carving tools and assorted gently-used knickknacks.
Go shopping.
Go for coffee.
Go to the gym.
Go cross-country skiing.

And play some clarinet, of course.

Okay, pencils down!

2011-01-17T19:52:00.004-06:00

Reeds, too. You over there in the striped shirt--Put down the clarinet and back away slowly.

I've just put My horn away for the third time today, having finished half an hour of practice after a 45-minute lesson and My Royal Conservatory Grade 6 exam.

To get to this point, I had to rehearse 2 pieces (Nocturne by Luigi Bassi and Divertimento #1 by Mozart), 6 studies (half Galper, half Nocenti), plus scales (chromatic plus 12 each major and minor harmonic, plus 12 minor melodic, just because) and arpeggios (12 major and 12 minor).

Let's just say that by the time we got to the sight-reading and the ear tests, My fingers were ready for a nice coffee break... Which Red and I had after I packed up the clarinet for the first time and went trundling out to the car with the certain knowledge that...

"It's over! The exam is over! Woot!"

I have no idea what My mark is going to be, but I do feel a nice calm inside. The pieces went well, and I and My accompanist played together very well. The studies were fine, and I actually was un-panicked enough to throw in some nice dynamic changes here and there.

The arpeggios were okay, too.

That chromatic scale, however... *shudder*

And in all My years of playing clarinet (about 5½ years of lessons so far), I have never experienced the phenomenon of the reed *and* My tongue drying out simultaneously.

(pauses to sip a glass of Pinot Grigio) Ah, that's better. Remind Me to schedule My next RCM exam for some season other than the dead of winter.

On your mark, get set...

2011-01-05T19:06:00.004-06:00

Start Anywhere.

I feel as if I should be putting a little ™ at the end of the sentence above, but instead I'm going to make this a Creative Commons exhortation.

What you see is what you get: A very simple tool to deal with procrastination, one moment at a time.

The Start AnywHere campaign by Astreja K. Odinsdóttir is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at springygoddess.blogspot.com.

Welcome to 2011!

2011-01-01T20:23:00.004-06:00

Welcome to the 2011 edition of The Springy Goddess! May life find you well, and may you find the tools to make it even better.

The things you can find at garage sales...

2010-12-28T18:03:00.004-06:00

As befits My Scandinavian ancestry and current interest in cardiovascular fitness, today I finally tried out the cross-country skis that Red and I found at a neighbour's garage sale several years ago. The weather was so unseasonably nice this afternoon in Winnipeg (a high today of -3℃) that I hauled the skis out of the basement rafters, applied a coat of all-purpose wax, and brought them outside to make-go.

There don't appear to be any groomed XC ski trails in our neighbourhood, so I had to content Myself with a quick sojourn down the front sidewalk and a few trips up and down the back alley, where there was much more snow. I'm still fussing with the bindings a little bit but have mostly figured out how to keep the skis on My feet long enough to get from Here to There in one piece.

Overall, this is much more promising than My last attempt at skiing: A January 1970 venture to Mont Sutton, Quebec which involved falling off the T-bar multiple times, coming down the hill perhaps thrice, and spending the rest of the Grade 7 field trip in the chalet with mass quantities of hot dogs and hot chocolate as I waited for My feet to thaw out. (Sometime after we returned from the trip, I heard a rumour that the wind chill that day had been in the neighbourhood of -45℃.)

This is much better.

Photos by Red.

I can haz cardio?

2010-12-24T13:43:00.002-06:00

I do think I'm onto something fairly major here.

Last week, I finally resorted to Drastic Means: Joining the gym at work.

I seem to have become addicted to one of the aerobics machines, a bizarre little unit that's the love child of an elliptical trainer and a pair of inline skates. It moves in a way that MC Springy G moves: Erratically, with a goddessly hip wiggle and a covert knee strike to the yarbles at the top of the step.

Suffice to say that I'm actually using the razzafracking machine when I go to the gym--Something I've done three times so far in the past week.

We'll see how this plays out over the holidays, but... So far, so good.

And here's one we've already... Oh, wait...

2010-12-19T19:19:00.004-06:00

Well, I finished My Jól baking this afternoon. I'm actually a day early--I've been known to start baking at 9:00 p.m. the evening before the equinox or solstice--But I do feel rather like I've just been hit by a large pastry truck.

This year's offerings include the classic Skor™ Cookies that we regularly make here at Astrejurhof. They turned out exceedingly well this year. I attribute this to the fact that I made the balls of dough a bit smaller than usual, which kept the cookies from melting into one another and also allowed them to crisp up very consistently.

I had originally intended to make standard shortbread, but ended up completely winging it. The result: Various festive shapes flavoured with candied orange peel. Any resemblance to shortbread is purely coincidental, but they taste pretty good.

Armed with My trusty Purity Cookbook, I attempted their version of Sugar Cookies. They're not quite the same as the ones I made when I was a young Goddess, but they're not bad and do remind Me a little of the recipe I used way back when.

I also made two types of macaroons based very loosely on our brownie recipe:

Melt ½ cup of unsalted butter in a saucepan on low heat.
Add 1 cup sugar and stir well.
For chocolate macaroons, also add ¾ cup of cocoa and another ½ cup of sugar to offset the bitterness of the cocoa.
Add 1 teaspoon vanilla for chocolate macaroons. For almond macaroons, add ½ teaspoon vanilla and 1 teaspoon almond extract.
Add 2 eggs and beat until combined.
Chocolate macaroons: Add 1½ cups uncooked shredded unsweetened coconut, fine or medium.
Almond macaroons: Toast 2 cups of coconut on parchment paper on a cookie sheet at 300℉-325℉ for 10 minutes, stirring once at the 5-minute mark. Add the toasted coconut along with sufficient uncooked coconut to thicken up the batter. (I used about another 1¼ cups to get the consistency I wanted.)
Drop spoonfuls onto ungreased parchment paper, no more than 12 macaroons to a cookie sheet, and bake at 325℉ for 17-20 minutes.
To unrack the macaroons, let them cool on the pan for a few minutes--At least till the outer edges feel firm. Invert a cooling rack on top of the cookies, then hold the cookie sheet and the rack in both hands and flip the whole assembly over. Lift away the cookie sheet; peel off and discard the parchment paper.

Gleðileg Jól and best of the season to all!

Memories of a Northbound Bus

2010-12-08T12:27:00.004-06:00

The date was December 8, 1980; the time, about 10:30 p.m. I was riding over Winnipeg's Midtown Bridge en route to an overnight shift at an all-night restaurant.

Then one of the passengers near the front of the bus mentioned that John Lennon had been shot. My life changed in that moment; the moment itself, burned indelibly into memory even after thirty years.

I will continue to grieve and to remember.

And to Yoko, Cynthia, Sean, Julian, and all others who loved John, may love endure.

I am not a number; I am a free novelist!

2010-11-30T21:09:00.005-06:00

It's just after 9:00 p.m. CST on November 30, 2010. I'm gallivanting around on the Internet and listening to a classic rock station Real Loud, rather than typing madly away and looking anxiously at the clock.

This can mean only one thing...

Yes, it's NaNoWin Number Six! (cracks open a beer and toasts the entire cast of A Boat Called Ilsa and the residents of Astrejurhof, who made this all possible)

Oh, and I used up everything on Red's word list, too. Life is good.

Nine Nano-Days to Go

2010-11-21T03:15:00.004-06:00

As we round the corner and head for the finish line in NaNoWriMo 2010, I'm making reasonably good time with A Boat Called Ilsa. I passed 30,000 words just after midnight Saturday and am going to make an attempt at 35,000 words today.

Speaking of words, here is the current status of Red's word list for this year:

stenographer mushroom tickle ballet chaps frost rust impala soap opera lisp practical value wattage Kant quatrain harbinger detain booster cha cha apple erosion ganja peal nonsense realization January vacuum magnetic opulent Tupperware

Yes, I did indeed get the words 'opulent,' 'stenographer' and 'Kant' into a book. (Mind you, said book has morphed into a story about dream interpretation, midlife crises and giant yellow budgies crashing through skylights...) That's 17 of 30 words down, a baker's dozen to go.

And speaking of baking... (peers into scrying device that looks remarkably like large mixing bowl in kitchen) ...I foresee that I may have to whip up a batch of Skor™ cookies sometime in the next few days. Writing is darned hard work.

But oh! such fun. I love these November novelling rants, because even I'm not sure where A Boat Called Ilsa is headed right now.

Springy G Does Opera (Extreme NaNoHooky Edition)

2010-11-19T00:26:00.008-06:00

Tonight, as I am wont to do on the third Thursday of November, I went to a Manitoba Opera dress rehearsal with Red. This is a tradition that started in 2005, the year that I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. (In fact, in that year's story The Week of Alibis, I wrote the opera performance right into the plot by making it the alibi for one of the characters).

This year we saw Tosca, which is as close to a traditional opera storyline as one would want to get. You just know there's going to be trouble when two of the principal characters are stone dead and there's still one act to go.

Tonight is also My official "play hooky" night. I'm taking a very brief break from writing this year's story A Boat Called Ilsa, but am back at it tomorrow with a couple of plot developments. My hero Janet North now knows the source of the claustrophobia that's plagued her for untold years, and also learns why dear old Uncle Waldo gave her his boat.

In the meantime, I leave you with this wonderful cartoon by Kim Thompson:

All the Great Operas in 10 Minutes

Steady as she goes...

2010-11-07T23:37:00.002-06:00

As Week 1 of NaNoWriMo draws to a close, I am right on schedule with a word count of just over 12,000 words.

I'm also right on schedule with Red's word list:

Finally, I've succeeded in getting computer technician Janet North and her faithful dragon companion Glori safely to Hanabago Beach, Missouri. But only if you have a very loose definition of 'safely.'

They're now a long way from Winnipeg, and the plot arc and cast of A Boat Called Ilsa has officially merged with that of My radio play The Cult of the Velvet Schnauzer. An exchange between TCotVS principals Dimitri Papadopolis-Smith (with a Q) and radio host May Atkinson:

"...Ve are in craven danger, all over again."
"You mean 'grave danger,' don't you, Dimitri?"

"No, Mizmay; I am meanink craven. As in run-away scared."

And no, the danger has nothing to do with the copy of James Joyce's Ulysses that Janet has been trying to read.

Yet...

T-minus 22 hours and counting...

2010-10-31T02:00:00.001-05:00

It's 2:00 a.m. on October 31, 2010 and Red has delivered this year's shipment of NaNoWords. These are 30 words -- One word for every day of NaNoWriMo -- And it's My job to make sure that each and every one of them gets into this year's story, A Boat Called Ilsa.

And here they are:

Let's get ready to rumble!

How do you fold a mind map?

2010-10-22T20:43:00.010-05:00

Okay, I admit it: I am a profoundly disorganized Goddess. Don't let the file box, the notes on the bulletin board and the neatly lined-up CDs fool you -- For every one thing that's in its proper place, there are at least ten more somewhere nearby.

Lurking. Waiting to spring.

Or should that be 'waiting for spring'?

In between playing clarinet, doing yardwork, editing My novel Ice Cream for Lakshmi and nailing an old shirt to canvas stretchers with a staple gun,* I've been attempting to read a book called How to be Organized in Spite of Yourself (Schlenger & Roesch).

It's not working; at least, not yet. About all I've figured out so far is that I don't fit neatly into any of the disorganization styles presented in the book. I can, however, make a good case for fitting into at least six of them, with a pronounced bias towards "Hopper," "Everything Out" and "Fence Sitter."

(reaches for Her glass of single malt Scotch and frowns as she considers the camcorder manual, carving tools and two tape dispensers on the desk, then shoves the computer repair tools over by the elephant figurine and makes a mental note to put Her point-and-click camera back in Her purse where it belongs)

Like I said... Disorganized. I don't even need sticky tape at the moment.

(puts the carving tools and the tape away in their respective storage boxes; makes another mental note to take the flashlight back down the kitchen after She installs the USB and FireWire cards in Red's computer)

So this is what I'm going to do instead: I'm going to spend a few minutes tonight learning how mind mapping works, and then I'm going to see if I can actually make-go.

And then maybe I'll be organized enough to figure out this organizing book.

* Why? Because you can *never* have too many Ming-style dragon pictures, or too few 100% polyester shirts.

Back To My Music

2010-10-11T23:50:00.006-05:00

Back in the wilds of 1974, when I was a young Goddess studying multimedia production at a CEGEP out east, I had a truly formidable collection of music magazines: Rolling Stone, Creem, New Musical Express, Rainbow, and just about anything else I could find at the local newsstands. Somewhere in one of those publications I found a review of the album Tasty by the Good Rats.

Although I had never heard of this band before, the review apparently made quite an impression on Me. Not long afterwards, My TV production class went on a field trip to New York City. In the course of a demented romp down Broadway on Saturday night*, I found Tasty in a record store somewhere near 42nd Street.

I bought Tasty, sight unseen (or should that be 'sound unheard'?) solely on the strength of that one review, and I loved it.

In the intervening years the album was (lost / destroyed / kidnapped by aliens / shredded by Qat / all of the above). Then I decided I wanted it back, as detailed in this post and reasserted in this post, here.

I'm starting to think that Red can find literally anything, because a few days ago she presented Me with a new copy of this long-lost album. I'm currently listening to the track "Phil Fleish," and it's rocking the house. Better yet, My musical sensitivities have matured considerably over the course of 36 years, and I'm hearing things in the music that I completely missed back in 1974.

In short... This album was a winner then, and it's a winner now.

*Happy dance* *Happy dance*

* The stated purpose for said romp down Broadway was to locate a stuffed toy penguin suitable for placing on top of one's television set, in the spirit of the Monty Python skit. My classmates and I didn't find the penguin, but apparently that also left an impression upon Me because I now have a stuffed penguin collection of My very own.

Imagine...

2010-10-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

...if John Lennon had lived to celebrate his 70th birthday.

I miss you, John.

Hocus Pocus and Sudoku Focus

2010-10-08T22:40:00.005-05:00

It's Friday night at Astrejurhof, and I'm sitting here at My desk practicing creative procrastination. What I think I should be doing doesn't quite match up with what I seem to need to do at the moment.

Apparently that need currently involves classic rock music, Sudoku, and beer. I've already finished a lovely mug of Oktoberfest Lager from Half Pints Brewing, a local concern located just down the street from where I buy the honey for My meadmaking.

And after I finished the Oktoberfest, I started playing Sudoku. That was also about the time I started channel-hopping on My stereo receiver, because new age worldbeat experimental stuff and whatnot was simply not doing it for Me tonight.

Lo and behold, I found a station playing the song Hocus Pocus by Focus. It's been years since I've heard this piece of sonic mayhem, which has it all: Yodelling, flute, accordion, and the standard 70's-flavour organ-and-guitar riffing that I love so much.

The song made Me smile.

Oh, and I won the Sudoku game, too.

Mystery Mead

2010-10-02T23:54:00.003-05:00

Tonight I brewed the mead for next spring's Equinox celebrations.

I have no idea how much honey I actually put in, but I suspect it was well in excess of 4 kilograms for a 12-litre batch. I used up the remainder of a 7-kilogram pail of white clover honey, plus a few squirts from a bottle of kitchen honey.

I also have no flippin' idea as to the specific gravity of the mixture, as I had already poured it all into the carboy and put on the S-trap before I noticed the hydrometer sitting on the kitchen counter.

Translation: When this batch eventually stops blorping and there's no more sugar to turn into alcohol, I will have absolutely no idea as to its alcohol content. My standard batch (3 kilograms of liquid clover honey to 10 litres of spring water) comes out fairly consistently at 7% C₂H₅OH, so with nearly 50% more honey in the mix I'm expecting something at least as potent as My favourite beer. La Fin du Monde.

Either that, or I'll have the first carboy in space.

Welcome to OutlineWriMo!

2010-10-01T14:34:00.002-05:00

It's October 1, 2010. That means I have exactly 31 days to decide what I'm doing for NaNoWriMo this year.

Fortunately, I've already done that. It gives Me great pleasure to introduce...

A Boat Called Ilsa

...Being the twisted tale of Janet North, a hypothyroid and chromatically challenged computer geek (think Hal Jordan with a ponytail and sensible shoes) and her guardian dragon Glori (think Humphrey Bogart with a six-pack of raspberry jambusters and a take-out double-double).

Jan has some family business to sort out, and she and Glori are headed for the town of Hanabago Beach, which I last visited in My radio play The Cult of the Velvet Schnauzer.

You just *know* there's gonna be trouble -- And that's what makes it so much fun.

No more frogs, please; I'm full.

2010-09-30T23:01:00.003-05:00

Tonight, I have good reason to suspect that someone has once again wandered off with Me and replaced Me with a stunt Goddess or possibly yet another Evil Twin.

I mean, really: It's Thursday night, and how many times have I practiced clarinet this week?

Four. That's right... Every day since My last lesson.

Over there on the music stand (on top of the David Hite book Melodious and Progressive Studies and My clarinet practice journal) are some forms to be completed this weekend.

To My right, leaning up against the Linux box, there are exactly zero bank reconciliations to do and zero bills to pay; just a couple of forms that I need to drop off at My Credit Union sometime in the next month or so.

I've also been running errands all over the place, and doing some serious typing at work. Today I logged over 12,000 words of medical transcription. (To put this in perspective, if I could type like that for NaNoWriMo, I'd finish My novel in four days instead of 30.)

To make this bizarre situation even stranger, we're just minutes away from October and the weather is beautiful. I expect to get some serious yard work done this weekend, and also install some lovely new High Places (sundry ramps and platforms) in the Cat Gazebo.

And there are two or three computers I'd like to work on, too.

There's only one thing I'd like to know right now:

Why *is* this desk still messy?

(Evil Twin scribbles 'Clean desk' on scrap of paper)

(Springy G seizes paper and tears it into itty bitty pieces... Over the garbage can)

*sighs heavily* Awright, pass the %&@#!! dustpan and let's get this over with.

This week's special: 2-for-1 holidays!

2010-09-23T14:07:00.002-05:00

First things first: Season's greetings to all in the Southern Hemispere! I wish you all a fine vernal equinox, and may your regional Springy Deity look kindly upon you.

Oh, and happy autumnal equinox to all on My side of the planet, too.

In other news, tomorrow (September 24) is National Punctuation Day. As the Goddess of Punctuation, I intend to party hearty.

Now, where did I put that basket of candied semicolons and parentheses?

Speed up! Slow down! Something like that.

2010-09-22T22:38:00.006-05:00

I'm back to My weekly clarinet lessons, and trying to make the best use of the practice time. Currently, the skill I'm trying to develop might be called a meta-skill: Learning how to learn, and then refining that learning so that I get more bang for My buck.

Having just completed an hour of practice, I'm mildly shaken by the idea of how easy it is to gloss over mistakes when you're trying to get somewhere.

Like the altissimo register notes in the E♭ minor scale.

Or to the next section of that G minor study by Domenico Nocentini.

Or even through that really, really long phrase in the recapitulation section of "Nocturne" by Luigi Bassi, in one breath, while fending off a head cold. (reaches for handkerchief) *honk*

I managed to get the scales relatively under control by halving the time -- Keeping My metronome going steady but playing quarter notes instead of eighth notes -- and then going back to tempo once all the notes were clean.

I mostly got the breathing right in "Nocturne," and nailed a few of the high notes in the a piacere section near the end, too.

I even sortofmaybeperhaps got the demisemiquaver turnaround in the Nocentini study, too.

Without chewing My own lips off.

But it was pretty close.

Next practice, I think I'll teach Myself how to relax while playing a musical instrument.

It's down, and it's good!

2010-09-07T22:24:00.011-05:00

It's official: Springy G. and Company are now bereft of garages. This is what it looked like on the Sunday morning immediately before Labour Day:

As you can see in this photo, there are a still a few things left standing: The garage door; the walls; and a fair portion of the roof. But we can fix that.

First, Red helped Me unbolt the door and tote it safely off to one side. I then finished stripping the sheathing off the walls, making an already large pile of scrap lumber twice as big.

And then I took on the roof. (Or, more precisely, took off the roof.)

I quickly found an easy way to take down the nine or so roof trusses: Detach them from the boards that I had left in place earlier; pry up one end with a crowbar; and push real hard. The trusses swung gracefully into a point-down position, whereupon I simply climbed down the ladder and lifted them off the walls. By sunset on Sunday evening, I had all but three of them down and had broken them down into their component pieces.

Awakening bright and early (that is, before noon) on Labour Day, I went outside determined to finish the job. The last roof trusses came down, and then it was time for some Serious Demolition...

...But first, we took a short break to deal with a 16-year-old ladder-climbing Qat.

Ludwig, where is your hardhat?

I know where My hardhat was -- On My head for the better part of the day. It, and the goggles, saved Me from injury at least once during this session when a rogue board zigged instead of zagging like it was supposed to do. Not that I blame them; I was wielding a 23-ounce framing hammer, a wrecking bar and a circular saw with Extreme Prejudice.

*WHAM* Take that!

*YANK* Aaaand that!

And, at a little past 6:30 p.m., down comes the very last wall...

Whee! This is fun.

Done deal. Tomorrow morning the hauling guys come to take it all away.

Photos by Red, who helped with that big steel door and pushed and pulled a few timbers, as well as coming to get Me with an umbrella at least once over the past few weeks.

I could've sworn there was a roof here a minute ago...

2010-09-01T21:14:00.009-05:00

Welcome back to TSG, which today attempts to answer the question "How long does it take a Goddess to dismantle an entire garage?"

Answer: Slightly longer than I expected, due to bursts of inclement weather, but about a tenth as long as the last time I dismantled an entire garage. Já, I've done this before. (Helpful Hint: Take the shingles off first, and the rest is easy.)

I did a nice bit of work yesterday evening. By the time it started to get dusky, I had all the shingles off (w00t!) and all the roof boards as well, except a couple which I deliberately left in place to keep the roof trusses upright and fairly stable.

The Dark Legion, who had been watching from a safe distance, found the roofless garage quite entertaining. Gregory Grayscale, for instance:

And then My lovely assistant, Ludwig "Qat" von Snow, came around to do a quick site inspection:

I'm storing the demolition material inside the garage...

...At least while there still *is* an "inside." Stay tuned...

Photos by Red.

Deconstructionalism and Bee Futs

2010-08-29T01:29:00.011-05:00

Somewhere in the wilds of suburban Winnipeg, high in the boughs of an ancient garage, lurks...

...a somewhat damp Goddess.

It's a Saturday evening in August, and it's raining. In fact, it's been raining all day (or at least since *I* got up, if you want to get technical about it). However, I am not one to let a spot of inclement weather stop Me, and I did indeed spend a few hours in wrecking-ball mode.

It was too damp to use power tools, so I restricted Myself to the basics: Ladder; hammer; crowbar; and various pieces of safety equipment including steel-toed shoes, heavy gloves, goggles, and a hair elastic. I worked outside for two hours and a bit, and managed to tear off a remarkable number of shingles and quite a respectable amount of fir sheathing in varying stages of decay.

It was a bit after 8:30 p.m. when I finally decided it was too dark to work safely. I heaped up the most recent bunch of torn-off stuff, put the tools away, and wobbled into the house to clean up. Red and I then went out for a snack, then came home to watch Disc 2 of Max Headroom.

By sunset tomorrow, I should have the rest of the roof completely off. Then I can start cutting up the sheathing on the garage walls and strip it down to bare 2x4's. Finally, the roof framing and the stud walls will be taken down, section by section.

But we probably won't take the remains to the dump in My Cavalier... I think two, perhaps three pickup loads or one trip in a Bee Fut* oughta do it.

* In regards to futs (especially ones that are sufficiently bee to hold My entire garage), this guy's son knows whereof I speak.

Photos by Red.

RTFM FTW!

2010-08-26T22:20:00.005-05:00

The nice thing about being the Goddess of Random Equipment Malfunctions* is that You learn a lot about the inner workings of household appliances.

The not-so-nice thing about being the Goddess of Random Equipment Malfunctions: You occasionally find Yourself up to Your elbows in dirt, dust, grease and mysterious bits and pieces of household appliances.

Today after supper I finally tackled Astrejurhof's long-suffering upright vacuum cleaner, which is an absolute must in a house full of rowdy cats. It hadn't been picking up; in fact, it was starting to appear that said vacuum had obtained an unlisted phone number and/or run off to Pango-Pango with the battery from My 2001 Cavalier. (Já, goddesses do have car problems. Really good garage guys, too. But I digress.)

I did find the vacuum sulking and pouting in the back of the kitchen, in The Once and Future Spare Washroom (again, a story and a half in itself). Cajoling the device out into the open, I pushed and pulled and checked the hoses and washed the filters and cleaned lint and hair off the rotating brush.

Then I broke down and searched the kitchen Junk Drawer for the manual. In this way I was able to competently open up the brush compartment to check the drive belt...

...Um. Drive belts are supposed to be loops, not linear strips of rubber.

(throws broken belt and manual into purse) Well, the rest of this adventure should be a snap. If you get My drift.

* My current magisteria are the Northern Hemisphere vernal equinox; chocolate; punctuation; and random equipment malfunctions. Occasionally I think about assuming more responsibilities; then I have a nice lie-down until I feel better.

Live on Network 23

2010-08-14T01:50:00.002-05:00

22 years after it first aired on network TV, I have a complete set of one of My all-time favourite TV shows.

Takk fyrir, Weird Wish Faerie!

Inkadinkadoo!

2010-08-11T21:36:00.005-05:00

Back off, man! That bag of hardfiskur is Mine. Mine, I tell you!

(Whistles for Sköll and Hati)

(Wolves stop chasing the sun and moon just long enough to give Me a puzzled look; scarf down the entire bag of dried fish jerky; go right back to chasing the sun and moon)

Excuse Me for just a moment...

(Sighs heavily and takes off armor; wanders back down the hill to the shops; buys Herself another bag of dried fish)

Já, it's time for Springy G's annual report on the Manitoba Icelandic festival Islendingadagurinn, or as Red is wont to call it, Inkadinkadoo. The festival happened over the August long weekend, and we all went for a drive up to Gimli. The weather started out a bit worrisome, with a thunderstorm over Winnipeg, but as we drove north the skies cleared up rather nicely.

This year I made a special point of seeing the Viking Village; last year we happened upon it just as the fight show was beginning, and the Village was closed. I saw some nice things, including this pair of Viking lyres:

And we all did a bit of shopping. Here, Chala and Red are examining one vendor's shiny wares:

I also acquired a copy of The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum and Willy Pogany, and a tiny little Viking warrior whom I named Sonja, but whose name is apparently Sven.

I still think she looks like a Sonja. More importantly, she thinks she looks like a Sonja. So there, nyaah.

RickRolled... in 3D!

2010-08-06T21:26:00.004-05:00

So there I was, walking up to My desk to file some papers...

...and this leaps out at Me!

That's right, folks: Springy G now has an honest-to-goodness Rick Astley cassette tape sitting on Her desk. I do have My suspicions as to the culprit, mainly because Red has already confessed to the deed.

I don't currently have a cassette deck, but I was intending to add one to My audio rack.

Eventually.

Perhaps.

Oh, what the hey. You just *know* I'm going to end up playing this thing eventually.

It still doesn't hurt to ask for what you want.

2010-07-31T23:47:00.010-05:00

As I pointed out here, I have a truly remarkable track record regarding wish fulfilment. The key to My success is simple: I'm pretty darned specific as to what I want.

Rumour has it that the seventh and final item on My original Wish List, a complete DVD set of the Max Headroom TV series, is scheduled for release on August 10, 2010. I'll believe it when I see it. I'll also be pulling out My debit card at approximately the same moment.
StarCraft II has now been out for four whole days, and I *will* be getting a copy approximately five nanoseconds after I upgrade to a stronger Windows-based system.
I finally have an actual stereo receiver (In fact, I'm listening to "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones as I type), with a dedicated disc player to follow sometime in the next two weeks.
And, as of this evening, I now have a recumbent exercise cycle of My very own. Red and I picked it up for about $20 CDN, and it works just fine. I've already put a quarter of a mile on it, which is No Mean Feat for a goddess with iliotibial bands so tight they could be used to cut aged Parmesan cheese, and vastus medialis muscles that are only now coming out of hiding after untold years in the Witness Protection Program.

Seriously, though... It's time to do some serious work on the second list. I still want My Stratocaster XII back (an early 1990's beige-white one, pleaseandthankyou), along with My Chinese jian, My "See Food" coffee cup, a bottle of Eau de Love, a bottle of Avon's Somewhere cologne, and the album Tasty by the Good Rats.

But I'm revising My optimal weight downward. 170 pounds feels... Incomplete, somehow. I'm going to try for 150 instead.

Just in case there's a Rolling Stones concert I need to jog laps around one fine summer night. Priorities, y'know.

Photo by Red.

How to install a stereo receiver

2010-07-27T22:50:00.007-05:00

Welcome to another "How-to (and how not-to)" episode of TSG. In today's episode, I purchase a 100-watt stereo receiver of My Very Own, and actually get it configured just so.

What you'll need:

A nice, shiny new piece of audio gear (in My case, a Yamaha RX-397)
A 19" equipment rack (built here) with a rack shelf that I bought specifically for this purpose
Dustpan and whisk broom
Floor cleaner, because I'm not getting down on that floor to do any work before I clean up that puddle of cat pee
One sheet of disposable cleaning rag (see above)
Hand soap (ditto)
Two steel angle brackets to add extra support to the back of the rack shelf
¾" x #10 wood screws
A leatherworking awl, to make starter holes for the wood screws
A slightly-melted fuchsia-coloured multi-bit screwdriver
A couple of nice, heavy bookshelf-size speakers which I bought about 10 years ago but haven't yet pressed into service
A quick lie-down, because with the humidity it feels like 40℃
A peek at the manual, just because
Various contortions that vaguely resemble an entire hatha yoga class trying to dance to "Rock Lobster" under someone's front porch
A bottle of La Fin du Monde beer and a couple of European wieners with fried onions
One ⅛" to ¼" adaptor
One set of headphones
Another set of headphones, because the first set is only working on one side
Red's help to test the wonky headphones and declare them perfectly functional
A good night's sleep
A coffee run
A brand new ⅛" to ¼" headphone adaptor, because the first one was shorting out
A spool of proper 18-gauge speaker wire, because the cheap red-and-black stuff that came with the speakers seems to have a break on the left side
Another lie-down
Scissors and an extremely sharp Swedish-made Frosts knife, to strip the insulation off the new speaker wire
A few more contortions to run the new wire through the equipment rack, out the back and under the desk
One more bottle of La Fin de Monde beer
A hug from My teddy bear, Mikhael Bearzhezhinski; a thumbs-up from My guardian dragon Glori; and an "Ooh! Ahh!" from Red, who has come downstairs to hear what the new system sounds like

What you will probably not need:

Five or six MIDI cables
Power adaptor for now-defunct 10/100 Ethernet switch
Three completely different USB cables
A guitar cord
Needle nose pliers
A copy of Essential System Administration by Æleen Frisch (but only because I no longer need it to hold up the paper tray on My printer)
A bag containing 45' of spare Cat 5e network cable
A video switchbox
A cable from a KVM switch
A Command and Conquer disk that has yet to run properly on the WINE emulator on My Linux system
A toy car (bright red BMW Z8)
A Clue-By-Four™ (parks Her weapon of choice back in the corner next to Her desk)

Elapsed time: About three hours of actual labour over two evenings. Special thanks to Larry, the IT instructor who taught Me that approximately 90% of all computer problems are bad connections. I took that lesson to heart many years ago (and expanded it to include electronic stuff and whatnot in general), and it continues to pay off handsomely. I mean, a broken speaker wire *and* a broken headphone adaptor? It happens.

And if you take anything home from this episode of TSG, let it be this: Life is far too short to waste on cheap speaker wire.

Going Medieval

2010-07-24T23:32:00.002-05:00

Chala and Red and I went back to Cook's Creek this afternoon, this time to attend the biannual Medieval Festival.

We had a representative from the Order of White Robes, of which I am a proud (and duly Tested) member...

...Ancient devices that deliver pizza (and tasty rocks) in 30 seconds or less...

...Various "WTF?" moments...

...A few arguments over parking spaces...

...A mouse who just wanted to party hearty...

...And Max, whom I'm sure I saw at Wildlife Haven in Île-des-Chênes a couple of months ago.

A fine time was had by all.

And next time, in 2012, I'm wearing My white robes to the party.

Demo Mode

2010-07-23T23:30:00.005-05:00

Back off, man. I have a demolition permit, and I know how to use it!

The long-awaited Disappearing of My long-suffering garage is finally underway. On Wednesday I went to the City Planning and Permits office, pulled out My debit card, and obtained official permission to make said garage go away. On Thursday I made the required phone calls to the fine Call Before You Dig folks at various utilities, and by a quarter after one today I had received official assurance that yes, I can tear down the garage without disrupting electricity, phone, cable or dihydrogen monoxide service to the neighbourhood, or causing a massive explosion that would ruin everyone's day.

So begins Episode 1 of "You can too fit a whole garage into a 2001 Cavalier!"

Or not.

But you just know I'm going to try. Stay tuned...

Photo by Red.

East by Northeast

2010-07-18T21:12:00.006-05:00

Red, Chala and I went on a jaunt into the Manitoba countryside this afternoon, heavily armed with photographic equipment.

After a quick breakfast en route, our first stop was the Immaculate Conception Church of Cook's Creek where I got this picture:

My gear for this photo op was Red's Olympus E410. I still need to put in some quality time with Oly, but I do think I'm starting to Get It.

From the church we proceeded northward and then west to the town of Lockport.

After lunch, Red walked up onto a nearby bridge to take a few more pictures, and then we all piled into the car and headed back to the city. We stumbled in, made lunch for the Dark Legion, and rested just long enough to have the strength for an ice cream run.

Manitoba weekends FTW!

Ceci n'est pas un floor.

2010-07-17T00:59:00.005-05:00

I got severely plastered tonight. Oddly enough, I am now one small step closer to finishing the study floor. Even more odd is the fact that I didn't actually work on the study floor.

As one walks into the study, on the left is a short stretch of wall with a heating duct and a light switch. For the purpose of putting in some new circuits and pulling up some fresh coaxial cable for the Internet, the bottom section of this wall was pried open somewhere around 2004 or 2005.

More recently, to improve the heating on the second floor, I did a bit of sheet metal work* and closed off the cold air return on that side of the wall because, according to a heating contractor, the warm air that was being pumped upstairs was just being sucked right downstairs to the basement again. (Now it has to go around the wall and over My feet to get to the other cold air return conveniently situated right behind My open-framed desk.)

And earlier this week, I constructed a new duct boot for the hot air side of the system, one that directs warm stuff above the floor and into the study, rather than into the joist system.

The bottom line: After finishing the HVAC infrastructure for the study, I had about six feet of broken-up wall that needed an Extreme Makeover. This involved loosening one of the floorboards I had already laid, to make sure the wall got fixed all the way to the bottom. Then I mixed, and plastered, and mixed again.

The wall looks much, much better now. I now have just a light topcoat of plaster to apply to the lower part of the wall. Once it's all thoroughly dry, I'll finally be in a position to finish the subfloor at the study entrance.

And then, only then, comes the rest of that third and final row of boards.

And then another two or three electrical circuits for the 2nd and 3rd floor northwest corner. A new ceiling, with track lighting. A new window. Proper hardwood flooring, not cheap laminate. Built-in bookcase across the entire west wall, with cat-friendly ramparts and walkways, and room to sew or paint or carve. A nice black leather couch. One of those Himalayan salt lamps. Perhaps even a flat-screen TV...

Ah, the interconnectedness of all things -- It can be *such* a pain sometimes.

* Sheet metal and I have had a somewhat awkward relationship for approximately 35 years now. On My right index finger I have a rather substantial scar acquired during My 1975 attempt to construct a tenor-scale 6 string guitar from sheet metal; red Plexiglas; fret wire; Les Paul tailpiece parts set in lead that I melted on My parental units' stove; homemade dual-coil pickups messily hand-wound from 38-gauge copper; several boxes of Polyfilla; and an extremely unfortunate sunburst Silvertone electric that really only needed a touch-up with a good fret file.

In retrospect, it would've been a lot less work to carve Myself a whole new guitar with a dull pocket knife.

But that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun...

Think Like a God Day 2010: Core Competencies

2010-07-13T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'd like to wish everyone a happy Think Like a God Day. As in previous years, July 13 is a day to reflect upon your inner divinity and talk about what you think a god should be.

This year's discussion topic is essential skills. What, at a bare minimum, should a god be able to do?

I have fairly liberal views on godhood. I don't think one need be omniscient, but sentience is probably a good idea.

I've never been interested in Ultimate Power, but I do think that a god should have at least one specialty. I specifically chose magisteria that don't actually require Me to do a lot of heavy lifting 24/7/365. Being the Goddess of Punctuation is probably the most onerous of My specialties, but I find Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves to be inspirational and helpful. Chocolate mostly takes care of itself, as does the Northern Hemisphere vernal equinox. As for random equipment malfunctions, they appropriately just show up whenever they darn well feel like it.

Overall, I think the most important role for a god is a willingness to take full responsibility for at least one aspect of reality.

So, get cracking -- There's a lot of reality out there.

"I hung it on me wall!"

2010-07-07T12:12:00.006-05:00

The title of this episode of TSG comes from a Simpsons episode that involved a certain Liverpudlian drummer, Marge Simpson, and a thank-you note for a gift given long ago.

When I saw the episode some years ago, it raised My spirits in ways that I can barely begin to describe. The only difference between Marge and Myself is that whereas she rediscovered her love for painting, I rediscovered My love for music -- Something which the Beatles, and Ringo in particular, inspired Me to pursue.

To Richard Starkey, better known to the world as Ringo Starr, I wish you a happy 70th birthday.

*sniffles and wipes a tear from Her eye*

And thank you.

Once in a lifetime

2010-07-03T22:06:00.008-05:00

Red and I jumped on a bus this afternoon and headed downtown with approximately 2.3 litres of drinking water, two brand new sun hats, and All the Cameras We Could Carry. I had a point-and-shoot stowed away in My purse for photographic emergencies, and Red's Olympus E410 around My neck. Red had her Nikon D50 digital SLR and her Rolleiflex medium-format camera, the latter loaded with black-and-white 120 film.

So this is what I did with Oly. First, I got a nice shot of some people strolling across the Esplanade foot bridge...

...Then, after a few minutes' work in the GIMP, cropping and adding just a touch of the Unsharp Mask filter, we see...

Yes, that is indeed Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. Welcome to Winnipeg, Your Majesty and Your Royal Highness.

A somewhat conflicted Canada Day.

2010-07-01T23:27:00.004-05:00

I'm sitting here at My computer in a state of Comfortably Numb +1, having imbibed a moderate quantity of Havana Frappé (white rum, pineapple juice, lemon, Maraschino cherry, lime, yet more rum...) I'm feeling mostly okay except for one nasty little incident that occurred when Red and I were out on an Emergency Potato Run this afternoon.

The original plan was to go to The Forks, a Winnipeg tourist attraction, to have a nice coffee and pick up some potatoes for the potato salad we intended to make this evening. We did indeed set out in that direction, only to discover...

"...$5.00 for parking? Are you bleepin' nuts, people?"

So let's just say that the Springy Goddess muttered some rather dark seiðr under Her breath before we turned the car around and went to an East Indian grocery for the potatoes, and a Starbucks for the coffee.

The potato salad was delicious, by the way.

Sounds like a plan.

2010-06-25T22:48:00.005-05:00

I've had a pretty good 24 hours. I am pleased to report that I have once again evicted the Mimes from My Ubuntu system, having carefully read this help document and trying all the suggested tests and fixes one at a time, in the given order. Já, RTFM really does work.

On the second reboot, just after I had issued the commands to download reinstall the default Ubuntu sound base, My computer let out a cute little chirp when the login screen appeared, followed by sundry other desirable noises. I've already tested the Hydrogen drum sequencer, and sometime this evening I'm going to make a serious effort to figure out some of the other modules. Audacity is very similar to the commercial Windows-based recording suite I used to use, so I'll invest My time elsewhere. For starters, I'm going to do some reading on Jack and figure out what it actually *does*; then perhaps I'll take inventory of the Stuff I already have and determine where it fits into the grand scheme of things. (I already suspect that My Tascam US-122 mixer is fated to get traded in towards something that has lots of pretty lights and at least four times as many channels.)

In other news, Vilma Wiolin Deutschesfiddle came out of the closet again today, and I spent some time tuning and playing and doing some very intense listening to the sound of this lovely 100-year-old German-made 7/8 violin. My clarinet studies have greatly improved My musical perception, and despite not playing violin at all for some months now, I think My sound has improved. The pitch seems much closer to the mark (despite a bit of fuzziness in My violin muscle memory), and I'm no longer able to ignore mechanical annoyances such as string-crossing squeaks.

Now, if you'll excuse Me, I have a recording studio to set up...

Springy dénouement, with chutney

2010-06-20T22:46:00.016-05:00

When I wake up tomorrow morning, it'll officially be summer. I thought I'd take this opportunity to thank everyone for a great 2010 season...

(reaches out and nabs a mosquito that was buzzing near Her ear, then chucks him out the nearest window) Já, you too. Mind those fogging trucks, little dude, and look both ways before crossing the street.

...Where was I? Oh, yes; spring. It's been a pretty good one this year, although I could have done with a few centimetres less rain.

The Astrejurhof crowd has been busy. Red is now graduated from photography school, and in the not-too-distant future we'll have a darkroom in the house. Chala is designing and making jewelry, and receiving mysterious packages of shiny baubles and bits from around the world.

As for Me, I've been keeping on top of My projects.

The mead that I brewed at Jól is now bottled, with a yield of about 10 litres and an alcohol content of about 6%. It's a bit sweet right now, but it's still fermenting in the bottles and should be a bit more dry in a couple of weeks.
I raided the kitchen cupboards today and used up a few ingredients. In addition to making a layered dip with black beans (just add guacamole, garlic, onions, cumin seed, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, and All the Cheese There Is) I also constructed some chutney (canned mangoes; about a cup of raisins; vinegar; cloves; allspice; homemade masala; and some turbinado sugar that I had lying around after My last attempt to make a nice crunchy topping on My maple crème brulée).

(pauses to write '#2 medium maple syrup' and 'coffee cream' on Her shopping list)

(pauses again, then writes 'cooking torch' on Her birthday wish list)

(makes mental note to actually use the juicer, the ice cream maker and the pasta machine that are languishing in the kitchen)

My 2006 NaNoWriMo novel, The Passion of Marty-Sue, finally has an ending that's entertaining and makes sense from a plot point-of-view; and My 2008 novel Ice Cream for Lakshmi has a much better opening chapter.
I'm done with clarinet lessons until September, but I'm already working on My summer homework. (plays an octave of G♭ Major in thirds from the back of Her somewhat battered copy of Melodious and Progressive Studies, Book 1) Dear, sweet Uncle Loki... Arpeggios are actually starting to look easy by comparison.
I finally start physiotherapy for My knees next week.

And perhaps *this* will be the week that I resume work on the study floor. But don't quote Me on that.

We now leave you in the capable hands of the Solstice deities. (raises a picnic mug of new mead) Skál!

Darn those pesky mimes.

2010-06-18T22:58:00.004-05:00

Awright, that's it. Seriously. Annoyed Goddess is annoyed.

From the sound of things, or lack thereof, I am going to have to spend copious amounts of quality time poring over arcane documents known as HOWTOs. Yes, My sound cards have run off to join the circus yet again -- Both the onboard one *and* the M-Audio 2496 -- and My current Linux distro, Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04, has gone mute for the second time in recent memory.

Serves Me right for installing the newest release, rather than waiting for everyone else to beat the living daylights out of it. It's enough to make Me want to download a completely different version of Linux, burn it to one of these here DVD-R disks, and...

...No, I think I'll just fix the razzafracking sound system. *sigh*

Give Me all your zerglings and no one gets hurt.

2010-06-04T23:59:00.004-05:00

Red and I were out at the mall this evening, and I saw a poster in the window of a video game store:

Starcraft II
Wings of Liberty
07.27.10

*happy dance* *happy dance*

I'm not much of a gamer, but I've been waiting a very long time for this. The original Starcraft is, beyond any doubt, My favourite game of all time. It's also the only major game that I've played all the way through.

Real-time strategy games are actually something that I can play, as opposed to first-person shooters. It was in the mid-1990s that I discovered that I get extremely bad simulation sickness, first acquired by watching someone else play the game Wolfenstein 3D. To this day, I cannot watch the Windows "brick wall" 4GL screen saver for more than two or three seconds without feeling nausea and vertigo. I also got a pounding headache from five minutes of playing a Linux port of Quake in a computer class. So no FPS games for Me, thankyouverymuch.

Ah, but Starcraft... Even though directing a mob of marines, a tribe of templars or a horde of hydralisks is a different kind of headache, it's a rather pleasant one.

En Taro Adun!

Living well is the best revenge.

2010-05-28T16:38:00.007-05:00

May 28, 2000: Chala and I, and a fluffy white Qat named Ludwig, make a hasty but timely departure from our old house.

May 28, 2010: Chala and Red and I celebrate the tenth anniversary of Liberation Day. (scratches Ludwig on his fluffy white head) Along with the very same fluffy white Qat whom I thrust so unceremoniously into a pet carrier as Chala and I were running for the door.

Heartfelt thanks to all who helped us get where we are now -- A place so very different from, and so much bigger than the one we knew Back Then.

And a special takk fyrir to George Herbert, who coined the phrase in the title.

(waves Her hand in the air) Waiter! A large take-out calamari for the Qat, please.

Photos by Red (Photo *of* Red by Astreja K.)

Road Trip!

2010-05-23T23:37:00.007-05:00

Today, Red and I (and three of Red's cameras, including her new Pentax SP1000) went for a rather invigorating spin in the car.

First stop: The town of Île-des-Chênes, Manitoba and Wildlife Haven, where we dropped off an injured pigeon. Something red in tooth and claw -- My guess would be a cat, or one of the larger squirrels in the neighbourhood -- tried to rip one of its wings off. Said bird is now in safe and competent hands.

Intermission: Coffee. Of course.

Second stop: The town of Starbuck, Manitoba... A place fairly well known to Me, as I lived there for about eight months when I first moved to Manitoba from Québec in 1977. Our primary objective was interesting landscape subjects, namely the grain elevators.

Let's just say one or two things have changed in the 32 or so intervening years. The old wooden grain elevators have been replaced by humongous concrete silos and state-of-the-art handling gear. The garage where Whatsisname's aunt used to take her '73 Catalina for repairs is still there, but there's a new gas bar right behind it. The hotel, the meat market and the general store are all still where I last saw them; all looked essentially the same; and as was typical for a Sunday in Starbuck, Manitoba were all severely closed. The Credit Union looks none the worse for wear -- It was a pretty new building back then -- But somewhere along the way it did acquire an ATM.

Then we drove around a bit, Me tiptoeing down entirely too many gravel roads while Red did drive-by photography. Try as I might, however, I was unable to locate the actual country road where I spent eight months of My life, let alone locate the double-wide trailer where I played around with Tarot cards, set plum puddings aflame with Green Chartreuse and practiced Genesis songs on a prodigiously tall stack of keyboards that I've long since given away.

We eventually came to the town cemetery, and there I did find some rather substantial clues to the whereabouts of a couple of people I did know Back Then. They're dead, Jim.

And then we headed back to Winnipeg, where we consumed yet more coffee. By that time I needed it: I am not, by habit, inclined to venture on rural car trips all that often, so My highway experience is still rather limited. I much prefer four-lane divided highways to two-lane undivided ones, even on a clear and sunny spring day.

The moral of this story: Things are never quite as you remember them, no matter how much you thought you were paying attention.

But that doesn't matter, because there'll be something new and interesting in its place.

Want to come back to My gym bouncy bouncy?

2010-05-21T19:16:00.005-05:00

No, My hovercraft is not full of eels. (opens second browser window; types in 'hovercrafts4less.com'; gets '404 Cheap Hovercraft Not Found'; sighs heavily)

Last Tuesday, while I was on holidays, I acquired a rather sore back for no particularly good reason. In other words, I was *not* moving hundreds of pounds of gravel, purchasing mass quantities of cat litter, or digging up the back yard.

In fact, I first noticed the aching immediately after getting up from a chair in a donut shop, which followed a five-hour Sudoku session at the dining room table while the new furnace in Astrejurhof was being installed, which followed two straight days of sleeping in till noon.

This unfortunate physical condition (or lack of conditioning, as it may be) persisted right through My week off -- Somewhat hindering My ability to mix concrete, do landscaping and move the aforementioned gravel and cat litter.

But when I found Myself back at work on Monday and the sore back was still there, I got serious. I tried analgesics and muscle relaxants; a heating pad; and finally I just broke down and looked up 'back pain' on the Internet.

A couple of pages later, I found it: Something called PNF stretching. PNF is short for 'proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation,' and it involves varying combinations of static and dynamic stretching.

In My case -- And how befitting a Springy Goddess! -- it was the hold-relax-bounce variety that did the trick. It wasn't enough to just bend over and do some holding and relaxing; I had to add in a very, very careful* slow-motion bounce to take Me deeper into the stretch.

At this point, the real culprits were flushed out: My tight calf muscles and hamstrings were the actual cause of the backache.

So I did some more cautiously bouncing stretches. My back got even better.

Now, on Friday night at the end of a full work week, I'm pretty much back to normal. The leg tension is down about 80%, and when I bend forward with My legs straight I can get the top of My head within 7" of the floor.

Cancel that order for the hovercraft... I think I'll invest in a rebounder.

Or that thing that Van Halen used in the video for "Panama"...

* Oh, and did I mention 'careful'?

Springy Boot Camp 2010

2010-05-04T22:24:00.013-05:00

Awright, you grunts, suck in them divine guts! Hup! Hup!

Ah, fitness. *grumble grumble* All those years of lifting weights and practicing martial arts and swimming and yoga and walking several miles to and from work and jogging past the occasional Rolling Stones concert because I couldn't get tickets... You'd think that My body would stay fit.

Well, it didn't. And that's why I'm trying to do something about it.

Currently, due to ongoing leg problems (including but not limited to patellofemoral syndrome, lymphedema, osteoarthritis, various remote fractures and sprains and pulled ligaments, and generalized crankiness) I'm waiting to get into physiotherapy and won't be heading back to karate any time soon. If I want to flex My knees more than 45 degrees, there had better be a wall or railing nearby, or there's going to be a lot of cursing and swearing going on.

Ironic: I can touch the floor with the palms of both hands with both My legs ramrod straight; kneel on the ground for prolonged periods while gardening; even do a respectable front split with little or no warm-up.

But step up off the sidewalk to get onto a bus? Ow.

So now I'm looking for alternate ways to shape Myself up a bit and take off some of the load. To this end, I've decided that I need low-impact aerobics and core stabilization (translation: killer abs and back muscles.)

I'm already walking home from work at least a couple of days a week, which is good for an hour of rather laid-back cardio; but it's not enough. After an inspired Internet search for "dance aerobics" I found something called "Bollyrobics," essentially Bollywood-style dance moves with a rather pleasing beat. Learning dance steps has never come easily to Me, but I managed to follow along for a good ten minutes without My brain exploding.

As for the core stabilization, I went upstairs and fetched Rover, a terrifyingly mauve exercise ball that was last seen trying to fetch Patrick McGoohan back to some weird little island Village. Rover is now My official Clarinet Practice Chair. Try sitting on that for an hour while playing G# minor melodic scales, the a piacere sections in Nocturne by Luigi Bassi, or *ack!* Page 22 by Gustave Langenus.

That which does not kill Me makes Me stronger...

A paean to cat litter and edible frogs

2010-04-20T17:29:00.006-05:00

I think I've finally figured out the problem with My weight: I'm carrying around two extra bags of cat litter.

The large bags. The ones that you have to wrestle into the trunk of the car -- Or, more precisely, the ones that two people have to wrestle into the trunk of the car.

And, as there's only one of Me sitting here at the moment, this simply will not do.

In other news, I read a book on the weekend: Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. It's a quick read, short and sweet and to the point. That point is, well, do something about the things that are bugging you. And do those things first, not 'whenever'...

*rrbt*

Shush, you. You're not the frog I'm looking for.

*rrbt?*

No, seriously. I'm not wallpapering the house tonight. Or researching how to solve the Rubik's Cube on My desk. I'm sitting here with My support stockings duly in place (darned annoying things, they are), trying to figure out how to weigh only 3 bags of cat litter instead of 5 bags of cat litter.

After all, the cats go through the blasted stuff fast enough...

(P.S.: Brian, get better soon.)

I can see My dragon from here!

2010-04-12T22:18:00.013-05:00

I did a little gardening yesterday.

And the only reason I say 'a little' gardening is that I did not use power tools or high explosives to do it.

Armed only with a shovel, a dandelion puller, a pair of anvil cutters, a stack of kitchen garbage bags and an old bucket, I successfully removed approximately forty raspberry canes from the front of My yard.

About a dozen of the most viable canes immediately went back into the ground in a patch of soil beside the house. Another ten got tossed into bags and thence into My Cavalier (along with eight bags of topsoil), and were transported in due course over to the Parental Units' home and then put back into the ground. (Mind you, My Dad and I had to shovel away about 50 square feet of limestone gravel in order to find the ground... Fortunately, the earth under the rocks had been covered with polyurethane sheeting so the pH of the soil probably isn't too alkaline.)

The remaining bits and pieces of raspberry plant, most of them dried out and without buds, are heaped up in the back yard and will probably go on to new careers as compost.

And I've already started to confiscate the gravel from My parents' back yard, because I do need a better path through the back yard at Astrejurhof.

Best of all... The sight lines at the front of My house are now clear, and My friend George the Dragon can once more be seen.

I'd say it was worth it.

Photos by Red.

Test lizard, proceed with caution

2010-04-03T22:15:00.004-05:00

The problem with being an eccentric artist-geek Goddess is that sometimes You just plain run out of Stuff.

(looks in trashcan and sniffles loudly) In other words, I'm out of glue -- Or, more precisely, the three-year-old tube of Automotive Goop that I did have is all dried out. I only managed to squeeze out enough of it to stick up one glow-in-the-dark lizard. It's currently clinging to the side of the bookcase in My office, with a piece of scotch tape to keep it from plummeting while the adhesive hardens.

And I'm not so sure that the glue will harden properly, after all this time lying dormant in the supplies box. I wouldn't be surprised if a member of the Dark Legion comes trotting into the bedroom at 3 a.m. with the aforementioned lizard in his or her mouth. Startled, yes. Surprised, no.

Whether My test subject survives the night or not, I think I'll pop 'round to the shops for some serious stickums...

...Five-minute epoxy. Give Me a tube of that stuff, and I could -- Dare I say -- Rule the world!

Mm... No, I already did that around the turn of the Millenium. Being Queen of Earth was too much like work.

Mind the lizard, please.

Xtreme Springy Cleaning - 2010 Edition

2010-03-30T22:14:00.009-05:00

Here in Winnipeg we've had unseasonably warm daily temperatures. For three days in a row, the daily highs have been in the plus-teens, instead of below freezing. In fact, yesterday afternoon we hit a balmy 18℃. Around here, that's not only shirtsleeve weather -- That's barbecue weather, and borderline bikini weather.

That can't be right.

Especially not the bikinis.

But do I approve of these unseasonably warm daily temperatures? Já, indeed I do. Here it is, the 30th of March, and I've already done *two* days' worth of yard cleanup, spent an hour or two tearing out some old plaster, and went on a run to the Brady Road landfill. This is something that normally doesn't happen until at least the second half of April or even early May, when the snow usually finishes melting.

Between now and the other side of the weekend, the prospects are good for even more tidying and organizing. The crawlspace hatch is scheduled to be raised and widened. There's topsoil to move, compost to turn, walls to insulate, and if it rains I'll work on the study floor.

But right now there's a six-pack of glow-in-the-dark lizards that need to be glued to My study wall. Just because.

I are serious goddess. This are serious equinox.

2010-03-20T21:03:00.004-05:00

It gives Me great pleasure to welcome all denizens of the Northern Hemisphere to Spring 2010! May the season find you well, treat you fairly, and not wander off with the stapler while you're trying to finish your tax returns.

Photo by Red.

Why scriptwriting is like a bowl of petunias

2010-03-17T20:52:00.003-05:00

"Oh, no; not again."

I was trying to talk Myself out of it this year; really, I was.

Then I mentioned it to someone else, and then I just had to wander over there. Within ten minutes I had not only logged in and updated My profile, but came up with this year's Script Frenzy concept.

It gives Me great pleasure -- And a great deal of trepidation -- to introduce this year's screenplay:

Sandman Jon and the Karaoke Queen

Classical guitarist and blogger Jon Sandringham from The Week of Alibis and The Misuse of Things teams up with paper-towel-dispenser-salesman-turned-karaoke host Hiroshi Nagauchi and extraterrestrial dragon goddess Ti Stei ve'Ruish ac'Himat ("No, really; 'Tiamat' is fine.")

Be afraid.

Be very, very afraid.

I know *I* am.

The Essentials

2010-03-13T22:14:00.003-06:00

As the 2010 vernal equinox approaches, I'm getting down to Serious Business. In Springy G terms, this can only mean one thing.

Chocolate! *happy dance*

I'm currently sitting here at My desk with a ramekin full of goodies: Cadbury Mini-Eggs; Macadamia Roca; Cookies 'n' Cream eggs...

...and one lone dark chocolate brandy bean. *chomp*

Red and I have been busy, driving around Winnipeg and picking up mass quantities of sweet stuff... Today alone, we've spent at least $30 CDN on chocolate-related items. Add another seven bucks or so for the butterscotch and caramels we bought on Thursday, and at least $20 for chocolate purchases last week and the week before.

Já, chocolate is Serious Business at Astrejurhof.

In other news, it got up to +10℃ this afternoon.

+10℃? In Winnipeg? On March 13?

(cracks knuckles) Remind Me to have a friendly little chat with the Global Warming Denial crowd...

Remember, order before midnight tonight!

2010-03-03T23:31:00.010-06:00

I'm currently taking orders for spring -- Estimated date of delivery, March 20, 2010. (Northern Hemisphere only, folks -- Regrettably, the south-of-the-Equator distributor is back-ordered into the middle of September.)

The basic vernal equinox package includes:

Longer days, shorter nights
High probability of parties and festivals
Occasional sightings of people trying to balance eggs on one end
Disruptions of communications satellites *
And World Storytelling Day! Woot! **

And the best part? It's absolutely free.

The expansion pack with the bunnies and the chocolate eggs is gonna cost ya, though.

* A nice fit for My role as the Goddess of Random Equipment Malfunctions, n'est-ce pas?
** Also uncannily appropriate for Someone Who writes an entire novel every year.

No, Mr. Langenus, I expect you to die.

2010-02-19T22:10:00.007-06:00

Phhtphht. And all that.

My lower lip is completely numb, and slightly shredded, but I'm getting it, dammit!

"It" is the famous, nay, infamous staccato exercise from Page 22 of Book 3 of Gustave Langenus's clarinet method book. I've been staging hit-and-run attacks on this particular study for a couple of years now (I hit a high note, cats all run for it), but over the last month I've been making gradual progress.

For one thing, My tongue is no longer smacking the reed around quite so forcefully. (Insert reference to opening credits of The Tick here)

For another thing, I'm cutting the air off in a more graceful and timely fashion, rather than warbling tremulously like the third runner-up at an Acker Bilk soundalike contest.

Practice makes... Well, better. Perfect can wait for another night.

Instant goddess, just add water

2010-02-19T14:18:00.000-06:00

In a classic "D'oh!" moment, I made a startling discovery this morning at work.

I'm dehydrated. Severely so, as in "those little MSG-laden packages of flavouring that come with pot noodles."

I discovered this when I sat down at My desk early this morning and realized very quickly that I had a frightful headache. It's even more frightful when one considers that I generally do not get headaches unless I smack My head on a hard object.

Like the palm of My hand. I reiterate: "D'oh!"

So I went and got a beverage. 20 minutes later, the headache was gone and I had a bloggable epiphany.

H₂O FTW.

"All right, what have you done with her?"

2010-02-18T22:32:00.003-06:00

It's been rather odd at Astrejurhof lately. Red and I both seem to be on a massive cleaning rant, which is something that generally only happens at Jól.

Not only that... I've been catching up on projects, too, and getting all kinds of things in order. In the last two weeks alone, I have:

Set up a retirement savings account and started some *eek* estate planning;
Filled out a bunch of tax forms;
Voted in a Board of Directors election;
Filled out My vacation time request at work;
Cleaned out My purse, which sorely needed it;
Chatted with a dietician;
Fixed a wobbly outlet in the kitchen ( tightened the bottom screw that holds the receptacle in place - A fifteen-minute job, including turning the breaker off and back on again and putting all the tools away);
Actually edited and filed a decent-sized chunk of my writing;
Built a rack for some of the kitchen pans...

...And here's the most bizarre thing of all. Red and I have been doing the dishes every night, right after dinner. That may not sound like all that big a deal, but in this house it's roughly equivalent to both of us having been kidnapped by aliens.

I've even finished My clarinet practice for the evening.

And I'll probably get to bed before midnight, too.

All right, what *have* you done with Me?

Floored! (Part the Sixth)

2010-02-09T22:47:00.004-06:00

For months now I've been saying to Myself, "Astreja K., You really must get back to work on the study floor."

And then, of course, I would go off and do something completely different.*

Tonight I came home from work with the intention of actually working on the floor, and I did follow through. I reinforced three short sections of joist where I had already installed some shims and 2x4s; then I cut a piece of plywood to fit nicely around the arch that leads into My office; and even got a head start on the next panel by reinforcing another section of joist.

The cats tried to help, of course.

(Sets sheet of plywood in place, then counts fuzzy little heads) Já, all accounted for.

To be continued... Hopefully in less than six months' time.

* In My experience, 'Something completely different' generally involves surfing the Internet; going shopping; or starting another project completely unrelated to the study floor.

Springy G's Beer 'n' Blog

2010-01-29T22:33:00.013-06:00

*achoo* Uh, hi. Welcome to the *sniffle* Friday Night edition of The Springy Goddess. (seizes handkerchief and makes prolonged, mournful noise reminiscent of a goose with sinusitis)

No, this isn't Part II of the Mesopotamian Death Flu, that flu+pneumonia+bronchitis combo that knocked Me on My goddessly posterior for nearly three months, late last winter and well into the spring. It's something downright, uh, avoidable. Permit Me to explain:

A couple of nights ago I went to My new dentist and had some X-rays done. As it turns out, for the past few months I've been semi-peacefully coexisting with an unusually polite abscess -- One that didn't actually hurt like the dickens.

Bottom line: I'm getting a tooth extracted next week. In the meantime, I have a whole bottle of Penicillin V to finish up, "q. 6 hours" as they say in the medical lingo.

I also have a case of La Fin du Monde beer which I acquired this evening... And that's when the trouble started. For some reason, possibly attributable to My love of this particular beer, I completely forgot about the Penicillin until midway through supper.

It was the sneezing fit that tipped Me off.

Technically, it could have been the smoked turkey and Edam melt on a homemade bun; or it could have been the potato chips and homemade sour cream dip; but the smart money is on the beer fighting it out with the Penicillin. It was somewhat entertaining when that vicious little *BLEEP* Raistlin went sailing off the table in a scene reminiscent of The Stone Diaries*, but by the time I finished the mug of beer I was somewhat concerned.

I've been sitting here writing for about half an hour now, and My sinuses are just now releasing the death-grip they had on My nose. So I guess I'm not having any beer till next weekend. Or any allergy meds, single malt Scotch, or brandy beans, either.

(starts to write on blackboard: "I will not mix Penicillin, Diphenhydramine hydrochloride, and 9% Québecois beer.")

* A fine book by the late Carol Shields.

My kingdom for a pony wall!

2010-01-20T08:18:00.011-06:00

(finishes essay titled "Similarities Between Shakespeare's Richard III and Basement Construction" and sends it to printer) Well, I'm glad *that's* done.

As described here and here, in December of 2008 and 2009 respectively, I thought it would be a Darned Good Idea to block off the crawlspace from the main part of the basement. You see, I have this thing about ice-cold drafts* infiltrating My house and making it unbearably cold in the basement workshop.

And the main floor.

And, by extension, the upper floors as well. Better to have the furnace reheat already-warm air instead of -40°C cold air from outside.

Not that it's been -40°C this winter. In fact, it's downright balmy right now. Warm enough to -- Dare I say? -- work on that razzafracking crawlspace.

So, for two out of the last three days, I have been constructing a very small three-sided compartment (48" x 18" by about 36" tall**), complete with outer sheathing; insulation batts; vapour barrier; and inner paneling to keep the cats from tearing it all apart again.

And it works.

The evidence: Eight somewhat annoyed felines who can no longer get into their Secret Place...

...But who now have a cozy little basement alcove warmed by nearby hot air ducts. All in all, a good use of thirteen hours of hard labour in very close quarters.

Pass the NSAIDs, muscle rub and chocolate, please.

* Not the beer variety of cold draft, alas.

** Large enough for a marginally plus-sized Goddess with flexibility in the top 1% for Her age group, with a little bit of wiggle room for power tools, itinerant cats, and a few oxygen molecules.

Learning Curve

2010-01-10T23:48:00.005-06:00

Today, Red and I went down to the Forks, a local tourist attraction and market full of interesting Stuff. Red took her Minolta, loaded with B&W film; and I got to play with Ollie, her Olympus digital SLR.

After the initial fumbling-around and getting comfortable with the buttons, I learned a lot about photography. Somewhere in My closet are a couple of cameras that really need to come out for a romp more often. I have a Minolta very similar to the one that Red has, plus a Canon digital mini-DV video camera. Both are in dire need of use, as they aren't doing anyone a whole lot of good just sitting in their cases. I regularly carry a point-and-click digital still camera; but it was really nice to handle a camera with a good lens and the ability to accurately frame and capture what I was seeing.

So nice, in fact, that I decided to post a new picture on My little-used deviantART page. My short stint with Ollie (about two hours or so) produced several dozen interesting shots that reinforced My appreciation of a good piece of equipment, and rekindled My interest in photography.

I even did My first editing of a RAW image file, by adding a neat little program called UFRaw -- It operates as a standalone program, and also functions as a RAW plug-in for the GIMP.

/Me loves modern technology, and open-source software even more.

I've been Pharyngulated!

2010-01-10T00:26:00.004-06:00

Or, "What I did on Saturday Night."

The Humanist Association of Manitoba had a very special guest speaker on January 9, namely biology professor and blogger PZ Myers of Pharyngula fame. A thoroughly enjoyable evening. PZ's account is here.

Apologies for the soft focus -- This was taken with available light in a corner of the ballroom, at a setting of a gazillion ISO's.

Check out PZ's blog. Lots and lots of good stuff.

I must get around to dealing with My procrastination.

2010-01-08T23:38:00.003-06:00

Aah, it can wait till tomorrow.

Something interesting is happening in My life, and that 'something' is discomfort. Right now I feel somewhat like a dandelion that's trying to push its way through a crack in the concrete of an abandoned back lane.

Or, to put it another way, I'm growing again. (checks belt) No, not there. Here! (points to head)

The hard part in all this is getting started. Once I'm underway, I'm fine.

But in the meantime...

Edit a story or read a book?
Start My tax return or install the video camera on My desk?
Practice clarinet or solve this Rubik's cube?

(opts for finishing a glass of Cabernet-Merlot; putting away a hair clip; and straightening a penguin)

And so begins... Springy Makeover 2010. Don't wait up.

Pizza and beer FTW.

2009-12-31T22:07:00.006-06:00

Slightly less than two hours after I write this, it'll be 2010 in My time zone.

In the meantime, I'm curled up at My desk with a tall glass of Kirin, a nice Japanese beer that features a very good-looking Oriental unicorn on the label.

Downstairs are the remnants of a ham and pineapple pizza (for Myself and Red and the Invisible Pink Unicorn, mHhhnbs!) and a pepperoni pizza for 'Chala. Both are homemade. Here's the recipe:

For two 9" x 13" (cookie-sheet-size) pizzas, you'll need between 1½ and 2 cups of fairly hot but not boiling water. (1½ cups will make a thin crust; adjust upwards according to your preference.)
In a large bowl, dissolve a tablespoon of sugar into the hot water and then slosh it around the bowl. This warms the bowl and cools the water down somewhat. Body temperature or slightly below is perfect.
Sprinkle one package of regular dry yeast onto the sugar water, then set the bowl down in a warm place for about ten minutes.
While you're waiting, throw together some garlic butter: One or two cloves to about a quarter-cup of softened unsalted butter. Mix thoroughly and park off to one side for now.
After ten minutes, the yeast should be foaming in the bowl. Pour in a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil (your choice) and a pinch of salt. Mix vigorously with a fork.
Toss in, all at once, a cup or two of whole wheat flour and at least one cup of white flour. By 'toss in, all at once' I mean 'Dump it into the bowl without bothering to mix it yet'. Then, when the flour's measured in, take your hand and vigorously stir the flour into the water as fast as you possibly can. Don't stop till the original flour is all mixed in and you have the beginnings of bread dough.
Now you can add some more flour. Add ½ a cup at a time, kneading and pressing and flipping the dough over in the bowl until the dough is no longer sticking to your hands. Continue to dust with flour and knead it in until you can still feel moisture but not much stickiness in the dough.
Form the dough into a ball and take it out of the bowl for a moment. Lightly oil the inside of the bowl; put the dough back in (flipping it once to grease it); cover with a lid or a tea towel; and park it in a warm place.
Now, prepare the fillings. Chop up an onion, some mushrooms, and some peppers (any colour) and sautée them in a bit of butter or oil. Drain thoroughly. Grate the cheese, if you didn't buy it pre-grated. (Mozzarella and Edam makes a very nice combination.) Slice or chop the meat. Anything you want on the pizza, get it ready now.
About ten minutes before the fillings are ready, punch down the dough in the bowl; divide it in half, one piece for each pizza; and let it rest.
Finish getting the fillings ready, then shove them off to one side and clean the counter to make room for dough-rolling. Oil the cookie sheets.
Now's also a good time to preheat the oven: I recommend 350℉ and 25-30 minutes for a thicker crust, 375-400℉ and 15-20 minutes for a thin crust. If you're not sure, set the oven at 375℉; you'll be keeping an eye on the pizza as it bakes, anyway.
Dust the counter lightly with whole wheat flour and plunk down one ball of dough. Shape it into a rectangle, then roll it out until it's slightly larger than the cookie sheet. Flip over and dust with flour as required. Place on the cookie sheet and crimp the edges slightly, using overhanging pieces of dough to fill in any sparse areas around the edges. Use a fork to poke lots of holes all over the crust so that rogue air bubbles don't displace the fillings as the pizza bakes.
Cover the entire sheet of dough with garlic butter, or with a mixture of pesto and garlic butter. Not too much, though, or it'll be overpowering and greasy.
Add the toppings. My preferred order (bottom to top) is the meat, then a bit of cheese, then the cooked and drained onion/mushroom/pepper mixture, then any other toppings you want to throw on, then another layer of cheese.
Bake in moderate to moderate-high oven for 15-30 minutes, depending on the initial heat and the dough thickness. After the first ten minutes, check the pizza and turn the heat down if the edge of the crust is browning too fast. While you wait, roll the dough for the second pizza and get it ready to go in the oven.
The pizza is ready when all the cheese is melted and slightly browned, and when a peek under the pizza reveals a firm, lightly toasted crust. Let it sit out of the oven for at least five minutes before cutting and serving.

Red took some lovely pictures of the finished product, which can be viewed here.

(raises Her beer) Happy New Year to all!

The end justifies the mead

2009-12-28T17:34:00.014-06:00

Well, I *finally* got around to making that batch of champagne mead.

First, you need one humongous pot:

This one's about 16 litres, a decently heavy gauge of stainless steel, and has a nice, heavy bottom.

Then, you need water:

Já, that'll do. I prefer spring water to reverse-osmosis filtered water. Don't use regular tap water, because it doesn't generally taste good and yeast doesn't do well in it because of chlorine and other chemicals. Feel free to use well water, or glacial water if you happen to have a glacier encroaching on your back yard. I usually buy extra water for hydrating the yeast, and in case I need to top-up the carboy.

Wash and sterilize the pot, using standard brewing methods, then pour in the H₂O and start heating it up. While you're waiting for the water to boil, you can get the rest of the tools ready:

Here we have an S-trap (best kind for meadmaking, IMNSHO) and bung; a thermometer; and a hydrometer. All have been washed and sanitized, and set out on a clean paper towel. I also covered them with another piece of toweling to keep them clean until needed.

I also prepared a 3-gallon glass carboy, washing and sanitizing it, and then covering the mouth of the bottle with a sandwich bag to keep it clean, too:

Plus a spoon or two (metal or plastic; not wood), and a siphon hose. I somehow managed to bust the outer tube of My siphon-starter device when cleaning up from the last brewing session, so today I had to resort to manual siphon starting. Thanks to My fish tank, I have lots of experience with this and was not unduly worried.

Okay, right about now the water on the stove has started to boil. To the nearly 10 litres of water, add All the Honey There Is. I usually use 3 kg (just over 6½ pounds), but last time I was at My honey supplier I picked up a 7 kg pail and used half of it today... Closer to 8 pounds of honey.

(pauses to lick some of the sticky stuff off the back of Her hand, then toddles over to the sink to wash up before continuing)

Stir the honey into the hot water until it's well-dissolved. Continue to heat it until it's not quite boiling. You can also add two tablespoons of "acid mix", a blend of edible acidifying agents which can be obtained from your local brewing emporium. This is not 100% necessary, but I've always used it; it lends a bit of character to the finished product.

Now the hard part:

Make sure the sink is empty; put in the plug; and partially fill it with cold water.
Turn off the burner.
Put the lid on the pot, and airlift it from the stove to the sink. Be careful. If you have any doubts about your ability to carry approximately 35 pounds of cooking pot and extremely hot and sticky liquid over to the sink, get someone to help you.

Once the pot is safely ensconced in the sink, keep the lid on while you fill the sink. This is to keep tap water from contaminating the honey-water mixture. Swing the tap safely away from the pot, and toss in the brewing thermometer. Put the lid back on, ever-so-slightly ajar to let steam escape.

And now, you wait. You can't do anything more until the mixture has cooled to nearly room temperature, or else you'll kill the yeast. It usually takes well over an hour to cool down, so set a timer and go off to do something else. Don't worry about it cooling too much. Read a book; do some laundry; head out to the store.

When the mixture is 30℃ (86℉) or lower, it's safe to get the yeast ready. I've always used Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) for My mead because it's extremely alcohol-tolerant and causes the mead to turn effervescent a couple weeks after bottling. Unless you want a sweet and not overly potent mead, stick with a yeast that can handle at least 12% alcohol.

So, what do you do with said yeast? Well, put some more spring water into a clean bowl, and warm it to lukewarm. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the tepid water, and wait another 15 minutes until it's hydrated and foamy; then funnel it into the carboy.

Assuming that the honey-water mixture is now reasonably cool, you can now siphon it into the carboy. If you're going to work directly out of the sink, drain the water away first and put the carboy on the floor right below it. Use a siphon starter if desired.

If you don't have a siphon starter (or broke yours), coil up the siphon hose and hold the whole thing under the surface of the liquid... Especially both the ends. Let the air bubble out, and liquid flow in. (I occasionally lift one end to let air rise and liquid flow to the bottom.) When the hose is full and the large air bubbles are gone, hold one end down at the bottom of the pot and put your thumb over the other end while you lift it out and stick it into the top of the carboy. Remove your thumb, and liquid should start to splash into the bottle. Splashing is good, because it aerates the mixture.

Fill to the bottom of the neck of the carboy, no higher and not much lower. If the carboy isn't quite full enough, feel free to add a bit more spring water. (For today's batch, I didn't need to add water because of the volume provided by the extra pound or so of honey.)

This is a good time to toss in the hydrometer, to get the initial reading for your soon-to-be-alcohol. Put it into the top of the carboy and give it a spin to shake the bubbles off; then record the "potential alcohol" number at the waterline. This batch is showing 11% potential alcohol, assuming that the "end" reading drops all the way to 0%. (Subtract "after" from "before" to get the percentage of alcohol in the finished brew.) I don't usually leave the hydrometer in the mixture, and won't bother reading it again until bottling day.

Just about done now... Insert the S-trap into the bung; insert the bung in the top of the carboy; and pour a small amount of sterilizing solution into the top of the trap. This will allow the mead to bubble out excess gases over the next few months or so, but keep out dust and other undesirable substances.

Carefully move the carboy to any out-of-the-way place where it can sit undisturbed for several months. Mine is currently sitting under a desk, resting on a dish towel, surrounded by a loosely-fitting cardboard box with a hole for the S-trap to stick through. The cats look at it funny, but they leave it alone.

In anywhere from 8 to 36 hours, the yeast will start to ferment the honey water, and you'll hear a satisfying "BLOOP!" as gases percolate out through the S-trap.

And when the blooping finally stops, in anywhere from 3 to 5 months... You'll have mead.

New Year's resolutions? Make it stop!

2009-12-27T01:08:00.003-06:00

It seems like only yesterday that I was staring the dreaded Year 2K in the face, expecting something akin to Magic from the turn of the year.

A decade later, as the year odometer prepares to roll over yet again, My thoughts have turned to plans, expectations, and those nasty things called Resolutions.

I mean, seriously: What is it with these year-end To-Do lists, anyway? Do we honestly think that codifying something as an Official Resolution will make it more likely to happen? I contend that if we wanted it to happen, we'd already be working on it.

Accordingly, My resolutions for 2010 are as follows:

I resolve to measure various parts of my house and go out to purchase sundry tools and building materials, as required.
I will take Red out for coffee whenever the mood hits us.
I will write stuff.
I will pet a cat.
I will brew some mead, clean My fishtank, and generally carry on with Business as Usual.
I will do what needs to be done, reasonably close to when it needs to be done, unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

That oughta cover it.

The Order of the Sacred Cappuccino

2009-12-24T22:22:00.006-06:00

Well, I've successfully made it to late night on December 24. That means a number of things:

Jól is over, so we have an ample supply of pastry and leftovers.
Festivus is over, too. (makes mental note to set up unadorned aluminum pole next year, and practice Her arm wrestling)
Christmas Eve is pretty much over, so we're back from dinner at the Parental Units' home (with even more leftovers), and all My presents are wrapped and tucked away in the closet.
There's a duck defrosting in cold water, and a bottle of sparkling wine chilling in the fridge.
Red and I went on the fabled Cappuccino Run this afternoon.

For over a decade now, I have celebrated the end of holiday shopping by plunking Myself down in a coffee shop at the height of the Christmas Eve purchasing frenzy. At one time, I used to do this right in the middle of the mall at about 2:30 p.m. and marvel at the hordes of maniacal shoppers trying to decide between the Electric Nosehair Trimmer (batteries not included) and the Kumquat-and-Durian body scrub.

Nowadays, rather than incurring the wrath of the Parking Gods*, I (and Red and sometimes Chala) find a slightly more out-of-the way refuge. This year, we selected one of our regular donut shops and had a regular coffee and donut. All in all, a suitable anticlimax to several weeks of Extreme Busy.

By the way... This is how My hallway wall turned out:

Eight feet tall, eleven feet long (minus one doorway and one heat register) done with one litre of dark orange paint, a bucket of ready-mixed stipple, and a plastic putty knife an inch and a half wide. Total time to colour, mix, and apply the texture: Nine hours.

Plus an additional two or three hours to cut and lay the floor tiles, and four *more* hours to cut the baseboards, doorway trim, quarter-round, and architrave.

My right elbow *still* isn't speaking to Me.

(Raises glass of single-malt Scotch... Very carefully) Best of the season to all!

* The Parking Gods: Asphaltia (Goddess of directing traffic in parking lots), Squat (Goddess of holding spots till you get there) and Gravél (God of unpaved shoulders, muddy fields, and other unlikely places to park).

C is for Cookie

2009-12-14T00:14:00.006-06:00

Sunday's over and done with... Finally... And I'm still on track for Jól.

I did indeed finish the plaster repairs; Red and I did make it out to the karate party; and I did do some baking.

Rather a lot of it, in fact: Twelve tarts (6 cherry, 6 blueberry); about 18 or so whole wheat sugar cookies, baked in a seasonal mould; some brownies; and six dozen of arguably the Best Cookie in the World, Skor™cookies. I've made them every year since the main ingredient (the toffee bits) became available, and this year they turned out extremely well.

The secret of these cookies lies in strict adherence to these simple rules:

Maximum oven temperature of 325℉, no exceptions.
1" balls of dough, baked on a cookie sheet lined with margarine-greased parchment paper
Bake for exactly 13 minutes.
Let the cookies cool on the tray for 3-5 minutes before unracking them. This is best done by putting the rack upside-down on the cookies while they're still on the cookie sheet, then flipping the whole assembly over. At this point, the parchment paper can be peeled away. You can then grease the opposite side of the paper and do another batch.

All of these principles can be adapted to other types of cookies as well. If you keep in mind that baking soda has a tendency to change into washing soda when overheated, that's a rather strong incentive to keep oven temperatures low and wait two or three extra minutes for each batch of cookies to bake. None of this "bake at 450℉ for 8-10 minutes" nonsense for Me, thankyouverymuch.

Onward to Jól, warp factor eight!

2009-12-12T23:22:00.005-06:00

About this time next Saturday evening, My annual winter solstice party will be over for another year. The leftovers will be stowed away; the last of the teabags and coffee grounds will be in the compost bin; people in need of a ride will have been driven home; and Red and Chala and I will be able to relax.

Until then, all bets are off.

Tomorrow I intend to finish plastering the main wall in the downstairs hallway. After that's done, I'm going to bake at least one batch of cookies. Somewhere in the middle, Red and I have a karate holiday party to attend.

Monday is My clarinet lesson. The plaster will still be curing, but after I get home I should be able to put up the rest of the ceiling tiles and fix a few gaps around the edges of the hallway floor. (Oh yes, and bake some butter tarts, too.)

Tuesday I have a dental appointment, but I should be able to pick up some wall-texturing stuff on My way home. (Oh, and whip up some shortbread before bedtime, too.)

Sometime after work on Wednesday, I can finally texture the repaired wall, and do up some brownies or almond cookies if there's time.

Thursday is writers' group, but when I get home I'll throw together a spinach and feta quiche for the Christmas potluck lunch at work.... And snap the chalk lines for the new floor tiles.

By Friday, the house should be looking pretty good, and smelling even better from all the baking and cooking. The roast beef will be roasting, the chicken wings simmering, and one last batch of pastry will be awaiting its turn in the oven.

But in the meantime, can I borrow a cup of dilithium crystals?

Got 'em!

2009-12-10T21:53:00.010-06:00

The carriage bolts, that is.

As of yesterday evening, the entrance to the Cat Gazebo is officially closed for the season. My fiendish thingie (plywood, Styrofoam, more Styrofoam on the outside of the house, and one last piece of plywood) worked like a charm.

While working on the back wall, I also found a couple of drafty spots and, using a can of latex-based insulating foam, dealt with them too.

Tonight, very shortly after getting home from work, I decided to brave the cold for a few more minutes and inserted a couple of chunks of foam into the side wall of the crawlspace. The -22C weather really started to get to Me at that point, so I came inside and spent about two hours plastering stuff:

The "before" shot of the wall beside the hallway heat register, after the baseboard and doorway trim were removed.

The same wall about ten minutes later, after a bit of cleaning, the removal of one more piece of loose plaster, and the addition of a strip of wood to close off the hole.

And finally, the same wall after about an hour of mixing and applying plaster -- As soon as it's thoroughly dry, I can texture the whole wall and perhaps even get it painted before the Jól party.

Ah, Jól... There's something about fast-approaching holidays that does wonders for My house.

My hands, however... (hastens away in search of industrial-strength hand lotion)

More carriage bolts!

2009-12-08T21:23:00.004-06:00

Or, at very least, longer carriage bolts.

This evening, towards the end of making the main floor of the house warmer, I began the process of sealing off the passageway to the Cat Gazebo. We had a sudden cold snap (-29C this morning), and the idea of a big hole in the back of the kitchen wall became somewhat undesirable.

So I went downstairs and essentially build a neat little yitz-yitz* to close up the aforementioned hole.

I cut two pieces of plywood slightly larger than the cat door, but small enough to fit inside the stud wall at the back of the kitchen.
Then I put the boards together and drilled two ⅜" holes through both boards so that the holes will be aligned with each other.
Finally, I cut a piece of 1½" Styrofoam exactly the same size as the boards, and pushed two carriage bolts through one board and through the foam.

The idea of all this is to create a plug that will clamp onto the hole from the inside, with two long bolts running all the way to the outer board, which is essentially serving as a giant washer.

And this is where I ran into problems.

There were no ⅜" nuts left in My parts box.
But that didn't matter because the bolts were about 2" too short anyway.

So, dark and early tomorrow evening after work, it's off to My local purveyor of hardware-type stuff. The plug is in place, but essentially just leaning against the inside of the hole. Despite that, it is making a difference.

Oh, and I also replaced a light fixture in the basement. Things are moving along quite nicely.

* A yitz-yitz is the Astrejurhof term for a whatchamahoozit. You know... One of those things.

Six ceiling tiles and two batches of brownies...

2009-12-04T23:59:00.004-06:00

...equals Progress. Yes, My mad dash to Jól has begun in earnest.

Tonight, Red and I went shopping to get a few ingredients and also stopped by a hardware store to grab a fresh batch of finishing nails for My nail gun.

And then I set to work.

At 11 pm CST, we had two batches of Saucepan Brownies cooling, and six more ceiling tiles installed in the hallway. (There's a distinct possibility that I may install the rest of the tiles before the end of the weekend; but I have to buy 'em first.)

Tomorrow night it's the local end-of-NaNoWriMo party, so I get a bit of a break. Come Sunday afternoon, though, it'll be time for The Dreaded Crawlspace.

(assembles Her tools for this onerous task, including a P100 half-mask respirator, a cordless circular saw, and a snow shovel just in case)

Whadya mean, there's only 18 days to Jól?

2009-12-03T22:54:00.009-06:00

*eep* Just when I thought I couldn't possibly get any busier... The reality of December has finally hit Me.

This is what I hope to do between now and the onset of the holiday season:

Build a weatherproof add-on for the passageway between the house and the Cat Gazebo.
Patch, texture and paint the main hallway wall.
Tile the hallway floor.
Finish putting up the ceiling tiles in the hallway, too.
Bake brownies for the local NaNoWriMo wrapup party on Saturday night. (Okay, that should be done before midnight Friday or so.)
Put some insulation and concrete board on the south wall of the crawlspace.
Cook a spinach and feta quiche for the potluck at work.
Shop.
Stop for coffee.
Repeatedly.
Every chance I get.
Shop some more.
While I'm in that razzafracking crawlspace, I might as well also add a pony wall to block most of it off from the basement. Oh yes, and put a new, higher, and substantially wider trap door on the outside -- One that I can climb through without resorting to limbo dancing or obscure yoga asanas.
Finalize the menu for the Jól party on the 19th of December. Shop. Cook. Bake. Clean.
Brew up those two batches of mead that I've been intending to make for about two months now.
Somehow find time in the midst of all of this to write, play clarinet, eat, sleep, go to work, and generally do all the things I do when I'm *not* busy.

O Epinephrinia, goddess of the adrenaline rush, I beseech...

...Oh, 'eck; I got Her voicemail. She's out of the office till January.

Smart lady.

It's up, and it's good!

2009-11-30T19:37:00.006-06:00

It's official: The Department of Stuff has become My fifth straight NaNoWriMo-winning novel.

My lovely assistant and literary critic RJ-45 is here with Me tonight, reducing My typing speed to sub-light speed levels by standing right in front of the screen.

Before I shift into "What am I writing for Script Frenzy next year?" mode, here's one more sample from this November's opus magnum.

Benjamin "No Name" Jenkins leaned back in his recliner, savouring a just-brewed cup of French Roast Arabica, ground from home-roasted beans. His toes wriggled inside his plaid slippers as he pondered the many things he had set out to invent before the weekend.

"Self-shredding envelope." He took a moment to examine the triple paper cut on his thumb. "Dirt Ninja vacuum cleaner: 'It sneaks up on dirt.' Cat-proof couch." Ben frowned at a shredded, gnawed and peed-upon swatch of upholstery fabric, and made a mental note to return the kittens to Tim in suite #3.

knock knock knock

He set his beverage aside and climbed over the side of the reclining chair, just in case his feline focus group was playing underneath.

The door swung open.

Hanging upside-down from the doorknocker was a large snowy owl.

Down on the floor was a green snake with an orange and white bus ticket in his mouth.

"Good morning, Mr. Jenkins," said Zeno. "We have a bit of a quandary, Eric and I. We need to get downtown with all possible expediency, but apparently Winnipeg Transit frowns upon nonhuman passengers unless they are certified service animals."

"I thold 'im I wath a theeing-eye thnake," Eric said.

"And we have a third party who is somewhat agoraphobic, at least in the presence of myself and my serpentine colleague. But milady informed me last night that you had a smashing little remote control vehicle that might just fit him. May we borrow it for the day?"

- From The Department of Stuff, (c) 2009 A. K. Odinsdóttir

The Springy Goddess

"Put down the yoga mat and back away slowly..."

The shifting tide of passion

Of Donair and Double-Digit Deflation

Confessions of a Slightly Wobbly Goddess

Cheese Station.... Whaaat?

The end of the world again? Oh, goody.

Pumpkin Maintenance

How to Declutter an Equinox

Never, ever let a Goddess work behind the bar.

I miss you already, Jack.

In accordance with the prophesy...

Think Like a God Day 2011: Weirding the World

It's still green.

Springy Goddess, on a mission

This is why we can't have nice things.

It's green.

Floored! (Part the Ninth)

Have clarinet, will travel

Floored! (Part the Eighth)

Floored! (Part the Seventh)

Spring springs into action

To the dump, to the dump...

Long weekends always see Me coming...

Never bet on the hardware.

Springy G and the Enchanted Bobsled Run

Tootling melodiously, harmonically and honourably

Okay, pencils down!

On your mark, get set...

Welcome to 2011!

The things you can find at garage sales...

I can haz cardio?

And here's one we've already... Oh, wait...

Memories of a Northbound Bus

I am not a number; I am a free novelist!

Nine Nano-Days to Go

Springy G Does Opera (Extreme NaNoHooky Edition)

Steady as she goes...

T-minus 22 hours and counting...

How do you fold a mind map?

Back To My Music

Imagine...

Hocus Pocus and Sudoku Focus

Mystery Mead

Welcome to OutlineWriMo!

No more frogs, please; I'm full.

This week's special: 2-for-1 holidays!

Speed up! Slow down! Something like that.

It's down, and it's good!

I could've sworn there was a roof here a minute ago...

Deconstructionalism and Bee Futs

RTFM FTW!

Live on Network 23

Inkadinkadoo!

RickRolled... in 3D!

It *still* doesn't hurt to ask for what you want.

How to install a stereo receiver

Going Medieval

Demo Mode

East by Northeast

Ceci n'est pas un floor.

Think Like a God Day 2010: Core Competencies

"I hung it on me wall!"

Once in a lifetime

A somewhat conflicted Canada Day.

Sounds like a plan.

Springy dénouement, with chutney

Darn those pesky mimes.

Give Me all your zerglings and no one gets hurt.

Living well is the best revenge.

Road Trip!

Want to come back to My gym bouncy bouncy?

Springy Boot Camp 2010

A paean to cat litter and edible frogs

I can see My dragon from here!

Test lizard, proceed with caution

Xtreme Springy Cleaning - 2010 Edition

I are serious goddess. This are serious equinox.

Why scriptwriting is like a bowl of petunias

The Essentials

It still doesn't hurt to ask for what you want.