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Thursday, November 5th, 2009

pandemo

10:25a Lost It All While I was in town waiting fot the brakes on my car to be repaired the day before I was due to go in for cataract surgery, I made 1365 of the 1667 needed per day for NANO success. I knew I probably would not make it, but, I was determined to try. Nov. 1, I decided to join the "Midnight Writers" for an hour or two... But I didn't awaken until after 3. I got 916 words. Sunday, at a more civilized hour, I got to 1985, a decent day's total, AND edited my first sentence to a thing of beauty. While in the library, I re-read Sunday's, changed ONE WORD to that just perfect fit word that I had not thought of before, right connotation, right denotation, quixotic twist implied... Came home, booted up the computer, and discovered it would not. I ended up having to do a clean install, losing all data until

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Monday, November 2nd, 2009

pandemo

11:18a Gleanings From the NANO Forums You can have a sound mind in a healthy body.... Or you can be a Nanonovelist! Nanowrimo--Eavesdrop on the Voices In Your Head RE: Poke the Bear (Taunt the Demon)' by blondbomb I'm too old to type while running with my laptop... Neat image, though. Quote from SueJeff from Derby, England, at The Smoking Pen Bar and Grill 2009: "Tea please, and make it strong in a dirty cup." Is that a typical custom over there? We once had a TV show, lo, these manny moons ago, whose theme song went "Sugar Foot, Sugar Foot, /Easy lopin', cattle ropin' Sugar Foot... The in joke then became, "I don't care if your name is Sugar Foot, get your big toe out of my coffee!" Ought to make you feel right at home, what? ---------- Blondbomb ~ Participles dangled while you wait. 2002 Mountain Lover 2003 In the Desert 2004 Mountain Fastness 2005 Leanna's Story 2006 2007 2008 Whine, Whinny, and Song current mood: amused current music: The Prayer - Josh Groban and Charlotte Chruch

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Sunday, November 1st, 2009

pandemo

10:02a Living Unlevelly I knew not to bake a cake. I understood why doors won't shut, latch, lock. But ARM CHAIR? I swing it around to sync with the sun. It swings back. I swing it further. It rolls lazily back. I now have the privilege of being able to get sea sick in my very own living room as I NANO away. current mood: bouncy current music: Away Down The River - Alison Krauss

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Saturday, October 31st, 2009

pandemo

6:28p Contractor Called I had a doctor's appointment before the Amish finished leveling the trailer, so I have several doors not working right -- some won't latch, others bind. The latest one I found was my bathroom door! I hate to think what the oven's levelness is like. The contractor just called, before I even had time to get upset about four men in the house with a bathroom door that will not latch, much less lock, and the crew will be back Monday to finish backfilling the hole and will make sure the trailer is level and all the doors work before they leave. I am quite relieved. He even inquired about my eye surgery scheduled for Tuesday. current mood: relieved current music: Sing, Sing - Robert Shaw Chorale

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pandemo

6:15p Posted in "Cool" First From acoolsecretary's comments: Once I had my nose shattered and was scheduled into a Des Moines hospital for reconstruction. The weekend before my surgery, we had extreme flooding, and all elective surgeries for Des Moines and environs were cancelled. I needed to do it during the summer when I did not have to miss school, so I went with my doctor referral to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, where I'd lived from seventh grade through junior college. The specialist was young and Dr. Kildare beautiful. My sister, the nurse, went with me and was HORRIFIED when I teased him. He set me off with the comment "We wouldn't want to make you too beautiful," implying that it would be too big a shock. I told him I'd been voted "Miss Piggy Look-Alike" by the Rochester Summer Arts in the Parks program. When I went back, I'd drawn a panel of cartoons featuring a properly bruised up "Miss Piggy". My sister threatened to stay home. She was employed at St. Mary's Hospital, the "bed" part of Mayo. Unlikely that she'd ever run into him, but life is strange. Me, I enjoyed tweaking him. He obviously wasn't used to THAT! He was so easy to tease. (And, no, the nose job has never elicited a "beautiful" comment. I was told to recover keeping my face out of the sun for six weeks, but even with good effort toward that goal, on a horse farm, living alone, I got exposed, and to this day have the overly red look of sun on my cheeks. Fortunately, vanity has never been one of my hot buttons.) current mood: amused current music: Low Lands - Robert Shaw Chorale

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Thursday, October 29th, 2009

pandemo

9:43p Good News, Bad News Department Good news - Bad news department: Now I'm all depressed when I want to be totally hyped! I don't believe in coincidences, but, I'm tempted to start after my eye doctor appointment Oct. 24 led to today's pre-operative evaluation... IT IS TIME. Unaided, the left eye could discern only the large E at the top of the eye chart. The right eye is also now also operable, but in far better shape. The good: Last May, my brother agreed to build my LIBRARY over a basement next to my mobile home so I'd have 1) a storm shelter 2) room for all my books sometime this summer. But the rains came all last year and continued into this one, so all the cement workers are YEARS behind. The contractor said, "June, maybe, July more likely." He came in mid-October. Wednesday, he called my brother and gave him the "the cement will be hard enough by..." date. My brother called me at 6:30 this morning and said he'd arrive late Saturday night OR EARLY EARLY (as in 2-3 am) SUNDAY with three Central Americans to help. Once a week, I send him the weather predictions. I hope those warm climate workers have LONG JOHNS! Bet they get to see snow deeper than a quarter inch... I have NOT told my brother I'm doing a NANO novel. I'm supposed to fix them three squares a day while they build, build, build and tear off old shingles and install new... So, the basement is hardening, and that is SO GOOD to see after trying for three years to get it done... But, last spring, I lost my ScriptFrenzy ability to the recovery from eye surgery for macular degeneration in my left eye. The earliest date to go after the cataract that always accompanies it (if not removed beforehand -- mine were not severe enough beforehand - is six months to a year. This morning, I had the evaluation for the pesky left eye. Surgery is TUESDAY. Right eye, Nov. 12. So, my goal may be shortened to what is do-able under the circumstances... Last year, with the benefit of being retired, I got to 80,000+. No way, this year... That first week is shaping up to be a real doozy. current mood: depressed current music: Kishmul's Galley - Davy Steele

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pandemo

5:58p On Construction DC, the contractor, told my brother he felt like a movie star. It is all my brother's fault. He told me he wanted a video record of the entire project from start to finish. I took him at his word. I should have shot the front of the trailer before anyone got here, but I goofed and did not. I may have it on some other video, by accident... I THINK I have something from when it first got set. Maybe. No idea where, of course. Amishmen are shy. I've heard that they don't like their faces photographed, so I tried to stick to hands, backs, or total body shots... Nobody complained, (at least, not to me...) No job was too tiny to escape my lens. At the end of the third day, I had shot three 60 minute tapes, and am running out. I wish I'd had the video camera with me as we came home from Des Moines -- The creek was still out of its bank. By the time we got unloaded and the mandatory calls made to order the dumpster box and set up the pre-surgery physical for my cataract surgery on Tuesday, it was dark. That full creek and the puddles would have been perfect additions to the "rush job" that kept the Amish hard at it until 7:30 last night. DC had promised me the night before that before they left Wednesday, I'd have gravel between the collapsed south wall of the trailer where the last three supports were within inches of slipping into the pit, and the newly poured, but uncured cement wall. When I reminded him of the cement slab under the stairs, he also filled in that wall with gravel, so it would not settle and crack the slab. He "made it so". I now have no yard or pasture grass left at the top of the hill, and semi-smoothed over ruts that were 6-8" deep earlier, with machine tracks every which way. This is the way it will look all winter until spring planting rolls around. Yesterday at sunset, one (H) politely knocked on the door and asked for a trouble light (work light that will clip on just about anything, with a long cord. Generally, men are lying under a vehicle with it clamped to some part of an auto frame, in my experience...) Not being male, I don't have one. He removed his shoes and climbed into the front door from the ground. (I was impressed!) He crawled behind my end table and unplugged the wire I wiggled, so he could use my tall new thin pole lamp. V's boy (a fourteen year old live wire who looks about 10) draped himself over the wall and held the lamp upside down, several feet from the floor while H smoothed the cement. I talked them into accepting soup, using the old "feed the working field hands" analogy I grew up with. I took out a family sized can of creamed chicken soup, and H and ? approved it. I stirred it forever before it came to a boil. By then a carload had arrived to retrieve the boys, but the job was not quite done. I offered more bowls and spoons, but everyone else professed to be "fine". They ate their lunch boxes dry at noon, and the smoothing was not finished until 7:30. I sent out a third bowl with two different styles of crackers, Benton's and saltines. One each of the Benton crackers disappeared but over half the stack of saltines disappeared into hungry maws. Both soup bowls and the pan came back empty (but not licked clean...LOL). H, who'd been working while the others ate, philosophically said, "I don't need to eat." He's the one I talked into accepting the food. These guys are workaholics. current mood: amused current music: Brand New Day - Davy Steele

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