yonmei

09:18 am: Wolf and weather
We've had really lovely weather the past few days - beautifully warm and sunny. Even at night it never really got cold. Wolf's been going out (and staying out) all hours.

Last night it started to rain. It's grey and mizzly today.

Wolf ran to the front door. I opened it for him. He stood looking out. Then he turned round and ran back inside.

(A few minutes later, he got me to open the front door again, but the weather hadn't changed. Too bad, Wolfcat!)




Tags: weather, wolf

12:20 pm: I am too hot. I need summerweight jeans.
I have a pair of summerweight jeans bought in Arizona in 2004, but unfortunately they no longer fit me. They were extremely nice summerweight jeans, and I miss them.

Either that, or I should have the brassneck to wear shorts to the office.

...which I don't.

(I don't think I could quite cope with the reaction I'd get if I wore a skirt to the office. The last time I wore a skirt to the office because it was too hot to wear jeans, was when I worked at Compaq, and I got an overreacting omgyou'rewearingaskirt! there, too. (Actually, there, the reactions were probably from people thinking "Is she going to a job interview?" rather than "Is she turning fem?" but either way: shorts or summerweight jeans, not skirt.)

This is boring. I didn't mean to be this boring.

I uploaded about a thousand photos from my camera to my hard drive yesterday, in two goes - the six hundred plus that had been lurking on my camera for some time (well, over two-thirds of those photos only since Plockton) and the four hundred or so I took at South Queensferry on a Redbubble meetup. That was the first time ever I'd been out for a photographer's outing with a bunch of other camera nuts, and I really enjoyed it. (Though the friend who'd come with me for lunch and theoretically for a bit of a wander post lunch, found the sudden photo-nuttiness of it all a bit much and bailed about 2:30. I couldn't blame him.)

I am meant to be having a meeting today with one of my colleagues: so far he's an hour and a half late for it, and has not responded to the e-mail inquiring whether he would like to reschedule.

Tags: redbubble, weather

10:41 am: Weather
I keep planning to leave the house - even if only briefly to sprinkle coffee grounds in the garden - and then it is pelting down again.

Hail, heavy rain, hail. Also wind. Lots of wind.

I came home yesterday evening to find the sheets and such I had left on the line soaked through, and put them in the washing machine hoping that the rain would have rained itself out by tomorrow and I could hang them back on the line. No. (The most effective way of keeping my bedding clean of dust/dust mites: wash at 60+ temperatures (which kills the dust mites) and then hang them outside to dry. Hanging them from the pulley in the kitchen is fine, but not as effective.)

Hail. I want to go out.

I just discovered (yesterday) that I have a card that gives me a free cup of brewed coffee from Starbucks, one a day every day till 21st April, any time after 2pm. So I exercised it on the nearest Starbucks, and ... well, confirmed yet again that I don't really like Starbucks brewed coffee. Still. It was caffeine, and I was nearly falling asleep.

I had an awkward and painful discussion of RaceFail 09 with autopope and feorag, in which nobody's mind got changed, though I did manage to express my discomfort at various things that had got said by them. So, well.

Hey, it's snowing!

Okay, that's it, I'm going out.

Update: I sprinkled coffee grounds while it was still snowing a bit, and came back in to have a bowl of porridge with fresh raspberries, and now the sun is shining and I am going properly out.

Well, once I finish my coffee. I have an idea for two communities to start: one about Dragon Mountain, which is where all the dragons I am breeding live, and yours could too, if you like: and other about 50 books by writers who are people of colour (there's one on livejournal, and aside from anything else, it would encourage me to read more books for the first time as opposed to always re-reading...I think.)

Tags: racefail 09, weather

07:40 am: SNOW!
First thought: Woo, snow!
Second thought: Whoops, I have to go to Glasgow this morning, should I cancel?
Third thought: it's hell being a grown-up, isn't it?

Tags: bloody job, weather

11:47 pm: Yes, it's COLD
When I went out tonight to put the empty boxes in the cupboard under the stairs for the organic veg delivery tomorrow, the stone I keep as a doorstop was frozen to the ground.

Tags: weather

10:58 pm: Yesterday, and today
I get depressed, over nothing very important, and it becomes difficult to write about stuff.

It was my dad's 82nd birthday yesterday. I gave him cake, and a jar of "pumpkin marmalade", which is quite tasty, and a book; Jane Austen's England, which I knew he would like, and he did.

Also, I heard the spectacularly good news that his book is to be published: the magnum opus he spent 10 years writing and then discovered no publishing house wanted to do a book by an unknown writer (unknown except to academic fans of Robert Southey) about an unknown hero (unknown except to Quakers who recall pre-WWII). But, my dad's wealthiest former PhD student had one of her books made into a movie, and - clearly being a person of taste, discerment, and good judgement - is offering the university press a private subvention to produce the book. So, yay.

My brother rang to wish him a happy birthday and to tell us he was having his wisdom teeth out tomorrow.

I left just before 10pm and just missed the 11 bus, so walked downhill for 40 minutes and caught the next 11 bus on Princes Street. My ankle hurt. I probably overdid it.

Today I slept in. And it snowed. I have awesome amounts of cake leftover from Saturday night, but I shall consider it a trial run for cake-making for Redemption.

It didn't snow much where I live or where I work (I got caught in a couple of flurries, but it never lay down on the pavement and looked pretty). And according to Weather Pixie, right now it's 3 degrees above freezing and raining lightly. I took some cake to work: I think my favourite is the banana-walnut cakes.

My mum gave me a tray for 12 mini-muffins (even smaller than most fairy cakes) and a big six-muffin tray. Also a muffin recipe book.





The Mess From All Hell still seems to be merrily going on on livejournal, but I really don't want to know about it any more...

Tags: baking, dragons, family stuff, weather

11:21 am: I need a dragon icon...
These little dragons have a day to live:


These little dragons were hatched two days ago:


And I has an egg:


I slept in. It snowed.

Tags: dragons, weather

12:32 pm: Things Of Misery
There's the thing. You know.

Also, ranging from the argh to the argharghargh:

I got hardly any sleep last night.
I am about to treat myself to a double-shot espresso and an almond croissant. (WOE and FAIL: all the nearby places that sell almond croissant had sold out. I went to three places and finally made do with what I thought was a pain au raisin and turned out to be a pain au chocolat cunningly disguised.) (Talking to a colleague in another organisation about the thing: she said "You need a cake.")
I made myself ten minutes later this morning hanging washing out on the line because it looked like it was going to be a lovely day, and it is now pouring with rain so the washing will be soaked and will probably (at least) need to be spun and hung up on the pulley in the kitchen. Argh.
I left windows open.
I think Wolf is out. (Though he will probably just find a dry spot to shelter in and complain at me when I get home.)
My roof still leaks a bit.
I have some stuff I have to get done at work before I can get home and I feel like I just want to curl up into a ball and pull the covers over my head.
I got hardly any sleep last night.

Tell me good stuff. I don't care what. Or share your misery. Or tell me something interesting or useful.

Something.

Argharghargh.

Tags: just my life really, weather, wolf

10:18 am: On the list of things I didn't need
At about 8am, I'm sitting upstairs checking e-mails. I noticed that Wolf has managed to rip paper off the wall, when he stood up to stretch and scratch, and I wonder how he did that - none of my other cats managed to do it, though that corner's been a favoured stretch-and-scratch site for all of them.

I touch the wall, and it's wet. I look up, and see that the corner of the ceiling above is wet. We've had a lot of heavy rain recently.

After a tedious interval of firmly-suppressed panic, worry, more panic, worry, and searching the attic space with a nightlight that kept blowing out, I discover where the leak is: it's under a pipe through the ceiling, and the wood is wet and the pipe is wet and while it's not disastrous, it's clearly Not Good.

I put a plastic washing-up bowl under the roof (it's not perfect, because the leak is too far under the slope of the eaves, but it may do something) and another container under the leak upstairs. I e-mail work to say I will be late in (it turns out my manager will be working from home today because of flooding on the lines between Edinburgh and Glasgow, so I add the tag "Water, water, everywhere".

I open the bathroom window and lean out and realise that there is a pipe - above the tiles it looks like a plastic pipe - just about where it looks like the metal pipe is. And yes, around the pipe, the tiles look fairly disturbed and askew. (This annoys me, because we had the roof seen to last year, and they were supposed to fix it all.)

Fortunately all roof costs are always split four ways, and hopefully my neighbour will have note of the builders he used last time, because I plan to call them and point out that I'm not happy we had to call them in again.

Tags: home repairs, weather

10:23 pm: Tired tired tired tired
I keep meaning to write a lengthy post about the stuff that is happening that is making me so tired. Then I feel too tired and sick of it to write about it. I think I'd rather make stuff up.

Let's do that ask me a question and I'll lie meme.

I did write that long post about Orson Scott Card's latest blurt of homophobia, and it took two hours and I giggled a lot as I did it and it made me feel happy and fluffy, like a kind of vampire attack bunny.

I got drenched yesterday in a rainstorm. Fortunately I was heading for home at the time. I got so wet it was funny - literally soaked to the skin, just in 10 minutes. There was a lot of rain.

I have been reading journals on my f-list and they have been wonderful and cute and funny and appealling and your lives have been windows of joy and sometimes sadness and interest and light and life into mine, and I've been wanting to comment and I've been tired.


The lengthy post I have to write would not even be very interesting. Ask me a question. Let me lie to you. I think I can do that.

Tags: silly memes, weather

02:34 pm: It's STOPPED RAINING
I was going to write something more exciting, but instead, I think I'll just go OUT. Sunny! Whee!

Tags: just my life really, weather

01:16 pm: Insane Picnic
The sun is shining, on 1st July I'll be promoted (no more money, lots more work, honour, and significant amounts of What Fresh Hell Is This, WFHIT, I need an icon that says that...) and I want to have a picnic.

I invite you all! (This may have to be an imaginary picnic. Or a virtual one.) We will meet on Whinney Hill on Sunday 6th July, at noon, and stay there till we run out of (a) food (b) drink (c) the glorious view. (I have decided not to worry about the sun not shining or it raining.)

I have a clever container which is luggable in which I can bring ice-cubes and cold drinks. (I do not do fizzy sweet stuff with chemicals, so if you like Fanta or Coke or champagne, you need to bring your own supplies.)

Besides large quantities of orange juice, and lots of ice-cubes, and a litre of water, I shall bring:

A couple of bottles of wine. Red and white.
A large supply of home-baked rolls.
Butter and cheese and whole-grain mustard and chutneys.
Apples.

Also, if I figure out a way of transporting both, a flask of espresso and a carton of ice-cream so that we can have iced coffee, because there is Nothing Nicer.

What will you bring to my picnic? (While I don't myself eat meat or fish, I'm not actively opposed to other people doing it in front of me. I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals: I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants.)

PS: I have reasons to be depressed, but we'll talk about those later. Right now: picnic!

Tags: coffee, eating some delicious food, green in the city, imaginary friend meetup, weather

08:26 am: Whan that Aprille
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

Except that's snowing. Large white flakes spiralling down and covering the ground. It's snowing. Whan Zephirus, come here and eek with your swete breet!

Tags: weather

12:28 pm: It's SNOWING
Quite a lot. It is pretty.

But it's still so warm that the snow just turns to slush as it hits the pavement.

Tags: happy new year, weather

11:43 pm: Frost sparkles
I am in a better mood now than I was three hours ago, and I can't altogether say why. I went out to autopope's eyrie to collect the offered e-book reader he is lending my dad for him to try out to see if it works for him as a means of reading in bed. (At minimum, I think he should be able to read anything on Project Gutenberg on this rare device, and that covers a vast deal of my dad's preferred reading-for-fun as well as his reading-for-work.) If this works put, my brother and sister and I could buy him one, or something similar.

autopope gave me a copy of Halting State, which looks fab: yay for Christmas Day reading!

There was a hard frost early this morning - possibly even a light snowfall - which had melted into rain and slush by sunset, and after sunset, froze. The pavements on the way over were full of frosty stars. I walked there and back thinking about the limitations of photography. I can see those tiny bright fierce diamonds glinting in the light from the streetlamps, glittery against the dark pavement. But no camera could photograph this: it exists only in the human eye perceiving it.

I managed to take a photograph yesterday (Friday) of the light pouring round the steeple of the church facing the west side of Princes Street Gardens, from the terrace on the east side. The sun was just behind the steeple for a few minutes, and the sunlight illuminated the haar so that you could see it much more distinctly than the houses behind it: and the camera could see it too.

But not these frosty sparkles in the pavement, which exist only because my eye receives the light sharply reflected from them, and the light is at the right angle and of only sufficient intensity and so forth and so on...

Still. I'm feeling good. And sleepy at last, yay.


( Plans for Christmas )

Tags: christmas, nonphotos, weather

03:06 pm: It's Scotland, it's June, it should be RAINING
Or snowing.

It's hot. Hot hot hot.

I went to a history of LGBT cartooning event in the City Art Centre at lunchtime, with Kate Charlesworth and David Shenton, and it was fab, but I was sitting in the hot room trying desperately not to go to sleep, because it was fab but I was hot. And somewhat stressed.

I want to go lie in the sun somewhere and go to sleep, but I have a meeting this afternoon at four I have to go to: I suppose I shall go have an iced latte instead.

Tags: being queer, weather

07:43 pm: Fall of grace
This morning, I came out of my front door (in a bit of a rush: I had to get up to my parents to help out my dad with his operating system, or rather his laptop's operating system): paused a minute on the top step to appreciate the misty morning (it's been foggy all day down here: we often get haar in the late morning, but not usually all day long) and the frost on the grass, and then took a brisk step down.

And down. And down. My foot had gone out from under me, I wasn't able to keep my balance, and the steps were slippery: had I been thinking, I would have put together frost on the grass, mist in the air, and glistening steps, and realised that they were icy. It was a bumpy fall.

My keys, I found out hours later, had fallen out of my pocket - I conclude my pocket, not my hand, since they fell to the left, and I hold my keys in my right hand, though I often stow them away in the left hand pocket.

I stopped when my feet hit the ground: I was sitting about three or four steps from the ground, my dignity and my butt both bruised. Fortunately, nothing broken, nor indeed significantly damaged. I picked myself up, and went on.

It's not the first time there's been ice on the steps. It is the first time I've fallen on them, and though it was a bit of a shock to the system, it could have been decidedly worse: my mum went slightly white when told about it. (She is lame, fears heights, and hates my steps: she never goes up or down without clinging tightly to the rails either side.)

I discovered a few hours later in the bank that my keys were not in my pocket, and promptly panicked in case I had not even locked the door before I fell and it had been standing open all day. (I had. And my keys were in the middle of the stone path underneath my stair, where they had evidently dropped that morning: in fact, possibly, it was my turning to put my keys in my left pocket with my right hand that threw me initially off balance.)

Other than that, it was a nice kind of day: I ran into Ajay at lunchtime and we had lunch, talked slash (she's tormenting Rodney and John with kittens, right now), discussed family, and even visited a bookshop.

Tags: falling, weather

07:11 pm: Isn't it nice when things just... work?
I was walking home from meeting Atropos at the museum for coffee and natter, via Real Foods (bag full of healthy groceries in one hand, Margery Allingham in the other). And just as I was passing the primary school, five minutes from home, it came on to rain. Suddenly, in buckets. Before I got to my front door, my jeans were soaked, my socks were wet through, my hair was sopping wet.

(I had stopped to ring merlins_lair twenty minutes from home, having suddenly the feeling that this was the right time to do it: if not, I daresay I might have made it home on time.)

Fortunately, this morning, I had taken out a portion of the courgette and broccoli curry I've been working on. It was defrosted, and all I had to do was stick it in the microwave, run upstairs to get a towel, change out of my wet clothes, dry my hair, towel Gallus dry - and my curry was hot and ready. (This attempt was hotter than I think I want to go for normally, but very welcome when I had just been drenched in cold rainwater.)

Tags: eating some delicious food, gallus, weather

02:20 pm: I went out for a walk today
Port of Leith is full of bridges. I crossed one safely, and fell crossing the second. Lay there on the slippery-wet wood, realising that I had succeeded in falling without injuring myself, and was therefore going to have to get up and Be Embarrassed. Which beats the alternative.

Snow last night. Icy mud and snow this morning. Sunshine on Leith right now.

My mum made a birthday cake: my dad delivered it. My coworkers will (I hope) eat the majority of it. It is brown and fluffy with very sweet icing. Want some?

Tags: family stuff, weather

11:58 am: Hail!
Hail.

Tags: weather