I Should Be Writing....
But as you can see, I am not.
It is a beautiful day outside. We had breakfast on the balcony this morning. Bobby made cheesy eggs, chocolate chip muffins, and pineapple rings. We were attacked by yellow jackets. I killed one with a spoon and nearly wept for the regret. I don't kill things. Spiders and insects get caught with a napkin and a cup and let go outside. (Some critters, like millipedes, I don't mind and will allow to wander around the apartment, but Bobby is squicked by them.) Bobby is quite frightened of bees, and so when the yellow jacket landed on his plate, my first thought was to keep him from getting stung and--
GAK!!
If it had been my plate, I would have just let it crawl around, lick up the pineapple juice, and if it stung me...oh, well. (I am so going to have an allergic reaction someday! But I can't bring myself to hate/fear bees!)
Allergic reactions to bees work the opposite of immunity to pathogens. While exposure to a virus will allow the immune system to fight it better the next time it sees it, the chemical that causes allergic reactions to beestings builds up a little more with each sting, so a person who has been stung a lot is more apt to have an allergic reaction. My uncle, like me, had been stung hundreds of times over the course of his life, and one day, he just had an allergic reaction. Now, he has to carry a beesting kit.
/biology lesson for the day :)
That'll probably be me one day.... *sigh*
Today's Teh Über Day of Ice Skating. I'm going to a public session with Bobby this afternoon, and he's playing pick-up hockey tonight. The man has been inconsolable about hockey: NHL's getting ready to start up, and he begins his league in a few weeks. I'm happy for him :)
The other night, at skating class, I was pissed off because of a financial foible that I made, and I was skating like a maniac. At one point, I realized that I was coming out of spins and three-turning into another; that I didn't even take a thirty-second break to relax or have a swallow of water. Oh, and because I know everyone has been worrying over my knee (;D), rest assured that it is fine now. I was back up to doing open flips and everything on Wednesday, so it must have been a little twist and nothing serious, which is good because it really hurt that one day, and I was worried.
I skated so hard that I kept waking up all that night because my poor abused ankles hurt so badly. The next day, I told Bobby, and he said, "Good."
"Good?!" I said, but I laughed. It's just an example of how we understand each other. Most people wouldn't think it "good" for his wife to hurt herself in club skating! But he knows that I consider a practice a good practice if it hurts a little (or more!) the next day. After all, he was the one so happy to feel "used" after skating all last weekend ;)
Oh, and I have achieved one of my goals for the year, already. Wednesday, in the midst of the madness, I started nailing the outer-forward spins. Of course, the real question remains: Will I be able to do them at private lessons tomorrow?
Those of us who are called "advanced specialist" skaters always joke that the presence of our teacher makes us unable to do skills that we can do perfectly in actuality. So we witness each other doing them and vouch to Miss Jackie, "Sure, she can do outer-forward spins when you're not around!"
That never works, though. She still stands there and watches us until we do them for her too!
The next night, I had insomnia again because I couldn't stop thinking about the floor plan for my eventual ice cream store. I want to sketch it out sometime, in between the other half-million things I have to do. One of the things that annoyed me the most about The Piece was the poor organization of the kitchen. (And being the kitchen manager, I got to know this keenly.) The Piece was designed as a small burger joint, serving a limited array of grilled foods. Then, some genius decided that we should also serve fajitas and roasted turkey dinners and pot roast and chicken parmesan, but no one ever thought to remodel the kitchen.
Once, my mom (who was the server trainer at The Piece at the time) and I sketched out a new layout for the kitchen that involved nothing more than trimming down a two foot bit of counter to move some of the refrigeration equipment around. The largest cold unit was at the breakfast grill, which got used for one-and-half hours per day. At the lunch/dinner grill was this tiny little thing that couldn't even hold all of the ingredients we needed.
We got an estimate for what it would cost to fix the counter: $200. In one year, the increased productivity would earn more than that back for the store. But the company wouldn't spring for it.
Nor would they spring for a new fryer. Ours was only ten years old and, occasionally, when turned on, would throw a blue fireball from the electical connection.
It also broke every other month, necessitating a $200 repair each time. (A new fryer was $600.) No, that makes no sense at all, to buy a new fryer when you can spend that money repairing the old one! Or paying your legal fees when your kitchen manager (that would be me) gets electrocuted while trying to open the kitchen in the morning.
Good thing I'm gone from there.
I was supposed to have an entrpreneur's conference in October, but they didn't have enough people registered, and so it was bumped back again, to January. Well, at least I have more time to do my research before going, so that I can figure out what I need to learn and ask.
Oh! And I forgot this SQUEEEEEE-worthy detail! My dad went to pick up my Christmas present the other day.
Christmas present, you ask? Now?!
He got me a new ice cream maker. My current ice cream maker involves freezing the mixing bowl for a day before use, which uses a lot of freezer space. It also means that I can't make more than two--at most--batches of ice cream in a row.
My new ice cream maker will not require pre-freezing. So I will have two ice cream makers now. Why do I have a feeling that I'm going to have to set aside a special budget, just for cream?
And Bobby is looking into getting me a small under-the-counter freezer so that my ice cream and his giant packages of frozen meat don't have to compete for freezer space.
Felak happy.... :)
Okay, rambling about food service and ice cream aside....
Being as I have people on my flist much more knowledgeable about canon than I am, I wanted to pose a few Silmarillion questions.
The first came from a discussion aramel_calawen and I were having earlier, in Chapter 16 of AMC. (Although it has nothing to do with AMC.) I remember, a while back, being privy to a conversation about the nature of Eöl's and Aredhel's marriage.
According to someone in this conversation, Tolkien originally envisioned that Eöl forced Aredhel into marriage. Of course, this idea was eventually rejected.
Problem is, I don't know that I've ever seen this in HoMe, but I don't own but a few volumes and have precious little reading time to devote to studying old versions of The Silmarillion. Most of my HoMe reading occurs in bookstores, standing in the aisles, drooling over books I can't afford.
Has anyone ever heard of this idea? Or (even better!) have a source?
Second question: I have heard numerous people reference the fact that Finwë was not one of the original Elves from Cuivienen.
Intuitively, it has always seemed to me that he was, and I have never seen anything to dispute this. (Although, as most of you know, I am no canatic.) I asked this question over at the Henneth Annun Yahoo! list a few months ago, and I got a few responses from people who believed--as I did--that Finwë was Unbegotten.
Is there any evidence to the contrary? Because I have heard people speak quite definitively to their opinion that he was not, and they seemed certain of this canonically, not just as though it was a fanficcer's whim.
I realize that Olwë and Elwë were brothers, but so were Manwë and Melkor, and Irmo and Namo, but they were "brethren in the thought of Eru" (or something like that).
Any thoughts?
It is a beautiful day outside. We had breakfast on the balcony this morning. Bobby made cheesy eggs, chocolate chip muffins, and pineapple rings. We were attacked by yellow jackets. I killed one with a spoon and nearly wept for the regret. I don't kill things. Spiders and insects get caught with a napkin and a cup and let go outside. (Some critters, like millipedes, I don't mind and will allow to wander around the apartment, but Bobby is squicked by them.) Bobby is quite frightened of bees, and so when the yellow jacket landed on his plate, my first thought was to keep him from getting stung and--
GAK!!
If it had been my plate, I would have just let it crawl around, lick up the pineapple juice, and if it stung me...oh, well. (I am so going to have an allergic reaction someday! But I can't bring myself to hate/fear bees!)
Allergic reactions to bees work the opposite of immunity to pathogens. While exposure to a virus will allow the immune system to fight it better the next time it sees it, the chemical that causes allergic reactions to beestings builds up a little more with each sting, so a person who has been stung a lot is more apt to have an allergic reaction. My uncle, like me, had been stung hundreds of times over the course of his life, and one day, he just had an allergic reaction. Now, he has to carry a beesting kit.
/biology lesson for the day :)
That'll probably be me one day.... *sigh*
Today's Teh Über Day of Ice Skating. I'm going to a public session with Bobby this afternoon, and he's playing pick-up hockey tonight. The man has been inconsolable about hockey: NHL's getting ready to start up, and he begins his league in a few weeks. I'm happy for him :)
The other night, at skating class, I was pissed off because of a financial foible that I made, and I was skating like a maniac. At one point, I realized that I was coming out of spins and three-turning into another; that I didn't even take a thirty-second break to relax or have a swallow of water. Oh, and because I know everyone has been worrying over my knee (;D), rest assured that it is fine now. I was back up to doing open flips and everything on Wednesday, so it must have been a little twist and nothing serious, which is good because it really hurt that one day, and I was worried.
I skated so hard that I kept waking up all that night because my poor abused ankles hurt so badly. The next day, I told Bobby, and he said, "Good."
"Good?!" I said, but I laughed. It's just an example of how we understand each other. Most people wouldn't think it "good" for his wife to hurt herself in club skating! But he knows that I consider a practice a good practice if it hurts a little (or more!) the next day. After all, he was the one so happy to feel "used" after skating all last weekend ;)
Oh, and I have achieved one of my goals for the year, already. Wednesday, in the midst of the madness, I started nailing the outer-forward spins. Of course, the real question remains: Will I be able to do them at private lessons tomorrow?
Those of us who are called "advanced specialist" skaters always joke that the presence of our teacher makes us unable to do skills that we can do perfectly in actuality. So we witness each other doing them and vouch to Miss Jackie, "Sure, she can do outer-forward spins when you're not around!"
That never works, though. She still stands there and watches us until we do them for her too!
The next night, I had insomnia again because I couldn't stop thinking about the floor plan for my eventual ice cream store. I want to sketch it out sometime, in between the other half-million things I have to do. One of the things that annoyed me the most about The Piece was the poor organization of the kitchen. (And being the kitchen manager, I got to know this keenly.) The Piece was designed as a small burger joint, serving a limited array of grilled foods. Then, some genius decided that we should also serve fajitas and roasted turkey dinners and pot roast and chicken parmesan, but no one ever thought to remodel the kitchen.
Once, my mom (who was the server trainer at The Piece at the time) and I sketched out a new layout for the kitchen that involved nothing more than trimming down a two foot bit of counter to move some of the refrigeration equipment around. The largest cold unit was at the breakfast grill, which got used for one-and-half hours per day. At the lunch/dinner grill was this tiny little thing that couldn't even hold all of the ingredients we needed.
We got an estimate for what it would cost to fix the counter: $200. In one year, the increased productivity would earn more than that back for the store. But the company wouldn't spring for it.
Nor would they spring for a new fryer. Ours was only ten years old and, occasionally, when turned on, would throw a blue fireball from the electical connection.
It also broke every other month, necessitating a $200 repair each time. (A new fryer was $600.) No, that makes no sense at all, to buy a new fryer when you can spend that money repairing the old one! Or paying your legal fees when your kitchen manager (that would be me) gets electrocuted while trying to open the kitchen in the morning.
Good thing I'm gone from there.
I was supposed to have an entrpreneur's conference in October, but they didn't have enough people registered, and so it was bumped back again, to January. Well, at least I have more time to do my research before going, so that I can figure out what I need to learn and ask.
Oh! And I forgot this SQUEEEEEE-worthy detail! My dad went to pick up my Christmas present the other day.
Christmas present, you ask? Now?!
He got me a new ice cream maker. My current ice cream maker involves freezing the mixing bowl for a day before use, which uses a lot of freezer space. It also means that I can't make more than two--at most--batches of ice cream in a row.
My new ice cream maker will not require pre-freezing. So I will have two ice cream makers now. Why do I have a feeling that I'm going to have to set aside a special budget, just for cream?
And Bobby is looking into getting me a small under-the-counter freezer so that my ice cream and his giant packages of frozen meat don't have to compete for freezer space.
Felak happy.... :)
Okay, rambling about food service and ice cream aside....
Being as I have people on my flist much more knowledgeable about canon than I am, I wanted to pose a few Silmarillion questions.
The first came from a discussion aramel_calawen and I were having earlier, in Chapter 16 of AMC. (Although it has nothing to do with AMC.) I remember, a while back, being privy to a conversation about the nature of Eöl's and Aredhel's marriage.
According to someone in this conversation, Tolkien originally envisioned that Eöl forced Aredhel into marriage. Of course, this idea was eventually rejected.
Problem is, I don't know that I've ever seen this in HoMe, but I don't own but a few volumes and have precious little reading time to devote to studying old versions of The Silmarillion. Most of my HoMe reading occurs in bookstores, standing in the aisles, drooling over books I can't afford.
Has anyone ever heard of this idea? Or (even better!) have a source?
Second question: I have heard numerous people reference the fact that Finwë was not one of the original Elves from Cuivienen.
Intuitively, it has always seemed to me that he was, and I have never seen anything to dispute this. (Although, as most of you know, I am no canatic.) I asked this question over at the Henneth Annun Yahoo! list a few months ago, and I got a few responses from people who believed--as I did--that Finwë was Unbegotten.
Is there any evidence to the contrary? Because I have heard people speak quite definitively to their opinion that he was not, and they seemed certain of this canonically, not just as though it was a fanficcer's whim.
I realize that Olwë and Elwë were brothers, but so were Manwë and Melkor, and Irmo and Namo, but they were "brethren in the thought of Eru" (or something like that).
Any thoughts?