Ahhhhhhhhh
I am really REALLY enjoying being able to get up in the morning without feeling vaguely panicked about everything I need to do immediately-if-not-sooner.
Life-y updates: the big panel meeting last week went smoothly-enough, thanks not to me but to scads of people who coped with the confusion from our earlier computer woes. My sister's oncologist has cleared her to drive and she's back in her own place. I think that's a relief to everybody: Sue, Mom, and Sue's cat. Her 22yr old boyfriend sent me his love in her last email -- my mind just pretty much boggles.
(If you should happen to need a hysterectomy, DaVinci surgery (it's the brand name for a robot that assists with laproscopic surgery) rocks. Sue's recuperation has been amazingly swift.)
I am having a wonderful time right now reading Bujold. The CD that came with Cryoburn is full of goodies. One of them -- the entire text of The Vorkosigan Companion isn't on the CD menu; you have to go digging for the file. That includes all sorts of interesting info, especially a long interview of Lois done by Lillian Stewart Carl, the author of the book and Lois' childhood friend. Since they wrote fanfic together in high school, it's really fun.
I'm holding off on Cryoburn, rather like waiting to open a cherished present. Right now I'm re-reading Shards of Honor, the first part of Cordelia's Honor. It's just lovely; watching Aral and Cordelia together is terrific. Because Bujold is so very much show-don't-tell and because I gulped the book down the first time on a long plane ride, I missed all sorts of things. And of course I didn't know who (say) Koudelka or Illyan would turn out to be.
At the moment Cordelia is in the Barrayaran prison camp and Aral is admitting to Cordelia that yes, she's right; Ezar Vorbarra is a cold-blooded SOB. But the other options were all worse.
For the fiber-y people, the most exciting thing I can report is last week's carding class. 'Carding' is one way to prepare wool, silk, etc, for spinning. You can either use hand cards (which look a lot like dog brushes) or a drum carder (a small hand cranked machine); either way you basically drag a lot of tiny fine wire hooks through the fiber to brush it out. I haven't used a drum carder before and in this class we got to play with them AND play with lots of different kinds of fiber in lots of different colors. The results for me are sort of like finger painting with wool and silk and mohair and sparkly nylon: a couple of big fluffy masses of fiber ready to spin (batts). One is pink and green and purple and the other is red, yellow and blue. I went for BRIGHTBRIGHT just for the fun of it. And it was tremendously fun, except for the new 'now I want a drum carder' problem :-)
Life-y updates: the big panel meeting last week went smoothly-enough, thanks not to me but to scads of people who coped with the confusion from our earlier computer woes. My sister's oncologist has cleared her to drive and she's back in her own place. I think that's a relief to everybody: Sue, Mom, and Sue's cat. Her 22yr old boyfriend sent me his love in her last email -- my mind just pretty much boggles.
(If you should happen to need a hysterectomy, DaVinci surgery (it's the brand name for a robot that assists with laproscopic surgery) rocks. Sue's recuperation has been amazingly swift.)
I am having a wonderful time right now reading Bujold. The CD that came with Cryoburn is full of goodies. One of them -- the entire text of The Vorkosigan Companion isn't on the CD menu; you have to go digging for the file. That includes all sorts of interesting info, especially a long interview of Lois done by Lillian Stewart Carl, the author of the book and Lois' childhood friend. Since they wrote fanfic together in high school, it's really fun.
I'm holding off on Cryoburn, rather like waiting to open a cherished present. Right now I'm re-reading Shards of Honor, the first part of Cordelia's Honor. It's just lovely; watching Aral and Cordelia together is terrific. Because Bujold is so very much show-don't-tell and because I gulped the book down the first time on a long plane ride, I missed all sorts of things. And of course I didn't know who (say) Koudelka or Illyan would turn out to be.
At the moment Cordelia is in the Barrayaran prison camp and Aral is admitting to Cordelia that yes, she's right; Ezar Vorbarra is a cold-blooded SOB. But the other options were all worse.
For the fiber-y people, the most exciting thing I can report is last week's carding class. 'Carding' is one way to prepare wool, silk, etc, for spinning. You can either use hand cards (which look a lot like dog brushes) or a drum carder (a small hand cranked machine); either way you basically drag a lot of tiny fine wire hooks through the fiber to brush it out. I haven't used a drum carder before and in this class we got to play with them AND play with lots of different kinds of fiber in lots of different colors. The results for me are sort of like finger painting with wool and silk and mohair and sparkly nylon: a couple of big fluffy masses of fiber ready to spin (batts). One is pink and green and purple and the other is red, yellow and blue. I went for BRIGHTBRIGHT just for the fun of it. And it was tremendously fun, except for the new 'now I want a drum carder' problem :-)