Good things, bad things, and a question
The good:
They are having an environmentalist rave this weekend at the Joshua Tree campground about two miles away, called "Earthdance." We can hear the music every now and again when outside. I think it's kinda cool.
Almost walked right into a coyote yesterday whilst walking with Marley. We were out in the desert watching these people who had stopped with their camper in the middle of a road a turn off, and they let their dogs out to run alongside them, and Marley looked like she might want to see if she could catch them all from a quarter of a mile away but listened to me when I said, "No, no chasing. Come on this way." And suddenly right ahead of us was a big reddish coyote, also watching those people and their dogs. It was several inches taller than Marley and very well fed for a coyote, so much that I would have thought it a tall skinny dog except other it looked EXACTLY like a coyote, the kinda stilty legs and proportions and shape and ears and everythign, and it looked at us like "what are you doing here?" But didn't seem really concerned. I called Marley to me but she completely ignored me and started trotting towards the coyote. Fortunately, it ran. Even tho I was initially in between them Marley sped around me with ease. I had four thoughts going through my head simultaneously- "Wow, that's a beatiful animal! I wish Marley hadn't chased it so I could try to talk to it" and "Nooo! Don't hurt the coyote!" and this article about this moron saw a coyote in his yard and let his Doberman out and told the dog to go kill it, which resulted in a dead Doberman in about 10 seconds (coyotes are usually very small, about 30 pounds, so people underestimate them) and the memory of that surreal incident where I saw a black German shepherd and a white German shepherd take off after a coyote. They were sprinting, it was trotting, and it's trot left their sprint behind with ease. I was hoping this owuld be the case here, as there was no good outcome if Marley and it got in a fight.
So, even though Marley is the fastest dog I've ever seen run other than racing greyhounds (and that includes a Borzoi that Nina and Zoe used to play with), I figured the coyote would outrun her. She caught it in a couple of seconds, and her head was right on its left flank when they disappeared into the bush ahead of me.
Eventually, she found me, trotting up behind me while I was still chasing after them. Apparently they had changed directions up ahead and I was following old tracks, or they'd doubled back, or something. No marks and no blood, so either they coyote suddenly started *really* running and left her behind the second after they disappeared from my view, or she was just content to chase it away. To which I offer a giant "whew!"
(and, yes, I carry a flexi-lead in my hand when I walk with her, just in case. Alas, if she starts moving from too far away or before I can grab her, it's kinda useless)
The Bad:
Well, see me being too slow to grab Marley. That might have nothing to do with me getting old and slow, but also yesterday, I was shadowboxing in the sun, literally watching my shadow, and I was horrified to realize that my jab looked like I was just pushing my hand out their to test my opponents reflexes. I mean, really, I used to do that, stick a slow little jab out there just to see what the other person would do. That slow little jab and my now *real* jab are the same speed. This brought a realization that if me now were to fight me then, I quite literally would not be able to land a single punch, and might not be able to stop me-then from landing at will. I am only 46. Getting old SUCKS. In a bad way.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/more-60-arrested-occupy-wall-street-p
This is the second recent peaceful protest (the other being the tar sands extraction protest in DC) where lotsa people got arrested, and no one cares. I truly can't tell you how disturbing I find this. Yeah, mainstream news mostly ignoring them, but still, I'm not sure how many people would be doing anything but tut-tutting at the protesters for being silly enough to get arrested even if there was a video of someone walking down the sidewalk and getting pepper-sprayed out of the blue leading all the nightly news broadcasts for a week. And that's way more disturbing than the arrests and pepper spraying themselves.
I will let that stand in for all my other thoughts on the state of the world.
Dances With Dragons -- I genuinely loathed this book. I am going to re-read it, and see if I like it better, or can figure out better what was wrong with it. I left a brief comment on someone else's blog entry that was waaaay too nice to it, describing myself as ambivalent, but, really, I hated about half of it, and the rest was mixed it. I especially hated the prologue, and most of the Tyrion chapters. It was like grrm had read me and redcandle17 arguing about Tyrion, and he not only thought she was riht, but was horrified that not everyone hated Tyrion as much as she did, and set out to make sure this situation was remedied in the most forceful manner possible without completely changing the character beyond recogntion. Exept grrm has said Tyrion is his favorite character. So, I throw up my hands and weep. Anyway, I disliked this book in the kind of way that makes me like the previous 4 books a lot less, and inclined to completely reevaluate their literary merit. But, since I did love the four previous, I'm giving it a second chance. I expect to regret it fully.
The Question - If I did a DwD reread here in the time-honored traditon of the Marie Brennan's WoT reread and about five jillion reareads over at Tor, taking a few chapters at a time and describing my reactions to them, would anyon be interested? And, more importantly, would it be too mean-spirited, given how much I hate a lot of the chapters? Also, I might get tired of doing it in the middle, so keep that in mind when answering.
They are having an environmentalist rave this weekend at the Joshua Tree campground about two miles away, called "Earthdance." We can hear the music every now and again when outside. I think it's kinda cool.
Almost walked right into a coyote yesterday whilst walking with Marley. We were out in the desert watching these people who had stopped with their camper in the middle of a road a turn off, and they let their dogs out to run alongside them, and Marley looked like she might want to see if she could catch them all from a quarter of a mile away but listened to me when I said, "No, no chasing. Come on this way." And suddenly right ahead of us was a big reddish coyote, also watching those people and their dogs. It was several inches taller than Marley and very well fed for a coyote, so much that I would have thought it a tall skinny dog except other it looked EXACTLY like a coyote, the kinda stilty legs and proportions and shape and ears and everythign, and it looked at us like "what are you doing here?" But didn't seem really concerned. I called Marley to me but she completely ignored me and started trotting towards the coyote. Fortunately, it ran. Even tho I was initially in between them Marley sped around me with ease. I had four thoughts going through my head simultaneously- "Wow, that's a beatiful animal! I wish Marley hadn't chased it so I could try to talk to it" and "Nooo! Don't hurt the coyote!" and this article about this moron saw a coyote in his yard and let his Doberman out and told the dog to go kill it, which resulted in a dead Doberman in about 10 seconds (coyotes are usually very small, about 30 pounds, so people underestimate them) and the memory of that surreal incident where I saw a black German shepherd and a white German shepherd take off after a coyote. They were sprinting, it was trotting, and it's trot left their sprint behind with ease. I was hoping this owuld be the case here, as there was no good outcome if Marley and it got in a fight.
So, even though Marley is the fastest dog I've ever seen run other than racing greyhounds (and that includes a Borzoi that Nina and Zoe used to play with), I figured the coyote would outrun her. She caught it in a couple of seconds, and her head was right on its left flank when they disappeared into the bush ahead of me.
Eventually, she found me, trotting up behind me while I was still chasing after them. Apparently they had changed directions up ahead and I was following old tracks, or they'd doubled back, or something. No marks and no blood, so either they coyote suddenly started *really* running and left her behind the second after they disappeared from my view, or she was just content to chase it away. To which I offer a giant "whew!"
(and, yes, I carry a flexi-lead in my hand when I walk with her, just in case. Alas, if she starts moving from too far away or before I can grab her, it's kinda useless)
The Bad:
Well, see me being too slow to grab Marley. That might have nothing to do with me getting old and slow, but also yesterday, I was shadowboxing in the sun, literally watching my shadow, and I was horrified to realize that my jab looked like I was just pushing my hand out their to test my opponents reflexes. I mean, really, I used to do that, stick a slow little jab out there just to see what the other person would do. That slow little jab and my now *real* jab are the same speed. This brought a realization that if me now were to fight me then, I quite literally would not be able to land a single punch, and might not be able to stop me-then from landing at will. I am only 46. Getting old SUCKS. In a bad way.
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/more-60-arrested-occupy-wall-street-p
This is the second recent peaceful protest (the other being the tar sands extraction protest in DC) where lotsa people got arrested, and no one cares. I truly can't tell you how disturbing I find this. Yeah, mainstream news mostly ignoring them, but still, I'm not sure how many people would be doing anything but tut-tutting at the protesters for being silly enough to get arrested even if there was a video of someone walking down the sidewalk and getting pepper-sprayed out of the blue leading all the nightly news broadcasts for a week. And that's way more disturbing than the arrests and pepper spraying themselves.
I will let that stand in for all my other thoughts on the state of the world.
Dances With Dragons -- I genuinely loathed this book. I am going to re-read it, and see if I like it better, or can figure out better what was wrong with it. I left a brief comment on someone else's blog entry that was waaaay too nice to it, describing myself as ambivalent, but, really, I hated about half of it, and the rest was mixed it. I especially hated the prologue, and most of the Tyrion chapters. It was like grrm had read me and redcandle17 arguing about Tyrion, and he not only thought she was riht, but was horrified that not everyone hated Tyrion as much as she did, and set out to make sure this situation was remedied in the most forceful manner possible without completely changing the character beyond recogntion. Exept grrm has said Tyrion is his favorite character. So, I throw up my hands and weep. Anyway, I disliked this book in the kind of way that makes me like the previous 4 books a lot less, and inclined to completely reevaluate their literary merit. But, since I did love the four previous, I'm giving it a second chance. I expect to regret it fully.
The Question - If I did a DwD reread here in the time-honored traditon of the Marie Brennan's WoT reread and about five jillion reareads over at Tor, taking a few chapters at a time and describing my reactions to them, would anyon be interested? And, more importantly, would it be too mean-spirited, given how much I hate a lot of the chapters? Also, I might get tired of doing it in the middle, so keep that in mind when answering.