Wednesday's Putterings (Well, actually, this is in reference to Tuesday.)

[moderately_mad]

Topics contained herein:
Sleepy thunder, sandy salamanders, brave & stoic children and an increasingly insistant yen for some real writing time.

Comments

[integritysinger]

that soup sounds de-lish'. Too bad it's too hot for soup here just yet. I can't wait for fall, it's my favorite season and such a nice respite from the blazzin heat of the south

[moderately_mad]

It's probably really too hot for soup here yet either ... esp. since the first step of the recipe is to roast a turkey :) We were craving real food and one day's cooking pretty much fed us for a week so it was worth it.

So when does the cool begin for you? What is Halloween typically like? By then, we'll have mostly bare trees. It's likely to rain or be quite cold (30-50). It frequently snows before trick-or-treat night but I think it's most often just cool and crisp. (Can ya tell it's my favorite season/holiday?)

[integritysinger]

Well fall is my absolute favorite season too. But that might be because I lived up north until I was 22. Being down here, fall is an entirely different concept. There's no frost, no snow, no beautiful trees (Unless you make a day trip to the mountains of GA by the smokies which for us is a six hour trip), and November is all rain, start to finish. Therefore, halloween tends to rain, in fact, you can usually count on it. On the flip side, the warmer days in September and October extend the gardening season for the savvy earthy types (I've always wanted to work that out, i've got plenty of yard, I've just never gotten to it) and they are great for extended vacation days, camping, being on the water at the lake, etc. So maybe it's not too bad then... :-)

As for temps, it doesn't get below 30 until the first two weeks of January. In fact, those are the ONLY days it gets below 30 here. By February, we're back into another rainy month and in March we're breaking out the shorts again.

[zahgurim]

3) Having a beer on the patio after work with my husband.

In Norwegian there is actually a term for this- utepils (lit. "outside pilsner", even if the beer in question is not a pilsner!).

I had one (OK, a few!) of those last night myself. It was fantastic!

[moderately_mad]

My husband told me of your response while we were sharing a beer on another (public) patio, in a nearby town, on Wednesday night. I have to admit the utepils is my favorite way to spend some quality time with friends. It's cool to think that the Norwegians are sophisticated enough to have a specific word for it. (And only fitting that you shared with me -- I'm 3/4 Norwegian. That's not just an estimate btw; I know that three of four of my grandparents came over directly from the old country.)

I got to experience the storm

[rick_the_ogre]

Boo woke me at about 3, insistent on spending some quality time outside. So we strolled out onto the patio to find relief in the great outdoors while the skies flashed and rumbled all around us.

The rain drizzled down, gentle and cool, and the lightning seemed confined to the clouds far above . . . there was no way to judge distance by counting, since both the flashes and the rumbling were more a continuous presence than a series of events. Nothing felt very close, but it was all around us.

Re: I got to experience the storm

[moderately_mad]

Here's me harping and nagging again --

I do so wish you'd write more, I just love the cadence of your words.

Re: I got to experience the storm

[moderately_mad]

PS Hey, take a look at Woggie's comment to this entry ... where are "we" with the java tally?

[one_raido]

I was still up when the storm hit. I had to shut my windows while it rained, though as it was blowing in. I have east facing windows, so it doesn't usually do that.

Salamanders! That brings back memories. Everytime my son screeches at a bug I think, he is not my son. I grew up in the woods and we always had a turtle, snake or salamander at our fingertips.

[moderately_mad]

I'm still a little squeamish about the salamanders myself ... they are just to darn quick and startling. I love to watch them but I'm always afraid I'll squish them if I attempt to hang on. Snakes are sturdier but even faster. My favorites have always been the turtles :)

I used to LOVE spending literal hours stalking birds and mammals. Eventually, if you are very still and patient, you become invisible.

It's funny what makes one nostalgic isn't it?

PS: the salamander in question is still living in the dug-out "house" the boys fashioned from an old baseball base and some damp sand. He's got the cutest little salamander shaped hole that he seems to enjoy spending the day in. I assume he ventures out at night to find food and such. Now I have to go look up what they eat :)

[woggie]

I seem to be getting in some quality time with my little laptop and Open Office. I'm working through a storyline I've had in mind for a long time. I recently figured out how to solve another problem and backed up, renamed the file in case I wanted to go back and inspect the previous record, and started moving forward again.

Complete change in topic... did the Java version of the Tally ever get completed? I think I'm approaching a headspace where I could try to cope with learning a new computer language. I just don't want to attempt to write everything myself for the first exercise.

[moderately_mad]

Are you loving open office? I'm getting used to it and R-- has switched over entirely. I'm just so damn familiar with Microsoft Office's quirks that it's taking me some extra time

[woggie]

I had less of an investment in MS Office than I suspect you did, so OpenOffice has been much easier on me. It's more stable and more dependable so far. Then again, my demands are also pretty simplistic. I'm not trying to do anything terribly complicated. I just want a pretty interface I can type words into. This process has been made a little easier by the introduction of the external usb keyboard I've plugged into the laptop