>Top O’The Mornin’

>…It must be the top; I crawled too far to get here for it to reasonably be anythng else.

Yeech. Something’s laid holt of me, possibly just too much Irish butter on too many sesame lavosh crackers.

Whatever it was, I made an early exit from Family Thanksgiving* with a queasy tummy; felt a little better when I reached Broad Ripple, so I dropped in at the BlogMeet and no sooner had I sat down there than my innards went adrift again.

So I made the trek to Roseholme Cottage, said Hi to Tam, did what needed doing, picked up a book and feel asleep on the couch. 1700ish by then. I was awakened about 2000 by Tam, who suggested I might wanna head off to my own room; stumbled in there and promptly zonked out again, totally out ’til the alarms screamed me most reluctantly awake at 0600 this fine morning and I clawed my way though blear and blankets into what passes for day, though not yet light.

I’m gonna go take a vitamin. It might help!
________________
* Of all the things I regret, having been estranged from my family for the better part of a decade is up at the top. Long dull story that includes trite tidbits like dropping out of college, pursuing unsuitable career in unstable biz (radio), etc.; details don’t matter. Once you’ve been away long enough, no matter how much you love ’em, the skein of shared understanding, custom and habit is broken and it’s not ever comin’ back; you’re always half a step behind, lacking context, never quite connected. Try’n avoid that if it ever comes up in your life. It’s no damn fun.

>Content?

>Oh, yeah, that — um, I’m in a bit of a rush, as happens; I have Family Thanksgiving today, followed by a BlogMeet (at which I will show up late). Of course I have done Nothing Contributory To Getting There so far, having been distracted by housecleaning. (Really!) And by Monster Hunter International — gee, that’s a good book! (It’s an uncommon subgenre. Marion Zimmer Brady did a few that were similar, maybe a bit more hippieish and a larger admixture of the Cthulhu Mythos; think Hellboy without Hellboy. And then there’s F. Paul Wilson on one side and some of K. W. Jeter’s work on the other, shading off into Tim Powers’ later novels, but that’s still not a whole lot and none of the others have put that Travis McGee spin on it).

A little freaked out right now: I went to look up an interesting book, Agnew H. Bahnson, Jr.’s The Stars Are Too High, only to discover Mr. Bahnson worked on — held patents in! — electrodynamic propulsion and died under unusual circumstances a few years after the book was written. However, said book describes an attempt by quite human engineers to use a working “flying saucer” they’ve built to the trick the world’s governments into getting along. The effort, as I recall, fails; and as none of it ever happened (AFAIK), it’ll have to be chalked up to wishful thinking, probably along with any “electrogravatic” effects of his experiments.

…Probably. Or maybe there’s more to this Hidden Frontier stuff than I’ll admit to.

>BlogMeet!

>(Artwork by Shermlock Shomes!)

>Dining Library?

>Here’s where we had Thanksgiving dinner — the ancient table and behind it: Library, AAA – FAR. I have got a lot more shelves to build; there’s one custom and three reused old bookshelves of similar size on the other walls and I’m up to about the letter “R.”

>Not That I’m Like, Slow

>…But I just saw Watchmen for the first time last night. Astonishingly well-done; would that any other kind of SF were as well-treated. Sure, this is a comic book graphic novel, so it’s a little easier for Hollywood illiterates to puzzle out; I was still impressed. The characters are considerably more three-dimensional than most in the genre and (like Tam) I was singularly impressed by Rorschach, created in homage to the characters of Objectivist comic book artist Steve Ditko.

Next on the slow list? I just started Monster Hunter International. Not very far in but already, well, I sure hope Correia keeps on writing — and it appears he is.

>November BlogMeet!

>There will be a BlogMeet on the 29th (that’s this Sunday), 3:00 p.m. at Broad Ripple Brew Pub.

There will be a very fine prize for the winner of the coveted Cup of Turonistan.

A good time will be had by all!

Seeya there!

>Another Day, Part 18

>For all my glib jokes about it bein’ a long walk home, for all the times I have been in bad situations a long way from help, not until now had I really been convinced of my own mortality.

Irene was going to kill me and I wasn’t even sure why. Maybe silence wasn’t the best policy. “Irene–” I squeaked, started over, geesh, think, “Irene, how can I make things better?” It sounded fake even to me.

“Oh, do shut up.” It hadn’t gone over well with her, either. “You grubby people, with your grubby ships and your miserable, uncivilized planets. There is dirt everywhere! You have no idea; Wiitherspoon Processing was clean. It was orderly. Things made sense. This is all chaos and barbarism.” She emphasized the important parts by yanking on the lanyard attached to my wrists.“It’s a good thing I kept up my militia training. Those contractors–” She meant Mil/Space. The Federation of Concerned Spacemen is as close to a real government as the Edgers get but it’s not that close. “–They are good enough for routine but I have always known it was just a matter of time before you people attacked us again.”

Right over the edge. I am dead, just as dead as Katrina. “They should have just let your ‘Federation of Concerned Spacemen’ kite off with an entire Moonbase?” She snorted and gave the lanyard another painful jerk. Geez, I’m so good at this. Gotta calm her down. It was hard to think what to say. “Irene, they pretty much did. All that was over a long time ago. We’re all friends now.”

“Friends? Friends? You’re helping take our Founders back to the dirt and carrying Nazis right beside them, too!”

[CONTINUES HERE]

>Thanksgiving Dinner

>Turducken: ++++! Maybe we lucked out but it was dee-lish.

Mushroom-Bacon gravy: +++, needs more bacon fat (had to pad with olive oil and some Crisco). Next time, I’ll either start with more bacon or fry the mushrooms in something else. This uses FarmMom’s good ol’ pan gravy recipe.

My skin-on mashed potatoes: with Irish butter! ++++!

…The succotash worked out well and Shootin’ Buddy brought a fine wine. Pie is next, with coffee.

Bonus: the wisdom of keeping powdered milk on the shelf is proven once again. Ran out of fresh making gravy and taters.

Behind The Scenes: there was a point about a half-hour before dinner when I had bird(s) in the oven, taters simmering and fungi sizzling and had the dining room table stood on end, sinking 3″ deck screws through the glue blocks on the apron and into the tops of two of the legs. It was doweled & hide glued together sometime in the late 19th or very early 20th Cent. and then repaired by a hatchet, woodscrew and Elmer’s-glue wielding barbarian in the the mid-20th and the glue bonds are all starting to surrender. Lucky me, you can about see the stove in my galley-type kitchen from the table. Luckier still, Tam found one of the batteries for my cordless drill/driver. They’d been AWOL for weeks.

>I Did Not Know That

>The grease zerk is named for….Oscar U. Zerk! So it’s a good thing he invented them. Held at least 299 other patents and lived well as a result of his inventiveness.

And that’s something I’m thankful for. To live in a time when good ideas are rewarded and widely used, that’s a wonder we take for granted. It wasn’t always that way.

>Done Inside The Camera

>So I’m drivin’ home tonight and I think the scene is interesting, in an Edward Hopper kind of way. Having my camera handy, I grab it at the next stoplight and (bein’ a good citizen an’ all, plus not wanting to have my lights punched out) shut off the flash, then proceed to snap whenever it seems like a good idea.

Results are…not entirely expected….I’m likin’ it. This is one of about five that mostly worked.