abada abada

You might enjoy this story, explained by my friend Anil, about how a silly online contest and a casual comment about pubic hair turned into a Vermont school project owl pellet wish list fulfillment. And yes, I had something to do with it. I’d write more but I’ve got to go out and rake now that the iceberg is gone before the leaves start to fall. The window is so tiny.

I always say there is a day when the day gets warm in that way where you know (or you think) it’s not going to get cold again and people get outside and start attacking their yards because they’re so darned sick of being outside and the air is full of dust from people getting the road salt out of their flowerbeds. I remember this from Seattle, a similar sort of day, when the rains finally stopped and it was sunny long enough for things to dry out and people came out from their apartments covered in lichen and moss and coffee stains and ennui to greet the returning sun.

So, that day was Friday here, I think, and then it continued all weekend. I did the raking of the grasses and the pruning of the lilacs and the filling of all the bird feeders and the picking up of all the junk that had accumulated in the yard. My last order of business, when I was so full of ENERGY that I just had to do something else, was to go after the iceberg that was melting too slowly in my backyard. Since there’s a plow that comes to do the driveway in the winter, there is also a pile of plowed snow. I’ve got a pile, my neighbor has a pile. Mine is, mercifully, in the sun. Hers is not. So as the sun was setting I was outside in shorts and a t-shirt hacking away at the little mound of snow with a rake for hours, hoping to get it flat enough that it would be melted, mostly, by today or tomorrow sometime and then I could actually see and get to my yard.

It’s school vacation week this week, which means no drop-in time and no classes just a vast expanse of sunny days. I’ll be scooting down to Boston to catch Matt Haughey at ROFLcon and see some folks and teach a library/tech class on Monday next. Say howdy if you see me.

Normaller updates resume this week, but this worked in a pinch. I had another nice weekend in the Eastern/Western MA area. A list of the talks I gave is over at librarian.net.

I did that stupid thing I sometimes do when I’m cooking for impending guests. I start too early so that I finish too early and then I try to get creative in the kitchen with all my “free” time. I was going to sweep and clean up during that time, but somehow my broom is outside buried in several feet of snow, so that was impractical. I tried to whip up some strawberry lemon glaze/syrup for the pound cake I’d made the night before based on only what I could remember about making sugar syrups from when I lived in Romania. While I was looking away, trying to see if my concoction was at the “soft ball” stage or whatever, disaster struck! The results were predictably hilarious, but I did learn a nice new technique for getting burned sugar off of a stovetop (cover with wet washcloth, leave for five minutes, wipe, repeat). Fortunately, having chili done early just means it can cook down for longer and it was, by all accounts, delicious. I had ten folks (and three little folks) over. My fridge which was jarringly empty once I finished cooking — chili is really a shelf-cleaner of a recipe — is now full, even after 10-13 people were fed. Thanks to everyone who came by, it was a nice time.

Today after seeing my last guest off with tea and a corn muffin I decided to hunker down and do all that deferred inbox maintenance that has been sort of hounding me since I started getting busy again in mid-February, the sort that is only really possible on Other People’s Holidays. I’m at that sticky point where I don’t know if it’s more uncool to reply to an email from August or just file it away and not reply. Whenever I am patting myself on the back for all my wonderful communicative postal and chat and email and facebook followthrough generally speaking, I look at my inbox and remember I’m just as dragass as everyone else in some respects. I think eight is as good as it gets today… oh wait maybe seven.