What else I've been doing
Aug. 14th, 2004 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanEdited to correct typos and to add the leopard frogs and the thistle.
In no particular order:
Lying around in bed with David talking about Buffy. (I would never have believed that this would happen.)
Lying around in bed with Raphael, quoting Fafblog to one another and collapsing in hysterical laughter. (I am not at all surprised by this; it reminds me of the time when either of us could simply remark, "Wah!" in a vaguely surprised tone and instantly evoke the entirety of the "Monorail" episode of The Simpsons.)
Having some good conversations with Eric, mingling the scholarly and the sentimental, and trying to dig up some of the difficulties we had earlier in the relationship, now that we can look at them from a less biased vantage point.
Glaring at both my books to no avail.
Rereading Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James, Diana Wynne Jones.
Reveling in the glorious cool weather.
Having my usual lunch with my mother and admiring her miniature creations. She bought herself a dollhouse kit when she retired, but has been too busy to actually do anything about it until recently, when she decided that she had to stop watching and reading so much of the news lest she go insane.
In addition,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mrissa very kindly took David and me out for lunch at Rice Paper, where I went quietly crazy because there is so much tofu on the menu. I loved the crispy tofu appetizer. I liked my lunch too, though I believe that it is misnamed. It was described as "Pad Thai without the eggs," but they used the wrong kind of noodles and different seasonings and not enough beansprouts and scallions and did not provide a lime quarter for squeezing over it all. It was good, though. We also had ice cream at Sebastian Joe's. Well, I had orange-basil sorbet, and wasn't quite as happy with it as I have been in the past. It was very interesting, and I kept taking another bite to figure it out, but it wasn't a blissful experience like the crispy tofu. We had some lovely conversation too, though the only bit I can remember at the moment is when David and I were talking about when we met, and he remarked that we didn't hang around together in college, but did meet there, and I said, Yes, we couldn't have met before 1971 but we weren't sure exactly when it was. mrissa got a look that I recognized; it means approximately, "I wasn't born yet" or "My parents weren't even married yet" and I get it at home sometimes too. I told her that I had met David in consequence of being shown his SF collection, which was widely known, and she said, "I was that person!"
Last week, Raphael and I decided to expand our hiking radius a bit, so we went to Rice Lake State Park. This is an easy drive; essentially you go to Owatonna on 35W South and turn left. We got out of the house in a very timely fashion for us, but the interstate is down to a single lane in each direction between Farmington and Faribault, or at least it was then. The single-lane traffic actually moved along at a reasonable pace, but there was considerable backup before the spot where people were supposed to merge. There was one of those big lighted portable signs, and it said TAKE TURNS. It's a pity one has to tell Minnesotans that.
We had Richard Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music to keep us happy, and we also got quite a lot of time to look at the wildflowers and seeding grass heads at the sides of the highway. There were a great many very happy gray coneflowers, increasing in number as we got closer to the park. We stopped at the park office to get a seasonal pass, since they are good for a year, and were scolded by chickadees while Raphael was putting the sticker on the windshield. Then we drove on a bit to our usual place, the boat landing. This is a broad thinly-gravelled space, with closely-mown grass on either side, and a concrete ramp leading down to the edge of the lake. Where the ramp goes down to the lake the layers of different vegetation at the edge are sliced through, so you can see through jewelweed and meadow plants to the wild rice and cattails. There's also a little metal dock on wheels for canoeists, so one can walk out a little way into the wild rice and see dragonflies. The space also has a chemical toilet and a warming shed for winter visitors, and two picnic tables. On one side there's a fringe of tall meadow plants backed by understory trees and shrubs and then the woods; on the other there's more meadow and a thin layer of woods at the lake's edge. You can take a trail past this thin layer to get to their little prairie restoration, which is a figure-8 loop of about a mile altogether.
The first time we came there it was a banner year for Monarch butterflies and goldfinches. We saw dozens of each, and many other butterflies as well. It's never been that rich again, but it's always been full of birds and dragonflies and smaller insects like ambush bugs, once the goldenrod gets going. We had not been there so early in the year before. The goldenrod was in bud, but no more; the gray coneflowers were much more prominent and looked actually graceful and airy. There are always gray catbirds in one tree by the lake, and they were mewing their little heads off. We also tried very hard to get a good look at some mystery birds that were flitting about and yelling over the understory, against the backdrop of the deeper woods, but they remained largely elusive.
We did see a fair number of goldfinches, and those flying grasshoppers that look like mourning-cloak butterflies until they land and fold up their wings, and darners, and meadowhawks, and bumblebees. Raphael found a band-winged meadowhawk and hopefully took some pictures. Raphael had remarked on the way down that we would probably see leopard frogs, and indeed, the first time we walked down the boat ramp, four or five of them plopped into the water. We also scared two or three of them on the prairie path. They showed more sense than the leopard frogs we encountered at, hmm, I think it was Elm Creek. Those leopard frogs, when approached too closely, would make a mighty leap of four or five feet up the path, so that when we had taken two steps, they would just have to do it again. The ones at Rice Lake just disappeared into the meadow plants.
It took me quite a long time to find the thistle. It's usually copiously in bloom when we come to Rice Lake, and it had been blooming and going to seed at both Carver and Afton. Here, however, it was just coming into bud, and its gray-green bristly plants just blended into the background. I looked for gentian plants, but I really can't recognize them without their odd closed flowers.
There were more mosquitoes and biting flies than we really liked, and we discovered that one path that we had used to like to take at sunset, since it ran east and west, had not been mown. It was very pretty, all red and white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, but we knew the surface was pretty uneven even when mown, and were not sure about ticks, so we didn't take it. We did see an eastern kingbird in this area, which made Raphael wonder if all the mystery birds had been eastern kingbirds looking odd in the late light.
We hadn't had any birdwatching binoculars on previous visits, and I spent some time using the ones we have now to look at the lake, but while water birds had been plentiful on other visits, I didn't see any. They probably have more of a tendency to gather later in the year.
Since we were both a bit underslept and the mosquitoes increasingly unpleasant, we didn't revisit the little prairie loop, but packed up and left around sunset.
Pamela
In no particular order:
Lying around in bed with David talking about Buffy. (I would never have believed that this would happen.)
Lying around in bed with Raphael, quoting Fafblog to one another and collapsing in hysterical laughter. (I am not at all surprised by this; it reminds me of the time when either of us could simply remark, "Wah!" in a vaguely surprised tone and instantly evoke the entirety of the "Monorail" episode of The Simpsons.)
Having some good conversations with Eric, mingling the scholarly and the sentimental, and trying to dig up some of the difficulties we had earlier in the relationship, now that we can look at them from a less biased vantage point.
Glaring at both my books to no avail.
Rereading Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James, Diana Wynne Jones.
Reveling in the glorious cool weather.
Having my usual lunch with my mother and admiring her miniature creations. She bought herself a dollhouse kit when she retired, but has been too busy to actually do anything about it until recently, when she decided that she had to stop watching and reading so much of the news lest she go insane.
In addition,
mrissa very kindly took David and me out for lunch at Rice Paper, where I went quietly crazy because there is so much tofu on the menu. I loved the crispy tofu appetizer. I liked my lunch too, though I believe that it is misnamed. It was described as "Pad Thai without the eggs," but they used the wrong kind of noodles and different seasonings and not enough beansprouts and scallions and did not provide a lime quarter for squeezing over it all. It was good, though. We also had ice cream at Sebastian Joe's. Well, I had orange-basil sorbet, and wasn't quite as happy with it as I have been in the past. It was very interesting, and I kept taking another bite to figure it out, but it wasn't a blissful experience like the crispy tofu. We had some lovely conversation too, though the only bit I can remember at the moment is when David and I were talking about when we met, and he remarked that we didn't hang around together in college, but did meet there, and I said, Yes, we couldn't have met before 1971 but we weren't sure exactly when it was. mrissa got a look that I recognized; it means approximately, "I wasn't born yet" or "My parents weren't even married yet" and I get it at home sometimes too. I told her that I had met David in consequence of being shown his SF collection, which was widely known, and she said, "I was that person!"Last week, Raphael and I decided to expand our hiking radius a bit, so we went to Rice Lake State Park. This is an easy drive; essentially you go to Owatonna on 35W South and turn left. We got out of the house in a very timely fashion for us, but the interstate is down to a single lane in each direction between Farmington and Faribault, or at least it was then. The single-lane traffic actually moved along at a reasonable pace, but there was considerable backup before the spot where people were supposed to merge. There was one of those big lighted portable signs, and it said TAKE TURNS. It's a pity one has to tell Minnesotans that.
We had Richard Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music to keep us happy, and we also got quite a lot of time to look at the wildflowers and seeding grass heads at the sides of the highway. There were a great many very happy gray coneflowers, increasing in number as we got closer to the park. We stopped at the park office to get a seasonal pass, since they are good for a year, and were scolded by chickadees while Raphael was putting the sticker on the windshield. Then we drove on a bit to our usual place, the boat landing. This is a broad thinly-gravelled space, with closely-mown grass on either side, and a concrete ramp leading down to the edge of the lake. Where the ramp goes down to the lake the layers of different vegetation at the edge are sliced through, so you can see through jewelweed and meadow plants to the wild rice and cattails. There's also a little metal dock on wheels for canoeists, so one can walk out a little way into the wild rice and see dragonflies. The space also has a chemical toilet and a warming shed for winter visitors, and two picnic tables. On one side there's a fringe of tall meadow plants backed by understory trees and shrubs and then the woods; on the other there's more meadow and a thin layer of woods at the lake's edge. You can take a trail past this thin layer to get to their little prairie restoration, which is a figure-8 loop of about a mile altogether.
The first time we came there it was a banner year for Monarch butterflies and goldfinches. We saw dozens of each, and many other butterflies as well. It's never been that rich again, but it's always been full of birds and dragonflies and smaller insects like ambush bugs, once the goldenrod gets going. We had not been there so early in the year before. The goldenrod was in bud, but no more; the gray coneflowers were much more prominent and looked actually graceful and airy. There are always gray catbirds in one tree by the lake, and they were mewing their little heads off. We also tried very hard to get a good look at some mystery birds that were flitting about and yelling over the understory, against the backdrop of the deeper woods, but they remained largely elusive.
We did see a fair number of goldfinches, and those flying grasshoppers that look like mourning-cloak butterflies until they land and fold up their wings, and darners, and meadowhawks, and bumblebees. Raphael found a band-winged meadowhawk and hopefully took some pictures. Raphael had remarked on the way down that we would probably see leopard frogs, and indeed, the first time we walked down the boat ramp, four or five of them plopped into the water. We also scared two or three of them on the prairie path. They showed more sense than the leopard frogs we encountered at, hmm, I think it was Elm Creek. Those leopard frogs, when approached too closely, would make a mighty leap of four or five feet up the path, so that when we had taken two steps, they would just have to do it again. The ones at Rice Lake just disappeared into the meadow plants.
It took me quite a long time to find the thistle. It's usually copiously in bloom when we come to Rice Lake, and it had been blooming and going to seed at both Carver and Afton. Here, however, it was just coming into bud, and its gray-green bristly plants just blended into the background. I looked for gentian plants, but I really can't recognize them without their odd closed flowers.
There were more mosquitoes and biting flies than we really liked, and we discovered that one path that we had used to like to take at sunset, since it ran east and west, had not been mown. It was very pretty, all red and white clover and birdsfoot trefoil, but we knew the surface was pretty uneven even when mown, and were not sure about ticks, so we didn't take it. We did see an eastern kingbird in this area, which made Raphael wonder if all the mystery birds had been eastern kingbirds looking odd in the late light.
We hadn't had any birdwatching binoculars on previous visits, and I spent some time using the ones we have now to look at the lake, but while water birds had been plentiful on other visits, I didn't see any. They probably have more of a tendency to gather later in the year.
Since we were both a bit underslept and the mosquitoes increasingly unpleasant, we didn't revisit the little prairie loop, but packed up and left around sunset.
Pamela
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:26 pm (UTC)((swoons))
If a CD could be worn out, my copy of that would be in tatters. He makes "Oops (I Did It Again)" sound like early Elvis Costello.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:57 pm (UTC)Bow before Giblets!
Date: 2004-08-14 03:08 pm (UTC)The host said she had handed an emailed question to Krugman and he was trying not to crack up. She asked why, and he said it was Giblets asking why Mickey Kaus has it in for him.
Krugman talked up Fafblog even though the host was (reasonably for a non-blogger) puzzled by the whole thing.
Now I must get that season of the Simpsons on DVD as the Monorail episode is one of the greatest things in Human Civilization.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 03:09 pm (UTC)I wonder if it's the same look you got once, when I mentioned that if I had my life to live over, I'd start writing and submitting in 1953 (the year of the Great Magazine Boom, and the year I was ten).
If _you_ had started writing and submitting in 1953, you would probably have become very famous.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 03:51 am (UTC)And that monorail episode of The Simpsons is my favorite episode of that series and one of my favorite episodes of anything. One of these days I need to borrow or buy the Season 4 DVD set and listen to the commentary track for that episode. It's got commentary by Matt Groenig, Conan O'Brien (who wrote the episode), and some other series writers & producers.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 03:54 pm (UTC)but yay for ngaio marsh, p.d. james, and diana wynne jones!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-21 09:55 am (UTC)I found Diana Wynne Jones right where I left her and really enjoyed making her acquaintance yet again, but James and Marsh were both getting on my nerves just a little bit. With James it was really minor stuff -- so much clothing is "fawn" and "in fine wool" that I start seeing little deer jumping around in the corners of my eyes, and speaking of eyes, it seems to me that a disproportionate number of her characters have exophthalmic ones. What's up with that? But I'm a hapless sucker for most of her characters and for her landscape and interior descriptions. Though it bothers me curiously that in Devices and Desires all the strong and unconventional women are bad lots or come to a bad end, while the traditional ones make it through. Considering Kate Miskin, that's very peculiar.
And Marsh! Yipes! I might have to do an entry about her. I will not relent, however, in my love for all her mysteries set in the theater. Light Thickens is a brillian thing, telegraphic style and all.
I agree with your hooray, still; it's more that I wonder what I was thinking the first ten times I gulped all this stuff down.
Pamela
Re dollhouse stuff
Date: 2004-08-19 09:01 pm (UTC)Helen
Re: Re dollhouse stuff
Date: 2004-08-20 06:00 pm (UTC)Pamela
Re: Re dollhouse stuff
Date: 2004-08-21 07:46 pm (UTC)I think the one we used to get catalogs from in Seattle was Pacific Galleries. I don't know if they do this any longer or if they just have the stuff on the web. They had pictures like this: http://www.pacgal.com/new_page_12.htm
Helen