Veg Garden Goodness

There's something quite satisfying about digging around in the dirt every Saturday, even when it's cold and starts raining (un)expectedly. Plus, vegetables are delicious!

My lovely Kale... I shall nurture you and you shall grow under my tender care and then I shall EAT you! Muahaha.

Zucchini, rosemary, and dirty potatoes.

Clean potatoes, Jerusalem Artichoke, and rainbow chard. Yummy and healthy!

Keeping Busy

New Horizons

Having failed to write in this blog for most of the summer, I felt I owed it at least one more post before I begin a new chapter, traveling to the UK once more, this time to attend Aberdeen for my MLitt in Celtic Studies.

I'll miss being at home with family and friends; and the cats, too! My bedroom, our yard, and the kitchen especially, and the familiar comfort of routine. Sometimes it's small things that make a place truly "home."

However, I am looking forward to making my new home in Scotland; hoping that my 6 future roommates are decent; excited to explore more thoroughly the city I once visited. I know I already have a support network and a partner there, and so, I can hardly wait to begin.

Graduation!

All I Want....

...is you.

Signs of Spring

Spring

I want Spring
Bursting out in bloom
Opening up new
Possibilities.

Ah, February

toothpastefordinner.com

The Author's Daughter

...spiritual daughter, of course. A small story, explaining a concept that I've been toying with, after the fashion of Wells himself. Today, after SF class, it just snapped into place, and the words came to me. Enjoy.

“Wells,” she said, “was quite right. Time, the fourth dimension, unseen, yet extant...” she trailed off with a thoughtful smile. Some of our company, accustomed to such declarations, merely continued their supper, and for several moments there was only the rustling of napkins and the genteel clatter of silverware. I, curious as to how she was going to proceed, put my glass back down upon the table and gave the Professor my full attention.
“After all,” she continued blithely, “It's all there in Einstein. But our ancestors--” she laughed. “Ah, they were a warlike people, you know, and took from his works what they needed-- to build a weapon!” Here, the Admiral interrupted.
“But, my dear, surely without it, the West would have been destroyed in the war! Desperate times call for desperate measures.” She tapped her lips thoughtfully.
“Of course, one cannot say 'what might have been' with any certainty. Certainly its invention did not end war and conflict on Earth. Why, it took a century after the last dispute was settled before we were able to devote our energies to invention. And so, poor Wells has finally got his recognition! Surely you've read the papers on our first successful trip through time, a decade past.” Her audience nodded, and the Admiral, who had himself commanded a Time Vessel before retirement, puffed out his chest with pride. “But, dear Admiral, your point brings me to what I have been thinking about for some time now. Why must there be only one dimension of time? Why only one set course for it to follow?”

There was no question now of anyone proceeding calmly with their dinner. The table was silent, and our dining companions turned their excited attention to the Professor. She grinned.
“Perhaps it would be better explained by an illustration. Here-- Wells, perhaps, might have agreed with me if I portrayed his time in this way--” and she arranged her knife horizontally on the table, thusly:
and placed the salt-shaker on top of it. “Now, imagine this knife as the road, while the salt is us, or our vehicle. And so we travel, back and forth, at any rate we please-- with the right equipment.”
The Admiral, being familiar with this concept, looked mildly bored. Everyone now knew, in layman's terms, the workings of Time. Our hostess, however, was not finished.
“But now,” she continued, smoothly lifting my knife from its plate, “What if we have this?” And she placed the first knife above the other:
“And what about this?” She removed my neighbor's knife in the same manner, leaving three roads traversing the tablecloth:
The Professor smiled triumphantly as we stared, trying to make sense of what she was proposing.
“What if Time is not one highway? What if there are other times where-- say-- atomics had not been discovered, and the outcome of the second World War was different?” The Admiral snorted.
“Preposterous!” He exclaimed. “History has but one course-- there is only one future. Why, in some... alternate time, you might not have even been born!”
“Ah, but in the future, Admiral, you do not exist, either, except when you are there,” the Professor countered. The Admiral motioned for her to go on, and took a hefty gulp of wine. “How many times, in your life, have you had to make a choice? How many times have you gone back and forth between the two? How many things, in human history, have been left to choice and chance?”
“And so, what if we could not only traverse our time--” and here she moved the salt-shaker up to the next knife-- “but those other times, as well? Those other dimensions?” There was an excited murmur as our dinner companions began to debate among themselves, and the poor Admiral, quite beside himself, nearly choked on his drink.
“And I...” she laughed joyously. “I have made a machine to take me there!”

All of the bewildered guests had long departed, perhaps too uncomfortable to linger long over dessert for fear of what example their hostess might make of the cake. But I, believing, hung back, wanting to hear more, wanting to see. The Professor smiled; she seemed to know my mind. “It is a very simple construction,” she warned, as she beckoned me back to her workrooms. “Much like a small Time Vessel, really, but... improbable.”
And it was. A rounded, egg-like structure, containing its workings, surely, underneath a comfortably padded bench, the front of it half encased in glass. Though the glass was clear, I caught only flickering glimpses of the levers that must operate it. There it stood, a vehicle to carry travelers into a parallel world. Yet, simultaneously, it was not-there. I half fancied I could see the patterns of the wall behind it-- but I could not-- or perhaps, if I only observed it from the corner of my eye, it was more real-- or unreal. The Professor laughed indulgently at my confusion.
“I did say,” she said, with no malice. “And now, I must really test it, I suppose, before I can truly convince our companions...” She trailed off, and looked about her laboratory purposefully.
“Surely you're not going now!” I cried, as she gathered up a few items that I supposed were important. “Have you thought it through? Are your equations really correct?” The Professor smiled gently.
“There's no time like the present, dear friend. In Verne's immortal words, 'I don't know, but I'll find out!'” I envied her easy optimism, and stared as the Professor climbed into her machine, her form almost taking on its strange, light-bending qualities as it entered the chamber.
She held out a friendly hand through the open door as her smile broadened. “Would you like to come with me?”

And this, my friends, is where the story ends. I can only invite you to imagine what other worlds and other times might be like... these places of “what if.”

Related reading:

H.G. Wells: The Time Machine

Robert Anton Wilson: Schroedinger's Cat

Robert Heinlein: The Cat Who Walked Through Walls... and etc.

I do read the news, you know

"Mayor's affair to be probed"
...is probably not the best headline choice

Happy Obama Day!

One thing that makes me proud is when my generation's children ask about America's first black president, we can say, “Oh, that was before your time.”

working on it...

As I have the time (read: when I'm procrastinating and avoiding real work), I'll be fiddling around with my blog layout to make it a little less boring, shifting the column over, maybe even changing the divider. But as I'm hardly fluent in coding, I'll have to keep comparing it to previous incarnations. I might go back to a different old template.

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Merry Christmas :)

3 Things

3 Things I Lost in the UK:

My polka-dotted umbrella

My purple scarf

My heart

<3

It's COLD!

Spenser: Sonnet 37

What guyle is this, that those her golden tresses
She doth attyre under a net of gold:
and with sly skill so cunningly them dresses
that which is gold or heare may scarse be told?

Is it that mens frayle eyes, which gaze too bold,
she may entangle in that golden snare:
and being caught may craftily enfold
theyr weaker harts, which are not well aware?

Take heed therefore, myne eyes, how ye doe stare
henceforth too rashly on that guilefull net,
in which if ever ye entrapped are,
out of her bands ye by no meanes shall get.

Fondness it were for any being free,
to covet fetters, though they golden bee.


[yes, the spelling etc is accurate.]

Two Videos...

...frightening comparison.

Sarah Palin's interview

Miss South Carolina answers a question

A Middle English lyric

My Lief Is Faren in Londe

My Lief is faren in londe
Allas, why is she so?
And I am so sore bonde
I may nat come her to.
She hath myn herte in holde
Wherever she ride or go
With trewe love a thousand folde.

You know how the story goes...

Two brothers bravely went a-hunting
Into the dark green wood.
They wagered for their lady's hand,
To win her if they could.

“I'll slay the noble king of stags,”
The elder boasted loud.
“And when I lay him at her feet,
My lady she'll be proud.”

The younger brother, dark and fell
Had brooded long and hard.
“I'll hunt the fiercest game of all
To win her fair regard.”

Blackberries Again!

For the second year now, my mother and I went out blackberry picking. We picked 12 pounds this year, between the two of us! Most of them went into the freezer.

The lovely blackberry bushes!

Berries, some not quite ready yet.

My basket: 5.15 pounds. We also filled a 1qt basket as a joint effort.

My mom was ashamed by my fuller basket and hurried to top hers off.