daemonluna

Ventured out into the world and retrieved coffee, essential cat supplies, and managed a walk around the block before Barb ran out of stamina. All in all, not a bad day.

Compulsively knitting hexapuffs for my beekeeper's quilt. The picture is at the 65 hexapuff mark. I'm now at 73. And a half. Give me half an hour or so and it's be 74.

My laptop is now webcam enabled! I am making vague gestures about a virtual stitch 'n bitch. So far, I have got skype working, and have called Barb across the room with it.

We have decided that we're going to try to use up all the food in the house, especially the stuff in the cupboards and freezer. Barb is, after seeing something similar on her flist, calling it the apocalypse diet, ie what we would eat if we were trapped in the house by the zombie hordes. It's really a modified apocalypse diet though, since fresh produce, eggs and dairy are exempt. So far, we had oatmeal with roasted apples for breakfast, and I'm now making maple-sriracha lentils to have with leftover shiitake brown rice, kale and sausage. Suppertime, yum!

I have started a stupidly ambitious knitting project. It's a blanket made of scraps of leftover sock yarn.

The thing with sock yarn is, it's quite fine and makes quite small stitches.

The thing with blankets is, they are definitely larger than socks.

Eventually, I hope it will look like the pattern. For now, I have eighteen and a half small hexagons, when a 3' x 4' lap blanket takes more than 380 hexagons.

Send help. Also, spare scraps of sock yarn, as I'm running out fast... looks like I need to finish some more socks.

Okay, once again, too many tabs opens. I really need to do a sweep for things worth sharing and then CLOSE THEM a couple times a week.

Behold, random links!

Some things just shouldn't be board books. Like Shakespeare and Jane Austen.

Wait another eight or nine years at least, and then give them some of these thirty-nine graphic novels kids can't resist instead. (Awesome round-up, SLJ! Yay!) Or go check out why we still love picture books.

And also, Adam Rex on An Open Letter to Everyone Who Thinks it Must be Easy, Writing Kid's Books.

Also-also, Shaun Tan answering interview questions with wordless cartoons is pretty awesome, too.

Anyone who's interested has probably all already seen Henry Jenkins on Pottermore and the Time article on fanfic that didn't suck.

Or maybe you've been too busy getting sucked into fifty-odd pages of Fanfic Flamingo instead.

Gluten free yumminess! Check out the virtual pie party!

Kinda cool, but I am not going to learn how to crochet now, daisy scarf

And finally, instructions to make an eight-foot giant squid body pillow. I don't feel the need to make one, but the fact that it exists fills me with glee!

I seem to be posting infrequent bursts of domesticity lately. I should really do something about the multiple tabs that collect in Firefox, but am perfectly ok with uneventfulness right now. REALLY AND TRULY. So be prepared for rambling accounts of my weekend.

Friday: grocery shopping after work while tired and hungry and coming home to collapse on the couch in front of the TV with grocery store chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.

Ominous spring snowstorm clouds. Forecast calls for 15-20 cm over the weekend. This does not bode well for driving to Calgary Sunday morning for friends' book launch events.

I finished knitting a sock! I now have four socks and a fingerless mitt. Sounds good, right? Two pairs? If only! These are four separate socks. I have four more socks (and a fingerless mitt) to knit. Have been informed that this is known as Second Sock Syndrome.


Saturday: Oh, spring snow. I sleep in, troutkitty get up and writes. Then I drive her to work, stop at local-coffee-place-that-roasts-its-own-beans for more beans, stop at the Asian Market to see if they have injera. They tell me not yet, but it will be in by two. I'm not sure if they get it daily, or only on Saturdays, but it's definitely made fresh. Mmm, injera. Sourdough-ish spongey Ethiopian flatbread.

Head home, look up recipes, discover I need more things. Back to the Asian Market an hour later, get still-warm injera and missing spices, stop at the grocery store for a handful of other ingredients, and another stop at the drugstore for a cheap coffee grinder for spice grinding. (We made Ethiopian last weekend with zulu and bell. The coffee grinder, they will not be surprised to hear, is MUCH more effective than grinding things up by hand with a mortar and pestle.)

I got ambitious, and decided to make the spice mix (berbere) and clarified, spiced butter (niter kebbeh) that are used for most Ethiopian stews and such. I diligently followed directions and toasted the spices in a cast iron pan, and ground things as needed. It totally paid off, taste-wise, wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought, and means we have the ingredients ready to go. However, even a day later, the whole house still smells spicy.

I used the second berbere recipe and the first niter kebbeh recipe from this page. ( recipe )

I also made:

Iab cottage cheese and yogurt: good, but a bit bland. Maybe next time I'll drain regular cottage cheese instead of using dry cottage cheese curds. For the record, "salad herbs" in this case were parsley and a bit of basil.( recipe )

Mustard lentils: SO GOOD. I added 1 tsp fenugreek as well, which I'd seen in another recipe. Brown lentils that keep their shape work best. This is probably the one we're most likely to make often, since it only takes half an hour, and not close to two like the red lentils. ( recipe )

Red lentil stew: Also delicious! Could have been even spicier. I think the ground hot pepper I used this time was less potent than cayenne, so I underestimated. Also, I skipped the black cardamon on account of not having any, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. You need to use red lentils if you want them to break down into a paste. ( recipe )

Chickpea flour stew: This one was ultimately disappointing. Kind of gummy and, I dunno, maybe I undercooked the flour? It had a raw sort of taste to it. It was a half of the recipe, which serves ten as written. Maybe the leftover can be panfried as fritters or something. ( recipe )

SO good, overall, with a bottle of red wine. Then we watched the first few episodes of True Blood, and I knitted the cuff for a second sock.

True Blood verdict: kind of like the bastard lovechild of Deadwood-and-Justified with something like Smallville but with vampires? Much fluffier than Deadwood and Justified. I'm not in love with it, but mildly interested and enjoying it more than the books. I've read the first few, and found them kind of flat. However, now I am craving homemade iced tea with lemon. Might have to do something about that.


Today: Did not chance the roads and missed out on book launch activities in Calgary. Considering that the police were not advising travel in Calgary yesterday, though... if it had been a later afternoon event, we may have gone, but it was a lunch thing starting at eleven. Stupid spring blizzards. I slept in ridiculously long until close to noon and have been feeling overslept and groggy all afternoon. Linkhopped on AO3, and ended up rereading Written by the Victors. Need to get moving, eat something, and toss in a load or two of laundry. And make iced tea.

Discworld Pratchett Gives Thumbs Up to Discworld Cop Show! From March 11th here:

The main focus of the series will be set in the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and always vibrant city of Ankh-Morpork and will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles (and, of course, Igor in the forensics department). Terry commonly refers to the City Watch police force series as “the jewels in the Discworld Crown.” These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a ‘crime of the week’ episodic storyline. As each weekly adventure unfolds, viewers will be taken on a ride through Pratchett’s genius imagination, with the author overseeing the creation of the series, where wild and exciting encounters with werewolves, dragons, dwarfs, trolls and golems and the classic heroes and villains, are an everyday occurrence... and where many of these characters even make outstanding crime fighters!

ALSO, scroll down to March 1st for:

There has been one hell of a lot of rumours regarding a Good Omens adaptation over the past few weeks, mostly started by me at the SFX Weekender. So, ladies and gentleman, I can hereby exclusively reveal that - YES - Neil and myself have shaken hands and received groats from Rod Brown sealing a TV deal. An official announcement from Prime Focus will follow in a couple of weeks time. However, I can reveal right now that Terry Jones (yes, the Python) and Gavin Scott (not a Python, but he gets it) are already on the job. It's been a long time coming, but it's looking good.

AND, there's a new Discworld book coming out this fall!

The new Discworld novel from the master sees Sam Vimes investigating a countryhouse murder, and is Terry Pratchett's fiftieth book.

According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.

And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.

He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

They say that in the end all sins are forgiven.

But not quite all...

Now I need to finish rereading the first three Tiffany Aching books so I can get to I Shall Wear Midnight...

Dear zulu,

We have your sister, but we promise to return her in the same or better condition than she arrived. We have fed her Vietnamese food, and will keep her safely in our spare room until it is time for her to catch the bus tomorrow morning instead of the bus she missed today.

Love,
Us

Dear the rest of DW/LJ,

Teenage boys are dumb. Like when they decide nothing could possibly go wrong if they twirl the paperback spinner really fast. And then argue back about being kicked out. And then sneak back in. And doubtlessly, will be terribly indignant that I am calling their parents. (One of whom, will be quite perplexed to hear, I'm sure, has been telling us for months that he's from Australia, just so that he can say, oh, what does that mean? We don't have that in Australia... can you find me a book about kangaroos?)

In other news, the potted hyacinth in my office has bloomed and smells bea-u-t-i-fulllll. And it's supposed to be all spring-like and above freezing for the next while! We opened windows at the library today. It was awesome.

Love,
Me

Good lord, this week at work lasted forever, even though it was only four days long. Cold, snow, Bookmobile having issues and being off the road, general malaise and crankiness. People (including me) not finishing things they should have. Snowy roads, grey skies, and more cold.

This morning, it was -33C. Before the windchill. It's almost MARCH. The only up side is that we saw the sun, with that particular, super clear-edged, brilliant deep blue sky that you only get with deep-freeze levels of cold. It's warming up some over the next week, but NOT ENOUGH LET ME TELL YOU.

I think I am going to go into work for the afternoon tomorrow just to play catch-up. Sigh.

It can't all be that bad though, because I have successfully knit almost all of a sock. Just the toe left to go! (Here it is last weekend, after the heel but before most of the foot.) The real trick will be to know make a second sock that matches.

(Um. I appear to have discovered a hitherto unexpected love of knitting. And SOCKS. Sock yarn comes in SO MANY STRIPEY COLOURS. (And yes, I am compulsively on Ravelry! And I want to make fingerless mitts, yes I do.)

But really? I want spring! And crocuses and lilies and tulips. And sun and green growing things. There are three wee primula plants sitting on the kitchen windowsill that were an impulse buy at the grocery store tonight, two yellow and one burgundy.

I just hope they (and the rest of us) make it to springtime.

Things of random:

Today, I kicked a group of fourteen year old boys out of the library for randomly yelling out "jizzmonkey!" in the kids' section at lunchtime. I am one minor incident away from calling parents, lemme tell ya, because we're kicking the same group out every day. Yesterday, it was throwing orange segments at each other.

Last night, at quarter to twelve, we were both about ready for bed. And then Barb noticed that the air from the vents was decidedly lukewarm, quickly turning to cold. It was -31C outside (about -24 F). We now both know how to turn the power to the furnace, restart the pilot light, and when that doesn't work, call someone to make a late-night service call. Thank god for the gas fireplace! The furnace was fully restored to functionality at about 1:30 am, and unlike the roof, does not need replacing.

Sidenote: while waiting for the repair guy to come, I knitted another full inch on the glacially slow wee little babyhat for coworker. Yay?

Another random nighttime story: one of the people at my library branch said that as she and her husband were getting ready for bed last night, he heard footsteps in the house. Further investigation revealed their daughter lying sideways in her bed, sleepwalking in place against the wall. Hee!

A few nights ago, I dreamt was at the storyteller class at the library, that our new children's librarian is teaching, and zulu was there visiting, and there were close to forty people there (instead of four to six) and it was running WAY overtime. And then I was Jeff from Community, and zulu's dad and brother kidnapped me to impart secret-society type knowledge about her family that it was crucial that bell know before the wedding...

The big secret...

... zulu's family are clog dancers! All of them! Well, in the dream. I have never seen any of them clog dance in actuality. Although the more I think about it, the more likely it seems...

Here is a random link, just for zulu and bell!

Oh, man. Dorky teenagers. Being a public library in between two high schools, it's quite the trip to the zoo. The Catholic school - public library - public high school complex is right on the edge of open prairie, so other than school, the library, or the parking lot, there's nowhere else to go. Especially for the grade nines and tens who don't drive yet.

I have interrupted breakups, makeout sessions, overheard conversations about "dude, he totally sold him PARSLEY" and am outside kicking the smokers away from the doors at least twice a week. (The potheads are easy--they take off running as soona s they see us. Also, they are generally pretty mellow.)

Latest dorktasticness, of good and bad:

- the fourteen year old boys who, when I told them to stop whapping each other with their binders, said "we're not hitting each other, we're having rough sex!" Avoiding laughing out loud long enough to inform them this was not appropriate behaviour for a public place. (I think they're the same bunch who I had a conversation with about how it was inappropriate to randomly yell out "buttsex!" in the middle of the library

- Makeout session in the back corner of the computer lab, interrupted when I reached in and flicked on the lights. They jumped. A lot. This is WHY we lock the family room for nursing moms at lunchtime, and have since the first week of school, when one of the staff members evicted a couple with the immortal words, "unless one of you is a lactating mother, you need to get out."

- Aw, the hoodie-wearing tattooed boys who when I say, "Hey, can you help me out? Can you move these chairs back over there when you're done?" earnestly say "Oh, yeah, sure!" and did so.

- The IT guy, when fixing the projector in one of the meeting rooms, discovered three teenage girls hiding in the coat closet, giggling. Their teacher had caught them skipping and sent them back to class. IT guy was perplexed. I am merely annoyed that we still don't have a lock for that meeting room door because it's back-ordered. Bah.

- grade nine boys who argued back when told to leave, tried to come back in about three times,a nd have been informed that if there are any problems tomorrow, there will be phone calls home, and they will be officially banned for a week. At that point if they re-enter the library, they are trespassing and we can call the police. (Not that we're likely to do so, but they don't need to know that.) Third attempt to re-enter the library came because by that point, they were skipping class, and besides the public library, the only place they could go without being caught was outside in a field. Sucks to be them.

- Big group of tough-looking grade eleven or twelves hanging out en masse by the fireplace. When a parent leaving with his kids complained about what they'd overheard, I haeded over and asked them to keep it PG and find another topic than porn to discuss, because the kids' section was on the other side of the shelves behind them. Tough guy with earlobe spacers and chain jewelery literally facepalmed, muttering "oh, geez..." Awwwww.

In conclusion, teenagers are dorktastic.

My library has Overdrive. It's a database of downloadable audio books and ebooks. (Pet peeve: e-audio. Does ANYONE outside of library-land call it e-audio?) Yes, that means that you can DOWNLOAD EBOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY. Which I still think is unbelievably cool.

One of the particular quirks, though, is that you subscribe to the platform, but still have to select and buy each individual title.

Barb was browsing for audio books today, so I was poking at the site.

Um. Apparently, we have Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series. All three of them. As audio books.

I mean, we have 'em in print, too, but audio book? Heh.

(On a totally unrelated note, if anyone wants a Dreamwidth invite code, lemme know...)