incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

I think the Pats might well have pulled it out in overtime—it was hardly an awesome game but their defense was making plays—but wow, missing the tying field goal from 32 yards out? It almost makes me feel like they don't have any momentum going in because they didn't win, the Ravens lost.

On the other hand, the Ravens lost. And who am I to look a gift trip to the Super Bowl in the mouth?

We've been home from Japan for two weeks, now. I had an absurd amount of work upon my return (some of that is my fault; I should have known better). I also had jet lag by proxy, as it took Chad about a week to readjust. (My body clock seems to still be very flexible, for which I am grateful.) But we're pretty well caught up on sleep and work now and back in the routine.

In the anecdotal evidence file, I seemed to be coming down with a cold on the Monday we got back. I immediately started taking zinc and did not develop a full-blown cold. Perhaps it was just an abrupt reaction to local allergens, not a cold, but regardless, I'm grateful, because I really did not have time to be sick.

Random other things:

• Went to see Buffalo Tom last weekend; Chad has the report.
• Went shopping for exercise bikes yesterday. We're going to get some variant of Schwinn recumbent, as I don't have a bike and ellipticals (1) would make watching anime difficult, which is going to be my carrot and (2) take up too much room, including vertically as we're hoping to put the equipment in a room with a very low ceiling.
• Chad has a mystery anime query.
• I'm experimenting with del.icio.us these days. Does anyone else use Opera and find that changes made to the inline editing form aren't saved? Do you have a workaround?
• Roasted pork tenderloin with sage corn bread crust. Good even without the garlic.
• My mom is blogging. I particularly recommend Dog's Life (Top 5 reasons I wish I were my dog, Truman.) and Truman's Response.
• Finally, go, non-zero-sum football. The Giants made a great goal-line stand to hold off the Redskins, and the Patriots scored 38 points for the third straight game.

Good things about this week:

• Go, Pats! It may have been 50% them winning and 50% the Chargers losing, but hey, I'll take it—it was certainly more than I expected.

  Next question: Do the Patriots really have a direct line into Peyton Manning's psyche (or does he think they do)?

• The Butcher's Bill, by Michael R. Schuyler: a full index of injuries, deaths, births, marriages, prizes, and other such things in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels. Free pdf download.
• Lulu will perfect-bind 286 pages of 8x11 inch paper for $17 (including shipping), instead of the $30 that Kinko wants to coil-bind the same quantity. Granted, this won't help for short-term projects like beta-reading a manuscript (the usual reason I need to print a lot of pages), because Lulu takes longer; but for something like a personal copy of a free reference work? Wonderful, even if it means I have to fiddle with the file to embed its fonts.
• I read an actual entire novel yesterday.
• Emmy and I saw a falcon at quite close range on a morning walk here in suburbia.

That would be it.

Not a good week. Tuesday morning I became suddenly and thoroughly ill. Two ERs, one general practitioner, one allergic reaction to X-ray contrast dye, and two really impressive bruises from failed IVs later, I had not so much a diagnosis as a description: inflammation of the digestive system—maybe because of an infection, maybe because my body just doesn't like me. Maybe it was a one-time thing, maybe it will come back. Who knows? Not, apparently, the medical profession.

It only lasted for 24 hours and I'm feeling fine now; I don't know whether I'm still going to have to have more tests (because if inflammation was causing the symptoms, and I'm not having symptoms, is there any inflammation to be found?), but I'll find out next week when I talk to the GI specialists.

Did you know, by the way, that belladonna is prescribed for stomach cramps? I half think that seeing the name of a poison on the label scared my body into behaving.

Anyway, I was still exhausted for the rest of the week, as well as behind on work, so I skipped farthingparty, alas. This did mean that I went to the inaugural gala last night for Union College's new president: fancy food and very good fireworks, though I have to say that it would never have occured to me to use Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" as background music for a fireworks display. (And while The Who's "Baba O'Riley" was probably part of the company's standard package, all that "teenage wasteland" stuff was a bit unfortunate for a college event.)

Today, some work and lots of football. The Giants scored 17 points in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime and then beat the Eagles on an improbable-looking Eli Manning 31-yard TD pass. The Patriots let the Jets score 17 unanswered points at the end of the game and had a field goal blocked with about a minute to go, but the Jets had no timeouts and Chad Pennington's Hail Mary attempt was intercepted by Tedy Bruschi, letting the Pats escape 24-17. The Giants looked awful early, the Patriots looked dubious late, but we'll take the wins regardless.

Reminder: take the Blogger SAT challenge before 11:59 ET on September 20 and see how you'd fare on the new SAT essay format. I just took it, and I'm going to concur with everyone who said it was harder than they expected—I am not at all sure I made the time limit, and what I did write was pretty lame. Go on, see if you can do better than someone who writes for a living!

Chad (who, as I may have mentioned, is both a better and more adventurous cook than I) decided to do a higher class of Super Bowl munchies tonight, and picked some appetizers out of Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World. They were all damn good, so let me share them with you:

( Suppli, almond meatballs, and queso frito )

From The Onion:

There will soon come a time when your happiness depends on where and whether an enormous man catches a ball.

(This Saturday, in fact. Go Pats!)

My car went in the shop for two days this week (replace all the tires, repair a mis-aligned headlight), and I rented a car from the dealership. On the phone, they told me that they'd give me a Corolla, which was fine since my car is a 2003 Prius, in other words small, and a big car would be awkward.

Instead of a Corolla, they gave me . . . a Scion xB. I think the xB stands for "extra boxy." It looks like someone took a minivan and smushed it down with a rectangular compressor. An unspeakably dorky car—and I swear its dorkiness is an idiot magnet, since people tried to accelerate past me in lanes that were ending in ten feet, stepped out in front of me while I had the green light, all kinds of moronic behavior. (It was extremely sluggish accelerating up to highway speeds, between about 40 and 50 mph, but those weren't the times when people were acting like idiots around me.)

I was very glad to get my cute little car back.

This weekend we did Christmas at my parents' house, driving out Friday night. Saturday morning we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and in the afternoon and evening I cooked two meat pies and a batch of baked mac & cheese, while listening to football on the living room TV. A good football day, as the Pats shut out the Buccaneers (who are good, unlike the Bills—but I still don't want to hear people talk about them as Super Bowl contenders) and the Giants beat the Chiefs with a record-setting performance from Tiki Barber. The movie was fine, given what it had to work with, and I do think the kids' acting has improved still more; but Hermione's dress was weird, Cedric had really big eyebrows (is this a British notion of attractiveness? Harry has the same thing going), and the ending could have stood thirty seconds' more exposition. The third is probably going to remain the best for the fresh quirky visuals and tight story.

Today my dad's side of the family came down, which was good because it's been a while since I've seen them for a holiday (and it's been years since I saw my step-cousin S.). My baby first-cousin-once-removed is very serious looking but was thrilled by the gift of a "Sit and Spin" toy, so that was very cute. And my parents' dog Truman did his usual crowd-pleasing performance of shredding wrapping paper as people opened their gifts. Then we sleepily drove off, made it safe home to our happy dog (who has already put a hole in the super-tough toy that my parents got her), and got stuff put away. It's going to be another long week at work, I'm afraid, but I'll try to get some Genji in, finish that monster Rent post, and so forth.

After working relatively late on Wednesday, we headed to Chad's parents to spend the holiday. (Spreading holiday celebrations over two weekends is hard on the dog, but driving ten hours in one weekend is harder on us.) Had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Chad's parents and grandmother; some neighbors came over for dessert later. Spent a while working on the 1500-piece jigsaw Christmas puzzle that gets brought every year out on Thanksgiving, thoroughly kinking my neck in the process—not so smart. (I poked at it a bit from time to time after, with somewhat bad effects on my shoulders at the end, but I couldn't stop then!)

On Friday, Chad and I made the rounds of local bookstores, and to my sadness I discovered that it is, in fact, possible to have too many books. The Book Barn of the Finger Lakes is literally a barn; its upstairs (where the genre fiction is) is very poorly lit and not heated at all, and books are double-shelved, piled on top of each other, and stacked precariously all over the place. I could feel myself developing a fine case of claustrophobia to go with the despair that there might be the One Book I needed somewhere in all that, but it was too cold/dark/crowded for me to find it.

It would probably be a lovely place to visit in the spring or fall, possibly with the addition of a flashlight. (Not really the place to look for bargains, though.)

Acquisitions: Gambit by Rex Stout for rysmiel, one of Dunnett's mysteries (I have two from the middle, now, and really should read one of them to make sure I like them before I acquire more), and The Cardinal of the Kremlin as urged by booklog commenters.

After lunch, we stopped in at the Fat Cat in Johnson City, which is still a worthy sf store though it's focusing more on gaming and space for gaming (I can't speak to the quality of their comics selection). In a new development, the Fat Cat now has—cats. Acquisition: the second Exordium book, Ruler of Naught, to find a good home for, either as part of a set that I'm collecting or separately (the books are upstairs and I can't be bothered just now to go check whether I already had a spare of it).

Which reminds me—a query to my readers with PDAs: how and why do you use them, and what are the pros and cons? I see that prices for intro-level units are approaching something I'd pay, and depending on the size and weight I might be interested, but I don't know if I'd really update it any more than the paper notebook and calendar I carry around. Thoughts?

Saturday we went sledding (Chad suggested it, and I think from his tone of voice I was expected to vigorously object to the idea). It wasn't great sledding snow, being powdery and not that deep, but we had a lot of fun. Chad's father's dog, a stocky and energetic Lab, had a great time running down the hill just in front of us (well, Chad did run into him once). Pictures, about 200KB each: Kate and dog, Chad and dog.

Today we left in the morning after Chad helped his dad hang a door. Came home to a happy, well-cared-for Emmy (relieving the non-rational part of my brain, as one of my many anxiety dreams this weekend consisted of the dog sitter not coming all weekend), and now I'm watching the Patriots game (down 16-3 to the Chiefs, it's not looking so good) while Chad dozes on the couch. After the game I'll take the dog for a walk and then go restock on groceries, do laundry, all that fun kind of stuff.

I've been really slacking on these. The first week, I can understand why: I'd visited my parents and Mom's friend B. from Scotland that weekend, and then stayed up late watching the Patriots just beat the Bills in Tedy Bruschi's return. I didn't have a particularly good reason the second week, though, just general blah-ness. But that's why I'm starting this earlier than usual, so it does get done today.

Sickness:

• Aggressively medicating the early stage of my seasonal cold with decongestants did successfully prevent the late stage from manifesting. Since the late stage is a nasty, full-body gagging cough, this is a good thing; I just wish that decongestants didn't do such bad things to my brain, and that the whole experience didn't leave me so tired.
• The dog was back at the vet's again for an ear infection (yeast); the ear wash stuff reeks, but it and the subsequent medication are working.
• After the end of Daylight Savings time, I've been driving home in the dark and getting really carsick from other cars' headlights. This is deeply annoying. It seems to be helped by moving my side mirror so that it doesn't shine the headlights of cars behind me directly into my eyes, though this naturally has its own risks.

Stupid tricks with keys:

• I wasted an hour when I forgot the keys to my parents' place when I left here and had to go back and get them. And then, of course, I didn't need them once.
• I managed to lock myself out of my car, in the parking lot before work, when my car keys slipped out of my coat pocket without my noticing. I will never hit the power locks without my keys in my hand again. (I called AAA after I got back from court that morning, and the locksmith they sent had it open within seconds.)

Food:

• Mom's friend B. smuggled haggis and white pudding, wrapped up in literally yards of cling wrap, in from Scotland, and we had some at our early Thanksgiving dinner. The white pudding (oatmeal and onion stuffing) wasn't really to my taste; the haggis basically tasted like the filling in meat pie. Mom and B. also made a cloutie dumpling, except substituting shortening for the shredded suet (since every American's reaction to "suet" was, "the stuff you put out for the birds?!"). It was tasty but very dense ("dumpling" is a misleading term) and a little drier than it should've been because of the substitution.
• Made tourtiére with about 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes substituted for 1/4 pound of meat in this recipe. I'd never made mashed potatoes before, and as potatoes, they were not successful, but lumpiness is good for meat pie since when you mix it all together, the non-lumps basically vanish immediately anyway. The starch might help it act more like a pie as leftovers, but otherwise it tastes the same, so unless I make a bunch of pies, I probably won't bother in the future.

  (I also added a little more allspice, and cooked it at a slightly lower simmer, at about medium heat, so that I had liquid to ladle into the pie. I also used 1/4 pound of beef with 1 pound of ground pork.)

• This Wednesday, I got in and sent an e-mail around the office, saying that it seemed like people were having bad days and I'd just re-stocked my vase of Ghirardelli chocolate squares. I think we went through about a bag and a half that day.

(I managed to make it through emergency week duty with just one minor thing, but other aspects of work were busy enough that I was very relieved to take Veterans' Day completely off for absolute frivolity.)

In household news, we arranged for repairs on the leaky roof. We also suddenly, and without any action on our part, starting getting double or triple our previous download speeds (or, in other words, something like the advertised rates). Hey, I'll take it.

In entertainment news, other than what's already been logged, this Monday we went to a performance of Japanese drumming by the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble at Union. This was very cool, even though the biggest drum resonated in my skull in a slightly unpleasant way. I liked the "Tatsumaki" (tr. "Whirlwind" or "Tornado") best; it was highly dynamic and also fun to watch, as the drummers raised their arms high before striking, jumped to switch between sides of their drums, and so forth. Unfortunately it wasn't on any of the CDs they had for sale, because apparently it is to be watched rather than just listened to.

I also was in the same room for some Hellsing episodes, including the flashback episode with Sir Integra and Alucard and the ending. Great music, visually stylish, interesting relationship between those two, but not particularly interested in watching more (which is handy since Chad's returning the DVDs to the student who lent them). (The opening credits are briefly disorienting, because when we see the back of the white glove with symbols on it, I except to see the gloved hand snap and fire appear.)

And while I was writing, the Pats appear to have squeaked out a win over the Dolphins (I watched most of their loss to the Colts, but this game wasn't on TV here). And the Giants tied it very late but couldn't stop the Vikings from getting a field goal, so they lost.

Link dump:

• Really cute puppy from puppybreak; Emmy might've looked something like this when she was a baby.
• FAQ on Naval History from the U.S. Naval Historical Center (via Sideout)
• The Pablo Picasso Alzheimer's Therapy from the N.Y. Times (reg. may be required)

Well, the big news is that I've got a new job: I'm going to be moving to our Division of Appeals & Opinions (to do appeals rather than opinions, except on occasion). This was official just this Monday, so my start date is still being worked out by people above my pay grade. I expect that the types of cases and the workload will be similar, but with a smoother pace. It'll be basically research and writing, with the occasional oral argument thrown in—which is not so very different from my work now, and while I'll miss some aspects of litigation, the parts I won't miss ought to more than make up for that.

In health and beauty news:

• I spent an entire day with one contact lens inside-out. Didn't sting, didn't feel like the world was curling up in my peripheral vision, just made me feel like my eyes were bugging out, as though I'd spent twenty hours straight in front of the computer screen.
• According to my dentist, regular flossing has gotten my gums to stop bleeding when you look cross-eyed at them, which is good. However, it never ends: now I find that I've been brushing my teeth too hard and causing my gums to shrink back, which means exposing the root, which means ow.
• My seasonal cold began Wednesday. I am aggressively medicating the current symptoms (nasal congestion, sore throat) in hopes of easing the later ones (hacking gagging cough), but decongestants make me feel dopey, twitchy, and like the inside of my head is echoing. This is not really conducive to productivity.
• ETA: Oh, and I finally was successful at giving platelets, last Saturday. Go me.

In travel/fandom news, we've registered for Boskone (note to self: still need to book a hotel room). And we've decided to go to the 2007 Worldcon in Japan, and do about a week or so of sight-seeing before the con; Chad's been wanting to go back and says, not inaccurately, that this is the only way he'll get me to go. Who else is going?

In movie news, the Wallace & Gromit movie is very silly and funny and cute, but trailers before G-rated movies are truly painful.

In weather news, we turned on the central heating today; it's been raining far too much; and it reportedly snowed a bit this morning. The dog disapproves, because the rain means the squirrels (otherwise extremely active at this time of year) go into hiding, and also because she hates having her paws wiped off.

Link dump:

• Serenity in 2000 Words or Less (in the style of The Silmarillion in 1000 Words).
• Via Inner Bitch, a font based on Jane Austen's handwriting.
• A NY Times article about NFL kickers: "And Gillette Stadium is at 75.5 [field-goal percentage], a better percentage than Arizona's Sun Devil Stadium, which may have as much to do with the Patriots' kicker as anything else."

  (The .500 Pats have a bye this week; the Giants pulled off an insane last-second touchdown to beat the Broncos after sucking for half the game. That Manning kid is looking pretty impressive.)

(Yeah, twitchy, can you tell?)