Sense of Adventure

The Internet: what you don’t know, can’t haunt your dreams forever.

First Corollary: Be careful what you search for. You might just find It.

I’m fortunate enough to have some really wonderful friends. Some even go so far as to extend their friendship to Emma Dog. Unless it’s the other way around.

When the group goes out together to restaurants Emma’s Aunt Kathy (Kelly-Kubica) and Aunt Roslee (Orndorff) are especially thoughtful in donating meat scraps for me to take to Emma. Which is very sweet of them, and much appreciated by Emma. And me.

So tonight - technically yesterday evening, now - as threatened I attended the monthly ASFS meeting to hear Ian Tregillis read from Bitter Seeds, the WWII “secret history” novel he just delivered to Tor. As I was going in I was hailed by Kathy. She’d been out to dinner before the meeting, and had actually got a doggie box to bring scraps for Emma. It was just incredibly nice of her. She even brought a baked potato for my compost heap, which is going above and beyond.

It was a great reading, very well received. The book’s going to be killer.

After the meeting several of us (Roslee, who’s a nurse, had to work and didn’t make it out tonight) went by Craig’s house while he prepared some packets for art-show participants. Then we headed over to the Applebee’s on Menaul. There Kathy got another steak (she’s on a reduced-carb diet), and darned if she didn’t send another box o’ scraps home to Emma. So she’s set up for the next few days. A happy dog indeed.

As we headed out to the cars Kathy suggested I check the box she had given me. “Emma won’t much like it if you bring home a box full of broccoli,” she said. “She’ll look at you, like, ‘Why don’t you love me?’ ” And she pulled an appropriately mournful face.

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I have a black dog. This is very important to me..

It wasn’t when I got her initially. I just wanted a dog. It’d been a year and a half since I lost Bear, whom the wonderful Pat Rogers so aptly called “the little golden dog” - who acquired a large and active fan following who continued to query me for months after her death as to where she was. Enough time had passed for an emotional reset. And to prepare myself I’d read the amazing and useful The Other End of the Leash by ethologist Patricia McConnell. So when I happened by the animal-adoption fair being held at the nearby PetSmart, my main concerns were a nice dog who’d get along with me and the cats and not eat too many house guests or neighbor kids - after one or two, people start to talk.

But more of that tale later. It’s just that the dog I’ve grown to know and love and rely upon to defend the redoubtable Milán Pack and territory against the wicked (lately, mostly young moms strolling past with prams and little dogs on leashes - as every schoolchild knows, among the leading perpetrators of home invasions!) is black. A very deep, glossy black, except for a white blaze on her chest that’s seldom visible.

So why, oh my, when I open the back door, is what I get back a khaki dog?

This just happened. Again. It’s about 1:30 PM Friday. I’m trying to get some writing done and maybe at last plant the honeysuckle I’ve nurtured in a pot on the kitchen counter all these months in the backyard, before heading out to dinner with some Wild Cards Mafia types - including Denver’s own Carrie Vaughn, of Kitty and the Silver Bullet fame - and then to ASFS to hear Ian Tregillis read from the first novel of his upcoming Milkweed Triptych trilogy. I love that name, by the way. Anyway, I read the ending (I mean, silently, to myself. Without even moving my lips much) as part of the Critical Mass authors’ group, and it completely rocks, and Melinda says Ian’s a great reader, so I’m much looking forward to it. Anyway.

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Is your supermarket ripping you off? Probably!

It might just be worthwhile to stay alert. Specifically: make sure the price the item is offered at on the shelf is what you get charged. If you look closely, you just might find it often isn’t – that you get gouged a higher price.

Just now I went to the Lowe’s across the street to buy some English muffins (I shouldn’t be eating the starch, but as I’ve said I’m not making equal progress on all fronts.) They had the regular ones for $1.99. There was also a big sign under the sourdough ones offering “Meyer’s” sourdough English muffins for $1.59. Now, the name on the label says “Nature’s Grain.” But two things: these were the only items the sign could refer to; and you’ve probably noticed that sometimes one umbrella corporation operates numerous different brands, sometimes actually in competition with each other.

- And as if by magic - the magic of the Internet! - here we have an excerpt from an article on Harlan Bakeries: “Meyer’s Bakeries … [p]urchased by [Harlan’s] subsidiary, Southern Bakeries…. [T]he business also sells baked goods under the Nature’s Grain brand.” So yes, in fact, Nature’s Grain products are distributed through Meyer’s, as the article mentions a couple paragraphs later. The items marked as on-sale were in fact the ones I tried to buy.

So I decided to go with the sourdough bagels and save 40 cents. No big deal. I like ‘em well enough, and with food costs skyrocketing every little bit likely helps.

The cashier, who was a young woman I haven’t seen before, rang them up. The price: $1.99.

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I know that sounds like the beginning of a limerick. Sadly, that’s all there is and there ain’t no mo’.

It’s just that today I was reminded of the tool’s excellence by the simple fact of using it to begin expunging the weeds from my front yard. It’s just great for that. It’ll take the little bastards off level with the ground; sometimes it even hooks them and yanks ‘em out by the roots. Which is definitely bonus.

It’s about the only thing I know to get rid of the foul weeds locally called goatheads, shy of a flamethrower (which, granted, I so wish I had), or just grubbing the things out one by one by hand. Which, given the properties of our North Valley soil (the phrase “cement-like” springs to mind) would be a slow and brutal task. The monstrous things produce horrid miniature caltrops, which in fact greatly resemble a goat’s head, complete with horns - especially with horns - that endlessly torment my dog. And also me, when she tracks them inside and I walk around barefoot. As I prefer to do. The plants themselves sprawl on the hardpan as if defending against a Brazilian jiu-jitsu takedown, making it extremely hard to get at them. Unless you attack them right flat along the ground.

That’s what the scuffle hoe will do for you. New Mexico gardeners: buy it. Use it. Love it.

In other news from the terraforming of my yard, the compost I’ve got separated into its own container now, after a night’s airing-out, looks and smells and feels like nice, rich soil. Which I am given to understand is the point of the whole damned operation. Meanwhile the stuff in the composter, while it still smells a little evil, is generating heat again. I may need to turn it again in a couple days, although I confess it’ll be a spell before I’m willing to wrestle with screening it again.

Things progress. Likewise on the writing front, I’m pleased to report. I’ve slacked a bit on dictating, but that’ll come along as well.

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… I think.

As mentioned before, late this winter I decided to get serious about landscaping (among numerous other things.) I started researching inexpensive and easy composters. Despite some excellent advice from friends I wasn’t finding anything quite cheap and easy enough.

Then my friend Harriet Engle, who lives in a duplex next to my friend Roslee - both from the science-fiction club - revealed she was helping put a garden in their shared backyard. Since she seemed experienced I asked for her suggestions. She said she’d had success just getting a big old covered trash bin with wheels. Bingo! Thus was born what I call the Harriet Engle Rolling Composter.

(Before I went into any detail on this I asked Harriet if it was all right for me to use her full name. She allowed as she didn’t have any stalkers or outstanding warrants she was aware of, so it was.)

At Wally World I found just such trash bins, of 50-gallon capacity, for $25 each. Which definitely rang the cherries as far as “cheap” was concerned. Not too long thereafter I chanced to accompany my best friend Joe to Wal-Mart, as well as, more to the point, Joe’s pick-up truck. So I bought one of the bins and brought it home. I thought of buying a second - some systems recommend up to three separate composters - but decided I wanted to see how this one worked before expanding.

Harriet mentioned drilling holes in the bottom for drainage. I was initially concerned about compost dribbling out, but realized the quarter inch holes I intended to drill weren’t going to allow for much of that.

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Been a busy day. Got a lot of writing done, and also made good progress in the yard. I’m finally about ready to plant the honeysuckle clipping I’ve been nurturing in a pot on the kitchen counter for the last year and a half. Soon after that I’ll be planting native grasses front and back. Yay!

Also, I finally got the necessary preparations made to learn at last whether I’ve indeed achieved compost. However I was too beat tonight to filter the stuff and find out. Tomorrow…

Poor Emma has somehow got a slice in one of her pads. Poor tyke. I gave her a quarter aspirin to relieve the pain. She’ll have to heal a few days before I take her out walking again.

Click here to read the reason behind the season - what makes Cinco de Mayo so damned special. I was going to watch the largely unknown 1970 Clint Eastwood/Shirley MacLaine (!) oater Two Mules for Sister Sara (the only movie I know of set during the Franco-Mexican War) in honor of the great day. But I’m too racked-up for that too. Maybe tomorrow for that as well.

A bit of an experiment today - take that as yesterday, Friday, May 2^nd, the day before this nominally posts.

As I mentioned in our last thrilling episode (and, yes, I’m easily thrilled) I’ve got both Dragon NaturallySpeaking and my DVR up and running. So today when I took Emma Dog for a walk down by the Nature Center, I decided to try my hand at an audio diary. I keep a journal of our walks anyway, and it’s struck me several times just how convenient it’d be to be able to record interesting events, sights, impressions, and suchlike, just by speaking. I do carry my beloved Pilot T/X religiously, but writing into it’s … not so efficient. Especially since Graffiti 2, their writing interface software, basically sucks. Although in truth I’ve never been terribly accurate at writing on my PDA.

But talking, obviously, is pretty easy.

Also, of course, it’s my intent to dictate my fiction on the go, implementing what I’ve long thought of as my “Man in Motion” concept. So I reckoned this’d be a prime opportunity to test several things at once.

What follows, therefore, is my transcript of the day’s session. It runs 1006 words. It’s proofread, but not edited - I’m proud I only said “um” once. It’s as close to word-by-word as I could make it.

Feel free to skip this one. If not - here goes:

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… but Hell no.

Usually Emma Dog goes outside when I get out of bed and stays out all day (for some reason she won’t stay out if I’m not up, at least in the daytime.) She does her business, gets fed, explores, lies in the sun, all those outdoorsy dog activities. Today she started whimpering to get in after maybe half an hour. So I let her inside.

A few minutes ago, a little after 1:30 PM here in the Mountain West, Emma got up off her fleece on the couch and went to the back door. Which I’ve got propped open for ventilation. At the screen she stopped and stared out a few moments. It’s a standard way she petitions to go outside.

Then she turned, went back to her couch, and curled back up to go to sleep.

The reason’s not hard to divine: today really blows. Literally.

It’s our second day running of nasty wind. Today it hasn’t got up to really scary winds, which we attained around 5 PM yesterday. But its bad enough.

Today’s redeeming feature is that it’s a cool wind. It’s actually effectively aerating my house, which for some reason has the ventilation characteristics of a sealed bank vault even with all windows and doors wide open. I don’t even have the ceiling fan on in the living room, where I sit on the (other) couch - yes, it’s got an Emma Fleece too - writing this with the Cubs-Brewers game on in the background. (Oh, good. The Brew Crew just tied it on a home run.) Yesterday it just blew hot air everywhere. It was the very sort of day which makes me much prefer Fall to Spring. They’re my two favorite seasons; Fall mostly omits the killer winds.

Another annoyance is that there’s nothing I want to do in my yard right now that the wind won’t render impossible. Or at least make prohibitively unpleasant.

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