fuzzy

 

 

a fuzzy pair

Lyffan and Loki enjoying a rare moment together at the foot of the bed today.  Lyffan moved just as I started to snap the picture - and she is extremely hard to get a photo of most of the time.  I got a few others of her the night before on my phone but they are refusing to transfer to the computer.  

Had a chance to speak French to a cashier at the grocery store - they were talking about being able to speak 'really good French' in a dream, but they can't speak it well.  He did a better go of remembering sentences than I did, although I understood all of what he said.  I remembered a lot more I could have said to him later - just like in English.  I am still thinking of maybe getting a Babbel subscription or taking some of those online lessons because speaking is still the hardest thing.  Just figuring out what you want to say, in any conversation, is one thing.  Then you have to translate it over.  Trying to figure out if I even should speak in Spanish to the truck drivers at work who keep saying 'no english' to me is hard enough.  I did write up a card in what I am sure is awful grammar to give to them with the dock instructions when they tell me that next time.

 

I did the walking route yesterday at the post office, for the first time in about four months.  I normally have my own route to do on Saturdays, but they had circumstances with people quitting and being out on surgery and I had to be shuffled to make sure they had someone there that could do every route.  In the middle of the day I stumbled off one of the porches - not a very tall one, but concrete steps - and somehow did a 'ta-da' type Spiderman crouching catch at the end and stood up surprised that I hadn't actually fallen on my face, instead.  Happy, yes.. but definitely also surprised.  I didn't get hurt, not even tearing up my hand because it was on grass - but I knew I'd feel the extra muscle work today.  I felt ALL my leg muscles today, because I haven't walked that fast for that far for a while - but I definitely feel the opposite knee and thigh muscle responding to the catching pose that I ended up in.  I am not Spiderman.  repeat after me... *ha*  

Being hypermobile is sometimes a good thing, maybe a bit more 'rubber' when it comes to some sorts of falls and catches - and the knee or ankle that might fold up and give out one moment instead of breaking will hurt like a * but 'snap back in place' and be usable - but also you definitely feel it later, comes back on with a vengeance the next day like 'WHAT did I do to myself.. oh right, and that could have been worse, so suck it up and also be more careful'.... and you really have to be more careful with it until it has time to heal, because now it is less likely to have that rubber-response as it has already used up that flexibility and now will tear easier.. and when you tear the skin up like catching with your hands and knees on the ground that is always taking longer to heal up than a 'normal' person would etc.

 

It has been fairly warm and raining all day - but it is supposed to get down to freezing and maybe snow a little tomorrow and the next day.  I am not terrified of driving in it but I have not been looking forward to when that will come and I have to try to get into the new job in that weather.  Mostly, I worry about the hills being icy.  The start time is before dawn, and I don't like the idea of having to be out there trying to get up hilly roads in the pre-dawn ice.  The post office would often understand if I said I didn't want to leave before first light - because as long as I got there and got it done it really wasn't an issue.  The office job is much more linked to timeclock time and being there consistently on time.  They go by 'the points system'.  ie: A late punch counts for as many 'points' as an absence.  The only way to get the minimum amount of points for not being there exactly from 7 am to 3:30 pm is to attend in the beginning of the day and have a doctor's note for an appointment in the afternoon - and that is still a quarter of a point off.  It's one of those systems made by people who don't have to live through it etc... but it is what it is and so far I haven't had to have any 'points' knocked off - because I knew the ice was coming I have just tried to do it all correctly and hope the weather cooperates.

 I'm going to get to bed and let tomorrow 'be tomorrow'.... I was quite tired earlier today and took a nap for a few hours while the rain was falling the heaviest.  Esme went out to do chicken feeding about that time and two of the dogs came and told me they were worried about her and she was 'out in the weather' and I had to let one out and calm the other one down until Esme came back in a few minutes later.  We've all had dinner now and the rain is off-and-on, so they are laying down now.

I have done some French on my phone Duolingo, and Japanese on my computer.

pvc loom crochet hamper huge cat

 

I had set up a very simple pvc loom, but a bit more complicated than this, about eight years ago.  Of course, I drew three plans last night thinking about it, and then went and looked in the box of stuff in the garage, and slapped this together without having to cut anything or go to town for parts. Currently, waiting for my brain to kick in what I've forgotten - or throw some simple acrylic yarn on there and see what the in-real-time issues are that show themselves.  I made a purse on this last time and I know it had a cross-bar of some type.. and it was always falling over with JUST ts on the bottom, so I put some extensions on this one to hold behind the brick.  But still - I know this is only 1.0.. maybe even .99, because I didn't even have to cut anything.  

(curiosity / techie : the height is a good 36 inches (plus a few, so finished 36 is possible), by a potential 36, more likely a 30 or 24 inch width.. we'll have to see.  The bars are now glued in such a way that the top 'u' can be removed, and extended with a coupling and more pipe for greater height, but the bottom cross-bar is glued tight to keep that from slipping and the elbow and T are glued at the top corners, as well)

I would like to try a twill or a herringbone type thing again, and that takes some distance to make it look really nice, but it's also 'tetchy'.  I'd like to try multiple coloured warps.

Mark wants to bake today, and make candy. 

He made terrariums for propagating begonias with Esme the other day, planted coleus and tomatoes etc etc.. They've been very busy there.  Esme bought a new bike with the money I had set aside for her, as her other one was not adult sized and she has grown.  She could have bought whatever she wanted I told her - and that is what she wanted.  It was on sale, and we had to replace some parts on it right away, and it was a bit fraught and tense, but between the three of us we did get it operational and she learned how to use the new gears and brakes which were different from her old bike.  Sometimes when Mark and I are arguing about tools (wrench type and sizes) and methods though, Esme feels like she is caught in the middle... but we got through it, even with my dyslexia that always adds to that.

I made a little distance on the orange weaving although I have no immediate use for it at the moment.

 

Mark was watching a horror film last night (well, historical vampire thing) and I had just begun this, so I continued working on it so I could look at it and not the screen most of the time.  Still, images tried to repeat later when I wanted to sleep - such is a half-photographic memory.  But I made a good progress and I love the colours on it - it is almost all black with the red thread on the bottom, and then it will stripe, then be the lighter color on top with the handles - I made a bit larger one a few years ago and use it as a hamper hanging up, but keep forgetting it by the washing machine and then coming upstairs and saying 'oh, the hamper is gone'.  A second one won't help that entirely, but it can't hurt, and I do love the stripes.

 

Loki cat with all his stripes

telling me I can't make the bed because he is so huge and can't move... it's a queen sized bed, and I usually do put all the blankets right in the morning - but with twenty pounds of parked cat, it's a bit difficult.

 

Charlotte and Minion cat

Languages : Czech, Catalan, Spanish, French, 

bit of still very introductory Russian to compare the Cyrillic

 spellings with the Czech

I tested into third section with the Spanish on my phone, only in the first section of Catalan (tiene muy poco!) which is in Spanish (so it's really double-duty and fun because of that), and into the middle of the first section of Czech, which I was quite happy with as I didn't remember how much I remembered.  Doing the (high level grammar) French and Russian alternatively on the other profile to round out the xp there daily.  Sometimes I can do the French all day and that is the best thing - sometimes I only want to do that grammar once and then move onto something simpler.  I really appreciated alternating with the Cyrillic alphabet today - it felt like I was using another part of my brain that needed the exercise.  I've been considering updating and practicing the Greek again for exactly the same reason, but not quite ready to dive back into Japanese - I feel like that needs more time to percolate through layers and then well back up to be interesting again.

Charlotte snoring loudly and having what seems to be an excellent afternoon nap...  We've made four dozen cookies, Esme has put a ring with the hatchet around a tree that we intend to cut down sometime in the coming years, and I've used some pvc glue on half of the joints of the loom and warped up a strap to test it out with.  I remember I had made myself a 'nail apron' pocket thing to tie to the bottom rail to hold bits of yarn bobbins that were in use - going to have to find that again, it's in the gardening things likely.

Mid June

 

Nasturtiums, morning glories, hosta and lilies blooming, peppers and tomatoes coming onto their vines, green beans, harvested potatoes and all sort of greens.

 

purple potatoes from our garden

LANGUAGES: (with some synesthesia thrown in)

 A little graphics art project I did very quickly one night to remember the transformations in Finnish.  I did a good update in Finnish this month, after doing an update on Romanian last month and sort of letting that sit a bit.  I'm also touching on Japanese, and Spanish and French and throwing in a bit of this and that and so forth.   Japanese makes me feel 'my brain is actually rearranging this stuff as I hear it- and then rearranging it to produce the sentence again and I can FEEL it trying to figure it out)  Finnish is more in the 'oh, that word transforms a little in this situation, and combines this way in that - got to remember that and get the vowel marks right'... I do know there is much more in Finnish it has yet to actually present to me, but I'm almost halfway through all that DuoLingo has to offer at the same time.  It's a bit daunting how 'easy' it is and yet how 'hard' I've been told it will be.  With Japanese, both of those are up front, I feel it's hard, I know it's hard, and yet I keep understanding more in ways I did not expect to understand (it feels like a different liquid in the channels of my brain) so I keep coming back. 

 I threw in a few lessons of Chinese to see how the number systems compared, since they use some of the same symbols.  Then we watched Kill Bill series and I understood more of what they were saying in Japanese, but still, not enough.  I also found a decent program for teaching Latvian (Apsveicu!) and was trying that out but my spelling is absolutely awful and that program does require you to get it right to advance so... Ko jus teicat?  Just try to spell 'iepazities' on the fly...  still, it is hard to find resources for it at all, so I was excited to get the chance to work on it more than the children's site I had found and reading the news site when I'm in the right mind for it and remember to go check.

We renewed our library cards, and Esme got a book on electricity.  I found a book that captured my interest with the prose, hard topics but I'm pushing through it - 'Find Me', by Andre Aciman.  Not something I would have picked up having known what it was all about, but the author did weave a beautiful scene and a fast tale full of rich details, so I'm pushing through and seeing what it has to show me.  The thing that grabbed me was that on the cover it said 'by the author of Call Me By Your Name', which is an anime Esme and I saw about a boy and girl who 'meet' on a train (this story also starts, oddly, on a train), alternate 'swapping bodies in dreams' having to relate to being a different gender and different expectations from their families they don't really know - and when they figure out what is going on they 'write letters' (while they are each other, they leave each other diary entries) to one another, but then towards the end we find out that they are actually in different times, about three? years apart, and the boy ends up saving the girl's life by writing to her not to be somewhere at a certain time that he finds out is a disaster her and her family apparently died in, and she listens to him and ends up surviving, to meet him in the real future.  I'm not sure, now, if this is the same author of that anime story - I'll have to look that up after I finish the book but not before.

Esme got her glasses renewed and we pick up the new pair today.  We've been playing more board games, card games, such.  I want to get her more engaged this summer and also taking care of herself better.

 

Our cat, Lyffan, whose name means frog (not seen is her brother Loki, he was inside sprawled on a countertop near the food) sniffing the Nasturtium flowers I had picked.  Our Minion cat is thirteen years old, the black tortoiseshell, she is doing well but has dry skin issues (like her daughter Doxie had much earlier in her life) yet is still so stubborn about wanting to be outside nearly all the time I have to call her in and sometimes go pick her up bodily and bring her in to eat dinner at night. 

My brother's birthday is today.  I sent him messages.  My birthday is next week.  I ordered myself a tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet) pan I had been thinking about for a few months, and a new colander for my vegetable washing.  Mark said we might go out somewhere for a lunch or something closer to the day - although honestly I always feel like Father's Day and my birthday collide some - ever since that year when I was a kid that I was told 'you can't have a party, Father's Day is the same day as your birthday, no one will come, anyway it's summer and there isn't anybody to ask who isn't already doing something'...and I decided oh, so, nobody will come...  I did have a few little parties here and there, not saying I didn't - but I was told that because of where my birthday fell in the month it was really just going to be overlooked by most because they were busy.  And that became okay - my birthdays are for me then, to decide where I am in the Universe, and reflect, and that has been mostly what they have been all my life since with a few nice recognitions, an indulgence, like a new pan or a special sandwich here and there, but primarily 'pearls on a string' thinking back where I was last year, where I am now... 

Esme has asked a few months ago to try more salads, so we've made two that she enjoys so far.

Green lettuce, black olives, tomato, no dressing (she tried two, doesn't like it at all)

Green lettuce, black olives, mandarin oranges, sometimes with cooked chicken patty cut up and placed on top.