kr-ack, ka-pow

 

Eh, I kind of want to do some Latvian review as well, after all this time... but I'm making such good progress in the Japanese that I'm actually recognizing words phonetically quickly, instead of sounding them out bit by bit, and the low level Japanese profile is doing a review of katakana, which I actually DO need... *sigh*

Patreon post with recipe below:

 

pea soup with yellow and green peas and onions, and cheesy toast forthcoming

It's turned a bit cold outside, the goat was sunning herself, as were the cats.  The cats have been seeking out warm blankets and sunbeams to curl up on here inside the house, as well.

I touched on three different stories the past few days, but there are so many in my files I can bounce around and come back to each one with new eyes and do something a bit more on it.  The story I've put on my bench to work on today is about 3,000 words and the two that I published at the beginning of the month were both around 5,000 give or take, so it's in the range if I just get some knuckles down on it and make sure it still says what I want it to say, at the same time.

The story is called 'INGie', I've been working on this story off and on since 2019. Since it has been years now and it has sort of sat there waiting for me to do more with it - I'm trying to see if it's ready for the 'publish a thin book' treatment, like Mikki Mack and Salt Magic, which I published earlier this month.

The story is by nature sad, but also full of wonder and possibilities and think-outside-the-box.  It is about an alien that has crash-landed and there is a mutual protective relationship between him and the first human that found him.  The alien has strange powers, but also a distinctly non-human way of looking at things, so the things he creates with his powers and the materials in the warehouse are by definition ethereal and nearly impossible.  I posted a little excerpt on my art page : so I'll repeat here

"He is getting better at language, but still it is slow and he takes his time to find the right word.  Often he will stand there peering at me trying to project an image long enough that I might pick up on it.  The problem is these thoughts are not easy to form in my mind - he is the one working a masterpiece down to the barest shapes and forms to wedge it into the squishy clay of the human mind.  Is it you? Is it me? I focus on the image he has sent to me, trying to make it come together with the object I see in front of me.  It is him, he says, or at least his clothes. He is making his goodbye clothes. I don’t like the sound of that. "

 

Mikki Mack book released for sale

Mikki Mack!

 I released this book on Amazon today, It is available for sale in paperback and in Kindle.  

I had been working on it since last November, but mostly in fits and starts.  Esme made the beautiful cover image, which continues to the back of the paperback with a glorious long fluffy tail, just like the description says.  I didn't feel, at first, that I could do anything to match her talent on the digital images - but I pushed myself to go out there and do something, so that the story could get out.  Mikki is a very sassy little cat - and she tells the stories of several cats of our own, and of friends, all wrapped up in one fluffy gray ball.

I am spurring myself to put out more of my stories just to get them OUT - I have so many just sitting here that I don't feel are good enough, or were waiting for some larger anthology... but in this day and age... getting it out and into the world is more important.  You never know when 'someday' isn't going to happen at all, for one reason or another.  Especially when you have social anxiety in general.

*sigh*  so yes, today is an 'oh my introvert' day.  I'm going to have to drink a lot more coffee and finish my Japanese and see where my brain is at before continuing with either : the little pig story, loosely based on a story Esme told me when she was a toddler, or setting up one of the House of Sunlight stories to edit separately and see where that gets me for page count.

I could comb through the Pinocchio's Grandniece is a Dachshund story sometime soon.. but as I said, I have so many things piled up that I freewheeled and had a great time writing, and then put in the drawer and said no one will like it.  They won't get a chance to like it or not like it if it never goes anywhere other than the drawer.  (That's easy to say, not easy to do).

And I did a video interview for online tutoring.  Another 'oh my introvert'.. but I just went and did it - because I do feel the experience was important and that I did have something to say about what I could do to teach words and reading.  I have a lot of experience with learning not only English, but other languages - and with having the kind of brain that doesn't immediately get it from the regular perspectives, so I can see lots of ways other people might get lost, and try to help them get to the goal.

1.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 20 : done

2.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 11 : did some but then I fell over for a nap

3.)  babadum to 50 cards at least : done

4.)  Baltoslav to 25 or more : 90 done

5.)  Clozemaster Japanese and Chinese 10 sentences each (that is their free daily limit)    : done

//I went and did some WaniKani - it's been such a time since I did that.. and I've forgotten so much of the onyomi and konyomi spellings but not doing it isn't going to help me get them right.

6.)  work on some more book stuff

:: started a Kindle Vella.... based on a writing prompt I have in a file.  It's called 'Tiger Stories' and it says it will take up to 72 hours for the first chapter to become live online

And I made lasagna - I'm about to go check on it in the oven right now.

Recipe at Patreon Neurodivergent Cooking : warning, it's leftover meatloaf in there... but you use what you got, use what you keep, keep what you use, that's one of the mantras of this style of cooking

Our little girl is on a roll...

I think she is definitely back 'in fine form' again.  I said that last week - hopefully I am right this time!  She was playing Sims 2 on my computer while I was knitting.  She had set up 'a party' which included selling half the house's furniture to have money to buy balloons, chairs and food banquets outside and then she started digging holes and building 'hills' as she calls them, spikes that reached all the way to the sky positioned all around the chairs forming a wall of 'teeth'.  She got clicked off of the icon she wanted and wanted help from Daddy.  He helped her, and then she needed something else - so I get over there to see this very odd scene while she is saying she needs me to change the viewpoint 'How do I get down there Mama'- because she wanted the 45 degree viewpoint (first one) on and I had the overhead viewpoint I prefer (second one) on when I finished helping her.  The clincher is why she describes needing to 'use the shovel dig a hole'...  She said she had to invite everyone over to the party but the water-filled holes and walls were to keep the monsters out or to have the monsters fall in the holes so they don't eat the people.  ??  Oh my.  She does have her 'own ideas' about what games are really all about.  This one is about throwing parties with balloons, having lots of chairs, avoiding monsters and going dancing!

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the strange Sims2 scene she was making...

you can't see them very well but the rest of the house is surrounded by bits

of 'moat' - large holes dug and filled with water.  

It was also interesting to see her 'snapshots' she had made while she was playing.  At times, she was taking twelve pictures per minute of game time all of the 'thoughts' the people were thinking about while they were sleeping, or reading a book etc etc... I am going to have a lot of files to delete if she plays quite a bit more on my computer!  Also, daddy's 'people game' has fighting. (skyrim)  Mama's people game has people but they are no fighting.  She told me that today...

Her language is improving quite a bit.  We are hearing things much closer to full sentences from her.  We still sometimes have to say 'HUH?' but mostly it is because she is rattling things off so quickly.  When she was on my computer and wanted the headphones on - had them almost in the jack and on her head before I knew what she wanted - but then she said 'they no work for me *sigh*'.  I turned the volume up and she was so happy - couldn't adjust them to her size and she was upset about that...but later a song was on 'something a noise to me, I no like it.'  'annoying' is a word she is still working out, but she understands the concept.

She was watching a bit on a 'grownup' movie in between drink cups and bathroom breaks from being outside and made a on-the-nose comment about the plotline because she has seen a parody of it before on the Simpsons.  Mark and I looked at each other and weren't quite sure if we heard what we thought we did - 'That man try GRRRR and it so heavy. (the bathtub).  The big n'dan man, he do it.'  That is what we thought we heard - but the jury is still out, she wouldn't repeat it and went running back outside.  At the store she wanted 'blue shoes to go sleep in' - fuzzy blue slip-on slippers in the women's section.  She must have seen that in a book or on computer.   We looked, but found nothing in her size in the kids section.  She did pick out a pair of Hello Kitty clogs like her purple croc shoes that we agreed on - there is coming a day soon the purple shoes are going to fall apart!

And there were 'tigers' in our garden according to her - when I was thinning corn.  She wanted to 'come into the grass plants (corn) with you' to get away from them.  Mama wouldn't play that game - because I didn't want her to knock the corn over.  She carried a very embarrassed orange housecat (our PeanutNinja cat) out of the garden in an undignified fashion and told the 'tiger' to stay out.  She was trying to read things on my screen and was very excited about the possibility of getting a box of books she had seen me looking at in an auction.  I told her they would come to our mailbox and she said she didn't want a nail box, no nails, don't need nails.  MAIL box - oh wait, that is a different story - yes books in mailbox, she wants that!

Esme's piggy story

This is Esme's story she told me about the piggies. Remember, she is two and a half, so it is very simple. She actually told me this story in the bathtub - so it made more sense there! We had just been swimming earlier and the pigs have been part of our bath toys for a while because they float in the bubbles. I've recreated the background and everything on this table to make nice pictures. The story was just so sweet and I got the great idea when I remembered we had a toy fish in our toybox! In the bathtub one side of the tub was 'work' and the other side was where the baby got stuck on a ledge. The fishy was a hand coming up and eating the pig inside a soap box, which was the piggies 'house where they swim.'

The piggies are a mama and a baby. They live in this house. These piggies swim in and around their house. Swim, swim, swim piggies.


Mama and baby pig in house


The Mama pig swam to work. Baby pig said 'bye bye mama have good day!'


A big fish saw the baby pig and came up to say hello.


The fish went AWMP and swallowed the little pig. It cried HELP HELP! The mama pig saw and heard. She came home. You are HOME Mama Piggy.


The fish saw the mama pig calling 'Baby pig where are you?' She was crying because she could not find her baby pig. I guess the big fish felt bad for the mama pig, because it spit the baby pig back up.


The baby pig was alright! It yelled to the mama pig it was 'alright mama pig'. Then it swam to shore. It had trouble swimming very far. The big fish went away. Go away big fish!


On the way back to his house the baby pig fell in a hole. He could see Mama pig but he could not get out. He called again: 'Help! Help Mama piggy! I'm STUCK!'


Mama pig swam to where the baby pig was.


They walked back home.


The mama and the baby pig got home and ate pie.
(in the bathtub it was bubbles)

The Storyteller's Mask original drawing

'The Storytelling Mask' (SOLD)
by Marie Lamb (gallery of work)

An original drawing from 2004, made in the same 'scribble some and see what shows up' method as most of my work. This was done at the same time I had my gallery show at North Dakota State University. It was one of the pieces that didn't get into that show because I just had too much work to show at once!

Original ink and prismacolor drawing. Now available at the PenStrokes Original Art Shop at Etsy.