temporarily away from the blog
So, my CPU died on Monday.
It was a wonderful computer– I built it myself three and a half years ago, and it was a hardy machine. Everything in the computer was saved, of course; the hard drives are fine. The ram was good, but since it’s DDR2, I doubt I’ll be able to do much with it. The graphics card will come in handy until I upgrade it– a Geforce 7900 GTX. Top of the line three years ago, still a decent brand, but all good things must come to an end.
…
Point being, with my hard drive out of commission until my new computer arrives next week (I’m bastardizing a mac pro with Windows XP– just plugging the old hard drives in) I won’t be around much.
See you next week!
the cat piano
I found this the other day– an award winning short animated film, with a hint of Poe. I’ve been watching it about once a day since I discovered it on Saturday.
pre-midnight inspiration
I like to start NaNoWriMo at midnight. Always have.
So I went internet browsing in the meantime. This is technically a commercial, but… enjoy. Trust me.
chicken redux
I haven’t posted pictures of my girls since they were in ratty ugly-chick phase. I must rectify this (so long as I can’t leave home, but feel too restless to lay in bed like a good patient).
leptodactylous
The word of the day is ‘leptodactylous’ (lep-teo-DAK-teh-lus).
Adjective. “Having abnormally slender fingers and toes.”
See this? Ring size 3.75. I could have gone down to 3.5. 
In the event of confusion, this is my new promise ring. Sortof like an engagement ring, but without stress, wedding plans, or formal announcements.
something entirely different… chickens!
Subtitled, “Who let Eliza have a camera?”
By request, pictures of the other distractions. My chickens. I have two ameraucanas, nine silver spangled hamburgs, five blue andalusians, ten silver phoenixes, and one ‘mystery chick’. The babies just turned four weeks old, while my ameraucanas are far elder at six weeks.
These are all photographed under their heat lamp– colors have been retouched to take away The Glaring Yellow. So, without further ado… chickens!
See the big girl? That’s Rosamund, one of my two ameraucana hens. She’s going to lay me some blue eggs. To the left, the black chick is one of the blue andalusians, and the black and white in front of her is a silver spangled hamburg.
A phoenix! Isn’t she pretty? These birds are impossible to photograph– they delight in turning their heads at the last second. I ended up with far too many pictures of chicken rumps.
Last, but not least, sleeping chickens. See the white one? That’s my mystery chick, Pat. S/he came covered in white down (not yellow– the palest of cream colored), single comb, four toes, no feathers on the legs. Now that s/he’s getting bigger, I’m noticing that there are tiny little spots of black and gray feathers growing in– the gray is at the top of both wings now, very pale, and there are three singular charcoal feathers on the back. I have no idea what the breed is. It looks to be a medium sized chicken, but other than that… I’m at a complete loss.
Alright. I lied. Leave an Eliza around a digital camera for too long, and there will be tragic, moody self portraits.
… Though I may put this in the ‘About the Author’ section. Anyone who wondered what I look like, here you are. Bad hair and all.
jitters
I haven’t worked on my novel for two days– I’ve been scrambling to put together my materials for class.
I didn’t expect this. I’m terrified. What were they thinking, hiring me on?
Classes at the college start tomorrow, but mine is a Tuesday/Thursday class, so I’ve got one more day before I’m facing my first students at the head of the room. There’s also an online course, which I feel better about– just like blogging, with homework. Still, I was told very late that I’d be doing this, less than a week ago, and not all of my instructor information has come through, which means that I’ll have a syllabus with no office hours, personal campus phone, or even a college email. I’ve been rushing to review the lesson plans, even as I cut out the badly written sections out and replace them.
To go on top of everything else, I constantly get asked what high school I go to. I look like a fifteen year old. People keep trying to tell me that that’s secretly a good thing (after they’re done apologizing when I mention that I graduated from college years ago). It’s not when all the eligibly men assume at a glance that you’re jailbait, or when you blend in perfectly with your students. Just one more thing to worry about.
I usually keep a rule that I don’t talk about my personal life on this blog, but I needed to rant. It’ll be back to books when I’m comfortable again.
fortuna
I locked the two cats in my bedroom, so that I could stare at the living room floor in peace.
The birds started small, just like she did. Baby sparrows, fallen from the nest, their nests neatly snapped as Fortuna laid them on before the back patio door. Her kill was almost dainty.
After that, I found a live bird in the garage, nestled in a temporary haven between the step in the concrete and the garage door, feathers strewn around its hiding place. I picked it up and took it outside, and I petted its feathers. Just another sparrow, the kind you’d find anywhere. After a few minutes, it chirped twice and flew away.
My mother blamed herself. We had a bird feeder in the back garden, its post wrapped in metal to keep the squirrels out (ha!). And when the birds would come in, they would pick through the mix of seeds to get to their favorite treat, spilling some of the rest on the grass below. By the bushes. And when the birds would run out of seed, they’d fly to the ground to pick at it there. Our cat was less than a year old at that point, but she displayed talent for the hunt. And she liked birds. Moving from the city suburb to northern Idaho did not hinder this. Especially since, courtesy of our new houses’ last owner, the house came with a series of dog doors.
Fortuna was a beauty. Her fur was short, black, and glossy, her body small and lithe. Some cats chase string when you dangle it. There was nothing that Fortuna wouldn’t chase. She’d go for blades of grass, keys, phone cords, even my wooden practice daggers (courtesy of martial arts training). She’d scratched and bloodied my hands several times, whenever I was stupid enough to try to make her pounce on the toys I offered. Always enthusiastic, never cruel.
We were a dismayed, though, when we found the dead bird scattered around our new house’s bedroom halfway through the remodel. From what I could tell, it had been another sparrow, but this time all we found were feathers and a head. Another followed that, in another room. Then she’d managed to catch herself a starling.
Back to the living room. We had tiled and carpeted the floors. The rooms had gone from a hideous 80’s pink-walls-with-a-green-carpet to boring beige, which in a house of this make was really all that could be done. Asian furniture in cherry graced the corners, and managed to make the giant iron wood-furnace less hideous. Nothing there could distract from the large black duck.
Black, gray, and very dead, it reclined on the new carpet just past the tiled entryway. Its neck held a particular angle that suggested that it had been snapped. Feathers were missing from its tail, torn out and played with all along the hallway.
And to think, I’d been petting that cat…
dr. horrible (a fangirl moment)
Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, by Joss Whedon. (Watch it. Trust me.)
Joss Whedon knows how to tell a story. Give him a medium. He’ll tell a story, and he’ll do it with style. Not to mention snappy comeback lines.
I don’t want to spoil anything, since it just came out, and we’ll have to wait another two days until the last installment is put out. I will say that I adored the first and last song of Part II, and will probably watch this several times over and try to figure out why I’m such a fan of the dorky protagonist.
villian: kione remerdii: introduction
“Those that protested, ‘I had no choice,’ obviously lacked an imagination.”
Kione Remerdii
Kione’s family are not noble; the Remerdiis are what is known as ‘Landed Gentleman’, which means that they get a surname, but are barred from officially naming their territories or taking on slaves bound in gold. For services to the king, Kione was promoted to the rank of pseudo-nobility, given the title of ‘Lord’… but his home and lands were not given an official name. Instead, after a bit of social fumbling he was nicknamed ‘Lord Kione Remerdii, of blue crystal’ after his new crest, a piece of celestite shining in the dark. This combined the gentleman and lordly titles, and aside from some prestige bestowed very little special privilege. Given the service he was performed in exchange, some might even think that he was robbed. Kione accepted graciously instead.
The hierarchy, to be clear: Royalty > High Nobility > Nobility > Landed Gentleman > Gentleman > common men.
When Kione was eight years old, he was put in charge of his family’s dogs, to teach him to rule. Dogs, his father theorized, were the perfect way to raise his son: they would flock for food and favors, and were easily trained, easily led astray. This was much how the senior Remerdii saw his people, which he organized into strict routines and rigid groups, all heavily moderated. Kione adopted the same practices, training the animals, then using them for mundane labor.
Two years later, Kione was with his animals when a much younger boy– probably five or so, and noble-born on top of it– thought it would be fun to run among them and hit them with a heavy stick, normally used for chastising the dogs. Kione caught and held him, wrenching his stick away from him and demanded that the child desist and leave. The boy swore and refused, reaching back to take back his weapon as he struggled. Then the boy’s father came into view.
Immediately the child threw himself on the ground and began sobbing. The father shouted and scooped him up, asking his son what had happened and giving Kione a very unpleasant expression as the boy pointed a finger at the stick, but seemed too wrought to make out the words. Kione’s explanation seemed to be disregarded.
When Kione’s own father called on him later for an answer, Kione again tried to explain that he had not been in the wrong. His father cut him off, affirmed that he already knew what had really happened. Then he went on to explain that it was unimportant. Truth was, ultimately, less important than appearance. He was to find other ways, other options, but always must appear blameless, regardless of his intentions, the presence or lack of guilt. Then Kione was punished as if he had attacked the little noble, to the satisfaction of their guest.
Kione learned his lesson, and did not make that mistake again.
