October 2009 Archives

It took me an hour to get home from work last night. The first mean ice of the season put all the newbies into unfamiliar territory as their bad bossy driving-too-fast 4WDs slid sideways like everybody else when something unexpected happens in front of them. All the major east-west arteries were blockaded. Ugh. I hate having to signal my way across three lanes of cranky traffic at 1 mph to complete a full blown detour. I'd almost rather pull off onto the sidewalk and car-camp for the night. Also, I STILL want a periscope on my car so I can see what's going on 4 blocks ahead.

Gloria and Michaela were at the house when I got home, and Michaela was advising Giselle on anger management. I like the good influences, and this is an area of concern. Meanwhile, Harrison was halfway finished with a rather convincing drawing of hairy legs. After dinner, I read chapter 2 of Dune to the kids, wherein we are introduced to Baron Harkonin. Due to the fact that he is an exceedingly repulsive character, I had to edit a couple lines. It's complex reading, but among other things, I want the kids to appreciate what I mean when I walk in their rooms and gasp that it smells like a Fremen sietch. I must take care though that Giselle does not attempt the Gom Jabbar on Harrison. The boy is fairly susceptible to nerve induction...

After going out in the ministry Saturday morning (in which Harrison doused himself with half a bottle of orange juice at the Coffee Beanery) the kids & I went to see Astro Boy at the theater. I was a little surprised at the rather sudden weepy-pangs it gave me in places. I got buttons, and they knew how to push them apparently. Maybe some day I'll have to explore my Father-Son issues and do some sort of wretched emotional cleansing. We went to Chili's for really late lunch afterward, and before we got to the table, Harrison reached into his pocket, encountered a stowed pencil (point up), and stabbed himself under the fingernail. Yargh. Washing his hands didn't do much to distract the pain & he cried softly until the chips & salsa arrived. My poor little buddy is about as coordinated as I am.

I headed out to Sunset Crater last night at 12:30 am to work up a wide Milky Way sketch for the January AN issue. I sketched the star field from Canis Major to Auriga to the Pleiades and back down to Lepus from about 1:00 am to 3:30 am, and then spent the next hour working on the Milky Way itself. It was a beautiful night and the meteors were going mad--maybe 40-50 per hour. I'm not happy with the Milky Way part of the drawing though. I'm going to have to sneak another session in on Friday or Saturday morning between moonset and twilight. On such a broad scale, it was interesting to see how the dome of the sky didn't translate well to flat paper. Practicing cartographic projections in a sketch is pretty ridiculous, but that's apparently what you'd have to do if you wanted everything to come out according to plan on a sketch that covers 60 degrees of the sky.

So, 4 hours sleep, and I'm getting the familiar and disquieting buzzy feeling in my head. I just had a pretty hefty brain-spark a few minutes ago. Time for a little sleep catchup.

A wooly frost of cloud has dimmed the windows this afternoon. It feels like the breath of an approaching snow. But it's not. It's a teaser meant to raise the hopes of the weak-minded who aren't slaves to the NOAA forecast discussion page.

This morning, at the despicable hour of 5:45, the Mercedes car alarm went off, tearing me awake in a fright. How many seconds was it before my shirtless torso heaved down the porch steps and quieted the neighborhood? Just one second of that racket is too much. Even the dogs were too shocked to bark. I hate that car alarm. The Mercedes is an old beast. A clunker. But it's a tank, and I like the thought of Amanda driving the kids around in a hollowed-out steel ingot. But the mechanics say the alarm is part & parcel of the car. Like the seed from which grows the mighty sequoia--you can't have an ancient Mercedes without the Alarm Pod from which it is born. I hear legends of Mercedes car alarms being deactivated, but apparently, it involves dynamite and a lengthy resurrection ceremony. I'm gonna have to save up a little while for that.