coffee - you actually have to DRINK it

I was just reading about Jim’s new coffee pot–it’s shiny. And you know what they say about shiny things. Friends, in passing, have you watched the now defunct TV show “Firefly?” If you liked Star Trek, you should watch Firefly. It’s like StarTrek, only sassier. And there’s only one season of it, so it’s a minimal time commitment. If your last name is Kenny, in particular, you should watch it. All of that from “shiny.” Watch it, you’ll understand.

Anyhow, I’ve been away from coffee lately. My morning beverage has been tea or cocoa, or just water, depending on the day. But yesterday, I needed the coffee. It was a coffee day. I was fuzzy feeling, and tired. Coffee.

So, I got some coffee. All was going well. I was at my desk, pondering a pdf that someone had printed out for routing.

Then I knocked the cup over and spilled most of it all over my desk. Huge puddle of coffee. We don’t have any sponges here in the library, only those paper towels you find in elementary schools and gas stations. Huge mess. Though, to be fair, I didn’t get much of it on myself, and I was wearing brown pants, so it could have been worse.

All this to say, conclusively, it’s not enough to sort of soak in coffee. You can’t just surround yourself with it, to feel the effects. You actually have to consume it.

~ by meteowrite on February 22, 2007.

4 Responses to “coffee - you actually have to DRINK it”

1.JENN!!! Oddly enough, I too spilled coffee on myself this week, though ice had a lot to do with it. Yes, from the “shiny” coffee maker ;-) It’s my own fault, really, as I decided to dress up a bit. Hard to bring that off to full effect when one is spackled with coffee blotches. Must consume it, yes, not wear it…

Sancho said this on February 22nd, 2007 at 9:30 pm

2. Michael Kenny expressed no interest in “Firefly.”

shiny - I know that should be funny. Or at least poignant. I can’t remember which blog post it was… maybe an email? I probably need more sleep. How about a hint for the tired old woman?

jean kenny said this on February 22nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm

3. Shiny, well, it is different things to different people. In “Firefly” (and I think MK is off on this one, it’s very funny, but I understand he’s very busy) “shiny” is a phrase generally used the way we might use “cool” or “awesome.” In our own LOTR circles, we use it to reference Liv Tyler’s use of her natural dazed or dopey personality to convey a sense of the ethereal, which was really quite brilliant on someone’s part. It’s as if she walks through the movie thinking “Shiny things are pretty!” and not much else. Also, as a derivative, it’s used to describe anyone who might not have thoughts beyond “shiny things are pretty” in their day to day lives.

jenn said this on February 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 am

4. Dude. “Firefly” is already on my Netflix queue. Pending MK approval. It’s my queue, but he apparently has veto rights. Mostly it’s filled with flicks that he thinks is missing from my film viewing repertoire. But if say, I request that “Charlie’s Angels II: The Full Throttle” be added to my queue, you can be sure that an icecub in hell has a better chance of making it.

What about shiny happy people?

jean said this on February 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

fictional mortality — part two

There are a few conventions authors seem to follow, archetypes, perhaps. I thought I’d jot down the ones that came to mind, so we can talk about people who break them. The good way and the bad way.

Who’s not going to die? William Goldman said it this way. “Well, since the book is called ‘The Princess Bride’ and since we’re barely into it, obviously the author is not about to make shark kibble of his leading lady.’ In the Sally Lockhart mysteries, by Phillip Pullman, I’m not that worried about Sally in Book Two, as there are at least two books to come that bear her name. The exception to this rule, of course is that the title character may die at the end of the book, if there is only one, or at the end of the series, if there are several. Hence all the hubbub around J.K. Rowling and the fate of Harry at the end of Book Seven. Will she, won’t she? That’s right, J.K. I’ve got more to say to you later.

Who CAN go? Well, there are a few obvious categories, aren’t there. There’s what Jean and I call “The Random Ensign” phenomenon. Based on Star Trek, and my ST of choice is TNG. So, if Riker, Troi, Data, Worf and some guy you’ve never heard of form an away team, you can lay money only four of them are coming back. It’s easy, I see why they do it. Gives Picard something to be incensed over, but doesn’t require much emotional drain on the audience.

The aged teacher is disposable as well, the Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you will. Really, once he’d taught Luke, what role was there for him? Again, his death provides a kick in the pants for Luke. Right, we were talking about books. Galapas, from the Hollow Hills. Brom, from Eragon. We could look to JK again, though of course that raises the question “Just how much like Gandalf is Dumbledore, really?” Verdicts still out.

An aged king with a healthy heir won’t survive. Else why is he old? Why have an heir? (In thinking this one through, I got sidetracked contemplating how bad things happen to Tolkien characters whose names start with a “th”….Theoden, Theodred, Thorin, Thingol, all though the last didn’t have it so bad…anyway, I’ve digressed.) Certainly Theoden fits here, and so does Denethor, if you want to consider him a self-styled King. Kay gives us Aillel, though more on Kay later as well, he’s the master, as far as I’m concerned.

Who else? Who do you know is doomed the minute you first run across them?

~ by meteowrite on February 16, 2007.
One Response to “fictional mortality — part two”

1.Then of course there is the fate of multiple heirs to the old Kings estate; some or one of them must go to allow the “rightful” king emerge. Ancient High Priestesses also seem to have a high mortality rate, for the same reason as ancient Kings.

The Greeks give us the whole hubris thing, which leads to the certain knowledge that any mortal who has gotten “protection” from death (a la Achilles) is going to be done in at some point.

The analog to the “unknown Ensign” in most war stories is the “ne Lieutenant”. At some point the “old Sergeant” will be taking his dog tags home. You can’t kill off the Captains, they are the veteran leaders, and you can’t kill off the Sergeants, because they keep the men together. But incoming, eager lieutenants are perfect. Mow ‘em down. The naval story equivalent is usually an overage midshipman. They seem to be cannonball magnets.

Goodyear said this on February 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am

cheery cherry

we have about four cherry trees starting to bloom. so cool!

“wow, it’s another good song!”

Back in the Mix Tape days, I mean, when there really were cassette tapes, I had a habit of somehow managing to be surprised when song after song of music I like would play from a tape I’d made. On one level, of course, I knew I’d made the tape to contain just the songs I particularly enjoyed at the moment I made it. On another level though, it still somehow seemed like a string of incredibly good luck that my favorite songs were playing. When you listen to the radio, it’s all haphazard. You might listen for hours and not hear anything that would make you want to sing along. What kind of crazy world is it where you can special order music? Who am I to dictate the order of songs?

The iPod of course, takes this thrill to another level. All my favorite stuff in there, and then I can hit “shuffle.” What will be up next? Graceland? The Indigo Girls? that new CD I just loaded? I was on my way home just now, and the audio book I was listening to was too skippy (darn public library discs!) so I pulled out my iPod and shuffled I had to skip a head through a bit of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and a few Celtic instrumentals to get to something singable. Namely “Virginia Woolf” by the Girls. Great. I enjoy being the third Indigo Girl on that number, and magically, somehow the next song that popped up was “Verdi Cries,” by all those Maniacs. And I said, out loud, to myself, in the car, “Wow!! Another GREAT song.”

Then I laughed at myself.

~ by meteowrite on February 13, 2007.
One Response to ““wow, it’s another good song!””

1.jenn, I still do that with my iPod. And when I’m at work, I feel compelled to follow it up with: Of course it is, it’s my iPod.

You know, in case someone was actually listening to me and needed to hear me admit that I am a big dork.

jean said this on February 14th, 2007 at 10:40 am

fictional mortality — part one

I’m reading a book, and a character died. I won’t get into the details, so I won’t ruin things for folks who might read the book, and really it’s not important. I thought the death of a particular character served no literary purpose. I get it, sometimes people die, in real life and in fiction. I have no problem understanding that. But in this case, I think the author had no business killing off a particular character, in that it didn’t make the story more interesting. It didn’t make me believe more in the characters. Anyway, it got me off on a long line of thought about authors killing off characters. Which I’m going to break down into blog chunks, if you will. You see, I’ve prepared an outline in my journal. But I don’t have the stamina to write it all out at once.

So let’s start at the beginning. I asked myself (and now I’m asking you, the half dozen or so of you who read this) “Who was the first book character I remember losing?” and “Who was the first author who really got me when they killed off a character?” I think Charlotte was the first character to die in a book I was reading. She was a spider, I don’t remember being particularly broken up about it. I mean, sure it was sad, but she was a spider. Spiders die all the time. Even talking spiders, I assume. A lot of the other classic kids books with death scenes, I don’t think I ever read. Or I didn’t read them until much later. Old Yeller, never read it. Little Women, not until I was in college if you’d believe it (that great scene in “Friends” where Rachel’s reading “The Shining” on Joey’s recommendation and he’s reading “Little Women,” and they get mad at each other and try and ruin the endings? Good times.) I only read Bridge to Terebithia a few months ago, and by then I knew how it ended. Just like I know the key points of “The Sixth Sense” without ever having read it.

The first one that really made me sad? I think that would have been several years after Charlotte’s Web. I think it might have been Mathhew Cuthbert, in “Anne of Green Gables.” And then shortly after that, Emily’s dad, in “Emily of New Moon,” and that happens right out of the gate, in chapter two or something.

Wow, on an unrelated note, I just helped a little girl find a book on a famous female ornithologist. Way to be into female ornithologists!

~ by meteowrite on February 9, 2007.
3 Responses to “fictional mortality — part one”

1. I think killing off minor characters is an author’s way of neatly getting rid of them once they serve no real purpose. I actually got that idea from “Anne of Green Gables”, if you recalled that writing group that Anne started with her girl-friends, one of the girls (Diana perhaps) would kill off the characters because she just didn’t know what to do with them…and I think that real authors do that, just so they can concentrate on the important characters and events that are going to happen.

silverneurotic said this on February 9th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
2.I’m not sure exactly where this notion stands in relation to the mainstream, but I’ve always heard/assumed that the only really acceptable way to kill off a character is if the character seems to kill himself off. That is to say, that any time an author says something like, “Hm, maybe I’ll kill this character now,” he’ll be in the wrong, whereas saying something more like, “Oh, no, I think this character is about to die,” he’ll be in the right. And I was also under the impression that this was the generally held opinion on the topic.

elletrice said this on February 10th, 2007 at 9:33 am
3.The first bookish death I remember was, of course, crucial to the story–Arthur’s death at the hands of Modered. It was some childrens version of the great story, and it got me started on a lifelong trek into the Arthur cycle. I keep looking for “alternative endings”, but of course there aren’t any that make sense, or at least there weren’t until Finovar.

Goodyear said this on February 12th, 2007 at 11:02 am

It’s still too early

Back when I was working my 4 day work weeks at UCSC, I had to get up pretty early in the mornings. I didn’t mind, exactly, ’cause I had that extra day off, but still….to get to work by 7, I had to meet Sarah at 6:40 in Scott’s Valley, which meant leaving home no later than 6, which meant getting up no later than say, 5:20 am, which meant my alarm was starting to beep around 4:30 in the morning. I made it work, but I remember thinking, “You know, 7 a.m. would be a civilized time to wake up. Still nice and early, plenty of day left at that point, but not obscene. Not like 4:30 a.m.”

It’s still too early. I rolled out of bed, after much deliberation at 6:37 this morning. And I was awfully crabby about it. Even after I reminded myself about how just a few months ago, it was 4:30, and how I’d said “If only I could get up at 7.” And, truth be told, two days a week now, I don’t have to be to work until 11. That’s just one short hour before noon. On those days, I pretty much just sleep until I wake up.

It’s still too early. I think, when it comes to getting out of bed, it will always be too early.

The Mystery Garden

This is one little corner of the garden at our new place. Paperwhites, I think they are, which kind of reminds me of Barrow-wights, but that’s way less appealing. The flowers smell divine! They are the first thing to pop their heads up. I took this photo about a week ago, now this plant has a friend, just on the other side of that batch of lavendar you see behind the paperwhites.

It’s such a thrill, this mystery garden of ours. I have no idea what’s out there. Well, I have some ideas. The former tenants, or someone, was a fair friend of agapanthas. Those are springing up all over the place. And there is a promising collection of jasmine lining one of our fences. But what other things will come peeking out of the ground as the spring goes on, who knows? I want to get out there and poke around, but it’s not really time yet. I don’t want to disturb something that might turn out to be amazing. I think, in one of the raised beds out back, I’ll plant things that would be good for cutting. I might have gorgous flower arrangements all summer long! Well, one step at a time. Right now I just wander out there in the mornings when I work late, and smell the paperwhites.