The Raven's Roost

Physical Stuff: I figured out how I hurt my leg, and it wasn't from running. It was eating at me, because it seemed to come out of nowhere, and nothing relieved it, but now that I'm mostly sure I overdid it on some reverse crunches, I feel mentally better. I worried I might have some lingering, never-ending thing, but as of this morning it's improved. When you do reverse crunches and aren't careful, you can stress the hip and knee joints. Fox was talking about some PT stuff and it suddenly occurred to me that it was those stupid crunches.

I skipped yesterday's lifting workout, before I had my little realization, so that needs to be done today. I was considering a short run, but I'm going to see how busy I am and how I feel, which leads me to ...

Weather: We have an 11% chance of ... snow? I'm sorry, what?

We'll need to find a tree or two to fell and chop up, and do it soon. Our firewood stores are starting to run low. I don't know if Fox wants to start on that this afternoon or wait until Saturday, but he's already asked me if I have "anything major planned" for today so I suspect we'll be doing that this afternoon.

The bigger fruit trees will withstand it, but I want to have sheets ready for the younger trees in case it gets too cold. I've also got a couple of these potpourri or scented wax things that are useful here. You can fill the reservoir with water and let them warm it overnight under the sheets and it keeps the trees happy. They also seem to work better than an electric space heater.

Reading: I didn't actually finish a lot of books last year, but I started reading a lot and then just quitting. No shame in DNFing a book, and the idea was to weed out things on my shelves that I don't like and give them away to either Little Free Libraries or donate them to the library book sale. I'm working my way through Gene Wolfe again, and considering reading Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher novels as "brain candy." I also read numerous art books, though I don't log them in my reading journal as such. I'm not sure why I've never done that.

I keep waffling on a trip to Chamblin Book Mine but I believe I'll go soon and pick up some stuff I'm interested in. I think I still have some store credit, and I'd rather do that than spend money at Amazon, or wait around for Bookshop.org. Besides, old books smell better.

Cooking: I need to bake up a loaf of sourdough today. We bought some Publix whole wheat bread for camping and it's so ... lackluster. It's flabby and tastes weird. If I get time I think I'll also boil some eggs for myself. Fox prefers to cook his eggs up fresh but I like hard-boiled eggs. Tonight's taco night so I'll need to put some black beans on to simmer this afternoon. Which also means tomorrow's breakfast is heuvos rancheros.

Gaming: I still heartily recommend Little Kitty, Big City to basically any and everyone. It's a cat simulator. It's super cute. You get to wear hats. A reviewer described it as "Stray's laid-back cousin." I'm also nearing completion on Psychonauts, and I'm enjoying it so much that when Psychonauts 2 goes on sale I'll be picking it up. Some of the platforming is challenging, but on the whole it's worth the effort, and I'd recommend taking it slowly rather than bulldozing through to the end. Wander around and chat with NPCs and some interesting, darker currents of the story reveal themselves. And holy crap, some parts get pretty damn dark. Some parts are also laugh-out-loud funny, like Vernon's long-ass story he tells in the TV room.

Food: I have a LOT of cherry tomatoes and I'll be making a roasted cherry tomato sauce tonight. I came across the recipe last year when I was freecycling stuff locally and every person I met up with either brought me a bag of cherry tomatoes or zucchinis. Or both. I also have a couple of pattypan squash that I'm considering roasting up Japanese-style as a side. I'm not sure on this one as Fox is not a huge fan of squash, but will eat it depending on how it's prepared. Roasting it like a kabocha is something I can see doing, as they aren't as soft as zucchinis, but it might also be a good candidate for tempura. Because frying.

I've also been busy baking, and now make one or two loaves of sourdough bread a week, plus yesterday I made myself a batch of liege waffles as snacks to replace GU stroopwaffels when I'm on training runs. The GU cookies are good, but they're expensive, so I save those for race days.

Running: I'm starting formal training for my fall races soon, and I'm tempted to post more detailed stuff here about my workouts, but I have no idea if anyone's interested. I might just use a cut, you can read about them if you're curious or skip if you don't care. But I'll be looking at starting with the Penney Farms 5k in October, Wine & Dine Two-Course in November, Space Coast marathon on December 1, and Dopey in January. Then probably Gate River Run in March for funsies. With all those different distances, I'm picking from different training plans and I'll be adjusting as I go. Training for a fast half should help me run a faster full marathon, but I'll need to add longer weekend runs to get my endurance up. Or you can add me on Strava or Garmin Connect.

I suppose yesterday's post may need a little expansion and explanation. So here goes.

I moved to Florida in 2010 to escape my hellish disaster of a marriage. I was not doing at all well, and Fox and Kitty drove all the way over to Terrebonne Parish and picked me (and my crap) up and brought me home. Even after having a divorce finalized in 2012, I still had occasional contact from my ex, though I did manage to deter him from calling me with stupid IT type shit. He actually had the gall to call me once while I was on a road trip to grill me about why the printer wouldn't work. Like I give a single, solitary fuck. Anyway - the last time I heard from him was an email in early 2017 where he mentioned having some more of my stuff he needed to ship to me, and I directed him to use my physical address, as I no longer used a PO box. I never heard back and never got a package.

I used to - and for a while I probably will continue to dread seeing his email address in my inbox or that area code on my phone. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I also dreaded something happening to him and having to deal with his younger sisters, both of whom are Karens of the first order.

I've just been ... happy. The relief is not something I expected to feel, mainly because I didn't really know how much stress the rest of it was still exerting. I do wish someone would have sent me my Pelican Shakespeare, though.

Anyway - on to other things here.

I'm on volume four of War & Peace. The French are in Moscow, which is on fire. I don't know how much else to mention because of spoilers, or if no one's exactly interested in reading the novel, so I can yammer away about it. But I'm still enjoying it. I try to read about ten pages each night, and often I read more than that. I'm now hanging in there to see what happens to Pierre, because I get the distinct feeling I know exactly what's going to happen to Prince Andrei. And by extension, the Rostov family. Also, where's Boris? I mean, he's kind of a non-entity anyway but he just up and vanished and I'm not sure I actually care. Boris' entire personality consisted of social climbing.

I'm also reading Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, which is turning out to be a fascinating biography. I'm biased here, because I'm an enthusiastic reader of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists in general. But man, does my copy have so many pages flagged now. Lots of flags.

Last week I also received an order I'd placed for a bottle of Noodler's Ink in "El Lawrence," their olive-brown color inspired by TE Lawrence. Noodler's is a waterproof, forgery-resistant, and as they call it "bulletproof" ink. I also had a converter for my Lamy pen, but I had just put a fresh cartridge in it, so that was going to be a while. I went digging for one of my old dip pens, just to try the new ink out. I started out in ink drawing using dip pens, and at one point I had several different styles of nibs, holders, and even a bamboo pen as well as an actual goose quill pen, and the knife to sharpen it. In digging through my stuff though, I found something I got from my Mom many, many years ago and had forgotten all about.

Her old Osmiroid calligraphy pen.

And a handful of Platignum nibs. I was at first going to clean the pen and get it working myself, but after watching a video on replacing ink bladders, I decided to leave this to an expert. This pen is older than I am - it could possibly have been purchased in the 1950s, Mom doesn't remember when she first got it. So I sent it off to Pentiques, a pen restoration specialist in Arizona. The bladder needs replacing, and the whole pen needs cleaning. There's also a minor crack in the cap, but he thinks he can get it writing again with no problem. Obviously he won't start on it until after Thanksgiving, but I didn't expect him to do it right away. But he's got my pen, and I've got my place in line! :)

In the meantime this whole thing has turned into a gigantic spending orgy. I bought a sample pack of Jacques Herbin inks, which are made in France by traditional methods, and are safe for vintage pens. I also bought several books on calligraphy, and downloaded handwriting practice sheets I can print off. I bought a vintage Platignum calligraphy pen that matches the nibs Mom gave me, which I can't use until the J. Herbin inks arrive. I even bought an ink stand that holds the commonly used and sold 5 ml ink sample bottles, so that when I'm filling these pens I don't have to worry about tipping the bottle over. And after all this, I still haven't gotten to try out El Lawrence.

So it's been an eventful couple of days here. I'm also nearly done re-arranging my studio space to accommodate a new widescreen monitor I took over from Fox after he replaced his. It required placing an entire extra desk next to my desk just so this behemoth has a place to sit. But it's really cool! The blacks are deep black, and the refresh rate is high. I was playing Axiom Verge on it last night and it's amazing how good even a pixel art game looks - something like We Happy Few is probably going to be mind blowing. But it's also nice to get things cleaned up in there. I feel like I have too much stuff, but at least now it's not just sitting around everywhere being clutter.

I'm heading out this afternoon to do a little pre-turkey day shopping, and then probably not going anywhere until mid-next week.

And it's cold today. I might be able to wear a hoodie when I go out. YAY

Little, Big is getting a 25th anniversary edition! I already have a paperback, but this looks like it's going to be a gorgeous, illustrated, nicely bound book. If you feel like dropping ninety-five bucks on it. There are some higher tier editions but it looks like the pre-orders are sold out. I wouldn't mind having an illustrated edition of this novel, but it's a tad pricey for me.

I've got a few more blank journals/notebooks to get rid of, and I'm in the same pickle as before - where to do it. So if you want a blank journal for a diary, hobby journal, or something similar, I can send you one or two. I have six, which isn't too bad. Heck, if you want them you can have all six. Four are the smaller A5 or A6 size, and two are larger, almost 8.5x11 like regular student notebooks. Now that I'm moving up to having real fountain pens and nice ink, I've decided my thoughts are worth better than the notebooks that went on clearance at Walmart after their back to school sale ended. Paper quality is unknown, binding is dubious, cover is kind of pretty. I don't mean to talk them down so much, they're perfectly good notebooks, I'm just being a snob.

Fox is out doing his virtual Boston Half run this morning. I'm still looking at doing mine Sunday. It absolutely poured rain last night - I haven't checked the gauge yet, but some big storms rolled through yesterday evening. Most of it went north of us and stalled right along the coast, but later on we got pretty heavy rain. I was half asleep, so I'm not sure how long that went on.

I think it's finally starting to be fall here. In the past two days I've found two centipedes and a scorpion in the house. Feisal was just tapping the scorpion with his paw ... like ... how did that thing not sting you, you stupid, stupid cat?? So that's going to have me shaking out shoes, bed sheets, and pillows for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, it's gorgeous weather early in the morning, but it gets hot and gross in the afternoons, like usual. But autumn's on the way. I get so ground down by summer's heat and not being able to go outside much that it becomes hard to function. I just get into a daily rut and don't think to do much of anything different, because what does time mean when I live in an air conditioned box? I'm like a zoo animal, except a really boring animal no one wants to look at.

I have this weird urge to drive into town today. We don't specifically need anything urgently, I mean, Fox might need some more brake fluid to finish fixing the Birdmobile. Just for some reason I want to get out and go do something. Although with me, after I've gone out, stopped and gotten a coffee, contemplated life for a bit, I'm good and ready to go home.

 Maybe a more coherent post tomorrow.

Just rode around a little more - I'm getting the hang of corners and turns and did not hit anything today. Thumbs up. But the bike may need some adjustments and Fox is going to help walk me through it, so later on I know how to do my own repairs. Brakes are a little squishy too, so need to tighten them up.

Got more plants into the garden, so now I have a couple of Seminole pumpkins, some malobar spinach, assorted herbs, a serrano pepper, and a couple of napa cabbages. Some of them are still little guys, so I spritzed them with animal repellent - that garlicky sulphur stuff that smells terrible. If you keep it up, it prevents deer and rabbits from munching your plants because the stench drives them off.

Going to make more lime rice tomorrow and maybe tempeh tikka masala. 

After this week I have to figure out what I want to do running-wise. I normally like to have a goal to work towards, so even if we're not having organized races by fall maybe I can put on my own personal half marathon or something. But May is coming up and I don't really have a running schedule done.

- "The Cat's Inheritance" is mostly finished! There are two pages left that I am working on now, but they're more of a coda. A few pages are going to be corrected (there's a mistake in them but I'm not going to mention what it is) and the website is still having weirdness with the way links and stuff display but I'm working on it. It's just been a long time since I did any of my own website work, and I've never used WordPress, so please bear with me.

- There isn't a single squirrel or bird in the front yard right now, and I suspect there's a stripey-butted kitty hanging around under the deck. In other words, I think my neighbor let her cat out and she immediately came over here to check out the other part of her territory. I wish she'd let me pet her but she's pretty shy of strange humans. (The cat, not the neighbor.)

- Earlier this week I got a seed tray started, as well as a container of cat grass. I put them in the server room where it's warm, and it's safe since we keep the door shut to keep the cats out. I have some more plants I'd like to start but I need some decent soil. If things don't get too bad out there I may include a Home Depot stop next time I go out and grab some bags of potting soil. I would like to get catnip started, and some flowers and things to make pretties.

- I am actually getting pretty anxious about the pandemic situation, but then I am also used to dealing with massive anxiety. So finding productive ways to distract myself is part of my standard operating procedure. The pranayama class I signed up for is already useful - I haven't even tried the asanas yet and just watching the teacher go through each one was relaxing in itself. He's taking us through a couple of "restorative yoga" postures so that we can create feelings of deep relaxation. The poses call for sandbags, which I don't have, but I'm probably going to wrap a pair of heavy books in towels and just use that until I can make some proper sandbags. I may just buy empty sandbags online and fill them myself. It's not like we don't have any sand here.

- Even though I haven't seen hummingbirds, I put the feeders out yesterday. Fox thinks he heard them before we had to shut the windows. We enjoyed our three or four days of spring, but summer is here now. Anyway, one of the feeders leaked out overnight, so I need to refill it - possibly replace it if it won't hold a seal. They're about six years old now. But hopefully I just didn't assemble the base properly.

- The Library Book - I finished up this volume by Susan Orlean recently. I enjoyed it, but I realize it's not the kind of writing everyone is going to like. Orlean begins with the Los Angeles Central Library fire that destroyed much of the collection and part of the building in April 1986. The fire occurred the same day that news was beginning to trickle out of the Soviet Union and neighboring countries about a nuclear incident at Chernobyl, and that story almost entirely eclipsed the library fire outside of L.A.
The book swings back and forth between the fire and its aftermath, the history of the Los Angeles Library, about libraries in general, biography, and some autobiography. I felt that using the fire as a cord to hang all the other stories from worked quite well. But some readers might find it disjointed, or that Orlean puts herself too much in the story. I gave it five stars on Goodreads, and it's a good semi-light read. It was hard, as an avid reader, book lover, and former library worker, to read about the fire and destruction and all the materials that were lost. But the tone of the book overall was a positive, hopeful one. And without going too much into current politics, it reminds you that despite having Google, we need libraries now more than ever.

- I filled up another journal and started a fresh one. When I went to shelve the finished one I realized I've filled six journals so far.


I've managed to pick up a lot of beneficial habits over the past few years and keeping a written, private journal is definitely one of the better ones. I think I might have talked about it before, but my journals are more like commonplace books in that they aren't strictly about my day and my personal thoughts, but have quotes, passages from books I'm reading, occasionally pictures or maps, and some of my fictional work.

So actually, even though I'll keep writing it out longhand, I'm considering starting a "world building" tag here. I'm not going to make it a friend-restricted thing or make people do anything extra if they want to see it, but I'll have the entries tagged so you can search for/skip them depending on interest levels.

- In my Anxiety Closet this month, doctor visits! I made a checkup appointment for next week and I'm waffling about asking to get my bloodwork done early so the doctor can discuss it with me at the appointment. My liver enzyme levels have been high the last couple of years, but each year is lower than the previous one, but he still keeps bugging me for a liver ultrasound, which I obviously have not done. I'm also anxious about my blood glucose and A1C because ... because me.
See, last year Fox had the idea that if we did blood sugar testing it might help with eating and fueling for long runs. I thought that was an excellent idea. Until I started testing my sugars and routinely getting high readings, no matter when, no matter what, all the time. Like 120s and 130s when I get up in the morning.
Fox says that my response to food isn't remotely like an actual diabetic's in that I don't experience the spikes and crashes, I can eat high-sugar foods without feeling exceptionally good or bad, and I don't have the awful dietary habits that most prediabetics or type-2 diabetics have. That doesn't stop me from worrying about it though. I mean, it's entirely possible the meter is calibrated wrong but the sheer amount of constant, high-level anxiety it was provoking made me stop doing the readings. I'd cut out all the carbs and sugars I could and still get stupid-high readings, so I was convinced I was going to die at any moment. So that anxiety is back now, whee fun.

Because, anxiety.

- I hope this embeds properly.

 - Make pizza dough. Mushroom and arugula pizza for me. I also need to put some marinara on to simmer, but I may have some in the freezer already, so I'll thaw that out and throw some fresh herbs in.

- I'm considering a visit to Chamblin Book Mine on Monday so I'm looking to pack a bento lunch. There's plenty to eat in that area but I'd rather eat my own cooking. At least I know what's in it. What's in it is likely to be steamed baby spinach with walnut-miso paste, sweet stewed adzuki beans, spicy tofu and veggies over rice, and maybe a corn muffin if I feel like baking. The sweet beans are from Just Bento - and she apparently has a second book out now! I've made this recipe before with great northern beans, but adzukis seem like a natural. Might throw some seitan into that veggie mixture instead of tofu, too.

- It rained. Almost an inch as of this morning's rain gauge reading. Every time I woke up during the night I heard either a patter of light rain or the drumming of heavier rain. It's drizzly, gray, and cool here today, which suits me fine. I like days like this.

- I'm starting to get a bit behind on art, but I'm still working on Inktober. I got a decent amount of work done on "wild," I agreed to do a quick Nick Wilde & Judy Hopps drawing for someone, and I'm editing race photos from our Disney weekend. 

- Is there a good way to get out of glaucoma tests at the eye doc? I have an appointment next week and I'd give almost anything to be able to opt out of that.

Vaguely curious why there was a dude in a tactical vest walking up our road looking in the weeds. But I'm not curious enough to stop and bother a man with a gun.

I slept very badly last night. Like 6.5 hours bad. I was enjoying painting with my new art software but I'm just such a space case now that I can't really focus on art. I'm going to make dinner early and maybe go to bed even earlier than I usually do to try to make up.

My hip joint hurts so yoga's also on tap for this evening. I did a four-mile run today at race pace and it went really well. I'd been emo about my weight this week, but I have to remember I'm doing these longer, faster runs without bonking, and I feel good when I'm done, rather than feeling like death. I'm lifting heavier than I ever have. And I forgot that, if you put both your weight and body fat percentage into the Fitbit app, it tracks your fat vs. lean mass, so I pulled up that panel and found that since about 3 months ago I've managed to put on almost two pounds of lean muscle. Which considering my diet and the Female Thing, is pretty impressive. So I am less emo about my weight now.

I'm obviously not very bright, because Fox knew what that meant right off the bat and I couldn't figure out why I weighed so much more, but my jeans still fit the same way. LOL go me.

I discovered Chickwheat this morning. It's a chickpea seitan that shreds, and according to people who've eaten it, has a chewier mouthfeel than some other kinds of seitan. It probably has a texture similar to the "chicken" seitan I make with rice flour, but since you make the dough in a food processor, it creates the shredded texture. Going to try making some Monday, which ought to be fun. It'll use my high-speed blender, the food processor, AND Instant Pot. I think you can steam it on the stovetop but I get the feeling you'll get a better texture from pressure cooking.

Anyway tofu should be pressed by now. Gonna make yakisoba.

 1. Topping the Random Notes list this weekend, a guide to self-managed abortion. This is a fairly detailed read but a good one, which hopefully none of us will need, but it's always good to have the information available.

2. In much less important news, my treadmill died. Not entirely - it's erroring out when Fox runs, so effectively HE doesn't have a treadmill. Since all of our other efforts at repair have failed, we're going out shortly to look at buying a new one. The motor will be salvaged - it's fine and hey, how often do you come across 2.5 hp electric motors? We think the circuit board is bad, but everything testable by a couple of reasonably electronic-literate people is testing normal.
It seems like a combination of weight and speed. When I weighed the same as Fox, I was not able to run nearly as fast as he can, so I was not pushing it too much. I'd maybe make it up to five mph for a few minutes but that was taxing my heart and lungs more than it was taxing the treadmill. 

3. Recently we both became interested in testing our blood sugar levels. Fox sometimes bonks hard, and a blood glucose meter seemed like a good tool to have for tailoring his fueling needs, pre-run, post-run, and during. We have an assortment of gels, jelly beans, and chewy blocks, along with whatever homemade energy bars I'm making. I feel pretty confident in my own eating and fueling habits, or I did. Because my fasting sugars consistently test in the "diabetic" range. There is little I can do to bring them down, either, so I'm always getting these 120s in the morning, 140s or 50s after eating, and it's stressing me the hell out because the usual advice for bringing glucose down is "lose weight, exercise, and stop drinking sugary sodas." If I lose ten percent of my body weight, I'll end up in the hospital - this is a patently Bad Idea. Exercise more? I mean, I was considering training for a fifty-miler so I guess that counts. And I haven't routinely consumed sodas since the mid-1990s. I don't put sugar in my coffee or tea, I stopped drinking wine, and I normally operate on an "earn my treats" mentality that allows me to have dark chocolate or nice cream if I worked out that day. 
On the other hand, these meters can also have a margin of error that throws readings off by as much as twenty points. 
I started checking on the hour for a while after eating, and rather than spiking, my sugars dip within an hour, then slowly climb back up to fasting levels. This happens pretty consistently. I rarely test out of a sixty point range, even though according to this meter, that range is high. I've decided for my own sanity to stop doing this unless I feel unusually bad and need a reading, because I suspect the meter is way off, and the "high" readings are stressing me out badly. As in panic-attack bad. Fox thinks this is a good idea.
He knows a lot more about diabetes than I do because he attended classes and such along with Kitty. He says since I'm not experiencing rollercoaster highs and lows, spiking into hyperactivity and then crashing out, only to do it again, I'm not diabetic. He thinks the meter is wrong as far as that goes, and it's mainly useful for seeing swings up and down, and that I should ignore the base number and just look at the range of the highs and lows. So, in the interest of not spending any more days losing my shit over this and swinging between trying to find out how to further improve my diet and shopping for prosthetic legs (because that's how bad my Anxiety Brain has been getting with this) I'm going to just drop it for now.

4. This one-shot comic I did. Just FYI, the ravens are mechanical AI constructs. Ruby was programmed (badly) to believe she is a real, living bird. Whirr is a longer-running one that has been "interactively programmed" by watching and responding to the behavior of humans around him, and one of the traits he's picked up, for better or worse, is sarcasm. Partially inspired by Google Home, Alexa, and this. 

5. So Delicious makes a no-sugar-added vanilla frozen dessert from coconut milk that is amazing. It tastes like vanilla and coconuts. That's it. I am all about this stuff right now.