Monday, June 30, 2008

Did I mention that I finally brought a ram home Friday night? His name is Gan, to match Stein, as their names both mean Stone but in different languages, but Gan's name hasn't quite adhered yet. I just think Gan Fall, who is completely irrelevant but whom you may find a reference to if you comb through all the posts labeled "one piece". Maybe. It'll be the Skypiea arc. Wondering if this post merits an OP tag.

Also Amanda is having her kittens in my closet, after an entire day of watching them wrestle for precedence in there. It was simultaneously amusing and unnerving. Court lost one of hers and is down to four. Dunno if Macchan is done yet, and if so how many there are. I'll check next time I go up there. She started out having contractions on my bed, having spent several hours there already while the kittens wriggled, and then moved to the closet. She took the box with the floor-level entrance, I was amused to note. Anyway, she is quite my favorite among our cats, and I am quite flattered by her choosing my closet, after almost having them on my bed. On towels, fortunately, so the slight mess she made before moving will not necessitate washing the blanket.

I've been reading most of the day. I started out rereading Heyer's Frederica, one of her most constantly hilarious. Then I finished Lens of the World, first in a trilogy by R.A. MacAvoy which I should maybe wait a few years before continuing. I like her, I like her characters, but I have a feeling it's going to be hard going. The single-volume ones were less ambitious and more enjoyable. I think I'll finish with Patricia A. McKillip, recommended by Robin and most of her fans. I started her Riddle-master trilogy after I finished Lens and Macchan had moved to the closet, and it really is quite good. I expect you,* being a fastidious snob who doesn't believe in reading for pleasure, would consider it quite unworthy of your time, but she has a clear descriptive style and engaging characters, humorously portrayed.

*Philip-oniisan, in the unlikely but precedented event that someone else is reading this.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

puppies, I

Just got back from looking at Aussie pups. The owners met us in Wilber, and we all went to the park and let the dogs out. The father and his grown daughter were wonderful dogs, the mother was shy and undersized (maltreatment by past owners) and the male puppy was, um, favorable. I was looking at the female. We didn't take. She wanted to stick with her family, she didn't like being on her back.....I think she would have been a problem. So we're going to go look at a litter up by Fremont next weekend, see their two bitches, and then if I don't get one of them come back and look at this one again. Sigh. And I'll need $75 more for one of the other litter, because they're $225. Dad says I can work it off. Ack. Debt.
Back from Cortlandfest. Manned the Pioneer Games in period costume, saw the shootout, and I need to go back to Mrs. H's booth and get my crocheted cell phone holders. None sold so far that I know of. It's a relief having it all over.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

In which the entire plot of the Lymond Chronicles of more or less spoiled

I like to write. Writing like this--blogging--is a type of talking, which I enjoy doing but feel too guilty about talking over someone when they try to say something to run on to a live audience the way I do in writing. But I also like to write stories, because I like stories. Stories are a large segment of my life. At least a quarter of any given obsession of mine is story-based. My main problem in writing stories, though, is a lack of sadism. Sadism is absolutely essential to a good plotter. A skilled author must be able to frame her hero for treason, with his sister being killed in the event he's accused of setting up and his brother believing the charges; convince the girl he'll marry* in the fourth book that he's a cad and a rogue whom she fears and despises; kill off one of my favorite characters in the first book, although I admit her death was necessary because her fiancee had to marry the woman the histories say he did;** have his brother nearly kill him; have his brother nurse him back to life, which, had you asked him at the time, was worse; have him covertly fighting a man everyone thinks is an angel and thinks he should follow*** who eventually almost gets him killed twice; force him to sacrifice the illegitimate son he was well on the way to adoring in order to take down the aforementioned fallen angel, leaving him to raise the illegitimate son of said enemy; have him learn he's illegitimate****; have him learn he's legitimate but his older brother isn't.....this series is really hard on its hero.


*One of those depressing "convenient" marriages in which there is mutual love, but neither party knows it's mutual, etc. etc. etc. I hate these, but I adore Lymond and Philippa and endure it with them. It took them ten damn years to work everything out though.

**I love her anyway. A wonderful character. The first female/love interest (not really, in Christian's case) to die.^

^Christian Stewart; Oonagh O'Dwyer (books two, three, and four); Joleta Reid Malett (safer to say "opposite female role" than "love interest". Remember Indy's Austrian slut in Last Crusade? Yeah); Kiaya Khatun/Guzel (mainly A Ringed Castle, number five); and lastly, Philippa, who shouldn't be on this list because she survived the last book but I couldn't resist ending with her.

***Lymond isn't very susceptible to peer pressure.

****Somewhat incestuously so. 

Game of Kings
Queen's Play
The Disorderly Knights
Pawn in Frankincense
The Ringed Castle
Checkmate

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Well, the goats have just come home. It's nearly eleven, and I foresee many spelling corrections, but I'm getting this in before bed.

We ended up getting three does and two bucklings, probably because of Leeza's lamentable but highly advantageous tendency to give kids away rather than suspect that they'll end up in the ring at Palmyra. I should look up what Paul says about Palmyra. Probably nothing useful. Oh well. Anyway, the does consist of Crazy Horns, with the one curled horn over her head from a botched disbudding; Winter Too, who having no mother around here with first rights to the name will be called simply Winter; and Snowflake, who will adore it here, having been waiting ever since she came of age for a chance to be a herd queen, and will assert herself promptly. The boys, as yet unnamed (we'll argue about this in the morning--we had to dissuade Owen from rechristening Winter Esme (I wouldn't object at all for an unnamed doeling, although I know it would be different if I were acquainted with the namesake here)) are about four weeks old and on two feedings a day. One will be meat.

Dad is telling me to go to bed.