urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance The Idle Solitary "Close Enough for Chaz" desperance 2014-03-13T23:46:30Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1092087 Author's cut 2014-03-13T23:43:54Z 2014-03-13T23:46:30Z As far as I remember, I have never watched any DVD extras. I've never wanted to. I don't want commentary, or bloopers, or deleted scenes. Especially, I don't want deleted scenes, any more than I want three different versions of the same movie. I want a piece of work, an act of creativity, a singular story told. That's why films have directors and editors and so forth, to make those decisions and ultimately to release the finished work.<br /><br />Having said which...<br /><br />Blessedly, the craze for extras hasn't really penetrated much into the book world. A couple of publishers to my knowledge have experimented with extra matter at the end of the volume, which I have dutifully disregarded; with series novels, there has been something approaching a habit of running the first chapter of the next instalment in the back of this one, which again I just ignore. I don't want to read the start of the next book until I have the next book and am sitting down to read it, thanks. Twice I have begun to read restored "author's cut" texts of favourite genre novels, where the authors or their estates have put back much of what their editors had wisely told them to cut; I wasn't able to finish either one, because they read long and draggy and wrong.<br /><br />Having said which...<br /><br />It is the opinion of wise people hereabouts that <i>Mars Beneath</i> needs to begin further in, at a different point in the narrative. They're probably right; I'm certainly prepared to go along with them for now. However, that does leave me with an orphaned chunk of text, some of which I rather like.<br /><br />So, here: have a murdered darling, the deleted opening of an unfinished novel...<br /><br /><i>I did perhaps know it to be the greatest day of my young life, when Willoughby called me to his office one morning in early Aquarius. I don’t believe that this is hindsight only. Even then, at the very start of the adventure that set my course - and my planet’s course, my people’s course - for all the years to come, I think I felt the hand of history on my shoulder, bracing me.<br /><br /> I did need bracing. Prevously I had only ever presented myself to the old man for a carpeting. That particular day, I was aware of no particular sins. My hangover was no more egregious than my haircut; my copy was not unduly late - yet - nor my collar unduly grubby; I had a likely quantity of ink on my fingers and none too much elsewhere on my person. I hadn’t been overly attentive to his daughter recently, nor overtly offensive to his wife. So far as I could tell, my conscience was entitled to its tolerable clarity. And yet the summons had come, and so I stood outside his door and fidgeted with my necktie until the secretary put his head out to beckon me inside.<br /><br /> “Thank you, Mr Lawson.” Always be polite to the gatekeeper. Even a cub reporter outranks a mere secretary - at least, in my own private hierarchy he does, and I did - but Lawson could make or break a man faster than anyone else at the Arean-Messenger.<br /><br /> Faster than anyone except his employer, that is. Lawson’s power lay in access to the old man, granting or denying it at whim. Willoughby’s was pure, the thing itself, ownership outright. He was Editor-in-Chief by his own appointment, because he chose to be. That he was a natural for the task was mere happenstance. Lawson was self-serving, subtle, political to the core; his master was blunt and brutal, a pick-axe to Lawson’s rapier, easy with the weight of money at his back. Together, they were formidable.<br /><br /> I stepped into the fug - Lawson chain-smoked gaspers, we all thought as a defence against Willoughby’s cigars - and said, “You wanted to see me, sir?”<br /><br /> Willoughby grunted, leaking smoke at me between his teeth like an incense-burner in a back-street temple anywhere within half a mile of Marsport docks. “Sit yourself down, youngster.”<br /><br /> That shook me almost more than the office-boy’s original call to the sanctum sanctorum. Willoughby didn’t stand in loco parentis; he was an employer, not a patriarch. Despite my best hopes, he’d never been in the least fatherly. Sent for, one might be castigated, instructed, congratulated or cast forth; if any man ever had been summoned for any reason else, news of it had never filtered out; but in any event, one was not invited to sit in the Presence. Not ever. There wasn’t a chair supplied. Only his own, behind his own magisterial desk, and Lawson’s in the corner.<br /><br /> There was a chair now, set ready on the carpet. A glance to my rear showed Lawson standing, leaning against the door-jamb for want of anywhere to sit.<br /><br /> I perched tentatively, and waited for the cataclysm. There must surely be a cataclysm coming.</i> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1091737 Irony, as an American artefact: discuss. Not too heatedly. 2014-03-13T19:47:21Z 2014-03-13T19:47:21Z There is a fixed belief in the UK - which is of course as true as such things ever are, which means of course not at all - that Americans have no sense of irony. We sought to explain this once to an American writer, who was on tour with us; he said rather plaintively that he flattered himself in the having of a finely developed sense of irony. Ah, we said, that's why they sent you out of the country: to be the exception that proves the rule. Etc.<br /><br />Jaywalking is so much of a British custom that we don't actually have a British word for it; it's not an offence of any sort, it's just the way we cross the road. My favourite English dictionary defines a jaywalker as "a careless pedestrian whom motorists are expected to avoid running over" - but in a serious and respected dictionary, that only goes to show how we do not regard the activity with any real deprecation.<br /><br />So I have been a devout jaywalker for fifty years, and I'm very good at it; only now I live in America, and my timing is off and my instincts are awry and I am not natively tuned in to the rhythms of your traffic, even disregarding the obvious wrong-side-of-the-road thing; and here I do not jaywalk. I am scrupulous about crossing at junctions and pressing buttons and waiting for lights and so forth.<br /><br />And today I did all of that, and the lights changed and the green/white man was in my favour, and I stepped out into the road - and a white car came within inches of killing me. The driver wasn't even coming around the corner with the poor excuse of turning right on red; he came straight down the road, which means straight through a red light when there was a highly visible pedestrian in the walkway. And if he'd killed me it would've been my own fault, because I didn't look, because all the lights were in my favour and I was doing the thing properly and just expected everyone else to do the same.<br /><br />I'm going back to jaywalking. It's safer.<br /><br />(In related news, my interior monologue may have been a little ranty, all the way home: and it occurs to me to wonder, does everyone in fact have an interior monologue? I have always assumed so, just because I do and it's constant - and we know this, because every now and then m'wife says "so where's your interior monologue right now?" and I always have an answer for her even if it doesn't make for inherently interesting conversation - but then I do recast my experience natively into words, and it is possible that not everyone does this. So: interior monologue, yes/no?) urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1091431 Interesting (to me, at least) 2014-03-12T18:47:14Z 2014-03-12T18:47:14Z Our primary wine fridge (why yes, we do have a secondary: more commonly known as the bacon-and-beer fridge, for entirely obvious reasons) has - had - a thermometer kicking around in a tolerably useless fashion. <br /><br />That thermometer has now been displaced into our new freezer. From which we learn that the chesty deep-freeze compartment is currently around -10°F, while the drawer beneath is somewhere between 15 and 20°F.<br /><br />Which hands me a delicate little quandary, if true: because the deep-freeze section could very easily be kept ten degrees warmer than that, while the drawer section really wants to be cooler. And there is only one thermostat control.<br /><br />According to the internets, there should be a fifteen-to-twenty degree difference between the two, rather than the twenty-five-to-thirty that we are currently seeing.<br /><br />It is possible that the thermometer is simply not accurate or consistent. We need more testing; I'm going to turn up the thermostat and see what happens, in both sections. And think again about buying a new thermometer.<br /><br />Science: it just gets everywhere, y'know? urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1091141 On freezers 2014-03-11T01:25:22Z 2014-03-11T01:25:22Z Of course we knew what we were getting into. What Mac would be getting onto. Put a black freezer in a sunny window with birdies beyond, we could expect nothing else. Nor did we.<br /><br />Nevertheless. I feel very tempted to post another picture. He is totally torn between lying dozy in the sunshine and staring fixedly at the fluttering inaccessible birdies. (I have opened the window, to make his torment all the more.)<br /><br />In the grocery store, I was delighted to overhear myself think: "Trouble is, that's far too many chicken thighs - oh, but wait! Freezer! I can cook half and freeze the rest! Have my cake and eat it!"<br /><br />So, in the spirit of new virtue, half my chicken thighs have been bagged and labelled and dated - and as soon as Mac gets off the bloody freezer, I can put them in it...<br /><br />Tonight's yogi dinner is a chicken biryani. In the recipe I am more-or-less sort of following, it says "Saute the onion/garlic/ginger paste until golden brown." Thing is, I chucked a couple of serrano chillies in there, because hullo, still me; which meant the paste started out a lovely pale green. It is now not so much golden-brown as khaki. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1090914 I guess I'm just embarking on my junior year, then... 2014-03-10T21:22:52Z 2014-03-10T21:22:52Z Two years ago today, I flew into Chicago, discovered America and stayed*.<br /><br />As we know, retail here is king. I went out looking for a birthday present for m'wife, and came home with an anniversary present for m'self. Traditionally leather is for the third year, but hey: I am now in possession of a new purse (which you might possibly call a wallet). It's green, so m'lady should be pleased; and it has almost all the pockets a man could wish for. Almost. What is it about pockets...?<br /><br />In less enchanting adventure, I lost my Fitbit again. And found it again, yay me, on the floor in Macy's - but I'd been halfway home before I realised it was missing. I hate how crap the clasp is, on such a cool piece of tech.<br /><br />Meanwhile I am still loving the dickens out of my new freezer. It has capacity! Also, two temperature zones, deep freeze and not-so-much: I am half inclined to buy a freezer thermometer, just so's I know what temps we're actually operating at. Mmm, retail. What is it about spending money...?<br /><br />Meanmeanwhile, taxes. Ever a joy, and a splendid anniversary commitment.<br /><br /><br />*<small>For some reason, after all these years of heedless accuracy, I have started wanting to type stayed as staid. Any minute now, I anticipate that played will come out as plaid, and we will all be lost.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1090705 In other news 2014-03-10T02:34:43Z 2014-03-10T02:34:43Z We had a fabulous FogCon, seeding new friends among the old, that way you do; and then today we came home and had a late dim sum lunch in Mountain View, grabbing friends who were conveniently just down the road getting their toesies painted pretty and snatching baskets from the very last trolley to go around. And as we left one of the staff asked me <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Serenity+chinese+characters+T-shirt&amp;safe=off&amp;client=ubuntu&amp;hs=6hr&amp;channel=fs&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=kSQdU-LEDdfkoASA8YCIBw&amp;ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1250&amp;bih=867#facrc=_&amp;imgdii=_&amp;imgrc=ZdD6osQ66mewLM%253A%3BGr-paBhQghsonM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.californiabrowncoats.org%252Fimages%252FSerenityM.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.californiabrowncoats.org%252F%253Fp%253D145%3B479%3B221" rel="nofollow">if I knew what my T-shirt said</a>, and we were happy to agree that I did (well, she said "No-crying" and I said "Serenity" and we smiled and nodded at each other). urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1090349 In which I have an actual effect on actual, y'know, stuff 2014-03-10T01:44:30Z 2014-03-10T05:53:52Z So James Nicoll <a href="http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4844824.html" rel="nofollow">posted a link to the Chesley Awards for SFF art, where they're actively seeking suggestions for this year's nomination round</a> - and I thought "Ooh, I know some cool artists and some cool art from last year's book covers, I shall participate in my community and suggest 'em." And I clicked through, with Mark Ferrari's name top of my twitchy fingers for his cover to <i>Rotten Row</i>* - and there was a category for hardback book covers and a category for paperbacks and nothing, nothing at all, for e-books. <br /><br />I slithered out of there pronto, because that's just ridiculous. And I was going to contact them to say so, but I figured they must have hundreds of people doing that and they'd be bored rigid by the endless nagging (I know somewhat of how other awards are managed, and there are reasons - not necessarily good reasons, but reasons - why they are seemingly unresponsive to change), so in the end I just dropped a mildly snarky comment into James' LJ and left it at that.<br /><br />And not very much later at all, he posted a reply to say that they'd altered the wording in response, so that the paperback category is now paperbacks and e-books, yay!<br /><br />I think that is so cool, that they were willing and able to respond so swiftly and so satisfyingly. I am deeply chuffed with myself, with James and with the ASFA which administers the Chesleys.<br /><br />And I have been over there to make a couple of suggestions on their form, <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-E4yML6yYezdccQNQP0vwi_GKmVLZsWfpHTrvSKYC5Y/viewform" rel="nofollow">and so should you.</a><br /><br /><br />*<small>What's that you say? Self-interest? Nah, I just think it's a fabulous cover. T'other one I hold dear from last year isn't even on a book I had anything to do with, bar a blurb on the back cover to say how good it was.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1090215 Sicilians! in space! 2014-03-06T23:48:49Z 2014-03-06T23:48:49Z <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/06/the-sicilian-space-program-has-launched-a-cannoli-into-space/" rel="nofollow">This whole story is kinda delightful</a> - the Sicilians sent a plastic canolli into space! - but do watch the video, for the full charm factor. There was a cigarette as well, tho' we don't see anyone smoke it. Also, sheep contribute to the recovery. They are almost as helpful as boy-cats. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1089844 We can haz freezer! 2014-03-06T23:00:19Z 2014-03-06T23:00:19Z I may have been complaining about the tiny above-the-fridge freezer compartment ever since I arrived in this house. Now, courtesy of John? We have a freezer.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21208667@N07/12978709714/" title="IMG_20140306_144452 by brenchleychaz, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3721/12978709714_1f1fd291ea.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_20140306_144452"></a><br /><br />As you observe, it is black and splendid and becatted. And we are off to FogCon late today, but when we're back next week I shall begin to fill it, and oh, the rejoicing when things no longer leap from the current compartment every time it's opened, to smash on the floor beneath; when every closing of the fridge door does not prompt an opening of the freezer door; when... Well, you get the idea. Things will be better, yes. And I will freeze more things, and hold more things in readiness against a need, and and and...<br /><br />(I may need to learn to rotate the contents of my freezer. I have in the past proved very good at freezing things, not so much at defrosting and then using the things*. I may be a little bit of a hoarder, secretly.)<br /><br /><br />*<small>Our friend Elizabeth was going away for an extended holiday; she invited us around to dinner, to help her empty her freezer. It ... may have been the oddest meal of my life. I think it was the moment when the whole stuffed Edam cheese was followed by kippers...</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1089606 Published! 2014-03-04T07:41:17Z 2014-03-04T07:41:17Z I am delighted - if a little startled - to observe that my story "The Burial of Sir John Mawe at Cassini" <a href="http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/spring_2014/the_burial_of_sir_john_mawe_at_cassini_by_chaz_brenchley" rel="nofollow">has been published in the Spring 2014 issue of <i>Subterranean</i> magazine</a>.<br /><br />Y'all have known how much I have been muttering this last year or so about Kipling on Mars? This is where it starts. Where it all starts, this whole outrageous mash-up of Eng Lit and the British Empire and the Red Planet and me. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1089321 The insertion of doubt 2014-03-03T20:14:09Z 2014-03-03T20:14:09Z I have this habit at the start of the working day, where I read through the last couple of paragraphs from yesterday and pick at them lightly, just to get myself worked back into the warp of it.<br /><br />This is how I left things yestreen:<br /><br /><i>Mr Kipling was too rigorous a patriot. He would never sanction anything so disadvantageous to us, so beneficial to our enemy.</i><br /><br />Which there's nothing wrong with that, except it's a bit ... assertive for me. Certain of its ground. Almost without thinking, I salted it with question:<br /><br /><i>Mr Kipling was too rigorous a patriot. He would never sanction anything so probably disadvantageous to us, so apparently beneficial to our enemy.</i><br /><br />Now <i>that's</i> a Brenchley sentence. Sometimes I think I overdo the hesitations - if I subjected any novel of mine to one of those thingiegrams that count the usage of individual words and display them proportionally, I suspect that "perhaps" would come out a shade too prominent - but if a character gets to trust his own judgement of the world, then where's your story? urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1089137 Exemplary weather 2014-02-28T21:47:25Z 2014-02-28T21:47:25Z God damn it will this eternal rain never en - oh, wait.<br /><br />Yay rain. Again.<br /><br />Cherish it while it's here; it's not going to last.<br /><br />In a possibly-related development, I am spending the day withindoors, and have just (at 1.30pm) started putting more clothes on: sockses and a hoodie. I was suddenly cold. This seems odd, in what should be the warmest part of the day; but I had spent an hour on the couch, where I sit close to the front door, which features draughts from withoutdoors, so maybe it's not that odd?<br /><br />Anyway. I have I think cleaned everything from yesterday's marmalading, so that no evidence remains, except a faint aroma of washed oranges. And, of course, an array of jars. In the giving-away, I will for a while be able to offer people their choice of stiff set or soft set, as the new brew is a lot looser than last year's. That wasn't my intent and I'm not sure I like it, tho' I was aware of deciding it was done sooner than I usually do, as soon as it showed any signs of wrinkling on a cold saucer. It is at least not runny, which I abominate: just ... soft. Hunh. If it distresses me, I may yet scrape it all out into the pan again and boil it some more. I guess other people would add pectin, but apparently I come over all puritan in this regard, the whole fruit and nothing but the fruit. I did note - and may have noted last year, may even had said it last year - that the variety of Seville I get over here has fewer pips than I'm accustomed to, and so yields less pectin. Maybe I should just learn to like a softer set? But I never feel I've really done my job unless it stands up stiff in the spoon. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1088994 Can't we just be Seville to each other? 2014-02-28T00:41:56Z 2014-02-28T00:42:37Z Orange sheep may safely graze; this year's marmalade crop is gathered in. There ought to be a harvesty kind of song, but not in February.<br /><br />I have made thirteen pint jars' worth. Whether that equates to thirteen pounds, I do not know. They say over here that a pint's a pound all the world round, which is of course nonsense; any true-born Brit knows that a pint of water weights a pound and a quarter. I know I had just under ten pounds of fruit, so I used just under ten pounds of sugar. And maybe four pints of water (I chickened out; I boiled the whole oranges last night in two batches, using the same water, thinking to start with lots less than usual and so not need to cook it so long; but I lost my nerve when I was dissolving in the sugar this morning, and added another couple of pints). If I had any empty jars, I could do the sums with my scale, but I had to rout out an extra for the thirteenth anyway, and lord only knows where the rest of my empties are.<br /><br />Anyway: we have more marmalade than we have room to store, which means more than we need. Anyone local want a jar? It's dark, chunky, mature, and shouldn't be too sweet despite all that sugar. (I tasted a Seville once, just to know. They are lovely, but yup: as bitter as you think, and maybe then some.) urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1088619 Everything's unusual 2014-02-26T23:47:27Z 2014-02-26T23:58:00Z As you and I both are well aware, O my internets, there is a fine tradition of going for a long walk in the rain when gloomy. There are songs about this and everything. Nor do I resile from the tradition: on the contrary, I have embraced it since adolescence and as you know I never can throw anything away. Including, some might say, my adolescence.<br /><br />However: I hold also to the fine tradition of going for long walks whatever the weather, to ponder problems in my work in progress. Also, to shop for dinner; and also, these days, just for the steps, to satisfy my Fitbit.<br /><br />Therefore: you are not to draw any conclusions, erroneous or otherwise, when I say that I have just been walking in the rain. Because I could. I went for a walk! In the rain! For miles'n'miles, and it only rained harder all the way!<br /><br />Yay rain. It won't break the drought, but oh, it's welcome. Apparently the weird high-pressure system over the Pacific that's been shoving all our weather up to Canada for over a year now has relented, at least for the nonce, and the jetstream has slithered southerly and we should have storm-pulses slamming in broadside off the ocean for the next few days. So say the forecasters, at least: who are not the BBC, but they've been spot on today. Which did not at all stop me going out and getting very wet indeed. Who cares? I have dry clothes, and a warm <strike>cat</strike> <strike>house</strike> cat*; I shall make a pot of tea and curl up with Tim Powers for a while, and then get back to work. Possibly I should've let the rain keep me in and at it all day long, but I did just have to walk.<br /><br />Also, I have learned a thing: even the smell of rain on this dry country, the petrichor is different here. I can manage to be homesick on my own, but nostalgia needs a seed, a grain of sand, something to bind upon. A smell is classic, but not on offer hereabouts, not today.<br /><br /><br />*<small>He's dithering.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1088418 If we had NEM we could have MNX, if we had NEX 2014-02-25T01:31:28Z 2014-02-25T01:31:28Z Karen was working from home today, so I made hamburgers and salad for lunch. I may have to do that more; I've decided that I like making burgers. Half my books tell me that the only proper burger is Just Meat, but I find that dull to do, regardless of how it eats; so I am playing with grated onion and garlic and herbs from the garden and Worcestershire sauce and so forth. So bite me - or better, bite my burger.<br /><br />Tonight we have a handful of yogi, and they shall indeed have ham and eggs - only rather repurposed, because the ham's going in the fried rice and the eggs will be an omelette on top, and there will be shrimp and mushrooms on the side. And chillies for those of us that like 'em, which in fact may just be me.<br /><br />And in other food-related news, I have learned how not to go to San Francisco this week. Which is a shame in many ways, because as you know SF is the newly-adopted city of my heart and I do love to go there; but it takes time and costs money and so forth, so I really only go when I really need to. And I thought I needed to, because this is February and the Seville orange season is tragically short, between last month and next, and although Silicon Valley used to be the Valley of Heart's Delight and all orchards all the way, it seems that nobody around here grows Sevilles. I have never found them in the farmers' market nor in the stores - until today. When I did. So I carried ten pounds home, and I will be marmalading shortly.<br /><br />Also it has become transparently clear that I do absolutely need a kaffir lime tree in my garden. That is all. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1088136 Garden diary 2014-02-22T01:12:30Z 2014-02-22T01:12:30Z It's a lovely gentle <strike>summer</strike> <strike>spring</strike> depth-of-winter day in California, temperature in the early seventies and a delightful sun, bees deep in the flowering rosemary, birdies in all directions.<br /><br />This morning I went to my favourite local garden store, Common Ground in Palo Alto. It's not a nursery, but they do sell seedlings; it's not a hardware store, but they do sell tools (it's where I got my long-handled English garden fork, by special order); it's not a bookstore, but they do sell books. And fertiliser, and pots, and seeds, and all sorts of whatever.<br /><br />This afternoon, I have been mostly outside enjoying that spring-green freshness. I planted up half a dozen strawberries, and found that the established plants already in situ have flowers and even teeny-tiny hints of strawberry already. I planted broccoli rabe, and paused to cherish my kale. I planted a new lavender to replace that which was and is no more (which I assert was assassinated by the accursed bermudagrass, which I vow and swear to destroy this year). And half a dozen new plants in the herb garden - thyme because the old one's getting woody, a basil that might survive the chilly nights under a bit of fleece, a mint because I cannot keep mint alive (I know, I know: what's wrong with me?), parsley because parsley. And my tarragon's coming back after I thought it was dead, and the boysenberries maybe also; and the bay tree has had a baby, an apparently independent shoot thrusting up a couple of inches from its parent, and most welcome to. And the sugar snap peas are in flower, and I just love this time of year.<br /><br />Next up, pruning shears. I swear by all that I hold not at all holy that I will cut back the rosemary, even though it is in flower. I had meant to do it while the plant lay dormant, but, y'know. February in California: what's dormancy? People assure me that it will not die; I'm just sorry to disappoint the bees. But if I don't do it, it will destroy us all. That's just a given. Also the sage needs cutting back, and the oregano ditto. I really hate cutting herbs for any reason other than culinary, but here it really does have to happen. (And not just here: friends in England had to give their bay tree a radical pruning, to get light into the bedroom window; and we ended up sending hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds'-worth of fresh bay leaves to the dump, for want of any practical way of taking them to market.)<br /><br />Mostly when I go out the back, the birdies flee the feeder; but it was nice to see bold individuals coming back while I dug the strawberry bed. I have plans to sit out there with a camera and a zoom lens, and take actual photos by which I may actually identify them. This current combination of ignorance and bad eyesight is just sooo frustrating. Also, I bought a guide to local butterflies in the garden store. Technically this one's for Monterey rather than the Bay Area, but they did very honestly note that it's exactly the same contents at half the price, so hey. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1087767 Catmail! 2014-02-22T00:44:05Z 2014-02-22T00:44:38Z This, now: this is just genius. <br /><br />Also, the boys would like some post now, please.<br /><br /><lj-embed id="24" /> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1087609 Kitchen diary, et al 2014-02-20T06:18:25Z 2014-02-20T06:18:25Z Oh, these poor boys. There I was breaking down a chicken carcass, and there were they at my feet crying "We can help! We always help!" - but alas, we had a vet to dinner with the yogis on Monday, and she told us things we didn't know, including how feeding cooked human food to pets can give them lethal pancreatitis. And she positively delighted in telling us just how awful a death it is, and - yeah. That worked. No more chicken for the boys*. Now I just sigh and glance down softly and say "Can we say pancreatitis?" and they say "No, of course we can't, we're cats," and that's where we are, really.<br /><br />We have guests for dinner tonight too, and for once in my life I am making a three-course meal. There is soup to begin with: which should have been asparagus soup thickened with a little potato, but has tragically come out more like potato soup tinted with a little asparagus. What I say is, a recipe should not say "one potato" without saying something about the preferable size thereof...<br /><br />Happily, I only made soup anyway because I wanted to make bread rolls. They appear to have worked:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21208667@N07/12646816625/" title="IMG_20140219_172126 by brenchleychaz, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://v4s.yimg.com/sk/3720/12646816625_ed02ba45bc.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_20140219_172126"></a><br /><br />And then there's chicken-and-ham cobbler with carrots roasted in ginger and honey, and then there's raspberry chocolate cake, and that should do.<br /><br /><br />*<small>Well, not unless they steal it. Happily they can't read, or this might be giving them ideas.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1087361 It's not only worse than I imagine... 2014-02-15T22:32:41Z 2014-02-15T22:32:41Z Every time I think I've plumbed the depths of how awful the US health system is, something more happens and another pit opens up, deeper and darker than before.<br /><br />I ... just have no words. I have no idea how an apparently civilised country can treat its people this way.<br /><br />[What, you want context? Okay, here's context: <a href="http://klwilliams.livejournal.com/360352.html" rel="nofollow">my wife may be about to lose access to the drug that's kept her walking for the last year</a>.] urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1087196 Whoops... 2014-02-14T23:03:29Z 2014-02-14T23:03:29Z It's only twenty-four hours since that nice Dr Holder was digging out the innards of my tooth, poking through into the unnumb gum and crying "Aha!" when I flinched. I am loaded up with antibiotics and major painkillers, and my plans for the day were focused around lying on the couch reading Kathy Reichs while cats draped themselves artistically upon my supine form.<br /><br />...Only then my day began with the realisation that we had no gushy fudz for the boys' breakfast, so there was a trip to the store before coffee, even, before meds; and then there was a check that had to go to the bank, and books that had to go back to the library, and if I don't produce something nice for dinner today of all days then frankly I'm not doing my job, and...<br /><br />So I clocked up 13,333 metered Fitbit steps before lunch, and I guess that counts as overdoing it somewhat, 'cos I feel rotten now. And I still have much to do. Ingredients do not a dinner make, not by themselves...<br /><br />Even so. We're having an hour, at any rate, the couch and I. With a pot of green tea (as I've run out of white), and as many cats as care to forgather there. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1086919 "there must be something terribly wrong with me" 2014-02-14T03:42:27Z 2014-02-14T03:42:27Z I just <strike>instructed</strike> advised* Mac to "Get down, downy-down-down, where the down place is."<br /><br />Ahem.<br /><br /><br />*<small>He's a cat.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1086685 Barefoot in the kitchen* 2014-02-14T02:03:55Z 2014-02-14T02:03:55Z Every now and then, m'wife feels obliged to pop her head around the door-frame and rejoice at finding me exactly conforming to the subject-line.<br /><br />The nice thing about this is, so do I rejoice. <br /><br />Even today, fresh back from stage two of a tricky four-door root canal: exploring appropriate combinations of wine and Vicodin as the anaesthetic wears off, I have abandoned plans to lie wanly on the sofa with Kathy Reichs and am busy cooking instead. Even though I do not propose to eat; even though m'wife has nobly volunteered to pedal down to Chef Yu's and fetch me home a couple of pints of hot & sour soup, which really is all and exactly what I want, nevertheless I have baked bread <br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21208667@N07/12511961354/" title="IMG_20140213_174811 by brenchleychaz, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://a.l.yimg.com/sk/3694/12511961354_527574f6b7.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_20140213_174811"></a><br /><br />and am making soup au pistou sans pistou and will roast a pan of Brussels sprouts with almonds, because that is what she wants. Fussing in the kitchen just comes naturally, it seems. (And fussing in the garden's not that different; I went out to fetch in the sun-dried bathmat and noticed that the sugar snap peas needed tying up, and while I was doing that I noticed some weeds starting to show, and once I'd seen to those - well, I would've been drawn off into doing something else, only that's when the timer crowed for the bread so I came in...)<br /><br /><br />*<small>Note: not pregnant. Barely even hankering after a kitten. Hankering, yes: but barely.</small> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1086419 Fogblogging... 2014-02-12T18:22:34Z 2014-02-12T18:22:34Z So we have this local young convention, known as FOGcon formally and FogCon to those of us who dislike quite that many capitals; and Karen and I have been every year since its inception, so we're practically veterans already. And this year Tim Powers is one of the guests, and Seanan McGuire is another, yay; and I'm on a panel with Tim, and doing a reading with m'wife and Ellen Klages, which is just going to be wild.<br /><br />The con's not for a few weeks yet, but in the meantime they asked me to answer some questions for the FogBlog. <a href="http://fogcon.org/2014/02/guest-post-interview-chaz-brenchley/" rel="nofollow">So I did that, and here's the interview up.</a> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1086166 Bread rolls 2014-02-11T23:55:20Z 2014-02-12T01:30:57Z They're too big, but I did kind of like how these came out - fresh yesterday, toasted today - so I thought I'd just record here what I actually did, as it was a bit of a hybrid:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/21208667@N07/12468324185/" title="IMG_20140211_155109 by brenchleychaz, on Flickr" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7332/12468324185_47790190f7.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="IMG_20140211_155109"></a><br /><br />1 1/2 cups bread flour<br />1 cup water<br />A pinch of dried yeast<br /><br />2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour<br />1/4 cup wholewheat flour<br />1/2 cup water<br />3 tbs olive oil<br />2 tsps salt<br />1 - 2 tsps yeast<br /><br /><br />Make a biga yesterday night, by mixing the first three ingredients in a bowl and leaving it out, covered but not refrigerated. (Note: if your yeast is instant, just mix it all in together; if it’s dry active yeast, dissolve it in the warmish water and give it ten minutes to wake up before mixing in the flour.)<br /><br />Today, mix the biga with all the other ingredients. If your yeast is instant, you probably only need one teaspoonful; if it’s dry active, use two and dissolve it in the water first. If you have an electric mixer, use the mixing blade and give it eight or ten minutes, until you have a softish, slightly sticky dough. If not, knead together by hand for ten minutes ditto ditto. Then dribble another teaspoonful of oil into the bowl, turn the dough over in that until it’s coated, and leave it covered for an hour or so, until it’s very puffy.<br /><br />Flour a baking tray and a work surface. Turn out the dough, deflate it and shape it into a flat rectangle. Cut into eight or a dozen squarish rolls and space them out (floury side up) on the tray. Cover, and leave for an hour or so.<br /><br />Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes, till golden. Cool on a rack. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:desperance:1085723 One good bird deserves another 2014-02-11T17:47:37Z 2014-02-11T17:47:37Z In the Church of Coffee, it must be the laity that adds the cream. I am just sayin'.<br /><br />But I came home from coffee club, and was standing at the kitchen window brewing coffee - and the feeding station was an explosion of birds: at the seed feeder, at the water dish and on the table, even (at last!) pecking at the seed bell. Mostly what we have decreed to be house finches, but a hummer also came by while I was watching - and this other bird, which I think has a black head and dark grey back, maybe lighter on the chest, and big white flashes on the sides of its head. Help?<br /><br />...And if you're getting tired of helping, which is the best resource, the best field guide for Californian birds? And should I be looking for a website or an actual y'know book, which works better when you're starting from nothing and have poor eyesight anyway, even if you weren't looking through the mesh of an insect screen?