Towers in the Mist

I took this picture at another of my favorite places, the Bolsa Chica Wetlands.

It's a small area of wetlands, restored and preserved near an oil field.

I love it because it is a place where I can go and be still. The only way even to see sting rays, sea slugs, or busy little fish swimming is to stand very still and watch, letting ones eyes unfocus ever so slightly so as to see under the water.

I love it because during the late spring and summer the air is full of terns, circling, wheeling, yammering, and yelling at one another but very little troubled by the humans.

I love it because it is within sight of a major highway and is still dotted with oil wells and is fully alive and set apart in its own space.

I love it because it is full of plants with names like "pickleweed," "saltwort," and "bladderpod."

I love it.

On the day this picture was taken, a heavy mist had come in from the beach. It was shadowy and silent in this world of water, and the birds were quiet, waiting for warmth and light.

I followed one of the paths inland, and in a very little while I had left the fog behind and found myself walking on a warm, sunny day. Birds sang, the breeze blew, and I could hear the cars on the road.

A few steps later, I turned around and found that I was reentering the white, chilled, still unknown place.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

Let's see.

It won loads of awards.

It probably deserved them.

I admired it's literary qualities without actually enjoying the book.

It deals with the plight of man in a cold universe.

It is full of elaborate literarary metaphors.

I've read it and returned it to the library.

*Shrugs

It's just one of those books. Admirable, but not my cup of tea.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

There is a movie coming out soon--from all accounts, it will probably be an extremely good, very well made movie. There's lots of lovingly done stop-motion animation & it's being funded by someone rich enough not to need it to make an instant, insanely large profit, and sensible enough to know it.

But I don't have a countdown in the sidebar the way I did for The Graveyard Book (which just won the Newberry Award), and I'm probably not going to go to see the movie Coraline, myself, because:

Coraline is an extremely well-written, very creepy little book. In fact, I think it gets creepier each time I read it.

It's also a gem of a book, and I love it.

So I'm scared to even try the movie.

Either it will get the subtle, horrible creepiness right, in which case I will probably crawl under the theater seats and never come out, or it will miss the point entirely and I will be incensed.

I do, however, heartily recommend the book.

Still Writing...

for The Broken Hourglass and am enjoying it immensely.

I'm at about the mid-point in the latest quest I'm working on, and I am happy to report that one of the characters just did something unexpected. She was mildly exasperating, actually--supposed to have one attitude but displayed another instead (as a matter of fact, characters do tend to be mildly exasperating when they first take off)--but it's still handy to have her come to life. After days of one-key-after-another-typing, it's fun to have someone write herself. Hopefully, the writing will go much faster now!

Oh, and jcompton just let me know that there is another character who has to show up--someone who appears in one of the short stories (No, I won't tell you who, for one thing, I don't actually know, yet). That should help fill up one of the blank spaces on the map. I had an idea for it, but a fully realized character will fit better than my old idea, and should round out the quest nicely.

Also, Qwinn (he of the Planescape: Torment mods), who is coding just reminded me, I owe him a few lines for the last one. Characters have to have something to say when they are not part of any quest in particular and are just walking around being backgroudn scenery. I tend to forget that when I'm focused on getting from point A to point B. Thank goodness Qwinn is a careful reader as well as coder!

Whew! Ok, see, this is why I don't write about writing for The Broken Hourglass much--I can't give away plot points, so the whole thing ends up sounding reaaaaally vauge & dull. But it is something I'm doing, and something I love doing, so I still want to burble about it from time to time. So, now I've burbled!

A Few of My Favorite Things

The current batch of pictures up in my ArtID gallery were all taken in the Huntington Beach Central Park, one of my favorite places.

For one thing, one of the two best libraries in the world (in my own humble opinion, and based on an admittedly limited selection) is there. Libraries are always nice--after all, they have BOOKS in them, lots and lots of lovely free books--but this one adds plenty of plants, fountains, large windows, and a downstairs coffee shop to the list of admirable qualities.

The other reason is the park itself. It is large, big enough that it takes a long time to walk around even the one half, the half with the library in it. It is peaceful, too, and extremely well landscaped. There's plenty of smooth, green grass for picnicking, but there are also wilder areas, areas where the trees have been allowed to twist together and where the undergrowth hides rabbits and squirrels. Birds claim twigs and trees for their territory, squirrels dig in the gardens, and lizards sun themselves on the rocks.

Every time I go there, I find new peace.

Bread and Brownies

So I'm still baking!

Let me put in another word in praise of my absolute favorite brownie recipe: Cooking Light's "Bourbon Fudge Brownies." Usually I make it with milk instead of bourbon (an option they do allow for). Alcohol seems to make for a drier, crummier brownie. It may be tasty, but the lovely, fudgy texture is gone. I have tried it--never with bourbon, though a friend did, but with rum, which was tasty but, like I said, not as good. Coffee (an option if one is really playing around with the recipe to make it vegan) is tasty without being dry, and does add a nice flavor, but milk is best.

I am also playing around with bread. I found a recipe for Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread. that I liked, made it almost the way the recipe calls for, and then came up with a version sort of based on it and kind of based on two other recipes and mostly just messing around that I like even better for a Sourdough Walnut bread.

Made the way the recipe instructs only with more wheat flour, it makes a good, dense, chewy bread.

For the walnut variety, use:
1/4 C walnut oil (instead of butter)
2 eggs (to help soften the loaf)
1 1/2 C rye flour (to add a nice taste)
2 C whole wheat flour
And enough white flour to keep it from being impossibly sticky,

Just before shaping it, add 1 1/2 cups of walnuts, if you're measuring, or as much as the dough will hold, if you're not.


Whichever way you make it, let it rise in the machine. I Donna M,who posted the original recipe, mentions just taking it out of the machine and shaping it without letting it rise first, but I find that rather odd; sourdough does take a long time to rise (especially if you're maintaining it on the "when I remember" program rather than the proper weekly diet & if you don't remember to take it out of the fridge the night before), and it makes more sense to let it do so in the nice, warm bread maker rather than shaped and on the counter.

Preheat the oven to 350 & bake for about half an hour.

Actually, I read a while back that it is better to overheat the oven by about 50 degrees before putting the bread in and then turn it down as you put the bread in, and I find that helps a lot--the bread does a nice, fast rise. That's rather important if, like me, you're addicted to whole grain breads that tend not to rise a whole lot to begin with.

It All Began with a God Named Thor

Ever since I discovered Jonathan Coulton, my brother has been telling me that I should listen to Ikea.

He was quite right.

I've now got a version downloaded & ready for transfer to my MP3 player at the next available opportunity (Yes, some of the songs in his store are free).

Coffee

Malaika enjoys his morning coffee.

And, yes, he does own the desk. Why do you ask?

The Glare

An owl watches from the corner of her cage at the Orange County Zoo.

Christmas is over and the trees have found a new temporary home on the beach.

Somnolent Sam and His Savage Stallion....

Drivers beware!

Somnolent Sam and His Savage Stallion stalk these hills.

Instructions

Things my sewing machine manual tells me:

1) How to thread the needle.

2) How to wind the bobbin.

3) How to plug the machine in.

4) How to call an expert if I cannot plug the machine in.

5) Never to use the machine under water.

Things my sewing machine manual does not tell me:

1) What to do if the thread gets into a really humongous snarl all of the sudden and nothing will move and the needle is in the down position so there is no way to just pull the cloth out and start all over again.

2) What to do if there are no stitches at all, just a needle full of thread moving up and down to no effect whatsoever.

The Next Doctor

The Christmas Special, this time.

I finally got around to watching it.

And, um. Yeah. I suppose my blank feeling may be the result of a nasty bout of allergies, but then again, maybe not.

There were some fun individual bits, but the overall plot lacked.

I liked Lake as the Doctor--kind of wish he really were the next Doctor (That doesn't count as a spoiler, does it? 'Cause, I mean, we all knew that whoever he was, he wasn't OUR Doctor, though I'm a bit unclear as to how it happens that our Doctor doesn't know that right away, seeing as he's supposed to know when other Time Lords are around). The two of them laughing after being pulled by the whatsit (Shade?) was a fun moment, as was Rosita's response to it all. And I loved his TARDIS, particularly when he explained what it stood for.

Rosita could have been fun, but she got sidelined pretty quickly, so I never got to get much of a sense of her character. A bit like Rose (no surprise), but other than that... Mercy Hartigan ought to have been chilling but instead came off as cliched.

The main plot, however, eludes me. What were the Cybermen after again?

World domination, of course, but their invasion technique seems even odder than usual. Wholesale conversion, overt or covert makes sense, sort of. Recruiting the local matron, murdering a parson, and building a giant robot doesn't.

Why did they need Mercy? What made her think allying herself to them was a good plan? That last, by the way, is not a nit unique to this particular episode; I've never been sure why any Who sub-villain thought working with the Cybermen or the Daleks was a good idea (Well, except for The Invasion. The bad guy there had at least thought of the possibility that his new allies might not be 100% reliable). Given Mercy's willingness to join the Cybermen, why is she so upset when they announce she is to be their king? Shouldn't she be happy to be the one in charge? Since when have Cybermen had a king? I've seen CyberLeaders but not kings.

About that king... since when have the Cybermen taken to watching old Japanese cartoons?

Do we have to have Tennant going all mopey? Again? Why does he say of his Companions that "some of them forget me" as though they wandered off, got busy, and forgot to send Christmas cards? And if he's going to get mopey, he might want to mention that one or two of them have died in the name of duty rather than waving and leaving.

But, hey, at least neither of his temporary Companions died this time. Neither of them kissed him, either. And he got to be a companion himself for a little while. That's worth something.

Basically, I really don't like specials. They get showy and sprawly and plotless entirely too easily. I will be very glad to have the regular season back, will continue to sulk (when I think of it) about the "gap year" being needless now that Tennant is not coming back after all, and will drop by from time to time to write rambly reviews and complaints, probably long after the shows air.

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot. Lake entering the TARDIS was a fantastic moment, especially when he delightedly described it as "silly."

The Eleventh Doctor

So.

They've finally revealed who he'll be. I know nothing at all about the actor, so all I can say is:

1) He looks really, really young.
2) He has a promising last name.

3) Once he stops being the Doctor he used to be, will it be safe for Donna to see him again? Can we have her back, please? (Really have her back, I mean. Not the way we had "Rose" for a while).

One Last Set of Light Pictures

Because it was foggy and the lights looked so nice and because they will all be coming down again soon.

I really like the exuberance of the middle house--lights all over everything, even the rocks. The lovely driftwood decoration is new this year, and I've been admiring its elegance as I walk.