tea

Last month there was supposed to be an ice-skating costume event, but it was canceled to due lack of interest. I had started a mustache because my wife thought I would look more "period" with it. When the event was canceled, she said to keep growing it and we would go to the next event, which was an "Anne of Green Gables" tea at a tea room. The skating event was late Victorian and the "Anne" was around the turn of the century (20th), so the costumes she had planned would not work for them, the sack suit she had made for me was okay. Men's fashions don't change that much or quickly. She "whipped up" period, mutton-sleeve blouses for them and we were set.


The only problem was they didn't take jackets, so they were cold. We had an umbrella, which we needed, but jackets would have been good too. My wife's hair is done up in the Gibson-girl style. I have the mustache, sack suit, bowler, Prince Albert-knot tie. There were three men in brown tweed, though all different. It was a common color then. Three others were dressed for a formal night on the town instead of tea. There were seven men and a total of about forty people.

In the evening, I was ready to shave that thing off. I was tired of it tickling my nose and lips, it getting wet from things I drank, etc. I don't think it was long enough to use mustache wax on it, but my wife wanted me to grow it long enough to have waxed handlebars. She doesn't have to live with it. Our daughter helped shave it off while the wife was busy. A couple hours later she still hadn't noticed it was gone, but we weren't sitting in conversation or anything during that time.

In the above picture, you might notice that our daughter has braces. That's a relatively new edition, about a month and a half. She's doing okay with them. Her teeth are starting to adjust already.

The girls (chickens) are laying again, now that the days are longer. That's been a couple weeks.

Last weekend I spread some compost, which is mostly due to them, and planted the vegetable garden. I looked a little while ago and nothing has sprouted yet. It's been wet this past week with little sun.

Another thing I did last weekend was check into a new computer. The current one is six years old, which is of course, ancient in computer years. Mine at work is about the same age, but has a faster processor, so the home one is slower and bogs down more with modern, interactive, web pages.

"Ringworld's Children"

I finished "Ringworld's Children". Like I mentioned the other day, the last third of the book was better than the preceding, but didn't average out into a good book. It's been a long time since I've read a science fiction book, but I still expected more to the book than interaction with the ring. There was also the idea of the "protectors" and their drive to protect their people. Protector is Niven's next phase in a human's life, after the breeder phase that we know about, and brought about by "tree of life", which is actually a root. The drive to protect provided motive for the character's actions, but it was lame. With such a monumental engineering construct as Ringworld, it would be nice if there was more of a plot and some character development instead of riding on the coat tails of the immense artifact.

gardening

It's spring. We need to get the vegetable garden going. Should have done it last weekend, but gave up after clearing out the big vine because the green-waste bin was full and there is still some garden clearing to do before planting seeds in it.

It's frustrating though because we plant stuff and then don't use most of it. We don't take/have the time to cook with what we grow. I'm planning to do some planting tomorrow, Sat.

shots

Went to the doc this morning. At home now waiting for traffic to dissipate before driving to work. He gave me a shot in each shoulder (different places). He says to give it two weeks and see how they feel. They might be sore later today and no shoulder work for a few days.

My wife and our daughter went cross-country skiing over the weekend with another mother-daughter pair. They didn't go on "that hill" where I spilled and had a good time on their road trip. I did a little gardening (removed the bulk of a vine that was taking over the fence) and the usual weekend chores (house cleaning, laundry, buying chicken feed and other fun stuff).

Also read some in the book I've been reading, "Ringworld's Children". I read "Ringworld" many years ago, which I liked, and "Ringworld Engineers" later, which wasn't as good but interesting because of the background information of the ring. "Ringworld's Children" is better now that I'm 2/3 into it, but it's still an odd book because it's not a story. The characters are just ... having adventures as they go with no rhyme or reason with little character development or motives for doing what they're doing. In the beginning it was very confusing because there was no set up, they just started going, now that I'm in it, I've accepted that situation of the writing, but still have no idea what's the point of it all. The interesting part for me is still design of the ring and their interaction with it, but it's funky because it's made up as they go along.