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Oct. 3rd, 2002 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Hmph. Again I'm very low on email. Nobody loves me!
That's not true. I did get one. I will respond. Tho' if Hurricane Lilly's going to kill them all, it may not do much good.
I have a cold, which my mother gave to me. All through my childhood I was nagged to cover my mouth when I coughed, or sneezed, or in any way broadcast my germs. As I grew old enough to understand the concept of germs, I understood that this was a common-sense courtesy.
Does my mother cover her mouth when she coughs?
No.
Never.
She coughed right in my face several times.
Dad, home for the day today (he gets so many days off... they make him take days off because he has so many accumulated, he'll lose them unless he does. He's designated today as a 'puttering' day) ruefully agreed that no, Mom never covers her mouth, and yes, she always gives everyone in the house whatever cold she has. She prepares the food, you see, and it's very difficult to avoid contagion. When she doesn't cover her mouth!!!
But no fear, anyone who might be coming to visit; she's better now. And if I'm cooking when I'm sick, I wash my hands, and I don't cough in the food. I do those things even if I'm not sick. Crazy.
But, it's good exercise for my immune system. Keeps it busy. And I sound all sexy, like a raddled old smoker blues-singer.
So, I'm trying to enjoy this lovely gift from my mother. I was trying to drink plenty of juice and water, but then I discovered the half-gallon of chocolate milk in the fridge, and I've had about a quart of that, and am trying to deny myself any more. It just tastes really good. (Garelick farms makes good chocolate milk. And I think it's 2%, which is the best kind. but it tastes almost like whole. they make it real thick and so nice... my tummy's all full of lactose-tolerant chocolate lovin'.)
Visited the library, looking for books for dad-- wanted to know about how to prune grapevines. see, our property's overrun with the damn things, but he's just realized that one patch of them aren't wild grapes. no, they're Concord grapes. He thinks maybe he could convince those to grow in a nice way, and then we'd have our own grape crop. Maybe we could make wine. he's getting on towards retirement, and that's the kind of thing that it'd be nice to have around. his uncle arthur's grandfather, an Italian immigrant (my family's all Irish but lots of the aunts and cousins have married italians throughout, including his father's sister) had a nice backyard, he remembered, with a grape arbor and a couple neat garden plots. he thinks that might not be so bad. But... how does one go about pruning a wildly overgrown grape vine? Can you just cut it all the way down? Do you have to leave shoots? When do you do it, just after the harvest?
But, I couldn't find any books in the library-- the online catalogue said they were all at other branches.
On my way out the door I spotted a paperback that caught my eye-- looks like I missed one of the Tony Hillerman books. I read the most recent one, but this is the one just before it, and I missed it-- The Fallen Man. Just read it-- only takes a couple hours, a nice change from all that heavy Vietnam stuff (apparently, we had a chance to make an agreement with Ho Chi Minh in 1918, and again in 1945, for very progressive, mild protectorate thingies, with less French rule but no chaos, maybe a gradual emancipation of Vietnam, real light on the Communism, maybe nobody gets shot, maybe some land reform, but really mild. Probably wouldn't've worked, but nobody even paid attention-- self-determination was for white people, you see, not the little brown ones in South Asia. So depressing)... so i had a pleasant afternoon, but wasn't nearly as productive as i'd hoped to be.
I might meet up with Abbie later. She and I are both so thoroughly unemployed... if I can get the scanner working, I'll design her a website with her artwork on it. Help her out, maybe, getting freelance work. At the moment she's earning pocket money selling interesting pottery and glass shards she's salvaging from the estate of Harriet the Cat Lady, and is doing her usual sideline in designing tattoos. (In case you're wondering, a real nice Celtic knot design will run you $25, and something tribal will run you around $15. She designs them herself, doesn't copy them out of anywhere. She has a B.A. in illustration.) But, this is all only tiny dribs and drabs of money; not nearly enough to get her out of her parents' house.
I think we could help each other out, freelancing-wise. I can do freelance web-design and the like; if she had a website she'd make more by way of commissions. Maybe we could sound out tattoo studios, though i think the designers do artwork themselves and might not welcome the competition-- at least i could make her a website and help her print up some business cards with the URL and her email address to leave around in places where people might go who'd want a custom tattoo.
All of this is nowhere near enough to earn a living, but it's more productive than sitting around on my ass wondering if someone'll call me.
That's not true. I did get one. I will respond. Tho' if Hurricane Lilly's going to kill them all, it may not do much good.
I have a cold, which my mother gave to me. All through my childhood I was nagged to cover my mouth when I coughed, or sneezed, or in any way broadcast my germs. As I grew old enough to understand the concept of germs, I understood that this was a common-sense courtesy.
Does my mother cover her mouth when she coughs?
No.
Never.
She coughed right in my face several times.
Dad, home for the day today (he gets so many days off... they make him take days off because he has so many accumulated, he'll lose them unless he does. He's designated today as a 'puttering' day) ruefully agreed that no, Mom never covers her mouth, and yes, she always gives everyone in the house whatever cold she has. She prepares the food, you see, and it's very difficult to avoid contagion. When she doesn't cover her mouth!!!
But no fear, anyone who might be coming to visit; she's better now. And if I'm cooking when I'm sick, I wash my hands, and I don't cough in the food. I do those things even if I'm not sick. Crazy.
But, it's good exercise for my immune system. Keeps it busy. And I sound all sexy, like a raddled old smoker blues-singer.
So, I'm trying to enjoy this lovely gift from my mother. I was trying to drink plenty of juice and water, but then I discovered the half-gallon of chocolate milk in the fridge, and I've had about a quart of that, and am trying to deny myself any more. It just tastes really good. (Garelick farms makes good chocolate milk. And I think it's 2%, which is the best kind. but it tastes almost like whole. they make it real thick and so nice... my tummy's all full of lactose-tolerant chocolate lovin'.)
Visited the library, looking for books for dad-- wanted to know about how to prune grapevines. see, our property's overrun with the damn things, but he's just realized that one patch of them aren't wild grapes. no, they're Concord grapes. He thinks maybe he could convince those to grow in a nice way, and then we'd have our own grape crop. Maybe we could make wine. he's getting on towards retirement, and that's the kind of thing that it'd be nice to have around. his uncle arthur's grandfather, an Italian immigrant (my family's all Irish but lots of the aunts and cousins have married italians throughout, including his father's sister) had a nice backyard, he remembered, with a grape arbor and a couple neat garden plots. he thinks that might not be so bad. But... how does one go about pruning a wildly overgrown grape vine? Can you just cut it all the way down? Do you have to leave shoots? When do you do it, just after the harvest?
But, I couldn't find any books in the library-- the online catalogue said they were all at other branches.
On my way out the door I spotted a paperback that caught my eye-- looks like I missed one of the Tony Hillerman books. I read the most recent one, but this is the one just before it, and I missed it-- The Fallen Man. Just read it-- only takes a couple hours, a nice change from all that heavy Vietnam stuff (apparently, we had a chance to make an agreement with Ho Chi Minh in 1918, and again in 1945, for very progressive, mild protectorate thingies, with less French rule but no chaos, maybe a gradual emancipation of Vietnam, real light on the Communism, maybe nobody gets shot, maybe some land reform, but really mild. Probably wouldn't've worked, but nobody even paid attention-- self-determination was for white people, you see, not the little brown ones in South Asia. So depressing)... so i had a pleasant afternoon, but wasn't nearly as productive as i'd hoped to be.
I might meet up with Abbie later. She and I are both so thoroughly unemployed... if I can get the scanner working, I'll design her a website with her artwork on it. Help her out, maybe, getting freelance work. At the moment she's earning pocket money selling interesting pottery and glass shards she's salvaging from the estate of Harriet the Cat Lady, and is doing her usual sideline in designing tattoos. (In case you're wondering, a real nice Celtic knot design will run you $25, and something tribal will run you around $15. She designs them herself, doesn't copy them out of anywhere. She has a B.A. in illustration.) But, this is all only tiny dribs and drabs of money; not nearly enough to get her out of her parents' house.
I think we could help each other out, freelancing-wise. I can do freelance web-design and the like; if she had a website she'd make more by way of commissions. Maybe we could sound out tattoo studios, though i think the designers do artwork themselves and might not welcome the competition-- at least i could make her a website and help her print up some business cards with the URL and her email address to leave around in places where people might go who'd want a custom tattoo.
All of this is nowhere near enough to earn a living, but it's more productive than sitting around on my ass wondering if someone'll call me.
