A Pleasant Encounter

Something nice happened while Dad was picking up dinner at Maui Taco's the other night. (He was alone because my balance was too unsteady for me to go in with him.)

Dad was struggling with trying to carry dinner while walking with the crutch these days, when a boy about ten came up to him, and said he'd like to carry the bag for Dad. Then a woman came up as the boy's grandmother, and repeated that they'd like to help by carrying his bag.

Dad thanked them, and accepted their help. They walked with him out to the car. The boy carried our dinners, and put them in the trunk of our car when Dad opened it up.

As they left, the grandmother said "God bless you."

Dad replied in kind.

Dad says where else would that happen besides Hilo? I don’t know, but it happened here, and it lightened a difficult day when it did. J

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Visiting Dad's Cousin, Part 2

The next morning after dealing with the skunks at Dad's cousin's place, I went down to have breakfast in the main house. Getting there, I walked in on an interesting conversation. Dad’s cousin was beginning to lecture her husband’s granddaughter. Apparently she was here for the summer in part to work for her Grandpa and Dad’s cousin. {pause} You see, Dad’s cousin was such a great animal lover, she not only fed skunks, she raised animals for a living. Specifically, she and her husband raised epileptic mice in a home laboratory they ran. They ran their own experiments on them, and also sold them to other researchers. Apparently their mice were somewhat prized because their epilepsy was closer to human epilepsy in several key measures than most epileptic lab mice at that time (mid-1980’s).

The lab was actually pretty interesting, as I learned later, when the granddaughter gave me a tour later. The mice were kept in drawer-like cages on one wall. To get in, you simply pulled out the cage and reached in from above. There was also a large table in the middle, where they could work with the mice, and a counter off to one side with a fish tank set up as an observation tank complete with a video camera, so you could put a mouse in, start the video camera, and get about two hours of observation on tape.

Anyway, the granddaughter was staying with them so she could work as a lab assistant for them for her summer job. There had been a problem in the lab the previous day. The granddaughter had put a mouse in the observation tank and set the video camera to record. You could see her leave thru the door at the beginning of the tape. A short while later, the door opened again, and one of Dad’s cousin’s four Siamese cats jumped up on the counter. It was “Ghirry,” which was short for Ghiradelli, one of my cousin’s favorite chocolate companies. Ghirry wasted no time at all on the wall full of cat-proof cages. He went straight to the fish tank with it’s open top. He checked inside, found the mouse, picked it up in his mouth, and left. That mouse, of course, was never seen again. {Smile, wink}

“Well, if you’re upset as Ghirry,” the granddaughter started to say.

“No. We are not upset at Ghirry,” Dad’s cousin corrected, “Ghirry was just behaving like a cat. He was just following his instincts. He didn’t do anything wrong. You left the door open,” and Dad’s cousin began describing the extra chores the granddaughter needed to do because of this oversight.  

I was really impressed with her attitude. So was Dad. It’s nice to see that someone understands that are some things you just don’t train some animals not to do; you don’t train a cat not to hunt mice. {REALLY BIG GRIN}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

By the way, sorry for the way the colors of my blog are messed up recently. You wouldn't notice it thru most blog readers, but if you read it directly, it's a mess.

I've tried to fix it. It's easy enough to make it even worse. It's not so easy to make it better. I have tried, and fighting my way back to only this bad a mess felt like a victory in the end. {rueful smile, wink}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Visiting Dad’s Cousin, Part 1

Dad’s Aunt, Wilmar Shiras, wrote a book called “Children of the Atom” that’s a bit of a science fiction classic. Dad claims that it was inspired in part by watching her children struggle to fit in at school. The eldest of her children was very close to Dad’s age. That’s the one Dad is close to, so that’s the one I know.

As I said before, this cousin and her husband used to live in a residential neighborhood with an unusual number of wild animals right in the neighborhood. At least it seemed that way to me when Dad and I visited when I was a teenager. {Smile}

I also mentioned that she started leaving dogfood out for the raccoons, because she is a great animal lover. Then the skunks found out and took over. Most people I know would stop leaving out dogfood at this point. Not Dad’s cousin. She continued to leave dogfood out for the skunks for years. I always did wonder what the neighbors thought of this. {wink, Smile}

That was all before I got there. By the time I did, Dad had visited twice without me: once when she was leaving out dogfood for the raccoons, and once when she was leaving it out for the skunks already. By the time I got to visit, too, the skunks were Very Well Settled In. When I visited, one of the first things I was told that I would be sharing a small apartment with Dad’s cousin’s husband’s granddaughter by his first marriage, who was staying with them all summer, and working for them in their laboratory as a summer job.

After dinner and whatever we did afterwards, I was ready to go up tot he apartment to get ready for bed. The route from the main house to the apartment went right past the skunk’s food bowls, but I was told not to worry. Just walk firmly, and they shouldn’t bother me. Well, I found the bowls... and skunk planted right in the middle of the pathway I was supposed to use.

I froze, startled.

The skunk stared at me, showing no fear.

Remembering they’d said the skunks shouldn’t bother me, I started forward hesitantly.

The skunk went thump-thump-thump-thump-thump with his front paws.

I froze.

I’d recently read or heard (I remembered which back then) that skunks did a kind of stamping gesture as a warning before spraying, because they didn’t like the odor any more than anyone else did. This must be what they meant.

I turned around and walked briskly back to the main house. There I found Dad’s cousin’s husband. I told him about the skunk.

“What? Don’t worry about the skunks,” he said.

“But he stamped at me, and that’s supposed to be warning.”

“Just shoo them off. They won’t bother you.”

“You know how to do that. I don’t!” I told him, “Please help me. You said you would.”

“Oh, for crying out... come on, and keep up.”

He stormed out of the house and up the walk, shooing away the skunks very firmly when he reached the bowls.

I did follow him... at least 20 paces behind him. I hoped that was enough distance if he was wrong about the skunks...

He wasn’t. They left promptly for him, and he escorted me right up to the door of the apartment. I thanked him profusely, of course. {BRIGHT SMILE}

Then he left. I actually didn’t have trouble with the skunks after that. Maybe my escort that first night put me on their approved list or something. But I didn’t get sprayed, and that was the important thing as far as I was concerned. {wink, BIG GRIN}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Dad's Frog

I wrote this up to swap with a friend for a frog story of hers. I thought I'd share it here, too. {Smile}

A few years ago, Dad was sitting on the patio in back of church for “This isn’t tea, it’s Lunch!” (as Father Moki re-named it). Anyway, he was just sitting there when he felt something land on his shoulder. Before he could turn to try to see what it was, it lifted...

...and a frog appeared on the table in front of him. It was a bright rusty orange, which was a extra surprise. It didn’t stay long before it jumped off to goodness knows where next, but he left quite a strong impression on my father. Dad did not expect to see a frog at church. He did not expect a frog to land on his shoulder. He certainly didn’t expect to see an orange frog. Yet this frog did all of that at once. It was a coquui, the frog from Puerto Rico that’s taken over the nighttime soundscape unless it’s too cool. The coquui who came here are all rust colored, somewhere between orange rust and brown rust. Dad’s coquui was definitely at the bright orange end of the spectrum. {wink, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Dad's cousin

An email a friend sent me reminded me of a cousin of Dad's. His cousin and her husband used to live in a residential neighborhood with an unusual number of wild animals right in the neighborhood. At least it seemed that way to me when Dad and I visited when I was a teenager. {Smile}

She started leaving dogfood out for the raccoons. Then the skunks found out and took over. Most people I know would stop leaving out dogfood at this point. Not Dad’s cousin. She continued to leave dogfood out for the skunks for years. I always did wonder what the neighbors thought of this. {wink, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Happy New Year (and Toad Hula)

Happy New Year! I do hope it's a good one! {SMILE}

I hope you had a Merry Christmas if you celebrate it. I also hope you are still having a good Christmas if you celebrate it until January 6th like my church does. {Smile}

I have a video to share, too, or a link to one, at least. I found my favorite hula. The video is old, so it's not the best quality. It's unusual, and very kid-friendly. It's also unique. I've never seen anything else like it. It's about a toad who finds true love.  I did say it was unique. This might be why it's my personal favorite, when I normally can't pick a favorite. {wink, Smile}

https://youtu.be/3IDTGuesHVI

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IDTGuesHVI&feature=youtu.be


Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Binding a book

I asked some of my friends if they’d like to see how I bind a book in one fashion. A few said “yes,” and none said no. So here’s my explanation. {Smile}

Before I bound this book, I got permission from the authors to show it off. Not that it isn’t legal as a set of copies of e-books I own, but that some authors are unhappy with books in different formats than they contracted to release. So thanks to my friend, Veronica Giguere, and her coauthors, Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, Dennis Lee, and Cody Martin for permission to share this hand-bound book of short stories they wrote for the Secret World Chronicles series. That I could use stories in the first series about superheroes to catch my interest made it special. {WARM SMILE}

I collected the stories I included as e-books. (Fortunately, they’re all available in printable format.) Then I arranged them in a reasonable order, added a title page, table of contents, and such, chose the page arrangement that worked for the binding style I wanted to use, printed it out, and folded the pages into groups called “signatures…”

…and discovered that another story had been published before I started the next step. After some debating, I got extra permission, formatted the story, printed it out, and pressed it. During this step, I thought of actually showing how I do this, not just the finished project, so I started taking pictures. Here’s one that shows the added story pressing. I think it also shows the main book folded and collated with its cover-boards (measured and cut during an earlier project) in the upper left corner:
 

 

While here is the entire collection of pages printed, folded, and pressed:

Next, I got out my sewing frame, and strung up some cords to tie the book’s cords onto:
 

 

Then I tied up the book’s cords, and started sewing, poking holes in each signature while I went along. I’d used a saw to cut holes before, but I wanted to try this method. It has the advantage of not needing Dad’s hack saw, and the disadvantage of not getting the signatures quite as neatly lined up. That’s partly lack of practice, I’m sure. {Smile}

Here I am sewing:

And here’s a close-up of the sewing, or the knot binders put at each end of as many signatures as they can, so they don’t have to worry about damaging the paper when they reverse to add the next signature. {Smile}:

Here’s the book just after I finished the sewing, and before I started adding glue:

At approximately the same time, I worked on the cover. Dad had already cut coverboards to the right size. He had a sheet of cardboard to cut for a different project. He was cutting coverboards for another project, and I figured he could do the whole sheet at once, since I can always use coverboards this size, and he was out in the shop with the band-saw going anyway… {Smile}

Anyway, I measured and cut the thin cardboard for the spine at this time, along with the bookcloth to cover it all with. I do like to use bookbinder’s buckram to cover books. It has a waterproof coating, which makes the cover harder to damage when wet, and usually makes ironing unnecessary. Besides, it doesn’t require an extra skill-set like leather. Best of all, few bugs or other tiny critters like to eat buckram, at least fewer than like to eat leather. Since I live in the high tropics, I have no shortage of bugs to be concerned with. We don’t even have a season cool enough to slow them down, so many have settled in. {lop-sided Smile}

Here’s the parts of the cover ready to be assembled:

And here they are, all glued together, and pressed until the glue dried. There are some smudges, but none the endpapers won’t hide:

Next, I needed to finish preparing the textblock (the pages bound to each other but not the cover yet) to be attached to the cover. This involved gluing in the endsheets (the paper right next to and glued onto the cover), gluing the cords to the endsheets, and gluing on a paper that wraps around endsheets and spine, called the “super.” This is normally a none-too-remarkable step, but remember that this is a book about superheroes. Variations on the phrase “putting the ‘super’ into ‘superheroes’” seem to show up not infrequently in talks about superheroes, especially when something makes them particularly admirable. {pause}

So here I am, putting the super into a superhero book, though not the “super” into the same book. The latter is what the folks I thanked up top did. {wink, SMILE}:

Next, I glued the cover to the textblock. Here it is pressing while the glue dries, with wax paper to keep the glue from sticking where it isn’t wanted. (If in the slightest doubt, press while the glue dries. Doing do prevents more bubbles, wavy paper, glue creepage, and other all-too-long-term damage than I want to think about. {wink, Smile}):

 

 

Here’s the book when it’s finished:

Here’s the title page I made for it. I don’t think the “READING COPY: NOT FOR SALE” line is strictly required. However, selling it would make it an illegal copy, so adding it seemed like a nice courtesy. {Smile}:

While here’s the table of contents in two parts:

So that’s how I made this book. I’ve enjoyed reading it since. {Smile}

 

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

 

Today's random thought

I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing the seeing the fire truck go grocery shopping, Yet today wasn't the first time I've seen it.

 

The grocery store we use in place of a convenience store is just one block from the fire station. It's a pretty long block, but not too long to walk. Except that when firemen are on call, the truck goes where they do, in case they get a call while they're out, so they can't just walk. If one of them needs a blood test, they take the fire engine to the medical lab. If they need groceries, they take the fire engine to the grocery store. If you're the grocery store just a long block from the fire station, you leave a spot next to the container trucks for the fire engine to park, especially if they're all out front because a hill is in behind. The firemen just have to walk the length of the store to reach the front door, and it's not a long store. {wink, Smile}

 

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

 

A book is finished being bound. Finally! {BIG SMILE}

The book I've been binding is done. I've finished hand-binding the short stories I found in the Secret World Chronicle series. This includes stories by Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libbey, and Veronica Giguere. (Cody Martin and Dennis Lee have also contributed to the series, but I didn't find any short stories by them.) {Smile}

To the best of my knowledge, this is legal as a copy of ebooks I own. {Smile}

Please don't mind the eraser in some of the pictures. It was the most convenient paperweight to hand. {Smile, wink}

 

This is the front cover. Waterproof buckram, a type of bookcloth, comes in solid colors only; fortunately, I do like red. {Smile}

 

This is the title page. The "READING COPY: NOT FOR SALE" line is technically not required by copyright law. It just seemed like a good way to show respect for the author's work, and also for the limits of what you can do with ebooks. {Smile}

 

 

This is the back of the title page, and the first page of the table of contents. {Smile}

This is the second page of the Table of contents. {Smile}

I hope I found all the stories. I did try. {wink, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin