Merry Christmas, etc.

 

Merry Christmas! I hope you had a good time, if you celebrate it, of course. {SMILE}

 

If you celebrated Yule a few days ago instead, I hope you had a good time then. {SMILE}

 

If you're still ramping up to the really big bash on New Year's Eve, I hope your preparations are going great, and you have a really good time next week. {SMILE}

 

And if you're doing what a few neighborhoods in my town do: started your party a little before Christmas and plan to keep going until after New Year's, I hope your party is going well, and continues to do so! {BIG SMILE, wink}

 

If you didn't do anything above, I hope you've still had some good days, and continue to do so. {SMILE}

 

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

 

Ouch

I was just Telling Chicory thru her blog that I feel like a four-legged stool with only three legs. When things go good, I’m okay, but it doesn’t take much to make me tumble. (Emotionally speaking; my permanent vertigo is neither better nor worse than usual. {cross fingers}

Anyway, I’ve taken another emotional tumble for little reason. Ouch! {WINCE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Expanded links

In case you're curious where else I'm active on the web, I just expanded the list of places I hang out. I also moved that list to the top of my sidebar, where it's much more noticeable. {Smile}

Not that I'm all that active on Facebook, but it's a good way to find out what I'm up to on Goodreads without actually joining Goodreads. {shrug, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

GLUE!

My glue arrived today! {REALLY BIG GRIN, HUMONGOUS GRIN}

Oh, I know it’s silly to get excited about glue, but this isn’t student’s white glue, or even carpenter’s wood glue. Those you can find in many stores in most decent-sized town. No, this is acid-free book binder’s glue. (I’d had some, but mine had gone lumpy. I’m not using that glue, not even the still-liquid parts around the lumps.) There was one store in Hilo that carried it maybe a decade ago, but I think they closed. So it was make a special trip that would quite likely be fruitless, or hop on the web. I found DEMCO, a library supplies firm I’ve ordered from before, and they still had the kind I’d ordered before. It did work great, until it went lumpy. However, Amazon had some, too, and they’ll give you free shipping on large-enough orders. DEMCO won’t, and they will insist you give them your phone number if they’re going to send you anything. Amazon doesn’t. So I ordered a pint from Amazon, along with some acid free coverboards and a friend’s book that I’ve been meaning to order, to make the order big enough to qualify for that free shipping.

They wrote back promising to send the coverboards immediately, and the glue with the book when it comes out in January.

{groan, rub face} It’s the glue I want immediately! The coverboards can wait; Mom wants a paperback cause it’s lighter and takes less space. So I ordered another pint, and a few books that have been sitting on my wishlist long enough to be in danger of dropping out of print. They promised to send that order more promptly, glue and all. {Smile}

I still expected them to show up around the middle of the month. Nope. Today I got two packages. One had the coverboards, and the other had four books and both pints of glue. Yes, both pints. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but I’m certainly not complaining! {SMILE}

Anyway, now I can bind the booklet I promised to Mom. I can also bind a couple of books I found on the web that appear to be in the public domain that I think she’ll like. But she won’t get those until one or another of the upcoming gift occasions. With Christmas on December 25th, her and Dad’s anniversary on December 27th, and her birthday on January 21st, we have enough occasions coming soon. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

An invitation to questions

In a blog I recently started reading, the owner recently decided to give a quite detailed introduction of herself. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. {Smile}

Then I wondered about doing something similar, and realized I didn’t know where to begin… or where to end, or what points to hit in between. {rueful smile}

I know there are a lot of things I don’t talk about. Usually it’s not because I want to keep secrets, but that I don’t realize anyone is interested. {shrug, spread hands, Smile}

I’m not entirely sure how to fix that. So far, all I’ve thought of is offering to answer any questions about me that you might have been wondering about. That’s by no means a perfect fix, since you might not think of some questions at all, but it’s what I’ve thought of so far. {spread hands, Smile}

So… any questions? I'm not likely to get offended, honest. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Thanksgiving

I'd like to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrated it today. {Smile}

To those who don't, I hope you had a good day. {GRIN, wink}

If you're interested, for us it was just the four of us. Valentine only jumped up on the table once, and got back down when scolded, so he didn't have to be exiled. He had as much turkey as he could cadge off of us. Mom, Dad and I had turkey, stuffing, succotash, cranberry sauce, and blueberry pie.

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Fridge update

Well, the fridge is fixed. It took most of Sunday morning, but it’s fixed. The fellow came, leveled the thing because it was tilted far too far back, and dumped hot water down the drain tube until it broke thru a surprisingly stubborn ice dam. I think he was about ready to open the thing up and see if a gecko had crawled into the tube when it finally started draining. Apparently that happened at least once before. {Smile}

 

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Repairs

We’ve had a bit of a repair saga this past week. The freezer has been icing up. On Tuesday, it got bad enough, the fan blades regularly hit the ice. So we tried defrosting it on our own Tuesday morning.

Then in the evening the toilet stopped flushing. It was definitely broken. Fortunately, we know a plumber lives a few houses down the street. Literally. So we called them that morning. He and his assistant looked at it before breakfast, fetched a part, and fixed it that morning. I do like quick service. {Smile}

The freezer had started icing up again Wednesday afternoon. Dad called a repairman. We expect him repairman tomorrow around 10. We’re more than a little surprised the repairman suggested working on a Sunday, but it was his idea, not ours. {spread hands, shrug} Since church starts too early for Dad and me anyway tomorrow, we might as well stay home and get our fridge fixed. Hopefully. {cross fingers, smile}

Just… don’t let anything else break. This is enough! {wry look}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Tsunami research

Well, it’s been almost two month since I learned my friend had died. I’m finally beginning to feel like writing again. Yes, it took me that long. I lost one of my best sounding boards, one of my most reliable beta readers… and that only covers the help she gave me with writing. There’s so much about her that I miss even more... {bite lips}

{STEADYING SIGH}

Anyway, I want to get back to writing. I know which story wants to get written. It involves the Widow Mere, her children, and a tsunami. So now I’m researching tsunami. Living in Hilo, I’m around tsunami stories a lot. Dad even has one; he outran the April Fool’s Tsunami (April 1, 1946) as a teenager right here in Hilo.  (I remember my friend saying she thought you couldn’t outrun a tsunami when I mentioned that in an email. Well, you can’t if you give it a fair start, but Dad wasn’t stupid enough to do that. He had at least a mile’s head start, and didn’t even hang around long enough to figure out how much more he might or might not have had. {Smile})

Unfortunately Dad’s story will only go so far with my story. He’s given me permission to base a story line on his experiences, but they only fit one of the six storylines I need. So I’m looking further afield. So far, I’ve found:

 

NONFICTION:

Dudley, Walter C. and Min Lee. 1998. Tsunami! 2d ed. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

FICTION:

Buck, Pearl S. 1986. The Big Wave. New York: HarperTrophy.

Fredericks, Anthony D. 2007. The Tsunami Quilt. Chelsea, MI: Sleeping Bear Press.

Salisbury, Graham. 2007. Night of the Howling Dogs. New York: Random House.

No, it’s not a long list. At least I own all except the Pearl Buck, and I’ve ordered that through the public library.

Unfortunately, the Fredericks and Salisbury aren’t applicable like Dad’s story, and Walt Dudley’s co-author summarized things a bit too succinctly. (Walt’s a former co-worker of Dad’s, hence the nickname. I think he’d be shocked if I used his full first name, and not in a good way. {wink, GRIN}

Remembering how much help I got when I asked for recommendations of books with handicapped heroines, I thought I’d ask if anyone knew of some good books, TV shows, movies, etc. involving tsunami. I figure it’s worth a try. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

A Concert

I went to a concert by the Escher String Quartet last night. I liked the music, and loved getting to go. {SMILE}

I haven't been to a concert in years, ever since Mom and Dad decided they couldn't sit thru a long concert between Mom's back's tendency to give her trouble, and Dad's need to put his feet up or walk around or something. He's not supposed to sit still for long periods of time. That pretty thoroughly messed up my transportation options, so I've been pretty much pretending that Hilo doesn't have any shows I want to see for several years now. {resigned smile}

They do have a few, like last night's concert. Fortunately, a friend who lives a block or two away offered to take me with her. I bought my ticket when I got there, and had a wonderful time. The music was pretty nice, especially since it was live. Even better, I got to see a few folks I haven't bumped into in years during the intermission. {SMILE}

I enjoyed myself so much, I'm trying to figure out how to do this a little more often. I'm hoping to think of something. I've missed this entirely too much. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin