Kaput

This is apparently Kaput Week around here.

This weekend I bought new sneakers. Because I am a knucklehead, Monday morning I went for a three mile walk in said sneakers, without having worn them around the house long enough for them to get used to me and I to them. Gave myself a blister.

I limped in to work that day to find that one co-worker had messed up his back and another had pulled a muscle in her calf and was also limping. And one of the uninjured had to leave early because her furnace broke down. Also, Comcast throughout the region had network glitches and intermittent outages most of the day. Not fun.

Well, I chalked it up to "Monday" and figured it was over. Bought blister bandages on the way home, and was able to walk as usual on Tuesday (albeit in old shoes). The work day was hectic, but without major outages. Everything seemed to be looking up.

Then this morning I stepped out the door onto the waterlogged front steps (which, I might add, I've traversed hundreds of times in far worse conditions) and my feet went out from under me. Came down HARD on my tailbone, wrenched my shoulder. It. Hurt. One of those moments where you can't decide whether to curse, cry, or maybe both.

So I'm back to limping.

Is there a lesson in all this? Not really.

Except that, maybe, though we've escaped the Polar Vortex, we in the Pacific Northwest are in the grip of a Vortex of Kaput.

Be careful out there, folks.

Additional Autumn Adventures

Yet another busy, fall-flavored weekend! To start with, Saturday morning I went over to the farm stand for more pumpkins and apples. Thought of you, Jeff: lo and behold, they actually had McIntosh apples! However, they were in the sort of gourmet apple section and were quite a bit more expensive than more local varieties like Honeycrisps. I was tempted for nostalgia's sake, but my inner Scot put a kibosh on the idea.

Saturday afternoon, I got to hang out with friends and play music at Hope Grange's "Octoberfest" in Winlock, WA. This is an annual community event, kind of old school: the kids dress up in Halloween costumes and there are activities like face painting and games like bean bag tosses, for which you can win candy. They also have a hay ride on a wagon to a nearby pumpkin patch, where kids can select a pumpkin to bring back to the grange hall and decorate, or take home to carve later. I rode along for one of the trips. The weather was beautiful, and the sound of the tractor (no horses on this hay ride) drowned out any mistakes. Bonus! I think we may have had more fun than the kids did.

When I got back from the hay ride, I made apple sauce from apples I got from friends and got apple butter started in the crockpot to cook overnight and into the next day, and Sunday afternoon, I canned nine little jars of fresh apple butter. It turned out nicely, I think! I still have enough apples left to make another batch, too! I want to vary this next batch a bit, but haven't decided just how. Maybe find cinnamon oil to make it exceptionally potent? Hm. Ponderable.

New apple butter!

Next weekend our office is moving locations, so no big major plans for me. Should be relatively uneventful, aside from Saturday morning. I hope. I need some time to do some NaNoWriMo plotting. More on NaNo plans in my next post!

Other Ports of View

Monday at Ocean Shores was such a good day, I decided to explore another Washington State beach yesterday. It turns out the state has an awful lot of coast line. Who knew? After a bit of dithering over where to go, I drove out to the Long Beach peninsula and did a little sightseeing and wandering. I grabbed a lemon pastry at the bakery in downtown Long Beach and then went down to the beach.

It wasn't the gorgeous weather we had Monday. The sky was silver and lead, and the water more dark green and black than blue. Not truly stormy, but definitely heavier than earlier in the week, and the wind was, as the poem goes, like a whetted knife. It was interesting to see how the colors and shapes of the sky and water changed with the weather. And again, I mostly had the farther reaches to myself.

I wanted to take pictures, of course, but as soon as I turned on my little Canon, it displayed three of the saddest words in the English tongue: "No memory card." And (this is funny in a twisted sort of way) when, as a compromise, I figured I could at least take a few cell phone pictures, I couldn't see the screen in the bright outdoor lighting, so I kinda just fumbled with it until it made the appropriate clicking noises. Turns out in my fumbling, I'd switched it to the forward facing camera, so all of my photos are some variation on Self Portrait With Hat. Guess I'll just have to be satisfied with memories!

The rain kicked in and the wind increased after I'd been out there awhile, and so I headed back in. I stopped for a late lunch of fish and chips and iced tea at Lost Roo on the way out of town. (Thank you, Kindle, for making dining alone a bit less awkward. It's a skill I have not yet mastered.)

Now that I know how to get there and what's what, I will definitely have to visit Long Beach again, preferably with a functioning camera! I didn't see the lighthouses there, for one!

Bzzzzzz

Around here, they call them white faced hornets. Sounds pretty innocuous, no? Doesn't that name make them sound like delightful minstrel show or pantomime characters? All jolly and comical and innocent.

Or not.

I've had to deal with a steady plague of the things ever since I moved to my current home. I hate them with a burning passion hitherto reserved for things like spiders hiding under the sheets in my bed. I, to put it mildly, loathe them. Fortunately I'm not terribly allergic to hornets or bees, but nevertheless, hearing a nearby buzz is enough to make me freeze, skin crawling, blood roaring in my ears.

And it's as if they can sense my fear and are drawn to it. Last year they ended up practically IN THE HOUSE. There's a little tip-out portion to my house (an added on section where the washer and dryer go) with its own roof. Last year hornets found a way into into the space between the ceiling of that section and the roof and built themselves a giant hornet castle. They didn't make it into the house proper, but I could hear them buzzing as though they were just in the next room, and making chewing sounds, and tufts of the papery stuff of the GIANT NEST UP THERE poked out of the ceiling. I couldn't get to them well enough to do anything about them with my little wasp spray cans. Plus, they were very, very angry if anyone approached their front door, which happened to be just above my front door. It was...horrifying, actually.

Luckily my landlady has a friend who works with bees and who is also equipped to deal with nasty hornets. He took care of them once and for all and did a bunch of sealing things up. But oh man...there were a few weeks there where every evening as they all settled in for the night, I sat there listening with my heart in my throat, imagining them breaking through, imagining being swarmed by the things--in the house where I couldn't get away from them. Talk about your worst nightmare...

This year, they took up residence in the shed. They do this every year to some extent, but I guess last year more of them congregated in the hornet castle (and most of my fears centered around it), so the shed wasn't (or didn't seem) such a big deal. I sprayed a few nests and was done. This year was another matter. There were nests EVERYWHERE in there. It was a whole wasp metropolis. There were small bungalows by the door, a Grande Hornet Hotel under the eaves, clusters of hornet condos deep in the dim corners of the shed. And the more there were, the more I was afraid to tackle them.

This weekend, after much psyching myself up, I finally took 'em on. I waited until dusk, when they were mostly all in the nests and inactive, and then I busted in there, spray can blazing, holding a flashlight above the can as if I was some sort of anti-hornet SWAT unit. I went absolutely ballistic on the nasty critters, as only a fear-crazed woman can do.

The next day, when the foam had cleared and I waltzed in blithely to have a look around, I nearly walked right into an ambush. There were still more nests I'd not seen the day before, complete with glistening, buzzing, cranky hornets. *shudder*

So I bided my time until dusk and then repeated the commando routine. And when I poked my head in the next day, the place looked like a hornet ghost town. Mwuahahahah! I win.

For now.

*sigh*

Type-In Report (warning: many typos ahead!)

Oh, and this typewriter shall be called Gerard.  Edit (where are my manners!): I should mention that notagain was the generous soul who gave it to me.  Thank you again!

Oh, and one more edit: here's the fountain pen test scribble sheet.  I like Strikethru's little people!

Tiny Tenino Type-In

Oh, and one more piece of exciting news!! There is a very good chance that the Tribe of Clickity-Clack will soon include an Olympia with a Senatorial type-face again!

And for my own reference if nothing else, here is Notagain of Manual Entry's earlier blog post about ink making and local oaks.

EDIT: notagain now has a type-in write up on Manual Entry.
EDIT AGAIN: just noticed that I repeatedly referred to the Lettera 31 as a 33 in my typecasts.  I know better, really I do.

Storms and Crashes and Grillin' and Marshmallows: What I've Been Up To

I am lame: no typecast, no pencast, no nuffin.  But there are pictures!  Lots of pictures!

The end of last week was rough.  Thursday morning, I was in a car accident on the way to work.  Another driver pulled into me from the side as I was going by, and the whole passenger side of my bitty car is scraped up.  Looks like someone keyed it with a Really Big Key.  Her insurance company and my insurance company are duking it out, and the whole process makes me queasy and uneasy.  I guess I've been really fortunate...aside from a few minor parking lot bumps and the one time I slid partly off the road in the snow and popped a tire, I've never had an accident.  And as accidents go, I guess it's pretty minor.  Still...oof.

And then Friday, I woke to news that there had been a major hail and wind storm back home in Northeastern Vermont, like nothing anyone had ever seen before: roads washed out, vehicles and homes flooded, trees knocked down.  One of the biggest roads near town (Rt. 5, which runs North/South) is closed down due to a major cave-in.

I've driven down this road I don't know how many times...it's hard to fathom this kind of damage.  And many of the smaller roads are at least as bad.

Closer to my own heart, the pond where we used to play growing up is gone--the storm took out the embankment that held it in place, and there's really nothing left but a big muddy hole with a little stream running through it.

The big gap left after the storm rolled through...



Obviously, it wasn't that big or that deep to begin with, but it's still sort of impressive that it disappeared literally overnight.


I actually shed tears, though I realize how silly this is considering that a) this wasn't even our property and b) others suffered far greater things.  Fortunately no one I know was hurt or anything like that.  Still...the pond!  I don't know how many hours I spent down there as a kid, skipping stones, catching bugs and frogs and salamanders, sailing toy boats, coming home muddy and smelly and wet...  Good times.

Apparently one of the neighbors on the road is hoping to start a fund to repair it, since the young man who now owns the land is likely unable to be able to pull it off alone.  Here's hoping it lives again.  Poor little pond!

But this weekend was good, if busy.  Things I did this weekend:

1. Played with inks, including the very pretty new Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses.

(Those of you on my letter writing list should have a chance to see this ink in person soon.  Yes, I'm actually getting caught up on letter writing.  Try not to faint.)

2. Planted a bunch o' flowers and herbs: petunias, alyssum, marigolds, basil, rosemary, dill, and a few random others.

Hopefully at least some of them survive.  I have a tendency to go, "Oooooh, pretty!!" whenever I walk into a greenhouse / garden center, end up purchasing more than I set out for, and then forget to water come July when Washington suddenly becomes high desert.  But for now, everything is doing well except the basil.  I'm batting 0 for about 5 where basil is concerned.  It's starting to feel personal.

3. Went on a nice long walk with thedog, down paths now green and leafy.  These pictures are actually about a week old, but I didn't think to take any this weekend...so you get old footage.


Gratuitous shot of the trees Jeff liked a few posts back.  I'm not quite sure what these are, actually!  They aren't the standard white "paper" birch we have back home, though in certain light, they do look like them.  But they're more silvery, and the bark is pretty solid.


4. Bought a bitty little gas grill, and after a day where I debated using it or taking it back (I sort of had post-purchase sticker shock, I guess)...I broke down, put it together, fired it up and was very pleased with the results.  Best grilled chicken I've ever made, by far!  And it's just big enough to make dinner with leftovers for the week without having to do batches.


I also grilled mangos (they're on sale this week, and ohh, I love mangos!) and avocado.  The avocado in particular was a revelation.  Cut it in half, took out the pit, brushed with olive oil and slapped it down on the grill for maybe six minutes.  It was soft and creamy and subtly smoky.  I put a little salsa and sour cream in the middle and...nom.  So good.  I'll be making those again.

And I didn't torch any major structures!  Yay me!

Now I have a very, very short work week, and then a brother I haven't seen in awhile and my baby sister will be visiting.  They'll mostly stay with another brother and his family up near Tacoma, but I may kidnap 'em for a day or so to show them the sights.  Next weekend there's a music festival in Winlock, WA, and I'm hoping to drag my brother to that.  It's maybe my favorite local music festival, for a number of reasons: first off, there's a wide variety of acoustic music from bluegrass to Celtic to...whatever.  Also, after the concerts, everyone hangs out to just play music for hours.  Also--and this is important--there's a pavilion with an open fireplace where you can roast marshmallows.  I mean, c'mon--marshmallows!

Speaking of which, I was at Fred Meyer this weekend and they had GINORMOUS marshmallows.  Like...almost-the-size-of-a-small-apple marshmallows.  What is this world coming to?  Aren't regular marshmallows more than enough sugar for the average person?  And yet...giant marshmallows are just awesome, especially if (like me), you're one of those people who toasts marshmallows by burning the outside, peeling it off and eating it, and repeating.  You could go a long time on a marshmallow like that.  Woo-hoo!  If, on the other hand, you're one of those weirdos like my Dad who like to carefully, carefully toast marshmallows to a perfectly even golden brown outside and complete inner gooeyness, I'd guess these'd get very messy.

I didn't buy any, but I keep thinking about that open fireplace deal coming up next weekend.  Hrm.

A Long Walk Makes Everything Better. Mostly.

After a very unrestful Sunday, I arrived at work Monday to discover that my monitor had gone kablooey (technical term), and the day pretty much went downhill from there.  And then this morning, I had to be at work at six.  Yes, I got some breaks during the day, and I got to leave early, kinda, but still...  And so I was crabby today.  And I took some of that crabbiness out on one of our own.  For that, I apologize.

However, we had a little sunshine today, and I got home early enough to take full advantage of it.  I grabbed Cisco's leash, waited a moment for him to come back to earth so I could put it on him, and set out.


It's approaching what I consider the most beautiful time of year here in Washington.  We're still a few days or weeks short--spring seems to have arrived late this year.  The deciduous trees are leafing out, but the leaves are still small.  The trees have an oddly unfinished look, like an incomplete painting: the shape and some under strokes are there, but the vital details have yet to arrive.

Spring is apparent in all sorts of different wildflowers, and other interesting plants.




But there are still signs of the winter we have just departed.  Ferns are still brown around the edges, lacking the green of new growth.


And though later in the year, the sides of the path will be overgrown, right now there are still things left exposed.  Bits of bare branches show, winter-bleached to the color of old bone.


And here and there, in the form of segments of rusted iron rails and wooden railroad ties, I come across signs of the trail's original purpose.


In a few weeks, the grass and weeds and brambles will have taken over again, but for the moment, the trail thinks back, and remembers.

And me?  Feeling more relaxed and less crabby...though less so than I'd be if the trash guys would actually take *all* my trash like I pay 'em to do, instead of only *half* emptying the can.  *sigh*  It's always sumpin.

Another Saturday Ramble

It had been a few months since I last checked out the downtown antique store and generally rambled around town, and today was a lovely sunny day, and so...why not?  This time around, I was on the prowl for old pen points/nibs or pen holders as well as typewriters.  Did I find any?  Well...yes and no.

First up was the antique "mall" in downtown Olympia: Finders Keepers.  As I keep saying, I really like Finders Keepers.  I don't always buy anything, but I always enjoy looking around.  There are lots of little divided cubicles with a whole variety of different goods.  As soon as I walked in, I spotted this:

Ooh, shiny!

It looks to be in pretty nice shape, but at $125, well out of my range.

The only other typewriter-like object at Finders Keepers was this odd little adding machine.


There were also a few inkwell type things, not in great shape, and this bottle of Red Quink, which I was mildly tempted by, but passed on.

I realized *after* I got home that I'd photographed the Spanish side. Ah well.

I didn't find any dip nibs though. Or any other writing related items, with the exception of this little portable desk, which I'm still thinking about going back for at some point.

Twenty-five dollars. It's fairly roughly made and nothing fancy, but I couldn't help daydreaming about finding an inkwell that would fit that hole, and keeping all my notebooks and supplies inside. We'll see.

After Finders Keepers, I finally made it to the antique store where notagain found his Royal. It's called The Rusty Roostery, and they're open rather odd hours...not until one on Saturdays. There were no Royals in evidence today, but they did have an Olympia SG-1 for $30...

It's verrrrry filthy and fairly rough, and I didn't do much testing of it...but might be worth a look to someone.

I did break down and buy some Quink at Rusty Roostery. They had turquoise Quink. I cannot resist turquoise.

It isn't a full bottle and the label and box are pretty stained with old ink, but it was cheap and I figure I can use it with the dip pens, just for play. I think I'd be scared to put it in my fountain pens. It's a neat old bottle, though!  They also had a single dip pen--a Speedball C nib of some sort (very battered) in a Bradley of Vermont holder (more battered still).  Neither looked usable, so I left them where they were.

I also found something only my family would be likely to get excited about: a copy of the same desk encyclopedia set we used for word games and such for years growing up, tossing the books back and forth during rounds until at this point they've become battered almost out of existence.

I had to buy 'em.

And then I came home to find a sampler of dip nibs from Speculator waiting in my mail box, and have been happily making inky messes for the past hour or so. What a day!

In Which I Utterly Fail To Find Typewriters, But Still Have Fun

Nice day yesterday.  It was cold and windy, but beautiful clear weather.  I can deal.  So I set off on a bit of a ramble around Olympia, partly in search of typewriters.

The antique store wasn't open yet, so I stopped into our biggest local bookstore next door for awhile instead: Orca Books.  I picked up a new copy of CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters, as my last copy appears to have gone walkabout.  I probably gave it away to a friend or sibling and then promptly forgot, as I tend to do with favorite book titles.  I also picked up our most recent book club book (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon), looked at the blank books (oh, the pretty red Moleskines!) but refrained from buying any, and then came across these items, which I couldn't resist, even if the typewriter keys are erroneously lowercase and even if they missed an opportunity to display an Olympia.

By that point, the antique mall next door was open.  It's called Finders Keepers, and it's one of my favorite places in town.

In my experience, there tend to be two different types of antique stores: one type sells primarily very high-end furniture and glassware and paintings--you walk in and the place is nearly bare, and beautifully arranged.  Fun to look, but since I know I'm not likely to make a purchase in a place like that in my lifetime, I feel nervous being in those stores.

The other type of antique store is wonderfully cluttered and jumbled, and they sell all sorts of interesting old everyday things and things in fully-lived condition rather than just the valuable stuff.  There are old tins and kitchenware, vintage clothing, all sorts of bits and pieces and souvenirs, toys, books...you name it.  Finders Keepers is most definitely this last type of antique store.  They sell items on commission for all sorts of different vendors, sectioned off in booths/cubicles throughout the store, and you just never know what you'll come across.

I usually see at least a few typewriters, though I've yet to purchase one here.  Often they've been out of my price range, sometimes I've come across them during a buying moratorium.  I only saw two on Saturday, neither of them quite worthy of taking home.

There was this electric Smith Corona--such a beautiful color!  Too bad it isn't a manual...

And this Underwood, tucked away on a bottom shelf.  It was $40, which I suppose isn't bad for an antique store find, but not exactly in superb condition.  I don't think it was functional.  They do look cool, though, don't they?

I also came across this old pencil sharpener!  In retrospect, I should have moved that tag so the crank was visible.  I'm not sure it actually works.  If I had a place to display such a thing, I would have been very tempted to take it home...but I don't,  so I didn't.

The best thing about this store, though, is the Book Nook.

Lots and lots of mostly old books: classics, poetry, old boys' adventure books, old mysteries, old cookbooks.  Even the oldest and most ornate are generally very reasonably priced.  I bought a copy of Brideshead Revisited, as my last copy, like Screwtape Letters, seems to have gone walkabout.

I did a little wandering around downtown Olympia looking for any other likely spots for typewriters, but the only other antique stores were 1) an antique store of the first sort and 2) a very tiny place that didn't open until one in the afternoon.  What's up with that?

No typewriter content in the next stage: I went to The Tea Lady, which I highly recommend to any visitors to Olympia.  If you like tea, or think you might like some tea, or if you're at all curious about tea varieties...it is THE tea store to visit.

It's hard to even convey just how much tea they have here.  This is just one corner.

All of those bags and boxes are tea!  They also have a tea bar at the back where you can buy freshly brewed hot or iced tea, or try samples of a few varieties.  And they sell tea pots and mugs and electric kettles and various other kitchen gadgets.  I browsed awhile and then bought the Harney and Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice I'd gone in for (it's like atomic fireball candy in tea form, though they'd probably be appalled by my saying so...) and some coconut chocolate black tea (it's good!).

Aaand that's about it.  I went to two Goodwill stores, but didn't see so much as an electric typewriter, and then stopped by a Value Village since it's near the library where I was dropping off books, but they only had a 90s (?) Smith Corona electric, very banged up and dirty.  Still, a good day overall!

Seattle Area Lovers of Type: Come One, Come All!

I'm guessing everyone has heard by now, but Justin of http://snohomishwriter.wordpress.com has organized a type-in on February 12th at Uppercase Books in Snohomish, WA.  There is a beautiful flyer and everything:



I'm very much hoping to attend, especially since I apparently completely overlooked an earlier type-in in the area.  Snohomish is quite a haul for me...so we'll see.  With the new Android with GPS capability, I'm feeling a lot less scared than I could be, but it's still a lonnnng way over unfamiliar ground.  But hey, it'd build character, right? 

I don't have a sweetheart to write to, but I figure a sister will do. ;)  Or I could always do a live sorta typecast thing.

In any case, it promises to be an exciting event, and I hope lots of folks come out!

Spirit of the Northwest

Coming from rural Vermont where coffee houses and espresso stands are all but unheard of, and where any coffee drink more involved than coffee with cream and sugar tends to be regarded with distrust and disgust, I'm often amused by Western Washington's juxtapositions. Gotta love it.