Lazy Saturday poem

And, for good measure, a more flattering picture of each of them, rather than the blurred and cranky morning picture. ;-) It's tough to get flattering pictures of Halvah, though. She's a goofball.

Tamino (Tam):


Halvah (being a goofball, but a fairly attractive one):

Galaxie of Goodwill

Mud season!

It is generally agreed that there are four seasons (at least in Northern climes), but their borders are anything but distinct. This year, this has been especially true here in Washington. The weather keeps rounding on us. The other day I spoke to my sister back in Vermont, and we marveled that it was snowing here while back there--where spring comes slowly and reluctantly, with snowfall as late as the end of April--it was in the 60s, sunny and mild. "A lot of the snow has melted already," she said. "It's mud season."

Ah, mud season. Mention it to most people outside of New England and they're likely to stare at you bemusedly, not sure if you're joshing them with this fictional fifth season, or if you're just plain nuts. But it's real, trust me!

See, in Vermont and New Hampshire and thereabouts, we don't have the same sort of snow events that occur elsewhere, with snow arriving in one big lump and melting in a few days or weeks. Our snow arrives in steady layers over months--a few tentative snowfalls at first, testing the ground and departing, and then snow after snow, until by February you have snow strata and can sometimes even dig down to find that icy storm that happened back in mid-December, the powdery snow that fell the first week of January, the sticky snow we got last week. And come spring, it melts not in one fell flooding swoop like snow so often does elsewhere, but gently, a little at a time as the ground thaws and the days slowly warm and grow longer.

Water trickles from everywhere. And, slowly but surely, the whole world turns to mud.

There is a lot of opportunity for mud in Vermont. Many of our roads are dirt roads, for one thing. I grew up on a dirt road off of another dirt road--for that matter, if you come from the opposite direction, we lived on a dirt road off a dirt road off a dirt road. Even many of the paved roads have long portions that are gravel. My mother used to talk about how shocked she was when they first moved to Vermont from Portland, Oregon that you could be driving down a nice smooth paved road minding your own business...only to have the pavement end suddenly without so much as a road sign to warn you of its impending disappearance.

Most of the year, these gravel roads are pretty good. They're wide and fairly smooth and so long as you slow down a bit (though admittedly, we locals tend not to...), you'll be fine. This time of year, however, they're another story. You pretty much have two mud season dirt road specialties: teeth-chattering rock-bottomed potholes and ruts that will eat rims for lunch; and greasy, goopy mud that will grab hold of your tires in an instant and refuse to let go, plus try to throw you off the road (especially first thing in the morning when they're frozen). You have to just power through the stuff, trying to keep going in a straight line. If you slow down, it *will* suck you in and stop you. At that point, you'll need to fetch your neighbor with the truck--you know, the guy who has a chain and a winch *somewhere*, and will eventually remember how we got this to work last year. Or you can enlist the help of a couple of teenage boys to try to push you out. That's always fun, especially since at least one of them will lose their footing at some point and end up looking like a swamp creature. Either way, of course, everyone who lives along the road or who happens to drive by will stop to stand around and shout out tips on what you're doing wrong. It brings folks together after a winter of being cooped up, mud season does.

For a kid, it was the ultimate playground. We spent weeks gallomping around in high rubber boots from the feed store--I still remember the smell of those things when they were new, and the feel of wet socks falling down inside them, and the way they'd bruise your shins if you hiked very far in them. We built canals in the drive-way: we lived about half-way up a hill, and water trickled along past us to that nice boggy spot where cars got stuck every year. We'd drag a stick or boot heel to bring the muddy water together, extending it a few inches at a time and leading smaller tributaries into our biggest until it flowed with an actual current that could handle small leaf and twig boats. As we got older, we ventured farther afield, tromping out through the still-deep snow--and those boots had no insulation!--to play in flooded creeks and little brooks that only existed this time of year. We'd wade in the freezing water, daring one another to go in deep enough to fill our boots with the icy water or take them off and dip our feet in the water for as many seconds as we could stand.

At the end of the day we'd tumble home, filthy, chilled to the bone, soaked to the skin, drunk on spring. I suppose it's a wonder we all survived childhood intact, but man, it was a great place and time to be a kid.

Almost makes me want to go in search of rubber boots and the biggest mud puddle around....

Typecast: Dishwasher's Meditation

This and that

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do own two guitars now: one is a much less expensive but still mighty fine Recording King RO-127--I can't say enough about these guitars for those looking for something a bit better than dirt cheap, but still in the semi easy-to-replace ballpark. This one goes with me anywhere I'd be nervous about taking the Collings. Best bang for the buck out there, in my opinion.)

(Oh, and in the section below, there were two places where I meant to type SG-1 and typed SG-3 instead. You'll see what I mean.)

Jay Respler's contact info:
ADVANCED BUSINESS MACHINES CO.
230 RANDOLPH ROAD
FREEHOLD NJ 07728-1535
732-431-1464
JRespler@superlink.net
http://uweb.superlink.net/jrespler/

Everybody's doing it: 25 things

These things go around Facebook and the blogosphere every so often, and usually I just ignore them. But now I see even some of my fellow typecasters are jumping on the bandwagon. So...why not? Here ya go: 25 completely random facts about me. Try to stay awake.

1. I'm the oldest of eight: five boys, three girls. I waited ten years (and four brothers) for my first sister. Two of my brothers are married, and I now have four nieces and a nephew.

2. I grew up in Vermont (and still consider it home), but I was born in Portland, Oregon. One of the few things I remember about Portland is the ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption. We moved to Vermont when I was three.

3. I spent four and a half years in the Air Force, mostly overseas in Germany (and a temporary duty assignment in Italy).

4. I didn't get my driver's license until I got out of the military. I was 23. Until then, I begged and borrowed rides, or rode my bike.

5. Ironically, the year I put the most miles on my bike was after I didn't hafta. Two years ago I rode the 25 mile round trip to work most days during the summer--there's a bike lane or path most of the way to work. This past year, I chickened out due to contruction along the route and increased traffic. Miss the ride, though.

6. I've written fiction and poetry and kept a journal off and on since...well...before I could even write. I don't know what if anything I'll ever do with any of that, but it's fun.

7. I play guitar, mando, and tenor-banjo-tuned-like-octave-mando. I'm still an advanced beginner on pretty much all of the above, but I have fun with it. I've played out a bit, though not since I've been in Washington.

8. I have too many pets: a devious and demanding Siamese cat named Tamino who plays fetch, a stupid but very sweet Himalayan/Siamese cross named Halvah Mom gave me one day out of the blue, a Lab/Border mix named Cisco who is basically what you'd get if Tigger was ever reincarnated as a dog, and two betta fish (Julian and Finnegan), one at work and one at home.

9. The vehicle I owned longest so far was a '97 Mercury Villager minivan. I had it for about five years, from late 2002 until early last year. It was about as uncool as a vehicle can get for a single gal. It was a blackhole for coolness. But it got us to lots of gigs and jams and fun trips, and it got me across country from Vermont to Colorado and Colorado to Washington, and I'll always have a soft spot for the thing.

10. I am a natural blonde. Very natural. So natural sometimes I scare myself.

11. I have a fascination for old writing technology, like fountain pens and manual typewriters. Ditto paper. And typefaces. And calligraphy.

12. I like to get up early and go to "my" coffee house (Mud Bay Coffee Roasters) to read and write while before work. I love that place, and the coffee. Given the opportunity, I'm afraid I'd end up the morning person/coffee equivalent of a barfly....

13. I really struggle with brevity when writing.

14. There are very few foods I don't like. Canned peas used to make me gag, and I think I'll pass on the smoked oysters. Other than that...can you pass me that plate?

15. I'm a Catholic.

16. I fairly frequently have nightmares where I wake myself up screaming. Then I try to figure out how I could fit that sequence into a story....

17. For my confirmation name I picked Mary Bernard, for St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

18. I use one eye for distance and the other for close-up.

19. I was homeschooled for six years: most of elementary school and part of high school.

20. I'm apt to strike out if people startle me. I don't do haunted houses anymore....

21. I usually read at least a book a week. Sometimes it's closer to a book a day. I try to keep some balance between the real literature and the brain candy.

22. I had my appendix removed when I was 13.

23. I had pulled pork barbecue for dinner. Or supper, if you prefer.

24. I once managed to kill a cactus plant by not watering it enough. This takes talent. Or something.

25. I saw "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

Sappy homesickness

This is one of those times of year I end up homesick for northern Vermont/New Hampshire. Yes, I miss them during the most frigid months of the year. And lately I've found myself babbling about night skies to anyone who will listen. Maybe this will help me move on. ;-)

You might be a paper addict if....

Happy New Year!

These thoughts brought to you courtesy of Bernard the SG-3...

Review: Renaissance Art custom composition book cover

Beautiful rustic brown leather...

I LOVE composition books. They're old friends. My oldest ones are now getting yellowed and crackly, but they date back to the mid-80s, so I guess they've done OK. I used them for journals, mostly, and for my early attempts at poetry and fiction. The oldest are thin, squashed down, with well-thumbed edges and bits of the white portion of the marble pattern and some of the letters filled in with blue ballpoint. Didn't everyone do that as a kid?

Even now that I've grown up and can afford more exotic and expensive notebooks, I still fall back on my old standard time and time again. They're cheap, readily available, comfortable and familiar. I still like to doodle in the top margin, scribble notes in the side margins. I still have times when I'll write a word three or four different ways inside the cover as I try to remember how to spell it, or do math problems (like figuring word count) in the margins or inside the covers. I love the size: not too small or too big. The wide ruling lets me stretch out a bit as I write. I like the way the pages crackle and pop at the stitching as you turn them.

And if you can find the Made in Brazil ones (Wal-mart usually has at least some, typically for less than a buck each), they're pretty fountain-pen friendly, too. You can write on both sides of the page with all but a really wet nib (or Noodler's Baystate Blue). There's occasionally some show-through, but very little bleeding or feathering. Much better than the Moleskine I'm currently using for a journal, for that matter.

Point is, I like 'em. But...let's face it, they're not exactly very stylin'.

Enter Renaissance Art.


Close-up of the tie

Renaissance Art is a small company that makes leather book covers, homemade journals, leather folios, etc. Their work has a rustic, old-world look to it. They have a strong following among folks on several of the writing related forums where I hang out, so I'd seen their name tossed around quite often. When I started looking for a cover to protect and add a bit of style to my cheap comp books, they were one of the first places I checked.

They don't list this particular cover on their site, but they'll make you pretty much anything you could wish. Since I was confused as to how to proceed, I dropped them an e-mail and got a very timely response in which I was directed to customize the large custom book cover to get what I wanted. I was able to easily customize it right there on the site. I went with brown leather, marked out the dimensions and noted that this was for a comp book, since Arthur (the company founder and typically the one who will respond to your messages) had mentioned they have them in the studio, and I figured they might be able to get a more accurate measurement in person.

The toughest part for me was picking a closure style. Normally for the standard book cover they offer either no type of closure (just a simple cover), a wrap and tie, or a strap that tucks into a couple of little loops to hold the book closed, medieval style. Since I carry my notebook chucked into a bag with lots of other stuff, some sort of closure was a given, to keep it all protected. I originally asked about having a wrap with a snap instead of the tie. It seemed the tidiest, least fussy way of keeping the book closed. For years, I've scorned any of those frou-frou journals with the tie closures. It just struck me as pretentiously earthy and silly. But in considering the snap, I started to think about the reasons why I'd disliked snaps on things like purses in the past: they can wear out eventually, for starters, though I think the ones RA uses aren't liable to do that any time soon. But if they do fail, they're hard to replace. Also, you have only one small spot where you can close the book, and you have to be precise. It means you also can't overstuff the thing with a stack of paper that day. Not very flexible. And it only holds in one spot--it doesn't snugly wrap around the whole book to hold it all together.

And when I finally broke down and played with a few of the tie style journals at the bookstore, I had to admit that in general, it was pretty easy to close them quickly.

I still feel a little self-conscious about the tie when taking out the notebook in public. But I have to take back much of my original thoughts on the subject. I like the tie. The one that came with the cover is very sturdy and attractive, and I can imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to replace if I eventually wear it out. It wraps around twice and tucks under--easy. I played with some tying methods as well, but a simple tuck works just fine. The biggest downside is that my two cats are *fascinated* by that long cord. Neato! A Tarzan rope just my size!


Cover open

I also had a medium sized pen loop added to the basic cover: the perfect size for a Parker 21/51 or other like-sized pens. Most of the time when I head somewhere with my notebook, I drag my whole bag along with me, but this lets me take it all together in one compact package if I so choose. The pen fits snugly into the nice long loop, and combined with the wrap, I have no fears of it falling out and being forever lost: something I *have* experienced with lesser loops in the past.

The turn around time was pretty amazing: I ordered Sunday night, it shipped Tuesday, I got it Thursday. I'm impressed! This wasn't just something to pull off a shelf, either: they had to build it right then.


Opening on the right makes it easier to insert the comp book

The comp book fits in perfectly. There are flaps on each side to hold it in, with the flap on the right being open to make it easier to work the book in. I tried to show that in my picture, but photography isn't my strong suit.

And the leather? Just wonderful. Soft and thick and with a wonderful depth of color. It should only become more attractive with time, and it feels great already. It did have a rather strong smell at first--a little *too* strong, and somewhat unpleasant. A remnant of the tanning process, I'd guess. It has faded fairly quickly to just a nice leather smell. It's not a polished and business like sort of leather, so there is that to keep in mind, and you can see that the pieces are cut and not just punched en masse. I like that aspect, personally.

I'm very pleased with it, and wanted to share it with the world, particularly since I know there are other composition book fans out there who might be interested in one of these puppies. I couldn't find any pictures when I was searching. Maybe this will help the next lost soul!