Saturday, July 19, 2008
Posted at 8:10:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
- 97° @ home, cold here! It's nice.
- Hounded to Vail (snake trail); too hilly for a hot day, but handleable today.
- Foggy. We passed the South East lighthouse, and the top of it was all snuggled in fog. There was also fog in parts of the road and lots of fog in either direction disappearing the bluffs down the beach. The air feels so cool and damp and my hair's all soft.
- Picked up a big bony fishback + tail (no head) that was more than 2 feet long. It was orange. It was on the snake trial, but I carried it around with me (by the tail) until we settled in the rocks down on the leftward beach. It smelled kind of like tuna fish.
- Found a lobster claw that was blue on one side and orange on t'other! It's good for tapping someone on the shoulder if you don't like him and don't want to actually touch him directly.
- Collected seventeen starfish... they were all dried up, but I think most of them were still alive (?), so I climbed up on the bench mark rock (cool!) and threw 'em all back in the ocean.
- Found (!!!) a tiny uni shell with super short spines mostly gone! I've never seen a sea urchin in a non-tropical place before. It looked like the tiny uni shells at Ke-awa-iki.
- Ate a Harry's lobster roll again -- very very juicy!!
- Flying home, the moon was bright orange, and we saw finale fireworks at Groton! Overlapping, exploding, sparkling multicolored flowers.
[Edit: Cat Report: Total distance - 10.12 miles (but it seemed a lot longer because of the hills!); Average speed - 10.0 mph; Max speed - 30.5 mph (see, hills!); Total time - 1:00'32.]
Friday, July 18, 2008
I finished remaking the wrap skirt and I love it!! I cut almost five inches off the bottom and made it a lot shorter. It was super long originally, so now it's about mid knee-length. I did a really careful job cutting and folding and ironing and pinning and sewing the hem, and it looks nice and neat and non-rigged. When the skirt is all spread out, it's about nine feet of fabric, so it's totally fantastic that I found such a great skirt at the consignment store to remake. I am cheapo when it comes to buying lots of yards of fabric at a fabric store. (Plus, modding an existing garment is tons less work, natch!). The material is supersoft brown cotton with giant offwhite poppies on it. It's really comfortable. Slackyman's skirt tailoring is the greatest!
Posted at 9:16:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I made my first-ever buttonholes on my sewing machine! I used to make buttonholes all the time on my mom's machine when I was little, but she had a nifty buttonhole attachment, so it was really easy and fun. My cheap little machine doesn't have one, but I followed the instructions in the manual and it turned out pretty good! It seems kind of huge (I can't imagine making a tiny buttonhole for a shirt on here) but it's the right size for the object: a too-big wrap skirt from Uptown Consignment that I'm redoing. Now the waist fits perfectly! I'm think I'm going to shorten the length, too, though.
Posted at 3:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Posted at 2:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
What d'you think? New Description of Self for my home page?? (Actually, I used it as a return address on an envelope.)
South Glastonbury peaches + grogurt = amazing. Since the peaches are super sweet and the grogurt is unsweetened, the contast is pure happiness for the tongue.
So far, Heathern is my least favorite Womack book. (But that's okay, because I still want to read the whole series.) Way too much of the Drydens (I hate the Drydens) and way too little Ambientspeak. Even the narrator is pretty boring, and the whole book is like a similar but far inferior version of Elvissey. But it's easy to zoom through most of it, then screech to a halt and tripleread whenever Jake shows up. Jake is only fourteen (?!) in this book... if I've interpreted correctly (which I think I have), that makes him the same age as Lola, because, based on the reference to the Presidential assassinations that occured during Random, Heathern takes place about two years later. I read on usenet that Jake is supposed to make an appearance in every book in the series (!). If that's true, where does he appear in Random? The poster thinks he was the driver of the limo that picked up Iz and Jude during the riot, but that can't be right. He would've been too young, and not yet with DryCo.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Posted at 2:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Oh good!!!! I'm so relieved. Dear ol' hangar.
Local produce I got at farm stores in South Glastonbury yesterday:
blueberries (Rose's for Dean and Rusczyk for me)
raspberries (!!)
peaches (!? already!)
tomato (hothouse... not premium yet)
yellow squash
bag o' mixed lettuces
Hmm, the grass doesn't look like it's overfond of this hot weather, but the fruit sure does.
Started reading Heathern Monday night. Like most Womacks, it's hard to get into at first, but I'm plowing through the Dryco parts and then, all the sudden, JAKE!!!!! Jake (from Terraplane) is in it!! 40% mushy, unfocused, skimming, but whenever I get to a part with Jake it snaps clear and I read every sentence three times. I don't know what it is about Jake, exactly, but it was the same last time, and that's all I remember.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Posted at 8:39:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
According to Dean, the self-portrait head I made at Pots & Kettles on Sunday "looks EXACTLY like" me. I'll have to admit, the hair's pretty good. It was the hair that inspired it in the first place.
It was super high tide at Pots--higher than I've ever seen there before. I thought it would wreck my combing, but actually it was great for walking because the sand was all smooth and wet, and I walked farther than I've ever walked at Pots, all the way up to the tip where things start to get all crumbly. There weren't as many washed up things to see since all the pots and kettles were underwater, but it was really fun walking and then gathering ingredients to make my head afterward.
It started to rain as we were biking back to town, and I kept thinking of Bertie. But it was a very light rain, so we didn't get too wet even though it was raining for almost the entire ride. It felt cool and refreshing on my face, although afterward I felt like a damp sheep in my sweater.
We attempted to try a new lobster roll at Payne's on the dock, but Payne's was a pain and was closed, so we pedalled on (in the rain) and I got one at Del's instead. It was GOOD. Two really good lob rolls in a row! The only flaw was that the New England style roll wasn't buttered and toasted--it was just soft and cold. But the lobster salad was premium and there was lots of it! I just looked up my review from last year. No tomato or lemon this time! And the lobster salad was a lot better than it looks in last year's picture. We shared a Del's and it was great too.
We also shared a slice of cheesequake at the new Cheesecake Castle and it was also good. So was the Castle's chai! Okay, everything was good, good, good. I like the name of the Cheesecake Castle, but they should have more sandcastle themed decor, like the Clam Castle.
It was 100% dark while we pedalled back to the airport. Hounding in the dark is cool. It's really peaceful. Our lights are so great! I love hounding on Block Island, period. It always seems so perfect. Top of the world.
Cat report: Distance - 11.05 miles; Average speed - 9.7 mph; Max speed - 30.3 (the big hill leaving the airport--fun!!); Time - 1:08'04.
Tango got to park right across from his old pal 26Zulu from MMK while we were hounding around, so I bet they got lots of catching up done. It was such a clear and beautiful flight on the way to Block Island, all intensely green and blue, with flocks of fluffy white sheep clouds. Just like Friday, and the opposite of hazy Saturday. Then on the way home we flew above dark clouds that were illuminated by the moon and looked amazing, like in a movie.
