Bethanie's Brain

So I'm reading this book: Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World . It's fascinating, and somewhere in there is a discussion about the Mongol religion -- part of which involves a diety of sorts called the Eternal Blue Sky . Cool, thinks I. I mention to one of our postdocs, who happens to be from Mongolia, that I'm reading this book. We proceed to have this long discussion about the Mongol invasion and how everywhere she's worked over the years - Afganistan, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt - people still remember how their homeland was conquered by Genghis Kahn (or, as she says, Chingis Kahn). And then she goes back to her cube, and I finish submitting the paper she came to ask me about in the first place. Then I email her to let her know and she emails back and says something to the effect of 'now we just have to pray to the Blue Sky Father (or the God) that it gets accepted'. Now that may be a literal translation of the Christian 'God' or it may be ...

Fruit First, the fruit: check it out - I HAVE PLUMS!!!! There are a bunch more getting close on the tree and evidence on the ground under the tree that a bunch more got ripe recently (the squirrels beat us to 'em ... damn squirrels). Hopefully, the ones I picked will ripen a bit more by themselves, otherwise we might be having a pucker-fest instead of a snack... Fauna Second, the fauna: The South has no shortage of Bugs of Gigantic Proportion. Found this lovely early one morning - thankfully dead - on my doorstep. My ancient camera is not capable of the sort of close-up that would really give you nightmares, but you could see every last one of the thing's eyes. He/She had one HECK of an abdomen (or thorax or whatever that bulbous, brownish bit is...). I think it died because it came too close to the house -- an unintended consequence of having to spay the foundation for ants. This is why I don't like using pesticides. You never know what you're going to kill, and I...

I know. It's been an age in blog-time since I've put up a real post and I have a list - a long list - of obligations I have not fulfilled. But I have my reasons for blowing everybody off. I do! First, I had a birthday party to orchestrate. It was a smashing success, even if I did question my sanity (repeatedly) for have nine - NINE - 6-year-olds in my house at one time and then stuffing them full of sugar. I mean, there was a spontaneous robot parade, fercrissake. But. Nothing got broken, there weren't too many tears shed, and there were no (permanent) injuries. And it was fun (in its own special way)! Second, Ms. Baby insisted on bringing home more microscopic (and illness-causing) friends. So there was vomiting. And diarrhea. Oh, and then there was a case of sun poisoning (The Husband brought the sunscreen with him on the boat, but didn't use it - brilliant). Think subcutaneous blisters. It was fucking gross. 'Nuff said. Third, ... well, shit. I've f...

OK, check it out, y'all - Joely's got a huge GIVEAWAY going! There are free books to be had and a $10 gift certificate to Drollerie Press , and all you have to do is post a comment on her blog between now and June 15, which is this coming Sunday, so don't delay - go check it out now!! .

So Ms. Almost-Six has completed kindergarten and now I have all this Stuff piled up - cool little art projects, worksheets, report card, diploma! I'd like to do something with it besides let it take up space on my already-cluttered desk and collect dust. Scrapbooks are an obvious solution. You'd think. But the very idea of scrapbooking makes me shudder. Don't get me wrong - I think scrapbooks are neat. I think all the little doo-dads and stickers you can buy to decorate scrapbook pages are really nifty. I love the thought of organizing all the Stuff into something that resembles a Story. But I know just what would happen if I bought all the nifty doo-dads. They would take up space right next to all the Stuff on my already-cluttered desk and collect dust. My wedding album is a perfect example: I've been married almost nine years and all the wedding album Stuff is still sitting in a plastic bag on an already-cluttered shelf and collecting dust. So I won't go there....

This is TOO COOL!!! Australian author Simon Haynes has made copies of the first book in his Hal Spacejock series available for download FREE!!! Yes, FREE!!!! Get it here. I've been waiting to read this book for ages, but it's really expensive if you're not in Australia, so it's been pouting away on my Amazon wish list. No longer!! Off to read! .

One of the things about Life South of the MD-L that drives the poor brain stark, raving mad is the fact that recycling is RARE. To put it nicely. They do it in Itty-Bitty City proper, but here in HSH, you are shit-outta-luck. So, because we do what we can to not leave a totally gigantic footprint on the Earth, we used to drive a few miles down the road and across the county line and take our recycling to one of IBC's drop-off locations. Until they closed it. Well, they didn't close it. Not exactly. No, instead, they brought the dumpsters inside the six-foot-high, razor-wire-topped fence, so you could only drop off your recycling during 'normal business hours' - 8:30-4:30, Monday thru Friday - which is just so incredibly convenient if you have a job and kids and such like. We didn't give up though. No, we've hung on to our recycling for the better part of 6 months thinking The Husband would load up the back of the mini-van and take it on his way to the job si...

After yesterday's unexpected news that my sister-in-law is going to have twins, I sent her a little list of good things about having twins that she could focus on to try and diffuse some of the shell shock. Then I decided it would make a great Thursday Thirteen - if I could come up 13 things... I figured I'd probably have to resort to google to get all 13, but I managed to come up with all of these myself. Yay, me! :D So here they are: 13 wonderful things about twins. And if you can think of others, by all means, please add to the list in the comments and I'll pass them on to my sister-in-law! Thirteen Wonderful Things about Twins 1. These days, you find out WELL ahead of time, not on their birthday! 2. Two kids, one pregnancy. (And if your pregnancies are anything like mine (miserable), you know that's a wonderful thing.) 3. Two kids, one labor ! Yahoo! 4. You get to open twice as many baby presents! Wheeee! 5. I couldn't find anything on their website,...

So my sister-in-law, Ms. Beautiful (no, really, she is), has a three-year-old and finally convinced her husband that if they were going to have another kid, they might as well do it now. So they've been trying. A few weeks ago, Ms. Beautiful was in town on a visit from the Land of Palm Trees and Long, Sandy (Non-Rocky) Beaches otherwise known as L.A., where she lives. She talked lots about babies and then made the Big Announcement: they're pregnant! And then she flew back to the Land of Palms and Beaches and emailed a couple of photos from her trip and everything was peachy. Today, my mother-in-law called me and said, "Are you sitting down? If not, find a spot and sit." "What? Why?" I croaked (I lost my voice over the weekend). The first thing that popped into my mind was that something awful had happened. "Ms. Beautiful had her ultrasound today," she said. I could hear some weird undertone in her voice that I couldn't quite identify. Amus...

Or: Bethanie Gets an F- in Woody Plant Identification There are a lot of flowing shrubberies and trees south of the M-DL - I mean, a LOT . Many, many more than in Yankee-land, where I grew up. Consequently, I cannot identify many, many of the flowering lovelies. And that is my excuse for what follows. You see, we have this lovely cherry tree in our side yard that bloomed beautifully last year: Aren't those blossoms gorgeous?!?? Simply stunning! Then we got a late frost, and the budding cherries ended up looking like itty-bitty burnt up marshmallows. They're the little black things in the photo on the left, which are hard to see, so on the right, is a photo of my pears, which suffered the same fate. It was very sad. Heart-breaking, in fact. But this is not that story. No, this is the story of this year, the year we did not get a late frost that killed everything. The year that everything bloomed beautifully. The year that Ms. Almost-Six came up to me and said, "Ma...

Or: What the HELL was he THINKING ?!!?? Ms. Almost-Six graduates from kindergarten on Monday and her teacher sent home 4 graduation gowns for me to iron. My plan was to do the requested ironing yesterday afternoon, then drop off the gowns when I went to pick Ms. Almost-Six after school. So I laid Ms. Baby down for her nap and went in search of my iron. And I searched and I searched and I searched - even in the most unlikely of places, like the garage. I found no iron. Certain I was losing my mind, I called The Husband. The following conversation ensued: Me: Do you know where the iron is? The Husband (cheerfully - he's always happy to help): Yeah, it's in my van. Me (flabbergasted almost to the point of speechlessness): In your van... you mean, with you? On the job site? TH: Yeah, I took it this morning. Why? Do you need it? For the moment, the fact that, yes, I DID need it took a back seat to utter astonishment that he would need it. I mean, to my knowledge, he has never in t...

From the manuscript on the top of the pile today: A comparison with local female outpatients who visited community health centers for bearing advisory was performed as well. I'm pretty sure this should be 'pre-natal consultation' or something of that nature. But the mental picture... Be on the lookout for low-flying pregnant women. Just in case. Ya heard it here first... .

The subject of this TT comes to you courtesy of my 20th high school reunion, which I found out about yesterday, because an old friend found me on Facebook and sent me the info. It was kinda neat cruising the reunion website and seeing where people ended up, which naturally induced a bout of homesickness. Consequently, I give you... Thirteen Things I Miss About My Hometown That Have Ended Up In My Fiction 1. Moe’s Italian Sandwiches. It’s the bread, I think. And the absense of lettuce. And the particular meat they use. Or all of the above. I dunno, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a Moe’s. Fiction: One gets shared in Dragons - in Prescott Park, as a matter of fact (see #7 below). 2. The Brioche. A café, which isn’t actually called that anymore, but I can’t remember the current name… Anyway, it’s the café on the square where I spent half of high school, every morning of my college career before I caught the bus, and as much time as I can manage on visits home. Fiction: Bits...

Added a new link to Brain Food and I have to say it's there in large part because of the picture at the top of the page. Follow the link and check it out: Fond of Snape It's one of those 'pictures worth a thousand words', you know? And honestly, I don't know that given a thousand words, I could even do it justice. But it's one of those things, like certain songs, that trigger something in the brain and before I know it, events, worlds, whole people start whispering to me and wanting their story told. I've also added the link because Fond of Snape is a kick-ass photographer and lives near Boston, the coolest city in America (if you ask me, which you didn't, but whatever), so her posts are sprinkled with the kind of snark and sarcasm that you just can't find anywhere else, plus she mentions places I've been to or lived in all the time. *sniffs* I'm so homesick now. .

You'll recall my painful encounter with Pilates . Oy. So, unwilling to hobble for days on end (again), I switched to "Stretch It", which is billed as "gentle yoga stetching" on the FPU health club website. And that first week it was - gentle, that is. Well. Today, we were upside down with our feet on the wall. It was sort of an L-shaped handstand. Somehow, my definition of "gentle" is not really in the vicinity of "handstand". Oy. .

Or: Monday Mornin' Braindump Too many things clogging the brain. Must clean house... 1. Survivor Finale. Parvati?!?!!! What? We were so sure Amanda would win. Ms. Five is crushed . We are trying to console her with the fact that, although Amanda didn't win the million bucks, she did win Ozzy, and that's worth much, much more. (So far, though, Ms. Five is not buyin' it...) Also, James. *sigh* I love James. What is it about James? He's so sweet, so polite, so humble - I mean, did you see the look on his face when they announced that he won the $100,000? Think he'd do a 3rd season?? 2. Mother's Day. My Mother's Day was pretty good and started Saturday evening, because Ms. Five just couldn't wait to give me the cool stuff she made at school, which she 'hid' in my sock drawer. Yes, my sock drawer. I think some signals got crossed somewhere, and she was supposed to hid the stuff in her sock drawer, but whatever - I did as she asked an...

Introduction to Bethanie's Reviews OK, finally. I’m getting around to posting this, the long-promised ‘reviews’ of Joely Sue Burkhart’s Survive My Fire and The Fire Within , which I decided to do together because they both take place in the same culture, so some of the things I want to yak about overlap (and I’m kind of lazy…). But first, A Warning – I am probably not going to do this right. I’ve never ‘reviewed’ anything before and I really hesitate to use the word ‘review’ at all, since it carries heavy connotations that I think my opinion is somehow more important than anyone else’s, which I simply don’t. My reviews will be more my thoughts on and reactions to stories I either read or watch (i.e., movies) and my attempt to process - mainly for my own benefit - the techniques and bits of craft that I most admired (or that didn’t seem to work for me). For that reason, it isn’t enough for me to say ‘I liked it’; I need to think about why . And so, my reviews are more a part of ...

OK, I feel kinda weird about this, but I'm gonna post my TT early... on Wednesday, in fact. But only 'cuz a bunch of other people did too and I have time to go a-commenting NOW and probably won't tomorrow... Heh. Anyways. Thirteen Random Confessions 1. When my kids aren't in the car with me, I drive way too fast . 2. But it's OK, 'cuz I'm really driving a Rally car in the WRC . (Any guesses as to what team I drive for?) 3. I sometimes forget that I only have 6 gears... 5 . 5 gears . I sometimes forget that I only have 5 gears . (I'm not being cute, I actually typed it just like that...sheesh.) 4. I inhaled. 5. But I didn't like it. 6. I hate shopping unless it's for books, fabric, yarn or shoes. 7. I hate wearing shoes. 8. Especially while driving. 9. I can back into a pull-in parking spot, but I can't parallel park. 10. I eat chocolate. Every. Single. Day. 11. I am a Certifiable Bitch if I don't. 12. I sing, but only when I'm ...

So a year and a half ago, I brought Ms. Then-4-1/2-Now-Almost-Six to take the 'entrance exam' for the magnet school, which happens to be down the street from us. She passed, her name went into the fishbowl, and then her name got drawn out of the fishbowl. Seventh. On the waiting list. And so we sort of wrote off the whole magnet school thing, because I didn't go back and get her tested again, so she could end up on the waiting list again this year. Only that's not the way it works. She was still on the waiting list. And some very nice lady from the magnet school called me Thursday afternoon last week to tell me they have a spot open for first grade next year and do we want it? Should be a simple one, right? We wanted her to go there, so we should just say, yeah, sure sign us up! Only I'm pretty happy with her current school. She's pretty happy with her current school. And now I'm not seeing the point of the uniforms and the accelerated this and that and ...

I'm editing Boss Lady's proposal backwards, paragraph by paragraph, in order to pay attention this time, 'cuz it's, like, the 18th time I've read it and I just can't seem to pay attention like I should anymore... Anyways. One of the funny things you notice when you do this is how NONE of the abbreviations are defined before you see them and so you end up with unintelligible gobble-de-gook like this: Phase II will have 92% power to detect an HR=1.5 for DFS for a SNP with a MAF as low as 10% in the BCSS. And yes, actually, you DO need a degree to know what the hell that means... or you need to have read the rest of the bloody thing 18 times in 4 days... whichever works for you... And I'll stop procrastinating now and get back to work already. .