The malapert bookworm

...why not come see a great group of bellydancers (plus me and Kate), while helping raise funds for one to pay for her medical care?

http://isupportaepril.wordpress.com

A show and benefit for Aepril Schaile, the best gothic bellydancer I've ever seen. It's only $7 to attend, so if you're in the area, please swing by!

It's no something I expected, and somehow in all the journalism about middle-aged people being hit by the double whammy of personal health problems and the increasing health problems of their parents, I hadn't really registered the flip side.

Well, here it is: my stepson, who is fifty, was hospitalized in November for almost two weeks with a life-threatening pneumonia complicated by a blood clot in one lung. Meanwhile, his wife was very close to going to the emergency room herself with a bad bout of the flu.

They're recovering -- she's back at the gym, rebuilding her severely depleted strength; and he's home again, facing a necessary and probably drastic change in his working life (long car commutes to Silicon Valley are no longer an option, due to the danger of blood clots forming in his legs).

But it suddenly hit us: these "kids" of ours have now entered the part of middle age where serious health problems start surfacing.

You can be an old person who takes a lot of medications and sees many more doctors than when you were younger -- and you can still, with the suddenness of a thunderclap, find yourself the survivor of one of your children, because that younger person has already entered the narrow end of the funnel that delivers us all to death. You are no longer just the older, much more vulnerable element while your offspring are (with luck) healthy young people little acquainted with the serious illness, vulnerability, and debilitation that becomes, increasingly, the lot of their elders.

Just because in an earlier age we would both be long dead by this time (probably), that doesn't mean that fifty really is "the new thirty". It's not; middle age is middle age no matter what you call it, bringing with it a likely decrease in general health and physical soundness. Fifty-year-olds *look* better; they eat better (if they are middle class and can afford to), and they exercise more (if they are middle class, self-disciplined, and can afford the gym).

But they are no longer "growing" in the youthful sense of that term, but are, instead, "aging" in the same sense that applies to me, just turned seventy: losing muscle, stamina, some resistances to illness and allergies, some flexibility and balance, hearing and visual acuity, mental speed and ability, and the rest. My stepson has moved into the territory I am now traversing, the territory of age that, sooner or later, leads to just one place.

But one of our kids could vanish before we do, because we're all in the same perilous territory now, the younger ones just crossing the trailing edge, us older ones steadily closing on the leading edge.

I won't say this to them. It's not the kind of thing anyone wants to hear.

But it's in my thoughts, since November.

If it's also, in some form, in the thoughts of my stepson, perhaps he will use this near death experience -- because that's what it was -- as a springboard to more enjoyable use of the rest of is life.

Of course, an accident or violent incident could have removed him and/or his wife from the scene with horrific suddenness at any time; or one of our age's virulent diseases, attacking early. But that's the kind of intrusion everyone simply discounts, in order to be able to sleep at night. You don't want to be an Adrian Monk, semi-paralyzed by a terror of potentialities.

But it's a whole different feel when you've got a fifty-year-old "child" just out of the hospital, and beginning to grapple with a strict requirement to change his life, or increase his risk of dying before his old dad or stepmother does.

Another glass of wine? Yes, thanks; I believe I will.

80,053 words. 29,947 to go.

Sometimes, when I don't know how a scene goes or what it's doing, and I keep writing, I end up getting stuck because the words wander into a dead-end, or onto a path that the book doesn't want to follow. That happened to me last week, and it took me several days to regroup.

Sometimes, when I don't know how a scene goes or what it's doing, and I keep writing, after some blundering through the underbrush, I come out onto the path, and it's the right path, the place where the book wants to go. That happened to me tonight.

Trouble is, you can never tell which one it's going to be until afterwards.

Hello!

This is my first year as Coordinator for The Gathering, which takes place on the Friday of WisCon, from 1-4pm. At The Gathering, you can greet old friends and make some new ones as you peruse the many tables and activities available for your delight and amusement.

Of course, in order to have activities available, we need people to host said activities.

Please write to gathering34@wiscon.info with any offers you might have to host activities (with a description of said activities). Write there also with any questions you might have.

Thanks!

I am looking for a good (preferably free) computer program to use to convert photos and artwork into cross stitch designs. So far, I downloaded Ryijy Stitch Designer, which didn't do what I'd hoped it would, and I ran a few things through the online one at http://www.patternsforyou.com/en/pattern_maker.html, which only goes up to 100 stitches wide - NOT good for high-detail large pieces! I got some 28-count evenweave for Christmas, and I would like to use it for something really nice.

Any recommendations? I'm okay with paying if I have to, but I really only do this for fun so I can't really justify a large expense.

(I'm finishing up a small project right now and will be posting pics and details when it's done!)

Even when I'm on vacation, I have trouble *not* saving useful containers. There are only so many you can keep even at home, before you don't have any more room in your cabinets, so some have to go in the recycling....but we ended up with a beautiful octagonal one from take-out, which would make a great little seed starting terrarium....

Poll #1504084 Useful Containers!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

Do you have trouble getting rid of Useful Containers?

(If anyone out there wants to reach me, you can email me through LJ. Metageek went home today, but I'll not be getting back for a couple more days.)

A long time ago someone in this comm helped me convert an image into a cross stitch design. Was wondering if anyone could help me with this one?

I've been trying with the program I have but I can't figure out how to:
1. have it so that the black lines are back stitch.
2. reduce the colours so there aren't many shades, but it still LOOKS like the original image.

Help please? :)

p.s. this is for my own personal use. I play the game Neopets, and this is an old style version of one of the pets, which I own. :)

( Image Under Cut )

Koch, H. W. The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945. New York: Dorset Press, 1975.

---

In a nutshell, this book is about the way in which Hitler and the NSDAP exploited--and betrayed--the energy and idealism of German youth for their own benefit. Koch was himself a Hitler Youth--and a survivor of the Volkssturm--and his occasional, bitterly sarcastic, personal comments are some of the book's most enlightening moments on the thoughts and experience of the boys themselves. (I wish he had brought himself to talk a little more about his own experience, but that wasn't the book he was writing, and I respect that.) He shows very clearly how National Socialism, both vehemently anti-intellectual and lacking an ideology that was even coherent, much less capable of standing up to debate, substituted physical activity for thought. Although Koch never says so explicitly, it's clear that Führer-worship (which Kershaw showed to be endemic and pervasive in German culture under the Third Reich) made up the deficit. And although Koch argues that the Nazis' ideological programming of the Hitler Youth was less than successful, he does not omit the evidence that children absorbed the "correct" attitudes towards, for instance, Jews and Poles. And toward the necessity of fighting to the last "man."

I also wish that the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädchen) and the experience of girls were not as clearly an afterthought to Koch's book as he admits they were to the Nazi regime. More reasons to try to find the (very few) books written about women in the Third Reich.

And I shall end with a Nazi word problem, as cited by Koch:

"A mentally-handicapped person costs the public 4 Reichsmark per day, a cripple 5.50 Reichsmark and a convicted criminal 3 Reichsmark. Cautious estimates state that within the boundaries of the German Reich 300,000 persons are being cared for in public mental institutions. How many marriage loans at 1,000 Reichsmark per couple could annually be financed from the funds allocated to institutions?" (A. Dorner, ed., Mathematik im Dienst der nationalpolitischen Erziehung, Frankfurt 1936)
(Koch 174)

The Third Reich, in all its creepy anti-glory.

The Battle of Pelennor Fields in candy.
(link found via panjianlien)

Happy Christmas!

I wanted to share a picture of a gift I received from my friend neekabe for Christmas and also another progress shot of Whiskers.

( Just what I wanted! )

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too.

The company was witty, gracious, and, at the table at which I sat, spent about half the time it took to consume the amazing feast talking about books. My friends know how to keep Christmas if anybody ever did.

I mentioned that I had been listening to the best Internet radio station ever, and it had been playing the best holiday music ever, and a couple of people asked for me to mention the URL so here it is: http://wwoz.com WWOZ out of New Orleans. It's a jazz and blues station, community supported there is only a quick mention of sponsors. And the N.O. definition of blues and jazz includes all flavors of both genres, plus, amongst other things, funk, Cajun, regga, Brazilian, and on occasion, burlesque, with gospel on Sunday mornings--a true gumbo. This is the place to be in a couple of months for Mardi Gras.

I received many warm black sweaters/polar fleece, and many many books.

The big present was the BookSense that LJ user alexx_kay gave me. This is the cutting-edge accessible ebook reader for blind users. I actually got the BookSense XT, which is the more deluxe model and has 4GB of built-in storage space (to allow data, music, and other files to be saved without using an external memory card), built-in FM radio, and the option of using wireless Bluetooth headphones.

The BookSense can read these Formats: digital audiobooks, text files, brl and brf (digital braille), doc, docx, html, rtf, xml, and Daisy (an accessible format with XML tags for increased functionality), .
There is also a digital recorder and a media player which plays MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, OGG, MP4, and M4A, podcasts, and files recorded from the FM radio.
Note: It does not play PDF or any proprietary ebook formats, and to play the audiobooks from the libraries for the blind such as RFBD, one must install the proper patch/DRM, although I have no intention of installing any DRM on my BookSense.
Size: 4.25 in (L) x 1.85 in (W) x 0.75 in (H)
Weight: 0.25 lbs.
It has a 12-hour continuous use of battery charge
2) 2 -hour charging time using AC adapter, 5-hour charging time using USB

I've decided to name the BookSense Alexandria, Lexi for short (Alexx would just be too confusing, plus lexi has the Greek for book or "of words" or "to speak").

BooksI received for Christmas:
Grimoires by Owen Davies (Oxford University Press, 2009) - a cultural history of grimoires
The Edgar Allan Poe Collection: 20 of Poe's chilling stories and poems
Caedmon unabridged 5 CDs 6 hours performed by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone
Anne Rice Angel Time read by Paul Michael unabridged 7 discs 9 hours
Shakespeare Stories edited by Giles Gordon (1982) - stories based on Shakespeare works incl stories by Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter, and Kingsley Amis
The Friar and the Cipher : Roger Bacon and the unsolved mystery of the most unusual manuscript in the world by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (2005)
The Paper Thunderbolt by Michael Innes
But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame! The Amazing History of the World's Favorite Madcap Aunt by Richard Tyler Jordan

( bookmark )


Where could I find blank aida fabric for bookmarks (no pattern, just the aida cloth)? My local Joann's sells them for $4.98 a piece which is rather pricey if I want to make more than one.

I've managed to get more writing done on my story today. If I can keep adding words to it nearly every day, then I should hopefully meet my goal of finishing the draft by the end of the year. Is the story going to be any good? Time will tell.

For those of you near Columbia SC, The Needler is having an after Christmas sale. %20 off just about everything and %75 off precut fabric! Mom and I were doing a quilt store run up near Charlotte and, since I was driving, hit the Needler on the way home.

Here's the pic:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2911529720053831593SYVlPb?vhost=home-and-garden

For $42.21 i got:
1 pattern
13 pieces of Linen/Lugana, mainly 28 count in a variety of colors. I tried to get the biggest pieces I could find.

Oh, and lets not go into the haul at the quilt shops.

My year end political post starts with a question I just asked my father. I note here, for those who don't know, that my father is a retired educator, whose field is American History, and frankly he knows as much as anyone I've ever met about American history and has a very clear sighted view of the past, present, and future.

So I asked him (while he was cooking eggs for breakfast for me, my spouse, and three grandchildren--two mine and one my strangely tall nephew):

"What grade you would give Obama for his first year in office?"

He replied,

[the rest of this post are my dad's words, taken from a more expanded conversation at the breakfast table; my interpolated comments to you, my faithful readers, are in brackets]

"I wouldn't give a grade. [My note: by which he meant, I think, that giving 'a grade' is kind of a pointless, artificial exercise.] I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done. Can you imagine if George Bush was just starting his presidency now, as Barack Obama just did? You just can't help but say that men* do influence history. What they don't do, also influences history.

What people sometimes forget is that Barack Obama -- what he believes in is not the ideal world, where there is right and wrong -- but rather a little better world than the one there is now. What he believes, along with more orthodox and institutional churches, is that the world is an imperfect place and that human beings are, to put it mildly, imperfect, and that sometimes people are very very bad.

What he believes in is a society governed by a constitution, like the United States. With checks and balances and limitations on power. He clearly believes that power can corrupt, and knowing that's a possibility, has a pretty healthy attitude toward himself and power.

A good example is the health care plan. The true believers believe there is one right option, a single payer option. What Barack Obama believes, as far as I am concerned, is that there should be some reform in national health care insurance. He would probably like to have single payer option. But being pragmatic, anything that moves in the right direction is something he can approve, and will.

And the other thing that Americans don't understand is that the Constitution is almost as much a limit on democracy as an encouragement of democracy. The indirect election of Senators, now changed, for example. The president's power is limited by requiring that the Senate approve things like treaties. That's why we have two houses, for one (except Nebraska).

And also, that's one reason -- because he knows the Constitution and recognizes that it is a marvelous document to govern by -- he didn't make the mistake the Clintons made, saying that this is the health care plan we want you to pass.

The existing fact on the ground is that corporations have enormous power, and the only way to do it [health care reform] is to take them on within the existing situation. Obama very wisely said, this is up to the Congress, knowing full well it was a gamble.

Given the situation, and especially the terrible handicap of having to govern in a democratic society that is at war -- George Marshall once said that no democracy would sustain a war for more than 7 years, give or take one --

You know he is a pragmatic man when he is open enough to face the human condition and say that there are such things as just wars and such things as unjust wars**. The profound thinkers are existentialists [I note here that my dad has recently been reading, or re-reading, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr]. They deal with the existing situation, not what they would like it to be."




* [The use of the word "men" here was in response to a comment my spouse made during this conversation, about how he (the spouse) is 'not a believer in the Great Man Theory of history' but does see in times such as these how much influence individual men as rulers/governors can have; thus the use of the gender specific word 'men' in this context.]

** [My dad's opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq in 2003. He never supported the Iraq War, although he did support HW's war to liberate Kuwait and now in retrospect he believes HW did it the right way, although he was critical of HW at the time for not taking out Saddam.

He also says that he thinks the reason Obama was awarded the Peace Prize was for the statement he made some months ago when he said that he would go anywhere and talk to anyone with no preconditions -- I'm not sure of the exact quote.]

Not in Christmas with my family -- no. That's been awesome. In myself.

I didn't write a lot during December. I was alternately sick and too busy with other things. I didn't even journal. Knew that I needed to -- writing just a small blog post brought me a ton of relief. But was reluctant to face myself.

Once I was on the plane to Mpls, though, I pulled out my notebook and started. I realized quickly that I was depressed. My big goal for the year was to finish this novel. And though I was close, I wasn't close enough.

So I decided to do something about it. I'm doing a miniwrimo, from now until the end of the year. My goal is to write 2500 words a day, for ten days, and finish this sucker. At least the handwritten part. I'll still have to type it up. I will consider it close enough to done, though. It means writing a lot every day I'm here -- getting up at 6 AM and spending 2-3 hours writing every day. My new goal is to finish the handwritten draft by the time I leave Mpls.

I started writing, right there on the plane, on the 24th, and just finished up chapter 13 this morning (approximately 5500 words over three days.) I only managed about 1000 words this morning, however, I did plot out chapter 14, which I needed to do before I could write it anyway. Tomorrow morning I'll get another good run of words in.

Though I was unhappy, I'm very pleased, as well as lucky, that I have the emotional latitude and time to fix this for myself.

I hope that each and every one of you is having a wonderful, stress-free time.

WTF?

( Massive spoilers below )

I got a massive stitching related haul for Christmas, and one of the things I got was 18 ct Fiddler's cloth. Has anyone stitched on this, and if so what was it like? My mom insists it's just like stitching on Aida, and I've only ever stitched on 14 ct, so I have no idea.

One online store in particular. I'm having a heck of a time finding 36 count evenweave (not linen, I can find plenty of THAT) and my googlefu led me to www.sewitall.com.  Has anyone here had any experiences good or bad with this store?   I mean, I'll go with linen if I absolutely HAVE TO, but I'd rather not, I'm not a linen fan, and I cant stand aida now LOL. Shipping time doesn't really bother me, especially at this time of year. I have plenty of other projects to play with, but I need the 36 count for a Dimensions project that is supposed to be done on 18count aida, and I'd kind of like to have this project done for next January.

Or, does anyone here know of any other place I can get my hands on 36 count evenweave?

Thanks in advance!

In other news, I'll probably have more WIP pictures in the next little while. I'm on doctor ordered medical leave for the rest of my pregnancy, and that's 5 months, so I'm going to have PLENTY of time to stitch just so that I don't go crazy from not having anything to do. As a result I'm thinking I'll be able to get some stash clearing done (next years' Christmas presents) in the next... 150 or so days that I'll be at home doing nothing but watching Criminal Minds/ Star Trek/ Star Wars/ Maury... I'm a bit of a workaholic, this medical leave thing is NOT going over well LOL but hey- the handmade gifts I can give next year, the happier my bank account will be :-)

And then of course I can go out and do some more S.E.X. shopping woot!

http://piepmeier.blogspot.com/2009/12/apparently-new-adventure-for-biffle.html

Last night i walked into the bedroom that Alison and i share at my parents house when we're visiting. Alison had gone to bed several minutes earlier and i was just going to go in and grab something. I found her on the bed having what i thought was a bad dream. She was on her back and was waving her arms around up above her. I thought maybe she was having a nightmare about a fight when i noticed that her lips were as white a the sheets and flecked with drops of blood. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and her body was very stiff. I went to her and tried to rouse her, but she was absolutely non-responsive. I picked her up in my arms and called her name, but it was obvious something was very, very wrong. I called to my dad to phone 911, that alison was having a seizure.

As my father talked to the emergency dispatcher, i laid Alison back on the bed and anxiously listened to her stilted and laborious breathing and wondered if i was watching my wife's life slip away from her. I really understood powerlessness at that moment.
Moment by moment, though, Alison's breathing returned to normal, and color came back into her lips. Her head was comfortably on the pillow and she looked peaceful. Almost like nothing had ever happened...except that she had bloody foam coming out of one side of her mouth.

The paramedics arrived about twenty minutes into this and took her to the hospital. They explained as they loaded her into the ambulance that she was textbook "postictal" and that was an okay way to be. If you wanna know what "postictal" means it's when a paramedic asks your brilliant wife how old her little baby girl is and she says in a very slurred, very weak voice "ninety eight point six."

We were admitted to the emergency room where we deduced along with the physicians that Alison had actually had another seizure the night before last. So that was the explanation for the strange sores Alison had said were hurting her mouth the whole day! Neither of us had known it. And later that night, or rather, early this morning, she would have yet one more seizure. I was sitting next to her on the bed with my palm on her forehead and listening to her breathe. I was kind of dozing off but any movement she made scared the crap out of me. I would jump awake and see if she was okay. Everything was a false alarm until i noticed that she had started swallowing rather vigorously. I watched her do it a few times and when i noticed she was picking up speed i shook her awake and said "Hey! What's happening?! Are you okay?" She managed to kind of shake her head like she was trying to rid it of unclear thoughts and then she was off.