Time travel, bubonic plague, Christmas lists, etc.

I mentioned last week that I've been coding a monograph about biological and chemical terrorism; this morning I was working on the section about bubonic plague. The discussion of buboes reminded me of Connie Willis's novel, The Doomsday Book. The book is set about fifty years in the future, when time travel has been accomplished, but not perfected. A young historical researcher is sent back in time to the 14th century--she's supposed to arrive several decades after the Black Plague, but a mistake is made and she arrives right in the middle of it.

I almost never read historical fiction (after a lengthy period of it in high school), but I love Willis's work, so I tried it, and was completely drawn in. So much so that after reading it several years ago, I listened to it in audio book form last year.

But the reason I'm mentioning it now is that they celebrate Christmas in the book--Willis is a huge fan of Christmas (witness Miracle and Other Christmas Stories), so I suppose it isn't surprising that she worked it in. I guess it should go on my list of Christmas books.

I was thinking about Christmas books again, and I remembered -- how could I have forgotten The Hogfather?? I hadn't read Terry Pratchett until a few years ago; I think Hogfather was probably the first thing of his that I read, having been attracted by a cover and then, the Christmas theme. Or rather, "Hogswatch," as the holiday is called on the Discworld. The Hogfather's sleigh is drawn by four pigs: Gouger, Tusker, Rooter and Snouter.

In the book, the Hogfather has been kidnapped by an Assassin (on Discworld, the Assassins have a union, the Guild of Assassins) hired by the Auditors, because they (the Auditors) don't like things that take on reality due to people's faith in them, i.e., the Hogfather. But Hogswatch can't take place without the Hogfather, so Death decides to take the his place and solve the mystery.

It's really a great book if you like that kind of thing. I listened to it in audiobook form a couple of years ago. Thinking about it reminded me that I have a bunch of Christmas audiobooks and that they should go on the list of Christmas books, too. I just finished listening to Blue Christmas, by Mary Kay Andrews, and I'm currently listening to Mistletoe Man, a China Bayles mystery by Susan Wittig Albert.

Two books that I listened to last year were The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore, and Visions of Sugar Plums - Janet Evanovich, both of which were good. I'm not a Janet Evanovich fan, and haven't read her Stephanie Plum series (I tried to, but they just didn't grab me for some reason), but I did enjoy the holiday installment.

The Christopher Moore book probably isn't one of his best, but it's not bad for a humorous holiday story.

Just as an aside, there was apparently an NPR story about Christmas music on the radio today. I didn't hear it this morning--I was listening to the audio book--and haven't had a chance to listen yet, but the page lists several interesting-sounding holiday albums.

I should mention that the little yellow kitten found a home with Kristi's mother-in-law. I really wish we could have kept him, he was such a cool cat. But he will have a good home there.

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Right now: Ten Things

1. My left eye is driving me insane. Periodically it does this thing where it waters constantly and I have to keep blotting it -- attractive, huh? I'm pretty sure it's stress related, so who do I see about it? A psychiatrist seems a bit of overkill, but man.
2. I'm a little bit too warm, because I'm running a little fan/heater that my dad gave me when I was out there for Thanksgiving and said that sitting here in the basement was kind of cold.
3. I'm listening to "Thin Blue Flame" by Josh Ritter on the iPod, and it's a little bit intense, maybe not exactly what I need to be listening to right this minute.
4. I'm coding a medical monograph called "Biological and Chemical Terrorism," not the lightest of subjects.
5. Someone just rolled something huge down the hardwood floor hall right above my head. Sounds like they're bowling up there.
6. John has his dog here with him today, and he's keeping her on a leash. They just walked by. She's beautiful, black and feathery, and shy. Her name is Pepper.
7. Okay, man, I hit the button to go to the next song. This is better: "Winter Wonderland" by Lenny B and Madison Park. Some kind of dance mix, very peppy.
8. My phone just rang -- it plays the "Linus and Lucy Theme" when Bob calls -- hm, I should change that to a Christmas ring. He was calling to tell me that he finished proofing "Common Ear, Nose and Throat Problems" -- he's doing some proofreading for us at home -- and that he's going to the wholesale club to pick up a steak for dinner.
9. I can't change my phone ring yet because you can't do it without playing all of them, and I don't want to do that here. I'll try to remember to do it in the car, or tonight at home.
10. I just got an email saying that we're going to put up Christmas decorations tomorrow afternoon here at work. Yay! That should be fun. Cello's wife and mom and little boy will be here. Maybe I'll bring my camera.

Okay, that's enough of a break. Back to work. Biological Terrorism. Yay. Actually, though, it's pretty interesting. It's just that the photos are a bit unsettling.

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Stray cat

Kristi came in this morning carrying a little yellow cat. She said that he was sitting on a tire in the wheelwell of a car in the parking lot, crying, and when she called to him, he immediately came to her. The ground was covered in ice and we were supposed to get a lot of snow today; the poor little guy was shivering. She had a conference call that she had to do, so I took him into my office and closed the door so he couldn't run around and get into any trouble.

I don't know how old he is, but probably no more than six months or so. He's a tiny little thing, with long legs and a long skinny tail. Kurt went out at noon and bought a bag of kitten food and some kitty litter; once we poured some litter into a low cardboard box, he jumped right in and peed, obviously having been waiting for us to do just that. A smart little guy.

I took some camera phone pictures of him, and Dave made a "Found Cat" poster that Kristi duplicated and put up in several store windows on the street, but by time to go home, no one had called. The snow had started, and, in fact, Cello was out in it and called and said that it was a blizzard, so everyone started packing up to leave mid-afternoon. I decided I would take the cat home for the night. I'm not sure why I didn't just leave him at the office, though. At the time, I was thinking that it would be dangerous for him down there because of pesticides that had been sprayed, etc., but I could have easily just left him in my office with the door shut.

Oh well. Bob says I just wanted to bring him home, and I guess I did. He cried for awhile in the car, but after about a half hour, he settled down and went to sleep in the box I had him in. With the snow, it took me two hours to get home, so we had a long ride.

When we got home, I put him in the downstairs bathroom with a bowl of food, a bowl of water, a blanket, and a temporary litter box made from a cake pan. Dinah and Pyewacket weren't very happy; Dinah, especially, was upset. It was probably a bad idea to bring him home, but now (nearly 11:30) everyone seems to have mostly settled down. Baby kitty is quiet in the bathroom, Pye's upstairs with Bob, and Dinah is on my lap.

Quite an eventful day! I so enjoyed having a cat at work! I didn't really get much work done, though. He spent most of the day walking around on my desk and pouncing on things. At one point he was trying to catch the mouse pointer on the monitor, then for awhile he would lie in wait and pounce on my hand as I moved the mouse. He was pretty entertaining.

Update:

I got an email from Kristi last night that while no owner has come forward, she did get a call from someone who lives down near our office who saw the posters, and said that if the owner doesn't show up, he'd be willing to take the cat. So we won't be becoming a three cat household, thankfully. I suppose I'm a little disappointed, but it's definitely for the best.

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Birthday weekend

I had a very nice, quiet four day birthday weekend. Bob went away for the weekend on a fishing trip, he left Thurday after Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' (which was very nice, too).

So I slept late each morning, went out to eat a few times, watched a few movies, read some books . . . it was nice.

I took myself out to breakfast on Friday for my birthday. I went to LePeep, and when I got there, they said there would be a 20 minute wait for a table. My first inclination was to leave, but then I remembered that I had a book and my journal with me, and it was a nice day, so I sat outside at a patio table and wrote, and the time passed quickly. I read while I ate, and took my time, and it was just really nice.

I did a little bit of shopping that afternoon, although nothing major. I went to Borders and spent my holiday savings reward (on myself!), then went to Bath & Body Works and bought a few things for Christmas gifts, plus another bottle of Hot Chocolate bubble bath (love that stuff).

I went to Jason's Deli for the salad bar on both Saturday and Sunday, cooked fish sticks and potato pancakes for dinner a couple of times, and ate leftover turkey sandwiches one night.

I watched both Ghostbusters movies, read one of the books I bought on Friday (A Girl's Guide to Witchcraft, which was a lot of fun, sort of chick lit with a magical theme), read a couple of other books from my to-be-read pile (see the book list, and just generally had a nice, relaxing weekend just for myself. I did do a bit of freelance web stuff, cleaned the bathroom, dusted, did laundry, that kind of stuff, but I mostly just relaxed. I think I needed that.

I've gotten back into studying the tarot, and Liora (I think it was) left a comment on an entry that she liked it when I was talking about different decks and cards. The first time that I did that, I got several negative comments, and while I don't let readers dictate what I write about, I guess it made me feel kind of weird about it. So I'm going to do it again, but I'm going to do it at Rarepeace, my tarot journal. A better place for it, anyway.

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Thankful

Every year I write a Thanksgiving post, and every year I'm thankful for the usual things -- Bob, my family, my friends, my job. I thought maybe this year I'd think of all the other things that I'm thankful for, that make me feel blessed. So, in addition to being thankful for my family and friends, I'm thankful for:

• Lipton Green Tea To Go
• Pepperidge Farm Parmesan Cheese Goldfish Crackers
• Homemade buttermilk Ranch dressing
• Libraries
• Healthy snacks at work -- apples, Kashi bars and cookies, nuts
• Indian summer
• Noro Silk Garden yarn
• Brittany wooden knitting needles
• Bath & Body Works Wickedly Hot Chocolate bubble bath*
• The dollar aisle at Target
• Schlotzky's
• The salad bar at Jason's Deli
• A drawerful of handknit socks
• House, M.D.
• James Lee Burke
• DVDs
• Oregon Vanilla Chai
• Amazon.com
• Vanilla candles
• Bottled water
• Cell phones

*I don't normally like scented products that smell like food. Well, apart from peppermint and vanilla, and some fruity scents. I don't like candles that purport to smell like sugar cookies or apple pie, or vanilla things like Bath & Body Works' Warm Vanilla Sugar -- I used to love their Vanilla Bean scent, but they discontinued it (of course), but I don't necessarily want to smell like something that just came out of the oven.

So I didn't really have high hopes for their new line called Temptations. Scents like pumpkin pie, cinnamon bun, caramel popcorn, and gingerbread didn't interest me at all. I was interested in trying out "Twisted Peppermint." I bought a sample bottle to try, and it was as wonderful as I had hoped. When I went back to buy a full size bottle, I decided to try "Wickedly Hot Chocolate," and oh man, I LOVED it. I went back again and bought a full size bottle of that, plus a bottle of the body lotion in the same scent. I think I'm going to go back tomorrow and buy more. It's absolutely wonderful. It smells (and, frankly, looks) like brownie batter. Sounds weird, I know, but it's heavenly. I am sure, therefore, that it will be discontinued soon.

I went to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' today. I went early to help my mom, and Bob drove separately, since he was leaving after dinner to head for the lake. My niece gave me a check (a Hello Kitty check!) for my birthday, and my parents gave me a beautiful sage green hooded sweater, an absolutely perfect color and design. My brother and sister were there, and I talked to my other sister on the phone.

My sister who was there had recently bought a house, and she had a corner baker's rack that she didn't have a place for, so she gave it to me. My dad and I worked and worked and tried to figure out how to put the back seat down in my car -- the instruction manual was no help at all -- and I finally figured it out. I also came home with a lot of leftovers. Bob was worried that I wouldn't cook for myself while he was gone; I still don't have to cook, I'll just have to use the microwave.

I had my Amazon shopping spree last night. I ordered a book on the tarot and dream interpretation, a tarot deck that I thought looked particularly suited to dreamwork, a James Taylor Christmas CD, and the new Damien Rice CD. So much fun to go shopping with gift money! Bob's folks sent me a birthday card with cash, too, so I'll probably use that tomorrow.

My plan is to sleep late, as late as I possibly can, then take myself out to lunch someplace nice (probably Chili's) and do a little shopping. It's sort of a requirement, isn't it? Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I doubt I'll do much, but I'll put in an appearance and do my best to get into the Christmas spirit.

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