obsolete vernacular

I recently attended an astrology club (school) meeting. The leader covered Gemini, the sign we are currently in. Gemini is about learning, experiences, communications. It's ruled by Mercury aka the messenger god who can travel between all of the worlds. The homework was to explore something new in your neighborhood, with neighborhood what you might define it to be. I decided on Sunday to walk down to the new store and return home a different way. I have walked up (our house is on a hill) the three streets that come from the T station near us. I hadn't walked around streets on the other side.

When I left the store I turned right, and then right again at the first street I came to. Houses along it were more single family than other streets here, some of them almost looked like the late 1960s colonials in the neighborhood where I grew up. Some were well kept, others less so. Roses, poppies, and other flowers bloomed in yards along the way. Near the end of the street a house had a beautiful lemon yellow door with a large oval window. The street dead ended at a school. I had expected the street to be parallel to the one where I live - Dorchester neighborhoods are much more grid-like than other parts of Boston - but when I checked the map on my phone, it veered left rather than running parallel. I turned to walk around the school and realized when I came around the corner that it was the school where I vote. I always come to it from the other direction. As I neared the major cross street near mine I found a beautifully manicured yard where a man was grilling on a barbecue. I waved to him before walking on.

For Yuletide I received this excellent Alice in Wonderland-Labyrinth mashup, well worth a read:

http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2016/works/8769226

I wrote a short Nero Wolfe mystery, and had a lot of fun doing it. Mom is a big fan so I had her read and give me feedback.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8882425

Hello Dear Author! Thank you for signing up for Yuletide!

I Capture the Castle - I love all of the characters so while I requested Cassandra in particular, I'd be happy to see more of any of them. These are people destined to live adventurous lives. Part of me wants to believe Cassandra was involved in espionage during WWII - but maybe she ended up married to a vicar and knitted lots of sweaters.

The Girls of the Kingfisher Club - as a bossy oldest sibling, I sympathize with Jo. Can The General really settle down into domestic life? Does she build her own club empire or maybe take a complete turn and become a shoe designer?

Code Name Verity - Maddie and Julie deserve some happy stories - picnics they went on or when they schemed to get each other Christmas presents in the scarcity of war or whatever.

Alice in Wonderland - I have no particular desires but I included this because I have read some really great Alice crossovers [not necessarily with Alice in them]. Doesn't have to be a crossover though - what story or stories beg to be expanded on or told?

Actually in general I love a good crossover so feel free to bring in others to whichever the assignment is

I tend to prefer genfic but will read anything up to mature (straight or not), prefer no BDSM, non-con, or violence.

Have fun!

All the things I'm missin'
Good vittles, love and kissin'
Are waiting at the end of my ride

Ride 'em in YuleTIDE

Thank you, thank you Yuletide author for participating! I so enjoy reading Yuletide stories. I tend to prefer genfic or PG-ish stories for the following (in keeping with the original works).

I Capture the Castle - would love to read more about what happens after - to Cassandra and any of the others. The lack of fanfic for this book is just wrong, so pretty much anything you write will be welcome.

Emily of New Moon - there are so many potential stories. Maybe write about Elizabeth and Laura and Cousin Jimmy when they were young or from their perspective when Emily first moves to New Moon. Or fill in any of the gaps left in the books - what about Ilse, what happens to Emily in the years before she and Teddy marry, or tell me more about any of the other Murrays.

Lord Peter Wimsey - I have been a fan of this series for many years. Harriet Vane is such a great foil for Lord Peter. Tell me more about her life apart from him - or maybe their life together before Busman's Honeymoon. Or expand on Peter's life.

Most of all, dear author, please have fun!

When I was in high school we would go to the video store where we would rent videos (which we always rewound). Then we would go home and watch them on my friend's video player, which had a remote that was connected by a thin cable to the VCR, I kid you not. My family was one of the last to get cable so you know we didn't have a VCR until several years later.

We rented Whoopi Goldberg's Broadway show a number of times. It is laugh out loud funny and at the same time poignant. She deals with issues of race and ability through several different characters.

As videos went the way of the do-do and stores started stocking DVDs, this video seems to have faded away. But it is really worth watching so I'm sharing it with you all now, as you may not have known this was how Whoopi first became famous.

Added: the link is an edited version but still gives you a good idea of the characters she created.

I got Emily of New Moon for Yuletide! And it is so lovely and just dead on! You can read it here. My recipient liked their story too, yay!

I am sitting looking through the Yuletide set (there is another Emily fic! and four for Code Name Verity! and I'm sure there will be at least one Lord Peter Wimsey!) even though I'm hungry and should make breakfast. Thank goodness Mom doesn't come until later today so I have time to read and savor.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!

This year I'm signing up for Yuletide, which means I have to request as well as offer, which was unexpected. But lovely! So these are my requests:

Call the Midwife - I am loving this series, how it shows the difficulties of East End London at that time along with local pride, the dedication of the midwives and Nonnatus House. Would love more on any of the four young midwives, whether backstory or expanding on something during the series. What lead them to become midwives, what were their earlier lives like, what do they hope for their futures.

Emily of New Moon - it was funny to me that we never learned much about Aunt Laura or Aunt Elizabeth. More about them would be welcome.

Betsy-Tacy series - this starts out with Betsy and Tacy's friendship but at some point Tacy seemed to kind of fall aside. I think she deserves a story focused on her - from any age, during the series or after.

Nero Wolfe series - I read these growing up and always had a bit of a crush on Archie. He and Wolfe made such a great team, balancing each others' strengths. A story about them together when they aren't working on a case perhaps.

Sorry if these are not very specific. I've requested books and TV that I really enjoy and would want more about. I'd lean toward genfic but any rating is fine, though I'd prefer no kink. Oh, and if you are feeling an AU, run with it.

Thank you Yuletide author! :)

Back in Feb., before the big blizzard, I stopped at the grocery store for milk LIKE YOU DO, and also picked up a snow shovel because we have some at the apt but they are crappy and years of living in snowy areas have led me to become a snow shovel connoisseur. The best shovels have a curved blade (scoop snow without have it fall or tip around) that's plastic (not too heavy) and a metal edge (to scrape at ice). I left it out so neighbors could use it too. The next day my roommate asked if I'd seen it - someone had broken it but left a note. M from upstairs left a very nice apology and her phone number. Initially I was annoyed so I didn't call right away, and by the time I did I had worked past the annoyance (I mean, it was a $16 shovel), she was very nice and insisted she would repay me if I bought a new shovel. My high shovel standards meant I preferred to buy the shovel myself. So I did and I kept meaning to call but didn't. (OK for me $20 isn't a big deal right now but phone calls, I do not like making them to people I don't know even when the people are really nice.) Plus I figured she was sharing a 2 BR apt with 3 other people, $20 might be a big deal to her. Let the whole thing go.

Today I heard a knock at the door and M had come down to be sure to give me the $20 because she's going away for a few months and was determined to get it settled. So I have $20 out of the blue.

Late last Oct I started a boot camp class. The description said it was for "all levels". HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Everyone else was much more fit than me but I had resolved not to get competitive and to feel happy about doing my best. Which I did! I improved a lot, as you do when you start near rock bottom. After the class ended I went to one of the makeup sessions and then took a couple weeks off over the holidays. In early Jan. I started going again. In the six weeks of classes I missed one week because I was out of town, and one other class because I had spent a couple of hours shoveling snow and felt like my shoulders needed a break.

At the start of each session you do three exercises and at the end of the six weeks you do them again, to see how you've improved. My numbers were:

Push-ups in 1 minute - 28 (modified) at the start, 48 at the end
Squats in 1 minute - 35 at the start, 50 at the end
Plank - the one on your elbows not straight arms - for as long as you can hold it - at the start 1 min 6 sec, at the end 1 min 19 sec.

There were 9 women in class at the start, which quickly became 3 or 4. It's a 6 am class, it's winter, it's cold and dark. I didn't like any of that but I wanted to get better. After Marcie walked around and might ask "are those weights heavy enough?", I started picking up the next size up. (Not the big weights that the Superwomen used but not the lightest ones.) So it was very satisfying to see how much progress I made.

But there's a rub in this. The person who improves most gets a 30 min training session with Marcie. Marcie is like a whippet - she's tiny, probably weighs half of what I do, and is all muscle. I bet she can do one handed pushups without breaking a sweat. There were a few comments in class that made me feel like a couple women felt that I might have gamed it, not tried my hardest at the start. I probably could have done more squats but not 50. I definitely couldn't have done 48 push-ups.

I'm really happy to know how much I improved. \o/ go me! So I am thinking I will tell Marcie to give the free training session to Susan, aka Superwoman2. She will get a lot more out of it than I would. And she did improve a lot too, but she started out a lot better so she's more in the plateau phase of improvement.

Last Thursday I went on a night hike at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. The moonlight lit the landscape more brightly than you might expect. It was a clear night and pretty cold; we didn't see any animals, but it was still a lovely walk. We saw a beaver's lodge and area where they had created something of a dam with reeds (kind of like gardening).

Saturday night I sat next to a guy at the bar who told me, among other things, the he traps beavers (as a hobby). Apparently farmers ask him to do so. I asked him if he was going to pay for his meal with beaver skins thrown on the bar and we laughed but I was half serious. What is this, the fucking pioneer days?

Then I went home and watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which is one of the funnier comedies I've seen in a while. It kept having surprise actors like Frances McDormand and Alan Tudyk with a German accent, and Ken Jeong. Which reminds me, I should probably start a Community rewatch since the fourth season is back on Thursday night next week.