Alien Spouse

Vintage Crime Spree.

One of the joys of the Kindle shop(Oh hey, have I mentioned that I have a Kindle?) is that there are vast quantities of Victorian and Edwardian detective novels available for little to no cost and that means I will never be short of something to read.

I downloaded half a dozen of them only yesterday, and I anticipate going back for more once I've skipped through these.  I selected these six with a very definite research purpose in mind; I read Agatha Christie's "Partners in Crime" years ago, which is a cracking collection of Tommy and Tuppence short stores, however each story pays homage to a popular fictional detective that readers of the period would be familiar with. I wasn't, and I know I missed out on some of the references. So I pulled up the "Partners in Crime" Wikipedia page and systematically went through the Kindle bookshop looking for the authors and detectives being pastiched - And I found all of them! Usually for free, but in one or two cases I had to pay a whole 99 cents. 

I'd already downloaded volume one of the "Dr. Thorndyke Mysteries Collection" and I've just finished "The Red Thumb Mark" the first book in the series. These are a delightful mix of very precise scientific analysis of the fictional evidence and a less condescending version of a Holmes and Watson pairing.

The primary function of all fiction is to furnish entertainment to the reader, and this fact has not been lost sight of. But the interest of so-called "detective" fiction is, I believe, greatly enhanced by a careful adherence to the probable, and a strict avoidance of physical impossibilities; and, in accordance with this belief, I have been scrupulous in confining myself to authentic facts and practicable methods. The stories have, for the most part, a medico-legal motive, and the methods of solution described in them are similar to those employed in actual practice by medical jurists. The stories illustrate, in fact, the application to the detection of crime of the ordinary methods of scientific research. I may add that the experiments described have in all cases been performed by me, and that the micro-photographs are, of course, from the actual specimens.

Freeman, R. Austin (2008-09-05). Dr. Thorndyke Mysteries Collection, Volume One (Four Books in One Volume!) (Kindle Locations 3110-3116). ignacio hills press (TM)IgnacioHillsPress.com. Kindle Edition. 

(I also LOVE how easy it is to pull nice chunks of text from the Kindle, with the source reference already attached. Happy sigh.)

And the Kindle edition still has the illustrations! Yay!

 

And... We're Back!

After a very enjoyable holiday weekend there is nothing quite like a cold rainy Monday, is there?

Book Box.

Have I mentioned that I bloody love my Kindle? I've been curled up with it for pretty much the whole of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and, since it arrived a week ago, I've read three novels on it. Well, a novel and two vintage murder mysteries, if you're being pedantic about genre differences - but I'm not too much of an intellectual snob to say that I far preferred the company of Tommy and Tuppence, or Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin to the miserable Anthony and Gloria of F. Scott's "The Beautiful and the Damned".

I've sort of given up on Goodreads, since the book swap feature has been closed, but I've set up the Kindle to prompt me to tweet a star rating when I've finished a book.

Oh, I've also re-named my Kindle from the out-of-the-box "Jennifer's Kindle" to "Jennifer's Box of Delights", after the John Masefield book. It is somewhat ironic that after I did this I discovered that "The Box of Delights" itself is one of the only titles I've looked for that doesn't have a Kindle version available.

Black Friday: Cleaning Day!

Today I have been in organisational mode, which wasn't entirely my plan for the day, until I found myself cleaning the stove and then the upstairs bathroom in my pajamas. Then I changed into some comfy work-out clothes before taking on the major job of re-shelving my library, whilst also removing everything that was not a book from the bookshelves.

Then I had a cup of coffee and read an Agatha Christie mystery on my Kindle.

At this point I decided I needed to re-fold and re-classify all of my tops, so now my t-shirts are stored by sleeve length, colour and then by how much I like it. It's a complicated system, and it took me 2 hours (whilst watching a cheesy thriller) to get it properly done. I also packed my summer clothes and shoes into suitcases then put them in the loft.

Doc decided to vacuum the living room, so the cats and I retreated to the bedroom and read some more Christie.

Finally I cleaned the downstairs bathroom, including the litter trays (by the way, I use Dr Bonner's liquid soap to clean the litter trays - which is Gwyneth Paltrow's shower gel of preference. That is how fancy my cats are.)

By this point I was completely sick of cleaning, so I had a shower and put on some clean lounging pajamas and made myself a gin martini, with a splash of angastora bitters and an olive. Because, omg, I deserved it!

Focus.

Another picture from Saturday morning which, again, illustrates the magic of human eyeballs.

This is a photo taken through the Mini's glass sunroof of the ice crystals that had formed rather charmingly on it. My eyes were easily able to focus on them, and see them as white - but I could not get the camera's auto-focus to understand what I wanted it to look at; so it sensibly decided it must be the tree branches overhead. The ice crystals that are the most in focus also look dark grey against the blue sky, instead of the frosty mix of white and clear that they looked like to me.

That's ok Little Camera, it's still a pretty picture!

My Eyes! My Eyes!

I had my eyes tested this weekend, because I noticed that my right eye felt quite scratchy after work sometimes. It turns out that my eyes are a bit dry, so I have to put warm compresses on them and use eye-drops especially if I've been staring at a computer screen a lot (So... That's pretty much every week day then). Well, if it's optician's orders, I think I can handle lying on the sofa with a warm flannel across my eyes, sipping a martini and listening to a vintage radio drama for half an hour or so in the evening.

I also tried on some new frames, I want to keep my current frames but I'd like some variety in my face furniture. I'm thinking about a subtle cat's eye, something a bit more sixties mod that would look good with lashings of eyeliner (my new favourite make-up technique).  Basically, I asked if the assistant helping me watched "Criminal Minds" and requested Garcia glasses, and after a quick google image search she was off to the races with that idea! I tried on loads, but as it was just after I'd had the drops put in to dilate my pupils, it got increasingly difficult to actually see them. Doc C came over to help, but it's not really the same. Anyway, I have to wait until next month before I get new glasses so the shortlist was noted down and I can try them on again when I'm in full control of my ability to focus.

 

After the eyeware fashion show, my irises were fully dilated, so the optician could see into my eyeballs. Which is SO weird, but I was expecting it this time, so, the minute I sat in the chair, I asked the optician if I could have the images of the backs of my eyes, because how cool is that? They look like alien planets, don't they?

Also - I SEE YOU!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Bites.

I'm sorry, I can't blog at the moment, because I'm reading book samples on my new Kindle. Usually you get a chapter or two, which is quite a delicious amuse bouche for a reading glutton such as myself. It's my new favourite thing.

Niet-O Graffiti.

Another plus of the snowy walk to the post office was that I took a slightly more sheltered route than I would usually have done, and saw this "Niet-o" stencil graffiti on the pavement. I rather like it.

A Kindle's Journey.

For my birthday Moth gave me some Amazon gift tokens, so I could buy a Kindle! I ordered it on my birthday (along with a olive green leather case, and a book for the Doc) and have been tracking it's progress ever since. Wheeeee!

That's really been the focus of this week for me, so I've found it very hard to write blog posts that weren't just detailing the Kindle's journey from Amazon's mysterious seller facility, the location of which is merely given as "US". The first stop on the trek was Hebron, Kentucky, which gives us a clue as to the seller facility's location because it only took an hour to get to Hebron from there. We can also deduce that Hebron must be delightful, because the Kindle spent 7 hours there. What do you think? Brunch with some of the other parcels, maybe a mini spa day?

Happily refreshed the Kindle spent the next day travelling from Kebron KY to Charlotte NC, where it checked in for the night. Kindle left Charlotte for Alienspouseville at 2 o'clock this morning, and I kept checking the shipment tracker, and when it's arrival was logged I got VERY excited; so I walked to the post office at lunch time.

Did I mention that today has been the first day we've had proper snow? And, naturally, the heaviest flurry was at lunch time, so I walked to and from the post office - in the snow - to get my Kindle and...

...The delivery it was on hadn't been unpacked yet, so I have to go back tomorrow.

It'll probably snow again, and there will be some sort of geological event that will mean I'll have to walk up hill both ways. Actually it was quite a nice walk really, and it wasn't an entirely unfruitful trip, the birthday present I'd ordered for Doc C (and the t-shirt I got at the same time) had arrived, so that was something. Doc's present was an apron in suitably drab colours, the man lives in drab, with the slogan "I (pictogram of a loaf of Bread) Bread"! "I Loaf Bread"! Love it!

Bright Art. Cloudy Sky.

The University has quite a few sculptures on campus, and this is the most recent addition being erected. I particularly like the cozy rug that's been used to cushion the art from the crane's pulley.

Also, I had my camera on the "pin hole" setting when I took this picture yesterday afternoon, so the sky didn't look that dark at the time. It does now though.

Alcohol and Comedy.

You know what rocks? Martini and a collection of P.G. Wodehouse short stories that you haven't read before. That delightful combination totally restores one's jolly old equilibrium.

Birthday Weekend Summary.

For our shared birthday weekend Doc C and I had very simple plans, we wanted to a) go for breakfast at our favourite breakfast place, b) walk dogs.

There was a football game on Saturday, so we knew we had to get to town early to have any hope of a table without waiting for half an hour or more. The game was at 4, we got into town at about 8:15 and the traffic was already starting to clog the town up, but, mission accomplished we had breakfast.

After eating baked apple and french toast with lashings of coffee we decided to go for a walk, and we happened to meet our friend David and, his new dog, Buster. He is a handsome dog and very friendly, so we are quite looking forward to the odd dog sitting gig here and there, not to mention some trips to the dog park with him and David.

Doc C had got a 20% off voucher from Gamestop, so we decided to peruse their used game sections, and this is really where the weekend fell apart. We bought games and then spent the rest of the weekend playing them. With "Modnation Racers" in the house there was no walking of dogs on Saturday, and certainly no walking of dogs on Sunday because I was in my pyjamas crashing into the scenery on a virtual race track in a cart that I had spent hours customising. My driver is called Rosie the Racer, she's wearing a plain white t-shirt with black capris and liberal amounts of dirt and oil. Rosie drives Sweet Rivets, which is a old fashioned jalopy with a stylin' two-tone paint job in dusty blue and dirty pink (when I work out how to get a photo of her off the game, I shall post it for you to admire).

So far I've placed 2nd to last once, and I'm usually just happy to have completed the race. I'm a terrible driver in this game (in fact in most games), but fortunately it's still really fun!

Happy Martini Haze.

Well personally I like keeping the gin in the freezer, it produces a perfectly chilled martini that definitely softens in flavour as you drink it and I rather liked that. This has a dash of Angostura Bitters in it, and that is just delicious.

Doc C made this for me, because I was covered in sleeping cats and he then brought it to me in the living room. This then presented somewhat of a problem; how to get a decent photo of the drink with out distracting background clutter and with out leaving my station as comfy cat bed. Fortunately one of the pieces of clutter on the coffee table next to me was a sheet of crumpled red tissue paper.  I put the glass on the paper and held that up as a backdrop with my left hand whilst taking the pictures with my right hand.

I'm just as pleased with the photos as I was with the chilled gin. A successful set of experiments all around!

Freezing Gin.

Late last night the wind really picked up and the door to the outside cupboard was banging, and that cupboard is directly behind the fireplace. Edith has been obsessing over the fireplace for the past couple of weeks, we think because of the mice but who knows with cats; anyway all this noise meant she became very excited. This led to much zooming around and that woke us up.

Doc C went downstairs to see what was going on, and then went outside to shut the door, but the damage was already done and Edith was more convinced then ever that there was something of interest in the fireplace. She carried on dashing around crashing into things, so then I went downstairs and cleared the fireplace and surrounding area of anything breakable or loud. At this point it was 3:30 and when I got back to bed I discovered that I couldn't sleep, so I did some important research on my iPod.

Mostly I was trying to work out how to make myself a nice cold martini without having to waste ice and dirty the cocktail shaker, because it seems a bit fiddly for just the one glass. Knowing that vodka could be stored in the freezer, I thought what about gin? It may interest you to know that there are competing views on this subject, because gin is a botanical spirit and so some people think that freezing it will dull the aromas. I can't honestly say that my palate or nose is particularly refined, so I think it's worth the risk of losing some of the aromatic experience in exchange for a cold martini with minimum effort.

This morning, whilst making my breakfast, I was already thinking about having a cocktail after work, so I put the gin and the vodka into the freezer, and the vermouth into the fridge (where it apparently should have been all along). We have a mostly empty freezer, so I also put in the cocktail shaker because that was another tip I found in my internet searching.

I'll make myself a drink at some point later this evening (the hour after we get home from work is cup-of-tea-and-a-snack time) and we shall see what my verdict is, I hope that it will be a blissed out martini haze.

4 Dance.

Students are always losing stuff, usually water bottles, books or coats, and this particular note must have fallen out of someone's bag when they were in my office.

I think it must be a comment card for a dance class, but I'd love to think that there is some random person wandering around in nightclubs (not that we have any night clubs here - that's where this daydream really loses touch with reality) and critiquing their fellow clubbers.

Either way I'm keeping this on my desk in case the student who dropped it comes back for it. If it were me I'd want documented evidence of my excellent lip syncing skills.

Mid-Week Pub Night.

I've never liked Wednesdays, but now I've started meeting friends after work for a pint at least Wednesday evenings are starting to grow on me.

Flame Coloured Leaves.

This tree is right next to the main entrance to my building and it's easy not to notice for most of the day, because it's not until the sun moves around behind it in the laste afternoon that you really get the effect of the whole tree being aflame. Then you notice.

New Vintage Chair.

Having tidied and re-organised the mezzanine before the Halloween party (although I'm not really sure why now because it's not like anyone went up there), we had a nice bit of open space that was just begging to be used. Three of my bookshelves are there and it's probably the warmest place in the house, so it made sense to make it into a designated reading area; which obviously required seating.

I fell in love with this chair from Urban Outfitters, not least because it looks like it fell off the set for "Mad Men", and was even more enamored when one of the colour choices was inexplicably reduced in price to $199.99. Stylish and cheap? For me! On pay day I went on-line to order it, and was annoyed to find that despite there being free shipping on anything over $50 that my chair had been tagged with a $35 overweight fee - Well, this threw my very carefully calibrated purchasing budget for the month right out of the window, so I decided to spend Saturday searching the local antiques shops for an alternative.

The very first shop I went to, out of all three in town, had a very plain upholstered rocking chair outside that I liked straight away, but I carried on looking just to be thorough and then came back to it. Then I called Doc C to come and look at it (oddly he hadn't fancied trawling the antiques shops for hours, so he went to his office to write job applications), he haggled a bit on the price because it does need to be reupholstered (I don't think we'll have the spare cash to get it professionally reupholstered and re-sprung any time soon, so I'm probably going to DIY a temporary cover to hide that faded green nobbly fabric) and then we went to lunch to think about it. After lunch I paid $135 for it and stuffed it in the back of the Mini, so now we have a reading chair. Yay!

The cats disagree; they think we have a new cat chair and one or the other has been sitting in it pretty much constantly since we brought it home. I think this is an excellent sign that I chose well, because, as we all know, cats are discerning connoisseurs of comfort.

An Excellent Start to the Weekend.

Friday - Covered in cats, drinking (you've guessed it!) red wine and watching TV with my husband!

And... Relax...

Vin Rouge.

Red wine! It rocks!

We currently have six bottles, which is much more wine than we usually have in the house; this is purely because we had a party and several of our guests clearly know how to make us happy - Wine!

Halloween 2012 - More Photos!

 Halloween may be over for another year, but I still have photos to show you!

Bwa-ha-ha!

The Dessert Buffet of Halloween! Quake with fear at the coconut macaroons, almond cupcakes with chocolate icing, pumpkin tarlets, spiced butter cookies and chocolate frogs!

The Flamingoes of Halloween! In plastic champagne glasses no less!

The Dozen Battery Powered Candles of Halloween!

The Sweet Silence.

Last night we had all of the lights on, left the front door open (we have a glass screen door, so the cats were in no danger of getting out), and ran to the window every time we thought a car was about to stop at our house because we were really hoping to see small children in costumes. We were usually disappointed to realise it was just someone turning round in our driveway (our driveway is the favourite place for people to turn around in our cul-de-sac, also I'm pretty sure the Fedex guy stops there every weekday afternoon to do his mid-point inventory).  

Despite our vigilance, the front porch was only approached once by ghoulish sugar fiends. There were two of them, presumeably a pair of siblings, gender unidentifiable under the surprisingly gruesome costumes and totally silent. We assumed they came to our house to get free confectionary but they actually didn't say that. Or "please", or "thank you" for that matter.

I will happily admit that I'm not very familiar with Trick-or-Treating as a tradition, because we just don't really do it that much in England; however I was given to understand that an integral part of the whole thing was the phrase "Trick or Treat!" being yelled in a exuberant manner by the children demanding sweets.

Still, that just means all the more chocolate and lollipops for Doc's Philosophy class today.