"like a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice"

[thanate]

I was going to post something yesterday, only then I wrote a short story instead. Now I'm not quite sure what it was I was about to go on about.

The notion of a standing desk is beginning to acquire a sufficiently critical mass of people who have mentioned it in my field of observation that I'm considering coming up with a hack; I think if I pulled down some of my reference book shelf and set my laptop on them I'd be most of the way there, but something a little more elegant might be nice...

Also, if you haven't heard of Bass Reeves (which I suspect you won't have) you should read about him, since he was awesome. (I'm a little less convinced about the "art of manliness" site, although I guess grauwulf does have a point that having someplace that slips in bits of history and soapmaking tutorials along with articles on cars and bodybuilding isn't entirely a loss for the world.) Anyway, good story despite a little stupid-peopleness at the end, and now I am desperately trying to remember what the anecdote was that my grandmother told me last weekend about her grandfather while he was surveying in Indian Territory.

We survived another working family reunion and a great garage clean-out with a fairly small quantity of newly acquired stuff, and one of the things I did bring home with me was the quilt top that my grandmother made the summer she turned twelve; apparently she and her best friend decided this would make a great summer project. The pieced blocks are meticulously aligned 8-point stars on a white background, done in actual flour sack prints with solids to match, and they were later machine-pieced with (higher quality) white squares. It needs a border, backing, and quilting, which I have promised to do in time for christmas, and then add a hanging sleeve along the back so that it can go up on their parlor wall. (There it will clash with the 1960s burnt orange & brown decor, but I think this is far preferable to being used & having the original background fabric disintegrate on the fourth or fifth time through the wash.)

I have just about finished with the Thing I am making my brother for his half-birthday (um, that was the 4th...) although I contemplate further detail work, and have also crocheted several eyeballs for a swap. (I sort of want to hang crochet eyeballs from my rear view mirror like fuzzy dice, but I think they would actually be more annoying than entertaining.)

Aside from that, the world is full of contractors giving us estimates for a house addition and birds visiting the garden. I have learned that it is cardinals who make the video game noises (cherwee--p'chu! p'chu! p'chu!), and am beginning to worry that the little downy woodpecker is feeding her nestlings with nothing but peanuts from my feeder. We have also sighted and identified a new couple, misleadingly named purple finches; she is a sparrowy speckled brown, and he has bright red accents, or as the bird book describes it, looks "like a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice." Having observed things dipped in red juices before (although admittedly cran-raspberry is about as close as we usually get around here) I would say he has better color than that, but I am not writing the bird books.

Comments

[thanate.livejournal.com]

The neat thing is how easy it is to come up with something that works (boxes, coke cans, etc) to put on top of the normal desk you've already got. :)