madshutterbug | Entries tagged with writing

Skippy's Chemo

The Place to go for information in Holt City is Skippy's Chemo.

It may seem odd, a place that close to a church being a hotbed of news about all kinds of things, but it makes sense in a way. Caffeine and gossip, both ways to catch a buzz. Toss in an after-hours speakeasy and you can find out what wide-awake drunks talk about a whole lot of things they might not aught to. Then they can go ask forgiveness.

( We walked through the door just before sunset to find the place already hopping. )

"Hey, where'd you put your shotgun," Weisman asked. Ofuroyama's whiskers twitched.

"Where is easy to reach it if needed," he said. "Go, now, Dutch-san. Time is now important." I trotted off across the street to the front door of Our Lady of PSI.

To Be Continued ...

Current Mood: creative

International Relations

The ride to the 6th Precinct took little time, traffic moving briskly and mostly being the cable-cars and delivery wagons. Our driver deposited us at the main door and drove off to the garage. I motioned Ofuroyama through ahead of me. We nodded to Sargent Feuerschmidt at the desk, talking to an otter carrying a big camera. The otter bounced over in front of me.

( G'day, Chief Inspector. Got anything on that burned-out mech over in Littleton? And who's the bloke built like a brick outhouse? )

"That is a good reason. Yes, Ramaji will move tonight, most probably during the festival. We may gain additional information before. I know place where such is found. We must be ready, and rested." He looked around the room. "May I use chair for nap, please?" I smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, sure. I plan on catching some zee's here." And with that I stretched out, propping my boots on the far armrest and my head on the near one. Experience taught me long ago never to waste time for sleep. I was out in seconds.

To Be Continued ...

Current Mood: creative

Lord Phogg Pontificates

Hobart House is a large Jacobean style brick mansion up on one of the hills along the bay. We drove up to the front of the house, gravel crunching under the mech's tyres, and stopped before a tall square turret with a big oak door. Ofuroyama and I got out and walked up to it. There wasn't any doorknob. I pressed the call bell button and heard the first four notes of Westminster's chimes. "Who lives here?" I asked Ofuroyama.

( Professor Phogg-sama, he replied. He knows much about St. Otter you need to know. )

"Good morning, gentlemen," she said as we stepped out and I placed my hat on my head, grasping it at the peak of the crown formed by the four indentations in the crown.

"Good morning, Miss," I replied, and our exchanged smiles drove away the last mournful fragments of the night's fog.

"Come, Dutch-san. We must go to station now." The driver closed the doors of the mech behind us, and we set off into the sunny morning, diamonds sparkling on the waters of the bay beneath us.

To Be Continued ...

Current Mood: creative

Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt.

I leaned against the tree trunk in the shadows from the gas lamp and watched the church across the street. Our Lady of Perpetual Scientific Inquiry stood conspicuous in inactivity, but I got to enjoy the wee hours on a cold, dark morning watching it because the Watch got a tip that someone planned a heist of the St. Otter icon. Fog wrapped itself around me in tendrils like the arms of a damp, dead lover. Hunching my shoulders and turning the collar of my duster up, I wished I had some hot coffee. But the coffee house behind me was still closed, only the neon sign flashing and buzzing, Skippy's Chemo, Skippy's Chemo, Skippy's Chemo.

( The garish light washed over a derelict drunk sleeping under a newspaper tent on the cable car stop bench. )

"What do you know of St. Otter, Zoektochtmann-san?"

"Call me Dutch, it's easier. Not much. He was an otter. Someone painted an Icon of him. Now someone wants to steal it."

Ofuroyama nodded. "Driver, please to change destination. Please to go to Hobart House." He turned to me as the driver turned the mech at the next intersection. "Someone you need to speak with, Dutch-san. Good thing is now day, though maybe we still wake him."

To Be Continued ...

Current Mood: creative

Think I forgot to mention in the weekend summary yesterday, also changed out a flat tire on Forrest NissanPickup. Not sure why the tire went flat. Might of found a bit of debris through the tread, and we did use the pickup to pull the fence wire. The spare is a regular tire (as opposed to a 'donut' spare often seen these days... it is after all a working truck), but a left-over from a previous tire change purchase. It's showing signs of age and riding around under the truck. Holding air though. Herself is supposed to take the tire to the tire place to day, check if it can be plugged or what.

Other things happened yesterday evening. Ranch things. Some of it is related to the time of year. Parts of Baja Jorja are on fire... must be spring. Indeed, we received enough rain in March & April to cause the grass to turn green and trees to sprout. Then, nada, it's gotten dry (another reason I worked on water points and water conservation over the weekend), and the grass isn't growing. For the horses and cows, this means not much graze. With the cows specifically, if they get hungry enough they'll start testing fences again.

Woke up around 02:00 and couldn't get to sleep again, did drift in and out sometime between 04:00 & 05:00 when the alarm went off. Could be hamster wheels, could be other things. Mostly spent the time meditating to keep the mind clear and encourage going back to sleep. Right.

So you get a wee poetry lesson, in the sense that a thought which did percolate through all of this, I recorded, more or less for reference. It's an iambic couplet, not iambic pentameter as there are only four feet, and not rhymed as it is. For something which would be rhymed, the scheme is implied. It could also work in free verse.

A: In dark of night my thoughts are bleak
B: And brown as drought-burnt pasture grass.

One of the benefits of using a PDA, or PDA smartphone combo is I wrote this in a note on the Treo, using the tiny QWERTY keypad. Thumbs only typing, and not bad for sometime around 03:30. I will state my position that I typed it in Early American English, since it says 'thoughtf' in the note, not thoughts.

It's a poetry lesson because:
- it's iambic
- it's a couplet
- it's recorded, so I won't forget it which is important if I'm ever going to use it (who knows), and
- it's written, and as someone I've been reading recently pointed out, the fact that I've written it makes me a writer (unpublished, or self-published considering it's in Live Journal now).

So.

Morning. Yes, that's the time of day. Probably not so bleak as this sounds overall, just another day here in North Central Baja Jorja.

Current Mood: meditative
Current Location: Hospital
Current Music: I Should Be Working

Saturday. Feed run, as usual, and then while Herself worked at taking down a stretch of 19 year old fence with patches of holes I worked on fixing up a couple of the water points which were leaking. I don't mind the leaking in one sense. We put big buckets under the spigot to catch the leak. While the goats were wandering this gave them additional watering spots. When the Bros are making rounds with me, this gives them additional watering spots, which for a black (mostly black) dog in North Central Baja Jorja in the summer time is important.

There's more fence to replace, but this stretch is the worst. Was the worst. As mentioned it's 19 year old fencing and caused me to pause as we rolled up the remnant fence fabric... we put this fence in when we first got the goats. Lately they've been looking at it as more a suggestion they shouldn't wander out of their paddock. A suggestion they've mostly ignored. Now it's more than a suggestion.

Between water works and fencing, a bit of sun exposure. There've been other posts by friends and readers here about sun exposure and predominantly norther European/Anglo-Saxon/Celtic heritage. All of the above apply to your narrator. Thus my arms, portions of my legs, and my neck are somewhat redder today than they were last Friday. Yes, that makes me a red-neck. Got a problem with that? The gate is that way.

Sunday. Laundry run, being as we've still not gotten the washer fixed. This included, on yesterday's occasion, a stop at the local Ace Hardware for some more water works maintenance supplies, a stop at the local pharmacy for Herself's prescription, and two loads of wash. Wash only, brought it home to dry. Drove through some rain coming home, not much.

Also Sunday worked on the migration of data from the Palm Desktop universe to the Outlook Universe. I've decided to give the Palm Treo 750 a shot, even given that it requires using Outlook as a Personal Information Manager. I think this will avoid the problems of virus security by not using the Outlook e-mail management tool. My theory is, if I never use Outlook E-mail, then I can't open anything with a virus.

To be fair here, Palm is not being terribly helpful in the transfer either. The 'conduits' which should allow a Palm handheld to talk to Outlook during the hot-sync operation are not talking. Thus, no sync from the old Tungsten to Outlook. This required (because I am not going to purchase software for a one-time use to migrate data) doing things the 'hard' way, exporting data from the Palm Desktop as comma-delimited files and importing into Outlook.

Contacts (phone numbers, addresses, such) moved fairly easily. It required reviewing the entries to make sure all fields imported correctly (more or less, and acceptible), and then being able to eliminate some duplicates which the flat-file database system Palm uses necessitated, by making additional links as appropriate in Outlook.

Memo's also made the transition without too much trouble. The To-Do list, right up front in the Palm Support web information, won't make the transition. Copy and paste individually. Maybe. We'll see.

Calendar, on the other hand, is not playing friendly. The Palm software I have (updated on Friday via download) will only 'export' the Calendar data to an 'archive' file format, which Outlook won't read, nor will Paradox, nor probably Access. Outlook will accept a 'VCal' format for import; it's not a selection for export from the Palm Desktop. Today will see a bit of time researching this, particularly since Calendar is one of the major reasons I use a PDA/PIM.

During and after laundry (i.e. while at home drying) I also got a bit more writing done on a bit of story which much needs it. Not going to dwell much on this now, because I plan on posting the story to LJ when done. It's up to 7000 words plus some change right now, so it will probably be posted in serial format, one section a day. I'd hit a spot where the details just weren't coming along, though the outline stares at me indicated what it is that happens at that point. So I skipped along to the next section, got that written, and started on the wrap-up section. We'll see. I'd like to get this thing up here before the end of May.

Evening both days included hot-soak in the tub.

That's my exciting weekend. I need a weekend from my weekend.

Current Mood: tired sort of

Houdini sits with his Human, Boss, in the Internet Place. It’s an odd location, this Internet Place, because the perception of it is so very... well, personal isn’t quite the word, unless one accepts that there are Two-legged Persons and Four-legged Persons. Houdini’s Internet Place looks rather like a big pasture, with well-marked paths going hither and yon. Some of the paths wind into and around copses of trees, or alongside streams. Houdini likes the Internet Place because somehow, he always gets to sit right next to Boss when it’s sitting time.

( Houdini: Boss, what are you sad about? )

Boss: Ah, Houdini. Welcome to the six million dog biscuit question.