Blogs 5/9 & 5/10

5/9

To my relief, the replacement printer came today.  Also, winter came again, as it was cold enough outside again today to make me wear a sweater and keep the window closed.  Of course, when I picked my nephew up at his football practice, he said it was hot and wanted the windows rolled down.  To each their own.

I've been reporting on the weird email messages I've been getting in my Spam folder.  Today I got one that said, "This is the WORST Food you can Possibly eat!"  Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link.  Yep, it's week-old potato salad.*

You won't believe this (well, I certainly don't), but with the writing I did last night before falling asleep (my laptop was still open next to me and the light was still on when my alarm went off) and what little I managed just now . . . "Balms & Sears" is now over 40,000 words long.

I guess it's safe to say I'm in the zone now.  Huh.

WRITING/EXERCISE: Writing.

5/10

Maybe I complain too much about the little hardships in my life, but being able to send a label to a printer and have it in my hand a minute (or less) later is really appreciated.

I took my four year old nephew to his baseball practice today, and it is the absolute beginner tier for sports . . . but even so, it was like wrangling a hornet's nest on that field.  My nephew hasn't even mastered catching a ball with his mitt yet, and it was frustrating to see how short the attention spans of the children involved were.  But when they split the kids and the parents into two groups and we had to throw a ball back and forth, well, that's when I discovered just how uncoordinated and unathletic I (still) am.  

Oh, I could catch the ball when he'd throw it (providing it came anywhere near me), but since he'd just stand there like a scarecrow with his arm out, I found it extremely difficult to get the ball into the mitt more than a single time.  I often wish I could go back in time and do my life over again, zigging when I originally zagged (or more likely, just sat on my hands instead of zigging or zagging), but to be the weakest, most backward and uncoordinated kid on any team again . . . well, that does not appeal to me in the slightest.

Well, I was pretty much just wasting my time here at the library, reading people's opinions of DOCTOR STRANGE 2 online and such, and it occurred to me that I ought to leave if I'm not going to do anything productive.  I wrote about four paragraphs, which isn't anything to brag about, but I'm going to take off, grab something to eat, and maybe finish editing the story I owe EscapeArtists.

I went to my cousin's house, who was feeling sick (he's been sick all this week, but made it clear that I am NOT in his will), and was able to watch the first episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

It tells of Christopher Pike as Captain of the USS Enterprise on its five year mission, and somebody somewhere said it was the longest period of time between a pilot (1964) and the series it spawned (2022).  I quite enjoyed it, especially the optimistic, more fundamentally decent take on the "Trek" universe.

Oh, there's still a few things that remind me I'm not watching the "Original Series" or "Next Generation," but it didn't seem to have the disdain for those shows that some of the new stuff trumpets.  And I was both moved and inspired by the end.  I'll have to ask Marshal and my cousin what they think of the show.**

WRITING/EXERCISE: Writing.

*Actually, when I clicked on the link, there was a video that it wanted me to watch, and when I started to exit the page, this big "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CLICK AWAY?" window popped up.  I will never know what the worst food I could possibly eat is, so I'm destined to consume it one day. 

**There are still too many characters introduced to keep things super-straight, but because you're (presumably) already familiar with Pike, Spock, Number One/Una, Nurse Chapel, Doctor M'Benga, and Uhura, it's not quite asking so much of the viewers.