Journey to the Center

I’d been looking forward to the next book in The Looking Glass Wars series, Seeing Redd, for quite a while, so when I saw a copy I jumped at the chance to read it. I’d started with the short series of the Hatter M comic (which I loved, partially for the artwork and partially for the brilliant story) and then moved on to The Looking Glass Wars. I mowed through that book in a weekend, entranced by the new take on Wonderland and its vicious war machine. I expected to love this book.

Was I ever disappointed. The story is clearly a middle space; something that intends to lead somewhere but could not possibly stand on its own. It has no merit other than setting up book 3. And maybe 4. And however many other books they intend to push out.

It is mostly a rehash of the Hatter M series, from a mildly different point of view. Redd ends up in England by some quirk of fate/imagination and goes through much of what Hatter went through, meeting many of the same characters but getting along with them because she’s evil. There’s a minor skirmish back in Wonderland and some characters have some emotions. That’s about it. Book over. Beddor is clearly setting this up for the Epic Battle in book 3. Or whatever, depending on how long he strings his audience along and can play on this for money.

Right there, in the dust jacket About the Author segment, I found the explanation for my disappointment. Frank Beddor is a movie producer. He spent 3 years coming up with the ideas behind the first book. This second book came out in under a year. He’s working on a movie about the saga. This book was not written for itself, but to try to build up a Looking Glass following that resembles the Harry Potter phenomenon. Sure, it’s for a slightly higher age range, but the idea is still the same. Books > Movies> notoriety.

What I wouldn’t give to trade Seeing Redd for book 1 and my naivete.

ETA: John Scalzi addresses the topic of writing descending into hackery today.  I think this applies perfectly in this situation.

Over the weekend my husband and I tried to put in the new garbage disposal. It’s one of the things about this house that we just haven’t been able to get used to. Low water pressure? Fine, we’ll adjust. No microwave? Well, we have an oven. No disposal? Panic!

The reasoning behind not putting one in was sound - we’re on a septic system instead of sewer. Fortunately they’ve developed a disposal with septic in mind, so we went out and picked one up. It’s one heck of a disposal too: 3/4 horsepower with a 40 oz grind chamber. Not that we need all of that grinding power, but it will be nice to be able to just wash stuff down the sink instead of being super careful about catching scraps in the trap. And then the really gross part of transferring the ick from the trap to the trash.

After bringing this bad boy home, we came up with a plan of attack. See, the dishwasher was put in after the rest of the kitchen, so there’s some weird wiring under the sink (along with a switch?!?) to accommodate it. We figured we’d just attach the disposal to the dishwasher electric feed, do a bit of plumbing and be done. We’ve done electric work before. This shouldn’t be a big deal.

Wouldn’t it be nice if things went to plan? Just once, even?

So we started flipping breakers, trying to determine which of the lines fed which parts of the kitchen. There are 2 lines for outlets, the stove, the fridge, some more lines for other receptacles and the lights… none of them impact the dishwasher. So we start flipping other random breakers, leaving out the upper and lower floors. The last one on the list before we get to the last-resort-upstairs-breakers is the furnace.

Naturally, they hooked the dishwasher up to the furnace. Why on earth wouldn’t you hook two items that take 15 amps up to the same 20 amp breaker? What possible reason could you have for wanting the dishwasher to stand alone?

At least now we know why there’s a switch for it.

So we spent Sunday running wire from a spare breaker (Spare. Hah! At least now I know we’re not going to increase the water pressure in the house. Ever.) and hooking it up to the dishwasher. In moving the electric, we’d decided to pull out the old wires that weren’t going to be used any more and clean up our mess. Unfortunately, that didn’t go to plan either. It turns out that there are several more wires coming out of the furnace junction, and we have no idea where they go. We decided to leave that mess well enough alone. So we capped the wires and called it good. No fire hazard, no foul.

Next weekend, we’ll try setting up the box for the extra power and putting in the new plumbing. At least the old pipes are compression fit and easy to replace.

The Herd wandered through the yard today. I wouldn’t have noticed except for the buck who decided that the wheelbarrow was his mortal enemy.

At first it sounded as though a truck was trying to load something in the driveway. I assumed that the meter reader was here, but no car when I went to check. So I looked the other way, and what do I see but a buck trying to get the better of the wheelbarrow.

His battle went on for several minutes while he bashed the wheelbarrow against the post that will eventually corner our compost heaps. Back and forth it went, rocking in the ground despite the concrete footing. It’s a good thing we were so careful to get those properly planted. I would never have guessed they’d have to stand up to a battle with an elk.

Just when it looked like the elk was getting bored, he discovered he could hook his horns into the legs of the wheelbarrow and drag it around. He spent another minute pushing the wheelbarrow around and trying to pick it up. I don’t know if he strained his neck at all with that awkward angle, but it certainly didn’t seem to stop him from trying to lift and/or throw it.

While all of this play was going on, the rest of the herd munched away on the lawn. The only one interested in this guys antics was the other buck. I couldn’t tell if he thought there might be a fight later, or if it just looked like fun and was thinking about getting in on the game.

I stood there for about 2 minutes before the buck really noticed me. He stopped his play to look at me through the window, ready to run. When he decided that I wasn’t a threat, he licked his nose a few times and wandered off nonchalantly. It was almost as though he were a child, embarrassed that he’d been caught doing something silly but not about to admit it to anyone. Let alone himself.

See the rest of the set here.

My husband and I are looking at getting a dog. We’ve never owned a dog as adults, so I’m trying to get as much information as I can ahead of time. Sort of get a plan together so that we’re not too surprised when the dog comes home.

This has led me to the library, picking up every book that could be useful on the subject of owning a dog. Some have been helpful, others were just a skim and dump back at the library. I started this process by finally finishing Dr. Pitcairn’s New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. Interesting book, but has a few odd spots. I was unaware that cats would thrive on veggies and dogs should be fed oatmeal. In fact, I’m pretty sure that these are dead wrong. But overall, it was relatively useful and a good starting point. Add some judicious logic and you’re well on your way to actually knowing new things.

I then picked up Sue Sternbergs Successful Dog Adoption. Fantastic book, especially since we’re looking to integrate a dog into our 2 cat home. The temperament tests are going to get copied and used on every dog we look at. We’re looking for our perfect dog, not a dog that’s just good enough for right now. I don’t want to be trying to keep the dog and cats from chasing each other after the first few weeks. My husband was a little reluctant at first (there are lots and lots of tests), but most of them are pretty obvious and easy to perform, so he’s on board now. This will make things both harder and easier. Long term it will be a blessing, but short term its going to be hard to find a dog that’s right for us.

After that, I hit a couple of stinkers. The American Animal Hospital Association encyclopedia of dog health and care was an overview that can be summed up as “take your dog to the vet.” Nothing useful there for anyone who’s ever been around a dog, let alone believes in medicine that’s not strictly Western in origin. The second was The holistic guide for a healthy dog. Absolutely a dud. I tried so hard to read it hoping for something alternative but practical, but it was largely a listing of herbs and what they do. I have an herb encyclopedia for that, I was hoping for something with actual data related to dogs. Both went back after a thorough skimming.

While I was wandering in the library, I picked up Your Cat. Our cats are now eating raw food, but I wanted to see another vets opinion on it. It seems like the standard opinion cliche applies, but the author of this one actually worked in the pet food industry for a while so I was hoping for a bit more. Turns out this was a good primer on simple things you can do for cat health. There were descriptions of symptoms for the fairly common age-related illnesses and some debunking of common myths. I’m particularly interested in the fact that she runs her practice around reducing the instance and maintenance of diabetes in cats by feeding species-appropriate diets. There’s a fabulous description of the circle of crystal control due to bad diet.

Overall, I’d say I’m pretty disappointed in the options in dog books. I know just enough to be dangerous - you’d think someone would have figured out this market and written for it by now.

I am very glad that I went through the exercise of recounting my back issues here, it made recounting the saga for my new doctor much easier. The process of getting this diagnosis has taken 15 years and covered 4 doctors so far. The most irritating part is that there is no record of my visit to the surgeon in 1999. The xrays are gone, and the doctor was such a waste that I can’t remember his name.

But there is good news on the horizon.

My new doctor wrote me a prescription for the physical therapy and is interested in monitoring my progression. So much so, in fact, that after I saw him Monday he sent me off to get new xrays made. This would not be problem except that the local imaging company seems to be run by two year olds.

It’s Monday, a workday for most people not affiliated with the government or banks, and I’ve taken a couple of hours out to go to the doctor. He sends me off to the imagingin company, and I head out for a walk in. I called ahead to make sure the waiting list wasn’t insane and am at reception within 10 minutes. I only have an hour and a half until I have to go, since I have a meeting, but it’s just xrays. No big deal, right?

Oh, but that’s so wrong. First, the person checking me in can’t read the doctors writing. But since I’m standing right there and know what he’s sent me for, I can do some interpretation. She finally gets the stuff entered and I’m off to sit and wait. I didn’t bring anything to read, so I pick at the magazines and try to avoid listening to the shouting match between an old guy and his relative/caregiver. It was like trying to ignore a Jerry Springer episode. I have no idea why they were so angry, but it was clear they were never going to get over it.

Finally they call my name and I’m thinking that they’re ready. It’s just an xray; two shots and I’m done! Except that it turns out they don’t do that type of xray there. It requires special film which they don’t have. I’ll have to go down to the hospital proper to have that done. And by the way are you in a hurry? Because in order to arrange that I had to sit back down and wait for them to call the doctor then call the hospital then come get me again. Fortunately that didn’t take very long, but there was more bad news. In order to get to the xray machine I’d have to be admitted to the hospital, which is going to take more time than I have. So I decided to take my doctors order and come back another day.

The funny part of this story is that when I went back Wednesday morning to talk to the hospital people, I had to get admitted anyway. Seems that’s just how they bill you for services and it doesn’t really take that long. I was in and out in an hour. All for 2 special pieces of film. Which were long and skinny. Seriously, they could have just used the regular squares and shot the images from farther away at the first place. Silly.

Anyway, end result is that I have a 19 degree curve now. That’s up from the 10 degree one years ago. The doctor wants a recheck in 6 months to a year to determine the rate of progression. The original surgeon told me it was about a degree a year, so I wasn’t too terribly surprised.

And I still need another prescription because the insurance company is made up of butts.

I have scoliosis.

It’s not that bad really, in the range of 15-20 degrees, but it causes me massive amounts of pain if I’m not careful. And back pain is nothing to sneeze at - there are days when I can’t get out of bed for hours because it has rendered every movement painful.

This condition isn’t really a surprise; scoliosis runs in my family. Have a cousin who had to wear a brace for years to correct her spine, so I consider myself lucky. Those braces all look like portable racks to me.

The evolution of my condition was really slow. I was first diagnosed with a 3 degree curve in middle school by a school nurse and subsequent doctors visit. I pretty much forgot about it until I started waking up with pain and went back to the doctor about a decade later. They sent me off for X-rays and a spinal consult.

Can I just say that modern medicine knows nothing about backs? The spinal consult confirmed that I had an 18 degree curve. The solution? Surgery fixing my spine to a metal rod, or aerobic exercize every day. I’m not sure how the exercize was supposed to strenghten my muscles in the right way to straighten my spine, but that’s what he recommended. And there was no way in hell I was going to have such a risky surgery. So I suffered.

Until, that is, I found another way. I’ve been seeing a therapist for Postural Reconstruction off and on for the last two years.* In this time, I have started standing taller, my shoulders no longer hunch, and the pain is mostly gone. All this without the risk of surgery.

Postural Reconstruction is really simple, and yet horribly complicated. The idea is that you use muscles to work against one another so that they fix whatever is going wrong. They end up over-extending and then relax back into the position they’re supposed to be in, rather than the one they’ve come to call home over the years. I have never sweat so much from sitting as I have in one of these sessions. I think my therapist believes that twisting me into new pretzel positions is good for me somehow.

Last week, I added the Feldenkrais method to my therapy suite. This is supposed to teach me new ways to approach the world and new methods of movement to keep those old home positions from returning. We’ll see how that goes. After my first session, I felt amazingly loose and tall for 3 days. Reverting to the old habits was inevitible, it was only one session, and yet painful. It’s sad to feel the old habits coming back and know that the pain will return with them.

I’m planning to post on milestones along the way. We’ll see what they are when I get there, I guess.

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*It’s been off mostly due to stupid insurance rules about only allowing western medicine. Paying for things that should be covered by insurance makes me crazy.

This is the first of a series of short book reviews. The goal is to get through 50 books this year, each with a review. It’s only appropriate that the first review of the year should be of a book by a first time novelist, Warren Ellis. Ellis is a prolific writer of comics, but this is his first foray into novelization.

Crooked Little Vein is the story of a private investigator that has the worst luck a PI can have - he attracts simple-seeming cases that turn out to be loaded guns. In this instance, Mike McGill attracts a lost property cases with high stakes - a book of Invisible Amendments that the Chief of Staff as his client intends to use on the country. These Amendments are said to be able to reset the country’s morality to the Golden Age when they were written, namely 1776. Following the trail of this book across the country forces the McGill to interact with people with varying degrees of kinks and quirks and face the morality of returning a book with the power this one contains.

The story uses McGills improbable luck to assist with moving the plot along, taking advantage of conventions frequently seen in the comic world but rarely used in mainstream novels. This cavalier attitude toward conventions of reality and coincidence is part of the novels charm. That and cleverly crafted prose, which manages to avoid pushing characters into improbable and awkward conversation while still providing vivid imagery. Even ordinary situations become extraordinary, as exemplified by a red eye flight which becomes a conversation with a serial killer.

Ellis makes good use of his comic background, bringing his scripting skills to the purely written medium. This book reads like a storyboard, the words generating pictures of their own accord. I hope that this first foray into the realm of novels is followed by others. Ellis’ growth as a cross-medium writer is only bounded by his willingness to leave the visual behind.

I am a feminist. This occasionally colors my perception of classical works, making it difficult for me to enjoy some of the pieces that are overtly misogynist or racist. Some pieces are presented in a way that makes it possible to put them back into context and remember they were written hundreds of years ago when sexism and racism were more accepted and overt than they are today. However, I still have problems with The Taming of the Shrew and I was fully expecting Pagliacci to be of its ilk; namely that it would infuriate me with its abuse of women and I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the musical impact of the work.

The Seattle Opera took a novel approach to performing this piece, removing the traditional showing of Cavalleria Rusticana from the bill and filling the time with a flashback of Canio and Nedda and a piece of music pulled from other Leoncavalla works. The 11 minute interlude traveled through Canios memory from the time when he and Nedda met (she was very young and he was an adult clown) through to the present day. The music and accompanying circus acts were fascinating in their own right, but they also showed a tenderness between the two that wasn’t displayed in the first act. The growth of the relationship between Canio and Nedda and their happiness together was shown in a way that made it possible to understand Canio better.
My concerns about not enjoying this piece were entirely unfounded. I was absolutely blown away by the opera. I have never been moved by music or performance like I was by Antonello Palombis performance as Pagliacci. I would have thought that I wouldn’t have any sympathy for such a jealous jerk, but the passion and energy Palombi brought to the performance made me cry. It just broke my heart to see him in so much pain. After seeing the way he lavished attention on Nedda in the interlude, it was impossible not to feel for a man whose heartbreak snapped his mind, and Palombis performance brought this state of being home. I think with a lesser actor, it wouldn’t have been as easy to feel that sympathy.

The curtain call showed exactly how much effort Palombi hadput into the final scene. He came out for his bows sobbing with exhaustion. It was a truly beautiful performance, the only one where I felt the need to give a standing ovation. I was privileged to be there.

I am a fool. Sometimes I forget that being a techie doesn’t make me uber-technical; it just makes me able to troubleshoot.

Over the holidays, I had several days off from work. I figured that this would be the perfect time to do some upgrading on my web server, especially since I hadn’t really worked on it since I’d installed Fedora Core 2. Yeah, it’s really been that long. They’re up to FC8 now, so I had some serious upgrading to do. And you can’t really skip versions with the way it’s set up. Far more likely to cause problems that way. So I made what backups I could and set to it.
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I now know that my neighbors use clumping clay cat litter. The kind that’s grey with little blue flecks in it. I also happen to know that this stuff stains beige carpet.

It all started out innocently enough. Wednesday, I stopped at the end of the driveway on my way home from work to pick up the mail. This time of year it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I come home, so pulling into the driveway and walking along the semi-slimy side of the gravel driveway is always a challenge. There’s no sidewalk and the grassy/muddy edge along the driveway is full of potholes and giant rocks. Normally I don’t drive far enough down the driveway for this to be a problem; pop out of the car, walk 10 steps, grab the mail, and jump back in. A minute tops.

However, this Wednesday was special. I was stomping around in the dark, trying to avoid the puddles and the big ankle-twisting rocks when I stepped in something squishy. At the time I assumed I’d hit a nasty mud puddle, but since I didn’t slide too much or twist any ankles, I didn’t worry about it. I just grabbed the mail and got back in the car. I arrived at the house in the dark and climbed the stairs to take off my shoes and crash for a bit. I paid no attention to the weird sticking of my right foot on the carpeted stairs, I saw nothing unusual. Not until the next morning.

On my way out Thursday morning, my husband noted that there was a weird stain on the carpet. I vaguely remembered stepping in something odd and figured that I should check my shoes. Why yes, the arch under my foot had trapped some foreign substance that required removing. And man was there a lot of it. I cleaned off my shoe with about a dozen tissues, washed my hands and trundled off to work.

When I got home that night, my husband told me that he’d discovered the cause of the problem. He was cleaning up the stains on the stairs and the smell got him thinking. So he went down to the street and discovered that his hunch was right. The trash collectors had managed to drop a bag of one of the neighbors cat litter cleaning out of their trash can, and just left it where it fell. This sat in the rain for a day before I stepped in it, thus the slimy texture. So I’d been tracking some other cats pee around the house.

At this point, I’m just thankful that our cats haven’t decided that this is cause for a pee-war on the stairs.