Waiting for Antlers

I feel like I just woke up from a week underwater. The culprit, of course, was allergies--but for days I couldn't figure out what. Nothing is blooming right now that I'm allergic to, I felt better at work (usually the bastion of all allergens), and I felt nauseated and congested every morning when I got up.

It turns out that my grandmother gave my mom a bamboo-reed diffuser with some type of fragrant oil in it. My mom, innocently, put it in the spare bedroom next to mine. As soon as we took it outside and let in fresh air, I started feeling like a human being again instead of a miserable puddle of goo.

I have to say, whatever was in it smelled nice. Oh, allergies.

I sold a short story to Electric Spec! Let's celebrate with the account of last autumn's baking saga.

It started with alaurens sending me a recipe for anzac biscuits. Let me note that she is innocent in the following events.

So anyway, I looked at the recipe. Coconut, oats, golden syrup, it all seemed fairly straightforward. I did conversions for the ingredient amounts, and gathered the supplies.

First was the coconut. The local store only had baby ones, but I figured baby coconuts should still have flesh inside; one should be enough. I set to work brutally destroying said coconut.



Tender baby flesh was achieved, although not quite enough for the recipe; I decided to halve all the other ingredients. A half-batch would be fine for the first test, anyway, or so my logic ran.



This would have worked out perfectly well if I hadn't forgotten, partway through measuring the liquids, that I was supposed to cut their amount in half. Oops.

So my batter ended up a little...soupy. Fine, whatever, I thought; I'll just pour it over the paper-covered cookie sheet and bake the whole mass, then cut it up. Australian oatmeal bars, as it were. Onward.



I put it in the oven. I putter around the kitchen. Soon I notice that air smells strangely like...birthday candles? My mom wanders past, curiously.

ME: Does that smell like birthday candles to you? Like melting birthday candles?
MOM: It does.
ME: So...just a question...parchment paper and wax paper can be used the same way, right?
MOM: No. No, they can't.

So we took the festive-smelling pan from the oven and tasted the half-baked oatmeal/coconut mass. In case you are wondering, the taste of burnt melted wax in cookie batter is truly vile.

So Attempt One was thrown away.

I gathered the ingredients for a second batch. New coconut (a full-size one this time), oats, parchment paper, etc. I mix everything up, put globs of dough on the cookie sheet, put it in the oven. Everything smells fine. I am on my way to success!

I pull the pan out at the appointed time. The cookies are...flat. As in, run together and melted into a mass resembling the prior picture of the cookie sheet, except with little tectonic-plate lines where their edges cooked slightly before running together. I did not get a picture of this step, because I was too busy staring in baffled despair. They tasted fine, coconuty and sweet and chewy, they were just...flat. Like, paint-spill flat.

I email alaurens to doublecheck the ingredients and proportions. Everything seemed right, though; I couldn't pinpoint anything I mis-measured. She suggested refrigerating the dough before cooking. That reasonable advice did not seem quite drastic enough to counteract whatever was causing this. I went and flopped facedown on my parents' bed.

MOM: It's like you're adding too much liquid. You're sure all of those are right?
ME: Yep.
MOM: Let's go over the other ingredients.
ME: Oats, golden syrup, coconut--
MOM: Fresh coconut?
ME, WARILY: It said coconut.
MOM: But did it say fresh coconut?
ME: It said coconut.
MOM, SMIRKING: I bet it meant dried coconut.
ME: What? Why?
MOM: Because that's the kind used in baking.
ME, INDIGNANTLY: Why wouldn't they say dried coconut, then?!
MOM, GLEEFULLY: I dunno, everyone just knows.
ME: That makes no sense!
MOM: *peals of laughter*
ME: If a recipe calls for tomatoes, no one assumes dried tomatoes! They get fresh unless otherwise specified!
MOM: *more peals of laughter*
ME: This is clearly inconsistent, and illogical, and I object!
MOM, WIPING EYES: I'm so glad I had children. It's worth it just for the entertainment.


I sulked away and gathered the supplies for a third attempt. There was a bag of dried coconut used. I put the results in the oven, with trepidation.



Victory, at last. A rather bewildered and bedraggled victory. BUT VICTORY.

I made it through my training period, whew, and am back at my home store. Tomorrow I start shadowing the trainer I'm replacing and taking over her classes (I rather wish I could move to Hawaii with her, but sadly that is not on my menu of options. My allergies probably contraindicate Hawaii, anyway).

Also I met a twelve-week-old red merle Aussie puppy last night, and my desire for one is thoroughly renewed. Our girls are getting older! We need to start raising the next generation. That's my argument and I'm sticking to it. So far my parents are not convinced. But PUPPY.

Also also, I read Jen Kirchner's THE FOURTH CHANNEL, which is a light funny urban fantasy that does not involve a love triangle. Reader, I hugged my Kindle. And then laughed some more about the fireballed kitchen. I hope there is a sequel, and I hope it has more rockband in it. Rock, explosions, necromancers, and meddling friends. That is what I like to see in my UF.

Continuing my lucky streak, I next stumbled across Karen Lord's THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS. It's a science fiction novel that is altogether warm, bright, and charming. Despite the underlying tragedies, these characters were just wonderful to hang out with. (Delarua is way up there in my list of favorite narrators. I finished the book at 2:30 am, then immediately went back to the beginning and reread it when I woke up this morning. I would run around telling people, "Read it! It's adorable!" except when you tell people something is adorable, and then they read a prologue containing desert meditation and news that ROCKS FELL, EVERYONE DIED, they tend to be very confused and wonder if you have overdosed on the good allergy meds. I stand by my conclusion, however!) Bonus points: Caribbean-based setting, multitudes of interacting cultures, and secondary characters with desires and personalities of their own.

Spring is in the air: all the very nice Persian grandmothers are coming in to buy goldfish for the New Year celebrations. They've explained to me that the fish are for happiness and good luck, and particularly want very dark gold/red ones. They insist on not one speck of black or white on the fish. If it's the next generation of women, they don't usually mind some white markings so long as the fish aren't wholly white. Ladies a further generation down tend to be young enough they're coming in with little kids (these would be great-grandkids of the first ladies), and they let them pick whatever colors they want.

(They all look amazed and amused when I ask them unprompted if they want pure red fish, probably because no one looks less Persian than me; my coloring brings up associations like, well, St. Patrick's Day. My sister, meanwhile, got the southern-Italian set of family genes and has had customers mistakenly address her in Farsi)

Also, my parents were accosted by a baby hummingbird the other day. It was apparently the size of a large moth, had very brown coloring, and buzzed around them at dusk in a really confused and confusing fashion (they thought at first it WAS a moth, possibly one on drugs, given the exceptional speed and maneuverability. What kind of hummingbird assaults porch-goers in near-dark? Apparently a new fledgling who has not yet learned Hummingbird Etiquette*). I am deeply envious of this sighting.

So: spring! Baby birds and sunlight! The conclusion of Serious Job Discussions too, thankfully: I got the dog trainer position! Now I just have to pass my own training for it, which will take most of April. The lady who will be training me has a widely-known, one-word reputation, which is "hardcore." I understand why, having met her (she interviewed me for the spot). But she Knows Her Stuff, so I will do my best to learn everything to her high standards and prove I was a good choice.

In the stress of spring allergies and job upheaval I went on a month-long vacation from writing and read a gazillion books**, so now I feel Rested and Refreshed and ready to leap back into the novel-in-progress.*** Also I shall strive to climb back on the long-forgotten wagon of booklog posts. I particularly want to discuss the Flora Segunda books; they have some really interesting flaws.

How is spring going for all y'all, as one of my co-workers might say?


_____________

*A very aggressive and chirp-filled code of conduct, it must be admitted. For several years we had a resident Anna's hummer we named Little Soldier. Ahh, the aerial dogfights of summer.

**Okay, 35, if you count the Shadow Unit e-book rereads.

***Mentally, at least; physically I am tired and snuffly and prone to glaring at the hostile outdoors. Still, it's progress!

I am pleased to announce that I've sold a short story to The Colored Lens! "In Glamourglass Court" is slated for their spring issue; I will definitely post a link as soon as it's up.

I must thank mercwriter and ada_hoffmann for beta reading on this one. The story's set in a world Merc and I have been writing in for years, so I'm really excited to share it!

Title: "Redwing"

Words today: 400-ish
Words total: 6,873

This is my "half-dinosaur warlocks of the American Revolution" story. I was so certain I would finish it the 4th of July. That day I confidently told mercwriter it'd be only be a thousand more words or so. I wrote and wrote, and around 1 am I realized...I'd written 850 words, and there were several hundred more to go. Hm. Sadly my body requires sleep, and my workplace has a strange insistence that I show up, so I had to stop and do that. The next evening, I wrote 400 more words. At 1 am, I realized...there were still several hundred left. What madness was this?! Sleep and work had to happen again. Finally, today, I wrote the last 400 and finished the blasted thing. I am pretty sure 850 + 400 + 400 does not equal a thousand, but I will not argue with a finished draft.

I sum up my feelings with this excellent diagram from Tetrapod Zoology:

We don't name animals at work, there being so many, unless one develops an issue and needs to see the vet (otherwise we could never keep track of them in the vet's computer). Nevertheless, we end up naming a lot of things. Usually on the spur of the moment. It sometimes leads to conversations like today's:

Me: And here's the chinchilla. His ear's looking a lot better, it's cleared up almost entirely.
Vet: Good! What was his name again? Harrison?
Me: Hadrian.
Vet: What's that from--wait, like Hadrian's wall?
Me: Yup, from the Roman emperor.
Vet: *contemplative stare*
Me: It was a long day.
Vet: It must have been.

I am beyond excited to announce that "Eliza Jane Goes Into Town" is up in the newest issue of Ideomancer!

Some of you may remember this story--I wrote the first draft three years ago, in a happy midnight-fueled blaze, and then it was a slow teeth-grinding journey before I managed to cut it to strips and sew it back together in the shape it needed. Also, leahbobet is amazing. One could ask no better editor for one's first.


....I have finished all the professional adult part I can manage and now am going to go dance little circles in the corner saying coherent things like "Eeeeeeee!"

Shortish post today, because I should be writing a short story before my Day Off ends. Or at least the second scene of the story, because this story's wordcount keeps expanding, and there is no way I will finish the remaining 75% of it today.

But anyway, the Avengers movie. I am not a huge moviegoer, because most of them I can predict what's going to happen, and a lot of times it doesn't happen interestingly enough for me, and/or there is not enough non-plot stuff going to hold my attention (gorgeous scenery, fascinating characters, humor that actually makes me laugh). When I get bored in movies (or hit a romantic part I don't buy), I tend to rewrite them in my head.

(Usually the rewritten versions have much better parts for the female characters. For instance, I have described to mercwriter at length my version of Hellboy where instead of the stupid park-bench scene Liz is out investigating, and at the end has a Badass Lady Showdown with Rasputin's lover. Also, in Hellboy II, Nuala does not kill herself to destroy her power-hungry brother, but is smart enough to hold that threat over him and thus derail his ambitions for world domination, because it's hard to be Elf Lord of the World when you are dead. So the movie'd end with Nuada defeated and having to retire to rule his elfy kingdom (but no doubt plotting other means of taking over the world, which I would be up for seeing because Nuada = also awesome), and Nuala alive because we can actually do that with lady-characters, you know! Even elf princesses. It can work. They can save the world WITHOUT dying tragically in their love-interest's arms afterward. Anyway, her alive, and able to make her own choices and explore the world, and in my version joining the protagonist team and having excellent Paranormal Criminal-Minds Style Adventures. She and Liz could be Badass Lady Cops together.

Clearly I've thought about this a lot. I do it from love, Hellboy movies! I do it from love.)

ANYWAY. I went to see The Avengers--which is a long movie, I realized afterward when I checked the time--and in not one part did I get bored or irritated enough to mentally rewrite! I paid attention the whole way through! People told me it was good, but I was a little skeptical, even when I heard Joss Whedon was involved, because he usually is pretty good at stuff that keeps my attention (I will forgive a lot for witty banter).

So this is not a post critically analyzing The Avengers, or even doing much analysis at all, beyond: characters are critical. Especially in an action movies. These characters were well-written, different, funny people, all of them very smart, and their conflicts were integral to the plot and their interactions with each other. I LOVED how Black Widow was so competent and useful to the team, despite not having a superpower (admittedly one can make a strong case that her superpower is "being stone-cold awesome"). And being a full real person, not sidelined into a dull romance or ending up someone to be rescued (there are so many parts of the Thor movie I mentally rewrote). Also, Hawkeye! How adorable was Hawkeye (I think his superpower is "making good choices" because really, he handled the whole situation so well! His responses were both determined and reasonable, and all actions exceedingly competent. I really appreciate competence).

Also, Loki was great. Not just his own character--evil, crazy, more than a little sympathetic, and always gleefully fun to watch--but the way his interactions with the other characters illuminated their inner workings and influenced the plot. I actually cared about everyone involved! I even cared about the huge final battle! And that is a rare thing indeed.

So, final conclusion: your friends are not mistaken when they tell you the movie is good! You may wish to go see it.

Also, I apparently fail at writing short posts. Hm.

Busy, however--I'm finally working full-time, which is great for financial survival but requires adjustment before physical and mental energy resume normal levels (It's nice to HAVE energy to recover: allergy treatment is still going well. I am almost done with the yellow bottle, and next week start red! Explanation: each concentration of serum has its own color-coded top. White is the very lowest concentration that one starts on, and then after a certain number of injections one moves up to being injected with the next-higher concentration. Red is the very last bottle, and once I hit the full dose, we start decreasing the number of shots per month rather than increasing concentration. Red is a very exciting bottle).

Also, Tuesday through Thursday I had a cold (still a bit of coughing now, but it's mostly gone). The reason I bring this up is that the cold's very earliest symptoms were...my teeth hurting. Is this a thing? My dad reported it as part of his symptoms too (he brought it home, the criminal). I don't get colds very often, so I ask you, LJ. Is the teeth-hurting also part of your experience? It seems like this should be outside a cold virus's purview. Sneezing, Coughing, Fever, Muscle Aches: all part of the job description. Molar and Jaw Pain seems like it's beyond the United Federation of Cold-Viruses guidelines.

Item three: Thursday night I saw Rammstein in concert! A lot of fun, but I was surprised: by the way everyone was going on about pyrotechnics, I was expecting a scene from that Universal Studios ride "Backdraft." (Do they still have that?) Everything on fire all the time. Which was not the case! The pyrotechnics were enthusiastic, but fairly well in their place (I cannot say 'tasteful' because see: the dick cannon. Though that was not pyrotechnics. That was something else entirely. I will leave the matter there. The write-up of the show in this morning's paper led to one of those "interesting" conversations with my parents.)

Also, I apparently failed to learn from my experience at the Meshuggah concert a couple weeks ago (oh yes! I went to that too, for a friend's birthday--it's somewhat harder metal than I usually listen to). In that case, I wore a dark plain shirt and got mistaken for a bouncer, since I was standing by the VIP rope. That led to a hilarious amount of fun actually impersonating a bouncer, including turning away crab-dancing drunks and permitting the VIP ticket-holders to show me their stickers before I graciously nodded and unhooked the rope for them.

But anyway, I wore a dark shirt to that concert. Most people there were wearing black t-shirts, with names of various metal bands on them. I should have borne this in mind while picking out a shirt to wear to the Rammstein concert. I did not, however, and ended up picking a vibrant fuchsia blouse. A satin fuchsia blouse. With a frilly collar.

I consider the number of baffled, concerned, wary, and hugely entertained stares I collected to be a badge of honor. Also, I kept an eye out for other Gleefully Inappropriate Brightly-Colored Persons like myself. I salute you, violently-purple hoodie girl! Canary-yellow shirt guy! Sir in the lime-green vest! I take some points off for you, slightly-larger minority of people in blood red, because that fits the whole sex-and-death metal vibe a little better.

Also, girl with neon yellow hair at the crown of her head, shading into deep rich orange at her shoulder blades--you win best hair of the night, even over the girl with the foot-high black and blue mohawk.

Tomorrow: I will continue my streak of being alive, and talk about seeing The Avengers yesterday!