Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Anyone even a little versed in the art and craft will tell you that there is no such thing as a minor change of demon invocation." -- juuro, 2003-06-24

Cold, Hibernating

The weather has been cold for a long enough stretch that the house has gotten impressively cold again (for the folks who fret, it's supposed to get warmer from here (okay, I mean from tomorrow morning) and possibly hit 288K (15C (60F)) on New Year's Day), so I found myself sort of hibernating today. Though I did attack the pile of dishes in the sink (hey, that involved lots of hot water -- warmth!) and do some LJ reading. I'm now one week, two hours, and forty minutes behind on my friends page. I think I'm almost that far behind on my VCR watching, as well. I allowed inertia to keep me in, putting off until tomorrow the errand I'd planned to do today, and not trying to go to whatever movie the other 3LF folks decided on for "no rehearsal because campus is closed" week. I did make myself hot food instead of just grabbing bread and cheese and orange juice from the fridge, but it was all "I don't think of this as cooking" food, in keeping with my pseudohibernation state/mood/whatever. I'm not feeling as drained as I did yesterday, but I am feeling like handling inputs in small doses and hiding under the covers a lot. So I've glanced at email but not replied to much yet, opened a bunch of friends' LJ entries in background windows to come back to later, gotten distracted while listening to the television news, and so forth. Right now I've got Handel's Messiah on -- the picture quality really sucks, but I'm only listening, not watching, so I don't care. I just hope that the other shows I've taped recently don't have the same problem. After I finish writing this, maybe I'll see whether any of the essays in the book my brother and my sister-in-law gave me, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale (ed. James B. South, Open Court Publishing, 2003, LC: PN1992.77.B84 B835 2003; DD: 791.45'72-dc21; ISBN: 0-8126-9531-3) are lightweight enough for my current attention span. Regardless of whether any of it fits tonight, I am expecting to enjoy this book.

I'll get around to describing how the rest of my three-day Christmas went later.

Randomish Observations

Earlier I spilled boiling water on myself and didn't notice until I heard it splashing on the floor. I suspect that if I'd been wearing pants instead of a denim skirt, I might have had to say "ouch" and some swearwords. (It hit me just below my groin, and I was standing. So the fabric was hanging away from my skin, and the water just followed the fabric.)

At the same time as I was wondering where the mountains north of Timonium had come from, I was listening to the radio. "A New Day Yesterday" came on, and I failed to recognize it at first. While trying to identify it -- it did sound familiar -- I noticed that the drummer sounded like Ginger Baker. But it didn't seem to be a Cream song ... Then the words started and I realized what I was listening to (and wondered why I hadn't noticed the similarity before).

So I've been meaning to ask: does anyone else think the drums on "A New Day Yesterday" sound very much like Ginger Baker? If it turns out to not be just me, I did uncover an explanation: according to the official Jethro Tull web site, Clive Bunker, the drummer on Stand Up, was "moved by the work of Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell et al.", but even so, a lot of players never manage to sound that much like their heroes.

Feline Fast-Forward

I had a serious zoom-kitty for a while after I finished eating. Perrine did bat around one of her toys rather vigorously for a bit, but she also sprinted up and down the stairs and tried to get me to chase her. I did follow her to the third floor for a little bit of chase and her version of hide-and-seek (she doesn't try very hard to hide, and picks the same spots over and over, but it gives each of a chance to "surprise" the other from behind an obstacle -- and she does switch roles when I behave appropriately). I didn't play very long, because my ankles were stiff in the cold and I wanted to climb into bed to warm up and type this, but I think I played long enough to not disappoint her. She's curled up on my thigh now (but a stray just cried nearby -- on the fire escape or roof next door, so ... yup, there goes Perrine to the window).

I wonder how much she can see out the window at night when I have a light on in the room. And I wonder whether any of the cats she watches so intently are ones she knows from when she was starving outdoors before I took her in she claimed me and my house.